"There are countless horrible things happening all over the world and horrible people prospering, but we must never allow them to disturb our equanimity or deflect us from our sacred duty to sabotage and annoy them whenever possible." -Auberon Waugh
Thursday, August 17, 2023
Happy Feet Friday
Two men who contributed hugely to introducing bossa nova into the U.S. - Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd - perform "Samba Triste".
Charlie's records were popular in the 1960s but after that forgotten, I mean outside the US, but even on Youtube no one mentions him. He was not flashy.
Are the Byrd family some kind of WASP aristocracy? I know one:
Kavita Byrd. Google the name. She's a pint-sized dynamo, on some sort of Thoreau type of quest. Not that I believe any of the baloney she spouts, and I've known her 40 years. But I think I've learned up close how New England? WASPs think from the experience. Other Americans I've known just aren't like that.
Charlie was born in Virginia. The only other Byrd I ever heard of was Robert Byrd, ex-Klansman and Democrat politician who "served" as a U.S. Senator from West Virginia for over five decades.
Google tells me: 'The Byrd family is a First Family of Virginia and prominent political family in U.S. history.' So not technically New England.
It kind of explains Charlie's aloof personality and eclecticism. He was a very fine musician who could afford to do his own thing it seems, or had the WASP aversion to 'vulgar display'!
Haha. But seriously does that make the Byrds Southerners? Then it reminds me of that article by Michael Lind in the Tablet arguing that the old regional elites have become WASPified into a new united class of morally superior scolds.
Kavita went to Princeton and majored in 'creative writing', back in the 1970s when few could afford such indulgence. Rather than a Southern Belle, she reminds me of the Eleanor Roosevelt type, on a mission to save the world. Looks may have something to do with it though (!)
Charlie's records were popular in the 1960s but after that forgotten, I mean outside the US, but even on Youtube no one mentions him. He was not flashy.
ReplyDeleteAre the Byrd family some kind of WASP aristocracy? I know one:
Kavita Byrd. Google the name. She's a pint-sized dynamo, on some sort of Thoreau type of quest. Not that I believe any of the baloney she spouts, and I've known her 40 years. But I think I've learned up close how New England? WASPs think from the experience. Other Americans I've known just aren't like that.
Charlie was born in Virginia. The only other Byrd I ever heard of was Robert Byrd, ex-Klansman and Democrat politician who "served" as a U.S. Senator from West Virginia for over five decades.
ReplyDeleteGoogle tells me:
ReplyDelete'The Byrd family is a First Family of Virginia and prominent political family in U.S. history.' So not technically New England.
It kind of explains Charlie's aloof personality and eclecticism. He was a very fine musician who could afford to do his own thing it seems, or had the WASP aversion to 'vulgar display'!
I recollected Admiral Byrd, yesterday, and it turns out he was a member of one of Virginia's First Families, too.
ReplyDeleteThis is why I don't know much about them; we Pacos were one of Virginias Last Families.
Haha. But seriously does that make the Byrds Southerners? Then it reminds me of that article by Michael Lind in the Tablet arguing that the old regional elites have become WASPified into a new united class of morally superior scolds.
ReplyDeleteKavita went to Princeton and majored in 'creative writing', back in the 1970s when few could afford such indulgence. Rather than a Southern Belle, she reminds me of the Eleanor Roosevelt type, on a mission to save the world. Looks may have something to do with it though (!)
I'm watching Spencer Tracey and K Hepburn in Woman of the Year (1942, their first movie) and there's a lot about wimmens rights and Eleanor Roosevelt.
ReplyDelete