Ernest Gaines’ 1993 novel, A Lesson Before Dying, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. The novel provides a unique outlook on the status of African Americans in the South, after World War II and before the Civil Rights Movement. We see a Jim Crow South through the eyes of a formally educated African American teacher who often feels helpless and alienated from his own country.

Wikipedia tells me: “Gaines has been a MacArthur Foundationfellow, awarded the National Humanities Medal, and inducted into the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Order of Arts and Letters) as a Chevalier.

He was among the fifth generation of his sharecropper family to be born on a plantation in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana. This became the setting and premise for many of his later works. He was the eldest of 12 children, raised by his aunt, who was crippled and had to crawl to get around the house. Although born generations after the end of slavery, Gaines grew up impoverished, living in old slave quarters on a plantation.”

And here is the quote, fitting for these post election days, don’t you think?

Question everything. Every stripe, every star, every word spoken. Everything.

(Painting on a church ceiling of one of the hundreds of churches whose names I don’t remember but who I loved visiting.)

To conclude this week which was devoted to the concept of action in one form or another, let Johann Wolfgang von Goethe speak.  (It sounds better in German, and also closer to the meaning of taking action; but in English “act” has to suffice.) And let’s remember that that play was about a pact with the devil…..

It’s written here: ‘In the Beginning was the Word!’

Here I stick already! Who can help me? It’s absurd,

Impossible, for me to rate the word so highly

I must try to say it differently

If I’m truly inspired by the Spirit. I find

I’ve written here: ‘In the Beginning was the Mind’.

Let me consider that first sentence,

So my pen won’t run on in advance!

Is it Mind that works and creates what’s ours?

It should say: ‘In the beginning was the Power!’

Yet even while I write the words down,

I’m warned: I’m no closer with these I’ve found.

The Spirit helps me! I have it now, intact.

And firmly write: ‘In the Beginning was the Act!’

Do we really need more stuff? Instead of shopping today I am linking to two long articles that made me think hard this week. Helping to burn calories from too much food yesterday….

One deals with the role religion plays in the current search for answers about the election results. The piece has been widely shared, as far as I can see, but I thought it is worth posting. The claim is, among other things, that the closed system of religious beliefs of some Trump voters will make a dialogue, that we are pushed to seek, close to impossible.

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/11/the-dark-rigidity-of-fundamentalist-rural-america-a-view-from-the-inside/

The other article provided an image that sticks in my head.  Here the claim is that many in the precarious middle-class perceive themselves as patiently standing in line, waiting their turn to move to the promised American dream success at the horizon. And then people cut in line, often via government interference, the lazy, the poor, the hand-out takers, the immigrants. All of which isn’t fair and will be stopped under the new regime, or so they assume. Well worth a read.

http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2016/08/trump-white-blue-collar-supporters

Tetsuya Ishida  Toyota Ipsum , 1996

Progressive artists make statements via their art, often in ways that are stunningly creative; sometimes they are complicated enough that they need serious explanation – which can be problematic.

Here are two examples: One at the Whitney

http://hyperallergic.com/338783/in-response-to-trumps-election-artist-asked-the-whitney-museum-to-turn-her-work-upside-down/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=In%20Response%20to%20Trumps%20Election%20Artist%20Asked%20the%20Whitney%20Museum%20to%20Turn%20Her%20Work%20Upside-Down&utm_content=In%20Response%20to%20Trumps%20Election%20Artist%20Asked%20the%20Whitney%20Museum%20to%20Turn%20Her%20Work%20Upside-Down+CID_c2eb22fd0a98dbcda71743d8c1496d88&utm_source=HyperallergicNewsletter&utm_term=Read%20More

and the other in Mississippi:

Mississippi Governor Decries Billboard by Artist-Led Super PAC

I found the first artistic decision by Annette Lemieux – a request to turn her work upside down after the election –  clever;

I have mixed feelings about the second one, for how it can be misinterpreted, abused by those you want to criticize, but it’s also surely a conversation opener as there ever was one.  The problem is that it takes a lot of explaining to get to a correct understanding of the expressed statement if you are not on the same wavelength, and I see that as a problem for a piece of art.  A message can be, should be partisan in some cases, but only if it is clear. Says the artist who is always asked to provide a novel-length artist statement…..

We need any reminder we can get that individual action can make a difference. Some reminders come in form of memorials or museums, and I was happy to learn that a new one is planned, if fundraising succeeds.

Schindler’s Czech Factory, Used to Save More Than 1,000 Jews During WWII, to Become a Museum

The reason this caught my eye are somewhat personal. I was called by a British film maker in 1982/3 who was doing a documentary on Schindler, long before what’s his name did the technicolor version. Because of the Falkland war, British director John Blair was not allowed to travel to Argentina to interview Schindler’s widow. So he flew her to New York instead and I was hired to do the simultaneous translation  between English and German during filming.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0180981/

A story of human failings, bitterness, betrayal and despair emerged.  Emilie had suffered badly within the marriage and after; he left her to survive on her own on some isolated farm in Argentina, while he was feted as a hero in Germany and elsewhere.  It was an awkward interview, given that the documentary was about a life saver, now being accused in various ways. Clearly, Schindler did a lot of what he did out of greed, or self aggrandizement, or other non-heroic motives. I later learned more about his widow’s fate here when she was brought back to Germany in 2001 shortly before she died there, her wrath at Spielberg and her mental decline.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/jul/29/kateconnolly.theobserver

And yet: Schindler saved lives (so, as a matter of fact, did his wife, much less acknowledged.)  He was a complex figure, joined the Nazi party for economic reasons, surely hurt many, but he showed courage, took risks, went as a lone individual against the death machine.  May we all be that brave when it’s needed.

My photographs are from KZ Buchenwald. The pebbled fields commemorate the barracks. 

On my walk the city started to whisper to me:

They want to go back to

and are willing to play  to do it.

 you need to get out your little 

(or even better, your phone) and enter the numbers to call for protest:

Paul Ryan:  1 202 225 3031   (there is always a silence for a stretch but you will get through.)

Oregon: Ron Wyden – (503) 326-7525

Jeff Merkley – (503) 326-3386

Majority Leader McConnell, (202) 224-2541.

Trump: (212) 832-2000

 We need a U turn to remedy this –

and the magic lies in

You know where you’ll be going: 

If not, he can give you directions:

Tablet is a daily online magazine of Jewish news, ideas, and culture. It is not even 10 years old but has grown up and often gives me food for thought. For today’s bright spot I am attaching an article from Tablet that moves us forward by looking backwards.

The author describes his Austrian grandfather’s approach to life, particularly life under attack, as a question of how to tackle a moral crisis. Since the article is longish, let me summarize the three main tenets (italics are my add ons):

1. Treat every poisoned word as a promise. When a bigoted blusterer tells you he intends to force members of a religious minority to register with the authorities believe him. (Note that today’s news report on talk about internment camps referring to Japanese camps as precedent.)
2. You should treat people like adults, which means respecting them enough to demand that they understand the consequences of their actions. (Even those Trump voters who claim not to be racist, sanctioned racism and worse with their voice.)
3. Refuse to accept what’s going on as the new normal. Not now, not ever.There’s no point indulging in the kind of needlessly complex thinking that so often plagues the intelligent and the well-informed. There’s no room for reading tea leaves, for calculations or projections or clever takes. The only thing that matters now is the simple moral truth: This isn’t right. (Working with the new Government is NOT an option.)

Photographs are from Austria, albeit not Vienna where I’ve never been. In Innsbruck the houses look like wedding cakes until you look a bit closer, Mozart (father and son) are commemorated for their short stay, and even the dogs wear Tyrollean hats.

What to Do About Trump? The Same Thing My Grandfather Did in 1930s Vienna.

Do you know that feeling when so may things simultaneously vie for attention in your brain that you can’t formulate a single, coherent thought? And do you agree that the timing of this always seems to be the worst kind, when grant deadlines beckon or important letters need to be written?

This week is one of those weeks, which is why you are getting a lot of text from other people, rather than my own musings. Just as well – probably these texts are more informative than much of what I have to say a week after Black Tuesday. Really an offense to that beautiful hue – maybe we should call it gold-plated Tuesday.

In any event, I am introducing you today to a woman of valor, who stood up for her values and was imprisoned for them, many months before gold-plated Tuesday arrived. One only wonders if these kinds of assaults on free speech will be the new norm. But her story is one of courage, determination and a will to stand against the justice machine, or the mad conductors at its levers….. I guess that is a mixing of metaphors. Told you, can’t think particularly straight. Bright spot, as promised. Echoed by the images from the 2015 Harvard Law School graduation that sent more valiant young people out in the fight for justice.

Here goes: imprisoned for wearing a Black Lives Matters pin in court.

Social Justice Attorney Andrea Burton: Jailed for Refusing to Remove Black Lives Matter Lapel Pin

One of our brightest, most honorable journalists died yesterday at age 61 from cancer. Gwen Ifill leaves a gaping hole in the current media landscape at a time when she and her smart analyses were most needed. I think she would have wanted us to move forward and so the American (and German) voices about moving forwards are dedicated to her. The citations brighten my horizon because I feel I’m in good and diverse company even when it seems that time is going backwards. (I photographed the tiled images in the NYT subway system.)

If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values — that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control.

—Martin Luther King, Jr.

Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness

—James Thurber

The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith.—Franklin D. Roosevelt

I look forward to an America which commands respect throughout the world, not only for its strength, but for its civilization as well. And I look forward to a world in which we will be safe not only for democracy and diversity but also for personal distinction.

—John F. Kennedy, speech at Amherst College, October 26, 1963

I do the very best I can to look upon life with optimism and hope and looking forward to a better day, but I don’t think there is anything such as complete happiness. It pains me that there is still a lot of Klan activity and racism. I think when you say you’re happy, you have everything that you need and everything that you want, and nothing more to wish for. I haven’t reached that stage yet.

—Rosa Parks

Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe