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Benjamin Dreyer

7 Apr, 10 tweets, 2 min read

Today, being her birthday, is a great day to spend the day listening to Billie Holiday recordings.

[Also all the other days.]

Why, yes, thank you for asking:

Body and Soul
Easy Living
Gone with the Wind
Good Morning Heartache
He Ain't Got Rhythm
I'll Look Around
Let's Do It
Miss Brown to You
The Very Thought of You
What a Little Moonlight Can Do

I absolutely appreciate great big AUUUUUGGGHHHH Billie, but swinging, lilting Billie is easier on the nerves.

Also, her soigné pronunciation of "aviator" in He Ain't Got Rhythm is the living end.

Of course you want to name a dog Mister, but as someone pointed out, it's a problem when you're shouting for said dog on the street.

Oh, and: Any Old Time, which she recorded with Artie Shaw, and which was the first recording of hers I ever heard; we had it on an 8-track of big band hits that was often played on car trips.

It's amazing.

I also loved Artie's Frenesi, which is perhaps the gayest big band track I've ever heard.

I just slid into an alternate universe in which she lived on for aeons, happily, and guest-starred on The Carol Burnett Show with Peggy Lee.

[Pretty sure she didn't do a comedy sketch with Carol, Vicki, Harvey, and Steve Lawrence, though.]

Oh. My. God.

This is the photo that haunts me.

Like, hold your hand across either side of her face.

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More from @BCDreyer

Benjamin Dreyer

@BCDreyer

9 Apr

Happy Paul Robeson's birthday!

Peggy Ashcroft, who had a brief affair with Robeson ("Well, wouldn't you?" —Guys and Dolls), registered her displeasure that Robeson, appearing with her in the Savoy Theatre, was not welcome in the adjoining hotel.

Robeson concludes his (amazing) performance of "Ol' Man River" in the '36 Show Boat with a huge grin, and I've never been sure if it's Joe fully embracing existence or Paul acknowledging how good he is.

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Benjamin Dreyer

@BCDreyer

8 Apr

https://twitter.com/leahmcelrath/status/1380297969799462915

Who plays you in your biopic?

https://twitter.com/leahmcelrath/status/1380297969799462915

And I pronounce it to rhyme with "myopic."

[I don't pronounce it to rhyme with "myopic."]

[I'm sorry if I've hurt you.]

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Benjamin Dreyer

@BCDreyer

8 Apr

#CopyeditingProTip

Unless you're an attorney or a particularly scholarly scholar, you may, in quoting published material, capitalize a lowercase letter or lowercase a capital letter at the beginning of a quoted bit, as it serves your own text, without the use of brackets.

In other words, don't do this:

Dreyer says that "[u]nless you're an attorney or a particularly scholarly scholar"...

Also, though all intratext deletions must be called out with ellipses, no quote needs to begin or end with them.

Read 5 tweets

Benjamin Dreyer

@BCDreyer

8 Apr

Happy John Gavin's birthday.

We're not going to call anyone a bad actor who got through Imitation of Life with a straight face.

I'm always going to love a film in which two separate people tell Lana Turner to "Stop acting!"

The other being Sandra Dee, God help us all.

Read 4 tweets

Benjamin Dreyer

@BCDreyer

7 Apr

I watched The Egg and I last night for the first time. It's a bit creepy, TBQH, but the fun parts are fun, and Marjorie and the dog are great.

I never realized how much Green Acres springs from it. It even has a Mr. Haney type (named Billy Reed) and a character named Mr. Henty.

Woman Feels Threatened Enough in Her Marriage That She Packs Up and Goes Home to Mother and Returns Nine Months Later with a Baby is maybe not as funny as they thought it was.

I'm sorry to report that the Great American Comedy Trope that people from the sticks are inbred idiots is not as unfunny as one should find it.

At least not if one is I.

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