Re: RAT Amazing stories and histories

[jonoh1@juno.com]

Thanks Nick,
  This stirs something deep and fecund.
Jonathan

On Sat, 18 Dec 1999 11:27:24 EST NOMADMONAD@aol.com writes:
>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.'
>

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