Freedom, NOW.
“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present…fellow citizens, we cannot escape history…The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union…In giving freedom to the slave, we ensure freedom to the free–honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last, best hope of earth.”
Today in 1862, President Abraham Lincoln gave his State of the Union address, a precursor to the Emancipation Proclamation, where he would declare all slaves free. The Republican Party under Lincoln were up against a more conservative Democratic Party fueled by a Southern agenda to keep slavery legal. And when it was time for elections, fueled mostly by a reaction against Lincoln’s stance, the Democrats claimed thirty-four seats in the House of Representatives—more than the amount needed for a majority—while the Republicans kept the Senate.
DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR???? Parties swapped?
And while it was a major step forward for the country…towards a vision of Freedom that even the forefathers did not see…the US was still in such a place of inequality that 93 years to the day, in Montgomery Alabama Rosa Parks boarded a bus and sat down in a seat, not giving it up when a white man asked for it—jailed for not giving it up—triggering a whole new era of the Civil Rights movement and the rise of Martin Luther King. Her action is probably one of the most important and remembered in 20th Century American history.
5 years later, Max Roach went into the studio with Abby Lincoln, Coleman Hawkins, and Olatunji (and some others on various tracks) and recorded the Freedom Now Suite, one of my favorite recordings of all time. The piece, a collaboration between Roach and Clifford Brown, Jr, was to be debuted at a ceremony celebrating 100 years of the Emancipation Proclamation. But because of the ongoing Civil Rights issues in this country, highlighted by the non-violent protests coming out of Gainsborough in the first half of 1960s where African Americans went to diners and sat in the “Whites Only” areas, they decided to release the recordings earlier. The album was called “WE INSIST!” with a cover that featured a photo from the sit-ins, released by Candid Records at the end of the year. This was a controversial record, with a country divided…Roach was putting himself and his career at risk; it is a record of history, of protest, of speaking up against hate, speaking up for Freedom. It is a perfect soundtrack while honoring the past actions that occurred on this day.
The record is available on youtube in its entirety, as is an incredible video of a 1964 performance of one of the best songs from it, Driva Man.
James Siena’s Radical Abstraction
Steven Baker turned me on to Siena’s work a while ago and recently sent me this article. Siena’s work is eye-candied abstractions that are hard to look away from…
Kato David Hopkins, who championed Japanese Noise, passes away
I saw a post from my friend Mason Jones that David Hopkins recently passed away (I have not seen any other mention of his passing, but Mason would know). Anyone who followed Japanese experimental/noise music in the late 80s threw the 90s knew his name. An American who moved to Japan, he was the first to expose great artists like Hanatarash (EYE from The Boredoms infamous earlier band), Hijokaidan, Massona to the US market through his fanzines and through his record label, Public Bath. When becoming a Japanese citizen he added the Kato to his name. There is a great article about him—worth the read—that was posted in The Japan Times in 2019 that is paints a great portrait of him.
Kilcoe Castle, Jeremy Irons’s Transformed Ruin (click on headline)
I grew up hearing how English castles as cheap to buy, expensive to maintain…and more expensive to “transform.” I cannot begin to understand how much money Jeremy Irons spent to create this incredible final habitat…but I am awaiting an invitation.
MEET WILD IDYLL PAINTER CHRISTOPHER NOXON
My friend Chris Noxon goes from being an author to illustrator to illustrator author to painter? Art bleeds from this person…and it is quite inspirational. Chris also wrote and illustrated a great book called Good Trouble that, given the discussed anniversaries of the day, is an especially pertinent read, looking at some of the lessons learned from the Civil Rights movement.
Remembering Gramophone's founder, Sir Compton Mackenzie, 50 years after his death
Gramaphone is STILL around….after years and years of fantastic classical music writing. And Compton Mackenzie did so much in his life, as a writer, as a political figure, as an entrepreneur…but obviously most importantly as a music enthusiast.
How Did a World War II Boat End Up at the Bottom of a California Lake?
Crazy mystery…“The boat had gone from invading Sicily to being on a truck in the night in Northern California with an impending snowstorm…That’s crazy.”
The Country Of The Blind
By: C. S. Lewis
Hard light bathed them-a whole nation of eyeless men,
Dark bipeds not aware how they were maimed. A long
Process, clearly, a slow curse,
Drained through centuries, left them thus.
At some transitional stage, then, a luckless few,
No doubt, must have had eyes after the up-to-date,
Normal type had achieved snug
Darkness, safe from the guns of heavn;
Whose blind mouths would abuse words that belonged to their
Great-grandsires, unabashed, talking of light in some
Eunuch'd, etiolated,
Fungoid sense, as a symbol of
Abstract thoughts. If a man, one that had eyes, a poor
Misfit, spoke of the grey dawn or the stars or green-
Sloped sea waves, or admired how
Warm tints change in a lady's cheek,
None complained he had used words from an alien tongue,
None question'd. It was worse. All would agree 'Of course,'
Came their answer. "We've all felt
Just like that." They were wrong. And he
Knew too much to be clear, could not explain. The words —
Sold, raped flung to the dogs — now could avail no more;
Hence silence. But the mouldwarps,
With glib confidence, easily
Showed how tricks of the phrase, sheer metaphors could set
Fools concocting a myth, taking the worlds for things.
Do you think this a far-fetched
Picture? Go then about among
Men now famous; attempt speech on the truths that once,
Opaque, carved in divine forms, irremovable,
Dear but dear as a mountain-
Mass, stood plain to the inward eye.