The Arts Fuse Newsletter, August 28
Reviews of books by Doris Kearns Goodwin and Gretchen Whitmer, Juventas New Music Ensemble turns 20, Praxis Stage lights up "The Arsonists," and Incubus comes to town
From The Editor's Desk:
Labor Day is approaching, so it is an apt time to note a consequential moment in the ongoing assertion of the working-class voice in American culture. Ninety years ago, Tillie Lerner published -- in the New Republic and, a month later, in revised form, in The Partisan Review -- a Modernist-inflected essay that powerfully detailed her arrest, jailing, and trial at the hands of the San Francisco authorities. (The piece was first called “Thousand-Dollar Vagrant”; it was retitled “The Strike” when it appeared in PR.) Lerner had been among those rounded-up for participating in the San Francisco General Strike, labor’s massive response to “Bloody Thursday,” when the city’s police had shot into a crowd of protesting workers, killing two. The action stopped all work for four days in the major port city, a paralysis that eventually led to the settlement of the West Coast Longshoremen's Strike.
It would be nearly 30 years before Lerner, the child of Russian Jewish immigrant parents who settled in Omaha, Nebraska, would publish again, as Tillie Olsen, long after she had taken her husband’s name. A volume of short stories, the critically lauded Tell Me a Riddle, came out in 1961, after her youngest child had begun school. In the ‘30s Olsen had begun writing a novel, even publishing a chapter in The Partisan Review. But Yonnondio: From the Thirties — its protagonists a working-class family navigating dire economic straits during the 1920s —didn’t appear in print until 1974. The book offers a grimly alternative view of the Jazz Age, far from the glitter of F. Scott Fitzgerald and the middle-class satire of Sinclair Lewis.
Early on, Olsen articulated the ways that the fight for survival among those on the lower rung — dealing with poverty, family, and the daily grind — silenced thousands of working-class activists, who would remain invisible to history. She lamented that those lacking the prerequisite privileges — of education and sufficient leisure —did not have the opportunity to develop their artistic ambitions. In her 1978 non-fiction collection Silences, Olsen wrote about “mute inglorious Miltons: those whose waking hours are all struggle for existence.” As of 2023, according to the World Bank, nearly 241 million workers lived in extreme poverty. No doubt there are many thousands of ‘mute Miltons” among them.
—Bill Marx, Editor-in-Chief
Note: From the Editor's Desk -- By Popular Demand.
Readers have asked that I post these weekly opinion pieces in the magazine — request granted.
Book Review: Doris Kearns Goodwin and Gretchen Whitmer — Disappointing Guides
By Helen Epstein
The rewards are slight in new politically minded books by a pair of shrewd and perceptive women.
Classical Music Feature: Juventas New Music Ensemble Marks its 20th Year
By Jason M. Rubin
Juventas’s commitment to classical music in the present tense makes it the only professional ensemble of its kind devoted specifically to the music of emerging composers.
Theater Interview: Bob Scanlan on Directing “The Arsonists”
By Bill Marx
“It’s not just some generic ‘evil’ The Arsonists protests, it is willful blindness to fascist and authoritarian agendas. Denial and hiding behind ‘bourgeois’ comfort is the theme.”
Jazz Album Review: The Final Days of the 1369 Jazz Club — Rare and Precious Recordings
By Jason M. Rubin
Given the age of the recordings and peculiarities of the venue, the sound quality is very good — certainly more than good enough given the historical value of the amazing music captured therein.
Rock Interview: Incubus on Tour — Reimagining Their Landmark Album “Morning View”
By Rob Duguay
It has been over 20 years since Incubus released its acclaimed album Morning View. The band has re-recorded it under the name Morning View XXIII.
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Editor-in-Chief
Bill Marx
wmarx103@gmail.com
