The Faculty Lounge

Final Broadway/Sci-Fi Question (for now)

As the two Jeffs are just too good for me, here's my final attempt at a broadway/sci-fi trivia question for the month...

"Which two actors from a broadway musical briefly worked  together again about 20 years later when one of them guest starred on a popular sci-fi TV series starring the other?"

(I have to admit there's a little bit of a trick to this one, but it should be researchable...)

More Broadway/Sci-Fi Trivia

So let's see if Jeff and his team of experts can get this one.  The gauntlet has been thrown down!

"Which original cast member from a well known Sondheim musical went on to become a popular Starfleet officer?"

More Broadway Trivia

So I've been lax for a while on trivia questions.

What about this one...

"What broadway role has been played by both a mutant from the X-Men movies and a demon from Buffy the Vampire Slayer?"

Too easy?

1920s Musical Trivia

Here's a quick and easy one...

"Name a stage musical about Hollywood in the 1920s in which the role of Mack Sennett was never played by Robert Preston."

Musical Trivia - One More Try ...

As all my musical trivia questions seem to be too easy or too hard, I'm going to have one last try to see if I can get it just right.  How about this one...

What musical film's cast includes three actors who later went on to star in sci-fi/fantasy TV series?

Name the film, the actors, and the TV series.

Sunday Night Broadway Trivia

Today's broadway trivia question has been contributed by Terry Martin (Harvard), currently visiting at U Texas.

Here it is...

"Name three Broadway musicals (excluding Kismet and Rent) that use tunes derived from notable classical tunes."

Have fun ...

Decanal Broadway Trivia...

Today's broadway trivia question comes from Roger Dennis, Dean of Drexel Law School.  He will be moderating the answers and I hope the readers find this one more challenging than my recent questions.

Here it is...

"What broadway musical was co-written by a law student and has interesting intellectual property issues imbedded in the show?"

Take it away, Roger!

More Musical Trivia

Despite the fact that my broadway trivia is no match for the readers of this blog, I'm going to try again.  So here it is ....

What broadway musical from the 1950s was based on the music of a famous 19th century composer?  Name the musical and the composer.

Silver Screen Musical Trivia

Today's question involves broadway musicals on the silver screen.  Here goes...

What popular over-dubbing artist made a rare appearance herself as a singing nun in the movie version of The Sound of Music?

Broadway Musical Trivia

In an attempt to counteract some of the sports trivia over the summer (no offense, Tim!), I've decided to add some broadway musical trivia for those of us who couldn't answer a sports question to save our lives.  So here's my first question....

What 1957 broadway musical included lyrics (but not score) by Stephen Sondheim?

Hey, Sir

 
Today is the 13^th anniversary of the day when James Paul McCartney became Sir James Paul McCartney. Can lawyers also be knighted? Although there are strict rules of eligibility, it seems that someone on this side of the pond has found a way to bestow this designation on barristers of the American variety. So, my question of the day is, which law professors should be nominated for knighthood?

We Are Still The World

The new megastar charity song and video debuted yesterday.

Still a decent tune after all these years. Still a good reason to give to the cause.

I just wish I knew who the hell about two-thirds of these people are. I suppose I'll ask my daughters.

The video sent me searching for the original. Here it is:

(OK, OK. Say what you want about Kim Carnes and Steve Perry. At least they didn't need Auto-tune.)

And then of course there was the British version:

How many can you name without cheating? Is that the Spandau Ballet dude after the pairing of Sting and Simon Le Bon? And what a boys' club Britpop was! Bananarama couldn't even edge their way to a microphone.

The Debut of "Amazing Grace"

Amazing Grace is one of the most beloved hymns of the Christian faith.  John Newton, slave trader turned abolitionist, penned the powerful words -- which were sung for the first time on this date in history in connection with a sermon Newton delivered in Olney, England, on New Year's Day in 1773. 

The song has been recorded by a diverse group of artists, including Aretha Franklin, Destiny's Child, Il Divo, Janis Joplin, Rod Stewart, Randy Travis, and the Vienna Boys Choir.  It's also one of the selections on Susan Boyle's bestselling CD.

For more on the connection between this date in history and Newton's immortal classic, see here (NPR) and here (reflections by Chuck Colson).  

Pictured:  Amazing Grace:  The Story of America's Most Beloved Song, by Steve Turner (with a foreward by Judy Collins).

Reason Nine Thousand Three Hundred Twenty Seven to Love Youtube!

If you are from a certain time and place and cultural background (read: "mine"), Tom Lehrer looms large in your childhood memories.  I've just happened across some outstanding videos of Lehrer performing his big hits before an audience in Norway (?!) in 1967.  Here are a couple of favorites.  You'll see links to the others on the youtube pages.  Enjoy.

Straight No Chaser

While channel surfing in recent days, I stumbled across a concert on the local PBS station.  The concert, recorded live in New York, featured Straight No Chaser, an a capella  group of ten men.  Can't say I'd heard of the group.  Maybe you haven't either.  (The group's web site is here.)

I loved the concert.  You might, too.  The men perform a variety of songs, including some holiday favorites.  The concert lasts about an hour (closer to 90 minutes, when you add in the "pledge drive" segments).  Check out the TV listings in your area (the PBS link is here).         

And if you need a teaser, check out the group's version of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" on YouTube.  Here's a link.  Enjoy!  (Be prepared for surprises at the 1:25 and 2:18 marks!!)

Your Thursday morning retro entertainment

You have to dig really deep into the 80s vault to find this one.

 

Who Knew?

Nobel-Prize-winning, Heisenberg's-and-Einstein's-elbows-rubbing, matrix-mechanics-developing physicist Max Born's granddaughter is Olivia Newton-John. 

Maybe when she told us of Xanadu, that "everlasting world" where "a million ... lights ...  danc[e]," "dream[s] ... c[o]me through a million years," and  people appear as "shooting stars," she knew whereof she sang.

A Superb Song by Squeeze

Bittersweet if you've lost someone.

Two Favorite Songs

Been meaning to talk about two favorite songs for a while now.  One is Dan Tyminski's "Some Early Morning."  It's about a man who's wrongfully convicted of homicide.  Pretty haunting lyrics:  

It was late one night in the heart of town.

I was drinking all alone.

Ran out of cash when I paid my tabs, so I headed home.

 

The night was black, the air was thick as I wandered passed a barn.

Then a shot came out and I heard a scream beside me in the dark.

Afraid that maybe I’d be next, I started to run,

Just as fast as my feet would go, into the barrel of a gun.

 

The lawman’s light was blinding me; he said, "why’d you do it son?"

Two weeks later in the criminal court, I was up on murder one.

 ... 

 

Well I sat there in the courtroom as the tears ran down my face.

A guilty man is free somewhere and they put me in his place. 

The jury read the verdict and the judge called out my name. 

He said, "Young man, you will spend your life wearing the ball and chain." 

 

Now I’m staring at the ceiling as I lay here on my bed.

For fourteen long and lonely years, it’s where I've laid my head.

Behind these cold, gray prison walls time sure passes slow. 

And unless I die tomorrow I’ve still got a life to go. 

 

One reason I love Tymiski is his role in "Brother, Where Art Thou?"  The real musical hero of that movie is James Carter.  His sudden rise to stardom--and the check he received for his powerful song (Po Lazarus) recorded in a Mississippi penitentiary in 1959 by Alan Lomax--reminds us, as if we need such a reminder, that there are many people whose names we will never know who produce beautiful and important work. 

The other favorite song?  Old Crow Medicine Show's Big Time in the Jungle, which is, after all, about Eutaw, Alabama -- a place near my heart and at the center of my scholarly interests.

The other song is Old Crow Medicine Show's "Big Time in the Jungle." I like it for two reasons. First, it's about one of my favorite places on this planet: Eutaw, Alabama (the county seat of Greene County). Why is this such a favorite place? A couple of reasons. In part because it's a place that time has forgotten. If you want to see what an antebellum Alabama town looked like, get yourself to Eutaw. Several streets are filled with houses that have been preserved. So you can see what the world those distant inhabited looked like. And of course there's a cemetery there, too. I've spent a lot of hours walking through it, reading tombstones and admiring their art. I also love Eutaw because of the records that are contained in the county probate office. That's a story that Stephen Davis and I will be telling in great detail shortly.

Take Me I'm Yours

Yes, I’ve returned. 

Some of you may know that I messed around with blogging as early as January of 2003, when I launched IsThatLegal.  It was fun sharing some points of view and a bit of the truth as I saw it, even though sometimes my posts were accused of not being particularly strong in reason.  I was never right there at the top of the blawging world, but I was satisfied.

By 2008, I found that running a solo blog was more than I could handle.  Stories that I wanted to blog about were becoming increasingly hard to find, and the blogosphere had become too much of a heartbreaking world for me.  So I pretty much abandoned the project over at IsThatLegal.

Letting go turned out to be a lot easier than I thought it would be.  I haven’t exactly been crying in my sleep over the loss.

But I’ve continued to read a few blawgs, especially this one, and, well, I have again found myself tempted.  Dan and the rest of the loungers were gracious enough to invite me to hang out.  This is some fantastic place they’re running, so I decided to give it a go. 

We’ll see whether I’ve lost the knack.