tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79690641922715712572024-03-05T14:24:46.880-05:00Appalachian ContrôléeA collection of small historiesComrade Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12575621500557736802noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7969064192271571257.post-82271442973570732542014-08-18T20:56:00.001-04:002014-08-18T21:01:34.551-04:00Feudal Society Vol. 1: The Growth of the Ties of Dependence<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Dictionaries define <i>feudal </i>as pertaining to the feudal system of holding land in a fief. To some degree it is a circular definition, but it does imply a certain attachment to the land, though usually through an economic relationship with the owner. For our purposes we will suppose that this relationship is also an emotional one, pertaining both to the individual plot and to the <i>pays</i> in which it is located. This examination is based on records for one small holding and, before we continue, let us acknowledge that this history is a privileged one, based on limited primary sources, and cannot necessarily be expanded to include any other inhabited areas.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Part 1 The Environment: The Last Invasions<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<u>Some Consequences and Some Lessons of the Invasions<o:p></o:p></u></div>
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From such a close range it is not always easy to notice the most important details and it is true also that a certain precision has been lost. Nevertheless, it is possible to make some assumptions based on a physical examination of the land.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The area itself a rough rectangle about 6 hectares in total, bisected by a road that divides the property into two distinct halves. To the east of the road the land climbs upwards toward a glacial ridge, and to the west slopes down toward the highway and, further away, a small valley cradling a series of long, shallow lakes. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The first record we have of this farmstead is from the latter part of the last century and is somewhat fragmented. These new arrivals did not attempt to reclaim much of the original clearance but were content to work the infield and garden plots that were near the house. As horses were introduced it became possible to explore what remained of the outlying pastures and even venture into the forest proper, but even earlier explorations on foot revealed that the eastern portion of the land was second growth forest, mostly sloping gently up from the road but also containing some steep hills. The forest was lined with stone walls, plainly evident in the undergrowth, dividing the land into rectangular plots.<o:p></o:p></div>
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From these sources we also know that the farm originally consisted of the house (an older portion plus addition), two large chicken coops, three barns and a corn crib. The largest of the barns and the corn crib provide the most striking discontinuity between the land in its current state and how it must once have appeared. The large barn (since collapsed) was a hay barn. It had a large central driveway, two hay lofts and, beneath them, two sets of stalls. There is a record of the central driveway containing an ancient hay baling device which was later removed, while the lofts continued to be used as storage for hay and the stalls, much later, for horses. Not enough is known of the its operation to say if it functioned also as a byre – our sources are silent on the early uses of all three of the barn structures and it is not possible to say at this date if they accommodated cows and pigs as well as the horses that were later in residence.<o:p></o:p></div>
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A large hay barn and corn crib are, in themselves, enough to suggest that the original arable was of a considerable size. The other two barns were not as large. One was a garage, and the other was full of tools and had a long weathered work bench.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It is hard now to imagine the woods yielding any corn or hay – the little bits of meadow are shot through with rock ridges. Yet the stone walls climb the hills. There is one area of flat ground near enough to the barnyard – evidently sold off long ago – but even that is two hectares at the most. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Some of this is still evident on the road even now. There are more houses - several have popped up where trails used to be and an abandoned property now has a gated drive. The hay barn is gone. The new houses haven't settled into the landscape yet and look raw and out of place.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Part 2 The Environment: Conditions of Life and Mental Climate<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<u>Material Conditions and Economic Characteristics<o:p></o:p></u></div>
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This all seems like rather a lot of change yet stays within the scope of one lifetime, accelerating and retrenching. The earliest direct evidence of settlement on the property is a photograph of a family standing by an old Ford in the driveway. It could be any time from the 20's to the 40's. A black family, said to be that of Rockefeller's chauffeur. That is the story of the land at the beginning of our current documentation. Rockefeller's chauffeur owned the land, did not farm but kept some livestock. It was called The Wagon Wheel then and a sign at the gate was actually a large wagon wheel until it decayed and was used for kindling. The chauffeur is said to have accidentally gashed his foot with an axe while chopping wood, which led to blood poisoning and an early death.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It should be possible to tell how long ago this was more precisely - by the state of the house and property. As it was renovated, traces of earlier work appeared and disappeared. At some point the chicken coops were made into bungalows, and one was further enlarged later on.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Thousands of years before, the glaciers arrived, noisily scraping the earth raw and grinding down the hills where they could. Re-aligning other hills as a powerful magnet straightens out iron filings. Then they left, and the land was open to other visitors and travelers who would change the landscape on the small scale as the glaciers had on the large. The trees grew up where the glaciers had left any soil, and grasses spread from boggy ponds. Deer made paths through the woods and streams made paths through the fields.<o:p></o:p></div>
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There is no longer much trace left of the previous inhabitants, the ones providing much of what history we have. The new languages and new modes of the last invaders become the most visible signs in the landscape. Perhaps they will settle in to the land and become themselves the last traces of a previous existence. More likely, using up all the land, they will leave not stone walls but houses and plots whose lawns will fade into new forest.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It seems that we pay the most attention to those things that will certainly change. It is true that when living near the mountains or the ocean the sense of change will always be either immediate or ever so gradual, but in the woods the markers are trees and meadows and isolated buildings that decay at a human pace.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<u>Modes of Feeling and Thought</u><u><o:p></o:p></u></div>
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The old maple is gone. The one that had a swing hanging from one giant branch. Whose branches were too high to climb. And the white picket fence, not very elegant at the best of times - the barn, as mentioned. Some things seem to speed up as time goes by, but always measured against the oldest trees and structures. It is still possible to see the scene as it was. After school in the late spring and early summer the bus would drop off children into a sleepy haze of quiet that grew as the bus grunted off down the road. The cat would wander down the path to the road and curl itself round the mailbox pole.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The family arrived, having left from somewhere else. That would seem to be trivial, that having arrived one must have left. Not worth mentioning, certainly not worth emphasizing in this way. Yet it is worth repeating for a second time now. Places are come to – no one is there before the place – and arriving is always ceremonial even when it doesn't seem to be. It is the arrival that sets in motion the tender clock that governs our impressions, responses and emotions. Time is not the powerful force it is without a place. The beginning of time, in this case, was the arrival on this land. There was no history, no chauffeur, no Rockefellers, just a big white house with three red barns. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The move itself is a marker of course, but it eventually becomes a secondary event to the changes set in motion by the process of having arrived. A map, an image, is created in the brain to function as an ideal form, and an emotional time is measured off it. In one case, children arriving at the old farm begin the process of grieving for the changes that will occur by fixing a reference point. To leave is to end as well as to begin anew. To arrive is also both.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Perhaps this is why it can be shocking sometimes to see photographs of ourselves as children, looking not at all the way our projected memories have led us to believe we felt.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Although the move was only a matter of 15 miles or so, it had some of the markers of an emigration. There were no new languages or even dialects to master, but still new ways of being, starting with a new house. The landscape was more open too and less claimed. Mental space opened up as the new territory unfurled itself along the road a little at a time. Even now it is a delightful little road to wander down, and then it had as well the small thrills of discoveries. As the road became more familiar, explorations off it began. One curve on a small hill yielded a small, nearly hidden path that climbed a ridge into the forest, winding through the trees to another farm over a mile away by the road. Just along from that was an old driveway that led to a deserted something. An old hut in an overgrown gravel lot. Another mile and there was a small, working farm that kept peacocks that could sometimes be heard at night as they yelled “help, help.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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- C. Hoyt 2014</div>
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Comrade Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12575621500557736802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7969064192271571257.post-50626378039036449212013-10-21T20:44:00.001-04:002013-10-21T20:44:30.655-04:00Great Grandpa on the Great Plains, continued<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
While we're all waiting for something original to be posted, here is another installment from the reminiscences of my great grandfather. In this excerpt he writes about when he was 15 and working on a farm in Ticonic, Iowa (the year was 1889.)<br />
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We were usually up
at four in the morning in crop time, harvesting haying or corn
husking. Other times we luxuriated in bed until five. The hired man
took care of the horses while the boss fed the stock and milked.
Breakfast was at Five thirty after fifty or sixty hogs had been fed,
several cows milked, horses curried off and harnessed, cultivators
greased and ready to go.</div>
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Six o’clock we
started down the corn rows, birds hopping along behind gathering up
the early worms the cultivator shovels turned up. Even then the
level rays of the sun burned in the damp air and by nine or ten it
roasted.</div>
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A scant hour out at
noon and we dragged up and down the corn rows until the boss
unhitched, usually about six thirty if he happened to be at the house
end of the field. This made about twenty miles a day or better,
driving the team, handling the cultivator shovels, two on each
handle. After that the horses and the stock were cared for and wood
cut and split against the next day and bed at eight o’clock. Bed
was usually in an upstairs room so hot you could fry eggs on the
floor anytime before midnight. That is what made the corn grow –
hot nights.</div>
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A typical menu for a
typical day on an Iowa tenant farm was pancakes, fried eggs and
coffee for breakfast. Sometimes it was baking powder biscuit and ham
for change; no butter or ham gravy on the biscuits. Dinner might be
greens with a ham bone, boiled potatoes, hot biscuit with sorghum
molasses, vegetables in season and coffee. Other days it might be
salt pork, milk gravy, potatoes, bread and sorghum. There was
usually a big pitcher of milk for all three meals. The pay was $20 a
month for an extra good man who did the chores on Sunday. The chores
usuallu left him with five or six hours on the Sabbath all to
himself.</div>
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If you can figure
out any time for recreation in corn plowing, go ahead. I never
could. We worked until it was “laid by” then quit, caught our
bronco out of the pasture, broke him all over again, hitched him to
our cowboy cart from Sears Roebuck – ten-seventy-five and the
freight – and didn’t stay there or anywhere else; we just went.</div>
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Sometimes it was a
camp meeting over at Holly Springs; often fishing cat-fish in the
Little Sioux or bull-head in the bayous. There was a bounty on
coyotes and we dug for them in the bluffs; not with much idea of
getting them but just for the hell of it and to be doing something.</div>
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We drove to one
dumpy little western town after another, walked aimlessly up and down
its broad sidewalks, meeting other farm yokels doing the same thing.
We strolled into the stuffy stores and looked at things we would like
to buy but did not.</div>
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Most of them had a
showcase full of ready made neckties. They were an assortment sold
by a Sioux City wholesaler, each lot just like the lot you saw in the
last store you were in.</div>
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Suits of clothes
hung behind a curtain to one side, very few priced over ten dollars.
When I was eighteen I got a prince albert suit at $15.00 and a broad
brimmed hat. A Windsor tie with polka dots set it off in great
shape. I was a sight for gods and men, cutting a swath six feet wide
and a foot deep. This prince albert coat was especially effective
when riding on a cowboy cart. There was no back to the seat and the
tails of the coat hung down behind, flowing out almost straight when
the bronc was just hitting the high places.</div>
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The doggy thing was
to perch your hat on the back of your head, pull on the lines,
celluloid cuffs clean below shirt sleeves, buttons rattling and let
the bronc sail through town as fast as he could. If it was dusty, so
much the better; more people would notice you. We tried our best to
make people think we were regular devils on wheels. The net result
was to use up considerable axle grease and no one remembered
afterward whether we had passed or not.</div>
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<i> - from an unpublished manuscript by Charles Hoyt</i></div>
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Comrade Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12575621500557736802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7969064192271571257.post-53196165114327627392012-07-14T21:41:00.000-04:002012-07-14T21:43:30.004-04:00Great-Grandpa on the Great Plains<i>This is a continuation of my Great-Grandfather's recollections of his early years out west. </i><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Mother,
my sister Alta, four years old, and I started. Uncle Whitney
borrowed a team and democrat wagon and drove us to Waterloo where we
took the train. It was freezing day in the latter part of November
1881. We left Auntie Whitney crying and wringing her hands, saying
we that we'd freeze to death, be murdered by the Indians, and a lot
more that the noise of the wagon drowned out.</span></div>
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road had become very muddy and froze. The deep ruts threw the wagon
around till we were seasick. It was so rough that a heavy trunk was
thrown repeatedly up on the edge of the eight inch wagon box.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">I
can remember the train as if it was only yesterday. The cars had no
vestibules, brakes were all twisted by hand. A cast-iron railroad
stove burning soft coal stood in each end of the cars. A can of
water fastened up neat by and a tin cup dangled from a chain. As
germs had not been invented, no trouble came from it. Sickness was
an act of providence, not an affair of test tubes, microbes or germs.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Seats
in the passenger cars were shiny oilcloth with a high bulge and so
hard that an adult scarcely dented them. Cast-iron arms were at each
end and the backs struck a grown person under the shoulder blades. </span>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Windows
were a single thickness of glass and every one of them stuck and
rattled at the same time. Oil lamps swung and swayed from the
ceiling, flared and smoked until by midnight the chimneys were so
smudgy one could not see the length of the car.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">We
started in the dark one night and as it was a passenger train it
roared along at twenty miles an hour. We dozed and nodded on those
terrible seats all night long. And all night long the brakemen ran
back and forth through the aisles, bawling the names of the stations
and twisting on the handbrakes on the platforms outside the cars.
Every time they passed a stove they yanked the door open and prodded
the smoky mess with a long iron. The smoke would billow out into the
car from the stove and every time the outside door opened the smoke
from the engine entered in a choking cloud.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">By
morning, when we wolfed cold lunch from a basket, our hands and faces
were dark brown. We kids made endless trips for water and washed a
circle around our mouths till we looked like end-men in a minstrel
show. My mother says the only way she could keep me in the car was
to take off my shoes.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The
conductors were changed every hundred miles and each time mother made
me crouch down and be as small as possible while she told the
conductor I was only five years old. I was big for my age and they
always looked at me with a vast suspicion but gave in and let me
travel free. The job of proving dirty work at the crossroads was
more than they wanted to tackle. If a mother didn't know how old her
child was, who did? They had to admit there was something to it.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">We
traveled two mortal nights and day going a distance modern trains
make in less than half the time. The day we were on the road we were
trundling across Minnesota, one little jerk-water town after another,
like a string of ten cent beads, all just alike. The stations were
all alike too. And the crowd of loafers who always congregated to
see the train come in were all the same clear across the state.
There was always a bus from the hotel, little steps at the back end
to climb in by, huge gilt letters on the side proclaiming the Parker
House - The Imperial Hotel - as loud and blatant a title as the hotel
keeper could conjure up. The bus was usually drawn by a sleepy team
of gray horses that never batted an eyelash when the engine came
screaming and hissing into the station.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Drummers
traveled by train, well dressed important looking men smoking cigars
and calling the bus drivers by their first names. There was also a
dray with a high seat in front almost over the horses. These were to
haul trunks. The station agents all appeared to be thin nervous men
with walrus mustaches, always in a hurry.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The
country between towns was flat and lifeless at that time of year.
Little patches of snow, little shack houses with stove pipes belching
soft coal smoke, sod barns, straw piles, occasional roads with frozen
ruts. Once in a while a chilly looking Norwegian driving a pair of
horses or mules was seen. All very monotonous and western.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The
second night we slept some because we couldn't help it. The road
being rough, the little cars pitched like a ship at sea. We kids
tried to sleep on the slippery oil cloth seats but were flung to the
floor so often that mother tied us to the arms and piled luggage in
front of us on the floor.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Early
in the morning we snorted to a stop at Redfield, then the end of the
steel on the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul railroad. A strange
bearded man stood on the platform wearing a buffalo coat because he
could not afford anything better. Twenty years later he sold it for
a hundred dollars.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Yes,
you have guessed right, it was dad. he had driven twenty eight miles
since eleven o'clock the night before and stood there waiting at six
thirty in the morning. We had a nice ride that lasted till early
afternoon, and stopped at several houses to warm up. One was a
dugout on the bank of the Jim River. All there was in sight as we
drove up was a mound of sod with a stove pipe sticking out. The door
was over the bank down near the water with a window on each side.
Tom Farmer and his wife burned willow brush and were enjoying life.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The
roof was willow poles with brush thrown on them and sod laid on the
brush. The sods were rounded up quite high in the center and Tom
hoped they would shed the spring rains but he didn't seem to worry
much about it. The floor was hard packed dirt, the furniture of
cunningly woven willow and packing boxes. It was nice and warm in
there and we hated to leave it and face the cold north0west wind
again. The wind always blows from the north-west there in the winter
and from the south-west in the summer.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">In
early afternoon we arrived at the Wallace Akers place. It took two
waters and three or four soaps to wash us. At that there were
circles of soot around our eyes where we puckered shut to keep out
the soap. The Akers lived a mile west of our claim and we stayed
there all night. Later in the day several others stopped and
inquired about chances to stay over night. The reply was always
hearty: sure they could stay, lots of room. There were so many at
supper that some of the men took a lantern and stayed out in the sod
barn while the women did the dishes. There simply was not enough
room to do up the work if they stayed in the house.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Seventeen
people slept there that night. The house was twelve by sixteen feet.
The roof came down to within a foot of the floor upstairs, which was
reached by a ladder in the corner. The men folk slept on the floor
up there and we kids and the women bunked anywhere we could
downstairs. </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">I
went to sleep lulled by the wind tearing at the eaves and singing on
the wires that held the stove pipe erect where it stuck through the
roof. The coyotes howled and yapped outside and a chorus of snores
sounded from upstairs. Outside, the last frontier was spread as flat
as a board for hundreds of miles, lashed by the wind, harried by snow
squalls, a savage wilderness. But we were not afraid. We did not
know as much as we did later.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i> - From an unpublished manuscript by Charles Hoyt</i></span></div>
</div>Comrade Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12575621500557736802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7969064192271571257.post-52299432497742978392012-06-26T21:30:00.000-04:002012-06-26T21:31:48.420-04:00Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">I
don't have any photos or paintings of my great grandfather but I do have
some excerpts from his memoirs, starting with this account of his
early childhood in Wisconsin. He married Carlyle Goodrich's daughter in 1902 and her reminiscences of life on the
Great Plains also survive, in addition to quite a few of her paintings,
including one of her father which hangs in my house.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<a name='more'></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Charles
Alva Hoyt (1874 – 1944)</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">"I
was six years old in 1880 and after school stopped in at the shop
ostensibly to be with dad but really to slip across to Hilgert's side
yard where from a perch on the fence I could look inside and see the
fights in the barroom. This fence was apparently built on purpose for
us small boys. It was a tight board affair six feet high. It ran
along the street and enclosed the side yard.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Jake
used the yard for drunks too far gone to walk. He threw them out a
side door to lie out in the weather and sleep off their drinks.
Well, as to the fence - - it was had a two by four running along just
far enough down so small boys could stand on it, hang on to the top
of the fence and see comfortably over it. To our right we could see
in the window of the barroom. Back of us were the fascinating drunks
snoring and wallowing in the dirt. Out in front was the street with
all the interesting things that happened. If it chanced to be a
fight with flying rocks we ducked down out of harm's way and watched
through the cracks with delighted cries. We could pop up after the
rocks stopped and see the gladiators led to the village pump, their
wounds and bruises soused with cold water. It was a most delightful
fence.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Sunday
the whole country-side came to church. Carts, buggies and wagons
poured in from every side. After church the women and children went
to a grove just outside town and prepared lunch while the men did
their week's trading. Stores ran wide open all day. The saloons
were wide open too and in the afternoon fights took place - -
Norwegians and Swedes against German and Irish, Germans against
Irish, and Irish against Irish.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">They
were not panty-waists, those hard two-fisted men of sixty years ago
in northern Wisconsin. They fought with their fists and feet -- they
fought with rocks - - with first one boot and then the other. They
fought with socks with a stone in the toe and in the end with their
teeth and claws. They fought until they were completely down and
out, their clothes almost torn off. They were then carried to the
pump and laid face up under the spout and deluged. Only then would
they admit they were licked. But look out for next Sunday.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">My
folks tried to hold me at home. Have you ever tried to hold an eel
even with both hands? It was just as easy to hold any boy in town
when the screaming and swearing started over in the street. Only by
tying us could it be done and they hardly cared to do that. My folks
looked around them and saw very clearly they had not gone far
enough."</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Mattie
Phebe Goodrich (</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">1873
- 1949)</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">"The
first summer [1882] we lived in a house with a Mrs. Dimick [in Dixon,
Illinois]. Our house hold goods didn't come till fall as papa had
made an <u>immense</u> big box, and put them all in. You can imagine
how the men enjoyed lifting it.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">In
the fall we moved to the house that belonged to another cousin, Ellen
Goodrich Smith. Mrs. Carpenter and her daughter Alice lived
upstairs. My father got a place to work, in a Mr. Judkins' gallery.
After a bit he sent for us. We went to visit Burt Colby on the way
[their cousin, who had inspired the move]. I was eight years old and
supposed to pay half fare. But it seemed to be they style to get a
young one through free, if possible. So my mother gave pap's cousin,
Walter Colby, most of her money, and when the conductor came around
she showed him her purse. Of course he felt sorry for the poor thing
and said all right. Walter Colby by the way, being a mere man,
couldn't stand it and went into the smoker till the play was over.
Mother Hoyt, when they went out, simply said her boy was a couple of
years younger than he was. Needless to say, Father Hoyt wasn't
along.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">My
father took up land in the spring of 1884, "Township 134, Range
75, So. E. quarter of section 22.” My mother and I staid down
there in the summers, and in Bismark in the winter. So I never went
to a district school. Papa put up a 10 x 12 shack and sodded it way
up to the roof. It had a door on the north and south sides and two
little windows.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The
storms were terrible: we could see the rain coming so heavy it looked
like a wall of white coming across the prairie. Mrs. Carpenter and
her daughter Alice took the claim next to us. A Fanny Crawford from
Dixon Illinois took a farm near. After one heavy storm, I went up on
the roof to see if I could see Fanny's shack. (I had steps cut in
the sod at one corner so I could get up and look off). It wasn't in
sight so I knew it had been blown down.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">So
we started over there. the women wore long dresses of course and the
"wild oats" collected around the bottom of their dresses
<u>solid</u> for two or three inches. "Wild oats" look
like tame oats, with a long tail on them. They dry by the last of
summer, and stick to whatever comes in contact with them. We found
Fanny's things strewn all over the prairie. She put them together
till she could get a roof fixed over them.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">We
had an old cat whom I named Topsy Tinkle. She would go back and
forth with us on the load spring in the fall. She usually had a
kitten in a box so she didn't have to be shut up. She got so she was
an expert at catching gophers. She would crouch way down beside the
hole and before the gopher put his head out, her paw darted out and
dragged him forth. The big gray ones were so large that she would
roll over on her back and have a regular fight before she had him
killed. She used to take her kittens and train them in the art.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">There
were no neighbors except a family by the name of Walker. She was the
postmistress. They were not very desirable folks.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">No
one knows how lonesome it is for a child. I welcomed even a tramp if
any came. We were 40 miles from Bismark -- took two days to go with
a load. I don't know what I did to amuse myself -- I had a flower
bed -- my dolls of course. But it taught me to rely on myself."</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">- excerpts from an unpublished manuscript by Charles Hoyt</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>Comrade Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12575621500557736802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7969064192271571257.post-14144476278121369592012-06-23T22:04:00.000-04:002012-06-23T22:12:58.724-04:00The Homeless-Industrial Complex, Part II<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWusVfI8ZLh-3oviQXiXUlFMTJRXrROcouI_VHnU7F23OQqypPvkrYjg3GRiV9IzQUEZMtb57plt2JgKO_hh8N6ossOgZYDdhBJWCMvHOfuGfl1WNtNWeuIz0FIVz3xOhKOJDIkSORkahD/s1600/jacket.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWusVfI8ZLh-3oviQXiXUlFMTJRXrROcouI_VHnU7F23OQqypPvkrYjg3GRiV9IzQUEZMtb57plt2JgKO_hh8N6ossOgZYDdhBJWCMvHOfuGfl1WNtNWeuIz0FIVz3xOhKOJDIkSORkahD/s320/jacket.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">This is one of my favorite jackets.
It's just a fleece, it crackles with static electricity when I take
it off, it's hard to keep clean and fluffy, and it says Parliament of
Canada / Parliament du Canada on it. I got it in 2001 when I was
working in homeless services. I also have a black winter jacket with
a broken zipper that says “DHS Night Patrol” in shiny black
letters across the back, but it isn't very useful because of the
broken zipper. I do get a lot of comment about the “DHS Night
Patrol” bit though – no one has ever heard of the Department of
Homeless Services so they always think it is from Homeland Security.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<a name='more'></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">I was hired by the City in April of
1999 and it was another 4 months before I could actually report. I
used to call my future boss's secretary almost every day asking "Can
I start yet?" When I became a manager I "hired" many
people this way, only to see them turn elsewhere after a couple
months of waiting.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">When I finally arrived at my new
workplace at 60 Hudson Street in the Western Union building (see
wikipedia for interesting facts about this building), I was
shoe-horned into a windowless room - a large, temporary cubicle with
composite walls that did not reach the ceiling. Two other people
worked with me, older women who had been with the city for a long
time. Our unit was relatively new so although they had to teach me a
lot, there were still some things they didn't know either. I had
been hired out of Columbia's School of International and Public
Affairs along with 5 or 6 others. I'm not sure if we were supposed
to be the vanguard of a new kind of Staff Analyst (our Civil Service
title) or we were just available during the very small window in
which our agency was allowed to hire. I don't suppose I'll ever
know, even though I ended up staying the longest out of my little
cohort.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Our floor was not necessarily pleasant.
It hadn't been renovated (or cleaned!) in a long time and was
grungy. Cockroaches skittered over the walls and luckily the smelly
bathrooms were another floor away. The staff acted like it felt
neglected as well. One day I walked into the bathroom and heard
snoring coming out of one of the stalls. Only half of the agency was
here - mostly the part that actually dealt with homeless people - the
other half was over near City Hall, which meant that messengers and
staff were constantly hurrying (or meandering) back and forth.
Eventually the whole lot of us was moved into new quarters on Beaver
Street, right near the Stock Exchange. The year before I resigned, I
had to go back to this building a lot to meet with folks from the
Dept. of Corrections. Looking back, this building bookended my
career and it seems right that I resigned then.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">One of my jobs with DHS was to help
prepare an annual conference for people doing street outreach in NYC.
We would bring in speakers from places where they were doing new or
interesting things, or trying different models, and have them discuss
their ideas. It was an enormous hassle to organize, especially when
everything had to go through the NYC bureaucracy - several years I
had to put large hotel bills on my credit card and hope to be
reimbursed in a timely fashion (I wasn't.) One time, though, I got
the city to pay for some Dutch folks to stay in the Chelsea Hotel and
that was worth it!</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Although it wasn't a lot of fun for me,
I always hoped it was interesting for everyone else. In theory, it
gave people a chance to see their work valued, and it made the people
doing the real work on the streets the most important people in the
agnecy, even if only for one day (it turned out that working with
actual homeless people was a good way to get marginalized within the
agency, but that's another story!)</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">In 2001 our Commissioner left. Most of
my colleagues loved him and there was apprehension about who the
replacement would be. The Interim Commissioner was not well-liked,
much-liked, or even liked, but he wanted to leave a mark so there
was a lot of pressure on us to have a properly impressive conference
that year and make him look good. Luckily we had reached out to some
Canadians in homeless services. At that time the Ministry of Labour
was in charge of homeless services and the Minister herself decided
to attend the conference and give an address.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">For once we did not have to worry about
accommodations as the Labour Ministry was obviously going to foot the
bill for whatever was necessary. That probably added a month to my
life!</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">It was a large group, and we enjoyed
taking them around the city. The Minister herself was a woman named
Bradshaw who looked like a jolly version of Madame DeFarge. I was,
as I was every year during the conference, a nervous wreck - worrying
about the itinerary, making sure all the programs they visited were
ready and presentable, setting up the hall and a homeless artists
exhibit, finding a caterer who employed formerly homeless people,
getting all the requisitions in and bills paid. I think they had a
good time - they said so anyway.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">One evening, the Interim Commissioner
decided that there should be a dinner at his favorite restaurant in
the Village. It was a very awkward affair, I don't think the
Canadians liked the guy either. For me, it was like being at the
court of a tyrant and I tried to stay unnoticed. I ate what my
betters ate and drank less than they drank.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Of course something else had happened
in 2001, in New York City, a month or so earlier, and after the
dinner the Minister expressed a desire to see the remains of the
towers. Since she was an important visitor it was quickly arranged.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">We had some city vans and drivers and a
police escort. It was raining and late at night by the time we got
there, and any residual effects from the wine at dinner quickly wore
off. We were driven around to the west side of the hole and escorted
onto the viewing platform that had been set up for families of the
people who died there.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The viewing platform was a crude wooden
affair, hastily assembled from unpainted and untreated lumber and, in
my memory, not big enough for more than 15 people. The families had
written and carved farewells into the wood and once we noticed those,
no one looked at the ruins anymore.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">It was very quiet driving back. It was
not until six months later that my own emotions finally overwhelmed
me, and that night I went home on the subway not much more thoughtful
than usual - mostly worried about office politics and my job.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">A week later my boss and I got a
package from Canada that contained two fleece jackets and a lovely
note from the Minister's Secretary thanking us for our hospitality.
The customs form declared the jackets had a value greater than what
was allowed, but for some reason it meant a lot to me that I keep
that jacket. So I told my boss that because the valuation was in
Canadian dollars it should be ok. Since I feel foolish flashing the
badge I used to carry, it is one of the few mementos of that time
that I see every day.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">And that is the story of my favorite
jacket.</span></div>Comrade Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12575621500557736802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7969064192271571257.post-47086930429806871752012-06-20T21:11:00.000-04:002012-06-23T21:26:36.511-04:00The Homeless-Industrial Complex, Part I<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVIzIljWCUA2v0MHLX44HnBt2uPuApTdZlXUwfsthYcjdRmvHLWWtWnCivK2Zn21iWjipRRNk_GiQ7dEdh3myXHSStQZ__1vospf9BwngYWsGN9KBPV-dREsb6tLua8LqojLQNw9IE4bC_/s1600/badge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVIzIljWCUA2v0MHLX44HnBt2uPuApTdZlXUwfsthYcjdRmvHLWWtWnCivK2Zn21iWjipRRNk_GiQ7dEdh3myXHSStQZ__1vospf9BwngYWsGN9KBPV-dREsb6tLua8LqojLQNw9IE4bC_/s320/badge.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Outreach</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">written
ca. 1999</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">edited 6/20/2012</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">I
wrote this in the winter of 1999, just after I had started working
for the city. It is an account of one of my first times going out
with an outreach team. Parts of it make me cringe a little and I can clearly tell in certain sentences that I am just repeating what someone has told me Still, it is an historical document of sorts. I have changed names where I think that is a good idea.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">I
get off work around five o'clock and leave our building on the west
side to walk over towards City Hall to catch the 6 uptown. I have no
idea what it would be like after dark to walk down the deserted
streets of the South Bronx, but my own neighborhood was similar and,
by now, felt very safe to me. I cross under the Bruckner Expressway,
foolishly looking the wrong way at one point, and came to the avenue I'm looking for. In any case, the streets are not deserted at all. A lot of
people live here.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"></span></div>
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">As
I walk down the avenue, on the right is an unending row of
steel-shuttered garages - some painted with national colors and some
covered with graffiti - and on the left are several streets that open
strange vistas as I pass. The first contains a surprising collection
of restored houses, bay-windowed and nearly identical, stretching out
to the east. The next doesn't seem so well-kept but also seems more
familiar or at least more normal. In the distance a McDonalds
beckons - an oasis of familiarity in a new landscape. After passing
several more dark cross streets I finally arrive at the parking lot
of the huge complex that contains the drop-in center. As I walk up the
stairs two figures call out "Carl?" It is Rob and Lana,
whom I had met before but who generously introduce themselves to me
for a second time. </span>
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">We
walk back to the drop-in to wait for Steve, their boss. There is
nothing like a drop-in center if you haven't seen one before. There
are upwards of fifty homeless folks sitting around, gazing into
space, chatting, reading, or just waiting (clearly) for something.
The smell, too, is very distinctive - sweat and something else,
probably cheap cleaning liquid. Steve comes in, apologizing for
being late. He had run to the McDonalds to get a Coke. He is about
my age and his voice is hoarse the way a quarterback's is. He is
very enthusiastic about outreach and I was warned to dress rough to
go out with him. Rob has a nice pair of pants on and is teased about
it. The team works from four to midnight, and since I won't be with
them the whole time, they want to give me an overview while still
reaching the people they want to see. They are one of the better
outreach groups and have prepared color maps showing the
concentration and types of homeless people in each community district
throughout the Bronx. It won't be too cold tonight so my presence
won't be disrupting routine too much. When it dips below 32 degrees,
the teams are able to call in Emergency Services to scoop up any
homeless people who seem at risk.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Our
first stop is a known hangout location, and when we get there a fire
is burning disconsolately in a can and a dog stirs lazily but
watchfully under a car. The block is dark and steel shutters grace
most of the doorways, yet Lana pulls up confidently, and
apparently randomly, in front of one of the doorways. Rob gets out
and knocks on a door "Hey Peanut, you in there? It's Rob,
homeless outreach." Someone stirs and soon Peanut emerges. He
is gaunt and his face is lined, but he seems to be wearing new
glasses. Rob and Lana start to banter with him - "You look
good! How have you been? You been working?" Steve doesn't
know the clients as well and he asks if Peanut has been to the drop-in, interrupting Rob's attempts to learn some more life history.
Steve has a very aggressive approach to outreach and sets quotas for
each worker. He will also talk to people long after the rest of us
are cold and back in the van.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Slowly,
as we talk to Peanut, other people emerge from the shadows, like
ghosts in a seldom-visited haunted house. Lana has food she has
made - a turkey stew - but she wants to save it for the frailer folks
she hopes we will see later. Still, she hands out bowls to everyone.
They all know Rob, but they all love Lana. Many, throughout the
night, will insist she be present before they accept services, but
she is tough and insists that they handle their situations
realistically. I often hear her say "You look awful, why don't
you come inside?"</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">One
of the things we ask everyone is Where are you staying? and How many
people are there? There is no hesitation, they are happy to tell us.
Most people don't mind Outreach until it gets too insistent. As we
are leaving, a prostitute, obviously high, stops the van and demands
condoms. The atmosphere, overall, is definitely collegial - even the
most recalcitrant or stoned are very polite. We warn them that the
police will be by later and offer a place to stay - many are grateful
for the interaction but decline the offer, often saying vaguely "Oh
on Tuesday I'll come by."</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Rob and Steve want to take me to the weirdest places, so we leave more
quickly than normally. On the way we see several more sex workers
and offer them condoms and sandwiches. The routine is very specific,
we can't engage them in a way that will draw the attention of the
police or disrupt business, yet many sex workers are homeless and the four or five I see are all stoned out of their minds. One
complains that the condoms the city gives the outreach team to
distribute taste awful. Rob laughs and says "Talk to the city,
he's sitting in the back!"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Steve is anxious to check out the new sites we have been tipped off to, so
we drive down boulevards of shuttered buildings to the end of the
line - to Conrail property (we're not really allowed on private
property) where Lana navigates the van over the tracks to a
collection of huge containers surrounded by trash. No one is there
but the tension is palpable. The scene is very much like the back of
a trailer park deep in the Catskills. We walk around piles of junk,
our flashlights illuminating only the smallest area, not knowing what
would show up next. We walk around the dumpsters, feeling like deer
hunters in a woods full of riflemen. The containers loom over us.
No one is around but Steve keeps walking deeper into the dark. I
retreat to the van.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">I
think one of the thrills about this work is the strange freedom it
brings - the freedom to walk into areas I normally wouldn't, couldn't
or shouldn't. Seeing the kinds of places normally only visible from
the window of a Metro North train is wonderfully satisfying, like
being allowed at last into a private garden.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The
next location is an empty field near the Bronx River. There is one
guy there, but he won't leave unless Lana goes with him. We walk
to the bridge and up to the huge hollow under the roadway - we can
see where the fence has been cut and the fires lit. Flashing our
lights under the bridge we can see an empty space - a bare dirt floor
with a large cement block in the center like an altar. We can see
the burn marks on the walls from many fires. Fire is a huge problem,
as in the Arctic. When people die in cold weather, it is often from
falling into their fires. Many of the fenced in yards seem to have
guard dogs patrolling - dogs are one of the biggest problems the
outreach teams face. There are also dirt paths down to the river (as
there are to any river) but this is for many a river without banks.
Only the people who live here in the field or under the bridge would
use them. For the rest of us the river is just a temporary dropping
out of the ground from beneath the expressway.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Next
we pull in behind a post office. Cars are parked helter skelter in a
dirt driveway that slopes down to a drainage ditch. A very fluffy
pussycat pokes around expectantly as Rob leads me through a small,
unusable lot to a collection of garbage that eventually becomes a
door. I can't help thinking of Mr. Badger's door in the Great
Wildwood. Rob knocks politely but no one is home. Eventually we
notice that the door is placed in such a way that no one could have
propped it so from the inside, and we move on. The cat trots around
and beside us affectionately. Steve and Lana have found a
gentleman encamped on the cement porch of a building and while he is
telling them his story we walk over to his stuff. It is very neat -
a bed with many blankets, a collection of useless but tidy junk, and
rows of cans and bottles all arranged for recycling. One of the
blankets stirs and Rob calls a name but a dog's nose pokes out
instead. Knowing that that the dogs are often very territorial Rob backs away quietly, but the dog seems friendly so I talk to it as Rob leads me back to the van. The gentleman's story is far from over but
he is clearly not going anywhere, so we walk over to a nearly hidden
shanty which is barricaded behind a chain link fence. Rob knocks and
eventually rouses someone - a male voice politely declines the offer.
Rob says many people will come in only if they must. We pile back in
the van a drive away.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The
next spot is the wildest. We stop the van right in the middle of an
expressway off-ramp and Rob leads us out over the concrete barrier
and under the road, all the while cars are screaming by the van. We
creep over the barrier and under the ramp and Rob calls out his
greeting. A very small man answers. He has an immaculate space under
the ramp, a couple of boards and mattresses propped up into a shack.
He declines assistance. Most of these people have a regularly
ordered existence, perhaps more ordered than my own, which allows
them to avoid the police and remain fairly independent. As we are
speaking his neighbor arrives. Rob leads me over more barriers and
suddenly we're in another world. The train tracks and the seemingly
abandoned buildings form a backdrop for this life which is invisible
from the expressway. Rob bangs his head crawling over the cement
supports. I feel like I am seeing the backside of an enormous stage
set. The cramped scenery of the roads gives way to a vista of
tracks, fences and grubby buildings that stretches out surprisingly
far. Beyond that, what looks like fields, and beyond them the
skyscrapers of New York City. I wonder how much of this empty space
is hidden around the city. The people who see it are probably
working or surviving - for them, I imagine, it holds none of the
majesty I see: the faded glory of a shabby Samarkand, with the
turrets of Manhattan glinting in the sun, as far removed in time as
they are in space.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The
next stop is another underpass. A place designed to allow people to
cross the Bruckner safely on foot, only the walkway is littered with
at least a ton of garbage. Again we stop in the middle of the road,
and as we do we can see someone lighting up a crack pipe. The stench
of the garbage is nearly drowned out by the smell of piss and the
whizzing of the passing cars doesn't cover the sound of rats rustling
in the mess. Steve is fascinated by the rats and points them out and,
I think, imagines them everywhere. They are not even particularly
big when we do see them. A tall guy steps out from the little nest
and chats tiredly with Rob and Lana. I guess that he is not
pleased to be wasting his high on a bunch of social workers, but he
remains cordial. There are two women with him, one is quite high and
comes wandering over to us. The other is only twenty and since the
general feeling is that catching the street homeless young is the
only way to really help them, the team tries to coax her back to the drop-in. She is technically too young ("The teenage vibes
disturb the atmosphere" is how they put it), but since Steve is
the boss he can bend the rules for one night. It doesn't work in any
case. More importantly, the walkway has become a sore point in the
community and the team warns them that since a Community Board
meeting has been scheduled on the issue they had better move. It
seems strange that the place was allowed to become such a mess, since
the police and sanitation workers have recently cleaned up a
neighboring underpass. Even though the homeless problem is now the
concern of the police, I don't think they enjoy having to deal with
it. Homeless people are rarely around when everyone else is so
they're hard to police. The cannier ones make their homes far from
the prying eyes of the general public.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Finally,
an empty lot. I've lost all sense of where we are except that we're
still in the South Bronx. The lot really does seem empty and our
flashlights only pick up the remnants of a well-scavenged yard. We
can tell, I am told, that the lot has just recently been bulldozed
because there is very little vegetation growing on the dirt. At the
back is another of the surprisingly well-hidden shanties. At our
greeting a small, lively Hispanic man emerges. He seems quite young
and coherent. A good number of people work but have no place to
stay. He is one. Rob asks about the owner of a nearby shanty that I
can just barely make out in the darkness, and he leads us volubly
over to it. It's not the Hector Rob was looking for but another one
- our friend mentions that Hector has just gotten out of jail and
then shuts up quickly and motions us not to mention that. Hector 2
says he is just staying with Hector 1 for the night before he moves
on, and whether this is true or not, he doesn't want any help.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">We
go back to the drop-in so Steve can drive me home, but things get
complicated: someone has put his fist through the wall of the smoking
room, and no one is talking. Anger tends to erupt like this in these
environments. In addition the showers, which have just been fixed,
are a mess. Apparently it was a shoddy piece of work and they are no
better for it. Eventually it is decided that people can still smoke
in the room, and Steve has discovered that one of the clients knows
all there is to know about building showers, so he says the guy can
work on them. The policy is not to have clients working on things
but the guy is so knowledgeable and the showers are such a mess that
it just fits.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">It
turns out my apartment is only ten minutes away.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>Comrade Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12575621500557736802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7969064192271571257.post-1942210130785353112012-01-16T20:32:00.000-05:002012-06-26T21:32:36.158-04:00Great-Great-Grandpa<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPdLa1HYNnNi2BKEE0y5QupsH6dspZosZ42n8QVuXHzP3lpyWCXHUqE6gdHqorbELWs28I_8vpbumvcXtEplpUeZcfJ7NPfvdAhib_pFQmo3zRm35Q0yvyiP3Ir61r2rS-DeLwq8wzVLMO/s1600/cg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPdLa1HYNnNi2BKEE0y5QupsH6dspZosZ42n8QVuXHzP3lpyWCXHUqE6gdHqorbELWs28I_8vpbumvcXtEplpUeZcfJ7NPfvdAhib_pFQmo3zRm35Q0yvyiP3Ir61r2rS-DeLwq8wzVLMO/s320/cg.jpg" width="261" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Carlyle Goodrich 1847 - 1910<br />
painted by his daughter Mattie</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
As to Carlyle Goodrich, he achieved his ambition of moving back to a Vermont farm. His farm diaries begin again, chronicling the old daily round, but now my father begins to appear in them, known at first as "the baby", and soon thereafter, as he reached the important age of four, as "Carlyle".</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
"Tell Carlyle when he comes up to Vermont, or Barre, grandpa will harness up old Kitt and we will drive to Aunt Sarah and Cousin Ella and Blanche and Carlyle may drive old Kitt and won't the wheels go round and won't the dirt fly."</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
- from an unpublished manuscript by Charles Hoyt</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>Comrade Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12575621500557736802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7969064192271571257.post-41127776754375238192011-12-31T14:21:00.002-05:002012-06-26T20:11:34.555-04:00Notes from a World Music Catalog, part 4<div style="font: 14.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">An occasional series about the heyday of World Music, analog recordings, John Storm Roberts and Original Music.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Part Four, Buying the LPs, continued.</span></div>
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Well! It has been some time since I last posted anything. The lassitude accompanying the end of the year has taken its toll on the blogging center of my little brain. So even though I have been revising this particular post over and over in my head for months, I am going to put it up now to get the ball rolling again. The photos are not particularly good (and even really good photos could not possibly convey how beautiful the LPs actually are), but they will have to do or I will never get on to the next project, which is highlighting some of John's formative influences through his catalog entries. So, Happy New Year! Go sit down somewhere quiet and really listen to some lovely music.</div>
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We also ordered LPs from Barenreiter-Musicaphon, an outfit in Kassel, Germany that published absurdly slick and detailed ethnographic recordings. Along with the very orderly collections of tribal music, they also published amazing LPs of railway station and hotel bands from Mali. The very famous Rail Band featuring Salif Keita is not even the most gorgeously packaged or musically transcendent of the lot!</div>
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One summer, we ordered so many of their soon-to-be-discontinued LPs that they were sent in a container and it would cost extra to get them shipped to Tivoli. We decided that Raissa would drive her Isuzu Trooper to Elizabeth, NJ and I would help her load the LPs and bring them back.</div>
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Driving there took us on an elevated highway over the Meadowlands swamp. A tangle of road over an even more endless tangle of reeds and grasses. That familiar feeling of being absolutely nowhere that you get on some highways that travel through uninhabited territory, compounded by being hemmed in by other cars and trucks all racing headlong at something you can't quite see, with the exits jumping out at us unexpectedly like the downbeats on a Serbian polka. </div>
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Well, it's my memory and my blog so you can go look it up on Wikipedia and skip over the poetry if it's all that awful!</div>
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Anyway, Elizabeth Port is apparently the principal container ship facility for goods entering and leaving the New York Metropolitan area (see, Wikipedia!) That was more than apparent when we got there. The loading dock (just one of the many loading docks) towered over the Isuzu. Also dwarfing the Isuzu were the big wooden boxes our LPs were trapped in. The guys at the dock did not have much of a sense of humor about it. </div>
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I remember four or five forklifts whizzing around like worker bees - when they took a break, they would all wheel round at once and whiz off to the little office tucked in the corner of the giant warehouse. After giving us a right scolding they agreed to unbox the LPs and help get them on to the Isuzu if we promised to never, ever show up there again.</div>
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Then back out over the swamp, a bit of an adrenaline rush and, for some reason I remember quite clearly, a cassette of vodoun drumming in the stereo.</div>
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Barenrieter-Musicaphon never managed to make the move to CD while I was still active, though I remember a glorious one from Calabria - I did a quick search for them and found reference mostly to the LPs we sold. You have to admit they are beautiful - there would be no way to give a CD, no matter how beautiful the music, the same kind of luscious treatment. I have the Tibetan series as well and John gave Raissa the Indian one as a present one year. They are some of the few recordings I have that really stray into the collector side of things. I don't listen to them all that much (except for the Malian ones) and am prone to taking them out to show to people. Ah well, I suppose I should allow myself to enjoy them in whatever way I am able.</div>
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<br /></div>Comrade Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12575621500557736802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7969064192271571257.post-65342619317449205002011-10-09T21:55:00.000-04:002011-10-09T21:55:37.322-04:00Euskaltel Euskadi<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUp2ma9NWkgA756cvKvphcLWNKtWXEvF0_mRZUXFSCAMvVMDYCCZmjCN-HhcLZxITiwaOYE0cZfy0EYkKljPoIfVrwwfodMAW_fBsAiycwB5ODOuJcSkpdIrAhCgG1NJl99cKb24JSnjwO/s1600/walkies.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUp2ma9NWkgA756cvKvphcLWNKtWXEvF0_mRZUXFSCAMvVMDYCCZmjCN-HhcLZxITiwaOYE0cZfy0EYkKljPoIfVrwwfodMAW_fBsAiycwB5ODOuJcSkpdIrAhCgG1NJl99cKb24JSnjwO/s400/walkies.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
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</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I don't remember what year it was (I'm not very good at remembering things like that), but I was living in Washington Heights when I was persuaded to adopt a soon-to-be-homeless cat. He came with a soft black carrier with a pink bow tied onto it and a name that was completely unsuitable. Luckily I no longer remember the name either.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></div><a name='more'></a><br />
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">It's an interesting question, what to name your pets. I almost started this post by talking about when he came to live with me, rather than when I adopted him, so you can imagine that the problem of naming an animal occupied a rather large portion of my time. Well, yes it's also true I didn't have anything else to occupy my time!</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So, I had this cat with an unsuitable name. Most of the names I thought of were clever in a trying-slightly-too-hard kind of way. That happens with me (see the previous post.) After a while I realized that I was mostly calling him Kitty anyway, so I gave up on the naming process with some relief.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">However, when I first had to take Kitty to the vet, I was a little embarrassed that I had been unable to be more creative or loving about a name. It was in mid July, and I was obsessively watching the Tour de France – partly because it was on the tv when I got home from work and partly because it is kind of fascinating. It turns out that there is a Basque cycling team called Euskaltel Euskadi, and in a flash (or perhaps a dull thud) of inspiration, I imagined that Euskadi would be pronounced Who's Kitty? It might be the kind of thing that one would say to a cat – baby talk for those moments when no one else is around. Oos kitty is oo? kind of thing. You get the idea.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So I told the vet that his name was Euskaltel Euskadi, and now I'm stuck with trying to explain that every time I make an appointment. But that's not what I wanted to write about today. We live near the top of a hill and when the weather is nice we like to stroll of an evening down to the bottom of the hill and back up again. It's almost like a ritual. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">It turns out that Kitty very much likes to accompany us on these walks. Our neighbours think it is hilarious (alright, mildly amusing) and have become accustomed to seeing the four of us making our way slowly down the hill and then even more slowly back up. Kitty finds the downhill portion easy going, but once we turn around he starts to flag a bit and if we get too far ahead of him he starts to complain - a little defensively I think. Sometimes he gets tired and just plops himself down in the middle of the road until one of us comes to pick him up. So there we are, walking slowly back up the hill gossiping, counting deer and woodpeckers, and arguing pointlessly about what kind of bird we just saw, one of us carrying the baby and the other carrying the cat.</div>Comrade Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12575621500557736802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7969064192271571257.post-30425372383351227902011-10-08T21:32:00.000-04:002011-10-08T21:32:12.923-04:00Alain Robbe-Grillet reads Richard Scarry to his child bride.<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Of the town, it is possible to see five buildings. Although some of them are attached directly to each other, they have the appearance of separate structures. Dominating the view is a building labeled Town Hall. It is the highest structure, although there is a smaller building that appears to be nearly as high but just because it is situated further up a small hill. A trick of perspective.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The Town Hall is a red-ish color that may be the result of paint, though it will seem later that it is probably some sort of stucco. On the left side it is seen to be a clock tower. Entrance to the tower is through a blue door recessed into the building at the top of four steps. Surrounding the doorway is a white border with a decorative lintel at the top. This border continues along the base of the clock tower but is absent from the rest of the building. To the right of the door is a small, narrow window with an arched top that is divided into six panes vertically and two horizontally. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></div><a name='more'></a><br />
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Up the right side of the tower run 33 white stones, arranged so that they form a pattern. There are no doubt the same number on the left side but at the base it is obscured by a tree. On the right, starting from the bottom, there is first one stone that extends some distance into the red paint or stucco-like material, then one that extends half as much as the one below it, then another that mimics the first and so on. Probably the stones that extend less far onto the face of the tower that is visible extend further onto the side of the tower that is not visible, and the stones that extend more on the face extend less on the side, thus forming an alternating pattern that runs down the corners of the tower and unites its sides. Of the 33 white stones, 17 (starting at the bottom) extend more leftwards onto the face of the tower and 16 apparently extend more onto the invisible right side of the tower. Because these stones seem to be set in a pattern similar to what might be seen in brickwork, it is provisionally assumed that the clock tower is, in fact, made of stone. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">One third of the way up the tower is a large single paned window that reveals what is presumably the mayor's office. Certainly the formal hat on the hat rack, visible behind the desk that dominates the interior as seen from this angle, is suggestive of some ceremonial function. The hat is emblazoned with an image of a sun. There are only a few papers on the desk and no chair is visible. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Further up the tower is a large sign that says Town Hall and above that a half timbered cupola. The front of the cupola is divided into three sections by a clock that sits at the center, jutting out slightly from the body of the tower and from the cupola. On the left and on the right of the clock, the cupola has two horizontal wooden bands and three vertical ones. The vertical ones form what looks like a V with a line down its center, or possibly an M if one was to include the corners of the cupola. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The clock's face and its surround are green. It has an inner and outer ring within which the numerals sit, and on both sides its hands extend an almost equal distance from the center. In fact, they appear to form an x, an effect which is only somewhat marred by the arrows which are used to indicate the precise position of the hands. The hour hand has a large arrow that is between the numeral 7 and the numeral 8 on the clock's face. It appears that this arrow would only sightly extend over the numerals themselves when it has moved on another twenty minutes or so, but it might be enough to obscure the very top of the six or the seven. It is unlikely that it would make any of the numerals unreadable, and even if it did slightly obscure the six or the seven, it would be clear from the position of the arrow itself what time was meant to be indicated. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The minute hand by contrast extends well into the ring of numerals and its tip, which could be a smaller arrow but could also be some other shape (it is not easy to tell), will clearly obscure any of the numerals it indicates. At the moment it is between the four and the five – slightly closer to the four, but not by very much. When it reaches the five, it will not be possible to read which number it is indicating, but the fact that it is obscuring the numeral between four and six is no doubt considered to be sufficient to suggest that it is pointing to the five. Likewise, it is possible to imagine that recently, when it was pointing directly at the four and thus making it unrecognizable as a numeral, an observer would automatically correct for this by noting the numeral three above it and the numeral five below. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Below the clock is a decorative, triangular structure that may be made of wood or stone – it is difficult to tell. Above, the clock is topped by its own wooden triangular roof that extends from the front of the cupola, the interior of which is colored the same red as the body of the tower. Here, however, rather than the suspicion of a stucco-like material, a wooden construction is suggested by the adjacent cupola roof and the half timbered construction of the cupola itself.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The cupola is toppled by a peaked wooden roof from which is flying a small red flag decorated with an image of the sun. Interestingly, visible just to the right of this tower, though behind it on a side street, is a building with a sign saying Hotel Sun. It has an ornate metal sign jutting out over the street that contains a sign very similar to the one on the flag flown above the clock tower. TShis hotel also flies a flag, but it is blue and contains only an image of an acorn.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The clock tower sits at an intersection between a main artery and a small, one way street. It appears to be one way because the small car sitting at the intersection fills the entire roadway, and because there is a sign that is a red circle with a horizontal white bar in it facing out on to the main road. The car that is waiting at the intersection is actually sitting under a small archway that allows the smaller street to pass through part of the Town Hall.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">This small narrow building connects two towers – the clock tower and a smaller one to its right. The archway through it is not situated at its center but at its extreme left, hard up against the walls of the clock tower. To the right of the archway is room for a small news stand whose canopy juts out from the building and provides some small bit of cover from the rain for the vendor but not, to judge from appearances, for any customers who might stop at it on their way from one tower to the other. Above the news stand, again not centered but slightly to the left of center, is a small circular window divided into four wedge shaped panes of glass. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Since the archway in this small building (the one through which a car is at this moment driving) extends nearly to its roof, it is hard to imagine that there is a passageway that runs through it and connects the two towers so that one could move between them without the need for exiting onto the street and passing by the news stand. From all indications, this small structure, that looks more like a covered bridge than anything else, is also too narrow to contain much in the way of usable space. Perhaps this is why the news stand canopy juts out into the street as it does.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">While the clock tower has vertical sides, the other tower it is connected to has sides that are wider at the base and narrower at the top, culminating in a circular room topped by a cone shaped wooden cupola. Though smaller than the clock tower, this one contains two large windows – a square one in the tower itself and a rectangular one in the circular room at its top. The square window is symmetrically placed directly over the doorway at the tower's base, but the rectangular one is offset slightly to the left, giving any occupants of the room a better view of the small street that runs through the connecting building and also of the news stand. The door at the base of this tower is not inset as is the one in the clock tower but it does have the same decorative lintel. The sides of the tower are not decorated in any way and the entire structure is the same brick-red stucco color of the town hall.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">There is a small blue globe mounted over the door in this second tower with the word police clearly visible in black letters. Oddly, the lettering faces out directly into the street where it might be expected that fewer people would be able to see it, rather than facing on to the sidewalk as an aid to pedestrians. In any case, the size of the lettering makes it clear that the word police can only occur once on the globe. This globe is suspended from a curved metal bracket that extends out from the wall of the building directly over the doorway's decorative lintel.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Directly above this globe, and as high above the bracket as the bracket is above the lintel, is a rectangular sign that says Detective Agency. This sign sits just below the large window, through which one can glimpse a table on which sits a microscope and what appears to be the imprint of a shoe on a piece of paper. To the right of the window, exactly half way up it is a sign in the form of a large magnifying glass with an eye in the center of the lens. This eye gives the impression of looking up the street past the news stand, the small side street, and the clock tower.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Above this sign is another, not directly above but slightly to the left – a large pocket watch suspended from a hook jutting out from the circular room at the top of the tower. Both this watch and the magnifying glass are of a yellow color that suggests a metallic composition, but it is equally probable, or in fact more likely, that they are made of wood painted to look like metal. At the level of this large, possibly wooden watch, the words Watch Repairs are painted directly on to the circular room at the top of the tower.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Through the window at the top of this smaller tower it is possible to see part of a table on which are scattered what must be, under the circumstances, watch parts. Certainly there are two watches hanging on the wall behind the table. These two watches appear to have no faces, but it is not possible to tell if that is because they are being fixed or merely because the distance from which the watches are seen is too great to distinguish any markings that would indicate a watch face or hands.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Atop this smaller tower is a pennant, blue, with a crescent moon in yellow. At the base of the tower, on the sidewalk, is a motorcycle which is probably connected with the police station – it has two shoes hanging from the radio aerial at its back.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Written directly on the page, clearly not intended to be mistaken for a sign on any of the buildings visible on the page, just below the level of the clock tower's flag, are the words </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">This is Busytown.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">My, what a nice town!</div>Comrade Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12575621500557736802noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7969064192271571257.post-34120678467554897532011-09-27T19:24:00.003-04:002012-06-26T20:11:00.307-04:00Notes from a World Music Catalog, part 3<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John Storm Roberts with Betty the bookkeeper and Penelope the duck in front of my 1969 Beetle</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">An occasional series about the heyday of World Music, analog recordings, John Storm Roberts and Original Music.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Part Three, Buying the LPS.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In the 80's, JSR and I used to go down to Manhattan every couple of months to pick up Latin and Haitian music and eat at a Peruvian restaurant in the 40's, near Kubaney Records before they expanded and moved downtown to a bigger, flashier place. I always had corvina encebollado and a wedge of curried tuna fish pie with a chilled mashed potato crust , and a lovely corn soft drink. John usually tried something different each time. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">At that time, there were many different Latin music distributors over on 10th Avenue, and though we would drive to Brooklyn to pick up the latest Haitian albums, one of the Latin guys, GB Records, had a special pipeline to CDs of Tabou Combo that we could get nowhere else. He also sold all the Fania recordings - Celia Cruz, Willie Colon, Ray Barretto, Johnny Pacheco et al., latin jazz, and Cuban stuff. It was a small place - narrow with racks of LPs stretching up to the ceiling. I would go into a trance staring at all the album covers and lose track of any conversation, and John would joke with the guy that I was a "poet".</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The Fania musicians must have come in there often because even though we went infrequently, I can remember seeing some of them. I once recognized Pete "El Conde" Rodriguez chatting away at the front counter, and another time, after I had heard someone yell "Johnstormroberts!!" John called me over to meet Yomo Toro. I was right in the middle of my Asalto Navideno obsession, so this was possibly the most star struck I have ever been! John had known Yomo for ages and gotten some good gigs for him. He signed Asalto Navideno for me and he and John teased each other about getting old - he would point to old LPs on the wall and say "look how skinny I was!" - which was kind of funny since he was just about as wide as he was tall. He introduced his band and said he was bringing them in to hear "some old stuff", to educate them; turned to them and said they should pay attention to him and John and listen to the old guys play. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A fabulous cover for a fabulous record</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"To Carl from your friend Yomo - Good Luck!"</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">At one point we found a place in the 70's, near Broadway. I think it was near one of the network buildings but I'm not sure. Big as a supermarket. They had all the latest CDs (and still a lot of LPs) on the ground floor, racks of cassettes of cumbia compilations and Mexican brass bands, and gleaming posters of tousled pop stars. Absolute heaven. At the far side of the room were the cassettes I was interested in - the beginnings of Carl's Cassette Corner were no doubt stirring in this place! We would buy one copy each of everything unless we were sure about it or it seemed like a vanishing item, and spend a glorious ride back contemplating the things we were going to hear.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">John discovered a basement, large and neatly stuffed. There was rack upon rack of old LPs, each in enough quantity to collect and sell. I don't know where they got them all from. Some were clearly relics of bygone pop times, trends that had faded before they could move all the records, but others were from obscure African artists on labels even I had never heard of.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Classic!</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Possibly one of the best ever! It is not possible to say enough about Lisandro Meza.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Venezuelan covers of classic rock hits - see if you can spot them all!</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I don't know who Tohon Stanislas is, where he comes from, or what a "New Style Tchink System" might be, but this is glorious.</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">We never did sell all that many of the LPs we found there. The market for LPs was dwindling and even our customers were moving to CD, except for collectors and these were not collectibles. Customers can be funny. Very few of them ever really appreciated the crazy things we would find. John was more successful as he knew more, and he wrote better catalog descriptions than I did, but most of our obscure pop discoveries were best appreciated in OMHQ. Sometimes we would each play our latest finds loudly in our offices so that the two records collided in the large drive bay in the center of the barn.</span></div>
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</span></div>Comrade Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12575621500557736802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7969064192271571257.post-58334259074126405432011-09-26T20:05:00.002-04:002011-09-27T09:06:54.667-04:00Extraordinary Claim & Extraordinary Evidence<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXmNrdILx11EAAn7x5I2V_MCxrN3qglEqVfQzaKypA7EjGjtZn2nE8NMRLIssG8ewMWx7HEyJMSM8HtC9ZUzBFF6gSriTTSWSig4IvaX13cI7pivGfdjWCjmNakPTO0ffpMZ9MffqZP9Kg/s1600/pig.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXmNrdILx11EAAn7x5I2V_MCxrN3qglEqVfQzaKypA7EjGjtZn2nE8NMRLIssG8ewMWx7HEyJMSM8HtC9ZUzBFF6gSriTTSWSig4IvaX13cI7pivGfdjWCjmNakPTO0ffpMZ9MffqZP9Kg/s640/pig.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
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There is a Rescue Pig in a fire truck playing the trombone with a colander on his head in What Do People Do All Day?*.<br />
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That is all.<br />
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*I like to think the emphasis is on the second "Do", because "playing the trombone with a colander on my head while racing to a fire" is a great answer to that question.Comrade Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12575621500557736802noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7969064192271571257.post-43620696143807352782011-09-22T21:11:00.000-04:002011-09-22T21:11:03.705-04:00The Bomb Shelter<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Our house was built in 1888, as were the two houses that flank it. Ours is basically a large square with a mansard roof and some other fancies of the age that we can only guess at under the vinyl siding. In 1950 a garage was added to one side, and a mother-in-law apartment on the other side at the back. In the basement of this apartment was a bomb shelter.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></div><a name='more'></a><br />
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">We knew it was there when we bought the house. It was part of the tour when we first looked at the place. The basement at first seemed to be a very small space made of cinder block, just enough room for a 250 gallon oil tank and furnace. In the back wall was a metal door. If you opened the door, a narrow corridor led straight back about six feet and then turned sharply to the right. It continued across the width of the basement and then made another sharp turn to the left before entering a dingy little room, long since emptied of most of what we imagined one would want in a bomb shelter.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The outer doorway (door removed)</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looking in through the outer doorway.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looking down the corridor to the inner doorway.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">At first, we thought nothing of it – there was plenty to occupy us in the rest of the house – and it was kind of fun to show our friends or to use it as a conversation starter when we met new people, but gradually we realized that there were other things we could do with the space and so we decided to take it out.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">When I was a kid I remember having at least one air raid drill at school. We had moved past the “duck and cover” stuff that seems so amazing in hindsight, but the school still had signs indicating that there was a fallout shelter in the basement. The fear, as they say, seemed to be the biggest problem. I think they mean it as a joke, but the most common reaction to our decision was “Better not – you might need it!” There are still people who tell me they are sad that we took it out, but I think it's different when it is your own basement. I don't know much about nor much believe in feng shui, but I can assure you that it is very bad feng shui to have a bomb shelter in your basement!</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">One completely unanticipated result of the removal was that we were able to see how poorly constructed and maintained the the addition was. The foundation walls were cracked, the support beam was being eaten away and the plumbing and electric were lucky to be functioning at all. We discovered that the heating ducts were not directly connected to the registers in the apartment above, but hung in space several inches away, as if it would be unsporting to too easily deliver warm air directly into the room. I had also never thought about the design of a bomb shelter. It was pretty intense. The outer walls were cinder block with rebar and concrete in them. Then there was a yard of earth, then another course of cinder block. The floor is a concrete slab and there was another slab for a ceiling, topped by another yard of earth. The more we saw how much like a bunker it was, the more I wanted it out.</span></div><br />
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</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">I felt that all the anxiety and anger that had been in the air when the bomb shelter was constructed was let loose when we opened it up, and I was told I was being fanciful. But it is true that we argued more that winter, maybe because we had to make so many decisions - I won't insist.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div>Comrade Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12575621500557736802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7969064192271571257.post-72639380001694695232011-09-20T19:28:00.003-04:002011-09-21T08:21:41.520-04:00The Woods<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times-Roman,serif; font-size: large;">A New Post, in which I introduce a Guest Writer.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman,serif; font-size: large;">"We’re living exactly on the borderline between the natural world from which we are being driven out, or we’re driving ourselves out of it, and that other world which is generated by our brain cells…. "</span></span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman,serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman,serif; font-size: large;">W.G. Sebald, <i>After Nature</i></span></span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman,serif;">For more than a decade now my brother Jim and I have been hiking the section of the Appalachian Trail that straddles the shared borders of New York and Connecticut known as the Taconics. This winter it was hard to get out what with the snow and rain. And now it’s Spring and it’s still hard. We aimed for early March, then for the 23rd, our dad’s birthday; we would have made a toast to him out there in the wilderness he so loved. Now it’s April and we are at last getting out. It’s a perfect day; the sun is bright, clouds billowy and it’s mild. Because of all the rain it makes sense to stay high, so we agree to start from the Lion’s Head trailhead just North of Salisbury, which meets up with the Appalachian Trail, and to go as far as the Undermountain feeder trail which will take us back out to the road where we’ll park a second car. This will include a piece of the Appalachian Trail we haven’t hiked, and at about five or six miles seems just right for our first time out. </span></span> </span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
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</span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman,serif;">We meet at the Undermountain parking area, where Jim leaves his car and piles himself, his boots, his backpack and his scottie into the front seat of my car and we head back to the trailhead. The trail is steeper than we’d remembered and catches us out of shape from the long winter, huffing and puffing until the trail levels off some and we find our stride. Soon we come upon three elderly women headed back down with their four dogs. Seeing our own unleashed Allie they tell us of the hiker at the top of the mountain who scolded them for not leashing their dogs and would surely scold us – ‘she’ll tell you it’s risky’, one of them said. Not about to be drawn into an argument that leads to our leashing Allie who knows these hills as well as we do, Jim affirmed, “it is risky; it’s always risky in the woods” More pleasantries, and we move on. Then a young guy in shirtsleeves comes bounding down the path. “How far have you come?”, we ask. Hardly slowing his pace he tells us he’s come from the Bear Mountain Trail, and asks the same of us. These questions serve both as a greeting, one hiker to another, and as a request for pertinent information about what lies ahead. </span></span> </span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman,serif;">We are surrounded by deep woodland crisscrossed with old stonewalls suggesting that even this mountainside was once farmed. The trail follows the ridge along the eastern slope of the mountain. Further up it joins with the Appalacaian Trail on the way up to Lion’s Head and will take us the several miles further before we head out. We’re moving at a good pace now, single file, deep in our thoughts - revealed as we walk by an occasional observation or comment; how the trail wintered, or about the history of this area we have come to know well; fanciful stories of the lawless that hid out in this once no-man’s-land, so wild that neither New York nor Connecticut had surveyed or laid claim to this land until deep into the last century. And sometimes about our great grandparents who made an uneasy journey from their tiny island in the Hebrides to settle in the wilderness of Ontario, wondering how they accomplished such an enormous and risky undertaking as we repeat in some minuscule way the difficulties of the unknown. </span></span> </span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman,serif;">When we reach the top of Mt Riga we pause to have some water and survey our surroundings. We can continue straight or scale the forty-foot Lion’s Head pinnacle left by the receding glaciers hundreds of millions of years ago. It’s an easy choice - we’re going up. We make our way up along the sides of the ledge where there is some turf and an occasional small bush to grab onto. Allie finds her own way. And now on top we can see the valley spread out for miles; to the South we see what we think is Lake Riga and beyond Lake Riga soft old peaks that go on to vanishing, and to the North the twin lakes, Washinee and Washining, the names a reminder that all of this – as far as we can see - belonged to the Indians. This whole slice of Connecticut; Indians, then pioneers, then Revolutionaries and the charcoal makers and iron smelters that supported them, and now gentlemen farmers evidenced by the stone walls and the squares and rectangles of green field and pasture below us - a history of violent eruptions erased by the powerful regenerative forces of Nature. </span></span> </span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman,serif;">It’s windy up here in the open, and chill in spite of the sun. I pull my jacket hood over my cap. Jim takes this moment of quiet between us to tell me he’s noticed that Allie seems to be not hearing very well; he’s concerned about her and concerned that it might be that this is her last hike. My own dog Troma took her last hike less than a year ago. Our dogs had been our companions for as long as we’d been hiking. Jim has several times reminded me of that last time out with Troma. We’d picked an easy trail along a river bed to accommodate her age and failing health, when, as he tells it, he turned to find her above him on the cliff scaling the rocky embankment for the sheer pleasure of it. It’s a nice memory and I’m grateful when he brings her back this way, if only for a moment. Down off the pinnacle we turn north and are now on the part of the trail we haven’t been on before, walking the backbone of these old, old hills. The trail is narrow and we’re going single file, sometimes with me in front, sometimes behind, gauging our steps as we need to on this path of rough fieldstones and upended shale laid bare and gouged by the rains. </span></span> </span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman,serif;">Finding and keeping a stride keeps us aloft and moving: our eyes continuously estimating the distance and the best option for each step: a rock or exposed root that’s firmly embedded and won’t tip or spring loose to throw our balance. One foot pushes off, stretches up, the body balancing now in a moment of perfect equipoise even as some decision is being made, made by the machinery of movement itself; reaches, then lands, knees giving just enough to create the spring necessary to launch the other foot, now up and balancing, gauging distance, and down; repeating endlessly this exquisite economy of movement. Moving, focused on moving, one’s whole body awakens and finds itself alive with a grace that in these moments we share with the animals of the forest. Aloft and moving, alive now to the sensate feel of the air and of smells that waft like warm currents; pleasures that awaken the Old Brain and hold me in the currency of the moment. </span></span> </span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman,serif;">Ahead of us is that part of the trail that we know so well is Paradise Lane, named because of the Mountain Laurel that comes into bloom in late June and fills the air with a blizzard of white blossoms as far as the eye can see. This patch of trail that we’re on is soon going to be this same flurry of white; Mountain Laurel as tall as we are on every side, and below this blueberry twigs not yet in leaf promise their own snow shower of white and pink and then a feast of berries, and on the ground the shine of wintergreen leaves with their tiny white flowers waiting to burst. We pick the occasional red berry missed by the bears but they’re last year’s crop and bland from frost. Tiny brooks bubble around and across our path making a soup of the fallen leaves that have been pummeled by winter. The forest covering above us is dense but the trees are not yet in leaf and allow the sun to filter through and warm our backs. The brooks converge and grow broader and puddle, suggesting a rock shelf beneath us. We come to a partial clearing, higher ground and signs of a campsite and decide this is a good place to stop for lunch. We negotiate our way across the water on the few strategically placed stones. Allie not minding getting wet takes a more direct route. We find a good size log and take off our packs. I’ve brought a bagel with lox and cream cheese that we split and some dried apple cookies. Jim produces a couple of oranges he grabbed from home. Not something we talk about; it always works out. </span></span> </span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman,serif;">Over lunch we try to reconstruct our hike late last December. It’s something we often do, partly because it’s fun to compare our different recollections, but mostly because it adds to the mental picture we have of this whole long ridge. Jim had wanted to find the camp North of here that was marked on our map but we’d never seen signs of the several times we’d taken that part of the trail. Coming up the old unpaved road from Salisbury we’d parked on East Street just this side of the cement barrier put up to close the road for the winter, and came in the connecting path and up the Appalachian Trail to Bear Rock Falls. Jim was sure we could bushwhack in from there to find the lake and camp, if there was one. We had crossed the Bear Rock Falls creek and with some scouting found an old trail that seemed to follow it in and taken this until it stopped at what appeared to be a large dam. And there was the lake. We crossed the dam and were surprised to come upon two relatively new houses with a road leading up to them from the other side. We’d then followed the road and soon came upon a huge complex of buildings dominating the whole south end of the lake - basketball courts, boat houses, cabins and a large, rambling lodge – here in the middle of nowhere: quiet now as winter was about to settle in but in the summer, we’d imagined, a regular bee hive of activity. We spoke about the incongruity of all this as we made our way out on the newly graveled road blasted through the granite hillside back to East Street and then the couple of miles further to the cars. Jim drove out ahead of me and before we’d gone fifty feet I saw him waving his hand wildly to get my attention. I pulled up beside his car. He could hardly contain himself. He’d come upon a moose standing in the road - his road now that it was closed for the winter. </span></span> </span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman,serif;">It begins to cloud over, reminding Jim that he’d heard a prediction of snow in the late afternoon. I’d heard that too but it hadn’t seemed possible when we started out. We’re packed up and leaving when I remember we haven’t made a toast, and I take a moment to unpack the flask Jim gave me for just this purpose. Jim is more sentimental than I am about our dad, but I’m surprised how attached I’ve become attached to these shared moments. Jim raises the flask; “ We’re here together dad, and thinking of you”, he says. Then,” we love you, dad. Give us a sign!” Every time he invokes our father’s presence in just this way, and again I am moved, and as always, more than I expect, moved in a way that feels at first like grief, then spread out from this moment, from this place that had felt like grief, spreads like warmth into a feeling of inclusion; of tenderness for all things, for life itself. And then we taste the sweet, turf tasting, iodine tasting whiskey from the flask with the insignia of the Bowmore Distillery from Islay. These moments always bring us deeply back into the past, sometimes with a shared memory or a question, now mostly unanswerable. And for a few moments we allow this different mood to settle over us in silence. </span></span> </span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman,serif;">My father was large for both of us, though in different ways; for me it was about his knowing so many things he didn’t know how to convey, didn’t know would have value; things he didn’t identify as knowledge, like how to read the soil, how to know what good land looked like, or what the weather was going to do: things he knew by virtue of being in touch with the land he’d grown up on. I remember him telling me once that when he was a boy they measured distances by ‘looks’; a look being the distance down the road as far as you could see. You’d find a fence post or sapling that you could fix in your gaze and when you got to it you’d again fix on an object at the furthest distance and repeat this. I remembered thinking how perfect that was, and yet how it spoke of a time gone forever, a time when there was room for approximations and when time and distance weren’t inseparable as they are now. </span></span> </span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman,serif;">Back on the trail we hear the Spring sounds of peeper frogs and wonder aloud what pond or swamp might be down to our right that can house such a cacophony. The rivulets we’ve been crossing and re-crossing are going to converge ahead and flow down into Sage’s Ravine, dramatic with its waterfalls, cavernous rock walls and the surrounding growth of old forest. But we’re not there yet. We are still deep in the woods, lost in the sameness of endless woodland, not sameness quite, but endless; the endlessness of design without form, without the edge to give it shape and organize it in some way. It’s not monotonous, the experience itself is of the most heightened consciousness of the visual; of one’s eyes bathed in the softness of the light filtered through the trees, of every depth of the forest simultaneously available; one’s vision neither caught nor blocked by the foreground but seeming to pass effortlessly beyond that to another depth, and yet another. Here, except for the occasional white rectangular blazes on the trail there is nothing but undifferentiated woodland stretching in every direction. If we were to move off the trail it’s possible we might never find it again; the blazes themselves are not easily seen from another angle and the trail itself an almost invisible thread through this wilderness. Here, there are no remnants of the stone walls that we’d seen on our way in; nothing that punctuates or delineates. Just more of the same, more woods; shifts from deciduous to fir and back, but always without any apparent context so that difference becomes lost as a form of meaning. In this so deeply ‘in’ of this woods time becomes subjective, and space unending. There is no conception here of another way of being. Here there might as well not be any ‘out’. ‘Out’ is what belongs to man. It has shape, organization and definition. I think to myself that one ought to be prepared to be in the ways of the woods when entering, as Nature is indifferent to the whole way we orient experience. </span></span> </span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman,serif;">Several years ago one late summer afternoon I took a friend through a large hemlock forest near my house on Overlook Mountain to show him a place known locally as the Magic Meadow; a field formed in the confluence of three mountains, known for its beauty if not its magnetic ‘force’. We wandered around for a bit in some mild sense of anticipation but were soon drawn to what looked like a small Buddhist altar we could see set up in the woods just beyond the meadow. In the woods we found a string of altars, one leading to another which led to yet another, each inspiring the next in some minimalist pantheistic artscape. By the time we realized that we had been wandering around without paying attention we couldn’t find our way back. But because it was only moments before that we had entered the woods we believed that with a few steps in each direction we’d find the path. We turned back, then turned around, then turned again. Then stopped. We were lost and realized we could only get more lost doing what we were doing. Even the setting sun was no help, as we hadn’t bothered to orient ourselves in relation to the road that winds back and forth up and around the mountain. It was quickly turning dark and we took stock. I had a sweater I’d tied over my shoulders and half a bottle of water; he was in a short-sleeved shirt. I felt waves of fright wash over me, and – to my surprise – hatred toward this friend in the midst of this harm. Though he had done nothing. If anything, it was me who should have known the way. I know he was frightened too, and shocked by the sudden turn of this outing. Neither of us could quite face what was happening. The sun was all but gone and we were contemplating how and where to stay the night, when no more than fifty feet away I saw a woman pushing a baby carriage uphill on what had to have been the road where we’d parked the car. The relief we felt was extreme, but so was the panic. It made me realize that while we revere the woods and argue to preserve it as part of our vanishing world, we also and necessarily diminish its power by marking paths and creating boundaries. </span></span> </span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman,serif;">Being in the woods, truly in the woods is not something I can imagine we’ve done gracefully or well since aboriginal times, if ever. And yet, the most dazzling thing about the woods is this very indifference to order, to meaning. Nothing frames or marks or guides ones gaze. Nothing signifies. In the randomness of the landscape I often find myself looking for form. I will catch sight of something that looks like an object: a discarded backpack or the corner of a shack of some kind that, as I approach, morphs back into a rotting tree stump, or two branches in different planes that seem joined into some recognizable shape that dissolves as I move in relation to them. Still this undifferentiated landscape is alive and vertiginous with presence. In the middle of the day when the woods is most quiet one is surrounded with a feeling of this presence; a sensation that there are sounds being emitted just below one’s hearing; not quite audible yet recognized as there available to be heard. And in the stillness the felt sense of movement where none can be discerned. I have wondered if it is growth itself, growth and decay that I am perceiving as movement; the infinitesimal cellular effects of vegetative activity, and on the ground below a multiplicity of fungal and microbial processes delicately, not quite soundlessly, disposing of spent vegetation. </span></span> </span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman,serif;">Visually this felt sense is even more dramatic. Seeing, looking for; the sense of one’s own gaze finding nothing to attach itself to, and in this moment of not designating an object, one’s gaze turning back on itself, coming back as the feeling of being watched. A feeling only thinly removed from the projection of wood sprites, just out of sight, dancing from behind one tree to another, now here now there, nowhere to be found; that can from one moment to the next turn from benign to menacing. These, I’ve come to believe, are the mythic spirits that inhabit the forest. </span></span> </span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman,serif;">It’s turned colder and the sky is now steely grey and darkening. I pull my hood up and Jim gets his windbreaker from his backpack. We’ve come to a junction to the right that we believe must be the Undermountain feeder trail, but it’s not marked, there’s just a faded blue blaze several yards in. We are surprised to find the trail covered with a thick coating of slick ice, the first remnants of winter we’ve seen. It looks like it hasn’t been used in some time. We start down the trail - not even sure by our map that this is the way out - but the ice is formidable, a slalom, and after trying to walk along the sides of the trail competing with thick snow-crusted underbrush we decide to go back. We’re no longer sure of what to do. Our maps don’t correspond sufficiently with the trail to give us any certainty of where we are. Jim suggests we continue North on the Appalachian Trail since we know that just ahead is the part of the trail leading to Sage’s Ravine that we’ve taken many times and almost know by heart; this will lead us to the northern end of Paradise Lane where we can double back paralleling this trail and meet the Undermountain Trail further east where, he reminds me, it’s as broad as an old farm road and bound to be clear. We look again at the map. Ahead is a fork to the left marked ‘Bear Mountain Road’ while the Appalachian Trail continues straight to Paradise Lane. I agree with Jim, thinking the Bear Mountain Road is what leads up Bear Mountain. We are well past the cut off and have started to ascend when I realize our mistake. The Bear Mountain Trail is the feeder trail leading out to the road on the western boundary of the range; it is the Appalachian Trail that climbs Bear Mountain. </span></span> </span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman,serif;">By now it’s another half mile back to the trail that we’re not even certain is the trail out and don’t want to risk the ice to find out, so it’s either going all the way back the way we came, or continue. We have both climbed Bear Mountain going South; it’s a very steep ascent, and difficult finding footholds and hoisting oneself the three feet or so to another foothold; a scramble all the way up and a long, gentle slope down - where we are now. We’re quiet going up. I’m wondering if it’s occurred to Jim what lies ahead. The wind has kicked up and I am thinking of his remark about snow, hoping it holds off. Instead the snow gets deeper as we make our ascent. It’s old snow worn and rotted from the winter, and slick on the surface from melting and freezing. We’re passing the blueberry bushes we came upon going the other way last August when it was hard not to stop and grab at bunches of them. That descent had seemed so easy and unmemorable. Now, it’s taking forever to get to the huge rock cairn that marks the official top. There’s a seriousness to our walking now; I am trying to hold my concerns to myself and I imagine he’s doing the same. </span></span> </span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman,serif;">We’ve had times like this before, difficulties that have built a feeling of solidarity between us: the ten miles of the Alander Ridge one late summer day where we expected to find water for our dogs and didn’t, and had to give them what we had for ourselves, saving just the smallest bit for ourselves to share, generous in checking always in making sure the other was not getting too dehydrated. Or the fall Jim took on Schanticoke Mountain that turned out to be a fractured tibia; me carrying our packs and taking charge of the dogs while he used our walking sticks as makeshift crutches for the tortuous five miles out we had to go before it turned dark. When finally we’re there at the cairn marking the top of Bear Mountain we don’t even stop. I check the time. During the ascent we saw serious snow for the first time and on the top it is hard packed and in places has turned to ice. We start down. Turned sideways against the cliff and leaning into the rocks for balance, we step these long three-foot steps down, using our hands to grab for purchase on rocks or tree limbs or just hard packed snow, coaxing Allie behind us. Jim is ahead and I see him squat down on his haunches and slide a few feet on the snow. It seems a good idea and so I follow him. And this is how we descend, silently, slowly, carefully. I try to slide again and lose control and for six or ten feet careen down, nothing I can do stops me. Fast as I’m careening I’m still aware and watching myself, wondering how it will end, will I break something. Then I’m stopped, and okay. And on down like that. My knees hurt from so many big jarring steps, rockshelf to rockshelf, down. My hands are red but don’t feel cold. My hood has blown off; I notice but I don’t feel that either. Jim is so far ahead I can’t see how he’s making out. Then at last we’re on level ground, but here the snow is thick and there’s the constant menace of ice as well on this rocky snow covered trail. I’m tired but know it’s important to stay focused. We talk again, seriously and supportively about where we are. It’s 3:30 and a storm is brewing. We have two more miles North before our turn back onto Paradise Lane and then three and a half miles back to the Undermountain Trail and out. </span></span> </span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman,serif;">It took two hours to go just that mile up and over the mountain. And still more than five miles to go. Tired and with a squall hovering, no longer ‘in’ the woods, with my Old Brain awakened and engaged, I’m trudging through to Paradise Lane with only the thought of getting home. </span></span> </span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times-Roman,serif;">Anna McLellan 9/15/2011 </span></span> </div>Comrade Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12575621500557736802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7969064192271571257.post-69794826304226878862011-09-19T19:26:00.003-04:002011-09-21T20:35:57.447-04:00An LP to startIt is fitting that I should start with a Procol Harum LP.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Not because this is a rare or valuable album, but because Procol Harum was the first band that ever meant something to me in that way that bands mean something to us. This one, A Salty Dog (their third) and Home (fourth) are still two of my favorite records even as other teenage fancies seem to belong to strangers, or are only worthy of my forbearance.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I even smoked Players Navy Cut cigarettes on occasion just because of this album cover, which still has the ability to charm me after all these years. Because of this enchantment, my mother, for my 15th or 16th birthday, knitted me this sweater. It still fits, and maybe I will post a picture of me in it some day.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">to be continued.....</div>Comrade Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12575621500557736802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7969064192271571257.post-1116391607915142422011-09-15T21:38:00.012-04:002012-06-26T20:10:12.120-04:00Notes from a World Music Catalog, part 2<div style="font: 16px Times; margin: 0px 0px 12px;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Be prepared for a little dry detail to start this post! When I decided to write about the catalog I delved into my archival stash and picked one that I liked, as an example for study. Working so closely with it as I did, I never really gave much thought to what it looked like. And it occurred to me that it might be useful to establish some facts before moving on to the romancing - to take a step back and get a look from a new perspective.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">I was a little astonished by this example catalog from Winter 1991: </span></div>
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<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Dimensions: 9 inches tall by 6 inches wide</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Length: 40 pages</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Number of recordings: 200</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Number of countries represented: over 60</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Africa alone is represented by 61 recordings from 21 countries. </span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">There are also 16 books and 11 videos included, plus an essay by John, and Qarl's Qassette Qorner. </span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I counted 95 recordings on LP only, a lot of them lavish affairs with glorious photos and extensive notes in several languages (I promise lots of lovely pictures of these wonderful albums are coming soon.) </span></li>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It seems quite an undertaking in hindsight. I was not a little impressed at what we managed to do! Of course by this time John had built up a vast store of knowledge and the connections needed to hunt down what he wanted to make available. Our own label often filled the gaps he saw in coverage of various forms and styles - but I'm getting ahead of myself!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">For now, you will have to be happy while I set the scene with these grubby scans of the catalog. Here is the front page, with John's greeting and introduction:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Here is a wonderful essay by John about one of our shared passions:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And finally, here is Qarl's Qassette Qorner, a semi-regular feature in which I tried to flog lovely music in one of the least lovely of formats.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">So that's a quick look at the Thing Itself. I am particularly interested in writing about the LPs as objects, and in documenting some of the inspired battiness that was O.M., and you need to have some small feeling for the enterprise as it was embarked upon before I can start spinning tales and rhapsodizing about the music and the place. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">It is important also that you get a feel for John as he was with his writer's hat off. His books are engaging, but they don't convey his love of bad puns and silly brass instruments, or the joy with which he approached the music. I will be pleased to show documentation of his love for animals, and of his menagerie, at a later date, but these few pages should give you a glimpse of the playfulness that was often part of his, and our, working hours.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Oh alright! Here's a photo of John with Raissa and me at the Catskill Game Farm - taken from the back cover of the Original Music sampler CD Mbuki Mvuki, compiled by Richard Henderson.</span><br />
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I continue to fool around with how best to post scans of the catalog so that they are readable - please bear with me!<br />
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To be continued...</div>
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<br /></div>Comrade Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12575621500557736802noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7969064192271571257.post-88264728234882619422011-09-12T14:08:00.003-04:002012-06-26T20:09:38.355-04:00Notes from a World Music Catalog, part 1<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
An occasional series about the heyday of World Music, analog recordings, John Storm Roberts and Original Music.</div>
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Part One, an introduction.</div>
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I don't have as many LPs as you think. I'm always saying that. It looks like a lot at first, but I've been plenty of places where people have had thousands of records. I am a piker compared to other collectors, in fact maybe I'm not a collector at all (hoarding is what the rest of the household calls it!) However, most of my LPs come from a very particular time and place - when I worked for Original Music in Tivoli in the late 80's and early 90's. And so my collection is kaleidoscope of what once was called World Music.</div>
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I think Brian Eno said that there is no longer any such thing as World Music, and if I understand him correctly I agree, and applaud the fact. It is very likely that World Music was (is?), like Orientalism, a fetishization of the exotic Other. I know that there were certainly moments when I celebrated being first to champion (and offer for sale) a particularly out-of-the-way treasure. Now that "first" is more commonly reserved for commenters on blogs (I'm waiting!), it is possible to wonder if what killed "World Music" isn't also what has made, for example, gay marriage more of a commonplace notion. The world is a more intimate place now, and it seems ever so long ago that this all happened. </div>
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The time I am writing about was before the explosion of the internet into our lives, and so selling exotic music from a barn in the middle of nowhere had a certain cachet that was almost completely outweighed by the inconvenience. For the longest time, our local telephone exchange couldn't handle faxes; I had to dial (yes really) an 800 number and read credit card numbers to a person; in the winter the kerosene fumes gave us headaches as the wind whistled around our feet, and in the summer we baked. We had an outhouse for a toilet.</div>
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Still, we had the music. And what music! John had a nose for music that was perhaps only equalled by his enthusiasm for it. We certainly tried to make money, and none of us would have been unhappy to become rich, but what really drove us was the joy of listening. I well remember the first several years I worked there I walked around with catalogs in my pocket like an intinerant preacher, like the "grey beard loon" himself! People at parties would make the mistake of asking what I did and then saying 'that's interesting'. They soon edged away with a "wherefore stoppest thou me" look in their eyes, and I would be left clutching my tracts with the echoes of "1960's Ghanaian pop music" dying on my lips. </div>
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We sold LPs we bought from England, France, Germany, Italy, Australia, Greece and other places. Folk songs, pop music of yesteryear, new indigenous techno dance tracks, art music from the courts of Asian kingdoms, that sort of thing. Some people sent glossy catalogs with pictures of the album covers, some had great books with row upon row of titles to search through, and some LPs we found ourselves as we poked around music distributors in New York City. </div>
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Our own label included "back porch" African acoustic guitarists, street musicians in Java, and golden oldies from Ghana and Nigeria that we licensed from a company called Afrodisia. Sometimes we got what resembled master tapes and sometimes we had to re-master from rare LPs and singles. Once I had one evening to choose as many 45 RPM pop singles from Ghana and Nigeria as I could carry from a garage full of 45's near the Whipsnade Zoo outside of London. I got on the plane staggering under the weight of a huge sack stuffed with vinyl, explaining earnestly to all the attendants how valuable it was.</div>
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John told me he started the catalog in order to sell the African Dances LP and Black Music of Two Worlds, his book on the musical currents between Africa and the New World. At one point we were up to six issues a year and I can't remember what the average was. The catalog had an introduction and commentary from John on the front page, and the rest was brief descriptions of recordings and books for sale, organized geographically according to source or subject matter. Eventually I was allowed to write catalog entries myself, but I rarely approached John's genius for succinctness, a funny thing now that I think of it since he liked to talk so much!</div>
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To be continued.</div>
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<br /></div>Comrade Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12575621500557736802noreply@blogger.com0