My Word with Douglas E. Welch

For as long as schools are closed, we’re open. Starting today, kids everywhere can instantly stream an incredible collection of stories, including titles across six different languages, that will help them continue dreaming, learning, and just being kids.

Christmas Past – 13 in a series – Hark! the Herald Angels Sing by Trinity Choir (1911)

Christmas Hymn; Mixed Voices with orchestra.

Digitized at 78 revolutions per minute. Four stylii were used to transfer this record. They are 3.8mil truncated conical, 2.3mil truncated conical, 2.8mil truncated conical, 3.3mil truncated conical.

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† Available from the LA Public Library

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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Visit the Mentoris Project for more!

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.

Follow @mentorisproject on Instagram

Visit the Mentoris Project for more!

Also from the Mentoris Project

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