This space is dedicated to the proposition that we need to know the history of the struggles on the left and of earlier progressive movements here and world-wide. If we can learn from the mistakes made in the past (as well as what went right) we can move forward in the future to create a more just and equitable society. We will be reviewing books, CDs, and movies we believe everyone needs to read, hear and look at as well as making commentary from time to time. Greg Green, site manager
2. Stop by 113 Ocean Street, buy tickets & see our booth on May 19.
3. Send check made out to Dorchester People for Peace to
Hayat Imam, 59 Edwin St. Dorchester, MA 02124 (include phone #)
* * * *
From Jeff Klein, who is traveling in Syria
UNDER THE MISSILES IN DAMASCUS
A loud and persisant booming woke up everyone here in the early hours of Saturday morning. To this visitor from Boston it sounded like the Fourth of July fireworks we hear every year over the Charles River. But this was Damascus and the thunder was exploding missiles from the long-awaited attack by Trump and US allies Britain and France.
The bombardments started precisely at 4am local time and continued for the better part of an hour. Only the timing was a surprise here, as Trump had been threatening a reprisal attack for the alleged use by the Syrian government of chemical weapons in Eastern Ghouta outside Damascus last week. Most Syrians and others in the region derided the charge as fake news – and in fact it is hard for anyone to fathom why the Syrian army would use chemical weapons when they were on the verge of military victory in Ghouta. To the question of “cui bono?” (who benefits) it was hard to avoid the sense that only the so-called rebels and the enemies of Syria could get any advantage from this alleged chemical attack.
It was an ironic time for an American to be in Syria. Arriving earlier that same day from Beirut with a group of international activists, including three Americans, two Canadians , two Brits, two Irish, two Germans, one and one Dutch, we passed with some tension and delay at the Syrian-Lebanese border but ultimately we received our visas from the government authorities in Damascus. I was the designated translator at the passport control window, responding with some difficulty to the questions of the officer there, especially with the challenge of explaining the occupations of the visitors. “Retired,” “journalist” and “teacher” I knew, but a German choreographer and a Swiss film director became “Theater workers,” the Dutch machinist became an “engineer” and the German head of an HR recruiting firm became a “clerk.” Anyway, we passed muster.
Crossing the many security checkpoints on the way into the capital, it was touching to be met with smiles and greetings from the soldiers on duty, even though our countries had been complicit in the near destruction of Syria and were expected to launch a new attack at any moment.. There and in fact everywhere we went the universal greeting from all Syrians was the only English word many of the knew: “Welcome!”
By all accounts, most Syrians were unfazed by the latest missile attack. There were videos of Damascenes cheering from rooftops as anti-missile rockets were launched over the city to intercept the US, French and British missiles.
Trump’s tweet that the attack had been “perfectly carried out” is likely an overstatement. The Russian and Syrian militaries claim that the majority of the incoming missiles were shot down or diverted electronically from their targets, although this is impossible to verify. In any case, before and after photos of th e alleged military/chemical research center in Damascus show pretty thoroughgoing destruction. But the US attacks had been so fully telegraphed – and there were claims that the Russians were informed in advance of the targets - that the buildings were empty and there were no reported fatalities.
Of course, if these Damascus targets were actually chemical weapons facilities as charged there would have been massive civilian casualties from the bombing. There were none.
The next morning, after a mostly sleepless night, we were led around the neighborhood by our Syrian translator and guide. Abu Maher, a very jovial Muslim who claimed his family had been Christian until a few centuries before, had been a tourist guide for 25 years. A strong supporter of the Syrian government, he lived in the neighborhood regarded himself as a patriot rather than a political person. Like many Syrians, he was passionate about the long history and multi-cultural identity of his country. Before the war he had been a guide for Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. (He said that Brad was intelligent and asked good question; Angelina, not so much!)
Our hotel, Beit al Wali, is a beautifully restored Ottoman period mansion in the Bab Touma quarter of the Old City. Syrians had invested heavily in the tourist sector before the war in the expectation of attracting badly needed hard currency, but of course these days there are hardly any foreign visitors apart from a small number of well-to-do Lebanese. Beirut is just couple of hours away and Lebanese do not need visas for Syria.
Bab Touma is a traditionally Christian part of town, but the are also mosques here, in some cases directly neighboring churches of the 12 Christian denominations said to exist in Syria. Orthodox (Greek, Syrian and Catholic Melchite) are the majority, but there are also Roman Catholic, Maronite, Armenian and even evangelical churches. The restaurants are frequented by mixed crowds of Muslims and Christians all happily drinking Arak and smoking shisha (water pipes). Liquor stores and bars are commonplace here and unmolested. We visited more than one (the very old “Abu George” was my favorite).
Nearly everyone we met on the streets and in the shops derided Trump’s missile attack. Locals in Bab Touma were much more focused on the government recapture of Eastern Ghouta, where the neighboring rebel-held town of Jobar had been the source of daily rocket and mortar launched against this part of the city. We were shown many sites of these attacks on the walls and roads of the area, including the locations where people had been “martyred.” More than a hundred Damascus civilians had been killed by these attacks in recent months – of course little reported in the Western press – and the residents were clearly relieved that their town was now safe.
Compared to this, Trump’s missiles were a minor annoyance, ridiculed by all as a “show” from that American “donkey.” There were spontaneous demonstrations of support for the government during the past few days and a larger organized rally scheduled for Monday afternoon. The atmosphere in the city was much more relaxed than it had been when I visited two years ago, reflecting a string of government military advances since then.
Of course, the missile attack was derided by many war cheerleaders in the West as “insufficient.” Israel and rebel supporters inside and outside the country also expressed their disappointment.
Saturday night the hotel prepared a festive dinner for us – it was the birthday of Mario, one of the Germans among our group. Present also was the British journalist Vanessa Beeley, who has exposed much of the phony Western propaganda coming out of Syria – and been vilified for it – together with some locals, including the very colorful Syrian comic who goes by the name of “Treka.” Treka, who grew up in Nigeria among the Syrian business community there, sports long dreads and speaks in very colloquial but accented English, defies all sterotypes about “Arabs.” He has posted many videos deriding the MSM narrative abroad. His latest, deriding the alleged chemical attack in Ghouta is here.
MIT, Boston University, Boston College, UMASS/Boston, Birzeit University, Ben-Gurion University, Tel Aviv University
* * * *
Radical New Leaders Are Reviving Martin Luther King's Poor People's Campaign
Today's Poor People's Campaign seeks to develop local leadership, including strong representation of the millions of poor people — black, brown, and white — to create a multi-racial, multi-gendered, intergenerational movement to heal the racial and economic divides tearing America apart. More
With the Great Return March, Palestinians Are Demanding a Life of Dignity
The Nakba is not a just a memory, it is an ongoing reality. We can accept that we all must eventually die; in Gaza, the tragedy is that we don’t get to live. More
Israeli Parliament Endorses 'nation-state bill' for First Reading
Key Knesset committee approves final draft of 'Zionism's flagship bill' defining Israel exclusively as nation for Jews. More
The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of
’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-As The 50th Anniversary
Year Of The High School Class Of 1968 Rolls Along… “Forever Young” (Magical
Realism 101)-With Ritchie Valen’s Oh,
Donna In Mind
By Allan Jackson
A Story As Told To Frank Jackman
[As I have mentioned previously a lot
of the throwback to this series got its start via modern technology
specifically around the now fabulous ability to “connect” with people from back
in the day, at least the people who want to be connected with and have not left
“no forwarding address” on their personal lives by keeping under the radar of
modern conveniences and ways to grab information. (I won’t even speak here of
NSA-type overreaching or social media platform privacy matters although I
could. I know I was able to connect with a number of my corner boys still
standing via such methods, and was able to connect with those from my high
school graduation class when it came time for a too high a number class reunion
celebration. That process similar to the story here told to Frank Jackman who
as some may know was originally used in this series as a “front.” As the guy
who did the modern introductions to the series.
A lot of this use of technology
to connect with the past I think can be attributed to members of our generation
of ’68 having time on our hands to think about the various roads that were, or
could have been, taken. To wonder, wonder like we wondered when we were young
and the world was fresh, Fitzgerald’s wonder at the fresh green breast of the new
world of those ancient Dutch sailors who came up Long Island Sound before
everything began to get spoiled and seek to find some answers while we are
still standing and the question still has some urgency before we fall under the
earth and face the big sleep which makes such inquiries irrelevant. I take
special interest in this rather short sketch because, for one flickering moment,
all those dreams, what did the teller call them, yes, puff-cloud dreams came
back to the ground and made some sense. The wisdom of age might be overrated
but not the dream of those puff-cloud dreams. Allan Jackson]
Forever Young-lyrics by Bob Dylan
May God bless and keep you always
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young
May you grow up to be righteous
May you grow up to be true
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you
May you always be courageous
Stand upright and be strong
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young
May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
May your song always be sung
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young
Whee, Am I glad that my own 50th
anniversary reunion at North Adamsville High in Massachusetts is over, done,
complete and that the “magic” year 1964 has slipped into 1965 and I, no one,
has to worry about an odd-ball 51st anniversary celebration. Of
course in all the hoopla over the 50th anniversary reunion with some
classmates setting up a reunion committee (which I assisted around the edges
doing odds and ends chores), setting up a big bang class website to draw
everybody still around and computer savvy enough to find the Internet, finding
a super place to have the event, and setting up the thing on the fall weekend
when it occurred I actually, didn’t, couldn’t go to the event. That is a long
story, a story about old time teen angst and alienation, about trying to
retrace what could not be retraced in a hundred lifetimes, and about how in
words taken from a title of one of Thomas Wolfe’s novels-you can’t go home
again.
Nevertheless before I could understand
the import of those last words, understand that it was better not tempt the
fates an angle that developed in the process of helping the reunion committee I
wrote a number of small memory-etched sketches for the class website reflecting
specific events like high school dances and football rallies, reflecting on
various local customs and places like “watching the submarine races” and corner
boy hanging out times, that kind of stuff some specific to the town and class,
others more broad-based. The following sketch is a reworking of one from the
latter category which is “forever” appropriate as long as somebody, some cohort
of people make it to 50th anniversary reunion time. I hope that if
you want to go to your 50th nothing stands in the way of you doing
that, that no dragons from the mist of time come up to bite you for thinking
you could do so.
*******
…an old man bundled up against the December weathers, dark blue navy skull cap
pulled down almost to his eyes , brown cotton gloves because his hands sweat
which they conveniently absorb when he has built up a head of steam, blackwindbreaker complete with fold-away hood in
case of rains or snows zippered up to his neck, long, too long for his body
blue all-weather jogging pants, topped off, or better bottomed off with the
signature of the AARP set New Balance
running shoes which he purchases by the half dozen pairs up in the Kittery,
Maine outlet malls begins to run, no, better, jog/shuffle along the Causeway
end of Adamsville Beach. For those who have not been in the old town for a
while that is by the lights across from the 24hour CVS, formerly the First
National supermarket back in the day, the old town being North Adamsville not
too far outside of Boston if you want to know. But the old man could have been
anywhere where old men try to cheat time, or at least slowdown that race to the
end by keeping themselves as fit as circumstances and the ten thousand aches of
age allow, could have been trundling along congested city streets consumed by
traffic smoke and every other treachery, along soothing rivers flowing to the
sea like some later day easy rider looking for the next town, out west in the
mountains like some pioneer spirit read in history book, along the plains
easier to navigate although in the old hitchhike west days if you were left off
there by some kindly driver just going up the road but the old man was ocean
born and declared to anyone who would listen one time that he would ocean pass
away. And spent the in between time within a stone’s throw.
The old man trying to build
up a painfully constructed stride, huffing and puffing, head down and this day
full of thoughts triggered by his up-coming 50th anniversary class reunion to
held in the fall in this very town. Thinking just then of the irony of running
along a section of his old high school cross-country course that he had not run
since back then and thinking too as he moved along the boardwalk running
parallel to that beach of those mist of times Adamsville Beach days when he
longingly looked out at the sea, its mucks, its marshes, hell, even it fetid
smells and mephitic stinks, as if it could solve some riddle of existence.
Thinking too as he trudged along of times when he was young and flexible, when
each step did not require an army of support, salves, pills, knee braces, to
move forward, to a time when he could “run in pain,” could fall and jump up,
dust off his kneesand shake it off and
if not fast then able to run the distance in about half the time it would take
him on this day (his fast running friend back then, a friend from back in the
old projects elementary school days and best friend through high school now
lost in the mist of time if he were still alive, Brad Badger, said he had
"the slows," well okay Brad had a point).
As he settled into a pace (he always liked to run early, unlike this day when
he on other business which necessitated him passing near the old town when he
did not start off until almost noon, when there was little traffic, or run on
beach sand, or run on soft felt tracks so that he could hear the pitter-patter
of his shoes, could hear the sound of his breathe as it steadied) he began
thinking about hanging out around places around town, places like Harry’s
Variety over on Sagamore that he had passed by on the way to the beach trying
to cadge pin-ball games from the rough and tumble corner boys half
hero-worship, half fear and a close thing thinking about putting his well-shod
boot on the wall holding up the corner bricks with them; hanging out at
Salducci’s Pizza Parlor begging girls to play some latest song that he just had
to hear on the jukebox like Oh, Donna the
name of his current love, or he wanted to be love, and he needed the repetition
so he could learn all the words and sing them to her; and, hanging out on
sweaty summer nights on the front steps of North, no money in pocket, no car
between them, no girl to sit on those forlorn steps with that same Brad Badger,
also penniless, speaking of dreams, small dreams of escape and big puffed-ball
cloud dreams of success.
Remembering, an old man’s harmless flash remembering, of standing in corridors
between classes day-dreaming of, well, you know, certain now nameless girls and
of giving furtive glances to a few which they totally ignored (that furtive
glance an accepted acknowledgement of interest as against the dweeb flat-out
stare that got nothing but girlish scorn). But that was another story. And
remembrances too of sitting in classes, maybe some dank seventh period study
hall, wondering about what would happen Friday night when he and his corner
boys from Jack Slack’s bowling alleys cruised Adamsville Beach in Digger Jones’
rebuilt Chevy. HoJo’s, the big orange roof operation ice cream place a must
stop on hot summer nights, make his cherry vanilla, the Southern Artery well past the other end of the beach, Marley’s,
Pisa’s Tower of Pizza, Adventure Car-Hop, some not the real names but memory
fails) , and in a pinch going “up the Downs” to Doc’s Drugstore, looking,
looking for adventure, looking for some magic formula to wipe away the teen
angst and alienation blues that crept up on him more than was good for him...
...an old woman (Jesus, better not say that in this day in age, maybe never not
if you want to avoid that still potent girlish scorn preserved intact since
about fifth grade in elementary school, yes, better make that a mature woman)
also bundled up, thick woolen scarf providing protection for her head, another
scarf almost as thick wrapped around her neck, ear muff against that nagging
sound in her ears when the wind was up like that day, a full-length goose down
coat against fashion but warm, showing underneath the telltale all-weather
running pants with their comfortable strings again against fashion, big almost
catcher’s mitt mittens, topped off, or better bottomed off with the signature of
the AARP set New Balance running
shoes which she had recentlypurchased
at City Sports against the December
weathers, begins to walk, haltingly, but with head up (proper posture just like
her mother taught her long ago along with that proper girlish scorn preserved
intact taught in that same fifth grade), along Adamsville Beach from the Adams
Shore end (having parked her Toyota around what is now Creely Park named after
some fallen Marine, although she remembered the place as Treasure Island when
her family took their obligatory weekly summer Friday night ventures there for
barbecuesso Mother did not have to cook
in the nasty heat) thinking thoughts triggered by her up-coming 50th class
reunion as well.
Thinking thoughts about old
flames, about all those young men who had practically tripped over each other
to give her that telltale furtive glance in the corridors that spoke of
interest (and too of the fools like Frank Jackman who stared, stared if you
could believe that, at her in the hallways like they had just gotten off the
boat, or something and she laser-eyed her well know look of scorn to freeze
them up). Laughed, or rather tittered about how she had half the boys in the
class convinced that she was “unapproachable” once she put the freeze on the heroic
captain of the football team and all the girls could not believe he came
begging for more. Thought about what had happened to them and as she walked
toward the old Clam Shack she began
to get creeping in thoughts about that first kiss sitting in the back seat of
her girlfriend's boyfriend's car with him right across from that establishment,
some old flame now un-nameable, at this very beach and about, she blushed as
she thought of it, that first French kiss and how she had felt awkward about
it. (Felt awkward about lots of things sexual since while her mother had been
an excellent teacher of the fine art of freeze-outs and girlish scorn she never
said word one about sex, about the feelings, about what to do, or not do about
it, and had learned about sex like every other girl she knew from the
experienced girls in the girls’ locker or really from some boy fumbling with
her until they figured stuff out.
Later in her walk thoughts flashed by, funny thoughts, emerged about all the
lies she told about those same steamy nights just to keep up with the other
girls at talkfest time -the mandatory Monday morning before school girls
'"lav" talkfest, boys had theirs' too she found out from a later
flame after high school. Laughing now but then not knowing until much later
that the other girls too were lying just to keep up with her. And of all the
committees she had been on; the senior dance committee which planned the prom, The North Star the school newspaper that
she wrote for and which had made her blush when she had recently gone up into
the attic looking for her old articles in anticipation of the reunion, Magnet, the class yearbook also found
in that same attic, whatever would keep her busy and make her a social
butterfly.
Then a mishmash of thoughts
flooded her mind as she passed Kent Park near the now vanished Jack Slack’s bowling
alleys of the girls’ bowling team and wondering, now wondering, why they kept
the boys’ team separate; of reading in that cranky old Thomas Crane Public
Library up the Square where she first learned to love books and saw them as a
way to make a success of herself and had done so; and, of hot sweltering summer
afternoons with the girls down at the beach trying to look, what did Harry call
it, “beautiful” for the guys.
Somewhere between the Adamsville Yacht Club and the North Adamsville Boat Club
the old man and the mature woman crossed paths on that wide boardwalk. He, she,
they gave a quick nod of generational solidarity to each other and both thought
despite their bundled up conditions they knew the other from some place but
couldn’t quite place where. After they passed each other the old man’s pace
quickened for a moment as he heard some phantom starter’s gun sounding the last
lap and the mature woman’s walk became less halting as she thought once again
about that first kiss (whether it was the French kiss that stirred her we will
leave to the reader’s imagination) as each reflected back to a time when the
world was fresh and all those puffed-cloud dreams of youth lay ahead of them.
Spring 2018 Mystic Chorale mysticchorale.org From Selma to Soweto: Songs of Power Led by Nick Page
Join the 200 singers of the Mystic Chorale singing songs of community, power and hope from the ongoing Civil Rights movements of South Africa and the US. We are thrilled to welcome returning guest, Dr. Ysaye Barnwell , who has spent three decades singing with Sweet Honey In The Rock and building communities of song throughout the world. Her central message—that together our voices matter—is sagely conveyed in the lyrics she wrote for Step by Step : “Many stones can build an arch, singly none.”
We also welcome back South African friends Nthabi Thakadu, Phakamani Pega, and Pumla Bhungane, as well as pianist extraordinaire Jonathan Singleton.
Audience and Chorale alike will enjoy Ysaye’s uplifting song-leading and a rich program that features several contemporary pieces, including one Ysaye wrote especially for Mystic that assures us, “We can rise higher than high, We can rise in love.”
All of the songs—past and present, South African and American—deliver powerful and relevant messages for today’s world!
Enjoy this video of the Mystic Chorale singing Usilethela Uxolo (Nelson Mandela, You Bring Us Peace) at a past concert. SATURDAY , May 19, 2018, 7:30pm or SUNDAY , May 20, 2018, 3:30pm
On The 100th Anniversary Of American Entry In World War I (1917)-The Golden Age Of The Musical-Judy Garland And Gene Kelly’s “For Me And My Gal” (1942)-A Film Review
DVD Review
By Si Lannon
[Although a few regular readers has asked when this bracketed insert below the name of the writer will be curtailed we feel that given the dramatic internal shake up at American Left History with the ouster of the now gone missing Allan Jackson (who used the moniker Peter Paul Markin which Zack James explained in a recent film review of Paris When It Sizzles see April 2018 archives) we should continue to do so as long as we are giving each writer full sway to discuss his or her take on the matter. So as mentioned previously as of December 1, 2017 under the new regime of Greg Green, formerly of the on-line American Film Gazette website (and through that on-line site linked to theAmerican Folk Digest, Progressive American and Modern Book Library sites), brought in to shake things up a bit.
This shake-up, a major earthquake here given his longevity, after a vote of no confidence in the previous site administrator Peter Markin was taken among all the writers at the request of some of the younger writers abetted by one key older writer, Sam Lowell, means the habit, Markin’s habit of assigning writers to specific topics like film, books, political commentary, and culture is over. Also over is the designation of writers in this space, young or old, by job title like senior or associate which Markin instituted over the past few years as he brought in desperately needed younger blood as a “firewall” between him and anyone who might try to tip the increasingly bizarre balance of coverage to the narrow sphere of the turbulent 1960s. After a short-lived experiment designating everybody as “writer” suggested by a clot of older writers seemingly seeing the recent struggle as off-shoot, as an emulation of the French Revolution’s “citizen” or more to the point given the political personal histories of some of the clot member, the Bolshevik Revolution’s “comrade” all posts will be “signed” with given names only. The Editorial Board]
“For Me And My Gal,” starring Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, George Murphy, 1942
[A number of reviews, commentaries and opinion pieces of late at this American Left History blog site have been prefaced like I am doing with the writer’s take on the recent shake-up at this site with the sudden ouster of the now missing Allan Jackson (aka Peter Paul Markin) at the direction of the newly installed Editorial Board and new day to day site administrator Greg Green. I don’t wish to belabor the points already made by both older and younger writers except as an old-time high school friend I am sure that Allan, as has been his nature since about fourth grade, as far as I know is off on a sulk and neither in forced exile in Siberia or its equivalent Utah (although if it had been rumored that it was Alabama I would get out my old history book on the internal struggle in the Bolshevik party between “Uncle Joe” Stalin and torch-carrier Leon Trotsky). He will be back as always. See Allan lived in the shadow of the real Markin, who passed away many years ago and which we have written extensively about in this space, and never really felt he was as good as Markin which led to many problems back then. And now too I suppose.
But enough of that since what I want to write about since I am reviewing this Judy Garland-Gene Kelly dominated musical is that Allan hated musicals or I should say musicals that were not from the 1960s. If you wanted to do a retro-review on Hair, Tommy, Jesus Christ, Superstar be his guest. Otherwise say you wanted to review Chicago forget it. Look at the archives, almost nothing earlier or later. The only way to get such a review through was as a re-post from say American Film Gazette and he had to honor our common commitment on publishing. My feeling, my gut feeling, since we are being candid here is that he did not like musicals because, well, because the real Markin hated them which I will go into a little when I actually get to the review. The only serious exception Allan would make was for Fred Astaire vehicles because of the dancing not because of the music even though that was created by the likes of Cole Porter, the Gershwins, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin all of whom he loved as part of the American songbook. (By the way the real Markin loved them too so maybe I am on to something).
Allan did let up a little of late but really only for Gene Kelly vehicles to demonstrate how much better a dancer Fred was against Gene. And truth to tell because he confided this to me while the internal struggle was going on since I supported his retention he relented a little to throw a bone to the younger writers. Enough for now.]
*****
When Allan, the real Markin ( I will just use Markin hereafter), and I were just out of high school, maybe the summer after graduation we went down to Provincetown to see what was up with what we heard was a swarm of faggots, fairies, sissies, light on their feet guys, whatever, you know gays today. (Provincetown then and today as well Mecca for gays and lesbians mixing it up with the dwindling surplus of native Portuguese heritage fisherman.) Walking down the street we saw a poster-board or whatever they call them in front of Lazy Daisy’s which may still be their although the original owners must have long passed since they were old then announcing a talent night. Since it was getting dark we figured we would go inside and see what there was to see. Jesus, what we saw were “drag queens,” transvestites, cross-dressers, trans-genders although I know that was not a term of usage then. Whatever you called this scene and we settled on “drag queens” the talent in front was everything from Miss Patti Page, Miss Peggy Lee, and this is why I have started this review this way Miss Judy Garland. Christ half the acts were doing some song of hers starting from that old rubbish Somewhere Over The Rainbow from the Wizard Of Oz. Markin was in full grim after that one as much as I said he loved that part of the American songbook. So Allan was in full grim too. I think, and the archives will bear me out, there is not one reference to Judy Garland in all the years this publication has been around. It might, at least I suspect that it might, have something to do with Markin’s own sexual ambivalence and thus Allan’s, but I will let the pyscho-scholars figure that one out.
At bottom like half the film ever made, if not more, and many of the novels as well this is just another “boy meets girl” saga set to music and dance with the lead actors, Judy and Gene, bursting into song and/or dance every chance they get before realizing they were, ah, in love and chaise get ready to do something about the matter-get married. Let me back up a little to give some background. This one is set in the days just before World War I when the main way to give the masses some entertainment out in the prairies, small towns and such were vaudeville shows. That’s is where “from hunger” Harry, Kelly’s role, is ready to do anything from stealing songs to ditching professional partners to get to the big white way, to get to Broadway and the real deal and Jo, dear sensibly warm-hearted Jo, played by Judy Garland meet and hate/love each other before the deal goes down.
The deal being that just before they are as a professional team ready to hit the bright lights WWI gets in the way when Harry is drafted. Being a “main chance” guy he tries the old honored draft dodger special which guys have been doing since governments have been impressing soldiers for their needs-fakes and injury bad enough to get him out of the draft. That does not sit well with Jo whose younger brother had been killed in France early in the American intervention. She calls the whole thing off with this bum of the month and heads to Europe to entertain the troops with a YMCA troupe. Forget that bastard Harry and sing every possible WWI song that Tin Pan Alley could produce for the war effort from sentimental to super-patriotic. Remorseful Harry finally gets on that patriotic bandwagon and they meet again (don’t know where, don’t know when, oops that’s a Dame Vera Lynn WWII song) via the YMCA circuit. And love again.
Like I said boy meets girl out of uniform and in. Two points as hard as it to believe Judy out-dances Gene by a mile and you know now I see why all those “drag queens” were so crazy to do Judy Garland stuff. Sometimes you can learn like that something in this wicked old world.
