Bob Dylan’s 35th studio album Tempest reveals that he has lost none of his fire.

What should we expect from Bob Dylan in 2012? After 50 years on the road, it is surely remarkable that rock’s greatest and most revered lyricist is still going at all, let alone fiercely engaged with music, still performing hundreds of gigs a year, still writing and recording. Tempest, released by Columbia Records next week, will be Dylan’s 35th studio album. What is even more remarkable is that it is among his best ever.

If there has been a criticism of Dylan’s later work, it is that the lyricism only rarely touches the poetic heights of his classic Sixties and Seventies songs. He has had a tendency to write in simple, bluesy rhyming couplets with phrases liberally borrowed from traditional songs. There is a sense of patchwork in which tension often derives from collision and contrast, the friction of ideas, characters and images rubbing up against each other in places where you are not quite sure they really belong. While Tempest maintains some of this jackdaw sensibility, Dylan sounds genuinely fired up by the possibilities of language. The whole album resounds with snappy jokes and dark ruminations, vivid sketches and philosophical asides. (The TELEGRAPH) read more...

The full album is streaming for a limited time directly on iTunes by following this link.

High-Tech Activities for Grandkids

It's a good question when you take into account the terrifying traffic zooming past this duck family on a Toronto highway.

A Fox News chopper caught the heart-stopping adventure on video. Watch it below:

CBS, David Mamet Developing 'Have Gun - Will Travel' Reboot

The network has made a script deal for the CBS TV Studios-produced Western, which originally aired on CBS from 1957-63.

CBS is looking to reboot Have Gun - Will Travel with two-time Oscar-nominated writer David Mamet at the helm.

The network has made a script deal for the CBS TV Studios-produced Western, which originally aired on CBS from 1957-63. During its six-season run, the drama starring Richard Boone as Paladin not only delivered top-five ratings but also spawned a successful radio show.

If ultimately ordered to series, Have Gun could join Vegas, an upcoming Western starring Dennis Quaid and Michael Chiklis, on CBS' schedule. The genre generated heat last year at this time, with many of the broadcast network developing such projects as NBC's The Frontier and Fox's Wyatt Earp effort. More

Here's a look at the opening sequence for the original "Have Gun - Will Travel":

Pink Martini releases Diller recording of 'Smile'

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Music collective Pink Martini has released the last song Phyllis Diller recorded, Charlie Chaplin's "Smile," as a fitting tribute to her memory.

The voice of the late comedian is immediately recognizable on the recording, perhaps a little more wizened, but still strong and full of emotion.

Diller died Monday in Los Angeles at age 95. The song was recorded last February by Pink Martini bandleader Thomas Lauderdale for the Portland, Ore., collective's next album.

Lauderdale says he may add strings and a clarinet to the simple piano-and-voice recording before the album, "Get Happy," comes out next spring. More

The statue of Sherlock Holmes has today been reinstated in Picardy Place, three years after it was removed to make way for tram works. Councillor
Lesley Hinds, Transport Convener, said:

"Commissioned to mark the birthplace of his creator Arthur Conan Doyle, the magnificent statue of
Sherlock Holmes has been ...More

 

What we have here is a moon — a small one (slightly wider than the state of Arizona) — circling Saturn.

If you look closely, you will see a small splay of light at its top, looking like a circular fountain.

That's because it is a fountain — of sorts. A bunch of volcano-like jets are sending fantastically high geysers of water vapor up into the sky, so high that you can see them in this remarkable print by Michael Benson, back lit by light bouncing off of Saturn.

It turns out this moon, read more...

"Of all the major inventions of the twentieth century, few have had a more profound impact on people's lives than radio and television. By 1933, two-thirds of American homes had at least one radio, twice as many as those with telephones. Forty-five years later, 97 percent of all households had at least one television set. But the numbers cannot convey the contradictory roles that broadcasting has played in American society as it has reshaped the country's politics, economy, and culture.".

Modern.Marvels

"The World of Tomorrow"- it was the theme of the ground-breaking 1939 World's Fair held in New York City. Fittingly, it was there that the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) excitedly revealed the advent of broadcast television.

Television ultimately transformed entertainment and revolutionized the way we see the world. In this intriguing program, THE HISTORY CHANNEL® chronicles the incredible story of television: from the ideas of Philo Farnsworth, a Utah farm boy who developed the first working system in 1925, to the 21st-century technological breakthroughs currently reshaping the medium.

Interviews with media moguls and TV personalities, including legendary anchorman Walter Cronkite, provide an inside look into the industry while broadcast pioneers recall patent battles, competing systems, and the astounding innovation that defined the early years of television.

Download MM.Television.mp4

With the huffduffer app you can create your own podcast from mp3 files you run across on the web. Play them from your page or add to iTunes. a portable mp3 player by rss, or just download the audio file. Here is a video from ReadWriteWeb showing you how easy it is.

Also visit the Times Past page on huffduffer often to see what is new, and you can also add Times Past to your favorite pod catcher.

Born on June 1, 1926 in Mount Airy, North Carolina, Andrew S. Griffith made it to stardom in the late 1950s acting in film, TV and Broadway productions while also creating albums of comedic monologues. He rose to great popularity as the character Andy Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show, which ran from 1960-68. He later returned to TV in the lawyer drama Matlock and recorded several gospel albums.

Here is a biography of Andy that was done sometime before his death.

Andy Griffith Biography

Andy did several radio shows in his younger years. Here is two from the old radio show "Town And Country Time"

In the first episode Andy Griffith does his funny "Swan Lake" routine.

Town And Country Time xx-xx-xx (095) First Song - Here We Are, We've Gone Too Far

In this second episode Andy Griffith does a routine about the opera.

Town And Country Time xx-xx-xx (096) First Song - Glad Rags

Eighty years ago, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created the iconic comic book character Superman, but it took several years of rejections before they finally sold him to Detective Comics Inc. in 1938. The distinctive superhero made his first appearance in the comics in June 1938 — and since then has appeared in radio dramas, TV shows, video games, newspaper comics and countless films.

How has the Man of Steel evolved over the past eight decades — and what has made him so popular? Those were the questions that intrigued biographer Larry Tye, whose book Superman tells the story of the red-and-blue-clad icon who Tye calls "the longest-lived American hero of the last century." 

The Man of Steel has endured in books, movies, radio serials, comic books and cartoons. "Americans embrace Superman partly because he captured so many things that are part of our psyche and part of our sense of ourselves," says biographer Larry Tye. (NPR June 18, 2012)  Read More

It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's A New Superman Bio! (NPR)

You can find the old radio show here Superman, The Adventures Of

Broadcast 27 July 2011, BBC Radio 4.

SYNOPSIS
The Hollywood actor Peter Falk, whose name became synonymous with the TV character Columbo  played the part for 35 years. In a program first heard in 2007, crime-writer Mark Billingham delves into the mystery that was one of the small screen's greatest detectives.

The raincoat, the cigar, the spluttering convertible car, the villain's deed in the first scene and the final "...just one more thing". The American TV detective series Columbo was a literature inspired, award winning, rule breaking television original.

Billingham tracks down the unusual suspects who made it possible including star Peter Falk, creator William Link, writer Steven Bochco, director Jonathan Demme and guest star villain Robert Vaughn.

Producer: Peter McHugh.

 Narrated by Tom Smothers, this affectionate biography features classic clips from Benny's award winning television program, rare photographs, vintage footage and home movies. Interviews with Benny himself and with longtime close friends George Burns, Bob Hope, Johnny Carson, Dinah Shore, Carol Burnett and Ann-Margaret, shed light on the real Jack Benny who was far from the penny-pinching, vain and exasperating character he portrayed in his routines.

Here is a final tribute to Humphrey Bogart that aired on NBC two days after his death on January 14, 1957.

Profile 57-01-16 Humphrey Bogart

650 AM WSM made its mark on country music history on October 5, 1925. It was on that day that the station hit the airwaves, and continues to broadcast the best in classic country music to this day. 650 AM WSM has been the radio home for the Grand Ole Opry for over 82 years. You'll find some of their most popular programming available as podcast.

"Coffee, Country & Cody" features Country Music Disc Jockey Hall of Famer and affable television personality Bill Cody. The podcast does interviews with live studio guests from legends like Dolly Parton to The Doobie Brothers, Charlie Daniels to George Jones. The good thing is these interviews are free to download from their web site or from iTunes. The archives is approaching 300 shows available for download. What a collection.

Syndication

.

Legendary folk singer and guitarist Doc Watson died on Tuesday, at the age of 89. Long considered one of America's greatest musicians, Watson was blind from the age of one, and taught himself to play music. NPR's Neal Conan remembers the life and career of Doc Watson with a song: "Tennessee Stud."

Remembering Doc Watson "Tennessee Stud'

Doc Watson has been astonishing and delighting audiences for more than forty years, playing his flat top guitar with technical virtuosity and impeccable tone and timing. Watch Doc teach and play "Deep River Blues" from Smithsonian Folkways.

Explore Doc Watson's full NPR Archive artist page: interviews, features and/or performances from over the years. Quite a collection of content. Doc Watson's full NPR Archive

ProxTube Unblocks US-Only YouTube Videos for International Users [YouTube]:













Chrome/Firefox: Non-US users know the pain of having services blocked from them pretty well, and YouTube is no exception. If you're tired of stumbling on videos you can't watch, ProxTube will fix the problem by unblocking all US-only videos for anyone to see.
More »




Benedict Cumberbatch (left) plays Sherlock Holmes — of London's 221B Baker St. — opposite Martin Freeman's Dr. Watson.

 

 

TV writer and producer Steven Moffat specializes in injecting new life into old, familiar characters and stories. He first worked his magic on the revived edition of Doctor Who, leading to several BAFTA and Hugo Awards for the series.

More recently, he has turned his eye to the world's greatest detective, Sherlock Holmes. As the co-creator of the critically acclaimed BBC series Sherlock, Moffat is responsible for updating Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous fictional creation for a modern-day audience.

The series, which is set to start its second season on PBS Masterpiece on May 6, stars the charismatic British actor Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role. Cumberbatch's Sherlock is now a 21st century Londoner who uses GPS and text messaging to solve crimes alongside his partner Dr. Watson, played by Martin Freeman.

Martin and Cumberbatch work seamlessly together, though Moffat notes that finding the right actors for the roles was not the easiest task. (Read More on NPR)

Steven Moffat talks about his work writing for Doctor Who And Sherlock on NPR Fresh Air

The Man Who Revitalized 'Doctor Who' And 'Sherlock' (NPR)

 Preview