The Great White Melville

Herman MelvilleOn this day in 10 BC, Roman Emperor Claudius was born. Almost everything I know about him I learned from watching I, Claudius. So most of what I know is that he looked a lot like Derek Jacobi. But it does seem that the basic story is correct. Because Claudius limped due to a childhood illness, the family kept him out of public. As a result of this, he was spared from the family purges of Tiberius and Caligula. When the latter was assassinated, there were literally no other male relatives left alive. And not surprisingly, Claudius went on to be a pretty good emperor. He did have a lot of his enemies killed, but that’s understandable given that they were likely trying to do the same to him. And we are talking Roman emperors here. There is a lower standard for them than there is for real humans.

The great Italian Baroque painter Sebastiano Ricci was born in 1659. Welsh landscape painter Richard Wilson was born in 1714. Astronomer Maria Mitchell was born in 1818. Labor organizer Mary Harris Jones was born in 1837. One of the most interesting of the late Romantic composers Hans Rott was born in 1858. He went quite insane in his early twenties, was committed and died of tuberculosis at the age of 25. But just listen to his String Quartet in C Minor. It is amazing:

Mathematician Otto Toeplitz was born in 1881. Physicist Walter Gerlach of the Stern-Gerlach Effect was born in 1889. Comedian Dom DeLuise was born in 1933. Guitarist Jerry Garcia was born in 1942. And Jim Carroll was born in 1950. Here he is with his band doing “Lorraine”:

Folk singer Ramblin’ Jack Elliott is 82 today. Blues great Robert Cray is 60. Here he is doing “Smokin’ Gun,” which you probably know:

And Adam Duritz of Counting Crows is 49. He’s an amazingly great songwriter. I always think of him along with Mark Eitzel. What Duritz has that Eitzel doesn’t is the ability to be emotionally naked. Eitzel makes up for this by being funnier. Here is Counting Crows doing the sweet and funny “Mr. Jones”:

The day, however, belongs to the greatest failed novelist of all time, Herman Melville who was born on this day in 1819. I have mixed feelings about Melville. On one hand, most of his stuff is really difficult to read. It is so dense, there is no doubt that the man was trying too hard. On the other hand, he’s so interesting. It is really wonderful the way he integrates all of his various passions into his work. I wonder what his later writing would have been like had his great work been appreciated. As it is, he hardly wrote anything the last 25 years of his life. Regardless, it is sad that like many other great American artists, he was never really appreciated in his own country during his lifetime.

Happy birthday Herman Melville!

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About Frank Moraes

Frank Moraes is a freelance writer and editor online and in print. He is educated as a scientist with a PhD in Atmospheric Physics. He has worked in climate science, remote sensing, throughout the computer industry, and as a college physics instructor. Find out more at About Frank Moraes.

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