March 20

Richard at Wasp 101 is a political consultant who is refreshingly honest (in his blog, at least) about the state of politics in this country:

....truthfully, regardless of who controls Washington, the special interests run the show. Corporations, social issue groups, you name it and if they have the funds they can play ball. The American people truly are the least heard group, but I blame the American people for letting this happen.

....I guess I should rejoice that people are ignorant because it helps me garner clients who need help putting together 30 second ads. However, I would gladly give up every dime I have ever made on political campaigns if American voters would become involved and responsible enough to research candidates and how the system truly works. Imagine a world where candidates only had to make television appearances on news stations, publish websites stating their beliefs, and possibly participate in public forums to get their message across. Inevitably, the people of this country are the sole reason campaigns have become so expensive, and it is their ignorance and lack of character that forces candidates to capture their attention with 30 sec TV ads. Maybe one day people will stand up, truly do their homework, and demand more from their elected officials.

http://wasp101.blogspot.com/2010/03/more-political-drama.html

I probably wouldn't like most of Richard's candidates -- he doesn't work with Democrats -- but I applaud his analysis (and his classic fashion sense).

Ivy Style is another fashionable blog I enjoy reading. Here is blogmaster Christian Chensvold's take on preppy jazzman Bobby Troup, who married the amazing chanteuse Julie London (and they were together for forty years and never parted, bless 'em). Play the clip, it's great:

http://www.ivy-style.com/travel-my-way-jazz-ivy-icon-bobby-troup.html

I first encountered Troup and London as co-stars on Emergency!, which is not the best way to remember them. The Seventies were just not as flattering to talents as the Mad Men era was.

Auteurist Confession: In all my decades of film-going, I have yet to watch a single film by the persistent film-maker Henry Jaglom. Jaglom works on small budgets and is unknown to the general public -- there is a documentary about him (which I haven't seen, either) called, appropriately enough, Who Is Henry Jaglom? Nonetheless, I think it is roughly true that a cineaste can use Jaglom as a test-question to identify other cineastes; someone who has heard of him qualifies, someone who hasn't doesn't. Here is a stimulating interview with Tanna Frederick, who has starred in Jaglom's last three projects, Hollywood Dreams, Irene in Time, and the upcoming Queen of the Lot:

http://thehollywoodinterview.blogspot.com/2010/03/tanna-frederick-hollywood-interview.html

Since the sea is one of my favorite artistic subjects, naturally I would gravitate towards an exhibition titled "The Sea as a Pretext" at the Valencian Institute for Modern Art:

http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=11&int_new=36774

The exhibition catalogue is viewable in full here:

http://www.ivam.es/catalogopdf/0540/

I need to get hold of a hard copy of this; my reading Spanish is just good enough for me to able to enjoy the text as well as the pictures.

{feuilleton} revives an appealing turn-of-the-century illustrator, Dugald Stewart Walker:

http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/2010/03/19/dugald-stewart-walker-revisited/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dugald_Stewart_Walker

Camilo Rebelo's Museum of Art and Archaeology of the Coa Valley (Portugal) is "conceived as an installation in the landscape":

http://www.archdaily.com/52866/museum-of-art-and-archaeology-of-the-coa-valley-camilo-rebelo/

The Coa Valley boasts one of the world's largest concentrations of Paleolithic art (and specifically the largest in open air rather than caves):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%B4a_Valley_Paleolithic_Art

Among notables born on this date are tenors Beniamino Gigli and Lauritz Melchior, pianist Sviatoslav Richter, popular singer Vera Lynn, jazz pianist Marian McPartland, management theorist Frederick Winslow Taylor (not my favorite thinker), psychologist B.F. Skinner (ditto), children's television host Fred Rogers, poets Ovid and Friedrich Holderlin, playwright Henrik Ibsen, Australian novelist David Malouf, film directors Carl Reiner and Spike Lee, comedian Vaughn Meader, and actors Wendell Corey, Theresa Russell, William Hurt, Michael Redgrave, Holly Hunter, and David Thewlis. It is hard not to feel a little sorry for Vaughn Meader, who rose to comedy stardom on the basis of his spot-on impersonation of John F. Kennedy, in the process recording the fastest-selling comedy album in history, The First Family, only to have it all go bad when Kennedy was assassinated. As Lenny Bruce said at the time, "Vaughn Meader is screwed!" And indeed he was, sinking into depression and substance abuse, although he later rebounded somewhat as a local bluegrass performer in Maine. The ways of fame are cruel; no one can tell when the lights will go down on their show.