Tag Archives: pauline oliveros

[June 4, 1965] Below the Ramparts


by Victoria Lucas

On Class and Murder

This review is late. The performance of "The Exception and the Rule" happened on May 7, 1965, produced by Bill Graham at the Gate Theater. However, I was too stunned to write earlier. Not only did the San Francisco Mime Troupe appear in one of Bertolt Brecht's Lehrstücke or dramatic exercises, but journalist and publisher Robert Scheer was featured after intermission. Also, as you can see from the program, Pauline Oliveros of the San Francisco Tape Music Center provided the music, so that was an attraction for me.

program for Brecht play
Program for "The Exception and the Rule"

In the play, the "exception" was a "coolie" who tried to give his master a drink of water. The rule was the master's fear of his abused underling that led him to see the flask as a "stone" and believe the coolie was trying to kill him. The results were the death of the coolie, shot by his master, the absolution by a judge of the master's actions (which were underlain by his need for "self defense"), and the protest of those who saw things otherwise.

No Exceptions to the Rule of White Masters

In the Mime Troupe's version, of course, the actors wore masks (in the tradition of the commedia del' arte in which they place themselves) and updated the 1929 work by Brecht, whom they outed as a "Communist." Whereas the results could be expected, the conclusions were disturbingly thought provoking. Here are some bits of dialog I wrote down: "The police fire out of pure fear." "One must go by the rule [the master's fear], not the exception [the coolie acts on fear of his master's dying of thirst while he was dehydrated]." "Dehumanized humanity" is a description of the coolie-master relationship that creates fear on both sides. "Sick men die but strong men fight" is the war cry of social Darwinism (not invented by Darwin). "He [the coolie] can't make us believe that he'll put up with it all," therefore he is "dangerous."

Scheer Opinion

After this disturbing performance with its comments on "class" and murder, Robert Scheer gave what the program called "a morality talk" on "The U.S. War in Vietnam." Scheer is now managing editor and editor-in-chief of Ramparts Magazine, a new left voice since 1962, produced here in San Francisco. He is also their Vietnam War correspondent.

Report from the Front

So how is the war going, you ask? Badly, my friend, badly, for both sides. It's like reporting on a journey that is uphill both ways. While that is a common trajectory in San Diego, which is all mesas and canyons, it's usually thought that if a war is going badly for one side it's going well for the other. Not so this war.


Violation of Geneva Accords

Scheer points out that the Geneva Accords of 1954 that ended the French war in Indochina mandated elections within 2 years to reunite Vietnam, with the present border meant to be temporary until elections could be held. In Vietnam, though, political battles have been fought on a literal battlefield rather than via the ballot box, and the US has been obstructing holding such elections precisely because the belief among US government officials is that Ho Chi Minh would win. Scheer compares and contrasts the situation of Negros in the South, whose voting rights have been interfered with, to the "n*gg*rs" of Southeast Asia, who are not allowed to vote at all in the present conflict.

Voting Rights and Human Rights

Deeper than that political comment, Scheer calls President Johnson's "voting rights" bill window dressing, and the lack of elections in Vietnam an avoidance of obstructing what he calls the "colonial ambitions" of the US in Asia. Scheer does not share the fear of Communist takeover as a form of political suppression of democracy, defining American "democracy" as suppressive in itself. According to him, in the US "white makes right," and in Vietnam "might makes right." He makes the point that as we slowly wake up to Negro rights in the US, we should also wake up to human rights in other parts of the world, particularly now in Vietnam, where both sides are clearly losing.

Suppressed Reporting

I've been listening to National Public Radio (NPR), reporting mainly by Christian Science Monitor correspondents, since NPR has little to no foreign-correspondent budget. They actually visit American troops and talk with the leaders, and their home editorial desks do not suppress their stories. So instead of publishing the US government press releases as the mainstream press does, the Monitor and NPR report what they see to the public. Scheer's commentary is in line with what I've been hearing. In March the US began systematic bombing of North Vietnam and the so-called Ho Chi Minh Trail–the supply route from North to South Vietnam. This began with the first landing of US Marines at Da Nang. Stories of atrocities persist but are not reported by the mainstream news.

As the World Turns

In short, I think I hear the noise of the world whizzing by, but I'm usually too scared or tired to lift my head, get up, and look over the ramparts of our middle-class consciousness. The Mime Troupe always provides such a view (while being raucous and funny), but what I saw this time was uncommonly scary. If you want to take a peek over the ramparts, buy the June edition of Scheer's magazine, at newsstands in the larger urban environments.

If it hasn't been suppressed.






[December 17, 1964] San Francisco as Cultural Epicenter (Woman in the Dunes, etc.)


by Victoria Lucas

The City

Yes, San Francisco is known for earthquakes, and perhaps I should be more careful with that word "epicenter." However, just as earthquakes start deep underground, so did the current cultural cluster of motion in this town whose underground is decidedly showing.

Free the Muses!

That's "motion" as in "motion pictures," but also as in music, which is sound in time. Music has been locked up in conservatories and other academic institutions for far too long. Time to let it loose. And lo and behold it consorts with experimental movies and finds people with electronic talent, and you get a spectrum of separateness, with pure films at one end and pure music at the other, and in the middle a fusion.

That fusion was happening at the San Francisco Tape Music Center for years before I moved to this cultural epicenter, in the collaboration of artist Anthony Martin and the composers who work and perform at the Center. I've seen some of these remarkable pieces, although when I hear them on the live broadcasts on public radio station KPFA when I can't go, the theater pieces and light shows don't really come across. (Imagine me sticking out my tongue here.) The most exciting event this year, though, has to be the one that exploded onto the music scene on November 4, by composer Terry Riley, rendered at 321 Divisidero by fellow composer and Tape Music Center performers Steve Reich, Jon Gibson, Morton Subotnik, and Pauline Oliveros.


Composer Terry Riley

In C

Here's what SF Chronicle music critic Alfred Frankenstein wrote about Riley's shaker "In C" under the headline "Music Like None Other on Earth":

"This primitivistic music goes on and on," and "At times you feel you have never done anything all your life long but listen to this music and as if that is all there is or ever will be, but it is altogether absorbing, exciting, and moving, too."

Frankenstein captured my feelings exactly as I listened to the music.  Mark my words, in half a century this will look like the most influential musical event of this time period.

Sandy but not a beach

On the other end of the spectrum, there was also a VIF (Very Important Film) that debuted in September in the U.S. and somewhat later here in The City, another culture bomb that I predict will also be analyzed nearly to death in future rounds of teaching and criticism. "Woman in the Dunes" concerns a traveling entomologist (you could call him a bug catcher) and a woman who is not allowed out of her hole in sand dunes. It was made in Japan with an interesting sound track by Tôru Takemitsu, from a book by Kôbô Abe. I have been told that the Japanese title is "Suna no onna" (sand woman).


The sand woman lying in her hut covered with sand

Said to be a "new wave" film, even though it is "foreign" it might be an Oscar magnet. The performances of the two main actors have been lauded, and the story has been given different interpretations. What I find most telling about it is that of the two main actors the man is named (Niki Jumpei) but the woman is not. If she ever had a name, it is not revealed during this story, although we know that she is a widow. She is a captive of the nearby community, who keep her in the sand pit, shoveling sand for their use and sale; when the man is captured as well, her situation does not immediately improve, although Jumpei is ultimately responsible for her escape. Go see it if you can. Is this an "underground film"? No, but it's not mainstream either; you will not find it in your neighborhood movie palace.

Avant-garde films

Most of the films made in and around San Francisco are not considered to be Oscar-worthy, but they could be called "underground films." They are made, for instance, by members of the Canyon Cinema, founded by Bruce Baillie. The experimental films made by Baillie and Bruce Conner and Stan Brakhage, and many others, are played at small venues in the Bay Area. Mostly distributed on black and white 16-mm film (with some Super-8 after Brakhage's equipment was stolen), they blur and sharpen focus, play with sound and light. Some filmmakers draw or paint on the film itself, or use color sparingly. It appears that film, too, needs to be released from the movie theater, even the ones that play foreign films like "Woman in the Dunes."

Digging deeper

To find the venues for the music and movies I am coming to love (including, by the way, the beautiful "Window Water Baby Moving" by Brakhage that still gets played from time to time), I increasingly find that I have to know someone or pick up a mimeographed flyer or see a small poster tacked up.


Scene from Brakhage's "Window Water Baby Moving"

Now that I've wormed my way to San Francisco, I seem to be digging my way further underground. Who knows how far down this rabbit hole goes!