HOST:
Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC – VOA’s radio magazine in SpecialEnglish.
(THEME)
This is Doug Johnson. On our program today we:
Play recordings by musicians honored at a recent African Americanawards ceremony …
Answer a question about Yosemite National Park …
And visit a new museum of folk art.
Folk Art Museum
HOST:
A new museum opened recently in New York City. It is called theAmerican Folk Art Museum. Shep O’Neal tells us about it.
ANNCR:
The new museum provides a permanent home for American folk art.Folk art includes traditional objects that people made to use intheir homes during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Theycreated these objects to be beautiful as well as useful. Folk artalso includes the work of self-taught artists who were not trainedin art schools.
The new American Folk Art Museum is an unusual modern metalbuilding on West Fifty-Third Street. The building is tall andnarrow. A special show celebrates the opening of the museum. It iscalled “American Radiance: The Ralph Esmerian Gift to the AmericanFolk Art Museum.”
Ralph Esmerian is an official of the Folk Art Museum. He gavefour-hundred pieces from his private collection to the museum. Theyinclude paintings, clay containers, cloth needlework pieces andpainted household objects of the past two-hundred years.
The objects were made by famous artists and unknown artists –sailors and farmers and schoolgirls. Many of the pieces arewell-known examples of American folk art. Some are serious pieces.Others are fun to look at and make the visitor smile. One of thewell-known paintings is called “The Peaceable Kingdom” by EdwardHicks. He painted it around Eighteen-Forty-Six. The painting showsmany kinds of animals, including a lion and a lamb, living togetherin peace. He got this idea from the Christian holy book, the Bible.
Visitors to the Folk Art Museum can see many unusual metal orwood sculptures that are fun to look at. For example, weathervanesare made to turn to show the way the wind is blowing. One metalweathervane is shaped like the famous Statue of Liberty in New Yorkharbor.
People made other sculptures in the Eighteen-Hundreds to helpsell products or services. One of them is a two-meter tall woodenstatue of a man in a red, white and blue painted suit. It is called”Dapper Dan.” It stood outside a place where men got their hair cut.
The director of the new folk art museum is Gerard Wertkin. Hesays folk art is the art of American culture. He says folk art canhelp people remember the American spirit of creativity anddemocracy.
Yosemite National Park
HOST:
Our VOA listener question this week comes from Japan. Nori Wadaasks about Yosemite National Park.
Yosemite National Park is a largewild area in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of the state of California.It extends over more than three-hundred-thousand hectares of land.It has more than one-thousand kilometers of paths. Most lead to anarea of lakes and mountains known as the High Sierra.
More than sixty kinds of animals and two-hundred kinds of birdslive there. Yosemite also has more than one-thousand kinds of plantsand thirty kinds of trees. It is one of the few places to see thefamous Sequoia Trees. One of these is called the Grizzly Giant Tree.This tree measures more than ten meters around at the ground. TheSequoia trees are among the oldest living things on Earth.
More than three-million people visited Yosemite National Parklast year. Some camped in the park. They stayed overnight in tents –temporary cloth shelters. Others stayed at costly hotels in thepark. Everyone was there to enjoy the park’s natural beauty.
Much of that natural beauty is in the Yosemite Valley, at aheight of more than one-thousand meters. Water and ice created thevalley millions of years ago. Today, many waterfalls flow throughit. One of the most famous is Bridalveil Falls. It is often thefirst waterfall that visitors see as they enter the park. In thespring, the water hitting the rocks produces a great sound likethunder. Another famous waterfall is Horsetail Falls. It sometimesappears to be on fire when the water shows the orange color ofsunset.
Yosemite is also known for its rock formations. One is called theHalf Dome. It rises almost three-thousand meters from the floor ofthe Yosemite Valley. At an area called Glacier Point, visitors canlook down more than nine-hundred meters into the valley. The highestpoint in the valley is called Cloud’s Rest, three-thousand metersabout the valley floor.
Margaret and Robert Lebonitte and their three children visitedYosemite National Park a few years ago. They visited Cloud’s Rest,Glacier Point and many waterfalls during a nine-hour bus tripthrough the park. Missus Lebonitte says her favorite experience wassitting in the middle of a group of huge Giant Sequoia trees andenjoying the silence of nature.
NABOB Awards
HOST:
The National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters representsthe interests of African American owners of radio and televisionstations in the United States. Their goal is to increase the numberof African American owners in the American broadcasting industry.The group is known as NABOB.
It recently held a ceremony in Washington, D-C, to honor some ofthe most famous people in the entertainment and broadcastingindustries. Among them were the rhythm and blues group the IsleyBrothers, popular singer Janet Jackson and radio station owner CathyHughes. They were recognized for being successful and for helpingothers in the black community. Mary Tillotson has more.
ANNCR:
NABOB presented blues musician Bo Diddley with the Pioneer inEntertainment Award. He was honored for his influence on rock,blues, jazz and popular music. Here is one of Bo Diddley’s hits,”I’m a Man”.
((CUT 1: I’M A MAN))
Opera singer Leontyne Price was honored with the LifetimeAchievement Award. Leontyne Price has continued the struggle to helpother black opera singers become successful. She performed one ofher most famous songs from George Gershwin’s musical production”Porgy and Bess.” The song is “Summertime.”
((CUT 2: SUMMERTIME))
Patti LaBelle sang some of her greatest hits at the NABOB awardsceremony. She is known for her energetic live performances. Here,she sings the song “Lady Marmalade” with the group Labelle.
((CUT 3: LADY MARMALADE))
HOST:
This is Doug Johnson. I hope you enjoyed our program today. And Ihope you will join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC-VOA’sradio magazine in Special English.
This AMERICAN MOSAIC program was written by Shelley Gollust,Cynthia Kirk and Nancy Steinbach. Our studio engineer was CurtisBynam. And our producer was Paul Thompson.