Sonnet 109: O! never say that I was false of heart by William Shakespeare O never say that I was false of heart, Though absence seemed my flame to qualify. As easy might I from myself depart, As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie. That is my home of love; if I have ranged Like him that travels I return again, Just to the time, not with the time exchanged, So that myself bring water for my stain. Never believe, though in my nature reigned All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood, That it could so preposterously be stained To leave for nothing all thy sum of good— For nothing this wide universe I call, Save thou, my rose; in it thou art my all. "Sonnet 109" by William Shakespeare. Public domain. (buy now) It's the birthday of documentary photographer Dorothea Lange, born Dorothea Margaretta Nutzhorn in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1895. She contracted polio when she was seven, and developed a permanent limp as a result. When she was 12, her father abandoned the family, so she dropped her middle name and adopted her mother's maiden name. She studied photography at Columbia University, and then in 1918 she began to travel, selling her photographs as she went. She ran out of money by the time she got to San Francisco, so she settled there, opened a photography studio, and made a good living shooting portraits of the Bay Area's upper class. She began taking photographs of men on breadlines, striking workers, and the homeless during the Great Depression, to call attention to their plight, and she did indeed attract the attention of other local photographers. She was hired by the Resettlement Administration, which would later become the Farm Security Administration, to document the displacement of American farmers during the Dust Bowl years, and it's her photo, "Migrant Mother, Nipoma, California, 1936" that is her most famous. Her camera gave us a vivid visual memory of the Great Depression even if we weren't around to experience it. Today is the birthday of the father of modern Russian literature: Aleksandr Pushkin (books by this author), born in Moscow in 1799. He published his first poem at 15, and in his brief life he worked in nearly every literary form: lyric poetry, narrative poetry, the novel, the short story, the drama, and the critical essay. He tended to run afoul of the authorities by writing revolutionary and political poems, and he was often questioned or sent to remote outposts under the guise of an "administrative transfer." In 1824, he was plucked from his cosmopolitan life in Odessa and exiled to his mother's estate in northern Russia, where he was closely watched. Denied the high-society life to which he was accustomed, he wrote, producing his most famous play, Boris Godunov (1830), and working on his verse novel Eugene Onegin (published serially from 1825 to 1832). After two years, he petitioned Czar Nicholas I to be released from exile. His request was granted, provided that he allow Nicholas to serve as his personal censor. Unfortunately, freedom was not what he had hoped. He was implicated in the Decembrist Uprising of 1825 because some of the insurgents had carried copies of his poems, and so he was kept on a very short leash, forbidden to travel, or to publish anything, for several years. He was taken to task for reading portions of Boris Godunovaloud to friends, without permission. He spent some time looking for a bride and found one in the lovely Natalya Goncharova. He proposed, and she agreed, on the condition that he resolve his conflicts with the government. Boris Godunov was finally allowed to be published in 1830, five years after it was written. The uncensored version wasn't performed until 2007. The czar was a great admirer of the lovely Madame Pushkina, and he promoted her husband to the lowest possible court rank, so that Natalya could be invited to court balls. It was a slap in the face to Pushkin, and he resented the insult along with the costly gowns he now had to purchase, although his wife enjoyed the attention. One of her suitors, Georges d'Anthés, was so persistent and brazen that Pushkin finally challenged him to a pistol duel in 1837, after receiving an anonymous letter welcoming him to "The Most Serene Order of Cuckolds." They were both wounded, but Pushkin's wound was mortal, and he died two days later. It's the birthday of John Wayne, born Marion Morrison in Winterset, Iowa, in 1907. He broke into the film business via the prop department, as a scenery mover, and befriended director John Ford, who started giving him bit parts in his movies. It was in Ford's Stagecoach (1939) that he became a star. His 50-year relationship with Ford produced some of his best work: including the "cavalry series" of Fort Apache (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), and Rio Grande (1950), and Ford's post-war — and more disillusioned — films The Searchers (1956) and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). Their personal views on politics grew further and further apart, especially during the McCarthy era — Wayne supported the House Un-American Activities Committee, and Ford spoke out against it — and the friends had to agree to disagree and leave it out of their conversations. It's widely reported that the Republican Party approached Wayne in 1968 to try to convince him to run for president. He declined, scoffing that voters would never put an actor in the White House. |