Archives for May 30, 2012

A great American artist has left us. Oh, how he will be missed:

George Bernard Shaw prepared numerous color-coded pre-printed postcards with which he endeavored to stay on top of his vast incoming correspondence. Many of them survive, but none, so far as I know, have been reproduced in Shaw’s biographies. I thought it might amuse you to see four of them.
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Over the weekend I got an e-mail from my oldest friend:

Middle age is a bittersweet time. As we finally mature enough to appreciate the people in our lives, we find that we have to start saying goodbye to some of them and discover that we may not have used to its fullest the time we were given with them. My parents are old enough that every time I see them may very well be the last time, so I try to savor those times. I have reserved a fishing guide for the end of June to take my dad and my boys fishing for big stripers. He took me fishing nearly every day in the summer of my young age, but we haven’t fished together since I was probably ten years old.

How I envy him–and I don’t even like to fish. My friend is a wise man.
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Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong sing “Gone Fishin'”:

David Oistrakh and Frieda Bauer play Debussy’s G Minor Violin Sonata:

(This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday and Wednesday.)

“If you maintain a consistent political position long enough, you will eventually be accused of treason.”
Mort Sahl, Live at the hungry i