Consortium of Seven: Year 4

 Newest episode of the ongoing audio tale of modern suspense is up! An 4qsy way to catch up or to start from the beginning is simply to go to the Facebook Page "Freedom Island modern suspense"!

The solo voice sings from somewhere beyond, “You are a child of the universe . . .”   And millions of college students went out and bought records and posters.   There was no way that author Max Ehrmann could have known, as he lived out his life in Indiana and died in 1945. No way that he could have anticipated that the inspirational piece he wrote when he was fifty-five would someday be the basis for a Top 10 hit. No way he could have foreseen that the prose poem he called “Desiderata” – Latin for “Things desired as essential” – would assuage the spirits of those millions of college students and millions of others who, in 1971, needed a little assurance that things would be okay.   But in fact, “Desiderata,” which Ehrmann wrote around 1927, went to No. 8 in the Billboard Hot 100 during the autumn of 1971, recorded as a spoken word single by television talk show host Les Crane. Backed by a soft rock musical track, Crane reads his way through Ehrmann’s comforti...

Lots of photos this week. Ft. Myers Hurricane Ian damage. I didn’t know what to expect driving along Ft. Myers beach the other night. But here are some photos I took before it got too dark. Also, night life. Nature. 

 In which we look at an image, I keep quiet for once & you can make up your own mind about it. For Holocaust Memorial Day, 27th January, 2023. The Refugee (1939) by Felix Nussbaum (1904-1944)

        I know there'll be lots of (American) football interest this weekend, as the final games are played Sunday to determine which teams will be headed to the Superbowl February 12th. Locally, here in the suburbs of Philadelphia, with the Eagles being one of the teams in contention there'll be a lot of noise. I expect that heading up toward 6pm I'll definitely know if the Eagles made it simply by ambient noise.       Personally, I don't care, but it'll be more pleasant hereabouts for the next couple weeks if people are celebrating and anticipating, so, Go, Birds!     Also n ot something I've traditionally paid much active attention to, the nominees for this year's Academy Awards were announced early this week , and drew some attention in part because so many of the nominees were in commercially-successful films, and very much unlike the previous two years, no women were nominated for Best Director.    ...

  Happy Thursday, everyone!  No Trawling this week, as I'm planning something new, inspired by Garbo's idea.  For the foreseeable future, I'm going to alternate weeks.  One week will be my usual Trawling Through The Thrift Stores and then the next will be a new series where I do a deep dive on a classic book and the various adaptations that have happened through the years.  My first in this new series is going to start with the original novel of The Invisible Man  from 1897 and then look at a ton of the movies that have come out of it.  To wit, the potential schedule is (and no, I'm not doing EVERY Invisible Man adaptation; no books this time around outside of the original book and I'm also ignoring the various TV series but I am including one TV movie because it sounds amazingly terrible). February 2nd: The HG Wells novel February 16th: The Invisible Man  (James Whale, 1933) March 2nd: The Invisible Man Returns (Joe May, 1940) March 16th: The Inv...

I kind of knew who Paul Weston was, but never really paid attention to his work until I bought the album "Music for the Fireside" at Goodwill. You know it was completely for the cover art, which depicts flame-hands conducting music for a young couple on a loveseatt. Or possibly casting some kind of evil fire spell over them. You can hear the record on YouTube:     Paul Weston and His Orchestra were famous in the 1950s for "mood music" records on the Capitol label. Over at RCA, there were also themed albums ("Music for Dining," "Music for Reading," and so son) but the Weston LPs were strictly for romance.  The cover for "Music for Sweethearts" has us peeking in at the young couple trhrough a keyhole. That's not weird or anything.    In that strange time after the Second World War ended and as the Korean conflict had sent American soldiers overseas again -- and just before the earliest rock-and-roll and doo-wop hits, Paul Weston had a...

This modern suspense story, in audio form with slideshow, is moving right along. Here's the newest episode.  And below it you will find the summary I did around the Episode 20, so if you would like to jump in where we are right now, you can get caught up quick.     The story so far:     

One of the more intriguing box sets in my collection is one that provoked some soul-searching before it was released in 2020. It’s The Harry Smith B-Sides , a collection of vintage music created by flipping over eighty-one of the eighty-four 78s that collector Harry Smith included in his ground-breaking  Anthology of American Folk Music , released in 1952. According to the booklet in the  B-Sides  box, the idea of a Harry Smith B-sides project had been around for a while. Lance Ledbetter of Dust-To-Digital – the label that released the box set – says in a piece in the booklet that he began working on the idea of collecting digital copies of all eighty-four flip sides in 2004 or so but ran into trouble finding several of the old records. (Because Ledbetter already owned the 1997 CD edition of the original  Anthology , he already owned a few of the flips, as in 1952, Smith included both the A- and B- sides of four of the 78s he used to create his collection.) But Ledbe...

  It's a photoblog this week. Cute houses near me. I share plenty of photos of swanky Naples and they are beautiful. But here are some 'real deal', regular homes in Bonita Springs, an up and coming small beach town between Naples and Ft. Myers. They are 10 minutes driving to the beach, and the cost of any of these is over $400,000. Owners are probably struggling with property taxes. Gentrification. There are more than a few here I would like to live in.

Yes, there is still life in the Still Life series… As we said in the last still life blog, it was once considered the lowest art form; this is complete nonsense when we see the variety & accomplishment on a list such as today’s. Whether the subjects are abstracted or the artist has gone for super reality, they all have something about them. I’ve gone for variety as well as quality here. They tell us more about the artist too: buttoned-up, free & easy or incredibly controlling…? Of course the artists might be using their works to obfuscate; nevertheless, with such actions they are revealed… Louis le Brocquy (1916-2012),  Study of Fruit Ask me which of these entries I would keep if I had the chance & this would be in my top two. I love all the le Brocquy paintings I’ve had the chance to see - they’re even more remarkable in person. Abstracted enough to make the viewer take another close look, they’re still recognisably fruits & I do love the way he blurs the edges to ...

  Still one more weekday to go in it, but it's been a wearing week for me. I'm already tired, and am hoping to somehow manage to both accomplish some things during this final (paid) work day of the week, and to make it to the weekend with more of a remaining charge than what I'll need to make dinner.     A couple quick notes: Tuesday night NBC launched their revival of Night Court , airing the first two episodes. (I caught them the following day over on Peacock.) The only alumnus from the original series is John Laroquette, reprising his role as attorney Dan Fielding. He appears to have stepped almost effortlessly back into the role, while also folding in some character development from the years between then and now; they didn't belabor it, but we learn that in the years between he'd loved and ultimately lost, and that his air of disdain for humanity, which used to be based in shallowness, is now used as a protective armor.        M...