A Voice, and Words, to Remember

My father, the actor Lionel Stander, would have been 109 years old yesterday. Though he died in 1994, his indelible presence and words live on.

In mid-October I was contacted by Scott Dawson, who was going to play my dad in a staged reading of the Eric Bentley play, "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been?" in Ithaca on November 6. Mr. Dawson wrote in an email, "The timing of the reading is especially important, given the political climate we find ourselves in. I am honored to have been cast to read Lionel’s testimony before HUAC, and as such have been trying to learn as much as I can about him."

Along with photos of Dad testifying at HUAC in 1953, I sent Scott these tips on how to play him: "Beyond the voice, there was my father’s larger-than-life presence. He never just walked into a room, he ENTERED it. Leading with his massive chest, he strode in and OWNED that room, and was the center of attention. Always. (Note his entrance in 'A Star Is Born.')" [Complete movie is here; Dad's first scene is at 44:43.]























I was disappointed that travel plans precluded my attending the reading; according to Mr. Dawson it went very well. Two days later (on my birthday...ugh), Donald Trump was elected president. Now some of my father's words ring out more loudly than ever.

 From his 1953 HUAC testimony:

"I know of a group of fanatics who are desperately trying to undermine the Constitution of the United States by depriving artists and others of life, liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness without due process of law ... I can tell names and cite instances and I am one of the first victims of it. And if you are interested in that and also a group of ex-fascists and America-Firsters and anti-Semites, people who hate everybody including Negroes, minority groups and most likely themselves ... and these people are engaged in a conspiracy outside all the legal processes to undermine the very fundamental American concepts upon which our entire system of democracy exists."

From a 1993 interview in the book TENDER COMRADES: A Backstory of the Hollywood Blacklist by Patrick McGilligan & Paul Buhle:

"Right-wingers, unfortunately, are never in the closet. They're all out night and day campaigning, making noise, joining moral majorities and moral rearmaments. They're actually an immoral minority, but they're always out there. The left should only be so active."

Mike Kellin, who played my father in a 1979 production of Are You Now or Have You Ever Been? (with Liza Minnelli in a cameo as Lillian Hellman), nailed his voice and mannerisms. However, the costume, coif and beard (!) were all wrong. I went to a performance; Dad was horrified when I told him his character wore a garish plaid sports jacket. The lengthy scene, which starts at 1:12:19, is electric, funny and ominous.

Another Piece of History

My latest acquisition (above) is an AP Wirephoto of my father from 1953. Caption:

NEW YORK, May 6--Rep. Harold Velde, left, (R-Ill. chairman of the House Unamerican Activities Committee, points a warning finger at witness Lionel Stander, seated at right, during the actor's testimony here today. Stander refused to tell the committee at an open hearing whether he had ever been a Communist. He said he was not now a Communist, but refused to say whether he was a party member between 1935 and 1948. Rep. Morgan M. Moulder (D-Mo.) sits beside Velde.

That appears to be the infamous Roy Cohn standing in the back at left.

Summer Reading Assignment for Obama & Congress

To the legislators of 2011 and most especially the candidates of 2012, I offer this excerpt from Charles Dickens's LITTLE DORRIT:

Containing the whole Science of Government

Whatever was required to be done, the Circumlocution Office was beforehand with all the public departments in the art of perceiving--HOW NOT TO DO IT.

Through this delicate perception, through the tact with which it invariably seized it, and through the genius with which it always acted on it, the Circumlocution Office had risen to overtop all the public departments; and the public condition had risen to be--what it was.

It is true that How not to do it was the great study and object of all public departments and professional politicians all round the Circumlocution Office. It is true that every new premier and every new government, coming in because they had upheld a certain thing as necessary to be done, were no sooner come in than they applied their utmost faculties to discovering How not to do it. It is true that from the moment when a general election was over, every returned man who had been raving on hustings because it hadn't been done, and who had been asking the friends of the honourable gentleman in the opposite interest on pain of impeachment to tell him why it hadn't been done, and who had been asserting that it must be done, and who had been pledging himself that it should be done, began to devise, How it was not to be done. It is true that the debates of both Houses of Parliament the whole session through, uniformly tended to the protracted deliberation, How not to do it. It is true that the royal speech at the opening of such session virtually said, My lords and gentlemen, you have a considerable stroke of work to do, and you will please to retire to your respective chambers, and discuss, How not to do it. It is true that the royal speech, at the close of such session, virtually said, My lords and gentlemen, you have through several laborious months been considering with great loyalty and patriotism, How not to do it, and you have found out; and with the blessing of Providence upon the harvest (natural, not political), I now dismiss you. All this is true, but the Circumlocution Office went beyond it.

Back to Mr. Dickens

I kept thinking how much the US Congress dickering over the debt ceiling is just like Dickens's Circumlocution Office, with all the talk of why "it can't be done." So I put aside Susan Isaacs's LILY WHITE, which was boring me, in favor of LITTLE DORRIT, which isn't.

The cinematic opening, which I looked for in vain when I watched the BBC series, fits right in with the breathless weather we're having:

Thirty years ago, Marseilles lay burning in the sun, one day. A blazing sun upon a fierce August day was no greater rarity in southern France then, than at any other time, before or since. Everything in Marseilles, and about Marseilles, had stared at the fervid sky, and been stared at in return, until a staring habit had become universal there. Strangers were stared out of countenance by staring white houses, staring white walls, staring white streets, staring tracts of arid road, staring hills from which verdure was burnt away. The only things to be seen not fixedly staring and glaring were the vines drooping under their load of grapes. These did occasionally wink a little, as the hot air barely moved their faint leaves.

There was no wind to make a ripple on the foul water within the harbour, or on the beautiful sea without. The line of demarcation between the two colours, black and blue, showed the point which the pure sea would not pass; but it lay as quiet as the abominable pool, with which it never mixed. Boats without awnings were too hot to touch; ships blistered at their moorings; the stones of the quays had not cooled, night or day, for months.

This may be the last time I read my Penguin paperback edition, which I bought in 1984, as the pages keep fluttering out of the cracked binding. It's odd to have a book that I remember buying new to be looking--and especially smelling--so old.

Guffaw of the Day OR Hypocritic Oaf

I laughed out loud when I saw this AP headline:

Gingrich: Love of country contributed to affair

LOVE the lede:

Newt Gingrich says his passion for his country contributed to his marital infidelity.

(Yes, and my passion for dessert contributed to my thighs.)

What follows is a motherlode of self-serving hypocrisy. Consider this gem:

The twice-divorced former U.S. House speaker has admitted he had an affair with Callista, a former congressional aide, while married to his second wife. It happened at the same time he was attacking President Bill Clinton for his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Takeaway (via Jon Stewart): There are 3 women who'd have sex with Newt Gingrich!

The piece ends with this emetic tidbit:

He also said former Georgia Gov. Zell Miller, a Democrat who has backed many Republicans in recent years, will serve as a co-chairman of his national campaign effort.

I ♥ Anthony Weiner!

Sometimes histrionics are The Right Thing:



Unconvinced? Read this NYT editorial: Feckless and Cruel.

Quote for the Day

From Outspoken Is Great, Till It’s Not in today's NYT:

And if you dumped every reporter who ever sent a snide message or talked smack in private, there would be nothing but crickets chirping in newsrooms all over America.

Gobsmacked

This NYT article, With No Jobs, Time for Tea Party, left me sputtering in disbelief & horror. Excerpt (emphasis mine):

When Tom Grimes lost his job as a financial consultant 15 months ago, he
called his congressman, a Democrat, for help getting government health care.
Then he found a new full-time occupation: Tea Party activist....

He blames the government for his unemployment. “Government is absolutely responsible, not because of what they did recently with the car companies, but what they’ve done since the 1980s,” he said. “The government has allowed free trade and never set up any rules.”

He and others do not see any contradictions in their arguments for smaller
government even as they argue that it should do more to prevent job loss or cuts
to Medicare. After a year of angry debate, emotion outweighs fact....

Mr. Grimes, for his part, is thinking of getting a part-time job with the Census Bureau.

Better than Ipecac

I challenge you to read this and not retch at the last line. The highlowlights, from The Salt Lake Tribune:

House Majority Leader Kevin Garn resigns amid hot tub scandal

House Majority Leader Kevin Garn announced Saturday he was resigning from the Utah Legislature, two days after revelations of a nude hot-tubbing incident with a minor 25 years ago and a payment to keep it quiet....

Garn, of Layton, admitted the two had sat nude in a Salt Lake City hot tub. He insisted there was no sexual contact, but admitted that it was wrong. [Cheryl] Maher insists there was touching and physical contact, but declined to elaborate.

In 2002, when Garn, a Republican, was running for Congress, she began contacting reporters and Garn arranged to pay her $150,000, provided she sign an agreement not to go public with the incident. She signed a nondisclosure agreement and Garn paid her the money in 2003, well after he had lost the Republican congressional primary....

With the news about to break, Garn made an emotional statement from the House floor Thursday night, with his wife by his side, apologizing to his colleagues and constituents....

His statement drew a standing ovation from his House colleagues, many of whom lined up to console Garn and his wife.

Full article in Salt Lake Tribune

Quote of the Day

“I ache for the return of dysfunction. Dysfunction had its problems, but at least dysfunction has function in its title. We are not functioning at all.”

--NY Assemblyman Daniel J. O'Donnell, quoted in NYT

Virginia Culture Lovers, Please Help!

This just in from the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, which sponsors the highlight of my year, the Virginia Festival of the Book. (Coming next month!)

THE SITUATION
Over the weekend, the Virginia House Appropriations Committee voted to cut state funding for VFH by $290,000, effective July 1, 2010, and to eliminate all state funding for VFH, effective July 1, 2011. The Senate Finance Committee recommended cutting the VFH budget by $290,000 effective July 1, 2010, but recommended no further cuts. Each House will vote on its own budget on February 25, and the difference in the two budgets will be resolved in conference committee.

VFH has already experienced deep cuts, in the last two budget years, adversely affecting every VFH program. Additional cuts will undermine such well-known educational programs as the Virginia Festival of the Book, Encyclopedia Virginia, VFH Grants and Fellowships, With Good Reason Radio programs; African American, Virginia Indian, and Virginia Folklife Programs.

PLEASE ACT IMMEDIATELY
Call, fax, or email your State Delegates and Senators to protest additional cuts to advocate for continued funding. Find your legislators’ contact information here.

• Be personal. Talk about your involvement and commitment to the VFH.
• Forward this request to your boards, membership, and address book.
• Post a comment on your Facebook or other social networking site, asking that other Virginians contact their legislators as well.
• Write a post on your personal blog stating how you feel about these budget cuts.
• Email or call your local news outlets to express your dismay and describe the effect of such cuts.

Talking Points for These Contacts with Legislators and Media Outlets

• VFH funding and programs increase the attractiveness of the state as a tourism destination by assisting museums and cultural sites to provide excellent visitor experiences.
• VFH Grants support organizations and communities important to you and your representatives.
• VFH increases the attractiveness of communities to new businesses.
• VFH builds the educational capacity of Virginia's teachers by providing resources and professional development opportunities.
• VFH provides financial and professional development support to Virginia's museums, building community social capital and pride.
• VFH Leverages state funds with cash and in-kind matches.
• VFH promotes a vigorous exchange of ideas, and is a leader in modeling civil public dialogue. Radio shows like With Good Reason improve our understanding of the issues we face as a Commonwealth and a nation. The Virginia Festival of the Book is a nationally recognized model of public discussion. Now more than ever, our situation requires that we approach public policy with an understanding of the past, a willingness to confront issues of the present, and a commitment to shaping a more promising future.

Click here for additional information on how VFH programs contribute to the economic and educational vitality of the Commonwealth.

Additional Sources of Information on VFH Programs and Advocacy Tips
Effects of Cuts (doc)
Program Accomplishments (doc)
VFH Programs
VFH Website
VFH Mission and Strategic Vision
General VFH Information (doc)
Advocacy Tips (doc)
The Do's and Don'ts of Legislative Letter Writing (pdf)
Advocacy Visit Report Form (doc)
About the Humanities (pdf)

Find Your Virginia General Assembly Representatives
Who's My Legislator?
Contact Information of Senators
Contact Information of Delegates

Siegfried Sassoon, More Relevant than Ever

The UK Guardian ran a piece on WWI poet-soldier
Siegfried Sassoon: The reluctant hero

"Cambridge University is on the verge of securing Siegfried Sassoon's personal papers for posterity – his unpublished poems and letters are more relevant than ever, says Michael Morpurgo"


The article includes this undated poem, "just a scrap torn from a notebook":

Can I forget the voice of one who cried
For me to save him, save him, as
he died?
I will remember you, and from
your wrongs
Shall rise the power and the
poignance of my songs
And this shall comfort me until
the end
That I have been your captain and
your friend.

Sassoon's July 1917 Soldier's Declaration, according to Morpurgo, "was published in newspapers and read out in the Commons; it very nearly got him executed." I imagine the same furor would erupt today. I wish it would.

A Soldier's Declaration

I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it.

I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that this war, upon which I entered as a war of defence and liberation has now become a war of aggression and conquest. I believe that the purposes for which I and my fellow soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them, and that, had this been done, the objects witch actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation.

I have seen and endured the suffering of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust. I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerity's for which the fighting men are being sacrificed.

On behalf of those who are suffering now I make this protest against the deception which is being practised on them; also I believe that I may help to destroy the callous complacence with which the majority of those at home regard the continuance of agonies which they do not share, and which they have not sufficient imagination to realise.

S. Sassoon,

A Blacklist is Born

From the New York Times, June 27, 1941:

My father, who belonged to Actors Equity and was a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild, in August 1940 was named as a Communist Party member in "closed" grand jury testimony that was leaked to the LA Times the next day.

From the New York Times, February 3, 1942:

In May 1953, in the middle of the roadshow run of "Pal Joey" (in which he was the Equity rep) Dad was called to testify before the Dies Committee in New York.

More Inauguration Theme Songs

Sung by the crowd as the helicopter flew off with ex-president George W. Bush:


The songs echoing in my head today:

Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead!


I'm So Glad

Inauguration Theme Song

I've been watching a lot of old movies lately, as I've found escapism great for the soul. Therefore a phrase in Barack Obama's inaugural speech sounded especially familiar: "pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again." Perhaps not coincidentally, it echoes a song that was popular during the Depression, sung by Ginger Rogers & Fred Astaire in the 1936 movie "Swing Time." Nearly three-quarters of a century later, the lyrics are still fresh and timely.

From "Pick Yourself Up," words by Dorothy Field, music by Jerome Kern:

Nothing's impossible I have found,
For when my chin is on the ground,
I pick myself up,
Dust myself off,
Start all over again.

Don't lose your confidence if you slip,
Be grateful for a pleasant trip,
And pick yourself up,
Dust yourself off,
Start all over again.

Work like a soul inspired,
Till the battle of the day is won.
You may be sick and tired,
But you'll be a man, my son!

Will you remember the famous men,
Who had to fall to rise again?
So take a deep breath,
Pick yourself up,
Dust yourself off,
Start all over again.

Larry Flynt Gives Good Headline

From the CNN Political Ticker:
Porn industry seeks federal bailout

Hustler publisher Larry Flynt and Girls Gone Wild CEO Joe Francis said Wednesday they will request that Congress allocate $5 billion for a bailout of the adult entertainment industry....

"People are too depressed to be sexually active," Flynt said in the statement. "This is very unhealthy as a nation. Americans can do without cars and such but they cannot do without sex."

"With all this economic misery and people losing all that money, sex is the farthest thing from their mind. It's time for congress to rejuvenate the sexual appetite of America. The only way they can do this is by supporting the adult industry and doing it quickly."

Here's my slogan for these troubled times:
Porn is Patriotic!

Wouldn't it be funny if it caught on? Though honestly, there's nothing sexier than having enough to eat and a roof over one's head.

Quote of the Year...or,Mr. Galbraith Gets the Last Laugh

Over lunch, I read the Quote of the Day to the Boy Wonder. He said, "I have something better. You gotta hear this one!"

He whipped out THE GREAT CRASH: 1929, by John Kenneth Galbraith, which the Ex sent him for Christmas. (BW is starting college on Jan. 20 as an economics major.)

From Galbraith's new introduction, written in 1997:

Always when markets are in trouble, the phrases are the same: "The economic situation is fundamentally sound" or simply "The fundamentals are good." All who hear these words should know that something is wrong.

Last night, BW, Darling Husband and I had dinner with Chris Matthews. (OK, we ate off trays while watching "Hardball," on DVR.) Yesterday's show listed the best and worst political moments of 2008. Guess what was #1 in "Biggest general election moments"?

Give up?

"The fundamentals of our economy are strong."
--John McCain

BONUS QUOTES:

"We all didn’t quite see what was happening.”
--Margaret Hedberg, director of the International Debutante Ball, per the NY Times.

She brushed off the $14,000 cost of a table — “Watches cost more.”
--Marie Antoinette. Oops! I mean Margaret Hedberg.

Life Lessons

Today's NY Times has a profile of Valerie Jarrett: An Old Hometown Mentor, Still at Obama's Side. Vernon Jordan (remember him from the Clinton White House?) says of Jarrett, who's a cousin of his wife's:

“What Valerie developed is the art of telling people to go to hell and making them look forward to the trip.”

Jarrett keeps a list of 21 aphorisms--"life lessons"--on her hard drive, which she cites in speeches, including:

• All leaders are passionate about their beliefs, even the ones you don’t like.
• Put yourself in the path of lightning.

I also have favorite aphorisms, devised by my very own self:

• The world is filled with wankers.
• When the going gets tough, the tough go to bed.
  

The Friday before Election Day, I went to a (packed!) women's luncheon with Gloria Steinem as the keynote speaker, introduced by author and member of Denver Literary Ladies Luncheon, Debra Fine. The last question from the audience was posed by Andrea Joy Cohen MD, another LLL member and author of A BLESSING IN DISGUISE: 39 Life Lessons from Today's Greatest Teachers.

"What life lesson have you learned?" Andrea asked.

Steinem's response brought down the house:

"If you're part of the wrong group, nothing you do will be right. So you might as well do what you fucking well please."

Happy Birthday, EX-Senator Stevens!

Photo by Jim Lo Scalzo/Bloomberg News, via NY Times.

I'm going to bed soooooooooo happy tonight:

Stevens Loses Alaska Senate Race

Can't wait to see what Jon Stewart has to say about this tomorrow!

One down, two more to go... (that would be Saxby Chambliss and Norm Coleman)

Happy Birthday to Me!

Eight years ago, I got the worst birthday present ever: George W. Bush. Worse yet, I had to wait a good (make that bad) month to get it. Four years ago, I got Bush again. Blech. But today, I woke up ecstatic that I'd finally gotten what I wanted: Barack Obama as president.

Last week, my mother and stepfather, who live in Maine, sent me a Tomato Card showing a smiling Obama in front of the Capitol, and in handwriting by his head: "Happy Birthday & all the Best! Barack Obama."

Inside was this message:

You have no idea how hard it was to get a very busy Barack Obama to sign your birthday card. But he knows how special you are to us, and we did promise to vote for him a few extra times.

A major advantage to living in the Mountain Time zone is getting "late-breaking" news well before bedtime, so we got the happy news, courtesy of Jon Stewart, at a civilized 9 pm. My stepfather told me Wednesday that he'd been too tired to stay up for Obama's acceptance speech. But then he woke up at 2 a.m., went downstairs and turned on the TV, just to make sure it was really true.

And here's another terrific birthday present:
Good ol' boy (read: cracker) Democrat turned Republican congressman Virgil Goode, who's represented Virginia's 5th district for lo these many years, was defeated in a squeaker by Tom Perriello. Overall margin of victory was a mere 745 votes, though in enlightened Charlottesville, my late home (also of Thomas Jefferson, in case anyone would let you forget) the vote was 15,908 to 3733. See results here.

Everywhere I've lived went for the Democrats this time: NY, DC, MD, NC, PA, ME, VA & CO. (I've lived in a lot places; no wonder I feel rootless.)

Incidentally, all the pundits failed to identify the real reason why Obama won: he got the "Boy Wonder bump."

We'd been keeping it under wraps, but my darling child has special mojo. The home team wins every college or professional sporting event he attends: UVa football, Penn State football, Atlanta Hawks and Denver Broncos. And both politicians he's worked for have won: Chris Romer and Barack Obama. In the primaries, BW worked for Obama in Iowa, Colorado, Pennsylvania & Texas. (Yeah, Hillary won PA, but Obama won Philadelphia, where BW was. And Obama ultimately picked up more delegates in TX via its 2-step process.)