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Hey, Texas. Love both those songs, buddy. Yes, here's to Woody and all that can survive, edgar

PET SHOP BOYS; THE SURVIVORS "CROSS A WINDY BRIDGE"

ONE WINTER NIGHT
PAST EMBANKMENT GARDENS
ENTER WARMTH AND LIGHT
FACE THE MUSIC
IT´S NEVER EASY
FORGET THE CHILL
FACE THE FUTURE
IT´S NEVER EASY
FIND THE WILL

IF LIFE IS WORTH LIVING
IT´S GOT TO BE DONE
ONE MIGHT BE FORGIVEN
FOR THINKING
IT´S A LIFE ON THE RUN
MANY ROADS WILL CROSS THROUGH MANY LIVES
BUT SOMEHOW YOU SURVIVE

LOOK AROUND
PICTURE WHAT´S IN STORE
IS THIS THE FINAL EDIT
OR IS THE SUBJECT NOW A BORE?
DON´T SHRUG YOUR SHOULDERS
IT´S ALWAYS EASY
YOU CAN´T IGNORE

THAT LIFE IS WORTH LIVING
IT´S STILL WORTH A DAMN
ONE MIGHT BE FORGIVEN
FOR THINKING
IT´S SOMETHING OF A SHAM
MANY WORDS MAY MAKE IT SOUND CONTRIVED
BUT SOMEHOW WE´RE ALIVE

THE SURVIVORS
OUR HEADS BOWED
THE SURVIVORS
AT MEMORIAL
FOR OTHER FACES IN THE CROWD
TEACHERS AND ARTISTS
IT´S NEVER EASY
AND SATURDAY GIRLS
IN SUITS OR SEQUINS
IT´S NEVER EASY
OR TWINSET-AND-PEARLS

IF LIFE IS WORTH LIVING
IT´S GOT TO BE RUN
AS A MEANS OF GIVING
NOT AS A RACE TO BE WON
MANY ROADS WILL RUN THROUGH MANY LIVES
BUT SOMEHOW WE´LL ARRIVE
MANY ROADS WILL RUN THROUGH MANY LIVES
BUT SOMEHOW WE´LL SURVIVE

Poem time, listeners:

The Mermaid

Poem
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Who would be
A mermaid fair,
Singing alone,
Combing her hair
Under the sea,
In a golden curl
With a comb of pearl,
On a throne?

I would be a mermaid fair;
I would sing to myself the whole of the day;
With a comb of pearl I would comb my hair;
And still as I comb'd I would sing and say,
'Who is it loves me? who loves not me?'
I would comb my hair till my ringlets would fall
Low adown, low adown,
From under my starry sea-bud crown
Low adown and around,
And I should look like a fountain of gold
Springing alone
With a shrill inner sound
Over the throne
In the midst of the hall;
Till that great sea-snake under the sea
From his coiled sleeps in the central deeps
Would slowly trail himself sevenfold
Round the hall where I sate, and look in at the gate
With his large calm eyes for the love of me.
And all the mermen under the sea
Would feel their immortality
Die in their hearts for the love of me.

But at night I would wander away, away,
I would fling on each side my low-flowing locks,
And lightly vault from the throne and play
With the mermen in and out of the rocks;
We would run to and fro, and hide and seek,
On the broad sea-wolds in the crimson shells,
Whose silvery spikes are nighest the sea.
But if any came near I would call and shriek,
And adown the steep like a wave I would leap
From the diamond-ledges that jut from the dells;
For I would not be kiss'd by all who would list
Of the bold merry mermen under the sea.
They would sue me, and woo me, and flatter me,
In the purple twilights under the sea;
But the king of them all would carry me,
Woo me, and win me, and marry me,
In the branching jaspers under the sea.
Then all the dry-pied things that be
In the hueless mosses under the sea
Would curl round my silver feet silently,
All looking up for the love of me.
And if I should carol aloud, from aloft
All things that are forked, and horned, and soft
Would lean out from the hollow sphere of the sea,
All looking down for the love of me.

Beacons


Reubens, river of forgetfulness, garden of sloth,
Pillow of wet flesh that one cannot love,
But where life throngs and seethes without cease
Like the air in the sky and the water in the sea.

Leonardo da Vinci, sinister mirror,
Where these charming angels with sweet smiles
Charged with mystery, appear in shadows
Of glaciers and pines that close off the country.

Rembrandt, sad hospital full of murmurs
Decorated only with a crucifix,
Where tearful prayers arise from filth
And a ray of winter light crosses brusquely.

Michelangelo, a wasteland where one sees Hercules
Mingling with Christ, and rising in a straight line
Powerful phantoms that in the twilight
Tear their shrouds with stretching fingers.

Rage of a boxer, impudence of a faun,
You who gather together the beauty of the boor,
Your big heart swelling with pride at man defective and yellow,
Puget, melancholy emperor of the poor.

Watteau, this carnival of illustrious hearts
Like butterflies, errant and flamboyant,
In the cool decor, with delicate lightning in the chandeliers
Crossing the madness of the twirling ball.

Goya, nightmare of unknown things,
Fetuses roasting on the spit,
Harridans in the mirror and naked children
Tempting demons by loosening their stockings.

Delacroix, haunted lake of blood and evil angels,
Shaded by evergreen forests of dark firs,
Where, under a grieving sky, strange fanfares
Pass, like a gasping breath of Weber.

These curses, these blasphemies, these moans,
These ecstasies, these tears, these cries of "Te Deum"
Are an echo reiterated in a thousand mazes;
It is for mortal hearts a divine opium!

It is a cry repeated by a thousand sentinels,
An order returned by a thousand megaphones,
A beacon lighting a thousand citadels
A summons to hunters lost in the wide woods.

For truly, O Lord, what better testimony
Can we give to our dignity
Than this burning sob that rolls from age to age
And comes to die on the shore of Your eternity?


Translated by William A. Sigler

Charles Baudelaire

edgar, that poem by Baudelaire is the essence of observation concerning the good and the evil of art and mankind. I read it thrice and each time, like a good painting, I saw something different.

and to follow your poem, Texas:

Evening Harmony


The hour has come at last when, trembling to and fro,
Each flower is a censer sifting its perfume;
The scent and sounds all swirl in evening's gentle fume;
A melancholy waltz, a languid vertigo!

Each flower is a censer sifting its perfume;
A violin's vibrato wounds the heart of woe;
A melancholy waltz, a languid vertigo!
The sky, a lofty altar, lovely in the gloom,

A violin's vibrato wounds the heart of woe,
A tender heart detests the black of nullity,
The sky, a lofty altar, lovely in the gloom;
The sun is drowning in the evening's blood-red glow.

A tender heart detests the black of nullity,
And lovingly preserves each trace of long ago!
The sun is drowning in the evening's blood-red glow …
Your memory shines through me like an ostensory!

Charles Baudelaire

I was late appreciating Baudelaire. I'm still studying much of his work.

Good morning WA2K listeners and contributors. Has hurricane Florence hit Bermuda yet? I hope it is just a small one that brings only rain and soft winds. What a scarey and provocative legend is that famous triangle, right?

edgar, Is that avatar "I go Pogo." It is truly delightful, Texas, and quite a foil to Baudelaire.

Here's an interest song for the morning, folks:



OASIS | Acquiesce Lyrics

I don't know what it is
That makes me feel alive
I don't know how to wake
The things that sleep inside
I only wanna see the light
That shines behind your eyes

I hope that I can say
The things I wish I'd said
To sing my soul to sleep
And take me back to bed
You want to be alone
When we could be alive instead

Because we need each other
We believe in one another
And I know we're going to uncover
What's sleepin' in our soul
Because we need each other
We believe in one another
I know we're going to uncover
What's sleepin' in our soul
What's sleepin' in our soul

There are many things
That I would like to know
And there are many places
That I wish to go
But everything's depending
On the way the wind may blow
I don't know what it is
That makes me feel alive
I don't know how to wake
The things that sleep inside
I only wanna see the light
That shines behind your eyes

Because we need each other
We believe in one another
And I know we're going to uncover
What's sleepin' in our soul
Because we need each other
We believe in one another
And I know we're going to uncover
What's sleepin' in our soul
What's sleepin' in our soul

What's sleepin' in our soul
What's sleepin' in our soul
'Cause we believe
'Cause we believe
Yeah, we believe
'Cause we believe
'Cause we believe
'Cause we believe
Because we need
Because we need

I searched long and hard for a good avatar. I always loved Pogo and admired his author/illustrator, Walt Kelly.

I do as well, edgar. Let's see if I can recall some quotes by that funny little creature.

"I will fight you with all my might and mein."
"Ah, well. As Maine goes, so goes the nation."

"We have met the enemy and he is us."

Pogo for President

One Sunday episode of Pogo did a hilarious takeoff on Ezra Pound -
"Winter is icumin in- -"
Unfortunately, I don't have clear enough recall to post Kelly's poem here.

I wonder if Walt ever thought about the pogo stick in his fabulous cartoon strip? We, in the jazz circle, called that table hopping.

Found this, folks, in my search for edgar's spoof on Ezra Pound:

Honorable Mention in a poetry contest and entered as a joke - Maggie May Schill



Pogo Pogo Pogo Pogo Pogo Pogo
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O. Henry
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

O. Henry was the pen name of American writer William Sydney Porter (September 11, 1862-June 5, 1910), whose clever use of twist endings in his stories popularized the term "O. Henry Ending". His middle name at birth was Sidney, not Sydney; he later changed the spelling of his middle name when he first began writing as a journalist in the 1880s.

Early Life

William Sidney Porter was born on the plantation "Worth Place" in Greensboro, North Carolina. His father, Alger Sidney Porter, was a physician. When William was three, his mother died of tuberculosis, and he and his father moved to the home of his paternal grandmother.

William was an avid reader, and graduated from his aunt's elementary school in 1876, then enrolled at the Linsey Street High School. In 1879 he started working as a bookkeeper in his uncle's drugstore and in 1881 - at the age of nineteen - he was licensed as a pharmacist.

The Move to Texas

He relocated to Texas in 1882, initially working on a ranch in La Salle County as a sheep herder and ranch hand, then Austin where he took a number of different jobs over the next several years, including pharmacist, draftsman, journalist, and clerk. While in Texas he also learned Spanish.

In 1887 he eloped with Athol Estes, then seventeen years old and from a wealthy family. Her family objected to the match because both she and Porter suffered from tuberculosis. Athol gave birth to a son in 1888, which died shortly after birth, and then a daughter, Margaret, in 1889.

In 1894 Porter started a humorous weekly called The Rolling Stone. Also in 1894, Porter resigned from the First National Bank of Austin where he had worked as a teller, after he was accused of embezzling funds. In 1895, after The Rolling Stone ceased publication, he moved to Houston, where he started writing for the Houston Post. Shortly thereafter, he was arrested for embezzlement in connection with his previous employment in Austin.

Flight and Return

Porter was granted bond, but the day before he was due to stand trial on July 7, 1896, he absconded to New Orleans and later to Honduras. However, in 1897, when he learned that his wife was dying, he returned to the United States and surrendered to the court, pending an appeal.

Athol Estes Porter died July 25, 1897. Porter was found guilty of embezzlement, sentenced to five years jail, and imprisoned April 25, 1898 at the Ohio State Penitentiary. He was released on July 24, 1901 for good behaviour after serving three years.

Origin of Pen Name

Porter published at least twelve stories while in prison to help support his daughter. Not wanting his readers to know he was in jail, he started using the pen name "O. Henry". It is believed that Porter got this name from one of the guards who was named Orrin Henry. However, there is much debate on this issue: one Porter biographer asserts that the name was derived from a girlfriend's cat, which answered to "Oh Henry!" Guy Davenport, meanwhile, wrote that the name was a condensation of "Ohio Penitentiary". It also could be an abbreviation of the name of French pharmacist, Etienne-Ossian Henry, who is referred to in the U.S. Dispensatory, a reference work Porter used when he was in the prison pharmacy. Further confusing the issue is that for at least one short story, and for a later autobiographical author profile, Porter used the "full" name Olivier Henry.

Porter also used a number of other noms de plume, most notably James L. Bliss, and continued using pen names full-time when he took a writing contract for Ainslee's Magazine in New York City shortly after his release from prison. Eventually, "O. Henry" became the name that became most recognized by magazine editors and the reading public, and therefore led to the greatest fees for story sales. Accordingly, after about 1903 Porter used the "O. Henry" byline exclusively.


A Brief Stay At The Top

He married again in 1907 to his childhood sweetheart, Sarah Lindsey Coleman. However, despite the success of his short stories being published in magazines and collections (or perhaps because of the attendant pressure success brought), Porter became an alcoholic. Sarah left him in 1909, and he died in 1910 of cirrhosis of the liver. After funeral services in New York City, he was buried in Asheville, North Carolina. His daughter, Margaret Worth Porter, died in 1927 and was buried next to her father.

Attempts were made to secure a presidential pardon for Porter during the administrations of Woodrow Wilson, Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan. However, each attempt was met with the assertion that the Justice Department did not recommend pardons after death. This policy was clearly altered during the administration of Bill Clinton (who pardoned Henry Flipper), so the question of a pardon for O. Henry may yet again see the light of day.

Stories

O. Henry stories are famous for their surprise endings. He was called the American Guy De Maupassant. Both authors wrote twist endings, but O. Henry stories were much more playful and optimistic.

Most of O.Henry's stories are set in his own time, the early years of the 20th century. Many take place in New York City, and deal for the most part with ordinary people: clerks, policemen, waitresses. His stories are also well known for witty narration.

The Four Million (a collection of stories) opens with a reference to Ward McAllister's "assertion that there were only 'Four Hundred' people in New York City who were really worth noticing. But a wiser man has arisen?-the census taker?-and his larger estimate of human interest has been preferred in marking out the field of these little stories of the 'Four Million'". To O. Henry, everyone in New York counted. He had an obvious affection for the city, which he called Baghdad on the Subway, and many of his stories are set there?-but others are set in small towns and in other cities.

His famous story A Municipal Report opens by quoting Frank Norris: "Fancy a novel about Chicago or Buffalo, let us say, or Nashville, Tennessee! There are just three big cities in the United States that are 'story cities' ?- New York, of course, New Orleans, and, best of the lot, San Francisco." Thumbing his nose at Norris, O. Henry sets the story in Nashville.

Fundamentally a product of his time, O. Henry's work provides one of the best English examples of catching the entire flavor of an age. Whether roaming the cattle-lands of Texas, exploring the art of the "gentle grifter", or investigating the tensions of class and wealth in turn of the century New York, O. Henry had an inimitable hand for isolating some element of society and describing it with an incredible economy and grace of language. Some of his best and least-known work resides in the collection "Cabbages and Kings", a series of stories which each explore some individual aspect of life in a paralytically sleepy South American town while each advancing some aspect of the larger plot and relating back one to another in a complex structure which slowly explicates its own background even as it painstakingly erects a town which is one of the most detailed literary creations of the period.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

O. Henry is so famous for his unexpected plot twists that this warning is especially important.
A famous story of his, "The Gift of the Magi", concerns a young couple who are short of money but desperately want to buy each other Christmas gifts. Unbeknownst to Jim, Della sells her most valuable possession, her beautiful hair, in order to buy a platinum fob chain for Jim's watch; unbeknownst to Della, Jim sells his most valuable possession, his watch, to buy jeweled combs for Della's hair. The essential premise of this story has been copied, re-worked, parodied, and otherwise re-told countless times in the century since it was written.
The Ransom of Red Chief concerns two men who kidnap a boy of ten. The boy turns out to be so bratty and obnoxious that the desperate men ultimately pay the boy's father two hundred and fifty dollars to take him back.
The Cop and the Anthem concerns a New York City hobo named Soapy, who sets out to get arrested so he can spend the cold winter as a guest of the city jail. Despite efforts at petty theft, vandalism, disorderly conduct, and "mashing", Soapy fails to draw the attention of the police. Disconsolate, he pauses in front of a church, where an organ anthem inspires him to clean up his life - whereupon he is promptly arrested for loitering.
In A Retrieved Reformation, safecracker Jimmy Valentine gets a job in a small town bank to case it for a robbery. Unexpectedly, he falls in love with the banker's daughter, and decides to go straight. Just as he's about to leave to deliver his specialized tools to an old associate, a lawman who recognizes him arrives at the bank, and a child locks herself in the airtight vault. Knowing it will seal his fate, Valentine cracks open the safe to rescue the child - and the lawman lets him go.

Also of interest

O. Henry once said: "There are stories in everything. I've got some of my best yarns from park benches, lampposts, and newspaper stands."
The O. Henry Awards are yearly prizes given to outstanding short stories.
The O. Henry Pun-Off World Championships are held in May of each year in Austin, Texas, hosted by the city's O. Henry Museum.
O. Henry is a household name in Russia, as his books enjoyed excellent translations and some of his stories were made into popular movies, the best known being, probably, "The Ransom of Red Chief". The phrase "Bolivar cannot carry double" from "The Roads We Take" has become a Russian proverb, whose origin many Russians do not even recognize.
O. Henry's first wife, Athol, was probably the model for Della[1].
In 1952 a film featuring five O. Henry stories was made. The primary one from the critic's acclaim was "The Cop and the Anthem" starring Charles Laughton and Marilyn Monroe. The other stories are "The Clarion Call," "The Last Leaf," "The Ransom of Red Chief," and "The Gift of the Magi."
There is an O. Henry Middle School in Austin.

D. H. Lawrence
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 - 2 March 1930) was an important and controversial English writer of the 20th century, with his output spanning novels, short stories, poems, plays, essays, travel books, paintings, translations, literary criticism and personal letters. These works, taken together, represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation. In them, Lawrence confronts issues relating to emotional health and vitality, spontaneity, sexuality, and instinctive behaviour.

Lawrence's unsettling opinions earned him many enemies, and he endured hardships, official persecution, censorship and the misrepresentation of his creative work throughout the second half of his life, much of which he spent in voluntary exile, self defined as a "savage pilgrimage."[1] At the time of his death, his public reputation was that of a pornographer who had wasted his considerable talents. E. M. Forster, in an obituary notice, challenged this widely held view, describing him as "the greatest imaginative novelist of our generation." [2] Later, the influential Cambridge critic F. R. Leavis championed both his artistic integrity and his moral seriousness, placing much of Lawrence's fiction within the canonical "great tradition" of the English novel. He is now valued as a visionary thinker and a significant representative of modernism in English literature, although some feminists have questioned the attitudes to women and sexuality found in his works.

Life

Early life (1885-1912)

The fourth child of Arthur John Lawrence, a barely literate miner, and Lydia, née Beardsall, a former schoolmistress, David Herbert Richards Lawrence was born and spent his formative years in the coal mining town of Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom. His birthplace, in Eastwood, 8a Victoria Street, is now a museum. His working class background and the tensions between his mismatched parents provided the raw material for a number of his early works and Lawrence would return to this locality, which he was to call "the country of my heart"."[3], as a setting for much of his fiction.

The young Lawrence attended Beauvale Board School from 1891 until 1898, becoming the first local pupil to win a County Council scholarship to Nottingham High School in nearby Nottingham. He left in 1901, working for three months as a junior clerk at Haywood's surgical appliances factory before a severe bout of pneumonia ended this career. Whilst convalescing he often visited Haggs Farm, the home of the Chambers family and began a friendship with Jessie Chambers. An important aspect of this relationship with Jessie and other adolescent acquaintances was a shared love of books, an interest that lasted throughout Lawrence's life. In the years 1902 to 1906 Lawrence served as a pupil teacher at the British School, Eastwood. He went on to become a full-time student and received a teaching certificate from University College Nottingham in 1908. During these early years he was working on his first poems, some short stories, and a draft of a novel, Laetitia, that was eventually to become The White Peacock. At the end of 1907 he won a short story competition in the Nottingham Guardian, the first time that he had gained any wider recognition for his literary talents.

In the autumn of 1908 the newly qualified Lawrence left his childhood home for London. Whilst teaching in Davidson Road School, Croydon he continued writing. Some of the early poetry, submitted by Jessie Chambers, came to the attention of Ford Madox Hueffer, editor of the influential The English Review. Hueffer then commissioned the story Odour of Chrysanthemums which, when published in that magazine, encouraged Heinemann, a London publisher, to ask Lawrence for more work. His career as a professional author now began in earnest, although he taught for a further year. Shortly after the final proofs of his first published novel The White Peacock appeared in 1910, Lawrence's mother died. She had been ill with cancer. The young man was devastated and he was to describe the next few months as "his sick year". It is clear that Lawrence had an extremely close relationship with his mother and his grief following her death became a major turning-point in his life, just as the death of Mrs. Morel forms a major turning-point in his autobiographical novel Sons and Lovers, a work that often faithfully records much of the writer's experience of his provincial upbringing.

During 1911 Lawrence was introduced to Edward Garnett, a publisher's reader, who acted as a mentor, provided further encouragement, and became a valued friend. Throughout these months the young author revised Paul Morel, the first sketch of what was to become Sons and Lovers. In addition, a teaching colleague, Helen Corke, gave him access to her intimate diaries about an unhappy love affair, which formed the basis of The Trespasser, his second novel. In November 1911 pneumonia struck once again. After recovering his health Lawrence decided to abandon teaching in order to become a full time author. Another symptom of his desire to refashion himself was the breaking of an engagement to Louie Burrows, an old friend from his days in Nottingham and Eastwood.

Blithe spirits (1912-1914)

In March 1912 the author met the free spirited woman with whom he was to share the rest of his life. She was six years older than her new lover, married and with three young children. Frieda Weekley née von Richthofen was then the wife of Lawrence's former modern languages professor from Nottingham University, Ernest Weekley. Frieda was bored with her marriage and she had already had brief affairs with other lovers, including Otto Gross, a disciple of Freud. She now eloped with Lawrence to her parent's home in Metz, a garrison town in Germany near the disputed border with France. Their stay here included Lawrence's first brush with militarism when he was arrested and accused of being a British spy, before being released following an intervention from Frieda's father. After this encounter Lawrence left for a small hamlet to the south of Munich where he was joined by Frieda for their 'honeymoon', later memorialised in the series of love poems entitled Look! We Have Come Through (1917).

From Germany they walked southwards across the Alps to Italy, a journey that was recorded in the first of his brilliant travel books, a collection of linked essays entitled Twilight in Italy and the unfinished novel, Mr Noon. During his stay in Italy, Lawrence completed the final version of Sons and Lovers that, when published in 1913, was acknowledged to represent a vivid portrait of the realities of working class provincial life. The couple returned to England in 1913 for a short visit. Lawrence now encountered and befriended John Middleton Murry, the critic, and the short story writer from New Zealand, Katherine Mansfield. Lawrence and Frieda soon went back to Italy, staying in a cottage in Fiascherino on the Gulf of Spezia. Here he started writing the first draft of a work of fiction that was to be transformed into two of his finest novels, The Rainbow and Women in Love. Eventually Frieda obtained her divorce. The couple returned to England at the outbreak of World War I and were married on the 13 July 1914.

The nightmare (1914-1919)

Frieda's German parentage and Lawrence's open contempt for militarism meant that they were viewed with suspicion in wartime England and lived in near destitution. The Rainbow (1915) was suppressed after an investigation into its alleged obscenity in 1915. Later, they were even accused of spying and signalling to German submarines off of the coast of Cornwall where they lived at Zennor. During this period he finished a sequel to The Rainbow, that many regard as his masterpiece. This radical new work, Women in Love, is a key text of European modernism. In it Lawrence explores the destructive features of contemporary civilization through the evolving relationships of four major characters as they reflect upon the value of the arts, politics, economics, sexual experience, friendship and marriage. This book is a bleak, bitter vision of humanity and proved impossible to publish in wartime conditions. It is now widely recognised as an English novel of great dramatic force and intellectual subtlety.

In late 1917, after constant harassment by the military authorities, Lawrence was forced to leave Cornwall at three days' notice under the terms of the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA). This persecution was later described in an autobiographical chapter of his Australian novel, Kangaroo, published in 1923. In 1918, he lived in the small, beautiful rural village of Hermitage near Newbury in Berkshire. Until 1919 he was compelled by poverty to shift from address to address and barely survived a severe attack of influenza.

The savage pilgrimage begins (1919-1922)

After the traumatic experience of the war years, Lawrence began what he termed his 'savage pilgrimage', a time of voluntary exile. He escaped from England at the earliest practical opportunity, to return only twice for brief visits, and with Frieda spent the remainder of his life travelling; settling down for only short periods. This wanderlust took him to Italy, Ceylon (now called Sri Lanka), Australia, North America, Mexico and after returning once more in Italy, southern France.

Lawrence abandoned England in November 1919 and headed south; first to the Abruzzi district in central Italy and then onwards to Capri and the Fontana Vecchia in Taormina, Sicily. From Sicily he made brief excursions to Sardinia, Monte Cassino, Malta, Northern Italy, Austria and Southern Germany. Many of these places appeared in his writings. New novels included The Lost Girl, Aaron's Rod and the fragment entitled Mr Noon (the first part of which was published in the Phoenix anthology of his works, and the entirety in 1984). He experimented with shorter novels or novellas, such as The Captain's Doll, The Fox and The Ladybird. In addition, some of his short stories were issued in the collection England, My England and Other Stories. During these years he produced a number of poems about the natural world in Birds, Beasts and Flowers. Lawrence is widely recognised as one of the finest travel writers in the English language and Sea and Sardinia, a book that describes a brief journey from Taormina undertaken in January 1921, is a vivid recreation of the life of the inhabitants of this part of the Mediterranean. Less well known is the brilliant memoir of Maurice Magnus, in which Lawrence recalls his visit to the monastery of Monte Cassino. Other non-fiction books include two studies of Freudian psychoanalysis and Movements in European History, a school textbook that was published under a pseudonym, a reflection of his blighted reputation in England.

Seeking a new world (1922-1925)

In late February 1922 the Lawrences left Europe behind with the intention of migrating to the United States. They sailed in an easterly direction, first to Ceylon and then on to Australia. A short residence in Darlington, Western Australia, which included an encounter with local writer Mollie Skinner, was followed by a brief stop in the small coastal town of Thirroul in New South Wales, during which Lawrence completed Kangaroo, a novel about local fringe politics that also revealed a lot about his wartime experiences in Cornwall.

Resuming their journey, Frieda and Lawrence finally arrived in the USA in September 1922. Here they encountered Mabel Dodge Luhan, a prominent socialite, and considered establishing a utopian community on what was then known as the 160-acre Kiowa Ranch near Taos, New Mexico. Lawrence and Frieda acquired the property, now called the D.H.Lawrence Ranch, in 1924 in exchange for the manuscript of Sons and Lovers. By all accounts Lawrence loved this ranch high up in the mountains, the only home that he ever owned. He stayed in New Mexico for two years, with extended visits to Lake Chapala and Oaxaca in Mexico.

Whilst in the New World, Lawrence rewrote and published his Studies in Classic American Literature, a set of critical essays begun in 1917, and later described by Edmund Wilson as " one of the few first-rate books that have ever been written on the subject". These provocative and original interpretations, with their insights into symbolism, New England Transcendentalism and the puritan sensibility, were a significant factor in the revival of the reputation of Herman Melville during the early 1920s. In addition, Lawrence completed a number of new fictional works, including The Boy in the Bush, The Plumed Serpent, St Mawr, The Woman who Rode Away, The Princess and assorted short stories. He also found time to produce some more travel writing, such as the collection of linked excursions that became Mornings in Mexico.

A brief voyage to England at the end of 1923 was a failure and he soon returned to Taos, convinced that his life as an author now lay in America. However, in March 1925 he suffered a near fatal attack of malaria and tuberculosis whilst on a third visit to Mexico. Although he eventually recovered, the diagnosis of his condition obliged him to return once again to Europe. He was dangerously ill and poor health limited the ability to travel for the remainder of his life.

Approaching death (1925-1930)

Lawrence and Frieda set up home in a villa in Northern Italy, living near to Florence whilst he wrote The Virgin and the Gipsy and the various versions of Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928). This book, his last major novel, was initially published in private editions in Florence and Paris and reinforced his notoriety. Lawrence responded robustly to those who claimed to be offended, penning a large number of satirical poems, published under the title of "Pansies" and "Nettles", as well as a tract on Pornography and Obscenity.

The return to Italy allowed Lawrence to renew some of his old friendships and during these years he was particularly close to Aldous Huxley, a loyal companion who was to edit the first collection of Lawrence's letters after his death, along with a generous memoir. With another friend, the artist Earl Brewster, Lawrence found the time to visit a number of local archaeological sites in April 1927. The resulting essays describing these visits to old tombs were written up and collected together as Sketches of Etruscan Places, a beautiful book that contrasts the lively past with the brutal, bombastic stupidity of Mussolini's fascism. Lawrence continued to produce fiction, including short stories and The Escaped Cock/The Man Who Died , an unorthodox reworking of the Christian belief of the resurrection that affirms the life of the body. During these final years Lawrence renewed a serious interest in oil painting. Official harassment persisted and an exhibition of some of these pictures at the Warren Gallery in London was raided by the British police in mid 1929 and a number of works were confiscated.

He continued to write despite his physical frailty. In his last months he authored numerous poems, reviews, essays, and a robust defence of his last novel against those who sought to suppress it. His last significant work was a spirited reflection on the New Testament Book of Revelation, Apocalypse. After being discharged from a sanatorium he died at the Villa Robermond, Vence, France in 1930 at the age of 44. Frieda returned to live on the ranch in Taos and later her third husband brought Lawrence's ashes to rest there in a small chapel set amidst the mountains of New Mexico.

Posthumous reputation

The obituaries following Lawrence's death were, with the notable exception of E. M. Forster, unsympathetic, ill-informed or hostile. Fortunately there were those who articulated a more balanced recognition of the significance of this author's life and works. For example, his longtime friend Catherine Carswell summed up his life in a letter to the periodical Time and Tide published on 16th March 1930. In response to his mean spirited critics she claimed:

In the face of formidable initial disadvantages and life-long delicacy, poverty that lasted for three quarters of his life and hostility that survives his death, he did nothing that he did not really want to do, and all that he most wanted to do he did. He went all over the world, he owned a ranch, he lived in the most beautiful corners of Europe, and met whom he wanted to meet and told them that they were wrong and he was right. He painted and made things, and sang, and rode. He wrote something like three dozen books, of which even the worst page dances with life that could be mistaken for no other man's, while the best are admitted, even by those who hate him, to be unsurpassed. Without vices, with most human virtues, the husband of one wife, scrupulously honest, this estimable citizen yet managed to keep free from the shackles of civilization and the cant of literary cliques. He would have laughed lightly and cursed venomously in passing at the solemn owls?-each one secretly chained by the leg?-who now conduct his inquest. To do his work and lead his life in spite of them took some doing, but he did it, and long after they are forgotten, sensitive and innocent people?-if any are left?-will turn Lawrence's pages and will know from them what sort of a rare man Lawrence was.
A defense of Lawrence was also put forward by Aldous Huxley in his introduction to a collection of letters published in 1932. However, the most influential advocate of Lawrence's contribution to literature was the Cambridge literary critic F R Leavis who asserted that the author had made an important contribution to the tradition of English fiction. Leavis stressed that The Rainbow, Women in Love, and the short stories and tales were major works of art. Later, the Lady Chatterley Trial of 1962 ensured Lawrence's popularity (and notoriety) with a wider public.

Some modern critics, including Lawrence biographer Brenda Maddox, have charged that Lawrence was over-prolific, and that his reputation was harmed by the amount of simply bad writing that he published; however, Lawrence made his living exclusively by his writing, and as a result wrote more commercial work than modernists such as Joyce or Woolf.

A number of feminist critics, notably Kate Millett, have questioned Lawrence's sexual politics, and this questioning has damaged his reputation in some quarters during the last thirty years. On the other hand, Lawrence continues to find an audience for his artistic vision, and the ongoing publication of a new scholarly edition of his letters and writings has demonstrated the range of his achievement.

Works

Realism was the main feature of Lawrence's writings and his unflinching depictions of the gritty struggles of everyday life give many of his novels a melancholy tone. His poems help to balance this with many powerful and evocative descriptions of nature, although moments of beauty are present in his books.

Among his many works, most famous are his novels Sons and Lovers (1913), The Rainbow (1915), Women in Love (1920), and Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928). These all take place in and around Eastwood, Lawrence's birthplace, which was a grim industrial mining town. Lawrence would return here in his literature despite leaving it in real life, giving it an importance similar to that held by Wessex for Thomas Hardy, whom Lawrence admired.

Kangaroo, Aaron's Rod and The Plumed Serpent are usually considered together as his "leadership novels". They contain some of the ideas that contributed to his plan for Rananim (meaning 'celebrations' and taken from a Hebrew folk song), the community of like-minded writers and artists that he hoped to establish in New Mexico. Little came of his effort, however.

Part of the realist nature of his writing meant that he could not obscure the subjects of sex and love in his books and his descriptions of sex were shockingly frank for the period. The Rainbow was banned for containing a lesbian relationship and one publisher called Sons and Lovers "the dirtiest book he had ever read."

Lady Chatterley's Lover was privately published in 1928, but remained publicly unavailable in unexpurgated form until its publication by Penguin Books in 1960 caused a scandal due to its explicit sex scenes and perhaps also because the lover was working-class. An obscenity trial followed in Britain. Penguin books won the case. Lawrence also produced a series of explicit expressionistic paintings later in life some of which were almost destroyed due to their depiction of pubic hair.

What is often forgotten amongst the claims of Lawrence as a pornographer is the fact that he was extremely religious. He was tired of the stifling Christianity of Europe and wished to rejuvenate it with earlier, tribal religions. This search for a primeval religious consciousness was part of the reason for his 'savage pilgrimage'. He was also inspired by contemporary 'process philosophy': for example works by Nietzsche, Henri Bergson and others, as well as by the works of Freud, most notably in Sons and Lovers which was also his most autobiographical work. He wished to free himself from the sexual restrictions of the past so that he could examine their place in religion but he might have been surprised about his role in the "sexual revolution" of the 1960s.

Poetry

Although best known for his novels, Lawrence wrote almost eight hundred poems, most of them relatively short. His first poems were written in 1904 at the age of nineteen and two of his poems, Dreams Old and Dreams Nascent, were among his earliest published works in The English Review. His early works clearly place him in the school of Georgian poets, a group not only named after the present monarch but also to the romantic poets of the previous Georgian period whose work they were trying to emulate. What typified the entire movement, and Lawrence's poems of the time, were well-worn poetic tropes and deliberately archaic language. Many of these poems display what John Ruskin called the "pathetic fallacy", the tendency to ascribe human emotions to animals and even inanimate objects.

It was the flank of my wife
I touched with my hand, I clutched with my hand,
rising, new-awakened from the tomb!
It was the flank of my wife
whom I married years ago
at whose side I have lain for over a thousand nights
and all that previous while, she was I, she was I;
I touched her, it was I who touched and I who was touched.
?-excerpt New Heaven and Earth
Just as the first world war dramatically changed the work of many of the poets who saw service in the trenches, Lawrence's own work saw a dramatic change, during his miserable war years in Cornwall. He had the works of Walt Whitman to thank for showing him the possibilities of free verse. He set forth his manifesto for much of his later verse in the introduction to New Poems. "We can get rid of the stereotyped movements and the old hackneyed associations of sound or sense. We can break down those artificial conduits and canals through which we do so love to force our utterance. We can break the stiff neck of habit...But we cannot positively prescribe any motion, any rhythm." Many of his later works took the idea of free verse to the extremes of lacking all rhyme and metre so that they are little different from short ideas or memos, which could well have been written in prose.

Lawrence rewrote many of his novels several times to perfect them and similarly he returned to some of his early poems when they were collected in 1928. This was in part to fictionalise them, but also to remove some of the artifice of his first works. As he put in himself: "A young man is afraid of his demon and puts his hand over the demon's mouth sometimes and speaks for him." His best known poems are probably those dealing with nature such as those in Birds Beasts and Flowers and Tortoises. Snake, one of his most frequently anthologised, displays some of his most frequent concerns; those of man's modern distance from nature and subtle hints at religious themes.

In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob tree
I came down the steps with my pitcher
And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before me.
?-excerpt Snake
Look! We have come through! is his other work from the period of the end of the war and it reveals another important element common to much of his writings; his inclination to lay himself bare in his writings. Although Lawrence could be regarded as a writer of love poems, his usually deals in the less romantic aspects of love such as sexual frustration or the sex act itself. Ezra Pound in his Literary Essays complained of Lawrence's interest in his own 'disagreeable sensations' but praised him for his 'low-life narrative'. This is a reference to Lawrence's dialect poems akin to the Scots poems of Robert Burns, in which he reproduced the language and concerns of the people of Nottinghamshire from his youth.

Tha thought tha wanted ter be rid o' me.
'Appen tha did, an' a'.
Tha thought tha wanted ter marry an' se
If ter couldna be master an' th' woman's boss,
Tha'd need a woman different from me,
An' tha knowed it; ay, yet tha comes across
Ter say goodbye! an' a'.
?-excerpt The Drained Cup
Pound was the chief proponent of modernist poetry and although Lawrence's works after his Georgian period are clearly in the Modernist tradition, they were often very different to many other modernist writers. Modernist works were often austere works in which every word was carefully worked on and hard-fought for. Lawrence felt all poems had to be personal sentiments and that spontaneity was vital for any work. He called one collection of poems Pansies partly for the simple ephemeral nature of the verse but also a pun on the French word panser, to dress or bandage a wound. He wounds still needed soothing for the reception he regularly received in England with The Noble Englishman and Don't Look at Me being removed from the official edition of Pansies on the grounds of obscenity. Even though he lived most of the last ten years of his life abroad, his thought were often still on England. His last work Nettles published in 1930 just eleven days after his death were a series of bitter, 'nettling' but often amusing attacks on the moral climate of England.

O the stale old dogs who pretend to guard
the morals of the masses,
how smelly they make the great back-yard
wetting after everyone that passes.
?-excerpt The Young and Their Moral Guardians
Two notebooks of Lawrence's unprinted verse were posthumously published as Last Poems and More Pansies.

Quotations

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
D. H. Lawrence"Be a good animal, true to your instincts." -- The White Peacock
"Mrs Morel always said the after-life would hold nothing in store for her husband: he rose from the lower world into purgatory, when he came home from pit, and passed into heaven in the Palmerston Arms." -- Sons and Lovers. Edited out of the 1913 edition, restored in 1992
"I think I am much too valuable a creature to offer myself to a German bullet gratis and for fun." -- Letter to Harriet Monroe, 1st October 1914
"Don't you find it a beautiful clean thought, a world empty of people, just uninterrupted grass, and a hare sitting up." -- Women In Love
"Never trust the artist. Trust the tale." -- Studies in Classic American Literature
Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. -- Lady Chatterley's Lover

Earl Holliman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Earl Holliman (born Anthony Earl Numkena on September 11, 1928 in Delhi, Louisiana) is an American film and television actor.

He first appeared in film in 1953 and three years later won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture for his performance in the 1956 film, The Rainmaker. Amongst his other notable film appearances were in Giant, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Forbidden Planet, Visit to a Small Planet, The Big Combo, and Summer and Smoke. In 1970 and 1971, Holliman made two appearances in the successful western comedy Alias Smith and Jones starring Pete Duel.

In addition to a successful career in films, Earl Holliman became a popular television personality through his roles as Sundance in Hotel de Paree and as Lt. Bill Crowley opposite Angie Dickinson in the "Police Woman" series that ran from 1974 to 1978. He also had the distinction of appearing in the first episode of the Twilight Zone titled 'Where is Everybody' which aired on October 2, 1959.

He continued to appear in television guest roles throughout the 1970s and 1980s. His most notable role during this period was in the hit mini series The Thorn Birds with Richard Chamberlain and Rachel Ward. He also took part in the Gunsmoke reunion movie "Gunsmoke: Return to Dodge" in 1987 as Jake Flagg.

He earned a nomination for a Golden Globe Award for "Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a television Series" for his acting with Delta Burke in her short-lived 1992 series, "Delta".

For his contribution to the television industry, Earl Holliman has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6901 Hollywood Blvd.

Holliman is also known for his work as an animal-rights activist.

Lola Falana
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lola Falana (born Loletha Elaine Falana on September 11, 1942 in Camden, New Jersey) is an American dancer and actress of part Cuban and African American descent. Falana's father left Cuba to become a welder in the United States. She spent most of her childhood in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Lola was a natural musical prodigy. At age three she was dancing, and by age five she was singing in the church choir. By the time she was in Junior High, she was already dancing in nightclubs to which she was escorted by her mother. Pursuing a musical career became so important to Falana that, against her parents' wishes, she left Germantown High School a few months before graduation and moved to New York City.

When she arrived in New York, Falana had little money. She reportedly slept in subway cars or stations when she was unable to afford a better accommodation. Her first dancing gig was at Small's Paradise in Harlem. Dinah Washington, the "Queen of Blues", was influential in fostering Lola's early career. While dancing in a nightclub, Falana was discovered by Sammy Davis Jr., who gave her a featured role in his 1964 Broadway musical Golden Boy. Lola's first single , "My Baby", was recorded for Mercury Records in 1965. Later in her career she recorded under Frank Sinatra's record label. In the late 1960's Lola Falana was mentored by Sammy Davis Jr. In 1966 Davis cast her, along with himself, Ossie Davis, and Cicely Tyson, in her first film role in the American movie A Man Called Adam.

Lola Falana became a major star of Italian cinema beginning in 1967. In Italy she learned to speak fluent Italian while starring in three movies, the first of which was considered a spaghetti western. She was known as the "Black Venus". During this time she was busy touring with Sammy Davis Jr. as a singer and dancer, making films in Italy, and reprising her role in Golden Boy during its revival in London. In 1969 Falana ended her close working relationship with Sammy Davis Jr., though the two remained friends. "If I didn't break away," Lola told TV Guide, "I would always be known as the little dancer with Sammy Davis Jr. ... I wanted to be known as something more."

Wanting to gain more publicity, Falana posed for Playboy magazine in 1970. She was also the first black woman to model for a line of cosmetics that wasn't targeted solely to blacks, in the successful Faberge Tigress perfume ads. In those early years, she also starred in a few movies considered to be of the Blaxploitation genre.

American TV audiences got to know Lola Falana during the early 1970s. She appeared often on The Joey Bishop Show and The Hollywood Palace, showing her talent for music, dance, and mild comedy. These opportunities soon led to others. She was the first supporting player hired by Bill Cosby for his much-anticipated variety hour, The New Bill Cosby Show, which made its debut September 11, 1972 on CBS. Cosby had met Falana back in his college days, when he was a struggling comic and she was a 14-year-old dancing for ten dollars a show in the nearby Philadelphia nightclubs. Throughout the mid-1970s Falana made guest appearances on many popular shows, including regular appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Laugh-In, and The Flip Wilson Show. Falana also starred in her own popular television specials.

Falana's fame grew as the 1970s progressed. In 1975 her disco record "There's A Man Out There Somewhere" went to #67 on the Billboard R&B chart. That same year, Lola returned to Broadway as the lead in the musical Doctor Jazz. Although the production closed after five performances, Lola was nominated for a Tony award and won the 1975 Theater World Award for her performance.

With help from her friend Sammy Davis Jr., Falana brought her act to Las Vegas and became a growing star there. By the late 1970s she was considered the Queen of Las Vegas. She played to sold-out crowds at The Sands, The Riviera, and the MGM Grand hotels. Finally The Aladdin offered her $100,000 a week to perform. At the time, Falana was the highest paid female performer in Las Vegas. The show ran twenty weeks a year and became a major tourist attraction.

Whilst still playing to sold-out crowds in Las Vegas, Falana joined the cast of the short lived CBS soap opera Capitol, in 1984. Soon after the show was cancelled in 1987, she was thrown a major setback; a relapse of Multiple Sclerosis. Falana's relapse was severe; her left side was paralyzed, she became partially blind, and her voice and hearing were impaired. Recovery lasted a year and a half, during which she spent most of her time praying. Falana attributes her recovery to a spiritual experience which she described as " Being able to feel the presence of the Lord." She converted to Catholicism and worked her Newly-found spirituality into her everyday life. Though she performed again at several sold-out Las Vegas shows in 1987, her practice of religion and faith became the center of her life.

After another bout with Multiple Sclerosis in 1996, Falana moved back to Philadelphia and lived with her parents for a short time. Instead of performing, she now tours the country with a message of hope and spirituality. When not on tour, she lives a quiet life in Las Vegas working on the apostolate she founded, The Lambs of God Ministry. The ministry is focused on helping children who have been orphaned in Sub-Saharan Africa, and works closely with the group Save Sub-Saharan Orphans. Falana's last known musical performance was in 1997, at Wayne Newton's theater in Branson, Missouri.

Lola Falana was married to Feliciano "Butch" Tavares, who was one of five brothers who formed the popular R&B band Tavares, from 1971 until 1975

Virginia Madsen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Virginia Madsen (born September 11, 1961) is an American actress.


Biography

Early life

Madsen was born in Chicago, Illinois to Cal Madsen, a Danish American, and Elaine, who is of Irish and Native American descent. Her brother is actor Michael Madsen. She is a graduate of New Trier High School.

Career

Audiences first caught a glimpse of Madsen (and her right breast) in a bit part she landed as Lisa in the teen sex comedy Class. She was cast as Princess Irulan in David Lynch's science fiction epic Dune (1984). Madsen first became popular with audiences in 1986 with her portrayal of a Catholic schoolgirl who fell in love with a boy from a prison camp in Duncan Gibbons's Fire with Fire. Other noted film appearances include 1990's The Hot Spot with Don Johnson, and the steamy Third Degree Burn with Treat Williams. There appeared to be a trend (Fire, Hot, Burn) in names.

After more than twenty years, her breakout critically acclaimed performance in Sideways (2004), which garnered her Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations as well as a Broadcast Film Critics Award win for Best Supporting Actress. This role catapulted her onto the fabled Hollywood A-list [1]. Her first major role after Sideways was opposite Harrison Ford in Firewall. She later appeared in Robert Altman's A Prairie Home Companion appearing in a key role as the angel. She also accepted a role opposite Jim Carrey in The Number 23 (scheduled for release in 2007).

Personal life

Madsen's older brother is Michael Madsen, who is also an actor (and who has stated he refuses to see any films in which she has a nude scene). Her mother, Elaine Madsen, is an Emmy-winning writer and producer.

When Madsen arrived in Hollywood, she was engaged to actor Billy Campbell. She was married to Danny Huston from 1989 to 1992. She later had a relationship with actor Antonio Sabato Jr., with whom in 1994 she had a son, Jack.

Kristy McNichol
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kristy McNichol (born Christina Ann McNichol on September 11, 1962, in Los Angeles, California to a Scottish father and a Palestinian mother) is a former American actress, most known for her role as Letitia "Buddy" Lawrence on the TV drama Family, and as Barbara Weston on the sitcom Empty Nest. She is the sister of former child actor Jimmy McNichol.

Biography

She began her career with guest appearances on such series as Starsky and Hutch and The Bionic Woman. Her first stint as a series regular came with the role of Patricia Apple in Apple's Way.

In 1976, she was cast as Buddy in Family, for which the actress earned Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actress in a Dramatic Series in 1977 and 1979.

In 1978 at the height of her stardom, Kristy, along with her brother Jimmy, released a self-titled album Kristy & Jimmy McNichol, which featured the single "He's So Fine."

When Family went off the air in 1980, Kristy began a promising feature-film career with the hit teen coming of age story Little Darlings.

In 1988, Kristy returned to episodic television, playing the character of Barbara Weston on the NBC sitcom Empty Nest, but she had to leave in 1992, when she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. [1]

Kristy McNichol is host of the annual "Kristy McNichol Celebrity Tennis Tournament," benefitting the H.E.L.P. group for abused children in Los Angeles.

Harry Connick, Jr.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Harry Connick, Jr. (born September 11, 1967) is an American singer, pianist, actor, and humanitarian. His music encompasses jazz, some of it very much in the style of the crooners of the 1940s and early '50s, funk and blues. He married model Jill Goodacre in 1994. They have three daughters: Georgia Tatom (April 17, 1996), Sarah Kate (September 12, 1997), and Charlotte (June 26, 2002). He is a prime organizer and captain of the Krewe of Orpheus, a music-based krewe, taking its name from Orpheus of Classical mythology. The Krewe of Orpheus parades on St. Charles Avenue and Canal Street in New Orleans on Lundi Gras (Fat Monday) ?- the day before Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday).

Early history

Harry Connick, Jr., was born Joseph Harry Fowler Connick in New Orleans, Louisiana, on September 11, 1967. His father, Harry Connick, Sr., was of Irish Catholic descent and the district attorney of New Orleans for 27 years; his New York-born Jewish mother was a Louisiana Supreme Court Justice. His parents also owned a record store. Connick's musical talents soon came to the fore when he learned the keyboards at the age of three, played publicly at six and recorded with a local jazz band at 10. His musical talents were developed at the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts and under the tutelage of Ellis Marsalis and James Booker.

Connick attended Jesuit High School and the prestigious Isidore Newman School in New Orleans. He moved to New York City to study at Hunter College and the Manhattan School of Music, where a Columbia Records executive persuaded him to sign with that label. His first record for the label, Harry Connick Jr., was a mainly instrumental album of standards. He soon acquired a reputation in jazz due to extended stays at high-profile New York venues. His next album, 20, featured his vocals and added to this reputation.

When Harry Met Sally... ?- chart and movie success

With Connick's growing reputation, director Rob Reiner asked him to provide a soundtrack for his 1989 romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally..., starring Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal. The soundtrack consisted of several standards, including "It Had to Be You", "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" and "Don't Get Around Much Anymore", and achieved double-platinum status in the United States. He won his first Grammy for Best Jazz Male Vocal Performance for his work on the soundtrack.

Connick made his screen debut in Memphis Belle (1990), about a B-17 bomber crew in World War II. In that year, he began a two-year world tour. In addition, he released two albums in July 1990: the jazz trio album Lofty's Roach Souffle and another album of standards titled We Are in Love, which also went double platinum. We Are in Love earned him his second consecutive Grammy for Best Jazz Male Vocal.

"Promise Me You'll Remember", his contribution to the Godfather III soundtrack, was nominated for both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe in 1991. In a year of recognition, he was also nominated for an Emmy for Best Performance in a Variety Special for his PBS special Swingin' Out Live, which was also released as a video. In October 1991, he released his third consecutive multi-platinum album, Blue Light, Red Light, on which he wrote and arranged the songs. In October 1991, he starred in Little Man Tate, directed by Jodie Foster, playing the friend of a child prodigy who goes to college.

Connick was arrested in 1992 and charged with having a 9 mm pistol in his possession at JFK International Airport. After spending a day in jail, he agreed to make a public-service television commercial warning against breaking gun laws. The court agreed to drop all charges if Connick stayed out of trouble for six months.

In November 1992, Connick released 25, a solo piano collection of standards that again went platinum. He also re-released the album Eleven. Connick contributed "A Wink and a Smile" to the Sleepless in Seattle soundtrack, released in 1993. His multi-platinum album of holiday songs, When My Heart Finds Christmas, was the best-selling Christmas album in 1993.

Flirtation with funk in the mid-1990s

In 1994, Harry Connick, Jr., decided to branch out, releasing She, an album of New Orleans funk that also went platinum. In addition, he released a song called "(I Could Only) Whisper Your Name" for the soundtrack of The Mask, starring Jim Carrey, which is his most successful single in the United States to date. He took his funk music on a tour of the United Kingdom in 1994, an effort that did not please all of his fans, who were expecting a jazz crooner. One fan who walked out said, "We expected Frank Sinatra but we got Motörhead instead." The music was actually more reminiscent of the Meters rather than Motörhead. Connick also took his funk music to the People's Republic of China in 1995, playing at the Shanghai Center Theatre. The performance was televised live in China for what became known as the Shanghai Gumbo special.

Connick played a homicidal killer in his third film, Copycat (1995), which starred Holly Hunter and Sigourney Weaver. The next year, he released his second funk album, Star Turtle, which did not sell as well as previous albums, although it did reach No. 38 on the charts. However, he appeared in the most successful movie of that year, Independence Day, with Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum.

Back to basics: return to jazz, 1999?-current

For his 1997 release To See You, Connick recorded original love songs, touring the United States and Europe with a full symphony orchestra backing him and his piano in each city. As part of his tour, he played at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway, with his final concert of that tour in Paris being recorded for a St. Valentine's Day special on PBS in 1998. He also starred in Excess Baggage opposite Alicia Silverstone and Benicio del Toro in 1997.

In May 1998, he had his first leading role in a movie in Hope Floats, with Sandra Bullock as his female lead. He released Come By Me, his first album of big band music in eight years in 1999, and embarked on a world tour visiting the United States, Europe, Japan and Australia. In addition, he provided the voice of Dean McCoppin in the animated film The Iron Giant in that year.

Connick wrote the score for Susan Stroman's Broadway musical Thou Shalt Not, based on Émile Zola's novel Thérèse Raquin, in 2000; it premiered in 2001. His music and lyrics were nominated for a Tony Award. He was also the narrator of the film My Dog Skip, released in that year.

In March 2001, Connick starred in a television production of South Pacific with Glenn Close, televised on the ABC network. He also starred in his twelfth movie, Mickey, featuring a screenplay by John Grisham that same year. In October 2001, he again released two albums: Songs I Heard, featuring big band reworkings of children's show themes, and 30, featuring Connick on piano with guest appearances by several other musical artists. Songs I Heard won Connick another Grammy for best traditional pop album and he toured performing songs from the album, holding matinees at which each parent had to be accompanied by a child.

Connick appeared as Grace Adler's boyfriend (and later husband) Leo Markus on the NBC sitcom Will & Grace from 2002 to 2006. In July 2003, Connick released his first instrumental album in fifteen years, Other Hours Connick on Piano Volume 1. It was released on Branford Marsalis's new label Marsalis Music and led to a short tour of nightclubs and small theaters.

Connick appeared in the film Basic with John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson. In October 2003, he released his second Christmas album, Harry for the Holidays, which went gold and reached No. 12 on the Billboard 200 album chart. He also had a television special on NBC featuring Whoopi Goldberg, Nathan Lane, Marc Anthony and Kim Burrell. Only You, his seventeenth album for Columbia Records, was released in February 2004. A collection of 1950s and 1960s ballads, Only You, went Top Ten on both sides of the Atlantic and was certified gold in the United States in March 2004. The Only You tour with big band went on in America, Australia and a short trip to Asia. Harry for the Holidays was certified platinum in November 2004. A music DVD Harry Connick Jr. - "Only You" in Concert was released in March 2004, after it had first aired as a Great Performances special on PBS. The special won him an Emmy for Outstanding Music Direction. The DVD received a Gold & Platinum Music Video - Long Form awards from the RIAA in November 2005.

An animated holiday special, The Happy Elf, aired on NBC in December 2005, and had Connick as the composer, the narrator, and one of the executive producers. Shortly after, it was released on DVD. The holiday special was based on his original song The Happy Elf, from his 2003 album Harry for the Holidays. Another album from Marsalis Music was recorded in 2005, Occasion : Connick on Piano, Volume 2, a duo album with Harry Connick, Jr on piano together with Branford Marsalis on saxophone. A music DVD, A Duo Occasion, was filmed at the Ottawa International Jazz Festival 2005 in Canada, and released in November 2005. He appeared in another episode of NBC sitcom Will & Grace in November 2005, and will appear in additional 3 episodes in 2006. Bug, a film directed by William Friedkin, is a psychological thriller filmed in 2005, starring Connick, Ashley Judd, and Michael Shannon. The film will be released in 2006. He is currently starring in the Broadway revival of The Pajama Game, produced by the Roundabout Theater Company, along with Michael McKean and Kelli O'Hara, at the American Airlines Theatre. It opened February 23, 2006, and is scheduled to run until June 17, 2006, including 5 benefit performances running from June 13 to 17.

Involvement for Hurricane Katrina Victims

NBC-sponsored benefit concert

On September 2, 2005, Harry Connick, Jr. helped to organize, and appeared in, the NBC-sponsored live telethon concert, A Concert for Hurricane Relief, for relief in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. As a native son of New Orleans, he spent several days touring the city, attempting to draw attention to the plight of citizens stranded at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center and other places. At the concert he paired with host Matt Lauer (Today Show), and entertainers including Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Kanye West, Mike Myers, and John Goodman.

Habitat For Humanity

On September 6th, 2005, Harry Connick Jr. was made honorary chair of Habitat for Humanity's "Operation Home Delivery," a long-term rebuilding plan for families victimized by Hurricane Katrina in the Big Easy and along the Gulf Coast.

Musicians' Village


Harry Connick Jr. and Branford Marsalis came up with an initiative to help restore New Orleans's musical heritage. Habitat for Humanity and New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity, working with Harry Connick Jr. and Branford Marsalis announced December 6, 2005, plans for a Musicians' Village in New Orleans. The Musicians' Village will include Habitat-constructed homes, with a Ellis Marsalis Center for Music, as the area's centerpiece. The Habitat-built homes will provide musicians of modest means the opportunity to buy decent, affordable housing.

Benefit Albums

2005 Hurricane Relief: Come Together Now - track #5 "City Beneath The Sea" disc.1 (RIAA will donate 100% of its net proceeds from the sale of this CD in equal parts to the American Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity and MusiCares Hurricane Relief 2005)
2005 A Celebration of New Orleans Music to benefit the MusiCares Hurricane Relief Fund - track #3 "Good to Be Home" (All proceeds will go to the MusiCares Hurricane Relief Fund)

Trivia

In the cartoon series Freakazoid, the teenage characters attended "Harry Connick, Jr." High School; presumably somewhere in Washington D.C.
You can catch him in a Suncom commercial.

Here are some revealing quotes from actual husbands....

I married Miss Right. I just didn't know her first name was Always.

I haven't spoken to my wife for 18 months. I don't like to interrupt her.

Marriage is a 3-ring circus: Engagement ring, wedding ring, and suffering.

The last fight was my fault. My wife asked, "What's on the TV?" I said," Dust!"



In the beginning, God created earth and rested. Then God created man and rested. Then God created woman. Since then, neither God nor man has rested.

Why do men die before their wives? They want to.

What is the difference between a dog and a fox? About 5 drinks.

A beggar walked up to a well-dressed woman shopping on Rodeo Drive and said "I haven't eaten anything in four days." She looked at him and said,"God, I wish I had your will power."



Do you know the punishment for bigamy? Two mothers-in-law.

Young Son: Is it true, Dad, I heard that in some parts of Africa a man doesn't know his wife until he marries her? Dad: That happens in every country, son.

A man inserted an 'ad' in the classified: "Wife Wanted". Next day he received a hundred letters. They all said the same thing: "You can have mine."

The most effective way to remember your wife's birthday is to forget it once.



First guy (proudly): "My wife's an angel!" Second guy: "You're lucky, mine's still alive."

How do most men define marriage? An expensive way to get laundry done for free.

Just think, if it weren't for marriage, men would go through life thinking they had no faults at all.

If you want your wife to listen and pay undivided attention to every word you say, talk in your sleep.



Then there was a man who said, "I never knew what real happiness was until I got married; and then it was too late."

A little boy asked his father, "Daddy, how much does it cost to get married?" And the father replied, "I don't know son, I'm still paying!"

Well, listeners, our Bob is through with his bio's. Isn't it odd how the wife is always a culprit? Of course we ladies know better, but we do get a kick out of your real quotes by REAL men, hawkman.

Seriously now. I think perhaps it is the day to day "living too close" that makes marriage a very difficult arrangement.

Quote by my daughter: Many couples have tried living together and not being married. Others have tried being married and thus living together, but not many have tried marriage and NOT living together. <smile> My, how times have changed.

Will be back later to comment on your celebs, Boston, after our Raggedy appears.