The 50-Cent Tour
Chowder “working” in the Pyrenees. (K. Damstedt photo)
Ken Chowder has scripted over 25 documentary films (and one feature film) broadcast on PBS, NBC, TBS, Discovery, A & E, and BBC, and has published three novels to glittering reviews.
His credits include seven films for PBS’ The American Experience, one American Masters,and seven National Geographic films.
His films have been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary, won the Columbia/DuPont Prize, and named Best Documentary or Best History Film at many festivals, including the American Film Festival. He’s written (in part or whole) twenty-four proposals that succeeded in getting scripting or production funding, or both, from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and twice won individual fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Chowder on the job for Travel & Leisure at The Dreamland Café in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. (S. Stephens photo)
Chowder’s articles have seen the light of print in Smithsonian, Audubon, Travel & Leisure, The New York Times Sophisticated Traveler, American Heritage, Modern Maturity, The New York Times, Geo, The [London] Sunday Times Travel Magazine, Geographical magazine, and even Reader’s Digest.
His three novels were all published by Harper & Row — one is in Penguins, another was given the Harper-Saxton Prize, and a third was an Editors’ Choice book at the New York Times and Washington Post. Extravagant reviews can be glimpsed on the Fiction page of this site.
Recent Chowder News
The First Freedom to appear on PBS
The First Freedom, a one-hour film by Groberg Productions for WETA: how and why the Founding Fathers of the United States committed to the astonishing, ground-breaking and (yes) revolutionary idea of religious freedom, will be shown on national PBS on or about December 18th, at 8 pm.
In the past year, five Chowder projects have gotten National Endowment for the Humanities funding – one for development, and two for production. See Grants/Awards for details.
Films in Progress:
- The Latino-Americans, a six-hour series for WETA (Exec. Producer Jeff Bieber, Series Producer Adriana Bosch) about 300 years of Latino history in the U.S. To be broadcast on PBS in Autumn 2013.
- Frederick Law Olmsted: Designing America, a 90-minute documentary film exploring the life and career of landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. (Exec. Producer John Grant of WNED, Producers Larry Hott and Diane Garey, Florentine Films/Hott Production)
- This Place Matters, a six-hour series about endangered places that have changed lives. (Exec. Producers Cynthia Convery of Foothill Productions, Dave Davis of OPB)
- Rising Voices/Hótȟaŋiŋpi – a 90-minute documentary film about the imminent peril to the Lakota (Native American) language, the culture shaped by that language, and the history that created that peril. (Producers Larry Hott and Diane Garey, Florentine Films; Wil Meya,Lakota Language Consortium.
- The Old World and the Old West: Cowboys, Indians, and… Europeans, a 90-minute documentary about Europe’s fascination with the myth of the American West — and how Europe transformed that myth. (Producer Riva Freifeld, Riva Productions)
INCOHERENCE – A Blog
This Was the 15 Minutes of Fame
– the flash of celebrity Warhol coined, and that we live all our lives for: my sainted daughter just appeared on a newsmagazine TV show about Internet fraud. Hey, she was the main character: sure enough, she was cheated by someone who’d sent her an email warning, saying that her credit card was being used by others. In response, she gave that evil someone her banking information.
She looked blonde and pretty (which she is) and innocent (which she isn’t) on the show, and she was thrilled. Ah, good for her. Famous for being the unwitting victim. Oddly, she does realize why she got her starring role. At dinner she said she’d like to start her own series: How to Be Cheated by Everyone. What the Stooges did on the physical plane, she could do on the cyberspatial one. Fall down go boom. But the 15 minutes of fame were worth the fact that she was being exhibited for her mistake.
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I live with a SWiMCAT. Maybe you do too, or maybe you are one.
I’m proud to say I made up the acronym. It describes my wife: She Who Must Control All Things. For short, a SWiMCAT.
I know, I know. The “i” is just there because you say it when you pronounce SWMCAT.
To find out if you live with one of these creatures, ask yourself: is there anything that you do at home that does NOT have to be redone? (You brought the plants in from the balcony for the winter, sure, but did you have to put them in the window sill?)
Right: that was kind of a crazy idea. Should have been the other window sill. I see that now.
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A quote from Goal.com:
Gerard Piqué will be sidelined for two to three weeks after picking up an injury shortly after kick off against Spartak Moscow. According to the Club’s Medical Services, the player has spain in his left foot.
Oh yeah: that would hurt like hell. But at least it wasn’t Brazil.
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The blare began, and I fell in love. A bodily excitement buzzed when the Gillette ad came on – the “Look Sharp March”:
To look sharp and feel sharp too
Choose the razor that is built for you
Light [in tenor voice]! Regular [baritone]! Heavy [basso]!
Only way to get a decent shave.How’re you fixed for blades – better check! – Gillette Blue Blades, I mean.
The ad was a harbinger of exhilaration: for only when the Look Sharp March was done could the World Series begin.
Meanwhile, what did we see? The ad’s images showed a strong handsome guy, maybe even The Mick himself, making swift carefree swoops with the razor, cutting a clean swath through a face swathed with bright white shaving cream. Shaving looked like mowing the lawn: one pass, and it was done.
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My sainted webmaster, Rick E. Ray of Portland, Oregon, has revised this site, to my eternal gratitude. I’m also grateful for his own contribution to Incoherence. In this spot he’s used this as a space-filler: “How old is Chowder? Well, Chowder must be younger than Panini, Gorgonzola, and slightly older than ceviche. If my calculations are correct Chowder… must be 12, because he’s a child and most voices change at 12.” Great insight, Rick E., yes, I am older than ceviche: ceviche my age would be reviled anywhere outside of Norway. Rick’s logic is just a tad flawed: if I am a child, and most voices change at 12, then the correct conclusion would be that I am UNDER 12, not 12. But here at Incoherence we like mistakes. We think the world is composed of mistakes. Matter of fact, I have a theory about the creation of the universe, equivalent to the Big Bang Theory: the Big Mistake Theory.