Larry’s Comments (group member since Nov 23, 2020)

Larry’s comments from the Nonfiction Reading - Only the Best group.

Today is Robert Burns' birthday ...

A Red, Red Rose

O my Luve is like a red, red rose,
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve is like the melody,
That’s sweetly play’d in tune.
So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.
Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.
And fare the weel, my only luve!
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my luve,
Tho’ it were ten thousand mile!
---Robert Burns

Carol wrote: "Does a' green night' mean something in American English? Is Hirsch just referring to the trees? What is the smoky flask?
The setting is idyllic- a gathering of poets in the countryside. A pleasant..."

Carol,

I bet it's a regional idiom ... or maybe just a poetic expression coming from Hirsch himself. I've never heard it myself.

Larry

Green Night

We walked down the path to breakfast.
The morning swung open like an iron gate.

We sat in Adirondack chairs and argued
for hours about the self—it wasn’t personal—

and the nature of nature, the broken
Word, the verse of God in fragments.

We trotted back and forth to readings.
The trees were the greenest I had ever seen.

We cut bread from a large brown loaf
at a long wooden table in the mountains.

A farmer hayed the meadows
and the afternoon flared around us.

Pass the smoky flask. Pass the cigarettes:
twenty smoldering friends in a package.

We swam in the muddy pond at dusk.
The sky was a purple I had never seen.

Someone was always hungover,
Scheming with rhymes, hanging out.

Nothing could quench our thirst for each other.
At the bonfire, we flamed with words.

The houses were named after trees.
I slept with someone at the top of a maple.

It was a green night to be a poet in those days.
We didn’t care if the country didn’t care about us.

--- Edward Hirsch

John wrote: "Listened today. Is it safe to say this album was a response of sorts to Kind of Blue?"

John, Could be. I hadn't thought of it like that. Oliver Nelson went on to be a very successful composer and arranger in Hollywood. His big band arrangements were well captured in "The Argo, Verve and
Impulse Big Band Studio Sessions," which is available on Spotify.

BLUES AND THE ABSTRACT TRUTH

THE REVIEW ON ALLMUSIC.COM IS A MUST READ. (See a link below.) Not eloquent, but a brilliant summary of the album, which is a brilliant example of hard-bop. Bill Evans, who was so important on Miles Davis’s KIND OF BLUE, is equally important on this album. But so is every other musician. Freddie Hubbard’s trumpet playing is never better than it is on this album.

“As Oliver Nelson is known primarily as a big band leader and arranger, he is lesser known as a saxophonist and organizer of small ensembles. Blues and the Abstract Truth is his triumph as a musician for the aspects of not only defining the sound of an era with his all-time classic "Stolen Moments," but on this recording, assembling one of the most potent modern jazz sextets ever. Lead trumpeter Freddie Hubbard is at his peak of performance, while alto saxophonists Nelson and Eric Dolphy (Nelson doubling on tenor) team to form an unlikely union that was simmered to perfection. Bill Evans (piano), Paul Chambers (bass), and Roy Haynes (drums) can do no wrong as a rhythm section. "Stolen Moments" really needs no comments, as its undisputable beauty shines through in a three-part horn harmony fronting Hubbard's lead melody. It's a thing of beauty that is more timeless as the years pass. The "Blues" aspect is best heard on "Yearnin'," a stylish, swinging, and swaying downhearted piece that is a bluesy as Evans would ever be. Both "Blues" and "Abstract Truth" combine for the darker "Teenie's Blues," a feature for Nelson and Dolphy's alto saxes, Dolphy assertive in stepping forth with his distinctive, angular, dramatic, fractured, brittle voice that marks him a maverick. Then there's "Hoedown," which has always been the black sheep of this collection with its country flavor and stereo separated upper and lower horn in snappy call-and-response barking. As surging and searing hard boppers respectively, "Cascades" and "Butch & Butch" again remind you of the era of the early '60s when this music was king, and why Hubbard was so revered as a young master of the idiom. A must buy for all jazz fans, and a Top Ten or Top Fifty favorite for many”

SOURCE: https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-bl...

All songs written by Oliver Nelson but with an all-star lineup for the

Stolen Moments — melody is laid down at the beginning …eventually it will be returned to after brilliant improvisation. One of my favorite songs in the genre.

Hoe Down
We could be at the beginning of a Ferde Grofe or Aaron Copland piece, but it quickly veers off into improvisation

Cascades
Here the improvisation starts right at the beginning, but a melody keeps intruding

Yearning’ — basic blues and such a good example of it as the basis for improvisation …

Butch and Butch - uptempo … immediately into improvisation.

Teenie’s Blues - laid back at first, but then the two saxes enter and duel.

Carol, I don't think we ever posted that one. And even if we did, it's too good not to post again.

Thanks so much, John. This one looks really good.

THE BEST BOOKS ON THE SCIENCE OF FOOD AND COOKING

Once there was one book that stood head and shoulders above all when it came to the science of food and cooking. This was Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen. I bought it in 1984 when it was published as a trade paperback. Here’s the raw truth. It did not make me a good cook. Cooking in the kitchen with my wife did that, asking her questions and following her directions. Making mistakes and figuring out what to do to fix those mistakes if possible ... that's what made me a decent cook. BUT … if you want to understand all about food and have that understanding sometimes improve your cooking, then the McGee book could do it. It’s a pretty dense book, which repays close reading … at some cost.

As good as McGee’s book was, his “Completely Revised and Updated” edition of this book is a big improvement. That's this one: On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen I still keep my paper book edition of his original work. That’s because it was essential at one time. But the revised book is a lot better, and the Kindle edition actually makes it better. It is better indeed.

Okay, as good as the McGee books were, there is a better work available for understanding the science here. That’s the 2016 work Cook's Science: How to Unlock Flavor in 50 of Our Favorite Ingredients. What are the ingredients chosen? You know … ones like salmon, sweet potatoes, dried chiles, cannellini beans, balsamic vinegar, … Given that it uses favorite ingredients to organize, the book, you would think that it skimps on the science. Nope. Right at the beginning of the book, it gets into the importance of hydrogen bonds with the water molecule, and explains some of that in this section, “Why does this taste sour? In my meat mushy? Why is my cookie so pale? PH and water." And later in a discussion on wine, it gets into a short discussion of what I think are definitive results for preferring twist-off metal tops for wine as oppose to corks.

Is the book perfect? Well, no. Food and cooking is a universe and you can only pack so much into a 486 page book. But what you will learn in this book is wonderful. And unlike the McGee book, it integrates that knowledge into 300+ recipes engineered for success.

ALL THINGS SHAKESPEARE

There are a few subjects where so many thousands of books have been written that it truly is challenging to figure out what the best books are. Two examples come to my own mind immediately. One is the U.S. Civil War and another is Shakespeare. I’ll leave the first one for later. I do have a list of books on Shakespeare to share even if I am not sure that these really are the best book on Shakespeare. I do think that each is special in some way and is of some benefit when it comes to approaching Shakespeare and his works.

Let’s start with Shakespeare’s Collected Works of the plays and poetry. Which collection?

The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works is the book that I use when I read the plays or the poetry. Even though I have the hard copy, it’s just too large and heavy. I use the Kindle version,

“A ground breaking edition, the Oxford Shakespeare (2nd) is the benchmark for all things textual. Containing plays never before found in a complete works, this edition has redefined the ways in which Shakespeare is edited. … This volume includes all the writings believed by the editors to have been written, wholly or in part, by Shakespeare. Like all other editions, it also prints a few poems of uncertain authorship (see Various Poems, pp. 805-811).

Every new edition of Shakespeare differs to some extent from its predecessors. Because this edition represents a radical rethinking of the text, it departs from tradition more than most. … Passages surviving only in a text that we have not selected as our base text are printed not in the body of the play but as Additional Passages (as, for example, at the end of Hamlet). Most drastically, we present separately edited texts of both authoritative early editions of King Lear, using the titles under which they first appeared (The History of King Lear for the quarto text of 1608, and The Tragedy of King Lear for the Folio text).”

Another really good choice is the The Arden Shakespeare: Complete Works. This is the edition used by the Royal Shakespeare Company for its plays.

A third choice is The Norton Shakespeare (published in 2015) edited by Stephen Greenblatt et al. It has a lot of good recommendations. But … and this is important, more than one reviewer has said that the paper is so thin that the text from the other side of the page is visible and interferes with the reading.
And now for books about Shakespeare’s works.

I’ve found it helps me a lot to read what the best critics have said about the plays. Here are five books that do that.

Mark Van Doren's Shakespeare … My favorite book on Shakespeare’s plays, and I only found it in the last year. From 1948. Odd language in some of the essays, and I love it for that. You could argue that it’s the academese of the late 1940s, and that’s probably part of it. But I think it’s mainly Mark Van Doren carefully choosing exactly what he wants to say in his own particular way. The book covers all of his plays and has one essay on his poetry.

Harold Bloom's Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. Highly praised since it was published 1999. From the Amazon review: “Preeminent literary critic-and ultimate authority on the western literary tradition, Harold Bloom leads us through a comprehensive reading of every one of the dramatist's plays, brilliantly illuminating each work with unrivaled warmth, wit and insight. At the same time, Bloom presents one of the boldest theses of Shakespearean scholarships: that Shakespeare not only invented the English language, but also created human nature as we know it today.” All true, but it has been criticized for Bloom relying too much on his research assistants and publishing that work, giving it an unevenness. Maybe, but all I know is I like it a lot.

Northrop Frye's Northrop Frye on Shakespeare— Highly praised by many important critics, but I’ve never really found it very accessible myself. It covers ten of Shakespeare’s most important plays.

Emma Smith's This Is Shakespeare … Brilliant and engaging. These days, I recognize that Mark Van Doren’s book might be a difficult read for many who are first approaching Shakespeare. This is the book that I would put into their hands.

From the Five Books website: “Aimed at a general readership, Emma Smith, Professor of Shakespeare Studies at the University of Oxford, gives a refreshing ‘warts and all’ analysis of Shakespeare. She shows how intellectually and dramatically thrilling Shakespeare can be, demonstrating the wealth of issues and subjects with which he engages. … Interestingly, this book aims to deflate myths, point to inconsistencies and ambiguities, and to identify flaws in his work — suggesting that we might have a tendency to be too reverent of the bard. Relishing these difficult questions, it draws freely from contemporary culture to illustrate the bard’s work and legacy, whether it’s by invoking Tarantino or comparing Falstaff to Homer Simpson.”

What kind of world did Shakespeare live in? Two books immediately come to mind.

Stephen Greenblatt's Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare is informative and fun. The GoodReads’ review says this: “A young man from a small provincial town moves to London in the late 1580s and, in a remarkably short time, becomes the greatest playwright not of his age alone but of all time. How is an achievement of this magnitude to be explained? Stephen Greenblatt brings us down to earth to see, hear, and feel how an acutely sensitive and talented boy, surrounded by the rich tapestry of Elizabethan life, could have become the world’s greatest playwright.”

And next is Frank Kermode’s - The Age of Shakespeare. From the GoodReads’ review: “In The Age of Shakespeare, Frank Kermode uses the history and culture of the Elizabethan era to enlighten us about William Shakespeare and his poetry and plays. Opening with the big picture of the religious and dynastic events that defined England in the age of the Tudors, Kermode takes the reader on a tour of Shakespeare’s England, vividly portraying London’s society, its early capitalism, its court, its bursting population, and its epidemics, as well as its arts—including, of course, its theater. Then Kermode focuses on Shakespeare himself and his career, all in the context of the time in which he lived. Kermode reads each play against the backdrop of its probable year of composition, providing new historical insights into Shakspeare’s characters, themes, and sources. The result is an important, lasting, and concise companion guide to the works of Shakespeare by one of our most eminent literary scholars.”

I have more than a few misgivings about giving any air to the authorship question. I’ll admit that there are some strange things connected with the authorship but I also have few doubts that Shakespeare was indeed the primary (and usually the sole) author of the works ascribed to him. Anyway, here are two works that deal with the many issues related to the authorship question.

James Shapiro's - Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?

One person’s look at the question begins here: (from the GoodReads review): “As Contested Will makes clear, much more than proper attribution of Shakespeare’s plays is at stake in this authorship controversy. Underlying the arguments over whether Christopher Marlowe, Francis Bacon, or the Earl of Oxford wrote Shakespeare’s plays are fundamental questions about literary genius, specifically about the relationship of life and art. Are the plays (and poems) of Shakespeare a sort of hidden autobiography? Do Hamlet, Macbeth, and the other great plays somehow reveal who wrote them? … Shapiro is the first Shakespeare scholar to examine the authorship controversy and its history in this way, explaining what it means, why it matters, and how it has persisted despite abundant evidence that William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the plays attributed to him. This is a brilliant historical investigation that will delight anyone interested in Shakespeare and the literary imagination.”

But if you want a much deeper dive into this question, with many experts weighing in, then consider this book: Edmundson & Wells - Shakespeare Beyond Doubt: Evidence, Argument, Controversy

All aspects of the authorship question are examined in nineteen essays. They should help settle the authorship question once and for all … but of course, they won’t, because people can choose to believe whatever they want to believe even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Anyway, I’m not sure that the authorship matter is the matter we should end with. Let’s instead just end with a statement that Shakespeare remains as Ben Jonson proclaimed in his poem, “He was not of an age, but for all time!”” And an author definitely for our time. An certainly an author to read and to study to understand the history of his times.

John, her colors leap out at us in this poem. Does she use the word rook because her husband has co-opted the word crow? :-)

Carol is so right about the interplay between emotion and judgment.

Carol wrote: "I love Robert Frost-he always seems to really suit my mood; he is not dispiriting and has a real connection with nature. He is much loved in the US obviously, but I gather he was first published in..."

I really like the poetry of Robert Frost. And I never knew that he was first published in the UK.

Carol wrote: "I think that perhaps snow is blowing your way, Larry and John, so here is a snow poem by Robert Frost. (I think we might have posted it before- I seem to remember thinking about hemlock-if so, Seni..."

We were very lucky with the mix of snow, sleet, freezing rain, rain, and then some snow again this morning. Rising temperatures in the Washington, DC area kept the roads and even most of the sidewalks clear. A little Frost is perfect after all that

John wrote: "I watched the documentary about Linda called The Sound of My Voice and thought it was excellent."

It was the last film we saw in a theater before the pandemic came along and made us hesitant to go there ... even after theaters have reopened in some ways. I thought that the editing of the film was brilliant cutting segments about her life with concert footage. And the sound! The quality of the music was brilliant. I love everything she has released ... with the exception of the three albums of Great American Songbook music she recorded with Nelson Riddle. I almost think he purposely sabotaged her on these. I know he criticized her singing of these songs. Whatever the reason is, they just don;t work for me, even though I love this genre. I retreat a lot to Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald singing these songs, but I even like it a lot when some others try them out. I think that the five Rod Stewart albums of these standards are really pretty good.

And that takes me back to the Rolling Stones. When Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood were with the Faces, on any given night that group could seriously challenge the Stones as being the great rock and roll band ever. I saw the Faces twice in those days ... in 1969 (?) in DC and in Charlottesville in 1971. The band was always alcohol fueled to an extreme in those days. It was a challenge for them in those days to get just drunk enough so that they were loose and not so drunk that they played too sloppy. On those two nights they were just about magical. And then it all fell apart as Stewart and Wood left for solo careers and for Wood to move into the Stones. It was great while it lasted.. Better than great, in fact.

Lance wrote: "I honestly don’t remember if I am a “new” member or I am coming back, but I am Lance and I read almost exclusively non-fiction sports books, so I’ll certainly let everyone know which books in those..."

Lance,

I am glad to see you here. And I appreciate your recommendations about the best sports books. Consider sharing your thoughts about the best sports books that were published in 2021 ... by going here:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Larry

Lance wrote: "Sorry to completely change the tone of the discussion, but I think you’ll get a chuckle of how I found out about this album. I heard “Tumbling Dice” on the radio as a teenager and loved it - looked..."

Lance,

Happy to have you join us in the discussion. I think that John and I both are willing to veer off. And I think that that Linda Ronstadt's cover was great. This very moment, my wife is talking with a very good friend (who has a lingering case of Covid-19) who grew up across the street from Linda Rondstadt. She knew the whole family but especially Linda's brother who became the local sheriff.

Larry

John, most of us hardly ever talk about the importance of Ronnie Wood to the Stones. He was a member of the Faces from 1969 until 1976. In Rod Stewart's autobiography, he explains how the Stones let him use their own recording studio to cut an album and stole Ronnie Wood to become the lead guitarist for the Stones, and that was what he has done all these years.

But this album was before he joined ... the lead guitarist for this album is Mick Taylor. With all the prominence that lead guitarists get, that's not what the Stones have been about. It's always been about Mick and Keith and Charlie Watts ... and now Charlie Watts is gone.

John,

I thought I would just list the songs that I liked the most. These five are at the top of my list:

Rocks Off (strange how the tempo really slows at about 2:30 ... before it picks back up again)
Tumbling Dice (easily my favorite song ... I love the backup women singers)
Sweet Virginia
Sweet Black Angel
Happy (such a classic Stones song)

Larry

There are such gaps in my poetry experiences. I have read some of Seamus Heaney's Beowulf but little else. I can remedy that. And when I read the following, it seems mandatory that I must.

"Often considered to be "the greatest poet of our age" (The Guardian), Seamus Heaney was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995 "for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past." He saw poetry as a vocation and credited it with "the power to persuade the vulnerable part of our consciousness of its rightness in spite of the evidence of wrongness all around it, the power to remind us that we are hunters and gatherers of values." Paul Muldoon wrote that Heaney was "the only poet I can think of who was recognized worldwide as having moral as well as literary authority." "

John, we have a three foot high statue of St. Francis in our living room … a wall plaque of him in our front hall … we sort of like the guy. I love the poem.

Bye, Ricky.