2004-4-8
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HOST:
Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC, in VOA Special English.
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This is Bob Doughty.
On our show this week, we have music from Faith Hill. And we
answer a question about her. We also report about a new exhibit of
hand-made quilts.
But first, we tell about the opening of an important sports
season.
Baseball Season Opens
HOST:
The Major League professional
baseball season opened in the United States last Sunday when the
Baltimore Orioles played the Boston Red Sox. But two baseball games
were played even earlier - in Japan. Gwen Outen explains.
ANNCR:
Perhaps no other sport has become as deeply rooted in American
life as baseball. No other sport has created so many popular
traditions, including poems, songs, books and films. Famous players
of the past and present are as well-known to Americans as the
country's great scientists, writers and political leaders.
Major League Baseball officials continue to explore ways to add
to these traditions. One of these is to play the season opening
games in another country. So far, such games have been played in
Mexico and Japan.
This year, the first two games of the major league baseball
season were played in Tokyo at the end of March. The New York
Yankees played the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. The Yankees are famous for
winning more championships than any other baseball team in America.
This year, the Yankees are paying some of their best players huge
amounts of money. These famous athletes include Alex Rodriguez,
Derek Jeter and the Japanese baseball hero, Hideki Matsui.
All three played in the two
opening games at the Tokyo Dome in Japan. Hideki Matsui won the most
valuable player award. After the games, he said he got his power
from the Japanese fans at the game and their high expectations of
him. He told the New York Times newspaper that he was the happiest
man in the world.
Some American baseball writers and fans were less than happy
about the opening games this year. They began in Tokyo at seven
o'clock in the evening. That was about five o'clock in the morning
in New York! Newspaper reports said fans held opening day breakfast
parties so friends could gather to eat and watch the game on
television. And many drinking places in the city opened early for
the same reason. The Devil Rays won the opening day game. The
Yankees won the second game one day later.
Quilt Exhibit
HOST:
A new exhibit of colorful bed coverings called quilts opened last
month at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
African-American women in a tiny farming town called Gee's Bend,
Alabama, created the quilts. Shep O'Neal tells us more.
ANNCR:
There is only one road into and out of the town of Gee's Bend. It
is a very poor community. Yet it is rich in traditions. For many
years, the women of Gee's Bend have created beautiful quilts from
everyday cloth material. Now, seventy of these quilts made by
forty-six women are being shown in an exhibit called "The Quilts of
Gee's Bend." These large, colorful quilts hang on the walls of the
museum. They look like modern abstract paintings. In fact, the chief
art critic for the New York Times newspaper calls the quilts "some
of the most miraculous works of modern art that America has
produced."
The women of Gee's Bend made the quilts to cover their beds and
keep their families warm at night. The women sewed squares,
triangles and long pieces of cloth together. They used everyday
materials like old clothing and pieces of cloth left over from
making other things. Experts say the bright colors and modern
designs are different from traditional American quilts made in other
parts of the country.
Gee's Bend, Alabama, is named after Joseph Gee, a white man who
owned land in the area in the early eighteen-hundreds. Today, about
seven-hundred-fifty people live in the town. All of them are black.
Most of them have ancestors who were slaves on two large farms in
the area. Women in the town learned quilting from their mothers and
grandmothers. They made the quilts from the nineteen-thirties to the
present time.
There are several different kinds of quilts in the exhibit. Some
are made of bright colored pieces of cotton cloth called corduroy.
Others are "work clothes" quilts made of old blue denim clothing
worn by farm workers.
Experts say a Gee's Bend quilt represents many things. It is
useful as well as beautiful. It expresses the artistic ideas of the
quilter and the cultural identity of the community. One of the women
said this about her quilt: "It represents safekeeping, it represents
beauty, and you could say it represents family history."
Faith Hill
HOST:
Our VOA listener question this week comes from Wuhan, China. Qiu
Tsuly asks about American singer Faith Hill.
That is her name to music fans all over the world. Her name at
birth was Audrey Faith Perry. She was born in the southern state of
Mississippi in nineteen-sixty-seven. She grew up singing in church,
and decided to become a singer when she was fourteen years old.
Faith Perry moved to Nashville,
Tennessee at the age of nineteen. She married songwriter Dan Hill
the next year. Their marriage ended four years later.
Faith Hill had her first hit record in nineteen-ninety-four. It
is called "Wild One."
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Today, Faith Hill is married to another popular country singer,
Tim McGraw. They have three daughters. Here is a hit song they
recorded together a few years ago. It is called "Let's Make Love."
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Faith Hill has won or been nominated for just about every music
industry honor. Last year, she won a Grammy Award for Best Female
Country Vocal Performance for the title song of her latest album. We
leave you now with that song, "Cry."
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HOST:
This is Bob Doughty.
Send us your questions about American life! Be sure to include
your name and postal address. We will send you a gift if we use your
question.
Send e-mail to mosaic@voanews.com. Or write to American Mosaic,
VOA Special English, Washington, D.C., two-zero-two-three-seven,
USA.
Our program was written by Shelley Gollust and Nancy Steinbach.
Paul Thompson was our producer. And our engineer was Tom Verba.
I hope you enjoyed AMERICAN MOSAIC. Join us again next week for
VOA's radio magazine in Special English.