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.

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.

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).

In 2000 the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled that graduate students at private universities who teach sections at their colleges have the right to unionize (graduate students at public universities like UC and University of Michigan already have that right and are unionized). Then NYU recognized GSOC union for its graduate students who teach and signed a first contract in 2002; GSOC helped get its members a raise in pay to $19,000 and better health benefits. But in July 2004 the NLRB, which had Bush appointees, reversed itself on a 3-2 party line vote, saying graduate students at private universities like NYU don’t have the right to unionize. NYU then rescinded its recognition of GSOC, refusing to recognize the union’s grievance procedure, and basically tried to destroy the union, so November 9 GSOC went out on strike.

NYU President John Sexton sent a November 28 email ordering striking students to return to work December 5. If they didn’t, he threatened striking students with loss of their spring semester stipends (their jobs); further, if they took any work action in the spring, they would lose their jobs for the next two semesters. Faced with much pressure in terms of emails and letters, Sexton postponed the December 5 deadline, but it still hangs there, threatening graduate students with loss of jobs and a blacklist. Under the 2000 NLRB ruling, NYU’s action of reprisals against unionists on strike is illegal, but now under the 2002 NLRB ruling NYU’s actions are technically “legal” but clearly unethical.

Bill Mullen of the Radical Caucus brought an Emergency Resolution in support of GSOC, and at the MLA meeting of the Delegates Assembly Organizing Committee (DAOC) on December 28^th , anybody who has resolutions or motions discusses them with DAOC before the actual Delegates Assembly (DA). Well, we members of GSOC, the Radical Caucus, and other pro-trade unionists all argued for the emergency resolution. I was there as a member of the Radical Caucus. Also, I’ve a staunch trade-unionist, having founded a trade union local once. The Radical Caucus more than any other group in the MLA has supported trade union rights for academics, particlarly non-tenure track, part-timers, and graduate students. Furthermore, my dad was a graduate of NYU. Since the MLA had already passed Motion 1999-11 supporting unionization of graduate students at both private and public universities in 2000, we thought the Emergency Resolution would pass.

At the December 28 meeting DAOC members told us that the MLA Constitution had a new amendment saying emergency resolutions “shall not name individuals or institutions in such a way that, in the determination of the committee, a response from the named party must be sought.” If persons or an institution are named, then the MLA must have the time (unspecified) to ask them for a reply, but since the DA was to vote on all resolutions within 24 hours on December 29^th, there was no time to get a reply.

After some debate, Michael Berube of DAOC proposed a compromise that the Radical Caucus revise their resolution, removing the clause that said NYU threatening sanctions against GSOC, and ask the MLA to reaffirm it’s two earlier motions supporting unionization of all graduate students. The Radical Caucus accepted Berube’s compromise for a more moderate motion urging all universities to bargain in good faith with graduate student unions and adding words to reaffirm their previous motions endorsing graduate student unions.

During the December 28^th meeting members of DAOC repeatedly urged the Radical Caucus to drop its emergency resolution and instead ask the Executive Council, the small elected ruling body of the MLA, to take action supporting the NYU strikers. Druing the lively debate that occurred DAOC members said an emergency resolution isn’t really “emergency” as first it has to be voted on by the DA on December 29^th, next goes to the Executive Committee who ensures the resolutions aren’t libelous or untruthful, next the membership of MLA votes on them and only then eleven months later in November, 2006, would the emergency resolution take place.

But we wanted to go forward, taking the emergency resolution to the DA the next day. People felt that if the DA would pass a pro-NYU strikers motion, it would help immediately the strikers, some of whom were seated there. The strikers might lose their jobs within weeks, and we wanted to give them support. That afternoon DAOC had a meeting to give it’s opinion on the resolutions.

Next day the Delegates Assembly took place in a large ballroom at the Marriott in Northwest Washington D.C. The elected delegates sent in the front of a ballroom while the non-elected (again GSOC strikers were there, members of the Radical Caucus, and, of course, other interested MLA members) sat in the back of the room with the Executive Council (EC) members at the front podium. Bill Mullen again introduced the revised NYU emergency resolution that was a compromise. Next Michelle Massé of DAOC said they had “a prolonged, intense and deeply divisive discussion” in their meeting and they had deadlocked: some members believed that NYU should have the chance to respond to the revised resolution while others thought that a response from NYU wasn’t needed

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.

Again, many people spoke at the mikes in an passionate debate. One asked if there was any way the NYU emergency resolution could be revised to bring it to a vote. The answer was “no.” Bill Mullen argued that DA is the larger and more representative elected body of the Executive Council, so it should vote on NYU resolution rather than the EC. Cynthia Young, one of the Yale graduate student strikers of that strike a decade ago, said at the 1995 DA the MLA vote to censure Yale during its graduate student strike had an immediate, positive effect to help the strikers, so similar vote for NYU voters would have also have an immediate positive effect. GSOC strikers NYU went to the mike saying how important an MLA resolution would be to them. The answers were again and again the NYU emergency resolution was dead. I got up to speak once as a non-delegate, but the chair ruled that they had run at of time and had to move on to other business.

At the very end of the four-hour meeting, after all other business had been concluded, people were still give their opinions about the NYU strike at the mikes—one for delegates in front and one for non-delegates in back. I and two others from the Radical Caucus lined up to speak (we could only speak for about two minutes). The three of us were standing there when the chair said since the meeting was nearly over non-delegates could no longer speak but only delegates.

Barbara Foley, the Radical Caucus member who was also a delegate, went to the delegates' mike saying she would give her time to let the non-delegates to speak. The chair said, “No.” The chair at the front podium said they could ask the DA as a whole to vote to extend the time of the meeting, but they needed a quorum of 36 votes. Well, 34 delegates present voted 33 to 1 to let us three in the back of the room, but it wasn’t the 36 needed for the quorum, so the chair adjourned the meeting. I never did get a chance to speak at the DA.

What can one conclude from all this? The College Art Association months again passed a resolution to support GSOC union at NYU. The press and others often call the MLA “radical, “left,” or one of the more radical of the academic professional organizations. It isn’t radical at all. The MLA isn't on the left at all. MLA is apolitical.

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.

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.

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.

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!)

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.

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.

Many read Rexroth’s radical verse, and he was always a rebel, from his youth supporting the Wobblies, the West’s most radical worker’s organization; to being a conscientious objector to World War II; to his life-long belief in anarchism; to his long commitment to Buddhism and fighting prejudice against Asians in California; to his being one of the great poets for the environment in the United States. Michael C. Ford, the Los Angeles beat poet, did a great job as organizer and m.c. of the reading as well as read Rexroth’s poem elegy on the death of Dylan Thomas with the refrain “they kill the young man” which was both a lament for all the 20^th century artists who died too young as well as for the young men and women who are dieing in Iraq.

I first connected with Rexroth by reading his wonderful books of translations of Chinese and Japanese women poets: he introduced me as well as many others to 2,000 years of women’s poetry. I think one of Rexroth’s great contributions is sharing his knowledge and translations of Japanese and Chinese poetry and his commitment to Buddhism first with small group of San Francisco poets and then inspiring the West Coast’s counterculture’s interest in Asian literary, religion and culture. Whenever I see young Californians studying yoga I think Rexroth in some way influenced them.

Rexroth was an advocate of reading poetry with jazz, so poet Uri Hertz read one of Rexroth’s fine anarchist poems in support of the Hungarian rebels of 1956 to a jazz duo of piano and bass. Bonnie Tamblyn and a young TV actress performed selections from Rexroth’s bestiary poems about animals with Tamblyn singing and playing her guitar while the young actress performed the poems.

As a young man Rexroth and his first wife Andre camped and hiked throughout California; his poetry is both a celebration of our forests, foothills, mountains, and coastline as well as advocacy for their preservation. He surely inspired Gary Snyder who followed in Rexroth’s footsteps first as a forest ranger and then as a ecological poet: the two men helped awaken a generation to awareness of the environment.

Rexroth was working class, a poor orphan who dropped out of high school; he spent a little time studying at Chicago’s Art St Institute, but was really self-educated, knowing more about poetry than almost any person in the United States. He taught himself French, Spanish, Chinese, Greek, and Japanese, and translated poetry from all these languages. In the reading poet Eloise Klein Healey read from Rexroth’s wonderful translations of the Greek poet Sappho while Chicano musician Ruben Guevera read from Rexroth’s fine translations of Spanish-language poets Neruda and Alberti’s wonderful poets of exile and love. I think Rexroth’s an inspiration for any young high school dropout struggling now in California to make a career and a life of themselves: Rexroth did it and so can they.

Early in Rexroth’s life he worked as a fruit picker, a forest ranger, a factory worker, and an orderly at mental institutions but after his literary reputation grew this high school dropout wound up teaching at UC Santa Barbara. One person read an outstanding poetic eulogy Rexroth wrote to an old political comrade lamenting the many defeats they had suffered in their lifelong rebellion. But despite these many defeats, Rexroth had great generosity and caring for the younger generation. Cari Tomlinson, one of Rexroth’s students at UC Santa Barbara, shared how he was a mesmerizing and generous teacher. Also Lewis McAdams told how as a young poet of about 20 he knocked on Rexroth’s door in San Francisco; the older man generously welcomed him into San Francisco’s poetry scene.

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.

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.

The authors discussed Gaylord Wilshire, the wealthy socialist heir who came to turn-of-the century Los Angeles. Wilshire sounds like a unusual man. He was dating some of the daughters of the well-to-do, started a billboard business, and advocated socialism. He began a new housing development just west of downtown around McArthur Park, and some of the wealthiest people in town moved there to the beginning of Wilshire Boulevard. If you want to know more about L.A., go get this book.

Since I have been researching Upton Sinclair lately, I had already known that Wilshire was a friend of Sinclair’s. Wilshire got Sinclair to come out west. Sinclair tells us that Wilshire was running a gold mine in the Sierras as a “socialist experiment in mining; it was run ‘on a basis of comradeship, with high wages and plenty of socialist propaganda.’” Workingmen and women across the country invested in the mine. A socialist gold mine sounds quite out-of-the-oridnary but times were different in 1904.

When Wilshire asked Sinclair to visit his mine, Sinclair did, becoming entranced with California and settling near Los Angeles. Wilshire’s mine soon failed; he went back to L.A., started Wilshire Boulevard and his housing development, and then left for New York where he published Wilshire’s magazine, one of the country’s most important socialist journals. Sinclair stayed in Los Angeles while Wilshire Boulevard grew and grew until it reached from downtown to the Pacific Ocean—and the rest is history.

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.

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.

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.

Well, November 17 The LA Times had an article where Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa proposes spending $240 million to build a transmission line for L.A. to tap into a geothermal fields in the Salton Sea area (geothermal projects generate electricity from tapping into the heat deep within the earth). The transmission line will take five years to build.

The Mayor wants the L.A. D.W.P. to meet the goal by 2010 of having 20% of its electricity from renewable sources. Well, 20% by 2010 is better than 20% by 2017, the current goal. The Mayor is certainly moving in the right direction, so we should support his proposal to build the transmission line to geothermal fields in the Salton Sea area. The mayor called his proposal "a major step forward in our efforts to shift away from outdated fossil fuels of the past and toward the renewable energy resources of the future." He's 100% right.

The transmission line would carry enough electricity for 1,500,000 homes, with L.A. getting 20% of the electricity or enough for 300,000 homes. The rest of the electricity would go to home in Imperial, Riverside, and San Diego counties—so the geothermal transmission line would help make much more use of renewable energy for electricity throughout Southern California.

Also November 16 LA Times announced the L.A. D.W.P. said it will buy a $262 million wind farm that generates electricity in Ken County: “The Pine Tree project, initially budgeted at $162 million, is erecting 80 wind turbines to provide 120 megawatts of power, enough to power up to 120,000 homes.” The L.A.D.W.P. board says it also wants to reach the goal by 2010 of 20% renewable energy sources.

So LA can get more of its electricity from alternative non-polluting energy sources. I think the mayor and the L.A.D.W.P. are moving in the right direction using more wind power and geothermal , but the city and its LA D.W.P. could do even more to acquire renewable energy:

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!

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.

I’m a Green Power customer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (L.A.D.W.P.).. About a year ago I signed up for the Green Power program. We Green Power customers get our energy from renewable sources: solar, geothermal; wind, biomass, and hydropower. It costs me an extra $3.26/month.

A few months before I signed up for Green Power, my old refrigerator was falling apart, so I bought a new Energy Star refrigerator. Energy Star is a U.S. government program that has a website (http://www.energystar.gov) that lists appliances that save energy. It lists all sorts of appliances: clothes washers; dishwashers, refrigerators; room air conditioning; cordless phones; dvd players; home audio; televisions; VCRs; computers; fax machines; printers; scanners etc. These energy star appliances use less energy and thus save us money.

I found a SANYO refrigerator listed as energy star, and in the product locator I found a nearby store in Los Angeles that sells the SANYO, so I went there and bought the refrigerator. A year after I bought the refrigerator, I checked my energy bill. Refrigerators use more electricity than any other household appliance because they’re on all the time. Also, I replaced the old bulbs with florescent bulbs. My new refrigerator along with the low-energy light bulbs saves me about $20/month. The store hauled off my old refrigerator but the L.A.D.W.P. also a program where they will haul off old refrigerators and give you in return a six-pack of florescent bulbs. In two years I will have paid off the new refrigerator that cost $400 just in terms of savings from my electric bill.

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.

Also, the letter said I could look at the 2004 Green Power program Annual report but when I checked, the report wasn’t up. Could the LA.D.W.P. please put up the report.

By the way, the City of Santa Monica a couple years ago signed up to get electricity for city offices only from green power sources, which has saved the city money. The city of Los Angeles should do the same: run its city offices only on green power electricity.

The more non-polluting energy we all use—both as individuals and as cities—the more we can begin to tackle global warming.

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!

His Proposition 76—capping the California state budget—would have taken millions away from the schools, which have been already starved for funds for over two decades. His Proposition 74—the proposal to extend tenure for teachers—would have had almost no impact improving California’s teachers and would have made it harder to attract good new teachers. Good that they were voted down!

So far Schwarzenegger has been a terrible governor for California. When the state has serious problems to be solved—millions of its citizens lack health care; the school system is getting worse; the transportation system and the flood control system around Sacramento needs improvements—Schwarzenegger succeeded in wasting over $50 million of the taxpers money on this special election November 8, 2005. The money could have been much better spent elsewhere.

In today’s LA Times Steve Lopez in the “California section” argues in a piece titled “Governor Took Low Road on Education” that Schwarzenegger has ignored his opportunity to improve California’s schools. Lopez says that instead Schwarzenegger “has cavalierly broken a promise on public school funding [to restore the $2 billion he took], embittered teachers, and offered next to nothing in the way of creative or sweeping solutions to the state’s most critical challenge.”

Indeed Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill to continue professional development for teachers. I teach at Santa Monica College, and we’ve been told there is zero money for professional development even though we’re required to put in hours for professional development. I’m going to two conferences, but it’s with my own money.

I would hope that Governor Schwarzenegger would make some serious changes in his policies, but I don’t see it. California’s infrastructure—schools, roads, and libraries—were built decades ago and need to be improved but that takes money. The Republican ideology of starving the public sector which Schwarzenegger believes in doesn’t allow for spending money in improvement of infrastructure. Too bad.

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.

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."

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.

Of course, Powell writes a good essay on John Muir praising his book Mountains of California, but Powell also includes two even more fascinating essays about two mountain men/writers before Muir: William H. Brewer and Clarence King.

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.

Brewer also wrote letters to his brother in New York that became the basis of his book Up and Down California 1860-64. Powell tells how during his lifetime Brewer’s letters were never published but during the 1920s Francis Farquhar, a C.P.A. and leading California mountaineer, convinced Brewer’s sons to let him edit their father’s letters into a book which became the wonderful Up and Down California 1860-64. Powell says that the book wonderfully describes the the beauties of the state before cities and earth-moving machinery with Brewer’s “clear and sensuous vision.”

Clarence King, a young Eastern college student, became Brewer’s assistant, and quickly distinguished himself with brilliant climbs up Mount Lassen and Mount Shasta. After climbing many mountains in California with the Whitney survey from 1863-1866, King went on to direct the United States Geological Survey and then wrote Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada published in 1872. Powell comments, “King was the first to climb the Sierra Nevada, and the first to write of the range in sunlight and storm …” Powell describes King as poet of the mountains as well as audacious climber.

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.

But I found even more fascinating Powell’s writing about three early classic books about the deserts of California: William Manly’s Death Valley in ’49, Mary Austin’s The Land of Little Rain and George Wharton James’ The Wonders of the Colorado Desert. Powell has a fascinating essay on William Manly’s Death Valley in ’49. Manly’s autobiographical tale describes how he was a young ox driver leading a small wagon train through Death Valley when it bogged down, so Manly and another man went on ahead, finding their way to Los Angeles and returning with food, saving all lives. Powell says Manley book “a classic of the gold rush, a chronicle of death and disaster, survival and heroism, distinguished by narrative power, specific event, and precise observation.”

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.

Powell also gives us those writers who brilliantly evoke the California coast: Robinson Jeffers, the poet of Big Sur; and John Steinbeck who writes about Monterey and the ranches in the nearby inland valley. But the most fascinating costal writer Powell discusses is J. Smeaton Chase, an Englishman who came to California in 1890 and who settled in northeast San Diego.

Chase’s third book California Costal Trails describes two long horseback rides he took: in 1910 from El Monte in Los Angeles County down the coast to San Diego; and in 1912 from El Monte to the coast at Malibu up to the Oregon border. Chase wonderfully describes the plants and flowers, the missions he visited, the many Mexicans he met and shared food with along the way, the hermit he met, and, of course, his two horses. Chase’s book sounds like a great California western about the last horseback ride along the coast.

Besides being an environmentalist, Powel is a committed bookman, telling in charming stories his autobiography through books: his childhood in Pasadena watching his father play tennis with Upton Sinclair; his search as a student for these California classics through bookstores in London, Paris, and Boston; his research as a graduate student in librarian studies in the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley; his working as a young man for famed book dealer Jake Zeitlin; and his researches on the authors at the Bancroft Library in Berkeley and the Huntington Library in San Marino. He makes the book search sound like one of the great works of life.

Powell is utterly charming writer whose work is permeated with love for the California land. Yes, he really was a Los Angeles environmentalist. Now, the Los Angeles Sierra Club is the largest chapter in the nation. Horseback riders still ride through the little patches of trails in Los Angeles County, with a major equestrian center in Burbank. Yes, Burbank! But before the current generation, Powell was there as well as the environmental writers he so brilliantly brings to life: the mountaineers William Brewer and Clarence King; the desert writers William Manly, Mary Austin, and George Wharton James; and the coastal horseback rider J. Smeaton Chase.

November 8 Election

California’s special election

Get out and vote! For education, for health care, for a decent energy system, for demoratic rights

from California Federation of Teachers AFT AFL-CIO

No Proposition 73 Constitutionally defines life begins at conception.

No Proposition 74 Teachers can be fired without justification for five years, not two years as the law states now.

No. Proposition 75.
Silences nurses, teachers, firefighters—targets public employees by imposing spending restrictions that apply only to unions and not to corporations. This law is a terrible assault on democracy in California.

No. Proposition 76.
The Governor’s power grab over the budget. Overturns the funding guarantees the voters passed and gives the governor unprecedented power to cut the state budget unilaterally. The Governor’s already taken $2 billion from education he hasn’t paid back.

No. Proposition 77.
Gives 3 unelected and unaccountable judges power to redistrict
new legislative districts for 37 million Californians

No Proposition 78.
Stop phony prescription drug program. This law codifies the pharmaceutical industry’s phony program to “voluntarily” reduce prescription rates.

Yes. Proposition 79.
Consumer plan to provided affordable prescription drugs to
eight million Californians with state enforcement.

Yes. Proposition 80. Consumer plan to provide for energy for all Californians and to prevent fraud like Enron did in a deregulated energy system.

Governor Schwarzenegger has pushed this unnecessary special election. He has said when running for office since he’s wealthy he wouldn’t take money from special interests but he’s taken millions—more than any other elected official in California.

In this election Schwarzenegger is pushing the interests of the speical interests who gave him big contributions. Since many of his propositions are unpopular, he’s counting on a low turnout in the vote on Tuesday November 8 to pass them.

Get out and vote!

Halloween Carnaeval/West Hollywood

Last night I attended the Halloween Street celebration in West Hollywood, the largest in California with over 350,000 on the streets. As my friend Erica and I walked down Santa Monica Boulevard, we saw people dressed in costumes walking along with us west--a skeleton bride in white face paint and a bridal dress walking next to two cops. When I lived in West Hollywood, I always walked from my house a mile to the celebration, but I've not been living in West Hollywood for four year. However, at a birthday party last spring of a West Hollywood senior activitst Ric Rickles I was introduced to West Hollywood's mayor Abby Land, so I decided this year I was going.

We got to La Cienega and Santa Monica Boulevard, crossed the street and left the sidewalk to walk with thousands of others in the middle of the crowd. A very diverse crowd it was: white, black, Asian, Latino; young and old, some parents with toddlers around their necks; gay, bisexual, and straight; people speaking Russian, Spanish, English and French.

As we walked forward west the crowd got thicker until we got to the first bandstand where people in costumes were strutting across the stage: a ninja Bunny who executed some karate moves; a Jack-of-the Box in half popping out of a box around his waist; four beautiful Venetian dancers in red and blue pointy colored hats and long flowing robes colored in danced on stage. As we stood in the crowd watching the people on stage a line of penguins--fifteen men in black with white pointy masks--marched in front of us. That was fantastic to see a March of the Penguins right before our eyes. Ten minutes later the fifteen penguin-men marched on stages and marched in a circle, circling the m.c. who yelled, "I'm pregnant!" I loved those penguins! Finally, the penguins marched right off stage!

A few minutes later two tall figures dressed as elegrant ladies in gowns marched on stage. The M.C. announced, "Lady Katrina and Lady Rita" as the two hurricanes dance around before dancing off. Good that people in West Hollywood help us laugh off disasters. Later as we were weaving in and around through the crowd which was getting thicker and thicker a man in black with two birds perched on his shouder approached me. A foot away he held one of his birds right in front of my face and said, "Bird flu." I ducked out of his way. Right after 9/13 I went to West Hollywood Halloween and a man and a woman were wearing two tall rectangular boxes that looked like skyscrapers: they were the Twin Towers.

We stopped by the fire truck as my friend Erica met an old friend Carol from high school she hadn't seen in twenty years, and they chatted what they had been doing these last twenty years, Then we marched on, seeing a man holding a sign "Jesus Loves Jews" which I liked and then a Jesus Freak holding up a sign condeming the crowd followed by an escort of about five cops. By this time the crowd was really thick and it was slow going. What is great is the peacefullness, the diversity, the creativity, and the imagination. Groups of gigantic men and women were decked out in gowns, towering blonde and red wigs, and high heels were posing for others holding cameras. Big girls! Very big girls! In West Hollwyood everyone can be Star for the Evening. All body sizes welcome! Big guys dressed up as gorillas and Vikings! Fat women looked great as divas and princesses in elegant gowns!

At another stage we saw a group cowboys/cowgirls in blue jeans, cowboy shirts and black hats were dancing to disco rap, doing turns and twirling their black hats. As we marched along we saw a man besides a female figure wearing an U.S flag/burka like the women of Afghanistan--I wished I had my camera! We saw Chinese aristrocrats in beautiful embroidered gowns; lots of drag queens in towering wigs, elegrant gowns, and platform shoes; a young man wearing around his neck a table set with plates and silverwear who was a movable feast. Lots of people dressed up in black-and-white stripped prison outfits as wells adults dressed up as babies.

What's great is this one day a year all of Los Angeles comes together to celebrating everybody's creativity--this city needs more festivities like this.

Day of the Dead/ Hollywood Forever Cemetery

I’ve been going to Day of the Dead/Halloween festivities in Los Angeles. First, October 29^th I went to 6^th Annual Day of the Dead at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Hollywood Forever Cemetery is a historical cemetery having a grave of blonde bombshell actress Jayne Mansfield, silent movie star Rudolf Valetino’s grave and a monument for the LA Times printers killed when the newspaper was bombed in 1911.

As I walked in this year, parking was harder to come by even in the afternoon and groups of people were walking in—thousands were coming this year. The event lasted from 3-11. Finally, I got in line, and gave them a $5 donation—new this year.

About 4:00 near the cemetery's entrance they had a group of men and women dressed in indigenous Mexican dress with—attractive long dresses with orange embroidery for the women and white shirts for the men—kneeling in a prayer for the opening ceremony. To one side was the Oaxaca band holding their instruments including a tuba; to the other side a large group of Aztec dancers with headdresses of gray and black plumages, white skull faces, and black costumes. The crowd of a couple hundred gathered around. After the prayer ceremony, the drummer with a 3 foot drum got in the center starting to beat his drum while forty Aztec dancers— swathed in white face paint, gray feather headdresses, black skeleton outfits, and bells around their ankles—danced and danced in the center of the circle.

Day of the Dead was originally a Mexican Indian holiday celebrating the dead that the Spanish Catholics appropriated and Catholicized. Here in Los Angeles Self-Help Graphics in East Los Angeles, a community-art center for Chicanos, started Day of the Dead celebrations over two decades ago where artists create alters, inspiring many other Dead of the Dead celebrations in Los Angeles and changing the culture of this city. Hollywood Forever Cemetary started their celebration six-years ago by asking artists of all ethnicities to make alters; in that first celebration only a few hundred showed up, but today thousands were coming.

Back at the opening ceremony the men in white shirts picked up a coffin, heading off into the ceremony in a processional while the band started playing as they marched behind the coffin; the other Mexican men and women followed, then the Aztec dancers, and then the rest of us who by now numbered hundreds got in line to parade into the cemetery. Lots of cameras went offTo the left was an alter covered in a United States flag for the soldiers dead of Iraq.

After we of few minutes of marching the line turned leftl. Next we passed an alter for Rosa Parks, the great black woman who started the Montgomery bus boycott; an alter for all those who have died from cigarettes; another alter covered in an U.S. flag for a soldier dead in Iraq; an alter for Jayne Mansfield who is buried in this graveyard, and another alter for rebel rocker Johnny Ramone, who is also buried here. Many of the alters had loaves of bread for the dead and photos of the dead. Many alters had tall, white skeleton sculptures bedecking the grades along with yellow flowers. The creators of the alters sat in folding chairs besides their creation. One alter had two young men and two men dressed in black with white face pain--all were dancing.

At the next intersection was a huge white cloth like a white sea covering the grave. The ashen-white faced dancers covered in white rags of the anti-war butoh dance group Corpus Delicti were dancing as if they were corpses dead from the war. Corpus Delicti has often danced at Los Angeles anti-war marches to show Americans the dead of our war. To our left down that row of graves was an alter for the murdered Women of Juarez and another with a mural of a knight on horseback for great Spanish author Miguel Cervantes who died four centuries ago in 1605. All in all a great Day of the Dead.

Who Will Rebuild New Orleans?

Who should rebuild New Orleans is displaced New Orleans people—mostly black but also poor white-- who have lost their jobs and homes. The government should set up a large federal project restoring the wetlands that protect the city and rebuilding the city itself. The jobs should be above minimum wage and with benefits.The government should set up a program like the Works Project Administration (W.P.A.) that the New Deal had during the Depression that put unemployed people to work buiding everything from the San Francisco Gate Bridge to schools, libraries, roads all across the nation. The W.P.A. was incredibly successful helping people reconstruct their lives as well as building bridges, roads and buildings we still use today seventy years later.

Is this going to happen? No.

President Bush has already suspended provisions of the Davis-Bacon Act that requires the government contractors to pay prevailing wages in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. Also the Department of Homeland Security has suspended sanctions against employers who hire workers with no documents.

So who will be hired? Not blacks from New Orleans who were instrumental in creating the rich culture of the city and who have been left with nothing. Not poor white Cajuns whose families have lived in the region for 200 years also instrumental in creating Louisiana's culture. Not them. Oh no.

Government contractors are hiring Latino immigrants from Mexico and Central America and sending them to Louisiana. Gregory Rordiguez in the September 25, 2005 LA Times reports that these male workers “live outside New Orleans in mobile homes without running water and electricity.” Rodriguez quotes President Bill Clinton on NBC’s “Meet the Press” saying that “New Orleans will be resettled with a different population: the evacuees will be forced to relocate and will be replaced by poor Latinos.

One subtitle Rodriguez uses in his article is “Latinos to the Rescue,” point out the many contributions of immigrant labor. Indeed, immigrant labor including Mexican immigrants have made huge contributions, but New Orleans could very well be rescued by the labor of its own citizens, giving them a decent life in the process. Instead the government will exploit desperately poor Latinos in order to rebuild the city. Of course, any workers who help to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf should be given legal status, electricity, running water, and wages above the minimum.

But the jobs should firstly go to people from New Orleans who have been forced out so they can return to their city to rebuild their city, their neighborhoods, and their lives. We should pressure Bush to follow the previsions of the Davis-Bacon Act that requires the government contractors to pay prevailing wages in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. We should pressure Bush to restart a Works Progress Administration . We should have government contractors hire evacuees and house them in trailers with electricity, running water, and a decent wage. We should also demand that any immigrants who work rebuilding New Orelans be given legal status, basic rights and a decent wage. That's the way New Orelans should be rebuilt.