 
|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
|
|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
100.40.114.211
Must be seen to be believed.
TRIVIA QUESTION: Guess WFB Jr.'s native language.
ANSWER: Spanish. And French was his second language. He had to learn English in (IIRC) First Grade.
His father had oil interests in Venezuela, and Jr. spent some of his childhood in Mexico, so Jr.'s Nannies spoke Spanish.
That's one definition of "Rich," I guess.
My Godmother's husband knew him slightly.
Uncle Bob once told me that the only thing he envied about Bill Buckley was his ability to play the harpsichord.
I'll never forget when I was in high school visiting my aunt and uncle. My uncle who was a full-tilt Organic Gardener before it was trendy (this was 1971 or 1972) was working in his always-perfect gardens (he had two beehives, also) amd my aunt came to the back door and said, "Bob, there's an operator on the phone who wants to connect you to Bill Buckley, who is on his yacht off the coast of Spain." Back then, that such things were a big deal.
Ciao,
john
Follow Ups:
Nt
I've posted this story here before, but it was a long time ago.
Yes, I was a member of the Bohemian Club - for about seven or eight months, until I resigned. Of course, it's notoriously hard to "get in" to the Bohemian Club - unless they need you. And in my case, they needed a piano accompanist for their chorus at the time. (Did you know the Bohemian Club had a men's chorus?) So one of the existing members "sponsored" by membership, and, since I was very poor at that time, I was allowed in and paid only something like a quarter of the normal dues (which was still a burden to us at the time).
So what does this have to do with William F. Buckley? Well, WFB was also a member. Every week, there was a dinner and "entertainment" provided, and, on one of these weekly meetings, Buckley was interviewed, and he followed the interview by giving a short performance on the harpsichord of the Gigue from Bach's First Partita for keyboard. It was a lurching, rather ghastly performance (with lots of wrong notes), but, from all the whooping, hollering and applause at the end, you would have thought that Wanda Landowska herself had just performed for us. I was kind of disgusted by the whole thing. (And I'm still surprised that Alex Jones never gave me a call when he was giving his viewers the "lowdown" on what he kept calling "Bohemian Grove" - as if that were the name of the organization - LOL!)
So why did I resign? It was just too much of a burden for me in terms of time - and I had to pay them for the privilege of accompanying their choir. A few years later, when my financial situation was better, would I have stayed in? Probably not. As you might imagine, the political leanings among the vast majority of members was rather. . . uh. . . conservative. One week when I attended, there was a demonstration outside the building to the extent that I (and others) had to have a security escort to enter. I'd gotten there early, so I entered the "smoking room" to kill some time before the proceedings started. As I walked by one of the older members who was looking out the window at the demonstration, I heard him mutter, "Damn hippies!". ;-)
nt
He seemed more amused than bemused....
Very interesting "interview." Ginsberg more than held his own, I thought--- and that's no mean feat versus Buckley, the consummate debater. Bill was an interesting fellow; political "mover and shaker," accomplished writer, yachtsman, and, rarest of all, wit. Thanks! (Now, of course, I'll have to revisit Bill vs Gore Vidal...).
Edits: 04/18/21
Eckshewelly...
I think that Ginsberg's supposed magnum opus "Howl" owes a huge debt to Kenneth Rexroth's "Thou Shalt Not Kill," which is Rexroth's searing elegy on the death of Dylan Thomas.
DO NOT READ THAT POEM unless you have a very high tolerance level for extremely graphic descriptions of suicides, and other forms of violent death.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
jm
Never heard of Rexroth. Now, I'm hooked. I seldom read modern poetry, but this is astonishing. And he translated Chinese and Japanese poetry? What a completely different aesthetic; must have been a very interesting person, himself (will research). Thanks!
And here's a Rexroth poem that is NOT in the complete poems... so, JM is More Than Complete. NB, my copy had a high SN, so it was not signed. This one is up for sale, IIRC on ABEBOOKS.
Lovers who Feed the Goldfish
In the Fontaine de Medicis
Will Always Be True to One Another
Now the Starlit Moonless Spring
Night stands over the Fontaine
De Medicis, and the gold
Fish swim in the cold, starlit
Water. Yesterday, in the
New sunshine, lovers sat by
The water, and talked, and fed
The goldfish, and kissed each other.
I am in California
And evening is coming on.
Now it is morning in Paris
By the Fontaine de Medicis.
And the lovers will come today,
And talk and kiss, and feed the fish,
After they have had their coffee.
Kenneth Rexroth
# # #
d
If you want to hear the ending, skip to the 21-minute mark
There is an LP of Rexroth reading Thou Shalt Not Kill to a jazz accompaniment. I haven't heard it in decades, but I recall that it ended with Rexroth yelling, "You killed him, in your goddam Brooks Brothers suits!"
There's a story that some marketing dweeb at Brooks Brothers heard that some Beat poet had mentioned Brooks Brothers suits in a poem that there was a buzz about. So, they just sent Rexroth a suit, as a thank-you.
I'm kinda skeptical--how did they know his size?
And in any event, I'd prefer that the gesture had been knowingly and post-Modernly Ironical. As in, "OK, we ourselves think that you are a bastard, so here's the uniform!"
BTW, Abraham Lincoln was transported to Ford's Theater in a Studebaker (Carriage), and he died wearing a Brooks Brothers suit.
Truth.
jm
story in this week's New Yorker precisely about that subject. Your post got me into a very long WFB video review... thanks.
| FAQ |
Post a Message! |
Forgot Password? |
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
Top of Page ]
[ Contact Us ]
[ Support/Wish List ]
[ Copyright © 2024, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]
