Featuring...
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Woodstock: 50 Years After
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Quote of the Month
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Alas, Poor Alfred!
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Song of Lavender
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Lunar Epilogue: Who Were You When...
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Gig
August 2019
muse-letter \’myüz-‘le-tər noun
1: a personal message, inspired by a muse of one's own creation, addressed to a person or organization, in the course of which, the sender becomes absorbed in thought; especially turning something over in the mind meditatively and often inconclusively.
2: a letter from a poet, or one who envisions oneself as such, in which he or she “muses” on that which is perceived to be news, or newsworthy in some ironic or absurd way.
Plans for a 50th anniversary festival have been in the works. But like those of mice and men, they have gone awry. As of this writing, organizers are trying to go to a plan B. Yet according to David Crosby, who performed at the original Woodstock, "It's not happening. It's dead." Though it is remarkable that he himself is still alive.
"There is a person in that situation who is a scammer, and has always been a scammer, and he scammed this," said Crosby.
Ah, yes. The Aged of Aquarius.
“You people have proven to the world…this is the largest group of people ever assembled in one place… a half-million kids can get together and have three days of fun and music, and nothing but fun and music. And I God bless you for it.”
COP: Very lovely children, I’m very happy to say. We think the people of this country should be proud of these kids, notwithstanding the way they dress or the way they wear their hair; that’s their own personal business. But their inner workings, their inner selves, their self-demeanor cannot be questioned; they can’t be questioned as good Americans.
INTERVIEWER: That’s kind of surprising coming from a cop.
COP: I’m not a cop. I’m the chief of police.
A celebration of that one summer in a life—a present and perfect circle of moment— when one will never again be this young, this innocent, this unaccountable.
MAD magazine is dead. Its last publication will be this month’s issue. But MAD being MAD, it will continue to exist in some form of a convoluted afterlife. I tried to “Follow the bouncing ball” on this online head-scratcher.
Lunar Epilogue: Who Were You When...
It is said that nothing is older than yesterday’s newspaper. And by extension, yesterday’s news in any form really. And so, the 50th anniversary of the moon landing last month already seems long past. Though it was just 10 days ago as of this posting. Ho hum. On to the next big story.
Having been in London for a baseball game, followed by a trip to the Greek isle of Corfu after a mere 48 years absence, I did not do a July Muse-Letter. And therefore missed an opportunity to “muse” on this in a timely manner. But as a NASA space flight/astronaut junkie— I can still rattle off without Google-aid, the names of the original seven astronauts and the nature of their missions—I can’t resist putting my two cents (or two euros) in, albeit a bit behind.
Similar to the lead-off Woodstock piece, I feel more or less the same about the 50th anniversary of this great achievement, as I did on its 40th. So what follows, are excerpts taken verbatim from that JULY, 2009 MUSE-LETTER, capped off by a new exclamation point, so to speak. Numbers that appear, have been updated to reflect the passing of a decade since first written.
"First off, there is a good chance you weren’t even born yet, as almost two-thirds of the U.S. population today is under age 50. But if you were me, you were not only born, but married and holed up in a studio apartment in Queens, having gotten an eleventh-hour draft deferment the previous July.
If you were a “group-minded type,” and living in New York City, there is a chance you might have wandered over to Central Park to view the event on one of the giant TV screens that were set up in the Sheep Meadow. A venue mostly known at the time for its war protests, “be-ins” and concerts, it would now ironically enough, serve as a setting for this moment of triumph for The Establishment.
If you were Ted Kennedy, you were in Edgartown Massachusetts trying to explain to the authorities how you could have driven a car into a tidal channel on Chappaquiddick Island two nights ago. And how in so doing, caused the death of a young girl named Mary Jo Kopechne. She would be 78 today. The last of the Kennedy brothers, copping a plea on a day he might have been in Washington as a surrogate for the JFK legacy.
If you were a black activist, a Jesse Jackson, a Charles Evers or Eldridge Cleaver, you were predictably deriding this phenomenal scientific and political achievement, as a project whose funds could have better been spent on the disenfranchised and the rebuilding of inner cities.
If you were Sammy Davis Jr. however, you were in the Old City of Jerusalem at The Wailing Wall, head bowed in prayer. No joke.
"It means nothing to me. I have no opinion about it and I don’t care," is what you would say if you were Pablo Picasso and in possession of so massive an ego—all genius and mistresses aside.
If you were a scientist writing for The New York Times, you might now be forgiven, if in a moment of ecstasy you began gushing things like “…I believe that we will use nuclear rocket engines to build a shuttle system…(to travel) between earth and the moon and eventually the planets. I foresee this taking place by the end of the 1970’s.” Oops!
Ah, but it was a great day to be a poet. There right on the front page of the Times, was a poem by Archibald McLeish. (Not to be confused with Cary Grant who was born Archibald Alec Leach). And then even more verse on the inside, by “name poets” such as Anthony Burgess and Anne Sexton (who would commit suicide ala Sylvia Plath, just five years later).
And finally, while perusing the yellowed newspapers that I’ve kept for the last 50 years in my closets— I could not help but notice one particularly incongruous attempt by an advertiser to cash in on all the hoopla.
Purex Industries, the makers of Brillo soap pads, offered a free map of the moon with two Brillo proof-of-purchase box tops (and 15¢ to cover postage and handling). Might we suppose that with all the lunar dust being kicked up in the landing, the metallic surface of the LEM (Lunar Excursion Module) might be in need of a good scrubbing? Though by extension, the laugh might be on me as well. I was working for an ad agency on Madison Avenue at the time, also prone to some overreach—speaking of the pot calling the kettle black.
I tend to take note of these seemingly disparate bits of history and culture, for I’ve always believed in the need for context; events do not unfold in a vacuum."
“The Most Trusted Man in America,” Walter Cronkite, concluded CBS News’ coverage that night with “…the least of us is improved by the things done by the best of us. Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins are the best of us, and they’ve led us further and higher than we ever imagined we were likely to go.”
I think about that message and its messenger in the context of 2019. And I wonder, Who… are such people now?
finito
Quote of the Month
“You spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball, and in the end, it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.”
Postscript: Upon Bouton’s death last month, I couldn’t resist rereading Ball Four; now in its last updated edition, “The Final Pitch.” It is considered to be one of the most important sports books ever written. The only such book to make the New York Public Library’s 1996 list of Books of the Century and listed in Time magazine’s 100 greatest non-fiction books of all time (67th place).
As to exactly what might have been left behind at Woodstock, aside from a couple of million pounds of trash? Something positive or negative? Utopian? Dystopian? That depends upon which end of the telescope one is peering through. And at what point in time. That which was once clearly in view, may be blurred and no longer visible. Nor viable.
Ten years ago on the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, I picked up its Ultimate Collection Edition DVD which contained videos of performances and "scenes", interviews and reproductions of some artifacts connected with the festival. In so doing, I had hoped to get a sense once more, of what I had missed
Alas, Poor Alfred!
“I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest…”
Which can then be purchased how and where? How often? In a real and digital format? And will a “new cover” be reflective in some way, of the “old stuff” between those covers? The publishing equivalent of taxidermy? Or, will it be new in terms of what’s happening currently, and in no way relate to any of the old stuff inside?
At its peak back in the day, MAD sold two million copies of each of its yearly eight issues. To the young, particularly boys, it served as a subversive outlet, what with its zinging of the social, cultural and political institutions that adults hold dear. As a kid, what could be more satisfying? But the magazine has been of little consequence for a long while now, as there have been so many go-to places for biting satire.
The “kids-of-today” have been weaned on South Park, The Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad, SNL to name a few, not to mention the no-holds barred exchange of humor, or what passes for humor, on the internet and in social media. Yet, many past MAD readers are coming out of the woodwork to howl over its demise.
MAD appeared on my radar once again in January 2015 in the aftermath of the terrorist bloodbath in Paris at the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Reportedly three million people took to the streets in solidarity, many holding up signs proclaiming “Je suis Charlie.” The Editor-in-chief of MAD, John Ficcara, appearing on CBS’s Sunday Morning program, was asked for his take on it all.
He admitted to giving pause before appearing. He had a couple of concerns not the least of which was, that by denouncing terrorists and defending the rights of satirists and cartoonists on network TV, would he be endangering his own life and that of his colleagues?
Ficcara went ahead all the same and noted in his two-and-a-half minute statement, something so obvious that we’ve always taken for granted. Yet in the lunacy of a terrorist world, it is newly appreciated and even profound in its assumptions. He said in part:
“…we were merciless on the Catholic Church for covering up the child abuse scandal. And after 9/11, we went after Jerry Falwell hard for blaming the 9/11 attacks on gay feminists, abortionists and the ACLU.
We knew at the end of the day, no matter how much we lampooned Falwell or the Catholic Church, we shared a common set of rules of engagement.
The worst that could happen to us was that we got a stern letter from their lawyers—we live for those. Not once did we ever fear for our safety.”
This prompted a piece I wrote in the FEBRUARY, 2015 Muse-letter, Je Suis MAD (some of which has been included here). From what I’d heard about Charlie Hebdo, I would not have associated it in any way with MAD. As a piece in The New Yorker noted, “they (Charlie) worked in a peculiarly French and savage tradition, forged in a long nineteenth-century guerrilla war between republicans and the church and the monarchy.” Hardly the raison d'être for MAD. Yet former Chicago Seven defendant and later California state senator, the late Tom Hayden had been quoted as saying, “My own radical journey began with MAD magazine.”
Having been a reader well over forty years ago, I actually didn’t remember it as being that scathing. Yet a quick Google scan of some covers over the years jumped out at me. Even taking on even Facebook? Sacrebleu!
While the Fidel Castro cover in particular might seem like a silly joke, it played off of an allegation that the CIA at one point was considering assassinating him by way of an exploding cigar. “Out-spying” even “Spy vs. Spy”?
From there it was but a short walk to Barnes & Noble to pick up the January 2015 copy, with its annual recap of “The 20 Dumbest People, Events and Things 2014.” It skewered some of the lower moments in the news of that past year. These included NFL’s Domestic Violence Problem, Ebola Hysteria, the Militarization of the Police Department (though nothing on Ferguson), Obama Caught Off Guard (“Fail to the chief”), Hillary Clinton Crying Poverty, and the like. It also featured a cartoon spread called A MAD look at the Old Testament, in which the pharaoh’s daughter upon finding Moses in a basket, leaves him on the Nile riverbank and just takes the basket. Not the sort of stuff that is going to result in a massacre of their staff by outraged fundamentalists.
To be "Charlie" means going over the top and never having to say you’re sorry. It means believing in a right to freedom of expression that doesn’t cause an endangerment to people, as say yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater would. And that takes guts. Or some might say stupidity, given its crassness in delivering its message. In that sense, Je ne suis pas Charlie. But, Je suis MAD. And I suspect most of us are.
I just might pick up a copy of the final issue for old times' sake.
design by Ron Vazzano©
-- Ron Vazzano
Gig
I am currently appearing between the covers of a new poetry anthology, if that can be said to be a “gig.” The subject is coffee. A descriptive by the editor of this offbeat book follows.
Coffee Poems contains 167 richly-roasted, verbally aromatic poems by poets from 34 states, 5 provinces, and 12 countries: Australia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Canada, France, Ghana, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Singapore, Spain, and the United States. Included among the 139 poets who give voice to these poems are Ellen Bass, Margo Berdeshevsky, Joel Brouwer, Barbara Crooker, Kwame Dawes, Stephen Dobyns, Martín Espada.
Whether central to the poem or sitting on a side table, a mere accessory; whether a prop in an internal conversation with a you absent these 25 years or a desperately needed substance without which there is no facing the day, a cup of coffee inhabits each of these poems...Breathe in the scent and may it keep you awake.
It can be ordered through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Indie Bound:
Woodstock: 40 50 Years After
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It is now a half-century since that mind-bending August 15th 1969, when the Woodstock Music Festival opened in the small upstate New York town of Bethel.
While “only” 50,000 people were expected, the promoters were overwhelmed by the nearly 500,000 who actually arrived, turning it now, into a FREE festival. I was not among them.
Though asked by a couple of friends at work who were going if I’d like to join them, I declined for a variety of wussy reasons. Among the wussiest… “It’s gonna’ rain.” And did it ever. But who knew it would turn into a seminal event.
It would be 35 years later when I would finally make that trip. For of all things, a poetry festival. Boy there was a wild bunch. Dangling participles, misplaced modifiers, people mixing metaphors in the nude—the police had to be called in!
The three days of peace that the poster promised, were affirmed by some credible adults on the scene. One being Max Yasgur himself, the owner of the farm on which the festival was taking place. He made this public statement:
And there was a rather surprising endorsement that emerged from a TV interview.
Of course, it would all come to take on Biblical proportions when the crowd became too large and the food too scarce, and it began to not only rain but storm. (“PLEASE MOVE AWAY FROM THE TOWERS.”) Helicopters had to be flown in with emergency supplies, and Good Samaritans were in abundance (“We’re all feeding each other”… “kids are hungry, ya gotta feed them”).
As for the three days of music, it seemed as if every rock superstar was there (though they weren't). But Joe Cocker with his spastic moves, ripping his lungs out with With A Little Help From My Friends, was one for the ages. As was Janis Joplin’s Piece of My Heart, exorcised from the depths of her tortured soul. And when the long weekend spilled into a fourth day, Jimi Hendrix came on at 8:30AM to awaken the hearty 40,000 souls that remained, with his rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. That rocket’s red glare and those bombs bursting in air, seemed to be emanating from his guitar. A national anthem on acid.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKAwPA14Ni4).
With now 50 years of hindsight, similar to when it was only 40 years of hindsight, it still seems to me that at its core, Woodstock was...
And further, I think of the lines in that Wordsworth poem from which the title of a 1961 movie was extracted.
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