Monthly Archives: August 2010

Sam Comes Home

Posted on August 27, 2010 | 2 Comments

I was hoping to put this up yesterday, but didn’t get the chance — on Wednesday, I had the pleasure of attending the signing ceremony in which Jane Henson formally presented a wonderful gift to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History: the entire Muppet cast of Sam and Friends.

Sam and Friends went on the air in the Washington, DC area — on WRC, our local NBC station — in May 1955. It was initially a five-minute performance that aired after the local news, and became so popular that it was eventually given two high-profile spots in the WRC lineup, airing immediately before the highly-rated Huntley-Brinkley Report, and then several hours later before the rapidly-ascending Tonight Show.

The fact that Sam and Friends was Jim Henson’s springboard onto the national scene already makes it worthy of inclusion in the Smithsonian. But Sam had more going for it than even that – for among its cast members was a milky-green puppet named Kermit. He wasn’t a frog then, and wouldn’t be for several years. But his simple design gave him enormous versatility as a puppet, and he quickly became Henson’s go-to character. Kermit would be revamped and overhauled in the coming years, eventually becoming (in Henson’s words) “frogified,” but the basic design held. Take a look at him here, posing with Harry the Hipster on the left and Sam on the right (I snapped this with my camera phone, and I apologize in advance for its shakiness):

Harry, Kermit and Sam

Despite their age — included in the collection is one of Henson’s very first puppets dating back to 1954, a rat named Pierre — the puppets are in beautiful shape, due to some careful restoring and first aid. They’ll be put on display in the American History Museum in November, as part of the revamped (and incredibly popular) exhibit that includes the Ruby Slippers, Fonzie’s jacket, and Archie Bunker’s chair. (Do I have to explain any of those references? I didn’t think so.)

Deservedly, there were great gobs of press there. Here’s a great piece from the Associated Press, and its video piece is just below:

…and here’s a nice piece from NBC news — which, in a way, gets bragging rights.

Have a good weekend!

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Posted in Jim Henson, Muppets, Smithsonian Institution

Tagged Jim Henson, Muppets, Sam and Friends

Under Construction, Sort Of. I Guess.

Posted on August 11, 2010 | 5 Comments

Hunh. Without my prior knowledge or any sort of heads up, WordPress decommissioned the template I use for my website and substituted it with a different one. Hence the slightly different look you’re seeing here.

Don’t get me wrong, I like some of the changes — notice, for example, that you’ll see drop down menus when you drag across the tabs above, instead of having the pages listed down the right hand side. And behind the scenes, they’re allowing a lot more flexibility in formatting that I might play with in the coming months.

But it also arbitrarily shook up the way photos are formatted, which has resulted in some pages (such as Circle of Friends) looking messy, as the text doesn’t wrap around photos as it used to. It also benched some of the coding I use to track traffic and search words. So I’ll have to clean up some of the mess and recommission some of my code. However, this should not affect your regularly scheduled programming.

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Posted in behind the scenes, Thanks for the sour persimmons Mister, Wordpress

Tagged Wordpress

Almost Like Being There

Posted on August 6, 2010 | 1 Comment

As you can imagine, the last week has been fairly crazy — crazy in a good way, natch — and I apologize for not checking in here a bit more quickly. I appreciate all the kind e-mails and notes — you’re all Good People. Thanks for all the nice words. I mean it.

BIO guru Jamie Morris sent out a heads up the other day to note that many of the remarks and sessions from the Compleat Biographers Conference in May have been made available by the University of Massachusetts — our hosts that day — for your viewing pleasure. And just so you don’t have to go and find them, here they are:

First, here’s the opening session, with welcoming remarks by Ray Sheppard, and the opening address by Pulitzer Prize winner Debby Applegate (The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher), who discusses the need for an organization like BIO, where writers can get together to learn from and support each other (Her stunning “I don’t know what to tell you” story comes at about seven minutes in):

Next, here’s a panel on Trends in Biography, where journalist D. Quincy Whitney, Henry Holt senior editor Helen Atsma, and biographers Gayle Feldman and Megan Marshall (The Peabody Sisters) discuss the future of biography — and, at times, publishing in general:

Next , here’s Harriet Reisen (Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women), editor Carole Deboer-Langworthy, Beatrice Mousli (Virginia Woolf), and Steve Weinberg (Armand Hammer: The Untold Story) discussing one of the most surprisingly difficult parts of writing a biography, Selecting A Subject:

Now it’s the keynote speech by Jean Strouse, winner of the first BIO Award (there’s a bit of organizational housekeeping to take care of before Ms. Strouse speaks — her keynote begins at about 17 minutes in):

Next up, biographers Debby Applegate, James Bradley (Flags of Our Fathers), Anne C. Heller (Ayn Rand and the World She Made), and editors Yen Cheong and Lissa Warren head up a lively discussion on Marketing Your Biography. It’s one thing to write it; now how do you ensure it finds readers?

Finally, here’s a fun session — courtesy of Melissa Nathanson (who’s working on a bio of Justice Blackmun), Charles J. Shields (Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee), Will Swift (The Roosevelts and the Royals), Nancy Kriplen (The Eccentric Billionaire: John D. MacArthur–Empire Builder, Reluctant Philanthropist, Relentless Adversary), and Kitty Kelley (Oprah) — on Dealing With The Family of your chosen subject: