PRELUDE
This is a particularly special issue, since it marks the first time my readers can receive it by email and online at www.quotidian.us. A lot of work went into this site, so I am hopeful it is a useful extension of this publication. Initial feedback has been positive, and I am sincerely thankful to those who have visited. This week, I chose to keep things interesting; as such, there is no set theme. The quotes below are short and sweet, saying much by saying little. They all come from Oxymoronica, my wonderful book of paradoxical quotations.

QUOTES OF THE WEEK

“Melancholy is the pleasure of being sad.”
—Victor Hugo

“Poverty is hateful good.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

“Striving to better, oft we mar what’s well.”
—Shakespeare, King Lear, I.iv.226

“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.”
—Jean Jacques Rousseau, Émile

“Several excuses are always less convincing than one.”
—Aldous Huxley, Point Counter Point

THIS WEEK IN HISTORY

JULY 4, 1826: American songwriter Stephen Collins Foster is born in Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania. Foster was a well-known songwriter in his day, and many of his tunes are still popular today, including “Oh! Susanna”, “Camptown Races,” “Beautiful Dreamer,” and “Old Folks at Home” (the latter is better known as “Way Down Upon the Swanee River”). Foster’s songs were largely written for minstrel shows, a popular form of entertainment in the mid to late 19th century. Minstrel shows consisted of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music performed by white actors in blackface. These shows invariably showed African Americans in a negative light, and while their popularity all but vanished by the 1950s, Foster’s minstrel tunes lived on.
        Foster’s attempts at making a living as a songwriter largely failed, given the limited copyright protections at the time (he received only $100 for “Oh! Susanna”). He died impoverished in 1864 at the young age of 37, and was inducted into the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame in 1970.