Burns Day

Ken Burns came to town on Monday. Below are my assorted camera phone pics of the day.

At 12:30 there was a luncheon at the Mattatuck Museum. It was very corporate...




At 3pm, the Mattatuck hosted a celebration to honor WWII veterans. It was a lot more fun than the luncheon.





Next are images of people enjoying the WWII exhibit at the Mattatuck.










At 5pm, there was a rally on the Green, with assorted speeches, music and ceremonies. There had been a lot of back-and-forth during the afternoon about whether or not to move the rally indoors, but the rain held off (but boy was it humid!).









At 6pm, a large group paraded from the Green to the Palace Theater. Just as the parade was starting, one of the police on motorcycles yelled at some kids on bicycles to get out of the way. The cop was really kind of harsh, especially considering that the kids weren't anywhere near the people walking down the middle of the road.













The show at the Palace started at 7pm. I did a mad scramble to get a pair of tickets, and wound up buying upper orchestra seats at discount from someone who didn't need them after all. Burns and Lynn Novick (I think The War really is more her project than his) presented 70 minutes of clips, mostly of Waterbury-related stories, from the documentary.

For many weeks this summer, most of the news about the documentary focused on the inclusion of a couple of swear words that might inspire the FCC to fine any PBS station airing those episodes. I think I read that some PBS stations will blank out the swear words. After watching sections of the documentary that include film footage of the atrocities committed during the war, I can't imagine how anyone could possibly care about the inclusion of foul language. There are no words that come at all close to being as offensive as some of the things that happened.

The War premiers on PBS Sunday, September 23, at 8pm. Burns pointed out that this is coincidentally 17 years to the moment that The Civil War first aired. It sounded like CPTV will be airing the episodes nearly nonstop, so there's no need to worry about missing one. I think watching all of them might be difficult. I think it's going to be very emotionally wrenching.