Donald's Blog

  This old house was only a few blocks from the state Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin. All the neighborhood cats lived in the basement during the winter. The house has long since been torn down, but in 1972 there were AR2ax speakers in the front room, and a lot of good music was heard there.

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In the 21st century I am just as opinionated as ever, and I now have an outlet. I shall pontificate here about anything that catches my fancy; I hope I will not make too great a fool of myself. You may comment yea or nay about anything on the site; I may quote you here, or I may not. Send brickbats etc. to: dmclarke78@icloud.com.

 

July 14, 2012

The 14th of July

Today is Bastille Day in France, the day the common people took charge of their destiny, for better or worse. Here is a Nonesuch album called "Military Fanfares, Marches & Choruses From the time of Napoleon", played by The Brass and Percussion Ensembles of Gardiens de la Paix de Paris, directed by Désiré Dondeyne, vocal ensemble directed by Jean Rollin. This Nonesuch LP was a favorite of mine decades ago and is now long out of print; it magically recreates a long-gone era of history. A fact sheet includes dates of the compositions and names of composers, one of whom is the opera composer Paisello, and there are my amatuerish but legible snapshots of the album front and back (the notes are fascinating). Salute de l'Empire, le mariage de Napoleon et Marie-Louise, pas cadence des Sans-Culottes, all are present. Sparkling playing and splendid sound will make you want to invade Russia.
      Download it all here.

 

July 14, 2012

To be or not to be -- do be do be doo

From today's Wall Street Journal:

Avalon, an Irish leasing company born just two years ago, is waiting on delivery of 40 new Airbus and being?? models...

"Being" with question marks? I suppose Jean-Paul Sartre would approve.

 

July 14, 2012

Immigration

A week ago Peggy Noonan wrote a nice article about how the USA has always made immigrants welcome. Today Myrna Krohn of Midlothian, Texas writes:

My grandfather was one of the Italian immigrants who came here for a better life and found it. But what I find lacking in Ms. Noonan's article is the fact that the immigrants she mentions, as well as my grandfather, came here legally.

As I wrote in my biography of Frank Sinatra:

Between 1876 and 1914 over 7.6 million Italians crossed the Atlantic. Some of them went to South America, and some returned to Italy when they'd saved some money, but the USA was the land of opportunity. Until 1890 the majority of American immigrants had come from northern Europe, but from 1891 to !915 more Italians came to the USA than any other national group. 

And the swarthy immigrants from southern Europe were regarded in many quarters as dirty, dishonest, and politically subversive, while statistics from the period show that they were more law-abiding than native-born Americans. My ancestors, John and Mary Coolidge, came over from England in 1620; Ellis Island did not exist then. I bet they didn't even have passports. How many immigrants do we allow nowadays, and why don't we have more? Is it that some of them might be smarter than we are, and willing to work harder? Maybe they come from countries that don't have as many people in prison as we do. Or is it mainly the brown ones who speak Spanish that we try to keep out, 170 years after we stole the entire USA southwest from them? What??