Various Positions

A few weeks ago my father surprised me with a garage-sale gift: an old Oscar Schmidt Autoharp. Since then I've sporadically been figuring out how to play it ... the basics of which are more involved than I'd supposed. First, there's the matter of deciding how you want to hold and strum it. Here are some examples, with my own made-up titles for 'em:

A) The Mirror. I discovered this video during a fruitless attempt to find a recording of Jimmy Carter reading some of his poetry. The consolation prize, as you'll doubless agree, was more than worth it. Note the left-handed strumming, which is easiest given a tabletop-layout, but feels just wrong since I already play cello and guitar in the standard poses.

B) The Bridge-Strummer. Difficult on my particular harp, which has the maximum amount of buttons/keys, narrowing the target era quite a bit. Still, can't argue with June Carter Cash:

C) The Crossover. Just plain awkward:

D) The Upright Reverse Half-Piano Hug. This is the one I've settled on. Earl Scruggs and Mother Maybelle Cash.

Wonder Bread and the Mountaintop

For the past few weeks I've been reading a collection of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speeches, essays, sermons, books, and other writings. Obviously, plenty of inspring and moving stuff (what else did I expect?) — and also, given the nature of public speaking, a lot of repetition. It's a delight seeing phrases and pieces from the "I Have a Dream" speech popping up years ahead of time.

One thing that's surpised me is the extent to which MLK quotes from white intellectuals—James Russel Lowell, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Paul Tillich, Victor Hugo. I'm not sure if I can recall him quoting Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, or Booker T. Washington. I wonder if this was because of philosophical differences with those African-American luminaries, or more that he consciously needed, in speaking to the majority culture, to win their trust by referencing majority figures?

I did have a kind of amusing surprise as I read the text of King's final, deeply prophetic "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech—delivered the night before his assasination. I was familiar with the moving, slightly eerie climax, which is in the video clip above. But earlier on in the speech, he's sort of rambling along about the latest boycott the SCLC is supporting:

And so, as a result of this, we are asking you tonight, to go out and tell your neighbors not to buy Coca-Cola in Memphis. Go by and tell them not to buy Sealtest milk. Tell them not to buy—what is the other bread?—Wonder Bread. And what is the other bread company, Jesse? Tell them not to buy Hart's bread. As Jesse Jackson has said, up to now, only the garbage men have been feeling pain; now we must kind of redistribute the pain.

For me those two elements—Jesse Jackson and Wonder Bread were this strange, almost jarring intrusion of the present-day into an iconic American speech.

(I had a similar bit of cognitive dissonance when I first saw, last year, footage of Bob Dylan singing at the March on Washington. It was as if they'd taken the familar film of King's speech—those guys in the white hats standing behind, etc.—and Zelig'd the pop icon into the scene.)