A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I was delighted to learn that Jim Roselle, radio personality on WJTN, had written a book about his 60-year career of broadcasting, in the role of something of a big brother to our community. Finally, I have an opportunity to tell you about the book in case you haven’t had a chance to read it.

The tone of Jim’s broadcasts are so warm, so welcoming, it’s like having that big brother to show us how to hold a baseball when we throw it and to recommend where to take a date whom we wish to impress and to introduce us to someone we might not be mature enough to appreciate at this moment, but who one day we will certainly be glad to have met.

With the help of journalist and author Walt Pickut, Jim has penned a book with the title ”Jim Roselle: The Best Times of My Life.” The book is a welcome blend of facts and anecdotes from the Jamestown in which Jim grew up, and the conversations which Jim has had in his many summers of broadcasting from various sites near Bestor Plaza during the Chautauqua Institution season.

Like Jim’s broadcasts, the contents of his books may ramble a bit, because there are so many subjects worthy of our attention, but every ramble is interesting and appealing, and the main point is always covered and detailed. I especially liked the sections of his book in which he has picked a subject for interview, then told something from his own life, on a similar subject, then has given us a short segment of the subject’s comments.

Supreme Court Justices, best-selling recording stars, controversial religious leaders, high-ranking government officials, and people from many walks of life each add a story or a belief to the wealth of the content of his book.

Jim writes about hiring bandleader Stan Kenton for a fundraiser concert for the Boys Club, and having Kenton ask him for a ride to his hotel following the concert, then sit with him for hours in the hotel’s coffee shop, talking about his life as a musician. Then he reports on an interview he did with Salamanca native Ray Evans, who won three Academy Awards for songs he wrote, and others which didn’t win awards but which live long in our memories. The television show ”Bonanza” has been off the air for a long time, but most people, on hearing its name, find themselves thinking and humming, ”BUM-budda-budda-budda…”

A chat with Margaret Hamilton, the actress and very kind lady who played the Wicked Witch of the West, from the classic film ”The Wizard of Oz,” inspires Jim to talk about the beginning of his own performing career at Little Theatre, when Dan Woodard, who was the company’s technical director, came out to the studio while Jim was on the air, tossed a script of the play ”Dracula” through the door, with the part of Renfield marked and the instructions ”Come tonight at 7” written inside the cover, and the radio personality, ending up playing an unpleasant role, and having a wonderful experience, doing it, just as Miss Hamilton did with the witch.

Jim has always understood that he was talking to people from here, and his theme is always about how very much you can do here, and how to get where you want and need to go from here.

It is fortunate that the different owners of the radio station have had the wisdom and good sense to set aside the materials and the space to store most of the recordings of Jim’s interviews, so that they could be transcribed for us to read now. They are priceless.

I’ve known Jim since we moved to Western New York in 1971. In all that time, I can’t remember one time that I, or someone I know, has asked Jim to use his radio show to help a play attract an audience or an author to alert the public to a new book, or a club or organization to increase participation at a parade or a reception or whatever, that he hasn’t gone out of his way to help in every way possible.

I’ve known Jim to give of his own time to serve on committees and boards, to accept the chairmanship of an event, and more. Some of the causes to which he has devoted his hard work have included the Boys and Girls Club, the Lucille Ball Little Theatre of Jamestown, and the James Prendergast Public Library.

My only regret of the book is that there is no index. Once we have read it and enjoyed it, we would like to use it to do research: who were those local women who remained Lucille Ball’s good friends for all their lives? The information is in the book, but it takes a bit of page turning to find some of them. Fortunately, the table of contents is quite specific, so you can find the names of subjects of interviews, though not the people they talked about.

While we’re on the subject, let me give you a partial list of interview subjects: Mark Russell, Bill Clinton, Dr. Ruth, Joyce Carol Oates, Roger Goodell, Bishop Spong, Michael York, Norman Lear and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. There are many more. The book is a treasury of information, both about our community and about its place in our world. I recommend it with great enthusiasm.

”Jim Roselle: The Best Times of My Life” was published by Falconer Printing and Design. It has 190 pages in paperbound edition, and is marked for sale at $22. You can buy it at any number of local booksellers, such as the Chautauqua Bookstore. You probably won’t need the ISBN number, but just in case, it’s 978-0-692-23930-8.

STILL FOOLIN’ ‘EM

”At sixty-five, I can do whatever I did when I was thirty-five, if only I could remember what those things were.”

That quotation sums up both the content and the style of comic Billy Crystal’s newly published memoirs. He has titled his book, ”Still Foolin’ ‘Em: Where I’ve Been, Where I’m Going, and Where the Hell Are My Keys?”

The book is mostly comic comments on Crystal’s life, mixed with background information on how ”Saturday Night Live” is filmed, who had the original inspiration for ”When Harry Met Sally,” the work necessary to host the Oscar broadcast, and other of the greatly successful film and television projects with which Crystal has been associated in his long career. There is also a healthy dose of sentiment, especially about his family, friends and the people who have helped make his successes possible.

Crystal began his career as a stand-up comic, then became involved in sketch comedy. He played an aging smoothy on ”Saturday Night Live” based on film actor Fernando Lamas, who famously proclaimed that it doesn’t matter whether you feel good, as long as you look good.

Then, he found his way into major films. These, in addition to Harry and Sally, include ”The Princess Bride,” ”Monsters, Inc.,” ”Analyze This,” ”Midnight Train to Moscow,” ”City Slickers” and many more.

This is one of the few celebrity memoirs which I’ve read after which I’ve had the feeling that I had a good idea of the writer’s actual personality. I’ve been in this game long enough to know that I might have been fooled, but it makes him seem like a very real person. Just for one thing, on a few occasions, Crystal says something which is downright mean about someone else.

Most memoir writers clean up their acts, so they sound like the greatest person in the world, although they usually hedge their bets by talking a bit about how they came to rely too strongly on alcohol to deal with stress, or they suffered so badly from that back operation that they trusted their doctors that pain pills wouldn’t be addictive. Crystal seems to be what he is. I hope so.

Crystal is physically small. He admits to being 5 feet, 6 inches tall. In many memoirs, that would make him actually 5-foot 2, but this seems real. Throughout his career, he has been physically courageous. He stands up to big bruisers who could probably crush him like a bug, and does many of his own stunts. He even did one at-bat in a professional baseball game, with the rival pitcher throwing the ball at his normal speed. He saw six pitches and even fouled one off, before striking out, requiring him to run until the umpire ruled it a foul ball.

His comment: ”The last time a Jew my age ran that fast, the caterer was about to close the buffet. It’s a good thing I didn’t have to try for second base, I would have had to stop twice to go to the bathroom.”

Crystal is married, and has been married only once. He and his wife, Janice, have two adult daughters, and he tells grandchild stories with the best of them. Once he took one of his grandsons to see one of his films. When they returned, he heard the boy ask his mother, ”Did you know Grandma is married to Billy Crystal?”

This is an entertaining book. It’s written in a very casual and conversational style. I’m sure there is a great deal that isn’t included, but there is a whole lot here, and it’s mostly extremely funny. The only caveat I would offer is that if you’re offended by ”big city language,” all the way up to frequent uses of the F-bomb, it might be stronger than you’d like.

The title, by the way, comes from the fact that before he has gone on stage, throughout his entire career, Crystal has looked into the mirror and said to himself, ”Still Foolin’ ‘Em.”

The book has 272 pages in hardbound edition. It’s marked for sale at $28, by Henry Holt and Company, of New York City. It’s on sale nationally, and can be found with ISBN number 978-0-8050-9820-4.

LOTHAIRE

Much as I love to sit down to a book which challenges my mind and informs me about the world in which I live, just occasionally, it’s nice to have some easy reading, mostly about nonsense which numbs the mind, rather than stimulating it.

Just such a novel is ”Lothaire,” by Kresley Cole, which was a No. 1 New York Times Bestseller. The book is the 12th of the author’s ”Immortals After Dark” series of novels. In August of this year, she published volume No. 14, so who knows how much further it will go. All of the volumes, according to the author’s website, present Cole’s view of the universe she has created, with each volume told through the eyes of a different superhuman protagonist.

A major character from one book may turn up to play a minor role in a different book.

My first thought, upon opening the package in which the book was sent to me, was that it wouldn’t make for much of a review, and I should focus on better literature, but as it happened, I was going through some stress and had just finished some heavier reading, so I thought I’d read 20 pages and see how it went. In fact, it was mindless fun – although a bit dirty, in parts – and it lifted the mood, so I finished it.

The title character of the book is an old, and very powerful vampire. He goes by the moniker ”Lothaire, the Enemy of Old,” and although he is officially immortal, he is surrounded by people and especially supernatural creatures who want to try their luck at killing him. Like so many vampires in contemporary fiction, Lothaire may be centuries old, but he looks like a film star.

I must admit, I suspect this is a book which probably appeals much more to women. Just the photo of model Paul Marron on the cover, with eyes tinted blood red, gives that away.

Cole tells us, in her version of vampire lore, that each vampire has one – and only one – destined bride. They can achieve the pinnacle of their powers only in league with their intended, and if they don’t find her, they gradually deteriorate into the walking dead.

Born in Russia to a vampire king and one of his mistresses, Lothaire was still a boy when his father tired of his mother and threw her out into the snow, where she was set upon by the traditional villagers with pitchforks and torches and burned alive, while her son saw everything from where she had hidden him.

In the succeeding centuries, despite the occasional setback, Lothaire has grown to a powerful adulthood, blessed with many talents and powers. He believes he has found his bride, in the person of Soraya, the Soul Reaper, a pagan death goddess. His problem is that a witch’s curse has put Soraya into the lovely young body of one Elizabeth Peirce. Elizabeth has grown up in desperate poverty in a rusted-out mobile home in the mountains of Virginia. I kept picturing Britney Spears playing the role.

Much of the book involves the vampire’s search for a magic ring which will extinguish Elizabeth’s soul, so that Soraya can always be present in her body. From time to time, while Lothaire seeks the ring, Soraya has risen to the top, so to speak, within Elizabeth, and basically killed everyone in the vicinity in horrible, bloody ways, and now Elizabeth is on death row preparing to be executed for crimes which her body committed but her soul did not.

Elizabeth is only a mortal, but she has had a tough childhood, so she decides her only hope of surviving this immortal mess is to seduce Lothaire, and convince him to use the magic ring to get rid of Soraya, while keeping Elizabeth.

There are a generous number of sex scenes in the book, and the details of who puts what, where, and how it feels, made me uncomfortable. If such things make you uncomfortable, you probably should pass up the opportunity to read the book.

Still the book is well plotted, the places, both real and imaginary, are fascinating, and the fantasy/reality is most enjoyable. The reader must decide for himself or herself whether to give it a chance.

”Lothaire” has 468 pages, in hard-cover edition. It was published by Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon and Schuster, Publishers. It is marked for sale at $25. You can find it with ISBN number 978-1-4391-3682-9.

WINKS

I hope, by now, that you’ve had a chance to see and hear the JCC production of ”Les Miserables.” A reader told me, recently, that I have made a habit of misspelling the name of that show’s music director. Apologies for that, Mary Anne Harp.

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A few weeks ago, I included a “Wink” that the professional touring company of the Broadway show ”Sister Act” will be coming to the Center for the Arts at the University of New York at Buffalo, on March 9. A reader phoned to share two additional facts about that touring show.

The same show will also be performed in Erie, at the Erie Civic Center, on Dec. 8. That’s at 811 State St. You can inquire about tickets at their website, at www.sisteractontour.com, or by phone at 814-452-4857.

The other interesting fact is that the music director of the entire production is Jamestown native Chris Babbage. Since graduating from JHS, he has gone on to play important roles in these professional productions: ”The Little Mermaid,” ”The Wizard of Oz,” ”CATS,” ”Smoky Joe’s Cafe” and ”Grease.” Those are just the ones listed in his bio, on the ”Sister Act website. Clearly, the arts are a very difficult lifestyle, but if you have the talent and work hard enough, you can get there from here.

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Now playing at Buffalo’s Irish Classical Theatre Company, one of the greatest plays ever written in our country: ”Death of a Salesman,” by Arthur Miller.

The play opened last weekend, and will be performed Thursdays through Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., plus matinee performances Saturdays at 3 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. It will run through Nov. 30.

The company performs in the Andrews Theater, which is located at 625 Main St., directly across the street from Shea’s Performing Arts Center. Purchase tickets at www.irishclassicaltheatre.com, or by phone at 853-4282.

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Due to extensive repairs and remodeling being done in the Buffalo History Museum by the city of Buffalo, the museum will be closed Dec. 1-8. If you’re planning a visit to the museum near those dates, I recommend phoning ahead before driving up. If you’ve ever had repairs and remodeling done, you understand why. The number is 873-9644.

Speaking of the museum, if you enjoy giving holiday gifts which are more special than average, each holiday season the museum holds a giant book signing, at which published authors from all over our area are present to sign copies of their publications. You can keep them yourselves, or give a special person a book signed to them by the author. This year’s event is Nov. 29, between noon and 2 p.m. Already 75 authors have signed on, to be present and to sign for the public, and more have probably been added since the news was released. The museum’s gift shop will be open, and will offer more unusual selections. The museum is located at One Museum Court, which is very near the intersection of Elmwood Avenue and Nottingham Terrace, in Buffalo.

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Instrumental musicians – especially young musicians – who are interested in orchestra performance, chamber music and private lessons, with a chance to work with professional teachers and performing artists at the 2015 season of Chautauqua Institution, are invited to audition at one of the sites listed below. Appointments for auditions must be made at least 10 days in advance. Recorded auditions are also accepted, and those must be received by Feb. 1. For instructions on how to submit recorded auditions, go to ciweb.org and follow links to instrumental music study.

Live audition dates and places are these: Jan. 27 in New York City at the Juilliard School; Jan. 28 in Rochester at the Eastman School of Music; Jan. 29 at Cleveland at the Cleveland Institute of Music; Feb. 5 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, at the University of Michigan School of Music; Feb. 10 in Houston, Texas, at Rice University; Feb. 11 in Evanston, Illinois, at Northwestern University.