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editor
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 Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2005 11:21 am Post subject: The Ultimate High-Stakes Gamble |
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WELCOME!
The Ultimate High-Stakes Gamble:
Love, of course.
There is no hedging these bets and, oh, what is lost through carelessness, recklessness and just plain cheating, but when this one pays off, gamblers, we are rolling in fields of sweet, green clover.
Faust
By our all-time favorite French composer, Charles Gounod
Featuring Swedish tenor Jussi Bjoerling
CD Audio
Here he is with Salut, demeure at YouTube.com.
| Quote: | Life's great mysteries will always remain unknowable. The workings of Nature, the essence of the Divine, will forever be just beyond our comprehension and control. But out of those mysteries can come revelations of truth, beauty and love. If we seek these, we shall endure, but if we ask for more, we risk losing everything. Faust, an aged and embittered seeker, desperately barters his soul to the Devil in return for youth and an impossible alchemy: the melding of his cynical heart with that of a chaste and innocent young woman, Marguerite. Tragically, by trying to have it all, he is lost and must watch powerlessly as he loses that which he most desires. In his final moments on earth, he sees the truth he ought to have heeded: a pure soul cannot be contained or contaminated, even by the forces of darkness.
Faust is the pinnacle of 19th century French opera, rich in characterization, dramatically exciting and exuberantly evocative of its rustic setting. The glories of Gounod's sensuous and sublimely melodic masterpiece are framed in a cutting-edge production that employs scale, perspective and geometry to stunning effect. (Winning sales pitch for this year's season by Vancouver Opera). |
We couldn't agree more.
| Quote: | The Life of Jung
Hardcover
By Ronald Hayman
| Quote: | | Browsing through his father's theological books for information about God, he found nothing helpful, but when his mother recommended Faust, he at last discovered a writer who took the devil seriously, though Goethe should not have let his hero gamble his soul away so frivolously. He deserved to be damned, and Mephistopheles should not have been tricked out of the soul he had won. The ending made evil seem innocuous. But the development of Jung's ideas was influenced by Goethe, who had studied the medieval alchemists and believed, as they did, that there were hidden human harmonies and interrelationships in all matter. (From Such a Wicked Thought, p. 25) |
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Jussi Bjoerling in Voice and Song
VHS
Free singing lesson by professional teacher David L. Jones.
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=2304#2304
Last edited by editor on Thu Jun 11, 2009 4:00 pm; edited 10 times in total |
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editor
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| Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2005 7:20 pm Post subject: |
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Ella and Louis Again
Remastered
I'm Putting All My Eggs in One Basket
Words and music by Irving Berlin
Sung by Swingin' Ella Fitzgerald
CD Audio
| Quote: | I'm Putting All My Eggs in One Basket
I've been a roaming Romeo.
My Juliets have been many.
But now my roaming days have gone.
Too many irons in the fire
Is worse than not having any.
I've had my share and from now on...
I'm putting all my eggs in one basket.
I'm betting everything I've got on you.
I'm giving all my love to one baby.
Heaven help me if my baby don't come through.
I've got a great big amount saved up in my love account.
Honey, and I've decided, love divided in two won't do.
So I'm putting all my eggs in one basket.
I'm betting everything I've got on you.
GINGER:
I'm putting all my eggs in one basket.
I'm betting everything I've got on you.
I'm giving all my love to one baby.
Heaven help me if my baby don't come through.
I've tried to love more than one, finding it just can't be done.
Honey, there's one I lie to when I try to be true to two.
So I'm putting all my eggs in one basket.
I'm betting everything I've got on you. |
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editor
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| Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2005 7:40 pm Post subject: |
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The Girl on the Boat
Hardcover
Autograph Edition
By Rum Plum Steelschack
| Quote: | Samuel Marlowe, muffled in a bathrobe, came back to the state-room from his tub. His manner had the offensive jauntiness of the man who has had a cold bath when he might just as well have had a hot one. He looked out of the porthole at the shimmering sea. He felt strong and happy and exuberant.
It was not merely the spiritual pride induced by a cold bath that was uplifting this young man. The fact was that, as he towelled his glowing back, he had suddenly come to the decision that this very day he would propose to Wilhelmina Bennet. Yes, he would put his fortune to the test, to win or lose it all. True, he had only known her for four days, but what of that? (From the chapter entitled, Sam Clicks, at p. 45 - and it's The Girl ON the Boat) |
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=2307#2307
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editor
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| Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2006 10:59 am Post subject: |
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The Essential Tony Bennett
CD Audio
Just in Time
Song by Jule Styne, Adolph Green and Betty Comden
| Quote: | Just in Time
Just in time
I found you just in time
Before you came my time
Was running low
I was lost
The losing dice were tossed
My bridges all were crossed
Nowhere to go
Now you're here
And now I know just where I'm going
No more doubt or fear
I found my way
For love came just in time
You found me just in time
And changed my lonely life
That lovely day
(Musical interlude)
I was lost
The losing dice were tossed
My bridges all were crossed
Nowhere to go
Now you're here
And now I know just where I'm going
No more doubt or fear
I found my way
For love came just in time
You found me just in time
And changed my lonely life
That lovely day |
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editor
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| Posted: Thu Apr 27, 2006 11:01 am Post subject: |
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Tales from the Drones Club
Hardcover
By P.G. Wodehouse
| Quote: | ...If you want to know the real obstacle in the way of any wooing you may do now or in the years to come, Twistleton-Twistleton, it is this -- that you entirely lack sex-appeal and look like nothing on earth. A girl of the sweet, sensitive nature of Angelica Briscoe does not have to see you smeared with chocolate to recoil from you with loathing. She does it automatically, and she does it on her head.'
'Is that so?'
'That is so.'
'Oh? Well, let me inform you that in spite of what has happened, in spite of the fact that she has seen me at my worst, there is something within me that tells me that Angelica Briscoe loves me and will one day be mine.'
'Mine, you mean. I can read the message in a girl's shy, drooping eyes, Twistleton-Twistleton, and I am prepared to give you odds of eleven to four that before the year is out I shall be walking down the aisle with Angelica Fotheringagy-Phipps on my arm. I will go further. Thirty-three to eight.'
'What in?'
'Tenners.'
'Done.'
It was at this moment that the door opened. (From Tried in the Furnace) at pgs. 36-37) |
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editor
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| Posted: Thu Aug 10, 2006 9:26 am Post subject: |
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Bachelors Anonymous
Paperback
By P.G. Wodehouse
| Quote: | Even though separated from him by a length of wire Joe had no difficulty in diagnosing the speaker's mental state. Mr. Trout's voice was the voice of one who, putting his fate to the touch to win or lose it all, has found himself a winner. Its volume made that plain. No man, Joe felt, to whom the adored object had handed the pink slip could so nearly have fractured his ear drum, and forgetting his own troubles for the moment, he rejoiced in the other's good fortune. Mr. Trout might be the sort of man whose morning post was never without its quota of attractive offers from lunatic asylums, but he wished him well.
'I gather from your manner,' he said, 'that you have offered your heart with good results. Over the coffee?'
'No, Pickering, over the oysters. I couldn't wait for the coffee. Swallowing my fifth oyster, I snatched her up on my saddle bow, ha ha, and carried her off. We are going to have coffee after I have finished my telephoning...' (-- pgs. 134-5) |
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editor
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| Posted: Mon Aug 28, 2006 10:38 am Post subject: |
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A Damsel in Distress
Paperback
By that cheerful old punter,
Pelham Plum Grenville Wodehouse
| Quote: | George shook his head.
'No, I don't know,' he said.
'Nor do I, dash it!' said Reggie.
George pondered.
'It seems to me it's purely a question of luck. Either you're lucky or you're not. Look at me, for instance. What is there about me to make a wonderful girl love me?'
'Nothing! I see what you mean. At least, what I mean to say is -- '
'No. You were right the first time. It's all a question of luck. There's nothing anyone can do.' (-- pgs. 102-3) |
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editor
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| Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 1:37 pm Post subject: |
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Mr. Mulliner Speaking
Hardcover
By *P.G. Wodehouse
| Quote: | "Archie Mulliner?" said Aurelia meditatively.
"Yes. The betting at the Junior Lipstick is seven to two that you'll marry him."
"Why on earth?"
"Well, people have noticed he's always round at your place, and they seem to think it significant. Anyway, that's how the odds stood when I left London -- seven to two."
"Get in on the short end," said Aurelia earnestly, "and you'll make a packet."
"Is that official?"
"Absolutely," said Aurelia.
Our in the moonlight, Archiobald Mulliner uttered a low, bleak moan rather like the last bit of wind going out of a dying duck. True, he had always told himself that he hadn't a chance, but however much a man may say that, he never in his heart really believes it. And now from an authoritative source he had learned that his romance was definitely blue round the edges. It was a shattering blow. He wondered dully how the trains ran to the Rocky Mountains. A spot of grizzly-bear shooting seemed indicated.
Inside the room, the other girl appeared perplexed.
"But you told me at Ascot," she said, "just after he had been introduced to you, that you rather thought you had at last met your ideal. When did the good thing begin to come unstuck?"
A silvery sigh came through the curtains.
"I did think so then," said Aurelia wistfully. "There was something about him. I liked the way his ears wiggled. And I had always heard he was such a perfectly genial, cheery, merryt old soul. Algy Wymondham-Wynmondham told me that his imitation of a hen laying an egg was alone enough to keep any reasonable girl happy through a long married life."
"Can he imitate a hen?"
"No. It was nothing but an idle rumor. I asked him, and he stoutly denied that he had ever done such a thing in his life. He was quite stuffy about it. I felt a little uneasy then, and the moment he started calling and hanging about the house I knew that my fears had been well-founded. The man is beyond question a flat tyre and a wet smack."
"As bad as that?"
"I'm not exaggerating a bit. Where people ever got the idea that Archie Mulliner is a bonhomous old bean beats me. He is the world's worst monkey-wrench. He doesn't drink cocktails, he doesn't smoke cigarettes, and the thing he seems to enjoy most in the world is to sit for hours listening to the conversation of my aunt, who, as you know, is pure goof from the soles of the feet to the tortoiseshell comb and should long ago have been renting a padded cell in Earlswood. Believe me, Muriel, if you can really get seven to two, you are on the best thing since Buttercup won the Lincolnshire!" (From The Reverent Wooing of Archibald at pgs. 18-19) |
* Read Plummie's letter to his beloved on the occasion of their 59th wedding anniversary at Impossible Odds.
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editor
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| Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2007 10:06 am Post subject: |
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A Treasury of Short Stories
Favorites of the past hundred years
from Turgenev to Thurber
from Balzac to Hemingway
with biographical sketches of
the authors.
Hardcover
Edited by Bernardine Kielty
| Quote: | N.Y. Aug. 3
DEAR MISS GILLESPIE: How about our bet now as you bet me I would forget all about you the minute I hit the big town and would never write you a letter. Well girlie it looks like you lose so pay me. Seriously we will call all bets off as I am not the kind that bet on a sure thing and it sure was a sure thing that I would not forget a girlie like you and all that is worrying me is whether it may not be the other way around and you are wondering who this fresh guy is that is writeing you this letter. I bet you are so will try and refreshen your memory.
Well girlie I am the handsome young man that was wondering round the Lasalle st. station Monday and "happened" to sit down beside of a mighty pretty girlie who was waiting to meet her sister from Toledo and the train was late and I am glad of it because if it had not of been that little girlie and I would never of met. So for once I was a lucky guy but still I guess it was time I had some luck as it was certainly tough luck for you and I to both be liveing in Chi all that time and never get together till a half hour before I was leaveing town for good. (Opening paragraphs of Some Like Them Cold by Ring Lardner originally published as How to Write Short Stories in 1924) |
More on the author at Lardnermania. |
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| Posted: Mon Feb 26, 2007 12:00 pm Post subject: |
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East Side Story
Hardcover
By Louis Auchincloss
| Quote: | "For heaven's sake, can't you perk up a bit when you go out with him?" she cautioned Isabel. "Anyone can see that you have him hooked, though God knows why. A girl with your looks doesn't have to do much, but she has to do."
"But I'm not sure I even want to get married."
"I'd like to know what else you think you can do with yourself."
"Maybe I can get a job or something. Lots of girls do."
"Lots of girls are trained for something. What are you trained for? You can't even count your trumps in a bridge game."
"Oh, Mummy, please! Your're hurting my feelings."
"It's for your own good, my girl. I know what I'm doing. Didn't I marry a Carnochan myself? It wasn't a bad solution, even with Benson, and with Pierre it could possibly be brilliant. And if you don't mess things up with my old bitch of a mother-in-law, she may do handsomely by you. I know men like Pierre. They may be hard to live with if they don't get what they want, but they're fine enough husbands when they do. And he will get you, if you'll only play your cards right. You and he can go to the top of the world together. My God, when I think what I could have done with your opportunities! I guess it's true that God sends manna to those who have no teeth."
"But, Mommy, suppose I don't want to go to the top of the world!"
Letitia sighed deeply. "Then you're a fool." (From Pierre at pgs. 202-203) |
More stories of New York excess based, no doubt, on the family treachery lawyer Auchincloss must have done his best to avert in his wills and trusts practice over the years. |
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editor
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| Posted: Tue Feb 27, 2007 3:15 pm Post subject: |
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Lie With Me
Thriller directed by Susanna White
DVD
| Quote: | Detective Inspector Will Tomlinson: I can stay for a bit.
Later on over drinks and a card game in which the players take turns selecting and locating face-down cards.
Will: Two queens.
Ros: Easy! Easy, p-easy. (She finds them).
Will: OK, smartass, two kings.
Ros: (Finding them). Ha, ha!
Will: OK, two red jacks, diamonds first.
Ros: You want to put money on it?
Will: 10 pence.
Ros: I'll tell you what. If I get it right, you stay the night.
Will: (Looks away, embarrassed. Ros is, after all, the star witness in a rape/murder he's investigating). No, I can't. I can't do it.
Ros: Not even on the couch?
Will: I shouldn't be here...
Ros: I wouldn't tell anyone. I'd make breakfast (wink, wink, etc.) Two red jacks, jack of diamonds first for one policeman on the couch. OK, jack of diamonds...(screams) Girl's best friend! |
A sad day when women are reduced to begging. |
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editor
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| Posted: Tue Feb 27, 2007 5:41 pm Post subject: |
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Take Me
BBC Miniseries of 2001
DVD
| Quote: | Yuppies otherwise aging gracefully gather at the neighbors' equally lovely home to fill their guts with expensive booze, their ears with repetitive, soulless GenX noise and their cavernous hearts with predictable emptiness. Here they are after dinner, primed for the next round:
Doug, the Chambers' next door neighbor who works as a police photographer: Four couples. Four bedrooms. The girls have no idea which guy is in which room. The lights are switched off. The girls throw the dice, take the low score from the high score and that determines which bedroom they end up in. Meet back here in two hours' time. Whatever happens or doesn't happen - that's your secret. No one's business but your own.
Doug's wife is the first to roll. |
Swinging, in England's green and pleasant land. Must be all that warm beer. |
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editor
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| Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 9:42 am Post subject: |
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The World of Mr. Mulliner
Hardcover
By P.G. Wodehouse
| Quote: | "Well, earls aren't everything," said Lancelot with a touch of pique. "The Mulliners are an old and honourable family. A sieur de Moulinieres came over with the Conqueror."
"Ah, but did a Sieur de Moulinieres ever do down the common people for a few hundred thousand and salt it away in gilt-edged securities? That's what's going to count with the aged parent. What with taxes and super-taxes and death duties and falling land-values, there has of recent years been very, very little of the right stuff in the Biddlecombe sock. Shake the family money-box and you will hear but the faintest rattle. And I ought to tell you that at the Junior Lipstick Club seven to two is being freely offered on my marrying Slingsby Purvis of Purvis's Liquid Dinner Glue. Nothing is definitely decided yet, but you can take it as coming straight from the stable that, unless something happens to upset current form, she whom you now see before you is the future Ma Purvis."
Lancelot stamped his foot defiantly, eliciting a howl of agony from a passing reveler.
"This shall not be," he muttered.
"If you care to bet against it," said the girl, producing a small notebook, "I can accommodate you at the current odds."
"Purvis, forsooth!"
"I'm not saying it's a pretty name. All I'm trying to point out is that at the present moment he heads the 'All the above have arrived' list. He is Our Newmarket Correspondent's Five-Pound Special and Captain Coe's final selection. What makes you think you can nose him out? Are you rich?"
"At present, only in love. But tomorrow I go to my uncle, who is immensely wealthy ------"
"And touch him?"
"Not quite that. Nobody has touched Uncle Jeremiah since the early winter of 1885. But I shall get him to give me a job, and then we shall see."
"Do," said the girl, warmly. "And if you can stick the gaff into Purvis and work the Young Lochinvar business, I shall be the first to touch off red fire. On the other hand, it is only fair to inform you that at the Junior Lipstick all the girls look on the race as a walk-over. None of the big punters will touch it." (From Came the Dawn at pgs. 66-67) |
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=2804#2804
Last edited by editor on Mon Nov 19, 2007 2:11 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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editor
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| Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 3:44 pm Post subject: |
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An Equal Music
Paperback
By Vikram Seth
Listen to the author read an excerpt at BoldType.
| Quote: | In the bus directly opposite, at the window directly opposite, is Julia. Her bus has stopped at the traffic light.
I begin to pound the window and shout, "Julia! Julia! Julia! Julia! Julia!:
* She cannot hear me. We are in separate worlds.
Stop reading, Julia. Look. Look out of the window. Look at me. Oh God.
Around me the passengers stop talking. The schoolgirls gasp. In the bus opposite no one seems to notice.
I keep pounding on the window. At any moment her bus or mine could move off.
She smiles at something in the book, and my heart sinks.
A man sitting behind her notices me and the commotion that has resulted. He looks mystified but not alarmed. I gesticulate and point desperately - and, with great hesitation, he taps Julia on the shoulder and points at me.
Julia looks at me, her eyes opening wide in what? astonishment? dismay? recognition? I must look wild - my face red - my eyes filled with tears - my fists still clenched - I am a decade older - the lights will change any second.
...I get into the cab. To the taxi-driver I say: "I want to catch up with the Number Ninety-four in front."
He turns around, then nods. We move forward. The lights turn yellow against us. He stops.
"Couldn't you go through?" I plead. "It's not red yet."
"I'll get my licence took away," he says, annoyed. "What's the hurry anyway? You won't save much time."
"It's not that," I blurt out. "There's someone on that bus I haven't seen for years. I've got to catch it. She might get off it."
"Take it easy, mate," says the driver. But he tries his best. Where our single lane broadens out for a bus bay, he overtakes a bus or two. Then the street narrows and we can do nothing. Suddenly everything slows down again. Only couriers on bicycles squeeze swiftly through between the lanes of traffic.
"Can't you try to get off Oxford Street and join it further along?"
He shakes his head. "Not here you can't."
After one more tricky feat of overtaking the driver says: "Look, mate, I'm nearer but, to be quite honest, I won't make it, not on Oxford Street. It's usually slow but not as slow as this. Your best bet now is to get out and run for it."
...The wind blows about small pieces of debris. I see the sign of Tower Records in front of me.
I close my eyes in shock. My satchel is on my shoulders but my hands are empty. I have left my **record in the taxi.
Under the arrow of Eros I sit down and weep. (From 1.16, pgs. 52-55) |
Notes:
| Quote: | * Like so many musicians, Julia is deaf.
...I would have expected more protest, more despair, more rage. When I say so, Julia tells me about people she has met in her lip-reading classes. One suffers from a disease that gives him dreadful, nauseating attacks of dizziness while progressively stripping him of his hearing. One became deaf after a serious stroke; he bumps into people on the street and they shake him off as a drunk. One, a woman of about fifty, lost all her hearing overnight as the result of a bungled operation. "They get by," she says. "I'm much better off than them."
"But you're a musician. That must make it hardest of all." (-- p. 215)
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See also Wired magazine's My Bionic Quest for Bolero at Impossible Odds
| Quote: | | **There are two Beethoven string quintets on the LP: my C minor, so desperately sought, so astonishingly found; and one in E flat major, another complete surprise, though I recall the librarian mentioning in passing its opus number, 4. They were recorded (with an extra viola player) by the Suk Quartet and issued in 1977 under the Czech label Supraphon. According to the sleeve note, the members of the quartet, being attached to orchestras, "enjoy only limited opportunities for concert appearances, but they have made the most of them. They make a systematic effort to present some less popular works which they feel are being unfairly neglected, and invite outside instrumentalists for joint performances of works for unusual combinations, which the public otherwise hears only rarely." (1.15, pgs. 50-51) |
Listen while you read:
An Equal Music
CD Audio
Featuring music from the book
| Quote: | Or combine the two:
An Equal Music
CD Audio
Narrated by British actor Alan Bates
Beautifully read. Also includes brief excerpts of the music featured in the novel. |
PokerPulse favorite survey of contemporary Indian literature:
New Yorker
Special Fiction Editon
Edited by Salman Rushdie, who also
contributed an excellent story.
June 23, 1997
Indian writers can still write convincingly, charmingly about romance and even sex - amazing!
Last edited by editor on Thu Aug 06, 2009 1:34 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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editor
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Posts: 2940
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| Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 8:37 am Post subject: |
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Across the Bridge
New Stories
Hardcover
By Mavis Gallant
| Quote: | In May true spring came, moist and hot. Berthe brought home new dress patterns and yards of flowered rayon and pique. Louis called three evenings a week, at seven o'clock, after the supper dishes were cleared away. They played hearts in the dining room, drank Salada, brewed black, with plenty of sugar and cream, ate eclairs and mille-feuilles from Celentano, the bakery on Avenue Mont Royal. (Celentano had been called something else for years now, but Mme. Carette did not take notice of change of that kind, and did not care to have it pointed out.) Louis, eating coffee eclairs one after another, told stories set in Moncton that showed off his family. Marie wore a blue dress with a red collar, once Berthe's, and a red barette in her hair. Berthe, a master player, held back to let Louis win. Mme. Carette listened to Louis, kept some of his stories, discarded others, garnering information useful to Marie. Marie picked up cards at random, disrupting the game. Louis's French was not a woolly as before, but he had somewhere acquired a common Montreal accent. Mme. Carette wondered who his friends were and how Marie's children would sound.
They began to invite him to meals. He arrived at half past five, straight from work, and was served at once. Mme. Carette told Berthe that she hoped he washed his hands at the office, because he never did here. They used the blue-willow pattern china that would go to Marie. One evening, when the tablecloth had been folded and put away, and the teacups and cards distributed, he mentioned marriage - not his own, or to anyone in particular, but as a way of life. Mme. Carette broke in to say that she had been widowed at Louis's age. She recalled what it had been like to have a husband she could consult and and admire. "Marriage means children," she said, looking fondly at her own. She would not be alone during her long, final illness. The girls would take her in. She would not be a burden; a couch would do for a bed.
Louis said he was tired of the game. He dropped his hand and spread the cards in an arc.
"So many hearts," said Mme. Carette, admiringly.
"Let me see." Marie had to stand: there was a large teapot in the way. "Ace, queen, ten, eight, five...a wedding." Before Berthe's foot reached her ankle, she managed to ask, sincerely, if anyone close to him was getting married this year. (The Chosen Husband, at pgs. 22-23) |
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