12/23/2011 Forgot anyone? Here are some suggestions. “Paris: Life & Luxury in the Eighteenth Century” (Getty Museum) Edited by Clarissa Bremer-David, the curator of sculture and decorative arts at the J. Paul Getty Museum. The book is filled with luscious pictures of people in The Four Times a Day painted by Nicolas Lancret on pages 12-13. Furniture that is in the museum. “Kay Thompson: From Funny Face To Eloise”(Simon & Schuster $26.99) by Sam Irvin. Kay, born Kitty Fink, was one of the remarkable women who remade themselves in the 1940’s. She wanted to be in films but MGM used her as a music coach and arranger in the Arthur Freed Unit with budding star Judy Garland. Kay’s life was a life of stars and romances . She was the cougar to Andy Williams when she did a nightclub act with the Williams Brothers. Kay seized the limelight and the credit, including the origination of “Eloise”. Thanks to her god daughter Liza Minnelli, her last years, blind and in a wheelchair, were taken care of. Hunter Drohojowska-Philp has written “Rebels In Paradise :The Los Angeles Art Scene and the 1960s”(Henry Holt $32.50). Today their paintings and sculpture sell in some cases in the millions, but this is the early days. Life was in Venice, Ca. the art gallery was Ferus,the names were Ed Lienholz, who opened his Now gallery and organized the “4th Annual All-City Outdoor Art Festival in Barnsdall Park. Any art lover will find this an incredible plethora of artists who collected in Los Angeles, from David Hockney to Ed Ruscha. Carrie White, author of “Upper Cut : Highlights of My Hollywood Life”(Atria Books $26.00) was the hairdresser to the female and male stars, as well as the wives of the Hollywood moguls. Her life reads like an English Restoration novel. She cut them all from Warren to Jack, and if you need reminding there are four pages with just names who sat in her chair and then some. For the historian and any Brown University graduate, Charles Rappleye has written “Sons of Providence : The Brown Brothers, The Slave Trade, And The American Revolution”(Simon & Schuster $27.00)John Brown was pro-slavery and Moses was totally anti and fought to keep it out of the Constitution. Jim Newton Has written one of the finest books this year, “Eisenhower :The White House Years”(Doubleday $29.95) Newton adds a short section on Eisenhower’s early years at West Point, marriage to Mamie,early army appointments to the Philippines and his heroic role in WW II. It was Herbert Brownell who insisted Ike fight for the Republican nomination when Robert Taft Jr. thought he had it. Brownell insisted that the “Fair Play Amendment” be observed for seating the delegates. Ike won and he won in the national election against Adlai Stevenson. According to Jim Newton, Ike had to face the execution of the Rosenbergs, Joe McCarthy red baiting witch hunts, and the covert actions of the CIA in his first term. Despite suffering a heart attack, Ike was reelected to a second term with Nixon as vice-president. Ike warned Nixon not to debate Kennedy, that a vice-president doesn’t debate a Jr. Senator from Massachusetts. Covert operations included helping to remove Mossadegh in Iran, Patrice Lumumba in the Congo, etc. Ike would have preferred that Chief Justice Earl Warren had moved slower on school integration but he backed him up with the army in Little Rock. Don’t miss reading this yourself. The heaviest and most expensive book is “Carleton Watkins: The Complete Mammoth Photographs”(Getty Publications $195.00). The photographs were made between1858 and 1891. The book reproduces the mammoth images from glass plate negatives, many of which have never been reproduced or exhibited. The authors, Weston Naef and Christine Hult-Lewis , have collected all of Watkin’s photographs and included Yosemite, San Francisco and the Pacific Coast as well as railroads and lumber mills. It is an exciting view of a California before there was the California we now know. www.conniemartinson.com aired and streamed at 3pm & 11:30pm from www.lacityview.org some of these books may be seen on Youtube Connie Martinson’s Channel. 12/16/2011 Although it seems like an incongruous friendship, Jay R. Tunney has written “The Prizefighter And The Playwright : Gene Tunney and Bernard Shaw”(Firefly $35.00). Jay is the son of Gene and Polly Tunney and he has written for The Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies and is Vice-President of the International Shaw Studies. Jay’s mother was 100 years old as he wrote this book. She would say, “Let’s talk about Brioni. It was a beautiful time. I am the only one left. I am the only one who can remember.” Brioni is an island off Italy where the Tunney’s and the Shaw’s were together. The photo on the book’s cover of the two men is the only photograph of them from that time. Gene was given a pair of boxing gloves for his tenth birthday, it was the beginning along with his love of reading a career that would bring him to the pinnacle of the boxing world. He would defeat Jack Dempsey with the notorious “long count” and then again the following year. In London, George Bernard Shaw was so enamored by the pugilistic art that he wrote “Cashel Byron’s Profession”. This book was an inspiration to Gene Tunney. It was the inspiration to fight his way out of the family poverty. In educating himself, Tunney was not the favorite of the crowd. Studs Terkel remembers that Tunney was an intellectual and the sports writers took whacks at him. Tunney studied books on medicine, Shaw’s play “Saint Joan” etc. Shaw was taken with films he saw with Tunney in the ring. Tunney had friends in the upper strata in New York City who invited him to their dinner parties where he met the heiress Polly Lauder. His friend Bernard Gimbel told of waiting while Tunney finished reading Somerset Maugham’s “Of Human Bondage”, in order to escort him to the Chicago ring and the fight with Jack Dempsey. Tunney retired undefeated. He was friends with Thornton Wilder with whom he was to travel in Europe. Tunney was a celebrity where ever he went from the Prince of Wales to Hemingway but a letter from Shaw inviting Tunney to the Riviera went lost. Finally as Polly and Gene left their wedding ceremony in Rome, he had a card in his pocket inviting him to lunch at Shaw’s home when he and Polly were in London. When asked if he was intimidated Tunney replied that the only thing that mattered was character. He felt that of all the authors he had read he felt he knew Shaw best. Jay writes of his father at this point in time that he had achieved his goal of wealth – he had $2 million dollars in the bank – he had married the woman of his dreams but he wanted to contribute to society and to be accepted by those he emulated- Walpole, Wilder, and Professor Billy Phelps. Lunch with Charlotte and Shaw was relaxed and easy, so much so that they told the Shaws about the island Brioni and invited them to join them . On Brioni, Gene and Polly stayed in her mother’s villa while the Shaws stayed in the Brioni Hotel. Every morning Gene would pick up Shaw for their daily walk and talk. No photographers, no crowds and no cigarettes. Both men loathed the odor of cigarettes and pipe smoke. The men shared their stories of Hollywood and William Randolph Hearst’s San Simeon. Jay Tunney has written interesting evaluations of what each man saw in the other. One evening Polly became violently ill, the local doctor moved into the villa protesting that he had no medicine to help her. He advised Gene to pray. The Shaws were set to leave the island but Charlotte, who was fond of Polly, insisted that they stay. That week two famous doctors from Germany happened to come to Brioni for a vacation. No sooner were they off the boat than they were taken to Polly’s home where they operated on her on the kitchen table. Jay has entitled this chapter “Polly’s Miracle”. The book is a wonderful story, beautifully written with an unbelievable cast of characters. Gene and Polly returned to America, during WW II Gene was a U.S. Naval Commander. After the war he became a successful business man. On July 27, 1948 Gene walked up the gravel drive in Ayot St. Lawrence to greet George Bernard Shaw the day after his 92 birthday. Jay told me of growing up with pictures of Bernard Shaw around the house. According to his mother, G.B.S. was Gene’s spiritual father and that he was closer to Gene than anyone else was ever again. Speaking of pictures, the book abounds with great photos. I brought a video of the “Long Count” that a great uncle had in Boston. This show can be seen on YouTube on ConnieMartinson’s Channel. Xmas stocking stuffers While you are in the kitchen, try Ying Chang Compestine’s “Ying’s Best One-Dish Meals”(Sellers Publishing $18.95)with recipes such as Longevity Noodles with chicken, or Savory Sauteed Tofu and Soybeans or Shrimp and Olive Pizza or Pan-seared Salmon with Lemon Dill Yogurt Sauce. “Connie MartinsonTalks Books” is aired and streamed by www.lacityview.org ch 35 at 3pm &11:30pm daily. 11/12/2011 Hector Tobar has written :The Barbarian Nurseries”(FSG $27.00). This is the boo that reading groups have been waiting for. It is beautifully written with a story that resonates in every Californian home. Scott Tores and his wife, Maureen Thompson-Torres, and their two young private-school educated sons, Keenan and Brandon and their baby daughter, Samantha have been living the Orange County upscale dream with three in help and a large mansion overlooking the Pacific. But life and the economy respects no family. Scott’s company has been sold, he is no longer earning the high six figure income and he is in the second tier of the new company. Maureen has been forced to fire the children’s Nanny and the gardner. All the house and family have become the responsibility of Araceli, a handsome Mexican woman, who is not happy about children and who is an illegal. When Maureen decides to replace her flower gardens with cactus and succulents, she has no idea how expensive they could be. She hands over her credit card which is now maxed out. Scott has been nicely ordered to take his office to lunch so that when he hands over his credit card to pay for the lunch, he is told, infront of his underlings, that the card has been refused. Needless to say, the confrontation between scott and Maureen culminates in a push and shove. She goes off with the baby and he goes off to the office and a young female staff member. And Araceli is desperate to know what to do with the boys. If she calls the police they will be taken to a foster home, the family has no relatives that she knows and neither parent has left a number where they can be reached. She begins a journey with the boys that includes looking for a grandfather in Watts, visits to Mexican friends who are house workers and to a Mexican Mayor of Huntington Beach as a sign that there is a growing political force. When Scott and Maureen finally return to an empty home, they call the police to tell them their children are missing which starts a media circus, that encourages the bigots who would force all Mexican illegals to be deported. The book is a portrait of our times and Hector Tobar, who is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and is a Los Angeles Times columnist has written a book that will provoke conversation and, possibly, ideas. You can see our interview with Tobar on Youtube and on Lacityview-ch 35. 09/30/2011 Michael Hiltzik has written “The New Deal : A Modern History” (Free Press $30.00), sure to be a Pulitzer Prize contender. The behind the scenes information about Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his cabinet reads like a novel, except that every fact is documented in the Notes. Hiltzik begins with FDR’s election and the longer period at that time between election and inauguration. America was in the throes of a financial depression, Herbert Hoover and his advisers were practically begging FDR to meet with them and seek a solution. FDR would not meet or listen until after he was inaugurated. As FDR was being sworn in, his economic advisers were meeting with Hoover’s people. Where Hoover wanted to “shut down the banks”, FDR in his first Fireside Chat referred to it as a “Bank Holiday”, when they reopened more money was redeposited than had been taken out in the financial hysteria. Never doubt the power of words and the delivery which was FDR’s God given voice that made believers in every home with a radio. The title, “New Deal” was not unique to FDR, it had been the title of a series in the “New Republic” and Brain Truster, as well as speechwriter, Ray Moley had used the expression in one of FDR’s speech; but it was picked up by a cartoonist . The country was in a massive stand still as he took office, but FDR promised action in his first hundred days. It was the conception of The Emergency Banking Act which “suspended the convertibility of dollars into gold for U.S. citizens, a right that has never been restored, and temporarily forbade the export of gold”. It was the Tennessee Valley Authority bringing public power to the people which, incidentally, was fought by Wendell Wilkie. There was the Farm Relief Bill devised b Henry Wallace. And there was FDR’s baby, the Civilian Conservation Corps, better known as CCC. The plan was to put unemployed young men to work in the forests and national parks. They came from all over America, trained and were paid with 25% sent to their families. As Michael Hitzlik said, when we taped, here were boys from the cities meeting those from the farmlands. I did mention that this was an early training for the army that was to come. On page 70 Hitzlik writes about how the Depression exposed the weakness in the national housing and mortgage system. Short term mortgages that only paid interest and suddenly were due in a climate of unemployment led to more disaster. It should be a must reading for Congress and the White House today. When they tried to cut out Veterans of WWI under The Economy Act FDR needed both houses of Congress to stand with him, but in 1934 the Act was rescinded. The National Recovery Administration, according to Hitzlik, disappointed its constituencies. It is here that Hitzlik introduces us to General Hugh S. Johnson, an unforgettable character who has been forgotten in the history of the New Deal. His relationship with Frances Perkins, the proper Bostonian, who was the first woman to serve in a Presidential Cabinet as secretary of Labor, was a Tracy-Hepburn situation. It was Perkins who devised and pushed through Social Security for Labor. In the WPA under Harry Hopkins, Hallie Flanagan ran the Federal theatre which gave birth to John Houseman and Orson Welles who produced the musical “The Cradle Will Rock” which was too political for the time and caused them to leave and form The Mercury Theatre. FDR starting in essence from Ground Zero surrounded himself with the best brains and ideas. He may not have worked out the details which he left to others, he was what the country needed at that time – a pragmatic leader. There is so much in this book it is hard to leave out Eleanor Roosevelt arranging for Marian Anderson to sing at the Lincoln Memorial after the DAR refused to allow a Negro to sing in Constitutional Hall. “Fashion In The Middle Ages by Margaret Scott (Getty Publications $19.95). There was no Vogue to check your wardrobe but there were illustrations in manuscript pages. Animal furs were caught to line the clothes of the well-to-do. Fabrics revolved around linen and silk and wool. Wool was made into every kind of outwear garments. By taking characters out of various paintings the clothing worn is focused so that we see a man in a blue garment but it is lined with grey fur which is most likely a form of squirrel. Needless to say, the French illustrations in the 1400’s still were chic for the day by the end of the century one saw velvet cloth of gold with loops of gold thread was standard for the upper classes. There are some lovely pictures of Philosophy visiting the Philosopher Boethius in prison, he is drab in color, but she is in fashion with pearls at her wrist and at her hem. The book opens one’s eyes to more than just the painting in the museum on Middle Ages and the way of life. What were they wearing? www.conniemartinson.com aired and streamed on www.Lacityview.org – ch 35 at 3pm & 11:30pm daily. 09/02/2011 When is a book not a book? When it is one of the most beautiful, funny, artistic with the artist’s comments on the subject and when all the subjects of the painting and sculpture are one and the same person, Joan Quinn, one of Beverly Hills outstanding personality. In other words, it is the catalogue for “Mysterious Objects: Portraits of Joan Quinn” which is being exhibited at Santa Ana College Main Art Gallery in Santa Ana, CA. Forget investing in stocks, Joan and her husband, Jack Quinn, have invested in artists who painted Joan’s portrait, it is also a history of how she aged since the catalogue covers over thirty-five years. The catalogue is a work of love by Amanda Quinn Olivar, who is the Curator, and who includes her reminiscences of growing up in a world of Helmut Newton, Andy Warhol, Ed Ruscha, David Hockney, Don Bachardy, just to name a few who also painted her mother. She does dedicate the book to her father Jack Quinn, who has always been an inspiration. The book revels in the artist’s comments as well as the works , such as Ted Allan’s photograph from the 1960’s of a gelatin silver print that is breathtaking. Charles Arnoldi writes about doing Joan in sticks with blue hair and he writes, “Joan always has her finger on the pulse of artistic momentum and it has been an honor to be her friend all these years. I should mention that the catalogue is alphabetical. Laddie John Dill has a sculpture in tempered glass, wood, etc. that he claims captures her hair coloring. He also remembers her from forty years ago and being in Cuba where she introduced him to Castro and they had dinner and drinks with him in 1978. Dennis Dutzi’s acrylic on canvas in 1999 is the Joan Quinn most like today. In 1991 David Hockney captured her in Polaroid and Xerox collage with a Haiku poem which he signed Dr. David Hockney. In 1996 Robert Mapplethorpe saw her as “Breakfast at Tiffany”. A swinger wearing a cross. For Joan, today, Ed Moses has done a silkscreen acrylic for her birthday in 2010, as he recalls that Joan’s father, Agajanian ran Ascot Park race track. There is a Zandra Rhodes mixed media on watercolor paper, 2011. Zandra talks about Joan bouncing into her life and that when Joan believes in someone or something, her enthusiasm and follow-through know no bounds, which is how I found myself doing an interview with Zandra Rhodes on her book, thank you Joan. The exhibition opens Sept. 10th through November 1. I hope someone will bring it home to Beverly Hills. www.conniemartinson.com aired and streamed at 3pm & 11:30pm from www.lacityview.org ch 35. Youtube Connie Martinson’s Channel. 08/26/2011 Adena Halpern author of “Pinch Me”(Simon & Schuster $14.99) was at the market she used to buy dinners for one, five years ago before she was married and before she had sold three books, and before she had a new Mercedes with a home in Hancock Park. It suddenly hit her, what if she walked out of the store and nothing had changed. She was not married, she had yet to sell a book, and she was driving her old non-air conditioned car and living in a rent controlled West Hollywood studio. Bingo! An idea for a book. Lily has been warned by her mother and grandmother that the women in the family are cursed if they marry a handsome, successful man, better to marry a “short, fat bald, stupid one who treats you badly”. Lily has met “Gogo”, a handsome successful pediatrician who adores her and who begs her to marry him in the most romantic spot in Paris. Despite family warnings, Lily elopes with Gogo and on their honeymoon, she makes the fatal mistake of saying “Pinch Me”. Poof! It all disappears. Gogo is no longer a doctor, he is married to a demanding wife and working in construction with his father-in-law. So how does Lily change life, “Pinch Me”. I teased Adena that she is living that life with not only her success but her husband is the co-writer of “Horrible Bosses”. By the way all her heroines are 29 which she considers the best age of all. Caprice Crane has written “With A Little Luck”(Bantam $15.00). DJ Beryl “Berry” Lambert’s father has made “luck” the answer to all Berry’s problems and his. The fact he is an addicted gambler who will call her in the middle of the night to come to Gardenia because he is losing does not diminish her belief in his rules of luck. Berry is the DJ for late night radio classic rock. She loves what she does. She also believes in the rule of three, so that having had two disastrous love affairs, the new one with DJ Ryan Riley has to be catastrophic. especially when the station puts them together in a morning talk show. They are oil and water and she does not like the mix. Think Tracy and Hepburn. The book is well written. Caprice, the daughter of Tina Louise and the late Les Crane, is a graduate of NY University Film School. The bright blue cover with shrimp, not on the Barbie but hanging from a clothesline, puts a smile on your face as does the title of this unique cookbook “Bite Me” (Kyle Books $24.95) written by Julie Albert & Lisa Gnat. With 175 recipes and a sense of humor the sisters have brought fun to the kitchen. The chapter headings go from ”Undress Me” for salads, to “Catch Me” for fish to “Fork Me” for desserts. Some terrific and easy recipes are “Sky High Potato Skins” on pg. 20 , skip to “Spoon Me’ for steamy soups and a hilarious photograph to the recipe for Tuscan Bread Soup. The book is beautifully laid out by Bruce Mau Design and easy to follow. Go to “Crave Me” of pasta and rice and get their advice on tunes to cook to when you are cooking “Super – saucy Peanut Butter Noodles” which includes shrimp, tofu, red peppers and snow peas in the mix. The cookbook that will be a sell out in the Westside of Los Angeles is Reyna Simnegar’s “Persian Food from The Non-Persian Bride : And Other Kosher Sephardic Recipes You Will Love” (Feldheim Publishers, Jerusalem). Reyna was born in Venezuela, she came to UCLA where she met her husband, Sammy Simnegar. He suggested that she visit his mother’s kitchen and learn to cook his Persian favorites. She did and five children later and living in Brookline, MA she has written this coffee table cook book, with its extravagant lovely photographs. The book contains the history of the Jews in Iran. She writes that “The main impetus for writing this cookbook was to help reignite and preserve the Iranian Jewish heritage for the youth through food… not to mention that I want to make sure my future daughters-in-law know how to cook authentic “kebab” and “tadig” for my boys.” The book begins with Spices, Seeds and Herbs used in Persian cooking, as well as instruments necessary for Persian kitchens. This is made clear when you read the recipe for making Lavash Bread, which begins with the need for a baker’s peel and a baking stone. A baker’s peel is a spatula to transfer dough in and out of an oven. Two dips are a easy to make, one with olives and mayonnaise and the other with scallions. There is a Persian Potato Salad that is also claimed by the Russians. But nobody can claim the Persian Noodle Soup that was made in large quantities to feed the neighbors, On pg. 163 is her husband’s favorite stew “Mini Meatballs and Zucchini Stew”. She writes about Sephardic Shabbat Stews which is called “cholent”, in the Sephardic it is known as “Hamim” and how they were left over hot coals with a blanket on top of the pot to keep it warm until after Sabbath. The book is a history book as well as a cook book with a Glossary of English, Farsi and Arabic terms. From the Glossary, I am sure that they sing “esbet chayil” to her a woman of valor sung in honor of the wife before the Friday night festive dinner. www.conniemartinson.com aired and streamed at www.lacityview.org ch 35 at 3pm & 11:30pm. 08/05/2011 Lisa See has followed up her “Shanghai Girls” with a sequel in “Dreams of Joy”(Random House $26.00). There is a three page explanatory history of the family in Los Angeles, in case you have not read “Shanghai Girls”. In it Joy muses that “Everything I thought I knew about my birth, my parents, my grandparents and who I am has been a lie”, “The woman I thought was my mother is my aunt Pearl”. Her aunt May is her mother and Sam, the man she thought was her father, was no relation. Sam has committed suicide due to Joy joining a Chinese student group at the University of Chicago which the FBI considered a Communist Front and they have investigated Sam and found he was a “paper son” which would cause him to be deported. Joy’s real father is an artist in Shanghai whom both her mother and aunt had loved.. Joy has determined to run away to Shanghai to find him. It is 1957, the year of Mao. She flies to Hong Kong and must give up her passport and papers to be allowed into Red China. In Shanghai, she finds where her father, Li Zhi-ge lives. She assuages his doubts of her being his daughter by showing him a photo of Pearl and May, but he calls her stupid for coming to China. He is leaving for the countryside to teach peasants art , part of “Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom” and he will take her with him. They are going to the Green Dragon Collective where Joy meets Feng Tao, a good looking want to be artist. Meanwhile, Pearl is distraught about Joy running away and knows that she must find her and bring her back to America. In China, she must visit the family village to find Louie Yun, who will handle the money sent to her from the United States from May. It will be hidden in old clothes. Chinese in America had a relative who would handle family affairs. Pearl returns to Shanghai where she looks up Li Zhi-ge, whom she knew as ZG, only to find that he has gone to the country. Pearl goes to her family home which has been taken over by the government. Her old family cook is now the commander of the home. Every room is occupied except for her bedroom which is exactly as she left it. According to Lisa See when we taped, the Red Chinese government respected Chinese culture which respected family that those who left would return and their homes should be as they left. There is her mother’s friend with bound feet who still lives with servants as if nothing has changed. In order to eat Pearl must work as a street cleaner, often bringing home old calendars with her and May’s picture on them. Z.G. returns with Joy. Lisa See has written a great scene where Joy and Z. G. are entertained at dinner by Chairman Mao. Joy returns to Green Dragon to marry Feng Tao only to find the day after she wishes she could erase the wedding. This is the era of Mao’s The Great Leap, which, according to See saw close to 45 million fatalities. The starvation is horrific. There were monstrous events where families swapped new born babies in order to have food to eat, but it would not be their families’ child. How they are able to escape turns the story into a thriller and to tell you how would be to spoil the suspense. The history is made relevant by incorporating characters who are living through it . Lisa See has written one of the finer books of this year. It is a perfect book for any book group to discuss. The interview with Lisa See is on YouTube/Connie Martinson’s Channel. www.conniemartinson.com aired and streamed at 3pm & 11:30pm on www.lacityview.org ch 38. 07/22/2011 Peter Ford has written “Glenn Ford A Life” (University of Wisconsin $24.95). Peter was the only child of Glenn Ford and Eleanor Powell. It is a portrait of the Hollywood star and his relation to his son. I asked Peter who is now in his 60’s if he had ever been in analysis? No, but writing this book was a good way to do a self analysis. Glenn was born in Canada, May 1, 1916, named Gwyllyn Ford, hardly a name to fit on billboards. His family moved to California and Glenn graduated from Santa Monica High where he became the lead in school plays. On the side he volunteered in local theatre. He would often work as the stage manager in order to get a two line part. He played a role at 20th with a director who insulted him in front of the crew and cast. Glenn never forgot it. With Gummo Marx, his agent, he signed the first of three contracts with Columbia Studios and Harry Cohn. Columbia had the reputation of making “B” films. It was on loan outs that Glenn had the opportunity to work with better directors and Cohn made the money on the deal. It was in 1940 that Glenn and Rita Hayworth co-starred in “A Lady In Question” beginning a great love affair that continued off and on till her death. Peter told me that their homes on Oxford Way had a path between, Ford devoted to his mother, Hannah, had her live with him and Eleanor. She had the room between their separate bedrooms. Both Eleanor and Glenn were intensely devoted to their mothers. Eleanor gave up being a star at MGM when she married Glenn, and ultimately gave up being a wife when she became a mother. Glenn would ask her to go with him on a European assignment and she would reject the invitation, which may explain why Glenn never met a leading lady he didn’t try to seduce. Peter was able to refer to the journals that Glenn kept and to the tapes he made for an autobiography. Besides Rita, there were two other great loves, Maria Schell and Hope Lange. In his acting career, Glenn made 84 films. No, Peter does not receive any residuals. After his divorce from Eleanor, when Peter was fourteen, there was a gay bachelor’s life. He did marry Kathy Hays, and then Cynthia Hayward, neither were successful. It was also during this period that Glenn was on the outs with Peter and his wife, Lydia. Again the Hollywood syndrome, the King is not ready to see a young, handsome heir. Push back the tide of old age. Even in his later years, he would bring home a pretty nurse from the hospital who would begin by having him give her power of attorney. Read and weep at the King Lear scenes. Peter told me that it took years to straighten out the legal entanglements. The book is the stuff of novels written about Hollywood. “Cape Cod Noir”(Akashic Press $15.95) edited by David L. Ulin has some of the finest short story writing. Any time one sees “Noir” after a title, you can be sure that there will be some dark stories. Akashic has devoted a series to cities with this adjective. But Cape Cod is the summer playground of the eastern cities, how can there be darkness? Paul Trembly’s “Nineteen Snapshots of Dennisport” is a photo album of youthful tragedy. A man is remembering himself as a young boy with his camera following the family and then noticing his father going out alone at night. He follows him first to a motel where he thinks he must be meeting a woman. Then the next night he follows his father and sees a man arguing with him, putting a hood over his head and walking him into the ocean, it is now present day and he has kidnapped the man, duct taped his mouth and the question is will he walk him into the cold, dark water to frighten him to admit who he is and what he did to the narrator’s father. Ben Greenman has written “Viva Regina” from Woods Hole that is the author’s version of the mind of the Markoff killer. David L. Ulin has written “La Jetee” from Harwichport, all the stories are from a particular spot on Cape Cod. Ulin’s story has to do with a man who has lost his job due to that new word “down sizing” and inflamed by the injustice seeks revenge but finds a different outcome than he planned. David L.Ulin is the former Book Editor of the Los AngelesTimes and is the current Book Critic for the LA Times, has written a provocative book “The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter In a Distracted Time” (Sasquatch Books $12.95). The book begins with his fifteen year-old son telling him that literature was dead, especially if he had to read “The Great Gatsby”. This leads the author to remember his youth and “The Lord of The Flies” that was also spoiled by having to dissect every meaning etc. in the book. He journeys in his mind to the books that had an effect on him and affected the way he read. He end in this brief 151 page book by writing “We regain the world by withdrawing from it just a little, by stepping back from the noise, the tumult, to discover our reflections in another mind. I try to make a place for silence, it’s harder than it used to be, but still, I read.” www.conniemartinson.com aired and streamed at 3pm &11:30pm on www.lacityview.org ch 35. 06/03/2011 It took a bad back that seemed to improve first with walking and then with climbing steps. So on the first Sunday of the month if you see a crowd of people following a Pied Piper up a staircase, you have found Charles Fleming, author of “Secret Stairs: A Walking Guide To the Historic Staircases of Los Angeles”(Santa Monica Press $16.95). Fleming has written best sellers, he has reported for the New York Times, Vanity Fair, etc. and he currently teaches journalism at USC. In the book the stairs are marked with the duration, the distance, the difficulty and what bus line can get you there. Charles Fleming told me when we taped that he also added local restaurants nearby as a social asset to the walk. The city is divided into sections, such as Pasadena and the East, which includes Downtown Los Angeles, Echo Park, Silver Lake, Hollywood and Los Feliz and Santa Monica and the West. Walk #38 is Universal City-Happy Trails which features two staircases and some architectural wonders, it begins near the intersection of Cahuenga Blvd. West and “Barham Blvd. with a coffee from Starbucks just north of the corner. It is a great way to see the city and to do what all the health books say, “Walk!” Robert K. Tanenbaum has written “Outrage”($26.00 Gallery Books) the ongoing saga of Butch Karp, the DA of New York City. The plot of this book concerns the question of a young man who has mental problems accused of two horrific murders that he did not commit but to which, under heavy questioning, he admits to only so that he can go home and see his mother. The detective who is bullying him, needs to resuscitate his career with a big win under any circumstance so that he will be returned from the Bronx to the Manhattan force. When we taped Bob Tanenbaum explained that each borough of New York City has its own district attorney. Karp is “outraged” that his perp was not read the Miranda Law and that the real killer Ahmed Kadyrov was still at large. In the family plot, Karp’s twin sons are on a school baseball team whose coach is picking on a Latino scholarship student. One twin is going along with this and the other is “outraged” at the unfairness and bigotry. Karp has them talk to his good friends, Moishe Sobelman and his wife Golde who had been incarcerated by the Naziis in Sobibor death camp. I had not heard of Sobibor which BobTanenbaum explained to me. But the plot was a way to open up the results of not standing up for what is right. Edward J. Larson has written a superb book “An Empire of Ice: Scott, Shackleton, and the Heroic Age of Antarctic Science”($28.00 Yale University Press). 100 years ago a Norwegian Roald Amundsen with no scientific projects in mind, using dogs to pull his sledges, found the 90 degree latitude that was the South Pole, he planted a tent with a Norwegian flag and left a note to inform the British that he was there first. In 1912 this was the second important story to the Titanic. There is a black and white photo of the tent. Photography makes the book come to life. Incredible to see the people and events that took place. In England there was the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Society. The RGS wanted scientific experiments and new findings, the other society was made up of adventurers. Shackleton’s expedition on the ship the Nimrod was all about “Firsts and Farthest” to go further than Robert Scott had in 1902. His objective was the long standing scientific interest in reaching the magnetic pole for the British Empire. The Empire had taken a beating in the Boer Wars in South Africa and psychologically the Empire needed a lift. Shackleton had an animosity towards Scott who he felt denigrated him in his book “Discovery” The British revered their dogs, so that in the first expeditions, men pulled the sledges, then they tried combining men and dogs. The dogs would have no human partner only other dogs. Finally they tried ponies to pull the sledges, when they could pull no further, the ponies became food. Terra Nova ship was Scott’s last expedition. Edward Adrian Wilson was interested in the Emperor Penguin and its mating habits. When the ship docked with scientific equipment, cold weather gear,and supplies loaded onto nine foot sledges linked end to end and to the men by harnesses, the men hauled more than 700 pounds. They hauled over glaciers and mountains until in the middle of Antarctica they found an interior dry valley. After two of his men died from lack of food and the cold, Scott ordered Wilson to give the men left a “fatal dose of opium”. The men wrote last letters to their families which were found the following year. Wilson, whose sketches fill this book, died with Scott and Bowers. In his last letter Scott wrote to his wife to make their two year old son interested in natural history. In the following years, Scott’s reputation was disputed and his scientific work was discredited. His writing reinforced the British fortitude in extreme conditions that “would have stirred the heart of every Englishman”. Edward Larson, who is University Professor of History and holds the Hugh & Hazel Darling Chair in Law at Pepperdine University told me that he spent three months in the South Pole researching this book. The ice and cold can be felt as one holds the book, but as a Renaissance man he also wrote “A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800”. Both books would be great Father’s Day gifts which Mother will also enjoy. WWW.CONNIEMARTINSON.COM AIRED AND STREAMED WWW.LACITYVIEW.ORG CH 35 AT 3PM & 11:30PM All the books mentioned can be seen on YouTube.com/userConnieMartinson’sChannel. 04/15/2011 If you are planning to produce an independent film, don’t make a move until you read Michael C. Donaldson’s book “The American Bar Association’s Legal Guide to Independent Filmmaking” co-authored with Lisa A. Callif (ABA $49.95). The authors have not just put the contracts in toto, but they have annotated every point, such as defining words “Purchase Price. Price can be a flat fee or a percentage of the film’s budget, or a combination.etc.” There are “Hints: If you obtain sequel rights at the same time you buy film rights – as you always should- you can take any story character out of that film and use that character in another film. The author of the book usually retains the right to write a sequel to the book being optioned.”. That is just the beginning, there are contracts for directors and writers, not to mention composers. Now, who is going to pay for all this? Even or especially when it is family, make sure it is legal and you might want to become a LLC. The legal agreements to follow go from distribution to schedule of delivery items required to lab access letter. The book includes a CD-ROM with all the contracts, employment and nondisclosure agreements and licensing deals. In its third edition is Michael C.Donaldson’s “Clearance & Copyright : Everything You Need To Know for film and Television (Silman-James Press $29.95). You can’t just decide to make a film on some one’s life, and humor has to follow laws to avoid law suits. Follow the instructions for what he terms “Safe Harbor”. On page 391 are the minimum documents you have to supply the distributor to establish the chain of title. There is even a legal referral list at the end of this book. When all else fails and both parties have turned to legal representation, Michael C. Donaldson has written “Fearless Negotiation : The Wish-Want-Walk Method To Reaching Agreements That Work” (McGrawHill $16.95). What is this method? Wish- set a goal for the negotiation. Want- know where the market is most likely to push the results. Walk- draw the line that you will not cross. One of the most important factors to get from this book is “Fear is False Evidence Appearing Real” . Fear is believing the other person has all the power, believing bad things will happen if you put your own desires on the table , or that your world will come to an end if you walk away from negotiations. Some suggestions he makes are to role play before you make your presentation and know who will make the first offer. Remember to listen and to find out what you don’t know, ask questions. What do you do when negotiating with a “Jerk”? A “Jerk” changes an important point at the end of a negotiation when you think you have agreed on everything, taking a take it or leave it stand, playing a last minute game of good cop-bad cop, and in Donaldson’s primary legal work which is in the film industry, wanting you to start your work before you have a contract or even a deal memo. During the negotiation, take a break, especially when things heat up, do not try to fight fire with fire. Take a break in order to take stock of the situation. Mean while, good luck. www.conniemartinson.com aired and streamed at 3pm and 11:30pm on www.lacityview.org ch 35 and YouTube/user/ConnieMartinson’sChannel. 04/08/2011 Stanley Wolpert has written fourteen books, many of them relating to India, but this small, brief, 150 page book, “India and Pakistan : Continued Conflict or Cooperation?” (Univesity of California Press) is conscise and informative regarding the ongoing situation. Wolpert writes that Britain’s last viceroy Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten rushed the timetable allotted to him by Prime Minister Clement Attlee’s cabinet to try and resolve the conflicts and to get the opposing leaders to orm a single federal dominion of independent India. India and Pakistan were born by the partition of British India in August 1947. Gandhi and Nehru supported the position of one federal India bu Mohammed Ali Jinnah and his Muslim League demanded an independent Pakistan where the Muslims would have their own government and not be subordinate to India’s Hindu majority. In less than ten weeks, a British lawyer, Cyril Radcliffe, who had never set foot in India, presided over the partition of British India’s two largest multicultural provinces. In rushing the division through, Mountbatten set up a cataclysmic confrontation of Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs – who had wanted their own state, Parsis, Christians and Jews. It is interesting to keep in mind that Professor Wolpert told me that as the Muslim religion expanded it appealed to the lower cast Hindus who were the Untouchables. They were happy to convert and lose that identification. The history of Kashmir includes Lalitraditya, the most powerful Hindu monarch who was tolerant of Buddhists and supported scholars of both faiths and funded both monasteries and temples. In 1846 the British turned over to Gulab Singh and his male heirs in perpetuity the Jamnu and Kashmir, In 1947 the fate of Kashmir’s four million subjects were in Maharaja Hari Singh’s hands. After the British left, two months later the Muslim peasants refused to pay their land taxes to the Hindu landlords, at that their Hindu guards opened fire. The Muslims fled to Pakistan where they were given assurances of help in liberating Kashmir from Hindu control. The India government responded to defend Prime Minister Pandit Nehru who considered Kashmir his home. On Jan 3, 1948 India brought charges of Pakistan’s aggression to the UN Security council. The debate that ensued is still being debated in some form. One reads this history that is still inflammable and is reminded that both India and Pakistan have nuclear bombs. The UN Secretary-Generalhas recently stated that the Kashmir question has existed nearly six decades and will not go away, it must be resolved. In the last chapter Professor Wolpert advances some suggestions for a solution. Of course, as long as terrorists come into India and blow up trains and hotels, one wonders what solution will satidfy both sides. SAVE the Date Sunday, April 17th at 2pm -4:30pm The Donald Bruce Kaufman Brentwood Branch Library at 11820 San Vicente Blvd. will hold its annual Friends of the Library Author Event. I will be moderating A.J. Langguth, author of “Driven West”; Leslie Klinger “The Annotated Sherlock Holmes” in two volumes and “Count Dracula”. And Kelli James, author of the memoir “Smile For The Camera” and Sonya Sones “The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus”, one of the funniest books I have read. Oh, and refreshments will be served. Be the first on your block To Commemorate the marriage of Prince William of Wales and Miss Catherine Middleton, 29th April 2011 with “William & Kate Paper Dolls” drawn by Tom Tierney (published by Dover $9.99) Dover extends a special bonus of a free download of the couple’s wedding attire. www.conniemartinson.com aired and streamed at 3pm & 11:30pm on www.lacityview.org ch 35 and Youtube/user/ConnieMartinson’s Channel. 04/01/2011 Dr. Gary Small and Gigi Vorgan have co-authored “The Naked Lady Who Stood On Her Head : A psychiatrist’s Stories of His Most Bizarre Cases (Wm Morrow $25.95). Along with the bizarre cases, it is also a semi-autobiographical history of Dr. Small and his family. He begins his history at age twenty-seven, having completed medical school and a year of internal-medicine internship, he left his home town of Los Angeles to move to Boston to do his first year residency in psychiatry at Harvard. His first supervisor was the team psychiatrist for the Boston Celtics, and his first patient was a middle class married woman who was feeling depressed because she couldn’t have children or so she said. Actually she was bar-hopping and picking up men, something she tried to do with Gary. Chapter two is the title of the book, which is how he saw the patient through the window in the door. He told her that the nurse would bring a gown for her to put on. Turns out the patient, Katie, was diabetic and had missed eating breakfast before her insulin shot. But there was more to her story, including her relationship with her mother, who she claimed never approved of what she did.. Katie wanted to be an actress and Gary notes that she did get a part on Broadway. There is a case with the man who wanted surgery so much that he kept injuring his hand. Along with the stories, Gary talks about his supervisors, the eminent and the Boston Beacon Hill types. By his last year at Harvard’s Mass General he was chief resident of the consultation service. By 1984 he was back in Los Angeles at UCLA in geriatric psychiatry which is where he has made his reputation. Here he writes of how he met and married Gigi and how a psychiatrist is still a father when it comes to teaching a teenage daughter to drive. The book is, at turns funny, charming and respectful of human emotional problems. Any book from Getty Publications is a “class act”. The latest is “Photography as Fiction”($24.95) with the introductory essay written by Erin C. Garcia. The book includes photographic work from Lewis Carroll to Alfred Stieglitz and Andy Warhol. The pictures lend themselves to inspire any writer suffering from writer’s block. In 1848 what is the Sister of Charity thinking as she serves the old man? It was not unusual for photographers, such as Roger Fenton,. to stage scenes with their models. Another was Julia Margaret Cameron who titled her photographs with “Pray God bring father safely home” and “The parting of Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere” in 1874. There is a fantastic art photo by Yasumasa Morimura ,combining Manet with her work , in “Daughter of Art History” on pages 71 and 72. Darrell Rooney and Mark Vieira have co-authored a fabulous coffee table book entitled “Harlow in Hollywood : The Blonde Bombshell In The Glamour Capitol 1928-1937” (Angel City Press $50.00). 2011 is the centennial of her birth. Her real name was Harlean Carpenter, the daughter of a Kansas City dentist and a wman who wanted to be a movie star. They divorced and Harlean and her mother, the first Jean Harlow, moved to Hollywood, where the second Jean Harlow became an extra at Hal Roach studios and later was discovered by Howard Hughes who cast her in “Hell’s Angels” It was at MGM that Paul Bern groomed her for stardom, married her and two months later committed suicide. Her next husband was cinemaphotographer, Hal Rosson which lasted eight months. Her mother was the manipulator of her career. By 1936 she had fallen in love with William Powell but she was having health problems. She was misdiagnosed and at age 26 she died. The photos of her are dazzling, it is true to call her “a star among stars”.The book has over 250 pages of this glorious creature. She is buried in the Great Mauseleum in Forest Lawn. From another of Los Angeles’ publishers comes “MGM : Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot” (Santa Monica Press $34.95) written by Steven Bingen, Stephen X. Sylvester and Michael Troyan with a Foreword by Debbie Reynolds. On the cover is a photo of the land and extent of the backlot that encompassed a man made lake with ships and buildings that would become Rome or whatever city was being used in a film. The history of MGM is recounted as to how Louis B. Mayer sold his company to Marcus Loew with the agreemet that Mayer would be retained as vice president of operations with the agreement to deliver fifteen feature films in a year, which led him to Irving Thalberg. Both Mayer and Thalberg were cost conscious. Lot One would grow to 44 acres, the 6 glass stages would be replaced by 30 concrete stages, and the 42 original buildings in Goldwyn;s day would become 177administrative and support buildings. There is an architectural plan on page 25 of Lot One. And then came Lot Two. This is where the Andy Hardy series was shot. There were circus grounds, there was the New York Street and army barracks. In other words, MGM did not need to shoot overseas, they had Europe in their back yard. In 1992 MGM moved to Century City. Kirk Kerkorian had a quixotic relationship with MGM, first you say you do and them you say you don’t. Sell and then buy back. But the Backlot was being decimated. The authors dedicate the book to Robert Nudelman who fought to save MGM’s Backlot from the wrecking ball. This is a great film history book that belongs in any film buffs library. www.conniemartinson.com on youtube and aired and streamed by www.lacityview.org at 3pm & 11:30pm. 03/25/2011 Any woman under or over fifty who smokes should have her head examined, never mind her heart. Kathy E. Magliato,MD, the director of women’s cardiac services at St. John’s Health Center has written “Heart Matters”(Random House $14.00). It’s not breast cancer that kills women, it is heart attacks, according to Dr. Magliato. Her book is subtitled “A Memoir of a Female Heart Surgeon” which is an accomplishment right there. It took her seventeen years of college, medical school, fellowships in surgery, transplants and cardiac surgery to finally earn a living. And I might add that while pregnant with her second son, she earned an MBA from UCLA Anderson school of Business. Her book begins with the story of a nurse who thought she had an ulcer caused by stress. She entered the hospital for an upper GI and as long as she was there for a colonoscopy. Inadvertantly, her colon was perforated and she required urgent surgery to repair the small hole. Twelve hours later as she was seeming to recover she had a massive heart attack which is known as a “widowmaker” because it kills. Dorothy did not have an ulcer, her indigestion was one of the signs that women have of a heart attack. Some other signs are pains in the shoulders and in the jaw. Rarely is it the pain in the chest that males complain of. Dr. Magliato describes her medical techniques in the operating room, her use of heparin that enables the blood to spin through the heart-lung machine without clotting. The most valuable member of her team is the perfusionist who runs the heart-lung machine. After the operation, she and the perfusionist go through the process of restarting the heart which is a fascination procedure which she takes the reader through step by step. She writes about her role as a female doctor in what has long been considered a male world. She told me when we taped some of the problems a woman faces and her need to be considered an ice queen in the OR, even by nurses, who will mistake friendliness and not take her seriously as a doctor. Kathy Magliato is a beauty and she is brilliant. I asked her to read from her book. It was a paragraph about
death , which ends with the words, “Although Death shows
up without an escort, he never leaves the party alone.”
She told me that the publisher wanted to assign a writer to help
her, she refused and wrote every word in the book. Her husband
is an expert in liver transplant and they both involve their
sons in their work. I did tell her that her son’s creating
a Healing ‘ I did mention not smoking, let me add obesity, lack of exercise, diabetes and two factors that you can’t change, family history and age. She does write about what your blood levels should be on page 124. This is a good book as a gift and for a reading group. 03/12/2011 Robert D Kaplan has written “Monsoon :The Indian Ocean And The Future Of American Power” (Random House $28.00). A monsoon is a cyclical weather system that is both destructive and essential for growth and prosperity. The Indian Ocean is surrounded by thirty-seven countries representing a third of the world’s population. The book also provides a visual impression of Islam, global energy politics and the importance of world navies. Kaplan told me that he visited every one of these countries. He notes that the Indian Ocean is where the rivalry between the United States and China interlocks with the regional rivalry between China and India. When ever U.S. Navy warships have bombed Iraq or Afghanistan, they have often done so from the Indian Ocean. He writes that, “Any strike against Iran – and its aftershocks , regarding the flow of oil- will have an Indian Ocean address”. He refers to Yemen as a teeming, water-starved tinderbox, home to twenty-two million people and eighty million firearms, Both the US Navy and US Marines seek a forward presence in the Indian Ocean and the adjacent Pacific. India and China are also seeking a prominent position in the area. Kaplan addresses the United States emphasis on Human Rights, while China goes about its business in building deep water harbors in Sri Lanka where they have built Hambantota and donated financial help after the Tsunami. By 2023 Hambantota is projected to have a liquefied natural gas refinery, aviation fuel storage and three separate docks giving the seaport a transshipment capacity, as well as dry docks for ship repair and construction. He uses Sri Lanka as an expose of the new geopolitics. As an aside , he notes that he was arrested by the police in Hambantota for trespassing into a secure area but he credits the police with being professional and the U.S. Embassy in Colombo for getting him released. Robert D. Kaplan is a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security in Washington and he is a member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board. This book is an extensive look at all these countries that play and will continue to play an important role in our future. Another book that continues this look at potential trouble spots is Professor Stanley Wolpert’s “India and Pakistan :Continued Conflict or Cooperation” (University of California Press $19.95) Ever since the development of Pakistan, there has been an on-going conflict over Kashmir which is claimed by India for its land and by Pakistan for its Islamic population. Both countries have emerged as nuclear weapon states.
Mary McDonough has written “Lessons From the Mountains : What I Learned From Erin Walton”(Kensington $25.00). Mary McDonough was ten years old when she went for her first audition for the part of Erin Walton in the “Homecoming”. She not only got the part but when the movie of the week became a series, she was part of the family. She told me that it was a second family for her. Both her parents worked, so that she had a guardian who took her to the set. She was a naïve kid who felt out of the loop both on the set and when she would go back to public school. She credits certain directors for teaching her how to act, how not to shift her eyes in a scene, and she writes how Will Geer gave her a photographic book of nudes that she never showed her parents but she still has and used it to explain the facts of life to her daughter. As I read her book I told Mary that her father, who was a strong disciplinarian, seemed to be living her career vicariously. After the show was cancelled, and the cast found out, not from the network but in Mary’s case, from a friend calling to commiserate. She would get weekly jobs on other series but she felt she wasn’t getting the important career moves. In a decision that would affect her life, she had breast implants. She began to feel chronic fatigue, developed rashes, began to lose her beautiful red hair, etc. She went from one doctor to another, all of whom would prescribe medication, none of which seemed to help. Finally she was diagnosed with Lupus. She became an activist for women’s health issues, fighting all the way to Washington and testifying in congressional committees about the dangers of silicone implants when the silicone leaks into the system. Mary married and has a daughter, who has suffered with ADD. Currently she has remarried and is a step-mother to her husband”s two daughters. Or as her brother said at their wedding,” Does he realizes he is living with four women?” Mary is a force of nature, She is an award winning actor, writer and director. She has written award winning educational films. She was founding director of Lupus LA and currently heads In The Know to educate women about their own health. She has really two books in one, the years of the Waltons and life after. www.conniemartinson.com aired and streamed at 3pm & 11:30pm on www.lacityview.org ch 35 and Youtube/conniemartinson” channel. 02/25/2011 A.J. Langguth has written a remarkable history of the era of the grandson generation of the Founders of the United States. The book is “Driven West : Andrew Jackson And The Trail of Tears To The civil War”(Simon & Schuster$30.00). Beginning the book with Henry Clay (1825) of whom he writes in the first sentence, “At 6 p.m. on Sunday, January 9, 1825, Henry Clay, one of his nation’s shrewdest political minds, made a miscalculation that helped to end his chance of ever becoming president of the United States. Over the next three decades, Clay’s decision set off repercussions that transformed the character of his young country, uprooted the earliest Americans from their homes in the Southeast, and led ultimately to massive bloodshed.” Clay was from Lexington, KY when at 29 he was appointed to the US Senate. He was known for his all night poker parties and his womanizing. It was a great contrast to his rival, John Quincy Adams whom Monroe selected to be his secretary of state, a role which was assumed to be a stepping stone to the presidency. In this role, Adams took advantage of Andrew Jackson’s incursion to Florida to make a treaty with Spain giving the United States boundaries west to the Pacific Ocean. In 1825 he wrote into Monroe’s State of the Union Address that any attempt by Europe to extend its influence in this hemisphere as “dangerous to our lives and safety”. This would become known as the Monroe Doctrine. The Treaty of Indian Springs allowed the sale of Indian land to the U.S. Federal Government. The Cherokees imposed a death sentence on any man who sold communal land without the consent of the full Cherokee Nation. Radical changes uprooted a way of life as they adopted the white man’s culture. The history of the Cherokees, and leaders such as Major Ridge and John Ross is a history of double talk and double dealing. The state of Georgia, under Governor George Michael Troup wanted the Cherokee land. Ridge and Vann wrote to the president, but Georgia claimed the land under States Rights. As Langguth writes the history, the threat of States Rights is larger than slavery. Even Cherokees had slaves for their cotton farms. Georgia used the law of Nullification that allowed a state to reject Federal Law. In 1831 the Cherokees sued the state of Georgia against removing the tribe from their lands. They were represented by William Wirt, a brilliant, liberal attorney, who reminded the supreme court that the Cherokees had “fought side by side with our present chief magistrate and received his personal thanks for their gallantry and bravery”. The chief magistrate, Chief Justice John Marshall, who , while sympathetic to the Cherokees, did not vote for them. He did define the Cherokees as a “domestic dependent nations” and their relationship to Washington was that of a “ward to his guardian”. Langguth adds to the saga of Andrew Jackson, with the portrait of Rachel, their love affair and the fact that she never lived to see him inaugurated or to be the “first Lady” in the White House. Jackson was known for installing his cronies in federal offices and using the “spoils” system for their benefit. By 1852 Henry Clay declined having his name entered for the presidency, he was emotionally drained and like a Shakespearean character in “Romeo and Juliet”, he might be said, “A plague on both your houses”, the abolitionists for their recklessness and the Southerners for their continual threat of secession. In the first part of the twenty-first century , members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs introduced a resolution calling on the Federal government to make a formal apology to the nation’s 564 tribes for its past policies. That resolution died annually until Oct. 2009. The bill stripped away the litany of abuses, the Trail of Tears, the theft of Indian lands, the breach of treaties and the massacres at Sand Creek in 1864 and at Wounded Knee in 1890. And it disclaimed that “nothing in its language authorizes or supports any claim against the United States” A.J. Langguth is professor emeritus in the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California. He will be speaking and signing books at the Kaufman Brentwood Library Author Event on Sunday, April 17th at 2 p.m. www.conniemartinson.com aired and streamed on www.lacityview.org ch 35 at 3pm & 11:30pm. 02/11/2011 It was ironic to be watching the revolution in Egypt and then to read Rebecca D.Costa’s non-fiction book “The Watchman’s Rattle : Thinking Our Way Out of Extinction”(Vanguard Press $26.95). There is a Foreword written by E.O. Wilson, Costa is a sociobiologist who is able to demonstrate the reasons that the Mayan, the Khmer and the Roman Empire fell. In the Mayan history, it was the lack of water that led to their downfall, as she points out there is a sequence of events that led to the Mayans believing that they could appease the “gods” by sacrificing first animals and then humans. She writes, “Instead of calling upon our collective resources, intelligence and technologies to stop them, we are falling into the trap of ameliorating a few bothersome symptoms instead of implementing permanent cures”. Water is the essential factor as we know here in California. When we taped, I did ask her about the process of desalinization that Israel had championed? She writes about nuclear energy and the misbelief of it being clean, She questions why we do not paint our roofs white? Humans prefer to have beliefs over facts. The problem lies in the complexity of the situation and the need to develop complex solving techniques. She uses this argument as she investigates the auto industry, the bonuses paid to AIG management and the personalization of blame. Year after year we put our hopes and our blames on one-dimensional solutions and charismatic leaders who point fingers at each other. She used the Democratic race between Obama and Hillary Clinton as an example of one who tried to make some points and one who promised “hope”. She does tell the story of her daughter joining a march against the Iraq war. Rebecca saw it on TV and there was her daughter being interviewed by a reporter, He asked her what she was doing there and then he asked her how we should get out of Iraq and as Rebecca said, she looked like the deer in the headlights who had no answer. Which brings us back to Egypt, and after they achieve the removal, then what? We both agreed that one of the great problems in the Islamic world is population explosion. The problem is how to find the jobs to sustain this population under 25 when medicines protect from infant mortality. Malthusian theory is not working. In keeping with the theory of extinction, we blame the rain and snow, etc. on Global Warming which is a misnomer, it should be Climate Change. Laurence C. Smith, professor of earth and space sciences at UCLA has written “The World In 2050: Four Forces Shaping Civilization’s Northern Future”(Dutton $26.95) So what are these four forces? The first global force is demography. Paul Ehrlich predicted in “The Population Bomb” a global famine, smog deaths and massive human die-offs if we didn’t control our numbers. In the twentieth century our numbers shot from 1.6 billion to 6.1 billion. The fertility rate over whelms the death rate. The second global force is the demand for natural resources, services and gene pool. Natural resources mean both finite assets and renewable assets like rivers, arable land, wildlife and wood. Natural services include life essentials like photosynthesis and absorption of carbon dioxide by oceans and the labors of bees to pollinate our crops. The third global force is globalization, the interconnectedness from economic, social and technological processes that make the world more interconnected and interdependent. Smith notes that globalization can also kill economies. As an example, look at the auto industry in Detroit. He refers to the Breton Woods Ageement on monetary policy which was the beginning of open trade. The fourth global force is climate change. Human industrial activity is changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere such that the overall temperature must heat up, due to the power of greenhouse gases. A fifth force is technology, which brings his discussion to the merging of cities and countries, He chooses Singapore as one of the most globalized, stable and prosperous countries that has learned to manage tensions between its main ethnic groups. The fact that it has energy efficient mass transit, excellent health care and longevity, is related to aggressive law enforcement which some might call police-state authoritarianism. When we taped Laurence Smith told me that the rising oceans and the draughts are making the northern countries such as Finland and Canada the future powers. With climate change, the oil, the gas, the mineral resources in the North are more accessible, Smith is an excellent writer who makes the most complex easily understandable. www.conniemartinson.com aired and streamed at 3pm and 11:30pm from www.lacityview.org ch 35. Also on youtube.com/conniemartinson’s channel. 01/26/2011 Wendy Walker with Andrea Cagan has written “Producer : Lessons Shared from 30 Years in Television”(Hachette $24.95). Besides being a fascinating story of her success, at the end of every chapter are the “Lessons”. After you read them, you will start to “organize” your closets. As an aside Wendy cleans out her pocket book every night! Along with Larry King, for whom she has been the Senior Executive Producer and who wrote the foreword and gave her book party , she writes of working for Ethel Kennedy. Seems Ethel would come into Brooks Bros. to buy shirts for her boys and Wendy would wait on her. She was so taken with her competence that she offered her the position to work on her fund raising events. The next step up the ladder was working at ABC, which was followed by CNN in its embryonic stage. In those days, CNN was lucky to have a closet in the Press Room in the White House and no TV system was carrying the channel in Washington. Times change and CNN grew and grew. And Larry King needed an executive producer. At first he wanted a sports buddy, but Wendy with her letters of recommendation convinced him. To those who want to know what a day in the life of a Larry King producer was like, she opens the book on June 25, 2009, the day there was a surplus of celebrity deaths. Farrah Fawcett had died and the show that night was to revolve around her friends, when the news came that Michael Jackson was taken to UCLA by ambulance and then the call that he was dead. How they handled it could give one an ulcer. But as she told me when we taped, that is what the job demands. Her stories of her early years when she shared an apartment with unorganized Katie Couric could make for a female “The Odd Couple” and her photos from dating Sam Donaldson make one want to know more, which she does reveal in the book. Today, Wendy lives near San Diego with a control studio that CNN built for her, in her home that literally controlled the King Show. Now that he is retiring, it will be interesting to see her next move since she has never been afraid to live by the saying “There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit”. P.G. Sturges joins the LA Noir authors with his book, “Shortcut Man” (Scribner $24.00). The “Shortcut Man” is Dick Henry, a former submarine sailor and policeman, who lives by his own code for righting the wrongs. Preston, as he asked me to call him when we taped, is also a former submarine sailor. He is also the son of Preston Sturges, his mother was the last of Sturges’ five wives. P.G. was six when his father died. He told me he still has memories of him. Dick Henry is in the midst of a passionate affair with Lynette, a stewardess, that is until he is hired by Artie Benjamin, the porno king to find out if his wife, Judy, is having an affair. Guess who Lynette turns out to be? Correct, Lynette is Judy. Benjamin orders Dick Henry to find the man, and have him killed. Henry gets an obit into the LA Times and then Artie insists on seeing the body. P.G. Sturges is able to mix comedy with murder in fast short scenes, to the point I asked him if this was originally a screenplay. For those who are pregnant or who have relatives who are, get them “Expecting 411: The Insider’s Guide to Pregnancy and Childbirth”(Windsor Peak Press $14.95) written by Michele Hakakha,M.D., OB/GYN and Art Brown,M.D.,Pediatrician. The book is 690 pages that may fit in your big pocket. Truly everything you wanted to know and your doctor didn’t have time to answer. In case you were planning a cruise before the test came back blue positive, on page 241, they advise that under Helpful Hint, Vacationstogo.com has a specific section on cruises for pregnant women and infants listing each cruise line. On a more mundane level, Chapters 15 and 16 go into the complicated pregnancy and infections. There is a large Glossary to explain words and terms. Lyn Kienholz has written and edited a magnificent book “L.A. Rising: SoCal Artists Before 1980” (California/International Arts Foundation $89.00). It is a coffee table book, but it is the book to put on a stand so that each day a different page can be exposed, also, the book weighs a little over 6 pounds. As for the artists from A to Z they are here, with an example of their choice work. I was interested to read about Don Bachardy and see his pencil and ink drawing of Norton Simon. I have been a fan of his work and even had the honor of being used as a model for him. Another artist whose work I have been taken with is Chuck Arnoldi on page 37, Don’t miss Samella Lewis, who wrote “Black Artists on Art” has a moving painting entitled “Boy”. And on page 265 is a fantastic tableau by Edward Kienholz and Nancy Reddin Koenholz. It must take your breath away when seen in reality. I have just scratched the surface when as I turn a page, there is the work of Millard Sheets. Lyn states that the criteria for the artists selected was that they lived and worked in the LA area prior to 1980 and exhibited professionally in galleries, museums, etc. prior to 1980. Lyn was given a book party by Karen Sulzberger and Eric Lax whom she thanks for their research assistance in her book. Barbara Isenberg wrote the preface. It is interesting to look at an earlier book called, Inside the L.A. Artist” (Peregrine Smith $19.95) by Marva Marrow whom I interviewed in 1988. In this book, the artists wrote their own descriptions. They were asked to write the answer to one of five questions, among which were “Where does your work come from?””Why do you paint draw or sculpt?” etc. , so it is on pages 20 a young Chuck Arnoldi writes and on the facing page 21, Don Bachardy in front of his inspiration,/model, Christopher Isherwood, writes that his art is “an actual record of what I look at and react to each day…” I don’t know if this book is still in print but it is worth your time to see if you can find it on line. www.conniemartinson.com aired and streamed at 3pm & 11:30pm on www.lacityview.org ch 35. And on YouTube.net//Connie Martinson’s channel;
Julie MacIntosh, the author of “Dethroning The King: The Hostile Takeover of ANHEUSER-BUSCH, An American Icon”(Wiley $27.00) had no idea of the murder publicity that followed; but it should not have been surprising in the light of the family history. As the Financial Times U.S. mergers and acquisitions correspondent, Julie covered the Inbev takeover of Anheusier-Busch. The story of the Busch family of St. Louis reads like a Shakespearean drama, intrigue, death and revolt by each generation. When the company was in its prime, the family and the top employees lived like kings, money was no object. The mode of transportation was private planes. By the time, Augustus iv tried to rein in the extravagances, the ship had sailed, Carlos Brito, the CEO of InBev not only flew coach, he had his employees share a hotel room. Busch IV had dropped out of college, Brito, the married father of four, a native of Rio de Janeiro, had graduated from Stanford Business School with an MBA. Prior to the buyout, he and “Gus” IV had talked abouy cooperating ventures, Augustus III had felt it was a bad move to open the books to Brito. Gus III or “three sticks” as he was called behind his back, had been deposed by his son, though he still sat on the Anheuser board. Brito bought Anheuser-Busch lock stock and barrel’s of beer. No sad songs for employees with stock who despite loyalty to the company could suddenly be worth millions themselves. MacIntosh calls the deal the, ”perfect storm” as she writes, “If InBev had made its offer just a month later, or if Anheuser-Busch had waited a month or two more to admit defeat,key players on both sides say the deal would never have happened”. A great book for those who question how these things happen. If you see a young man and a man who looks like his father walking with a dog while they are in engrossed conversation, it just might be Gotham Chopra and his father, Deepak Chopra in their Socratic discussion. This is their story in “Walking Wisdom : Three Generations, Two Dogs, and the Search for a Happy Life” (Hyperion $24.99) author credit is Gotham Chopra with Deepak Chopra. It is both a charming portrait of a truly wonderful family and a challenging book of ideas, ethics and dog behavior. The book is written with a question to begin each chapter, which is later pursued in the text of the chapter. In the first chapter the question Gotham asks his father, “Are you a dog person, Papa?” No, he wasn’t until Gotham and his sister, Mallika, as children, insisted on a dog when they lived in Boston. This was before Dr. Chopra became the “Deepak Chopra”. Gotham credits his mother as being the glue of the family, but during the time of the book she was in India where her father was in the hospital and might need a heart bypass surgery. When we taped Gotham agreed that her absence brought him and his father closer than they had been. It is hard to be the son of a man whose followers all want to be his son. One of those was Michael Jackson, who also became a good friend to Gotham. One of the most interesting question and answer was “Papa, what would you do if you thought n one would ever find out?” The answer is perceptive, “When you have to live up to an image that is not you, then sooner or later that image is defiled . Then everyone becomes enraged and many people end up getting hurt.” But the book is more than just this “wisdom” Gotham writes about his son, Krishu, the closeness of the family where cousins are like siblings and infants sleep with their parents as a way of bonding for life. Gotham told me that when as children they would visit his grandparents in India they would sleep in the same bed. His portrayal of his father and his son is a joy to read. Up till now, he could walk to his sister’s house and they had dinner two or three nights a week, now she has moved a fifteen minute drive away. It is a beautiful book and anyone with a beloved relative in a distant city will be jealous of the family’s proximity. As for the dog in the title, the last line of the book which relates to Cleo, the dog who went walking with them, “I think that is a great idea, “Papa interrupted, ”Cleo certainly has a lot to teach us all”. Speaking of dogs, Audrey Spilker Hagar and Eldad Hagar have done a second edition of “Our Lives Have Gone To The Dogs” with all new photos of dogs they have rescued with before and after photos that Eldad took. Audrey and Eldad are founders of Hope For Paws to help animals in distress, covering all aspects of care, ranging from rescuing and fostering to medical assistance and emergency aid, www.conniemartinson.com aired and streamed on www.lacityview.org at 3pm & 11:30pm mon-sat. and on YouTube/ConnieMartinson;sChannell. |