Cultural History

Donny George, director of the Iraq Museum, is sitting on a bench under a covered porch, talking about Baghdad's glorious past. It is midafternoon and the sun is beating down on the museum's barren front lawn. Nearby, a group of U.S. soldiers lingers around an armored assault vehicle, keeping a watchful eye on the iron entry gate. On this day, the museum is still closed after a two-day looting rampage that wrecked many of its galleries. George seems relieved by the enveloping stillness.

As the facial-hair-focused month of Movember draws to a close, we thought we'd revisit some of the beard- and mustache-themed merchandise that's come to our attention, including bacon-scented shaving cream, a stainless steel, mustache-shaped bottle opener and a book cataloging the cultural history of the 'stache. The most recent to cross our desk is J&D's Foods' Bacon Shaving Cream, touted as "the highest quality meat-scented shaving cream on the market today. " Justin Esch, a co-founder and "bacontrepreneur" at Seattle-based J&D's (the company, which launched in 2007, is responsible for a slew of bacon-flavored products such as Baconnaise and a bacon-flavored popcorn called BaconPOP)

Jacques Barzun, a courtly French American scholar with a bracing knowledge of Western civilization who helped found the field of cultural history and in his 90s wrote the epic if improbable bestseller "From Dawn to Decadence," has died. He was 104. Barzun, who taught for nearly 50 years at Columbia University, died Thursday in San Antonio, where he retired after seven decades in New York. His death was confirmed by his son-in-law, Garvin Parfit. Hailed as "one of the last thoroughgoing generalists," the historian and critic wrote dozens of books and hundreds of essays on topics that reflected a wide-ranging intellect.

Jacques Barzun, a courtly French American scholar with a bracing knowledge of Western civilization who helped found the field of cultural history and in his 90s wrote the epic if improbable bestseller "From Dawn to Decadence," has died. He was 104. Barzun, who taught for nearly 50 years at Columbia University, died Thursday in San Antonio, where he retired after seven decades in New York. His death was confirmed by his son-in-law, Garvin Parfit. Hailed as "one of the last thoroughgoing generalists," the historian and critic wrote dozens of books and hundreds of essays on topics that reflected a wide-ranging intellect.

Every so often a society must step back to evaluate truly significant moments in history -- even (and maybe especially) if those moments are smothered in chili. On Monday, Angelenos will celebrate a culinary landmark. Tommy Koulax opened his Original Tommy's World Famous Hamburgers stand on the corner of Beverly and Rampart boulevards on May 15, 1946.

What could be more ordinary than a key? Each of these prosaic devices, anonymously stamped out by the thousands, looks pretty much like another of the same type. But a current exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Design in New York, reveals an unexpectedly rich decorative and cultural history for keys and locks, which are believed to have originated many centuries ago in the Middle East, probably to safeguard grain.

One can identify with and appreciate the essence of an artwork in and of itself without any knowledge of an art ist's life. But often one can also learn a lot about an artist from an artwork, because art is really inseparable from the person who created it. For its annual members' show this year, the Southern California Women's Caucus for Art set out to organize an exhibit of work that would represent a variety of women's voices, cultural identities and experiences.

Ron Mann is on a mission to make popular culture a part of traditional history, and with the help of Hank Ballard, Chubby Checker and some aging stars from "American Bandstand," he just might have another victory on his hands.

The dolls made by Valentina Solo are hardly the sort you would find in a store. Sure, she has stitched a Disney-like Sleeping Beauty doll and cherubic dolls from other countries, but how about the evil-eyed Ivan the Terrible doll? Her doll collection, now on display at the Conejo Valley Art Museum, is a slice of cultural history. She has Marie Antoinette outfitted in a silk gown of the day, along with two Elvis dolls--one as a svelte teen idol and a later, pudgier version.

A violinist fiddles and a conductor conducts. An impresario may do either or both but he also has to raise money. Henri Temianka, who has been doing all three for years and enriching the cultural life of Los Angeles in the process, has decided that two out of three would be plenty good enough.

Every so often, Chon Noriega wakes up in the middle of the night and thinks, "I agreed to do what ?" Maybe he signed on to teach another UCLA graduate seminar in avant-garde cinema. Or curate an exhibition of new Chicano art. Or write a biography. Or lead a walking tour of East L.A.'s historic murals. Or co-host a segment of TCM's "Race and Hollywood: Latino Images in Film. " Or ... well, you get the drift. Noriega's list of cultural IOU's is long and - insomnia be damned - getting longer.

It's a strange time to be a woman. I say this not because state legislatures enacted no less than 95 restrictions on reproductive rights this year. I say it not because at the same time, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker repealed his state's equal pay law and Wisconsin state Sen. Glenn Grothman conjectured that "money is more important for men. " Or because, just last month, an alarming number of male legislators demonstrated serious confusion about the birds and the bees. I'm saying it because Naomi Wolf has written a book about her vagina.

Elizabeth Brumfiel, a widely recognized scholar in the field of feminist archaeology who studied Aztec culture, examining not only the functional and economic significance of ancient relics but what scholars learned about changing gender roles and relations in society, has died. She was 66. Brumfiel, a past president of the American Anthropological Assn., died of cancer Jan. 1 at a hospice in Skokie, Ill., her family said. In 2007, the Mexican village of Xaltocan presented her with the Eagle Warrior Prize — named after the highest warrior class in Aztec society — for her dedication to the Xaltocan community.

Abdullah Saadi fingers the fine brown leather belt with holsters for thimble-sized coffee cups and a dagger. He is a keeper of customs, Baghdad's professional server of coffee. He sits in a brick house behind an iron gate in the cramped warrens of Sadr City. The room is painted bright lemon in contrast to the gray street outside. His mother walks through the room, half-embarrassed, singing for guests, "I am the mother of the coffee maker. " She thumps her chest and laughs at her son. In Iraq, coffee isn't merely a matter of ordering a grande to go from Starbucks.

Surely you noticed this urgent news item over the weekend: The red swimsuit worn by Farrah Fawcett in her iconic 1976 poster has been donated to the Smithsonian's popular culture history collection. Along for the ride were some of Fawcett's "Charlie's Angels" scripts, a Fawcett doll, a hairstyling kit called Farrah's Glamour Center and, of course, the poster itself. Do such artifacts belong at the Smithsonian? That's the question, all right; but seeing the famous photograph has a way of making you forget, for a moment, to ask it. It's pure, perfect 1976.

Henry Clay Frick, J. Pierpont Morgan, Louisine and Henry O. Havemeyer in New York; J. Paul Getty, Norton Simon, Arabella and Henry E. Huntington in Los Angeles; Andrew W. Mellon in Washington, D.C.; Claribel and Etta Cone in Baltimore. Big names in the art world — and merely a sampling of Americans whose art collections have shaped the nation's museums. The artistic legacies of American collectors get serious attention in scholarly circles. The back story is another matter.

It's finally happening. UCLA's long-promised Fowler Museum of Cultural History is complete. Four inaugural exhibitions--featuring the elephant in African culture, Maya dress of the 1960s, ancient Peruvian ceramics and the Fowler collection of British, European and American silver--are ready. An inaugural reception at the three-story $22-million building was slated for Friday night and the public will get its first look on Wednesday, when the museum is scheduled to open.

Susan Ahn dropped her head into one open palm and said nothing. For several seconds, maybe even a minute, she appeared to be sleeping. But she was trying hard to remember. As if flipping the pages of a history book, Ahn sifted through her memory to try to put a date to the faded black-and-white photo of a young woman with black hair and a wide smile. She easily recognized herself in the photo, even if others could not. Now if only she could remember when it was taken.

A very hungry caterpillar. A very repulsive ogre. Some wonderfully Wild Things. There's nothing like curling up with a good book — a picture book, that is. A bedtime adventure rendered in a few words and lots of images can whet the imagination and help kids read, reason and figure out right from wrong. "These books are a magnet for learning," says cultural critic Ilan Stavans. "A mother or father can show what is happening on the page while the child recognizes a comforting voice and feels the human touch.

After watching "Schmatta: Rags to Riches to Rags," which premieres tonight on HBO, you won't be buying a $10 frock from H&M anytime soon. Or maybe you will, but you'll feel terrible about it. And you probably should. For those of us who haven't been keeping track of the ailing garment industry, the most startling information revealed in this hour-plus documentary is the fact that in the last 40 years, the percentage of American clothing made in America has plummeted from 95 to 5. Five percent!