Prophets
Summer has hit Southern California. Winter had been battling to stay with last flurries of intense ground pounding rain, but the heat is on. It's the first week of June, my personal week every year of the Agony and the Ecstasy. It's a week of anniversaries.
5 June 1968- The California Presidential Primary. Senator Robert F. Kennedy wins on the Democratic Party ticket. Shooting erupts in a kitchen at the Ambassador Hotel. Senator Kennedy is shot in his brain by a bullet that according to Tom Noguchi's autopsy was no more than three inches from the back of his head. Sirhan B. Sirhan, local Pasadena Coptic Christian whose family immigrated from Palestine, and whose gun was at no time closer than three feet to Senator Kennedy and pointed at the front of his head, was blamed for the Assasination. The media cast him as a Islamic Palestinian Terrorist who hated Israel. Except that he was born in Palestine, wrong on all counts.
Sirhan doesnt remember a thing from 2 June 1968 when he was met at the Dutch Oven Bakery in Altadena,(where I often have breakfast) by a blonde Crew cut man and a woman in a Polka Dot dress. I always wonder about her.
Did she have that "Pasadena" look wealthy and would be wealthy local women once had? Lightly tan, sun streaked pony tailed and ribboned chestnut hair, long limbs,Manicured nails, between five foot six and five foot eight, bright energetic eyes, expressive but not flamboyant speech. Was that her? Who was she? She is a ghost an enigma, a snare, bait dangled before the fish's eyes.
Sirhan got a sham trial where evidence was buried by the police and prosecutors and ignored by his first batch of lawyers. Years later in College I would read Sirhans autobiography, written before his birth, Kafka's The Prisoner. The last weeks of May and the first week of June, Sirhan, injustice, those brave souls who investigated the assassinations of JFK, RFK, Dr. King, and Malcolm X, brave men and women who risked their lives for the prophetic call of God for justice. Mark Lane, Judge Garrison, Mike Candfield, Rose Lynn Mangan, Lisa Pease, Paul Kangas, many many more, who hit the bricks, and in many ways lost their own lives to pursue the truth, to seek that dream of America as a shining light of Freedom and Justice on the hill. I think also of MK ULTRA, of CIA mind control, of powers, principalities, and dark forces of Satanic evil arrayed against all that is just right and good. Those prophets are the hope of America, the hope that as Dr, King once said, we will someday live up to our creed. The first week of June is always a long month.
8 June, 1869 Frank Lloyd Wright, a prophet is born. Frank Lloyd Wright, remembered mostly for a vacation house over a waterfall, is not remembered for his message. Mr. Wright believed deeply in the Truth and that all Truth came from God and was to be embraced. Wright believed to his soul that all men were equal, and when no one else would, it was Wright who designed integrated housing developments.
It was Wright who was the first white Architect to design decent housing for Negroes of every social class and not do so in a condescending manner. It was Wright who designed homes for Lesbian and Gay couples and made no notation of their orientation as a peculiarity. It was Wright who designed for small businesses, and captains of industry. He designed a clients sons dog house once. He liked designing chicken coups.
It was Frank Lloyd Wright who designed his buildings as expressions of Freedom that were to serve the body, mind, spirit and soul of the inhabitant. It was Frank Lloyd Wright who stood on principle, even if it would cost him favor or money. Frank Lloyd Wright spoke truth to power, long before Edward R. Murroh, Frank Lloyd Wright opposed Senator Joseph Mc Carthy in public. It was Frank Lloyd Wright who sought and found a Architecture true to the promise of America's creed.
It is the first week in June. At Wrights grandsons house I will gather with others to celebrate not just an Architect, but a Poet, Engineer, Philosopher, Artist, and most of all a prophet.
Would that America had a few more prophets, a few more people with some backbone, more people who didnt understand the phrase "Well, thats how it is."
More people, who like Wright and Senator Kennedy ask not why, but why not?
When we do, the innocent will be free, our homes and cities will be fit to live in, Our work will be decent, and the first week of June will only be a celebration of our victory over inertia as a people.
5 June 1968- The California Presidential Primary. Senator Robert F. Kennedy wins on the Democratic Party ticket. Shooting erupts in a kitchen at the Ambassador Hotel. Senator Kennedy is shot in his brain by a bullet that according to Tom Noguchi's autopsy was no more than three inches from the back of his head. Sirhan B. Sirhan, local Pasadena Coptic Christian whose family immigrated from Palestine, and whose gun was at no time closer than three feet to Senator Kennedy and pointed at the front of his head, was blamed for the Assasination. The media cast him as a Islamic Palestinian Terrorist who hated Israel. Except that he was born in Palestine, wrong on all counts.
Sirhan doesnt remember a thing from 2 June 1968 when he was met at the Dutch Oven Bakery in Altadena,(where I often have breakfast) by a blonde Crew cut man and a woman in a Polka Dot dress. I always wonder about her.
Did she have that "Pasadena" look wealthy and would be wealthy local women once had? Lightly tan, sun streaked pony tailed and ribboned chestnut hair, long limbs,Manicured nails, between five foot six and five foot eight, bright energetic eyes, expressive but not flamboyant speech. Was that her? Who was she? She is a ghost an enigma, a snare, bait dangled before the fish's eyes.
Sirhan got a sham trial where evidence was buried by the police and prosecutors and ignored by his first batch of lawyers. Years later in College I would read Sirhans autobiography, written before his birth, Kafka's The Prisoner. The last weeks of May and the first week of June, Sirhan, injustice, those brave souls who investigated the assassinations of JFK, RFK, Dr. King, and Malcolm X, brave men and women who risked their lives for the prophetic call of God for justice. Mark Lane, Judge Garrison, Mike Candfield, Rose Lynn Mangan, Lisa Pease, Paul Kangas, many many more, who hit the bricks, and in many ways lost their own lives to pursue the truth, to seek that dream of America as a shining light of Freedom and Justice on the hill. I think also of MK ULTRA, of CIA mind control, of powers, principalities, and dark forces of Satanic evil arrayed against all that is just right and good. Those prophets are the hope of America, the hope that as Dr, King once said, we will someday live up to our creed. The first week of June is always a long month.
8 June, 1869 Frank Lloyd Wright, a prophet is born. Frank Lloyd Wright, remembered mostly for a vacation house over a waterfall, is not remembered for his message. Mr. Wright believed deeply in the Truth and that all Truth came from God and was to be embraced. Wright believed to his soul that all men were equal, and when no one else would, it was Wright who designed integrated housing developments.
It was Wright who was the first white Architect to design decent housing for Negroes of every social class and not do so in a condescending manner. It was Wright who designed homes for Lesbian and Gay couples and made no notation of their orientation as a peculiarity. It was Wright who designed for small businesses, and captains of industry. He designed a clients sons dog house once. He liked designing chicken coups.
It was Frank Lloyd Wright who designed his buildings as expressions of Freedom that were to serve the body, mind, spirit and soul of the inhabitant. It was Frank Lloyd Wright who stood on principle, even if it would cost him favor or money. Frank Lloyd Wright spoke truth to power, long before Edward R. Murroh, Frank Lloyd Wright opposed Senator Joseph Mc Carthy in public. It was Frank Lloyd Wright who sought and found a Architecture true to the promise of America's creed.
It is the first week in June. At Wrights grandsons house I will gather with others to celebrate not just an Architect, but a Poet, Engineer, Philosopher, Artist, and most of all a prophet.
Would that America had a few more prophets, a few more people with some backbone, more people who didnt understand the phrase "Well, thats how it is."
More people, who like Wright and Senator Kennedy ask not why, but why not?
When we do, the innocent will be free, our homes and cities will be fit to live in, Our work will be decent, and the first week of June will only be a celebration of our victory over inertia as a people.
posted by Red Taliesin at 12:19 PM
2 Comments:
What a lovely post. As the Lisa Pease you mention, it's curious to see my hero of early life, Franklin Lloyd Wright, combined into a post about the death of RFK. I was fascinated by Wright, his architecture and philosophy. I guess the truth is a magnet, isn't it, no matter the subject or the bearer.
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