My Word with Douglas E. Welch

Christmas Past – 4 in a series – A Christmas Carol (1947), Performed by Lionel Barrymore; Richard Hale

Play and Download This Recording  from the Internet Archive

“Of all the roles I’ve done, the one I’d like best to be remembered for is Scrooge. It is unquestionably one of my favorites.” Lionel Barrymore, Dec. 21, 1947. The New York Times. (Interview with Dorothy O’Leary).

When MGM Records released A Christmas Carol in 1947, Lionel Barrymore had been playing Ebenezer Scrooge for twelve years on the radio. Starting in 1934, CBS presented the Charles Dickens’ classic story each year and it soon became a much loved Christmas tradition. Barrymore, in his radio debut, embodied Scrooge to perfection. As he  revealed in a 1947  New York Times interview, “I seem to shrink and an unnatural meanness of disposition comes over me. I seem to be Scrooge in body and mind.”

Barrymore went on to play the role 17 times before his death in November, 1954, and only the direst of circumstances prevented him from playing it. When his wife died in 1936 he was unable to perform, and his brother John rushed to fill in for him. He also missed the performance of 1938 when serious illness forced Orson Welles to substitute. — Library of Congress

It’s a late night in London in 1940, and Austrian exile Robert Lucas is writing at his desk. Bombs are raining down on the city every night, Hitler’s army is winning throughout Europe and the invasion of England has become a genuine prospect. In spite of the air-raid sirens and, as he put it “the hell’s noise of the war machinery” going off all around him, Lucas is focused on the job at hand: to “fight for the souls of the Germans”. He is composing a radio broadcast aimed at citizens of the Third Reich. But this is not a passionate plea for them to come to their senses. This is an attempt to make them laugh.

This year’s Ghosts of the Internet live reading from our friends at Eclipse-1 Media is now available.

Give it a listen and you’ll hear both Douglas and Rosanne pop up here and there.

It is an hour of spooky and silly fun for your Halloween enjoyment!

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Through the Great 78 Project, the Internet Archive has been digitizing the audio from 78rpm records produced from 1898 to the 1950s. Over 25,000 high-quality recordings are currently available from artists like Edith Piaf, Irving Berlin, Lena Horne, and Duke Ellington. This preservation is important because the discs are fragile:

I am the technical producer on this podcast which is hosted by my wife, Dr. Rosanne Welch! A true family project! — Douglas

The Mentoris Project Podcast: Fermi’s Gifts with Author, Kate Fuglei

Hosted by Dr. Rosanne Welch

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Today’s guest is Kate Fuglei, author of Fermi’s Gifts: A Novel Based on the life of Enrico Fermi. Fermi is known as the “architect of the nuclear age” and for his work on the Manhattan Project during World War II. 

About the Author

An actress, singer, and writer, Fuglei created a one-woman show, Rachel Calof,  based on the memoir of a Jewish homesteader, and has performed it around America. It won Best Musical at the 2015 United Solo Festival in New York City. Fuglei has appeared in more than forty roles in episodic television and film, and she was in the First National Broadway tour of Spring Awakening

Based in Los Angeles, she has played leading roles in regional theaters across the country, among them Arena Stage, the Public Theater in NYC, and the La Jolla Playhouse. Two of her short stories appear as part of Sister Writereaters, a book of essays about motherhood and food. katefuglei.com

Fuglei is the author of two Mentoris Project books: Fermi’s Gifts: A Novel Based on the Life of Enrico Fermi and The Soul of a Child: A Novel Based on the Life of Maria Montessori.

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Also from the Mentoris Project

Want to use these books in your classroom? Contact the Mentoris Project!`

I am the technical producer on this podcast! — Douglas

The Mentoris Project Podcast: A.P. Giannini: The People’s Banker by Francesca Valente

Hosted by Dr. Rosanne Welch

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Today’s guest Francesca Valente, author of A.P. Giannini: The People’s Banker.

In spite of devastating personal obstacles, such as the death of his father, Giannini became the world’s leading banker of the twentieth century. Raised by hardworking peasant immigrants in what was considered a backwater area of California, Giannini received his economic education in an unconventional way, paving the way for his rise to prosperity.  

Founding the Bank of Italy for poor immigrant families, he wanted to overcome the barriers put in place by the conservative current banking elite to fulfill the dreams of “little guys.”  

Soon, the Bank of Italy became the Bank of America and the poor Italian was now in a position to help dreamers such as Walt Disney achieve their own dreams. Giannini also shaped the San Francisco skyline by financing the bold Golden Gate Bridge. His influences and hard work can be seen all over the country, simply because he believed in “a more general distribution of wealth and happiness.” 

About the Author

A journalist and a cultural mediator, Dr. Francesca Valente was director of several Italian Cultural Institutes (IIC) in North America for more than thirty years. In her most recent post in Los Angeles, she coordinated the eight IIC of USA and Canada. She produced several short films, edited over 100 catalogues and publications, and translated thirty-five works by such renowned authors as Margaret Atwood, Giorgio Bassani, Leonard Cohen, Northrop Frye, Marshall McLuhan, Michael Ondaatje, and Pier Paolo Pasolini. She has lectured at University of California at Berkeley; University of Southern California; LUISS University and La Sapienza, Rome.

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Visit the Mentoris Project for more!

Also from the Mentoris Project

Want to use these books in your classroom? Contact the Mentoris Project!`

What are your favorite sights in Italy or Europe? Share In the comments!

During lunch one day I simply turned on my recorder to capture some of the atmosphere of Milan. Enjoy!

Listen to A Few Minutes in Milan

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** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Books available at the LA Public Library

Our friends, Keri Dearborn and Michael Lawshe just released their annual Halloween show, Ghosts of the Internet.

This year it is a live recording of Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, adapted by Keri Dearborn.

If you listen, you might hear 2 familiar voices among the cast (wink, wink)

Listen to Ghosts of the Internet 11: Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

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Read the original story

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!

Also available in many versions from the LA Public LIbrary 

Maths in the Early Islamic World
Released Feb 16, 2017

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the flourishing of maths in the early Islamic world, as thinkers from across the region developed ideas in places such as Baghdad’s House of Wisdom. Among them were the Persians Omar Khayyam, who worked on equations, and Al-Khwarizmi, latinised as Algoritmi and pictured above, who is credited as one of the fathers of algebra, and the Jewish scholar Al-Samawal, who converted to Islam and worked on mathematical induction. As well as the new ideas, there were many advances drawing on Indian, Babylonian and Greek work and, thanks to the recording or reworking by mathematicians in the Islamic world, that broad range of earlier maths was passed on to western Europe for further study.

With Colva Roney-Dougal
Reader in Pure Mathematics at the University of St Andrews

Peter Pormann
Professor of Classics & Graeco-Arabic Studies at the University of Manchester And

Jim Al-Khalili
Professor of Physics at the University of Surrey

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

#2 Make Space and Time for Your Making, Doing and Creating!

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One of the most important aspects of increasing your creativity and productivity in 2017 is allowing more space and more time in your life for your creative pursuits. Just like myself, I am sure you experience those days were the simple act of living takes up all your time. You eat breakfast, go to work (or do your work in the home office) and before you know it, it’s time to make dinner and the light outside is starting to fade. Sure, you got something done, but did you get anything done for yourself? Did you take some time to write a few lines? Did you pick up the paintbrush, the guitar, the loom, the knitting needles? Or, did time simply slip away as it does nearly every day?

Make It Easy: Reducing Friction

I have found over the years that the best way of insuring creativity in your life is to make it as easy as possible — as frictionless as possible — so that you are reminded of your need and desire to create each time you look up — each time you have a moment to think — each time you walk into a room.

One real world example of my own came when I started to learn how to play guitar. Breaking through the initial phase of sore fingers, memorizing chords and learning to strum takes consistent practice — at least once a day. Skip a day and your fingers hurt more, your memory fades and it feels like you are starting over at the beginning.

Keeping the guitar in its case certainly offers more protection and keeps it dust free, but it also adds a layer of friction to your practice. If I wanted to spend a few minutes practicing, I would need to open the case, pull out the strap, tuner, picks etc. It may sound silly, but that tiny amount of friction means that, more often than not, you simply won’t bother. It only takes the smallest amount of work, the smallest excuse, the smallest impediment to push creativity out of your day.

How did I combat this? I made sure to buy a stand for my guitar. That stand then sat within arm’s reach of my office chair. Whenever I turned away from the computer for a moment — even just a few minutes — I could grab the guitar — practice some chords, practice my strumming — and then put it down and go back to work. You might be thinking, “Well, that’s no way to learn a musical instrument! You have to dedicate hours every day to practice, in the right environment, at the right time. Surely playing a few minutes here and there could never work.” Well, I am proof that a few minutes practice, a few times a day, can be just as effective as long sessions. In fact, for me, had I been forced to do my practice in long, intensive sessions, I probably wouldn’t have done it at all. Again, too much friction.

Now, sure, when I was practicing for a performance, I would often spend and hour or more running my songs exactly as I would when performing. This builds comfort with the material and the physical stamina to play a longer set — both of which you’ll need in performance. But, when it comes to basic learning and practice, you often need to fit it in around everything else in your life and simply putting it in your face works wonders.

So, with my example in mind, what can you do to make it easier for you to transition from other activities into your creative activities? Is the piano covered in junk or is it ready to sit down and immediately practice a few bars? Is your loom, spinning wheel, sewing machine, knitting supplies set up in a particular area, close at hand? Is it always ready for you to start creating something? If not, you are sabotaging your own creativity — your own productivity. You are making it difficult to start and enjoy your own creativity.

It may sound difficult, but find a space where you can set up your tools, your easel, your paintbrushes, your writing supplies whatever and leave them there, ready to use at a moment’s notice. Too many of us suffer from “dining room table” syndrome. We have to use an existing family space for our creative pursuits. This means we have to setup and teardown every time we want to do anything. What a perfect way to insure that we don’t create at all.

If you are truly lacking any space, at least combine all your supplies in an easily portable container so that you can grab and go, no matter where you are or where you might be able to work. This is one thing that makes knitting and crocheting such a popular creative outlet. With a little preparation, you can take your creativity wherever you go — keeping the anti-creative friction at a bare minimum and creativity at a maximum.

The easier you make it to create, the more likely you will create. It is a simple formula. Reduce the friction and you will suddenly find time in your day — more time than you might have imagined — to create, make and do in your life!

Next time I’ll talk about how scheduling time for creativity can be another great way to move your projects forward.

Previously on Do It!:

• #1 A Year of Making, Doing, Creating, and more!