Washington, DC Summertime, and the living is-well, here in DC it's just plain hot. A good time to get out of town and vacate someplace cooler. And what could be cooler than one of those majestic areas of the United States, the National Parks' Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns certainly thinks they're cool, so cool that he put together a six-episode series about them that was shown on PBS late last year. We talked with Burns shortly after his series was shown to discuss, among other things, why focus on the National Parks? The parks really do have to be seen to be believed. And to share the glories of the National Parks with others, artists have often been important messengers, as Burns discusses in an excerpt from this week?s podcast. [1:41] Listen to the entire podcast as Burns talks about his National Parks series and other work, as well as why he is so attracted to iconic American subjects such as baseball and jazz. You can also hear Burns talk about another American icon on the NEA Big Read audio recording on Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Audio

Aug 05, 2010

Ken Burns - Blog