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RE: Dispatches from Akune
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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 RE: Dispatches from Akune (in reply to estebanana)
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Please do continue to post your Dispatches from Akune, Stephen. You have good friends here with many interests in common (travel, deep interest in other cultures, shared experiences of Micronesia, literature, the night we probably had one too many beers at the Edinburgh Pub in SF upon my return from Micronesia, etc.). Your posts from Akune, in fact your thoughtful posts on any subject, are always welcome. Don't deny us the benefit of your wisdom, experience, and good cheer.
Cheers amigo,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Jun. 5 2013 16:34:02
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estebanana
Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: Dispatches from Akune (in reply to estebanana)
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Since I've broken bread ( uni) and opened beers ( guzzled pints and pints) with you guys I trust you. I don't enjoy starting fights, but if someone one picks one wrongfully with me I usually try to put it to a definitive ending. I think I have to re think this and not bother doing that because the problem with fighntg with someone who does not understand the depth of your experience means the fight has no meaning or can't reach a meaningful conclusion for either of you.
We were taught at art school, yeah the soft subjects, that you stand there on the firing line in a seminar class and if someone tried to take you down you basically just blast them out of the water if they are wrong. If you are surrounded by a group of other artists who know the literature, history and have logged enough studio time to understand you, they basically back you up. Outside of this context the knowledge that I have is more difficult convey because not everyone has the specialized reference points.
When I hear outrageous lies, perpetuated over and over, such as the whopper that the US Dept. of State backed New York school AB EX painters in a ploy to spread US propaganda across Communist Europe in the 1950's I balk and I balk hard. First of all, some of those painters were just trying to get enough to eat or pocket change to go to the Cedar Bar to drink. Flabbergasting news that the State Dept. used than as pawns in a propaganda game. It never happened. Trust me.
It's like someone walking up to you and telling you that the pyramid of Giza is really an ancient space ship. Probably not. However since it's the internet, learning, tough minded scholarship and experience don't count. Next time someone tells me the half dozen greatest artists of the second half of the twentieth century are talentless charlatans, I'll just turn heel and go to the bar in Akune I went to last night and have a good long laugh and toast those artists I love.
Speaking of art and bars, in Japan one can get hitched much faster and easier than one can rent a work shop in which to do some high flatutin' woodworking. It takes seven pages filled out in duplicate ( for a total of 14 pages) of documents that must be stamped with a personal seal registered with the city. Three separate people need to stamp the documents in several places. To get hitched it takes a two page document and two seals and two signatures and and the clerks file it really fast, it takes about 15 minutes and one visit downtown, whereas the studio renting process takes two visits and two freaking hours.
Or so I am told. I would not know about this personally.
At any rate, just thinking about all this stuff made me want a drink that was stronger than the hot water and shochu. Yuko found an "Irish Pub" about a 1/4 mile away and last night, for no good reason at all, we walked 440 some yards over the river bridge and down some rough asphalt streets without names to the Irish Pub. I had a single malt scotch and a few beers that were domestic micro brews from up north. They were IPA style and one had dashi in it. Dashi as you might know is fish broth. The scotch killed the taste of bad humor in my mouth and the fish broth was hardly discernible so I enjoyed them both. Yuko had her usual mojito and a coconut flavored drink.
Tonight I make pasta with a delicious tomato sauce and we had avocado sashimi and red wine from Chile. For desert I make banana sashimi with a dust of roasted soy flour and powdered brown sugar, served with plum wine on lemon and ice with a dash of Angostura Bitters.
And thats the way it was, Friday June 7th, 2013
_____________________________
https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
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Date Jun. 7 2013 14:30:40
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Dispatches from Akune (in reply to estebanana)
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Stephen, you might find this interesting:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-weapon-1578808.html
In this article, Tom Braden, the first Chief of the CIA's International Operations Division, discusses the CIA's role in funding European exhibits of American painting during the Cold War.
However, Braden denies that the CIA had any role in the instigation or development of Abstract Expressionism. He says that many left wing intellectuals were closer to Moscow than they were to the U.S. government. That's one major reason the CIA's role had to be covert. The Agency insulated itself from the recipients of its benefits by third or fourth parties.
Thus, although the CIA did support Abstract Expressionism as an example of American intellectual freedom, the Abstract Expressionists themselves were unaware of the Agency's involvement, according to Braden.
The CIA itself, on its official web page,
http://tinyurl.com/yzwba64
discusses its financial role in the founding of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, a conduit for CIA funds to liberal intellectuals, including the very successful British journal Encounter. The Congress was organized to counter the succession of "peace conferences" organized and funded by the Soviet Union, which took place in New York and European capitals at the end of the 1940s and beginning of the 1950s.
When it was revealed publicly, by an article in the New York Times, April 27, 1966 that the Congress for Cultural Freedom had received CIA funds over a considerable period of time, the Congress disbanded and reorganized under new leadership, claiming to receive no further government funding.
I hasten to dissociate myself from more extreme pronouncements about cultural aspects of the Cold War.
RNJ
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Date Jun. 7 2013 21:07:22
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Dispatches from Akune (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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Just an observation on Stephen's comment and Richard's response regarding Cold War activity in Western Europe in the 1950s and 1960s. Stephen's comment: "When I hear outrageous lies, perpetuated over and over, such as the whopper that the US Dept. of State backed New York school AB EX painters in a ploy to spread US propaganda across Communist Europe in the 1950's I balk and I balk hard," is absolutely correct. Richard's response that the CIA funded the magazine "Encounter" and the Congress for Cultural Freedom, in order to counter massive Soviet funding to undermine Western European governments by supporting Western Communist parties (particularly in France and Italy), cultural activities, and "peace conferences" is equally correct.
The Congress for Cultural Freedom and "Encounter" were attempts to shore up the democratic elements in Western Europe. As Stephen correctly points out, they were not attempts to undermine Communist Europe. There were attempts to undermine the Communist governments in Eastern Europe, most notably "Operation Rollback," but none succeeded. And the CIA funding of the cultural presentations of American artists and musicians in Western Europe had nothing to do with it.
As an interesting sidelight, "Operation Rollback" attempted on many occasions to insert agents into Albania, both by sea and by unmarked C-47 aircraft crossing the Albanian frontier flying at 200 ft. altitude, rising to an altitude sufficient for the agents to parachute in with radios and other paraphernalia. In almost every case they were caught and executed, with or without trials. The reason? At the time, the British spy Kim Philby was assigned to the British Embassy in Washington, DC, and he was privy to all of the operational aspects of "Rollback." He reported them all to Moscow, which had its agents in place and ready to receive the Western agents in Albania.
The CIA funding of "Encounter" and the Congress of Cultural Freedom, and the various artists and musicians it supported, however, was all directed at Western Europe. Hats off to both Stephen and Richard for bringing up an interesting and little known (today, at least) element of the early Cold War.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Jun. 8 2013 0:17:19
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Dispatches from Akune (in reply to BarkellWH)
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Another border crossing operation involved highly instrumented planes and specially trained crews. They would cross the border into a Soviet satellite, or even into the Soviet Union itself, with the objective of activating the Soviet air defense system.
The sequence of signals were recorded as the layers of the air defense system came up. The signals would be exhaustively analyzed and combined with other information to develop an understanding of Soviet machinery, tactics and strategy.
A friend of mine was a pilot on these missions. He was a former fighter jock, with the risk taking personality that goes with that.
The objective of the flights was to penetrate as far as needed to fully activate the system. There were two ways you could screw up. You could turn back too soon. Or as happened in one case to my friend, you could go too far and actually get shot down.
He bailed out. On the way down he was tearing up alternate pages of his code book, and eating the ones between. A page got away from him and lodged in the vent at the top of his parachute. The resultant hard landing cracked one of his vertebrae.
But he walked out of the Soviet Union, using his pocket Russian dictionary, and the gold coins he had been provided, to deal with people he encountered out in the country.
As a child and teenager I also knew some of the Flying Tigers, and their commander, Claire Chennault. They were the volunteer force that went to China during WW II to train the Chinese air force, and to engage in battle against the Japanese in support of America's ally, Chiang Kai-shek. Talk about some wild and crazy guys...
One day in the middle of winter in Anchorage, Alaska there was a knock at the door. Actually some pretty heavy blows. I answered the door. There stood an immense man, well over six feet tall, well over 300 pounds.
"Is you Dad here?" he asked.
I was reluctant to answer.
"Tell him Earthquake is here."
I did. 'Earthquake McGoon' was invited in, a glass of whiskey poured for him, and he was invited to stay for dinner.
I remember two Earthquake stories from that evening. After WW II Earthquake flew transports for Flying Tiger Airlines during the Korean conflict. A missionary family had landed their Piper Cub inside a walled school compound. They were unable to take off, because North Korean forces were deployed along the outside of the wall with small arms. Earthquake heard their distress call as he flew over in a C-47.
He told them to hold everything while he thought things over. Fixing upon a plan, Earthquake told the missionaries to fire up their Cub, and be ready to take off on his cue.
Earthquake liked to drink beer, even while flying. There were quite a few empty quart beer bottles on board his C-47. He flew low along the wall and bombarded the North Koreans with beer bottles. They made a satisfyingly realistic whistling sound like bombs. The North Koreans took cover, and Earthquake told the missionaries to take off. They made it out OK.
Earthquake eventually got shot down, but survived the crash. He was captured by communist forces. However they faced a problem. He refused to get up and walk to the prison. After a considerable delay, the enemy forces requisitioned a mule and several men to help. They loaded Earthquake onto the mule and took him to the prison.
He was imprisoned for almost a year. Then he surprised everyone by walking into the Tigers' regular bar in Hong Kong. He had been taken from Korea to a prison in China. As Earthquake told it, he kept back a little of the rice his jailers fed him and made rice wine in a pot under his bunk. He decided to celebrate on his birthday and drank quite a bit of it. Late at night, when everybody else was asleep, he "walked out through" the flimsy outside wall of his cell, and escaped into the woods. It was a walk of 90 miles or so to Hong Kong.
Later I heard from another of the Tigers that when Earthquake walked into the Hong Kong bar, nobody recognized him. "He had wasted away to about 200 pounds. No one had ever seen him that skinny before."
One evening I was checking into the Marriott at the L.A. airport. There was a long line. The petite Asian woman ahead of me happened to glance behind her. She turned around, and said, "Richard?"
"Yes."
"I haven't seen you since you were a boy in high school."
It was Anna Chennault, Claire's considerably younger Chinese second wife. Claire had passed away years before, but Anna was then the Republic of China's (Taiwan's) chief lobbyist in the U.S. We had a couple of drinks in the bar on the top floor of the hotel and reminisced.
RNJ
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Date Jun. 8 2013 1:39:22
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Only thing I have had that comes close is surfing at Trestles in San Clemente CA ~ A pod of Orca swam through the line up of us floating on our boards waiting to catch waves. Not a one of us panicked or looked distressed, everyone just watched them pass through and the Orca pod had calves with them. 
