Thursday's Place: Rowan Oak

It was a Sunday afternoon during a very hot, late June in the Mississippi Delta.  Although, I never knew a June, or any other summer month in Mississippi, that wasn't hot and humid.  That week we would leave the air-conditioned house for the air-conditioned car to go to an air-conditioned restaurant.  Those brief moments in the un-conditioned air seemed like a stray visit to a sun.

So, with little to do that day, as Sundays are still honored in the south, we drove 150 miles or so to the northeast, meandering through the infamous crossroads of Route 49 and Highway 61, the place where Robert Johnson met the devil and was given, however temporarily, his prowess at the guitar, and through the small town of Clarksdale that has produced so many musicians, seven of whom are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, from Sam Cooke to Ike Turner to Howlin' Wolf to John Lee Hooker, that the list of their names makes up the bulk of the local chamber of commerce's webpage.

That wasn't our journey's end, however.  As much as the blues have defined the nature and reality of life in that part of the American South, there was another mecca, to be found sixty miles to the east, that delivered Southern art, grace, and aesthetics, indeed the foundation of all of those chords and laments, to the rest of the world.  As Mississippi also brought forth its share of writers, including Eudora Welty, Richard Wright, Walker Percy, and Tennesee Williams, the Magnolia State also produced he who is arguably the most influential of them all, particularly on the world's stage.

Rowan Oak was for over thirty years, from 1930 until his death in 1962, the home of William Faulkner.  It was here that he would write many of his novels and stories, and from which he would receive notice that he had won the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the Nobel Prize for Literature.  Those prizes discomfited Faulkner, however, as he preferred the peace of his tumbledown manor and its overgrown garden.

In fact, it was that garden and its maze that first attracted our attention as we parked in a gravel drive and looked along the cedar-lined path that lead to the gracious front porch.  I was glad, since our own car frequently carries with it the tools, accoutrements, and accessories necessary to maintain my wife's elaborate and demanding gardens, that we were in my father-in-law's borrowed Buick.  The first thing my wife said was, "This needs weeding".  Under ordinary circumstances, that would mean around six hours fussing with someone else's garden.  Since my father-in-law's trunk carried nothing other than a spare tire, I was in luck and could actually expect to see something of the house.

Except that Rowan Oak was, by our visit, under the care of the University of Mississippi as a literary landmark and its hours of operation were quixotic.  As it turned out, although I had been assured that visitors were welcome on a Sunday, that meant to the parking lot, maze, and garden; and not the actual house.  I amused myself by sitting on the front porch and remembering Faulkner's literary observation that, "Yesterday, today, tomorrow, are is indivisible, one", and thought about porches and peace and what it was to have a place apart from the world.

When I saw my wife starting to think about ways of using a tire jack for a gardening tool, I briskly escaped to the back of the house, thought "What the heck?", and tried the kitchen door.  It was unlocked.  Ah, the South.

There, for an hour, without a guide, overseer, or guard, I was on my own to wander around Rowan Oak, to see even the parts that weren't prepared for public viewing.  While my wife meandered about the garden and maze, I ghosted through the kitchen, sitting room, telephone nook [with the number "Oxford 1-8110" scribbled on the wall] and, particularly, the room in which Faulkner wrote.  The most spectacular feature is the character outline of his novel, A Fable, written into the wall.

[Really, what was it with this household?  Was there a shortage of paper in Mississippi in his day?]

For those interested in architecture, we offer the following from the official pamphlet:

It is a primitive Greek Revival house built in the 1840s by Robert Sheegog. Faulkner purchased the house when it was in disrepair in the 1930s and did many of the renovations himself. Other renovations were done in the 1950s. The house sits on 4 landscaped and twenty nine acres of largely wooded property known as Bailey's Woods. Though the "rowan oak" is a mythical tree, the grounds and surrounding woods of Rowan Oak contain hundreds of species of native Mississippi plants, most of which date back to antebellum times. The alley of cedars that lines the driveway was common in the 19th century. The studs of the house are 4"x4" square cypress, which were hand-hewn. Faulkner drew much inspiration for his treatment of multi-layered Time from Rowan Oak, where past and future seemed to inhabit the present.

In 1972, his daughter, Jill Faulkner Summers, sold the house to the University of Mississippi. The University maintains the home in order to promote Faulkner's literary heritage. Tours are available. The home has been visited by such writers as John Updike, Czesław Miłosz, Charles Simic, Richard Ford, James Lee Burke, Bei Dao, Charles Wright, Charles Frazier, Alice Walker, the Coen brothers, Bobbie Ann Mason, Salman Rushdie, and others. Writer Mark Richard once repaired a faulty doorknob on the French door to Faulkner's study. 

Rowan Oak was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1968. After its most recent renovations, some of which were funded by part-time Oxford resident and Ole Miss law school alumnus, John Grisham, Rowan Oak was rededicated on May 1, 2005.

Well, that explains why my memory, while seated on that porch, was drawn back to that quotation from Faulkner about time and its nature.

Despite the heat and the drive and the sudden realization that we were in Mississippi on a Sunday, which in those days meant no place to eat or drink in Oxford, it was one of the best moments of our many visits to the deep South.  We meandered, we walked, we appreciated, and, through the hospitality of Faulkner's ghost leaving that back door unlocked, we gained a sense of that old, gracious style of life that he captured so well in his work.

A Pungent Observation

Most of the journalism I read seems to be from people who are merely reacting to some “tweet” sent out by the current occupant of The White House.  That hardly seems like work.  I guess shoe leather reporting is dead.

No, and We're the Poorer for It

Could Mr. Rogers exist today?

Reflections on Annual Convention

So, I spent a great deal of the weekend attending the annual convention of my denomination.  Really, it’s a church, not a denomination, but that's an insider's distinction these days.  When fewer and fewer of the young people with whom I work know The Lord's Prayer, the difference between a church and a denomination is obtuse.

This was my 38th convention as a working member of The Episcopal Church.  I've been attending these for so long that, at my first convention, we were still The Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States.  Later, we became The Episcopal Church of the United States [ECUSA, for short], until it was changed yet again to The Episcopal Church.

I’ve always found this latest self-title a little reverse-colonial, as our world-wide communion includes The Episcopal Church of Scotland, The Episcopal Church in Jerusalem, The Episcopal Church of Sudan, etc.  By dropping "of the United States", it seems as if we're saying that we're the only true Episcopal Church.  Not that it matters, I suppose, as the rest of the Anglican Communion doesn't really take us seriously any longer.

Such discussions are beyond consideration these days, however, as we are now inheriting from the world of higher education the latest in virtue trends: Social Justice and Identity Politics.  We always seem to be about seven years downstream of university culture, so this is about right.  It'll be the rage for the next few years until it is replaced by the next great concern and moral panic.

So, here's what I experienced along with one or two things that I noticed:

Younger clergy are remarkably condescending towards older clergy, especially the "boomers", a word that carries for them a negative connotation.  What's really splendid is they fit this naked ageism into their grand statements about acceptance, diversity, and respecting the dignity of every human being.  I suppose that it's another tragic example of why we no longer matter, but I find it amusing, anyway.

This happened only once, but the reaction was so positive that I imagine it's a harbinger of the future.  One of the clergy, who is particularly fond of being in the newspapers and getting "likes" on social media, stood at the microphone and used "frickin'" in a sentence, a borderline vulgarity that received a smattering of applause, and followed it up with "s**t".  That received more applause.  I remember the elegance of language that used to be heard at conventions, but that's just me being a boomer, I guess.  He had a very self-satisfied smile when he left the microphone.  When I noted to the person seated next to me that he had neither asked a question nor spoken in support of a resolution, and wondered what he was doing at the microphone, it was observed, "He's showing us how cool he is.  He's one of the cool kids, now."  Oh.

I used to enjoy convention when some truly educated men and women would struggle theologically with the issues of the day.  Now, my younger/newer colleagues sound like the players in junior high student government.

There was one classic "boomer" moment, though, when another colleague took to a microphone to scold the entire room about consulting what he called our "social devices" while people were taking to the microphone to speak.  It was remarkable in that he didn't seem to realize that, as we are now "paperless", all of the resolutions were on a smartphone app and that many of us were taking notes on the resolutions with our "social devices".  His castigation was taken with quiet patience, in a truly Connecticut manner.

One of the young clergy, clearly seeing this as his woke moment to #FightForFifteen, stood to lecture us on how new clergy, who are salaried, actually make less than $15 an hour.  He was ready to get frothy about it, until a boomer pointed out to him that he had forgotten to include the housing allowance that we are given, which pushes that hourly figure way past $15.  I was a little troubled by his inability to read a simple budget and, had I been his boss, I would have reduced his salary to the equivalent of $15 an hour.  Red-faced, he returned to his seat.

This was the second time this year that the powers-that-be, who remind us to practice self-care, thought that the best way for us to meet in counsel was to spend twelve hours sitting in chairs and mostly listening to people talk at us.  [Should that be twelve "frickin'" hours?  I should ask Father Woke once he comes down from his narcissism high.]  What sort of glutes exercises do these people do that enables them to sit for so long without muscle aches and body derangement?

Ah, well.  105 weeks of this left.

A Social Class This Weak Will Die

Students at Oxford University are latest to demand clapping banned because applause noise could trigger anxiety as they call for 'jazz hands' to be used instead

Surprising No One Who is Sentient

People are smoking cigarettes again amid vaping-related panic

Artificially created moral panic is generally a harmful failure.

Neat Trick, Considering There Are No Waffle Houses in Massachusetts [or Anywhere Else in New England]

Elizabeth Warren Says Her Favorite Place Is Waffle House

Liz, you didn't look authentic drinking beer from a bottle, I can't believe your favorite dish includes cheese grits and sausage gravy.

Seriously, I wonder if we haven't come to the end of the focus group-driven pandering that's marked so much of politics for the past thirty years.  It seems bizarre and obvious by contemporary standards.

Lee Konitz

As long as there are people trying to play music in a sincere way, there will be some jazz.

He was a good looking guy, a little inebriated but carrying it well in his athletic frame.  He was around thirty, had Gallic features, and was wearing chinos with a slightly worse-for-wear cotton dress shirt.  He wasn't wearing a tie, none of the young men in this place did, and he hadn't shaved for a day.  Still, given he was in the company of some rather strange, and also inebriated, men, he stood out.

Mainly it was because he was standing in front of the saxophonist who was on the stage and looking at him like he had just seen the face of God and lived.

As the dumb-struck man was a writer and in the midst of a colossal block that had prevented him from progressing on a novel that was, at that point, rather prosaic in its narrative style, he had gone with friends to Birdland, the famous jazz club, to forget about sentences, paragraphs, dialogue, and character development for a night of music, wine, mad dancing and wildness.  While not specifically looking for inspiration, the writer found it while listening to this week's person and, in so doing, would make literary history.

Lee Konitz is a jazz saxophonist; he plays the soprano, alto, and tenor saxes, although generally prefers the alto when he still performs, now at the age of 87.  While there are other musicians who have tragic childhood tales of daunting, even terrifying, experiences, Konitz was born in Chicago in 1927 to middle-class Austro/Russian emigres and raised to respect learning and labor.  Again, unlike a surprising number of other musicians, he could read music and transpose in his head, and was trained in composition and music theory.  He enjoyed the music of the big bands that he would hear on the radio, wanting nothing other than to compose and play with such organizations.  Because his favorite was Benny Goodman, he requested the gift of a clarinet from his parents.  Shortly afterwards, he would switch to the other woodwind and prove so adept that he was able to improvise even before he learned to match the fingering to the printed notes.

At the immediate conclusion of the Second World War, the teenage Konitz found himself performing with a variety of standard jazz bands, although he was becoming very attracted to the newness and freedom of the jumpier, improvisation-based jazz known as bebop that was being pioneered by many of the younger musicians, especially Charlie "Bird" Parker.  By 1947, he was playing compositions by the jazz great Gerry Mulligan and arrangements by Gil Evans.  After proving his chops with this formidable group, Konitz was asked by Miles Davis to sit in with his combo and attempt something radically new. 

From 1949 to 1950, Konitz, along with Mulligan, worked with Davis to record the songs that would eventually be included in 1957's Birth of the Cool, one of those albums that is always on the list of essentials.  As jazz, like sermons, is a form of proclamation, its product is best honed when played live before an audience, so both musician and listener form a moment of artistic Gestalt.  So, Davis, Konitz and their compatriots made the rounds of jazz clubs, becoming popular especially at New York's Village Vanguard, Blue Note, and, of course, Birdland.

Which brings us to that moment of wonder for the novelist and the saxophonist, where the interplay of horn and woodwinds brought him his moment of epiphany.

The novelist was Jack Kerouac and the manuscript which had been so vexing him would one day be entitled On The Road.  Of that moment in October of 1951, Kerouac would later write, "The tune they were playing was All the Things You Are . . . they slowed it down and dragged behind it at half tempo dinosaur proportions-changed the placing of the note in the middle of the harmony to an outer more precarious position where also its sense of not belonging was enhanced by the general atonality produced with everyone exteriorizing the tune's harmony."

Well, it meant something to him, anyway.

While Miles Davis, Gerry Mulligan, Charlie Parker, Art Pepper, Dave Brubeck, Charles Mingus, and Ornette Coleman are all better-known, Konitz played with and outlasted them all; he was playing at the Blue Note just a couple of years ago.  Beyond his influence on Kerouac, Konitz also influenced three generations of musicians with his original compositions and imaginative takes on American standards.  In fact, he is now so well-regarded that a couple of young saxophonists recently told me that they no longer wish to play like Parker, but like Lee.  In fact, what they said to me was, "Charlie who?"

Here, enjoy some more, won't you?

Thursday's Place: The Insomniac

A former student of mine moved to New York City about fifteen years ago, determined to be a professional singer.  She was not a rocker nor a rapper, her appearance was zaftig with big hair,  like someone who would have appeared on a Bob Hope special in the mid-sixties, and she had a preference for torch songs.

Naturally, the few places that liked that type of entertainment were booked with the high-end performers, and the smaller clubs preferred a contemporary sound.  So, after she realized that traipsing all over Manhattan and Brooklyn looking for a venue was futile, on one of her stops she noticed that the club was advertising for a bartender and she applied and was hired.

For a year, she tended bar and did whatever else was necessary to keep the business solvent and operational.  After hours, during the clean-up, she would take a seat at the piano and entertain the other workers, including the club's owner/manager.  Inevitably, one night a performer didn't arrive and he asked her to fill in.  She was a hit and, to this day, still regularly performs there and elsewhere, and has recorded three albums.  [Are they still called albums?  I don't know.]

She may not have realized it, but she had just engaged in a very traditional manner of finding an entrance to the oft-closed world of entertainment.  It brought to mind another singer I was listening to the other day.

When she was sixteen, Linda Ronstadt, a machine parts dealer's daughter from Tuscon, ran away from home re-located to the Los Angeles area to become a singer.  As with my former student, she didn't have much luck and was a bit young, anyway, so she applied for and was awarded a waitress position at a funky coffeehouse and art gallery in Hermosa Beach.  It was here that she invited to perform by the owner.  The rest of her story we pretty well know.

She wasn't the only one, however, although she may have been the most famous to have come out of The Insomniac Cafe, a place that was popular with the counter-culture performers of the era, if a bit notorious to the local police and politicians.  Well, what else is new?

In 1958, an entrepreneur named Bob Hare saw an empty storefront, something that is anathema to any entrepreneur, and decided to imitate the coffeehouses that were becoming common in San Francisco and were beginning to enter Southern California culture.  [Please read of Cafe Frankenstein, a surfer/beatnik place that was a contemporary of The Insomniac's, elsewhere in The Coracle.]

So, Hare borrowed $2000 [around $18,000 in 2019] and turned what had been a shoe store into a modest place to have a cup of coffee late into the night.  As he didn't serve liquor, he could stay open until 3am, a full hour after the Lighthouse jazz club, which was across the street, closed.  That meant the adrenalized musicians and their fans still had somewhere to go after every other venue had shuttered.

Naturally, once musicians are invited into any place with a roof, be it a nightclub, coffeehouse, church, or barn, they have to play.  Thus, music began to be offered at The Insomniac and, in keeping with SoCal culture, it was eclectic and fun.  Not just jazz or the teenage Ronstadt singing her off-key songs of daunted love, but folk trios, blues warblers, and even Gospel music.  At the end of his first year in business, The Insomniac was earning $100,000 annually [about $850,000 today].

Hare's vision was to recreate a Greenwich Village vibe in suburban L.A., an area primarily known for beach volleyball.  In order to encourage that vision, he bought the store next door and turned it into The Insomniac Book and Art Fair, where the beat writers and poets who were so popular up north could sell their works and read from them to adoring beach kids, and artists such as Earl Newman, who is mostly famous for his Newport Jazz Festival poster designs, and Frank Holmes would get their start.  Allan Ginsburg even showed up one evening and read from "Howl", still one of the best-selling books of poetry in the 20th century.

[See above for Newman's vision of The Insomniac, and below for Holmes work as a record album artist.]

In addition to music, books, and art, The Insomniac also became a place for outer orbital comedians to perform, including the scandalous Lenny Bruce and the truly original, if remarkably wacky, beatnik Lord Buckley.

Sounds ideal, doesn't it?  Well, yes, if you're a musician, artist, writer, poet, comedian, coffee addict, or fan of any of the above.  Apparently, the city fathers of Hermosa Beach were none of those things and, in a story that's eerily similar to the fate of Cafe Frankenstein down in Laguna Beach, saw The Insomniac not as the sentinel of Greenwich Village culture, but as an impediment to a planned walkway that would connect the beach to the more savory shops in the main part of town.  So, the Hermosa Beach police would visit The Insomniac with brutal regularity until [surprise!] they found some drugs.  Hare and some others would be arrested, the charges eventually dismissed.

With the subsequent loss of its entertainment license, The Insomniac could no longer be what it had been and the city, through the process of eminent domain, seized the property and turned it into a charmless walkway and parking area in 1965.  [I've been there in this century and noted it as an area mostly for the homeless, along with some used syringes and human waste; good thing they got rid of a coffeehouse, eh?]

Hare would later become a counselor and  member of the Lutheran Church, serving troubled youth with wisdom and sacrament, if not caffeine and tunes.

Recently, as the city of Hermosa Beach is now desirous of marketing their facile history, a series of murals have been commissioned, including one entitled "Beatnik Alley", that captures some of the performers and the cultural vibe of those seven brief years.  Depictions of Ronstadt, folk singer Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, who came over for coffee after The Lighthouse would close for the evening, may be found along the wall of a Brazilian BBQ restaurant.

We guess The Insomniac, now that it has been closed for over fifty years and its owner dead for eight, has achieved the status of elderly politicians, ugly buildings, and over-the-hill prostitutes and has become respectable.

For the counter-culture, this is the circle of life.

For fun, here's Lord Buckley's take on Jesus of Nazareth.  No, really.

We Need to Get On That

America’s supply of uneaten bacon is biggest in 48 years

Decline of the West

Universities Breed Anger, Ignorance, and Ingratitude

Thank You, Gramps, for Leaving the U.K. and Coming to the U.S.

The Duke and Duchess of Woke continue to make friends.

Blimey. What are all those servants being paid for if they can’t even get their act together to enquire after Meghan’s state of mind? Us ignorant folk may all blithely assume that the cleaners and gardeners and caterers and nutritionists and nannies and private doctors and midwives and stylists and chauffeurs as well as the private jet and the foreign holidays and the £2.4million house renovation might make being a wife and a mum who has to turn out to smile and wave every now and again just a little bit easier. But it turns out we’d be wrong: poor Megs is merely ‘existing not living’.

I tried to feel sympathetic towards Meghan’s new-mum-with-a-new-job schtick. Honestly. But what rubs is the context. Harry and Meghan ask us to feel sorry for them moments after ITV’s intrepid Tom Bradby announces they are in Malawi, the fith poorest country on Earth. Over the course of his hour-long syco-fest, Bradby records the couple in the townships of South Africa, at a school (little more than a shed) in Malawi, and in a hospital in Angola. We learn of dire poverty, the legacy of Apartheid and war. And yet, at the end of the show, our sympathies are supposed to lie with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Yes, the cute little Angolan boy might have lost his leg, but he doesn’t have to put up with people writing stuff about him in tabloid newspapers.

Not Exactly an Emergency, Is It?

Study Finds the Wealthy & Celebrities Aren’t Changing Their Flying Habits to Reduce CO2 Emissions

"Better Known for Other Work" is a Bit of an Understatement

Direct Action Beats Legislation

The [Church of Rome's] Amazon Synod has been full of scandal. It started when the opening ceremony in the Vatican garden was full of earth worship and what appeared to be idol worship happening right in front of the pope with his blessing. One doesn't have to be an art major to recognize ancient fertility goddesses. 

The ensuing outrage that occurred among traditional Catholics went unanswered by Rome. In the face of this silence, unidentified Catholics took matters into their own hands and walked into the church next to St. Peter's where the images were displayed and removed them and threw them into the Tiber.

You know, you would have thought, after all of the scandal, that they had learned their lesson about giving their parishioners the silent treatment.

The List of Thursday's Places, Thus Far

Cafe Frankenstein - The proto-surfer, beat hang-out that was a headache to the cops, man.
The Elbo Room - The inadvertent magnet of Florida spring break crazy
The White Horse Tavern - "Jack, go home"
Don the Beachcomber's - Wacky tiki in old California
The House of Swing - Where jazz is king
The Mermaid Cafe - Greeks, geeks, hippies, and Joni Mitchell
The Oxford Bar - Remember to wear your old school tie and be prepared for murder
Musso and Frank Grill - Stick to the martinis and chicken pot pie
Charlie's - At the shore since '44
Cornelia Street Cafe - A moment in fading New York
La Cave - A lot can happen around used church furniture
The University of Leeds Refectory - Mushy peas and 98 decibel rock
Harry's New York Bar of Paris - Have the $40 Bloody Mary and pretend you're drinking with Hemingway
The Campbell Apartment - Hidden elegance on Vanderbilt Avenue
The Majestic Grill - Dogs
Coventry Road - Beats, Hippies, and a kid English teacher
The Algonquin Hotel - Cats and critics favorite
The Eagle and Child - Hobbits, Narnia, and the Golden Dawn
CBGB - "Why are these walls...wet?"
The Kite - Only in the islands
Caffe Trieste - Italy meets boho in Frisco
The Cleveland Museum of Art - The best museum in the United States, that's all
The Souks of Marrakesh - "For five dirham, you can step on the cobra."
Christian's Hut - The movable movie set
Shakespeare and Company - The bookstore that gave us our high school reading list
The Smiling Dog Saloon - Even better than a bowling alley
Margaritaville - A tiny burger shack that became an industry
Tintamarre - A desert island, a makeshift bar, and Whiskey Pete
The Dune Shacks of Provincetown - Rustic living for the artistic class
The Checkerboard Lounge - Chicago's gift to music

Everything You Know is Wrong

Pork Fat Is Officially One of the World’s Most Nutritious Foods

Fifty Years Ago Today, the Beats Began to Wave Goodbye

The Day After Kerouac Died

To Quote Confucius, You Must Always Obey the Hand That Feeds You

-Injustice Anywhere Is A Threat To Justice Everywhere- Our Lives Begin To End The Day We Become Silent About Things That Matter- #ThankYouMLK50

— LeBron James (@KingJames) January 15, 2018

Of course, the injustice that Mr. James wishes to pronounce upon is that in his own country, the one that made him a millionaire.  Slaves, religious and political prisoners, and generalized brutality in China are complicated and not worth his attention.  Plus, he's an employee of Nike.

Charles Curtis

Bias and prejudice are attitudes to be kept in hand, not attitudes to be avoided.

You have probably never heard of Charles Curtis.  It's okay, only a few of us have heard his story.

When I first moved to the East, and often had to answer questions during orientation meetings such as "Where are you from?" and "Where did you grow up?" and variations of such, I finally settled on simply responding, "I was raised on the frontier by Indians."  That usually ended that tedious line of conversation.

Thing is, for most of those who are Eastern-born and raised, Ohio is the frontier, especially when one considers how much of it was settled by The Connecticut Company.  As for the other portion, I was raised by Indians, with whom I fished and hunted and cut wood and shot guns and arrows and chased chickens and ran about on unfettered land filled with the bounty of harvest.  Things have certainly changed.  Because of that, I have a certain affinity for our subject.

Curtis was a slight man, born in 1860.  He was raised on the Kaw tribal reservation outside of Topeka, Kansas, and, although a half-breed, was known as "Indian Charley".  He was fluent in Kaw, French, and English.  He learned to ride a horse bareback the same year he learned to walk.  At the age of eight he and an adult member of his tribe rode to the state capital to request aid from the governor in combating the Cheyenne who were plaguing Topeka at the time.  This journey made Indian Charley's horsemanship rather well known, thus he spent much of his subsequent youth as a highly successful jockey, winning a considerable amount of money for the members of the Kansas underworld.

This, however, did not sit well with his grandmother, especially when gangsters wanted to send Charley to far-away Philadelphia to become a professional jockey.  Instead, she saw to it that he was sent not to a track but to Topeka High School.  While attending classes and living with his grandparents, in a tale numbingly familiar to students of American Indian history, his tribe's homestead in Kansas was moved by the U.S. government to Oklahoma.  Indian Charley's home was now gone, his jockeying days were over, and all that was left to him was a secondary education.  So, he could return to the tribe on the unfamiliar reservation, experience the poverty and alcoholism that goes hand-in-hand with government enabled or enforced dependence, or he could "mainstream" himself into white culture, take what role he could earn, and see to it that tribal life in the United States was somehow, if only in a small way, improved.  Fortunately, he choose the latter.

As was possible in those days, Indian Charley, now known as Charles, read for the law under the tutelage of a handful of Topeka lawyers.  He was admitted to the Kansas bar at the age of 21 and became prosecuting attorney for Shawnee County by the age of 25.  Using his finely honed ability, formed on the reservation and racetrack, to be amiable and knowledgeable about his fellow citizens, Charles Curtis won election to the House of Representatives in 1893.  He was the first American Indian [or, what people tend to call "Native American"] to serve as a congressman.  In 1907, his state selected him to fill a brief term as a replacement senator, making him the first American Indian to serve in the Senate.  Shortly, thereafter, another milestone was reached when he was elected to that position.

While serving in both houses of the Capitol, Curtis sought legislation that eased the life of his tribe and all others gathered under the umbrella of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.  He sought the elimination of the reservation system, replacing it with land grants that enabled Indians to be full property owners and participatory members in society.  In a still-controversial initiative, he sought to encourage the tribal members to seek a less isolated role in society, pushing for "white" education and jobs in a manner that permitted assimilation into the greater culture.

But it was through his skills as a backroom negotiator where his true service to his nation was revealed, as Curtis could coerce and cajole with the best of them, eventually resulting in his election as Senate majority leader in 1925 and, yes, he was the first tribesman so honored.

This was why Herbert Hoover selected him as his running mate in 1928, as his vision and energy was going to be needed in the politico-economic realities of the decade.  Thus, Charles Curtis became the first, and only, American Indian to serve as Vice-President of the United States.  It was a singular honor and a major achievement for the First Nations, not to mention a great aid to the sometimes aloof Hoover.

Throughout his life, Curtis dealt with the realities of bias, however, and came to realize that they are part and parcel of the human condition.  As they cannot be removed, so they must be acknowledged and processed through education and experience.  The best, and really the only, way for that to be realized is through the integration of people, perspectives, experiences, and ideas.  Every piece of legislature introduced or sponsored by Curtis carried this theme.  This is why, in 1923, he proposed the initial version of the Equal Rights Amendment.

After elected office, Curtis remained in Washington D.C. for his final few years, succumbing to a heart attack in 1936.  He is buried in his native Kansas, not too far from where Indian Charley rode those horses, wild and free.  A museum in his honor may be found at his family's house in Topeka.

Oh, and for all of his "firsts", there was one significant "last".  Charles Curtis was the last Vice President to have...facial hair.

 

Thursday's Place: The Checkerboard Lounge

When I was a younger man, before church work and before marriage, I was dating a woman who lived in Chicago and was appearing in a play in The Loop.  This was a little tricky to manage as I was living 350 miles away in Cleveland.  So, on Friday afternoons, as soon as I could escape after teaching my eighth period English class, I would drive my Chevy through the early rush hour traffic, along the flattening highway past Sandusky, Toledo, Elkhart, South Bend, Gary, and eventually Joliet; arriving in The Windy after a little over five hours.

The thing was, the play would be performed until about 11 and that would leave me with some time to kill.  For awhile, I was content to hang around backstage, lean against a steam radiator in the wings, and wait.  When I reached the point when I could mouth the actors' lines from heart, I realized that I'd have to do something else before I became a nuisance to the production crew.

So, being an aficionado of jazz and blues, and knowing that Chicago was the Mecca for all northbound blues musicians, I found that, a short distance from the Bronzeville exit off of Interstate 90, one could find Buddy Guy's blues club, The Checkerboard Lounge.

Now, it was not the most prepossessing place, although those readers who have perused our Thursday offerings have, I'm sure, noticed that tends to be the norm for the music clubs I would frequent, but it had good music, good parking, and beer that was cheap.  [Their special cocktail was gin and ginger ale, so we stuck with the beer.]  Bronzeville, having been the historic African-American district, was known for its cultural artists, in fact Muddy Waters himself lived just a few blocks away in an ordinary middle-class neighborhood, and the venue became a popular stage for the local performers and their followers.

While most of the blues musicians were as obscure as was their art form by the 1970's, a casual glance around the club would reveal that there was still an international appeal.  While there were certainly neighborhood regulars present, there were also suburban youngsters, college kids, and European tourists.

Among those tourists, one evening in 1981, were a bunch of musicians from England who, after having finished a concert in downtown Chicago, stopped by to hang out after hours at The Lounge.  That turned out to be a seminal moment, as they had brought some recording equipment with them, gave Muddy a call and invited him over, and created one of the best albums of the 1980's.

With the success of The Rolling Stones' "Live at The Checkerboard Lounge", suddenly every marquee musician wanted his or her time on the stage, and so Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton, Magic Slim, Vance Kelly, and Chuck Berry would also creak those boards and lay out some painful chords to the faithful who gathered.

As noted, the building was a bit of a disaster and was condemned in 2003.  It was moved to the trendier and self-consciously hip neighborhood of Hyde Park, and that led to its inevitable demise.  It was very much the product of Bronzeville, a proud African-American community, and not suited to the transient enthusiasms of Hyde Park.  The Checkboard Lounge closed in 2015.

However, in my travels as a luthier, and one who tends to favor the marginal genres of music, it's remarkable how many blues guitarists mention that their inspiration came from that brick building with its rickety stage and dodgy wiring.  Those who actually played there enjoy a status akin to that of the Olympians to Greek swineherds.  Just about anyone among the younger artists, especially those from Chicago and the Midwest, can trace their chordal lineage to 43rd St. in Bronzeville and the legacy that was founded.

That is beyond bricks and mortar, asphalt and asbestos.  There is not a guitarist who has twanged a C, F, and G progression who doesn't owe something to Buddy Guy's original club and the neighborhood pride that it enabled.

"Wokeness" and Hypocrisy Go Hand in Hand

Corporate Subservience to China Exposes the Hypocrisy of Woke Capitalism

An interesting stat I heard the other night was that, while the NBA is an 8 billion dollar industry, Nike is a 40 billion dollar industry.  Nike, whose wealth primarily comes from sales in China and counts on their cheap manufacturing, owns the NBA and its players.

BTW, The Episcopal Church has Not Issued a Statement

Hong Kong House of Bishops issues pastoral letter

You will have to read this from a secondary source as the last two years of material on the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui webpage, including the original text of this letter, has disappeared.  It's a mystery, it is.

I'm Really Glad That He Left the Cavs

Man, he opened a can of satire, didn't he?

LeBron James to open camp for people to get educated on China

and

Oppressed Chinese Citizens Apologize To NBA Players For Disrupting Their Difficult Week

"Look, we never meant to make your lives difficult---we are so, so sorry," said a representative for Chinese dissenters. His name has been withheld to protect him from imprisonment or execution by authorities. "We never realized just how hard it was to throw a ball through a hoop and make millions of dollars."

Sooth

I'm Starting to Lose Track of All of the Moral Panics

The Vaping Crisis Is a Moral Panic Led by Anti-Smoking Crusaders

It has become increasingly clear that the wave of respiratory illnesses alarming health authorities is linked primarily to black market cartridges delivering THC, the psychoactive cannabinoid in marijuana, rather than the commercial nicotine vapor products that have been used by millions of people in multiple countries for more than a decade. Yet opponents of nicotine use have seized the opportunity to further enflame the moral panic around vaping.

What a Revolting Development

There is no more powerful example of China’s ability to command obedience and silence its critics on a global scale than watching a fabulously wealthy NBA superstar do China’s bidding here in America https://t.co/LNaK7CsNPP

— Buck Sexton (@BuckSexton) October 15, 2019

"Those with whom I disagree are not educated" is a familiar world-view to anyone who has asked even a mild question about mainstream Protestant social policy.   He would have made a good diocesan administrator.

Good News for Exorcists

Allegations of Sex with the Devil Aren't Libelous, says a federal court.

Mayflower, Are You Still on the Line?

$100 is worth about $86 in New York—here’s what it will buy you in every US state

Oh, Please

The story of America’s mistreatment of indigenous peoples is long and painful. And yet, Native communities have proven resilient. We owe them our respect—and we must honor our government's commitments and promises to them. #IndigenousPeoplesDay

— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) October 14, 2019

Liz? May I call you Liz?  Real American Indians, not the house injuns pre-approved by your party and the media, are grossly insulted by your multi-decade, cynical masquerade as a tribal member, an act apparently intended to serve your ambition.  Even before your cover was blown, you did absolutely nothing in the House or the Senate to address Indian affairs.  Your silence when the EPA poisoned a generation of Navajo a few years ago is telling.

I understand that you need to pander, as that is your nature, but maybe sit this one out.

It’s the Golden Age of Irony, Again

Legislator Who Argues Housing Is a Human Right Also Suing to Stop Affordable Housing in Her District

I'm Glad Someone Said It

What Columbus Day Really Means: If you think the holiday pits Native Americans against Italian Americans, consider the history behind its origin

No, It's Just Another Moral Panic Created by Politicians and Media to Garner Votes and "Clicks"

Issues 2020: Millennials Aren’t Drowning in Student Debt

Rather Glad that Bard College Disassociated from The Episcopal Church

I Was Protested At Bard College For Being A Jew

In Computer Engineering, There are Worse Ways to Waste Money

U.S. Attorney: Professor Spent $190,000 Of Research Grant Funds At Strip Clubs

An Interruption

Between a funeral, a wedding, and a small medical procedure, our time to compose the usual fluff will have been compromised this week.  Please stand by and we will return all features shortly.

免费香港

What in the world is going on here?

Two Sixers fans booted from game over ‘Free Hong Kong’ signs

NBA, Stop Being Beijing’s Enforcers

This Daryl Morey-China Situation is the NBA-Loving Sports Media's Worst Nightmare

We’re Not Exporting Our Values to China — We’re Importing Theirs 

How China forces American companies to do its political bidding

An hourly Marriott employee got fired for liking a tweet

I've had way too many students from Hong Kong over the years, and been privy to too many of their stories, to ever bend the knee to that bunch of brutal, murderous thugs who hide behind a once-noble history that they have perverted through Communism, an ideology for simpletons, and the atrocities for which it serves as an excuse.

I've had three Communists in my life attempt to "convert" me to their horror, and each one needed his gun to encourage it.  I was glad to have hurt their feelings.  This is the United States of America and if a corporation fears China in regards to its bottom-line, wait until they meet 300 million aggravated Americans.

You can buy one of these here.

He Has a Point

Climate Worship Is Nothing More Than Rebranded Paganism

Surprising No One Who Has Been in a Chinese Ship's Wake in Mid-Ocean

Chinese cargo vessels produce most plastic garbage floating in Atlantic ocean, study finds

Maybe that Swedish kid could go yell at them.

Hello, Mayflower?

While the US job market continues to grow robustly this year, adding 1.3 million jobs through August, Connecticut’s has stalled. The state has added only 400 jobs in a state of 3.6 million people, translating to 1/36th the rate of job growth as seen in the rest of the country. 

It remains the only state other than Wyoming that has yet to recover all the jobs it lost since the Great Recession began in December 2007. 

Nevertheless, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont marked the end of his first legislative session this summer with a peculiar victory lap around New York City. Lamont appeared on CNBC and MSNBC and visited the Wall Street Journal editorial board to promote the effectiveness of his agenda. 

Because of his party’s reforms, “Connecticut is in a turnaround,” Lamont told Joe Scarborough, whose band performed at the governor’s inaugural ball. His rosy report is the fulfillment of the Democrat governor’s campaign promise to deliver “change” to Connecticut from eight preceding years of unitary Democrat government. 

The reality in Connecticut is entirely different. Lamont and the Democrats, with large majorities in the legislature, have delivered more of the same this year, but in higher doses. They’ve raised taxes to fund an increasingly bloated government and given more power and privilege to the politicians and special interests. It is little wonder job creation virtually stopped during Lamont’s liberal legislative binge. 

If Connecticut is in a turnaround, it’s a full 360 degrees.

Little wonder that there's been no change, given that the voters return the same people from the same political machine to the state house, year after year.

It’s Also The Golden Age of Stupidity

University and College Union apologises after failing to include Jews on list of groups of Holocaust victims

Sooth

The madness of Extinction Rebellion: This is an upper-middle-class death cult and we should ridicule it out of existence.

They demanded repentance. ‘Buy less, fly less, fry less’, said one placard. Catholics only demand the non-consumption of meat on Fridays, as an act of penance to mark the day of Christ’s death. This new religion demands an end to meat-consumption entirely, as penance for mankind’s sins of growth and progress. 

And like all death cultists, they handed out leaflets that contained within them ‘THE TRUTH’. The leaflets foretell floods and fire: ‘We are in trouble. Sea levels are rising… Africa and the Amazon are on fire.’ The only word that was missing was locusts. They can’t be far behind these other ghastly visitations to sinful mankind. 

And if you question their TRUTH? Then, like those heretics who were hauled before The Inquisition 500 years ago, you will be denounced as a denier. A denier of their revelations, a denier of their visions. ‘Denial is not a policy’, their placards decreed.

We Really Are in the Golden Age of Massive Dysfunction

China Banned South Park After the Show Made Fun of Chinese Censorship

More Trouble in Paradise

Is Yale More Dangerous than Detroit?

Render Unto Caesar

Americans Spent More on Taxes in 2018 Than on Food, Clothing and Health Care Combined

Gravity is Holding Us Down as a Society, Certainly

More Tales from the Post-Christian Age

A charity event planned in honor of an officer killed in a 2018 mass shooting at a country music bar in in Southern California has been postponed indefinitely -- reportedly because a police chief didn't want Republicans invited.

To be fair, the whole "respect the dignity of every human being" lark that we recite in our baptismal covenant often doesn't survive diocesan gatherings.

A Reflection on the Haidt Studies

This is seven years old but worth a return visit, especially as we approach another festival of animosity, also known as an election year.

In other words, conservatives understand liberals better than liberals understand conservatives.  More precisely, conservatives’ version of liberals matches liberals’ version of themselves better than liberals’ version of conservatives matches conservatives’ vision of themselves.

This is an important finding for many commentators on the Right because it gainsays one of the central claims of liberals, that is, that liberals are more open-minded, empathetic, imaginative, and tolerant than conservatives are.  The study indicates, rather, that when it comes to facing the other side, liberals lean toward caricatures and extreme cases, and this tendency rises the more liberal they are.

Why might this be so?  My speculation is that it has nothing to do with intelligence or moral condition.  Instead, it is because of an outcome of the cultural revolution of the 1960s and 70s.  In broad outlines, what happened was that in politics we ended up with more polarized but still dynamic debates, controversies, struggles, elections, etc., but in areas of culture, the liberal side won.  It was a firm and sound defeat for conservatism in public schools, the art world, entertainment media, higher education, journalism, and every other sphere of cultural activity.

The triumph was so pronounced and widespread that the natural thing happened.  People who occupied those spheres came to believe that their ideological stance was the natural and right and just one.  They had so much dominance and so many like-minded people around them that, after a few years, they simply took the liberal position as ordinary and proper, and at the same time regarded those remnants of conservatism as feeble holdovers of a benighted time.  After a few years, they believed, those remnants would disappear.

This is a formula for complacency and self-regard.  It explains, too, the results of the study above.  Why bother to pay attention to an outlook that is so discredited, obsolete, and outrageous?  Why grant any respect to a position that nobody with any respectability holds?

Transatlantic Woke-Ness is Causing Some Issues

Please America, take Meghan Markle back

All of this stuff, this leftish and repulsive political grandstanding by people who are as rich as Croesus, will not be new to you in America. It is a fugue of self-serving imbecility which accompanies you every day, I suppose, from an unimaginably affluent elite which simply has no conception of how ordinary people live their lives.

"A fugue of self-serving imbecility" is a very good turn of phrase.

Laird Hamilton

There are strong young guys. 

But there's nothing meaner and more experienced than a fifty-year-old tough guy.

I long for the waves these days.  I often do during the long New England winters, of course, but it is especially acute in the summer when the demands of job and family keep me from the singular joy of reducing my core body temperature in the pre-dawn ocean waters to a dangerous level, getting knocked silly by a surprising strong swell [or some dim teenager's runaway surfboard], and convincing myself that if I can still balance on a working surfboard then I'm not yet elderly.

I'm often bored by people who tell me that nature is their "church".  As if it's an either/or situation, that one can either "go to church" or abide in nature.  I realize it's a mere excuse for indolence or indulgence in narcissistic activity ["On Sundays, I like to go running, golfing, gardening, etc."], but what reveals such an attitude as nonsense is that truly spiritual people have an innate understanding of how nature, worship, and community inform and reinforce one another.

Too long away from nature, or too long away from community-based, supportive worship and fellowship, and spirituality will flatten.  This is why the relationship between nature and spirituality has powered human inquiry, whether it was in the formation of the scientific method, created by thinkers from Christianity's monastic institutions, or in providing the educational system that enabled countless scientists to continue developing our understanding of the world and cosmos.

But I digress, especially since this is about surfing and not about pure science or theology.  Actually, it's about what happens when a creative mind looks at something as simple as surfing and finds new ways of experiencing that remarkable, and occasionally dangerous, communion with an expressible, spiritual sensation.

Before we continue, we have to acknowledge the distracting reality that our subject, Laird Hamilton, is a good looking guy. So good looking that he made a living as a model and occasional actor.  He was even Kevin Costner's stunt double in the movie "Waterworld".  He's married to Gabrielle Reese, a former professional beach volleyball player who is also a model.  They, and their three daughters, are an impossibly good-looking family.  The fact that his good looks enabled him to make a lush and easy living that permitted him to surf anytime and almost anyplace he wanted makes his life an enviable one for those of us in the waterman community.  If I weren't a Christian, I'd hate this guy.

Except, Hamilton is rather self-effacing and of a character that challenges convention.  Surfers are more envious of that latter quality, perhaps, as it has permitted Hamilton to alter the sport and practice of surfing in ways that brought about the great "re-awakening" of watersports.  His route to that status was not the easiest.

Born Laird Zerfas in San Francisco in 1964, his father abandoned him and his mother before Laird's first birthday, necessitating his mother's move to Hawaii [where else?] for work and permitting her son access to the waves and surf of the Sandwich Islands.  Paradise is anything but, however, for a fatherless haole among the tribal and often [I'm sorry to say] unwelcoming local population, so young Laird spent his school days developing an aggressive and physical persona that ensured that his teenage years would be described in biographies as "troubled".  This began to change as he worked with surfing legend, Bill Hamilton, then shaping surfboards on Oahu's North Shore.  The elder surfer took young Laird under his wing, taught him how to surf like a pro, how to shape surfboards and work with fiberglass, and generally behave according to the strict, if nebulous, standards of the Watermen.  Just to make his tutelage complete, Bill Hamilton married Laird's mother [their first meeting having been arranged by the young Laird] and Laird happily took the name of what Hawaiians would honor as his hanai father.

At 17, while enjoying a day's surf, Hamilton was discovered by a fashion photographer on the beach, thus beginning one of his two well-compensated careers.  At its apex, he was posing with Brook Shields and hanging out with Hollywood trash.  At the same time, and with equal aplomb, he was beginning his competitive surfing career.  Sooner or later he had to choose one over the other, and he chose surfing, although not the conventional route as, like many of us, he did not find competitive surfing compelling [so spiritual can the experience be that a surfing contest makes about as much sense as a praying contest]. Instead, he had begun to explore what would become the next stage in surfing's development and, by extension, athletic achievement.

That's when Laird Hamilton's story gets really interesting.

In the early 1990's, Hamilton and couple of his equally mind-addled friends sought to design a surfboard, and related board technique, that would allow them to ride only the very largest of waves.  At first, they experimented with strapping their feet to the boards so that the volume of water and energy would not blast them off their mounts.  Later, in order to ride the truly large waves that are nearly impossible to reach in a conventional manner, they hired inflatable boats to tow them out to where the monstrous waves would be found and, in so doing, created the sport now known as "Tow-In Surfing".  Inflatables were eventually replaced with Jet-Skis as the new sport was refined.  It isn't for the faint of heart.

 

While a photo can certainly give one the impression of size, to stand on a beach mere feet away from one is another matter.  It's not just its scope, but a staggering vibration of power and unbelievable amount of noise.  It is raw nature and it is breath-taking.  Now, imagine what it's like prone on a floating board at its crest, then coming to a standing position about two stories in the air and sliding down the roiling face at several miles an hour.  That's just a standard surf wave.

As Hamilton perfected big wave surfing, he sought bigger waves and greater challenges.  That was when he discovered in Tahiti the surf break that is known as Teahupoʻo .  [I'm not sure what Teahupoʻo means in English, but I suspect it's something like "Wall of Screaming Death".]  If a respectable wave is twenty or so feet in the air, imagine what it is to ride a wave that's 70 feet high, especially when it sucks away water from the shore in such volume that the surfer, seven stories above, can see the hard coral bottom waiting for him should he commit even the smallest of errors.

In such circumstances, and without hyperbole, to fall off of one's surfboard is to die.  These are the waves that Hamilton decided to conquer.  He made his attempt on August 17, 2000, a date which now carries historical importance among watermen.

Here's how the Dictionary of Surfing describes it:

One week prior to the opening of the 2000 Tahitian Pro, local pro Briece Taerea was caught inside by a 15-foot set wave and driven into the reef, broke his neck and back in three places, and died. Four months later Hawaiian big-wave hulk Laird Hamilton towed into a 18-foot Teahupoo wave that nearly beggared description; photographer Jack McCoy saw the 6'3", 220-pound Hamilton as "a little speck of human, charging for his life, doing what none of us ever imagined possible" as the wave poured over him "like liquid napalm." Hamilton made the wave, then sat and wept in the channel.

 

Hamilton now serves as an "ambassador" for surfing and related watersports.  He does not self-promote much and generally takes a quiet, supportive role in the industry.  Concerned with the oceans and the environment, he spends much of his time ensuring that there will be clean, open, wild waves for generations to come.  An excellent documentary of his big wave surfing, "Riding Giants", is available through a variety of formats, he has been interviewed and profiled on 60 Minutes and in the pages of every surf and sport magazine in publication.  He even appeared in a series of American Express commercials and published a book of aquatic philosophy.  

Last year, during the storm surge created by Hurricane Marie, at the age of 50, Hamilton decided to ride a speed wave off of Malibu.  It was just another moment of legend for him.

He often appears on FitTV to offer physical fitness tips, especially for those around their mid-century mark.  Given that big wave surfing requires a developed musculature so that one isn't crushed by the volume of water, it is prudent to maintain strength and mobility.  It's also good for those of us who just want to ride a 4 footer while watching the sun rise off the Jersey shore.

Thursday's Place: The Dune Shacks of Provincetown

Edward Hopper's rendition of the Cape shacks

There is something about the extreme points on the eastern shore of the United States that draws the liminal.  Save for the weather and seasonal climate, there is a lot in common between, say, Key West, Florida and Provincetown, Massachusetts.  These are communities that attract artists, writers, low-lifes [that may have been redundant], highly original entrepreneurs, and unusual businesses; the general vibe of creativity and celebration is found everywhere from the high-colored exteriors of the restored homes to the latest culinary creation on the plate in front of you.

Duval Street, Key West

Commercial Street, Provincetown

Drug and alcohol use seems to be rather freely engaged, too.  I suppose that follows from both places having once been popular with pirates.

As the artistic class, represented by Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, and Jimmy Buffet [well, why not?] found creative encouragement in free and easy Key West, Provincetown was no different.  Even though it is hampered by having distinct seasons, punctuated by a sometimes brutal winter, it still became a haven for those who needed the relaxed solitude [and cheap alcohol] of a liminal community .

While there is nothing quite like the quaint re-purposed fishing shanties of Key West, Provincetown may have something much better, especially for those who found that their art and its creation was more akin to a monastic endeavor than a ceaseless bacchanal.

Since that area of the Massachusetts coast can be treacherous and historically remote, shacks were built in the 19th century on the sand bluffs along the Provincetown and Truro border to house the members of an early incarnation of the U.S. Coast Guard and to serve as shelters for the survivors of shipwrecks.  So common were such wrecks that, in 1865, when Henry David Thoreau was hiking the dune trails of Cape Cod, he noted the many wizened men who would comb the beaches looking for the flotsam from recent wrecks, warily regarding an obvious city dandy like Walden Pond's resident.

While the shacks eventually lost their original purpose, as a series of lighthouses would be built to warn mariners of the coastline, they continued to be re-built season after season, often with driftwood found along the beaches, and by the 1920's were offered for sale or lease to those interested in a rustic retreat along the coastline.  One of the first to purchase a dune shack was Eugene O'Neill, arguably America's greatest playwright, as a place for solitude and concentration.  It was here that he would write "Anna Christie" and "The Hairy Ape".

As O'Neill was respected and connected in the creative world, others would hear of the shacks and begin their pilgrimage, to greater or lesser [mostly lesser] effect, to the dunes over the next decades. Even though the shacks had no electricity or running water and the heat, as even summer evenings on the Cape can get cool, was supplied by meager fireplaces, poets, writers, and artists such as e.e. cummings, Jack Kerouac, Norman Mailer, and Jackson Pollock, would find their way to those shacks in that liminal zone on the tip of Cape Cod and, with the pilgrimage, some inspiration.

To get a flavor of shack life in the 1920's, Henry Beston's The Outermost House is still in print and contains one of the more important meditations on waves and water in the chapter entitled "The Headlong Wave".  It's worth reading for anyone who enjoys that part of the coastline, or who happens to be an elderly surfer.

Nineteen of the shacks still stand, all but one now owned by the U.S. government [naturally].  One may enter a lottery, however, to earn a chance to reside in one of the shacks for a period of time, and there is a program that encourages their continued use by artists.

Only one tour company owns the rights to carry tourists through the shack zone, which is why it's a bit expensive and offers some questionable historical facts, but it's worth it if one is interested in this side show in American arts.  Certainly, any visit to the outer reaches of Cape Cod should include at least a passing glance at those humble structures that represent so much of Eastern maritime history and the lively arts of the American Century.