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My favorite things Indiana
A brief trip it will be, but here goes:
1. Music: Michael Jackson is from Gary, and his most underrated song is "She's Out of My Life." There is also Cole Porter (overrated in my view, compared to Jerome Kern) and Ned Rorem. Wes Montgomery has a few good albums, usually they are live; it is a shame he wasted his immense talent on muzak.
2. Literature: Sorry, but I find Kurt Vonnegut unreadable, and don't tell me about Harrison Oberon. Dreiser? I've never read Newton Tarkington, who wrote The Magnificent Ambersons. I'll go with Philip Jose Farmer and his Riverworld series.
3. Painter: I am only slightly fond of Robert Indiana (yes he is from the state), or for that matter William Merritt Chase; here is my favorite Chase painting.
4. Favorite small town: Alex recommends Columbus, Indiana, for wonderful architecture. I defer to him.
5. Movie, set in: Hoosiers and Breaking Away do not sit well with me, so help me out if you can.
6. Blogger and libertarian crusader for civil liberties: Radley Balko.
The bottom line: I don't even like James Dean. Radley is great, but my favorite thing Indiana is in fact Liberty Fund.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on November 17, 2006 at 05:47 AM in The Arts | Permalink
Comments
Um, you mean *Bergeron*, right? Oberon is a character in "A Midsummer Night's Dream".
Posted by: Don at Nov 17, 2006 6:15:06 AM
Columbus is a very cool small town. Cummins is taking
very good care of it. We should all be so lucky.
And what's wrong with Breaking Away? That movie really
and truly changed my life!
Posted by: glenn at Nov 17, 2006 6:40:15 AM
Yes, Bergeron...
Posted by: Tyler Cowen at Nov 17, 2006 7:15:18 AM
Best movie set in: either Close Encounters of the Third Kind or A History of Violence.
Posted by: Tingy Wah at Nov 17, 2006 7:24:59 AM
Tingy nails it, thanks.
Posted by: Tyler Cowen at Nov 17, 2006 7:31:13 AM
Ouch. I'm bracing myself for your visit to Ohio...
Posted by: Bill Gardner at Nov 17, 2006 8:06:11 AM
For movies, what about Rudy? Notre Dame is in Indiana.
Posted by: Ann at Nov 17, 2006 8:56:26 AM
Tyler--
Next time in town, we've got a new Indian restaurant for you. And have the Fellows taken you to Yat's?
Remind me to talk Dreiser with you sometime. And _Alice Adams_ is probably Tarkington's best. Don't bother with the movie version, which sweetens it up.
Sarah
(Thanks for the LF shoutout!)
Posted by: Sarah S at Nov 17, 2006 9:02:07 AM
I head never realized that Indiana was a fount of unreadable hacks... Vonnegut, Dreiser and P. J. Farmer!
Though Mother Night is a medium-good book.
Posted by: sammler at Nov 17, 2006 9:04:44 AM
Movies: "A Christmas Story" is set in the fictional town of Hohman, Indiana (which is a stand-in for Jean Sheppard's real hometown of Hammond.
Posted by: Brian at Nov 17, 2006 9:44:09 AM
Vonnegut's first novel is written in a very different style from his later work; you wouldn't know he was the author. It's simultaneously prophetic and dated, but I liked it a lot. It's called Player Piano.
Posted by: Paul P at Nov 17, 2006 9:52:01 AM
John Mellencamp?
Posted by: Red Crayon at Nov 17, 2006 10:02:19 AM
Dan Quayle
Posted by: X at Nov 17, 2006 10:28:13 AM
Movie set in ... Friendly Persuasion (1956), voted one on the best war films by a military group, and one of the best anti-war films by a peace group.
Posted by: Warren at Nov 17, 2006 10:37:24 AM
Another great Indiana movie-- The Music Man.
Posted by: adbomaha at Nov 17, 2006 10:46:29 AM
Music: J.J. Johnson and Hoagy Carmichael.
Painter: T.C. Steele.
Author: AT leasy you didn't go for John Jakes or
James Whitcomb Riley. And that's BOOTH Trakington.
The Magnificent Ambersons is quite good.
Posted by: Donald A. Coffin at Nov 17, 2006 10:55:46 AM
Yep, that's Booth, not Newton Tarkington, all right. And as for Farmer, I keep the Riverworld series as a perfect example of what happens when a writer bites off an order of magnitude more than he can chew. That was always Farmer's problem, as he himself realized, but he seemed unable to do anything about it. Riverworld went from "Wow!" to throw-book-out-window, book by book, like something heavy falling down the stairs.
Posted by: Derek Lowe at Nov 17, 2006 11:11:23 AM
It is a shame that he turned to Muzak, but to limit Wes Montgomery's achievement to a few good live albums is a bit underappreciative. What Wes did with octaves and the guitar was pretty revolutionary. Most jazz guitarists today seem to cite him as a primary influence.
Posted by: Alex at Nov 17, 2006 11:46:44 AM
The banned books library
Posted by: S at Nov 17, 2006 12:14:00 PM
Here is what I wrote at orgtheory.net on Indiana music:
URL:http://orgtheory.wordpress.com/2006/09/13/i-heart-indiana-music/
i (heart) indiana music
September 13th, 2006
Fabio
Indiana is associated with trucking, corn and sports. People often forget that Indiana is also the source of a lot of great music. Here’s a partial list:
Cole Porter - perhaps America’s greatest song writer - born in Peru, Indiana.
Another great songwriter, Hoagy Carmichael, was born, raised and educated in Bloomington, Indiana. Go IU!
Jazz trumpet virtuoso Freddie Hubbard made his first splash in the famed Indianapolis jazz scene of the 1950s. Nomination for hippest Hubbard album: Red Clay.
Guitar master Wes Montgomery also came from the Indianapolis jazz scene of the 1950s
The Gemeinhardt flute - a remarkable instrument that’s a staple in bands and conservatories
across the nation - is manufactured in Elkhart, Indiana.
Rock god John Cougar Mellencamp is a life long Hoosier. Apparently, he also is darned fine painter.
The entire Jackson clan is from Gary, Indiana. And don’t laugh! During his non-cyborg stage, Michael Jackson was probably the best popular dancer since Fred Astaire.
The Indiana University Jacobs School of Music stands next to Juliard and Eastman as one of the premier classical music programs in the country.
And I must give a shout out to the Indiana Bluegrass scene. Great stuff to be heard at the Little Old Opry in Nashville, Indiana and at the Bean Blossom bluegrass festival.
Hoosiers are invited to comment on other great Indiana musicians/musical institutions.
Posted by: Fabio Rojas at Nov 17, 2006 12:17:39 PM
"John Mellencamp?"
Yuck.
"Another great Indiana movie-- The Music Man."
River City, Iowa, actually :)
Posted by: josh at Nov 17, 2006 1:12:03 PM
You can't ignore Hoagy Carmichael, arguably Indiana's greatest composer.
Posted by: Roger Lubin at Nov 17, 2006 1:23:21 PM
After seeing a splendid performance of "Kiss Me Kate" at a
regional theater last weekend, I would be the last person to
refer to Cole Porter as "overrated."
Posted by: Ralph Hitchens at Nov 17, 2006 2:39:58 PM
what part of breaking away don't you like?
Posted by: dj superflat at Nov 17, 2006 2:50:35 PM
John Mellencamp is up to his neck in federal farm subsidies.
For that reason alone, he should be boycotted.
Posted by: Bill Stepp at Nov 17, 2006 3:08:39 PM
