Idiot's Delight

"There are three essential Commandments:

Respect the Elders.

Embrace the New.

Encourage the Impractical and Improbable,

Without Bias."

           -David Fricke

Every Saturday night at eight o'clock Vin Scelsa says those words. For years I planned my Saturday nights around his radio show, Idiot's Delight, which is broadcast on WFUV radio out of Fordham University in the Bronx (and sometimes out of Vin's home "Studio V", in Montclair, New Jersey). He plays "old-style freeform radio"--the most brilliant sets of music I've ever heard. In one set you might hear Nina Simone, Boz Scaggs, YoYo Ma, Charlie Parker, Jay Z, The Wizard of Oz soundtrack, Bruce Springsteen and the Staple Singers. Or Duke Ellington, Van Morrison, Lucinda Williams, Feist, The Beatles, and Cannonball Adderly. Or Ryan Adams, Tom Waits, Annie Lennox, The Ramones, Bob Dylan, and Topol singing Fiddler on the Roof.

It's not just the music though. It's his voice, his words, his mind--the long, interesting, comforting, thoughtful, discursive monologues. Very intimate. I swear it's like hanging out with a good friend. And he has the best live interviews ever. His guests hang out for three or four hours, chatting and playing music. Most  are musicians and authors. I've heard Richard Price, Rosanne Cash, Paul Auster, Lou Reed, Tim Robbins, Norah Williams, Myla Goldberg, and many others. You can hear many of the interviews here.

When we moved from New Jersey to Boston three years ago, one of the things I was most distressed about was leaving behind WFUV, which has many great shows, including Pete Fornatele's Mixed Bag, Rita Houston's Whole Wide World, and The Thistle and Shamrock with Fiona Ritchie. But it was losing Idiots Delight that broke my heart. Lucky for me, I eventually figured out that I can get FUV streaming live on my computer, and so once again Vin keeps me company on Saturday nights. Many of the shows are also archived and available on satellite radio, but there's nothing quite like hearing his deep, soothing voice live from the Bronx or Studio V. Saturday nights, from 8-12. 

Purple Day

In 2008, nine year-old Cassidy Megan of Nova Scotia Canada, started an international grassroots movement to raise epilepsy awareness. Learn about  Cassidy, epilepsy and Purple Day here.

January 20, 2009

America. I just love the way Aretha sings things this. What a day. 

What a hat!

Holiday notes and a New York fairy tale

We have a foot of snow and more falling, here in Massachusetts. Tonight is the longest night of the year, so it's a good time for light. I've strung the Christmas lights on the tree and bought candles for the menorah. I'm going to bake gingerbread. Tonight we'll have a fire in the fireplace and watch the Giants crush the Panthers in the windy Meadowlands. That last clause doesn't fit the holiday spirit does it? Oh well. Holiday music streams from my laptop courtesy of NPR music and WFUV. There is a marvelous movie in the theatres (and available on On Demand if you have it) called A Christmas Tale (Un Conte de Noel). It's French, subtitled and almost three hours long, about a sprawling, gorgeous dysfunctional family. (Catherine Deneuve plays the matriarch.) An American movie with the same characters and plot would be awful--sentimental and antiseptic, but this movie is a wonder. I've watched it twice, and will watch it again. Every year I read Dylan Thomas's A Child's Christmas in Wales--a gorgeous mash of words--his memories of the "wool-white bell-tongued ball of holidays resting at the rim of the carol-singing trees."  Here are the Pogues and Kristy McColl singing the lovely melancholy 

                        Fairytale of New York

Favorite sports books

I love these books, and you don't need to be a sports fan to enjoy them.

Good Enough to Dream, by Roger Kahn is his story of a season with the Utica Blue Sox of the New York-Penn League (as president and part-owner). They are a team of undrafted players and cast-offs from other minor league teams, players with strong arms and big dreams. Kahn is a lyrical writer and wonderful storyteller. Good Enough to Dream is funny and sweet and entertaining. I am shocked to see that it may be out of print, but there are plenty available used, and at the library, and you really should read it! Kahn is also the author of the classic The Boys of Summer.

The Last Best League, by Jim Collins, is the story of another baseball summer--this time on Cape Cod. The best college players come to compete in the very competitive and highly regarded Cape Cod Baseball League, where the teams are sponsored by small towns and businesses, and the players live with local families and work in places like the fish market and CVS. Collins focuses on several players and one coach on the Chatham A's, and I found myself really caring about them and rooting for them.

The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game, by Michael Lewis. One thing the books I'm writing about here have in common is that they are human interest stories; they feature an individual or small group of individuals who you get to know intimately. This book about the evolution of the left tackle--the player who protects the quarterback's blind side. Lewis's in-depth exposition and analysis are fascinating, and this book would hold up even without the human interest angle, but he also gives us the compelling story of a black high school prodigy from the roughest streets in Memphis, who is taken in by a wealthy white family and sent to a private Christian high school, opening the door to issues of class, race, education, and religion which Lewis explores with the skill of an investigative journalist. You should also read Lewis's Moneyball.

I read Friday Night Lights by H.G. Bissinger before it was a movie or a TV show and it knocked me out. Bissinger spent a year in Odessa, Texas, a town obsessed with high school football, chronicling the team and the town that identifies itself through the team. A great book that is about a lot more that football.

And a shout-out to  the dark and funny North Dallas Forty, to Roger Angell's 

New Yorker columns on baseball, and the Best American Sports Writing series.

President-Elect Barack Obama

~November 4, 2008


Lots of photos and three sweet opinion pieces to look at while we're digesting and savoring this amazing moment in history:

Election night reaction photos

America Has Cracked Open - Rebecca Traister

The Right Stuff - Garrison Keillor

Obama & Biden family slideshow, election night

Photo reactions from around the world

Newspaper covers from around the world

Morning in America - Eugene Robinson

Biker Poets & Walt Whitman

When I was studying poetry in graduate school, they didn't tell us about the Highway Poets Motorcycle Club. Serious about riding and writing, these folks have read at the Howl Festival in Tompkins Square Park and Harvard Square's Club Passim.  Even the Boston Globe knows about them. Visit their website for a daily baiku (just like haiku, but instead of cherry blossoms they invoke the biker life). Read their anthology, Rubber Side Down. Will one of them be the new Walt Whitman?

 I Hear America Singing

by Walt Whitman

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,

Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand
singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning, or
at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of
the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day--at night the party of young fellows,
robust, friendly,

Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.