To follow up on Mark's note about Dylan Thomas audio: Salon has got the entire, eleven-volume set of Dylan Thomas recordings from Caedmon as free MP3 downloads. Subscribers get 'em by clicking, others will have to watch a brief ad. This is stupendous: there are few writers in the history of the world who read their work as well as Thomas. I nearly burst when I saw that the collection included his reading of "Lament," IMO his greatest-ever reading.
When I was a windy boy and a bit
And the black spit of the chapel fold,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of women),
I tiptoed shy in the gooseberry wood,
The rude owl cried like a telltale tit,
I skipped in a blush as the big girls rolled
Ninepin down on the donkeys' common,
And on seesaw sunday nights I wooed
Whoever I would with my wicked eyes,
The whole of the moon I could love and leave
All the green leaved little weddings' wives
In the coal black bush and let them grieve.
(Thanks, Sumana!)
