Sallie Bingham, I have listened to half of your post of your reading of your book about Doris Duke at the Garcia Street Bookstore in N.M. It’s still playing as I write — split attention is something I rarely do — but I have limited time right now for your post. I checked Silver Swan out from the Lex Library back when you first showed word of it on your website (is website the right word? “computer” is not a language I speak.) But there was no large print version of the book, so I had to return it without having read it. Disappointing, but my eyes aren’t seeing as well as they did in earlier years. I will see if the KY Talking Books service for low-vision people has it among their recorded books. If not, when I’ve finished my search for a boombox (CD and radio) not made in China , I’ll see if the library can get the book in CD form. I do dislike the electronic age,. Much preferred it when we just plugged a simple and inexpensive something into the wall socket and watched or listened. And you can bet I preferred it when my good body was younger and one part not showing wear.
About Doris Duke, I went to Duke in the ’50’s and disliked, from first sight when mother drove us up to the mouth of the horseshoe that ran between the dorms of the Women’s Campus, the bronze statue of Doris Duke’s father. He was seated in a big armchair and, if I recall correctly, held a cigar. Yuck, an unattractive older man and a cigar. Before those of us in “the general public” began stumbling upon word of the insights and actions of feminists in the 60’s and 70’s, I had no language for what I also felt, distaste for the sight of that old man sitting so comfortably (as if he owned it) (that’s a joke, there) at the entrance to our campus. It was a good long while before, one day, I took the time to walk up to the statue and read the plaque, to see who he was. I had no interest in him beyond that. As for his wife’s having given birth to a daughter, I heard nothing. Not until I was well into being an “adult”. After that I heard only the rare mention of her and it was never respectful or admiring, as I just heard you speak of in this reading. Your speaking of the four heads of men in the inn and no sign of her there or elsewhere had me nodding. Oh, yes. But what’s new — still and ongoing? So I’m eager to learn about her when I can get access to your bio of her. Since I discovered, in the Bay Area, back in the late 70’s, that women had always been visual artists, writers, poets, composers but men had — to use the word you used for what had also been done to Doris Duke — expunged them from men’s version of his/herstory, I felt both fury and tremendous excitement and what would be a passion for knowing about those women’s lives, times and work that thrills me still. Oh, how important the lives of women are.
In this “bit” I heard you say that DD had supported Margaret Sanger. I hadn’t known that. Margaret Sanger is one (I know, I know, one of soooo many) of the world’s heroines. So I was glad to know about DD’s support of MS’s work. I want some of our recently emerged feminist women film makers, directors, et. al. to make a good movie about MS. It’ would make a difference, e a help, now as we are at risk again, again, of losing our control over our bodies’ use BY OURSELVES. If you know any of those women, do ask them to learn about MS and get her life out there for people to know about and admire.
I will stop this long Comment. Well, in a minute. This has been a hard winter for me. I’m really tired from the general atmosphere the CDC, et. al. have created during the pandemic and the upheaval being required of us by the investment group that bought the low-income apt. bldg. where I “live” so they can renovate the apts (and raise the property value) AND build a second building cheek by jowl to the present bldg. In groups we old folks have to pack up, be moved out for a month while they do one group of apts, and then be moved back in, and live with the health-haZard-released stuff from what they have torn out and released in the air outside and air system inside, with them giving no thought to containing all that to protect our health, as they reno the next group of apts. Then a month ago the awful “ornamental” pear trees that some salesman sold to builders in Lex starting blooming, sending their caustic pollen out for all to breathe, and I am only now getting my voice back from that. For the past two months I have again had a UK student typing the final changes into my memoir, after no help for two years (pandemic). Thus the fatigue. I say all this to prep saying that I think I will have to not do your Carnegie workshop here, if that does materialize. I would have done the earlier one simply to finally meet you — another woman whom I admire as one who found her way to being herself, a feminist, an author who laid out sooo well the h’story of her extended family, her life, the times, and a chunk of NC’s and KY’s h’story which ought to be on course lists in public schools and universities statewide, and now that I look in on your website, I see has done a LOT of writing of value to women and the broader (no pun intended) world. (Think I’ve written this to you before — about your/your family/ broader matters autobio, but I found your book that important. A big reason for its importance is the way feminist analysis informed it, and your progress towards becoming a feminist, yourself. But, too, the charge for the Carnegie workshop is high and, nearly done with my own memoir, and feeling I probably am of like mind re: memoirs and their importance. To boot, not able to play the wear-the-mask game for any prolonged time with O2 deficiency, etc. is intolerable to me. And no, I’m not one of those whom the CDC, state public health people, etc. name as being the despicable and mentally-and-politically-off-the-wall, anti-science ones who do not follow what has been put out as the necessary and only way to deal with a pandemic. There are the holistic and integrative physicians and researchers (and others) whose knowledge is seasoned and wider than what has been touted. And required. So right now, I’m thinking I may not do your workshop. Could change, but not sure. Plastic letters on a plastic screen are no substitute for real human interactions, but perhaps I shall just enjoy seeing your thoughts via The Plastic Monster and your website. Now. . . . STOPPING. REALLY. Be well .
Jane D. Choate says
Sallie Bingham, I have listened to half of your post of your reading of your book about Doris Duke at the Garcia Street Bookstore in N.M. It’s still playing as I write — split attention is something I rarely do — but I have limited time right now for your post. I checked Silver Swan out from the Lex Library back when you first showed word of it on your website (is website the right word? “computer” is not a language I speak.) But there was no large print version of the book, so I had to return it without having read it. Disappointing, but my eyes aren’t seeing as well as they did in earlier years. I will see if the KY Talking Books service for low-vision people has it among their recorded books. If not, when I’ve finished my search for a boombox (CD and radio) not made in China , I’ll see if the library can get the book in CD form. I do dislike the electronic age,. Much preferred it when we just plugged a simple and inexpensive something into the wall socket and watched or listened. And you can bet I preferred it when my good body was younger and one part not showing wear.
About Doris Duke, I went to Duke in the ’50’s and disliked, from first sight when mother drove us up to the mouth of the horseshoe that ran between the dorms of the Women’s Campus, the bronze statue of Doris Duke’s father. He was seated in a big armchair and, if I recall correctly, held a cigar. Yuck, an unattractive older man and a cigar. Before those of us in “the general public” began stumbling upon word of the insights and actions of feminists in the 60’s and 70’s, I had no language for what I also felt, distaste for the sight of that old man sitting so comfortably (as if he owned it) (that’s a joke, there) at the entrance to our campus. It was a good long while before, one day, I took the time to walk up to the statue and read the plaque, to see who he was. I had no interest in him beyond that. As for his wife’s having given birth to a daughter, I heard nothing. Not until I was well into being an “adult”. After that I heard only the rare mention of her and it was never respectful or admiring, as I just heard you speak of in this reading. Your speaking of the four heads of men in the inn and no sign of her there or elsewhere had me nodding. Oh, yes. But what’s new — still and ongoing? So I’m eager to learn about her when I can get access to your bio of her. Since I discovered, in the Bay Area, back in the late 70’s, that women had always been visual artists, writers, poets, composers but men had — to use the word you used for what had also been done to Doris Duke — expunged them from men’s version of his/herstory, I felt both fury and tremendous excitement and what would be a passion for knowing about those women’s lives, times and work that thrills me still. Oh, how important the lives of women are.
In this “bit” I heard you say that DD had supported Margaret Sanger. I hadn’t known that. Margaret Sanger is one (I know, I know, one of soooo many) of the world’s heroines. So I was glad to know about DD’s support of MS’s work. I want some of our recently emerged feminist women film makers, directors, et. al. to make a good movie about MS. It’ would make a difference, e a help, now as we are at risk again, again, of losing our control over our bodies’ use BY OURSELVES. If you know any of those women, do ask them to learn about MS and get her life out there for people to know about and admire.
I will stop this long Comment. Well, in a minute. This has been a hard winter for me. I’m really tired from the general atmosphere the CDC, et. al. have created during the pandemic and the upheaval being required of us by the investment group that bought the low-income apt. bldg. where I “live” so they can renovate the apts (and raise the property value) AND build a second building cheek by jowl to the present bldg. In groups we old folks have to pack up, be moved out for a month while they do one group of apts, and then be moved back in, and live with the health-haZard-released stuff from what they have torn out and released in the air outside and air system inside, with them giving no thought to containing all that to protect our health, as they reno the next group of apts. Then a month ago the awful “ornamental” pear trees that some salesman sold to builders in Lex starting blooming, sending their caustic pollen out for all to breathe, and I am only now getting my voice back from that. For the past two months I have again had a UK student typing the final changes into my memoir, after no help for two years (pandemic). Thus the fatigue. I say all this to prep saying that I think I will have to not do your Carnegie workshop here, if that does materialize. I would have done the earlier one simply to finally meet you — another woman whom I admire as one who found her way to being herself, a feminist, an author who laid out sooo well the h’story of her extended family, her life, the times, and a chunk of NC’s and KY’s h’story which ought to be on course lists in public schools and universities statewide, and now that I look in on your website, I see has done a LOT of writing of value to women and the broader (no pun intended) world. (Think I’ve written this to you before — about your/your family/ broader matters autobio, but I found your book that important. A big reason for its importance is the way feminist analysis informed it, and your progress towards becoming a feminist, yourself. But, too, the charge for the Carnegie workshop is high and, nearly done with my own memoir, and feeling I probably am of like mind re: memoirs and their importance. To boot, not able to play the wear-the-mask game for any prolonged time with O2 deficiency, etc. is intolerable to me. And no, I’m not one of those whom the CDC, state public health people, etc. name as being the despicable and mentally-and-politically-off-the-wall, anti-science ones who do not follow what has been put out as the necessary and only way to deal with a pandemic. There are the holistic and integrative physicians and researchers (and others) whose knowledge is seasoned and wider than what has been touted. And required. So right now, I’m thinking I may not do your workshop. Could change, but not sure. Plastic letters on a plastic screen are no substitute for real human interactions, but perhaps I shall just enjoy seeing your thoughts via The Plastic Monster and your website. Now. . . . STOPPING. REALLY. Be well .