[VBbuilders] A Winters day

[Phil Turner]

Steve

See my blog on the ning for my tale of woe on the journey home.

Hope your computer can cope with the attached 5.3MB in mp4, is the tale of
Alma by Tom Lehrer, for that was the
Year that was (1966)

Phil


and the lyric...

Last December 13th, there appeared in the newspapers the juiciest,
spiciest, raciest obituary that has ever been my pleasure to read. It was
that of a lady name Alma Mahler Gropius Werfel who had, in her lifetime,
managed to acquire as lovers practically all of the top creative men in
central Europe, and, among these lovers, who were listed in the obituary,
by the way, which was what made it so interesting, there were three whom
she went so far as to marry.

One of the leading composers of the day: Gustav Mahler, composer of Das
Lied von der Erde and other light classics. One of the leading architects:
Walter Gropius of the Bauhaus school of design. And one of the leading
writers: Franz Werfel, author of the song of Bernadette and other
masterpieces. It's people like that who make you realize how little you've
accomplished. It is a sobering thought, for example, that when Mozart was
my age he had been dead for two years. It seemed to me, I'm reading this
obituary, that the story of Alma was the stuff of which ballads should be
made so here is one.

The loveliest girl in Vienna
Was Alma, the smartest as well.
Once you picked her up on your antenna,
You'd never be free of her spell.

Her lovers were many and varied,
>From the day she began her -- beguine.
There were three famous ones whom she married,
And God knows how many between.

Alma, tell us!
All modern women are jealous.
Which of your magical wands
Got you Gustav and Walter and Franz?

The first one she married was Mahler,
Whose buddies all knew him as Gustav.
And each time he saw her he'd holler:
"Ach, that is the fraulein I moost have!"

Their marriage, however, was murder.
He'd scream to the heavens above,
"I'm writing Das Lied von der Erde,
And she only wants to make love!"

Alma, tell us!
All modern women are jealous.
You should have a statue in bronze
For bagging Gustav and Walter and Franz.

While married to Gus, she met Gropius,
And soon she was swinging with Walter.
Gus died, and her tear drops were copious.
She cried all the way to the altar.

But he would work late at the Bauhaus,
And only came home now and then.
She said, "What am I running? A chow house?
It's time to change partners again."

Alma, tell us!
All modern women are jealous.
Though you didn't even use Ponds,
You got Gustav and Walter and Franz.

While married to Walt she'd met Werfel,
And he too was caught in her net.
He married her, but he was carefell,
'Cause Alma was no Bernadette.

And that is the story of Alma,
Who knew how to receive and to give.
The body that reached her embalma'
Was one that had known how to live.

Alma, tell us!
How can they help being jealous?
Ducks always envy the swans
Who get Gustav and Walter,
you never did falter,
With Gustav and Walter and Franz.

I know some people feel that marriage as an institution is dying out, but
I disagree and the point was driven home to me rather forcefully not long
ago by a letter I received which said: "Darling, I love you and I cannot
live without you. Marry me, or I will kill myself." Well, I was a little
disturbed at that until I took another look at the envelope and saw that
it was addressed to " "The Occupant...".

ENDS

--------------

"Thompson, Steve" <S.D.Thompson at tees.ac.uk> writes:


>Hello All
>
>Hope everyone got home or to their next destination OK
>
>Here is the song and the picture I shared with you on our final night
>
>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsksVKBxUo0
>
>Steve T
>_______________________________________________
>Videobridgebuilders mailing list
>Videobridgebuilders at globalvillages.org
>http://globalvillages.org/mailman/listinfo/videobridgebuilders
>





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