On the Jukebox this weekend at Dolores Delargo Towers

[click to embiggen]

Sun refulgent

A Summer Invocation
By Walt Whitman

Thou orb aloft full dazzling,
Flooding with sheeny light the grey beach sand;
Thou sibilant near sea, with vistas far, and foam,
And tawny streaks and shades, and spreading blue;
Before I sing the rest, O sun refulgent,
My special word to thee.

Hear me, illustrious!
Thy lover me - for always I have loved thee,
Even as basking babe - then happy boy alone by some wood edge - thy
touching distant beams enough,
Or man matured, or young or old - as now to thee I launch my invocation.
(Thou canst not with thy dumbness me deceive.
I know before the fitting man all Nature yields.
Though answering not in words, the skies, trees, hear his voice - and thou,
O sun,
As for thy throes, thy perturbations, sudden breaks and shafts of flame gigantic,
I understand them - I know those flames, those perturbations well.)

Thou that with fructifying heat and light,
O'er myriad forms - o'er lands and waters, North and South,
O'er Mississippi's endless course, o'er Texas' grassy plains, Kanada's woods,
O'er all the globe, that turns its face to thee, shining in space,
Thou that impartially enfoldest all - not only continents, seas,
Thou that to grapes and weeds and little wild flowers givest so liberally,
Shed, shed thyself on mine and me - mellow these lines.
Fuse thyself here - with but a fleeting ray out of thy million millions,

Strike through this chant.
Nor only launch thy subtle dazzle and thy strength for this;
Prepare the later afternoon of me myself - prepare my lengthening shadows.
Prepare my starry nights.

It's the Mid-summer Solstice, the longest day, Festa Junina, Sommersonnenwende, Uttarayana, Saint John's Eve, Majstång, Litha...

...whatever you call it, the nights start drawing in from here on, folks!

Weekend reading

Judy, Judy, Judy!

Oh, wow - a very special centenary indeed almost passed us by - that of Miss Frances Ethel Gumm, better known, of course, as the immortal Judy Garland!

I'll have what she's having...

From an article by Christina Newland in I news:

Frances Ethel Gumm was born, 100 years ago, to a pair of entertainer-musicians in Minnesota, with an unprepossessing name that did not deter her from the stage. By the time she was 12, she had changed that name to Judy Garland. By the time she was 17, she had changed the world...

...Nicknamed “Baby”, the youngest of the three Gumm sisters sang and danced with her siblings constantly, and her showbiz-savvy parents moved to Los Angeles when she was just shy of four years old.

Enrolled in children’s talent schools from a young age (her ambitious mama embodied the stereotypical stage mother, even feeding her girls “pep” pills to keep them dancing and auditioning when they were tired), Judy auditioned in front of studio execs in Hollywood to little effect, until she was coached to sing a sentimental old Yiddish tune to the head of MGM himself, mogul Louis B Mayer. He hired the adolescent to a then-standard seven-year studio contract on the spot.

In a series of standout roles over the next decade, Garland would distinguish herself not only with that unmistakable voice, but with her ability to transmit a wholesome girl-next-door persona so believably: real innocence and wide-eyed vulnerability. She would later prove that her dramatic abilities were up to the task of less lighthearted fare, as she did with her comeback film A Star is Born (1954) – George Cukor’s classic tale of one rising and one falling star, locked in a doomed romance...

Humble, Midwestern and perhaps not unlike the sweet 16-year-old girl in plaits and pastoral gingham who sang Over the Rainbow in that lush, tremulous voice, Garland would strike deep into the vein of small-town yearning. The Wizard of Oz – which of course sees sepia give way to a Technicolor fantasyland – must have only transmitted that yearning more in 1939, an era when technology had not yet spanned vast distances in the way it now can. The film would become one of the greatest box-office hits of all time.

She was, for very many reasons, probably "The Greatest Star" - and she certainly ascended the pantheon of "Patron Saints" to be the original, the most famous "gay icon" of them all...

We adored her.

Judy Garland (born Frances Ethel Gumm, 10th June 1922 – 22nd June 1969)

More Judy here and loads more here

Life is a cabaret, old chum

My all-time favourite film Cabaret - which, had it not been for The Godfather, would have swept the board at The Oscars; as it is it won eight (including Best Director for Bob Fosse, Best Actress for Liza Minnelli and Best Supporting Actor for Joel Grey), and holds the record for most awards won by a film which did not win the Academy Award for Best Picture - received its UK premiere FIFTY YEARS AGO today...

All about Cabaret at Filmsite