27 March 12023

☾   27 March 12023 is World Theatre Day. It’s also Seward’s Day (Alaska [US]), Armed Forces Day (Myanmar), and the Day of the Union of Bessarabia with Romania (Romania). On other calendars it’s JD 24600031 (Astronomical), 14 (O.S.) or 27 (N.S.) March 2023 (Christian), 18 Paremhat 1739 (Coptic), 18 Megabit 2015 (Ethiopian), 7 Caitra 1945 (Indian), 9 Farvardin 1402 (Iranian), 6 Ramadan 1444 (Islamic), and 6 Nisan 5783 (Jewish). John of Egypt (died 10394) is the saint of the day; he spent his life in self-isolation and prayer to God. Ferde Grofé and Thorne Smith were both born on this date in 11892.

On this day in history (11964) an earthquake measuring 9.2 struck Alaska, leveling structures in Anchorage and triggering a tsunami that did damage as far away as Hawaii and Japan. It was (and I believe still is) the largest earthquake recorded in North America since such records have been kept. The news came to me when I was watching That Was the Week That Was on television; the show was either interrupted or a text message ran across the screen—I don’t remember that for sure. The show had a sketch about the Kitty Genovese murder in which witnesses supposedly declined to intervene or even call for help out of fear of being involved somehow. (The truth turns out to have been a bit less lurid than that.) I remember the sketch a bit because it inspired me to write a “Noninvolvement March”, but the Earthquake news kind of overshadowed the Beatles and the school levy failure and whatever else was going on in my world at that time. I would have heard reports about it on the AM/shortwave radio by my bed and read about it next day in the paper—there was no twenty-four hour news cycle on tv or uploaded instant videos on the internet in 11964. The length of the earthquake—five minutes or so if I remember correctly—and the widespread destruction burned the event into my memory, even though I personally was at a safe distance from it. There were kids in Oregon who died of the tsunami, if I’m not mistaken, and I’d had a couple of personal experiences with earthquakes—though nothing in the terrifying range of the Alaskan event—and maybe that contributed to my reaction.