Pophistory: music, movies, history, and life.
In honor of Presidents’ Day, CBS Sunday Morning made a visit to the home of Millard Fillmore, the Thirteenth President of the United States, in East Aurora, New York (near Buffalo). In this segment, Mo Rocca asks whether President Fillmore is underrated as a president. Note that even Fillmore’s biographer does not like the former president. Check it out.
Who is the most underrated president? Leave your two cents in the comments.
(Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)
On June 6 in 1944, during World War II, around 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces crossed the English Channel and landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of Normandy, France. The deadly fight of D-Day thus began the liberation of Western Europe from Nazi dominance. By late August of that year, northern France would be liberated and the Allies would defeat the Germans the following spring.
One of the most famous depictions of D-Day occurred in Saving Private Ryan (1998), when the movie opened as the Allies arrive and land on Omaha Beach. The movie tries to capture the horrific and deadly chaos that the soldiers experienced as they made the historic landing.
Recently, CBS Sunday Morning featured a story about the Normandy invasion and some of its dark sides. The piece discusses the destruction of France and, as in almost any endeavor involving a large number of people, notes that some of the soldiers did not act honorably. [2016 Update: Unfortunately, the video is no longer available.]
Of course, the bad acts do not diminish the importance of the victory over the Nazis or the heroism of many others, but we should remember all aspects of the story to understand history. As Rick Atkinson, author of The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945
Many brave souls rose to the occasion after being thrust in a dangerous situation, but some later showed they were not perfect. So on this anniversary of D-Day, we celebrate the victories but also remember the many types of losses that are inevitable when humans go to war.
What will you do to remember D-Day? Leave your two cents in the comments.
(Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)
Berry Gordy, the founder of the Motown record label, recently appeared on CBS Sunday Morning to discuss his amazing career and a new Broadway musical about the early days of the label called, appropriately, Motown: The Musical. In the interview, Gordy told interviewer Anthony Mason how he started out writing songs for Jackie Wilson, his opening of Hitsville, USA, his affair with Diana Ross, and why he initially did not want to work with Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson.
[October 2013 Update: The CBS Sunday Morning video is no longer available for embedding, although you may watch the segment on YouTube. Below is another interview featuring Barry Gordy.]
What is your favorite Motown song? Leave your two cents in the comments.
(Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)
CBS Sunday Morning recently featured a story about singer-songwriter-actor Glen Hansard. In the segment, Hansard talks about his life, his time busking on the streets of Dublin, and his success with the movie Once (2006), which is now a Broadway play.
The segment features both touching moments — such as Hansard discussing his former relationship with his Once co-star Markéta Irglová — and funny touches, like a scene in a Dublin pub where Hansard’s grade school principal discusses telling a 13-year-old Hansard it was okay to drop out of school to pursue his music career. 2016 Update: The video is no longer available for embedding, but you may watch some of the segment on YouTube.
Below is another clip of an interview with Hansard that was done for The Busking Project.
What is your favorite song by Glen Hansard? Leave your two cents in the comments.
(Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)
Today is International Women’s Day, and as we discussed in a post last year about Helen Reddy and “I Am Woman,” the day’s history goes back to 1911. Speaking of the special day, you may not know that a famous woman played a key part in the technology you likely are using right now to access the Internet. This week on CBS Sunday Morning, the show profiled a side activity of famous movie actress Hedy Lamarr. Although she was known for her beauty and her stardom, she had a room set aside to study engineering and work on ideas for new inventions. Richard Rhodes recently wrote about Lamarr and her roles in real life in Hedy’s Folly: The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World.
One of Lamarr’s ideas later formed the basis for wi-fi technology. She had developed the idea as a way to help defend against German torpedoes as World War II approached. At the time, though, the Navy dismissed her idea and instead asked her to use her beauty instead of her brains to sell war bonds, which she did. If you only know her for her acting roles such as in Samson and Delilah (1949), or even if you only know her name from the references to her in Blazing Saddles (1974) by Harvey Korman’s character Hedley Lamarr.” (which prompted the real Lamarr to sue Mel Brooks), check out this story below.
The little-known hobby of the actress shows that Lamarr was more complicated than many knew at the time. While her beauty gave her a great career, fame, and money, one sees a touch of tragedy in her search for something more.
What is your favorite Hedy Lamarr film? Leave your two cents in the comments.
