This week saw the birthdays of two seminal figures from the creative arts, iconic writer Ernest Hemingway and also Paul Schrader—one of the greatest screenwriters in the history of film, and a celebrated film director as well. The respective sensibilities of both were formed by their strong ties to Michigan, with Oak Park-born Hemingway spending his childhood summers (with important returns in early adulthood) in Northern Michigan (experiences that would inspire some of his finest short stories), and Paul Schrader, who was born in Grand Rapids and attended Calvin College (and in the summer would often come visit his aunt and uncle on their celery farm in Muskegon) is still creating work that powerfully reckons with his West Michigan roots.
Afternoon host Foley Schuler will recognize their respective late July birthdays (Hemingway, July 21 and Schrader the 22nd) with Michael Daugherty's Grammy Award-winning, Hemingway-inspired Cello Concerto, Tales of Hemingway, as well as the Kronos Quartet's performance of music by Philip Glass from the soundtrack for one of the greatest films written and directed by Paul Schrader, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, based on the life—and dramatic death—of Japan's most celebrated, and controversial, novelist of the 20th Century, Yukio Mishima.
You can hear Foley Schuler's musical selections—and stories behind the music—every weekday from 1 until 4 on Blue Lake Public Radio.
