Category Archives: Life

Summer’s End

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One of the great songs that John Prine wrote in the last part of his career. Like the lyrics of Paul Simon, Prine’s lyrics tells you just enough about the story to intrigue you, but open enough to let you complete it with your own experience.

Click on the video above to play.

Thanks to YouTuber Radio Heartland

The Atomic Cafe–Part 2!

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Last week we brought you Part 1 of an interview with Jayne Loader, one of the directors of the classic 1982 film documentary called The Atomic Cafe, a darkly comic and horrifying collage of government propaganda clips and popular culture surrounding the development and deployment of US nuclear weapons. In Part 1 we talked about the dropping of the A-bomb and the lies that were told about it. This week, Jayne talks about how she and her co-directors obtained the material and the impact the cold war and nuclear weapons had on American culture from duck and cover drills in schools to the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

Here now is Part 2 of my interview with Jayne Loader director of The Atomic Cafe.

Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear the interview as broadcast on the Arts Express radio program this week on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.

Part 1 is here:

The Atomic Cafe: It’s The Bomb!

The Atomic Cafe: It’s The Bomb!

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Forget about Oppenheimer. The year 1982 saw the release of one of the darkest, most horrific and yes, funniest documentaries ever made. I’m talking about film The Atomic Café which was a head-spinning stew of actual atomic age propaganda of the 1940s fifties and beyond, crafted from government-produced educational and training films, newsreels and advertisements. The film exposed the vast propaganda machine that the US state uses to deceive and market its insane atomic policies. Now it’s in re-release, and I think more relevant than ever, and I was very happy to be speaking today with one of the original directors of The Atomic Café, Jayne Loader.

Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear Part One of my interview with Jayne Loader as broadcast today on the Arts Express radio show heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.

Part Two is here:

The Atomic Cafe–Part 2!

The Weight

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Levon Helm, Rick Danko, and Robbie Robertson on vocals on one of the great songs of all time IMO. This live version is from the Woodstock Festival in 1969. Big controversy on who wrote the song himself and whether Robbie was a shithead. Yeah, he probably was, but no matter now.

RIP Robbie Robertson

Thanks to YouTuber claus250

Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse

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To The Lighthouse was a novel I had been intrigued with since my twenties. When I heard that it had just gone out of copyright, I thought it would be fun to write a radio adaptation and to direct and edit it.

I started writing this adaptation back in January of this year, rehearsed it and recorded it in April and May with a fine company of actors, and then edited it in June and July. I’m happy to say we’ve finally completed it.

Here’s the logline:

In this adaptation, prepared especially for radio, Virginia Woolf’s ground-breaking stream of consciousness novel, To The Lighthouse, is brought to life.

In a sort of ghost story that plays with time, memory, and recollection, a young boy, over a period of ten years, tries to journey to the lighthouse, a stormy boat ride away from his family’s summer vacation home. The life of his nurturing mother, hemmed in by social and family strictures, is contrasted with that of her artist friend who lives in artistic freedom, but alone.

Included is a brief three minute introduction to give the context of the novel and the era in which Virginia Woolf was writing.

Our cast, in order of appearance:

James Ramsay…..Byron O’Hanlon

Mrs Ramsay….Mary Murphy

Mr. Ramsay…Jack Shalom

Charles Tansley….Joe Levine

Andrew Ramsay….KeShaun Luckie

Lily Briscoe….Lucy McMichael

William Bankes….Marty Levine

Cam Ramsay….Sarah Taylor

Prue Ramsay….Vivienne Shalom

Minta Doyle….Emma Mueller

Paul Rayley….David Lepelstat