Everyone Loves Lucy

On a different note, I noticed it was the birthday of Lucille Ball the other day. She was born August 6, 1911. Lucille was one of the original "Goldwyn Girls," but it was clear she was a comedienne at heart.

I had taken my family to Warner Brothers in 2008, and the guide was so sure she would stump our tour group with a question that she said she would give a million dollars to whoever answered it. She asked, "what was the first television show to use multiple cameras?" Without hesitation, I said "I Love Lucy." Now, she was the one who was stumped. I let her off the hook by saying I would take a WB cap.

A more interesting question would have been about Lucy's communist ties. She was called before the House Un-American Committee in 1953 because she had registered as a Communist in 1936. She said innocently enough that she did it as a favor to her grandfather, Fred Hunt, who was an ardent Socialist. She was forgiven her indiscretion, especially by her many adoring fans who made her show the most popular on television.

She and her husband, Desi Arnaz, had formed DesiLu, which produced "I Love Lucy," and later "Star Trek" and "The Untouchables." Lucy bought out Desi after their divorce in 1960, and sold the company to Gulf+Western, which merged its studios into Paramount. The show itself went through several metamorphoses, finally ending in 1974, after a very impressive 23 year run. She had turned the role of the doting housewife on its ear many, many times over.

Yep, Lucy was a lady way ahead of her time in many ways. Everyone from Carol Burnett to Mary Tyler Moore has credited the first lady of comedy as their inspiration. I don't think she is lost on today's generation as well. She passed away in 1989, shortly after appearing at the Academy Awards with Bob Hope.

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The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

Welcome to this month's reading group selection. David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908. At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades. Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society. I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran. Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro

Dylan in America

Whoever it was in 1969 who named the very first Bob Dylan bootleg album “Great White Wonder” may have had a mischievous streak. There are any number of ways you can interpret the title — most boringly, the cover was blank, like the Beatles’ “White Album” — but I like to see a sly allusion to “Moby-Dick.” In the seven years since the release of his first commercial record, Dylan had become the white whale of 20th-century popular song, a wild, unconquerable and often baffling force of musical nature who drove fans and critics Ahab-mad in their efforts to spear him, lash him to the hull and render him merely comprehensible. --- Bruce Handy, NYTimes ____________________________________________ I figured we can start fresh with Bob Dylan. Couldn't resist this photo of him striking a Woody Guthrie pose. Looks like only yesterday. Here is a link to the comments building up to this reading group.

Team of Rivals Reading Group

''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005

Dispatches from Vilnius

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