Archives for January 26, 2010

Here is part of The Storyteller, the long-out-of-print 1961 Capitol LP that preserves a live performance of the one-man touring show in which Charles Laughton read from and talked about some of his favorite works of literature. In this pair of audio clips, Laughton reads an excerpt from Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums, reminisces about his first visit to Chartres Cathedral, then reads Psalm 104.
The first part is here:

The second part is here:

“Happiness is one of the hardest things to write about, and the difficulty of doing so makes me long to be a musician or a painter, for painters and musicians are at ease with the supreme emotion, which is not grief but joy abounding. To be able to make a joyful noise unto the Lord or a praise of colors and forms would seem to me to equate any man with gods or little children. Happiness annihilates time. We measure history by its catastrophes, we recall the weather by its storms, but the periods of peace and joy–who can describe them?”
Hugh MacLennan, The Watch That Ends the Night