Driving westward the length of Newburyport’s High Street the day before the parade that caps Yankee Homecoming, I was impressed by the number, the sizes, the variety and colors of chairs that lined the road, many of them tied together, lest they be snitched. They bespoke of the importance of this recurrent event for individuals and families. When do events like this become art?
I cannot forget a civic parade in 1970s Fitchburg when the Waltham American Legion Band under the leadership of drum major “Stormin’” Dot Hill took my breath away as they came to a halt before the reviewing stand, lowered their instruments and sang with great passion “America, the Beautiful.”
They followed this with their theme song “Massachusetts Passes By.” Then briskly stepped off with a glorious instrumental rendition of the piece. Dot Hill won a band-leading competition in the 1920s. She created her community band in 1948, open to all interested men from high school into their seniority. Members have included personnel from Tommy Dorsey’s and Artie Shaw’s bands.
While I got to know them, Dot became determined to take her seventy-piece band to Moscow. It took three years of negotiations and fund-raising to do it, but in 1990 they parade through Red Square playing “God Bless America” as part of Moscow’s Victory Day celebration. For years they have won recognition performing across our country.
I was also present when a microburst disrupted a Newburyport Yankee Homecoming parade causing severe damage, including a power blackout. Large trees were uprooted, fallen limbs blocked streets and smashed cars. We all dove for cover. Fire and rescue equipment and their personnel in the parade immediately fanned out across the city.
Memories of such events secured their place as art by my definition. Art is a creation that causes you to think about where you are and who you are. Do you remember the first time you saw a photo of our planet from outer space? How did that affect you? Perhaps it changed you.
As a kid I grew up listening to the radio by my bed to the Friday Night Fights broadcast from St. Nick’s Arena in Manhattan. The show always began with the Gillette company’s jingle, advertising their Blue Blades, followed by organist Gladys Gooding accompanying a guy singing our national anthem. Referee Ruby Goldstein would hit the Round One gong and a fight would begin, narrated blow by blow.
One night, lying on my pillow, I heard the blow that knocked out Benny “Kid” Paret. He fell and never woke up. Recurrent events, when they confront us very strongly and ask us to hold a different view of something, fit my definition of art.
Such events may prompt people we call “artists” to memorialize them, helping us to face things we do not care to face. Such is the power of paintings and stain glass depictions of a crucifixion. They confront us: what are we going to do with this information?
Pablo Picasso’s depiction of the Nazi’s “experimental” mass aerial bombing of the village of Guernica in northern Spain is an unforgettable work.
After I saw it, in the 1960s, I began to employ it as a teaching tool, using a five-foot reproduction mounted on Masonite. I would begin with the painting covered, then pull off the cover and ask my class, “Suppose you opened a door and saw this going on. What would you say?”
“Excuse me!“ shouted a voice from the back.
Bob Brodsky writes from Rowley.