Molly

To celebrate Molly Ivins’ birthday today, I’m reading Shrub: The Short But Happy Political Life of George W. Bush, mostly because that was the only Ivins my branch library had available – what I was really looking for was Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She?

Molly Ivins back in the day.

That book spent more than a year on the Times’ best-seller list and the story of the title is very nice – Ivins had said something about a local pol in  her newspaper column that got so many people outraged that her employer – the Dallas Times Herald – used an aggrieved reader’s question for publicity purposes and Ivins later took it for the title of her book.

What she’d said about the Congressman was “if his IQ slips any lower, we’ll have to water him twice a day.”

If Molly Ivins seemed excessively acid-tongued, you have to see her in the context of Texas politics, and nobody explains Texas politics better.  In Shrub, she points out that governor is the fifth most powerful job in the state – after lieutenant governor, attorney general, comptroller and land commissioner, and in fact, ‘given [Bush's] record, it’s kind of hard to figure out why he wants a job where he’s expected to govern.’

She was cynical, satirical, ironic and dead serious.  She was everything a political writer should be, because fundamentally she was passionate about her country. And she was often hilarious, because only humor can keep the caring sane: ‘I still believe in Hope – mostly because there’s no such place as Fingers Crossed, Arkansas.’

Ivins wrote hundreds of columns and articles – a good selection can be found at AlterNet and more at her syndicate.

Molly Ivins (Smith ’66, btw) lost her struggle with breast cancer in 2007 at the age of 62.  She is very much missed.

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There aren’t many journalists still around who served in WWII but Daniel Schorr (he was in Army intelligence), born the last day of August in 1916, was such a one until last summer – he died about a month before his 94th birthday and was still going strong with a commentary on NPR. His accomplishments were many and the full story can be found  here.

A compendium of ‘useful intelligence’

In 1841, Rufus Porter – scientist, inventor and painter of more than a hundred murals – bought a weekly

Rufus Porter

magazine called the New York mechanic.  He moved it to Boston and renamed it the American mechanic and published articles mostly on his own inventions and advertised the patent agency he’d started.  The mechanic lasted for 102 issues and then closed.

But in 1845, Porter started a new magazine that promised

“Each number will be furnished with from two to five original Engravings, many of them elegant, and illustrative of New Inventions, Scientific Principles, and Curious Works; and will contain, in addition to the most interesting news of passing events, general notices of progress of Mechanical and other Scientific Improvements; American and Foreign. Improvements and Inventions; Catalogues of American Patents; Scientific Essays, illustrative of the principles of the sciences of Mechanics, Chemistry, and Architecture: useful information and instruction in various Arts and Trades; Curious Philosophical Experiments; Miscellaneous Intelligence, Music and Poetry. This paper is especially entitled to the patronage of Mechanics and Manufactures, being the only paper in America, devoted to the interest of those classes; but is particularly useful to farmers, as it will not only appraise them of improvements in agriculture implements, But instruct them in various mechanical trades, and guard them against impositions. As a family newspaper, it will convey more useful intelligence to children and young people, than five times its cost in school instruction…”

Porter called it Scientific American and 166 years later it is still providing useful information.

Within six months, however, Porter sold the magazine to two businessmen who made it a financial success while he stayed on as editor.  During his 92 years, Porter invented clocks, railway signals, a distance measuring appliance, a horsepower mechanism, a churn, a life preserver, a cheese press, and a revolving rifle. He was another one of those enterprising 19th century Americans for whom all things were possible – he even offered tickets – for $200 – on his prospective steam-powered airship which nearly, but not quite, got off the ground.  In 1849.

Happy anniversary to SciAm.

A mighty wind

Speaking of hurricanes, this is the anniversary of one of the worst in our history, though we don’t have much to go on in terms of hard facts.

It happened in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1667 – and no doubt in other places that weren’t actually places yet. The storm swept up from the Lesser Antilles, but instead of tracking up the coast – the normal route – it made a sharp turn midway and moved west.

Jamestown colony

Jamestown, a really poor choice for a settlement, was sited on Jamestown Island, a swampy sand bar just 40 miles from the Atlantic Ocean; its geography had been one of the factors that had made it so hard for the English to get a foothold in the new world.

Men of sense were already moving inland and in another thirty years Jamestown would lose its position as capital to Williamsburg.

Here, published in a London paper, is an eyewitness account:

 ”. . .this poore country is now reduced to a very miserable condition by a continental course of misfortune. On the 27^th of August followed the most dreadful Hurry Cane that ever the Colony (Jamestown) groaned under. It lasted 24 hours, began at North East and went around northerly till it came to west and so it came to Southeast where it ceased. It was accompanied with a most violent rain but no thunder. The night of it was the most dismal time I ever knew or heard of, for the wind and rain raised so confused a noise, mixed with the continued cracks of failing houses…..The waves were impetuously beaten against the shores and by that violence forced and as it were crowded into all creeks, rivers and bays to that prodigious height that it hazarded the drowning of many people who lived not in sight of the rivers, yet were then forced to climb to the top of their houses to keep themselves above water.

“The waves carried all the foundations of the Fort at Point Comfort into the river and most of furnished and garrison with it…..but then morning came and the sun risen it would have comforted us after such a night, had it not lighted to us the ruins of our plantations, of which I think not one escaped. The nearest computation is at least 10,000 houses blown down, all the Indian grain laid flat on the ground, all the tobacco in the fields torn to pieces and most of that which was in the houses perished with them. The fences about the corn fields were either blown down or beaten to the ground by trees which fell upon them…”

It’s hard to believe that that many houses were destroyed since the estimated population of all the American colonies was just a little over 120,000, but no doubt it seemed like destruction on a major scale.  While the sun may have shone briefly the morning after, other accounts describe another week and a half of heavy rain.  Altogether a great shock to those reared in the gentler climate of England.

And for those struggling to survive – who really had very little – there was now even less.

Musically inclined

Historyorb gave Branford Marsalis two birthdays this week – today is the right one and thus we end arts appreciation week on a high note.

The Marsalis family is not unlike the Bachs – outstanding musicians in every generation. Here’s a link to a really historic clip of Ellis Marsalis Jr. and his four sons.

But back to Branford – the first clip is amazing, but somebody pulled the plug, so you can recover with the second.

Oi vey

It’s one thing after another with the computer – the latest hiatus due to a display gone to plaid (almost literally)   and the search for a new monitor.  Now, next to the Mac is a Hannspree. (So the guy at the computer store says when did you buy it and I say four years ago and he says oh yeah four years – that’s why they give you a three-year warranty…)

We were going to have arts appreciation week since birthdays 8/22 to 8/26 included Debussy, Dik Bruna, Leonard Bernstein, Marlee Matlin, Steven Fry, Ruby Keeler, Branford Marsalis, Rufino Tamayo and Walt Kelley.  All wishes are belated now –  except Tamayo tomorrow and Kelley today and  there is no way Walt Kelley is not getting his due.

An illustrator and animator for Disney pre-WWII, Kelley struck out on his own in 1948 with the wry little possum of Okefenokee Swamp, Pogo.  Pogo was not the first political cartoon character ever, but he loomed large in a landscape with very little in the way of political satire.  If he’d never drawn another cartoon, Kelley would always  have
been remembered for the Earth Day ’71 poster shown at left.

Born August 25 in 1913, he died of complications of diabetes in 1973, leaving a wealth of humor and insight that came to us via the denizens of the swamp.  He also left Songs of the Pogo. a great compilation of verbal wit on a par with his artistic skills.  Here he sings one of his Pogo-for-President songs:

Upward mobility

Calder's Penn. photo by Jeffrey M. Vinocur

Art appreciation week continues with the birthday of sculptor Alexander Calder, born in Scotland in 1846.  He emigrated to the US when he was in his early twenties and is best remembered for his statue of William Penn, which crowns Philadelphia City Hall.

Or maybe he is best remembered for being the father of sculptor Alexander Stirling Calder, who also did much to adorn Philadelphia and who married portrait painter Nanette Lederer.

Nah – it’s his grandson Alexander Calder – Sandy, to his friends – who made the Calder name famous not only outside Philly but worldwide.  Some nice Calders to look at here.

Calder stabile, fittingly at the Scottish National Museum of Modern Art

Decisons, decisions

An early effort - Behind the Gare St. Lazare

Henri Cartier-Bresson planned to be a painter, just like his Uncle Louis.  He first saw his uncle’s studio when he was five and for many years dreamed of having one just like it.

But young Henri – born this date in 1908 – also had a Brownie camera and that was equally exciting.  The Brownie was succeeded by a view camera and photography began to consume quite a lot of his time.

Still, he pursued his dream of being a painter, attending art school in Paris.  The next few years were a rush of intellectual and artistic adventures, followed by two years in England, compulsory military service and a trip to Africa, which nearly killed him.  He caught blackwater fever and returned to France to recuperate. He was 24.

Photo of Alberto Giacometti

At some point while he was recovering in Marseille, he encountered the work of Martin Munkasci, a Hungarian emigré whose photographs caught humans in mid-flight as it were – jumping, dancing, leaping and so on.  Cartier-Bresson said what ‘ brought me to photography was the work of Munkacsi…I took my camera and went into the street.’

He gave up painting and took to photography full time. “I suddenly understood that a photograph could fix eternity in an instant.”

Often that instant was what he called the decisive moment.  Much has been made of Cartier-Bresson’s ‘moment décisif,’ and after seeing that moment repeated endlessly in collections, it becomes more than a little tedious – kind of like an O. Henry ending.  But taken in small doses, Cartier-Bresson usually does find the right moment.  You can learn more here.

Below, a Martin Munkasci.

1934

Things weren’t going very well in the US in 1934.  It was one of the worst years of the Great Depression, with unemployment above 20% and almost 5 million families receiving some kind of public assistance.

Typing class at a women's work camp in Pennsylvania.

But FDR kept throwing stuff against the wall and some things stuck – the FDIC was formed and quickly repaid the customers of a failed bank in Indiana.  A survey for a national highway system was begun which would eventually provide jobs for thousands. The government encouraged the union movement in an effort to raise wages overall. The FCC was created and Great Smoky National Park was dedicated.

Shirley Temple appeared in her first feature film and Edwin Hubble got a picture of the cosmos that showed as many galaxies as there were stars in the Milky Way.

Among the babies born that year were Bill Russell, Ralph Nader, Mary Quant, Florence Henderson and Alan Arkin.

And on August 19, the very first All-American Soapbox Derby was held and – except for that electromagnet scandal in the 70′s – it has been going strong ever since. On the same date in Germany, Adolf Hitler, chancellor and self-appointed Fuhrer, was confirmed as dictator in a plebiscite with either 85 or 96% of the vote, depending on who you read.

It had taken Hitler several years, but after going to prison for his first attempt to overthrow the government (the Beer Hall putsch), he had changed tactics completely, using the democratic processes of the Weimar republic to achieve his ends.  The Reichstag Fire Act had suspended habeus corpus and outlawed most political parties and in 1933, the National Socialists had gotten the Enabling Act passed, which was legal and limited to four years.  It allowed Hitler’s cabinet to pass legislation without going to the Reichstag. It was renewed twice.  (Nothing called the Ermächtigungsgesetz could be good.)

An interesting thread of destiny was already being spun in England a month before Hitler’s election – Leo Szilard, a Hungarian emigré working at the Admiralty, had conceived the idea of a nuclear chain reaction and though he would not succeed in creating it for two more years, he took out a patent for a nuclear reactor in July of ’34.

A modern master

The Accident

Larry Rivers died nine years ago on August 14, three days short of his 79th birthday.  He has been called the grandfather of pop art, providing a transition from abstract expressionism to Warhol and Lichtenstein.

Well, maybe.  His work seems highly idiosyncratic, especially for the time – i.e., Fifties and Sixties.

Interestingly, Rivers (who was born Yitzhok Grossberg of Russian immigrant parents) had started out planning to be a musician, studying at Juilliard – where he became a lifelong friend of Miles Davis – and working as a jazz saxophonist.

But, multi-talented, Rivers left Juililard and took up art, studying with Hans Hofman initially. He also made films. video and worked with neon.

Below, Rivers’ portrait of Calo Biotti. A very good selection of his work can be seen here.

Bon appetit!

We observe – and it really should be a national holiday, don’t you think? – the birth of Julia McWilliams on this date in 1912 in Pasadena. She took her sunny California self first to Washington, became Mrs. Paul Child, then went to Paris, where she became the Julia Child who ultimately led an American domestic revolution.

Julia Child portrait by Elsa Dorfman

There isn’t much we don’t know about her at this point, from television, her own books and from the most recent film. Her life in France, her friendships, her work for the OSS – even her Cambridge kitchen has been preserved at the National Museum of American History.

What is less often talked about is the cosmic conjunction of Julia and WGBH.  The golden era of public television in Boston began with Julia in 1963 and grew with This Old House, The Victory Garden and Masterpiece Theater.

WGBH was in large part initiated by the Lowell Institute, an effort at public education which began in 1836 when John Lowell Jr. left $250,000 to be used for lectures for the edification of the general public.

Lowell stipulated that 10% of the income from his trust always be reinvested, that none of the money could be used for a building to house the lectures, and that whenever possible, a male descendant be made trustee.  By the time Abbott Lowell was named trustee in 1909, the legacy was a million dollars.

There is a lot of information about the station’s first premises, continued expansion, blah, blah, but almost none about the spirit that drove it in the early days. It’s no surprise that it has always had Harvard and Wellesley and MIT representatives on the Board, but the lively, creative minds that sought out and encouraged Julia Child and Bob Vila, that created Nova when science belonged exclusively to scientists, that brought Alistair Cooke to the screen – those minds seem to have left the building.

Still, GBH remains a cut above. (The call letters, btw, stand for ‘Great Blue Hill,’ the eminence in Milton, Mass., where its first transmitter was located.) Check out its online extensions for teachers and kids and listen to the latest speaker at the Harvard Bookstore via links at wgbh.com. Why its excellence can’t be duplicated is baffling.

Julia's kitchen in DC, photo by RadioFan