Monthly Archives: June 2017

  • The Berrymans — “All Because She Didn’t Eat Her Vegetables”

    Lame DogComedy, Folk

    This evening, the Dog is sharing a delightful bit of lunacy from a veteran comedy songwriting team.

    Incidentally, for those who do not know (which included me until I googled it), “Sally Ann” refers to the Salvation Army.  A bullhead is a kind of catfish. And Monona Bay is in Madison, Wisconsin — in the part of the country and the Berrymans call home and which has deeply influenced their particular brand of folk music.
     

    Lou (for Louise)  Berryman (nee Noffke) and Peter Berryman met in high school and were sweethearts in college.  Since they began recording together, they have released eighteen albums and written over two hundred songs.   Generally, Lou composes the music and Peter is responsible for the lyrics. When they perform, Lou plays the accordion and Peter plays the 12-string guitar. Perhaps their most famous piece is one you may have heard that contains the chorus: “We sit down to have a chat./ It’s F-word this and F-word that./ I can’t control how you young people talk to one another./ But I don’t want to hear you use that F-word with your mother.”

    This year, the Berrymans announced that after decades of touring the country together, they are retiring from doing so.  Who can blame them?  They are both turning seventy.

    One interesting aspect of their relationship  is that while Lou and Peter married in 1967,

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  • Jack White — So THAT’S What You Want From Love?

    Lame DogUncategorized

    Once upon a time, when  the Dog was online, seeking a female counterpart (you know the word), he came across a personal profile that piqued his interest.  The woman who wrote it and the Dog shared some common ground.  But there was also something about it that gave the Dog paws.  I mean pause. 

    Months went by.  On a few occasions, the Dog checked to see if the profile was still there.  One day, he noticed a significant addition.   Under the statement: “the most private thing I’m willing to admit,” the mystery woman had posted the word “this.”  The word was a link.  With a click, it led to this video:

     

    After that, the Dog decided against initiating contact once and for all.   But what is one to make of such a song?

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  • Far From the Tree?

    Lame DogUncategorized

    This week, the Dog is passing along a favorite piece of trivia.  It concerns a person from an extraordinarily intellectually accomplished family. 

    Our story begins in 1882 with the birth in Breslau, Germany of Max Born.  Born, who had a famous correspondence with Albert Einstein, made major contributions in his own right to quantum mechanics, solid-state physics and optics.  In 1954, he was awarded the Nobel Prize.  But I’m getting ahead of the story.

    Born married Hedi Ehrenberg, who came from a distinguished family of her own.  Her father Victor was a noted law professor at the University of Leipzip,  Her grandfather Rudolph van Jhering has been called “the father of sociological jurisprudence.”

    In 1933, when the Nazi Party came to power, Born was fired from his job.  He and Hedi emigrated to England with their nineteen year old daughter Irene.  Irene later fell in love with a man name Brinley who served as an intelligence office.  Brinley worked on building the Enigma machine, the secret project used to break the German military code during World War II.  And in 1941, when Hitler’s deputy fuhrer Rudoph Hess flew to Scotland in an attempt to negotiate a peace deal, Brinley reportedly was the man who apprehended him.  After the war, Brinley became a professor of German at the University of Melborne.

    Brinley and Irene had a daughter who grew up to have a career of her own.  Was she a physicist?  A law professor?  An cryptographer?  A linguist?  Can you guess who she is?

    Click the link below to see her in action.

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