Showing posts with label Moses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Moses. Show all posts

Thursday, March 11, 2010

The Second Coming



New World Notes News
Vol. 3, No. 11 -- March 11, 2010

This Week in New World Notes, radio program #106, March 16 & 20:

The Second Coming
(in American Imagination
and Popular Culture)

Nike sportswear ad. All graphics: Click to enlarge

In brief:

Artists & social critics have used the idea of the Second Coming of Christ as a metaphor to highlight social ills. (Bumper sticker: "Christ has come ... and boy, is He p***ed!") We hear & look at 4 works of art that do this: Lenny Bruce's famous "Christ and Moses" routine, a Langston Hughes story featuring the Harlem character "Simple," W.B. Yeats's poem "The Second Coming," and The Police's song "Synchronicity II"--which is pretty much Yeats's poem, updated & set to music.

Is that Dick Cheney, in the brown suit?

This week's song

  • The Police, Synchronicity II (1983)

Notes and credits

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for "aegis") of WWUH-FM, a community service of that beacon of light in darkest Connecticut, the University of Hartford. Feedback to kdowst at hotmail period com .

"Simple Prays a Prayer"--which I condense for broadcast--is from the Langston Hughes anthology, The Best of Simple. Support your public library!

Coming Soon

  • March 23 -- Airport Security & Related Scams
  • March 30 -- False-Flag Operations: An Introduction

Bottom: Irish poet and visionary William Butler Yeats

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):

Langston Hughes in Harlem