Americana

By on January 31, 2010 in Americana, Amlit, Diary, Film, Thought

Finding out about podcasts, how to use them, what equipment (I would say “kit” but somehow that makes me smile and squirm a bit) do I need and do I just want a player ? So far have managed to download 3 programmes, including one about the architecture of the New York Subway System, another called Americana with Matt Frei from the BBC talking to Americans in his Washington studio about a wide range of subjects. I look forward to having access to such stuff when and where I like which doesn’t mean being near the computer, as well as sometimes using the computer to “Listen Again” on the BBC  to their matchless output. BBCi is already a favourite source of entertainment.

Spent 2 hours on Thursday with F Scott Fitzgerald in our course – Into the Jazz Age: American Art and Literature 1900 – 1930 – run by Keele University at Silverdale Library. Introduced by our great tutor John Toft, the man was depicted, dissected, discussed, delighted in, debated and distributed in the form of extracts from Tender is the Night and The Great Gatsby. Clive James includes eloquent praise for Fitzgerald in his Cultural Amnesia, putting into words whatever it was I thought or felt about him without knowing it and then some. Someone mentioned the shirts scene in Gatsby and away we went for a humorous minute led by John on the subject of his own shirt collection! Then I missed most of the next 20 minutes as he asked if anyone knew the name of the actor who played Tom Buchanan in the 1974 movie and I knew but couldn’t get the name off the tip of my brain. By the break, we had gathered the phrase “American Dream” to find out the origin of, too. Get Bruce Dern from memory, but this one’s going to be a search engine job.

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