Idiot's Delight is a radio show hosted by Vin Scelsa. It used to be on WNEW (102.7 fm in New York City), on Sunday night, from 8 to 2. Now it's on WFUV (90.7 fm in New York City, and streaming live at www.wfuv.org), on Saturday night, from 8 to 12.

On the show Vin spins a highly eclectic and yet discriminating mix of independant and classic rock, mostly. (I once heard him throw in some Claude Debussy .) It's "free form radio", which means that Vin plays whatever he feels like, supplies a running commentary, and often has some great guests in the studio. A good place to hear some obscure stuff.

Vin Scelsa begins every Idiot's Delight by saying the following:

There are three essential commandments:

Respect the Elders.
Embrace the New.
Encourage the Impractical and Improbable, Without Bias.

This seems to sum up his DJing philosophy pretty well. His show is an eclectic mix of artists, musical styles, and ideas, brought together by Vin's enthusiastic and highly opinionated commentary (e.g. "I hate Jesus Christ Superstar!") and long, rambling conversations with his guests, who (during the short time in which I was a regular listener) included Allen Ginsberg, Dan Bern, Dar Williams, They Might Be Giants, and Jill Sobule, to name a few.

Idiot's Delight is a play that was written by Robert Sherwood in 1936, as fascism was emerging in Europe. Then, in 1939, MGM released a film version of the play, which starred Cary Grant and Norma Shearer. The play/movie is about a hodgepodge group of people that are trapped in a resort hotel on the Austrian/Swiss/Italian border, as World War II is about to begin, according to Robert Sherwood. Some of the characters include: a German doctor who is on the brink of finding a cure for cancer, a newlywed English couple, a French patriot, a munitions dealer and his "Russian" lady friend, and an American show leader, accompanied by his six female "performers". While there are apparent stories behind each of the guests, the play/movie focuses mainly on the American show leader and the Russian woman, and their past interactions with each other. The group of individuals must survive each other as they wait to cross the Austrian border, and make their way to their desired destinations.

I have not seen the movie, but my high school recently performed the play, and, I must say that it is very entertaining. The story is very engaging, and the characters are very interesting. If the movie is even half as good as the performance that I saw, I highly recommend it.


Idiot's Delight is also a variant of solitaire. It is played with a standard 52-card deck (jokers removed). You begin by shuffling the deck, and starting four piles with one card in each pile, face up. You can then remove any card that is lower than another card of the same suit. For example: if you have ♠4, ♠A, ♥9, and ♠K, you can remove the ♠4, since it is lower than the ♠K. Also, it should be said that aces are high. After you have removed all of the cards possible, you deal another four cards, one on top of each pile. Repeat the process of removing cards as before. If at any time there is an empty pile, then you can place any card that is on the top of a pile into the vacant spot. You continue this until you run out of cards. The object of the game is to have only the four aces on the bottom of each pile (you will have no other cards than the aces).

This is a mildly amusing game that's good to play if you've got five minutes to waste. However, it is very hard to win at. Possibly the most entertaining aspect of the game is watching people's reactions to you playing, since it is nearly impossible to tell how to play just by watching someone. However, the game is appropriately named, since it takes little to no intelligence to play. It is interestingly named though, for the play, Idiot's Delight, makes frequent mention of solitaire, and how silly a game it is.

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