Alright. These are dated 3_16_96 and were taken from the Aural Transfusions radio show way back in Ann Arbor. What’s done is done but I thought they should be up here in the Frames of Mind catalog. Alvin and the Chipmunks anyone?
There was coolness, poserness and a little bit of rage in there. Now it’s richer and deeper with time being my reason for the almost decades long strike of consistency and sharing the inspiration of existence. Disseminating now.
Many thanks to Recloose, who was known as Bubblicious back in those days who had the Aural Transfusions show on WCBN in A Squared and a cat names LIL’ T for archiving these and passing on.
I am fortunate and hopeful about the future of our planet and the city of Detroit. It is mindblowing to me I can think that, let alone say it and write it on a blog. Lots of change, or “the transition”, is going on in the world which is rekindling something in many of us. I feel blessed to have had the opportunity to sit down with Grace Lee Boggs and share some of her wisdom. The interviews have been insightful and eye-opening, but in the course of doing this my orbit has begun to spin a little with those involved with the Boggs Center. I will post more about these encounters. They have shown me a network of resilient, wise, and astute individuals struggling to transform Detroit into something special which the world has never seen. A glimmer of it can be heard in Grace Lee Boggs’ words, it has a lot to do with humanity and self sufficiency.
In this third part Grace Lee Boggs talks about the misconceptions of Detroit, the future of the automobile industry, and projects she has been working on, namely Detroit City of Hope.
In this past politically charged year we heard so much labeling of a candidate as “socialist” or policies billed as capitalist or communist. Like the latest music fad, these terms are thrown around without knowledge of what they mean or where they come from. When folks start saying, “He’s a socialist”, what does that really mean?
I asked in my interview with Grace Lee Boggs to try and explain these words from her rich political and academic background. As Bob Marley called them, the ism schism, I asked what are all these “isms”. One popped up I wasn’t necessarily expecting- humanism.
A few items of interest from the interview.
a poem from William Wordsworth:
THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US; LATE AND SOON
THE world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.–Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
In this podcast I sat down with Grace Lee Boggs, a community organizer and activist long before that phrase has been in the news… for like over 70 years. She was married to the late James Boggs, a prominent labor and union activist in the auto industry. The two of them had coauthored the book, newly republished, “Revolution & Evolution In the Twentieth Century“.
I have always been inspired by Mrs. Boggs’ fearless and tireless spirit, not to mention her intellect. She has also lived in the city of Detroit since 1953. It was an honor to sit down with her. This is the first part of a few podcasts.
I began by asking her about what the city was like 50-60 years ago. There is so much heart and soul in the city, and driving around, one senses the ghosts of Detroit’s economic heyday. I was curious to her thoughts. It is very interesting how she reflects on Detroit’s economic and social history and relates it to the event’s of today, specifically the Obama election.
Alright. These are dated 3_16_96 and were taken from the Aural Transfusions radio show way back in Ann Arbor. What’s done is done but I thought they should be up here in the Frames of Mind catalog. Alvin and the Chipmunks anyone?
