June 19th

 Happy Juneteenth...

"Good Night, and Good Luck."

On Saturday (from 7-9 p.m., Eastern time), CNN will be broadcasting--live, from Broadway--the drama Good Night, and Good Luck.

The play, which had its debut at the Winter Garden Theatre the first week of April, will have its final performance on Sunday.

The show stars George Clooney, as the legendary journalist Edward R. Murrow.  The play concerns Mr. Murrow's 1950s CBS television news/documentary program See it Now, and the 1954 episodes of the program which Mr. Murrow and producer Fred Friendly (played by Glenn Fleshler) aired about Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Good Night, and Good Luck originally appeared as a 2005 film--directed by Mr. Clooney, and co-written by Mr. Clooney and Grant Heslov.  The film starred David Strathairn, as Edward R. Murrow; Mr. Clooney portrayed Fred Friendly.

The play was written by Mr. Clooney and Mr. Heslov. Its director is David Cromer.

During television's live era, many Broadway performers appeared on dramatic programs on TV.  According to CNN, however, this is the first time a Broadway performance has been aired on live television.

Mr. Clooney has had prior experience with live television. During the time he was a star of the NBC medical drama ER (1994-2009), an episode of the show (the first episode of the 1997-1998 season) was performed live.

In 2000, as well, Mr. Clooney was an Executive Producer of the CBS live television special Fail Safe, the nuclear-oriented drama, which was a remake of the 1964 film directed by Sidney Lumet (which itself was based on the 1962 novel Fail Safe, by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler). Mr. Clooney also acted in the production.

On Saturday, from 6:30-7 p.m., CNN will air a pre-show special about the 7-9 p.m. telecast.

Memorial Day

Today, in a Washington Post piece about Memorial Day, the subject of language, regarding the observance of the holiday, was briefly addressed--specifically, the use of the phrase "Happy Memorial Day."

A link to the website of the Wounded Warrior Project was included in the Post story; the site has a page devoted to Memorial Day.

The page includes the following:

On Memorial Day, it's important to remember we are honoring our fallen. For many, this day is not a happy occasion but a solemn one. Here is some guidance on the appropriate messages to convey:

• Rather than “Happy Memorial Day,” say something like “Have a meaningful Memorial Day."
• It’s also not appropriate to thank a service member for their service on this day, as it is a day for remembering and honoring those who made the ultimate sacrifice.
• Take a moment to recognize and remember. You can even say, “Today and always, I’m remembering [name]."  

The Wounded Warrior web page also includes this:

Memorial Day is a reminder of the brave men and women who served our country and gave their lives for our freedom.

It's not just a day off; it's a time to think about why we remember these heroes. For veterans, it's a chance to honor those who are no longer here.

Use this day to show how grateful we are for their bravery, and as a promise that we'll always remember their courage and sacrifice.

An American Tragedy

Remembering George Floyd, who died--so terribly, so cruelly--five years ago today.

Truth, in fiction

Novelist Anne Tyler released her 25th novel, Three Days in June, in February; it is published by Alfred A. Knopf.

https://www.amazon.com/Three-Days-June-Anne-Tyler-ebook/dp/B0D3Z7X54Y/ref

Elizabeth Egan, a writer and editor at the New York Times Book Review, interviewed Ms. Tyler at the time, for a Times article.

Ms. Egan wrote, of Ms. Tyler:

She quit writing reviews years ago. “That was my one foray into nonfiction,” Tyler said. “If I’m writing fiction and I get deep enough into it, all of a sudden it feels like I’m telling the truth. If I’m writing nonfiction, I write down something I absolutely believe, and it’ll look like a lie.” (bold type added above--as well as below)

Ms. Tyler's remarks put me in mind of an interview the novelist (and essayist) Cynthia Ozick gave to The Atlantic, in May of 2023; the interview was an adjunct to a short story she published in The Atlantic the same month.

She was interviewed by Oliver Munday, an associate creative director at The Atlantic.

Ozick: Writing for me is hard labor, no matter the length or the form. I start out in fear and doubt, and continue in this state of prolonged discontent and conscious forcing, until certain unpredictable moments of excitement take over, when the thing begins to know itself and its own trajectory. In the long-distance run of a novel, this can come as late as three-quarters of the way through. The short story at times knows what it intends to happen from the start, but is wholly perplexed as to how to get there. When the dam suddenly breaks, even the words find themselves...

Munday: Aside from short stories, what are you currently working on?

Ozick: How not to lie when writing make-believe.

"The Last Picture Show," by Larry McMurtry

The Last Picture Show was one of the best-known novels by the noted writer Larry McMurtry (1936-2021).  It was published by The Dial Press in 1966. 

Mr. McMurtry's 1985 novel, Lonesome Dove, published by Simon & Schuster, was awarded the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

The Last Picture Show, which takes place in a small Texas town in the early 1950s, was made into the much-admired 1971 film of the same name, directed by Peter Bogdanovich (1939-2022); Mr. Bogdanovich and Mr. McMurtry wrote the film's screenplay.

Here are two paragraphs, from late in the novel.  One of the two characters referred to is Sonny, a teenager in the town.

After a while [Sonny] went over to the picture show and watched a funny movie with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.  The movie took his mind off things, but afterward, when he was buying a bag of popcorn from Old Lady Mosey, he got another disappointment.  She told him they were going to have to close the picture show sometime in October.

"We just can't make it, Sonny," she said. "There wasn't fifteen people here tonight, and a good picture like this, Jerry Lewis. It's kid baseball in the summer and school in the winter. Television all the time.  Nobody wants to come to shows no more."

Pope Francis

After his death, it seems to me, much inspiration can continue to be taken from Pope Francis--regardless of one's particular faith, and despite any differing points-of-view, differing philosophical stances, one might hold.

The Pope had, about him, a tremendous warmth, a sense of joy--and a distinct, and disarming, humility (I think it is fair to say that too often, in our time, humility is in short supply).  

There was his deep kindness, his deep feeling, toward those who are poor, and those who struggle in life.  

One also felt great admiration for Francis's frequent pleas that immigrants be treated with dignity, and care. 

And, there were his eloquent entreaties regarding the environment: that the world community should tend to "our common home," as he put it, with a far greater sense of responsibility, and urgency.

In a letter to America's Catholic bishops, in February of this year, the Pope discussed the issue of migrants.  Here are two sections (#4 and #5) from the letter. 

4. I have followed closely the major crisis that is taking place in the United States with the initiation of a program of mass deportations. The rightly formed conscience cannot fail to make a critical judgment and express its disagreement with any measure that tacitly or explicitly identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality. At the same time, one must recognize the right of a nation to defend itself and keep communities safe from those who have committed violent or serious crimes while in the country or prior to arrival. That said, the act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness.

5. This is not a minor issue: an authentic rule of law is verified precisely in the dignified treatment that all people deserve, especially the poorest and most marginalized. The true common good is promoted when society and government, with creativity and strict respect for the rights of all — as I have affirmed on numerous occasions — welcomes, protects, promotes and integrates the most fragile, unprotected and vulnerable. This does not impede the development of a policy that regulates orderly and legal migration. However, this development cannot come about through the privilege of some and the sacrifice of others. What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly.

https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/letters/2025/documents/20250210-lettera-vescovi-usa.html

Here are four sections (#10 to #12, and #14) from the Pope's lengthy Encyclical Letter about the environment, from May of 2015, titled "On Care for Our Common Home." (I have left in place the footnotes which appear in three of the sections.)

10. I do not want to write this Encyclical without turning to that attractive and compelling figure, whose name I took as my guide and inspiration when I was elected Bishop of Rome. I believe that Saint Francis is the example par excellence of care for the vulnerable and of an integral ecology lived out joyfully and authentically. He is the patron saint of all who study and work in the area of ecology, and he is also much loved by non-Christians. He was particularly concerned for God’s creation and for the poor and outcast. He loved, and was deeply loved for his joy, his generous self-giving, his openheartedness. He was a mystic and a pilgrim who lived in simplicity and in wonderful harmony with God, with others, with nature and with himself. He shows us just how inseparable the bond is between concern for nature, justice for the poor, commitment to society, and interior peace.

11. [Saint] Francis helps us to see that an integral ecology calls for openness to categories which transcend the language of mathematics and biology, and take us to the heart of what it is to be human. Just as happens when we fall in love with someone, whenever he would gaze at the sun, the moon or the smallest of animals, he burst into song, drawing all other creatures into his praise. He communed with all creation, even preaching to the flowers, inviting them “to praise the Lord, just as if they were endowed with reason”.[19] His response to the world around him was so much more than intellectual appreciation or economic calculus, for to him each and every creature was a sister united to him by bonds of affection. That is why he felt called to care for all that exists. His disciple Saint Bonaventure tells us that, “from a reflection on the primary source of all things, filled with even more abundant piety, he would call creatures, no matter how small, by the name of ‘brother’ or ‘sister’”.[20] Such a conviction cannot be written off as naive romanticism, for it affects the choices which determine our behaviour. If we approach nature and the environment without this openness to awe and wonder, if we no longer speak the language of fraternity and beauty in our relationship with the world, our attitude will be that of masters, consumers, ruthless exploiters, unable to set limits on their immediate needs. By contrast, if we feel intimately united with all that exists, then sobriety and care will well up spontaneously. The poverty and austerity of Saint Francis were no mere veneer of asceticism, but something much more radical: a refusal to turn reality into an object simply to be used and controlled.

12. What is more, Saint Francis, faithful to Scripture, invites us to see nature as a magnificent book in which God speaks to us and grants us a glimpse of his infinite beauty and goodness. “Through the greatness and the beauty of creatures one comes to know by analogy their maker” (Wis 13:5); indeed, “his eternal power and divinity have been made known through his works since the creation of the world” (Rom 1:20). For this reason, Francis asked that part of the friary garden always be left untouched, so that wild flowers and herbs could grow there, and those who saw them could raise their minds to God, the Creator of such beauty.[21] Rather than a problem to be solved, the world is a joyful mystery to be contemplated with gladness and praise.

14. I urgently appeal, then, for a new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet. We need a conversation which includes everyone, since the environmental challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all. The worldwide ecological movement has already made considerable progress and led to the establishment of numerous organizations committed to raising awareness of these challenges. Regrettably, many efforts to seek concrete solutions to the environmental crisis have proved ineffective, not only because of powerful opposition but also because of a more general lack of interest. Obstructionist attitudes, even on the part of believers, can range from denial of the problem to indifference, nonchalant resignation or blind confidence in technical solutions. We require a new and universal solidarity. As the bishops of Southern Africa have stated: “Everyone’s talents and involvement are needed to redress the damage caused by human abuse of God’s creation”. [22] All of us can cooperate as instruments of God for the care of creation, each according to his or her own culture, experience, involvements and talents.

https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html

Two anniversaries

As noted in yesterday's post, today is the 250th anniversary of the battles at Lexington and Concord--the battles which are regarded as marking the start of the Revolutionary War.

Today is also the thirtieth anniversary of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.  It is startling, to contemplate that it has been thirty years since the devastation in Oklahoma City.

One hundred sixty-eight people were killed in the bombing, in 1995. Several hundred people were injured. Nineteen of those who died were children; fifteen of the children were at a day care center in the Murrah building. 

As the website history.com notes:

The blast was set off by anti-government militant Timothy McVeigh, who in 2001 was executed for his crimes. His co-conspirator Terry Nichols was sentenced to life in prison.

I hope to someday visit the Oklahoma City memorial--which, as Wikipedia notes, "honors the victims, survivors, rescuers, and all who were affected by" the bombing. The memorial is located on the site where the Murrah building previously stood.

250 years ago

On April 18, 1775--two hundred and fifty years ago tonight--Paul Revere made his historic horseback ride, from Boston to Lexington, Massachusetts. 

He was instructed by Joseph Warren, a leader of the Patriots in Boston, to travel to both Lexington and Concord.

William Dawes, a Colonial soldier, was also sent to Lexington and Concord.  Dawes and Revere's mission, in Lexington, was to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams, who were staying at a Lexington house, of the approach of British troops.  Revere and Dawes took separate routes to Lexington. Revere arrived first, and was later joined by Dawes. They delivered the intended warnings to Hancock and Adams.

As a story in today's New York Times notes:

Soon after he left Lexington, around 1:30 a.m., and rode on toward Concord with [Dawes, and a doctor they encountered along the way], the danger that Revere had so far dodged caught up with him. Confronted by a British patrol about halfway to Concord, his companions escaped but Revere was captured, held and questioned. Unlikely as it seems, the soldiers let him go about an hour later, after being rattled by the sound of distant gunfire, Revere would later write.

Undaunted — but now without his [borrowed] horse, which the British had kept — Revere walked about three miles back to Lexington and rushed to complete his next assignment, rescuing a trunk full of Hancock’s papers from the Buckman Tavern, next to the town common, where the first battle of the war would soon erupt.

The opening battles of the Revolutionary War--at Lexington and then at Concord--began later that morning, April 19th.

The famous proclamation that Paul Revere is said to have made, during the course of his ride--"The British are coming!"--is evidently myth.  Various accounts of his role indicate that he actually warned, during his ride, "The Regulars [the British soldiers] are coming out."

He can't help himself

Trump's tariff policies have, of course, set off a worldwide economic earthquake.  

But he can't help himself, when it comes to talking about other (unnamed) countries, and what he claims are their responses to the tariffs.  

He has to demean them, while promoting himself, as he did in a speech on Tuesday, at a National Republican Congressional Committee dinner.

He said:  "...I'm telling you, these countries are calling us up, kissing my ass. They are--they are dying to make a deal. Please, please, sir, make a deal. I'll do anything. I'll do anything, sir."

He then said:  "And then I'll see some rebel Republican, you know, some guy that wants to grandstand, say, 'I think that Congress should take over negotiations.'  Let me tell you, you don't negotiate like I negotiate."

Evidently, being a savvy negotiator includes saying, in public, that countries you may be negotiating with are "kissing my ass."

The Builder

It feels, each day, as if America--and the sense of what the country has represented for so long--is collapsing in on itself.

And this feeling of collapse--the chaos, the remarkably cruel policies, the recklessness, the bullying, the philosophical regression--is because the builder (the man from Queens who made his name putting up buildings in New York and elsewhere) is less a builder, than he is a destroyer.

He's tearing everything down, and is appearing to enjoy the wreckage.

(Please note: a few changes were made to the above, after its posting.)

Twenty-four

On March 24th, in 1928, my mother was born in Indianapolis. Her family later moved to New York City, where she spent most of her childhood and teen years. She died in May of 2001, at age 73.

In May, therefore, it will be 24 years since she died.

I also think of this, concerning the number 24:  this was her age, when her four-year career in New York television came to a close at the end of 1952. 

The last TV show she sang on, in New York--unlike the network shows on which she had appeared since 1949--was a local New York program.  It was seen weekday mornings after the Today show, which had gone on the air at the start of 1952.  

Morey Amsterdam and Sue Bennett, 1952

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The show, airing on the New York NBC station WNBT, was Breakfast with Music, starring Morey Amsterdam, with the Milton DeLugg musical group. My mother was the show's singer, during the last three months of 1952.

In early 1953, my parents--who had been married since 1949--moved to suburban Boston. My father's OB/GYN residency (most of which took place in New York City) was now completed, and he joined a Boston medical group.  Later, he would open his own practice. For a time, in 1953, my mother sang on a morning radio show in Boston.  In 1954 and 1955, she had her own weekly musical program, The Sue Bennett Show, on Boston station WBZ-TV. 

She appeared on other Boston TV programs in the 1950s and 1960s, and, at times, in the 1970s. During the 1960s she sang on a great many children's albums.  There were also periodic singing appearances through the years--at, for example, the 1978 Boston Globe Jazz Festival. Yet from the 1960s, until the year before she died, she for the most part was a voice-over performer, for radio and television commercials, in Boston, and New England.

The funny WNBT-TV photograph, above--in which she has her fingers in her ears, as Morey Amsterdam sings--is one of my favorite pictures from her New York career.

"Get Together," and Jesse Colin Young

Jesse Colin Young, the leader of the group The Youngbloods, died on Sunday, at age 83.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/17/arts/music/jesse-colin-young-dead.html?unlocked_article_code=1.5U4.53If.f99FMvieT3yB&smid=url-share

In 1969, The Youngbloods, with Mr. Young as lead singer, had a big hit with the song "Get Together."  It was written by the singer and songwriter Chet Powers. The Youngbloods had originally released the song in 1967, on their first album.

The Youngbloods' recording of the song (others had released versions of the song previously) remains, today, very beautiful. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xGxQXmu7Os

Sometimes, certain brief details stand out for you--in a film, in a book, in a song. 

There's one such moment, for me, in "Get Together."  It is one word, during the song, which is spoken, rather than sung.

At the start of the song's last verse--at about 3:14, in the above YouTube audio--Mr. Young sings:

If you hear the song I sing
You will understand

And then, before he continues singing, there is a declaration, an entreaty, spoken quietly: "Listen."

I like that moment--in addition to enjoying the song in its entirety.

Arrival

The S.S. United States arrived in Mobile, Alabama yesterday--a couple of days ahead of the two weeks the trip was expected to take; its towing from the Philadelphia waterfront began on February 19th. 

The ship, as noted in a news story below, will undergo months of preparations in Alabama, before its ultimate sinking, off of Florida's Gulf Coast; the ship, with its sinking, will become the world's largest artificial reef. (Some reports, in the past months, have indicated that the preparations in Alabama--which will include the remedying of any potential environmental issues or hazards--could take as long as a year.)

The story below, about the ship's arrival in Mobile, is from the Alabama news site AL.com.

https://www.al.com/news/2025/03/historic-ocean-liner-arrives-in-alabama-ss-united-states-journeys-to-final-destination.html

The Oval Office

It is disgraceful and shameful--the ganging-up on President Zelenskyy in the Oval Office today, by President Trump and Vice President Vance.

I am reminded of a comment by Vance, in February of 2022--when Russian troops were poised to attack Ukraine. 

Vance, at the time, was running for a seat in the U.S. Senate, to represent Ohio, and said this, on Steve Bannon's "War Room" podcast, five days before the Russian invasion began:

"I gotta be honest with you, I don't really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another."

All in, with Putin

Today is the third anniversary of Russia's murderous invasion of Ukraine.

On this day--tragically--the United States sided with Russia, at the United Nations.

A headline, today, from The Washington Post: "U.S. votes against U.N. resolution condemning Russia for Ukraine war."

For some time, of course, we've known of Trump's peculiar, and dangerous, affection for Putin.

Last week Trump called Ukraine President Zelenskyy  a "dictator."  He said that Ukraine "should have never started" the war in 2022.  

A few days later, he revised the latter remark--but still blamed Ukraine and the United States for the war.  As Reuters reported, on February 21st:  

"Russia attacked, but they shouldn't have let him attack," Trump said, adding that...Zelenskyy and then-U.S. President Joe Biden should have taken steps to avert the invasion.

The same Reuters report noted this:  "Speaking at a White House event earlier on Friday, Trump was critical of Zelenskyy while refraining from negative comments about Putin."  The report continued: "I've had very good talks with Putin, and I've had not such good talks with Ukraine," Trump said.  "They don't have any cards, but they're playing tough."

In his September 2024 ABC News debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, during the presidential campaign, Trump refused to say if he wanted to see Ukraine win the war. 

DAVID MUIR (to Trump): Your time is up. Just to clarify the question, do you believe it's in the U.S. best interests for Ukraine to win this war? Yes or no?

FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I think it's in the U.S. best interest to get this war finished and just get it done...Negotiate a deal. Because we have to stop all of these human lives from being destroyed.

On February 13th, he said he wanted Russia readmitted to the G7; Russia was removed from the group after its 2014 annexation of Crimea. "I'd love to have them back," Trump said.

A February 20th report about the G7 in The New York Times said: "The United States is opposing calling Russia the aggressor in the war with Ukraine in a Group of 7 statement being drafted to mark the third anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion, three senior officials from countries involved said..."

A February 19th story in the Times said this:  

Mr. Trump also suggested that future security of Ukraine would not be an American problem. "This War is far more important  to Europe than it is to us," he wrote [on social media]. "We have a big, beautiful Ocean as separation."

On Saturday, February 22nd--this from the Associate Press--Trump told an audience at CPAC (the conservative political organization), of the fighting in Ukraine: "It affects Europe.  It doesn't really affect us."

For Trump, it comes down to his seemingly limitless desire to please Putin.

And it comes down, for him--as it so often does--to money. 

Trump wants Ukraine--a country in the midst of a war, fighting to survive--to repay the United States for the aid it has provided Ukraine, by forcing Ukraine to sign over hundreds of billions of dollars worth of minerals and other of Ukraine's natural resources--far more in value, it has been reported, than what the U.S. has in actuality given Ukraine.

Trump addressed the issue of reimbursement this weekend, at the CPAC conference in Washington.  The Times reported:

“I think we’re pretty close to a deal, and we better be close to a deal,” Mr. Trump told the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday evening, noting that he wanted payback for past American military and financial assistance to Ukraine. He also said, “We’re asking for rare earth and oil — anything we can get.”

Trump said, today, as noted by the Times: "It was a lot of money and we had nothing to show for it."

Other than the fact that America--Trump clearly can't conceive of this--was making a noble and moral choice (joined by a broad international coalition) to side with an ally, against a ruthless dictator--a dictator for whom Trump, now back in power, is stripping away, surrendering, America's moral leadership.

Early TV theatres, tickets, studios, & Misc. images

I have written previously, in this space (and in my book about early television), about theatres in New York City, which, during the period of early TV, were refurbished to accommodate television productions.

The subject of such theatres is not, I think, an insignificant detail, concerning the era. 

Early television (and in particular the live aspect of so much of early TV programming) was, really, a unique variant of theatre:  theatre which was brought into the home--in the form, for example, of live dramas, musical programs, comedy shows, variety shows. 

In my book, I quoted Abel Green and Joe Laurie, Jr. who wrote the 1951 book Show Biz: From Vaude to Video (Doubleday)--meaning, of course, from vaudeville to television; Mr. Green was the longtime editor of the entertainment publication Variety.  They wrote of the "closer affinity of video with the stage, rather than with Hollywood..."  I also cited a 1951 interview with Helen Hayes, who said, of TV's dramatic programs, that television "has many attributes of the stage, including a very important one which Hollywood lacks--the necessity of a sustained performance."

In 1984, I interviewed Diane Sinclair, who had been a longtime dancer on Broadway. She and partner Ken Spaulding, a dance veteran who had also performed in Broadway shows, became a popular dance team in early television--on the shows of bandleader Kay Kyser, Paul Winchell, Dave Garroway, and others. 

In our conversation, Ms. Sinclair compared early TV with the Broadway stage--in that many shows in early television, as on Broadway, were subject to a sense of confinement: shows which were limited to a single, or perhaps a few, sets.  In later years, she pointed out, television shows--filmed programs--were able to leave the confines of the studio, and at that point, she felt, TV began to resemble Hollywood, as opposed to Broadway. 

And so, let me turn to the subject of theatres which housed various early television programs.

It is of course true that many TV programs, during this period, were broadcast from regular television studios. But the use of Manhattan theatres, by certain shows, no doubt contributed to--or, perhaps, served as a pleasing adjunct to--the ambiance, the theatre-like feeling, of early television.

Diane Sinclair and Ken Spaulding became the dance team on Kay Kyser's program in early 1950. Before joining Mr. Kyser's program, neither Ms. Sinclair nor Mr. Spaulding had ever appeared on a television program. 

Prior to their first appearance on Mr. Kyser's show, the College of Musical Knowledge--the appearance was, in fact, an audition to become the program's weekly dance team--Ms. Sinclair went to a telecast of the show, which originated at Manhattan's International Theatre, at Columbus Circle. The theatre had been converted by NBC, in 1949, into a television facility, and seated, for its TV shows, some one thousand people. 

This was the first time Ms. Sinclair had seen a television program in person. "It was very exciting," she told me in 1984. "It was like seeing a Broadway show."

I know of one comedy and variety TV program, NBC's Four Star Revue (telecast from New York's palatial Center Theatre at Rockefeller Center), which provided Playbill-like programs to audience members, adding to the sense of TV-as-theatre.  During its 1950-1951 season, four stars took turns hosting the program (thus the show's title)--Ed Wynn, Danny Thomas, Jimmy Durante, and Jack Carson. (The next season, additional hosts joined the program, and the show was renamed the All Star Revue.) 

For its NBC broadcasts, the Center Theatre--after its 1950 conversion to a television facility--seated some two thousand people.

Here are a couple of images from the four-page program for the Four Star Revue's debut broadcast, in October 1950, with Ed Wynn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While many programs on the DuMont Television Network were telecast either from the auditorium of Wanamaker's Department Store in Manhattan (the auditorium had been modified for television productions), or from studios at the network's headquarters on Madison Avenue, the network also leased space at two Broadway theatres--the Adelphi, and the Ambassador--for some of its TV productions. 

The Morey Amsterdam Show, which became a DuMont program in 1949, was telecast from the Adelphi Theatre, as was Jackie Gleason's Cavalcade of Stars, from 1950 to 1952.  

One of the DuMont Network's most prominent programs, Bishop Fulton J. Sheen's Life is Worth Living, was also telecast from the Adelphi Theatre; Bishop Sheen's program made its debut in 1952.

Yet--to the best of my knowledge--most of the early television programs originating from Manhattan theatres were from the comedy, music, variety (and related) realms.

Kay Kyser's TV program--as mentioned above--was broadcast from the International Theatre, at Columbus Circle.

The program--featuring quiz, comedy, music, and dance--had previously been heard for years on radio.

The TV show aired for two seasons: the first season began at the start of December 1949 and continued until late June of 1950. Its second season began the first week of October 1950, and ended at the close of December 1950.  My mother, Sue Bennett, was one of the show's featured singers, during both seasons.

Not long after the show ended, Kay Kyser, at forty-five years old, retired from show business; he moved with his family to North Carolina, his home state. He had had a long and exceptionally successful show business career, with his orchestra--on radio, in stage shows, on records, in movies, and then, lastly, on his network television show.

Here is a ticket from the TV show's final broadcast:

 

 

 

Beginning in January, of 1951, my mother began appearing as a guest on various network programs--such as Van Camp's Little Show (after its sponsor, the Stokely-Van Camp food company), a fifteen-minute NBC musical program starring singer and actor John Conte. She sang on the program regularly during 1951. The program was telecast Tuesday and Thursday evenings, from NBC's headquarters at 30 Rockefeller Center, without a studio audience.

Later, in 1951, she became a regular guest on The Freddy Martin Show, starring Mr. Martin and his orchestra, and featuring vocalist Merv Griffin (the program was also known as The Hazel Bishop Show, after its lipstick sponsor).  It was telecast from the Center Theatre.

Below is a ticket from a January, 1951 telecast of The Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney Show, on NBC--also known, because of its wristwatch-band sponsor, as The Speidel Show. It starred  ventriloquist Winchell; Jerry Mahoney was his sidekick "dummy." The Winchell and Mahoney program, like the Kay Kyser program, originated from the International Theatre; it had begun airing in September of 1950. 

As the ticket for the show indicates, part of the program featured a quiz segment, titled "What's My Name?" In February and March of 1951, my mother made two guest appearances on Mr. Winchell's program. Cast members on the show, by this time, included announcer Ted Brown, who also --from the handful of early 1951 kinescopes I have seen of The Speidel Show--took turns with Mr. Winchell, as M.C. of the show's quiz segments. Mr. Brown had been the announcer for the second season of Kay Kyser's TV program.

Beginning in 1951, the show also featured the dance team of Sinclair & Spaulding, from Mr. Kyser's program.

Here are two images from a 1951 kinescope of The Speidel Show.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last ticket, here, is for the NBC radio version of the musical program Your Hit Parade; the ticket is from January of 1951, the month before my mother became a Hit Parade cast member. The radio show had aired since 1935.

Both the radio and TV versions of the show, from the fall of 1950 to the beginning of July 1951 (the first season of the TV program), were broadcast Saturday nights from the Center Theatre. The radio show--employing the same vocal cast as the TV show, and the same orchestra, led by Raymond Scott--aired for a half-hour, beginning at 9 p.m. The Hit Parade TV show then aired from 10:30 to 11;00 p.m. 

(At the start of the following radio and TV seasons--1951 to 1952--the radio program and the TV show became separate entities. The radio version--while still broadcast by NBC from the Center Theatre, and still sponsored by Lucky Strike--moved from Saturday to Thursday nights, and starred Guy Lombardo and his orchestra, with Mr. Lombardo's vocalists; the radio show, each week, also featured a guest female singer. The radio show was heard on NBC until the start of 1953, when it went off the air.)

For several weeks, during the 1951-1952 TV season, the Hit Parade moved to NBC's Studio 8-H, at Rockefeller Center (which for many years had been the radio home of NBC's Symphony Orchestra, led by conductor Arturo Toscanini--and years later would become the home of Saturday Night Live). Yet the Hit Parade, for the 1951-1952 season, remained, otherwise, at the Center Theatre. 

After a few years at the theatre, the show returned to Studio 8-H and continued its broadcasts there until the end of the 1956-1957 season--at which time the program underwent a cast overhaul, and moved, in the fall of 1957 (for its final NBC season), to an NBC studio in Brooklyn. 

As the television-related website "Eyes of a Generation" has noted, the network, at this time, had two Brooklyn studios.  One of them, purchased from Warner Brothers in 1951, began television operations in 1954.  The second studio, built by NBC, began operating in 1956.

(Images of The Speidel Show, copyright NBCUniversal, Inc.)

A brief video about the S.S.U.S.

At the top of The New York Times article, below, there is a brief video about the S.S. United States, which includes images of the ship shortly after it was moved from its berth on the Philadelphia waterfront.

Please note, for your reference: an unrelated video will likely play after the conclusion of the S.S.U.S. video.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/19/us/ss-united-states-final-voyage.html?unlocked_article_code=1.yk4.XiI2.1x6yWENmWcnF&smid=url-share

S.S. United States: on its way

The S.S. United States finally left its berth on the Philadelphia waterfront today, moved by tugboats.  It is now on its way to its second-to-last stop: Mobile, Alabama.  Ultimately, it will be brought to the west coast of Florida.

Here is a video from the S.S. United States Conservancy's' Facebook page; it shows the ship on the Delaware River, passing under the Walt Whitman Bridge, which connects Philadelphia and Camden County, New Jersey.  The ship is best seen beginning at about 51 minutes into the video.

https://www.facebook.com/SSUSC/videos/507636859069707/

Below, as well, is a postcard of the ocean liner, which I've had for some time--date unknown (though probably not that long after the ship's 1952 maiden voyage. The description, on the postcard's reverse side, refers to the "New flagship of the United States Lines").

I am unsure if the image is a colorized (and additionally altered) photograph--or if it is an artist's rendering.  Either way, it provides a good sense of the impressiveness, the grandeur, of the S.S. United States, during the years (1952-1969) that it was in service.

Another ship update

Because of continuing high winds, Tuesday's towing of the S.S. United States--during which the ocean liner was to be moved from Philadelphia's Pier 80, and begin its journey on the Delaware River, toward Alabama---has again been postponed. 

This second phase of the ship's towing is now scheduled to begin on Wednesday (February 19th).

From the Facebook page of the S.S. United States Conservancy:

Tugboats are now expected to maneuver the SS United States out into the Delaware River channel two to three hours before low tide. She will then proceed down river at approximately 12:51 pm.

https://www.facebook.com/SSUSC

Update: the S.S. United States

The first phase of the transport of the S.S. United States from Philadelphia to Mobile, Alabama was successful; it took place on Friday.

The ship was moved by tugboats, laterally, from Pier 82, on the Philadelphia waterfront, to Pier 80.

The next part of the journey--moving the ocean liner from Pier 80 into the Delaware River channel, to begin its approximately two-week trip to Alabama--was planned for Monday.  It has been announced--by Florida's Okaloosa County, which now owns the ship--that this next (and more dramatic) phase of the trip has been delayed by one day, until Tuesday.

The County, as reported on the Facebook page of the S.S. United States Conservancy, said that "excessive high winds," predicted for the Greater Philadelphia area on Monday, are responsible for the delay. 

The towing of the ship is now scheduled to begin just after 12;00 p.m. on Tuesday.  

https://www.facebook.com/SSUSC

The S.S. United States' planned Friday departure

The process of moving the S.S. United States ocean liner, by tugboats, from Philadelphia to a dock in Mobile, Alabama--before it is ultimately moved to Florida--is scheduled to begin tomorrow (Feb. 14th).

The ship is now owned by Okaloosa County, in Florida.  It is to be sunk, off of the Florida coast, becoming the world's largest artificial reef.  The process, in Alabama, of preparing the ship for sinking is expected to take approximately a year.

The ship was scheduled to be moved from Philadelphia's waterfront in November, but the possibility of storms in the Gulf of Mexico necessitated a postponement.  There was, later, an additional delay, prompted by the U.S. Coast Guard.  The Coast Guard had questions about the ship's physical integrity--seeking to insure it was capable of making the journey to Alabama.  Those concerns were addressed, to the Coast Guard's satisfaction.

Another delay occurred before February 8th, the day the ship was to be towed to another pier on the Philadelphia waterfront, prior to making the journey to Alabama.  

The additional delay, also prompted by the Coast Guard, involved this initial part of the process--moving the ship from Philadelphia's Pier 82 to nearby Pier 80.  Those concerns--requiring "additional due diligence involving further testing and safety protocols," according to the Facebook page of the S.S. United States Conservancy--were also addressed, and the process (at least as of this writing) is to begin at about noon on Friday. 

Children's book, "The Superliner United States" 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here, from the Conservancy's Facebook page, are the plans scheduled for tomorrow, and then for Monday, when the ship is expected to leave Pier 80, and begin what should be a two-week journey to Mobile:

-- Friday, February 14, 2025: At approximately 12:00 pm ET, tugboats will secure themselves to the SS United States at Pier 82 and maneuver the vessel to the north side of the slip in conjunction with high tide (at approximately 2:47 pm), where she will be secured to Pier 80.

 

-- Monday, February 17, 2025: Tugboats will maneuver the SS United States out into the Delaware River channel and then proceed with the tow down river at low tide at approximately 11:18 am. The ship will pass under various bridges, including the Walt Whitman Bridge (I-76), the Commodore Barry Bridge (U.S. 322), and the Delaware Memorial Bridge (I-295) along her route, with the Delaware River Port Authority (DRPA) coordinating bridge closures. 

 

During the SS United States' two-week tow along the eastern seaboard, Okaloosa's contractors will be utilizing real-time route planning, which will adjust the ship's course every 6-hours based on weather and currents. You can track the ship's course at https://www.destinfwb.com/explore/eco-tourism/ssus/.

For more details, visit https://conta.cc/3EOhVXp. 

 

Here is the link to the Conservancy's Facebook page:

 

https://www.facebook.com/SSUSC

 

(The children's book pictured above, "The Superliner United States," was written by J. Duncan Ford, and illustrated by A.K. Bilder.  The book, featuring on its cover a drawing of the ship--and accompanying tugboats--was published by Rand McNally & Company in 1953, the year following the ocean liner's maiden voyage.)

Satirist Andy Borowitz, on Robert Kennedy, Jr.

Robert Kennedy, Jr. was confirmed today, by the Senate, as the Secretary of H.H.S. Tulsi Gabbard was confirmed yesterday, as the Director of National Intelligence.  

Mitch McConnell was the only Republican Senator to vote against Kennedy and Gabbard.  He had also voted against the confirmation of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (along with Republicans Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins).

Andy Borowitz--the well-known satirist/humorist--wrote about Kennedy today, in his column "The Borowitz Report," which appears on the Substack platform. (For a number of years,"The Borowitz Report" had been featured in The New Yorker.)

The heading of today's darkly comic piece said this:

RFK Jr.'s Confirmation Hailed By National Alliance of Funeral Directors

Mr. Borowitz wrote:

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s confirmation as Health and Human Services Secretary on Thursday received a rousing thumbs-up from some of his most prominent supporters, the National Alliance of Funeral Directors.

"For years, the funeral industry has suffered as a result of the Democratic Party's unabashed anti-death agenda," the group said in an official statement. "We are confident that Secretary Kennedy will make death great again."

Tulsi Gabbard: "a walking Christmas tree of warning lights"

I cannot believe--it is stunning, and frightening--that Tulsi Gabbard appears to be on the verge of being approved, by the Republican-controlled Senate, as the Director of National Intelligence.

In a November 13, 2024 piece in The Atlantic, staff writer Tom Nichols wrote, pointedly:

"Her appointment would be a threat to the security of the United States."

Mr. Nichols wrote:

A person with Gabbard’s views should not be allowed anywhere near the crown jewels of American intelligence. I have no idea why Trump nominated Gabbard; she’s been a supporter, but she hasn’t been central to his campaign, and he owes her very little. For someone as grubbily transactional as Trump, it’s not an appointment that makes much sense. It’s possible that Trump hates the intelligence community—which he blames for many of his first-term troubles—so much that Gabbard is his revenge. Or maybe he just likes the way she handles herself on television.

Mr. Nichols wrote this:

Gabbard ran for president as a Democrat in 2020, attempting to position herself as something like a peace candidate. But she’s no peacemaker: She’s been an apologist for both the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Her politics, which are otherwise incoherent, tend to be sympathetic to these two strongmen, painting America as the problem and the dictators as misunderstood.

Gabbard, he said,

is a classic case of “horseshoe” politics: Her views can seem both extremely left and extremely right, which is probably why people such as Tucker Carlson—a conservative who has turned into … whatever pro-Russia right-wingers are called now—have taken a liking to the former Democrat (who was previously a Republican and is now again a member of the GOP).

In early 2017, while still a member of Congress, Gabbard met with Assad, saying that peace in Syria was only possible if the international community would have a conversation with him. “Let the Syrian people themselves determine their future, not the United States, not some foreign country,” Gabbard said, after chatting with a man who had stopped the Syrian people from determining their own future by using chemical weapons on them. Two years later, she added that Assad was “not the enemy of the United States, because Syria does not pose a direct threat to the United States,” and that her critics were merely “warmongers.”

Mr. Nichols wrote this, as well:

Gabbard has every right to her personal views, however inscrutable they may be. As a private citizen, she can apologize for Assad and Putin to her heart’s content. But as a security risk, Gabbard is a walking Christmas tree of warning lights.  https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2024/11/tulsi-gabbard-nomination-security/680649/?gift=Tcay7nmVziC9n3Jf9QllmzEmtmaqldM0iAVdy4OyATA&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2024/11/tulsi-gabbard-nomination-security/680649/https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2024/11/tulsi-gabbard-nomination-security/680649/?gift=Tcay7nmVziC9n3Jf9QllmzEmtmaqldM0iAVdy4OyATA&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharehttps://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2024/11/tulsi-gabbard-nomination-security/680649/?gift=Tcay7nmVziC9n3Jf9QllmzEmtmaqldM0iAVdy4OyATA&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharehttps://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2024/11/tulsi-gabbard-nomination-security/680649/?gift=Tcay7nmVziC9n3Jf9QllmzEmtmaqldM0iAVdy4OyATA&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2024/11/tulsi-gabbard-nomination-security/680649/?gift=Tcay7nmVziC9n3Jf9QllmzEmtmaqldM0iAVdy4OyATA&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

The changing media universe

The Star-Ledger, which has long been, in its circulation, New Jersey's largest daily newspaper, has now become an online-only publication.

The last hard-copy edition of the paper, which is based in Newark, in northern New Jersey, was published yesterday (February 2nd); the coming change had been announced in October.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star-Ledger

The front page of The Star-Ledger's Sunday's edition

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Star-Ledger's Editorial Board has been disbanded, with the demise of the paper's print edition.  In its final editorial, on Sunday, the Board noted this:

More than 3,200 print papers – most of them weeklies -- have vanished since 2005, according to Northwestern University. Once upon a time, in what historians call the pre-TikTok Era, such events were alarming, but now newspapers disappear at a rate of more than two per week, victims of a seismic shift in a media landscape dominated by internet behemoths that produce little content but vacuum up most of the revenue.

https://www.nj.com/opinion/2025/02/lights-out-a-final-word-from-njs-only-editorial-board.html

Two of The Star-Ledger's daily sister publications, The Times of Trenton, and The South Jersey Times, also became, yesterday, online-only papers. An affiliated weekly, The Hunterdon County Democrat, became online-only on January 30th.

Another of the Star-Ledger's sister publications, The Jersey Journal, ceased publication entirely on Saturday.  The Journal served northern New Jersey's Hudson County.  

The Journal's farewell editorial, on Saturday, included the following:

In our first issue [in 1867] founders Z.K. Pangborn and William Dunning promised to be “frank and fearless, neither dreading the displeasure, nor fawning for the favor of anybody.” The Journal itself may not be here after today, but we hope that promise will continue to inspire Hudson County for decades to come.

https://www.nj.com/opinion/2025/02/what-the-journal-stood-for-the-good-fight-will-continue-jersey-journal-editorial.html

The disaster over the Potomac

There are, of course, the heartrending facts of Wednesday night's aircraft tragedy. 

You find it difficult to turn away from the television screen--hour after hour, as additional details are reported, as we learn more about the collision, and about the lives of those who died on the airplane, and on the Army Black Hawk helicopter. It is terribly saddening.

There is also this: that there is invariably, with air disasters, a sense of eeriness. You see the indistinct video images of the Potomac crash, far in the distance. You hear the last communications with the helicopter, from Air Traffic Control: suddenly, no reply from the helicopter.  Just silence. You looked at all of the nighttime airport lights, the darkness of the Potomac, the many flashing lights of the rescue vehicles. Later, images of parts of the plane which remained above the water (including a section of the fuselage) were shown; they are sad, and haunting, to see. We may not get an answer (or, at least, a definitive one) for some time, about the basic mystery of why the tragedy happened.

Yet, the day after it occurred, it was deeply troubling (though, really, not surprising) to see the President--as bodies were still being recovered, and as the investigation was in its earliest stages--holding forth about the crash, at a news conference. The man who knows so little about so much pointed to what he saw as possible culprits: he rambled at length about DEI, questioning the capabilities of the F.A.A. and Air Traffic Control (although conceding, at one point, that “We don’t know that necessarily it’s even the controller’s fault"), attacked the Obama and Biden administrations, and in particular former Biden Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (“He was a disaster as a mayor. He ran his city into the ground and he’s a disaster now. He’s just got a good line of bullshit"); he also questioned the actions of the helicopter pilot. The publication Military Times reported: "Trump stated the helicopter pilot made an incorrect turn prior to the collision, though he did not provide evidence to support his claim."  I can't imagine what the loved ones of the dead were feeling, as they watched this disturbing display.

On Thursday night, I watched an interview with Captain "Sully" Sullenberger, on Lawrence O'Donnell's MSNBC program.  Captain Sullenberger was of course the pilot who (with co-pilot Jeff Skiles) landed USAirways Flight 1549, in January of 2009, on the Hudson River, following bird strikes which shut down the plane's engines; all of the plane's 155 passengers--in what is known as the "Miracle on the Hudson"--survived.

At the end of the interview, Mr. O'Donnell told Captain Sullenberger that he did not want to drag him into the political sphere, but asked if he had any reaction he wished to share, concerning the President's comments earlier in the day. Mr. Sullenberger said, tersely: "Not surprised.  Disgusted."   

Here are two links about the disaster, and the President's responses to it.  The first is from The Washington Post; the second is from the Military Times.

https://wapo.st/40zewmN

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2025/01/30/trump-blames-dei-army-pilot-error-for-deadly-black-hawk-collision/

(Please note: A sentence citing the Military Times story was added to the above post on January 31st.)