Vital Expressions

“The goal of art is the vital expression of self,” Alfred Stieglitz

Friday Dave and the family came over for Chinese food.  Afterwards, while the others watched a “Men in Black” sequel, Tom, Dave and I played three board games.  Tom triumphed in Amun Re, I prevailed in St. Petersburg, and Dave won Acquire.

Bowling buddy Bill Batalis passed away just a day after I visited him. The obit mentioned that he had been valedictorian of Emerson’s Class of 1945 and a Purdue grad before becoming an electrical engineer at U.S. Steel.  Mel Nelson suggested that his teammates all show up at Geisen Funeral Home at the same time.  I met Bill’s brother George for the first time, and sister Dorothy told me that he had been more seriously ill for the last few years than he had let on.  His parents were  Greek immigrants who first met in Gary.

Saturday Toni and I had dinner with Ron and Nancy Cohen at Angela’s Pantry in Miller before attending a film about Alfred Stieglitz at the Gardner Center for the Arts.  Karren Lee came in to pick up desserts for the Stieglitz event and said hello, happy we’d be in attendance later.  Larry Lapidus, host of the previous event about Maria Callas, introduced the documentary, mentioning that Stieglitz was born in Hoboken, New Jersey and that his wealthy parents subsidized his artistic pursuits when he was traveling around Europe during the 1880s.  Stieglitz, who discovered and married Georgia O’Keefe, was a driven genius who ended up alienating most of the artists and photographers he mentored.  Angry at O’Keefe for living in New Mexico much of the year, in 1927 he commenced an affair with 21 year-old Dorothy Norman, 40 years his junior.  A highlight of the “American Masters” film was numerous excerpts from an interview with the elderly O’Keefe. 

I was delighted when Sam Barnett greeted me, introduced me to his companion Brenda, a Portage H.S. grad, and announced that he was living in Miller.  I also said hi to Region historian Lance Trusty.  All in all, a good evening.  Sam had his friend take a photo of us and posted it on Facebook, saying he was “stoked to run into my history mentor and good buddy.”

Above, Georgia O'Keefe; "Hands" photo by Alfred Stieglitz, seen below

IU beat eighth ranked Minnesota and should move up in the polls to number two behind Louisville because Duke, Kansas, and Michigan lost.  I had only a mild interest in the NFL playoffs but enjoyed the exciting wins by Baltimore (in double overtime against Denver) and Atlanta (after squandering a 20-point lead and falling behind with just 30 seconds left).  On Ron’s recommendation (his son-in-law works with the series) I checked out the Showtime series “Shameless,” starring William H. Macy (the hapless villain in Fargo) as Frank Gallagher, a narcissistic, alcoholic father of six kids ranging from 2 to 21.  The darkly comic goings on are very weird, but by the third episode the characters (except Frank) grew on me, especially 11 year-old Debbie, who puts a pillow under her dad’s head when he’s passed out on the floor, and Sheila (played by Joan Cusack), a gentle but kinky germophobe who takes Frank in after her husband leaves her and then, after running his bath, handcuffs him to her bedpost before getting out her sex toys, including a giant dildo that requires Frank to sit on a pillow at breakfast the next morning.

Sunday’s Post-Trib carried an article by Carole Carlson assessing Gary mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson’s first year in office.  Her only detractor was Jim Nowacki (who else?), who decried paying six-figure salaries to outside consultants and department heads, necessary in my opinion to attract talented people.  I recall one of Richard Hatcher’s cabinet members on food stamps and Tom Barnes paying his top staffers a meager $40,000. Elsewhere columnist Carrol Vertrees waxed nostalgic about his hometown (Elnora) barber doubling as a tailor and fitting him for his graduation suit, a green pinstripe with a belted back, and having a little room in back where fellows could take showers.  As always Jeff Manes’s Salt column captured my attention, as he interviewed Gerald Born, a retired librarian, antique collector, and   historian of Morocco and northern Newton County.

At lunch professors were discussing inappropriate gifts sincerely given, such as a wooden pie storage container that was too small for the pies that the prof made.  When I was a History grad student in the late Sixties opposed to my government waging a war of aggression against the Vietnamese, my parents gave me large metal bookends shaped like eagles and a framed photo of Colonel Theodore Roosevelt in full uniform.  George Bodmer said there was a Nova show last evening about Neanderthals that I might have enjoyed, a reference to my use of the word in a recent blog.  Perhaps troglodyte would have been a better choice of words. They were African cave dwellers who, according to Greek historian Herodotus, were swift runners, hunted snakes and lizards to eat, and spoke in a tongue that resembled the screeching of bats.

Monday’s campus movie was “The Battle of Algiers,” the 1966 docu-drama about the Algerian struggle for independence against the French.  While the revolutionaries employ terror tactics, bombing public places, the French torture nationalists to extract information about their enemies.  Directed in an evenhanded way by Italian Gillo Pontecorvo, the movie regards the end of colonialism in this North African country as inevitable but the killing as, in the words of reviewer Chris Knipp, “part of a stupid game caused by ignorance and played out compulsively when a political settlement would have been infinitely better.”

Patrick K. O’Donnell’s “Dog Company: The Boys of Pointe du Hoc” was the January book club selection.  The Rangers celebrated in this WW II military history scaled 90-foot cliffs during the D-Day invasion 40 years later, President Ronald Reagan said: “These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc.  These are the men who took the cliffs.  These are the champions who helped free a continent.”  The war, indeed, was far from over for those who survived that operation.  It was another near suicide mission.  Six months later, on December 7, 1944, some of them took part in a bayonet charge to capture Hill 400 during four-month Battle for Hurtgen Forest.  They fought heroically, achieved their objective and held the hill for two days despite 90 percent casualties before being relieved, and even reported evidence (ignored by the higher chain of command) of concentrations of German troops getting ready to launch the surprise offensive known as the Battle of the Bulge.  Sadly, as with so many Vietnam operations, attempting to occupy Hurtgen Forest, in the words of General James Gavin, was a tragic fiasco. There was little to gain, the Germans were dug in, and the terrain such that artillery and command off the air were of little help.  A stupid plan developed by comfortably billeted officers who had little concept of conditions at the front, the operation cost 33,000 casualties and produced no lasting objectives.  Afterwards, the brass didn’t want to talk about it.  The heroism of this band of brothers went for naught, and was insufficiently honored until later by historians such as O’Donnell.  His account ends with Dog Company unceremoniously discharged after the war ended.

At Gino’s presenter Donna Catalano announced she was recovering from the flu and still not feeling well, so she showed a video of O’Donnell’s talk at the Pritzker Military Museum in Chicago.  He really knew his stuff and sympathized with soldiers too often used as cannon fodder by the higher command safely out of harm’s way.  Staying clear hopefully of any flu germs, I chatted with Peter Thayer, who in March will be reporting on Robert K. Murray’s “The Harding Era.”  Years ago, teaching a seminar on the year 1919, I used Murray’s Red Scare, which contained an interesting account of the postwar steel strike.  He thinks Harding has gotten the shaft from historians, and I mentioned how he was a supporter for civil rights for African Americans, unlike his predecessor Woodrow Wilson.  A Republican maverick from East Chicago, 71 year-old Thayer should make an interesting speaker although I probably will take exception to some of his views.  When talk turned to Pearl Harbor, he tended to believe the FDR-hating conspiracy theorists who believe the President knew about the attack in advance.