Friday, October 17, 2008

Weird Thing


This is weird. Today I was thinking about Death of a Salesman, and how I love that play. It's been forever since I saw it or read it. "I should read that again sometime soon" I thought to myself. 

Then tonight I log onto Writer's Almanac. I don't check it much. Somehow the poetry is not the same in my head as it is when Garrison Keillor reads it on air, with a voice that is only his. I scroll to the bottom and read this:

It's the birthday of Arthur Miller, (books by this author) born in New York City in 1915. His family was wealthy, but they lost all their money during the stock market crash, so they moved to Brooklyn and lived with the whole extended family. Arthur's uncle was a storyteller and a big liar. He became an inspiration for Arthur, who said, "His unpredictable manipulations of fact freed my mind to lope and skip among fantasies of my own." While Arthur Miller was writing his playDeath of a Salesman (1949), he went to bed at night and realized that his face was wet from crying, and his throat was sore from speaking and shouting the lines of dialogue as he wrote. He said, "The theater is so endlessly fascinating because it's so accidental. It's so much like life."

Hmmmm. Weird. 

2 comments:

Damama T said...

I am becoming more and more convinced that there is truly a universal consciencousness with threads connecting us all in weird ways. So I don't think this is a weird thing at all! Especially since just yesterday I used referenced 'death of a salesman' when talking about a situation a friend is going through. First time I can ever recall doing that. It's either the UC thread or some weird version of the Kevin Bacon game! Or maybe, just maybe those two are one and the same!LOL!

Ella Swan said...

Also loved the play...read it for English Literature A levels, many moons ago...Love older literature. Ralph Waldo Emerson is my all time fave & a very prolific writer.