With a Little Help From My Friends

3/7/2012

Berkeley Square Photo by Hassan of Yorkshire

Even while I’m typing something else, I can hear the electronic ping of the messages, over the transom.

My friends and family post songs and photos, poems and videos. We all know the blessing of having friends in Brazil and Japan, Canada and Mexico.

It’s so easy these days.

My new email friend, Hassan in Yorkshire, writes about soccer and justice and music. There’s a common thread, I am sure.

The other day he sent me a photo from visiting London in snow. I’ve been to London, what, 50 times and have never seen snow. But there it was, Berkeley Square. My wife and I have walked uphill through that square at night, usually around 10:30, after the National Theatre, and we were tired and happy. But never in snow.

Hassan knows I consider Nina Simone one of the great masters. He found a video of her signature piano -- you always know it’s Simone, before she even sings a note. Somehow, she makes bells peal in a riff from Good King Wenceslas before drifting into Little Girl Blue.

In this amazing new electronic age, a gift from Yorkshire,

Ed Martin link

3/8/2012 10:26:18 am

no one will ever own "I Loves You Porgy" after Nina Simone. I may have told you before George, but indelibly in my memory's hearing her in NYC , probably at the Vilage Vanguard opened by an unknown Philadelphia comic, Bill Cosby.
Ciao

George Vecsey

3/9/2012 05:28:48 am

Often wondered what became of that guy.
I've got her Best on my iPad.
Mississippi G-D. Wild Is the Wind. Ne Me Quitte Pas.
This one is a jewel. Never heard it.
Best
GV

Alan Rubin

3/15/2012 08:36:15 am

You can't say enough about Nina Simone. She also appeared at the Beacon Theater on Broadway and 77th street.

A comment about Bill Cosby. I was in graduate school at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa (1957-58). Bill Cosby was just out of Temple University and was often on Philadelphia TV. He was just as funny starting out as he was during his long career. He did a great routine about the flip of the coin before the start of a football game. He is one of the few comedians who are hilarious without being filthy. A dying breed.

Most of the comedians on TV today, whether clean or dirty, are not even funny, at least to my generation.

Comments are closed.

QUOTES
Welcome to World Cup 2022, the most absurd thing that the routinely absurd world of sports has ever produced.
Those extreme descriptions were what virtually the entire world, save for those who had walked off with bags of cash from Qatar, called the awarding of soccer’s greatest event to the incredibly tiny, incredibly wealthy country back in 2010.
Twelve years ago, many were convinced this event couldn’t possibly happen: staging the world’s biggest sporting event in a country the size of Connecticut, one with zero soccer culture and even less soccer infrastructure? The tournament couldn’t possibly take place in 120-degree heat, and FIFA, the governing body of soccer, most certainly wouldn’t upend football leagues around the world to change the traditional summer schedule, could it?
And, for God’s sake, what about the beer?
Those were just the logistical concerns. The moral concerns are far more distressing. FIFA, so busy paying lip service to equality, couldn’t possibly expect the world to embrace a country where you could go to prison for being gay, where women’s rights are severely curtailed and female victims of sexual assault could go to prison, charged with engaging in extramarital sex. And all those questions came before the global realization that the World Cup was being built on the backs of migrant labor: modern-day slaves held in Qatar with virtually no rights, low wages and no ability to leave. Migrants make up 90% of Qatar’s stated population of 3 million. The country’s native-born equal about 300,000, or roughly the size of Anaheim.
---Ann Killion, columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle.

With a Little Help From My Friends

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