Art and Soul in the West Wing

Last month, Norman Rockwell's painting "The Problem We All Live With" was installed in the West Wing of the White House. Politico carried an article about the installation, and Mediaite followed up with a slide show of other "controversial" art choices made by previous Presidents.

Rockwell's illustration was published in Look magazine in 1964 just two months after the assassination of John F. Kennedy and a month before the Civil Rights Act was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives.

The painting was based on the story of Ruby Bridges, a six-year-old girl who integrated William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans accompanied by U.S. Marshals sent in by President Eisenhower.

The White House posted this video of President Obama discussing the painting and the incident with Ruby Bridges.

The historic moment was also captured by John Steinbeck in Travels with Charley.

The show opened on time. Sound the sirens. Motorcycle cops. Then two big black cars filled with big men in blond felt hats pulled up in front of the school. The crowd seemed to hold its breath. Four big marshals got out of each car and from somewhere in the automobiles they extracted the littlest negro girl you ever saw, dressed in shining starchy white, with new white shoes on feet so little they were almost round. Her face and little legs were very black against the white. The big marshals stood her on the curb and a jangle of jeering shrieks went up from behind the barricades. The little girl did not look at the howling crowd, but from the side the whites of her eyes showed like those of a frightened fawn. The men turned her around like a doll and then the strange procession moved up the broad walk toward the school, and the child was even more a mite because the men were so big. Then the girl made a curious hop, and I think I know what it was. I think in her whole life she had not gone ten steps without skipping, but now in the middle of her first step, the weight bore her down and her little round feet took measured, reluctant steps between the tall guards. Slowly they climbed the steps and entered the school.

What luck for Rockwell that Steinbeck was on the scene. He drew the same picture with his words.

And Now, Rick Perry

No one can do a better job introducing Texas Governor Rick Perry to a national audience than Jon Stewart.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Indecision 2012 - Corn Polled Edition - Rick Perry Announces His Candidacy
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

Bend Your Swords Into Brooms (and Bagpipes)

The rioting in London continues and is spreading throughout Britain. (The BBC online is the best source of up-to-date information.) Doubtful if these brooms can clean up all the broken glass in London or do anything about the torched shops and cars, but what looks to be largely young people with brooms raised as weapons is pretty great political theater and symbolically wrests a little power back from the rioters.

And while we are on the topic of cleaning up, the Wisconsin recall election happens today, in response to the controversial budget priorities of Gov. Scott Walker, including the elimination of collective bargaining for public employees. The political theater of the takeover of the statehouse in Februrary was breathtaking in its contrast to the national narrative, i.e., it's the Tea Party that is supposedly representing angry "average" folks. There is a ton of video of the demonstrations, but the firefighters (who were exempt Walker's collective bargaining crackdown) who showed up in support of the other public employees camped out at the Wisconsin capitol armed with bagpipes is the most soul-stirring. There is nothing like bagpipes to up the emotional ante.



Update: Incredible slide/video show from New York Magazine.

Jackie O M G

Secret tapes Jackie Kennedy Onassis made just months after JFK's death, reveal that she thought LBJ was responsible for the assassination and that she had an affair with William Holden, "in retaliation for her husband's many flings." The Daily Mail has the full story.



"Let me dry your back" indeed.

Gender Sells

Newsweek is getting a lot of attention today for the cover shot of Michele Bachmann that accompanies their profile piece, saying it makes her look crazy. While Newsweek may be creating controversy in order to hawk magazines, the characterization of Bachmann as crazy is not without evidence.



And as Matt Taibbi pointed out in his Rolling Stone Bachmann piece:

"In modern American politics, being the right kind of ignorant and entertainingly crazy is like having a big right hand in boxing; you've always got a puncher's chance."

While the blogosphere is in a tail-spin about the Bachmann cover, the real story seems to be that Tina Brown, since taking over as Editor-in-Chief at Newsweek, has decided that females buy magazines, and thus like to see famous females on the cover, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Between Two Colors

Ff you don't know who Jane White was, you should. The New York Times has a great obit for this bi-racial classical actress and cabaret singer. Her own words are the best part of the piece.

“I’ve just always been too ‘white’ to be ‘black’ and too ‘black’ to be ‘white,’ which, you know, gets to you after a while, particularly when the roles keep passing you by,” she told an interviewer in 1968

"And if nothing else, bringing humanity to the stage makes a difference in the world, she added, “in black face or white face."

Zombisquatsi

Godfrey Reggio, creator of Koyaanisquatsi and Powasqquatsi has made an 8-minute film of children's faces as they watch television. Godfrey says of the film:

Unlike people in a movie theatre, where images are projected onto a screen, television viewers become prey to the television’s own light impulses, they go into an altered state - a transfixed condition where the eyes, the mind, the breathing of the subject is clearly under the control of an outside force. In a poetic sense and without exaggerating one might say that the television technology is eating the subjects who sit before its gaze.

Immediately, this scene from Truffaut's 400 Blows came to mind:



Evidence of the difference between television and LIVE performance?

"Terror Baby"

Rachel Maddow celebrates Barack Obama's 50th birthday (which was yesterday) with a send-up/mash-up of all the "birther" conspiracies. Pretty funny until she gets to the part about how politicians and commentators are STILL hawking confusion and fear about Obama's birth, even after the release of his birth certificate.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Shilling With and For the Children

Santorum is NEVER going to let you forget he has a lot of children. (See post below for older family pic.) This is his new Iowa campaign video.

Suffer the Children

Rick Santorum is on the stump arguing against early childhood education, well, all public education it seems. Here's a choice nugget:

“We need to get the federal government out of that business. We need a leader in Washington to start talking with the states and the communities to rally parents to demand that the educational establishment in this country start meeting the needs of their child, not children. See, that is the difference. Obviously, socialists love children, just like they love people in groups of one million or more,” he said.

This seemed like a good excuse (not that we needed one), to look at this photo of Santorum's family again. The photo was taken during his concession speech after losing his Senate bid in 2006.



It never gets old.

The Power of the Piano (and the People)

Put some musical instruments in public spaces, and musicians (even homeless ones) will come play them. An idea worth stealing! From The Denver Post:

There's lots of love downtown. The Downtown Denver Partnership began placing pianos along the mall in late 2009, said spokesperson Sarah Neumann. All of the instruments were donated; the partnership received many of them just by asking on Craigslist. They started with eight pianos but grew the roster to the current 17. All of them are painted to match the seasons by local artists.

A Break from Downer Posts

Sesame Street breaks it down from Wonderful Creative on Vimeo.

The Lessons of Lincoln

In The New Republic, John Judis argues that Obama needs to take a closer look at Lincoln and his uncompromising acts of courage.

Over the last four decades, the Republican Party has transformed from a loyal opposition into an insurrectionary party that flouts the law when it is in the majority and threatens disorder when it is the minority. It is the party of Watergate and Iran-Contra, but also of the government shutdown in 1995 and the impeachment trial of 1999. If there is an earlier American precedent for today’s Republican Party, it is the antebellum Southern Democrats of John Calhoun who threatened to nullify, or disregard, federal legislation they objected to, and who later led the fight to secede from the union over slavery.

He also argues for Obama to exercise the 14th Amendment option.

His comparison of the 2011 Republican Party with the antebellum South Democrats pre-Civil War is rather chilling. And of course, the fact that it is our first black president experiencing an "insurrectionary party" comparable to the 1860s is a bitter repetition of history.

The Faces Tell the Story

A Norwegian website has posted photos and bios of all those killed in the massacre. We are disappointed not to be able to read about them, but their beautiful young faces give us perspective on the magnitude and heartbreak of this tragedy.

A Lesson in Context

New York’s Niagara Falls have been lit with rainbow-colored lights at dusk since 1925.

In Honor of the Debt Ceiling Debate, er, Debacle

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo reminds us of the following in a blog posting called Hamilton's Dream:

Indeed, the national debt -- created through the federal assumption of state war debts -- was created to do precisely this: get the holders of bonds, necessarily wealthy and powerful people, to have a vested interest in the fixity and stability of the federal government.

And now we segue to writer and star of the Broadway musical “In the Heights,” Lin-Manuel Miranda performs "The Hamilton Mixtape" at the White House Evening of Poetry, Music, and the Spoken Word:

The Future of Theater

Interactive, media-enriched, experiential, inventive, zeitgeistian (we're officially creating that adjective as of this post), this is a piece of theater/entertainment we can get behind. You must read the whole piece to understand how this works, but here's a graph from the New York Times:

“Red Cloud Rising: The Fifth Wall,” an innovative, genre-defying entertainment created by the director, producer and actress Gyda Arber. Call it an alternate-reality game played in primary reality. Call it avant-garde performance art. Call it whatever you want. I just call it brilliant.

And here's a slide show.

The show has been extended (no surprise)at The Brick (although it doesn't actually occur at the Brick).

The Revolution Will Be Photographed

Am greatly moved by these photos of the revolutionaries in Tahrir Square and other Egyptians in the New Yorker. So many artists and media folks among them. It really speaks to the need for artists and the creative thinking required to re-imagine a society, and to awaken the imaginations of a public hungering for change.

Watch the slide show.

The Art of Killing Yourself

As resources shrink, artists seldom adjust their ambitions or work habits. The work suffers, the artists suffers - usually both happen. Nancy Wozny in Houston Culture Map writes about fatigue in the art world:

There's work to be done, and if you don't have a staff to do it, it's usually you. It gets old. People get tired. Our labors of love can easily shift into labors of dread.

Arts vs. Facilities

Denver gets rid of Office of Cultural Affairs - consolidates cultural/entertainment agencies. From The Denver Post:

Anthony Radich, executive director of the Denver-based Western States Arts Federation, believes it is the wrong move at the wrong time. In what is becoming an increasingly competitive realm, more and more cities are promoting creative economic sectors and cultural tourism. "They are, if anything, really investing in the personnel and investing in the structure and organization of arts agencies at the city level. And here I see Denver disinvesting, and that is very troubling," Radich said.

Same as the Old Verse

The Dutch government led by a new center-right coaliation is making drastic cuts in arts funding. From The Art Newspaper:

Veen is also the founder and director of the Hermitage Amsterdam, which opened in 2009 with no government subsidy, and is widely admired as an entrepreneurial cultural manager. “I am holding a letter in which the state secretary for culture, Halbe Zijlstra, urges me to think more like a businessman in raising money for our institutions. This is about as much as I can take,” said Veen, who announced in March that he is retiring from both roles at the end of the year.

"About as much as I can take" indeed.

Introducing Presidential Candidate Thaddeus McCotter

From the New York Times:

"An intense man and an amateur guitar player, Mr. McCotter is a small-government, antitax conservative who most likely will try to align himself with the Tea Party movement."

Intermission Over

After more than 10 months on hiatus, Ticket to the Zeitgeist resumes its inspection of performance and politics. There seems to be no shortage of material as the 2012 US presidential extravaganza begins to erect its tents. (We may soon be adding a special section on the Michele Bachmann candidacy.)

The show must go on!