Saturday, June 13, 2020

A Real Cutter, Ballantine, and MacChesney: Dad and my Faux Uncles

A guy sits down at a bar and says “Oh, I’m so tired from doing all those chores.”  Next barstool says, “What chores?” First guy, “I’ll take a Ballantine, thanks.” Did I mention it’s 1953? Even that detail wouldn’t have helped me get it entirely. This was a little joke my father once told...
              

Sunday, May 10, 2020

The Songs Our Mothers Sang to Us: Isoko and Betty

Yoko & Isoko Ono; Ellen & Betty O'Neill Several years ago I stumbled upon Yoko Ono's Desert Island Disc, recorded Friday, June 15, 2007, when she was 73 years old.  Yoko's story brought me an unexpected connection to the whole beautiful, shared notion of mothers & daughters,...
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Sunday, May 3, 2020

Sexy Beast, I Mean Bing: Happy Birthday!

Bing Crosby’s birthday is today, May 2, as he cites in his autobiography Call Me Lucky: "Uncle George kept my father company, diverted him with his best stories and raised a comforting glass with him when I was born on May 2, 1904." OR it's tomorrow May 3, the date all the biographies site...
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Friday, April 10, 2020

Good Friday: Saint Peter's Worst Day

Thanks to Gwen Toth, the amazing director of music of the early music group ARTEK, I learned an astonishing piece by the great Renaissance composer Orlando di Lassus. It's Lagrime di San Pietro, The Tears of Saint Peter, a setting of a twenty-verse poem by the Italian poet Luigi Tansillo (published...
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