Friday, December 06, 2013

Fun facts from the NYTimes

 I came upon this NYTimes article accidentally and I am glad I did - I learned some fascinating facts:
  • Marilyn Monroe loved Abraham Lincoln: 
She was obsessed with Lincoln. She thought of him as her father. And she always kept a copy of Carl Sandburg’s biography and a photograph of Lincoln in her bedroom.
  • Barack Obama loves Lincoln:
KEYA MORGAN: He wrote a full article about my photo for Time magazine, and the editors got the date wrong.
ERROL MORRIS: You mean O-118?
KEYA MORGAN: Yes. I told him that the date was the 5th of February. And later on, one of the publishers of Time magazine put “April 10, 1865” under the photograph.
ERROL MORRIS: But Obama liked the photograph?
KEYA MORGAN: Obama said it was his favorite photo of all time. He wrote a whole article about it. I didn’t know who Barack Obama was. I thought he had a funny name. I Googled him and found out he was a senator. I thought, “Wow! That’s nice. Here is a senator who is African-American.” I thought, “That’s very unusual.” He was very polite and very nice.
  • Barack Obama is a great writer. Well, I kind of knew that. But I mean a great writer.
The article by Barack Obama appeared in the July 4, 2005, edition of Time magazine was entitled “What I See in Lincoln’s Eyes.” The article is accompanied by O-118 with the crack. Obama wrote:
My favorite portrait of Lincoln comes from the end of his life. In it, Lincoln’s face is as finely lined as a pressed flower. He appears frail, almost broken; his eyes, averted from the camera’s lens, seem to contain a heartbreaking melancholy, as if he sees before him what the nation had so recently endured. It would be a sorrowful picture except for the fact that Lincoln’s mouth is turned ever so slightly into a smile. The smile doesn’t negate the sorrow. But it alters tragedy into grace. It’s as if this rough-faced, aging man has cast his gaze toward eternity.