It's so. Minnesota Public Radio dropped the Almanac almost five years ago and so the underwriting disappeared and there simply was no money to keep the show fresh and it's been in reruns long enough. Time for someone else, someone younger and woker, to take over.
Oh, my... GK, in his many forms and incarnations, has been THE SOUNDTRACK to my life. Sustaining me through cancers, deaths of beloved ones, and life's slings and arrows. In recent years, I bounce on my mini-trampoline for the five minutes of TWA... just long enough to get those lymph nodes moving. I'm genuinely HEARTSICK at this loss. Thank you 💗
People these days are making a mistake - no, it's on purpose - of equating the Jewish religion, with the country of Israel, such as the person "Ann" who wrote in about AOC. I'm sick of people being branded anti-Semitic for simply criticizing Israel for anything, giving them free license to do anything they want to the Palestinians. It's just as transparent, petty and disingenuous as being called anti Christian or anti American whenever you disagree with republicans..........Thanks; Dean
Yes, but the Congresswoman Omar, while criticizing Israel, said, "It's all about the Benjamins," referring to the $100 bill, which struck me as an old anti-Semitic trope. I can't recall if she apologized. She lost my vote when she crossed that line. GK
Thanks for posting the video of Isabel Leonard! We saw her at Tanglewood a few years ago and hoped to have a chance to talk to her, but she was with her son and seemed to be in a hurry, so we didn't bother her. We have talked to you there, and to many opera singers and other musicians. The informal atmosphere is conducive to that sort of thing. I even have two pictures of my husband with Bryn Terfel and one each with Susan Graham, Renée Fleming and Paul Plishka. They were all very friendly and nice. We are jealous that you live in NYC and can go to the Met without taking a trip!
Tosca is on our calendar in March and Ariadne Obnoxious. We're taking friends and their 12-year-old to Ariadne, his first opera. Thrilling. My wife was 7 when she saw "Carmen" and it was an indelible experience: she stood through the entire opera. Now she plays in the pit.
I was noticing the line: "Whenever you delve into history, you get into trouble." Yes, I agree that if one has an audience of millions, surely a few of them can think of some instance that contradicts a particular statement. And they have the means of bringing it to your attention.
To counterbalance this, I'd recommend "The Fourth Turning" to you and Ann. The basic premise is that once our grandparents' generation is no longer giving us feedback, we begin making the same mistakes that led to calamities a century or so ago. And, sooner or later, we may begin trying to "fix things" by digging up information from a century ago.
As an example, my Master's Thesis for library school involved the spacing of public library buildings. In the Twentieth Century (on the verge of turning to the Twenty-First Century at the time), the "omnipotence" of the motor car led to repositioning local libraries such that there would be adequate space for ample parking. Especially in the suburbs, where public bus service might be limited or nonexistent, "local libraries" in the poorer sections of town were replaced by more commodious libraries in the suburbs flanked by mini-acreages of asphalt.
I had direct experience with this situation. I had a farm in a rural area and frequently employed "Mis Amigos" - my friends who lived in trailers and converted barns nearby. They especially liked "cintas" - sound tapes - in Spanish. They also enjoyed "fotonovelas" - photo novels , similar to comic books. Since few of them had more than a second grade education, "literature" like "Don Quijote av La Mancha" - "Don Quixote of La Mancha" was simply beyond their grasp.
When I was headed back to the Los Angeles area, they would ask me "Susanna, can you go to a library and bring us something to read or some tapes?" That seemed like a simple request until I tried to carry through with it. In the barrios (neighborhoods), there might be a "Muy Pequeno" (Very small, generally one divider wide, and maybe four shelves high if the library had "an extensive section") Spanish collection. it would consist of half a dozen copies of books like "Don Quijote av La Mancha." These books might be checked out by primary English language students who were studying Spanish at an intermediate level, or above. Such "Literature" would generally be "Classics" like "Don Quixote" from prior generations. These books certainly wouldn't be in the Spanish spoken by the locals. In Los Angeles for example, that might be mostly Mexican, Guatemalan or El Salvadorian. Most of the librarians whom I interviewed in these neighborhood branches would say that no more than one book a week was checked out from their Spanish language section. Such "statistics" hardly represent a good fit between a library and the public it serves.
Back to my Master's Thesis. Such "documents" require extensive bibliographies in support of the main concept. - My theme was that libraries in poor areas should should be spaced within walking distance of the residents served, and should carry appropriate material for those patrons. For my bibliography, I could find EXACTLY ONE reference to the need to have public libraries closely spaced within walking distance in low income neighborhoods. It was a 1906 survey by the Chicago Public Library on the distance traveled by patrons in each of the branches of their citywide system. My thesis, as printed in an American Library Association journal, might have been the first paper about need for local libraries in immigrant neighborhoods to carry the materials that residents will happily check out.
Back to "The Fourth Turning!" The theme of the book reminded me of my "GLORIOUS FIND!" that Chicago Public Library Survey from 1906. At the time I was writing, it was close to the century of forgetfulness mark that Strauss and Howe focused on!
In many of those "homey monologues" from APHC, Our Host was actually illustrating the importance of allowing current generations to partake of the wisdom of the "Family (or village) Ancients!" One of the treasured characteristics of going to "Lake Woebegone" for me was that generational turning took me back to my grandmother in Connecticut . She a librarian - the curator of the P.T. Barnham Museum in the Bridgeport Public Library.
The Barnham and Bailey Circus began travelling across America in 1871. It merged with Ringling Brothers in 1919 (Wikipedia). My grandmother was steeped in that past - "The Fourth Turning" and beyond, in a way that she shared with me through much of my childhood.
It seems to me that Our Great, World-Famous Host (Similar to the entertainer Phineas T. Barnham) also had Keillor progenitors who steeped him in family lore! We need that! We need it in part to feel connectivity through the ages, and in part to learn from the mistakes of the past.
Sure, Honorable Host and Representative of P.T. Barnham in the digital age, the breadth of the audience might incur the possibility that someone, somewhere out there, at some time, might "correct" a statement or two of yours. I wouldn't be surprised if P.T. Barnham might have needed correction, a time or two, as well. But, I'd advise you to look at the sum total of your work!
Take a look, and I bet you might find that you've had a positive influence on the course of society many times that of the leading Ringmaster of a century ago!
It’s my impression that Ravel did Daphnis et Chloe. I’m not sure which work by Debussy you’re thinking of. Since I’m not familiar with D&C by Ravel, I can’t comment on your reaction. Some Ravel is lovely; some can dissipate into the luminiferous aether and never be missed.
Ah! Your Artful play on words reminds me of a time I visited the Chicago Art Institute. It probably has the best French Impressionist exhibit in America, thanks to Potter Palmer's wife, Bertha. Potter started a dry goods store with a new feature, accepting and refunding money on returns with no questions asked. He was so successful that his wife Bertha could fulfill her dream of being a great art collector. She went to France and began buying Impressionists such as Van Gogh and Monet while they were still virtually "unknown" artists. Potter had health problems after a while and sold his department store to a fellow named Marshall Fields. That might ring a bell with shoppers in Chicago today.
Toward the end of the last millennium, I visited Chicago on my vacation. I wandered through the wonder of Van Gogh's wavy and starry pictured world - perhaps he had glaucoma or his absinthe drinking affected his vision. Either way, he's one of my favorite painters. Bertha also collected many of Claude Monet's waterlilies. I find them rather "passive" by comparison. Never-the-less, "To Each His Own."
With my soul filled with fine art, I walked out of the museum and down the steps. At the foot of the stairs was a sidewalk mendicant. His sign read "Vincent couldn't get his Van to Gogh because he didn't have the Monet." The artists' names were highlighted. I thought that was so clever that I shelled out several greenbacks for him. The hat on the pavement indicated that his play on words had impressed quite a few of us by that time of the day!
As to Ravel - there are times I really like Bolero, and times when I wish it would just get a move on to a little more variety! Claire de Lune can be really nice, if you're in a peaceful mood. They're composers at pretty much the far ends of the emotional tone scale. In that way ,Van Gogh's paintings "can't sit still" and Monet's water lilies just lie there, without even a frog to jump off their leaves. So, in a way, Van Gogh Revelled in Bolero, and Monet's lilies were accompanied by Debussy's Claire de Lune!
These days I'm reading William Anderson's "The Rise of the Gothic." He gets going again and again, on the "soul of the artist" - how the subconscious affects creativity. It could be Our Artistic Host was exercising a little subconscious connections here, and did them quite artistically!
Good morning, GK! The Writers Almanac is coming to an end in May?! Say it ain't so!
It's so. Minnesota Public Radio dropped the Almanac almost five years ago and so the underwriting disappeared and there simply was no money to keep the show fresh and it's been in reruns long enough. Time for someone else, someone younger and woker, to take over.
Oh, my... GK, in his many forms and incarnations, has been THE SOUNDTRACK to my life. Sustaining me through cancers, deaths of beloved ones, and life's slings and arrows. In recent years, I bounce on my mini-trampoline for the five minutes of TWA... just long enough to get those lymph nodes moving. I'm genuinely HEARTSICK at this loss. Thank you 💗
Loved the song, "No ones alone."
Please find a way to continue TWA beyond May. Reruns are better than nothing at all.
People these days are making a mistake - no, it's on purpose - of equating the Jewish religion, with the country of Israel, such as the person "Ann" who wrote in about AOC. I'm sick of people being branded anti-Semitic for simply criticizing Israel for anything, giving them free license to do anything they want to the Palestinians. It's just as transparent, petty and disingenuous as being called anti Christian or anti American whenever you disagree with republicans..........Thanks; Dean
Yes, but the Congresswoman Omar, while criticizing Israel, said, "It's all about the Benjamins," referring to the $100 bill, which struck me as an old anti-Semitic trope. I can't recall if she apologized. She lost my vote when she crossed that line. GK
Thanks for posting the video of Isabel Leonard! We saw her at Tanglewood a few years ago and hoped to have a chance to talk to her, but she was with her son and seemed to be in a hurry, so we didn't bother her. We have talked to you there, and to many opera singers and other musicians. The informal atmosphere is conducive to that sort of thing. I even have two pictures of my husband with Bryn Terfel and one each with Susan Graham, Renée Fleming and Paul Plishka. They were all very friendly and nice. We are jealous that you live in NYC and can go to the Met without taking a trip!
Tosca is on our calendar in March and Ariadne Obnoxious. We're taking friends and their 12-year-old to Ariadne, his first opera. Thrilling. My wife was 7 when she saw "Carmen" and it was an indelible experience: she stood through the entire opera. Now she plays in the pit.
I was noticing the line: "Whenever you delve into history, you get into trouble." Yes, I agree that if one has an audience of millions, surely a few of them can think of some instance that contradicts a particular statement. And they have the means of bringing it to your attention.
To counterbalance this, I'd recommend "The Fourth Turning" to you and Ann. The basic premise is that once our grandparents' generation is no longer giving us feedback, we begin making the same mistakes that led to calamities a century or so ago. And, sooner or later, we may begin trying to "fix things" by digging up information from a century ago.
As an example, my Master's Thesis for library school involved the spacing of public library buildings. In the Twentieth Century (on the verge of turning to the Twenty-First Century at the time), the "omnipotence" of the motor car led to repositioning local libraries such that there would be adequate space for ample parking. Especially in the suburbs, where public bus service might be limited or nonexistent, "local libraries" in the poorer sections of town were replaced by more commodious libraries in the suburbs flanked by mini-acreages of asphalt.
I had direct experience with this situation. I had a farm in a rural area and frequently employed "Mis Amigos" - my friends who lived in trailers and converted barns nearby. They especially liked "cintas" - sound tapes - in Spanish. They also enjoyed "fotonovelas" - photo novels , similar to comic books. Since few of them had more than a second grade education, "literature" like "Don Quijote av La Mancha" - "Don Quixote of La Mancha" was simply beyond their grasp.
When I was headed back to the Los Angeles area, they would ask me "Susanna, can you go to a library and bring us something to read or some tapes?" That seemed like a simple request until I tried to carry through with it. In the barrios (neighborhoods), there might be a "Muy Pequeno" (Very small, generally one divider wide, and maybe four shelves high if the library had "an extensive section") Spanish collection. it would consist of half a dozen copies of books like "Don Quijote av La Mancha." These books might be checked out by primary English language students who were studying Spanish at an intermediate level, or above. Such "Literature" would generally be "Classics" like "Don Quixote" from prior generations. These books certainly wouldn't be in the Spanish spoken by the locals. In Los Angeles for example, that might be mostly Mexican, Guatemalan or El Salvadorian. Most of the librarians whom I interviewed in these neighborhood branches would say that no more than one book a week was checked out from their Spanish language section. Such "statistics" hardly represent a good fit between a library and the public it serves.
Back to my Master's Thesis. Such "documents" require extensive bibliographies in support of the main concept. - My theme was that libraries in poor areas should should be spaced within walking distance of the residents served, and should carry appropriate material for those patrons. For my bibliography, I could find EXACTLY ONE reference to the need to have public libraries closely spaced within walking distance in low income neighborhoods. It was a 1906 survey by the Chicago Public Library on the distance traveled by patrons in each of the branches of their citywide system. My thesis, as printed in an American Library Association journal, might have been the first paper about need for local libraries in immigrant neighborhoods to carry the materials that residents will happily check out.
Back to "The Fourth Turning!" The theme of the book reminded me of my "GLORIOUS FIND!" that Chicago Public Library Survey from 1906. At the time I was writing, it was close to the century of forgetfulness mark that Strauss and Howe focused on!
In many of those "homey monologues" from APHC, Our Host was actually illustrating the importance of allowing current generations to partake of the wisdom of the "Family (or village) Ancients!" One of the treasured characteristics of going to "Lake Woebegone" for me was that generational turning took me back to my grandmother in Connecticut . She a librarian - the curator of the P.T. Barnham Museum in the Bridgeport Public Library.
The Barnham and Bailey Circus began travelling across America in 1871. It merged with Ringling Brothers in 1919 (Wikipedia). My grandmother was steeped in that past - "The Fourth Turning" and beyond, in a way that she shared with me through much of my childhood.
It seems to me that Our Great, World-Famous Host (Similar to the entertainer Phineas T. Barnham) also had Keillor progenitors who steeped him in family lore! We need that! We need it in part to feel connectivity through the ages, and in part to learn from the mistakes of the past.
Sure, Honorable Host and Representative of P.T. Barnham in the digital age, the breadth of the audience might incur the possibility that someone, somewhere out there, at some time, might "correct" a statement or two of yours. I wouldn't be surprised if P.T. Barnham might have needed correction, a time or two, as well. But, I'd advise you to look at the sum total of your work!
Take a look, and I bet you might find that you've had a positive influence on the course of society many times that of the leading Ringmaster of a century ago!
Bravo
It’s my impression that Ravel did Daphnis et Chloe. I’m not sure which work by Debussy you’re thinking of. Since I’m not familiar with D&C by Ravel, I can’t comment on your reaction. Some Ravel is lovely; some can dissipate into the luminiferous aether and never be missed.
I'm sorry I unravelled D&C and debussed it.
Ah! Your Artful play on words reminds me of a time I visited the Chicago Art Institute. It probably has the best French Impressionist exhibit in America, thanks to Potter Palmer's wife, Bertha. Potter started a dry goods store with a new feature, accepting and refunding money on returns with no questions asked. He was so successful that his wife Bertha could fulfill her dream of being a great art collector. She went to France and began buying Impressionists such as Van Gogh and Monet while they were still virtually "unknown" artists. Potter had health problems after a while and sold his department store to a fellow named Marshall Fields. That might ring a bell with shoppers in Chicago today.
Toward the end of the last millennium, I visited Chicago on my vacation. I wandered through the wonder of Van Gogh's wavy and starry pictured world - perhaps he had glaucoma or his absinthe drinking affected his vision. Either way, he's one of my favorite painters. Bertha also collected many of Claude Monet's waterlilies. I find them rather "passive" by comparison. Never-the-less, "To Each His Own."
With my soul filled with fine art, I walked out of the museum and down the steps. At the foot of the stairs was a sidewalk mendicant. His sign read "Vincent couldn't get his Van to Gogh because he didn't have the Monet." The artists' names were highlighted. I thought that was so clever that I shelled out several greenbacks for him. The hat on the pavement indicated that his play on words had impressed quite a few of us by that time of the day!
As to Ravel - there are times I really like Bolero, and times when I wish it would just get a move on to a little more variety! Claire de Lune can be really nice, if you're in a peaceful mood. They're composers at pretty much the far ends of the emotional tone scale. In that way ,Van Gogh's paintings "can't sit still" and Monet's water lilies just lie there, without even a frog to jump off their leaves. So, in a way, Van Gogh Revelled in Bolero, and Monet's lilies were accompanied by Debussy's Claire de Lune!
These days I'm reading William Anderson's "The Rise of the Gothic." He gets going again and again, on the "soul of the artist" - how the subconscious affects creativity. It could be Our Artistic Host was exercising a little subconscious connections here, and did them quite artistically!
yes, that's different.