(Roughly) Daily

… an observation that gets truer with time.  Whether built from scratch…

Dubai, UAE, 1990-2013

or rebuilt…

Tokyo, Japan, after WWII in 1945 and 2013

in the developing world…

China’s high-tech hub, Shenzen, 1980-2011

or the developed…

Paris, France, 1900-2012

… cities just keep on changing, as global commerce spurs development worldwide and millions move from rural to urban lives.

More “then and now” photos of other cities at “Before and After.”

* Joesph Brodsky

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As we admit that it’s tough to keep ’em down on the farm, we might send empathetic birthday greetings to Louis “Studs” Terkel; he was born on this date in 1912.  Trained as an attorney at the University of Chicago, but graduating into the Depression, he decided instead to be a hotel concierge– a post he soon deserted for the stage.  In one of his first gig as an actor, he had a cast-mate also named Louis, and was asked to pick a nickname; he chose the moniker of his favorite fictional character– Studs Lonigan, of James T. Farrell’s trilogy.  

In 1934, Terkel began to do radio production for the Federal Writer’s Project, which led to his own program, which daily aired on WFMT in Chicago for 45 years.  Over the years he interviewed  Martin Luther King, Leonard Bernstein, Bob Dylan, Dorothy Parker, Tennessee Williams, and Jean Shepherd, among many, many others.

But Terkel is perhaps better known– certainly beyond the reach of Chicago radio– for his writing, largely oral histories of common Americans– e.g.,  Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression, Working, in which (as suggested by its subtitle) “People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do,” and The Good War”: An Oral History of World War Two, which won the Pulitzer Prize.

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