Re: RAT Amazing stories and histories

[NOMADMONAD@aol.com]

Hi all, 

I won't post anymore on this current reading of mine, but this site of 
American Memory is so amazing I wanted to make sure everyone knew it was 
there.

The full legacy of the Federal Arts Projects of the late '30's is just now 
coming to fruition within our contemporary digital revolution.  

Quite extraordinary to realize that our government actually directly funded a 
project such as  "Voodoo Macbeth".  An all-black version set in 19th century 
Haiti, produced at the Lafayette Theatre in Harlem with cast that was 95 
percent amateur and directed by a 20 year old kid named Orson Welles.

 http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fedtp/ftsmth00.html

The staff of the Writers Project was commissioned by the Federal Government 
to document life histories.  Below are excerpts from three portraits of 
writers.  My study for quite awhile has been the differences between a career 
in art and a life in art.  If you go to the full portraits of these writers 
you won't see any of their writing, but you will catch a glimpse into their 
lives.

The Dramaturgy Project I am working on is currently at the back door of the 
Undermain Web site now that the production of Pericles has closed, but if you 
are interested in following the work go to:

http://www.undermain.com/seasons/1998to99/pericles/notes.asp

Here is Rhonda's interview with Carlos.  It explains some of the things I am 
looking at. Of course I believe that the history of this beautiful woman and 
actress should also be a part of any "American Memory Collection." 

http://www.undermain.com/seasons/1998to99/pericles/carlos/rhonda.htm

We live in a marvelous age.  Because publishing now is so simple and without 
real cost, many different "histories" and attendant authors are competing.  
RAT is one such competing history.  

Instead of whining about how stingy our National Endowment to the Arts is, we 
use the abundance that our government and culture has afforded us to create 
our own Federal Arts Project.  In many ways that is what RAT has already 
done, but it needs to go further.  Somebody called for URLs last week and 
there are many out there.  Why not put an American Memory Collection page at 
each Web site with a link to the same AMC page at other sites?  

If John Sylvain and the Old Croakers don't drop their Annex documentation 
idea, we could build the template for the project from that initial 
collection of stories.

In any case, we have the means.  All it takes is the will.

Best, 
Nick

For complete documents type in keywords at Search All American Memory 
Collections at:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wpaquery.html

***************************
Keyword:  "Gene"  

Interview with Mrs. Bella Ostic

Gene Rhodes

"He would do the craziest things of any fellow I ever knew. I remember once 
he wrote me a letter at midnight from the top of a mountain peak. It was the 
peak where he is buried. They call it Rhodes Peak now. I had asked him to 
find the words to a verse by Mrs. Hesman for me. He was on his way from Las 
Cruces to the San Andrea's and was camping for the night on the top of that 
peak when he sat down and wrote me a letter enclosing the poem I had wanted. 
I remember he said in that letter that there was not a lonelier man in the 
world than he was on the top of that mountain peak at midnight, but that 
nowhere else did he feel so near to God. Or Nature, I guess he must have said 
Nature instead of God. Gene wasn't a Christian. Anyhow I never knew him to go 
to church.

*************************

Keyword:  "Betty"

Luigi's speakeasy did an all night business but you had to know what to say 
before they'd let you in. Whenever the bell rang, Jimmy got up and peeped 
through a little hole in the door. Well, he did the same thing the night 
Betty walked in. It was the first time I had seen her, I won't forget it. She 
was the kind of girl men fight for ... and like it; but on a Harlem police 
blotter, they had "prostitute" scribbled opposite her name. Not that she 
looked like one. Her eyes were a pale, lovely blue; her hair, soft and brown; 
and she had the sauciest two lips in the world. Another odd thing about her 
was the fact that she never carried a watch. I suppose it was because time 
meant nothing to her. She was in love. The boy's name was Bill.

***************
Keyword:Harry Kemp 

Tramp Poet and The Poetry Theatre

He had long been after Kemp to recite at one of these. Now Kemp got Guthrie 
to promise him the use of the church basement for his Theater, in exchange 
for appearing regularly at Guthrier's soirees. 

The place was large, but rather dark, and badly heated. Moreover there was no 
furniture. The actors rented a set of funeral chairs for the audience, and 
built a stage out of the minister's rostrum. Kemp conceived the idea of 
producing a series of authentic Indian mimes-- religious and tribal rituals 
of the North American Indian. He inserted an advertisement in the world: 
'Real Indians Wanted! ' The church basement became the mecca of a caravan of 
feathered and painted Indians, real and otherwise. The Broadway redskins were 
willing to act the mimes, but knew nothing about tribal ritual; while the 
real Indians, belonging to The Five Nations, who came down from upstate, were 
well grounded in their own lore, but refused to display,what to them were 
sacred tribal rituals, before the white men. The Indian mimes, Kemp tells us, 
were finally acted by some college boys from the Bronx, in the borrowed 
costumes of The Five Nations, and Clifford Odetts took the lead in the 
one-act drama. Broadway producers arrived the third night to sit 
uncomfortably on the funeral chairs, but to applaud heartily when the curtain 
came down. Heywood Broun, Alexander Woolcott, David Belasco, and William 
Brady appeared in the audience, and thereafter the critics began to watch the 
progress of Kemp's Poetry Theater with interest. 

Asked what it was that finally broke up the movement, Kemp admits that 
despite the growing success of his Poetry Theater, he could not give it his 
undivided attention. Why?.... 'Well, while I lived In Minetta Lane, I had the 
top attic fixed up as a rendevous... At that time I was in love with a young 
married woman, who had a wealthy pig of a husband... She used to come to me 
there... would drive down in a taxi. The 606 boys, who hung around the place, 
would fight among themselves as to who should open the door and assist her 
ladyship from the cab. They'd stand around like peasant boys with their caps 
off, grinning and chewing on their quids. She was a lovely thing, and the 
gang was in awe of her.

'Later when I moved to Avenue A, we got an apartment together.  Well, what 
started all the rumpus and finally resulted in the breakdown of the Poetry 
theater, was that her husband started a story in a Boston paper to the effect 
that I, Harry Kemp, had left a wife and four brats somewhere in the west and 
was now living in the village with another man's wife.  The thing was absurd, 
and my lawyer uncovered that fact that there was a man by the name of 'Harry 
Kemp' -- a laborer who was reported for desertion by his wife down in 
Arkansas or somewhere--- and I was supposed to be him.  My lawyer's name was 
Crooker.  I had him file a suit for $5000 for libel against the 'Boston 
American'.  Nothing seemed to come of it, and that as I soon found out, was 
because Crooker was as crooked as his name.  He accepted my fees and just let 
the thing ride.  So I decided to take it on myself.  I took a train down to 
Boston, and called on the editor of the 'American' A Hearst sheet.  I told 
him it was my turn to give him some publicity.  I said, I'm invited to a 
press banquet at which Willy Hearst is the guest of honor, and if I don't see 
$5000 hit me through the mail before then, I'm going to pull Willy's pants 
down, lay him over a table and give him the spanking of his life... and I'll 
see that every paper in America carries the story and full particulars as to 
the grudge I bear the Boston American.  I would have done it too.  But next 
day I got a check for the $5000.  Somehow the affair left a bad taste in both 
our mouths...  I split the money with my girl, and we shook hands, auf 
wiedereshen... She sailed for Paris with her pig of a husband....

'The theater began to pull on me...  I guess I was getting old.  I decided to 
settle down and do some writing...  My cape and sword days were over.'