Pető Tamás

November 23rd

Introduction to American Studies

NGY brought an antique ticket to the impeachment of US

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president Andrew Johnson.

Rizzoli and Isles is a crime drama TV series aired on TNT

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(Turner Network Television). Starring Angie Harmon and Sasha
Alexander
(as police detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Dr. Maura
Isles, respectively) The series is based on the Rizzoli/Isles series of author Tess Gerritsen.

Bones is a crime series aired on Fox Network. It's main focus is solving crimes through forensics. Bones is
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loosely based on the life of Kathy Reichs, who is the producer of the show.

• Cold Case is an American police procedural series aired on CBS, starring Kathryn Morris as detective
Lilly Rush.

• Waking the Dead is a similar British series. Both Cold Case and Waking the Dead feature a fictional police
department focusing on cold cases ( old unsolved crimes which are discontinued from solving.)

Cracker is a British crime drama series produced for ITV. It was written by Jimmy McGovern. The series
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concerns a criminal psychologist ("cracker"), Eddie "Fitz" Fitzgerald, who is played by Robbie Coltrane
(of Harry Potter fame)

Wire in the Blood is a British crime drama series based on the writings of Val McDermid. It's main cast
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includes Robson Green, Hermione Norris and Simone Lahbib. Crimical profiling is a central element of
the story.

The 2nd hand bookstore under Waterloo Bridge in London is featured in both movies Last Chance Harvey
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and The Fixer.

Smiley's People is an espionage novel written in 1979 by John le Carré. It is a third part of a trilogy, after
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Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and The Honourable Schoolboy. A feature film was made for BBC in 1982,
starring Alec Guinness as George Smiley.

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is an earlier, 1963 novel of le Carré. It is famous for its unorthodox
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portrayal of the spy game, in sharp contrast to its contemporary Bond novels:
„There’s only one law in this game,” Leamas retorted. “Mundt is their man; he gives them what they need.
That’s easy enough to understand, isn’t it? Leninism— the expediency of temporary alliances. What do
you think spies are: priests, saints and martyrs? They’re a squalid procession of vain fools, traitors, too,
 yes; pansies, sadists and drunkards, people who play Cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten lives.
Do you think they sit like monks in London, balancing the rights and wrongs? I’d have killed Mundt if I
could, I hate his guts; but not now. It so happens that they need him. They need him so that the great
moronic mass you admire can sleep soundly in their beds at night. They need him for the safety of
ordinary, crummy people like you and me.”

In the Valley of Elah is a movie which reproduces the

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murder of US soldier Richard T. Davis, who was
lynched most gruesomelly by his comrades in Iraq for
trying to report a rape case. The movie was directed by
Paul Haggis, and stars Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize
Theron and Suzan Sarandon as the main cast. (Related to
a still from the movie, a frayed US flag flown upside
down, Ngy commented that in heraldics, a family crest is
turned upside down when said family's last male heir dies out.)
John Lennon wrote a book called „A spaniard in the Works” a work with non-sequitur stories and
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caricatures, like this one:

Edwin Morgan (1920-2010) was a highly acclaimed Scottist poet. He was named Glasgow's first Poet
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Laurate (1999) and Scotland's first national poet, the Scots Makar (2004).
His emergent poem, Message Clear, prompted a critical response in the Times Literary Supplement in
which he was sarcastically lauded for being able to type „ I am the Resurrection and I am the Life”, a
quote from John 11:25.

• Enrico Fermi (1901-1954) was an accomplished Italian physicist who worked on the development of the
first nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile 1, and for his work in the quantum theory and nuclear physics. He
was also the first documented scientist who produced a controlled chain reaction of nuclear fission in
1940.

George Washington and Benjamin Franklin were both among the Founding Fathers of the USA. GW was a
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plantation owner-turned soldier who rose through the ranks in the Seven Year War, then in the American
Revolution right up to being General. He was elected twice to be President of the USA ( both times he won
a 100%, a feat of unanimosity which hasn't been achieved ever since by any US president) He was known
as a very-very honest man who „couldn't lie”. There is a story of him: As a child, he got a
tomahawk/hatchet from his father. There was a small cherry tree in their yard, and little George hacked it
to pieces. When his father came home, GW admitted to the deed, and his father, affected by his sincerity,
apologised him. (Such tales as this help to maintain a person's nimbus. Whether the incident ever
happened or is a fabrication is can not be discerned.)
 Benjamin Franklin, on the other hand, was mainly a polymath, a diplomat and a man of the books. He is
well known for several inventions, such as daylight saving time, the lightning rod, public libraries in the
US, etc. He also had a keen sense of advertising, as shown in his autobiography, and his aphorisms („The
early bird catches the worm”; „Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise” among
others)

• Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) was a prominent figure

among Blacks in their education and integration. He took part
in public life (Atlanta Adress of 1895), education (being the
first head of the alabaman Tuskagee Institution) and he also
wrote books ( including a two volume history book titled „The
Story of the Negro: The Rise of the Race from Slavery”, published in 1909)

William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891) was a General of the Union Army in the US Civil War. (his
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middle name Tecumseh is that of a Shawnee chieftain who led a tribal confederacy against northwestern
US forces in the War of Tecumseh. This conflict ended with the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811) W.T.
Sherman in his later life served as Commanding General of The Army (1869-1883).

• Lyndon Baines Johnson was the 36th President of the USA, from 1963 to 1969. His administration served
civil rights, started the NASA program, and the Great Society Programme ( which included Medicare,
Medicaid and the „war on poverty”), among many other workings.

Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962) was born Norma Jeane Baker. She spent her career as an actress, singer and
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model. Some of her movie roles include All About Eve (1950), The Seven Year Itch (1955) and Some Like
it Hot. (In her earlier movies, she was typecast as the dumb blonde character.) After her death, she became
a pop icon. She has been ranked by the American Film Institute as the 6th greatest female actress of all
time.

• James Monroe (1758-1831) was the 5th President of the USA, from 1817 to 1825. He is most famous for
the Monroe-doctrine, which was drafted by John Quincy Adams in 1823. It basically states that any
attempt at European colonization in the Americas is a military offense and is followed by US intervention.
In turn, the US exclaims not to interfere in European colonial or continental matters.

Carl Rakosi, William Carlos Williams and Ezra Pound were all modernist/Imagist poets who wrote in the
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first half of the 20th century. Imagists rejected their contemporary literary customs, which were leftovers
from the Victorian and late Romanticist periods.

• Dwight D. Eisenhower was a five star General of the USA, and its 34th President from 1953 to 1961. In
WWII, he was Commanding General of the European Theater of Operations. In his presidency, he signed
the Bill for the Interstate Highway System. He also had to deal with several Cold War crises (The Suez
crisis, involvement in Vietnam and others).
 Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) was a poet of the Beat Generation. He was an open bisexual, and had a
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lifetime male partner in the person of Peter Orlovsky. Ginsberg's best known poem is Howl. He drew
much from Walt Whitman, a 19th century US poet's epic style. Some of his poetry volumes include:
„Howl and other poems”, „Mind Breaths” and „Illuminated Poems”. (1956, 1978, and 1996, respectively)

• John Wayne (1907-1979) was an Academy Award winning actor, director and producer. His original name
is Marion Mitchell Morrison. (Which is not as catchy as John Wayne) John Wayne is mainly known for his
appearances in Western movies, for which the American Film Institute ranked him 13th greatest male actor
of all time. The L.A. Airfield bears his name. He won the „Oscar” for his 1969 appearance in True Grit.