Genealogy once was the province of retirees, Mormons, and the Daughters of the American Revolution. Young people didn't care because, well, they are young people. Mormons cared because their salvation and that of their ancestors depended on it. The DAR just wanted to know whom to accept and whom to snub.
DNA tests have contributed to this change. People find out that they have 20 percent Sub-Saharan Africa in their genome even though they have red hair and freckles and get plastered every St. Patrick's Day. It's a revelation. They begin to ask who these ancestors were and head to ancestry.com to trace their lineage. Some lines are easy to trace. They left behind birth/death records, census entries, military service. Facts can be found. We fill in the chart and show it off to our families who care more about their NCAA tournament brackets than they do about Grandpa's service in World War One. The PBS show, "Who Do You Think You Are?, takes this a step further. Celebs want to trace their roots and ancestry.com supplies the trained genealogists, researchers and librarians who find out that their ancestors include the first king of England. Their story also comes with a slice of humble pie. I may be related to a king, but I also am the offspring of indentured servants, slave-holders and convicts. Therein lie the compelling stories, but you only have so much time in a one-hour show. We may discover our fourth great grandfather's name but it takes newspaper clippings and other docs to find at least a germ of their life's stories.
The searchers are left with their imaginations.
This is the province of fiction writers.We can take an obscure fact and twist it into a 300-page novel., We find one of those boxes on the ancestry.com web site, fill in our knowledge with a few facts, and then let 'er rip. On the show, celebs confronted with the fact of an ancestor''s checkered past wants to know who what when where why and how. The trail of historical documents dries up and they are left with their imagination which often is lacking.
The most commonly asked questions on this show is: "How come I didn't know any of this?" In America, we forget our pasts. America is the land of the free and the home of the brave and the graveyard of forgotten pasts. Our ancestors were interesting but not interesting enough to be remembered.
I am writing a novel about my grandparents' era, post-World War I Colorado. Two war veterans, one Irish immigrant, and one budding suffragist from rural Ohio. These four people have been gone for decades. I grew up with them but my children never knew them and are not particularly interested in their stories. Their grandchildren will never know me and not care about my stories. I find this exceptionally sad. "Who Do You Think You Are" often closes with a visit to an ancestor's grace. The burial sites are sometimes in fine shape. Often they are neglected,weedy and overgrown, or just impossible to find. It's easy to spit out a cliche: their burial sites may be neglected, but their stories will live forever.
No they won't. Mine won't. Yours won't. People will forget. We forget quicker in the USA than anywhere else on the planet. The inexorable onrush of capitalist culture depends on it. To change that attitude only leads to grief.
Or to fiction. I am writing about my grandparents' era. They were young. They moved across the country into what they thought were promising futures. My goal is to capture that time. It didn't turn out as hoped. I know some of those stories too. But to be young and a pioneer. Such a delicious time, and fraught with peril.
It's their story but not their story. More a feeling of what it felt like to be them in a certain time and place.
All told from the POV of a this soon-to-be-forgotten entity.
Wednesday, June 27, 2018
Sunday, June 24, 2018
Writers from the South (North, East & West) -- read them all
Status updates cycle through Facebook so quickly. A person from academia posted the other day that he was searching for justification for teaching a course on southern literature at his university. Can't find it now to respond in person but I've been thinking a lot about it and have some thoughts.
My first response is this: you study southern literature because its fun. I am a former student of Harry Crews at University of Florida and you haven't lived until you've read Feast of Snakes and Karate is a Thing of the Spirit.
Fantastic fiction writers abound: Bobbie Anne Mason, Carson McCullers, Connie May Fowler, Alice Walker, George Saunders, Walker Percy, Eudora Welty, Kaye Gibbons, Tim Gautreaux, William Faulkner, Lewis Nordan, Flannery O'Connor, etc. Alas, I know very few southern writers under 40. That's my loss, I'm sure. I could remedy that by reading more litmags with roots in the South: Georgia Review, Chattahoochee Review, storySouth, Carolina Quarterly, Snake Nation Review, and many others. If these mags are doing their duty, they are publishing up-and-coming writers in the South and those of us who carry the South around like a beat-up copy of a Faulkner novel.
So study southern literature. As long as you read the books. Read them all.
South Carolina's Pat Conroy wove the South and family and military traditions into his novels. I looked forward to reading a new Conroy novel. I was transfixed by "The Prince of Tides." Southern angst, crazy families, suicide, escaped convicts, tiger attacks -- you don't get many of those in southern novels. That was a doozy of a dysfunctional family. Too bad they made a movie. We got too much of Barbra Srreisand as Susan Lowenstein and not enough of the Wingo family.
At first encounter, I wasn't all that impressed with Flannery O'Connor. Then in grad school I took a class on the short story. I started writing short stories and reading new authors to understand their secrets. I read "A Good Man is Hard to Find" and realized it was a twisted tale and a work of art. It possessed some of that magic you get in a great story. O'Connor imbued her stories with the mysticism of her Catholic faith and the South, a wicked combination. Her characters vibrate with life. The Misfit's final words about the grandmother are harsh and mysterious and I still don;'t know exactly what they mean. He kills Grandma, we know that. But his motives remain mysterious. Like faith itself -- beautiful and unknowable. One thing that helped me understand her stories is reading her collected letters in "The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor."
That's it, isn't it? The great stories shine with a fire lit by the author. When you read Raymond Carver, you are beset with his yen for demon rum. He's not of the South but his work possesses some of those elements. Nebraska's Willa Cather seems to have dragged Southern Gothic elements over the prairie from her Virginia birthplace.
Read them all.
My first response is this: you study southern literature because its fun. I am a former student of Harry Crews at University of Florida and you haven't lived until you've read Feast of Snakes and Karate is a Thing of the Spirit.
Fantastic fiction writers abound: Bobbie Anne Mason, Carson McCullers, Connie May Fowler, Alice Walker, George Saunders, Walker Percy, Eudora Welty, Kaye Gibbons, Tim Gautreaux, William Faulkner, Lewis Nordan, Flannery O'Connor, etc. Alas, I know very few southern writers under 40. That's my loss, I'm sure. I could remedy that by reading more litmags with roots in the South: Georgia Review, Chattahoochee Review, storySouth, Carolina Quarterly, Snake Nation Review, and many others. If these mags are doing their duty, they are publishing up-and-coming writers in the South and those of us who carry the South around like a beat-up copy of a Faulkner novel.
So study southern literature. As long as you read the books. Read them all.
South Carolina's Pat Conroy wove the South and family and military traditions into his novels. I looked forward to reading a new Conroy novel. I was transfixed by "The Prince of Tides." Southern angst, crazy families, suicide, escaped convicts, tiger attacks -- you don't get many of those in southern novels. That was a doozy of a dysfunctional family. Too bad they made a movie. We got too much of Barbra Srreisand as Susan Lowenstein and not enough of the Wingo family.
At first encounter, I wasn't all that impressed with Flannery O'Connor. Then in grad school I took a class on the short story. I started writing short stories and reading new authors to understand their secrets. I read "A Good Man is Hard to Find" and realized it was a twisted tale and a work of art. It possessed some of that magic you get in a great story. O'Connor imbued her stories with the mysticism of her Catholic faith and the South, a wicked combination. Her characters vibrate with life. The Misfit's final words about the grandmother are harsh and mysterious and I still don;'t know exactly what they mean. He kills Grandma, we know that. But his motives remain mysterious. Like faith itself -- beautiful and unknowable. One thing that helped me understand her stories is reading her collected letters in "The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor."
That's it, isn't it? The great stories shine with a fire lit by the author. When you read Raymond Carver, you are beset with his yen for demon rum. He's not of the South but his work possesses some of those elements. Nebraska's Willa Cather seems to have dragged Southern Gothic elements over the prairie from her Virginia birthplace.
Read them all.
Tuesday, June 19, 2018
Artists respond to Trumpists' barbaric immigration policies
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| From the "13 Artists on: Immigration" article in today's New York Times Style Magazine: Art Spiegelman's "A Warm Welcome," 2015. Portrait by Phil Penman. Artwork courtesy of the artist. Art Spiegelman ("Maus: A Survivor's Story") was one of the 13 artists asked by the NYT to respond to current U.S. immigration issues. An immigrant himself, he has a few things to say about his own experience, and the above illustration: I first saw the Statue of Liberty in October 1950 while perched high on my father’s shoulders. My parents, survivors of Hitler’s death camps, had been granted immigration visas to the United States, and all the passengers were crowded on the foredeck of the Gripsholm as we approached the harbor. I was less than 3 years old when my father excitedly pointed at the giant lady standing in the water to welcome us to New York. I was suitably awed until we got closer and was disappointed to see that she was “just” a statue.
"Maus" was probably the first graphic novel I read, and it took me awhile to get to it. It was after I wandered into an exhibit of Spiegelman's work at the Rollins College Gallery in Winter Park, Fla. It was about a decade ago. I thought of graphic novels as bloated comic books. "Maus" taught me otherwise. Something about seeing the exhibition-size artwork arrayed around the gallery got to me. I know quite a bit about the Holocaust but something about Jews as mice -- and Nazis as cats -- got to me. I recommend it highly. The issues echo down the years to 2018. It's tempting to equate any fascist behavior to the Nazis. But Trump's cruel, racist actions are happening right now in the U.S., not in 1943 Germany or Poland.
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Thursday, June 14, 2018
We take a look at coal-fired arts projects
Coal has been on my mind lately. Not in my mind, but I wouldn't be surprised if our Republican geniuses in Congress plan to replace our precious bodily fluids with coal dust. That should open up a new market for a dying industry.
Coal mining has a long tradition in Wyoming. I don't want to see it disappear. I would like to see some creativity applied to the issue instead of fear-mongering. The state has been home to coal mines since its settlement by white folks. Many families have been sustained by miners hacking rock out of underground mines or scooping it up in strip mines. Many communities owe their existence to coal. Some of our museums celebrate what you could call the coal culture. Rock Springs just added a coal mural to the side of a building in its flourishing downtown.
Underground Rock Springs is honeycombed with old mines. Mines and miners' unions made this city. It's good to see it acknowledged on a mural, and there is probably more to come. The main building at Western Wyoming College celebrates coal, too, with its large exhibit of the dinosaurs that once roamed the area, Consider dinos pre-coal, before the earth swallowed them up, applied heat and pressure, and then surrendered it to men with picks and shovels. I've always been crazy about dinosaurs and wonder why they are not more celebrated in Wyoming.
For 25 years, I was tasked with helping arts projects get off the ground. I was paid to be creative. I was also paid to fill out a lot of paperwork and read hundreds of grants. It taught me about this state of the arts. Lots of creativity and creative people. You could call them creatives as Richard Florida most famously did. Creatives, however, rarely are seen in the wild and seem to thrive only in urban enclaves, places such as Willaimsburg in Brooklyn and RiNo in Denver. It's a surprise to many coasters when they find pockets of creativity in small places that have no catchy nicknames.
I was pleased to hear a story on Wyoming Public Radio about another very creative person in an out-of-the way place. Mosaic artist Rachel Sager returned to her hometown in western Pennsylvania mining country. She wanted to practice her art and help her town recover from doldrums caused by closing of its mines. So she did what any other creative person would do -- she bought a defunct coal mine and turned it into an arts destination. Actually, she bought a swath of property that also was the site of an abandoned coal operation. She reclaimed the walls of the ruins from decades of vines and weeds and thought that it would be a great place to show off her mosaics. She also thought it was a great way to show off the work of other like-minded artists from around the world and, in the process, give her tiny town of Whitsett and economic shot in the arm. She called it The Ruins Project. Sager dubs herself "the forager mosaicist" for her love of using found materials in her artwork. She is classically trained in the techniques of andamento, so also teaches classes and invites other visiting artists to do the same. Summer is an especially lively time at The Ruins Project.
I don't know if Sager has ever visited Wyoming, but she certainly has found some influences there, as shown in the following:
Not sure if I have ever seen a mosaic jackelope. I have seen them in the wild, of course, on nights when the full moon shines on the North Platte River Valley.
To bring this story back to Wyoming, I wonder about other coal-inspired projects. Do you know of any? Certainly there are some in Gillette. Hard to imagine creating an arts project out of an abandoned open-pit mine. But who knows? Wyoming artists have been tasked with tough jobs before, such as surviving as an artist. Who knows what brilliant coal-inspired things could happen.
Coal mining has a long tradition in Wyoming. I don't want to see it disappear. I would like to see some creativity applied to the issue instead of fear-mongering. The state has been home to coal mines since its settlement by white folks. Many families have been sustained by miners hacking rock out of underground mines or scooping it up in strip mines. Many communities owe their existence to coal. Some of our museums celebrate what you could call the coal culture. Rock Springs just added a coal mural to the side of a building in its flourishing downtown.
 |
| Coal mural in downtown Rock Springs. Artist is Dan Toro. |
For 25 years, I was tasked with helping arts projects get off the ground. I was paid to be creative. I was also paid to fill out a lot of paperwork and read hundreds of grants. It taught me about this state of the arts. Lots of creativity and creative people. You could call them creatives as Richard Florida most famously did. Creatives, however, rarely are seen in the wild and seem to thrive only in urban enclaves, places such as Willaimsburg in Brooklyn and RiNo in Denver. It's a surprise to many coasters when they find pockets of creativity in small places that have no catchy nicknames.
I was pleased to hear a story on Wyoming Public Radio about another very creative person in an out-of-the way place. Mosaic artist Rachel Sager returned to her hometown in western Pennsylvania mining country. She wanted to practice her art and help her town recover from doldrums caused by closing of its mines. So she did what any other creative person would do -- she bought a defunct coal mine and turned it into an arts destination. Actually, she bought a swath of property that also was the site of an abandoned coal operation. She reclaimed the walls of the ruins from decades of vines and weeds and thought that it would be a great place to show off her mosaics. She also thought it was a great way to show off the work of other like-minded artists from around the world and, in the process, give her tiny town of Whitsett and economic shot in the arm. She called it The Ruins Project. Sager dubs herself "the forager mosaicist" for her love of using found materials in her artwork. She is classically trained in the techniques of andamento, so also teaches classes and invites other visiting artists to do the same. Summer is an especially lively time at The Ruins Project.
 |
| Mosaic by Rachel Sager from The Ruins Project |
I don't know if Sager has ever visited Wyoming, but she certainly has found some influences there, as shown in the following:
 |
| "American Jackelope" by Rachel Sager |
To bring this story back to Wyoming, I wonder about other coal-inspired projects. Do you know of any? Certainly there are some in Gillette. Hard to imagine creating an arts project out of an abandoned open-pit mine. But who knows? Wyoming artists have been tasked with tough jobs before, such as surviving as an artist. Who knows what brilliant coal-inspired things could happen.
Sunday, June 03, 2018
Top three Republican governor candidates want to out-conservative each other
The three richest Republican gubernatorial candidates seem to think that Wyoming needs rescuing from a cabal of liberals. Did I miss something? For the past eight years we've had a Republican governor and the four other state elected officials. Conservatives increased their lopsided majority in 2016 as a new wave of Know Nothings swept into power on Donald Trump's coattails. Registered Republicans outnumber Democrats two-to-one. Yet Republican candidates in 2018 seem to think we need to be more conservative, which is hard to fathom. It's like asking Trump to to be less of a loudmouth greedhead. It just can't be done.
Millionaire stock trader Foster Friess, the man who embodies the loathsome side of Teton County politics, looks ridiculous in his cowboy outfit. His pitch is even more ridiculous. In his TV ads, he promotes himself as a"conservative businessman "who wants to see that Wyoming remains a land of dreams for the next generation." Dream on, Wyomingites. With Republican policies, you can work three jobs for less than minimum wage while dreaming of life in a mansion with a mountain view. And golf! FF will create jobs by tapping into "clean and abundant energy resources (shot of oil well), cut down on wasteful spending and make sure Washington doesn't get in our way." Is he talking about Trump's Republican government? Or that guy Obama? Will businessman Friess be as efficient at running the state as Trump is running the country? It's too hard to go on, watching TV spot after TV spot. Bless you, mute button. Stephen Colbert summed up Friess's campaign in his segment "Profiles in Discourage:" https://youtu.be/vBmIoVOg1O0
He's only one of the conservatives who wants to make Wyoming more conservative. Mark Gordon actually looks pretty good in his cowboy duds although I'm getting a bit irked at his hay-pitching routine. Gordon is a rancher from Johnson County and our current state treasurer. In one of his spots, he says that he "will fight to get government out of the way." Do you know that, as governor, you are actually the head of the government? I guess it doesn't matter. Many R voters in this state see "government" as a dirty word. They must not drive on any gubment roads or depend on rangeland fire fighters when wildfires threaten their mountain homes. And I'm certain that none of the ranchers get U.S. Government grazing subsidies. Republicans hate government -- let's put them in charge. What could go wrong?
Conservative businessman Sam Galeotos is from Cheyenne. I'm not sure I've ever heard anyone describe themselves as a liberal businessman. Not in Wyoming, anyway. Mr. Galeotos has been instrumental in lifting our downtown out of the doldrums -- I will give him that. His refrain is "get government out of the way of small business." Also: "Conservative ideas, fresh perspective." He's run many successful small to medium-sized technology businesses. He is big on tech, which is a hopeful sign. I wonder, though, how many college-educated tech people want to come to a state whose legislature continues its Stone Age policies of demonizing the LGBTQ community, immigrants, and science? They don't believe in funding education and Know Nothings continue to usurp power at our lone four-year state-funded university. We have tech businesses in Cheyenne. Many of those young employees are commuters from mostly-liberal northern Colorado, mainly Greeley and Fort Collins. And UW grads continue to flee the state after graduation. Where are those jobs and policies that will keep our young people in the state?
There are other Repubs in the race but they are not on TV, not yet. And there is a great Democratic Party candidate, Mary Throne, who is our best bet. I'm a Democrat and you probably expect me to be biased. I'm a liberal and I live here too. I matter, but none of the above-named Republicans seem to care. It's all about name recognition and the "R". And the money.
Millionaire stock trader Foster Friess, the man who embodies the loathsome side of Teton County politics, looks ridiculous in his cowboy outfit. His pitch is even more ridiculous. In his TV ads, he promotes himself as a"conservative businessman "who wants to see that Wyoming remains a land of dreams for the next generation." Dream on, Wyomingites. With Republican policies, you can work three jobs for less than minimum wage while dreaming of life in a mansion with a mountain view. And golf! FF will create jobs by tapping into "clean and abundant energy resources (shot of oil well), cut down on wasteful spending and make sure Washington doesn't get in our way." Is he talking about Trump's Republican government? Or that guy Obama? Will businessman Friess be as efficient at running the state as Trump is running the country? It's too hard to go on, watching TV spot after TV spot. Bless you, mute button. Stephen Colbert summed up Friess's campaign in his segment "Profiles in Discourage:" https://youtu.be/vBmIoVOg1O0
He's only one of the conservatives who wants to make Wyoming more conservative. Mark Gordon actually looks pretty good in his cowboy duds although I'm getting a bit irked at his hay-pitching routine. Gordon is a rancher from Johnson County and our current state treasurer. In one of his spots, he says that he "will fight to get government out of the way." Do you know that, as governor, you are actually the head of the government? I guess it doesn't matter. Many R voters in this state see "government" as a dirty word. They must not drive on any gubment roads or depend on rangeland fire fighters when wildfires threaten their mountain homes. And I'm certain that none of the ranchers get U.S. Government grazing subsidies. Republicans hate government -- let's put them in charge. What could go wrong?
Conservative businessman Sam Galeotos is from Cheyenne. I'm not sure I've ever heard anyone describe themselves as a liberal businessman. Not in Wyoming, anyway. Mr. Galeotos has been instrumental in lifting our downtown out of the doldrums -- I will give him that. His refrain is "get government out of the way of small business." Also: "Conservative ideas, fresh perspective." He's run many successful small to medium-sized technology businesses. He is big on tech, which is a hopeful sign. I wonder, though, how many college-educated tech people want to come to a state whose legislature continues its Stone Age policies of demonizing the LGBTQ community, immigrants, and science? They don't believe in funding education and Know Nothings continue to usurp power at our lone four-year state-funded university. We have tech businesses in Cheyenne. Many of those young employees are commuters from mostly-liberal northern Colorado, mainly Greeley and Fort Collins. And UW grads continue to flee the state after graduation. Where are those jobs and policies that will keep our young people in the state?
There are other Repubs in the race but they are not on TV, not yet. And there is a great Democratic Party candidate, Mary Throne, who is our best bet. I'm a Democrat and you probably expect me to be biased. I'm a liberal and I live here too. I matter, but none of the above-named Republicans seem to care. It's all about name recognition and the "R". And the money.
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