Welcome to the Thanksgiving Day edition of The Mark Steyn Show. With various American governors, mayors and public health officials forbidding the traditional celebrations, we have a special programme which we hope partially compensates. Mark has retooled some of his show's regular features, including his Poem of the Week, Last Call and Hundred Years Ago Show, to cover many aspects of this most American of holidays. Click above to listen.
Steyn will be back this evening with the latest episode of his current Tale for Our Time - P G Wodehouse's foray into the world of New York graft and gangsters, Psmith, Journalist. If you're one of that small brave band who prefer him in visual formats, he'll be guest-hosting the Black Friday edition of "Tucker Carlson Tonight".
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42 Member Comments
Wonderful!
Thank You, Mark.
Happy Thanksgiving my fellow Canuck!
fabulous show...and amazing historical references and connections... truly astounding!
thanks
One of my many blessings were my teachers who taught me history and encouraged me to continue to learn more beyond the classroom. I give thanks to Mark for shining the light on the darkness of our sudden non-history America.
Oh.... what these current generations have missed.
Mark replies:
Thank you, Ron. I hope you had a great Thanksgiving.
Mark,
What a lovely story about your first Thanksgiving in the States. May I ask, what drew you to move to New Hampshire originally?
Hope you and yours had a great Thanksgiving!
A cornucopia of beautiful memories, verse and melodies of giving thanks from beginning to end. What a gift you give to us all, Mark. I want so much to be grateful for my blessings today but things really have changed. It was the first year I felt like Thanksgiving was a big tasteless nothing turkey burger. But your Thanksgiving Show saved the day. Many thanks! God Bless you and yours!
Mark: FANTASTIC Thanksgiving show. What a great tribute to our forebears. Thank you for YOUR love and caring as deeply as you do for freedom and Liberty. Best regards, Darrell Hungerford, 12th generation American
Mark replies:
That's impressive, Darrell. Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.
Happy Thanksgiving to Mark, his staff, and my fellow club members. I am thankful for all of you. You have been a true blessing to me.
Funny how the hyphenated Americans never include the word "English." Katherine Hepburn, incidentally, used to claim descent from James Hepburn, fourth Earl of Bothwell and infamous third husband of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. Since Bothwell had no male descendants, I am a bit sceptical, but, if she was a genuine Hepburn, I am an extremely distant relative. I'd prefer to be related to Audrey, though.
By the way, Mark, with your encyclopaedic knowledge of music, can you resolve, please, the chicken-and-egg thing about the melodies in Dvorák's Ninth? Are they American tunes, or are they Bohemian ones?
Hi Owen, I have no idea whether Katherine Hepburn was a descendant of Bothwell but I remember reading in a biography of Mary Queen of Scots that Bothwell died as a prisoner in a Danish castle after being chained to a pillar for ten years (!) His body was buried in the vault of a nearby church and in the 19th century his descendants tried to claim the purported remains known as 'Bothwell's Mummy' but did not succeed. Perhaps Katherine Hepburn was a descendant of one of them? Mary Stuart sure knew how to pick them, the poor lady. Mind you, he wasn't as bad as Darnley.
As a foreigner, I like Thanksgiving because it is so completely American, a bit like high school proms, dime stores, Homecoming Queens (still not quite sure what they are) certain words spelled without including the 'u' and so on. They're things that non-Americans such as myself always liked reading about and seeing portrayed in films and TV shows because they were different and unique seemed to represent something of the independent spirit of the USA. Hopefully that spirit might make a comeback one day soon. Happy Thanksgiving all :)
Bothwell raped Mary Stuart. I'm pretty sure that it doesn't get badder than that. Darnley was insane. Bothwell was plain evil. Those Scandinavians knew what they were dealing with.
Mark, I have a suggestion for a Poem of the Week. I have been thinking about Lewis Carroll's 1871 nonsense verse, "The Walrus and the Carpenter." I re-read it today, and it hit me like a ton of bricks that we are the oysters. Social Media and Big Tech are the Walrus and the Carpenter. You might be the eldest Oyster who stays the oyster-bed since you steer somewhat clear of Twitter and Facebook, but you're an oyster all the same. Everything is such a mess, what's real and what's a lie are all mixed up, the press won't report the news, Merriam-Webster changes words' meanings in real time as they are being used to turn more and more on its head, etc. It's like the sun and moon both out at the same time. In the poem, you'll recall, the sun was shining bright even though it was the middle of the night. Nothing makes sense. The poem seems so on-topic for current events even if the poem is about 150 years old. Oh, and alas, we're the oysters in my analysis of the poem. Please consider reading it in the Poem of the Week segment.
I enjoyed today's show. On this Thanksgiving, I am grateful to be a member of the MarkSteyn Club. And that is saying something since I tend to be much more like Groucho Marx regarding club memberships. Happy Thanksgiving.
Mark, what a masterful "orchestration" your Last Call was today: a fascinating presentation of the extraordinary and diverse cast of characters descended from that brave band of pilgrims, wrapped in the background strains of the New World Symphony. We do have so much to be grateful for, yet current events and cultural disintegration seem destined to forfeit, even trample that heritage. Thank you for your courage and your voice on behalf of the USA.
Mark,
Happy Thanksgiving. I always enjoy the shows and probably should relay that in comments more often. I especially enjoyed the instrumental music you played during your intro to the Thanksgiving song. If my memory is correct, it sounded like a lovely rendition of "I Danced in the Morning".
Mark replies:
Indeed it was, Susan - "Simple Gifts", to give it its Shaker name, but in a pared down chamber-trio orchestration, which I generally prefer to, say, the Copland full orchestral treatment. Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving back atcha.
Lord of the Dance is how I've known and loved it and through countless boring sermons I would flip to that song of the hymnal and sing it to myself, doing my best to memorize the words. Until that one time when they played it in church in Portsmouth and I sang it out loud, without looking at the words, to the horror of my wife and kids. The most beautiful instrumental I know of, which isn't saying much. But to think it was a shaker song, does that mean that maybe it was created in NH? If so we'll never top it.
On YT, there is a starkly beautiful dance performance of the "Ballet for Martha", which is all Copland knew of the project when he wrote the music. (The title "Appalachian Spring" and plot came later.) Featuring Martha (Graham) herself. Rapturous, and most dance leaves me cold.
Mark is absolutely right on the small-scale scoring: so much more true to the unornamented Shaker ethos. It was originally scored for 13 instruments--nine string (incl double bass), and one-each piano, bassoon, clarinet, and flute. The full orchestration is a little blowzy, even lewd, to my ears. If you've ever seen a rebroadcast of Edward R. Murrow's "Harvest of Shame" documentary, you can hear that lovely little tune pimped out like the whore of Babylon as the title theme.
Copland had this much to go on: Graham wanted to create a ballet on "an American theme". And with that he set about to invent an American sound. The Shaker tune is lovely, and the variations he spins around it are brilliant, but to me--your experience may differ--the "American-ness" of the score lies in the meandering minutes of slow music (marked "Very Slowly" at the head of the score) that opens and closes the piece. A music as wide and open as the American landscape. I don't associate it with Appalachia itself (as neither did Copland--indeed the Shakers are more identified with New England, though they did establish communities in Ohio and Kentucky, close enough, I suppose). But Martha Graham did, or came to do so. Do go find the video. Your life will be enriched by it.
PS: We visited one of the old Shaker communities, Hancock Shaker Village, in Western Mass a few years ago. Definitely worth a visit and even a revisit. It's a museum now, but still a working farm, with meat and veg shares available to the locals. And available for private events--weddings, corporate retreats, even a Steyn Club mixer some day?
Harry Lime ("The Third Man") may have been wrong about Switzerland and cuckoo clocks -- and much else, but he was correct about the need for conflict/risk that drives creativity...very glad to hear MS give attention to the importance of risk taking/living. It wasn't Orson Welles that was much on my mind today in the garden, although some movie/actor/director/writer is usually playing through. It was Lillian Gish in "The Night of the Hunter" -- kept thinking of her (Rachel) saving the children...and wondering when enough adults (matrons and all) are going to stand up and stop what's going on by confronting the fear and refusing to give in to it.
Mark, I skipped football to listen to your show and I'm glad I did. Thank you. P.S. I re-up my membership in a couple of days and your club is worth every cent.
Mark replies:
Thank you, Michael. For us rugby types, "well, it beats football" is somewhat of a parsimonious endorsement, but on this day I'll take it. Happy Thanksgiving to you!
Happy Thanksgiving, Mark. Hopefully, there is a little bit of Daniel Boone trailblazer in all of us.
Hi Mark,
Wonderful show. I keep thinking of your phrase, "overwhelmed with generosity." We are a good people.
Happy Thanksgiving, one and all!
And thank you, Mark.
John
Mark replies:
Thank you, John. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family.
Superb show today, Mark.
Happy Thanksgiving Day.
The briefly mentioned Myles Standish of courtship fame, Captain of the Militia of the Founding Fathers, was America's first Manx American. The frequent references to him to being an Englishman are incorrect, although the family has deep roots in Lancashire. He was born in Ellanbane, Lezayre, Isle of Man in 1584. The Isle of Man is still not actually part of Britain, although the Manx are still loyal subjects of The Queen.
Myles settled in Duxbury. I don't think his descendants include Dan Quayle (44th Veep) of Potatoe fame and Manx lineage, but Myles helped keep your Thanksgiving table's founding family (and others alive), that their descendants could flourish and be brought to us today.
Happy Thanksgiving Mark!
What a masterful montage near the end of the show! I had completely forgotten about Ashley Judd's ridiculous "nasty woman" recitation. It harkens back to the good ole' days when fading celebrities could make fools of themselves in front of large crowds.
What an unexpected gem; a Thanksgiving miracle, even! Thanks to you and all who make you possible. And thanks to all Clubbers great and small. We ain't got it so bad.
Thank you, Mark.
Mark, I don't know how you do it, but somehow you captured here in this lovely, wry, touching tribute to a national holiday, like those lightning bugs we used to chase, the country I used to live in, the one I grew up in, the one I thought I had passed on to my kids - I'm beginning to think you're more American than all of us put together and your memory is long, for that I am profoundly thankful - and where you find some of these little nuggets of information I can only say, your research team is brilliant! Everything you do is thoughtful and measured but this one, Mr Steyn, this one I think you outdid yourself, you reminded me of why 75 million of us were not wrong and being thankful for what came before and grasping its integrity is why I'm still thankful. It's not over. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving all!
Good use of "lightning bug", Beth. I was dragged into a marital set-to over lightning bug vs firefly. I suggested that while I myself said firefly, I had always heard lightning bug as well, and found it charming. Perhaps a regional difference? Neither side found my counsel of any use. Man up and pick a side, they might have said. Very well: God bless lightning bugs.
Regional difference (add glow-worm too)...and it's neither a bug or a fly in taxonomic terms. It's a beetle.
Oh Josh, I never thought of it before, I guess they are 'fireflies' (or beetles?) I was born on Long Island but spent my childhood just outside DC, in Rockville when DC was a truly 'southern' town. We girls were expected to wear gloves, dresses, prim hats (to block the sun) and once adults were out of sight we ran wild in the evenings chasing after those bugs! Lol back then they were still putting in Georgia Avenue! The biggest deal going was when the Apollo capsule went on view down at the NEW Air and Space Museum on the Mall, poking our heads inside was a shock, I still recall the horror and excitement at the thought that anyone would blast into space in that thing!
As for lightning bugs it's just what we kids called them, and if you ran around barefoot, which we did on muggy endless hot swampy nights in Maryland, chasing after them, you also squished through every nasty slug which oozed from the grass or soil or wherever and to this day I can still feel them!
A love letter to America. May Freedom forever ring.
Sic transit gloria mundi
We are at the leading edge of realization of what we've lost.
I've been meaning to thank Mark for being able to elicit smiles and even audible laughter from me, no small achievement these last few months.
His wry observations on current circumstances are most welcome, even when he's at his most curmudgeonly and when I'm at my wits end. Today was more sombre but still succour for our testing times.
Ian,
Thank you for saying the above better than I could. A Happy Thanksgiving to you, Mark, and all the members of the MSC!
Appreciate the kind words Gary. Happy Thanksgiving to you and all your nearest and dearest.
Apologies Garry, for the mistake with your name.
Ian,
NP with the "mis-spelling". If that's the worst thing that happens this year, I'm good. I have been asked why I have two "r"s in my name. I reply,because three would be stupid.
The very best to you and yours!
Happy Thanksgiving everyone. To hell with all the self-appointed covidgruppenfuhrers across this land. I'm just a few minutes into the show and already it's been a great way to start the day.
Sal,
Thanks for the use of the word "Gruppenfuhrer". You beat me to it. As I was listening to Mark's summary, it also popped into my head as being the most appropriate description of these people.
Anytime Garry. I confess to being inspired by Mark's use of the term "coronagruppenfuhrer" in one of his posts early on this mess. It's not too far fetched an idea at this point to think that some people have thought of Nazi Germany and post war East Germany when crafting their covid control policies. Heaven help us to suffer these fools.
I read a while ago, that the standard response from Nazi period German police, military and other "helping groups" to questions about why the "rules" were being imposed was, "It's for your safety." Heaven help us indeed!
Not far fetched at all considering Sen. Dodd (the senior) crafted parts of the US Gun Control Laws of 1968 from historical experience gained being in Germany for the Nuremberg trials.
Happy Thanksgiving!
From the Hopman family to yours, wishing each of my fellow Club members a happy and blessed day of thanksgiving to our Creator!