Beyond The Mark Steyn Show:
Columns, poems, tales, music, movies and more from Mark and friends
Laura's Links
Double Trouble
Greetings friends, Romans and countrymen and thanks for joining us for another fresh batch of Laura's Links. First of all, I'll give you a little update about Mark. He's gaining strength each day and appreciates all the well wishes and prayers. We know that it is hard for everyone when our captain is temporarily out of commission, but rest and relaxation are the only way through! Next, a bit of an update about the schedule for the coming days! We apologize that this notice didn't get sent out earlier, but there were still a few moving pieces that we had to figure out. But fear not, we have it all organized now. Today, Thursday, we, of course, have Laura's Links. And tomorrow we have BIG, BIG, BEEEEEEG PLANS over here at SteynOnline. Yes ...
Monday Notebook
Practice to Deceive
It is a great honor (or rather, honour for those around the world) to welcome Barbara Kay, journalist and dear friend of Mark's, to SteynOnline! "O what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive." Apparently the original source for this famous dictum isn't Shakespeare, but Sir Walter Scott. But no matter – ain't it still the truth? On May 26, 2021, most Canadians believed that our efforts at reconciliation with the aboriginal-rights movement were being received in good faith. A day later, that illusion was shattered. On May 27, 2021, B.C. First Nation chief, Roseanne Casimir, announced that 215 "unmarked graves had been discovered in an old orchard" not far from the former residential school, which was located at the heart ...
Mark's Week in Review
A Se'nnight of Steyn: May 24-30
We are happy to share that Mark is doing much better. We will continue to update the SteynOnline community as we receive news. But in the meantime, we wanted to share some of the memories and comments shared with us based on this week's columns: In the 1960's, my Dad worked for an electronics design firm creating antennas for space flight. I'd hang around reading the next "Aviation Week and Space Technology" which covered all things both civilian and military. Each one was thick and packed with all sorts of technology. Since then, the magazine has thinned. – Robert Bridges, The (New But) Lost Frontier Mark can take the most, simple of stories and open up its universe of meanings and histories like no one else. I always love the little ...
Rick's Flicks
Prophets of Doom: Liza Minnelli in Bob Fosse's Cabaret
Bob Fosse's career as a Hollywood director looked to be over after just one film when the failure of Sweet Charity at the box office nearly took down Universal Studios in 1969 and ended the era of the big-budget movie musical. He'd always have work on Broadway but his new status as toxic in Hollywood was a blow his ego couldn't accept and he was desperate for a comeback. The abiding fame of numbers like "Hey Big Spender" and "Rich Man's Frug" on Fosse highlight reels and as YouTube clips have lent Sweet Charity posthumous influence that nobody would have believed at the time. Fosse's problem, as far as his critics (and even some of his friends) were concerned was that he put far more effort into his musical numbers than whatever strung ...
The Bachman Beat
Tal Bachman: An Odyssey To Ignore?
The team at SteynOnline is delighted to welcome Tal Bachman back to these pages. This is the first of several forthcoming columns by Tal. Enjoy! This is the first topic I've ever written about which probably shouldn't be written about at all. By anyone. Anywhere. Based on all indications so far, the best way to treat director Christopher Nolan's forthcoming movie, The Odyssey (starring Matt Damon as Odysseus) is simply to ignore it. Never mention it. Certainly not see it. Everyone in the entire world should simply continue living their lives as though the movie never existed at all. The reason isn't just that the trailer conveys an odd combination of overwrought and unserious. It's that the trailer, interviews, and press releases so far ...
The Mark Steyn Audio Show
Live with Kindness
Laura Rosen Cohen took over the mic again for this week's Clubland Q&A as Mark continues to recuperate. Thank you, Laura... and if you missed it, the action replay is above. After an update on Mark, today's hot topic was... Alberta, as in Canada. And Toronto. And Canada's socialized healthcare. The team left North America for some great discussions about what's going on in Israel, Denmark, and Europe writ large. So be sure to check it out. Again, thank you for all the emails, comments, and prayers for Mark. He is reading them and appreciates everyone's support. As Laura said today, acts of kindness and those who live with joy lead full lives. And remember, if you aren't a member yet of The Mark Steyn Club, you can join here. And if you ...
Clubland Q&A
Live Around the Planet: Thursday, May 28
UPPERDATE! Live Q&A begins in 5 minutes! UPDATE: Clubland Q&A, with guest host Laura Rosen Cohen, will be live in 15 minutes! Join us later today for another special Thursday edition of our Live Q&A Around the Planet at 3:00 p.m. American Eastern Time with guest host Laura Rosen Cohen, otherwise known as SteynOnline's Sinister In House Jewess. Yes, the uppity Jewish mother will once again be occupying the mic as Mark rests and recovers. Thank you for all your well wishes and prayers for Mark, he is recovering very nicely and is getting excellent care. Laura will take questions on whatever matters are on your mind, and provide a full hour or thereabouts of substitute level hosting. Members of The Mark Steyn Club are invited to leave ...
A Clubman's Notes
The Sick Bed
Steyn reads the concluding episode of his highly prescient bestseller America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It...
Friday Notebook
A Monster and his Suck-Ups
As the USS Nimitz heads to the Caribbean, we share Mark's "obituary" to Fidel Castro...
The Mark Steyn Audio Show
Live Around the Planet (Literally)
If you weren't able to listen to Clubland Q&A live, don't worry, here is the action replay...
Topical Take
A Society Entirely Without "Division"
The groupthink in our public discourse is so pervasive it goes as unnoticed as the air...
Politics & Current Affairs
Decapitation for Thee ...and for Me
Programming note: On May 6th 2017 The Mark Steyn Club slipped quietly onto the Internet, and, unlike many of the noisier online launches of the era, we're still here nine years later. We thank (almost) all our First Week Founding Members for re-upping for a tenth year, and we hope our First Fortnight members will want to do the same as this first week of our new season draws to a close...
Topical Take
The Perfect Euro-Metaphor
The Eurovision Song Contest doesn't get a lot of attention in the United States, but years before the euro came along, it was the prototype pan-European institution...
The Mark Steyn Audio Show
The Great Satan
In case you missed Steyn's Clubland Q&A, here's the action replay...
Politics & Current Affairs
Choosing Their Words
If you're wondering what the US Secret Service do when they're not letting you sprint through the security checkpoint, well...
Politics & Current Affairs
The Strait Jacket
"Wars the world has lost interest in" is paradoxically a subject of great interest to me...
Politics & Current Affairs
Let Me Show You to Your Room
Distance lends a smidgeonette of enhanced perspective...
A Clubman's Notes
Oops! He Did It Again
Washington is ever more like Churchill's riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma...
Politics & Current Affairs
The Secret Service Makes Me Nervous
Steyn on yet another Trump assassination attempt...
Politics & Current Affairs
The Crossroads of Europe
Greetings from Ukraine. I'm in the Kharkiv oblast, which the huge numbers of Russian speakers all around prefer to call the Kharkov oblast. But, whichever your preferred vowel, this oblast is oh, such a blast. Last night, the actual Russians (from Russia, that is) tried to take a town about fifteen kilometres away from where I am...
Politics & Current Affairs
It's Still the Demography, Stupid
Twenty years ago this month - January 2006 - The Wall Street Journal and The New Criterion published the first draft of what would become the thesis of my bestselling book, America Alone...
Steyn's Song of the Week
C'mon Baby, Light My Fire
For Steyn's Song of the Week, we bring you this special column from Mark, about Ray Manzarek, Jim Morrison, and the Doors. Ray Manzarek of the Doors died last week, and, having lived out his three score and ten, will be denied the posthumous celebrity of his prematurely departed bandmate Jim Morrison. But Manzarek played a critical role in the group's most enduring song. This essay is adapted from Mark's book A Song For The Season: It was over 40 years ago today-ish that Sgt Pepper was going on about how it was 20 years ago today. That's to say, the "Summer of Love" is 46 years old: It's longer ago today than the summer of flappers and charlestons and bootleg gin was back in 1967. But, boomers being the most self-absorbed generation in ...
On the Town
Somewhere in France with You
A special D-Day edition of Mark's Serenade Radio show, turning the clock back to the sounds and sentiments of the era...
After America
The Swallows Skim, and All Is Hushed
A special Memorial Day edition on battle, sacrifice and remembrance - from the Civil War to the Great War to the unwon wars of our own time...
Steyn's Song of the Week
Some Enchanted Evening, Rodgers and Hammerstein, AND Frank Sinatra
Mark Steyn Club members and readers get a treat and twofer for tonight's Steyn's Song of the Week! Below, Mark gives the history, context, and story behind Some Enchanted Evening (from 2015). And today, Serenade Radio featured Mark's Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, listen here. In George Lucas' best film - no, not Star Wars Episode 12: The Force Awakens the Empire's Return of the Revenge of the Awakening of the Force, but American Graffiti - there's a scene where young Harrison Ford and young Cindy Williams are sitting sullenly in his '55 Chevy during a rather awkward moment in their relationship. Ford told Lucas he thought it might be a good idea to serenade her in a somewhat sardonic fashion. The director liked the idea, and they tried the ...
Steyn's Song of the Week
Who's Afraid of the Weeping Willow?
Today's episode celebrates an old friend of our host, the late Ann Ronell, who tells Mark about her two biggest hits...
On the Town
The Canine Sinatra
Welcome to this week's edition of Mark Steyn on the Town. On today's show, we start with Eurovisions past and end with the canine Sinatra...
Steyn's Song of the Week
Happy Birthday to You
There's really only one song with which we could celebrate The Mark Steyn Club's ninth anniversary...
On the Town
Centrefolds and Chaperones
On today's show, we start with playmates and end with chaperones...
Tales for Our Time
Jinns, Rosières, and Prince Bob
One of the most popular features of Tales for Our Time has been the music Mark chooses to accompany each story. So here, after many requests, is a sampler of the accompanying melodies from some of our tales...
Steyn's Song of the Week
Just a Gigolo
Mark traces the history of a very distinctive song from the twilight of the Habsburg Empire to the twilight of disco via an especially pitiful act of rock karaoke and the loss of the word "gigolette"...
On the Town
The Last Farewell
Welcome to this week's edition, coming to you live-ish from the delightful and historic city of Odessa...
Steyn's Song of the Week
Begin the Beguine
Mark in conversation with Artie Shaw and Julio Iglesias on a Cole Porter classic...
On the Town
Dancing with the Polovtsians
With so many ongoing Russian blasts across the oblasts, we enjoy a few extra Ukrainian blasts across the oblasts, with a brief detour into the good old days of the Polovtsian empire...
On the Town
Man, It's an Oblast!
Welcome to this week's edition. I'm weekending in Kiev, and so I thought we'd enjoy a bevy of blasts from oblasts...
Steyn's Song of the Week
Taxman
April 15th marks the end of "Tax Season" in America, and Mark has a seasonal song...
On the Town
You Don't Have to Be Bananas to Work Here
On this week's edition, being of a contrarian bent, we start by going beddy-bye and end at dawn. In between come an easy-listening take on a rock classic, and an extended cavalcade of Non-Stop Number Ones...
Steyn's Sunday Poems
The Whole Earth Is Our Hospital...
An Easter entry to Mark's anthology of video poetry - from T S Eliot's Four Quartets...
On the Town
Fools and Farewells
On this week's show we start in search of a standard and wind up getting a Handel on it. In between come an anglo-franco Caribbean, Japan's all-time biggest non-Japanese hit and Sousa's afternoon nap...
A Clubman's Notes
"The Moslem Character"
The conclusion of our seventy-ninth Tale for Our Time: The Quest of the Sacred Slipper by Sax Rohmer...
A Clubman's Notes
A Night Most Strangely Still
In episode twenty, Cavanagh and the girl with the violet eyes are hot on the trail of Hassan...
A Clubman's Notes
Yellow Silk and Hashish
In episode thirteen of Sax Rohmer's Mohammedan caper, thriller abducted hero awakes in a heady environment...
A Clubman's Notes
Islam Comes Knocking
In episode five, the forces of the Prophet manage to get the better of Scotland Yard's finest...
A Clubman's Notes
The Box Trick of Mohammed
In Part Three of our serialisation of The Quest of the Sacred Slipper by Sax Rohmer, Cavanagh suspects someone is trailing him...
A Clubman's Notes
Hands Off
Welcome to the seventy-ninth audio entertainment in our series Tales for Our Time. Sax Rohmer was at one point one of the biggest-selling authors in the world - and then the arbiters of our culture decided to eighty-six his most famous creation...
Tales for Our Time
The Prisoner of Windsor
A remote fantastical kingdom far from Europe's chancelleries of power... An unpopular monarch on the eve of his coronation... A ruling class of plotters and would-be usurpers... ...and a gentleman adventurer on holiday. No, not Ruritania in the nineteenth century, but the United Kingdom in the twenty-first...
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