Steve Goddard's History Wire

Mapping Claremore

Lovers of the musical "Oklahoma!" may think the fictional town of Claremore was just an ill-formed daydream of composer Oscar Hammerstein. But, as the Southwest Florida HeraldTribune reports, Hammerstein committed to paper a carefully-drawn map of the town on which the musical is based. "It shows the railway station and the homes of the main characters," said Mark Horowitz of the Library of Congress, to which 125 items of theatrical memorabilia have been donated. "It could be useful to a producer or researcher who needed to know whether a character should exit to right or left."

"The library also announced acquisition of 29 pages of lyric sketches by Lorenz Hart of the team of Richard Rodgers and Hart. They include verses from "Ten Cents a Dance" and "Here in My Arms," written on the back of piece of stationery from the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Boston. Hart was notorious for scribbling on odd bits of paper and few of his manuscripts remain, the library said in its announcement."

What Money CAN Buy

"Money can't buy you love. But a few hundred thousand can get you a piece of Beatles history. A collection of John Lennon memorabilia valued by auctioneers at more than $2 million was being sold in London Thursday," according to the Associated Press:

"The sale includes youthful paintings and handwritten lyrics, jackets, eyeglasses and even furniture from the late former Beatle's home. The most valuable items have been gathered over 25 years by one anonymous American collector. Auctioneer Cooper Owen, a company that specializes in music and film memorabilia, says it constitutes "the most definitive collection of John Lennon memorabilia ever assembled."

The Evolution of Country Music

Back in the mid-1970's, Elvis Costello recalls, a rock musician had to apologize for letting country music taint his concerts. But that was before country and bluegrass became thoroughly mainstream, says the Pioneer Press, in reviewing a concert in which Costello happily shared his stage with country siren Emmylou Harris:

"The show ran the gamut from the organ-driven beat of late ’70s pub-rock classics such as “Pump It Up” to honky-tonk tunes and swaying Opry-style ballads. The concert’s split personality might have annoyed listeners who like only one genre or the other, but for anyone willing to go along with Costello and Harris on their musical trip from London to Nashville, it was an exciting ride."

Back to the Futuro

The Futuro house was anchored forever in a time, like a lava lamp. But the circular dwellings, 11 feet high and 26 feet across that are dead ringers for a spaceship, are still around. Only about 100 were made between 1968 and 1978, but they represented inexpensive prefab housing and looked at first as if they'd start a trend, as The New York Times reports:

"The circular house, 11 feet high and 26 feet across, was designed by Matti Suuronen, a Finnish architect, in 1968. A hatch door in its lower half opened down to reveal steps, like the door of a small airplane, and led into a room outfitted with six plastic bed-chair combinations and a central fireplace slab, as well as a kitchenette and a bathroom. Photographs from the time make the house look like a place where the Teletubbies might live, with Barbarella as a frequent houseguest."

A Utility Executive Who Saved the World?

"The big difference between Charles Peters, founding editor of this magazine, and those of us who came to work for him over the years is this: He believes in idealism while we want to believe in idealism." So begins Washington Monthly's review of its editor's new biography of Wendell Willkie:

"Thankfully, Peters has written a book that vividly recreates how, once, it did happen—the American electoral process, amidst bitter partisan divisions and backroom manipulation, produced a stunningly wise, beneficent, and forward-looking result. Five Days in Philadelphia is about the 1940 Republican convention. Peters brings this largely forgotten event delightfully to life with details plucked from archives, his own memory of the times, and a persuasive, How-the-Irish-Saved-Civilization-style argument that the convention was a pivotal moment in world history."

Scaling Fortress Guinness

A biographer of British actor Alec Guinness has a daunting challenge. His subject was as unremarkable as he was private. The New York Times reviews Piers Paul Read's eponymous study of the man who ranked with the all-time greats of British theater:

"Kenneth Tynan, in his slim study of Alec Guinness, referred to the actor's penchant for "iceberg characters, nine-tenths concealed." Big roles requiring broad strokes were not his strong suit. "His territory is the man within," wrote Tynan, who saw in Guinness's self-effacing and fine-grained, minimalist approach an expression, or nonexpression, of the actor himself. "The whole presence of the man is guarded and evasive," he wrote."

Hiding in his Brother's Shadow

Neil was by far the better known of the Simon brothers, but his older brother Danny and he were partners when it came to writing comedy for some of early television's seminal shows, such as The Show of Shows with Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca. Associated Press reports that Danny Simon, who first nicknamed his brother "Doc," died Wednesday at 86:

"It was with "Your Show of Shows" that the Simons collaborated with such legendary comedians as Woody Allen, who once said, "Everything I learned about comedy, I learned from Danny Simon." When Neil Simon grew dissatisfied with the restrictions of network TV and left to write for the theater, Danny Simon stayed in television as head writer for NBC's "Colgate Comedy Hour." He later wrote for "Make Room for Daddy," starring Danny Thomas; "Diff'rent Strokes" and "The Facts of Life," and provided material for many of Joan Rivers' appearances on "The Tonight Show."

Second Life for Old Dobbin

In America, where second acts abound, even animals have re-births, it seems, according to The Washington Times. For old fashioned horse power (not horsepower) is on the rise, not only among Amish farmers who shun mechanization but among those reacting to soaring fuel prices and the realization that amimals can produce their own replacements:

"Lynn Miller, whose quarterly Small Farmer's Journal tracks horse-farming, estimates that 400,000 people depend in some measure on animal power for farming, logging and other livelihoods. He says the number is on the rise."

We're Gonna Take You Higher

Size does matter among skyscraper builders. Enshrined in legend is the secret checkmate, unveiled at the last minute, for the Chrysler Building, to trump the Bank of Manhattan by installing a stainless-steel spire, only to be bested two years later by the Empire State Building.

In an entertaining piece, The New York Times's Robin Pogregin traces the need to build higher all the way back to Babylon. And while 9/11 was supposed to change all that, it hardly did that, as builders of the successor to the World Trade Center as well as master builders around the world still vie for the world's tallest structure.

Don't look for HW to resolve the age-old claim that such mega-construction is phallus-inspired. After all, as it is said, sometimes a cigar is only a cigar.

Metamorphosis for TV Guide

In the 1950s, this writer among many other striplings of the age, peddled a new periodical called TV Guide from home to home. Its format, then and now, was largely agate-type (tiny) listings of television offerings. Predictably, the magazine grew fatter with the years, as the medium's channel offerings proliferated.

But now, WBZ-AM reports, TV Guide is struggling to stay relevant in an internet age:

"Faced with the challenge of staying relevant in the Internet age, TV Guide, an iconic magazine for two generations of Americans, announced an overhaul Tuesday that will transform the title into a larger, full-color format with a mix of 75 percent stories about TV shows and stars and 25 percent listings, the reverse of the ratio it has now."