Mardi Gras 2022 -- Photos and a Little Backstory

Well, I learn something new every day. For some reason, I always thought that Mardi Gras took place on Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday. I assumed it was a celebration related to the Catholic tradition of Lent. Lent is a 40 day period of fasting and prayer that begins on January 6 and ends on Holy Thursday, the night Jesus was betrayed, the day before Passover.

As it turns out, Mardi Gras is a season, not a day. It runs from January 6 to the night before Ash Wednesday. When I lived in Puerto Rico, I discovered that Christmas wasn't really a one day event. It was a season from Christmas Day (December 25) till Three Kings Day, January 6. Note the connection. Christmas "ends" the day Mardi Gras begins.

Every region of the country has its unique culture. How did it come about that New Orleans created and community environment so different from anywhere else? It's useful to look back on its roots. New Orleans was founded by the French in 1718, hence many of its influences. In 1763, as a result of a war with Britain, it was ceded to the Spanish, but returned to the French. In 1803 the French sold of the central portion of the continent to the United States in what was called the Louisiana Purchase. The price was a steal.

Tribute to Tennessee William?

In addition to French and Spanish influences we find Creole, African American, Cajun, German, Irish, Italian, and Jewish. 

It's my understanding that the music is what makes New Orleans sizzle. That was my experience the two times I was there, neither time being Mardi Gras. 

I had planned to do a Wordless Wednesday yesterday but went further.

It feels strange on some levels to see life going on as normal 
(people going to work, TV shows and advertising uninterrupted)

while simultaneously we have a Russian incursion into Ukraine, 

with tanks, troops and missiles, along with a hundred talking heads

spinning their interpretations of these unfolding events.

Alas, what's really happening?

Today the president reminded us of the united power of NATO.

If Putin attacks one, he attacks all, because we stand together.

This covenant between nations brought to mind the manner in 

which the European powers were interconnected preceding WWI. 

The implications make me uncomfortable.

Meantime, life goes on... 

PHOTOS BY GARY FIRSTENBERG

Part of the Power of Dvorak's New World Symphony Comes from Its American Influences

One of my early memories about Ludwig van Beethoven was how he would walk the countryside and listen to the folk songs and music of villagers as a source of inspiration for musical themes in his classical works. He was no doubt not the first to do thus. Nor was he the last, for this was something Hungarian-born composer Antonin Dvorak (Dvor-zhak) did as well, decades later. 

It should come as no surprise, then, that when this internationally renowned musician came to the United States for a three-year residency as director of the National Conservatory of Music (1892-1895) he would discover new sources of inspiration here in the "new world." Two of the new world sources that he drew upon were Native American and African American impressions that he'd not encountered previous to coming to America. Both have been cited as contributors to his 9th Symphony.

According to an article by Patrick Neas in the Kansas City Star, "Anytime classical fans are polled about their favorite works, Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 'From the New World' is always near the top of the list. With gorgeous themes that sound both Bohemian and American, the Symphony No. 9 captures the best of the old and the new world. And this beloved classical masterpiece received its finishing touches in a small town 400 miles north of Kansas City."

When I read that Dvorak was the director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York City I wondered how he connected with Native American music. As it turns out, there was a community of Czech immigrants in Spillville, Iowa (population at that time approximately 350, as it is today) that he crossed the Midwest to visit in the summer of 1893.

The KC Star article notes that  "It was on the plains of the Midwest that Dvorak came into contact with Native American music and African-American spirituals. Dvorak absorbed this authentic American folk music and incorporated it into his 'New World' symphony, which was first performed by the New York Philharmonic in Carnegie Hall on Dec. 16, 1893."

* * * 

Influences

Yesterday I wrote about my own early introduction to classical music, and my parents' early experiences at Cleveland Symphony Hall.  It's fascinating how so much of who we are has been shaped by influences. David Pichaske's book Song of the North Country goes into great detail showing how Bob Dylan's Northern Minnesota roots shaped his outlook and defined much of his music. So it comes as no surprise that Dvorak's music contains a multitude of influences from his life in Eastern Europe. My father had an album of his "Slavonic Dances". It would not surprise me to learn that my father's appreciation for Dvorak came in part from Cleveland Orchestra conductor George Szell who was himself from Hungary.

This is why it should not surprise us to find Dvorak still listening for new sources of inspiration during his three years in the U.S.  Is it possible his use of the timpani (kettledrums) in the New World Symphony was inspired by hearing the Native drums while in Iowa? 

Opening horn solo introducing theme for 2nd movement. If you 
read music then you it will no doubt be familiar to you.

Music critic Michael Beckerman wrote that the Second and Third Movements were based on Longfellow's The Song of Hiawatha. These were purportedly ideas in "sketch form" that were studies for a longer work. The third movement was inspired by the scene in which the Indians dance. It is most likely that Dvorak attended at least one Powwow while in Iowa. Dvorak expressly stated that the music in this symphony would never have been created had he not been to this country.

Here's an amazing statement from Dvorak. According to contemporary journalist Peter Guttman, the composer presciently observed, "I am convinced that the future music of this country must be founded on what are called Negro melodies. These can be the foundation of a serious and original school of composition, to be developed in the United States. These beautiful and varied themes are the product of the soil. They are the folk songs of America and your composers must turn to them."

Isn't that what the 10 episodes of Ken Burns' PBS documentary series Jazz was saying? Of this, much more can be said. 

Here is the exquisite second movement of Dvorak's wonderful symphony.

Trivia: Neil Armstrong brought a recording of The New World Symphony 
to the moon to play during mankind's first landing there.

Related Links

Classical Notes on Dvorak's "New World" Symphony
Ukraine national orchestra to showcase Verdi and Dvorak at Helzberg Hall

The Influence of G.K. Chesterton: Perfect Pith

G.K. Chesterton

Influences: We all have roots, and if one were to make the effort we could probably each make a genealogical tree of our ideas, identifying the people who have been our own chief influences.

The same holds true for the authors and thinkers whose books we have become familiar with. We certainly see it in politicians who frequently cite their influences by quoting the men and women who have inspired them.

C.S. Lewis, whose writings have been tremendously influential in the past century, had a circle of friends that included J.R.R. Tolkien. These friends were undoubtedly important people in his personal development. As for roots, Lewis made note of two major literary figures from a preceding generation: George MacDonald and G.K. Chesterton. MacDonald was a Scottish author, poet and minister who also happened to be a friend and mentor of Lewis Carroll. (Now you know the roots of The Chronicles of Narnia.)

As for Chesterton, he was a writer, philosopher, journalist, dramatist, orator, lay theologian and creative spirit. A contemporary of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, his Father Brown (Father Brown Mysteries) was equal to Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie's shrewd observers of the devious, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. (Who doesn't love a good mystery now and then?)

As a setup for an upcoming blog post I thought it appropriate to introduce Gilbert Keith Chesterton, the keen social critic and wit whose book The Everlasting Man made an impact on the young hot-headed atheist, C.S. Lewis.

* * * *
Here are some Chesterton quotes to help acquaint you with his mind and wit. Read them slowly, rather than as quickly as you can. 

"Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference, which is an elegant name for ignorance."

"The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man."

"The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder."

"Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese."

"To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it."

"Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions."

"What embitters the world is not excess of criticism, but absence of self-criticism."

"I've searched all the parks in all the cities — and found no statues of Committees."

"There is a great man who makes every man feel small. But the real great man is the man who makes every man feel great."

"The most incredible thing about miracles is that they happen."

"One can sometimes do good by being the right person in the wrong place."

From his essay on Tolstoy:
"The truth is that Tolstoy, with his immense genius, with his colossal faith, with his vast fearlessness and vast knowledge of life, is deficient in one faculty and one faculty alone. He is not a mystic; and therefore he has a tendency to go mad. Men talk of the extravagances and frenzies that have been produced by mysticism; they are a mere drop in the bucket. In the main, and from the beginning of time, mysticism has kept men sane. The thing that has driven them mad was logic. ...The only thing that has kept the race of men from the mad extremes of the convent and the pirate-galley, the night-club and the lethal chamber, has been mysticism — the belief that logic is misleading, and that things are not what they seem."

* * * *

Influences: How Well Do You Understand How You Became Who You Are?

The book Pretexts by French author and Nobel Prize winner André Gide (1869-1951) is a collection of essays and observations on literature and morality. The book opens with a set of four talks he gave on influence, the limits of art, the importance of the public and the evolution of the theater.

In the first essay he discusses influences in general and the influence of literature more specifically. It's an essay I've read several times over the years, and a theme I've often pondered. I think, for example of how not all things influence people the same way. For example, why does a magnet have such a powerful effect on steel and no effect whatsoever on wood?  So it is that advertising or news stories--fake or real-- stir some people and while others remain completely indifferent.

Interestingly, Gide cites the example of Goethe, the great German writer and statesman, being completely indifferent to Beethoven's music and moved by "the pure and smiling tenderness" of Mozart. He did not understand Beethoven's passion, nor did he comprehend what Beethoven's music was all about as it swelled out of him. The anecdote shows how greatness is not always understood or appreciated.

This is why in our time we have musical genres that inspire some and leave others cold. I think immediately of Dylan and Hip Hop. Some people get it, and others don't.

Even the most common influences influence people differently. An example would be winter weather here in the Northland. For some, the short days, snow and cold leave them depressed. Others get invigorated. "Bring it on," they say, either because of their passion for winter activities like snowmobiling and skiing, or because of the pristine beauty of fresh snowfall and the aesthetic sense which is awakened.

So we see that places and seasons impact people differently.

What Gide suggests is that growing means becoming more open to the wider world, to people and places, to other influences beyond our tiny sphere. He goes so far as to say, "Those who fear influences and shy away from them are tacitly confessing the poverty of their souls."

For this reason, Gide encourages us to explore. Great minds do not fear influences.

This may be why dogmatists become so hardened in their ways. They fear influences, locking themselves within themselves. Foreign cultures enrich us, and reveal other ways of being fully human. Whether traveling abroad (or living abroad for a season) or simply getting to know people different from your own circle, each experience of real engagement provides an opportunity for growth.

* * * *

Centerville All Stars at the Red Mug

I believe many of us are unaware of many things that have been influences on our own lives. The influence of our parents is fairly straightforward, usually. I have these characteristics from my dad, these from my mom. The influence of our neighborhoods is similarly straightforward, usually. Cultural influences, however, are frequently less evident. I will leave you with one example.

How much have you been influenced by African culture? If you are a white American, I'll guess that you don't think about it all that much. I'd also propose that whatever answer you guess, that it is three, four or five times more than that.

When cultures conquer other cultures, the conquered culture is not really destroyed. It is carried within the hearts of the dispersed. From there it seeps out into the culture of the conqueror. Christianity did not spread in Rome by conquering Rome with the sword. As Rome fell, the conquering "hordes" from the North got infected with this "good news" that had begun to pervade the Roman empire, and in turn even the ruthless Vikings became infected with it so that Christianity became vibrant in the Scandinavian region.

In a similar fashion, the ruthless slave trade removed blacks from Africa, transplanting them here where that which was in their hearts similarly emerged. Over time, the music of Africa has come to permeate nearly all facets of Western music.

During the past century music has come to be one of the biggest influences in our culture. Jim Morrison, who became the voice of The Doors, chose to be a rock singer because though he considered poetry his art, the audience for poetry was a sliver of what the audience for music was. When a poem is read, it is usually read once or twice, and occasionally studied in school. But when you produce a hit song, people can hear it hundreds of times.

Who among us has not had music running through their heads at least for a portion of each day?

The first generation of Africans in the Western hemisphere carried African music in the heart, but as their culture and music intermingled with other forms of music all varieties of permutations emerged. From origins such as Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia we had field hollers, spirituals, gospel and country and rural blues. Jazz was birthed in New Orleans through its own set of special circumstances, and as African Americans moved northward, cities such as Chicago, Memphis, Kansas City, New York and Detroit produced new variations on African influenced music, evolving into Swing, Soul and Hip Hop.

Features of African American music that we take for granted today but which originated in Africa include "call and response," rhythmic syncopation, as well as vocal and instrumental improv. Drumming was likewise a central part of West African culture.

The big irony is how this "American Roots" music became adopted by youth in Europe so that we had The Beatles and Rolling Stones seeking inspiration from the rhythm and blues records produced by Chicago's Chess Records. In fact, my first Rolling Stones album (their second) had an instrumental track titled 2120 So. Michigan Avenue, the address of Chess Records at that time. (I love the harmonica riff.)

I've hardly scratched the surface here. Seriously. I myself was only recently introduced to these concepts via a presentation by jazz singer Bruce Henry at a November Magnolia Salon event in Carlton. Bruce is a teacher who has developed an extensive curriculum (20 lessons) that takes you deep into the roots of all varieties of music from military music, ragtime, Dixieland, Gospel, Big Band Swing, civil rights protest music, Afro-Cuban jazz, funk, Motown and rap. You can find more information on this program at www.evolutionofafricanamericanmusic.com

Until you open yourself up, you really don't know how much you don't know.

Life is for learning. Embrace it.

Local Art Seen: Chairs, Visions and Influences

Today, Mad Magazine illustrator Sergio Aragonés is 77.

* * * *

There were several openings this week in the Twin Ports. Kris Nelson's ongoing Chairs project has been appearing in a number of spaces recently, one of these being the Red Mug Coffeehouse. After years of watercolors, stained glass, weaving, ceramics and other creative explorations Nelson finally found a focus for her creative energies. She has been painting chairs since 1996 and her goal is to complete 1000 chairs by the time she's 100. She's one-fifth of the way there, and you owe it to yourself to grab a bite to eat or some coffee some time in the next few weeks so you can see what the "Chair Lady" is all about.

Thursday evening I was able to check out a new exhibition by Esther Piszczek titled Visions at Beaners. Piszczek is an emerging artist and fairly recent transplant to the Twin Ports who's focus is Zentangle-inspired creation. It seems like every show demonstrate new explorations and this one is no different. In her Visions show she's begun placing her ornate patterns onto frames, glass and mirrors. Be sure to follow her on Facebook because she has quite a few items that will make nice Christmas fare. I'm sure she'll make known the whereabouts of her upcoming shows there if you miss it here.

My own event at Benchmark Tattoo was called Influences. Benchmark Tattoo is a wonderful new space in the Twin Ports for showcasing artists. From my first interactions with Kyle and Dane I observed a professionalism in their manner of dealing with the artists whom they represent.

The reception ran from 6-10 p.m. last night. My initial reaction to a four hour event was to fear it becoming too long, too much. I was wrong. The four hours flew by like a weaver's shuttle and provided the valuable time for unhurried visits with friends and visitors.

The work displayed here expresses a variety of the primary influences on who I am and have become. It is not a comprehensive “explanation” of where my attitudes and convictions come from, but it does express a large swath of the territory from which my creative passions were derived.
Over the course of the next four weeks, if you get a chance drop in and check it out.

There's always more to see and do than there is time. Thanks to all who joined us last night at Benchmark Tattoo. It was a very special time.

Meantime, art goes on all around you. Enjoy it.

Jorge Luis Borges and Other Influences

Last night while looking for A Yellow Rose by Borges, I bumped into this stimulating passage, the opening to Bruce Lord's essay Some Lovecraftian Thoughts On Borges’ “There Are More Things”

I had read many of Jorge Luis Borges’ short stories several years before discovering Lovecraft, let alone studying the latter seriously, and so the idea of Borges owing any debt to or admitting any influence from HPL was new and somewhat shocking to me when I first encountered it. While reading "Dreams In The Witch House" for the first time, however, I found it to be quite Borgesian (I didn't have any problem with taking such an anachronistic view of the relationship, as Borges has based entire stories around such errors). The story of an increasingly alienated and detached academic who becomes lost in his field of study and ends up transcending the known laws of the universe reminded me of the hapless people caught in "The Library Of Babel." In a similar vein, both authors used the technique of referring to fictional literary and scientific sources as well as legitimate ones (often combining the two in lists of books or thinkers) in order to better facilitate their stories’ fantastic elements.

The occasion for seeking out a story by Borges was my art opening tonight at Benchmark Tattoo here in Duluth. The title of the show is Influences, one of them being the stories of J. L. Borges.

This passage explains one of the devices by which Borges' stories become magical. You read and don't have a certainty about what is real and what is not. It's a device I've used, to greater or lesser effect, in some of the stories included in my collection of six titled Unremembered Histories, especially Two Acts That Changed The World, and The Empty Space.

This isn't why I sought out A Yellow Rose however. Rather, it's the notion at this very brief story's end that when we create art or books or anything, we're just adding more things to the world and not necessarily adding more meaning or value to it.

For forty years or more I've commented that it is the people we meet and the books we read that most influence us. I've said it so frequently and for so long that I have not really questioned it. But this morning I am thinking otherwise. Some people aren't readers but they watch movies and listen to music, both of which are highly influential.

As I prepared my show I realized that my ancestors have been a major influence. I've taken inspiration from being descended from men like the pioneer Daniel Boone as well as the heroic Rob Roy McGregor. And the belief that I have made more sensitive to the plight of our native peoples by the native blood that my brother and I believe is in our veins.

Andre Gide has noted that places influence us as well, and this is certainly true. Not only the places we go (I've lived a year each in Mexico and Puerto Rico) but also the places we have lived. (In my case, Cleveland, New Jersey, Minneapolis and Duluth.)

But there's still great power in the books we read. And actually, when you read a book you're meeting a person anyways, for books are written by people, and in point of fact you may very well get to know that person better through his or her writings than through any number of hours in social concourse.

The art opening tonight is at 1831 East 8th Street, in the new building across the street from Sara's Table, just east of Chester Bowl on Skyline Drive. Hope to see you there... I'll have copies of my book on hand. And from what I hear Kyle and Dane really make it a welcoming event worthy of your time.

Who have been your influences? And more importantly, who are you influencing? Regarding the latter, make it be good.

Winning

Blue Van Gogh is an example of serendipity.

"You can't win the lottery if you don't buy a ticket."

There are many kinds of winning. When we win a lottery, or even something as simple as a raffle, it feels good because it's fun to get lucky like that. Even though we know it was just a game of chance, we enjoy the feeling that accompanies our good fortune. But there are other kinds of contests and competitions that bring a deeper kind of satisfaction.

This afternoon I will be hanging artwork at Benchmark Tattoo here in Duluth and the title of my show is Influences. One of the pieces in the show is titled "Winning," a mixed media composition that includes a front page story on a yellowed Maple Heights News about an eight year old boy named Eddie Newman who won the Grotto Circus Contest. I was one of four winners of the contest and received $87.50 for correctly guessing the number of animals, performers and personnel in the circus that was coming to Cleveland soon. I also received eight free tickets.

I remember well the pains I took to logically figure out the solution to this problem. I was lying on the living room floor with a sheet of paper, picking my mom's brain. "What other animals are in the circus besides lions and tigers?" She said there would be pigs, and I guesstimated 32 of those. As it turns out the number I came up with was accurate, even if there wasn't a single pig in the entourage. I didn't win because I was smarter than anyone else. I won because I entered the contest and tried.

But winning that contest did influence me. So did winning a halloween costume contest around that same time in my life. A half century later someone contacted me through social media saying they remembered my costume from that evening. I was dressed as a blob, rolling around on the floor inside two sheets that my mom dyed and sewed together for the occasion.

This art game is one of the prizes if you play and win.

In high school the Bridgewater Jaycees had an art competition in which students were invited to submit illustrations for the cover of a program for the Winter Carnival. I won $25 for a humorous set of ink drawings depicting a skier losing control on a slope and ending up splayed in a heap.

One way that winning contests influences us is that it reinforces the notion that sometimes there are good outcomes when we throw our hats into the ring.

There are many kinds of influences in life. Some we choose and some are thrust upon us. All impact us in varying degrees and who we become is directly related to how we respond to — or synthesize — these influences. Life is the process of digesting these influences.

Winning the art contest was meaningful because it utilized skill, imagination and creativity. It wasn't just a lucky number pulled from a pail.

Entering contests did not suddenly become a way of life, but these wins did produce a confidence that inspired me to enter other contests. In 1991 by story "The Breaking Point" won the Arrowhead Regional Fiction Competition, a five-state short story and poetry competition. (The story is a centerpiece in my third volume of fiction titled The Breaking Point and Other Stories.

SPEAKING OF CONTESTS.... This week I read about some kind of global activity in which artists hide art and people can search and find it. I believe there was a specific day in which this was to happen but since I did not save the link I don't know any more details beyond what I shared already.

I've hidden these somewhere in the Twin Ports.

SO, I am making a contest for you, if you happen to be here in the Twin Ports. I will be hiding five baseball sized reproductions of my art this weekend. If you find one and come to Friday evening's art opening at Benchmark Tattoo, you will win a copy of my book Unremembered Histories. If you find the reproduction of my ink on paper drawing titled Masquerade, you will win the original, which happens to be a favorite of mine. If no one finds this hidden art card, then anyone can purchase the original for $45 at Benchmark Tattoo during the month of September.

The theme for my show is Influences and the art here expresses a variety of the primary influences on who I am and have become. It is not a comprehensive “explanation” of where my attitudes and convictions come from, but it does express a large swath of the territory from which my creative passions were derived. Ask and I will explain in greater detail inasmuch as these are but smatterings and hints.

With regard to the hidden art cards, I WILL BE GIVING CLUES so do return to Ennyman's Territory and see if you can find something worth looking for. First Clue: The five art cards pictured here can be found at places I like to frequent in the Twin Ports. Second clue will be posted tomorrow here and will be Tweeted, which means it will also show up on my Facebook page.

Good luck! Maybe you'll be a Winner!

Magnets and the Power of Influence

A magnet attracts iron, yet has no effect whatsoever on wood.

As is my custom this time of year, I spent a little time cleaning files and straightening my office on New Year's Day, placing related items in manila folders, removing things to storage elsewhere in the house or garage. One folder that I came across carried the intriguing title Forces Invisible. It turned out to be about 'magnets and other invisible forces."

One sheet in the folder, typed using my old Olivetti around thirty years ago, carried this list of items regarding magnets:
1. stronger than we realize
2. not "visible" to five senses, yet real
3. powerless in some instance (wood), potent in others (iron)
4. operates by certain laws
5. once magnetized, not always magnetized
     intense heat of striking with hammer can break power

In many ways influences operate the same way. Years ago I heard someone say, "The two strongest influences on our lives are the people we meet and the books we read." In one sense, these are one and the same thing, for is it not true that when we read a book, we are meeting with another's mind, their thoughts, attitudes, opinions, feelings, beliefs?

This is the wonder of books. Though the Greek philosophers have been dead twenty-four centuries, their writings laid the groundwork for much of contemporary thought. Likewise a man like St. Augustine, Christian thinker originally stirred by Greek philosophy, was extremely influential in the direction of Western Civilization, even though he lived in an obscure period of history during the fall of the Roman Empire. Through memoirs, letters, essays and speeches, we can become acquainted with all kinds of people from all periods of history, including philosophers, musicians, pioneers and even presidents. And they influence us.

Early in the last century Andre Gide, Nobel Prize winning author, gave a series of lectures on influences. In his case he cited the manner in which places also can powerfully influence us. Hence we sometimes hear a call from a far country and we are drawn.

We have no choice over some influences. We don't choose our parents; nor do we choose the nation of our birth. Nevertheless, we do have the power to choose other influences, particularly the books we read, the friends we associate with, the places we choose to visit. The influences we choose reveal as much about who we are as they help mold what we shall become.

As you reflect on the people and experiences that touch your life today, which are the influences you have chosen and what do these things say about who you are and what you long to become? Keep in mind that you, too, have been an influence and will continue to be an influence. You only live once, so make it count.

Influences

"I come before you to defend influence."
~Andre Gide, Concerning Influence In Literature

Over the course of several years interviewing artists and other people for my blog, articles and columns, I've noticed that I frequently ask variations of some of the same questions. One of these is regarding influence. Who have been your biggest influences? Who were your early influences?  There's a sense in which I am essentially asking, "How did you come to be doing this kind of work? How did you become who you are?"

I decided to put myself in the interviewees shoes to see how I would respond to this question. Who or what have been the influences in my life, especially my early years?

Certainly our homes play a role in our early development. I grew up in a home where I felt encouraged to express myself. There was an endless supply of paper for coloring or drawing on. I recall being fascinated by tracing things, though I do not know if that is because paper was thinner then or we had tracing paper in the house. We had magazines in the house and I would trace faces or animals.

Our house had a television set when we lived in Maple Heights outside of Cleveland. I was two or three when we moved there and I remember early cartoons like Tom Terrific and Clutch Cargo. Children's programming like Captain Kangaroo and Barnaby helped stimulate imagination. At age four I was one of the kids on the Barnaby show, an experience made more memorable by the fact that my younger brother Ron cried and was scared to go on the show with the other kids and leave Mom off-stage. 

At age five I was enrolled in an art class at the Cleveland Institute of Art, one of the formative experiences of my taking an interest in art. Each week the class would visit different parts of the museum and then we'd draw or make art in one of the various designated spaces. I vividly remember the one exercise in which we were in an area with Medieval paintings and suits of armor. We had been instructed to observe the manner in which the letters were decorated by ivy and vines. Perhaps this was the beginning of learning how to "see" like an artist?

The Jon Gnagy television show in the late 1950's or somewhere around 1960 was a strong influence on me. Gnagy taught tricks of the trade, how to create the impression of three dimensionality on a two-dimensional surface. He showed how to place a house into a landscape and have the angles nd perspective lines properly formed so that it was seen in a "normal" fashion and how telephone poles or fence posts shrink in size the further away they are. These little techniques were fascinating to me. I'd sometimes try to understand why this was so. It was a period of asking questions.

My elementary school art teacher must have been an influence. It was a class I perpetually looked forward to. I had a large portfolio envelope with my art in it which my mother saved for me. There was a cowboy I did in second grade that I thought was really cool. I liked the colors of the various papers I used, grey-blues and the like. He had a vest, a pistol, boots and a big cowboy hat.

Our culture influences us. Westerns were ever popular on the television. And I would be remiss not to mention my parents who encouraged me as well as a grandmother who wrote poetry, read voraciously and dabbled in painting.

To be continued 

The 101 Most Influential People Who Never Lived

Our fascination with lists is perpetual. Top ten pitchers of all time, top 100 rock albums of all time, top 50 jazz piano players of all time.... top ten lists of all time. I once walked into the warehouse where I work and found myself in the midst of a heated debate between two co-workers as regards who is the greatest guitar player of all time. So it only only makes sense that a book titled The 101 Most Influential People Who Never Lived would get our attention and stimulate our curiosity.

The full title of the book is, The 101 Most Influential People Who Never Lived: How Characters of Fiction, Myth, Legends, Television, and Movies Have Shaped Our Society, Changed Our Behavior, and Set the Course of History, unwieldy by any standard.

The book itself is essentially a bead string of essays combined thematically in chapters titled Greek & Roman Myths, Folktales, Legends, Monsters, Stereotypes, Adventure, Crime, Americana, Literature, Children's Literature, Theater, Movies, Women's Liberation, Comics and Animation, Commerce, Propaganda, and Television.

My personal feel about the book is summed up in the words of the Amazon.com reviewer who wrote, "Interesting concept, disappointing execution." The authors own up to their subjective approach and make no attempt to claim this is a definitive list by any stretch, so they have integrity. I just didn't care for the writing because the tone was off-putting. Nevertheless, it is an interesting concept and kudos to anyone who starts and finishes a book and finds a publisher.

Your Assignment
(If you choose to accept it)
I thought it might be fun, if you have a moment, to come up with a list of your own Top Ten Most Influential People Who Never Lived. What follows are names from the book which are in the top 101 but are NOT in the Top Twenty. The aim here is to get you zeroed in on the range of influential characters out there who were not real people. Interesting, eh?

At the end of this incomplete list is a warning, after which I have listed in reverse order the Top Twenty. How many of your Top Ten were in the Top Twenty? Have fun.

Rosie the Riveter
Cinderella
Dracula
Bambi
Don Juan
William Tell
James Bond
Hansel & Gretel
Barbie
Tarzan
G.I. Joe
Batman
King Kong
Hercules
The Pied Piper
Captain Ahab
Superman
Peter Pan
HAL 9000
Norman Bates
The Cat in the Hat
Icarus
Dr. Strangelove
The Great Gatsby
Luke Skywalker
The Little Engine That Could
Midas
Archie Bunker
Richard Blaine



BEFORE YOU GO ANY FURTHER

If you do not have a top ten written, what does your Top Three look like.

The picture above right is a Clue for #1 Most Influential Person Who Never Lived.

20. Prince Charming
19. The American Cowboy
18. Mickey Mouse
17. Don Quixote
16. Ebenezer Scrooge
15. Lady Chatterly
14. Oedipus
13. Jim Crow
12. Robin Hood
11. Uncle Tom
10. Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
9. Romeo & Juliet
8. Sherlock Holmes
7. Siegfried
6. Dr. Frankenstein’s Monster
5. Hamlet
4. Santa Claus
3. King Arthur
2. Big Brother
1. The Marlboro Man

How'd you do? Hope it was fun.... Just more stuff to ponder as you continue your day. Be well.

1952: From the Beginning

As noted in a previous post, no man is an island. Nor any woman. From the moment we enter this world we not only have a connection to our personal families, we are simultaneously connected to our extended family, the body of humanity.

Of course this is not something we immediately sense – and some never sense it at all. But as we enter this world, we do come to appreciate and understand that our grand appearance here takes place within a context.
My own context was as a firstborn to young parents in Cleveland, Ohio. My mom and dad each had rural roots, West Virginia and Kentucky respectively, but had taken up residence in a second floor apartment in a section of town known as Little Italy.

They were evidently avid baseball fans because the four teddy bears they surrounded me with in my crib were named after the Cleveland Indians starting rotation: Mike Garcia, Bob Lemon, Early Wynn and fireballer Bob Feller. These guys were awesome pitchers in their prime but only handed Indians fans one pennant in the fifties due to the heartless dominance of the Yankees of that era. I don’t recall what happened to Wynn and Garcia (the teddy bears), but Lemon and Feller accompanied me for many a year.

So did the love of baseball. One of my mom’s favorite players was the Indians’ second baseman Bobby Avila. Three times a candidate for the League’s Most Valuable Player, Avila hailed from Mexico, a fact which I learned many years later while living in Monterrey in 1981. My wife and I were walking through the Baseball Hall of Fame in that city whereupon I saw a Cleveland Indians baseball uniform. (I will try to find the photo I took and post it here.) It immediately made me think of my Mom.

In the fifties my grandfather and dad took my brothers and I to many a ball game at Cleveland Stadium. I can recall box seats behind the Indians dugout on a bright sunny afternoon. On another occasion I remember box seats just a little to the right of the backstop during a double header in which the Yankees’ Elston Howard hit home runs over the deep center field fence in each game.

Every spring, as the baseball season commenced, our family watched the movie It Happens Every Spring, starring Ray Milland, about a professor who discovers a way to juice a baseball so that it avoids being hit by wood. Like the annual airing of The Wizard of Oz, our family watched this annual Saturday Night at the Movies feature year in and year out.

Within this context, it’s hard to imagine not having an interest in baseball.

Maybe things would have been different if the Indians had not been contenders. And probably it would have been much different if I had been born and raised in a town with no team at all. But it is what it is. And for this reason, to some extent Fate has a hand in how we become who we are… though I must immediately add that I believe, too, that our decisions today help make us who we will become.

Besides my own appearance here, other significant events of 1952 include the publication of Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea and John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. Herman Wouk won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction for The Caine Mutiny. Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower won the 1952 election for president of the United States. The Korean Conflict was happening across the Pacific, and McCarthyism was in full swing in the corridors of power here in the homeland.

Two other features of note. First, not that it matters much, 1952 was a Leap Year. And second, 1952 was a year in which a major wave of Baby Boomers entered the world. One of them was Bob Costas, a sports announcer who many Americans recognize and welcome into their homes via television. Currently he is the anchor for this year’s Olympic Games. He is a passionate fan of baseball to such an extent that he has even been considered for the position of baseball commissioner.

Costas has certainly had a charmed life, being in a position where he not only gets to meet his heroes and the great sports figures of our time, he gets to ask them probing questions, to find out what makes them tick. Hopefully he still gets a thrill from this privileged position. He certainly excels at projecting the kind of educated passion that makes people (and by this, I mean viewers) want to spend time in his presence.

If I were interviewing Mr. Costas, I would like to know…
Did your parents name your teddy bears after the New York Yankees starting rotation? (He grew up in the Queens, New York.)
How many Yankees vs. Indians double headers did you see in the fifties?
When did you see your first All Star Game? (I saw mine in Cleveland, 1963.)

What would you consider the three greatest sports moments of the past thirty years?
And finally, what makes you tick? It has to be more than the money, which can’t be half bad. What do you love most in life and what are your goals for the next thirty years?

And, if you could ask Mr. Costas a couple questions, what would they be?

Bob Costas Trivia: Costas was a huge Mickey Mantle fan and purportedly carried a 1958 Mickey Mantle baseball card in his wallet. Here's a picture of my own 1958 Mickey Mantle card, one of baseball's legendary heroes when we were both young fans.

For the record, there was another significant person born in 1952… the day after I was born on September 11 that year. I did not meet him till sometime after I started dating his sister in 1976. A quick tip-of-the-hat to my brother-in-law Lloyd…

And now, back to the Olympics. Go, team.

Influences

A magnet attracts iron, yet has no effect whatsoever on wood.

Years ago I heard someone say, "The two strongest influences on our lives are the people we meet and the books we read." In one sense, these are one and the same thing, for is it not true that when we read a book, we are meeting with another's mind, their thoughts, attitudes, opinions, feelings, beliefs?

This is the wonder of books. Though the Greek philosophers have been dead twenty-four centuries, their writings laid the groundwork for much of contemporary thought. Likewise a man like St. Augustine, Christian thinker originally stirred by Greek philosophy, was extremely influential in the direction of Western Civilization, even though he lived in an obscure period of history during the fall of the Roman Empire. Through memoirs, letters, essays and speeches, we can become acquainted with all kinds of people from all periods of history, including philosophers, musicians, pioneers and even presidents.

We have no choice over some influences. We don't choose our parents; nor do we choose the nation of our birth.

Nevertheless, we do have the power to choose other influences, particularly the books we read, the friends we associate with, the places we choose to visit. The influences we choose reveal as much about who we are as they help mold what we shall become.

As you reflect on the people and experiences that touch your life today, which are the influences you have chosen and what do these things say about who you are and what you long to become?

The Importance of Family

"There is transcendant power in a strong intergeneration family. An effectively interdependent family of children, parents, grandparents aunts, uncles, and cousins can be a powerful force in helping people have a sense of who they are and where they come from and what they stand for." ~ Stephen Covey


The letter leaning against the photo is from my grandmother, a significant person in my life growing up. It was a letter of encouragement when I was a young man. The little girl in this 1956 photo is my cousin Lois, age four. My grandparents helped build this telescope as part of the Sky & Telescope Society.

It is a sad thing when families get splintered. The strength I received from my grandmother is immeasurable. Perhaps I shared her temperament, for she likewise was an artist and poet, somewhat of a brooder, avid reader and lifelong learner. Perhaps it was just a grandmother's love.

The following is a poem which originally appeared in her chapbook of poems titled "Helping The Sun Grow".

Aftermath Of A Stroke
Here I lie, tight packed as in my Mother's womb
I laid with restlessness a full lifetime ago.
But still entirely I, altho I have no room
To move about and at my will to come and go.
But now -- I wander, freely in my mind
The long road thru the crowding mists of time,
And pause in my journeying now and then
To live the happy times again
Made bright indeed by sunset's glow!

~ Elizabeth Sandy

She often talked about another relative of our, a poet named John Hall, who had been editor of two West Virginia newspapers, and author of three books of poetry. The youngest of five boys, he ran away from home at age fifteen to serve the North in the Civil War. Down in Tennessee he took fever and after five months in recovery was left blind. Thus did he become, after accepting this difficult fate, the blind poet of Ritchie County. As it turns out, John Hall used to babysit my grandmother. He would take the children out onto the hillside and recite poetry to them. Grndma says the first ten years of her life he had babysat her and the other children. Thus did he birth in her a love of the creative use of language and image, of poetry and wonder.

In the same manner my own creative self was nourished by my Grandmother, Elizabeth Sandy.

Definition of a Classic

"A book that never finishes what it has to say." ~ Italo Calvino

There are two ways a book can keep speaking. One is to be so dense with meaning that it keeps adding to our understanding with each new reading because we ourselves have aged and keep seeing it with new eyes. A second way is for the book to never cease from continuing.

Isn't that what blogging is to some extent? A personal living expression in words and images, ongoing and ever continuing. When you cease to be enriched, you're free to turn away. The best books, and best blogs, keep us coming back for more, knowing that we will get a satisfying return on the investment of our time.

Influences

Years ago I heard someone say, "The two strongest influences on our lives are the people we meet and the books we read." In one sense, these are one and the same thing, for is it not true that when we read a book, we are meeting with another's mind, their thoughts, attitudes, opinions, feelings, beliefs?

This is the wonder of books. Though St. Augustine has been dead fifteen centuries, through his writings he speaks to us today, revealing his mind and soul. Through memoirs, letters, essays and speeches, we can become acquainted with all kinds of people from all periods of history, including philosophers, musicians, pioneers and even presidents.

We have no choice over some influences. We don't choose our parents; nor do we choose the nation of our birth.

Nevertheless, we do have the power to choose other influences, particularly the books we read, the friends we associate with, the places we choose to visit. The influences we choose reveal as much about who we are as they help mold what we shall become.