by Peter Cates The Haldeman Diaries The Haldeman Diaries, a massive book of almost 700 pages, was issued by Putnam a year after the death of H.R. Haldeman (1926-1993) who served as Chief of Staff for former President Richard Nixon for four years before being quietly pressured to resign by his boss in the spring […]
by Peter Cates Church steeples The Protestant church steeples still seen in The Town Line’s surrounding communities include the towering beauty at the China Village Baptist Church. Back during the decades of 80 or more years ago, some of these steeples summoned the citizens of the surrounding communities to Sunday morning assemblies to an extent […]
by Peter Cates Larry McMurtry Novelist Larry McMurtry (1936-2021) was perhaps most well known for Lonesome Dove, Terms of Endearment, and The Last Picture Show. His 2008 books: A Memoir is an account of his adventures as a voracious reader, book collector (he would eventually amass a personal library of 28,000 books) and dealer in […]
by Peter Cates H.L. Mencken The delightful scoundrel H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) wrote the scholarly and hilarious Treatise on the Gods in 1930 and revised it in 1946. Like so much of Mencken’s writing, it is very biased, scores points both intentionally and unintentionally in spots, reveals blindness in other spots, and was never intended to […]
by Peter Cates Mary McCarthy Novelist Mary McCarthy (1912-1989) summered in Castine for years and received honorary degrees from Colby College, in Waterville, and Bowdoin College, in Brunswick. She possessed a feisty, at times savagely critical brilliance as seen in her novels and essays. I have read two of the novels, 1954’s A Charmed Life […]
by Peter Cates Harry C. Browne A ten-inch acoustically recorded shellac, Columbia A2179, featured singer and banjo player Harry C. Browne (1878-1954) performing Balm of Gilead, while side two contained another banjoist Fred Van Epps (1878-1960) playing Southern Medley, comprised of such quaint tunes as Old Folks at Home, Jordan Is a Hard Road to […]
by Peter Cates Symphony Sounds from the Colby Campus Century Custom Records, once based in Cape Elizabeth, released an LP, Symphony Sounds from the Colby Campus, an anthology of live performances of the Colby Community Symphony Orchestra conducted by its late Music Director Ermanno F. Comparetti during the 1970-1971 seasons. The selections were as follows: […]
by Peter Cates Baritone Oscar Seagle, Soprano Marie Tiffany Baritone Oscar Seagle (1877-1945) was one of the best selling recording stars for Columbia records during the post World War I years of the acoustic era. He recorded two hymns for the label on a 10-inch shellac in 1921 – I Love to Tell the Story […]
by Peter Cates Soundmaps Extended Realities Valeria Zorina, violin and Evgeny Sinaiski, piano Oehms Classics OC 492, CD, recorded May 1-5, 2019, in Madrid, Spain. Although she has not yet set foot in the United States, Moldavian violinist Valeria Zorina has concertized extensively in England and Europe to tremendous and deserved acclaim. The late violinist […]
by Peter Cates Perry Mason Season 4 Season 4 of Perry Mason had a particularly compelling episode, The Case of the Misguided Missile, which was first aired May 6, 1961. It dealt with a missile launch and provided some background footage at Vandenberg Air Force Base, in central California, and now renamed Vandenberg Space Force […]