“A musical movement born in the industrial North of England, the Northern Soul phenomenon grew out of club-goers passion for black American dance music. It morphed eventually into a craze for rare (and by extension, very expensive) records, and even lionised some quirky artists and even quirkier records. Eventually, the scene spread way beyond the North and, as many experts will tell you, many of the records could not accurately be described as ‘soul‘. The Northern Soul culture was (and is) the most nitpicky, touchy, elitist and purist music scene ever – rent with divisions over best versions, best clubs, best trousers and, at the very heart of it, what actually constitutes Northern Soul. Odd really, when you consider that the records themselves may comprise the most inclusive, accessible, joyous canon of popular music ever . . . The term ‘Northern Soul’ was first coined by a music…

In Austria, today is Street Children’s Day, but there are street children everywhere. If children really are our future, then every child should have enough to eat, a safe place to sleep, clothes that fit and protect from the weather, and a school where they can learn something more than how to get through just one more day.

Octavio Paz(1914-1998) was born in Mexico City. He wrote many volumes of poetry, as well as a prolific body of remarkable works of nonfiction on subjects as varied as poetics, literary and art criticism, politics, culture, and Mexican history. He was awarded the Jerusalem Prize in 1977, the Cervantes Prize in 1981, and the Neustadt Prize in 1982. He received the German Peace Prize for his political work, and finally, the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1990.

To read the poem “The Street” by Octavio Paz, click

Good Morning!

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Welcome toTheCoffeeShop, just for you early risers
on Monday mornings. This is an Open Thread forum,
so if you have an off-topic opinion burning a hole in
your brainpan, feel free to add a comment.

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“I am so tired of waiting,
Aren’t you,
For the world to become good
And beautiful and kind?”

– Langston Hughes, from ‘Tired’

Betsy DeVos made the goal of school choice clear: Shift public dollars away from public schools and transfer them to privately managed charter schools, online schools, for-profit schools, home schools, and vouchers for religious schools. She never supported public schools. Her actions emboldened her followers in Red States to make a full frontal attack on public education. Please share this information on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media. Alert your friends and colleagues. The attack on public education rolls on, despite the overwhelming evidence that charter schools do not get better results than public schools unless they cherrypick their students, and voucher schools get worse results, while most avoid accountability and transparency.

The Red State governors want to fund failure, instead of adequately and equitably funding their most important responsibility: the public schools.

In this article, Carol Burris–with research assistance of Anthony Cody and Marla Kilfoyle–of the Network for Public…

Andrea Gabor has written recently about the importance of civics education. She has reminded us that the obsession with standardized testing has robbed students of the joy of learning and consumed time that could be better spent in other ways.

The 22-year-old Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman, who spoke so beautifully at the inauguration of President Joe Biden, reminded her that we have lost the study of poetry in our mad Race to Leave No Child Behind and to force testing on every student and teacher.

I heartily agree with Gabor. I have always loved poetry. I edited two collections that included many iconic poems: The American Reader and The English Reader (with my son Michael). During a time when I was grieving the loss of a child, I read poetry and found solace in a poem by Ben Jonson. When my children were young, we read poetry together, and they…

January 27^th is International Day in Memory of the Holocaust Victims.

Hana Volavková (1904-1985) was the only curator of the Central Jewish Museum to survive World War II. She collected and edited poems, letters, and drawings in a book called I Never Saw Another Butterfly, which were written by the children of Terezin Concentration Camp.

This poem from the book was written by an unnamed child who was a prisoner at Terezín. A total of 15,000 children under the age of 15 lived in the camp. Only 100 came back. This child was not one of the hundred.

To read “The Butterfly” click:

“The Conformist (Italian: Il conformista) is a 1970 political drama film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, whose screenplay is based on the 1951 novel The Conformist by Alberto Moravia. The film stars Jean-Louis Trintignant, Stefania Sandrelli, Gastone Moschin, Enzo Tarascio, Fosco Giachetti, José Quaglio, Dominique Sanda and Pierre Clémenti. The film was a co-production of Italian, French, and West German film companies. Bertolucci makes use of the 1930s art and decor associated with the Fascist era: the middle-class drawing rooms and the huge halls of the ruling elite. In Paris, Marcello Clerici finalizes his preparations in assassinating his former college professor, Luca Quadri. It frequently returns to the interior of a car driven by Manganiello as the two of them pursue the professor and his wife. Through a series of flashbacks, he is seen discussing…

For the text, click:

Second inauguration of President Barack Obama

There have been five poems delivered by their poets at inaugurations of U.S. presidents, all of them Democrats.

It began when John F. Kennedy asked Robert Frost to read his poem “The Gift Outright” in 1961.

There was a long gap after that, and then in 1993 Bill Clinton asked Maya Angelou to present a poem at his first inauguration, and this time, it was written for the occasion, “On the Pulse of Morning.”

Just came across this writer (via Zoe) and overwhelmingly felt his words needed to be shared.

Defeat Trump on Every Front

Warning: The post is long but well worth your time. It was written on January 12 and, as is common in today’s world, events continue to evolve. But I believe his points are extremely relevant to what is happening –and needs to happen– within the U.S. political world.