Happy Birthday Frankie! Or anatomy of a perfect party

Last Friday evening I attended a Lindy Hop on the Rock birthday celebration for Frankie Manning, who is considered to be the founder of the Lindy Hop dance style.  Manning passed in 2009 at age 94.  He quite literally sprang to fame with aerial moves introduced into a more traditional, but still amazing, swing style dance.  Frankie introduced some of the rolls and flips, those big, dramatic moves that require confidence and trust of both lead and follow, that wow an audience.

To celebrate the occasion the Lindy Hoppers declared it a hat party.  We were all invited to wear a hat with our favourite swing outfit.  I wore a sapphire blue dress with a full skirt that flairs out on the spins, and wore a wide brimmed black hat with a leopard band; I brought along my blue feathered boa for good measure.  When I walked up to the bus stop I spotted a man in a black fedora who said with pleasure in his voice, "I know where you're going."

Admission to the party was a paltry $3, affordable to all.  The only beverage served was ice water.  But we had balloons and a dance filled agenda.  One organizer had devised fun-filled facts about Frankie Manning.  Another had learned Frankie's signature moves to teach us, while another had recorded Frankie's favorite tunes for us to dance to.  We danced, we laughed and virtually melted with sweat.  As a diversion, one Lindy hopper had brought along a collection of vintage hats for us to try on.  I found a fascinator with huge blue flowers to match my dress. 

In preparation for the evening, I looked up Frankie Manning and was fascinated to read about the rent parties that African Americans held in Harlem to literally raise rent money.  This was the casual setting for live music and memorable dancing and where Frankie at age three saw his first swing dancing.  It would have been 1917.  I learned about the only integrated ballroom at the Savoy where both races could dance everything from a waltz to the Charleston.  That dance floor featured Kat's Corner where the serious dancers would compete and where Frankie distinguished himself with the "air step".

My father used to swing dance and described himself as a "jitterbugger".  As a little girl I watched him compete and bring home trophies from Bellmont Park.  At home, I would dance with him and he would swoop me between his legs and throw me in the air.  It gives me joy to swing dance now, although less dramatically.  One my favourite group dances is the "shim sham" and I can "sugar push" all night long.

On his 80th birthday, Frankie Manning danced with 80 partners–now that's a goal I can aspire to.

What do actor Rick Boland and Lego have in common?

Actor Rick Boland - this would be the before picture.  I couldn't bring
 myself to post the after-attack image.

The sun is shining on a long weekend here in St. John's, NL but I keep having dark thoughts about my increasing awareness of violence in my immediate environment.  Maybe it is a little self-indulgent after my brooding about all the war related art that anniversaries inevitably bring…but my mood plummeted when I learned of the recent beating of actor Rick Boland.  A friend in the theatre community had shared with me via Facebook a fundraising plea to facilitate dental work for Boland.  I believe Boland had been brutally assaulted in our downtown area.  The plea was linked to a gofundme effort organized by Anne Marie Annonsen for $4,000 stating that "not only so that he can eat but also as an actor.  Help bring back his lovely face!" I am happy to report that 84 people contributed $3,735 in a five-day period.

When I first heard of the attack, I had trouble talking about anything else with friends I met in cafes or on the street.  I am aware of attacks in the bathrooms of our high schools, which we contextualize as bullying.  I am aware of current wars through the refugees I meet at social events.  I don't need TV or the Trump campaign.  It just keeps getting closer to home.  And it starts to dawn on me that violence is everywhere.  I remember my rationalization that one of the reasons why I picked small city St. John's to settle in and raise a family was that it was safer than the big cities of Toronto and Montreal that I had previously lived in.  I don't know if I was foolish, if things have changed, or what the appropriate explanation is.  I do know that it doesn't seem to make sense anymore; that no effort to join the dots make connections or find meaning in these horrible actions will make a difference.  At least not right now.

Lego's efforts to stay in tune with current culture.

So, I try and divert myself.  Enjoy the company of gentle friends; avoid the news on TV, radio and stick to the art section in an international newspaper.  I find an article about Lego, the children's toy building blocks in today's Guardian.  I have fond memories of Lego and have always wanted to do an exhibition with the colourful stuff.  Years ago I reached out to our Lego distributor here in the province and had made an encouraging start but never pursued it because of family demands on my time.  I click on the article link to find out more about the current world of Lego.  Guess what I find?

It is an article (the kind that is so well written I wish I had done it) with the headline:  Lego 'arms race': study says company making more violent toys.  "Am I being haunted?" I ask myself.  I try a different research path of links and read, "Lego: refusing to sell bricks to Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was a mistake".  I learn about another artist interested in Lego - Nathan Sawya.  But I stop following links that are Lego themed when I discover a Polish priest who has pronounced that Lego is really the work of Satan. 

The Door You Came In

Songs and Stories from The Danger Tree

Douglas Cameron and David Macfarlane

When author Alice Munro discovered David Macfarlane's book The Danger Tree she wrote that she was "stunned. It is so good. [It's] about the best prose ever to come out of this country, for my money." That's high praise coming from one of Canadian literature's luminaries.  Now we have selections of it on stage as spoken word from David Macfarlane's own lips as a 90-minute production.  But what completes the moving words of Macfarlane is Douglas Cameron's music, lending the stories ambiance–teasing out their moody subtlety.  The result is that the audience is immersed into a world of narrative and melody that stretches across many of the key events that shaped Newfoundland's history and Macfarlane's own Goodyear family.

The Door You Came In is a two-man production; a relatively modest affair that makes it stand out from the glitzy, big cast musicals or even the smaller, cleverly crafted stage productions with multiple doors and windows.   No video or flashing lights, no special effects except for those created by two men on a stage, be it Macfarlane imitating the sound of his grandfather striking an Eddy match and drawing on his pipe or Douglas Cameron's jigs and ballads on drum, mandolin or ukulele.  There is something very memorable about Macfarlane saying that to listen to his mother you'd think "Bing Crosby took up more airtime than Jesus" and then to have Cameron croon a snippet of Crosby in the background.  This will make it an ideal production to tour through Newfoundland and Labrador, Atlantic Canada and Ontario during 2016.

Even though the stories that are presented on stage span topics and events as varied as tuberculosis, Confederation, a fishing expedition up the Labrador–"too dangerous to ask for permission"–tragic lovers, ghost stories, pirates and limping business ventures there is a characteristic intimacy that unites them and gives the evening an emotional cohesion.  There is a consistent feel of close personal relationship between two people, a quiet and private atmosphere and detailed knowledge of a character's personal world.  The title of the production refers to a favourite saying of Macfarlane's mother that bid visitors to "leave from the door you came in".  For some it is an indication of a superstition not to leave misfortune or death in the house, not to break a charmed circle, while as Macfarlane observes it might have been his mother's "Newfoundlandish" way of telling people on the mainland, where she spent most of her life, where she came from.

David Macfarlane.

World War I and the price it exacted on the Goodyear family are also told in the story selections.  We are provided with searing images like when Stan, "who was good with horses", is killed by a direct hit that was so devastating that others could not tell from the carnage where the man stopped and the horse began.  It is clear why the solitary, battle stripped "danger tree" becomes the real monument to so many deaths rather than the more heroic bronze caribou.

We are awash in war

This is a 1984 print by Kent Jones.  It is not related to the story.

Creating art based on wartime experience and history is difficult.  You want to be respectful of the military efforts of the courage and sacrifice involved but at the same time most artists want to avoid glorifying war.  It is a balancing act.

A visual artist that I very much respect, Kent Jones, has taken up writing short stories. (Here's a link to the gallery in St. John's that represents his visual art practice.

http://www.theleytongallery.com/kent_jones.html) 

One of the stories reflects his personal experience as a young American during the draft of university students for the Vietnam War.  With his permission, I am sharing it with you.

A Roll of the Dice

By Kent Jones

I started university in September of 1967 at Kent State in Kent, Ohio. I was an eighteen-year old visual arts student. The first year I lived in a dorm on campus called Manchester Hall.

That year saw America in the middle of the mess that was the Vietnam War and it escalated over the next couple of years, tearing the country apart, wrecking families and communities with marches, protests (a very deadly one at Kent State in the Spring of 1970), confrontations, riots, political unrest and, worst of all, the senseless slaughter of thousands of young Americans. Many were too young to vote for the politicians who sent them to war and, in many states, it was against the law if they bought a beer. As the line went in the Barry McGuire anti-war song:

You’re old enough to kill, but not for votin’.

Virtually everyone who lived through those times knew someone who was killed or wounded in Vietnam. Many vets returned home suffering from post traumatic stress and worse. There was a draft system in place that supplied paper “draft cards” to every young guy in the country with various designations that identified your eligibility for military service. Twenty-two separate categories were established.

1-S was a high school deferment category, meaning you were exempt from being drafted. 2-S was a university level deferment category. There were other categories for farm kids who traditionally were exempt so that they could tend crops and animals for the nation’s welfare (2-C).

 

Baldy and Nipper- much of Kent's family lived on farms. 

Another exempted group included conscientious objectors. There were several sub-categories for them. Quakers fit in one of those categories and individuals studying for the ministry of recognized religions. If you were medically unfit for any reason, you, too, were exempt from mandatory service. But if you were fit and of the requisite age your designation was 1-A. Any one who was 1-A could be drafted at any time and might find themselves in Vietnam within a few short months.

At universities across the country it was often said, half-jokingly, that if you lived within five miles of the Atlantic Ocean in the Northeastern United States, or five miles from the Pacific Ocean in California, you would receive sufficient information from various sources to make up your mind about whether or not the war was justified. Elsewhere the prevailing view was pro-war. An overwhelming number of Americans were convinced the Vietnam War was all about protecting democracy and freedom, just like Nixon and Kissinger were telling them, hence it was worth sacrificing young Americans in the process.

However, as time went by, more and more young people in America disagreed with the pro-war stance and the anti-war movement grew. Here’s the chorus from another protest song---“I Feel Like I’m Fixing to Die Rag”:

 And it’s one, two three,

What are we fighting for?

Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn,

Next stop is Vietnam;

And it’s five, six, seven,

Open up the pearly gates,

Well there ain’t no time to wonder why,

Whoopee! we’re all gonna die.

Country Joe MacDonald, who authored that song, had half a million of them singing along with him at Woodstock. You can find it online today and, I would think,  forever.

Having said that, there were still conflicting opinions among students at Kent State, and elsewhere, with regard to the validity of, and justification for, the Vietnam War.

Here’s an example: I had four eight o’clock classes during my first year at university. It was tough getting to the art buildings at that time in the morning, particularly in winter. You had to walk about half a mile from Manchester Hall (my dormitory) to the converted ROTC barracks buildings where most of the drawing classes were held. The last two hundred yards or so crossed a high section of treeless ground where the wind blew like hell, and carrying a portfolio and fishing tackle box full of drawing materials without losing stuff was a challenge.

One November morning I headed off to class with a guy I had met who lived next door to me on the third floor of Manchester Hall. We had become pretty good friends in a short time and we signed up for the same classes.

As he---Dominic Sena---and I were crossing the treeless wasteland before we reached the ROTC buildings, Dom elbowed me and gestured in the direction of another large dormitory building to our right. Four floors up the guys who lived in one of the rooms had unfurled a large bed sheet out the window of their room. On it, in red paint, were the words “DOW Chemical Makes Napalm.” 

"The "riders" are young women in the prime of life who come across a scarecrow in a farmer's field maybe ten years after WW1 ended. The scarecrow is constructed of "found" clothing and material from a fallen soldier, obviously from a young man who lost his life in the futility of WW1. The fact that I related it to Vimy Ridge gives it a Canadian connection." Kent Jones

We continued on to class. Three hours later we packed up and headed back to our dorm. As we passed the Napalm protest sign again, hanging outside the window right next to it was another bed sheet that read “Napalm Does the Job.”

Less than a year later the American government had decided to escalate the war. They also had discovered that an awful lot of minorities and poorer kids were getting drafted since they weren’t at colleges or universities and therefore were in the 1-A category and eligible to be drafted. It was decided to alter the deferment system, the result being that the 2-S category was to be eliminated and university students would soon be eligible to be drafted. The topic was hotly discussed for weeks throughout the States but particularly at universities and colleges.

On December 1^st, 1969, two lotteries took place in Washington, D.C. The lotteries were conducted like this:

The numbers 1 through 366 (to include February 29) were written on individual slips of paper. These were placed in plastic capsules, mixed in a shoebox and then dumped into a large glass container. Then House of Representative member Alexander Pirnie, a Republican from New York and the senior Republican on the House Armed Services Committee’s special sub-committee on the draft, drew the first capsule. He was the only person in an official capacity to do so. The remaining capsules were selected by young men and women representing the Selective Service youth advisory committees from various states. The first 195 birthdates chosen in sequence would be called to report to Army induction centers the next day. These included all men born between 1944 and 1950.

The night of December 1^st I sat by myself in my apartment in Goleta, California, where I had moved that Fall to attend the University of California at Santa Barbara.

I was in touch by phone with friends back in Kent, Ohio during the evening. Some of them were sitting together at the house we had all rented the previous year on Maple Street in Kent.

What we knew at the time was that you could sign up for the Navy or the Air Force and have the option of not being sent to war in Vietnam. If you were drafted you went straight into the Army and that could represent a one way ticket to Vietnam.

“We could join the Navy tomorrow”, said Dom over the phone. “My dad was on the (battleship) New Jersey during World War Two. If we joined up we could do something like that---maybe be stationed in the Mediterranean.”

We were naïve, and nervous. It was a tense night.

My lottery number for the draft was 265. Dominic’s was 340.

And that was that---we were off the hook, all determined by a crap shoot. It would take the Third World War to get us drafted. My father, who was a bit of a hawk, phoned me---greatly relieved---to make sure I knew my lottery number right after it was announced.

And a student friend of ours from Cleveland, who was sitting and listening to the radio with Dom that night, and just 20 years old, was drafted the next day and ended up in Vietnam. He is still listed as “Missing in Action”.

© Kent Jones

The Secret Lives of Objects

We invest meaning in objects that can make it very difficult, traumatic even, to shed them when necessary.  Downsizing the family home, moving, and going to university or a death in the family can all necessitate the strategic shedding of objects.  Like an animal shedding its winter fur, there are times we need to get rid of stuff.  We need to make room in our lives for a new version of ourselves.

I think this is easier if we have practiced this ritual.  When my child was young I use to try and involve them in the process.  Other mothers would just fill garbage bags while their kids slept or were at school and then plead ignorance, the "white lie".  It made my life more complicated but I could never do that.  It didn't seem to teach respect for people or their belongings.  I remember my son once looking at me with tearful eyes saying, "Mom you want to give away my memories."  Our compromise was "the memory box" and my child could select what was important enough to go in it.  I hoped it would lend a little sense of control over what was a fearful process.

Another strategy was that if you wanted a new toy you could "buy" it with a donation of an old toy.  This worked ideally with thrift and consignment shops and helped stem the tide of an ever-growing wave of stuff.  Most of our lives as a small family of three (since 1994) we have had the luxury of a large house.   With university and retirement looming on the horizon, it is time to part with much.

When my mother died I was faced with a lifetime of her objects.  It took weeks and the help of many friends but it evolved into a way of dealing with our grief.  We shared a meal that was based on my mother's excellent dishes that had been stored in her deep freezer.  She had also been a talented craftsperson and so I invited each of her friends to take an object she had created to remember her by.  I divided her collections of fabrics, stained glass, tools and art supplies between two art schools.  Her clothing and household effects I divided between two refugee efforts in the city.  My mother had died suddenly at 72; this was my way of making meaning out of her death.

My 17-year old is doing something similar.  Five crates of customized Lego went to single parents who needed Christmas toys, an ominously large collection of stuffed animals went to an artist who reconfigures them into installations about childhood trauma, books went to a literacy effort where college students volunteer to read to kids in tents at family events, a museum-worthy collection of Thomas the Tank engine toys went to the daycare centre where my child attended.  SPCA, Heavenly Creatures, Value Village, Salvation Army, the list of shops receiving our goods is growing.  It feels better than a garage sale.

The Nature of Elegance by Wendy Shirran and Miro Davis

I am hoping to interest Ceramic Art and Perception in this exhibition at the Craft Gallery so I can't say too much just yet…

Would You Like to Come to a Piano Burning?

Stacee from Rock of Ages presented byTa Da! Events

Arts & Culture Centre, March 31-April 3, 2016

The week leading up to March 31st is customarily my busiest workweek of the year.  It marks the end of fiscal year for most of the organizations I work with and so it is a flurry of projects that need to be accounted for, records to be checked, etc.  Factor in my usual writing deadlines both short term and long term, unscheduled meetings, studio visits and off-the-wall invitations like, "would you like to come to a piano burning?" and you get an idea of what my week was like.  I couldn't make this stuff up…actually; I'm really looking forward to that piano burning.

My short-term writing deadline was a quick turn around for The Telegram:  go to The Rock of Ages on opening Thursday night and then submit copy by Friday morning.  How I like to handle these sorts of assignments is to jot down a few impressions at intermission time and directly after the show.  If I can, I will ask a few questions from my fellow audience members to broaden my perspective.  Often, I will deliberately look for someone outside of my age range and gender.  Next, I will sleep on my observations and then wake up and write the review while still in my robe.  I guess that makes me a morning person.  What has never ceased to surprise me is my internal word-meter.  For example, I was given a 500-word maximum, 400-word minimum for this review and it weighed in at 477.  Here it is:

Principal cast.

If you miss your suede fringe or nude Jell-O wrestling, Rock of Ages is the show for you.  It is a raunchy, raucous hard-hitting show that doesn't waste a heart beat setting the tone of the evening.  The program may politely state, "Please turn off all electronic devices." But the narrator bellows, "don't use your cell because it makes you look like a dick".  There is more tits and ass, pole dancing and 4-letter language in this show than a strip club could wish for.  It is all done in great humour and is completely and creatively appropriate to the production but parents be warned this is not a show to bring a young child to.  On opening night the audience was full of all ages from youngsters to senior citizens, which speaks to the appeal of Rock of Ages.

The 30-somethings were there because they had loved the movie, the older set because the 80s music was part of their musical coming of age.  I was curious to see whether the production was going to be a Rock romp down memory lane like an homage show or whether it was going to be a musical with musicians in the orchestra pit.  Perfectly, the show was neither.  The backdrop for the play is the legendary Bourbon Room with a dynamite live rock group on stage.  There are lots of visual treats like flashing lights and opportunities for audience participation from the word "go", which meant the evening felt like an adrenalin drenched rock concert rather than a musical.  The familiar songs were used to advance the plot in surprising ways.  And there are plots, subplots, gender bending and more twists and turns than on a soap opera.

Recognize NF's runner-up for Cdn Idol?

Rock of Ages is fuelled by a relatively large cast of 32– not counting its creative or production team whose thoughtfulness is reflected in every inch on the stage.– although it may be hard to recognize many of the well-known talents of St. John's under the big hair wigs like John Andrews as Dennis Dupree.  It was a reward to have Craig Sharpe, as Drew Bolely, whom you may remember as a runner up on Canadian Idol Season 4.  But I think the show stealer was Keith Power as the oh-so-colourful Franz Klineman, the unpredictable son of the show's villain.

Speaking of dastardly, it was intriguing to see how the show covered the elements that challenged rock music.  From euro-trash strip malls, sleazy record producers, the advent of boy bands or just the shifting cultural landscape it was all reflected on stage.  It was Teen Beat versus Metal Head Magazine come to life and singing its lungs out.  The Rock of Ages provides a rocking good night–and I dare you not to sing along.