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CLINTON ST. QUARTERLY Vol. 4, NO. 2 SATISFYING BUT NOT FILLING Slimmer 1982 Cover, Mary Robben How That Building Got To Look That Way Michael Graves.......... 4 Bruno Loewenberg, Artist and Survivor Iphano Blair................... 6 The Great Bus Caper Paul Missal, Shannon Mayfield, Bill Will, Joel Deese, Lucinda Parker, Christopher Rauschenberg, Isaac Shamsud-Din, The Girl Artists, Don Merkt, Henk Pander, Jan Ross....................... TO Post-Conservative America Kevin Ph illips............... 76 Fourth of July Fireworks Walt C u r t is............... 78 Post-Industrial Portland Dana Hoyle............... 23 Warming To The Freeze Martha Gies .............. 26 Garbage: The Burning Issue Steve Dodge, Jim Johnson, Stan Kahn..................... 30 Louis X Ike Horn................. 34 Eddie Harris Can Play Anything Lynn Darroch ............... 37 Red Beans, Rice ‘n’ Red Hot Music Lenny Dee................. 47 E.T. And Beyond Penny Allen............... 42 New Light On Women Filmmakers Peggy Lindquist........... 43 Northwest Artists Workshop Finds A New Home Leslie Tose............... 44 True Comics Lynda J. Barry............ 46 The Clinton St. Quarterly is published by the Clinton St. Theatre, 2522 SE Clinton, Portland, OR 97202. Unless otherwise noted, all contents copyright © 1982 Clinton St. Quarterly. HELP WANTED The Clinton St. Quarterly needs an experienced ad person comfortable in both agency and small business contexts to supplement our dynamic sales staff. Periodic full time. Generous commission. The Quarterly also needs a fundraiser experienced in all aspects of non-profit and/or media solicitation on a national basis. Strict commission. Part-time long-term prospects. For both positions, apply by mail only to: L. Dee/CSQ 2522 SE Clinton Portland, OR 97202 The Great Bus Caper _ EDITORIAL ©ummer is the time when we, citi- zens of agreat nation, pause to celebrate our political heritage and consider what, 206 years after the fact, it all means. The greatest aspiration shared by our diverse body politic is freedom . .. freedom as opposed to slavery, as opposed to tyranny, as opposed to unreasonable constraint. What inevitably results, however, as we cast our projectiles and eyes skyward, in honor of the brave men and women who have struggled to create and defend that freedom, is that those in power take it upon themselves to reduce it all to jingoism. Freedom becomes prosperity, freedom becomes unsurpassed might, freedom becomes a military solution to every challenge, threat, slight or rebuff we as a nation experience. This year, as our economy sinks ever further into a morass of indebtedness, fueled now largely by defense spending, we are being challenged to enter into the space wars, where once again we're assured we are far behind. Our near-sacred notion of freedom becomes the rationale for even further plundering of the public’s purse. Part of the problem is our nation’s obsession with and genius for creating new technology. It requires its own language, and ultimately its own way of thinking. Such language consists of precise, scientific descriptions for a world that is totally mutable, whose essence is change. Or when such language proves unpalatable, euphemisms are substituted to cloud the bitter reality. Thus a garbage burner becomes a “ resource recovery’’ plant. One of the strengths of our culture has been its ability to adapt, to adjust constantly to the future in our present. But in many ways this has left us uncertain, confused, unsure of what things mean, what is right. Ronald Reagan and his cohorts have taken it upon themselves to set us straight, to reduce all this confusion by a return to the “ tried and true,” however mythological, while they plunge further into the world of high-tech solutions to their concerns. We can never return, nor would we want to, to the simple world of our forebears, for behind the facades of peaceful streets and happy families lies another reality of sexual and racial oppression and colonialism we have been struggling to overcome these past 30 years. If things seem confusing now, it is because the old models no longer apply, and the new world is not yet a reality. Confused or not, few of us are incapable of listing a long litany of problems that face us. But what we need now is a larger vision of freedom not limited to our shores, not limited to our time. The challenge of surviving into the next century is upon us. To make it, together, we must commit ourselves to long-term efforts which avoid the easy fix or the idea that our freedom is possible at the expense of others on the planet. Let us celebrate our freedoms, our hopes and opportunities. May we make them universal. DM Co-Editors David Milholland Peggy Lindquist Lenny Dee Jim Blashfield Design and Production Jim Blashfield Production Assistant David Milholland Proofreader Walt Curtis Theresa Marquez Ad Production Peggy Lindquist Stacey Fletcher Ad Sales JoLynn Amstutz Denny Chericone Lenny Dee Sandy Wallsmith Typesetting J ill Wilson Richard Francis Publisher’s Friend Thanks — Archetype Camerawork Paul Diener Publisher’s Friend Contributing Artists Joel Deese The Girl Artists Susan Gustavson Michael Graves Dana Hoyle David Kline Stephen Leflar Shannon Mayfield Don Metkt Paul Missal Henk Pander Lucinda Parker Christopher Rauschenberg Mary Robben Jan Ross Isaac Shamsud-Din Bill Will Steve Winkenwerder Matt Wuerker Contributing Photographers Betsy Beres Iphano Blair Jim Blashfield Robert Bogue Paul Diener Laurie Meeker David Milholland Thanks Derek Abrams Elizabeth Bunker Tom Clark Laura Di Trapani Jeff Jacobs Ed Reckford Charlotte Uris John Wanberg Advertisers call 222-6039 THEAWARDWINNINGPAPERC A N Y d a i E t d y m P r _ . e e _ s _ s. State _ Zip CLINTON ST. QUARTERLY est you mistakenly take us for the footloose, eccentric publication we are, __Jwe wish to bring your attention to the fact that we’ve been quietly accumulating quite a pile of awards. In the past two years, if the truth be known, we’ve won 13 professional awards for the quality of our writing and visuals. So if people ask you why you read the CSQ and, try as you might, the reason escapes you, tell them that in competition with all of Oregon’s non-daily papers, we’ve won First Prizes for education writing, illustration, and personality profiles and Second and Third Prizes in the sports writing, illustration, business writing and humorous features categories. In fact, this year we swept the field in illustration, and on top of that, received a national design award. We’d like to think that all of this is because we’re doing something different and worthwhile. If you think so too, we’d appreciate your support. Subscribe to the CSQ — four quarterly issues, $5. When you subscribe we’ll toss in five passes to the Clinton St. Theatre. Sound good? I will receive 4 issues & 5 passes. SUBSCRIBE I WANT TO SEND A SUBSCRIPTION TO A FRIEND Name__; Address. City___ S ta te_ — Z ip --------— Send the theatre passes to: me them Send to CSQ, 2522 SE Clinton, Portland, OR 97202. Clinton St. Quarterly 3
HOW THAT BUILDING GOT TO LOOK THAT WAY Drawings from Michael Graves' Sketchbook The scientific tradition is everywhere," says architect Michael Graves, “and while some things should look machinelike, others should not. Houses and offices are two of them. " Whatever else people say about Graves’ remarkable bu i ld ing designs, he is never accused of creating structures that look like machines. Ancient temples perhaps, or buildings out of Flash Gordon serials — his work has been both praised and condemned. What Graves, who is also an interior designer, painter, and Princeton University professor, has done to create so much controversy among the professional establishment and people on the street alike, is to make buildings that challenge conventional ideas about what architecture should be. With his recent work, such as the Portland Building, now nearing completion, Graves flies in the face of 80 years of architectural tradition. He rejects, in his work and his writing, the stagnation of the Modernist movement, the once-vital architectural rebellion that resulted in the glass and steel boxes that have become fixtu res o f the con tem po ra ry skyline. Graves feels that by turning the ideal of industrial e fficiency into an architectural aesthetic, the Modernists lost track of human beings, the value of poetry, and the role that myth and archetype play in our lives. In the following drawings from M ichae l Graves’ sketchbook, we’re given an opportunity to see this adventurous artist and architect’s ideas develop, as he works his way toward a design that will soon become a landmark of the Portland skyline. JB 4 C lin ton St. Quarterly
Clinton St. Quarterly
In the end art is freedom. Bruno Loewenberg 0 Artist and Survivor By Iphano Blair golden star and the company insignia . . . I observed him always. No one can say for sure what is the very source of his artistry. Courage of super-human dimension is necessary to present your own concept, free of all conventions. In the end art is freedom. It makes you free to think, to feel, to do your own thing. I did one of my best paintings in half an hour. Sometimes I did a beautiful painting and destroyed it. Art is the preservation of our childhood: the world of fantasy, of fairy tales, of myths and ceremonies. Art is the growth to manhood, to grow up into the computerized world of adults. The symbiosis of both parts harmoniously is art. Everybody manages that more or less . . . the executive playing with miniature railroads. The fantastic world of dreams is the nucleus of our artistic creations. To walk into nature, to feel nature, to be nature provides you with the ne afternoon in October, an elderly gentleman came into Ancient Currents Gallery (in San Francisco) and plopped a stack of color photos down on my desk. Why this venerable man would select this gallery, known for our primitive, international and modern artists influenced by the tropics, baffled me. Soon I made an appointment to see the work in person. There, sitting in a living room whose walls were crowded with work by Mr. Loewenberg as well as lithographs by Chagall, Dali, Miro and Picasso, we sat comfortably downing rounds of schnapps while the artist, aided by quips from his wife, Lisbeth, conversed his way around nearly a century of creative living. Suddenly, I realized the connection. I had been so busy looking into and gathering works that inter-relate modern and “primitive” art, I hadn’t realized that here was a patriarch in the very same field, a fellow quite modern but also of a tribe . . . a tribe I share through my mother, who like Mr. Loewenberg, is one of the few members to carry our heritage, as it should be, from ancient to current. The Jews were the first tribe to decide to enter Western Civilization and still maintain their codes. It wasn’t until the 1900s that the “middle ages” were lifted from the shoulders of European Jewry. There were still pogroms as late as 1920, but in Germany, the “Rights of Man” had finally filtered across the border and for a generation life seemed to open up. Jews could vote, hold office, and create their own world and art, which they did wholeheartedly, both in ethnic forms such as the Yiddish Theater, and as major components of the Expressionists, Dadaists, Surrealists and Fantastic Realists. It is my conviction that this change in the arts, and its obvious symbolic effect on society, was instrumental in fueling the paranoid classicist backlash arch-typified by Adolph Hitler. More schizophrenic than the average politician, who generally condones all backroom debauchery, Hitler sported some of the most small-minded aesthetics in all of Europe. The cure he instituted for his ailing fatherland was severe cultural amputation, but imagine how enraged he must have been when his “Decadent Art Show,” designed to indicate the degeneration of post-1900 art, was popular among his fellow Aryans. What undoubtedly disturbed him the most in modern art was the tendency of the artists to express the two sides of things, equally and simultaneously (like Picasso’s noses), a concept abhorrent to a schizophrenic for whom division is the basic nature of life. As the noose of cultural control tightened around Middle Europe, the creative minds had to work faster and better. Some saw the “endgame” of such rigid cultural competition and fled; others, not so fortunate, survived through the strength of their inner vision. My personal need to understand how this could be done by sensitive souls and how they could maintain their awareness, led me to encourage Mr. Loewenberg to speak on such topics. It is a delicate subject that I wouldn’t broach with the toughest “survivor,” because to probe the subconscious of a man, where such things are absorbed, would be like opening a “Pandora’s box” . . . unless that man is one who employs his subconscious daily and is accustomed to unearthing its contents for use in his art. Such a man, who has cultivated his awareness and dealt with the difficulties in his own mind might be able to give us a clue how such artistic energy became the power for many to weather the dark night of Western Civilization and perhaps prove the psychic nature of creativity. As a man who expresses himself with paint, he was sometimes uncomfortable with the precise nature of the written word. I assured him, though, as an artist, not an historian, he would be better able to paint a realistic picture of an epoch, though only forty years behind us, that had become an irreparable cipher to mankind due to the monstrous nature of history. A Conversation Bruno Loewenberg: I don’t even know when I began painting. I was always drawing, even as a boy .. . they were humorous drawings. I don’t know how great the influence of my father was. He was a ship chandler. I remember him having a big book into which he painted with water colors. He painted all the incoming and outgoing ships, but only their funnels . . . white funnel with a blue field, a ■ Photographs by Iphano Blair essential means to create. Go and do it! The universe creates the music but the human heart performs it. There must be a sense, a meaning in a painting, or it is all craziness. Sure the artist is crazy . . . he must be crazy because he cannot accept everything he sees. He has to bend it into another creation. This is why Cezanne is so great, because he changed the picture of the world and of nature. There is an intriguing similarity between a painting and human life. In life you move from place to place, according to your adventurous impulse. At each station you grow larger, on the way to each you destroy so many 6 Clinton St. Quarterly
things of which you are not aware. But you add new qualities which are essential for the continuation of your life. I was born in Stettin, which is now a Polish city, on the Oder River, which is like San Francisco on the sea. Iphano Blair: So you grew up on ships? BL: I grew up almost on ships, yes. My father paid for my education himself. IB: Was that a Jewish school? BL: No, I attended the so-called Gymnasium, which is a preparation school for the University. IB: But you never went to the University. What did you do? BL: I became a bookman after I left school. IB: How did you sell the books? BL: . . . I first started in books as an apprentice . . . my father brought me to a bookshop and they took me and I had to learn for three years. Without these three years, you could not be a bookman in Germany, no. Here you can be a bookman from one day to the next. IB: Were most of the people Jewish? BL: No, everything Jewish was hidden. IB: Did they know you were Jewish? BL: Of course, they must have known; they only had to look at my name — Loewenberg. Do you know where the name Loewenberg comes from? In the Middle Ages the Jews were not permitted to live in a city, so to live somewhere they had to have someone who took them over, who protected them. And one of the famous dignitaries, a count who took care of my ancestors, was a fellow by the name of Graf . . . Count Von Loewen- berg. All the Jews living under his protection took the name. This is how we have all the Silversteins, the Applebaums, flowering names, they are all Jewish. IB: Was there much antisem itism when you were working in the bookstore amongst the people in the shop? BL: Don’t ask too much, you see it opens a book for me. My life with antisemitism is a special chapter; I don’t know where to begin. IB: Well, jus t tell us a few things to give an idea. BL: Sure, the Germans without being anti-semitic is not a thing that you can say. This is what made it so easy for Hitler to overrun the Jews. IB: So you have never met a German who is not antisem itic? BL: Oh, many! My first wife, she wanted to be Jewish. She kept telling me, but I had to tell her . . . i t ’s not a question of a little water or something. You just have to be . . . born. My friend Tepper . . . he is not only my friend but a bookman like myself. He was a bookman at one time in the shop where I worked. Then he opened his own shop and became very successful. When everything was over [the war] he became a supervisor of the city. We visited him and he led us to the various places of which he took care. There were some memorials erected to the memory of the people who attempted to kill Hitler. It was the house where they were executed, the [would-be] murderers of Hitler. He took care of making a temple out of this place. He was instrumental in bringing these buildings to be a monument in German history . . . my colleague Tepper.. . . IB: When were you married? BL: From 1922-1929. My wife worked as a singer in the cabaret, a nice girl, but we were young . . . she still lives in Berlin . . . she’s 82. We s till communicate. IB: How about the fact that she was a gentile? BL: All my friends were Aryans. Nobody asked, like America . . . a free country. Not until Hitler came; Hitler made an issue out of it and what an issue. He had his men working for that. Since I told you I was a person who is not politically minded . . . a non-political person is a non-fighter . . . I let it go. Hitler was there, he had his say, he took his life. He did the right thing. He delivered mankind from one of the most horrible criminals there was. Fortunately mankind did not have to come up with a trial against him. He made the trial himself, by killing himself. That is enough for me. IB: Did any of the artists know what was happening? BL: No . . . not until it was too late. They were very naive. This one woman wanted to introduce me to Goebbels, whom she knew, as if talking with me, a beloved friend of hers, a human being, would make a difference. IB: Did you go? BL: No. IB: They thought they could change politics with art? BL: Yes . . . I want to tell you a story. One time we were having a party, everybody was drinking, on a side street in Berlin. And across the street, a small street, was another house where arrived a truck of S.S. men and they rounded up all the people from the house. We continued to have our fun. Some of us made jokes even . . . “What are those people doing? They must have done something.” Politics were always very unsafe; I always heard stories we didn’t know; we thought it was politics. IB: But the art scene was s t i l l safe, even with the Dadaists or whoever? BL: Sure, of course . . . until Hitler. Then he had his Enartete Kunst (“ the decadent art” show). All the moderns had to participate, his showing of decadence of the arts. The artists had only one advantage: they were not Jews. I knew them all, from when I had the bookstore. They all came into the bookstore. I sold many of their works, engravings and lithographs by a very good Berlin publishing house. Everyone was buying them. They were reasonab ly priced , e tch ing s by whoever was having a big show, the newest thing. I put up small exhibitions in my shop. IB: Like who? BL: Schmitt-Rotloff . . . Pechstein, Hofer, Otto Muller, Bechman. IB: Who bought these works? BL: Oh, business people with a high life style, but they had a certain instinct, a nose for where they could find art. I once had a Teniers . . . I think, the Elder — a Dutch painter. So I took it to this guy, the owner of Lysol — you know it is a German company? He looked at it for a long time . . . I waited. Then he gave it back to me. He said he couldn’t buy it. And he told me from then on I should know that he never buys anything for less than 50,000 marks. So next time I come I should . . . remember. IB: How about the artists, how did they live? BL: Well, we were in coffeehouses mostly. It was a big enclave, all these cabaret people were coming up from Vienna and opening theaters. Everyone was in the coffeehouses . . . Brecht was there. Always talking . . . some of them were very poor. There was this one painter, a friend of mine . . . Hoextner. A drug addict. His clothes were ruined. He used to go around in the cafes from table to table asking each person for ten cents . . . ten cents until he had a dollar fifty, then he would run off to the pharmacy to buy drugs. Cocaine. They used to offer it to me . . . all the time. I never Jried any but it was everywhere, in the cafes, at all the tables. The artists would either have to accept it or ignore it. Hoextner always had his equipment with him. He would inject himself in the leg, through the pants, in the cafe, and continue talking all the while. He lived in a bathtub; he took me there once. He walked in a stoop with a wild look on his face. Sometimes we would go to the museums or galleries . . . we would listen in on what people were saying and then say things to them. We had many arguments with the bourgeoisie. They would think we were crazy; we wore funny clothes. Everyone had that one thing that they always wore, one guy had these funny spats, a hat, or a scarf on which one would depend. IB: Sort of like hippies? BL: Sure, just like them. And we hippies used to go out all the time. I think they were sort of scared of us all in a group. We used to go to the theater or to hear music. It was a very beautiful time. People were coming in from all over Europe . .. many artists. Some were very successful because Berlin had the quickest impulse. IB: How about the thirties .. . during the inflation? BL: Ha ha ha . . . you don’t know what inflation is. I was afraid to sell a book. Today five hundred, then the next day it is worth a thousand and next week a million. IB: Did people help each other out during the inflation . . . was there sharing of food or something? BL: No, I really don’t know how we survived. People left their houses in the city with a bag with whatever valClinton St. Quarterly 7
uables they had and went out to the country, where they would buy ham, eggs, spinach. IB: Your wife was working in the cabaret then, so they must have continued .. . BL: The arts were booming. The impulse to create is greater in people in times of danger. If you are threatened, you are extremely excited; your normal life is threatened and this impulse is the mother of art. If it is a normal time and you can buy anything you want at a grocery store, then there is nothing to excite you. You don’t have any impulse to create; you are sitting there eating what you bought. But if you have to fight for it, you are careful, and if you are careful you have to be excited. IB: Now you said before that in 1937-38 there was a lot of artistic activity going on around Berlin. BL: You know where I was living, near the Kurfursten Damm where all the activities were, it was a sort of enclave. They even permitted one coffee house. Here the Jews could come in and have their coffee. The only place where there was no sign “ No Jews Permitted.” It was a very nice coffee house. I went there every day to have my coffee. In the enclave if they wanted to change, they would have to change every shop, every theater, every cabaret. IB: They would lose their business. Lisbeth Loewenberg: But they did it anyway. BL: Till a certain point, then came the time when you could not see a Jew on the streets. They just took them off the streets to the concentration camps. Then was the “ Crystal Night,” because a simple-minded Jew in Paris went to the embassy and shot the German consul. Now can you imagine what that meant for the living Jews, that one Jew kills a German Nazi consul. This was the reason for the famous “ Crystal Night” when they took everybody Jewish. Every shop was smashed to pieces. IB: In Berlin? BL: In Berlin and all over, in every city. Still, as you know, the Jews were not brought in silence. They are not silent. They made their jokes. They had nothing more to live by. They had their forced labor, digging or whatever, trying to live on these government stamps. At the end of the week, you received maybe 75 cents a day to live, but as the Jews say .. . LL: You get used to your worries and learn to live with them. IB: This is a general question: The Jewish people, do you see them as more speculative people or are they more realistic? BL: They are both. IB: How about in terms of being dreamers, dreaming of something? BL: I think they have every trait. IB: They are not particularly pessimistic or optimistic? So even during the Berlin time or the time in the camp you found the same thing, some were pessimistic and some were optimistic. There wasn’t a sort of general flow? BL: Well, I would say fortunately, in every moment in our life something takes over and helps you to continue your life and you have the greatest pleasure out of life. If you come into a concentration camp or prison your mind changes right away; you are no longer the old person. Where do I sleep? Where do I get my food? These questions become so majestic and go over you so that all the other metaphysical questions disappear. You don’t ask would I live this life over again; there is no such question. The question is, where am I sleeping? What do I have to cover me? What soup will I eat? And then you go to work and there is no other question. There were a few philosophers in the camp, known philosophers, who managed to raise such a question. We dared and we had the strength to think about metaphysics. One of my friends was named Heinemann. He was a very famous politician. He was in the German Landstag [Senate], They caught him and he was there in the concentration camp. And we always managed to come together for work, to get the same handle on the same box of sand to carry up and down. And we talked sometimes, somehow metaphysical talks. But most of the time you have no other idea than to stay alive. IB: When you raised those metaphysical questions, what did you come up with? Blame for the German people? Did you question why this was happening? What things did you deal with? BL: Very difficult to answer such a question. If you are 13 months in a concentration camp, you have how If you come into a concentration camp or prison your mind changes right away; you are no longer the old person. Where do I sleep? Where do I get my food? These questions become so majestic . . . all the other metaphysical questions disappear. It is still my habit here in San Francisco. When we go to the restaurant I order a bowl of soup, wonderful clam chowder. Who thought clam chowder in the camps? Nobody. Now all this makes you strong. many days? Almost 400 days to come up with metaphysical questions. Questions which have nothing to do with your naked life, these I call metaphysical. IB: This fellow the politician, as someone in the German political structure, did he offer any reasoning or philosophy behind what was happening? BL: No, we talked about living writers, poets and so forth. He knew under no circumstances would he come out of the camps alive. Because they swore he would die in the camp. There was a whole company of Viennese artists, actors, in the same part I was living. All the famous actors from Vienna were sitting there darning socks. One day I got horrible pain like sciatica, so they sent me to a place where I could sit. This was not great. They only sent me there because if I could not do anything worthwhile for the camp, at least I could darn socks. There we were all sitting, all the Viennese artists. Mr. Grunbaum and Farkas Beda Loehner and Leopolli . . . cabaret people, all very sad, nobody was laughing. There was a sign there which you found near the door: “Only birds are singing.” IB: Who put that there? BL: The Authorities — Hitler. IB: Because they knew there were artists there? BL: So that nobody had the idea to sing. Could be that someone starts to sing, ah, ah, no such thing — only birds are singing. Ha ha, I must laugh if I think about it. But I am sitting here telling you about the camp. I should smash the [tape] machine. I didn’t have the idea to tell you about the camp. It was forbidden to me. They swore if I ever told anything about the camp that they would send an undersea boat to catch me on the high seas. They would get me anywhere; I was not supposed to speak about i t . . . . This they told me as I was leaving. IB: So there was absolutely no artistic expression amongst these cabaret people? Did they ever sing, was there any small theater? Any form? BL: No songs, we had no songs. The birds never sang. We had an orchestra, a band. There were professional musicians among the thousands of prisoners, and they formed the band. And every afternoon they played when you came back from work; we came through the big gate to our various barracks where we lived, but before we went to our barracks, the whole camp had to be standing on the parade place to make roll call, every afternoon about 5 o’clock. There was music. On this side there were whipping posts. If you were marked for punishment, you were strapped in on a wooden horse on one side and there would stand an S.S. man with a big whip, and on the other an S.S. man would count one . .. two . . . till 25. It happened every day, and during the punishment of the poor fellow, who was very badly hurt, we saw their bottoms all cut, and during their punishment the damn orchestra played the famous band song, popa . . . pie . . . da . . . die. There we had song, we were not only suffering, ha ha. IB: I was thinking, was there nothing amongst the people privately? BL: No, there was no private connection, not even in discussion, not a talk. Silently we were sitting there, not talking. IB: There were no services? BL: No! How could you? You think this is a company, over which is spread a dark cover, a dark thin blanket of dark material, over your head, over your body, and there you will live all day and all night! Only sadness. IB: So that dark blanket extinguished all expression of art? BL: All expression. Terrible. IB: I was wondering if there was any artistic reflection of that experience? BL: My face here [referring to the painting “ Ecce Homo” ] is from the life in the camp. It makes you bloated. You see every body was blistered off, everybody had sick faces. And the clothes you had . . . you could not recognize a person who comes out of the camp. I never met a person who was in the camp. I don’t know who was ever in the camp, because we were all naked. Maybe it ’s illusion. Maybe I dreamt it — nobody saw me there. Did you see me there? No. My wife didn’t see me. It’s all an illusion. Hitler is an illusion. IB: Some people are trying to say that now. There are historical groups trying to establish that fact. But in a U.S. court of law it was ruled that it is not an illusion. There really were camps. An historically established fact. BL: And you should think that a story like Hitler’s would be an atom bomb and change the whole of mankind, somehow opposite the Jews. No, not at all; it didn’t take away from anti-semitism .. . not a bit. You think we left anti-semitism? I have nothing to represent of my family, no one. All my aunts, all my uncles, all my nephews, all my nieces, all my cousins there were all killed, all of them. My sister and her little boy, they were all killed in concentration camps. I have nothing to represent my family. IB: But your sister was the one who got the ticket for you to get out? BL: She got a ticket for me, and then she was taken to the concentration camp. IB: Why didn't she get out too? BL: I don’t know; that is another question. Why didn’t I get out before? I was warned, I was repeatedly warned, by well-meaning persons, and I didn’t get out. One day I was sitting in the coffee shop, having coffee, and this fellow sitting next to me turns and says, “ Listen, you should not even go home to get your things; you should just leave as fast as possible.” I looked at him as if he were crazy. “Why?” I asked him. “ Because we are planning to do terrible things.” “ How can you do these things?” I asked, and he replied only, “We are developing ways.” But you can’t go out, if you live in a city that is your home. Better not to mention these things. IB: You don’t think it is important for the young people of today to know these things? BL: What good is it? IB: Maybe the whole world can learn from the mistakes. We as human beings . . . BL: Try . . . try, you are young enough. IB: So you didn’t follow politics much in those days? BL: Unfortunately, I am completely un-political, apolitical entirely. IB: Is this from your own nature or a philosophy? BL: No, my nature. To live in peace, it is an illusion. I have the illusion I live in peace. I don’t want any arguments. I don’t want to know another man is a Christian. I am invited tomorrow afternoon at six o’clock by a very nice fellow; he is from Lebanon. He was at his window today and he calls over, we always greet, and asks if I can come over tomorrow for a glass of wine. Ho ho ho, with the greatest of pleasure, for a glass of wine I will come over at six o’clock. I don’t want to know if he is Lebanese, if he is anti-Jew or what. Leave me alone. We are human beings; let me have my glass of wine .. . that is all I want. I think a person who loses the basic naivete and spontaneity can hardly be called young. To be creative he needs these two basic qualities, 8 Clinton St. Quarterly
and if you are able to maintain these traits you stay young to create your own work . . . independent of old age. IB: One time during our conversation, you said you went into the concentration camp as if you were a “puppy.” Somehow the same naivete and spontaneity you seem to feel carried you through them. Am I correct? BL: Oh yeah, it has a lot to do with survival because the reality of things doesn’t touch you. At leasf not as much as your own fantasies. Your own image of your own self, they are stronger. You eat once a day in the concentration camp; you get a bowl of soup — no meat, but you eat this soup with great hunger, eager to have it, on long tables. If somebody died, the same moment he died everyone was grabbing his bowl. In the camp after this operation when they cut open my hand, you can still see here, and they took out the pus and then they threw me . . . out of a back door into a field, with twenty or thirty people all with bandaged arms and legs. There was no anesthesia, nobody had any. They operated as you were, in full consciousness . . . they cut you up everywhere. As I came out into this field where everyone was sitting, I had to start work. Because in the concentration camp it is forbidden to have time to rest. This is the principle. They make you work even if you are drowsy. They gave me a basket of twigs and some sharp glass splinters which you took between your knees, and with your one free hand you had to shave the skin off the limb; this is what you had to do. There was another basket where you put the shavings. All this you had to do but all this kept you very healthy. I never was hungry. I never was . . . I never desired more than a bowl of soup. It is still my habit here in San Francisco. When we go to the restaurant, I order a bowl of soup. It’s good enough for me, wonderful, clam chowder. Who thought clam chowder in the camps? Nobody. Now this all makes you strong . . . if you want to become 91 years old, take a hard life on you. A life of a Spartan warrior. You have to take such a life, then when you become old you will never be sick . . . for there is no reason to be sick because there is nothing unhealthy that you are doing .. . working. If you are 91 years old, you have many thoughts of dying; everybody older thinks of dying. I am not willing to die . . . to extinguish my consciousness. I’m not willing to give this up. But the question is, what ability do I have to influence this? Everyone wants to die in their sleep, a wonderful death. Okay, this is a book written by Michel Georges Michel; he wrote about all the artists of the twenties in Montmartre and about Vertes, a great German painter. Vertes was close to the circus. He made some studies of aerial acrobats. There was a young girl, he invited her up to his studio. They had the following talk, now I will tell you what life is, right away! ‘ “When you are up there suspended between life and death, I suppose it must be an exhilarating and terrifying moment in spite of your being used to it.” “ No,” she said, “ we are just used to it as you say.” “ But you talk to each other, don’t you? I saw you talking last night when you stopped for a second.” “Oh, that was nothing.” “ I’m sure you said something.” “ It wasn’t anything. My partner said there is a coat that a woman was wearing in one of the boxes. He said it was fur, and I thought it was monkey. When we were on the ground again we found out which one of us was right.” That is what life is! In a moment you are hanging between life and death. Which you always do. Any moment you are between life and death . . . and you are having such conversations. I love this book. C H E F - OW N E R K A R L . J . S C H A E F E R I E C U IS IN IE R Fine Dining & Quality Catering 1 3 0 8 W . B U R N S I D E P O R T L A N D , O R 9 7 2 0 5 2 2 4 - 4 2 6 0 PARKINSON FONTANA SCHUMANN JONES AND ELLIS LAWYERS PRACTICE INCLUDING: Injury Accidents Drug Cases Workers’ Compensation Shoplifting Probate Drunk Driving Foreclosure Defense Suspended Licenses Subpoena Problems SEMI-ANNUAL MEN’S SHOE CLEARANCE Selected Shoes Reduced 20 to 50% Dress Sport Casual INITIAL CONSULTATION — NO FEE SUITE 3, 722 MAIN STREET RM 910, 812 SW WASHINGTON OREGON CITY, OREGON 97045 PORTLAND, OREGON 97205 (503) 655-2202 (503) 221-1792 A L A N C O S T L E Y 816SW10, 222-2577 Fine Leather Goods, Luggage, and Men’s &Women’s Shoes and Boots Clinton St. Quarterly 9
h H P ( ' D P A T M f fQ CAPER B uses are boring to look at. They’re big, they block your view. So when Tri-Met commissioned artist Scott McIntire to design the Zoo Bus, i t was a promising beginning for turning those lumbering boxes into something interesting. But what i f a number of artists had their own buses to design, we wondered, somewhat perversely. So we contacted ten artists and entities, shall we say, each doing exciting individual work — some, painters with established galler- one art collective who call themselves The Girl Artists. Eleven art ies, others working in more experimental veins — some young, some older — to see what they would come up with. The results, as you can see, are all over the map. We thank and tip our hats to all the artists who participated, for joining- us in this scheme and for the contribution their everyday work makes to the artistic life of the city. As for the rest of you, we suggest you gather up your shopping bags and attache cases and put yourself in the place of those passersby as around the corner rumbles the 26.. . . 10 Clinton St. Quarterly
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THE CLASSICS ARE ON US! 9 1 AM R A D I O Clinton St. Quarterly 15
Post-Cons x wive America --------------------------------------------------------------------------------4 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the article that follows, Kevin Phillips provides a thought-provoking, discomfiting look at the lineup of forces on the horizon as the Reagan troops begin their retreat. Not given to the easy fix, he describes a nation demoralized, disenchanted, and in search of a politics which can turn things around. He envisions an alliance “based not on nostalgia for free- market economics, but on a corporat- ist approach” . . . Yet, as Phillips so kindly puts it, “the future usually belongs to the optimists, while predictions of disaster are forgotten.” This piece is a successor to recent articles in the CSQ, in which William Appleman Williams, Derek Shearer, and candidates Jerry Rust and Joe Uris offered up a vision of hope and models for action. Lest the disparity of resources, especially financial, tempt us into inaction, consider the alternative Phillips outlines. We bring it to you as a stimulus for action, as a counterpoint to the simplistic notion that being right on an issue is enough . . . being right is only a beginning. Those of us concerned about a s o c ia l change, nuclear survival and M L equitable democracy must not surrender such vision, but instead must learn to target < ^ - ^ ^ o u r appeal to those whose shared resentments to- > ward the powerful in society can easily be O subverted by forces on the far right. It is thus incumbent on us to bring forward more than critique . . . our job must be developing workable models of change which are meaningful to most people. This article is based on Phillips’ forthcoming book, Post-Conservative America, and is reprinted with permission from The New York Review of Books. Copyright ® 1982 Nyrev, Inc. PostConservative America By Kevin Phillips The question for the political analyst is no longer whether Ronald Reagan will succeed or fail. He is failing, and attention must now focus upon the ramifications and dimensions of that failure. What kind of response can we expect from Reaganites committed to preserving a center-right political coalition? And will the present conservatism of Middle America, a conservatism that in my view already possesses a strong radical component, metamorphose into a radicalism of an extreme sort? It didn’t take a genius to predict on Inauguration Day that Reaganism would unravel. The omens were hardly bright for the nostalgic restoration of Reagan’s ideology, or for the associated vulnerability and volatility of the electoral coalition subscribing to that ideology, or for Reagan’s patently contradictory fusion of monetarism and supply-side economics, or for a presidential regime announcing that it would combat the global currents of inflation with maxims out of McGuffey’s Reader and Calvin Coolidge. Any observer can see that both Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher have been trying to re-create the halcyon days of American and British expansion. But the electoral indignation that helped to elect Reagan in the United States was something quite different from what the British voters felt when they plunked for Thatcher, a Tory politician. In short — and the full genealogical details are available in thousands of political parish registers — the Reagan Revolution, the rise of the Religious Right, and the various tax revolts of the late 1970s were evidence less of conservatism than of populism in the fiscal and cultural tradition of Shays’ Rebellion of 1786, the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794, the great religious revivals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, not to speak of the presidential campaigns of Andrew Jackson and William Jennings Bryan. For the White House to assume that there exists a popular desire to embrace the conservative economics of Adam Smith, Andrew Mellon, Milton Friedman, Arthur Laffer, and the Business Roundtable says very little for the Reaganites’ understanding of American electoral politics and of its own mandate. The fact is that periods of economic turmoil in the United States have never thrown up a Tory or a conservative politics, but have produced instead po litic ians w ith nicknames like “ Pitchfork Ben,” “ Sockless Jerry,” and “The King Fish.” A similar populism and socio-economic yeast now bubbles just below the surface of what is called Reagan conservatism, and if the current regime miscarries — in the wake of the liberal failure that preceded it — American party politics and perhaps even the American system could undergo very great change. Bear in mind that in 1979 and 1980, poll after poll turned up 70 to 80 percent of the public believing that the United States had gone off on the wrong track; 35 to 45 percent expressed major doubts about the effectiveness of the U.S. political system; 50 percent favored a new party; 60 percent thought that we might need a leader who would bend the rules a bit; and 40 to 50 percent felt that it might be necessary to use force to restore the American way of life. Should a Reagan failure become apparent we may see a return to this d is i l lu s io n m e n t — econom ic , cultural, political, and institutional.
Draw ing by Stephen Leflar ■W-: George Wallace demonstrated, lace railed at the high taxes social engineering imposed by government” ; but he strongly Wal- and “ big supduce, if it hasn’t already, an ideology and a set of policies that aim to reestablish, even enlarge, the role of government in the economy — some form of central planning that would encompass a partnership between business and government. Up to now, the Reaganites have attacked regulatory agencies and tried to do away with other forms of governmental restraint, as the marketplace has been exalted as the one and only judge of who gets how much of what. But if the economics of the “ invisible hand” and “ reprivatization” fails to deliver a buoyant economy, pressure will mount to create state economic mechanisms and political processes that will work, that can manage the task of allocating economic resources, sacrifices, and rewards. And unlike much of the economic policy making of the 1970s — welfarist or Naderite — the new governmentbusiness partnership will probably be more corporatist than liberal, and will put high emphasis on economic growth. Accordingly, the terms “ liberal” and “ conservative” will tend to become irrelevant. Such a political economics may not even require the passing of the Reagan administration. Substantial parts of the present Republican coalition could favor moving in corporatist directions if the larger fate of center-right politics is at stake, as it now seems to be. A little political history needs to be recalled here. Prior to Reagan’s nomination, much of the corporate community favored John Connally’s politics calling for an alliance between government and business. Moreover, elements within the New Right, much more interested in economic growth and economic nationalism than in free-market ideology, were also sympathetic to Connally’s candidacy two years ago. We should not forget that in 1980 the New Right fund-raiser Richard Viguerie ran direct-mail campaigns not only for the New Right and the Religious Right, but for John Connally as well. The political antecedents of the New Right are more populist and Jacksonian than conservative, and its fundamental political loyalties are to anti-establishment cultural and social values, not to the free market. This accounted for the New Right’s support of Reagan’s candidacy. And anyone who doubts my analysis here should read The New Right Papers, a volume recently published containing articles by Viguerie, William Rusher, Paul Weyrich, and others. Much is said in praise of the blue-collar worker and of populist protests against property taxes, while little refThe political antecedents of the New Right are more populist than conservative, and its fundamental political loyalties are to antiestablishment cultural and social values, not to the free market. erence is made to Adam Smith or the notion that supply creates its own demand. Indeed, Weyrich, the chief coordinator of the Washington New Right, has elsewhere specifically denied that his political values derive from a conception of free-market economics. The current New Right includes many people whose families were associated with the old Southern populist groups, along with elements of the old Northern working class. It is therefore not surprising that those who have been mobilized by the New Right’s campaigns tend to favor govReagan’s surprise 10-point landslide of 1980 was quickly read as something it was not; a mandate for experimental conservative, pro-business, pro-upperbracket economics. ernment action to suppress forms of behavior considered immoral, from selling liquor in Baptist rural Oklahoma to distributing pornography in Catholic New England. But New Right voters also tend to favor government economic support for rural and blue- collar interests. These two tendencies, of course, are entirely compatible, as former Alabama Governor ported federal housing and farm, highway and vocational programs important to the rural South. Reagan has failed to comprehend that a similar combination of sentiments against “ government” and for certain federal programs characterizes the mind of the New Right electorate. To repeat, much of what has passed for conservatism in this country for the past 15 years is in fact populism. Arguably, then, the most effective alliance to be made between Big Business and the New Right would be based not on nostalgia for free- market economics, but on a corporatist approach — something that could be called an “ Economic Security State.” This would require a greater degree of management of capital and resources by the federal government to promote economic growth, reindustrialization, and improving U.S. trade balances. The poll- tics of such a regime would simultaneously maintain and protect national heavy industries in the name of national defense, as well as vigilantly take care of the needs of farmers, wage-earners, pensioners, and the middle class alike. If the New Deal of 1933 to 1936 could be accused of fascism — a corporate state dictatorship — by the Liberty League, the political economics I have sketched here would better merit the term. And ironically, if the issue is national industrial policy, the Democratic politicians and consti-
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