A Birthday With George And Walter

If I had to choose two personal favorites among American artists, I would choose Walter Inglis Anderson and George Gershwin. I discovered Anderson on my own in the 1970s during the dedication of a National Park Service visitor center in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. The award-winning center featured architectural elements incorporating his motifs as well as interior displays of his nature paintings. Unfortunately, the center was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. In regard to George Gershwin, I had an ear for him very early in life as my mom and dad enjoyed listening to his work on the radio, records, and television.

Today, September 29, marks the birthday of Anderson and Gershwin. Both were filled with creative genius. Both lives featured tragic loss. Anderson died (1965) in his early sixties recognized as a local artist and obscure introvert wracked by schizophrenia. National appreciation of his contribution to American art would come slowly and long after his death. Even today he's not well known among general populations beyond the South. On the other hand, Gershwin would die of a brain tumor at the age of 38 at the height of his career and known throughout the world.

Walter Inglis Anderson, was born on September 29, 1903 in New Orleans. After training at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in the mid-1920s, he spent most of his career associated with Shearwater Pottery, a family enterprise founded in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. Though deeply troubled with mental illness for much of his life, he produced thousands of vivid works of art - often called "abstract realism" - seeking to celebrate the unity of human existence with nature. I often describe his work as decorated illustrations that play freely with figure and ground and the positives and negatives of visual perception. His realizations of nature explode in the mind's eye. Observing Anderson is a meditative experience. Visit the Walter Inglis Anderson Museum of Art site to learn more about the life and work of this regional artist who only recently has taken on national significance.

                                             

                                                                    

George Gershwin was born in New York in 1898. He went on to become perhaps the most beloved American composer of the last century through his many compositions for the musical stage, the concert hall, and what has become known as the Great American Songbook. Gershwin's appeal comes in part from his colorful and lively incorporation of jazz motifs in all his music. He died in 1937 with what could only be called a spectacular career ahead of him. I often imagine what he could have brought to American music had he lived another forty years.

Studying these artists came much later in my life. In the last five years, that study led to a startling revelation: George, Walter and I were born on September 29. It's a coincidence from somewhere in the stars beyond time. I don't want to attempt an explanation. And there's no delusion here, my friends, I will never approach their genius. Not sure I'd want to. I'll simply leave it at that and enjoy their greatness knowing that we share a quiet and inconsequential commonality.

In closing, here is some of Gershwin's genius performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, Andre Previn conducting and at the piano.

 

Credits:

Walter "Bob" Anderson, Self-portrait, 1941. Walter Anderson Museum of Art, Ocean Springs, Mississippi.
Frogs, Bugs, and Flowers, Walter Anderson, ca 1945. Repository: Roger H. Ogden Collection. Copyright: Roger H. Ogden.
George Gershwin 1937. Carl Van Vechten Collection, Library of Congress
Copyrighted illustrations used used under Section 107 (Fair Use) of the U.S. Copyright Act

Literature And Lilting Music

Today we commemorate the births of two creative forces in the worlds of literature and music.  First is William Faulkner, who was born on this day in 1897. He was a world-famous writer and favorite son of Oxford, Mississippi. His fiction explored the character of the South in a string of novels and stories predominately over a twenty year period beginning around 1920. This work earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949. Faulkner went on to win two Pulitzer prizes  and National Book Awards for his later novels and short stories. 

Faulkner in 1954

Faulkner has never been an easy read for me.. His complexity and detail, along with the run on sentences and page long paragraphs, makes the experience as challenging as the analysis of his characters. Having lived over four decades in the Deep South, I can appreciate in my own small way the 20th century Southern personality Faulkner captured. Folks here were different then. Now that regional character continues to change with a changing South. It is an interesting overlay.

Our second subject is, John Rutter, the British composer who celebrated his 75th birthday yesterday. He is deeply appreciated in the U.S. and Britain for his many choral and other compositions, for his work as a conductor and arranger. and as the founder of The Cambridge Singers. Some classical music critics, mostly in Great Britain, find his compositions to be a bit simple, repetitive, and stylistically confused. Others place him at the top among 20th century composers. I have to side with the latter appraisals. The melodies are generally simple, the harmonies beautiful, and the style affords a perfect balance of music and message. Furthermore, choirs of all sizes and skill levels perform his work to appreciative audiences everywhere. If popularity is any indicator, John Rutter's music will be enjoyed for a long, long time.

Here is the opening canticle, "O All Ye Works of the Lord," from his 2015 composition, The Gift of Life.

Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
Faulkner photo, Carl Van Vecten Collection, United States Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Text:
wikipedia.org

Battle Of Antietam: Remembering The Past, Shaping The Future

 

Today is the 158th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam, a one-day Civil War clash in the Great Valley of Maryland near the town of Sharpsburg. A marginal victory at best for the Union, it marked an end of Confederate success on the battlefield in the first year of the war. Furthermore, it provided President Abraham Lincoln an opportunity to issue his Emancipation Proclamation freeing slaves in all the states that had seceded from the Union. The outcome and opportunity at Antietam came at a huge cost as it remains the bloodiest one-day battle in American history. In little more than twelve hours the conflict almost 23,000 participants were dead, wounded or missing.

Bloody Lane, Antietam National Battlefield Walking Tour

Bloody Lane following the battle, September 17, 1862

We have much to remember at this sacred place. Some call the battle a turning point leading to Union victory in the war. Without question it is a monumental step in the evolution of human rights in the United States. Sometimes the memories are far more personal. For me, Antietam remains very close to my heart and soul. I was at most six years old when my mother and father first took me there to walk among the fields and forests, along the old Sharpsburg Pike and Bloody Lane, and over Burnside Bridge. The old monuments loomed large and in time a childhood full of memories at other Civil War sites and historical parks began to call out to me. In time I accepted that call and spent a career preserving those and other sites and helping visitors remember, understand and appreciate the American experience. It all began at Antietam and given the chance I wouldn't hesitate to do it all again. 

Photo Credits:

Walking Tour photo: National Park Service

Historic photo: Alexander Gardner, in The Photographic History of the Civil War in Ten Volumes: Volume Two, Two Years of Grim War, The Review of Reviews Co., New York. 1911. p. 74.

A Sage For Our Time

In the last century or so there have been three three significant iconoclasts on the American scene. Like them or not we are left to reckon with their contribution and influence as we live out our personal versions the the American experience. First was the writer and humorist, Mark Twain. The third, we are living with at this very moment in the personage of our president, Donald Trump. The man in the middle is the controversial, irrepressible master of the English language, Henry Louis Mencken, the journalist widely remembered as the Sage of Baltimore.

More than sixty years after his death, Mencken still has so much to tell us about the American experience. In his day he invented the term "booboisie" to refer to the masses who didn't read much, know much or even care much about their lives as citizens of a democratic republic. Today we could easily apply his term to the masses who are well-schooled but not well-educated, who apply emotion rather than reason and logic to their decision making, and who align themselves with coalitions of self-interests wrapped in collectivist totalitarianism. Another term for the modern-day "booboisie" is "moonbat". I think Mencken would have a even more colorful term for them if were still with us. And oh would he have a time with our political and social landscape today.

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. No one in this world, so far as I know - and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me - has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost office thereby.

Henry Louis Mencken, the "Sage of Baltimore," was born on this day in 1880. He was a leading journalist and author on the American scene, humorist, and a student of the American language. Mencken's stature seems to be on the rise over the last few decades. I'd guess it's because we experienced a concurrent rise in many nation-wide opportunities to watch logic, practicality, and skepticism destroy a multitude of political pretenders and their policies regardless of political persuasion.

Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere is having a good time.

 

Mencken (right) celebrating the end of Prohibition in 1933

As much as I enjoy reading all of Mencken's work, the autobiographical books remain my favorites. His three-part "Days" series, Happy Days(1940), Newspaper Days (19441), and Heathen Days (1943) should be essential reading. They cover life and times from birth through 1936, the most productive and positive time in his life. After the mid-1930's, Mencken fell a bit out of fashion as his curmudgeonly persistence began to grind on the American psyche. His perceived sympathy with German nationalism helped undermine his reputation into the 40's. In one of the great ironies in American literature, a stroke in 1948 rendered him unable to read, speak or write beyond simple phrases or sentences. Although he regained some communications skills over time, he spent the next seven years enjoying music, listening to readings, and conversing with friends until his death in 1956. 

If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.

Those who want the full Mencken story should read Terry Teachout's, The Skeptic: A Life of H.L. Mencken (2003). Teachout is a superb writer who treats his subject with objectivity and warmth. I also enjoyed a biography, Mencken: The American Iconoclast (2005), by the eminent Mencken scholar, Marion Elizabeth Rodgers.

If reading isn't to your liking but you still want some immersion into the man and his times, C-SPAN's American Writers Project produced a fine two-hour program on Mencken that should not be missed. It is a thorough multimedia exploration.

 

I'm the third generation in my family to consider Mencken a favorite writer and proud to report that my three children seem to be carrying on that tradition. That said, I hope readers can find some time to enjoy the "Sage of Baltimore," a writer who is often described as the "Mark Twain of the Twentieth century."

 

Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
H.L. Mencken Collection, Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore

Quotations:
Democracy is.... "Notes on Journalism," Chicago Tribune, September 19, 1926;
Puritanism is.... " Sententae," The Citizen and the State, p.624;
If, after I.... "Epitaph," from Smart Set (December 1921);
No one ever.... paraphrase of the "Democracy" quote as noted in The Yale Book of Quotations (2006)

Remember This Day

Lest we forget the lost and the living...

The American composer, Eric Ewazen, was teaching a music class at the Julliard School at Lincoln Center when Islamist fanatics attacked the World Trade Center. He wrote the following hymn shortly after as a portrayal of "those painful days following September 11th, days of supreme sadness."

Sources

Photos and Illustrations:

National Park Service

Text:

classicalfm.com, Classical music inspired by 9/11

Looking Back On Labor Day

Another Labor Day will soon come to a close. North Georgia had spectacular weather for the three-day holiday. Refreshing northwest winds bathed the state in dry, warm air and a brilliant blue sky.

For about thirty of the 55 years of our dual career my wife and I were accustomed to working on weekends and most holidays. We worked so that others could enjoy their day experiencing some of the most significant natural and cultural resources in the nation. We consider it an honor to have done so but at the same time have come to appreciate the opportunity to share and celebrate these special days with others. In sharing them with my children in the quiet of the evening I was often left with memories of Labor Day picnics.  My wife has passed away and our children have been on their own for many years now but on this day I still think of the stories of the great Labor Day picnics from my childhood.

TThe playground at Burlington, 1959

Those picnics were day-long affairs held in Burlington, West Virginia, by the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company and its union to honor their employees and families on the workers' holiday. The company had been the major employer in my hometown for over three generations. By 1960 the community and company were indeed a family and this day was their reunion. With five to six thousand people in attendance it was a big event featuring plenty of food and beverages in addition to carnival rides, music, dancing, contests, bingo and board games, swimming, model train rides, pony rides, horseshoes, softball, foot races and similar activities, real airplane rides at $2 apiece, and a playground filled with wonderfully dangerous equipment including the greasy pig, flying boats, two merry-go-rounds - one a center-pivot - and a very tall and fast sliding board. None of that equipment could approach today's safety standards. The big day ended with a free movie under the stars at the drive-in theater next door.

Although many of the kids I played with on those days ended up working at the mill many of them went on to college, military service or other opportunities and adventures that took them away from small town life. In the long run I think those who left made the right decision. In the summer of 2019 the mill closed abruptly putting over 600 workers out of jobs that had supplied their families with good union wages and benefits to match. Today, the mill sits idle after several changes in ownership and a slow, decades-long decline in both the talented workforce and demand for the coated paper it produced. It is a story heard before as one industry after another left the region.

The mill's Labor Day picnics at Burlington ended in the 1960's and it's been almost fifty years since I spent that holiday weekend there. Still, I feel a strong affinity for the place, the big event, and those - including lots of extended family - living among the magnificent ridges and valleys in the shadow of the Allegheny Front. Although they are surely challenged by the mill closing and the reality that some will leave the area the work ethic and sense of community of those who remain will insure their survival through this hard time. We know the notable labor history of these valleys in the last century helped bring the nation through two world wars and into the limelight as the greatest economic engine on the planet. We may be left only with the memories of the holiday at Burlington and elsewhere but we cannot forget the labor, ambitions, and achievements that made the celebration possible. That's why we wish all workers, especially those in the valleys of Georges Creek, New Creek, Patterson Creek and the Potomac River, a happy Labor Day. As some doors close and others open I think the American Dream has a good future in store for all of them. There will be bumps in the road to better employment but they simply make the good times more enjoyable. It is widely known after all that mountains cannot stand without valleys.

Remembering The Carrington Event

On September 1-2, 1859 a massive wave of energy from the sun - a coronal mass ejection or CME - energized our planet to the point that it literally "turned on the lights." Our friends at spaceweather.com wrote this about the event:

... a billion-ton coronal mass ejection (CME) slammed into Earth's magnetic field. Campers in the Rocky Mountains woke up in the middle of the night, thinking that the glow they saw was sunrise. No, it was the Northern Lights. People in Cuba read their morning paper by the red illumination of aurora borealis. Earth was peppered by particles so energetic, they altered the chemistry of polar ice.

Orange dots mark sighting of auroras on the morning of September 2, 1859

The geomagnetic storm that day was so powerful that telegraph keys sparked and caught fire. Even with power lost in the lines, the storm electrified them to the point that messages could still be sent. Given our dependence on technology today, such storms pose a significant threat. Here's more on the story from NASA's Science News page:

...a huge solar flare on August 4, 1972, knocked out long-distance telephone communication across Illinois. That event, in fact, caused AT&T to redesign its power system for transatlantic cables. A similar flare on March 13, 1989, provoked geomagnetic storms that disrupted electric power transmission from the Hydro Québec generating station in Canada, blacking out most of the province and plunging 6 million people into darkness for 9 hours; aurora-induced power surges even melted power transformers in New Jersey. In December 2005, X-rays from another solar storm disrupted satellite-to-ground communications and Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation signals for about 10 minutes.

Read more about past CME events in this link on the spaceweather.com page. 

The more our knowledge expands the more we understand how little we really know. Events of this nature , as well as those involving near earth objects, perhaps deserve as much attention as those from anthropogenic climate change.