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I ran across a 50-cent copy of Randall Jarrell's Poetry and the Age a while back, and have been reading it a little at a time. He closes the first essay with this quotation; I mention that because I think it would be dishonest for me to leave you thinking I've read Proust: All that we…
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I tend not to like jazz reworkings of Christmas carols. There's almost always a kind of levity that either borders on or crosses over into irreverence. And for that matter I'm not fond of classically-trained voices singing anything except classical music. But this seems an exception on both counts. A friend sent it to me,…
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This is a carol I did not know until fairly recently but have come to love, by way of this King's College recording, which I think I've recommended before. It's an inexpensive two-disc set of wonderful performances of most of the best-known and some lesser-known carols, plus a Vaughan Williams "Fantasia on Christmas Carols" (which…
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If you don't know Britten's A Ceremony of Carols, you should. It's a selection of Middle English poems related to the Nativity, set to music. Here's a performance of the entire piece. And here is something I posted a few years ago, a sort of recipe for a very tasty holiday drink. I said then that it…
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I hope Our Lady would take the title of this post in the affectionate tone in which I first heard it, which was from the lips of a college teacher in reference to his own wife's gravid condition. She was within earshot, if I remember correctly, and seemed to be more amused than not. This…
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Drive a Crooked Road I'm not making any great claims for this noir-ish drama, but I think it's surprisingly good. I almost deleted it without watching it, and I'm glad I didn't. It stars Mickey Rooney as a mechanic who drives race cars on weekends. There isn't much in his life apart from cars; he…
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Good news: two police officers are caught having sex on duty and demoted or suspended. Why is it good news? Because she's black and he's white, and it's not a racial story, it's a police discipline story. It will take generations for Alabama's image to recover from the stain of slavery, segregation, and most of…
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It's a commonly heard question among college and university faculty. Well, here's one answer. I do find it pretty amusing that it's a "diversity coordinator."
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Music for Gaudete Sunday A few nights ago I was looking for Advent music to post this weekend. I came across this hymn, which I hadn't heard before. I played it once, only half-listening, shrugged, and then ran out time for looking without finding anything better, so ended up not posting anything. But we sang…
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