Reading Gaol

Prison Notes by Barbara Deming (1966):

...the act of putting a man in jail remains essentially the act of trying to wish that man out of existence.

A small dialogue in black and white

David Sher, a resident of B'ham, Alabama, has come up with The Comeback Town, a cyberplace for people to discuss improving the city. He hosts some black and white observations.

A white male named Jerry Carter waxes nostalgic about a more prosperous Birmingham, and memories of being young in the '40s and '50s: The Alabama Theatre was the absolute mecca for movie viewing.  I still recall my amazement when the Wurlitzer organ would rise up to stage level and music would fill the large hall.

He also appreciates efforts to bring back the magic in so-called Magic City.
A black female with the handle RavenBarnes writes of her memories, in response. I can’t comment on the Alabama Theatre because I don’t remember being allowed to even enter through the back alley and climb the stairs to the balcony like they allowed at the Lyric Theatre. I am happy that within the business community of Black Birmingham, we had the Carver Theatre and there was another black theatre down there on 4th Ave but I suppressed its name because one day while there I ordered some popcorn and I heard something say “me too” and when I looked down, it was a rat, so I never went back.

You can read Jerry Carter's response and write your own.

Were you that boy?

Fifty years ago John Ballard drove down from Boston to march in Selma. He was part of the second march, Turnaround Tuesday, and the successful march to Montgomery. He gave a young boy a ride on his shoulders and is now looking for the man he became. If you recognize the boy in the picture, call Ballard at (415) 233-2822.
[Photo from Selma Times-Journal, 1965]

An End to Confederate Heroes Day in Texas?

How come I never knew about this Confederate Heroes Day in my 18 years as a Texan? An Austin-based state lawmaker suggested getting rid of it. As the Houston Chronicle reported, Reta Brand, director of the Texas Society Order of Confederate Rose (which I'd never heard of) said in reaction to the notion of eliminating Confederate Heroes Day, January 19:
"I am very unhappy . . . . Everybody is trying to take everything away from the Confederacy. It was a vital part of Texas during that time period. Taking away the Confederate Heroes Day is totally unacceptable."

Ah, reading further in the article, I learn why I didn't know about this: The holiday became official in 1973, and I left in Fall 1974. But there's another question: Why didn't I know about the holiday's predecessor, the day that commemorates the birthdays of Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis? It was celebrated on Jan. 19, the birthday of Lee.

State Rep. Donna Howard has proposed abolishing Confederate Heroes Day (this year it coincided with Martin Luther King Day, which is just plain weird) and substituting a spring holiday that honors the Union soldiers as well as Confederate.

Apparently Brand believes in "dibs": "We had Confederate Heroes Day before there was a Martin Luther King Jr. Day, why can't they change theirs?" she asked.

Does she not realize that MLK Day is a national holiday?  Does she not realize that MLK Day is hers?

As a native Texan and half-Yankee, I'm not sure what I think. My knee-jerk reaction is to get rid of all signs of Confederateness, but that's dumb and ahistorical.  So keep the monuments, and maybe put up other monuments that will cause observers to reflect on the past. But why do we/they have to celebrate the Lost Cause?

And to add another layer: Juneteenth is another Texas holiday, which commemorates when enslaved people in Texas learned that they were free.  It is celebrated on June 19, and has become a worldwide observance.

The Confederate Roses will have to keep their hands off that particular day.

What not to pick as a theme for your party

Hey guys, wouldn't it be cool to have a "border patrol" theme for our party? We white guys dress up as Mexicans, as stereotypically as possible, just for, you know, like, for the fun of it?  And we can go, hey dude, that sombrero suits you, you oughtta wear it all the time, have some more brew, bro.

At least others at the University of Texas are protesting.

What should we expect from a movie "based on a true story"?

"I’d assumed it was understood that Hollywood would emphasize the 'story' aspects of history, and that a distortion of real events, on screen, would hardly constitute a lie," Francine Prose, who comes out with a book every time you turn around, and an article every time you take a breath, writes in the New York Review of Books.

And further: "So perhaps the real source of controversy isn’t the question of truth in historical films, but rather the subjects of historical films—and how vexed those subjects are." Commentators have spilled ink (and taken up cyberspace) criticizing Selma and The Imitation Game, but have barely touched Mr. Turner. Fewer people saw the latter, she notes. And fewer people get all het up about inaccuracy in the biopic of a long-dead British landscape painter. Who grunts.

Atheism doesn't kill people

Photo by Sara D. Davis/Getty Images

 

"Violence perpetrated by Muslims is almost always seen as part of a global conspiracy, whereas white men like [Craig Stephen] Hicks [an atheist who killed three Muslims in NC] are usually seen as isolated psychopaths," Michelle Goldberg tells us in her Nation web piece with this headline:
The Most Common Type of American Terrorist Is a White Man With a Weapon and a Grudge.
Remember Timothy McVeigh? Many of our homegrown terrorists happen to have served in the military overseas. (I haven't found out if Hicks did.)  If all of our vets had adequate psychological treatment and preparation for returning to civilian life, who knows what would be different?
And thanks, Mr. Hicks, for giving us atheists a bad name.
It's still unclear whether he killed three Muslims because of their religion or because they happened to be the people he was arguing with about parking in their condo complex. Many things will become clearer.

Selma Jubilee March 5-9, 2015

 

Foot-soldiers as well as luminaries of the civil rights movement will be on hand at the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Selma March 5-9, 2015. President Obama is coming, too. Some
speakers: Claudette Colvin, Dr. Bernard Lafayette, Robert "Bob" Moses, Diane Nash, Rev. C.T. Vivian
as well as Moral Monday Movement founder Rev. William Barber.  

Claudette Colvin, who wouldn't give up her seat on a Montgomery bus...on March 2, 1955. Why didn't she become the face of the bus boycott?

Below is one of the books about the people who helped behind the scenes. I wrote about The House by the Side of the Road and Selma, Lord, Selma (book and movie) in the Houston Chronicle online. In 2013 I called the author of this book and she said she had three interviews that week, to read the book and call back if I had questions. I didn't call back and she died in 2014. Her daughter, who lives in Atlanta, is working to make the house a museum and meeting place.

 

 

 

Valentine's Day is deadline for John Lewis Fellowship

Congressman John Lewis has been a consistent voice for nonviolence and justice. Take a listen to an interview with Krista Tippett.
If you are a college student or recent graduate, you might be interested in this:

John Lewis Fellowship in Atlanta Application Deadline

February 14, 2015 (Application Deadline)

For the past 17 years, the Humanity in Action Fellowship has brought together international groups of students and young professionals to study human and minority rights in Europe and the United States. In 2015, Humanity in Action is now expanding its fellowship program to Atlanta for the first time. The John Lewis Fellowship will run from July 5-August 1, 2015 and will explore the histories and contemporary issues of diversity and minority rights in the United States. Key areas of inquiry include race and racism, immigration, national identity, Native American issues and the relationship between civil rights and human rights.

More info: Click

"Sorry, my dear, but where are the Jews? There ought to be Jews, quick, send in the Jews" *

Here's a roundup piece about Jews and the movie "Selma," with emphasis on the role of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who marched with Martin Luther King, Jr., and was conspicuous by his absence in the film. The piece includes a link to a newsfeature I wrote this summer about the progressive Southern Moral Monday Movement founded in North Carolina by Rev. William Barber.

With tape covering his mouth, the Rev. William Barber II leads protesters down stairs from the rotunda in the Legislative Building as the first Moral Monday protest of the 2014 Short Session of the General Assembly Monday, May 19, 2014.  CHUCK LIDDY — cliddy@newsobserver.com

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2015/01/28/4512676_saunders-rev-barber-says-moral.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

The NC group is multicultural, multiethnic, multireligous. One of the newer state groups, Alabama's, did not include Jewish organizations when I talked to the founder in August.

 

photo: Raleigh News-Observer

*to the tune of "Send in the Clowns"

BoHo Theatre's PARADE at Theatre Wit, Chicago, fall 2014, about the 1915 lynching of Leo Frank in Georgia

1. The harshest theater critic I know...is me. Overall the critics in Chicago are undiscerning. Or else they have low expectations. They will say that the confession in a certain one-person show is close to the bone, amazingly, incredibly honest, and you will go filled with faith and expectations and find a run-of-the-mill five-minute scene about alcoholism.

Sarah Bockel as Lucille Frank and Jim DeSelm as Leo in Boho Theatre production, fall 2014

2. They used to say that Nicaragua was a country of poets. Who said this? Leftists, compañeros of the Sandinistas (as I was). And then someone said--. Who was this someone? I don't know, some cynic among the former comrades, or a realist, though that may be the same as cynic. Someone said--yes, Nicaragua is a nation of poets. Of bad poets.

3. Correspondingly, they say Chicago is a city of little theatres. And I say--right, a city of bad little theatres. And bad theatre, not exactly the same thing. But also much much overrated big theater. When I see a stage or a description of a stage that answered to the siren call of verisimilitude--meaning a kitchen that looks like a real kitchen, down to the labels on the 2,400 cans on the 30 shelves--my heart sinks. You can judge a book by its cover. And you can most of the time judge a play by its scenery. If it's blandly realistic, you can usually say that the vision of the director is the same.

                               

4. When I go to theater with L and our friends--and good bourgeoises that we are, we subscribe to two, TimeLine and Court--I usually have the minority opinion. But I am right. And I am always in disagreement with M, who comes from the Casual Realism school of acting.

5. The first great performance I ever saw was "The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail" in Houston in the early '70s, when I was in junior or senior high. I wrote a fan letter to Thoreau. This is a secret: Houston is a city of great theater. There isn't much of it, but I saw "Jitney" at the Ensemble Theater in Houston and "Jitney" at the Court in Chicago, and Houston's was better. More alive, more intense. The actors seemed to believe more in what they were doing. I saw a reworking from the Greeks at the Alley Theater some years ago--I will have to consult my 86-year-old mother for the title.

6. The most stunning performance: Brecht's "Caucasian Chalk Circle" in Chicago in the 1980s, I think. And I mean stunning; I am not using the word "stunning" the way realtors [I will not capitalize the noun] bandy it about when referring to any sleek expensive copy-cat soulless condo in the high six figures. I was stunned. During intermission I could not speak.

7. Best Chicago theater that I have seen, in no particular order:
An impressionistic "Diary of Anne Frank" that ended with Anne bent over, plaintively and weakly  screaming, "My stomach," which was probably what she indeed was screaming inside as she was dying.
TimeLine: John Conroy's "My Kind of Town," "The Front Page" (of course M. thought the actors were affected, unnatural), "Fiorello!," "A Raisin in the Sun," "The Normal Heart" (in which Mary  Mary Beth Fisher played, as always, a credible Mary Beth Fisher), Gore Vidal's "Weekend,""Concerning Great Devices from the Distant West" by Naomi Iizuka, "Danny Casolaro Died For You"  by Dominic Orlanda
Goodman: "King Lear" with Stacy Keach (Alas, I missed Larry Yando's recent Lear at Shakespeare), visiting monologuist Spaulding Gray
Steppenwolf: "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?," Wallace Shawn's "Aunt Dan and Lemon" with Martha Lavey,
Shakespeare: all-male "Pacific Overtures," though there were a couple of weak performers; "Julius Caesar," "Rose Rage," "Since I Suppose" (disclosure: by Australian friends), "Othello" (2007/8 season), and most of the Shakespeare plays when we were subscribers in the early- to mid-aughts
Court: "Guys and Dolls" (great chemistry between the leads), "Travesties" (perhaps Stoppard's best play), "Arcadia," "Caroline or: Change," both parts of  "Angels in America," "M. Butterfly"
Organic: "Bleacher Bums,"
Cloud 42: "Living Up to My Blue China: the Art and Passion of Oscar Wilde" with a perfect Harry Althaus as Wilde and others, 1989
Wisdom Bridge: "Travesties" with Frank Galati, 1980; "Hamlet," 1985 or 1986, with Del Close as Polonius

8. The most credible critics in town: Tony Adler, Justin Hayford, Kerry Reid.

9. I am not this dogmatic within my field of expertise, creative nonfiction.

10. All this is to say that BoHo Theatre  had a great great production of "Parade," about the arrest and lynching of Leo Frank near Atlanta. The main character was played by a Woody-Allen-esque New York Jew-fish-out-of-water, whose ways of speaking and kvetching may or may not have been the ways of East Coast Jews a 100 years ago, but I accepted it. The main theater critic in town did not like it, saying: "The unwieldy physical production here is run-of-the-mill and it traps the actors in some awkward geometric arrangements without offering much of the necessary visual sweep that carries Frank's accusers along on a wave of hysteria. DeSelm's Frank is a very alienated and cold figure, which is one side of this character, for sure, but, when taken this far, means that one does not empathize as one should, nor feel the great rush of confusion and indignation alongside the musical's central figure and a wife whose spousal loyalty is sorely tested." But I went to see it anyway, because I am writing about the South and Jews in the South, and I didn't see the play when it was in town before because I couldn't imagine a musical about Frank's experience. And I say to you, dear reader, the main theater critic in town was wrong, wrong, wrong.

(I reviewed Nora Ephron's book, "I Feel Bad About My Neck," and said it was barely feminist. When she spoke to a packed house at the Harold Washington Library Center, I asked her if she considered it feminist. She said yes and asked if I did. I said no. You are wrong, she told me.)

But I wasn't. Not then and not now.