Summary
Filmmaker John de Graaf pulls up a chair to discuss his 1997 documentary Affluenza; a forthcoming project on Arizona politician and JFK/LBJ’s Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall; the politics of beauty; and a whether John Muir should be cancelled. Singer/songwriter Wendell Kimbrough closes out the show with “The Ballad of Freida the Goose” from his album Find Your Way Home.
Highlights
0:50 An FPR podcast, really?
2:15 “Home” to John de Graaf
3:15 Vachel Lindsay and the “Gospel of Beauty”
4:45 Gracy Olmstead’s Uprooted
6:00 From Berkeley to a frozen Midwestern VISTA to Seattle
7:30 It all started with the film of the year
8:45 Alan Chadwick, master gardener
9:15 “Affluenza” explained
12:30 20 million views, a best-seller, and in the dictionary
15:45 Beloved by BYU
16:45 Take Back Your Time
18:30 French to Fox News?
20:00 Pandemics and “the good life”
25:00 David Brower, Republican
28:00 Floyd Dominy, a dam man
30:45 Stewart Udall, liberal conservative
35:30 LBJ pressures Udall on Vietnam
38:45 Barry Goldwater, Democratic donor
42:00 Politics of Beauty
43:00 GDP as Holy Grail?
46:15 Cancel John Muir?
50:15 Udall as cultural Mormon
51:00 Will beauty save the world?
52:00 Wendell sings “The Ballad of Freida the Goose”
Resources
John Murdock at Front Porch Republic
John de Graaf at Front Porch Republic
Films of John de Graaf
Gracy Olmstead’s Uprooted (reviewed here and here)
“Find Your Way Home” album by Wendell Kimbrough
