The Writer's almanac newsletter
Today: "Men After Work" by Dana Gioia
Saturday, Feb. 20, 2016
Men After Work
by Dana Gioia
Listen Online
Done with work, they are sitting by themselves
in coffeeshops or diners, taking up the booths,
filling every other seat along the counter,
waiting for the menu, for the water,
for the girl to come and take their order,
always on the edge of words, almost without appetite,
knowing there is nothing on the menu that they want,
waiting patiently to ask for one
more refill of their coffee, surprised
that even its bitterness will not wake them up.
Still they savor it, holding each sip
lukewarm in their mouths, this last taste of evening.
"Men After Work" by Dana Gioia from 99 Poems. © Graywolf Press, 2016.
Reprinted with permission. (buy now)
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Photographer Ansel Adams was born in San Francisco on this date in
1902. His father worked in the timber industry, a business he'd
inherited from his father before him. Adams would later condemn the
lumber industry for its effect on the redwood forests he loved. Adams
was an unruly boy - hyperactive and mostly likely also dyslexic - and
he was expelled from several schools. He later recalled: "Each day was
a severe test for me, sitting in a dreadful classroom while the sun and
fog played outside. Most of the information received meant absolutely
nothing to me. [...] Education without either meaning or excitement is
impossible. I longed for the outdoors, leaving only a small part of my
conscious self to pay attention to schoolwork." His parents finally
gave up and began homeschooling him when he was 12. When he was 14,
they gave him two gifts. One was a camera: a Kodak #1 Box Brownie. The
second gift was a family trip to Yosemite National Park.
It's the birthday of playwright Russel Crouse, born in Findlay, Ohio
(1893). His play State of the Union (1946) won the Pulitzer Prize for
drama and was made into a movie starring Spencer Tracy and Katharine
Hepburn. Crouse is also famous for writing the books for musicals. When
we think of musicals, we tend to think of the people who wrote the
music and the lyrics, like Rodgers and Hammerstein for The Sound of
Music. But all the dialogue or words that are not sung are called the
book, and Crouse wrote books - in fact, he co-wrote the book for The
Sound of Music, as well as Anything Goes.
It was on this day in 1950 that the Welsh poet Dylan Thomasembarked on
his first reading tour of the United States. He had always wanted to
travel to America because he'd grown up in Wales watching American
cowboy movies and American cartoons. The man who arranged for the
reading tour picked him up at the airport, and they drove toward
Manhattan. When Thomas saw the skyline he said, "I knew America would
be just like this."
He was immediately put in the literary spotlight, but he claimed not to
enjoy his new fame. In an interview with the New York Times Book
Review, he said he missed being a young unknown poet. He said, "Then I
was arrogant and lost. Now I am humble and found. I prefer that other."
When asked why he came to New York, Thomas said, "To continue my
lifelong search for naked women in wet mackintoshes."
The tour lasted until June, and Thomas spent that time traveling to
various American universities, where he attended faculty parties and
gave readings to packed houses of several thousand listeners at each
performance. Thomas himself had never finished college, and he was
terrified of academics. So he got terribly drunk at all the faculty
parties, shouting obscenities and hitting on all the women. Everyone
was shocked and horrified.
When the time would come for Thomas to give his reading, even though he
had been nearly incapacitated a few hours beforehand, he would always
come out on stage and stun the audience with his performance. He had a
deep, sonorous voice, and audiences would hang on his every word. He
didn't just read his own poetry. He recited a huge number of poems by
other poets, and finished the show with one or two poems of his own.
After the shows, he was mobbed by fans.
The reading tour seemed to go on and on. He traveled all the way to
California and back. In letters to his wife, he complained that the
tour was wearing him out. He wrote, "I'm hardly living. I'm just a
voice on wheels." He also grew less impressed with America, which he
described as "This vast, mad horror, that doesn't know its size, or its
strength, or its weakness, or its barbaric speed, stupidity, din,
self-righteousness, this cancerous Babylon."
President George Washington established the United States Post Office
on this date in 1792. He did so by signing the Postal Service Act.
Prior to the Revolutionary War, there were very few official standards
when it came to mail delivery. Some people hired couriers, or asked
friends to deliver letters for them. Taverns served as informal
mail-gathering centers. The British government established the post of
postmaster general in 1707, but that task was managed from Britain, and
it didn't have too much practical effect on how the mail was handled in
the colonies. Benjamin Franklin was named postmaster general in 1737,
but was fired and sent back to America after he abused the power of his
office to spy for the colonies.
A printer named William Goddard brought the original plans for a formal
American postal service before the Continental Congress in 1774.
Goddard published a newspaper, the Pennsylvania Chronicle, and he
wanted to make sure that it would be delivered to his readers. His
paper supported American independence, and postal agents working for
the British crown constantly undermined his delivery efforts. He
decided to draw up plans for an independent colonial post. Benjamin
Franklin backed Goddard's plan, and Franklin was named the first
Postmaster General when the Constitutional Post began operations in
1775. Franklin held the position for about year, during which time he
established overnight mail delivery between New York and Philadelphia,
and standardized delivery rates.
The Postal Service Act guaranteed a free press and the inexpensive
delivery of newspapers. It also made it illegal for postal officials to
open private mail, and laid the legislative groundwork for Congress to
expand the Post Office as the new nation grew. It established 75
regional post offices and 2,400 miles of postal routes, and it set the
framework that the U.S. Postal Service still operates within today.
It's the is the birthday of author Richard Matheson (books by this
author), born in Allendale, New Jersey (1926), writer of science
fiction, fantasy, and horror novels. His work inspired Anne Rice and
Stephen King, who once said: "Without Richard Matheson, I wouldn't be
around. He is as much my father as Bessie Smith is Elvis Presley's
mother." He wrote for television shows like The Twilight Zone and Star
Trek; several of his sci-fi novels and stories have been made into
movies, including I Am Legend (book, 1954; film, 2007), A Stir of
Echoes (book, 1958; film, 1999).
His novel Bid Time Return (1975) - the story of a man who falls in love
with the photograph of a woman from the past and goes back in time to
meet her - was made into the movie Somewhere in Time in 1980; the book
was eventually reissued under the new title.
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®
