Wrapping Up The Year (29 cents)

An very interesting book published in 1950, Anita Lebeson’s “Pilgrim People”, a history of the Jews in America, especially interesting for the 18th and 19th centuries. It is surprising not only our many Jewish settlers were in the country, but their geographic spread and the variety of their occupations, as well as thrill pervasive participation in all (and I mean all) American wars. Equally surprising was the small degree of prejudice, at least until the tremendous Jewish immigration starting in the 1880s.

An Israeli mystery, Batya Gur’s “The Saturday Morning Murder”, a murder of a Jerusalem psychoanalyst, which left me cold. That was a surprise as Gur, who died much too soon several years ago, is so well recommended. But this was, I think, her first book, so I should try again.

My first attempt to read Nadine Gordimer, and I will finish it up this weekend. “The Pickup”, the story of a young white South African woman, somewhat rebellious daughter of a wealthy father, who takes as her lover and then husband an illegal Arab immigrant, who is deported back to his desert country (unnamed, but presumably Morocco). She decides to follow. Not sure yet how it will turn out.

Wasting time at the National Gallery’s showing of Andy Warhol’s “Velvet Underground”. If you are offered the opportunity to see it, run FAST in the opposite direction. The visit saved, though, by the exhibit of Renaissance bronzes by Antico, and the photography of Harry Callahan.

Slavery in the District of Columbia (8 cents)

A few years ago, I went on a “walking tour” of African-American Georgetown, learning about the historic pre-civil war black community of this now prosperous Washington DC neighborhood, seeing the churches that remain, the houses that still stand, and the parks and public areas. This is when I first heard about the “Pearl”, a ship on which a number of black slaves attempted to leave Washington DC, where slavery existed, for Pennsylvania and places north, going down the Potomac and into Chesapeake Bay, where slavery had been abolished. The attempt failed.

It was a very interesting story, one that I had not heard about before. And, truth be known, one that I heard nothing about it subsequently, so I forgot the story, like so many others. Until I came across a recent book by Mary Kay Ricks called “Escape on the Pearl: the Historic Bid for Freedom on the Underground Railroad”, published about four years ago.

The book tells two parallel stories. First, the attempted escape of 77 slaves on the Pearl, the capture of the ship as it faced weather difficulties before hitting open water, and the fate of slaves (particularly of the two young Edmondson sisters and their large family), as well as the crew members and captain. Second, the story of slavery in the District of Columbia and, to an extent, the nation as a whole.

The District of Columbia permitted slavery since the day it was carved from slave states Virginia and Maryland. This does not mean that slavery was extensive – by the 1840s, there were over three times as many free blacks as slaves in the District. In fact, slavery in the Maryland/Virginia area became less prevalent as the 19th century progressed; the slave-rich tobacco economy had suffered as slavery as a major force moved south to the cotton states. It was far from unusual for the local slave markets to offer mid-Atlantic slaves for sale to traders who brought them south for resale at a high profit.

While there was little pressure to end slavery in the South during the first decades of the 19th century, there were increasing battles over whether slavery would be permitted in newer states and territories. The Missouri compromise of 1820 permitted the entry of Maine as a free state, Missouri as a slave state and stated that no slaves could be admitted to states north of a certain parallel. In the 1830′s, anti-slavery agitation grew throughout the North, and made its entry into the District of Columbia; the underground railway became quite active, the 1848 attempted escape on the Pearl was the most extreme manifestation of its activities.

The Missouri Compromise became history in 1850, when California was admitted as a free state, but other territories conquered through the Mexican War allowed to establish their own policies. The 1850 compromise was accompanied by a vastly strengthened fugitive slave act, which made it much easier to retrieve slaves who had escaped to the North, even if they had lived there as free blacks for decades. This in turn was affirmed by the infamous Dred Scott case in 1857, just a few years before Lincoln’s election to the presidency in 1860 and the first shots of the Civil War at Ft. Sumter in 1861.

In 1862, President Lincoln signed legislation finally freeing the slaves of the District of Columbia, six months before the effective date of the Emancipation Proclamation which purported to free the slaves of the South.

Throughout all of this, “Escape on the Pearl” deals with the fate of the participants in the unsuccessful attempt escape. And there fates were difficult ones – most wound up in prison for a while, some longer than others. Some of the slaves were taken back by their masters, but most weren’t and were sold, with families split, etc. And the fate of the Edmondsons is more than a story unto itself – worth reading the book just for their story.

Recommended.

Tonight I saw Ntozake Shange’s “for colored girls who have considered suicide……” and discovered….

that I am not the target audience.

Potpourri (17 cents)

Once again, I have fallen hopelessly behind, and each of these items deserves more attention than I can give:

“Much Ado About Nothing” – Two years ago, I saw a production of this Shakespeare comedy at the Folger Theater. It was set in Washington DC among the city’s immigrant Caribbean community, had color blind casting than pared whites, blacks and Asians in less than credible family groupings, and. Had some bad acting to boot. My expectations were tamped down, to say the least, when I went to the currently running production of the Shakespeare Theatre last week. But it is an extraordinary production, not at all harmed by it having been set, so they say, in 1930s Havana, a locale which allows for a light filled rural setting and some infectious music, without taking away from the characterization. I still think the play itself is a pretty dumb one, albeit with some very clever and beautiful dialogue, but I doubt you can do much better than this production. We topped it off the next day by attending the three hour symposium that Hannah arranged and moderated, which provided much insight from local university scholars and the show’s choreographer.

“Puss in Boots” – not the movie, but the British panto put on by Washington’s British Players at the Kensington Armory three weekends in December, with Michelle playing Princess Miranda, daughter of the queen-in-drag who falls in love with the dispossessed, but soon to be overly rich, miller’s son. So it’s not my favorite panto and many of the jokes make you yawn rather than chuckle, but all the kids loved it, and it was well done and a lot of fun. No intellectual symposium followed this one.

Martin Goldsmith – a very nice presentation by author/radio host Martin Goldsmith about his parents, Jewish musicians from Germany who played in the Frankfurt Kulturbund during the Nazi years, getting out of the country just before all emigration was halted by the Nazis. And how, after they settled in St. Louis and then Cleveland, where his father played in the orchestras, there was no talk about their experiences until after his mother died and he convinced his father to come with him to the Holocaust Museum shortly after it opened in Washington. The presentation was accompanied by a string quarter playing music written by Jewish prisoners at Terezin. All at a meeting o f Generation After, a survivors’ organization to which my wife belongs.

“Anyone’s Daughter” by Shana Alexander – the story of the Patty Hearst trial. A daughter of the Hearst journalistic empire, she was kidnapped by members of the self-named Symbionese Liberation Front, a group of young radicals, mainly white but pushing causes of blacks, where she was first held blindfolded and tied up in a closet and then “joined” her captivies, renaming herself Tania, and participating in at least one bank robbery, where her image was caught by security cameras. Eventually arrested, she was tried and convicted, serving several years in prison until her sentence was commuted. She eventually married one of her jail guards, to whom she is still married, and moved to live a quiet life in New England. Was she guilty of bank robbery, or did she have an excuse, such as “diminished capacity” or “brainwashing”? And if she had such an excuse, was it a legal excuse or a moral excuse? Alexander, fascinated by Hearst, followed the case day by day through the eight week trial period and got to know all of the participants. Her informal transcripts of the proceedings and asides, the comments made by those involved (including chief defense counsel F. Lee Bailey), and the reactions of all to the jury verdict make for fascinating reading, as well as refreshing one’s knowledge of something that happened a long time ago, when the world seemed so different.

“The Immortal Bartfuss” by Aharon Appelfeld – Israeli novel, set in Jaffa, follows a portion of the life of Bartfuss and other Holocaust survivors, people who met after the war in Italy over twenty years before, and who were and are trying to rebuild their lives in Israel. A short book, it focuses on the characters’ isolation – from others, from their own selves, from the world. An isolation that seems to encompassing ever to be breached. A quiet book – since the characters find it so difficult even to talk. And a sad one. And an excellent one.

Good meals at Clydes and Tacklebox. Improv and dance at the Shakespeare Theatre’s Wednesday noontime Happenings.

More to come.

Reading Oz, Nusseibeh and Bird to Help Understand the Middle East. (16 cents)

You often only get so much from the histories, and you frequently get even less from contemporary political tracts. Sometimes, in order to understand a place, you also need to get the insights of those who have lived there.

In the Middle East, this is fairly easy, because so many books have been written, and they all have something to add. But if you have time for only three, may I suggest Amos Oz’ “A Tale of Love and Darkness”, Sari Nusseibeh’s “Once Upon A Country” and Kai Bird’s recent book “Crossing Mandelbaum Gate”.

Oz, Israeli novelist and long time activist for co-existence with Israeli and neighboring Arabs, writes of his childhood and coming of age in this universally well received memoir. Nusseibeh, scion of one of the leading Arab families of Jerusalem and president of Al-Kuds University, writes of his many contacts with Jewish Israelis, and the difficulties of being a moderate in a polarized community. And now Bird, neither Arab nor Jewish, an American whose father was in the foreign service stationed in several places in the Middle East and who grew up there, tells his story.

Starting with his early days, before the 1967 War, when his father worked in the American consulate in Palestinian East Jerusalem, Bird talks of the days when he was one of the few able to cross the Mandelbaum Gate into Israeli West Jerusalem daily, to attend school. Like so many in the State Department, Bird’s parents seem to sympathize with the Arab cause, as Kai was trying to figure out what all this was about. As he grew older, living in such places as Saudi Arabia (where his family lived a constrained but comfortable life in an Aramco company town), in Cairo, and for a which in Lebanon, he grew up with an anti-Israel bias. Living for a while in India exposed him to a broader world, coming back to the United States, where he attended Carleton College and became a left wing activist provided him with more opportunities for change and growth, and meeting, falling for, and marrying an American Jewish girl turned him, it appears, from a person or strong black/white feelings into someone able to see and appreciate the complexity of human civilization, and to appreciate the many points of view which must necessarily be prevalent among those caught in seemingly intractable political situations.

I obviously am not beginning to do justice to these three wonderful books in this short note. I can only suggest that, when you put together your reading list for 2012, that these three books wind up your first reads In the non-fiction category.

Hugo, the movie (5 cents)

First, there is probably no reason to see Hugo in 3-D. You pay more, wear the glasses, and see the film with a gimmicky 3-D overlay that adds little to the enjoyment.

But, there IS a reason to see Hugo (whether 2-D or 3-D) because it’s a wonderful film, good for the kids, yes, but perhaps even better for the adults who can appreciate the subtleties that might escape their children.

Based on an illustrated children’s novel by Brian Selznick, Hugo tells the story of a twelve year old boy living behind the walls of Gare Montparnasse in Paris between the wars, and his wondrous adventures. His father, a master clock maker, is killed in a museum fire. Hugo worshiped his father, went to the movies with him, and had been helping him restore an automaton (a pre-computerized robot of sorts) which his father found in the museum attic. After his father’s death, he is taken by an uncle, who lives in the Montparnasse station and keeps the station’s many clocks running, but is also a drunk. And he disappears, leaving Hugo alone to fend for himself, keeping the clocks in repair and foraging for food in the shops of the station.

So far, so good, but Hugo’s hidden work at Montparnasse requires repair parts, and he can only get them by stealing from a toy repair shop in the station. He also cannot finish repairing the automaton, because a certain heart shaped key is missing which is needed to start the machine going. The toy store is run by a curmudgeon who only wants to punish young Hugo. Hugo is befriended by the god-daughter of the toy store owner, who it turns out wears the magic key on a chain around her neck.

And the toy store owner turns out not only to be the original creator of the automaton, but an embittered cinema pioneer named Georges Melies, who had not been able to change his film making to keep up with the times, closed his theater, his studio, and has been overwhelmed by deep depression and bitterness. As to the full plot line, all you need to know now is that everything turns out OK (or better than OK).

Here is what is beautiful about the film, in addition to the Selznick story line. The acting is flawless. The cinematography is flawless. The reconstruction of the Gare Montparnasse is wonderfully detailed. The hundreds of extras as perfect. The automaton is very cute (it writes; it draws). And…….

the story line is a mixture of fact and fiction. Georges Melies is a true historical figure, a pioneer of French cinema, whose life story is quite similar (if not an exact copy of) to that of the character in the film. The many clips of old Melies films interwoven into the story are, in fact, clips of old Melies films, which have been re-discovered after assumed lost. And real historical events are integrated into the story – such as the 1895 Montparnasse station run-away train.

Scorsese’ direction is flawless. As is the acting, by Ben Kingsley, Sacha Baron Cohen, young Asa Butterfield, and everyone else.

A weekend in Cleveland and environs (10 cents)

We were invited to a wedding in Mentor, Ohio, this weekend, a town on Lake Erie some twenty plus miles east of Cleveland. Although the wedding was scheduled for Sunday, we decided to drive to Cleveland on Friday, to give us the opportunity to visit the Cleveland Museum of Art, about which I had heard some wonderful things. Here are my quick thoughts about trip.

The Museum of Art is located in an area known as the University Circle area. Located a few miles east of downtown, the University Circle area, based on what I saw, is pretty spectacular. Not only the museum of art, but a natural history museum, botanical garden, history museum, medical history museum, some large old homes (many of which are now institutions),along with Case Western Reserve University and all that it has to offer, Severance Hall (home of the Cleveland Orchestra) and what I assume is the main campus (and a very extensive one it is) of the Cleveland Clinic/University Hospitals. Nearby is a large park, with everything that a large urban park has to offer, including at least one special feature, individual areas dedicated to the various ethnic groups that make up the Cleveland community.

I’ll get back to the art museum in a moment, but first, a little about the rest of Cleveland. Downtown does not have the number of new glass high-rises that you find in many cities today, but there does seem to be a fair amount of renovation activity, although there is no shortage of empty buildings and store fronts. But there is also a theater or two, the Rock and Roll Museum, the science museum, the football and baseball stadiums, and the Warehouse district just west of downtown, but on the east side of the Cuyahoga River, which has its share of upscale shops and restaurants. Not great, but not bad.

But the rest of the city (which probably means 95% of Cleveland) is an embarrassment to the people of Ohio and of the country. Like some other older larger cities in the United States, Cleveland is simply falling to pieces (or more accurately has fallen to pieces already). Yes, there are pockets of renewal, and there are places where old derelict buildings have been cleared and replaced by well-tended grass, but there is slum, after slum, after slum, as you drive through much too much of Cleveland. Having toured parts of eastern Europe last summer (former Soviet areas), I can report that the large cities of these countries look much better than Cleveland; if an American tourist would find a Cleveland in, say, Lithuania or Latvia, we would write off those countries, criticize their governments, and feel for the citizens. How can we let these things continue in this country? (Of course, I know – and you know – the answer to that.)

OK, back to the Museum of Art. First, it has free admission, and a covered parking garage. Second, you are allowed to take photos. Third, the art work is beautifully displayed, with very interesting signage, which gives not only brief descriptions of artists and subject matters, but also gives interesting factoids that museums would ordinarily avoid. Finally, while it has a rather expansive layout that (in part because of ongoing construction) is a bit chopped up, the exhibition galleries are about as airy, and pleasant, and light as they can be. There are two (at least) buildings. The original early twentieth century building has the more classical collection, while the new section concentrates on late nineteenth and twentieth century art, where the collection is spectacular. There are a few well known paintings – a large Picasso blue period masterpiece, one of George Bellows’ boxing paintings, to give two examples. Much of its collection (but by no means all) can be viewed on the museum’s website. The museum is definitely worth a visit, and even worth a trip to Cleveland.

We did not have the opportunity to visit the other museums. We had visited the Rock and Roll Museum several years ago, and were surprised at how much we enjoyed it.

But who supports all of these museums? I would assume by and large families who live in the suburbs. We did drive through Shaker Heights with its early and mid-twentieth century mansions, and we did see evidence of additional wealth outside of the city limits. But poor, poor Cleveland.

In Mentor, we went to see the home of President James A. Garfield, who was assassinated in 1881, and had lived in a large (then farm) house near the center of the city on extensive ground. After his death, his widow raised money to expand the house and include room for a memorial library for Garfield, who had an extensive book collection. The site is now maintained by the National Park Service. I didn’t expect too much (I assumed we would see a comfortable house, like we did when we visited Martin van Buren’s house in Kinderhook NY last summer), but again was very pleasantly surprised by a beautifully and uniquely designed and furnished house, with original furnishings of the Garfield era and the Garfield family (his widow lived in the house almost forty years after her husband was killed). We also watched the Park Service movie on the life of Garfield, which (as was the van Buren film) extremely informative and well done. Highly recommended. If you get to Cleveland, take the 30 minute or so drive to Mentor to visit the Garfield estate.

Finally, by chance, on the way home, we drove past Niles, Ohio, near Youngstown, south of Cleveland, the home of President William McKinley, also assassinated (in 1901). Although his boyhood home no longer exists, there is an extensive marble monument to McKinley in the middle of this highly depressed town, with a museum on one side of the outdoors atrium with a larger than life statue, and a library on the other. Worth visiting? Yes, but only to see it quickly and say you’ve been there. If you have a choice between McKinley and Garfield, choose Garfield every time.

We did have a chance to sample two restaurants in Mentor – one, Molinari’s is typical upscale Italian, neither bad nor memorable, and the other a seafood restaurant, Brennan’s, where the specialties are Lake Erie perch and walleye, but they only serve it deep fried with (an extraordinarily large portion of) french fries. If you aren’t worried about your heart, you can eat at Brennan’s, but if you are……stay away. (And, in fact, even if you aren’t, there’s no great reason to go.) Does Mentor have other better restaurants? It sure has a lot of restaurants, but as to their quality, I am not sure.