I had a nice surprise today. Now that temperature becomes a problem for the floating bookshop, I seek places where there is shade. Today I set up on Bay Parkway and 85th, as I did last Saturday and most Sundays, but further down so that I can stand under a big tree. Of course, this eliminates one problem but introduces another - the potential to get hit with bird poop. Fortunately, that didn't happen today. The surprise was Jack, an employee of Chase bank, who purchased eight books last week, buying five more. Moments later a pregnant woman with three kids in tow, each sucking on a colorful Slurpy, bought two Nora Roberts novels. And soon Joanne showed up with another large donation, both hard and soft cover. Thanks, folks.
My buddy, Bags, has gone on a much needed extended vacation. Before he left, he loaned me a couple of discs of the Rawhide TV series, which ran from '59-'66 on CBS. It has two huge claims to fame: Clint Eastwood as a regular and a fabulous theme song, music by Dimitri Tiomkin, lyrics by Ned Washington, rousing vocal by Frankie Laine. Of course, it has been playing in my head constantly. Bags even had his elementary school students singing it on a field trip.
Frankie Laine, an underrated singer, is a paisan, real name Lo Vecchio. He specialized in movie themes. The one I remember most is the comic Blazing Saddles. Ned Washington is in the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He wrote When You Wish Upon a Star (Pinocchio, 1940), Do Not Forsake Me, Oh, My Darlin' (High Noon, 1952), and Town Without Pity (1961). All were done with Tiomkin, a Hollywood legend. In addition to these and many others, Washington wrote the lyrics to Hoagy Carmichael's beautiful The Nearness of You (1938), which Nora Jones covered so touchingly on her monster debut album, and which brings a glaze to my eyes whenever I hear it. What a legacy. I've always maintained that lyric writing is harder than prose, either fiction or non-fiction. I am amazed at what Cole Porter, Ira Gershwin, Johnny Mercer, Ned Washington and others can accomplish in three minutes.
"Ride 'em in - Rawhide!"
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