R.I.P. Levon Helm

Being that I married a Georgia boy I often have fun reminding him that "we" won the war. And he has fun taking me places like "the bloody elbow" in Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park so I can see the spot where the most Yankees were killed. With the passing of Levon Helm I've found "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" running through my head for the past few days. The song had organically become part of my cultural currency, like so many songs that you just know although you never purposefully learned them. I never thought much about what the song addressed and why it would be important to "make General Robert E. Lee come out with all due respect." I guess sometimes your most important education about things comes from the radio rather than a book.

SCREEN: Ride With The Devil + Ang Lee live @ Lincoln Center 8/10

Tonight (8/10) @ Lincoln Center: Following the 7:30 p.m. screening of Ang Lee's Civil War epic Ride With The Devil, will be director Ang Lee, longtime collaborator James Schamus, actor Jeffrey Wright, producer Ted Hope and novelist Daniel Woodrell. Tickets: $15 public, $13 senior (62+), $12 member/student/child. Limited ticket availability.

Lee’s Western sensibilities flourish in this vibrant and underappreciated look at a small corner of Civil War history: the brutal guerilla fighting between pro-Union Jayhawkers and pro-slavery Bushwhackers along the Kansas/Missouri border. Despite family objections, friends Jack Bull Chiles (Skeet Ulrich) and Jake Roedel (The Ice Storm-veteran Tobey Maguire) join a group of Southern renegades, only to be overcome by the chaos of battle, a surprising romance, and the deadly range of personalities within their ranks. Geoff Andrews of Time Out London described the film as "truly epic in scale yet full of beautifully observed details. [It] benefits hugely from sturdy yet exquisite performances."

Tobey Maguire headlines a cast of future stars that includes Skeet Ulrich, James Caviezel, Jonathan Rhys Myers, Simon Baker, Jeffrey Wright, Mark Ruffalo, Tom Wilkinson, and Jewel, in her film debut. (source)

SCENE: The Civil War comes to NYC tomorrow (2/13) @ 6PM

Ken Burns celebrates Lincoln's 200th birthday with a discussion and signing of his Civil War DVD set tomorrow (2/13) @ 6PM at Borders on 57th St & Park Ave.

For over 25 years, filmmaker Ken Burns has been producing films that are unafraid of controversy and tragedy. History made them famous. Ken Burns made them real. Hailed as a film masterpiece and landmark in historical storytelling, Ken Burns's epic documentary, The Civil War, brings to life America's most destructive and defining conflict. Borders and Ken Burns celebrate Lincoln's birthday with a chance for fans to discuss and have him sign their copy of The Civil War DVD set.

ART: GRANT AND LEE IN WAR AND PEACE

Robert E. Lee stands guard over Big D's bedroom. There's the small statue, which I made the mistake of messing with, on his dresser in his mama's house. And then there's the painting that greets you every morning when you awake. General Lee on his famous white horse hangs across from the bed on a wall adjoining a shrine touting acoutrements of D's own meritorious past - medals, trophies, certificates and photos from his days as a high school football and wrestling star, a model Eagle Scout, his being voted "Mr. Blue Devil" and celebrating his appointment, just like Lee, to West Point.

It's nice but I can't say I really "get" the whole Civil War "thing," especially the extent of what it means to a boy from Marietta, Georgia and why he becomes so intoxicatingly gleeful when showing me the place in the nearby Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park where the most Yankees were killed!

Luckily, the New-York Historical Society is hosting a “Grant and Lee in War and Peace” exhibit thru March 29. I guess it's not so simple as "we won the war, get over it." The exhibit obviously deals with the Civil War, but also: "America's tradition of citizen-soldiers volunteering to fight under professional officers but still thinking like democratic citizens. The exhibition will provide insights into the Army's role in an expanding United States, whether reshaping the landscape, patrolling frontiers, conquering territory or suppressing conflicts with Native Americans." The exhibit also "follows Grant and Lee back into civilian life, offers new scholarly assessments of the roles both men played after the Civil War. Visitors will leave the exhibition understanding why Lee was seen as the 'knight on white horseback' he became in Southern mythology, as the enduring symbol of a noble Lost Cause. A new and more realistic image of Grant will emerge: not simply the ineffective President surrounded by corruption, as he has been known, but a determined champion of Reconstruction and the rights of freedmen, and a far-sighted leader in seeking peace and justice for American Indians."

Pretty cool...