Jims of Wyzdom for May 31, 2019

Entertainment News/Dates:

• June 3 at 7-10 PM, Regal Hollywood cinema: “The Audience” from the National Theatre in London, starring Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II in a critically acclaimed performance.
• June 4 at 7-9 PM, Regal Hollywood cinema: “Pavarotti,” a new documentary of his life, work and legacy to the opera world.
• Coming soon: WV Public Theater at CAC, in about a week: “Storming Heaven” a new play with music based on the best-selling novel of the same title. I will report, perhaps in a special edition by next week on dates and times. It is being produced in the Gladys Davis theater at CAC, tickets at their box office now.

Film Forum: Will shut its doors until July 12, when we’ll open the summer musicals series with “Singin’ in the Rain,” the best musical ever written. Watch for the summer catalog that has the whole list, unless you come to “Drums Along the Mohawk,” our final 1939 film in the spring series and take home a bookmark!

I’ve already got a theme for fall: “Coulda…Shoulda…DIDN’T!” I have been busy taking note of excellent films that should have played in Morgantown, but didn’t. I think you’ll be interested. And to show what a generous and sneaky guy I am, here’s one title: “If Beale Street Could Talk,” from a great novel of James Baldwin, one of America’s greatest writers that wrote so intensely and lovingly of the African-American experience. Another Country, Giovanni’s Room, and The Fire Next Time are some of his great novels.

Summer is a cumin’ in: Remember that very old round we might have sung in grade school? It’s a nice, short reminder of what starts on June 21 with the Summer Solstice. And it’s a reminder of when Bonnie and I decamp for our 10-day service as chaplains for our church house/chapel for Week One at Chautauqua. I’ll write one of these editions from there. We’ll return home on June 30. Connie and Steve McCluskey are also there the same week. Did I miss anyone? The play we’ll see there will be “The Christians,” a fascinating newish play by Lucas Hnath [Nayth], author of “A Doll’s House, Part 2” that we saw at Pittsburgh Public, along with a few of our OLLI folks. He is definitely a young author to watch.

OK, I close with the poem:

Sumer is i-cumin in

By Anonymous in Modern English

Summer has arrived,
Sing loudly, cuckoo!
The seed is growing
And the meadow is blooming,
And the wood is coming into leaf now,
Sing, cuckoo!

The ewe is bleating after her lamb,
The cow is lowing after her calf;
The bullock is prancing,
The billy-goat farting,
Sing merrily, cuckoo!

Cuckoo, cuckoo,
You sing well, cuckoo,
Never stop now.

Sing, cuckoo, now; sing, cuckoo;
Sing, cuckoo; sing, cuckoo, now!

a 14th century English round

Source: The Norton Anthology of Poetry (Fifth Edition) (W. W. Norton and Company Inc., 2005)