Heads-up for 25 August 2010 - Anne is a Man

A blog to follow is Open Culture which not only points out some excellent podcasts, but also other free cultural and educational stuff. For example last month I was happy to be alerted about Tarkovsky films (all of them) that can be viewed for free on-line. And this weekend it has begun posting about places on-line where you can acquire free text-books.

Naxos Classical Music Spotlight Podcast
JoAnn Falletta and the music of Marcel Tyberg: Were it not for Dr. Enrico Mihich, the music of Marcel Tyberg would almost certainly be lost forever. Tyberg entrusted all of his scores with Mihich, just before he was deported to Auschwitz. For more than six decades, Mihich carried the scores with him, trying to find a conductor who would pay attention to them. Finally, in 2005, Dr. Mihich met with JoAnn Falletta, Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic. Maestra Falletta saw what so many others had failed to see – that Tyberg’s music was original, beautiful and worth performing. This podcast, with it’s interview with JoAnn Falletta, traces the history of how she and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra came to rescue the music of Marcel Tyberg.
(review, feed)

Rear Vision
Understanding Pakistan: Pakistan was born on 15 August 1947 and when it emerged from British India, Muslims around the world rejoiced, believing they were witnessing the birth of the first democratic Muslim nation. So why has it all gone so wrong?
(review, feed)

Three new issues of Engines of our Ingenuity. (review, feed)

KMTT - The Torah Podcast
Rav Soloveitchik on Shofar - part 1: The first part of a four-part series on the mitzva of shofar, based on a lecture of Rav Y.B. Soloveitchik delivered in Boston in 1968.
(review, feed)

The Lonely Funeral

I guess this does not happen in small communities, but it does happen every so often in big cities: someone has died and no one shows up to take care of the funeral. Then it is up to the authorities to handle the affairs. The municipality of Amsterdam has some 10-20 of such cases each year. On The State We're In, a podcast by the RNW (Radio Netherlands Worldwide) (feed), there was a documentary by Michele Ernsting about a civil servant and a poet who have taken it upon themselves to do the honors for the municipality in a more special and dignified manner. (Broadcast as part of Last Respects)

I was alerted to this documentary by a podcast from the RTE (the Irish national broadcaster). RTE's Doc on One has a rubric, The Curious Ear, which brings interesting sound bytes such as The Lonely Funeral. (feed)

Ernsting speaks with the civil servant Ger Frits and the city poet Frank Starik. We learn how Frits took up elaborating the municipal funerals. Starik learned about this effort and managed to convince Frits to let him join in. Since they started the anonymous funerals by the city of Amsterdam are attended by them, accompanied by music and ritual, part of which is the reciting of a poem that was specifically written for this lonely case.

Last Respects can no longer be had in the feed of The State We're In, but it can be reached through the website. The Lonely Funeral is available there for download and so I have used Huffduffer to make this documentary a podcast. Check out this feed: Huffduffer funeral.

Reports about Lonely funerals in Amsterdam and other Dutch cities can be read on the blog Eenzame Uitvaart.