Word: harlan
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...narrative voice of Harlan Egalton in Gayl Jones' most recent novel is bold from the book's start, seeping out of the first pages with a flavor as pungent and distinctive as the mustard sauce sardines she nibbles when we first meet...
Like sardines in mustard sauce, Harlan's accent has a taste whose enjoyment requires some concerted cultivation. At first whiff, the quirks of her character are so sharp as to be repulsive. Her prattling naivete as subtly disturbing as a toddler playing with a loaded handgun, Harlan gabs about everything from slavery to the aesthetic of rock-star fashion with the same maddening equanimity, made worse by her mingling of each topic's catch-phrases with the provincialism of her exaggerated Southern accent...
...annoying as they are at first, though, these anomalies soon find explication as the narrative of Harlan's life unfolds, rendering them the endearing nuances of a magnificent woman rather than the peevish traits of a foolish stranger...
Under the direction of three conductors-Zalmen Motek, Evan Harlan and Timothy Steele-the orchestra pulls off the true to their style Klezmer songs and wildly outrageous parodies of Yiddish familiars with grace and ease. Particularly spectacular is Composer Mlotek's "Geography Song," a parody of a 1947 folk song by Aaron Lebedeff. Here Mlotek and musical adapter Hankus Wetsky are successful where Brustein fails; they masterfully adapt the familiar melodies and lyrical stories which are so much a part of Yiddish culture into vibrant and enjoyable pieces which augment and respectfully recognize their source. The music of "Shlemiel...
BORN. To TONY RANDALL, 77, TV series The Odd Couple neatnik Felix Unger, and second wife HEATHER HARLAN, 27, an actress; his first child, Julia Laurette; in New York City...