Sometimes a Song is the result of a strange mix of ethnic backgrounds and musical styles. For such a mix, today’s “Harbor Lights” takes the prize. The composer of the lyrics was Jimmy Kennedy, a man from Northern Ireland, and the composer of the tune was Wilhelm Grosz, a Jewish refugee from Austria at the time of the Anschluss, the Nazi take-over o…

From what I’ve said this week about the harbor, you might think that it’s the last place you’d look for danger. For that, you’ll more likely look to a hurricane off the coast of Florida, as in Key Largo, or the isolation of a swamp, as in Cape Fear. But there is the heart of the irony of our Film of the Week, Temptation Harbor. Bert Mallison (Rober…

Our Word of the Week, harbor, naturally suggests the sea, and that brings to mind this mighty hymn about the sea, “Eternal Father, Strong to Save.” The first time we featured it on Word and Song, we were just getting started, and Hurricane Fiona was about to slam into us in Nova Scotia, so all I did was to post the hymn with the link below. She was…

Today’s Sometimes a Song comes from the longest-running musical in the entire world, a low-budget off-Broadway production called “The Fantasticks.” The play ran without a pause for forty-two years, opening in May of 1960 and closing in January of 2002. As if that “first run” were not enough, the play was revived in 2006 and ran for an additional el…

What happens to you and your family if the head of the household is a pleasant fellow, well-liked by everybody, without a trace of guile or malice in him, and quite a lark to be around, but — irresponsible? Well, that depends. He may be fine, as long as you’re not married to him and you don’t need any money. But in our Film of the Week, A Tree Grow…

I don’t know if there were any rules to bend in the case, but imagine a ten year old boy applying for admission to the Royal Academy of Music, in London. The year was 1826, and the boy’s name was William Sterndale Bennett, who became one of the most important teachers and promoters of classical music in England in the nineteenth century, and an acc…

Much as I love the great musicals of Rodgers and Hammerstein, who genuinely elevated American musical theater of the 1920’s and 1930’s to the level of high art in the 1940’s, I must admit to being extremely fond of the works of Richard Rodgers and his first longtime composing partner, Lorenz Hart. Larry Hart was in many ways a very sad and lonely s…

It may slip our minds — it certainly has slipped my mind — that when his foster-father Joseph died, Jesus was left an orphan in the sense in which the word is usually employed in Scripture. That is, he was fatherless; in the earthly way, I mean. He was no orphan absolutely. We can recall his words to Mary and Joseph, when, as a twelve year old boy …

Chapters 17-19, Teaching english & Chapter 6, Unlocking

Let's begin from the very beginning. There are so many acronyms related to ESOL. You have probably heard such words as ESL, ESOL, ELL, EL, L1, L2, and LEP. What do they all mean?