This mix of mine got a good reception over on 8tracks this weekend. Take a listen:
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Excerpt
"But he has four children, ages 8 to 17, he will not abandon for presidential politics. When he visited a workaholic aide during her difficult labor before her daughter was born, he said, 'Put away your BlackBerry, you are in the middle of a miracle.' As subtle as a linebacker, as direct as an uppercut, Christie, explaining why he will not run, demonstrates why many wish he would. When supporters argue, 'You can’t say you’re not ready — look at Obama,' he replies: 'Yeah, look at him.'"
- George Will from his column this morning, Chris Christie, America's Ceasar
- George Will from his column this morning, Chris Christie, America's Ceasar
Brush Up My Shakespeare
Productive morning. I created a couple of new tumblr.com blogs though neither is quite ready for public viewing. One will be my own personal tumblr area and the other will be a self-contained blog about our trip to France in early July. It occurs to me that tumblr is a good place to chronicle a trip via a smart phone, allowing you to upload pictures and observations as you go. The France blog will use the same theme as Martin Scorsese's tumblr blog, which can be found here. As you can see you can make the blog mostly pictures with observations in between. I'll be working on this blog so we can have a permanent place to remember our visit - which was wonderful, by the way. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed myself so much. For nine days, I was walking on air.
This afternoon I'm going to read Marjorie Garber's essay on Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" in preparation for seeing the play this coming Friday night at the Shakespeare Theatre's free-for-all. Normally they do one of the comedies during the summer free-for-all but this year they decided on a history, which is fine. We saw this production a few years back when the Shakespeare Theater performed it during the season (we are season ticket holders) and both my wife and I enjoyed it quite a bit.
I always like to brush up my Shakespeare before going to see one of the plays. My two main sources are Mark Van Doren's Shakespeare and Ms. Garber's Shakespeare After All. Van Doren famously taught Shakespeare for years at Columbia and his book is taken from the lectures he gave in class. With a deeply insightful chapter on each of the plays, it is deservedly revered as a guide to Shakespeare. As good as the book is, and it is very good, I prefer Ms. Garber's, who teaches Shakespeare at Harvard and is considered one of the most respected Shakespeare scholars in the country. Her book also contains a chapter for each of the plays - on average about 30 pages per - where she takes the reader through the origins and sources of the play, its changing meaning throughout history, its place in the culture, its famous productions and perfomances. She has an uncanny ability to get to the bottom of what makes Shakespeare work for each generation and why each remains important and interesting for audiences and readers. If you plan on seeing one of Shakespeare's play, reading Ms. Garber's essay is the perfect preparation. And this week I've discovered and added bonus: her lecture series on Shakespeare's later plays is available to view for free at Harvard's Extension School site. "Caesar" is not among those she discusses in the series but I will keep the site bookmarked for future shows.
Almost time for lunch, the Sunday crossword, and a relaxing afternoon with a book and some music. For you own enjoyment, you can brush up your own Shakespeare by watching the video below. We saw this production of "Kiss Me Kate" twice back in 2001 and I still consider it the best Broadway show I've ever seen. Enjoy.
[youtube]aSmZfnax1yw[/youtube]
This afternoon I'm going to read Marjorie Garber's essay on Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" in preparation for seeing the play this coming Friday night at the Shakespeare Theatre's free-for-all. Normally they do one of the comedies during the summer free-for-all but this year they decided on a history, which is fine. We saw this production a few years back when the Shakespeare Theater performed it during the season (we are season ticket holders) and both my wife and I enjoyed it quite a bit.
I always like to brush up my Shakespeare before going to see one of the plays. My two main sources are Mark Van Doren's Shakespeare and Ms. Garber's Shakespeare After All. Van Doren famously taught Shakespeare for years at Columbia and his book is taken from the lectures he gave in class. With a deeply insightful chapter on each of the plays, it is deservedly revered as a guide to Shakespeare. As good as the book is, and it is very good, I prefer Ms. Garber's, who teaches Shakespeare at Harvard and is considered one of the most respected Shakespeare scholars in the country. Her book also contains a chapter for each of the plays - on average about 30 pages per - where she takes the reader through the origins and sources of the play, its changing meaning throughout history, its place in the culture, its famous productions and perfomances. She has an uncanny ability to get to the bottom of what makes Shakespeare work for each generation and why each remains important and interesting for audiences and readers. If you plan on seeing one of Shakespeare's play, reading Ms. Garber's essay is the perfect preparation. And this week I've discovered and added bonus: her lecture series on Shakespeare's later plays is available to view for free at Harvard's Extension School site. "Caesar" is not among those she discusses in the series but I will keep the site bookmarked for future shows.
Almost time for lunch, the Sunday crossword, and a relaxing afternoon with a book and some music. For you own enjoyment, you can brush up your own Shakespeare by watching the video below. We saw this production of "Kiss Me Kate" twice back in 2001 and I still consider it the best Broadway show I've ever seen. Enjoy.
[youtube]aSmZfnax1yw[/youtube]
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Excerpt
"Now the drummers did not rush out to grab Chaney or shoot him but instead scattered like poultry while Chaney took my father's purse from his warm body and ripped open the trouser band and took the gold pieces too. I cannot say how he knew about them. When he finished his thieving he raced to the end of the street and struck the night watchman at the stock barn a fierce blow to the mouth with his rifle stock, knocking him silly. He put a bridle on Papa's horse Judy and rode out bareback. Darkness swallowed him up. He might have taken the time to saddle the horse or hitched up three spans of mules to a Concord stagecoach and smoked a pipe as it seems no one in that city was after him. He had mistaken the drummers for men. 'The wicked flee when none pursueth.'"
Charles Portis, from True Grit
Charles Portis, from True Grit
New Sidebars, and True Grit
You will also notice a few new sidebars on the right-hand panel: my Netflix DVDs at home, the next five DVDs in my queue, the next ten movies in my Netflix Instant Queue, and the last twenty songs I've listened to via last.fm. I don't know that any of this is of interest to anyone, even myself, but I added the plugins anyhow. One of these days I'll also update my 2011 books page too. For some reason I'm having trouble linking from that page to the best book I've read all year, True Grit, by Charles Portis. It is, no exaggeration, an American classic, and I recommend it to all. I've seen and enjoyed both versions of the movie but neither comes close to the book. Read the first two sentences and you are hooked. If you've seen the movie you see how the sentences set up the entire story:
That, my friends, is masterful writing. In two sentences Portis establishes character, place, time, and situation. And it keeps getting better. Every page contains laughs, deep insights and marvelous writing and storytelling. True Grit is true Americana, and it doesn't get much better. I love, love, love it.
People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father's blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day. I was just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shot my father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robbed him of his life and his horse and $150 in cash money plus two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band.
That, my friends, is masterful writing. In two sentences Portis establishes character, place, time, and situation. And it keeps getting better. Every page contains laughs, deep insights and marvelous writing and storytelling. True Grit is true Americana, and it doesn't get much better. I love, love, love it.
And In The Morning...
...I'll be here.
I've been a long time gone. No sure why except to say the muse left me. Has she returned? Not sure. Sometimes you just have to start typing and see if she lands on your shoulder.
Where to start? Well, below will see a post with a music mix I made at 8tracks.com, a site I just learned about last week. Check it out as it seems like a place for great fun and some great music. You can find all my mixes here. Go listen and hit the 'like' button. You'll also notice a link back to this blog, to my twitter feed, and to my last.fm account. I haven't tweeted much though I am on twitter every day following the conservative political commentators I enjoy the most. The last.fm account is brand new as of last night. This site keeps track of any music you listen to on your laptop (and I expect from your smart phone, though I haven't checked that out yet.) I'm not the average 8Tracks user, a 53 year old man who loves jazz, classical, the great american songbook, etc. Most of the users are kids and the music they listen to is, in my book, music for kids. That's a nicer way of saying I think most of it is unlistenable. But with many hundreds of thousands of users and mixes, I'm sure to run across some good music, hopefully some good music made recently. Someone must be making some good music these days, right?
Also, what about spotify.com? This is a terrific site for music lovers. It's big in Europe and just had its U.S. rollout last month. It's a place where you can find, for free, virtually any music you want. I've been using spotify for about a month and have discovered and rediscovered a lot of terrific music. In fact, I just tweeted one of my play lists, called "Radio Days," of great old 1970's Top 40 hits. You need to download the Spotify player to listen. The free version of Spotify forces you to listen to adds every 6 or 7 songs but they are short and not too much of a pain. If you pay ten bucks a month you can get the full version, which gives you the music without adds and, more importantly, the smart phone app. I haven't pulled the trigger on the full version yet but it's pretty much inevitable at this point. I've got many thousands of songs on my iPod and on the Amazon cloud (so I can listen to my own music through my phone) but often I can't find anything I really want to listen to.
I've also created an account at tumblr.com, though I haven't explored the possibilities of that site yet. It appears to be a blog where you can easily load pictures, videos, text, etc. If that is all it is than I probably won't use it much but perhaps I'll link to my own blog through it. We'll see.
At any rate, I'm all set up to continue my blog. All I need now is someone to read it. I've been gone so long I don't even get spam comments anymore.
This post's title means nothing. Just an excuse to play this terrific Tom Waits tune:
[audio:I'llBeGone.mp3]
I've been a long time gone. No sure why except to say the muse left me. Has she returned? Not sure. Sometimes you just have to start typing and see if she lands on your shoulder.
Where to start? Well, below will see a post with a music mix I made at 8tracks.com, a site I just learned about last week. Check it out as it seems like a place for great fun and some great music. You can find all my mixes here. Go listen and hit the 'like' button. You'll also notice a link back to this blog, to my twitter feed, and to my last.fm account. I haven't tweeted much though I am on twitter every day following the conservative political commentators I enjoy the most. The last.fm account is brand new as of last night. This site keeps track of any music you listen to on your laptop (and I expect from your smart phone, though I haven't checked that out yet.) I'm not the average 8Tracks user, a 53 year old man who loves jazz, classical, the great american songbook, etc. Most of the users are kids and the music they listen to is, in my book, music for kids. That's a nicer way of saying I think most of it is unlistenable. But with many hundreds of thousands of users and mixes, I'm sure to run across some good music, hopefully some good music made recently. Someone must be making some good music these days, right?
Also, what about spotify.com? This is a terrific site for music lovers. It's big in Europe and just had its U.S. rollout last month. It's a place where you can find, for free, virtually any music you want. I've been using spotify for about a month and have discovered and rediscovered a lot of terrific music. In fact, I just tweeted one of my play lists, called "Radio Days," of great old 1970's Top 40 hits. You need to download the Spotify player to listen. The free version of Spotify forces you to listen to adds every 6 or 7 songs but they are short and not too much of a pain. If you pay ten bucks a month you can get the full version, which gives you the music without adds and, more importantly, the smart phone app. I haven't pulled the trigger on the full version yet but it's pretty much inevitable at this point. I've got many thousands of songs on my iPod and on the Amazon cloud (so I can listen to my own music through my phone) but often I can't find anything I really want to listen to.
I've also created an account at tumblr.com, though I haven't explored the possibilities of that site yet. It appears to be a blog where you can easily load pictures, videos, text, etc. If that is all it is than I probably won't use it much but perhaps I'll link to my own blog through it. We'll see.
At any rate, I'm all set up to continue my blog. All I need now is someone to read it. I've been gone so long I don't even get spam comments anymore.
This post's title means nothing. Just an excuse to play this terrific Tom Waits tune:
[audio:I'llBeGone.mp3]
Friday, August 19, 2011
8Tracks
Okay, I'm going to dip my toe back in the water. Have you heard of 8Tracks.com? It's a site that allows you to create and share your own music mixes. Further, it allows you to embed the mix in your blog. Here is one I put up the other day as a tribute to the great Harold Arlen. More to come....
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