True Stories Rivaling Fiction Again

On a cruise around the internet I stumbled on the cover for a comic from the 1970s:

At first I saw the blond girl, on a horse...under the title White Comanche. (Sigh) Then I read the yellow blurb on the bottom, and thought: "True story?"

And again I felt let down by my history classes over the years. But I figured there'd be information for me elsewhere if it were true.

I had never heard about Cynthia Ann Parker before. As I [[rabbit hole cliche]], I was mesmerized by the links here, by the raw Aericanism of it all.

Cynthia Ann Parker was 8 or 9 years old when she was abducted during an attack on Fort Parker, about 40 miles east of Waco today. She was one of five people abducted, and over the course of a few years, the other four were returned for ransom.

She was adopted by a family in the Nokoni tribe, a part of what white folk called the Comanche Nation. Her name became Naura, which meant "was found." In the 25 years she lived there she fully assimilated, even marrying a chief. It is said that his love for her was so great that he refused to take other brides, as was the custom.

They had three kids, her and Peta Nocona, Chief of the Nokoni, but she was forcibly separated from them when she was recaptured by the US military. She had to assimilate FOR A SECOND TIME.

She was kidnapped twice; once as a kid, and once away from her kids. Twice she had to assimilate into an unknown society.

Their oldest child was Quanah Parker. He was a leader during the Red River War and was one of the final voices to negotiate surrender. The federal government appointed him as Chief of the entire Comanche Nation, and he spent time advocating for his people, as well as other tribal organizations across the southwest. After he died in 1911, the title of his role was changed from Chief to Chairman, which is why he's known as the "Last Chief of the Comanche."

Pretty crazy, right? Little girl abducted, becomes part of the tribe, abducted again, her son becomes the primary emissary for the Native Americans in the American southwest.

That's a pretty cool movie right there...maybe a little long...maybe a prestige show on Peacock. 

That's what I was thinking. What a weird American story. You can see the Dances With Wolves inspirations, it seems. I guess John Wayne's classic The Searchers is also about this story.

But wait, wait, wait...

Quanah Parker, the last name taken from his mom, Cynthia Ann Parker, the White Comanche from the comic. She had been a little girl when she was abducted from...Fort Parker, 40 miles east of Waco.

WAIT: A little girl with the same last name as the Fort was abducted, and then...nobody ever came to buy her safety? Like we need more evidence that this world is hard. But, like, what the hell's going on there?

Fort Parker was named for John Parker. Things go bonkers around here. John Parker was many things in life. He was the paternal grandfather to Cynthia Ann Parker. He was a soldier for the Continental Army during the Revolution.

Born in 1758 in Baltimore County, John Parker came from a large family. They moved from Maryland to Virginia when he was a boy, and he grew up scouting the Kentucky and Illinois territories as a pioneer with Daniel Boone. When war broke out with the British, he fought as a Patriot on the western theater. 

He was rewarded for his service with land grants in the Illinois territories, soon to be admitted as a state, and there he started his own family. His first---of eleven---was born in 1781, and became a religious leader in his own right.

So, now some new names enter the story. Stephen F. Austin shows up. This story is wild! Stephen F. Austin is seen as the Father of Texas, in that he is the main guy bringing Anglo-Americans into the Mexican state of Texas.

[Sidenote: America, man! Okay: Mexico got its independence from Spain in 1821. Their state of Texas was dangerous country on account of the natives. Moses Austin, born in 1761 Connecticut, and later lead magnate living in Missouri, strikes up a deal for a land grant with the new Mexican President. The prez was all about it: let some white folks be a buffer between them and the natives. Moses dies before he could see it through, but he urged his boy, Stephen F., to keep up the work.

That's just what he did. He lead people from Missouri into northern Mexico to colonize it. Once it was settled, they eventually demanded autonomy, and won some level sovereignty. What I didn't know: Stephen F. Austin lobbied in Mexico City for their white colonists to be able to keep their slaves. Mexico had abolished slavery by 1829 (mostly), and this was a major issue for Austin.]

Anyway, to get back to it, Stephen F. Austin heavily recruited John Parker to become on of his Texan colonists, Texians and they called themselves. Eventually he agreed, and moved with large segments of his family in Illinois to the new Fort Parker in central Texas. He negotiated with one of the local tribes for mutual safety and benefit, but other Comanches weren't going to honor a thing they weren't consulted on. That leads us to the Fort Parker raid.

During that raid John Parker was killed. Many of his children and grand children were either killed or taken. Most brought back. 

Not Cynthia.

So...

This guy's great-grandfather fought in the Continental Army:

How much more American could we make this story? This connects the American Revolution with Old West. I'm sure this can't be the only link.

Anyway, it sure looks like John Parker killed lots of natives in his life. With the raids during the Revolution---the western front was mainly British and native allied groups---and later raids against the Cherokee while living in Georgia, his total was probably high. Maybe this is the key to whatever American is: the beginning of a story can change so much before it ends. 

So, what, is Apple+ biting yet? Multiple seasons or eight feature length stories?

Seen in the Neighborhood

What a time to be alive! It was reported recently that for the first time since the late 1970s vinyl records will outsell CDs. How cool, I remember thinking. But I don't own a record player, and while I listened to CDs in my old car, my new car isn't equipped, and if not for a Christmas present for Cass (a boombox, baby!) we wouldn't have a CD player around either.

In our building there used to be a comic shop. Pour some out for Atomic Basement. After Mike shut it down in moved The Cypher on Elm, a clothing and skaters-sundry store. They moved out and in moved the instigation for this piece: Foot Work Records.

I made up a little diagram to illustrate this phenomenon:

Checking the legend makes this point clear. We live at the star, and in our building is Foot Work Records:

They weren't open today, or at least in the early afternoon. Now, if we walk up Elm we find the next closest little circle, the yellow record from the legend, a tiny spot called the Record Box (sorry, link's Instagram only):

Walking up Elm to 4th and turning right, we get to the largest spot in the quartet, Long Beach icon Fingerprints:

The furthest record spot on the map, Bagatelle's, is just across Atlantic from us, and is about 1000 feet away:

It's an institution in the downtown community and was old when we moved here 13 years ago.

How cool is it that within a rectangle that makes up just over 3% of a square mile (sounds weird, but I calculated it) there are four different independent record sellers? Pretty cool...I'm sure, even if records aren't one of my compulsions...

(My assistant on my photo recon mission gets herself in a few of the pictures above...)

Happy St. Paddy's 2024

I got off work early on Friday and so was able to take Cass to his swim lessons. Afterwards, instead of zooming straight away to get Camille, we stopped by Dave and Busters, the location that Corrie has been taking him to on Fridays. Instead of video games, we talked sports. It was pretty cool:

But the beer drinking is part of my, er, discussion about St. Paddy's (or, as Corrie lovingly refers to it around here, St. Daddy's Day).

I had a beer as we watched college basketball and ladies beach volleyball. Is it always booze for the 'Irish' is us? Maybe...

Today, as Sundays are usually labeled, is a work day for me.  Laundry, grocery shopping, farm-box ordering and menu-listing bookend the work I do at home for the J-O-B.

So, oddly enough, Camille came with me to do laundry today:

I'm usually on my own for the washing and drying. It takes barely an hour, and once I get home, Corrie and I fold it all in a half-hour. So much better than taking over the laundry room in our building for the entire day.

Anyway, Happy St. Patrick's Day! In the past I've typed about the background of the day and the legends that surround the people claimed as the patron saint of Ireland. Today, though, is about chores, playing games with kids (Cass is setting up Catan right now!), cooking corned beef (it'll be ready in a few hours!), watching the Beer Baron episode of the Simpsons, and possibly getting in a few drinks in between.

Be safe out there!

Learning Something Everyday

I pride myself in my ability to be open to learn new things, to have my world rocked whenever necessary. Like the other day a few weeks back when I learned about Norval Morrisseau and his works. This moment is in that same vein: an artists came known to me today: Wadsworth Jarrell.

A Black American from Georgia, born in 1929, had his arts education in Chicago in the '50s, co-founded AfriCOBRA in 1969 (the African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists) and painted works like this, called "Revolutionary:"

The kaleidoscopic colors! The words! Angela Davis! If you can see close-up, you can make out quotes by Angela Davis herself, Malcolm X, and other quotes from the Black Panthers in general among the rest.

I'm sure there are plenty of cool stuff by people I've to hear about. But inspiration should be shared. This also looks somewhat lije an arruffato work, as here we can see how it may have come together:

As always, I'm enjoying expanding my horizon...

So...I Watched David Lynch's "Dune"

As a kid I always remember seeing the VHS cassette for Dune at the video store each Friday when we'd go looking for rentals. Pizza and a movie night, a tradition we're kinda/sorta maintaining with our kids. 

Anyway, I remember thinking it looked so cool, or weird, or serious, as the dude from Twin Peaks was young and had some thingy in his nose. Plus his eyes were blue...like the cornea was blue. I remember hearing that a drug turned eyes blue...or something.

My understanding was suspect, but, as it turns out, not so bad for a kid.

But the movie remained a mystery to me until a few days ago. I watched a Ted Talk episode of "Why You Should Read..." about Frank Herbert's "Dune", and it touches on the many books Herbert wrote about the world he created and built up. It shed more light on it than I understood beforehand. To wit:

One thing I remember about thinking was weird about Star Wars was: Hey, this guy (Han Solo) is from a planet called Corelia, and Princess leia is from Alderaan, and Luke Skywalker has been living in Tatooine. But they all look like they could be from Indianapolis. Or Malibu.

I asked my dad about it and he laughed said something like, "Right?" He went on to explain that at least Star Trek had an episode that spoke to why the dominant types of beings were bi-pedal, nitrogen/oxygen breathing, 1.5 to 2 meter tall beings. Star Wars was more of a mythology class set against a space western.

Which brings us to Dune, or Frank Herbert's main conceit: The reason the beings all look human is because THEY ARE HUMAN. It takes place about eight-thousand years in the future, in year 10,191 (or something). I heard somewhere---NOT in the 1984 movie---that humans and AI had a war, that ultimately lead to humans moving on from computers in general.

A few thousand more years in the future, and humans have colonized three separate planets. One where the emperor lives, one that produces their very important societal commodity, and another where one of the two Houses lives.

Maybe it was a good waiting until I was this-old to watch this movie for the first time, and especially before we watched the new version in both parts.

But...is it surprising that it's basically about money and power? There's the greasy gingers (House Harkonnen), the nominal good guys (House Atreides), and the emperor who's a puppet of two different groups: some magical lady group, and the vagina-mouthed floating slug beings.

The important societal commodity is a dusty spice that's mined on the mostly inhospitable sand planet called Arrakis (AKA Dune). The spice can get you high, but it also powers the space-ships and allows faster-than-light travel. Pretty nifty. While using it will stain corneas blue, just being on the planet long enough will have the same effect, as the saturation level is reached in a few months due to microscopic particles in the air.

Those details were all new to me. Watching it felt like, though, while it was a neat sci-fi conceit, it was basically House Musk vs House Bezos vs Planet-Wide Union Organizer.

SPOILER ALERT: at least the organizers won.

I'm curious to see how the new movies deal with the real/fake messiah storyline, and how they handle the worm-riding, but at least I have a handle now on the characters and plot threads. Also, being as old as I am now meant that I could handle the more incoherent parts...like:

Ehhh...WTF?

The Art World's Wild North

My favorite app on my phone is the DailyArt app. The Polish-run app delivers a single work each day to your phone, along with a story about the piece, the artist, the era, or most often, some combination of the three. It has kept the fires of my art-lust going for a few years now.

It was through the app that I found a painting that has since become one of my favorites (a work I even mentioned before), Afterglow, by Norwegian-born American artist Jonas Lie, a painting of New York from the harbor (or one of the rivers):

But the connection of the north got me feeling the connection between that painting and the works of Norval Morrisseau, an artist I just learned about. Not that they're stylistically similar, because they are decidedly not. Mainly because I can't stop looking at them or thinking about them.

Or about the bizarre story of fame, fakes, fraud, first-nations people, and gangsters that inhabit the world of Norval Morrisseau.

"Artist and Shaman Between Two Worlds" 1980

Morrisseau was born on March 14th, 1932 on the Sand Point Ojibwe reserve in Ontario. He, like so many natives of the era in both Canada and America, was taked from his reserves and placed in boarding schools, forced to learn English/French, assimilate religions, and ignore his heritage.

Working later in life

Instead of forgetting everything, he merged his Anishinaabe beliefs with the western artistic vocabulary he was forced into at a young age and synthesized something new, something powerful.

If that was the end of this story, it would be compelling enough for me. I enjoy getting lost in amazing works of art. But it gets crazy.

Today, Morrisseau is widely recognized as the grandfather of indigenous art in Canada, and has been called the "Picasso of the north" when his works were exhibited in France and Italy. His rise to fame in the 1960s led to the trappings you may expect: parties, drugs, excess, et al.

Times were fun, followed by times that were hard, and sometimes decisions were made that could benefit people close to Norval. Maybe it was the occasional signing of a painting that wasn't his to help a cash strapped loved one; maybe it was helping out a crew of gangsters out of Thunder Bay on Lake Superior with some forgeries or fakes.

Eventually things got out of hand. The whole story is available in documentary form, and in book form, and I saw it all in an article in the Smithsonian but: in the end there were THREE separate rings of fake Morrisseau production companies---three separate entities producing high-level fakes of Morrisseau works, none of which he knew about or sanctioned.

It looks like, before they were all broken up, these groups possible produced over $100 million for themselves (of which Norval got exactly zero dollars), and over 200 paintings were sold and shipped worldwide. This whole enterprise turned into the biggest art fraud ring(s) in history, which is saying something. Disputed Morrisseau works have been found everywhere from private collections (natch) to the Smithsonian itself and the Canadian Parliament building in Ottawa.

In another bizarre twist of this story, Kevin Hearn, keyboardist for the Barenaked Ladies (composers of the theme song for The Big Bang Theory, among other things), upon learning that his Morrisseau painting was a fake, set about an odyssey with his lawyers to investigate and bring down the rings that were profiting off of these forgeries.

That's not a misprint: the keyboardist from the Barenaked Ladies and his lawyers performed the work of a police procedural---doing the legwork---that brought down three separate, unaffiliated, international forgery rings.

This seems ripe for a dramatization, or true crime miniseries on HBO, doesn't it?

In any case, I can't stop looking at these paintings, and this whole saga has set up shop in my brain. It reminds me a little of what the opening chapter of Gould's Book of Fish emphasizes: the story is more important than the artifact. That may be true with junky trinkets being sold as fake objects, but with these paintings, the story is just as compelling, which isn't always the case with amazing art.