Decca’s original-cast album of the 1950 Broadway production of T.S. Eliot’s The Cocktail Party, directed by E. Martin Browne and starring Alec Guinness, Robert Flemying, and Irene Worth:

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

“Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life is suffering, and only the very young or the very foolish imagine otherwise.”

George Orwell, “Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool”

“FUTURE, n. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured.”

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

Newsreel footage of Bing Crosby and Bob Hope singing “Mairzy Doats,” a chart-topping 1943 novelty song, at an outdoor show for enlisted men stationed at the air base outside Santa Ana, California. Crosby and Hope, both together and separately, gave countless such performances for American soldiers and sailors throughout World War II:

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

“A man’s feet should be planted in his country, but his eyes should survey the world.”

George Santayana, The Life of Reason

From 2006:

I woke up this morning at nine-thirty, an hour later than my normal get-up-and-go time. As I descended from the loft in which I spend my nights, it struck me that I had nothing whatsoever to do today: no deadlines, no shows to see, no meals with friends, no plans of any kind. For a moment I felt myself revving up, trying to think of culture-related activities with which to fill all those empty hours. Then a new, unfamiliar reflex kicked in. Why not do nothing? I asked myself, and a smile flickered across my face….

Read the whole thing here.

“I reckon being ill as one of the great pleasures of life, provided one is not too ill and is not obliged to work till one is better.”

Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., is interviwed by Merv Griffin on an episode of The Merv Griffin Show, taped in New York in 1967:

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