Country Joe McDonald at Woodstock, RIP
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FIxin’ To Die Rag
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Category Archives: Performance
Teaching in Prisons and More: Andy Teirstein Part 2
“Hi this is Jack Shalom, Last week we began our conversation with composer, professor, performer, activist Andy Teirstein. I had met Andy through our mutual immigration rights work at the NYC immigration courts for the New Sanctuary Coalition. In the process of getting to know him I learned that he had taught music and theater at a couple of upstate prisons. We left off our conversation as Andy was describing what it was like for both him and the men in prison to learn in that setting. So here’s Andy…”
Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above to hear Part two of my interview with Andy Teirstein on the Arts Express radio program broadcast on WBAI FM NYC, WBAI.org and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
You can find Part One here:
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Of Immigration Court And Teaching in Prisons, Part One: Andy Teirstein
“We’re going to do something a little bit different today. My guest is someone who I just only recently met a few Fridays ago at an immigration court accompaniment, under the auspices of the New Sanctuary Coalition here in NYC. We started talking and I found him to be a fascinating guy with a really eclectic, creative, and political background including all kinds of awards and honors. So, I’m happy to be speaking today with actor, musician, composer, professor and political activist, Fellow at the Center for Ballet and the Arts, and also BMI Woody Guthrie Fellow, Andy Teirstein…”
Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above to hear my wide ranging conversation with Andy, as heard on the Arts Express radio program broadcast on WBAI FM, WBAI.org and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
And you can find Part Two here:
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Renee Good: On Learning To Dissect Fetal Pigs
“Renee Good, among other accomplishments, was an award winning poet and was deeply interested in questions of faith. She grew up as an evangelical Christian, but in 2016, now married, at the age of 28 she started college, and the clash of religious ideas versus science and secular ideas was explosive for her. In 2020, she wrote a poem about her trying to reconcile the two ways of experiencing the world, which foreshadowed the change in her political beliefs. The poem was called “On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs” and it won the Academy of American Poets University & College Poetry Prize. I’m going to read it now…”
Click on the small triangle or mp3 link to hear a reading of the poem as broadcast on the Arts Express radio show, as heard on WBAI FM NYC, WBAI.org, and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
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“Something That Was Once Potentially Good”
How do you write fiction in a world that is perhaps post-fiction? When the horrors of the present world outstrip what our imaginations imagine? Arts Express favorite, Luke O’Neil, author of Welcome to Hell World and A Creature Wanting Form, writes stories that are full of the pain of men and women–but mostly men–who are trying to figure out how to deal with the helplessness and terror that make a mockery out of any John Wayne or Ernest Hemingway definition of manhood.
Now O’Neil has come out with his third collection of short stories called We Had It Coming, published by O/R Books.. We’ve always resonated with his work, but in this new collection especially, O’Neil’s short pieces are to our time what Raymond Carver’s short stories were to his. Stories of the soul and body struggling to make sense of the senseless cages in which capitalism has trapped us.
Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above to hear my reading of “Something That Was Once Potentially Good,” from We Had It Coming, as broadcast on the Arts Express radio program, heard on WBAI FM and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
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Culture and Barbarism With Dennis Broe
Part One:
Part Two:
I was happy to have this cross-continental conversation with cultural critic, novelist, and Arts Express Paris Correspondent, Dennis Broe. I think you’ll have fun listening to our wide-ranging conversation with topics from the French street uprisings to media consolidation to AI to Robin Hood to Zohran Mamdani. We broadcast it last week and this week on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the country.
This was conceived originally as a fundraiser for listener-sponsored radio station WBAI, home of Arts Express, but we edited the conversation for the affiliates (and this blog!) to eliminate most of the pitching.
Click on the small triangle or mp3 links to play.
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Eleventh Annual Shalom Blog Magic Contest
Once again, In the never-ending battle for shelf place, I’m giving away some very nice magic books. One of them can be yours. Here’s what to do:
Please follow ALL the bolded directions, or I cannot accept your entry. I have generated a list of 10 random whole numbers between 1 and 10,000. Email me, at jshalom@worldshare.net one whole number between 1 and 10,000 that you think might be on the list. Put the word “Contest” in the subject line. Make sure to include your full name (not a company name!) and a current shipping address. One entry only please. If you won a prize last year, please do not enter this year to give others a chance. Do this before the deadline. Deadline is Sunday, November 30th 11:59 PM Pacific Time. That’s it. (Sorry, but due to shipping costs, this is only open to folks who live in the Continental US.) Please follow ALL the bolded directions, or I cannot accept your entry. Prizes will be awarded in December.
Whoever is closest to the first number on my random list gets first prize; whoever is closest to the second number gets second prize, and so on. There will be 10 prizes given out.
First prize is first choice from the terrific grab bag of magic books I’ve put together; second prize is second choice from the grab bag; and third prize, in a parallel, numerically pleasing manner, is third choice from the grab bag, and so on, down to 10th prize gets 10th choice. The items in the grab bag are all commercial magic books at least one of which, I guarantee, you will be very happy to have.
Looking forward to hearing from you!
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The Black Cat
And now a little Halloween cheer with the short story, The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe, adapted for Arts Express Radio.
Click on the mp3 link or small triangle above to hear the tale as broadcast on the Arts Express radio program on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
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Just Phenomenal
One of the most astonishing and entertaining magic acts I’ve ever seen. Belgian Magician Laurent Piron stuns Penn & Teller, the audience, and certainly me.
More at Laurent Piron
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Newport And The Great Folk Dream
In the cultural and political explosion that became known as the 60s, music was an incredible unifier, and arguably the most important cultural and political form of expression. But what culminated in Woodstock in 1968 had its precursor in the Newport Folk Festival from the early 60s. Now, a new documentary about the Newport Folk Festival based on archival footage that hasn’t been seen in sixty years has been released called Newport and the Great Folk Dream. I was happy to talk with the director and producers of the film, Robert Gordon and Joe Lauro.
Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above to hear the interview, as heard this week on the Arts Express radio program, broadcast on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
And you can find Part 2 here:
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Action Will Be Taken!
“Probably one of the strangest interludes in my life was the time I spent as an employee in Alfred Wunsiedel’s factory…”
This time, for Labor Day weekend, I’ll be reading a droll story by Heinrich Böll about a pensive worker who finds his true calling in a world that seems to demand action at all costs. It’s called Action Will Be Taken.
Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above to hear our Labor Day Noir, as broadcast on the Arts Express radio program heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
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Join ICE
Jesse Welles, as always, up to the minute, gives some recruiting advice, in lieu of the current budget allocation of 75 billion dollars to reward our national gestapo/paramilitary
More at Jesse Welles
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The Great Caucasian God
Guitars!
Monday morning finds Jesse Welles with just the greatest smile and joy singing about his true passion in life! What a kick.
More at Jesse Welles
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Sweet Baby James
That Sunday
Monday morning, Nat King Cole reminisces about a summer Sunday.
Thanks to YouTuber catman916
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Lead Belly!
The great Huddie Ledbetter, better known as Lead Belly, King of the 12-string Guitar, one of the most important musicians in American music, is the subject of a recent film documentary, titled Leadbelly: The Man Who Invented Rock and Roll. Perhaps it would be more telling to subtitle the film, The History of Being an Exploited Black Musician in America. What makes this film special is that the producer of the film, Alvin Singh II, is the great-nephew of Leadbelly, and the film includes not only his remembrances of Leadbelly, but also the wonderful on-screen memories of Tiny Robinson, Lead Belly’s niece. And to top it off, we get plenty of first-hand accounts of Leadbelly from interviews with a dazzling array of musicians— Odetta, Pete Seeger, Harry Belafonte, BB King, Oscar Brand and more…
Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above to listen to my review (and more Lead Belly music!), as broadcast on the Arts Express radio program, heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
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Bourgeois Blues
Monday morning, Huddie Ledbetter, the great blues and folk singer known as Lead Belly, talks and sings about being thrown out of a whites-only boarding house in Washington DC. The recording is listed as made in 1936.
Thanks to YouTuber Traveler Into The Blue
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Something To Cheer Us Up
Josh Turner (without guitar!) focuses on the singing this time, with Martina DaSilva, Sonny Step, Luke Bob Robinson, and David Linard. Written by Duke Ellington, Johnny Hodges, and Harry James, with lyrics by Don George.
More at Josh Turner Guitar
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Fentanyl: Jesse Welles
The Best Folk Singer/Songwriter Of His Generation?
“Jesse Welles has got a voice like John Prine, plays guitar like Bob Dylan, and can write a song that’s as topical and clever as the songs of Phil Ochs or Tom Paxton or Woody Guthrie. It turns out, despite his handsome shaggy-haired babyface look, he has been making songs for a long time. In an age where so much music is artificially created with plastic lyrics and digitally manipulated instruments, it is refreshing to hear a protest song on a simple acoustic folk guitar that doesn’t just talk about generalities, but actually names names, and has a political point of view…”
Click on the mp3 link or triangle above to hear the rest of my commentary on Welles, as broadcast this week on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the country.
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Firesign Theatre: Part Two
Herein, Part two of our conversation with Jeremy Braddock, author of the book, Firesign.
Click on the mp3 link or triangle above to hear the interview as broadcast this week on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the country
Note: Our posting lately has been more sporadic than usual–we hope to be back up to speed in a week or two.
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Beat The Reaper With The Firesign Theatre
If you are of a certain age, growing up as a high school or college kid during the late 60s or early 70s, then odds are that at least one time as you were toking up, the surrealist record LPs of the Firesign Theatre invaded your brain. As the albums brilliantly shifted in and out of tv, film and radio parody, they broke down walls of time, space and authority. Now in a new book about the Firesign Theater, called Firesign, author Jeremy Braddock provides a wonderful non-linear look at the four influential guys who turned the art of radio and recording upside down. I was happy to have as our guest on the show, the author of Firesign, Jeremy Braddock.
Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above to hear the interview as heard on the Arts Express radio program broadcast this week on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation
Part Two here:
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If I Had A Hammer
Monday Morning, Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie, and Seeger’s grandson, Tao Rodriguez-Seeger, belt their song out.
Thanks to YouTuber Evan
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Magical Paperplanes
What a beautiful magic act! Magician Nikolai Striebel takes a simple premise and keeps expanding on it…
More at Nikolai Striebel
