tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37275982011-12-21T03:30:54.587-08:00Kowincidenceby William Severini Kowinski: an archive of the otherwise unavailable...articles, essays, etc. by the author of The Malling of America.Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comBlogger681100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-45022360013757894042011-12-21T02:30:00.000-08:002011-12-21T03:30:54.664-08:00
Greengate Mall. All photos c by William Kowinski
Christmas at Greengate Mall
Greengate Mall opened in 1965 just outside my hometown of Greensburg, Pennsylvania. In many ways it was the inspiration for the research that resulted in my book, The Malling of America. Greengate figures in several chapters, including one in which I describe the all-night process of building the Christmas Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-75354352706220362852011-11-13T02:44:00.000-08:002011-11-13T02:58:50.719-08:00
Statues in Pittsburgh commemorating a meeting between Seneca
leader Guyasuta and George Washington
Native to This America: A Personal Journey
The question of how we may become "native to this place" has fascinated me since I read Wes Jackson's book of that title. A natural place to start for me was with the knowledge and cultural attitudes of peoples who were and are Native to these Americas,Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-53066847878693081782011-10-10T22:20:00.000-07:002011-10-11T01:22:07.975-07:00Power
Linda Hogan
Norton
This is the first of three book reviews of books by Native authors that I wrote and published, but that seem to be unavailable elsewhere. A somewhat (but importantly) different version of this one was published in the Winter 1999 issue of Orion magazine. I started collecting these pieces with Native subjects on this site several weeks ago, and it so happens that I'm Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-32587402536675323842011-10-10T21:54:00.000-07:002011-10-11T00:55:12.672-07:00Gardens in the Dunes
by Leslie Marmon Silko.
Simon & Schuster.
This draft is pretty close to the review as published in the Winter 2000 issue of Orion. My review of a more recent book by Silko is here.
We don’t often knowingly taste the fruits of the famed MacArthur “genius” grants, but in Leslie Marmon Silko’s case we got a work of genius called The Almanac of the Dead, a sinuous, Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-77990116447235903762011-10-10T19:46:00.000-07:002011-10-11T00:56:29.589-07:00Truth & Bright Water
by Thomas King
Atlantic Monthly Press
This review was published somewhere, but I don't recall where. I've reviewed Thomas King's more recent book, The Truth About Stories, here (where I get to repeat my favorite Thomas King lines) and here.
“You know what’s wrong with this world?” says the famous Native American artist who returns to his home town and paints a church to Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-38928453179542463622011-10-09T00:23:00.000-07:002011-11-13T03:04:50.328-08:00Walk in Two Worlds: Native American Pittsburgh
This is a slightly longer version of an article that appeared in the Pittsburgh City Paper, a free weekly, in the fall of 1992. The 500th year after Columbus turned out to be a good year for raising awareness of Native Americans. It was especially interesting to me that western Pennsylvania had been a crossroads for several Indian peoples, and theyCaptain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-41409089382874282832011-09-18T00:21:00.000-07:002011-10-09T03:27:05.991-07:00The Mystery of the White Indians
This is a version of an article published in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette Magazine in 1994.
depiction of sorrowful return of white captive to Fort Pitt by
Chauncy Ives, a statue now in Newark. The white statue below
is also by Ives, of this same event.
They were marched through the portals of Fort Pitt, the brick and stone symbol of civilization's Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-81601793158481899542011-09-10T23:35:00.000-07:002011-09-11T05:54:12.143-07:00DAWN OF THE EAGLE: Robert Davidson and the Northwest Coast Native Art Revival
By William Severini Kowinski
This is the full text prior to editing of the article that appeared in Smithsonian Magazine, January 1995. Bill Reid, who was ill and unavailable when I wrote this piece, died in 1998. Robert Davidson was awarded the Order of British Columbia in 1995 and the Order of Canada in 1996. Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-37366065154200624142011-08-29T03:59:00.000-07:002011-09-11T03:38:01.917-07:00
Wiyot in dance regalia. Identities and year unknown. From Wiyot Tribe website.
Return To Tuluwat
by William S. Kowinski
The following article appeared on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle Datebook section on Saturday February 28, 2004, the day of the annual vigil marking the massacre of the Wiyot in 1860. I've kept the structure of the edited version, with some changes Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-1596347112472752242011-08-22T00:41:00.000-07:002011-09-11T03:38:54.411-07:00
Coming Home: The Wiyot Tribe Gets Back Sacred Land
This augmented account of the transfer of 40 acres of Indian Island from the City of Eureka to the Wiyot Tribe on June 25, 2004, and events leading up to it, first appeared in News from Native California, Fall 2004. It was an historical moment, not only for the North Coast of California, but in North America. So I thought it was worth making Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-79778815705209279302011-05-05T02:49:00.000-07:002011-10-09T19:48:04.692-07:00
"The Rescue" by Judith Lowry
Over at Humboldt State University, an exhibit has just closed called Sing Me Your Story, Dance Me Home: Art and Poetry from Native California. It was in many ways an outgrowth of the 2002 book The Dirt Is Red Here, published by Heyday Books, which helped develop the exhibit.
Though apparently forgotten by everybody but me, I reviewed this book in the San Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-41657539426762277692010-08-30T10:02:00.000-07:002011-11-13T03:15:52.643-08:00Cry Havoc: How the Iraq War Began
With President Obama about to announce the end of U.S. combat operations in Iraq, it is instructive to remember how all this began, seven years ago. It began with the bombing of Baghdad, a massive American bombing campaign against a civilian population of a country that had not made war on anyone, including the United States. It was one more escalation in the Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-91854546517077398762010-08-29T23:31:00.000-07:002010-08-30T01:00:41.611-07:00Paging Doctor Strangelove The following piece is from 2003, also published in the San Francisco Chronicle Insight section. In a sense it follows from the previous piece posted here, although that was actually written later. It arose from a sense that using nuclear weapons was again becoming legitimized, particularly by the GW Bush administration, but also by fading memory of what nuclear Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-2774828327263544482010-08-27T16:02:00.000-07:002010-08-30T00:50:44.448-07:00When It Was Real[Hiroshima and Nagasaki]This month marked the 65th anniversary of the only nuclear weapons to be used in war, the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These anniversaries passed without much notice, although for the first time there was an official American presence at the Hiroshima commemoration. This lack of attention is disquieting, not only to some in Japan, such asCaptain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-69953915390974286202010-03-08T23:27:00.000-08:002010-06-01T02:22:31.555-07:00 Kathryn Bigelow, first woman to win the Oscar for Best Director. Is it time for genderless Acting awards, too? See my Los Angeles Times oped re-posted below. Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-13590190847318615922010-03-08T22:46:00.000-08:002010-06-01T02:22:49.850-07:00What Gender is Oscar? RevisitedOn Oscar Monday 2010, I chanced to see a Los Angeles Times oped debunking the idea that the Academy Award category of Best Actress is sexist. So it seems the right time to repost an LA Times oped I wrote in 2004, that posed the question this oped attempts to answer: why do the separate categories for Best Actor and Best Actress still exist--categories based on Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-80568346794377213232010-03-08T20:24:00.000-08:002010-06-01T02:22:49.851-07:00 Sandra Bullock, winner of the 2010 Oscar for Best Actress. Six years later and they're still not listening!Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-66341353441171424362010-03-08T19:16:00.000-08:002010-06-01T02:22:49.851-07:00Why is there a Best Actress Award?(Los Angeles Times: February 15, 2004)As the Academy members mull over their choices among this year's nominees, I pause to ask one perhaps impertinent question about the Best Performance by an Actress categories. It's not about the fine female actors nominated this year---it concerns the categories themselves. My question is, why do they exist?For after all, Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-39699554017612600732009-12-28T23:52:00.000-08:002009-12-28T23:55:57.506-08:00 As the first decade of the 21st century ends, here's a piece I wrote in 1999 about what this decade ought to be called. It also reflects on the dubious business of characterizing decades, which trend writers are very busy trying to do as this decade ends. See the post below. Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-19854384840249658712009-12-28T23:28:00.000-08:002009-12-29T02:37:56.430-08:00The Decade With No NameIn the final days of the 21st century's first decade--a busy time for trend pieces--I'm posting a piece I wrote just before the decade began, on what it was going to be called. My suggestion of "the Oughts" (as explained in this opinion piece) didn't catch on. But neither did any other name. As it has turned out, we really didn't call this decade anything. Some late Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-77321526533581045412009-08-23T11:15:00.000-07:002009-08-23T01:24:47.934-07:00 Poster for "The World of Tomorrow" portrait of the future at the 1939 New York World's Fair, and spectators in the General Motors "Futurama" exhibit.Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-45456885079860203492009-08-23T10:47:00.000-07:002009-08-26T00:26:42.013-07:00SOME SPEAK OF THE FUTUREWhat follows is basically a combination of two pieces from 1975 and 1976, both about the then-booming field of studying the future. The first—reflecting several drafts—was a piece I reported and wrote for New Times magazine. It was never published, victim in part of my editor leaving the staff. His name was Frank Rich, future columnist for the New York Times, and before Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-56164676991985554632009-08-23T09:35:00.000-07:002009-08-23T02:30:37.340-07:00 Herman Kahn in the 50s, when his use of computers to calibrate forecasts of "megadeaths" from nuclear warfare made him a model for the 60s film character, Doctor Strangelove, and lent a certain technological ghoulishness to the idea of studying the future. Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-77429781865645887332009-08-23T09:06:00.000-07:002009-08-23T01:31:00.627-07:00The Future Debate: How to Profit From the Coming Apocalypse“Some speak of the future,my love she speaks softly.She knows there’s no success like failureAnd failure’s no success at all.”Bob Dylan Love Minus Zero/No LimitApocalypse: “A prophetic disclosure or revelation.”American Heritage DictionarySome say the world will end in fire; some say in the year 2115. Others wonder, why quibble? But Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-31218615425754462852009-08-23T08:38:00.000-07:002009-08-23T02:15:30.892-07:00 The Limits to Growth/Lifeboat Ethics v. Spaceship Earth debate illustrates one problem of forecasting the future.Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-14672644873033703502009-08-23T08:02:00.000-07:002009-08-26T00:37:15.397-07:00The future of the future: Lifeboat v. Spaceship EarthFuturism begins with an attitude towards time. It is best expressed by John McHale, author of The Future of the Future, in what might be called McHale’s Litany: “The future of the past is the future/The future of the present is in the past/ The future of the future is in the present." Time interrelates, feeding backward and forward. What will Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-32847656904944323622009-08-23T07:37:00.000-07:002009-08-23T02:21:24.848-07:00 Alvin Toffler, author of Future Shock.Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-83665418409000471572009-08-23T07:02:00.000-07:002009-08-26T00:43:06.273-07:00Politics of the Future: Government, Grassroots, EducationAnother lesson of the Club of Rome controversy is the role, not only of morality and shared values but also the “political realities”: not just the influence of those values, but also the impact of self-interest, as well as selfishness, ignorance, venality and stupidity of leaders and the groups of various sizes they represent. Which is whyCaptain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-16806312772093767782009-08-23T06:56:00.000-07:002009-08-23T01:59:51.299-07:00 Herman Kahn in the 70s, and a rare photo probably also from the 70s, with Barbara Marx Hubbard (far left) and Hazel Henderson (sitting on the floor.) Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-34697979821472851812009-08-23T06:00:00.000-07:002009-08-26T00:48:05.924-07:001975: Futurequake in WashingtonIt isn’t the only problem. The sudden prominence, as well as the internal strengths and weaknesses of today’s futurism were on dramatic display at the 1975 international convention of the World Future Society at the Hilton hotel in Washington.The WFS was begun in 1968, and this was just its second quadrennial convention. Though the society reserves its inner Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-45078632940528474072009-08-23T05:02:00.000-07:002009-08-23T02:32:25.657-07:001976: Futurequake Follow-Up and Futurism in WashingtonA year later, futurists in Washington were still talking about what happened at the Hilton. A few weeks after the convention, Toffler’s Anticipatory Democracy Network sent follow-up letters noting, “Clearly the Washington meeting was an intense experience for many people.” A gathering of Washington futurists after the convention resulted in anCaptain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-15276122078774018942009-08-23T04:32:00.000-07:002009-08-23T02:14:08.977-07:00 Buckminster Fuller playing his World Game with university students.Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-82097932655045878842009-08-23T04:07:00.000-07:002009-08-26T00:56:06.556-07:00The Trick to Save the FutureBut confusion within futurism also reflects division on how a desirable future can be fostered and attained—or even whether it is futurism’s role to try.But the point of forecasting the future would seem to be to prepare for what will happen, to try and change what is undesirable before it happens, and encourage the best possible future to emerge. The idea must be to Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-1138274558174228112006-01-26T03:08:00.000-08:002011-10-09T00:45:14.289-07:00Site Index
(if the link doesn't work, just go to the archive for that date)
Steve Allen Profile 09/08/2002
H.G. Wells & Empire of the Ants 10/06 /2002
Penn's Hard Woods (Pennsylvania Forests, from Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine)10/20/2002
Christmas 1951 (unpublished fiction) 12/15/2002
THE MAN WHO LOVED MOVIES: Francois Truffaut profile (Rolling Stone)
and "Aesthetics of the Double Feature: Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-1110850852070281292005-03-15T17:35:00.000-08:002011-10-09T03:26:32.630-07:00In Praise of Live Theatre
By William S. Kowinski
Stephen Foster Memorial Theatre, where I first saw Shakespeare performed
You've got a cableful of TV channels 24 hours a day, and for your VCR there is a sizeable selection from the history of cinema down at the grocery store. For drama or comedy outside your house, there's the neighborhood multiplex: where the big stars flash across the Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-1110786263446579302005-03-14T13:38:00.000-08:002011-10-09T03:27:43.394-07:00The Price of Art
Also for the In Pittsburgh weekly, I did several features which, in the process of reporting, tried to get at the experience of various art forms. I knew that my audience came from more or less the same background as I did, so I went at the subject partly from a personal point of view. This one is from 1987. I've omitted some material that I'd recycled from my research on New Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-1110703548347540402005-03-13T00:34:00.000-08:002011-10-09T17:47:02.301-07:00
Phipps Conservatory Pittsburgh. Kowinski photo
RUNNING ON ICE: State of the Arts, Pittsburgh 1991
by William Severini Kowinski
Except for her paintings propped against the walls, the living room of her Friendship apartment was bare. Twenty-one year old Christine McBride sat crosslegged in the meager November sunlight that slanted through a small window, and talked about her nextCaptain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-1110587169898372902005-03-12T16:19:00.000-08:002011-10-09T04:04:36.541-07:00ART AND SOUL
a series published in 1988 in my column called "Tales," which appeared in the In Pittsburgh weekly.
I The Arts of Marketing
We all know about censorship of art and thought in totalitarian countries. How it limits the information people have; strangles free expression; how it's a tool those in power use to stay in power. But what does censorship mean in America?
In a symposium Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-1110530163512386922005-03-11T00:26:00.000-08:002010-12-27T02:30:56.715-08:00THE ARTIST IN THE GRAY FLANNEL SUITby William Severini KowinskiBackstoryBetween the time that my book, THE MALLING OF AMERICA, had been accepted for publication and the time it actually was published, I worked on a story assigned by the New York Times Magazine. I'd done three pieces for my editor there, two of them covers. He talked to me about doing a story that concerned the difficulties young Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-1110851524637850942005-03-10T17:47:00.000-08:002010-12-27T02:35:52.918-08:00AWAKE: Art, Buddhism and the Dimensions of ConsciousnessBy William Severini Kowinski(as published in Urthona (UK) Issue 21 2004-05.)In 1999, independent art curator Mary Jane Jacobs was exchanging news with her old friend from college days, Jacquelynn Baas, former director of the University of Berkeley Art Museum and an independent curator based in northern California. Jacobs told her that some Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-1110162183439265292005-03-06T18:19:00.000-08:002010-12-27T02:37:18.989-08:00THE SKILLS OF PEACEby William Severini Kowinski This is my final draft for the article that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine in May 2003. Not all of it appeared, especially the short "sidebars" that follow this main post.Near the country road at the end of the long driveway in rural Humboldt County leading to the home shared by Betsy Watson and her daughter, Ella, there were two Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-1110161927030413382005-03-06T18:16:00.000-08:002010-12-27T02:37:53.452-08:00Skills of Peace: What is Peace?"For me world peace and inner peace are closely connected. It's creating a sense of well-being in the world that comes from a realization that we're all connected to one another. It isn't just not making war, or not firing weapons. It has to do with really acknowledging the interconnectness of all things and of all beings, and living with a realization of the Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-1110161779215451672005-03-06T18:14:00.000-08:002010-12-27T02:38:10.982-08:00Skills of Peace:Language of the Heart"Conversations should have different rules than war."Sharon Ellison, a communications consultant in Oakland, has developed an alternative she calls "Powerful Non-Defensive Communication." Instead of conversations that attack and defend, which shut down communication and accelerate conflict, she teaches strategies and techniques for communicating clearly and Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-1110161618569622142005-03-06T18:11:00.000-08:002010-12-27T02:38:29.069-08:00Skills of Peace: Dialogues of PeaceIf dialogue is to really lead to peace, it must be inclusive in all relevant realms. It must represent the complexity of issues and interests through a diversity of voices and experiences.That might be the message of the "Dialogues of Peace," organized by Angara Chatterji, professor in the Social and Cultural Anthropology program at the California Institute of Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-1110161474438431712005-03-06T18:07:00.000-08:002010-12-27T02:38:46.030-08:00The Skills of Peace: The Power of Positive Feeling"We know a lot about negative emotions, like anxiety and anger and fear and guilt, shame and embarrassment. We know relatively little if anything at all about compassion and gratitude and love and awe and devotion. The Center has the opportunity to open up new ideas about human nature."Dacher Keltner is founding director of the Berkeley Center forCaptain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-1108196232086474932005-02-12T00:15:00.000-08:002010-12-27T02:40:39.587-08:00Numbersby William Severini Kowinski(expanded from Daily Kos)I'm not very good at numbers. (All the math genes in the Severini line went to my cousin Tom.) But I've been thinking about them a lot these past few days. We are so used to seeing huge numbers---$80 billion more for Iraq, $25 million a year for a baseball star---that we judge them only in relation to other huge numbers.But what really Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-1096491661850066532004-09-29T13:55:00.000-07:002004-09-29T14:09:18.023-07:00The Library Builders
"There was such a passion in people's memories of that building," recalls Debbie Goodwin, who as Executive Director of the Humboldt Arts Council from 1997 to 2002, supervised the transformation of Eureka's Carnegie library on F Street into the Morris Graves Museum of Art. That passion was important to the success of the "buy a brick" campaign of small donations that Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-1085637007955108062004-05-26T22:42:00.000-07:002010-06-01T02:21:46.213-07:00The Days Before "The Day After Tomorrow"by William Severini KowinskiIt's one scary movie. "Climate change is a far greater threat to the world than international terrorism!" says the elder science advisor to the British government. "Temperatures are getting hotter, and they are getting hotter faster than any time in the past!" says the international weather expert. "Climate change is now with us,Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-1080860699407872402004-04-01T15:03:00.000-08:002004-04-01T15:08:33.280-08:00TRAFFIC KOANS (Part 1)
by William Severini Kowinski
"A riddle in the form of a paradox," says the American Heritage dictionary, "used in Zen Buddhism as an aid to meditation and a means of gaining intuitive knowledge."
Except for the Zen Buddhism part, this definition of the koan could also be a description of many bumper sticker slogans. The best are funny and pointed, and play with Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-1076959938498945912004-02-16T11:27:00.000-08:002004-02-16T11:34:52.513-08:00Are You Serious?
You take a slightly different perspective on something that’s current or new, and spin out something meaningful but not terribly serious, with a nice edge of wit. It’s basically a confection, and it’s been the bread and butter of freelance writers for newspapers and magazines since the days of Grub Street.
So I had this idea last year to point out that the only gender-specificCaptain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-1073256472911154902004-01-04T14:44:00.000-08:002004-01-04T14:52:09.640-08:00A Working Class Hero
For a couple of years at the end of the 1980s I wrote a weekly column called "Tales" for In Pittsburgh, an alternative weekly. It was a pretty popular column around town, and the particular column reproduced below, "Changing Classes," probably got the most response. There were poignant letters to the editor from women and men who identified with it. I even heard of a young Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-1073255789237515952004-01-04T14:32:00.000-08:002004-01-04T14:42:48.123-08:00Berkeley 1969
I remembered the following article as I was talking on the phone with Michael McClure, veteran San Francisco poet and playwright, about the influence of Buddhism on Bay Area arts and culture over the decades, for my San Francisco Chronicle article on that subject (which you can find here.) I suddenly recalled having heard him read many years before in Berkeley. He also rememberedCaptain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-1072062455841073442003-12-21T18:53:00.000-08:002011-12-21T02:46:18.150-08:00If you've linked to this page to see Christmas at Greengate Mall--please follow this link to a new revised page--with photographs!Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-1062938379603809852003-09-07T05:39:00.000-07:002003-09-07T05:39:39.520-07:00CHILDREN OF THE BLACKLIST
I got interested in the Hollywood Blacklist when David Helpern, one of my best friends in Cambridge, was making a documentary about it, called "Hollywood on Trial." This was in the mid 1970s, and if you've seen a film of this title, it probably isn't this one. (To confuse things even more, the company called October Films in 1976 is, as far as I know, unrelated to theCaptain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-1062937797487283672003-09-07T05:29:00.000-07:002003-09-07T05:32:15.440-07:00 CHILDREN OF THE BLACKLIST
by William Severini Kowinski
On a lovely spring day in 1953, five year old Buffy Offner met the strangest looking woman she had ever seen. Buffy's father, Mortimer Offner, had taken her to a matinee of Room Service, a play he was directing on Broadway. It starred a new young actor in his first big role, named Jack Lemmon. The strange woman---the bony giant with Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-1062937539726366732003-09-07T05:25:00.000-07:002003-09-07T05:25:39.693-07:00II
"You know, it only takes one man"- Tales from The Front
Blacklisted screenwriter Gordon Kahn, exiled in Mexico to avoid going to jail, got a phone call from blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo in California. It was the night of the 1956 Academy Awards. The Oscar for Best Screenplay had just been awarded to Robert Rich, and accepted on his behalf by a Writer's Guild official. But Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-1062937266834155692003-09-07T05:21:00.000-07:002003-09-07T05:21:06.823-07:00III
"Can They Teach Us Something About How We Should Live?"
When Hollywood on Trial was shown at Cannes, Variety described it as being as much a regular feature as a documentary. And why not? After all, it stars Ronald Reagan, Walt Disney and Ginger Rodger's mother, as well as Millard Lampell, Richard Nixon, Ring Lardner, Jr. and Jack Warner. It's Hollywood!
It was this combination of Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-1062936907571924782003-09-07T05:15:00.000-07:002003-09-07T05:15:07.586-07:00IV Sins of the Father
Gordon Kahn was a screenwriter, and the first of the "unfriendly nineteen" witnesses to announce his non-cooperation with HUAC in 1947. With a HUAC subpoena being served at the front door, Gordon Kahn escaped to Mexico literally out the back door. Nearly thirty years later his older son, Dr. James Kahn, found himself being pursued by the same bloodless hounds of Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-1062936377088166002003-09-07T05:06:00.000-07:002003-09-07T05:16:53.490-07:00V Herein Fail Not
All Buffy and Debbie Offner know about their father's show business career is the little they remember from their childhood, and what they've learned from his memorabilia. Their interview for Hollywood on Trial resulted from a series of accidents---probably the only way it could have happened. Mortimer Offner wasn't well known outside the show business world, and Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-1062935863898363062003-09-07T04:57:00.000-07:002003-09-07T04:57:43.743-07:00Postscript/Update
After "The Front" in 1976, Martin Ritt directed his most acclaimed film in 1979, "Norma Rae," which won the Oscar for Sally Field. He introduced Mary Steenbergen in the Jack Nicholson film "Cross Creek" in 1983. His last film was "Stanley and Iris" starring Jane Fonda and Robert DiNiro in 1990. He died that year.
Walter Bernstein's next film was "Semi-Tough." He wrote "TheCaptain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-1062411767783833712003-09-01T03:22:00.000-07:002003-09-01T13:25:59.446-07:00Andy Warhol, Silver Screen
Article on the opening of the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, solicited by and published by altelier Magazine of International Art, International Edition published in English and Japanese, September 1994.
I was living in Pittsburgh at the time, thirty miles or so from where I grew up. The museum took over a building that used to house a music store, where I first Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-952736292003-06-03T23:58:00.000-07:002003-06-24T16:02:12.000-07:00Eugene O'Neill Center Playwrights Conference: The Summer of '91
Some twelve years ago I had one of the happiest summer experiences of my life, for a month at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut, during the National Playwrights Conference. I was there on assignment to the Smithsonian Magazine. My story ran in the March 1992 issue. This is a somewhat different version.Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-882417842003-01-29T18:11:00.000-08:002003-01-30T14:36:44.000-08:00 The Man Who Loved Movies
It started sometime in the late seventies on a visit to Minnesota, as I recall. I seem to remember making my impetuous pledge there. I had worked myself up to such a state extolling the cinema of Francois Truffaut that I vowed that wherever and whenever the next Truffaut retrospective was held, I would be there.
This was, you may remember or perhaps you'd read Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-861359002002-12-16T15:43:00.000-08:002002-12-16T15:43:44.643-08:00This is a fiction piece I wrote several years ago as part of a larger project. I thought I’d post it now for the holidays. It’s based on memories, not only mine but those of my Aunt Toni (who provided details about food and food preparation, among other elements) and of others in my family—--my sister Kathy and cousin Bobby in particular. I’ve changed some names, but kept others. I found that Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-834310422002-10-23T16:44:00.000-07:002005-08-29T01:24:22.853-07:00This is my text before editing of article published in Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine July 25, 1993. The biggest cut was most of the Gilford Pinchot section. This was my first sustained yield on forest issues, and I may have been too easy on foresters---but that might be subsequent years in California talking. I learned a lot on this piece, especially from my old friend, Michael D. Krempasky, whoCaptain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-826643022002-10-07T18:02:00.000-07:002002-10-07T18:02:34.716-07:00
This is a new piece, unpublished so far...
EMPIRE OF THE ANTS-OR THE MOSQUITOES?
by William Severini Kowinski
It's perhaps an intemperate metaphor-and one tending toward the wrong end of the thermometer-to suggest that the West Nile virus outbreak throughout North America is the tip of the iceberg. But so far, few seem to realize why this might be so.
Media attention has focused on the Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-815233452002-09-12T14:25:00.000-07:002002-09-12T14:38:11.000-07:00
Steve Allen died on October 30, 2000 at the age of 78. On assignment for the Smithsonian Magazine, I spent a week in his company in southern California in 1994, which included the 40th anniversary show of The Tonight Show, the program he started. The article that I wrote—and rewrote, producing several versions—was never published, despite the fact that Steve Allen called it "the best article Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3727598.post-806859152002-08-25T04:19:00.000-07:002002-08-25T04:19:18.600-07:00This is a place-holder post. My intention is to post here longer pieces I've written in the past--articles/stories or whatever that haven't been published; new versions of articles that were published, restoring them to how I wrote them before being damaged by editorial agendas,etc.
I'll probably start with my profile of STEVE ALLEN, with further thoughts on the man and a few words on why the Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com