I PAINT ~

Diego Rivera

"Man at the Crossroads" begun in 1933 for the Rockefeller Center in New York City, was removed after a furor erupted in the press over a portrait of Vladimir Lenin. Look right under the upper right wing, or is it a propeller. . .

E.B. White

I Paint What I See

"'What do you paint, when you paint on a wall?'
Said John D.'s grandson Nelson.
'Do you paint just anything there at all?
'Will there be any doves, or a tree in fall?
'Or a hunting scene, like an English hall?'

'I paint what I see,' said Rivera.

'What are the colors you use when you paint?'
Said John D.'s grandson Nelson.
'Do you use any red in the beard of a saint?
'If you do, is it terribly red, or faint?
'Do you use any blue? Is it Prussian?'

'I paint what I paint,' said Rivera.

'Whose is that head that I see on the wall?'
Said John D.'s grandson Nelson.
'Is it anyone's head whom we know, at all?
'A Rensselaer, or a Saltonstall?
'Is it Franklin D.? Is it Mordaunt Hall?
Or is it the head of a Russian?

'I paint what I think,' said Rivera.





'I paint what I paint, I paint what I see,
'I paint what I think,' said Rivera,
'And the thing that is dearest in life to me
'In a bourgeois hall is Integrity;
'However . . .
'I'll take out a couple of people drinkin'
'And put in a picture of Abraham Lincoln;
'I could even give you McCormick's reaper
'And still not make my art much cheaper.
'But the head of Lenin has got to stay
'Or my friends will give the bird today,
'The bird, the bird, forever.'

'It's not good taste in a man like me,'
Said John D.'s grandson Neslon,
'To question an artist's integrity
'Or mention a practical thing like a fee,
'But I know what I like to a large degree,
'Though art I hate to hamper;
'For twenty-one thousand conservative bucks
'You painted a radical. I say shucks,
'I never could rent the offices-----
'The capitalistic offices.
'For this, as you know, is a public hall
'And people want doves, or a tree in hall
'And though your art I dislike to hamper,
'I owe a little to God and Gramper,
'And after all,
'It's my wall . . .'

'We'll see if it is,' said Rivera.


from ~
The New Yorker, May 20, 1933

Description of the Art Work

A Mural portrait commissioned by Nelson Rockefeller for Rockefeller Center in New York City. Its subject was to be "human intelligence in control of the forces of nature." The 63 feet by 17 feet mural contained in the center a portrait of Lenin.

Description of incident

"On May 22, 1933, Rivera was called down from his scaffold where he was still working on the unfinished mural. He was handed a check for $14,00, the balance of his fee, and informed that he had been dismissed. Within 30 minutes the mural had been covered by tarpaper and a wooden screen.

Results of incident

"Seeking a compromise, Rockefeller suggested that Rivera should replace Lenin with some unknown face; the artist offered to add Lincoln but refused to expunge Lenin. Charged with willful propagandizing, he declared only that "All art is propaganda." Since he had accepted his payment, Rivera was unable to force the Rockefellers to exhibit or even keep his work. The mural was subsequently removed from the wall..." The Encyclopedia of Censorship, J. Green, Facts on File, pg. 254

Source: The Encyclopedia of Censorship, J. Green, Facts on File

photos:

the rockefeller plaza mural

frida kahlo & diego rivera

diego rivera working on the mural

JANINE & BADGER

[ click on image for a bigger world ]

designed & printed by susan & bob arnold

sorry, gang, we lost the "comments" for a moment...will return.

I AM A MAN ~

Ernest C. Withers

Ernest C. Withers (1922-2007), photographer, worked sixty years documenting the civil rights movement in America, the Memphis blues scene, the Negro Baseball League, black folklore, and he traveled with Martin Luther King, Jr., during most of his public life, garnering photographs that are today the hallmark of that period. No one else had quite the touch nor knew how to instinctively position portraits — the sweat, the earth, the sound — between the very public street and the killing floor. His baseball photographs show faces rarely seen as he found them. When you hold his now scarce book of photographs gathering all these worlds, you're holding something. I found my copy in a dim-lit basement shop. In the dross there, it glowed.

Amongst the highlights and courage of the man now come allegations he worked as a paid informant for the FBI from 1968-1970. Who knows what that entailed? His family, and he had eight children, aren't buying the charges; others are affixing negative labels. This was a very complicated and hopeful, yet murderous time in American history (lots of snitches), and this is quite a versatile artist. He had a large family to support, plus he was known to give his photographs away to ministers who couldn't afford to pay. Look at the character of the man, but not at the expense of the brilliant work. These are photographs that lead the way.

ernest c. withers

mule train leaving Mississippi for Washington D.C. Poor People's March 1968

ernest c. withers

sanitation workers solidarity march Memphis 1968

ernest c. withers

ernest c. withers

Ernie Banks, Larry Doby, Matty Brescia, Jackie Robinson, youngster, Memphis 1953

ernest c. withers

Satchel Paige




Memphis Red Sox

ernest c. withers

ernest c. withers

Martin Luther King, Jr. Washington D.C.

ernest c. withers

Pops Staples


When we listen to the gospel and rhythm & blues of Roebuck "Pops" Staples (1914-2000), we're hearing the soul of a man born on a Mississippi cotton plantation, was one of 14 kids, and who dropped out of school after the eighth grade. He'd go on to know and play with Charlie Patton, Robert Johnson, Son House — a killer line-up. Then there was his personal friendship with Martin Luther King, Jr. By 1948 he formed The Staple Singers with his young children (Mavis, Yvonne, Pervis, Cleotha) singing in local churches; this spread all over the country, all over the world. Forever legendary on Stax Records. Pops Staples' peaceable yet resonant and shimmering recordings may be picked up as an influence for many current acts, including the stage sound of Bob Dylan. His youngest, Mavis, carries on the music and the grace.

ernest c. withers

Ike & Tina Turner
paradise, ca. 1962

Howlin' Wolf
wdia goodwill revue
city auditorium, ca. 1960

ernest c. withers

ever cool B.B. King

ernest c. withers

Elvis Presley & B.B. King
december 7, 1956

ernest c. withers

ernest c. withers

Lionel Hampton, Memphis 1955

ernest c. withers

Ernest C. Withers

a gorgeous moment: young woman w/ her voter registration card, Fayette County, Tennessee, 1960

ernest c. withers

ernest c. withers

PASSING ~

The loveliest holiday lit village we saw in 2010








photo © bob arnold

WITHNAIL ~

My thumbs have gone weird!









Withnail & I
directed & written by Bruce Robinson
Handmade Films 1986

WITH ME ~

steve lacy

SON ~

For the holiday season Carson brought us out the new album by Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan. Campbell (b. 1976, Glasgow) is best known with the band Belle & Sebastian, which she departed from in 2002. Lanegan (b. 1964, USA) is a versatile swingman with many bands: starting with Screaming Trees and Queens of the Stone Age. His collaborative abilities with others seems limitless. We're showing a song, or maybe I'll find two, from Campbell & Lanegan's third album Hawk. Carson knew we would like it.

street photo © bob arnold

ATOMIC ~

Count Basie with his orchestra

His mother taught him how to play piano while taking in wash for a living in Red Bank, New Jersey — and Fats Waller would help out with some music pointers years later — born in 1904 and gone by 1984, Basie ran his orchestras like a well-timed train for nearly 50 years. A man born in racism, as were many in his bands, never mind two world wars, depressions, economic crashes to eat your eyes out, Red Scare, McCarthy witch hunts, the jitterbug, fox-trot, congas, the fading of swing and the up-step of be-bop, and all Basie ever wanted was for his audience "to get the beat." Turn it up. The walls of the houses and trees or neighborhoods should shake.

YESTERDAY ~

image © bob arnold

THE SMILE ~

Thank you Monica ~
Poet Janine Pommy Vega reads at the College of Poetry, Warwick, New York. November 13, 2010. Video by Monica Claire Antonie.

EARTH ~

"Janine Vega has the capacity to channel the intuition of children down to death, Hell and the devil. If my child attends her classes, we'll sue.
-- Excerpt from a parent's letter to a local school."
from Janine Pommy Vega, Mad Dogs of Trieste

A TREE FULL OF BIRDS

--------------------for Janine Pommy Vega



That's what I heard one morning

In a no-nothing town between

Phoenix and Tucson, where it

Appeared desolate and desperate

With a mall and a motel and a big

Highway running through it all

And even the motel desk didn't

Know the name of the route number

Of the highway when I asked the

Next morning with a desire to go

To the mountains north — as if no

One went to the mountains from here —

But I did, and before I left, hours

Before I asked any questions, birds

By the hundreds came to the trees and

Bushes of this motel square, dipping

Even into the swimming pool, and whether

It was sunrise that lit each bird yellow

Or if in fact they were yellow and each

Singing magnificently in the coolness of

Daybreak when I was awakened gladly

And stepped out my door and onto a long

Balcony to see and hear and feel the most

Beautiful day in the world begin


Bob Arnold
from Once In Vermont
Gnomon





SOME GREATEST HITS WITH JANINE


She wrote to me from Lake Titicaca, the heart of the Inca Civilization,
my first 'fan letter' (we laugh), for my first book of poems, both of
us young authors with the same publisher (Cherry Valley Editions).


When we finally met, after a few years first of correspondence, I introduced
Susan and myself after Janine's reading at Jack Powers' Stone Soup in
Boston. Janine gasped, lit up, told the first person right next to her


"These guys raise ducks & geese!" Yes we did. Two hours away and far from home.
Janine nodding and smiling and sizing us both up for years to come.
She would love Susan with the same lovely quiet that is Susan.


That night, none of us slept. We hiked over the Longfellow Bridge
twice, slow with talk and the dark Charles River below. A phantom fellow
joined us, unknown to us, probably until that night unknown


to Janine. As a boy I learned quickly things aren't always as they appear.
Susan and Janine agreed: driving the Mass Pike west to east is the pits.
Better east to west. Something about Berkshire, Catskill, Niagara...


A few years later Janine visited us in our cabin, slept in my library of bark,
books and twigs; rose hours and hours after we did. Made sure to do yoga,
meditation, had special drinks and brought her own blender. A pot of rice.


Soon after we all drove through New Hampshire, higher into the White
Mountains. When we stopped to show her the Old Man in the Mountain
the Jersey girl got out and gazed publicly, "Aw, man, look at that." This was


after years of living on the streets with the pros, then as a hermit in Bolivia ~
Peru, writing two or three singular books of poems, losing a husband to an
early death who she never stopped loving, and paying attention always to the


down-trodden, phantoms. She climbed the peaks of the Catskills / Himalayas.
Worked the toughest prisons in North and South America. Adored the children
of the world. She worked with me twice at the same girls school and was so good


some of the teachers were afraid to have her back. The students begged to have her back.
Who wins that fight in the real world? We had a dog named Bo who Janine called
"Mister Bo". Cats took precedence. She, Susan and I once hiked her woods all


day for a bear she insisted we would find. It didn't matter. Hunting with Janine
is a poetry class with your eyes wide open. 35 years later we are talking on the phone
and maybe she knows she is dying but she will never tell me this. This is the second


time an elder poet friend has called me a week before they die. I'm starting to pick up
the signals of how ordinary and simply beautiful the conversation is. In this conversation
I reminded Janine how the battery on my phone would soon die. We always had a good


laugh over that one — machines ran out of gas; we didn't. I also tried to caution the one
I love, as she railed on with a myriad of health problems, that she must remember that
not everyone was as tough as she was. Without losing a beat she dazzled,"You-think?"


with the best giggle of any 68 year old girl I've ever known. Today I was in her library for
12 straight hours sifting and saving, sifting and saving, I couldn't stop, neither could Susan.
You would burst into tears if I told you and showed you how many piles and stacks and boxes


of children and prisoner and migrant worker and hopeful student poets work she has saved
for decades. Without any ability to throw them out. In the same care and position as her own
bundles, files, books on her library shelves. I won't tell you. I don't want you to cry.

On Raglan Road of an Autumn day
I saw her first and knew,
That her dark hair would weave a snare
That I might someday rue.
I saw the danger and I passed
Along the enchanted way.
And I said,"Let grief be a fallen leaf
At the dawning of the day."

On Grafton Street in November, we
Tripped lightly along the ledge
Of a deep ravine where can be seen
The worth of passion play.
The Queen of Hearts still making tarts
And I not making hay;
Oh, I loved too much and by such and such
Is happiness thrown away.

I gave her gifts of the mind,
I gave her the secret signs,
That's known to the artists who have known
The true gods of sound and stone.
And her words and tint without stint
I gave her poems to say
With her own name there and her own dark hair
Like clouds over fields of May.

On a quiet street where old ghosts meet
I see her walking now,
And away from me so hurriedly
My reason must allow.
That I had loved, not as I should
A creature made of clay,
When the angel woos the clay, he'll lose
His wings at the dawn of day.

Patrick Kavanagh

First published in 1946 as Dark Haired Myriam Ran Away

One of Janine's favorite — poem & song

photo © bob arnold

EARTH ~

"VIEWED UP CLOSE
NOBODY IS NORMAL"

Caetano Veloso

photo: Jack Vartoogian/FrontRowPhotos

BLESSINGS ~

All good wishes to family, friends, neighbors

customers & readers of our press ~ bookshop

fellow workers, animals, birds, strangers, unknown

weather, rivers, woodland, starry ceilings

we walk the earth together

Susan & Bob ~ LONGHOUSE








photo © bob arnold

Our Lovely Friend ~

Janine Pommy Vega

5 February 1942 ~ 23 December 2010






photo © bob arnold

VILLAIN ~

Lyle Bettger


Born in Philadelphia in 1915 and passing away 88 years later, Lyle Bettger is barely recalled in today's Hollywood, but to film noir and western fans he's never been forgotten.

His father played infield for the St. Louis Cardinals, while Bettger became one of the villains of American cinema.

Watch him stand up against Barbara Stanwyck in his first film No Man of Her Own (1950), an adaptation of Cornell Woolrich's I Married A Dead Man. He'll go up against William Holden in Union Station as the killer "Joe Beacom".

And, what stops me in my tracks each time I've seen these films, is how much Lyle Bettger, with my eyes open or closed, sounds like the writer Charles Bukowski.

The same soft voice with tumbling sharp blades.