51 10 1775 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/4badaee07d692d2b4b93ac2f54f5a7f9.mp3 5df77c50a2aa7e3e4fc79488889921bd Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Oral Histories Title A name given to the resource Oral Histories from 1960s Binghamton Alumni Description An account of the resource In 2019, Binghamton University Libraries completed a mission to collect oral interviews from 1960s alumni as a means to preserve memories of campus life. The resulting 47 tales are a retrospective of social, professional and personal experiences with the commonality of Harpur College. Some stories tell of humble beginnings, others discuss the formation of friendships; each provides insight into a moment in our community's rich history. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Irene Gashurov Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-2018 Relation A related resource <a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/browse?collection=18">McKiernan Interviews : 60's collection of Oral Histories</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2019-03-01 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Irene Gashurov Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Steven M. Weiss Year of Graduation 1970 Biographical Text Steven Mark Weiss is the president of Straightforward Communications, a marketing and research consultancy in consumer demography and trends. His clients have included Hilton Hotels, Denny’s and the California Department of Agriculture. A magna cum laude graduate of Binghamton University and of the Culinary Institute of America, Steve spent the early part of his career as the executive food &amp; beverage editor of <em>Restaurants &amp; Institutions</em> magazine. His work earned him a Jesse Neal award for editorial excellence from the American Business Media. For nearly a decade he was the regular columnist of <em>QSR Magazine</em>. He is also an award-winning journalist with 25 years’ experience as a marketing and management consultant to the food service industry. Steve resides in Scottsdale, Arizona, and serves as vice president of the Arizona Society of Astrologers. He has written books on astrology, including <em>Signs of Success</em>, which represents his lifetime avocational interest in astrology. Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords Harpur College - Seventies alumni; Harpur College - Alumni in the food industry; Harpur College - Alumni living in Phoenix, AZ; Harpur College - Alumni in astrology; Harpur College - Alumni in journalism Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium Alumni Interviews Interview with: Steven M. Weiss Interviewed by: Irene Gashurov Transcriber: Oral History Lab Date of interview: 1 March 2019 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SW: 00:02 I am Steven Weiss Harpur College, class of (19)70. I am in Phoenix, Arizona, and I am being interviewed by Irene Gashurov for the for the Binghamton Library Archives. Nope. Okay. Well, start again. [inaudible] IG: 00:26 It is for the Binghamton alumni. It is going to be an audio a collection of audio recordings with alumni from the (19)60s and early (19)70s. SW: 00:42 All right [crosstalk] IG: 00:44 Sixties collection [crosstalk] yes, I do, I do. Okay, so let us start from the beginning. Where did you- you said you grew up in Brooklyn. SW: 00: 53 I grew up in Rigo Park in Queens. Went to Forest Hills High School. I was born in Brooklyn. IG: 00: 57 I see, I see. So, who were your parents? What did they do? Do they encourage your education? SW: 01:08 Yeah, I think I was. We were in a culture where education was valuable. IG: 01:12 Yeah. SW: 01:13 My father was an executive in the camera and photography industry. Worked for a variety of companies, and my mother was a housewife. IG: 01:26 Are you one of several children, or? SW: 01:29 I am an only. IG: 01:29 You are an only. SW: 01:30 Yes. IG: 01:31 You are an only- so you went to Forest Hills High School? How did you decide to go to Harpur College? SW: 01:41 Do you know, on one level, it was as simple as being an affordable college, but-but that that denigrates or plays down the fact that it was considered a good college, even, even back in the (19)60s, I remember a New York Times article that everyone liked to quote, that that Harpur was the public Swarthmore, that that got a lot of play on the campus at that time and-and so. So, the idea I-I had in my mind to perhaps go to Tufts and in Massachusetts, but, but really, for a lot of people of my generation and our socio-economic class, you went to either Harpur or you went to Stony Brook, yeah, Harpur, if you were interested in liberal arts, Stony Brook, more for science. SW: 01:42 More for science. That is that is interesting. So, did you have a clear idea of what you wanted to study? SW: 02:32 Until-until my freshman English class, I did. I-I had intended to go to Harpur and study political science with-with the notion that I would go into law, because that was that was appropriate at the time. But my freshman English teacher changed everything about my life. SW: 02:49 Let us hear about it. Who was the freshman English teacher? SW: 02:49 My freshman English teacher was Zach Bowen, who was an eminent James Joyce scholar, and in fact, he eventually moved from Harpur to become the chairman of the department of the English department the University of Delaware. And then from there, after several years, he went to the University of Miami in Florida and became their chairman. But-but Zach was a- anyone from my generation who encountered Zach, he was an enormous, jolly, wise, funny man, and for better or for worse, he took a liking to me to my work. And when I told him that I was going to major in political science, he sort of laughed at me and said, "No-no, you are an English major." [laughter] IG: 03:38 That is great. SW: 03:39 He put me in that direction. IG: 03:40 So, he claimed you as one of his own. SW: 03:44 I think that is a very good, apt way of putting it, yes. IG: 03:47 So, what kind of mind-expanding things did you learn in that, you know, with this professor? What-what did you learn? SW: 03: 56 I hope this is not too much of a segue, but you know, to think about I have been thinking about this because I know I was going to have this, this moment with you and-and I realized that it is, it is, it is obvious that we want to abstract generalities that make sense. You know, generational, generationally and collectively. But my generation, we were so individualistic, for better or for worse, that that, you know, it was part of the tapestry right of life. So-so-so I responded to Zach because he was totally avuncular and smart and funny, and a guy that I that I admired immediately, and it looked like what he was doing was fun. And so, there is that, there is that personality context where a young man looking for-for examples, not-not idols. Idols is too strong a word, but people [crosstalk] or just people that you could, you could model behavior on. You know that, oh, I could be this guy someday, and Zach was, Zach was that for me. But then there is also the-the coursework itself, being exposed to things like the Odyssey and the Aeneid and some of the, you know, some of the earlier classical literature. I believe we read some, if I am not mistaken, we read some classical Greek tragedy, and immediately that captivated me, and as captivated me my entire life. IG: 05:21 Right. SW: 05:22 Mythology. IG: 05:23 Have you studied different kinds of mythologies? SW: 05:27 I was, it turned out that I was not really an academic at heart, although I did have a I had a teaching assistantship. I was working on my Master's at Binghamton as well. I did very well in school, and I took, I took coursework very seriously, but, but another teacher who had an influence on me was a was an associate professor by the name of Betsy Oswald, who is a talented novelist, and she was teaching, she was my first writing teacher, and between Zach and Betsy-Betsy-Betsy convinced me that I was, I was cut out for writing, and so I found out that I was more of a journalist than I was a scholar. So-so not that I ever turned my back on mythology, but I did not choose to pursue the mythology as a as a career aspiration, the writing became more of an aspiration. IG: 06:16 That is wonderful that you discovered it so early in your life, right? SW: 06:23 I had been writing for, for, you know, for, I am the sort of guy who was in grade school, was writing for the other school magazines. I would always been writing. But I needed someone to confirm that that was something that one did, that it was okay to be what to aspire to be a journalist or to be a writer, and I think I needed someone to say, yeah, that is okay. "Yeah, that is what your talent is, and that is what your desires do it." IG: 06:47 I mean, did you become a journalist after that? SW: 06: 50 Yes-yes. I, well, I decided that that in order to be after my, after my-my Harpur, my Binghamton years, I felt that in order to be a journalist, I needed to have a specialty. That it was not just another I was not a general assignment reporter, and one of my lifelong interests was, is food. I come from a Jewish, Italian family, that is all we are interested in. So, I went to the Culinary Institute of America and got a chef's training yes in Hyde Park, New York, and put culinary and journalism together. And I spent several years as a as an editor of a major restaurant publication out of Chicago. IG: 07:33 Wow. SW: 07:35 Restaurants and institutions were- IG: 07:37 So, you were food critic? SW: 07:38 I was a food critic here in Phoenix for a while, but mostly I was, I was a I was working in the business press, as far as the restaurant and food industry went, so I was rather than, rather than a critic. I was, I was, let us say, an ally. I was more interested in what made a restaurant great than-than judging whether it was great. IG: 08:01 How do you mean, how it is sale, it is revenues, and- SW: 08:07 Yes, exactly, or-or as what became my, what became my major interest was, in fact, marketing and-and-and analysis of dietary habits and preferences you are looking this-this book is that kind of a book. For seven or eight years, I was the executive food editor of a magazine called restaurants and institutions, which was the largest, largest trade publication in the restaurant industry. So, I my job was to find out what they were doing and how they did it, and if they were willing to share with other restaurateurs. And I had a pretty international beat on that, so I got to go and eat a lot of great places and stay in a lot of great places. IG: 08: 52 What are among your I mean, we are veering off topic, but this is, personally so interesting. So, what- so when-when was this period of work. When did it take place in the- SW: 09:04 The period of work was from about 1975 after I graduated the Culinary Institute of America, to about 1981. IG: 09:11 Okay. SW: 09:12 When I moved down here. IG: 09:14 When you moved in 1981 so, you reviewed, you reviewed, you know successful New York restaurants. Do you any, any stand out in your mind? SW: 09:25 Oh, absolutely. [crosstalk]I do not want to the honest truth is that the great, the greatest restaurant company, probably that ever existed in New York, at least during my-my lifetime, was Restaurant Associates, and they were the company that did the Four Seasons and Forum of the 12 Caesars and-and the really great restaurants of their time. And the general, the gentleman who was responsible, you know, who led that company was, his name was Joe Baum, and Joe did all of these restaurants. And then he kind of just disappeared from the scene, and all of a sudden, his name came up attached to a project which was called the World Trade Center. And I so I called, I called Joe, because I knew him a little bit. I said, "Look, you know, you are a great restaurateur, and this is really interesting, what you are doing here." So, I made my-my reputation in the restaurant industry, writing an enormous article, I wrote one of the first articles about the integrated restaurant. I concept behind the World Trade Center, from the from the top that from the top of the building, to- IG: 10:33 Windows on the world. SW: 10:34 -windows on the world--got married there as a matter of fact—and-and to-to the marketplace, which was the concourse area, to the sky lobbies, which had restaurants on the 44th floor, but it was a very brilliant, integrated restaurant system. That is the sort of thing I wrote about. How did you- how does someone possibly create and then manage and run this kind of restaurant? So-so like on the on the on the creative level, the people like James Beard were coming in to-to brainstorm and-and then-then the actual building and running of it was another fascinating story, interesting to my readers. IG: 11:12 Right-right, no, interesting, interesting to any reader. And James Beard was brought in to consult on the menu, or? SW: 11:20 Yes, in fact, Joe Baum was a brilliant, brilliant man. The restaurant industry misses him, but he would, he would invite, invite James Beard into his office and just let James Beard free associate about what American cuisine should be, what American upscale cuisine, and he would talk, he would talk about, I have listened to some of these tapes. He would talk about brioche, lighter than air, floating off into the into this sky, and it was fantasy, but, but, but Joe and his people were plugged into this, and they just used it as an inspiration for- IG: 11: 51 Did the windows on the world have brioche? SW: 11: 54 I do not know [crosstalk] everything in its time. It had everything. IG: 11: 58 I forget what it had. I-I was there a couple of times, but I- SW: 12:02 Well, it was not just the fabulous, was not just the fabulous windows on the world, which was several restaurants, from the windows on the world to the Cellar in the Sky, which was the wine cellar restaurant. Then they had something called the Hors d'Oeuvreriewhich was just all hors-d'oeuvres, international hors-d'oeuvres. But on the lobby was, was just as interesting, on the on the main core concourse of the World Trade Center, they had something called the Big Kitchen. And the Big Kitchen was like the prototype for all of the for every, you know, casual fast-food concept that ever existed, but it was high scale. So, there was a bakery there, there was a there was a grill, there was a hamburger place. This one of the first places in America that ever had [crosstalk] and next to the Big Kitchen was a restaurant called the Market. And the Market was a, was a was in honor of all of the fresh food and produce in New York. So, every day, the chefs would go out and they would buy the best fish or meat or vegetables they could find. And all the menus were handwritten because it was that fresh. And that was that was that was ahead of time too. IG: 13:03 That was ahead of its time. Was very ahead of its time. It is, it is extremely interesting. It is extremely interesting. Were there any was there any connection? Do you know that the site of the former world trade, World's Fair in Flushing Meadow Park also has kind of a similar setup to Windows on the World? I mean, it also has sort of, you know, but it is a much smaller scale. Was it by the same proprietary or you know- SW: 13:36 Restaurant Associates was involved—It is funny you would mention that goes, I grew up in Queens on the 14th floor of an apartment building that looked over the World Fair site, the world that whole, you know, I used to watch the aggregated in the summer. We watched the shows and the fireworks. But the that-that World's Fair the first one, not the one in 1964 but the but the original. I want to, I want to put the date. It was the 1964 World's Fair, but that was the first time in the time in America that that there was a celebration of the International, the possibility of international food. That is such it was such a so I have written about it because it is such a seminal moment in culinary history that-that-that-that-that World's Fair, you know, was the first time there was like a giant concourse devoted to things, you know, you know, you know, Asian food, and even things like Belgian waffle was a big, was a big hit at that World's Fair, and they did not exist. The idea of cooking a fresh waffle and putting whip cream and strawberries on it. IG: 14:35 I think, I think, I think that is absolutely right. It kind of introduced, you know, not only well through food, essentially through food, you know, I mean, we can, we can discuss. I have, actually, my daughter has a friend, Joe Torella, who was also a journalist at People Magazine. But, you know, he wrote a book about the (19)64, (19)6 5 World’s Fair. Have you heard it? SW: 15:05 Yes, I am not, but I am going to look for it now, because it is dear to me. IG: 15:12 Probably touches on what you, you bring up, because it is, it is sort of, you know, it is heavily researched. And- SW: 15:20 Yeah-yeah, that was- IG: 15:22 -what we can, we can, all right, so let us go back to Harpur. Let us go back to Binghamton. So, you arrived on campus. What, in (19)66? SW: 15:33 (19)66, yes. IG: 15:34 (19)66, a city kid, and you are coming into really the boondocks. What was it like then? What was the college describe it? SW: 15:44 It was very small by today's standards. I think there were, there were either just south or just north of 2000 students there. And over the course of a year, you literally got to, if you did not know personally, everybody on campus, you recognized everyone on campus. It was that intimate. But, but the it, but-but the-the-the truth of it? Well, there is lots of truths to it. One is your, your only. I was only 17 years old when I started college, and it was the first, I mean, I travel some as a kid, but this was, you know, the first attachment from home. So, a lot of what goes on is just a, you know, once psycho psychology responding to the strangeness of being on your own, but it was also in the forest, as far as a New York City kid was concerned, and I was surrounded by a lot of kids like myself, really smart people who-who Harpur was a liberal, liberal place. I do not know what it is like today, but that was a very-very liberal campus and-and so it was, it was like, it was like, you took the compression of the city and young people and you it was a chance like-like the snakes coming out of the popcorn [laughter], the fake popcorn, we were springing all over the place, if the truth be told. On the other hand, I was very serious about academics. And I, you know, I gravitated, I liked, I liked going to college, I like, I like the education. And it was, it was a it was a mixture of social strangeness and a chance to- IG: 17:13 How so? Social strangeness? SW: 17:14 I just think the freedom that that is involved, they in the in the in the orientation week in the freshman year. One of the traditions that Harpur had, I do not know whether it exists, I hope not, but they had it called Patty's wake. And Patty's wake was a beer blast. And, you know, we were, I was not even old enough to drink beer, but so be it. You know, this should be my worst crime, but-but it was, it was it was it was so mind bending. Forget, forget the drugs and all the rest that came later was just mind bending to be served. You know, limitless amounts of beer in a space with music and hundreds of kids your age were just free for the first time. I do not know how to put a neat lasso around it- IG: 18:03 Exactly, but it is [inaudible] you vivid-vivid picture and memory, you know. So, you know, there probably was a sense of being part of this community, and uh- SW: 18:21 I think it is a very- I wrestle with that point a lot. [crosstalk] I wrestle with the community point a lot. Because as someone who eventually got into generational studies, that is what the consistent consumers. I do not know whether my generation was as collectivized as some of the other generations that I see. I think that the in primitive or the nature of the people that I went to Harpur with, everyone was in a play about themselves. IG: 18: 52 That is a brilliant way of describing it is very individualistic, very but that is great. SW: 18: 58 And so, our play is overlapped, but-but-but-but everyone was really existing in-in a script that was being written for them, personally. And so while it is fair to discuss the (19)60s in terms of anti-war culture or-or drug culture, or-or materialism is-is-is, you know, is laid upon the baby boomers, and that is and none of that is wrong, but-but-but I do not think it captures the essence of what every, every person who participated was going through, because there was a lot of ways to act out, whether you were in the theater department or whether you were an anti-war protester, or whether you were a musician, or whether you were a scholar, and people-people had a passion about what they were doing. And you know, sometimes that passion got a little too crazy, but, but I would describe my experience at Harpur in general as just being around a lot of passionate, crazy people. Pick crazy because the because I. Society teaches you to modulate a little. Yes, you get older, and these-these people are not entirely modulated. IG: 20:06 So do you think that this is true of the youth culture, because a lot is said about the youth culture in the late (19)60s, and you know all of these rebellions going on in the United States, protests and-and in Europe. Do you think that everyone was, you know, feeling, I mean, you cannot speak for the whole world? But do you think that this was more true of Harpur College or youth culture in general, that everybody was in their own play? SW: 20:38 I-I think that that the answer is yes to both, both the youth culture in general and Harpur, which gave people an opportunity because of the nature of the people who attended and the nature of the social structure of the school itself, allowed it to flourish. But-but as somebody who cares about this, because I have studied this and it is meaningful to me, I believe that every generation discovers its values in part as a break away from the preceding generations. In other words, that in order that-that the values of a generation are formulated in not necessarily in protest, but you need to create a unique identity that allows your generation to be a survival generation, there is got to be something that you are not just aping a previous generation, and what Tom Brokaw has described as the greatest generation, because they lived through a depression and because they fought a war. God bless them. Yes. However, I would tell you that one of the major, at least in my observation, one of the major qualities of that generation is well for one of a better term, excuse me, Tom Brokaw, fear and repression, because their survival depended on being brave, on enduring horrible, horrible things as a result. When they created us, my generation, when they created us, they wanted us to toe the line. They wanted us to behave because they felt that is the way you survived. You know that there was, there was there was an appreciation that you survived by following the laws of the tribe. Well, so turned out my generation was not having any of that, because we had to create our own values. So instead of, instead of cursing the darkness, we lit the candle and that. And so that is who we became. We became people who were, you know, we decided, rather than crawling back in the womb and being afraid that we would go out and party for a while. And I think that was true of my generation, and I think it was very true at Harpur, because Harpur was inclined to be liberal about those things. IG: 22:36 But-but you also acted as a collective. I mean, it was, it was very individualistic, but was not there a sense of collective of, you know, going out and marching on Washington, and also the music of the (19)60s was very much about, um, you know- SW: 22: 55 I think, I think that is eminently fair. And I think, I think when half a million people show up at Woodstock. You have a right to talk about collective but my experience and A, this may be just totally atypical to me or B, because I am a journalist by nature, and I was more of a watcher, you know, I was much more interested in observing than participating. But I just felt that even I acted a little bit in Binghamton too. I was a couple of plays, even though I was an English major and but the people in the theater department well, but you could say that they were collective. They were all doing plays together, but damn, they were a diverse group of people. IG: 23:33 That is a very good analogy. And I think so highly of the theater department is still excellent today, still excellent. SW: 23:41 Are you looking at Morris from Fiorello? That was my great moment. IG: 23:48 Yeah, so that was a great experience for you, acting in theater. And- SW: 23: 57 Yeah, those- IG: 23: 58 That is a very participant. I mean, still you are, you are, yes, you are a star, and you are in your own head, but I mean the nature of acting is that you are, it is imitative and, but you are acting as a collective. SW: 24:11 I-I was in a couple of demonstrations, and I was in a couple of-of plays, right? And, and had I been in the country at the time, I would have gone to Woodstock. I happened to be, I was, I was in the summer of my junior year, which was on Woodstock took place. I was at Oxford University on a summer program. I had applied to a summer program. So, I went to see the Rolling Stones in Hyde Park in London that summer, which was the same summer. So, I get, I get some credit, but I guess what I am trying to say is that, yeah, okay, I participated in communal actions, but it was it. I was experiencing it on such an individual level. Did I get the paper in on time? Was my girlfriend happy? Was and that was as real as being, you know, part of the crowd that was watching, you know. Mick Jagger come out of the helicopter. IG: 25:01 I understand. I understand. SW: 25:04 But I do not know how you write history if you do not see some collective, you know, strains. But it was also- IG: 25:11 -a period of finding out about yourself. SW: 25:13 Absolutely more than anything, more than anything. IG: 25:18 So, you know how? Just tell me about you know what your when you were not studying, how did you spend your free time you acted? SW: 25:28 Yeah, it was. We did not have fraternities. So, I doubt whether the school does. I do not know if it does, but we had social clubs. For some reason, they were lost in historical there were no fraternity houses, and there were no sorority houses, but we had social clubs. So, I was a member of a social club, and I played ball with-with, you know, with my, with my brothers, and we had parties, you know, we-we dated, and we had, we had, we had, you know, so there was, there was that kind of, what might be called traditional college life, of having a having, you know, you know, friends, you played ball with and govern. So that was part of my life. And then you just knew people from all sorts of people, had all sorts of interests at Harpur, you know, one of my good friends was, was, you know, running Students for a Democratic Society. And one was a soft, you know, what was an athlete, and one was a- in the theater. IG: 26:19 Right-right. SW: 26:22 I feel like I, you know, poured over like the vial of mercury, and all of the little, you know, droplets are running every which way, because-because it is hard for me to just put a, you know, just a neat bow around-around it. IG: 26:35 It cannot be and but-but also it is, it is, it is you who are bringing, you know, it is easier to put a neat bow, I do not know. Or it is maybe a turn of mind- SW: 26:46 Yes- IG: 26:46 -that wants to put it. SW: 26:47 -yes, that is- IG: 26:48 -you do not, you do not. So, you know, how, how do you think people perceived you? How would you how would your classmates, for example, remember you? SW: 27:03 That is a great question. That is such a hard question to ask too. I do not you know, I would be honest with you if I, if I, if I could tell you that, although I think it is, I think it is part of a journalist nature that you do not want to be the story. I mean, maybe things are changed today. So-so I think that that every time I was able to just sit in and not be the focus of attention, I was, I was at my best. So-so-so the answer your question is they would probably say who that would be. That would be a sign of success. I do not think I was a follower or a leader. I just, I was interested in the zoo. But again, you know, in all honesty, I was very concerned that my girlfriend was happy. I was very concerned that I was getting good grades. Just-just that Harpur at that time, was impossible to ignore. What was going on around there, which was which was wild. Here is what I mean by individual being an individual. I was in the first draft lottery during the Vietnam War, okay, and so I remember, I remember being in my, my dorm room at the time, you know, and they are reading off the numbers on the radio this. That is really how it happened. Now you find out what number you were, but you know your birthday, you know, April 7 is one, and, you know, and for every second is two. So, I had a number that was low, but not really low, you know, it was, it was one of the in other words, I think they went up. I think eventually they went through, like 120 numbers. Like 1/3 of the people were in the draft lottery, were contacted by their draft boards. And I was around 120 I, you know, I, I had a number that was low, but I did not know what to do. Do, you know, I mean, I mean, I knew I had to register for the draft, but the Vietnam war was not popular in Binghamton, you know, on campus, but I did not want to. I had no, I had no intent of going to Canada, you know, leaving the country. But these, that was, that was pretty, that was pretty intense in my life, you know, whatever the collective was doing, I had to make a decision about-about what to do, and I eventually decided to join the National Guard in Binghamton. So, I joined, I joined the National Guard in Binghamton. And on the night of my graduation weekend, there was a very, there was a very famous Grateful Dead concert that took place in Binghamton in 1970 in May and-and-and-and I had to leave on a plane the next morning to go to Fort Knox, Kentucky for my basic training. I was more, you know, I was more of a I was closer to being a hippie than being a straight let us put it that way. The whole school is down there in the gym at the Grateful Dead concert, and I am sitting in the student center by myself because I was too blue. This is what life was like, as opposed to the-the-the, you know, the abstract collective. I am sitting in the thinking, “Oh man, I am going to the army tomorrow, and as fate would have it, I so I fly to Fort Know Kentucky.” You get there, they shave your head, they-they give you a uniform, and it is pretty it is pretty abrupt change of lifestyle. And that night, that night was Kent State, and I had just joined the National Guard as a as a compromise solution to not wanting to go to Canada, to not wanting to dodge the draft, and that night, I got one of the biggest lessons of my life, which was, there are no compromises. Life will life will instruct you in spite of yourself. That is the way Harpur felt to me. It was profound. And the things that were most profound were things that that that being in Binghamton and being a Harpur opened up for me, but they were in part, because I was an anti-war activist or some other collective, you know, phenomenon, and I think that is what is true of most of the people I knew there. IG: 30: 59 So let me understand you-you-you know, enlisted in National Guard in the hope of avoiding being sent to Vietnam. SW: 31:09 Yes, absolutely. IG: 31:10 Yeah, that, I mean, that is the way I read it. SW: 31:12 Yes. IG: 31:13 Why did you feel that the day that you know, the-the night before you would be sent to training, and you learned about Penn State? Why did you feel that that was a compromise? SW: 31:30 Because I felt like I was taking a middle road, rather than making, you know, rather than-than going out one way or the other, saying, you know, I am for the war, and, you know, I am willing to-to, you know, endure the responsibility of patriotism and fighting for my country, or I am against the war. And I thought it was, you know, an evil, hostile thing. And so, I was uncertain. I was uncertain about his doing, not to mention the fear of, oh my gosh, I am going to put a gun in my hand tomorrow, and I want to learn how to, how to shoot and do those things, the irony, because everything is, you know, connected and strange. I went to the local National Guard army in Binghamton just out, just for the heck of it, you know, I when I went the first time, it was not necessarily to sign up for all I knew they did not have any places, because people were joining the reserves to get out of going to Vietnam. And I went to the National Guard Armory, and the warrant officer said, “Well, I have two openings here. I learned that that the unit in Binghamton is a heavy construction unit. They-they build, they build the permanent-permanent, you know, facilities for the army. And he says, so I got, I got, I got two jobs. This is one you could sign up and I could teach you how to break big rocks into little rocks. I will never forget that was one of the jobs. I could learn how to operate the machine that broke the big rocks and little rocks, interesting, but not necessarily my skill set. He says "The other thing is, I need a cook." And so that is how the world is funny. So, I went to the army and went to cook some Baker's school. That was my first formal training as a cook. So, everything was connected. And I went to, I went- IG: 33:07 That is so interesting. So, you know, what was the training any-any- was there any resemblance to culinary school? SW: 33:20 Not, but it was like this. It was being around the mass production of food. I always, I always make people laugh. And in culinary school you say, "Oh, I know how to make a pie." You get a number 10 can of filling. You get a pre made pie crust. You pour the filling into the pie crust. But then you, you did get the Army gave me the opportunity to be around the mass production of food. You know, you cook breakfast. You are cooking French toast for 200 people. It is an interesting experience. So, there were things you could. IG: 33: 51 Of course, of course. So how long did you serve? How long uh- SW: 33: 58 I served in the National Guard for three years, and usually it is six years that you have to serve. But I have a very sympathetic company commander and a very-very sympathetic company priest, Father bill. I want to get father Bill in this lifetime. I said, Look, guys. I said, “This is not me. Help me. Help me find a, you know, an honorable way out.” I said, “I do not want dishonorable discharge. I want honorable discharge, but there is got to be somebody, because you have observed me for three years. I played the game, but I got to get out of Binghamton. I did. I had to go and live my life.” And they were sympathetic and helped me get out. So, I served for three years. IG: 34:36 And then you went back to New York. SW: 34:38 I went to the Culinary Institute. Well, actually, no, but I got out. When I got out of the National Guard, I did the strangest thing, because this, this feels like I should send you a check for a therapy session, because I am reliving things and moments in my life that are that are profoundly, you know, changed, big change moments. But when I got out of the National Guard, I wanted to prove to myself that I did not. Leave the National Guard because I was some sort of physical coward, right. This was something like I was not getting out just to avoid so my-my father had a contact, and I joined the Merchant Marine. You know, the Merchant Marine is not a military branch, it is just the just and so I sailed for about a year on a steel hauling ship that went from Baltimore around Florida into the eastern ship channel. But-but, so what I, what I did after, what I after, what I did after, you know, leaving Binghamton and leaving, you know, leaving graduate school and leaving the National Guard, was I sailed for a year and while I was on the ship, this is much more than anyone needs to know. But I was in Houston. We had docked in Houston, and I had applied to the Culinary Institute of America. I decided that I was going to take my desire to write, and I was going to marry it to food, which I loved, and then I was going to go to the Culinary Institute of America. And that worked out for me. I worked out for me. I worked for the public relations department the entire time I was at the Culinary Institute. I wrote all their magazines, and it opened up a door to becoming a food editor at a national publication. But that night in Houston, in the ship channel, it was during the first Russian wheat deal. They were taking American tankers, oil tankers, cleaning them out, loading them with wheat and sending them to Russia and, and I will say this about the Merchant Marine, it is a weird life. But they paid. The pay was, this was astonishing. Great, great. It was great. And they offered me the opportunity to go on one of these ships to Russia. The idea was, we clean out the hole from the oil, and then we would go to go to Russia. And because of the nature of the of the deal, it would have been very, very profitable for young men. And that was, that was another moment like, huh, should I go to Russia, or should I go to the Culinary Institute of America? And I think I wanted to be a little saner at that moment, so I went to Chef's college instead of going to Russia. IG: 37:00 That is so interesting. Do I know that that America was sending Russia- SW: 37:10 Wheat. IG: 37:10 -which used to be the bread basket of the world, the Ukraine. SW: 37:14 Yes. IG: 37:14 Ukraine was sending it. SW: 37:16 They needed our wheat. I think it was 1973 or 74 it was one of those two years. IG: 37:21 I vaguely remember something. SW: 37:22 That was a big deal. IG: 37:23 Yeah, so you went to the Culinary Institute. And, you know- SW: 37:30 Yeah because- IG: 37:31 -and how did your life, kind of, I mean, your personal life, for example, how was it shaping up? Did you have uh- SW: 37:40 Yeah, I went to the Culinary Institute in America, and I was paying my own way, and I needed, I needed a job, and I got a job in Kingston, New York. I was the cook at a Salvation Army daycare center in Kingston, New York, so that so that so in the afternoon, before I went to class, class would run from about one to seven. So, in the afternoon, I would go and I would cook for the kids and-and one day, I was driving from Kingston to Hyde Park, where the culinary suit was, and it was in a snowstorm, and my car slid off the road, and I, and it was this big, you know, deal of getting pulled out of a ditch and the rest of it. And I got to school, and school had been closed. They had announced the closure of the school. So, they did not announce, in other words, they had closed the school, but they did not announce it in a way that I that was accessible. So, I got, finally got to the school. I was the maddest guy on the planet. You mean, you made me drive in a snowstorm, I get an accident. So, I walk into the I walk into the building, and there was nobody around, and I walked up to the second floor of this used to be a Jesuit seminary on the banks. I walked into the second floor and there was one guy there, and I said, and I was, I was, I was fuming. And I said, I do not know who you are, but and I told him my story, just like you are asking me now, because I mentioned who I was and what I was doing. He says, "Well-well, I am the Public Relations Director of the school, and I need a writer." So, I put myself through school for the next two years being a writer for the Culinary Institute of America and that and that sort of, you know, pointed me in the direction that I wanted to go. So, I spent a lot of time spending sending out, you know, letters and resumes to-to magazines and newspapers and magazine in Chicago said, Yeah, you know, you should come work for us. IG: 39:36 It sounds very much that, you know, all of these very fateful encounters, you know, that led you to the career that you have now. But you know, it kind of presupposes a certain kind of openness to opportunity, because somebody else would not have taken the bait, right? It is, you know, a certain personality. SW: 40:03 I did not, I did not read the-the questionnaire thoroughly, but I took a glance at it. The one question that that stood out there that made me laugh was, are you still friends with anybody from-from-from your, from your alumni. Now I am close to one-one fellow who I went to graduate school with at Harpur. I am still close with him. But as far as the undergraduate people, nope-nope, and the owner, and the reason, it was not that I did not love them, and I still do, and I would be joyful to encounter them. Yes, I think we all just-just shot off into, you know, you said you are being open, being open to, you know, possibilities. I read everyone there, that way, that there was no I read everyone there. I do not think I share you my story, but I do not think I am exceptional. I think if you sat down most of the people from my classroom, my-my-my circle of contacts and friends, they would all tell you a story like this. It is funny. I went to school with Tony Kornheiser. Is one of the better-known alumni. You know, he is on ESPN, and Tony was the sports writer for the back then the newspaper was not by dream. It was called the Colonial News, and Tony was the sports editor, and I was the movie critic for the Colonial News. And, and that is how life is funny here, Tony is a household name, and I had other things to do. I was not going to be a movie critic. Did other things. IG: 41:28 I did not know that, but you were a movie critic. What you know, talk about this for a little while. So, what movies did you- SW: 41:35 I remember reviewing, I remember reviewing Franco Zepparelli's Romeo and Juliet. And I remember writing a review. I wrote a review of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner with Sidney-Sidney Poitier, and and-and, as with every other school, there were super characters. Most of us were kind of characters, but there were some people, you know, in the student body who were, you know, brilliant but slightly unhinged. I remember one of them coming over after the Sidney Poitier review and-and-and he-he smiled at me, and, you know, clamped me on the shoulder and said, "Good job." I never, I think those were the only two words I said to that guy the entire time. But I was happy. You know, I got, I got an atta boy from, from one of the characters, David Hammer was the guy- IG: 42:27 I think I interviewed him. I would not be surprised. He is a lawyer now, and his- he is a partner in his own- SW: 42:36 Would not be surprised. He could have done anything you wanted IG: 42:38 I interviewed. I interviewed him. SW: 42:40 Glad to know that he is still-still there, because he was a brilliant guy. He could have done anything; he could have done anything he wanted to do. IG: 42:42 That is so interesting. Well, it is not surprising that you know, you know some of the people that I have interviewed and, okay, so-so open, yeah, openness to the world, certainly, you know, is equality of the people that I interviewed. I think I think most, I think I think most, but of course, expressed in different ways anyway. So, you know, so what- this was a time of, you know, changing mores. Were you paying attention to, you know, civil rights movement, women's rights came later in the in the late (19)70s. Were you aware of inequality- did you care, did you take- SW: 43:49 I would be misrepresenting myself to say that it was particularly political, so-so it is really not a, it is really not an area that I have a lot to contribute to. IG: 44:00 Right, okay, all right. SW: 44:03 I was in the National Guard. [laughs] IG: 44:09 Okay, so do you think that this generation of young people has something to learn from your generation? SW: 44:27 I think that is a very fair question. And I think that the only fair answer is maybe, but-but I but I think that first of all, the nature of consciousness prior to the electronic revolution is it is a different kind of consciousness. And I do not know whether it is a better consciousness or a lesser consciousness, but it is a different kind of consciousness. And I said this about the younger generation is I am very impressed by their versatility. The they can do 10 things at once, but they cannot do anything longer than five minutes. And that that is just on one level, that is just an old guy going, you know those kids today, but-but on another level, I think that concentration is-is a valuable commodity, and I think when what my son is a data analyst. So, this is particularly, he is a brilliant kid, and he is a great data analyst. But the notion is, there is always one more fact, there is always one more piece of data. There is always something you could add to-to alter the algorithm or the equation, and-and it is like, no, there are times when it is good to dig deep rather than to dig wide. So, I would like to think that that that, you know, there is still a place for-for concentration, which I do not see, and I see, I see everyone responding at the, you know, to the to the immediate impulse of the moment, you know. And I do not know, maybe I have just described that kind of character because I was when I was a young man. So, I-I the real way I want to answer that question, though, and this is something that I thought about, and is important to me, is that in ancient civilizations, because I like ancient civilizations, I like mythology. In ancient civilizations, if you live to a certain age, let us pick 60 at random. But if you, if you are at the age of 60, and you lived past that time, you became an elder of the tribe, that you were valuable to your civilization as an older person, because you had lived some life and you knew things, and it was the nature of lots of organized cultures that you would access the wisdom of the elders. You would talk to an elder, because the elder could stop you from making mistakes, or had some insights into-into culturally repetitive situations. In our culture these days, you get to a certain age and you are useless. In other words, we-we do not have, we do not honor the elders in our society because of what they know. You know, in other words, I am saying you do not honor the elders because that is the right thing to do, or that is, that is the kind thing to do, or the ethical thing to do. You honor the elders because they know something. And it is funny, because in the nature of the work that I do now, the counseling work that I do, I am forever telling people who are over the age of 60, this is the fight for the rest of your life. Otherwise, it is funny. I talk to people my generation, they all they still want to know, you know, who they are going to date. Will they fall in love? You know, what is the next. You know, you know, business empire to conquer. And I say, you know, get a grip, man, or get a grip, you know, Gal, it is, it is, it is it. Life is finite. There is nothing you can do about that. And I try to say life comes in thirds. You know, from like one to 30, you are young and you are, you know, you are allowed to have, you know, the karma of the situation is you are learning things. From 30 to 60, you are an adult, and you do adult things, and you have you have a family, and you get married, or you have a business or whatever. But after that, there is a decision to make, because time is getting short, and you are not as vital in the same way you were vital. So, what are you going to use these years for? And I just believe that afterwards you can be an elder of the tribe, but life makes it hard to be an elder of the tribe in our society, so you have to fight for that. IG: 48:26 You have to find; you have to find a venue. SW: 48:28 Exactly. IG: 48:28 [inaudible] you can be older. SW: 48:30 Exactly, right. IG: 48:30 I absolutely agree. I-I that that is really very deep. You said you counsel. SW: 48:40 Yes. IG: 48:40 Is that, you know, who do you counsel? SW: 48:44 Well, you know, here we get into the area where I have always been from the time. Okay, here is another strain of Harpur that is important. I got. I became interested in astrology partially because of my interest in mythology as a student. But partially because of a girl who was into astrology. And she was fairly, fairly adept. She was fairly well read in astrology. She was another undergraduate, like I was- IG: 49:06 Linda Goodman Sun Signs. SW: 49:07 The first what was one of the first three books that was handed to me. Jody handed me three books. She handed me Linda Goodman Sun Signs because I said it turned out we had our birthday was one day apart, and I wanted to, I thought this would be a good way to-to-to impress a lady. So, she gave me Linda Goodman Sun Signs. She gave me Astrology for Adults, by Joan Quigley. Now Astrology for Adults, the interesting thing about it is Joan Quigley, remember when, when-when it was turned out that Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan were deeply into astrology. It was on the cover of People magazine and Time Magazine. Well, Joan Quigley was their astrologer and [crosstalk] So Joan quickly was the Reagan's astrologer, and she had written a book called Astrology for Adults, which was a second level astrology book. And I, all I want to do is run around for people do not worry to worry about the President's into astrology. She was a really good astrologer, but the third book she gave me was a very, very esoteric study called An Astrological Triptych, by a famous astrologer by the name of Dane Rudhyar, who was a very-very eminent, thoughtful, brilliant, philosophical astrologer. And I read, I read the first two books, no problem. The third book, I did not know what the hell I was reading, and it became kind of a challenge to me, an intellectual challenge. I wanted to know enough astrology to understand what I was reading in this book. So, astrology became an interest, because I liked mythology. I loved Athena. She was my favorite Goddess, and I, you know, the relationship did not go anywhere, but the astrology got under my skin. So, for from the age of 18, I have been interested in astrology and-and I have taken classes, I have written for astrological journals, but all on the QT. I was, I was having a career, and this was, this was my avocation. This was not my vocation, but I was, I was a serious, I was a serious student of astrology without being an astrologer at the age of 60, you know, apropos of this, you know, being an elder, life circumstances changed for me in my business and in my personal life. And it was a gateway. It was clearly a gateway. And I could either try to recapture the stuff I had been doing for 30 years, or I could say, "Look, you know, do what you do, what your passion tells you to do, for the running time while you, while you are still capable." So-so I had, it is funny, because it is it Louis, Louis Patler who is a who is a co-writer, and a very well-known if you, if you, if you Google Louis, you would see what, what an influential business consultant he is in the world right now. His daughter knew that I was into astrology. She kept bugging and bugging me about doing a reading for because I do not do readings purely in this, because this turns me on. It is sort of like, like a person who has some ability to paint, but paints the pictures for himself. And she became so incessant, I finally said to him, "Look, I am going to do this for her." And she became she became client one. Well, I never advertised. This is about 12 years ago. I never but I never tried to build a practice. She told friends. Friends told friends. Word got out. I published some books, and I have about 200 clients now, and most of them are very accomplished, in fact. In fact, this morning, I did a consultation with a doctor in Canada. These are not people who are they are scientists. There is business leaders. They want to keep you know, sharing names is not the right idea, but when I say counsel, I am having the sort of conversation you and I are having today. These are the conversations I have with people because the universe has been kind and sending me people who have are really thoughtful, you know, are really worth talking to. I am not. For me, astrology is not, you know, you know, I lost my dog. Where is my doll? Do that kind of astrology. I try to talk about life of you. I try to do my wisdom, my wisdom years via the via this consulting. But I find that you know, that people come back over and over again and-and the names and the the-the-the accomplishments of the people that I get to consult with are impressive. Let us just leave it that way. SW: 49:53 Again. They come to me because I am not trying to sell them that I am an Oracle. I mean, yes, there is synchronicity involved. Yes, I tell people things that. How did I know that the-the- it is funny, the doc, the Canadian doctor, a woman who is, I know, I know because I have read for her husband, too, has been married for 25 years? I could look at her chart, and I say, you know, I have to say this to you there, there is really a strong indication here of some sexual, you know, hanky panky attraction going on. And I was right. I was right on. I do not know how I know that, all right, that, you know, I do not know how I know that looking at a piece of paper, you know what I mean. And I am not, I am not going to, I would never advocate, oh, astrology is true. It is the word of you know, you know the universe. But sometimes it blows my mind. I do not think I would have stuck with it if it was not, if that did not occasionally happen. IG: 49:53 Right. Well, I think we should near we should think of concluding this extremely [crosstalk] SW: 49:53 This tape will be [crosstalk] IG: 49: 53 How interesting. Well, they are interesting. IG: 50:40 -your life and period. So, do you- what are some of the most important lessons that you have learned from your college years--life lessons? SW: 54: 59 Yeah-yeah. I think that Harpur was instrumental. And this is this, is this, this is something that is important to me. I think Harpur opened me up to the possibility of dreaming of-of not feeling that reality was something that came with a set of instructions. I think that, I think that that the nature of what I studied and what I did and who I was doing it with, made me believe in the possibility that that you could always learn something, you could always be surprised. You could always you could always trip into something that was, you know, oh, I could have never anticipated that life was going to take me down this road or this was going to happen. And I think, I think leaving a, you know, leaving-leaving New York as a young, young guy, as a 17 year old guy, and even though I was, you know, a little free spirited, I was still looking to my family in a, you know, in a community of, you know, belief and practice and-and Harpur could have been a different kind of school where I simply, you know, went for an academic reputation, and I studied hard, and I and I, you know, figured out how to become something. But the things that were important about Harpur were the was the was the open endness of it all, the free-floating associations that seem to have so much meaning. And I honestly feel that basically, and again, this is just for me, that is that, that is what Harpur opened me up. It is sort of like a look like, you know, like, like a meditation or a spiritual journey. I only can characterize it that looking back at it, it opened me up. It opened me up to the possibilities of the universe. And that was life lesson number one, that and I realized that in order to write, you had to concentrate. [laughs] IG: 56: 54 Well, that is that is absolutely wonderful. Thank you so much for a really, very, you know, very substantive, unique interview, I think that we are going to conclude- SW: 57:09 Okay. IG: 57:10 -here and I thank you very much, Steve. (End of Interview) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Steven M. Weiss Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Weiss, Steven M. ; Gashurov, Irene Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 Description An account of the resource Steven Mark Weiss is the president of Straightforward Communications, a marketing and research consultancy in consumer demography and trends. His clients have included Hilton Hotels, Denny’s and the California Department of Agriculture. A magna cum laude graduate of Binghamton University and of the Culinary Institute of America, Steve spent the early part of his career as the executive food &amp; beverage editor of <em>Restaurants &amp; Institutions</em> magazine. His work earned him a Jesse Neal award for editorial excellence from the American Business Media. For nearly a decade he was the regular columnist of <em>QSR Magazine</em>. He is also an award-winning journalist with 25 years’ experience as a marketing and management consultant to the food service industry. Steve resides in Scottsdale, Arizona, and serves as vice president of the Arizona Society of Astrologers. He has written books on astrology, including <em>Signs of Success</em>, which represents his lifetime avocational interest in astrology. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2019-03-01 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Steven Weiss.mp3 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2019-03-01 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Oral Histories from 60's Binghamton Alumni Extent The size or duration of the resource. 57:14 Minutes https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/3da53d4495bf65739fc0873a6d356e9f.jpeg ca3dcb70061d7047ca44d038b2a0628d https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/9b61ce827dd22b1266a24478fab5afea.MP3 f858b5dcb62a58c33231ad307ac1bb0b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Kurdish Oral History Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Aynur de Rouen, Ph.D. Description An account of the resource <p>In 2011, Binghamton University Libraries received the donation of the Vera Beaudin Saeedpour Kurdish Library and Museum Collection. The acquisition opened a dialog with the local Kurdish community in Binghamton, N.Y., which led to the creation of the Kurdish Oral History Project.</p> <p>These interviews provide deeper insight into the history of the Kurdish culture through personal accounts, narratives, testimonies, and memories of their early lives in their adoptive country and back in Kurdistan. This growing collection holds interviews in English and/or Kurdish with informants of all ages and a variety of backgrounds from various parts of Kurdistan. The interviewees share remarkable stories of their migration, their persecution in Kurdistan, the resilience of their Kurdish identity in assimilating into the host culture, and the ties they maintain with their homeland in diaspora.<a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/sustain"></a></p> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Relation A related resource <a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/libraries/about/collections/oral-histories/index.html#sustainablecommunities">Sustainable Communities Oral History Collection</a><br /><br /><a href="https://archivesspace.binghamton.edu/public/repositories/2/resources/76">Vera Beaudin Saeedpour Kurdish Library &amp; Museum Collection Finding Aid</a> Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 12 April 2019 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Aynur De Rouen Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Midya Khudur Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 48:30 minutes Digital Publisher Binghamton University Biographical Text Midya was born in Mosul and lived there until 2002, before the fall of Saddam Hussein. She then moved with her family to Duhok and has been living there ever since. She came to the United States in the fall of 2018 to study at Binghamton University and get her Master's degree. Keywords Childhood; Mosul; Duhok; Kurdistan; Kurdish Diaspora; Kurdish Culture; Language; Kurdish Dialects; 2003 Iraq War; Saddam Hussein Language English Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium Kurdish Oral History Project Interview with: Midya Khudur Interviewed by: Aynur DeRouen Transcriber: Joseph Seif Date of interview: 12 April 2019 Interview Setting: Binghamton University -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) 0:02 AD: We are recording. So today is. We are good. Today is April 12, 2019 and we are here uh talk to Midya. Midya for the record can you give us your full name? 0:22 MK: Yeah, my name is Midya Khudur, um. 0:26 AD: And can you briefly tell us where you are from, and since you are so young, you would not mind telling us when you were born and where? 0:38 MK: So, I am from the Kurdistan region of Iraq, but I was born in 1992. I first born, I was born in Mosul and then my family went to Duhok to the northern part of Iraq in 2002 before the fall of Saddam. And I stayed there until now, [mumbles] until I come to the States pursuing my master degree. 1:01 AD: Okay, so, eh, so can you tell us a little bit about your family? Like how many siblings do you have, what your father does, what your mother does? You know that kind of information. 1:17 MK: Okay, so my dad is an engineer, my mom she could finish high-institute school herself teaching, but then she could not work because like she got married [laughs] and then yeah. We are, we are four daughters and one brother. I am in the middle. Two of them, my two sisters who are older than me, are both married and having kids, and the two of them that are younger than me, they are not. They are still students, they are studying, yeah. And currently live in Duhok. Yeah. 1:52 AD: So, uh, your father works in Duhok? 1:57 MK: Yeah. 1:58 AD: And what kind of engineer? 2:00 MK: He is a Mechanical Engineer. Yeah. 2:02 AD: Okay, so, eh. You said you were born in Mosul and then moved to Duhok area. So do you remember, do you have any memory of uh, Mosul? 2:15 MK: So, I was nine year when I moved from Mosul, but I remember from it is my grandfather’s house and our house, the playground, my cousins, because it was like my grandfather’s house like the biggest one and then small houses besides it they were all like for who else and so me and I mean my cousins were always playing there. I always loved his garden, um, the food that we were cooking there, everything. I remember sometime uh, the school as well, because I was there for like, I stayed there until fifth grade for primary school, so I remember, yeah, a little bit about the school as well. Yeah. 2:57 AD: So, uh did you live in a. What kind of uh area? Or was it like this strict like mostly Kurdish people lived, or people lived from different background in the same area? I was trying to get the sense. 3:16 MK: Yeah, I think it was like a mixed area, because we were living in the center of Mosul, so I do not really, I do not really know how like the distribution of people back then, but I remember that we have Arab and other ethnicity group uh neighbors, yeah. 3:35 AD: So, were you like interacting with them? With the neighbors? 3:39 MK: Um, not that much, because I had my cousins, they all were my age, so I did not need to have like extra friendship. Yeah. 3:48 AD: So, you were basically hanging out with your cousins. 3:51 MK: Yeah true. 3:52 AD: So, how about your family, your parents, grandparents, do you remember that they were interacting with other neighbors? 4:02 MK: Yeah, I believe so, because usually like my father and uh my aunt, usually they talk about their memories at the university some of their neighbors. So yeah they have, they have their group of friends and so on. But because like we had a lot of relative there in Mosul, like all my uncles, so I think like most of our social communication things it was through that. With my uncles and relatives. Yeah. 4:34 AD: So, did your extended family also moved to Duhok area? 4:40 MK: Well they moved but I think we were almost the first one who moved? The moved after the fall of Saddam, after 2003 after situation got bad, in Mosul, yeah they moved to Duhok. Yeah. 4:52 AD: Okay. So, you do not have any family left in Mosul? 4:56 MK: No, no. 4:57 AD: So, all Duhok. 4:58 MK: Yeah. 4:59 AD: So, what did you think about Duhok when you moved there? 5:04 MK: Yeah so, so when I first moved from Mosul to Duhok, I was thinking yay it is cool, I am going to speak my language, with like my neighbors and friends and so on and so on. But then when I moved to Duhok I discovered that my accent is different from them. [laughs] Which is like another trouble. Because like when I was in Mosul, all students or my friends they would say, “she is Kurdish, she is speaking in a weird way”. And then when I came to Duhok they were saying “you speaking almost Arabic”, because I was influenced by the Arabic language so I present a lot of Arabic words in my language. But then it was strange for me like the biggest challenge that I always had is the language, because I speak a dialect inside the house and then, when I was a kid, I was speaking another language outside, which was Arabic. And then when I moved to Duhok, I like tried to speak their dialect and the other challenge I was studying in another dialect, which was like disarani [Kurdish language dialect] one. 6:00 AD: Yeah. 6:01 MK: So, basically, I was dealing with three dialects in my daily life. [laughs] 6:06 AD: Wow! 6:07 MK: Yeah. 6:07 AD: So, uh Mosul, you went to, like when you went to primary school, it was like the language was Arabic? I take it? 6:15 MK: Yeah true. Yeah, yeah true. 6:17 AD: So, you are fluent in Arabic? 6:20 MK: Uh, yeah, I was nine years when I came to Duhok. I kind of lost it. I still I could uh, read it and write it, but when communication, I kind of lost it at some point, but then I uh a lot of Arabs displaced and came to Duhok, so I had a lot of Arab friends uh short after I coming to Duhok, so that is how I could restore my language, the Arabic language fluency when it comes to talking. 6:50 AD: I see. 6:51 MK: Yeah. 6:52 AD: So, and is this language thing still going on? You speak different dialect at home, different at school, different on the street? 7:00 MK: Yeah. 7:00 AD: Still continuing? 7:02 MK: It is always like that. Yeah at home it is a dialect, and then with friends another dialect, and then with Arabs another language, and then with my English colleague another language. So I always have that struggle of language, yeah. 7:16 AD: So, did you correct your accent for them? Or stick to your accent? 7:22 MK: No, I correct my accent, but the thing is when I am with like close friends or like. So now I mean the formation of my language is a mix of Arabic, English and Kurdish, so like the person, I mean the person that I feel comfortable with, he should know all three languages so that understand me. Because I cannot be only restricted to one language, I cannot express myself that way. 7:46 AD: Yeah. 7:47 MK: Yeah. 7:47 AD: Well, that’s good though, right? It’s different. 7:51 MK: It is suffering. [laughs] I mean people, people they say it is good, especially if you write about those challenges, but it is kind of a suffering when it comes to, when you want to express yourself or when you want to belong to something. Yeah. 8:07 AD: Yeah. 8:07 MK: Yeah. 8:08 AD: So, 2002, uh how was Duhok? Like environment wise? Like when you move there? How was it? 8:18 MK: So, comparing to Mosul, Duhok the weather was nicer, we were having a lot of fruits there. [laughs] We were not having that much fruit, but I mean as an environment and as a city it was nice. I was not really developed back then, but it was a nice one. I liked it. Yeah. 8:33 AD: You liked it. 8:34 MK: Yeah. 8:36 AD: So, uh, do you remember when things were happening? Like, like the Saddam was missing, then they found him, they, you know. I mean you were very you ng, obviously, but do you remember? Because it was a big event– 8:57 MK: Yeah, yeah true. 8:58 AD: –And then how he was. 9:01 MK: Yeah, of course I remember. So when first the U.S. came to Iraq, we Kurds, we were scared, as though we were living in the [inaudible] rural part but, a lot of us got, I mean we went to villages to more secured area because we were worried. And we all like watching news, what will happen, and I remember one day um, so we went to a village. We stayed in a school with my other relatives it was a more secured area to stay. And once I remember, we woke up in the morning and the sky and the weather was, was so, um, uh, I do not know, um. 9:42 AD: Was it foggy? 9:43 MK: Yeah it was foggy. 9:44 AD: Okay. 9:44 MK: And people were so sacred, they thought it is chemical, uh– 9:50 AD: Yeah. 9:50 MK: Yeah from, they thought that they are like chemicals from Saddam, like he’s throwing on us again and we all like put this uh thing on our mouth to cover it and in our nose covered– 9:41 AD: So that is the collective memory right there. 9:43 MK: [laughs] You think so? Yeah, so I remember everyone was so scared until we discovered no it is just the weather, it is nothing to do with the chemicals. Yeah, but then like after that, when Saddam um, when American could take over Baghdad and so on, when uh we moved back to Duhok and then, and then like everyone was watching news, yeah I remember the town when Saddam got arrest. I remember the time when he was in the court and the other Ba’ath regime people and uh there were getting asked by the court uh, about their crimes and so on. Yeah I remember it very well yeah. 10:50 AD: Yeah, but you did not really live through the uh, you know like when the– 10:59 MK: Yeah. 10:59 AD: –Chemical weapon, like the Halabja, Anfal, all that. But your parents have the memory of those incidences. 11:06 MK: Yeah, I did not really live in that part, but the threat that Saddam have, to everyone even the Arab cities in Iraq. It is so much so, I remember when I was a kid, I was always threatened by my mom. Like to be careful when I speak. I mean because I remember, um I remember when I was a kid, I used to act as a broadcasting person and like doing news and talking about Saddam, inside the house and my mom would tell me “Midya how to shut up, what if one of his, his like troops are here or one of the police are here, he will arrest us because of you” so I always learn to be careful. And I also remember once in the school, so usually when it is Saddam’s birthday or whatever, so we all we have to yell at the highest frequency on our voice that uh “long life Saddam” so, and I needed to say it because like my, because my manager she was looking at me. It was one of the most disgracing moments in my life. [laughs] 12:10 AD: Yeah. 12:11 MK: Because, you were saying “long life Saddam” and so uh– 12:15 AD: How did you say that? Where you saying in Arabic or in Kurdish? 12:18 MK: Yeah in Arabic because like when it is his birthday, we needed to celebrate at the schools and everywhere, so like we would be like– 12:25 AD: What is the sentence? Tell me in Arabic. 12:28 MK: Uh [Arabic], something like that, yeah, yeah so, yeah so it’s like how it was that we all students we will march in the school and we would say that word, yeah. Yeah. 12:43 AD: Yeah that is [laughter] so you, you, there was like the fear was like imbedded in you, even though you did not really– 12:52 MK: True, true, yeah. 12:53 AD: You go through all that, uh, so uh, so which grade where you in when you were in Mosul? Or like Middle School? 13:03 MK: No– 13:03 AD: Or still elementary? 13:05 MK: Yeah elementary, I was in fourth grade, so I was like nine years old. 13:08 AD: Oh, nine years– 13:09 MK: Yeah. 13:09 AD: Okay, so uh and where did you go to university? In Duhok? 13:14 MK: Yeah, yeah. 13:15 AD: So, you did not go to Erbil. 13:17 MK: No, no I stayed in Duhok, yeah. 13:19 AD: Okay, so uh and every– But there were still some Arabic people in Duhok area, right? It was not just complete Kurdish? 13:30 MK: Yeah true, true. Yeah there were Arabic back then. And after the fall of Saddam, yeah, a lot of Arabs came and make it to live in Duhok. 13:44 AD: Duhok area. So uh, so where you interacting with those people or your family you know did you have any in your neighborhood? 13:53 MK: I do not remember exactly, no, in my neighborhood we do not have it but yeah we interacting, because there were student with us, uh, they were working with us, so, yeah I mean from that, yeah. And my dad had his like university time friends sometimes they would come, stay, tour in the area, yeah. 14:12 AD: I see, so uh, like how was the like the life growing up? Like what did you celebrate, what did you, you know like do like with your family or with your friends, like what were the major things. Like I do not want to give you ideas, but like for example like either religious holidays, or Kurdish holidays, like what were the things that you were? 14:45 MK: So, I am considered from the generation the lucky ones because at my time we could have our autonomous government, so we were reading in my language, celebrating Newroz, wearing our cloths. So, so I mean I do not really share any bad memory, just like my parents, so almost my memories they were good one. So like we were celebrating uh, our Eids, our, the Muslim feast, we were celebrating uh, Newroz, Yezidi’s one, Assyrian’s one. Uh and the way it was brought up, it was really easy for me because I was mostly going to school to university or not really having those high conflicts of politics in the time that I grow up. Yeah. 15:38 MK and AD: Yeah. 15:38 AD: But uh, how about your parents, like were they still like cautious even though they lived in a safer environment things like little settle down. You know what I mean. 15:54 AD: How-how do you know, uh, view that? Like ̶ 15:59 MK: Actually, after the fall of Saddam, no. I mean almost all the Kurds, I think even Arabs who did not have that fear of Saddam any long. So we were life you are having a peaceful mind when it comes to Saddam and what he might able to do for us. So, no we did not have that fear, no, yeah. 16:20 AD: Yeah, so, uh, that is a good thing, because that lasted for a long time for several generations– 16:31 MK: True. 16:31 AD: –We have been interviewing like, what a big toll– 16:35 MK: True, yeah. 16:37 AD: –And their lives. Um, so then you wanted to come here. 16:44 MK: Yeah. 16:44 AD: To study? 16:45 MK: Yeah, true. 16:46 AD: Why? 16:46 MK: So, we are now in a developing stage and um, so I mean, true we could have our own autonomy and so on, but still we have other social things that we have to reconstruct to have a strong society, territory whatever, and education is one of them. Uh, I always wanted to have like a time of my life outside Kurdistan, getting exposed to other people, other environment and especially to other, a higher, a higher education, yeah. So that is how I could made it into here. Uh, I applied for a scholarship and I got accepted, and um, I also wanted that because now, because now the environment is getting so challenging when it comes to work, so it is like you are going to find everyone is trying to have Master. At the time when someone was having Master Degree, then that person would really have a good job, but now no, no longer matter. So now, everyone is trying to have a Master. Everyone is mastering in English language, so it is a very challenging environment right now. Plus when I.S.I.S. [Islamic State in Iraq and Syria] came to Iraq, it effected our economy. So much, so now, I mean, my generation we all like struggling to find a work and we are all struggling to improve ourselves. To have the best out of it. So, yeah. 18:15 AD: Mhm, okay, so. What did you think about this society when you came here? It is like, did you find it different, did you find it similar? Like what is your take on like. Did you first of all, did you directly come to Binghamton area? Or did you go somewhere else first, then came here? How did it work out? 18:40 MK: Do one of the things that the scholarship provide, is that you have one month of pre-academic course somewhere else. It was in Syracuse, which was almost the same as Binghamton. I was with other international students and then I came to here. The society is absolutely different um– 18:58 AD:In what regard? 19:00 MK: So, the amount of homeless people that are seen around the city is kind for shocked me. I did not expect that. Uh, I did not know that women and men get paid differently in the State, I was expecting something better. I did not know the conflict between people of color and white people. Plus, um, one of the struggles that I always have here is that the culture, because you know, we are from a very tense culture that we care about and, so coming people are so individualistic it is kind of, like it was surprising for me. At the same time, I am of course, I am impressed by the creative work that people here are doing how they impressing your knowledge, investing in it, hearing your voice. Um, I come here. I was, my, so my bachelor’s degree was English Language and Literature, I come here for comparative literature, I could never imagine that one day I am going to work in Kurdish Studies and now I am interested in that. If I was in Iraq I would not do it, because basically our education is so much like restricted, this the A.B.C.D. of your department, here no, you have more choices to develop it, so, it is something very interesting and, yeah I love it. I love it when it comes to the academic wise. 20:19 AD: Yeah, education wise. So did you get to meet with Kurdish people in this area? 20:26 MK: Yeah surprisingly, there is a high, uh, number of Kurdish community here, so. Yeah, the first time I come to Binghamton, a Kurdish driver took me to my place [laughs] that was– 20:38 AD: Did you know he was Kurdish? How did you find out he is Kurdish? 20:43 MK: I actually knew because, there was an Iraqi friend here, so that is how I could know about Binghamton and she like, I stayed with her for a half year. She told me there is a Kurdish driver, he said when you come I will take her to home. So it was nice, yeah. The first thing, he was the first, Kurdish person that I knew here, and then, I met with other students, yeah. And now I am staying in a house that is owned by a Kurdish landlord, yeah [laughs] the area, there are a lot of Kurds around. [laughs] 21:17 AD: Yeah, that is nice, right? 21:19 MK: Yeah, yeah. 21:20 AD: Yeah so, uh, do you uh, join like activities with them? Like how do you interact with the Kurd? I know that you are a student, but do you interact with them? If so how? 21:36 MK: Yeah, so my interaction, because like I have limited time, but, um, they helped me a lot when I was doing, when I moved from my house with other one, they invite me to their house. So there is one Kurdish family that I am in a close connection with them, I usually go there on weekends, or like, I mean like once or twice per month, having dinner or so. Yeah with them. 22:01 AD: That is nice, who are they? 22:04 MK: They are actually the owner of the building that I live in, yeah. Uh. AD: The name? I do not think I know. 22:12 MK: Ekrem? 22:13 AD: Ekrem! 22:14 MK: Yeah, yeah. 22:15 AD: No, I do not think I know. 22:17 MK: Yeah, uhm. 22:18 AD: So when did he come? 22:21 MK: He came in the 90s with, yeah with the whole I mean the Kurdish community- 22:30 AD: So (19)96 area– 22:32 MK: I think so. 22:33 AD: Like a lot of them came during 1996. 22:35 MK: Yeah, I think so, yeah. 22:36 AD: Okay so he came during that time– 22:37 MK: Yeah. 22:37 AD: –I do not think I uh, I interview with him. So maybe you can put me in touch with him. [laughter] So, uh, so you just, so you basically interact with him than the others. 22:52 MK: I interact with him and his family, there is a Kurdish student I interact with him and his family as well. 22:59 AD: Kurdish student, like, like you from Kurdistan, or? 23:02 MK: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah 23:04 AD: Oh, so there are more? 23:05 MK: No, no, it is like Marwan. 23:07 AD: Okay. 23:08 MK: Yeah and there is a Kurdish lady, but she, uh, she like has the American citizenship. I know her through another friend as well, yeah. And I was, yeah. I was there in the Thanksgiving, yeah, in their house, yeah. 23:22 AD: That is nice. 23:24 MK: Yeah. 23:25 AD: Getting to know people. So did you build relationship with like other groups? Like Americans, or I do not know, different nationalities. 23:27 MK: Yeah, yeah; absolutely. So in the, it is one of the things in our department that we have weekly gathering, so, yeah I build relationship with Americans as well and other international student as well. 23:49 AD: So, do you hang out with them? Do things? 23:52 MK: Yeah, we do, like when I have time I do, yeah. [chuckles] 23:56 AD: Yeah because you are busy and then, most of your time goes for studies. So what did you do during the break? When you had a break? 24:06 MK: This break? Or like usually? 24:10 AD: Winter break. 24:11 MK: Oh, so the winter break, it was a miserable one, because all my friends [laughs] are not here, so I was just basically on Netflix, or studying, not studying actually reading or whatever. Um so yeah, that how I mean, that is the longest break that I had so far. And the winter break, that was the winter break, the spring break, I was also busy with studying. Yeah. 24:33 AD: Yeah spring break I never consider it spring break. 24:36 MK: Yeah as a break. 24:38 AD: Spring break is a time to study. 24:40 MK: And usually, professors use that to give more homework. [laughs] 24:43 AD: Exactly, right? So best time to catch up, yeah. 24:46 MK: [laughs] True. 24:47 AD: Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Uh, so spring break, and then the Thanksgiving break. I never, never understood how people can go have a vacation– 25:59 MK: True. 25:00 AD: –Like this is time to catch up, yeah. 25:04 MK: True, yeah. 25:05 AD: So, uh, now the summer is coming. What are you planning for summer? So this is going to be a very empty campus during summer. 25:15 MK: Yeah, I am planning to tour around the state, the places that I am interested in, yeah, and part of I will dedicate it for working on my thesis, maybe if I find an internship or to work. But like basically yeah, my basic aim is to tour around the state [laughs] and to study. 25:35 AD: Alone, or do you have friends, or– 25:38 MK: So that depends, uh, because a lot of my friends, even the international ones are going back home, it depends. So, but, I think I will have like at least one or two. [laughs] Yeah. 25:48 AD: Okay, so there is a big, you know, Kurdish community, like Iraqi Kurdish in Nashville area– 25:58 MK: True. 25:58 AD: –You know that right. 26:00 MK: Yeah. 26:00 AD: Do you have any like, family or friends that? 26:05 MK: Mhm, no, not really. 26:07 AD: No? 26:07 MK: No, no 26:07 AD: No, because I think that is like the biggest Kurdish community– 26:13 MK: True, true. 26:14 AD: –Uh they call it like little Kurdistan, I think. 26:17 MK: True, yeah, yeah. 26:18 AD: So, you do not have anyone– 26:20 MK: No. 26:20 AD: –You do not know anyone. 26:21 MK: No. [laughs] 26:24 AD: Yeah, you will be fine. 26:26 MK: Yeah, I will be fine. [laughs] 26:28 AD: Yeah, yeah, so how long, uh, will you stay here? So you will definitely have next fall. 26:37 MK: Yeah, so next fall is my last semester here, I will be home in December. 26:43 AD: Oh, so you decided so that– or that is the rule for your scholarship that you have to– 26:49 MK: It is yeah. I mean, because like my, I finish my Masters until then. So, so when I finish it is one of the regulations that I go back home, yeah and after that I do not know whether if I want to continue for Ph.D. here or not. I do not know, it really depends. As I told you, it is so challenging now the working environment, because I am even not sure if I go back home I am going to work with my own specialization or no. Everything depends in the time when I go back home and if I get out of the situation. 27:19 AD: Are you planning on going for you Ph.D.? Do you, do you want to go? I am not saying you are going, but– 27:29 MK: I may do it if I know that I will work in the academic field, yeah, yeah. 27:35 AD: So, do you want to come to the States, not necessarily here, do you want to do it in the States, or? 27:45 MK: It also depends in what I am going to teach so I am currently I am so much interested in Kurdish studies. If that really go on, there is the University of Exeter they have– 27:55 AD: In England, yes. 27:56 MK: –Yeah they have department for Kurdish studies, I do not know, I am just daydreaming. Or maybe here because like I love it here as well, because there are some Universities who have Kurdish Studies, not specifically Kurdish Studies, but they have, they have some department that are dedicating for that. 28:14 AD: There are some universities in the States related to Kurdish Studies. 28:19 MK: Is it the one in Florida? I have heard about one in Florida and Chicago? 28:24 AD: Yeah, Chicago, yes. 28:26 MK: Yeah, yeah but they do not, they do not give courses I think, right? 28:32 AD: I do not know the exact details, but they are providing like Kurdish language courses– 28:40 MK: Yeah. 28:40 28:40 AD: –I think it is getting there. It does not happen very quickly– 28:44 MK: True. 28:44 AD: –It takes time, but it is not like Exeter by any means. Because that has been established– 28:51 MK: True. 28:51 AD: –A while ago, so I think they are trying to establish here as well. 28:58 MK: True. 28:58 AD: So, uh, it, but it is interesting. So, it took you to come to United States to figure out that you are really interested in Kurdish Studies. [laughs] 29:10 MK: Yeah. [laughs] It was always amused but you know when you go to an external environment you get exposed to the question of your identity so much. 29:20 AD: Right? 29:20 MK: Yeah, yeah. 29:21 AD: So now you are Kurdish, so you were not even aware of that, now your Kurdish identity became stronger. 29:29 MK: It became stronger especially when you find in other nations that how the studies have developed and yours is not that much developed, so it becomes a challenge why, why it is not developed, we have to work on it, yeah, yeah. 29:43 AD: Absolutely. 29:43 MK: Yeah, yeah. 29:44 AD: Absolutely, that is a good thing. So do you have like uh, traditional clothing with you? Do you wear it like during special days? 29:56 MK: I actually brought with me, but so I have not been to any [laughs] Kurdish celebration. [laughs] 30:05 AD: Any weddings to go? 30:06 MK: –There was a Kurdish wedding I was invited, but I was in New York, so I could not wear it. [laughs] Yeah. 30:15 AD: So, do you wear, uh, traditional clothing. Like when do you wear it? In Duhok– 30:18 MK: Ah, okay. 30:18 AD: –When you are living in Duhok what are the occasions you wear those cloths? 30:26 MK: So, usually a lot of girls wear– usually the old women wear it all the time. Girls in my age they wear it inside the house, some of them, but for me it is not that much comfortable to wear it inside the house. So I usually wear it at Newroz and in weddings, and sometimes in celebrations, like if there is feast or something, sometimes I wear it into celebrations as well, yeah. 30:50 AD: So, everybody wears it like when– 30:54 MK: Yeah. 30:54 AD: –Like let us say Newroz, that is like very uh important. So, every– like– Do Kurdish people go– like in Duhok, I am not talking about in United States– 31:08 MK: Yeah. 31:08 AD: –Go with like regular clothing, or they all wear? 31:11 MK: In Newroz? No like, most of them wear the Kurdish cloths, yeah. 31:17 AD: Yeah. 31:17 MK: Yeah, yeah. 31:18 AD: That is just like the tradition. 31:21 MK: Yeah, true, yeah. 31:24 AD: Yeah, so do you have any questions to ask uh Midya? 31:31 JS: Um, not really, well actually maybe, maybe on the religion front. Um, how is religion different from in Kurdistan than here? Like, is there– 31:43 MK: You mean for me personally or the community, the Kurdish community? 31:49 AD: Both. 31:49 JS: Both [laughter] 31:50 AD: Start with personally then tell us what your observation. 31:57 MK: For me personally I am not a very religious person, I do pray and fast, but I am not very restricted to religious person, so for me it is kind of the same. In both countries. For the Kurdish community here, I feel like some families are struggling to keep the traditions and to keep their kids on the track they used to be and others cannot control it. So I have seen two types of Kurds here, the Kurds who are, uh trying to do at least praying and fasting and the Kurds who are like no, I mean they no longer caring about that. So, I have seen those two types, yeah. And I think it is a struggle for Kurdish parents to keep their kids on the track especially in the State. Yeah. 32:46 AD: Yeah. 32:46 MK: The track that they want, I mean. Yeah. 32:48 AD: Because kids, react. 32:51 MK: Yeah, because they are basically American, yeah. 32:54 AD: Yeah, absolutely so, uh, the other thing is, when– So, religion is one of them you think people are losing. What I mean losing, it is like uh the kids react to it– 32:12 MK: Yeah. 32:13 AD: –They do not want to follow strict– 33:15 MK: True. 33:16 AD: –Rules– 33:16 MK: Yeah. 33:18 AD: –Uh what else, like your observation, what else do you think, uh, is disappearing in Kurdish culture. Like what is continuing and what is disappearing? 33:30 MK: What I founded amazing that even young people here speak in Kurdish, which is, I did not expect that because they grown up in the State, but they do speak it and I do not know why. Is it because there is a large community here or because it is like how they grown up? Um what was the question? [mumbles] [laughter] 33:52 AD: Or like– So language– 33:53 MK: My observation– 33:54 AD: –Your observation. 33:55 MK: Ah, okay. The other observation, uh, I think the Kurdish parents are kind of struggling with their kids because I mean now with the globalization all the parents are struggling, because all of them they are like from the old generation, they were not exposed to it, and now… because even, because even parents in Kurdistan are struggling that. So here the conflict it is higher, because they, they want their kids to, for example, to be married, to follow certain norms and now because they cannot embrace that. It is not something that belongs to them. So I think this one of the struggles I have noticed here, yeah, yeah. 34:38 AD: So, uh, I know they want people to continue to marry, because those were the answers when I asked the question continue to marry Kurdish people, or girls or boys and then like keep it together, but uh I think there were some students that I knew that they are like dating or seeing other people. So, did you also observe that? 35:12 MK: Yeah, and I observed this hard for their parents to cope for that, but– 35:16 AD: Yeah. 35:17 MK: But yeah, like they are human. I mean they– 35:18 AD: They live in a society– 35:19 MK: –Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah– 35:19 AD: Yeah. 35:19 MK: I have observed that, especially the, the younger generation, um they, they basically, I mean, they cause, but they are living an American life, so it is so normal for them to be with another couple that is not, another person that is not really Kurdish and, but I think that is a struggle for their parents. Yeah. 35:46 AD: Yeah, so do you think the community here is still keeping the Kurdish identity? 35:57 MK: Mhm, to some extent, it varies from one family to another, but I think to some extent, not like that much strong, but it is not even that much lost as well. So, it really, so the parents here they could keep it for– They could keep it, they could invest that somehow in their kids. Now it depends on the kids on how they going to invest it on the coming generation. 36:22 AD: Yeah, will they marry another Kurdish person, for example– 36:27 MK: So basically, will they speak in Kurdish with their kids, or tell them the traditions or no, yeah. 36:34 AD: Yeah. 36:34 MK: Yeah. 36:34 AD: Like also the– Do you see people, like constantly cook Kurdish food, or they started to switch to like American, like you know, American food? 36:53 MK: I do not have that much interaction, but from the family that I have met uh I think they are– I do not think– Because the family that I met they really do the Kurdish food, and I know some of them are still like that. But I do not know about all of them. Yeah, yeah. 37:11 AD: Yeah, and then whenever you see them it is probably special day, so that is all you see– 37:17 MK: True. 37:17 AD: Is Kurdish food ̶ 37:19 MK: True, yeah. 37:20 AD: Yeah, because traditionally, uh, you know, you make the Kurdish bread and even Marwan told me that there is a special kind of– 37:33 MK: Dough? 37:33 AD: –Yeah, needs to be brought here, so and then some people have in their homes. But like how many people have it, and how many much. Like when you have a full-time job, how are you going to do that? 37:46 MK: Yeah, I think, no, I think like to certain extent I think they are– because basically people who live in the Kurdish territories they are not that much committed to cooking food. But so, I think here– yeah, I do not think that they are doing, backing bread, or doing harder stuff, I do not think so. It might be only on special occasions. Yeah. 38:14 AD: Yeah, even in Kurdistan they stopped religiously doing that kind of hard work, labor intense cooking I would call that. 38:24 MK: Yeah, yeah especially the younger generation, because– 38:27 AD: Because they work? Right? When you work full time, how are you going to have time to go home and start making the dough and– 38:35 MK: True. 38:35 AD: –To make the bread. It is hard. 38:37 MK: True. 38:37 AD: Twenty-first century. 38:41 MK: Yeah. 38:41 AD: Absolutely, so anything else? That was a very good question by the way. 38:48 JS: Thanks. [clears throat] 38:49 AD: I am thinking if there is anything else, uh. 38:54 JS: I cannot really think of anything. 38:55 AD: Yeah, I cannot either; do you have anything else to add? 39:01 MK: Maybe the conflict of identity that Kurds are facing now? 39:04 AD: Yeah, yes. 39:05 MK: Mhm, yeah so– 39:05 AD: –So that is another issue liking in diaspora ̶ 39:15 MK: Even actually I think– because now like– So it is since 90s we are having our autonomous uh territory and we are studying in Kurdish, we are seeing all the labels in Kurdish, we are celebrating our own traditions and so on. So, the Kurdish new generation, I think the conflict now higher than before when it comes to identity. We longer living wars, we are no longer– So now like we, we no longer really interacting that much with people, I mean except if they like displaced people or workers of whatever, but we are not– We are no longer, in out check points, we are having Arabs people telling to show us your identity or whatever. So, the whole conclusion is that we ask Kurds who raise up after the 90s, our sense of identity is hard than before that, we cannot, we cannot– It is hard for us to tell we are Iraqis, so especially when it comes to diaspora. So once one of my German friends told me “I was with– I went to the barber and he was Kurd and I told him, where are you from? He told me, I am from Kurdistan. He said it was talking for me you guys say you are from Kurdistan.” And I was like yeah I think that we Kurds we are now living in this conflict of identity, which one to impress, we know that we are Kurds, but at the same time we know that there is no word of Kurdistan that exist in a map or official documents. So I think this conflict of identity now is highly affecting on us, uh our daily interaction because even like with our other Arab friend it is hard for them to understand– It is not harder, but like it is hard to accept the idea that we are a different identity group. We are different ethnical group. So, so I think now that new generation we are struggling when it comes to identity, and especially in diaspora. So I think that we are always lost in this, the amount of language that we are embracing since we have a grown up, than the amount of identity that, I am Kurdish, but then when I have in my passport is Iraqi, then do I really belong to this Iraq, or no? and then when I go the diaspora I am exposed to other identities, so I do not know whether it is even it might be even the modern age fever, that everyone is having this conflict of identity to what we belong to truly. But now for me, especially, after I came to the State, now it is even more tense. What is my identity, what do I belong to really? So, yeah, yeah. I think now, this is like one of the hot topics that is in the Kurdish brain– people– young generation mind, the identity. 42:15 AD: Absolutely. 42:15 MK: Yeah. 42:16 AD: But uh, even though you know Saddam is gone and you know thankfully hard days are over, uh, but you know Kurdish people came a very very long way, so and then kept the identity going– 42:37 MK: Yeah, true. 42:38 AD: –And not just in Iraq, look in Iran, especially in Turkey– 42:43 MK: Mhm, True. 42:44 AD: –So and, so I think it is one of the very strong identities, like among people that– 42:54 MK: Yeah. 42:54 AD: –I met. Even though, it is normal, all those factors are very valid, but uh. 43:06 MK: Yeah, true. 43:08 AD: You know even the people, like uh, I met or I read like they lost a lot of aspects of Kurdish culture, maybe they do not really know the history of it anymore– 43:25 MK: True. 43:25 AD: –But when it comes to the question, what is your identity and then they are like oh I am Kurdish. [laughs] You know, you know what I mean. MK: True, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. AD: Very interesting, it is like they cannot really tell you solid thing. Like there are a lot of Kurdish people in Germany for example. They lost a lot of things– 43:47 MK: Yeah true. 43:48 AD: –But when it comes to the question, oh yeah, I am Kurdish. [laughs] 43:52 MK: True, true, yeah-yeah true, true, yeah. 43:54 AD: So that is promising in a way. [laughter] So, yeah but it is it is a big problem. 44:05 MK: Yeah, true, the identity is a big problem. Especially it is conflict between us and other ethnicities, which we do not really love it, I mean I personally I do not really like it, but– 44:15 AD: Yeah. 44:15 MK: –It is what it is. [laughs] 44:18 AD: That is right, that is right. 44:20 MK: Yeah. 44:20 AD: And religion in this area I talked to two different people. There is a group they are very religious, and then there is a group they are not religious at all, so. And that is the case living in Duhok, right? Not everyone is religious– 44:39 MK: True. 44:39 AD: –Or in any society. So people. In this place you know, not everyone goes to church every Sunday and some people do and some people– So, that is normal. 44:52 MK: True. 44:54 AD: That is a normal thing. Uh, I think, but language, religion, identity, that is all important aspects of the Kurdish diaspora– 45:11 MK: True. 45:12 AD: –We examine today. 45:14 MK: Yeah, true. 45:15 AD: So, I cannot think of any other question. 45:20 JS: I think we covered a good portion. I cannot think of anything either. 45:25 AD: Yeah, I think, I think because uh, you know, you are actually the second– Actually you are the youngest person so far– 45:36 MK: Oh really? 45:37 AD: –We interviewed, so your perspective is totally different because you do not have– 45:43 MK: Yeah. 45:44 AD: –You do not have the memory– 45:45 MK: True, yeah. 45:46 AD: –Of what your parents went through– 45:48 MK: Yeah, true. 45:49 AD: –You have little bit of things through them– 45:52 MK: Yeah. 45:52 AD: –But thankfully you do not have that memory, uh, and so it is different. 45:58 MK: Yeah, it is different true. 45:59 AD: Yeah. 45:59 MK: Yeah. 46:00 AD: So, do you have anything else like regarding your experience living here <clear-throat> uh related to society or related to Kurdish community, or anything you want to add? 46:26 MK: Mhm, no nothing in my mind so far. [laughs] 46:29 AD: Okay, but they were really helping and accepting toward you when you came here. 46:35 MK: Oh yeah, because when I was back home, I was like I wish I do not meet Kurdish, because like I sick of my society I wanted to go somewhere there were not any Kurds, but when I came here I realized that it is really important to know some people and there were really– I mean like they were so generous and helpful and I was like surprised. I mean like, I was like wow, I mean I should have, I should not have been so weird about it at the beginning. [laughs] Yeah because they really, they really helped me so much especially when I first moved to here, yeah. 47:06 AD: That is nice. 47:07 MK: [laughs] Yeah. 47:07 AD: Yeah, so you did not want that and that happened and then– 47:11 MK: No, I did not want that, I want go to society that is completely different one, but– yeah, but. 47:13 AD: How did the– Like did you pick Binghamton University, or the Fulbright [name of the scholarship] people decided where you are going based on your studies? 47:21 MK: It is basically, they tell us to suggest– So I never knew that Binghamton has the Kurdish community, but it is like, it is what they, they selected actually, they tell us to do some selection, but eventually it is them who select and decide, yeah. 47:32 AD: So, and you selected because of the faculty, or like what a department has to offer– 47:54 MK: I think so, yeah, yeah, yeah. 47:56 AD: Yeah, yeah, and then having the Kurdish. [laughter] community was a bonus. [laughter] 48:06 MK: True, that was something I should be thankful about it, I did not know about it. [laughter] True, yeah. 48:12 AD: Okay, well thank you so much for you time and– 48:16 MK: Yeah, no thank you. 48:17 AD: –I wish you good luck and I am sure you will do just fine. 48:25 MK: Inshallah [God willing]. [laughs] 48:27 AD: Inshallah, okay, all righty. 48:28 MK: Thanks a lot, I am sorry for the bad language– (End of interview) Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Midya Khudur https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/3bf2f3e2e5171c16c5339bda288b1be5.mp3 1913782579f31bd4fdd62e836f8ee0e5 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Oral Histories Title A name given to the resource Oral Histories from 1960s Binghamton Alumni Description An account of the resource In 2019, Binghamton University Libraries completed a mission to collect oral interviews from 1960s alumni as a means to preserve memories of campus life. The resulting 47 tales are a retrospective of social, professional and personal experiences with the commonality of Harpur College. Some stories tell of humble beginnings, others discuss the formation of friendships; each provides insight into a moment in our community's rich history. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Irene Gashurov Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-2018 Relation A related resource <a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/browse?collection=18">McKiernan Interviews : 60's collection of Oral Histories</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player (Amplitude.js) This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2019-05-03 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Irene Gashurov Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Wayne Coffey Year of Graduation 1976 Biographical Text An award-winning sports journalist and writer for the <em>Daily News</em> (one of NY's best papers back in the day). Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Wayne Coffey Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Coffey, Wayne ; Gashurov, Irene Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 Description An account of the resource An award-winning sports journalist and writer for the <em>Daily News</em> (one of NY's best papers back in the day). Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2019-05-03 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Wayne Coffey.mp3 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2019-05-03 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Oral Histories from 60's Binghamton Alumni Extent The size or duration of the resource. 58:40 minutes https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/1eaa32bcdd14b675956ae398d27b123e.jpg 6e47195e0ac930da300ea4543b25a81c https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/e477e03be319d57a7cabc19c63c2ef16.mp3 48e4bf7ae48778b7ad6bdb6c712f092d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2019-06-04 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Jacobs, Ron Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 02:08:11 Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Digital file Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords Rock and Roll, 60's music, Vietnam War, Anti-war protests, Germany, Freedom of Speech Movement, Political activism, Music influence on politics. Subject LCSH Vietnam War, 1961-1975; Peace movements—United States--20th century; Jacobs, Ron--Interviews Biographical Text Ron Jacobs is a writer and activist. He attended his first protest against the Vietnam war in 1969. Jacob is the author of The Way the Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground and a trilogy of novels called The Seventies Series. He has a Bachelor's degree from Evergreen State College. Jacob currently writes for Counterpunch magazine. He continues his activism against war, racism, and capitalism. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Ron Jacobs Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Eden Lowinger Date of interview: 4 June 2019 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM: 00:00 Let us start, so are you ready? RJ: 00:01 I am ready. SM: 00:02 Okay. Very good. First off, thank you very much for doing this. When you think of the (19)60s and early (19)70s, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? You can use words or adjectives, and why do you pick these adjectives? So, what, when you think of those two periods, what do you think of? RJ: 00:24 The first thing I think of is, is anti-war. And it is just because I was, that was pretty important in my life, being against the war and so on, and a lot of my friends was. And I think the other thing, I think, of is probably rock music, rock concerts just because they seem to me they kind of symbolize great, they symbolize like a certain kind of mentality where there is a lot of freedoms that did not exist before, and probably do not exist as much now, but still, you know, in the same manner. SM: 01:04 You know, you make a good point here, because when you talk about the music of the (19)60s and early (19)70s, when you think of the (19)60s and (19)70s, you think of the background music, which is the music, but it was much more than background, it was actually at the forefront, because- could you talk about the music a little bit more detail like what your favorite groups were and why? And secondly, the messages that were often in the music is something that I do not see today, but there were very clear messages in a lot of that music. RJ: 01:36 Yeah. My favorite bands were Bob Dylan, the Beatles, The Stones and the Grateful Dead and Creedence Clearwater. And I think I liked, I could not really tell you why I like the Beatles, mostly because they kind of reflected and led like the whole, to me anyhow, what it meant to be a hippie counterculture kind of person. You know, they gradually went into- they grad- they started off as just mop tops, and eventually started being spokespeople and reflections of the, of the greater counterculture movement [phone rings] that was going up around them among regular people [clatter]. The Rolling Stones, I think, mostly because what I think of is (19)68 Street Fighting Man and, and their songs about revolution. Because even if they were not revolutionaries, they did, their music riled up people and also going back to the message, the message was, you know, well, for example, say Street Fighting Man, you know, the message was that there was nothing else to do, the only way we were going to be able to move ahead is if we if we get out, is if we join a rock and roll band, but the rock and roll band in itself is a revolutionary statement. And Grateful Dead, I think the Grateful Dead to me just represented a place where if everything worked out okay, and the counterculture dreams, worked out, worked out the way they were supposed to everything, it was the world that we could be living in in another 10 years or something. I mean, obviously, it did work out. But that was kind of what in my teenage mind, that was kind of how I saw it and stuff. Bob Dylan, it is really hard to say, but because he was so much, I mean, it was when I first discovered him was probably in (19)68, when I was 13 and I heard Like a Rolling Stone. And, and then from there, I just got into his music because it was his voice was so unusual. And I liked the whole image that he presented on the wandering vagabond, the Woody Guthrie kind of guy, the, you know, I liked his cynicism. But at the same time, it was tinged with some kind of like hope. And then as he went on, I think what really sold me more than anything else was when he did the Rolling Thunder Revue in the mid (19)70s, which where he tried to revive, you know, the whole [inaudible] he did around Hurricane Carter, and his-his constant advocacy for African Americans and the working people and so on, even in his songs that were not overtly political, he was advocating for them. You know what he would do the biography songs. I will say, The Ballad of Hollis Brown, or William Zanzinger. And you know, some of the, and he did the song on George Jackson. And George Jackson was important to me, because I was a at the time I was hanging out with Black Panthers over in Germany. And so, you know, as a friend, and so they will you we read a lot about that. Creedence Clearwater as a [inaudible] since my father was in the military, that song Fortunate Son was really crucial to me where he attacks, "I am not no military son," and he was just attacking the whole war machine and the mentality of us making money off of war. And that kind of tied in with the country Joe song, "What are we fighting for, 1234, what are we fighting for?" Yeah. SM: 03:30 Wow. When you talk about the music again of that era, you talk about sometimes the music even defines the year, let alone a specific event. And you were talking about (19)69, this is the 50th anniversary of Woodstock this year. And then of course, it was, I think it was (19)67 was the Summer of Love. And they are all defined by music. And even in the early (19)70s, when you think of the music change, George Harrison's music for Bangladesh, which is one of the first concerts to raise funds for a tragedy that was happening around the world, it was amazing how music brings people together for so many reasons. Just your thoughts on those three events. RJ: 05:55 Yeah, the Summer of Love, I was just a kid, you know, I was like in junior high school. It fascinated me and the son- I think the song, the album that some of the albums that will always be identified for me are, is Sergeant Pepper's since that came out like that year at the beginning of June (19)67. (19)69, I mean, that was kind of the year when I really started getting into listening to a lot of albums and moving past the (19)45s, you know, into and when you think of a lot of the songs that came out, a lot of the albums that came out that year, it is kind of interesting. And then you toss in those two keynote events, at least according to the media, Woodstock and Altamont. You know, Woodstock still, it is, it is this, you know, it is this thing that everybody knows about. I can think of, I have nieces and nephews who are in their 20s now, but I am probably back in 19-, it must have been around (19)99 when they were like, you know, when they were babies, or three or four years old. And they had heard my older sister and I some of our friends and some of our siblings talk about Woodstock. They-they knew what it was, it was part of their consciousness in terms of like, oh, yeah, what I guess went on people got together, had a good time and loved each other and listened to music, you know. I mean, that is, that is the watered-down version. But that is what people think of when they think of Woodstock. And then Altamont is always, even if it was not the end of the counterculture which I do not think it was, it has this, it has all that darkness around it. You know, and you know, the concert for Bangladesh, I was living in Germany at the time, because my dad was in the military. And so I was, I think, a junior in high school, and when the movie hit over in Germany, and I had been reading about the concert, because on the military base where the high school that I went to was, there was a base library, and it got the Village Voice, and it got Rolling Stone magazine, and the GI who was the head librarian, him and I were friends so he would always make sure that I, he would set them aside for me so I could read them before he put them on the shelf. And I remember all the, reading all the articles in the wake of the Bangladesh concert. So, when the movie finally came out, I remember skipping school and I went to this movie theater downtown that showed movies in German and then sometimes they would have English subtitles. But it did not matter for that since that was a concert movie, it did not really matter. But I remember sitting there and watching it go through like three times just because I could not get enough of watching the music and just the combination of those musicians and kind of kind of trying to put myself there just which is what the Woodstock movie did really well, too. I mean, the Woodstock movie universalized the Woodstock experience, even if it was just a way for Warner Brothers to make money. It also kind of spread the whole Woodstock idea around the world. SM: 07:33 Yes. Is there is there again, you have mentioned some events that really kind of impacted your early life. But is there one particular event and when you think of the (19)60s and early (19)70s, that stands out for you more than any other? And I say that, do you think that stands out for the generation that you are part of? And secondly, can you remember a personal event or experience where that really impacted you during that whole period? RJ: 09:24 I do not know if I can remember just one. I think Woodstock is a key event. But I also think maybe more on the political side was either the moratorium in (19)69, or maybe even more so the Kent State, when Kent State happened. SM: 09:45 Oh, yeah. RJ: 09:46 And Kent State to me, I was in, I was a freshman in high school, and we walked out, you know, we walked out of classes and everything. This is over in Germany on a military base, but there were so many people, it just affected people in such a, in that kind of way. Personally, it would probably be Kent State, you know, and the aftermath of Kent State that that made the biggest impact on I think it really convinced me that no matter what I thought things were, there was, I could not trust the authorities. SM: 10:24 Right. I think it is interesting, Ron, you mentioned that because that is the event that shaped my life in terms of when I was at the school Binghamton. I graduated, [crosstalk] I graduated in (19)70. And, and I went into higher education as a career because of what happened at Kent State. Because it was the epitome of what we saw for quite a while were students, and were not talking to faculty and students were, you know, some of the administration are in very bad relationships. And so I went into it to see if I can do it my small role in changing that. And, and so, you know, that is a very important event in my life. And that was when I was a senior in college. RJ: 11:06 Interesting, yeah. SM: 11:07 I wanted to ask you this question, too, and it gets real- what you hear today in the news many times is when we go back to the (19)60s, the culture wars that we are seeing today in our society, in (20)19, are definitely going back to that era, the (19)60s, they say. Do you still see divisions in the (19)60s in today's society? Some, some call it the ongoing culture wars. I would just like your thoughts on that. RJ: 11:33 I do think there is divisions, but I do not think they are divided in the same- the divisions are not the same as they were before if you know what I-I mean, a lot of times back in the (19)60s and early (19)70s, it was always presented as generational, you know, and, and now I am not so sure. Because there is people like us, who it is generational, but in a different way. I mean, I know people like in their 60s and older, tend to be more conservative, even now that I just think because back when we were younger, there were more conservative people, they just went about their business. But I think I think that the key division that still exists, is ones having to do with women and their rights. And I think we are seeing it down south and all the all the recent abortion law laws that are going back to almost as bad as it was before Roe vs. Wade, in terms of restricting women's right to choose, and so on. And I also see behind that I see a basically a misogyny, a system of systemic misogyny that it is certain that some people cannot let go. And of course, you know, given who we have in office right now, who is obviously president who is obviously a misogynist in his own foolish way. You know, there is people who are a lot meaner, a lot, a lot more sharper and meaner than he is, and more political than he is, who are taking us to the next level which are these laws and these attacks on women. I do not know; the other stuff is harder to tell. I do not know if the racial divide is as big as it was. I think it is still there. But I think that with the exception of a small number of racists, I think individual racism: has almost gone. I mean, it is, it is more overt now than it was, you know, say under Barack Obama, or even George Bush or Bill Clinton. But that is because of the nature of once again, who's in power. SM: 13:37 Right. RJ: 13:37 But I, in terms of a lot of the generational stuff. I do not know that it is that big a deal. I mean, I just got finished teaching at a, working at a college last year. And now I just semi-retired, and got a part time job down at the local public library. And I was working with a lot of college kid well, obviously, working, I worked at the library, so I interact with a lot of college students. And I would say the biggest thing now is with a lot of the college- and this was a liberal arts Catholic school, in general, small like about 2000 students- I would say, in general, the overall politics are liberal. And so, and this is in Vermont, so that might have something to do with it. Overall, the and the social, the cultural stuff is nothing, I mean if they do not if they do not smoke pot, they do not care that it is legal. You know, they are they do not care about the gender identity stuff. They do not care about trans. They do not care about gay, straight, any of that stuff. So, I think a lot of those things, at least maybe in the generation coming up now like say 35 and under. I do not think that stuff is there at all, hardly, you know. But I would say there is still some strong divisions and like I said, I think the biggest one is around the rights of women. SM: 14:53 Right. Very good point. Could you discuss a little bit of your background where you grew up, your relationship with your parents, experiences that shaped you when you were very young politically or socially or, and-and the any school experiences that you might have had? RJ: 15:12 Sure. Well, I grew up, I was born in (19)55. My father was in the military when I was born. He had graduated from college the year before, he had gotten into ROTC so he would not be drafted into the Korean War. And then they decided, he decided, him and my mother decided that he was going to make a career out of the military. He was an officer, he, he went into what they call security service, which is basically gathering intelligence. He worked with NSA. He was he was one of the original officers at the founding of the National Security Agency in the late (19)50s. And so, we traveled around the world we got, we ended up we were stationed, after a few years of going from Texas to Alaska, back to Texas and so on, we ended up in Maryland, outside of Washington, DC in (19)60- (19)59 or (19)60. And then we went to Pakistan, because the military had a spy base there with-with satellites. And this also they used the joint- they shared an airport with the Pakistani military and the-the Pak- and the Pakistani civilian people that they used to use to fly U2 planes over the Soviet Union. In fact, it was where it was the base, where the U2 plane that Gary Powers was flying that got shot down, it was where it was launched. But they-they were not doing U2 planes anymore, because then by then they had better radar-radar technology. And so, it was a small base, we were there for two years. While I was there, there was a war between India and Pakistan. And so, they evacuated all the women and children from the base. We went to Turkey and spent three months on an airbase there. And this was right around the same time as they were starting to move all the US dependents out of Vietnam, because Vietnam was starting to really heat up, (19)65, fall of, fall of (19)65. And then we went back to the States, and we lived in Maryland for, my father every time he was stationed in a state where I was living with him, it was always- after he moved to Maryland the first time- it was always back to Maryland, because that is where his work was. And then we went to, then he went to Vietnam in (19)68, when I was 13. And he came back when I was 14. And over that cour- I was starting, I was against the war before he left, like I was, I campaigned for [inaudible] Bobby Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy. I would just pass it out, you know, pass out literature and– SM: 17:37 Right. RJ: 17:38 -knock knocking on doors with the local Democratic precinct chair Catherine because she lived right up the street from us. And she was a family friend. My father was always a Republican, he always voted for Nixon, my mother was always a Democrat. We come from a big family, there is a total of 12 kids in our family. SM: 17:57 Wow. [laughs] RJ: 17:58 I am the second oldest, I have a sister who is a year older than me, and my sister and I shared a very similar trajectory in terms of our politics, our interests and stuff. I was probably a little more fringe than she was because it was easier for me to be being a white guy, and white male, I would could get away with more and so on, you know, especially back in the (19)60s, early (19)70s. And then when we-we got, my dad came back from Vietnam in (19)69. And I had been really following a lot, you know I would go to the antiwar protests in our hometown that were put on by some of the college students from University of Maryland, which was about eight miles from [inaudible]. And they were they were [inaudible] this is during the moratorium they were [inaudible] protests, we stood and we read out the names of the war dead and had peace signs and stuff you know, but you know, people drove by and threw stuff at us, you know, because it was a pretty redneck town, a pretty military town. And then we moved to- my dad got stationed to Frankfurt, Germany- and we moved there in March (19)70. And right when the Beatles Let it Be song was released, I remember listening to it in the, in the military airport before we took off to go to Germany. And so, I went to high school, I finished up my ninth grade and finished up high school out of milit- at a high school on a military base in Frankfort. It was a big high school, it is great high school, a lot of liberal teachers. And I think part of it was because a lot of the teachers wanted those jobs because then they could live in Europe and go skiing and visit you know all these different places. So, when I was over there, there was a bunch of rebels in the high school, and we worked together with them. Some anti-war GIS and stuff, we put out and we distribute an underground newspaper and I went to a lot of protests, and we worked with some Black Panthers and stuff. We help we help publicize when Angela Davis was arrested and in jail, her sister did a tour to raise funds to free Angela Davis. And they came to Frankfort and so we-we helped publicize that on base with some, you know, leaving leaflets and talking to different GIS and, and students and so on. And then when I came back to the, I graduated (19)73 came back to the States. And basically, I got involved. I went to Fordham University for a year and got involved there, just kind of there. First, I was just doing the impeachment stuff because that is when the impeaching Nixon thing was just getting warm. It was right, I was there the fall when the Saturday Night Massacre happened with when he fired all Archibald Cox and stuff. SM: 20:42 Right. RJ: 20:43 And then also, the coup against Chile happened. So, I was living in New York City so I was able to go to protests, it was kind of something that I wanted to do. Then I left there and went to University of Maryland for a while. And then I dropped out and just kind of worked and went to California. And was kind of worked when I felt like it living, hitchhiking around, living on the streets going to festivals. I was I was somewhat politically involved. You know and I sold pot, stuff like that, you know, just kind of living that kind of. SM: 21:17 Did you ever live in a commune? RJ: 21:20 Not really, I mostly just live with, like, most of the places I live in were kind of [inaudible] people I had good friends in the hog farm and I would crash at their house. But I never, I never wanted to join anything because I really did not want to usually because most of them you had to follow certain rules. And I did not want to commit myself to anything– SM: 21:39 Right. RJ: 21:39 -at the time. So, I was just kind of like an independent operator if you want to use a funny term or something, you know. SM: 21:46 What is amazing about on the West Coast and then San, San Francisco area, the diggers are the big group out there. Yeah, and kind of [crosstalk] On the streets, and then they went, then when everything happened they all went off into the commune life. RJ: 22:00 Yeah, and they, their-their, their reach is pretty far and wide. Down into Kizzy, the people that were connected to Kizzy with [inaudible] Kizzy and the Grateful Dead, because a lot of them ended up, you know, they ended up starting a hog farm, they ended up starting these other communes up north in Northern California. Peter Coyote was a digger. You know, he became a famous movie star and actor and stuff. And then there was some other guys who came back East. Some of them ended up joining up with the yippies, Abbie Hoffman, and those guys, even and you know, there was always kind of a running joke between the yippies and the diggers is that the diggers invented a lot of the stuff that the yippies made popular and sold to the world. And it is kind of true, the Free Store, and the free meals and all that kind of stuff, and how to, you know, drop the, you know, get free phone calls, all that kind of stuff. The diggers talked about it and did it but they did not write books about it. Whereas I would kind of argue that it was because the yippies were an East Coast phenomenon, you kind of did things differently on the East Coast because it was more populated, less, more impersonal as well. SM: 23:13 Yeah, of course. The yippies had a pig for President. So [laughs] RJ: 23:16 Right. SM: 23:19 Pigasus. Pigasus the pig. RJ: 23:21 Pigasus. Yeah-yeah. SM: 23:22 When you think of the (19)60s- now, again, I am going to ask you, what do you think is the (19)60s. I have had many people say what they felt the (19)60s was, I have had people say, well, it was two parts. It was the part and the first three years when Ken- then Kennedy was assassinated, then you had the second part of the (19)60s which went through to the mid (19)70s. Then there is some that say the (19)60s should be (19)60 and (19)70, quit talking about all this (19)70s stuff. What-what, what defines the-the years for the (19)60s to you? RJ: 23:58 I like to think of it in terms of the long (19)60s, when I think in France and in Germany, and a couple other European countries and basically what defines it is this: raised consciousness and spirit that was, that was infused with lot of hope that people could change the world and actually make it into a place where everybody had, truly had equal chances, because everybody had their basic things taken care of like food, education, health care, housing, that was all there. For, that was what everybody could afford that and then they could actually work on living, living out their dreams and, and, and kind of moving beyond the individualist, individualistic rat race that (19)50s kind of brought on you know, the-the prosperity. But at the same time, there was another part of it which was the forces of reaction, which basically took over in the late, well they Nixon, Nixon was the first one of those. But I honestly think that that really became popular under Ronald Reagan. And the forces of reaction, which kind of, it never wanted to see that hope that the (19)60s represented come to fruition, and are still trying to turn it back, which is, you know, even little symbols of it like Obama or something, how some people just still cannot even deal with that, you know, or women's right to choose who, who that what they are going to do and so on. But I think overall, that the (19)60s were, were a positive thing. And I think they moved the world, Western, I think the entire world but that definitely the United States and the rest of the Western world, I think, and probably the Soviet Union, too, but they move people forward in terms of learning that it was okay, that learning that you should not judge people, by the way they look, I think that was probably one of the key things, whether it was long hair, or whether were skin color, or whether it was like, you know, man, woman, age, whatever, fat, skinny, whatever, you know– SM: 26:16 Would you say that, if you were to put a point where the (19)60s started, it is when the election of John Kennedy, because of the fact of his speech, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country?" And of course, we all know about the Peace Corps and VISTA. And you know, the people that did go into the service, you know, that whole feeling of giving back. And of course, then we lost him. And-and then, you know, some people are always saying, "When did the (19)60s end?" And some people say it has never ended, really, but-but some people think that the (19)60s ended when the helicopter went off the American Embassy in, in Saigon in on April 30, of (19)75. And that was really a very symbolic thing. And then others say that in the fall of (19)73, you saw a big difference on college campuses, because there were still protests through (19)72. And when streaking started on college campuses, if you remember that and fall of (19)73, streaking was [crosstalk]– RJ: 27:24 Yeah-yeah. SM: 27:24 -and no one was, activism seemed to die. It is like, it is the campus has totally changed. I just want your, what is your feelings are about, you know, Kennedy, streaking, the-the end of the Vietnam War, and we lost the war, your thoughts? RJ: 27:41 I would say the Kennedy thing is probably sometime in the campaign is probably a good pinpoint. But also one could argue that the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which took place a couple years earlier was- SM: 27:59 Ah, (19)57. Yep. RJ: 27:59 -was the seed, that was the seeds of the (19)60s because it was the first time that there was that kind of mass organization to change an obviously very unjust law. And Kennedy, whether he was a great hero, or whether he was not a great hero, he represented a lot of hope to a lot of people across the board, and I would argue so that Bobby Kennedy. If I were to say sometime [inaudible] I guess (19)73 in the fall was the year that I started college, at Fordham. And there was still a fair amount of activism, but it certainly was not anything like it was two years previous. And there was a lot of streaking going on-on the campus that I was on. But I think a lot of the activism had moved out into the streets and off campus by then because a lot of the people who were the primary activists, had graduated or left after you know graduated like around your time, or the year after. SM: 28:59 Yes. RJ: 29:00 (19)70, (19)71. SM: 29:01 Yep. RJ: 29:02 And I also think Kent State scared a lot of people away. SM: 29:05 Yep. RJ: 29:06 Because they saw how serious the authorities would get if, if things got if things got more out of hand than they already were in their mind. It is I can see why people would say the April 30 (19)75 was the end because Vietnam was such a defining- I mean, it was the key reason for so much of the protests. And it was kind of like, what brought a lot of these different strains of protest together because it was the war that was causing the economic situation. It was the war, the structure of the draft was racist, that people who are dying at the highest rate were African American and Latino immigrants and so on, so I can see that it was also taking away a lot of young men. SM: 29:51 Right. RJ: 29:53 But then there is another possibility that it was Jimmy Carter's election because even though he was a big change from Nixon and Ford. It was a different kind of, he was trying to- remember what the he had the amnesty? SM: 30:06 Oh, yes. RJ: 30:07 For the draft resistors? SM: 30:08 Oh, yes, yes. RJ: 30:08 And I think he was trying to put that all to bed. And what he, what he brought in, a lot of people do not think, are just starting to talk about this in the last five or six years, is that he brought in the idea that the government that [inaudible], the idea that the government should provide medical care, the idea that the government should help people get on their feet with welfare and stuff like that. And he started saying that, and that he started the actual downsizing of the government and privatizing a bunch of the government that Reagan carried out to a great extent, and has continued ever since. So, so it is, but symbolically, I think it would be the end of the Vietnam War. You know, because that that was so crucial, and that just meant so many people felt relieved when they knew that that was finally over, you know. SM: 31:02 Those are excellent observations. I appreciate what you just said. Very well thought out. What, we have, you already mentioned the whole issue of the spirit. I remember in some, many of the people that I have interviewed, one of them, in fact, was Richie Havens before he passed away. I did a phone interview, and I am trying to get his family to "okay" the interview, it is hard to get a hold of them. But there were several people that talked about this issue of spirit. Could you define the spirit of the 60s on and how would you define the spirit? What made it happen? And is it based on age and now I say age, because a lot of my interviews are on the boomer generation, those born between (19)46 and (19)64. But the front edge boomers are those born between (19)46 and say, (19)57. And they were involved in the activism and the protests because the others were kind of young- RJ: 31:52 Right-right. SM: 31:53 -during that. So oftentimes, we talk about this spirit in terms of age, but Richie corrected that with me. Richie said, I am a boomer and I was born in (19)41. And so, and it brought up a whole issue because most of the major activists were born in (19)39 to (19)45. [laughs] RJ: 32:13 Yeah. Timothy Leary was born in the early (19)30s. SM: 32:15 Yeah. So yeah-yeah, yeah. So- And Dave Dellinger was another one that was older. RJ: 32:19 Right, oh yeah. He was a lot older. SM: 32:21 Yeah. RJ: 32:23 Yeah. And Bob Dylan was born in (19)41. You know, so yeah. So, I do not think age has, I think age had a lot to do with it in terms of who the bulk of the (19)60s spirit hit. But, but as always, it was a lot of the was our, you know, what they call it nowadays, they call them elders, who kind of showed the way. And some of them joined in 100 percent. And some of them just kind of apprec- say, someone like William Burroughs the Beat writer who never really had any use for hippies, you know that he appreciated the fact that his writings are so popular among them, and that he influenced so many people like. I mean, he influenced Bob Dylan, he influenced a lot of- Jim Morrison, he influenced Patti Smith. So, he influenced a lot of musicians and poets to in the way they express themselves. And the dark places or the light places that they went because he had gone there, he had kind of opened the door to those places. The spirit, I think, was mostly I still think it is hard to define, but I think it was basically one that was of a revolutionary hope. And I do not mean revolution, just in political terms. I mean, in like, in the fact that things were going to change 180 degrees, and they were going to be a lot better. And some people did it, some people just wanted to do it by changing their lifestyle like joining communes or hitchhiking around. Other people wanted to do it by become- you know, joining a new religion or finding themselves through yoga and the Maharishi or even Christianity, whatever. And then a lot of people wanted to do it, you know, and then as brought through political change and social change, other people did it. Like if you think about it in the early (19)70s, when, say, David Bowie, Lou Reed, and even Mick Jagger and stuff started doing some of the cross-gender stuff. And that, you know, that was a big following. I think it was bigger in Britain than it was in the States, given the differences in the cultures in relation to that kind of stuff back then. But I think that a lot of people were like, well we cannot, maybe we cannot change the world, but we can definitely change who we are. And that way maybe that will help make the world a better place, a more tolerant place or whatever, you know, and even if that is not an intentional thought, it is kind of like part of the zeitgeist of that whole desire to change and to express oneself in terms of- SM: 32:26 Right. You are really you are, again, a tremendous analysis. As a personal person who was in that era, and I cannot even explain it, it was just a good feeling. I, you know, it is not an arrogance, it is not being arrogant. It is just a good feeling if I am riding on a bus, and I am a college student, or I am wearing my college sweatshirt, back in the (19)60s and (10)70s, wherever, when I went to undergrad and grad, it was just a feeling it was a different time I and there was a lot of trouble, you know, the protests that divisions in America, between Black and white and women and men, and in the gay movement, everything, there so many issues. However, there was a just a feeling that it was a good time to live in. And it was something to do with the spirit of the times that I never saw as a little boy in the (9)50s. And I have never seen since in my life. I do not know if you felt that way. Still there. Ron, still there? RJ: 36:10 Yeah. SM: 36:11 Oh, okay. You okay? RJ: 36:13 Yeah, [inaudible] hear. SM: 36:14 Okay. Any obser- anything to say on that? RJ: 36:18 Yes. I agree with you that I have not seen it since. And I can say, as someone who is coming in you know, that many years younger than you like six or seven, I guess. That as a teenager, you had this feeling like you were going to go, you know, once you got into like high school, you were going to be part of this huge thing. And I mean, I honestly felt like I was part of this huge thing and that anything was possible. And some of that is just being young. But I also think part of it was just kind of the fact that maybe it was because there was such a critical mass of young people who are all and-and we all kind of we are think- our media was not so diverse, that we were all listening to a lot of the same records. And, you know, reading the same newspapers, and, you know, and then also there was really good communication through like the different underground newspapers, and at rock concerts and just going to places where young people went and stuff. SM: 37:18 What do you think was the watershed event of the (19)60s? I think you have already said it, Vietnam? RJ: 37:23 Yes. Yeah. I think Vietnam was, at least for, for most white people. Anyhow, I would be if I was African American, it might be something different. But I would say, but even though even though they were affected, like much more, you know, in terms of demographics and stuff, there might be something different for them. But I would say in terms of, of a white, in terms of white young people, Vietnam was the watershed event. SM: 37:50 When you look at the whole era, the lessons of the (19)60s and early (19)70s, what are the lessons, the lessons that we hopefully learn from, not only so we will not make the same mistakes again, or things that we are we wish we could continue to multiply. Just lessons from that era? RJ: 38:15 One lesson would be that you cannot give up. Sometimes- this is in especially in the, I am speaking in the political arena. You cannot give up because you think you won because the people who are opposed to change the kind of change you want, are always ready to pounce back and remove the changes that you have. And I think we have seen that over the decades as stuff has slowly gone back like the- I mean, some things are moved forward, like marijuana is legal in so many states now. And it is not a big deal. Other things have moved backwards. And so, but I would, and then other things I think maybe is that sometimes it might be better to give your opponents a listen. And try to find points of commonality instead of only looking for the points where you disagree. Because if you only focus on the points you disagree, it is going to be really hard to ever come to any kind of any move forward that makes everybody a little bit happy at least. Other than that, I do not know. You know, I cannot, you know, in terms of things that I wish we could keep on doing, I wish there was just a way that we could just keep the feeling of that we are all in this together. But I do not think that exists anymore. I just think it is because that is how our economy goes. Our economy likes to atomize everything and people, there is so more people and some people and people's life- I do not think people have the same idea that they are all living this, in the same, same concept anymore. I think the divisions, I think in some ways that we are going back to the divisions. Some divisions are deeper, like, between, maybe between the very rich and everybody else. And there are different divisions, but I do, you know, and like between the people who think there is nothing wrong say with some of the stuff that, you know, politicians do and those of us who think that politicians are completely on the wrong track, you know, like, especially the right-wing politicians or whatever, you know, the Mitch McConnell and those-those folks. But it is hard to capsulize in just-just, just a couple of things. SM: 40:51 Would you would you be able to, for example, when you look at this Boomer generation, I mean, this is a question on the generation because of the fact they are part, they are the (19)60s in respect. Just a couple adjectives, positive or negative against the generation? RJ: 41:10 Self-centered, that is the negative one on one. Innovative. Potentially, I think they are more caring, I would say more caring is a big thing. You know, no matter how they express it, they express it by working with charity by whether they express it through if they go to church through their church, whether they express it politically, or just, you know, how they think, think about other people. I also think that, overall, this is not, is that they are materialistic. More than you know, even though we tried to get away from it. I think that ultimately, we are materialistic. And I think that is just such an overriding part of our culture, it is almost impossible to get away from it. Unless you do not have the ways to have any material things. And even then, you might be craving them I do not know, you know. I am trying to think of– SM: 42:17 That is pretty good. RJ: 42:22 I think also, and this is just due to what happened. And I do not think we were always that way, because I think we ended up, started off very hopeful. But I think a lot of us ended up quite cynical. So that was just something that happened over time. And maybe it is because we are we have romantic ideas. And then when those romantic ideas either failed, or were quashed- SM: 42:47 Right. RJ: 42:48 -a lot of times you just become a cynic. Because you are kind of like, well, what is the point? Nothing is going to change anyhow, so why should I bother? SM: 42:54 You know, when we see the news for the last, whether it be from 9/11, around (20)00, or any of the bad things that happen on the Daily News in our for the last 18 years in this news century, and then you go back to the (19)90s and everything in the (19)60s was supposed to end all that. The goal of young people is not to have war, and peace and the whole things. And then you see all these terrible things happening, school children being killed, people go into schools and shooting on people, going into synagogues and killing people. The Muslims are an endangered species in many parts of the country, we, you know, have we gotten worse, or you know, and most and then several books have been written by two of the people that I have interviewed, that we have had more war since World War Two, than at any time in the history of the world. And you know, World War Two was supposedly, you know, going into the (19)50s. And the Cold War started. And it is just like, you wonder, wow, we had this great feeling of great spirit for that short period of time and for some reason, these, this youth, the 74 million that were in the boomer generation, what had they done to make any kind of a difference? And some people will say nothing. RJ: 44:14 Yeah. Oh, yeah. There is a lot of people will say nothing, I mean, I hear- you see those things. I do not know, if you use Facebook or anything. You will see the memes on there, blaming everything on the boomer generation, you know, and, you know, there is a validity to that, because it is people our age, but part of that, I think, is because people thought you know, when people think what they think, everybody was the same and they do not understand that there was always at least two opposing viewpoints, even among our generation, you know. A lot of people took, picked and picked and chose what they wanted from each side, you know, and I think that was probably what most people did. Whereas there are some people like myself more and more definitely on the left, and others people who are always definitely on the right. And so, part of that I think is the it was it was the whole thing was with the [inaudible] constant war, I think it was just the way, it was something that happened when after World War Two, and they decided that they wanted to maintain this permanent war economy because that was the only way they could keep everybody employed. And they were not, they were not creative enough to come up with a different way. I mean, you look at someplace like Japan, where they were forbidden to make any weapons, or even have a standing army for decades. And they ended up becoming a very wealthy country too. But only recently have they even been allowed to have a standing army. And so consequently, they spent a lot of their energy developing other stuff, you know, that-that did not require them to constantly go out. And or, did not require them to think that they needed keep on going out [inaudible] war, to get rid of the inventory, or whatever the reason is. SM: 44:20 Yeah, I do. Right. RJ: 46:07 And I do not think any other countries have the idea that they can save the world. Maybe the only other one that might have in its time, in our time, is the Soviet Union. And that was because of, you know, they had an agenda, as well as the United States to both of us was to protect, I believe, was to defend, ultimately, their economic growth for either-either country. SM: 46:29 So, the, a little anecdote, when I lived in San Francisco Bay area, from (19)76, to (19)83, there was this religious minister on the radio, he had his weekly show, I listened to what he, you know, he was good at times, but I will never forget him making a statement one night, on the radio, it was late at night. And he said, he blamed all the problems of the world-- now this is in the late (19)70s, and early (19)80s, all the problems on the world on the boomer generation, and he basically made a- and he is a minister. And he said, "The world will be a much better place when-when we know the last member of the boomer generation has died." And that was across the board statement, whether you are conservative liberal or anything in between, because he was condemning that entire generation, for a lot of the issues that were going on in the Bay Area and the world at that time. And I just that is always kind of stuck with me. I wanted to get back to one other question here. We were talking about that question, a question, learning lessons. Of course, the biggest lesson is whether we as a nation, the United States, learned anything from the Vietnam War. You know, because we have been involved in other wars. I know, when the Gulf War came up in (19)89, a lot of Vietnam veterans are saying, "Do not go to war." Because you know, we are, we should not be going there. And just your and then, of course, we have been in Iraq and Afghanistan, just your thoughts on did, talking about lessons learned or lessons lost, did the United States of America learn anything from the lessons of Vietnam? RJ: 48:07 I think what they learned, I mean, and Colin Powell said it back when he was working for Reagan I think, and he said that you should not go into a country. I mean, these are bad things to learn, I think, but it is what they learned because their military minds. And that is that you do not go into and into a country unless, you know, you can overwhelm them with superior force. And that was kind of what they did when they did that first war in Iraq like (19)91, or whatever, under George Bush, the father. And I think the other thing they learned was to them, was to not let people know what was really going on in the battle zone. And just by controlling the media, even more than it was ever controlled in Vietnam. And I think the other thing they learned was to never have a draft. Because all of those, I mean, all these wars and the war, I mean, we were we have been at war now since well, since they attacked Afghanistan after 9/11. And we do not even really know you and I and most of Americans, most people in the world do not know what countries the US is even fighting in other than Afghanistan. SM: 49:21 Right. RJ: 49:21 And, you know, and that has nothing to do even with, and that does not even begin to mention the places where we supply most of the arms, like in Yemen or something like that. So, I think the-the military establishment and the war establishment, learn very, learned those lessons very well. Basically, if you are going to be a war, do not tell the truth, which is kind of like, you know, that is the standard thing, the first casualty of war is the truth. But this way, they have just learned to not even begin with it, you know, and, and, I mean, if you think of the way we got into the-the (20)03 invasion of Iraq, it was Colin Powell was up there telling outright lies to the Security Council, you know, and he even admitted, yeah, I lied. And then there is this guy, Colonel-Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson. He is a retired Air Force guy. And he just put out a- wrote an article that he put out talking about how he, how he lied for the, to get the US into Iraq. And he is saying do not, we cannot let them do it again to go into Iran. You know. So, as far as the rest of us, I think there was a decent antiwar movement against the first invasion of Iraq, the deserts, I think that was Desert Storm. SM: 50:36 Yep. RJ: 50:37 And then I think there was a really good antiwar movement against-against the second invasion of Iraq, but I think the leaders of the antiwar movement did not, they thought that they could, they decided to go along and go along with the Obama campaign and join the Democratic Party to try to stop the war. And they should have known better because the Vietnam War expanded under-under the Democrats, you know, under LBJ, Kennedy and LBJ. SM: 51:08 Right. RJ: 51:08 So, and that, I think, so I am not sure the leadership of the antiwar movement learned anything, because basically, they allowed the antiwar movement to be led into the, into the, into the Democratic Party. And while Obama did diminish the number of troops in Iraq, there is still, there has always been troops there, and then he just stepped up the aerial and the drone wars and so on. SM: 51:32 Right, right. RJ: 51:32 So, so I am not- it is it is kind of a mixed bag, you know, and I do not know, like, now I wonder if, say, say they decided to invade Venezuela or invade Iran in the next year or two, I wonder how, how and what the any antiwar movement would look like. I mean, I stay in touch with a lot of people who were involved in all the antiwar movements since Viet- since Vietnam, and, you know, and all- whether they started back then or whether they were younger and came-came around- but it is just kind of people who have been, have kind of committed their life [inaudible] anyhow, you know. SM: 52:15 Right. RJ: 52:17 So, I do not, I do not know how many people would come and join any groundswell. It is really difficult to tell, because we are so removed from so many people's lives now. SM: 52:26 Right. RJ: 52:26 Since there is. since there is no draft, that that changes everything I think. SM: 52:32 When you look back, there has been- I do a lot of reading and books and the some of the recent books have said, they are talking about how effective really was the student- I mean, not the antiwar movement as a whole, but the student protest movement on college campuses on ending the war in Vietnam. I would like your thoughts on, did they play a major role in ending the war? The critics will say that, "Oh, no, no, no, that they did not have that much, they were troublemakers, basically." And what really ended, the, when people started going against the war is when their sons came start coming home from the war from people that live in the Midwest and their sons came home in coffins. That is what changed the war. And your thoughts on the student protest movement during the (19)60s and early (19)70s? RJ: 53:23 I think it was very important. I think that it was the bulk of the antiwar movement. I think if that if the student antiwar movement had not existed, a lot of those people whose sons did come home in the coffins, and so on, would never have thought that it was okay for them to be against the war. And they would have just kind of said, well, you know, he died for his country, and they would have gone along with that. But I think the fact that the antiwar movement, which was basically mostly student based because they were the ones, it was people their age was going to be set over there. I think that the fact that they organized the movement, that they helped the movement expand and so on, and that they were not afraid to stand up and deal with whatever they had to deal with, that is, that is, that is what held [inaudible] for antiwar idea, consciousness in the American people. And then I think, you know, I think of my father, he was a military man. He was a career military man. He went to Vietnam, he told me is- this is an interesting irony. But on the, I was 13. On the day that, on the day that LBJ said that he was would not run nor would he accept the nomination for his party for presidency. That was like March 31 (19)68. He, that was the day my dad told me that he had given-given orders to go to Vietnam. SM: 54:51 Oh, wow. RJ: 54:52 And I was just, I was 13. I was starting to I was I was I was precocious in terms of my awareness of the news and everything and, you know, so and I had already started campaigning for Gene McCarthy and I was switching over to Bobby Kennedy once he joined after the, after the New Hampshire primary there, but. But um, and I just remembered that and then he went away, he started starting in July of that of that year (19)68, he went away, because he had to go to these special trainings before we went over to Vietnam. So he was basically gone for like 18 months. And when he came back, I was pretty much hardcore antiwar, and so on. And he never told me this until after my son was born when I was 29. So sometime like mid-mid (19)80s. He, he said, "You know, when I, by the time I was in Vietnam, I knew that it was the wrong war for us to be in." And he said, "But I had no choice." He said, "I had a family to support. I had," you know, and, and basically, you know, that, as you can probably guess, that was a major source of contention between me and my father, the whole time I was in high school, and we would have some pretty intense arguments about it and stuff, you know, and it kind of made me question. You know, ee was a very, he was raised Catholic, he is a very traditional Catholic. So always made me question the morality of somebody who could be involved in that at the same time, the, the this, “Thou shalt not kill and all that kind of stuff,” you know what I mean, so. So, I think and I think he was on the conservative edge of things. And I think he [inaudible] when he told me that he said, "yeah," he says, "If I had been a civilian," he said, "I would not have gone to a protest." But I would have signed every petition, and I would have talked to congress people. But [inaudible] Kennedy [inaudible]. SM: 56:57 One of the kind of semi controversies, it is happening today, and I have seen amongst Vietnam veterans now. I go to the Vietnam Memorial a lot, and I listen to all the state and I- it is a nonpolitical entity, they talk about it is in remembrance of those who served and died. And, and they are heroes. When the when the Vietnam, it is well known fact that when Vietnam vets came home, they were treated terribly by this country as a whole. And but the question I have always felt, in my experience with the antiwar movement, is I never felt that the anti the genuine antiwar activists were against the troops, they were against the leaders who sent the troops. And there is still this perception out there that when they came home from Vietnam, it was the antiwar movement that treated them poorly. I do not think so. But could you correct me or your feelings on this? I thought it was. I thought it was America as a whole. Because of this perception that Vietnam vets were baby killers, the My Lai massacre, post-traumatic stress disorder, they are all crazy, all these things. And so, I thought that was the reason why, but you know, your thoughts. RJ: 58:14 I think that I agree with what you are saying essentially, in terms of that it was the, it was the government of the United States that failed the, failed the veterans. Failed the guys coming back. It is for me, having grown up growing up in the military, and when I was in high school, doing a lot of work and hanging out with a lot of GIS who are against the war a lot. Where I was in Germany, a lot of the GIS were finishing up their two years enlistment because they were just draftees. And so, they would, they would have gone to boot camp, and then gone to Vietnam for a year. And then they would spend like their last 10 months being a clerk typist somewhere, you know, and a lot of us ended up in Germany In Germany. And so, I knew them through like, you know, rock music and, you know, to smoking pot, and just like, working with some of them on-on new antiwar stuff, and so on. And, you know, they were a select group, they were not the majority of, you know, just like most people that most people are not politically involved, these guys were politically involved. And, you know, what I [inaudible] them, is they were very clear that it was, you know, the people they did not like, was the officers and the politicians. And it was the politicians who could have treated them one way or the other. And they basically stalled for so long to even get the PTSD considered a valid psychological disorder, you know, and the only reason that really happened was because of who [inaudible] the war constantly lobbying and so on to, to get recognized by the APA as, to go into the DSM, whatever you think of the DSM that is, you know, that is what the where they have the list of disorders. So, I think Americans in general just wanted to forget about it, kind of the way they, right now I work part time in a public library. And a lot of the people who come in every day are people who do not have a home. And a lot of them are vets from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. SM: 1:00:23 Wow. RJ: 1:00:23 And I see the same thing, I see the same thing happening. SM: 1:00:27 Wow, that is really sad. RJ: 1:00:28 People do not care about them. And these men, I think, probably have, I do not know, because I was never in war, thank God. But some of these men come in, and they have some incredible mental health issues, not to go not to say about other issues that they are just finding out, you know, cancers or something that happened from being in a war zone and so on. And they self-medicate on very heavy levels, you know, like, kind of like some of, you probably had buddies who did the same thing, who came back from Vietnam. I know I did. I had like two or three of my friends who are dead by the end of this, who two of them enlisted. And one of them got drafted. And they went to Vietnam. They were a couple years older than me in high school. And they all, one of them overdosed on heroin, the other two committed suicide. So that so you know, how the high rate of suicide now- SM: 1:01:17 Yes. RJ: 1:01:19 -among Iraq vets and so on. And so I kind of it is kind of, you know, American politicians love to make Bernie Sanders and I am not politicking for him or anything, but he will say, if you do not want to make if you do not want to take care of your vets, do not make wars, you know, and because his point is that, you know, Americans like their wars, but they do not really care about the vets. And when I talk with my dad about it, who used to be when he first got out of the military in (19)79, he used to be kind of [inaudible] on Vietnam vets who are complaining, but then he starts doing his church, he started doing counseling for vets who are applying to get back into the workforce. And, and, you know, he wanted to do it, because he was a vet himself that he, you know, he understands that military code and all that. And that, even if they even if GIS did not like the military, they still respect a man who had a higher rate. So, there is that whole thing that happens within the military training and everything. And it really changed his mind about it. He realized, like, No, you know, we did him wrong. I think that is part of what happened in Vietnam. And I think it is what is, you know, it happened in previous wars. But I think what the difference between previous wars and Vietnam was that Vietnam became such an unpopular war. But also, at the same time, there was a lot. It was the first time that a war had taken place where people continued to chall- where the challenges to it got bigger as the war went on as opposed to other wars where they were like, say World War One, there was a lot of opposition to the US going in and just all around the world. But once the war started, most [inaudible] did their thing. Same with World War Two. Whereas Vietnam, nobody really even knew it was beginning but by the time it was [cuts off] SM: 1:03:09 Still there? RJ: 1:03:10 Yeah, I am just going in and out. Are you there? SM: 1:03:14 Yeah, I am here. Got it okay? RJ: 1:03:19 My phone is funny, sometimes. I am trying to stay in one place, but I am not sure what is going on. SM: 1:03:24 I hear you now. RJ: 1:03:26 Okay. So, I think that the vets bore the brunt of it. You know, and I but I do not think it was the antiwar movement, any more than it was any other part of the United States. SM: 1:03:37 Have you changed your feeling about the boomer generation over the years, just changed from when you were younger that spirit and now today, have you just devolved differently when you think about that whole generation? [phone rings] RJ: 1:03:53 Well, not really, I still think that it played as you know, as a generation. It- SM: 1:04:00 That is a noise in the background, forget it. RJ: 1:04:02 Okay. As a generation it did, it took advantage of the time it was in and it made things it changed the world for the better- in substantial ways, mostly for the better, I think. I think I do not know, climate change is a tough thing to get a handle on, you know, get your head around. But I think in a lot of terms of people being able to fulfill their lives and people granting more opportunity for more people at least in the United States [inaudible] SM: 1:04:42 Is your phone breaking up? RJ: 1:04:48 I think this is, I am not sure why. Yeah. SM: 1:04:50 You got enough power in your phone? RJ: 1:04:53 Yeah. I am plugged in. I am plugged in. SM: 1:04:57 We are about a little, about halfway through that okay? RJ: 1:05:01 Yeah, yep. SM: 1:05:01 Yeah-yeah. And I am going to get to some questions about your two books in a couple more questions. But I got a few more here that. Let us see here. Could you describe, a lot of times the boomer generation and the student- young people in the (19)60s used to say they were the most unique generation in American history is because of the attitudes they had, that they were going to be the best change agents for good in our society, was that arrogance on the part of the boomer generation and the students of the (19)60s and early (19)70s, that they were going to be different than any other generation, before or after? RJ: 1:05:09 Okay. The I think it was era, it is not necessarily a bad arrogance, I think they would have been told that growing up, that they were special. And I think the fact that so many of them took it to heart and tried to do the right thing with it, it is actually it is kind of like trying to make that arrogance air out you know. But yeah, I think it is a little bit arrogant. I- it is hard. I think it is too early to tell whether or not it was true, to be honest. But I also, you know, I have a son who is 35 have a daughter who is 25. And, you know, their mom and I, you know, even when we lived in different houses and stuff, we were always involved in, very involved in their parenting and so on. And she is a few years younger than me. So, she is a little bit different generation a little bit later in the boomer generation. So, but I think that their values are the same, but I do not see them as intense on trying to change anything, they are just trying to figure out how to pay their bills and stuff like that. And part of it is because of the way college is structured now, you have some people kids owe more than that, they owe more than I ever paid for a house, just to go through college. So, you know. SM: 1:06:58 What did you know, and I will close on this, this particular area of questioning what made the generation different beyond their size, we all know, everybody talks about how big, you know, the boomer generation after World War Two, you know, babies are booming like crazy? And we all know about the size. And that is what they talked about for years, it was in the (19)50s, how big this generation is, what made them so different? RJ: 1:07:21 I think part of it was the media. And the advent of television and the fact that by what, (19)68 pretty much, so many homes had TVs in them. And the television industry at that time was so centralized. So, we were all seeing a lot of the same stuff. And there was only two or three out, there were CBS, ABC and NBC and Metro media. So, there was not a lot of different interpretations of what was going on. And then I also think that the school systems in most neighborhoods, mostly white neighborhoods, once again, I think we are very well funded. And a lot of the teachers who were teaching were people with a breadth of experience, and they wanted, you know, there was a lot of innovative stuff there for them to use. So that kind of expanded the way we thought. And I also just think the access that we had, it is nothing compared to what kids have now. But we were the first generation to have access to, you know, expendable cash. Um, so there is a whole culture that grew up around us, which did not really happen before. And they always talk about, you know, Chuck Berry, Elvis and Bill Haley as like being the beginning of the youth culture. And by the time, by the time of the late (19)60s, it was like the counterculture. And then by the mid (19)70s, it started breaking up into smaller subcultures. But still, we were buying the bulk of the records, and we were, we were determining what wrote what route the record company and the movies, we are going to go. You know, I mean, if you think of so many movies that were geared towards the youth, you know, the young generation at that time, whether they were silly movies, or whether they were more serious movies like Joe or The Graduate or something, you know, or Easy Rider, they were still geared because that was a market. So, I think it was a combination, the size definitely made a difference, because that meant that people who wanted to make money knew that they had, they could make a lot of money and they sold the right thing. And so then that spread it even more, but it also they that means they had to figure out a way to package the ideas that we were representing or that we were expressing and then sell them back to us and by selling them back to us, they spread it like I was saying earlier with what by the fact that they took the Woodstock movie, made Woodstock [inaudible] all over the world [inaudible] Woodstock generation that [inaudible], you know. SM: 1:09:53 It has often so often been quoted in a lot of the history books, particularly the ones written in the (19)90s on the (19)60s that the, the-the boomers or the actually the boomer generation were truly activists or involved in some sort of activity linked to the Vietnam War, Civil Rights, the women's movement, the Native American movement, Hispanic movement, environmental movement, and the gay and lesbian movement, were that they were linked to the issues of the day, the saying that they were, there were only 7 percent involved. And I thought, well, that is still a lot of people when you are talking 74 million. But is it true? Or is this another way that some writers whether they be to the right, or people who are critical of the left, is this another way of lessening the impact that this generation or that 7 percent have had on American scene since the (19)60s? RJ: 1:10:49 I think it is a way of lesson I mean, who knows what the real numbers were and who knows how they arrived at those numbers. I mean, if you think about if you try to take add together, people who went to protests or people who said they went to protest, or people who joined SDS, or people who were involved in some civil rights organization, or an Earth Day or the, you know, the lesbian, gay movement or something, it is, it is really hard to say, because what do they mean by commitment? I mean, everybody, most people were affected by it on some level, and some people might have gone to one protest, but never gone to another one. And, you know, so that that is hard. I think it is a way to try to diminish it, because I think it kind of takes away the fact that most major moments of social upheaval, are usually only involving a few people. Like the American Revolution did not involve most of the most of the colonists, the French Revolution and Russia revolution did not either. So, it is hard to, it is hard to say, but I, when I read those books, when I read those numbers and stuff, my first reaction is like, I do not believe it. And then my second reaction is, well, how did you come up with these, with that number, you know. SM: 1:12:05 Very good, good, another good analysis there. I, this is a question that is one, been one of the most important one I have asked, during this whole process of interviewing people over all the years, I have been one that is always wondered about the healing process. Do you feel that the generation of boomers the, or the young people of that era and even America, and certainly Vietnam veterans, do you feel that this generation and the group, that healing as it relates to the war and other divisions of the time, that we have not gotten over it even today, and, and I asked this in terms of the Vietnam memorial was built to heal the nation. Remember, Jan Scruggs wrote the book, "To Heal a Nation." RJ: 1:12:52 Right. SM: 1:12:53 He is what he tried to do it to heal the Vietnam veterans who served in that war, their families, and the loved ones of those who died. And, and I think he is pretty comfortable that that wall has done a lot with respect to healing within that group. However, do you feel that we as a nation, and I know we are talking years, Vietnam now ended in (19)75. So, we are talking a long time ago. But do you think we are still having problems with healing? Or do you think a lot of the people still have not healed from that war and are going to go with to the grave with the animosity and dislike toward the people who disagreed with them over that their involvement in the war and the, you know, protests against the war? It is the whole healing process as a nation. You think, is it important, or is it, it is not an issue anymore? RJ: 1:13:50 I think it is still going on. And I think every once in a while, a politician comes along, who breaks open the wound, and kind of pokes itself [inaudible] or whatever, and riles up people who, who they will never forgive on both sides. And then it starts all over and then we have this other moment of soul searching. But then the way I kind of look at it, too, is healing from a trauma like that is never going to be easy. And it is a long-time process. I think some of the people who poke the wound are people who were, who were not even alive at the time, but they have this idea, this ideological idea, and I think it is mostly from the right but I know also, it is also from the left, but and who will bring it up to try to because it is kind of like a shortcut, a metaphor for certain divisions that have always existed in this country between the you know, the left wing and the right wing, and people in the middle and so on. I mean, I speak personally and people, you know, my father and I had a big gap and we did not talk to each other for a few years and stuff like that and Vietnam was the crux of the issue and his role. But you know, we are, we are, we are way past that and like, I know that most of his friends that he stays in touch with from the military, you know, a lot of his lot of his friend's kids had the same kind of issue with their father. And that is long gone, you know, you, you know, you have their grandkids and things change, you know, so I think, I think, I think on a personal level, and I just think of like people that I talked to, or that I have talked to over the years, whether when I was organizing for, you know, stuff, and whether or not they supported me, whether or not they supported my side or still were on their side, I think that there is, we have, there is an ability to talk with each other now that did not exist then. And sometimes that might be all you can hope for, because talking is crucial to anything. But I think there will always be those on both sides, for good reason, in their mind, that will never let go. And they will go to the grave, angry at the stuff that went down, and the other side as they perceive them, and so on. But I do not it is kind of like the racial thing. I do not think the racial thing is as bad as it used to be either. I mean, you look around it, you see so many interracial couples, you see so many sports teams that, you know, kids are your kids or your grandkids or some relatives of yours, kids or whatever play on. And, you know, it is like, kids of all races, and they are, you know, they are playing together sports, and there is, and some of them are hanging out after school and stuff. So, so I think it is kind of changed. I am not saying it is gone, because I do not think it is. And like I said, I think there are those politicians and others who bring it up every once a while for-for their own reasons. And so, when they do that, it does get people riled up. I mean I admit, it gets me riled up when I see somebody. Like, Henry Kissinger still pisses the hell out of me. SM: 1:17:05 Oh, yeah. He does everybody [laughs]. Yes. RJ: 1:17:07 Yeah, and every time I see him on kind of, like, you know, someone you know, you know, I do not need- someone needs to drive a wooden stake through his heart because I think he is a vampire. But you know, you know what I mean? Like, if so, and Kissinger lives in his own world, so I do not think he really cares, because he kind of has such an arrogance. I do not think he thinks he is even human, but that is a whole other story. SM: 1:17:26 You need to read, there is a brand-new book out called Reckless, you need to read it. It is about him. RJ: 1:17:32 Oh, really? Okay. Thanks for the recommendation. SM: 1:17:33 Yeah, it is called "Reckless." You will see it in the bookstores. RJ: 1:17:36 Yeah sure, maybe my library has it. If not, I will order it. Yeah. Cool. Okay. SM: 1:17:41 And he actually has written a book now called "Kissinger on Kissinger," when I go to Barnes and Noble I turn the book, I put the back side up on the book [laughs]. RJ: 1:17:51 Yeah-yeah. SM: 1:17:53 The generation gap was something that was all talked about in the (19)60s, I mean, this generation gap. In fact, one of the people I interviewed was the guy on the front cover of Life magazine, who was had his picture with the glasses on talking with his father. And I actually interviewed him, had a great interview. And, but that was a really good book that he wrote too and they healed, I mean, but my main [inaudible] questions, you basically answered it, because the generation gap that we all heard about and experienced. And with respect, do you think it is really gotten a lot better between those people within families in particular? RJ: 1:18:31 Yeah, I really do. I mean, I just think of things, you know, you get used to each other. That is one thing, you know. And then you know, something- I was I was down visiting my dad, he was in the DC area. I was down, visiting him last December and I happened to be over at his house when one of his old buddies came by, some- somebody who retired a couple of years before he did. And I had not seen him since he was still in uniform. And I was still I was, like, 22 years old or something. And he, we got to talking because he I was asking how I was friends with one of his daughters, and we got to talking about his kids. And he was talking about his grandkids and everything. And you know, and he looked at me and like, my hair is still really long. And he looked at me, he goes, Yeah, you know, he joked about it. I said, "Well, I will probably never cut it." He goes, "Yeah, that is because your father made you keep it short the whole time you lived at his house." And I said, "Yes, that is very true." And then my dad had him both, actually said to me, as our conversation went on, they go, "You know, Ron, you were more right about things than we were." And I thought that was interesting. I mean, he still has his opinions about the stuff that will never change, like about abortion and contraception and stuff like that, you know, but he said about the war and about-about who was really running the country and what-what the reasons they were, he said that they did not have the country's best interests in mind. And I used to get into arguments with him and that guy all the time. So that was kind of cool. Like, you know, to be, to be able to stay aware, study and look back on what you thought, and be able to change your mind. And I, and I have done the same thing. You know, there is some things that I was like really adamant about. And I was like, you know, really there is nothing, you know, they were right. There is something to be said about some of these things that have been around for generations and stuff, you know. So, it is kind of like, we will get to this point where he will say, "I grew up during World War Two." And you know, he was in high school during World War Two. And he goes, "I grew up during World War Two. And you know, there was a clear enemy. And then after that, we were told the Communists were the enemy." And he says that, "As it turned out, maybe they were not as big of an enemy as we thought they were, and what maybe we should have dealt with it differently." He said, "But when you are in the thick of things you do not know." And I said, "Yeah, well, that is kind of like the same thing for me." I was in the thick of things, and there were some things that I thought were great that I found out, well, maybe I should not have been champion, like, you know, Communist China or something, you know, what I mean, you know, that I definitely was, but you know, I would, I would just like to have, I would just to rile up my dad, I would have pictures of Mao on my wall, you know, just because just to make him see, you know, so you know, stuff like that. Now, I would never do that because, you know, Mao did great things, but he did a lot of terrible things, too. So, you know. SM: 1:21:16 It is like me, when I first took a job at West Chester University in (19)87, the first person I met was a professor in political science, the chair, I went into his office, and he had a picture of Lenin behind his office. And he is, and then he had a picture of a man that was on his desk. And he said, before we even started the, to talk about it, because I was just meeting him for the first time he said, "The man be- on the wall behind me is my hero. And the man that is in that picture on my desk is the, is-is my enemy. I despise him." Well, that was the President of Bing- of Westchester University. RJ: 1:21:53 Oh, really? Oh, that is funny. [laughter] SM: 1:21:57 He was just rubbing me the wrong way, he just was testing me. He says, "I was only kidding." [laughter] RJ: 1:22:03 That is great. SM: 1:22:04 But, you know, it was a little bit of humor there. RJ: 1:22:07 Yeah. SM: 1:22:07 I have one other question, then I am going to get into your books. The-the Free Speech Movement in (19)64 and (19)65. How, how important was that movement in terms of the whole (19)60s era in terms of activism against, you know, the war and civil rights? A lot has been written recently about that Free Speech Movement, Ronald Reagan came to national recognition because of his war against the students at Berkeley. But your thoughts on that Free Speech Movement and the impact that it had on the (19)60s? RJ: 1:22:42 I think the key thing, I mean, lot of the organizers were-were men and women who had been down doing [inaudible] registration out in the South. [cuts off] SM: 1:22:58 Still there? Hold on. RJ: 1:23:03 Okay. SM: 1:23:04 Yeah, we are back. Yep. RJ: 1:23:05 Okay. I think that it helped them see that the issues that they had been working on down South, were also related to issues that were their issues at home. And I think the whole time when-when they took [inaudible], and did the speeches for that 18 hours, or whatever it was, I think that was one of the most empowering things that young people could see that they could, that they could control the discussion for-for the while, and it kind of it was, in terms of empowerment, I think it was one of the key moments for the white student movement, especially. SM: 1:23:44 You know, still there? RJ: 1:23:46 Yeah-yeah. SM: 1:23:47 You-you hit the word there, empowerment. When we brought Tom Paine Hayden to our campus, sadly, he is passed now. But six years ago, not six years ago, 10 years ago, I brought him just before I left Westchester. And he met with all of our student leaders, and we had dinner and he went to dinner and-and he was listening to what the students, he asked, "What power do you have? Do you have a voice here on campus?" And they all said, "Oh, yeah, we are involved in doing budgets, and we are on committees, we are appointed." And he is sitting there in amazement, he is shaking his head. No, he comes back and says, "I am not asking you about what power you have. I want to know if you are truly empowered." And then he went on to define empowerment. And they then they start shaking their heads. It is like, I do not know if I liked this guy. And so, it is a difference of generations here but what true empowerment means. Could you define the difference between power and empowerment, in when you discuss the (19)60s, especially those people who are in the antiwar movement? RJ: 1:24:56 Power is something that somebody in my mind powers something that somebody else has. And some people try to take it for themselves. And they may or may not succeed, but you are not, empowerment is something that comes from within an individual and within a group. And when you realize that you as, as a group, or you as a class, or you as a gender or as a movement, have the power to change things without asking to do it. I mean, that is to me is kind of what I see. Whereas power is something you have to ask someone else to give you. SM: 1:25:30 Very good. I agree. I am going to ask some questions about your book right now. I know you wrote the book, "The Way the Wind Blew." And there is a, there is a comment on the back of the book that I want you to respond to. You probably remember this. Jacobs argues that the group's eventual demise, this is the Weathermen. RJ: 1:25:50 Yeah. SM: 1:25:50 The group's actual eventual demise resulted in the, I will think I will read it from the book, I cannot read my own writing. My goodness. See here. He argues that the group's eventual demise resulted as much from the contradictions of his politics as from the increasingly repressive FBI attention. Could you go into detail on that? RJ: 1:26:14 Yeah. In terms of politics, the original statement that you do not know a Weatherman statement was they basically, it is-I am trying to figure out a way to do without using too much jargon. They basically put the Black liberation movement as the as the vanguard of any revolution in the United States, above the working class, above any class. And then they also saw as, then they also saw themselves. And that is the fundamental basis of their, of their argument, and that they are the only that the thing that what the white movement could do was to support the Black liberation movement, especially as represented by the Black Panthers, and a couple other similar ultra-left organizations. Then after they did the Days of Rage, where they, they thought they were going to get 10,000 people, and they barely got 1000, at best, and they got in fights with, they started fights with the cops, and the cops beat them up and stuff like that. And then they went underground. And there, that was when they started calling. Everybody, except for people who agreed with them, pigs, and that if you were either on their side, or you are on the wrong side, and you know, you know, and that did not just mean policemen or politicians or businessmen or people who, you know, it meant the people who worked in the businesses, it meant GIS, it meant other students who disagreed with their politics or whatever. And then there was the whole contradiction when they decided to kind of, when they went underground. And there was a battle between, there was a strong debate between the different cells as to whether or not they should say whether or not they should use bombs to kill people. And as you probably know, like, they had the bomb that blew up in the townhouse in Greenwich Village, was intended to kill a bunch of soldiers at-at a dance at Fort Dix. Fortunately, fortunately, in the long run, and for those soldiers and their girlfriends, it did not kill anybody but three of the Weather Underground. But there is even within that group of people who are working in that townhouse, there was at least two of the four who did not agree with the idea to kill people, they just wanted to blow up, like, you know, like a recruiting office or, you know, put a bomb in the Pentagon or something like that, and call ahead and not and not kill, not hurt anybody. Because they wanted to have more symbolic attacks at that level. And then the other thing was when they came, then another contradiction that came up was when they decided to try to organize young people and the whole, they latched on to the counterculture and so on. And that became greater and greater, because there was two very different factions in the group. It is hard to say who represented who but I would say that Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn and the California group were more into the counterculture. And the New York group with David Gilbert and some of those people, some of the people from Boston, were more into maintaining a hardcore Marxist Leninism and not-not bombing as much and trying to actually do other kinds of underground activities. And so, there was all these contradictions that were bubbling up and what they, they came to a fruition after the United States left Vietnam because that was the main reason why Weatherman- Weather Underground existed was because of the Vietnam War. I mean, you know, a lot of them had about half of them that started in the anti-racist movement. But when the war came along, they became many of the leaders in SDS of the antiwar movement. And they would tie the anti-racist and the antiwar movements together a lot of as anti-imperialist movements. But then, when, when that happened, when the United States left Vietnam in April 30 (19)75, the group was pretty small by then. And there was a lot of debate within the group about where they should go next. Some members wanted to, Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Jeff Jones, and a few of the other ones, some of the original founders who are still in the group, they wanted to go above ground. They wanted to turn themselves in, try to work out a deal where they only did a few months each or something. And then organize with the above ground or popular united front organizations they had to go into the working class and start organizing women workers, African American workers, Latino workers and young workers to try to create a new militant labor movement. But then there was this other faction that was led by an old guy who had, his name was Clayton Van Lydegraf, he had been kicked out of the Communist Party, kicked out of the progressive Labor Party, because he was too ultra-left. He was basically a guy who believed in propaganda of the deed, you know, so he convinced another group to go and start bombing again, and they got infiltrated. And that is how that group got arrested. SM: 1:26:25 Wow. RJ: 1:26:45 And then, you know, and so, so there are so many contradictions within the group. And then when you combine it with the fact that the Feds were kind of, the Feds were pretty close to catching them, and then they would not be because I think when the church committee hearings happened, a lot of those a lot of those investigations that were being conducted illegally had to be shut down, which is the only way you are going to catch someone like the Weatherman anyhow, because they had a very good underground network and so on. So, I hope that answers your question. SM: 1:32:15 Yes, it does, I think Mark Rudd was in that group too, was not he? RJ: 1:32:19 Yeah. And he left, he left back, like in (19)70 right after they were underground. He was underground for a little while. And then they, the women in the group asked him to leave the group because of his sexist sex- hardcore sexism. And basically, he left. And you know, he never snitched on anybody or anything. But he left. And you know, he is actually his book, he wrote a book. SM: 1:32:42 Yeah, it is a good book. RJ: 1:32:44 It is a very good book. And, you know, if you have the time, while you are reading, to check out a few of the different memoirs that have come out, they all, read them together, you kind of get an idea of the different, you know, they are all very intelligent individuals. And so, you get an idea of stuff that went on, within the group and so on. And then also on a personal level, Kathy Wilkerson's is very good too. She is one of the few women who has written-written a book on it. And it is a, it is a really good book, she sticks a lot more to the politics than some of the, some of the guys' memoirs do and stuff too. SM: 1:33:18 Well, I have had a chance to meet Mark at Kent State. He is and I really liked him. He was a– RJ: 1:33:22 Well, I heard he is a really nice guy. I have talked to him on the phone a couple of times, he helped me, like when I was writing my book, no one was talking about the Weather Underground. And they did not really know who I was. And my context, the guy who was like I was going to I had gone back to get my undergraduate degree. I was like, in my late 30s. And I wrote that as my senior thesis out at Evergreen College, and the guy who was my, one of my advisors, was a guy who had been in the antiwar movement in Boston. And he had been arrested down in San Diego, and charged with conspiracy to, the FBI tried to kill him and stuff. But um, and so but he had always disagreed with the Weather Underground. So, he only knew a couple people that would talk to me because most of them did not, they still had these grudges from the (19)70s, you know what I mean. But through him, so I was only able to talk to a few people, I was able to talk to Bill Ayers. And then I talked to a few guys who were still underground that I met actually two friends of mine, who knew them because they sold LSD to them. SM: 1:34:29 I have met I have met Bill Ayers at Kent State as well. And-and then, of course, Bernadine, I interviewed her. RJ: 1:34:37 Oh, that have been interesting. I have never really, I have met her like a couple of times, but I have never been able to sit down and talk with her or anything. SM: 1:34:43 Well, I did a phone interview with her. And then I went to New York to take her picture along with David McReynolds, I mean, he just died last year. RJ: 1:34:51 Oh yeah. Yeah-yeah. SM: 1:34:52 And I took pictures of them together. It was, it is an interesting side note, I will send you an email on it, but I am still going to get her interview approval back. And of course, David died. So, I got to go through his brother. There is no question you feel that SDS died because of the Weatherman, correct? RJ: 1:35:10 No, I do not, I think SDS was going to die anyhow. SM: 1:35:15 Okay. RJ: 1:35:16 I think it was, it had [cuts out] SM: 1:35:23 Still there? RJ: 1:35:28 You there? SM: 1:35:29 Yep, I am here. RJ: 1:35:30 Okay. In (19)68, you could see it when they started to go down the, when they started to become more Marxist, Leninist, and so on, they, they were going to automatically cut out a lot of folks who did not, who might-might have been interested in what Marx had to say, but we are not going to call themselves Leninists. You know, and they might have found Marx a good way to analyze capitalism, to find a fault with capitalism. But they were not going to, they were not going to say that they were pro, you know, dictatorship or proletariat, or anything. So, I think they were kind of at a at their end anyhow, it is too bad that nothing really came after them that had the popular groundswell of them and so on. Which is not to say that groups like Weather Underground and the progressive Labor Party cert- they certainly helped make that end come quicker, I think. You know, because I think if SDS had been around when Kent State happened as the SDS pre- Weather Underground, pre-progressive Labor Party, I think those protests might have taken a different turn. I do not, I think Kent State might have still happened. But [inaudible] they would have been able to sustain them past the original outrage and actually make it make a lot more of a long-term difference. But who knows, you know, it is one of those alternative history things. SM: 1:36:53 One of the things you state in the book, I perused through it, I got to read it real, sit down, and really, I was reading it fast. Is that you talk about the, it is not about the personalities in the weather, weather men, it is about the political history of the organization. And there is a quote in there that the weather's insistence on an ant- what really affected you and you were influenced by them, is because of the weather's insistence on an anti-racist, anti-imperialist, anti-sexist analysis was fundamental to my political development. Is, is that a correct statement? RJ: 1:37:30 Yeah, I think it is still true. I mean, then, because I used to read a lot of their, their newspapers and so on, especially when I was living in New York City, they were harder to get over in [inaudible]. But by the time I was living in New York City and stuff, and I was in a different group, but between their stuff, and some of the other groups, that was pretty fundamental to me becoming to choosing the politics, I thought, because they were trying to figure out a way to bring all three of those together. And some groups were more just on the anti-sexism. Others were more just on the anti-racism, and others were more just on the antiwar. And they, the Weather Underground and a couple other organizations that were on the, I guess they would be considered extreme left for sure. Not as extreme left as Weather Underground. But over definitely over in that direction. I think they were the groups that were trying to figure out a way to combine all those and make it fit to (19)73 America. SM: 1:38:28 Yeah, I am going to go into your second book now, which was "Daydream Sunset, the Sixties Counterculture in the Seventies." Could you define, I have heard a lot of people talking about this counterculture. And could you define what you mean as a counterculture? And, and I noticed you mentioned it was centered on LSD and marijuana, it was crucial to the counterculture. Could you go on to that? RJ: 1:38:53 Yeah, I would say the counterculture was a culture that was made up primarily of white middle classes at the beginning, and it spread to the working-class youth as time went on. It was founded in person, the idea of like an, it evolved from the Beats, the whole Beatniks and the Beat stuff, you know, and that is where they got the marijuana from, and that is where they got, you know, some of the other drugs from, but I think it evolved organically, or through a combination of economic situation at the time, to the fact that there are so many young people gathering together in different places, whether that was the workplace or college or high school, whatever. And then I really think LSD made a big difference. And I would say, in large part because of people like Timothy Leary, and Ken Kesey, who proselytized LSD, they both did it in their own way. But, so and then the, the easy availability of LSD for a while and the fact that places like Greenwich Village and the Haight-Ashbury in San Fran- in New York and San Francisco respectively, were gathering places for young for young kind of footloose youth who did not want to work much and so on. And those kinds of scenes just kind of gathered and they spread throughout-throughout the country and throughout the western world [inaudible] into other parts of the world. But I think fundamentally, it was a movement involved in personal freedom, and in discovering personal freedom, and at the same time, loosening the bonds of sexism, and [inaudible] periods of puritanism. And also, in trying to figure out a new way to live together in a postindustrial world. SM: 1:40:48 You also mentioned, and you talk about the tragedies, particularly around (19)70 of Kent State, Jackson State, all happening in May of that year. And of course, that was all linked to Nixon and the Cambodian invasion, so many books have been written on it. Nixon still has stated it was never an invasion, we had already been in Cambodia before. And it was just, and it was not very, very long. But of course, the anti-war movement had different feelings on that. In terms of, were they part of the end of the counterculture? RJ: 1:41:23 I think it was part of the politicization of the counterculture, because I think the counterculture kind of carried on for a while. It was like, it kind of went from sex, drugs, rock and roll and politics, just to sex, drugs and rock and roll. I mean, if you think of the mid (19)70s, you know, I mean you could kind of look at it in terms of the bands. You know, you went from bands that were political and intent to bands like Led Zeppelin, you know no, I mean, Led Zeppelin's fine, but they were definitely not a political band in any way, shape, or form, you know. And then, and then a lot, you think of some of the other music. SM: 1:41:58 Disco. RJ: 1:41:58 You know, some of the bands- SM: 1:41:59 You got disco too. [laughs] RJ: 1:42:02 Disco started coming in, disco started like, among the gays, and African Americans, you know, but then when it got taken over by mainstream America, pretty much with that [inaudible] Saturday Night Fever, was that what it was called? SM: 1:42:15 Yes-yes. RJ: 1:42:16 And that kind of, that all the sudden, you heard disco everywhere. And you know, I was not ever a fan of disco, because I really, it just was not for me. [inaudible] SM: 1:42:32 Could you say that, could you repeat that again? I missed it. RJ: 1:42:37 You know, as well as me that disco was everywhere, it was almost impossible to go someplace where there was not a disco club. SM: 1:42:44 Right. RJ: 1:42:44 So. SM: 1:42:46 You also have it here, the and I, it is another quote, the period we call the (19)60s is as much a myth as it is a truth as much maligned as it is championed. Want to explain that any further? RJ: 1:43:01 Yeah, sure. I mean, it really happened. That is the truth part. But what really happened depends on who you were and what you saw, and where you were, and how you [inaudible], you know. And in terms of history, it is definitely as you know, you read a lot of books and you know, from, you know, it depends on who's telling you the history. And so, and then the missed part is just the myth. You know, I mean, it is like, Woodstock was this great, wonderful festival. And it was, but at the same time, a lot of that is myth. And that is where it moves into that. And [inaudible], we have talked about that. It has continued to maligned. I mean, there are people who know from that preacher you hear, that radio preacher you are talking about all the way up to today like Pat Robertson and people like that who say, and Rush Limbaugh, who say that everything bad happened because of the (19)60s, you know. SM: 1:43:55 Right. RJ: 1:43:56 So, and then there is other people on the other side who champion it on a you know, who still live like with the rose-colored glasses. I think most people who are intimately involved in it- people like Wavy Gravy, people like the Grateful Dead, most of the band that made up the Grateful Dead, and all the regular stuff, they probably all have just people every day, [inaudible] I am, they all have their own different viewpoints, some less cynical than others, probably and some very jaundiced. SM: 1:44:30 I want to I want to quote something from the front of your book, and I am going to put it in the record for the interview and I thought it was very well written here. It is about Jackson Browne. And this is about the disintegration of the counterculture. Do you mind if I quote this? RJ: 1:44:45 Oh, go for it. SM: 1:44:46 Yeah, it is, it is on the very beginning. In the introduction, songwriter Jackson Browne had a similar understanding of the disintegration of the counterculture. His two was both apocalyptic and lyrical. Brown's three songs cycle of "For Every Man," "Before the Deluge" and "Pretender" appears on three successive disks. And it is a story of a generation and a culture trying to change the world while facing an apocalypse of war and environmental devastation, and ultimately, a ceding to the hegemony of the world and the system that tried so hard to change. "The Pretender," which is the final song of the cycle is a depressing admission that the system of corporate television, war, and nine to five jobs was more powerful than the world of the counterculture hoped to forge if only because it had more developed Foundation. The song itself is a tale of surrendering to that world, and numbing oneself to the reality via sex, drugs and Rock and Roll. Well, I that you wrote that. That is great. Any-any other thoughts on that? Because, you know, this is again, the power of music, like go way back in our interview, how powerful music can be. You talk about Hunter Thompson in here too you, we really made it I mean, we have talked about, I always tell students, the dots, the dots that connect the dots, and music is part of that. And if you listen to a lot of that music of the (19)60s and early (19)70s, you will see the dots connected within the music. Any other thoughts on, that you wanted on Jackson Browne, in the, in the record? RJ: 1:46:30 There is, I talk about him and you know, I think it is pretty, I think it is pretty clear in terms of [inaudible] to those three songs. The middle one is about people fighting against the environmental devastation. And he was very big in the anti-nuclear movement, which was big in the mid (19)70s. And so that is kind of what he is talking about in that song, but in a much greater thing, he is talking about the counterculture in that in that generation. And then obviously in the last song, as I mentioned, there, you know, it is a song about a guy who goes to work, comes home, puts his glasses on, does some cocaine, has sex, wakes up in the morning, gets back in his car, goes to work dah-dah, dah-dah, dah, you know. There is a, in that, later on in that those first pages of that book, I talk about Bruce Springsteen, and he kind of came on board. He his first like National popularity was (19)75, when the "Born to Run" album came out, and Bruce was never a hippie, he was informed by the counterculture. He grew up in a working-class New Jersey, his dad was a factory worker and so on. And I think Bruce represents the (19)70s better than any other popular musician because of the way he chronicles individuals' lives first. In Born to Run, it is about people trying to get away from their dead [inaudible] you know, taking the same job in the same place that their dad had a job or their mom and then just racing or fast cars and then leaving, or trying to leave and then and falling in love and like trying to hide out on the beach in the summer and smoke pot or whatever. And then the next- and for him, it is about becoming a rock and roll musician as his way out of, of that life. Then the next album is "Darkness on the Edge of Town," which is basically about the people who did who get into the car culture. The town, I live in Maryland, on and off, my dad was stationed there, and then after I left moved out of there, my parents’ house, our culture was real big and like best people spent their money on, it was almost going back to the (19)50s. And then he kind of gotten he just follows that transcript, transition all the way up to people getting married, and getting divorced, and so on, always brings some of that reality about working, although being a member of the working class, and so on. And I think he really, he captures that that what happened to most people who are in the United States, most young people who are in the United States and who were not on the trajectory of college, and who were not on, who were not in the military, but who, you know, who were just trying to figure out how to how to make a life for themselves. And the counterculture gave them a lot of those kids hope that they could try something different. And some of them left their hometowns and went up to San Francisco or hit the road or started going to rock festivals or following the Grateful Dead around or something. But ultimately, most of them ended up, you have to face the reality of. SM: 1:49:39 Right. RJ: 1:49:40 And that is that is that economic hegemony that, you know, it just had more power, it won in its own way, but there are still elements that still exist throughout, throughout our culture. SM: 1:49:54 Yeah, we talk about the two events that really were the watershed events. All the movements were important, but in Vietnam and the Civil Rights Movement, to me are the two that really make the (19)60s. Because with the Civil Rights Movement gave everybody experience and knowledge about how to protest. And, you know, they gave the kind of laid down some of the laws about protesting. And so those two, and I think, what is amazing about Dr. King is, when you think about Dr. King, he, he is one of the-the figures of the (19)60s because of the fact that he obviously, he believed in nonviolent protest, and he was involved in so many protests itself, the March on Washington, but it is that speech in (19)67, against the war in Vietnam, that links civil rights, and, and in the, in the anti-war movement in a very major way. Because toward the end of Dr. King's life, he was always talking about the economy and the economy. And he ended up dying, you know, in a city in Memphis, where the they were fighting for rights, the work was fighting for rights [crosstalk] RJ: 1:51:04 Yeah, they were economic rights and to work yeah, exactly. To form a Union, yeah. SM: 1:51:09 He is a, he is a major force, and he is a major force in my life because of who he is. And the mere fact that he lost a lot of friends in the civil rights movement for his stand on the Vietnam War. And so, it is a, it is, the (19)60s is just an amazing thing here. I have a question. A couple more questions. And then a couple of things to end. What are the most important books on the on the (19)60s that were written in the (19)60s or (19)70s that impacted you? I have a list here of a few, but what books did you read that had a great impact on you? RJ: 1:51:43 Well, one of them was "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Another one was "The Greed of America." SM: 1:51:51 Oh, yeah. Charles Wright? RJ: 1:51:53 Yeah, yeah. Another one was, I am trying to think which one- "Revolution for the Hell of it" by Abbie Hoffman? SM: 1:52:00 Okay. RJ: 1:52:02 And then there was one by Tom Hayden, I cannot, I think it was about the Chicago 8 trial. I think it was just called "The Trial." SM: 1:52:10 Yep. RJ: 1:52:10 Those are, those are ones that come to my mind pretty much quickly. There is, there is got to be other ones, but I cannot think of them right now. SM: 1:52:19 I have Hayden's books. All of his books were just amazing. I, the "The Armies of the Night" by Norman Mailer. RJ: 1:52:27 Oh, yeah, absolutely. That is an incredible book. Yeah. SM: 1:52:28 That was another one. Theodore Roszak's, "The Making of a Counterculture." RJ: 1:52:30 Yep. Yep, that is yep, okay. SM: 1:52:35 There was James Farmer's "Nigger," the book, that was very popular. Eldridge Cleaver, "The Soul on Ice" RJ: 1:52:41 Soul on Ice, yep-yep. SM: 1:52:42 James Kunen, "The Strawberry Statement," and Ron Kovic's "Born on the Fourth of July." RJ: 1:52:49 Absolutely yeah. SM: 1:52:50 And anything Tom Wolfe wrote. RJ: 1:52:53 Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, of course. "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" was-was crucial to me. So was "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail" by Hunter S. Thompson. Yeah. SM: 1:52:54 Because Tom Wolfe- Yep. And the, another question here is, there were a lot of you know, slogans from the (19)60s. What were the slogans that after that whole era, say from (19)60, to (19)75 slogans that you remember that had an impact on you that were so well known at the time? RJ: 1:53:21 [whispers] Oh, man. SM: 1:53:22 Slogans from civil rights leaders, African Americans, antiwar activists, politicians anything. RJ: 1:53:30 Okay, right on the Black Power thing, Black Power right on. SM: 1:53:34 Right. RJ: 1:53:36 The 2,4,6,8- no, no, "Hey-hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" SM: 1:53:43 Right. RJ: 1:53:45 Trying to take a couple of the other ones. I am trying to think there were some at the antiwar protests, but I cannot really remember right now. SM: 1:53:57 Malcolm X had one, "By Any Means Necessary." RJ: 1:54:01 Yes. SM: 1:54:02 And of course, Jerry Rubin, "Do not trust anyone over 30." RJ: 1:54:06 And "Do It." SM: 1:54:07 Yeah. RJ: 1:54:08 Just which-which Nike now uses I guess. SM: 1:54:11 Yeah. I do not know how that some of these advertisers can get away with this stuff. RJ: 1:54:14 Yeah-yeah, yeah. SM: 1:54:15 I cannot believe that some of the people would approve, or their families would approve them to use some of these things. RJ: 1:54:21 Maybe they it is it was not trademark, they cannot really do anything about it probably or something, yeah. SM: 1:54:25 I would say that probably the one thing and this is just is that the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, even though as an organized group, they were not very large, I think they were one of the most influential antiwar groups in terms of moving regular Americans to start really challenging the war, besides the students, the students. I think, the VVAW, they are, it is difficult to measure how important they were in terms of changing middle America's mind about the war. I did not ask a lot of questions we were coming- we have now done two hours here, almost two hours. But I usually conclude by making some-some names for you to kind of respond to, but is there a question that you thought I was going to ask that I did not ask that you might want to respond to something that you want to state about the (19)60s or anything that I have been talking about, something that I have not asked? One of the things I noticed back then in the (19)60s to, you would have, I know, there was always the sexism within the antiwar movement and women in secondary roles. And that is a lot of the reasons why the woman's movement evolved. And even there was an issue with that with the nurses that served in Vietnam. I mean, it is a whole thing about when the wall was built, where were the nurses. So, it is like, there is a lot of that stuff. But one thing I did notice, and I would like your observations on this, too. When you look at the protests and the movements and so forth of the (19)60s, they would come together at protests, you will see, in the latter part of the (19)60s, you see, you know, the-the African American organizations, the women's groups, the gay and lesbian groups, and especially after (19)69, they would all be together in an antiwar movement. And they would come together. I asked David Mixner about this, I interviewed who was, you know, he was involved in both- the antiwar movement and-and he says, there is truth to this, that they are all separate now. The women's movement has their big rallies in Washington, the antiwar group, is basically the antiwar groups. It is, the gay and lesbian group [inaudible] their big events and so forth. And civil rights groups have those-they are not coming together, is-is my observation incorrect? RJ: 1:56:54 I think it is more true than- no, I think it is pretty true. And I, I often wonder why that is, because when it comes to war, war affects everybody. And then also, I mean, I look over the years, and groups became more and more single issue in the late (19)70s, and going into the (19)80s, and into all throughout the whole (19)90s. And obviously, into the into this century. But I think part of it might be I mean, I-I am just filling stuff out there. I think part of it might be also because of the professionalization of a lot of the leaderships where they actually have these jobs and their organizations. Like back and back, like during the antiwar movement, there was only, there was only two or three antiwar groups that were at, that helped organize every single major antiwar demonstration. And even now, even those groups, the leadership was constantly changing, rotating itself. And they were not careers. Whereas I think a lot of times, nowadays, a lot of the social justice stuff, people make careers out of it. And you know, because it is done through an NGO or something like that. And that has a negative effect in one way and that it separates these groups. It also makes those groups more timid about joining things that might be more confrontational, because they might lose their funding from whatever philanthropic organization is giving them their money. So, there is, I mean, that is just one-one possibility, but I think that is absolutely true. I think they are more separate, even when there is big movements, like when they were going after the invasion of Iraq in 2003. And there were some pretty big protests. But– SM: 1:58:38 Yeah, well, when I, when I interviewed David, he is a producer in New York, I guess. And he, he brought it up and he says, "Yeah, we have these big rallies for the gay and lesbian bisexual community. And they are, they are not reaching out to other groups." And he says, like, "I will see what I can do about that." I, he is a powerful leader in that community. But he is also involved in a lot of other things. So, I do not know what. I am going to conclude this if it is okay with you with just some personalities from the (19)60s and early (19)70s. I have a bigger list than this, but I will try to go fast. All you have to do is just give me a one- or two-word response. RJ: 1:59:17 Okay-okay. SM: 1:59:19 Tom Hayden. RJ: 1:59:22 Solid, revolutionary– SM: 1:59:26 Jane Fonda. RJ: 1:59:34 Personality who made a lot of unpopular but morally right decisions. SM: 1:59:41 Lyndon Johnson. RJ: 1:59:44 A man caught between the war machine and his desire to help the poor. SM: 1:59:49 Eugene McCarthy. RJ: 1:59:54 Don Quixote. SM: 1:59:56 Bobby Kennedy. RJ: 2:00:00 A man who might have been able to unite the voting population of the United States. SM: 2:00:05 John Kennedy. RJ: 2:00:09 Somebody who died way too soon. SM: 2:00:11 Dwight Eisenhower. RJ: 2:00:15 (19)50s Classic. SM: 2:00:17 Gerald Ford. RJ: 2:00:19 (19)50s classic. SM: 2:00:21 [laughs] Okay. Richard Nixon, Richard Nixon RJ: 2:00:26 Joe McCarthy with a less ugly attitude. SM: 2:00:29 [laughs] Dr. Benjamin Spock. RJ: 2:00:36 Very moral human being. SM: 2:00:39 Huey Newton. Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, the Black Panthers, RJ: 2:00:45 Revolutionary heroes who never had a chance. SM: 2:00:50 Malcolm X. RJ: 2:00:52 Another revolutionary hero who was fated to die. SM: 2:00:56 Jerry Rubin. RJ: 2:00:59 A clown. SM: 2:01:00 Abbie Hoffman. RJ: 2:01:03 A clown with better politics. SM: 2:01:05 Rodney Davis. RJ: 2:01:12 A metaphor for a lot of people in, of his generation. SM: 2:01:17 Timothy Leary. RJ: 2:01:21 Self-centered, arrogant and very, very interesting. SM: 2:01:26 Ralph Nader. RJ: 2:01:31 Understated champion. SM: 2:01:33 Hubert Humphrey. RJ: 2:01:36 He got screwed. SM: 2:01:39 Barry Goldwater. RJ: 2:01:42 The beginning of the racialization of the Republican Party. SM: 2:01:49 George Wallace. RJ: 2:01:51 Racist. SM: 2:01:52 Martin Luther King Jr. RJ: 2:01:55 Hero. SM: 2:01:56 Muhammad Ali. RJ: 2:01:57 Another hero. SM: 2:01:58 Spiro Agnew. RJ: 2:02:04 Sucker. SM: 2:02:06 Gloria Steinem. RJ: 2:02:11 Intelligent, middle class, feminist. SM: 2:02:16 John Lewis. RJ: 2:02:20 So, oh, John. No, John Lewis, the African American guy? SM: 2:02:24 Yes. RJ: 2:02:26 A hero who made too many compromises. SM: 2:02:31 Byard Rustin. RJ: 2:02:33 Same. Hero who made too many compromises. SM: 2:02:36 Richard Daley. RJ: 2:02:40 I cannot say anything good about him. SM: 2:02:42 Robert McNamara. RJ: 2:02:44 I cannot say anything good about him either. He was an intellectual who wasted his brains. SM: 2:02:49 Daniel Ellsberg. RJ: 2:02:51 He was a hero and an intellectual who did the right thing. SM: 2:02:55 Woodward and Bernstein. RJ: 2:02:58 Too, they, you know, I wanted to- I am a little bit of a journalist. To me, what they did was one of the more heroic things of that time. So, they are heroes. SM: 2:03:08 Angela Davis. RJ: 2:03:10 Also a hero. SM: 2:03:11 Bella Abzug. RJ: 2:03:14 Fascinating and militant. SM: 2:03:16 Jackie Kennedy. RJ: 2:03:23 One of the strongest popular personalities and woman, women that I can think of. SM: 2:03:30 And I got about five more. Walter Cronkite. RJ: 2:03:35 He was the bearer of the news good and bad, but he always did it with a sense of justice. SM: 2:03:41 And then musicians. Jimi Hendrix. RJ: 2:03:46 Best guitarist ever, died too young. SM: 2:03:48 Janis Joplin. RJ: 2:03:54 A true, true hippie who could think. SM: 2:03:59 The Beatles. RJ: 2:04:01 They were kind of like demigods. SM: 2:04:05 Elvis Presley. RJ: 2:04:08 Almost the dad- almost the daddy of rock and roll. SM: 2:04:11 And of course, and there are other musicians that you would like to put in there, solo or groups that that should really define the (19)60s if you want to add a lot more on to there? RJ: 2:04:24 Just a couple, I would like to add Bob Dylan as the-the poet and Nobel Laureate in real truth actually now but of the genera- of the time, and the Grateful Dead as the people, the torchbearers of the counterculture. SM: 2:04:40 Yeah, I will I will add Richie Havens on to this because to me, he was the symbol of the spirit of the era. RJ: 2:04:46 Yeah, that is, that is good. That, his version of freedom in Woodstock movie says it all. SM: 2:04:53 Yep. And so, I, that is basically it. I am done here now. Do you want to add anything else or finished? RJ: 2:05:03 I think I am done also, thanks. Yep. SM: 2:05:05 Yep, well what will happen here is we have got the copier, and this is on the digital machine. Now the guy, young man, set it up, and then I will turn it off. You will get a copy sent to you Ron. RJ: 2:05:16 Okay. SM: 2:05:17 It will either be sent through the computer or it will be sent to your home address. And, and now, if you could email your home address to me again, I so that we can mail it to you. And then, or we will do it over the computer, we have your email, and we will go from there. And then there is a form you have to sign too, but you have to listen to it first and approve it before anything- Okay, sure- is okay. It has been an honor to talk to you, I apologize for taking so long to do this. I did not know I was going to tear my knee up. And I have still got my crutch here to the side. And I will be interviewing John Sinclair sometime in the next month, I hope. RJ: 2:05:56 Oh, that would be fun. SM: 2:05:57 I can work that out. And, and then I do need some pictures of you. I need a couple pictures that you can mail to me because of the 275 people that I originally did, I think about 230 I interviewed them in person, the rest I did over the phone, so I have to get approved pictures from them, that ones that are over the computer. RJ: 2:06:19 Okay, so I can just send you a couple? SM: 2:06:21 Yeah, send me a couple that they have been approved. And if somebody took the pictures of you, you have to tell me who the person is. RJ: 2:06:27 Sure, sure. Okay. SM: 2:06:28 They have to get the credit for the picture. And look at and we have a bio, if you could do a brief bio and send it to me, unless there is a bio on the on the computer. That would be helpful too. Because what is going to happen is these tapes will all be available for research and scholarship. That for students and faculty, and they will be, the center will open I think at the end of this year or the beginning of 2020. And they are going to let them available for research right now. And we have got 105 Already done of the original group we have got- 31 died since I started this. RJ: 2:07:07 Oh, wow. SM: 2:07:07 So, I have gotten about 15 of those who died, the families to approve, but some of the people I cannot find, it is a big effort. But anyways, but you are going to- it is your important because your name will far outlive any book that I might have done for an oral history interview book. Because they will be people- we looks listening to your voice. RJ: 2:07:28 Right. SM: 2:07:29 And the tape 100 years from now. RJ: 2:07:32 Right. SM: 2:07:33 So that is what makes this project even more important. RJ: 2:07:36 Yeah, thanks for doing it. SM: 2:07:37 Yep. And again, thank you very much, continued success in all that you do. RJ: 2:07:42 Thank you same to you and I will send that, I will get find some pictures and so on and send you that my mailing address and we will go from there. SM: 2:07:52 Okay, great. Thanks Ron, have a great day. RJ: 2:07:55 Yep take care you too. Bye-bye. SM: 2:07:56 Bye. (End of Interview) Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. 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Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ron Jacobs https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/d8592c14a2e914e39bd9769f9e505bb6.pdf 3386583196b211a7791f7b5210c58123 PDF Text Text Beethoven In his sixteenth year by Becke r in Coblenz. 1833. Guarneri StringQuartet Harpur Seas eason 66-67 WinterSeries �Wednesday, J a nuary 11 , 1967 8 :15 p.m. Coll ege Theate r L . v. BEETHOVEN QUARTET in G MAJOR, Op. 18, No. 2 All egro Adagio Cantabi le Sche r zo. All egro Allegro molt o quasi Pr esto Q UARTET in F MAJOR, Op. 59, No. 1 Allegro All egre tto vivace e sempr e Scherzando Adagio molt o e mesto Theme Russe. Allegro intermission QUARTET in A MI NO R, Op. 132 Assai Sostenuto - Allegro All egro ma non tanto Molto adagio Hei l ige r Da11kgesa11g eines Genesenen a11 die Gottheit, in der lydischen Tonart All a marcia, assai vivace : All egro ap passionato A RECEPTION honoring the Quartet will be held in the Faculty Lou11ge adjacent to the theater following this evening's recital. The audience i s most cordially invited to atte11d. �Notes by William Klenz T he quartet , Op. 18 No. 2 bears the nickname, "Comphment Quartet" because of the florid, elegant nature of its openmg ph r ases which set t he tone for t he entire first movement . However the material is not empty flattery, but rich in patt erns and moti ves which receive a searching analysis and r esynthes i s in the course of the movement. Juxtaposition, mutual modification, interaction are the devices which make the wor k a reflection of the natural worl d and the Force behind it. Th ese are carried out at obvious, overt levels, and at recon dite, arcane depths whence they operate directly upon the subconscious which senses the •rightness• and precision of things for whi ch the "small-change counting" consciousness has no recogniti on o r epi stemological terms. The qua r tet 1s all of a piece . The Adagio has many themati c and motivic references to the first move ment It also contains a surprise, a mini ature Sonata Allegro tucked between its two broad state ments which are themselves a Lied form and its variation. The Scherzo continues the atmosphere of elegance and wit while the very l:l aydn like finale develops a motive fi r st presented (f) at bar 20 of the first movement. TT he th r ee quartets Op. 59 are k nown as the "Rasoumousky" quartets, being so called for the patron and dedica tee who brought them into being. He was • sou Excellence M ons i er l e Comte de Rasoumoffsky Conseiller prive actuel de l a Majeste' L'Empereur De T out es les Ru ss1es .. . • the Russian ambassador at Vienna. With th ese quartets we move into Beethoven's "middle" period marked by mastery and conscious innovation. New ki nds of the matic mate r ial are evolved and new methods of devel opment and expansion. Just how new is shown by the story of Romberg, the 'ceHist, and this quartet. Certainly there is no greater joy for a 'cellist than to deli ver the b r oad gratefull y written opening t heme of t his first movement. Y et, Romberg (whose own cliche-ridden musi c is of a legendary platitudinousness) is c l aimed to have trampled the score on the floor, saying, "who can pl ay such rubbish?" (He did pl ay, however, othe r concerts with Beethoven.) A small statistic will show the difference in scope. The first m ovement of Op. 18, No. 16 consists of 264 bars (excl usive of repeats) played at a rate of 80 bars to the minute (c. 3.3 min.). The first movement of Op. 59, No. 1, consists of 400 bars played at a r ateof40-45barsto the mlnute (c. JOmin.) �Th e density and integr ationisoft heor der achieved by Haydn in hi s mos t advanced manner and "inherited" by Beethoven. The Scherzo was at fi r st considered the work of a madm an . Again, the ' ce llo starts, all alone, with an empt y rh ythm -see mingl y c hildish, but actuall y of g r eat vi tality. (It seem s that this i s t he movement t hat precipitated Rom ber g's ire.) I t is a m ovemen t that could have been wri tt en by no one el se; t he project ion of the materi als of a scherzo int o a sonat a fo rm . The s low move ment-•ver y s low and s ad " is one of th e m os t pe r f ect thi ngs in Beethoven, it must have cost him muc h labor-the r e i s ce r tainly nothing except Bee thov en' s own w o r k to co m pare wi th it fo r refinement of c r aft , deep senti m ent and hones t i ntention to communi cate . T he fi nale commemo r ate s Rasoumousky's o r i gin wi th a brilli ant, witt y finale on a Russi an · folk tune taken fro m th e coll ecti on m ad e by I. Prats ch . I t , like all the ot her move m ents , i s i n sonata form, and the quartet as a who l e r epres e nts t he triumph of the power of musi c al or gani za t ion offe r ed by the Sonata . The Quartet Op. 132 in A Minor was wr itten i n 1825 and is t he second of the set of th r ee commissioned b y Prince Galit zin . Sket ches for t he first and l ast movements appear al read y in 1824 and the working out was begun at once afte r t he compl etion of the Quartet i n Eflat , Op . 127, in Febr uar y o f 1825 wa s i nte r r upted for sever al wee k s by t he severe ill ness whi ch ove r took Beethoven that Spr1ng . This circu m stance, we wi ll see, cont ributes to t he content of the work. Its co mposition was r esumed in M ar c h and fin i shed tow ard the end of Jul y . The fi r st movementbegmswi th an enigma ti c "cabbalistic" phr ase, a secr et symbol whi ch has t he cha r a ct er of a m yst erious introduct ion - "akey.• !t is that , but m o r e besides, for in reality i t is t he co mpl ement ar y counter point to the wi nged phrase whi ch i s "released" i n the high r egis te r of the 'cello after the fl eet pas sage of the fir st violi n. B ee thoven in fact combines the cu mul ati ve effect of introduction w11h the function of exposition, !o r t hese cont rasting yet mat chi ng halves con st it ute t he first gr oup of thema t ic e l em ents whose i nt roduction i s the "plot" of t he movement . T hey ar e neve 1· l ong absent, In spite of the int r oducti on of cont r asti ng material. The fi nal pages of the move ment are not abl e for their sonor i t y, and eloquent r educti on t o convincing c l ar i t y or the original •c r yptogram. " The scherzo m ovement se t s asi de jovial hil arit y and dynam ism fo r det ailed, el egant , witt y counter point. Its trio exploits the same peasant- i nst r u ment eff ect s (hurdy- gu r dy) w hich we r e i n the original m ovement desi gned for thi s pl ace Continued on back page �State University of New York at Binghamton H ARPUR COLLEGE The Department of Mus ic prese nts THE GUARNERI STRING QUARTET (in residence) Arnold Stein hardt violi n John Dalley vio lin R EC IT A L S f O Michael Tree viola David Soye r cello SEAS O N 1 96 6-67 SUMMER SERIES W IN T ER SERIES SPRI NG SERI ES Sunday , July 10 Sunday, November 6 Sunday , Marc h 12 Sunday, Jul y 24 Sunday, August 7 Tuesday, Decembe r 13 Wednesday, J anuary 4 Saturday, Mar c h 18 Sunday, April 2 Wednesday, J anua ry 11 Sunday, February 12 Sunday, Aprll 30 Satu r day, May 6 Sunday, August 14 Sunday, September 11 Sunday , October 9 All performances at 8:15 p.m. In the Harpur College Theater. Late comers will be seated after the first quartet, Ushering c our tesy of Alpha Phi Omega and Gamma Sigma Sigma. February 11 at 3:00 p.m. in C.A. 183 NOTES (Continued) but whi ch was moved to the Alla danza tcdesca or Op. 130. Here the effect is even m o re overt and col orful. The third move ment ref ers di r ectly t o Beethoven' s illness in 1825. It was l abelled by Beethoven originally in French "Chant De reconnaissanc e, en style l ydique, offert a l a Divinite, par un convalescent." It is in Lied form, st r ophic , with three va ri ed strophes and two intervening, cont rasting, refrains. The Lydian mode is a scale F-F , with B natural instead or B flat. The effect is a curious one, a kind or enforced inactivity (which it indeed desc ribes). The refr ains (in normal D major) are l abelled also Neue Kraft fühlend (feeling of new strength). The l ast strophe l abe lled "with most intimate sentiment• varie s the original in such a wa y as t o provide subtle and curious links to the materials of the first move ment. The comparison t o the equall y autobiogr aphical s l ow movement or the piano Sonat a Op. 110 (which al so conce rns itself with an illness and conval escence) is inescapabl e. The Finale begins Alla Marcia - the march serves as fanfare introduction-invoc ation (an el ement, it will be observed that is absent fro m its proper pl ace, the opening of the fi r st m ovement) . lt i s connected by a passage or recitativo dec l amation (Violin I) , reminiscent of the Ninth Symphony, to the finale prope r , a Rondo or Dio nysian abandon. Program design by William Mihalko J f � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1960's - present Title A name given to the resource Binghamton University Music Department Tape Recordings Subject The topic of the resource Concerts ; Instrumental music ; Live sound recordings Description An account of the resource Binghamton University Music Department recordings is an audio collection of concerts and recitals given on campus by students, faculty, and outside musical groups. The physical collection consists of reel-to-reel tapes, cassette tapes, and compact discs. The recordings <a href="https://suny-bin.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Binghamton%20University%20Music%20Department%20tape%20recordings&amp;tab=LibraryCatalog&amp;search_scope=MyInstitution&amp;vid=01SUNY_BIN:01SUNY_BIN&amp;mode=basic&amp;offset=0&amp;conVoc=false">have been catalogued</a> and are located in <a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/libraries/about/special-collections/">Special Collections</a>. In addition, the collection includes copies of programmes. <br /><br />The Libraries have begun making some of the collections available digitally on campus. These recordings are restricted to the Binghamton University Community. Please contact Special Collections for questions regarding access off campus.<br />Email:&nbsp;<a href="mailto:speccoll@binghamton.edu">speccoll@binghamton.edu</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: PDF / Rosetta PDF with Rosetta audio/video link Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 3 sound tape reels Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 23:10 40:12 19:35 27:32 OHMS Object URL https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE60285 Streaming Audio Streaming URL <a href="https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE60285"> Winter Series Recital</a> Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Winter Series Recital, January 11, 1967 Subject The topic of the resource Concerts Instrumental music Live sound recordings Description An account of the resource Beethoven quartets. Held at 8:15 pm, Jan. 11, 1967, Harpur College Theater. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Guarneri Quartet Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1967-01-11 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This digital recording may only be used for educational purposes. Please cite as: Binghamton University Music Department tape recordings, Special Collections, Binghamton University Libraries, Binghamton Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770-1827 State University of New York at Binghamton. Department of Music. Type The nature or genre of the resource sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Winter Series Recital 1967-1-11.pdf https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/83ea3b72d65734b44da573f76f13e06e.pdf 9237516ef2bfe180f93a549a013a4771 PDF Text Text �The DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC presents THERE WILL BE A RECEPTION FOR MISS PORTNEY IN THE FACULTY LOUNGE FOLLOWING HER RECITAL. SONATA NO. 17 IN D MAJOR, K. 576 Allegro Adagio Allegretto SONATA IN A MINOR, OP. 164 Allegro ma non troppo Allegretto, quasi Andantino Allegro vivace Des Abends (Evening) Aufschwung(Soaring) Warum? (Why?) Grillen(Whims) In der Nacht (In the Night) Fabel (Fable) Traumes W - irren (Dreams Visions) Ende vom Lied (The End of the Story) �THIS EVENING'S ARTIST Arlene Portney, pianist of Meadowbrook, Pennsylvania, began her recital training and has been appearing before the public ever since. ship studenttheat years Instituteof MM uusicin Philadelphia. CurtisThat G Major with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Academy of Music. with the Robin Hood Dell Orchestraat the Robin ltood Dell inPhiladelphia (home for the Philadelphia Orchestra during July of each year). Since then she has appeared with the Philadelphia Orchesthe Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and NewYork area. other andtelevision music Anshel Brusilow, many recitals the of the newly director formed Chamber Symphony of Philadelphia has hosted several television programs in which Arlene hasappeared. At the age of eleven,Arlene gave her first full-length evening c c ert performing an entireconcerto with orchestra ,n addition to recital works. At the age of fifteen, Arlene graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music - one of the youngest to hold this distinction. That summer she attended the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, France, 1n master classes with Arthur Rubinstein, Mlle Nadia Boulanger, Clifford Curzon, Robert and Jean Casadesus. She was selected to perform for these great artists andclosedthe summer recital conductoa This past summer was spent in master classes with Jean Casadesus at the State University of New York at Binghamton. Arlene, now 17 years old, is a scholarship student at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City, and is studying with Sascha Gorodnitzki. This year promises to be an exciting one, for Arlene will be performing in anumber of concerts throughout the East. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1960's - present Title A name given to the resource Binghamton University Music Department Tape Recordings Subject The topic of the resource Concerts ; Instrumental music ; Live sound recordings Description An account of the resource Binghamton University Music Department recordings is an audio collection of concerts and recitals given on campus by students, faculty, and outside musical groups. The physical collection consists of reel-to-reel tapes, cassette tapes, and compact discs. The recordings <a href="https://suny-bin.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Binghamton%20University%20Music%20Department%20tape%20recordings&amp;tab=LibraryCatalog&amp;search_scope=MyInstitution&amp;vid=01SUNY_BIN:01SUNY_BIN&amp;mode=basic&amp;offset=0&amp;conVoc=false">have been catalogued</a> and are located in <a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/libraries/about/special-collections/">Special Collections</a>. In addition, the collection includes copies of programmes. <br /><br />The Libraries have begun making some of the collections available digitally on campus. These recordings are restricted to the Binghamton University Community. Please contact Special Collections for questions regarding access off campus.<br />Email:&nbsp;<a href="mailto:speccoll@binghamton.edu">speccoll@binghamton.edu</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: PDF / Rosetta PDF with Rosetta audio/video link Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 sound tape reels Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 26:42 40 57 OHMS Object URL https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE59509 Streaming Audio Streaming URL <a href="https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE59509"> Piano Recital Arlene Portney</a> Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Piano Recital Arlene Portney, January 25, 1967 Description An account of the resource Works by Schumann and Scarlatti. Held Jan. 25, 1967. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Portney, Arlene Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1967-01-25 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Schumann, Robert, 1810-1856 Scarlatti, Domenico, 1685-1757 State University of New York at Binghamton. Department of Music. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Piano Recital Arlene Portney.pdf Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1960's - present Title A name given to the resource Binghamton University Music Department Tape Recordings Subject The topic of the resource Concerts ; Instrumental music ; Live sound recordings Description An account of the resource Binghamton University Music Department recordings is an audio collection of concerts and recitals given on campus by students, faculty, and outside musical groups. The physical collection consists of reel-to-reel tapes, cassette tapes, and compact discs. The recordings <a href="https://suny-bin.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Binghamton%20University%20Music%20Department%20tape%20recordings&amp;tab=LibraryCatalog&amp;search_scope=MyInstitution&amp;vid=01SUNY_BIN:01SUNY_BIN&amp;mode=basic&amp;offset=0&amp;conVoc=false">have been catalogued</a> and are located in <a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/libraries/about/special-collections/">Special Collections</a>. In addition, the collection includes copies of programmes. <br /><br />The Libraries have begun making some of the collections available digitally on campus. These recordings are restricted to the Binghamton University Community. Please contact Special Collections for questions regarding access off campus.<br />Email:&nbsp;<a href="mailto:speccoll@binghamton.edu">speccoll@binghamton.edu</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Universal Viewer / Rosetta Rosetta audio media Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 3 sound tape reels Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 22:59 35:31 22:30 OHMS Object URL https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE59506 Streaming Audio Streaming URL <a href="https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE59506">Harpur College Orchestra Concert</a> Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Harpur College Orchestra Concert Subject The topic of the resource Concerts Description An account of the resource Works by Hayden, Mennin, Beethoven. Held 8:15 pm, January 29, 1967, Harpur College Theater. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Harpur College Orchestra Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1967-01-29 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This digital recording may only be used for educational purposes. Please cite as: Binghamton University Music Department tape recordings, Special Collections, Binghamton University Libraries, Binghamton Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Haydn, Joseph, 1732-1809 Mennin, Peter Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770-1827 State University of New York at Binghamton. Department of Music. Type The nature or genre of the resource sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 39091020059394 39091020058909 39091020058958 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/56261ed1cddd0d0aaf792b9c0a40aea8.pdf eceaff114b29a661aa168aee13c2bd26 PDF Text Text CONCERT THE HARPUR COLLEGE WIND ENSEMBLE �OFNEW STATE UNI VEHSITY YORK AT BINCHAMTON Tl-I E DEPAHTMENT OF M USI C presents TI·IE Harpur College Wind Ensemble ROBERT WERNE .R, Conductor SU ND AY, FEBH UAHY 5, 1967, 8: 15 P.M. l·IAllP UR T H EAT ER PROGRAM Norwegian March .................................... Johannes Hanssen "Valdres" First Suite in þÿE&m .............................................. .................... Gustav Holst Chaconne, Intermezzo, March .... Louis Jadin Symphonic for Band . T ra.uersinfo nie . ...................................... Richard Wagner Chester O verture ......................................................... William Schuman - INTERMISSION - . . Vittorio Giannini Fantasia for Band . Serenade No. 12 in C Minor ...................... Wolfgang Amadeus Allegro, Andante, Minuetto in Canonc, Allegro Mozart David Vittam and Geoffrey Barron - Oboe Candace Duncan and Arthur Abrahams - C larinet Tim Sm ith and Faith \ Vagncr - French hom Steve Walker and Dennis Williams - Bassoon Incantation and Dance ........................................ John Barnes Chance evening's performers witol thebe held in A RECEPTION honoring this the Faculty Lounge adjacent follo wi11g the concert. The audience is cordially invited to attend. �PROGRAM NOTES The Wind Ensemble as we know it today came into being through the efforts of Frederick Fennell at the Eastman School of Music in t he early 1950's. Mr. Fennell crea ted a wind and percussion organization with a basic instrumentation from which all ty pes of wind and percussion ensembles could be derived in almost countless combinations. Basically the instrumentation of this wind group is the same as that which developed in the late Nineteenth Century as the wind and percussion section of the large romantic symphony orchestra. By the use of various combinations within the \Vind Ensemble the conductor has at his disposal the resources, with but few exceptions, for all the great music written fo r wind instruments from the Sixteenth Century to the form idable contributions of our leading contemporary composers. The literature serenade of for th e Wind Ensemble is virtual ly limitless and it Mozart, early band military of Hanssen and music of Jadin a and Wagner, the examples of composer Holst, strains the marchin Schuman This medium reflected by the compositions of to wind and offers the listen cussion playing which can now have appeal even fo r the music critic who fo nncrly may have denounced bands fo r their unwield iness or saccharine pedestrian taste. T he \Vind Ensemble is not a replacement for the traditional Concert Band, but rather an important supplemen t to the American band program which seeks a vital means of musical expression. With this rationale for the Wind Ensemble our program was chosen to show some of the diversified approaches, through the centuries, in writing for wind instruments. At the tum of the Twentieth Century, the wind band began to change its idiom from one of primarily military and functionalintended ceremonial music major works in this newly evolving literature was the First Suite for Band in þÿE&m by Gustav Holst, composed in 1909. AJI of the musical material for the three movements is taken from the opening Chaconne theme. Its development throughout the composition shows a composer of un- the common technique who with applies awareness skill. It is more than fi tting that this work has been called "the authentic projenitor and fo undation stone of the modern repertoire of concert music for band." The Symphonic fo r Band by Jadin is a product of the Fren ch Revolutionary period in which the wind music showed a combination of its military background and the existing classical style.like Quitethe un- Viennese class �th.is time this "Symphonic" turns out to be no more than a one movement sonata fo nn . It was written for a small wind band as typical of the period. In contrast, the Trauersinfonie of Richard Wagner com• posed in 1844, fo r the fu neral cortege of Carl Maria von Weber, uses a much larger wind ensemble than utilized by Jadin. This music based composed Century. directly for the stands as one of the few significant works T he Serenade in C minor is an unusually profound work by comparison wi th most of the other works in this fo rm written for wind instruments by either Mozart or his contemporaries. It was written in July, 1784, th e same month as his "Haffner'' Sym phony. 1t is interesting to note that some of the most deeply moving music that Mozaart ever wrote was written in the key of C minor and it tJ1crefore must notby accident thathe turned toTheused with t key instruments in telling writing thi Serenade. to achieve an interplay of both a very stringent quality, particularly his Mozartian lyrical motifs. The Serenade is scored for pairs of instruments as they were used in the classical symphony orcl1estra. The remainder of the program is devoted to three contemporary works. The Fantasia fo r Band is perfonned in memoriam of Vittorio Giannini who died November 28, 1966. Mr. Giannini was a composer and music educator of the first order. His effect upon t he band music of the past decade has been of importance in bringing to this literature a significant number of compositions in the dramatic neo-romantic tradition. This Fantasia composed in 1962 is a good example of hi s works fo r band . Both the Chester Overture and the Incantation and Dance make effective use of tJ1e percussion section for striking tone colors and rhythmic effects. The fonner is based on a tune appeari ng in 1778 in a book of tunes and anthems composed by William Billings. Chester became the most popular song of the American Hcvolution, being sung arou nd the campfires of the Continen tal Anny and played by fifers on the march. It was the unofficial national antJ1cm of the Revolutionary pe riod . The final work is a product of tJ1e Ford Foundation Young Composer's Project and was written fo r the Greensboro, North Carolina Senior High School Band where Mr. Chance was a composer in residence. Hs use of the tona l resources of the entire wind and percussion spectrum in the modem band are exceptional. Its relationship to the Rite of Spring must be more than accidental in its dependence on the polyrhythms and elementary hannonizations of th.is style known as "primitivism." Program notes by Robert Werner �WIND ENSEMBLE PEHSONNEL l'iccolo Kadleck, Marsha Flute Kadleck, Marsha Shulman, Barry Gira, Debbio Fintushel, Eliot Kadum, Jo Anne Oboe Eddy, Scott Barron, Geoffrey Bassoon Arnold, Thomas Williams, Dennis þÿE&m Clarin et Duncan, Candace Clarinet Abrahams, Arthur Duncan, Candace Hymes, Allan Joffee, Monte Wurtzel, Gary Knox, Nancy Noel, Paul Villani, Susan Rejszel, Rosemary Todd, Joyce Alto Clarinet Halpern, Judy Limbacher, Honda Bass Clarinet Kingsbury, James Alto Saxophone Shapot, Susan Blakesly, Trudy Tenor Saxophone Marion, Edward Baritone Saxophone Fry, David Cornet Williams, John Kaplan, Nathan Boor, Peter Utter, Glenn Trumpet Dutcher, Douglas Jacobson, Craig French horn Maragus, Nick Smith, Tim Wagner, Faith Bogusky, Joyce Baritone Baldon, John Beach, Ole Trombone Starr, Michael Sprague, Andrew Sullivan, Grant String Bass Blanton, Lynn Tuba Leiden, Steven Smith, Bill Prensky, Stephen Timpani Crowe, David Percussion Granger, Christian Ale...:andcr, Donald Cordon, Jeff Mallinson, Gary � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1960's - present Title A name given to the resource Binghamton University Music Department Tape Recordings Subject The topic of the resource Concerts ; Instrumental music ; Live sound recordings Description An account of the resource Binghamton University Music Department recordings is an audio collection of concerts and recitals given on campus by students, faculty, and outside musical groups. The physical collection consists of reel-to-reel tapes, cassette tapes, and compact discs. The recordings <a href="https://suny-bin.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Binghamton%20University%20Music%20Department%20tape%20recordings&amp;tab=LibraryCatalog&amp;search_scope=MyInstitution&amp;vid=01SUNY_BIN:01SUNY_BIN&amp;mode=basic&amp;offset=0&amp;conVoc=false">have been catalogued</a> and are located in <a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/libraries/about/special-collections/">Special Collections</a>. In addition, the collection includes copies of programmes. <br /><br />The Libraries have begun making some of the collections available digitally on campus. These recordings are restricted to the Binghamton University Community. Please contact Special Collections for questions regarding access off campus.<br />Email:&nbsp;<a href="mailto:speccoll@binghamton.edu">speccoll@binghamton.edu</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: PDF / Rosetta PDF with Rosetta audio/video link Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 3 sound tape reels Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 34:25 28:54 12:23 OHMS Object URL https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE59484 Streaming Audio Streaming URL <a href="https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE59484">Harpur College Wind Ensemble Recital</a> Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Harpur College Wind Ensemble Recital, February 5, 1967 Subject The topic of the resource Concerts Description An account of the resource Works of Hanssen, Wagner, Schuman, Mozart. Held at 8:15 pm, February 5, 1967, Harpur College Theater. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Harpur College Wind Ensemble Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1967-02-05 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Hanssen, Johannes, 1874-1967 Wagner, Richard, 1813-1883 Schumann, Robert, 1810-1856 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 1756-1791 State University of New York at Binghamton. Department of Music. Type The nature or genre of the resource sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Harpur College Wind Ensemble Recital.pdf https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/b70d96ca2e89db8b657cac902b3a1cd5.pdf abd1c04a71b24a3c3ae7c1eba9f5171a PDF Text Text gSQ uarter tring Guarn eri rHarpuSeason ries Winter Se 66-67 �Sunday, February 12, 1967 8: 15 p.m. College T heater L.v . BEETHOVEN QUARTET in B - FLA T MAJOR, Op . 18, No. 6 Alleg ro con br i o Adagio, ma non troppo Sc'her zo, Allegro La Malinconia Adagio: Allegretto quasi Allegro QUARTET in F MINOR, Op. 95 Allegro con brio Allegretto ma non troppo Allegro assai vivace ma serioso Lar ghetto espressivo, Allegretto agitato intermission QUARTET in C MINOR, Op . 18, No. 4 Allegro ma non tanto Sc herzo Andante scherzoso quasi Allegretto Menuetto: Allegre tto Allegro QUARTET in F MAJOR, Op. 135 Allegretto Vivace Lento assai , cantant e e tranquillo Der Schwer gefasste Entschluss; Grave, ma non troppo tratto, Allegro A RECEPTION honoring the Quartet will be held by the residents of Johnson Hall in the Lounge of their dormitory immediately fol lowing the performance. The audience is cordially invited to attend. Johnson Hall is situated directly across Center Drive from the Student Center B uilding. �Notes by Wi lli an, Kl enz EA !though the last in the series as published, the B-flat quartet was al most certainly not the last composed. The work presents a curious mixture of styles and l ooks both backward and forward. The firs t movement is a sonata movement of the most regular pre• Haydn construction. Many of its details are reminiscent of the style o! the Mannheimorchestralcomposers;theopemng theme is a vers ion or the 'Rocket' and the heavily defined, tutti cadences also show their infl uence. However, the farrea ching modulations and key references bespeak the young master, especially in the way they transform the rather banal march - like second subject and l et it "break ranks" for a spirited skirmish before bemg marshal l ed into formation again by the reappearance of the efficient martinet-grenadtersergeant-like, first subJect (end of exposition and end of movement). The second movement is a si mple ABAformwith a s ho rt coda based on both the mes. What is astonishing is the filigree-like figuration which, both on the page and in the ea r , reminds one of the s l ow movements of t he very latest work s. We hear things that are to figure in the last cello sonata (Op. 102 No. 2) - tne dotted figures in bar 13 - and others that will appear in the variations of the Archduke Trio. The Scherzo isanotherofthe l onghst of comic pieces o ri ginal l y called alla Zoppa in early Italian instrumental music - the effect is one to the opposi tion of rhythms of two and of three and resembles the uneven progress of two unequally-gaited individuals, who nonethel ess insist upon conversing. The Trio, in contrast , is a moment of the lightest and easiest movement before the frog march resumes. The last movement, La Malinconia (Mel ancholy) alternates a slow rntroduct1011 and interludes of a kind of vexa!Lous, exasperated hypersensnivity with lighter but far from jocose principal sections. The effect 1s febrile and hectic and only in the last moments does a cl ear gust of vitality dispel the sultry atmosphere. 0 The sketches for the Quartet in F minor Op. 95 appear in the summer of 1810, following the composition of the incidental theatrical music for Goethe's "Egmont,"finished 1n June. The autograph o!thefinishedworkls dated October 1810, and bears the superscription Quartetto serioso. It resumes the unusual tonality, F nunor,ofthe most considerable part - the Overture - of the Egmont music and also the stormy atmosphere of that work which deals with the cumulative catastrophe of Egmont's life which is a story of �heroic intransigency and tragic Issue - condemnation and execution. For the eighteenth century the key of F minor denoted deep, resigned o r gentle melancholy, and it was so classified and treated by theorists and co mposers . As in "Egmont" Beethoven here augments and transforms that effect by the use of convulsive forceful thematic material suggest111g the dangerous ferocity of the trapped, overdriven man who is aroused to a super-state of will and f orce, but yet with a dream of l onged-for peace and completion for whi ch immolation is not too great a price. We see here the emergent concept of the nineteenth century transcendent super-man , the cult of genius, which will appear in works of Nietzsche and Wagner. The quartet really marks a definitive step toward the Romanticism which will suffuse the final, third period of Beethoven's creativity . The second movement is cast In the far more idiomatic string key of D major - a start ling relat ionship to the precee ding. The effect is of sudden warm se r enity, a kind of exalted state of grace following the alarums and excu r sions. The opening, a misleadingly simpl e-seeming scale for the 'cello is a kind of motto or escutcheon which r eturns at key structural points of the movement which combines the features of a set of variations, a fugue and a sonata movement. The coda reaffirms the serene exaltation and raises it 10 a new level. The scherzo-like third movement returns to the original tonality of F mmor and contrasts a very mordant, telling figure, vigorous and truculent with a smooth, gliding Laendler-hke alternate section which, in Lts second appearance (bar 145) is, hke the second movement, in D Major. The atmosphere 1s strained and even marked by exasperation. in F minor, begins in the The last movement, again melancholy mood appropriate to the key, which givesway to an agitation from which the resoluuon and endeavor of the first movement seem to have disappeared and are replaced by a kind of desperation induced by the short, breakless figures. Gradually, the equilibrium 1s restored and the movement ends with a rush of returmng confidence and triumph. D l.1 Beethoven's favorite "mood" key, the first movement of Op. 18 No. 4 marks theearhest appearance of the atmosphere which will have its most complete expression in Op. 95. Here the emotional tension 1s sustained by a buoyant drive and relieved by materials and rhythms which although play, and fun strenuous have the quality of exhilaration, against which the serious first theme seems to be held as a mask - the whole has a very theatrical quality. In the second movement Beethoven has audaciously com• Continued on back page �State University of New York at Binghamton HARPUR COLLEGE T he Department o f M u sic p resents TH E GUARN ERI STRING Q UARTET (in residence) Arn old Steinhardt violin John Dalley vio lin Michael Tree vi ola Da vid Soyer cello NOTES {Continued) b i ned the fun ction of sl ow mo vement and Scherzo In one of his ve r y finest move ment s. Its r estrained grace, wit, and great el egance have endeared it to all fromthe fir st. It ma y even see m easyto pla y; oothl ng could be furt he r f rom the truth. The economy a nd finesse of the writi ng are dime nsions which themselve s lead the playe r to gr e ate r and gr eater efforts or concentration and attention and the "surface" of the music is so deli cate that the s lightest misc alculation of s pacing or acce nt can break its t ensi on. The nature of Scherzo i s such that a true dynami c dance fo r m is needed and t hi s is suppli ed by l he Menuetto. T he l ast movement has much the fla vo r or a Haydn movement usi ng Hungari an materials - t he r ese mbl ance t o t he Gy psy Rondo will be apparent - syncopations , ab r upt Juxtapositions of major and minor, et c . It r ounds out t he cycl e of mo vement s with appropriatel y Dionysian materials without undertaki ng any we 1ghty p r opos it1ons and expl oits the minor key ro r its col oristi c effects rathe r t han its mood. D T he last or Beethoven's st r ing quar t ets, Op. 135 in F majo r , w as c r eat ed i n t he Summer and Fall of 1826. T he first public performance was In M ar ch, 1828. T he work is sho r t but concen t r ated. A f riend of Beethoven observed t hat he had delibe r atel y held down its l ength because t he publis he r paid hi m in me r e florins i nste ad or the agr eed aristroc rati c ducats ; "he sends short ducats, he' ll get a sho r t quart et • was the typi cal mo ck-c yni cal r ejoi nder . The fo r m i s seve r el y classical. A sonata movement Allegrettousing nontheatrical mat er i als i s followed by a mo st c haract e r i sti c Scherzo, Vivace. The sl ow mo ve ment , Lento assai, cantante e tranquillo cons ists or two parallel st rophes of Lied form. T he l ast movement bear s the supersc ripti on, Der Schwer gefassteEntschluss, (the difficult decis mn). I n t he original part s copied by Beetho ven himself, he has inserted beneath t he notes the text Muss es s cm? (Must 11 be?) whi ch we hear at the begi nning, Grave Crom t he viol a and ce llo, and the ans wer , Es muss semi (It must be!) which t he vi olins repl y , Allegro. Two stories, either o r even both of wh ich may be true, are given f or t he ori gin of t hese words. We have documentary evidence his conve rsa t ion notebook, 1823, w here hi s housekeepe r wrot e, "Today i s Saturda y be." This perempto r y, sybilline utterance of the cook and I must have money. It must apparently amused Beethoven and it ma y have become a househol d j oke . In the Jul y .. . he l aughed and asked, ' must it be?'" Then book of 1826, a fri end, Hol z, writes ". i n t he Dece mber book ther e appear in Beetho ven's ow n hand the musical fragments w hi ch are used in t he qua.rtet. Hol z al so provides a sho rt c atch fo r fou r men's voices using the same material. T his appears to have been occas ioned by the same words Es muss sc m, used by Beethoven in anot her connection (the first pe r f ormance of Op. 130), and who was then amused t o find hi mseU as o r acular as his cook. Beet hoven' s sense of humo r and unvar ying ability t o percei ve the l arge withi n the small and take fresh strength fr om even the tri vial has not failed him even among th e tribulations of his l ast year. This was, as he knew and sai d , his l ast quartet - "a diffi cu lt decision," whi ch he faces with yet one more prof ession of faith and abundant humanity. Program design by William Mihalko � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1960's - present Title A name given to the resource Binghamton University Music Department Tape Recordings Subject The topic of the resource Concerts ; Instrumental music ; Live sound recordings Description An account of the resource Binghamton University Music Department recordings is an audio collection of concerts and recitals given on campus by students, faculty, and outside musical groups. The physical collection consists of reel-to-reel tapes, cassette tapes, and compact discs. The recordings <a href="https://suny-bin.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Binghamton%20University%20Music%20Department%20tape%20recordings&amp;tab=LibraryCatalog&amp;search_scope=MyInstitution&amp;vid=01SUNY_BIN:01SUNY_BIN&amp;mode=basic&amp;offset=0&amp;conVoc=false">have been catalogued</a> and are located in <a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/libraries/about/special-collections/">Special Collections</a>. In addition, the collection includes copies of programmes. <br /><br />The Libraries have begun making some of the collections available digitally on campus. These recordings are restricted to the Binghamton University Community. Please contact Special Collections for questions regarding access off campus.<br />Email:&nbsp;<a href="mailto:speccoll@binghamton.edu">speccoll@binghamton.edu</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: PDF / Rosetta PDF with Rosetta audio/video link Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 3 sound tape reels Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 21:02 23:46 25:44 Streaming Audio Streaming URL <a href="https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE59477"> Guarneri Quartet Recital&nbsp;</a> Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Guarneri Quartet Recital, February 12, 1967 Subject The topic of the resource Concerts Description An account of the resource Works of Beethoven. Held 8:15 pm, February 12, 1967 at Harpur College Theater. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Guarneri Quartet Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1967-02-12 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770-1827 State University of New York at Binghamton. Department of Music. Type The nature or genre of the resource sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Guarneri Quartet Recital, February 12, 1967.pdf Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1960's - present Title A name given to the resource Binghamton University Music Department Tape Recordings Subject The topic of the resource Concerts ; Instrumental music ; Live sound recordings Description An account of the resource Binghamton University Music Department recordings is an audio collection of concerts and recitals given on campus by students, faculty, and outside musical groups. The physical collection consists of reel-to-reel tapes, cassette tapes, and compact discs. The recordings <a href="https://suny-bin.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Binghamton%20University%20Music%20Department%20tape%20recordings&amp;tab=LibraryCatalog&amp;search_scope=MyInstitution&amp;vid=01SUNY_BIN:01SUNY_BIN&amp;mode=basic&amp;offset=0&amp;conVoc=false">have been catalogued</a> and are located in <a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/libraries/about/special-collections/">Special Collections</a>. In addition, the collection includes copies of programmes. <br /><br />The Libraries have begun making some of the collections available digitally on campus. These recordings are restricted to the Binghamton University Community. Please contact Special Collections for questions regarding access off campus.<br />Email:&nbsp;<a href="mailto:speccoll@binghamton.edu">speccoll@binghamton.edu</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Universal Viewer / Rosetta Rosetta audio media Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 3 sound tape reels Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 27:30 23:00 33:49 OHMS Object URL https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE59474 Streaming Audio Streaming URL <a href="https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE59474">Community Symphony Society Concert</a> Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Community Symphony Society Concert, February 18, 1967 Subject The topic of the resource Concerts Description An account of the resource Works of Chansson, Wagner, Karl Korte. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Community Symphony Society Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1967-02-18 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Wagner, Richard, 1813-1883 Korte, Karl State University of New York at Binghamton. Department of Music. Type The nature or genre of the resource sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 39091020093351 39091020093401 39091020093450