PROGRAM NOTES & UPDATES

Perhaps it is the time of year but the schedule for all 3 programs promises to be a full one for December.

TRADITIONS: December 2 playlist has been posted and you probably noted that we started the month off with a nice little Hanukkah party (oh--spell it anyway you like) that touched on some broader aspects of the occasion---as evinced by the Laura Warfield piece.

Trying to get a few tears from you with our friend the "horse" with some of the most touching songs on that subject I could think of. I doubt that the fellow on the left is an Appaloosa and he certainly is not one of the poor equines from the Eric Bogle song.

He could, however, be Stewball. Prancing and Dancing.

Mention must be made about one of the requested artists---Toby Walker. He appeared the night before this program at the HURDY GURDY FOLK MUSIC CLUB with Pat Wictor. Pat described him as a force of nature---well, that makes two such forces that were on the stage that night. While I was more than happy to honor the request it was in fact on my schedule of things to air---a performer would say "set list". I do not have the talent to presume I can have a "set-list" ---merely list of talent that I, merely a conduit, can present to you.

Coming up on TRADITIONS we commemorate the birth of Harry Chapin on the Dec. 9 program ---he was born on December 7, 1942. Doing the math he would have been 65---and, like so many, a voice taken too soon. If you have any Chapin pieces that are meaningful to you please let me know and I shall try to get them on. Just write wfdutraditions@yahoo.com

The rest of the month will include Ron Olesko's annual Christmas program and we join together for our year end program to talk about and play the pieces (among many we will not have time for) that we found most meaningful this past year.

SUNDAY SIMCHA: The month started with the Hanukkah program which, from e mails, seemed to have been particularly appreciated. The good thing there is that with all the songs about Latkes you were only ingesting them in a virtual way so your cholesterol levels remained where they were. All that oil left over when the Maccabees lit those lamps was probably used to fry up the latkes so you can imagine how lucky they were that they did not know about cholesterol then.

You probably noticed that one of the mainstays of our Hanukkah program was Joy Katzen Guthrie. She is multi-faceted and will be my guest on Dec. 9 when she will talk of her musical career and if you click on her name here you can find out more about her varied interests and projects. One, in particular, will be discussed on TABLETALK--more about that later.

TABLETALK: December has proved to be quite full and fascinating. Joy Katzen Guthrie (link above) joins me on Dec 9 --prior to the SIMCHA appearance to talk of the tours she guides to China where tour members explore the Sino-Jewish experience throughout history. The conversation will be found to be fascinating and, who knows, you may want to join her on the tour in March. I admit to telling her that she should run the tour in December so that on Christmas Day the Jewish folks on the trip could get some really authentic Chinese food.

Elizabeth Swados joins me for what this program is aptly titled. We have a conversation about her career and her upcoming projects with special attention to the program at Joe's Pub on December 21.

December and year's end brings about certain feelings of nostalgia and this might be the right time to relate the tale of Tabletalk and Elizabeth Swados.

Liz Swados is the renaissance spirit that creates musicals, writes books, and teaches---among other things. Many years back she created, among other things, such works at the Public as Hagaddah, Dispatches, Runaways, and more. Her hero--you will hear in the interview---Dylan and, happily, she included Phil Ochs in that category.

So how is Liz Swados the subject of a tale of Tabletalk and Liz Swados. In 2002 she was going to appear at The Bottom Line and I wanted to meet this person and do an interview. Allan Pepper of Bottom Line arranged it and the question now was where to air it. It did not fit on TRADITIONS and there was no SUNDAY SIMCHA yet (where it did not fit either). I was offered a 1 shot on Radio Omnibus by Barry Sheffield (program director of WFDU). As you can see---it went well and so the rest is history---albeit not world shattering history.

So---we have come full circle and on Dec. 16 Liz is back and the program is what it was always intended to be---conversation---Tabletalk.

GIFT GIVING TIME: This is the time of year for that so I am going to offer some if you can answer a question---since the question will be posted on THE ALMOST DAILY ROOSTER you will have to click on the link on the right (oh--OK you can click on this title as well).

Finally, thanks to Carey Creed for her nice comments about the THEODORE notices, all of you who have visited this site---hope you enjoyed the virtual Vodka I offered--, and to all the many artists who have been kind enough to share their talent and knowledge on all these 3 programs--- they exist because of you.

Now---the question---it is on THE ALMOST DAILY ROOSTER