Sunday, April 27, 2014

Why Don't More TV Characters Talk About, Well, TV? Don't They Watch the Hit Shows Too?

Scottie: "I know we got into a fight last night, but drinking before 10am, is that really the answer?" Harvey: "It is on Mad Men. Who does that guy think he is?" Catching up on USA's Suits, this line of dialogue in the season finale "No Way Out"  hit my ear.  Why shouldn't Harvey Specter...
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Sunday, April 20, 2014

Happy Easter from Irving, Fred, Bing, (and the Guys at Kings)

Irving Berlin gave us our one great pop culture Easter song, Easter Parade, published in 1933 and first sung in the Broadway revue As Thousands Cheer, the same year. As my mother told me long ago, Berlin first wrote the melody way back in 1917 with lyrics, "Smile and Show Your Dimple." It was a flop,...
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Friday, April 18, 2014

Good Friday: Johnny Cash Asks Us "Were You There?"

Some of my favorite hymns and a motet for the day. Were You There When They Crucified My Lord Johnny Cash   The show-closer from the Sept. 6, 1969, episode of The Johnny Cash Show, with Johnny, the Carter Family (featuring Anita Carter) and the whole ensemble bring down the house. Johnny sings the all-important lowest "F" in "trem-blllle." Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross Eddy Arnold Not talked...
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Thursday, April 17, 2014

Maundy Thursday from the Poets

It’s a confluence of riches, thinking about poetry during Holy Week. Oscar Wilde, the poet's poet,  imagines the week in Genoa, that ill-fated city where the faulty vessel that carried Shelley to his watery death was built. And in honor of Maundy Thursday—the commemoration of the institution...
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Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Roy Baker, A Director to Remember

The British director Roy Baker died on October 5, 2010, at the age of 93. The Telegraph obituary summarized the eclectic career, from second assistant to Hitchcock on The Lady Vanishes to directing Marilyn Monroe in the studio’s early attempt at “yes, she can really act” film Don’t Bother to Knock,...
              

Thursday, April 3, 2014

April Is National Poetry Month: Robert Frost in Orange Is the New Black and More

April is National Poetry Month! From the poets.org website: Inaugurated by the Academy of American Poets in 1996, National Poetry Month is now held every April, when schools, publishers, libraries, booksellers, and poets throughout the United States band together to celebrate poetry and its vital...
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