Driving Through Diversity

My former high school teacher, a mentor to me at the time, Roger Brickner, took an ambitious trip this Spring, negotiating the old "Lincoln Highway" in his quest to discover the "real America."  This was our the first interstate highway system, fostered by the automobile industry before our entry into WWI.

Imagine making such a 3,000 mile journey back then in this powerful 66 HP 1911 Pierce-Arrow?  Not every part of the "highway" was paved.  Expect mud after a heavy rain.

Roger and friend, however, had a BMW which took them to many out of the way places.  I've been to some, especially along the iconic Route 66, but most were new to me and as a "member" of his email distribution list, I received reports along his journey, which began in Times Square, the official start of the Lincoln Highway, on March 16, but unfortunately abruptly ended on April 17 with the missive: "Just want to let all of you know that we had a crash with the BMW in Utah on Sunday.   Both Lou and I are fine... not even a scratch... but the BMW was totalled.  I am back in NYC.... All's well that ends well. Roger" 

But his final report on the trip shows his continuing deep love of this country, our political system, and our diversity -- just as I remembered his passion from my now very distant high school years. One gets a real sense of the nation just from his few paragraphs.   I asked him whether I might include in here as a "guest piece" and he replied affirmatively, adding, "my views of America have not changed in fifty years, but the party of my heritage has."

Friends:

    My final report on the trip.   We left NYC, the nation's largest, one of the most Democratic voting cities in the country, the safest among the fifty largest cities in the USA, and the most diversive city IN THE WORLD.  (name another more diverse in significant numbers, if you wish to disagree).  It is indeed a special place to start on our transcontinental trip.  New Jersey, with its large Italian, Black and Hispanic groups showed the decided end to our industrial era as we traveled down the old routes of the Lincoln Hwy.  We drove through areas of  derelict abandoned factories, deteriorating homes and could just feel the poverty of the minority inhabitants of this once blue collar prosperous area. In Philadelphia in the near inner neighborhoods as well as on the old west side the same minorities lived in poverty and bleakness where once factories  provided a good working class life.   More proof that America's old 19th century industrial epoch is behind us.  After leaving along the old MAIN  LINE we entered the western suburbs which is the start of the vast German swarth which reaches across the northern part of the country clear to the Pacific Coast. Beginning in 1682 the "Pennsylvania Dutch" (the translation of the English speakers of  Deutsch) came to this country.  Even today some of the Amish still speak a form of German within their own communities. Here they remain farmers, but as you cross Pennsylvania more "secular" Germans can be seen as far west as Pittsburgh along the Lincoln Hwy (Route 30).  These are the "Eastern" Germans, but after Pittsburgh you sense you are in the Mid West where after the Revolution these Germans kept moving west in their Conestoga Wagons.  Now, the landscape flattens out and so does the mind set and attitudes of the people.  Here there is cheerfulness, but less imagination, it seems.  It is a BURGER KING, MC DONALDS and MOTEL 6 world here. It is hamburgers and HUGE servings of everything.  Only in the urban areas is there much sophistication.  Chicago is the great  exception. Just out of Chicago and to perhaps 50 miles out of St. Louis we are back to the German Mid West.  Subtly we sense a change in the inhabitants.  More and more and then dominantly we enter the region of the migrating Appalachian Scots-Irish heritage. This is the area, just south of the German swarth, where the Appalachian folk moved west out of their mountain strongholds after the Revolutionary War ended. These folk are even more insular, but with greater Hoop De La in their attitudes than with the Germans.  Cowboy talk increases , but the food remains the same... too much for too little cost and too many calories.  The proportion of Obese people increases. By Oklahoma the Native Americans and Mexicans are seen in large numbers, Their influence is cultural, but surely not political in this state. Politically, from mid-Missouri to all of Oklahoma the white population is about 80% Republican.  My Obama car sticker was not approved of by many.

    By the time we crossed the New Mexico border, the Hispanic and Native American population was even greater.  In Tucumcari it was still dominated by "Anglos"  most Appalachia folk and some Germans.  But by Santa Rosa and Santa Fe it was decidedly more Mexican, Spanish (the earliest settlers on what is now American soil) and Native American.  Here there seems to be a guarded acceptance of each other's culture. This was especially true in the Santa Fe area. Here Caucasian non- Spanish seem still to be the intruders in this Spanish Missionary culture.  Here it is easy to understand the great diversity of the country and the challenge it poses for our future.  Once in Northern Arizona Native Americans take firm hold and are the Majority,  Here few "Anglos" live anywhere but in the larger towns.

    In California we return to the sophisticated areas of the East and some Mid Western urban areas.  It is a nation sharply divided, and yet, it is a nation which prospers because of its diversity since the idea of ONE NATION, INDIVISIBLE is accepted by the vast majority.  Our nationalism is not, as in Europe and Asia, based on one ethnic group based on their own language, but a nation based on an idea not an ethnicity.

    Comments most welcome.  I hope I have not bored you with my thoughts

                                                                    Roger

Music Makes Us

David Byrne made a profound observation in his recently published How Music Works: "We don't make music; it makes us."  So naturally we are partially defined by the music we listen to. For myself, it is the Great American Songbook, music we sometimes refer to as "The Standards," many coming from the theatre and films or just pieces performed by some of our favorite recording artists.

I've made two CDs in the past several years and for the complete list of the songs see the end of this entry on the Great American Songbook.

Since I made those CDs I've taken some piano lessons, pretty much my first block of lessons since grade school years. Those lessons were abruptly brought to an end by my open heart surgery and although I would have liked to resume them, it is a huge commitment of time. Sigh, if I was only younger! Still, the interim lessons have helped my skills, and I decided to test them with a new CD, and selected some more challenging pieces, diverse ones, from "The Songbook." Appropriately, this album is named Music Makes Us.

Some of the songs in this album are close to my heart for mostly idiosyncratic reasons, which I will explain. But first here is the complete list:

My Man's Gone Now, Bess You Is My Woman Now,  I Loves You Porgy (from Porgy and Bess, music by George Gershwin);  The Rainbow Connection (from the Muppet Movie by Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher); Never Never Land (from Peter Pan, music by Jule Styne); Alice in Wonderland (from the Disney animated film, music by Sammy Fain); Over the Rainbow (from The Wizard of Oz, music by Harold Arlen); Johanna, Pretty Women (from Sweeney Todd by Stephen Sondheim); No One is Alone (from Into the Woods by Stephen Sondheim), Till There Was You (from The Music Man by Meredith Willson); Getting Tall (from Nine by Maury Yeston); Why God Why (from Miss Saigon music by Claude-Michel Schönberg); If We Only Have Love (from Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris by Jacques Brel); It's Love - It's Christmas, Letter to Evan (by Bill Evans); Seems Like Old Times (by Carmen Lombardo); Laura (by David Raksin); Here's to My Lady (by Rube Bloom; lyrics by Johnny Mercer); Two Sleepy People (by Hoagy Carmichael; lyrics by Frank Loesser); What is There to Say (by Vernon Duke and Yip Harburg); I See Your Face Before Me (by Arthur Schwartz; lyrics by Howard Dietz); Time To Say Goodbye (or "Con te partirò" by Francesco Sartori)

The first three are from Porgy and Bess by George Gershwin. There are many other Gershwin pieces I love to play but Porgy and Bess stands alone as a folk opera.  What can one say about such a consummate musical genius other than he was a prodigy who died too early but nonetheless flourished in all musical genres, from popular songs, to Broadway, to opera, to the concert halls.

Then I play four songs that are whimsically fairy-tale focused -- think rainbows and wonderlands.

From there, I move towards Broadway, the first three pieces by the reigning king of the Broadway Musical, Stephen Sondheim, all favorites of mine, two from Sweeney Todd and the breathtakingly haunting No One is Alone from Into the Woods.

A few months ago we saw an inspired revival of The Music Man at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre. I had forgotten that the beautiful ballad Till There Was You was from that show, and I couldn't get it out of my head until I decided to include it here.  We've haven't seen Nine, based on Federico Fellini's film 8½, but I found Getting Tall in my Broadway Fake Book and found myself playing it over and over again.  Very poignant and so included here.  On the other hand, we saw Miss Saigon in London, and thought Why God Why was a show stopper -- certainly as moving as some of Claude-Michel Schönberg's other pieces in his more famous Les Misérables.

That section concludes with If We Only Have Love from Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris which is the first Broadway (actually off Broadway) show that Ann and I saw together when we were first dating -- in 1969. As such, it has special meaning to me. That song is the concluding piece from the revue.

A brief shift, then, to two pieces by Bill Evans, his one and only (to my knowledge) "Christmas piece" -- It's Love - It's Christmas -- and the other a musical "letter" to his only son, Evan, soon after he was born. If I could be reincarnated as a professional pianist, it would be in the Bill Evans mold, but he was truly one of a kind.

Then a group of songs, classic standards, such as Two Sleepy People by Hoagy Carmichael, which is my little hat tip to the late and great Oscar Peterson whose rendition of this song is the best I've ever heard.

Finally, and appropriately, I conclude with the now well known (thanks to Sarah Brightman and Andrea Bocelli) Time to Say Goodbye, which is also the last piece I recorded at my session at Echo Beach Studios in Jupiter, Florida, a recording studio that is mostly frequented by professional musicians -- which brings up the difficulty of the process itself.

I had one three-hour block to get everything recorded, to get it right as best I could.  Three hours to make a 45 plus minute CD. Not only is it imposing, sitting alone in the recording studio before a concert grand piano with microphones all around, with the control room behind a glass in which my technician (the very competent and understanding Ray) is monitoring events, but it is exhausting as well. The fatigue factor took its toll, especially with the longer, more complicated pieces, when I had to flip pages of music quickly while also trying to avoid that sound being recorded.

The other difficult issue is simply being able to translate what I "feel" when playing the pieces and the recording studio is not the most conducive place for that. It becomes a technical performance which if one is a professional, perhaps that is good enough, but for me, I need that feeling factor. It is sort of like having to make love in a public place. Nonetheless, I had established big goals for this CD, worked towards them, and I'm happy I did it, even if those results may not be the same as in the privacy of my living room playing my own piano.

I'm not sure whether I'll do another CD again.  Between my three, I've recorded about 75 songs.  I'm somewhat content with that. The piano has been and will continue to be a big part of my life. I've been lucky enough to have a little talent, and a big love for the Great American Songbook genre, and the time to play for pure enjoyment.  But never say never again! 

 

Mentoring and Remembering

I didn't think I'd get around to writing anything for a while, but I can't let this go by.  There is a remarkably beautifully written piece by Philip Roth -- In Memory of a Friend, Teacher and Mentor -- in yesterday's New York Times, which one can read on several levels.  It is a eulogy, a profound testament to the power of mentoring, insight into the fine line between literature and non-fiction, and a condemnation of "the scum in power" -- what one could call government at certain stages of American history.  Roth is referring to the McCarthy era when his former high school teacher, mentor and friend, Dr. Bob Lowenstein was "mauled in Congress’s anti-Communist crusade of the 1940s and 1950s."

The main character in Roth's I Married a Communist was shaped by his friend and Roth says "the book is, at bottom, education, tutelage, mentorship, in particular the education of an eager, earnest and impressionable adolescent in how to become — as well as how not to become — a bold and honorable and effective man."  But it is also about that era when his friend and mentor was branded as "political deviant" and lost his job as a teacher for six years: "I refer now not to a boy’s but to an adult’s education: in loss, grief and, that inescapable component of living, betrayal. Bob had iron in him and he resisted the outrage of the injustice with extraordinary courage and bravery, but he was a man, and he felt it as a man, and so he suffered too."

Being a teacher, Bob was in the position of being a mentor to many.  I had had thoughts of going into teaching instead of publishing (actually, I had no thoughts about the latter, I just needed to work when I got out of college -- I think of myself as an "accidental publisher").

 

Good teachers are mentors by design and I have been lucky enough to have two during my impressionable high school and college years, and remarkably we are still in touch and continue to be part of my life, my high school economics and political science teacher, Roger Brickner, and my college English teacher Martin Tucker.

But I've been a mentor too in my career (and have been mentored by others in the publishing world) and although I rarely see them, I am lucky enough to have an email relationship with several former colleagues, some of whom I've known almost from the beginning.  The last entry made an oblique reference to one who contacted me after 44 years, Mary.  Well, hat tip to her for passing on this brilliant piece of satire by Andy Borowitz of The New Yorker, which sort of ties everything up regarding this entry -- a new shameful era in our political history, the Senate having the "the courage and grit to stand up to the overwhelming wishes of the American people."

When President Obama delivered his State of the Union address, he said that the people of Newtown, Connecticut "deserve a vote" on gun control, little did he imagine that a watered down version that focuses mainly on background checks would fail -- a shameful example of NRA's control of our politicians  We got our vote.  Hopefully, all will remember when those Senators are up for reelection.

And to the city of Boston, great sighs of relief to the refrains of Sweet Caroline.....

And when I hurt,

Hurtin' runs off my shoulders