Canto 3 of the Inferno, wherein Dante is challenged by the Gates of Hell, passes through the area of the non-descript souls, who have done nothing with their lives and spend eternity being stung to follow furiously behind meaningless banners, and then is ferried over the first river of Hell – but faints as soon as he gets across. Music by Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Amiri Baraka, Robert Johnson, Randy Newman. You are invited to attend.
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Horny satyr sitting in dim oak-covert
Artemis on the hunt
“Like a pack of Satyrs, sitting in dim oak-coverts, and hearing only afar off the voices and swift feet of Artemis’s maidens” – intrigued? Attend the latest episode and learn more, and watch Whitman parade himself “hankering, gross, mystical, nude”.
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No one wants a fellow with a social disease.
We look at Outcasts, all invited to Walt Whitman’s “meal pleasantly set”: “I will not have a single person slighted or left away.” There’s Officer Krupke for comic relief before a disturbing exerpt from Asena, a one-woman play about sex-trafficking, and another Coleman Barks story from Rumi, ending with Leonard Cohen being a disgraceful outcast whom we must not pass by. You’re invited to attend.
Asena, Round Church, Cambridge, 19 February, 7.30
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Gobo Fraggle finds the Only Way Home
You are invited to attend this fine episode about Home, picking up the Fraggle theme that “You don’t know where you’ve been until you’re homeward bound”, looking at the way home keeps its hold on us, the way we work out how to get back home again, and the way returning home can, after all, define where we’ve been. Featuring, among others, Robert Frost, Luke, Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and Walt Whitman.
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Lamplight 102
I think you’ll like this episode of Evening under Lamplight, featuring a story by Rumi (“The Lost Camel”) and a discussion with Joseph Campbell (“From Camel to Lion to Child”), with the Kinks lost and found, and Fraggle Rock lost and found, and Elizabeth Bishop, Leonard Cohen, and Walt Whitman. You’re invited to attend.
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Lamplight 100: Century 
It’s our hundredth Evening under Lamplight and we celebrate with a few highlights from earlier shows: a Party Triptych, three songs about parties; a Kinks double-play about dancing; a Stevenson fable; one of Dylan’s best unknown songs, “Your Lover Now”; and a closing piece from Leonard Cohen, “Land of Plenty”. Plenty of things for you, and, as always, you’re invited to attend.
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Robert Burns, A Man's a Man for A' That
Whitman asks, “Who need be afraid of the merge?” There are lots of ways we can take this, and we try out several of those ways this evening, under lamplight, with Robert Burns, celebrating the Scottish spirit of the “independent mind” (independent here not necessarily in the political sense), Whitman extending himself outside his hat and boots to merge with everyone he encounters, and Leonard Cohen, in honour of his big birthday this week.
Leonard taking a graceful and gracious bow as we wish him happy birthday.
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“Dust and ashes — we hold them up in our open palm and let the wind take them away.”
It’s time for letting go, or even letting yourself go, as you accept our invitation to attend to a show with some lively songs from many regular contributors, poems from Whitman, Elizabeth Bishop, RLS, and thoughts on all of this and more from RLA, your friendly host for this occasion. See you there.
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Daphne and Apollo
What relationship develops in that space between the artist and the work of art, between the singer and the song, between the reader and the book? Tone brings it all to life, so we want to open and be attuned to what’s being asked of us in this space. It can happen to us anytime. We invite you to attend, and be attuned, to our show, featuring, among much else, an examination of the Daphne and Apollo story – a mythic retelling of the way the art itself loves the artist. We have on the show the Kinks, and Dylan, and the Fraggles, Leonard Cohen, the Miracles, and also a touch of raga and an ancient Greek hymn, with readings from RLS and Ovid.
