Ormandy is full and rich in these selections, but not imaginative
590843
With so many Nutcracker discs in print, another CD of selections doesn't scream for attention unless it's extra special.  And this one isn't.  Eugene Ormandy isn't a ballet devotee, falling into the category of "regular" symphonic conductors.  His conducting isn't playful or Russian, and it's tough to be successful without employing either.

If there's an attraction to this disc, it's the wonderful Philly sound.  The sound is always full, the players alert.  There's a definite old-fashioned luxuriance that gives us a feeling of nobility.  But as a disc of selections, it's hard to follow the outline.  Aside from Ormandy's middle-of-the-road conducting, we're somewhere between the frolicsome suite and the story-telling ballet.  I don't hear a separate personality for each number.  Other reviewers think it's nitpicking to complain about substituting a trumpet for the boys' choir in the Waltz of the Snowflakes, but it seems to represent the wider problem: everything novel is underplayed.

While there's nothing wrong with this disc, Ormandy seems to want us to abandon childish fancy for the predictability of a marching band.  I'm not game, but if you are, go ahead and enjoy.
2141732
Some of these arrangements are beautiful: "You're Nearer", "Nice Work If You Can Get It" and "I Have Dreamed" in particular are respectful of the tone, tempo and sentiment of the music and lyrics. They are also faithful to the musical theatre milieu of these pieces. I cannot say the same for the rest in this anthology; clunky, unmusical chord voicings (bordering on an atonal aesthetic) that often sound overly dreary and muddy (especially in the low voice transcription). The Cole Porter songs suffer the most from this treatment. Likewise, the accompaniments are too busy and over-complicated - distracting for the singer and frustratingly difficult to play for the pianist.

The older edition of this collection came with a CD or audio cassette of the accompaniments (nice to practice with when a piano or pianist is not at hand), plus performances of all the songs. This new edition, although with a much improved binding, does not come with that CD. (You can still find the older edition in Amazon Marketplace from time to time, however.) Recommended for classical singers looking for good arrangements of the three songs mentioned at the beginning of this review.
3987843
This is not an anthology which aims to select and represent the finest examples of American poetry. It is an anthology which aims to ' represent' various groups, including the recognized schools of poetry, but also including ethnic and minority groups. Thus it opens with Native American verse, and closes with verse written from Japanese interred in America during the Second World War. I may be mistaken but it seems to me that it does not represent in a great way the American experience in the Second World War.

This does not mean it does not have generous selections from all the major poets. It does.

It does not mean that it does not contain tens of little known poets whose work may be interesting in one way or another. It does.

It does mean that it mixes up a vast amount of material of different levels. And that it does have a certain political agenda.

What is moving and meaningful as poetry, I would suggest, is some part of this. But the reader should certainly be able to find work here which is moving, inspiring and meaningful poetry.
50301
George MacDonald wrote and published the occasional essay during his career;  later in life, he collected some of his short non-fiction pieces in this anthology.  Don't make too much of the title, which comes from lowlander Scottish dialect.  Think of it as a way to make the George MacDonald Miscellaneous Writings unique and impossible to confuse with anyone else's anthology of essays, as that was its undoubted intent (besides also signaling that the author is Scottish....).
"The Fantastic Imagination,"  which closes the volume, is probably the most often quoted and referenced of the pieces in "A Dish of Orts,"  and rightly so, since it bears directly upon writing symbolic, mythological fairy-tale-style fiction.  And there is a piece which deserves to be carefully studied by more readers.  It does not open "A Dish of Orts" but it is near the beginning, and it is titled:

"A Sketch of Individual Development."

Literature professor and critic Richard H Reis, who distinguished himself with a small pithy book reviewing George MacDonald's writing (titled George MacDonald), makes much of "A Sketch of Individual Development,"  quoting it heavily.  Reis'  opinion is that this essay anticipates modern psychology in general, and Freud and Jung in particular.  Although MacDonald, always religious and mystical, orients "development" towards development of the spirit and the soul as well as the personality, he also proves himself a keen observer of infancy and childhood, describing an infantile attachment to parent figures followed by the struggle for individuation.  I rather doubt that MacDonald was taught this stuff in divinity school, nor earlier as a chemistry and science major in Aberdeen.  MacDonald has studied from the school of life, and has responded to his studies from the vantage point of a soul wiser and more insightful than the majority of his fellow men in his time and place.

"A Sketch of Individual Development"  is difficult to read;  it is like cracking a nut to get at the meat inside.  I recommend first reviewing Richard Reis' analysis and breakdown of the essay, in Reis' book, and then using this as a guide to MacDonald's lengthy, heavy piece of writing.  Not for the faint of heart, or the immature, or those wanting in patience -- but infinitely rewarding.
987747
My problem with this collection is that these aren't stories so much as excerpts from larger stories. Dr. Johnson expressed surprise at Boswell for reading books all the way through, but I wonder if he would express similar preference for reading stories as originally told. Whether Johnson or Boswell was right, I simply do not care for anthologies that contain snippets of stories rather than the stories themselves. I personally would have prefered half the stories but all of the length, and none of the bits from novels.

As a result of my preference, I simply do not care for this anthology. It does not please me nor entertain me. I keep feeling what is left out rather than what was put in, though I was prepared to accept that in Marcel Proust, only . . . there is no Marcel Proust. Or Baudelaire. Or Jean-Paul Sartre or Simone de Beauvoir or Malcolm Cowley. Only ten pages of Balzac. A collection on Paris was a great idea, but a collection on Paris missing so many crucial authors is just too disappointing.

Another missed opportunity was from nonfiction writers. There are a couple, but not many. The entire affair feels like a missed opportunity.
126254
WE'LL ALWAYS HAVE PARIS is a collection of 22 never-before-published short stories written by one of the most celebrated authors of our time. These tales are mostly about men, or sometimes about men and women, and seem fresh and strange yet completely familiar.

In "Ma Perkins Comes to Stay," Ray Bradbury describes a man going crazy (or is he?) when a radio personality comes to stay at his house. Joe has heard of Ma Perkins because she gives advice on the radio. But he can't understand how she has come out of the radio to be sitting in his living room or why his wife is happy about it and not confused in the least.

Just as I was wondering where the science fiction that I had heard so much about was, I came to "Fly Away Home," a story of Mars exploration. Again, the theme of going crazy appears with the possibility that going insane is just a form of sanity. After all, it would be natural to feel uncomfortable after a six-month trip in a spaceship, correct?

"Miss Appletree and I" returns to the examination of long, successful marriages and what they mean. George and Nora have had a long-running joke that George has an ongoing affair with Miss Appletree, a beautiful woman with better qualities than Nora. As their marriage becomes dull, it is Nora, not George, who suggests that he bring up his "mistress" again.

Many of the stories seem reminiscent of Roald Dahl's creepy, strange tales that were at once simple and surreal. "The Murder" comes out of a bet that Mr. Hill makes with Mr. Bentley, who insists that he could never commit murder. Twenty cents goes to the winner of the bet: either Mr. Hill can trick Mr. Bentley into a killing, or Mr. Bentley is as kind and normal as he says.

The title story is not just a retelling of Casablanca. Instead, it describes how two men meet in the middle of the night in Paris while one is out getting pizza for his wife. It takes the classic scene of tourists meeting locals and not understanding them and adds a touch of the surreal and strange to it.

Somehow I've missed out on reading Bradbury my entire life, and I couldn't decide if obscure short stories were the place to begin when he has such famous works to be read. This collection seems a bit better suited to an older or male reader than to myself, but it picks up steam as it goes along, and the selections in the second half are more interesting than the ones in the beginning.

Titles such as "We'll Always Have Paris" and "Come Away With Me" bring up flashes of the movies or songs in which the phrases also appear, and other stories are so true to life that they feel like I have already lived them. "Un-pillow Talk," almost entirely in dialogue, is like a story version of When Harry Met Sally.

WE'LL ALWAYS HAVE PARIS is heavily populated with characters. The people, sometimes strange and sometimes down to earth, are the most colorful things in the book. Each story is snappy and easy to read, yet you'll always want to go back and check it out again.

  --- Reviewed by Sarah Hannah Gmez
4605781
This is a book jam-packed with misanthropes. And yet, I believe the underlying thesis is that most of society is populated with misanthropes and monsters.

This collection is broken into five sections, seemingly thematically. The first section seems to be largely introspective on identity and gender roles. Some feel rather thin on story, but frequently deliver a sense of discomfort. Like Mother Used to Make is probably the most representative of this section, as it includes an inversion of traditional gender roles followed by a slow displacement of our protagonist from their relationships and their home. If this is through the lens of unreliable narration, this could lend itself to even more interpretation.

The second section seems to deal with deals with prejudices and bigotry. The Witch is a delightfully misanthropic story where a stranger punishes a mother for having an uncontrolled and generally terrible child by encouraging him to greater depths of savagery. The Renegade is the strongest story in this collection after The Lottery. The social manipulation rife throughout this collection is needle point precision in the ostracism of outsiders and the destruction of the spirit of those deemed weakest in the pack. After You, My Dear Alphonse effectively sticks with pins, mounts, and frames the soft bigotry of low expectations while leaving the protagonist blithely unaware.

The third section seems to be firmly rooted in showing how terrible humans are to each other, frequently through oppressive politeness. Colloquy documents one womans unraveling with her doctor prescribing platitudes. The Dummy not only shows a ventriloquist living through his dummy, but an outsider being so upset by the behavior that they lash out. Yet they curiously lash out at the dummy rather than the ventriloquist.

The fourth section seems to be where despair wins. The Lottery remains an incredible masterpiece where the pieces slowly come together into the horrific crescendo asking us to question blind adherence to tradition. The next most fascinating piece from this section was The Tooth which follows a surreal journey of a woman in a broken physical and mental state to have an extraction. Part of me wonders whether this was an oblique story about abortion rather than about dental work. It seemed an absurd amount of effort for dental work, and the destruction of self and sanity would seem better suited for a different kind of extraction.

The fifth section is a grim epilogue. This collection merits further consideration and a spot on the future schedule for a re-read.
3688201
I was initially excited to discover the collection and didn't see how such a broad-based compilation could go wrong.  I'm an avid reader of post-apocalyptic fiction, science fiction and futurism, so I'm no slouch, but this turned out to be quite different from what I was hoping for.

While a few of the pieces are good reads, so many of them are abstract, esoteric, or even reminiscent of the scribblings from slightly disturbed angst-ridden teenage diaries.  There's no good "meat" here, no concrete scenarios, suspense or drama to drive fear into your heart and make your mind race. The circumstances under which "apocalypse" occurs are rarely even revealed.  Even the subject matter is open to interpretation - "apocalypse" is made to mean many things, not simply the end of the world.  Which it does, of course, but that's not what I was hungry for when I picked up this book.  The book description should have done a better job of managing those expectations.

Perhaps if you are looking for a broad literary "treatment" of the subject, that kind of interpretation will appeal to you (or if you enjoy the just plain bizarre) then this collection is for you.  It was not for me.
1965698
On one hand, this collection is fairly thick with splendidly shady stories. Objects in Dreams May Be Closer Than They Appear. The Bleeding Shadow. King Death. Josh. Vampire Lake. The enchantingly bizarre A Journey of Only Two Paces. Near Zennor. And not least the surprising closer A Tangle of Green Men.

I was still thinking about some of those stories days later.

On the other, the valleys between these peaks seem deeper than in the other DF&H collections Ive read. Indeed, some tales struck me as so wide of the best mark -- they just never get underway at all -- that the overall fabric of the collection suffered as a result. To be sure, it's set of great stories ... but not quite a great anthology.
728330
David Kirby's poems are marked by a unique expansiveness: within their sprawling lines, they bring together disparate facts, personalities, movies, literature, and more, and somehow show that not only are all these things connected, but they reveal something deeply personal about us, too.  In his offhand alchemy, Kirby seems to seek nothing and find everything, and even get some laughs while he's at it.

His new collection, "The Temple Gate Called Beautiful," has moments like this.  But--perhaps because his influences here include Dante and Virgil, among others--there are many poems in which he confronts questions of the spiritual much more baldly than usual, in the process revealing his own religious judgments in a way that will not be attractive to all readers.

Case in point: in the first stanza of the poem "Hello, I Must Be Going" (pages 40-46), Kirby insists that "this will not...be one more crappy poem about a dying mother!"  But that is, in fact, his main theme, and he handles it bluntly, without the subtlety of his earlier poem "On My Mother's Blindness" (from&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/The-Ha-Ha/dp/0807128937/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">The Ha-Ha</a>).  In addition, the poem is built on Kirby's own assumptions about the afterlife and the nature of death.  This is not in itself bad, but the extent to which these assumptions suffuse the poem's six rambling pages may alienate readers who do not share Kirby's views--and this lack of universality causes this poem (and others in this book) to lack some poignancy; to feel, sometimes, almost polemical.

I am by no means condemning Mr. Kirby for having his own spiritual views, nor for letting them inform his poems.  But I do feel that this choice on his part makes this volume of poems less accessible than previous collections.  I can't shake the sense that he was aiming for something more like&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Czselaw-Milosz-s/dp/006019667X/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Czselaw Milosz's</a>&nbsp;"Encounter,"  reprinted in full on a page of this book: communicating the awe and mystery of our lives in the most delicate way.

At the same time, though, perhaps this book represents a transition.  Though the poems are often bogged down by Kirby's self-consciously weighty contemplations, they still have much of the daily-ness and mordant humor that characterize his best work.  If, in his next collection, say, he successfully melds his trademark casual tone with the profundity he reaches for here, he may achieve a new poetry for himself.  And that would be a boon to his readers.

~
4594693
This is vintage Harrison, but some of it in the sense of simply "old," rather than good. Oh, they're not really bad, because they all contain that strange mix of machismo, arrogance, and self-deprecating humor we've learned to expect from Harrison. But these essays, dating from the 70s and 80s are, many of them, from his still-struggling-to-make-it days, when he was forced out of necessity to write magazine pieces for quick cash. There are, however, some gems scattered here and there amongst the gravel. Harrison fans will very likely differ on which pieces here are the best ones, depending on where they are "coming from," both in a literary sense and a geographic one. Since I come from Reed City, where Jim spent his own formative years, I tend to enjoy most those essays in which he remembers those rural Michigan times - "The Violators," "Night Walking," "The Last Good Country," and, my personal favorite, "A Memoir of Horse Pulling," in which Harrison remembers watching those mighty heavyweight mammals - Belgians and Percherons - who were once the main attraction at county fairs all around Michigan and the Midwest, back when his dad was agricultural agent based here in Reed City. There is also the crazed, Jabberwocky fun he has in "A Chat with a Novelist," in which he "interviews" his old Michigan State college chum, Tom McGuane. And there are some concise and interesting reviews of books too, by John D. MacDonald, Peter Matthiesen, Farley Mowat, and even Ernest Hemingway.

Just Before Dark is, admittedly, an uneven sort of collection, but if you take it in small doses (I suggest you keep it in the "powder room") it can be quite palatable. I'm happy I read it, if only for the already mentioned favorites. In the intervening years since these pieces were written, Jim Harrison has become much more than just a Michigan writer. He is on his way to becoming a permanent fixture in American literature. - Tim Bazzett, author of SOLDIER BOY: AT PLAY IN THE ASA
1468824
The Swiss composer Richard Flury (1896-1967) composed in a relatively conservative, firmly late romantic vein, always staying within the boundaries of tonality - even if the music is sometimes harmonically and rhythmically inventive, e.g. in the direction of impressionism. It is well-crafted, however, and skillfully and often imaginatively scored, delicately transparent and with effective use of textural contrasts. The ballet Die alte Truhe stems from 1945 and while often seeming to belong to the tradition of Bayer and Minkus more than Tchaikovsky (not to mention Ravel), it is often atmospheric - in a fairy-tale manner - and sporting some nice and even memorable themes. I found it pretty inconsequential, but I wonder what fans of Bayer and Minkus would say (I found Flury's work more interesting than anything I've heard from either of those).

Of the seven small orchestral works that fill out the disc, the Menuet Viennois and the Gavotte were originally violin pieces in the salon manner of Kreisler, pleasant but easily forgotten. The Ruppigoner Festmarch is a jaunty example of light music, charming but inconsequential (but that was presumably the point). The dreamlike Pastorale from 1920 is effective and attractive and harmonically inventive, but the Spanish Dance sounds terribly dated. The Viennese waltz no. 2 is melodically original and very attractive.

The performances by the Czech symphony orchestra of Prague under Urs Joseph Flury are spirited and sensitive if lacking just a little bit when it comes to refinement, and the sound quality they're given is pretty good. To sum up, I found the music here to be charming and generally entertaining, if inconsequential - but it was well-crafted and imaginative enough to make me want to hear more of Flury's more serious music (4 operas, 7 symphonies, 4 violin concertos, 2 piano concertos and a massive amount of chamber music) - there are several other discs of his music available, in fact, and if I am to make a guess it might be better to start with one of these. Still, the disc at hand can easily be recommended to those who are looking for an hour of easy charm.
1470276
These are some of the most important items in Jean Langlais's extensive catalogue of organ works and as such they deserve to be heard. I am less certain that this is the ideal recording, however, although my concerns are perhaps related more to Nimbus's recorded sound than to Kevin Bowyer's performances (but I find it somewhat hard to tell for sure). It is definitely not easy music - Langlais's style is freely tonal, rich and complex, somewhat reminiscent of Messiaen but with firmer tonal roots (which emphatically does not imply that the music is more accessible or easier - the music often sounds both denser and grayer than the organ music of his near-contemporary). In any case, the main courses on this disc are the two first organ symphonies, the reflective but dramatic first and the very dense and tough second; Bowyer is in many ways impressive, but sounds at times a little tentative and not completely inside the idiom (but he may be betrayed by a recording quality that has a very wide dynamic range but at the same time comes across as far too murky for comfort, making the organ both screech and rumble excessively). The "lighter" fares in between - more familiar works - don't really sound all that much lighter, but again I suspect the sound may be partly to blame, or maybe the sound in combination with somewhat tentative playing. Still, this is a disc worth seeking out for those impressed by Messiaen or for devout organ buffs, but I am less sure it warrants a more general recommendation.
106247
Eugene Ormandy obviously knew he was stepping on Bernstein's toes by recording Copland's most famous score. Nobody involved could have thought that Ormandy's polite, rhythmically mild Appalachina Spring came close, and his Billy the Kid never hurt anyone in his life. But back then Ormandy was nearly as big a name with the record-buying public as Bernstein, and his fans wouldn't care. As a result, we get gorgeous playing frorm the orchestra and impactful sound--though not the best that Living Stereo has to offer--all in service of very dull performances.

For me, the main attraction was hearing Edurdo Mata's contribution. This talented Mexican maestro died young, and I missed him the first time around. He conducts a lively four scenes from Copland's Rodeo ballet , by far the best thing here, but his El Salon Mexico (ironically for a native-born musician) sounds anemic next to Bernstein's.
412182
neil labute's collection of short stories plumb the extremes. at times, sparklingly insightful and at other times mind-numbingly cliched. the author delights in devious and dark tales populated by characters that one can hardly empathise with. the writing is always sharp and edgy but not always entertaining or enlightening.

a lot of the stories have a trademark dark twist, but soon one tires of them. the 20 stories collected here are, sadly, a bit too single tracked. one wishes that labute had provided enough variety in characters and situations. and while one desperately wishes to come across characters that are adorable, nobody can complain that they are dull.

in all, one fels that the editor lets her author down here, probably not adding enough variety to the collection. neil labute shows glimpses of his ability to stun and shock the reader, but the trick tires quickly. part magical madness, part mundane mayhem. a half-way performance.
4807655
_Moonlight and Vines_ is a well-written collection of stories, set in a modern city, intended to give the reader a sense of wonder, and make us believe that there is magic afoot, even in our most run-down urban slums.
Charles de Lint is wonderful at treading that line between fantasy and realism, where we wonder right along with the characters, "what is real?"  That is his biggest talent; his biggest flaw is trying too hard to insert a moral into each of these stories.  They all seem to be making a point.  Sometimes this is annoying; sometimes the story is so good I don't mind at all.  Still, I would have given the book three stars, since the moralizing tends to place an artificial distance between the reader and the story.
Then I read "Birds".  My favorite story in the anthology, it deals with two young women's search for peace of mind, and the rituals they use to find it.  De Lint has captured the very essence of magic and of personal ritual.  I'm a pagan/witchy type, and I've read so many formulaic lists of "spell ingredients" I could puke; de Lint's description of the women's search for certain objects of personal value is right on the money.  I want to copy the whole darn story into my BOS.
4662348
McCullers, in her novella The Ballad of the Sad Caf&eacute; and short story collection, captures an assortment of themes: addictions, life's pitfalls, building trust and seeking love, dealing with isolation, the individual's daily struggle. Often the individual fights with an inner loneliness that he or she must come to terms with. The collection, while a bit somber, captures the spirit of surviving in a world destined to bring occasional unhappiness. McCullers, similar to Flannery O'Connor, has a unique, eccentric way of presenting her characters and plots, as they are atypical to the norm, having a poetic, symbolic edge to them.

Many praise The Ballad of the Sad Caf&eacute; as the crowning achievement of the collection and, while it is a good story in its own right, I enjoyed the short stories more. The Ballad of The Sad Caf&eacute; is a sort of Gothic mythical love story, exploring three vastly different individuals (Amelia, Marvin Macy, Lymon). Miss Amelia, the protagonist and tragic hero, is a towering woman whose turns her store into a caf&eacute;, has an unsuccessful marriage with Marvin, a despicable man who shows his dark side immediately after their marriage. Amelia has a rekindling of love when her cousin Lymon, a midget, comes to introduce himself and the two become acquainted. When Marvin, who had been in prison, gets paroled, things get really complicated, and strange, as Lymon now has designs on Marvin. There is an epic "battle" at the end. The Ballad of the Sad Caf&eacute; is an odd tale, and has mythical qualities that probably won't translate well for those who take the story at face value.  Praise aside, I thought the tale was a tad too long, and thought some parts were a bit overdone and silly (such as Lymon twitching his ears at Marvin).

Most of the short stories were quite impressive. "Wunderkind" involves a child pianist prodigy who envisions big things to come when her piano instructor plants the seeds of greatness in her mind, labeling her a "wunderkind", a musical genius. This is a powerful story about the pressures we put on ourselves when others see future greatness in us, especially when we are told at an early age of our great talent. It's amazing to think that McCullers wrote this when she was only 17 years old, and it is evidence of great things to come for the author. Another fascinating tale was "Madame Zilensky and the King of Finland." In this story, Mr. Brooks, the head of a music department at Ryder College, confronts a woman he has hired on staff, Madame Zilensky, whom he believes to be a habitual liar. Disturbed at his realization of this, Mr. Brooks tries to define in his mind what this means, and he has a strange vision that can be interpreted on many levels. This is a powerful story, one that has thought-provoking moments in simple dialogue and narrative. In "The Sojourner", a man recovering from his father's recent death reminisces about the past, and comes full circle when he sees ex-wife and meets her husband's children. "A Domestic Dilemma" explores the effects of alcoholism on a couple and their children. A man rages inside about his wife's drinking problem, but has to figure out a way to try to make things work in their marriage and help her. The story I liked the best was the last one in the book, "A Tree, A Rock, A Cloud", which is rich in symbolism and depth.  A man who is a regular at a bar speaks to a newspaper boy, relating his story about how his wife left him.  He comes to examine love in the world as a science. The man's lesson about his hardships and lessons of what love is make an impression on the boy.

Over all, this is a fantastic collection that makes for a wonderful reading experience. These are stories are ones you can definitely come back to, as they are lessons in hope and life experiences.

4 1/2 stars