Download Orson Welles' Mecury Theater for Free

Orson Welles' Mercury Theater Company (renamed the Campbell Theater Company after Campbell Soup took up its sponsorship) produced the infamous "War of The Worlds" 1938 broadcast, and dozens more, which are available for free here: http://www.mercurytheatre.info/

The following titles are available, about one hour each:

Dracula
Treasure Island
The 39 Steps
Three Short Stories: I'm a Fool, The Open Window, and My Little Boy
Abraham Lincoln
The Affairs of Anatol
The Count of Monte Cristo
The Man Who Was Thursday
The Immortal Sherlock Holmes
Hell on Ice
Seventeen
Around the World in 80 Days
The War of the Worlds
Heart of Darkness / Life with Father
A Passenger to Bali
The Pickwick Papers
Rebecca
A Christmas Carol
Counselor-at-Law
Mutiny on the Bounty
I Lost My Girlish Laughter
Arrowsmith
The Green Goddess
The Glass Key
Beau Geste
Showboat
The Patriot
Private Lives
Wickford Point
Our Town
The Bad Man
Things We Have
Victoria Regina
Peter Ibbetson
Ah, Wilderness
What Every Woman Knows
The Count of Monte Cristo
Algier
Liliom
The Magnificent Ambersons
The Hurricane
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
The Garden of Allah
Dodsworth
Lost Horizon
Venessa
There's Always a Woman
A Christmas Carol
Vanity Fair
Theodora Goes Wild
The Citadel
It Happened One Night
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
Dinner at Eight
Only Angels Have Wings
Rabble in Arms
Craig's Wife
Huckleberry Finn
June Moon

Take Your Mama

This is a great jukebox song in the Elton John tradition - although the "Scissor Sisters" began in effect as a practical joke, and the singer claims he wasn't really familiar with Elton John until after the song was recorded

Atheism alone is a rotting corpse. I substitute art and nature for God - the grandeur of man and the vast mystery of the universe.

- Camille Paglia

NASA's Hubble "Deep Field" above portrays not stars - almost every point of light is a distant galaxy. If the Deep Field image itself is sublime, how much more impressive is it that we as humans can comprehend it?

Compare Coreggio's "Jupiter and Io," 1532, left with that of NASA's 2001 Cassini Probe, with the amber-colored Io and the white Europa in Transit across the face of Jupiter, right. There is no separating the "mystery of the universe" from the "grandeur of man" who surveys it.

One More Leap!

NASA's Phoenix Mars lander is only just sending back images after its successful landing yesterday.  Enjoy this 90 second video of its majestic launch:

And this slick  3 minute animation of its voyage:

The Gift of Music

I'm not exactly a luddite, but I'm no where near the cutting edge of technology either. I don't wear a watch. I've never owned a cell phone. I did once buy a Sony Walkman – sometime last century. I have a laptop, but riding the subway I read the newspaper and, until yesterday, I listened to ear plugs. A close friend just did me the favor of getting me an inexpensive mp3 player. On it are well over a hundred songs. The first five are some of my favorite hits of the last century. If you are not familiar with them, I recommend these inspiring classics:

Nina Simone Feeling Good
Etta James At Last
Dusty Springfield Son of a Preacher Man
Johnny Nash I Can See Clearly Now
Sam Cooke Change is Gonna Come

Not by Bread Alone

North Korean classical pianist Cheol Woong Kim, born in Pyongyang, gave his first performance in America as a free man in Manhattan on May 21st. He had escaped to South Korea in 2003. The New York Sun quotes him as saying "I did not leave North Korea because I was hungry for food, but because I was hungry for music... People do not leave because they know that they deserve food, but because they know that they deserve freedom."

Let us remember this and the 54,000 american servicemen who died in the Korean War as we celebrate Memorial Day weekend.

Cheol Woong Kim as he performs at the 2007 Melbourne Jazz Festival:

Walter M. Miller "A Canticle for Leibowitz"

Walter M. Miller Jr.s' magnum opus, constantly in print since its publication in 1960, this work is considered by many to be the most beautifully artistic work of science-fiction ever written. In three parts, Fiat Homo, Fiat Lux, Fiat Voluntas Tua, it traces the future history of man from a post-thermonuclear dark age, through the re-invention of electricity, and back to the brink of self destruction. Written as an explicitly Roman Catholic and pre-Vatican II novel, the Hugo Award-winning story revolves about a monastery named for the titular character, Saint Leibowitz, who never appears live. A basic knowledge of Latin and a willingness to look up a term every other chapter (or to reference the wonderful cheat-sheet of Latin phrases fromn Canticle at Wikipedia) and an ability to suspend any anti-Catholic bias will benefit the reader.

The work is one of worship for heroic effort, of principles upheld, and values passionately pursued. Miller's sense of history and discerning psychological skill lead to vistas and characterizations of Herbertian depth. With the wry dark wit of a Cold War culture that produced Strangelove and Planet of the Apes, irony wrestles with ecstasy. Leibowitz is a Jew, canonized by the Church for accidental reasons. With its span of centuries, another strand woven throughout this epic is the apocryphal Christian mythological persona, the Wandering Jew, condemned to walk the Earth 'til Christ return.

Miller's language is unsurpassingly poetic, his words evoking imagery of Randian clarity. I have read this book three times through. Miller was known primarily as a writer of short stories, often, as in Dark Benediction, of great skill and originality. He led a troubled later life, and never finished another novel. The posthumous, disillusioned and anti-climactic Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman was finished by a ghost writer. But this masterpiece has all the pathos and beauty of a great mediaeval cathedral, crucifix included.