From Writer's Almanac:
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum opened in New York City in 1959. Guggenheim himself was a mogul of the mining industry, and after his retirement in the late 1920s, he turned his energy to collecting art, contemporary art by people like Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, Vasily Kandinsky, and Marc Chagall. He housed his work in a small sales room in Manhattan, but the collection outgrew the space. So he invited the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright to design a museum.
Guggenheim kept putting off the actual construction of the museum, and he and his art advisor, a German baroness, kept demanding that Wright change things. It ended up taking 16 years from the time Wright was hired until the museum actually opened its door. Guggenheim died in 1949, but he set aside $2 million for the museum, and a couple of years later they finally broke ground. Frank Lloyd Wright died in April of 1959, six months before one of his most famous buildings opened.
References:
Writer's Almanac.
Showing posts with label Writer's Almanac. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Writer's Almanac. Show all posts
"Art is a lie that makes us realize truth" - Pablo Picasso
From Writer's Almanac:
October 25 is the birthday of the man who said, "Art is a lie that makes us realize truth." That's Pablo Picasso, born in Malaga, Spain (1881), who helped found the Cubist movement. His paintings include Guernica (1937), set amidst the Spanish Civil War, and Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, (The Young Ladies of Avignon) (1907), which features five naked ladies in a brothel in Barcelona. That painting now hangs at New York City's MOMA.
October 25 is the birthday of the man who said, "Art is a lie that makes us realize truth." That's Pablo Picasso, born in Malaga, Spain (1881), who helped found the Cubist movement. His paintings include Guernica (1937), set amidst the Spanish Civil War, and Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, (The Young Ladies of Avignon) (1907), which features five naked ladies in a brothel in Barcelona. That painting now hangs at New York City's MOMA.
"Does one become a visionary or, rather, is it not that one has been blind until then?"
From Writer's Almanac:
October 24 is the birthday of writer and explorer Alexandra David-Néel, born in Saint-Mandé, France, in 1868. She had an unhappy childhood, the only child of bitter parents who fought all the time. She tried running away over and over, starting when she was two years old. As a teenager, she traveled by herself through European countries, including a bike trip across Spain. When she was 21, she inherited money from her parents, and she used it all to go to Sri Lanka.
She became fluent in Tibetan, met the Dalai Lama, practiced meditation and yoga, and trekked through the Himalayas.
And she wrote about it all. Her most famous book is Magic and Mystery in Tibet (1929), in which she wrote: "Then it was springtime in the cloudy Himalayas. Nine hundred feet below my cave rhododendrons blossomed. I climbed barren mountain-tops. Long tramps led me to desolate valleys studded with translucent lakes ... Solitude, solitude! ... Mind and senses develop their sensibility in this contemplative life made up of continual observations and reflections. Does one become a visionary or, rather, is it not that one has been blind until then?"
She died in 1969, at the age of 101, a few months after renewing her passport.
References:
Writer's Almanac
October 24 is the birthday of writer and explorer Alexandra David-Néel, born in Saint-Mandé, France, in 1868. She had an unhappy childhood, the only child of bitter parents who fought all the time. She tried running away over and over, starting when she was two years old. As a teenager, she traveled by herself through European countries, including a bike trip across Spain. When she was 21, she inherited money from her parents, and she used it all to go to Sri Lanka.
She became fluent in Tibetan, met the Dalai Lama, practiced meditation and yoga, and trekked through the Himalayas.
And she wrote about it all. Her most famous book is Magic and Mystery in Tibet (1929), in which she wrote: "Then it was springtime in the cloudy Himalayas. Nine hundred feet below my cave rhododendrons blossomed. I climbed barren mountain-tops. Long tramps led me to desolate valleys studded with translucent lakes ... Solitude, solitude! ... Mind and senses develop their sensibility in this contemplative life made up of continual observations and reflections. Does one become a visionary or, rather, is it not that one has been blind until then?"
She died in 1969, at the age of 101, a few months after renewing her passport.
References:
Writer's Almanac
Samuel Taylor Coleridge - October 21
From Writer's Almanac:
October 21 is the birthday of the Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, born in England (1772). He was an extremely ambitious young man, who lectured on religion, wrote journalism, and single-handedly tried to launch his own magazine. But he was exhausting himself and falling into a depression when he was introduced to the poet William Wordsworth. They met only briefly in 1795, but they struck up a correspondence and began exchanging poems. Wordsworth encouraged Coleridge to stop writing journalism and focus on poetry, and Coleridge took the advice. His poetry made him happier and happier, and after finishing a long and ambitious poem, he decided he needed to see Wordsworth in the flesh, so he set out to walk to Wordsworth's house, miles away. The walk took several days and when he approached Wordsworth's home, he was so overcome with happiness that he leapt over the gate and ran down the field to Wordsworth's house.
That first year of their friendship was the most productive period of Coleridge's life. They both liked to compose their poetry while walking, so they took long walks together throughout that summer, though Wordsworth preferred to stay on the path while Coleridge liked rough terrain. That winter, they took spent several days hiking along the coast, and to pass the time they made up a gothic ballad about a tragic sea voyage. Coleridge became obsessed with the poem when he got home, filling it with images from nightmares he'd had since he was a kid. It became his masterpiece, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (1798), the story of a sailor who brings a curse on his ship when he kills a bird and for the rest of his voyage he is tormented by sea monsters and the ghosts of his dead shipmates.
But within a few years of writing "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," Coleridge's life began to fall apart. He became addicted to opium, which ruined his friendship with Wordsworth. He wrote a great book of literary criticism called Biographia Literaria (1817) but he failed to complete most of his ambitious projects, including a 1,400-page work of geography, a two-volume history of English prose, a translation of Faust, a musical about Adam and Eve, a history of logic, a history of German metaphysics, a study of witchcraft, and an encyclopedia.
His friends hated the fact that he had wasted so much of his talent. They'd all considered him the most brilliant writer and thinker they'd ever known, but he accomplished so little.
References:
Writer's Almanac.
October 21 is the birthday of the Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, born in England (1772). He was an extremely ambitious young man, who lectured on religion, wrote journalism, and single-handedly tried to launch his own magazine. But he was exhausting himself and falling into a depression when he was introduced to the poet William Wordsworth. They met only briefly in 1795, but they struck up a correspondence and began exchanging poems. Wordsworth encouraged Coleridge to stop writing journalism and focus on poetry, and Coleridge took the advice. His poetry made him happier and happier, and after finishing a long and ambitious poem, he decided he needed to see Wordsworth in the flesh, so he set out to walk to Wordsworth's house, miles away. The walk took several days and when he approached Wordsworth's home, he was so overcome with happiness that he leapt over the gate and ran down the field to Wordsworth's house.
That first year of their friendship was the most productive period of Coleridge's life. They both liked to compose their poetry while walking, so they took long walks together throughout that summer, though Wordsworth preferred to stay on the path while Coleridge liked rough terrain. That winter, they took spent several days hiking along the coast, and to pass the time they made up a gothic ballad about a tragic sea voyage. Coleridge became obsessed with the poem when he got home, filling it with images from nightmares he'd had since he was a kid. It became his masterpiece, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (1798), the story of a sailor who brings a curse on his ship when he kills a bird and for the rest of his voyage he is tormented by sea monsters and the ghosts of his dead shipmates.
But within a few years of writing "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," Coleridge's life began to fall apart. He became addicted to opium, which ruined his friendship with Wordsworth. He wrote a great book of literary criticism called Biographia Literaria (1817) but he failed to complete most of his ambitious projects, including a 1,400-page work of geography, a two-volume history of English prose, a translation of Faust, a musical about Adam and Eve, a history of logic, a history of German metaphysics, a study of witchcraft, and an encyclopedia.
His friends hated the fact that he had wasted so much of his talent. They'd all considered him the most brilliant writer and thinker they'd ever known, but he accomplished so little.
References:
Writer's Almanac.
Léopold Sédar Senghor
From The Writer's Almanac:
The poet and politician Léopold Sédar Senghor was born in 1906 in the town of Joal, Senegal, when Senegal was still a French colony.
He was educated at a Catholic seminary and he grew up wanting to be a priest. But he ended up far away, studying philosophy and poetry at the Sorbonne in Paris, achieving the highest honors possible. He held a series of teaching jobs, and he was teaching near Paris when he was drafted into the French army. He served in an all-African unit, and in June of 1940 they were captured by the Germans. All the men were lined up against the wall to be executed, but Senghor had them all call out "Vive la France, Vive l'Afrique Noire" — "Long live France, Long Live Black Africa." The Germans were confused, and a French prisoner convinced them that executing so many black men like that would be shameful, and would dishonor the German race. So they let them live and put them in prison camps, where Senghor was held for almost two years. He wrote poem after poem, and learned German well enough to read Goethe in the original.
After his release, he went back to teaching and to writing. He moved slowly into politics, first representing Senegal in the French National Assembly, where he became convinced that Senegal needed its own government. He took more and more active political roles, and when Senegal gained its independence in 1960, Senghor was elected its first president, a role that he held until 1980. His books of poetry include Shadow Songs (1945), Nocturnes (1961), and Major Elegies (1979). He died in 2001 at the age of 95.
References:
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2010/10/09
The poet and politician Léopold Sédar Senghor was born in 1906 in the town of Joal, Senegal, when Senegal was still a French colony.
He was educated at a Catholic seminary and he grew up wanting to be a priest. But he ended up far away, studying philosophy and poetry at the Sorbonne in Paris, achieving the highest honors possible. He held a series of teaching jobs, and he was teaching near Paris when he was drafted into the French army. He served in an all-African unit, and in June of 1940 they were captured by the Germans. All the men were lined up against the wall to be executed, but Senghor had them all call out "Vive la France, Vive l'Afrique Noire" — "Long live France, Long Live Black Africa." The Germans were confused, and a French prisoner convinced them that executing so many black men like that would be shameful, and would dishonor the German race. So they let them live and put them in prison camps, where Senghor was held for almost two years. He wrote poem after poem, and learned German well enough to read Goethe in the original.
After his release, he went back to teaching and to writing. He moved slowly into politics, first representing Senegal in the French National Assembly, where he became convinced that Senegal needed its own government. He took more and more active political roles, and when Senegal gained its independence in 1960, Senghor was elected its first president, a role that he held until 1980. His books of poetry include Shadow Songs (1945), Nocturnes (1961), and Major Elegies (1979). He died in 2001 at the age of 95.
References:
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2010/10/09
Arthur Rimbaud - October 20
From Writer's Almanac:
October 20 is the birthday of the poet Arthur Rimbaud, born in France (1854). He became friends with the elder poet Paul Verlaine, whose work he admired, and Verlaine invited him to stay at his house. When he arrived, Rimbaud had his first masterpiece in his pocket, a poem called "The Drunken Boat" (1871), describing the journey of an empty boat as it wanders the ocean and eventually breaks apart. Rimbaud and Verlaine fell into a love affair that shocked the rest of the Paris literary scene. But they had a bitter break-up, and the relationship ended when Verlaine tried to murder Rimbaud with a pistol, shooting him in the arm.
Verlaine went to prison and Rimbaud went back to live with his mother, where he wrote one of his last books. He wrote: "I tried to invent new flowers, new stars, new flesh, new tongues. ... I am returned to the soil with a duty to seek and rough reality to embrace. ... At last, I shall ask forgiveness for having fed on lies."
Rimbaud had been 16 when he started publishing his poetry and he was 19 when gave up on poetry and took off to wander around the world, winding up in Africa, where he became an arms dealer. He kept writing letters to his family, but he never wrote another poem and never gave any hint that he missed poetry. A cult grew up in Paris around the few books of poetry he had published, and years before his death, people already referred to him as the late Arthur Rimbaud.
References:
Writer's Almanac.
October 20 is the birthday of the poet Arthur Rimbaud, born in France (1854). He became friends with the elder poet Paul Verlaine, whose work he admired, and Verlaine invited him to stay at his house. When he arrived, Rimbaud had his first masterpiece in his pocket, a poem called "The Drunken Boat" (1871), describing the journey of an empty boat as it wanders the ocean and eventually breaks apart. Rimbaud and Verlaine fell into a love affair that shocked the rest of the Paris literary scene. But they had a bitter break-up, and the relationship ended when Verlaine tried to murder Rimbaud with a pistol, shooting him in the arm.
Verlaine went to prison and Rimbaud went back to live with his mother, where he wrote one of his last books. He wrote: "I tried to invent new flowers, new stars, new flesh, new tongues. ... I am returned to the soil with a duty to seek and rough reality to embrace. ... At last, I shall ask forgiveness for having fed on lies."
Rimbaud had been 16 when he started publishing his poetry and he was 19 when gave up on poetry and took off to wander around the world, winding up in Africa, where he became an arms dealer. He kept writing letters to his family, but he never wrote another poem and never gave any hint that he missed poetry. A cult grew up in Paris around the few books of poetry he had published, and years before his death, people already referred to him as the late Arthur Rimbaud.
References:
Writer's Almanac.
Rimbaud: A Life in Slideshow | Open Culture http://goo.gl/vTcaG
Ode to Chocolate by Barbara Crooker
From Writer's Almanac:
Ode to Chocolate by Barbara Crooker (excerpt)
I hate milk chocolate, don't want clouds
of cream diluting the dark night sky,
don't want pralines or raisins, rubble
in this smooth plateau. I like my coffee
black, my beer from Germany, wine
from Burgundy, the darker, the better.
Ode to Chocolate by Barbara Crooker (excerpt)
I hate milk chocolate, don't want clouds
of cream diluting the dark night sky,
don't want pralines or raisins, rubble
in this smooth plateau. I like my coffee
black, my beer from Germany, wine
from Burgundy, the darker, the better.
Related:
Photo Essay: Making Chocolate in Belize http://goo.gl/2DPi
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