Vilet Kazue de Christoforo is one of many Japanese-American poets who wrote haiku in Japanese while interned in camps during World War II. She was born Kazue Yamane in Hawaii, educated from 8-13 in Japan, and then went to high school in Fresno, California. During World War II, she and her husband, Shigeru Matsuda, and their three children were interned in Jerome, Arkansas, and then she and the children were interned at Tule Lake camp in California.
Starting in 1915 two Tokyo poets Ippekiro Nakatsuka and Kawahigashi Hekigodo had developed a modernist haiku called "kaiko." Japanese-Americans in California had formed haiku-writing clubs to write these moderist haiku in Japanese. De Christoforo is a historian of these pre-World War II haiku clubs: One of the haiku clubs was in Fresno while the other one was in Stockton. The modernist haiku were not restricted to the vocabulary of the seasons and the strict 5-7-5 syllables of traditional haiku. The haiku poets worked hard on their writing, putting it up to serious critcism in the clubs, and they also collected Japanese literature. De Cristoforo says that right before the internment the Japaense-American poets in Stockton and Fresno destroyed their collections of haiku and much Japanese literature--a tragedy for Japanese-American literature. Yet the internment these Japaense-American poets kept writing haiku in Japanese which they published in camp newspapers
De Christoforo's is the best known of the haiku poets of the Japanese-American internment camps. Her Poetic Reflections of the Tule Lake Internment Camp, 1944, was published after 1984. She also collected and translated the concentration campu haiku in her book There is Always Tomorrow: An Anthology of Japanese American Concentration Campu Kaiko Haiku (1996). Only 15 of Kristoro's haiku from the camps survived.
Christoforo's haiku don't follow the 5-7-5 pattern but do use naturalistic imagery. In this haiku:
"Like-minded people gather
new shoots sprout from the pine tree
early summer sky."'
she likens the people gathering. to "new shoots" from a pine trees, giving an image of hope during the desperate times.
In "Tenth Wedding Anniversary (July 3, 1944)
"Misty moon
as it was
on my wedding day"
the moon brings back poignant memories of her own wedding.
In this haiku
"Myriad insects
in the evening
my children are growing"
she matter of factly tells about endurance: the insects endure while her children grow up.
Cary Nelson's wonderful anthology Modern American Poetry has 29 more haiku from eighteen poets from the internment camps as well as a good, short introduction. The 29 haiku are incredibly moving. Like de Christoforo, the other haiku poets adapted the naturalistic vocabulary of the haiku to capture the sadness, courage, and stamina of those in the camps in amazing poems.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Saturday, February 25, 2006
George Oppen Struggles for the Truth
George Oppen was poet, Communist and soldier. He came from a wealthy Jewish-American family who had settled in San Francisco. He came into an inheritance young, which allowed him and his wife to go to France, where Oppen wrote and he and his wife started a small poetry press, and published in the early 1930s some of the best American young modernist poets--W.C. Williams, Ezra Pound, etc. At first Oppen was an imagist following Pound.
With the increasing Depression, Oppen returned to the U.S., joined the Communist Party, started organizing the unemployed, and quit writing poetry for over two decades. He also volunteered for service in the U.S. army, fought more than any other American poet in difficult battles, and was in a group of U.S. soldiers than liberated a concentration camp. When he returned to the United States after the war, the FBI investigated him repeatedly, so he and his wife went into exile to Mexico. He returned to live in San FRancisco in the late 1950s, returned to writing.
When he returned to poetry he criticized his mentor Pound who had become a fascist and who had made broadcasts for Mussolini during World War II. Oppen's of the late 1950s and 1960s is committed to creativing a democratic culture, and Oppen was now calling himself a "populist." His book The Materials ends with the poem "Leviathan" that 'truth also is the pursuit of it,' that 'we must talk now." Oppen's work is often difficult to understand but I think the struggle is worth it. In his poems he struggled to make imagism deal with moral truth. Obviously Pound was such a failure when it comes to connecting imagism to moral ideas, often writing a dogmatic polemic, but Oppen of the 1960s was committed to connecting the poetry of modernist tradition to moral truths necessary for democratic culture. Since Pound's imagism is so influential in 20th century American poetry, I think that Oppen was strugging with central questions for modern American poetry.
In the "Bicyles and the Apex," written in the 1960s, captures the mood that all the gadgets and machines that fascinated in the 1930s, the 1940s, and the 1950s are now taken for granted. Oppen seems to be showing how we longer are in love with all the gagets and machines that we once were. He starts with saying "How we loved the/Once, these mechanisms/" but now the poet no longer loves bicycles but sees them as part of "the platitude/the gadgets" as if too many gadgets were producing "our discontent." He compares hungry Van Gogh with shoe salesmen who envy him now.
He argues that neither slums nor tract homes are "the apex/Of the culture/They are the barracks." He does see basic elements--barracks, food, garbage,. tires--as needed but still producing disconent, particular with gangs in the slums and John Birch Societies, right wing groups, in the suburbs. He returns in the last stanza to saying "But we loved them once/" adding the "once," as if to emphasize we no longer love these gadgets. The poem captures an important intellectual mood in the 1960s.
In "The Building of the Skyscraper" Oppen compares a steel worker building a skyscraper who is trained not to look down with a writer who knows not to look for certain words that are empty and meaningless. If we look at these words we like the steel worker "are on the verge/Of vertigo." He says that, although certain words "mean nothing/But there is something to mean." The poet must find that meaning, what he calls "the thing/Which is. It is the business of the poet/To suffer the things of the world/and to speak them and himself out." The poet must find kernels of moral truth out of his difficult experiences. That's what Oppen tried to do in his poetry.
With the increasing Depression, Oppen returned to the U.S., joined the Communist Party, started organizing the unemployed, and quit writing poetry for over two decades. He also volunteered for service in the U.S. army, fought more than any other American poet in difficult battles, and was in a group of U.S. soldiers than liberated a concentration camp. When he returned to the United States after the war, the FBI investigated him repeatedly, so he and his wife went into exile to Mexico. He returned to live in San FRancisco in the late 1950s, returned to writing.
When he returned to poetry he criticized his mentor Pound who had become a fascist and who had made broadcasts for Mussolini during World War II. Oppen's of the late 1950s and 1960s is committed to creativing a democratic culture, and Oppen was now calling himself a "populist." His book The Materials ends with the poem "Leviathan" that 'truth also is the pursuit of it,' that 'we must talk now." Oppen's work is often difficult to understand but I think the struggle is worth it. In his poems he struggled to make imagism deal with moral truth. Obviously Pound was such a failure when it comes to connecting imagism to moral ideas, often writing a dogmatic polemic, but Oppen of the 1960s was committed to connecting the poetry of modernist tradition to moral truths necessary for democratic culture. Since Pound's imagism is so influential in 20th century American poetry, I think that Oppen was strugging with central questions for modern American poetry.
In the "Bicyles and the Apex," written in the 1960s, captures the mood that all the gadgets and machines that fascinated in the 1930s, the 1940s, and the 1950s are now taken for granted. Oppen seems to be showing how we longer are in love with all the gagets and machines that we once were. He starts with saying "How we loved the/Once, these mechanisms/" but now the poet no longer loves bicycles but sees them as part of "the platitude/the gadgets" as if too many gadgets were producing "our discontent." He compares hungry Van Gogh with shoe salesmen who envy him now.
He argues that neither slums nor tract homes are "the apex/Of the culture/They are the barracks." He does see basic elements--barracks, food, garbage,. tires--as needed but still producing disconent, particular with gangs in the slums and John Birch Societies, right wing groups, in the suburbs. He returns in the last stanza to saying "But we loved them once/" adding the "once," as if to emphasize we no longer love these gadgets. The poem captures an important intellectual mood in the 1960s.
In "The Building of the Skyscraper" Oppen compares a steel worker building a skyscraper who is trained not to look down with a writer who knows not to look for certain words that are empty and meaningless. If we look at these words we like the steel worker "are on the verge/Of vertigo." He says that, although certain words "mean nothing/But there is something to mean." The poet must find that meaning, what he calls "the thing/Which is. It is the business of the poet/To suffer the things of the world/and to speak them and himself out." The poet must find kernels of moral truth out of his difficult experiences. That's what Oppen tried to do in his poetry.
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Robinson Jeffers: Poet for Now
I'm reading the current issue of the New Yorker the article "Watermark: Can Southern Louisiana be Saved" that discusses how much of Southern Louisiana is sinking into the sea--an appaling thought. At the same time I'm reading Robbinson Jeffers' nature poet, and thinking that Jeffers is the only environmentalist poet who got it right for 2006. He captures the ferocity of nature better than any other poet I know.
In poems like "November Surf" and "Hands" Jeffers speaks of how nature wipes out human habitation just like the hurricanes wiped out acres of land in Southern Louisiana. Jeffers' "November Surf" speaks of the "great waves awake ... come and cover the cliffs with a violent cleaness ...." he could be easily speaking of Hurricane Katrina but, of course, he isn't since he wrote these poems over 60 years ago. He describes all the summer trash--"orange peel, eggshells, paper, pieces of clothing"--on on these cliffs that the great waves wipes clean off, but the waves in "November Surf" do more than just clean off junk in the poem--they also wipe out cities.
After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, we respect more Jeffer's description of the waves ability to take out a city and have less pride in our ability to control the waves. Jeffers in these poems tries to teach us that humility toward nature. Also, the poet teaches us to accept what hapens when "the river mouth to source pure." He calls us "the two-footed mammal" who, after the waves cleansing of the land, have "The dignity of room, the value of rareness." He believes that less people might even have some parts of the land.
In the poem "Hands" he speaks of hands on a cave in a canyon near Tassajara. "A brown shy quiet people" made these many hands and then vanished, but the poet says the people speak through their hands, warning those who now inhabit the land: "enjoy her a season, her beauty, and come down/And be supplanted; for you are also human." Again, Jeffers tells us that we may not be able to remain on the land, to save all that we want. Years after Jeffers wrote these poems we most likely have to accept losing part of Southern Louisiana to the sea. Jeffers is asking us to accept something very difficult.
In "Rock and Hawk" Jeffers tells us to learn from these most inhuman elements--stones and predatory birds--for values to help us humans live. In the poem he rejects the cross and the hive--Christiantiy and the cities--instead giving us a "new emblem." He first looks at the rock which has withstood earthquakes and sea storms. No trees grow there but a falcon sits there. The new emblem is this falcon/stone: "Fierce consciousness joined with final/Disinterestedness."
He admires both the falcon's "realist eye" and massive "mysticism of stone." He wants us to live well but also accept death. Yes, Jeffers nature poetry has much to teach us. After decades of thinking we can dominate nature, ignoring global warming, ignoring warrnings about dangers to the Gulf Coast--rejecting Jeffers--perhaps we're now ready to listen to the Big Sur's poet's hard lessons.
In poems like "November Surf" and "Hands" Jeffers speaks of how nature wipes out human habitation just like the hurricanes wiped out acres of land in Southern Louisiana. Jeffers' "November Surf" speaks of the "great waves awake ... come and cover the cliffs with a violent cleaness ...." he could be easily speaking of Hurricane Katrina but, of course, he isn't since he wrote these poems over 60 years ago. He describes all the summer trash--"orange peel, eggshells, paper, pieces of clothing"--on on these cliffs that the great waves wipes clean off, but the waves in "November Surf" do more than just clean off junk in the poem--they also wipe out cities.
After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, we respect more Jeffer's description of the waves ability to take out a city and have less pride in our ability to control the waves. Jeffers in these poems tries to teach us that humility toward nature. Also, the poet teaches us to accept what hapens when "the river mouth to source pure." He calls us "the two-footed mammal" who, after the waves cleansing of the land, have "The dignity of room, the value of rareness." He believes that less people might even have some parts of the land.
In the poem "Hands" he speaks of hands on a cave in a canyon near Tassajara. "A brown shy quiet people" made these many hands and then vanished, but the poet says the people speak through their hands, warning those who now inhabit the land: "enjoy her a season, her beauty, and come down/And be supplanted; for you are also human." Again, Jeffers tells us that we may not be able to remain on the land, to save all that we want. Years after Jeffers wrote these poems we most likely have to accept losing part of Southern Louisiana to the sea. Jeffers is asking us to accept something very difficult.
In "Rock and Hawk" Jeffers tells us to learn from these most inhuman elements--stones and predatory birds--for values to help us humans live. In the poem he rejects the cross and the hive--Christiantiy and the cities--instead giving us a "new emblem." He first looks at the rock which has withstood earthquakes and sea storms. No trees grow there but a falcon sits there. The new emblem is this falcon/stone: "Fierce consciousness joined with final/Disinterestedness."
He admires both the falcon's "realist eye" and massive "mysticism of stone." He wants us to live well but also accept death. Yes, Jeffers nature poetry has much to teach us. After decades of thinking we can dominate nature, ignoring global warming, ignoring warrnings about dangers to the Gulf Coast--rejecting Jeffers--perhaps we're now ready to listen to the Big Sur's poet's hard lessons.
Ambrose Bierce and Edwin Markham: Two Poets
Most 19th century California poets-- Bret Harte, Joaquin Miller, Ina Coolbrith, Charles Warren Stoddard, George Sterling, and Nora May French--seem to be most influenced by early 19th century British romantic poets; they attempted to use this romantic poetics to describe the new California landscape and their own emotions. Their poems lack originality and are largely derivative romanticism though they do give much insight into the emotional lives of late 19th century Anglo Californians.
But by the end of 19th century a few California poets--Ambrose Bierce, Edwin Markham, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Yone Nogouchi--have finally broken with this derivative romanticism to sound a more modern note. Bierce, a Civil War soldier who fought in some horrendous battles such as Chickamauga and Shiloh, wrote some brilliant short stories giving a more realistic, non-romantic even grim view of war: "Chickamauga," about a boy discovering war in the midst of the horror of the battle; and "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," about the hanging of a Southern spy. He's also known for the bitter satire of his The Devil's Dictionary. At the end of his life he went to Mexico, joined Pancho Villa's army in Mexico in 1913 and then disappearing. The Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes wrote a novel about Bierce titled The Old Gringo which was made into a movie.
Instead of Romatic poet's emphasis on emtion and feeling, Bierce emphasized wit, particulary satire and parody in his many poems. His "A Rational Anthem" is a parody of that patriotic song "My county, 'tis of thee." While the original song praises the U.S. as a "sweet land of liberty" and "pilgrim's pride" in 5-line stanzas, Bierce uses the same 5-line stanzas to praise "sweet land of felony" where "my fathers fried/young witches and applied/Whips to the Quaker's hide/." He uses the same verse structure and rhymes in his parody.
When the original song celebrates the "noble free" and the rocks, hills, woods, etc., Bierce instead celebrates the country "where the thief is free" and the "thieving bills." In the third stanza while the original song extols the romantic sound of music and natural beauty, Bierce the realist instead extols government employees who rob. Bierce is writing a poetry for the corruption of the Gilded Age and the Robber Barons. He was famous for his savage satires of the Robber Baron politicans and corrupt politicians of that era.
The Southern Pacific Railroad dominated California politics throughout the 2nd half of the 19th century: its director Leland Stanford was elected governor while the railorad men routinely bribed the state legislators. Bierce wrote 4-line "Two Epigrams" about this corrupt politcs. In the 1st epigram those who elected Stanford to the Upper House of the legisalator, though " dead, they were elected to the lower." In the 2nd epigram Stanford looks down on God, expected "God to hasten to meet him."
Very different from Bierce is Edwin Markham, a late 19th century schoolteacher who believed in Christian socialism popular at the end of the century. Markham befriended naturalistic writers in San Francisco--Jack London, Amrbrose Bierce, and Frank Norris. After seeing Millet's painting "The Man with the Hoe," he wrote a poem also titled "The Man with the Hoe," which was published in 1899 in the San Francisco newspaper and reprinted 10,000 times, making Markham internationally famous. His poetry is dominated by naturalism, that late 19th century literary idea that a brutal environment determines human existence.
In Markham's "Man with the Hoe" the first stanza describes the poor farmworker crushed by "the weight of centuries" of a harsh work environment. The farmer is called "brother to the ox," and is described as "bowed" with an empty face "dead to rapture and despair" and a "brutal jaw."
The 2nd stanza refers back to the epigraph quoting Genesis how God made man in his own image and refers to God giving Man "dominion" over the whole natural universe as well as the power to have grand dreams. In both the 2nd and 3rd stanzas Markham undercuts the romantic dreams and pretensions with the reality of the farmworker's life:Obviously, the beaten down worker in stanza one is far from the grand dreamer of stanza two. In the 3rd stanza Markham develops this gulf between a man too brutalized and beaten by his life to understand Plato or meditate on the Pleiades. Markham calls this a "tragedy in that aching stoop"--the brutal enviornment has betrayed humanity itself. Markham like Bierce continually undercuts romantic dreams by comparing them to the brutal reality.
In the last two stanzas the poet addresses "masters, lords and rulers of all lands" asking again and again how they can heal this beaten down soul. If they don't, he warns in the last stanza of "whirlwinds of rebellion" as if predicting the peasant rebellions of the 20th century.
Both Bierce and Markham broke with the rosy romanticism of earlier Anglo California poets. The two late 19th centruy writers weren't interest in charming physical landscape descriptions but of the brutal political, social, and encomic landscape, and found new poetic ways to describe the material ugliness in their world. '
Both used the poem as argument, not lyric; their poetic arguments cut to the bone of important issues in the 1890s. They both wrote an intellectually musucular poetry. Modernists like Pound, Elliot or Williams focused so much on lyric, they wrote a poetry that often lacked Bierce's and Markham's tough intellectual poetics. Both late 1890s writers paved the way for 20th century writers: Bierce influenced Borges and horror writers like H.P. Lovecraft while Markham was one of many California poets and novelists who describe hardship in the fields leading to Steinbeck and Luis Valdez's Teatro Campesio (Farmworkers Theater).
But by the end of 19th century a few California poets--Ambrose Bierce, Edwin Markham, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Yone Nogouchi--have finally broken with this derivative romanticism to sound a more modern note. Bierce, a Civil War soldier who fought in some horrendous battles such as Chickamauga and Shiloh, wrote some brilliant short stories giving a more realistic, non-romantic even grim view of war: "Chickamauga," about a boy discovering war in the midst of the horror of the battle; and "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," about the hanging of a Southern spy. He's also known for the bitter satire of his The Devil's Dictionary. At the end of his life he went to Mexico, joined Pancho Villa's army in Mexico in 1913 and then disappearing. The Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes wrote a novel about Bierce titled The Old Gringo which was made into a movie.
Instead of Romatic poet's emphasis on emtion and feeling, Bierce emphasized wit, particulary satire and parody in his many poems. His "A Rational Anthem" is a parody of that patriotic song "My county, 'tis of thee." While the original song praises the U.S. as a "sweet land of liberty" and "pilgrim's pride" in 5-line stanzas, Bierce uses the same 5-line stanzas to praise "sweet land of felony" where "my fathers fried/young witches and applied/Whips to the Quaker's hide/." He uses the same verse structure and rhymes in his parody.
When the original song celebrates the "noble free" and the rocks, hills, woods, etc., Bierce instead celebrates the country "where the thief is free" and the "thieving bills." In the third stanza while the original song extols the romantic sound of music and natural beauty, Bierce the realist instead extols government employees who rob. Bierce is writing a poetry for the corruption of the Gilded Age and the Robber Barons. He was famous for his savage satires of the Robber Baron politicans and corrupt politicians of that era.
The Southern Pacific Railroad dominated California politics throughout the 2nd half of the 19th century: its director Leland Stanford was elected governor while the railorad men routinely bribed the state legislators. Bierce wrote 4-line "Two Epigrams" about this corrupt politcs. In the 1st epigram those who elected Stanford to the Upper House of the legisalator, though " dead, they were elected to the lower." In the 2nd epigram Stanford looks down on God, expected "God to hasten to meet him."
Very different from Bierce is Edwin Markham, a late 19th century schoolteacher who believed in Christian socialism popular at the end of the century. Markham befriended naturalistic writers in San Francisco--Jack London, Amrbrose Bierce, and Frank Norris. After seeing Millet's painting "The Man with the Hoe," he wrote a poem also titled "The Man with the Hoe," which was published in 1899 in the San Francisco newspaper and reprinted 10,000 times, making Markham internationally famous. His poetry is dominated by naturalism, that late 19th century literary idea that a brutal environment determines human existence.
In Markham's "Man with the Hoe" the first stanza describes the poor farmworker crushed by "the weight of centuries" of a harsh work environment. The farmer is called "brother to the ox," and is described as "bowed" with an empty face "dead to rapture and despair" and a "brutal jaw."
The 2nd stanza refers back to the epigraph quoting Genesis how God made man in his own image and refers to God giving Man "dominion" over the whole natural universe as well as the power to have grand dreams. In both the 2nd and 3rd stanzas Markham undercuts the romantic dreams and pretensions with the reality of the farmworker's life:Obviously, the beaten down worker in stanza one is far from the grand dreamer of stanza two. In the 3rd stanza Markham develops this gulf between a man too brutalized and beaten by his life to understand Plato or meditate on the Pleiades. Markham calls this a "tragedy in that aching stoop"--the brutal enviornment has betrayed humanity itself. Markham like Bierce continually undercuts romantic dreams by comparing them to the brutal reality.
In the last two stanzas the poet addresses "masters, lords and rulers of all lands" asking again and again how they can heal this beaten down soul. If they don't, he warns in the last stanza of "whirlwinds of rebellion" as if predicting the peasant rebellions of the 20th century.
Both Bierce and Markham broke with the rosy romanticism of earlier Anglo California poets. The two late 19th centruy writers weren't interest in charming physical landscape descriptions but of the brutal political, social, and encomic landscape, and found new poetic ways to describe the material ugliness in their world. '
Both used the poem as argument, not lyric; their poetic arguments cut to the bone of important issues in the 1890s. They both wrote an intellectually musucular poetry. Modernists like Pound, Elliot or Williams focused so much on lyric, they wrote a poetry that often lacked Bierce's and Markham's tough intellectual poetics. Both late 1890s writers paved the way for 20th century writers: Bierce influenced Borges and horror writers like H.P. Lovecraft while Markham was one of many California poets and novelists who describe hardship in the fields leading to Steinbeck and Luis Valdez's Teatro Campesio (Farmworkers Theater).
Monday, February 20, 2006
19th century Native California poet: John Rollin Ridge
I wish to talk about some early California poets. What can they tell us about the early years of poets in the state of California?
First, John Rollin Ridge, was part-Cherokee and member of the renowned wealthy Ridge family who argued that Cherokees assimilate into Anglo-America. Members of the Ridge family signed the New Echota Treaty of 1835 that gave Cherokee lands to the state of Georgia and accepted removal of the Cherokee from Georgia to Oklahoma. For the next 15 years the Ridges and their enemies the Ross faction fought resulting in the murders in 1839 of three Ridge family members and John Rollin Ridge killing a Ross supporter in 1849.
Thus in 1850 John Rollin Ridge left for the gold fields of California in part to avoid prosecution for the killing. After two months gold mining, Ridge left it for journalism and published in 1853 Anglo California's 1st novel Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta, about the Mexican Robin Hood outlaw killed in 1853. Many scholars such as Eric Sundquist of the Cambridge History of American Literature interpret Ridge's novella has an outcry against the oppression of Native Americans and Mexicans, but critic/USC professor John Carlos Rowe disagrees.
I wish to talk here not about Ridge's novel but about his poetry. He published a book of poetry in 1868, one of the earliest books put out in the state. His poem "California," celebrates the pioneers of 1850: "those brave men, those hardy Pioneers,/Who led the way for Science, Art and Law," braving many dangers. Ridge celebrates the hardy Pioneers' deeds: "of young empire sowed the seeds?" He surely seems to be praising the conquest of California as creation of a "young empire."
Further, Ridge in the next few lines compares the hardy Pioneers as a group to "some reverend head, majestic as a seer's" arising from the mass of people like the "snow-crowned peak" of some majestic mountain rising up above the flatland. In Ridge's "Mount Shasta," a poem imitating Shelley's "Mount Blanc," Ridge had praised Shasta as the incarnation of the eternal masculine genius. John Carlos Rowe says, "The personification of genius as a divine power, predictably masculine, is typical of romantic idealizations of human rationality as 'divine mind' and it is the utopian goal of realizing such genius that justifies Manifest Destiny .... " (Rowe 108).
In "Mt. Shasta" after praising the lofty male genius of the mountains, Ridge argues California will only survive "if, /Its own Mt. Shasta, Sovereign Law, shall lift/Itself in purer atmosphere ...." He's arguing that instead of "human passions," California should be ruled by this absolute, eternal law that treats all Men equally including those socalled "foreigners" like Joaquin Murieta that the Anglos were driving out of the gold fields. The attacks on non-Anglo miners--Chinese, Mexican, Chilean--were brutal and ugly in the 1850s.
But back in the poem "California" the Pioneers for years "did fight the wild beast back/To plant their homes ..." One wonders who Ridge means by the "wild beast"--a real beast or a metaphorical beast? He likens the Pioneers dieing to pines that brave "the howling winter strong," so surely he means they survived the harsh winters and physical hardships of making a home in Northern California. But he also gives the meaning of "wild beast" as wild, unruly humans as he describes the pioneers greatest achievement as planting "Science, Art and Law" in California--making the domestic arts bloom in the wilderness.
Ridge says a "woman's hand" will save the memories of these hardy Pioneers when the female hand transmits the names to "History's Scroll." In this gender division women pioneers don't exist but a metaphorical woman acts to preserve male greatness. Unlike Whitman or Frederick Douglas, Ridge isn't an early feminist but only concerned with male fame. One example Ridge gives is the name of "Lassen" attached to that peak in Northern California is a "fit memorial of the grandest fame;" well, the fame of the hardy male empire-building Pioneers will last after all. To be fair to Ridge, he argues against racial discrimination and for laws that treat all men fairly in California. I think that Ridge's demands in his poems for equality before the law for Men was progressive in the 1850s and 1860s.
Rowe also analyzes Ridge's novel Joaquin Murieta, the beginning of a California myth, as portraying Murieta, born in Sonora, Mexico, as a heroic romantic male individual not a Robin Hood. In Ridge's novel Anglo barbaric violence against Murieta as an indivudal force him to seek to revenge himself by leading a gang of outlaws.
Rowe mentions that Latin American writers have revised the Joaquin Murietta myth many times. For instance, Pablo Neruda wrote Fulgar y Muerta de Joaquin Murieta (Splendor and Death of Joaquin Murieta, 1967). Neruda's 5-act musical drama makes Murieta a Chilean (many Chileans came to the California Gold Fields but were driven out by the Anglos) who fights for a collective "working class against Yankee imperialism .... "
Also Chicano playwright Luis Valdez wrote in 1964 his first play The Shrunken Head of Pancho Villa," whose hero is Joaquin, a Robin Hood who steals from the rich to give to the poor; in the play Valdez holds out hope that the community will unite and take action to fight Anglo injustices against its communal self. Well, the issues that Ridge raise still reverberate in California literature.
First, John Rollin Ridge, was part-Cherokee and member of the renowned wealthy Ridge family who argued that Cherokees assimilate into Anglo-America. Members of the Ridge family signed the New Echota Treaty of 1835 that gave Cherokee lands to the state of Georgia and accepted removal of the Cherokee from Georgia to Oklahoma. For the next 15 years the Ridges and their enemies the Ross faction fought resulting in the murders in 1839 of three Ridge family members and John Rollin Ridge killing a Ross supporter in 1849.
Thus in 1850 John Rollin Ridge left for the gold fields of California in part to avoid prosecution for the killing. After two months gold mining, Ridge left it for journalism and published in 1853 Anglo California's 1st novel Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta, about the Mexican Robin Hood outlaw killed in 1853. Many scholars such as Eric Sundquist of the Cambridge History of American Literature interpret Ridge's novella has an outcry against the oppression of Native Americans and Mexicans, but critic/USC professor John Carlos Rowe disagrees.
I wish to talk here not about Ridge's novel but about his poetry. He published a book of poetry in 1868, one of the earliest books put out in the state. His poem "California," celebrates the pioneers of 1850: "those brave men, those hardy Pioneers,/Who led the way for Science, Art and Law," braving many dangers. Ridge celebrates the hardy Pioneers' deeds: "of young empire sowed the seeds?" He surely seems to be praising the conquest of California as creation of a "young empire."
Further, Ridge in the next few lines compares the hardy Pioneers as a group to "some reverend head, majestic as a seer's" arising from the mass of people like the "snow-crowned peak" of some majestic mountain rising up above the flatland. In Ridge's "Mount Shasta," a poem imitating Shelley's "Mount Blanc," Ridge had praised Shasta as the incarnation of the eternal masculine genius. John Carlos Rowe says, "The personification of genius as a divine power, predictably masculine, is typical of romantic idealizations of human rationality as 'divine mind' and it is the utopian goal of realizing such genius that justifies Manifest Destiny .... " (Rowe 108).
In "Mt. Shasta" after praising the lofty male genius of the mountains, Ridge argues California will only survive "if, /Its own Mt. Shasta, Sovereign Law, shall lift/Itself in purer atmosphere ...." He's arguing that instead of "human passions," California should be ruled by this absolute, eternal law that treats all Men equally including those socalled "foreigners" like Joaquin Murieta that the Anglos were driving out of the gold fields. The attacks on non-Anglo miners--Chinese, Mexican, Chilean--were brutal and ugly in the 1850s.
But back in the poem "California" the Pioneers for years "did fight the wild beast back/To plant their homes ..." One wonders who Ridge means by the "wild beast"--a real beast or a metaphorical beast? He likens the Pioneers dieing to pines that brave "the howling winter strong," so surely he means they survived the harsh winters and physical hardships of making a home in Northern California. But he also gives the meaning of "wild beast" as wild, unruly humans as he describes the pioneers greatest achievement as planting "Science, Art and Law" in California--making the domestic arts bloom in the wilderness.
Ridge says a "woman's hand" will save the memories of these hardy Pioneers when the female hand transmits the names to "History's Scroll." In this gender division women pioneers don't exist but a metaphorical woman acts to preserve male greatness. Unlike Whitman or Frederick Douglas, Ridge isn't an early feminist but only concerned with male fame. One example Ridge gives is the name of "Lassen" attached to that peak in Northern California is a "fit memorial of the grandest fame;" well, the fame of the hardy male empire-building Pioneers will last after all. To be fair to Ridge, he argues against racial discrimination and for laws that treat all men fairly in California. I think that Ridge's demands in his poems for equality before the law for Men was progressive in the 1850s and 1860s.
Rowe also analyzes Ridge's novel Joaquin Murieta, the beginning of a California myth, as portraying Murieta, born in Sonora, Mexico, as a heroic romantic male individual not a Robin Hood. In Ridge's novel Anglo barbaric violence against Murieta as an indivudal force him to seek to revenge himself by leading a gang of outlaws.
Rowe mentions that Latin American writers have revised the Joaquin Murietta myth many times. For instance, Pablo Neruda wrote Fulgar y Muerta de Joaquin Murieta (Splendor and Death of Joaquin Murieta, 1967). Neruda's 5-act musical drama makes Murieta a Chilean (many Chileans came to the California Gold Fields but were driven out by the Anglos) who fights for a collective "working class against Yankee imperialism .... "
Also Chicano playwright Luis Valdez wrote in 1964 his first play The Shrunken Head of Pancho Villa," whose hero is Joaquin, a Robin Hood who steals from the rich to give to the poor; in the play Valdez holds out hope that the community will unite and take action to fight Anglo injustices against its communal self. Well, the issues that Ridge raise still reverberate in California literature.
Update on NYU graduate students' strike
Update on NYU graduate students strike:
A month ago Rosemary Feal, Executive Director of the MLA, announced that the Executive Council
of the MLA had sent a letter to NYU president John Sexton reaffirm the resolution of the MLA Delegates
Assembly in 2000 that "endorses the right of all academic employees—'full- and part-time faculty members, graduate employees, and support staff'—to engage in collective bargaining if they choose to do so." The letter also says the NYU has an obligation to reocognize the graduate students' union and encourages "encourages all parties to proceed in good faith, to negotiate a mutually acceptable contract, and it asks that the NYU administration not rescind stipends, withdraw teaching eligibility, or take any other action to discourage graduate employees from engaging in union activity."
Meanwhile NYU adminstration has ignored the resolutions of MLA, AAUP, and many letters it has received, and has started retaliatory action against graduate student strikers--taking away a semester or two semesters' work.
A month ago Rosemary Feal, Executive Director of the MLA, announced that the Executive Council
of the MLA had sent a letter to NYU president John Sexton reaffirm the resolution of the MLA Delegates
Assembly in 2000 that "endorses the right of all academic employees—'full- and part-time faculty members, graduate employees, and support staff'—to engage in collective bargaining if they choose to do so." The letter also says the NYU has an obligation to reocognize the graduate students' union and encourages "encourages all parties to proceed in good faith, to negotiate a mutually acceptable contract, and it asks that the NYU administration not rescind stipends, withdraw teaching eligibility, or take any other action to discourage graduate employees from engaging in union activity."
Meanwhile NYU adminstration has ignored the resolutions of MLA, AAUP, and many letters it has received, and has started retaliatory action against graduate student strikers--taking away a semester or two semesters' work.
Saturday, February 11, 2006
Dealing with TV
My friend asked me if I wanted her TV/DVD player which she was giving away. Since I had a 18 year old TV (no DVD player), I said, "Yes." That meant giving away my old TV which was given to me by a friend Thersia, who tragically died not long after she gave me her TV. I was very attached to my old very old TV, but someone once said I shouldn't get sentimental about a set. Finally, I was ready to let go of my old set. A few months ago I'd walked into my local video store, but they didn't have videos--only DVDs. So I thought maybe I should get a new TV?
I've never bought a TV in my life. Actually, when I was 12, my dad threw out our family TV, telling me to study, so throughout my teens and and most of my twenties I didn't have television in my house. I read a lot, started a record collection, saw great films, and made videos--wrote, directed, and produced feminist news which was broadcast. Since I was making TV, I was given my grandmother's old set. I was of the generation which fell in love with movies as ART and wanted to be video freaks, making our own video.
Makng one's own short newsbroadcast and then showing it on the air was such a rush--incredibly exciting. I even helped a colleague write a grant for a people's video editing studio. In comparison to making one's own television in the 1970s and 1980s, broadcast TV was ridiculous, a stereotypic waste of time. As TVs in the last few years grew larger & larger I thought it quite bizarre. Why on earth anyone would want such a big piece of dud in their living room?
Once the new TV was in my apartment (the same size as the old TV or about 24" wide), I looked at the manual and the remote control, and then I went to Radio Shack to get a rabbit ear antennae and some cables to hook it up. Back in the apartment, I followed the manual in hooking up my VCR to the new TV as well as the stereo receiver to the TV and also hooked on the new antennae as well as plugged it in. I turned on the TV but all it said was "no usable signal" and the remote control didn't work. After replugging and plugging the TV on , I got the DVD player to work but still no broadcast TV.
Next day I called my local TV shop in West Hollywood and asked them to make a house call to set up my TV. Well, the technician came. He immediately got the on-screen menu to work (I had been warned that the menu was very difficult to operate), and by god he got a TV signal. The picture was fuzzy but it was a real signal! Also, after he put a tape in the VCR he got the video to play. He also put one of my jazz CDs in the DVD and it played out of my two stereo speakers! He turned by rabbit ear antennae this way and that--each way some TV stations would come in but others wouldn't. He said that now TVs cost less to build than they used to but are sold for much more money. Also, he said I should get cable TV because the broadcast signals are lousy where I live.
I had cable TV once in my life but hated it. I've seen a lot of great movies in theaters, but there were few good movies on the cable movie channels--a major disappointment. No Fellini No Bergman. No Kurosawa. No Ray. No Eisenstein. What a drag this cable TV was. The biographies were 2nd rate. The documentaries weren't that good. I've seen some great documentaries from Nanook of the North to Ken Burns The Civil Wars and Jazz, but on cable they weren't showing top documentaries the 6 months I had it in the mid-1990s. For 2nd rate programming I paid $24/month plus had to watch insipid ads.
I did start watching Law & Order, the cop/attorney show on cable NBC, but it was also on the regular channel of NBC, so I stopped the cable. For years I've had this guilty pleasure of watching Law & Order on NBS. Even Noam Chomsky watches Law & Order. When I heard that, I felt pleased with my attachment to this show. On Law & Order pop culture theorizes about latest current eventssuch as gun control, radio talk show hosts, undocumented immigrants, ect.
The technician said I could get analog cable which was cheaper than the digital from my local cable company who doesn't even advertise they still have analog since they make so much more money from digital. After he left I could get the PBS station which I watch a lot; CBS which I also watch a bit; and the Warner Brothers station which I never watch. But I couldn't get or NBC or the local station KCAL in Los Angeles. So I thought, do I want just to watch CBS and PBS and forget about NBC? Can I live without NBC?
If I don't get NBC I'll never get to see Law & Order, but after years of watching Law & Order, it isn't that original but repetitive and a bit of a bore. Last year I read my way through 50 novels about Los Angeles to make up a list of the top 40 novels of L.A--the novels were incredibly exciting; in contrast, TV seemed even more stereotypic and dull. I think it a shame that after more than 60 years of television in this country it still stinks to the extent it does. I'm still my father's daughter, thinking that books, music, good movies, making ones own video are much more exciting and entertaining than canned commercial TV.
Right now I'll stick with CBS and PBS, forget about cable, save the money, and skip Law & Order. Oh, I did rent my first DVD--rapidly entering the modern era. I saw Delores Claiborne starring Kathy Bates who was excellent in this adaption of a Stephen King book. The new technology is great--yes, DVD's are an improvement over videotape; yes, it's good to hear TV concerts over stereo speakers (the rare time there's a good concert on broadcast TV). So it was worthwhile to get the new set after all in order to play DVDs.
I've never bought a TV in my life. Actually, when I was 12, my dad threw out our family TV, telling me to study, so throughout my teens and and most of my twenties I didn't have television in my house. I read a lot, started a record collection, saw great films, and made videos--wrote, directed, and produced feminist news which was broadcast. Since I was making TV, I was given my grandmother's old set. I was of the generation which fell in love with movies as ART and wanted to be video freaks, making our own video.
Makng one's own short newsbroadcast and then showing it on the air was such a rush--incredibly exciting. I even helped a colleague write a grant for a people's video editing studio. In comparison to making one's own television in the 1970s and 1980s, broadcast TV was ridiculous, a stereotypic waste of time. As TVs in the last few years grew larger & larger I thought it quite bizarre. Why on earth anyone would want such a big piece of dud in their living room?
Once the new TV was in my apartment (the same size as the old TV or about 24" wide), I looked at the manual and the remote control, and then I went to Radio Shack to get a rabbit ear antennae and some cables to hook it up. Back in the apartment, I followed the manual in hooking up my VCR to the new TV as well as the stereo receiver to the TV and also hooked on the new antennae as well as plugged it in. I turned on the TV but all it said was "no usable signal" and the remote control didn't work. After replugging and plugging the TV on , I got the DVD player to work but still no broadcast TV.
Next day I called my local TV shop in West Hollywood and asked them to make a house call to set up my TV. Well, the technician came. He immediately got the on-screen menu to work (I had been warned that the menu was very difficult to operate), and by god he got a TV signal. The picture was fuzzy but it was a real signal! Also, after he put a tape in the VCR he got the video to play. He also put one of my jazz CDs in the DVD and it played out of my two stereo speakers! He turned by rabbit ear antennae this way and that--each way some TV stations would come in but others wouldn't. He said that now TVs cost less to build than they used to but are sold for much more money. Also, he said I should get cable TV because the broadcast signals are lousy where I live.
I had cable TV once in my life but hated it. I've seen a lot of great movies in theaters, but there were few good movies on the cable movie channels--a major disappointment. No Fellini No Bergman. No Kurosawa. No Ray. No Eisenstein. What a drag this cable TV was. The biographies were 2nd rate. The documentaries weren't that good. I've seen some great documentaries from Nanook of the North to Ken Burns The Civil Wars and Jazz, but on cable they weren't showing top documentaries the 6 months I had it in the mid-1990s. For 2nd rate programming I paid $24/month plus had to watch insipid ads.
I did start watching Law & Order, the cop/attorney show on cable NBC, but it was also on the regular channel of NBC, so I stopped the cable. For years I've had this guilty pleasure of watching Law & Order on NBS. Even Noam Chomsky watches Law & Order. When I heard that, I felt pleased with my attachment to this show. On Law & Order pop culture theorizes about latest current eventssuch as gun control, radio talk show hosts, undocumented immigrants, ect.
The technician said I could get analog cable which was cheaper than the digital from my local cable company who doesn't even advertise they still have analog since they make so much more money from digital. After he left I could get the PBS station which I watch a lot; CBS which I also watch a bit; and the Warner Brothers station which I never watch. But I couldn't get or NBC or the local station KCAL in Los Angeles. So I thought, do I want just to watch CBS and PBS and forget about NBC? Can I live without NBC?
If I don't get NBC I'll never get to see Law & Order, but after years of watching Law & Order, it isn't that original but repetitive and a bit of a bore. Last year I read my way through 50 novels about Los Angeles to make up a list of the top 40 novels of L.A--the novels were incredibly exciting; in contrast, TV seemed even more stereotypic and dull. I think it a shame that after more than 60 years of television in this country it still stinks to the extent it does. I'm still my father's daughter, thinking that books, music, good movies, making ones own video are much more exciting and entertaining than canned commercial TV.
Right now I'll stick with CBS and PBS, forget about cable, save the money, and skip Law & Order. Oh, I did rent my first DVD--rapidly entering the modern era. I saw Delores Claiborne starring Kathy Bates who was excellent in this adaption of a Stephen King book. The new technology is great--yes, DVD's are an improvement over videotape; yes, it's good to hear TV concerts over stereo speakers (the rare time there's a good concert on broadcast TV). So it was worthwhile to get the new set after all in order to play DVDs.
Monday, January 16, 2006
Women of the Beat Generation
I've just finished reading Brenda Knight's Women of the Beat Generation (1996), an excellent book on women writers, muses, wives, and artists of the Beat Era. Knight's book along with an associated" Women of the Beat Generation Panel" at the San Francisco Book Festival on November 2, 1996, for the first time focused on these long neglected women.
Before reading this book I had already read three important memoirs by Beat generation women: Joyce Johnson's Minor Characters, about her years from 21 to 23 when she was writing her first novel and had a romance with Jack Kerouac; Hettie Jones's How I Became Hettie Jones largely about her romance and marriage with LeRoi Jones; and Diana di Prima's Recollections of My Life as a Woman, about her life as young poet, mother, and lover in the 1950s and 1960s. All three memoirs are superb works telling what it was like for young American woman coming of age in New York bohemia in the 1950s and 1960s. Di Prima's is really spectacular: I'd rank Di Prima's memoir along with Mother Jones's and Emma Goldman's autobiographies as the three classic tales about woman rebels in American literature.
Reading a few memoirs highlights three women's lives but not a generation.What Brenda Knight did wonderfully in her anthology was give a short biography of 27 women along with samples, for most of them, of their writing: Knight truly has produced a portrait of a whole generation.
She starts with a section titled "The Precusors" including poets Helen Adams, Josephine Miles, and Madeline Gleason, and fiction writer Jane Bowles. Poet Josephine Miles, the first female tenured English professor at UC Berkeley, is well-known as is Jane Bowles; the latter was the inspiration of her husband Paul Bowles' heroine in his novel The Sheltering Sky which was made into a few years ago into film, but the other two poets are not known at all. Adams, a Scottish immigrant, chanted her wonderful ballads that updated the traditional Scottish ballad to mid-20th century America, while Gleason organized in 1947 the San Francisco Festival of Poetry, the first such festival in the country, and wrote a musical verse exploring the realm between the divine and the commonplace. Both Adams and Gleason are fine poets deserving to be better known.
Knight's second section "The Muses" is largely about the wives of Beat generation men. Of the wives, four have written memoirs: Carolyn Cassady, Neil Cassady's wife; Edie Parker Kerouac, Kerouac's first wife; Joan Harvey Kerouac, his second wife; and Eileen Kaufman, Bob Kaufman's wife. Though all the memoirs give insight into these women's lives and their marriages, Carolyn Cassady's Off the Road is by far the finest written tale. After reading two excerpts from Cassady's work, I think Carolyn was the writer in the marriage, not Neil. Carolyn tells a tale of a heroic bohemian mother: she held the marriage together despite all Neil's abandonments, raised her three children, and worked full-time. Cassady's strength as well as her fine story telling ability shine through the excerpt of her work.
The third section "The Writers" has 15 women and their writing including, of course, excerpts from Joyce Johnson's and Hettie Jone's memoirs I had already discussed. As for the other prose writings, Bonnie Frazer (aka Bremser, poet Ray Bremser's ex-wife) had an excerpt from her harrowing memoir Troia: Mexican Memoirs about traveling peniless through Mexico with her husband and baby. Also, there is a sad but moving excerpt from the novel Trainsong by Jan Kerouac, Jack Kerouac's daughter. Jan Kerouac, who only published two novels before her tragic early death, seemed to be quite a good a writer as her father.
Of the poets, Knight has few of Diana di Prima's poems. Di Prima from adolescence on was fiercely dedicated to her writing and published her own work as well as other writers in the magazine she put out with LeRoi Jones in the 1950s. She lived a much more radical--both bohemain and political--life than her more conventional contempories Rich, Plath, and Sexton. Knight has included one of di Prima's Loba poems where she explores female Goddess energy in that epic book-long poem; critics should look again at Di Prima as I think she is a major mid-20th century feminist poet.
Knight includes six obscure women poets who deserve recognition. Elise Cowan, who was for a short time Alan Ginsberg's girlfriend, wrote a haunted poetry before her tragic suicide a 29. She like Di Prima in the 1950s lived on the edge in New York bohemia, but while diPrima was a tough survivor, Cowan's dark tormented visions echo through her amazing lyric poetry. While Cowan in her work did a dance with death, Joanna Kyger, who for a short time was married to Gary Snyder, was in her poetry fiercely dedicated to exploring spirituality, particulary Buddhism, as her ex-husband was. Joanna McClure was also married to a Beat poet: for many years she was wed to Michael McClure. McClure writes a short, lean lyric that can praise Sappho or wonder "How life can be so full at 52."
The next four poets weren't romantically linked to any Beat male. Instead Janine Pommy Vega has lived with as much risk and abandon as any male: her wild bohemian spirit pulsates through her long-lined poems. Holocaust survivor Ruth Weiss captures in her poetry the amazing tale of her escaping the Nazis; she writes poems to her women friends as well as was a pioneering jazz poet.
Mary Norbert Korte captures the moment she left the nunnery in her poem "Eddie May the cook Dreamed Sister Mary Ran Off with Alan Ginsberg" and later became a redwoods activist in Northern California recording her love of that land in amazing nature poems. Lenore Kandal's book of erotic poetry, The Love Book, provoked a raid by the police who declared it obscene. In the trial Kandel said wants to "express her beliefs that sexual acts between living persons are religious acts." Kandal's work did give women poets in the 1960s more freedom to explore the erotic.
Knight includes Anne Waldman, the only woman associated with the beats who has had a thriving national poetry career. When Lawrence Ferlinghetti published in the 1970s Waldman's book Fast Talking Woman he for the first time recognized a beat women poet writing strong feminist work. The value of Knight's work is she shows that Waldman wasn't alone: most of the other poets also explored female imagery in their work. Though the beat women were often seen as victims, Knight's anthology should correct that false impression. They were instead strong women, and many were strong writers.
Also, some critics have said that women of the beat generation did their strongest work in memoir, but memoirs, being more financially successful, were published first and received much larger audiences. If critics would look at the work of the poets as well as the memoir writers, they might find beat women produced an important body of poetry.
Knight includes also a short section on two women painters, Jay DeFeo and Joan Brown, who were associated with the beat generation in San Francisco both in their lives and their work. Both women were important painters and helped put the Bay Area in the map as a center of the visual artists. Though the anothology includes one illustration of DeFeo's massive painting "The Rose," I would have liked many more illustrations of the work by these two fascinating women.
All in all Women of the Beat Generation is a must read for anyone interested in women's writing, the beat generation, or 20th century American literature.
Before reading this book I had already read three important memoirs by Beat generation women: Joyce Johnson's Minor Characters, about her years from 21 to 23 when she was writing her first novel and had a romance with Jack Kerouac; Hettie Jones's How I Became Hettie Jones largely about her romance and marriage with LeRoi Jones; and Diana di Prima's Recollections of My Life as a Woman, about her life as young poet, mother, and lover in the 1950s and 1960s. All three memoirs are superb works telling what it was like for young American woman coming of age in New York bohemia in the 1950s and 1960s. Di Prima's is really spectacular: I'd rank Di Prima's memoir along with Mother Jones's and Emma Goldman's autobiographies as the three classic tales about woman rebels in American literature.
Reading a few memoirs highlights three women's lives but not a generation.What Brenda Knight did wonderfully in her anthology was give a short biography of 27 women along with samples, for most of them, of their writing: Knight truly has produced a portrait of a whole generation.
She starts with a section titled "The Precusors" including poets Helen Adams, Josephine Miles, and Madeline Gleason, and fiction writer Jane Bowles. Poet Josephine Miles, the first female tenured English professor at UC Berkeley, is well-known as is Jane Bowles; the latter was the inspiration of her husband Paul Bowles' heroine in his novel The Sheltering Sky which was made into a few years ago into film, but the other two poets are not known at all. Adams, a Scottish immigrant, chanted her wonderful ballads that updated the traditional Scottish ballad to mid-20th century America, while Gleason organized in 1947 the San Francisco Festival of Poetry, the first such festival in the country, and wrote a musical verse exploring the realm between the divine and the commonplace. Both Adams and Gleason are fine poets deserving to be better known.
Knight's second section "The Muses" is largely about the wives of Beat generation men. Of the wives, four have written memoirs: Carolyn Cassady, Neil Cassady's wife; Edie Parker Kerouac, Kerouac's first wife; Joan Harvey Kerouac, his second wife; and Eileen Kaufman, Bob Kaufman's wife. Though all the memoirs give insight into these women's lives and their marriages, Carolyn Cassady's Off the Road is by far the finest written tale. After reading two excerpts from Cassady's work, I think Carolyn was the writer in the marriage, not Neil. Carolyn tells a tale of a heroic bohemian mother: she held the marriage together despite all Neil's abandonments, raised her three children, and worked full-time. Cassady's strength as well as her fine story telling ability shine through the excerpt of her work.
The third section "The Writers" has 15 women and their writing including, of course, excerpts from Joyce Johnson's and Hettie Jone's memoirs I had already discussed. As for the other prose writings, Bonnie Frazer (aka Bremser, poet Ray Bremser's ex-wife) had an excerpt from her harrowing memoir Troia: Mexican Memoirs about traveling peniless through Mexico with her husband and baby. Also, there is a sad but moving excerpt from the novel Trainsong by Jan Kerouac, Jack Kerouac's daughter. Jan Kerouac, who only published two novels before her tragic early death, seemed to be quite a good a writer as her father.
Of the poets, Knight has few of Diana di Prima's poems. Di Prima from adolescence on was fiercely dedicated to her writing and published her own work as well as other writers in the magazine she put out with LeRoi Jones in the 1950s. She lived a much more radical--both bohemain and political--life than her more conventional contempories Rich, Plath, and Sexton. Knight has included one of di Prima's Loba poems where she explores female Goddess energy in that epic book-long poem; critics should look again at Di Prima as I think she is a major mid-20th century feminist poet.
Knight includes six obscure women poets who deserve recognition. Elise Cowan, who was for a short time Alan Ginsberg's girlfriend, wrote a haunted poetry before her tragic suicide a 29. She like Di Prima in the 1950s lived on the edge in New York bohemia, but while diPrima was a tough survivor, Cowan's dark tormented visions echo through her amazing lyric poetry. While Cowan in her work did a dance with death, Joanna Kyger, who for a short time was married to Gary Snyder, was in her poetry fiercely dedicated to exploring spirituality, particulary Buddhism, as her ex-husband was. Joanna McClure was also married to a Beat poet: for many years she was wed to Michael McClure. McClure writes a short, lean lyric that can praise Sappho or wonder "How life can be so full at 52."
The next four poets weren't romantically linked to any Beat male. Instead Janine Pommy Vega has lived with as much risk and abandon as any male: her wild bohemian spirit pulsates through her long-lined poems. Holocaust survivor Ruth Weiss captures in her poetry the amazing tale of her escaping the Nazis; she writes poems to her women friends as well as was a pioneering jazz poet.
Mary Norbert Korte captures the moment she left the nunnery in her poem "Eddie May the cook Dreamed Sister Mary Ran Off with Alan Ginsberg" and later became a redwoods activist in Northern California recording her love of that land in amazing nature poems. Lenore Kandal's book of erotic poetry, The Love Book, provoked a raid by the police who declared it obscene. In the trial Kandel said wants to "express her beliefs that sexual acts between living persons are religious acts." Kandal's work did give women poets in the 1960s more freedom to explore the erotic.
Knight includes Anne Waldman, the only woman associated with the beats who has had a thriving national poetry career. When Lawrence Ferlinghetti published in the 1970s Waldman's book Fast Talking Woman he for the first time recognized a beat women poet writing strong feminist work. The value of Knight's work is she shows that Waldman wasn't alone: most of the other poets also explored female imagery in their work. Though the beat women were often seen as victims, Knight's anthology should correct that false impression. They were instead strong women, and many were strong writers.
Also, some critics have said that women of the beat generation did their strongest work in memoir, but memoirs, being more financially successful, were published first and received much larger audiences. If critics would look at the work of the poets as well as the memoir writers, they might find beat women produced an important body of poetry.
Knight includes also a short section on two women painters, Jay DeFeo and Joan Brown, who were associated with the beat generation in San Francisco both in their lives and their work. Both women were important painters and helped put the Bay Area in the map as a center of the visual artists. Though the anothology includes one illustration of DeFeo's massive painting "The Rose," I would have liked many more illustrations of the work by these two fascinating women.
All in all Women of the Beat Generation is a must read for anyone interested in women's writing, the beat generation, or 20th century American literature.
Sunday, January 08, 2006
Pride and Prejudice
I went to see the movie Pride and Prejudice last night, which I found utterly delightful. Jane Austen's novel, which I read in junior high school, has always been one of my all-time favorites.
The film wonderfully connects with the comedy of Austen's romantic comedy about the romances of the five Bennett sisters around 1800 in rural England. Elizabeth, the second daughter and the heroine; her elder sister Jane, the family beauty, and Lydia, a fifteen-year old flirt and fool, all have romances, but are the men suitable marriage partners?
Austen portrays her heroine Elizabeth as quickly prejudiced against a possible suitor because of a small slight or rumors. Mr. Darcy, the rich young man who falls in love with her, is so full of pride that during his courtship he continually hurts her feelings. The eldest sister Jane is too restricted by convention to show Mr. Bingley, the young man that she loves, her true feelings, while Mr. Bingley lets himself be manipulated by his sister and Mr. Darcy to cut off a promising romance. So each sex has blinders on, unable to see the other's true worth. Austen portrays these romances with her wonderful comedy showing how foolish her characters are, but she allows her characters--particularly Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy who loves her--to see their errors and grow.
In graduate school my roommate Cynthia Evans wrote her paper defending Mrs. Bennett, the mother who is usually seen as a nervous idiot whose main focus in life is marrying off her five daughters. The intellectual father Mr. Bennet who has buried himself in his library reading is usually praised. My roommate Cynthia defended Mrs. Bennett and so in the film Brenda Belthyn gives us a fine Mrs. Bennett as nervous and flighty, but also very concerned for her daughters .
In both the novel and the film the Bennet family estate can only be inherited by a male heir, so the five Bennett sisters have no inheritance. They also have no education or jobs, so they must marry or be impoverished. Cynthia Evans argued that Mrs. Bennett is the wise one, trying her best to take care of her daughters, while Mr. Bennet is a narcisstic intellectual reading his beloved books and largely ignoring the girls except for his favorite Elizabeth. As Mrs. Bennet says in the film to Elizabeth, it's no easy task to marry off five daughters in 1800. Well, it isn't.
Keira Knightley, who played Elizabeth, is beautiful, lively, playful, and charming--one could quickly see why a young man would fall in love with her. In the first shot the camera follows Elizabeth rambling alone on the family farm, not the usual shot of her and the other girls cooped up in the family drawing room. Indeed Joe Wight, the director, often has shots of Elizabeth out in the open fields as if she has the freedom to roam around of 1950s romantic heroine rather than live the constricted life of a 1800 girl. What I find wonderful about Austen's novel and this film is the conflict between Elizabeth and her sisters' attempts to be emotionally freer versus the strict rules they were supposed to follow in society. Wight is giving us a new reinterpretation of the novel which focuses on this conflict between convention and freedom.
As a teenager I loved the romance of Pride and Prejudice but watching the movie I also loved the comedy. Tom Hollander did a wonderful job portraying Mr. Collins, the clergymen cousin of the Bennet's who will inherit the Benett estate. He calls calling, looking for wife, and first settles on Jane, but after Mrs. Benett tells him that Jane is half-engaged, decided after one minute reconsideration to propose to Elizabeth. Mr. Collins' proposal is funny and touching: he's such an awful suitor but he has his dignity at the same time. As he says, he is trying to do the right thing by proposing to one of the sisters whom he will disinherit. One feels for him at the same time as one laughs at his pretensions of a proposal to a young woman who clearly has no interest in him.
So go see this wonderful romantic comedy. Wonderful author Jane Austen. Wonderful novel. Wonderful film.
The film wonderfully connects with the comedy of Austen's romantic comedy about the romances of the five Bennett sisters around 1800 in rural England. Elizabeth, the second daughter and the heroine; her elder sister Jane, the family beauty, and Lydia, a fifteen-year old flirt and fool, all have romances, but are the men suitable marriage partners?
Austen portrays her heroine Elizabeth as quickly prejudiced against a possible suitor because of a small slight or rumors. Mr. Darcy, the rich young man who falls in love with her, is so full of pride that during his courtship he continually hurts her feelings. The eldest sister Jane is too restricted by convention to show Mr. Bingley, the young man that she loves, her true feelings, while Mr. Bingley lets himself be manipulated by his sister and Mr. Darcy to cut off a promising romance. So each sex has blinders on, unable to see the other's true worth. Austen portrays these romances with her wonderful comedy showing how foolish her characters are, but she allows her characters--particularly Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy who loves her--to see their errors and grow.
In graduate school my roommate Cynthia Evans wrote her paper defending Mrs. Bennett, the mother who is usually seen as a nervous idiot whose main focus in life is marrying off her five daughters. The intellectual father Mr. Bennet who has buried himself in his library reading is usually praised. My roommate Cynthia defended Mrs. Bennett and so in the film Brenda Belthyn gives us a fine Mrs. Bennett as nervous and flighty, but also very concerned for her daughters .
In both the novel and the film the Bennet family estate can only be inherited by a male heir, so the five Bennett sisters have no inheritance. They also have no education or jobs, so they must marry or be impoverished. Cynthia Evans argued that Mrs. Bennett is the wise one, trying her best to take care of her daughters, while Mr. Bennet is a narcisstic intellectual reading his beloved books and largely ignoring the girls except for his favorite Elizabeth. As Mrs. Bennet says in the film to Elizabeth, it's no easy task to marry off five daughters in 1800. Well, it isn't.
Keira Knightley, who played Elizabeth, is beautiful, lively, playful, and charming--one could quickly see why a young man would fall in love with her. In the first shot the camera follows Elizabeth rambling alone on the family farm, not the usual shot of her and the other girls cooped up in the family drawing room. Indeed Joe Wight, the director, often has shots of Elizabeth out in the open fields as if she has the freedom to roam around of 1950s romantic heroine rather than live the constricted life of a 1800 girl. What I find wonderful about Austen's novel and this film is the conflict between Elizabeth and her sisters' attempts to be emotionally freer versus the strict rules they were supposed to follow in society. Wight is giving us a new reinterpretation of the novel which focuses on this conflict between convention and freedom.
As a teenager I loved the romance of Pride and Prejudice but watching the movie I also loved the comedy. Tom Hollander did a wonderful job portraying Mr. Collins, the clergymen cousin of the Bennet's who will inherit the Benett estate. He calls calling, looking for wife, and first settles on Jane, but after Mrs. Benett tells him that Jane is half-engaged, decided after one minute reconsideration to propose to Elizabeth. Mr. Collins' proposal is funny and touching: he's such an awful suitor but he has his dignity at the same time. As he says, he is trying to do the right thing by proposing to one of the sisters whom he will disinherit. One feels for him at the same time as one laughs at his pretensions of a proposal to a young woman who clearly has no interest in him.
So go see this wonderful romantic comedy. Wonderful author Jane Austen. Wonderful novel. Wonderful film.
Friday, January 06, 2006
MLA Conflict over NYU Strike
Last week I attended the MLA, the largrest professional organization for academics in modern languages, where the biggest conflict was over a Radical Caucus’s emergency resolution to support the graduate students’ strike at NYU led by Graduate Students Organizing Committee/Local 2110 UAW (GSOC).
Next the parliamentarian ruled the NYU emergency resolution was out of order for a second reason: Robert’s Rules of Order forbid organizations from voting to reaffirm previous actions. Since the Emergency Resolution asks the MLA delegates to reaffirm its two previous pro-union motions, it is 100% out of order. It would be too confusing for a organization to get a chance to not affirm its previous resolutions, so any resolution asking them for such a vote is void.
MLA is basically an organization devoted to scholarship and scholarly publishing which is figuring if it wants to do advocacy on and what kind of advocacy. Some members want advocacy while others do not want it do advocacy at all but concentrate on scholarship, remaining apolitical. Now the MLA is having that debate and will, indeed, debate the topic of MLA and activism at the 2006 DA. I hope that will be a productive discussion.
As for NYU, the right to organize a labor union is a basic human right—and certainly any person should have the right to unionize without fear of losing one’s job or blacklists. All the trade union bloc wanted was for the MLA to reaffirm NYU graduate students' basic human rights to have a union. We tried our best but we failed. I do hope, speaking as an individual, that the Executive Council will soon vote a strong resolution supporting NYU strikers. I also hope that the NYU strikers do not lose their jobs this spring and next year.
Sunday, January 01, 2006
California Writer Goes to Washington D.C.
I just returned from a one-week trip to Washington D.C. where I did some sightseeing and went to the Modern Language Association Convention, the largest convention of higher education teachers in language. During Christmas dinner at my friend's mother's home I met an engineer and an architect: the engineer had helped create the Washingotn D.C. subway in the 1970s and 1980s while the architect had worked for years on historic preservation of older buildings in the city. The engineer said that visionaries created this subway Well, the visionaries did a fine job as the subway was excellent: it was clean; full of riders of all ethnicities and classes; and moved passengers quickly around the city. I wish Los Angeles had such a good subway system: we need visionaries to enlarge LA's small subway to make it more like D.C.'s subway.
Also, the architect and his fellow historical preservationists also seemed to be doing a good job. As I walked and bused mainly along Connecticut Avenue from northwest D.C. to the National Mall, I was impressed by the main fine looking mutli-story older dark brick buildings--from two-store family homes in northwest to three to eight-story apartment buildings and hotels more toward downtown. In the Kalorama section of Dupont Circle the two-, three- and four-story brick buildings were quite beautiful in their dark muted browns, maroons, blues. From the bus I saw many restuarants of different ethnicities ranging to Cajun to Indian to sushi to French to Italien: D.C. has a lively international food culture.
On the National Mall I particulary enjoyed visiting the new National Musuem of the American Indian where in the atreium in the lobby my friend Anne and I heard a trio of Peruvian Indians play music from Peru. Then we went to the see the exhibits of Native American cosmologies on the 4th floor, learning about cosmologies of the Mapeche Indians in Chile; the Maya in Guatemala; the Huppa in Northern California; and others. We had lunch in the fine cafeteria, eating the 5-dish sampler of Native foods: Buffalo roasted meat of Plains Indians; salmon from Pacific Northwest tribes; a cooked tomato dish as tomatoes were first cultivated by Mexican Indians; wild rice and watercress salad as wild rice is a staple of Chippewa in Northern Michican; and mashed potatoes as Inca first cultivated potatoes.
The next day I visited the National Gallery of Art, stood in the wonderful room ful of Rembrandt paintings; was entralled by the Manet and Degas works; walked through room full of Audubon drawings of birds; saw a wonderful selection of paintings by United States artists from the 1790s through the mid-20th century. The National Gallery of Art has a far richer collection of painting than the Los Angeles County Musuem of Art. Of course, many other musuems lined the National Mall--but I didn't have time to go see these other musuems. Again, I thought another group of visionaries had created these terrific musuems that ringed the National Mall. One would need a week to visit the rich collections in the many wonderful musuems of Washington D.C.
Of course, the city has its problems. Recently with the rise of prices for renting apartments as well as for buying houses, the city has like so many others a lack of afforable housing. One professor who works at a D.C. college told me that D.C. public school teachers, bus drivers, or police officers no long can afford to buy a house in the city where they work. Also, the architect I met said he owns a house in the Capital Hill district right south of the Capitol but that district of modest small worker houses is being gentrified and has skyrocketing home prices for even very small homes--15' across, long, and two-story. I was told that throughout most of the city where people of color live the schools as well as the health care systems needs to be improved. So D.C.'s problems--lack of affordable housing; schools and health care need investment--are the nation's problems.
Well, the people of D.C. has had visionaries who created their wonderful subway system and the great musuems, so hopefully more visionaries will emerge to create better housing, schools, and health care.
Also, the architect and his fellow historical preservationists also seemed to be doing a good job. As I walked and bused mainly along Connecticut Avenue from northwest D.C. to the National Mall, I was impressed by the main fine looking mutli-story older dark brick buildings--from two-store family homes in northwest to three to eight-story apartment buildings and hotels more toward downtown. In the Kalorama section of Dupont Circle the two-, three- and four-story brick buildings were quite beautiful in their dark muted browns, maroons, blues. From the bus I saw many restuarants of different ethnicities ranging to Cajun to Indian to sushi to French to Italien: D.C. has a lively international food culture.
On the National Mall I particulary enjoyed visiting the new National Musuem of the American Indian where in the atreium in the lobby my friend Anne and I heard a trio of Peruvian Indians play music from Peru. Then we went to the see the exhibits of Native American cosmologies on the 4th floor, learning about cosmologies of the Mapeche Indians in Chile; the Maya in Guatemala; the Huppa in Northern California; and others. We had lunch in the fine cafeteria, eating the 5-dish sampler of Native foods: Buffalo roasted meat of Plains Indians; salmon from Pacific Northwest tribes; a cooked tomato dish as tomatoes were first cultivated by Mexican Indians; wild rice and watercress salad as wild rice is a staple of Chippewa in Northern Michican; and mashed potatoes as Inca first cultivated potatoes.
The next day I visited the National Gallery of Art, stood in the wonderful room ful of Rembrandt paintings; was entralled by the Manet and Degas works; walked through room full of Audubon drawings of birds; saw a wonderful selection of paintings by United States artists from the 1790s through the mid-20th century. The National Gallery of Art has a far richer collection of painting than the Los Angeles County Musuem of Art. Of course, many other musuems lined the National Mall--but I didn't have time to go see these other musuems. Again, I thought another group of visionaries had created these terrific musuems that ringed the National Mall. One would need a week to visit the rich collections in the many wonderful musuems of Washington D.C.
Of course, the city has its problems. Recently with the rise of prices for renting apartments as well as for buying houses, the city has like so many others a lack of afforable housing. One professor who works at a D.C. college told me that D.C. public school teachers, bus drivers, or police officers no long can afford to buy a house in the city where they work. Also, the architect I met said he owns a house in the Capital Hill district right south of the Capitol but that district of modest small worker houses is being gentrified and has skyrocketing home prices for even very small homes--15' across, long, and two-story. I was told that throughout most of the city where people of color live the schools as well as the health care systems needs to be improved. So D.C.'s problems--lack of affordable housing; schools and health care need investment--are the nation's problems.
Well, the people of D.C. has had visionaries who created their wonderful subway system and the great musuems, so hopefully more visionaries will emerge to create better housing, schools, and health care.
Monday, December 19, 2005
Yiddish Culture Made Easy
At the one-day Yiddish Experience I went to December 18 as I walked out of the classroom, I spoke with my conversation partner who asked where my people came from. I replied, "Near Minsk in White Russia in a little shtetl (little Jewish village)." She said she recently went to White Russia for a visit and suggested I go. I asked her, "What was it like?" She said, "Like 200 years ago." I said, "No cars." She said, "Right." I had visions of horse and carts like some shtetl stories I've read. When I stood in line for lunch when asked a question, I'd say "yo" or "neny" or "a denk" (yes, no or thank you).
During lunch my mom and I shared a table with one of the Yiddish teachers who looked about 40 and who spoke all through lunch in Yiddish with two of his students who were young women in their early twenties. That's the first Yiddish conversation I've heard in many decades. It was just fascinating to hear people talk and talk and talk and talk in Yiddish! On the other side of my mother was a friendly looking woman so I asked her, "Vi heyst ir?" (What's your name?) Already, a Yiddish conversation!
After lunch we went downstairs to the chapel to hear Janet Hadda, Professor Emerita of Yiddish Language and Literature at UCLA spoke about I.B. Singer and his heroes. He seemd to have a lot of heroes: his brother Israel Joshua who was a successful Yiddish writer long before I.B. Singer was; his mother Basheva; and his rabbi father. Hadda said at first many Yiddishists (lovers of Yiddish) didn't like I.B. Singer because they didn't like his openess about sexuality. Many of his male characters have multiple wives like Herman Broder in the novel Enemies, a Love Story. But the current generation of Yiddishists seems not to be put off by Singer's treatment of sexuality in his novels.
The last event of the day was a workshop by Theodore Bikel, a great singer. He was accompanied by Deborah Strauss and Jeff Warschauer as he gave a workshop about Morechai Gerbirtig, one of the greatest songwriters in Yiddish. Bikel would tell us a little about Gerbirtig's life, sing a song, and then talk a little more.
Gerbirtig was born in Kracow, Poland, in 1877 to a poor family, and became a carpenter. In his spare time he wrote wonderful poems and songs, but never recorded. Luckily, another Jew in Krawcow wrote down Gerbirtig's poems and songs in two manuscripts, and these two manuscripts miracleously survived the Holocaust: one copy wascarried to Israel while the second copy survived in YIVO, the Yiddish archive in New York. Gerbirtig himself was killed by the Nazis in 1942, but Bikel reminded us his music survived the Shoah.
Bikel sang us Gerbirtig's song "Yankele,": a mother sings to her son Yankele to go to sleep, hoping he will grow to become a great scholar but she knows it will cost her much hard work "and many tears to make a man out of you." In "Motele" there is a father-son dialogue with the father berating the son for fighting in kheder (religious school), chasing after doves, and breaking windows. The son defends himself by saying that grandfather told him that the father also liked to chase after doves and the teacher whipped the father, but dad turned out all right and so will he.
Besides these songs, Bikel also sang us two love songs: in one a non-Jewish goatherd tries a woo a Jewish girl who says that any romance in impossible because of their different religions. The final song was a spirited pro-worker march that Gerbirtig wrote. Bikel's singing was mesmerizing while the musicians who accompanied him were wonderful. I could have sat there hours more listening to Bikel who has immense knowledge of Yiddish song as well as being a captivating performer.
All in all I was inspired by my one-day Yiddish extensive to try for a whole week! Next year, a week of Yiddish language and culture.
During lunch my mom and I shared a table with one of the Yiddish teachers who looked about 40 and who spoke all through lunch in Yiddish with two of his students who were young women in their early twenties. That's the first Yiddish conversation I've heard in many decades. It was just fascinating to hear people talk and talk and talk and talk in Yiddish! On the other side of my mother was a friendly looking woman so I asked her, "Vi heyst ir?" (What's your name?) Already, a Yiddish conversation!
After lunch we went downstairs to the chapel to hear Janet Hadda, Professor Emerita of Yiddish Language and Literature at UCLA spoke about I.B. Singer and his heroes. He seemd to have a lot of heroes: his brother Israel Joshua who was a successful Yiddish writer long before I.B. Singer was; his mother Basheva; and his rabbi father. Hadda said at first many Yiddishists (lovers of Yiddish) didn't like I.B. Singer because they didn't like his openess about sexuality. Many of his male characters have multiple wives like Herman Broder in the novel Enemies, a Love Story. But the current generation of Yiddishists seems not to be put off by Singer's treatment of sexuality in his novels.
The last event of the day was a workshop by Theodore Bikel, a great singer. He was accompanied by Deborah Strauss and Jeff Warschauer as he gave a workshop about Morechai Gerbirtig, one of the greatest songwriters in Yiddish. Bikel would tell us a little about Gerbirtig's life, sing a song, and then talk a little more.
Gerbirtig was born in Kracow, Poland, in 1877 to a poor family, and became a carpenter. In his spare time he wrote wonderful poems and songs, but never recorded. Luckily, another Jew in Krawcow wrote down Gerbirtig's poems and songs in two manuscripts, and these two manuscripts miracleously survived the Holocaust: one copy wascarried to Israel while the second copy survived in YIVO, the Yiddish archive in New York. Gerbirtig himself was killed by the Nazis in 1942, but Bikel reminded us his music survived the Shoah.
Bikel sang us Gerbirtig's song "Yankele,": a mother sings to her son Yankele to go to sleep, hoping he will grow to become a great scholar but she knows it will cost her much hard work "and many tears to make a man out of you." In "Motele" there is a father-son dialogue with the father berating the son for fighting in kheder (religious school), chasing after doves, and breaking windows. The son defends himself by saying that grandfather told him that the father also liked to chase after doves and the teacher whipped the father, but dad turned out all right and so will he.
Besides these songs, Bikel also sang us two love songs: in one a non-Jewish goatherd tries a woo a Jewish girl who says that any romance in impossible because of their different religions. The final song was a spirited pro-worker march that Gerbirtig wrote. Bikel's singing was mesmerizing while the musicians who accompanied him were wonderful. I could have sat there hours more listening to Bikel who has immense knowledge of Yiddish song as well as being a captivating performer.
All in all I was inspired by my one-day Yiddish extensive to try for a whole week! Next year, a week of Yiddish language and culture.
Learning Yiddish
I've always wanted to learn Yiddish because there is great poetry, particulary by women, in that language--poetry which hasn't been translated into English. I particularly love the Yiddish poet Kadia Molodowsky who, I think, is a major poet in the 20th century but little known outside the Yiddish-speaking world. So when my mother asked me to go to the study Yiddish with her, I said yes, and we both attended the one-day intensive on Yiddish language and culture called the Sixth Annual Winter Yiddish Intensive held at the University of Judaism.
In the morning there were Yiddish conversation in four levels, but I took the Beginners which didn't require any previous knowledge. My mother joined me though I think she should have really taken Yiddish 2 for Advanced Beginners since as a child her father spoke to her in Yiddish while her mother spoke to her in English. I said that's a realy bilingual household.
When we arrived the teacher Sheindl gave us all cards which said "yo" (yes) on one said and "nenh" (no) on the other side, and when she asked us questions we had to hold up our cards. Since I didn't know how to say yes or no in Yiddish, I was already learning. From my childhood I knew how to say "hello" which is "sholem alekhhem." One says hello back by reversing it or "alekhem sholem" which means "peace be with you" forwards or backwards.
Then I learned how to ask what is your name, and answer "Ikh heys Galia," ("My name is Galia"). I chose the name "Galia" because I was named after my great-aunt Galia but in this country they Anglicicized her name to Julia. We had names like Leah, Sara, Galia except one man was named Jerry! The youngest in our class was an eight-year old girl named Leah, so the teacher renamed her Leahla--the "la" is a dimunited attached to children's names.
We learned a little conversation asking about each other's health, and learned that (zeyde) grandfather has a heachache, so one of us suggested he take two aspirin (Er mus nemen tsey aspirin tabletn." Then we learned numbers one through a million and how to say her phone numbers and address in Yiddish which wasn't that easy. After we learned our numbers, we learned how to ask how many people are in our family, and answer with their names. The teacher explained to us that Eastern European Jews were afraid of the Angel of Death taking their children, so when asked how many children they had, they said "nicht eyn, nicht tsvey, nicht dray" (not one, not two, not three).
Also, the teacher gave us a list of proverbs in Yiddish. So here are two Yiddish proverbs:
1. Az men vil nisht alt vern, zol men zikh yungerheyt oyfhengen: (If you don't want to get old, you should hang yourself while you are still young.)
2. A bisl un a bisl vert a fule shishl! (Little by little becomes a full bowl!)
In the morning there were Yiddish conversation in four levels, but I took the Beginners which didn't require any previous knowledge. My mother joined me though I think she should have really taken Yiddish 2 for Advanced Beginners since as a child her father spoke to her in Yiddish while her mother spoke to her in English. I said that's a realy bilingual household.
When we arrived the teacher Sheindl gave us all cards which said "yo" (yes) on one said and "nenh" (no) on the other side, and when she asked us questions we had to hold up our cards. Since I didn't know how to say yes or no in Yiddish, I was already learning. From my childhood I knew how to say "hello" which is "sholem alekhhem." One says hello back by reversing it or "alekhem sholem" which means "peace be with you" forwards or backwards.
Then I learned how to ask what is your name, and answer "Ikh heys Galia," ("My name is Galia"). I chose the name "Galia" because I was named after my great-aunt Galia but in this country they Anglicicized her name to Julia. We had names like Leah, Sara, Galia except one man was named Jerry! The youngest in our class was an eight-year old girl named Leah, so the teacher renamed her Leahla--the "la" is a dimunited attached to children's names.
We learned a little conversation asking about each other's health, and learned that (zeyde) grandfather has a heachache, so one of us suggested he take two aspirin (Er mus nemen tsey aspirin tabletn." Then we learned numbers one through a million and how to say her phone numbers and address in Yiddish which wasn't that easy. After we learned our numbers, we learned how to ask how many people are in our family, and answer with their names. The teacher explained to us that Eastern European Jews were afraid of the Angel of Death taking their children, so when asked how many children they had, they said "nicht eyn, nicht tsvey, nicht dray" (not one, not two, not three).
Also, the teacher gave us a list of proverbs in Yiddish. So here are two Yiddish proverbs:
1. Az men vil nisht alt vern, zol men zikh yungerheyt oyfhengen: (If you don't want to get old, you should hang yourself while you are still young.)
2. A bisl un a bisl vert a fule shishl! (Little by little becomes a full bowl!)
Thursday, December 15, 2005
2005's best movies
1. A Bright, Shining Moment- wonderful documentary about Senator George McGovern's campaign for president in 1972. The absolutely fantastic film, which played briefly in a few Los Angeles theaters, told the story of an authentic American hero George McGovern and his amazing grassroots campaign--or democracy in action. Against huge odds, McGovern won the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972 on a pledge to end the war in Vietnam. With Gore Vidal, Dick Gregory, Gary Hart, Gloria Steinem, Frank Mankiewicz, Warren Beatty, George McGovern et al.--a great cast all playing themselves. Directory Stephen Vittoria did a magnificent job. In 1972 McGovern was seen as loosing in a landslide to Nixon, but McGovern's campaign director at the end in the film said that all the McGovern people did was lose but Nixon's people went to jail. Yeah.
2. Rent- wonderful musical that reinvigorated the American musical bringing it into the modern era. Fantastic songs. Rent is a rewriting La Boheme, telling about bohemian artists in the Lower Eastside of Manhattan in the 1980s dealing with creating art and living and dieing with AIDs--artists are gay and straight; white, Latino and black. Fantastic cast. Dancing. Tears. Laughter. See it!
3. North County- at long last an American film which opens up how women are seen in U.S. cinema. The film is based on the true story of how pioneering women iron ore miners in the Mesabi Iron Range in Northern Minnesota were brutally sexually harassed on the job and fought back. This is a film about heroism in America. The lead character is played by Charlize Theron but the fine cast also includes Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, and Sissy Spachek. This film changes how women are portrayed in the American film. North Country has beautiful photography of Northern Minnesota in wintertime.
4. Goodbye and Good Luck- Director George Clooney who also starred did a great work on Edward Murrow, newscaster at CBS, taking on Senator McCarthy, at the height of his red baiting power. The black and white film, which is quite beautiful, captures Manhattan in the early 1950s. This film shows courage and hope in our national politics and illustrates how nation news media actually took great risks to tell the truth.
5. Walk the Line- biopicture about Johnny Cash whose music influenced country and western, rock 'n roll, punk and folk. The film has a great score created by musician T-Bone Burnett of Johnny Cash's wonderful music. This intelligent film which integrates Cash's songs into his lifestory illustrates both the music and the life. Anyone interested in American music should see this film.
2. Rent- wonderful musical that reinvigorated the American musical bringing it into the modern era. Fantastic songs. Rent is a rewriting La Boheme, telling about bohemian artists in the Lower Eastside of Manhattan in the 1980s dealing with creating art and living and dieing with AIDs--artists are gay and straight; white, Latino and black. Fantastic cast. Dancing. Tears. Laughter. See it!
3. North County- at long last an American film which opens up how women are seen in U.S. cinema. The film is based on the true story of how pioneering women iron ore miners in the Mesabi Iron Range in Northern Minnesota were brutally sexually harassed on the job and fought back. This is a film about heroism in America. The lead character is played by Charlize Theron but the fine cast also includes Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, and Sissy Spachek. This film changes how women are portrayed in the American film. North Country has beautiful photography of Northern Minnesota in wintertime.
4. Goodbye and Good Luck- Director George Clooney who also starred did a great work on Edward Murrow, newscaster at CBS, taking on Senator McCarthy, at the height of his red baiting power. The black and white film, which is quite beautiful, captures Manhattan in the early 1950s. This film shows courage and hope in our national politics and illustrates how nation news media actually took great risks to tell the truth.
5. Walk the Line- biopicture about Johnny Cash whose music influenced country and western, rock 'n roll, punk and folk. The film has a great score created by musician T-Bone Burnett of Johnny Cash's wonderful music. This intelligent film which integrates Cash's songs into his lifestory illustrates both the music and the life. Anyone interested in American music should see this film.
Sunday, December 11, 2005
Rexroth was a great Californian
Last night Saturday December 10 I saw the centenary celebration for poet Kenneth Rexroth, the man most responsible for creating current California culture, at Beyond Baroque. The event was the best reading held in Los Angeles this year. What was wonderful was to see an audience ranging in age from 18 to 88 to celebrate Rexroth: he was a superb poet,, scholar, translator, editor; he was a teacher for generations; he was instigator for the San Francisco poetry renaissance; he was inspirer of California counterculture; and he was a creator of our populist culture in California.
Two of the last reeaders were Rexroth’s daughter Mariana Rexroth who shared to us wonderful poems about the stars he so loved that he wrote for her when he was a little girl and then his widow Carol Tinker. After the reading Mariana caught up the huge cake, so each member of the audience could have a piece and join in this celebration of a wonderful man, a brilliant poet, and a great Californian.
Friday, December 02, 2005
Wilshire: Grand Concourse of Dreams
A few weeks ago I heard Kevin Roderick and his co-author speak about their new book Wilshire: Grand Concourse of Dreams at Dawson’s bookstore. Wilshire: Grand Concourse of Dreams looks like a fascinating book. The two authors were charming. The stories they told were fascinating.
Friday, November 25, 2005
Getting a Democrat Elected President
Since Bush has been sinking in the polls these last few months, people have begun to talk about the possibility that the Democrat can win the 2008 presidential election, but the question is which Democrat. Also, Republicans have the presidency, House of Representatives and U.S. Senate, so how can Democrats revive their party?
I've been doing research about Upton Sinclair's run for governor of California in 1934; that time period showed a remarkable revival of the Democratic Party in California, so looking at that period might be helpful in understanding our current situation.
From 1900-1932 Republicans totally dominated California politics, but in 1932 presidential election Hoover had lost both his home state California but also his home county Santa California. In that election the Democratic candidate for Senator William G. McAdoo was elected as millions voted for Roosevelt and other Democrats. So by 1934 it looked like Democrats could for the first time in the 20th century elect a Democrat governor.
The problem was in the 1920s Democrats had been nomiating for governor obscure men who lost, so they had no candidates in 1934. In Northern California Democrats encouraged George Creel, the regional director of Roosevelt's National Recovery Act (NRA), to announced his candidacy for governor. In Southern California Democrats were building up Culbert L. Olson, a pro-New Deal Los Angeles attorney, but he ran for state senate. Upton Sinclair, the famous Socialist author of The Jungle, changed his party from Socialist to Democratic, ran for governor, and won in the primary.
Then Republicans ran a smear campaign, utilizing phony anti-Sinclair newsreels, so the Republican candidate, conservative Governor Merriam, was relected. But the pro-FDR tide was so strong that even Merriam while running said he was pro-New Deal. Merriam won, but that Los Angeles liberal Culbert L. Olsen also won a seat as state senator in the state legislature. Olsen immediately became a leader in the conservative senate, leading them to approve new laws that began a moderate state income tax, increased assistance to improverished seniors, and repealed sales tax on food (many in California were starving). In 1938 Culbert Olsen ran against Governor Merriam and he won. Finally, a state which had a large Democratic majority since 1932 elected a pro-New Deal Democrat as Governor.
So people should quit discussing 2008 presidential elections, which are a long way off. Instead people should concentrate on 2006 elections next year, ensuring that good candidates are elected to both House of Representatives and U.S. Senate. Hopefully Democrats can take back either the House or the Senate as well as elect more governors. Among the crop of Demoratic victors in 2006, there should be a good candidate for president.
I've been doing research about Upton Sinclair's run for governor of California in 1934; that time period showed a remarkable revival of the Democratic Party in California, so looking at that period might be helpful in understanding our current situation.
From 1900-1932 Republicans totally dominated California politics, but in 1932 presidential election Hoover had lost both his home state California but also his home county Santa California. In that election the Democratic candidate for Senator William G. McAdoo was elected as millions voted for Roosevelt and other Democrats. So by 1934 it looked like Democrats could for the first time in the 20th century elect a Democrat governor.
The problem was in the 1920s Democrats had been nomiating for governor obscure men who lost, so they had no candidates in 1934. In Northern California Democrats encouraged George Creel, the regional director of Roosevelt's National Recovery Act (NRA), to announced his candidacy for governor. In Southern California Democrats were building up Culbert L. Olson, a pro-New Deal Los Angeles attorney, but he ran for state senate. Upton Sinclair, the famous Socialist author of The Jungle, changed his party from Socialist to Democratic, ran for governor, and won in the primary.
Then Republicans ran a smear campaign, utilizing phony anti-Sinclair newsreels, so the Republican candidate, conservative Governor Merriam, was relected. But the pro-FDR tide was so strong that even Merriam while running said he was pro-New Deal. Merriam won, but that Los Angeles liberal Culbert L. Olsen also won a seat as state senator in the state legislature. Olsen immediately became a leader in the conservative senate, leading them to approve new laws that began a moderate state income tax, increased assistance to improverished seniors, and repealed sales tax on food (many in California were starving). In 1938 Culbert Olsen ran against Governor Merriam and he won. Finally, a state which had a large Democratic majority since 1932 elected a pro-New Deal Democrat as Governor.
So people should quit discussing 2008 presidential elections, which are a long way off. Instead people should concentrate on 2006 elections next year, ensuring that good candidates are elected to both House of Representatives and U.S. Senate. Hopefully Democrats can take back either the House or the Senate as well as elect more governors. Among the crop of Demoratic victors in 2006, there should be a good candidate for president.
Thursday, November 24, 2005
Thanksgiving
My favorite pie is pumpkin pie. Native Americans, of course, first cultivated pumpkins as well as squashes, corn, tomatoes, potatoes, chocolate. So Native Americans really created much of the American diet: from clambakes to turkey banquets to salmon feasts to chocolate drinks to winter squashes to cornbread.
Two weeks ago I visited the Southwest Musuem, one of the greatest Native American musuems in the world. We walked up the steps on the hill past the Goldline (rapid train) which we had taken and then took an elevator up the hillside to the musuem that sits high on the hill. The first room we went to was the California Room on California Indians. What fascinated me was the wonderul exhibit that illlustrated how each group of Indians brilliantly adapted to its ecological niche in California getting food. Many of the exhibits on display how to do with making food.
The California coastal Indians like the Tongva of the Los Angeles region and the Chumash of Santa Barbara both fished in the sea and collected sea shells that were used as money. Examples of sea shells were in the display case. The Tongva also collected tar from the tar pits which they traded to other Indians. On display were Chumash's baskets that were particulary brilliant in design. Also both Tongva and Chumash made canoes and rowed out to the nearby Channel Islands 20 miles offshore where Natives also lived. Costal Indians hunted seals, sea lions and sea otters but not whales; if a whale did wash ashore, they would eat it. They collected clams, mussels, and crabs. The Pomo in the north would capture ducks and mud hens by the shore.
Throughout California Natives collected acorns from oak trees, leached out the acids, and made an acorn mush which was a staple. Throughout the exhibit there were great looking baskets used to gather acorns and other seeds, nuts, bulbs, and roots. Baskets were used as boiling pots. Baskets were also used to store food. The Indians often dried out meat or fish before storing it in baskets which were then put in a granery. Also the display cases had stone mortars on which Native women would pound the acorns done into a fine flour. Acorn were made into pudding, mush or soup. Native peoples used wooden spoons too cook and eat.
The desert Indians of the Great Basin learned how to flourish in that harsh environment, eating inscets grasshopers, crickets and caterpillars. The peoples of the Central Valley and the Sierra foothills such as the Yosemite existed on the plentiful fish and game. They killed game birds like quail and grouse as well as rabbits, rats, mice, and chipmunks. They also killed larger game such as deer, elk, antelope, mountain sheep, and bear. Huge herds of elk, antelope, and deer lived in the grasslands of the Central Valley,
Native Americans of Northern California were river peoples: each Indian group centered its territory on a particular river or stream. The Northern Indians fished the salmon and trout in the rivers and creeks. Since my brother lives in Burney, California, in the northeast corner of the state, I was familiar with the Pit River Indians who fished the Pit River while the Hat Creek people lived by that trout stream coming north out of Mt. Lassen. The Northern Indians also used the abundant woods to make sturdy wooden houses. On display were photos of nets the Indians used to fish with.
California's Indians drank berry juices made out of elderberry and manzanita; ciders made out of wile apples or manzanita berries; wild grape juice; nut drinks from pounded nuts; and herbal teas. The got salt from seaweed on the seashore or from mineral deposits.
The Southwest Musuem had two other splendid rooms: one on the Plains Indians and the other on Southwest Indians--the Pueblo, Hopi, and Navajo. The beeding on the dresses and shirts of the Plains Indians was just beautiful. All in all, the Southwest Museum is a great museum.
Two weeks ago I visited the Southwest Musuem, one of the greatest Native American musuems in the world. We walked up the steps on the hill past the Goldline (rapid train) which we had taken and then took an elevator up the hillside to the musuem that sits high on the hill. The first room we went to was the California Room on California Indians. What fascinated me was the wonderul exhibit that illlustrated how each group of Indians brilliantly adapted to its ecological niche in California getting food. Many of the exhibits on display how to do with making food.
The California coastal Indians like the Tongva of the Los Angeles region and the Chumash of Santa Barbara both fished in the sea and collected sea shells that were used as money. Examples of sea shells were in the display case. The Tongva also collected tar from the tar pits which they traded to other Indians. On display were Chumash's baskets that were particulary brilliant in design. Also both Tongva and Chumash made canoes and rowed out to the nearby Channel Islands 20 miles offshore where Natives also lived. Costal Indians hunted seals, sea lions and sea otters but not whales; if a whale did wash ashore, they would eat it. They collected clams, mussels, and crabs. The Pomo in the north would capture ducks and mud hens by the shore.
Throughout California Natives collected acorns from oak trees, leached out the acids, and made an acorn mush which was a staple. Throughout the exhibit there were great looking baskets used to gather acorns and other seeds, nuts, bulbs, and roots. Baskets were used as boiling pots. Baskets were also used to store food. The Indians often dried out meat or fish before storing it in baskets which were then put in a granery. Also the display cases had stone mortars on which Native women would pound the acorns done into a fine flour. Acorn were made into pudding, mush or soup. Native peoples used wooden spoons too cook and eat.
The desert Indians of the Great Basin learned how to flourish in that harsh environment, eating inscets grasshopers, crickets and caterpillars. The peoples of the Central Valley and the Sierra foothills such as the Yosemite existed on the plentiful fish and game. They killed game birds like quail and grouse as well as rabbits, rats, mice, and chipmunks. They also killed larger game such as deer, elk, antelope, mountain sheep, and bear. Huge herds of elk, antelope, and deer lived in the grasslands of the Central Valley,
Native Americans of Northern California were river peoples: each Indian group centered its territory on a particular river or stream. The Northern Indians fished the salmon and trout in the rivers and creeks. Since my brother lives in Burney, California, in the northeast corner of the state, I was familiar with the Pit River Indians who fished the Pit River while the Hat Creek people lived by that trout stream coming north out of Mt. Lassen. The Northern Indians also used the abundant woods to make sturdy wooden houses. On display were photos of nets the Indians used to fish with.
California's Indians drank berry juices made out of elderberry and manzanita; ciders made out of wile apples or manzanita berries; wild grape juice; nut drinks from pounded nuts; and herbal teas. The got salt from seaweed on the seashore or from mineral deposits.
The Southwest Musuem had two other splendid rooms: one on the Plains Indians and the other on Southwest Indians--the Pueblo, Hopi, and Navajo. The beeding on the dresses and shirts of the Plains Indians was just beautiful. All in all, the Southwest Museum is a great museum.
Friday, November 18, 2005
LA wants more green power
A few days ago on this blog I suggested that Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (L.A.D.W.P.) have a goal of 25% renewable sources for the city's electricity by 2010; currently LA D.W.P has a goal of 20% renewable energy by 2017.
Los Angeles would do much better by setting even higher goals for alternative energy to power the city. With putting solar panels on the rooftops the city should aim for 30% of its electricity from renewable energy by 2010!
Sunday, November 13, 2005
Green Power
Global warming which is caused by burning coal and oil makes hurricanes worse, so what can we do about it? Get Green Power for our electricity.
So I wound up for the past year using less energy (I have an all-electric house) as well as having my energy only come from renewable sources. I’m not causing any global warming, so I feel good about that. Everyone could change their refrigerator to Energy Star as well as use florescent bulbs. Last month I also had to get a new computer printer, so I got an Energy Star Canon. Buying only Energy Star appliance will save us all money as well as energy.
A few weeks ago I got a letter for the LA DWP congratulating me for being a Green Power Customer, and saying “The City of Los Angeles is also extending its commitment to a clean environment by developing a Renewable Portfolio Standard to achieve 20% renewable energy by 2017." In contrast, the City of Santa Monica has committed to have 25% renewable energy within Santa Monica by 2010. If Santa Monica can commit to 25% renewable resources by 2010, why can’t Los Angeles? If you ask me, both cities should try to shoot higher than that.
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Schwarzenegger’s propositions terminated
I feel like celebrating that all of Governor Schwarzenegger’s propositions—74, 75, 76, and 77—were defeated in yesterday’s special elections. The people of California got smart and told the Governor that they thought his reforms were really bad ideas, which they were. Led by nurses, teachers, firefighters, and policepeople, California’s working people have had a victory!
Then it’s up to us citizens to elect a governor who will build up the infrastructure—the school, health system, libraries, and transportation system. We’ve just had one victory in California. We need to start planning for our next victory.
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Paris Burns
For those puzzled about the French youth burning cars in Paris, I suggest people read Walter Mosely’s wonderful novel “Little Scarlet” about the Watts Rebellion in 1965. Watts in 1965 was very similar to the suburbs of Paris–very high unemployment for black youth, constant police harassment, lack of youth opportunities, poor schools, etc.
Mosely particularly shows how the hero Easy Rawlins, a 40 something employed black famly man with family who owns apartments, is constantly stopped by the police just as he walks down the street. I taught the book recently, and the students at LACC, mostly Asian and Latino immigrants, couldn’t understand two things at first: they couldn’t understand how bad the segregation was in Los Angeles and they couldn’t understand why the black male hero didn’t burn down anything but merely watches from his office. Easy Rawlins sympathizes with the grievances of youth in the street but doesn’t think burning helps really. Actually, Rawlins sympthizes with the pain of two white small storeowners whose shops have been destroyed by the riots. Yet Rawlins is positively affected, as when the cops need him to solve a murder, he demands to be treated with respect. Constantly through the novel he again and again demands to be treated decently by the cops.
I think the French youth in the streets (not immigrants as these youth are 2nd and 3rd generation French) also need to be treated with respect–respect is at the core of what they’re asking. The Minister of Interior Skorzy is so hated because he shows no respect–rather the opposite as he is insulting calling them "scum."
Friday, November 04, 2005
Los Angeles Environmentalist Revealed!
Los Angeles environmentalist might at first sound like a contradiction, but not if you look at the life of Lawrence Clark Powell. He was the Librarian at UCLA who had built up the university’s book collection and for whom Powell Library was named. Powell’s California Classics is made up of essays about 31 California writers who brilliantly discuss the land—mountain, deserts, valleys, and coasts—of California.
Brewer, a Yale-trained scientist, was field leader of the first California Geological Survey, led by Josiah Dwight Whitney. Brewer and the geological survey tramped from one end to the other of California from 1861 to1864 surveying, mountain climbing, and collecting specimens. Powell describes Brewer as having immense dedication, stamina, and vision.
Powell includes essays in a charming style mixing literary history, biography of the writers, commentary on their books, and autobiography. Of course, he describes such famous writers and books as Bret Harte’s The Luck of Roaring Camp, Mark Twain’s Roughing It, Richard Henry Dana Jr’s Two Years Before the Mast, and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Silverado Squatters, written when he camped with his wife near an abandoned gold mine in Napa County.
By the turn of the century the desert was no longer a death field so writers changed their views of that landscape. Mary Austin, who was a repressed but college educated Victorian young woman, came with her family to homestead in the high desert right just south of the Sierra Nevada. After she explored the desert, learning its plants and animals; then see listened and learned from the Basque sheepherders, the Native Americans, and old timers like General Edward Beale, owner of Rancho Tejon. At this point she wrote Land of Little Rain. Her book is the first ecofeminist classic. Austin was a woman who finds herself and her freedom at the same time she comes to know and understand the desert. Powell as right when he said, “She was one of the first writers to exalt the desert.” Austin was a mystic who found home and freedom there.
George Wharton James was a sickly Englishman who regained his health in the 1880s tramping through deserts of Nevada, New Mexico, and Southern California. A fervent booster, he published pre-automobile guidebooks to his beloved deserts. Powell says that his book The Wonders of the Colorado Desert is “composed of learning and love, and fashioned into the several levels of history, science, topography, and visionary idealism.” The desert he so loved was from Twentynine Palms to Yuma and from the San Bernardino-San Jacinto-Laguna Mountains to the Colorado River.
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