Category Archives: History

The pianist and composer Hasaan Ibn Ali is an unduly elusive presence in the history of jazz. His first album, with a trio, was released in 1965; his second, with a quartet, recorded later that year, wasnt released until early in 2021. Both showed him to be a distinctive and original musician, but what they offered, above all, was the sound of possibility, of unfulfilled potential. The new release of Hasaans Retrospect In Retirement Of Delay: The Solo Recordings (Omnivore Recordings), which features him in privately recorded performances from 1962 to 1965, reveals his profundity, his overwhelming power, his mighty virtuosity. It does more than put him on the map of jazz historyit expands the map to include the vast expanse of his musical achievement.

Hasaan was something of a legend in Philadelphia, but played little elsewhere. His solo recordings were made by David Shrier and Alan Sukoenig, two jazz-aficionado undergraduates at the University of Pennsylvania whod befriended him. He visited them at the university and allowed them to record him playing pianos in dormitory and student-union lounges as well as in Shriers apartment and in a New York apartment to which Hasaan summoned Sukoenig and his tape recorder. Those circumstances sound ripe for music of modest intimacy; instead, what Hasaan played is torrential. (The sense of short-term urgency is reflected in the amazing fact that nine of the tracks, including the four longest of them, were all recorded on the same dayOctober 25, 1964at three different venues.) The albums twenty piano performances emerge like contents under pressure, like furies of musical imagination that had been building up within Hasaan for a long time, as if he knew that he was playing on the biggest stage of all: the stage of eternity.

Born in Philadelphia in 1931, and performing originally as William Langford, a modified version of his given name (his parents spelled the family name Lankford), Hasaan gigged there in the late forties and early fifties with the citys rising young musicians, including John Coltrane, four years his senior, who is said to have studied with Hasaan. (Later, Hasaan reportedly claimed that Coltrane had stolen his ideas.) In other words, as a teen-ager Hasaan was already an artist among artists and, in his early twenties, was a recognized innovator. His approach to music was so unusual that, despite the place of honor he won among the citys greats (including Philly Joe Jones, Benny Golson, Jimmy Heath, and the brothers Bill and Kenny Barron), his professional and commercial opportunities were limited. Hasaan lived his entire life in Philadelphia and did much of his performing, according to the saxophonist Odean Pope, in private: At night, after he got dressed, there were three or four houses he would visit, where they had pianos. The people would serve him coffee or cake, give him a few cigarettes or maybe a couple of dollars from time to time. In the early sixties, at a time when his musical peers were already famous and already amply recorded, Hasaanin his thirtieswas being recorded by students with amateur equipment. (His first album, The Max Roach Trio Featuring the Legendary Hasaan, was recorded in December, 1964; the long-unissued quartet album, Metaphysics, is also an Omnivore Recordings release.)

Whats most miraculous about the preservation of Hasaans solo performances and the survival of the tapes is the artistry displayed in the performances themselves. The astonishments of the new album begin with the very first notes of the first track, the standard Falling In Love With Love, which Hasaan begins with a jaunty, tango-like bass riff that recurs throughout like a one-hand big-band accompaniment. That percussive figure maintains a rhythmic foundation that prompts Hasaan to cut loose with crystalline, florid barrages of high notes in shifting forms and meters that cascade and swirl and swarm in ever more daringly chromatic and far-reaching harmonies. Hasaan had worked out, a decade earlier, a so-called system by which hed use substitute chords that both vastly varied yet recognizably retained the compositions original framework. This is what Coltrane is believed to have derived from their time together, and the wild profusion of notes unleashed by Hasaans right hand, like a skyful of brilliant stars scattered by the fistful, is indeed reminiscent of what the critic Ira Gitler famously termed Coltranes sheets of sound.

With tacit but manifest audacity, Hasaan appears to be self-consciously claiming his place in the history of jazz, picking up gauntlets thrown by the greatsplaying a thirteen-minute version of Body and Soul, which Coleman Hawkins made the culminating solo of the swing era in 1939; a ten-minute version of Cherokee, the tune that first brought Charlie Parker fame and that is identified with the birth of bebop; selections from Miles Daviss repertory (On Green Dolphin Street and It Could Happen to You); and Thelonious Monks Off Minor. Hasaan introduces Body and Soul with a new countermelody of his own that helps him break up the familiar tune so surprisingly that, twenty seconds in, the interpretation is already historic. He turns the Rodgers and Hart waltz Lover into a fifteen-minute up-tempo romp with a syncopation of its melody that becomes the dominant stomping figure of his bass line while his right hand throws off barrages of rapid-fire scintillations that subdivides measures into infinitesimals. In a thirteen-minute expatiation on the harmonically complex ballad It Could Happen to You, Hasaan turns the clichs of melodramatic tremolos into a percussively thunderous rumble; amid shimmering storms of high notes, he returns to the melody with a sudden stop-and-fragment-and-restart thats both breathtakingly dramatic and side-shakingly funny.

The outpouring of physical energy and display of intellectual stamina in these extended performances is matched by Hasaans inexhaustible inventiveness and far-ranging inspiration. The succession within each song of so many differently shaped, differently toned, sharply etched, flamboyantly characterized figures suggests a musical imagination of seemingly infinite variety, which is all the more astounding for its blend of uninhibited freedom and meticulous tethering to the melodies and structures of the compositions themselves. Hasaans hands are nearly quicker than the earsthe astounding speed of his playing is balanced only by the crystalline precision that makes each note stand out with a gem-like gleam. The experience of listening to these twenty extended solos is relentless, emotionally overwhelming, nearly vicariously exhausting in the experience of feeling a musician tap so deeply into himself and unleash such mighty forces. (Touchingly, one brief supplementary track features Hasaan singing one of his own compositions.)

It seems to me no mere happenstance that Hasaans mighty, mural-like musical self-portrait in real time comes in the form of solo piano. In his trio and quartet recordings, the accompaniment of bass and drums seems to inhibit him, to channel his solos into forms that would accommodate the musicians interpretations (however splendid) of the essentials of rhythm and harmony that he generated for himself, copiously and ingeniously, with his own two hands. His musical concept comes off as comprehensive, mercurial, eruptivenot that of a chamber musician but that of a one-person orchestra. He provides more than the intimate image of a musical mind at work; he conveys the galvanic sense of a heroically physical musical battle against time.

Hasaans career went from decrescendo to catastrophe. Disheartened by his truncated recording career, Sukoenig writes in his richly informative liner notes, Hasaan became withdrawn. He was living with his parents when their house caught fire, killing his mother, leaving his father incapacitated, consuming Hasaans compositions, and leaving him mentally debilitated. He was housed in a group home, was in drug treatment, had a devastating stroke, and died in 1980, at the age of forty-nine. In a 1978 interview that Sukoenig quotes, Roach (who died in 2007) said that he made home recordings of Hasaan when the pianist visited him: I have hours of him playing solo piano thats unbelievable. Sukoenig says, however, that no other recordings, commercial or private, of Hasaan have surfaced. In any case, Retrospect In Retirement Of Delay proves that Hasaan was no might-have-beenhe was, he is among the handful of greats.

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The Solo Performances of Hasaan Ibn Ali Expand the History of Jazz - The New Yorker

(WYTV) Times Square in New York City is the center of a New Years Eve tradition that has been going on for more than a century.

How come?

In 1904, the city finished the new headquarters of The New York Times newspaper, and the city named the large intersection there Times Square.

As 1904 drew to a close, the newspaper threw a party to celebrate its new location, shooting off fireworks from the top of its building. People knew to start gathering there to welcome in the new year.

But New York City banned fireworks in 1907, so the Times decided to drop a ball instead as 1907 became 1908. It was copying a ball drop at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England.

That first Times Square ball was 700 pounds of wood and iron, five feet in diameter holding a 125-watt bulb.

That ball drop in Times Square on New Years Eve has been consistent, except for New Years Eve in 1942 and 1943. We were in the middle of World War Two with blackouts, so no bright ball drop those two years.

In 1920, the ball became wrought-iron aluminum in 1955.

Then, Waterford Crystal designed the Millennium Ball for the 2000 ceremony.

As for the newspaper that started it all, The New York Times outgrew the building in 1913 and left for another.

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History behind the Times Square Ball Drop - WYTV

The Kansas Reflector welcomes opinion pieces from writers who share our goal of widening the conversation about how public policies affect the day-to-day lives of people throughout our state. Dave Kendall served as producer and host of the Sunflower Journeys series on public television for its first 27 seasons and continues to produce documentary videos through his own company Prairie Hollow Productions.

I recently finished production on a documentary about the Santa Fe Trail, which marked its bicentennial in 2021. Ive learned a few things in the process, some of which have a bearing on current challenges were facing in Kansas and throughout the nation.

In case youre not familiar with the story of the trail, heres a brief summary:

Six men left the Missouri frontier in September of 1821, leading pack horses carrying trade goods intended for sale in Santa Fe. They crossed into Indian Territory as they reached the new states western border. (The state of Kansas would not exist as such for another 40 years.)

Moving west, they reached the Arkansas River near what is now the city of Great Bend, Kansas, and followed it toward the Rocky Mountains. At that point in time, the river in that area served as our international border with Mexico, which had just won its independence from Spain.

They eventually encountered a contingent of Mexican soldiers, who escorted them to Santa Fe, where the governor of Nuevo Mexico welcomed them with open arms. They made a healthy profit from the sale of their goods, and the next year some returned with a few wagons full of merchandise.

Within a few years, Mexican merchants also became heavily invested in what became a two-way corridor of commerce between the two nations. The supply chain extended across the Atlantic to England, France and other European countries.

Native nations were also involved in the Santa Fe trade, engaging directly with traders or coming to trade at places such as Bents Fort.

That privately owned fort on the Arkansas River became a staging area for The Army of the West as it moved down the trail from Fort Leavenworth. This was in 1846, during the War with Mexico, after which Nuevo Mexico and all the territory west to California became part of the United States.

The war was largely predicated on the notion of Manifest Destiny the view that the United States was destined to prevail as it expanded across the continent. The invisible hand of Providence was thought to be setting the stage for civilization to unfold according to a divine plan.

Later, it was also seen as part of the plan to remove the indigenous inhabitants of the plains, destroying the bison herds upon which they depended and relocating them to less-desirable land.

In between the War with Mexico and the Indian Wars, the Santa Fe Trail became embroiled in the war between the states. Conflict along the border between Missouri and Kansas started heating up prior to the war, with pro-slavery and abolitionist forces engaging in violence that gave the emerging state its image as Bleeding Kansas.

After the Civil War, as transcontinental railroads were built across the middle of the nation, construction crews were protected by the 10th Cavalry, an all-black contingent of Buffalo Soldiers formed at Fort Leavenworth. Men who previously had been enslaved were tasked with repelling those who would soon be forcibly relocated to reservations.

The active life of the Santa Fe Trail came to an end when the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad finally arrived at Santa Fe in 1880. The slow-moving caravans of freight wagons could not compete with the speed and economics of shipping by rail.

The changes that took place in our nation over the six decades in which the trail was in operation were immense and far-reaching. The effect on the state of Kansas, which contains the greatest portion of the trail, was particularly striking. And yet, it seems that many, if not most, Kansans have little awareness of its formative influence on our state.

The lessons we might learn in studying the history of the trail and the manner in which diverse cultures converged during those years could be instructive and helpful as we continue to grapple with our multicultural heritage.

An important question presents itself, however: Will our teachers be able to effectively explore the complex and nuanced history of relations between peoples of different racial and ethnic backgrounds at this time when schools are beset by angry parents questioning how such discussions are framed?

More importantly, will our besieged democracy survive ongoing attacks on our core institutions as those who practice what might be called critical rage theory foment fear, distrust and outrage in the expectation that it will deliver the political outcome they desire?

It appears that the fate of our constitutional republic hangs in the balance. May we learn from the past to prepare for the future.

Through its opinion section, the Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary,here.

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In history of Santa Fe Trail, a window to Kansas' past and our nation's future - Kansas Reflector

From the vantage point of future decades, his many flaws and huge mistakesall so apparent to us who have watched his day-to-day mayoraltyare unlikely to be as visible as the major decisions he made which, in many cases, were pretty sound and made the city a better place.

Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office

In a few hours, Bill de Blasio will begin his official transition from political player to historical figure. That shift might be delayed briefly by an unsuccessful run for governor, but one way or another, the shaping of the legacy of our 109th mayor is now largely in the hands of the scholars and authors who will retell, reframe and reinterpret the story of his New York in books and documentaries of years to come.

That is likely to be good news for Bill de Blasio.

From the vantage point of future decades, his many flaws and huge mistakesall so apparent to us who have watched his day-to-day mayoraltyare unlikely to be as visible as the major decisions he made which, in many cases, were pretty sound and made the city a better place.

Launching universal pre-Kindergarten, moving to close the jails on Rikers Island, installing a series of strong environmental programs and making his controversial but admirable push to reopen city schools after the COVID-19 shutdown are just a few of the brighter highlights. Among the others are paid sick leave, the municipal ID card and record-low changes to stabilized rents, to name a few. The fact that an activist City Council championed many of these policies first doesnt change the fact that de Blasio eventually threw his weight behind them, which is what good mayors do when they see a good idea.

De Blasio earned his accomplishments against four considerable opponents. First, there was the citys establishment, which resented de Blasio for beating its preferred candidate, Christine Quinn, in the 2013 Democratic primary and, in the process, exposing how out of touch it was with what was going on in its own city. Then there were the media voices that declared de Blasios mayoralty a managerial disaster even before he took office, linking every hint of urban dysfunction to the mayor in a manner that Mike Bloomberg and Rudy Giuliani never saw. In Albany sat a very powerful governor (now exposed as a manipulative bully) who seemed to take pleasure in thwarting the mayor. And finally, there was de Blasio himself: an arrogant micromanager with little skill for connecting with the public or his colleagues in government and a tendency to skirt ethical boundaries out of an inflated sense of his own moral purpose.

What was most frustrating about the mayor was the hit-or-miss nature of his instincts. De Blasio sensed that the national Democratic electorate was shifting to the left in 2016 (thats one reason why he hemmed and hawed about endorsing Hillary Clinton) well before that very decisive move was visible to most observers. He warned that COVID-19 was likely to force a stay-at-home order in New York City, only to be mocked by Cuomo for suggesting such drivel, then proven right a few days later. He was right that schools could be opened safely in the fall of 2020, sparing hundreds of thousands of kids the soul-numbing sentence of months more of online learning (even if the implementation was shaky). His recent private-sector vaccine mandate was rolled out in bizarre fashion, and de Blasio caught a lot of guff for that, but Mayor-elect Adams has said he will retain it.

And yet, de Blasio thought it was a good idea to run for president. Sigh.

Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office

De Blasios personal quirks and unsteady political compass were less important, however, than the mismatch that characterized his entire mayoralty: Despite his impressive height, de Blasio was never as big as the moment that elected him. His 2013 campaign tapped into a vast yearning for profound change in the city, but in his soul de Blasio was a conventional progressive incapable of delivering that kind of transformationif anyone could. Tackling the vast social ill of income inequality was an order even taller than the mayor.

And other issues rapidly evolved to be much more challenging than de Blasio thought theyd be. His campaign pledge to sharply reduce stop-and-frisk, for example, seemed bold during his run for mayor. By the end of his first year in office, however, de Blasio was caught between an activated left that wanted sweeping changes to policing and an NYPD that literally turned its back on the mayor for his modest policies and mild criticisms. As national events like police shootings and the Trump presidency supercharged the political atmosphere, the mayor was even more at a loss. He was indeed slow to see the problems with broken windows policing, but soon the debate over law and order moved into an entirely different dimension: No mayor could ever have embraced the actual defunding of the police, but that is the bar against which some advocates judged him.

Nowhere was this misalignment of man and moment more clear than when it came to housing, where de Blasio proposed a series of policies that would have made the left weep with joy had they been launched 10 years earlier, before the rental market moved from crisis into failure. His plans targeted too many apartments at moderate- and middle-income levels despite the enormous unmet needs on the lower end of the income scale. Eventually, de Blasio corrected some of the mis-targeting of his housing plan, though his homelessness policies continued to founder under the weight of de Blasios orthodoxy.

As with policing, it is unclear that even the greatest mayor could have navigated this housing emergency unscathed: De Blasio pumped enormous resources into NYCHA, but the decades of disinvestment by Washington, Albany and previous mayorsalong with his administrations own mismanagementmeant that residents were still being failed, and de Blasio was filleted for it.

The pandemic, of course, dominated his second term. De Blasio made lots of errors responding to it, and those mistakes had real impact. Given the scale of the global disaster that is COVID-19, however, it is hard to see how the city would not have suffered a devastating blow even with flawless leadership from City Hall. That doesnt excuse any of the mayors missteps; it just makes the point that any mayoraltygreat, lousy or middlingis shaped by forces that the mayor has little to do with. The rosy economy that de Blasio enjoyed for the first five years of his term is another example of this.

Which brings us back to the job the scholars now have of sorting out where de Blasio deserves historys credit and blame. He probably merits a fair share of both. The question of how to apportion them will make for interesting debates in 10 or 20 years when the books and documentaries start coming out. On topics like inequality, where de Blasio moved the needle but didnt transform the world, hell have to be judged in light of his promises and the tools that were at his disposal.

For right now, the real-world value of Bill de Blasios scorecard is what it can teach the next generation of city leaders. Even without the benefit of much hindsight, a few lessons stand out. De Blasios failures and successes tell us something about the nature of leadership. Fact is, no one is big enough for the job of running New York City at a moment like this one. So leaders, please listen as much as you talk. Be as honest as you can, and a little humble. Try to inspire people to help you make real change.

And for Gods sake, dont run for president.

Jarrett Murphy is a nursing student. A former journalist, he worked at CBS News and the Village Voice before his 2007-2021 stint at City Limits, during which he served as executive editor for 10 years and covered the de Blasio administration extensively.

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Opinion: At Midnight, a New Year Beginsand History Gets its Hands on Bill de Blasio - City Limits

VERDE, by Federico Rios Escobar. (Raya Editorial, $41.56.) The photojournalist spent more than a decade following the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) through Colombian jungles, documenting their day-to-day lives, personal and political.

THE HOTEL, by Sophie Calle. (Siglio, $39.95.) Collected for the first time in a stand-alone book in English, surveillance photographs taken during the artists three-week stint as a chambermaid at the Hotel C. in Venice in 1981 reveal the detritus of human life: the patrons books and postcards, perfumes and clothes, even the contents of their rubbish bins.

BOOK, by They Might Be Giants. (Idlewild Recordings, $49.) This limited-edition CD-and-book set includes all the lyrics from the alt-rock bands latest album, typed out on a 1980s IBM Selectric III typewriter, alongside photos by Brian Karlsson.

AFRICAN ARTISTS: From 1882 to Now, by Phaidon Editors. (Phaidon, $69.95.) Following an introduction by Chika Okeke-Agulu, a professor of African art at Princeton, this anthology of art from across the continent and its diaspora features more than 300 modern and contemporary artists (Julie Mehretu, William Kentridge, Robin Rhode, El Anatsui), revealing their rich and varied contributions to global culture.

RISE: A Pop History of Asian America From the Nineties to Now, by Jeff Yang, Phil Yu and Philip Wang. (Mariner, $28.99.) Filled with guest essays, timelines and beautiful illustrations, this love letter to and for Asian Americans considers everything from the Hart-Celler Act to yellowface, K-pop and boba.

ATHENS: City of Wisdom, by Bruce Clark. (Pegasus, $35.) A writer for The Economist takes Athens from its origins to present day, with an in-depth look at 3,000 years of the Greek capitals history, culture and political resonance.

NO LAND TO LIGHT ON, by Yara Zgheib. (Atria, $26.) In this novel, a man is deported to Jordan from Boston during a 2017 U.S. executive order banning travelers from Muslim countries, while his pregnant wife delivers their son alone.

THE LATINIST, by Mark Prins. (Norton, $26.95.) An Oxford graduate student discovers that her mentor has damaged her prospects in order to keep her close in this retelling of the Daphne and Apollo myth.

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Newly Published, From African Art to 3,000 Years of Athens History - The New York Times

Nearly a century ago, it was legal for U.S. banks to refuse mortgages to people in predominantly Black communities, a practice known as redlining. For the past several decades, that practice has been outlawed. But research suggests that this history of structural racism is having a continued negative effect on heart health for Black Americans.

A study published December 21, 2021, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) focused on the cardiovascular health of a multiethnic sample of 4,779 middle-aged people living in 949 neighborhoods in seven U.S. cities: Los Angeles; New York; Chicago; Saint Paul, Minnesota; Minneapolis; Winston-Salem, North Carolina; and Baltimore.

Back in the 1930s, maps used by the federal Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) graded each of these neighborhoods based on discriminatory assessments of how risky it would be to issue mortgages to prospective home buyers, according to the study. On these maps, the most hazardous places to issue loans were colored in red and had high proportions of Black, low-income, and immigrant residents; predominantly white and affluent communities were colored green to indicate the safest places for banks to offer mortgages.

Overall, about 19 percent of study participants lived in hazardous redlined neighborhoods, while roughly 5 percent lived in the best communities. Using these historical HOLC maps, researchers examined the cardiovascular health of modern-day residents of each neighborhood, using factors such as blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, overweight and obesity, diet, physical activity, and smoking.

On the basis of these risk factors, Black people who lived in historically redlined neighborhoods had much worse cardiovascular health than Black people living elsewhere. But this wasnt the case for the three other groups examined in the study: white, Hispanic, and Chinese people.

We were surprised by these findings, says the lead study author,Mahasin Mujahid, PhD, an associate professor of epidemiology in the school of public health at the University of California in Berkeley. We had hypothesized that our findings would be more pronounced among Black participants, but that there would still be associations for other racialized groups.

Poorer health outcomes for Black people living in historically redlined neighborhoods persisted across several different risk factors for poor heart health, the study found. For example, Black people in these neighborhoods were 78 percent less likely to have healthy blood pressure and 60 percent less likely to have a healthy body weight.

Our findings are an important reminder that Black people have a different history in this country, from slavery through Reconstruction, Jim Crow and the civil rights movement, Dr. Mujahid says. The effects of this unique history continue to shape the current reality of Black Americans in relation to health outcomes, especially heart health.

One limitation of the study is that factors not directly measured in the analysis, such as socioeconomic status, may have impacted heart health outcomes for Black people. Redlined neighborhoods often tended to be high-poverty communities, and unfair lending practices often coincided with discrimination in employment and other aspects of life that could also negatively impact health, the researchers noted.

On top of this, redlining prevented Black families from passing accumulated wealth in the form of a family home on to subsequent generations, Mujahid says. Homeownership is one of the most common ways that families in the United States are able to move into the middle class and allow their children to achieve more financial success.

Even though redlining may technically be a thing of the past, structural racism and discrimination persist in contributing to worse health outcomes for Black people, several studies suggest.

One study, published in October 2015 in the American Journal of Public Health, for example, found that people living in communities with higher levels of anti-Black prejudice were 24 percent more likely to die prematurely than individuals living in more tolerant neighborhoods.

Another study looked at who in New York City gets care at academic medical centers that provide access to advanced treatments and technologies that arent available elsewhere. This study, published in February 2017 in the International Journal of Health Services, found that Black patients were half as likely as white patients to receive care at academic medical centers even after accounting for differences in health insurance.

Its also possible that moving out of segregated communities to more diverse neighborhoods may help Black people improve their heart health. A study published in July 2017 in JAMA Internal Medicine found significant improvements in blood pressure among Black people who moved to less-segregated communities.

This isnt a sure thing, however, because even though Black people who move away from historically redlined communities improve their chances of upward mobility and higher earnings, they also may leave behind strong social support networks that can be beneficial for their health, Mujahid says.

Whether Black people remain in historically redlined neighborhoods or move away, they need to be vigilant about the potential for their health to be shaped by where they were born and how generations of their family lived, Mujahid adds.

Clinicians and health providers should recognize that many of their patients experience worse health because of intergenerational effects from policies that were racist or discriminatory, Mujahid says. Redlining is just one example, but there are many more examples out there.

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U.S. History of Housing Discrimination Still Tied to Heart Risks for Black Americans - Everyday Health

The quiet block of Treat Avenue between 21st and 22nd streets seems like your typical residential thoroughfare. Unless you look closely, you could miss a piece of San Francisco history hidden among the colorful Victorians, drab block buildings, and bay windows.

But there it is, a faded mural of neighborhood kids, an iconic recording studio, and characters from the San Francisco Mime Troupe, which has resided at 855 Treat Ave. since 1965 chipped and obscured by trees.

Mission muralist Juana Alicia Araiza hopes to revitalize her 1985 mural, Para Las Rosas, next summer, and has already raised some of the funds and support for a full restoration.

Its a spark of joy on the street, and it tells a story, said Ellen Callas, a member of the San Francisco Mime Troupe collective and its current general manager. Pictures tell stories, and its important to tell the story of the culture in the Mission, before its erased.

And this mural tells quite a story: of the legends who recorded in the building that once housed Fantasy Records, of the Mime Troupes theatrical activism, and of individual community members that grew up in this neighborhood.

Jorge Vega was only six or seven years old when Araiza painted him and his family members on the building across from his childhood home.

It was pretty cool at the time; I mean, who doesnt wanna be on a mural? said Vega, who is now in his 40s and lives in the East Bay. The mural was named after his mother Rosa, who visited Araiza as she worked, bringing her Salvadoran pupusas, tamales and flowers.

I had a really bureaucratic name for the mural at the time some bullshit, some dumb name, Araiza told Mission Local this month. But one day Rosa brought her some roses, and Araiza decided to dedicate the mural to her, and her family that fled the U.S.-backed war in El Salvador.

Vega remembers an exclusive little neighborhood of families from every corner of Latin America, and the excitement he and his neighbors felt at being permanently represented in the mural. And Araiza plans to keep them there but also to update their portraits into those of adults.

The Mime Troupe became notorious in the mid 1960s for its guerrilla theatre and political commentary. Various performances by its members are also depicted on the wall.

All of our work is about the people, the workers, the class struggle, Callas said. Preserving the mural, in a way, will help counter the risk of being homogenized and pasteurized.

The piece also features homages to the original inhabitants of the space, Fantasy Records, a label established in 1949 which recorded the likes of Creedence Clearwater Revival, jazz musician Vince Guaraldi, and Beat poet Alan Ginsberg.

If youre in the building at night you feel the presence of the greats, Callas said. It kind of just hangs in the air. Juana managed to capture that in the mural.

California and U.S. poet laureate Juan Felipe Herrera evokes memories of third grade and Harrison Street in a poem about the mural. Paul Desmond is tapping his left blue suede shoe, melting sax, Herrera writes, vermilion blues spilling maraca zandunga jazz heat on Treat Street spinning the scaffolding and Juanalicias sketches into the air.

Araiza, 68 years old and a longtime muralist, said the idea for the mural came to her in a sudden epiphany, in a dream or a vision. Now, decades later, she says her skills have developed, and she thinks, gotten a little wilder.

Araiza is responsible for some of the most well-known works in the Mission: the Maestra mural on the Womens Building on 18th Street; La Lloronas Sacred Waters on the side of a taqueria at 24th and York streets; and she recently won a competition to create a piece for a wall in the revamped Mission public library branch.

Already she has started to work on the Para Las Rosas, starting with a pilot restoration earlier this year of the comedian Lenny Bruce, who recorded with Fantasy Records. Developments in art technology will enable a lasting restoration, Araiza said, with ultraviolet protection and a wax coating to simplify the removal of inevitable tagging.

Though not formally recognized as a city landmark, the murals restoration will help commemorate a cultural landmark, said Kerri Young, a spokesperson for San Francisco Heritage, which is helping with community organizing. The project, Young said, will promote the murals legacy to new audiences and longtime residents alike, and help bring new vitality to an often-overlooked block of the Mission.

Araiza also intends to add other important figures including artist Yolanda Lpez, who died this fall, and Chicano poet Francisco Alarcn.

To get the job done, Araiza applied for $60,000 in funding from the city through the 2022 Community Challenge Grant. Grantees will be announced in the spring. Already, over $15,000 for the match requirement has been raised.

And in the spring, with the Brava Theater as her fiscal agent, Araiza will work on crowdsourcing the rest needed to make the new mural a reality next summer.

In grim times, Callas said, Para Las Rosas is a reminder that you have a voice.

To contribute to the restoration of Para Las Rosas, contact the San Francisco Mime Troupe, the Brava Theater, or click here.

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A neighborhood mural and its place in SF history - Mission Local

When the Philadelphia Eagles drafted Jalen Hurts in 2020, they were aiming to provide a backup to injury-prone Carson Wentz; however, there may be injury concerns with the current Eagles QB1 as well. Philadelphia drafted Jalen Hurts to add a new layer to the two-dimensional Carson Wentz-led offense and give what they thought was their franchise signal-caller a backup.

Coming out of Oklahoma, Hurts had the potential to be drafted in the first round as a runner-up for the Heisman trophy, but despite an excellent senior season at Oklahoma, his poor football vision and limitations as a passer may have caused his draft stock to drop, making his game dependent on his running game.

Despite this, Hurts still was talented enough to warrant a second-round selection by the Eagles, and he ended up replacing Carson Wentz as the Eagles starting quarterback. Hurts won one of four starts in his rookie season, and he led Philly to a win-loss record above .500 in his sophomore season. With a young team surrounding him, Hurts has time to grow with the organization and develop his weaker qualities.

One of the biggest obstacles he and any other NFL player may face is the injury bug. Hurts hasnt been injured a lot in his college and professional career, but when he has, it affected him where most of his game is developed, his legs.

Through his first two seasons in the league, Hurts has thrown for 3792 and 20 touchdowns in 18 games. He also rushed for 1087 yards and 13 touchdowns during that span.

Jalen Hurts legs, including his ankles, are put under a lot of stress during games, as he has a different skillset from the average quarterback. Hurts was second in the Heisman Trophy race in his senior season at Oklahoma, losing to Joe Burrow of LSU.

He was only put in certain packages at the time he was injured, playing backup to Tua Tagovailoa. Hurts came in the game and scored a rushing touchdown against the Tennessee Volunteers, but injured himself with a high ankle sprain in the process. He stayed in the game, however, and got a minor procedure after to help heal the sprain.

Hurts ended up missing two games while recovering, giving a chance for the third-string Mac Jones to take some snaps. In his return vs. Citadel, Hurts put up 31 yards and a touchdown while sitting behind Tagovailoa on the depth chart. Alabama won vs. Citadel 50-17.

Hurts was having an up-and-down season in 2021 before he got injured. The Philadelphia Eagles were 5-6, and after a Week 12 loss to the New York Giants, Hurts was reported to be shaken up but finished the game anyway. He ended up with a Grade 1 high ankle sprain but was optimistic about returning in Week 13 versus the Jets. Heres what head coach Nick Sirianni said at the beginning of December on the subject.

Hurts ended up sitting out that game, but returned after the teams Week 14 bye, missing only one game due to the injury. Hurts threw for 296 yards, a touchdown, and an interception, and rushed for 38 yards and two touchdowns on eight attempts in his return versus Washington.

See more here:

Jalen Hurts injury history and updates - Inside the Iggles

To get inside The Underground a speakeasy-style bar located below Ellinwood's Historic Wolf Hotel you first have to knock on an unassuming back door at the hotel.

"Password?" a voice asks from behind the door."I'm here to check out a book," I respond.

And just like that, I'm in, ready for my journey to The Underground through the famous tunnels that run underneath downtown Ellinwood.

Partners Kelli Penner and Chris McCord are the force behind the renovation of the pub, the hotel and several other projects in the area. Ellinwood is about two hours northwest of Wichita, near Great Bend.

McCord originally approached Penner with what he called a "crazy idea" to buy the Wolf Hotel and return it to its former glory.

"So we toured it, and I was like, 'I'm all in,' " Penner recalled. "And before we knew it, we were at these conferences to bring old stuff back to life."

They originally intended to put the bar inside the hotel. But the more they researched, the more they learned about Ellinwood's tunnel system.

There was a second level underneath downtown that had businesses that catered mostly to men bathhouses, barbershops and bars.

"So we decided that it needs to be here, we need to bring it back," Penner said.

Once I gained entry through the unassuming backdoor, Penner and I followed the small sign directing us down a steep flight of stairs, through the hotel basement and into one of the tunnels.

"You're actually under the sidewalk now," Penner said.

1 of 3 Part of the tunnel.JPG

Part of the tunnel

Lu Anne Stephens

2 of 3 One of the original stores from the tunnel level.JPG

One of the original stores from the tunnel level.

Lu Anne Stephens

3 of 3 Outside entrance, complete with peephole.JPG

Outside entrance, complete with peephole.

Lu Anne Stephens

Under the sidewalk with the original stone and brick walls on the street side of the tunnel and old storefronts on the other complete with glass display windows and merchandise visible inside.

Most of the tunnels were filled in during the 1980s when the town put in cement sidewalks. A former resident is responsible for what remains.

The tunnels are a bit rough to navigate, but that adds to the experience: wooden planks to walk on and dim lighting from glass sconces along the wall.

At the end of the tunnel, you take a right turn.

"Watch your step welcome to The Underground," Penner said.

The door opens into a cozy room with a Victorian-era fireplace, warm lighting, tables and a beautifully polished bar, handmade to fit the space.

"We have Prohibition-era drinks," Penner said. "We like to cater to that era and they're pretty stout if you like some stout drinks."

Well, in the name of thorough reporting

Kelli recommended "The Sally."

"Sally is one of our signature drinks," the bartender explained. "It's vodka-based and that's all I can tell you because Sally will not tell us the rest of the ingredients."

The hotel, and later the bar, were started with volunteer labor but now have four full-time employees.

Whatever the other ingredients were, The Sally was pretty good. The other patrons around me latched onto the "thorough reporting" idea and suggested I buy everyone a round. Nice try.

The Underground speakeasy is geared toward out-of-town visitors. People come from all over Kansas and surrounding states for the experience, Penner said.

She and McCord plan to add some theme nights in 2022 and "bring the '20s back in style."

"We have several guests that will come in '20s era costumes just to have fun," Penner said.

You can learn more about the tunnels, including how to arrange a tour, at historicwolfhotel.com.

Excerpt from:

Journey through old tunnels and an unusual history to get to The Underground - KMUW

MOSCOW In 1990, the year before she died, Zipporah Rosenblatt Kahana spoke publicly for the first time about her imprisonment in Russian labor camps 50 years earlier. She did hard labor and worked as a seamstress, but the conditions were so severe that she lost her left eye. Her husband was executed as an enemy of the state. Her crime was being married to him.

Her account came in testimony to Memorial International, then a recently established human rights organization chronicling political repression in the Soviet Union.

For a long time after her release, she felt that this was some kind of dark side of her past that no one needs to know, said her great-grandson, Nikolai Dykhne. Memorials work collecting information about the labor camps, or gulag system, gave her the courage to finally tell her story completely, he said.

Memorial grew into the countrys most prominent human rights organization and an emblem of a fledgling democratic movement in post-Soviet Russia. But today, its archive of the traumatic events and victims of persecution makes the Kremlin uncomfortable. The countrys Supreme Court issued a ruling Tuesday to shut down Memorial International, the parent organization, and on Wednesday the Moscow City Court ordered Memorials Human Rights Center to close.

Memorial has denounced both verdicts as political and vowed to appeal and find legal avenues to continue its work with its 60 affiliate organizations across the country.

The actions taken against Memorial, critics say, are emblematic of the way President Vladimir V. Putin has tried to whitewash Russias Soviet history and reframe the modern image of those decades in a manner similar to a push by President Xi Jinping of China to minimize the traumatic parts of his countrys communist history, like famine and political purges.

The legal rulings this week provoked outrage among activists and dissents, and condemnation from the United States and the European Union.

But the most poignant reactions came from Russians, like Mr. Dykhne, whose families have been touched by Memorials work.

Co-founded by Andrei D. Sakharov, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and registered by former President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, another winner of that prize, Memorial grew out of a popular movement to erect a monument to commemorate victims of Joseph Stalins grinding machine of terror. It quickly expanded beyond its initial cause.

In 1989, with candles in their hands, members of Memorial and their supporters surrounded the K.G.B. headquarters in central Moscow, a demonstration that would have been unthinkable just several years earlier. It seemed like a sign that times were changing.

The verdicts this week proved that the changes are not irrevocable, said Svetlana Gannushkina, a Memorial board member and one of Russias most renowned human rights defenders, who stood in that chain of protesters.

Ms. Gannushkina remembered the security operatives who hid in the giant fortresslike building on Lyubyanka Square. They didnt feel comfortable at the time, she recalled. But today, they feel very comfortable, they are in power.

Under Memorials auspices, Ms. Gannushkina established a program to help migrants, refugees and internally displaced people. Today, she works with a team of 55 lawyers across Russia who help up to 5,000 people every year. Some had remained stateless for up to 20 years, until Memorials lawyers helped them, she said.

We dont do anything but make sure the state observes its laws, said Ms. Gannushkina, who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010.

Apart from the migration program, Memorial representatives have worked in all major conflict zones of the former Soviet Union and Russia. It was the last independent human rights organization to leave Chechnya. It is one of the few organizations working actively in Central Asia.

In Moscow and St. Petersburg, Memorial has helped install monuments to victims of Stalinist crimes. The Moscow monument, a boulder brought from one of the first Soviet prison camps, stands in front of the K.G.B. headquarters. Every year at the end of October thousands of people stand in line at a microphone to read the names of victims of political persecution.

Today, Memorial comprises over 50 organizations in Russia, and six in Ukraine as well as chapters in Germany, France, Italy and other countries, engaged in historical research and human rights work.

Recently, younger generations of Russians have become interested in Memorials work. For Ksenia Kazantseva, 40, Memorial helped her discover what her great-grandfather looked like.

The great-grandfather, Mikhail N. Malama, was a former aide to Czar Nicholas II, she said. He was arrested in 1937 and charged with a conspiracy to commit a terrorist act.

What happened to him next had been a family mystery for decades. In 2019, however, Ms. Kazantseva discovered his name in Memorials database which contains more than three million files. Memorial representatives helped her submit a request with the archives, which eventually sent her a package. It contained Mr. Malamas picture. For the first time, Ms. Kazantseva could see his face.

It was a very special feeling to see a person for the first time and realize that he looks like your relative, said Ms. Kazantseva, a freelance composer.

Memorial preserves memory of what happened in our country, if you erase it, then it can all get rewritten, said Ms. Kazantseva.

While the government acknowledges the trauma of the Stalin era, it is also attempting to spur patriotism among Russians. The core element of that is celebrating Russias contributions to World War II and the defeat of the Nazis, which laid the foundations of the Soviet Union as a global powerhouse.

Some Russians find Stalins iron-fisted rule appealing in a world full of chaos and uncertainty. In a 2019 poll conducted by the independent Levada Center, 70 percent of those surveyed believed Stalin played an entirely or mostly positive role in Russian history, the highest since Levada started asking the question in 2003.

Stalin was the Soviet Unions leader at the time, which is why, in the eyes of the Kremlin, his image should not be completely tarnished, said Aleksandr Baunov, editor in chief of the Carnegie Moscow Centers website.

Mr. Baunov drew a comparison between the shuttering of Memorial and the actions of Chinas Communist Party as it rewrites its history under Mr. Xi.

This is a real shift toward a Chinese attitude to history, he said, describing the approach as Yes, there were individual mistakes, there were victims, including unjustified sacrifices, but all that was for the greatness of the country, Mr. Baunov said.

Mr. Xi has used the Soviet Union as a cautionary tale for China, saying it collapsed because its leaders had been unable to quash historical nihilism, referring to critical accounts of political persecution, or attempts to chronicle government mistakes that led citizens to lose faith in communism.

Mr. Dykhne, who at age 24 does not remember any Russian leader besides Mr. Putin, said the Gulag system was never discussed at his school in Moscow. He said what he learned about the Soviet dissident movement and his familys history came from his elders.

In November, after prosecutors announced their investigation into Memorial, he donated his great-grandmothers complete personal archive to the organization, and trusts they will somehow find a way to preserve it.

Mr. Dykhne, who works as a sculptor, said her experience weighs on him as he assesses events in Russia today. He said his family history prevented him from trusting Russian authorities.

A lot of people are losing hope now for some kind of normal future in this country, he said.

But he also said the brutality of the Soviet state made him painfully aware of the consequences of dissent. He mentioned the brutal crackdown on protesters in January this year after the dissident Aleksei A. Navalny returned from Germany, where he was recovering from what doctors said was poisoning by a Russian-made nerve agent, and was later sent to a penal colony. The ensuing protests were large-scale and spread across the country, but they were violently suppressed, with thousands arrested.

If a year ago someone may have believed in all sorts of street protests, now the authorities have already shown us what that leads to, he said. I do not see any solution.

They are trying to erase our memory, he said. There is a feeling that they are trying to somehow paint over what happened then, so that we cannot compare it with what is happening now.

Alina Lobzina contributed reporting.

See the original post:

As the Kremlin Revises History, a Human Rights Champion Becomes a Casualty - The New York Times