A parting gift for the faithful few

Here I am playing part of the old hymn "Savior, Like A Shepherd Lead Us" on an out-of-tune piano at the Bargain Boutique, a non-profit "upscale resale shop" (their words) in a shopping center in Cumming, Georgia, where all items are donated. Sales help to fund Whispering Hope, a resource and pregnancy center for expectant mothers where clients can spend Mommy Money and Daddy Dollars earned by attending classes offered by the center.

We visited the shop this past Thursday and my friend Sylvia C., who manages the store, asked me to play something on the piano. She decided to record me after I had already played the first portion of the hymn, so all she managed to capture in the clip was the chorus. Also, she stopped one second too soon and missed my final note, a low E-flat. But you can see me reaching for it.

On that note (pun not intended), I now bid all of you a fond but hopefully not final adieu. If I had had my wits about me I would have played "God Be With You Till We Meet Again."

It has been fun and I hope it will be fun again.

Until then, you're simply going to have to fend for yourselves.

Wake me up before you go-go

Well, that was quick.

I really am taking a blogging break, but I wanted to get one last post in before I ride off into the virtual sunset.

Mrs. RWP has finished the fourth of the six afghans she wants to crochet for our grandchildren as they go off to university. Here are our six in 2005:

In 2014, Elijah (the eldest, the dark-hared boy in the back row) received this red and black afghan:

In 2015, Matthew (the tallest of all) received this blue and white afghan:

In 2016, Noah, who is standing next to his brother Elijah in the photo, received this black and gold afghan:

I may have shown you these before. If I do say so myself, my photography does seem to be improving with each passing year.

This week, as I mentioned, Mrs. RWP completed this red and white afghan for Sawyer:

Here is my latest still life, "Afghan With Dogwood Blossom":

What's that? You say you would like to have a closer look to see it better? Your wish is my command:

This piece is not blown glass. It was hard-sculpted by glass artist Hoa Tan in the Hans Godo Frabel studio in Atlanta.

That leaves two more afghans to be created; one for sweet Ansley, who is our dancer/singer/actress; and one for little Sam, who is not so little any more but a member of his school's golf team and leader of the trumpet section in his high school band.

Maybe my brain is empty now.

Let the sabbatical begin.

Hanging it up temporarily

Since this particular period is turning out to be a busy season for Mrs. RWP and me in what is called real life, I have decided to step away from Ye Olde Keyboard for an indeterminate amount of time. I do plan to return at some point, and hopefully it will be sooner rather than later. But since it is also true that the best-laid plans o' mice and men gang aft agley (as they say in Hungarian), maybe I will and maybe I won't. While I am away, mind your manners, play nicely with the other children on the playground, and listen to what the substitute teacher says.

The jury is still out, or what is writing anyway?

“Writing is a performance, like singing an aria or dancing a jig,”
—Stephen Greenblatt

“Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”
—E.L. Doctorow

“All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Writing is…that oddest of anomalies: an intimate letter to a stranger.” —Pico Iyer

“Writing is very hard work and knowing what you’re doing the whole time.” —Shelby Foote

“Writing is 90 percent procrastination: reading magazines, eating cereal out of the box, watching infomercials.” —Paul Rudnick

“Let’s face it, writing is hell.” —William Styron


As I said at the top, the jury is still out. Many people have tried to explain what writing is -- not writing as in producing fluid cursive-style letters instead of printed ones made mostly with straight lines, but "writing" as in getting stuff out of your head and down onto paper. You do see the difference, don't you?. Good. I knew you would. Those last few sentences sound better in the voice of Mr. Rogers.

In her book Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, writer Anne Lamott has made a remarkably valiant effort to tell us about writing. Here are some examples:

“For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die.”

“Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It's like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can't stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship.”

“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”

“E.L. Doctorow said once said that 'Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.' You don't have to see where you're going, you don't have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This is right up there with the best advice on writing, or life, I have ever heard.”

“You are lucky to be one of those people who wishes to build sand castles with words, who is willing to create a place where your imagination can wander. We build this place with the sand of memories; these castles are our memories and inventiveness made tangible. So part of us believes that when the tide starts coming in, we won't really have lost anything, because actually only a symbol of it was there in the sand. Another part of us thinks we'll figure out a way to divert the ocean. This is what separates artists from ordinary people: the belief, deep in our hearts, that if we build our castles well enough, somehow the ocean won't wash them away. I think this is a wonderful kind of person to be.”

“If something inside of you is real, we will probably find it interesting, and it will probably be universal. So you must risk placing real emotion at the center of your work. Write straight into the emotional center of things. Write toward vulnerability. Risk being unliked. Tell the truth as you understand it. If you’re a writer you have a moral obligation to do this. And it is a revolutionary act -- truth is always subversive.”

“Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report written on birds that he'd had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books about birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, "Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”

“Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.”

“I heard a preacher say recently that hope is a revolutionary patience; let me add that so is being a writer. Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up.”

“This business of becoming conscious, of being a writer, is ultimately about asking yourself, How alive am I willing to be?”

“Remember that you own what happened to you. If your childhood was less than ideal, you may have been raised thinking that if you told the truth about what really went on in your family, a long bony white finger would emerge from a cloud and point to you, while a chilling voice thundered, "We *told* you not to tell." But that was then. Just put down on paper everything you can remember now about your parents and siblings and relatives and neighbors, and we will deal with libel later on.”

“Try looking at your mind as a wayward puppy that you are trying to paper train. You don't drop-kick a puppy into the neighbor's yard every time it piddles on the floor. You just keep bringing it back to the newspaper.”

“But how?" my students ask. "How do you actually do it?" You sit down, I say. You try to sit down at approximately the same time every day. This is how you train your unconscious to kick in for you creatively. So you sit down at, say, nine every morning, or ten every night. You put a piece of paper in the typewriter, or you turn on the computer and bring up the right file, and then you stare at it for an hour or so. You begin rocking, just a little at first, and then like a huge autistic child. You look at the ceiling, and over at the clock, yawn, and stare at the paper again. Then, with your fingers poised on the keyboard, you squint at an image that is forming in your mind -- a scene, a locale, a character, whatever -- and you try to quiet your mind so you can hear what that landscape or character has to say above the other voices in your mind.”

“My gratitude for good writing is unbounded; I’m grateful for it the way I’m grateful for the ocean.”

“You get your intuition back when you make space for it, when you stop the chattering of the rational mind. The rational mind doesn't nourish you. You assume that it gives you the truth, because the rational mind is the golden calf that this culture worships, but this is not true. Rationality squeezes out much that is rich and juicy and fascinating.”

“I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts. All right, one of them does, but we do not like her very much. We do not think that she has a rich inner life or that God likes her or can even stand her. (Although when I mentioned this to my priest friend Tom, he said that you can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.)”

“The society to which we belong seems to be dying or is already dead. I don't mean to sound dramatic, but clearly the dark side is rising. Things could not have been more odd and frightening in the Middle Ages. But the tradition of artists will continue no matter what form the society takes. And this is another reason to write: people need us, to mirror for them and for each other without distortion -- not to look around and say, 'Look at yourselves, you idiots!,' but to say, 'This is who we are.”

“If you are a writer, or want to be a writer, this is how you spend your days--listening, observing, storing things away, making your isolation pay off. You take home all you've taken in, all that you've overheard, and you turn it into gold. (Or at least you try.)”

“I don't know where to start," one [writing student] will wail. Start with your childhood, I tell them. Plug your nose and jump in, and write down all your memories as truthfully as you can. Flannery O'Connor said that anyone who has survived childhood has enough material to write for the rest of his or her life. Maybe your childhood was grim and horrible, but grim and horrible is Okay if it is well done. Don't worry about doing it well yet, though. Just get it down.”


Only people who have made it this far in this post are writers, or at least they are people who want to be writers, who are trying to be writers. I hope something someone said in this post resonates with you. I hope this post has helped to move you (no, move us) a little farther down the road.

If not, I can only tell you what Walt Whitman said in his "Song of Myself":

Do I contradict myslef?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

If you don't believe you contain multitudes, did you know that Mr. Rogers was both a Navy seal and a Presbyterian minister? Yes. He was.

OOPS! STOP THE PRESSES! It has just come to the attention of your editor that Mr. Rogers was not, repeat, NOT a Navy seal. That turns out to be an urban legend with no basis in fact. But I'll bet he still contained multitudes and was someone's very good neighbor.

Leaving the equinox, heading toward the solstice

Here we are, smack dab in the middle of Spring, though in our part of the world the daffodils are long gone and the azaleas have faded into memory. But the magnolias are blooming early this year and we await the arrival of the pink mimosa. New life abounds. Calves and lambs are filling the pastures. It is most definitely Spring.

Perhaps Tennyson said it best in Locksley Hall:

"In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast;
In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;

In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove;
In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love."

Some wag (not I) wrote, "Ah, Spring, when a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of what the young ladies have been thinking about all winter."

Be that as it may, I discovered a wonderful poem by Robert Lax (1915 - 1970), who was known in particular for his association with the 20th-century Trappist monk and writer Thomas Merton. The poem was first published in The New Yorker magazine on May 5, 1940, and it appeared recently on the Writer's Almanac site:


Greeting to Spring (Not Without Trepidation)
by Robert Lax

Over the back of the Florida basker,
over the froth of the Firth of Forth,
Up from Tahiti and Madagascar,
Lo, the sun walks north.

The first bright day makes sing the slackers
While leaves explode like firecrackers,
The duck flies forth to greet the spring
And sweetly municipal pigeons sing.

Where the duck quacks, where the bird sings,
We will speak of past things.

Come out with your marbles, come out with your Croup,
The grass is as green as a Girl Scout troop;
In the Mall the stone acoustics stand
Like a listening ear for the Goldman band.

At an outside table, where the sun’s bright glare is,
We will speak of darkened Paris.

Meanwhile, like attendants who hasten the hoofs
Of the ponies who trot in the shadow of roofs,
The sun, in his running, will hasten the plan
Of plants and fishes, beast and man.

We’ll turn our eyes to the sogging ground
And guess if the earth is cracked or round.

Over the plans of the parties at strife,
Over the planes in the waiting north,
Over the average man and his wife,
Lo, the sun walks forth!


I can't quite put my finger on why, but something about this poem simultaneously reminds me of Sidney Lanier's The Song of the Chattahoochee and T.S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, even though neither one covers the same subject matter. I just find certain synapses firing in my brain.

Meanwhile, out there in the real world, life goes on, or not. People are born; people die. Roads are built; bridges collapse. One day our time here will end as well. Until then, enjoy the never-ending changes that accompany our planet's orbit around the sun as best you can.

Carpe diem, or Further evidence (if you needed any) that I am slipping

Star Wars Day, May 4th -- as in "May the Fourth be with you" -- came and went unheralded and unnoticed.

Cinco de Mayo, May 5th, anniversary of Mexico's victory over the French in 1862 at the Battle of Puebla against lopsided odds, came and went unheralded and unnoticed.

Ah, but May 6th! What would you like to know about May 6th? Here's everything Wikipedia has to say about it:

May 6 is the 126th day of the year (127th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 239 days remaining until the end of the year. This date is slightly more likely to fall on a Wednesday, Friday or Sunday (58 in 400 years each) than on Monday or Tuesday (57), and slightly less likely to occur on a Thursday or Saturday (56).

Events:

1527 – Spanish and German troops sack Rome; some consider this the end of the Renaissance. 147 Swiss Guards, including their commander, die fighting the forces of Charles V in order to allow Pope Clement VII to escape into Castel Sant'Angelo.
1536 – The Siege of Cuzco commences, in which Incan forces attempt to retake the city of Cuzco from the Spanish.
1536 – King Henry VIII orders English-language Bibles be placed in every church. In 1539 the Great Bible would be provided for this purpose.
1542 – Francis Xavier reaches Old Goa, the capital of Portuguese India at the time.
1659 – English Restoration: A faction of the British Army removes Richard Cromwell as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth and reinstalls the Rump Parliament.
1682 – Louis XIV of France moves his court to the Palace of Versailles.
1757 – Battle of Prague: A Prussian army fights an Austrian army in Prague during the Seven Years' War.
1757 – The end of Konbaung–Hanthawaddy War, and the end of Burmese Civil War (1740–1757).
1757 – English poet Christopher Smart is admitted into St Luke's Hospital for Lunatics in London, beginning his six-year confinement to mental asylums.
1782 – Construction begins on the Grand Palace, the royal residence of the King of Siam in Bangkok, at the command of King Buddha Yodfa Chulaloke.
1801 – Captain Thomas Cochrane in the 14-gun HMS Speedy captures the 32-gun Spanish frigate El Gamo.
1835 – James Gordon Bennett, Sr. publishes the first issue of the New York Herald.
1840 – The Penny Black postage stamp becomes valid for use in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
1857 – The British East India Company disbands the 34th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry whose sepoy Mangal Pandey had earlier revolted against the British and is considered to be the First Martyr in the War of Indian Independence.
1861 – American Civil War: Arkansas secedes from the Union.
1863 – American Civil War: The Battle of Chancellorsville ends with the defeat of the Army of the Potomac by Confederate troops.
1877 – Chief Crazy Horse of the Oglala Lakota surrenders to United States troops in Nebraska.
1882 – Thomas Henry Burke and Lord Frederick Cavendish are stabbed to death by Fenian assassins in Phoenix Park, Dublin.
1882 – The United States Congress passes the Chinese Exclusion Act.
1889 – The Eiffel Tower is officially opened to the public at the Universal Exposition in Paris.
1902 – Macario Sakay establishes the Tagalog Republic with himself as President.
1906 – The Russian Constitution of 1906 is adopted (on April 23rd by the Julian calendar).
1910 – George V becomes King of the United Kingdom upon the death of his father, Edward VII.
1915 – Babe Ruth, then a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, hits his first major league home run.
1916 – Twenty-one Lebanese nationalists are executed in Martyrs' Square, Beirut by Djemal Pasha.
1916 – Vietnamese Emperor Duy Tân is captured while attempting to call upon the people to rise up against the French, and later being deposed and exiled to Réunion island.
1933 – The Deutsche Studentenschaft attacked Magnus Hirschfeld's Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, later burning many of its books.
1935 – New Deal: Executive Order 7034 creates the Works Progress Administration.
1937 – Hindenburg disaster: The German zeppelin Hindenburg catches fire and is destroyed within a minute while attempting to dock at Lakehurst, New Jersey. Thirty-six people are killed.
1940 – John Steinbeck is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Grapes of Wrath.
1941 – At California's March Field, Bob Hope performs his first USO show.
1941 – The first flight of the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt.
1942 – World War II: On Corregidor, the last American forces in the Philippines surrender to the Japanese.
1945 – World War II: Axis Sally delivers her last propaganda broadcast to Allied troops.
1945 – World War II: The Prague Offensive, the last major battle of the Eastern Front, begins.
1949 – EDSAC, the first practical electronic digital stored-program computer, runs its first operation.
1954 – Roger Bannister becomes the first person to run the mile in under four minutes.
1960 – More than 20 million viewers watch the first televised royal wedding when Princess Margaret marries Anthony Armstrong-Jones at Westminster Abbey.
1962 – Martín de Porres is canonized by Pope John XXIII.
1966 – Myra Hindley and Ian Brady are sentenced to life imprisonment for the Moors murders in England.
1972 – Deniz Gezmiş, Yusuf Aslan and Hüseyin İnan are executed in Ankara after being convicted of attempting to overthrow the Constitutional order.
1975 – During a lull in fighting, 100,000 Armenians gather in Beirut to commemorate 60th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.
1976 – An earthquake strikes the Friuli region of northeastern Italy, causing 989 deaths and the destruction of entire villages.
1983 – The Hitler Diaries are revealed as a hoax after being examined by experts.
1984 – 103 Korean Martyrs are canonized by Pope John Paul II in Seoul.
1994 – Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and French President François Mitterrand officiate at the opening of the Channel Tunnel.
1996 – The body of former CIA director William Colby is found washed up on a riverbank in southern Maryland, eight days after he disappeared.
1997 – The Bank of England is given independence from political control, the most significant change in the bank's 300-year history.
1998 – Kerry Wood strikes out 20 Houston Astros to tie the major league record held by Roger Clemens. He threw a one-hitter and did not walk a batter in his fifth career start.
1999 – The first elections to the devolved Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly are held.
2001 – During a trip to Syria, Pope John Paul II becomes the first pope to enter a mosque.
2002 – Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn is assassinated following a radio-interview at the Mediapark in Hilversum.
2013 – Three women missing for more than a decade are found alive in the U.S. city of Cleveland, Ohio.

Births:

1405 – George Kastrioti, better known as Skanderbeg, Albanian national hero (d. 1468) (probable date)
1464 – Sophia Jagiellon, Margravine of Brandenburg-Ansbach, Polish princess (d. 1512)
1493 – Girolamo Seripando, Catholic cardinal (d. 1563)
1501 – Pope Marcellus II (d. 1555)
1574 – Pope Innocent X (d. 1655)
1635 – Johann Joachim Becher, German physician and alchemist (d. 1682)
1668 – Alain-René Lesage, French author and playwright (d. 1747)
1680 – Jean-Baptiste Stuck, Italian-French cellist and composer (d. 1755)
1713 – Charles Batteux, French philosopher and academic (d. 1780)
1714 – Anton Raaff, German tenor (d. 1797)
1742 – Jean Senebier, Swiss pastor and physiologist (d. 1809)
1758 – André Masséna, French general (d. 1817)
1758 – Maximilien Robespierre, French lawyer and politician (d. 1794)
1769 – Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany (d. 1824)
1769 – Jean Nicolas Pierre Hachette, French mathematician and academic (d. 1834)
1781 – Karl Christian Friedrich Krause, German philosopher and author (d. 1832)
1797 – Joseph Brackett, American religious leader and composer (d. 1882)
1800 – Roman Sanguszko, Polish general (d. 1881)
1827 – Hermann Raster, German-American journalist and politician (d. 1891)
1836 – Max Eyth, German engineer and author (d. 1906)
1843 – Grove Karl Gilbert, American geologist and academic (d. 1918)
1848 – Henry Edward Armstrong, English chemist and academic (d. 1937)
1851 – Aristide Bruant, French singer and actor (d. 1925)
1856 – Sigmund Freud, Austrian neurologist and psychoanalyst (d. 1939)
1856 – Robert Peary, American admiral and explorer (d. 1920)
1861 – Motilal Nehru, Indian lawyer and politician, President of the Indian National Congress (d. 1931)
1868 – Gaston Leroux, French journalist and author (d. 1927)
1869 – Junnosuke Inoue, Japanese businessman and central banker, 8th and 11th Governor of the Bank of Japan (d. 1932)
1870 – Walter Rutherford, Scottish golfer (d. 1936)
1871 – Victor Grignard, French chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1935)
1871 – Christian Morgenstern, German author and poet (d. 1914)
1872 – Willem de Sitter, Dutch mathematician, physicist, and astronomer (d. 1934)
1872 – Djemal Pasha, Ottoman general (d. 1922)
1879 – Bedřich Hrozný, Czech orientalist and linguist (d. 1952)
1879 – Hendrik van Heuckelum, Dutch footballer (d. 1929)
1880 – Winifred Brunton, English-South African painter and illustrator (d. 1959)
1880 – Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, German-Swiss painter (d. 1938)
1883 – Alberto Collo, Italian actor (d. 1955)
1895 – Júlio César de Mello e Souza, Brazilian mathematician and author (d. 1974)
1895 – Fidél Pálffy, Hungarian soldier and politician, Hungarian Minister of Agriculture (d. 1946)
1895 – Rudolph Valentino, Italian actor (d. 1926)
1896 – Rolf Maximilian Sievert, Swedish physicist and academic (d. 1966)
1897 – Paul Alverdes, German author and poet (d. 1979)
1898 – Konrad Henlein, Czech soldier and politician (d. 1945)
1902 – Harry Golden, Ukrainian-American journalist and author (d. 1981)
1902 – Max Ophüls, German-American director and screenwriter (d. 1957)
1903 – Toots Shor, American businessman, founded Toots Shor's Restaurant (d. 1977)
1904 – Moshé Feldenkrais, Ukrainian-Israeli physicist and academic (d. 1984)
1904 – Catherine Lacey, English actress (d. 1979)
1904 – Harry Martinson, Swedish novelist, essayist, and poet Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1978)
1905 – Philip N. Krasne, American lawyer and producer (d. 1999)
1906 – André Weil, French mathematician and academic (d. 1998)
1907 – Weeb Ewbank, American football player and coach (d. 1998)
1911 – Guy des Cars, French journalist and author (d. 1993)
1913 – Carmen Cavallaro, American pianist (d. 1989)
1913 – Stewart Granger, English-American actor (d. 1993)
1915 – Orson Welles, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1985)
1915 – Theodore H. White, American historian, journalist, and author (d. 1986)
1916 – Robert H. Dicke, American physicist and astronomer (d. 1997)
1917 – Kal Mann, American songwriter (d. 2001)
1919 – André Guelfi, French race car driver
1920 – Ross Hunter, American actor and producer (d. 1996)
1920 – Kamisese Mara, Fijian politician, 1st Prime Minister of Fiji (d. 2004)
1920 – Marguerite Piazza, American soprano and actress (d. 2012)
1921 – Erich Fried, Austrian-German author, poet, and translator (d. 1988)
1922 – Camille Laurin, Canadian psychiatrist and politician, 7th Deputy Premier of Quebec (d. 1999)
1923 – Harry Watson, Canadian ice hockey player and coach (d. 2002)
1924 – Nestor Basterretxea, Spanish painter and sculptor (d. 2014)
1924 – Patricia Kennedy Lawford, American socialite, activist, and author (d. 2006)
1924 – Denny Wright, English guitarist, composer, and producer (d. 1992)
1926 – Gilles Grégoire, Canadian politician, co-founded the Parti Québécois (d. 2006)
1929 – Rosemary Cramp, English archaeologist and academic
1929 – Paul Lauterbur, American chemist and biophysicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2007)
1929 – John Taylor, English bishop and theologian
1930 – Sonia Rykiel, French fashion designer (d. 2016)
1931 – Willie Mays, American baseball player and coach
1932 – Ahmet Haxhiu, Kosovan activist (d. 1994)
1932 – Alexander Thynn, 7th Marquess of Bath, English lieutenant and politician
1934 – Richard Shelby, American lawyer and politician
1937 – Rubin Carter, American-Canadian boxer (d. 2014)
1938 – Jean Garon, Canadian economist, lawyer, and politician (d. 2014)
1939 – Eddie C. Campbell, American singer and guitarist
1939 – Chet Allen, American child actor (d. 1984)
1940 – Alexandra Burslem, English academic
1942 – Ariel Dorfman, Argentinian author, playwright, and academic
1942 – David Friesen, American bassist
1943 – Andreas Baader, German terrorist, co-founded the Red Army Faction (d. 1977)
1943 – Grange Calveley, English animator and screenwriter
1943 – Milton William Cooper, American theorist and author (d. 2001)
1943 – Wolfgang Reinhardt, German pole vaulter (d. 2011)
1943 – James Turrell, American sculptor and illustrator
1944 – Anton Furst, English-American production designer and art director (d. 1991)
1944 – Masanori Murakami, Japanese baseball player and coach
1945 – Jimmie Dale Gilmore, American country singer-songwriter, guitarist, actor, and producer
1945 – Bob Seger, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1946 – Grier Jones, American golfer and coach
1947 – Alan Dale, New Zealand actor
1947 – Kit Martin, English architect and author
1947 – Martha Nussbaum, American philosopher and author
1947 – Ljubomir Vračarević, Serbian martial artist, founded Real Aikido (d. 2013)
1948 – Frankie Librán, Puerto Rican-American baseball player (d. 2013)
1950 – Jeffery Deaver, American journalist and author
1950 – Robbie McIntosh, Scottish drummer (Average White Band) (d. 1974)
1951 – Samuel Doe, Liberian sergeant and politician, 21st President of Liberia (d. 1990)
1952 – Gerrit Zalm, Dutch economist and politician, Deputy Prime Mi
nister of the Netherlands
1953 – Alexander Akimov, Ukrainian Chernobyl worker (d. 1986) 1953 – Tony Blair, British politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
1953 – Michelle Courchesne, Canadian urban planner and politician, Deputy Premier of Quebec
1953 – Ülle Rajasalu, Estonian politician
1953 – Graeme Souness, Scottish footballer and manager
1953 – Lynn Whitfield, American actress and producer
1954 – Tom Abernethy, American basketball player
1954 – Dora Bakoyannis, Greek politician, 120th Greek Minister for Foreign Affairs
1954 – Angela Hernández Nuñez, Dominican author and poet
1954 – Ain Lutsepp, Estonian actor and politician
1955 – Nicholas Alexander, 7th Earl of Caledon, English politician, Lord Lieutenant of Armagh
1955 – Tom Bergeron, American television host
1955 – John Hutton, Baron Hutton of Furness, English academic and politician, Secretary of State for Defence
1956 – Lakis Lazopoulos, Greek actor and screenwriter
1956 – Roland Wieser, German race walker and coach
1958 – Randall Stout, American architect, designed the Taubman Museum of Art (d. 2014)
1959 – Andreas Busse, German runner
1959 – Charles Hendry, English politician
1960 – Lyudmila Andonova, Bulgarian high jumper
1960 – Keith Dowding, English political scientist, philosopher, and academic
1960 – Roma Downey, Irish-American actress and producer
1960 – John Flansburgh, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1960 – Aleksei Lotman, Estonian biologist and politician
1960 – Anne Parillaud, French actress
1961 – Oleksandr Apaychev, Ukrainian decathlete and coach
1961 – George Clooney, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
1961 – Tom Hunter, Scottish businessman and philanthropist
1961 – Gina Riley, Australian actress, producer, and screenwriter
1962 – Tom Brake, English politician
1962 – Brad Izzard, Australian rugby league player
1963 – Alessandra Ferri, Italian ballerina
1965 – Leslie Hope, Canadian actress, director, producer, and screenwriter
1968 – Worku Bikila, Ethiopian runner
1968 – Lætitia Sadier, French singer and keyboard player
1969 – Jim Magilton, Northern Irish footballer and manager
1970 – Roland Kun, Nauruan politician
1971 – Chris Shiflett, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1972 – Martin Brodeur, Canadian ice hockey player
1972 – Naoko Takahashi, Japanese runner
1974 – Bernard Barmasai, Kenyan runner
1974 – Daniela Bártová, Czech pole vaulter and gymnast
1975 – Alan Richardson, English cricketer and coach
1976 – Dean Chandler, English footballer
1977 – Christophe Brandt, Belgian cyclist
1977 – Marc Chouinard, Canadian ice hockey player
1977 – Mark Eaton, American ice hockey player and coach
1977 – Chantelle Newbery, Australian diver
1978 – John Abraham, American football player
1978 – Fredrick Federley, Swedish journalist and politician
1978 – Aleksandr Fyodorov, Russian bodybuilder
1979 – Gerd Kanter, Estonian discus thrower
1979 – Jan Erik Mikalsen, Norwegian composer
1980 – Brooke Bennett, American swimmer
1980 – Ricardo Oliveira, Brazilian footballer
1980 – Matthew Whiley, English cricketer
1983 – Dani Alves, Brazilian footballer
1983 – Ingrid Jonach, Australian author
1983 – Gabourey Sidibe, American actress
1983 – Trinley Thaye Dorje, Tibetan religious leader, the 17th Karmapa Lama
1983 – Fredrik Sjöström, Swedish ice hockey player
1984 – Anton Babchuk, Ukrainian ice hockey player
1984 – Juan Pablo Carrizo, Argentinian footballer
1985 – Tanerau Latimer, New Zealand rugby player
1985 – Chris Paul, American basketball player
1986 – Goran Dragic, Slovenian basketball player
1987 – Dries Mertens, Belgian footballer
1987 – Aljona Malets, Estonian footballer
1989 – Dominika Cibulková, Slovakian tennis player
1990 – José Altuve, Venezuelan baseball player
1990 – Caitlin Yankowskas, American figure skater
1991 – Valerio Frasca, Italian footballer
1992 – Brendan Gallagher, Canadian ice hockey player
1992 – Takashi Usami, Japanese footballer
1994 – Mateo Kovačić, Austrian-Croatian footballer

Deaths:

698 – Eadberht, bishop of Lindisfarne
850 – Ninmyō, Japanese emperor (b. 808)
1002 – Ealdwulf, Archbishop of York, Abbot of Peterborough and Bishop of Worcester
1187 – Ruben III, Prince of Armenia (b. 1145)
1236 – Roger of Wendover, Benedictine monk and chronicler
1471 – Edmund Beaufort, English commander (b. 1438)
1471 – Thomas Tresham, Speaker of the House of Commons
1475 – Dieric Bouts, Flemish painter (b. 1415)
1483 – Queen Jeonghui, Korean regent (b. 1418)
1502 – James Tyrrell, English knight (b. 1450)
1540 – Juan Luís Vives, Spanish scholar (b. 1492)
1596 – Giaches de Wert, Flemish-Italian composer (b. 1535)
1631 – Sir Robert Cotton, 1st Baronet, of Connington, English historian and politician, founded the Cotton library (b. 1570)
1638 – Cornelius Jansen, Dutch-French bishop and theologian (b. 1585)
1708 – François de Laval, French-Canadian bishop (b. 1623)
1757 – Charles FitzRoy, 2nd Duke of Grafton, English politician, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (b. 1683)
1757 – Kurt Christoph Graf von Schwerin, Prussian field marshal (b. 1684)
1782 – Christine Kirch, German astronomer and academic (b. 1696)
1840 – Francisco de Paula Santander, Colombian general and politician, 4th President of the Republic of the New Granada (b. 1792)
1859 – Alexander von Humboldt, German geographer and explorer (b. 1769)
1862 – Henry David Thoreau, American essayist, poet, and philosopher (b. 1817)
1877 – Johan Ludvig Runeberg, Swedish-Finnish poet and hymn-writer (b. 1804)
1882 – Thomas Henry Burke, Irish civil servant (b. 1829)
1882 – Lord Frederick Cavendish, British politician, Chief Secretary for Ireland (b. 1836)
1902 – Bret Harte, American author and poet (b. 1836)
1905 – Robert Herbert, English-Australian politician, 1st Premier of Queensland (b. 1831)
1907 – Emanuele Luigi Galizia, Maltese architect and civil engineer (b. 1830)
1910 – Edward VII of the United Kingdom (b. 1841)
1919 – L. Frank Baum, American novelist (b. 1856)
1939 – Konstantin Somov, Russian-French painter and illustrator (b. 1869)
1949 – Maurice Maeterlinck, Belgian-French poet and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1862)
1951 – Élie Cartan, French mathematician and physicist (b. 1869)
1952 – Maria Montessori, Italian-Dutch physician and educator (b. 1870)
1959 – Maria Dulęba, Polish actress (b. 1881)
1959 – Ragnar Nurkse, Estonian-American economist and academic (b. 1907)
1961 – Lucian Blaga, Romanian poet, playwright, and philosopher (b. 1895)
1963 – Theodore von Kármán, Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, and engineer (b. 1881)
1963 – Ted Weems, American violinist, trombonist, and bandleader (b. 1901)
1963 – Monty Woolley, American raconteur, actor, and director (b. 1888)
1967 – Zhou Zuoren, Chinese author and translator (b. 1885)
1970 – Alexander Rodzyanko, Russian general (b. 1879)
1973 – Ernest MacMillan, Canadian conductor and composer (b. 1893)
1975 – József Mindszenty, Hungarian cardinal (b. 1892)
1980 – María Luisa Bombal, Chilean writer (b. 1910)
1983 – Ezra Jack Keats, American author and illustrator (b. 1916)
1983 – Kai Winding, Danish-American trombonist and composer (b. 1922)
1984 – Mary Cain, American journalist and politician (b. 1904)
1984 – Bonner Pink, English politician (b. 1912)
1987 – William J. Casey, American politician, 13th Director of Central Intelligence (b. 1913)
1989 – Earl Blaik, American football player and coach (b. 1897)
1990 – Charles Farrell, American actor (b. 1901)
1991 – Wilfrid Hyde-White, English actor (b. 1903)
1992 – Marlene Dietrich, German-American actress and singer (b. 1901)
1995 – Noel Brotherston, Northern Irish footballer (b. 1956)
2000 – Gordon McClymont, Australian ecologist and academic (b. 1920)
2002 – Murray Adaskin, Canadian violinist, composer, conductor, and educator (b. 1906)
2002 – Otis Blackwell, American singer-songwriter and pianist (b. 1932)
2002 – Pim Fortuyn, Dutch sociologist, academic, and politician (b. 1948)
2002 – Bjørn Johansen, Norwegian saxophonist (b. 1940)
2003 – Art Houtteman, American baseball player and journalist (b. 1927)
2004 – Virginia Capers, American actress and singer (b. 1925)
2004 – Philip Kapleau, American monk and educator (b. 1912)
2004 – Barney Kessel, American guitarist and composer (b. 1923)
2006 – Grant McLennan, Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1958)
2006 – Lorne Saxberg, Canadian journalist (b. 1958)
2007 – Enéas Carneiro, Brazilian physician and politician (b. 1938)
2007 – Curtis Harrington, American actor, director, and screenwriter (b. 1926)
2009 – Kevin Grubb, American race car driver (b. 1978)
2010 – Robin Roberts, American baseball player, coach, and sportscaster (b. 1926)
2012 – James R. Browning, American lieutenant, lawyer, and judge (b. 1918)
2012 – James Isaac, American director and producer (b. 1960)
2012 – Jean Laplanche, French psychoanalyst and author (b. 1924)
2013 – Giulio Andreotti, Italian journalist and politician, 41st Prime Minister of Italy (b. 1919)
2013 – Severo Aparicio Quispe, Peruvian bishop (b. 1923)
2013 – Michelangelo Spensieri, Italian-Canadian lawyer and politician (b. 1949)
2014 – Wil Albeda, Dutch economist and politician, Dutch Minister of Social Affairs (b. 1925)
2014 – William H. Dana, American pilot, engineer, and astronaut (b. 1930)
2014 – Jimmy Ellis, American boxer (b. 1940)
2014 – Billy Harrell, American baseball player and scout (b. 1928)
2014 – Antony Hopkins, English pianist, composer, and conductor (b. 1921)
2014 – Maria Lassnig, Austrian painter and academic (b. 1919)
2014 – Farley Mowat, Canadian environmentalist and author (b. 1921)
2015 – Novera Ahmed, Bangladeshi sculptor (b. 1930)
2015 – Denise McCluggage, American race car driver and journalist (b. 1927)
2015 – Jim Wright, American soldier, lawyer, and politician, 56th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives (b. 1922)
2016 – Patrick Ekeng, Cameroonian footballer (b. 1990)
2016 – Reg Grundy, Australian businessman (b. 1923)

Holidays and observances:

Christian Feast Day:
- Dominic Savio
- Evodius of Antioch (Roman Catholic Church)
- François de Laval
- Gerard of Lunel
- Lucius of Cyrene
- Petronax of Monte Cassino
- St George's Day related observances (Eastern Orthodox Church):
----Day of Bravery, also known as Gergyovden (Bulgaria)
----Đurđevdan (Gorani, Roma)
----Police Day (Georgia)
----Yuri's Day in the Spring (Russian Orthodox Church)
----May 6 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Earliest day on which Military Spouse Day can fall, while May 12 is the latest; celebrated on Friday before Mother's Day (United States)
International No Diet Day
Martyrs' Day (Gabon)
Martyrs' Day (Lebanon and Syria)
Teachers' Day (Jamaica)
The first day of Hıdırellez (Turkey)

[end of Wikipedia article]

There should be something in there for everybody. If you can't find something to celebrate or comment about, it's no one's fault but your own.

And for those who have to know absolutely everything, there are only eleven days left until Udo Lindenberg's birthday.

Fame is fleeting; obscurity is forever.

That statement is supposed to have been uttered by Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 - 1821).

The picture of Mrs. RWP and me that I posted the other day elicited seven comments on my blogpost from readers (we few, we happy few, we band of brothers and sisters). It also garnered 83 "Likes" on my Facebook page, a pleasant and unexpected surprise. Wait a minute, aren't all surprises by definition unexpected? I do not know and I guess I do not care, another sign that I am really slipping really am slipping (see what I did there to avoid a split infinitive). There was a time when the question whether "unexpected surprise" is redundant would have sent me scurrying to the bookshelves, if not the Internet, for the answer. Now it is not worth the effort to find out, but the pedant in me tells me that it is redundant, so forgive me if I have assaulted your sensibilities today.

Where was I?

Oh, yes -- basking in my newfound fame, local-social-media-wise. Not that it will last. Everyone's "fifteen minutes of fame" (a phrase made, er, famous by Andy Warhol) has shrunk in our day to fifteen seconds. Hardly does the spotlight fall on you/me/whomever before it moves on to something else. The public (British, obsolete: publick) are a fickle lot. I will take comfort in the fact that my fame, however fleeting, was only newfound and not ill-gotten.

Here are some thoughts on fame from days gone by:

Gaius Sallustius Crispus (c. 86–35/34 B.C.), Roman historian, said (only in Latin, of course), "The fame which is based on wealth or beauty is a frail and fleeting thing; but virtue shines for ages with undiminished lustre."

Lord Byron (1788 - 1824) said, "Fame is the thirst of youth."

Horace Greeley (1811 - 1872), the man who famously said "Go west, young man!" said, "Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, and riches take wings. Only one thing endures and that is character."

Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886) wrote two poems about it:

Fame is a bee
by Emily Dickinson

Fame is a bee.
It has a song --
It has a sting --
Ah, too, it has a wing.


Fame is a fickle food
by Emily Dickinson

Fame is a fickle food
Upon a shifting plate
Whose table once a
Guest but not
The second time is set.

Whose crumbs the crows inspect
And with ironic caw
Flap past it to the Farmer’s Corn --
Men eat of it and die.


Here, back in the present, I hope Caitlyn Jenner and the entire Kardashian family take note.

I think I'm entering my second childhood

...or maybe my third.

I have a new favorite song. It got inside my head recently and just keeps playing. If it gets inside your head, I bet it will keep playing there too, over and over and over.

It's about a word. Not just any word either, but the most remarkable word I've ever seen! Here's Big Bird from Sesame Street to sing it for you (3:58).

There. Now it's inside your head.