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Below you'll find the latest letters from YOU.
Kudos, brickbats, you'll find it all right here.
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by YOU
THE WORLD -
From Diyambi B., London, UK:
SUBJECT: Clifford Thornton
Hi Rod,
My name is Diyambi,I am a musicologist-researcher,doing some work on the late Clifford Thorntorn.
I am writing academic paper(musicology) as well as jazz arrticles. I will eventully gather alll my articles and paper on Clifford Thorntorn in a book.
I've gather that Clifford was teaching in Wesleyan University also that Sam Rivers and Ed Blackwell taught there.
People close to Clifford mentioned the names of Dr Bill Cole (writer) and also a choregrapher/Dancer Mr Davis(I can't remember his name).
I was thrill to find this web page.
I was wondering if we can arrange interviews for my researches.
my phone is
Regards
Diyambi
ROD RESPONDS:I'd certainly be honored to assist you with your research. I'd recommend, though, that you'd be better served speaking with a musician friend of mine, Sal d'Alessandro, through whom I first met Cliff and who knew him far better than I. Sal also knew and played wtih Sam Rivers during those years. I'm BCC'ing him on this e-mail in the hope that I can put the two of you in touch.Regards,
RA
SUBJECT: Hola, Friend!
Hola Rod, greetings from Guerrero Mexico
Algunas de nosotras estudiamos ingles en los Estados Unidos (las jóvenes que se fueron con sus papas mientras ellos trabajaban de braceros por allá). Gracias a ellas, ahora tenemos mas facilidad para aprender y usar este idioma.
Some of us studied English in the United States (as youth going with their parents who worked as bracero laborers there) Thanks to them we have the facility to learn and use the language.
Nosotras estamos aprendiendo a base de traducciones que hacemos como ejercicios en nuestras casas y ellas nos corrigen y así poco a poco vamos todas mejorando en esta difícil tarea.
We are learning based upon translations that we make as exercises in our homes and they correct us and little by little we are improving in this difficult task.
Nos cuesta mucho trabajo y es muy difícil, pero sabemos que si queremos tener Èxito, esto va a ser primordial manejarlo, así que pues ni modo, lo tenemos que hacer cueste lo que cueste.
It costs us a lot of work and it is very difficult, but we know that if we wish for success, this is necessary to work for it, and so therefore we do at whatever cost.
Hace aÒos nos dijeron que debíamos utilizar el Internet para poder dejar de ser lo desconocidos que somos.
Years ago we were told that we ought to utilize Internet to stop being the unknowns that we are.
Algunos de los miembros de nuestra cooperativa han trabajado por casi tres aÒos en aprender HTLM y los programas necesarios para poder crear nuestro sitio web. Contratamos algunos maestros de computación para que nos ayudaran.
Some members of our cooperative have worked for nearly three years to learn the HTML code and the programs necessary to be able to be able to create our web site We hired some teachers of computation to help us.
Finalmente creamos nuestro sitio web pero todavía estamos tratando de hacer que funciona para nosotras
Finally we created our web site and we are trying to make this work for us.
Confiamos en que Dios nos va a ayudar porque tenemos mucho que ofrecer y porque sabemos producir nuestras artesanías y constantemente buscamos cada día nuevas formas para crear lo que nos indican que el mercado de hoy quiere
We believe that God is going to help us because we have much to offer and because we know how to produce our handcrafts and constantly we seek each day new forms to create what th e markets of today desire.
Quiero darte la dirección del sitio web que creamos (este es el tercer intento mejorado) de Artcamp (esto es una abreviación de Artesanas Campesinas), y es el nombre de nuestra cooperativa.
I want to give you the address of our website that we created (it is the third attempt to improve it) of Artcamp (this is an abbreviation of Artesanas Campesinas which means in English, Rural Women Artisans.)
Me gustaría que lo visites y nos aconsejes sobre lo que debemos de estar haciendo para mejorarlo y poder obtener beneficios del mismo, como nos dijo el amigo que nos aconsejo hacer este proyecto.
I would like that you visit it and advise us about what we should be doing to improve and to gain advantage of it like our friend said who advised us to do this project.
La dirección es http://www.artcamp.com.mx EstarÈ esperando tus comentarios. The address is http://www.artcamp.com.mx We will wait for your commentaries.
Eso es todo por el momento, muchas gracias por reconocernos y esperamos estar en contacto.
That is all for the moment, many thanks for recognizing us and we hope to be in contact.
Sus amigas en Guerrero MÈxico, saludos todas las mujeres de la cooperativa de Artcamp:
Your friends in Guerrero MÈxico, greetings from all the women of the Artcamp cooperative.
Luz Mariling, Ama Areli Elizabet Maria Nieves Gloria Hilaria, Luz, y Angelica Maria y las otras
Rod Ojalá que un día nos puede visitar aquí en MÈxico!
Rod we hope that one day you may visit us in Mexico!
ROD RESPONDS: Thanks for writing! I'm still a supporter and dream of meeting you all face-to-face one day. For now, what I can do is feature your e-mail on our "Vox Populi" page when I update it in the 22 August edition.In Solidarity,
Rod Amis
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good morning sir,
I am mirza from pakistan. Kreena kapoor is my best film star.So?regards to you and kareena kapoor.
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SUBJECT: for Vox Populi
Kudos to Lionel Rolfe for his wonderful autobiographical piece - and to you for publishing it. Now that I have entered into that life-stage of Geezerhood, I appreciate more and more the tales that paralleled my own life's story. But I would like to sit down with an adult beverage, on a soft, comfortable chair, and discuss two things with Mr. Rolfe.
[1] In the 1970s, I spent one extended period of time -- and several shorter stints -- working on the West Bank. The place was the Ecumenical Theological Institute at Tantur, a hilltop between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, immediately up the hill from Rachel's Tomb. I renewed friendships with old American friends who were then on the faculty of Hebrew University, and I made friends with a few Arab families whose love and hospitality I treasure to this day.
If one if afflicted with serious love and affection for both Israelis and Palestinians on a personal level in almost daily contacts with one or the other, then one has to pursue reading opinions about this conflict in Israel from publications of both the Left and the Right. I can remember articles that were anti-Zionist (Albrecht Einstein, Ila Karmel), anti-Likud (both Israelis and Americans, my favorite being Simha Flapan), anti-Whoever-Was-Prime-Minister (from many perspectives) -- but I do not recall seeing or reading what would be called anti-Semitic materials from Leftists. Not the kind of anti-Semitism that came out of Fascist Italy or Nazi Germany. And I always thought that the anti-Semitism of the U.S.S.R. predated the communist revolution by centuries -- no excuse, but a factor.
(Here comes the question, my dear Mr. Rolfe: ) Is anything critical of Israel or any of its parties anti-Semitic? I can hear your distress at the negativity against Jews and any mindless or generalized condemnation of Israel. And I agree that that is just plain wrong-headed.
Some years ago, I was in Jerusalem, in the Old City, staying at the hostelry of the Sisters of Zion on the traditional Via Dolorosa, when a group of Zionists tried to take over the Muslim girls school across the street, in the Haram. The people poured into the streets as the muezin called for help on the mosques' loudspeakers, and an ever-ready patrol of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) came racing into the city from Stephen's Gate. The entire crowd was tear-gassed by the IDF boys, who surrounded the radical Zionists who were trying to take over the school. For two to three days, every swallow of saliva or food was painful, a throbbing headache persisted, and both eyes burned like fire. The bottoms of the tear-gas cannisters had the label, "Federal Chemical Company, Latrobe, Pennsylvania."
I tried to narrate what happened that day, when I returned to Boston, and I submitted the story to "Boston After Dark" (or one its several iterations in those days). It was returned to me with a stern warning, NEVER again to submit anti-Semitic material to the paper! Later, the story was published in a small-circulation anti-war paper in Providence, Rhode Island. I wrote that the use of American tear-gas was a rather harsh method of crowd control on the part of the IDF. I wrote that the attempt to take over the school was an indefensible attempt to create riots and havoc. Is such writing "anti-Semitic"?
[2] I grew up in southern Wisconsin. There was always that hard core of Progressives who had followed Big Bob LaFollette, a small minority that persisted decades after the more liberal Republicans gained some control and began to have close elections with the labor-soaked Democrats. The Progressives no longer had monthly, or semi-annual, or annual meetings or conventions. They had become a quiet movement.
To speak of "the" Progressives is misleading: there were little enclaves who supported generally what the Progressives wer e trying to achieve, but were much farther to the left. They were the more hard-core socialists, Marxists, and even communists, but considered themselves part of the larger Progressive community. (In other parts of America, the dissidents from the main party of socialists or communists tended to fight each other openly, with opposing candidates in elections, and occasional "purges" of those who did not agree to the larger program of the group; and they tended to "eat their young," the feistier and younger elements who always wanted to go farther than their elders.)
The town where our family lived after dad returned from The Big One (World War II) had a population approaching 5,000. In this town, there was a group that met at least monthly, either four or five couples, who laid out a reading and discussion program that dissected the politics of the day. The constituency changed over the years, but the group existed from about 1910 to the early 1950s. They were far-Left Progressives, representing about 0.2% of the population of that town, and surely no threat at the ballot box: until the Joe McCarthy boys starting making a stink. The town lost an excellent high school teacher, the deliverer of bread and baked goods, a machinist at a local manufactury, and others -- as they abandoned southern Wisconsin for places more tolerant or at least ignorant of their heretical views.
For many years, I would see a ten- to sixteen-leaf mimeographed publication on legal size paper (fourteen-inch), printed on both sides from edge to edge (no margins to speak of): an extremely primitive printing method, the wax stencils of mimeography had to be typed letter perfect, no illustrations, small type that was hard to read -- but filled, issue by issue, with news about the Progressive Left in Wisconsin, in the Wisconsin legislature and courts, in the labor unions, in the major city governments (Milwaukee had a socialist mayor, who did not own an automobile and insisted that civilized Americans be offered public transportation services as part of their participation in a true city).
One day, I saw a two-leaf edition of the magazine and it announced the final number, the final copy, of this strange publications. It turned out that this magazine had been published for over thirty years by a letter carrier and his wife from Fondulac -- for the purists, Fond du Lac -- sometimes with help from compatriots but usually not, at their own personal expense (there was no subscription price and the couple also paid all the postage). One sent a postcard to have one's name put on or off the subscription list -- and they did accept gifts. I never gave any, and feel badly about that as I think about it.
(Here comes my second question, my dear Mr. Rolfe:) In growing up on the Left Coast, did you come across these little groups, or even lone families like the letter carrier and his wife, who educated themselves and others at tremendous personal expense. The families that gathered for decades to educate themselves by reading and discussion could have salvaged their carriers by simply ceasing to educate themselves in this way. They were no youngsters for whom pulling up their roots was possible at marginal expense: these were home owners and parents who left and were cast out to the care and support of others, and who knew if others were going to be their to offer that care and support? And the couple from Fondulac, to labor month in and month out on a primitive magazine, with little or no feedback, always offering information and critique about what was going on from the perspective of their socialist or communist preferences.
On the Left Coast, did you come across such political activity being carried out on the smallest scale? Not simply the 0.2%, but even the 0.02% or 0.002%? the writers, the seekers, those who wanted to be informed and literate in their chosen political niche? I certainly appreciate all the famous characters whose path crossed with yours, and I also appreciate how these interactions enriched -- and still enrich -- your life. As you no doubt noticed, I do love the stories of these "little people" whose goal in life was to have their children successful in their chosen profession and to have this country take care of its own as well as they did.
Finally, Mr. Rolfe, a truly great article. I am going to read it again.
R E D
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