To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 08:19:06 -0400
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Musical saws


Alan,
Thanks for that.
Rodia was an interesting member of that community --  While he was  
building his towers, the children from the neighborhood would bring  
him pieces of stuff they had found either in the trash or on the  
street (thus cleaning up?) to add to the towers ...... it was a way  
that brought people together --
kind of like making giant puppets,
or any communal activity that brings people together.
Then, forty years or so later, that area became the sight of such  
violence and poverty...

I often wonder about that -- how homes can change --  become disaster  
areas, or alternatively, gentrified.

Rolande



On Sep 11, 2008, at 6:03 PM, Alan Cook wrote:

> I was in Palo Alto, California working with a puppet exhibit i  the  
> mid-1960s. One afternoon I was driven down to San Jose to plug the  
> exhibit,  on TV Channel 11 in the afternoon---sort of a talk show  
> mixed with local  and other news.
>
> The host announced the first guest, who played a musical saw. He was  
> sort of appearing at a local watering hole, unpaid.
> By the time his segment ended I was not sure if anyone was still  
> watching the program. Anyway, I had brought along a few puppets for  
> show & tell, and later on, some visitors to the exhibit told us the  
> TV had persuaded them to come see.
>
> That afternoon was also when the first Watts Riots broke out in Los  
> Angeles, and I learned of that event from the TV studio monitors.  
> One concern was the safety of a wonderful folk art/architectural  
> treasure known as THE WATTS TOWERS, built by one man, Sam Rodia,  
> over many years, using iron, cement, sea shells, broken tiles &  
> pottery and such. I often took visiting puppeteers to see this  
> remarkable art work. One visitor was George Latshaw, who loved  
> seeing it.
>
> Once, I even took some non-puppeteer Japanese tourists, whom I met  
> at the old L.A. County Museum gallery of Dinosaur bones. Their  
> English was limited---and until I got them to the Towers, they  
> thought some crazy American was taking them to see electric power  
> lines  (watts & towers). They were busy photographing until closing  
> time.
>
> ALAN COOK
>
>
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