Friday, November 22, 2013
November 22, 1963
50 years ago today.
Just another Friday afternoon concert by the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
But the BSO music director, Erich Leinsdorf, had some news to break to the audience.
Listen to the audience's reaction...
Read more at the NPR music blog.
7 comments:
I work in downtown Dallas. There is an "X" on the road that marks the spots and it is a constant reminder (and embarrassment). I use to drive by it daily and no matter the time of day, there was always a group of people there. I understand with the recent road construction they've torn up the streets and the "X" has been removed. We were talking about it today and no one knew for sure who put the "X" there. Some thought it was the nearby JFK Museum and others thought it was a conspiracy group. Does anyone know?
I was going to write a "where was I when I heard the news" post but it would have been way too trivial and banal for such a solemn moment. The collective gasps on this recording still send chills up my spine and remind me of how I think we all felt when we heard, and I thought they captured the impact and emotion much more eloquently than any words of mine could.
I was only a few months old, living in the city where it happened, but the impact of the moment never fully realized. My frozen in time moments are later in life. This one is a history lesson and yet I continually retrace his steps. Work close to where it happened, routinely drive over the spot where it happened, visit friends at Parkland Hospital where he died, even had a history teacher that was in the picture standing close to Oswald when he was shot. Never really remembered but always reminded.
I wonder how much of the audience was present at the end of that piece? Imagine how much slower the news spread decades before the internet and smart phones.....Think about this: the media actually published Kennedy's motorcade route prior to its carrying through. Insane in retrospect. Hindsight is surely a bitch
I was 13. Namoamidabutsu. ~Pandabonium
"JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters" by James W. Douglass.
“Right now, I ask all of you—please please, read JFK and the Unspeakable! I cried all night reading it, and didn’t sleep a wink. It is a book that could make us stand up and change the world, right now. Maybe we can save the world before it blows up. Really.”
(Yoko Ono)
"In JFK and the Unspeakable Jim Douglass has distilled all the best available research into a very well-documented and convincing portrait of President Kennedy's transforming turn to peace, at the cost of his life. Personally, it has made a very big impact on me. After reading it in Dallas, I was moved for the first time to visit Dealey Plaza. I urge all Americans to read this book and come to their own conclusions about why he died and why -- after fifty years -- it still matters.”
(Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.)
I was wondering the same thing about the concert Baydog.
And the news did spread a little more slowly back then. I didn't hear it until about 10pm in the UK which was over 3 hours after the assassination. I just happened to be out with some friends and away from radios and TV. MY parents heard it on the evening TV news and told me when I came home.
And, yes, the motorcade route was in the newspaper. They wanted the crowds to turn out to see the president.
I didn't realize it at the time, but it was probably the last day of my childhood.
I was fourteen, a Sophomore, and already struggling with the new responsibilities we face at that age. This would be the first of a series of horrific, violent public events that rocked that decade and set us on a new course, for better or worse.
I was no wiser, but the comforting naivety of youth was fast slipping away.
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