Music and Sound with Steve Ember; 1980; Part 2

<v Steve Ember>Hello, this is Steve Ember and I'd like to introduce you to a unique programing concept <v Steve Ember>on WETA FM. It's called TM and it's presented Monday through <v Steve Ember>Friday afternoons between the hours of noon and 5:00. <v Steve Ember>And each day we offer you a congenial mix of music from the concert hall, the ballet <v Steve Ember>stage, grand opera, Viennese operetta, musicals from the Broadway and London <v Steve Ember>stage and the Hollywood soundstages. <v Steve Ember>We feature the creme de la creme of American popular song, symphonic film scores and <v Steve Ember>British comedy to get you through the afternoon in good spirits. <v Steve Ember>All of this interspersed with interesting conversations recorded on location with <v Steve Ember>well-known figures of the arts and all manner of interesting surprises. <v Steve Ember>Throughout the afternoon, we keep our listeners abreast of the latest news stock market <v Steve Ember>quotations and the weather, plus notes on the Washington-Baltimore entertainment scene. <v Steve Ember>How does it all sound? Well, here are some samples. <v Steve Ember>Well, hello in a very pleasant good afternoon to you. Welcome to a Monday, P.M. <v Steve Ember>for this twenty second day of August 1977. <v Steve Ember>I'm Steve Ember with music between now and five o'clock. <v Steve Ember>And today, we begin a Leonard Bernstein festival. <v Steve Ember>Mr. Bernstein will be celebrating his fifty-ninth birthday later this week.

<v Steve Ember>And I thought it might be interesting to devote the entire week to Mr. Bernstine <v Steve Ember>conducting his music and compositions of others as well. <v Steve Ember>We'll be hearing primarily from the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in our recordings. <v Steve Ember>And we have the, well, actually, a very strongly French flavored program today, beginning <v Steve Ember>with Leonard Bernstein conducting his concert overture to Candid based on the Voltaire <v Steve Ember>satire. Today is the birthday anniversary of Claude Debussy also, he was born on this <v Steve Ember>date in 1862. And we'll spend much of our first hour with Leonard Bernstein conducting <v Steve Ember>his music, the prelude to the afternoon of a Fawn, the clarinet Rhapsody, and the <v Steve Ember>Nuages and Fêtes from the Nocturnes. <v Steve Ember>As it happens, we'll be continuing with French music as we bring you Leonard Bernstein's <v Steve Ember>recording of the Berlioz Requiem as our major works today shortly after 2. <v Steve Ember>Mr. Bernstein will conduct L'orchestre Nacional de France and 'lorchestre Philharmonic de <v Steve Ember>Radio France with the Radio France chorus and tenors Stuart Burrowes. <v Steve Ember>Our musical today is a French inspired as we begin a Leonard Burnstein musical comedy <v Steve Ember>series with the original 1956 production of Candide, starring Max Adrian,

<v Steve Ember>Robert Rounseville, Barbara Cook and Irra Petina. <v Steve Ember>And in our last half hour today, we'll leave Mr. Bernstine. <v Speaker>[music plays] <v Steve Ember>What a thrill it is to meet a gentleman who has probably introduced more audiences of all <v Steve Ember>ages to the sound of a symphony orchestra and has done more to bring concert music <v Steve Ember>to young listeners to make the Beatles intelligible to those young listeners parents, to <v Steve Ember>make going to concerts a wonderful, happy experience for all generations than anyone else <v Steve Ember>around. This could only describe Mr. Boston Pops, Arthur Fiedler. <v Steve Ember>Mr. Fiedler, welcome back to Washington. <v Arthur Fiedler>Thank you. It's very nice to be back in Washignton. <v Steve Ember>Well, depending on whether you go by the vernal equinox or the calendar, we're either one <v Steve Ember>or two days late doing it. But I hope you'll enjoy our musical welcome to Spring. <v Steve Ember>Today on PM, our featured work will be a musical celebration of spring as observed

<v Steve Ember>in Switzerland. We'll hear Le Jeu du Feuillu by Emile Jaques Dalcroze, a delightful <v Steve Ember>work for soprano soloist, children's chorus and orchestra. <v Steve Ember>Also, Rondes de Printemps by Debussy on hearing the first Cuckoo in Spring by Delius, <v Steve Ember>Murmurs of Spring by Sinding, and Voices of Spring by Johann Strauss. <v Steve Ember>Mr. Mankiewicz in your chapter on the press, you state that the newspapers, with the <v Steve Ember>exception of the Washington Post and the television and radio networks, did very little <v Steve Ember>to expose the Watergate cover up and trace it to sixteen hundred Pennsylvania Avenue. <v Steve Ember>Could you elaborate a bit on that for us? <v Mankiewicz>Well, there really was very little news <v Mankiewicz>that was initially revealed by the press outside of The Washington Post, of course, <v Mankiewicz>which revealed a great deal after the election. <v Fred D. Thompson>Are badgering good people out of the system. <v Steve Ember>That familiar voice belongs to Fred D Thompson, the chief minority counsel during <v Steve Ember>the Watergate hearings and the author of At That Point in Time. <v Steve Ember>Strife me as your, your job as minority counsel must have been exceedingly <v Steve Ember>more complex than that of Sam Dash in the light of the widely divergent

<v Steve Ember>views and personalities of the senators. <v Steve Ember>There seem to be much more of a disparity among the Republican senators than among the <v Steve Ember>Democratic senators. <v Fred D. Thompson>Yeah, as far as the, that part of the job, that kind of sensitivity that, that <v Fred D. Thompson>was the-. <v Speaker>[music plays] <v Steve Ember>That's the sound of good old American ragtime. <v Steve Ember>Max Morath has for many years been America's foremost proponent of this uniquely American <v Steve Ember>music. Not only does he perform ragtime, but he's written and lectured on the subject. <v Steve Ember>And he's frequently presented programs of ragtime on television. <v Max Morath>It's interesting, Steve, when you go back to the contemporary accounts of ragtime and you <v Max Morath>read the magazine articles in the old Saturday Evening Post, in the old Collier's <v Max Morath>magazines and the newspaper reviewers. <v Max Morath>When they're speaking of ragtime. <v Max Morath>They're not speaking of the Scott Joplin.

<v Speaker>I love Russian composers. <v Steve Ember>And so do we. This week on PM we're presenting a festival of Russian music. <v Speaker>?inaudible? Chayefsky Rubinstein ?inaudible? Tchaikovski. <v Steve Ember>And as we usually do on the program, we'll be hearing many new performances, newly <v Steve Ember>reissued recordings and other new additions to the WETA library, as well as some of the <v Steve Ember>good old standbys. <v Steve Ember>Among our major presentations today are a quadraphonic recording at Rimsky-Korsakov <v Steve Ember>Sheherazade conducted by Mstislav Rostropovich, a complete performance of Gliere's <v Steve Ember>Ballet, The Bronze Horseman and newly reissued recordings of Tchaikovsky's Francesca da <v Steve Ember>Rimini and Rachmaninoff's Fantasy for Orchestra, The Rock. <v Steve Ember>Also works by Balakirev, Ippolitov-Ivanov. <v Steve Ember>This is Steve Ember, hoping you'll join me for much of the wonderful music of Russia on <v Steve Ember>this week's PM programs here on WETA Radio. <v Steve Ember>I guess the recording that made Percy Faith a household word was a catchy little Latin <v Steve Ember>flavored tune called Delicato, which featured a harpsichord playing with the orchestra. <v Steve Ember>And this, of course, was your first big hit in 1951, and I gather this was almost an <v Steve Ember>accident. Your finding and using a harpsichord in a popular music arrangement.

<v Percy Faith>Well, as a professional, we don't like the word accident, we like to feel that we knew <v Percy Faith>what we were doing and we went in and we decided it would be ?ahead?. <v Percy Faith>But it really isn't that easy. You do have to take the right material <v Percy Faith>and then hope that the public will catch on. <v Percy Faith>In Delicato's case, I had made the arrangement originally for guitar and <v Percy Faith>orchestra and our guitar player couldn't really quite make it, you know. <v Percy Faith>And in the corner of the studio was a harpsichord, but we couldn't open <v Percy Faith>it. But if you knew Mitch you'd know that he'd get a wrench [Steve Ember: pick the lock] <v Percy Faith>and pick the lock or something. We got it open. Then he said, try this just for laughs. <v Percy Faith>It might be a great sound. <v Percy Faith>It was really an accident. If the harpsichord not been there, we wouldn't have used it. <v Steve Ember>Hello, this is Steve Ember. This afternoon on PM, we'll bring you a musical travelog to <v Steve Ember>one of my favorite cities. Oh, Henry called it Baghdad on the subway. <v Steve Ember>It's been referred to as the Big Apple, Fun City, Sin City, but perhaps most aptly <v Steve Ember>described by Betty Camden and Adolph Green.

<v Speaker>[song: New York, New York, it's a hell of a town] <v Steve Ember>New York, New York is the subject of our musical travelog. <v Steve Ember>And we'll do the whole town from Yonkers on down to the bay in just one day <v Steve Ember>or at least we'll try. <v Steve Ember>Our musical guides will include Leonard Bernstine, Aaron Copeland, Alfred Newman, George <v Steve Ember>Gershwin, Richard Rodgers and William Schumann, among others. <v Steve Ember>And we'll follow our musical travelog with a three week series of musical comedy love <v Steve Ember>stories to New York, beginning with On the Town and including Wonderful Town, Subways <v Steve Ember>Are For Sleeping, Bells Are Ringing, Theorello, Guys and Dolls, Gordon Jenkins Manhattan <v Steve Ember>Tower, and many more. We'll depart on this all expenses paid New York excursion today at <v Steve Ember>noon. Hope you'll join us here on WETA F.M. <v Steve Ember>in Washington. <v Steve Ember>We spend the first three hours of the program with concert, music, ballet and opera. <v Steve Ember>We start out with a shorter, brighter concert, music selections for lunchtime, listening <v Steve Ember>in our first hour and then work our way into the more lengthy presentations featuring at <v Steve Ember>least one work of major proportions, usually two in the course of the afternoon,

<v Steve Ember>frequently interspersed with interviews with important figures in concert music <v Steve Ember>performance and composition. <v Steve Ember>Mr. ?Costalovitz? You've been responsible for commissioning a number of compositions by <v Steve Ember>American composers. A Lincoln Portrait by Aaron Copeland, And God Created <v Steve Ember>Great Whales by Alan Hovhaness. <v Speaker>Because as it's known, the whales have no vocal chords. <v Speaker>So I don't know what they're saying. Nobody knows exactly ?inaudible?. <v Speaker>And I selected about four segments <v Speaker>of the tapes, all contrasting and how ones went to work to write the <v Speaker>music around it. <v Speaker>And this way was born a new work, And God Created Great Whales. <v Speaker>Which is a quote from the Bible, of course. <v Speaker>Well, that moment when Castellanos... <v Speaker>motioned to a ?inaudible? To get up, they found Sandburg fast asleep under <v Speaker>the blanket right out in publicly. I said that was a great uh, shock <v Speaker>and Cosby said, Carl, Carl, wake up, wake up the old boys

<v Speaker>when I suddenly woke up looking around, where am I? <v Speaker>[laughs] But he got up in time to say the first line. <v Speaker>Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. <v Steve Ember>Aaron Copland celebrates his seventy sixth birthday this weekend. <v Steve Ember>And this is Steve Ember inviting you to join us for a very special afternoon with Aaron <v Steve Ember>Copland and his music today from 1 to 5. <v Steve Ember>Here on WETA Radio. <v Steve Ember>It's just a little while ago I heard you humming from time to time and tapping out <v Steve Ember>various rhythms on the table. Were you up to composing at that time? <v Speaker>Oh, hell no. <v Speaker>No, I connect composing with being alone in my studio at home and generally <v Speaker>around midnight. <v Steve Ember>In other words, things don't occur to you. Perhaps as you're riding on a train or walking <v Steve Ember>along. <v Speaker>Its conceivable, but it would be rare. <v Steve Ember>I see. <v Steve Ember>We honor composers and performers on their birthday anniversaries, often with festivals

<v Steve Ember>of their music running a week or more. <v Steve Ember>And often we tie our musical selections to important dates and events in history. <v Steve Ember>Each day, except Wednesday at 3:00, we throw the switch on our musical comedy marquee. <v Steve Ember>One of America's unique art forms is the musical comedy, an area of music we delve into <v Steve Ember>quite thoroughly on PM with shows by Broadway's great composers and lyricists in <v Steve Ember>complete presentations with storyline and all the songs and no commercial interruptions. <v Steve Ember>Candide returns from El Dorado, his pockets full of gold and searches for Cunegonde. <v Steve Ember>The governor, however, has had both Cunegonde and the old lady, tied up in sacks and

<v Steve Ember>counting to a boat in the harbor. He tells Candide that the women have sailed for Europe <v Steve Ember>and Candide eagerly purchases a leaky ship from the governor and dashes off. <v Steve Ember>19TH Century Siam was the setting for Rodgers and Hammerstein's fifth musical <v Steve Ember>collaboration, The King and I, based on Margaret Landon's, Anna and the King of Siam. <v Steve Ember>The 20th Century Fox film version of the King and I is the next featured attraction in <v Steve Ember>our Rodgers and Hammerstein Film Festival on PM. <v Speaker>Is a puzzlement. <v Steve Ember>We'll hear Yul Brynner in a recreation of his Broadway role as the semi <v Steve Ember>Barbaric King of Siam, Marni Nixon supplying the singing voice for Deborah Karez, <v Steve Ember>Anna. Along with Rita Moreno, Terry Sanders and Carlos Rivas. <v Steve Ember>This is Steve Ember, hoping you'll join me for the soundtrack recording of Rodgers and <v Steve Ember>Hammerstein's The King and I tomorrow at 3 here on WETA, radio.

<v Steve Ember>Today on PM, we begin the Rodgers and Hammerstein Film Festival. <v Steve Ember>Featured will be all of the soundtrack recordings of the film, versions of the musicals <v Steve Ember>of this great American songwriting institution. <v Steve Ember>We'll hear A Carousel, South Pacific, the King and I, State Fair, Flower Drum Song, The <v Steve Ember>Sound of Music. And we'll begin our festival with Oklahoma. <v Speaker>[music plays] <v Steve Ember>Gordon MacRay and Shirley Jones had our cast as Curly and Laurie with Laurie Graham as <v Steve Ember>Ad Annie Dean Nelson as well Parker and Rod Steiger as Judd. <v Steve Ember>This is Steve Ember, hoping you'll join me and hear all of the songs from this lovely <v Steve Ember>production of Oklahoma this afternoon at 3:00 here on WETA Radio. <v Steve Ember>Quite often we'll visit with well-known figures from the musical comedy stage, including

<v Steve Ember>authors, composers, lyricists and performers. <v Speaker>Anyone can whistle. Stephen Sondheim's first chore <v Speaker>where he not only wrote the lyrics, but he also wrote the music. <v Speaker>Let's say that helped me immeasurably fitting those fascinating lyrics into those <v Speaker>incredible little phrases of his. <v Speaker>Musical phrases like lock him up. Put him in- what is it? <v Speaker>Lock him up. Put him a way, in the jar. Time to start getting the nets out. <v Steve Ember>Done something I've been very anxious to ask you and something which I think my audience <v Steve Ember>will find most fascinating. You had a close association with Richard Rodgers and Oscar <v Steve Ember>Hammerstein, the second in the years you spent in Oklahoma and Carousel. <v Steve Ember>Can you give us some idea of what the two men were like? <v Speaker>Well, they were quite different. <v Speaker>Dick Rodgers is so prolific. <v Speaker>It's frightening. I mean, he would write, for instance, he wrote oh. <v Steve Ember>One thing that we can definitely say, and that's that the Broadway theaters are seeing a <v Steve Ember>far larger share of the black audience because of a number of these shows such as The <v Steve Ember>Wiz. <v Speaker>Yes. I think in the past 10 years, [Steve Ember: recently] yes, <v Speaker>blacks have become more theater oriented.

<v Speaker>We have not- it's not a part of our background. <v Steve Ember>Angela Lansbury, John Raitt and Ernestine Jackson in recent interviews on PM. <v Steve Ember>Jim Kirkwood, author of A Chorus Line paid us an interesting visit. <v Jim Kirkwood>I have to admit that we all, we all had a kind of <v Jim Kirkwood>a sense that we were on to something special with this show because we were all very <v Jim Kirkwood>dedicated to it. And the dancers were dedicated because for once <v Jim Kirkwood>they were talking about their lives and what they go through. <v Speaker>[music plays] <v Steve Ember>We've also chatted on location with Charles Strouse, composer of Annie and Mitch Lee, who <v Steve Ember>wrote Man of La Mancha. <v Steve Ember>Often we'll organize our musical comedy presentations into a week long or even month long <v Steve Ember>festivals honoring such Broadway legends as Rodgers and Hammerstein, Cole Porter or <v Steve Ember>George Gershwin, or performers such as Mary Martin and Richard Kiley or Gwen Vertigan. <v Steve Ember>Or we may group of musicals around a theme like Love Stories set in New York City.

<v Steve Ember>Our listeners in the Washington Baltimore area have frequent opportunities to see musical <v Steve Ember>comedy at area theaters, including the Kennedy Center and Wolf Trap. <v Steve Ember>And we do our best to keep listeners informed as to shows they're likely to enjoy. <v Steve Ember>Well, let's talk about Fiddler here. If we've not been treated to any memorable new <v Steve Ember>musical comedies in Washington this year, we can certainly be thankful for two fine <v Steve Ember>revivals of superior musicals. <v Steve Ember>First, the black cast production of Guys and Dolls. <v Steve Ember>And now at the Kennedy Center, a revival of the longest running musical in Broadway <v Steve Ember>history. Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick's Fiddler on the Roof in a full scale production <v Steve Ember>with a cast headed by Zero Mostel who created the role of Tevye on Broadway. <v Steve Ember>We might follow our Musical of the Day with songs from other shows featuring the same <v Steve Ember>performers or perhaps from a related literary source. <v Steve Ember>We might take a quick trip off Broadway or to the cafes on New York's Upper East Side. <v Steve Ember>To hear a song stylings by Mabel Mercer or Bobby Short. <v Speaker>[music plays] <v Speaker>We enjoy featuring the very finest in American popular song performed by the most highly

<v Speaker>regarded song stylists. <v Speaker>[music plays] <v Speaker> Try to find a lot of that on the radio. <v Speaker>[music continues] <v Steve Ember>We've set aside Wednesday afternoons from 3 to 5 for the Romantics. <v Steve Ember>P.M. pioneered in featuring on a regular basis, Viennese operettas, including Die <v Steve Ember>Fledermaus, the Gypsy Baron, the Married Widow, Countess Maretta and many of the less <v Steve Ember>familiar ones as well, often incomplete imported recordings of the highest fidelity. <v Steve Ember>Why we've even established a tongue in cheek society called URSA. <v Steve Ember>That's the unabashed romantic slobs of America for our romantically inclined coterie <v Steve Ember>who cozily cuddle as they listen to our operettas appropriately attired in our original <v Steve Ember>designed URSA T-shirt.

<v Steve Ember>Another area of music we pioneered. And in terms of in-depth presentations is that of the <v Steve Ember>symphonic film score. Many great symphonists have composed in this area, including <v Steve Ember>Vaughan Williams, Shostakovich and Bernard Herrmann, whom we feature frequently, along <v Steve Ember>with such eminent Hollywood composers as Elmer Bernstein, Alex North, David Rapson <v Steve Ember>and Max Steiner. We've taped conversations with Miklos Rozsa, John Green and Jerry <v Steve Ember>Goldsmith discussing their techniques for composing for the cinema. <v Steve Ember>And every Friday, we devote a portion of our program to symphonic film scores, including <v Steve Ember>also reviews and notes on local cinema offerings. <v Steve Ember>The more outstanding film scores also show up from time to time and the concert music <v Steve Ember>portions of PM. Well, let's see. <v Steve Ember>We've told you about our concert music, opera, operetta and musical comedy, film scores <v Steve Ember>and other musical areas we explore on PM. <v Steve Ember>But I did say earlier that there are some surprises and I wouldn't want to give them all <v Steve Ember>away. Sometimes we even surprise ourselves.

<v Steve Ember>But don't you be too surprised if we try to liken your homeward trek through the traffic, <v Steve Ember>with Anna Russell describing Wagner's ring cycle. <v Steve Ember>Peter Cook as Sir Arthur Grebe Streebling. <v Steve Ember>Or is it Streeb-gribbling, explaining to Dudley Moore the delights of his restaurant, The <v Steve Ember>Frog and Peach, or James Whitmore in his colorful recreations of Harry S. <v Steve Ember>Truman or Will Rogers? Hal Holbrook as Mark Twain or even Bing Crosby <v Steve Ember>reading from Tom Sawyer. And sometimes we just let out all the stops and have some fun. <v Steve Ember>And what pray tell with Thanksgiving Day, be without that big parade downtown. <v Speaker>[music plays] <v Steve Ember>Rosy cheeked, happy people lining the streets as far as the eye could see. <v Steve Ember>Glittering reds and golds as the band marched by. <v Steve Ember>Maybe you were even marching in it, playing that sousaphone. <v Steve Ember>And those fantastic department store floats that looked like they took a year to build <v Steve Ember>with Santa Claus and his helpers and all the reindeer and the candy canes. <v Steve Ember>And you couldn't help but wonder how those drum majorettes kept from freezing there.

<v Steve Ember>Whatever became of drum majorettes anyway? <v Steve Ember>But you remember the best time of all Thanksgiving Day. <v Steve Ember>That was the evening and that big family get together. <v Steve Ember>You might have traveled many miles out into the country to grandma's place. <v Steve Ember>Or maybe it was just a quick trip across town to aunt Alice's. <v Steve Ember>But you knew when you got there there'd be that warm holiday feeling and a meal that <v Steve Ember>seemed to get better and better each year. <v Steve Ember>Along about seven o'clock. There was no mistaking that fragrance wafting its way from the <v Steve Ember>kitchen. You knew exactly what it was. <v Steve Ember>That big old Thanksgiving time turkey with all the trimmings. <v Steve Ember>The stuffing with the secret recipe. <v Steve Ember>Giblet gravy. Those candied yams. <v Steve Ember>A little ol' order of sauerkraut on the side. <v Steve Ember>Cranberry sauce and lots of it. <v Steve Ember>Pass the peas and carrots.

<v Steve Ember>Hot biscuits. <v Steve Ember>And there was always seconds. <v Steve Ember>Say nothing to that big old pumpkin pie for dessert and no question <v Steve Ember>about it, you left your plate finger lickin clean. <v Speaker>[howling] <v Steve Ember>Why? Halloween? <v Steve Ember>Halloween is that scary night that has come to symbolize the evil and <v Steve Ember>dark powers of the world. <v Steve Ember>But it is one of the quirks of history that Halloween actually means hallowed evening <v Steve Ember>or holy evening.

<v Steve Ember>The reason for this apparent contradiction is that the Christian church named November <v Steve Ember>1st All Saints days an eight centuries after Christ the holy day fell at <v Steve Ember>the same time of the year as a pagan celebration initiated by the ancient Druid priests <v Steve Ember>of Britain and Gall. <v Steve Ember>The Druid tradition held that ghosts, goblins and witches came out of the forest to harm <v Steve Ember>people at night. They believed, too, that cats were sacred and had once been human <v Steve Ember>beings, now transformed as punishment for evil deeds. <v Steve Ember>With the Christianization of Europe, the two feasts and the religious beliefs that foster <v Steve Ember>them intermingled. This is why witches, ghosts and cats still lurk <v Steve Ember>in the shadows of our Halloween festivities. <v Steve Ember>Folklore about ghosts indicates the commonly hump the scenes where they lived or died,

<v Steve Ember>particularly the place where they died. If they had met foul play to see a ghost was <v Steve Ember>supposed to foretell a dire event. <v Steve Ember>On the other hand, the ancestral ghosts often were friendly apparitions who warned of <v Steve Ember>dangers. <v Steve Ember>Witches were something else. <v Steve Ember>These unfortunate creatures were in the flesh, but were supposed to have sold their souls <v Steve Ember>to the devil. <v Steve Ember>The most popular and profitable power of witches was to brew love potions. <v Steve Ember>No Halloween figure has changed its image as much as a witch. <v Steve Ember>She used to ride a broom and hide in the closet lest she be found out and burned at the <v Steve Ember>stake. It was not until the 13 hundreds that the persecution of witches began on a wide <v Steve Ember>scale. The Inquisition set the climate for a witch hunt that lasted for three centuries <v Steve Ember>and even crossed the Atlantic to the American colonies, where the number of women accused <v Steve Ember>of witchcraft were actually executed.

<v Steve Ember>The concept of goblins comes from folk tales in France. <v Steve Ember>People described them as ugly and mischievous little creatures. <v Steve Ember>It was said the goblins lurked around houses and enjoyed doing unexpected tricks like <v Steve Ember>suddenly moving chairs and tables. <v Steve Ember>There was one way to rid your house of goblins, and that was to spread flax seed on the <v Steve Ember>floor. Since the goblins were tiny little spirits, they were trying to pick up every <v Steve Ember>seed. This tedious work. Tired them out and instead of finishing the job, they would move <v Steve Ember>on to bother folks at another house. <v Steve Ember>Scary masks go much further back into history than Halloween. <v Steve Ember>A cave drawing in southern France, some 50 thousand years old, shows a man prancing <v Steve Ember>in an animal head and skin obviously worn as a mask.

<v Steve Ember>Nobody knows for certain what the cave dweller had in mind, but grotesque, false faces <v Steve Ember>have been used in many ways throughout history. <v Steve Ember>Masks have figured it worship magic, making ceremonial dances, carnivals, drama, bank <v Steve Ember>robberies. And, of course, for Halloween pranks. <v Steve Ember>Today's Halloween masks can be traced to those devised by the ancient Celts. <v Steve Ember>The mask served as protection from witches and evil spirits that supposedly emerged from <v Steve Ember>underground layers to dance and play one night each year. <v Steve Ember>The stroke of 12:00. It is midnight in the graveyard. <v Steve Ember>And death summons the dead from their coffins by drumming with his heels on a tombstone <v Steve Ember>and playing a dance tune on his fiddle. <v Steve Ember>The winter wind moans through the trees as the skeletons come through the dark, running <v Steve Ember>and leaping beneath their shrouds, their bones rattling as they dance.

<v Steve Ember>In a wild scramble, the skeletons scuttle back to their graves. <v Steve Ember>The jack-o'-lantern, it seems, owe their origin to an Irish tale about a man named Jack <v Steve Ember>who was unable to enter heaven because he was a miser. <v Steve Ember>Poor Jack couldn't even go to hell. The story goes. <v Steve Ember>That was because he had played practical jokes on the devil. <v Steve Ember>As a consequence, Jack was condemned to wander the earth with his lantern until judgment <v Steve Ember>day. <v Steve Ember>Well, on this All Hallows Eve, as you parade about the pumpkin patch in search of <v Steve Ember>witches, goblins, goolies ghosties and long legged beasties. <v Steve Ember>Have fun and happy Halloween from all of us here at WETA. <v Speaker>[SFX and music plays] <v Steve Ember>Well, that's a sample of what it all sounds like Monday through Friday between noon and

<v Steve Ember>5:00 on PM. here on WETA FM. <v Steve Ember>Won't you join us? And if you and your business would like to support our afternoon <v Steve Ember>effort at relieving the doldrums, underwriting credits are available. <v Steve Ember>Just contact the WETA Development Department at 9 9 8 2 7 9 <v Steve Ember>0. I'm Steve Ember. Thank you for your time spent in listening to this PM sampler. <v Steve Ember>Hope I'll be talking to you soon on WETA F.M. <v Steve Ember>in Washington.