Tag: Pobba

Little Songs on Big Subjects

When we were very little, my brother and I had a record entitled Little Songs on Big Subjects. Sung by The Jesters, one of the first groups to record commercial jingles, the tunes, written by Hy Zaret and Lou Singer, emphasized tolerance. Zaret, who died in 2007 just a month shy of 100, told me in 2002 that he thought of the songs as short, catchy jingles.

We played the LP until the grooves wore out.

Little Songs on Big Subjects was a big hit. In 1949, The New Yorker, in a Talk of the Town Continue reading “Little Songs on Big Subjects”

Little City in the Everglades

Everglades City

I stood on the bottom coast of Florida, with the Gulf offshore, mangrove and grassy everglades in every other direction, two hours to Miami, but times away from big town currency and gloss. There are no big boxes, chain motels, or fast food franchises in Everglades City. It doesn’t look like Interstate Everyplace, USA. It looks like what it is: a tiny (pop. 513 in 2004), off-the-trail village that lives on fishing and just enough tourism.

Continue reading “Little City in the Everglades”