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Good Quotes Songbird Gets 720,000 M.P.G. Philly Folk Fest Farewell Jane RADIO GALS in Wisconsin Bikram Hot Yoga Judi Dench on Acting Erik Eckholm on "TOO MANY PETS" Sedaris on Chapel Hilliana "The People Vs. Mona" Music events this fall: two in September 2007 featuring CLYDE EDGERTON AND THE RANK STRANGERS (Jack King, Matt Kendrick and Mike Craver): Clyde will be reading selections from his past novels and also the one he is working on now (I hope I'm not letting cats out of bags but I believe it's being called THE BIBLE SALESMAN) -- and we will be doing songs from his CD and also from LUNCH AT THE PICCADILLY Sept. 15th -- fundraiser for the National Fragile X Foundation, Umstead Hotel, in Cary, NC, 8 PM Sept. 30th -- "Folk Fest XVI: 'Takes to the Air!'" at the Reynolda House, Winston Salem, NC 12-6 PM Oct. 20th -- I'll be joining Matthew Weaver, and the cast of Piedmont Players' production of Smoke on the Mountain Homecoming for a music show at Keppel Auditorium, Catawba College, Salisbury, NC @ 8 PM. FMI Nov. 24th -- The Cave, Chapel Hill, NC. with Jim Watson, Bill Hicks & Joe NewberrySongbird Gets 720,000 M.P.G."Migration is without question a difficult business, demanding that a bird put on massive fat stores to power its long nights of flight. Before departing New England for South America, for example, a Blackpoll warbler, which normally weighs about 11 grams (the equivalent of a half-dollar coin) will in a matter of days at least double its body mass. If you were to take one of these fluffy tublets and blow on its feathers, said Dr. Lovette, you would see bumps of white fat barely held in check by its skin. Nevertheless, birds are exquisitely efficient flying machines. A bird’s heart is four-chambered, like ours, but as a proportion of its body weight is six times bigger than ours. A bird’s respiratory system, its lungs and accessory air sacs, takes up 20 percent of its volume, compared with 5 percent for human lungs. As Mary Deinlein of the National Zoo has observed, “If a Blackpoll warbler were burning gasoline instead of reserves of body fat, it could boast of getting 720,000 miles to the gallon.” The fat in a Snickers bar, she added, would subsidize a warbler’s flight from summer home to winter home and halfway back. Throw in a box of Milk Duds and a 3 Musketeers, and even a rail may never again be called thin." full article photo: Robert Royce Farewell Sweet JaneGood bye to Jane Wyman, a great and plucky film actress who was in some wonderful movies, such as THE LOST WEEKEND, JOHNNY BELINDA, THE YEARLING, MAGIC TOWN, MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION, and Alfred Hitchcock's STAGE FRIGHT. Not the least of her roles was as the real life wife of Ronald Reagan, from l938 to l949, of which she wisely had little to say. She was also a singer and, with Bing Crosby, had a 1951 hit of the Johnny Mercer/Hoagy Carmichael song IN THE COOL COOL COOL OF THE EVENING.fmi: NYTIMES The Drought and "A Clyde Slide"According to the drought monitor on the U.S. Department of Agriculture's website, the section of North Carolina where I live is now experiencing "Extreme Drought" (red on the monitor) topped only by the "Exceptional Drought" (dark red) which is being experienced in parts of Western Georgia and Alabama. It's pretty bad, folks. It's downright demoralizing. We are praying for rain. Until then here is a multimedia slide show of my friend and artiste extraordinaire Clyde Overcash, who has donned a pair of fake teeth and is explaining Civil War history and how to mow the yard, old-time style, to a group of little nudkins, back in the greener days of summer: Rowan Museum History CampPhilly Folk FesterHad an interesting trip "up Nawth", first to Hyattsville, MD for rehearsal and a house concert with the Stephen Wade band (Stephen, James Leva, Zan McLeod and myself) and then to the Philadelphia Folk Festival, where we were featured artists and also particated in the afternoon workshops. I myself had to (gasp) actually host the "Mountain Song" workshop. I'm not sure why I was tapped for this particular duty, other than the fact that I am from a state (NC) with mountains in it. We performed mainstage Saturday night - a fifty minute set preceeding Mavis Staples. I was as nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. The Philly audience is large, in the 3-5 thousand range; and there were five camera men on stage to capture our various images for the two huge Jumbotron video screens. Somehow I lived through it without publicly humiliating myself, and for that I am most grateful! (main-stage shot of me at harmonium is by Jamie Downs. It looks like Zan and James Leva are my backup singers!) I also had the great pleasure of visiting the National Portrait Gallery in Washington and had a wonderful time ogling the art therein. I was particularly impressed with the photographs of Harry Benson. Also included on your left (at my peril, due to possible copyright infringement) is a fetching self portrait of Thomas Hart Benton. Ogle it while ye may, for tomorrow it may be gone.GOOD QUOTES: "Something in me died at Peleliu. Possibly I lost faith that politicians in high places who do not have to endure war's savagery will ever stop blundering and sending others to endure it."from the diary of Eugene Sledge, a soldier from Mobile, Alabama who survived, barely, some of the worst fighting in the Pacific and died in 2001. from the documentary THE WAR by Ken Burns Thomas Aquinas wrote, in Two Precepts of Charity, in 1273: “Three things are necessary for the salvation of man: to know what he ought to believe; to know what he ought to desire; and to know what he ought to do.” Thomas Carlyle on "Happiness": "Happy the people whose annals are blank in the history books!" & "The only happiness a brave person ever troubles themselves in asking about, is happiness enough to get their work done." "He who is good with a hammer thinks everything is a nail." --- Abraham Lincoln "The most important critic is time." ---Rouben MamoulianHere's a funny pic from the University of Wisconsin's St. Croix Valley Summer Theatre recent production of RADIO GALS. It's a scene from the song There Are Fairies In My Mother's Flower Garden. The production was directed by Rosy Kirk and featured Sarah Parks, Jeanne Voigt, Chelsea Gartner, Carolyn Strauss, Justin DeLong, Jon Stiff, and Paul McMillan. Michael Norman is producing director. The photographer is Jens Gunelson. |