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We celebrate the two energies of Springtime: Anger and Kindness, with the help of Dante and Shakespeare, and our usual panel of Dylan, the Kinks and RLS. Anger leading to self-knowledge and even to kindness – there’s an idea you don’t hear every day. Aha, but it’s a new way of looking at things, just what you expect from Evening under Lamplight!
Including RLA’s Spring meditation from Journey through the Seasons: Meditations on the Five Chinese Healing Energies.
Dante: Inferno (Penguin Classics)
The Tempest (Penguin Popular Classics)
Highway 61 Revisited (Bob Dylan “Like a Rolling Stone”)
Phobia (Kinks, “Hatred”)
In Concert – the Complete 1967 Anaheim Show (Donovan, “Lullaby for Spring)
Tags: Dante, Donovan, Dylan, Filippo Argenti, Hatred, Inferno, Journey through the Seasons, Kinks, Like a Rolling Stone, Lullaby of Spring, Robert Louis Stevenson, Shakespeare, The Tempest, Vivaldi
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Dante and the Hypocrites
We are looking at Actors and Hypocrites – the same game, different rules: people playing parts, sometimes asking us to play along, sometimes desperately keeping us from perceiving that this is not their true self. We hear from the usual guests: Kinks, Dylan, RLS, and also old friends like Leonard Cohen and Randy Newman. And a lot of attention on what Dante’s myth can tell us about these false faces people put on. Thoreau comes into it too.
Everybody’s in Show-Biz (Kinks, “Celluloid Heroes”)
Land of Dreams (Randy Newman, “Masterman and Baby J”)
Abbey Road (Beatles, “Carry That Weight”)
Biograph (Dylan, “Positively 4th Street”)
The Future (Leonard Cohen, “Be for Real”)
Dante: Inferno (Penguin Classics) (trans. Robin Kirkpatrick)
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Other Tales of Terror (Penguin Classics)
Walden and Civil Disobedience: (American Library) (Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience”)
Tags: Abbey Road, Acting, Actors, Be for Real, Beatles, Celluloid Heroes, civil disobedience, Dante, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Dylan, Everybody's in Show-Biz, Expediency, Hypocrites, Inferno, Kinks, Leonard Cohen, Masterman and Baby J, Positively 4th Street, Randy Newman, RLS, Robert Louis Stevenson, Thoreau
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Attend to Little Red Riding Hood – the story of all of us leaving the straight path to follow beauty into the woods and get swallowed into our community before being reborn as our whole self. Regular appearances by Dylan, the Kinks, and RLS, plus some silly songs and some freaky songs, and the song that Ed Sullivan told the Rolling Stones “Either that song goes or you go!” 
Red Hot (Billy Lee Riley, “Red Hot”)
Wooly Bully/Li’l Red Riding Hood (Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, “Little Red Riding Hood”)
Percy (Kinks, “Just Friends”)
Tiptoe Through the Tulips: Resurrection (Tiny Tim, “Tiptoe through the Tulips”)
I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die (Country Joe and the Fish, “Pat’s Song”)
Between The Buttons (UK Version) (Rolling Stones, “Let’s Spend the Night Together”)
Down in the Groove (Bob Dylan, “Death Is Not the End”)
A Child’s Garden of Verses (Penny Books) (RLS, “Escape at Bedtime”)
Tags: Between the Buttons, Billy Lee Riley, Child's Garden of Verses, Country Joe and the Fish, Death Is Not the End, Down in the Groove, Dylan, Escape at Bedtime, Fairy Tales, Feel like I'm Fixin' to Die, Kinks, Let's Spend the Night together, Little Red Riding Hood, Louis Barabbas, Percy, Red Hot, Robert Louis Stevenson, Rolling Stones, Sam the Sham, Tiny Tim, Tiptoe through the Tulips
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Attend to the fools, the jesters and the jokers. Fools in love, idiot winds, and three kinds of professional jesters, including the modern-day Stand-up Comic. Besides regulars Dylan, Ray Davies, and RLS, we have guest appearances from Frankie Lymon, Mothers of Invention, Danny Kaye, the D’Oyly Carte, Jonathan Swift, and a few others. The only way to be cool, is to let yourself first be a fool.
And take a look at our podcast on the Tarot Fool.
Essential Recordings 1955-1961 (Frankie Lymon and the Teenages, “Why Do Fools Fall in Love?”)
Cruising With Ruben & the Jets (Mothers of Invention, “How Could I Be Such a Fool”)
Blood On The Tracks (Bob Dylan, “Idiot Wind”)
The Maladjusted Jester (Danny Kaye, “The Maladjusted Jester”)
Other People S Lives (Ray Davies, “Stand-up Comic”)
Magical Mystery Tour (Beatles, “Fool on the Hill”)
Tags: Beatles, Crabbed Age and Youth, Danny Kaye, Dylan, Fool on the Hill, Fools, Frankie Lymon, Gilbert and Sullivan, Idiot Wind, Jesters, Jokers, Jonathan Swift, Magical Mystery Tour, Maladjusted Jester, Mothers of Invention, O A Private Buffoon, Ray Davies, Robert Louis Stevenson, Ruben and the Jets, Stand-up Comic, Tale of a Tub
Tashi & friend
RLA & Tashi
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This our third show on Animals, a topic always good for interesting music and poetry. Several dogs here this evening, including the original “Hound Dog” – not sounding like you thought it sounded – and cats and a rooster (cockerel) and a bumble bee with a stinger as long as my arm, a spider, a tiger, some birds, and, yes, even a dragon. Our usuals – Dylan, Kinks, RLS – plus, well, listen along and you’ll see who else.
The Village Green Preservation Society (Kinks, “Animal Farm”)
Anthology 3 (Beatles, “Octopus’s Garden”)
New Morning (Bob Dylan, “If Dogs Run Free”)
Ulysses (Modern Classics) (James Joyce’s Ulysses, read by Jim Norton)
Songs from a Room (Leonard Cohen, “Bird on a Wire”)
Tags: Animal Farm, Beatles, Big Mama Thornton, Bird on the Wire, Boris the Spider, Bumble Bee, Catch the Tail by the Tiger, Child's Garden of Verses, Christopher Smart, Donovan, Dylan, Fats Domino, Fraggle Rock, Hound Dog, If Dogs Run Free, James Joyce, Kinks, Leonard Cohen, Magpie, My cat Jeoffry, Nest Eggs, New Morning, Octopus's Garden, Robert Louis Stevenson, Rooster, St George and the Dragon, Stan Freberg, The Who, Ulysses, Vivaldi Winter Largo
Cinderella by Edmund Dulac
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Let me tell you a little story about Meg, a top advertising executive in Los Angeles, who discovered her connection to Cinderella and thereby found herself.
Meg was successful. She was making something like $400,000 a year, but was itchy, never content with herself. She spent almost a quarter of her income on clothes, make-up and “body work”. She was a little over fifty years old, still pretty glamorous, especially in her expensive clothes, but her confidence was weakening. She found it hard to show up at business meetings, or if she did show up, she felt compelled to leave as soon as she could get away. She had this fear that sooner or later the other people would discover that she was actually not as attractive as they had thought she was. She had this sense that deep down she was worthless and someday she would be exposed. Read the rest of this entry »
Cindrella by Edmund Dulac
You are invited to attend to Cinderella, and fairy tales and transformations and miracles and all those things we usually don’t dare to think will happen in real life. Yes, we have the Kinks and Dylan and RLS, and others. Tammy Wynette tells us she still believes in fairy tales. Do you?
Cinderella by Maxfield Parrish
Debateable Lands (Kathryn
Tickell, “The Return”)
State Of Confusion (Kinks, “Heart of Gold”)
Into the Woods (Sondheim, “On the Steps of the Palace”)
Their Greatest Hits (Hot Chocolate, “You Sexy Thing”)
The Bootleg Series Vol.1-3: Rare & Unreleased 1961-1991 (Bob Dylan, “You Changed My Life”)
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What goes round comes round to our show, featuring the circles we spin in, the ruts we get stuck in, the reciprocal gestures, the circular reasoning, the upward spirals. Dylan, Kinks, RLS, the Band, Guys and Dolls, Kay Starr, and the Choir of the Tuskegee Institute. And a special look at Ralph Ellison’s amazing story “The King of the Bingo Game”. We invite you to attend.
Give The People What They Want (Kinks, “Predictable”)
Music from Big Pink (The Band, “This Wheel’s on Fire”)
ALMANACK (Steeleye Span, “Reels”)
Guys and Dolls (“Luck Be a Lady”)
The Fabulous Kay Starr (“Wheel of Fortune”)
Slow Train Coming (Bob Dylan, “Do Right to Me Baby [Do unto Others]”)
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (40+ works with an active table of contents) (“The Sick Man and the Fireman”)
Flying Home and Other Stories (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) (Ralph Ellison, “The King of the Bingo Game”)
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Our wintertime show features Robert Service’s “Cremation of Sam McGee”, a tall tale from the frozen north, and “The Smoke-Shovelling Song”, a tall tale song from the frozen Edinburgh. Dylan and the Kinks and RLS, of course, and also Leonard Cohen and Randy Newman. But don’t take my word for it – come and attend for yourself.
Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes (Classic Reprint) (RLS)
New Morning (Dylan, “Winterlude”)
The Randy Newman Songbook Vol.1 (Randy Newman, “Lonely at the Top”)
Everybody’s in Show-Biz (Kinks, “Sitting in my Hotel Room”)
Starlight upon the darkness
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Not one of your typical Christmas shows, of course. The myth speaks of a light shining in the darkest hour, so let’s see what we can do with that theme. It all depends on what we mean by “darkest hour”, of course. John Lennon calling for peace in a time of war? How about Father Christmas being mugged by some kids who want his money? Christmas blues? RLS’s “faithful failures”? John Donne on the year’s darkest day? But be sure not to miss the amazing performance by Dylan Thomas of “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” – a sparkling reading to lighten all our darkness as we listen.
Lennon: Legend – The Very Best of John Lennon (John Lennon, “Happy Christmas [War Is Over]”)
Misfits (Kinks, “Father Christmas”)
Christmas In The Heart (Bob Dylan, “The Christmas Blues”)
A Child’s Christmas in Wales (Dylan Thomas)
The John Rutter Christmas Album (Cambridge Singers, “Silent Night”)
The Love Poems of John Donne: Complete & Unabridged (Richard Burton reading Donne’s “Nocturnall upon St Lucies Day”)
Darkness into the Light (Tavener, “Medie Noctis Tempus Est”)
