Ep. 70 - Norman Rockwell's "Freedom of Speech" (1943)
The Lonely Palette

Ep. 70 - Norman Rockwell's "Freedom of Speech" (1943)

B2Upper-intermediateJuly 4, 202538 min

“I was showing the America I knew and observed to others who might not have noticed.” - Norman Rockwell Whether arguing for soft versus hard taco shells or the Neo-Nazi right to march in Skokie, freedom of speech is a fundamental right we all enjoy as Americans. But it turns out that telling people that is pretty complicated, actually. Thank goodness we have Norman Rockwell, virtuosic photorealistic painter and America's crown prince of nostalgia, to help us understand our fundamental freedoms from the intimacy of the magazines fanned across the coffee tables inside our homes. See...

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I'm your dad, your proud dad.

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B2 · Upper-intermediate

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We do introduce yourself. I'm your dad, your proud dad. Who are you also? My name is Bernard Avishai and I teach at Dartmouth and write periodically.

0:24

So describe what we had going down to the basement on the walls of the house that I grew up in. If I remember correctly, we had the Rockwell paintings, the reproductions of the four freedoms that Roosevelt had spoken about, and obviously Rockwell was very impressed by.

0:46

But you don't want me to describe them now, do you? You can describe them. Well, I remember there was this one guy standing, looking very earnest in a very weather-beaten leather jacket, speaking his mind in a local public forum with very wise and face with

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