LFTC - Letter From The Capitol

Death of a Megastar

Whitney Houston's passing retells an old tale....

Merry XMAS - from Bob Hope

For America's great soldiers....

UN Upgrade: Palestinian Strategy

What if Palestinian statehood is blocked?

A Soldier's Sacrifice, a Star's Sweetness

An instance of courage, and a touch of kindess...

Our Own Royalty on Wedding Day

On Wedding Day, what about America's royalty?....

Will High-Speed Rail Topple David?

Yet another reason to distrust high-speed rail....

American Royalty Departs: Edwin "Duke" Snider

Mantle & Mays had company in the '50s....

Black History Month: A Platinum Passage at 80

A true hero, unknown to most today, is gone....

NPR Fires Juan Williams & Jumps the P.C. Shark

Pundit Juan Williams showed class, NPR crass....

George Steinbrenner: The Death of Sports Civility

George Steinbrenner, 80, won BIG, but sold his team's--and baseball's soul....

A Fourth of July Remembrance

1942 gave us Fred Astaire's July 4 Firecracker Dance (2:46) from Holiday Inn.

Letter from the Capitol, LFTC

Jack Bauer's Fadeout--and America's

May 24 the Fox mega-hit show "24" closed out its last season.  What we can learn from its hero....

Drumming & Dancing in the Golden Age, Long Gone

Take 3 minutes and savor the kind of artistic grace gone down memory lane, never to return (3:19):

What Tiger Woods Can't Do With a Golf Club

Think Tiger can play golf?  Not like Fred Astaire in "Carefree" (1935) (1:45)!!....

Campbell's Class at CNN

Read Campbell Brown's farewell CNN statement and regret there aren't more like her in today's TV world.

Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, Conservative Politics

VP Charity: Begins--and Ends--at Home

The Washington Times reports that while the First Couple donated 6 percent of their income to charity, exceeding the 3 to 5 percent level typical of American families, VP & Mrs. Biden donated a piddling 1.44 percent.  As with the Clintons & Gores, the Bidens think charity comes from the public trough (rich taxpayers), so why give at home?  As for the Obamas, they earned $5.5M & paid just under $1.8M in taxes, a tad less than 1/3 of their income, far less then the sky-high marginal tax rates they wish to impose on folks earning more than $250,000--a sum less than 5 percent fo their household take.

Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, Economy, Conservative Politics

Rock Star Charity: Shakira Shakes Up Colombia

The WSJ reports on how rock superstar Shakira is funding schools in poor areas of her native Colombia, to the tune of millions.  Her artistry is more curves than music--but at least the music--more like muzak--is not noisy and the lyrics are tame.  Cheers for one entertainment industry icon who does genuine good, instead of sucking up to the likes of Fidel Castro & Hugo Chavez.

Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, Foreign Policy, Economy, Conservative Politics

Blue Angels Aloft! F-35 Adrift?

Enjoy this fabulous Blue Angels HD video (4:50)!

Meanwhile, Defense news reports that on April 1 (fittingly) the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter will exceed the 50 percent cost overrun Congressional budgetary benchmark from its revised per-plane cost baseline of $70M.  This is not unusual, even for successful programs, but the JSF was sold primarily not on its performance but its presumed cost savings.  Congress got an earful on the mess last week, with the Navy & Air force looking at big fighter shortfalls.  meanwhile, 16 percent of the F/A-18 Hornet models A thru D have been grounded by mechanical problems.

Which suggests that we should sell an export model of the F-22 Raptor to three close allies who desire to buy it: Japan, Israel & Australia.  This would keep the F-22 production line open, in case the JSF comes a cropper.

Bottom Line.  Definitely grand Blue Angels, but the F-35 is clearly less so.

Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, 9/11, National Security, Foreign Policy

ObamaCare's Fate?

This clip (4:50) may tell the story of how ObamaCare plays out.  Enjoy, and pray it proves true!!!!

Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, Conservative Politics

"Hail Hurva!" Israel Rebuilds

A wonderful WSJ op-ed recounts the history of Jerusalem's Hurva Synagogue, twice destroyed (hurva means "ruin") , now rebuilt a second time, in the style of the 19th century version.  Too many Palestinians blow things up, while Israel & Jews rebuild.  THAT explains Jewish plenty & Palestinian poverty.

Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, Foreign Policy

LFCT - Death of a Cold War Patriot

On Wednesday this week a quintessential American patriot passed on.  Charlie Wilson (1933 - 2010) was a Congressman (D-TX, 1972-1996) whose career was to an unusual degree the stuff of Capitol Hill legend, and perfect for a movie.  Smart, tough and movie-star handsome, a lady-killer and party guy--he was known for his fast-lane lifestyle--Wilson was also a serious legislator who played a key role in national security policy, most notably in helping obtain funding to aid the Afghans against the Soviet Union.  While playing on the national stage Wilson paid attention as well to his constituents.  WSJ political reporter John Fund contrasts the fun-loving Wilson with the corrupt pol who also died this week, John Murtha.

Two years ago I posted my LFTC review of the Tom Hanks - Julia Roberts 2007 hit film, which I reprint for today's larger group of LFTC readers....

LFTC - Vancouver 2010 Games: More Snow, Quieter Officials Please!

In "Curing the Hangover After Beijing" I wrote in The American Spectator on why the Olympics no longer match their founder's ideals, and how the Games should be reformed.  Below is the 2008 piece, whose recommendations (no surprise) remain unrequited, as Olympic officials prepare for another stomach-turning display of human-rights hypocrisy.  At least this time, the Games being in Canada, phony official pretensions of caring about human rights will not be tested.  And presumably Russia will not invade another Olympic country during these Games, as it did with Georgia in 2008, to the sadly predictable sounds of Olympic official silence....

LFTC - Karaoke Killings; Lap Dances for Haiti

A New York Times story on karaoke killings stands as a warning to aspiring karaoke artists: Your "My Way" rendering may not please audience members who prefer Frank's version.  Sinatra's anthem stands as a monument to what a great artist, even past his prime, could do for an otherwise eminently forgettable tune.  This du-wop rock 'n' roll star, and later lyricist Paul Anka fully understood, in taking an obscure French tune for which he wrote English lyrics with Sinatra in mind.  Karaoke killings teach, among other things, that a so-so song made famous by an iconic rendition by a legendary singer is made simply awful by bad singers.  So proceed on stage at your peril, non-Sinatras (an extremely large club from among all singers).  Enjoy an engaging, off-beat cultural tale.

Here is another off-beat cultural note: A Toledo strip club raised $1,000 for Haitian relief via charity dances.  Two Detroit strip clubs have set similar events, aiming to each raise $5,000

Here in the snowbound Capitol, we can use a birthday-suit event to raise money for snowplows for the city, though participants are well advised to do so indoors....

Letter from the Capitol, LFTC

LFTC - Super Sunday's Super Secret!

By now, everyone--even the Taliban--knows the final score in Super Bowl XLIIII--and should have read Dan Henninger's delightful tribute to the Super Bowl in Thursday's WSJ.  But the real back-story, reported exclusively by The Onion, was not picked up in major media: The Big Game only went ahead because last-minute diplomatic negotiations failed to resolve the dispute between the Indianapolis Colts & the New Orleans Saints amicably, that is, without Sunday's violence.

The sticking point over which the talks broke down?  What else: the final score.  Alas, the two teams simply could not agree.  So what can be done for next year, to peaceably resolve Super Bowl XLV?  Two proposals....

Start An Unfunny Year (Decade?) With Laughter

The year 2010 bids fair to be a very nasty, dangerous year, and the entire teens decade could well be the Shakespearean "sea of troubles" compounded many times.  So before getting to the depressing stuff, LFTC readers take note: The Miami Herald published (no, NOT Shakespeare....) Dave Barry's Year in Review 2009 on Dec. 26.  Enjoy, because you will surely NOT enjoy the posts that follows.

LFTC - Holiday Music Special: Best Wishes, LFTC Readers

Jazz up your holiday season with the late, all-time great Oscar Peterson going super boogie (4:27)!!!!  Gone two years already, Oscar, we miss you--I mean, we really, really miss you!!

My own holiday season was jazzed up by the epic record snowstorm that blanketed the District of Columbia over the weekend.  It forced President Obama to take surface transport from Andrews Air Force Base into DC, a concession to the Weather Gods that even global warming types must make.  (Let's send Al Gore a zero-carbon-emission sled for XMAS!)

LFTC is taking a holiday break and will return Monday, January 4, 2010.

Best Wishes to LFTC Readers.  That said, may all readers of Letter From The Capitol have a happy, healthy holiday season and may the New Year bring all friends of freedom and civilization a year of pleasant surprises.  And just as the first decade of the new century turned out far worse than expected, may the coming decade turn out to be far more pleasant than now appears in prospect.

LFTC - Conan the Comedian: Shatner's Star Trek Duel with Sarah Palin!

What with all the nasty political and other humor floating around these days, enjoy a surprise double appearance by William Shatner & Sarah Palin (approx. 2 min.) on Friday's Conan O'Brien "Tonight Show."  Shatner's look when Palin strolls on stage is alone worth the price of admission!!!!  Kudos for Conan!  (Strictly speaking, O'Brien is a comic, not a comedian, according to Milton Berle's dictum explaining the two, i.e., "A comic says funny things; a comedian says things funny."  But for alliterative title purposes I took poetic license.)  Palin posted nice backstage photos of her Tonight Show appearance, which include her appearing with Wounded Warriors, who were in the audience.

Enjoy as well these photos & excerpts of Palin's recent appearance at the annual Gridiron Dinner in Washington, DC.  Palin showed her sense of humor and delivered a few choice barbs at deserving targets.  The dinner is a production of elite journalists who comprise the Gridiron Club, with a tradition dating to its 1885 founding and where political leaders, including Presidents, are guests of honor and, in effect, roast themselves.

LFTC - Taking Everyone for a Balloon Ride

Dan Henninger sees in the recent "Balloon Boy" saga the blurring of lines between fact and fiction, with resulting growing skepticism--and cynicism--among the viewing public.  Such, he writes, makes it far harder for politicians to sell grandiose plans.  So does digital artifice, which the public now knows blurs the line between real images and computer-created images.  Stay tuned, and skeptical.

LFTC - Passage of a Piano Legend

Recently, Alicia deLarrocha, a true piano legend, passed on at 86.  This New York Times obituary gives details of her extraordinary career.  She was for me, after Artur Rubinstein, the supreme classical pianist I had the great good fortune to hear in concert.  I heard her many times over a 35-year period.  To all LFTC readers with a love of music, if you have never heard her, find her on YouTube and play a Spanish piece  Even Rubinstein, a great Spanish music player, conceded she was without peer in that repertoire.  Her Mozart sub-specialty was superb, and she played other composers superbly as well--even Chopin.  She also edited a definitive edition of the complete works of Granados--her prime teacher, Frank Marshall, has studied with Granados.

The NY Tiems piece presents her view of Spain's three foremost piano composers:

Ms. de Larrocha’s most enduring contribution, however, was her championship of Spanish composers. Although Arthur Rubinstein played some of this repertory, few other pianists outside Spain did, and none with Ms. de Larrocha’s flair. She made enduring recordings of Albéniz’s “Iberia” and Granados’s “Goyescas,” and helped ease those works into the standard piano canon. She also made a powerful case for the piano music of Joaquín Turina, a composer otherwise known mostly for the guitar music he wrote for Andrés Segovia, and she almost single-handedly built a following for Federico Mompou, a Catalan composer of quietly shimmering, poetic works.

Although she was often regarded as partial to Granados — her mother and an aunt were among his piano students, but he died before Ms. de Larrocha was born — she refused to cite a favorite.

“I don’t believe there is a ‘best’ of anything in this life,” she said in a 1978 interview with Contemporary Keyboard. “I would say, though, that Granados was one of the great Spanish composers, and that, in my opinion, he was the only one that captured the real Romantic flavor. His style was aristocratic, elegant and poetic — completely different from Falla and Albéniz. To me, each of them is a different world. Falla was the one who really captured the spirit of the Gypsy music. And Albéniz, I think was more international than the others. Even though his music is Spanish in flavor, his style is completely Impressionistic.”

The obit notes that the great New York Times music critic, Harold C Schonberg, himself once a pianist, wrote of her playing style:

Reviewing the concert in The New York Times, Harold C. Schonberg wrote of her Spanish set that “she had a way of idiomatically shaping a musical phrase that cannot be taught — a sudden dynamic shift, a note instinctively accented, a touch of the pedal, an application of rubato. Her rhythm was extraordinarily flexible. Obviously this music is in the pianist’s blood. She invested it with a degree of life and imagination that not many pianists before the public today could begin to duplicate.”

I was lucky that my own main musical mentor introduced me to the music of this great artist and took me to hear her in recital.  My mentor once found himself sitting nest to none other than Rubinstein, at one of deLarrocha's first New york recitals.  They chatted at intermission, and after  Rubinstein said, in a supreme accolade from one legend to another: "I think we had better both go home and practice."

Said it all, didn't he?

LFTC - Uncle Walter and Dangerous Dan

Reid Collins informs us of something I never knew: Walter Cronkite was pushed over the side.  He did not decide to retire March 6, 1981.  Uncle Walter actually intended to retire upon turning 65, on November 4, 1981.  He was pushed aside by his successor, Dan Rather.  Dangerous Dan couldn't wait all of 8 months.  He threatened to jump to ABC.  So the man who made CBS News, and exemplified television news in its 3-networks heyday, was unceremoniously dumped to placate his successor.  Apart from what this says about Dan, CBS does not look so pretty either.

Bill O'Reilly was at CBS briefly, including Cronkite's last days.  He said last night on the air that in 1984 he interviewed Cronkite, and that after, off the record, he told Cronkite what he thought of Rather.  Cronkite responded: "You're on to something.  He won't succeed, and shouldn't."

One final injustice: Due to Dan's dirty deed, Cronkite did not get to broadcast during the flight of STS -1 Columbia, the first space shuttle mission.  Launched April 12--exactly 20 years after Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit the Earth--STS-1's lift-off and first-ever spaceship touchdown runway landing April 14 would have been fitting as a capstone to Cronkite's long association with, and celebration of, America in space.

LFTC - "The Hurt Locker": America's Heroes Honored

Read this fine Washington Post review of "The Hurt Locker," a stunning film about our military's challenge in Iraq.

"The Hurt Locker" (2009), opened July 26 in NYC & LA; a second wave of roll-outs came July 10, to Washington DC and other major cities..  "Hurt Locker" is military-speak for where wounded are taken.  It is a gritty, realistic tribute to an Army bomb squad working in Iraq--desperately dangerous and essential to quelling the insurgency.  A regular LFTC reader attended the film with me yesterday, and perfectly captured its essence: it is more documentary than story.

But what a documentary!  Searing, with one 5-minute scene not for the faint of heart, the film educates us vicariously--to the degree that a film can--as to just how dangerous and wearing our military's mission in Iraq has been.  Counter-insurgency confronts soldiers daily with ambiguous situations where misjudgments can either lead to injury or death for soldiers, civilians or the bad guys (or all three).  The insurgents are stupefyingly brutal.  An outside power has two routes to victory: (1) extreme mass brutality, as the Nazis or Soviets or many Arab regimes or non-Arab Iran or North Korea would have done; or (2) winning local hearts & minds by putting protection of innocent civilian life first--even at the cost of higher force casualties and even if the beneficiaries are not notably grateful (or are, but are afraid to show it).  America, and its soldiers, have nobly chosen the latter--at great cost to our soldiers' lives, that they willingly, heroically accept.

Here is the film's official website.  The Video tab offers a trailer; the theaters tab gives the schedule.  Above all, LFTC readers, see this film.

LFTC - Michael Jackson's Ultimate Fans: Fred & Frank

I learned yesterday, from a source who knows vastly more than I do about Michael Jackson, that two of the all-time greats admired Jackson's talent: Fred Astaire and Frank Sinatra.  Jackson dedicated his 1988 memoir, Moonwalk, to Astaire.  Herewith the quotes:

“Oh, God! That boy moves in a very exceptional way. That’s the greatest dancer of the century”. - Fred Astaire

“I didn’t want to leave this world without knowing who my descendant was. Thank you Michael!”- Fred Astaire (shortly before his death)

“The only male singer who I’ve seen besides myself and who’s better than me – that is Michael Jackson.” – Frank Sinatra

Bottom Line.  Michael Jackson's life was a ghastly mess, with much that we understandably turn away from.  But the above quotes come from two all-time legends of America's Golden Artistic Era.  Neither was known to dispense praise casually nor were they fond of what came after the era they shaped.  Their work Jackson studied, albeit producing radically different artistic product.  So, MJ was indeed a titanic talent.  My source sent me this 1988 Jackson video (10:15); it shows what Fred & Frank were talking about.  Here is the famous 1984 Billie Jean (4:54).

Michael Jackson's music & dance were not my cup of, shall we say, tea.  But great talent is just that.  Ten days of saturation news coverage I could have done without.  And as I posted on LFTC after MJ died, the murdered Iranian martyr Neda Agha Soltan is potentially vastly more significant, if she catalyzes forces that bring down Iran's revolutionary fascist theocracy.  But talent is talent, and Jackson was TALENT.

LFTC - End of Celebrity, End of Songs Too?

Was Michael Jackson, as Dan Henninger argued last week, the world's last true celebrity?  Have song melodies now been interred by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, as bandleader Eric Felten writes for the WSJ Taste page (beginning a new weekly column)?

DH argues that Jackson's iconic status enabled him to define his image permanently.  But the global media fishbowl we live in, with TV & Internet 24/7, enables a nonentity like Anna Nicole Smith to dominate news coverage for a full week, as she did upon her death from a drug overdose.  DH writes:

It has taken some time to see how modern media squashed the life out of genuine celebrity. Web sites, TV and magazines shot Michael Jackson and his white glove into the sky like a Roman candle. But in the nature of fireworks, modern media then fired thousands of other people into the same sky -- singers, actors, athletes, talk-show hosts, psychologists, comedians, models -- and turned them all into . . . familiar faces. We're awash in the washed up.

After that well ran dry, they created reality TV, which took nobodies and turned them into somebodies. It is no coincidence that the weird final version of Michael Jackson died when cable TV was running "The Real Housewives of New Jersey." The bottom had been reached.

The one person who knew this would happen was Andy Warhol, who back in the 1960s produced silk-screened images of the same famous person stacked like cheesecakes at Costco. Liz Taylor times 10, rows of Mao, "25 Marilyns," "20 Jackie-Os." Warhol saw the future: fame on a conveyor belt.

A real celebrity is beyond reach. Today, to hang out with famous people all one needs is the ability to mouse-click. Constant clicking rubs the shine off anyone's glamour. Beautiful people have become a dime a dozen. Modern media and publicists had an answer for that, too: famous freaks. Britney and Lindsay in rehab. Strange adoption compulsions. Wacko Jacko himself, perhaps understanding the unstoppable downward logic of modern fame, created and then disappeared into a place he called Neverland.

DH concludes: politicians are the new celebrities.

Felten notes that many films today use canned American Songbook recordings made decades ago; rare is the memorable song nominated for Oscar, so the Academy now reserves the right not to award (or even nominate) any song.  The rare mega-hit, like Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On from "Titanic", is a rarity.  (It is also a mediocrity, with a monotonous melody overstuffed with suspension tones--music-speak for tones that resolve to a note a whole or half-step below), and stilted, jarring key changes.)

What does one make of all this?  Are the two related?

Bottom Line.  I think so.  The common denominator is thousands of TV channels & millions of Internet broadcast sites, that create an insatiable and gargantuan appetite for entertainment content, which cannot possibly be satisfied by high-quality content, because there is simply not enough talent to fill such space.  What really happens is not, I think, the end of celebrity as such, but rather the end of stardom as a necessary route to celebrity status.  Paris Hilton is not celebrated because she has talent, nor even for her looks, which while better than average are hardly sexpot standard.  Nor is she even billionaire rich.

Decoupling stardom from celebrity reflects and encourages the decline of art, in music and everywhere else.

LFTC - Goodbye Gale & Karl

Ladies first: This LA Times obituary captures how delightful actress/singer Gale Storm was.  She was pretty & talented--and, apparently, exceedingly personally gracious too.  For those of you who did not grow up in the 1950s and don't remember GS's two big TV sitcom hits, My Little Margie (once second only in ratings to I Love Lucy) & Oh, Susanna, read this lovely tribute to an oldie but goodie.

Now to Karl Malden's LA Times obituary.  The great character actor--whose performances not infrequently matched--even exceeded--those of the marquee stars in his films--passed away this week at age 97.  He played strong & weak characters with equal facility, provided a young Michael Douglas with an acting anchor to help lift the young man to super-stardom, and made American Express iconic.  The best measure of his excellence, by my lights, is that I am at a loss to figure out what I regard as his best performance, because so many were so superb.

LFTC: Mourning Michael 24/7

NRO's Jonah Goldberg wrote about Michael Jackson Friday, and said much of what I thought of saying but lacked the energy to write.  Courtesy of JG's piece, my work is done for me.  In a first-rate piece that I wish I had written, one that LFTC readers should read in full, regardless of their feelings about the King of Pop, JG captures the essence of what is wrong about the media madness of mourning Micheal 24/7:

"And while we’re at it, his relatively early death wasn’t “tragic.” He was one of the richest people in the world. He spent his money on perpetual childhood and he was perpetually with children not his own.

"Meanwhile, in the last ten days, we’ve seen or heard of remarkable people who’ve given their lives for freedom in Iran. We’ve heard of innocents killed because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. In the last decade, America has lost thousands of heroes in noble causes and thousands of innocent bystanders who were denied the simple joys of life through no fault of their own. Those deaths are tragic, and we're hard pressed to think of more than a handful of names to put with the long line of the dead.

"If anything, Michael Jackson’s life, not his death, was tragic."

Bottom Line. In the past twenty years, America has beccome Clinton-ized, Oprah-ized and Diana-ized: Clinton-ized in its growing fascination with scandal, at the expense of substance, in public life; Oprah-ized in its addiction to therapeutic approaches to life's problems, at the expense of practical coping; and Diana-ized in its infatuation with mega-celebrity, at the expense of extraordinary achievement.  Jackson was clearly a mega-celebrity entertainer, whose passing merited front-page attention.  But if the world has not lost its collective mind, as time passes the self-immolation of a monumentally self-absorbed entertainment superstar will be displaced in historical pride of place by the heroic, and truly tragic, martyrdom of young Iranian street protester Neda Agha Soltan, whose murder by a regime rooftop sniper energized the revolution of millions of Iranians against a cruel, atavistic theocratic tyranny.

LFTC - Hollywood Gets Iraq Right at Last, and Mr "He-eeere's Johnny!" Passes On

BIG EVENT today: a new film, The Hurt Locker (2009), opens at theaters today.  "Hurt locker" is military-speak for where wounded are taken.  It is a gritty, realistic tribute to an Army bomb squad working in Iraq--desperately dangerous and essential to quelling the insurgency.  Here is the film's official website.  The Video tab offers a trailer; the theaters tab gives the schedule.  The film opens first in NY & LA today; a second wave of roll-outs comes July 10, to Washington DC and other major cities.

Hollywood finally has done the right thing by the world's finest military--and America's finest citizens.  Let us hope more like this are on the way.

On an unrelated, softer program note, enjoy Ben Stein's warm tribute to the late Ed McMahon, the superb announcer who served as a perfect foil for the King of Late Night, Johnny Carson.  To those of us who were privileged to watch Johnny & Ed (and Doc Severinsen) in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, the great days of Carson's 30-year run, Ed was always a class act.  He kept his dignity while serving his boss, with gracious deference, never servile, always remembering who the King was and how much the viewers mattered.  Ed, we will miss you.

LFTC - PETA: Fly Them to the Moon

Last week People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) protested after during a TV interview President Obama swatted a fly.  PETA came out with a condemnation of swatting house flies.  In the spirit of song, with apologies to lyricist Bart Howard, herewith my plea re PETA:

"Fly Them to the Moon"

Fly them to the Moon
Let them live among the stars
Let them take their scolding show
To Jupiter and Mars
In other words, PETA gee
To other worlds, PETA get thee

LFTC - 1939: "It Was a Very Good (Film) Year"

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences is running a 1939 Film Festival in Los Angeles, celebrating the top ten films of what has been called filmdom's finest year.  Read the list, reflect that even a great picture like Gunga Din did not make the list, and remember grandeur gone on this Memorial Day weekend, as you weep for the poverty of film-making today.

LFTC - Jumbo the Elephantine Piano

Jumbo was a legendary circus elephant of the late 19th century, said to be 4 meters high (13 feet) at his death.  Here, in the early 21st, Adrian Mann, a teenager in New Zealand has completed an astonishing feat: he built the world's largest piano.  At 5.7 meters length from notes to back rim (18'7") it is nearly ten feet longer than the "D" Model Orchestral Grand Steinway and a full 9 feet longer than the Imperial 9'6" Bosendorfer 97-note grand.  An online video clip (4:35) gives only a flavor, without giving the full sound, but it is worth a look.  Then you will discover the other amazing device this one young man has already built.

LFTC - Farewell to a Greatest Generation Soldier & a Grand "Doc"

Wednesday Ray Nance, age 94, died; he was the last of the Bedford Boys, Irish-Americans who fought in World War II and landed on June 6, 1944 at Omaha Beach, where Nance was wounded upon landing.  Farewell to a Greatest Generation hero.  R.I.P.

Last Sunday another American hero passed on: Felix ("Doc") Blanchard.  This NY Times obituary offers superb narrative of the man's extraordinary feats, on and off the football field.  His 1945 numbers simply astonish, as does his courage in risking his life in 1959 to save lives in an English village by landing a damaged aircraft instead of parachuting to safety and letting the plane crash short of the field.  To sports fans of my generation his name was well-known, although his playing days ended the year before I was born.  Today's overpaid, over-ego-ed, over-the-top players hold no enchantment for me.  I wish I had seen Doc.  This is the only YouTube video showing the Doc in his gridiron glory days.  R.I.P.

Ray Nance did not gain the fame given Doc Blanchard, but Doc, along with the rest of us, surely would have saluted and celebrated Ray.

LFTC - Miss USA: Bigotry Bests Beauty, But Grace Tops Gross

Here is the video of Miss California's answer to the question re gay marriage posed her (0:59), that cost her the vote of one judge.  The LFTC reader may compare the winner (Miss North Carolina) & runner-up and decide if the result otherwise might have been altered; sponsor Donald Trump, who knows a thing or two about beauty contests, said that is why she lost.  As well, this MSNBC report (9;28) is excellent, pointing out that Miss C's answer was identical to that given by candidate Barack Obama during the 2008 campaign!  The offended judge thinks that Miss C is a bigot because she declined, while professing tolerance for those who choose or support gay marriage, to endorse gay marriage without qualification.  It is the judge who is the bigot.  Miss C sounds very sensible in her interview with Matt Lauer--in stark contrast to the boorish, self-righteous posture by the buffoon judge who deliberately marked her way down so she could not win.  Her 4/21 interview with Neil Cavuto (scroll down to find video link on Fox homepage) (8:20) adds class shown towards her rival contestants.

Asked by Cavuto her career path, the model said she was unsure.  Interestingly, she ruled out TV news, despite Fox's Gretchen Carlson having been a Miss America.  She would not rule out politics.  Which is even more odd, because although her views come across as well within the American mainstream she has no chance to advance far in politics.  She is simply too drop-dead gorgeous to do well with lots of female voters.  Sarah Palin's pretty girl-next-door looks are about the maximum the political marketplace will accept.

Beauty pageant scandals have been not infrequent events in past years, some concerning answers that got contestants in hot water.  Which tees up the key point for me: In addition to beauty, a contest winner who will represent the USA should show a measure of talent (part of Miss America but not part of Miss USA)--merit to join with the lottery looks jackpot she won, and devotion to some universally accepted good cause--not a political one but something like the March of Dimes, school literacy, whatever.  Why a 22-year-old is expected to answer political questions that candidates stumble over all the time, or show political skill in evading them--which is what the idiot judge intimated she should have done--is a mystery to me.  So why even ask?

My Verdict.  Miss California lost the prize, but won the after-match, by showing class, commitment to her principles and a grace in losing unfairly that is hard for anyone to manage.  She will surely contribute far more to society than the boor who stole a crown from her.

LFTC - Linda Ronstadt: Teaching Kids Music

Linda Ronstadt's March 31 testimony before Congress shows an entertainer keenly concerned with educating schoolchildren as to the joys offered by live music performance.  An uplifting read.

Lyricist Lawrence Passes On to the Sea Beyond

The LA Times obit on lyricist Jack Lawrence, who passed away last weekend at age 96, gives a good account of a career that included lyrics to All or Nothing at All, Tenderly and Beyond the Sea.  Each song has iconic recordings associated with a great singer--Sinatra, Clooney, Darin.  Darin's hit was the second English-lyric version of the French La Mer.  More from Wiki's entry re the song's history.  Compare the original French version by Charles Trenet (3:30), who composed it in 1943, by the Mediterranean, with Bobby Darin's 1960 original (2:59).  Kevin Spacey's "Bobby Darin" film version (4:48) adds choreography and irreverence plus feminine pulchritude, and is a video coda to the song's history.

Celebrity Worship: A Tale From the Crypt

As we watch, ever bemused, celebrity worship drive the rest of us dizzy, here is an NY Post story for the ages, starring one of the 20th century's most celebrated, and co-starring an anonymous celebrity-besotted idiot.  Plus ca change....

Los Angeles: Film Farewell?

Emblematic of California's fall from economic grace is that the City of Angels may appoint a "film czar" to make LA more hospitable for movie-makers.  From a peak of 71 major feature films shot in LA in 1996, and from 21 shot in 2008, there are in 2009 permits for but 3 films to be shot locally.  Increasingly, LA seems like the tragic aging star played by Gloria Swanson in "Sunset Boulevard," unable to accept that her salad days are gone forever and living a life of secluded, faded splendor.

Drumming Great Passes On

The LA Times eulogizes drummer Louie Bellson by quoting Duke Ellington, from who Bellson worked (as well as with Count Basie, Tommy Dorsey, Harry James, Benny Goodman and others) as the best drummer of all.  Fans of Buddy Rich & Max Roach and other top drummers might argue, but there is no arguing Bellson's greatness.  Those who, like myself, saw him on Johnny Carson were treated to superlative jazz percussion.  Legendary jazz pianist Oscar Peterson called Bellson "the epitome of musical talent. . . . I consider him one of the musical giants of our age."  Another link to Jazz's Golden age has left us.

Can Frank Sinatra Teach Barack Obama?

Yesterday I published Awaiting Obama: Can "The One" Learn from "The Voice"? at the American Spectator.  Obama's ascendancy eclipses the Baby Boomer Generation.  Although Obama, born 1961, is technically a Boomer, he really differs culturally.  He can learn from Greatest Generation cultural icon Francis Albert Sinatra.  My article explains what Obama can learn.

Classics: Improvisation Anew?

The WSJ reports on how a new generation of performers is restoring the tradition of improvisation that existed in classical music from Bach through Liszt.  Well worth a read, and salute those brave enough to improvise on the works of the masters of music.  It makes for a lively concert indeed.  There is nothing sacrosanct about current canons of concert presentation and musical interpretation.  We live in an era of extreme pendulum swing from the artistic libertine excess of the period ending around 1950, to artistic puritanism since.  Performers are supposed to divine how a composer would play a score, often without a score of known exact authenticity, with imprecise symbolic guidance, playing instruments sounding quite different than those of the composer's time, for audiences conditioned by cold perfection of recorded (re-engineered) sound.  One thing recording can teach us, though, is that composers do not always play their works as published, with variations sometimes extreme.  If composers change their minds, why must performers be forever wedded to some critic's notion of how composers play their pieces?  Free the pianist!!!!

Condi Plays Brahms & Dvorak

Take a few minutes to watch & listen as Condi Rice plays one movement of a Brahms Quintet (9:45) at an August 2, 2008 Aspen Music Festival concert with four music student players.  Here also are Part I (5:23) and Part II (8:35) of a Dvorak Quintet, played the same evening.

This is the first I have seen of her playing more than a few seconds.  Condi's only other YouTube posting was some wag who took a video of her playing at some diplomatic gabfest in Asia, and synched it with the audio of an Art Tatum jazz solo.  Condi, it happens, likes jazz but does not play any.  So the above postings are the first ever that run more than a few seconds of a brief television news clip.

Condi is quite good, fitting smoothly into the group, a task that is exacting.  Chamber play is in some respects more demanding than solo play, because a soloist can make errors and still recover.  Conversely, in a large orchestra lots of musical sins get buried.  But with a small group it is not possible to make more than minor errors without messing things up.  Condi's concentration, as befits one of the planet's most disciplined performers, is total, and, along with demon sight reading and keyboard feel, is essential for chamber play.  I am sorry I never got to hear her play in person.

Passage: Sydney's Symbol-Maker

Last week Jorn Utzon, Danish architect of the Sydney Opera House, passed away at age 90.  The LA Times obituary tells a surprising story of how he was chosen, against all odds, the trials & tribulations of the 14-year battle to finish the building, and its iconic significance in modern architectural design.  Well worth a read.