It's Complicated
On my weekly appearance with Hugh Hewitt, we chewed over Obama, the Iranian bomb, and Marie Harf's preference for monosyllabic words. But Hugh began the show with what, to me, was an unfamiliar piece of music: HUGH HEWITT: I'm joined by Columnist To the World, Mark Steyn, who may or may not know that this is the University of Michigan fight song. Mark Steyn, did you know that? MARK STEYN: No, I didn't. I'm somewhat stunned to know the University of Michigan has a fight song. So that's for when ... |
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Our Love
SteynPostsNon-Bonnie Bray
I'll be joining Sean Hannity tonight, coast to coast on Fox News at 10pm Eastern/7pm Pacific. Hope you'll swing by and check us out. ~Brendan O'Neill writes of the remorseless Scottish Endarkenment:
SteynPostsTreason and Corruption
At a so-called Easter "prayer breakfast", President Obama, as is his wont, took another swipe at Christians: On Easter, I do reflect on the fact that, as a Christian, I am supposed to love. And I have to say that sometimes, when I listen to less than loving expressions by Christians, I get concerned. Each to his own. I get concerned that, as the President was lecturing those Christians less perfect than him, some 150 students were slaughtered at Garissa University in Kenya for no other reason ... SteynPostsRifles at the Door
President Obama gives an exclusive interview to Thomas ("Meet the Flintstones") Friedman, in-house thinker of The New York Times... Happy WarriorLet Them Bake Cake
Via Small Dead Animals, a headline from the new America: Denver's Azucar Bakery Wins Right To Refuse To Make Anti-Gay Cakes So in the age of flour power the state can compel you to make certain kinds of cakes but relieve you of the obligation to make certain other kinds of cakes. In our brave new gâteaupia, it will all eventually wind up at the Supreme Court, at which America's Masterchef Anthony Kennedy will decide precisely which half-baked state-mandated menu items on the cake stand of ... SteynPostsNotes on Good Friday
On this Good Friday, Christians are under attack in Africa. On this Passover, Jews are under assault in Europe. And on any day of the week anyone who catches the eye of the caliph's enforcers is getting his head sawed off in the Islamic State. Like some guy said all those years ago, "The future belongs to Islam." Don't take Steyn's word for it, here's the impeccably respectable Pew Research Center... Mann vs SteynFootball and HockeyThe Corner post that launched a lawsuit... |
On the AirDo #BlackLivesMatter When They're Christian, Mr President?
I dropped in on Sean Hannity's show on Fox last night to discuss President Obama's Easter finger-wagging to Christians. Breitbart News reports on my reaction: "148 young students in Kenya have just been killed, slaughtered, their bodies on the floor by Muslim fanatics who asked the students in that university, 'are you Christian or are you Muslim?' And they let the Muslims go, and they slaughtered the Christians. Now, this is a guy who's happy to draw general lessons when a black youth gets ... SteynPostsNon-Bonnie Bray
I'll be joining Sean Hannity tonight, coast to coast on Fox News at 10pm Eastern/7pm Pacific. Hope you'll swing by and check us out. ~Brendan O'Neill writes of the remorseless Scottish Endarkenment:
On the TownBillie Holiday: Don't Explain
One hundred years ago today - April 7th 1915 - Billie Holiday was born in Philadelphia. Unlike Frank Sinatra, whose centenary we also mark this year, she did not enjoy a six-decade career, wrapping up with sell-out stadium tours and Number One celebrity duet CDs with Bono and Jimmy Buffett. Miss Holiday's life was short and turbulent, fading out just as Sinatra, her almost exact contemporary, was getting into his stride. The end came on July 17th 1959 in the Metropolitan Hospital in New York. ... Steyn's Song of the WeekI'm A Fool To Want You
On the TownEaster Parade
Happy Easter and Happy Passover to our readers around the world. We moved our Saturday movie night to Good Friday for Mel Gibson's blockbuster The Passion Of The Christ. So, for the weekend proper, here's a special podcast, audiophonically adapted from an essay that appears in Mark's book A Song For The Season. Mark traces the story of Irving Berlin's "Easter Parade", from its obscure origins as a First World War morale booster to its re-emergence a generation later as the American Songbook's ... Steyn's Song of the WeekI Get A Kick Out Of You
When Frank Sinatra was 18, it was a very good year. Anything Goes opened at the Alvin Theatre in November 1934 and provided young Frank with a slew of Cole Porter material he would sing in his maturity:.The title song turned up in 1956 on his landmark album Songs For Swingin' Lovers; "Easy To Love" was dropped at the insistence of leading man William Gaxton, but became a highlight of Sinatra's first album at Reprise... |
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Someday someone should release an album called Classical Frank. I mentioned a couple of days ago that "Take My Love" was adapted from Brahms' Third Symphony. Aside from Brahms (whose Lullaby he also recorded), Sinatra sang over the years Anton Rubinstein, Grieg, Rachmaninov, Ravel and Borodin. That's to say, "If You Are But A Dream" (Rubinstein's Romance No 1), "I Love You" and "Strange Music" (Grieg's "Ich Liebe Dich" and "Wedding Day At Troldhaugen", respectively), "Full Moon And Empty Arms" and "I Think Of You" (both from Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto), "The Lamp Is Low" (Ravel's Pavane pour une infante défunte)... oh, and Borodin? Well, "Baubles, Bangles And Beads" is adapted from his String Quartet in D, and Sinatra recorded it in both in a swingin' non-String Quartet-ish Billy May arrangement, and as a bossa nova with Antonio Carlos Jobim...
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