By David Fortier
Come Sunday morning, Mary and I will have been to another great show–and we did not have to travel out of town for it. John Beardsley, a Bristol native, brought his “Christmas with the Nashville King” to the Rockwell Theater on Saturday night.
From the start with an introduction by Darlene Beardsley, John’s spouse, that includes some background about their lives in Nashville, rubbing elbows so to speak with Nashville royalty, the show springs ahead until the end with John sharing some fond memories of Johnny Cash and singing a Christmas song that he composed in homage to his brother’s love of Christmas. Beautiful–and the energy he expends, well, you have to see it to understand.
John is performing again today at The Rockwell Theater at Bristol Arts and Innovation Magnet School from 2 to 4 p.m. This is a command performance, since the response has been so great from the public. What a show!
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The high-quality arts and entertainment offerings continue. Bristol Brass and Wind Ensemble and the Bristol Chorale are performing at Bristol Central High School auditorium today at 3 p.m. Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for children.
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Reading and listening this week starts with an interview broken into several podcasts that features a person many people consider the most interesting individual in the world, Kevin Kelly. The three-part interview is on the Tim Ferris Show, podcasts #25, #26 and #27. These podcasts are early in Ferris’s podcast history. There are subsequent ones with Kelly, but the first ones are kind of fun.
How to describe Kelly? Easy going, but a dynamo when it comes to getting things done. He is also someone who dropped out of college after one year. From then, he hasn’t stopped doing interesting things–see the next paragraph for specifics. He is in his 70 and he hasn’t stopped yet, and there is no indication he will be stopping anytime soon.
Among his accomplishments–co-founding Wired magazine, co-founding the All Species Foundation which is attempting to catalog all the species in the world (you might have guessed that from the name of the foundation), writing many bestsellers including “What Technology Wants” and “Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities” and hosting the Cool Tools podcast among other pursuits.
Click here for Part 1, here for Part 2 and here for Part 3.
Reading this week, I finished “The Color of Water,” by James McBride. I chipped away at it for a while, not because it isn’t captivating–it is–but because I’ve been busy and finding the time to read has been relegated to those 10 minutes before lights go out. This week, though, I sprinted through the last chapters. The book, an homage to his white and Jewish mother–McBride is black–is a book of discovery, a book of the heart.
Next up is “The Influencing Machine, 2nd edition,” a comic book by Brooke Gladstone of NPR’s On the Media, illustrated by Josh Neufeld. The book navigates the history and today’s world of media, with wit and charm and loads of context. I am thinking it’s a must read, but I have only just started, so I will be returning to it here in the column when I finish.
If you have read something lately that struck a nerve, send along an email with the title of the work and what it was that got your attention–and held it. I will share it with our readers. Email dfortier@bristoledition.org.
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Happy holidays!
“Come Sunday morning” is intended to be a weekly review, a recounting of the past week and an anticipation of week to come. Among its features will be reviews of old and new books, sharing of favorite podcasts, some family news, Bristol events and happenings and issues surrounding education, work and community journalism. He can be reached at dfortier@bristoledition.org.
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