#285 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Saturday February 26)
Good morning,
SCRIPTER 34
A reminder that the Scripter Awards will be streaming at 7:30 p.m. this evening at:
It should be a great show, with clips from the nominees, music performed by students from the USC Thornton School of Music, Catherine Quinlan as Emcee, and Howard Rodman providing pithy commentary. I will be presenting the award for the best adaptation of a book into film. It’s all less than an hour and a half. The amazing Tyson Gaskilll, who produces this each year, promises…
POETRY
Two of my favorites, shared over a year ago, earlier in the Musings:
Ozymandius
By Percy Bysshe Shelley
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Invictus
By William Ernest Henley
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
MUSIC
Others may celebrate Black History Month in other ways. For me, I have made a conscious effort to read opinion pieces, essays and poetry of Black authors. In addition, I have been “tuned in” to the Miles Davis Channel on SiriusXM Jazz. Some of the greatest music in the American canon has been with me all month. As Black History Month draws to its end, I want to share several classics of American music created and performed by great Black Americans:
“So What,” by Miles Davis, from a TV performance from the 50s:
“Blue in Green,” with Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Cannonball Adderley and John Coltrane:
“My Favorite Things,” with John Coltrane in an old video (yes, I know it’s not an original jazz classic but a riff on Mary Poppins!):
“Ruby My Dear,” by Thelonious Monk, accompanied by Coltrane:
Have a great weekend,
Glenn
From the archives: