Some Notes on Errol Morris's AMERICAN DHARMA

 AMERICAN DHARMA is Errol Morris's documentary on Steve Bannon, which was essentially "un-released' for a couple of years after its festival premiere.  Find Wikipedia here, IMDB here.  Amazon here (includes trailer).  Trailer also here.  (New Yorker slammed it, here.)

I recently ran across the 2021 American Masters PBS podcast interview with Morris about Bannon and the film, which I really enjoyed, and it sent me back to a second viewing of American Dharma.

• If you have time for one thing on this page, just listen to the podcast.

If you want to appreciate the film, if you're a big fan of Errol Morris, here's my advice:  

The film is unusual indeed:  Morris recreates the entire sound stage of a 1940's war film, 12 O'Clock High (Gregory Peck), and Morris edits his documentary based on filming days of interviews with Bannon on that strange (faux) movie set.  Talk about thinking outside the box.

To really understand American Dharma, you would bring this toolkit to the viewing:

• Watch "Twelve O'Clock High."
• Watch "The Fog of War," Morris's award-winning film about McNamara and Vietnam.
• Both films are referred to closely in the movie.  And much of the movie pivots around, returns to, "Twelve O'Clock High."
• Crazy fact;  Bannon loved "Fog of War," having seen it at Telluride, and it was one of his motivations to enter politics.
• You would have seen the more conventional movie documentary about Bannon,"The Brink."  Review.
• Listen to the American Masters podcast.
• Not necessarily, but helpful, an essay or book about what "the world of the internet" is, such as Virginia Heffernan's "Magic and Loss."

I had stumbled on the podcast, and I'd seen the other movies over the years, except for 12 O'Clock High, which I saw on Amazon before watching DHARMA.  With the podcast and with 12 O'Clock High fresh in mind, I really enjoyed DHARMA in a rich way on second viewing.

Mystery of Peter Finch's Birth Year: 1912 or 1916?

Recently, I made a short video about Peter Finch's memorial marker at the Hollywood Forever cemetery in Los Angeles.  The marker says 1912 birth year, but nearly all other sources say 1916.   

1916 was the accepted birth year when Peter Finch died in 1977 (see all the obituaries).  And two biographies soon appeared, in 1979/1980, with many pages and details about his early years -- all constructed around a 1916 birthday.

Yet, from Find-A-Grave photos, it appears the family changed the crypt's birth year from 1916 to 1912, maybe around 2002 (below).  

It seems very unlikely that the family would do that without good information, doesn't it? But it 'blows up' the biographies to do so.

The Accepted Story

The accepted information is this.  From Wikipedia entry to the two main biographies, Faulkner: Peter Finch.  and Dundy: Finch Bloody Finch.  (See also a remarks about Peter's upbringing in his second wife's memoir, Yolande Finch/Finchy.)  

By any measure, Peter Finch's first 15 years were a whirlwind and global series of events.

Peter's legal father was George Finch, born in Australia and educated in chemistry in Zurich and London, arriving in London in 1912.  *His* parents were Laura and Charles Finch, Peter's grandparents, who become important shortly.   

George Finch came to London in 1912 and married Alicia (Betty) Fisher in 1915.   Peter was born in September 1916, but his birth not recorded until 1917 for reasons unknown.   

George Finch was soon convinced baby Peter's real father was one Jock Campbell.   George Finch snatched away Peter at age 2 in 1918, and got a divorce (on grounds of "uncontested adultery") in 1920.   

After 1920, though legally in care of his now-divorced father, Peter was raised in the early 1920s mostly by his grandmother Laura, who now lived in Vaucresson (west of Paris, near Versailles).   Laura was by now permanently separated from her husband Charles Finch, who had returned to Australia.   

Peter was sent to Australia in the mid 1920s, possibly during a trip to India with Laura.   So by the mid 1920s, Peter was being raised by his 83-year-old grandfather Charles Finch in Sidney, along with grandfather's sister.  These two both died, and Peter was passed on to another of Charles' sisters, whom he described as wicked.   

Most sources suggest Peter soon spent several years as an Australian ranch hand, then, became a "cub reporter" to the Sidney Herald, and then, got into acting via a brief period in radio announcing. 

1912 or 1916?  Age 2 or 6?  Age 6 or 10?  

If, as the current family gravestone indicates, Peter was born in September 1912, it would seem to be before his mother Alicia had met either biological father Campbell or legal father Charles Finch.  (And this pushes his concept to January 2012).

And on the 1912 timeline, his mother would have brought a 3 year old boy into the 1915 marriage to Finch.   And Peter would have been 6, not 2, when as the story says, he was snatched from his playpen by his legal father in 1918.   Peter would become 8, not 4, when his parents divorced in 1920.   

Both biographies have a couple (different) dated pictures of the young Peter Finch, but it's hard for me to tell if he's more likely to be (say in 1924) to be 8 year old big for his age or a prepubertal 12 year old small for his age.

A few final clues.  One biography says that Charles Finch never talked about Peter's paternity or infancy.  And several sources note that his birth certificate was issued, at least, a year late in 1917. 

A few web sources that are built around the grave itself, like Find A Grave, do list the birth year as 1912, like the current marker, and not 1916, like all the books and like the first marker.  

Campbell Story Seems Secure?

After 1920, newly divorced Alicia Finch soon married Jock Campbell and they had a long marriage together into the 1950s.  

Yolande Finch asserts in her memoir that Alicia Finch Campbell wouldn't discuss Peter's origins.

But in contrast, at least one of the biographers interviewed Finch's mother and she was happy to acknowledge her and Campbell's parenthood of young Peter.  

One of the biographies describes Peter Finch passing time with the Campbells in the 1950s, and they happily discussed his paternity and indeed, in some speeches Peter described himself as a proud Campbell for Scottish audiences.   

##

Find a Grave, "new plaque 2002."  https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/337/peter-finch/photo

##

The 2 biographies and the Yolande memoir were all at the LA Public Library; all are also available for a few dollars on Amazon.

Yes Virginia, There Is A Bill W

There is a famous newspaper editorial, from the 1890s, where the editor tells a little girl named Virginia, "Yes, Virginia,There Is A Santa Claus."  

Here is a parody, closely following the original Santa Claus letter, but replaced by "Bill W."  It's from the 1990s.  (In fact, the original 1897 is updated to 1997].

##

YES, VIRGINIA, THERE IS A BILL W

Until we are seven or eight years sober, we believe in Bill W. Then, many begin to believe they are now grown-ups, and to have their doubts. One winter day in 1997, a New York AA, Virginia O'H., asked her sponsor whether there was really a Bill W.

As she recalled many years later, her sponsor wavered, and then Virginia hit upon the answer herself. "If you read it in the Grapevine, it's true", they had often said, and little Virginia wrote this oft-reprinted letter:

Dear Editor:

I am 8 years sober. Some of my little AA friends say there is no Bill W. My sponsor says, "If you read it in the Grapevine, it's true". Please tell me the truth. Is there a Bill W? Virginia O'H.

##

Her little letter found its way into the hands of a senior editor of the Grapevine. His reply caused an immediate sensation, and has been reprinted countless times in local newsletters all over the world.

Here it is:

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the scepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except what they see. They think that nothing can be, which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether sponsors or sponsees, are little, compared with the boundless miracles of sobriety around us.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Bill W. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and coffee exist, and you know that they abound. Alas, how dreary sobriety would be if there were no Bill W!

As dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. The light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Bill W! You might as well not believe in a higher power! You might get your sponsor to have big book nazis watch all the meetings on Christmas eve, but even then, if you did not see Bill W. in a corner, what would that prove? The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor sponsors can see.

You can tear apart a baby's rattle to see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the Steps and the Higher Power that not even the united strength of all the sponsors in the world can tear away. Only faith, love, romance, can push aside that curtain, one day at a time. Ah, Virginia, there is nothing in the world, so real and abiding. No Bill W! Thank god, he lives, and a thousand years from now, will continue to make glad the hearts of newcomers.   

THE EDITOR.

https://tinyurl.com/yesvirginiabillw

Several Recent Interesting Podcasts

A few podcasts that I've heard and enjoyed recently.

• 99 Percent Invisible
• This podcast has been around for years and covers urban life and the built world in diverse aspects.  Homepage here.
• See #512: Hollywood Walk of Fame.  Blog and entry to podcast here. With Gillian Jacobs.  
• Also, discusses forgotten woman director from 1930s, 1940s, Dorothy Arzner.
• Greg McKeown Podcast.
• Author of "Essentialism."  
• See home page for all 140-plus podcasts (and transcripts) here.
• Sort of in the self-improvement vein but more interesting than that sounds.   #9, with Eve Rodsky, discusses her book FAIRPLAY, which is sort of at the juncture of mediation theory, negotiation theory, and maybe couples counseling.  Enjoyed.   #22, with Gretchen Ruben, The HAPPINESS PROJECT, about how to focus on what you really want to do, better.   She notes that different personalities respond differently to externally set goals and internally established ones, and spins this in really interesting ways. Webpage.  #60, author Luke Burgis discusses his book WANTING (which I had read), about how we have strong or primal instincts to model our goals and behaviors on others, but this can turn dysfunctional.   
• Business Wars.
• See website here.
• Elaborately produced podcasts, typically in a story series of 5 or 6, with voices like a radio play, describing some famous business competition.
• I've listened to "Ben and Jerry's vs Haagen Dazs" and  "Hershey vs Mars."  Enjoyed both.
• I'm not quite sure the business model; you may get them faster or without ads from a company called Wondery but they become available on standard free podcast streamers as well.  

____

Every week I check what's new at two interview podcast, NPR Fresh Air with Terry Gross, and WTF with Marc Maron.   Two other interview podcasts I check every month or so are Conan (O'Brien) Needs a Friend and Rob Lowe's Literally!   Authors discuss Harvard biz school new case studies at "Cold Call."   

Freud: Some Remarks on Aging

I recently ran across a reference to a 1972 book, Dr. Max Schur's "Freud: Living and Dying."  Schur, who lived from around 1895 to 1970, was Freud's own physician in the 1920s and 30s, when Freud was progressively more handicapped by oral cancer.   The book is a complete view of Freud's life, with commentaries on key books from Schur's perspective.  There is also a special focus on the late years when Freud suffered from cancer, diagnosed in 1923 and ending with Freud's death in London in 1939.

Schur first met Freud when Schur was a medical student in Vienna in 1915 and attended a two-year series of lectures by Freud, then around 58 (b. 1856).

In June 1923, Freud (then 67) wrote physician colleagues about his first cancer surgery.  "There is nothing to say that you yourselves couldn't know or expect.  The uncertainty that hovers over a man of 67 has now found its material expression.  I don't take it very hard; one will defend oneself for a while with the help of modern medicine and then remember Bernard Shaw's warning:  Don't try to live forever, you won't succeed." [p. 358]

Chapter 15 "Adjusting to Pain and Illness" (p. 377ff) is too long to quote in full, but I include a few quotes in part.  The oral cancer and multiple surgeries and radiotherapies were difficult both because of the pain itself and also the severe difficulties in basic speaking and swallowing creating by the resected spaces.   1924.  "In his daily life, he maintained not only the greatest self-control and dignity, but acquired a serenity which had an impact on everyone.  Once again, all this was achieved at a price.  Freud was forced to change his way of life in many respects.  He could no longer attend meetings of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society...[Letter to Eitingon] "You belong to those who refuse to believe I am no longer the same man...In reality...the right thing to do would be to give up all work and obligations and wait in a quiet corner for the natural end...My way of eating does not permit any onlookers."  Freud did not want to be asked about his health...was appreciative if friends did not inquire."   379: "Saturday and Sunday for the first time in my medical career I had to stop work over the weekend."

In 1939 he was resettled in London.  "During August everything went downhill rapidly."  His dog would not approach him, due to odor from decaying oral cancer; "Freud knew what this meant and looked at his pet chow with a tragic and knowing sadness."  

On page 527, a famous quote. Asked by Schur, do you believe this will be the last war?, Freud replied dryly, "My last war."  

528, Freud reads a short story by Balac, "La Peau de Chagrin," in which the protagonist dies.  In Freud's last weeks, Schur recalls a letter about his father written by Freud in 1896:  "He is steadily shrinking towards...a fateful date."

On page 529, Freud dies.   Schur facilitated this with morphine at the end.  Schur closes his book with a quote from Freud in Freud's essay, "Thoughts on Times of War and Death":  "Towards the actual person who has died we adopt a special attitude, something like admiration for someone who has accomplished a very difficult task."

__

Regarding his lifelong nicotine addiction, he wrote his doctor in 1893, "I am not obeying your smoking prohibitions; do you really consider it such a great boon to live a great many years in misery?"

Freud was prone to "cardiac attacks" and arrhythmias which may have been related to excessive nicotine or panic attacks about mortality (p. 40; other locations).  

JPEG Youtube Studio

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxqZPEedwAw

Free Music for YouTube Videos

 On July 4, 2022, I issued a 3 minute video overview of free music for YouTube videos.  Here's a summary of the links I discussed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxqZPEedwAw

I use music both with my business videos (such as intro music) and for my entertainment videos, which might have soundtracks that are all music, no narration.

Business Channel

https://www.youtube.com/user/brucequinn

Personal Channel

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQFeWyTpzYGJbYc1vXg7GZQ

Since I've seen videos describing other people's nightmare problems with copyright (even causing YouTube closure), I'm careful with copyrighted music.

Links mentioned - Notes that each website may have its own rules. For example, I think Uppbeat has (1) registration, (2) several free downloads per month, (3) each download must get its own code link which you must display in your video notes. Check each website for current rules.

https://unsplash.com/ photos https://www.pexels.com/ photos videos https://pixabay.com/ photos videos music; many ads for iStock https://www.rawpixel.com/ Rawpixel has a "public domain" setting which serves up historical pictures (as well as modern ones). https://mixkit.co/ Mixkit is related to "ENVATO" subscription media resources: ( While poking around free sites is fun, an ENVATO subscription may be practical for regular creators. Circa $20/mo. )

https://www.envato.com/ https://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/music.html https://audionautix.com/ Entry point for Creative Commons: https://creativecommons.org/about/program-areas/arts-culture/arts-culture-resources/legalmusicforvideos/ For Creative Commons, public domain, see also IMSLP https://imslp.org/wiki/Main_Page And see https://freemusicarchive.org/genre/Europe/ https://uppbeat.io/ https://www.scottbuckley.com.au/ https://www.freesoundmusic.eu/ https://www.youtube.com/c/FreesoundMusic My "YouTube Music Studio Mix Tape" sampler of some YouTube music (unlisted video). Note if you open the text box on this video, it's time indexed for each track. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lw9AEFs5Qo

In the video, I also discuss that your editor may have music options.  (In my editor, Filmora 11, I click the top bar for AUDIO which accesses both music tracks and sound effects).  In YouTube, if you have a YouTube channel, click on your channel in upper right, then select YouTube Studio.  Now, go to the far left and scroll down until you see Audio Library.  Here, you have a few hundred tracks good-to-go for YouTube videos (some require written credit in your notes).

##

Side notes.

For interesting and lively videos on how modern composers used computers and instrument synthesizers, see Guy Michelmore:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMHG0rJtVF1LohiP63FJakw

Not directly related to copyright-free, but examples of really nice music found on YouTube - guitar -

Here's a lesson from "Active Melody," the first 60 seconds are a nice tune.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=bhFiongPpbQ

Adolphe Menjou, Billy Wilder, and the Strange Case of the Geomobile Mother

The only thing I knew about Adolphe Menjou was a vague sense of his look - 1930s movie guy with slicked black hair and a moustache - and his name occurs in the musical of Sunset Boulevard ("Who'd you get that fancy coat from?  Adolphe Menjou?")

Here follows an odd trail starting with Billy Wilder, circling to Adolphe Menjou, and back to Sunset Boulevard again

_________________

I was just reading a recently translated book of Billy Wilder's newspaper work from Germany and Vienna in the 1920s as a young whippersnapper journalist.   It was nice light reading for a recent plane trip.   There is an essay by Wilder interviewing Adolphe Menjou's agent, who is visiting Berlin around 1928, and then interviewing Menjou himself, by way of telephone from Paris.  The essay mentions twice that Menjou's mother was from Leipzig.  And that Menjou spoke German pretty well.

##

Nope.

I googled Menjou and found his Wikipedia page.  There, we learn his father was French, and his mother from Ireland (Nora Joyce, and stated to be a distant cousin of James Joyce).  Not German.   A couple secondary sources also gave me Menjou's mother as Irish.

I just got an inter library loan of Menjou's 1948 autobiography.   And there it is.  Several pages discuss his mother and her Irishness.

##

HYPOTHESIS

Menjou was looking for work in Europe, and he thought it was an asset to give his paternal heritage as French in France - which was true   In his autobiography, he describes the French press going nuts over his French heritage.

So the next week, why not try telling German journalists that "his mother was from Leipzig" which was flat-out fake news but might buy him some extra column-inches and reader interest.   

That's my guess. This gives us the Billy Wilder essay as we have it, and his quotes about the German mother of the actor.

##

WILDER's SCRIPT

Wilder rose from being a hand-to-mouth newspaper writer to a top Hollywood director.  Sunset Boulevard was written by Billy Wilder, and the quote about Adolphe Menjou was in the original 1950 film just as it appears in the 1993 musical.   

So, first, interesting that Wilder had been tracking Menjou since Wilder began reviewing his films in the mid 1920s, and wrote him into the Nora Desmond movie as a quip.   And, second, Wikipedia tells us Menjou was famous for his sartorial excellence, and extravagantly large wardrobe, and that's the purpose of the 1950 quotation, to set him up as the fancy dresser nonpariel.

##

FAR RIGHT

Menjou was also known for being "slightly to the right of Attila the Hun," to pull a phrase from another Webber musical (Evita).  Menjou was a big proponent, a big fan, of the House Unamerican Activities Committee, and a flag waving member of the John Birch Society.

##

Wilder briefly joined anti-HUAC groups in Hollywood, but backed down and became less vocal.  Menjou was loudly pro-HUAC.   Why did Wilder take the effort to make a call-out to Adolphe Menjou in the Sunset script?

1.  It's just a pop culture reference about expensive clothes, the simplest and thus perhaps most likely idea.

2.  Wilder saw the storm clouds of HUAC and soon McCarthy, and by prominently naming Menjou, wanting to imply he was a bit pro-HUAC, if needed.

3.  Wilder despised Menjou, and even if Menjou wouldn't be caught in the same room with Wilder, he could name and slightly mock Menjou by way of his script.

I looked through a number of Wilder biographies.  Mentions of Menjou are absent or tiny (including Menjou's name in a list of his 1920s interview subjects, or remarking that Wilder's "Front Page" was a remake of a 1931 film that included Menjou.)

##

I'm waiting for an original German copy of Wilder's essays by slow mail which hopefully will include the Menjou interview.   

##

FINAL PUZZLE

Since Menjou was raised in an English-French household (bilingual) and was a layabout in college (by his own recounting), it's unclear where his high quality German comes from, as Wilder described it, it's not a language you pick up in a spare week.  But Wilder vouches for his German skills, and in his autobiography he remarks he's made movies in English, French, Spanish, and German.   

(That might have been in Germany itself but equally possible it occurred during the short period early in the Talkies when Hollywood made multi lingual movie versions right in LA.  Menjou does discuss making a two-cast (except for him) English and French movie that way.)  

##

I made a 4 minute amateur video documentary about this.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4fYXh7QttY

Supporting visual material including Menjou's memorial (by his wife, by the pond) at Hollywood Forever, and Menjou's star on the walk of fame (across from Hwd & Highland).   Not shown, Menjou's mother he apparently moved here, she is buried at the Catholic Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City.    The video includes a snapshot of Wilder's stone, in Westwood, and Wilder's star, on North Vine St in Hollywood.  

 

Mics for Amateur Office Video: (1) Lavalier, (2) On-Camera Size (MOVO), (3) Fancy USB-C Condenser Mic

Since the start of the COVID pandemic, I've been upgrading my home audio and video in stages, and this is a good time to give a recap.   

See the VIDEO version here.

My adventures were initially driven by necessity.  My home office is small, and in front of me I have two monitors, while the laptop sits about four feet over to my side.  So I had to figure out how to have a separate video camera and microphone in front of me, rather than relying on the laptop "way over there."  One thing led to another.

Basically, I've used 3 types of mics, and it's fun that I'm still learning about them. 

These are (1) a lavalier mic, (2) an "on camera" mic (MOVO), and (3) top-end mics (my example, a USB-C NEOM).

There's one cardinal rule:  any of these mics sound best when 6-10" from your mouth, and not further away.   

LAVALIER MIC

This is a good option.  I use a RODE lavalier mic, which is a well-known brand for audio equipment.  It's currently $59 at Amazon. I knew the RODE would be a high-quality mic; but there might be pretty equivalent mics for $20 (here).

Occasionally I get on Zoom calls and the lav mic is just laying on my desk by the keyboard, where I took it off last.   Bad idea.  People can hear you, but the quality is pretty awful. 

A lav mic sounds five times better if the lav mic is where it's supposed to be, clipped on my shirt.   (I prove this in a video here).  

Other than clipping it on, the lav mic is eezy-peezy -  a lav mic has no adjustments, and no software, and for me, Windows just assumes it is replacing my laptop mic.

I've used my RODE lav mic for 2 years for both ZOOM calls and for recording videos for video editing.   it's generally fine, but: one disadvantage is that the lavalier mic is omnidirectional, so it sometimes picks up my laptop fan surprisingly well, or keyboard sounds. 

MOVO "ON CAMERA MIC"

On Amazon or YouTube, you'll quickly find there are a whole family of small, torpedo-shaped mics, of which the MOVO is one of the best-known and best-rated.   The original MOVO is MOVO VXR10, and the newer one is VXR10 Pro.   My VXR10 weighs only 2 ounces.   Around $50 on Amazon.

This type of mic is designed to be very light and fit on the "hot shoe" (or actually, "cold shoe") atop a DSLR camera and provide much better sound than the built-in camera mic.   So most reviews dutifully clamp the mic onto a camera and do a test video out by a waterfall.

But you can use it as a studio microphone, too!   

The MOVO is actually a darn good microphone, and amateurs may be very happy using it as their studio microphone.   Like the RODE lavalier, it plugs into the laptop audio plug and requires no software and has no adjustments.   

This week, after having a MOVO for two years, I discovered I can clamp the MOVO onto a "architect's" or "extension" desk lamp I already have, so it floats about 6" from my forehead.  This gives EXCELLENT sound.    

While you can mount any large mic onto a sturdy microphone arm, the MOVO is so tiny you can mount on anything handy.   However, if you mounted the MOVO to your monitor, the mic-voice distance would be longer than ideal (at 18").  So it was a great moment of "the bell going off" when I noticed I could clip the tiny MOVO on my lamp and the mic would float near my forehead.  For an audio test, here I'm reading into the MOVO VXR on YouTube.  Below, some pictures explain what I'm doing with the little MOVO and my desk lamp:

High-End Microphones (Example: NEOM)

I definitely had some problems recording video with the Lavalier mic alone, due to fan noise being picked up.  (This would be less with the newly-discovered ability to mount my MOVO on my elevated lamp.)   

I did a lot of window shopping and just got a new, highly-rated USB-C mic, a NEOM, from SE Electronics.  Currently $180 at Amazon.  Another high-end USB-C mic, would be the Rode NT-USB, $125 at Amazon.

NEOM comes with a mini-stand, but given my keyboard in front of me, my height above the desk, and my limited space, using its mini-stand puts the microphone further than ideal from my mouth.   To get the benefit of this high-clarity microphone, you really need to have the correct stands or apparatus to float the mic 6-8" from your mouth.   The NEOM weighs a full pound, so you need to invest in a sturdy desktop mic arm.   

The SE NEOM is a true electronic mic, driven off a USB-C, but it should be plug and play in Windows.  It has separate "mic gain" and "mic level" dials on the mic.   You can benefit from the full-length instruction book (here).  The main control is MIC GAIN (which, humorously, goes up to 11).   Set it where you see flashes of red (too high), then back off 20%.   The other two dials are for playback into a headset, so you probably won't need them.

The NEOM will give you fully professional sound (audiophile review here), but takes a little time and attention to set up correctly in terms of on-the-mic GAIN, and in terms of the volume setting in your recording software, if you're recording, and most important of all, its spatial position.

Positioning the NEOM

Microphone stands for the home office will either (1) clamp onto the desk, or (2) sit on the desk with a weighted base.  

I got an Innogear weighted-base microphone stand, Amazon $28, because it has a counterweight on the arm and it also has an eccentric  foot to prevent tipping forward toward the mic.  In my small office, the NEOM floats over the keyboard.

Wrapping It Up:  Sound Tests

RODE Lavalier Mc, Lavalier Position  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9y5dBF-6Ww

MOVO Mic,  Forehead Position https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlRW-gM8mm0

NEOM Mic, on Innosign Mic Stand https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeH_Ccmp6XM

They all sound pretty good when used correctly.  I think the NEOM has less background hiss than the other two mics.  That's never going to be noticed on a Zoom call, but can be noticed if you add an intermittent narration track to a video.   

______

Crash Course in Mic Terms

Upscale large mics come in dynamic mics and condenser mics.  Dynamic mics have the best background noise avoidance but you have to speak really close to them.   Condenser mics amplify more and you can speak farther back, but might pick up more background noise.  

"Cardioid" mic means it primarily takes sound from one direction and rejects others.  Since you are working close to the mic, a "pop filter" reduces mic noise with letters like "p."    The NEOM is a cardioid condenser mic.  

Some mics have "front address" like the NEOM.  Others, which might look similar, have "top address" meaning you speak into the top of the mic, not the side.  

For home office, as shown on this page, you can get good mics with either audio jack or USB-C connections.  For jack connections, typically use a 2-stripe plug into a camera, and a three-stripe plug into a PC (these are called TRS, TRRS jacks).   (Very new mics now have 3 stripe jacks and can auto-adapt to the TRS or TRRS modes).   Professional mics have big round XLR connections and have to be plugged into a stand-alone amplifier unit.  XLR dates to the 1950s.  Any of the above mic topics have countless educational videos on YouTube.

___

A quick list of my other home office video equipment.

• Sony ZV-1 camera (circa $700).  (Cheaper alternate: Logitech cams like C920, $80).
• Fast gaming laptop for fast video processing.  (Cheaper alternate: What you have.)
• ELGATO portable green screen (about 5 feet wide) ($160)  (Cheaper alternate: $10 greenscreen cloth pinned to wall.)
• ELGATO "Key Light Air" video lamp (behind my monitor) ($110).  (Cheaper alternate: Any light; try Amazon keyword Video Light).

• OBS STUDIO software for video control and green screen. (Freeware).
• FILMORA 11 software for video editing ($80).

I have an inexpensive lav mic on a 20' cord, hardly $20, which I've used a few times when I wanted to stand 10 feet from my camera.  The main risk there is forgetting you have the lav mic cord on, and walking away from your tripod & camera.  You can also get tons of types of remote radio mics (often under $50; keyword Wireless Lavalier) at Amazon. 

Art of Beuron Abbey: A Leap Towards Art Deco

From time to time, there is a key development in art that is a leap forward - see, for example, the art of J.M.W. Turner (and I love the movie MR TURNER, with Timothy Spall, 2014).  As amazing as The Fighting Temeraire is, I find its year incredible - 1839.  And as Turner was breaking the box with this and other paintings, he was in his 60s himself.

Here's a leap forward from an unusual quarter.  

The Beuron Style of Art

A few weeks ago, I took a weekend course on "Modern Benedictine Thought" at St. Andrew's Abbey, in the north desert outside Los Angeles.  (Mini video here.)  The course focused on the period 1750-1900.

One great highlight for me was something I'd never heard of before.  Beuron Abbey was founded in 1863 near the south edge of Germany, and soon became known throughout Europe for its style of art - Beuroner Stil.  The art was influenced by art of the 1800s - they understood the culture around them - but deeply worked to bring in features from both Egyptian art and medieval art.  The monks provided commissioned art for many churches throughout Europe.   For me, the resulting style of work strongly heralds the art of Arts & Crafts, Frank Lloyd Wright, Gustav Klimt, and what I take as Art Deco.   But all of these are associated with the 1890s or indeed the 1900-1925 era, not the 1870s.  (Wiki here).

From Beuron Abbey, see pages on art & culture here.   (For me, Google offered to autotranslate in English using the browser Chrome).   I picked up a book on Beuron Art (Beuron Stil) from Amazon: 1998, Krins, Die Kunst der Beuroner Schule (Art of the Beuron School).  (I can read this in German, but a lot slower than English).   

For the illustrations see a few pages from the Krins book in PDF in the cloud, here.   

See a pre printed English translation of an Arts page from the Bueron Abbey in PDF here.   

Look for more on your own with "Beuron" or "Beuron Art" or "Beuroner Stil" as keywords on Google (or YouTube).  (For a Google-selected art display, try this).

click to enlarge

___

Beuron and Carmina Burana

A few weeks after writing this, I heard a passage of Carmina Burana in a TV commercial, and I wondered suddenly if "Burana" might be an adjective form of "Beuron."   

Close but no cigar.  But there are some interesting tangents.   Beuron is on the French border, but there is another abbey, Benediktbeurn, in the alps south of Munich.  Benediktbeurn was secularized in 1803, which led to the public rediscovery of the medieval songs that became Carmina Burana.  The composer of this hour-long orchestral and choir concert staple was Carl Orff, who worked on it in 1935/36 based on poems published in 1847 from the Benediktbeurn abbey archives.  (Benediktbeurn was secularized for over a century but is a Silesian abbey today).   In another tangent, Carmina Burana was very popular in Germany in the mid Nazi years 1937-8, tying together the medieval German heritage with the modern concert arts.  

Find Carmina Burana at YouTube here.  Find Carl Orff at Wikipedia here.  Find a book on "8 Nazi Composers" by Kater, 2002, at Amazon here.

See NPR on Carmina Burana 2009 here and at more length in 2006 here as Scott Simon interviews Marin Alsop.  See a 2021 autobiographical article by Carolyn Brown on Carmina-during-COVID, here.  A short but not too short musicologist's view, 2008, here.  Wikipedia for Carmina as poetry, here.  Wikipedia on Carmina as music by Orff, here.

 

   

I'lll Be Seeing You - 1930s Song - How Grim Is It?

 I'm in my early 60s and all my life I've heard the Bing Crosby-era song, "I'll Be Seeing You."

I'll be seeing you

In all the old familiar places

...the small cafe, the park across the way.

I heard it this weekend on the FM while driving on a jazz station in LA, KJAZZ, KKJZ, and I suddenly heard it differently.   After "the cafe" and "the park across the way" we start hearing that the singer will see the missing person in the moon, and, in the morning sunrise, etc.   

Suddenly, the only explanation was that the person being sung to, was dead.   

I've read about the song (biggest article here), and during WW2 it was supposed to trigger the idea that the wife was at home, the soldier in Europe, but they were both looking at the same moon overhead, for example.   

But once the idea got in my head, the only way the lyrics made sense as a whole seemed to be if the singer was talking about a dead person who sort of haunts the sunset, the moon, a flower in the garden, and so on.  

Eeeek.

Add the tidbit, the songwriter himself died shortly after writing it.

https://thisislowermerion.com/ill-be-seeing-you-a-hugely-popular-wwii-era-song-about-distance-love-couldnt-be-more-timely-today/

Email on Jamal Greene Interview at Ezra Klein Podcast (SCOTUS ways of thinking)

In February 2022, the Ezra Klein podcast (via NYT) had a great interview with Columbia Law professor Jamal Greene.   Overview here.   Transcript here.

Greene feels the SCOTUS focuses on obscure concepts, nit-picks originalism, and overestimates the meaning of "rights" in ways that are avoided by high courts in comparable nations.   He and Klein are (I think) quickly dismissive of the SCOTUS decision halting OSHA's implementation of mandatory workplace vaccinations [or self-paid masking and testing].  They think this pivoted on cryptic "major questions doctrine" rather than a full balancing of the factual and contextual pro's and con's.

I enjoyed the podcast a lot, and on this point, I think they misread the SCOTUS decision.   I submitted the comment email below.   The conservative justices were in fact weighing the fact that federal authorities are those not delegated upward in the 1780s by states, notably "making treaties" or "adjudicating border disputes among the states."   They note well over 100 years of history that leave the issue of mandatory vaccinations at the state, not federal level, which is considering context and social facts.  And like it or not (I don't like it) there are way over 100 years of history of a proportion of the population not liking vaccination at all, which is a social context and fact.    In short, I see a range of ways that the OSHA  SCOTUS decision actually fits many of the concepts that Greene is talking about.  _____

[February 6 by email]

I enjoyed the current podcast with Jamal Greene.

Though a liberal, I think the SCOTUS OSHA Vaccination case can be dismissed too quickly as "bad court."

Although one can surely disagree, I think one key point was, by analogy, you can't call an elephant a house pet, to fit into city rules for house pets.  We may find it hard to define house pet (see a law about "cats, dogs, and similar house pets") but it's not an elephant.  This drawing of lines happens all the time.  We have a right to get a passport.  It's judged fair for this to cost $100 and require 8 weeks.   It wouldn't be fair to cost $1 million and require 100 years.  But we don't have constitutional point for the maximum dollar of reasonable cost, or a day that triggers an illegitimately-long delay for a passport.    

I think SCOTUS was saying, this mostly looks like a 100M or  150M person public health vaccination program - that's the government's intent (to use language from Greene).  You can't suddenly stuff that government plan into what COULD be (as an OHSA regulation published one morning in the Federal Register) merely any mid-level policymaker's decision, inside an agency designed for hard hats and putting guards on electric saws.   They'd say, and did, they're not sure where to draw the line for OSHA, but it's not that sudden and far.   

Conservatives noted also, setting a sociopolitical context, that mandatory vaccination has been a state's issue since 1904, and this isn't the way to make it a federal issue (instead do that by law).  And here in the US, as in Europe, and other continents, mandatory vaccination is a hot issue for generations.  (OK, I also know it wasn't purely a mandatory vax law).  So, surprisingly, SCOTUS seemed to be using a few of the Jamal Greene, or the German, principles in their own verbalization in the OSHA case.

Again, I'm just saying the "other side" here in OSHA weren't complete idiots or hacks but had a several-theme framework that made sense to them and I can kind of see the shape of what they were thinking.

Bruce Quinn MD PhD

Los Angeles

How to Find the Lawrence Welk Gravesite in Culver City

My Memories

When I was a kid in the midwest in the 1960s, my parents and grandparents watched the weekly Lawrence Welk show, and my grandparents remembered Welk touring tiny towns in the Dakotas, Nebraska, Iowa, early in his career in the 20's and 30's.  He even played in the small town where I grew up, Lake View, Iowa.

By 2022, I've lived 8 miles from his gravesite for twenty years, but never dropped by.  OK, I've now checked that trip off my bucket list.  I'll show the gravesite trip first, and then some more about Welk further down.

Here is my two minute video version:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at4qlQdy2JU

Part One

How to Actually Find the Welk Grave - Details ("Idiot's Guide")

For me, the map and GPS at Find a Grave was about 100 feet off, which is a lot when you're looking for one headstone in acres of them.   Here's how to find it.

First, if you live around LA, you may be most familiar with Hillside Cemetery right on the 405, just north of the airport.  That's not it.  Holy Cross Cemetery is larger, but it is a few blocks inland, accessible only from Slauson Boulevard.  5835 West Slauson, Culver City.  (That's the easy part).

Entering the main gate on Slauson, you'll continue to drive ahead but the roads are a little confusing.   If you go to Find a Grave, there's a button for "map" and it gets you very close to the grave site, but for me, its target is about 100 feet off.  Here:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/1547/lawrence-welk

https://www.google.com/maps?q=33.9941139,-118.3816605&spn=0.004205,0.005249

You'll see the large main buildings of the cemetery to your left (mausoleums, church, offices).  Every block of the cemetery has a name and a letter, so the Welk block is "Y" and "St Francis."   Every intersection has the block names written prominently down at the curbside.  

Here are two ways to get to the Welk grave, based on the map below.

(1)  Park at the main mausoleum.  Cross into the St Francis Block.  See the St. Francis Statue.  Walk from the St Francis Statue straight across the "St Francis Block."  9 rows from the next street, you'll be at the Welk grave.  

(2)  Park either at the junction of "St Francis" and "St Joseph" (top of picture) using the curb signage or near the St Patrick Curb Sign (see middle of picture).  Walk along the street and look in the first row for a RIORDAN gravesite (arrow).   Now just walk 8 or 9 rows in, straight toward the St Francis statue, and about the 9th row will be Welk.  

click to enlarge

Part Two

More About Lawrence Welk (from Wikipedia)

In round numbers, he lived from about 1900 to 1990 (specifically, 1903-1992).   

He was born in Strasburg, SD (population today, 409, in south-central South Dakota).  It was named for Germanic area of Strassburg, Ukraine, not modern Strasbourg, France (280,000).   The South Dakota area was German-speaking and Welk spoke German as his first language and main language until his teens.  Welk initially had a fourth-grade education.  

He earned money to buy an accordion, joined local bands, and formed his own band.  He had a daily radio show as early as the 1930s.  In the 1940s, his band settled in Chicago and also played in New York.  In the mid 1950s, his local Los Angeles TV show was picked up by ABC, and stayed in production at ABC through the 1960s until 1971, and made new episodes by syndication until 1982.  It survived even longer in re-runs.  He was married 61 years at his death in 1992 and his wife survived him by ten years.

He was involved in real estate including Santa Monica office buildings at 100 Wilshire and at 1299 Ocean, and also an apartment tower at 1221 Ocean.  (Stan Laurel retired nearby at 849 Ocean).

Besides Wikipedia, a one-hour Biography is on YouTube here.

Remarkable to realize the last part of his career overlapped with the Beatles and television like Sonny and Cher, let alone Vietnam and urban fires and social unrest.

Strassburg, Kutschurgan, Ukraine

Here.  Settled in 1808 by Germans from multiple areas of Germany (including Alsace and Prussia).  in 1912, population 2,200.   Settlers of Strassburg, South Dakota, must have first migrated hundreds of miles from Germany to the Ukraine, and after a few generations, picked up the tent and moved thousands of miles to South Dakota.  See the Welk family home museum page here.

Geospatial Footnote.

At the detailed map above, if you look closely, you'll notice a small, circular white arrow.  For me, that's where the Find A Grave GPS indicated the grave marker was.  I think it's 100 feet off (see yellow star instead).  Easier to find "RIORDAN" at the street, and walk 9 rows straight in.

GPS (red teardrop), Actual (blue star). 100 feet.

__

See a story from Welk's biography that reads like something clipped right out of an AA meeting, https://tinyurl.com/welkaa