Musical Wanderer

  I had an interesting find at Capitol Hill Books a couple months ago, This is London by Edward R. Murrow.  It's a set of transcriptions of his radio broadcasts from, um, London in the early days of the Second World War.  His broadcasts created a picture of the war in Britain for listeners in the US.  The tales of the commonplace courage and fortitude of the British people in the face of German bombing helped to build sympathy among Americans prone to isolationism for the fight against Fascism in Europe that the United States would eventually join. It's hard in the US of 2026 to appreciate the place Edward R. Murrow had in American journalism and culture in the middle of the twentieth century.  Today people watch, listen to, and even sometimes read journalism or what passes for it of their own curated taste.  They have splintered choices of right-wing, left-wing, and satiric voices on multiple mediums to confirm their world view and satisfy their biases....

Part of the fun of living in our neighborhood is the curbside sharing of, well, almost everything.  Lamps, books, shoulder bags, hats, dishes, glasses, bookshelves, furniture--anything that people don't need anymore is left out by the sidewalk for someone else to make use of.  Inevitably most of it is snapped up.  We have a fair number of odds and ends that we ran across and have found useful.  We found a somewhat rusty bird-feeder a couple months ago and repurposed it, after removing the plastic feed tube and adding a plastic bird skeleton and a red light, as a Halloween decoration. Most of the stuff on the street are household items with likely no story for previous owners except their former utility, though someone left a nice HO train set on the street after Christmas last year, probably after their kids got bored of it.  I found the small framed picture above on the street today.  I picked it up not to reuse the frame--though I have found some good pic...

  I've watched Richard Linklater's Blue Moon several times, enjoying it and being tortured by it more with every viewing.  The tale of Lorenz Hart's evening at Sardi's on the night Oklahoma! premiered on Broadway will not be noted as one of the best movies of our time or even the year, but it is already a favorite of mine, for assorted reasons.   WARNING:  Do not read on if you have not watched the movie yet.  Dripping with spoilers. First off, the dialogue is funny, frequently laugh out loud funny.  Hart says a Jewish producer "circumcised" his Jewish name to Anglicize it (changing one's Jewish name was common in the past).  Hart promises Elizabeth he will introduce her to Richard Rogers, saying she will soon have her hands full of dick, also betraying his hopes for the evening.  E.B. White notes a young woman goes from being ineffable to unF-able.  Much of it is sparkling word-play and discussion of language and writing, not surprisi...

I, as well as many other folk, have watched Ken Burns' latest work, The American Revolution .  As is frequently the case with his documentaries, the new series did not disappoint.  Between stirring stories, moving readings by A-list and B-list actors, and striking imagery, both contemporary cinematography and "Ken Burns' Effect" images, the history of our nation's war of independence from the British was well told.  The balloons of some myths were burst, while others were further burnished in gold, with moving rhetoric and music. The education of many of us about the war did not emphasize the bloodthirsty aspect of civil war in the struggle, where sometimes no quarter was given on either side, particularly between the revolutionary forces and the loyalist and native American forces.* How the interests of wealthy Americans (like George Washington) in the lands beyond the Appalachians as a significant cause was likewise understated in our education.  Most of the ico...

Joe, We talked, in no particular order, -on a crumbling sandbox a previous dorm-master built outside of my dorm apartment -in a tow truck -under a tarp in the rain by the Rez the night before earth day -walking along train tracks in the middle of the night -in dorm apartments in three states -in your car picking up McDonalds lunch for your kids -in my apartment -at Shenanigans -in bars in Baltimore and Ohio, Illinois and DC -on our way to raid the chapel -on the Agee room floor -on my patio after dinner and drinks -in your apartment staring at the view from the space station -on your fabled Marina Towers balcony -at the truck stop about, in no particular order, -the south -beer for boys, whiskey for men, brandy for heroes -Jay McInerey’s greatest lines -your kids -Klingenstein and New York -ice on trees -a poem by Larkin -smart people -Luna and Mahler -hearing a wolf howl at night -a surprising evening in Guerry Garth -favorite jazz -the best final sentences of stories and novels -sex,...

Twenty-first century equivalent of unrestricted submarine warfare? A little over a century ago, the United States joined Britain and France in their war against Germany.  Many Americans in and out of government had sympathized with the Allies in their grinding war and were outraged by the murder of civilians in Belgium and Northern France by occupying German forces.  What finally encouraged those recalcitrant to enter the war were the revelations that Germany was encouraging Mexico to join in the war against the US and the German decision to allow unrestricted submarine warfare against ships at sea.  Contemporary laws of war codified in treaties in the late nineteenth century stipulated that civilian ships could not by sunk without warning.  Germany's adoption of unrestricted submarine warfare unleashed submarines (U-boats) to sink any ship at sea without regard to combatant status or cargo. German WWI Submarine and sinking merchant ship Fast forward to the present d...

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced new changes to the world's maps. The nations of the Caucuses will have new names that President Trump has used on several occasions during his term. Armenia will be named Albania and Azerbaijan will by named Aberbaijan. This is a follow up to the renaming of the Gulf of America earlier in President Trump's second term. The Press Secretary cautioned that any producer of maps which does not adopt the new guidelines will lose all government contracts and be investigated by FBI for any possible improprieties. Google Maps has announced it is in the process of altering its software to incorporate the changes. News organizations which do not adopt the new guidelines will lose licenses and face prosecution by DoJ. Sources from ABC and CBS say that the new guidelines will be followed effective today, thanking the White House for the clarification of the century old nations' names. Officials in Tirane, the capital of the nat...