Among the Intellectualoids/Ladies' Night
Evanier, David
AMONG THE INTELLECTUALOIDS LADIES' NIGHT by David Evanier You are a girl, A revolutionist, a worker.. . Against the ruling swine.. . . . . in the Russia of today Men and women, proud of working...
...hard...
...The crowd rises to its feet and howls with her...
...Kleinman...
...Men with blue sweat socks, I want to f--- ya," reads poetess Donna Masini, recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Grant in 1986 and an American Academy of Poets Award in 1986 and 1987...
...And we are willing to help them [with theirs] when they need it.' " There are cheers at this...
...Negate the negation...
...Call it, peace y'all...
...The rap artist pauses in her poetry to reflect, "It's really hard here...
...We make up almost 80 percent of the people in U.S...
...I do not need to be turned on...
...She sees people on cheese lines...
...A pretty black woman iri her early thirties with green earrings, holding a red rose, she has just returned from Cuba...
...Who and what did Maurice Bishop take...
...There are posters from Women in Self-Help, Women Together, Brooklyn Women Anti-Rape Exchange, Solidarity With Nicaragua, and Brooklyn Sisters City Project...
...The black people were 38 out of 40 shot down by L.A...
...We are in martyr heaven...
...Ispend intermission in the gym, where there appear to be drawings by children on pro-Sandinista themes...
...The star of the night is Safiya Henderson-Holmes, "poet, writer," winner of the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in poetry in 1986...
...Many neuter types...
...appreciative applause from audience] Alone in my room I lie on my back . . . Touch my body young and white and David Evanier is completing a novel about American Communism entitled The Prince of Progressive Humanity...
...A people organized, galvinized, solarized, socialized, sanctified, computerized, dignified, never again horrified...
...The bright yellow and orange colors have misled me...
...She punches out a cheer: "Booma Cheeia...
...In the school gym at intermission Donna, pretty and Italian with a plunging neckline and a necklace, receives some avid attention from the ladies...
...NCAHRN announces a conference with such topics as "Mental Health and War," "Health Sistering/People to People Contacts," "Birthing With Women in Nicaragua," and "Earthquakes and Classquakes...
...I turn on myself...
...Stand on line for that, Jack...
...Catholic school ("What do nuns know about science anyway...
...Get her down to Little Italy with some pasta, chianti, and Jimmy Roselli records, and this might be a human being...
...Her fist is now clenched high in the air...
...Who gave Grenada a break...
...These are by adults...
...Rah rah rah...
...In addition here were some big women, a few dainty Protestant dowagers, some twenty young black women, about fifteen "males," and one old Communist Party lady, sitting happily right up front...
...Here in Cuba, in Lenin Park .. . llowed to feel so much . . . we worked the land again . . . blessed it with our sweat . . . a pure life . . . yesterday I smoked the pipe with our native American sister . . . we prayed in the sun in front of the healthiest cows I'd ever seen . . . at the Pioneer Palace the children were making radical discover-ies, testing mosquitoes and sugar cane...
...She sings, raps, chants,talks...
...All donations are tax-deductible...
...I read the words on the posters: "I grew up on a farm where I lived in the snow...
...Discovering how to survive . . ." She utilizes rhetorical chants and litanies: "Did I tell you," she asks again and again, "how the children smiled and waved goodbye in Lenin Park . . . how their skirts were red and gold .. . their eyes were worldwide...
...One of the people she dedicates her reading to is Sandy Pollack, the Communist Party activist who died in a plane crash in Cuba...
...This melange of half:baked statistics, miseducation, cartoon rhetoric, and poster propaganda comes to an end...
...W e get down to business next...
...Life after Cuba is hard, especially if the playback is the U.S...
...When I was in Nicaragua in 1983, I heard a report that a farm worker had said these words: 'I believe the people of the United States support our revolution...
...Nagasaki is a Birmingham church, call it . . . Nagasaki is a Manhattan welfare hotel, call it . . . Nagasaki is a drunken man on the subway, call it, call it, call it, you better call it, you better call it, you better push it, pull it, grab it, you better call it, call it, call it...
...Illuminate the duality the unity of opposites the harmony of contradictions and vice versa...
...Where the haves control everything...
...Communist Party art exhibits are also often like this...
...Her voice rises to a howl...
...The audience joins in...
...In her next riff, "Contradiction," she states...
...I'm talkin' about black and brown and red people and Asians over here too...
...We need peace, y'all . . . not a flash in the pan, not a one night stand...
...McCauley concludes her poetics: "The tremendous wealth of the U.S...
...The sound system plays "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star...
...They firmly build their fascist state...
...She is back in the USA...
...Anti-imperialist at last...
...She talks more and more rapidly, and angrily, snarling out the words...
...Booma Cheeia...
...She drinks from a Perrier bottle...
...Prison, in a racist system...
...In Cuba you move safely . . . listen to the birds sing .. So many voices telling me it's going to be all right . . . it's safe to walk and dream . . . earth is at peace there . . . without fear, without greed, even the ants . . ." She intersperses her talk with a musical version of "Venceremos...
...The literature on the tables is from the vast network of pro-Sandinista groups around the country, including the National Central American 34 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR AUGUST 1987 Health Rights Network (NCAHRN), which claims forty U.S groups...
...40 in Manhattan...
...Rarefied air...
...Peace, you better call it . . . Bill Cosby is not enough...
...But I look again...
...And, the havenots have to beg for everything...
...bicycling across the Brooklyn Bridge: " 'Do you think we'll have a child?' he asks...
...To a Revolutionary Girl" by Maxwell Bodenheim New Masses, April 3, 1934 Iam seated in the brown and gold auditorium of P.S...
...empire was made from the land, sweat, blood and stillborn dreams, the coal, iron ore and illiteracy . . . the captive market of colonized and neocolonized and other oppressed people around the world...
...Rapping" this night might be defined as a form of writing that is a bastard cross between poetry and singing...
...Nicaragua...
...He f---- like a xerox machine, back and forth...
...I don't know,' I say...
...in the Russia of today Men and women, proud of working hours, Sturdy . . . Clear-growing, inevitable, Deepening in their youth...
...We're talking more than cheese—more hospitals, books, schools, teachers, theaters, museums . . . We're talkin' world, y'all, Call it...
...Of her dentist, Dr...
...jails...
...This is Robbie McCauley, rap performer, "performance artist who is active in and supportive of anti-imperialist culture...
...Now I live in Brooklyn where I work with friends for peace and justice...
...I've been out of the country...
...She tells us that even the ants are safe there, and the cows are the healthiest she's ever seen...
...females in men's shoes and socks...
...The "feminists" arrive all around me, some kissing each other on the lips...
...I'm talkin' about prison and the threat of prison...
...In the end the color will not be purple whoever directs it...
...To eat in Lenin Park...
...Peace...
...Nicaragua...
...The last day in the fields, we cried, I will be back, red earth of Cuba...
...I read the literature: the women will build a trade school in northern Nicaragua...
...She is billed as giving a "poetry/performance...
...reach . . . spread my legs . . . turn over .. . We learn of Donna's childhood, born in Brooklyn where "even the birds were dingy...
...police one year...
...From the back of the auditorium, coming down the aisle in black shirt and green military-looking togs,a crew-cut black woman chants, "USA, CIA, Out of Central America...
...Do you think there is a child waiting for us?' " Donna also reflects aloud: "I guess part of writing is trying to figure out things I wish I had said when I was in that situation...
...Brigada Compaiieras, "a women's construction brigade to Nicaragua," composed of "North American feminists," is about to hold a "cultural" benefit...
...Don't identify with the dying class Don't identify with the dying class Don't identify with the dying class Negate the negation...
...and loudly applauds...
...She goes back down the aisle chanting, "USA, CIA, Out of Central America...
...It is not good enough to qualify as either one of the two...
...That's what America is, said Malcolm...
...call it, call it, b-b-b-better call it, you b-b-b-better push it, pull it, grab it, Venceremos, we will win...
...I have noticed two basic types at martyr gatherings: somber, hard-looking women with cropped hair, and holy types with beatific expressions...
...I wonder when will the people learn, it's up to us to take a turn, for rev-o-lu-tion . . . rev-o-lu-tion . . ." The audience calls out, "Whew...
...We're led by fools who make the rules," declares McCauley...
...I will be back . ." Safiya's mood shifts from ecstasy to anger...
Vol. 20 • August 1987 • No. 8
