Oblique City

“I never knew what to do to show you better than lonely,” "Oblique City," Phoenix

At Best Buy I picked up Daft Punk’s “Random Access Memories” for Emma Balay’s twenty-third birthday party and “Bankrupt” by Phoenix.  Phoenix’s Laurent Brancowitz once played with the Daft Punk duo of Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, and one can detect the musical cross-fertilization in the synthpop sound of both bands.  One Phoenix song is titled “Drakkar Noir,” the name of a flat-bottomed Viking ship and also a Guy Larouche fragrance designed to appeal to men’s masculine fantasies.  I don’t pretend to understand Phoenix’s lyrics.  The chorus to “Oblique City” starts out: “Coca-Cola, beaten-up bottles, is there anything else?”  It ends: “Is there anything more for me?  Or anything else for me?”

In “Love, Marilyn” actors read from the movie starlet’s personal letters and dairies or recite what others have written about her (most notably Truman Capote and Norman Mailer).  What I liked best were the photos and film clips of the beautiful, mentally unstable, lonely woman.  Marilyn owned up to posing nude for 50 dollars and bravely stood by Arthur Miller when Congressional reactionaries red-baited him.  She created a public persona that brought her fame but trapped her behind an artificial mask. The HBO documentary hardly touches on her affairs with the Kennedys but mentions that Twentieth Century Fox fired her for walking off the set of “Something’s Gotta Give” to perform at the President’s birthday party.  Some believe the mid-twentieth century, male-dominated Hollywood studio system killed her; she never could transcend the image of being a dumb blond rather than a serious actress.

Speaking in favor of immigration reform, Hawaii Senator Mazie Hirono recalled coming to America from Japan in 1955 at age 8 after her mother left an abusive husband.  Mazie attended the University of Hawaii the same year I graduated from that institution with a master’s degree.  In 2012 she secured her seat with a landslide victory over former governor Linda Lingle.

John Dos Passos ends “The Shackles of Power” with a chapter on Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America.”  A French aristocrat whose stated purpose for visiting America in the early 1830s was to examine prisons, de Tocqueville traveled widely and generally had a favorable view of the young country.  He thought slavery an abomination, however, and predicted that Native Americans would become extinct.  He contrasts the proud, charming Indians he met out west, unspoiled by interaction with whites, with those begging on the streets of Buffalo, New York, “brutalized by our wine and liquor.”

Saturday we played bridge with the Hagelbergs and caught the end of the Blackhawks victory over the Bruins to get within a game of winning the Stanley Cub.  Sunday I got in four board games with Dave and Tom (winning St. Petersburg and League of Six) before attending “Hello Dolly” at Valpo’s Memorial Opera House.  LuAnne Pezel, so good as Mother Superior in “Nunsense,” was perfect for the title role.   Andy Polomchak shined as knucklehead Barnaby, who wins the hand of millinery assistant Ermengarde (a fetching Christine Perry).  The story was silly but the music great. As kids Dave and Phil were in an IUN summer production directed by Garrett Cope.  Afterwards we dined at nearby Don Quijote’s.  The owner gave us two free appetizers and two glasses of port each at meal’s end. 

Niece Lisa, with Grace and Oliver, spent the afternoon at West Beach and visited us for a couple hours before returning to South Bend.  Oliver became fascinated with the game Cathedral, where (in the solitaire version) the object is to put all the pieces back onto the board.   After some false starts he did it three different ways.  Grace found four-sided blocks that I played with as a kid at great grandmother Frace’s house in Easton.  Two sides were plain colored (either red on one side, white on the other, or blue and yellow); the other two sides were either half blue and half yellow or half white and half read.  One could make designs similar to quilts. 

“Thomas Jefferson” author Jon Meacham wrote in Time that Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton may be the two main Presidential contenders in 2016 and that a younger generation of Bushes and Clintons could be in the political picture for years to come.  In the “Ten Questions” last page Mavis Staples mentioned that Michael Jackson’s father Joe often sought advice from “Pops” Staples, her dad, who when the family recorded with Vee-Jay Records, insisted on fair contracts regarding royalties and refused to commit to a long-term contract.  Asked if Bob Dylan really asked “Pops” if he could marry her, Mavis replied that Bob was probably joking but that she appreciated the compliment.

Ron Cohen attended a folk music benefit in New York City.  Pete Seeger, 94, received a standing ovation when he arrived and was lured on stage for the finale.  Ron roomed with Folklore Center owner and former Beat poet Izzy Young, who nurtured Bob Dylan’s early career and whom Toni and I stayed with 15 years ago in Stockholm.  We also spent three days with Scott Barretta, who was at the concert and put out a book about Izzy.

Checking the obits, I noticed that steelworker Henry “Long Hair” Moore passed away.  As Richard Dorson noted in “Land of the Millrats,” almost all steelworkers had nicknames, not all complimentary.  Also succumbing at age 81, Marion Tokarski, who some say was partly responsible for Richard G. Hatcher being elected mayor in 1967.  A Glen Park committeewoman, she revealed that Lake County boss John Krupa was employing illegal registration procedures, claiming the tactics were necessary to stop Communism.  As a result of a subsequent lawsuit, a thousand “ghost” voters were stricken from the list of eligible voters.  In 2008 Carolyn McCrady, organizing a dinner to honor Hatcher on the fortieth anniversary of his taking office, asked me to try to track Tokarski down.  I was able to do so.  She had a long nursing career and lived in Portage.

Frank Roman is dead at age 88.  A 1943 Gary Emerson grad and participant in the Battle of the Bulge as a forward scout for tank destroyers, Roman starred in football, baseball, and basketball at Wabash College before earning a law degree at IU.  The Miller resident served as president of the Lions Club and chairman of the Gary Old Timers Banquet.  We had numerous friends in common, including Rich Gonzalez and Tom Eaton.  He was ruggedly handsome man; I’d never have guessed that he was nearly 20 years older than I.   A second Frank Roman, no relation, taught at Horace Mann and donated numerous materials to the Archives, including a diary in Polish kept when the Nazis invaded his native land. Dubbed “Mr. Bicentennial,” Roman decorated his home at 561 Taft with a 1976 patriotic display that included a Bennington Flag made from 20 boxes of facial tissues.

The season finale of “Mad Men” was a fitting climax to 1968, the long, hard year.  Don appears to be cracking up but may indeed be finally finding himself.  He recalls a preacher telling him, “Nobody is beyond forgiveness” and returns with his kids to where it happened, in front of the brothel where he grew up. As credits begin to roll, on comes Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now,” including the line “So many things I would have done, but clouds got in the way.”

“Norma Rae,” which I watched in Nicole Anslover’s class, is based on a true story, only in real life the textile mill workers didn’t win the union election (at least not initially) and the Sally Field character (Crystal Lee Sutton) ended up divorced.  Sad.  The movie’s last line, “I think you like me,” is what Field said when accepting her Oscar.  The former TV star from “Gidget” and “The Flying Nun” finally won respect.  The mill scenes are very realistic.  The lint flying around reminded me that workers were nicknamed Lintheads, similar to steelworkers being labeled millrats.  Parenthetically, Dave’s high school band was named Lint, and followers called themselves Lintheads.  Chatting with a student whose father was a soldier and mother was Vietnamese, I suggested Robert Olen Butler’s “A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain,” especially the story of a vet who finally received permission bring his child to America after 14 years.

Posing in front of an Oscar Mayor Wienermobile. Missy Brush joked, “My life literally is now complete.”  I recall a Wienermobile driven by a midget stopping in Fort Washington near Trinity Lutheran Church when I was a kid.  Exciting!  Also reported on Facebook: Anne Balay sent in the final draft of “Steel Closets” – “2 hard copies, photos, proof sheet, cover letter.  IT’S A BOOK.  I WROTE IT!!!!”  Brenden Bayer wondered who recalled what logo was once on the grain elevator silos that come into view when crossing the Skyway Bridge into Chicago.  Answer: Falstaff.

John Hmurovic sent me a delightful manuscript entitled “The Battle of Mineral Springs.”  Armanis F. Knotts, who as corporate land agent bought up the lakefront land on which U.S. Steel constructed Gary Works, attempted to start a resort near the present town of Porter that he hoped would rival French Lick in southern Indiana.  He put together a syndicate that purchased 1,600 acres of land accessible to Chicagoans via the Lake Shore Railroad.  Part of his plan involved constructing a track and instituting horse racing, which was legal in Indiana although gambling was not.  Knotts claimed that gambling would not be part of his plan and readied a track for a grand opening on October 16, 1912.  For six days races took place before crowds numbering in the thousands, with bookies from Chicago unofficially taking bets.  On October 22 Governor Thomas Marshall ordered National Guardsmen to close the track.  Using Springfield rifles and fixed bayonets, they followed his orders.  A.F. Knotts reopened the track in 1913, but after 18 days, new governor Samuel Ralston closed operations down.  The track burned down in 1917, and A.F. Knotts moved to Florida, where he founded the community of Yankeetown.  A steel process plant was built where the track once sat.  French Lick owner Tom Taggart, a former mayor of Indianapolis and adviser to Thomas Marshall, in all likelihood used his political clout to destroy potential rival Mineral Springs.

At Emma Balay’s party neighbor Bob Calvert brought cooked salmon that he had caught in Alaska.  Anne mentioned that people stop and take photos of their brightly colored house (purple with bright green shutters).  Susan Briggs, wearing EC Swimming sweat pants, teaches English and called Dave her mentor.  Jonathyne Briggs arrived with his three kids; he mentioned that after Nicole and Chris team-taught their Presidency course, the university claimed they owed another half course each some time in the future. Isn’t that ex post facto?   A sudden storm brought everyone inside; I later learned that winds reached 70 mph.  I waited it out and left just as Archives intern Elizabeth LaDuke was arriving.  “Ms. LaDuke,” I said.  Emma interjected, “I thought you agreed to call her Beth.”

Downed branches made driving through Miller precarious.  It reminded me of the day a sudden burst of wind knocked down trees on campus; Doc Lukas was hit by a large flying branch and had to go to the hospital.  A pine tree pinned another prof to the ground.  I arrived home to find the power out; it stayed out till 1 a.m.  So much for watching the Blackhawks.  When the radio came on, I heard the unbelievable news that Chicago, down 2-1 with 76 seconds left to play, scored twice within 17 seconds to win their second Stanley Cup in four years.  For the next hour I watched highlights on several different channels.