YouTube Music: Battle Hymn of the Republic

 Music for Memorial Day

YouTube Music: Battle Hymn of the Republic

by Mormon Tabernacle Choir

Lyrics by Julia Ward Howe

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.

(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.

(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
“As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal”;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on.

(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Since God is marching on.

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat;
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.

(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me.
As He died to make men holy, let us live to make men free*,^[14]
While God is marching on.

(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
While God is marching on.

Memorial Day: Museum Honors War Heroes

National WWII museum: WE OWE THEM

He blinked his eyes rapidly and tears began to moisten his 90-year-old cheeks as memories of war flooded his mind.

“I guess everybody has those feelings,” World War II veteran Harry Robinson told AFA Journal about his recent trip to the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Robinson grew up on a farm in Clay County, Mississippi, and voluntarily joined the U.S. Marine Corps when he was 18 years old. After his enlistment, he rode a train from Jackson, Mississippi, to San Diego, California, and then spent two-and-one-half years overseas. Robinson served as a cook and a baker, so he didn’t experience actual combat other than an invasion of Guam that included his platoon. And he was at home on leave when the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

But the war was real; Robinson was a part of it and forever impacted by it.

“I have forgiven, but I haven’t forgotten,” Robinson said. His memories became reality again as he and his family toured the museum.

“I’m so thankful I came back [from war] without a bruise or anything,” he said while fighting back tears. “So many people lost their lives over there. I hope that visitors to the museum recognize the fact that so many gave their lives.”

The National World War II Museum opened its doors June 6, 2000, after its founder, the late  historian Steven Ambrose, had the idea to build it in memory of Andrew Jackson Higgins. Higgins built the boats that were used as landing craft by the United States to win WWII. Higgins Shipyard in New Orleans built some 20,000 of those boats, thus the reason the museum is located in the Big Easy.

“The museum tells the story of the American experience in the war that changed the world,” William M. “Bill” Detweiler, J.D., told AFA Journal. “It tells why it was fought, how it was won, and what it means today so that all generations will understand the price of freedom and be inspired by what they learn. That’s our mission statement.”

Detweiler is the museum’s consultant for military and veterans affairs.

“The museum is a passion for me,” Detweiler said. He has been with the museum since before there was a museum, dating back to his service as national commander of the American Legion (1994-95). During that time he was in a dispute with the Smithsonian Institute over the display of the Enola Gay, a Boeing B-29 Superfortress WWII bomber that became the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb.

“I got involved on behalf of the American Legion and spent my whole year as national commander trying to defend the courage and honor of the men and women of the war years and to defend President Truman’s decision to drop the bombs to bring the war to a conclusion,” Detweiler explained.

Because of his work, he was elected to the board of the museum a few years later.

Ceremonies
Presently, Detweiler handles all of the outreach and relations dealing with the military on both the local and national levels. This involves special ceremonies presented by the museum as well as assisting with special functions initiated by branches of the military.

“We host major ceremonies on patriotic holidays like Armed Forces Day, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and the Fourth of July,” Detweiler said.

Plans are still being finalized for this year’s Memorial Day celebration, but in years past it has consisted of a speaker, music by the museum’s Navy band and Marine Corps band, and a POW/MIA ceremony provided by a Jr. ROTC cadet program from one of the local high schools.

“It’s a very elaborate ceremony that’s put on by these high school students in memory of those who have paid the supreme sacrifice and have been lost in war,” Detweiler explained. The Memorial Day program is scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m. (CT) and is open to the public.

On June 6, the museum is planning a major observance to mark the 70th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy. There is a related event planned almost every day during the week of June 1-8.

Education
The museum reaches out not only to veterans and their loved ones but also to families, schools, students and the community. The purpose of the museum is to help people understand WWII, how it influences the world today and what future generations can learn from it.

“In order to keep young people interested, the exhibits have to be such that they appeal to younger people and that they raise their interests and keep their attention,” Detweiler said.

That’s why the museum always has an ongoing project and is constantly incorporating advanced technology to make the museum relevant both now and in the future.

One of the most powerful aspects of the museum, according to Detweiler, is a feature presentation titled Beyond All Boundaries that runs daily on the hour. It’s a 4-D film produced by actor Tom Hanks that tells the story of the war in less than an hour.

The museum also houses thousands of oral histories, statements from WWII veterans and members of the home front. One of the museum pavilions has been remodeled to look like a train station from the 1940s. Visitors purchase tickets and board a train car that uses technology to take them on a computerized ride through the countryside in order to experience life during the era.

At the museum’s Stage Door Canteen, bands play, the Victory Belles sing, and swing dance lessons are taught on occasion. In the restoration facility, visitors can watch as men and women work to restore a WWII patrol boat similar to the one on which President John F. Kennedy served.

The United States Freedom Pavilion, which opened earlier this year, houses five vintage WWII planes. The planes hang 90 feet in the air, and catwalks allow visitors to walk right up to the planes and look inside them.

There are various hands-on educational projects, events and exhibits like the Classroom Victory Garden Project that teaches elementary students the importance of community during a time of war. The museum holds summer camps for children as well as various activities for families including Night at the Museum, when a child and parent stay in the museum overnight, watch movies and make crafts.

“We’re an educational facility,” Detweiler explained. “We are not a museum of guns and bullets. We’re not about gore. No veteran who has ever seen combat wants to see war or combat again.

“We want families to realize the sacrifices and what it took, what these men and women did, in order to earn and protect the freedoms that we continue to enjoy today,” he said. “We really encourage families who still have a living World War II vet or family member who was working on the home front during World War II to come on in and take a look. It’s worth the visit. It really is.”

– See more at: http://www.afajournal.org/archives/2010-present/2014/may/features/national-wwii-museum-reminds-us-%E2%80%A6-we-owe-them.aspx#sthash.8QMGv7Rg.dpuf

 

For more information:
National World War II Museum
504-528-1944
info@nationalww2museum.org – See more at: http://www.afajournal.org/archives/2010-present/2014/may/features/national-wwii-museum-reminds-us-%E2%80%A6-we-owe-them.aspx#sthash.8QMGv7Rg.dpuf

Memorial Day History: Honor the Fallen War Heroes

Dinner Topics for Memorial Day

Support, Donate to Paralyzed Veterans

Memorial Day History: Honor the Fallen War Heroes

Some gave all

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies—
The Captains and the Kings depart—
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.

Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget! ~Rudyard Kipling

Teddy James, AFA Journal

In Flanders Fields* by John McCrae
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie in Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders fields.
*Public domain

To some, it is just a flag, resting in a triangular box on a mantle. To others, it explains why there’s an odd number of place settings at the table, why the opposite side of the bed stays cold, why there’s a vacant seat at graduation, why a bride walks down the aisle alone.

To some, it is just a day, an excuse for a three-day weekend to barbeque and celebrate the beginning of summer. To others, it is a day to be alone, remembering daughters they can’t hug, dads they can’t call, friends they couldn’t save, brothers who saved them with the ultimate sacrifice.

Who we remember

Army Sergeant First Class Paul R. Smith was part of B Company, 11th Engineer Battalion of the 3rd Infantry Division. On April 4, 2003, Smith participated in building an impromptu prisoner of war holding area in Baghdad, Iraq. During the construction, his unit was attacked by a group of Iraqi fighters. During the battle, an M113 Armored Personnel Carrier was hit, wounding the three soldiers inside. Smith saw to the evacuation of the injured soldiers. There was an aid station directly behind Smith and his team with already over 100 combat casualties. Smith and his team were the only obstacle between Iraqi attackers and the aid station.

Smith climbed into a damaged M113 to man its .50 caliber machine gun and ordered the driver to reposition the vehicle so he could fire on the enemy, leaving himself unprotected and exposed to enemy fire. He went through three boxes of ammunition before his gun fell silent.

Afterward, Smith’s team found him slumped over the machine gun. His armor showed 13 bullet holes. Before he died, he had wiped out over 50 enemy combatants and saved many American lives. SFC Smith was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Smith and countless other heroes who have given their all for America are who Memorial Day is for.

Why we remember

No fewer than two dozen cities claim to be the birthplace of Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day. President Lyndon B. Johnson declared Waterloo, New York, the original site in 1966. While the site is disputed, it is clear the tradition started around 1866 as a way to memorialize soldiers who died during the Civil War.

In 1868, General John Legend, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, issued this proclamation: “The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land.”

General Legend chose the date because it was not the anniversary of any particular battle.

In the little town of Columbus, Mississippi, also claiming to be the birthplace of Decoration Day, the tradition began with families entering cemeteries and caring for the graves of Confederate soldiers. It expanded when a group of women noticed local Union soldiers’ graves in disrepair and took it on themselves to correct the situation by pulling weeds, placing flowers, and paying respect.

The sentiment covered the country, and today, Memorial Day pays homage to those who surrendered their lives for a purpose they deemed bigger than their personal safety.

Memorial Day’s storied history continues to live in prose, legend, and lyrics. Canadian physician Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae wrote “In Flanders Fields,” a stirring poem published in 1915. The legend says he was inspired to write it after presiding over the funeral of his friend and fellow soldier Alexis Helmer, who died in World War I.

Inspired by McCrae’s poem, Moina Michael responded with “We Shall Keep the Faith.” She wrote:

And now the Torch and Poppy Red
We wear in honor of our dead.
Fear not that ye have died for naught;
We’ll teach the lesson that ye wrought
In Flanders Fields.

Michael decided to wear a red poppy on Memorial Day in honor of all soldiers whose blood was shed not only in Flanders fields, but also everywhere across the globe. Today many veterans’ groups hand out poppies for Memorial Day and Veterans Day.

How we remember
Morrill Worcester won a trip to Washington, D.C., and Arlington National Cemetery when he was 12. The image of rows and rows of headstones lodged itself in the mind of the preteen. The sight taught him real people gave their lives to pay for the freedom he enjoyed every day. That lesson never left him.

Years later, Worcester founded his successful business, Worcester Wreaths, in Harrington, Maine. One year he had a surplus of Christmas wreaths, and the image of Arlington’s unadorned headstones came back to his mind. With the help of Sen. Olympia Snowe (ME-R) and other volunteers, Worcester placed the wreaths in an older section at Arlington.

Worcester and his team quietly kept the tradition until 2005 when an image of the gravestones, semi-covered in snow and decorated with an evergreen wreath and hand-tied red bow, took the Internet by storm. Support poured in from people wanting to donate money for more wreaths in Arlington; others asked how they could start laying wreaths in national or state cemeteries close to home.

From the outpouring of support, Worcester and a team developed Wreaths Across America, and the movement continues to grow. In 2013, the volunteer wreath brigade laid over 540,000 Remembrance Wreaths at 908 locations. The wreaths are another fitting tribute to those who gave their lives for our freedom.

Express your thanks
• Sponsor a wreath now that will be laid on December 13, National Wreaths Across America Day.
• Volunteer to lay wreaths at your local cemetery.
• Start a community fundraiser.
• Make Memorial Day an opportunity to serve those left behind. Spouses and children of deceased soldiers should hold a
special place in the heart of every American. They paid – and are paying – a price too.
• Build a relationship with the family of a fallen soldier. Learn their needs and meet them.
• Make this Memorial Day more than an excuse to barbeque. Let it be the starting point of a lifetime honoring, respecting, and remembering our military heroes.
• Contact U.S. senators or congressmen or local veterans organizations to ask for information on local Memorial Day events or projects.

For more information, visit wreathsacrossamerica.org or call 877-385-9504.

http://www.afajournal.org/recent-issues/2015/may/some-gave-all/

YouTube Music; Albeñiz and Classic Guitar

Dinner Topics for Friday

YouTube Music; Albeñiz and Classic Guitar

“The strongest of all warriors are these two — Time and Patience.” –Leo Tolstoy

Leyenda by Albeñiz, played by Andres Segovia

Albeñiz: Granada from Suite Espanola

 

Cultural Heritage: Comedian Bob Hope entertained troops with USO

Cultural Heritage:

Comedian Bob Hope entertained troops with USO

Bob Hope Biography

(1903–2003)

QUICK FACTS

Bob Hope

May 29, 1903

July 27, 2003

Eltham, United Kingdom

Toluca Lake, California

Leslie Townes Hope

Bob Hope was an entertainer and comic actor, known for his rapid-fire delivery of jokes and for his success in virtually all entertainment media.

Bob Hope on Zombies and Democrats

Who Was Bob Hope?

Bob Hope was a British-born American entertainer and comic actor known for his jokes and one-liners, as well as his success in the entertainment industry and his decades of overseas tours to entertain American troops. Hope received numerous awards and honors for his work as an entertainer and humanitarian.

Early Life

Born as Leslie Townes Hope in 1903, Hope reigned as the king of American comedy for decades. He started out his life, however, across the Atlantic. Hope spent his first years of life in England, where his father worked as a stonemason. In 1907, Hope came to the United States and his family settled in Cleveland, Ohio. His large family, which included his six brothers, struggled financially in Hope’s younger years, so Hope worked a number of jobs, ranging from a soda jerk to a shoe salesman, as a young man to help ease his parents’ financial strain.

Hope’s mother, an aspiring singer at one time, shared her expertise with Hope. He also took dancing lessons and developed an act with his girlfriend, Mildred Rosequist, as a teenager. The pair played local vaudeville theaters for a time. Bitten by the showbiz bug, Hope next partnered up with friend Lloyd Durbin for a two-man dance routine. After Durbin died on the road of food poisoning, Hope joined forces with George Byrne. Hope and Byrne landed some work with film star Fatty Arbuckle and made it to Broadway in Sidewalks of New York in 1927.

King of Media

By the early 1930s, Hope had gone solo. He attracted widespread notice for his role in the Broadway musical Roberta, which showcased his quick wit and superb comic timing. Around this time, Hope met singer Dolores Reade. The pair married in 1934. He again showed off his comedic talents in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1936. Later that year, Hope landed a leading part in Red, Hot and Blue, with Ethel Merman and Jimmy Durante.

In 1937, Hope landed his first radio contract. He got his own show the following year, which became a regular feature on Tuesday nights. Week after week, listeners tuned in to hear Hope’s snappy one-liners and wisecracks. He became one of radio’s most popular performers and stayed on the air until the mid-1950s.

In the late 1930s, Hope made the jump to feature films. His first major role came in The Big Broadcast of 1938, in which he sang “Thanks for the Memory” with Shirley Ross. The song became his trademark tune. The following year, Hope starred in The Cat and the Canary, a hit comedic mystery. He played a sharp, smart-talking coward in this haunted house tale—a type of character he would play numerous times over his career.

In 1940, Hope made his first film with popular crooner Bing Crosby. The pair starred together as a pair of likable con artists in The Road to Singapore with Dorothy Lamour playing their love interest. The duo proved to be box office gold. Hope and Crosby, who remained lifelong friends, made seven Road pictures together.

On his own and with Crosby, Hope starred in numerous hit comedies. He was one of the top film stars throughout the 1940s, with such hits as 1947’s western spoof The Paleface. Hope was often called upon to use his superior ad-lib skills as the host of Academy Awards. While he never won an Academy Award for his acting, Hope received several honors from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences over the years.

While his film career began to ebb in the 1950s, Hope enjoyed a new wave of success on the small screen. He starred in his first television special on NBC in 1950. His periodic specials became a long-standing feature on the network, managing to earn impressive ratings with each new show over a 40-year time span. Nominated several times over the years, Hope won an Emmy Award in 1966 for one of his Christmas specials.

Supporting the Troops

During World War II, Hope began to regularly take time out of his film and television career to entertain American soldiers. He started out with a radio show he did at a California air base in 1941. Two years later, Hope traveled with USO performers to bring the laughs to military personnel overseas, including stops in Europe. He also went to the Pacific front the following year. In 1944, Hope wrote about his war experiences in I Never Left Home.

While he and his wife Dolores had four children of their own, they spent many of their Christmases with the troops. Vietnam was one of his most frequent holiday stops, visiting the country nine times during the Vietnam War. Hope took a break from his USO efforts until the early 1980s. He resumed his comedic mission with a trip to Lebanon in 1983. In the early 1990s, Hope went to Saudi Arabia to cheer on the soldiers who were engaged in the First Gulf War.

Hope traveled the world on behalf of the country’s servicemen and women and received numerous accolades for his humanitarian efforts. His name was even placed on ships and planes. Perhaps the greatest honor, however, came in 1997 when Congress passed a measure to make Hope an honorary veteran of the U.S. military service for his goodwill work on behalf of American soldiers.

Death and Legacy

By the late 1990s, Hope had become one of the most honored performers in entertainment history. He received more than 50 honorary degrees in his lifetime, as well as a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Kennedy Center in 1985, a Medal of the Arts from President Bill Clinton in 1995 and a British knighthood in 1998. The British-born Hope was especially surprised by the honorary knighthood, saying, “I’m speechless. Seventy years of ad-lib material and I’m speechless.”

Around this time, Hope donated his papers to the Library of Congress. He handed over his joke files, which he had kept in special file cabinets in a special room of his Lake Toluca, California home. These jokes—accumulating more than 85,000 pages of laughs—represented the work of Hope and the numerous writers that he kept on staff. At one point, Hope had 13 writers working for him.

In 2000, Hope attended the opening of the Bob Hope Gallery of American Entertainment at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. In the following years, he became increasingly frail. Hope quietly celebrated his 100th birthday in May 2003, at his Toluca Lake home. There, he died of pneumonia on July 27, 2003.

President George W. Bush hailed Hope as “a great citizen” who “served our nation when he went to battlefields to entertain thousands of troops from different generations.” Jay Leno also praised Hope’s remarkable gifts: “impeccable comic timing, an encyclopedic memory of jokes and an effortless ability with quips.”

Judeo-Christian Heritage: Peter Marshall, Chaplain; Peter Marshall Quotes; A Man Called Peter Movie Clip

Judeo-Christian Heritage:

Peter Marshall, Chaplain; Peter Marshall Quotes; A Man Called Peter Movie Clip

Peter Marshall Quotes

• Small deeds done are better than great deeds planned.
• A different world cannot be built by indifferent people.
• Unless we stand for something, we shall fall for anything.

Let us not fool ourselves – without Christianity, without Christian education, without the principles of Christ inculcated into young life, we are simply rearing pagans.

• It is better to fail in a cause that will ultimately succeed than to succeed in a cause that will ultimately fail.
• God hasn’t given up on you. He can still do great things for you, in you, and through you. God is ready and waiting and able. What about you, and me?
• Give according to your income lest God make your income according to your giving.
• Enthusiasm is not contrary to reason; it is reason – on fire.

Peter Marshall

Clip from A Man Called Peter Movie

Early life and education

Born in Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire, Scotland, a poverty-stricken coal-mining community, where he was reared by his mother and stepfather.

From an early age, he decided he would be a missionary to China. To meet the educational requirements, he enrolled in evening classes while working in the mines by day, but his progress was slow. In 1927, a cousin offered to pay Peter’s way to the U.S., where he could receive proper ministerial training. He graduated from Columbia Theological Seminary in 1931.

Ministry

He was called as the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, a small, rural church in Covington, Georgia. After a brief pastorate, Marshall accepted a call to Atlanta‘s Westminster Presbyterian Church in 1933.

Marriage and family

In Atlanta, Marshall met his future wife, Catherine Wood, then a student at Agnes Scott College. They married on November 4, 1936, and had one son, Peter John Marshall (January 21, 1940 – September 8, 2010), who followed his father into the Presbyterian clergy and ran a national ministry, Peter Marshall Ministries, from Orleans, Massachusetts. He wrote many books on the Christian faith in the United States.^[1]

Later career

In 1937, Marshall became pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. In 1946 he was appointed as US Senate Chaplain, serving from January 4, 1947, until his sudden death of a heart attack just over two years later, at age 46.^{[2][page needed]}

Marshall is buried at Fort Lincoln Cemetery (Section C, Lot 344, Site 1) in Brentwood, Maryland.^[3]

Cultural Heritage: John Wayne Westerns, War Movies

Cultural Heritage:

John Wayne Westerns, War Movies

John Wayne, byname Duke, original name Marion Michael Morrison (see Researcher’s Note) , (born May 26, 1907, Winterset, Iowa, U.S.—died June 11, 1979, Los Angeles, California), major American motion-picture actor who embodied the image of the strong, taciturn cowboy or soldier and who in many ways personified the idealized American values of his era.

Marion Morrison was the son of an Iowa pharmacist; he acquired the nickname “Duke” during his youth and billed himself as Duke Morrison for one of his early films. In 1925 he enrolled at the University of Southern California (Los Angeles), where he played football. He worked summers at the Fox Film Corporation as a propman and developed a friendship with director John Ford, who cast him in some small film roles starting in 1928. His first leading role—and his first appearance as “John Wayne”—came in director Raoul Walsh’s The Big Trail (1930). During the next eight years Wayne starred in more than 60 low-budget motion pictures, mostly in roles as cowboys, soldiers, and other rugged men of adventure. He reached genuine star stature when Ford cast him as the Ringo Kid in the classic western Stagecoach (1939). After that film his place in American cinema was established and grew with each successive year. Ford’s The Long Voyage Home (1940), a film based on several Eugene O’Neill one-act plays, featured one of Wayne’s most praised performances from the early years of his stardom and offered further evidence of his commanding screen presence.

John Wayne and Robert Montgomery in They Were Expendable
John Wayne (left) and Robert Montgomery in They Were Expendable (1945), directed by John Ford.

Speculation exists as to whether Wayne purposely avoided military service during World War II, but evidence suggests that his attempts to enlist in the Navy were rejected because of his age, an old football injury, and a federal government directive to draft boards to go easy on actors whose talents could be used for building morale. He spent the war years entertaining troops overseas and making films such as the popular action-adventures Flying Tigers (1942), The Fighting Seabees (1944), They Were Expendable (1945), and Back to Bataan (1945), all of which featured Wayne as quintessentially American fighting men who overcome great odds. He also appeared during this period in melodramas such as The Spoilers (1942) and Flame of Barbary Coast (1945). By the end of the war, Wayne was firmly established as one of Hollywood’s top stars.

John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara in The Quiet Man
John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara in The Quiet Man (1952), directed by John Ford.

Wayne’s screen image was permanently defined in the many classic films he made with directors Ford and Howard Hawks during the postwar years and into the early 1960s. For Ford, Wayne starred in what has come to be known as the “Cavalry Trilogy”: Fort Apache (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), and Rio Grande (1950), three elegiac films in which Wayne portrays stoic cavalry officers of the Old West. Wayne’s roles in these and other films for Ford offer a somewhat complex representation of the American character in that they exhibit unflagging patriotism but are disillusioned by, and resigned to, the inherent hypocrisies within America. In this manner the Ford-Wayne films both honour and undermine the mythology of the Old West, nowhere more so than in The Searchers (1956), a film considered by some to be the greatest western ever made. Wayne’s character in this film pursues a noble goal (rescuing his kidnapped niece from a renegade Comanche leader), but his obsessive behaviour and blatant bigotry reveal him to be as mad as he is heroic. Ford’s exploration of the dark underbelly of Old West legends culminated in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), a film that both questions and justifies the “when the truth interferes with the legend, print the legend” philosophy of 19th-century journalists of the American West. In all, the Ford-Wayne films present an Old West rendered obsolete by the very society it helped to create. Wayne also appeared in films for Ford that were not westerns, including standouts such as The Quiet Man (1952) and Donovan’s Reef (1963).

scene from Red River
John Wayne (left) and Montgomery Clift in Red River (1948), directed by Howard Hawks.
© 1948 United Artists Corporation

Howard Hawks’s collaborations with Wayne are less iconoclastic than Ford’s, but no less revered. Red River (1948), another candidate for the greatest western of all time, features Wayne as an autocratic, monomaniacal cattle baron at odds with the orphan boy he has reared (portrayed in adulthood by Montgomery Clift in his first screen role) and the modern values he represents. Wayne did not work with Hawks again until Rio Bravo (1959), a film born of Hawks’s and Wayne’s dissatisfaction with the popularity of High Noon (1952), the Gary Cooper western in which citizens of a western community are portrayed as weak-willed and cowardly when their sheriff asks their help in forming a posse. The sheriff portrayed by Wayne in Rio Bravo, conversely, is determined to do his duty with or without help from anyone. Although greeted with lukewarm reviews upon its release, Rio Bravo is now regarded as a classic western. Hawks and Wayne remade essentially the same story twice, in El Dorado (1967) and in Rio Lobo (1970), Hawks’s final film.

John Wayne in Sands of Iwo Jima
John Wayne in Sands of Iwo Jima (1949), directed by Allan Dwan.
© 1949 Republic Pictures Corporation

Wayne’s standout films for other directors include Sands of Iwo Jima (1949), in which his performance as an uncompromisingly tough Marine sergeant earned an Oscar nomination; Hondo (1953), perhaps the only classic western filmed in 3-D; The Alamo (1960), an epic-length film that Wayne himself directed and in which he starred as Davy Crockett; The Longest Day (1962) and In Harm’s Way (1965), two hugely successful World War II epics; and McLintock! (1963), a slapstick western farce that was his only successful comedy. After a screen career of more than 40 years, Wayne was honoured with an Academy Award for his portrayal of the drunken, cantankerous, but endearing U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn in True Grit (1969), a role he reprised opposite Katharine Hepburn in Rooster Cogburn (1975), a partial remake of the Hepburn–Humphrey Bogart classic The African Queen (1951). Wayne’s final film, The Shootist (1976), in which he portrays an aging gunfighter who is dying of cancer, was praised by many as his best western since Rio Bravo. This role was a poignant screen farewell for an actor who himself would succumb to cancer three years later.

Presidential Medal of Freedom

Wayne endured criticism throughout his career from those who questioned his versatility as an actor. His ability to convey quiet tenderness, however, and his capacity for multilayered portrayals of complex characters, as in Red River and The Searchers, was often overlooked. Wayne himself was also the subject of controversy: his outspoken right-wing politics were admired by conservatives but derided by liberals as being naively jingoistic. His politics notwithstanding, he is considered a towering cinematic icon and, to some, the greatest Hollywood star of all time. He was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Judeo-Christian Culture: Christian Art and Life of Jesus Christ

Dinner Topics for Monday

The best way to prepare for life is to begin to live.

Carl Heinrich Bloch (May 23, 1834 – February 22, 1890) was a Danish painter.

He was born in Copenhagen, Denmark and studied with Wilhelm Marstrand at the Royal Danish Academy of Art (Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi) there. Bloch’s parents wanted their son to enter a respectable profession – an officer in the Navy. This, however, was not what Carl wanted. His only interest was drawing and painting, and he was consumed by the idea of becoming an artist. He went to Italy to study art, passing through the Netherlands, where he became acquainted with the work of Rembrandt, which became a major influence on him.^[1] Carl Bloch met his wife, Alma Trepka, in Rome, where he married her on May 31, 1868. They were happily married until her early death in 1886.

His early work featured rural scenes from everyday life. From 1859 to 1866, Bloch lived in Italy, and this period was important for the development of his historical style.

His first great success was the exhibition of his “Prometheus Unbound” in Copenhagen in 1865. After the death of Marstrand, he finished the decoration of the ceremonial hall at the University of Copenhagen. The sorrow over losing his wife weighed heavily on Bloch, and being left alone with their eight children after her death was very difficult for him.

In a New Year’s letter from 1866 to Bloch, H. C. Andersen wrote the following: “What God has arched on solid rock will not be swept away!” Another letter from Andersen declared “Through your art you add a new step to your Jacob-ladder into immortality.”

Temptation of Christ by Carl Bloch

In a final ode, from a famous author to a famous artist, H.C. Andersen said “Write on the canvas; write your seal on immortality. Then you will become noble here on earth.”

He was then commissioned to produce 23 paintings for the Chapel at Frederiksborg Palace. These were all scenes from the life of Christ which have become very popular as illustrations. The originals, painted between 1865 and 1879, are still at Frederiksborg Palace. The altarpieces can be found at Holbaek, Odense, Ugerloese and Copenhagen in Denmark, as well as Loederup, Hoerup, and Landskrona in Sweden.

Through the assistance of Danish-born artist Soren Edsberg, the acquisition of “Christ healing at the pool of Bethesda,” [formerly owned by Indre Mission, Copenhagen, Denmark], was recently made possible for The Museum of Art, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, USA.^[1]

Carl Bloch died of cancer on February 22, 1890. His death came as “an abrupt blow for Nordic art” according to an article by Sophus Michaelis. Michaelis stated that “Denmark has lost the artist that indisputably was the greatest among the living.” Kyhn stated in his eulogy at Carl Bloch’s funeral that “Bloch stays and lives.”

A prominent Danish art critic, Karl Madsen, stated that Carl Bloch reached higher toward the great heaven of art than all other Danish art up to that date. Madsen also said “If there is an Elysium, where the giant, rich, warm and noble artist souls meet, there Carl Bloch will sit among the noblest of them all!” (From Carl Bloch Site).

Bloch’s influence

For over 40 years The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has made heavy use of Carl Bloch’s paintings, mostly from the Frederiksborg Palace collection, in its church buildings and printed media. The LDS church has produced films depicting scriptural accounts of Christ’s mortal ministry, using Bloch’s paintings as models for the colour, light and overall set design as well as the movement of the actors in many of the films’ scenes.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Great Artists, Praying Hands, and Albrecht Durer

Dinner Topics

Happiness is where we find it, but rarely where we seek it.

Great Artists, Praying Hands, and Albrecht Durer

Late in the fifteenth century, two young and zealous wood-carving apprentices in France confided in each other their craving to study painting. Such study would take money and both Hans and Albrecht had none. Their joint solution was to have one work and earn money while the other one studied. When the lucky one became rich and famous, he would work and aid the other one. They tossed a coin and Albrecht won. Albrecht quickly went to Venice to study painting while Hans worked as a blacksmith.

After many hard years, at last Albrecht returned home as an independent master. Now it was his turn to help Hans. However, when Albrecht looked at his friend, tears welled in his eyes. Only then did he discover the extent of his friend’s sacrifice. The years of heavy labor in the blacksmith shop had calloused and enlarged Hans’ sensitive hands. Hans could never be a painter. In humble gratitude to Hans for his years of sacrifice, the great artist, Albrecht Durer, painted a portrait of the work-worn hands that sacrificed so much so that he might develop his talent. He presented this painting of praying hands to his devoted friend. Today, this master piece is a symbol of love and sacrifice and is familiar to millions of people throughout the world.

YouTube Music: Classic Wagner

 Don’t ask for an easier life; ask to be a stronger person.

Sometimes we need to ignore the life and philosophy of the composer, and just enjoy the music.

Wagner Tannhauser Overture

 Lohengrin Overture

Wilhelm Richard Wagner; 22 May 1813 – 13 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor primarily known for his operas (or, as some of his later works were later known, “music dramas”). His compositions, particularly those of his later period, are notable for their complex textures, rich harmonies and orchestration, and the elaborate use of leitmotifs—musical phrases associated with individual characters, places, ideas or plot elements. His advances in musical language, such as extreme chromaticism and quickly shifting tonal centres, greatly influenced the development of classical music; his Tristan und Isolde is sometimes described as marking the start of modern music.

Wagner inspired great devotion. For a long period, many composers were inclined to align themselves with or against Wagner’s music. Anton Bruckner and Hugo Wolf were greatly indebted to him, as were César Franck, Henri Duparc, Ernest Chausson, Jules Massenet, Richard Strauss, Alexander von Zemlinsky, Hans Pfitzner and numerous others.^[194] Gustav Mahler was devoted to Wagner and his music; aged 24, he sought him out on his 1875 visit to Vienna,^[195] became a renowned Wagner conductor,^[196] and his compositions are seen by Richard Taruskin as extending Wagner’s “maximalization” of “the temporal and the sonorous” in music to the world of the symphony.^[197] The harmonic revolutions of Claude Debussy and Arnold Schoenberg (both of whose oeuvres contain examples of tonal and atonal modernism) have often been traced back to Tristan and Parsifal.^[198] The Italian form of operatic realism known as verismo owed much to the Wagnerian concept of musical form.^[199]

Wagner made a major contribution to the principles and practice of conducting. His essay “About Conducting” (1869)^[200] advanced Hector Berlioz‘s technique of conducting and claimed that conducting was a means by which a musical work could be re-interpreted, rather than simply a mechanism for achieving orchestral unison. He exemplified this approach in his own conducting, which was significantly more flexible than the disciplined approach of Mendelssohn; in his view this also justified practices that would today be frowned upon, such as the rewriting of scores.^{[201][n 16]} Wilhelm Furtwängler felt that Wagner and Bülow, through their interpretative approach, inspired a whole new generation of conductors (including Furtwängler himself).^[203]

Wagner’s concept of the use of leitmotifs and the integrated musical expression which they can enable has influenced many 20th and 21st century film scores. The critic Theodor Adorno has noted that the Wagnerian leitmotif “leads directly to cinema music where the sole function of the leitmotif is to announce heroes or situations so as to allow the audience to orient itself more easily”.^[204] Amongst film scores citing Wagnerian themes are Francis Ford Coppola‘s Apocalypse Now, which features a version of the Ride of the Valkyries, Trevor Jones‘s soundtrack to John Boorman‘s film Excalibur,^[205] and the 2011 films A Dangerous Method (dir. David Cronenberg) and Melancholia (dir. Lars von Trier).^[206]

Amongst those claiming inspiration from Wagner’s music are the German rock band Rammstein,^[207] and the electronic composer Klaus Schulze, whose 1975 album Timewind consists of two 30-minute tracks, Bayreuth Return and Wahnfried 1883. The Slovenian group Laibach created the 2009 suite VolksWagner, using material from Wagner’s operas.^[208] Phil Spector‘s wall of sound recording technique was, it has been claimed, heavily influenced by Wagner.^[209]

Comments from You Tube

Wagner was dead 6 six years before Hitler was even born and 37 years before the formation of the Nazi Party.

I lately saw a BBC-documentary search on “Stephen Fry on Wagner” it’s also on youtube, Stephen a Jew himself is one of the biggest fans of Wagner’s music since he was child, some of his family died in the camps, is he allowed to like Wagner’s music? The conclusion is, many dictators (Mao, Stalin etc.) misused great artists like Wagner and Wagner never knew Hitler.

More about Wagner from Wikipedia

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