In preparing my contribution to the “Overrated & Underrated” feature, I wrote of the “respected” Apache leader Cochise. Perhaps the adjective was too lukewarm, but unlike the “respectable” that was somehow misprinted as its replacement, it would have been neither patronizing nor irrelevant.
I was pleased to see Chicago mentioned as your underrated city. As you may know, my administration has worked very hard to make Chicago an even better place for residents and visitors alike. It is also nice to see our efforts recognized.
DURING THE FALL OF 1997, our production team at WGBH-TV, Boston’s Public Broadcasting System station began developing a television project that would capture the sweep of American history with, we hoped, real rigor and drama. We knew we wanted to merge the art of master teaching with television’s powerful visual and narrative techniques, but that was as far as our planning had gone—when I suddenly recalled the image of a man and a moment. The man was a hard-edged history professor, unsmiling but not humorless, ferociously intimidating to us freshmen. He would unfailingly begin his classes with a ritual. Without a word, he’d approach the desk at the front of the room, unbutton his left shirtsleeve, unbuckle the worn alligator band of his watch, and prop the watch on the desk.
He would re-button his shirtsleeve, sit down, and fold his hands. His gray eyes would squint into the room, and he’d break the silence. You would be brought to attention by the precision and studied drama of these movements, knowing the power of the mind behind them.
THE BASICS
Anthropologists estimate that the Tucson area has been continually inhabited for more than 3,000 years. At about the time our nation’s forefathers were signing the Declaration of Independence, Spanish soldiers led by the Irish expatriate Hugo O’Conor were building a presidio that would one day grow into modern Tucson.
Many thanks to you and to Richard Reinhardt for helping me spread the word about Harriet Quimby, America’s first licensed female pilot (1911). Sometimes I feel like a salmon swimming upstream trying to create awareness of our beautiful, intelligent, and talented aviatrix whose unprecedented career was cut tragically short. The next annual Harriet Quimby Research Conference will be held on October 20–22, 2000, in Quincy, Massachusetts. For more information, see our Web site:
Lesley Hazleton must have expected massive hate mail when she attacked the most popular American car icon, the Chevy Corvette. Her knees get a little weak when she gets into a late-fifties, early-sixties “European-styled” Corvette, but the cars got progressively uglier as time went on? The Corvette has always had its own style and is a survivor not because it is “still hanging on” but because it is enormously popular. The Corvette is a cross between a muscle car and a true American sports car, and not only did it always have killer style, but it got prettier as time went on.
Taking nothing away from Gen. Lucian Truscott, my candidate for most underrated general would be Gen. Robert L. Eichelberger. As commanding general of I Corps, and later of the U.S. 8th Army, he did the heavy lifting in the Southwest Pacific theater, while the theater commander, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, posed for holy pictures.
Seeing as how I have been a fan of Barbra Streisand’s for a little more than four years now (I am 19), I may be biased, but to call Barbra Streisand —perhaps one of the greatest legends of all time—an overrated singer? Pardon me, but I always believed her voice was one of the greatest because she gave feeling to her words in a song. She acted them out and always called herself “an actress who sings.” If anybody should be called overrated, it should be one of those singers today who are getting their fifteen minutes of fame but who won’t be around as long as Barbra has—nearly four decades. (Yes, that’s almost 40 years!)
So, call Britney Spears an overrated singer. Call Mariah Carey an overrated singer. But Barbra should be the last one on that list.
I have to disagree with Gary Giddins’s mean-spirited assessment of Barbra Streisand as the most overrated singer. Others who would disagree include many of America’s greatest songwriters: Harold Arlen, Stephen Sondheim, Jerry Herman, Cy Coleman, JuIe Styne, and Richard Rodgers. All of these artists are on record with praise for Ms. Streisand’s work as a vocalist. But perhaps Mr. Giddins thinks they are overrated too.