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“Jeweat?” Tips from Ethel Cotton’s 1960 Course in Conversation [by Stacey Lehman]
A few years ago at the Tompkins County Friends of the Library sale I picked up a complete Ethel Cotton 1960 Course in Conversation comprising twelve lessons that promise to turn a shy wall…
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“I’ll Never Smile Again” (Sinatra, the Pied Pipers & the Tommy Dorsey band in 1940)
Here is how Tommy's sweet trombone mixed with amazing voice of the skinny kid from Hoboken. DL
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Reflections on Ireland [by Charles Coe]
I was in Dingle, Ireland recently to teach poetry in an American MFA program abroad. Some of my workshop sessions were held at An Diseart, an Irish spiritual and cultural center that shares the…
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“O, wearisome condition of humanity!” [by Fulke Greville — and Aldous Huxley]
Oh wearisome Condition of Humanity!Born under one law, to another bound:Vainly begot and yet forbidden vanity,Created sick, commanded to be sound:What meaneth Nature by these diverse laws? Passion and reason, self-division cause. There…
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“Frenesi” (Artie Shaw and Orchestra)
Artie Shaw went to Mexico for a vacation and came back with "Frenesi." Listen to that clarinet, now mellow, now a glissando smear. GIs in France after D=Day were taught to pronounce the French…
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“Amapola” (vocals Helen O’Connell & Bob Eberly; Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra; 1941)
This is what you hear throughout Sergio Leone's movie masterpiece Once Upon a Time in America. The same one-two punch — Eberly crooning, O'Connell jaunty and uptempo — is also to be found in…
