Resources

Category: Resources

Marian the Librarian

marianWho is more multi-faceted than singer/actress Shirley Jones? She went from Academy Award-winner, playing a prostitute in Elmer Gantry, to the most wholesome of TV mothers on The Partridge Family. In between she portrayed Rodgers and Hammerstein heroines, solidified every stereotype of librarians in The Music Man and married both the suave Jack Cassidy and the goofy Marty Ingles. Had she stayed in Western Pennsylvania where she was born 74 years ago today, she might have ended up working in the family business, the Jones Brewery.

We’ve got her on video in Carousel, The Music Man and Oklahoma!

Marian the Piano-arian

pianistToday jazz pianist/composer/leader Marian McPartland turns 90. When she started out in the United States in the ’40’s, an English woman jazz piano player wasn’t standard fare. But she soon formed her own trio and played long engagements at clubs in New York. In 1978 she began taping the NPR series, “Piano Jazz,” which she still hosts today.

The Mudd has her autobiography, All in good time, and you can see her in the video Piano legends.

What You Want, You Know We Got It

macdonald'sThe Big Mac® is a handy punching bag, nutrition-wise. It’s made of meat, it’s fatty and it’s often the default bad guy in calorie comparisons. But did you know that a typical MacDonald’s meal (Big Mac®, fries and coffee) “contains at least 19 plant species from 12 families” which “originate in all of the eight global centers of cultivated plant diversity?” The current issue of the journal BioScience has an article detailing these attributes, Serban P, Wilson JRU, Vamosi JC, Richardson DM (2008) Plant Diversity in the Human Diet: Weak Phylogenetic Signal Indicates Breadth. BioScience: Vol. 58, No. 2 pp. 151-159, which you can read if you’re an LU person. The authors call the Big Mac® a “symbol of globalization.” So, please, a little more R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

At Graduation We Play “Also Sprach Zarathustra”

You’re lucky. Your space solutions most likely involve a few wicker baskets and a double-rod hanging system. But when NASA gets involved it’s a whole-nother kettle of fish.

The International Space University symposium, Space Solutions to Earth’s Global Challenges, begins today in Strasbourg, France. Here we’re talking SPACE space, as in outer. Some topics are a little out-there (“Why We Need an Elevator to Space!”) and some are downright bone-chilling (“The Intersection of Air Law and Space Law.”) And who knew there was an International Space University?

Listen to some Strauss while you ponder your future on the final frontier.

We’re Goin’ Down to Stonham Barns, Gonna Get Us Some Tubers to Eat

potatoes

We’re announcing this a day early so you can still catch a last minute super-saver over there. East Anglia Potato Day is tomorrow. Here you can buy your Yorkshire rhubarb crowns (we have no idea,) taste some chips, swap some seeds and hear a talk on “The Commonwealth Potato Collection.” Might this include common-taters? See November 8, 2007.

FYI: The Library of Congress Subject Heading for potatoes is “potatoes.”

Today’s CDs

Bach, Beethoven, Brahms? Pffft. In our never-ending quest to provide the newest, the oddest, the anti-top-ten-est music, we present in today’s CD pile some piano works with a warning label, “Doo-dah” on saxophones, art songs by a German composer in English sung by a German guy and music inspired by paintings. The Mudd collection: not for the faint of heart.

Presenting Walter Busterkeys!

liberaceOn this day in 1987 Liberace went to that great diamond-studded, fur lined Cadillac in the sky. You young folk may not hear the word “flamboyant” much these days, but this gentleman was the textbook definition. Wisconsin claims him as its own since he was born in West Allis and, as you can see, he also did a few years in Sheboygan

On January 16, 1940 the Milwaukee Journal reported on his debut with the Chicago Symphony at Milwaukee’s Pabst Theater. It appears that it took a while to develop his signature style:

“Walter Liberace, a member of the excellent group of young Milwaukee pianists … was heard Monday night at the Pabst as soloist with the Chicago Symphony orchestra. . . .

“Mr. Liberace, a strikingly good looking young man with a most engaging personality, had won the honor of an appearance with the orchestra in a local competition . . . The young artist was at no time in difficulty, but it was apparent that he was proceeding with infinite care, and the swaggering approach that goes so well with Liszt (Liberace had chosen to play Liszt’s Second Concerto in A) was somewhat missed.”

Liberace on LP at the Mudd. And, as you would expect, there is a Liberace Museum in Las Vegas.