Thursday, Mar 24, 2022 • 5min

The Writer's Almanac for Thursday, March 24, 2022

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"The easiest way to attract a crowd is to let it be known that at a given time and a given place someone is going to attempt something that in the event of failure will result in sudden death." –Harry Houdini, born on this day 1874.

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Garrison Keillor

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Garrison Keillor

00:07

And here is

The Writer's Almanac

for Thursday 24 March 2022. It's the first day of an American poet who has never worked at a university, never got government funding. Never won a Pulitzer Prize.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

born

Yonkers, New

York 1919 father died five months before he was born. Mother was so devastated, she went into a state mental hospital. The boy was sent to live with his aunt in

France

. He returned to this country, became an

Eagle Scout

, was inspired by a copy of poems by

Baudelaire

to become a poet.

00:52

He was in the

Navy

during

World War Two

, afterward moved to

San Francisco

, opened a bookstore,

City Lights

. He named it after the

Charlie Chaplin

movie and in 1958 through

City Lights

, he published his own collection of poems, a

Coney Island Of The Mind

, which went through 28 printings, sold 700,000 copies in

the United States

alone.

01:18

It's the birthday of the great showman and magician

Harry Houdini,

born

Budapest

in 1874. His signature trick was to swallow a whole series of needles and then pull them out of his mouth threaded together. Later in his career, he did escape tricks, he would leap from a bridge wrapped in chains locked and he had to open the locks before he could drown.

Houdini

said the easiest way to attract a crowd is to let it be known that at a given time and a given place someone is going to attempt something that in the event of failure will result in sudden death.

02:06

It was on this day, 1955.

Tennessee Williams'

play

Cat On A Hot Tin Roof

opened on

Broadway

. The story of Big Daddy celebrating his 65th birthday. He's terminally ill with cancer, worried about his son Brick, who was struggling with alcoholism and Brick's wife Maggie, who was terrified that her husband might be homosexual.

02:34

And it was on the state 1989. The oil tanker,

Exxon Valdez,

ran aground off the southern coast of

Alaska

. The captain,

Joseph Hazelwood,

left the bridge in the command of his third mate and the tanker struck a reef and spilled more than 250,000 barrels of oil. All told, more than $2 billion was spent on clean up and recovery. With

Exxon

paying one billion in damages.

03:04

It's the birthday of

Fanny Crosby

, the hymn writer. Born in southeast New York, 1820 she was blind. She wrote hymns, thousands of them, including Pass Me Not O Gentle Savior and

To God Be The Glory

and Blessed Assurance, Jesus Is Mine. Oh, What A Foretaste Of Glory, Divine Air Of Salvation, Purchase Of God Born Of His Spirit, Washed In His Blood.

03:32

Here's a poem for today by

Richard Vargas

. Why I Feed The Birds.

03:39

Once I saw my grandmother hold out her hand, cupping a small offering of seed to one of the wild sparrows that frequented the birdbath, she filled with fresh water every day. She stood still, maybe stopped breathing, while the sparrow looked at her, then the seed, then back as if he were judging her character. He jumped into her hand, began to eat. She smiled. A woman holding a small god.

04:21

Upon by

Richard Vargas

: Why I Feed The Birds from his collection,

Guernica

. Published by

Press 53

04:31

That's

The Writer's Almanac

for Thursday, March the 24th. Be well. Do good work and keep in touch.

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