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Well, Bob. Another fun pun and bio. Thanks, Boston. Not much on insects, however, but I do love to watch butterflys.

With everyone's patience and permission, I'm going to run another test.

Finally. Now guess which song I am going to play.

Um, that would be Starry, Starry Night (Vincent) by Don McLean, correct?

How've you been, Miss Letty?

You're right, Venus. Now what would you like to hear?

I'm all right, honey. Just takes some getting used to being all alone in my own home.

But enough of that.

Starry, starry night.
Paint your palette blue and grey,
Look out on a summer's day,
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul.
Shadows on the hills,
Sketch the trees and the daffodils,
Catch the breeze and the winter chills,
In colors on the snowy linen land.

Now I understand what you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen, they did not know how.
Perhaps they'll listen now.

Starry, starry night.
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze,
Swirling clouds in violet haze,
Reflect in Vincent's eyes of china blue.
Colors changing hue, morning field of amber grain,
Weathered faces lined in pain,
Are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand.

Now I understand what you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen, they did not know how.
Perhaps they'll listen now.

For they could not love you,
But still your love was true.
And when no hope was left in sight
On that starry, starry night,
You took your life, as lovers often do.
But I could have told you, Vincent,
This world was never meant for one
As beautiful as you.

Starry, starry night.
Portraits hung in empty halls,
Frameless head on nameless walls,
With eyes that watch the world and can't forget.
Like the strangers that you've met,
The ragged men in the ragged clothes,
The silver thorn of bloody rose,
Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow.

Now I think I know what you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen, they're not listening still.
Perhaps they never will...

and as we wait for our Eva to request a song,

Here's something funny:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7775259/site/newsweek/

Thinking outside the music box. Heh! Heh!

Music boxes, eh?

I had one when I was a teenager that played Lara's Theme from Doctor Zhivago. I'd love to hear that again, Miss Letty.

Will do, dear Eva. And I need to dedicate a song to Roger as well. Hold on a bit.

I hope this is it, honey:

Somewhere My Love
Francis Paul Webster

Somewhere, my love,
There will be songs to sing
Although the snow
Covers the hope of spring.

Somewhere a hill
Blossoms in green and gold
And there are dreams
All that your heart can hold.

Someday we'll meet again, my love.
Someday whenever the spring breaks through.

You'll come to me
Out of the long ago,
Warm as the wind,
Soft as the kiss of snow.

Till then, my sweet,
Think of me now and then.
God, speed my love
'Til you are mine again.

Next, a song for Roger

Ah! Music boxes. I have an album with "Music Box Dancer". It's instrumental, so you have to have some imagination.

Well, my word, folks. There's Roger. Been trying to get him to join us forever, and finally succeeded.

Ah, Rog, I wanted to play John Denver's "Gee it's good to be back home again." and I can't find it. Grrrrrrrrr. But I remember a few of the lines.

Gee it's good to be back home again,
Sometimes this old town seems like a long lost friend.
Ain't it good to be back home again.

I used to have one of those big music boxes that operated like a player piano roll with hole punched in it. Don't know what happened to it, folks.

Letty, when Eva, her husband and son came over on their way to Colorado, I realized that she is as lovely as her avatar. Pretty inside as well as outside.

Hey Roger, I tried to get you to come down to meet the Eva family. I think you couldn't because it was a work night. Too bad.

My grandmother had a music box that I loved. She told me that it would be mine someday. I asked when and she said I would get it when she died. I then asked when she would die...I was very young.

You're such a flatterer, Diane! Don't stop!!!

Actually, Roger DID come down and went to dinner with all of us when we were in Albuquerque. I guess you forgot? I wish he'd been able to stay over and go to breakfast with us the next day as well.

So I guess you didn't get your grandmother's music box after that comment, did you? <LOL>

Yes, Letty, that's it!

I never remember the words. Which is a shame...they are lovely.

I have had three music boxes. One when I was nine, I think, with a ballerina twirling and a glass cover for it. I have no memory of the melody.
Another, maybe for the tenth birthday, was a little house, and you lifted the roof.. and I don't remember the melody of that either.
Both are long gone.

Fairly recently I got a nifty music box at a thrift store, for, I'm guessing, $5.00. It is really lovely; hard to describe. It's packed, so I can't just go get it to describe.
Anyway, it plays Fur Elise...

There is something about a music box that brings back so many memories, Diane. I love them. They are so delicate.

Wow! Folks. This is like a family reunion. I do wish I could acknowledge each one, but I need to hit the road to dreamland.

Goodnight, my friends.

From Letty with love

Yikes Eva, I hope he doesn't read that post!! It was when Ul and her husband came that he couldn't make it.

As for the music box---she let me have it early. Maybe she didn't want to test my patience...

Goodnight, sweet Letty. Have sweet dreams with beautiful music in the background.

Good morning, WA2K listeners and contributors.

Well, we had an interesting conclave last evening here in our studio, everything from Van Gogh to music to music boxes to insects to origins.

This news story intrigued me, folks, as it brought back a memory or two:


'The Little Prince,' boosting business in Brazil Mon Nov 28, 2:30 PM ET



SAO PAULO, Brazil (AFP) - Sixty-two years after its first publication, Antoine de Saint-Exupery's "The Little Prince" remains so popular in Brazil that a firm has secured a deal to launch new products using the character, reports said.






Rights to the image of the charming extraterrestrial, who expounds his philosphy of life and love to an aviator stranded in the desert, have been snapped up by Luk Marcas de Valor, the Valor business newspaper reported Monday.

Representing Saint-Exupery's heirs, the Brazilian firm will control the licensing of images from the book in the sprawling Latin American country.

Until now, illustrations from the book could only be used by the Brazilian publisher, Ediouro, which said 63,000 copies of the volume sold in Brazil last year alone.

But now, Brazilians can expect to see a lot more of the little prince, from stationery to toys to clothes. A Brazilian stationer has already signed on to use the image on paper products and calenders.

The character "is not a passing trend, and the product line will be permanent," said Thereza Leopoldo e Silva of Teca Productos de Papeleria. "We're thinking about exporting it."

I don't recall having read the Little Prince, but I did do a brief search through the archives to find that the philosophy behind it is intriguing. Just wonder if any of you have a comment.

and, as we wait for our listeners to comment, I found a picture of the antique music box that I used to own:

Busby Berkeley

Biography

Birth Name: William Berkeley Enos
Born: November 29, 1895
Died: 14 March 1976




Visionary behind the camera

uzz started his career in the US Army in 1918, when he was Lieutenant in the artillery conducting and directing parades. After the cease fire he was ordered to stage camp shows for the soldiers. Back in the US he became a stage actor and assistant director in smaller acting troops. After being forced to take over the direction of the musical "Holka-Polka" he discovered his talent for staging extravagant dance routines, and became one of the top Broadway dance directors.

First in Hollywood, he wasn't satisfied with the possibilities of his job - in this time the dance directors trained the dances, staged them and the director chose the position for the cameras and the editor chose which of the takes were shown to the audience. Berkeley wanted to direct the dances himself and convinced the producer Samuel Goldwyn to let him. One of the first decisions he made, was to use only one camera -he never used more in his films - and to show close-ups of the chorus girls. Asked about this he explained: "Well, we've got all these beautiful girls in the picture, why not let the public see them?". But with the decline of musicals in 1931 and 1932 he was thinking of returning to Broadway, when Darryl F. Zanuck chief producer of Warner Brothers called him in to direct the musicals numbers of their newest project, the backstage drama "42nd Street". Busby Berkeley accepted, and directed those great numbers like "Shuffle Off To Buffalo", "Young and Healthy" and the grandiose story of urban life, the final "42nd Street". "42nd Street" was a smash hit, and Warner Brothers knew who made it to such an extraordinary success. Busby Berkeley, as well as, the composer Harry Warren and the lyricist Al Dubin were given a seven years contract.

Berkeley created musical numbers for almost every great musical Warner Brothers produced from 1933 to 1937. His overhead shots forced him to drill holes in the studio roofs, and he used more dancers from picture to picture, e.g. in "Lullaby of Broadway", his masterpiece, and in "Gold Diggers of 1935" he used about 150 dancers tapping there hearts out.

At the end of the Forties he directed his last picture, "Take Me Out To the Ball Game", but this time the choreography was by Gene Kelly. He did a few numbers in the early Fifties, but at the end of the Fifties he was forgotten. Berkeley was dedicated to his mother and she lived with him always. He was married three times, unsuccessfully.

Berkeley drank a lot. Often times he would sit in his daily bath and drink martinis. His drinking lead to a real tragedy. He was driving late one night and hit another car, killed two people. He went on trial, and after three trials was acquitted, (largely because he was his mother's sole support). He never got over this and it darkened his life from then on. He also attempted suicide after his mother's death and when his career began to slow by slitting his wrists and taking an overdoes of sleeping pills. He was taken to the hospital and kept there for many days and the experience almost drove him completely mad.

http://golden_age_films.tripod.com/html/berkeley/buzbio.htm

Yakima Canutt
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Yakima Canutt (November 29, 1896 - May 24, 1986) was an American actor and stuntman in Hollywood movies of the 1920s through the 1950s.

Born Enos Edward Canutt in the rough ranchlands near Colfax, Washington, many people think that "Yak" Canutt moved as a young man to Yakima, Washington and that the town provided his nickname but, he never did live there. As a young man, he gained fame as a very successful rodeo rider. He met actor Tom Mix at a rodeo in Los Angeles, and was persuaded to work as a cowboy in films.

He met and married Kitty Wilks at the 1916 Pendleton Round-Up in Pendleton, Oregon, in which she was the All-Around Champion Cowgirl. They divorced in 1919.

He had some success as an actor, primarily playing "heavies," or villians, but he was more successful as a stuntman and stunt coordinator. He staged some memorable action scenes in film, including the chariot race segment in the 1959 film Ben-Hur.

For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Yakima Canutt has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1500 Vine Street. In 1967, he was given an Honorary Academy Award for achievements as a stunt man and for developing safety devices to protect stunt men everywhere. He was inducted into the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum (Hall of Fame).

His sons Joe Canutt and Tap Canutt also worked as stuntmen. His autobiography "Stuntman" was published in 1979.

Passed away at the age of 89 in North Hollywood, California

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakima_Canutt