Bernadette Peters - Ourselves ... as a Serious Cabaret Singer!

Bernadette Peters is the way many (most?) of us would like to imagine ourselves ... if we were able to step through that magical mirror into our other more theatrical and alternate careers ...


I saw her in concert in Sydney a few years back - and still have some of the glittering golden 'coins' she threw out into the audience in her opening song, 'Pennies from Heaven'.

She performed both the following and contrasting Stephen Sondheim pieces.

'Not A Day Goes By' from 'Merrily We Roll Along' ...

... where here she nearly looses to a degree that's almost uncomfortable, particularly at the end - but then maybe it's planned that big cos a live audience is not as close as the camera.

What do you think?

The other song is 'Hello Little Girl' from 'Into the Woods' - with Peters being less than a little wolf-ish ... to an innocent Red Riding Hood.

The lyrics are so incredibly witty and close to the bone I thought I'd put down the first verse and the last lines ...

Look at that flesh, pink and plump
Hello, little girl...
Tender and fresh, not one lump
Hello, little girl...
This one's especially lush,
Delicious... Mmm...
Hello, little girl, what's your rush?
You're missing all the flowers
The sun won't set for hours
Take your time ...

There's no possible way
To describe how what you feel
When you're talking to your meal!

... hope you're chuckling away!

So, are any of you guys Peters devotees?

'Who Really Was My Great-Grandmother Louisa?'

This morning I was looking at an 1860 something photograph of my great-grandmother - over coffee and a croissant, as you do ...

Louisa (nee Smith) at 18 - My Paternal Great-Grandmother

... and realized there were no family stories or histories about her. Not a single one!

Plenty about her husband Jean Theodore. Who called all his sons 'Jimmy' cos he couldn't remember their 12 individual names. And told them to use a dictionary when asked the meaning of a French word - rather than admit he didn't know the English one. The anecdotes go on and on. And on.

I kept looking at the photograph, almost trying to will something out of the image.

The clothes were mid C19 - I did know that she came to this country as a teenager from Scotland around that time. I wondered if this photo was taken before she set out for Australia. Or - less likely - on her arrival in Melbourne. Certainly not in the remote bush where my great-grandparents established themselves. The reverse states in pencil that she was 18 at the time of the sitting.

And why did she make the then perilous journey to Australia? My great-grandfather emigrated from France during the Gold Rush of 1852 and established a vineyard and winery in Bendigo (which still operates) - he was shrewd enough to realize he probably wouldn't find gold but there were other more indirect ways to get your hands on the precious metal!

Did she come here alone? It's hard to image it. With whom then? And what happened to them?

Her father, John Smith?

John Smith c1860

Or these recently uncovered relatives on whom I've already posted? Also, tantalizingly, named Smith. Were they a family group of a father and two daughters? If so, what became of the mother? My mind is racing into Hollywood stories of ... well, you know the formula!


How and where did she meet her husband-to-be? Was it an arranged thing? Before she left Scotland. My great-grandfather had already been in the country nearly a decade when she landed in Melbourne sometime around 1860.

Jean-Thedore and Louisa Embedded in Their Family (1897)

Just a zillion intriguing questions ... and no nearer to having a single clue about my great-grandmother - apart from where she was born and her teenage journeying.

Back to the photo? Maybe there's something I've missed. Something on the back that will reveal all!

By the way, one of my given names is a very old Scottish one, now not at all used. I like to think that there's at least this tiny thread back to this intrepid pioneer woman.

Robert Browning (1812-1889) Recites 'How They Brought The Good News From Ghent To Aix' (1838)

Of course I'm having yet another blue stocking moment ... but I was so intrigued today to find a recording of the voice of the English poet Robert Browning. Had to share!



It was made in a sort of impromptu way at a party given by Browning's friend the artist Rudolph Lehmann on the 6th May 1889, the year of the poet's death.



Colonel Gouraud, sales manager of the Edison Talking Machine Company, had brought a phonograph to record the voices of all those present.



Browning was reluctant at first but finally recited part of his 1838 poem 'How They Brought The Good News From Ghent To Aix'.



Perhaps due to nervousness in the face of recording for posterity, Browning forgets his words after ...

I sprang to the saddle, and Joris, and he;

I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;

'Speed' echoed the wall to us galloping through ...

'Speed' echoed the ...

Then the gate behind us shut, the light sank to rest ...

... and says ...

I'm terribly sorry but I can't remember me own verses,

but one thing I shall remember all me life is the astonishing [?]

by your wonderful machine

Robert Browning

Other voices join in and there's a lot of 'bravoing' and 'hip hip horraying'.

Absolutely remarkable to be able to have any sense at all of the voice of this great man of letters.

'Boy Meets Boy' - A Very Sweet Sex Education Film from the Korea Gay Men's Human Rights Group

This is a very sweet sex education film from the Korea Gay Men's Human Rights Group about, among other things, the dangers (and thrills) for younger inexperienced gays of picking up a guy in the streets ...


The central safety message is put in a song from a rather magical kinda creature ...


... who gives some general tips ...



Then there's a cartoon with some specific pick-up techniques that (I think they're saying) will help prevent you hitting on straight guys ...








The result of which might be ...


Hope you like it ...

... cos I think it's effective and cute!

Music from Heaven at 5.15am

Just been listening to some heavenly music from Jeff here - slow, exquisitely sweet, introspective, simple, sensuously caressing, the instrumentation pulled right back to essentials ...

... bliss.

Just thought I'd like to share it before I hit the sack - it's 5.15am!

'I Never Knew How Good Our Songs Were Until I Heard Ella Sing Them' (Ira Gershwin)

Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996)

I was listening to some Ella this morning - 'Manhattan' - and understood it just couldn't be sung any better - differently yes but not better.

This first lady of song molds every single musical phrase and lyric so that the combination is totally meaningful and individual and never musically commonplace.

So I needed to post a couple of songs!

'Every Time You Say Goodbye' (London, 1965) ...

Ella Fitzgerald 'Bewitched Bothered and Bewildered' ('The Nat 'King' Cole Show', 1960s) ...

Did Anyone hear her live?

And can say what the experience was like?

What You'd Do for Love

A man escapes from a prison where he's been locked up for 15 Years. He breaks into a house to look for money and guns. Inside, he finds a young couple in bed.

He orders the guy out of bed and ties him to a chair. The convict gets back into bed, handcuffs the wife to the bedposts, gets on top of her and begins kissing her on the neck. Then he gets up and goes into the bathroom.

While he's in there, the husband whispers to his wife "Listen, this guy must be an escaped convict - look at his clothes! He's probably spent a lot of time in jail and hasn't seen a woman in years. I saw how he kissed your neck. If he wants sex, don't resist, don't complain - just do whatever he tells you. Satisfy him no matter how much he nauseates you. This guy is obviously very dangerous. If he gets angry, he'll kill us both. Be strong, honey. I love you!"

His wife replies: "He wasn't kissing my neck. He was whispering In my ear. He told me that he's gay, thinks you're cute, and asked if we had any Vaseline. I told him it was in the bathroom. Be strong. I love you, too!"

Richard Kennedy 'A Boy at the Hogarth Press' and Other Glimpses of Virginia and Leonard Woolf

Richard Kennedy - 'Virginia Woolf Setting Type at the Hogarth Press'

A while ago I did a post on a talk given by Virginia Woolf on the BBC in 1937 and added the audio cos I was interested in the immediate sense it gave of the writer, well, sort of but that's explained in the post.

And today I was reading a little book written and illustrated by Richard Kennedy in 1972 about his time as a 16 year old factotum at the Hogarth Press in 1928 ...


It is written in the first person narrative of the boy who had just left school to go to work, with this being enhanced by the inclusion of letters to friends at that time.

The charm of the little volume is in part due to the insights into the ordinary day-to-day life and conditions at the Hogarth Press ...

The Hogarth Press where I'm working, is in the heart of the literary world. ... The premises are a bit smelly as we work in the basement which was the kitchen quarters in an epoch when light and sanitation were not considered important for servants. ... The WC is just a cupboard without light and some holes in the door. ... Birrell asked me if LW still uses proofs in the WC. ... (one day) a large rat ran across the floor of the office towards Mrs W's studio.

... and into the working lives of Leonard and Virginia Woolf, away from the glittering literary world of Bloomsbury.

We get very un-Virginia-like glimpses of Virginia ...

I sat next to Mrs Woolf who rolled her shag cigarettes on a tray in front of her

... and descriptions of her in old slippers and a worn dress packing up bundles of newly printed books to send to bookshops, a fag hanging from the side of her mouth.

Whereas the more expected image of Mrs Woolf smoking might be ...


We hear about VW knitting and reading 'The Sexual Life of Savages'.

And of LW skating in Richmond Park ...

'and stopping to pee in a very casual sort of way without attempting to have any sort of cover'

... and talking with the author about pornography ...

Leonard Woolf and I have long discussions about pornography on our walks around the square. It seems he condones it when it's to do with sex, but doesn't enjoy lavatory humour.'

And stories such as ...

'Mrs Woolf was in a very happy mood. She said she had been to a nightclub the night before and said how marvellous it was inventing new foxtrot steps. ... Mrs Woolf [went] on to say how much she had enjoyed kicking up her heels.'

... all of which makes me not so afraid of Virginia Woolf!

The Last Tasmanian Tigers (Thylacinus Cynocephalus)

The very last Thylacine or marsupial Tasmanian Tiger died in Hobart Zoo in 1936.

Hobart Zoo in the 1930s

And what makes this even more galling is the fact that there's the fair amount of film footage of this now extinct large mammal - taken between 1912 and 1932. Mainly at Beaumaris Zoo (later Hobart Zoo) and at London Zoo.

Animals caught in the wild were usually sold to zoos, like this mother and her three pups who were trapped by Walter Jack Mullins at Tyenna in the Florentine Valley in southern Tasmania in February 1924 ...

Mother and her three pups, trapped by Walter Jack Mullins at Tyenna in the Florentine Valley in southern Tasmania in February 1924

... and then sold to Hobart Zoo. It's very probable that the very last thylacine was one of the pups in this litter.

The earliest tiger footage is from 1912 and shows a thylacine being fed through a wire fence, while the owner of the Beaumaris Zoo, Mary Grant Roberts, stands by. Her long black dress is just visible to the right of the keeper at the beginning.

The next clip was taken in early 1928 and firstly shows a man teasing two tigers with his hat, and then the animals going into their wooden enclosure shed where perhaps they sleep.

This footage below was taken in late 1928 and shows a tiger interacting with a man through a wire fence. What's revealing here is the way the animal moves : rising up easily and steadily on its hind legs a bit like a kangaroo.

This last clip is from 1933 and shows the last thylacine prowling its cage ... and also demonstrating its enormous jaw extension.

There have been countless searches over the decades in more and more remote places for any last surviving tigers - to assuage our collective guilt in this extinction. But of course, nada!

In a further and latter day guilt-reduction exercise, there's a pretty big effort on at the moment to extract DNA from a female infant preserved in alcohol in 1866 ...

Infant female thylacine preserved in alcohol in 1866, Australian Museum, Sydney

... to implant it in the egg of (perhaps) a Tasmanian Devil host and ... well, you know the rest.

Hopefully people have learned the lesson ... what do you reckon?

'Take the Parcel, Feel It and Pass It On, That's All You Can Do'

There's a metaphor in the 2006 movie 'The History Boys' (based Alan Bennett's 2004 award-winning play) that seems to work particularly well - for me - in catching the experience everyone probably has of striving for their necessarily tentative and incomplete 'meaning of life'.

The metaphor is being passed a parcel, feeling through the wrapping to intuit the contents and then having to pass it on.

This metaphor is offered by Hector (Richard Griffiths), the general studies teacher of final year students in a secondary school in the UK in 1983 ...


... during a excursion in 1983 of teachers and boys to a medieval abbey ...


It's been ringing round in my head ever since I saw the film ...

... so I thought it was a sign for a post!