Let's Call It the Saints Show

Shel Silverstein invites us in to the show, where Jarvis hums one of the offbeat tunes from his makeshift birthday playlist.  He reads out some Libran characteristics and today's saint days.  Robert Donat recites Keats' Ode to Autumn.  A journey around the media starts with a radio piece by Glenn Gould, The Idea of North, and Ronnie Barker performing the Mispronunciation sketch.  For film, we hear the trailer for The Big Sleep; Michael Douglas giving advice about performance; some tracks connected to Midnight Cowboy; and Mark Hamill remembering acting opposite Yoda.  And for TV, it's the Good Life theme.  On This Day: the first remote control boat was demonstrated.  Birthdays: Shel Silverstein, Bryan MacLean, William Faulkner, Felicity Kendal, Christopher Reeve, Zucchero, Erik Darling, Glenn Gould, Ronnie Barker, Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, Pedro Almodóvar (with advice about life), Dee Dee Warwick, Richard Harvey, Steve Severin and Jerry Penrod.

Carson McCullers Provides the Story

 Parish Notes: 

I'm afraid the BBC iPlayer cut this show off at about the halfway point.  If anyone has a file of the full programme, please do share it!

Face it: autumn is coming.  Jarvis celebrates this with an autumnal show that's 'even browner than usual'.  To mark World Water Monitoring Day, we hear a track featuring children describing a journey by canal.  We celebrate a series of female icons, including Audrey Hepburn: On This Day, Tiffany's first opened for business.  Plus, the first Blackpool Illuminations were switched on.  Jarvis reads from the Carson McCullers novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, a passage that captures the experience of falling in love with a piece of music.  Birthdays: Arthur Benjamin, Joanne Catherall, Greta Garbo (a tribute by Walter Pidgeon is followed by an excerpt of her on film), Frankie Avalon and Peter Shilton (recalling the Maradona 'hand of God' incident).

11 September 2011

 

Jarvis explains why an unlikely Duane Eddy track reminds him of 9/11; he asks listeners what songs take them back to that day. Recently, Jarvis has enjoyed Super 8 at the cinema, Lang Lang at the Proms and the Mercury Prize coverage. On This Day 50 years ago, the World Wildlife Fund was set up, in 1609 Henry Hudson discovered Manhattan Island and in 1847 the song Oh Susannah was first played – although that's up for debate. There's another chance to hear Laurie Anderson read her story Lolabelle. We finish with an upbeat northern soul song that reminds one listener of 9/11 and also helps him to face the future with hope. Birthdays: Richard Ashcroft, Alan Bergman, Leo Kottke, DH Lawrence (we hear his poem about pianos), Carl Zeiss, Herbert Lom (on a horror film he rejected), Arvo Pärt and John Martyn.

The Backlog Prog

Jarvis returns with a backlog prog of music he's been meaning to play us over the summer. He considers some characteristics of Virgo, his own sign: a creative, fastidious, feminine sign. There's a very dark short story Jarvis recorded for Radio 1 in May 1994, The Last Day of Summer by Ian McEwan. We hear music to accompany dodgems and another wonky calliope tune from SweetThunder.org. On This Day, Google was launched (recalled by co-creator Larry Page), and the city of Los Angeles was founded. There's a song poem called Dreambirds and Jarvis hints that his record hoarding habits might just be driving his partner dotty. Birthdays: Ivan Illich (Jarvis reads his argument against going back to school).