Soul Food: The Ghost Light Season

It's a hot night, and we take refuge from the heat in memories of summer music festivals, talking about The Harlem Cultural Festival of 1969 ("Black Woodstock"), Canada's Festival Express in 1970, the first ever Vancouver Folk Music Festival in 1978, and the return of Miles Davis in 1981. Featuring the hot sounds of The Lovin' Spoonful, Charlie Peacock, Nina Simone, B.B. King, The Band, Bruce Cock...

Tonight we take our show on the road, with traveling companions Ira Glass, Carolyn Arends, Zaac Pick, Michael Bernard Fitzgerald, Chuck Berry, Charlie Peacock, Bobbies Dylan and Troup, Spencer Capier, Michael Hart, the Nordic Chamber Choir, and the Road Scholars. Buckle up, Radioland.

More summer music, and now poetry even! Ain't we classy. More Temptations, Los Zafiros, Ry Cooder & Manuel Galban, The Avett Brothers, Diane Tucker's Nostalgia For Moving Parts, Poolside, Jackie Mittoo, Marcia Griffiths, Aaron Chapman & The Milkshake Murder, two Quartets - Chico Hamilton and Charlie Haden - and the one and only Jo Stafford. 

We're back!  Mostly music this summer, with odd bits of other stuff.  Ibrahim Ferrer, Percy Faith, The Flamingos, The Ink Spots, Rita Payés, Vic Damone, The Temptations, The Miracles, Bob Dylan, Toots & The Maytals, Etta James, Penguin Cafe Orchestra. Also the Top Ten Thousand anniversary, Danny Finkleman, Ross Porter, road trips, Dad and daughters and granddaughters and music, summer weddings, Ba...

Ordinary Time, Mailbag, Annual Top 100 Countdowns, annuses horribili, Elvis, Back To The Movies! (Even The Ones You Don't Like), Vertigo, Andreis Rublev and Tarkovsky, Joe Morgenstern, Peter Norman and 2001: A Space Odyssey and the worst night of Alex North's life. Featuring music by Nelson Boschman, Bruce Cockburn, Lance Odegard, Jonathan Anderson, Nina Simone, Johann & Richard Strauss, Alex Nort...

The Twilight Zone, Garrison Keillor, Billy Collins, Luci Shaw, Scout the Dog, and - around the 18 minute mark - next season and beyond at Pacific Theatre. Featuring music by Michael Hart, Carolyn Credico, and Patrick Holland (AKA "Project Pablo"). 

W.H. Auden, W.P. Kinsella ("The Thrill Of The Grass"), and a letter from my Bundesliga-loving pal Marty in Germany.  Featuring music by Ken Whitely & The Original Sloth Band, Bruce Cockburn, Jacqueline Schwab, and Taj Mahal.

The Trip To Bountiful (with Kira Fondse, Paige Louter, and Erla Faye Forsyth), "The Star" by Diane Tucker, Prepping for the Apocalypse, the Cheerful International Film Festival, Bundesliga Alert, and Jalen Saip Phones It In. Featuring music by Spencer Capier & Carolyn Arends, Garth Bowen, Michael Hart, Laura Koch, Petula Clark, and Big Joe Turner. 

Dialing Down, In Praise of Phone Calls, Phoning It In: Bar Mitzvah Boy (with Gina Chiarelli, Mark Leiren-Young, Richard Newman, and Ian Farthing), and Mailbag. Featuring music by Carolyn Credico, Zaac Pick, Pee Wee Crayton, Etta James, Andy Statman and David Grisman, Brian Thiessen, and Portishead.

Day 11557, The First Annual Earth Day International Film Festival, Thelma Schoonmaker, high school guidance, fresh Hot Cross Buns from Loren Wilkinson, and New York: Goings On About Town. Featuring music by Percy Faith, Barry and Lyn and Cara Luft, James Danderfer, Frank Sinatra, and Al Jolson.

Bob Dylan, Theme Time Radio Hour, Squirrel Cop, plague dancing, Persons Of Color Aristocracy, legal challenges, You Can't Take It With You, and Mailbag. Featuring music by The Staple Family, Wyndham Thiessen & While Rome Burns, Bone Man Slim, Chris Hawley, Fats Waller, Viper Central, and Percy Faith & His Orchestra.

Veterinarians, coronabrain, Today At The Movies, Mailbag, and the Re-United Nations. Featuring music by Zoe Thiessen, Chris Hawley, Carolyn Credico, and Paul David Hewson. 

Hope you had a good Intermission. Time for some more Presence - like Christmas, but, well, for Easter. Act Two features Rebecca deBoer, Loren Wilkinson, Nicola Shannon, and me, reading from from Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Sheila Rosen, David Kossoff, Luci Shaw, and Michael Symmons Roberts. With music from Miriam Jones, Ken Whitely, Cheryl Bear, Gillian Welch, Carolyn Arends, Julee Glaub, Viper Central...

Hello!  And welcome to Act One of Pacific Theatre's Easter Presence. Like Christmas Presence, it's a potluck of food for the soul - salads and hotdishes and dessert, pretty much whatever folks had on hand and wanted to bring bring to the table.  Music and literature by a host of Pacific Theatre's artists and friends, including The Nelson Boschman Trio, Jon Ochsendorf, Chris Hawley, Rick Colhoun, A...

Damien, Shakespeare's plague, Spencer Capier (as usual), Bard on the Beach, Ensemble Theatre Company, Original Sloth Band, Passion Week movies, Easter Presence, Frederick Buechner, Yo-Yo Ma, Simon Webb. As they say on Men In Blazers, "We've got a packed show tonight..."

Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, Today at the Movies, Sean O'Casey, John Patrick Shanley, The Beatles, and more! Featuring Julie Casselman, John Voth, Spencer Capier, Tim Dixon, Laura Koch, Adri Boschman, and the lady in the Killucan cemetery.