We are sad to hear of the passing of the great actor Peter O’Toole. One need only to watch the classic Lawrence of Arabia (1962) to see O’Toole’s talent. But it is easy to forget the intelligence of some of the great classic actors. In the following video, O’Toole and Orson Welles discuss William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet in a type of intellectual conversation we do not see enough of on television. Thank goodness YouTube has something besides cat videos.
The video excerpt is from the October 1963 episode of the BBC program Monitor, which ran from 1958 through 1965. The episode also features the series host, Huw Wheldon. In addition to Wheldon, Welles, and O’Toole, actor Ernest Milton contributes to the conversation too. According to YouTube, at the time of this video, O’Toole was playing Hamlet at the National Theatre in a production directed by Laurence Olivier. RIP.
What is your favorite Peter O’Toole performance? Leave your two cents in the comments.
DNA tests revealed that the body of King Richard III had been found last year in a municipal parking lot in the English city of Leicester. Richard, who Shakespeare portrayed in a less than flattering light, was the last English King to die in battle, dying at the Battle of Bosworth Field. After his death in August 1485, his body was put on display and then he was quickly buried near a church without much fanfare.
Since the discovery, scientists have used the body to make a 3D model of the way Richard might have looked. But Richard’s days of being involved in battles are not over. While Leicester plans to give Richard a new burial more fitting of his life’s station, the city of York, where Richard was from, is arguing that it should take charge of Richard’s burial. Richard belonged to the House of York, which was part of the the ruling Plantagenets.
Shakespeare and others have painted Richard III as a villain who murdered his two nephews. That version of Richard has been played by many stellar actors, including Laurence Olivier, Ian McKellen, and Al Pacino. Some historians, though, have argued that history has treated Richard unfairly. While the new discovery will not end the debate, it did resolve one issue, showing that Richard’s curved spine did not create a hunchback as described by the Bard of Avon in the play written in 1592. At the end of Shakespeare’s play, Richard III, we see Richard exclaiming, “A horse! a horse! My kingdom for a horse!” before he is killed. Interestingly, he would end up spending decades not with horses, but with cars out in a parking lot.
Singer-songwriter Guy Clark wrote “Out in the Parking Lot” with Darrell Scott, who has penned a few hits himself. While I have loved the music of other Texas songwriters from the Clark’s era like Townes Van Zandt, it is only recently where I have started to appreciate Clark’s body of work. One of the songs I have been listening to during the last several months is Clark’s “Out in the Parking Lot,” which appears on several Clark albums including Songs & Stories (2011).
As Clark explains in this performance in a bar in Homer, Alaska from 2003, he wrote the song about the parking lot of a bar in West Texas. But the song strikes universal themes, and anyone who has been in a parking lot outside a bar late at night recognizes the scene. There have been many songs about honky tonks, bars, and pubs, but nobody else has captured the mixed emotions ranging from anger to joy to pathos that stirs just outside the action of the drinking establishment, out in the parking lot. There, “Some have given up, some have given in / Looks like everybody’s lookin’ for a friend / Out in the parking lot.”
While Guy Clark has never had the mainstream popularity of big Nashville artists, there are some folks in Nashville that have good taste, such as Brad Paisley, who covered “Out in the Parking Lot” on his Time Well Wasted album from 2005. Alan Jackson joined Paisley in bringing this excellent song to a wider audience.
While I like Paisley’s work and I am glad he brought the song to a wider audience, I hope it ended up bringing some fans to Guy Clark’s great body of work too. While I cannot guess as to which version Richard III might prefer, I suspect his body saw many of the same scenes in his parking lot.
“Now everybody’s gone, they’ve shut out all the lights / The dust begins to settle and it’s never been so quiet / Out in the parking lot.”
Do you know any other songs about parking lots? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Below is “Early Roman Kings,” one of the new tracks from Bob Dylan’s upcoming album, Tempest, due for release on September 10. There is a bluesy riff through the song, and Dylan’s voice has the familiar croak of his recent albums. While his songs are always open to interpretation, it sounds like the lyrics on “Early Roman Kings” could be about the most recent economic recession and discussions about economic disparities.
They’re peddlers and they’re meddlers; They buy and they sell; They destroyed your city; They’ll destroy you as well.
Dylan is allowing the song “Early Roman Kings” to be used for the soundtrack of the trailer for HBO’s new series about terrorism, Strike Back.
Neil McCormick of The Telegraph was one of the few journalists who have heard the full album. He reports the songs are full of images and contradictions, and “There’s a lot of blood spilt on Tempest through murder and revenge, chaos and confusion.” Sounds good. Meanwhile, The Guardian reports that the new album could be the aging Dylan’s last, but it is the best work he has done in a decade. The reason for the speculation that Dylan’s 35th album might be his last is that Shakespeare’s final play was called “The Tempest.” On Dylan’s part, he has downplayed the connection, noting that his CD is called “Tempest,” as opposed to Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.” For now, I guess we will just be happy we have a new album coming out from Dylan.
album from 2005. Alan Jackson joined Paisley in bringing this excellent song to a wider audience.
