Quinn’s Book, William Kennedy, Viking Press, New York, 1988
Recently, in reviewing an early William Kennedy Albany-cycle novel, “Ironweed” I mentioned that he was my kind of writer. I will let what I stated there stand on that score here. Here is what I said:
“William Kennedy is, at least in his Albany stories, my kind of writer. He writes about the trials and tribulations of the Irish diaspora as it penetrated the rough and tumble of American urban WASP-run society, for good or evil. I know these people, my people, their follies and foibles like the back of my hand. Check. Kennedy writes, as here with the main characters Fran Phelan and Helen Archer two down-at-the- heels sorts, about that pervasive hold that Catholicism has even on its most debased sons and daughters, saint and sinner alike. I know those characteristics all too well. Check. He writes about that place in class society where the working class meets the lumpen-proletariat-the thieves, grifters, drifters and con men- the human dust. I know that place well, much better than I would ever let on. Check. He writes about the sorrows and dangers of the effects alcohol on working class families. I know that place too. Check. And so on. Oh, by the way, did I mention that he also, at some point, was an editor of some sort associated with the late Hunter S. Thompson down in Puerto Rico. I know that mad man’s work well. He remains something of a muse for me. Check.”
That said, this little novel is placed from an earlier time in the Albany novel cycle, the earliest period thus far in my reading of the cycle. This is a story of the hard period in America for those “famine ship Irish” that were driven to seek a new life in the new world against their collective wills. But, certainly out of sheer economic necessity and desperation. For the most part the snippets of character detailed here, including the earliest generations of names that are familiar from later generations in Kennedy’s book , do not suggest that they were driven out due to some criminal activity, political or not, against old “Mother “England”.
That snippet of character reference above also can be used as a point that makes this novel a little different from others in this cycle. The narrator, Daniel Quinn, a teenage boy-man orphan (nice touch) with plenty of spunk and ambition, as is usually the case, gets plenty of character build-up throughout. However this novel is driven more by the plot than by character development than prior Kennedy reads. And that plot, centered on the “golden quest” to win the hand of the “teen angel,” Maud, come hell or high water. Along the way, we are taken on a Kennedy version of “magical realism,” 19th century Albany Irish style, of the fame Irish, the old Dutch squirarchy, the American racial and political scene in the pre-Civil War period, and much else. That “much else” sometimes gets in the way of the “golden quest,” but as almost always with Kennedy he gives us a good read, if not a great one.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Laura’s Song-With Patsy Cline In Mind
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Patsy Cline performing her classic I Fall To Pieces.
“Frank, I am going to put my voice exercises CD in the player so be quiet, alright,” Laura explained, a little crack in her voice as usual when she was getting ready to perform, as I started up the car in our driveway on that cold clear February Saturday night a couple of years ago. I could almost feel my teeth grinding at the thought of being held captive while Laura went up, down, around, double-back, and did a reverse twist through the scales and other little riffs with some hysterical instructor in order to loosen up her “instrument,” her voice. I can listen almost endlessly to that voice, occasionally stopping in my tracks by it, when she is up in her study, her “music and meditation room” she calls it, but this CD thing is from hell. Yikes! Well at least it was to be a short ride over to the church in Lakeville that night unlike when she decides to go full bore on one of our now very occasional rides back to her growing up home in Centerville. That’s in upstate New York. Jesus.
That night though I was actually in a forgiving and tolerant mood because it was to be Laura’s singing debut, in public anyway. The event, a members’ concert, was to held in the ever-generous and forgiving Lakeville Universalist-Unitarian church assembly hall (the U-U circuit we laughingly call it) and sponsored by the Lost Art Folk Society to which she belongs. As the name of the group indicates these are old folkies from back in the 1960s who never gave up that folk minute, or perhaps didn’t know that it had passed by. We had been to others such concerts in the past and while that nostalgic time moment might have passed these aficionados, for the most part, know their stuff.
And that was why Laura was going full bore, do, re mi, all the way to the hall to make sure her voice would hold. Naturally she was nervous, despite that great voice and intense preparation, in be in front of peers who knew the good from the bad, and the off note from the true one. She was also just afraid of crowds for a whole bunch of reasons that need no explanation here and now. Moreover Laura was not performing solo but as part of a three women group, dubbed Three Is A Crowd. So she was fretting in between la, la, las about whether Ellie, the “max mamma” (if there is such a thing in the universe) harmonica player, had remembered to set her alarm so she would arrive on time (or, maybe, arrive at all) and Dotty, the main guitar player, had not danced off into space somewhere. All that fretting was for naught because as we approached the church we could see the pair of folk refugees emerging from Ellie’s 1973 Volkswagen bus. Ya, it was that kind of crowd.
No sooner had the three “sisters” greeted each other than they immediately ran off to “practice” before their turn. Leaving me to wander in, pay my admission, and “save” seats. I was a regular “roadie” that night. I should explain the set-up. The way this Lost Art Folk members’ concert works, maybe the only way it could works, is that each act gets one song, or poem, bag-pipe playing (for real), juggling act, or whatever. Done. See everybody is looking for their fifteen minutes of glory but since the concert is only presented once a year the whole tribe shows up, at least those who survived the sixties. So there are maybe twenty-five or thirty acts listed. Since everybody has to be out by eleven so god, or his kindred, can rest for Sunday morning mass, or is it service, one to a customer is the only way to go. Except, naturally, human nature, ego, or just love of the music, can play tricks on the agenda. Like Jim Beam can juggle by himself in one act , play the accordion as Aztec Two-Step in a second, play the kazoo with Maria’s band in a third, sing bass with the Midnight Singers (they get two songs, by the way) and still only be counted as one act. Nice, huh, if you have the energy, or the chutzpah.
Three Is A Crowd in deference to Laura and her jitters was strictly working the one act theme for real that night. Except they would also all sing with the Midnight Singers at the end of the night but then half the audience would be too, and the other half would chime in from their seats as I knew from past experience. Ya, like I said it was that kind of crowd. The other thing is that the order of battle is random. As it turned out that night Three Is A Crowd was number fourteen in the first set (out of eighteen, then a little intermission, and the second set to conclude the evening). No good, not good for Laura’s jitters but that was the deal. The only thing to do was enjoy the acts and keep counting down. (Oh ya, and hold her hand once in a while.)
Like I say these people may have stepped out a time warp but most of them could perform, perform like crazy. Things like old time hills and hollows Appalachian mountain ballads, old country (Britain, Scotland Child ballad old country) , some American Carter Family country stuff, a few self-written poems, sea chanties, a couple of churchy things, a vaudeville number or two. The mix of the world songbook that you don’t hear about too much anymore except on a night like that. Some more modern stuff too for those not totally stuck in the sixteenth century. Then number fourteen was called by the MC. That folks is Three Is A Crowd in case you forgot.
As Ellie, Dotty, and Laura made their way up to the makeshift stage (used on Sunday for the pulpit service area, I think) I started to get nervous. Nervous because Laura was nervous, nervous that her throat would hold up, nervous, well just nervous. And nervous to hear which song they had selected to play. That was the point of that pre-performance practice. To see which one was working that night. Once they were set up I immediately put my head down so I could “really” listen to Laura’s voice. And hide any blushing. As it turned out they decided to perform the old Hank Ballard tune from the 1950s made famous by the late Patsy Cline, I Fall To Pieces. Good choice. After a little harmonica intro (that Ellie is a space-shot but she can wail that thing when she gets going) they started singing. Good, good harmony, and then… Somewhere around the lines “you want me to find someone else to love,” ya right around there Laura’s voice just meshed the three together so well that it almost brought a tear to my eye.
It was the kind of moment like, maybe, when Patsy had a good night getting it just right, not too slick not too sentimental. A moment like probably happened way back when somebody first decided that human voices could collectively be greater than the sum of their parts if you could just get that one meshing voice. Hey, I am just a music fan not a scholar, okay. But don’t take my word for it. After the show some guy , some guy who heard the same ethereal thing I heard and who I know knows his stuff, came up to Laura and said,” You did Patsy proud.” And she did.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcWZV-FHB2U&feature=related
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Patsy Cline performing her classic I Fall To Pieces.
“Frank, I am going to put my voice exercises CD in the player so be quiet, alright,” Laura explained, a little crack in her voice as usual when she was getting ready to perform, as I started up the car in our driveway on that cold clear February Saturday night a couple of years ago. I could almost feel my teeth grinding at the thought of being held captive while Laura went up, down, around, double-back, and did a reverse twist through the scales and other little riffs with some hysterical instructor in order to loosen up her “instrument,” her voice. I can listen almost endlessly to that voice, occasionally stopping in my tracks by it, when she is up in her study, her “music and meditation room” she calls it, but this CD thing is from hell. Yikes! Well at least it was to be a short ride over to the church in Lakeville that night unlike when she decides to go full bore on one of our now very occasional rides back to her growing up home in Centerville. That’s in upstate New York. Jesus.
That night though I was actually in a forgiving and tolerant mood because it was to be Laura’s singing debut, in public anyway. The event, a members’ concert, was to held in the ever-generous and forgiving Lakeville Universalist-Unitarian church assembly hall (the U-U circuit we laughingly call it) and sponsored by the Lost Art Folk Society to which she belongs. As the name of the group indicates these are old folkies from back in the 1960s who never gave up that folk minute, or perhaps didn’t know that it had passed by. We had been to others such concerts in the past and while that nostalgic time moment might have passed these aficionados, for the most part, know their stuff.
And that was why Laura was going full bore, do, re mi, all the way to the hall to make sure her voice would hold. Naturally she was nervous, despite that great voice and intense preparation, in be in front of peers who knew the good from the bad, and the off note from the true one. She was also just afraid of crowds for a whole bunch of reasons that need no explanation here and now. Moreover Laura was not performing solo but as part of a three women group, dubbed Three Is A Crowd. So she was fretting in between la, la, las about whether Ellie, the “max mamma” (if there is such a thing in the universe) harmonica player, had remembered to set her alarm so she would arrive on time (or, maybe, arrive at all) and Dotty, the main guitar player, had not danced off into space somewhere. All that fretting was for naught because as we approached the church we could see the pair of folk refugees emerging from Ellie’s 1973 Volkswagen bus. Ya, it was that kind of crowd.
No sooner had the three “sisters” greeted each other than they immediately ran off to “practice” before their turn. Leaving me to wander in, pay my admission, and “save” seats. I was a regular “roadie” that night. I should explain the set-up. The way this Lost Art Folk members’ concert works, maybe the only way it could works, is that each act gets one song, or poem, bag-pipe playing (for real), juggling act, or whatever. Done. See everybody is looking for their fifteen minutes of glory but since the concert is only presented once a year the whole tribe shows up, at least those who survived the sixties. So there are maybe twenty-five or thirty acts listed. Since everybody has to be out by eleven so god, or his kindred, can rest for Sunday morning mass, or is it service, one to a customer is the only way to go. Except, naturally, human nature, ego, or just love of the music, can play tricks on the agenda. Like Jim Beam can juggle by himself in one act , play the accordion as Aztec Two-Step in a second, play the kazoo with Maria’s band in a third, sing bass with the Midnight Singers (they get two songs, by the way) and still only be counted as one act. Nice, huh, if you have the energy, or the chutzpah.
Three Is A Crowd in deference to Laura and her jitters was strictly working the one act theme for real that night. Except they would also all sing with the Midnight Singers at the end of the night but then half the audience would be too, and the other half would chime in from their seats as I knew from past experience. Ya, like I said it was that kind of crowd. The other thing is that the order of battle is random. As it turned out that night Three Is A Crowd was number fourteen in the first set (out of eighteen, then a little intermission, and the second set to conclude the evening). No good, not good for Laura’s jitters but that was the deal. The only thing to do was enjoy the acts and keep counting down. (Oh ya, and hold her hand once in a while.)
Like I say these people may have stepped out a time warp but most of them could perform, perform like crazy. Things like old time hills and hollows Appalachian mountain ballads, old country (Britain, Scotland Child ballad old country) , some American Carter Family country stuff, a few self-written poems, sea chanties, a couple of churchy things, a vaudeville number or two. The mix of the world songbook that you don’t hear about too much anymore except on a night like that. Some more modern stuff too for those not totally stuck in the sixteenth century. Then number fourteen was called by the MC. That folks is Three Is A Crowd in case you forgot.
As Ellie, Dotty, and Laura made their way up to the makeshift stage (used on Sunday for the pulpit service area, I think) I started to get nervous. Nervous because Laura was nervous, nervous that her throat would hold up, nervous, well just nervous. And nervous to hear which song they had selected to play. That was the point of that pre-performance practice. To see which one was working that night. Once they were set up I immediately put my head down so I could “really” listen to Laura’s voice. And hide any blushing. As it turned out they decided to perform the old Hank Ballard tune from the 1950s made famous by the late Patsy Cline, I Fall To Pieces. Good choice. After a little harmonica intro (that Ellie is a space-shot but she can wail that thing when she gets going) they started singing. Good, good harmony, and then… Somewhere around the lines “you want me to find someone else to love,” ya right around there Laura’s voice just meshed the three together so well that it almost brought a tear to my eye.
It was the kind of moment like, maybe, when Patsy had a good night getting it just right, not too slick not too sentimental. A moment like probably happened way back when somebody first decided that human voices could collectively be greater than the sum of their parts if you could just get that one meshing voice. Hey, I am just a music fan not a scholar, okay. But don’t take my word for it. After the show some guy , some guy who heard the same ethereal thing I heard and who I know knows his stuff, came up to Laura and said,” You did Patsy proud.” And she did.
“Frank, I am going to put my voice exercises CD in the player so be quiet, alright,” Laura explained, a little crack in her voice as usual when she was getting ready to perform, as I started up the car in our driveway on that cold clear February Saturday night a couple of years ago. I could almost feel my teeth grinding at the thought of being held captive while Laura went up, down, around, double-back, and did a reverse twist through the scales and other little riffs with some hysterical instructor in order to loosen up her “instrument,” her voice. I can listen almost endlessly to that voice, occasionally stopping in my tracks by it, when she is up in her study, her “music and meditation room” she calls it, but this CD thing is from hell. Yikes! Well at least it was to be a short ride over to the church in Lakeville that night unlike when she decides to go full bore on one of our now very occasional rides back to her growing up home in Centerville. That’s in upstate New York. Jesus.
That night though I was actually in a forgiving and tolerant mood because it was to be Laura’s singing debut, in public anyway. The event, a members’ concert, was to held in the ever-generous and forgiving Lakeville Universalist-Unitarian church assembly hall (the U-U circuit we laughingly call it) and sponsored by the Lost Art Folk Society to which she belongs. As the name of the group indicates these are old folkies from back in the 1960s who never gave up that folk minute, or perhaps didn’t know that it had passed by. We had been to others such concerts in the past and while that nostalgic time moment might have passed these aficionados, for the most part, know their stuff.
And that was why Laura was going full bore, do, re mi, all the way to the hall to make sure her voice would hold. Naturally she was nervous, despite that great voice and intense preparation, in be in front of peers who knew the good from the bad, and the off note from the true one. She was also just afraid of crowds for a whole bunch of reasons that need no explanation here and now. Moreover Laura was not performing solo but as part of a three women group, dubbed Three Is A Crowd. So she was fretting in between la, la, las about whether Ellie, the “max mamma” (if there is such a thing in the universe) harmonica player, had remembered to set her alarm so she would arrive on time (or, maybe, arrive at all) and Dotty, the main guitar player, had not danced off into space somewhere. All that fretting was for naught because as we approached the church we could see the pair of folk refugees emerging from Ellie’s 1973 Volkswagen bus. Ya, it was that kind of crowd.
No sooner had the three “sisters” greeted each other than they immediately ran off to “practice” before their turn. Leaving me to wander in, pay my admission, and “save” seats. I was a regular “roadie” that night. I should explain the set-up. The way this Lost Art Folk members’ concert works, maybe the only way it could works, is that each act gets one song, or poem, bag-pipe playing (for real), juggling act, or whatever. Done. See everybody is looking for their fifteen minutes of glory but since the concert is only presented once a year the whole tribe shows up, at least those who survived the sixties. So there are maybe twenty-five or thirty acts listed. Since everybody has to be out by eleven so god, or his kindred, can rest for Sunday morning mass, or is it service, one to a customer is the only way to go. Except, naturally, human nature, ego, or just love of the music, can play tricks on the agenda. Like Jim Beam can juggle by himself in one act , play the accordion as Aztec Two-Step in a second, play the kazoo with Maria’s band in a third, sing bass with the Midnight Singers (they get two songs, by the way) and still only be counted as one act. Nice, huh, if you have the energy, or the chutzpah.
Three Is A Crowd in deference to Laura and her jitters was strictly working the one act theme for real that night. Except they would also all sing with the Midnight Singers at the end of the night but then half the audience would be too, and the other half would chime in from their seats as I knew from past experience. Ya, like I said it was that kind of crowd. The other thing is that the order of battle is random. As it turned out that night Three Is A Crowd was number fourteen in the first set (out of eighteen, then a little intermission, and the second set to conclude the evening). No good, not good for Laura’s jitters but that was the deal. The only thing to do was enjoy the acts and keep counting down. (Oh ya, and hold her hand once in a while.)
Like I say these people may have stepped out a time warp but most of them could perform, perform like crazy. Things like old time hills and hollows Appalachian mountain ballads, old country (Britain, Scotland Child ballad old country) , some American Carter Family country stuff, a few self-written poems, sea chanties, a couple of churchy things, a vaudeville number or two. The mix of the world songbook that you don’t hear about too much anymore except on a night like that. Some more modern stuff too for those not totally stuck in the sixteenth century. Then number fourteen was called by the MC. That folks is Three Is A Crowd in case you forgot.
As Ellie, Dotty, and Laura made their way up to the makeshift stage (used on Sunday for the pulpit service area, I think) I started to get nervous. Nervous because Laura was nervous, nervous that her throat would hold up, nervous, well just nervous. And nervous to hear which song they had selected to play. That was the point of that pre-performance practice. To see which one was working that night. Once they were set up I immediately put my head down so I could “really” listen to Laura’s voice. And hide any blushing. As it turned out they decided to perform the old Hank Ballard tune from the 1950s made famous by the late Patsy Cline, I Fall To Pieces. Good choice. After a little harmonica intro (that Ellie is a space-shot but she can wail that thing when she gets going) they started singing. Good, good harmony, and then… Somewhere around the lines “you want me to find someone else to love,” ya right around there Laura’s voice just meshed the three together so well that it almost brought a tear to my eye.
It was the kind of moment like, maybe, when Patsy had a good night getting it just right, not too slick not too sentimental. A moment like probably happened way back when somebody first decided that human voices could collectively be greater than the sum of their parts if you could just get that one meshing voice. Hey, I am just a music fan not a scholar, okay. But don’t take my word for it. After the show some guy , some guy who heard the same ethereal thing I heard and who I know knows his stuff, came up to Laura and said,” You did Patsy proud.” And she did.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcWZV-FHB2U&feature=related
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Patsy Cline performing her classic I Fall To Pieces.
“Frank, I am going to put my voice exercises CD in the player so be quiet, alright,” Laura explained, a little crack in her voice as usual when she was getting ready to perform, as I started up the car in our driveway on that cold clear February Saturday night a couple of years ago. I could almost feel my teeth grinding at the thought of being held captive while Laura went up, down, around, double-back, and did a reverse twist through the scales and other little riffs with some hysterical instructor in order to loosen up her “instrument,” her voice. I can listen almost endlessly to that voice, occasionally stopping in my tracks by it, when she is up in her study, her “music and meditation room” she calls it, but this CD thing is from hell. Yikes! Well at least it was to be a short ride over to the church in Lakeville that night unlike when she decides to go full bore on one of our now very occasional rides back to her growing up home in Centerville. That’s in upstate New York. Jesus.
That night though I was actually in a forgiving and tolerant mood because it was to be Laura’s singing debut, in public anyway. The event, a members’ concert, was to held in the ever-generous and forgiving Lakeville Universalist-Unitarian church assembly hall (the U-U circuit we laughingly call it) and sponsored by the Lost Art Folk Society to which she belongs. As the name of the group indicates these are old folkies from back in the 1960s who never gave up that folk minute, or perhaps didn’t know that it had passed by. We had been to others such concerts in the past and while that nostalgic time moment might have passed these aficionados, for the most part, know their stuff.
And that was why Laura was going full bore, do, re mi, all the way to the hall to make sure her voice would hold. Naturally she was nervous, despite that great voice and intense preparation, in be in front of peers who knew the good from the bad, and the off note from the true one. She was also just afraid of crowds for a whole bunch of reasons that need no explanation here and now. Moreover Laura was not performing solo but as part of a three women group, dubbed Three Is A Crowd. So she was fretting in between la, la, las about whether Ellie, the “max mamma” (if there is such a thing in the universe) harmonica player, had remembered to set her alarm so she would arrive on time (or, maybe, arrive at all) and Dotty, the main guitar player, had not danced off into space somewhere. All that fretting was for naught because as we approached the church we could see the pair of folk refugees emerging from Ellie’s 1973 Volkswagen bus. Ya, it was that kind of crowd.
No sooner had the three “sisters” greeted each other than they immediately ran off to “practice” before their turn. Leaving me to wander in, pay my admission, and “save” seats. I was a regular “roadie” that night. I should explain the set-up. The way this Lost Art Folk members’ concert works, maybe the only way it could works, is that each act gets one song, or poem, bag-pipe playing (for real), juggling act, or whatever. Done. See everybody is looking for their fifteen minutes of glory but since the concert is only presented once a year the whole tribe shows up, at least those who survived the sixties. So there are maybe twenty-five or thirty acts listed. Since everybody has to be out by eleven so god, or his kindred, can rest for Sunday morning mass, or is it service, one to a customer is the only way to go. Except, naturally, human nature, ego, or just love of the music, can play tricks on the agenda. Like Jim Beam can juggle by himself in one act , play the accordion as Aztec Two-Step in a second, play the kazoo with Maria’s band in a third, sing bass with the Midnight Singers (they get two songs, by the way) and still only be counted as one act. Nice, huh, if you have the energy, or the chutzpah.
Three Is A Crowd in deference to Laura and her jitters was strictly working the one act theme for real that night. Except they would also all sing with the Midnight Singers at the end of the night but then half the audience would be too, and the other half would chime in from their seats as I knew from past experience. Ya, like I said it was that kind of crowd. The other thing is that the order of battle is random. As it turned out that night Three Is A Crowd was number fourteen in the first set (out of eighteen, then a little intermission, and the second set to conclude the evening). No good, not good for Laura’s jitters but that was the deal. The only thing to do was enjoy the acts and keep counting down. (Oh ya, and hold her hand once in a while.)
Like I say these people may have stepped out a time warp but most of them could perform, perform like crazy. Things like old time hills and hollows Appalachian mountain ballads, old country (Britain, Scotland Child ballad old country) , some American Carter Family country stuff, a few self-written poems, sea chanties, a couple of churchy things, a vaudeville number or two. The mix of the world songbook that you don’t hear about too much anymore except on a night like that. Some more modern stuff too for those not totally stuck in the sixteenth century. Then number fourteen was called by the MC. That folks is Three Is A Crowd in case you forgot.
As Ellie, Dotty, and Laura made their way up to the makeshift stage (used on Sunday for the pulpit service area, I think) I started to get nervous. Nervous because Laura was nervous, nervous that her throat would hold up, nervous, well just nervous. And nervous to hear which song they had selected to play. That was the point of that pre-performance practice. To see which one was working that night. Once they were set up I immediately put my head down so I could “really” listen to Laura’s voice. And hide any blushing. As it turned out they decided to perform the old Hank Ballard tune from the 1950s made famous by the late Patsy Cline, I Fall To Pieces. Good choice. After a little harmonica intro (that Ellie is a space-shot but she can wail that thing when she gets going) they started singing. Good, good harmony, and then… Somewhere around the lines “you want me to find someone else to love,” ya right around there Laura’s voice just meshed the three together so well that it almost brought a tear to my eye.
It was the kind of moment like, maybe, when Patsy had a good night getting it just right, not too slick not too sentimental. A moment like probably happened way back when somebody first decided that human voices could collectively be greater than the sum of their parts if you could just get that one meshing voice. Hey, I am just a music fan not a scholar, okay. But don’t take my word for it. After the show some guy , some guy who heard the same ethereal thing I heard and who I know knows his stuff, came up to Laura and said,” You did Patsy proud.” And she did.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Glory To The Massachusetts 54th Regiment (Volunteers) In The American Civil War-The Film “Glory”
Over the past several years that this blog has existed I have touted the heroic experiences of the American Civil War Union black volunteer Massachusetts 54th Infantry Regiment many times. Recently in preparing materials for this space to be posted in honor of Black History Month I noticed that I had not reviewed the subject of the entry, the Oscar-winning film “Glory”. I make amends here.
This fictionalized version of the creation of an all black volunteer regiment (at least in the ranks) hews pretty closely to the actual events in that process, taking into account the inevitable dramaticizations required by the “laws” of cinematic license. And that fact is important. In other commentary on the history of the 54th, and in previous recollections of my own personal history of “discovery” of the regiment I have noted that in my high school years in the 1960s no mention was ever made of the exploits of this hardy band of soldiers fighting for their freedom and the preservation of the American union. None. And that, my friends, was here in Massachusetts the home of the regiment and of the famous, if then obscure Saint-Gaudens memorial plague to the regiment that, at one point in my life I passed every day.
Lincoln and other Northern war leaders hesitated to create all black regiments for a number of reasons despite the need for man power in the battlefield as the war was drawn out inconclusively for a long period. Those reasons did not include the fact that the likes of the revolutionary black abolitionist Frederick were clamoring for black soldiers not only to preserve the union but to actively gain their own freedom, to prove their manhood and worth in the parlance of the time. This film details the struggle by hard abolitionist Massachusetts Governor Andrews and a significant portion of the white Boston citizenry, including the eventual leader of the regiment, Robert Gould Shaw and his parents, to create such a unit.
The film goes on to look at the actual creation of the unit , its training, the troubles over pay, the racial animosities on both sides that were then current in that American time, the deployment South and the mauling that the regiment took at Fort Wagner, including the deaths of Shaw and many brave black soldiers. I will tell you the best part though, although this is not brought up in the film. At war’s end what was left of the Massachusetts 54th marched through Charleston, South Carolina, in many ways the ideological and political center of the Confederacy, singing “John Brown’s Body”. That seems just about right. Hats off to the 54th.
Note: I have not mentioned the very good performances here by Denzel Washington as a testy recruit and Morgan Freeman as the wise old man. Let me put it this way, if you had a choice, wouldn’t you have this pair in this type of film. No-brainer, right? Matthew Broderick also shines in an understated performance as Colonel Shaw.
This fictionalized version of the creation of an all black volunteer regiment (at least in the ranks) hews pretty closely to the actual events in that process, taking into account the inevitable dramaticizations required by the “laws” of cinematic license. And that fact is important. In other commentary on the history of the 54th, and in previous recollections of my own personal history of “discovery” of the regiment I have noted that in my high school years in the 1960s no mention was ever made of the exploits of this hardy band of soldiers fighting for their freedom and the preservation of the American union. None. And that, my friends, was here in Massachusetts the home of the regiment and of the famous, if then obscure Saint-Gaudens memorial plague to the regiment that, at one point in my life I passed every day.
Lincoln and other Northern war leaders hesitated to create all black regiments for a number of reasons despite the need for man power in the battlefield as the war was drawn out inconclusively for a long period. Those reasons did not include the fact that the likes of the revolutionary black abolitionist Frederick were clamoring for black soldiers not only to preserve the union but to actively gain their own freedom, to prove their manhood and worth in the parlance of the time. This film details the struggle by hard abolitionist Massachusetts Governor Andrews and a significant portion of the white Boston citizenry, including the eventual leader of the regiment, Robert Gould Shaw and his parents, to create such a unit.
The film goes on to look at the actual creation of the unit , its training, the troubles over pay, the racial animosities on both sides that were then current in that American time, the deployment South and the mauling that the regiment took at Fort Wagner, including the deaths of Shaw and many brave black soldiers. I will tell you the best part though, although this is not brought up in the film. At war’s end what was left of the Massachusetts 54th marched through Charleston, South Carolina, in many ways the ideological and political center of the Confederacy, singing “John Brown’s Body”. That seems just about right. Hats off to the 54th.
Note: I have not mentioned the very good performances here by Denzel Washington as a testy recruit and Morgan Freeman as the wise old man. Let me put it this way, if you had a choice, wouldn’t you have this pair in this type of film. No-brainer, right? Matthew Broderick also shines in an understated performance as Colonel Shaw.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Buddha Swings- Benny Goodman On The Air-1937-38- A CD Review
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Benny Goodman his band performing, well, performing swing music, what else.
CD Review
Benny Goodman On The Air-1937-38, Benny Goodman and the 1937-38 version of his band, Columbia Records, Sony Music, 1993
Delores LeBlanc had had just enough of Elizabeth (Betty) La Croix and her tangled love life with Delores’ brother, Jean. Every other week, it seemed, Betty was breaking up with him over one question. Let me give you a hint. Betty and Delores are seniors at Olde Saco (Maine) High School in this year of our lord 1937. Let me add that they are both dark-haired French-Canadian American beauties, dewy roses like only those with forbears from the north up in Quebec can be. So sex is naturally in the equation, in the eternal boy-girl, Betty-Jean, equation. And for Delores too, since about fourteen when she learned that she could, with just a little effort, get the guys stirring, stirring over thoughts about dewy roses and other material matters. But this is strictly, well almost strictly, a Betty-Jean story so we will leave the Delores-smitten guys to stew.
The friction between Delores and Betty, or rather Delores’ momentary wrath at Betty, is centered on the hard fact that in a few months the girls will be having their senior prom, always a highlight in the Olde Saco calendar year, for those who graduate and those who, for one reason or another don’t. And, graduation or not, the next step is marriage. That is just the established working class and religious ethos of the town, the Gallic-inspired culture, and the times. Get out of the parents’ overburdened house and into your own small flat, maybe over on Fourteenth Street by the river, and dream of your own small white picket fence future house, maybe on Atlantic Avenue toward the ocean. And that cycle has been established for a long while. Right this minute though, this Delores fed-up moment, the sex and marriage, or really marriage and sex, question revolves around Betty and Jean.
It seems that although Betty and Jean have been an “item” for only a few months that Betty had Saturday night had her fifteenth, no sixteenth, and never make-up with dear Jean fight. And whether the year is 1037, 1537, or like now, 1937 the issue, to put it delicately, was sex, or rather to use the latest craze saying “doing it.” Or, the real crux of the matter, why she wanted to wait until that cold- water flat marriage, and not before, no way before, to give in to one Jean Claude LeBlanc. Needless to say All-American boy, really all All-American French-Canadian boy and former star of the Olde Saco High football team, the one that beat Auburn for the state title a couple of years back, Jean, was all for “doing the do” right now as a test run for marriage, or so that is how he presented it to Betty Saturday (and many a previous Saturday night) down in the dunes of Olde Saco Beach as they watch old Neptune do his ocean magic. And Jean had almost made the sale, except by the time Betty decided yes, she was so anxious and the hour was so late that she wasn’t in the mood any longer. Jesus.
And what does all this young love in podunk among the hard-working mill-hand classes, French-Canadian American variation, have to do with Benny Goodman, king of swing-ness, sultan of the be-bop 1930s radio listening nights, complete with wicked finger-snapping clarinets, sexy saxes, Gabriel blow your horn trumpets and sassy drums? Well where have you been? Okay, let me go by the numbers. Boy (really man since Jean has already graduated from Olde Saco and been working as a high-grade machine mechanic at the MacAdams Textile Mill over on Main Street for a while now. That defines man in these parts) meets girl. Boy (man) takes girl here and there in his new, well fairly new, Studebaker and they cap the night off watching the fishes swim down at the close-by beach (at the secluded far end, the Squaw Rock end, known by one and all as, well just known for being secluded, okay). Girl successfully holds off boy (man). Got it.
But how do you thing our boy Jean, champion football mover but a little bashful in the sex department when he came right down to it, tried to get one Betty La Croix in the mood. Take one guess. Backing up the ocean swells and moonlight in the mood department is one Benny and his gang on that car radio, providing that heavenly deep beat-pacing clarinet that sets those drums a rolling, those trumpets blowing to Gabriel’s heaven, and sets those sexy saxes on fire to blow the walls of Jericho down that I mentioned before. A little Buddha Swings at the right moment will go a long way.
So one can see Delores point, a little, when Monday morning at school a crying Betty is yet again looking for some sympathy. Delores was almost ready to just tell her to just surrender. See here is the funny part. Delores was having her own sexual dilemmas with one Jean Jacques La Croix (yes, Betty’s brother, it’s that kind of town and that kind of clannishness). See, one night she let sweet boy Jean Jacques go a little farther than she should have while they were down at those dunes of Olde Saco Beach in his father’s Hudson while the Benny Goodman Hour was on the radio. But don’t tell Betty that.
CD Review
Benny Goodman On The Air-1937-38, Benny Goodman and the 1937-38 version of his band, Columbia Records, Sony Music, 1993
Delores LeBlanc had had just enough of Elizabeth (Betty) La Croix and her tangled love life with Delores’ brother, Jean. Every other week, it seemed, Betty was breaking up with him over one question. Let me give you a hint. Betty and Delores are seniors at Olde Saco (Maine) High School in this year of our lord 1937. Let me add that they are both dark-haired French-Canadian American beauties, dewy roses like only those with forbears from the north up in Quebec can be. So sex is naturally in the equation, in the eternal boy-girl, Betty-Jean, equation. And for Delores too, since about fourteen when she learned that she could, with just a little effort, get the guys stirring, stirring over thoughts about dewy roses and other material matters. But this is strictly, well almost strictly, a Betty-Jean story so we will leave the Delores-smitten guys to stew.
The friction between Delores and Betty, or rather Delores’ momentary wrath at Betty, is centered on the hard fact that in a few months the girls will be having their senior prom, always a highlight in the Olde Saco calendar year, for those who graduate and those who, for one reason or another don’t. And, graduation or not, the next step is marriage. That is just the established working class and religious ethos of the town, the Gallic-inspired culture, and the times. Get out of the parents’ overburdened house and into your own small flat, maybe over on Fourteenth Street by the river, and dream of your own small white picket fence future house, maybe on Atlantic Avenue toward the ocean. And that cycle has been established for a long while. Right this minute though, this Delores fed-up moment, the sex and marriage, or really marriage and sex, question revolves around Betty and Jean.
It seems that although Betty and Jean have been an “item” for only a few months that Betty had Saturday night had her fifteenth, no sixteenth, and never make-up with dear Jean fight. And whether the year is 1037, 1537, or like now, 1937 the issue, to put it delicately, was sex, or rather to use the latest craze saying “doing it.” Or, the real crux of the matter, why she wanted to wait until that cold- water flat marriage, and not before, no way before, to give in to one Jean Claude LeBlanc. Needless to say All-American boy, really all All-American French-Canadian boy and former star of the Olde Saco High football team, the one that beat Auburn for the state title a couple of years back, Jean, was all for “doing the do” right now as a test run for marriage, or so that is how he presented it to Betty Saturday (and many a previous Saturday night) down in the dunes of Olde Saco Beach as they watch old Neptune do his ocean magic. And Jean had almost made the sale, except by the time Betty decided yes, she was so anxious and the hour was so late that she wasn’t in the mood any longer. Jesus.
And what does all this young love in podunk among the hard-working mill-hand classes, French-Canadian American variation, have to do with Benny Goodman, king of swing-ness, sultan of the be-bop 1930s radio listening nights, complete with wicked finger-snapping clarinets, sexy saxes, Gabriel blow your horn trumpets and sassy drums? Well where have you been? Okay, let me go by the numbers. Boy (really man since Jean has already graduated from Olde Saco and been working as a high-grade machine mechanic at the MacAdams Textile Mill over on Main Street for a while now. That defines man in these parts) meets girl. Boy (man) takes girl here and there in his new, well fairly new, Studebaker and they cap the night off watching the fishes swim down at the close-by beach (at the secluded far end, the Squaw Rock end, known by one and all as, well just known for being secluded, okay). Girl successfully holds off boy (man). Got it.
But how do you thing our boy Jean, champion football mover but a little bashful in the sex department when he came right down to it, tried to get one Betty La Croix in the mood. Take one guess. Backing up the ocean swells and moonlight in the mood department is one Benny and his gang on that car radio, providing that heavenly deep beat-pacing clarinet that sets those drums a rolling, those trumpets blowing to Gabriel’s heaven, and sets those sexy saxes on fire to blow the walls of Jericho down that I mentioned before. A little Buddha Swings at the right moment will go a long way.
So one can see Delores point, a little, when Monday morning at school a crying Betty is yet again looking for some sympathy. Delores was almost ready to just tell her to just surrender. See here is the funny part. Delores was having her own sexual dilemmas with one Jean Jacques La Croix (yes, Betty’s brother, it’s that kind of town and that kind of clannishness). See, one night she let sweet boy Jean Jacques go a little farther than she should have while they were down at those dunes of Olde Saco Beach in his father’s Hudson while the Benny Goodman Hour was on the radio. But don’t tell Betty that.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Crime Noir Night- Fred MacMurray’s “Pushover”-A Review
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the crime noir Pushover
DVD Review
Pushover, starring Fred MacMurray, Kim Novak, Columbia Pictures, 1954
Okay, once again, here is the drill, the crime noir drill anyway, crime does not pay. Got it. Ya, but what they didn’t tell you, not that it would have helped, what about when some stray femme fatale, all blond and curvy, not Marilyn Monroe blond and curvy but still a nice package, comes at a guy with her one hundred dollar an ounce perfume scent, in 1950s dollars scent, and her come hither smile. And gets a guy, guys, usually rationale and business-like stick-em-up bank robber guys or guardian of law-and-order guys, kind of screwy and dreaming funny dreams. And have , in the end, the latter doing screwy stuff with enough moxie to face the chair, or face a stray bullet or two, with kind of an ironic smile just for another whiff of that expensive perfume. Ya, they don’t tell you about that part. But I will, because in that just mentioned end, the film under review, Pushover, is all about that crazy stuff a good-looking dame can make a guy, maybe any guy, do. And even Karl Marx, and his kindred, haven’t figured a way around that one.
I might as well start at the beginning. Harry, like a lot of guys, didn’t like nine-to- five work, although such guys, like the rest of us, needed dough for this and that, so he did what came natural to such guys-rob a bank (with a confederate of course). He got the dough okay, a couple of hundred thousand (not much today but serious money in the 1950s, serious easy street money until it ran out and you needed to plan another caper), but the heist got fouled up, as usual, when some bank guard (seemingly unaware that the bank was probably insured and, in any case, that it wasn’t his dough) decided to play hero. Harry threw a couple of bullets his way and that was that.
Except in 1950s law and order America, and now too, killing bank guards sets the citizenry aflame and so the cops have to press hard on this one to stop the bad press. And here is where the fatal perfume scent comes in. See, Harry, like many a guy has a woman, a “kept” woman in the parlance of the day, Lona (played by Kim Novak), who he keeps coming back to for one more whiff of that scent that he has paid for. (And other stuff too but remember this is a 1950s movie so we won’t mention s-x.) And that is where the law gets a break. Somehow they find out about Lona and have her followed. Why? You know why just as well as you know the cat will go after catnip.
Lona is followed by a kind of cynical, hard-bitten, seen it all career cop, Paul (played by Fred MacMurray), whose “job” is to get close to her. Well he does, but he doesn’t figure on that scent. The scent that will lead him, and gladly, down a crooked road. See Lona had her own agenda.
Her own agenda being to get Harry’s dough and run off, maybe to Mexico, where the living is cheap and nobody, nobody with any sense, asks questions. But in any case somewhere far away, some white picket fence cottage for two far away. Paul resisted the idea for a while but you know it would be a very short film if he didn’t succumb. And if you saw Lona, and the whole package, you would know why too.
Of course the best laid plans of mice or men go awry, real awry. The plan is to set up Harry, bump him off under the usual “trying to escape” police gag, grab the dough and scram to that little dream cottage future. No problem, easy as pie, just like clockwork and all the other clichés. Not. The thing unravels by the minute and every improvisation by Paul only gets turned around against him. As his fellow cops finally get around to figuring out he has gone “rogue” he has gotten into such frenzy about the dough that he kind of fatalistically pushes on. And in the end takes those stray cop bullets that have his name on them kind of smiling, an ironic smile. See what a dame will do to a guy, a rationale guy. But what are you going to do.
Note: Fred MacMurray should have seen this coming. It is not like he hasn’t been down that blond femme fatale road before. He took a couple of stray bullets for a smile from Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity so he was forewarned. He had better stay away from those blonde dames with big crooked plans. I suggest a brunette.
DVD Review
Pushover, starring Fred MacMurray, Kim Novak, Columbia Pictures, 1954
Okay, once again, here is the drill, the crime noir drill anyway, crime does not pay. Got it. Ya, but what they didn’t tell you, not that it would have helped, what about when some stray femme fatale, all blond and curvy, not Marilyn Monroe blond and curvy but still a nice package, comes at a guy with her one hundred dollar an ounce perfume scent, in 1950s dollars scent, and her come hither smile. And gets a guy, guys, usually rationale and business-like stick-em-up bank robber guys or guardian of law-and-order guys, kind of screwy and dreaming funny dreams. And have , in the end, the latter doing screwy stuff with enough moxie to face the chair, or face a stray bullet or two, with kind of an ironic smile just for another whiff of that expensive perfume. Ya, they don’t tell you about that part. But I will, because in that just mentioned end, the film under review, Pushover, is all about that crazy stuff a good-looking dame can make a guy, maybe any guy, do. And even Karl Marx, and his kindred, haven’t figured a way around that one.
I might as well start at the beginning. Harry, like a lot of guys, didn’t like nine-to- five work, although such guys, like the rest of us, needed dough for this and that, so he did what came natural to such guys-rob a bank (with a confederate of course). He got the dough okay, a couple of hundred thousand (not much today but serious money in the 1950s, serious easy street money until it ran out and you needed to plan another caper), but the heist got fouled up, as usual, when some bank guard (seemingly unaware that the bank was probably insured and, in any case, that it wasn’t his dough) decided to play hero. Harry threw a couple of bullets his way and that was that.
Except in 1950s law and order America, and now too, killing bank guards sets the citizenry aflame and so the cops have to press hard on this one to stop the bad press. And here is where the fatal perfume scent comes in. See, Harry, like many a guy has a woman, a “kept” woman in the parlance of the day, Lona (played by Kim Novak), who he keeps coming back to for one more whiff of that scent that he has paid for. (And other stuff too but remember this is a 1950s movie so we won’t mention s-x.) And that is where the law gets a break. Somehow they find out about Lona and have her followed. Why? You know why just as well as you know the cat will go after catnip.
Lona is followed by a kind of cynical, hard-bitten, seen it all career cop, Paul (played by Fred MacMurray), whose “job” is to get close to her. Well he does, but he doesn’t figure on that scent. The scent that will lead him, and gladly, down a crooked road. See Lona had her own agenda.
Her own agenda being to get Harry’s dough and run off, maybe to Mexico, where the living is cheap and nobody, nobody with any sense, asks questions. But in any case somewhere far away, some white picket fence cottage for two far away. Paul resisted the idea for a while but you know it would be a very short film if he didn’t succumb. And if you saw Lona, and the whole package, you would know why too.
Of course the best laid plans of mice or men go awry, real awry. The plan is to set up Harry, bump him off under the usual “trying to escape” police gag, grab the dough and scram to that little dream cottage future. No problem, easy as pie, just like clockwork and all the other clichés. Not. The thing unravels by the minute and every improvisation by Paul only gets turned around against him. As his fellow cops finally get around to figuring out he has gone “rogue” he has gotten into such frenzy about the dough that he kind of fatalistically pushes on. And in the end takes those stray cop bullets that have his name on them kind of smiling, an ironic smile. See what a dame will do to a guy, a rationale guy. But what are you going to do.
Note: Fred MacMurray should have seen this coming. It is not like he hasn’t been down that blond femme fatale road before. He took a couple of stray bullets for a smile from Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity so he was forewarned. He had better stay away from those blonde dames with big crooked plans. I suggest a brunette.
Friday, March 2, 2012
Man’s Fate-Redux
Man’s Fate-Redux
He, Frank Jackman, didn’t know exactly how he was talked into attending his fourth, or was it fifth, anti-war conference in the space of three weeks. “Jesus,” Frank said to himself, “I just got out of the stockade a few weeks ago and I have been going non-stop ever since.” The details of that Army stockade time need not detain us here, except to say, as Frank said to anybody who asked, that he did what he had to do to stop that “goddam war in Vietnam (exact quote),” he would do it again, and the clincher that closed the conversational point, “next”. And if that was all Frank needed to say about the subject then that was all that needed to be said, next.
That next though was the “come on” that brought Frank up to the foothills of the White Mountains of New Hampshire for that conference that snowy February weekend of 1971. Unlike most “movement” events, unlike the previous four (five?) conferences that he had attended (and maybe from time immemorial), he was going to be given a stipend, small but actual dough, for his work, a bed, an actual bed and not some hard-pressed upon sympathizer’s vacant floor, and said bed would be in his own single room. Beyond that he heard that there would be some interesting people coming, and before you get your notebook out to write down the movement worthies that were coming, Frank’s hearing centered on the hard fact that some interesting women were coming. After all Frank had been in the stockade, and after all in 1971 we were only on the cusp of the women’s liberation movement at a time before such thoughts, at least in public, or in the public prints, became very dicey, very dicey indeed.
And so Frank began hitch-hiking that snow-covered February day U.S. 93 to save some dough, although as part of that “come on” he actually had been given money for a bus ticket as well. But he wanted to get a “feel” for the country and who and what was out there, especially the plethora of yellow brick road school buses and VW’s converted into love mobiles that he had heard about while inside. After a couple of interesting rides and one, well, scary one he arrived at his destination.
As he approached the entrance to the main building, the conference center itself, he could hear inside Elizabeth Cotten’ s Freight Train, in an upbeat Peter, Paul and Mary-style version complete with Bleecker Street reference, being covered just then near the well firewood- stocked, well-stoked fireplace of the great room of this old time religious order assembly hall by some upstart urban folkie a long way from his home and a long way from that 1960s folk revival minute that Frank remembered. Yes, this was the right place, the right place indeed.
Meanwhile, in the front hall entrance that he was then approaching adjacent to that great room where that old-time folkie and his old-time tune were being heard by a small early-bird arrival gathering crowd who never tired of the song, and who this night certainly did not tire of being close by the huge well stocked, well-stoked fireplace where the old brother, hell, let’s give him a name, Eric, Eric from Vermont, okay, was holding forth was starting to fill with more arrivals to be checked in and button-holed. The place, for the curious: the Shaker Farms Peace Pavilion (formerly just plain vanilla Shaker Farms Assembly Hall but the “trust fund babies” who bought and donated the site, and paid for Frank’s stipend, ah, insisted in their, of course, anonymous way on the added signature) the scene of umpteen peace conferences, anti-war parlays, alternative world vision seminars, non-violent role-playing skits, and personal witness actions worked out. A handy hospice for worn-out ideas, ditto frustrations, and an off-hand small victory or two.
And Frank, fresh from the stockade or not, was starting to be a picture of his tribal brothers seen at this gathering of the faithful and determined. A young ruddy-complexioned man, twenty-something, brown hair starting to fill out on the sides and down the back, a brown beard starting to go beyond wisp, sporting slightly scuffed high-top black boots, hell army boots, denim bell-bottomed trousers, army-jacket one size too large, always one size too large, stared across the great hall. The garment “style” just described obviously reflecting a recent discharge from some army, some shooting army, that aimed to join another less rigid army, if less rigid are the right words for the explosion among the young of his generation, the generation of ’68.
But all that was so much off-hand description, so much political foreplay. Frank was watching, watching carefully for those interesting women “promised” during the “come on” pitch that brought him to these damn snowy outback hills. He, no question, a city boy was unconformable being more than five feet away from city lights, asphalt city streets (the snowy road up to the farm entrance was rutted, dirt rutted), and a bookstore. As he panned the conference room that he just entered Frank eyed, fierce piercing blue-eyes that spoke of ancient sadnesses and a little treachery eyed, a young woman on the other side of the room. A dark-haired, pert, petite young woman, who was also present at that same umpteenth helter-skelter workshop in order to save this or that part of this wicked old world. And she eyed him right back. They both would laugh later and call it kid hide-and-seek eying. But that was later.
Just then though they kept up their “war” of peek and half- peek (and half whimsical smiles thrown in) until Frank was called up by Stanley Bloom, yes, that Stanley, well-known for his organizing exploits the year before when he almost single-handedly organized the student strikes after Kent State. After firing up the crowd with the need to think “outside the box,” up the ante and finish the job of ending the damn war (exact quote) Frank moved to the side to talk to Marge Goodwin, the organizer of this confab. In between the political back and forth he inquired about that dark-haired young woman. Marge replied, “Oh, Joyell Davin, she is from the Peace Action committee, they spear-headed the rallies out in front of Fort Shaw last year trying to get you out of the stockade.” Bingo.
Needless to say that at intermission Frank drew a bee-line for Joyell. As he approached her he simply shook her hand gently and said in a half-whisper (a half whisper that they would remember later, although they did not laugh at that one), “Thanks, for your work last year at Fort Shaw on my behalf, I appreciated it and it helped me get through the time.” And that was that. Joyell blushed profusely but something in that simple introduction started an avalanche of conversation about this and that. Who remembers except that it was incessant as if to stop would start the impending world madness outside of that little space between them. What did stop it was the call back to the second session. But before they parted Frank, half-sheepishly, a little kid-like said, “Maybe we can talk later, after the session is over.” And Joyell, usually no shy violet, although a little intimidated by Frank’s “movement” heavy-footstep heroics, blurted out instantly, “We’d better.” Frank shot back just as quickly, “Well I guess that is an order, right?” They laughed, laughed an adventures ahead laugh.
And, of course, they did meet later. Later came, came, evening session complete, as they were sitting across from each other in the great room, the great fireplace room where Eric was going through his second rendition of Freight Train to get the room revved up for his big stuff. Frank came over and asked, back to whisper again asked, if Joyell would like to go outside for a breath of fresh winter air. Or maybe somewhere else, another room inside, if she didn’t like the cold or snow. No second request was necessary, and no coyness on her part, as she quickly went to the coat rack and put on her coat, scarf, and boots. .
They talked, or rather she talked a blue streak, a soft-spoken blue streak like Frank’s manner was contagious and maybe it was, and then he would ask a question, and ask it in such a way that he really wanted to know, know her for her answer and not just to ask, polite ask. As they walked, and walked, and as the snow got deeper she kind of fell, kind of helpless on purpose fell. On purpose fell expecting that he might kiss her. But all he did was pick her up, firmly, held her in his arms just a fraction of a second, but a fraction of a second enough to let her know, and let her feel, that they had not seen the last of each other. And just for that cold, snow-driven February night, as war raged on in some distance land, and as she gathered in her tangled emotions after many romantic stumbles and man disappointments, that thought was enough.
And they kept eying each other through immediate snows, immediate back to the city safe-haven snows, gentle first kisses and downy beds, leafy spring bike rides on suburban trails (safe asphalt trails), be-bop dead of night drug hazes (better left unrecorded just in case the statute of limitations has not run out), east coast hitch-hike trips to some forlorn demo for this or that cause in a world increasingly full of hurts and oppressions in need of mending and someone to do something about them, massive explorations of the blue-pink great American West night in army-like pup tent and surplus sleeping bags, some misunderstandings, some serious misunderstandings, some rages against the night, some double rages against the day and night, some fitful irresolute break-ups, some infidelities (agreed to, or not), some two-roads-taken, and then, strictly reflecting that young man’s, Frank’s, broken-down sense of the world, silence, no more words spoken, in anger or otherwise.
Except later, much later, some cosmic message spoken by him speaking of that helter-skelter meeting, the snowy night, the walk, and the “moment” when he first held her firmly, to keep her from falling, without a kiss, but with an understanding that their stars had crossed, and he, they, knew some high adventure was ahead. The unadorned cosmic message was all that was left. Why hadn’t he had the sense to have a sense of her needs and kiss her right there in those immediate falling snows?
He, Frank Jackman, didn’t know exactly how he was talked into attending his fourth, or was it fifth, anti-war conference in the space of three weeks. “Jesus,” Frank said to himself, “I just got out of the stockade a few weeks ago and I have been going non-stop ever since.” The details of that Army stockade time need not detain us here, except to say, as Frank said to anybody who asked, that he did what he had to do to stop that “goddam war in Vietnam (exact quote),” he would do it again, and the clincher that closed the conversational point, “next”. And if that was all Frank needed to say about the subject then that was all that needed to be said, next.
That next though was the “come on” that brought Frank up to the foothills of the White Mountains of New Hampshire for that conference that snowy February weekend of 1971. Unlike most “movement” events, unlike the previous four (five?) conferences that he had attended (and maybe from time immemorial), he was going to be given a stipend, small but actual dough, for his work, a bed, an actual bed and not some hard-pressed upon sympathizer’s vacant floor, and said bed would be in his own single room. Beyond that he heard that there would be some interesting people coming, and before you get your notebook out to write down the movement worthies that were coming, Frank’s hearing centered on the hard fact that some interesting women were coming. After all Frank had been in the stockade, and after all in 1971 we were only on the cusp of the women’s liberation movement at a time before such thoughts, at least in public, or in the public prints, became very dicey, very dicey indeed.
And so Frank began hitch-hiking that snow-covered February day U.S. 93 to save some dough, although as part of that “come on” he actually had been given money for a bus ticket as well. But he wanted to get a “feel” for the country and who and what was out there, especially the plethora of yellow brick road school buses and VW’s converted into love mobiles that he had heard about while inside. After a couple of interesting rides and one, well, scary one he arrived at his destination.
As he approached the entrance to the main building, the conference center itself, he could hear inside Elizabeth Cotten’ s Freight Train, in an upbeat Peter, Paul and Mary-style version complete with Bleecker Street reference, being covered just then near the well firewood- stocked, well-stoked fireplace of the great room of this old time religious order assembly hall by some upstart urban folkie a long way from his home and a long way from that 1960s folk revival minute that Frank remembered. Yes, this was the right place, the right place indeed.
Meanwhile, in the front hall entrance that he was then approaching adjacent to that great room where that old-time folkie and his old-time tune were being heard by a small early-bird arrival gathering crowd who never tired of the song, and who this night certainly did not tire of being close by the huge well stocked, well-stoked fireplace where the old brother, hell, let’s give him a name, Eric, Eric from Vermont, okay, was holding forth was starting to fill with more arrivals to be checked in and button-holed. The place, for the curious: the Shaker Farms Peace Pavilion (formerly just plain vanilla Shaker Farms Assembly Hall but the “trust fund babies” who bought and donated the site, and paid for Frank’s stipend, ah, insisted in their, of course, anonymous way on the added signature) the scene of umpteen peace conferences, anti-war parlays, alternative world vision seminars, non-violent role-playing skits, and personal witness actions worked out. A handy hospice for worn-out ideas, ditto frustrations, and an off-hand small victory or two.
And Frank, fresh from the stockade or not, was starting to be a picture of his tribal brothers seen at this gathering of the faithful and determined. A young ruddy-complexioned man, twenty-something, brown hair starting to fill out on the sides and down the back, a brown beard starting to go beyond wisp, sporting slightly scuffed high-top black boots, hell army boots, denim bell-bottomed trousers, army-jacket one size too large, always one size too large, stared across the great hall. The garment “style” just described obviously reflecting a recent discharge from some army, some shooting army, that aimed to join another less rigid army, if less rigid are the right words for the explosion among the young of his generation, the generation of ’68.
But all that was so much off-hand description, so much political foreplay. Frank was watching, watching carefully for those interesting women “promised” during the “come on” pitch that brought him to these damn snowy outback hills. He, no question, a city boy was unconformable being more than five feet away from city lights, asphalt city streets (the snowy road up to the farm entrance was rutted, dirt rutted), and a bookstore. As he panned the conference room that he just entered Frank eyed, fierce piercing blue-eyes that spoke of ancient sadnesses and a little treachery eyed, a young woman on the other side of the room. A dark-haired, pert, petite young woman, who was also present at that same umpteenth helter-skelter workshop in order to save this or that part of this wicked old world. And she eyed him right back. They both would laugh later and call it kid hide-and-seek eying. But that was later.
Just then though they kept up their “war” of peek and half- peek (and half whimsical smiles thrown in) until Frank was called up by Stanley Bloom, yes, that Stanley, well-known for his organizing exploits the year before when he almost single-handedly organized the student strikes after Kent State. After firing up the crowd with the need to think “outside the box,” up the ante and finish the job of ending the damn war (exact quote) Frank moved to the side to talk to Marge Goodwin, the organizer of this confab. In between the political back and forth he inquired about that dark-haired young woman. Marge replied, “Oh, Joyell Davin, she is from the Peace Action committee, they spear-headed the rallies out in front of Fort Shaw last year trying to get you out of the stockade.” Bingo.
Needless to say that at intermission Frank drew a bee-line for Joyell. As he approached her he simply shook her hand gently and said in a half-whisper (a half whisper that they would remember later, although they did not laugh at that one), “Thanks, for your work last year at Fort Shaw on my behalf, I appreciated it and it helped me get through the time.” And that was that. Joyell blushed profusely but something in that simple introduction started an avalanche of conversation about this and that. Who remembers except that it was incessant as if to stop would start the impending world madness outside of that little space between them. What did stop it was the call back to the second session. But before they parted Frank, half-sheepishly, a little kid-like said, “Maybe we can talk later, after the session is over.” And Joyell, usually no shy violet, although a little intimidated by Frank’s “movement” heavy-footstep heroics, blurted out instantly, “We’d better.” Frank shot back just as quickly, “Well I guess that is an order, right?” They laughed, laughed an adventures ahead laugh.
And, of course, they did meet later. Later came, came, evening session complete, as they were sitting across from each other in the great room, the great fireplace room where Eric was going through his second rendition of Freight Train to get the room revved up for his big stuff. Frank came over and asked, back to whisper again asked, if Joyell would like to go outside for a breath of fresh winter air. Or maybe somewhere else, another room inside, if she didn’t like the cold or snow. No second request was necessary, and no coyness on her part, as she quickly went to the coat rack and put on her coat, scarf, and boots. .
They talked, or rather she talked a blue streak, a soft-spoken blue streak like Frank’s manner was contagious and maybe it was, and then he would ask a question, and ask it in such a way that he really wanted to know, know her for her answer and not just to ask, polite ask. As they walked, and walked, and as the snow got deeper she kind of fell, kind of helpless on purpose fell. On purpose fell expecting that he might kiss her. But all he did was pick her up, firmly, held her in his arms just a fraction of a second, but a fraction of a second enough to let her know, and let her feel, that they had not seen the last of each other. And just for that cold, snow-driven February night, as war raged on in some distance land, and as she gathered in her tangled emotions after many romantic stumbles and man disappointments, that thought was enough.
And they kept eying each other through immediate snows, immediate back to the city safe-haven snows, gentle first kisses and downy beds, leafy spring bike rides on suburban trails (safe asphalt trails), be-bop dead of night drug hazes (better left unrecorded just in case the statute of limitations has not run out), east coast hitch-hike trips to some forlorn demo for this or that cause in a world increasingly full of hurts and oppressions in need of mending and someone to do something about them, massive explorations of the blue-pink great American West night in army-like pup tent and surplus sleeping bags, some misunderstandings, some serious misunderstandings, some rages against the night, some double rages against the day and night, some fitful irresolute break-ups, some infidelities (agreed to, or not), some two-roads-taken, and then, strictly reflecting that young man’s, Frank’s, broken-down sense of the world, silence, no more words spoken, in anger or otherwise.
Except later, much later, some cosmic message spoken by him speaking of that helter-skelter meeting, the snowy night, the walk, and the “moment” when he first held her firmly, to keep her from falling, without a kiss, but with an understanding that their stars had crossed, and he, they, knew some high adventure was ahead. The unadorned cosmic message was all that was left. Why hadn’t he had the sense to have a sense of her needs and kiss her right there in those immediate falling snows?
Thursday, March 1, 2012
What Joyell Found Out About Herself-Redux-Elizabeth Cotten Is In The House –A CD Review
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Elizabeth Cotten performing her famous road song blues, Freight Train.
Freight Train and Other North Carolina Folk Songs and Tunes, Elizabeth Cotten, Smithstonian Folkways, 1989
Freight train, freight train going so fast,
Freight train, freight train going so fast,
Please don’t say what train I’m on,
So they won’t know where I’ve gone.
-Chorus from ancient folk blues artist Elizabeth Cotten’s Freight Train.
As this story unfolds, Elizabeth Cotten’ s Freight Train, in an upbeat Peter, Paul and Mary-style version complete with Bleecker Street reference, is being covered just then near the well firewood- stocked, well-stoked fireplace of the great room in a hard winter, February version, snow-covered rural New Hampshire old time religious order assembly hall by some upstart urban folkie a long way from his home and a long way from that 1960s folk revival minute that then had had even jaded aficionados from the generation of ’68 clamoring for more.
Meanwhile, the front hall entrance adjacent to that great room where that old-time folkie and his old-time tune are being heard by a small early-bird arrival gathering crowd who never tire of the song, and who this night certainly do not tire of being close by the huge well stocked, well-stoked fireplace where the old brother, hell, let’s give him a name, Eric, Eric from Vermont, okay, is holding forth is starting to fill with more arrivals to be checked in and button-holed. The place, for the curious: the Shaker Farms Peace Pavilion (formerly just plain vanilla Shaker Farms Assembly Hall but the “trust fund babies” who bought and donated the site, ah, insisted in their, of course, anonymous way on the added signature) the scene of umpteen peace conferences, anti-war parlays, alternative world vision seminars, non-violent role-playing skits, and personal witness actions worked out. A handy hospice for worn-out ideas, ditto frustrations, and an off-hand small victory or two.
That very last part, that desperate victory last part, is what keeps the place afloat, afloat in this oddball of a hellish anti-war year 1971 when even hardened and steeled old-time peace activists against the Vietnam War are starting to believe they will be entitled to Social Security for their efforts before this bloody war is over. Hence the urgency behind this particular great room fireplace warm, complete with booked-in urban folkie singer, umpteenth anti-war conference. But onward brothers and sisters and let us listen in to the following conversation overheard in that now crowded front hall:
“Hi, Joyell, glad you could make it to the conference. Are you by yourself or did you bring Steve with you?” asked Jim Sweeney, one of the big honchos, one of the big organizational honchos and that is what matters these dog days when all hope appears to have been abandoned, these now fading days of the antiwar movement trying yet again to conference jump start the opposition to Nixon’s bloody escalations and stealthy tricky maneuvers.
“Good to see you too, Jim,” answered Joyell, who said it in such a singsong way that she and Jim Sweeney, obviously, had been in some mystic time, maybe some summer of love time before everything and everybody needed twelve coats of armor, emotional armor, just to move from point A to point B, more than fellows at one of those umpteen peace things. Joyell knew, knew from some serious reflection last summer, that she had put on a few more armor coats herself and, hell, she was just a self-confessed rank and filer. Their “thing” had just faded though for lack of energy, lack of high “ism” politics on Joyell’s part unlike frenetic Jim, and for the cold, hard fact that Jim at the time wanted to devote himself totally to the “movement” and could not “commit” to a personal relationship.
“Jesus, can’t any guy commit to anything for more than ten minutes,” Joyell thought to herself. From the weathered look on his face Jim was still in high thrall to “saving the earth” although rumor had it that Marge Goodwin, ya, that Marge Goodwin, the “mother” of organizers every since she almost single-handedly called out the national student strike in 1970, almost had her hooks into him, into him bad from all reports.
“No, Steve and I are not together anymore since he split to “find himself” on some freight train heading west, heading west fast away from me, I think. But you don’t want to hear that story, and besides we have to push on against this damn war, Steve or no Steve and his goddamn freight smoke-trailing dreams.” What Joyell didn’t say was that she was half-glad, no quarter-glad, Steve had split since the last couple of months had been hell. A fight a day it seemed, two a day at the end.
Reason: Steve too was not ready to “commit” to a personal relationship what with the whole world going to hell in hand-basket (his expression). Besides they all had plenty of time, a life-time to get “serious” and, forbidden words, “settle down.” Here is where the quarter-glad part comes in. Steve was getting in kind of heavy with some Weathermen-types and while that did not cause an argument a day between them it didn’t help. Joyell half expected to hear that Steve, Steve the meek pacifist, a freaking meek Catholic Worker guy just a couple years before, blew up something, or got blown up. Jesus, she thought, was I that hard to take, hard to get along with.
“I’m sorry to hear that Joyell. Maybe when we get a break later we can talk.” Of course, and maybe for the same Steve smoke-trailing-freight-dream-escape-seeking-the-great-American be-bop night reason, or maybe a heroic end traced out since boyhood redemptions reason, Jim and Joyell never would meet later, as Jim would be tied up, well, tied up in whatever organizational thing he was honcho of these days. Their time too had irrevocably passed. And now, and from here on in, this is Joyell’s time, her story, her voice as she enters the spacious but cold, distant from the well-stoked fireplace cold, conference room to the left of the great room with its rickety elongated table weighted down with timeless banging against ten thousand flickered night dreams, scarecrow chairs that caused more than one modern arched-back to falter helplessly, and unhealthy air, air make rank from too many spent speeches, and spent dreams.
*******
“Who is that guy over in the corner, that green corner coach, the guy with the kind of wispy just starting to fill out brown beard, and those fierce piercing goy blue eyes, that I just passed? I’ve not seen him around before,” Joyell asked herself and then Marge Goodwin, expecting Marge the crackerjack organizer of everything from antiwar marches to save the, and you can fill in the blank, to know all the players. Moreover Marge and Joyell got along well enough for Joyell to ask such a question, “girl talk,” they called it between themselves although to the “men” this was a book sealed with seven seals since the “correct” thing was to put such girlish things back in prehistoric times, four or five years ago okay. Joyell also sensed that since Marge’s “thing” with Jim hadn’t worked out they had something in common, although nothing was ever said. Nor would it be.
“Oh, that’s Frank Jackman, the anti-war GI who just got out of the stockade over at Fort Shaw last week and he is ready to do some work with us,” volunteered Marge. Later that evening Joyell would hear from a reliable source that Marge had gotten, or had tried to get, very familiar with the ex-army soldier resister. Marge had a thing for “heroic” guys. Heroic guys being guys like Jim, Joan Baez’s hubby, David Harris, who had refused draft induction, the Berrigan Brothers who were getting ready to do time for draft board record destruction (although she, Marge, couldn’t get that damn Catholic trick part that drove their actions) and now this Frank Jackman who had done a year, a tough soldier non-soldier year, some of it in solidarity, in the stockade for refusing go to Vietnam (and refusing to wear the military uniform at one point). Joyell also heard from another source that evening that it was no dice between Marge and Frank. This source thought it was that Marge, always getting what Marge wanted when it came to “movement men,” figured this guy would just cave in and take the ride. Not this guy, no way, not after taking on the “big boys” over at Fort Shaw. No dice, huh. That’s a point in his favor. But that was later fuel.
“Oh, that’s why his beard is so wispy and he is wearing those silly high top polished black boots and that size too big Army jacket with those bell-bottomed jeans. He certainly has the idea of what it takes to fit in here,” Joyell figured out, figured out loud. Marge just nodded, nodded kind of dismissively that she was right. And then left to do some organization business setting up the evening’s work.
And then suddenly, she, Joyell Davin (suitably Americanized, naturally, a couple of generations back), freshly-damaged in love’s unequal battles but apparently not ready to throw in the towel, got very quiet, very quiet like she always did when some guy caught her eye, well, more than her eye tonight, now that Steve was so much train smoke out in the cornfields somewhere. Maybe it was the New York City armor-coated brashness, hell Manhattan grow-up hard and necessary brashness required in a too many people universe, and learned from her very opinionated father, that her quietness tried to rein in at times like this so guys, guys like this Frank, wouldn’t be thrown off. But whatever it was that drove her quietness she was taking her peeks, her quiet half- peeks really, at this guy. With Steve, and a few other guys, it was mostly full steam ahead and let the devil take the hinter- post. This time her clock said take it easy, jesus, take it easy.
And as she found herself catching herself taking more and more of those telltale peeks she noticed, noticed almost by instinct, almost by some mystical sense that he was “checking” her out, although their dueling eyes had not met. Then, after Jim had finished giving the opening address about what the conferees were trying to do, this Frank Jackman stood up quickly without introduction and started talking, in a firm voice, about the need to up the ante, to create havoc in the streets, and in the army camps. And do it now, and with some sense of urgency. But he said it all in such way that everybody in the room, all forty or fifty of them, knew, or should have known, that this was not some ragtag wispy–bearded fly-by-night “days of rage” kid spirit, freshly bell-bottom pants minted, but some kind of revolutionary, some kind of radical anyway, who had thought about things a lot and wasn’t just a flame-thrower like she had seen too many of lately, including Steve, before he went to find himself.
When Frank was done he looked, half-looked really, quickly in her direction like he was seeking her, and just her, approval. And like he needed to know and know right this minute that she approved. She blushed, and hoped it did not show. And hoped that she had read his look in her direction correctly. But before that blush could subside she blushed again when out of nowhere this Frank gave her a another look, a serious checking out look if she knew her “movement” men, not a leer like some drunken barroom guy, or “come on, honey,” like a schoolboy but a let’s talk high “ism” talk later, and see what happens later, later. Maybe this umpteenth conference would work out after all.
So our Joyell was not surprised, not surprised at all, when during the break, the blessed break after two non-stop hours of waiting, Francis Alexander Jackman (that’s what he was called from when he was a kid and it kind of stuck but he preferred simply Frank) came up behind, tapped her gently on the shoulder to get her attention, introduced himself without fanfare or with any heroic poses, and thanked her for her work on his behalf.
“What do you mean, Frank?” she asked, bewildered by the question. “Oh, when your Peace Action committee came up to Fort Shaw and demonstrated for my freedom,” he replied in kind of a whisper voice, very different from his public voice, a voice that had known some tough times recently and maybe long ago too, but that soft whisper was what she needed, needed to hear from a righteous man, just now. The shrill of Steve’s voice, and a couple of others in her string of forgotten luck, still echoed in her brain.
“That was you? I didn’t make the connection. I didn’t know that was you, sorry, that was about a year ago and I have been going non-stop with this antiwar march and that women’s lib things. Were you in the stockade all that time?” she continued.
“Ya,” just a ya, not forlorn or anything like that but just a simple statement of fact, of the fact that he had needed to do what he did and that was that, next question, came that soft reply like this Frank and she were on some same wave-length. She was confused, confused more than a little that he had that strong effect on her after about five minutes of just general conversation.
Just then Marge, super-organizer but, as Joyell had already gathered intelligence on by then, not above having the last say in her little romances with the newest heroes of the movement, or trying to, called to Frank that Stanley Bloom, the big national anti-war organizer, wanted his input into something. But before he left soft -whispering still, calm still, unlike when he talked, talked peace action talk, he mentioned kind of kid-like, bashful kid-like, maybe they could meet later. Joyell could barely contain herself, and although she usually acted bashfully at these times, kind of a studied bashfulness starting out, even with Steve and some of the movement guys, she just blurted out, “We’d better.” He replied, a little stronger of voice than that previous whisper, “I guess that is a command, right?” And they both laughed, laughed an adventure ahead laugh.
Later came, evening session complete, as they were sitting across from each other in the great room, the great fireplace room where Eric was going through his second rendition of Freight Train to get the room revved up for his big stuff. Frank came over and asked, back to whisper asked, if Joyell would like to go outside for a breath of fresh winter air. Or maybe somewhere else, another room inside perhaps if she didn’t like the cold or snow. No second request was necessary, and no coyness on her part either with this guy, as she quickly went to the coat rack and put on her coat, scarf, and boots. And so it went.
They talked, or rather she talked a blue streak, a soft-spoken blue streak like Frank’s manner was contagious, and maybe it was. Then he would ask a question, and ask it in such a way that he really wanted to know, know her for her answer and not just to ask, polite ask. As they walked, and walked, and as the snow got deeper as they moved away from the pavilion she kind of fell, kind of helpless on purpose fell. On purpose fell expecting that he might kiss her. But all he did was pick her up, gently but firmly, held her in his arms just a fraction of a second, but a fraction of a second enough to let her know, and let her feel, that they had not seen the last of each other. And just for that cold, snow-driven February night, as war raged on in some distance land, and as she gathered in her tangled emotions after many romantic stumbles and man disappointments, that thought was enough.
Freight Train and Other North Carolina Folk Songs and Tunes, Elizabeth Cotten, Smithstonian Folkways, 1989
Freight train, freight train going so fast,
Freight train, freight train going so fast,
Please don’t say what train I’m on,
So they won’t know where I’ve gone.
-Chorus from ancient folk blues artist Elizabeth Cotten’s Freight Train.
As this story unfolds, Elizabeth Cotten’ s Freight Train, in an upbeat Peter, Paul and Mary-style version complete with Bleecker Street reference, is being covered just then near the well firewood- stocked, well-stoked fireplace of the great room in a hard winter, February version, snow-covered rural New Hampshire old time religious order assembly hall by some upstart urban folkie a long way from his home and a long way from that 1960s folk revival minute that then had had even jaded aficionados from the generation of ’68 clamoring for more.
Meanwhile, the front hall entrance adjacent to that great room where that old-time folkie and his old-time tune are being heard by a small early-bird arrival gathering crowd who never tire of the song, and who this night certainly do not tire of being close by the huge well stocked, well-stoked fireplace where the old brother, hell, let’s give him a name, Eric, Eric from Vermont, okay, is holding forth is starting to fill with more arrivals to be checked in and button-holed. The place, for the curious: the Shaker Farms Peace Pavilion (formerly just plain vanilla Shaker Farms Assembly Hall but the “trust fund babies” who bought and donated the site, ah, insisted in their, of course, anonymous way on the added signature) the scene of umpteen peace conferences, anti-war parlays, alternative world vision seminars, non-violent role-playing skits, and personal witness actions worked out. A handy hospice for worn-out ideas, ditto frustrations, and an off-hand small victory or two.
That very last part, that desperate victory last part, is what keeps the place afloat, afloat in this oddball of a hellish anti-war year 1971 when even hardened and steeled old-time peace activists against the Vietnam War are starting to believe they will be entitled to Social Security for their efforts before this bloody war is over. Hence the urgency behind this particular great room fireplace warm, complete with booked-in urban folkie singer, umpteenth anti-war conference. But onward brothers and sisters and let us listen in to the following conversation overheard in that now crowded front hall:
“Hi, Joyell, glad you could make it to the conference. Are you by yourself or did you bring Steve with you?” asked Jim Sweeney, one of the big honchos, one of the big organizational honchos and that is what matters these dog days when all hope appears to have been abandoned, these now fading days of the antiwar movement trying yet again to conference jump start the opposition to Nixon’s bloody escalations and stealthy tricky maneuvers.
“Good to see you too, Jim,” answered Joyell, who said it in such a singsong way that she and Jim Sweeney, obviously, had been in some mystic time, maybe some summer of love time before everything and everybody needed twelve coats of armor, emotional armor, just to move from point A to point B, more than fellows at one of those umpteen peace things. Joyell knew, knew from some serious reflection last summer, that she had put on a few more armor coats herself and, hell, she was just a self-confessed rank and filer. Their “thing” had just faded though for lack of energy, lack of high “ism” politics on Joyell’s part unlike frenetic Jim, and for the cold, hard fact that Jim at the time wanted to devote himself totally to the “movement” and could not “commit” to a personal relationship.
“Jesus, can’t any guy commit to anything for more than ten minutes,” Joyell thought to herself. From the weathered look on his face Jim was still in high thrall to “saving the earth” although rumor had it that Marge Goodwin, ya, that Marge Goodwin, the “mother” of organizers every since she almost single-handedly called out the national student strike in 1970, almost had her hooks into him, into him bad from all reports.
“No, Steve and I are not together anymore since he split to “find himself” on some freight train heading west, heading west fast away from me, I think. But you don’t want to hear that story, and besides we have to push on against this damn war, Steve or no Steve and his goddamn freight smoke-trailing dreams.” What Joyell didn’t say was that she was half-glad, no quarter-glad, Steve had split since the last couple of months had been hell. A fight a day it seemed, two a day at the end.
Reason: Steve too was not ready to “commit” to a personal relationship what with the whole world going to hell in hand-basket (his expression). Besides they all had plenty of time, a life-time to get “serious” and, forbidden words, “settle down.” Here is where the quarter-glad part comes in. Steve was getting in kind of heavy with some Weathermen-types and while that did not cause an argument a day between them it didn’t help. Joyell half expected to hear that Steve, Steve the meek pacifist, a freaking meek Catholic Worker guy just a couple years before, blew up something, or got blown up. Jesus, she thought, was I that hard to take, hard to get along with.
“I’m sorry to hear that Joyell. Maybe when we get a break later we can talk.” Of course, and maybe for the same Steve smoke-trailing-freight-dream-escape-seeking-the-great-American be-bop night reason, or maybe a heroic end traced out since boyhood redemptions reason, Jim and Joyell never would meet later, as Jim would be tied up, well, tied up in whatever organizational thing he was honcho of these days. Their time too had irrevocably passed. And now, and from here on in, this is Joyell’s time, her story, her voice as she enters the spacious but cold, distant from the well-stoked fireplace cold, conference room to the left of the great room with its rickety elongated table weighted down with timeless banging against ten thousand flickered night dreams, scarecrow chairs that caused more than one modern arched-back to falter helplessly, and unhealthy air, air make rank from too many spent speeches, and spent dreams.
*******
“Who is that guy over in the corner, that green corner coach, the guy with the kind of wispy just starting to fill out brown beard, and those fierce piercing goy blue eyes, that I just passed? I’ve not seen him around before,” Joyell asked herself and then Marge Goodwin, expecting Marge the crackerjack organizer of everything from antiwar marches to save the, and you can fill in the blank, to know all the players. Moreover Marge and Joyell got along well enough for Joyell to ask such a question, “girl talk,” they called it between themselves although to the “men” this was a book sealed with seven seals since the “correct” thing was to put such girlish things back in prehistoric times, four or five years ago okay. Joyell also sensed that since Marge’s “thing” with Jim hadn’t worked out they had something in common, although nothing was ever said. Nor would it be.
“Oh, that’s Frank Jackman, the anti-war GI who just got out of the stockade over at Fort Shaw last week and he is ready to do some work with us,” volunteered Marge. Later that evening Joyell would hear from a reliable source that Marge had gotten, or had tried to get, very familiar with the ex-army soldier resister. Marge had a thing for “heroic” guys. Heroic guys being guys like Jim, Joan Baez’s hubby, David Harris, who had refused draft induction, the Berrigan Brothers who were getting ready to do time for draft board record destruction (although she, Marge, couldn’t get that damn Catholic trick part that drove their actions) and now this Frank Jackman who had done a year, a tough soldier non-soldier year, some of it in solidarity, in the stockade for refusing go to Vietnam (and refusing to wear the military uniform at one point). Joyell also heard from another source that evening that it was no dice between Marge and Frank. This source thought it was that Marge, always getting what Marge wanted when it came to “movement men,” figured this guy would just cave in and take the ride. Not this guy, no way, not after taking on the “big boys” over at Fort Shaw. No dice, huh. That’s a point in his favor. But that was later fuel.
“Oh, that’s why his beard is so wispy and he is wearing those silly high top polished black boots and that size too big Army jacket with those bell-bottomed jeans. He certainly has the idea of what it takes to fit in here,” Joyell figured out, figured out loud. Marge just nodded, nodded kind of dismissively that she was right. And then left to do some organization business setting up the evening’s work.
And then suddenly, she, Joyell Davin (suitably Americanized, naturally, a couple of generations back), freshly-damaged in love’s unequal battles but apparently not ready to throw in the towel, got very quiet, very quiet like she always did when some guy caught her eye, well, more than her eye tonight, now that Steve was so much train smoke out in the cornfields somewhere. Maybe it was the New York City armor-coated brashness, hell Manhattan grow-up hard and necessary brashness required in a too many people universe, and learned from her very opinionated father, that her quietness tried to rein in at times like this so guys, guys like this Frank, wouldn’t be thrown off. But whatever it was that drove her quietness she was taking her peeks, her quiet half- peeks really, at this guy. With Steve, and a few other guys, it was mostly full steam ahead and let the devil take the hinter- post. This time her clock said take it easy, jesus, take it easy.
And as she found herself catching herself taking more and more of those telltale peeks she noticed, noticed almost by instinct, almost by some mystical sense that he was “checking” her out, although their dueling eyes had not met. Then, after Jim had finished giving the opening address about what the conferees were trying to do, this Frank Jackman stood up quickly without introduction and started talking, in a firm voice, about the need to up the ante, to create havoc in the streets, and in the army camps. And do it now, and with some sense of urgency. But he said it all in such way that everybody in the room, all forty or fifty of them, knew, or should have known, that this was not some ragtag wispy–bearded fly-by-night “days of rage” kid spirit, freshly bell-bottom pants minted, but some kind of revolutionary, some kind of radical anyway, who had thought about things a lot and wasn’t just a flame-thrower like she had seen too many of lately, including Steve, before he went to find himself.
When Frank was done he looked, half-looked really, quickly in her direction like he was seeking her, and just her, approval. And like he needed to know and know right this minute that she approved. She blushed, and hoped it did not show. And hoped that she had read his look in her direction correctly. But before that blush could subside she blushed again when out of nowhere this Frank gave her a another look, a serious checking out look if she knew her “movement” men, not a leer like some drunken barroom guy, or “come on, honey,” like a schoolboy but a let’s talk high “ism” talk later, and see what happens later, later. Maybe this umpteenth conference would work out after all.
So our Joyell was not surprised, not surprised at all, when during the break, the blessed break after two non-stop hours of waiting, Francis Alexander Jackman (that’s what he was called from when he was a kid and it kind of stuck but he preferred simply Frank) came up behind, tapped her gently on the shoulder to get her attention, introduced himself without fanfare or with any heroic poses, and thanked her for her work on his behalf.
“What do you mean, Frank?” she asked, bewildered by the question. “Oh, when your Peace Action committee came up to Fort Shaw and demonstrated for my freedom,” he replied in kind of a whisper voice, very different from his public voice, a voice that had known some tough times recently and maybe long ago too, but that soft whisper was what she needed, needed to hear from a righteous man, just now. The shrill of Steve’s voice, and a couple of others in her string of forgotten luck, still echoed in her brain.
“That was you? I didn’t make the connection. I didn’t know that was you, sorry, that was about a year ago and I have been going non-stop with this antiwar march and that women’s lib things. Were you in the stockade all that time?” she continued.
“Ya,” just a ya, not forlorn or anything like that but just a simple statement of fact, of the fact that he had needed to do what he did and that was that, next question, came that soft reply like this Frank and she were on some same wave-length. She was confused, confused more than a little that he had that strong effect on her after about five minutes of just general conversation.
Just then Marge, super-organizer but, as Joyell had already gathered intelligence on by then, not above having the last say in her little romances with the newest heroes of the movement, or trying to, called to Frank that Stanley Bloom, the big national anti-war organizer, wanted his input into something. But before he left soft -whispering still, calm still, unlike when he talked, talked peace action talk, he mentioned kind of kid-like, bashful kid-like, maybe they could meet later. Joyell could barely contain herself, and although she usually acted bashfully at these times, kind of a studied bashfulness starting out, even with Steve and some of the movement guys, she just blurted out, “We’d better.” He replied, a little stronger of voice than that previous whisper, “I guess that is a command, right?” And they both laughed, laughed an adventure ahead laugh.
Later came, evening session complete, as they were sitting across from each other in the great room, the great fireplace room where Eric was going through his second rendition of Freight Train to get the room revved up for his big stuff. Frank came over and asked, back to whisper asked, if Joyell would like to go outside for a breath of fresh winter air. Or maybe somewhere else, another room inside perhaps if she didn’t like the cold or snow. No second request was necessary, and no coyness on her part either with this guy, as she quickly went to the coat rack and put on her coat, scarf, and boots. And so it went.
They talked, or rather she talked a blue streak, a soft-spoken blue streak like Frank’s manner was contagious, and maybe it was. Then he would ask a question, and ask it in such a way that he really wanted to know, know her for her answer and not just to ask, polite ask. As they walked, and walked, and as the snow got deeper as they moved away from the pavilion she kind of fell, kind of helpless on purpose fell. On purpose fell expecting that he might kiss her. But all he did was pick her up, gently but firmly, held her in his arms just a fraction of a second, but a fraction of a second enough to let her know, and let her feel, that they had not seen the last of each other. And just for that cold, snow-driven February night, as war raged on in some distance land, and as she gathered in her tangled emotions after many romantic stumbles and man disappointments, that thought was enough.
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