Capturing Beauty
I noticed this post I made in 2012 where I talk about the man with a gun sitting next to my grandmother, with other Black Mask authors. How many years passed before I identified him as Norbert Davis, whom the world renowned philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, had a great interest in? How about Thomas Pynchon? Did he read the works of Wittgenstein?
If Christine had felt some level of fear as she walked on the beach at Rocky Point, then she would not have taken her eight year old daughter, Drew Benton, for a walk on the beach. Did I say “beach”? There is no “beach” at RP. Then Snyder’s book is….fiction?
A friend of Drew’s told me my niece took a leave from work after the man who put her atop his “hit list” showed up at Walmart. She was afraid he was going to KILL her, so she took PRECAUTIONS! In reading Drew’s autopsy, it looks more like ATTEMPTED MURDER, than SUICIDE! If Drew was THAT hell-bent on ending her life, why didn’t she contact her stalker and tell him to come get her…
“I’ll leave the door open!”
Because the autopsy does not jive with the Death Certificate, I have to wonder if I am dealing with MORE FICTION. The police report I asked for – is late in arriving! Are other people in danger? How many people are on that “kill List”?
It’s time for Real Art, Literature, and Philosophy to take over. How about – real movie making? Above is a pic of Marilyn Reed who scored LSD from Charlie Manson at the Shan Ranch. Next to her is Joan, who came to her parents home for Thanksgiving, and found them dead due to Black Mau Maus. Manson aske Marilyn to stay and trip with him and The Girls. Her intuitition told her this was a bad idea, and thus she is not bured in the desert.
When I was seventeen, I caught Arnold Palmer checking out Marilyn’s sixteen year old ass. Whatever detective Holstrom thought she was dealing with in the death of Drew Benton, is….
BLOWN-UP ALL TO HELL~
In Thomas Pynchon’s 1973 book, Gravity’s Rainbow, a character sings a song called “My Doper’s Cadenza”, which could serve as both soundtrack and subtitle for Inherent Vice. Set in the waning days of the era of free love, as Charles Manson brings a paranoid ending to quixotic dreams, Pynchon’s seventh novel bridges The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) and Vineland (1990), forming a loose trilogy traversed by the same (marginal) characters and (central) concerns, not to mention a permeating 60s dope haze. In all three novels, California represents the final frontier of the American Dream and the last stand against corrupt institutions, the ultimate refuge of aimless dreamers riding waves of hope – and fear. Together, the three novels trace an arc from the mid-1960s to the Reaganite 1980s, from the birth of counterculture to the triumph of corporate culture, as the frontier closes for good and the long descent into betrayal and greed begins.
Tharaldsen grew bored of the routine. Soon they moved to Houston, then to Manhattan Beach. Tharaldsen, a painter, did a portrait of Pynchon with a pig on his shoulder, referencing a pig figurine he’d always carry in his pocket, talking to it on the street or at the movies. (He still identified closely with the animals, collecting swine paraphernalia and even signing a note to friends with a drawing of a pig.) Once Tharaldsen painted a man with massive teeth devouring a burger, which she titled Bottomless, Unfillable Nothingness. Pynchon thought it was him, and hated it. Tharaldsen insists it wasn’t, but their friend Mary Beal isn’t so sure. “I know she regarded him as devouring people. I think in the sense that he—well, I shouldn’t say this, because all writers do it. Writers use people.”
Tharaldsen hated L.A., and decided to go back to school in Berkeley. “I thought they were unserious sort of beach people—lazy bums! But Tom didn’t care because he was inside all day and writing all night.”
Today is the most momentous day in my life. All my hard work has paid off. Ludwig traveled to Ithaca and hung with Cornell philosophers. My cup runneth over. I am so overjoyed that my grandparents can be put in a group of writers and thinkers – forever! I can remove my sister Christine from the literary hell she was thrown in hours after she died. My relationship with the woman I married, is redeemed. We believed in each other.
Saving America’s God Gene
Posted on August 9, 2012 by Royal Rosamond Press
Two weeks ago I talked to my sister, Vicki Presco, and my niece, Drew Benton, on the phone. Drew told me about getting paid for her commissioned art work, and I told her she inspired me to do a painting. I told my kindred I had been contemplating doing a painting from the photograph taken of Mary Magdalene Rosamond on Anacapa Island sitting under a tree. This photograph was taken by my grandfather, the writer, Royal Rosamond.
The next day I enlarged this photo on my computer so I could study it. To my dismay I noticed the man on the right was holding a gun. It looks like a 45 automatic. The two other men in the photo appear to be focused on the gun, while my grandmother tried to ignore it. Her eyes are cast down. She is not looking at her husband who has snapped the photo.
Yesterday I took this photo to Staples to get blown up. The woman who did the job was blown away by this image. She saw much drama in it, and even told someone on the phone, a movie can be made from it – after she convinced me to keep the gun in my painting. I was inspired again.
When I got home I taped this blow-up on my canvas I prepared so I could study it. It was then I noticed two eyes staring at me out of the shadows. My God, it’s a dog, a black dog. Is it a lab?
Two weeks I composed a long post wherein I talk about the custody battle over Britt, my thirteen year old stepdaughter. When Britt took the stand and asked who she preferred to live with, her real father, or me, she chose me – over her father. Britt’s court appointed advocate asked this question. You could hear a in drop.
Britt was brilliant. She had a very high I.Q. Her father was a powerful San Francisco attorney. Our attorney was up for a Judgeship and was in conflict with the judge who was the same judge who heard my case in Boston when I took the Mafia to court, and won. The reason I won, was because everyone loves dogs. In their attempt on my life, two of their hired goons made a bid mistake. When they kicked down the door to the managers apartment, thinking I lived there, they found a two month old black lab puppy, and cut its throat. They then took hold of the crying and drying puppy and smeared blood on all four walls of the studio apartment.
I heard all this as I rushed down three floors. My attorney advised me and my neighbors who had not been driven out by the threats, to move to the top floor for our personal safety. Some squatters had moved into the mangers apartment, a young hippie couple with a puppy. they were not home to protect their puppy from the monsters, who now called to me to come into that bloody apartment, because they had something for me.
I demanded they come out, and get out of the building. Two men emerged with bloody knives. I stood my ground and out up a barrier of white light as they came at me with evil smirks. That’s when Shaheb let out a long blast on the long plastic trumpet he owned, that he carried with him as he and three of my neighbors rushed down stairs after me. The killers folded their knives, made fresh a threat on my life, and left.
I rushed in to see if I could save the puppy, and was horrible at the sight of the blood that was still rolling down the walls. I went in search of the puppy, and found her stuffed behind the toilet. I cradled her in my arms, and wept. I wept as I wiped the blood, the evil message made just for me, from the walls, because I did not want anyone to see it. I felt ashamed. This was the result of our human vanity that I behledwhen I died on McClure’s Beach. I would not let anyone in that room till the blood was gone. I lived three blocks from the Kennedy house on Beacon Hill. I believe John Kennedy was murdered by the Mafia. Who a week later I met with in a room outside the courtroom. The judge had had it. Killing a puppy was beyond the pale. I sat at the end of long table with attorneys for the Mafia, the scoffing at me, and my long hair.
Above is a photo of me up a tree. I am holding Dottie Witherspoon cat that would walked behind us to the park. It is looking down at three dogs she is playing with, they chasing her up a tree, then, she springs down and chases them. Like me, this cat was fearless, even when the warlock was zapping her with his evil energy, he inviting her to come get petted, then giving her a exotic shock out the tip of his finger. He was trying to impress me, le t me see his dark powers he got after taking LSD. I told thus warlock to take a long look in my eyes and know what he is doing to this cat, I can do unto him, because I am much more powerful then he is.
“The reason I know this, is because anyone who would hurt a little animal is a weak little asshole!”
The warlock dare not look at me as he got up and left Dottie’s apartment.
This was three months after the killing of the puppy. I had been asked to watch after Dottie by my friend, Michelle who I met a year earlier when I lived in Roxbury. She moved in with her boyfriend. One day she points out this dude sitting in a car.
“He’s been there for two days. He is a Mafia chief. He wants us to help him find his ex-grilfriends who was my best friend in New Orleans. She took a belt with codes for drug shipments because she wanted out. He offered to pay our way to New Orleans so we can talk her in to giving the belt back. We are thinking of taking the money and flying somewhere else.
“Don’t tell me where, and never take mob money. They will find you and kill you. You have to tell him “No!” If he holds a gin to your head, say “No!” He is on a fishing expedition. He is in trouble with higher ups.”
“Will you go talk to him and arrange a meeting?”
I arranged a meeting at a black bar around the corner. When I told Michelle, she asked me to come with her. I thought for awhile, and…..
“Yes!”
No sooner seated in a booth in the back of the bar, the Mafia guy pulls out a 38 and points it at Michells head, and asks;
“Are you going to do it?”
Michelle looked him dead in the eyes, and said;
“No!” Just that. And he uncocked the gun and put it back in his coat’
“What are you drinking?” He asked.
Michelle was Dotties roommate and was moving back to New Orleans. he was concerned about Dottie who was forming a bond with the warlock.
“He’s news, into some real dark stuff. Dottie is a babe in the woods, she coming from a good family in South Carolina. She needs to be shielded.. Michelle used to be a member of the Process.
Above is the house Dottie and I lived in in Alameda Caifornia. We had the entire bottom floor. I rescued Dottie from the warlock. Dottie is kin to Louise Tevis Breckenridge Sharon. So is my niece, Drew Benton whom Vicki and I just rescued.
One of the reason Britt chose me was because my dog, Deva, loved Britt, and Britt loved Deva, my famous black lab. Thier love was uncondtional.
I asked Mary Ann for an anulment because our young marriage had been destroyed during the six month custody battle over a thirteen year old child who chose me, and now I was afraid her father’s legal team would find out I was on SSI because I suffer from PTSD. According to my flesh and blood daughter, this makes me a parastite.
After I won my case against the Mafia, I ran into my attorney at a City of Boston festival.
“John. I want you to meet someone!”
“Mr. Mayor. This is John Presco.”
Mayor White extended his hand, and said;
“Let me shake your hand. It takes allot of guts to stand up to those people.”
I have long considered my grandmother Mary, a Modonna. In the photo above, Mary’s hand is on the dogs neck where the gun is pointed. Some wounds defy time, and last forever.
Jon Presco
Copyright 2012
Louise Tevis Breckenridge Sharon (1858-1938)
We are privileged to be able to offer a selection of exciting San Francisco made and retailed flatware owned by one of San Francisco’s leading 19th century families who married into the English nobility.
Louise Tevis Breckenridge Sharon, was the daughter of Lloyd Tevis, president of Wells Fargo and one of the richest men in California. When he became president of Wells Fargo, it was an express (coach) company; when he retired it was a bank as we know it today. Tevis was assessed by the state of California as having a fortune worth $1,590,000.00 in 18801.
Louise married John Witherspoon Breckenridge, son of Congressman, Senator, Vice President, Presidential Candidate and Confederate General John C. Breckenridge, c. 1878 and lived in San Rafael, CA. Their marriage ended in divorce and she married secondly Frederick W. Sharon.
Frederick Sharon was the son of Senator William Sharon (right), one of California’s very richest men. Sharon arrived in San Francisco in 1849, first investing in real estate, then also in mining and banking. By 1880, the state of California assessed his personal fortune at $4,470,000.002 and he was the largest single taxpayer in the state. Louise and Frederick were married at Sharon’s 55,360 square foot palatial estate ‘Belmont’ in 1884 (below).
In preference to William Sharon’s ‘Belmont’, Louise and Frederick Sharon lived in Paris, in New York at their mansion at 323 5th Avenue and at their Menlo Park mansion ‘Sharon Heights’ (below) after its completion in 1906.
In 1909 Florence Louise Breckenridge, Louise’s daughter by her first marriage to John W. Breckenridge, married Sir Thomas Fermor-Hesketh, 8th Baronet (elevated to the rank of Baron in 1935). Their wedding presents included a large selection of silver from San Francisco’s famous Shreve & Co.
Florence, then Lady Hesketh, lived in the Hesketh country seat, Easton Neston, one of England’s great country houses. It is currently on the market, see here. The silver descended in the family until recently.
It is interesting to note that after the death of William Sharon in 1885, such was his wealth that many people claimed to be related (one even claimed to be a wife) to get a share of the fortune. One person made a claim 30 years later, saying that records of his birth had been destroyed in the great San Francisco fire of 1906. None of these claims ever succeeded
John Witherspoon Owen Breckenridge
Posted on July 5, 2011 by Royal Rosamond Press
The great grandmother of John Witherspoon Owen Breckenridge, is the Ann Witherspoon, the daughter of Signer, John Witherspoon. His great grandfather, was John Breckenridge, Attorney General of the United States in the Cabinet of President Thomas Jefferson. I lived with Dottie Witherspoon in Boston, and met many Witherspoons in South Carolina who are kin to the actress, Reese Witherspoon.
I have been exchanging e-mails with a member of the Sharon family about revising the Sharon Family reunion at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. I was invited to go to Europe with a member of the Hesketh-Fermor family, who are kin to my niece, Drew Benton, and thus the Prescos. We are all kin to Lloyd Tevis the President of Welles Fargo Bank.
I have put on pause my homework of family relations. I do know some of the California Sharons and I am familiar with the reunion that use to take place in San Francisco, but I have been swamped. I would love to refresh the reunion for our family. I am not familiar with the names on your email yet. I don’t know if you sent email to Philip or had misplaced my name. I will start more family connections with the Sharon clan soon.
Patrick Sharon
Hi Jon- Get ready- much info coming now- please go ASAP to tatler.com- June issue page 102- big article on the new owner of Easton Neston- Leon Max- I’m headed there with James Baring and Bob and Joanne Fermor tomorrow.
Anne
Witherspoon Owen Breckenridge married Louise Tevis Breckenridge Sharon, the daughter of Lloyd Tevis, president of Wells Fargo and one of the richest men in California. When he became president of Wells Fargo, it was an express coach company. When he retired, it was a bank as we know it today. Tevis was assessed by the state of California as having a fortune worth $1,590,000.00 in 1880
John Witherspoon Breckenridge, son of Congressman, Senator, Vice President, Presidential Candidate and Confederate General John C. Breckenridge, c. 1878 and lived in San Rafael, CA. Their marriage ended in divorce and she married secondly Frederick W. Sharon.
Frederick Sharon was the son of Senator William Sharon (right), one of California’s very richest men. Sharon arrived in San Francisco in 1849, first investing in real estate, then also in mining and banking. By 1880, the state of California assessed his personal fortune at $4,470,000.002 and he was the largest single taxpayer in the state. Louise and Frederick were married at Sharon’s 55,360 square foot palatial estate ‘Belmont’ in 1884 (below).
The information found here comes from The Prestons of Smithfield and Greenfield in Virginia by John Frederick Dorman who is one of the preeminent authorities of Virginia genealogy. The descendants of John Preston and Elizabeth Patton are remarkable for the number of outstanding individuals spread over several generations. There are literally dozens of politicians, military men (including generals on both sides of the Civil War), preachers, doctors and authors. This is only a sampling of people who caught my attention. I strongly recommend anyone interested in this family to find The Prestons of Smithfield and Greenfield in Virginia.
http://www.cridermcdowellfamily.com/FamilyTree/ppl/7/0/A5LKTIAFDYXB1F7C07.html
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~swva/preston.htm
Ludwig Wittgenstein and Drew Benton
Posted on August 17, 2024 by Royal Rosamond Press
John Gregory Presco with his grandson, Tyler Hunt
San Sebastian Avenue
by
John Presco
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Why did my niece, Drew Benton, kill herself? There exist no words from her on her Facebook. How odd. Tom Snyder asks Garth Benton to try to get his daughter to tell him about my sister’s death – while a terrible divorce was just ending. Sixteen year old Drew, refused to put her testimony in ‘When You Close Your Eyes’ which did not sell! It demonizes Christine Rosamond Benton – for the sake of Drew and Shannon Rosamond Benton – who were supposed to get proceeds.
So, Stacey Pierrot, and her silent partners, hired another ghost writer, Julie Lynch, who falsely claimed she talked to Christine’s kindergarten teacher. She needs to be put on the witness stand and asked how she found this teacher, and, what is her name? This is outrageous, because Lynch and Pierrot create a Child Art Cult, employing the children and grandchildren of Rosemary Miles, who is demonized by both Snyder and Lynch. Drew Benton grew into an adult having no choice but to JOIN THE CHILD ART CULT! Lynch tried to sell a screenplay titled’ Was Drew – broke?
BEFORE THE WAVE
If it was made into a movie, then Drew would be the living star. Was she pressured by Shamus Dundon and Mark Presco, who told me he read the rough draft of Snyder’s book? Has Detective Holstrum been alerted to the lie – I was jealous of Christine Rosamond’s Art – since I was FOUR? Does Holstrum believe I am going to exploit Drew in my biography? Did Crazy Casey call the Bullhead Police? Where is Mark Presco, who acted like Drew’s Guardian Angel. Mark and his father suffered from depression. I did not. This is why Christine formed a close bond with me – and not Mark ‘The Lump’. This made my brother jealous of me – his whole life!
I am allowed to write about my childhood, that includes my siblings. Hired Outsiders are not allowed to EXPLOIT CHILDREN FOR MONEY! Is Pierrot and her silent partners wanting to exploit another family suicide – FOR MONEY? Are they fighting with me for Drew’s ashes – BEHIND MY BACK?
I have been comparing Christine’s suicide to the suicide of Norbert Davis, and the suicide of Wittgenstein two brothers killed themselves. My grandparents camped with Norbert. The Dundon’s do not appear to be supportive of Drew. Why didn’t they collect money for her cremation, or contact the police? Did they hear threats from Drew that she would take her life?
I have severed all ties with Casey Farwell, who I made no agreement. After I read this I asked;
“Where did four year old Rosamond, get money for fresh batteries?” Did she steal money out of Mommy’s purse – for art’s sake?
“The only time she could express herself was at school or in her closet, by flashlight, when everyone else was asleep.”
“The family appeared to have a strong streak of depression running through it. Anthony Gottlieb tells a story about Paul practising on one of the pianos in the Wittgensteins’ main family mansion, when he suddenly shouted at Ludwig in the next room:
I cannot play when you are in the house, as I feel your skepticism seeping towards me from under the door!
EXTRA! I just found more evidence of CHILD ABUSE. Julie Lync has Christine SNATCHING our little sister, Vicki Presco, and saving her from her crazy family! Shannon Rosamond Benton begged me to come to Bullhead city and see Vicki before she died – but did not tell me – SHE DIED! Neither did her son, Shamus Dundon. Drew was living with Vicki. How many Dundon’s knew my sister was dead? Did they chip in for the funeral? How many of my blood-kin are down on their bloody knees praying I TAKE MY OWN LIFE, because they conspired to ostracize me? Their claim I had nothing to investigate – IS BLOWN OUT THE WINDOW! This is day 25 that my niece had been in – THE OLD!
Rosamond
Feature · Drama · 113 pages
After growing up with a wildly dysfunctional, alcoholic parents, the artist Rosamond takes in her baby sister and tries to give her a “normal” family. But, as Christine rockets to fame at the age of 25, becoming one of the world’s most famous painters, she discovers she’s not always able to leave “crazy” behind.
Written by Julie Lynch
When did the people in this family photo discover Christine was a fantastic artist, who has been hiding in the closet for seven years rendering masterful works of art? What became of the Early Rosamond’s? How many hundreds of dollars did she spend on fresh batteries? Did she sell her art to buy batters? Did Lil Vicki ever catch her sister – hiding in the closet? They shared a bedroom.
I NEVER AGREED TO HAVING MY TELEPHONE CONVERSATIONS RECORDED.
John Presco
President: Royal Rosamond Press
Not Told Parents and Grandmother Are Dead
The Fishing Pole of My Nazi Oppressor
Posted on March 18, 2024 by Royal Rosamond Press
Today is the most momentous day in my life. All my hard work has paid off. Ludwig traveled to Ithaca and hung with Cornell philosophers. My cup runneth over. I am so overjoyed that my grandparents can be put in a group of writers and thinkers – forever! I can remove my sister Christine from the literary hell she was thrown in hours after she died. My relationship with the woman I married, is redeemed. We believed in each other.
Here are the first words I read this morning.
PETER SHAPIRO: stand tall, fair sir
Here are the first words I wrote.
JOHN PRESCO: I am fishing deep for the fair firmness of the world. Nothing is fair.
PETER SHAPIRO: we have it so much better than most
There it is – THE TORAH!
As I lie in bed this morning, I went fishing for a bi-line that may lead me to authoring the obituary of David Seidler. I studied the environment I was in. I no longer wake-up with feelings of radiant genius. I wake up by a dark murky pool polluted with other people’s trash – and my own! How do I sort it out? I understand I am at the Window of Honesty, and I have five minutes to plumb the depths of how I really feel about – life. Do I really have the right to connect my life to the life of David Seidler who died Saturday. A reporter wonders if he was fly fishing.
Then – I GOT A HUGE HIT – and my pole bent to the breaking point.
“My God! I didn’t invite my father to my wedding! He might have died not knowing I married Mary Ann Tharaldsen, the Muse of several writers – including Thomas Pynchon. Why didn’t I invite \Captain Victim to my wedding, or, bring my new bride to his home to meet him?
FLASH forward to 1988. I have a year of sobriety and am at my father’s house showing him the manuscript for my first (unfinished) novel. He is drunk. We used to drink together. He looks, at it, takes aim – and splashes Bourbon on it – with a growl!
Wow! A Christening. I would find out he used Wolf Larsen as a role model on how to raise his two sons, Vic was a Jack London freak in High School. He never grew up. I was The Father – at four! We got a fishing story! David and Vic go fishing, because they are kin, in the same family tree! And now they are in the same boar, off to an island of no return.
As I chummed the deep pool with my waking conscience, I brought up my ex-friend, Mark Gall, a Jew who called me a “Nazi”. One of Vic’s secretaries called David’s kin “Vic The Nazi. When I first went fishing with Mark, the head of the Department of Education at the University of Oregon, he put on waders. I wondered (silently) if Jews knew how to fish. And, is it is allowed, like a black person in a all white public swimming pool. Did I just admit I still have Anti-Semitic Racist – thoughts! Call the Kosher Thought Police.
I stuttered, too, because I could not get a word in edgewise. Both my parents were raging narcissistic Neo-Nazis, like my brother, Mark Presco. I got it from them – my elders! This is the hottest topic – today. Anti-Semitism is hotter than it has ever been! Did David die with NAZI THOUGHTS looking in a pool of deep water – for a fish? Was he clear of any resentment – all Jews have the right to own?
While waiting for my coffee water to boil, I had a stroke of genius. I need a young compute expert to graft Netanyahu to Allen Ginsberg – reading Howl. This is Orwell’s Big Brother, opening up – and expressing himself in his epic poem…….
“I’m not a Banana Republic!”
I am sure many Jews believe Bibi is having a – Nazi Moment – and want to say “He speaks for himself!”
Then I had an epiphany. Life is good for all of us, then it goes belly-up when we realize we are not immortals and none of us are going to live forever. What a great betrayal. We look too our parents for answers to this very embarrassing THOUGHT. How, shameful you came up with it – as a imponent child. Immediately I came up with two squeals to ‘Waiting for Godot’.
PLAY: Mark Gall and David Seidler go fishing in Nazi Purgatory. They wade into a heavenly stream in the waders their Jewish mother made for them. They look around, and there are a dozen fine looking Nazi fly fishermen, everyone of them about 6ft. 3inch with blond hair and blue eyes. These Nazis were given last rights by a Catholic Priests as they lay dying in a basement in Berlin. They were shot up by Russian troops. They made a confession. They admitted they had sinned – by hating The Jews.
PLAY: Chigurgh and Ludwig Wittingstein have become the Best Fishing Buddies Austria has ever known. They get along famously. Ludwigs friends and family wonder why he owns love for a Dangerous Psychotic, who keeps challenging them to a Deadly Coin Toss. Ludwig has no fear. He throws fake punches to his beloved psychos ribcage. Then they throw their arms around each other, and walk whistling to their favorite fishing hole.
Only writer can do this, shit – and get away with it! They understand each other. They were once innocent happy boys. Then they were traumatized by Their Pending Death. Ludwig became the foremost philosopher of our age. And Chigurh became a Coin-Tossing Serial Killer who is adroit at recreating the trauma he will never recover from.
I conclude with this question…Do any of you fellow fisherman, have strange fishing thoughts?
PLAY: The Life of Big Brother Before He Went Completely Over To The Dark side …by John Presco
This is for you, David.
Play both vieos at the same time, with the Netneyahu volume turned off.
James Bond and Gravity’s Rainbow: A Possible Connection
Author:
Robert L. McLaughlin
Abstract
Pinpointing the origins of ideas in a writer’s work is an often difficult task with not always relevant results. Nevertheless, much excellent scholarship has been devoted to discovering and explicating possible sources for motifs and episodes in Pynchon’s work. Pynchon himself, in both his fiction and the few published remarks he has made about his own work, has indicated some of the most important influences on him, some serious, others pop cultural. In the introduction to Slow Learner, for example, Pynchon admits he “had grown up reading a lot of spy fiction, novels of intrigue.” And in apologizing for the “racist, sexist, and proto-Fascist talk” in “Lowlands,” he explains, “The best I can say for it now is that, for its time, it is probably authentic enough. John Kennedy’s role model James Bond was about to make his name by kicking third-world people around, another extension of the boy’s adventure tales a lot of us grew up reading” (11). Pynchon’s familiarity with Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels may account for how a specific idea in one of them, Moonraker, found its way also into Gravity’s Rainbow.
How to Cite: McLaughlin, R.L., (1989). James Bond and
About the author
Robert L. McLaughlin, Professor of English at Illinois State University, earned his Ph. D. at Fordham University in New York City. He is the author most recently of Stephen Sondheim and the Reinvention of the American Musical (UP of Mississippi, 2016). With Sally E. Parry he wrote We’ll Always Have the Movies: American Cinema during World War II (UP of Kentucky, 2006). He has published many articles on postmodern fiction, especially the work of Thomas Pynchon and David Foster Wallace. He has edited a fiction collection, Innovations: An Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Fiction (Dalkey Archive Press, 1998). From 1993 to 2005 he was editor of the Review of Contemporary Fiction. With Sally E. Parry, he is currently completing a study of Broadway plays during World War II.
Fishing With Pops’s Pole West of The Water Tower
Posted on June 1, 2021 by Royal Rosamond Press
Here are two stories I improvise. I am the new Will Rogers and Mark Twain. I own a special contract as a minister, where all my recorded words, and telephone conversations are Copyrighted. Me – and the late Doctor Gene Scott? I need my own T.V. Show!
Jake Soda Pop
Old Man’s Fishing Pole
West of the Water Tower
(47) Wes Of The Water Tower – YouTube
In 1980, hitman Anton Chigurh is arrested in Texas. He escapes by strangling the sheriff’s deputy and steals a car by killing the driver with a captive bolt pistol.
Seidler arrived in Hollywood at the age of 40, and his first job there was writing Tucker: The Man and His Dream for Francis Ford Coppola.[citation needed] For some years he was a member of the Feather & Seidler writing team with Jacqueline Feather.
Always wanting to write about George VI, and being a stutterer himself, Seidler started researching in the 1970s. After finding the surviving son of Lionel Logue, Valentine Logue, a brain surgeon, he wrote him in 1981. In turn, Logue was keen to talk with Seidler and even share the notebooks his father kept while treating the King, but on the condition that he received “written permission from the Queen Mother” first. Upon writing to her, Seidler received a reply from her private secretary, asking him not to pursue the project during her lifetime. Consequently, Seidler abandoned the project in 1982.[citation needed]
Black Mau Mau’s Killed Our Friend’s Family
Posted on August 4, 2019 by Royal Rosamond Press
Joan Corbett was a good friend of my ex-wife and myself. She suffered from severe alcoholism due to her PTSD she acquired after coming home for Thanksgiving, and finding her family slaughtered. These latest shooters have targeted people of color. The Mau Mau Murders should be be labeled a ‘Hate Crime’.
David Seidler And Our Ex
Posted on September 1, 2018 by Royal Rosamond Press
David Seidler was married to my ex, Mary Ann Tharaldsen, and thus is in my and Liz Taylor’s family tree. Maybe he can author a Bond movie?
I see a play based upon The Misfits, and Bus Stop, where Tom and Mary Ann Pynchon, end up on the bus to Mexico with Lee Harvey Oswald. What was said, or not said, to detour Oswald from ending Camelot, or, what made up his mind to end the life of JFK, would be the Story of their generation? Belief in dialogue and philosophy was at its peak. If JFK had lived, there would be no Brexit and Trump. The bond between the U.S. Canada and Britain, would be strong. I suspect my ex was recruited by the CIA.
“I did not like it in Mexico…” The writer’s introspection also bothered her. “He wasn’t very present as a lover or a person. I wanted a relationship with someone who wanted to have children, and it became apparent to me that he really didn’t want to do that. He wanted to focus more on his writing.” After some time, the couple moved from Mexico to Texas, where they lived in separate houses. The novelist worked all night and slept all day. “So that isn’t very conducive to a relationship,” Tharaldsen recalled, laughing.”
John Presco 007
| THARALDSEN, MARY ANN married a groom named DAVID SEIDLER in the year 1961 on license number 4200 issued in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, U.S.A. Special thanks to RECLAIM THE RECORDS. Now you may also check Archives for MARY ANN THARALDSEN. |
Mary A Presco
in the California, Divorce Index, 1966-1984
- Add Alternative Information
- Report issue
| Name: | Mary A Presco |
|---|---|
| Spouse Name: | John G |
| Location: | Alameda |
| Date: | 24 Mar 1980 |
http://piaui.folha.uol.com.br/materia/the-fake-hermit/
Supposedly, Outsider Stacey Pierrot, had an agreement with Carrie Fisher to author the biography of my late sister, Christine Rosamond Presco, the sister-in-law of, Mary Ann Presco, who was married to David Seidler, who won an academy award for his screenplay in the movie ‘The King’s Speech’’. David and Mary Ann will be in the Rosamond Family Tree I am compiling. Rick Partlow will be there because he was married to Christine. Rick won an Emmy for his foley work in the series ‘Battlestar Galactica’. Mary Ann was married to Thomas Pynchon, and he will be in this rosy tree, as will Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor, who was married to Eddy Fisher. Garth Benton did some acting and was married to Allee McBride. Benton did murals in the homes of the Stars.
This is a Starry constellation that I hereby title ‘The Royal Rosamond Space Academy’. As a descendant of the Master of the Falcon Art College in Holland, who commissioned Hieronymus Bosch to execute his otherworldly painting, I am going to teach young people how to get Out There – without drugs! Science Fiction Author, Daemon Knight, wrote a book on Bosch.
Jon
Oakland Tommy
Posted on March 4, 2016by Royal Rosamond Press
I just found out my ex-wife lived on College Avenue – IN OAKLAND – with Thomas Pynchon. They lived in a big apartment building located next to ‘Ye Olde Hut’ where I did a lot of drinking with my friends, including Paul Drake who Mary Ann encouraged to take up acting. Paul claims he based his tough-guy persona on watching me drink, but I believe he is speaking of Richard Swartz who was a bodyguard for Dederich of Synanon. Richard held the world’s record to the fifty yard dash – on his hands!
Mary Ann did illustrations for a rare book about the Symbionese Liberation Army. Her best friend, Joan (who lived right off college) came home for Thanksgiving and found her whole family blown away by the Black Mau Maus. Her father was a CEO of Standard Oil. Patty Hurst was kidnapped from 2803 Benvenue, which is about ten blocks from the Hut. I thought Mary Ann and I were going to be Facebook friends, then she prohibited any more drama. Maybe I will get an Oscar someday – late in my life – when most of my peers are dead, leaving a thousand writers to guess what became of Pynchon? What about Patty? What us olde ones don’t realize, is, that every seven years you get a new generation, thus withholding information from them – is futile!
“When he finished college, Pynchon was dating a girl named Lilian Laufgraben. Her family was Jewish and preferred that their daughter marry a dentist with the same religion. Heartbroken, the writer turned to some friends for comfort, Mary Ann Tharaldsen and David Seidler, a couple living in Seattle. Tharaldsen worked for Boeing and arranged a job at the company for the young friend. At the time Pynchon was writing his debut novel, V. In the book there’s a Jewish girl, Esther, who gets a nose job. When the surgery was about to start, the character was still awake: “She felt passive, even (a little?) sexually aroused.” Later, “Esther’s eyes were wild; she sobbed quietly, obviously beginning to get second thoughts. ‘Too late now,’ Trench consoled her, grinning. ‘Lay quiet, hey.’” Pynchon takes several pages to describe the mutilation of the girl’s face, without sparing metaphors of sexual penetration. Many of his friends interpret the passage as the novelist’s revenge on Lilian Laufgraben.
As soon as V. was published in 1963, the author quit his job at Boeing and moved to Mexico City, where he believed he would spend less money. He hated Seattle. “It’s a nightmare. If there were no people in it, it would be beautiful,” he wrote in a letter to an old college friend. During a brief trip back to the United States, he started a relationship with Mary Ann Tharaldsen, which led to the end of her marriage.
I called David Seidler, the ex-husband. “Thomas Pynchon? I’d rather not talk about it, thanks,” he said sarcastically. He’s now a theater and film writer and won an Academy Award in 2011 for The King’s Speech. Like George VI, the film’s protagonist, Seidler was born in England and stuttered in his childhood.
Tharaldsen, a technical writer, now 80 and living in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, told me a few details about their relationship. “Pynchon didn’t want to really communicate with anybody, except at that time I was the person that he would communicate with.” She agreed to live in Mexico when the two began their relationship. “I did not like it in Mexico…” The writer’s introspection also bothered her. “He wasn’t very present as a lover or a person. I wanted a relationship with someone who wanted to have children, and it became apparent to me that he really didn’t want to do that. He wanted to focus more on his writing.” After some time, the couple moved from Mexico to Texas, where they lived in separate houses. The novelist worked all night and slept all day. “So that isn’t very conducive to a relationship,” Tharaldsen recalled, laughing.
Pynchon’s Catholicism manifested itself mainly in his strict habits. In their five years together, Tharaldsen never saw her boyfriend smoke marijuana (there are reports that he took up weed later on). The author once got annoyed at his girlfriend when she said she wanted to have a drink during the day. “I will not tolerate midday drinking,” he shouted.
Some people guarantee that Tharaldsen served as the inspiration for Oedipa Maas, the protagonist of The Crying of Lot 49. The housewife ditches her husband, disc jockey Wendell “Mucho” Maas, and ventures to California chasing leads on an underground organization. The more she gets caught up in the search, the more she’s egged on by her own paranoia. Countless critics have claimed that Pynchon composes unidimensional and overly ludicrous characters. It’s certainly not the case with Oedipa Maas.
The novelist and Tharaldsen parted ways for good in the late ’60s, when the writer was finishing Gravity’s Rainbow at a house near the ocean in Manhattan Beach, a town near Los Angeles. Retired Army officer Jim Hall, Pynchon’s neighbor at the time, was dating a girl that the writer also knew. “When I met him for the first time, we were drinking wine at his house. Pynchon was very much into thermodynamics and there were stacks of Scientific American magazines in his apartment. My girlfriend said he didn’t want to read anything anybody else had written because he was afraid he’d write it into his work. Since I’d just gotten back from Vietnam, Pynchon asked me several questions about it.” Some of the critics claim that although Gravity’s Rainbow takes place in World War II, the book is about how Americans viewed the Vietnam War. I asked Hall if the novelist had shown paranoid traits at the time. “A little,” he replied. “But considering what we know today about the government’s covert operations at the time, he was right to act that way.”
To divide Tom the man from Pynchon the idea for biographical purposes, however, is to risk the folly in which Lane indulges in Journey into the Mind of [P.], particularly when he speculates that Pynchon was on the bus Lee Harvey Oswald took from Houston, Texas, to Mexico City on September 26, 1963,[23] about a month after Pynchon served as best man at Richard Fariña and Mimi Baez’s wedding on August 21, 1963. Lane never offers an explanation for why Pynchon would travel from California to Texas to return to Mexico rather than take a bus from Pacific Grove, to which he had traveled from Mexico City in August.[24] Lane admits that he is offering nothing more than “ridiculous rumor,” a description he quickly recasts as “ridiculous speculation,” apparently to indicate that the story is his own, but he also conjectures that Pynchon’s “secret,” his reason for avoiding the press, involves the conversation he had with Oswald. “This is the kind of fun people like me can have,” Lane then says. But the speculation isn’t simply ridiculous; it ignores the record, even as it existed at the time of the film’s making. Pynchon had already begun his famed avoidance of the media before Oswald went to Mexico, as George Plimpton, a literary journalist, and Jules Siegel, a former friend, point out in the film just after Lane’s speculation. There is no reasonable way to place Pynchon on a bus with Oswald, despite Lane’s insistence that connections can be forged even if the words we have don’t imply them, or to attribute Pynchon’s desire for privacy to a meeting between him and Kennedy’s assassin. Indeed, it has more recently been revealed that Pynchon headed further north after Fariña’s wedding, meeting up with friends from Cornell, Mary Ann Tharaldsen and David Seidler, in Berkeley, where he remained until “shortly after John F. Kennedy was assassinated.”[25] Pynchon might observe of Lane’s speculation: “Opera librettos, movies and television drama are allowed to get away with all kinds of errors in detail. Too much time in front of the Tube and a writer [or biographical researcher, it turns out] can get to believing the same thing. . . . The lesson here, obvious but now and then overlooked, is just to corroborate one’s data.”[26]
Royal Rosamond Space Academy
Posted on September 19, 2016by Royal Rosamond Press
Share this:
The Royal Bohemian Court
Posted on June 23, 2023 by Royal Rosamond Press
Friends (Photograph by Bill McCullough for The Atlantic)
119 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, S.W.3 (Photo: Google Maps)
I am seeking a team of attorneys to file a lawsuit against the owners of Bohemian Grove – forbidding them to use the word and title….BOHEMIAN!
After I raised Talitha Getty from the dead – which was an exhausting task – I go turn on the news and see three men holding fish. This is a Dadaist painting. They are – White Men – who have been caught red-handed. Here is another connection to Bohemian Grove to a Supreme Court Justice.
“What are you men going to do with those fish?”
“Uh! we’re waiting for Uncle Tom Pynchon to arrive with his Bar-B-Quer. He’s going to show us how to cook salmon – Lousiana Style!”
“He’ll be here with ‘The Black Beast’ in a hour or two. We’re flying him and his Q in on a military transport!”
Here is the most surreal headline written to date…
“US justice Samuel Alito defends fishing trip with billionaire Paul Singer“
Washington Irving would salivate over it. It has a Rumple Stiltskin feel to it. Men fishing with other men is the oldest activity known to man. Jesus gets involved, telling his disciples where to cast their net. So, what is so wrong with this picture? One answer is, Jesus, and all members of the Supreme Court are supposed to live the lifestyle of Gypsies – Bohemians! Here is a good article on Bohemian Grove that testifies the trouble real Bohemians are having with – THE SUPER RICH! Justice Alito and Thomas have been caught in Eva Braun’s home movie taken at Hitler’s wolf’s Lair. This looks very bad, unless you can exclaim…
“Here comes Uncle Tom Pynchon now – with his Quer!”
Thomas Pynchon became the King of Bohemians when his best friend, Richard Farina got killed. Mimi Baez Farina – was Queen of the Bohemians. Now that the Billion Dollar Grasp of the Royal Bohemian Court has been loosened, we Real Bohemians must choose a King – and a Queen! I am a candidate. Art immitates life. Damn -if that isn’t Uncle Tom sitting with these rich men in that Grove painting! What do you got, Mr. Presco – a Gypsies Crystal Ball?
John Bohemian Johnny
Evelyn Beatrice Sainte Croix Fleming, née Rose, known as Eve Fleming (10 January 1885 – 27 July 1964),[1] was an English socialite known for her flamboyant beauty and being the mother of James Bond writer Ian Fleming.
Life[edit]
Born in Kensington, London, Eve was the daughter of George Alfred Sainte Croix Rose (31 January 1854 – 14 February 1926), a captain in the service of the Royal Buckinghamshire Militia (King’s Own) and Justice of the Peace (J.P.) for Berkshire, son of Sir Philip Rose, 1st Baronet, by his marriage on 8 April 1880 to Beatrice Quain (1857 – 4 January 1911), the daughter of Sir Richard Quain, 1st Baronet.
On 15 February 1906 she married Valentine Fleming (17 February 1882 – 20 May 1917),[2] and by that marriage was the mother of four sons: Peter Fleming, Ian Fleming, Richard Fleming and Michael Fleming. Eve was also the grandmother of actress Lucy Fleming.
After her husband’s death in action during World War I, Eve Fleming inherited his large estate in trust, making her very wealthy. However, the conditions of the money in trust transferred it to others should she ever remarry. She became the mistress of painter Augustus John, with whom she had a daughter, the cellist Amaryllis Fleming, and later lived with the Marquess of Winchester until his death.
During the 1940s and 1950s, she resided at The Abbey, Sutton Courtenay. She died only two weeks before the death of her son Ian on 12 August 1964.[3]
In popular culture[edit]
Eve Fleming’s nickname from her son Ian was M, and Ian may have used his relationship with her as model for M, fictional head of Head of the Secret Intelligence Service and James Bond’s boss.[4]
She became the mistress of painter Augustus John, with whom she had a daughter, the cellist Amaryllis Fleming, and later lived with the Marquess of Winchester until his death
Monica de Mornay De La Croix Rose
After selling Pitt House in 1923 Fleming’s mother bought three cottages in Cheyne Walk and converted them into one dwelling. She named the three Turner’s House after the painter J M W Turner who had spent his last years at No. 119. He died here in 1851. During her time here, Eve established a Bohemian salon for artists, like her lover, Augustus John, to allow them to mingle with patrons such as Winston Churchill. The young Ian lived here during his school holidays and continued to visit whilst he was at Kitzbuhel and at Geneva University.
Then, at the age of 23, he moved in and stayed there until 1936. During this time he was sorting out his future, including abortive army training at Sandhurst, Foreign Office entry exams and unsuccessful careers as stockbroker and banker (including a period of employment by Tom Cull’s grandfather at bankers Cull & Co. Then in 1936, he acquired his final pre-war home at…
Black Pynchon
Posted on August 29, 2018 by Royal Rosamond Press
When I read they were seriously considering having a black man play James Bond, I wondered what they were going to do with all those white man clichés and stereotypes – that I was having a problem with – with my white James Bond – even though I turned him – into a woman. Then there is the smashing of a white man’s icon. Who do we got left? How about, Thomas Pynchon? Why not kill him off and replace him with a – Black Pynchon?
Most of the black people I have known, and know, have very active and healthy social lives. So, the contrast is not in the change of skin color, but, being turned from a reclusive bug hiding in a damp log – into a social butterfly! Tom had a chance to be in the limelight of the Richard and Mimi Farina show. The Baez family were very tribal, and folksy. They are Irish and Mexican stock.
Tom is in my family tree. I married his ex, who said;
“In Mexico, Tharaldsen says, Pynchon wrote all night, slept all day, and kept mostly to himself. When he didn’t write, he read—mainly Latin American writers like Jorge Luis Borges, a big influence on his second novel, The Crying of Lot 49.”
Maybe Tom will write some of the script? How about a series that opens with Tom recalling his life as a writer. He might open up if he has an alias.
http://www.vulture.com/2013/08/thomas-pynchon-bleeding-edge.html
Black Pynchon
by
John Presco 007
Thomas Pynchon wakes up to the sound of his cellphone ringing. He reaches for it on his night stand, but, it is not there. Getting up, he follows the gospel tune to his writing table.
“When did I choose a gospel tune for my ringer. And, where is my computer!”
Reaching for his phone, Tom let’s out a startled cry when he sees a black hand pick it up.
“Hello!”
“Hi Daddy! Today’s the big day! Let’s go over your itinerary. Drop your mother off at the rest home, and bring your grandsons, Tyrel and Tee-Jay, with you. She won’t put up a fight if they are present. Then, drop them off at football practice. Then, pickup Willie’s bar-b-quer and drop it off at the church. Bring your truck. Then, practice your solo song with the choir. After that, pick up your granddaughter’s wedding cake, bring it home, and get ready for your retirement ceremony, at seven. You can leave the wedding early because the groom has so much family. As the chief of police of Watts, you will be swearing in new officers – before you receive your medal of heroism. Bring your speech. Did you order enough ribs for the choir picnic?
“I’m the chief of police of Watts?” Tom asks, as he checks out his great choppers he owns in the hall mirror.
‘That’s right. But, after tonight, you won’t be!” You’re 81 Daddy, time to spend more time with your 32 grandchildren who love you so much. They’re already fighting over you.
“How old is Momma?” Tom asks.
“Are you getting senile on me? She’s a 107.”
“Can I get a room next to her?”
“Oh, Daddy! You’re such a card! My warm, cuddly, clown! Oh, I almost forgot. Your nieces from Oakland want to see you and Momma do ‘The Bump’. So, get warmed up!”
“You want me to do the Bump – with my Momma?”
“No silly. I want you to do the Bump – with my Momma! Put her on. I want to see if she is done altering my dress.”
From the bathroom comes the sound of splashing in the tub.
“Is that Sharena? Bring the phone in here! I want to talk to her about the surprise party.”
“Who’s surprised party?”
“Never you mind. You don’t have to have your nose in everyone’s business. Now, get going. Go load up the seasoned hardwood for the Q-pot.”
“But, I don’t have any clothes on. Do you know where my clothes are?”
After Fariña’s wedding, Pynchon went up to Berkeley, where he met up with Tharaldsen and Seidler. For years, Pynchon trackers have wondered about Tharaldsen, listed as married to Pynchon in a 1966–67 alumni directory. The real story is not of a secret marriage but a distressing divorce—hers from Seidler. Pynchon and Tharaldsen quickly fell in love, and when Pynchon went back to Mexico City shortly after John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Tharaldsen soon followed.
In Mexico, Tharaldsen says, Pynchon wrote all night, slept all day, and kept mostly to himself. When he didn’t write, he read—mainly Latin American writers like Jorge Luis Borges, a big influence on his second novel, The Crying of Lot 49. (He also translated Julio Cortázar’s short story “Axolotl.”) His odd writing habits persisted throughout his life; later, when he was in the throes of a chapter, he’d live off junk food (and sometimes pot). He’d cover the windows with black sheets, never answer the door, and avoid anything that smelled of obligation. He often worked on multiple books at once—three or four in the mid-sixties—and a friend remembers him bringing up the subject of 1997’s Mason & Dixon in 1970.
Tharaldsen grew bored of the routine. Soon they moved to Houston, then to Manhattan Beach. Tharaldsen, a painter, did a portrait of Pynchon with a pig on his shoulder, referencing a pig figurine he’d always carry in his pocket, talking to it on the street or at the movies. (He still identified closely with the animals, collecting swine paraphernalia and even signing a note to friends with a drawing of a pig.) Once Tharaldsen painted a man with massive teeth devouring a burger, which she titled Bottomless, Unfillable Nothingness. Pynchon thought it was him, and hated it. Tharaldsen insists it wasn’t, but their friend Mary Beal isn’t so sure. “I know she regarded him as devouring people. I think in the sense that he—well, I shouldn’t say this, because all writers do it. Writers use people.”
Tharaldsen hated L.A., and decided to go back to school in Berkeley. “I thought they were unserious sort of beach people—lazy bums! But Tom didn’t care because he was inside all day and writing all night.”
Stay Out Of The Sawtelle!
Posted on December 10, 2021 by Royal Rosamond Press
I awoke this morning reciting the poison scene from The Princess Bride. I had written something eloquent and used Iiocane as a means to explain the dilemma I have been ever sense Christine Wandel told me she was certain that Ruben Blades is Julie’s father. This was two days before she was going to have Thanksgiving Dinner with Ruben’s daughter. They were going to go to the Washington Square Diner, but, Julie canceled. Christine had me email Ruben, but, no response. I wanted to go with full disclosure – from the get – because I know Christine. We would end up at a round table with two goblets playing a guessing game……What is real? Compared to what?
After several calls, where I was bid to change the dictated email, I posted the final version on Ruben’s Facebook – for the whole world to see! I took a cue from Ruben’s son, replicated what he went through to get his father to acknowledge he has sired a child!
“There! It’s done! The whole world will soon know the truth!”
“What did you do?” Christine asked. I told her.
“Remove it. You are invading my privacy!”
I told Cristine invading folk’s privacy – is unavoidable! You have to tell Julie. Leave a message on her phone. We now talked about – not hurting Blade’s daughter.
“Perhaps it’s better she doesn’t know?”
Night before last Christine gave me permission to write about Ruben Blades on this blog-newspaper. She told me that one of her grandsons looks like Ruben. This – changed everything. Do we all own the right to know who are people are? Ninety million people are obsessed with genealogies. Remember the series ‘Roots’ ? I have been looking at newspapers about Ruben, his son, and his daughter. Ruben says he does not want to make a big deal about it. He does not want to elaborate on the matter. However, he does talk about his Englich father. Christine heard this in 1975. She was not aware of Ruben’s Latino Race – as much as Ruben – is! It was no big deal.
What is a BIG DEAL….Ruben had an affair by a Saxon Woman, and, she became pregnant? Christine and I concluded Ruben had reasons to cover this up, and, Julie could get hurt by realizing how powerless she is. The truth would not set her free, but, imprison her. For this reason I am going to send this story to other newspapers that covered the other child of Ruben – Julies half-brother!
Millions of people can relate to being told to stay out of certain neighborhoods. West Side Story is a famous movie and play about this command. Today is the world premiere of Spielberg’s Story. I am going to purchase a ticket. The original Story was life-changing for me. Months after I saw Westside, I fell in love with a Mexican girl named, Maria, who was in my English class. Her friends knew I had a crush on her, but, I was incredibly shy to the point I admitted I was mentally ill. I wrote poems to other women in other classes. Maria may have heard me recite one of my poems. The last day of school, she approaches me. We are alone in the classroom. I want to kiss her. It is mutual. Our moment, gone, Maria hands me a paper with her address on it.
“Come to my birthday party!”
I almost fainted. My friend Bill drove me to the address that was in the Bad Part of Town. We stopped up the street. There were about ten Mexican teenagers standing on the steps to a Victorian. Some were wearing colorful shirts. I asked Bill of he would come with me, but, that could be trouble. Best I go alone. Being a visual artists and poet, I made several movies of me walking down the street – and up those stairs. How would I be received? A year later this would be a painting. Here is a photograph of my ex-wife, Mary Ann Tharaldsen, walking towards my neighbors in the Mexican neighborhood I lived in. Mary Ann lived with Thomas Pynchon in Mexico.
It was my adopted mother, June Rice, who told me not to go……into the Sawtelle. I detected there were racial reasons. My famiy had just moved to LA. What I heard next, was chillling.
“And don’t go into those theatres. A pervert will stick an icepick in your ear and molest you!”
I was a virgin. I wanted to lose my virginity to Maria. I did not go to her party. I know this morning she kept looking for me. She told her brothers to look out for me, and make sure nothing bad happens to me.
I was sixteen and a student at University High School in West Los Angeles, when a Mexican girl in my class handed me a folded note and asked me to give it to my friend, Mark Owen, who I met at his birthday party that Bryan MacLean took me to. It was Mark who noticed these two girls that were following us after school – that he said were interested in us.
“I want the blonde! You can have the other one!” Mark said. Mark got crazy drunk at his party, and his father gave him a prostitute to sleep with. I was still a virgin. I gave the note from Marilyn to my best friend, and off…….into the Sawtelle he went. I set up my easle, and began a new painting. An hour later Mark comes in the door, and hands me the note I handed him.
“This was meant for you!” Mark said.
I just now realize I dreamed about writing and reading this post. What had happened was, the girl who handed me the note was a good friend of Judy, the other girl walking with Marilyn. Judy wanted me, and heard about Marilyn’s note to me. She asked her friend to do a switch! Here is the scene from the Princess Bride that resembles Romeo and Juliet.
“She wants to see you – now!” And off I go into the Sawtelle.
Below is a photo of the son of Carlos Moore with his arm around me. Carlos wrote the biography of Fela that he later sold to producers who made it into a musical. He was married to Shawna, Marilyn’s half-sister, who lived with Les McCann’s drummer. Shawna gave my first girlfriend a black doll. M knew Bryan who formed the first mixed-race rock band. Peter Shapiro was a member of The Loading Zone who hired a black female singer. Peter was close with members of The Tower of Power, a mixed-race group. Love later became an all black band and celebrated Black is Beautiful.
Christine knew very little about Julie’s father, so I filled her in. She met Ruben at The Bottom Line where her friend, Bill Graham, took her to see The Tower of Power. She was not happy about the Nobel Prize article that seemed to do a switch, saying Ruben deserved that prize, and not Bob Dylan. Now, here is the bottom line that came to me – in a dream…..
One is not worthy of a Nobel Prize for how well you get along – with your race – but how well you get along – with other races!
There is no cure – for love!
John Presco
braskewitz@yahoo.com
Arthur Lee’s Love have lost masterpiece Black Beauty released for the first time – The Vinyl Factory
Carlos Moore (writer) – Wikipedia
Ruben Blades acknowledges 39-year old love child Newsroom Panama
PANAMANIAN salsa singer Ruben Blades, winner of multiple Grammy’s and a man with presidential ambitions has confirmed that he is the father of a 39-year-old Puerto Rican.
He made the acknowledgment that Joseph Verne is his biological son, on Facebook. Verne has a 13 year-old daughter, so Blades is also catapulted into the grandfather role.
On New Year’s Day Puerto Rican newspapers carried a statement released by Blades on his Facebook shortly before the end of 2014, which clarifies that biological tests conducted in February showed that Verne is his son.
“I want to make a necessary public statement that I am pleased and satisfied,” said Blades in the statement, recalling that a two years ago Verne publicly stated that there was a possibility that he was the son of the folk singer which Blades, had always rejected he acknowledged
“In May 2013, however, a relative of mine agreed to a DNA test for. Verne and although the results seemed to demonstrate a clear relationship of consanguinity between the two I was not notified of it. Six months later, in December 2013, a letter was received at my father’s home in Panama giving thr the fact, “says Blades in the statement.
The singer told his lawyers to locate Verne and arrangements were made for a DNA test be conducted with all three (his son, the mother and himself).
“Those tests were achieved in February 2014 and the results were conclusive. Joseph Verne, a man of 39 years old, is my biological son . Joseph’s conviction proved to be true and I, of course, was wrong to have considered that there was no such a possibility, ” says Blades.
“Although nothing can ever appease my shame with him and myself, we met in March 2014 and since then have maintained optimal communication including my granddaughter, a bright young 13- year-old,” said Blades in the statement.
The singer said he did not want to make a public announcement without first establishing the basis for a real relationship with his child.
“I do not plan to make any public statement on the matter. Joseph and I believe that this public notice is clear and sufficient” concludes the statement.
Blades was Minister of Tourism during the administration of Martin Torrijos (2004-2009.
Moore is widely recognized for his outspokenness against racism,[4] defense of pan-Africanism, his scholarly work and for writing the authorized biography of the Nigerian singer, saxophonist and activist Fela Kuti, Fela, Fela: This Bitch of a Life,[5] which inspired the stage musical Fela![6]
Moore’s first wife, Shawna, was from the US, and they had a son together, Kimathi. Moore’s second wife, Ayeola, whom he married in 1992, is from Guadeloupe.[7]
“The Red Telephone” is a song written by Arthur Lee and first released by Love on their 1967 album Forever Changes.
Lyrics and music[edit]
According to legend, the house that the members of Love lived in had a red telephone, although the song lyrics do not relate to this. “The Red Telephone” is built on a set of folk-inspired chords.[1] The song has been compared to Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd. Themes of the song include race, imprisonment, and death.[2] It contains a harpsichord and 12-string guitar, and has an ominous feel. “Sometimes my life is so eerie,” Lee sings, but then inverts the dark mood with “and if you think I’m happy / Paint me white.”[3]
Reception
Allmusic‘s Matthew Greenwald called “The Red Telephone” “exquisite” and wrote, “it’s one of the more engaging and interesting songs on Love’s Forever Changes album.”[1] Ken Barnes called it “bleakly philosophical” and “apocalyptic”.[4] Jim Bickhart of Rolling Stone gave it a mixed review, writing “it contains both excellent and mediocre portions.”[5]
Jocelyn Manchec listed the song among the 2000 songs for your MP3 Player.[6] In 2002 the Italian Rock Magazine “Il Mucchio Selvaggio” listed the song on its 17 Critics & Their Top 50 Songs.[7]
Yesterday I talked to Marilyn Reed about the Sawtelle, and her neighbor, John Lupton. Marilyn’s brother, Stanley, was married John’s wife’s sister, I believe. I was supposed to interview M at the Eugene Art Walk last night, but it was moved to next week due to New Years. She is a gold mine and there is no end to the information I capture, with patience, because Marilyn is a humble soul, and not a name dropper like me. I brought up John Lupton. She used to baby-sit his son, and I would come over to neck with my first girlfriend on the couch. I was impressed. M had already introduced me to Les McCann who played and sang a tune for us.
I asked M how this actor felt living in the Sawtelle, and how he got there. What I have been trying to do is establish the Sawtelle as a haven for the Beats, Folk Artists, and early Hippies. Our friend, Bryan MacLean played at a coffee house Marilyn and I found in 1962, when we were fifteen and sixteen. It was a tea house. After school we would sit by the fire and I would draw M. An hour ago I discovered John played a Beat Writer in the movie ‘The Rebel Set’. I struck the Mother Load, and arrived at the archetypal hub.
I told Marilyn we have been having the same conversation for forty-five years, we very interested in Beats and Bohemians. To discover that John played a Beatnik writer is “far out and floating”. Gloria Moreland plays a Bali Dancer. M’s daughter, Nisha, lived in Bali and studied Gamalin music. Nisha read Rena’s poem while her step-father played drums at the Granary poetry reading. In this movie a guy checks out Gloria’s ass, which she was famous for. When M was babysitting for Kathy down the street, Arnold Palmer checked out M’s sixteen year old ass as she walked out of the room. I caught him and gave him a hard stare. Kathy was dating his good friend who MCed a golf show. This was the start of our break-up. Kathy was a jet-setter who knew everyone in LA. She lived in the Sawtelle. Marilyn was also a Whiteaker Pioneer.
As a profound coincidence I was telling M about my FB friend, Ben Toney, and the movie Expresso Bongo also made in 1959 at the height of the Beatnik Craze. I have found my alter-ego, King Invader, a poet who reads in The Rebel Set.
Marilyn is still a good friend of Jazz great, Les McCann. After we broke up she went with Jeff Pasternak to France on a ocean liner. Here she is having dinner with Jeff onboard. Jeff founded a rock group ‘The Mustard Greens’ that played at the Whiskey A Go-Go, where he met ‘The Doors’ that he tried to get in his father’s movie.
“Bryan started playing guitar in 1963/64. He got a job at the Balladeer before it changed its name to the Troubadour Club, playing back-up blues guitar. It was here he met the pre Byrds Jet Set while dating Jackie De Shannon and he became ‘fast friends’ with David Crosby. He moved away from home and by early 1965 he became road manager for the Byrds on their first Californian tour with the Rolling Stones.”
Bryan was a roadie for the Byrds when he was seventeen. We were both on the brink of dropping out of high school that we had outgrown. Bryan told me he was going to got on tour with the Byrds in Europe, but because he was underage, then did not take him. Bryan went to live with the Beat Artist, Vito Paulekas
In 1966 I went with my friend Nancy Van Brasch to see ‘Love’ at the Filmore. Nancy and I lived in a famous commune in SF, and she dated Stanley Augustus Owsely. Christine Rosamond came to live with us, and she went on a date with Nick Sands. I later got to know members of ‘The Brotherhood of Eternal Love’ who bought me art supplies. I was the Artist in Residence when I lived with ‘The Loading Zone’.
I had my first art show at the New Balladeer that is on the corner of Massachusetts and Sawtelle. Bryan’s Beatnik friend slept in a cot in the store room, and was later murdered by my second girlfriend’s father. Bryan was invited to Sharon Tate’s home the night she was murdered by the Manson family, but, he had a previous engagement. Consider Tyler Shields and the Eastwoods.
Why are Beatniks getting involved in a bank heist? The star of Zabriskie Point was a Mel Lyman devotee. Mark Frechette held up a bank with another Lyman Family member after he made his movie. He had real-life interests. Mel Lyman is my kindred who created a network of Miscans, Actors, and Artists. He is in my family tree. He married Jessie Benton, a cousin of my ex-brother-in-law, muralist Garth Benton, who starred in movies, as did his first wife, Alli McBride.
Ray Miller might be the first Beat Writer depicted in a film. What was Ken Kesey up to in 1959? Was Jack Kerouac ever in a movie? My fictional author Don The Juan’ Roscoe is on his way to becoming a Beat Writer after Ray ‘The Bank’ Miller.
Rena Easton, the dancer, is foreseen in the Bali Dancer, played by Moreland. This is the blueprint…..the far-out groovy blues-print that has been floating around in Bohemian Lore waiting to come home to………….The Sawtelle!
Gloria Stuart was an Artist and Bonzai Master. She lived in the Bohemian Community of Carmel where my late sister, Christina Rosamond Benton, had two galleries. She married Blair Gordon Newell, a sculptor who helped Ralph Stackpole with his creative projects. Ralph was a good friend of the muralist Diego Rivera and his artistic wife. Ralph knew George Sterling who co-founded the Carmel Bohemian community, and the Bohemian Club. Gloria was friends with the Weston family of photographers of Carmel. Gloria’s offspring are making a documentary titled ‘The Secret Life of Old Rose’.
Gloria went to Santa Monica High School, and my kindred, Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor, went to University High in the Sawtelle where sprang a Creative Beat Musical scene at a Tea House located at 11271 Massachusetts Ave, Los Angeles. Here I drew my High School sweetheart, Marilyn Reed. We were fifteen and sixteen, and considered ourselves, Beats. My friend, Bryan McLean of ‘Love’ played here, as did David Cosby. Bryan was in love with my sister, who became the world famous artist ‘Rosamond’. Liz and Gloria were involved in the Arts. The muralist, Stanton McDonald Wright, placed Gloria next to the actor Leo Carrillo overlooking Santa Monica Bay. That is Gloria’s husband with his sculpture near Rocky Point. Stanton was a good friend of the artist and muralist, Thomas Hart Benton.
America needs a Peace Center where people can gather and look for ways to be peaceful. I am looking at the Sawtelle Asylum for Wounded Veterans where Ralph’s statue of Pacifica can be rebuilt. Unto this sanctuary all Seekers of Peace would be welcome.
Come! Put on your tapping shoes, and help make America great again!
I just talked to Marilyn and she told me she used to hop the fence and swim in the Tongva Springs all the time, starting when she was eight. She lived on Armacost near Brockton Elementary school located a few blocks from Uni High. Gloria and M look like the French Actress, Madeleine Sologne, who starred in Cocteau’s movie ‘L’Éternel Retour’ The movie ‘The Titanic’ returned to the theme of Eternal Love. Artists are immortalized. I have found a stellar group of creative souls that sprang from mural in Santa Monica where Marilyn and I went to swim in the sea. These are…………my people!
When I was fifteen my art teacher told me there was nothing he could teach me, and gave me a key to a gate that guarded these springs. He gave me a Artist’s Sanctuary that I could use whenever I attended his class. He took off his wristwatch and handed it to me so I could tell when his class was over. I fought back tears as I headed to these springs with a drawing board and paper. Years later Marilyn told me she used to climb the tall chain-link fence when she was thirteen, and swim in these sacred waters. She is part Meti.
Sawtelle used to be a city. After it was incorporated into the City of Los Angeles, a high school was built that was going to be named Sawtelle. Recently Sawtelle was renamed ‘Japantown’.
The Black Doll of Sawtell
Posted on June 22, 2020 by Royal Rosamond Press
Race Relations is difficult study, but it is our study.
Marilyn And The Sawtelle
Posted on June 6, 2016 by Royal Rosamond Press
Back in December, my childhood friend, Marilyn Reed agreed to make a video for a chapter I was writing for my autobiography ‘Capturing Beauty’. Marilyn and I met when we were fifteen and sixteen. She lived in the Sawtelle neighborhood which was going to be the title of a chapter. After our profound talk, and with more revelations, I told Marilyn ‘The Sawtelle’ might be a book. After the performance by the Inspirational Sounds Gospel Choir, Marilyn’s sister, Shana suggested she and Marilyn co-author a book, and tell their story. I consented to this, then rescinded my blessing, because I feel out story is more important. A week later Marilyn told me she had no time to write her story. I reminded her of the videos I made of her.
The Sawtelle will look at our mothers and their desperate poverty and struggle to raise their children. The story of Marie and Rosemary, is an amazing one. They never met. They came together in our bond. Our creative bond was an inspiration to my sister, who took up art when she was twenty-four and became world famous. Christine signed her beautiful images of women with her middle name, my mother’s maiden name ‘Rosamond’.
The videos of our interview are copyrighted, as are the videos I took at the Hult Center. This performance reminded me of my vision for my musical ‘My Big Beautiful Blue Bicycle’ that I posted on May 1, 2014. There is talk about going to New York and seeing ‘Fela’ a musical based on a story co-authored by Shana.
Jon Presco
President: Royal Rosamond Press Co.
Copyright 2016
Two Sawtelle Marilyns
Posted on June 18, 2016 by Royal Rosamond Press
Two hours ago I got a call from Marilyn Reed. She invited me to our friend Caroline Quinn’s art show. I told her I had just posted on Churchill and Marilyn Monroe, and told her I believed she lived near her in Santa Monica, and, I would google her to get an address. What I found out, has blown me away! Here is the synchronicity that I already applied to the Sawtelle, and the chapter – if not book – I plan to write about this neighbor – both Marilyn’s grew up in! They lived three and a half blocks from each other. Marilyn Godfrey Reed lived on Iowa, on the corner of Colby, next to the actor, John Lupton, who is in her family tree.
Here’s where we enter The Twilight Zone, Marilyn’s crypt is located on Glendon Avenue, about ten blocks from where my family lived on Glendon, two houses from La Grange, and about thirteen blocks from the Marilyns. Marilyn is forever residing on Glendon, as is my kindred, Francis Linn Taylor, who married Elizabeth Mary Rosemond, who Liz was named after. Francis was a art collector who owned several galleries.
For over a year I have been blogging on the Sawtelle. Marilyn looked a lot like Marilyn. We spent much time at each others homes. We were deeply in love. Our homes, and our hood, played such a big part of our growing up. identities are hard to come by in such a sprawling city. When the Prescos first moved to LA in August of 62, it was very hot. Here is a painting I did of the apartment we lived in on Midvale that I believe was once located in the Sawtelle.
In my musical I have Marilyn going to France, and coming back to the Sawtelle with Brigette Bardot’s blue bicycle. Bardot is France’s Monroe! How uncanny! This is part of the Synchronicity Art Movement I discovered. I may be kin to Sarah Churchhill. Rena was born in Nebraska and lived with her grandmother. There are many books written about the Sacred Feminine. The artist Rosamond, rendered beautiful women, and was inspired to take up art when she was twenty-four after seeing a photo of the large canvas I did of Rena. Christine was also inspired by the relataionship I had, and still have, with my muse.
When you look at this map you see that Marilyn came home again. She rests in our hood. Below is a photograph of the Rosamond Women taken on Glendon Avenue. That’s me on a skateboard. Marilyn and I just broke up after her mother forbade me to see her anymore because I did not go down and be SAVED. She saw Monroe as a Jezebel and Hussy. My mother and aunt Lillian dated Errol Flynn.
Jon Presco
Copyright 2016
Norma Jeane’s first appartment rented on her own downstairs from Ana Lower.
11348 Nebraska Avenue
11348 Nebraska Ave. Sawtelle, CA 1945-46
After Marilyn left the Los Angeles Orphans Home she bounced back and forth between different foster homes.
In 1937, 11-year-old Monroe found a home with Ana Lower, a relative of Marilyn’s guardian Grace McKee. Marilyn and Aunt Ana lived at 11348 Nebraska Avenue. It was the most stable home environment that Marilyn had known and she lived here until Lower developed health problems. Subsequently, McKee arranged a marriage between 16-year-old Marilyn and 21-year-old Jim Dougherty.
Monroe and Dougherty were married on June 19, 1942.
Marilyn Monroe (born Norma Jeane Mortenson, June 1, 1926 – August 5, 1962) was an American actress and model. Famous for playing “dumb blonde” characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s, emblematic of the era’s attitudes towards sexuality. Although she was a top-billed actress for only a decade, her films grossed $200 million by the time of her unexpected death in 1962.[1] She continues to be considered a major popular culture icon.[2]
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Monroe spent most of her childhood in foster homes and an orphanage and married for the first time at the age of sixteen. While working in a factory as part of the war effort in 1944, she met a photographer and began a successful pin-up modeling career.
Westwood Cemetery
1218 Glendon Avenue
No Marilyn tour would be complete without a visit to her crypt at Westwood. This small cemetery is hidden between tall buildings in a downtown area and is hard to find unless you know exactly where it is.
At the corner of Wilshire Blvd and Glendon Ave, there is a tall office building on the Southeast corner. Going south on Glendon, just past the office building there is a narrow driveway on the left. Turn in there, and go up the short hill. Where the driveway branches, go to the right, and you are there. The driveway circles around the cemetery. The chapel is near the Southwest corner. Marilyn’s crypt is near the Northeast corner. (Marked in the picture below)”
Here I am in 1963 on Glendon Avenue with my brother and Uncle Vinnie who gave me my first car, that 1957 Ford Fairlane in the background. The camera is point towards Marilyn’s crypt about twelve blocks away.
The Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery is a cemetery in the Westwood Village area of Los Angeles, California. It is located at 1218 Glendon Avenue in Westwood, with an entrance from Wilshire Boulevard.
Larry Sidle of the Sawtelle Sychornicity
Posted on December 10, 2016 by Royal Rosamond Press
Around 3:30 P.M. my ex-brother-in-law called me up on my computer. We talked for almost an hour. The last time we exchanged words, was in 1967. We are fathers, who sired two daughters. Larry Sidle told me for the last twenty years he was living near University High School. I told him I am writing about Marilyn Reed and the Sawtelle.
“She lived on Iowa, near Colby.”
“I live near Colby!”
“I’m getting chills. I have blogged on Synchronicity.”
Two hours later I look at my Sawtelle blogs, and found this one posted December 9, 2015, a year ago – exactly! There are springs blocks from Larry’s house. There is a Eternal Return. Thanks to the ‘Boy Next Door’ I have become unstuck in the telling of my story about OUR family! We can go home again, and tell the truth, which will…..set us free.
In the photo above, Christine Rosamond Presco, is pregnant with Shannon Sidle. Why isn’t our story included in the Strange Tales of Rosamond?
Jon Presco
Copyright 2016
Synchromism was founded by Stanton MacDonald Wright (Fig. 1) and Morgan Russell, while they were in Paris during 1912. Together they created the first official works, produced anywhere, which were considered ‘nonrepresentational’. Simply put, Synchromism was a method of painting that set itself apart by using fractured forms and rich colors ; based on using the color theories of Tudor Hart along with the sculptural qualities of Michelangelo.
Synchronicity is a concept first explained by psychiatrist Carl Jung, which holds that events are “meaningful coincidences” if they occur with no causal relationship, yet seem to be meaningfully related.[1] During his career, Jung furnished several slightly different definitions of it.[2]
Jung variously defined synchronicity as an “acausal connecting (togetherness) principle,” “meaningful coincidence”, and “acausal parallelism.” He introduced the concept as early as the 1920s but gave a full statement of it only in 1951 in an Eranos lecture.[3]
Benton initially met Wright in the winter of 1909, and immersed himself in the Synchromistic methods. Unfortunately, the only way we can now examine the influence of this time period had on his work is by drawing conclusions from his later work, as much of the work created from 1914-1917 was destroyed in a fire at his home in Neosho Missouri in 1917.
Macdonald-Wright was one of the first of many muralists working in the 1930’s to slant his historical presentation to local achievements. He set noted Santa Monicans, actors Gloria Stuart (b. 1910) and Leo Carrillo (1880-1961), before a backdrop that is a glorious panorama of Santa Monica Bay. Motion pictures not only represented a hometown industry to Macdonald-Wright but also related to his life-long experiments with film and color. Other autobiographical elements appear in other panels. The lariat thrower is his friend, artist Thomas Hart Benton; the dog in the prologue is his own; and the painter at an easel is his father, to whom the mural is dedicated.
Sawtelle
Posted on December 9, 2015by Royal Rosamond Press
“Latino activist Oscar de la Torre declared war on the 74-year-old art work last week and vowed to launch a campaign to “take this mural down”
Calling it “the Santa Monica confederate flag,” De la Torre said the mural is an insult to Native Americans because it shows them “bowing down to the Spaniards who came and oppressed and murdered and committed genocide in the Americas.”
Two days ago I told Marilyn that I am committed to publishing my first book in one month. I told her it would be titled ‘Sawtelle’. Yesterday, Donald Trump said he would not allow Muslims into this country if he were President. Yesterday, was December 7th. and many American people paid respects to those who lost their life when Japan attacked Pear Harbor. This attack has been compared to 911. After this “sneak attack” University High School lost 20% percent of their graduating class due to the United States Government rounding up these students, along with their parents, and putting them in internment camps. Today, Trump defended his statements by referring to FDR’s action.
The mural was painted by a good friend of my kindred, Thomas Hart Benton, the cousin of the muralist, Garth Benton, the late father of my artistic niece, Drew Benton. Stanton MacDonald-Wright and Thomas lived in Paris, and it was from Stanton that Benton got his style. Senator Thomas Hart Benton authored ‘Manifest Destiny’. I, my family, and my autobiography are at the epicenter of a cultural maelstrom. Consider Alley Valkyrie and her demands for Ken Kesey Square. Look at the Kesey murals and the destiny I beheld.
“The mural, painted by Wright, a Santa Monica native, when the historic structure was built in 1938-39, became a symbol of racism at last week’s demonstration to secure funding for PYFC. The demonstration was joined by members of the Indian American Movement’s L.A. Chapter, organizers said.”
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump defended his call to temporarily bar Muslims from entering the United States by comparing it to former President Roosevelt’s 1942 executive order that authorized the internment of 110,000 American citizens of Japanese descent.
“This is a president highly respected by all, he did the same thing,” Trump said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” Tuesday. “If you look at what he was doing, it was far worse.”
“We are now at war,” he added. “We have a president that doesn’t want to say that, but we are now at war.”
He shied away from the analogy during an earlier interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” when host Joe Scarborough asked whether the internment camps violated American values.
“I am not proposing that,” Trump said. “This is a whole different thing.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-defends-muslim-plan-by-comparing-himself-to-fdr/
“The springs shown in the mural still exist today, said Lehrer, “a sacred place restored and tended by descendants of Tongva/Gabrieleno Native Americans on the grounds of University High School.”
The Tongva indigenous American People could make a powerful case letting the white man come into their country – was a huge mistake!
When I was fifteen my art teacher told me there was nothing he could teach me, and gave me a key to a gate that guarded these springs. He gave me a Artist’s Sanctuary that I could use whenever I attended his class. He took off his wristwatch and handed it to me so I could tell when his class was over. I fought back tears as I headed to these springs with a drawing board and paper. Years later Marilyn told me she used to climb the tall chain-link fence when she was thirteen, and swim in these sacred waters. She is part Meti.
Sawtelle used to be a city. After it was incorporated into the City of Los Angeles, a high school was built that was going to be named Sawtelle. Recently Sawtelle was renamed ‘Japantown’. A boundary line was drawn that stops short of the Sawtelle Veterans Home, where World War Two Veterans lived after being wounded in the War of the Pacific. Most of those Vets have died of old age. How many would object to the Sawtelle being named after Japan, whose conservative imperial war machine committed hideous atrocities. Indeed, if you are looking for a historic role model for ISIS, look to the Japanese military, who installed a systematic rape of young girls taken as sex slaves.
“The Los Angeles City Council recently unanimously approved a community petition to name the area Sawtelle Japantown. It’s also traditionally known as Sawtelle, West Los Angeles and, to some, Little Osaka.”
I point this out, because the American people have forgiven Japan for its war crimes. However, Donald Trump has picked a fight with Japan. How about Germany? Donald wants to round up Mexicans and put them back in Mexico. Trump’s has infuriated our neighbors while his rabid supporters egg him on. History has proven this kind of talk leads to war, and thus, young men going to war. Our soldiers will die. Many will be wounded and scarred for life. How many white followers understand there will be bloodshed as Trump makes America great again? Japan’s warrior class set out to make Japan “great again”.
This quest for greatness usually entails seeing others as less than human, and thus it us permitted to treat people who are not like you as sub-humans, even like vermon and bugs. The greatness of Germany and Japan did not end by the a consensus of its leaders who committed War Crimes. They did not say; “We must change our evil ways!” Japan and Germany was changed by American, British, and Russian soldiers. They had no choice. We beat them into submission.
Today, Japan’s leaders continue to ignore the bulk of Japans war crimes. Is there some kind od dual citizenship? Women have sued the nation of Japan because these superior men put their seed in them after they were beaten, tortured, and humiliated. Juan Cabrillo and his soldiers did the same thing to the Native Americans of the Sawtelle, who showed them a spring where they could draw water. They quenched the thirst of men who came to conquer them.
One reason why Stanton depicted this scene, was his use of Leo Carillo in the murals at the Santa Monica Library. They could have been friends. Stanton put Leo next to the actress Gloria Stuart who played Rose in the movie ‘The Titanic’. Leo is kin to conquistadors the Tongva people befriended. Then, they were betrayed.
Today, a Veterans group is suing the Department of Veteran’s Affairs to get back the Sawtelle Veterans Refuge and use it for warriors who suffer from mental illness due to the battles they have been in.
At the edge of the Sawtelle there was a Tea House Marilyn and I found, and where I brought my drawing pad. We were fifteen and sixteen. I did her portrait by a table near the crackling fire. I was in love for the first time in my life. Together we constituted an anti-war movement. It was 1962.
Jon Presco
Copyright 2015
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us-strategy-seeks-to-avoid-isis-prophecy/ar-AAg9gDg?li=BBnb7Kz
Although he played many different ethnicities in his acting career, Leo Carrillo was Castillian Spanish and traced his ancestry in Spain to the year 1260.[1] His great-great grandfather José Raimundo Carrillo[3] (1749–1809), was a soldier in the Spanish Portolá expedition colonization of Las Californias, arriving in San Diego on July 1, 1769. Franciscan Friar Junípero Serra performed the marriage ceremony for Don Jose Raimundo and Tomasa Ignacia Lugo in 1781.[4][5] His great-grandfather Carlos Antonio Carrillo[3][6] (1783–1852) was Governor of Alta California[7] (1837–38). His great-uncle, José Antonio Carrillo, was a three-time mayor of Los Angeles and twice married to sisters of Governor Pío Pico.[8] His paternal grandfather, Pedro Carrillo, who was educated in Boston,[9] was a writer.
RUTH DE JONG, ART DIRECTOR: The Gaspar de Portolá painting in Pynchon’s book is just a small piece in a hallway. But we decided it would serve well as a backdrop to a scene in which the mysteries of Los Angeles unfold. We liked the idea of having Doc look completely out of place in a private club. When we didn’t find an existing location, we re-dressed the lower lobby of the Los Angeles Theatre in downtown L.A. The room had a combination of wood and plaster paneling, and we added the booths, tables, chairs, and drapes.
DAVID CRANK, PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Paul really wanted to include the painting described in the book. He liked the idea of magnifying this explorer who led an 18th-century expedition through what is now Los Angeles. We found a mural of Portolá at the Compton post office. It matched the book’s description, down to the vegetable crates. I went to the post office one day and hoisted up a ladder to photograph the thing. I reworked the center portion of the mural and had it reproduced on canvas.
By Hector Gonzalez
Staff Writer
June 30, 2015 — A local activist who attacked a mural at City Hall as a depiction of conquered Native Americans is misinterpreting what artist Stanton MacDonald-Wright meant by the scene, said a Santa Monica Conservancy official.
Pico Youth and Family Center (PYFC) founder and local Latino activist Oscar de la Torre declared war on the 74-year-old art work last week and vowed to launch a campaign to “take this mural down” during a rally protesting a funding cut for PYFC.
Rosamond Press 
Leave a comment