International Women's Day: #ThinkEqual

March 8th marks the 108th anniversary of International Women's Day. The United Nations' theme for International Women's Day 2019 is "Think Equal, Build Smart, Innovate for Change." The video above features remarks by UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka as well as the UN Secretary-General António Guterres and other UN leaders.

First celebrated on March 19, 1911 by more than one million people in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland after a proposal by Clara Zetkin [1857-1933] in 1910 at the second International Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen, International Women's Day is now observed in many nations throughout the world.

The United Nations first began celebrating March 8 as International Women's Day during International Women's Year in 1975, and in 1977 approved a resolution proclaiming a United Nations Day for Women's Rights and International Peace for member states.

WFMU: Freeform Station of the Nation

Love free-form radio? Then consider supporting independent station WFMU during its annual fundraising Marathon that runs March 2-17, 2019. WFMU first hit the airwaves sixty years ago on April 24, 1958 at the now-defunct Upsala College and has never looked back. Currently based in Jersey City, New Jersey, WFMU broadcasts at 91.1 Mhz in New York and via a second signal at 90.1 Mhz in the Hudson Valley. WFMU has long been an Internet pioneer, and has multiple online streams, as well as an extensive archive of past shows.

What is free-form radio you might ask? WFMU describes itself as follows:

WFMU's programming ranges from flat-out uncategorizable strangeness to rock and roll, experimental music, 78 RPM Records, jazz, psychedelia, hip-hop, electronica, hand-cranked wax cylinders, punk rock, gospel, exotica, R&B, radio improvisation, cooking instructions, classic radio airchecks, found sound, dopey call-in shows, interviews with obscure radio personalities and notable science-world luminaries, spoken word collages, Andrew Lloyd Webber soundtracks in languages other than English as well as country and western music. 

And because the station is listener-supported, WFMU DJs have for years maintained complete autonomy and control over their own programming, which is extraordinarily eclectic. Check out the current WFMU audio smorgasbord, and see for yourself.

Note: The image above is the Common Curator's antiquarian twist on WFMU's classic "Woof-Moo" logo designed by Aaron Taylor Waldman. The premiums for this year's marathon can be viewed here.

A Student Free Speech Landmark: Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District (1969)

Fifty years ago today, on February 24, 1969, the U.S. Supreme Court in a landmark decision held that First Amendment free speech rights applied to students in public schools. The case, Tinker et al. v. Des Moines Independent School District et al., 393 U.S. 503 (1969), was decided by a 7-2 vote, with Justice Abe Fortas delivering the majority opinion of the Court; Justices Hugo Black and John M. Harlan II each wrote dissenting opinions.

At issue was the right of several students to wear black armbands in protest against the Vietnam War and to support the Christmas truce called for by Senator Robert F. Kennedy in December 1965. The students included four members of the Tinker family (John, 15; Mary Beth, 13; Hope, 11; and Paul, 8) and Christopher Eckhardt, 16, who wore black armbands at their respective schools in the Des Moines Independent School District. Mary Beth Tinker and Eckhardt were suspended on December 16, and John Tinker on December 17. The controversy lead the Iowa Civil Liberties Union and the American Civil Liberties Union to support the suspended students, and after losing in U.S. District Court, the case was appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit, and eventually the U.S. Supreme Court, where attorney Dan L. Johnston argued for the petitioners on November 12, 1968.

In his opinion, Justice Fortas observed that:

"First Amendment rights, applied in light of the special characteristics of the school environment, are available to teachers and students. It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate. This has been the unmistakable holding of this Court for almost 50 years."

Fortas articulated further that:

"In order for the State in the person of school officials to justify prohibition of a particular expression of opinion, it must be able to show that its action was caused by something more than a mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint. Certainly where there is no finding and no showing that engaging in the forbidden conduct would 'materially and substantially interfere with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school,' the prohibition cannot be sustained."

The standard of material and substantial disruption has subsequently become known as the Tinker Test in determining free speech rights for students.

Pictured to the right are Mary Beth and John with armbands, circa March 4, 1968, when the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear their case. The armbands originally worn in protest were simple strips of black cloth, unadorned with peace symbols, as shown below by Mary Beth in a photo from December 1965.

The Tinkers have ever since remained strong advocates for free speech and civil liberties, particularly for the young. Mary Beth and John, along with other Tinker family members, guests, and students, are featured in the video above that commemorates the 50th anniversary of their landmark case. The event was held at the State Historical Museum in Des Moines on February 22, 2019, and aired on Iowa Public Television.

Happy Year of the Pig / 豬 年 快 樂 !

The image above is featured on the reverse of a 2019 Australian gold proof coin issued to commemorate the Lunar New Year. The coin was struck by the Perth Mint and has a nominal value of $15 Australian. The obverse of the coin depicts the effigy of Queen Elizabeth II, which is based on the design of Ian Rank-Broadley.

The Day the Music Died, 1959

Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson all played their last concert, which was part of the Winter Dance Party Tour, at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa. Headed out to their next gig after the show, a plane crash killed all three and the pilot, Roger Peterson, shortly after takeoff at around 1am on February 3, 1959--60 years ago today.

Musician Don McLean released the song, "American Pie," which references the tragedy, on the American Pie album in 1971. In 2017, the song was selected for the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress. The above video depicts a live performance at the BBC in 1972.

The National Film Registry Hits 750 Films

Established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, the National Film Preservation Board is an advisory body for the Librarian of Congress. The Board helps shape national film preservation planning policy, and also recommends films for the National Film Registry.

Chosen for their cultural, historic, or aesthetic significance, the Board's 25 annual selections for 2018 cover a wide gamut of genres and time periods, from such early films as Something Good--Negro Kiss and The Girl Without a Soul to such later works as The Shining and Smoke Signals. The full list for 2018 is as follows:

2000s
Brokeback Mountain (2005)

1990s
Smoke Signals (1998)
Eve's Bayou (1997)
Jurassic Park (1993)                

1980s

Broadcast News (1987)

Hairpiece: A Film for Nappy-Headed People (1984)

The Shining (1980)

1970s

Hearts and Minds (1974)     

                                                                                                           

1960s

Monterey Pop (1968)

My Fair Lady (1964)

Hud (1963)

Days of Wine and Roses (1962)

One-Eyed Jacks (1961)

1950s

Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)

Pickup on South Street (1953)

Cinderella (1950)

1940s

On the Town (1949)

The Lady from Shanghai (1947)

Leave Her to Heaven (1945)

Rebecca (1940)

1930s

The Informer (1935)                       

1920s

The Navigator (1924)                   

1910s

The Girl Without a Soul (1917)         

1900s

Dixon-Wanamaker Expedition to Crow Agency (1908)   

1890s

Something Good--Negro Kiss (1898)    

Further information on the Registry as well as the films themselves can be found on the Library of Congress' web site. All 750 films selected for the Registry since 1989 can also be browsed online. In addition, the public is encouraged to make nominations for next year's selections to the National Film Registry.

The Spirit That Moves Us Press: Morty Sklar

For those who may not know, the poet and publisher, Morty Sklar [1935-2018], died at the end of December 2018 in Jackson Heights, Queens. Morty had ridden his motorcycle out to Iowa City circa 1971, and ended up staying until 1989, when he moved back to New York City. The Common Curator met him in 1988 at a rooming house, where Morty happened to be the resident manager (the property, incidentally, was owned by W.P. Kinsella, author of Shoeless Joe, which became The Field of Dreams phenomenon). Morty was a true character, with a bottomless reservoir of stories and anecdotes, all conveyed with a pronounced New York accent that was never tempered in the slightest by nearly two decades of Iowa living. 

Morty operated The Spirit That Moves Us Press out of his then-quarters in the house, and a key element of his enterprise was a large, archaic IBM composing machine with which he electronically typeset all his books. His most notable publication was no doubt Jaroslav Seifert's The Casting of Bells (1983). In the following year Seifert won the Nobel Prize for Literature, yet was not then widely known in literary circles outside his native Czechoslavakia. Needless to say, after the prize was announced, journalists and critics from across the U.S. and abroad were scrambling to find copies of Seifert's work in English translation, and inundated Morty with book orders. Unfortunately, according to Morty's recounting, he had recently moved, and the phone company had messed up his call-forwarding request, hence he lost many potential sales as well as a good portion of once-in-a-lifetime publicity. Such are the travails of small presses! 

The Spirit That Moves Us magazine was the first thing Morty published, in 1975, and he went on to issue a number of books of poetry, fiction & essays, including: The Actualist Anthology; Nuke-Rebuke; Editor's Choice (a series); Patchwork of Dreams: Voices from the Heart of the New America; and similar collections. In addition, he published volumes by individual poets, including Seifert (several titles), local Chuck Miller, and others. His own poetry, The Smell of Life: Poems 1969-2005, was also published under the TSTMUP imprint. Morty's final book was The Ultimate Actualist Convention: A Detailed View of Iowa City Actualism in the 1970s & 1980s and Its Migration to the San Francisco Bay Area, which came out in 2017.

The Common Curator last saw Morty in the late 1990's/early 2000's at the annual Small Press Fair held in Manhattan, where they both periodically exhibited their wares after leaving Iowa. There's a lot more that could be related, of course, and for those who are interested, below are compiled various resources that touch on Morty's life and career as an author, editor, and small press publisher. He was still giving readings as of last summer, and video of that and other things can be found at his YouTube channel. 

Morty was always a New Yorker through and through, but it seemed that he nevertheless found Iowa to be fertile ground for his fertile mind, and that in the end he gave as much to the City of Literature as he harvested.

May the Spirit Move Us All in 2019!

   *  *  *  *

-- Obituary [Iowa City Press-Citizen, January 1, 2019]

-- The Spirit That Moves Us Press [established circa 1975]

-- YouTube Channel [including readings and miscellanea]

-- The Reminiscences of Morty Sklar [Phoenix House Foundation Oral History Project, Columbia University, September 25, 2014]

-- Poet & Writers Biography

-- Poetry City Actualized: A Look Back at the Birth of an Iowa City-based Literary Movement [Little Village, January 9, 2015]

-- Vibrant Tales In Small Book On Queens [New York Times article about the anthology, Patchwork of Dreams, December 7, 1996]

-- Little-Known in U.S., Nobel Poet Praised Here [New York Times article about Jaroslav Seifert, whom Sklar published the year prior, October 12, 1984]

. . . ''The Casting of Bells,'' a 64-page collection translated by Tom O'Grady and Paul Jagasich, and published in August 1983 by The Spirit That Moves Us Press in Iowa City, Iowa. Morty Sklar, who described himself yesterday as ''publisher, editor, typesetter and stamp licker'' of the press, said his is a small, independent press that publishes two books a year. He published 1,000 copies of the Seifert book, but yesterday, upon hearing the news from Sweden, he reordered 2,500 more. It is available in paperback for $6.

Earthrise, 12.24.68

Fifty years ago today, on December 24, 1968, NASA astronaut William Anders, a member of the three-person Apollo 8 crew then orbiting the moon, took the photograph above, which later came to be known as "Earthrise." It was the first time such a view of Earth had been documented by humans in space. As Anders later recounted: 

"And up came the Earth. We had had no discussion on the ground, no briefing, no instructions on what to do. I jokingly said, 'well it's not on the flight plan,' and the other two guys were yelling at me to give them cameras. I had the only color camera with a long lens. So I floated a black and white over to [Frank] Borman. I can't remember what [James] Lovell got. They were all yelling for cameras, and we started snapping away."

The iconic photo is available from NASA's website; NASA has also just released a new video describing the world's first mission to orbit the moon: "Apollo 8: Around the Moon and Back."

The Univeral Declaration of Human Rights at 70

Human Rights Day is celebrated annually on December 10 to mark the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). This year's campaign theme is Stand Up 4 Human Rights. At the recent UN event, "Good Human Rights Stories," Secretary-General António Guterres observed:

"As we mark the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we should never forget the profound progress that has been made over the decades--and, indeed, that is happening as we speak. The good stories deserve to be shared--not only to celebrate the achievements of those who made it happen. But to serve as an example and inspiration for others around the world. Just as the denial of human rights is part of the problem, the active promotion of human rights is part of the solution. So, too, is spreading the stories and the lessons of doors opened, rights secured, and victories won."

The Declaration was proclaimed on December 10, 1948 through United Nations General Assembly Resolution 217 A (III):

. . . as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.

Although not itself a binding legal document, it has "inspired more than more than 60 human rights instruments which together constitute an international standard of human rights." 

The Declaration has been translated into more than 500 languages and dialects, from Abkhaz to Zulu. The English version is available here, while other versions are available via an online database. A guide to UN Human Rights documentation as well as various related UN databases are also accessible on the UN Human Rights website. A showcase of UDHR-related materials from around the world is available here.

The Final Number of the Wapsipinicon Almanac

The latest--and final--annual installment of the eclectic Wapsipinicon Almanac is now available for purchase and perusal. Published and letterpress printed since 1988 by Timothy Fay of Route 3 Press, the present issue, as with previous numbers, features an engaging mix of essays, reviews, fiction, poetry, art, wit, and wisdom.

Number 25 can be purchased at bookstores and other establishments or by writing the publisher directly at Wapsipinicon Almanac, 19948 Shooting Star Road, Anamosa, Iowa 52205. Single copies are $9, plus $2.70 for postage; Iowa residents should also include 63-cents for sales tax.

The front cover shown here was designed by Will Thomson of Iowa City, his seventh cover overall for the almanac. A brief history of the publication can be viewed at the Almanac's website, and a video of "Linotype Operator Emeritus" Eldon Meeks in action can be viewed here.