This is one of my favorite songs about mothers -- and one of the littlest known, I'd think. It's from an unsuccessful musical, Juno, that opened in 1959 and only ran for 16 performances. But it had a pretty interesting pedigree. The show is based on the famous Irish play, Juno and the Paycock (an Irish pronunciation of "peacock") written by Sean O'Casey, and was adapted as a musical by Joseph Stein -- who in a few years would write the book for Fiddler on the Roof. And it had music and lyrics by Marc Blitzstein (a protege of Kurt Weill), who had adapted The Threepenny Opera for its off-Broadway debut, and wrote the score to The Cradle Will Rock for Orson Welles. (The story surrounding that production was made into the film, Rocking the Cradle, made my Tim Robbins.) And Juno starred Shirley Booth. Shirley Booth is probably best-remembered for starring in the sitcom, Hazel, which won her two Emmy Awards playing the housemaid, though she also won a Tony Award and later an Oscar for starring in the powerful drama, Come Back, Little Sheba. She wasn't a great singer, but she stole the stage musical version of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, in a supporting role. (It's later been suggested that this was, in part, the reason for that show's short run. She was so wonderful in the musical that it changed the focus of the show, and the balance of the tender story was off.) Later, she was in another flop musical, playing the Mother Superior in Look to the Lilies, a stage version of Lilies of the Field. Alas, Juno didn't last on Broadway. .But it did have several interesting songs. And most notably for me is this one -- "Song of the Ma."
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I'm still a bit bewildered that for all of the years I’ve been posting videos on Mother’s Day -- and for all the mentions and videos I’ve posted of Mike Nichols and Elaine May -- that I never thought of posting this. The two did a lot of mothers sketches, but this might be their classic. And happily, there’s not only audio of this from their stage show, but there’s actually video of when they performed it on TV. Interestingly, the premise came from a phone call that Nichols actually received from his mother, where she began, “Hello, Mike. This is your mother. Do you remember me?” Almost better is that even with that as her greeting, he cut the phone call off quickly and said he had to call her back – because he immediately called May to say he had the premise for a comedy sketch. Which became this -- On this week’s ‘Not My Job’ segment of the NPR quiz show Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, the guest is artist Lyndon Barrois Sr., who makes lifelike miniature sculptures out of gum wrappers. (No, that isn’t a typo.) His conversation with host Peter Sagal is charming and fun. Along with a funny story about how he got started with it all. And some nice stories about his main job, doing special effects work for movies, including on The Matrix series and Happy Feet.
This is the full Wait, Wait… broadcast, but you can jump directly to the “Not My Job” segment, it starts at the 18:30 mark. Although for years the celebration moved around the calendar a bit more than in the past and was therefore somewhat difficult to track down (no pun intended), today -- we are full of joy to announce -- once again is that most grand fest, National Train Day. At least it is here at Elisberg Industries, and that's good enough as a starting point. You won't find it on any calendars for any number of reasons, but the most important is that since Amtrak funding got cut back they stopped promoting it after 2016. (And the reason for it moving around the calendar is that it was never a set day, but the Saturday closest to May 10. Why May 10, I hear you cry? Because that's the anniversary of the Golden Spike being driven in at Promontory Point, Utah, to complete the building of the Transcontinental Railroad.) But whether or not it remains an officially promoted holiday by the government -- and isn't being celebrated here on a proper Saturday due to prior commitments, think of it as the train running behind schedule -- National Train Day (or as it used to be known around these parts once upon a time as "Let's Make Chris Dunn's Head Explode Day," but no more since he now, at long last, acknowledges Bridge on the River Kwai as a train movie) is nonetheless still one of the most joyous holidays of the year. This is from a trip I took a few years back from Los Angeles to Chicago. Though the food on a train isn't high-end, there are few things I think are more ethereally enjoyable than eating in a dining car as the country sweeps past the windows of the train . For our part here, we celebrate National Train Day on these pages by posting a list of the greatest train movies. These are films in which trains are absolutely central to the story. Where a train is the driving force of the tale, without which you can’t properly describe the plot. (Think of it like the classic and beloved Santa Claus song, "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." Santa Claus isn't actually in the song at all. He hasn't even shown up yet. In most ways, it's about "you" and what you should do -- or better not do. But even though there's not a hint of Santa Claus even appearing in the song, without Santa Claus...there's no song.) We're strict about this. A friend once recommended The Taking of Pelham-1-2-3, and it was strongly considered, but that was a subway train or light rail. This list is for full-bore trains, the kind that either have sleeping cars and dining cars, or could if they were hitched on. But I've added it to our Honorable Mention list this year. Since the list is fluid, we keep adding to it. The most recent addition is Murder in the Private Car, made in 1934 and starring Charlie Ruggles, Mary Carlisle and Una Merkel. It's hardly a classic, but if you accept it as not intending to be anything more than a light-hearted murder mystery aboard a train, it's fun. Especially if you love train movies as a starting point. There are two other categories I've added recently: the just-mentioned Honorable Mention is for movies which you can generally tell their stories without using the word "train," but they have some connection to trains -- usually a great, standout train sequence, supportive to the story, but not essential in telling the plot -- that makes them memorable. And a few years ago I added a new category of Special Mention, for works that don't qualify as a train movie or perhaps even as a movie at all, but deserve a place of honor. But I didn't find any to expand the list with this year. And as I noted in the past, though something I think is likely very obvious, I love train movies. Here is the current list of Great Train Movies. 3:10 to Yuma Around the World in 80 Days Back to the Future 3 Bridge on the River Kwai Bullet Train The Commuter The Darjeeling Limited Emperor of the North The 5:17 to Paris The General The Girl on the Train The Great Locomotive Chase The Great Train Robbery The Lady Vanishes Murder in the Private Car Murder on the Orient Express (1974) The Narrow Margin North by Northwest Northwest Frontier Night Train to Munich Polar Express Runaway Train Shanghai Express Silver Streak Snowpiercer Source Code Strangers on a Train Tough Guys The Train Transsiberian Twentieth Century Union Pacific Union Station Unstoppable Von Ryan’s Express Honorable Mention Throw Momma from the Train Planes, Trains and Automobiles The Greatest Show on Earth Go West At the Circus Cat Ballou Trading Places Murder on the Orient Express (2017) Special Mention The Railrodder (short) The Taking of Pelham-1-2-3 (light-rail subway trains) Murder on the Orient Express (TV version, from the series Poirot) Great Railway Journeys of the World (TV documentary) Nothing Like It in the World by Stephen Ambrose (book) Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad by David Haward Bain (book) I've also added another new feature in recent years -- a scene from one of the Great Train Movies, or another entry on the list. And this year we have the glorious sequence from Murder on the Orient Express -- the great version, directed by Sidney Lumet in 1974 -- when the train pulls out of the station. With near-perfect music by Richard Rodney Bennett. I wish the clip includes the full footage, about another 20 seconds with the train roaring across the countryside. But they chose to include only the material inside the station. Too bad, but understandable. Sidney Lumet writes about the complexity of this shot in his book, "Making Movies'. He said that they only had one take to do this. They could only use the Paris rail station for one night. It required an extensive set-up with the lighting and camera blocking timed perfectly. When they finally had everything ready, by then it was 4:30 in the morning, and sunrise was in a half-hour. So, it was get it in one take or not at all. That’s the actual Orient Express, by the way. The scene wasn’t filmed directly in the station, but the storage shed where the train was kept, not having been used in five years. During the preparation by the movie crew, a train crew was working to get the train in shape to run, specifically for this one shot. All the movie was shot on the real train, not sets. Train historians credit the movie with saving the Orient Express which eventually returned to service. If you didn't see Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on Sunday, the Main Story was on libraries. Yes, libraries. The focus is the attack on public libraries, starting with banning books, relocating books and outcry from the far-right. It's a very interesting and extremely serious story, and clearly one, as well, that lends itself to a lot of wonderful humor. The other day, Trump once again tried to tell every Jewish person who votes for President Biden that they should all be ashamed. For a long time, whenever he’d say this, I’d respond on social media that Trump and his fascism has never been the go-to guy for what Jews should do. But it’s taken a while for the reality to kick in and recognize that his words about this are never about votes – after all, it’s not going to change what anyone does -- but it's his anti-Semitic screed dog whistle to demonize Jews to his supporters, giving them even more permission to spread their own anti-Semitic hate.
Speaking of racist hate, last week Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) talked about his concerns about how immigrants had grown to a larger percentage of American citizens than they had been in recent years. The first thing to know is he was not talking about undocumented immigrants, but immigrants who were in the country legally, including many (if not most) who were U.S. citizens. And second, the percentage is almost exactly the same as it was in 1920, over 100 years ago. But almost more to the point, never mind that almost all Americans are immigrants, children of immigrants or, like Trump, grandchildren of immigrants.) Fun Fact: the Founding Fathers of the United States were all "foreign born." And they actually wrote the Constitution that Chip Roy is crying out about. (Well...yes, but the United States didn't exist before. True. Also true: they were all foreign born. And created the U.S.) And then, just days later, Chip Roy said that he had “strong concerns” about Sharia law becoming used in the U.S. What’s long become clear is that Chip Roy’s real concerns aren't Sharia law or immigrants, but about Chip Roy and his personal insecurities towards minorities and “others.” Finally, it was sort of shocking and disturbing to read the New York Times Editor-in-Chief go on the record to say his paper’s job was not to defend democracy but be objective in telling the truth. For the record, one can defend democracy truthfully while being completely objective – most especially when recognizing that it is democracy that allows the New York Times and all newspapers to tell the truth. I can imagine a future New York Times article, "At his rally, described by one observer as 'reminiscent of a putsch,' Mr. Trump announced arrests of the Times editorial board & reporters as 'enemies of the people.' There were no comments from the paper as it has been closed down." |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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