Maybe Hiatus Isn't the Right Word

Okay, Report from the Mountains is not coming back from a break. It's just done. I had a great time hosting/producing the show. Thanks to Howard Sharper at WUCX for the idea and allowing me to run with it. Thanks to Mike Johnston for use of music by Faruq Z. Bey & The Northwoods Improvisers (RIP Faruq, truly one of the greats).

I'll leave this blog here as long as Blogger allows in case anyone wants to revisit the old episodes. I realize that with the older shows, the links no longer work to listen to the show. Sorry about that. I may make them all available someday through my main website, CrowVoice.com, which is where you should visit to keep up on current writing and theatre projects, or to contact me about Report from the Mountains.

Thanks for listening.

~Marc

Report on Hiatus

Hi everyone,

Report from the Mountains will be taking an extended break at least through the fall and winter. I'm jumping back into directing theatre for the next several months and will be on the road for much of this time. In the meantime, please enjoy the many past shows that are available here and check out more from the band that provides our theme music, Faruq Z. Bey & the Northwoods Improvisers.

To keep up do date on readings, plays and other projects of mine, please visit me at reverbnation.com/marcbeaudin and join my mailing list.

Thanks for listening and commenting. And thanks for keeping poetry and jazz alive.

~Marc

Report #71

 After a  short break, the Report is back, this week with a poem by Rita Dove from her collection Mother Love. The poem is called "Heroes."

Music this week is "Bemsha Swing" from The Avant-Garde (Atlantic 1960) by John Coltrane & Don Cherry. The album features Coltrane on soprano & tenor saxes, Cherry on trumpet, Charlie Haden and Percy Heath on bass (Heath on this track) and Ed Blackwell on drums.

Click below to listen to the full episode:
Report #71

Report #70

This week's episode discusses a grizzly sighting I had in Yellowstone Park. What happened next, and what doesn't get mentioned in the show, was dozens of brainless tourons running from their cars directly at a mother grizzly and her two cubs to get close-up pictures. The grizzly showed great restraint and grace, endured the apparent attack by the ugly two-legged beasts, and moved her cubs safely across the road and into the next valley.
She could have killed someone -- she had every right to. It would have been a terrible tragedy. Not the loss of human life (the stupidity displayed by these people reveals that losing a few would only strengthen the gene pool), but the inevitable murder of the bear. When people go into bear country and think, just because they're in a "park," that the animals aren't really wild, they're more of an exhibit, like a zoo or a museum, these people act foolishly. That's when the bears defend their cubs or react according to their survival instincts and people get hurt. When people get hurt, bears get killed. The Park Service and other agencies will kill a bear that has "attacked" people because if that bear repeats the behavior, the lawsuits will come raining down upon them. Like most decisions in bear country, it's economics and politics rather than science that holds sway.
So to the tourons who endangered the lives of these creatures out of ignorance, next time stay home and watch a nature show on your tv. That's all the wilderness you deserve.

Okay, that being said, on with the episode. This week's poem, "The Earth" ("La Tierra"), is by my favorite poet, Pablo Neruda, from The Captain's Verses (Los versos del capitan), translated by Donald D. Walsh. Not only are the poems in this collection brilliantly crafted and expressed, but this may be the sexiest book ever written. Read it out loud to someone you love. It's more effective than dozens of love potion number 9s. Guaranteed.

Music for this week is "Nutty" from the Thelonious Monk Quartet album Misterioso (Riverside 1958). The album features Monk on piano, Johnny Griffin on tenor sax, Ahmed Abdul-Malik on bass and Roy Haynes on drums. Here's a nice Monk essay by Robert Christgau.

Click below to listen to the full episode:
Report #70