RAG RADIO / Thorne Dreyer : 'Radio Unnameable' Legend Bob Fass and Filmmaker Paul Lovelace

Late-night radio revolutionary Bob Fass, left, and filmmaker Paul Lovelace.

Rag Radio podcast: 
Free-form radio legend Bob Fass and
'Radio Unnameable' filmmaker Paul Lovelace

“I wanna be a neuron -- I don’t wanna be the brain. We’re all the brain.” -- Bob Fass to his radio audience in the 1960s.

By Thorne Dreyer / The Rag Blog / May 9, 2013

Bob Fass is an American broadcast legend who was a pioneer of free-form radio and who has been on the air at New York's WBAI for almost 50 years. Fass's show, Radio Unnameable, provided an early forum for counterculture figures like Paul Krassner, Bob Dylan, and Abbie Hoffman, and helped spawn the Yippies.

Paul Lovelace is the producer and co-director of Radio Unnameable, a remarkable documentary about Fass and his singular legacy.

Bob Fass and Paul Lovelace were our guests on Rag Radio, Friday, May 3, 2013. Rag Radio is a syndicated radio program produced at the studios of KOOP 91.7-FM, a cooperatively-run all-volunteer community radio station in Austin, Texas.

Listen to or download our interview with Bob Fass and Paul Lovelace here:


Bob Fass's Radio Unnameable -- he appropriated the moniker from Samuel Beckett -- is credited with revolutionizing late-night radio. The show was first broadcast in 1963 on listener-sponsored Pacifica radio station WBAI-FM in New York City.

Pacifica, founded in 1946, pioneered listener-sponsored radio in this country and WBAI became a Pacifica station in 1960. But they signed off at midnight and, Fass told us, "I knew that there was a world of people who would listen to the radio late at night -- for companionship, for education" -- so he coaxed management into letting him do an all-night shift.

From the beginning the show featured regular appearances by counterculture figures such as Paul Krassner, Bob Dylan, Abbie Hoffman, Phil Ochs, Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg, Kinky Friedman, and Wavy Gravy, and broadcast the first performances of Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant” and Jerry Jeff Walker’s “Mr. Bojangles."

Fass’s on-air calls-to-action brought thousands into the streets for countercultural happenings including a Human Fly-In at JFK Airport, a Sweep-In to clean up New York streets, and a Yip-In at Grand Central Station that turned into a police riot. Fass was called a "midwife" to the birth of the '60s counterculture and his show helped to incubate the theatrical New Left activist group, the Yippies.

Fass told the Rag Radio audience that there was "a whole cultural revolution in New York City," and "I had the good fortune to be able to put it on the air." "There was no other place doing what I was doing," he told us. "If something was gonna happen, [Radio Unnameable] was where it was gonna happen."

"We were kind of demystifying radio," he said, "making it somehow less austere and didactic."

Fass also experimented with form; he might play a record backwards or play two records at once or play the same song multiple times. And he would put as many as 10 callers on the air simultaneously. Jay Sand wrote that Fass "had the same supplies as any other broadcaster -- two turntables, a microphone, a stack of records, perhaps a guest in the studio, a friend on the phone... [but] the radio program he created... transcended those common wares."

Fass developed a very special relationship with his listeners, even giving his loyal audience a name: "Cabal." He would open the show with the greeting: "Good morning, Cabal." “I wanna be a neuron," he once told his audience. "I don’t wanna be the brain. We’re all the brain.”

Fass, who was born June 29, 1933, can still be heard every Thursday night from midnight-3 a.m. on WBAI 99.5-FM in New York.

Good morning, Cabal.

Paul Lovelace is a documentary filmmaker who produced and co-directed (with Jessica Wolfson) Radio Unnameable, a feature-length documentary about Fass and his amazing story.

The film, which was screened in December 2012 by the Austin Film Society -- where it was introduced to the audience by songster and former Fass regular Jerry Jeff Walker -- is currently showing around the country and the DVD will be released in September. It will also be available on Netflix, YouTube, and other outlets, Lovelace said. Radio Unnameable has screened to widespread kudos and Rotten Tomatoes gives the movie a 100 percent positive rating among critics.

As Rag Blog editor and Rag Radio host, I was honored to participate in a panel with the filmmakers after the Austin screening. I spent time in New York in the '60s and worked with Houston's Pacifica station, KPFT, in the '70s -- and I can offer personal witness to Bob Fass's incredible contribution to progressive radio in this country.

The film features new interviews with Paul Krassner, Arlo Guthrie, Judy Collins, Wavy Gravy, Jerry Jeff Walker, Ed Sanders, David Amram, and others, as well as the insightful and edifying reflections of Fass himself. And, as John Anderson of Variety points out, Fass's "legacy, and his archives, are as epic as the medium gets," adding that the film includes "extraordinary archival material and some sparkling footage of New York."

Lovelace told the Rag Radio audience that more than 60 people worked on cataloging and organizing the archival material which was in a range of media formats including "5,000 or more reel-to-reel audio tapes, just from 1962-1977." "We immersed ourselves in the material," he said. "It was a treasure trove."

Michael Simmons wrote at The Rag Blog that “Fass and ‘Cabal’ changed history and deserve the credit, and Lovelace and Wolfson have provided the first in-depth cinematic look. It resonates like an epic tale with the hero emerging as a long-shot survivor."

In his review at The New York Times, A. O. Scott wrote that Lovelace and his co-director Jessica Wolfson "pay tribute both to an influential voice in broadcasting and to the times whose ideals and follies he helped articulate," identifying Bob Fass as "a gentle, soulful voice" who "kept [New Yorkers] from loneliness."

Paul Lovelace has previously won film festival acclaim for his short films, Robert Christgau: Rock N’ Roll Animal, about the esteemed Village Voice music journalist, and for the 35mm narrative short, The Sonnets. His first documentary feature was The Holy Modal Rounders: Bound to Lose, a portrait of the psychedelic folk duo. Paul also wrote, produced, and edited the PBS documentary, American Roots Music: Chicago.

Michael Simmons sums it all up beautifully:

Radio Unnameable is a roadmap for rebels, those who believe -- as the saying goes -- that another world is possible. Fass and Lovelace and Wolfson show that political and cultural transformation are often generated in the wee small hours of the morning -- that perfect time when the moon shines, the squares sleep, and dreamers share dreams while wide awake.

Rag Radio is hosted and produced by Rag Blog editor and long-time alternative journalist Thorne Dreyer, a pioneer of the Sixties underground press movement.

The show has aired since September 2009 on KOOP 91.7-FM, an all-volunteer cooperatively-run community radio station in Austin, Texas. Rag Radio is broadcast live every Friday from 2-3 p.m. (CDT) on KOOP and is rebroadcast on Sundays at 10 a.m. (EDT) on WFTE, 90.3-FM in Mt. Cobb, PA, and 105.7-FM in Scranton, PA.

The show is streamed live on the web by both stations and, after broadcast, all Rag Radio shows are posted as podcasts at the Internet Archive.

Rag Radio is produced in association with The Rag Blog, a progressive Internet newsmagazine, and the New Journalism Project, a Texas 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation. Tracey Schulz is the show's engineer and co-producer.

Rag Radio can be contacted at ragradio@koop.org.

Coming up on Rag Radio:
THIS FRIDAY, May 10, 2013: Journalism professor and activist Robert Jensen, author of Arguing for Our Lives: A User's Guide to Constructive Dialog.
Friday, May 17, 2013: Political economist Gar Alperovitz, author of What Then Must We Do?
Friday, May 24, 2013 (RESCHEDULED): Amsterdam-based poet John Sinclair, legendary founder of the White Panther Party and former manager of the MC5.

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FILM / Michael Simmons : How Bob Fass Revolutionized Late-Night Radio

Bob Fass in the WBAI studios in New York. Photo by, yes, Bob Fass. Photos courtesy Radio Unnameable.

Radio Unnameable:
Bob Fass revolutionized late-night radio

Fass and 'Cabal' changed history and deserve the credit and Lovelace and Wolfson have provided the first in-depth cinematic look. It resonates like an epic tale with the hero emerging as a long-shot survivor.

By Michael Simmons / The Rag Blog / May 2, 2013

Radio legend Bob Fass and filmmaker Paul Lovelace will be Thorne Dreyer's guests on Rag Radio this Friday, May 3, from 2-3 p.m. (CDT) on KOOP 91.7-FM in Austin, and streamed live to the world. The show will be rebroadcast by WFTE-FM in Mt. Cobb and Scranton, PA, Sunday morning, May 5, at 10 a.m. (EDT), and the podcast of this interview can be listened to or downloaded at the Internet Archive.

[Paul Lovelace and Jessica Wolfson's remarkable film, Radio Unnameable, about free-form radio pioneer Bob Fass, is currently being featured at screenings around the country and the DVD will be released later this year. When the film was screened by the Austin Film Society last December, famed singer-songwriter Jerry Jeff Walker -- who first performed "Mr. Bojangles" on Fass' radio show -- introduced the film to the Austin audience.]

“I wanna be a neuron -- I don’t wanna be the brain,” said all-night radio host Bob Fass in the 1960s to his audience. “We’re all the brain.”

Bob Fass began his show Radio Unnameable at non-commercial, listener-sponsored WBAI-FM in New York City in 1963. By 1966 when I began listening as a fledgling nonconformist, Fass was on the air Monday through Friday from midnight to 5 or 6 a.m. Radio Unnameable was completely free-form and improvisational -- radio jazz, as opposed to jazz radio.

Bob would play two or more records simultaneously of eclectic music and spoken word. Musicians would show up unexpectedly and perform. His friends came and shpritzed free-associative comedy routines or rapped about politics du jour or cultural happenings in the underground that were being created in real time. Friends included Bob Dylan, Abbie Hoffman, Paul Krassner, and Wavy Gravy. These characters were in cahoots with Fass’ audience whom he called “Cabal” -- a handle that connoted subversion and conspiracy.

Bob Fass. In back, on left, is Abbie Hoffman.
Photo by Robert Altman.

An actor in his youth, Fass knew how to underplay. His voice was like a muted baritone saxophone -- calm and reassuring, but at moments -- always the right ones -- he was capable of removing the mute and that bari would modulate, rising in excited exhortation. He entertained, comforted, educated, organized, raised consciousness, and inspired.

I was 11-years old in 1966 and I too wanted to be a neuron. A child of Top 40 radio (“W-A-Beatle-C!”), I was one of those kids with transistor radio and earplugs under the sheets when I was supposed to be asleep. One day while futzing with the dial at 2 a.m., I landed on WBAI and heard Phil Ochs sing “Draft Dodger Rag,” an absurdist satire about the serious subject of avoiding the military draft and thus the human meat-grinder that was The War In/On Vietnam. The combination of Ochs’ idealism and irony was irresistible and I was hooked on Fass at 99.5 on my FM dial.

Every night with Bob was different. There was no playlist, no formula, no commercials. Fass took phone calls and a techie had rigged a system that enabled 10 callers to yap at once -- a pre-internet chat room. At times the show was indecipherable chaos, but mostly it was compelling for a restless and skeptical nipper like myself who’d been raised on rules and unquestioning respect for the authority of parents and so-called teachers and leaders.

Bob’s willingness to screw up in pursuit of the sublime -- the audacity of failure, to quote filmmaker Jennifer Montgomery -- was a lesson in the creative process -- being unafraid to fall on one’s tuchus so that the practice of obliterating limits could reveal higher levels of artistry and consciousness. Ultimately we Cabalists discovered that the medium of radio alone could not only get one high, but get many high simultaneously.

Being a Fass listener in those days was to witness an emerging counterculture, watching it form on a molecular level in real time through experimentation and connection. One night in early ’67, Bob announced a Fly-In at a JFK Airport terminal and a thousand young people showed up to give flowers to passengers arriving from Hong Kong or Barcelona, giving birth to Flower Power. The Sweep-In followed and young ‘uns armed with brooms and mops helped clean up the untended ghetto of East Village streets.

These events led to the founding of the Youth International Party -- the Yippies -- and were all aired on Radio Unnameable. Even though I was initially too young to participate, the energetic positivity -- the desire to change the human dynamic for the better -- was infectious. I got bit and so did tens of thousands -- eventually millions -- of others. Within a year of my first listen, I was in the streets, at the barricades, on the front lines.

Fass c. 1969. Photo by Jim Demetropoulis.

Plenty more happened to Fass -- both good and bad -- but 40-sumpin’ years later, Bob is still on WBAI, Thursday night/Friday morning from midnight to 3 a.m. For the rest of the Bob Fass story, check out the extraordinary documentary Radio Unnameable by filmmakers Paul Lovelace and Jessica Wolfson. Fass and "Cabal" changed history and deserve the credit and Lovelace and Wolfson have provided the first in-depth cinematic look. It resonates like an epic tale with the hero emerging as a long-shot survivor.

Like so many young people in any era, I had a difficult adolescence. Mainstream adults with their arbitrary expectations and -- worse -- greed and slaughter were all transparently fucked up. At the age of 58 I still view most of conventional society with horror. But Bob Fass has helped keep me sane in an insane world for a half-century.

Radio Unnameable is a roadmap for rebels, those who believe -- as the saying goes -- that another world is possible. Fass and Lovelace and Wolfson show that political and cultural transformation are often generated in the wee small hours of the morning -- that perfect time when the moon shines, the squares sleep, and dreamers share dreams while wide awake.

[As leader of the band Slewfoot, Michael Simmons was dubbed "The Father Of Country Punk" by Creem magazine in the 1970s. He was an editor at the National Lampoon in the '80s where he wrote the popular column "Drinking Tips And Other War Stories." He won a Los Angeles Press Club Award in the '90s for investigative journalism and has written for MOJO, LA Weekly, Rolling Stone, Penthouse, High Times, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, CounterPunch, and The Progressive. Currently wrapping a solo album, Michael can be reached at guydebord@sbcglobal.net.]

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BOOKS / Ron Jacobs : 'Love Goes to Buildings on Fire'

Love Goes to Buildings on Fire:
New York City, just like I pictured it

From the steamy streets of the South Bronx and the future that would become hip-hop to the steamier bathhouses and clubs in lower Manhattan that became world-famous dens of disco, Hermes relates his tale.

By Ron Jacobs / The Rag Blog / April 17, 2013

Love Goes to Buildings On Fire: Five Years in New York That Changed Music Forever by Will Hermes (2012: Faber and Faber); Paperback (Reprint Edition); 384 pp; $16.

My stated reason for being in New York in 1973 was to go to school, but my real intent was to immerse myself in leftist politics and rock and roll culture. Almost every weekend I headed to the Village and Lower East Side in search of weed and music or politics.

There were plenty of protests even after the heyday of 1968-1972 and the issues were still the same. Imperialism, war, poverty, racism, and police brutality. The music, however, was starting to change. There were rumblings of something new in the dives and occasional street fair.

I remember seeing a band (I think it was the New York Dolls or their predecessor) near St. Mark’s Place one Saturday afternoon. I was not into the poor quality of the music, but found the presentation fascinating and unlike anything I had seen before. Still, though, my primary musical preferences were Bob Dylan, the Stones, the Grateful Dead and the Beatles.

One weekend a friend and I saw a poster for a rock show at the Hotel Diplomat near Times Square. The show featured a woman whose book of poetry I had just bought on the Lower East Side. The book was called Witt and the poet's name was Patti Smith. The show I remember I remember because of Smith. The hotel I remember because it’s where Abbie Hoffmann got busted for coke and then went underground.

I was a scholarship student at Fordham University in the Bronx. So was almost everyone else on the floor of my dorm. There were only a couple of us white-skinned guys on that floor. The rest were Puerto Rican and African-American. I heard more salsa than I knew existed. Smoking pot, discussing Marxism and Eddie Palmieri was how I spent many Saturday nights.

Sometimes, nobody in the dorm would go home for the weekend. On those weekends, the music leaking under the dorm room doors with the pot smoke included the Allman Brothers, the aforementioned Palmieri, Earth, Wind and Fire, Sly and the Family Stone, the Dead, and Bob Dylan.

I left New York after seven short months. A floormate from Teaneck, New Jersey, had just introduced me to a new band on the scene known as Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. I saw him in Maryland a few months later.

Love Goes to Buildings on Fire.

The changes I felt were soon to rule the world of popular music. This is the story rock music writer Will Hermes tells in his 2011 book Love Goes to Buildings On Fire: Five Years in New York City That Changed Music Forever. Recently released for the first time in paperback, Hermes’ text is more than a look at music in New York. It is a history of the city during the period covered that rarely mentions economics and politics yet ekes them.

From the steamy streets of the South Bronx and the future that would become hip-hop to the steamier bathhouses and clubs in lower Manhattan that became world-famous dens of disco, Hermes relates his tale. Like his namesake, he carries the message that punk rock shouted and salsa sang. The period herein may have been the last time New York mattered as much as it did in the world of popular culture.

Jay-Z may still be there, but there is no creative center any more. In fact, the dispersion of that center into the global world may have been the unforeseen result of the bands, beats, and jazzmen Hermes writes about so wonderfully.

Lurking behind Hermes’ tales of Patti Smith and Richard Hell; Afrika Bambaata and David Murray; and the multitude of others that star in this book is the spectre of corporate greed destroying culture and pretty much anything else it touched. Indeed, this included an attempt by Gerald Ford and Donald Rumsfeld to make Manhattan default. Yet, while this attempt to force austerity on the world’s cultural capital ultimately succeeded only partially, the mélange of cultural mixes did create what became termed world music.

This is a book about Debbie Harry and Eddie Palmieri; Bruce Springsteen and Grandmaster Flash; Abe Beame and CBGBs; Miles Davis and Anthony Braxton. It’s a book about the clubbers and the brothers and sisters attending the DJ contests in the Bronx and the punkers bleeding in the Bowery. The names are so familiar that some are forgotten.

The cover art is by Mark Stamaty, formerly of the Village Voice (back before Murdoch destroyed it). He is also the author and illustrator of one of my favorite children’s books, Who Needs Donuts? The drawings he does are cartoonish, encompassing and busy, as if he was on stimulants. They are the artistic representation of the story Hermes has written down.

In a nutshell, that story is about the birth of hip hop via the transition of the beat; the C-section that was punk and the future of rock and roll that was Bruce Springsteen. Love Goes to Buildings On Fire isn’t about passing a torch. It’s about that torch enveloping the past and the future of popular music in its flames.

[Rag Blog contributor Ron Jacobs is the author of The Way The Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground. He recently released a collection of essays and musings titled Tripping Through the American Night. His novels, The Co-Conspirator's Tale, and Short Order Frame Up will be republished by Fomite in April 2013 along with the third novel in the series All the Sinners Saints. Ron Jacobs can be reached at ronj1955@gmail.com. Find more articles by Ron Jacobs on The Rag Blog.]

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BOOKS / Ron Jacobs : 'More Powerful Than Dynamite'

Occupy 1914?
'More Powerful Than Dynamite'

By Ron Jacobs / The Rag Blog / May 2, 2012

[More Powerful Than Dynamite: Radicals, Plutocrats, Progressives and New York’s Year of Anarchy by Thai Jones (2012: Walker and Company); Hardcover; 416 pp.; $28.]

Anti-capitalist protests in Union Square brutally attacked by police. Economic hardship among the workers. Ostentatious expenditure by the wealthy. This scenario sounds like the news headlines of the past couple of years, yet the period referred to is the year 1914 and the story is the one told in More Powerful Than Dynamite: Radicals, Plutocrats, Progressives and New York’s Year of Anarchy.

This book is a history that includes some of history’s most famous anarchists and a progressive president determined to use government for good but indebted to the finance house of Wall Street. That indebtedness leads him into war and repression.

There’s also a progressive mayor of the world’s largest city whose plans include using government to lift people from poverty and despair. His social engineering ends up making very few people happy: not the wealthy and not the poor.

The city was New York. The year was 1914. The anarchists included Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman. The mayor was John Mitchel and the president was Woodrow Wilson.

Despite the best-laid plans, it was as if the weather itself conspired with the plutocrats in a relentless effort to prevent Mitchel from ending the corrupt tradition of politics in Manhattan known colloquially as Tammany Hall. The economy that had already shrunk the employment rolls worsened in the wake of a series of snowstorms and bitterly cold weather that forced thousands into the streets without work, shelter or income.

When a city agency decided to use the unemployed to shovel snow out of the streets and sidewalks, not only did the task turn out to be beyond the capabilities of those involved, the measly pay offered became one more cause for radicals to organize around. The popularity of the cause proved the rationale of the organizers.

There was no communist party in the United States in 1914. The lead in the protests was taken by the anarchists. Their success at engaging the urban unemployed while enraging the wealthy and middle class encouraged the leadership to take increasingly provocative actions. This in turn intensified the wrath of the wealthy and their guardians, the police.

After it was determined that the aggressive and violent tactics of the police only served to increase the popularity of the protests, a new chief was appointed who changed tactics. He allowed protests while simultaneously building an intelligence network among the radicals.

This network involved the recruiting of spies, provocateurs and, ultimately, the use of those provocateurs to instigate actual crimes designed to incriminate individual radicals, thereby painting the entire movement as criminal. In short, anarchists were the “terrorists” of the period and the tactics used by the authorities against them were the same as those being used against today's “terrorists” and radicals.

Jones, whose previous work includes a memoir (A Radical Line) that is partially about his childhood growing up underground with his Weather Underground parents, provides the reader with an incredibly detailed, impeccably researched look at this period in New York’s history.

Not only do the characters come alive in Jones’ telling, so do the issues. Of course, this is in part due to the fact that the issues continue to be relevant in today’s climate of corporate domination and willful destruction of the dreams of working people.

For many people, reading history can be a chore. A good history text must either tell a story so good that one puts up with the dryness of the text or it must be told in a way that keeps the reader's interest. In More Powerful Than Dynamite, Thai Jones provides both, thereby creating a compellingly written tale of an incredibly interesting time.

[Rag Blog contributor Ron Jacobs is the author of The Way The Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground. He recently released a collection of essays and musings titled Tripping Through the American Night. His latest novel, The Co-Conspirator's Tale, is published by Fomite. His first novel, Short Order Frame Up, is published by Mainstay Press. Ron Jacobs can be reached at ronj1955@gmail.com. Find more articles by Ron Jacobs on The Rag Blog.]

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Joan Wile : Granny Votes 'Yea' on 'Wall Street' Youth

General Assembly at Occupy Wall Street in New York. Photos by Caroline Schiff / Flickr.
A 'granny-report' from Occupy Wall Street:
Discouraged about today's youth?
Fuggeddaboudit!!!

I left the meeting with a singing heart. I absolutely believe these marvelous young justice-seekers will change the world for the better.

By Joan Wile / The Rag Blog / November 8, 2011

NEW YORK -- If you, like me, have concluded that today's kids are practically a throwback to the Neanderthals, with their faces buried in video games instead of books or their fingers texting i-phone messages instead of tapping piano keys, conclude again.

I recently had occasion to attend one of Occupy Wall Street's near-daily Direct Action meetings, and I've never been so impressed. There were approximately 30 or 40 people seated in a circle in a building near Zucotti Park. Almost all of them were very young, except for two or three middle-aged persons and this one old broad, me.

The meeting was conducted -- no, that's the wrong word, they don't have leaders -- facilitated by a young, probably college-age, girl. In a most efficient manner, she adhered to a beautifully conceived structure that provided for anyone to speak, in a carefully allotted and monitored amount of time, and then allowed for the group to respond quickly to their requests.

It was all incredibly civil and, by golly, MATURE. Actions were speedily arranged and points of contention were briskly resolved, courteously. Not a minute was wasted on irrelevant chatter. One couldn't help wondering what it would be like to have these intelligent and purposeful young men and women dominating the Congress. Hopefuly, someday they will.

But, most of all, one was struck with the completely democratic way the youngsters managed their complicated agenda. A number of events were planned, fundamental decisions were made, and all without an iota of rancor or ego conflict. And, make no mistake. These kids are ideologically committed to building a better, more economically just society, but with political savvy befitting much older, more experienced elders. They mean business!

Heretofore, I had observed through my grandchildren that the new generation has made great strides in terms of prejudice. They have gay friends, and friends with different racial and ethnic origins. I have noted several of my grandkids railing against bias of all kinds. That, of course, is very heartening, but I was not aware of their generation's stance on other social and economic inequalities... until I visited Occupy.

Don't pay any heed to the Murdoch-controlled New York Post and other media entities that try to paint the Occupy movement as presided over by a bunch of hippie hoodlums. No, Occupy is composed of serious, dedicated, and truly democratic people.

Don't pay any attention to Mayor Bloomberg's rants about how badly Occupy is affecting the local businesses. I went into the atrium at 60 Wall Street across from the Stock Exchange last week, and its shops were humming with business.

Murdoch and Bloomberg are at the top of the one percent and have a vested interest in discrediting this grass roots movement sweeping the nation and the world. They know their days are numbered in terms of manipulating the system to increase their massive wealth to the detriment of the rest of us.

I left the meeting with a singing heart. I absolutely believe these marvelous young justice-seekers will change the world for the better. So, stop bemoaning the deficiencies of the younger generation, my aging peers. The future is in very capable and caring hands.

[Joan Wile is the author of Grandmothers Against the War: Getting Off Our Fannies and Standing Up for Peace (Citadel Press, May 2008) This article was originally published at Waging Nonviolence. Read more articles by Joan Wile on The Rag Blog.]

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Joan Wile : Calling All Grannies!

Another grandmother against the war. Photo from cessemi's photostream / Flickr.
Calling all peace grannies
to get off their fannies

By Joan Wile / The Rag Blog / February 8, 2011

NEW YORK CITY -- There we were, last Wednesday as usual, our little straggly group of elderly grandmothers and supporters standing on Fifth Avenue in front of Rockefeller Center chanting, "BRING THEM BACK... FROM AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ! STOP THE KILLING NOW!"

We were into our eighth year of our Grandmothers Against the War weekly late-afternoon one-hour vigil, begun on Jan. 14, 2004 and held continuously until now with hardly a single break, no matter what the elements have thrown at us.

On this particular Wednesday we were down to only seven protesters, a disappointing decrease from our usual approximately 15. Of course, the weather had something to do with the meager turnout -- New York City was still recovering from the multiple onslaughts of snow crippling people's ability to get around.

While standing there (our aging bones making it painful after the first half hour), we began discussing the situation in Egypt. We wondered if there were any way at all for there to be a similar eruption of public discontent here in the U.S.

Sadly, we concluded it was extremely unlikely. Oh, yes, we peace grannies and the Veterans for Peace who join us every week are passionate about our cause. We deplore the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We are horrified about the loss of American military and civilian life in both countries (still ongoing in Iraq, despite the perception encouraged by the muted reporting in the media that implies otherwise).

We lament the obscene amounts of money tossed away on unwinnable and unjustified wars as the funds for our domestic needs dwindle away to the point where our citizens are in desperate straits. Yes, we are concerned enough to take to the streets and try to bring awareness to the indifferent masses of people passing by us that we are in critical trouble, that we must end these wars and occupations for our very survival. But, we are so few.

There are always a handful of people walking by who acknowledge us, give us a thumbs up or a "Thank you," as they smilingly continue on their way. Usually, those sympathizers are from other countries -- our sense is that people from abroad absolutely hate our wars. But, mostly, passers-by pretty much ignore us.

We assume that this apathy is wide-spread throughout the United States. We marvel at the fact that the Tea Party has been able to mobilize people to hit the streets, and are displeased that their causes are so antipathetic to our beliefs.

Will the Tea Party be able to foment a revolt similar to Egypt's? I hope not.

But, why can't WE even begin to goose our population into demanding we end the wars? It's a strange dichotomy -- the issues that people are really heated about -- jobs, inferior education, inadequate health care as prime examples -- cannot be solved until we bring the money home along with the troops; yet, the unconscionable conflicts are almost never mentioned in politicians' speeches or media editorials.

PEOPLE DO NOT SEE THE CONNECTION!

I've concluded that the anti-war grandmothers' job is to make that connection in people's minds. I'm trying to dream up an action that will gain enough attention to start infiltrating into people's consciousness.

To that end, I am herewith pleading to all grandmothers everywhere reading this article to contact me -- joanwile263@aol.com
-- with their ideas and suggestions about how we can create a grandmothers' movement that will wake up America. And, beyond that, let me know if you will join with me and my peer grannnies to make it happen.

Grandmothers are thought of as wise, nurturing, and balanced. People will listen to us if our message is made available to them. Let us take off our night caps and don our thinking ones. We know what's at stake -- the future of our children and grandchildren. We must do all within our power to end these wars and foster a world of peace for them.

Hurry -- we have so little time!

[Joan Wile is the author of Grandmothers Against the War: Getting Off Our Fannies and Standing Up for Peace (Citadel Press, May, 2008).]

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Thomas Good : Hatred and Healing at Ground Zero

Photo by Bud Korotzer / NLN.
The objectification of Other:
Hatred and healing at Ground Zero

By Thomas Good / The Rag Blog / August 23, 2010

See photo gallery, Below.

NEW YORK -- Sunday was another rainy day in New York City, as two sides of the Ground Zero mosque issue squared off in dueling protests -- two sides who are responding to a catastrophe with two mutually exclusive answers: hatred and healing.

Lost

If volume validated an argument then the motorcycle contingent bound for Sunday’s anti-mosque protest would win, hands down. With loud pipes and shrill voices, the bikers from out of town who thundered down Broadway en route to the demonstration -- apparently going the wrong direction -- would have the final word in any debate whose outcome is measured only in decibels.

But it isn’t that simple. And just as the issues surrounding the proposed building of a mosque-slash-community center in the general area of Ground Zero aren’t so simple -- it’s too simplistic to write off all of the bikers as stereotypic toughs, incapable of compassion or human emotion

Some of them lost relatives in the September 11, 2001 attack on the Trade Center.

A short time after the loud cavalcade drove past this reporter, several of their number, now dismounted, emerged on a street corner looking confused, vulnerable, and maybe even a little embarrassed. It was hard to deny their humanity. We’ve all been lost before -- alone, wandering unfamiliar territory.

Us vs. them

To those who see the world from the vantage point of an “us versus them” perspective -- there is no middle ground, no room for freedom of religion, no Constitution to defend, no reason to wince at racist epithets hurled at the Other side. To those who embrace an ideology based on interpreting 9/11 as a clash of two cultures, as an apocalyptic harbinger of a holy war -- one protester’s angry outburst sums up the world view: “Islam is not a religion, it’s a cult.”

This was the statement one New Yorker hurled at another on Sunday.

And as if this statement was not sufficient to choke off discussion, to demonize and objectify an entire faith, the anti-mosque protester continued: “If you had a Qur’an here, I’d piss on it.”

The Others

The objectification of Other as evil incarnate, the demonization of billions of believers, is not a rational construct but it is one that has currency, perhaps because choosing hatred over healing, choosing to adopt bumper sticker slogans over calm dialogue is less threatening, less intimidating than attempting to grasp elusive nuances. There is no doubt that it is easier to hate than to love, to assimilate rather than to accommodate, to shout rather than to listen. This is the sad trajectory of terrorism itself.

The man who uttered that sad statement, who argued that Islam is not a religion, was eventually quieted by a white-shirted NYPD senior officer. The target of the protester’s venom -- who had responded angrily -- walked off to join the Other demonstration of the day: the group of civil rights activists, peace protesters, and interfaith clerics who support the Muslims looking to build the Cordoba House mosque and community center on 51 Park Place.

From NYC to Oklahoma -- and back again

At the anti-Islamophobia rally, Alan Stolzer of the Military Project asked me a question.

“Has anyone built a church near the Oklahoma City bomb site?”

His rhetorical question was pointed: Timothy McVeigh was a blond and blue Christian. A home grown killer. The analogy was not ideal. McVeigh did not profess to kill in the name of his religion. But in our history other Americans have killed in the name of their faith, some acting in concert with other true believers. And yet in these cases, it was the killers who were judged, not the professed faith, not the religion in its entirety. It could not be otherwise. And yet it’s different for Muslims in America.

Beyond binaries

Somewhere in between the 9/11 ideologues -- the Islamophobes and racists who look to burning books as a solution -- and the Muslim community left holding a fractured First Amendment are the families of 9/11. Their grief is not ideological in nature but their numbers, their “hearts and minds,” are the perceived prize for those who would market rabid xenophobia disguised as patriotism.

The Sarah Palins and other rank opportunists, none of whom have ever lived in New York, some of whom can’t spell xenophobia -- even if they can see it from their back yard -- are eager to profit from appeals to hatred and racism. But for those who lost loved ones, healing will have to be accomplished without hate. However this is done, whatever path is chosen, healing involves overcoming hate, not embracing it.

As the rain fell on the protesters who challenge the binary world view, those who want to heal and move beyond Islamophobia and the scourge of racism, as the mainstream media swarmed to get their soundbites from the “pro-mosque protesters” -- a man in a priest’s collar quietly held up a sign. It read: “Build and Learn Together.”

[Thomas Good is editor of Next Left Notes, where this article also appears.]

Photo by Thomas Good / NLN.
Photo by Thomas Good / NLN.
Photo by Thomas Good / NLN.
Photo by Bud Korotzer / NLN.
Photo by Bud Korotzer / NLN.
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Mariann G. Wizard : Poet/Political Prisoner Marilyn Buck Dies in New York

UPDATED Wednesday, Aug. 4 at 9:03 a.m. (CST)

Marilyn Buck was released from prison July 15, 2010.
Recently released from Texas prison:
Cancer takes poet Marilyn Buck

By Mariann G. Wizard / The Rag Blog / August 3, 2010

AUSTIN -- Friends of long-time political prisoner, former Austinite, and acclaimed poet Marilyn Buck, 62, were saddened by news of her death at the home of her attorney Soffiyah Elija, early Tuesday, August 3.

Buck was released from the federal prison medical center in Carswell, Texas, July 15, 2010, and was paroled to New York City.

Buck served 25 years of an 80-year prison sentence for politically motivated crimes undertaken in opposition to racial injustice and U.S. imperialism. As a prisoner, Marilyn, while moderating her ideas about methods, continued to stand tall for her beliefs.

A selfless advocate for others, especially in the arena of prison medical care, Marilyn was diagnosed late last year with a uterine sarcoma, a rare and aggressive cancer, too late for treatment to save her life.

While attending the University of Texas at Austin, Buck became involved in the civil rights and anti-war movements, and worked with SDS and the underground newspaper, The Rag. In the following years she became increasingly committed to and active in support of the black liberation struggle in this country.

Buck is survived by three brothers; several cousins; her long-time counselor, Jill Soffiyah Elijah; and loving friends worldwide. Her parents, Dr. and Mrs. Louis Buck, who both pre-deceased her, were leading civil rights activists in Austin in the early 1960s.

According to sources close to Marilyn's family, there will not be a funeral, but memorial gatherings will be scheduled in the future in New York City, in California's Bay Area, and in Texas. Funds raised for her hoped-for transition to the free world that had not been dispersed at the time of her death will be used according to her wishes to assist other aging prisoners.

The size of the U.S. prison population guarantees that increasing numbers of those released after lengthy sentences will lack savings, health insurance, or the network of friends from all walks of life that sustained Marilyn -- and benefited from her generous, principled spirit -- throughout her years behind bars.

Marilyn Buck was the recipient of funds raised at a June 25 community support event and benefit in Austin hosted by eight local groups, including NOKOA the observer and The Rag Blog, and supported by many businesses, artists, poets, and compassionate individuals.

Youth Emergency Service, Inc., fiscal sponsor for the event, will continue to accept tax deductible contributions through PayPal at its website, or by check or money order, made out to YES, Inc., at PO Box 13549, Austin, TX 78711.

CORRECTION: The Rag Blog was originally informed that Marilyn Buck died in a New York hospital. Now we have learned that Marilyn in fact died surrounded by friends at the Brooklyn home of her attorney and long-time close friend, Soffiyah Elijah, where she was living after being paroled to New York City. Linda Evans announced the following through Freedom Archives:

Our dear comrade Marilyn Buck made her transition today [August 2] at 1 pm est peacefully and surrounded by friends at home in Brooklyn. Details of memorials and where to send cards and donations will follow soon.

Also see:

• "Thorne Dreyer: Poet Marilyn Buck Freed After 25 Years in Prison" by Thorne Dreyer / The Rag Blog / July 19, 2010
• "Austin Benefit: Friends Support, Celebrate Marilyn Buck" by Mariann G. Wizard / The Rag Blog / June 30, 2010
• "Warrior-Poet Marilyn Buck: No Wall Too Tall" by Mariann G. Wizard / The Rag Blog / May 19, 2010
• And listen to Thorne Dreyer's interview with Robert King and Mariann Wizard on Rag Radio / June 22, 2010

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Tuli Kupferberg of The Fugs : Rock's Inner City Shaman

Tuli Kupferberg. Image from The Poetry Project.
Beat poet, humanist, political mystic, rock star:
The Fugs' Tuli Kupferberg dies at 86

Despite all my waspy-whitebread cultural upbringing I fell in love with this individual immediately, even though he was probably the ugliest member of the meanest looking group I had ever seen.

By Carl R. Hultberg / The Rag Blog / July 13,2010

See videos and more images, Below.

During the same teenage trip to NYC in 1966 when I witnessed Howlin’ Wolf on MacDougal Street I also got to see another band. It was the next evening and even though I was out of money, the shill at the door to the Players Theatre corralled me in to see a group I’d never heard of. Don’t worry, you’ll love it, he said as he ushered me into a place that looked just like a dark church.

I sat down on a pew and after a few more audience members had been dragged in, the drummer came onstage and sat behind the kit. He looked like the meanest Hells Angel I had ever seen. Make that the only Hells Angel I’d ever seen.

A young kid who looked younger than me (16) plugged in an electric guitar and after a bit of anti-showbiz stage business, what seemed to be the lead singer emerged. He was scary too, and old, but it looked like he might have a sentimental streak. Maybe. The band was pretty amateurish, except for the kid on lead guitar.

The gruff singer was perhaps intentionally bad, a spoof maybe, reading his pretentious poetry from typewritten sheets. The lyrics were deep, mysterious, some sort of freeform Egyptian temple hokum. After a couple of numbers -- were they actually songs? -- the stage darkened and a solo spotlight fixed on a new figure entering stage right. He shook a broomstick with bottlecaps nailed all over it as he shuffled in like an inner city shaman

God was he ugly. His face was all pock marked (actually freckles), characteristically Jewish in the sense of the worst evil medieval stereotypes. A gargoyle. Uglier than Uncle Fenster or Tiny Tim and yet... there was a glow of gentleness and goodness that was impossible to explain. Despite all my waspy-whitebread cultural upbringing I fell in love with this individual immediately, even though he was probably the ugliest member of the meanest looking group I had ever seen.

It didn’t hurt that the song he was chanting over the surging rock beat was titled “Jack Off Blues." Wow, now that was some kind of naked adolescent human honesty I’d never seen before. The band was the Fugs and the “singer” was Tuli Kupferberg. Suddenly they broke into a startlingly beautiful song by Tuli, "Morning Morning," with the exquisite guitar work of (yes)16 year old Jonathan Kalb (brother of Danny) that went on for maybe 20 minutes. What a mixture of opposites. Rock and roll art and beauty emerging from the derelict dregs of the Lower East Side. Could dirty old men Beat poets posing as a Beatles band still get the chicks?

These are the obvious concerns of poetry and the Fugs certainly got that one right.

Tuli Kupferberg and Ed Sanders of The Fugs. Photo ©2001 Bob Gruen.
Alas, the Fugs never got to be as big as the Beatles. They got bumped out of their spot at the Players Theatre in the late 1960s by the Mothers of Invention, another scary rock group that actually used professional musicians. Frank Zappa, the leader of the Mothers, called the Fugs the Three Stooges. Frank’s own sense of humor was just as sexual as the Fugs but actually far more cynical and juvenile. He never had a shred of Tuli’s earnest poetic humanist sensibilities. Lucky for Frank he was such a hot guitar player.

In the 1980s I was part of the All Species Circle, presenting totem art projects, doing performances wearing animal masks in public. Another member of the group, Rick Heisler, did a humor cassette with Tuli Kupferberg and I got to do the photography for the cover. On our way out to the shoot in Prospect Park, Tuli picked up a stray piece of trash on the ground which we later used as part of the arrangement for the photograph. It was a banjo shaped cast iron burner from an oil furnace. Later I realized that the same object had appeared on the
cover of the first Fugs album in 1965. Like I said: shamanic magic.

Tuli passed away this week -- Monday, July 11 -- after suffering a series of strokes. He was 86. He had been active in the Village since 1929. His self deprecating humor and uncompromising political mysticism was a constant influence in the magic zone. Poetry, pacifism, rock and roll music, later cartoons in the Village Voice. A giant in the field of modesty. A true poet and definitely one of my inspirations in life.

Fug on Tuli. What a beautiful man.

[Carl R. Hultberg's grandfather, Rudi Blesh, was a noted jazz critic and music historian, and Carl was raised in that tradition. After spending many years as a music archivist and social activist in New York's Greenwich Village, he now lives in an old abandoned foundry in Danbury, New Hampshire, where he runs the Ragtime Society.]

The Revolting Theater -- Part 2: Tuli Kupferberg
(Not for the weak of heart -- ed.)






1968 newspaper ad for The Fugs.
The Village Fugs (later just The Fugs) album, 1965. Image from Recollection Books.
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A Poet's Legacy : No Rest for the Weary?

Image from Steve and Sara's Photostream / Flickr.
Edna St. Vincent Millay and
The profitability of charity

By Carl R. Hultberg / The Rag Blog / April 12, 2010

"Thou canst not move across the grass
But my quick eyes will see Thee pass
Nor speak, however silently,
But my hushed voice will answer Thee
I know the path that tells Thy way
Through the cool eve of every day;
God, I can push the grass apart
And lay my finger on Thy heart!"

-- Edna St. Vincent Millay (from Renascence, 1912)

Quick, which famous American poet was named after a long lived charity hospital in New York's Greenwich Village?

In 1892 Charlie Bussell, older brother to Cora, soon-to-be mother of Edna was a stevedore on the El Monte. A rather laid back New England lad, while at dock in New Orleans he decided to take a snooze on a bale of cotton. Imagine his surprise when he awoke beneath deck in the hold.

Days later he was discovered, weak and emaciated, and was brought to New York City and put under the care of the Sisters of Charities at St. Vincent’s Hospital. His odd story became a bit of local news and his recovery at the lower Manhattan hospital a huge event in the recorded history of a small Maine mother-led family.

Edna St. Vincent Millay was born at that time and would have been named Vincent if she’d been a boy. After high school she came in second in a national poetry contest, partially by dropping her first name and publishing as Vincent Millay. That recognition got her a scholarship at Vassar and despite a troubled rebellious hyper-poetic existence she created a body of work in a bold daring neo-classical style that inspires to this day.

Perhaps the kinship Ms. Millay felt with the hospital was the result of their common commitment to compassion. Certainly St. Vincent’s was a hospital that cared.

Sadly, the hospital that Edna St. Vincent Millay took part of her name from is today no longer with us. Up until Monday, St. Vincent’s Hospital on Seventh Avenue in New York City had served the Village since 1849.

One of the reasons the facility had to close was that in serving the local poor predominantly, they “couldn’t make a profit." What a surprise. I wonder how St. Francis managed to make a profit. (Perhaps he wasn’t paying minimum wage.) Medicare cuts and the uninsured also defunded the operation.

Maybe good old Catholic charity was actually part of the Obama socialist agenda. Lord knows we can’t have any of that.

The other well publicized reason for the hospital’s bankruptcy was the profligate board of directors who allegedly ran the place into the ground passing around percs and paying off expensive New Hampshire lawyer pals. Another big surprise in this day and age I suppose. To some people a hospital is just a pile of money with a sideline in serving humanity.

St. Vincent’s was supposed to be building a new facility between 12th and 13th Streets. After frittering away millions on Vice Presidents, property acquisition, lawyers, and world class architects, now it seems there is no money left to construct anything.

St. Vincent’s also had a major aesthetic problem, the low rise “modernist” pop art building they decided to build in the 1960s. Like the Huntington Hartford lollipop creation on Columbus Circle, St. Vincent’s second building was supposed to evoke smiley face hippie pop music sensibilities.

The trouble is happy circles cast in concrete don’t weather well and in St. Vincent’s case the structure looks like it would be next to impossible to renovate. I think New Yorkers would have been better served with a stark Catholic facility that showed it’s heart inside. And survived.

Now folks from the Village will have to ambulance crosstown to Bellevue or NYU Medical centers. Good luck finding anyone who cares there.

[Carl R. Hultberg's grandfather, Rudi Blesh, was a noted jazz critic and music historian, and Carl was raised in that tradition. After spending many years as a music archivist and social activist in New York's Greenwich Village, he now lives in an old abandoned foundry in Danbury, New Hampshire, where he runs the Ragtime Society.]

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New York : Marching for the Children of Gaza

Thousands marched in New York on Dec. 27, 2009, in support of the people of Gaza. Photo by Bud Korotzer / NLN.
Marching for the children of Gaza:
Thousands demonstrate in New York City

By Fran Korotzer / The Rag Blog / January 1, 2010

NEW YORK -- On December 27, the first anniversary of Israel’s brutal attack on Gaza that left 1,400 dead (mostly civilians), thousands wounded, and hundreds of thousands homeless, 2,000 people met in New York’s Times Square.

The throng marched through streets filled with New Yorkers and tourists in holiday mode, passed crowded Rockefeller Center, and ended at the Israeli Consulate at 42nd Street and 2nd Avenue. Participants represented all ages and all racial and ethnic groups. The march was timed to coincide with marches in solidarity with the people of Gaza that are taking place all over the world.

As the marchers moved through the streets they carried signs and Palestinian flags and chanted, “Israel, Israel, you can’t hide. We charge you with genocide.” Or, “Gaza, Gaza, don’t you cry. Palestine will never die.” Many wore buttons supporting the Palestinian liberation struggle. One woman had “Resistance is not Terrorism” printed on the back of her jacket.

A large group of orthodox Jews who oppose the Israeli state marched too. Seeing them, some Jewish people in the streets cursed them and spit at them. They appeared to take it in stride.

At one point a call came in from Kevin Ovington, one of the leaders of the Viva Palestina convoy which was in Jordan with 500 people from 17 countries, and 250 trucks loaded with humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza. Egypt was not allowing them to pass through to Gaza so a hunger strike had begun. He said that they were “determined to enter Gaza and break the siege.” He said, “One day we will all be together in a free Palestine.” The marchers were asked to call the Egyptian Embassy and urge them to allow the Freedom Marchers and humanitarian aid to pass into Gaza.

Outside the Israeli Consulate in New York, the marchers demanded an end to the blockade which protesters argue is a violation of international law.

[Fran Korotzer is an independent journalist and a contributor to Next Left Notes, where this article also appears.]

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New York : Radical Queers Remember Stonewall With Spirited March

Photo by Andrew Hinderaker.

Queers, allies and residents of the park took to the streets and marched to the Stonewall Inn to the applause of people on the sidewalks as we chanted "We will not be quiet! Stonewall was a riot!"

By wewantyou / The Rag Blog / June 23, 2009

The Radical Homosexual Agenda held its third Parade Without a Permit on the evening of June 19th to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion. This was the third Parade Without A Permit which started in 2007 when the New York City Police, with help of the City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, created an arbitrary rule that stated that if more than 50 people gathered without a permit, they would be subject to arrest.

We've challenged that rule while our openly gay city Council Speaker Quinn continues to side with the NYPD while anointing herself as the leader of the gay community.

With not a drop of rain and in high spirits, we began our march at Washington Square Park. Queers, allies and residents of the park took to the streets and marched to the Stonewall Inn to the applause of people on the sidewalks as we chanted "We will not be quiet! Stonewall was a riot!"

From the Stonewall Inn we continued our march down Christopher Street where onlookers stepped off of the sidewalks and into the streets to join our party. One onlooker stepped to the front of the banner and unleashed his inner baton twirler as the RHA drum core pounded out a rhythm and lead us in the chant, "This street is for faggots. F-A-G-G-O-T-S!"

The NYPD made their presence felt as they trailed behind us in squad cars. We continued down Christopher Street as we marched past an NYPD mobile command unit set up on the street. We marched past a commandeered city bus waiting to be used as a temporary arrest station and a generator with flood lights set up at an intersection to intimidate and harass the queer youth of color who come to the village.

We chanted: "We're here! We're queer! We're fabulous! Don't fuck with us!" as we crossed the West Side Highway and reached the end of our march at the Christopher Street Piers. But our trip down Christopher Street reminded us of how far we really haven't traveled from 1969 to 2009.

It's still 1969 when queers can't assemble in peace without being harassed and arrested. It's still 1969 when NYC queer clubs and bars are raided by the NYPD or fined out of their existence. It's still 1969 when queers are arrested in police sting operations in sex shops, parks and private homes; and it's still 1969 when lesbians are beaten by the NYPD.

For more photos, go here.

Thanks to Devra Morice / The Rag Blog

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Stephanie Chernikowski : 'Looking at Music: Side 2' at the MOMA

Sonic Youth. 1983. Black-and-white photograph, 11 x 17" (27.9 x 43.2 cm). Photo by Stephanie Chernikowski / Looking at Music: Side 2 / Museum of Modern Art, New York.

That is a very early shot of Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth playing at CBGB. They are both multi-talented, as are many of the artists in the show. Looking at Music: Side 2 examines a movement of downtown artists, musicians, photographers, and film makers who enjoyed breaking rules and usually did their art on the cheap. New York was broke and so were we. It sounds like a brilliant show and includes artists I really like -- Patti Smith, Richard Hell, Jean-Michel Basquiat. I look forward to seeing it.
sc nyc 6.2009

Stephanie Chernikowski / The Rag Blog / June 9, 2009

Stephanie Chernikowski, a former denizen of the Sixties Austin artistic and literary bohemia who now resides in New York City, is featured in an exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art (MOMA).

The show, titled Looking at Music: Side 2, opens June 10, and runs through Nov. 30.

Stephanie Chernikowski moved to New York City from her native Texas on Columbus Day of 1975. She began working as a photojournalist shortly before her move and has continued to view life through a lens. Her concentration has been on 35mm black & white portraiture and documentation of the downtown music and arts scene, with occasional digressions.

Looking at Music: Side 2
June 10, 2009–November 30, 2009
The Yoshiko and Akio Morita Media Gallery, second floor

The Museum of Modern Art presents Looking at Music: Side 2, a survey of over 120 photographs, music videos, drawings, audio recordings, publications, Super 8 films, and ephemera that look at New York City from the early 1970s to the early 1980s when the city became a haven for young renegade artists who often doubled as musicians and poets. Art and music cross-fertilized with a vengeance following a stripped-down, hard-edged, anti-establishment ethos, with some artists plastering city walls with self-designed posters or spray painted monikers, while others commandeered abandoned buildings, turning vacant garages into makeshift theaters for Super 8 film screenings and raucous performances.

Many artists found the experimental music scene more vital and conducive to their contrarian ideas than the handful of contemporary art galleries in the city. Artists in turn formed bands, performed in clubs and non-profit art galleries, and self-published their own records and zines while using public access cable channels as a venue for media experiments and cultural debates.

See the online interactive presentation of the works included in Looking at Music: Side 2, with a slideshow of selected highlights, interpretive texts, and original acoustiguide conversations recorded for the exhibition. The site will launch by June 17, 2009.

Go to MOMA's public flickr page for Looking at Music: Side 2.

Visit Stephanie Chernikowski's website.

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Towers of Light : 9/11 / 2008

Photos by Jenny Ross / Fourthway Photography / The Rag Blog.

Since the first anniversary of 9/11, the "towers of light" have marked the occasion, beaming skyward from the actual footprints where the World Trade towers stood.

Almost unheralded among all the pomp, circumstance and political photo ops, they are perhaps the most beloved symbols of the day for those of us who were here. Silent, wordless reminders of the extraordinary shock, followed by the extraordinary sense of human community that flowed through the city that day and in the smoldering weeks that followed. This photo was taken by a friend and photographer Jenny Ross, from the roof of her Brooklyn apartment building.

Sarito Neiman / The Rag Blog / September 11, 2008

Click for larger images. The Rag Blog

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