And in today's mail......

....Robert Lee Kendrick's Winter Skin.  He is the husband of my friend and colleague Delana M.S. Kendrick. I have been awaiting this book.

http://mainstreetragbookstore.com/?product=winter-skin

A Great Month

     Not only because of my birthday,, as well as those of my son and brother (with my wife's and daughter-in-law's following in June),  not even because of the Pittsburgh Priates good start in baseball, and not even the Pittsburgh Penguins being in the NHL's Stanley Cup, but Places and Times Times and/or I have been reviewed or interviewed.

     More details are available on earlier posts, but I was a guest on Parker J. Cole's radio show, was interviewed on Joanna Kurowska's and Carol Kauffman's webpages,had some more reviews on Amazon, etc., had a review in Jasper, the Midlands' of South Carolina) leading arts magazine, and am working on another webpage interview as well as some personal appearances.

    Through all this, along with the end-of-school doings, I find time to read and write.

     I cannot wait until June!

"Places and Times" Reviewed in Jasper Magazine

     Jasper is a Columbia, South Carolina-based arts magazine that appears every two months (six times a year). Last summer Ed Madden, friend and Poet Laureate of Columbia, offered to take a copy over to see of they would like to review it. Thanks again, Ed!

     While I have a file containing the article, the easiest thing would be to wait for the electronic version to post. Here is a link to  their Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/jaspercolumbia/

And on the web:  
http://jaspercolumbia.net/

My e-mail is aturfa@aol.com   Please put Jasper in the tagline so I do not think that you are an attorney representing a deceased millionaire relative I never knew, a young woman thinking that I am lonely, or in need of discounted medication.

Reading, Pa, a Socialist Town before the Bern!

Reading, Pennsylvania, at one time was the shining example of Socialism in the United States. The “S-word” has been and will be bandied about in the current 2016 election imbroglio, where many people think it is  a relatively new term.

     On the contrary! Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Bridgeport, Connecticut, and Reading were places where Socialists enjoyed electoral success. Milwaukee and Reading has large numbers of German immigrants and their descendants. About two million Germans left the Wilhelmine Reich from 1871-1900, and many of them were Social Democrats (among them my great-grandfather, Peter Friederich Gross, who became a Knight of Labor in Allegheny County, PA.)

   In 1901, the Socialist Party was established in Reading. While the party suffered on account of its opposition to Us involvement in World War I, afterwards it enjoyed success in several places. With reference to Reading, there were Socialists as mayor, city council, county officials, and in the legislature.

   John Henry Stump, mayor several times, urged Socialists to focus on bread-and-butter issues instead of abstract intellectual debate. Incidentally, Stump was a solid citizen, and a member of the Evangelical Congregational Church. His administration brought decent drinking water to Reading. Americans took that for granted until the crisis in Flint, Michigan.

    I will post a few links. My seminary internship was at St. John’s Lutheran in Reading during 1979-1980. Several friends still keep in touch with me. Reading is immortalized as “Brewer” in John Updike’s Rabbit novels. As for Socialist memories, there were not many from my time there. I do remember going to a Democratic function in the Spartaco Club, with murals bearing vivid colors and Italian slogans and old-timers drinking beer out of those small glasses favored by older establishments.

http://www.berkshistory.org/multimedia/articles/the-reading-socialists-in-retrospect/

http://www.ragingchickenpress.org/2012/02/15/reading-pa-a-socialist-town/

http://explorepahistory.com/hmarker.php?markerId=1-A-343

Bob Dylan, Part Two

   I provide a link to the lyrics of Love Minus Zero/No Limit to underscore the poetry of them. He writes to his muse and first wife, Sara Lowndes, prior to their marriage.


http://songmeanings.com/songs/view/108676/

A video with lyrics, and Donovan Leitch hanging around:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9w1mCevu3sU

This one needs no commentary

My friend, colleague, and next-door neighbor from back home (He;s from Wheeling, WV, I'm from the SW Pennsylvania) posted this. I added Updike's poem "Ex-Basketball Player" I post a link to that in case it did not carry over.

https://www.facebook.com/BWestbrookSports/photos/a.522038074548245.1073741828.521713047914081/1035024596582921/?type=3&theater

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/43489

Happy 75th Birthday, Bob Dylan!

   True, he was born Robert Zimmerman in Duluth, Minnesota, and took his stage name from Dylan Thomas. His stature has been beyond iconic for decades now, and he has a new release available. Below is a link to his homepage, and you can red all about it, and so much more, there.

   In high school some of us debated with our teachers about how Dylan was a poet. A sympathetic response was, "I know you want him to be, Art, but....". While not all of his lyrics are poetry, quite a few are. On my Collections I have his "Gates of Eden", for example.

   Dylan was not afraid to break new artistic ground, even if people scorned him for going electric and calling him a Judas. I find it admirable that he goes into uncharted waters. When in Nashville, we looked down the street from Studio B to the building where he recorded Blonde on Blonde. Neither the first nor the last folkie/rocker/whatever to be influenced by and influence Nashville, he was perhaps the most famous.

   His Chronicles, a partial autobiography, also revealed another side (pardon the pun) of Bob Dylan. He mentioned that he would have liked to have attended West Point.   General Dylan? That's heavy!

http://bobdylan.com/