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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]
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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]
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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]
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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]
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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]
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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]
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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]
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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]
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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]
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As promised we bring back the episode on the story of Jonah, with exciting songs (though not fully understanding the thrust of the story) and wide-ranging ramifications. And we bear in mind Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s words: “There are whales on every side / With their big mouths open wide / Just take care, my friend, / Or one will swallow you.” [As heard on Cambridge 105 Radio]
