The Incomparable Nina Simone

Nina Simone's beauty came from within. She sang from the depth of her heart, with many of her songs and interpretations of classic songs, like Pirate Jenny from Kurt Weill's Three-Penny Opera, becoming iconic of the Civil Rights Movement. It really is hard to imagine anyone playing her in film, but I see the beautiful young Zoe Saldana has been cast in the role of an upcoming biopic.

Needless to say this has caused quite a stir. Mary J. Blige was first cast in the role, which also ruffled a few feathers. My suggestion would be anyone of these four women because there is absolutely no question anyone of them can sing Simone's signature songs, and if beauty is what you are looking for there are few women more beautiful than Lizz Wright. Instead, we most likely will get another film along the lines of Ray that meticulously chronicles the life of the legendary artist, who left America to make a better life for herself in France.

Probably her greatest performance was recorded at Carnegie Hall in 1964. It centered on the Civil Rights Movement, offering stirring interpretations of I Loves You Porgy, Plain Gold Ring and Pirate Jenny, as well as her own great songs Old Jim Crow, Go Limp and the show-stopping Mississippi Goddam.

One can appreciate the effort to make Nina Simone accessible to a new generation, but her songs have already been remixed and re-imagined into House music, and made popular in night clubs. The movie will no doubt attempt to put her in proper perspective, but seems to capture her more as a sexy chanteuse than the powerful voice that she was.

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The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

Welcome to this month's reading group selection. David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908. At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades. Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society. I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran. Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro

Dylan in America

Whoever it was in 1969 who named the very first Bob Dylan bootleg album “Great White Wonder” may have had a mischievous streak. There are any number of ways you can interpret the title — most boringly, the cover was blank, like the Beatles’ “White Album” — but I like to see a sly allusion to “Moby-Dick.” In the seven years since the release of his first commercial record, Dylan had become the white whale of 20th-century popular song, a wild, unconquerable and often baffling force of musical nature who drove fans and critics Ahab-mad in their efforts to spear him, lash him to the hull and render him merely comprehensible. --- Bruce Handy, NYTimes ____________________________________________ I figured we can start fresh with Bob Dylan. Couldn't resist this photo of him striking a Woody Guthrie pose. Looks like only yesterday. Here is a link to the comments building up to this reading group.

Team of Rivals Reading Group

''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005

Dispatches from Vilnius

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