No Quarter: The Next Gen I

So, I don't know if I really want to go on with this blog's ongoing practice of talking about collectible quarters, but old habits die hard. After the States Series and the National Parks series, the US Mint has launched a new collection of collectible/commemorative quarters. And it was pretty easy to mock pictures of birds and mountains and the mudflap that Wyoming used for its quarter. But this new series is on famous American Women, some of whom have passed on in recent memory. So I think I will walk a tad more respectful this time out.

Originally, this was supposed to be similar to the previous currency series, in that each state would get one woman to brag on, but that was revised because they want to do a sesquicentennial (250 years) set in 2026. So we get four years of famous women for 20 total as opposed to 50 national parks/monuments/seashores/parking lots. The idea that women get about 40% of the attention given to other subjects is such an American Thing.

But as I said, I'm going to walk a little more carefully, in part because a lot of these women are unknown/forgotten/ignored in the standard narratives. Also, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the majority will be from the twentieth century, as opposed to something from the Civil War era, in part because women have been unknown/forgotten/ignored in a lot of traditional texts.  I'd like to to concentrate (and mock) the design a lot more than the subject matter, and to encourage readers to follow the links to learn more in detail of these remarkable women.

But first off, let's talk about the other side of the coin, literally. The side with Washington on it.The face/heads/obverse of the coin has made some major changes, and some minor ones. Big one you'll probably notice - Washington is facing the other direction. Also, the sculpture is from a 1931 dollar, and you can see differences in the artistic approach (George has an even thicker neck, and the rat-tail at the back of his head is more pronounced). Also some of the text has switched sides - The denomination and United States of America are now on the other side, and the year moves back to being on the same side as George. As a result the reverse side does have more text to deal with as it previously had

Anyway, I am not expecting a lot of coins to get a review below C (They have gotten much better at it over the past 20 years), but here are the review levels. 

Way Cool =A
Not Bad = B
Just Average (also known as Meh) = C
Kinda Lame = D
So bad you don't want to show your mother = E

Maya Angelou (1928-2014)

This is a strong lead-in, both from subject and presentation. Maya Angelou is known for her autobiographic works and her poetry, but also for her work in Civil Rights. Now I Know Why The Caged Birds Sing is pretty much a standard text for a generation of English classes, and she was the second poet to read one of her poems at a presidential nomination (the first was Robert Frost, the most recent was Amanda Gorman). 

Her pose is dynamic and evokes Caged Birds in its presentation. I really like it because, right off the bat, it gives us more than the standard portrait and creates an active presentation for the coin. She is also the first African-American woman on a coin. Buckle up, there are going to be a lot of firsts in this series.

Rating: A

Dr. Sally Ride (1951-2012)

It is no longer big news to have women in space, but Sally Ride was a big thing back in the 80s - the first (American) woman in space. I know - it took us THAT long to put a woman in space, but hey, equality has always been a process. She is also the first known LGBT person on a US coin (get back to the closet, Buchanan - your family burned all your correspondence, so we're still not sure about your status, shy of a seance). 

The coin itself is, well, OK. Sitting portrait along one side, big globe in the background, bit of a swirl that evokes orbit and window on the shuttle. Its a pretty nice quarter, but nothing that makes me really engage with it. 

 Rating: B

Wilma Mankiller (1945-2010)

No jokes on the name, please.While there's a good chance you know about Maya Angelou and Sally Ride, now we get into more esoteric heroes. And its a pity, because Wilma Mankiller's background is impressive, including both Native American activism in California and Oklahoma, and as a chief of the Cherokee people. 

The coins are already settling into a comfortable type - figure on the left-hand side, shown torso up, symbology in the background on the right-hand side (A symbol of the Cherokee nation,  all contained by a circle with all the required data. I think we are going to lose her note as Principal Chief and the Cherokee words beneath in the folds of her shawl. It is a very busy coin.

 Rating: C

Nina Otero-Warren (1881-1965)

We are probably going to see a lot of suffragettes, particular for those famous women born before 1900.  Maria Adelina Isabel Emilia "Nina" Otero-Warren is the oldest representative of this crop of coins, and her achievements span politics and education. She argued for bilingual education and was the first Latina to run for the US House of Representatives (as a Republican. She lost). She is the first Hispanic-American portrayed on US Coinage.

Like Mankiller and Ride, we see the sitting portrait on the left side of the coin. In addition, there is a LOT of text - in addition to the stuff shoved onto this side from the obverse side, we have Votes for Women on this side, which to some folk is STILL a controversial subject.  Plus a collection of Yucca flowers to represent her native New Mexico. I think it is going to be a cluttered quarter, much like Mankiller's. One good bit - her head does break the plane of the surrounding circle, making it a bit more dynamic.

Rating: C

Anna May Wong (1905-1961)

Wong Lui-tsong is the first actress on the group, and a pioneering Asian-American in the film and TV industries. That's good. However, a lot of her roles were very much in the stereotypical vamp/dragon lady that smacks of Orientalism and exoticism, so that's a little less good. Plus the fact that a lot of early work are "lost films" that have not survived into the present day, and her ground-breaking TV show was on the now-extinct Dumont network, and few records exist of it as well. Yet she has been recognized for her work in recent years, as well as her work for the Chinese-American community.

The quarter itself is exceptional in that it gets away from the already-trope of the previous three with a closer headshot that plays off the natural beauty of Ms. Wong. This is a very stylish coin that feels like a silent movie poster of the era. I like it.

Rating: A

That's it for the first batch - tune in next year for five more, and keep checking your change!

More later,

Theatre: Mother's Rave

Alma, by Benjamin Benne, Directed by Sophie Franco, Arts West, through May 22.

The Lovely Bride and I took another journey to that mystical land beyond the Duwamish River called West Seattle. I am almost at a point where I can get there without getting lost (the West Seattle Bridge is still shut down). Our goal (in addition to great sushi, is the Arts West Theatre, a small but great theater group ensconced in the shell of a renovated former furniture store. The LB and I have been hitting opening nights, and to a great degree, have be rewarded for the effort.

Case in point, Alma. Yolanda Suarez is Alma, Leah Sainz-Jones is her daughter, Angel. Angel is supposed to be taking her SATs tomorrow. Alma has been preparing for this day, the next step of her daughter's success, to have the life she was denied. Angel does not plan to take the test. The resulting discussion/argument is the core of the play itself. Two actors, one problem, ninety minutes.

And the playwright pulls it off. The analyst in me can tweak to the ratcheting up and unwinding of dialboue as their relationship plays out over the course of the argument. Alma and Angel are friends and also mother and daughter, with all the baggage and hidden traps that that involves. They curse, bluster, accuse, mock, make up, cuddle, cry, tease, and love each other, and the script itself dances from one point to another.

Also a sizable chunk of the dialogue is in Spanish, in that halfway domain in families where the parent has come from another country and the child groks the new language. Yet they slip in and out of it gracefully, and there are only a few points where I felt I missed something - that would be the universal nature of parent/child relationships. Also the PTSD that comes from High School testing.

There's a third player on-stage, unseen but not unheard- America and the American Dream. The ghosts of an old country. The play takes place in that weird temporal borderland between Trump's election and inauguration, in that weird quantum state when everyone was wondering how bad could it be. The newly-elected voice, over a malfunctioning TV, blasts into their lives about building a wall and making Mexico pay for it (yeah, how did THAT work out). Alma is an illegal, and Angel is aware that the rules have changed, and what they have both hoped for is now much, much more difficult. 

The set design is excellent, open-spaced and beneath (at times) the stars, setting the eternal nature of the parent/child discussion. The program book also carries a bit of weight in the proceedings. There is interview with the director, which is par for the course, but also a page of translations and explanation of what the Prologue (storms, horses, soldiers, Military music) means within the larger whole. Even th art in the hallway underscores the players on the state. It was very much a total package.

Alma is a small play (Two people and the ghost of the American Dream) and a greater play as well, set within its time and within the long timeline of mothers and daughter. I liked it, and think you would too.

More later, 

The Return of No Quarter (Pieces of VIII Edition)

It has been a while, but let us engage in the yearly ritual of the America the Beautiful series (AKA the National Parks Quarters, though most of them are not about National Parks). We are now in the eighth edition of this venerable review (which is the sequel to an earlier series). But let me address a matter from last time we talked on the subject.

I asked last time if quarters are getting lighter. The metal FEELS lighter, and seems less substantial than old quarters. But I was not sure, since I did not have a scale suitable to weigh them. Spurred in the spirit of scientific inquiry a friend produced a scale that would measure small amounts, and two piles of quarters, old and new. Weighing a similar number of each type would magnify any discrepancy.

And the results were ... surprising. The two stacks came up pretty even, but the NEW quarters were just a little heavier than the OLD. So my initial assumption (which I now blame of being an old fogey) was wrong.

And that is why we science.

Anyway, here's this year's bunch of quarters. For those new to this (and shame on you, it starts way back here and here ), here's the rating system:

Way Cool =A
Not Bad = B
Kinda Lame (also known as Meh) = C
Very Lame = D
The tooth fairy will not even leave these = E

Let us begin:

Effigy Mounds National Monument.- Iowa

When the Europeans pushed west across the North American continent, they were wandering into an apocalyptic wasteland. Disease brought by earlier arrivals decimated the local populations, and the remnants were pushed out or swallowed up by the new culture. However, the newcomers found mounds throughout the northern woodlands, large earthen structures built by human hands in isometric designs or animal shapes. When they weren't looting them for valuables or tearing them down for fill, the newcomers posited who could have built these structures - ancient civilizations, lost religious tribes, even space aliens. Anyone except the ancestors of the people they whose lands they were now claiming.

So. Effigy Mounds. These are in the northeast corner of the state (have you noticed that a lot of these places are far away from the center of their states?), hard on the border of Wisconsin, across the Mississippi from Prairie du Chien. It is a collection of 200-some mounds, including many in the rarer animal shapes, including birds and a procession of "marching bears". Yet it is interesting to note, per the wiki article, that even under Federal protection we're still dealing with looting and unauthorized construction.

The coin itself? Peeps in the grass. Sorry. Maybe it's the season, but I'm looking at this and it looks like marshmallow peeps, cast-offs from an Easter Egg hunt. It is a good and accurate representation of the shapes, or even the arrangement (I'm looking at maps here, and there are three mounds in tclose proximity that look just like that), but the end result looks a bit blobby.

Good choice for the subject matter. OK execution.

Rating:  C (Just ... meh)


Frederick Douglass National Historic Site - Washington DC

So in writing this one up, I went back to the last time Frederick Douglass was in the news - When the President, in a ham-handed recognition of Black History Month, referred to Fred as if he was still next door in a briefing room waiting for Lincoln to show up. Looking at the quote, it seems to be the traditional word salad that most people have come to expect from our gonna-get-better-any-moment- chief executive, but at least Mr. D got a shout-out.

But that's not what I'm here to talk about. Instead, there is something else going on here. I mean, Frederick Douglass was a major statesman, writer, and linchpin of abolition (we noted last year that he gave John Brown some very, very good advise about attacking the government (that it was a very, very bad idea)). But Washington DC is chock full to the rafters with monuments run by the National Park Service. How does Fred Douglass (regardless of his achievements) get the nod here?

Image from CoinNews.net, June 20, 2008

Then I found this: A Frederick Douglass quarter, with a flipped image to the current version, was one of the nominees for the STATE quarter series, only to be beaten out by Duke Ellington (whom I always connected with New York City and the Harlem Renaissance). So the Freddie-D quarter was already a backup, and got the slot as a consolation prize.

Still, it is nice quarter, a mirror of Mr. Ellington's, Mr. Douglass at his writing desk, the Haney Place in the background, which was finally finished by Alf and Ralph. A perfectly nice coin, but I have to call shenanigans on the selection process. Alternately, I could credit them with saving money on not commissioning a new piece but instead using pick-up art. Nah, I will go with shenanigans.

Rating:  B  (Not Bad)


Ozark Scenic National Riverway - Missouri

There seems to be a definite anti-urban pitch to these coins. I mean, I get it - it is the America the Beautiful series, and it has done a pretty good job at pointing out national forests mountains, and other natural sites that normally get overlooked, but would it kill them to point out a few more locations that people may have actually seen? Missouri did put the Gateway arch on the state quarter, but turned St.Louis into a fungal forest in order to do so.

Anyway, the the Ozark Scenic National Riverway is a tetris-block assembly of territory along the Current River and the Jacks Fork. It apparently has great canoeing and tubing, along with a number of natural springs. The coin shows Alley Mill, which used steel rollers to grind grain and is still mostly intact. And it is really not that bad, what with the tree framing the mill and the water (which doesn't look wide enough to qualify as a canoeable river, so let's call it a tributary), dominating the center.

Its a challenge, when the feature you are supposed to be centering on is a river, and supposedly flat river at that. It does the job.

Rating:  B  (Not Bad)


Ellis Island  National Monument (Statue of Liberty) - New Jersey

Here we see a similar-but-different problem to the South Carolina Fort-Moutraine-but-not-Fort-Sumpter quarter of last year. We have Ellis Island which is (mostly) part of Jersey (and has been since a 1998 court case), but what attracts everyone's attention is Liberty Island and the large green lady there (No, I am not talking about She-Hulk). On one hand, the entire complex is Federal property (so it really doesn't matter WHO owns WHAT on the island), but on the other, New Jersey DID claim this for their quarter.

Ellis, of course, was where a good chunk of immigrants debarked back in the day. That day would be about 3 decades surrounding the turn the last century. Millions of immigrants passed through its gates during that period, though it was not the only immigrant port in the US (other ports conducted their processing on the boats that brought individuals in), it has the rep for the biggest and most permanent. The cool looking building on the coin is the second Immigrant Station. The first was made of wood and burned to the ground in 1897. Crackdown on immigration laws starting in 1924 dwindled the use of the island fast, and eventually it became a detention and deportation headquarters, sending people the other direction.

The happy people shown on this coin most likely showed up before we shut the gates (again) in 1924. Given the number worn on their shirts, they come from the Village, a small state that remains part of the United Kingdom but is run by a secret government agency. These new arrivals are clearly happy to be in a new land with welcoming peoples and lack of giant white beach balls that haul them back to the Village if they try to escape. The woman, pensive, is wondering if she left the iron on.

The coin design itself is pretty good - It captures both the site and its purpose, working together to make it a better coin. And of course, New York claims to be 5 cents worth of the coin itself.

Rating:  B  (Not Bad). In fact, make it B+, the best coin of the season.


George Rogers Clark National Historic Park - Indiana

This coin commemorates the first official "fun run" in Vicennes in 1777. OK, actually, it represents George Rogers Clark (he's the one in the hat) leading his forces to take Fort Sackville. Or rather, to retake Fort Sackville, since they had lost it to the British), actually, I guess it is to re-retake since it was originally a British fort that the rebels took, then lost, then took again. I mean, this can only be expected with a fort called SACK-ville. I mean, why not just call it Fort "The Key is Under the Mat"?

OK, fine, George Rogers Clark was dispatched early in the revolution to the part of the world that the Americans would call "The Old Northwest", the British called "This is part of Quebec, now", and the natives called "What are all these Europeans doing in our living room?". The Brits had put up forts through this area, but had problems funding them, until the Quebec Act put the cost on the colonials (which did not end well). Clark bounced all over the region, capturing British outposts and founding Louisville in the process. This scene shows him and his men moving through the swamps to take the fort (we don't know exactly where it is (no really), but is somewhere off to the right of the coin).

It's not a horrible coin. It is well-crafted, but I did have to go through a long song and dance just to explain what the heck you were looking at. Which is a pity, since the site of the Park itself has a really cool, distinctive memorial building on the site, with statues and murals (it would be, dare I say, both beautiful and in America). Using the memorial itself would have been a cool coin (though I would have pointed out similarity to the Jefferson Memorial - same architect), and is a missed opportunity.

And that may be ultimately what has started to bother me about the coins in these series - they are so innocuous. Mountains. Streams. Questionable actions. The carving itself has gotten better over the years, but the subject matter has become more bland in the process,

Rating:  C (Just ... meh)

Next Year: We head for the beach with a lot of National Seashores - three islands, a set of rocks, and some Canadians. I'm holding out hope that the Canadians are the most interesting.

More later,

Twelve Years

More later,

Superbowl Narratives

Oddly enough, as I've moved around the country, I've tended to pick and discard my loyalties for baseball teams but accumulate my loyalties for football clubs. I grew up in Pittsburgh during the time when they were horrible (The big play of the game as deciding which way they would run off the field at the end of the game) and when they were mighty (Franco Harris, Terry Bradshaw, the Immaculate Reception, Myron Cope and the Terrible Towel, etc...). And I lived in Southeastern Wisconsin in a town that literally straddled the line between Bear and Packer territory. And now I live in Seattle. So I can usually count on one of "my" teams getting to the playoffs, and have a good track record of going all the way.

In this case, two teams that I root for made it all the way to the Superbowl. Packers and Steelers. The Packers are a wild-card team that outperformed in the playoffs. The Steelers are continuing their Dynasty with a third Super Bowl under the same QB. And once again I am looking at the narrative behind the game.

I've been here before in rooting for multiple teams and seeing the narrative evolve behind them - Steelers versus Seahawks in Detroit. The narrative at that time swung towards the Steelers - It was rusher Jerome Bettis's last game, in his home town. The Steelers were representing a town of old industry against a town of new tech. Pittsburgh had Primanti Brother Sandwiches, Seattle had Starbucks. Pittsburgh was steelworkers (ignore the diminishing number of mills in the 'burgh), while Seattle was tech support (that is to say, wimps). A national poll showed the Steelers overwhelmingly favored both on the field and in the hearts of America.

And this narrative had an effect - the Steelers got a close call that, years later, the ref said should have gone the other way (hey, thanks guys). The influence of who SHOULD win the game affects the play of the game itself.

This year, the cleated shoe is on the other foot for the Steelers. Far from the favorites, they operate under a cloud. The QB Rothlisberger was suspended for sexual misconduct early in the season, and much of the Pittsburgh narrative has been about how this is the redemption tour. Most folk have already made up their minds, and he and the black and gold have been fitted with the black hat. The attention (and the fan jerseys) have shifted over to number 86, Hines Ward. The Packers, for their part, are the scrappy underdogs this time, ignoring their own great heritage. Their QB is there for the first time, and they have their future ahead of them.

The end result? The Steelers should be heavy favorites but there is only a spread of a couple points, and national opinion polls give the game to the Packers. Will this spill out on the field in the officiating? Into the broadcast booth in the calling of the game? Seahawk fans know about this type of pain.

Then there is the political aspect. The President was a big supporter of the Steelers two years previously, and owner Dan Rooney was made Ambassador to Ireland. The game is on Fox with a big celebration of Ronald Reagan's 100th Birthday (come on, guys, the Republicans need their own FDR/Kennedy legend, even if they have to build it themselves). So, ignoring that Wisconsin has been a "blue" state, is there a political polarization to the game?

And finally, for those who are going to watch for the commercials, here is what I am predicting - Dead Celebrities, Animal Attacks, and teaser commercials that tell you to go to a website for a punchline. Because nothing claims the dominance of a media like ads that send you to a completely different media.

Am I calling the game one way or another? I'm no fool. I have good friends on both sides of line this time. I'm just going to enjoy it, knowing that by the end of the day, one of "my" teams is going to win. And that works out well for me.

More later,

Forty Years Ago

Allison B. Krause
Jeffrey Glenn Miller
Sandra Lee Scheuer
William Knox Schroder

More later,

Seven

It has been seven years now, and what I wrote two years ago is still applicable, sadly.

Now, each fall, we hear the distant thunder, the stories about predator drones in Pakistan, gunships dancing over barren hillsides, and collateral damage destroying the people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. And all with it the faint promise of finding the guy responsible, while showing his work, a snuff film on the jumbotron, to justify our latest folly.

More later,

Hole in the Heart

So I am in New York City. The whys and wherefores do not matter, and, to be honest, I can’t discuss what I’m up to at the moment. But the discussions and meetings had a hole, about three hours in size, large enough to allow a trip into the frigid outside world beyond the hotel. I had not been in the city for about a decade, and while much is the same, some things have changed - more flatscreens everywhere, the Toy Building is going condo, and Times Square is more brilliant and gaudy than ever.

So I went to Ground Zero to pay my respects. It’s been a decade since I’ve been here.

When I came into the city earlier in the week it was just after twilight, and the Empire State and Chrysler buildings were lit up, dominating their neighbors. I’ve never been a native New Yorker, but New York is in the national blood – its locations are familiaf to us. The city and its various districts and boroughs belong to the national consciousness (unlike LA, where all of its locations are punchlines, but that’s another tale). Anyway, coming into the city from JFK I could not help but smile from the strange warmth and familiarity that it gave off.

And then I looked towards the south, and there was a hole in the skyline, and my throat got thick and my eyes watered a little. There is still a hole in the heart of Manhattan.

I got on the E train to go downtown this afternoon. “We don’t give change” said the woman at the booth. “I’m new here,” I said. “You go to that machine and you can get a single ride pass. It costs two dollar. We don’t give change. The machines work. Those idiots say they don’t, but they don’t know nothing. They work, just follow the directions.” And the machines worked and spat out a ticket and I descended into the subway and caught the E train to the last stop.

Now a decade ago I would be shameless in my open distain, even hatred, of the World Trade Center. And I would not be alone in that opinion – they were ugly buildings, buck teeth planted at the end of the island, far from the true heart of Manhattan. They weren’t elegant in appearance, like the Empire State, or even novel in design, like the Sears Tower in Chicago. They were ugly. brutish buildings, and to make matters worse, their first movie appearance was with Tom Hanks in the horrible, horrible movie “Mazes and Monsters”. So I have no love for the towers. But now they are gone and the hole is left and I miss them.

And subway let out right on the edge of the construction. A heritage sign along the road still talks about them in present tense, as an engineering marvel. The site itself has been excavated, and the foundations and infrastructure are already going in, including the rail lines. You can navigate around the entire site, so I paced around it, alongside a damaged building still being deconstructed, along the various fences and windows, through the Winter Garden, and along the north side. I was not alone - there were others, still surprised, and shocked, and angry and sad, who came to see and picture the structure as it was and as it may yet be (and just a note – the models of the planned structures look a lot better in three-dimensions than the artistic renditions I’ve seen).

And in the end I got back on the subway going north and a pair of hiphoppers danced and panhandled and got out at the gaudy Time Square where a group of young girls under watchful police eyes were waiting for someone named Hillary to finish taping an interview with MTV. But there was one other thing at the site.

On other of the pedestrian overpasses, an artist had put in an installation called “Floodwall” It was nothing but drawers – simple drawers, wooden, warped, and water-damaged, from chests and closets that once held simple things, all on end, all along the length of the passage. The only thing odd about these peeling, bleached, wooden drawers was that they were from New Orleans, rescued from the rubble of Katrina, brought north and laid out in a vista along the side of Ground Zero.

There is a hole in the heart of Manhattan. There are other holes in the heart of America.

Update: It has been noted that actually, the 1976 version of King Kong predates the 1982 release of Mazes and Monsters (Thanks, Bradon!). Rather than just make the change above into "one of the first film appearences" or something similarly weaselly, I will just not the change here, since it allows me to state again that Mazes and Monsters really blew chunks.