Kelly and Beckett

I'm a failure. Yesterday was James Patrick Kelly's birthday, and I failed to note it. What kind of friend am I? You should all give up on me now -- I've known the man for something like 20 years, and I forget his birthday.

It's Beckett's fault. I've been so fixated on the countdown to Beckett's 100th birthday that I have ignored my friends, let all the details of my life fall apart, and sequestered myself in a small room to wait for the end of the world.

So today we'll mix our daily Beckett link with a Kelly link. (No, not that Kelly Link, much as I like her. And she knows Jim Kelly, too, and probably remembered his birthday. For all I know, she knew Beckett.)

Thus:

Happy birthday tomorrow to Samuel Beckett -- here's Beckett's late (1988), short prose piece "Stirrings Still".

Happy birthday yesterday to Jim Kelly -- here's "The Propagation of Light in a Vacuum", one of my favorite of his stories.

And just for fun -- J. Michael Straczynski's City of Dreams Episode 7: Samuel Beckett, Your Ride is Here, featuring John Turturro and Bill Irwin. (Irwin, by the way, is no stranger to Beckett performances.)

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