Greg Mitchell's Blog, page 109

Beethoven's Funeral

The greatest artist the West produced, following maybe Shakespeare, died this week in 1827 and his funeral, drawing massive crowds for the time in Vienna, was held three days later.   Here's the famous funeral oration.  Schubert carried a torch and was dead not many months later (and they are now buried nearly side-by-side).    My book with Kerry Candaele here.   Below, one of his last pieces--still ahead of its time, even if written in 2013.  Below that, trailer for Kerry's new film, for which I serve as co-producer.

Van Gogh at Getty

For Vincent's birthday this weekend:  Wouldn't he have been amazed when he died and his paintings sold for pennies at all that this one (painted at the asylum at San Remy), when purchased by the Getty in Los Angeles (where I took this picture last year) a couple of decades back, would set a record at the time --more than $70 million, as I recall.  Fortunately, you can still visit and ponder.   Another tribute photo I posted last night.  My photo blog here.

Young Days and Surf's Up, for Paul

In tribute to Paul Williams, founder of my old magazine Crawdaddy (see here) and "The Father of Rock Criticism,"  one of his early obsessions, Neil Young doing "Mr. Soul,"  with the Springfield, probably 1967.  But his greatest piece, on Brian Wilson's struggle to record the ill-fated Smile album, was my introduction to Paul about the same time.  Three years later I was writing for Rolling Stone.  Brian singing the great "Surf's Up" from those sessions below.

Chicago Bluesman

Few might think of him in that way, but Chicago boy Sam Cooke recorded the greatest blues-gospel or gospel-blues music of our time, in first half of the 1950s, barely out of teens, with the Soul Stirrers.  Just two bits of evidence:

We're Number 5...In Executions

Amensty International just out with its annual survey of death penalty usage around the globe.  Some good news (see excerpt below) but again the "exceptionalism" of USA stands out, especially in the West. (My recent ebook on the death penalty in our country.)

Progress towards abolition was recorded in all regions of the world. Although the USA remained the only country in the Americas to carry out executions in 2013, the number of executions in the country continued to decrease. Maryland became the 18th abolitionist US state in May. No executions were reported in Europe and Central Asia last year. Constitutional and legal review processes in several West African countries created real opportunities for the abolition of capital punishment. For the first time since Amnesty International began keeping records there were no prisoners on death row in Grenada, Guatemala and Saint Lucia.

Pakistan suspended once again its application of the death penalty, and no death sentences were implemented in Singapore, where six people had their cases commuted following the review of the country's mandatory death penalty laws in 2012. In China, the Supreme People's Court issued legal guidelines aimed at ensuring greater procedural protections in death penalty cases.

Dummy Rummy Still Looks for WMDs?

It was eleven years ago this weekend but seems like yesterday.  Appearing on ABC's This Week two weeks after the invasion,  Donald Rumsfeld said, "We know where they [weapons of mass destruction] are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad  and east, west, south and north somewhat."  So they would go from known knowns to unknown knowns to known unknowns.  To: zilch.  Rumsfeld was still defending the war this week.  And see new Errol Morrius film.

Greg Mitchell’s new edition of So Wrong for So Long includes a preface by Bruce Springsteen, a new introduction and a lengthy afterword.   

Lumineers Do Dylan

Didn't expect to find the band doing old protest Bob.  And we might as well throw "The Weight" out there, too.

A Few Wichita Lines, Man: Mass Turnout for Our Film Last Night

Updates: In bigget turnout yet, nearly 600 flocked to a screening at our Following the Ninth film in Wichita last night, where director Kerry Candaele appeared.  Momentum for the film keeps building.  Kerry and I are presently booked for a CBS Morning Show segment on April 5.  And more screenings to come around the USA.

In more local news:  After a nice turnout in Rhinebeck last month, Upstate Films has booked film at its sister theater in Woodstock,  for April 5.  Again, I will speak. And a big benefit screening coming up in Cooperstown next month.  For more on the film, and on our tie-in book, Journeys With Beethoven, go here. 

Earlier: As you may know, the film I co-produced Following the Ninth (directed by Kerry Candaele) was released last November and has drawn wide acclaim--from The New York Times to featured segments on Bill Moyers' PBS show and NPR's "All Things Considered"--and has played in a couple of dozen cities already.  But a regular-length trailer for this unique exploration of the amazing influence of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony was never produced.  Instead, a terrific seven-minute mini-film served that purpose and it was so terrific that Moyers showed the entire piece on his TV show.  But the film still has months to run around the USA and world, so Candaele has now produced a more traditional two-minute trailer and it was just posted tonight on YouTube.

Eleven Years On: Obama, of All People, Defends Iraq Invasion

In a speech abroad after Europeans pointed out our loss of moral authority in hitting Russia on Crimea. Especially disheartening--and hypocritical, since he largely owes his election in 2008 to being able to brag  (vs. Hillary Clinton and John McCain) that, unlike them, he opposed the war in 2003.   See Obama's tortured reasoning and twisting of (or making up) facts, in a good accounting by Huff Post's Ryan Grim here and critics on the Left here.  Grim:

Obama struggled, however, in his attempt to defend the legality of the invasion. The war was unsanctioned by the United Nations, and many experts assert it violated any standard reading of international law. But, argued Obama, at least the U.S. tried to make it legal. "America sought to work within the international system," Obama said, referencing an attempt to gain U.N. approval for the invasion -- an effort that later proved to be founded on flawed, misleading and cherry-picked intelligence. The man who delivered the presentation to the U.N., then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, has repeatedly called it a "blot" on his record.

Obama, in his speech, noted his own opposition to the war, but went on to defend its mission.

"We did not claim or annex Iraq's territory. We did not grab its resources for our own gain," Obama argued. In fact, the U.S. forced Iraq to privatize its oil industry, which had previously been under the control of the state, and further required that it accept foreign ownership of the industry. The effort to transfer the resources to the control of multinational, largely U.S.-based oil companies has been hampered in part by the decade of violence unleashed by the invasion.

The updated edition of  Greg Mitchell's book on the Iraq war,  So Wrong for So Long, includes a preface by Bruce Springsteen, a new introduction and a lengthy afterword with updates .

Babe Bop a Lou Lou

Great piece in NYT for baseball history buffs and collectors (such as me) on newly discovered newsreel footage of Babe Ruth--plus a first look ever at Lou Gehrig who was about to start his long tenure.  A few charming seconds of Babe on steps of dugout with Lou, apparently not nervous despite momentous days, grinning on the bench behind him.  Follow the link in the piece to the original postings by the Hall of Fame's researcher also.