| Psalm 100 Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. 2 Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing. 3 Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people and the sheep of his pasture. 4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. 5 For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations. "Psalm 100" King James Bible (buy now) Today is the 100th birthday of Isaac Asimov (1920) (books by this author). He was born in Petrovichi, Russia, and his family immigrated to the United States when he was three years old. He grew up in Brooklyn, where his family ran a candy store. He wrote or edited more than 500 books, many of them works of popular science, and he was on of the major science fiction authors of the 20th century. He died from complications of AIDS in 1992; the cause of his death was kept a secret until 2002 due to prejudice against those with HIV/AIDS. Asimov said, "Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers." It's the birthday of playwright Christopher Durang (1949) (books by this author), born in Montclair, New Jersey. His father was an architect, and an alcoholic; after Durang was born, his mother had three stillborn babies, so he remained an only child. His parents divorced when he was 19, which he has said he was grateful for. "My father knew the charming side of my mother," he said, "and my mother thought that he was attentive and pleasant and was an architect, which was a respectable profession, but I don't think that they actually got to know one another deeply." He was raised Roman Catholic, went to a high school where he was taught by monks, and thought he might become a monk himself. Instead, he became a playwright, and when he was 28 years old, he had his first big success with the play Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You (1979), which The New York Times described as "a satire about a demonic Catholic school nun." He went on to write Beyond Therapy (1981), Baby with the Bathwater (1983), Why Torture is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them (2009), and most recently Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (2012). On this date in 1974, President Nixon signed a law setting the national speed limit at 55 miles per hour. The Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act was a response to an oil embargo put in place by the Arab members of OPEC — the Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries — in protest of the United States' support of Israel. Gas prices went up 40 percent, block-long lines at the pumps were an everyday occurrence, and it wasn't uncommon to see signs reading "Sorry, no gas today" in front of your local filling station. The western states, with their wide-open spaces and straight highways, complained bitterly about the new national law, but they complied. Gas prices continued to be high even after the embargo was lifted a couple of months later, and Americans began to look overseas, to Japanese cars that were smaller and more fuel-efficient. Today is the birthday of cartoonist and author Lynda Barry (books by this author), born in Richland Center, Wisconsin (1956). Her parents divorced when she was 12, and she started dropping acid. Four years later, she was working as a janitor seven nights a week. She beat her drug habit and finished high school. Her parents didn't come to her graduation. One standout memory from her childhood was reading Bil Keane's Family Circus comic, drawn in a distinctive circular panel. She was fascinated with Family Circus because the family it portrayed was so different from the one she knew. "It seemed like things were pretty good on the other side of the circle. No one's getting hit. No one's yelling," she remembered. After she started drawing her own comics, she met Bil Keane's son Jeff — who appeared in the strip as Jeffy — and promptly burst into tears. "I realized I had stepped through the circle. I was on the other side of the circle, the place where I wanted to be. And how I got there was I drew a picture." She's the creator of Ernie Pook's Comeek, a weekly strip that ran in alternative newspapers for nearly 30 years. Her friend Matt Groening was also penning a strip called Life in Hell. He would later go on to create The Simpsons. The market for Barry's comic dried up in 2008, so she moved on to other projects. Now, she sells original artwork on the Internet and travels around the country giving workshops called "Writing the Unthinkable." She markets the seminars to nonwriters: "bartenders, janitors, office workers, hairdressers, musicians and ANYONE who has given up on 'being a writer' but still wonders what it might be like to write." In 2019, she received a MacArthur Fellowship and also published a book, Making Comics. It’s the birthday of British crime novelist Mo Hayder, (books by this author) born in England in 1962, who writes about Detective Inspector Jack Caffrey in graphically violent, best-selling thriller novels like Birdman (1999), The Treatment (2002), Ritual (2008), Skin (2009) and Gone (2010). The latest novel in the series is Wolf published 2014. She teaches creative writing at a university in Bath, England, where she lives with her daughter and a retired police sergeant. Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.® | 