The CIA wanted to crush him. But he's very much alive.
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The CIA and the U.S. Justice Department tried to destroy the life of Jeffrey Sterling. Now, after two and a half years in prison, he’s trying to rebuild it.
Wednesday, May 22, 2019
The CIA wanted to crush him. But he's very much alive. RootsAction Education Fund
Musings On The American Art Scene From The Creation To Pop-Op-Bop Art By The Famed Late Novelist John Updike- A Quick-draw Summary
Musings On The American Art
Scene From The Creation To Pop-Op-Bop Art By The Famed Late Novelist John Updike-
A Quick-draw Summary
By Laura Perkins
This volume is
exclusively Updike’s take on American art since colonial times, maybe before so
some of the paintings from the early days can be dismissed out of hand since it
is well known that the Puritan ethic frowned upon sex, sexual expression and
naked bodies except for the ministers who preached the so-called good word who
kept what passed for sexually provocative paintings in their private chambers.
(one of the male Mather clan, Pericaval, from that preacher crowd, had quite a
cache when they opened his private closet in the basement wall of the church he
pastored at in Melrose about thirty years ago blowing the ethic, if not Max
Weber, out of the water). Naturally if you deal with the long history of
American art then the first serious name, a name well-known in Boston art
circles, is the Tory traitor and rat John Singleton Copley who fled America for
the sweet bosom of Mother England and some well-paid assignments painting
risqué portraits of upper- class women showing plenty of shoulder and for the
times that sweet tightly bunched bosom everybody thought was reserved for
Mother England. Fortunately, I, we don’t have to spend much time on this since
we only claim our theory for the 20th century.* Praise be.
*For those not in the
know my, our, the “our” part being my co-writer and muse Sam Lowell have staked
out our space on 20th century art, serious 20th century
art, as driven by all kinds of sexual and erotic themes in the post-Freudian
world.
We can easily pass over
the Hudson River School boys like Cole and Church and their wide-eyed visions
of the American pastoral and their Garden of Eden predilections which nowadays would
be unrecognizable for the most part since much of it is littered national parks
or federal reserve land. As with botanist and proto-flower child Martin Johnson
Heade he of hummingbirds and lush flower fame since I will be damned if I can
link him with Georgia O’Keeffe’s sensual, fleshy florals. The long and varied
career of Winslow Homer is another story if you look beyond the famous farm and
field material with two-wayward boys trying to figure out the meaning of life,
his serious illustrations during and after the American Civil War and some
seaside scenes. A strong argument can be made for the homo-erotic nature of his
famous Undertow. Nobody has claimed,
and I have asked Sam who uses the English poet W.H. Auden as a guide who kept
close tabs on the matter of who belonged in what Auden called the “Homintern,”
that Homer’s proclivities headed in that direction but in the closed world,
read closet, that gays and lesbians were confined in the matter is hardly
closed. Especially when you factor in Homer’s close relationship with the
acknowledged gay poet Walt Whitman and his rough trade crowd in D.C. and New
Jersey. In any case this is the time for another provisional disclaimer that
art, some art, some serious art was driven by sex and sensuality before the 20th
century it just generally in the case of painters like Homer very subtle, and
very driven by coded symbols like flowers and stormy seas in lieu of pressed
together bodies.
We can put Thomas Eakins
in the same boat, or should in his case, scull since he had done an endless series
on hunky guys rowing up and down mad rivers, as Homer as a guy who was
disturbed by his times but not quite sure of what he wanted to paint except beyond
oarsmen graphic scenes in what passed for medical schools in those days. James
Abbott McNeil Whistler though is another matter and it seems to me to not be
merely coincidental that Updike has taken up Whistler cudgels, as much of a
rogue as he was. Whistler can clearly, in fact must be clearly tagged along
with a few others before the 20th century by sex, as legitimate forerunners
of the sexual explosion later. In his case not only on the canvas. I have
already, thanks in part to Sam and his arcane knowledge of ancient history,
written Whistler off as a pimp when reviewing his The White Girl with its deeply symbolic wolf’s head and fur which
has been an “advertisement” for sexual availability since the days of the Whore
of Babylon. This time out Updike wants to garner in some observations about
Whistler’s long series of paintings dubbed with color names and centered, appropriately,
on the night as an early devotee of “the nighttime is the right time” which was
shorthand for “art for art’s sake” in his book. Of course we, Sam and I, and
couple of the interns had a big laugh over that one since every lame artist and
art critic has used that as a back-up to the search for the “sublime” as their
working theory of what drove a painter to paint what he or she painted.
Updike’s main contention though is that Whistler couldn’t make it to the modern
since his palette was limited (limited by his pressing dough question when he
didn’t have enough for paints even on credit and had to send some mistress of
the time out onto the streets or castles to hustle up some business. The night
time is the right time is right).
On to the 20th
century. We can dismiss Albert Pinkham Ryder out of hand since who knows what
he was trying to do now that most of his works have self-destructed just
because he was clueless about what paints and other products would survive on
the canvass. He might have been a serious artist and maybe a contrary example
to my theory but who knows since he decided, consciously decided I think to
live on artistic self-immolation. Childe Hassam is another matter although it
is tight and requires a certain amount of knowledge that say his famous
painting of the Boston Common in the old horse and buggy days was a coded piece
of work since one of the townhouses on the left was infamous as a high-end
brothel run by a women who used the moniker Madame Bovary. Moreover if you look
closely at the actual Common part you will see in the distance what looks like
a young women soliciting a gentleman in a top hat. Beyond that I am not willing
to comment on Hassam’s work except there is definitely something erotic in all
those latter crazed flag-waving paintings he did to great effect.
We can pass the piece on
Stieglitz since he is famous for bringing modern art to the American shores and
pushing wife-to -be Georgia O’Keeffe into the limelight but is known personally
for his photography, his attempts which only in the past couple of decades have
been bearing fruit of having high-end photography accepted as a fine arts form.
In that regard it is interesting that the National Gallery of Art in Washington
has only in the recent past been displaying it huge treasure trove of
photographs from the 1800s to present with retrospectives down on the ground
floor of the West wing which seems to have been set aside to accommodate those
works. I might add that the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has been doing the same
in a couple of it galleries dedicated to photography. Finally it is not clear
to me and therefore not worth speculating on in regard my general theory how
much Stieglitz contributed, if anything to Ms. O’Keeffe’s sexually symbolic
works from flowers to skyscrapers to those sensual mountains in New
Mexico.
Homoerotic art has a
long and honored history going back to the Greeks and their full display jugs
and vases if not before (some of the earlier cave art has some such phallic displays).
Although I have not commented on explicitly homoerotic art work before what
will be so comments on the work of Marsden Hartley, a gay man early in the 20th
century I have worked on the idea that such art is fully in accord with my
general theory about sex and eroticism in serious 20th century art.
On occasion, and since this is a fairly new on-going series, not many I have
alluded to the homosexual proclivities of artists like closeted John Singer
Sargent and openly gay Grady Lamont but that sexual preference was not openly
professed in their works. Marsden Hartley thus is the first to have painted
openly homoerotic works like Sustained
Comedy and Christ Held By Half-Naked
Men which might have been somewhat scandalous (and brave) at the time but
now are rightly seen as classics of the genre. Having brought this art into the
discussion we have come full circle about the various forms of sexual
expression presented in this series
While Marsden Hartley in
his later career was able to “come out” in his art the legendary Arthur Dove
started out practically from day one dealing with the sexual nature of his art,
his heterosexual art as far as I can tell in paintings like Silver Sun and That Red One where instead of Georgia O’Keeffe vaginal flowers,
penis skyscrapers and bosom mountains he using moons and sun to make his erotic
substitute statements. I will be doing a separate piece on his work so I will
leave the bulk of what I say for that (and Hartley’s also since Sam Lowell has
something he wants to have me present about his role as a vanguard gay artist).
Updike has declared him on the cutting edge of modern and that seems about
right although as usual Updike shies away from drawing sexual implications from
works that scream of such expression.
I have already commented
on dirty old man Edward Hopper, the king of mopes, and his leering at nubile
young women who are unaware that he is painting them (and who knows what else
with the young women who consented to be painted by the famous allegedly modest
painter and got much more than they bargained for. In the #MeToo age it is not
clear whether his modest reputation would save him from scandal, and maybe the
law but nothing has surfaced yet). Jackson Pollack also has been the subject of
a recent piece and needs no further comment other than somebody tried to defend
him by claiming that when he was working his wore loose-fitting pants and so he
had zipper problems. (Sir, check the famous videos of him working and you will
see some very tight dungarees or jeans if you want to call them that so much
for your vaunted defense.) Finish off with Pop Art’s Andy Warhol, king of the
hill back when that counted before everything turned minimalist galore who will
also get a future gloss and it only needs to be said here that he was artist
first and performer and showman second. I remember somebody saying that they
could “do” soup cans. Sure but who thought of the idea and who actually thought
to paint common everyday items and make them works of art. Enough for now.
50 Years Gone The Father We Almost Knew One Jack Kerouac Out Of Merrimack River Nights-Searching For The Father We Never Knew-Scenes In Search Of The Blue-Pink Great American West Night- “Our Homeland The Sea”
50 Years Gone The Father We Almost Knew One Jack Kerouac Out Of
Merrimack River Nights-Searching For The Father We Never Knew-Scenes In
Search Of The Blue-Pink Great American West Night- “Our Homeland The Sea”
By Seth Garth, known as
Charles River Blackie for no other reason that he can remember at least than he
slept along those banks, the Cambridge side and some raggedy ass wino who tried
to cut him under the Anderson Bridge one night called him that and it stuck.
Those wino-zapped bums, piss leaky tramps and poet-king hoboes all gone to some
graven spot long ago from drink, drug, or their own hubris which they never
understood gone and the moniker too.
“Our
Homeland The Sea”
Funny, he, call him old man of the sea, although that
appellation has been done to literary death in about sixteen different ways not
all of them apt, in any case let’s not, definitely not, make it some
Hemingway-ish old man, some viejo, some Caribe viejo, fighting some stinking
marlin, or some such fish, mano y mano, stinking, man and fish, fighting some
life and death literary metaphor struggle, but that name fits as good as any,
thought as he watched out over another endlessly enchanted seascape, next stop
England or with a wind drift or tide drift homeland, forbear homeland Ireland,
how many such scenes he had witnessed in his whitened lifetime. This time the
sea-scape, god-brokered, maybe god-forsaken, with furious winds driving
white-capped waves thundering to
ill-prepared but eagerly waiting to be taken like some overripe maiden beaches (better
metaphor that some stinking viejo and fish combine, alright) and already filled with flotsam and jetsam,
nature’s jimson, from a million previous
rages, nature rages now co-mingled with his own benighted rages, brought
another rage (rage against the dying of the light) about how much of his life
had revolved around the sea, around trying to get a handles on the sea, trying
to see, well, hell at this late date where he fit in, no, where he stood, okay.
And after his rant subsided he thought this…
Maybe it was the sheer hard fact, hard to get around fact anyway, of the transcontinental California night calling after too long an absence, the California be-bop, be-bop, be-bop, praise saint be-bop, our lord and king be-bop, late 1960s night, summer of love night and its aftermath when all things were possible and when old Wordsworth had it right, had it poem right, to be young was very heaven.
The afternoon turned back to morning as he headed west, funny, flown, jet-flown these days, no more those old days hitchhike road, waiting alone or with some angel woman by his side on some Route 6, or 66, hailing some lonesome trucker looking for poor boy company, someone to rant to at seventy-five miles an hour to in order to relieve his own desperate life with a road son, waiting too in some forlorn Neola, Winnemucca, Boise, Grand Island, Flagstaff, wherever, waiting a long time. Or on some just hopped flat-bed Denver & Rio Grande, Illinois Central, Southern Pacific train making time with the last of the old-time hobos and dreaming his own dreams of some Phoebe Snow left behind in sorrow or anger. Less frequently, strangely, a flat-out car run west riding Route 80, 90 to Frisco town thundering through farmlands, the plains, rockymountain high and down on to the desert before golden-gated blessed land’s end, Frisco.
The eternal California be-bop night after years of Maine solitude, of Maine grey-blue-white washed, white-crested, white-capped, foam-flecked Atlantic ocean-flotsam and jetsam strewn waters. After all not all angel oceans are created the same, just look at the fury-driven pacific ocean in front of him, no friend to man, to beast, or to god, not all oceans speak to one in the same way, speak that siren song whisper, speak hushed tones that no man (and here man means man or woman, okay) dare speak above, nature’s arbitrary law, although they are all old Father (or is it Brother now) Neptune’s thoughtful playgrounds. (Thoughtful for ten thousand thoughtful walks, ten thousand un-thoughtful walks, and eight thousand more or less, indifferent walks, twenty-eight thousand, more or less, chances anyway.
California’s, yes, white-washed, yes, white-crested, yes, white-capped, yes, foam-flecked speak to gentle, warm lapis lazuli blue wealth dreams of the quest, the long buried lifelong quest for the great blue-pink great American West night, blue-pinked skies of course. Yes maybe it was just that sheer hard fact, hard to get around still, that pushed him, old man of the sea him, out of Eastern white, white to hate the sight of white, snowed-indoors, Eastern gale winds blowing a man against the sand-pebbled seas, and into the endless starless, better, sunless night. Yes, maybe just a change of color, or to color, from the white white whiteness of the sea stretched, white-etched night. Right down to the shoreline white where the waves devoured night and left their mark, their graffiti-etched mark.
Maybe too it was the sheer fact, he would no longer speak of hard to get around facts around since that was enameled into his psyche now, of preparing, against the timetable of that Eastern white night, timetable set and etched by that shoreline outline and that fugitive lover who ravished her shoreline sands and then fled, this and that for the winter California day, and night, the ocean California that set the thoughts of the be-bop night (hell, more than be-bop, be-bop to the nth power) suddenly came brain-storming in waves like that turbulent sea over him not seen or heard from since those first summer of love days, and the quest for the blue-pink skies humming once again in the, admittedly, older-boned voyager, voyeur (some snicker “dirty old man” and save such high society words as voyeur for the professionals) of dreamed once sultry, steamy sex-ridden nights.
And vivid memories of golden Butterfly Swirl (born, Cathy Callahan, corn-fed, no more from hunger okie forbears migration Carlsbad, California, circa 1950) and her sex, her seventeen different little tricks (to match her age in that 1967 summer of love night, if you need a date), learned, learned from who knows where, maybe mother ocean herself or some karma sutra book but certainly not from her former “seeking the perfect wave” surfer boyfriend- where would that fit into his timetable? Such thoughts, such memory thoughts a different proposition, a different proposition altogether, on most days, from preparing to face fierce Maine winter mornings, unaided by the graces, speak freely of the graces please, and forms nature provides its hardier creations. No thoughts today of heavy woolen coats, double-stitched, double-plied, doubled-vested, old nor’ easter worthy, or heavy woolen pants, same chino pants of youth, same black chino pants, no cuffs, except winter weight, not the always summer weight of no knowledge youth (inside sad joke), or heavy boots, heavy clunky rubbery boots mocking against the snow-felt, ocean-edged soft sand streets, or maybe, more in tune with aged-bone recipes heavy-soled, heavy-rubber soled (or was it rubber souled?) running shoes (also known in the wide world of youth as sneakers, better Chuck’s, Chuck Taylor’s). Of scarves, and caps, full-bodied caps, better seaman’s caps, heavy, wool, dark blue, built to stand against the ocean-stormed waves crashing and thrashing against ships hulls, and gloves, gloves to keep one’s hands from frosty immobility he need not speak. Or will not speak. Of this he will speak…
A memory picture too of boyhood friend Jimmy Leclerc, remember that name like you remember the seas, like you remember certain tales, like you remember, well, like you remember as best you can , that which somebody told you about but which you did not experience (although Jimmy experiences filled his soul, filled his sea-watching soul even this day). Blessed, sainted, sanctified, cradled, born under a certain star, lucky maybe if you believe in making your own luck or having it thrust upon you, Jimmy, young, maybe four or five, no, five, definitely five, school ready, school ready come five year old fall, mucking around the summertime shoreline mucks, low tide, shoreline white- etched ravishes well up the beach, fetid smells from seven kinds of tanker-passing oil slicks, rancid chemicals from the cross-bay industrial plant, human mucks mixed in from ten thousand , ten thousand (thanks, Sam Coleridge) sources seeping back to shore and mephitic (thanks, Norman Mailer) seeps as well from the close by marshes that guard the approaches to the sea.
Jimmy, a tow-headed, tow-headed kid, five, portending Adonis and ladies, maybe some Butterfly Swirl and her seventeen little tricks when he gets old enough to know of such tricks, know of teaching such tricks just in case he lands a neophyte, knowing from some savior older brother himself sent to sea at fourteen, or some other worthy sea-mate, that day, that picture day, walking toward the ever-present amateur clam diggers(or maybe professional but it was hard to see how they, or anyone, could make a living out of oil- slicked, fetid, human mucked clams),high rubber boots, high almost to the crotch (although Jimmy would not have pointed that hard fact out, no then), buckets, small buckets, portending small payloads, sea-rakes, sea-shovels, sea-backs and working against time before the relentless seas come back to cover their own.
And just that day, that low tide and mucks days, Jimmy
learned a valuable lesson from those vagrant gypsy clam-diggers (literally
gypsies, Roma now, if you prefer, but just plain ordinary gypsies then, and
called so, mostly seen with travelling carnivals and on city sidewalks selling
cheap roses for the lady, and maybe their daughters too, selling that is, they
used the clams in some special olio broth magic that kept their race alive in
hard times) about only believing half (or less, but that was another lesson
another time) of what you hear. He had heard a few days before, heard from some older boys who lived up the
street (the name of the street not important, not important to the lesson, but
maybe, naming will act as an omen, name Taffrail Road evoking long ago wooden
ships and sea-farers worthy of the name, sea-ward pirate cousins of that day’s
gypsies) and who were interested in girls, as girls, as opposed to childhood boys
leave girls for later pickings and moonings, and not like Jimmy, Jimmy even
then girls as foils for his child-like schemes, not all evil, not at all, but
not in entangling, intertwining ways like they spoke of, that the sea before
them contained mythic submarines, enemy submarines out beyond the breakers. He
asked one of the gypsy diggers if he had seen any submarines around while he was
digging. The digger spoken to by Jimmy called to his gypsy partner repeating
Jimmy’s question and they both let out with a low groan laugh, then a heartier
one. The first man laughed some more and then said to Jimmy that while there
were not many around anymore since the war (World War II for those who are
keeping counts on wars, or just trying to keep them straight), since the bloody
Germans has been defeated and good riddance (reflecting the decimation of his
kindred in Europe who took a serious beating from the bloody bastard Nazis) but
he said on certain moonless nights you could see objects that certainly looked
like submarines so be watchful, and be careful. So for a couple of months
thereafter whenever the moon was low or it was cloudy Jimmy looked out fiercely
at the open sea and then after a while went on to other things. Lesson about
half of what you hear learned.
Memory fast forward.
A moonless June night, circa 1961 Jimmy Leclerc was sitting in his
brother borrowed 1957 two-toned (cherry red
and white) Chevy (the old man as he mulled the ancient fact knew , he knew said
brother should have been shot, or worse , for letting anybody, even a brother,
even a brother who spent the whole afternoon turtle-waxing the damn thing in
order to borrow his chariot borrow his chariot) down at the far end of Seal
Rock (name also not important except that Seal Rock says beach, says mystery
and says, far end says, that this is the local lovers’ lane for the
free-spirits who don’t mind the crowds of cars that dotted that place on moonless June nights, and other times
too, or mind being seen in a spot that
means only one thing, that you will be anywhere
from point one to point thirty Monday morning in Olde Saco High School (Maine,
okay) before school “lav” talk, boys’ or girls’ lav accordingly, about who did,
or did not, do what and with whom (or is it who) over the weekend at Seal Rock.
And that week, that week just before school let out for the summer and spoiled
all those Monday morning discussed points until September’s deluge, Jimmy and
Lorraine, Lorraine Dubois, received a number because Jimmy, who had long since
learned to believe in making his own luck, had talked his ball and chain
sweetie Lorraine into searching for submarines, those mythical gypsy digger
submarines. And searching for them very closely, very closely indeed, as it
turned out, in the back seat of that brother’s cherry ’57 Chevy.
* From "The Rag Blog"- In Honor Of Marilyn Buck
Click on the headline to link to a "The Rag Blog" entry on Marilyn Buck.
Markin comment:
Every young leftist militant, hell, every old leftist militant and even those who have lost their way since the 1960s and forgot what we were fighting for then, and now, should read this story. It tells two tales- if you go up against the American imperial state you better be ready to win, or else. And it also tells that there really was some very, very good human material, like Marilyn Buck, in the 1960s with which we could have built that better world we were fighting for if we could have understood the first tale better. I wish, and I wish like crazy, that we had a few more, actually quite a few more, militants like Marilyn Buck these days. Let's get moving. All honor to Marilyn Buck and the other fighters, like Mumia, still behind bars for "seeking that newer world."
Markin comment:
Every young leftist militant, hell, every old leftist militant and even those who have lost their way since the 1960s and forgot what we were fighting for then, and now, should read this story. It tells two tales- if you go up against the American imperial state you better be ready to win, or else. And it also tells that there really was some very, very good human material, like Marilyn Buck, in the 1960s with which we could have built that better world we were fighting for if we could have understood the first tale better. I wish, and I wish like crazy, that we had a few more, actually quite a few more, militants like Marilyn Buck these days. Let's get moving. All honor to Marilyn Buck and the other fighters, like Mumia, still behind bars for "seeking that newer world."
Tuesday, May 21, 2019
Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night- Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino’s “High Sierra”- A Film Review
Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night- Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino’s “High Sierra”- A Film Review
DVD Review
High Sierra, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ida Lupino, directed by Raoul Walsh, Warner Brothers, 1941
Okay, okay one more time- and this is for you, Roy “Mad Dog” Earle the “hero” of the film under review, High Sierra, crime does not pay. Some guys, some guys like brother Earle wind up learning that “hard knocks” lesson the hard way- lying face down at the bottom of some foreboding sierra canyon and no one , well, not no one, but hardly anyone to weep over their bones. And that, my friends, is the rough sketch lesson behind this classic Bogie gangster portrayal (and classic down-at-the heels dime-a-dance portrayal as faithful Marie, played by, well, an amazingly fetching Ida Lupino).
A little plot line is in order to show why, why, naw, skip that, we already have had our noses rubbed since childhood in the whys and why nots of crime doesn’t pay but why Brother Earle in the end took a bullet rather than be captured alive (even with his doll moll, Marie, ready to visit him every Sunday at some off the road prison locale).
See Earle is a three-time loser (or at least more than once) having been sprung from a full-book (okay, okay life) prison sentence (via an Indiana pardon) by an old-time gangster boss on his last legs. Apparently the talent pool of hard boys has dried up and an old pro that is not afraid to take heat and give some (without losing his head) is required for the caper the old don has in mind. A big jewelry heist in the Sierras (that’s in non-seaside California for the geography-challenged) at a watering hole for the well off. Easy stuff for Earle, as long as he keeps his head and the hired help don’t panic.
Now strictly as filler Roy, having had enough of the inside, and is planning to retire after he gets his cut from the heist. And for a while the film moves along with a little off-hand, oddball romance (no not Ida, not Ida yet). He befriends, on his road west, an old has-been farmer down on his uppers with a pretty crippled (oops, disabled) young granddaughter who he has ideas of marrying. Ya, I know, old Roy had been away for a while so maybe he is secretly skirt crazy, but this combination is strictly no go, no go on about seven counts, including that said granddaughter has enough sense to brush Roy the Boy off. Although not before Roy had sprung for a leg fixing operation. Roy, believe me, it never would have worked out. She would have run off with some Hollywood soda jerk or fast-talking garage mechanic and then where would you have been?
What works, and works like magic, is drop dead foxy, been around the block, been knocked around but is still taking the eight count, Marie. She had blew into town with a couple of what passed for hard boys in the hills of California night ( as boss man Big Mac said the talent ain’t like it used to be) and while they waste their time fighting over her favors she lights on our boy Roy. And after the granddaughter flame-out and some soft-soap sparring Marie wins the prize.
Naturally, yawn, the heist goes awry when some well-heeled dame screams and the bullets start to fly. And as the cops bear down through of series of narrower and narrower possibilities Roy is headed to that high sierra canyon, and death. No, Marie had it right. Like she had a lot of things right. He crashed out and was free, free as a three-time loser was ever going be.
DVD Review
High Sierra, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ida Lupino, directed by Raoul Walsh, Warner Brothers, 1941
Okay, okay one more time- and this is for you, Roy “Mad Dog” Earle the “hero” of the film under review, High Sierra, crime does not pay. Some guys, some guys like brother Earle wind up learning that “hard knocks” lesson the hard way- lying face down at the bottom of some foreboding sierra canyon and no one , well, not no one, but hardly anyone to weep over their bones. And that, my friends, is the rough sketch lesson behind this classic Bogie gangster portrayal (and classic down-at-the heels dime-a-dance portrayal as faithful Marie, played by, well, an amazingly fetching Ida Lupino).
A little plot line is in order to show why, why, naw, skip that, we already have had our noses rubbed since childhood in the whys and why nots of crime doesn’t pay but why Brother Earle in the end took a bullet rather than be captured alive (even with his doll moll, Marie, ready to visit him every Sunday at some off the road prison locale).
See Earle is a three-time loser (or at least more than once) having been sprung from a full-book (okay, okay life) prison sentence (via an Indiana pardon) by an old-time gangster boss on his last legs. Apparently the talent pool of hard boys has dried up and an old pro that is not afraid to take heat and give some (without losing his head) is required for the caper the old don has in mind. A big jewelry heist in the Sierras (that’s in non-seaside California for the geography-challenged) at a watering hole for the well off. Easy stuff for Earle, as long as he keeps his head and the hired help don’t panic.
Now strictly as filler Roy, having had enough of the inside, and is planning to retire after he gets his cut from the heist. And for a while the film moves along with a little off-hand, oddball romance (no not Ida, not Ida yet). He befriends, on his road west, an old has-been farmer down on his uppers with a pretty crippled (oops, disabled) young granddaughter who he has ideas of marrying. Ya, I know, old Roy had been away for a while so maybe he is secretly skirt crazy, but this combination is strictly no go, no go on about seven counts, including that said granddaughter has enough sense to brush Roy the Boy off. Although not before Roy had sprung for a leg fixing operation. Roy, believe me, it never would have worked out. She would have run off with some Hollywood soda jerk or fast-talking garage mechanic and then where would you have been?
What works, and works like magic, is drop dead foxy, been around the block, been knocked around but is still taking the eight count, Marie. She had blew into town with a couple of what passed for hard boys in the hills of California night ( as boss man Big Mac said the talent ain’t like it used to be) and while they waste their time fighting over her favors she lights on our boy Roy. And after the granddaughter flame-out and some soft-soap sparring Marie wins the prize.
Naturally, yawn, the heist goes awry when some well-heeled dame screams and the bullets start to fly. And as the cops bear down through of series of narrower and narrower possibilities Roy is headed to that high sierra canyon, and death. No, Marie had it right. Like she had a lot of things right. He crashed out and was free, free as a three-time loser was ever going be.
The Fire This Time-In Honor Of James Baldwin Whose Time Has Come Again-From The Archives- ***Books To While Away The Class Struggle By- James Baldwin’s “Going To Meet The Man”- Come Ready, Brother
Click on the headline to link to a "YouTube" film clip of "James Baldwin: The Price Of The Ticket."
Recently I have begun to post entries under the headline- “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By” and "Films To While Away The Class Struggle By"-that will include progressive and labor-oriented songs and films that might be of general interest to the radical public. I have decided to do the same for some books that may perk that same interest under the title in this entry’s headline. Markin
Book Review
Going To Meet The Man, James Baldwin, Vintage International, New York, 1995
I have been, as is my wont when I get “hooked” on some writer, on something of a James Baldwin tear of late, reading or re-reading everything I can get my hands on. At the time of this review I have already looked at “Go Tell It On The Mountain”, the play “Blues For Mr. Charlie”, “Tell Me How Long The Train’s Been Gone”, and “The Fire Next Time”. Those works, well written and powerful reminded me of why I was crazy to read everything that Baldwin wrote when I was a kid. I do not recall then having read any short stories by Baldwin, at least none that were memorable like one of the stories, “Sonny’s Blues”, in this “Going To Meet The Man” compilation.
Now great writers, and I hope at this point in our common American literary experiences no one need argue James Baldwin’s place in the canon, sometimes are capable of writing both great novels and short stories. Baldwin seems to be in that category, although off of this selection it may be a bit premature to make that judgment because most of the material appears to have been “first drafts” of later, full novelistic treatments. For example, “The Morning, The Evening, So Soon”, the subject matter of which is the fame of a expatriate black actor-singer who despite that fame is still subject to all the racial taunts and tensions of a stay-at-home performer. (I am writing this review just after the passing away of the pioneer black singer/actress/black liberation fighter, Lena Horne.) That subject gets fuller treatment in "Tell Me How Long The Train's Been Gone."
Other subjects that get a preliminary workout here are the deep religious experience of Baldwin’s fundamentalist Protestant youth, “The Outing” that will get a full-blown treatment in “Go Tell It On The Mountain.” Of course, the subject of homosexuality, and bi-sexuality, are obliquely presented in several stories, Baldwin, along with Gore Vidal being something of American literary pioneers, if not honored as such at the time, on the subject. And of course, as with all of Baldwin serious work, we are treated to various manifestations of the ever present “race” question; interracial sex and marriage; degrees of blackness; white racism; black attitudes toward white racism; and the purposeful insularity of the white world in dealing, or nor dealing, with these questions, then and now.
What you want to get this particular compilation for though, as I mentioned above, is for “Sonny’s Blues”. Now it is almost impossible to find any writer, any American writer at least, worth his or he salt who came of literary age in the 1950s who was not influenced, even if only around the edges, by “be-bop” jazz. Baldwin is no exception, although his race is not the only reason for that statement. The rhythm of the cool, abstract, high white note “be-bop jazz” that sent audiences into a frenzy of delight are a simple companion to the sparser, less lyrical literary beat of 1950’s writing. Mailer, Kerouac, and most of the New York intellectual crew feasted, and feasted well, on that inner sound. But, nobody got it righter than James Baldwin in “Sonny’s Blues.”
What seemingly starts out as another one of Baldwin’s epistles on, literally, brotherly love; that of two brothers, one, Sonny, several years younger than the other, who “grew up” in Harlem, grew away from each other by choice or circumstances,, reunited when now famed jazz pianist brother, Sonny, got caught up trying to reach that “high white note” via the “horse” drug connection that also has been associated with bop, turns into one of the best expositions of what jazz meant to the listener, and to the artist struggling to find his inner voice, that I have ever read.
The last several pages, in counterpoint to the first several, are truly lyrical as Baldwin puts in words on the printed page what a struggle it was for Sonny, and his fellow band members in New York cafe society, to “make the gods listen." And to make the heavens cry out for the high side of the human experience. You or I could try to write such lines for two hundred years and we could not get it right. Kudos, James.
Recently I have begun to post entries under the headline- “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By” and "Films To While Away The Class Struggle By"-that will include progressive and labor-oriented songs and films that might be of general interest to the radical public. I have decided to do the same for some books that may perk that same interest under the title in this entry’s headline. Markin
Book Review
Going To Meet The Man, James Baldwin, Vintage International, New York, 1995
I have been, as is my wont when I get “hooked” on some writer, on something of a James Baldwin tear of late, reading or re-reading everything I can get my hands on. At the time of this review I have already looked at “Go Tell It On The Mountain”, the play “Blues For Mr. Charlie”, “Tell Me How Long The Train’s Been Gone”, and “The Fire Next Time”. Those works, well written and powerful reminded me of why I was crazy to read everything that Baldwin wrote when I was a kid. I do not recall then having read any short stories by Baldwin, at least none that were memorable like one of the stories, “Sonny’s Blues”, in this “Going To Meet The Man” compilation.
Now great writers, and I hope at this point in our common American literary experiences no one need argue James Baldwin’s place in the canon, sometimes are capable of writing both great novels and short stories. Baldwin seems to be in that category, although off of this selection it may be a bit premature to make that judgment because most of the material appears to have been “first drafts” of later, full novelistic treatments. For example, “The Morning, The Evening, So Soon”, the subject matter of which is the fame of a expatriate black actor-singer who despite that fame is still subject to all the racial taunts and tensions of a stay-at-home performer. (I am writing this review just after the passing away of the pioneer black singer/actress/black liberation fighter, Lena Horne.) That subject gets fuller treatment in "Tell Me How Long The Train's Been Gone."
Other subjects that get a preliminary workout here are the deep religious experience of Baldwin’s fundamentalist Protestant youth, “The Outing” that will get a full-blown treatment in “Go Tell It On The Mountain.” Of course, the subject of homosexuality, and bi-sexuality, are obliquely presented in several stories, Baldwin, along with Gore Vidal being something of American literary pioneers, if not honored as such at the time, on the subject. And of course, as with all of Baldwin serious work, we are treated to various manifestations of the ever present “race” question; interracial sex and marriage; degrees of blackness; white racism; black attitudes toward white racism; and the purposeful insularity of the white world in dealing, or nor dealing, with these questions, then and now.
What you want to get this particular compilation for though, as I mentioned above, is for “Sonny’s Blues”. Now it is almost impossible to find any writer, any American writer at least, worth his or he salt who came of literary age in the 1950s who was not influenced, even if only around the edges, by “be-bop” jazz. Baldwin is no exception, although his race is not the only reason for that statement. The rhythm of the cool, abstract, high white note “be-bop jazz” that sent audiences into a frenzy of delight are a simple companion to the sparser, less lyrical literary beat of 1950’s writing. Mailer, Kerouac, and most of the New York intellectual crew feasted, and feasted well, on that inner sound. But, nobody got it righter than James Baldwin in “Sonny’s Blues.”
What seemingly starts out as another one of Baldwin’s epistles on, literally, brotherly love; that of two brothers, one, Sonny, several years younger than the other, who “grew up” in Harlem, grew away from each other by choice or circumstances,, reunited when now famed jazz pianist brother, Sonny, got caught up trying to reach that “high white note” via the “horse” drug connection that also has been associated with bop, turns into one of the best expositions of what jazz meant to the listener, and to the artist struggling to find his inner voice, that I have ever read.
The last several pages, in counterpoint to the first several, are truly lyrical as Baldwin puts in words on the printed page what a struggle it was for Sonny, and his fellow band members in New York cafe society, to “make the gods listen." And to make the heavens cry out for the high side of the human experience. You or I could try to write such lines for two hundred years and we could not get it right. Kudos, James.
The Fire This Time-In Honor Of James Baldwin Whose Time Has Come Again-From The Archives- Books To While Away The Class Struggle By- James Baldwin's “The Fire Next Time”-That’s Right- Not Water- The Fire Next Time
The Fire This Time-In Honor Of James Baldwin Whose Time Has Come Again-From The Archives- Books To While Away The Class Struggle By- James Baldwin's “The Fire Next Time”-That’s Right- Not Water- The Fire Next Time
Click on the headline to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for James Baldwin's "The Fire Next Time".
That’s Right- Not Water- The Fire Next Time
Recently I have begun to post entries under the headline- “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By” and "Films To While Away The Class Struggle By"-that will include progressive and labor-oriented songs and films that might be of general interest to the radical public. I have decided to do the same for some books that may perk that same interest under the title in this entry’s headline. Markin
Book Review
“The Fire Next Time”, James Baldwin, Vintage International, New York, 1962, 63
Now I have been, as is my wont when I get “hooked” on some writer, on something of a James Baldwin tear of late, reading or re-reading everything I can get my hands on. At the time of this review I have already looked at “Go Tell It On The Mountain”, "Tell Me How Long The Train's Been Gone", and "If Beale Street Could Talk." Frankly those works, while well written and powerful, did not altogether remind me why I was crazy to read everything that Baldwin wrote when I was a kid. The Baldwin black liberation manifesto (and, maybe, white liberation as a by-product), "The Fire Next Time", "spoke" to me then and after forty years still "speaks" to me now in so-called "post-racial" Obama time.
Back in the early 1960s I used to listen to a late night talk show on the local radio station in Boston. Many times the host would have Malcolm X on and the airwaves would light up with his take on white racism, black nationalism and the way forward for the black liberation struggle- and away from liberal integrationism. Now in those days I was nothing but a woolly-headed white, left liberal "wannabe" bourgeois politico kid who believed in black liberation but in the context of working within the prevailing American society. I was definitely, and adamantly, opposed to the notion of a separate black state on the American continent if for no other reason that it would look something like the then existing ghettos, writ large, that I was committed to getting rid of and a set up for black genocide if things got too hot. And I still am. So, on the one hand, I admired, and I really did, Malcolm X for "speaking truth to power" on the race question while on the other disagreeing with virtually every way he wanted to achieve it.
Now that scenario is the predicate for James Baldwin's assuredly more literary, but seemingly more hopeful, way of getting the thread of the Malcolm X message about white racism out while posing the possibility (or, maybe, necessity) of joint struggle to get rid of it. In my recent re-reading of "The Fire Next Time" I was struck by how much of Baldwin's own hard-fought understandings on the question of race intersected with The Nation Of Islam, Malcolm at the time, and Elijah Mohammad's. Oddly, I distinctly remember debating someone, somewhere on the question of black nationalism and using Baldwin's more rational approach as a hammer against the black nationalists. I probably overdrew his more balanced view of a multiracial American then, if not now.
Still, Jimmy was onto something back then. Something that airy-headed kids like me, who thought that once the struggle in the South was won then the struggle in the North could be dealt with merely by a little fine-tuning, were clueless about. Don't smirk. But do note this: while only a fool or political charlatan, would deny that there have been gains for the black population since those civil rights struggle days the pathology of racism and, more importantly, the hard statistics of racism (housing segregation, numbers in the penal system, unemployment and underemployment rates, education, and a whole range of other factors) tell a very different story about how far blacks really have come over the last half century. A story that makes "The Fire Next Time" read like it could have been written today. And to be read today. Thanks, Jimmy.
Click on the headline to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for James Baldwin's "The Fire Next Time".
That’s Right- Not Water- The Fire Next Time
Recently I have begun to post entries under the headline- “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By” and "Films To While Away The Class Struggle By"-that will include progressive and labor-oriented songs and films that might be of general interest to the radical public. I have decided to do the same for some books that may perk that same interest under the title in this entry’s headline. Markin
Book Review
“The Fire Next Time”, James Baldwin, Vintage International, New York, 1962, 63
Now I have been, as is my wont when I get “hooked” on some writer, on something of a James Baldwin tear of late, reading or re-reading everything I can get my hands on. At the time of this review I have already looked at “Go Tell It On The Mountain”, "Tell Me How Long The Train's Been Gone", and "If Beale Street Could Talk." Frankly those works, while well written and powerful, did not altogether remind me why I was crazy to read everything that Baldwin wrote when I was a kid. The Baldwin black liberation manifesto (and, maybe, white liberation as a by-product), "The Fire Next Time", "spoke" to me then and after forty years still "speaks" to me now in so-called "post-racial" Obama time.
Back in the early 1960s I used to listen to a late night talk show on the local radio station in Boston. Many times the host would have Malcolm X on and the airwaves would light up with his take on white racism, black nationalism and the way forward for the black liberation struggle- and away from liberal integrationism. Now in those days I was nothing but a woolly-headed white, left liberal "wannabe" bourgeois politico kid who believed in black liberation but in the context of working within the prevailing American society. I was definitely, and adamantly, opposed to the notion of a separate black state on the American continent if for no other reason that it would look something like the then existing ghettos, writ large, that I was committed to getting rid of and a set up for black genocide if things got too hot. And I still am. So, on the one hand, I admired, and I really did, Malcolm X for "speaking truth to power" on the race question while on the other disagreeing with virtually every way he wanted to achieve it.
Now that scenario is the predicate for James Baldwin's assuredly more literary, but seemingly more hopeful, way of getting the thread of the Malcolm X message about white racism out while posing the possibility (or, maybe, necessity) of joint struggle to get rid of it. In my recent re-reading of "The Fire Next Time" I was struck by how much of Baldwin's own hard-fought understandings on the question of race intersected with The Nation Of Islam, Malcolm at the time, and Elijah Mohammad's. Oddly, I distinctly remember debating someone, somewhere on the question of black nationalism and using Baldwin's more rational approach as a hammer against the black nationalists. I probably overdrew his more balanced view of a multiracial American then, if not now.
Still, Jimmy was onto something back then. Something that airy-headed kids like me, who thought that once the struggle in the South was won then the struggle in the North could be dealt with merely by a little fine-tuning, were clueless about. Don't smirk. But do note this: while only a fool or political charlatan, would deny that there have been gains for the black population since those civil rights struggle days the pathology of racism and, more importantly, the hard statistics of racism (housing segregation, numbers in the penal system, unemployment and underemployment rates, education, and a whole range of other factors) tell a very different story about how far blacks really have come over the last half century. A story that makes "The Fire Next Time" read like it could have been written today. And to be read today. Thanks, Jimmy.
From The Archives- Socialist Alternative May Day Statement-Immigration Rights are Workers' Rights-STOP THE RAIDS, DEPORTATIONS AND BUDGET CUTS!
Click on the headline to link to the Socialist Alternative website.
Immigration Rights are Workers' Rights-STOP THE RAIDS, DEPORTATIONS AND
BUDGET CUTS!
Socialist Alternative May Day Statement
Working people are under attack. Collective bargaining rights are be¬ing taken away from unions as immigrants are being terrorized with raids and deportations. Politicians of both parties are cutting budgets while they wage war and give handouts to the big banks and corporate billion¬aires that helped create this crisis in the first place.
Corporations dodge taxes, and the politicians still say there is no money to rand our schools, healthcare and countless other services. In a recent New York Times article (March 24, 2011) the multi-billion dollar company General Electric is exposed for receiving taxpayer money but not paying any taxes at all! Yet, undocumented workers and public sector workers are scapegoated for the economic devastation created by corporate domination.
Right-wing Republican politicians pass racist laws such as SB 1070 in Arizona and now Georgia's bill HB8. They try to crush public sector unions and accuse teachers of wrecking the economy while the blame should be left firmly at the doorsteps of Wall Street. Republicans are not alone; Democratic politicians across the country, from top to bottom, are shutting down schools, slashing budgets, waging war and providing tax breaks for the rich.
While big oil companies like BP destroy the environment, they also raise prices to make us pay for the problems that their system created. Enough is enough!
We need to stand up and fight back, just like the workers in Wisconsin and Egypt. Coalitions need to be built against all cuts in sendees that can bring together unions, community groups and socialists. We need to demand full legalization and citizenship rights for all workers. As a step in this direction, we need to run in¬dependent working class candidates against both parties of big business.
May Day, International Workers' Day, was founded in this country to honor the labor martyrs that fought for the 8-hour work day through strike action. Much of this struggle was led by immigrant workers. We will honor their memory by fighting against the corporate domination that is destroying the world today.
Undocumented workers have left their homes and country to find opportunities to bring a better life for there families and themselves. Many fled countries devastated by the policies of the U.S. government and the multi-national corporations that the government serves. Just as previously, immigrants can help ignite a labor movement that can defeat the attacks on all working people.
• Stop the Budget Cuts -
Close the Corporate Tax
Loopholes
• For a Massive Public
Works Program to Cre¬
ate Jobs
• Full Legalization and
Citizenship Rights for all
Undocumented Workers
• For Independent Can¬
didates Against Budget
Cuts and Attacks on
Unions
• For a Workers' Party and
a Democratic Socialist
Society
socialistworld.net
Tel. (774) 454-9060 boston@SocialistAlternative.org boston.socialistalternative.org
********
Derechos'de Inmigrantes Son Derechos de Trabajadores
iALTO ALASREDADAS,DEPORTACIONES Y LOS RECORTES!
Declaration del Dia International de los Trabajadores de Socialist Alternative
Los trabajadores estan bajo ataque. Se estan quitando los derechos de negotiation del convenio de los sindicatos a partida que se estan aterrorizando a los inmigrantes con las redadas y deportaciones. Los politicos de ambos partidos estan recortando los presupuestos mientras que hacen la guerra y dan limosnas a los grandes bancos y multimillonarios corporativos que ayudaron a crear esta crisis economica en primer lugar.
Las corporaciones evaden impuestos, y los politicos todavia dicen que no hay dinero para financiar nuestras escuela-sel seguro medico y un sinnumero de otros servicios. iEn un articulo reciente del New York Times (24 de marzo de 2011), se expone la rnultimillonaria em-presa de General Electric a recibir dinero de los contribuyentes, pero ella siquiera paga los impuestos! Sin embargo, los trabajadores indocumentados y los tra¬bajadores del sector publico son chivos expiatorios de la devastation economica creada por la domination corporativa.
Los politicos republicanos de derecha aprobaron las leyes racistas como SB1070o en Arizona y ahora el proyecto de ley HB8 de Georgia. Ellos tratan de aplastar a los sindicatos del sector pu¬blico y echar la culpa a los profesores y otros trabajadores del sector publico cuando la culpa pertenece a las puertas de Wall Street. Los republicanos no estan solos; los politicos democratas de todo el pais, de arriba a abajo, estan cerrando las escuelas, reduciendo los presupuestos, haciendo la guerra y ofreciendo incentives fiscales para los ricos.
Mientras que las grandes petroleras como BP destruyen el medio ambiente, tambien aumentan los precios de gaso-lina para hacernos pagar por los prob-lemas que su sistema haya creado. iBasta ya!
Tenemos que resistir y luchar, al igual que a los trabajadores en Wisconsin y Egipto. Las coaliciones deben construirse contra todos los recortes en los ser¬vicios que pueden reunir a los sindicatos, los grupos comunitarios y los socialistas. Tenemos que exigir la plena legalization y derechos de ciudadania para todos los trabajadores. Como un paso en esa direction, tenemos que postular candidates independientes y de clase trabajadora contra ambos partidos del Gran Negocio.
El Primero de Mayo, Dia Internacional de los Trabajadores, fue fundado en este pais para honrar a los martires de la clase trabajadora que lucharon por la Jornada de 8 horas a traves de la huelga. Gran parte de esta lucha fue dirigida por los trabajadores inmigrantes. Vamos a honrar su memoria mediante la lucha contra la domination corporativa que esta destruyendo el mundo de hoy.
Los trabajadores indocumentados han dejado sus casas y su pais para eneontrar oportunidades de llevar una vida mejor para sus familias y para si mismos. Muchos huyeron de paises devastados por las politicas del gobierno de EE.UU. y las corporaciones multi-nacionales que el gobierno sirve. Al igual que anterior-mente, los inmigrantes pueden ayudar a encender un movimiento obrero que puede derr-otar los ataques a todos los trabajadores.
•Alto a los recortes pre-supuestarios — Pare las evitaciones de pagar impuestos de las Corporaciones
• Para un programa de ob-
ras publico y masivo para
crear empleos
• Plena legalizacion y dere¬
chos de ciudadania para
todos los trabajadores
indocumentados
• Para candidates indepen¬
dientes contra los re¬
cortes presvupuestfirios y
ataques a los sindicatos
• Por un partido obrero y
una sociedad socialista
democratica
SocilistAlternative.org socialistworld.net
Tel. (774) 454-9060 boston@SocialistAlternative.org boston.socialistalternative.org
Immigration Rights are Workers' Rights-STOP THE RAIDS, DEPORTATIONS AND
BUDGET CUTS!
Socialist Alternative May Day Statement
Working people are under attack. Collective bargaining rights are be¬ing taken away from unions as immigrants are being terrorized with raids and deportations. Politicians of both parties are cutting budgets while they wage war and give handouts to the big banks and corporate billion¬aires that helped create this crisis in the first place.
Corporations dodge taxes, and the politicians still say there is no money to rand our schools, healthcare and countless other services. In a recent New York Times article (March 24, 2011) the multi-billion dollar company General Electric is exposed for receiving taxpayer money but not paying any taxes at all! Yet, undocumented workers and public sector workers are scapegoated for the economic devastation created by corporate domination.
Right-wing Republican politicians pass racist laws such as SB 1070 in Arizona and now Georgia's bill HB8. They try to crush public sector unions and accuse teachers of wrecking the economy while the blame should be left firmly at the doorsteps of Wall Street. Republicans are not alone; Democratic politicians across the country, from top to bottom, are shutting down schools, slashing budgets, waging war and providing tax breaks for the rich.
While big oil companies like BP destroy the environment, they also raise prices to make us pay for the problems that their system created. Enough is enough!
We need to stand up and fight back, just like the workers in Wisconsin and Egypt. Coalitions need to be built against all cuts in sendees that can bring together unions, community groups and socialists. We need to demand full legalization and citizenship rights for all workers. As a step in this direction, we need to run in¬dependent working class candidates against both parties of big business.
May Day, International Workers' Day, was founded in this country to honor the labor martyrs that fought for the 8-hour work day through strike action. Much of this struggle was led by immigrant workers. We will honor their memory by fighting against the corporate domination that is destroying the world today.
Undocumented workers have left their homes and country to find opportunities to bring a better life for there families and themselves. Many fled countries devastated by the policies of the U.S. government and the multi-national corporations that the government serves. Just as previously, immigrants can help ignite a labor movement that can defeat the attacks on all working people.
• Stop the Budget Cuts -
Close the Corporate Tax
Loopholes
• For a Massive Public
Works Program to Cre¬
ate Jobs
• Full Legalization and
Citizenship Rights for all
Undocumented Workers
• For Independent Can¬
didates Against Budget
Cuts and Attacks on
Unions
• For a Workers' Party and
a Democratic Socialist
Society
socialistworld.net
Tel. (774) 454-9060 boston@SocialistAlternative.org boston.socialistalternative.org
********
Derechos'de Inmigrantes Son Derechos de Trabajadores
iALTO ALASREDADAS,DEPORTACIONES Y LOS RECORTES!
Declaration del Dia International de los Trabajadores de Socialist Alternative
Los trabajadores estan bajo ataque. Se estan quitando los derechos de negotiation del convenio de los sindicatos a partida que se estan aterrorizando a los inmigrantes con las redadas y deportaciones. Los politicos de ambos partidos estan recortando los presupuestos mientras que hacen la guerra y dan limosnas a los grandes bancos y multimillonarios corporativos que ayudaron a crear esta crisis economica en primer lugar.
Las corporaciones evaden impuestos, y los politicos todavia dicen que no hay dinero para financiar nuestras escuela-sel seguro medico y un sinnumero de otros servicios. iEn un articulo reciente del New York Times (24 de marzo de 2011), se expone la rnultimillonaria em-presa de General Electric a recibir dinero de los contribuyentes, pero ella siquiera paga los impuestos! Sin embargo, los trabajadores indocumentados y los tra¬bajadores del sector publico son chivos expiatorios de la devastation economica creada por la domination corporativa.
Los politicos republicanos de derecha aprobaron las leyes racistas como SB1070o en Arizona y ahora el proyecto de ley HB8 de Georgia. Ellos tratan de aplastar a los sindicatos del sector pu¬blico y echar la culpa a los profesores y otros trabajadores del sector publico cuando la culpa pertenece a las puertas de Wall Street. Los republicanos no estan solos; los politicos democratas de todo el pais, de arriba a abajo, estan cerrando las escuelas, reduciendo los presupuestos, haciendo la guerra y ofreciendo incentives fiscales para los ricos.
Mientras que las grandes petroleras como BP destruyen el medio ambiente, tambien aumentan los precios de gaso-lina para hacernos pagar por los prob-lemas que su sistema haya creado. iBasta ya!
Tenemos que resistir y luchar, al igual que a los trabajadores en Wisconsin y Egipto. Las coaliciones deben construirse contra todos los recortes en los ser¬vicios que pueden reunir a los sindicatos, los grupos comunitarios y los socialistas. Tenemos que exigir la plena legalization y derechos de ciudadania para todos los trabajadores. Como un paso en esa direction, tenemos que postular candidates independientes y de clase trabajadora contra ambos partidos del Gran Negocio.
El Primero de Mayo, Dia Internacional de los Trabajadores, fue fundado en este pais para honrar a los martires de la clase trabajadora que lucharon por la Jornada de 8 horas a traves de la huelga. Gran parte de esta lucha fue dirigida por los trabajadores inmigrantes. Vamos a honrar su memoria mediante la lucha contra la domination corporativa que esta destruyendo el mundo de hoy.
Los trabajadores indocumentados han dejado sus casas y su pais para eneontrar oportunidades de llevar una vida mejor para sus familias y para si mismos. Muchos huyeron de paises devastados por las politicas del gobierno de EE.UU. y las corporaciones multi-nacionales que el gobierno sirve. Al igual que anterior-mente, los inmigrantes pueden ayudar a encender un movimiento obrero que puede derr-otar los ataques a todos los trabajadores.
•Alto a los recortes pre-supuestarios — Pare las evitaciones de pagar impuestos de las Corporaciones
• Para un programa de ob-
ras publico y masivo para
crear empleos
• Plena legalizacion y dere¬
chos de ciudadania para
todos los trabajadores
indocumentados
• Para candidates indepen¬
dientes contra los re¬
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LET EVERY DAY BE MAY DAY!-A STATEMENT BY THE UNITED NATIONAL ANTIWAR COMMITTEE
Click on the headline to link to the United National Antiwar Committee homepage.
LET EVERY DAY BE MAY DAY!-A STATEMENT BY THE UNITED NATIONAL ANTIWAR COMMITTEE
On May Day, we celebrate the struggles of the international working class - and the oppressed and exploited everywhere - for peace and justice.
LET EVERY DAY BE MAY DAY!
On May Day, we pledge to renew our commitment to end all wars of plunder and conquest abroad and all the wars against working people at home. Bring all the war dollars, war contractors, mercenaries and troops home now!
LET EVERY DAY BE MAY DAY!
On May Day, we fight for a world without walls and borders, a world where every human being is welcome - where our sisters and brothers of every nationality, race and creed join to win humanity's dream for freedom and equality. Full legalization now! End all deportations now!
LET EVERY DAY BE MAY DAY!
On May Day, we rededicate ourselves to working class solidarity' against the boss class offensive - to strengthening and expanding our unions - to accepting nothing less than quality Single Payer health care for all, guaranteed pensions, a ban on foreclosures, a sustainable environment and jobs for all at top union wages.
LET EVERY DAY BE MAY DAY!
On May Day, we stand together against all attacks on civil liberties and democratic rights. We say "No to the attacks on Muslim communities! No to FBI subpoenas and witchhunts! No to racist attacks on our Black and Brown brothers and sisters! Free Bradley Manning/Hero not criminal! End all attacks on WikiLeaks! No to renditions and torture!"
LET EVERY DAY BE MAY DAY!
And on May Day, we stand in solidarity with the people's struggles against tyrants, dictators and bosses here and everywhere. No to U.S. intervention! The masses will liberate themselves! No to U.S.-imposed "regime change!" No to U.S. Aid to Israel! Self-determination for all oppressed people everywhere! U.S. out of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Libya now!
LET THIS DAY AND EVERY DAY BE MAY DAY!
Issued by UNAC, May 1, 2011
www. U NACpeace.org
LET EVERY DAY BE MAY DAY!-A STATEMENT BY THE UNITED NATIONAL ANTIWAR COMMITTEE
On May Day, we celebrate the struggles of the international working class - and the oppressed and exploited everywhere - for peace and justice.
LET EVERY DAY BE MAY DAY!
On May Day, we pledge to renew our commitment to end all wars of plunder and conquest abroad and all the wars against working people at home. Bring all the war dollars, war contractors, mercenaries and troops home now!
LET EVERY DAY BE MAY DAY!
On May Day, we fight for a world without walls and borders, a world where every human being is welcome - where our sisters and brothers of every nationality, race and creed join to win humanity's dream for freedom and equality. Full legalization now! End all deportations now!
LET EVERY DAY BE MAY DAY!
On May Day, we rededicate ourselves to working class solidarity' against the boss class offensive - to strengthening and expanding our unions - to accepting nothing less than quality Single Payer health care for all, guaranteed pensions, a ban on foreclosures, a sustainable environment and jobs for all at top union wages.
LET EVERY DAY BE MAY DAY!
On May Day, we stand together against all attacks on civil liberties and democratic rights. We say "No to the attacks on Muslim communities! No to FBI subpoenas and witchhunts! No to racist attacks on our Black and Brown brothers and sisters! Free Bradley Manning/Hero not criminal! End all attacks on WikiLeaks! No to renditions and torture!"
LET EVERY DAY BE MAY DAY!
And on May Day, we stand in solidarity with the people's struggles against tyrants, dictators and bosses here and everywhere. No to U.S. intervention! The masses will liberate themselves! No to U.S.-imposed "regime change!" No to U.S. Aid to Israel! Self-determination for all oppressed people everywhere! U.S. out of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Libya now!
LET THIS DAY AND EVERY DAY BE MAY DAY!
Issued by UNAC, May 1, 2011
www. U NACpeace.org
The Desert Flower Blooms-Joan Allen’s “Georgia O’Keeffe” (2009)-A Film Review
The Desert Flower Blooms-Joan Allen’s “Georgia O’Keeffe” (2009)-A
Film Review
DVD Review
By Si Lannon
Georgia O’Keeffe, starring Joan Allan, Jeremy Irons, 2009
[When I was a kid I hated art, art as it was presented in
art class where Mr. Jones-Henry held forth from freshman to senior in high
school. Worse unlike some of the other guys I hung around in high school like
Sam Lowell who loved art, was Mr. Jones-Henry’s star pupil I had not gone to
North Adamsville Junior High School and had Jones-Henry for seventh and eighth
grade at Snug Harbor Junior High before he transferred over to the high
school.* So maybe I double-hated art especially after the time he took the
whole eight grade class up to the famous Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The
idea was to grab some culture I guess in his eyes by viewing some masterpieces
they had there, especially a guy named Monet who did haystacks and churches
that Jones-Henry was crazy for (guy is what I would have called him or any
artist then).
[Funny how what goes around comes around on stuff. In a
recent conversation with fellow writer here Laura Perkins who is doing an
on-going series on 20th art she mentioned that on a visit to the MFA
she noticed that Monet, his hazy haystacks and churches and a few other bits, including
a huge painting of his sly and salacious wife in full symbolic Japanese geisha
girl regalia now have pride of place on the second floor. Jones-Henry, rest his
soul, would have been crazy to know that he had moved up in the art world since
when we went to the old building they were in some dark corner room with a
million other Impressionists. Monet has moved up in the pecking order although
I would say that Cezanne still has pride of place in my pecking order for
Impressionist-era artists. Laura said she was totally startled by the Monet geisha
girl wife painting since she had heard about it but never seen it in person and
wondered to me what kind of devilish sexual relationship they had, or she had,
although Laura couldn’t find any scandal around her name.]
The big reason that I hated art from that museum experience
on was that I was pretty naïve, naïve naturally if anybody is talking about
budding teenagers and sex. I was sweet on a girl from the neighborhood named
Laurie Kelly who I thought liked me (and actually did before the museum disaster)
and we were paired together to view the works of art. I had never seen a woman,
any woman naked so when we got to a painting by Renoir of a chubby woman
bathing outdoors I turned bright red, maybe crimson red. Laurie who was just beginning to bud out herself
started laughing at me, started pointing out how red in the face I was to other
students. After that she didn’t want anything to do with me according to my
friend Ben Lewis who knew her older sister who told him that I was “square,”
meaning social death in those days. After that horrible episode I hated
Jones-Henry with a passion and I went crazy trying to get out of art class when
he went over to the high school, No such luck and it is a good thing that Sam Lowell,
almost a fellow writer and long-time old corner boy friend, did a lot of my art
projects or I might still be in that class. (The villain of the piece Renoir by
the way who Sam and Laura in line with their theory recently claimed had a
fetish for painting nudes with womanly bodies and girlish faces and have
wondered out loud why the authorities didn’t catch on to his perversions. So
maybe in my naïve way I was on to something, although I would not stake my life
on it.)
[Mr. Jones-Henry was an Englishman in a heavily Irish school
where almost everybody had some Irish blood and some family bad blood against
the English for the 800 years of troubles, but nobody faulted him on that
score, no me as I have mentioned above with other hatreds stirring. We all
found it odd that he had that hyphenated name though and one day he explained
it along with his art heritage. He was from some branch of the Burne-Jones
family, I asked Sam recently, but he does not remember how that family tree
went. One forbear was Edward Burne-Jones of the second wave of the
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which had been started by the poet-artist Dante
Gabriel Rossetti back in the mid-19th century.
More importantly Jones-Henry’s family had come to America
due to his father’s work in Boston for some English firm and when it came time
for him to go to college he went to the famous Massachusetts School of Art.
From there he got jobs in North Adamsville. Why all of this was important was
that he encouraged Sam to go to his alma mater and had worked to get Sam, a
poor working-class family guy, a scholarship to the school. In the end Sam’s
mother talked him out of it on economic grounds that she didn’t want him to
become some starving artist in some cold-water garret.]
After high school and after the Army, after Vietnam which
changed a lot of ways I looked at stuff as it did to everybody from the old
corner boy neighborhood I took up with a young woman, Kathie, my first wife and
you should know that every corner boy from our corner wound up having at least
two wives and two divorces which tells you something although not necessarily
something good, who was an art student at the Museum School associated with
that MFA that I hated from eighth grade. She gradually nurtured my interest in
art, into going back to that tomb MFA since she got in free. When we got to
that Renoir which had broken my heart indirectly when I was a kid I told her
the story of the last time I had seen that painting. She laughed. The funny
thing was that having grown up, having seen the adult world and women this time
I looked at the masterly way he had painted and how he had used the space to
almost make it seem like some Garden of Eden that his nude was entwined in. All
taught to me by Kathie who would go on even after we were married to do her art
work and after we divorced she went I think to the Village in New York or maybe
San Francisco and then the Village and had a middling career (and two more
husbands) as a regional artist. Me, I would eventually devour art every chance
I got later on and hence this review which was assigned to me after I had told
Greg Green, the site manager my hoary childhood tale. Si Lannon]
*Sam Lowell who like I mentioned loved art
although turning down that scholarship opportunity as if to grab a second
chance at the brass ring is now helping “ghost” an on-going series entitled Traipsing Through The Arts by Laura
Perkins on self-selected works of art that interest her under the theory for 20th
century art, serious art anyway from what I understand, that it is driven hard
by sex and eroticism. I can understand how Sam, the old corner boy part of Sam
half of our time spent grabbing at straws for girls and dates and back seats of
hopped up cars, came by that theory but hearing prim and proper Laura was a
proponent came as a shock to me.
On the subject of Georgia O’Keeffe this pair should have a
field day with their exotic erotic theory of serious art. While they would be
hard pressed to get much sexual mileage out of the barns up in Lake George, the
hills and desert fauna and flora out in New Mexico or the skyscrapers in New
York (except Sam in a wild frantic moment might see them as some phallic totem
but he can figure that out for himself) when it comes to her famous series of
lush and symbolic flowers magnified many times larger than life and with a
sensual feel they may get some mileage. At least one art critic has noted that
almost vaginal depth and swirl that clearly suggests erotic possibilities
anyway.
********
Now nostalgia, heartache and hatreds out of the way the film
review:
No question from early on once that first wife Kathie
straightened out my head about art and art’s value as a cultural signpost I
loved to look at the great 20th century artist Georgia O’Keefe’s
works where possible including a visit to the Ghost Ranch out in New Mexico to
get a first-hand view of what was driving her-especially her use of color.
Hell, I even usually buy some kind of Georgia O’Keeffe calendar each year and
if that isn’t love what is. Speaking of love the film under review simply but
properly titled Georgia O’Keeffe (as
opposed to say O’Keeffe and her husband-lover and pioneer photography as art
organizer in New York City at various galleries Stieglitz or some variation on
that idea) has one of its important strands beside a look at what drove her to
her art was the seminal relationship for good or evil between her and Alfred
Stieglitz –her most serious promotor and a great creative force as a
photographer and exhibitor of modern art in his own right.
Almost from the first frame of the film we are entwined in
the obvious attraction that this pair, Alfred and Georgia had for each other sexually
as well as artistically (although they called each other Miss O’Keeffe and
Mister Stieglitz more often than one would think proper given that they were
married but maybe the formalities were more carefully observed then). That
attraction in the end would provide many emotional distraught moments for Ms.
O’Keeffe as her Alfred proved to be another of those rascals who couldn’t keep
away from the woman.
The relationship beyond Steiglitz’s overwhelming desire to
see Georgia take her place as a great artist of the 20th century was
a roller coaster ride from the beginning since Alfred was very much married,
although clearly unhappily. And also, via the great modern art promotor Mabel
Dodge, she of the much-mentioned 1913 New York City Armory show that brought
the European vanguard to the new shore heathens, we know that women fell in
love with him-and he responded for a while. That looked to be Georgia’s
fate-another protégé of the great creative force. At some moments in the film
it looked like she would never break from his spell (and whatever else he
thought of her as an artist he wanted her under that spell) and break out to be
her own artistic force creating some of the most primordially beautiful
paintings ever produced.
But break she did to signal a very important assertive
streak that was not apparent at the start. Of course the painful cause that
broke the camel’s back was Stieglitz’s infidelity with an heiress to the Sears
fortune. That and his unwillingness to have a child with her (allegedly to
avoid distracting her from her life-force art) tore her apart for a while-a
long while. Heading to the rough and ready West, heading to the sullen beauty
of New Mexico saved her sanity-and drove her art to another level. The great
question posed by the film and posed by O’Keeffe herself was how much her art
was driven by Stieglitz’s ambitions and her own. My guess is in the end it was
her own. See the film and figure that one out for yourself.
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