Dancing as fast as we can

Catching up on the mail...

Today is the 123rd anniversary of the birth of Fred Astaire (born Frederick Austerlitz) in Omaha, Nebraska in 1899. Regarding her dancing performances with Fred, his partner Ginger Rogers once said the challenge was to “dance backwards in high heels.”

Monday was the 77th anniversary of V-E Day, the day of Allied victory in Europe in 1945, marking the end of World War II in Europe and the liberation from fascism and the Nazis’ “reign of terror.”

Yesterday also saw the 62nd anniversary of the Food and Drug Administration approval of the sale of the world’s first commercially produced birth control pill which became known, popularly, as “The Pill.”

And yesterday marked the the birthdays of poet Charles Simic (1938, in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, now Serbia), as well as that of The Piano Man, Billy Joel in 1949.

“There’s no preparation for poetry. Four years of grave digging with a nice volume of poetry or a book of philosophy in one’s pocket would serve as well as any university.”-- Charles Simic