The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor

On this day in 1814, Francis Scott Key composed the lyrics to The Star-Spangled Banner. He composed them while he watched, from the British ship on which he had been detained, the U.S. flag survive a British attack.

George Frideric Handel completed the Messiah oratorio on this date in 1741. Librettist Charles Jennens had finished the text in July, and he handed it off to Handel with great expectations. He wrote to a friend, “I hope [Handel] will lay out his whole Genius & Skill upon it, that the Composition may excel all his former Compositions, as the Subject excels every other Subject.” Handel worked at a furious pace, doing nothing else but composing from morning to night, and completed the oratorio in only 24 days.

Messiah tells the story of Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection. It was originally written for the Easter season, and it debuted in Dublin at a charity concert the following April. The event attracted 700 people; to accommodate such a crowd, gentlemen were asked to leave their swords at home, and ladies were requested to remove the hoops from their skirts. The Dublin News-Letter reported that Messiah “far surpass[ed] anything of that Nature which has been performed in this or any other Kingdom.”

It remained one of Handel’s favorite works for the rest of his life, and grew to become a beloved holiday favorite — but at Christmastime, rather than Easter. Even Mozart was reluctant to change anything about the oratorio when he supervised a new arrangement in 1789. “Handel knows better than any of us what will make an effect,” Mozart said. “When he chooses, he strikes like a thunderbolt.”

It’s the birthday of the drama critic Eric Bentley (books by this author), born in Bolton, Lancashire, England (1916). He championed and translated the plays of Bertolt Brecht.

Today is the birthday of physiologist Ivan Pavlov, born in Ryazan, in central Russia (1849). His father was the village priest, and Pavlov was all set to follow in his footsteps — even enrolling in theological seminary — when he read Darwin’s work and became interested in the study of science. He left the seminary and began a course of study in physics, mathematics, and natural sciences at the University of St. Petersburg; later he received his medical degree at the Imperial Medical Academy. He left religion behind because he couldn’t reconcile his passion for scientific proof with a life of faith, and was surprised when he came across other scientists who were religious. One day, walking to his laboratory, he saw a medical student cross himself outside a church. “Think about it!” Pavlov told his colleagues. “A naturalist, a physician, but he prays like an old woman in an almshouse!”

In 1890, he was named head of the Physiology Department at the Institute for Experimental Medicine, and five years later he was named Chair of Physiology at the Imperial Medical Academy. It was during this time that he did his most groundbreaking work. In 1903, he published a paper called “The Experimental Psychology and Psychopathology of Animals.” In it, he explained his theory of conditional reflexes. Unlike innate reflexes, which are instinctual, conditional reflexes are learned. Pavlov came up with this theory in the course of studying the digestive systems of dogs. He noticed that the dogs would begin salivating when the lab assistant brought in their food; this was a natural reflex, and it didn’t surprise him. But then after a while, the dogs began drooling whenever the lab assistant entered the room, even if there was no food present. Pavlov speculated that the dogs’ behavior had changed because they had learned to associate the presence of the lab assistant with the presentation of food. He turned on a metronome at the same time that the dogs were fed. Eventually, the dogs would salivate whenever they heard the metronome — even without food — which meant that Pavlov had created a new, learned reflex in his subjects. He was even able to fine-tune the response so that it only happened when the metronome was set at a particular speed. He also learned that the reflex could be unlearned: if he used the metronome too many times without later providing food, the dogs stopped associating the sound with a meal, and they stopped salivating.

It’s the birthday of American essayist Barbara Grizzuti Harrison (books by this author), born in Queens, New York (1934), and best known for her travel writing, interviews, and autobiographical essays. Harrison’s grandparents emigrated from Calabria, in Southern Italy; her parents were first-generation Americans. Harrison’s childhood was deeply troubled: her father sexually abused her, and her mother suffered from mental illness. She insisted on calling herself “Barbara’s relative,” instead of her mother. When Harrison was nine years old, she and her mother were converted by a Jehovah’s Witness who visited the family.

As a teenager, Harrison said she was “very smart and very strange.” She skipped several grades in school and fell in love with her high school English teacher. He encouraged her writing talent, but the relationship remained platonic. As a Jehovah’s Witness, she was forbidden to attend college, so she went to live and work at the Watchtower headquarters, doing housework for 30 male Witnesses. After three years, she became convinced “my intelligence was some kind of tricky, predatory animal, which if not kept firmly reined, would spring on and destroy me.” She had a nervous breakdown, left the headquarters, and renounced her faith at 22.

Harrison leapt wholeheartedly into the 1960s, finding community among the bohemians of Greenwich Village, writing, and falling in love with an African-American jazz musician. They had a torrid three-year affair, but when her book An Accidental Autobiography came out (1996), she refused to name him, calling him only “Jazzman.” The affair was briefly reignited late in Harrison’s life. Harrison immersed herself in the women’s movement, married an aid worker, and lived in Tripoli, Mumbai, and Hyderabad. Married life didn’t suit Harrison. She said, “I was the kind of wife who always had a novel under her apron.”

She had two children and divorced the aid worker, but kept his last name, and moved back to New York, where her trenchant, incisive, feminist essays were finding homes in Ms. Magazine, Harper’s, The Village Voice, Esquire, and The New York Times. She became particularly well-known for her brash and somewhat accusatory interview style, often pinning her subjects uncomfortably, as she did in 1979 with writer Joan Didion, whom she called a “neurasthenic Cher.” Harrison wrote, “... my charity does not naturally extend to someone whose lavender love seats match exactly the potted orchids on her mantel.”

Harrison became nationally known with the publication of Visions of Glory: A History and a Memory of Jehovah’s Witnesses (1978). The book was a blend of memoir and church history. She was kind to some of the members, but she portrayed the faith itself as harsh, tyrannical, and sexist. Agnostic when she began the book, she experienced a spiritual epiphany while writing it, and converted to Catholicism. Harrison traveled widely, and her travel essays, particularly of Italy, are still beloved.