Doc Watson

Performance Perfection, Or: Why Television Talent Shows Don't Matter, Part 3

Laurence Olivier as Archie Rice in The Entertainer

If you want entertainment instead of warblers, screamers, and low-rent vaudeville, you can experience this even if the art form is at the bottom of your list.

Memorial Day 2012

 For all the men and women who gave their lives defending our magnificent experiment in government called the United States of America.

Bob Dylan's Birthday

The artist at work in 1963

The legendary songwriter, Bob Dylan, turns 71 today. No better time to listen once more to his signature song! This YouTube post has the lyrics so the uninitiated can follow along and fully appreciate the man's work.

The American West, 150 Years Ago

Zuni Indian Pueblo, New Mexico 1873                          USGS Library

The Atlantic posted a new photo essay today featuring the work of Timothy O'Sullivan. The thirty-four photographs were taken during government-sponsored expeditions into the western frontier in the years following the Civil War. Many of these photos may not be new to our readers, but the scenes they capture are simply too compelling to ignore, especially for those who have stood in O'Sullivan's footprints. Do enjoy.

H/T to Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit.

Walt Disney: Our Rare And Wonderful American Conservative Utopian

Charles C.W. Cooke has a fine article in the May 28 issue of National Review. The subject is the great American "imagineer," Walt Disney. Even in the early and often shaky days of his cottage industry, Disney stayed focused on planning bigger and better experiences for his audience. Over time, the imagination and scale resulted in Disneyland and later in his very own "World" in the wetlands of central Florida. Today, his "Worlds" are indeed all over the world and, though he left us nearly fifty years ago, a huge portion of what we choose as entertainment still bears his imprint.

What is so interesting about Cooke's article is his description of the evolution of Disney's public politics and persistence of his utopian philosophy. Unlike virtually all of his fellow utopians who built their worlds on leftist, collectivist concepts, Disney chose to build his new world on traditional American values. The tipping point was a single event in the late 1930s that threatened those values and changed him into a conservative activist for the rest of his life. Here is your link to the rest of the story.

Performance Perfection, Or: Why Television Talent Shows Don't Matter, Part 2

 If you want entertainment instead of warblers, screamers, and low-rent vaudeville, you can experience this even if the art form is at the bottom of your list.