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57 much better French orchestral music fares in this period than French vocal music. For the pleasures of Cliabrier's TV and Radio •'Joyeuse Marche" we are oflered an incisive, embracing treatment by A MAN'S TELEVISION SET IS HIS CASTLE Ernest Ansermet and the Suisse Ro- mande Orchestra (on London LL 696, HE crisis came on a Sunday eve­ for the networks to spread their shows §5.95, as part of a varied, equally well- ning—March 22 to be exact. At around to give us all a chance. I served sequence of Saint-Saens, De­ Texactly 7:50 o'clock Eastern imagine my problem is the problem bussy, Ravel, etc.). For the same Cha- Standard Time to be scrupulously ex­ of all television viewers, although five brier's delightful "Les Cigales" and act. or six years ago when we first got "Villanelle des petits canards" the She was looking over the night's our TV set the problem was not too best the same London can offer (on TV listings. critical. Then she was content just LL 644, $5.95) is the dullish voice and "Whom do you think is on Ed Sul­ to watch the box light up. That was limited spirit of Jacques Jansen, a livan's show in ten minutes!" she ex­ the year she became a television di­ Parisian baritone who was here briefly claimed. rector. a few years ago for a Metropolitan "I don't know. Whom is?" I asked. "Make it hghter," she directed. "Pelleas," but with no greater claim to "Rita Hayworth, Shirley Booth, "Make it softer. Make it darker. Make distinction. Debbie Reynolds, Lilli Palmer, and it louder. Make it clearer." And once If Jansen lacks the wit or spirit to Roberta Peters," she announced. when it was getting near bedtime, make much of Chabrier's songs, he is I knew the names only too well. I "Make it faster." even less the man for Ravel's "Chan­ had known all day. I also knew that Then selectivity set in. sons Madecasses" and the Debussy on the opposition channel at exactly In the olden days of radio there was repertory (the three ballades of Fran­ the same time was the Colgate Com­ little or no problem about selecting cois Villon, "Le Promenoir des Deux edy Hour with Bob Hope, Eddie Can­ programs. Living in an apartment with Amants" and "Fantoches") which tor, Abbott and Costello, Martin and three rooms and a bath I soon dis­ make up the major part of this disc. Lewis, and Donald O'Connor. And I covered that four radio sets pretty The exotic note which Madeleine Grey knew that she knew I knew they were well covered every contingency. And gave to the Ravel songs are no part on. even when television brought baseball of Jansen's equipment, and his treat­ She also knew that I knew they into her life and she became a Yankee ment of Debussy, if serious and well- were on. Her problem was to have fan, I watched her Yankees play on intentioned, is too prosaic in spirit, us agree before the next ten minutes our TV screen while I held a portable too lacking in vocal magic to tempt to watch Rita Hayworth, Shirley radio close to my ear and rooted for the attention. Jacqueline Bonneau is Booth, Debbie Reynolds, Lilli Palmer, the Giants. the listenable pianist (especially good and Roberta Peters. Mine, to wangle in Chabrier), with Maurice Gendron us into watching Hope, Cantor, Ab­ HILE I was going through this (cello) and Jean Rampal (flute) of­ bott and Costello, Martin and Lewis, Wflashback the minutes were tick­ fering worthy assistance in Ravel. and O'Connor. ing away. It was nearly eight o'clock. For another specimen of French The big television networks, fight­ Realizing the futility of logic, and re­ vocal art, one may consult Urania 7070 ing as they do for the elusive high membering that I had always fought ($5.95) on which Geori Boue sings rating, are little concerned with the for the show I wanted to see and lost, operatic excerpts from "Faust," "He- crumbling of a man's home. Programs I suddenly improvised a diabolical rodiade," and "Louise," with a second are indiscriminately placed in direct scheme. side devoted to favorite songs of De­ opposition one to the other, regard­ "Well!" I exclaimed, '.'Rita Hay­ bussy ("Mandoline," "II pleure dans less of domestic consequence. worth you say? And Shirley Booth, mon coeur," and "Green"), Faure That she likes Ann Sothern and I and Debbie Reynolds and Lilli Palmer ("Clair de lune," "Les roses d'ls- much prefer Wally Cox opposite Miss and Roberta Peters all on one show? pahan," and "Au bord de I'eau"), and Sothern is of little import to the ex­ Let's watch them instead of Bob Hope Duparc ("Chanson triste" and "Phi- ecutive vice-presidents in charge of and Eddie Cantor and Abbott and dyle"). To judge from her prominence programming. Perry Como sings for Costello and Martin and Lewis and on records (Marguerite in the Bee- our supper while I wonder where Donald O'Connor who are on at the cham "Faust", Thais in the recent John Cameron Swayze is hopscotch- same time on the other network!" Urania issue) M. Boue is as repre­ ing for headlines on the competitive So we did. sentative a soprano as France can network. The same goes for Dinah But I don't believe I was the only offer; but even in this handpicked, Shore and Doug Edwards with the loser that night. Even if one program scarcely exacting repertory her assets news. When I should be at ringside grabbed off the highest rating ever, are too limited in color, too shallow in for a Wednesday night fight I'm what is a network profited if it shall emotional resource for substantial watching "This Is Your Life." The gain a whole listening audience but satisfaction. Oddly enough, the songs Studio One and Robert Montgomery continue to break up homes? Who convey more conviction than the oper­ presentations play simultaneously will be left to buy the large economy atic excerpts; but hardly enough to across the street from each other. As family size? make one indifferent to her narrow do Walter Winchell and Ed Murrow, If the networks won't cooperate in dynamic range, her limited tonal the All Star Revue and Jackie Glea- smoothing out this critical domestic palette. George Sebastian manages the son. State of the Nation and Kukla, issue it's up to the viewers, especially orchestra well, which is more than one Fran, and Ollie, Mama and Ozzie and those who are about to buy their first can say for the recording engineers. Harriet, Milton Berle and Fulton J. sets. Don't be misled by advertise­ The empty space around the soloist's Sheen. Although, due to personal con­ ments announcing the large twenty- sound is all too palpable, the artificial tractual obligations, I am permitted four-inch screens. Buy two twelve- fade-ins and fade-outs to provide to watch Berle. That I have to recite inch screens. And don't think of it as climaxes not even persuasively done. Psalm 23 before the show comes on is losing your eyesight but rather as Maurice Faure is the able accompanist beside the point. gaining a wife. for the songs. —IRVING KOLODIN. I don't believe it's asking too much —GOODMAN ACE. PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 58

BASEBALL POETRY (Continued from page 48) {Continued from page 30)

Mr. Graham hasn't missed a single ty-nine poems, the scope of which is pitch. still wide enough to suggest the tragic nature of life and two characteristic Coming Up reactions to this knowledge: nostal­ gia and acceptance. THE UMPIRE STORY: The Man No­ In taking for his so-to-speak pro­ body Likes. By James M. Kahn. tagonist the disciple of Plotinus, Mr. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Hemley does not make of Porphyry $3.50. up with a novel, "The Southpaw" an Everyman, or if so, only potential­ A history of the men with the little (Bobbs-Merrill, $3.50) that is the best ly. For though every man must make whisk brooms. Fans and players often straight—as distinguished from Lard- the journey through time, usually may want to "kill the ump," but as ner's satirical—treatment of baseball conceived of as a continuum, a hori­ one famous arbiter once said, "You we have yet had. Mr. Harris has zontal journey, it is not given to can't beat the hours." (June) written a serious novel, skilfully using every man to attain the hazard of the folklore and mythology of base­ timelessness, the transcendence, the journey of the perpendicular. Most of MR. UMP. By Babe Pinelli. Philadel­ ball to illuminate some pleasant and these poems record experiences on phia: Westminster Press. $2.50. unpleasant aspects of contemporary the horizontal path; only one, the (April) American character. His story is the story of Henry name poem, speaks of an event that may have been but a divination. MY KIND OF BASEBALL. By Rog­ Wiggin. Born in the upstate New York ers Hornsby and J. Roy Stockton. community that is the spiritual home The outstanding quality of these New York: David McKay Co. $2.50. of baseball—here called Perkinsville lyrics is their musicalness, to which (June) —Henry lived, breathed, and dreamed is added imagination and a delicate baseball. A phenomenal player, Henry rightness in what I prefer to call dic­ tion father than rhetoric. Yeats said; DODGER DAZE AND KNIGHTS. By shot quickly into place on the fabu­ "We make out of the quarrel with Tommy Holmes. New York: David lous team of the New York Mam­ others, rhetoric, but out of the quarrel McKay Co. $3. (April) moths (Mr. Harris gives all his char­ acters and places names as disguising with ourselves, poetry." With this as as that one) and in a short time was a yardstick, Mr. Hemley has had a THE REAL McGRAW. By Mrs. John well on his way to becoming one of quarrel with himself and has re­ J. McGraw. New York: David Mc­ baseball's "immortals." In the course solved it with one of man's greatest Kay Co. $4. (May) of these developments—told in semi- aids—the imagination. At this point, literate first-person prose—Henry Yeats, again, has something apposite THE ARTFUL DODGERS. By Tom learned, as will the reader, a great to say: "If you liberate a person or Meany and Others. New York: A. deal about the racket as well as the a landscape from the bonds of mo­ S. Barnes & Co. $3. (June) game of baseball, about himself, and tives and their actions, causes and about the American veneration for their effects, and from all bonds but HANK SAUER. By John V. Hoffman. and sacrifices to the symbols of suc­ the bonds of your love, it will change New York: A. S. Barnes & Co. $2.50. cess. under your eyes and become the sym­ (May) . Mr. Harris's novelistic achievement bol of an infiinite emotion, a perfected is a considerable one. He has taken a emotion, a part of the Divine Es­ GREAT NEGRO BASEBALL STARS. long, serious, and penetrating look at sence." By A. S. Young. New York: A. S. American mores and morals. And To my mind, it is imagination of Barnes & Co. $2.50. (May) he has done this while telling a highly this order, a moral act, that interprets dramatic, colorful, and absorbingly the story of Nebuchadnezzar in the BOBBY SHANTZ. By Ed Delaney. exciting action story. The baseball fan first poem, "By the River's Edge." New York: A. S. Barnes & Co. $2.50. will certainly be caught up by the Nebuchadnezzar, the king, it is true, (May) tense recapturing of the excitement is demoted from his high estate, but —ROBERT COUSINS. of games and plays, by the thrill of pity has spared us the horrifying recognizing thinly disguised events spectacle of the grovelling human on Jeu de Spring and personalities of recent as well as all fours, nibbling the earth. Instead, past baseball history, by the beautiful we have Nebuchadnezzar, wild stal­ DOUBLE HEADER: There have been nu­ handling of the fantasy world that is lion, with crown agog upon his head, merous attempts to capture in prose baseball statistics. Even the benighted the purple robe upon his shoulders, or poetry the magic that is baseball. readei' who has not yet experienced the monarch transmogrified into a Most of them have been pretty sorry the thrill of a major league game will horse, a beast, but still royal. afiairs. Indeed, our only completely find himself sitting on the edge of his Nostalgia covers with a nacreous successful baseball stories have been seat waiting for the next pitch. But shimmer the remembrance of child­ those—by the late Ring Lardner— more than that, he will, as has been hood in "Seas and Seasons" and in which brutally destroyed the magic indicated, find himself engrossed in "Once," but in only a few poems—too by revealing a world of chicanery, a thought-provoking novel about con­ few, for my taste, if Mr. Hemley is a double-dealing, and stupidity, cyni­ temporary life. Mr. Harris has, in young man—does one hear the note cally populated by crooks and cretins. effect, provided a double-header and of passion. "Death Date of a God" Now in time for the opening of the you shouldn't miss it. and "Lord in My Heart" make the blood pound faster, whereas the more 1953 season Mark Harris has come PRODUCED—EDWAR BY UNZ.ORGD J. FITZGERALD. ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED