CHRISTMAS JAZZ PART IV or "I Want A Hammond B3 Organ and a Leslie Speaker Under My Tree for Chr
As my loyal readers know, I am a big fan of jazz music during the Christmas/New Year's season. Part of the reason is that Christmas is a...
MARTHA GRAHAM
It's still hard for me to believe that I was fortunate enough to see the dance company of the legendary Martha Graham. I don't know if I...
THE NAKED HAMLET (Hamlet # 1)
Joe Papp was a New York City icon. In many ways, he still is because his legacy thrives. It was Joe, the son of Jewish immigrants from Russia, who convinced NYC to approve the creation of the New York Shakespeare Festival. In the early 60s, Joe introduced free Shakespeare-in-the-Park, with two or three plays a year presented at the Delacorte Castle in Central Park. Many of the world's greatest actors, from George C. Scott and James Earl Jones to Meryl Streep and Amy Adams
THE SUMMER OF LOVE (PART VI) "IT WAS FIFTY YEARS AGO TODAY"
Last piece on the Summer of Love, but it's been fun. Just so you don't think I'm viewing that period as those halcyon days of yore, I was inspired by a recent article on NJ.com to print some of the advertising from the era of the Summer of Love, just to give you a sense of the culture at the time. Right away one can see how women were viewed as second-class citizens. This was, after all, still the very first wave of the feminist movement, with the second wave still a few ye
NOT JAMES BOND (THE REREADING SERIES-PART I)
Now that I am squarely in my dotage, I thought it would be interesting to revisit some of the books I loved in my younger days. Perhaps I would experience the same rapture I once knew. Or maybe I would give myself a forehead slap and ask, "What was I thinking?!" Who knew? I don't know why I pulled out John LeCarre's The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, written in 1963. I probably first read it in my twenties, and I've probably read it two other times in my life, but it ha
INTO THE WIND: TERRY FOX
Like many young people who are diagnosed with bone cancer, Canadian Terry Fox faced a heart-wrenching choice: lose the leg or dramatically increase the odds of losing his life. When the spread of metastatic osteosarcoma made the decision to amputate necessary in 1977, Terry could have settled for a restricted life circumscribed by "Handicapped Only" signs. He could have taken the safe route, and everyone would have understood. Instead, he was determined to help find a cure fo
THE SUMMER OF LOVE (PART V) POSTERIZED
When I reached my teen years I made it a point to try to cover every square inch of my bedroom with newspaper and magazine photos of my...
THE SUMMER OF LOVE (PART IV) DONOVAN
"The ancient book of changes, the “I Ching,” says, 'Music releases the obscure emotions of the heart.'” -Donovan If I associate any...
THE SUMMER OF LOVE (PART III) SGT. PEPPER
During the last week of May, 1967 history was made. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released and nothing was ever the same again. That's the impact one LP had. Music hadn't sounded like this before. The jacket cover was discussed for weeks. The songs' lyrics were printed on the back of the album jacket--basically declaring that the language of the songs was as worthy of inspection and appreciation as the melodies. This was the first rock/pop album to do such a
THE SUMMER OF LOVE (PART II) PRELUDE (PET SOUNDS)
In May of 1966, the Beach Boys released Pet Sounds, their eleventh album, and by far their most ambitious work to date. In fact, the Beach Boys were not thought generally to have desired to stray far from their proven musical path at all, regularly churning out wonderful harmonies about surfing, cars, and girls. It was, in fact, hard to find any song that they had previously recorded that didn't involve surfing, cars, or girls! But after a crippling anxiety attack, Brian Wi
