This post will be a mess. Eventually I’ll clean it up.
2Wicky by Hooverphonic (released in 1996) is one of those unforgettable songs with a strange and unforgettable music video. From the Wiki article about a New Stereophonic Sound Spectacular, I read that it contained two amazing samples: the first from Isaac Hayes’ 12 minute Walk On By (YT) (on his 1969 album Hot Buttered Soul (W)), which itself was a jazz-psychedelic arrangement of a famous Burt Bacharach song. The second sample came from a French avante-garde piece by Pierre Henry called “La Voile D’orphee” (YT)
From A StackExchange Q&A about the song:
4:20 | Raymond Geerts: Well, I still remember, one day Alex called me and said “Dude, I’ve found an incredible sample, you have to come over, because I’m making as song with it.”
4:30 | RG: That was truly a wonderful moment. Unbelievable.
4:35 | [on screen: 1969 Isaac Hayes – Walk on By] [music]
4:37 | Alex Callier: It was an Isaac Hayes song, but it was a cover from [did not understand], it was Walk on By.
[music]
4:47 | AC: And we sampled that song at the intro to Walk on By of Isaac Hayes.
[music]
4:58 | Esther Lybeert: That sample arrived and the lyrics originated by the synthesizer that was standing there. The words ‘Prophet 60091, SH10151’, they were simply those boxes that were standing there. That’s how it started, basically.
Before I talk about the wonderful song and f video, I noticed that there was an earlier live version by Esther Lybeert. Before they signed their music deal with Sony, the band brought in another singer Liesje Sadonius who performed the canonical studio version of the song.
Actually though the live version by Lybeert performed at Prettig Gestoord in 1996 was also pretty extraordinary, and the group used longer more chaotic samples and instrumentals, Also, they used a darker sci fi video backdrop.
2Wicky (2006 live version, also by Geike, looking sexy and sultry as hell). This version is extraordinary because it doesn’t use any samples — just live strings, keyboard & drums. Start at 24:15
2Wicky (2025 Live Version by Geike Arnaert, who is also outstanding). Start at 1:12:00
I noticed that my college writing instructor Robert Flynn is 94 today. Quite randomly I stumbled upon a personal essay which my college writing teacher Robert Flynn (Home, W) had published in the Houston Chronicle in 1998. It is a beautiful essay, and I am reposting it here to celebrate Robert Flynn’s 94th birthday. See also my 2007 audio interview with Robert Flynn. Editorial Note: In the middle of the essay, It appears that the digital version might be missing a sentence. I will look up the original essay and try to rectify that. Stay Tuned. RJN
Robert Flynn, 2008, Picture by Robert Nagle, (Source: WIkipedia)
Quest of a hoe hand – He began digging for universal truths as a young writer in Chillicothe, Texas – and he’s still at it. March 15, 1998 | Houston Chronicle (TX) By ROBERT FLYNN; Novelist Robert Flynn is writer in residence at Trinity University in San Antonio. | Page: 8 | Section: TEXAS MAGAZINE
To be a writer in Texas is to have your eyes opened to truth and beauty. A friend and I were standing in the cotton field one day. It was one of those 100-degree North Texas days when the hot wind blows – and the wind always blows, and it always blows either hot or cold. And the only thing there is to move is sand. And the sand moves every time the wind blows. We were leaning on our hoes, and way off in the distance we could see a pickup truck going down a country road and leaving a cloud of dust behind it. We must have stood there, transfixed, for 10 or 15 minutes, just admiring that cloud of dust on the horizon. My friend said, “Ain’t that the prettiest thing you ever saw?” It was my introduction to beauty.
My introduction to truth was not so dramatic. My grandmother was born in Vermont in 1842. That was the year the Webster-Ashburton Treaty was signed between the United States and England settling the boundary of Canada west of Lake Superior. She married my grandfather who was an Irish immigrant and followed him to Texas where he helped build the Fort Worth and Denver Railroad. Grandmother bore him three sons, all born at a constantly moving end of the track. Near Chillicothe my grandfather bought a piece of land. A few years later, in 1897, he was murdered. Grandmother hung on to that piece of land and she doomed her children to do the same.
Every day both going and coming from the two-room country school I attended, I had to cross over the railroad tracks my grandfather helped to lay. And in both directions the tracks ran as far as the eye could see. A few miles to the east and we would have been in an oil field. A few miles west and we would have been on land good for nothing but running cows and chasing jack rabbits. Slowly the truth appeared on the horizon. My grandfather had been tricked into buying the only place in 20 miles
The cotton field is one of the great classrooms of life. Put a young man in a cotton field, place a sack on his back or a hoe in his hand, and right away his thoughts will turn to truth and beauty. A far-off look will come into his eye. Put a young man in a cotton field and he will take up prayer. “Lord, if you will just get me out of this- I will never again as long as I live look at the women’s underwear in the Sears catalog.”
It was in the cotton field that I first learned the power of the English language. I had a girlfriend who chopped cotton with me. She was called a hoe hand. I know because my mother told me. As I stood there all alone in the cotton field – my girlfriend had been sent home because I used the wrong word – it came to me like a flash of light that if the wrong word like hoer had the power to move my mother to such action, just think what using the right word – like hoe hand – could accomplish.
That was when I first got the notion of being a writer. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. We didn’t go in much for writing at the country school I attended. Writing was something that was done by weirdos and other New Yorkers. Real men studied penmanship. We made little push-pull lines all over the page. And row after row of spirals. It was called the Palmer Method and was invented during the Spanish Inquisition as a means of turning boys from writers to pray-ers. “Lord, if you will just get me out of this I will never touch another pencil. And I will never again drop my eraser and try to look up Myrtle Bailey’s dress.”
But we knew what a writer was. A writer was somebody who was dead. And if he was any good he had been dead a long time. And if he was real good, people killed him. They killed him with hemlock. Hemlock was the Greek word for Freshman Composition.
The country school I attended was closed and we were bused to Chillicothe. Chillicothe had a teacher who had seen England. From a boat. She had discovered truth and beauty from eight miles offshore and had come to Chillicothe to share her vision with picturesque rustics. With some timidity I confessed that I too hankered after truth and beauty.
Chillicothe is small. Chillicothe is so small there’s only one Baptist church. Chillicothe is so small you have to go to Quanah to have a coincidence. For a good coincidence you have to go to Vernon.
Chillicothe was fairly busting with truth and beauty and my teacher encouraged me to write about it.
I decided to write about my father. My father, the youngest of three sons, was born in a boxcar at the end of the track that has since come to be called Chillicothe, Texas, thus becoming the first born in my hometown. The boxcar served as the station house for the railroad and was, with the exception of a dugout that served as a store, the only building in town. I wrote that my father was born in the finest house in Chillicothe.
My teacher told me to write something that had an epiphany. For an epiphany you had to go all the way to Wichita Falls.
I wrote about Delmer Lance’s pet heifer, Snuggles. Snuggles was raised on a bottle and was as friendly as you’d want a heifer to be. Until Delmer locked her in the barn with his range bull, Bradley. The next morning, Snuggles was gone. Also the barn door. The top rail off the fence.
Delmer chased the cow all over the country but Snuggles went wild as a new rope. One night Delmer was driving down the highway and ran into Snuggles. Delmer said he recognized her when she passed over the windshield by the puzzled look on her face. That was an epiphany. I spent half my life thinking I could recognize a bad girl by the puzzled look on her face.
My teacher said to write about something that had happened to me. I wrote about the year there was a blizzard and everybody from the two-room country school – two teachers, 38 pupils and three adults who had sought refuge in the school – had to walk two miles through the snow to our house to spend the night. I remembered it because that was the day my father came home with 400 baby chickens and it was so cold we had to keep them in the house. All over the house it was butts and feathers.
Forty-two chickens were squashed in the linoleum. Three drowned in the chamber pot. One was crushed when Ed Byars put on his boots. When Mother lighted the gas oven 13 went up like a torch. Three more were scorched so bad that Dad threw them out in the snow. Ed Byars spent the rest of his life minus the end of his nose because he preferred frostbite to the smell of singed chicken feathers.
My teacher said I didn’t know the first thing about truth or beauty. I promised to go to England the first chance I got. Or at least Korea. She loaned me books that were not available in the Wilbarger County Library, books that had been written by real writers.
Real writers wrote about such things as I had never heard of. Damsels. Splendor falling on castle walls. For splendor we had to go to the Fort Worth Fat Stock Show. Since I wasn’t overly familiar with damsels and splendor, I tried reading what real writers wrote about rural life. “Dear child of nature, let them rail. There is a nest in a green vale.” Which was pretty mystifying to me. I remember asking Bubba Spivey, “Don’t writers get chiggers like everybody else?”
I set out looking for a green vale to make a nest in and when I got there I found out what made it so green. When it comes to vales, a cow will get ahead of you every time.
I wrote a story that contained the wisdom of the world in eight poetic pages of arcane words and mysterious imagery full of towers, turrets and spires. My teacher loved it. She had never met a symbol she didn’t like.
Assured of success, I went to college to become a writer. I knew what I wanted. I wanted to reveal the false hopes, the futile dreams, the fleeting victories, the glorious visions, the hidden desires, the sudden and secret joys, that bind us into one humanity. I wanted to refine the language, to explore the avenues of communication, to stretch the limits of understanding, to probe the mysteries and futilities and glories of man, to heal his broken spirit, to restore his sense of purpose, to discover the nature of beauty and truth, and to sell it to the movies for a million dollars. After which I intended to marry a movie star and move to Paris, Texas. Or at least Commerce.
My instructor told me the way to find truth and beauty was to write about heroes and villains, good people vs. bad people. The best people I knew did bad things, and the worst people I knew did good things. We weren’t heroes or villains, we were just puzzled. How could I write about the people I knew when I was attending a college that did not approve of dancing? Smoking. Swearing. Drinking. Dating members of the opposite sex. Dating members of the same sex. I used to pray, “Lord, if you will just get me out of college I will never be a Christian again.”
We were told to write a love story containing truth and beauty. I was petrified. I had never seen a moat or a moor. I had never known a knight or a knave. I was the only great lover I knew. The only time I came close I began nuzzling the girl’s ear and lost my chewing gum in her hair. It was Bazooka bubble gum and I hadn’t gotten all the sweet out of it. I spent the next hour and 45 minutes alternating between kissing her eyes and frisking her scalp, and holding my hands over her eyes while chewing her hair. Her mother called her three times before my jaws came unstuck.
I wrote about a boy and a girl. He is true. She is innocent. They have found a nest in a green glade. They smoke a Salem. They speak of truth and beauty.
I threw the story away. I wrote about a boy and a girl. The boy is generally true. The girl is relatively innocent. They find a meadow. The sun is hot, the wind roughens their complexion. They smell of sweat and Salem cigarettes. He speaks of love with some truth. She has a puzzled look on her beautiful face.
I tore up the pages. A boy and a girl. He is a bastard. She is a bitch. They are lying in a pasture among cow dung. Scratching chigger bites. The blazing sun raises blisters on his back. He has a herpes on his lip. She has bologna breath. He whispers obscenities into her ear. He loses his gum in her hair. It is Fleers bubble gum and still has some of the sweet in it. Her mother calls. He gnashes his teeth.
I tore my hair.
I wrote about Bud Tabor. Bud was a married man, and Sherry McIlroy’s father shot him through Box 287. Ed McIlroy was the postmaster and when Bud came in to get his mail, Ed stuck a pistol in the open end of the box and shot Bud in the eye. Ed was a conscientious man and he waited until Bud opened the box and looked inside so as not to deface government property.
They never found Bud Tabor’s eye. Buried him without it. They fixed him up with a glass eye for the funeral, but Sherry and Bud’s wife got in an argument over who got to keep it as a souvenir. Sherry won. Put it on a chain and wore it hanging down between her breasts. Folks used to say Bud may have gone to hell but his eye went to heaven. Some folks’ idea of heaven is mighty small. Larger on one side than the other.
My instructor said it was not a love story.
Delmer Lance had some sheep but they developed an unnatural affection for an old yellow dog. They followed the dog wherever it went. No pen could hold them for long, and once they were on his trail, the dog couldn’t shake them. In desperation the dog ran away from home, the sheep right behind him.
From time to time the dog and sheep would show up at someone’s tank or feed trough, the dog looking gaunt and haunted eyed, the sheep looking all unraveled. Elmer Spruill shot the dog. Elmer said he couldn’t stand the puzzled look in the dog’s eyes.
My instructor said there was no beauty, no truth and no moral.
Lowell Byars came to the county with his wife, Lou. They lived in a dugout and poor-boyed, working as long as there was light to see. There was no time for visiting neighbors or going to church, just day after day of chopping weeds and carrying water, with nothing to eat but biscuits and gravy, and nothing but the gritty quilts Lou’s mother had given them to sleep on.
The roof of the dugout caved in during a rainstorm, they were dispossessed for two days by a skunk, the crops blew away in a sandstorm. But Lou stuck it out, and if she cried of loneliness or despair it was when Lowell was away from the dugout. One morning Lowell got up early as usual and said, “Get dressed, Lou, we’re going to Quanah to see the Mollie Bailey show.”
Lowell milked the cow, fed the mules, hitched the wagon, and when he got back to the dugout he had to fix breakfast. Lou was still brushing her hair. They drove to Quanah and watched the wagons come in, drawn by elephants. They looked in the store windows and stared at the crowd of people in town. They drank lemonade and had a supper of sardines and crackers and saw the show and it was over, time to get in the wagon and start for home.
It was a long way back to the dugout and Lowell knew he would have to get up early the next morning to make up for the work he had missed but he didn’t care. The moon was bright, a thousand stars twinkled in the sky, and he had shown his wife a sight. Lowell felt pleased with himself.
“It ain’t so terrible being married to me, is it?” he asked Lou who was sitting silent and sleepless beside him. Lou began to cry. She cried all the way home. She cried all night. When he got up the next morning she stopped crying to fix his breakfast, but she wouldn’t speak to him for three more days until he cut his hand heading red top maize and she had to ask how he was.
Lowell promised to take her to the Christmas dance and rather than disappoint her they drove 15 miles in an open wagon in the face of a norther. Lou danced every set of the all night dance. She went home with a fever, took pneumonia and died of frivolity.
I had found a story with a moral but I also found it wasn’t easy writing about people I knew. I got all puzzled. I didn’t know what was beautiful, and what was foolish, and where truth lay. Was Lou Byars a silly girl unsuited for a rugged country? Was she the innocent victim of a foolish dream? Or was she a tragic heroine who knew that the quality of life was not measured by the years endured in twilight, but by the moments spent in the candle’s flame?
Ideas are neat. You can outline an idea. You can label an idea. Ideas don’t bleed. They don’t cry. They don’t blame you for their unhappiness. They don’t die of frivolity. But a person has many faces. Some of them are vain, and some are foolish, and many are secret.
It looked like for truth and beauty you had to cross Red River. All I knew about was a little place called Chillicothe. And it wasn’t even the Chillicothe that was on the map. It was a little place I called Wanderer Springs that existed only in my mind. And all I had to go by was my grandmother who died at the age of 90 the year I was born, and that my father was born in a boxcar at the end of the track. Would truth and beauty as I wrote it stand up against the reality of my grandmother? Would my
I wrote the love story of Grover and Edna Turrill. When he was 16 Grover had married Edna, at the request of both families.
Grover’s father gave them a milk cow, and Edna’s father gave them a steer. Grover yoked them together and started to California. It was his promise to Edna.
They crossed Red River and stopped near Preston where Edna had a baby boy with no one to help her but Grover. They started again as soon as she was able to travel, Edna and the baby in the wagon, and Grover walking beside the wagon, prodding the ox and milk cow, and picking up firewood.
One day Edna placed the sleeping baby in the back of the wagon and got out to walk beside the cow. Grover found a tree stump and not knowing the baby was in the back of the wagon, he threw in the stump, killing his child. Some cowboys found them, two teen-agers traveling across the prairie with a dead baby wrapped in a quilt. The cowboys buried the child.
Grover and Edna were still on their way to California when the milk cow died near Wanderer Springs. They lived in the wagon while Grover broke the land with the steer and planted a crop. Later they built a house and had two more children. When Billo was 12 he went hunting on Wanderer Creek with some older boys. They ran a coon up a dead tree, and Billo was sent up the tree to shake the coon down. A pile of brush had been washed up under the tree and the older boys set it afire so that Billo could see. The dead tree caught fire and Billo was burned so he couldn’t lie down and Edna and Grover took turns holding him the four days it took him to die.
A few years later, when Polly was 13, she complained of a stomachache. Polly wasn’t fat, but like Edna, she was slope-shouldered, solid and a good eater. When she was unable to eat breakfast, Grover hitched up the wagon, made a pallet in the back, and with Edna to comfort Polly, they started for the doctor in Wanderer Springs, several miles away. The wagon had no springs, the road was just a set of ruts across the prairie, and Polly whimpered the whole way although Grover drove as slowly as he dared.
When they got to Wanderer Springs, they found that Dr. Vestal had been called out of town. Over near Medicine Hill, folks thought, expected to be gone all day. Polly was too sick to wait so they started for Medicine Hill, sending word ahead by Buster Bryant who volunteered to carry the message.
It was August and the sun was hot and Polly cried out at every bump, so Edna stood and held a quilt to shade her, and Grover drove the mules as fast as he dared. They met Buster Bryant who had missed Dr. Vestal somehow. The doctor was on his way to Bull Valley. Grover turned the mules toward Bull Valley with Buster racing ahead.
Dr. Vestal had left Bull Valley for Red Top. Buster rode to head off the wagon. The mules had played out and Grover was walking beside them to lighten the load. Edna was standing with her feet spread, holding the solid little girl in her arms, trying to absorb the bumps and shocks of the wagon with her own body. Buster told them to go home. He would find Dr. Vestal and meet them there.
It was almost dark when the wagon got back home and Buster and the doctor were waiting. Edna was sitting beside Grover holding Polly who was so big she lay across both their laps. The mules stopped of their own accord and neither Grover nor Edna made a move to get down. Dr. Vestal started to the wagon but Grover said, “I don’t want you to touch her. We’ve been praying for you all day and listening to her die. I know it ain’t your fault, but I don’t want to see you now.”
Buster stayed with the Turrills although he didn’t dare go in the house. He unhitched the mules and fed them and sat out on the porch. After a while Grover came out. He sat on the porch and stared at the dark, empty, treeless miles over which he had ridden that day, listening to the shriek of the wagon wheels and the dying cries of his last child.
After a while Edna came out also and learned against the porch post, hugging the porch post as though it were a child, her head hanging down a little as though permanently bent from ironing clothes and chopping cotton. She waited while the last light of day faded and one by one the stars came out, watching the prairie that under moonlight had a sheen like a silent sea.
“If that cow hadn’t died, we’d be in California,” Grover said.
“Old Boss,” Edna said, remembering the name over all the years, recalling the dreams they had shared as they traveled across the prairie in the wagon.
“Damn country,” Grover said. “Washes away every time it rains. Blows away every time there’s a wind. Hail or grasshoppers every damn year. Hot as hell or cold as hell. Flood or drought. Too dry to plant, too wet to plow – “
“Yeah,” Edna said, nodding her head in the darkness. “But ain’t it purty.”
Truth in the mythical kingdom of Wanderer Springs was neither comic nor tragic, neither big nor eternal. And it was revealed through the lives of common folk who belched and fornicated, and knew moments of courage, and saw beauty in their meager lives.
But Grover Turrill gave me some problems. Some readers thought the vocabulary was offensive. I could not write about the people I knew without using the vocabulary they knew. My father did not believe a cowboy said “golly bum” when a horse ran him through a barbwire fence.
I went to see Clifford Huff. Clifford was a horseshoer and he had been kicked, bitten or stepped on by every horse in the county. It gave him an extensive vocabulary. I asked Clifford the worst words he knew. He said they were “yes and no.” He had said yes when his wife, Letty, asked him if he was playing around and he had said no when she asked him if the gun was loaded. They had been married 33 years when Letty shot him once through the pantry and twice up the stairs.
Words are not casual things. They are powerful. Even explosive. Words can start wars, or families. Words can wound, they can shock and offend. Words can also heal, and explain, and give hope and understanding. Words have an intrinsic worth, and there is pride and delight in using the right word. Anyone who chops cotton with an axe is a hoer.
I don’t know whether or not Travis drew a line at the Alamo. Maybe that story is myth. I do know that every writer draws the line. Must draw the line. Whether he is dealing with teachers, advisers, well-wishers, editors, publishers, critics or the public. This is my kingdom. These are my people. I know them better than anybody. They will not jump through hoops for the amusement of casual readers. They will not temper their speech for prudish ears. I may not respond the way they do, but I respect them for what they are. And that’s where I draw the line.
I wrote a book about people my grandmother would have spoken to, and they used words my father would have believed. A few people heard of it. Fewer read it. My closest friends bought it. And loaned it out. After a while the book disappeared from bookstores to make room for a best seller written by a man who had never met an adverb he didn’t like. It was about an oil-patch hooker who falls in love with a Soviet spy but turns him over to the CIA to save the Battleship Texas from being stolen by Sandinistas. When it comes to writing, hoers have it all over hoe hands.
But I had already turned down the next row. Writing is a lot like chopping cotton. It’s a long way to the end of the row, and when you get there, there’s always another row to turn down. A friend was disturbed that I was spending so much time at something so unrewarding. “There’s no money in it,” he said. I couldn’t argue with that. “There’s more fame in selling used cars. There’s more fun in running a gas pump.” I didn’t argue with him because he was right.
I just kept chopping on down the row, knowing when I got to the end of it, there would be another row to turn down. And another. And another. And as the day wore on it wouldn’t get any easier. Maybe it wouldn’t get any better. Perhaps no one would come out to the field to see if I was still working. I might not even hear the dinner bell. It didn’t matter. He thought I was a hoer. But I am a hoe hand.
Of course, the big news is that Asha Bhosle died last week (Obit, W). Here’s a fun and catchy song “Sanam Tum Jahan” from the 1981 movie Kaalia (with dance moves and lipsyncing from Parveen Babi).
I was looking up something on my old Music Discoveries columns, and I realized how fun and revealing they were to read. Really, I just dash these things off, but it always manages to have fun stuff.
1965 Update
I still am focused relentlessly on cultural artefacts from the 1965 period, and added a few musical things.
Absolutely delighted that the wacky Bollywood dance number Jaan Pehchan Ho from the 1965 film Gumnaam (YT) Of course, the tune is very familiar to me, and I remembered that it appeared in the recent US movie Ghost World. I think I will watch Gumnaam eventually.
I just realized that the avante-garde jazz label ESP-Disk was really busy in the mid 1960s, and I in fact bought a a number of their albums a few years ago. Here’s their discography. Sonny Simmons, Burton Green Quartet, Sun Ra, etc.
Eurovision Coverage
EUROVISION FOR AMERICANS: For the first time ever, Americans will be able to watch the Eurovision finals on YouTube without being geo-blocked. The finals start Saturday at 2 PM CST & lasts 3 hours. (PS, also streamable on Peacock).
These German twins (the Kessler Sisters) made a splash in the 1959 Eurovision contest. (YT) They became a hit in the USA as frequent guest on 60s TV shows like the Ed Sullivan Show, singing with Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, Perry Como, etc. Here’s their lavish dance number Quando Quando (for Italian TV?)
ELECTROSWING AT EUROVISION: I’ll say more about the competition later (overall: terrific!), but I was blown away by the noncompeting interval act — an electroswing song by Austrian DJ & producer Parov Stelar — with stellar singing from Moldovan-Bulgarian Elena Karafizi (who is on Bandcamp btw). I just love it!
All singers in Eurovision were outstanding — really! But often the songs themselves were not particularly memorable. The winner’s song (Bulgaria) was certainly memorable (and infectious!), but so were songs from Israel, France, Poland, Cyprus, Italy, etc. I just love Sal Da Vinci’s traditional pop song with an elegant disco sensibility. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNpFNJLhSfA
Of course, Dara (Bulgaria) had a great, funny & iconic & infectious song, Bangaranga (YT) But the choreography with chairs was incredible — and I noticed only later that the stage crew spun the room around. She definitely channels the energy of Ruslana, Netta & Verka Serduchka. It’s so great that (finally!) a Balkan country will be hosting next year. Here’s the original music video (not live) which is equally great.
Fans are Gaga about the Bangaranga song, but watching how they staged it without slipups is also incredible (YT)
OLDER STUFF BY DARA: Here’s a catchy 2019 song “Darbie” by Eurovision winner Dara. (YT) Some of her YouTube vids were already racking up millions of hits long before Eurovision brought her to the public spotlight.
Here’s an amazing 1992 Nirvana concert they did in Buenos Aires (YT) at the height of their fame. Their opening act
Articles and Interviews
Related: here’s the 2025 winner of Innervision (Russia’s Eurovision clone). Song was average, but maybe I’m not Asian enough for it.
The news about a new Eurovision for Asia really blew my mind. 10 countries have signed up so far. The first competition will be November 2026. I would bet that at least Japan or Indonesia will sign up before the deadline.
Several albums by feminist and pop cellist Unwoman. That includes IF YOUR RAGE CAN’T BE BEAUTIFUL (the most recent) and Desire Paths (which she calls her best). As part of a duet called Beauty Queen Autopsy, she made an album called Lotharia a while back. All good stuff.
Kharybdis by syn.terra (Home) Instrumental atmospheric jazz by a NY composer Sam Lerner. Upbeat and melodic instrumental rock whose brassiness recalls the KPM tracks from the 1970s. Also Mechanical Jazz,
R202RB by Raidio Tony. Jazzy guitar jam sessions loosely based on classic rock styles. Aha, this is AI music..
Horizons by Brian Jo. St. Louis singer-songwriter.
Concierto de evocación sonora para conjunto instrumental by Senogul. Remarkable experimental Spanish 2008 jazz-rock album from the Astronomy Recording Music label.
Northern Kingdoms by VA (Fangorn). Compilation of “Dungeon Synth” recordings, which sound like traditional British Tolkeinesque melodies with a synthesizer. This slightly resembles early Doctor Who music, but it is always melodically interesting.
ELECTRONIC. Vol. 1: Digital Time Paradox by Michael HERTER. Herter is a German electronic composer who creates a lot of instrumentals suitable for content creators (filmmakers, game designers, etc). So they are not exactly earth-shattering, but they are pleasant enough.
Little Epiphanies by the Kind Hills. Laid back slacker pop by a Brisbane band consisting of people from different countries. “In a series of subtle shifts, this international indie-pop collective presents a work that conveys the dull ache of lost love without unnecessary embellishment. It also offers a remedy to such pain as ‘simple pleasures’, an argument it conveys through an unhurried, unfettered, jangly indie-pop that never strays into the fluffier realms of contrition.”
A Curious Collection by Old Moth Dreams. Slow and dark ambient album labeled “dungeon synth.” Good sleep music; it’s ponderous but straightforward. “It is macabre, yes. It is unpredictable, certainly. It is schizophrenic fun from a parallel crypt—the sort of delirious sonic artifact you find only once in a lifetime, trembling in your hands, wondering how it got here… and why it seems to be breathing.”
11 Songs by Liberty Belle. Jangle-pop from French singer Jean-Francois Cantot. “a heartfelt homage to The Go-Betweens.”
Youtubey/Podcasty Things
Here’s a rare 60s recording by Curt Boettcher (who went on to start several sunny California bands).
College students would steal and hoard their parents’ copies of his records. As it stands, Boettcher — a pop-music producer whose heyday was the late ’60s — now survives in rock history mostly as a liner-note credit. He could have been, but never was. Yet he enjoys a godlike status among a select group of music fans, for whom obscurity is more enticing than fame.
Freegal and Library CDs
Here’s a pretty amazing collection of free/downloadable/streamable 1980s Italo-Disco and Euro-Disco tracks. Euro-Disco provides a fun and semi-mindless listening experience. Cover versions of many synthpop songs, lots of German and Italian singers singing in English (!) and long techno remix sections for just about every song! This treasure trove of 80s music is certainly going to change my generally negative impressions of 80s music.
Happy to see that Freegal has some albums by Dara and Parov Stelar. Also I have been using Freegal to collect some odds and ends from 1965-6.
Ever since I started to listen to a satellite radio station about 1940s music, I have been learning about that decade of music. Turns out archive.org has lots of high quality recordings, some of which appear to be from CDs of earlier albums. I am going to explore them in depth. For now, I merely need to link to this amazing URL which contains tons (and I mean tons!) of 1940s music.
There are two services for finding free bandcamp codes for albums and singles:
Getmusic.fm which allows artists to show FREE coupon codes for albums and singles. (You can also browse by labels and by genre.). Gemusic posts on bluesky preview links + 1 sentence descriptions several times a day. This has a lot of singer/songwriters and more established artists.
Band.codes, which basically does the same thing (but doesn’t charge musicians money). It’s more of a community of fans and artists with a higher percent of electronica/ambient/glitch, etc.
Some Notable Bands and Albums
(All are — or were — Name Your Price. I am putting the most recent finds at the top. These are the ones most likely to still be name-your-price. )
Various albums by Lithuanian ambient/electronic artist Paulius Kilbauskas, who is a Lithuanian composer who often does movie soundtracks (and pseudo-soundtracks like Music for Non-Existent Movies). I recommend Vanduo (which consists of longer ambient pieces. Also check out Elements and some of his live performances.
Various albums by Isaac Martinez.
We Stay Ugly ‘Til the Pretty Decays by Mara Calder. slow, dainty, spooky, moody. Just love this woman’s voice! Terrific & totally unique debut song collection that belongs in a night club or dark musical. Calder’s voice whispers & croons & soars. She brings drama, sadness and beauty to every song. The lyrics are fun & clever & cynical (SAINTS DON’T TIP, LOST PROPERTY OFFICE). Although most songs are slow and deliberate (with subtle piano arrangements), Calder surprises you with upbeat fast-paced numbers (DOORS OPEN, NO QUESTIONS) & angry bombast (IF THIS GOES WRONG, LET IT). A delightful BC gem. Update: Patient Zero EP here.
Unwoman is a prolific singer/cellist/electronica artist Erica Mulkey (Home) from San Francisco whose albums are all priced in the 1-3$ range. She calls her 2023 Desire Paths her best work, Also Beauty Queen Autopsy by Lotharia is a 2015 collaboration between Mulkey and Matt Fanale.
Two by The Nothing: Junk Space and Dekard’s Tale (I really liked Junk Space, which sampled lots of speech and melodies).
Ricco Label of contemporary Japanese label of classical/ambient music. (Artist catalogue). There’s a lot of cool stuff there (I returned the next day to buy several more things). Alas, I am only scratching the surface.
films is a dark fantasy group with two female vocalists. Beautiful textured cinematic sounds. Albums from the early 2010s. Messenger, a Forbidden Garden, plus some others not NYP.
RILF is an “alternative/electronica rock band with a slow mysterious sound. Occasional triphop elements, but mostly overlapping female voices. Ferris Wheel is an earlier eerier sound, while Three Stories for Numbers is post-rock dissonance, with slow sounds alternating with guitar and drum-pounding fury.
Monk Turner. I actually have written a lot (here and here) about this song-writer/producer known for making wacky concept albums. I would start with Emergency Songs (sung mostly by Fascinoma) and God Complex. His 25th Album compilation consists of very early stuff, but is still awesome!
Mutual Aid Fundraiser by FCK Ice. Protest album about ICE. Several songs are great, especially that first one.
Stargazing by Expert Timing. Getalternative.com says in a review: On their perpetually peppy and deeply endearing second LP Stargazing, the Orlando pop-rockers in Expert Timing turn existential pain and personal dread into foot-tapping, body-moving bursts of energy. Fronted by duo Katrina and Jeff Snyder, the endlessly fun songs on Stargazing feel like invitations to dance away the uncertainty — at their best, this band makes it feel like such a thing is possible. I also bought Glare.
11:28 by Dragons & Astronauts. Middle of the road Ohio rock.
Variations on Fripp & Eno’s “Eve… by Cloudland Blue Quartet. Good album in Eno’s style, but it contains a lot of extra (and I would say unnecessary) tracks.
s/t by Namian Sidibe. (Mali) Female singer with melancholy guitar.
At Pioneer Works by Les Filles de Illighadad. 3 female Tuareg singers sing rhythmic, hypnotic songs with guitar. (Niger)
s/t by L’Orchestre National de Mauritania. Long lost recordings from 1968-1975 during a period where a military coup ordered all cultural remnants of the former regime be destroyed.
Zerzura (OST) by Ahmoudou Madassane (Niger). 14 movie tracks. Most begin with 5-15 seconds of natural sounds, followed by the actual music. Described as “Saharan Desert Blues” or psychedelia.
Anou Malane by Abdallah Oumbadougou. (Niger/Benin). Reissue of 1995 studio recording by legendary composer and creator of Tuareg guitar music.
Acturus (DiN 19) by ARC. 2005 release on the UK DiN label. Three live tracks from a trance/EDM performance. I actually love this sound!
Khraniteli 2024 by Blackout Princesses. A collection of one man electronic/synth prog rock/kraut rock. Apparently the composer cleaned up the sound from an earlier release.
RippleFest Texas by Ripple Music label. Recordings from various heavy metal artists during a 2021 concert. Traditional sound with hints of ZZ Top.
Dreams Long Forgotten by Polarcoaster. Downbeat ambient soundscapes by Spanish ambient artist.
Sallaw by Porya Hatami, Aaron Marin, Roberto Altanasio. ($3) I’ve bought albums before of Iranian sound artist Hatami. Four ambient tracks, each representing a different season.
Listen by Tryad has always been one of my top 10 favorite albums of alltime. I interviewed the two people behind this album. Vavrek is a really amazing multi-talented musician and it’s great that he’s produced music for the creative commons community.
Tracing by Richard Chartier. 40 minute minimalist soundscape compared to “strange mist.” From one article: Created initially as his contribution to a mooted duo project with William Basinski, the latter rightly declined to add any contribution to what he insisted was already a finished piece.” (The Wire, UK) RJN: Maybe a little too dull for me.
Jabee (BC, Youtube) is an Oklahoma-based rap singer. Very versatile and has lyrics which tap into calls for social justice.
Gently but Firmly by Joyce Delaney. (Consisting of Chrissy Barnacle and Nyla) NYP Scottish dada-punk duo produces lots of minimalist fun songs with screwy lyrics.
Various NYP EPs by Nyla (from Joyce Delaney). All are minor fun — she plays the ukelele as well as guitar.
Now by 19 Wiosen. NYP. I loved this rock band by this electro-punk album by this Polish group. Surprisingly chill for a punk band that’s been around for 2 decades. Other albums are more raw, not as well put together. This one is terrific. Other albums by 19 Wiosen. Cesarstwo Zwierząt, Piękno, Pożegnanie ze światem.
Two albums by Kekal:Audible Minorityand Autonomy Indonesian Experimental heavy metal. Occasionally it’s too much and too noisy, but this veteran performing group is definitely trying to push the boundaries of what rock music really is. A for effort, unsure if I really sold on it yet.
Tough Love by Hamell on Trial. Songs with an Attitude. Actually about half of his albums are NYP. I really love the guitar jamming; these are real bluesy rock songs! Update: Ok, there’s some bluesy rock, but there’s also punk a la Violent Femmes. Versatile, never know what to expect.
Business Casual (Full Digital Discography of Vaporwave stuff for only $2) This is a gigantic collection, most of which is only so-so, but there are some magical moments in the vaporwave genre.
Hors-Jue by Hinn. France’s answer to the Clash, U2 and the Cure, etc which channels a lot of the same energy and excitement.
Wild Goats and Useless Heroes by Freak Fandango Orchestra. Zany and joyful multi-ethnic Spanish jazz band which probably are incredible live in concert.
Night in Berlin by Acid Carrots. I love the title song (which was also included in That Seventies compilation. Other tracks are so, so, but there’s a lot of promise in this Swedish rock band.
Crescendo by Novanta. Italian synthetic pop. Some of the synth sound is almost glitchy, but still these are interesting, minimalist, meditative songs with some vocals.
Exotic Instrumentals by Junk Shop Guru. Surreal 60s elevator muzak from Hawaii. Junk Shop Guru digitizes/collects a lot of incredibly strange 60s lounge music with themes (Bachelor, Empty Bed Music, etc).
訪問した (Visited) by Rasterphonics. Really strange/cool/soothing vaporwave music by a Denver artist. I also immediately snatched up the equally lovely MegaUpload. Wow, I really need to snatch the other two NYP album as well.
Not Old, Not New by Carsie Blanton. Mostly jazz standards with piano accompaniment. Still lovely. (She has some great original albums on BC — check out Buck Up).
Bloody Winter by Les Becasses. Recent French punk girl pop with great energy and fun.
Sweeter Sounds by the Rurals. (UK 2001) Triphop, EDM with dance grooves and occasional “soul-drenched vocals” (that’s how the band describes it).
Grow by Dendrites. Bombastic Greek heavy metal which is closer to Sammy Hagar or Van Halen than what passes as heavy metal these days.
Kuuhaku by Morimoto Naoki. Slow meditative Zen pieces by Japanese electronic composer.
Coercion of Deities (compilation by Neotantra) . Basically a big compilation of ambient, minimal music.
Broke by Baychimo. Danish drum and bass explorations
Seeing Inside by Serena Gabriel and Steve Roach. New age musician Steve Roach teams up with Gabriel who has a heavely, ethereal voice. Home run.
Albums by Tanya Donnelly (free). Donelly is the half-sister of Kristin Hersh and they both sang wild stuff in the band Throwing Muses, then Donelly moved onto other bands and projects (Breeders and Belly). I’m happy to see a good number of freebies here.
Black Mountain Blue Sea by Many Birthdays. I’ve been following this Austin band for more than 15 years, and only recently learned that John Dixon has been doing a sidegig as an experimental art rock musicmaker. His new group Bass Earth Sun focuses on making experimental instrumental pieces. I’ve only started to listen.
NYP Friendly Labels
(These labels have been known to have NYP specials. Sometimes it’s only for a week, but often it’s longer. I would recommend subscribing to their mailing list/newsletter to stay informed of the latest NYPs.
Project Records has a lot of high quality ambient musicians. They cycle though their NYP albums, and luckily they arrange their discography page so that NYP albums are at the top.
Bandcamp Fridays are usually the best time to find deals; during those designated days, the artist gets an extra percent of payments (BC charges no fees). But musicians are always discounting their albums.
As I mentioned above, I usually search for Name Your Price on my preferred social media (Bluesky) and hope for the best. But that is very hit-and-miss. I pay special attention to artists who are permanently NYP /Creative Commons. About a decade ago I wrote a series of articles (start here!)about creative commons musicians which I found on Jamendo or Archive.org (all are incredible!) Jamendo still has a lot of great stuff — especially on the European side. In the last 5 years I have focused more on Bandcamp, especially after hearing about Name Your Price.
Usually you can put zero in the Name-Your-Price amount on Bandcamp and still download it. The downside is that you have to wait for an email with the download link and that doesn’t get added to your permanent streaming collection. I usually put $1 or its equivalent in the price amount.
But compilations are a different matter. Sometimes these compilations are just ways to promote other artists on the same label or genre. For this reason I have stopped adding an amount for promotional compilations. (Otherwise, I would blow a lot of money on promotions and never have money left over for individual albums). In other cases, when labels are unearthing rare recordings never found elsewhere, I continue my usual habit of contributing $1 for each NYP albums.
Get Music Musical Finds
Get Music is a brand new service where artists voluntarily share coupon codes so that consumers can “purchase” the album without having to pay any money. Obviously, they do this for promotional reasons and hope to receive reviews or newsletter signups or additional purchases. Perhaps this is a pipe dream, but this is a great way for listeners to get exposed to lots of
Getmusic is also a great way to learn about and obtain compilations of all sorts. Here are some getmusic finds:
Two albums by Lunar Isles (from Scotland)
Pondering the Compensation Problem
I have lots of deep thoughts about this matter (and it’s relevant that I am an indie ebook author and publisher who is barely scraping by).
Over the decades we have learned how labels are screwing musicians, how Ticketmaster is screwing musicians and venues and how distribution companies are screwing everybody and how Spotify is screwing distribution companies. At the same time, a lot more music has become available, and personal incomes haven’t exactly been growing exponentially.
So what you do? Just pirate the stuff? Send donations directly to the artist? Buy their goods at concerts? Support only indie musicians? Make sure to write reviews or share your purchases on social media? Check out stuff through the library?
Bandcamp seems to be the best solution for everybody, but that exposes another problem — the unrealistic sense of what the market value of an album is. Sure artists are talented and probably put a lot of effort into producing albums — recording studios and equipment are not cheap. But I recoil at albums that cost $10 or more. It’s very rare that I can afford to drop that much cash for an album. Maybe if I made a lot more money, I might feel differently. Spending $5 for an album is probably my upper limit for most artists I am learning about for the first time.
But a lot of Bandcamp albums are priced well beyond that high price point. It is frustrating. Maybe I just enjoy scraping the bottom of the barrel, but I like to think that my penurious approach to album purchasing allows me to diversify my tastes and find music that most people would otherwise overlook.
If I could make any wish, it’s for all music albums under the sun to be priced at $5 or below. $5 is just the cost of a dozen eggs or a big carton of yogurt or a big tube of toothpaste. So we are used to spending that much money on mundane things.
But music albums (like ebooks) are discretionary purchases and kind of risky too. How do we know that we are going to like this digital thing that much? And how many other musicians and artists and authors are competing for that same slice of your discretionary spending?
In hard economic times, it is tempting to cut down on discretionary spending. On the other hand, it is comforting to know that you are giving your money to a larger group of artists than you would be able to do if album prices were higher.
I probably will write something about Trump’s attack on Iran. I have lots of opinions, none of which are that interesting or well-informed or important. More later.
The acclaimed Iranian director is interviewed on the Daily Show (note: through a translator). Offers perspective of what it is like to try to make movies in a country that forbids him from doing so. (I haven’t seen JUST AN ACCIDENT, but hope to do so in the next week or so). (YT, 20 minutes)
The 1990s TV comedy show provides alternate endings to Gone with the Wind. (YT)
“Donald Trump said he was going after criminals. He said he was going after people who were dangerous to Americans. Well, how is it that these two young men were good enough to perform at the United States Capitol at the invitation of their congresswoman? They were safe enough to tour the White House. And yet, the Trump administration has them sitting in a prison.” (Congressman Joaquin Castro about the detention of two prize-winning teenage mariachi musicians, whose family had applied lawfully on an asylum claim and were arrested when they were required to do a routine check in with ICE). Souce NYT.
PRO PUBLICA REPORT: In 2025 Trump officials dismantled a program to help the US military avoid civilian casualties. “Dismantling the fledgling harm-reduction effort, defense analysts say, is among several ways the Trump administration has reorganized national security around two principles: more aggression, less accountability.”
QUOTE: “Iran was able to advance its nuclear programme to the point where it was before the 12 Day War last June not because of the JCPOA, but because President Trump withdrew the United States from the JCPOA,” (Laura Rockwood, disarmament expert and former IAEA official). (From Factcheck.org’s analysis).
I spent a good hour reading and re-reading the Wiki article about JCPOA and reminded just how senseless Trump’s withdrawal was. Actually though I think a lot of Republicans and even some Dems deserve blame for not passing a law approving of it. Charlie Rose had two excellent interviews with Iranians about the Iran nuclear deal (here and here)
Here’s a brilliant staging by Jerome Robbins of the opening number (YT) (“Comedy Tonight”) to a Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Roman Forum. Bonus: It’s sung by Jason Alexander). The whole YT channel is replete with classic clips of Broadway numbers, often by the original performers.
Related: Here’s the Hello number from the Book of Mormon (YT)(original cast).
2025 presentation by Mark Z. Jacobson about the hows and why’s of transitioning to Wind Water and Solar (WWS). (YT, 40 minutes long, start at minute 4:30) In one slide, Jacobson estimated based on current trends the year at which each country will achieve a 100% WWS solution. Shockingly, the expected date for USA was the slowest and longest (2148) while China was expected to achieve it in 2048. (These estimates were based on pre-2025 data before Trump even had taken office). Jacobson estimates that the cost for USA to transition 100% to WWS by 2050 was about $6 trillion, but that is dwarfed by the extra cost of Business-As-Usual and the social cost of fossil fuels. The energy-cost-savings payback time to make the WWS transition was 6 years, while the social cost payback (savings resulting from improved mortality from air pollution) was only about 1 year. Startling, fascinating analysis.
BILL MCKIBBEN: “If you’ve been to any of the No Kings protests that have happened so far, you’ll see a lot of people with hairlines like mine, which is to say, scant. People of all kinds are outraged by what’s happening in the country right now, but older people have a particular role to play here…. There have been plenty of presidents in my lifetime I didn’t much like or didn’t agree with politically, but there’s never been any that I thought were fascist, and I think that that’s very clear what we’re now starting to deal with in this country.”
Actually I was at a No Kings protest earlier today.
Today, I heard GOP Senator Lankford say on TV that Iran has been attacking Americans for 47 years, so I asked Gemini AI to compare and contrast the scope and severity of Iranian attacks against USA with American attacks on Iran. Here’s a summary — and the actual verbatim answer here.
When some Trump supporter commented on my photo saying that I was ignoring Sleepy Joe’s inflation (a canard, not important now), I replied: “Wow, over the last decade you have explicitly approved of a lawless lying racist tax cheat as president, and the best you could come up with is that “gee, sometimes inflation can be bad”!? Or do you genuinely believe that there is value in ignoring depravity?” And that was my polite response!
RE: “Executive Orders.” I heard this on an Amicus legal podcast discussion with Dahlia Lithwick: “Margaret Sullivan has a good piece today, just sort of saying, ‘Every time we treat his executive orders as though they’re the law, we fall into the same trap. We report on these as though these things are the law.’ They’re not. I call them letters to Santa. They’re utterly devoid of meaning.” Source (In the same podcast Lithwick and Preet Bharara later ponder this comparison further, agreeing that the “letters to Santa” certainly have real world effects, but these letters to Santa could be called “both law and not law at the same time.” )
Legal scholar and podcaster Dahlia Lithwick said this on a podcast about presidential executive orders: “Margaret Sullivan has a good piece today, just sort of saying, ‘Every time we treat his executive orders as though they’re the law, we fall into the same trap. We report on these as though these things are the law.’ They’re not. I call them letters to Santa. They’re utterly devoid of meaning.”
Happy to see that Virginia passed the National Popular vote compact. As a Texas liberal, I would be elated if enough states voted to adopt it, and I don’t think support for this necessarily cuts along traditional partisan lines. After all, there are conservatives in Illinois and California who don’t have a voice in presidential election. The website advocating it has a comprehensive FAQ addressing many common concerns.
Here’s a profile of an incredible 49 year old artist who died recently
Will Tavlin does a deep dive into how Netflix’s ascendancy has changed the movie industry. Among the complaints is that screenplay writers have too much dialogue explaining obvious plot points so the watcher who is barely paying attention can follow it.
Several topics are recurring in my geeky world. So maybe I should create sections for them! Generally this contains how-tos and technical discussions — not so much talk about the relationship between technology and society (which will go on my linkdump instead).
Wow, I was looking up how to clone a page/post on WordPress. The Net tells me that there are plugins that let you do it with the click of a button. But there is an easier way: Open the page,select Code Editor (top right). Then in that same dropdown, under Tools select Copy All Blocks.
AI/Gemini/Online Consciousness
I tried Google AI Pro for two months. I used it mainly for Nano Banana and for the ability to use it to make short animated videos (you can see 2 such animations in this book video; look at 0:31 seconds and 1:09 ) Although I was generally happy with the videos I was able to produce, it was only after several tries, and I was surprised at how often Gemini either ignored or violated my instructions. I generally started with a sketch created by Nano Banana and suggested simple movements. Sora would generally go overboard with the animation or have elements hiccup and lose consistency or position. Most of the movements from the video were created by special effects on Vegas Pro.
I had only subscribed for 2 months (for $20) with the intent to cancel after that. Strangely, Google cancelled my storage plan, so after the AI plan expired, I had no backup storage. Luckily (and perhaps not coincidentally), after the introductory rate expired, Google now had a Google AI Plus plan for $50/year which included 200gig of storage (which I was paying $30 for).
I am going gaga over the Token Wisdom podcast which is one of the most interesting podcasts I have ever encountered. Frankly I can’t make head or tail or it. A man named Khayyam Wakil (who is a futurist/venture capitalist/scientist/who knows) writes these articles — or maybe he just collects interesting articles into an online notebook (Google’s NotebookLM) . The podcasts consist of interesting discussions between a male and female about recent postings by Wakil. It is full of nuggets and cool insights. But as I listened further, these things became apparent:
the podcasters/voice talent seemed to go gaga over Wakil’s genius or insights.
their voices seemed highly professional and pleasant to listen to. The podcast patter was informal and conversational. While listening, I started thinking — how do they script this? How do they edit it?
the podcast episodes never identified the speakers and the liner notes don’t mention anything about the production.
The Token Wisdom website has tons of postings that are half-articles/half-memes.
Eventually it sank in that this podcast (and maybe the material) might actually be entirely computer-generated. I know that companies like elevenlabs were improving voice-to-speech; I don’t doubt that Khayyam Wakil actually existed (or that some brilliant human must have selected the concepts or texts that form the basis of the episode). I just never imagined that the transcript and voices could be generated in such a way to convey informality and fun.
The Token Wisdom website was unhelpful. It had a lot of source material, but never talked about the podcast itself. Clues began to emerge. On the person’s Linkedin Site, he made a post about how he used Google’s NotebookLM and used Documents to Speech to produce something podcast-like, Then on his website, he talked about learning about and even mastering ElevenLabs Pro (a cutting edge service for converting text to audio).
Robert’s EPUB/CSS Template
Lately I’ve been working on a master css file to use for all my epub files. Up to now, I’ve assembled various styles which I re-use often, but frankly, some of the css is redundant and not well-documented. Also, my epub production processes uses docbook xml and XSLT. One quirky thing is that you need to use XSLT to create css classes, so that means preparing your styles in advance.
For this I hope to make a sample epub file which showcases all the important CSS and templates. Most of this is already done, but I just need to make some code examples and document it in an ebook. In the meantime, I am learning some new things about css, epub, etc.
(This comes from the 1965 Project, a project by Texas writer Robert Nagle to investigate the cultural riches to emerge from that year).
Scene from Die Trapp-Familie in Amerika (1958)
You might already know that the 1965 Sound of Music movie (and play) were based on the life of the real life Van Trapp family. But did you know that before the Sound of Music even reached Broadway, West Germany had already produced two German-language movies about the Von Trapps? The movie titles are Die Trapp-Familie(1956) and Die Trapp-Familie in Amerika(1958) and you can watch the full movies with English subtitles on YouTube. I have watched both movies, and they are excellent and delightful.1
Here is the YouTube link for the full 1956The Trapp Family movie(96 minutes, with English subtitles).
Here is the YouTube link for the full 1958 The Trapp Family in Amerika movie (99 minutes with English subtitles).
(Both movies are watchable and enjoyable. I prefer the 1958 sequel, which is more music-oriented and fun).
Sure, they are not as magically brilliant as the Sound of Music film–– but certainly worth a watch if you are a Sound of Music fan. Both German movies reveal different aspects of the Van Trapp Family and provide commentary about how Germany and United States viewed one another in the 1950s. The 1956 movie and the 1965 Sound of Music relate the Von Trapp story in completely different ways, but it’s clear that the 1965 version borrowed some visuals from the original 1956 movie.
Both the Sound of Music and the two German prequels embellished or rewrote biographical details from the actual Von Trapp family (although the German movies were slightly more accurate). Although the 1956 and 1958 movies were commercial projects directed by a veteran German director and included well known German actors like Ruth Leuwerik (W) and Hans Holt, their budgets were substantially smaller than the $8 million budget for the 1965 film.
Unlike Sound of Music, the 1956 movie is barely a musical. Yes, it has several scenes with music, and they are beautiful and tastefully done. But the songs in the 1956 movie aren’t original — one song is “Silent Night” and the other is Hallelulah by Domenico Scarlatti. In contrast, the 1958 movie has a lot more singing (impromptu and onstage). Although some of the musical numbers in the 1958 film come from the classical or liturgical repertoire (Palestrina, Bach, etc.), the family sings all kinds of folk songs — and even an American folk song (“O Susanna” or Stephen Foster’s “Old Black Joe”).
Unlike the elaborate choreography given for the songs in Sound of Music, the songs in the 1958 movie have no choreography or even movement. Instead the songs are performed at certain dramatic moments.
The movie reveals the paradoxical nature of immigrants and the cultural heritage they bring. Immigrants fall back on their own culture even if people in the new land might regard it as peculiar. This uniqueness of the immigrant’s perspective can be both a blessing and a curse in a society where you are a minority. It is hard for anyone in the arts to make a living, but it’s doubly hard when you don’t know the right people or understand the secrets of success or depend on persuading Americans to enjoy a style of music they are not used to.
This is a rags-to-riches tale and if there’s any consolation from it, it’s that it was based on the success story of a real life family — with 10 kids! Unlike the Sound of Music — which is perpetually upbeat and fun and didn’t really worry about economics — the Trapp Family in America movie presents the hurdles and perils of trying to raise a family through music in a place you only recently came to know. The family eventually succeeds through a combination of skill and talent and luck, but it’s clear at several points in the movie that the performing family could have just as easily failed.
Unlike the Sound of Music, the role of Maria in both German films is not as central to the story. In the Sound of Music, all the songs center around Maria; either she is singing a solo, or people are singing about her, or she is leading a chorus or she is joining another singer or providing the spark for a performance. Both the Maria character and Julie Andrews (who plays her in the Sound of Music) are musically extraordinary, but in the German movie Maria’s musical interests are just one component of Maria’s personality. True, Maria plays the harpsichord, but the kids play the violin, recorder, cello and drums. Later in the movie, a priest, Dr. Wasner, leads the children and teaches them to play Scarlatti, Bach and even Palestrina.
In the 1956Von Trapp Family movie, the house is already populated with all kinds of servants. And the governess is more of a babysitter who likes to play with the kids more than educate them. Maria doesn’t actually teach them anything. If anything, she wants to challenge the Baron’s methods of dealing with her children (and presumably to keep them at home rather than send them off to a boarding school).
The struggle in the 1956 movie is the same (Maria’s love for the children vs. her fear that the Captain is falling in love with her). Yet the story introduces all sorts of sober adult realities. Strikingly, the Captain’s banker friend loses a lot of money and inadvertently persuades the Captain to move his investments from England to Austrian banks for patriotic reasons (this actually happened). Then, when his friend’s bank fails and the banker friend commits suicide, the Captain loses all his savings and can no longer support his large family. At Maria’s encouragement, they decide to convert the estate to a hotel and earn money from guests. This works for a while, but after the Anschluss and the arrival of the Nazis, there is pressure on the Captain to publicly show his support. He and the family escape by claiming they are going on tour to America.
The movie ends with them stuck at the immigration office in NYC. Despite being offered an American tour by a music manager, Maria messes up on the immigration interview by saying somewhat disingenuously that she’d like to stay in USA forever. Because of these difficulties, the manager cancels the tour, but the movie still ends on a happy note. I don’t think I’m giving away any spoilers to say that their music talent ultimately saves them.
The movie was so successful in West Germany that they made a sequel about their adventures in USA. This movie was fun and yet grim in its own way. Sure, they had gotten past immigration, but it was unclear whether they could make a living with their concerts and find a way to live in the USA for good. Two things are clear. The movie is no longer about the married couple but about the children. Because the second film has more musical performances, it’s more satisfying than the first film even though half the picture is whether they can earn enough to put food on the table. Led by Dr. Wasner, the kids learn to play Bach and Palestrina, pieces unlikely to stir the hearts of Americans in rural areas.
Commenters have said that the second film is not as interesting or entertaining as the first. I totally disagree. It is basically a long road movie with lots of musical breaks, odd encounters with strangers and comedy provided by linguistic confusion. Despite the fact that the movie takes place entirely in the USA, English is barely spoken; and when it is used, it calls attention to the fact that the family and actors are fish out of water. Some of the scenes take place in a cramped New York City apartment while the father tries to figure out what to do to earn money.
From the start it’s uncertain whether the family can make a living by doing concerts– and whether their music and appearances are out of step with American tastes. Because they are unknown in USA, their manager tells them that they need to raise a few thousand dollars for publicity photos. Instead of refusing, the family goes off in search of a wealthy benefactor. (How they manage to find one is funny and even a little cynical — no spoilers!) The family’s singing is really extraordinary, and yet they are not exactly a roaring success. One can imagine how American audiences might have trouble appreciating the peculiar style of their singing — combining folk and children’s song with classical and liturgical music. Maybe American audiences (and that includes audiences for this movie) couldn’t appreciate this musical style, but I’m guessing that it was well-suited for German audiences of the 1950s.
Both movies are lovely and full of fun. The actress who plays Maria (Ruth Leuwerik) was every bit as feisty and charming and tender as Julie Andrews…. and a good singer too (even though it’s Dr. Wasner the priest who led the choir in the movies — and in real life). They shot the 1958 movie in USA and there are lots of outdoor scenes of New York City and country roads. The Van Trapp family may have their giant-sized musical talents and self-confidence, but in the movie they travel around the country in a little van driven by a sympathetic German-speaking chauffeur. War-weary Austriansmight have found overwhelming the wealth and expansiveness of Americans, and the little van of naive Von Trapps traveling around the country reflects that sense that American is too big a place for them to succeed. Yet eventually they find a place in Vermont they could call home. Near the end there are two wonderful moments — the first, when Maria says that they should go home (and realizes that it was the first time she actually had a home in USA to go to). Also, in the very final moments at the end of a performance, there is a close up on Maria’s face where she smiles and says “Auf wiedersehn. ” Unlike the Sound of Music (which offers drama and adventure and fun), the two German movies offer to viewers a hopeful message that even in the vast expanse of America, an Austrian immigrant family can stay connected to their homeland and its culture.
Visual Similarities
Knowing about the 1956 and 1958 increased my appreciation for the 1965 movie and Rogers and Hammerstein’s great music.
I won’t say that Sound of Music ripped off the 1956 movie, but they reused some of the 1956 movie’s memorable scenes. We see a tardy Maria running through the cloisters to make a meeting and her sympathetic lecture by the Mother Superior (without the musical accompaniment). We see the Baron using a whistle to summon his children — who come marching down the stairs. (As daughter Agathe von Trappe (W) wrote in her memoir, using the whistle was a practical necessity when living in such a big house. Her father would blow a different note depending on which child he wanted to come). As in the Sound of Music, the Maria character in the 1956 movie sings a song to the children in her bedroom to distribute the children from the thunderstorm:
We see Maria having distinctive clothes made for all the children and we see the angry father overhearing his children singing a song under Maria’s direction.
There is also a scene where the children perform a little play (Not puppets with music, but a fairy tale behind a big sheet). There is a scene where a woman (in this case a princess) confronts Maria about her feelings for the Baron. In the 1965 movie, Maria leaves in a rush while the children feel abandoned. The 1956 movie handles it in a totally different way — not as dramatic, but just as satisfying. There’s a formal wedding scene at the church attended by all the nuns, and there’s also a Salzburg music competition which they win. In the 1956 movie, one of the boys entered the family in the competition without telling their parents, and the family ends up performing (to the dismay of the Baron).
It’s unfair to compare the two German movies with the 1965 Sound of Music (which had songs written specifically for it and was carefully choreographed). In the German movies, the singing voices for the Von Trapp children were sung by the Rudolf Lamy Kinderchor and the Regensburg Cathedral Sparrows, a famous children’s choir. Rudolph Lamy directed all the music, and the Franz Grothe (W) musical score had distinctly American motifs and had parts which could have conceivably come from George Gershwin.
All three movies had a musical sensibility and high quality singers (which were pre-recorded separately). What made the Sound of Music so rousing is the orchestral accompaniment for the songs and the lush interludes between scenes (which often include motifs from previously sung songs). Just watch and listen to the immortal Do-Re-Mi scene (below). It’s a glorious and exciting number — look at them singing while riding bicycles! look at them singing while racing through the walkway and marching around the Mirabellgarten fountain!
In contrast, there is absolutely no invisible orchestra accompanying the songs in the German movies. If instruments are played, they appear onscreen (with the children playing the recorder or Maria playing the guitar). The only exception comes at the very end of the 1958 movie — after the family has finished their song, a slow subtle melody plays , Maria looks at the camera and says, “Auf Wiedersehen.”
Agathe von Trapp’s Memoir
Agathe von Trapp (1913-2010), the oldest daughter of the Von Trapp family published a 2003 memoir (Memories Before and After the Sound of Music: An Autobiography) about growing up in the Von Trapp family. The memoir is revealing in many ways — not merely because of the differences between the movie versions and the family’s actual life story.
The differences between the movies and real life were pretty dramatic. First, Agathe details the early years of her parents’ marriage and what her mother Agathe Whitehead was like. Her biological mother came from a wealthy family and had seven children with Georg von Trapp. But she died at 31 of scarlet fever when it affected all her children in 1922. While the father served heroically for the Austro–Hungarian Navy during WW1, the mother took the young children to live with her mother (Grammy) and closely supervised her children’s education. In fact, because schools were only in the cities, the mother had to rely on various nannies and governesses to aid in her children’s education. By the time Maria came around, the Von Trapp children had already were accustomed to having governesses and nannies.
Despite the family’s wealth, they experienced hard times at several points. Immediately after WW1, Austria was devastated. Food and commodities were hard to find and expensive, and people in towns traveled on weekends to relatives on farms to get vegetables, meat and fruit. Unemployment was rampant, and ex-soldiers often begged from door to door. Later in the early 1930s, the Baron lost all his savings during the bank failures, and so the family dismissed most of the servants and converted parts of the house into a hotel.
The real Maria Von Trapp (whose real name was Gustl Kutchera) had entered the Nonnberg Abbey in 1924 (when she was 21) and in 1926, she was asked to teach 11 year old Maria of the Von Trapp family (who had heart murmurs from scarlet fever and could not make the 45 minute walk to and from school). The oldest daughter described the first meeting:
Gustl–Maria Augusta Kutschera was her full name–wore a dark blue summer dress with an unusual neckline, and a leather hat. In one hand, she held a briefcase, and in the other hand, a guitar. We greeted her politely, without great enthusiasm, because she would only be the teacher of our sister Maria.
Sketch by Agathe von Trapp
Eventually she helped raise the rest of the children and got to know the family very well. The Baron asked her to marry him. Maria was torn because she loved his children but still wanted to be a nun. After talking it over with her Mother Superior, she agreed to marry him and have three additional children with him.
On one occasion Maria invited a youth group to sing folk songs at the hotel, and the family enjoyed their music so much that they obtained some song booklets and learned the songs. A priest who stayed at the hotel did a few masses there and asked the Von Trapp family to sing Gregorian chant and other sacred music. Eventually Father Wasner, a younger priest with a deep understanding of music, taught them about music from previous centuries and located songs old and new for the family to sing. Some of the kids played the recorder, and someone learned how to play the viola da gamba.
After a noted opera singer (Lotte Lehmann) encouraged them to sing in a yodeling competition in Salzburg, the family entered and won first price. That led to being invited to sing half an hour on a radio program which Austria’s chancellor regularly listened to. They were invited to sing at a formal reception and also at various concerts in Vienna and became very well known. That resulted in bookings in Holland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway in 1937. One concert promoter offered them a 15 concert tour of America between 1938-1939.
Ironically, the Von Trapp family had Italian citizenship; they were citizens of the Austrian city of Trieste, and after WW1, everyone lost their Austrian citizenship. The Baron had looked into the possibility of repatriating to Austria, but doing so for the entire family was very expensive, and the family could not afford it (that was right after the Baron had lost all his savings). After the 1938 Anschluss, they heard reports of people being removed from their homes and Jewish people being deported or imprisoned. Anyone who had Jewish ancestry was potentially at risk. After their butler warned them that the Italian border would soon be closed, they quickly decided to leave so they could go on tour performing in America and other countries.
The actual Von Trapp family on tour in USA
The rest of the memoir describes what it was like to tour on America by bus along with nice hand-drawn illustrations by Agathe herself about her adventures on tour. She describes their amusement at encountering various aspects of America: mailboxes along the road, giant cacti, Burma Shave road signs, a giant milk bottle and “Jesus Saves” billboards. Their first concert featured Telemann, Handel, Mozart and Praetorious. But when Maria became pregnant during the tour, the concert promoter ended the tour prematurely, leaving them without money or a place to stay while she had the baby.(Fortunately, a professor was able to arrange housing for three months in Philadelphia.) Two months later, in March, 1939, their U.S. visas had expired, so they left for a European concert tour in Denmark, Holland and eventually to Italy (where they relaxed for a while). Then, off to Sweden where they learned about Hitler’s blitzkrieg into Poland. That caused several concerts to be canceled, and after one last concert in Norway, they returned to U.S.A.
Sketch by Agathe von Trapp
They continued performing and finding friends and fans who could obtain short-term housing in between concert tours. Eventually a U.S. promoter arranged for another tour and persuaded them to adopt a program of “lighter, happier music” for their concerts. Led by Father Wasner, they found more folk songs and did arrangements of American folk songs like “Home on the Range” and “Oh, Susanna.” Agathe von Trapp’s 2003 memoir describes their adventures on the road and their international travels, the games they played, the sites they visited. Two Von Trapp sons served as U.S. soldiers during WW2. In 1946, the Van Trapps received an appeal from the American Occupation Army in Salzbug, which asked for help for Austrian families devastated by the war. Maria Von Trapp started asking for donations at the end of every concert, and they received an outpouring of American generosity (which eventually was delivered to Austrian families by Catholic charities). Through that campaign, the family heard from many individuals about the hardships that Austrians had to endure after the war. Three years later in 1950, the family visited Salzburg and noticed all the changes. They were greeted by friends and the archbishop and stayed for a few days in their former house (which Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler had taken over and made his private residence after they had left). The Von Trapps arranged for the house to be sold to a missionary group and toured around Europe (and even performed for the pope).
The memoir’s last chapter summarizes Agathe mixed feelings about the play and movie. First, she is indignant that the mother sold the rights to their life story for a mere $9000 when the play and movie made millions. (To mitigate that, the American producers of the play ensured that the family received a small percentage of the play’s royalties). Second, she and other family members lamented the way the story distorted their family’s actual story. No, Agathe never had a boyfriend who turned out to be a Nazi. No, they did not escape dramatically after the music festival. (In fact, they just planned a tour which required traveling to Italy with the intent of never coming back). More importantly, she objected to some of the characterizations:
When I saw the musical for the first time, I cried. Others in my family were equally upset. The man on the stage in the naval uniform was not Papa. The play and later the movie, as beautiful as they were, misrepresented our life at home with our father. He was not some naval officer with a distant look and a boatswain’s whistle in his mouth, ready to order us children coldly about. In reality he was a dedicated father saw to our well-being in every way. Among other things, he took us on picnics and camping trips, arranged schooling and music lessons, taught us some of the musical instruments, and made music with us. In fact while The Sound of Music shows our second mother teaching us the basics of music, thanks to our father we already had a repertoire by the time Gustl (Maria) arrived in our home.
Over time though, Agathe’s anger about the movie dissipated. She concludes the chapter:
Millions of dollars did not flow into the pockets of the Trapp family from The Sound of Music, but we have benefitted greatly in other ways. As time went on, something happened that reconciled me with my “enemy,” the play. The shift in my feelings actually came from those who saw The Sound of Music, loved it, and connected it with our name and family. Little by little, I met people on many occasions who recognized me by my last name and connected me with the musical. Their faces lit up, and I felt a wave of friendliness coming toward me.
…
After meeting so many people over the years who told me how they had derived such great enjoyment and inspiration from the musical and the movie, I finally came to terms with theSound of Music. I thought, Who am I, then to criticize this movie? After a long inner struggle, I finally learned to separate the memories of my life from the screenplay. I began to see that while all the details may not be correct, the creators of The Sound of Music were true to the spirit of our family’s story. That freed me from my resentment and made it possible for me to enjoy the play, the movie, and the music as others have. I have even learned to sing and play “Edelweiss”!
Appreciating the Movie as a Fan
Here are some things that struck me when I recently watched The Sound of Music:
That Wacky Ending. The movie ends with one nun confessing to another that “I have sinned” to another nun while holding some distributor caps removed to disable the cars of the Nazis. Let us appreciate how absurd and abrupt this ending is — and possibly out of character for nuns. But also funny too, quickly seguing to a musical interlude with the family trekking through the Alps (and presumably to safety). Leaving aside the poetic liberties taken here, it ties up plot loose ends without having to explain too much. It brought the story back to the nuns and the mountains. This ending somehow worked because it reprised the movie’s opening with the abbey and the mountains.
Song Repetitions. Almost all the songs are repeated several times in different situations –sometimes as part of the musical score and sometimes as a kind of sentimental leitmotif. The movie opens with Julie Andrews’ singing “The Sound of Music” in grand fashion, but later it appears in the background which the Captain hears — not realizing his own children are the ones singing it. (The song appears again in Act 2 — in an even sadder version as the kids are mourning Maria’s departure.)
Julie Andrews sings “My Favorite Things” with the children during the thunderstorm. Later, after Maria left the family, the bored children try to capture the joyful magic of the song by singing it again. Instead, it sounds almost sorrowful, making it all the more poignant when the returning Maria brings her voice to the children’s singing and renewing their enthusiasm and joy.
The delightful “Maria” song later is replayed triumphantly during the wedding ceremony. Both Edelweiss and the Goodbye Song were sung again during the music festival. Do-Re-Mi is kind of repeated — or rather it comes in two parts, presumably during different times. Finally, the inspirational song “Climb Every Mountain” first sung by the Mother Abbess later is played by the orchestra as the family treks through the mountains at the end.
Lyrics to the “Maria” Song. This song by the nuns has always been my favorite. Leave aside that the nuns have individual personalities or include the extraordinary singer Marni Nixon2, the lyrics are presented in conversational style, like a friendly and entertaining argument. Those Hammerstein lyrics are just marvelous:
Sister Margaretta: How do you find a word that means Maria? Sister Berthe: A flibbertigibbet! Sister Sophia: A will-o’-the-wisp! Sister Margaretta: A clown!
…
Many a thing you know you’d like to tell her Many a thing she ought to understand But how do you make her stay And listen to all you say? How do you keep a wave upon the sand?
Minor Moments. Most people remember the overall story of the movie, but the movie has so many charming minor moments (even if it’s only a gesture or visual gag or a facial expression). Here’s a nice compilation.
Keeping Sentimentality in Check: The Challenge
I admire the tightness of the script and dialogue and how certain plot elements (the love triangle, the Nazis, the religious angles, the father’s distance from his kids) never dominate the overall story.
After screenwriter Ernest Lehman first recognized the cinematic possibilities of the Broadway play, he saw that the main challenge of adapting it to film would be keeping the lid on the sentimentality as much as possible. Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer both felt the same way. Plummer thought that the characters in the play were very “cardboard” and the film needed to present the character’s emotional complexities with sophistication. The adult actors mostly gave restrained performances while the children expressed glee and sadness directly. This is true even in the songs. When the Mother Abbess starts her “Climb Every Mountain” song, her back is completely to the audience and she is often singing in the shadows while the Maria character looks on. When the father joins his children for the first time in singing the Sound of Music song, the father keeps his composure but the children are practically in tears.
Both the Captain and the Baroness character experience a wide range of emotions throughout the movie. The Captain shows his anger at several key moments, not through yelling but curtness. Christopher Plummer underplays so many scenes, especially when he apologizes to Maria and asks her to stay. After Maria returns from the abbey and explains to the Captain that she won’t be staying, you see the depth of his quiet disappointment.
All the secondary characters give masterful performances — Richard Haydn as concert promoter Max Detweileris a laugh riot–but the next time you watch the movie, pay special attention to Eleanor Parker (W, Obit) who plays the baroness. As the foil to the Maria character, it is a challenging role to play, and she plays it beautifully. 3
In so many scenes, the viewer sees Eleanor’s gaze, and how she notices the blossoming connection between Maria and the Captain (even before they seem to). The montages which show the various gazes and who is looking at whom make it clear that Eleanor is perceiving everything and feels powerless to stop it. In a key scene, where the Baroness helps Maria to change clothes at the party, she tells Maria, “Come on, now. We are all women. Let us not pretend we don’t know when a man notices us.” When the baroness tells Maria that she seems to be in love with the Captain and that he seems to be falling in love with her too, Maria becomes flustered and decides to leave. The baroness smiles coolly and enigmatically, aware that she could perhaps speak up and prevent Maria from acting so rashly. And yet, the baroness says nothing and just lets Maria — her main romantic competition–leave in a rush. It is a sad, poignant scene. Of course it is bad for Maria to leave, but the baroness is not trying to ruin anyone’s fate; she is merely pointing out what she perceives to be the reality and letting Maria decide what to do next. (The script is absolutely marvelous here).
Later, upon Maria’s return, as the Baroness realizes that her new role as stepmother doesn’t come naturally to her and that the Captain is undeniably still in love with Maria, she invents a ruse to maintain her dignity while leaving the Captain free to pursue the person he truly loves. The baroness can pretend for only so long that her feelings for the Captain are being reciprocated. If Maria had never come around, would they still have broken up? Probably, but who knows.
Later, after Maria and the Captain return from their honeymoon, Liesl asks “What do you do when you think you love someone — I mean, when you stop loving someone–I mean, when he stops loving you?” Maria replies, “You cry a little and wait for the sun to come out. It always does.” They reprise the song “16 going on 17,” but this time it is Maria herself who sings to her daughter: “A bell is no bell till you ring it, a song is no song till you sing it, and love in your heart wasn’t put there to stay. Love isn’t love till you give it away.”4
After Maria Von Trapp disbanded the Trapp Family Singers in 1955, she, Father Wasner and three of her children did missionary work in New Guinea in the South Pacific. After actress Mary Martin (W) and her manager husband Richard Halliday saw a screening of the two German films, they sent letters to the missions trying to secure the rights to turn their life story into a play. For a while Maria Von Trapp ignored these solicitations, but Halliday tracked them down in San Francisco and invited them to see Martin perform onstage. Maria Von Trapp confessed to them that she had already sold the movie rights to the German movie producers for a paltry $9000. Eventually after several trips to Germany, the drama company secured the rights and commissioned Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse to write the script and Rogers and Hammerstein to provide original songs. To the credit of the Broadway production company, the Von Trapp family received a small percent of the earnings.
Reflections about the Movie by Cast Members
Because of its world popularity, the movie has been released and re-released and re-re-released at every major anniversary. Each new release features additional footage and documentaries. Some of these have already appeared on YouTube. The Blu Ray comes with two audio commentaries — one by Robert Wise — and the other by Julie Andrews, other cast members, crew and Von Trapp family members.
The Sound of Music: From Fact to Phenomenon is a 1994 Documentary about the Movie (accompanying the 1994 DVD) contains 80 minutes of interviews with everybody, including some Von Trapps, the director, actors, choreographers, associate producer and other people. Wow! (on YouTube)
In 2005 Oprah Winfrey arranged a grand reunion of all the stars from the movie. The full show 50 minute show is currently on DailyMotion. (There are also clips but not the full show on YouTube). It’s terrific.
Perhaps the most amusing and insightful was a 2005 conversation between Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer (on YouTube).My Favorite Things: Julie Andrews Remembers (59 minutes, 2005) is another documentary for the 2005 release. (on YouTube) For the 50th anniversary in 2015 she does another documentary, Julie Andrews returns to Salzburg (on YouTube)
Peggy Wood, Julie Andrews & Andrews’ three year old daughter on set (Source)
Here’s a 60 year anniversary cast reunion (on YouTube)
It’s sort of cheesy and throwaway, but I loved this 13 minute promotional video (“Salzburg Sight and Sound” — see below) about Salzburg — as told from the perspective of Charmian Carr — who played 16-going-on-17 Liesl. It was made in 1964 when the movie was being filmed and captures what Salzburg was like in 1964. (Not mentioned here but found elsewhere is the very amusing revelation that the 21 year old Charmain Carr spent many an evening drinking champagne and schnapps and wine with Christopher Plummer as he played songs on the hotel’s piano).
Parodies and Homages
In 1962, before even cast for the movie, Julie Andrews did a comic parody of the play with Carol Burnett called the Pratt Family Singers (YT). What makes it doubly hilarious is that Andrews had no idea she would be considered to play the lead role in the movie two years later.
The sitcom Will & Grace devoted an entire episode to a Sound of Music Sing Along, and here’s a fun clip (YT).
Comedienne/singer Riki Lindhome does a very irreverent and delightful musical takedown of Maria and the Captain from the perspective of the jilted Baroness Schraeder. (YT)
SNL has done lots of TSOM Parodies: New Governess (YT) (“La — The Start of ‘Queen Latifa’”), Rolf and Liesl (YT) (“I’m old enough, but it’s still kind of dicey…”)
Ariana Grande does a contemporary take on Favorite Things (7 Rings, YT)
Notes
It is curious that neither German movie is streamable on any of the major streaming services. You can find imported DVDs of the German movies, but they don’t seem to be compatible with US media players. Perhaps when 20th century Fox secured the rights to make the movie, it somehow restricted the distribution of them outside of German-speaking countries. ↩︎
There is a video (YT) of Nixon singing a medley of the movie’s songs as a guide for the voice talent who would be dubbing the movie in different languages. ↩︎
Movie critic Michael Barrett recommends other masterful performances from Eleanor Parker, three of which earned her Oscar nominations. PRIDE OF THE MARINES, a beautiful film written & directed by Delmer Daves for John Garfield. It’s not what you’d assume from the title. CAGED is probably the first serious “women in prison” movie, and a good showcase for her. She usually was stuck playing “the wife” or “girlfriend”, as in her nothing-much role in DETECTIVE STORY. She gets to play a dual role in WOMAN IN WHITE and sink her teeth in madness in LIZZIE, from Shirley Jackson novel, not that it’s especially great. INTERRUPTED MELODY earned her another Oscar nomination (and has plenty of music, but not sung by her). HOME FROM THE HILL is a Vincent Minnelli neurotic melodrama based on a Texas novel by Texas author William Humphrey. ↩︎
Lyrics to Sixteen going on Seventeen (Reprise). (Source) By Oscar Hammerstein ↩︎
MEMORIES OF PEACE TIME: Here’s a magical (and hilarious) 2013 performance of “Let It Be” by Russian pop star Zemfira singing in Kiev — joined by Ukrainian rock star Sviatoslav Vakarchuk (of Okean Elzy)– they don’t remember the English lyrics so they have to sing while looking at the screen of Zemfira’s phone. Zemfira’s second song, (an anti-violence song which translates as “Don’t Shoot” ) was the same song she later sang at a Moscow concert two days after Russia attacked Ukraine in Feb 2022. (After being harassed and labeled as a “foreign agent” by the Putin regime, Zemfira eventually moved to France). (YT)
My favorite Zemfira song is Не отпускай (Don’t let go). Here’s a live performance (YT) Here’s the original music video and song from 15 years earlier (YT)
I’m the Baby song from the Dinosaurs TV show (YT). Now that’s an earworm!
I have always been a fan of the Eurovision Interval number Made in Switzerland (YT). Wow, here’s an alternate video showing all the staging and behind-the-scene antics. (YT)
Here’s a fun Hello song from Book of Mormon Broadway play (YT) Here also is a Youtube channel of classic Broadway songs being performed, usually by original cast members (YT)
I’ve been finding lots of great articles on Rebeat Mag, especially sixties stuff. Here’s a great profile of Dickie Goodman who created comedy/novelty songs like “Mr. Jaws” (YT) which told a story by using clips from pop songs.
Variations on Fripp & Eno’s “Eve… by Cloudland Blue Quartet. Good album in Emo’s style, but it contains a lot of extra (and I would say unnecessary tracks).
Year of the Hare, Year Of The Tiger and Year of the Pig by Fucked Up. Post-rock/heavy metal soundscapes. Really amazing. Unfortunately I left 3 or 4 other NYP albums by this group; maybe next time?
