From Courtney Wasson’s hands: woodblock prints at Mildred’s Coffeehouse

Process. An over-used word. Process vs. Product; a good discussion topic. The artist in relation to the art; a popular narrative. I’m not sure where I stand on all this but Courtney Wasson taught me a few things the other day while we discussed these topics, her art, her process. In the midst of our talk, Henry slept peacefully while the coffee grinder sang and the aromas drifted in Mildred’s in the Crossroads.

Courtney has a show at Mildred’s right now; bold yet detailed black and white woodblock prints, one painting. Hands play a part in the subject matter. Flowers too. Scrolls with poetic suggestion. An anchor and more hands on deck. Symbols symbolic to Courtney, symbols you may find suggestive. A few pieces remind me of tattoos. One large print with hands, one black, one white, complete with an excerpt from Courtney’s journal. Personal words made public.

Henry awakens and smiles at his Mom. Courtney’s hands lift and cradle Henry who gazes across the lunch crowd, his big blue eyes bright, his three months a big rich part of Courtney’s process. Nothing like a child to change one’s perspective about life. It’s motivating. Nothing like a child can teach one about process, learning, and change. There’s a deep well of Courtney on the wall, but I sense Henry has had something to do with this show.

About this process thing. Courtney loves it. She revels in the journey from idea to destruction; the A to Z of woodblock printing. You heard right; destruction. Brain and hands, imagination and patience create a relief image on a block of wood. Paper selection (she loves paper), ink, pressing, mistakes, fixes, start-overs, printing, print, dry, trim, frame maybe, hang, asorb…then destroy. Not the print, the block. It’s called marring the block. From dream to destruction…but there’s a beyond, actually.

After the marring, I sense there’s this cyclical whirlpool of continuity. What we see is the effect of the process, the print itself. What’s rich to me about this artifact and the process is it’s basic primordial nature in relation to our over digitized informed existence today. This art form reminds me of baking bread.

Henry eyes the crust of his Mom’s sandwich and we wonder what he’s thinking. Hard to fathom the processes turning in his fresh intellect. Interesting to think of what Henry will learn as he watches Mom create and process her art at her dining room table studio in the coming months. Not long until he’ll grab a pen and draw something, a first line.

What’s next for Courtney? Color. She wants to explore the multidimensional four-tiered-chess game-like process of making colored woodblock prints. Try re-reading Alice Through the Looking Glass, think of yourself on the reverse side of a mirror, looking at yourself. Dig deep to the background of what you see right now and move your eyes and mind forward…then back again. My brain hurts.

I envy Henry. His brain’s growing like a dense green jungle with ample rain and plenty of sunlight. He probably understands this process better than Mom right now with his luminous blue eyes that see the world in an amazing way, untrained, early in the process. After all this brain candy, Henry needs another nap.

And after meeting with Courtney and appreciating her journey and her love of process, I can picture her at her dining room table this afternoon awake, processing and dreaming while Henry dreams fast asleep..."...the artist begins".

There is power in an association

Listened to a bit of Billy Bragg’s music tonight while following the election results. He does a nice rendition of “There is Power in a Union”. Unfortunately, the Unions should reconsider their choice of self-named noun and reconsider a rebranding campaign.

How about “association”? Works well for the AMA, the Bar Association(s). Or maybe “Institute” like the AIA. It may make the old fight song lyrics a bit forced but hey, it’s worth a try. There are many technical fields still “unassociated”. Educated ranks of IT folks for example. “There is power in a line of code”. Indeed.

Seriously, the Unions need a good savvy marketing company to give them a public relations make-over. One recommendation, do away with the “Grapes of Wrath” vintage, Woody Guthrie tunes and mix in some mash-ups…

The younger generation looks on confused. Unions, should they desire to grow and sustain, need young blood. Perhaps the younger generation will take on this rebranding idea…

The best deer hunting years of our lives: redux

There are ample articles lately about returning military members, physically and mentally damaged, homeless, disconnected family members…the narratives are many, not to mention stories of loss. There’s a new veteran in the picture too; the well-paid military contractor, now serving proudly in the ranks over there(s). The country seems disconnected from the Armed Forces, so says the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mike Mullen who graduated from the Naval Academy in 1968; five years before the end of the draft. Maybe the crack that’s now a gap formed in 1973? Maybe the next version of a best-years-deer-hunting-returning-home epic won’t be a box office smash. What’s our country’s measure for the national conscience? What do we care about? I’m not sure any more.

The Academy Awards are this coming Sunday…the annual commercial tsunami for the national conscience. The two previous coming home films won a combined 12 naked guy gold statuettes. I’m not sure that’s significant in the care factor discussion. What seems significant to me is that, given the professionalism and lethality of our serving and contracted forces, it’s very easy for non-combat commanders (our last three) – in - chief to launch the dogs of war…too easy.

No Place Like Home: Kansas City's East Side

a photographic essay by Rachael Jane...

"The urban East Side of Kansas City, Missouri is a place to grow up quickly and learn the street life. The school systems have failed repeatedly despite the massive amounts of money that were once poured into them. Historically, the East Side was a site of the Porter Slave Plantation in the 1830's, then a home to the richest man in Kansas City, Walt Disney's first theater was located on Troost, in the 1950's, banks practiced redlining that hastened the economic decline. It is now an area racially and socio-economically divided from the rest of the city. The people of Kansas City's East Side are the worst hit by the current economy."

Rachael Jane's revisions

Rachael Jane and I have teamed on a few projects over the last year. She recently revised her website...check it out when you have a chance...

Artist INC in Wichita, Kansas: connecting, enriching, and empowering

This past Saturday, I had the pleasure of sitting in on Artist INC’s 5th session of their wonderful eight-part seminar series that empowers artists with business skills and connects them with their fellow community of talented artisans in Wichita, Kansas. This is the first Artist INC session for Wichita. Kansas City alumni will be happy to know more of their brothers and sisters are drinking from this delicious well of information and camaraderie.

The theme of Saturday’s session was “copyright, contracts, and business formation” (or Zen and the Law of Art) which sounded like dry stuff on the syllabus sheet. But thanks to Kansas City guest speaker, attorney David Rein, Jr., it was good fun and really informative for the artists. David collected our impressions of the law as we think we know it, the rules of the road for copyrighting creations, our street knowledge of business and contracts or lack thereof. Using current cases, from the case involving the famous Obama Hope poster to DJs who create danceable mash-ups using other musicians recordings, he gave us great guidance about the “what is” and what we should do to protect our property, I mean our art. After all most of us want to sell this that we create, right?

Elaine McMilian facilitated with an ease that soon made it feel homey. I like how she took the collective pulse of the attendees by asking for one-word mood feelings…tired, anxious, clueless, curious, hungover, and hungry at the outset…relieved, smarter, chatty, confused, blurry and hungry at the conclusion of the three-hour gathering…we happily traveled to downtown Wichita to Playa Azul at 111 Washington for some great Mexican cuisine and a fun after-seminar summit. That took care of the hungry mood.

It was at the restaurant where I caught the spirit of the Artist INC sweetness while consuming a humungous salad, mixed with fellow artists, talking about Wichita, the art scene, their art, the galleries and trading perspectives and pictures on phones. Earlier in the seminar room, I felt this great indescribable vibe being in the room with over twenty artists. Even David Rein spices his life with a passion for photography. But here, sharing a meal with new friends, it became more real. Art here is indeed real as everyone has real creations with which they can declare copyright, real dreams that have become reality, real boxes of magic. The magic box refers to Collin Allen’s box of creations which he was soon to deliver to a gallery after lunch.

Outside, during a farewell for the week, very long chat, Collin shared the contents of his magic box with us…buckles made from license plates, a leather bound journal with salvaged stock from the 1940s, wallets…this but the tip of his creative iceberg that includes welding things. Sculptor and Artist INC facilitator Connie Ernatt had shown me her public art pieces on her iPhone earlier and I wanted to get to see them on our drive back home to Kansas City. I want to go back to find her (now not so) secret bronze troll in the Arkansas River Corridor Park.

There’s a scene in Wichita, downtown and in the outskirts. There’s a new tribe of artists, whom I’ll name and write about in the coming weeks, meeting every Saturday at Wichita State University right next door to where the Shockers shock. There are twenty Wichita area artists and five Wichita-based artists, facilitating, who are connecting with one another and, thanks to Artist INC, their connection now runs strongly north on I35 to Kansas City.

To keep me out of litigation trouble with Connie and her new attorney friend David, the photo above, by Tim Roberts of the Wichita Examiner, is Connie Ernatt's Troll... :-)

Adapting Donizetti’s adopted Daughter of the Regiment at the Lyric Opera

No one dies, or maybe someone does over the hills and far way from this Alpine wonderland gently invaded by Napoleon’s boys. Two people fall in love, Marie and Tonio. Tonio catches Marie when she almost falls over a cliff while picking flowers. Or so they both say. Marie’s regimental step-Dad, played by John Stephens, is the regimental sergeant. Lots of uniforms, rifles, surprises, colors, high notes and fun.

This takes place back when western war was a bit less hellish, when soldiers in attractive uniforms marched in straight lines, and regiments had attractive daughters. Actually, this is a fun Donizetti dreamworld.

So, have some fun with this one.

The Lyric Opera gives us this in English. Ryan Victor Robertson gives us a clear High-C-laced Cupid-clipped Tonio who gets it real bad for Marie played by Nellie Reimer. Reimer makes this all the more fun and bright with her bright voice and buoyant acting. Joyce Castle gives a hilarious interpretation of the Marquise of Berkenfield that breaks any ice you may have in your harbor of operaphobia, that “gee wiz I’m not sure that stuff’s for me” hesitation blues for steering clear of the Lyric.

Look for the cook of the regiment, sung by Kansas City’s own Ben Gulley. In fact, note Ben’s name for future reference, or better yet see Ben and then you can say in the future, “I saw Ben back when…”. Look for Hortensius, played by baritone and wonderful local actor, Robert Gibby Brand. I recently saw him in One Flea Spare at the MET. And be there to give baritone Brad Walker one of his debut performance applauses. You’ll be able to say you saw Field Marshal Brad back when he was a corporal in the Regiment.

This is enjoyable opera for first tasters and veterans of seasonal campaigns. This is an opera, which in recent history gave more people a sweet sip of Pavarotti by way of Tonio thanks to Dame Joan Sutherland as Marie by way of their first-pairing at La Scala in 1972. This opera endures for many reasons but I think one reason is because it’s fun and funny. Come for the high C’s, sure, but let yourself laugh. Come for the light-hearted score that you may be whistle upon exiting on Central.

Elaine Ismert took some awesome images at rehearsal last week…have fun.

The Piano Lesson(s) from August Wilson

August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson had its Kansas City premiere at the Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre Thursday night. It’s been a long time coming. This play takes you to the living room and kitchen of Uncle Doaker’s house in Pittsburgh in the 1930s. Doaker’s niece, Berniece and her 11 year old daughter Maretha live there too.

Berniece’s brother, Boy Wille and his friend Lymon arrive from Mississipi with a truckload of watermelons and a few dreams. Lymon dreams of a new life in the North, a new start in the big steel city. Boy Willie dreams of getting enough money to buy the land his ancestors farmed for the Sutter family; land where his ancestors lived and worked as slaves.

Avery dreams of having a big successful church in the neighborhood and wooing Berniece. Berniece’s Uncle Wining Boy drifts into town from Kansas City. He’s a gambler, a rambler, who plays a mean piano. Upstairs in Doaker’s house resides the ghost of a recently deceased big guy, a member of the Sutters who recently fell down his well. Or maybe he was pushed.

And in the parlor sits this beautifully carved piano, with faces from long ago, the faces of family members carved by Berniece’s grandfather, Boy Charles.

There’s an abundance of family stories that unfold; stories from the past and yet the story that comes from this Pittsburgh house, from these characters, weaves an incredible deeply textured tapestry that connects the past, present and hollers clearly into this future we call the present tense of our lives.

Dreams, schemes, memories, regrets all mix while young Maretha looks on and listens intently. You can sit and drink this in with Maretha, too.

Crossroads artist and photographer Elaine Ismert and I attended the final rehearsal last Wednesday evening. Like a jaguar, Elaine prowled round the set and shot these pictures for you while I sat and soaked in the performances, listened to the stories, heard the piano tunes, connected with the Parchman Farm work songs, thought about my own family stories, and remembered those students hooking into this play a few years ago. I had a hard time keeping still as the energetic passionate players moved, laughed, sang, danced, cried and fought in the house.

What sounded like hesitant line-delivery, what looked like stage hiccups (like a rug that bunched up threatening to trip the players) looked and sounded real to me. What looks like an epic soliloquy on the page, a story told by Doaker, or a lament from Wining Boy, a defense delivered by Boy Willie of Berniece’s dead husband Crawley’s death one night on a firewood collection expedition, all sounded to authentic to me, felt chillingly believable.

In this day and age of PowerPoint, email, and short-attention-span informational connectedness, we often lose our patience with long speeches, with those aching to share a memory, to get it out of their head and onto the page or into the air. We want crisp clear well-crafted small plates of bit-sized food for thought. You may not feel like you have time for this.

Theatre definitely tests one’s patience but good theatre has a way of transporting you as well. These MET players, this crew of artists whisked me away pretty quickly. When the final scene ended and lights extinguished I was lost in a swirl of I don’t know what, but I was feeling a ton of feelings for these people I just met.

After the rehearsal, Elaine and I had to scoot quickly. She had to awaken early Friday morning for work and I had an early meeting. On the car ride back to the Crossroads, we were pretty quiet as our minds turned and bumped.

We’ve both had some time to soak this in. Elaine’s selected the shots from her few hundred shutter clicks and I’ve written a few impressions here and even shared a note with the cast. Theatre sticks on me that way. After seeing a play, there’s this ooze of feelings that walks with me over the days after I experience it. It’s sometimes hard to shake it off, but I try to patient with myself. A great deal of the ooze is the inspiration that comes from seeing so many artists in one room, on the stage, backstage, in the back of the theatre, in the lobby who make this imaginary world come to life in such a real and approachable way.

I can’t wait to go back to Pittsburgh, I mean the MET, towards the end of this twelve performance run and see these artists again when they’re performing this play with complete abandon, when they’ve forgotten their lines and made them their own, when all the blocking becomes no blocking at all and merely life, when the iced tea tastes like strong whisky and they don’t worry about tripping over the rug.

Photography by Elaine Ismert...

My “Chuck Berry syndrome” radio shows with Joe Jones

In college, the guys at the radio station used to do a lot of talking about music. We had an immense collection going back a long time with a lot of 78s. This was the early 70s and rock ‘n roll was rolling along. Joe Jones, my classmate, was our soul expert. He was born in New Orleans and knew a lot about jazz, but soul and early rock ‘n roll played by the likes of Chuck Berry were his favorites. We’d share playlists and sometimes work together on a few. One cool mix I enjoyed doing was “Street Fighting Man”, starting with Rod Stewart, then slipping into the Stones version at the break. Joe and I put together a couple of lists where we’d play a rock song recorded by a white group and then play the original by a black group. I learned a lot from Joe. We used to laugh at the covers and search back further for blues songs. Mississippi John Hurt was fun to explore. Sometimes when I hear a Stones song, or Clapton, I think of Joe and how he taught me about the roots of this stuff. And I remember the time seeing Chuck Berry in the mid 60s, how he danced, sweated a lot, how the rock ‘n roll audience was a mix of races…Joe passed a way a few years ago, but I hear him singing when I listen to Sam Cooke…and Joe could really sing...

Figuring out my potential exile-like tribute to which I never paid tribute

The average age of those paying tribute to Exile on Main St.…35, maybe…
Exile’s release date, May 1972…39 years ago
I’m in my 58th year…
My tribute year would have been 1988…
Were I to have paid musical tribute…what could have been my “exile”?
Potential tribute album released in 1949…hmmmm…research...my 88 year old Dad is asleep now...do not awaken him...
Weird concept…
Frankie Laine’s first LP entitled Frankie Laine...?
...it has Mule Train on it...get along, already, yeeeehah

Yipppeee…

Track Listing...before people called them "tracks"...
God Bless the Child
Cry of the Wild Goose
That Lucky Old Sun
Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams
Don't Cry Little Children
By the Light of the Stars
Mule Train
West End Blues

Kansas City’s Board of Police Commissioners: the lost command?

From the KCMO website: “The Board of Police Commissioners has the responsibility of providing police service to the citizens of Kansas City, Missouri as mandated by Missouri State Statute. The Governor of Missouri, with the consent of the State Senate, appoints four citizens to serve on the Board of Police Commissioners. These Commissioners serve four-year terms, with one member’s term expiring each year. The fifth member of the Board is the Mayor of Kansas City, by virtue of elected office. The Secretary/Attorney of the Board is appointed by the Commissioners and acts as legal consultant.”

There are five board members whose bios are here for your information. Governor Jay Nixon appoints four members, the fifth being the mayor.

With recent discussion topics here about the command and control of our police force, it seems appropriate to appreciate the history, system and laws pertaining to the chain-of-command. From the website to save you a few points and clicks:

“History: In the 1920s and 1930s, the Kansas City Missouri Police Department was as much a cog in the Thomas Pendergast Machine as any other public institution in the city. According to a biography published by the Kansas City Public Library, “Posing as a mere businessman, Pendergast ran the city: workers were provided jobs, chosen politicians ran the government, and the entire ‘machine’ made a profit that filled his pockets. Pendergast brought more corruption to Kansas City than anyone in history, but he is also credited with helping the city survive the Great Depression.”

The City Council, heavily swayed by Pendergast, approved a home-rule ordinance in 1932 that brought KCPD under city governance for the first time since its 1874 inception. Previously, it was governed by a board of men appointed by the governor.

From 1932 to 1939, officers looked the other way at illegal gambling, prostitution and saloons – the primary funding sources for Pendergast – to stay in political favor. Police also ignored illegal voting schemes arranged by the Pendergast Machine. Criminals found refuge here, and the money flowed in for Pendergast.

In 1939, Missouri Attorney General Roy McKeltside came down hard on the corruption generated by the Pendergast Machine. Missouri Governor Lloyd Stark had the police department returned to state control under commissioners that he appointed. Thus was reinstated the original form of KCPD governance – a governor-appointed Board of Police Commissioners, and it’s the system we use today. (An historical note: this new Board in 1939 appointed a new police chief, Lear B. Reed, and charged him with rooting corruption out of the force. About 50 percent of KCPD employees were fired at that time.)

Modern advantages of the system: The Board of Police Commissioners is an excellent way to keep politics and corruption out of law enforcement. All police board members are residents of Kansas City, Mo. Four members are appointed by the Missouri governor, and the fifth is the mayor of Kansas City. Aside from the mayor, the board is composed of people who care about their community but are not elected politicians and who typically are not looking to run for office or raising campaign funds. Those four police commissioners, as well as every member of the KCPD, must take an oath not to engage in political activity. Because of this system, decisions are made in the best interest of the Police Department and the public, and not as a result of political deals.

While KCPD is not governed by the City, the City does provide the department with funding, and we work very closely with City staff and City Council members to do what is in the best interest of the community we jointly serve. The Mayor sits on the Board of Police Commissioners, and the chair of the City Council’s Public Safety and Neighborhoods Committee has a spot on the agenda at every Board meeting. Police commanders and others regularly attend city meetings and work on joint projects. Some areas in which we have consolidated functions include radio maintenance, parking control, dispatching, and information technology. The city does control the police through the budget.

Similar to the U.S. Armed Forces, Kansas City’s law enforcement body is a professional civil service-type organization that is respected by all political elements because it is separated from those elements. As a result, both today and in the past, the Department and the Board are not involved in the various political disputes that occur among elected officials. Our system is unique, but we think it’s the best possible way to operate.”

The present system as you’ve read, comes from a time of corruption, an attempt to steer control from the city’s citizens to the office of the governor.

Notice that the statement above compares the Kansas City law enforcement body to the US Armed Forces. But somehow the comparison stops there. Is there really a chain-of-command from serving officer to Governor?

On one hand the military comparison sounds comforting. On the other hand a militaristic police model seems inappropriate and a bit too…military. I see the next step being “contract police” a la the trend in the military with private military security companies…cheaper, leaner, professional, accountable, and profitable too.

Let the discussion continue but it seems to me a law needs changing to change the system. To attack the people serving in the present system appears fruitless and moot.

And lest we forget, those who have fallen in the line of duty deserve our remembrance once in a while along with the thousands of citizens who have fallen while trying to just live.

This is a dangerous city...

Art as curriculum

There’s a great deal of discussion and worry as well about funding for the arts in America, particularly in schools. Art is a broad term. Art makes one feel. Studying art doesn’t land you a high-paying job. Art often has a liberal label. Yet we have many conservatories, places where art is conserved for free public viewing, places where art is the centerpiece of the curriculum, places where old art is studied, places where people create new art forms and recreate old art in a new way.

Last night, I watched the Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre’s final rehearsal for their play, August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize winning “The Piano Lesson”. I sat with the crew in the audience. Elaine Ismert took photos for an upcoming feature article. With me there were the spirits of over 1000 students whom I taught at the Jackson County Juvenile Detention Center a few years ago. You see, despite the fact that Wilson’s play premiers in Kansas City tonight, it premiered for them in 1995.

The Piano Lesson gave us a rich curriculum in so many ways. It’s a story about an American family with a piano that connects them with a dark tragic past. It’s a story about dealing with the past and how to embrace the future. There’s a ghost you can see if you try real hard.

How can a play, a work of art, be the centerpiece for curriculum in school? As I learned from my students, it’s easy if you just make connections and go there. We read and watched the film of the play together, read it out loud, even acted out a few scenes. We examined the art of Romare Bearden whose painting The Piano Lesson inspired Wilson. We talked about Parchman Farm Prison, a place where all the male characters were once inmates; the poetry of the work songs, the oppressive conditions, how Parchman is kind of a ground zero for the birth of the blues. We listened to music by Mississippi John Hurt.

We examined various genres of piano music from boogie woogie to classical to jazz. Since the story takes place in Pittsburgh in the 1930s, we examined the life and music of Pittsburgh resident Billy Strayhorn, whose grandparents encouraged his piano talents, how young Billy saved errand money to buy his piano, how he composed high school shows, how he met this guy named Duke Ellington after a show and got to play for him at the age of 23, how Billy attended this really cool arts-centered school called Westinghouse High School, and how he practiced practiced practiced.

We discussed the migration of people north to industrial towns like Pittsburgh; people from farming backgrounds, descendents of slaves with rich connected recent histories. We talked about Kansas City because one of the characters, Maretha’s great uncle “Wining Boy”, a talented piano player, loved going to Kansas City to play and gamble and see the “pretty little women there”.

Some students memorized lines from the play and shared short performances. Some students wanted to draw like Bearden. Some students found the music the thing. Some students wrote things, wanted to be like August Wilson. We all found the play a real treasure box of connections and wonderful intersections. I learned a lot about curriculum but learned more about the students as I watched them learn about themselves. We learned that we all have a personal piano lesson.

What’s the lesson? I won’t be presumptuous to express that as art has a way of connecting differently with each person. Read or see for yourself. For teachers, consider theatre as a curriculum foundation. For administrators, administer with a bit of art in your heart. For students, practice, practice, practice like Billy Strayhorn at whatever gets you juiced and inspired. For parents, remember that the Marethas of this community are so special. For families, talk about your pianos once in a while and share stories. For funding-deciders, consider how art provides a rich ready-made curriculum of delicious treats. For teachers, check out this play and consider bringing Wilson’s creation into your classroom.

I started this by sharing that I have a personal connection to this play, yet I’m thinking of my fellow 1000 connectors who connected with me over the course of a few years with The Piano Lesson.

…another curriculum in a book – Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God…but that’s another treasure box of lessons, another column here perhaps.

Happy reading, learning and viewing, everyone.

To the MET’s cast and crew of “The Piano Lesson”

Dear Cast and Crew,

I really enjoyed watching your rehearsal last night and I wish you great success and joy with your preview this evening. As I departed last night, Karen suggested I write something longer than I usually do. My articles tend to be short subjective celebratory pieces about the art, the artists, and the atmosphere art creates to make one feel something. I’m not a critic or a reviewer; we have many people doing that in town.

I have a personal connection with this play. From 1995 to 1997, I taught Reading and Art at the Jackson County Juvenile Detention Center. To connect with my young students, who ranged in age from 8 to 18, I tried to find art (music, literature, paintings, sculpture, dance, theatre, and film) with which they could connect, art we could experience together and sense, art approachable to their sensibilities. Our student body usually consisted of around 100 students on any given day, mostly young men, but always with a team of around 15 women. Six teams which I called classes.

My students taught me that some stories were really interesting and fun. Four stories they loved were Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, Hemingway’s two part short story The Big Two-Hearted River, Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, and August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson.

The Piano Lesson always was a beautiful gold mine to experience the characters and learn so much more. And here was a story with people with whom they could connect and truly understand. We talked about music, took side trips to discuss the musical center-point of Parchman Farm; the birthplace of the blues, the work song poetry, and the sweat of oppression suffering too. Bitter sweet stuff. Students, now in their own child version of Parchman, would literally light up when reading and realizing that all the men in the story were once “residents” (that’s what the county called the children – residents).

The young women loved Berniece and would discuss what it must have been like to be young Maretha. We listened to various forms of piano music together from classical (they liked Glenn Gould’s Goldberg Variations) to jazz (they thought Herbie Hancock was very good), boogie woogie, and Joplin’s ragtime artistry. We listened to Mississippi John Hurt’s songs, too. Great stuff.

We examined Romare Bearden’s paintings and had a poster of the painting of the same name that inspired Wilson.

We would take a few side trips to Pittsburgh and talk about the steel city. I told them about this young guy, Billy Strayhorn, who as a young boy saved his errand money to buy a piano, how he became a composer in high school, how he practiced real hard and one evening met this guy named Duke Ellington. How Billy wrote this “Take the A Train” song” based on some directions the Duke gave him on a napkin, directions to his New York apartment. How young Billy maybe, just maybe, lived down the street from Berniece, Maretha, and Doaker. How Billy may have impressed Wining Boy with his licks (they’d smile when Wining Boy talked about Kansas City and all the pretty girls there).

From the pages of Wilson’s play, the student’s threw out all these colorful strands of string to places far beyond their heavily secured temporary home. They really loved the film, too. We watched it in bits and then we’d see it all the way through at the after school matinee I’d host.

I met a few budding actors, too. A few did a great Doaker, a passionate Boy Willy, a searching Avery, a touching Lymon, and a strong willful tender Berniece too. A few students memorized memorable lines.

Many of my students had difficulty reading, but together we found ways to hook into the words. This was sweet stuff for reading out loud with challenging authentic colloquial language to give us new vocabulary words, real words they had heard before. A few jarring words too, like “nigger”. My students took me to school on the word many times. One student demonstrated the endearing quality of the sound when he gave me a thank you hug after class and used the word in a thank you expression. I still lose it when thinking of that “teachable moment”.

I started this by mentioning that I have a personal connection with this play, yet out there in Kansas City, there must be around 1000 young people who do as well. I wonder where they are? Are they here? Have they heard that The Piano Lesson’s back in town, or rather this is the Kansas City premiere of the play?

I’ve loved this play for years and last night I saw it for the first time, for real. Saw the water fly, smelled Doaker’s cooking, saw Wining Boy play the piano, and looked closely for Sutter’s ghost up the stairs. My fellow young scholars were with me in that theatre last night. I could feel them, stronger than Sutter. You made me feel them. Although the pews only hold 99, there where ten times as many watching, listening.

One final lesson they taught me over the course of teaching this play a few times… They taught me that this story is universal. They taught me that a kid from Philly with Irish, French, Sicilian, Italian and German cultural roots can connect with this play too. We all have family pianos in one form or another.

You all are a family now and you showed that to me last night. I really want to see you again at the tail end of your fun run because I know I’ll see more special things. You took me somewhere and that power of transportation is more powerful then those trains Doaker talked about. Your train is a time machine, a rocket ship to the heart, a memory well, when you allow yourself to fall into it, from which you emerge refreshed and new.

Thanks for the trip, everyone.

Sincerely,

Tom

PS...pictured above, The Piano Lesson by Romare Bearden

The mysterious science of social media

Last night, I watched the Grammys show with a friend. More specifically, one friend was in the room while numerous others joined us online. My friend and I ordered a pizza, one of those delivered rectangular behemoths the size of an aircraft carrier complete with sauce for dipping. A short time before the show, while ballasted with bites of the doughy sauced peperoni’d confection, she opened the laptop, signed into the book of faces and discovered that friends were gathering to add color commentary to the TV show. We had enough leftover pizza to feed all our social media friends.

On went the show. Maybe you watched too. Amazing music, costumes, lights and sights. On went the commentary on the book of faces as the moderator and party host, music-lover Chris, facilitated the conversational thread. Hilarious.

As the evening went on, it occurred to me that I’ve been here before. My memories emerged of the New Year’s marathons of Mystery Science Theater 3000. The tradition of watching the marathon collection started New Years Day in 1992. My brother-in-law, my son (then 7) and I watched and commented with three shadowed commenters making their funny remarks. And we laughed. Here’s a sample of the humor.

There’s an art form to this style of humor, or at least I think it’s a unique way of seeing the world together. MST3000 reminds me of times at Sunday matinees at the Boyd Theater in Chester, Pa, when a collection of my friends would kid around during the triple features that had interspersed serial shorts. There’s a science to this as well. A science of listening and laughing, picking up on someone’s comment, carrying the humor forward with a layered joke, a series of rim-shot punctuated deliveries like Henny Youngman.

Say what you may about social media. Say it’s impersonal. Say it’s a waste of time. Silly. Say we may be connected, but we’re disconnected. I say it’s fun, a new version of Mystery Science. What’s cool about the exchange last night is knowing that when we all meet up, and we will for real this week, last night’s Grammy show will be a collective memory, food for real conversation in a genuine social setting.

Gotta go…meeting a few friends for lunch and I don’t have time to post that as my book of faces status or compose a tweet.

Barry Kyle gives us “Oh What a Lovely War!”

Last night at the World War I Memorial Museum, director Barry Kyle offered the audience his vision for “Oh What a Lovely War!”. This play will be the talk of the town very soon and I’d like to contribute to the discussion. You’re in for a treat.

A week or so ago, photographer Elaine Ismert and I watched a dressed-down rehearsal. Barry started with a nice talk with his cast. It seemed apparent that everyone was having a great deal of fun. Amid the fun, I sensed a reverence for the setting for this thought-provoking piece, this “war game” that gives one food for much thinking about a war long ago; a not so lovely, not so great war that didn’t end all wars as we well know given our current headlines. Barry’s English roots, his sense of humour with an “oh you are”, deep experience, and Welsh-connected wit show clear in this production of oh what a complex subject.

This play came from the collaborative minds of the famous Theatre Workshop in London and their director, Joan Littlewood. Bertolt Brecht’s spirit has a hand in this production too. Joan would want us to know that. Barry reminded me of that when we talked together. Barry’s humble in that way; an artist who pays pleasant homage to those artists with whom we connect, finger tip to finger tip, over the years. It must be fun to be one of his students at UMKC.

Despite the discomfort of the war subject matter, this production will make you feel…many things. You’ll be surprised when the cast mingles with the audience before the show begins. The pierrot costumes seem strange at first, but be patient. You’ll not notice them after a while for the actors will transport you with their pronouncements, lines that sound like new bulletins while they wear various hats and helmets. This is a game after all, played with a beach ball that looks like a world globe, performed in and around a sandbox that reminds me of military rehearsals, chalk talks at Ranger School in the summer of ’73 when we walked through the plan in a scale model bit of dirt and in later years with computers when we simulated operations on non-sandy flatscreens.

We’ve come so far with our wargaming technologies and yet we are where we were. This living war simulation, this witty satirical two hour window of theatre pulled me back to that time of the Great War and shot me forward in time again with laughs, jarring perspective, absurdity, songs, dance, marching, a hilarious bayonet drill session, sights and even sounds of artillery in the not so distant distance. Thankfully, there were constant reminders from the cast that this was merely a game. At one point, a woman sings a lovely comforting song and throws hard candy into the audience to sweeten the pain.

If you enjoyed Monty Python, this play (first produced in 1963) will give you a taste of Python before Python, a production, a style that the Pythons would tell you captured a time in English theatre, a time when John Cleese was fringing in Edinburgh with the Cambridge Circus, a time when the fringe was very much out there and not a commercial Sundance-like event as it is today.

So, give it a go, this play I mean, this wargame without a joystick, this vision from Barry Kyle, this cast and crew. Lovely indeed.

Photograph by Elaine Ismert...pictured, Barry on the left with his cast mucking about before the rehearsal last week...

The wargame runs to Feb. 27...visit the website here...

The news becomes the news in Egypt

It’s a dynamic of recent times, an accepted narrative perhaps given birth in Baghdad twenty years ago this month when CNN correspondents Bernard Shaw and Peter Arnett reported live, becoming known as “The Boys of Baghdad”. They, the journalists, became the news.

And so it’s continued over the years. Journalists have become stars overnight. Those killed or captured, the subject of books and films. I admire journalists who place themselves in danger to report the truth.

But often, their first-hand truth, takes a back seat to the story of their dangerous exploits. Perhaps we saw a zenith in bravado and search for fame when NY Times correspondent Stephen Farrell defied military advice and crossed the lines in Afghanistan to interview the Taliban in September 2009. He’d done this “crossing over” before in Iraq a few times. Farrell was a tough guy rock star.

In this instance, his decision resulted in the death of his interpreter during a rescue by British forces. He’s a citizen of Great Britain, no longer a rock star I believe.

Today the news reports about Egypt shifted to the news reports about foreign journalists beaten and detained. The news about Egypt now becomes news about the news; the journalists.

I’m reminded of Bernard Fall who covered the war in Indochina with the French and later in the re-named War in Vietnam. He was a journalist’s journalist. The story was not about him. He took you to the place with his reporting and his great books like “Street Without Joy” (1961) and “Hell in a Very Small Place” (1966). Fall died alongside US Marines on a patrol in his Street Without Joy in 1967. If his name is new to you, check him out. Read the prophetic “Street Without Joy”. His prophesy continues, unfortunately.

Journalism is a tricky business that demands immediacy and access in this very immediate, connected world. Much rides upon the reads, hits, and views. Much to gain and a great deal to lose, not to mention life. It’s a business and a sacred trust. Balancing the two is the tricky bit.

Toward efficiency but perhaps not democracy

The world watches Egypt. Wishful thinking abounds as we virtually witness the people there protesting, reading twitter feeds, participating via facebook “like” movements. In the pictures, the blood is not virtual. Change, for certain. To what, uncertain. A labeled dictator falls, and in America we applaud.

The change is not our change, and in the case of Egypt, we have been removed from the conditions there for a very long time. Egypt receives brief mention in our National Security Strategy (May 2010). The mention refers to the importance of Egypt and Jordan to facilitate basing requirements in the region. The document, after all, is all about our needs. Once, we strove to shape the world, but this NSS admits that we must “…face the world as it is” in order to succeed. Understanding the “as it is part” is very difficult. In the case of Egypt, we’re seeing a new “is” take shape.

I’m hesitant to use the general term democracy to characterize the destination for this people’s revolution. I’m skeptical in thinking that this revolution and the regional variations are spontaneous. I’m seeing a practical "business" side to this change.

Instead of a move toward democracy, I see a shift to autocracy, a soft, general term for a government much like China’s. One that listens a bit to the people, but a government with a new variation on the theme of dictatorship, a government that is pragmatic and able to efficiently decide, and do it quickly. Countries look to China with longing and fascination.

The look of longing is understandable as China is the customer of choice for energy and trade. China fascinates because they efficiently decide and quickly grow before our eyes.

We Americans tend to be very moralistic. Egypt seems to long for pragmatism, fairness…desperate needs, such as affordable food, require efficient fast solutions. Layers of unofficial funding (corruption) to fund something as basic as a drivers license is no longer an option in this lean, hemorrhaging economy.

China may have a sinister hand in this people’s revolution, but I sense a more practical set of intentions on their part. China has certainly profited from the recent quieting of conditions in the Sudan. China does not require a sophisticated foreign policy, as their policymakers are in the region in the form of business people, writing contracts, securing energy exploration and production licenses with their willing sub-contractors, many of them American based companies.

So given the very autocratic, efficient, and engaged super-customer, China…a customer very engaged in business in this energy-rich region, I’m seeing a collection of customer service providers scramble to situate themselves in this emerging new competitive business market whose banker and energy purchaser is patient, not on facebook and prefers not to tweet.