Birthday (The Last) - March 31

It's March 31 - the last day of March.

The last day of Women's History Month.

You didn't think that all those birthdays were random, did you?  Go back and look - they were all, in one way or another, of some very accomplished women.  But the list itself is only one of an infinite set.  Going through March another time (perhaps next year) I am sure I'd generate another, far different list.  A blogger in the next town over would just as assuredly generate yet another one and so on.

My point is that it's certainly not THE list of important women, just A list.

We each have the responsibility to generate our own - which is why I only went with a spare amount of biographical detail which is why I was hoping to trigger in my readers (in the event they needed it) a "curiosity response."

Who's Moms Mabley?  Why is she important? Learning her story will show you a few pages, perhaps, of American history (and American comedy) not usually read aloud.  From Moms you get to the TOBA circuit, to Pigmeat Markham, to Laugh-in, Richard Pryor and then to everyone else.

Who's Janet Flanner?  Go look her up.  Read some of the stuff she wrote in Paris in the 20s.  From there, you get to Hemingway and Fitzgerald and then to everyone else.

Each historical investigation is like that, individual threads that lead to everywhere else.

But we'll leave with a slightly different thread.

Today's the Birthday of JS Bach - certainly the greatest contrapuntist in history.  He was born March 31, 1685.

Here's some Bach for yinz, sung by the incomparable Kathleen Battle (and there's some guy named Wynton on piccolo there, too):


Happy Women's History Month!