The Cheshire Cat: “We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”

Ovewewhelmed by the craziness all over the place? Take a break and think about it all in new ways with this episode that goes all around the place attending to various insanities and, more important, various ways to respond to the insanity and retain our own sanity. You are invited to attend. [As heard on Cambridge 105 Radio]

rla on November 4th, 2024
Joseph

We attend to Consequences – intended, unintended, mostly comic (sort of), with a wide variety of stories, poems, and music, including one of George Ade’s Fables in Slang (illustrated here). You are invited to attend. [As heard on Cambridge 105 Radio]

Clarence

rla on October 21st, 2024

We attend to Charm, elaborating on a short essay on charm by Richard Dury. Charm, from words, to amulets, to personal characteristics, to performance. You are invited to attend. [As heard on Cambridge 105 Radio]

The leprous falsifiers

In an age of lies and of distancing from what’s really going on, we attend again to Dante’s depiction of the lowest form of fraud – a jumbled mass of falsifiers of different kinds, their fabrications manifesting as various diseases. You are inivted to attend – if you dare! [As heard on Cambridge 105 Radio]

The storm-tossed Flying Dutchman

We attend to this season’s storms, both outer and inner weather, with a large cast joining us: Robert Frost, Richard Wagner, the Flying Dutchman, the Beatles, Al Green, The Band, Dante, Andre Dubus, Odetta, Tammy Wynette, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen. You are invited to attend. [As heard on Cambridge 105 Radio]

rla on September 9th, 2024

We begin with the Pied Piper, a song, then Browning’s wonderful poem, and then move on to much else, including Malcolm Guite, Kenneth Grahame, RLS, Tom Robbins, Amiri Baraka. You are invited to come along, following the piper. [First heard on Cambridge 105 Radio]

rla on August 26th, 2024

We celebrate the centenary of James Baldwin’s birth with the powerful final scenes of his masterpiece “Sonny’s Blues”, along with pieces by Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson, Leadbelly, Louis Armstrong, Paul Robeson, Thelonious Monk, Jayne Cortez, and Coltrane. [An extended version of the show heard on Cambridge 105 Radio]

rla on August 12th, 2024

We attend to the heart-felt energy of Summer Fire, with music from The Band, Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong, the Kinks, Randy Newman, the Rolling Stones, Leonard Cohen, and Bernice Johnson Reagon. You are invited to attend. [As heard on Cambridge 105 Radio]

rla on July 29th, 2024

We attend to various kinds of friends, with, as usual, various kinds of music. You are invited to attend. [As heard on Cambridge 105 Radio]

Arnold Friend’s numbers

Most of the show taken up in a reading of Joyce Carol Oates’s horror story about a young girl being called, or seduced, into a strange, new life, all sandwiched between the Beach Boys, the Mothers of Invention and Bob Dylan. [As heard on Cambridge 105 Radio]