Frank Beacham's Journal

What Were They Thinking? Library Tosses Rare Vinyl Record Collection

 

In a remarkably sad story, the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Bicentennial Library in Tennessee has sold its collection of rare vinyl record albums for $1 a piece. Some of the vinyl was valued at a thousand times as much. The library staff was obviously clueless of its value.

From the library, Chad Bledsoe, owner of Chad's Records in Chattanooga, bought a rare collection compiled by Library of Congress Folk Life Center archivist Richard K. Spottswood in 1976 for the Bicentennial. For only $13, he got a collection of American Folk music from the 1920's, 30's and 40's that inspired the best country, blues and rock musicians decades later. On Amazon, the same collection is now valued at $1500!

Each album in the set has it's own theme and title like War & History, Complaints & Protest, Migration and Immigration and Songs of Childhood. "It's definitely a one-of-a-kind find because I guess the only sets are in libraries," Bledsoe said.

Bledsoe's 13-record set came from the now-empty shelves of the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Bicentennial Library, where the vinyl was tossed out like yesterday's trash. Friends of the Library were selling the records through March 2 for a dollar each in the center of Northgate Mall.

Each of the albums contained a vinyl disc that was in remarkably good shape. They included a book that detailed the music, the lyrics and the story behind the songs as well as the life of the artists. Included were some of the earliest Grand Ole Opry performers on these albums, as well as performers like Wilmouth Houdini, Dutch Coleman, Bumble Bee Slim and others who blazed the blues and folk music trails.

"We had noticed over the last several years that the vinyl is not circulating like our CD’s are, or our DVD's, and what we wanted to do was make space for new items and get them into the hands of people who would really appreciate them," Cathy Royal of the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Bicentennial Library said. She didn’t have the time or resources to property maintain the vinyl that was now over 30 years old.

What a truly sad, sad story!

Beat Poet Gary Snyder Writes Ode to Apple's Macintosh

Since reading Jack Kerouac’s On the Road as a kid, I've always loved the beat poets and their literature. One of my favorites has always been Gary Snyder. In 1975, at the moment he won the Pulitzer Prize for his great book of poems, Turtle Island, I was driving Snyder, Michael McClure and Allen Ginsberg around Gainesville, Florida during a visit there. This led to a lifetime of great relationships and wonderful poetry.

 Gary Snyder in 1975 in Gainesville, Florida. Photo by Frank Beacham

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It was a real surprise this morning to wake up to Gary's new poem, Why I Take Good Care of My Macintosh in the New York Times. It seems a Times reporter found Snyder, who lives in the Sierra foothills in Northern California, and asked him to reflect on the digital age. Since Snyder normally writes about nature, this was quite a stretch.

Like myself, Snyder is an avid user of Apple's Macintosh laptop. Snyder, now 79, who doesn’t have a mobile phone and considers texting “abhorrent,” said he loved his Mac. “I like the storage space it has,” he told the Times, “and I like the ability to have back files accessible to me wherever I go.”  Here is the poem:

 

 

"My Dinner With Andre"—Now 30 Years Old—Was a Great Cinematic Experiment that Wasn’t Suppose to Work

Thirty years ago, playwright-actor Wally Shawn sat down for dinner with Andre Gregory, the New York theatre director, and cinematic history was made. It was a “talkie” shot on low-budget 16mm film that no one—except the filmmakers—believed in.

That included most of the family and friends of Shawn and Gregory. But after a tense six weeks of poor box office and scathing reviews by mainstream media outlets, the then new TV critics—Siskel and Ebert—gave My Dinner with Andre a thumbs-up. At that moment, the film’s box office took off.

The two old friends and theatrical colleagues watched their work at the Walter Reade Theatre at Lincoln Center this week for the first time in a decade. It was part of a tribute to the life of the late Louis Malle, who directed the film. After the screening, both men marveled at how much the world had changed in the past 30 years.

 

The project was proposed by Shawn, who wanted to tell the story in a TV film of Andre’s fantastical journey of enlightenment to Poland at the invitation of Jerzy Grotowski. The pair met for weeks—talking into a tape recorder—as Gregory told the tale and Shawn reacted. They then took the transcripts and edited a narrative, which they later performed in segments before live audiences and on videotape.

“We would never had embarked on this movie if we had known what we learned five to ten years later,” Shawn recalled. “If someone brought me something like this today and asked my advice, I would say it is impossible. If I had known anything, I would have thought it was impossible then. But neither of us knew much about movies. So we had a kind of confidence that was absurd!”

 

French director Louis Malle signed on and the film was made in an old abandoned hotel in Richmond, Virginia. It was in the dead of winter and to turn on the heat would have required heating the entire hotel. That was too expensive. So the two men filmed the entire movie in the hotel’s restaurant wrapped in electric blankets.

They knew their parts so well, the film was shot angle by angle, rather than in sequence. “We knew the script so well we were like trained monkeys,” Shawn recalled.

 

Gregory said playing himself was difficult. “It was confusing almost to the point of my going nuts,” he recalled. “In the rehearsal, I came up with the idea of using four voices. There was Andre with a Peter Brooks voice, there was Andre ‘the spiritual used car salesmen,’ there was Andre the ‘off-the-wall’ rich kid and there was the truthful Andre.”

Malle gave Gregory only only one significant direction in the film—speak faster. “It was the same direction given by director John Huston to his father, Walter Huston, in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, which won Walter an Oscar. You see Walter Huston, like myself, was a theatre actor. This was a crucial direction. When I spoke faster, I created this character who was a maniacal, egotistical, narcissistic son of a bitch. I didn’t have time to act. Louis realized that the camera is so close that you see what is in the eyes. You don’t have to do so much.”

 

What did the two performers think had changed in the culture since making the movie? “In the film, we don’t talk directly about American politics,” noted Shawn. “We almost would have had to when Ronald Reagan became president.  We both saw television come in. When we were boys there was no television. I missed television until I was about eight years old. The whole idea of people living in a trance and a fantasy world is far less discussed by younger people today than by us.”

Gregory, who at 75 is older than Shawn, grew up on radio drama. “You could say in certain ways that My Dinner with Andre is a radio drama,” he said. “In one place, the Andre character talks about ‘preserving the culture.’ Of course, that’s a passive culture that tells you what to think, what to feel and what to look at. If you go to see a movie like Titanic, it doesn’t leave anything open to your imagination. As audience members, you don’t need to do any work. 

“This film, like certain radio dramas, actually encourages you to think and to feel,” he continued. “It’s a bit like Lawrence of Arabia because the audience has to feel the forest. If you go see Atlantic City, which is the film Malle made just before this, it’s tragic to see the culture crumbling. Old buildings collapsing—an old world film. I was staggered tonight by the people mentioned in the film. We remembered in the 1970s when there would be lines around the block to get into a new Fellini movie or Antonioni movie. An active culture was more alive back then.”

 

Gregory recalled that when his father was 83 they had a discussion about fascism. “My father said if he was younger he would leave America. I asked why? He said because both political parties have become so corrupt that it can only lead to fascism. So, from my point of view, fascism was an ongoing concern. Wally’s play, The Designated Mourner, predicted Bush 10 years before he stole the presidency.”

Shawn recalled being surprised to see in the film that he wasn’t as complacent back then as he had remembered. “I suppose I have become a committed leftist who is much, much more upset about the way things are than I was at that time. I am more a believer in political activism and more aware of the role that bourgeoisie Americans play in torturing and oppressing the poor people who want the world to change. In the film, there’s a dim sense of somebody awakening to that.”

 

Gregory added: “The Andre character said something about ‘global totalitarian Capitalism.’ I used to not mind Capitalism so much. I grew up in the upper middle class and was privileged to have a comfortable life. I think Capitalism—starting with Reagan, who I think was a radical revolutionary—has become absolutely obscene. I have much darker feelings about this country. On the other hand, I’m a much happier person. I adore my wife, Cindy, a very fine filmmaker. I wouldn’t walk further than the local cigar store I’m having such a good time at home. So I sort have become the Wally character.”

A Real New Years Resolution

If you’re anything like me, you are fed up with our government’s response to Big Banks and Wall Street during the past year’s financial crisis. President Obama made promises to get tough with these institutions, but they haven’t been kept. It is clear to me that members of Congress from both political parties are corrupt to the core. Nothing will be done by the federal government when it comes to reigning in big business.

I read in the Huffington Post a great idea that ordinary people can do to really hurt the Big Banks. As a New Year’s resolution, people would simply move their money from any checking, savings or other kinds of accounts at the Big Banks to smaller community banks. It’s an idea elegant in its simplicity that, if it catches on, could cause some serious pain to these “too big to fail” banks that long ago quit serving the people.

 

If everyone did something as simple as switch their bank accounts away from these major banks it would be an act that no amount of lobbying or government intervention could stop. Congress and the administration would be left scratching their collective heads.

The “Move Your Money” folks did a wonderfully simple video below. And they even give you a way to find an alternative community bank near year you (Click here).  

The small banks are your choice. Just take your money out of the Big Four banks: JP Morgan/Chase, Citibank, Bank of America and Wells Fargo—all of which took billions in taxpayer money and have cut lending to businesses by $100 billion.

And spread the word about the “Move Your Money” campaign. It’s one very fine idea that could make a real difference!

Orson Welles and his Brief, Passionate Love Affair with the Betacam

 

Sometimes the journeys we take through this life begin and end in the most unexpected ways. That happened to me in January, 1985, when the phone rang and the caller announced he was Orson Welles and he wanted to have lunch with me. Thus began one of the most extraordinary adventures of my life.

Read the full story

Pictures in the Everglades

Standing waist deep in the swamp, under attack by aggressive mosquitoes and keenly aware of the nearby alligators and snakes, I fumbled under a large piece of dark cloth to see the dim upside down image through the back of a wooden view camera.

"You know in the video world we have viewfinder hoods," I shouted from under the thick black cover to Clyde Butcher, sweltering from the oppressive heat.

"Hoods are for wimps," responded Butcher, one of the world's best landscape photographers. "This is Mathew Brady stuff!"

Yes, it is, I quickly realized. Photography as it was done in the 19th century, when the great Mathew Brady and his assistants lugged similar equipment around battlefields to create the most memorable images of the American Civil War.

As a member of the video generation, I found myself in a bit of a technology time warp. A world where a new fangled gadget like a viewfinder hood is looked upon with suspicion. In this branch of image making, old fashioned craft and vision reign supreme over new technology and the latest widgets.

 Frank Beacham and Clyde Butcher in the Everglades. It was the summer of 1996.

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Yet, I found going back to the basics a strangely satisfying experience. Working with 4x5 inch black and white negatives and huge, radiant high definition prints resulted in a creative high I have yet to match with the high tech tools of these digital times.

I had first gotten a glimpse of Clyde Butcher's photography a few years ago when I stumbled into a PBS television special about his task of preserving on film Florida's rapidly disappearing Everglades. I was instantly attracted to his work. After calling his gallery, I found he offers occasional workshops in large format photography at his 13-acre wilderness compound in South Florida's Big Cypress National Preserve.

Butcher, whose talents at photographing nature rank up there with the late Ansel Adams, normally works with 8x10 and 12x20 format Wisner view cameras. His monochrome prints range in size from 11x14 (which he considers barely a wallet photo) to huge wall murals that are stunning in their scope, richness and detail.

Thinking Butcher's Everglades outpost would be a brief, but splendid, break from electronic media, I was surprised to find that a CBS Sunday Morning crew would be completing a video profile of the photographer on the second day of our workshop. Ironically, I would get a side-by-side comparison of the film and video images made in the picturesque swamp and the chance to ponder the methods by which each was created.

The CBS crew set up a video viewing station in Butcher's darkroom where we were crafting the prints from negatives we had taken the day before. Their video -- made efficiently and quickly -- had the crisp, snappy color and technically savvy look of work done by a top professional network crew. 

Yet, clearly missing from the video was the emotional bang that had drawn me to Butcher's photographs in the first place. How was it that Butcher could tell a whole story so well on a single frame of black and white film while the thousands of moving video images only skimmed the emotional surface of the subject? 

Was it simply a matter of resolution? Do we not have "fine art" video because of the limitations of the television medium to resolve detail?  If so, then why -- after well over a decade -- haven't we seen high definition video used as a artistic medium?  If it is not the video medium itself, does the answer lie in how we've been conditioned to use it?  Or does it go much deeper?

After the CBS crew had finished and was on the way to their next assignment, we in the darkroom were still tinkering with our prints, trying to decide where to dodge and burn or how to vary the contrast with filters.

Our still images were obviously produced through a much slower and more deliberate process than the video. They had a handmade quality. There was even a subtle aesthetic with the equipment itself; something I never felt before with electronics.

Take the Wisner camera. It's more like a piece of fine furniture than a technical tool. Made of beautifully finished mahogany wood with adjustable brass fittings, the camera is a timeless design. Not only does it offer a wide range of options to the creative photographer, but one could never imagine it ever becoming obsolete. 

While other types of photography have succumbed to computer-assisted automation, somehow the methods of making large format landscape photographs have remained traditional. Here the human mind never relinquishes control to a computer.

The photographer must think about every step taken. Each adjustment is made by hand. Careful consideration must be made to planes of focus, depth of field and the perspective of the subject. Even then, the image on the camera's viewing surface is upside down and very dim.  

From the very first day, the large format photographer assumes the role of artisan. For us video "wimps" -- used to the "point and shoot" conveniences of modern cameras -- it's at first hard to be confident about decisions of composition and image sharpness under that dark cloth. 

Yet for an old pro like Butcher -- with more than 30 years experience under his belt -- these seemingly large obstacles have been turned to pluses. He uses his eyes, not the viewfinder, to frame the image. He can do this because he instinctively knows what each lens will see and how it will see it.

The slow and tedious nature of large format photography, says Butcher, forces the creator of the image to take time to think about the picture being made. Sometimes it takes Butcher hours to make a single photograph. This contemplative method, he is quick to point out, is far more important than technique in helping convey a powerful emotional experience on a sheet of film.

One workshop participant asked Butcher what makes a visual artist. He estimated that it first takes about 20 years of learning the nuts and bolts -- the techniques of image making -- followed by another period when that technique is suppressed, becoming second nature.

For most of us, only then does real artistic vision begin to kick in. And even then, nothing is guaranteed. It all depends on the fragile talent and circumstances of the individual at a given moment as to whether new artistic boundaries will be broken.

In Butcher's life, the transition from successful commercial photographer to artist came in a tragic way. He says he found his creative voice in the grief that followed his son's death in an auto accident. The shock of that death led him to re-evaluate his approach to his work and resulted in his commitment to fine art nature photography.

It's a long way from a Florida swamp to the floors of today's bustling video studio. But in Clyde Butcher's wilderness preserve, there are valuable lessons for those who would attempt to use video as an artistic medium. 

Butcher's work reminds us that the art of the picture is not found in technology or technique. It's in the mind of the maker. The only artistic limitations we face in any medium are within ourselves.

Clyde Butcher's Fisheating Creek Memorial Tree

Revisiting Orson Welles is a Reminder of Vast Change in the Arts

I moved to New York City nearly 19 nears ago in large part due to Orson Welles. Through a strange set of circumstances, I was lucky enough to work with the great man during the final year of his life in Los Angeles. After his death in 1985, I came to New York to interview the living members of the Mercury Theatre Company for a documentary on Welles. I fell in love with New York City and eventually moved here.

The New York City I was attracted to was of the 1930s. To hear the exciting stories I was told by the Mercury actors, I thought those wonderful times still existed. Like so many before me, I was lured to the city by a false dream. One soon learns they have to make their own dreams come true in this town.

On Sunday afternoon, I was reminded of this again by Timothy “Speed” Levitch, the legendary New York City tour guide, who gave an Orson Welles tour of the Broadway area as a promotion for Me and Orson Welles, the new film opening this week. Though I had been an executive producer of Cradle Will Rock, a 1999 film about Orson, I had never walked the streets to see where Welles had actually worked.

Timothy “Speed” Levitch, performer and legendary tour guide. Photos by Frank Beacham

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Sadly, there was little to see. Just as theatre itself exists only in the memories of those who witness it, Levitch reminded us that very little of Welles’ New York of 1937 is now left. “Just like us, the city goes through constant transformation,” Levitch said. “That’s why there's almost nothing of old Times Square left. The city has been destroyed and rebuilt 5,000 times already. As we walk along the concrete of the city, think of it as the skin of a living being.” It was an interesting way to think of constant change.

 

As we walked past the Marriott Marquis, Levitch reminded us of the 1985 massacre when three Broadway theatres were torn down to build the huge hotel. Hilariously, however, Levitch noted that three of the hotel’s “homogenized, plastic conference rooms” are each named for among the most radical, socialistic, innovative minds in American theatre: Clifford Odets, Eugene O’Neill and Thornton Wilder. Only in New York!

 

As we approached the site of the original Mercury Theatre at 110 West 41st Street, where Welles and the Mercury produced the modern dress Julius Ceasar—the subject of the new movie—I was saddened. It's now a dreary, nondescript office building. This Wednesday, after all these years, a plaque is finally going up to mark the location as a historic site.

Orson Welles brought innovation and daring to American theatre. The Mercury’s mission was to break the fourth wall and “scratch the nervous system of its audience.” It was an exciting, provocative period of Broadway that is now long gone. To relive the experience today, the closest we can come is to see movies like Me and Orson Welles.

At least, in our dumbed down society, films like this are still being made. Bravo to those who still celebrate great artistic vision. There’s so damn little of it anymore. 

Christian McKay as Orson Welles in Me and Orson Welles

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It says a lot about New York City in 2009 that it took the promotion of a movie to finally install a plaque marking the original site of Orson Welles’ Mercury Theatre. But finally, Thanksgiving week, it happened. It was part of the hoopla for the opening of Me and Orson Welles. In the photo is Christian McKay and Zac Efron, actors from the film. 

The scene of such a burst of creativity should have been on every tourist map for 50 years. But it was lost. Finally, for those who want to know, the place—now a dreary office building—is marked at 110 West 41st Street. 

Jeanne-Claude—Christo’s Better Half—Pulled Off Some Big Moments in Art

I first met Jeanne-Claude in 1983, when she and her husband, the artist Christo, were doing their Surrounded Islands project in Biscayne Bay in Miami. The couple involved the entire community in their huge projects—because they had to in order to make them happen and because collaboration with the community was part of the art itself.

All Christo photos by Frank Beacham

The last installation I experienced by the couple was in 2005, when they installed 7,503 vinyl gates with saffron-colored nylon panels in Central Park. Each day, the panels looked different—due to the weather conditions and the direction of the light. When it snowed that February, the panels took on a transcendent beauty I’ll never forget.

 

I was very sad to learn that Jeanne-Claude, at 74, has died. Though Christo’s name is better known, everyone that knew the team understood that Jeanne-Claude was an equal partner. The single name was for easier branding. The couple met in 1958 and three years later did their first project of oil drums and rolls of industrial paper wrapped in tarpauli on the docks in Cologne, Germany.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s work always had critics. On virtually every project, they were accused of wasting money, creating environmentally unsound works and doing stunts without intellectual content. In every case, I think the critics were wrong. Very wrong.  

The couple’s projects were always meant to be temporary and to leave a lasting impression on those who participated in their creation. Jeanne-Claude called it “the quality of love and tenderness that we human beings have for what does not last.” 

I will never forget their works, just as I always remember seeing a great painting or other work of art. All we humans have is memory, anyway. “We want to create works of art of joy and beauty, which we will build because we believe it will be beautiful,” Jeanne-Claude once said. “The only way to see it is to build it. Like every artist, every true artist, we create them for us.”

RIP, Jeanne-Claude!