ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL
Part One in a Series of Reports on The BORDERS by J. A. TRILIEGI 2017
All along the border, double fences topped with barbed wire, trail across the land like so many scars on the flesh of a beaten horse. Humans of all shape and size, age and color, wander on either side, like ants, gathering bits of this and that, simply to survive. The border itself is well fortified. Giant steel posts thrust upwards in a multiple vertical fashion, cold, grey, metal, blocks of concrete and men with guns, stand on either side, they are doing time, they are doing their job, they are taking orders, by a government, by a policy and by a code of service, which may very well, hurt their families, their future and themselves. As for international relations, well, "We The People …," have got some real work to do.
Rain trickles down, unlike finances, in abundance, on both sides of the border. Drops of h2o feel the same from either side. This reporter walks across the great divide, entering simply to see, to observe, to experience and to meet the people of Mexico, or at least, the people of Baja California, which is not exactly, 'M - e - x - i - c - o,' in the same way that, Ellis island, is not exactly, 'A - m - e - r - i - c - a.' And yet, there they are, offering this gringo a taxi ride to and fro. I am on a budget, no publisher or editor or local or national or international publisher would sponsor this sojourn, so I have travelled by bus, a simple twenty dollars from Downtown Los Angeles into Baja, and another 200 pesos, which is ten dollars, gets me into the tourist port town of Ensenada. A destination for the Princess Cruises. In olden day, frat boys, surfers, and tourists of all types descended upon this lovely destination in search of debauchery, coastal beauty and artifacts such as clothes, furniture, objects of value, offered, for much less than anywhere else. Decades of taking have left its mark on this locale, and yet, the new world, the world of technology. the world of commercial enterprise, the world of modern banking has emerged, and stands side by side with the ancient world, we have mythologized about this great land, the land of the Maya and the Spanish Conquistador, mixed, long ago, to create this special race of people, we know as Mexicans and their country: Mexico. History tells us of a country that once sprawled much further north, into the continent that we, as Americans, now inhabit, California, Arizona New Mexico, Texas, etc… The Southwest border states, where, we are now told, that a wall, will be built. As we drive south, over the first hurdle of hills into Ensenada, I can see a double fence, so high, that my eyes have trouble actually measuring its vertical height. Were I forced to estimate, I would guess that the swirling, jagged, barbed wire top sits at least some twenty or so feet in height ? As we drive up and over, I recall the early days of visits to Mexico, taking this same route, with my father, to see the bullfights, with my friends to Surf the coast, and as an artist, simply in search of something different in culture, lifestyle and respite. Since that time, I have been told, by my government, by my friends and by highly propagandized stories of struggle, anguish and fear of overlords, that this place is not safe to visit.
The Western Coast and indeed, the California route from North to South, has a beauty, that is unrivaled and Baja California is no exception. Choose any one mile section of Carmel or Big Sur or Malibu or Baja, and, you will find, they are identical. The earth, the flower, the fauna, the water, the light are all the same. Green valleys peppered with long stretches of two lane highways, merge into gold, rust and creme colored edges that jut downward into rocky cliffs, bays, full with blue, turquoise and white topped waves that careen into the coastal edge. I am on a tourist bus, for the first time in my life. I focus on the coast, as my fellow passengers watch some such film being projected on a television screen, mounted high above their heads. American actors faces dubbed into spanish incongruously describe a false drama that does not relate to the landscape of the earth, the coast, the real beauty of a continent that we share with others. We share this continent with more than one country, that is clear to me, the politics of borders and policies and current views, are not at all as clear as the very FACT, that We share this continent with others.
The tour bus pulls into Ensenada proper, and already I can see a great indian past, the textures of Baja Mexico, are not at all unlike those of Rome or Tokyo or Bangladesh, the history is evident. The street corners, bus stop benches, and even the surface of the streets themselves speak to the viewer, "Where have you been and where are you going ?" I have no answer. I am seeking simply to see what is here now, and what I see are thousands of people walking to and from their homes, their jobs, their responsibilities to whomever and wherever and whatever. Then it comes to me, "Why I am here?" Some time ago, I jokingly told a group of Mexican maids that if Mr. Donald Trump becomes the President of the United States of America, that I will be in Mexico on the day that this incident occurs, and so, I kept my promise, for in less than a day, this man will become the next President of our great country.
Besides occupying my time as a Journalist of some fledgling notoriety, I also write literature of a varying style and length: Screenplays, Short Stories and a Novel, so far. It comes to mind that many in the industry including, Matthew McConaghy, Matt Damon and Ryan Gosling, all very white men of some talent, are married to women with descendants of the latin variety, men whom derive from Texas, from Boston from Canada. A symbol of the sharing of this continent, we call, America. And still we are told that a wall will be built: A Wall. A fence guards against entry, a wall blocks ones view, in obscuring views, perception and reality can be manipulated, like blinders, does this new government wish to obscure our views of one another ? To block our vision ? To control our vista's as well as our Visa's ? It appears so. The Great Wall of China, The Berlin Wall, Pink Floyd's song lyrics from 'The Wall,' explains something about this policy, that most likely, a scared white man in power is, "… Just Another Brick in The WALL."
Like much of America, during the banking bailouts, some eight years ago, Mexico too has been pervaded by a proliferation of Banks. All over Mexico, young upwardly mobile individuals have been employed by this new modern system of checking and deposits, transfers and exchanges. A map of Mexico displays and amazingly flourishing economy of some sort, while on a near by television screen, an attractive young lady speaks excitingly about the new opportunities and services offered by this new technological wonder of modernity. Though this particular town has always had its own economy, and, long before these new technological advances gave them surveillance, invasions of privacy and the desecration of anonymity, this little town had and still retains the old ways of knowing who is here, what they have with them and where they are going, with whom and why. The gained or earned - through - experience, survival skills, of any port or pirate town that, for over a hundred years, has found ways to survive its visitors, its inhabitants and even, it's conquistadors. In this particular case, the Indian past, sits side by side the technological future, old world and new world meet, they make eye contact, they understand one another, they may even assist one another.
Pacific Coast Highway is not Malibu, just as Santa Monica is not Los Angeles and Big Sur is not Northern California. Suffice it to say, that the Coastal Section of Ensenada is not Baja California, by any means. And certainly Baja as a whole, is not at all a representation of Mexico, though, it is safe to say, if you speak to individuals, a bank teller, a bus driver, a casual man or woman on the street, you are indeed talking to a real Mexican, with real human concerns about a very real world that they are living in. I check into my hotel, the room is roughly 12 US dollars and some change, laundry is washed, dried and folded just across the way for under a dollar, fresh food at the local market is priced as such that I find myself giving bags I have purchased for mine own, to those I meet along the way. The first evening passes quickly, rain whips through the town, the streets flooded with over a foot of water in the lower regions.
Inauguration day arrives without much fanfare here, the television in the hotel lobby displays little about Mr Trump. I am beginning to realize that, the populist of Mexico have already been prepared for this new leader, they understand that American Presidents and most likely all leaders of major powers in the world, then and now, are what they are, a symbol, a face, or, if we search for the latin derivative source: simply a Facade. One need only walk a mile or so east, to find that Mexico, is not unlike any other place in the California's. Middle class neighborhoods lined with houses on either side, one and a half cars per home, some folks living at a higher elevation in the upper middle class areas and those whom own businesses, land and expanses of property of all variety. It is much like any place in the world, some people have money and some people do not. We have heard the new American Presidents criticism's over the past year regarding this country, its people, its past, it's problems. Something comes to mind, as I walk through town, a question arises, " Does any Country in the world send us their best ?" and conversely, "Do we send any other country our best ?" Australia's history tells a story of disbanded and exported individuals whose personal history was somewhat sorted, at least by its own monarchy's point of view, and yet, they seem to have created a land of promise, fortitude and originality, and within that, ab-origin-ality too. Yes, this is digressive, but worthy of note, very worthy.
My clothing is soaked, from top to bottom. I carry my possessions over the shoulder. I am in a country that is not my own. I have little finances, neither a job, nor, a relative in town. I do not speak the language fluently. In essence, for this brief moment in time: I am a Mexican in America. Now I am beginning to understand the beauty, the stoic and sometimes exhilarating aspects of searching to find something more. In this case, I am seeking to learn more about the border, it's realities, it's myths and it's challenges, while many of those among me, are looking for, a better job, some more income, possibly an opportunity, wether imagined or real. I drop off my clothes at the laundry. By the time I pick them up, an hour or so later, several locals are sitting on a couch, watching the television, which displays Mr. Donald Trump uttering the words, "…So help me God." Within a week, he has ordered the building of a wall, the closing of EPA protections and reopening an Oil Pipeline straight through America. My clothes are clean, my conscious is clear and my country is in trouble.
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WELCOME to The SPECIAL Music Edition of BUREAU of ARTS and CULTURE MAGAZINE. The BUREAU Guest ARTIST INTERVIEW Realist Painter CHRISTOPHER STOTT . This New Edition Contains The BUREAU MUSIC ICON Essay: HANK WILLIAMS . PHOTOGRAPHIC ESSAYS and ARTICLES BY THE INFAMOUS MR. ART SHAY . MATHEW BARNEY at MOCA LA Plus BUREAU PROFILE : ANDREW HOLDER . The BUREAU PHOTOGRAPHIC INTERVIEW with LAURA STEVENS in PARIS . BUREAU FILM : BLUE VELVET at THIRTY . ART of MILES DAVIS "The SHAMAN" . PRINCE TRIBUTE plus MUSIC INTERVIEW with Singer-Songwriter: JOSHUA TATE . SOUND ARTIST : CÉLESTE BOURSIER - MOUGENOT with CHRISTOPH COX . DESIGN : ITS ABOUT WALLPAPER . COMEDY INTERVIEW with Andre HYLAND . John DOE . Aimee MANN . Chris STAPLETON . BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL : KWAME BRATHWAITE'S New HARLEM RENAISSANCE . DANNY LYON at THE WHITNEY MUSEUM + R. CRUMB at SEATTLE MUSEUM . Reviews & New Online Articles All Year Round at The New BUREAU CITY SITES RAP MUSIC'S : TUPAC and ICE CUBE with PHOTOGRAPHER Mr. Mike MILLER . BUREAU TRIBUTE TO " LEGENDS OF THE FALL'S," WRITER : JIM HARRISON . Plus BUREAU ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHIC ESSAYS, REVIEWS and ARTICLES
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HANK WILLIAMS
by J.A. TRILIEGI
HANK 'King' Williams is possibly the most prolific songwriter that America has ever created. He had a rough childhood, he wandered about, learned to play the guitar from an African American local blues singer, whom became a good friend, back in those days, that was sorta taboo. So, it makes sense that his son, and his grandson, are rebel souls to the end. Hank I, Hank II and Hank III have seriously royal credibility with the American Spirit, which also means, they don't give a shit, what you think of 'em, but, they do hope you like the songs. Today, we pay our respects to Country's Greatest Singer - Songwriter, The One and Only : Mister Hank Williams.
Good writers often come from tragic situations, that's just the way it often is folks. That is not to say that, a good life will make you a bad writer, but, lets face it, sorrow is one heaping ingredient for good lyrics, good storytelling and the will to tell it like it is. Hank Williams came from deep poverty, and that led to many, 'first hand,' experiences. His father had worked as an engineer for the railroads, was a Mason, had served in World War I, fell from a truck, and was later hospitalized for long periods of time, leaving the young boy to find his way, elsewhere in the community. The family lived throughout the Southern region of Alabama and eventually settled in Greenville and later, Montgomery. Young Hiram, who later changed his name to 'Hank,' received his first guitar and began taking informal lesson from the local blues man, Rufus "Tee-Tot" Payne. Hank never did learn to read music, which delayed some progress with the formal gentry of Country Music's Grand Ole Opry and the entire Nashville crowd. It is often stated that his drinking and wildcatting with the ladies held up some progress in this regard, though, to study his lyrics, there is a good chance that the mix of religious references and wild lifestyle choices, within the subjects of his songs, was enough to bother some. In one phrase, he'll mention, 'The Lord,' and in the next, he confesses to having, 'The Honky - Tonk Blues.' In Hank Williams' life, there is, the official story, there is, the gossip's story and then there is, the real story. Somewhere among the three is the truth. His mother's boarding house, while father is away, was ripe for conjecture, Lots of people, coming and going, made little time for young Hank to gain a mother's love. Hank was starved for attention, and eventually, through singing and songwriting, he got more than he may have been able to handle. As a performer, Hank had dazzle, he was real folk and his lyrics were basic, though, he was no, 'simple man.' According to interviews, his hero, Roy Acuff, told him, "You have a million-dollar talent, son, but a ten-cent brain," referring to Williams hard living, hard driving and hard drinking lifestyle. Acuff could never know that what drove Williams to drink and take pain killers was a sickness that derived from a spinal disease, that eventually led to a major operation, fusing the young singer-songwriter's discs together. Besides the fact that Hank had survived a broken home as well as a childhood during the Great Depression, with no father in sight for eight formative years, the boy had found his way, without formal training, a natural.
Hank is barely fourteen years of age and he's already penned a tune entitled, "The WPA Blues." He receives fifteen dollars, a first prize in a local contest at the Empire Theatre, buys a Silvertone guitar, which he plays incessantly, along the sidewalks of town, and eventually, receives a radio spot, which leads to a regular bi-weekly showcase. At sixteen years of age, Hank drops out of school to work full time, with his new band, The Drifting Cowboys. He tours extensively throughout the South, which includes movie houses and honky-tonks in Georgia and Florida. The band was managed by his mother and Hank continued the radio show when not on tour. Because of the need for playing new songs every week, his output is prodigious. By 1945, at twenty-three years of age, Hank Williams publishes a songbook of lyrics to ten of his best tunes, which led to a recording contract with Fred Rose and eventually, he garnered the attention of MGM records, breaking through the Country Western gatekeepers with the money making hits, "Lovesick Blues," and "Move It on Over." By 1949, Hank finally graced the stage of The Grand Ole Opry, receiving more encores than any other performer ever, he was only twenty-seven years old.
"I'm a rollin' stone all alone and lost
For a life of sin I have paid the cost
When I pass by all the people say
Just another guy on the lost highway"
- Hank Williams / Lost Highway Lyrics
That same year, he travelled to England and Germany, wrote seven hit tunes and birthed his only son. The family move to Louisiana, which led to East Coast exposure via The Louisiana Hayride Show and tours in Eastern Texas guaranteed him a place in Country Westerns most important states and national Radio Exposure propelled Hank Williams into a category that is, to this day, untouchable. Hank created a completely alternative character for his more religious, storytelling style, by the name of, "Luke The Drifter." It was the equivalent of a popular writer, publishing stories under another name, Hank was brand savvy, and it worked. The real problem with all of this, 'Success,' was that young Hank Williams, who was really just a very down home fella, who enjoyed hunting, who loved fishing, enjoyed drinking and was bent on loving and living, was working himself to death. By 1952, he had done just that, leaving the planet, at twenty-nine years of age. Hank Williams had written, recorded, broadcast and performed, well over a hundred songs, throughout his entire life, not to mention his many collaborations and other writers work.
Hank's legacy continues through his son, Hank Junior, and his grandson, Hank III. Each are equally rebellious, full of American grit, each songwriters, each performers, each willing to fight to retain the legacy that belongs to only them. Both have friendships and affiliations that will indeed bother somebody, somewhere in this world. Hank Junior has spoken his mind on various occasions and even lost an important commercial contract, due to politics. Well, fuck politics. The Hank Williams Family is pure American musical royalty. If there had never been a friendship between Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash, who knows what may have happened to the divisions in this country all those years ago ? American Music is meant to be the place where we all meet in the middle, a sacred spot, the location where we Americans are allowed to say and do anything we damn well please.
"A prodigal son once strayed from his father
To travel a land of hunger and pain
And now I can see the end of my journey
I'm going to Heaven again"
- Hank Williams / The Prodigal Son
Hank Junior describes approaching his inheritance, in this way, "So you're a little bitty boy, that can barley touch the keys of your father's piano, ya know, and, my gosh, you're a little over three when he passes away… You get a little older, heres Jerry Lee Lewis, heres Ray Charles, heres Fats Domino, heres Carl Perkins. I better know how to play some instruments. Because, they all had number one [ hits ] with one of daddy's songs… Joe Stafford, Perry Como, Tony Bennet, and believe me, the list goes on, all the way to [ today ]. So, here I am in this wonderful situation. Then people say, 'Just do your father's stuff, just imitate,' I'm not gonna do that. It's wonderful to have an American Anthem. Daddy had several of them, I'm lucky, Ive had a couple of them." Hank Junior has inherited some of his father's tragedy as well as his talent. Back in the day, Hank Junior fell down a mountaintop, splitting his face in two. It took seventeen operations to put him back together. Years after the accident, and his subsequent recovery, Hank Junior explains, "When I woke up, theres June Carter and Johnny Cash, their there. They covered eighteen hundred miles… in the middle of nowhere, to be there. They were really, really, really, special. How could it get any better than that ? June Carter and Johnny Cash … ? Thats America ! I'm all about America, Baby. I'm all about it"
On The subject of songwriting, Hank Junior explains it, plain and clear, "I don't go to writing sessions with five other people. A writing session ? You mean you all are all going to get together and write ? Uh, I don't think so. That ain't how I do it. I am a Williams, ya know." His son, Hank III, is equally as outspoken and conscious of the family traditions, maybe even more rebellious. Hank III pulls no punches. He has opened concerts for Public Enemy, gigged with David Allen Coe, Johnny Paycheck and George Jones, to name a few, and explains his philosophy in these words, "I'm not into pop country, Im not into looking pretty, Im not into shaking my ass, and worrying about the bottom dollar, Im just into playing music." On Songwriting, "We just do what we do… We don't write songs for the radio… We write 'em for us." When his father Hank Junior was recently asked what makes a good song, he pondered the question a moment, then replied, "Good is Good, wether Its Rap or Bluegrass or …" he holds up his hands a second, mimicking a classical quotation, then continues with the final punctuation of the word that has defined his life since before birth: "…Country." As his song states: "A Country Boy will Survive."
"When tears come down
Like falling rain
You'll toss around
And call my name"
- Hank Williams / Your Cheatin' Heart
Hank III was raised by his mother, discovered the music on his own, finding energy in the rock music of Black Sabbath and Pink Floyd, at nine years old. He sites Henry Rollins of Black Flag and bands such as Public Enemy as influences, though, he also has credentials with some of the more open minded Country folk, and has been embraced by The New Outlaw set, which once included The Late Great Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard and of course, his grandfather, who, it could be argued, accidentally started the movement long ago. There may even be a verifiable link between what Hank Williams did, 'energy-wise,' and what led to Elvis Presley's Rock and Roll Revolution, which brings us back to Bob Dylan, who too, was inspired by the King's charisma. So then, what is Country music and who owns the right to claim it as their own? As far as this writer is concerned, The Hank Williams Family, is front and center. Hank III, while offering his many musical influences, broke it down, in this fashion, on stage, to a live audience, just before introducing his set of new music, "If You Don't Think This is Fucking Country, Right There Is The Door…" As far as we could tell, nobody used the exit. That is why, on this day, we Honor Hank Williams I, II and III.
For surely, if there ever were, an American Country-Western Royal Family : They Be IT.
We Support, Honor and Promote
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BOOKS: SEEROON YERETZIAN
It would be too easy to say that Seeroon Yeretzian is the Armenian Frida Kahlo, but then again, it' s almost too difficult not to mention the similarity. Both female painters spring from a culture dominated by men, masculinity and machismo. Seeroon pulls no punches, neither does this incredible publication with color plates from the early nineteen eighties to the present time. I have been lucky enough to spend time with Seeroon, exhibit her work and hang out at her gallery in Glendale as well as the Family bookstore ABRIL BOOKS which published this full length catalogue. An early painting, dated 1983, entitled, ' The Mattress ' depicts a homeless man sleeping on the street in stark black, white & grey tones. A brave look at a decadent decade, when the divide between rich and poor was staggering, few artists turned an eye to the subject of homelessness at the time.
"Seeroon pulls no punches, neither does this incredible publication with color plates from the early nineteen eighties to the present time."
There seems to be a trifold of influences: Socio-economic, Feminist & Religious. A diverse an odd grouping to say the least. Seeroon is a master painter, a real humanist, when compared to other Armenian artist's, she' s a radical feminist.Back to the Kahlo comparison, her husband, Haroutioun Yeretzian founded the first all Armenian bookstore in Southern California and was a powerful individual in his own right. This book is posthumously dedicated to him. He was a host to cultural events surrounding the Armenian community for decades. Artists, Poets, Film makers and of course writers of every sort always made a stop to ABRIL Books as a pilgrimage to Southern California. Seeroon Yeretzian, the wife of this influential man, did not by any means play second fiddle, it appears that she kept up with the Armenian Boys Club.
"Seeroon Yeretzian, the wife of this influential man, did not by any means play second fiddle, it appears that she kept up with the Armenian Boys Club. "
The subjects of her works, the female form, the burden of femininity, child birth and identity mixed with the crucifixion tell a larger story of the spirits need to prevail. Seeroon spent time in the refugee camps at an early age. Many of the paintings present themselves in haunting imagery that express those memories. I have to admit, that while hanging around her gallery for a time, I have found myself in tears, the two of us connecting on some level as artists, as humans, as people. Not to say that all the work is heavy, but like Frida, much of it has an earthy biography like storyline that tells us a certain truth about our personal history.
"Seeroon spent time in the refugee camps at an early age. Many of the paintings present themselves in haunting imagery that express those memories."
To balance things out, there is plenty of graphic based art that interprets as well as honors Armenian, Jewish and European biblical traditions through the alphabet. These are detailed, amazing works that intertwine letters, animals & architecture as well as symbology. Her works are highly sought out and collected world-wide. The day I walked into her life, I had no idea who I was connecting with, now that were friends, contemporaries even, I feel honored to have her in my circle and as a supporter of The BUREAU of Arts and Culture Magazine, Gallery and Cinema.
415 E Broadway #100, Glendale, CA 91205, USA
ROSLIN ART GALLERY was founded by Seeroon Yeretzian in 1995 in Glendale, California. It was Seeroon’s desire to establish an art gallery dedicated to propagating Armenian art and artists to the cosmopolitan city of Los Angeles and the greater Armenian diaspora community. The namesake is an homage to the greatest medieval Armenian illuminator and father of modern Armenian art, Toros Roslin. As we celebrate our 20th anniversary, we gratefully acknowledge all patrons, artists, and supporters, who have made Roslin Art Gallery the longest running Armenian art gallery in the United States. Join us at the opening reception of our new location next to Abril Bookstore.
SEEROON YERETZIAN’s irrepressible manner has made any visit to Roslin Art Gallery a memorable experience, always taking her time to share her knowledge of art and recount first-hand memories or anecdotical stories relating to artists. In the course of twenty years, the gallery has exhibited the works of hundreds of Armenian artists, ranging from modern day masters to upcoming contemporary artists, and, in turn, sold thousands of artworks that are now in the possession of private collectors world-wide.
WHY JIM HARRISON IS NOT DEAD
By Joshua A. TRILIEGI for BUREAU OF ARTS AND CULTURE MAGAZINE 2016
"It’s hard to think about, but by the time I die, if I make it another twenty years, wouldn’t it be wonderful to stand out here, hidden from view, in this big jungle of bushes and wildflowers? That’s my idea of, a nice thing."
- Jim HARRISON 1986
Jim Harrison is not dead. He is simply, hidden from view, in a big jungle of bushes and wildflowers, where he came from to begin with. The American Author, originally from Michigan, but eventually adopted, around the world, is not the type of guy who will die. He will not go softly into the night, nor will he squeak and moan under the wheels of a government tractor. Jim Harrison is currently soaring high above the river of life, that uncontrollable force of nature, that can sometimes be damned, but never controlled.
Jim Harrison came from a family that adored and revered Literature: "My Family were obsessive readers…" The famous story goes, that, at a dinner table discussion, his family were talking about Norman Mailer's first success on the world stage and his book, entitled, " The Naked and The Dead, " young Jim responded to the conversation with the quick and curious question, "Does it have Illustrations ?" Laughter ensued and the beginning of his particularly curious, yet grounded, stoic, although humorous, celebratory whilst at the same time cautionary literary style is born. He explains years later that, "So much of my material comes from generalized wandering around the U.S. Travel, and walking, I never get an idea standing still." Jim Harrison was first published as a poet in national magazines such as NATION and POETRY and later by Denise Nembertoff at W.W. Norton in the 1960s Harrison wrote the now classic Book, "Legends of the FALL," in nine days, and later changed only a single word. When pondering that experience, decades later, he could not remember what Word had been changed.
The author of thirty some books of Prose and Poetry, often written concurrently, had a deep understanding of the process of writing, of nature, of tribal law and of humanity at large, was truly the best teacher to writers, although, he found it impossible to do so officially. Having once tried to teach at Stoneybrook, with the likes of fellow writers such as the great Philip Roth, Harrison did not have the temperament. He ultimately did not believe in many of the College programs and famously railed against the, 'safety,' and 'comfort,' of the Universities.
Harrison was a fan of Katherine Ann Porter early on and found great strides in short novels throughout his entire career. " I don't like needless expansiveness," he exclaimed. While the Publisher's often thought that if many of his novellas had been longer, he may have become a wealthier writer. Though Harrison preferred a dense, short form style, as opposed to the long-winded form, and felt that it gave his audience room to participate in the reading. "I don't know where, 'The Voice,' ever comes from, Ya Know ? Every book is quite different, but maybe not stylistically," he pondered over a glass of red wine some years ago. Harrison was revered in France, had nine best seller's there, and had grown up with good french literature: Flaubert, Baudelaire, Maupassant. Some had been passed down from his father's library, others having discovered early on in high school. When asked by fledgling writers what was the secret to good writing ? Jim often replied, "You have to give your entire life to it." After years of Book Touring, that often included 23 cities in 29 days with 30 interviews a week, he gave that part of the business up. Explaining, "I like what Miles Davis said: 'It's All In my MUSIC. What Do I have To Say About IT?'
Jim Harrison enjoyed medium sized cities such as Seattle, which he likened to, "San Francisco back in Nineteen Sixty-Eight," he also admired Minneapolis and Chicago. Harrison thought that young men and women should see and live in the big cities like New York City and Los Angeles, early on in life, but that nature was where, 'ITS' at. He often quoted author's philosophy's first hand. The French Poet, Rene Char, speaking to the mysteries of writing with the Muse, "You have to be there, when the bread comes from the oven." Jim Harrison's influences are vast and varied, he preferred Faulkner over Hemingway, read French, Chinese, Zen and Native Literature, all the while, he wrote American stories that were translated into International languages of all sorts. He loved the works of his friends and fellow writers such as Ford and Matthiessen as much as he revered and honored Herman Melville and Walt Whitman. When it came to writers who happened to be women, Jim Harrison explains, "I don’t think of women novelists, but writers. Who do I read when they have something coming out ? Denise Levertov, Joan Didion, Joyce Carol Oates, Diane Wakoski, Renata Adler, Alison Lurie, Toni Morrison, Leslie Marmon Silko, Ellen Gilchrist, Anne Tyler, Adrienne Rich, Rebecca Newth, Rosellen Brown, Gretel Ehrlich, Annie Dillard, Susan Sontag. Those come immediately to mind. Also Margaret Atwood. "
The beauty of Jim Harrison is that he is the tough guy who is not an asshole. He is the rugged individualist who has deep knowledge of the tribe. He is a man, with all his flaws and desires, yet openly honors and reveres women. He is a learned seeker of knowledge yet shuns formal education and its weaknesses. Jim Harrison is that great and original writer who reveres others who have walked the path. As he explains about Henry MILLER, " Miller was Very Valuable to Me… a Force in nature, Extremely Powerful." Harrison goes onto explain that he and Miller subscribed to the patterns of napping and refreshing the muse several times a day, through sleep. Something they probably don't teach in College.
Harrison's mother, many years later, while close to death, took him aside and, giving him a compliment, in the great Swedish style, that was her way, "You made quite a Living out of your Fibs…" Speaking to her son's career and notoriety as a Novelist and fiction writer. His grandfather had emigrated in the 1880s from Sweden, to become a cowboy and settled on farming. While many other writers would seek false knowledge from Native American ways, practices and adornments, Harrison did nothing of the sort. He understood early on that Experience and Voluntary Energy donated by The Author, were truly the only way to true experience, that can later be reflected upon, and offered to the reader.
Harrison railed against false new age practices that appropriated exercises from native tribes and he understood clearly, that there was no such thing as a Native American belief system, there were Hundreds of Tribes, each with a name, each with a language, each with an originality. That is one of the reasons why the Lakota and other tribal members respect Jim Harrison. He spoke directly to animals and nature, and in turn, animals and nature, spoke to him. "You have to EARN Knowledge from Nature and it's Ancient culture's," he explained, time and time again, "You can't get more out of nature, than you bring to it yourself." Jim Harrison's time in nature brought him closer to the fine arts, "The more time I spend in Nature, The More I like Mozart… Shakespeare… Stravinsky…" How could a man so deeply ingrained in Native American ways, also love and be loved by European Culture ? Because, we as writers, bring who our ancestors are, without denial of our roots, and along the journey, we also learn about those who once walked, where we walk, and in doing so, we bridge the gap, between past and present, between truth and fiction, between poetry and politics. Jim Harrison did just that. He did it with humbleness, with style and with bravado. His work is bigger on the page, than it is in real life and so, he avoids the celebrity personality that sometimes dogs other writers of his stature, Charles Bukowski for instance.
In his admiration for writers who could speak about everything, all at once, Jim Harrison admired Saul Bellow and went onto explain, "The most sophisticated people are the most primitive, they release their energy in such a way … like Picasso and Matisse, very basic people, with an enormously profound esthetic sense," he added, "I basically write for esthetic reasons."
aesthetic | esˈTHetik | (also esthetic ) adjective
concerned with beauty or the appreciation of beauty: the pictures give great aesthetic pleasure. • giving or designed to give pleasure through beauty; of pleasing appearance. noun [ in sing. ] • a set of principles underlying and guiding the work of a particular artist or artistic movement: the Cubist aesthetic. DERIVATIVES : aesthetically |-ik(ə)lē|adverb [ as submodifier ] : an aesthetically pleasing color combination/ ORIGIN late 18th cent. (in the sense ‘relating to perception by the senses’): from Greek aisthētikos, from aisthēta ‘perceptible things,’ from aisthesthai ‘perceive.’ The sense ‘concerned with beauty’ was coined in German in the mid 18th cent. and adopted into English in the early 19th cent., but its use was controversial until late in the century.
This is why, I Exclaim to you, on this day, that, Jim Harrison is Not Dead, he is quite simply, "… hidden from view, in a big jungle of bushes and wildflowers," where he came from to begin with. And, I ask you, with the life you are now living, the way you are now thinking, the things you are now seeing, the way you are now walking, Are You Dead ? If so, Please purchase a Book by my Father in Literature and Life, The Great, But Never Late: Mister Jim HARRISON.
©JOSHUA TRILIEGI FOR BUREAU OF ARTS AND CULTURE MAGAZINE NETWORKS
LINKS TO VARIOUS JIM HARRISON VIDEOS, ARTICLES, BOOKS, LINKS, INTERVIEWS, QUOTES, TOP TEN LISTS and MORE:
Interview with Authors Road :
Extended Jim Harrison Film project 1993 :
Conversations with Jim Harrison:
Jim Harrison Reading Poetry on The LAKOTA:
French TV Interview 2011 with Jim Harrison:
BOOKS By Jim Harrison :
Joe FASSLER The By HEART Series at AT The ATLANTIC 2014 :
The PARIS REVIEW Number 104 / INTERVIEW WITH JIM HARRISON 1986:
Tom BISSELL at OUTSIDE Live Bravely 2011:
Alexander ALTER at The Wall Street JOURNAL 2009:
Jim HARRISON 1964 -2008 Bibliography from The NEBRASKA PRESS 2009:
Jim HARRISON Interview With Alden MUDGE at BOOKPAGE 2002 :
Jim Harrison's Top Ten For Readers:
Courtesy of www.toptenbooks.net
1. The Possessed by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1872). Dostoevsky’s signature theme —the future of morality and the human soul in a Godless world —takes flight in this harrowing portrait of revolutionary terrorists who have surrendered their humanity to their ideals. The political satire throbs with urgency, but Dostoevsky raises this work to the level of art through rich characterizations of his combative principals: the well-meaning, ineffectual philosophical theorist Stepan Verkhovensky; his true-believing, monomaniacal son Peter; the conflicted, ” serf Shatov; and two vivid embodiments of good and evil —saintly Bishop Tikhon and urbane, satanic Nicolas Stavrogin.
2. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust (1913–27). It’s about time. No, really. This seven-volume, three-thousand-page work is only superficially a mordant critique of French (mostly high) society in the belle époque. Both as author and as “Marcel,” the first-person narrator whose childhood memories are evoked by a crumbling madeleine cookie, Proust asks some of the same questions Einstein did about our notions of time and memory. As we follow the affairs, the badinage, and the betrayals of dozens of characters over the years, time is the highway and memory the driver.
3. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (1847). The author’s only novel, published a year before her death, centers on the doomed love between Heathcliff, a tormented orphan, and Catherine Earnshaw, his benefactor’s vain and willful daughter. Passion brings them together, but class differences, and the bitterness it inspires, keeps them apart and continues to take its toll on the next generation. Wuthering Heights tells you why they say that love hurts.
4. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (1851). This sweeping saga of obsession, vanity, and vengeance at sea can be read as a harrowing parable, a gripping adventure story, or a semiscientific chronicle of the whaling industry. No matter, the book rewards patient readers with some of fiction’s most memorable characters, from mad Captain Ahab to the titular white whale that crippled him, from the honorable pagan Queequeg to our insightful narrator/surrogate (“Call me”) Ishmael, to that hell-bent vessel itself, the Pequod.
5. Ulysses by James Joyce (1922). Filled with convoluted plotting, scrambled syntax, puns, neologisms, and arcane mythological allusions, Ulysses recounts the misadventures of schlubby Dublin advertising salesman Leopold Bloom on a single day, June 16, 1904. As Everyman Bloom and a host of other characters act out, on a banal and quotidian scale, the major episodes of Homer’s Odyssey —including encounters with modern-day sirens and a Cyclops —Joyce’s bawdy mock-epic suggests the improbability, perhaps even the pointlessness, of heroism in the modern age.
6. Independent People by Halldór Laxness (1934). The Icelandic Nobel laureate’s best novel is a chronicle of endurance and survival, whose stubborn protagonist Bjartür “of Summerhouses” is a sheepherder at odds with inclement weather, poverty, society in particular and authority in general, and his own estranged family. Laxness unflinchingly dramatizes Bjartür’s unloving, combative relationships with his step-daughter Asta and frail son Nonni (a possible authorial surrogate)—yet finds the perverse heroism in this bad shepherd’s compulsive pursuit of freedom (from even the Irish sorcerer who had cursed his land). This is an antihero for whom readers will find themselves cheering.
7. Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner (1936). Weaving mythic tales of biblical urgency with the experimental techniques of high modernism, Faulkner bridged the past and future. This is the story of Thomas Sutpen, a rough-hewn striver who came to Mississippi in 1833 with a gang of wild slaves from Haiti to build a dynasty. Almost in reach, his dream is undone by plagues of biblical (and Faulknerian) proportions: racism, incest, war, fratricide, pride, and jealousy. Through the use of multiple narrators, Faulkner turns this gripping Yoknapatawpha saga into a profound and dazzling meditation on truth, memory, history, and literature itself.
8. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez (1967). Widely considered the most popular work in Spanish since Don Quixote, this novel —part fantasy, part social history of Colombia — sparked fiction’s “Latin boom” and the popularization of magic realism. Over a century that seems to move backward and forward simultaneously, the forgotten and offhandedly magical village of Macondo — home to a Faulknerian plethora of incest, floods, massacres, civil wars, dreamers, prudes, and prostitutes — loses its Edenic innocence as it is increasingly exposed to civilization.
9. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller (1934). Banned in America for twenty-seven years because it was considered obscene, this autobiographical novel describes the author’s hand-to-mouth existence in Paris during the early 1930s. A later inspiration to the Beat generation, Miller offers various philosophical interludes expressing his joy in life, hostility to social convention, and reverence for women and sex, which he describes with abandon.
10. The Stranger by Albert Camus (1942). The opening lines—“Mother died today. Or, maybe, yesterday. I can’t be sure”—epitomize Camus’s celebrated notions of “the absurd.” His narrator, Meursault, a wretched little Algerian clerk sentenced to death for the murder, feels nothing: no remorse, love, guilt, grief, or hope. But he’s not a sociopath; he’s just honest. An embodiment of existential philosophy, he believes in no higher power and accepts that we are born only to die. Our only choice is to act “as if” life has meaning and thereby gain some freedom.
Jim HARRISON On Poetry and the Writing Of:
Jim Harrison: "A poem’s rhythm shouldn’t read like the ticking of a box. But people thought Longfellow would be good for teaching children English, so people push that piece of shit on their kids even now. Good poetry’s appeal is more mysterious. I can remember whole lines of Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake, just because of the beauty of Joyce’s use of language. Roethke’s the same way. These lines stick with you for aesthetic reasons. It’s like you remember songs. You recreate their music in your mind. "
Jim HARRISON on LIFE:
In a life properly lived, you’re a river. You touch things lightly or deeply; you move along because life herself moves, and you can’t stop it; you can’t figure out a banal game plan applicable to all situations; you just have to go with the “beingness” of life, as Rilke would have it. In Sundog, Strang says a dam doesn’t stop a river, it just controls the flow. Technically speaking, you can’t stop one at all.
Jim HARRISON on So-Called Regional Writing:
"What I hate about this notion of regionalism in literature is that there’s no such thing as regional literature. There might be literature with a pronounced regional flavor, but it’s either literature on aesthetic grounds or it’s not literature."
Jim HARRISON on Meeting Jack NICHOLSON:
"… I met Jack Nicholson on the set of McGuane’s movie, The Missouri Breaks. We got talking and he asked me if I had one of my novels with me, and I had one, I think it was Wolf. He read it and enjoyed it. He told me that if I ever got an idea for him, to call him up. Well, I never have any of those ideas. I wasn’t even sure what he meant. I think he said later that I was the only one he ever told that to who never called. A year afterwards, I was out in L.A. and he called up and asked me to go to a movie. It was really pleasant, and I was impressed with his interest in every art form. It was right after Cuckoo’s Nest and all these people tried to swarm all over him after the movie. Anyway, later he heard I was broke and he thought it was unseemly. So he rigged up a deal so that I could finish the book I had started, which was Legends of the Fall."
Jim HARRISON on Writers that happen to be Women:
"I don’t think of women novelists but writers. Who do I read when they have something coming out? Denise Levertov, Joan Didion, Joyce Carol Oates, Diane Wakoski, Renata Adler, Alison Lurie, Toni Morrison, Leslie Marmon Silko, Ellen Gilchrist, Anne Tyler, Adrienne Rich, Rebecca Newth, Rosellen Brown, Gretel Ehrlich, Annie Dillard, Susan Sontag. Those come immediately to mind. Also Margaret Atwood. "
Jim HARRISON on The INDIANS and South American Tribes:
"They [ The Press] don’t even know that those countries down there think of themselves as separate entities. They keep referring to “Central America.” Well, try passing that off on the Panamanians, the Costa Ricans, the El Salvadorans. It’s amazing to me, for instance, how few people know anything about nineteenth-century American history. They don’t know what happened to the hundred civilizations represented by the American Indian. That’s shocking. I’m dealing with that in this book. To me, the Indians are our curse on the house of Atreus. They’re our doom. The way we killed them is also what’s killing us now. Greed. Greed. It’s totally an Old Testament notion but absolutely true. Greed is killing the soul-life of the nation. You can see it all around you. It’s destroying what’s left of our physical beauty, it’s polluting the country, it’s making us more Germanic and warlike and stupid. "
Jim HARRISON on Belonging :
"I feel as foreign as Geronimo at the New York World’s Fair at the turn of the century…The most solid effect of the deaths that I could touch upon was that I must answer to what I thought of as my calling since nothing else on earth had any solidity.”
A POEM by JIM HARRISON on COPPER CANYON PRESS
BROOM
To remember you’re alive
visit the cemetery of your father
at noon after you’ve made love
and are still wrapped in a mammalian
odor that you are forced to cherish.
Under each stone is someone’s inevitable
surprise, the unexpected death
of their biology that struggled hard, as it must.
Now to home without looking back,
enough is enough.
En route buy the best wine
you can afford and a dozen stiff brooms.
Have a few swallows then throw the furniture
out the window and begin sweeping.
Sweep until the walls are
bare of paint and at your feet sweep
until the floor disappears.
Finish the wine in this field of air,
return to the cemetery
in evening and wind through the stones
a slow dance of your name visible only to birds.
from SONGS OF UNREASON,
Copper Canyon Press, 2011,
Buy His Most recent Work at COPPER CANYON PRESS :
BUREAU MUSIC : SONGWRITING with THE MALLETTBROTHERS
In The Studio, at The Table, and On The Road with This Maine Family Band
BUREAU : What is the impetus, would you say, for writing a song ?
Luke: I like to think of the song itself as the impetus, or some part of that song. It can be a melody, a line, a title, a feeling or even a broader concept. When you're lucky an idea will stick with you, and start to snowball inside your head and you have no choice but to see it through, and hold on for the ride. These are the dust-like particles that artists, of any medium I think, seem to pluck right out of the air. The seeds of creativity. The songs don't come from a writer but through a writer, because all inspiration ultimately comes from something outside of ourselves. We are all filters for reality, whatever our medium of choice may be. The driving force behind any song, then, is to get it out of your own head. To finish it. It's kind of an irrational need that artistic minds share. Say there's a particular metaphoric line that gets stuck in your head like a grain of sand in an oyster. It rolls around and around in your head, getting bigger and growing layers, smoothing itself out until it's finished. They're not all pearls either, but I guess the pearl isn't the point so long as the grain of sand is gone. The real joy for myself comes from moving on to the next idea before it flutters away.
BUREAU : Give us an example of a song you have written and describe the real life circumstances, event and happenstance that inspired that tune ?
Luke: "Late Night In Austin" (http://youtu.be/_AhV74jl0wk), released as the first track on our 2015 release "Lights Along The River" is a song that blended experience and imagination. In March of 2013 we made our first trip out to Texas. SXSW was happening, and Texas being the heart and soul of so many of our musical heroes, it was a big deal for us to be there. We were at the Continental Club on a night off, a room which we would be honored to play on later tours, to see James Mcmurtry play a solo set in the Gallery upstairs. The first lines of "Late Night In Austin" are "One late night in Austin, saw an old man dancing by himself. He was drunk half to death, and I knew just how he felt." The tiny old man wore a battered fedora, a dirty suit but a suit none the less, and a pair of shiny dancing shoes. He was there to use them. It was like being in a movie, watching this odd and obviously very imbibed man spin, slide, and swing his arms around on a dance floor all of his own. The packed room became even more dense as the crowd parted before him. He mouthed the words to the songs, although he obviously didn't know them, and at times clenched his eyes closed, opened his mouth and silently screamed at the ceiling as if his performance was causing him pain. McMurtry is one of the greatest songwriters alive today, in my opinion, but after that night the image of the old gentleman was what had seared itself into my brain. It wasn't until 2 years later, on our 3rd trip to Texas I believe, that the song was finally given life. In 2 years I hadn't been able to shake the images of that night, and it was time to write it down. The second verse is more of a generalization, a sweeping idea of what Austin during SXSW feels like. Music everywhere, bands and fans, parties and high hopes. Some triumphs and some regrets I would have to imagine. The first verse brings me back to a specific moment, while the second conjures a general familiar feeling for me. I like being able to put these two different kinds of thought processes together.
BUREAU : Once a song has been put on paper, walk us through the process of bringing those words to your Band members ?
Luke : The process for each song is different, just as the process for every writer is different. As I said before, a song for me can grow out of a line, a melody, or a concept. Nearly all of my songs are brought to the band as a skeleton, or a shell, and I rely heavily on the guys in this band to make it a TMBB song. I think we're lucky to be in a group that works this way. We often come into rehearsal and say, "who's got secret songs? Who's got something new?" And often times that will lead to something more tangible by the end of the day. Maybe the most important step is bringing the idea to the stage, and letting it make it's final evolution in front of a crowd. One thing we take a lot of pride in is the live show, and that to me ultimately shows what the song was meant to become.
BUREAU : How long have you or your bandmates been writing original works and explain how The Band was originally formed ?
Luke: The Mallett Brothers Band began in late 2009, and we drew from every corner of the Portland Maine scene. Myself, Nick Leen and Nate Soule had recently come out of another project together, but it was the arrival of my brother Will to Portland that lit the fire. We had some song ideas, we had a vague direction we wanted to head stylistically, and we had no idea that this would become a driving force in our lives. Wally Wenzel and drummer Brian Higgins, who had also worked together on other projects, came into the picture shortly there after and from the very first rehearsal we were all hooked. There was a certain chemistry, and a sense of how much fun we could have immediately. Our first time on stage together cemented the deal. Though the line-up has changed over the last six years, the electrifying feeling of being on stage together hasn't changed a bit. As it stands today on stage you will see myself and my brother Will on most lead vocals and guitar, Nick Leen on bass and good vibes, Wally Wenzel on dobro telecaster and vocals, Adam Cogswell on drums, and Andrew Martelle on fiddle and mandolin. "Lights Along The River" also featured our childhood friend and Nashville native Matt Mills on pedal steele, banjo, guitar and vocals, as well as me and Will's little sister Molly on vocals and even our father (and intimidating songwriting magician himself) David Mallett, who just released his 17th studio album this month. We strive above all things to enjoy this thing that we have given ourselves completely over to. When you invest nearly all of your time, energy, heart and soul in something you better have fun while doing it. "Too much fun" has become our mantra.
BUREAU : Discuss the new music, the new tour and what has inspired the latest batch of songs.
Luke : While "Lights" was a collection of songs pulled largely from the road, the next project we have our eyes on will be a collection of Maine logging, fishing, and trapping songs from the 1800's. Will discovered a book in our mother's library of all these forgotten folk tunes from the very woods that we grew up in, and we've been setting the words to our own music. History is important to us, our home state of Maine is very important to us, and this next project combines these things with the music that is so important to us. A few of these have been working their way onto the setlist as of late, and the feeling of bringing these forgotten words back to life is amazing. We're excited to continue making music that captivates us as well as fans. No definite release plans as of yet. Look for some of these new tunes on the stage. Tour is never ending.
A SOUTHERN DREAM PHOTOS ALEX HARRIS
Contributing Editor Alex Harris recounts his early years as a fledgling photographer, remembering his experiences in North Carolina in The 1970s, purging his influences and discovering the process leading to his own Visual Style. He is a Guggenheim fellow & currently a Teacher at Duke University.
image: ©Alex Harris Rubenstein Photography Gallery Duke University through June 26th, 2016
In the fall of 1971, I was just out of college and beginning my second education as a photographer. For one year, I traveled throughout North Carolina with my Nikon camera and Tri-X film. I had an assignment from the newly formed public policy program at Duke University to photograph substandard housing and living conditions in the state. This was an opportunity for a young, Atlanta-born southerner to become aware of something about the South beyond the suburbs by looking in depth at one southern state, by meeting, photographing, and getting to know people in their homes and dwellings, and at work in the fields. Every photographer hopes to create a distinctive body of work, no matter at what stage in a career, to discover a way of seeing and photographing that is uniquely his or her own. But none of us can avoid the pictures we carry with us in our minds from photographers who have come before. As I wandered around North Carolina, I was fortunate to have good influences. On Wolf Mountain near the Tennessee border, Dorothea Lange’s driver “Ditched, Stalled and Stranded” in the San Joaquin Valley of California in 1935 appeared to me in form of a young man posing on the hood of his jeep. His home had burned down the week before. A group of migrant workers throwing horseshoes on a summer evening after picking potatoes near the Carolina coast might have stepped off the joyful pages of Eudora Welty’s 1930’s Mississippi in One Time One Place. Not far from that game of horseshoes, I found Robert Frank’s Beaufort, South Carolina jukebox from The Americans. But instead of Robert Frank’s child on the floor, a young man peered in the open window just as I took the picture. The day I framed the tired, lined face of a Sampson County field worker staring back at me below the brim of his upturned cap, Walker Evans was looking over my shoulder. And who would have guessed Gary Winogrand’s street smarts would come in very handy as I photographed farmers at an auction in Sampson County in the summer of 1972. Later that summer I made a photograph I can’t trace to anyone else. The house was wood framed, dirty white wall boards, patched vinyl chair, refrigerator with door ajar and guts displayed, oil stained porch floor – the whole structure, past its prime, held up by cinder blocks, stones, and a few rough sawn beams.
image: ©Alex Harris Rubenstein Photography Gallery Duke University through June 26th, 2016
The young lady couldn’t have been more than eighteen years old, nineteen tops, brown hair, square jaw, clear skin, in a long, daisy-patterned cotton dress, cat-eye glasses and sandals. She listened patiently, holding her toddler boy – the youngest of three children – on her hip, as I explained why I was there. “I am working on this project, making photographs of the kinds of houses a lot of people in North Carolina have to live in…” While I spoke she glanced back at her house and at her other son and daughter playing with the dogs by the wide-open front door. She seemed to be considering if she lived in the kind of run-down house I was describing. When I paused she looked back at me, eyes squinting in the noon North Carolina sun, and said, “Ok if you want to take pictures, go ahead.” So I did. I took a few shots that went nowhere. I had been counting on the family to stay close together there on the porch, but after a few minutes, the other children wandered inside and even the dogs abandoned the scene. At the time, I didn’t have much experience as a photographer, but I knew when the pictures weren’t going to get any better. I thanked the young woman and said goodbye. As she turned, still holding her son, I lifted my camera and made one more exposure. This one is like a dream. It’s a southern dream any of us could have. It is the bare bones of a story we can only imagine. A woman of indeterminate age strides towards an open door. She walks with purpose and grace – left foot forward and poised above the floor, her child hidden from view but there in her tight embrace. She is our mother, perhaps the Madonna protecting the child that will one day save us all. But for now she is walking past a large spray-painted letter, a black cursive R. R for Reap, Rejoice, or Repent? Below that R, an old brown chair radiates so much personality its three buttons form the eyes and nose of a face, with a dark smiling mouth in shadow below. A benevolent God in disguise? Perhaps that was R for Rapture? She is walking from light into near darkness. Three strides beyond is second door where we see framed dog, a junked car, and part of a tree shading a dazzlingly bright yard. From light to darkness and back into the light. This is my own moment; perhaps the first time my camera pointed me towards thrilling possibilities of photography to connect with our unconscious minds, to suggest knowledge beyond words. For the last four decades I’ve searched for these moments, never anticipating when they might materialize, the kinds of rare moments that appear only in photographs or in dreams.
BUREAU LECTURE Part One :
An Introduction of Max GINSBURG
Max Ginsburg is a Master Oil Painter with the Techniques of a Classicist and The Heart of an American Rebel. He teaches, shares willingly and has a breadth of knowledge that goes far beyond Art Theory. Ginsburg's paintings vary from subject, year and style, all retaining a quality that is undeniable. He clearly cares deeply about Social Issues, is an avid Man of Peace and has no problems, whatsoever, relating those concerns through his Many Decades of Dedication to the Medium of Painting. We warn the viewer, Max Ginsburg will take you to the War in Iraq, you will have to view the kind of scenes that will make you reconsider going to war. The average American viewer will have to go beyond flags and bumper stickers that exclaim, "I Support The Troops," his work will make you rethink policy and truly support the troops, by protecting them, giving them over time and ensuring, they return home.
Max GINSBURG : We are born with our "eyes wide open" and as we grow up, many of us see selectively avoiding the realities of the world. My parents taught me that you must confront the social realities in life and, as artists, in art too. I grew up during the Great Depression and World War ll. I felt the injustice of hard times, the horror of anti semitism, as a child, in my Brooklyn neighborhood and the fear of Fascism where so many of my relatives were murdered in the concentration camps. And, when I was in the U.S. Army I saw how Black G.I.s were prevented from using facilities that German prisoners of war were allowed to use. My Civics class in school taught me about the Declaration of Independence, about Equality and the right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness for all. There were books and movies that influenced me such as John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" and of course many Social Realist painters among the Ash Can School and the American Scene painters were addressing the very social conditions I had been witnessing.
Max GINSBURG : During the second half of The 20th Century, the art world shied away from expressing social issues and became more and more introspective, narcissistic, and abstract. So it was like going upstream to develop as a social realist artist. In addition to the social realist concepts I was also trying to develop my skills as a realist painter. This was important to me, aesthetically, and for the communication of my message. For the most part, art schools and colleges were not teaching realism and the galleries were favoring only modern trends. Opportunities for realists were denied, or severely limited. The reason I was able to develop as a realist is because I saw my father painting. He was a portrait painter, who studied in 1918 - 1922 at the National Academy of Design, where traditional realism was then being taught. Later, when I was teaching at the High School of Art & Design I started a drawing and painting group for students to develop their realist skills, which was not taught in the regular school curriculum. As a result I too was able to develop my own skills to paint realistically. In addition there were two galleries that sold my work in the 1970's and this was encouraging.
Max GINSBURG : In 1980 I started to do illustrations, primarily book covers for romance novels. Suddenly my concepts changed. They were vacuous, overly sentimental, and not like the reality of my fine art. But I continued to paint romance cover illustrations because it provided a good income. In 2,000 I decided to get back to painting reality and finally stopped illustrating in 2004. At first I resorted to continuing my use of photography, as I had done in illustration, but now it was to capture the reality of the streets instead of the fantasy fiction of the romance covers. I also began to work more from life as I had done before 1980. In more recent years I have painted more multifigure paintings as I had been doing in the 1970's. Many are street scenes concentrating on the social conditions of our times wile others take on epic themes like War & Peace, Torture and the growing social and economic injustices. I chose to express these themes directly, not as a metaphor. And I chose to paint realistically, inspired by the Old Masters, so that my ideas communicated strongly and to a wider audience. Communication is important to me. I am not an ivory tower artist. So I have been seeking public venues to reach a wider audience. In 2008 I showed at 1199, The Hospital Workers Union in New York, in 2011 I had a Retrospective at the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, OH, & Salmagundi Club in New York.
THE BUREAU INTERVIEW : IRVINE WELSH
BUREAU : Can you remember the first time you decided to actually write phonetically ? There are certain languages that seem almost necessary to represent artful authenticity. I believe Alice Walker did so with, "The Color Purple," and you with, "Trainspotting."
IRVINE WELSH : It was with “Trainspotting”, which was my first novel. I’d written passages from what would become that book in standard English, which was how I was taught at school. The problem was that they were flat and dull, and didn’t bring the characters to life. I tried to give it a street slang mix, using the distinctive Edinburgh working-class voice that is a mixture of gypsy and Lalans, but it still wasn’t working for me. That was when I started to write it phonetically. Scotland is part of a Celtic oral tradition, where literature is essentially performed rather than written. I think some books have to be almost sang rather than read.
BUREAU : Discuss how this decision effected your style.
IRVINE WELSH: I was very influenced by music, particularly the dance music of the acid house and rave culture that was bombarding the UK when I started writing “Trainspotting” and “The Acid House”. It seemed there were two essential elements that I wanted to replicate from that style of music, to get them into my writing. The first was the 4 x 4 beat of dance music, and I used the more performative phonetic-slang to approximate that, as discussed above. The second key feature, as I saw it, were the wild FX that sat on top of the beat. These I tried to convey a sense of through experiments with typography; different fonts, having words fall off the page, that sort of thing. I had read a lot of novels where people talked glibly about ‘capturing the energy of youth’ and I was invariably unimpressed. I would ask myself why such novels so often failed to do this, other than the most clichéd of ways (youthful, anti-establishment, ‘rebellious’ protagonists) and I always came up with the same conclusion: the tools, or the literary aesthetics weren’t present. The writer was essentially pitching to a notional reader who was white, male, old and upper-middle-class, namely a critic, rather than to the culture they were meant to be writing about.
BUREAU : There are writers who immediately enter the arena with a pugnacious and bad boy flare: Norman Mailer, Nelson Algren and Bill Burroughs for instance. How do you transcend that expactation and continue to put out quality work with an edge ?
IRVINE WELSH : Fiction is always, first and foremost, about character and story. If you take the eye of that ball, then all the other stuff like my aforementioned experiments become irrelevant. It is all built of that bedrock. (Okay, maybe we’ll ignore Burroughs here, but every rule has its exceptions.) It’s all very well (and highly noble) to want to push the envelope out, kick society in the teeth, shake things up – it’s the artist’s job - but you do it from that base. You neglect that at your peril. Another key thing is to be sure of your place with regard to the novel. If you are too much of the self-conscious ‘bad boy’ – speaking through yourself and not your characters - it becomes empty, tiresome posturing. A novelist has to be both present in their work, but also strangely removed from it. If you can’t get past yourself, you’ll never actually get to the novel.
BUREAU : Who might you credit as your Doctor Frankenstein when it comes to honoring your influences ?
IRVINE WELSH : There are quite a few, and the interesting thing is that you never really know. As a young writer I was always much more motivated by reading work I regarded as unsuccessful in certain ways. It made me think why this book wasn’t working and what I’d have done differently if I was the author. The writers I admire tend to intimidate as much as inspire. Evelyn Waugh was a big writer for me; from a completely different social milieu, but I instantly loved the way he dealt with the underlying competitiveness and schadenfreude inherent in male relationships. Burroughs was a breakthrough; both as a stylist and as an incendiary figure who saw literature as existing in a whole apparatus of cultural control. James Kelman, Allistair Gray and William McIllvanney; such giant figures to be living on your doorstep when you started writing. And of course, there was Orwell. I doubt if there has ever been a working class British fiction writer of the post-war era who wasn’t influenced by him.
PETER at CITY LIGHTS BOOKSTORE in SAN FRANCISCO : Nearly twenty years have gone by since you read at City Lights for the first time. It seems like centuries ago. Your work has progressed through various twists and turns. I see you fundamentally following in the tradition of Burroughs and the Beats, the 20th century Euro-Russian writers that laid bare the human condition, and the decadents of the previous century. Where do you stand in relation to writing, now, 20 years later?
IRVINE WELSH : I’m much more passionate than I was then, primarily because I’ve accepted that I’m a natural writer; that it’s the one thing that comes easy to me, and which I also enjoy. Because I wanted to be a musician and have always been a social animal, I had assumed that my creative life would be undertaken with other people; jamming in a basement, messing around in a studio, playing clubs etc. It came as shock to me that I was so comfortable in my own space, with my own head, undertaking what is probably the most solitary creative pursuit. I’ve learned to accept what it taught me about myself, and therefore I enjoy it more.
PETER AT CITY LIGHTS BOOKSTORE IN SAN FRANCISCO : What is the experience like for you at present?
IRVINE WELSH : One of the things that happens with success is that you need to balance being a writer with an author. Writers write, while authors promote and talk about their work. So you learn that you have two jobs, which generally compliment each other, but can often get in each others way. This confusion is compounded by me working in film and TV; you need to think differently on screenplay as you are an architect rather than a builder, and once a work goes into production, you (appropriately) fall quite far down the food chain. So I now wear different hats, which I usually like –life gets boring doing the same thing. I doubt that there is one screenwriter working in Hollywood who doesn’t fantasize about writing their novel from a windswept cottage in Cornwall. Conversely, everybody working on their book dreams of selling the movie rights to a serious player. I’m very lucky to be in both camps.
PETER AT CITY LIGHTS BOOKSTORE in SAN FRANCISCO : What holds your interest these days?
IRVINE WELSH : I love the tactic conspiracy that politicians of the right and left have, in pretending that we in the west can go back to a full-employment, high-wage, post-war type of society. Our economy and technology just haven’t developed in that way. We are heading into a world without work, and without the opportunity to make private profit. Capitalism and socialism –those industrial revolution bedfellows- are both, at least as traditionally conceived, dead in the water. Yet we have this whole propaganda system telling youth, ‘there will be plenty of jobs, keep running up huge debts to get worthless degrees at college, it’ll be okay.’ You can already see how people are wising up to the banks-government-business-colleges scam. I’m expecting Universities to close at the rate of pubs and churches over the next decade.
BOOK PEOPLE BOOKSTORE IN TEXAS : When writing for morally ambiguous characters such as Mark Renton or as Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson are you drawing from actual people you've encountered or are they purely fictitious depictions ?
IRVINE WELSH : I think people are made to be morally ambiguous by modern life. We function in a social and economic system where greed and selfishness are seen as virtues, and we all can’t help to be effected by that to some extent. I think it does kill us spiritually; it drip-feeds a poison into our souls that we can’t get rid of until we opt out completely. I see that as the big background: trying to do the right thing when circumstances compel different courses of action. However, I’m also fascinated by such characters, as I think they are too cynical not to see through all this, but have that sense of survivor’s self-preservation. We’re all like polar bears in the enclosure at the zoo; I think we’re going slightly psycho living in this strange prison we’ve constructed for ourselves. Regarding that characters, they tend to be composites of different people and suppressed aspects of myself.
BOOK PEOPLE BOOKSTORE in TEXAS : Discuss The Process.
IRVINE WELSH : Well, creating such characters on the page for me is about generating backstory that you’ll never use in the novel, or at least use sparingly. It’s all about parents, neighbors, friends, school, traumatic incidents, hope and dreams. I like my characters to be spoiled idealists. Fundamentally, however you get them down on the page (I make up a playlist for them all, which helps) they have to work there, not just in your head. So rewrites, rewrites, rewrites.
KIRSTY ALLISON [ Ex Band member of Music Group Including Irvine Welsh ] : If you had joined the 'dead at 27 club', who would you like to have gone as ?
IRVINE WELSH : I’m not sure I’d want to go as any of them. Like many people, I never saw myself living beyond 30. This wasn’t just some rock n roll romance trip, all the men on my dad’s side tended to die young. It was often misadventure and just bad luck, but there seemed to be a genetic component. They were like flies: lived long enough to breed and that was it. So when I found myself at 30 still functioning, I thought: Fuck. What am I going to do for the rest of my life? Now I feel myself thinking about people like Jim Morrison, and wondering what more they might have done? What I didn’t factor in was the men on my mum’s side - those guys just live forever. But if I take after them, all good and well. I quite like it here, I’m in no big hurry to leave.
KIRSTY ALLISON : What book would you like to have written (any ever published) ?
IRVINE WELSH : I’m not being facetious when I say this, but probably something like the “Di Vinci Code”. Something that’s utter nonsense but makes you so off-the-scale rich that you know you are really doing the next book because it’s what you really want to write, rather than trying to get to the end of the next publishers contract.
DANNY BOY : What do you make of the notion that it will be more and more difficult to call prose fiction 'art', and what do you reckon will take place of the novel ?
IRVINE WELSH : I think some of the best modern fiction writing (and some of the worst) is now happening in the premium cable TV series. I saw an interview with Quentin Tarantino the other day, where he was saying that he wanted to make two more movies, then switch to writing novels. Some people might find that strange, but I think that it’s basically all about storytelling, and whatever you choose to do it in; book, stage, film, TV series, web series (or all of them) will become less relevant. So I can see how he might want to mix it up. It won’t be replaced completely, but it has dug itself into a hole through it’s slavish devotion to ‘literary giants’ of the past. It is policed by critics who see themselves as curators of this ‘celebratory’ culture. But that sort of thing will increasingly become a private party, with few other people having any interest: it’s the fag-end of a scuzzy heritage and tourism industry.
So I think the total number of people reading novels will shrink further. Compared to when I started it seems an easier game to get into, but harder for younger writers to make money from. If you get an older and more conservative crowd reading books, they will just want the same crap again and again. The bourgeoisie look down on the proles going into the multiplex to watch the latest Marvel Superhero remake, while attending their fifth production of “The Cherry Orchard” that year.However, I think some people will always want to read novels and continue to see them as one of the main places where story-telling ideas originate. My agents in Hollywood are always on the phone asking me about books to option. The writer has the luxury of producing something both definitive and innovative in a way that’s more difficult with cinema and TV, as you have to be more aware of an audience. It offers the reader the great freedom to make your own movie/TV show of the book in your head, and, of course, that one is always going to be better than any filmmaker’s adaptation, no matter how good.
So I think the total number of people reading novels will shrink further. Compared to when I started it seems an easier game to get into, but harder for younger writers to make money from. If you get an older and more conservative crowd reading books, they will just want the same crap again and again. The bourgeoisie look down on the proles going into the multiplex to watch the latest Marvel Superhero remake, while attending their fifth production of “The Cherry Orchard” that year.However, I think some people will always want to read novels and continue to see them as one of the main places where story-telling ideas originate. My agents in Hollywood are always on the phone asking me about books to option. The writer has the luxury of producing something both definitive and innovative in a way that’s more difficult with cinema and TV, as you have to be more aware of an audience. It offers the reader the great freedom to make your own movie/TV show of the book in your head, and, of course, that one is always going to be better than any filmmaker’s adaptation, no matter how good.
THIS PAGE DISPLAYS A FEW SAMPLES FROM THE ACTUAL 299 PAGE MAGAZINE WHICH IS AVAILABLE AS A FREE DOWNLOAD at The Link Below, Simply, Tap the Link and Download The Hi Resolution Version NOW. It may take a Few Minutes, Though well worth The WAIT hundreds of images and links to events relating to each article and interview, many of which do not appear on this page:
The BUREAU INTERVIEW: TODD M. CASEY
Part One : The Painter from Lowell Massachusetts Discusses His Art
Bureau Magazine : You searched around the visual arts for a few years before finding Painting, Discuss that Journey.
Todd M. CASEY : It has been quite a journey. It started with me going to school in Boston MA where I studied Illustration for my BFA. I then moved to NYC to pursue a career as an illustrator and it didn’t take me very far. So, I decided to move to San Francisco to pursue a master in Animation. Through the foundation classes at the Academy of Art University I met Warren Chang, a realist painter in Monterey CA. Warren introduced me to the works of Max Ginsburg (his teacher), Jacob Collins and more New York City artists. He encouraged me to reach out to these artists if I were to go back to the East Coast, and I eventually wound up back in NYC. Then I reached out to Max and Jacob and studied with both at the same time.
Bureau Magazine : Much of your still life work is designed around a particular object, describe how the energy of an object will attract your attention.
Todd M. CASEY : I’ve always been keen on building a story and making it as authentic as possible. My inspiration usually starts with a song, a book or just being captivated by an object. I’d say music inspires a lot of my work as most of the titles of my paintings come from songs that I obsess over. Like a recent painting “Another Story”, was inspired by a song from the group called “The Head and the Heart” or the Vanitas painting I did while listening to the Beatles song “Live and Let Die”. The larger paintings are also multi layered built around a narrative with a lot of symbolism in the objects. To quote James Joyce “I’ve put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant”.
Bureau Magazine : From what Artists do you find inspiration, and why, Historically speaking ?
Todd M. CASEY : I find a lot of my inspiration in looking to the past, especially in the masters’ work in museums. I wouldn’t say that I’m limited to one movement, as I find inspiration in all forms of the arts and in nature, and especially in books. I’ve always been drawn to the works of Edwin Austin Abbey, Dean Cornwell, Harvey Dunn and Howard Pyle. These artists had such a knack for the narrative and their paintings are not over rendered. I don’t have a problem with over rendering as I love the work of Hans Holbein and a lot of Dutch still life painters like Jans Claesz. I would like my work to move closer to the works of Andrew Wyeth, Antonio Lopez Garcia and Odd Nerdrum moving forward, or at least that is my goal. I obviously marvel visually what someone can make on canvas but I’m always striving for a deeper meaning in my works. Nerdrum is a great example as his works are tied to his dreams. I feel that the masters had a deeper understanding of the subjects and objects they painted. To quote John Ruskin, “All great art is the work of the whole living creature, body and soul, and chiefly of the soul”.
Todd M. Casey is Represented By The REHS ART GALLERY images Courtesy of REHS and The Artist. Look for a continued Conversation in The Following Editions.
SANDY SKOGLUND: BUREAU INTERVIEW
BUREAU of ARTS and CULTURE Contributing Artist IRBY PACE
An Artist most well known for photographs of hand made elaborately complicated sets or tableaux. Skoglund attended graduate school for painting and graduated in 1972, after graduate school she began to teach herself the photographic process as a means to document her creative endeavors which she details in her preceding interview. One aspect of her work that has always fascinated me is her ability to make these imaginary worlds much like a painter would approach a canvas. Looking back through her archive of photographs, one can make connections between “Knees in Tub” 1977 to her most well known pieces and the beginning of the vibrant colors she now utilizes in The Tableaux Images.
Irby Pace: Sandy, your early photographic work in the 1970s begins to show early signs of you working through spatial dynamics and color theory that you would eventually be known for in your installation based photographic series. Can you describe the turning point in your creative process that took place, which led you to create the installation work and what would you say to those that are on the cusp of a creative breakthrough?
Sandy Skoglund: I think the turning point came for me when I realized how interesting and artificial still photography is. I had never taken courses in photography, so the field was an open door to walk through with no inhibitions. The camera became a way to limit my enthusiasms and contain wildly different kinds of materials. I was also heavily influenced by commercial product photography at that time. In the 70’s commercial photography had a distinctive look and feel that was riveted on the physical beauty of the product.I felt this was lacking in fine art photography of the 70’s, so I worked to include a kind of pictorial, detailed rendering of surfaces and textures in my work. For example, I studied the techniques of photographing silverware, which is very demanding and specific in terms of lighting and reflections.
Irby Pace: In your work you’re creating the sets, painting spaces, and sculpting the objects and eventually photographing the spaces, but the inclusion of real people seems to be one of the most important factors to the work. Do you feel that the spaces need the human connection to make the fantastical seem more real or do you think that they can function without that human presence?
Sandy Skoglund: I do think that the inclusion of real people is important. Without real people in the set, the scale is lost because the set is so confusing. Of course, the confusion is deliberate. Once something is photographed, there are a lot of things left out after the actual subject is detached.
I am always thinking that the photograph will be the thing that is left and not the set or the objects that are photographed. I like the way living people contribute a moment of ephemeral timeliness into the static sculpture of the set as well.
Irby Pace: Viewers that appreciate your work will notice how important color theory is to your series’ continued success and popularity. What leads you to the color choices that you make for your installations and would you like to share any symbolical meanings for some of these choices?
Sandy Skoglund: I love feeling my way through color as I work on the structures of a piece. Sometimes the color is already dictated by the materials, as in the case of popcorn or cheese doodles. In other cases, the color might be important for the overall mood of the piece. In that case, I might have a choice of hot and cold colors, as well as pastels vs. primary colors. It is also fun to eliminate all color and just go completely monochromatic, as if the image were photographed in black and white and then colorized. Most of all, I analyze my way through the color over a long period of time when working on a piece. Part of the pleasure of working with color is being able to take the time to feel my way through it.
Skoglund currently teaches photography and installation art at the University of Rutgers Newark, Jersey City, New Jersey. Her works are held in multiple collections throughout the United States and the world. She takes responsibility for what she points her lens at and creates her spaces with the resulting final photograph in mind. Skoglund's work has the influential ability to inspire young minds to think about the creative aspirations one can achieve with their own work. Visit her Site Link at http://www.sandyskoglund.com
THIS PAGE DISPLAYS A FEW SAMPLES FROM THE ACTUAL 299 PAGE MAGAZINE WHICH IS AVAILABLE AS A FREE DOWNLOAD at The Link Below, Simply, Tap the Link and Download The Hi Resolution Version NOW. It may take a Few Minutes, Though well worth The WAIT hundreds of images and links to events relating to each article and interview, many of which do not appear on this page:
Roman Vishniac Rediscovered:
NOW through May 29, 2016
More than any other photographer, Roman Vishniac’s images have profoundly influenced contemporary notions of Jewish life in eastern Europe. Vishniac created the most widely recognized and reproduced photographic record of that world on the eve of its annihilation, yet only a small fraction of his work was published or printed during his lifetime. Known primarily for this poignant record, Vishniac was in fact a remarkably versatile and innovative photographer. His body of work spans more than five decades, ranging from early engagements with European modernism in the 1920s to highly inventive color photomicroscopy in the 1950s and 60s. Roman Vishniac Rediscovered introduces a radically diverse body of work—much of it only recently discovered—and repositions Vishniac’s iconic photographs of eastern European Jewry within a broader tradition of 1930s social documentary photography. Roman Vishniac Rediscovered is a comprehensive reappraisal of Vishniac’s total photographic output, from his early years in Berlin through the postwar period in America. The exhibition is drawn from the Roman Vishniac archive at ICP and serves as an introduction to this vast assemblage comprising more than 30,000 objects, including recently discovered vintage prints, rare moving film footage, contact sheets, personal correspondence, and exhibition prints made from his recently digitized negatives.
Roman Vishniac Rediscovered NOW through May 29, 2016 Courtesy Of CJM San Francisco CA USA
Contemporary Jewish Museum 736 Mission Street San Francisco
1 . 415 . 655 . 7800 THU 11am - 8pm FRI - TUE 11am - 5pm
BUREAU BOOKS:IN THE TRENCHES
Deborah Kerr + Burt Lancaster in, " From Here To Eternity," (1953) Directed by Fred Zinneman Book By James Jones
FROM HERE TO ETERNITY
From Here to Eternity, The debut novel of Author James Jones, published in 1951. The novel focuses on a U.S. Army infantry company stationed in Hawaii in the days leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Based on Jones' time as a soldier in the pre-World War II Hawaiian Division's 27th Infantry and the unit in which he served, Company E, Also known as The Boxing Company, where, If a guy can kick some ass, he can, get a few perks along the way. From Here to Eternity won the National Book Award, was named one of the 100 Best Novels of the 20th century by the Modern Library Board.[2] The book was later made into an Academy Award-winning film starring Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift and Frank Sinatra as well as two television adaptations and a stage musical.
Originally published: 1951 Author: James Jones Genres: War novel Adaptations: From Here to Eternity (1953) Publisher: Charles Scribner's SonsAwards: National Book Award for Fiction
THE THIN RED LINE
The Thin Red Line is James Jones's fourth novel. Based on the Battle of Mount Austen during World War II's Guadalcanal campaign. Originally published in September 1962, The continuing saga, with Jones's other two World War II novels. The novel depicts battles realistically in all their details.
A SOLDIER'S PLAY
A Soldier's Play is a drama by Charles Fuller. The play utilizes a murder mystery plot and structure to explore the conditions that many African Americans experience and went through while serving in the US Army. The story takes place in Louisiana in 1944. Captain Davenport, a black Army officer, has been sent to investigate a killing. Initially, the primary suspects are local Ku Klux Klansmen. Later, bigoted white soldiers fall under suspicion. This play is somewhat influenced by Herman Melville's novella Billy Budd. Fuller became a dedicated writer after noticing that his high school's library had no books by African Americans. In 1969, he wrote The Village: A Party, a drama about racial tensions between a group of mixed-race couples. He later wrote plays for the Henry Street Settlement theatre and the Negro Ensemble Company in New York.
"Fuller explained that it never played on Broadway, because he refused to drop the last line, "You'll have to get used to Black people being in charge."
His 1975 play The Brownsville Raid is based on the Brownsville Affair, an altercation between black soldiers and white civilians in Brownsville, Texas, in 1906, which led to an entire black regiment being dishonorably discharged though later pardoned in 1976. He won an Obie Award for Zooman. Zooman presents himself as a helpless product of his society, but his victim's father convinces their neighbors that they need to stand together and achieve justice. His next work, A Soldier's Play, enjoyed a long run. Fuller explained that it never played on Broadway because he refused to drop the last line, "You'll have to get used to Black people being in charge." Something that apparently The GOP Congress and Senate have yet to accept. It nevertheless was a critical success, winning Fuller a Pulitzer in 1982, and being produced as the 1984 film A Soldier's Story, for which Fuller himself wrote the screen adaptation. His screenplay was nominated for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Writers Guild of America Award, and an Edgar Award.
BUY THE PLAY : http://www.samuelfrench.com/p/2265/soldiers-play-a
JARHEAD : A Marine's Chronicle
of The Gulf War and Other Battles
Jarhead recounts Swofford's enlistment and service in the United States Marine Corps during the Persian Gulf War, in which he served as a Scout Sniper with the Surveillance and Target Acquisition (STA) Platoon of 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines. A narrative that focuses on the physical, mental and emotional struggles of the young Marines.This is a book about how young soldiers were actually kept away from battles that they wished to fight, due to the Gulf War approach to army air strikes.
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Steinbeck in Vietnam: Dispatches from the War
According to Mr. Jon Guttman. at historynet.com AKA / Mr. History : In 1966, John Steinbeck, America’s best known and most widely read author, chose to hurl himself into the maelstrom of Vietnam. At age 64 and in failing health, he risked his reputation and his life to report on the controversial war. It was a bold move near the end of a brilliant career. Winner of the Nobel Prize for literature and a Pulitzer for his novel Grapes of Wrath, he was no stranger to war. He had served as a war correspondent in North Africa in World War II for The Herald Tribune. Vietnam had become the nation’s top news story and controversy, and Steinbeck’s friend, President Lyndon Johnson, pressed him to go to there as a U.S. government observer. Steinbeck declined. Although he supported LBJ’s conduct of the war, he preferred his independence, so Steinbeck arranged to write a series of columns for Newsday and planned a five-month tour of Southeast Asia, with six weeks in Vietnam. It also afforded him and his wife a chance to see their 19-year-old son, John Steinbeck IV, who had been drafted and was serving in Vietnam.
BUY THE BOOK:
Research and Information provided and edited from Wiki-pedia . Amazon Books + History.net
KEHINDE WILEY:ROYALTY RETURNS
PROGRAMS AND EVENTS KEHINDE WILEY: A NEW REPUBLIC
Sat Feb 27
Kehinde Wiley Family Day Celebration 10 am - 3 pm Seattle Art Museum
Spend the day exploring our new exhibition with a day full of live performances, music, art making and tours for all ages inspired by this groundbreaking exhibition. Admission to the exhibition is free for kids under 12 and with a paying adult. RSVP
Thu Mar 3, Apr 7, May 5
A New Republic: Drop-In Drawing Sessions 6 – 8 pm Seattle Art Museum Visit SAM on First Thursdays during the exhibition for a free drop-in drawing session.
Sat Mar 5
Educator Workshop: Art and Race 10 am – 4 pm Seattle Art Museum
In this interactive workshop, participants will use Wiley’s paintings as inspiration to explore complex questions relevant to every student and teacher. Open to educators of all levels and subjects. Tickets include free resources, entrance to SAM’s galleries, and six (6) Washington State Clock Hours.
Fri Mar 11
SAM Remix 8 pm – midnight Seattle Art Museum
#SAM Remix returns for a full evening of performances, tours, dancing, and more at this late-night creative explosion inspired by our special exhibition. More details announced soon.
Sat Mar 19
Family Fun Workshop 10 am – noon Seattle Art Museum
Introduce your family to a variety of cultures and artistic traditions designed to engage both kids and adults in two hours of learning and creating together. Designed for children ages 5-12 and their caregivers.
Fri May 6
Teen Night Out 7 – 10 pm Seattle Art Museum
Calling all high-school aged teens! Take over the museum and get loud at #SAM Teen Night Out with incredible DJs, teen art tours, and art making workshops led by Seattle’s hottest contemporary artists. #SAMTeenNightOut
In response to this exhibition, Seattle-area community partners are highlighting events and performances focusing on themes found in Kehinde Wiley’s work. Their programs, along with those of SAM, can all be found on our detailed New Republic Events calendar. Registering and Purchasing Tickets for SAM Programs: Advance registration or ticket purchase is required for SAM public programs. To register or purchase tickets, visit seattleartmuseum.org or call the Box Office at 206.654.3121. Event tickets may also be purchased at two of SAM’s sites: the Seattle Art Museum and the Asian Art Museum. The exhibition is organized by the Brooklyn Museum.
COMIC BOOKS, LIBRARIANS & YOU
By BUREAU Contributing Writer Shaun HUSTON
Libraries are sites where social anxieties and fears about the direction of American culture have often been expressed and contested. Whether dealing with their openness, which allows the homeless and the mentally ill to read alongside children and their nervous parents, or controversies about the ‘waste’ of spending resources on DVDs and video games, or widening access to the internet and its bevy of ‘objectionable’ material, libraries frequently test people’s commitments to values like equality and freedom. As comics, that great corrupter and retarding influence on youth, have become more mainstream, and a generation of librarians raised on comics has entered the profession, their efforts to build collections of comic books in libraries have illuminated a number of key tropes in popular discussions and attitudes toward the medium.
Some years ago, I participated in a day-long discussion of comics and libraries organized by Sara Ryan, Teen Services Librarian for the Multnomah County Library system in Portland, Oregon The stories told by public and school librarians, most dating from the early 2000s, about their efforts to integrate and organize comics within their collections were both specific to their institutional contexts and revealing of wider issues in the public reception of comics. One issue that librarians addressed was fear: fear of patron reaction to a growing collection of comics at their library. Everything bad that people think about comics—that they expose kids to sex and violence and freaks, that they keep kids from learning to reading ‘real’ books, that they are junk food for the brain—becomes a potential protest to their inclusion on the shelves. Not only do librarians need to be prepared to answer such objections, but those who see a place for comics in the library need to address the fears held by some of their colleagues.
While the stereotype of librarians as uptight, conservative-minded shushers is, at best, antiquated, there are individuals who see their jobs in high culture terms, and who have romantic notions about literature and books, and see what they do as properly providing an antidote to popular media like TV. Whether dealing with the feelings of other librarians or those of patrons, librarians interested in seeing more comics in the library have had to conduct their negotiations both within and outside of their profession.What makes these negotiations necessary is the very publicness of libraries. Parents who don’t want their kids buying comics at the local Borders or nearby comics shop or grocery most likely see that as a domestic problem. Few would bother to protest the presence of the presumably offending material in the store. If a shop owner or company wants to make money selling comics, that’s their business. It’s my job to keep my kid from taking her allowance down there if I don’t want her buying comics.
At the library, my kid doesn’t have to buy comics; she just has to find them. Even if she isn’t of an age when she can check them out herself, she can still sit and read them in the library without anyone telling her to put them back if she isn’t going to buy them. Not only that, but directly or indirectly, the comics she finds were paid for with my tax dollars! The choice to sell comics in a store is a private decision; housing them in a library is a public one. As a result, it’s a decision that opens up discussions of what comics mean, with regard to their literary merit. Are they art or literature? Trash or treasure? Ennobling or ignoble? For many librarians, how such questions are answered is not really relevant. Whether motivated by their own love of the medium or by the interest of patrons, providing access to comics, and to information in whatever form, is central to what they do.
" If it were already widely accepted that comics are not just aimed at young readers, then there would probably be fewer concerns or questions about their inclusion in library collections. "
However, addressing that issue of access opens up a range of other questions about what comics mean to society. Another twist: it’s easy to assume that cataloging, how to classify and shelve the items in a collection, would be a dry and esoteric subject. In practice, how items are cataloged both reflects and shapes how people think about and relate to media. Last month, I considered the complexities of authorship in comics and those complexities certainly complicate the problem of how to categorize comics. If the writer is listed as ‘author’, and comics are shelved by an author’s last name, that doesn’t help someone looking for a book penciled or inked by a particular artist. Fundamentally, this brings one back to the question of who is the author, and what kind medium comics is. The openness of the answer may explain some people’s unease with featuring such books in the library.
Typically, in comic book stores, comics are shelved not by creator, but by publisher, at least until you get to really small presses and self-published works. Major comics publishers all have distinctive designs for their book spines that make them easy to identify on a shelf. While this facilitates browsing for avid fans and readers of, particularly, the Marvel and DC universes, it also lends itself to criticism of comics as ‘product’ rather than ‘art’ or ‘literature’. Regardless of how to interpret different ways of categorizing comics in a library, what underlies such questions is how readers read, and what comics means to them. Do they follow writers (what one librarian at the session I was at called the “Neil Gaiman problem”)? Do they follow publishers ? Do they follow pencilers (or some other artist)? Do they follow a particular character (what another librarian called the “Wolverine problem”)?
" The different reasons that people seek out different comics is a sign of what makes the medium unique, not a lesser form of expression. "
There is no single way to answer these questions, but the fact that one has to ask them in the first place is revealing about the many ways that people relate to comics. For some, the idea that someone would read anything about one character, regardless of author or artist, suggests much about the low nature of so many comics, proving that they are more about corporate properties than artistic or literary expression. For others, such questions are reflective of the deeply fannish nature of comics reading, and the diverse nature of that fandom. The different reasons that people seek out different comics is a sign of what makes the medium unique, not a lesser form of expression. Working through the cataloging issues for comics in libraries is a tension between thinking of comics as belonging to particular genres of art or literature and thinking of comics as an independent medium.
To see comics as an independent medium, is to argue for shelving them on their own, however else you wish to categorize them once you do. Librarians who have decided to do this have done so largely in response to patrons who simply want to find comics without having to sort through multiple shelves of books in different parts of the library. This approach suggests that, yes, there is something different about comics—they aren’t ‘normal’ books. However, that is precisely why people want to read them, and not why they avoid them. To see comics as belonging to the larger category of ‘books’ is to argue for shelving them alongside other books of the same type. Superheroes with science fiction or fantasy. Memoirs with memoirs. Historical fiction with historical fiction, and so on. Before librarians became actively interested in cultivating comics collections, this is how comics, to the extent that they were in libraries at all, were shelved. Arguably, this way of categorizing comics sends the message, “don’t worry, they’re just books like any other”. From an advocate’s perspective it also facilitates discovery on the part of those who may not know they are looking for a comic when they first enter the library, but that’s what they end up with. It’s notable that many of the fears that run through people’s feelings about libraries are about children. The presumption that comics are for kids is a persistent idea in American culture and it fuels anxieties about having comics in the library, as well as creating one of the biggest problems for librarians, which is educating patrons in the range of subjects covered by comics.
If it were already widely accepted that comics are not just aimed at young readers, then there would probably be fewer concerns or questions about their inclusion in library collections. It isn’t hard to see how parents may not be thrilled with their ten-year-old coming home with Charles Burns’ Black Hole (Pantheon, 2005) or a book from Marvel’s Max line, but such books aren’t made for that reader any more than D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover is. As professionals, many librarians see the need to educate themselves about comics, regardless of their own reading preferences. Few patrons or parents of patrons feel the same obligation. The position of comics as a source of social fears and cultural anxieties undoubtedly plays a role in justifying such disinterest, not matter how useful it might be for understanding what their kids should or should not be reading and why their local library has a comics section. The history of American libraries is, in some ways, a history of giving people access to ‘dangerous’ books and information. What people think of as dangerous, and what they accept as safe, says much about their values. The creation of comics sections in libraries points to changing attitudes about the form, even if such change does not always come easy.
Shaun Huston is a Professor in Geography and Film Studies at Western Oregon University, where he primarily teaches courses in political and cultural geography. He also makes films, includingComic Book City, Portland, Oregon, USA (2012), a documentary on the community of comics creators in Portland, Oregon. Article Reprinted by Permission of The Author + Originally Published at POP MATTERS Site.
Original Link at POP MATTERS http://www.popmatters.com/column/123371-my-ten-year-old-is-reading-what-the-meaning-of-the-comics-section-at
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BUREAU Book Review : “Vegan with a Vengeance” 10th Anniversary Edition
Book By Isa Chandra Moskowitz Reviewed By Maria Francesca Triliegi
Isa Chandra Moskowitz is the bestselling author and coauthor of eight vegan cookbooks. She has been named a favorite cookbook author by VegNews magazine for seven years running. She recently opened her first restaurant “Modern Love” in Omaha, Nebraska.
As an Italian Goddess with an ancestry of gourmet cooking and an avid interest in creating vegetarian meals that are tasty; I found “Vegan with a Vengeance” creative as well as refreshing. The photos as well as the “Fizzle says” sidelines giving extra information and support to the recipes makes them especially interesting. Each of the recipes have a, 'specialness,' to them. The Publication is as viscerally fascinating as the actual recipes and writers down to earth style. This cookbook gives us plenty of “look see,” alongside the ingredients and, 'how to,' recipes. Isa’s personal notes, at the beginning of each section, which cover whatever food you are looking for, from main entrees, to vegetables, to breakfast items and onto desserts, are sweetly and delicately described, they encourage each reader to create their own masterpieces.
" Isa’s personal notes, at the beginning of each section, which cover whatever food you are looking for, from main entrees, to vegetables, to breakfast items and onto desserts, are sweetly and delicately described, they encourage each reader to create their own masterpieces."
As this is an Anniversary Edition, there are many new formulas that are easy to fix, with a wide array ingredients that are inexpensive. In this new world of organic foods, many of us may not be able to afford; Isa has made it simple to be a vegan, or at least add vegan style recipes to your food library. I especially enjoyed the various sections with quick add-ons of lovely vegetable based ingredient, to put together a better meal. The cookies, nutrition bars and overall sweet pies and cakes are divinely inspired. Back in the day, it was challenging to find good recipes where the sweets actually tasted like sweets should. Isa’s recipes have ingredients easy to find, like using almond milk instead of regular milk. As I am dairy intolerant, I was excited to make the raspberry blackout cake with ganache. Muy Delicioso! Most vegetarian cookbooks do not hold interest, they seem dry and somewhat boring. Isa has added just enough spices and other ingredients that make the recipes pop with delight. We love the variety of food items in this publication. I am pleased to give this brilliant book a top ten slot and will indeed be keeping it in on the top shelf in my kitchen library.
Maria Francesca Triliegi is The recent Author of “ Life is Good :When You Do the Work,” a new book out By BUREAU BOOKS and an upcoming cookbook of Italian Ancestry with stories, recipes and anecdotes on growing up Italian. She is a Master Chef of Pies, Sicilian Pastries and Platters and a Life Coach with decades of experience in the field of Recovery, Relationships and Metaphysics. LIFE IS GOOD : WHEN YOU DO THE WORK
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THE OUTSIDERS By S. E. HINTON
Fifty Years Ago An American Author wrote One of The Best Stories Ever Told.
" I was actually fifteen when I first began it. It was the year I was sixteen and a junior in high school that I did the majority of the work (that year I made a D in creative writing). One day a friend of mine was walking home from school and these "nice" kids jumped out of a car and beat him up because they didn't like his being a greaser. This made me mad and I just went home and started pounding out a story about this boy who was beaten up while he was walking home from the movies--the beginning of The Outsiders. I was just something to let off steam. I didn't have any grand design. I just sat down and started writing it. I look back and I think it was totally written in my subconscious or something. "
“If you want to be a writer, I have two pieces of advice. One is to be a reader. I think that’s one of the most important parts of learning to write. The other piece of advice is ‘Just do it!’ Don’t think about it, don’t agonize, sit down and write.”
- S. E. HINTON / American Author
S. E. Hinton is the recipient of the American Library Association’s first annual Margaret A. Edwards Award, which honors authors “whose books have provided young adults with a window through which they can view their world and which will help them to grow and to understand themselves and their role in society.” She also happens to be a WOMAN.
READ THE INTERVIEW : http://theoutsidersfanclub.weebly.com
ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJnfleLeOZg
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WELCOME To Literary 2016 Edition BUREAU of ARTS and CULTURE MAGAZINE. With The NOVELIST : Irvine WELSH This New Edition Contains The BUREAU ICON Essay on : John STEINBECK The BUREAU GUEST Visual Artist New YORK City PAINTER : Nathan WALSH Cinema: AMERICAN Director Hal ASHBY & The CLASSIC FILM "BEING THERE" ART Reviews: Emilie CLARK . Michael KAGAN . The Max GINSBURG LECTURE San FRANCSCO : Photographs Roman VISHNIAC . Bill GRAHAM at The CJM . The South West Photographic Essay Winner Rich HELMER Plus Diane ARBUS NEW FICTION ENCORE: They CALL IT The CITY of ANGELS Selected Chapters . INTERVIEWS: Sandy SKOGLUND . Shaun HUSTON on Library Comic BOOKS . MUSIC: The MALLET Brothers Band . Kehinde WILEY at The SEATTLE Museum Museums : Arizona . Oklahoma . San Francisco . ART By John MELLENCAMP . BOOKS : ALI & Malcolm X . SPRINGSTEEN . Literature by U.S. Military Veterans . The SEATTLE Photographic Essay and The FIVE Best Bookstores in BERKELEY LITERARY Events 2016 S.E.Hinton's The OUTSIDERS+WOMEN Writers RULE Reviews & New Online Articles All Year Round at The New BUREAU CITY SITES
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WELCOME to The Spring 2016 Edition BUREAU of ARTS and CULTURE MAGAZINE. This New Edition Contains The BUREAU ICON Essay: BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN The BUREAU GUEST Artist from CANADA Painter and Sculptor Mr. Erik OLSON NEW Interviews + Photographic Essays with Three from The United Kingdom: Street Photographers Craig REILLY, Steve COLEMAN and Walter ROTHWELL. BUREAU Dance: Martha GRAHAM, Plus Mathilde GRAFSTROM : CENSORED German Muralist: Hendrik BEIKIRCH, The CLASSICAL Genius: Daniil TRIFONOV. BUREAU NEWS: David GANS on SUPREME COURT, Plus Mexico's DR.LAKRA Daniel GEORGAKAS on HOLLYWOOD BLACKLIST, The OSCARS and Spike LEE 2016, PHOTO ESSAYS: Stephen SOMERSTEIN at The FREEDOM MARCH of 1965, Alex HARRIS showcasing The Afro AMERICANS in North Carolina in The 1970s Artist Tristan EATON + The Post Modern Paintings Plus BUREAU Film: TRUMBO Reviews & New Online Articles All Year Round at The New BUREAU CITY SITES Across America an The World Through Internet. BUREAU is an Official MEDIA Partner for The ITALIAN Film Festival Plus Our Own BUREAU PHOTO Essays
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We Thank: Da Capo Press, Zoetrope, Schneider Gallery, Detroit Institute of Arts, Strand Bookstore NYC, Milwaukee Museum of Art, Anderson's Books Chicago, Cantor Arts Center, City Lights Books in San Francisco, Stanford University, Pace/MacGill Gallery, National Gallery of Art, Georgia O'Keefe Museum of Art, Fine Arts Center Colorado Springs, Book People in Austin, Duke University, Andy Warhol Museum, Phoenix Art Museum, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Crystal Bridges, United Artists, Spot Photo Works, Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Art Huston Texas, Gallerie Urbane, Mary Boone Gallery, Pace Gallery, Asian Art Museum, Magnum Photo, Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, Fahey/Klein, Tobey C. Moss, Sandra Gehring, George Billis, Martin - Gropius - Bau Berlin, San Jose Museum of Art, First Run Features, Downtown Records, Koplin Del Rio, Robert Berman, Indie Printing, American Film Institute, SFMOMA, Palm Beverly Hills, LA Art Show, Photo LA, Jewish Contemporary Museum, Cultural Affairs, Yale Collection of Rare Books & Manuscripts, Richard Levy Gallery, The Original Cha Cha Cha, The Sundance Institute, Paramount Pictures, Lastly and Most Importantly YOU...
Contributing Photographers: Norman Seef, Kanayo Adibe, Elliott Landy, Ryan Schierling, Mike Miller, Lynn Saville, Melissa Ann Pinney, Herb Ritts, Alex Harris, Jack English, Gered Mankowitz, Bohnchang Koo, Natsumi Hayashi, Raymond Depardon, T. Enami, Dennis Stock, Dina Litovsky, Guillermo Cervera, Moises Saman, Cathleen Naundorf, Terry Richardson, Phil Stern, Dennis Morris, Henry Diltz, Steve Schapiro, Yousuf Karsh, Ellen Von Unwerth, William Claxton, Robin Holland, Andrew Moore, James Gabbard, Mary Ellen Mark, Melissa Ann Pinney, John Robert Rowlands, Brian Duffy, Robert Frank, Jon Lewis, Sven Hans, David Levinthal, Joshua White, Brian Forrest, Lorna Stovall, Elliott Erwitt, Rene Burri, Susan Wright, David Leventhal, Peter Van Agtmael & The Bureau Editor Joshua Triliegi.
Contributing Guest Artists: Melissa Ann Pinney, Irby Pace, Robert Shetterly, David Burke, Michelle Handelman, Jon Swihart, F. Scott Hess, Ho Ryon Lee, Andy Moses, Kahn & Selesnick, Jules Engel, Patrick Lee, David Palumbo, Tom Gregg, Tony Fitzpatrick, Gary Lang, Fabrizio Casetta, DJ Hall, David FeBland, Eric Zener, Seeroon Yeretzian, Dawn Jackson, Charles Dickson, Ernesto DeLaLoza, Diana Wong, Gustavo Godoy, John Weston, Kris Kuksi, Bomonster, Hiroshi Ariyama, Linda Stark, Kota Ezawa, Russell Nachman, Katsushika Hokusai and Xuan Chen
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bureau of arts and culture contributing photographers:
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bureau of arts and culture contributing guest artists:
erik olson, christopher stott, irby pace, max ginsburg, nathan walsh, jon swihart, f. scott hess, ho ryon lee, andy moses, kahn & selesnick, jules engel, patrick lee, david palumbo, tom gregg, tony fitzpatrick, gary lang, fabrizio casetta, dj hall, david febland, eric zener, seeroon yeretzian, dawn jackson, charles dickson, ernesto delaloza, diana wong, gustavo godoy, john weston, kris kuksi, bomonster, hiroshi ariyama, linda stark, kota ezawa, russell nachman, katsushika hokusai. xuan chen
bureau of arts and culture special thanks:
little tokyo los angeles, marcos lutyens, random house, knopf publishing, columbia university, joyce carol oates, sean connery, seattle art museum, whitney museum, irvine welsh, andy warhol foundation, city lights bookstore, joan schulze, nymoma, cantor arts center, stanford university, pace/macgill gallery, national gallery of art, georgia o'keefe museum of art, fresno art museum, fine arts center colorado springs, duke university, the broad la, phoenix art museum, wadsworth atheneum museum of art, art institute of chicago, museum of fine arts boston, crystal bridges, united artists, spot photo works, museum of fine art huston texas, gallerie urbane, mary boone gallery, pace gallery, asian art museum, magnum photo, chicago museum of contemporary art, fahey/ klein gallery, tobey c. moss gallery, sandra gehring gallery, george billis gallery, martin - gropius - bau berlin, san jose museum of art, downtown records, koplin del rio, robert berman, american film institute, sfmoma, photo la, jewish contemporary museum, yale collection rare books, richard levy.