John de Graaf, Affluenza, and Stewart Udall

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

Vachel Lindsay

Gracy Olmstead’s Uprooted (reviewed here and here)

VISTA

David Brower

Stewart Udall

Floyd Dominy

“Find Your Way Home” album by Wendell Kimbrough