clear the room

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, An End Has a Start ... and the Editors (no publishing relation ... nudge, nudge, wink, wink ...) are indeed rock stars (in every good sense of that word), touching all parts. Performing live they are in constant motion (lead singer Tom Smith, in particular) and absolutely enveloped in their creations. Their songs allow one to feel all that music allows us to ... in the studio, they created and released a new album that hit upon every corner of the brain. Over a year ago I gave up tickets to see them, and I am glad (for several reasons) to have had the time to sit back and wait to see them. It has been a long time since I've been to a concert where I experienced personal joy of the music and the public expression of the person who created it with equal intensity. It is a rarity I will cherish.
_________________

editors © 2007 duluoz cats

each fiber greets our hands

Reading is dead ... long live the book ... sigh, it is, once again, the demise of books in the news. Yawn.
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"freedom of speech" © 2007 duluoz cats

a necklace of incomparable beauty

"Catherine Tekakwitha, who are you? ... Do I have any right to come after you with my dusty mind full of the junk of maybe five thousand books? I hardly even get out to the country very often. Could you teach me about leaves?" --Beautiful Losers

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"St. Antoine" © 1999 duluoz cats

to find a way of reclaiming the dead

"Poets and intellectuals—who are paid little, and who are usually ignored by the general population—have this consolation, at least: they are the ones the tyrants go after first." - Frederick Smock, Poetry & Compassion

A slow day at work and the first true spring "spring day" had me feeling a bit of cabin fever, so I took a long walk and then a train ride uptown to Spanish Harlem to visit El Museo del Barrio to see The Disappeared (Los Desparecidos).

One of the first (and only) times I bore witness to my father and his father in an all-out war of words was on a Sunday morning in 1982, coming home to pick me up after one of the many sleepovers at my grandparents'. The night before, my parents had gone to see Costa-Gavras' film Missing, about the execution of Charles Horman, a 31-year-old Harvard graduate (along with his friend, Frank Teruggi), who was just one of tens of thousands of workers and intellectuals that "disappeared" during Pinochet's coup against Allende. What stuck with me about this morning was the absolute rage I heard (and did not recognize) in my father's voice. My father—who I know battled with his dad over the Vietnam War, Watergate, Kent State, and all that that decade was about—was standing in an archway of his childhood home, staring at his father with, for the first and only time I ever saw, a look of absolute disgust. I was not yet 10 years old. It would be several years before I saw the movie myself, but that morning memory stayed with me and initiated a fascination and desire for knowledge not only about Chile's "September 11," but also, all of the atrocities that ravaged South America for decades.

The Disappeared includes photographs, prints, and sketches, all works by artists from countries throughout South America—including Chile, Colombia, Uruguay, and Argentina, each victim of the terror and violence of their governments (often aided and abetted by our own)—who "vanished" thousands upon thousands of their own populations and kidnapped and tortured thousands more. The artists often have direct links to the tragedy, either as workers in the resistance; family of the "disappeared"; or living as exiles themselves.

The exhibit brings all of the social horror of these vanishings together with a stifling intimacy. The close up portraits, sometimes of a person's face, sometimes only what remains of their existence, objects, bereft—a piece of jewelry, human bones arranged in the image of the Chilean flag, or a dental x-ray—bring about the inevitable shiver and reveal nothing so much as the rage and despair of the artist by what is missing. What has disappeared.

The exhibition, The Disappeared (Los Desparecidos) runs until June 27; El Museo del Barrio is located at 1230 Fifth Avenue between 104th and 105th Streets in New York.
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Image Credits:
Luis Camnitzer, He Practiced Every Day, From the Uruguayan Torture Series, 1983
Sara Maneiro, Berenice's Grimace (detail), twelve C-prints, 16 x 20" each.

the world is not to be put in order

two years + two ... too many

"Syntax, according to Norman O. Brown, is the arrangement of the army. As we move away from it, we demilitarize language. This demilitarization of language is conducted in many ways: a single language is pulverized; the boundaries between two or more languages are crossed; elements not strictly linguistic (graphical, musical) are introduced; etc. Translation becomes, if not impossible, unnecessary." - John Cage, M qtd. in Kostelanetz

"small peace" by meg cotner, two years later ... two years too late.

only an extemporaneous, half possession

It's March, 2007. A new year and a little over a year since I started up this little space. It's been quite a long while since I've had the time--and the time to think--to post here. So much has occurred in the past year, upon reading some of my previous entries again, it is almost as if none of it was me, even if all of it was intrinsically so. But now, back in the corner of my room, to this comfortable corner of my mind (that is mine and mine alone), I am answering the call of several moments that I've had recently ... it feels like it's time to return to the part of my brain that pulls from the various ... and so ... flame on ... indeed.
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"flame on" © 2007 duluoz cats

too often ending in the loss of both

"One often calms one's grief by recounting it.” - Pierre Corneille

9/11 Babies Asking About Missing Dads
September 11 Digital Archive
september.11.archive
Bearing Witness to History
American Memory Project
The Week That Never Ended
Five Years for Nobody
_________________
"mom" by duluoz cats, taken 9.15.01

fate succumbs many a species

"... then laugh, leaning back in my arms, for life is not a paragraph, and death i think is no parenthesis" - e.e. cummings

Bye, old man.

the keepers of the walls took away my veil

“My grief lies all within,
And these external manners of lament
Are merely shadows to the unseen grief
That swells with silence in the tortured soul”
- William Shakespeare

I've long debated whether or not I wanted to post anything about the upcoming 5th "anniversary" of September 11. Anniversaries are a tricky thing for me to begin with, as my past experience with them has been much maligned. When considering writing any commentary on the day (even in a well-intentioned and sincere manner) I still find myself simultaneously at a loss for words and completely overwhelmed with emotion. And certainly, without an answer. But on the eve of the "anniversary" of Hurricane Katrina and the horror that unfolded in New Orleans and throughout the South, I am thinking of this today. It is all fragmented still. Still.

So, where does one begin? I have lived in New York City my whole life. It is my home. My only home. I am proprietary in my ownership of that. I have few friends who can claim the same and they make up three of my five closest (though one of the others was born here and only moved away after college). So in the aftermath of that day, when American flags started flying everywhere and "I Love NY More than Ever" signs were posted all over the Dakotas, I felt more than a twinge of distaste. Fair or not. That's not my point. That was my feeling. I wanted to wrap my city in my arms and protect it, not simply from terrorist fanatics, but from our home-born ones as well.

And so, I didn't write about it. I've retold the tale a dozen times since that day, it's become a morbid connecting point when meeting new people, the "where were you when Kennedy was shot?" question of my generation. I can give details of how the events unfolded themselves for me that day. An argument with my then spouse, a quiet walk to the train mixed with the frustration of that and the joy at the beautiful blue-skied day. Noticing the "Vote Here" signs on the school doorways. Settling in at work a little earlier than usual, checking some proofs, skimming my email. A knock on my door and my good friend John telling me a plane had hit ... nervous laughter from both of us as he had heard it on Howard Stern (and why is it that otherwise intelligent and thoughtful people listen to him? Another thing I'll never understand). And then, some minutes later, the second plane and the realization on our faces gave way to everything that we would learn to understand weeks later. And then the attempts at information, where is everyone you love?; trying to access websites; make phone calls, send email--most of them unsuccessful--then heading outside to see what ever could be seen; the quiet sideways glances as we watched the TV screens in the lobby of the bank in our building; the choked cries when the first tower fell. Returning to my office, talking to my best friend and crying, "they're both gone" a few minutes later (while secretly being relieved at the balance that provided for my order-needing brain.). Meeting up with my husband, walking up Second Ave, staring intently at the Chrysler Building expecting it to disintegrate before me, walking across the 59th Street Bridge (reconsidering the lyrics to the song). The complete silence of thousands of people walking home. Tentatively looking over my shoulder toward downtown to nothing but smoke, feeling guilty after I did, as if I were rubbernecking on the highway. Stopping in a bar, for news and a drink. Hearing the trains start running on the el. Getting on the 7 Train to Shea and exiting at Flushing Meadows and my hometown. Just the two of us (and a couple of minor thugs, who gave me some concern, but turned in the opposite direction of us). And again, the silence. The stillness. The LIE as empty as the day asphalt was first set down. How my heart jumped when the F-15s flew over. The stillness of the air in their wake. And the silence.

This list of moments are compiled as simply as I can place them on a page, the events as they unfolded for me, trying not to sound too melodramatic, while not (no, never) making it seem anything less than what it was. What it meant. But, essentially, it tells nothing. I can go further and say that I see the headlines on every newspaper the next day. I still have them in a little box under my bed. I ached over them when I packed them away before my move. Morbid mementos that hit me harder at their being unearthed again than some other more "personal moments." But to write of all of this for public consumption? I'm not sure that it won't find me with some regret and sense of disgust with myself. Because it accomplishes even less outside of providing a cathartic self-reflection. My day, in the end, was rather "uneventful" as far as those who were in NYC that day. I am a native who somehow managed to get away unscathed as far as not personally knowing anyone who was murdered that day. Though my second hometown, Rockaway, was gutted (as the majority of male residents were [and are] either firefighters, police officers, or stock brokers).

I've briefly lamented the silence of the literati after 9/11, despite, as I have written, understanding it. But, at some point, I wanted ... no. I needed to read the story from outside of myself because my own thoughts and emotions had bore themselves deep inside. I needed the consolation and understanding that I get from authors I admire, who are more eloquent and precise at placing words together to express that which is universal. It took me three days to even cry, it took me weeks to even talk about it in a manner that wasn't reminiscent of watching a documentary reenactment--black & white and grainy and barren of feeling. I cringe at the phrase "the end of irony" almost as much as I do when I hear "let's roll," and perhaps it was the silence of our wordsmiths and the proliferation of our photographers (as well as our own eyes) that moved me away from the text page as it did (and perhaps, is the answer for why I continue to avoid it) and helped me to fall in love with pictures (there was a meeting of some sort of Magnum Photographers that day, so many of the best photojournalists in the world were around to document) and how they can sear into us what our mind's eye tries to spare us from. For words have truly failed us; and they have failed the best of us when looking at this day. They continue to fail us in ways that they don't fail others who have lived through similar traumas.

This is incomplete. I may (despite myself) continue this in another post. For now, there is this (an incredible visual archive), and newly, this on Slate, and for the past five years, there has been this, which has always been the most close to me. Change.

darkness is only driven out with light

“I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all.” - Richard Wright
I am channeling the Amish currently, and appropriately, as I'm off to visit their Pennsylvania hometowns. Close to a week without electricity in an outer borough in the city that calls itself the "center of the world." Perhaps the news vans on my block (that have just now--four days later--awakened to the rather extensive predicament my hometown finds itself in) can bring us back into the twenty-first century by the time I return.

a moral concept in the verbal arsenal

I had the pleasure of meeting Ralph Ginzburg years ago and was sad to find out today from the person who introduced me to this fascinating man that he had passed away yesterday. It's odd because I had been thinking about him and his work a few weeks ago when I started writing a blog piece on the importance of zines (that I never got around to finishing). I had focussed a lot of the post on his publications, Eros, specifically, as I wanted to look at the history of small press publishing and censorship (essentially non-corporate publishing and the importance of zines as opposed to 4-color glossies or even self-published novels). Certainly Ginzburg, if he is known to you, is most likely known through his two First Amendment trials in the 1960s, but he was also an accomplished author, photojournalist, and typographer (the font Avant Garde is from his magazine Avant Garde). And, unlike, say, Larry Flynt, Ginzburg's publications though provocative, leaned more toward the form of erotic art, and included poems, photography, and political and cultural satire--high brow, as it were (another magazine he published, Fact, which called Republican Senator Barry Goldwater's psychological background into question, had him in the courts for years).

Ginzburg began his career as a freelance writer and photographer, and even had a brief stint writing for TV. He spent some time at Look and Esquire, before publishing his the best-selling book, An Unhurried View of Erotica. It was from this book (originally an article for Esquire) that he got the idea for Eros which was produced as a quarterly in beautiful hardcover editions. Ironically (or not), it was his promotional mailings for the mag and not its actual content that made him the subject of Obscenity charges (he chose towns such as Middlesex and Intercourse for mailing his magazine) that eventually led to his serving 8-months in prison. He wrote about his ordeal in his book Castrated: My Eight Months in Prison.

He died in a Bronx hospice after battling multiple myeloma, he was 76-years-old.

More

Eros Magazine Font

Obits

Los Angeles Times
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Houston Chronicle

there's a lot of people leaving town now

“You are born an artist or you are not. And you stay an artist, dear, even if your voice is less of a fireworks. The artist is always there.”
--Maria Callas

the world of manifold civilizations

Waiting for a friend last night came across a free paper/pamphlet from Brooklyn Fire Proof entitled Folk, which is an exhibition of photos, artifacts, and film and audio recordings of Alan Lomax.

Lomax was one of America’s most important folklorists, dedicated to cataloguing and archiving the music and legacies of the likes of Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, and Muddy Waters, among many others. He was almost singularly responsible for creating the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. Lomax also coined the term “cultural equity,” the "music and other forms of creative cultural expression are fundamental to the lives of the people who make them, inextricably bound to their ways of life and livelihoods, and are thereby worthy of study, representation, and respect on their own terms." Beautiful, no?

For Lomax, cultural equity could only occur within the realm of the artist, it would take shape from within the creative struggle for equal representation of all homegrown and individual expressive styles—music, dance, cooking, forms of dress and appearance—and he predicted, quite accurately, how the fight to maintain this would become increasingly important in the 21st century.

Focusing on Lomax's famous Southern recording trip, "Folk" reflects not on his musical compositions, it also examines his documentary photography, films, and writings during this period, which were central in his expression and definition of what cultural equity meant. The exhibition runs 'til August 6, and seems to me to be just one of the most interesting offerings in a long time.

what is this realm of nirvana?

"Paradise is seldom recognized as such until it is considered from the outside." --Herman Hesse
A quick post as I sit heading out of paradise, in the Bermuda International Airport. If ever there was a place on this earth that leaves one short of words to describe its beauty and peace, it is here. It has been almost two decades since my last visit, but it was all and more than I remember.

Did a search to see what authors are around, not much came up. I'm surprised, except maybe to think that they are merely intimidated by the sense of an inadequate vocabulary at such an exquisite display of nature. The only link I found that offered some info on local authors and writers was this: Bermuda Books

I know there must be more literature out there. Certainly there is plenty of music (and tree frogs, sweet, tree frogs in the evenings and early morning) that I can write of, and then, there is also lots and lots of artwork, of the water-color sort, and even the bad art can't help but exact a little piece of the loveliness of the island. When I get home I will have close to 200 photos to peruse longingly, and hopefully post some on Flickr sometime this week.

words like eyeglasses blur everything

Came across PhotoMuse (great name), a terrific site about photography history and research. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be moving forward to completion right now, though the content that is available already is quite fabulous. Photomuse is the combination of collections from George Eastman House (GEH) and one of my favorite galleries and research institutions, the International Center of Photography (ICP) in what appears to be the desire to establish a single (or at least relatively extensive) resource for discovering "photography at work in the world." The site doesn't have too much above that as far as a "mission statement," and though is looks to have been started a few years ago, a lot of the areas still come up as being "under construction."

One of the coolest things I found, while clicking around though, was actually on the GEH site, and was under their a collection entitled "Pre-Cinema Project," that features a truly eclectic series of what were sometimes referred to as magic lantern slides, of which, the above image, "CW Briggs The Bottle Imp," is one. Invented after the photograph, lantern slides were the precursor to modern day slides and worked in much the same way. The ability to place photographic images on a transparent film that could then be projected onto a larger screen for an audience to view represented an enormous leap in the technology, and is now considered to be the "grandfather," as it were, of movies, as they were used as tools for both group entertainment and education.

Photomuse has a note that they hope a full launch in early 2006 (we're now, frighteningly, almost halfway through), and that there is still work ongoing in its continued growth, I hope that's true. The end result, should it ever come to fruition would be an historic achievement, with a gold mine of tools, as it were. There is already a good deal of the works of Gordon Parks, Weegee, Gary Winogrand, and many other notables. Both GEH and ICP's archives alone are enough to stir the mind a few times, and the collective braintrust behind the two organizations would surely be a wonder to behold should they pull it off.

musicians paint their pictures on silence

Just when I've had enough of the bone-chilling wind down Broadway, the incessant crush of strangers, the fact that Coliseum Books is no longer on 57th Street, and start seriously considering a 12' x 12' shack in Montana again ... New York brings me back in. Today's much-debated decision to go to the Borders in the Time Warner building in Columbus Circle during lunchtime (tourists, crowds, mall, Whole Foods shoppers ... shiver) included an unexpected art interlude. Up on the second floor is a nice exhibit of Terry O'Neill's music photography, which I was able to peruse relatively unscathed while the hoards ran into J Crew and Sephora. A jazz musician, himself, O'Neill started his career as a photographer in the early sixties and by the mid-seventies, had a prolific portfolio having appeared in Vogue, Rolling Stone, and similar A-list publications. The collection featured a group of some of his most familiar snaps from from the National Portrait Gallery, including a blow-up of the above pic of Frank Sinatra in Miami during the late sixties. Great stuff. Well-worth wading through the masses to find it.

What business had I going into Borders looking for books when I have no room left even after having bought another shelf? None. Guilty as charged. It's a harder habit to break than quitting smoking ...

More O'Neill pics: Beatles to Bardot

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Photo: Frank Sinatra, Miami Beach. Photograph by Terry O'Neill, 1968. © Terry O'Neill.

pictures at an exhibition

Arthur Leipzig focused his camera lens on New York for over fifty years. One of our city's first "street" photographers--a native, born in Brooklyn in 1918--he first stalked the alleys and night clubs as a staff photographer for a local paper PM. His work as documentary photographer is an all-encompassing history of the city. His unflinching work shows New York as it was (and is) rough around the edges, magnet for the rich and beautiful, and prison for the down-and-out. Using a police radio he installed in the trunk of his car, he would often arrive at crime scenes before the cops, capturing the raw violence of the day or night. His images of the streets, on assignment or on his own, show how acutely in tune he was to the life of the city--he understood intrinsically its streets, its poverty and poetry, its glamour and drama. No matter the event, his affection for his home is on view in every snap. Leipzig was never one to look for "the moment" in his work, rather, he sought to evoke a larger sense of humanity and emotion and time and place of his subjects. In the Preface to his book Growing Up in New York he wrote:

"The city was my home. As I look back at the work that I did during that period I realize that I was witness to a time that no longer exists, a more innocent time. While I know that the city has changed, that the streets are dirtier and meaner, the energy that I love is still there. No matter where I go, I keep coming back to photograph New York. Of course the 'good old days' were not all sweetness and light. There was poverty, racism, corruption, and violence in those days, too, but somehow we believed in the possible. We believed in hope."

"Simply Add Boiling Water," 1937 © Arthur Leipzig

everything is permitted

Thought it about time I acknowledge my blog name. Thing is, I'm not a particularly vocal fan of the beats, or Jack Kerouac. I thoroughly reject anyone who tries to place Bukowski or Brautigan in with them; time period is not enough. They are unto themselves. In any event, I just always liked Kerouac's pen name. And I like cats (yeah, well ...). And, when I came around to putting together this little space, having already established my online moniker, what else could I call this blog? What, frankly, is more vain than a blog? And next to Visions of Gerard my favorite Kerouac novel is Vanity of Duluoz. Preferred when he was being sentimental than when powered by alcohol or speed. Although his high-flying lament over the murder of a mouse in Desolation Angels is purely tragic.

Considered this a convenient time to remark on this because I recently read that the New York Public Library purchased the archive of William S. Burroughs. Looking forward to seeing it next year. I remember going to the Kerouac Archive exhibition and having a lot of fun with it. Seeing the manuscript for On the Road in its endless ream (I admit fully to never having been able to finish it ...). Much more exhaustive, was Beat Culture and the New America: 1950-1965, at the Whitney back in November 1995 (g*d was that really over ten years ago ... I sadly sometimes still wear a t-shirt I bought that day). It was the only time I ever really enjoyed being at the Whitney, despite [the] hoi polloi and their background noise. It was an incredible collection of ephemera. Not just the scripts, but the music and film, art and correspondence, and creative mish-mash of the time. Wonderful. I wish I enjoyed the writers more. I have a soft spot for Burroughs (always tend to crush on the outsider) and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, but the rest? Eh.

I don't subscribe to it, but it is all over my life. My father enjoys telling the tale of how, after having read some of his poems, way back when, he rode down in an elevator with Allen Ginsberg. And Ginsberg recognized him (for his hat) and let him know how much he liked the poems ... and later, much, I was lucky enough to have copyedited Ginsberg's last book, and yes, I'm pretty happy about that. Somehow, though, I don't know, for all the connection, there are none that capture me as much as others that are less entwined.

But, enough about me (pics here are courtesy of mom ... hi mom).

a choice of weapons

"Those people who want to use a camera should have something in mind, there's something they want to show, something they want to say ... I picked up a camera because it was my choice of weapons against what I hated most about the universe: racism, intolerance, poverty. I could have just as easily picked up a knife or a gun, like many of my childhood friends did ... most of whom were murdered or put in prison ... but I chose not to go that way. I felt that I could somehow subdue these evils by doing something beautiful that people recognize me by, and thus make a whole different life for myself, which has proved to be so." -- Gordon Parks, photographer, author, poet, filmmaker, composer.

Who died yesterday at the age of 93.

NPR: A Great Day for Gordon Parks
PDNOnline & Kodak Professional: Gordon Parks Legends Online
NYT Slideshow: Photojournalist of Dignity Amid Oppression

Obits:
NYT Master of the Camera
Chicago Tribune Filmmaker

they shall not pass

My early morning free association Google search took me to an interesting place today, one very close to my family history. Looking for some good photojournalism exhibits to check out this weekend, I came across Shots of War: Photojournalism During the Spanish Civil War. While I was very familiar with Robert Capa's series, and his famous "Death of a Loyalist Militiaman," I did not realize that this particular period of time was such a turning point for war photography. Newly intrigued, I began looking into what other information might be found, specifically, information about the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, the group of American volunteers that fought as part of a larger anti-fascist, anti-Franco International force. And much to my surprise and joy, I found this photograph of my great-Uncle, who served as a Lieutenant after stowing away on a large freighter in late 1937, violating U.S. neutrality laws to join the fight. This photo is just one of almost 2,000 that The Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives has online. Their archives include the works of the 15th International Brigade Photo Unit, under the supervision of Harry W. Randall, Jr., covering the ALB's daily activities, combat missions, and portraits. It's incredible stuff, and I can't wait for the opportunity to sift through it more closely.

Thinking about this time as a whole, you also realize what a wealth of creative expression--in forms never seen before--was coming out of the period. And it was art and writing that was alive with relevance, often literally, coming from the frontlines. There was, of course, Hemingway, who I rather not consider much in this space. But, there was also George Orwell, who went to Spain in 1936 to report, but wound up joining the militia; and Pablo Neruda, who acted in a diplomatic role as well as serving in the International Brigades, while still finding time to write his stunning collection of poems entitled España en el Corazón about the war. And the tragedy of Federico Garcia Lorca, whose writings, opinions, and sexual preference earned him "enemy of the state" status, which resulted in his brutal murder at the hands of Franco's falangists. And the art. Picasso's Guernica, Miró's "Black & Red Series," the graphic power of the political posters, and even by the children.

It all has me wondering where the writers and artists of this time are. And why they seem to have so little say. Can anyone imagine Rick Moody or Jonathan Franzen taking up arms in Darfur or even just going there to bear witness? To use their (sometimes questionable) talent for something other than the hope of their next NEA grant? Franzen who sends his characters to "hip" places in Europe while holing up in his apartment for close to a year? And Moody, who could only think to write about his trip to D.C. on 9/11? Are we really to be satisfied with the too-clever-by-half McSweeney's (thankfully, no, not all of us) and the end of irony? Flower puppies and elephant dung? Is this really it? Perhaps I've missed some movement somewhere, but if so, they're keeping a very low profile. I understood (to a degree) the paralyzed silence after September 11. But, it seems to me that those who complain about the lack of good fiction, art, and music, etc., are missing the point. Artists no longer consider their voice outside of their own heads, and don't want to take a stand from their position in this world. In interviews, Franzen has even said as much:

"The way I understand things now, the culture serves the novelist, the novelist doesn't serve the culture. If I happen to choose to weave various strands of our contemporary social fabric into the story I'm telling, I do it because it helps the characters feel alive and vital to me, not because I think the novelist has some duty to report on society. What matters is that the book work as a book."

Every generation has had its creative dissidents, from WWI to Vietnam. I'm not just referring to the lack of American artists, either, it's worldwide artistic ennui and navel-gazing, our current "intelligentsia" prefer to preen and pick at each other. I never read or hear of any outrage (and lord knows there's no shortage of things to be outraged about) resulting in action or a point of view that isn't framed by "IMHO." And now that Lewis Lapham is leaving Harper's, there really is no hope. Distressing, really.

For his efforts, upon returning from Spain, my Uncle became a fugitive. He wound up in hiding for the rest of his life, from the FBI and various other government groups. He worked as a printer and signmaker, moving frequently, living on the most remote farms or hunter's lodges in the mountains of upstate New York. Usually off dirt roads, a mile from his nearest neighbor, in towns with names like Deposit. He died in 1981. He never liked his picture taken, and until today's find, there were just two that I knew of. The one shown above, where he is trying to hide behind me, taken in 1973, and another of him in Spain that was published in the book The Lincoln Battalion, by Edwin Rolfe back in 1938. I'm hoping that while going through the collection at Tamiment that I find some more.

"Painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war."
-- Pablo Picasso