Category: birthdays

Happy Birthday, Enrico Caruso

Karen

The Writer’s Almanac featured the tenor Caruso‘s birthday today, along with some trivia for your next Jeopardy game:

“When he was 15, he was performing at church one night when he received word that his mother had died. He left the church in the middle of the song, one of only two times in his life that he interrupted a performance. The only other time he didn’t finish a concert was his last.”

“Less than three months after his Metropolitan debut, Caruso made some recordings for the Victor Company. At the time, the gramophone was just a curiosity, but Caruso had become a household name, and people all over the country wanted to hear his voice. His records inspired thousands of people to buy their first gramophones, and his were the first records ever to sell more than a million copies. It can therefore be argued that Caruso’s voice was responsible for the beginning of the musical recording industry.”

Was he really such a big deal? I think so. Listen to this:

Happy Birthday, Ursula Le Guin

Karen

She is 86 today and has some tough-love advice for us about writing:

“If you have to find devices to coax yourself to stay focused on writing, perhaps you should not be writing what you’re writing. And if this lack of motivation is a constant problem, perhaps writing is not your forte. I mean, what is the problem? If writing bores you, that is pretty fatal. If that is not the case, but you find that it is hard going and it just doesn’t flow, well, what did you expect? It is work; art is work.”

She also has some wonderful thoughts about getting old and being beautiful.

Happy Birthday To My Brother

Karen

It’s my brother’s 39th birthday on Sunday. He’s my only sibling and we fight like all siblings but–he’s my brother. I think this Avett Brothers song sums it up: “Always remember there is nothing worth sharing like the love that lets us share our name.”

Happy (early) birthday!

Happy Birthday (Tomorrow), Dad

Karen

It’s my dad’s birthday tomorrow. When I’m his age I hope I have a fraction of the skills he has–the list is long, but includes:

  • Building furniture
  • Building pergolas
  • Remodeling bathrooms
  • Remodeling kitchens
  • Finishing basements
  • Laying tile
  • Wayfinding in the wilderness (I first learned about cairns and blazes and that moss grows on the north side of trees from him)
  • Tying knots
  • Making balloon animals
  • Decorating cakes
  • Rigging model ships
  • Building and maintaining bikes
  • Engineering Halloween costumes
  • Staying fit and healthy
  • Serving his country
  • Giving advice
  • Getting up early
  • Working hard
  • Saving money
  • Doing things “the cowboy way“

I’m pretty lucky to have a dad with such great Dad Skills!

Happy Birthday, Skyler

Karen

How did my nephew get to be four?!

Baby and Maizey

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Even though his daddy still calls him “the baby” sometimes, he’s a little kid now (!). And he’s stubborn and funny and wild and smart and just a delightful little person. Even if he is growing up too fast.  Happy birthday!

Happy Birthday to My Mom

Karen

It’s my mom’s 67th birthday today. She’s a yogi, a cyclist, a gardener, a mom who let me read books and study music, and a grandma who spoils her grandson rotten.

She’s never once told me I couldn’t do something and she’s the person I would choose to be my friend now even if she weren’t my mom .Happy birthday!

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Dad and Mom on Easter (with my nephew hiding under the blanket)

 

Happy Birthday, Johann

Karen

It’s the birthday of J.S. Bach today, composer of the music I’d take to a desert island (sonatas and partitas for solo violin) and architect of my last remaining Protestant religious experience (the St. Matthew Passion, which will get listened to this weekend).

But let’s go way back to the first Bach I or anyone else probably ever heard, the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor:

Fun music history fact: Toccata comes from the Italian toccare, “to touch,” and was essentially an improvised keyboard warm-up that got written down. And fuga is Latin for “flight.”

Happy Birthday, Jack Kerouac

Karen

6a010535ce1cf6970c019b004f4759970bIt’s the birthday of the cat-loving man who defined the Beat Generation (and he doesn’t even get a Google Doodle? come on!). It was lines like this in The Dharma Bums that encouraged my inner hippie, starting back in high school:

“The closer you get to real matter, rock air fire and wood, boy, the more spiritual the world is.”

Happy Birthday, Douglas Adams

Karen2 Comments

NB_42-schwarz.jpgQ4Pv0eThe author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy  series was born today in 1952. I remember picking up the first book in high school and thinking, “Hey, this is cool.” Stuff like this was the soul of wit to a 17-year-old me:

“You know,” said Arthur, “it’s at times like this, when I’m trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I’d listened to what my mother told me when I was young.”
“Why, what did she tell you?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t listen.”

If you haven’t read any and you like science fiction and/or Dr. Who, go pick it up–at the very least so you can get all the “42” jokes out there.