Thank you, Studs Terkel!
To Listen: Get Adobe Flash Player, or download an mp3 at the bottom of the post.
Studs Terkel’s Whitman: “I hear the sound of the human voice… a sound I love…”Studs Terkel was the pioneering and now immortal celebrant of recorded sound, of inspired vernacular gab, of “that fabulous instrument,” as he called it, “Vox Humana.”
Yes, he was a great listener, as the obits said. But how that man loved to talk! In anecdotes, sermons and rants…
Our last encounter was three autumns ago, on a program marking the 150th anniversary of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. Studs, at 93, was the second-oldest guy on the show; Stanley Kunitz was 100. We knew we were hearing the great poets of America, Studs among them:
We can learn from Whitman today that every human being is important… That the Iraqi War is obscene. Not just bad for America, it’s obscene. It would be obscene to Walt Whitman. What is the most nasty word you can think of? Obscene! It’s mindless, arrogant, the opposite of Whitman, who embraced the world.
He celebrates the non-celebrated… our appreciation of life itself… now, here, this place, this moment. You can talk of the hereafter all you want. But this moment, now, what you do, how you act, whom you hurt, or help, or don’t hurt, or don’t help. Of myself I sing. He embraces the world, you see? Of course I’d use profanity, where he’s a poet. He’s always pertinent and relevant, probably today moreso than ever. He’s embracing the world instead of ‘Bring ‘em on!’ We speak of the neo-cons and neo-libs… They’re Neo-Neandertals at work. They are, you know… Our children’s children’s children will be like our fathers’ fathers’ fathers: they’ll be in caves. No more civilization as we know it. We are the most feared nation in the world. Whitman saw us as the most beloved nation in the world. If the worst comes to the worst, we can bomb the shit out of the world and destroy it, but we can be destroyed in the process, too — all of us, and our quote-unquote ‘enemies,’ who are everywhere. ‘Enemies’ are people who are not us, and it’s precisely the opposite of Whitman. Those others are us, is what Whitman is saying.
Imagine, then, a nightmare that is anti-Whitman, if the world blows up. Our children’s children’s children will come out of caves… with club in hand. And they’ll see this darkness, and they’ll be scared… From that tribal memory will emerge certain words: Sh.. Sh.. Shakespeare! Wha’ dat? O… O… Ode to a Grecian Urn. Wha? Leaves of Grass… Where? Who?
Whitman is the opposite of all that. He’s saying: it’s grand — the grandness of everyday life, of breathing, living, doing, the grandness of the ordinary things, and of work, and of pride in it, all that is there. So I especially am enamored of Whitman.
Studs Terkel on Open Soruce, celebrating “Walt Whitman, a Talk-Show Guy,” September 1, 2005
There’s a treasury of brilliant Studs Terkel on the Transom site. Don’t miss it.
free viagra
buy viagra online
generic viagra
how does viagra work
cheap viagra
buy viagra
buy viagra online inurl
viagra 6 free samples
viagra online
viagra for women
viagra side effects
female viagra
natural viagra
online viagra
cheapest viagra prices
herbal viagra
alternative to viagra
buy generic viagra
purchase viagra online
free viagra without prescription
viagra attorneys
free viagra samples before buying
buy generic viagra cheap
viagra uk
generic viagra online
try viagra for free
generic viagra from india
fda approves viagra
free viagra sample
what is better viagra or levitra
discount generic viagra online
viagra cialis levitra
viagra dosage
viagra cheap
viagra on line
best price for viagra
free sample pack of viagra
viagra generic
viagra without prescription
discount viagra
gay viagra
mail order viagra
viagra inurl
generic viagra online paypal
generic viagra overnight
generic viagra online pharmacy
generic viagra uk
buy cheap viagra online uk
suppliers of viagra
how long does viagra last
viagra sex
generic viagra soft tabs
generic viagra 100mg
buy viagra onli
generic viagra online without prescription
viagra energy drink
cheapest uk supplier viagra
viagra cialis
generic viagra safe
viagra professional
viagra sales
viagra free trial pack
viagra lawyers
over the counter viagra
best price for generic viagra
viagra jokes
buying viagra
viagra samples
viagra sample
cialis
generic cialis
cheapest cialis
buy cialis online
buying generic cialis
cialis for order
what are the side effects of cialis
buy generic cialis
what is the generic name for cialis
cheap cialis
cialis online
buy cialis
cialis side effects
how long does cialis last
cialis forum
cialis lawyer ohio
cialis attorneys
cialis attorney columbus
cialis injury lawyer ohio
cialis injury attorney ohio
cialis injury lawyer columbus
prices cialis
cialis lawyers
viagra cialis levitra
cialis lawyer columbus
online generic cialis
daily cialis
cialis injury attorney columbus
cialis attorney ohio
cialis cost
cialis professional
cialis super active
how does cialis work
what does cialis look like
cialis drug
viagra cialis
cialis to buy new zealand
cialis without prescription
free cialis
cialis soft tabs
discount cialis
cialis generic
generic cialis from india
cheap cialis sale online
cialis daily
cialis reviews
cialis generico
how can i take cialis
cheap cialis si
cialis vs viagra
levitra
generic levitra
levitra attorneys
what is better viagra or levitra
viagra cialis levitra
levitra side effects
buy levitra
levitra online
levitra dangers
how does levitra work
levitra lawyers
what is the difference between levitra and viagra
levitra versus viagra
which works better viagra or levitra
buy levitra and overnight shipping
levitra vs viagra
canidan pharmacies levitra
how long does levitra last
viagra cialis levitra
levitra acheter
comprare levitra
levitra ohne rezept
levitra 20mg
levitra senza ricetta
cheapest generic levitra
levitra compra
cheap levitra
levitra overnight
levitra generika
levitra kaufen
November 3rd, 2008 at 5:18 pm
“I think it’s realistic to have hope. One can be a perverse idealist and say the easiest thing: ‘I despair. The world’s no good.’ That’s a perverse idealist. It’s practical to hope, because the hope is for us to survive as a human species. That’s very realistic.”
-Studs Terkel
Election Day, November, 1884
If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and
show,
‘Twould not be you, Niagara–nor you, ye limitless prairies–nor
your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado,
Nor you, Yosemite–nor Yellowstone, with all its spasmic
geyser-loops ascending to the skies, appearing and disappearing,
Nor Oregon’s white cones–nor Huron’s belt of mighty lakes–nor
Mississippi’s stream:
–This seething hemisphere’s humanity, as now, I’d name–the still
small voice vibrating–America’s choosing day,
(The heart of it not in the chosen–the act itself the main, the
quadriennial choosing,)
The stretch of North and South arous’d–sea-board and inland–
Texas to Maine–the Prairie States–Vermont, Virginia, California,
The final ballot-shower from East to West–the paradox and conflict,
The countless snow-flakes falling–(a swordless conflict,
Yet more than all Rome’s wars of old, or modern Napoleon’s:) the
peaceful choice of all,
Or good or ill humanity–welcoming the darker odds, the dross:
–Foams and ferments the wine? it serves to purify–while the heart
pants, life glows:
These stormy gusts and winds waft precious ships,
Swell’d Washington’s, Jefferson’s, Lincoln’s sails.
-Walt Whitman
November 8th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Thank you for this! I am catching up on the obituaries and tributes to Studs Terkel. If only he would have lived a little longer to reflect on this election result.
He was a wonderful storyteller of real life stories, and so too a teacher. The audio here is essential- to hear his words from him.
Today in the NYtimes Adam Cohen wrote a piece about Terkel’s book “Hard Times”:
A Vivid Window on the Depression
Excerpt:
After the great crash of 1929, the Wells-Grand Hotel in Chicago began losing guests. The ones who remained had more time for idle pastimes. “The decks of cards were wearing out more quickly” and “the black and red squares of the checkerboard were becoming indistinguishable.”
Those are the recollections of Studs Terkel, from his classic oral history of the Great Depression, “Hard Times.” I found myself re-reading the book this week because of the confluence of two unhappy events: the economic downturn and the death of Mr. Terkel on Oct. 31. He was 96.
I knew Mr. Terkel a bit — enough to appreciate his gentle nature, his deep interest in people of all sorts and his drive to reform the world. As I turned the pages of “Hard Times,” I was struck by the remarkable fit between historian and subject.
In Mr. Terkel’s wide-ranging interviews, the horrors of the Depression come through vividly. A manual laborer on the San Francisco waterfront recalled that when a sugar refinery offered four jobs to a crowd massed at the gates, “a thousand men would fight like a pack of Alaskan dogs” over them.
Dorothy Day, the Catholic social activist, told Mr. Terkel that in 1933 and 1934, “there were so many evictions on the East Side, you couldn’t walk down the streets without seeing furniture on the sidewalk.” An African-American hobo, Louis Banks, said that when he rode on top of boxcars, there was a railroad policeman who wouldn’t ask him to get off the train; he would just shoot.