Dear Emma Goldman --
Though somewhat of a student of radical politics, I never honed in on the career and exploits of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, which sounds like a book to be written by a labor feminist (are there any such things? I'm really not up on the modern academic nomenclature). More to the point, I think that the reason no one knows (in the Outer World) is because that aspect of American history has been willfully ignored, which is not to say that the opposite trend should remedy it, ie. specialized histories with no temporal /cultural "glue" applied. The teaching of American history has,
like most other kinds of national history these days, been a victim of fashion, a hotbed on contention on the stage for ideology. In its most basic formations: "America the Wonderful, America the Awful; America the Liberator, America the Oppressor; America the placid melting pot/ethnic mix master, America the explosively contentious.” Not being a academic ("though I portray one on tv...”) I'll skip the lecture on phases and fads in American historiography, but you know what I mean. The problem which arises out of this willful fashion consciousness about history is that balance is a rarity, and history becomes just another exercise in niche marketing depending on what's hot and what's not in the academic ideological marketplace. Wouldn't it wonderful to see say the American Historical Review ad campaigns for the "next" ideology? but I forgot, Francis Fukayama said that the end of history was here now that the Soviet beast was in ruins, but one questions whose time he's really concerned with: Sovietologists, Eastern European specialists or the CIA?
My preferred approach to research into time; newspaper of course: the newsprint may fade and pages self-destruct and you've got to use gloves and be careful, but it is far more satisfying to randomly peruse an old volume because there's a tactile feeling one gets decidedly *not* from an on-line web searching. More to the point, and in a similar metaphor, it's like what happened in the record business, that controversy about the merits of vinyl vs. CD's, how a lot of the "old stuff" has been lost because it was never re-released, and the new generation which are addicted to the technology as much as music lose a page or two, and the gaps widen of musical knowledge, nuance, as time on it's little cat's feet (or is it Nikes these days?) steals on.
Time marches on in this fast forward age for the historian increasingly boils down to what you can find on the net. (NB. In its defense, it helped me to organize my Zappa material for the update, but then again, I knew what I was looking for and recognized it when I found it, 'cause internet addiction can lead to intellectual indigestion readily enough.) Is that progress? Face it, if you're going to really understand a period, you've got to get familiar with its artifacts in all its forms. Electronic research though at times efficient is a little too antiseptic and cold. For one thing, there's no serendipity, no writer's angel out there in cyber space. We've all had that experience of being in the stacks in more or less the right place and your elbow hits a book and out falls what you're looking for, or you drop something and your eyes see this a whole mess of material you hadn't even considered. Sure you can get up a good search, but without the consciousness, or discernment or passion for that matter, too.
And as more and more material is reduced to bytes and bits, and newer generations of researchers get out on the dance floor to either reinvent or reproduce the historical past, the more likely it is that we will lose our palpable feel for our history. And then we have become content and allow the advertising industry of ConGlomCoInc, not only to rewrite but reduce history a mere exercise in creative nostalgia manipulation so we will no longer know the difference. So yeah, you gotta get your hands on the material, plunge your arms in up to the elbow if you're going to write history, especially if it's going to change your world, don't you think?
Tube there are similarities between Paganini and Jeff Beck (god the idea of putting them in the same artistic universe much less the same sentence is a real cosmic joke isn't it?) because they generally are virtuosi, just in different venues. Music critics back then were I suppose similar in terms of temperament and inclination, there were the knowledgeable ones and those along for the beer and skittles, for the commerce of it all, the implied status and celebrity-hood which comes from it in terms of inside knowledge (lecture tours back then or opinion segments on NPR, CNN or MTV now). I'd venture to say that music critics a hundred years ago were a pretty colorful bunch, they didn't have MA programs in it, that's for sure. Back then didn't you have to work yourself from writing obits, going on to the police blotter, etc. etc? Contemporary rock and roll critics’ knowledge is too specialized, fashion-driven, but then again they report on a consumer culture replete with its own tee shirts and rally caps and what's a person to do about that?
Where do they get "schooled" for the Required Knowledge since it's not all online? When I was writing rock criticism in the Sixties (though viewing it as cultural history), it seemed to be the rule that you had to know something about all kinds of MUSIC! If you were conscientious about writing about music, it behooved you to know All and Everything: from 12th century motets to boogie woogie, bop and beyond, and if it wasn't a true multi-cultural experience (god I hate that word) you didn't get it at all. The readers were depending on you. And the musicians to a larger or smaller extent were also into learning from and experimenting with different musical times, our The Little Prince [Frank Zappa -- Ed.] included, especially The Little Prince. I more or less quit in the mid Seventies when David Bowie came out with "Ziggy Stardust". It had nothing to do with the music that moved my soul. And if this truly was the wave of the future, I didn't want any part of it. From my point of view, it was just more fucking fashion which I'd have to flog for "dedicated followers of fashion" that Ray Davis sang about, and that's what MTV is all about. Thank you, here's my press card.
As for "art", it still takes a while to find its time and resonance, no matter how you think you can manipulate it as Frank wherever he is, knows, or will soon find out. Jeff Beck? One hell of a guitar strangler but not a bum interview. [I interviewed them once when Rocket Rodney was touring with the Jeff Beck Group. Didn't get even a half an interview between the both of them, but hey should they have been poets? Some were, so it was definitely worth my time when I had it to give). What is it that Aeschylus says at the beginning of the Orestia," Sorrow, sing sorrow, but good will out in the end." Maybe that's the best we can hope for the art that inspires us. That's about the size of it here at Wizend Manor where I'm listening to "The Little House I used to Live In", a Burnt Weeny Sandwich of a musical composition is there ever was one.
Hang on, Emma!
Dear Ben Reitman --
Something about the term "labor feminist" reminds me of the old Martin Mull shtick (I suppose because of his lack of PCness he's been relegated to the Superannuated Talk Show Hosts' Lounge in Vegas) about having been a labor organizer in a maternity ward.
You'll forgive me if I sound like an unsated cannibal. I think I mentioned to you that I was supposed to be writing an essay about Mark Twain as literary outcast. Well, I just received a copy of the new annotated version of "Roughing It" published by the Mark Twain Papers folks, and a cursory scan revealed the curious fact that those slackjawed, leatherelbowed incanabulists up there at UC Berkeley evidently helped themselves to vast chunks of "The Sagebrush Bohemian" in the process of annotating "Roughing It". And here I'd always thought they didn't like me because I was an autodidact. The only thing is, they slipped up when they were typesetting the bibliography, and they seem to have left me out. I think I may have to jog their memories a little. The last time I was up there at the Bancroft Library was in '83. (1983.) In order to be admitted to the sanctum sanctorum you had to have two letters of recommendation. I already had one boilerplate one from a good friend who was head of special collections at Cal State Long Beach, and I got another from the rare book dealer "Uncle" Jake Zeitlin, who'd been lending us quite a bit of money and probably figured that if I could write a book and get it out there maybe I'd be able to pay him back. The Mark Twain Papers gang wasn't exactly delighted with these documents, but Jake Zeitlin had, after all, sold them the bulk of their Twain correspondence, so they had to let me come in.
The rest, as they say, is history even if I *was* probably the only researcher at the Mark Twain Papers who had to conduct their research behind chicken wire. I spent a couple of weeks working there, and really enjoyed myself, especially being able to fondle Twain's letters. I mean real letters that he had written and smudged with real ink blots, and cussed over, and scratched things out on. It was like being the proverbial kid in the candy store. Of course they always used to check my pockets for
the family silver whenever I left the premises for the day, but I was willing to make a few allowances.
When "Sagebrush" was published, I thought the MTP folks would at least give me a hearty handshake. After all, the idea in that book was something they should have agreed with -- the thesis that Twain was a Western writer. I mean, aren't they a Western library? I kind of figured they might be proud of me for pointing out what had been under their noses for so long. Didn't seem to work that way, though. They never gave me or my theories any space in any of their bibliographies -- until now.
If you don't hear from me for a few days after you get this, not to worry. I think I might take a little run up to the Bay Area and conduct a few enquiries, you know. I think I ought to give them the chance to amend their bibliography -- in the immortal words of Bugsy Siegel, you can get a lot farther with a kind word and a gun than with just a kind word.
Your irate
Emma
