7 October

Born in 1891—Archibald Motley, American artist.

Above: Blues, 1929

Also, born in 1966, American writer Sherman Alexie.

…I still remember the exact moment when I first understood, with a sudden clarity, the purpose of a paragraph. I didn’t have the vocabulary to say “paragraph,” but I realized that a paragraph was a fence that held words. The words inside a paragraph worked together for a common purpose. They had some specific reason for being inside the same fence. This knowledge delighted me.

Previously on October 7, Motley and Desmond Tutu.