? The Boom in Culture
MEDFOHD MAIL TRIBUNE, MEDFOHD, OREGON
MOXDAV, PRIL I, 163
Americans No Long
Appreciation of Arts
er Cultural Morons;
Claimed in Infancy
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CULTURAL GROWTH In the above photo the stage is
set tor the inaugural concert of Lincoln Center's new
Philharmonic Haii in New York, in large and small cities
throughout the United States las! year, more persons listen
ed to concerts than attended major and minor league
baseball games. (UPI)
Editor's Note: The United
States has shaken off its in
feriority complex concerning
the arts, and a boom in cul
ture is under way in big towns
and small. This is the word of
the experts in a series of five;
dispatches by Harry Ferguson,;
UPI national reporter.
By HARRY FERGUSON
Washington -t'PI - There are
1.252 symphony orchestras in
the United States, and last
year more persons listened to
concerts than attended all the
baseball games played in the
major and minor leagues.
That is the favorite statistic
and statement of persons who
proclaim America lias come
of age in the arts and is enjoy
ing a boom in culture that is
only in its infancy. The figures
bear them out: The number of
books published in this coun
try in 1962 exceeded by 3.000
those ot the previous year;
little theaters have become al
most as common as the county
court house; Americans now
buy almost ji600 million worth
of musical instruments and
sheet music a year.
Sociologists use the phrase
"cultural explosion" to de
scribe wltat is happening, but
actually it was more gradual
than violent. Most experts
think Americans, who heard
themselves denounced for
years as cultural morons, now
have shaken off their inferior
ity complex.
Take a Beating
In the process they took a
bad beating. H. L. Mencken
made a reputation and consid
erable money by clouting
Americans on the head once
a month with a magazine
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"The general average of intel
ligence, of knowledge, of com
petence, of self respect. . . is
so low (hat any man who
knows his trade, does not fear
ghosts and has read 50 good
books stands out as brilliantly
as a wart on the head."
Europeans jeered at the
American savages when Hen
ry James, one of this nation s
best novelists, decided his na
tive climate was unsuitable to
creative effort and went to
London and took out British
citizenship. British authors
were held in such high esteem
by the brow-beaten Ameri
cans that Charles Dickens
made a killing on a lecture
tour here and went home to
tell jokes about the people
who paid to hear him.
Oscar Wilde, landing in
New York to reap some lec
ture money from the yokels,
was asked by the customs in
spector if he had anything to
declare. "Nothing but my
genius." Wilde replied and
Americans accepted without
question his own estimate of
himself. They spent their
money freely to hear him talk
while lite poetry of Walt
Whitman and the novels of
James Fenimore Cooper went
largely unread and almost un
sold. Become Discouraged
Over the years American
workers in the arts became
discouraged and a belief grew
up that they would be better
off if they acted like foreign
ers. Miss Lucy Hickenlooper.
a talented pianist in Texas,
was going nowhere with her
career, but when she changed
her name to Olga Samaroff
things picked up immediately.
Ernest Hemingway decided
he could write better in Paris
and Havana than he could on
American soil. In the twenties
young writers (locked to Paris
to sit at the feci of Miss Ger
trude Stein, who had shaken
the dust of Pennsylvania
from her shoes but still want
ed Americans to buy her
books and acknowledge that
she was saying something pro
found when she wrote "A rose
is a rose is a rose." and "Pi
geons on the grass, alas.
The cultural inferiority
complex of Americans be
came more traumatic when
they received a one-two
punch in 1920 and 1922 from
Sinclair Lewis with his novels
"Main Street" and "Babbitt "
One of them depicted the
WORDS itai fOllFIIRT
He maketh the storm
a calm,
so tliat the waves
thereof are still.
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.ggfj Spacious Parking Lot
it
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SI e promptly re
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American small town as a t
cultural wasteland where the
inhabitants talked about noth-J
tng except crops and the
weather. "Babbitt" was an
indictment of the American
business man as a dull fel-1
low who did not lung but!
chase money and boost his
home town.
Things Change
The big depression ol 1029
changed things, and the cir
culation o Menchken's mag
azine fell sharply.
Americans were at grips
with problems larger than
small town culture and home j
town boosting. John Stem
beck'l novel "The Grapes of ,
Wrath" the story of an Ok-j
1 8 noma family driven from
their farm by dust storms
caught the mood of the day.
Most sociologists think!
World War 11 was the turn
ing point for the American
patient and his inferiority
complex. U.S. soldiers discov
ered that people in Europe
were not pre-occupied with
culture, but with the problem
of daily existence. Millions
of Englishmen have never
been to Stratford-On-Avon
and never will go. Frenchmen
do not spend all day in side
walk cafes arguing about poe
try; Italians do not devote
ail their time to strolling the
streets singing operatic arias.
A post-war do-it-yourself
craze developed, and Ameri
cans discovered it do not have
to be limited to using wood
working tools. You could put
on plays, organize, orchestras,
paint pictures, play the violin
and have fun without jour
neying to the Broadway the
ater, the Louvre or the Metro
poll tan Opera House.
Radio and television began
to bring culture into your I
living room. The phonograph j
was developed to the point
where even the most carping ,
critic could hear faithful re- j
productions of famous orches
tra playing good music.
The heroine of Sinclair
Lewis "Main Street" was
named Carol Kennieott and ;
in 1912 she married and mov-i
ed to Gopher Prairie, Minn, j
In revolt against the dullness
of her iife, she exclaimed to j
a school teacher friend; "it's i
a relief to have somebody I
to talk something besides
crops. Let's make Gopher
Prairie rock to its founda-
Uons. Lets have aflernuon
lea instead of afternoon cof
fee." Today Carol would turn the
television dial and drink her
tea as she listened to the
Festival of Performing Arlj,
Next: The decline of Holly-
wood movies.
Small Worlds
Around Us
By LYNN M. W ATKINS
Register and Tfibaiie
Syndicate, 1963)
Worm-Shell Eligible for Top to the highest order of living
beings, for a srouP oi worm- j
shells attempts to gather close
with their fellows and become
Spot in Category of Curious
It's only natural that m
family of living creatures!
mtmhorino manv thousands of I
sDccies there should be some i an inextricable mass. The
that are oddballs, some that group becomes about thej
depart ro far from the con-1 worst mess that could be im-
ventional as to be actually
ridiculous.
Such a one is the "worm
shell." This character, a true
mollusk related to the oyster xruui)
and the whelk, departs widely
from the conventional design
of other molluslcs. It is eligi-
agincd.
Each !)s Own
Each worm-shell of the
which may number
several hundred Individuals,
follows its own twisted way
o! shell Building, ihe group
ble for number one place in ! becomes so entangled every
the category of the curious.
Hatched from a tiny egg in
a warm sea, the little worm-
shell builds about itself
mdlviuuai m the group lose
its identity. It is impossible
to tell where one mollusk
caves off and another begins
shell in the shape of a spiral. 1 he snarl is as badly tangled
Dunns infancy it seems trail aa the bark-lash of a fisii line.
organized and perfectly ad- lit couldn't JC likened to a pile I
justed to ils shallow water en- ' jackslraws. for they arc all
vironment. with each whorl ' straight pieces, while no two,
rcEiilar and neallv coiled .Na-1 worm-shells are twisted the'l
tun- seems to he (inins the i same way, or assumes the
right thine for tins little crea- same shape
lure, starting it out in life in i Thc tangle may grow until
an orderly manner. Then for thc "lass is as large as a half
some obscure reason cverv. 1 bushel basket, thousands of 1
lung gets fouled up; the coiU i the mollusk shells hopelessly j
lose their sense of direction: intertwisted together in
the whorls become widely , complicated imbroglio; a pan
separated and go oif in odd demonium of twirted forms.
ways.
Hopelessly Neurotic
Now having apparently de
cided to be highly unusual, it
each shell holding an elongat
ed living mollusk
Thc peculiar color of the
individual worm-shell
twists and turns, soirals off'dar't tan or yellowish color.
in unexpected directions. The , looking for all thc world like
little mollusk itself is tcrriblv ' petniieci angleworm. laKen
elongated and hopelessly ncu-' a" together in the mass of in
rotte. It becomes a mixed-up dividual, the net work re
mollusk; it just keeps on sembles a great gob of earth
building its limestone home, worms, supposedly frightened
in a twisting manner, until It ' in, a jumble of confusion by
is 10 or 12 inches long. It be-! some age-old upheaval of the
comes a crazy looking object ' ea"n or me sea omtom ami
The amazed human who Petrified by time and pressure
walks along an ocean beach lnl a tangled skein of twist
may find one of these worm-' ea limestone tubes.
' shells and notice its striking
similarity to a petrified angic
j worm, even to the color and
i shape.
The worm-shell is unique
among all the mollusks in the
': unusuainess of its shape, li
I gets together with others of
! its kind and intertwines itself
j with them, until they become
a hopeless jumble of twisted
' shapes, too.
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plastic extrusion methods.
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it iisfjii-BflrSi r!V,&rt fcr-!l)E,5 on
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anrt this annarrntlv annlip; mnn nsjortbi Atows tmbsr
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