Serenity Cafe Magazine Issue 1

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An Intimate Portrait of Dr. Jack Thompson

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Humming Christ comes as a dirty-broken beggar.

Buddha comes as a sick bird that needs tending.

Shiva comes as an enemy desiring your destruction.

Atman dances at the Center Expanding.

God shows up as a child begging you to bandage his bleeding red knee.

Ram plays hide-and-seek and jumps rope with Loki and Odin in the Garden.

A whisper flutters on the wind tells you that you are standing in the Navel of Creation where Vishnu is Dreaming.

Rumi and his Dervishes are dancing in and out beside you.

Grace masquerades in all these guises playing a Game of Charades in your Mind.

Don't fear - Dear One, your Soul sees clearly.

Reach out - offer the poor beggar food and water.

Reach out - tend to the sick and bandage the wounds.

Reach out - stroll in the Garden and Dance a new song.

Growing into ever deeper Circles of Knowing — You are Humming in the breath of Brahma.

∞ Marissa Mullins ∞

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ABOVE: TERRA INCOGNITA, INSTALLATION, 2015

ABOVE: DEBBIE PERRONE STOPS IN FOR A VISIT AT GRAND STRAND COFFEE IN THE MARKET COMMON, MYRTLE BEACH, SC. 2020 ©MARISSA MULLINS

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INSIDE THE CAFÉ A pril 2021 I ssue 1:1 SPRIN G ISSUE

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Showcase Artist Joshua Kochis

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Dr. Jack Thompson An Intimate Portrait

On the Topic of the N-word

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Myrtle Beach, SC A Photographic History

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Travelogue Blood Mountain

Making Art, Creating Culture

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Showcase Poet Robert Tustin

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The UK: A Disunited Kingdom

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Origins The Indus Valley

S eren ity Ca fé M a g a z i ne ED ITO R M. Co l l ee n Mul l i n s A SSISTA NT E DI TO R B ra n d i Ca n t re l l

S UP P ORTING PATRON Jam e s " Micke y" Bu r l e son G UEST ED ITORIAL ADVISOR D r. Jack Thom pson

OUR DE E P E ST A P P R ECI ATI O N TO C l i f to n Par ke r, E LLE V Adv e r t is ing Age ncy; Rob in Rob e r t s , Palmetto Arch i tectu re; Is ma i l Ve d a t , Gra p h i c D e s i g ne r ; Michae l Wal de n, Graphic D e s igne r.

Spec ia l G ra t itu d e to D e b o ra h Pe r ro n e , Pete r N e in, Br ige tte Mattox, Scott Fl ee ne r, Brandy Ov e r meyer, D avid S i sk , Ph i l i p J o l l e y, Ka t h i e a n d P h y l l i s , Be n and N ikki, Lau re n and H al e y.

Serenity Café (ISSN 2694-5428) is published quarterly by SC Media, LLC. Serenity Café/SC Media, LLC, 1603 Capitol Ave, Ste 310 A603, Cheyenne, WY 82001. Subscription rates: $45.00 per year domestic; $55.00 per year foreign. Address all correspondence, submissions, and advertising requests to: scmedia620@gmail.com. Submission guidelines and advertising information can be found at www.serenitycafe. org. All Rights Reserved. No part of this periodical may be copied or reprinted without written permission from the publisher. Serenity Café is an independent, nonsectarian, nonpartisan publication. The views expressed herein are representative of their authors and are not necessarily the views of the editor, Serenity Café or SC Media, LLC. Copyright 2021 SC Media, LLC.

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Editor Colleen Mullins, with her son, Benjamin Owen and daughter, Brandice Cantrell, at The Market Common 2019 ©Nikki Owen

T I W E E CO F F

R O T I D E H THE

reating a magazine is similar to having a child. An idea C seduces you-impregnates you with a vision-and you

spend nine months or so in creative labor, eventually giving birth to an independent, living entity. Also like a child, the first issue of a magazine arrives with a few surprises. Every mother knows the sensation of looking at her baby for the first time. She's known the energy of the child within her body for nine months, and yet it is often a surprise when the flesh and blood reality arrives.

Wait, is that blonde hair? You expected brown.

Are those green eyes instead of blue? And where did that chin come from? Of course, she loves the baby in all its unexpectedness! In fact, the child is so dearly loved that the parent works to foster it's individual and independent growth. It is encouraged to become what it is meant to be, to grow past initial ideas and conceptions, and to mature into it's own unique selfhood. Perhaps this is the role of parent as artist, allowing your "creation" to grow beyond its origin and take its rightful place in the world. Magazine creation is that same experience for the editor.

I've always wanted to produce a broad-spectrum, international publication with a local connection.

In 2020-as I was leaving a fifteen year career in the automotive industry, pursuing my freelance writing, doing photography for a neighborhood magazine, and opening a local art gallery-the magazine idea became haunting. A tantrumming 3-year-old stomping through my mind!

Was this really the time to create a new magazine?

Didn't I have enough on my plate? The idea remained obscure but persistent with no certain theme for

several months. Then, the Coronavirus Pandemic hit in early 2020 and the vision for Serenity Café started to take form.

There was extraordinarily little love in the air in August of 2020. The earth was riveted by panic amid a global pandemic that activated world-wide martial law and forced citizens into their homes. The new phrase “shelter in place” was born and took its place in language. All of Europe was behind locked doors as governments tried to stop the spreading virus.

In Paris, refugees begged for asylum as police in riot gear pushed them from one encampment to another.

In America, cities were terrorized by race riots in the streets and polarized by a vicious election-year political system. Every nation on earth was tinged with terror and rage. Every one of us trying to find a new way of surviving the surreal shift in reality taking over the world.

That's when I noticed what seemed like a quiet miracle taking place away from the mainstream press. The Artists of the World were standing up, stepping forward, hands and hearts held out, offering encouragement and hope to others.

Social media platforms, hitherto more about ad clicks and narcissistic self-focus, became a platform for optimism and shared community. Poets provided free readings, museums offered free virtual tours, musicians sang and sent out videos, artists discussed their art and shared “how to” videos on art making with the world.

The Artists, the Seers, and the Dreamers-the Voices of Creativity that are normally a quiet minority- were also a type of "first responder" offering hope and comfort to others however they could. The resounding

message from all corners of the globe: "Hold on and be strong. We can survive this together."

A simple question formed in my mind: What does it mean to be an active, engaged, conscious human being in this world? I knew that I was witnessing the answer to that question (and it's opposite) being acted out across the globe in topical ways, but I wanted to go deeper. The question grew in poignancy becoming the ethos for the magazine you are holding in your hands.

Our goal is to deeply explore this question and to introduce you to other human beings and the answers they are finding—to share their stories of “living that answer” in the world. We seek to look at and know others from a perspective of shared humanity, and to participate in the journey called life with them. Our pages are a communal space meant to offer insight, hope, and encouragement that fosters shared experience and understanding.

With that said, we will also tackle provocative issues, question inequalities, and seek the boundaries of what it means to be human in this period of historical time. (This is where the baby grows into its own selfhood!)

In a world where the denial of basic human rights and dignity has become the norm, where news outlets and social networks are saturated with intentionally false information, and at a time of social chaos and human turmoil on a worldwide scale, to ignore those aspects and simply produce a "feel good" publication would be socially remiss and ethically irresponsible. Hope that fosters change does not come from denial, but from an accurate acceptance of things as they are and the ability to envision options and to work toward them for the benefit of all.

We do need good news, motivation, and inspiration.

But it needs to be balanced with multicultural voices and perspectives, and with an honest recognition and appraisal of the current life realities for everyone across the globe.

We want to be a magazine that informs, challenges, and encourages you to explore different views and seek out your own answers to the question of engaged human consciousness.

Serenity Café is a quarterly publication, based in South Carolina, USA with some "local flavor" and an international scope. It carries profiles of the people and town of its birth, as well as national and international interviews, opinions, and culture in each issue. Our tag-line says it best: The Local Magazine with a Universal Heart!

We are now entering year two of the Coronavirus Pandemic and it is still a learning process and a challenge for most of the world. The Artists, the Seers, and the Dreamers-the Voices of Creativity-are still urging us on.

The resounding message is still being spoken: "Hold on and be strong. We can survive this together."

Our debut issue of Serenity Café takes as its theme dreaming, as in envisioning, and shines a spotlight on Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, past and present.

Hope that fosters change does not come from denial, but from an accurate acceptance of things as they are and the ability to envision options and to work toward them for the benefit of all.

You'll find an extensive and compelling interview with photographer, historian and innovator Dr. Jack Thompson in The Man Behind the Camera. At age 84, he crushes the stereotypical impression of “the elderly” as he continues to work full time and stay active in his community. A special photographic essay section is also included, highlighting Jack’s life achievements, and showcasing some of his famous Myrtle Beach “Classics Collection” from the 1950’s.

Gloria Makori, a first generation Kenyan-American, speaks honestly about the realities of racial stereotyping in her life (and explores her experience in Minnesota following the death of George Floyd) in the essay On the Topic of the N-Word. Our Showcase Artist, Detroitbased Joshua Kochis, in Terra Incognita, presents a unique vision of the trees and earth around us, compelling us to view commonplace objects with a fresh perspective. He then shares his thoughts about the possibilities for local artists and community art scenes in the essay Making Art, Creating Culture.

Luke Owain Boult, a writer living in the UK, addresses the international political and social situation abroad in his article A Disunited Kingdom. In Travelogue we join adventurer, Donny Karr, his wife Madison, and their dog Biggie Smalls, on a weekend trek through Vogel State Park and Georgia’s Blood Mountain. Our Showcase Poet, Robert Tustin, discusses poetry as a means of connection and shares several poems with us. Writing from Pakistan, Jaffar Ali, takes us on a quick tour of Origins as we delve into the history of the Indus Valley. There are additional photo essays, art, and poems in this issue inviting us into a space of creativity and insight.

We hope you enjoy your time in the Café and are glad you stopped by. We invite you to join the table and share in the conversation. (We welcome Letters and Commentary from our readers. You may reach us at scmedia620@ gmail.com) Thank you and Welcome to our first issue!

M.Colleen Mullins EDITOR

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CONTRIBUTORS <<< Joshua Kochis Joshua Alexander Kochis grew up in the suburban forests of Southeast Michigan. He has always had busy hands. He received his BFA from the Penny Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan in 2015, where he focused in painting, sculpture, printmaking, installation, and creative writing. He is inspired by the forms and textures of nature and can often be found wandering in the woods, climbing trees and digging things up from the ground. His practice is focused on creating images, objects, and installations in collaboration with the natural world. Joshua is currently living and working in Detroit, MI. Email me: jakvista1@gmail.com

Luke Owain Boult >>> Luke Owain Boult is a Welsh writer, editor, and translator. He studied for a BA in Japanese and Spanish at Cardiff University in Wales and has also studied at Valencia University, Spain, and Chuo University in Tokyo, Japan. After graduating, Luke became the award-winning editor of Buzz Magazine, Wales’ largest arts and culture magazine in 2015.

Luke has a passion for the arts, language, writing, food, and travel and left Buzz to become a freelance writer, editor and translator in 2017, following a digital nomad lifestyle with his fiancée. He has since travelled extensively throughout Europe and Japan while translating books and games. Luke has written two novels and is currently working on his third.

Email me: lukeowain@gmail.com

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<<< Gloria Makori Hi, my name is Gloria Makori! I am a Graphic Designer born and raised in Minneapolis, MN. I am proudly a first generation Kenyan-American. Living with both identities is a blessing in disguise. It allows me to have a different perspective on topics within my community. I am passionate about art, food, culture, and acts of service. I believe life is too short and unpredictable to live in fear, attachment, or hatred.

One of my guilty pleasures is watching Big Brother on CBS every summer. I recently graduated from Berea College in August 2020 with a Bachelor of Science in Technology and Design. I hope you gain insight from reading about my experience!

Email me: scmedia620@gmail.com

Jaffar Ali >>> I am a communications professional, based in Lahore, Pakistan, with more than a 7-year stint within the media and communications sector, and an added background in Journalism. I like to dabble in writing, learning new languages, traveling, and scaling peaks.

When I’m not indulging in the above, I can be found learning a new skill, reading, or designing.

Email me: jafferdar41@gmail.com

<<< Robert Tustin Robert Tustin graduated from Queens College with a Master of Arts degree in 2007. He is the recipient of The Leonard Deen Prize and The Melvin Dixon Prize for Scholarship, and was awarded The SilversteinPeiser Award for Poetry. Robert is originally from College Point, Queens, in New York City, but currently resides in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina with his two cats Ethan and Polly. Robert is currently working on a chapbook entitled Moment’s Monuments he hopes will be published in the near future. Besides writing, Robert loves to talk ad nauseum and play Dungeons & Dragons with his friends.

Email me: robert.tustin@aol.com Serenity Café 09

Terra Incognita Installation, 2015 Facing Page: (Detail) Tree Story, wood, steel, wire 2015

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JOSHUA KOCHIS Terra Inc ognita: Small Vistas Unfolding

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Wooden fragments are unearthed from the forestfloor and translated through drawing, collage, painting, and sculptural installation. The displacement of these subterranean objects exposes the way that landscape can be perceived as an entity separate from human culture, and attempts to reconstruct the symbiotic nature of our connection to the world around us. By the selective inclusion and alteration of details, the landscape becomes a malleable spine to the anatomy of a painter’s composition.

My process is a compulsive response to this disconnect. I hold a subject up close to my face and draw without looking at the paper, methodically creating a blind contour of the wooden fragment in my hand. This intense observation is a way of exploring the terrain of an object in an immersive and physical manner, of losing myself in its miniature topography. The textures of erosion become their own kind of landscape, the

scale of which is altered by their translation onto a large stretch of paper or canvas. As the composition grows I trace over lines like footpaths carved into fields of grass, creating a map of my journey over small vistas.

Like my ancestors, I propose a new relationship to the content and invite others to wander the Subterraneans with me. The result is a simultaneously internal and external landscape, the original forms filtered through the lens of my own perception.

I begin my paintings with photographs of the fragments I’ve collected. By collaging these images onto the canvas, I build a panorama from the details, a narrative out of moments in time. The layering of contour lines over collage is a method of translation, a gestural record of my own hand. This line drawing in pen and marker documents my small journeys in a secret language. The continued layering of color pools and contour lines recalls the formation and erosion of

Background & below: Big Vista 4x8 oil and marker over collage on canvas 2015

the geological time scale, the painting becoming its own vista as I work, the canvas laid flat as an open frontier stretching before me.

By mixing enough solvent into my pigments, the paint becomes viscous. I spill and pour the liquid color over collage and drawing, thereby exposing the early stages of my image to the effects of wind and gravity.

I tilt the canvas and rivers flow in vertical drips. I blow on small lakes, throwing spindles of color outward from the center.

I play god on the illusionistic space of my canvas and let the forces of nature shape the landscape as they see fit. Stepping back I see the Treestory unfold as a pillar descending, the fragments held up and wanting to fall but stuck there reaching down. My eyes fill in the blanks and the woodbricks are moments of time, words in a vast infinite poem that’s always been written and never will be finished. The story is about Creation but also at the same time about Erosion and how their distinction is just a matter of perspective – how everything is in a constant state of flux, all of us becoming something else, always and slowly. I want to construct the fragments of my landscape into one new vista legend, like a cut-up poem where you rearrange another writer’s words to mean something else, only the writer in this case is Nature and the new story is my own life.

It’s all about scale. It’s about making space, to stop and think about the smallness of humans in the bigness of nature. It’s about the difference between smallness and weakness. It’s about recognizing our potential, the responsibility of potential, of being the primary natural force shaping the Earth.

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It’s about displacement: the effect of taking a thing from where it belongs. It’s about seeing these Subterranean fragments out of their element, away from the dirt and green leaves nodding in the wind.

It’s about what they say in a blank space, white space. It’s about how white homogenizes form.

How we homogenize nature, try to own it, put it in a pot or inside a glass case. It’s about how “wood” is different than “the woods”. It’s about looking at each moment of the story unfolding all around, each crumbling fragment as its own kind of vista, the only frontiers left unexplored and unknown. It’s about letting our imaginations unfold.

Treestory is about putting the pieces back together.

It is an attempt to reconstruct the fragmentary elements of our reality into one cohesive whole.

It’s about the tension of our relationship with the environment. It’s about the grand narrative in layers of earth beneath our feet. The story is about a tree, my tree, but also our tree. The human tree.

Anthropocene tree. We are part of the Story, roots of our own stories, each of us a tree in the vast infinite broken forest of this culture. We are implicated in the formation of the next chapter. What will we write? 3

FORTHCOMING...

SC MEDIA, LLC WWW.SERENITYCAFE.ORG

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y a s s nal E

Perso

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By Glor ia

Makoria

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f o c i p o t e h t n o d r o w N the The first time I was called the N-word was by a neighbor, in third grade, who shared my skin tone. It confused me. I had always thought the word was spoken by a white person to a black person in a derogatory way. I wasn’t aware that it was socially acceptable to be used black-to-black, nor was I aware that there was a difference between the term “n---er” and “n---a”.

I grew up with Kenyan-born parents and most of our knowledge of race in America came from the media.

Whether we watched movies or news reports, the black people were usually portrayed in a negative light. This influenced many African’s assumptions of African Americans. When I asked my parents about the word and explained what happened, they were very upset and reported it to the principal. It had to be a strange situation for the principle—a white woman addressing two black students on the topic of the N-word. There was a slight tension between me and my neighbor after this but we remained complicated friends. There would be times where they would call us “African Booty Scratchers” or make comments about the food that we ate at home. It upset me but I didn’t believe there was much I could do about it.

I pushed the confusion aside, ignored it, because I needed to have them as a friend. They helped Americanize us so we didn’t stand out too much at school. (They taught us that we should call our parents “mom and dad” instead of “mummy and duddy”.) It was a weird relationship because when we were with them, we were African and they were Black. However, in our predominantly white school, we were all grouped as Black. I was able to feel a bit more comfortable about being black my first two years of high school.

The school was more diverse though the Africans and African Americans were still different social groups. I didn’t really know where I stood, so I made friends from all groups. I didn’t know the difference between race, ethnicity, and nationality back then.

My parents sent me to a boarding school during my junior and senior year of high school. I was uncomfortable with the change but it brought an opportunity for growth. Naturally, I became friends with a few Kenyan girls. It was easy to be friends with them because we had similar upbringings. I felt like I

didn’t need to conform around them. I could simply be myself.

This was the year when the #blacklivesmatter movement spiked due to the murders of Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner. At my boarding school, the sensitive topics of race were avoided, but I became prouder of the skin I was in. The #teamnatural and #melanin movement became popular on social media. I would see more YouTubers and Instagram models who looked like me. It gave me a sense of pride because the same African features that I was made fun of for having, were the same features that people were now embracing. I stopped using chemical perms on my hair and accepted my natural curls in a healthy way. I made a lot of self-improvements, but I was still unable to be a leader. I was feeling more comfortable in my identity and wanting to educate myself further on systematic racism—something I didn’t know existed until the Black Lives Matter movement.

In the Spring of 2016, I was accepted to Berea College. I had applied after looking for affordable colleges on Forbes. I was excited to learn that not only was the school tuition free, but it also was the first nonsegregated, coeducational college in the South. Carter G. Woodson, the founder of Black History Month, graduated from Berea College!

I remember the excitement I felt on the plane looking out the windows over the two-hour flight as I watched the landscape change from the city of Minneapolis, MN to the countryside of Lexington, KY. As I exited the plane in the small Bluegrass airport, a gate attendant came up to me, squeezed the knot on my headwrap, which was resting on my forehead, and smiled, “you are just adorable” she said with a thick Southern drawl. It was a strange interaction, but also amusing. I wasn’t offended because, by then, I had learned that people’s actions depend on their upbringing and worldview.

It took time to adjust to being at a liberal school in the South. I started learning more about the LGBTQ+ community in college with growing respect. And, to understand my own identity better, I signed up to be a part of the executive committee for both the African Students’ Association and the Black Student Union. I helped organize different events to bridge the gap

ABOVE: TERRA INCOGNITA, INSTALLATION, 2015

ABOVE LEFT: UNITY BETWEEN RACES IN SPAIN DURING THE #BLACKLIVESMATTER MARCHES ©SABRINA-ADOBESTOCK.COM , ABOVE RIGHT: A MAN WITH A MEGAPHONE DURING THE USA #BLACKLIVESMATTER MARCHES. ©VAKSMANV-ADOBESTOCK.COM ABOVE: TERRA INCOGNITA, INSTALLATION, 2015

LOWER LEFT : POLICE TAKE TO THE STREETS DURING RIOTS IN THE USA ©TEKSOMOLIKA-ADOBESTOCK.COM, LOWER RIGHT: WARRIOR ©JACOB AMMENTORP LUND. ABOVE: TERRA INCOGNITA, INSTALLATION, 2015 FACING PAGE TOP-:RIOTS AND DAMAGE IN MINNESOTA FOLLOWING THE DEATH OF GEORGE FLOYD ©GLORIA MAKORI FACING PAGE BOTTOM: PEOPLE PROTESTING ON THE ROOFTOPS IN MINNESOTA DURING THE #BLACKLIVESMATTER MARCHES ©GLORIA MAKORI

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between the two groups. It was not easy because both groups felt like the other saw themselves as superior.

However, it seems useless to divide ourselves when we have bigger issues at hand.

As the first few weeks of 2016, an election year, went by, a tension slowly grew between the students and the community. We had many Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) students on campus.

The local community would throw drinks at us, rev their engines as we crossed the sidewalk, drive around campus with the confederate flag, and some would yell offensive comments and slurs. It was difficult and uncomfortable for all of us.

I decided to work for positive change by taking advantage of my roles in the Center for International Education, African Students’ Association, and the Black Student Union. We opened different conversations and controlled discussions on campus to understand different perspectives and to find a solution of some sort.

We maintained mutual respect in these safe spaces by following a set of guidelines so that we didn’t cross boundaries. I liked this approach and it enabled us to tackle issues with respect, focusing on solutions rather than fighting over differences. I attended Berea College for four years, and continually put myself in uncomfortable conversations because that is what I believe it means to be an engaged human being in this world. Discomfort is a catalyst for growth.

Two months after I went back to Minnesota due to the pandemic, George Floyd was murdered about 15 minutes from my home. I found out about his death the day after it happened—the smoke from burning buildings ten miles away heavy in the air outside my home. It was scary to be so close to the situation.

People were angry about the murder, people were angry about their businesses being burnt down and looted, and people were angry at the government and how they mishandled the situation.

Highways closed by 7PM, stores were boarded up with wood, the grocery store next to my house doubled in customers (due to other grocery stores being broken into). It became normal to wait in line outside for 15 minutes before being allowed in. This was the last thing we needed during a global pandemic!

It was uncomfortable walking in public because the skin I wore was a public statement and possibly a threat. I felt like those years of self-growth had gone to waste. I spent a week struggling with the emotions.

Eventually, I realized that I had a choice. I could feel miserable and helpless about the injustices of the world or to do something positive that would help my community.

I cannot control what happened, I only have control over how I react. I chose to use that time to do more research to educate myself on the topic. Then, to use

that knowledge to engage in more discussions via zoom and with my family. I tried my best to support more POC businesses, while also using my art skills to create impactful and uplifting images.

We all have our strengths and limits. The most important thing we can do is step back and analyze the situation. Then, approach it in a way that aligns with our morals and beliefs, and take positive action! ɷ

Serenity Café 17

Sadly, the trend of fatal police shootings in the United States seems to only be increasing, with a total 132 civilians having been shot, 16 of whom were Black, in the first two months of 2021. In 2020, there were 1,004 fatal police shootings, and in 2019 there were 999 fatal shootings. Additionally, the rate of fatal police shootings among Black Americans was much higher than that for any other ethnicity, standing at 35 fatal shootings per million of the population as of February 2021. ~ Published by Statista Research Department, Mar 1, 2021

#BLACKLIVESMATTER 2020 ©RACHEL-STOCK.ADOBE.COM

In your endless tears

the finny orange fish, the withered sedge, the mallards, the geese, the mute swans and me-dipping my big toe.

~Robert Tustin

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Grandpa Hubert

Grandma would send him to the store for milk: Later he'd return with beer on his breath Whereupon he'd weave an alibi of silk That stuck more beautifully than any truth.

He used to hang in doorways mother said: Girls giggled as they passed under his gaze; One compliment from him and they'd fall dead-He was quite clever at turning a phrase.

I saw him in the garden as himself, Where he performed at least eight tasks at once-Though at the time he wasn't in good health, So those things he did were death defying stunts.

He grew forgetful and failed to plant seeds; His weak heart stopped as he watered the weeds.

~Robert Tustin

CHANGE ON THE HORIZON

Jack Thompson Photography

SERENITY ON BROADWAY 515 BROADWAY STREET MYRTLE BEACH, SC 29577

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Robert Tustin

Poet Rob ert Tust in s hare s his t ho u g ht s o n po e t r y as a mea ns of conn e c t io n in t his N ove m be r 20 19 int erview fro m Po e t r y is a Ve r b *

meet poet Robert Tustin in the coffee shop at Barnes & Noble as agreed. I am early. He is earlier. He is waiting for me at a side table with several poetry books and a yellow notepad with a list of poetic influences written in neat, concise print. We are friends immediately, talking as if we’ve known each other for years — an easy sing-song conversation about our shared love of words, lines, and stanzas.

Robert speaks in soft, quiet tones with an open and deliberate demeanor. He is invitingly eager to discuss his passion for poetry and his earnest desire to see poetry become a “connective” experience; one which brings the people of his community into a deeper

conversation with themselves and helps them to create a stronger connection with others in the world.

Thank you for taking the time for this interview.

Can you give the readers some information on your background and explain how you came to write poetry? I was born in College Point, Queens, New York to a working class mother and father, a Catholic and an Episcopalian respectively — parents who saw fit to send me and my two brothers to a private evangelical Lutheran school up until eight grade. Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! We come by our eccentricities, as they are, quite honestly. Following that, I attended the local public high school in

Flushing. It was a rude awakening and I was a quiet, awkward, and shy C student.

Everything changed when I was a Junior in high school and took Mrs. Aronaeur’s English class.

She was a very patient, enthusiastic, and caring instructor. I was introduced to Shakespeare, and Macbeth in particular. I was hooked and my C’s became A’s seemingly overnight. By and large it was Shakespeare and his poetic use of language in his plays that brought me to write my first poems at the age of sixteen.

What three poets do you consider most influential to your growth as a poet? Obviously Shakespeare was my earliest poetic influence in my late teens. In my early twenties I experienced my first breakup with a girlfriend. Almost immediately after that I borrowed (stole may be a better word for it), Bukowski’s book, Love Is A Dog From Hell, from my older brother, John.

It ushered in my second phase of poetry, which sought to use free verse to subvert romance. The influence of Shakespeare was still there but to it I added a more contemporary voice.

For the third influence I went back a bit to William Carlos Williams and his little polished gems. In my thirties my poetry took on the quality of a passive observer recording seemingly mundane experiences and through language transforming them into something, at least for me in writing them, approaching the Divine. I sought to capture moments in time and by doing so, claim them and whatever wisdom the held as my own.

What other disciplines, beside literature, or areas of interest inform your writing? I have always been a student of history and mythology. Classical and Medieval history along with Greek and Norse mythology frequently find their way into my poetry.

Art, particularly sculpture, is also an area of interest that informs my poetry. I always try to convey history and mythology through a very contemporary lens to show that times may change but people, by and large, remain the same. People like to think, even in their lifetime, that the kids coming up are somehow different, less civil, more this, less that … The ancient Greek had the same sentiment three thousand years ago.

At what age, during what period of your life, did you first know you wanted to be a poet? I knew I wanted to be a poet when I was sixteen. At first my poems, like many young aspiring poets, resembled song lyrics. As I progressed and the influences began to truly impact me and inform my writing I dabbled in writing sonnets (a form I still love to write in) and, of course, free verse.

What are your thoughts on the current poetry scene and the utilization of poetry in our country? Poetry

on social media is encouraging more young people to put their poetry out there. I think this is a good thing. I see young teens devouring the latest books by R.L. Sin, Rupi Kaur, and Lang Leav. If this inspires them to go home and write poetry this is a good thing. I also hope this sparks in them an interest in and appreciation for the poets of the past.

What do you hope to accomplish with your writing?

Is there an objective? I think poets write with the expectation of someone else seeing their work, whether or not they actively seek formal publication.

I believe, even in writing for ourselves, we are writing for an audience. I hope to always write to the best of my ability and to create art every single time I type words on a screen or put pen to paper. My objective is always to create a thing of beauty for the eyes and ears.

I wanted to do an Open Mic because I think people need to hear poetry read aloud and not just see it on their computer screen or on a page. Poetry should be a live experience. The process of writing it can often be a very lonely endeavor. Poetry is a living thing and needs to be given breath.

What does the term poetry “in everyday life” mean to you? I think most, if not all, poets are passive viewers of the goings on of their contemporaries.

Watching a young girl sobbing on a rusty swing, a black and white terrier chase a yellow leaf swirling in the wind — There is poetry everywhere waiting to be captured by a poet’s imagination. The poet also has an inner landscape they often love to share. Poets are sometimes at their best when they look critically at their own inner workings.

We all share the same emotions as human beings.

Read a poet like the Roman, Martial. Most of his epigrams seem like they could have been written yesterday. He was a Roman citizen writing very raw little epigrams about everyday life in Rome. His poems display humanity in all its beauty and ugliness too. His writing takes what might have seemed ugly at first and makes it something quite beautiful. Language has the power to do that. There is poetry absolutely everywhere for the poet willing to look. ɷ *Reprinted here with permission from Poetry Is A Verb - MCM

PHOTOS: ROBERT TUSTIN SERIES 2019 ©MARISSA MULLINS

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24 Serenity Café Robert Tustin ©MARISSA MULLINS - Robert Tustin Series 2019

REMEMBERING THE TOWN LIBRARIAN "What happened to the head librarian?"

I asked the new girl working in the stacks, Who told me the old antiquarian Died peacefully in her co-op full of cats.

I sighed heavily to hear the awful news Then went quietly about my business, But couldn't stop thinking about Mrs. Hughes And the joy with which she read Dr. Seuss To all the children in the neighborhood: Laughter was a noise she always excused.

I spared the thought for her then thought, which book should I check out today. A long time I mused Before deciding on one. A grown man There I stood checking out Green Eggs & Ham.

MY FIRST OPEN MIC (FOR ROBERT DUNN) At the Barnes & Noble in Bayside New York I'd just asked a clerk for the letters of Rilke When you dashed in from the rain, devil-may-care.

Shaking your half closed umbrella through the air.

You noticed me eyeing you setting up, And asked, "Here for the open mic?" I said, "Yup!" "Well then don't just do something, stand there," You scolded, and like that I unfolded a chair, Then another, then another even faster, From the first until the very last, sir.

When you asked me, "Like to sign up and read?"

I answered, "My man, do picked scabs like to bleed?

But I'm afraid I've brought nothing to share."

"You'll do fine, my boy" you smiled. "Read this here," And you handed me a crumpled piece of paper.

It was like handing a young Zorro his first rapier.

I read the words scribbled there to much applause: The voice was mine but the words were yours.

– Robe r t Tusti n

25

A PAMPHLET FOR NEW CITIZENS TO THE EMPIRE Rome if you want to, by the Appian Way, By learning to pray To your household gods.

Should Apollo, of a morning, come peeping Through your villa window– Greet him with a proper carpe diem.

Practice being stoic As you slip on your white tunic, But only if you want to.

First thing, think of all the things Can go wrong in a day As you prepare to promote nothing If not the common good.

Be a knowledgeable citizen Who knows should his travels take him To the Coliseum What thumbs up and thumbs down mean.

It’s important. Some Christian’s life Depends upon it.

Thumbs up for death and down for life– Did you think the opposite was true?

Most do. Probably just a rumor Started by a Christian trying to be a martyr And nothing to fall on your sword about.

Pass through or shop at Trajan’s Market If you must, but beware The plebian pickpockets there Love nothing more than collecting From you unawares The clinking precious round portraits Of each immortal emperor.

Should your travels end fatally And you find yourself lost tragically Amongst the flung bones And thoughtless skulls of yesteryears Citizenry Beneath the busy cobbled streets In those dismal dark and ever cold Claustrophobic catacombs, please know: You were and you shall ever be The mortar helps support this eternal city.

– Ro bert Tus tin

Robert Tustin ©MARISSA MULLINS - Robert Tustin Series 2019

s t c a mF

s i t u A

∆ Autism affects 1 in 4 children. Boys are four times more likely to have autism than girls. ∆ The rate of autism has steadily grown over the past twenty years. It is now the fastest growing developmental disorder, yet the most underfunded. ∆ Autism affetcs all ethnic and socioeconomic groups. Minority groups tend to be diagnosed later and less often. ∆ Autism can be reliably diagnosed at 2 years of age though most children are not diagnosed until age 4 or older. ∆ Research indicates genetics, age of parents at conception, and a sibling with autism all affect the liklihood of a child having autism. ∆ 40% of children with autism cannot speak.

Children with autism are more likely to suffer from sleep disorders, ADHD, anxiety, asthma, epilepsy, and associated disorders. ∆ Research shows that artistic expression helps autistic children in numerous ways.

Information above from the national autism association and autism speaks, For more information, please visit: autismspeaks.org or www.nationalautismresources.com

4TH SATURDAY MONTHLY MAY-JUNE-JULY-AUGUST MORNING SESSION: AGES 5-9 10:30AM-12 NOON 12 NOON - 1:00PM LUNCH FOR BOTH CLASSES OF CHILDREN & PARENTS AFTERNOON SESSION: AGES 10-+ 1:00PM-2:30PM THE HEART RANCH, MYRTLE BEACH

ART for Autism

FREE ART PROGRAM

Serenity Café Magazine & Serenity on Broadway are pleased to announce Art for Autism! The program is provided FREE of charge to autistic children in the community and includes a presentation and question/answer period with a local artist, an "art bag" for each child with supplies and gifts, a teacher-led art project, and free lunch for all participants and parents.

Participants will be featured in Serenity Café Magazine (receiving a free copy of the issue in which they appear) and their art will be displayed at Serenity on Broadway Gallery! We are excited to bring this new program to the area and look forward to seeing you there!

REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED!!

Find more information or to register, please visit us at www.serenityonbroadway.com

REGISTER AT: WWW.SERENITYONBROADWAY.COM

& w e i v y r a e s t s n E I o t o Ph

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Jack Thompson, Senior Class Photo, 1957 ©Jack Thompson

the Man behind the Camera An Intimate Portrait of Dr. Jack Thompson An

artist’s Body of Work is greater than the artist himself. It exists—separate, beyond, eternal. In the Myrtle Beach, South Carolina area, there is no greater historical photographic Body of Work than that of Jack Thompson. He has devoted 70 of his 84 years to capturing the heart of Myrtle Beach and its people on film. His photographic production is prolific, encompassing thousands of prints and negatives, several published books, numerous television interviews and videos, countless newspaper articles, and five studio walls lined with accolades and awards.

The story of Jack Thompson Photography is a rather good one. However, as an artistic human being, Jack Thompson’s Body of Work extends well beyond the scope of photography.

He created and edited two of the first magazines in the Grand Strand area, conceptualized and built the first gym in Myrtle Beach, won talent competitions as a singer, and took off on an adventure to Ecuador to start a shrimp farm.

Jack created and headed the All-Aboard Committee— leading the restoration efforts that saved the Myrtle Beach Train Depot for future generations. He has garnered numerous awards for ethics and integrity in business and for his marketing genius and acumen. He is a businessman, an artist, a humanitarian, an innovator, an adventurer, an Historian…and, well, you get the idea.

To create art and to live a wholly artistic life is a rare accomplishment! Jack Thompson has done that; and perhaps that deeper Body of Work, an artistic life shared with his community and the City of Myrtle Beach, is his greatest accomplishment.

Jack is a visionary with the ability to imagine the extraordinary. His life exemplifies intuition and passion, setting a noble standard for trusting your heart and living a life of purpose in the world.

This driving purpose is not simply about taking photographs, artistically expressing himself, or succeeding and economically “making a living.” Rather, it is a purpose in tune with the generous lovingkindness of a humble soul.

His quiet deeds helping the needy that regularly show up at his studio (five dollars to one person, lunch for another) and his encouragement and welcome to all those “awe-struck beginning photographers” that come by to meet their hero are just a few of the ways his presence humanizes the City of Myrtle Beach.

At the age of 84, Jack Thompson is still working and inspiring others. He spends several hours in his studio on 9th Avenue daily; always warm, hospitable, and generous with his time and energy to all who stop in. Visitors expecting a pretentious man of success are pleasantly surprised when he greets them, eyes twinkling, with a warm smile of welcome

on his face. It is this innate ability to welcome and include that causes his patrons to love and cherish the man as much as the work he produces.

The conversations for this interview took place during visits to Jack’s studio and meetings at local landmarks over the months of August through November 2020. This quietly modest man was hesitant when we asked to use his Little Gym muscle shot as our cover photo, suggesting sales might be better if we picked someone more modern.His desire for our success over his wish for publicity came as no surprise. This is the level of humility and compassion that seems so naturally a part of the man behind the camera.

An artistic life is a bumpy road filled with ups and downs—heroic moments of risk and crippling moments of fear. It often makes little sense to peers or family members, and it requires a certain brave spirit to follow the demand of the Muse and leave safety behind in favor of exploring the deeper self. Yet, it is this deeper self which

Jack Thompson poses to demonstrate the benefits of weight training in the 1950's ©Joe Thompson -©Jack Thompson Photographic Trust

32 must grow for the creative element to expand and thrive.

Jack began trusting his deeper self at a young age—when he hitch-hiked to Myrtle Beach at the age of 13. His intuition led him to the familiar smell of print and paper at Skip’s Photo Booth once he hit town. The boyhood dream of being a lifeguard dissipated as he began working as a photographer. But his interest in physical fitness grew along with his desire to help others. The Little Gym he started as a high school student in 1953 evolved out of a desire to help other boys struggling with feelings of inadequacy.

an in-depth interview discussing the intimate aspects of his life and beliefs. Jack is a gentleman, protective of his lovers and his children. Thus, you will find photos and general information about family members, but out of respect for everyone’s privacy, we keep the primary focus on our subject.

Jack Thompson was generous in every way as we compiled this feature. Allowing us many hours at his studio observing him with clients and friends, sorting through photographs and memorabilia, and sharing his wonderful stories of Old Myrtle Beach. He spent additional time helping us in the design, presentation, and photo selections that follow. We offer our deepest gratitude to Dr. Jack Thompson for his contribution to our debut issue and for his loving support of Serenity Café. It is an honor for us to introduce you to the man behind the camera. B The Early Years Colleen Mullins: Thank you for being with us! Let's start with your epic trip to Myrtle Beach as a teenager. How old were you and what made you leave Greenville and head for the beach?

Joe Thompson, Jack’s brother, captured the young, muscled-up dreamer in that early morning hour of becoming, freezing a moment on the start of a journey that would lead to a greater destiny than either of them could imagine. It is a shot of a young man in peak physical condition, an artist beginning his creative career, and a humanitarian offering his first help to others in the world.

The photograph epitomizes the joy of the instant. Hope for the future is evident in Jack’s eyes and the look on his face.

The years that followed took Jack through the normal trials and tests of a life – several marriages and divorces, times of financial plenty and times of lean survival, personal losses and professional disappointments interspersed with great triumphs and successes – the life lessons we all must face and move through in growing up. But, through it all, his intrinsic faith and ability to envision and dream would keep leading him forward to greater levels of artistic and humanitarian a c h i e v e m e n t .

Serenity Café is deeply honored to have Jack Thompson as our first cover story.

We are grateful and appreciative of his consent to use “the muscle shot” and his agreement to give us

Jack Thompson: I was thirteen, soon to be fourteen.

There was a little café called The Cat Dive next door to my grandmother’s boarding house in Greenville. All the mill people came over there for their hamburgers, cheeseburgers, and hot dogs. In the back room were two pool tables, but you had to be 18 to go back there.

Me and Carroll Campbell and Freddy Collins were adolescents. We were so intrigued by that pool room that we’d go around to that big back door and we’d sit there and watch these guys shoot pool. They were 18 or 19 and drinking Schlitz’s beer. They’d come over and say, “You boys want a swig of this beer?” And we’d take a swig of the beer.

They were talking about Myrtle Beach, all the pretty girls in bathing suits, and how we could walk down the beach and dance the Shag with the girls to that beach music. I mean, what highway did you take to get to Myrtle Beach? You get on Hwy. 278 and hold your thumb out!

Did your parents have any idea that you were doing this?

No. Nobody knew it. We got together and we counted our money. We had about $2.70 and we thought well, we ought to be there in a few hours. We started hitchhiking!

The only people traveling on those little two-lane highways back then, in 1951, were farmers in old pickup trucks.

We’d jump in the back of the truck with a dog and a chicken. Just as we got settled down, the farmer would say, “Boys, this is where I turn off.” We’d only gone about a mile and then we’d get back out and keep walking.

We would come to a little gas station. We’d say, “We’ll sweep the floor and take out the trash for a moon pie and RC Cola.” We left in the morning. By dark, we had made it to Florence. There was a little town outside of Florence that had a little church, and we slept under that church.

Then, the next morning, we were back out hitchhiking. We made it to Galivants Ferry over here around Aynor. There was a big trading post over there operated by the Holiday

This Page: Jack, with his sister Rose Marie and cousin Bobby, in Greenvile at age 13. Facing Page: Top-The Little Gym yearbook photo from Myrtle Beach High School, 1954. Bottom-Jack in front of The Yachtsman. in a muscle-shot pose for his brother Joe Thompson. ALL PHOTOS ©Jack Thompson©Jack Thompson Photographic Trust

Et quunt anistrum ium is siti repeliqui

33

brothers. It was right on the Little Pee Dee River and that long concrete bridge. When we got into the trading post, we must’ve looked awful! [Laughs and shakes his head] But you were determined to go to Myrtle Beach and see those pretty girls!

I was like Moses going to the Promised Land! We got into the trading post, and John Holiday and his brother, Joe, were looking at us, we said, “We’ll sweep the floor and take out the trash for a moon pie and an RC Cola.” They laughed, then asked us, “Where you boys going?” “We’re going to Myrtle Beach.”

“I tell you what, boys. We got a hot bar back there. We got tenant farmers around that are picking cotton and tobacco.

You boys do a good job, go up there and eat all you want on that hot bar. There’s a Trailways bus coming here at 2:20 and we’ll put you boys on that bus to Myrtle Beach.” That was like heaven. It was like a story that was destined to happen.

Did you have a goal, other than the girls, once you made it to the beach?

Yes, I was going to be a lifeguard on the beach. Fate took me to Skip’s Photo Booth. Carroll and Freddy ran straight to the ocean. I had no idea I was going to run into that photo booth.

Your parents were Greenville natives, and your dad, James W. "Jimmie" Thompson, was a famous guy in his own right. He was a radio announcer and newspaper columnist in Greenville, wasn’t he? Tell us about your parents and family life in Greenville?

Yes. The Greenville News asked him to write an article, and he started writing articles. After a while, they gave him a column in the newspaper. The name of the column was “The Crow’s Nest.” My mom would take me to the newspaper office when I was five or six years old. She’d open the door and say, “Now you go stay with your dad. He’ll have to bring

you home.”

I would go down to my dad. He sat at the big Linotype machine. Sometimes he’d let me sit on his knee while he was doing that, and he’d say, “Son, there’s a whole lot of stuff in the world that is not the truth. The public needs to know the truth, and they can take it. We always have to tell the truth.”

I sat on his knee a lot of times. He was wise and gave me directions for my life – not to hide my light under a basket!

He was typing away on the Linotype as he was telling you that?

Typing away. Then he would say, “Why don’t you go down in that photo room, the dark room, and see what you can find.”

I’d go down there, and I’d get the trash can and pull out the old pictures. I’d look at those. We’d get home, my mom would say, “Jimmie, what is the smell on that kid?” He’d laugh and say, “Aw, Edna, he was in that photo room and got the chemicals all over him.” When I got to Myrtle Beach and I ran in the Pavilion, I smelled the photo chemicals. Boom, I went over to the photo booth.

It makes sense that you found your way to Skip’s Photo Booth and something that reminded you of home.

Probably so. After two days on the road hitchhiking and being out in the world, that was the silver cord that pulled me back on my path.

My dad was compassionate and considerate, and he loved all living things. He had this big, beautiful set of encyclopedias.

He was a self-educated man and he used to sit us down on the floor during the war. He would say, “Find something.” We could never find anything he didn’t know the answer to.

His mother and my great grandmother, known as Aunt Jane, had a boarding house right below The Cat Dive in Greenville. On the river there was the Camperdown Textile Mill. Aunt Jane’s boarding house had mill workers that would come, some from 30 or 40 miles around, and they’d come into Greenville and work the week and stay at the boarding house and go home on the weekend.

My dad was always hanging around The Greenville News building growing up. This was in the 1930’s. He liked to emulate the newspaper reporters and writers. He’d wear a little hat with a pencil behind his ear. The Greenville News was across the street from The Poinsett Hotel, and down behind it was my grandma’s boarding house. It was all in his neighborhood.

So, he dreamed of working for the newspaper and made that dream come true. Then, he went to work for radio too.

Dad was a little man with a big radio voice, and he was the only man in Greenville that had this deep radio voice. They got him to do the local news. He was like a Walter Winchell.

The big Poinsett Hotel was a block from his office. The Poinsett Hotel was built by the Woodside Brothers who built The Ocean Forest Hotel in Myrtle Beach. The Woodsides admired my dad’s radio voice. His show was also sponsored by the Coca-Cola Company owned by W. Anderson.

The basement downstairs in The Poinsett Hotel was fabulous. It had marble floors and a nice, enclosed office for WFBC Radio. In 1936, my dad took radio on the air.

Everybody in Greenville knew Jimmie Thompson. He would

Facing Page: Jack, as a teenager, working at Skip's Photo Booth in the Pavilion. Clockwise Above: 1 Little "Jackie" age 7 in a school photo, Greenville, SC. 2 Edna takes Rose and Jackie shopping in downtown Greenville in the 1940's 3 A 1940's postcard from Greenville, SC showing the bustling city; the back commentary brags on the Neon Clock being the "largest double-faced clock in the U.S." and notes its sponsorship by the state's leading newspapers, The Greenville News and The Greenville Piedmont. 4 Eventually, all the "boys" would come to the beach ~this photo shows Edna with her sons, (L to R) Jack, Jimmy, Bob, and Joe on one of her many trips to visit them in Myrtle Beach. 5 A Myrtle Beach postcard from the same time period showing The Pavilion, The Ocean Forest Hotel, Brookgreen Gardens, and an aerial view of The Grand Strand. ALL PHOTOS ©Jack Thompson ©Jack Thompson Photographic Trust

36 come on with the news. Greenville was a big sports town for basketball, Furman University basketball. We had a big event building downtown called Textile Hall, and they had basketball, boxing, wrestling, all these wonderful indoor sporting events. My dad was the announcer. He was the toast of Greenville for two decades spanning the 1930’s and 40’s.

Family Challenges What was your mom like?

Well, back in those days, there were over twenty-five mills in the Piedmont area. This was during The Great Depression, and my dad, as flamboyant as he was and in demand, he started drinking. Because, before television, after work what did they have? All these news guys would meet after work at The Poinsett Hotel and go up in the card room and play poker. Their friends were moonshiners in the hills of Hendersonville. They would bring down gallon jars of moonshine with pickled pigs’ feet!

While broadcasting a football game between Clemson and Furman one day, he blurted out “Look at that SOB run!” It was controversial and upset the Christian aristocrats in Greenville. This was a problem for his radio sponsor, Coca Cola, and of course, they had to let him go. However, this blooper earned him The International “Blooper Award” among sports broadcasters and writers!

After that, he took a job as the editor of The Nashville Tennessean. He went to Nashville, coming home on weekends. Through it all, my mom, and her brother, and

Edna Gaines Thompson, Jack's mother ©Jack Thompson

two sisters, went to work in the mills. When my mom and dad were dating, my mom was absolutely beautiful.

She was the lifeguard at a state park in Greenville.

That could be where your desire to be a lifeguard originated!

Probably. On one occasion, when she was a lifeguard, a little girl was seemingly drowning, so my mom dove in the cold mountain water to help her and hit her head on a piece of slate and busted her kneecap. She walked with a stiff knee for life after that, but she continued to work. She became an inspector in the mills. Her job was to walk the long aisles of spindles, to inspect them and make sure that the loom was running right.

She worked third shift, 11pm until 8am, and she could hardly get all of us in the house by 11 o’clock. But she trusted us. I was 7 or 8. Joe and Bobby were adolescent teenagers. She would come home at 8am with a big sack full of ham and cheese sandwiches from the mill. She would bring that bag and another bag full of cartons of milk home to us. We had nice hot ham and cheese sandwiches and a carton of milk each morning. She got us fed and off to school and then she would sleep ‘til 3 or 4 o’clock. When my mom would come home from working in the mill, I couldn’t wait to rub her feet with baby oil­­­­- I was around seven or eight years old. If there was ever a saint, it was my mom. My brother-in-law Bill thought so too...

My sister Rose Marie met Bill and they married and had several beautiful girls. Bill became an alcoholic and struggled to be a father and husband. The family suffered for many years.

Later in life my mom took an apartment in Greenville’s Calhoun Towers, which was Greenville’s second skyscraper. It was 14 floors. She would go down and sit in on a bench out front in the morning and read the paper. Bill would come by as a homeless person. He'd ask her for a few dollars. He did that for months, and she would always give him a couple of dollars. She said, “Now, Bill, you ought to straighten yourself up and go see your girls. The girls love you, and they’d like to see you.” He said, “Now, I’m not in no shape to see those girls. They would be too embarrassed.”

He came by one day, and Bill was probably 45, great big hunk of a guy. She said, “Sit down here, Bill,” and he sat down. He wanted $5. She said, “Now, you know that I know what you’re going to do with that money.

You’re going to go buy a bottle of wine, and then you’re going to be looking for $5 tomorrow.” “But I want you to make me a promise. I want you to take this $5. I want you to go down to the Salvation Army. I want you to donate that $5.” He cried, and he promised her he would do that.

A couple days later, a Salvation Army truck pulled up, and he got out, dressed in a white shirt, and hugged my mom. He said, “They gave me a job.” “I can’t believe it.

They gave me a fresh shirt.” He said, “I’m the delivery/ pickup guy now for the Salvation Army.” That changed his life!

37 When my mother died a few years later, we were at Thomas McAfee Funeral Home, and everything was quiet. Bill came walking down the aisle, walked up to the podium, and told that story. He said, “That woman is a saint, and she changed my life!” He and his family lived happy until he died of a heart attack several years later.

My mom was a saintly woman. She’d pat me on the head when I rubbed her feet after she worked those long night shifts. She’d say, “Now, Jackie, one of these days you’re going to be a doctor.”

It had to be an extremely proud and fulfilling moment for you when Coastal Carolina University granted you an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts Degree in 2006.

Yes, it was. I walked off stage with that diploma and said, “Mom, I’m a doctor.”

Congratulations on that honor. And thank you for sharing

said, “Son, I’m not going to walk all of these 500 acres.”

We walked a little bit, and he sat down. He said, “Now, you go in and shoot pictures. I’ll wait for you.”

I shot a lot of pictures, and then on the way home, I was disappointed. I said, “Now, dad, you should’ve walked through that park. There was so much I wanted you to see and I wanted you to realize how much of a sanctuary it is.” He said, “I got the gist of it.” On the way home, of course, I had to stop and get him a little bottle of Jack Daniels.

We lived up in Pine Lakes in a beautiful Dutch style house. That night, everybody went to bed. My children, Cary, Craig, and Lisa were 6, 7 and 8 years old. I went downstairs and my dad was sitting at the table typing away. I didn’t say anything. I went back to bed. The next morning, the love story was laying on the table.

He finished the story on Brookgreen Gardens?

Yes! “A thing of beauty is a joy forever. Its loveliness increases. It will never pass into nothingness.” He quoted Keats! That was him. He was a lovely man in his heart and soul, and he appreciated what life had given us. I got that from him, and I got love from my mother.

Power, Religion & Freedom of Speech

Your dad, as a newspaper man, was engaged with the world around him. And you've said you're a "newshound" and watch the news and political coverage.

What are your thoughts on the current issues of media bias, media distrust, and the like?

Unfortunately, most of the major networks are bought and paid for by the billionaires that own them. They are going to say what the man that writes their paycheck tells them to say. This country has lived off the sweat of the working people and the withholding tax since the early 1940’s. It has been the glue that has held this country together until now!

"Dr. Jack Thompson" CCU Graduation, 2006 ©Jack Thompson the story of your mom and Bill and for your candor about alcoholism in your family.

Addiction is a serious issue in our world. Too often, in our society, the terms “alcoholic” and “addict” have been used as synonyms for “bad person.” I do believe that misnomer is changing, but I also believe it is necessary to continue to challenge the negative judgments and associations that remain. We've spoken before about your dad and his struggle. Do you think the term “functional alcoholic” applies to your father?

Yes. He just couldn’t stop the burning control the disease had on him. The Brookgreen Gardens story will resonate with you when you read it. Then you’ll know the kind of man he was. We entered the gardens. He

How do you think that manipulation and influence by powerbrokers relates to freedom of speech?

Freedom of speech is a Constitutional Right. We are guaranteed the promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as Americans. In order to have that, and enjoy that, we must live by the tenets of the Constitution.

I can still see my dad typing an article and writing something about Dewey defeating Truman for the presidency. He said, “That’s not true.” Of course, AP newsfeed was coming through and saying Dewey defeats Truman. The Greenville News ran the headline “Dewey Defeats Truman.” The afternoon paper my dad did had to retract that. No, that wasn’t true. He said, “The public needs to know the truth, and they can take it.” There is an underlying truth that is paramount to what the public needs to know, and yet, most of the time, it’s kept quiet to appease the public.

" e i m m i "J . . r W S , s n e o s m Ja homp T

Opposite Page: James W. "Jimmie" Thompson, Sr This Page: Above Right-The Linotype Machine and a copy of The Crow's Nest Column sit on Jimmie's old desk in the basement of The Greenville News building. Surrounding: Newspaper clippings of Jimmie's Behind The Mike column during the 1940's from The Greenville News. A copy of the newspaper article on Brookgreen Gardens for The Greenville News; Jimmie wrote the article and Jack took the photos. A photograph of the inside lobby of The Poinsett Hotel in Greenvile. ALL PHOTOS ©Jack Thompson©Jack Thompson Photographic Trust

40 I agree that the press has a responsibility to tell citizens the the truth. Only in a state of tyranny or despotism do you find free speech oppressed by the government.

COVID-19 is creating widespread panic across the globe as we speak. The US has enforced martial law on its citizenry. That can get tricky because the same room that keeps you safe can become the room that imprisons you.

We err sometimes when we seek safety to the point of giving up the true freedom to live. What are your thoughts on this?

We had swine flu. We had a Spanish flu. We had plagues that went across Europe and killed millions of people. We didn’t know what to do about it. This is just another deadly virus. Today we’re prisoners in our own homes. We wear masks and we can hardly breathe.

We’re not supposed to get near each other. We can’t even shake hands as a matter of friendship. We can’t hug the ones we love.

I don’t believe that this lockdown is right. I do not believe we should be prisoners in our homes. We should have the right to maintain ourselves as a healthy individual, and if we do keep ourselves healthy and strong and make sure that our immune system is healthy, I think we’re fine. Healthy adults I feel are safe. It’s the ones that want to go out and mingle with people who may not be as strong.

Unfortunately, COVID-19 is loose in the world. It’s affected the foreign countries too and many of them are also on the verge of collapse.

Yes. The religious and spiritual beliefs across cultures, whether they be the Judeo-Christian, Hindu, or Islamic perspective, all speak of duality and opposing positive and negative forces as part of man’s challenge.

However, there is also a growing discussion in the world population that this may be a period of Awakening.

Certainly, forced isolation created mass changes in the way people spent their free time and engaged with others.

Some picked up a paintbrush for the first time in years and others spoke out with poems and music videos or posts on a blog. Amazon’s book sales climbed as we started reading literature again! People pursued their creative sides because there were no other options.

I agree. Historically, there have been numerous plagues and pandemics that destroyed large numbers of people.

The Influenza pandemic of 1918 in America, the AIDS Virus, Ebola…

Yes, because we are living longer. We know how to take care of ourselves, but the planet can’t handle the burden of billions and billions of people.

There are some people who believe that the Higher Power at some point will create a situation of natural disasters or plagues to thin out the human population.

There are great numbers of people that believe what is happening now may be ordained by God, and He may have allowed this to happen, for instance, to put the sporting world on its knees. He says, if we’re going to worship the movie actors, He’s going to shut down the theaters. If we’re going to worship the National Football League, He’s going to shut down the stadiums.

Everything that we worship has been put to rest, put behind closed doors, and it serves to create a situation where we’re all looking inward and appreciating what God has given us.

There is the evil side of that as well. You know that story about good and evil, the Yin and the Yang fighting each other, and many believe God threw out the angel from heaven who became Lucifer. He’s out there fighting the good that God can do, and he’s inspiring people to do bad things.

So, the same impulse that makes you walk out and look for that shot and take that photograph is the same impulse that a painter or musician is exploring in their studio. I believe all art requires space and a certain sensitivity, a certain connection to something larger and more ethereal than the individual person. Do you believe this situation is helping people find their way in artistic and spiritual ways?

I do believe that it is creating a situation on everyone to identify with what it is that they want out of life and many are coming to the realization that they must live by the Golden Rule. To get along in the world and have a happy life, you must treat people the way you want to be treated in return, and you have to start with a smile.

You get a smile back.

You must learn how to talk to God! The Creator said that He’s your Father, and when you stumble, He will pick you up if you ask. If you don’t ask, He’ll let you walk on in pain. As in all walks and all facets of life, with the things we all must deal with, we can suffer with or we can do what Jesus said, Ask me, and I’ll take that load off of you. If you have a burden that you can’t bear, humble yourself and ask me, and I’ll take it from you. I believe that, and I’ve had to ask many times!

Photography is one form of artistic expression, wouldn’t you agree? I do, yes.

Children's portraits for The Collins Co., and JC Penney's were some of Jack;s first photgraphy jobs. ©Jack Thompson

One of the aspects of your work that I admire most is your ability to catch that glimpse of the Divine within your photographs. You have an ability to capture that glimmer

41 of light in people and places, freeze it, and share it with others. It is a beautiful gift.

I have to agree with that because I don’t plan the photoshoot. I don’t go out with a plan, but I do it because I’ve been inspired. On each and every photograph, I’ve felt inspired to create an image, and I’ve been challenged to find a different angle, the right perspective, and most importantly, the right light. Luckily, I’ve created some beautiful images of God’s work just by being led by my intuitive God-given gift!

Exploring Spirituality

a choice, to do right or wrong. What we do is going to prepare us for perfection. You’ve got me on aspect of belief I never talk about! [chuckles] And yes, I am a Christian, and I believe in Jesus Christ.

Are you familiar with the Buddhist and the Hindu philosophies?

Oh, yes, Yogananda. Yes, Hindu. Mahatma Gandhi. I used to soul travel. Have you ever heard of soul travel?

It comes from meditation.

Yes, the yogis and the mystics teach that the body is the physical boundary, but not a full reality of our being, and that there are various degrees of out-of-body travel in other realms possible.

That’s in the book of Eckankar. It’s a journey through all the different worlds, all of which were created in the book of Eckankar. You know, there’s so much to that that I finally came back to the new age way of thinking.

Will you expound on that?

To put that in plain language, when we meditate, we can meditate and go deep within ourselves to the point where our soul body rises above us. When that happens in a deep meditative state, your spirit leaves the body and rises up-- astral floating. The spirit according to your mind can go anywhere and be anywhere.

Jack, also known as "Mr. Pixie," during the JC Penney's Days. ©Jack Thompson I’d like to delve deeper into the spiritual with you. I know you're an avid reader...tell me about the books on your bookshelf and about your personal search for truth and God. What do you read? What are your core beliefs?

There are books by Deepak Chopra, and others, and I have read most. And I know their philosophies. I went beyond them into the story of Eckankar. Eckankar is a belief in the godhead, that we are all spiritual sparks from the godhead. All souls are a part of the godhead.

I always think of this world as a little ball, or a little spark that was part of the stars in the universe. We’re all suspended inside the spark. When we die, the soul is released from the bubble and goes to join a bigger bubble. This Big Reality is God. It’s referred to as the godhead. We’re all just droplets, like nano droplets, that are racing to join the godhead.

Our souls will become an everlasting part of God. We desire change to perfect ourselves through all the trials and tribulations that we are confronted with in life – we are probably the only spirit that has the ability to make

Time is not real?

That’s right. As a safety net, the spirit is attached by a silver cord. When you meditate and your spirit rises.

You’re connected by this beautiful silver cord. Anywhere you want to travel in the world, even in the universe, you are attached by that cord.

It’s like a mountain climber climbing a mountain. He has a cable attached to him. What happens to him if the cord breaks? He’s lost. While you’re soul traveling, there are entities out there, evil entities, that would like to break that cord and take over your soul. You must guard your silver cord to keep the evil entities from breaking it and taking over. You find that's what happens to those people that all of a sudden seemingly go crazy.

There’s a negative energy that many understand as Resistance. It fights with the necessity of life, but life is propelling and moving forward in a positive, creative way.

The average normal person does not realize the danger in meditation. There are negative forces that can take you over. The way I describe it is you see people on the street corners preaching, trying to convert you to something. Those are the people who are psychic. They dare not go beyond. If we venture beyond the invisible horizon, we are lost and can’t find our way back. If we do that, we become deranged, as in…crazy! [laughs] Some of the mystics say that the otherworld you wander in as a yogi and the otherworld you wander in as a

Jack at Penney's in Memphis, TN - 1958. Fresh out of high school, and newly married, Jack lands a national gig as "Mr. Pixie" for the J.C.Penney's Company and travels across the US setting up the portariat studios in their stores. ©Jack Thompson

Jack loved singing and loved it a little more than the camera. He won a spot on a national television talent show but was unable to make it... life had other plans! Thank goodness he missed that talent show! ©Jack Thompson

44 schizophrenic is the same place. The difference is that the yogi knows how to come back, and a schizophrenic doesn’t. It's an interesting concept. So, you do meditate?

Yes. A lot of yogis, and many others, believe in the power of sound. There’s a lot of truth in that when you hum to meditate it allows your body to “tune in” to a certain frequency, and this is an aspect of meditation.

Transcendental meditation is a wonderful technique. But, when in this world do we have time to really do that when we’re not distracted watching the news, watching the late night TV shows?

Still, through it all, when you get to this point, you realize you are okay with God. In your own mind you’ve become omnipotent, as in, invincible! We’re all dealing with everyday life. Ultimately, there’s nothing to gain except peace, love and joy.

You achieve that by emptying yourself of yourself, right?

That’s right. Unfortunately, you cannot find people that understand your meaning. You go to that place where you can meditate or contemplate all things before you can come to the realization that all God asks of you is to treat people the way you want to be treated. Therein is the origin of the “Golden Rule.”

The more Conscious you become, the more that becomes what you are and not something you do?

You have to become that person, and I have eperienced it often. You must be the person that will capture the housefly and take him outside and let him go. God favors that. We’re not here to destroy any living creature. The tiniest of those are the ones that God favors. There is beauty in life all around. Hopefully, it’s within each of us to discover.

I understand. I stopped writing for a time and moved deeper into photography because I was saying things that I realized others couldn’t hear. I stopped using words and moved toward images as a form of communication. Photography, for me, like meditation, became a way of finding connection and clarity.

In meditation you’re trying to get back to that place of being a Watcher. You’re hearing and seeing thoughts and emotions, with some space in between, without becoming entangled in them. In photography, the place of Watcher is almost automatic, and it creates a distance that allows for greater lucidity and focus. It facilitates a different type of seeing in the world and of translating that sight-experience for others.

Photography will give you an opportunity to express yourself in ways that ordinary people seldom see. Our challenge is to capture that image and put it out there.

I believe fate has directed me to create photographic images. That’s why I have a story, and that’s why the story is a feel-good story. That’s what photography is—capturing a story within an image—that speaks volumes!

It’s about the difference between having the experience versus being told about it. Preachers give you information.

Artists give you the experience. Photography takes you there.

Yes, the pursuit of capturing the image—it takes you there.

That makes time stand still! It’s a way for photographers who are deep within themselves to express their innermost feelings on a piece of paper.

I have a negative that I have yet to print. I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind for years. Early one sunrise, I was down by a tidal basin where the swash went into the ocean. Before there was Family Kingdom, there were big barriers there, to stop the incoming tide. In one of my magazines, Insight into the Grand Strand, the masthead featured that picture of the waves smashing against the barrier.

I was there that morning with the tripod and the sun coming up. The big barrier was black. It was like a shadow.

While I was waiting for the right moment, a seagull swooped in, and its shadow looked like an eagle. I was ready with my finger on the shutter!

The caption will be, “Jonathan Livingston is trying to make like an eagle.” A seagull is flying, and his shadow looks like an eagle! One day I’ll print that and write that in the caption. It says a lot.

Once we have obtained “enlightenment” through deep meditation, then comes the ability to understand. Our challenge is to bring our innermost feelings from within and share them with the world. That’s why some people want to preach and interpret the Bible. One can go, as I did, on that spiritual journey. Then you have to come back to real time. You have to come to grips with the realization that you know that you know. And, didn’t Jesus say not to scatter your pearls among the swine? Again, unless someone has walked the path, they may not understand or comprehend.

Were there ever moments when you didn’t want to come back? In my case, I was happy in my place of non-reality and timeless bliss. I lost all interest in society and the superficial world around me --preferring nature to people. I really didn’t think I wanted to return because I loved being in that place of peace and bliss so much.

Of course, there is that danger in being a seeker. Because God will open heaven’s gates, and say, Come on in! Then, he will say, but I have a purpose for you, and you are not ready, so I’m glad that you know that you know, but you still have work to do! [laughs] Yes [laughs] that was the message I was given too! It speaks to the deep longing that sweeps through us all. I think creativity is one way we try to find our way home. There are those moments when we’re in that creative flow, just letting it move through us. It’s directing us and we yield and move with it. We pick up our camera, paintbrush, or pen and go back into that unity of purposeful bliss. You can’t ever get enough of that!

Photography was my way of expressing the innermost feelings that I had. There have been times in my life that I tried to do something else, and I tried. God always brought me back.

I always threw myself into things. I published the magazines because I could “see” them creatively, I knew how to do it. I satisfied myself that, yes, I knew how to do it, and I always knew I could.

Salinas Beach, Ecuador 2014 ©Ramiro --Stock.Adobe.com

When I was 12 years old, there was nothing I couldn’t do, but I always accepted the fact that people may want to do something, but that’s not what they’re here to accomplish, it’s not their true calling. But go after your dreams, go on and satisfy yourself that you can do it. I went to Ecuador. I was going to make a million dollars because I knew how to do it.

a banker, and I found a pond, and arranged to buy the shrimp for that pond and it to be farmed every 90 days.

By now, Myrtle Beach wasn’t a big enough market for me. I came back home, and I went to Washington. I knew a senator there and he opened a few doors for me. I found a national chain restaurant and negotiated a deal with them too.

Tell us about your adventure in Ecuador...

Well, a fella came to me in the studio in 1979. He asked me if I’d like to make a million dollars! And I said, Well, yeah, I’d like to make a million dollars. He said there were native peoples in Ecuador that had found a way to close out the tidal estuaries on the banana plantations. They were feeding the shrimp bananas and the shrimp were larger than anyone had ever seen!

He wanted a partner to start a business there, build a pond and sell the shrimp. I told him I’d think about it and started doing some research. The 65-mile Grand Strand was cooking 600,000 pounds of shrimp a week then. A friend of mine, JD Flowers had Myrtle Beach Seafood. I asked him, “JD, If I could supply you with shrimp, would you like that?” He said yes, he was interested in buying from me.

So, I went to Ecuador with this old character. When he came to me, he was like 75. To me, he was an old man. He’d been doing the drilling for the ponds and watching these huge shrimp rush in.

I closed the studio and put everything in a warehouse. I went to Ecuador, checked into the Grand Hotel, and met Julio. He was Ecuadorean, but he grew up in the US and graduated from George Washington High School in New York. I was impressed with him and hired him as my interpreter. He introduced me to

Wow! It sounds like things were going well!

Yes! I received two purchase orders from the big boys, one for 25,000 pounds and the other was 20,000 pounds of a different size. It was a $9 million contract.

The old man, Bill, Ken, and I formed a company called Atlantis International with our office in the Flatiron Building.

Bill was the president, Ken was the secretary, and I was the vice president and marketing person.

Then, I got the call that my dad (who was sick at this time) needed me. I put those purchase orders in my desk drawer, and I said, “Ken, I don’t know how long I’m going to be gone.”

I said, “I‘ll put these purchase orders in my desk drawer, and here is the key, and don’t let Bill get near them!” Bill liked to go back and forth to Ecuador.

I was in Greenville for 10 days with my dad until he passed away. I came back to Myrtle Beach, and I opened my desk drawer, and the purchase orders were gone. I said, “Ken, what happened to the purchase orders?” He said “Oh, Bill—he called the big boys and thanked them for the purchase orders, and they flew down and picked them up, and they went to Ecuador.”

Within a few days, the company cancelled the purchase orders and bought everything out from under Atlantis! The

46 banker and lawyer we had in Ecuador both said, “Jack, money talks.” And, “Your president just kind of gave everything away.”

There’s a wonderful beach down in Ecuador called Salinas, and I went down there for the weekend. I walked on the beach one night and I said, “Lord, what am I doing down here?” The Lord said go home and do what you know how to do. Go home and print your negatives. I said, “Lord, is there anybody else up there I can talk to?”

So, that’s what I did. I came home and opened that warehouse, pulled out those negatives, and started making prints!

You knew you were supposed to do that.

I knew it in my heart and soul. I had put it all together, but it was not meant to be mine.

Money was the capricious force in everything I mastered. I printed the golf magazine, the first one, and it won a national recognition award. But the salesperson who was collecting ad money for me opened a fraudulent account. Then, he took the money and left town!

You have to recognize that life moves you toward being the person you’re destined to be – I was not intended to be an international businessman—and what kind of person would I have been had I succeeded? Those adventures and projects were wonderful learning experiences. But they were not meant to be—the future was still ahead! ◆

Above: The "banana fed" shrimp that called Jack to Ecuador and the coastline of Myrtle Beach, SC that called him home. Facing Page: Jack poses at the Myrtle Beach Airport following the installation of his palm tree and moon photograph behind him. All Photographs ©Jack Thompson

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Jack Thompson Partnerships, Friendships, and Family Life is about people, relationships, connections ... and Jack Thompson knows how to make friends!

1. Jack, Right, presents South Carolina Governor Robert McNair with the first issue of his magazine, The Grand Strand Golfer, as representatives from Sandlapper Press look on. (Inset: Jack poses in his studio for Serenty Café, March 2021. ©Marissa Mullins) 2. Jack Thompson with South Carolina Governor Carroll Campbell. Remember that "run-away" trip to the beach at 13 with Freddy and Carroll? Yep, Jack's childhood friend and traveling companion Carroll would grow-up to become our Governor!

3. Dwight Lambe, the owner of Skip's Photo Booth and Skip's Gift Shop profoundly impacted Jack's life when he gave him his first job as a photographer at the Pavilion. He was Jack's legal guardian and mentor in Myrtle Beach. Dwight Lambe went on to serve on the city council, serve as mayor pro-tem, and became a judge. He remained close to Jack through the years and he bequethed the negatives from the Skip's Collection to Jack at his passing.

4. Joe Thompson, Jack's brother, was a likeminded artist and visionary. Joe photographed Jack, but his first love was writing.

Joe and Jack worked together on several projects through the years, including the book, Growing Up With "Shoeless Joe".

5. Jack, always active in politics, is pictured here with long-time friend, Senator Strom Thurmond.

48 Serenity Café ©Jack Thompson-©Jack Thompson Photographic Trust unless otherwise noted.

All photos

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50 Serenity Café

Above It's all about love! . Jack in various poses through the years with long-time companion and love of his life, Jane Humphreys. Jane is a talented watercolor artist herself and has published several children's books. It looks like a Love Story to us!

Facing Page Top - Jack with Governor Carroll Campbell and the Rev. Billy Graham.

Middle - A promotional video still showing Jack and his assistant, Scott Fleenor, with Colleen Mullins as they talk about Serenity Café and upcoming projects; Colleen with Jack after the interview. © 2021 Marissa Mullins Bottom - Jack poses with Senator John McCain and Senator Lindsey Graham.

All photos ©Jack Thompson-©Jack Thompson Photographic Trust unless otherwise noted.

Family

Jack, center, with his children, left to right: Jackie, Will, Amanda, Lisa, Cary, and Craig

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"Out on Assignment"

Mention the word "retirement" to Jack and you're likely to get a strange look — like you said a curse word in church! Then, Jack will quickly tell you he's not retired. The creative fire inside him is burning as bright as ever. Well, since he doesn't want to retire, we decided to put him to work ...

We're happy to welcome Jack Thompson to the pages of Serenity Café magazine as a regular contributor!

Look for his Out on Assignment column, featuring photographs and stories, in upcoming issues!

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina 1950's

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina 1950's

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man behind the camera. Our deepest gratitude to Dr. Jack Thompson for his contribution to our debut issue and for his loving support of Serenity Café - MCM

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina 1950's

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man behind the camera. Our deepest gratitude to Dr. Jack Thompson for his contribution to our debut issue and for his loving support of Serenity Café - MCM

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina 1950's

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The Ocean Forest Hotel 1930-1974

The Ocean Forest Hotel 1930-1974

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The Ocean Forest Hotel 1930-1974

man behind the camera. Our deepest gratitude to Dr. Jack Thompson for his contribution to our debut issue and for his loving support of Serenity Café - MCM

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Myrtle Beach Pavilion 1948-2006

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Myrtle Beach Pavilion 1948-2006

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Myrtle Beach Pavilion 1948-2006

man behind the camera. Our deepest gratitude to Dr. Jack Thompson for his contribution to our debut issue and for his loving support of Serenity Café - MCM

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The Myrtle Beach Train Depot 1937-Present

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The Myrtle Beach Train Depot 1937-Present

A Disunited Kingdom

By Luke Owain Boult Family members that no longer speak to

one another. A nation’s reputation tarnished. The evocation of an imagined past and a society seemingly more divided over history and ideals than at any point in living memory. These are elements that I am sure a good many American readers and those of other nationalities will relate to, but here I am writing about another country that is seemingly in the eye of the storm of a particularly divisive identity crisis. I am writing about the increasingly inappropriately named United Kingdom. It is a division whose roots were first planted millennia ago but can essentially be summarized through race, class, and nationality.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE BRITISH ANYWAY?

It is impossible to understand the reasons for the divides in the modern UK without understanding its roots as a nation of nations. In fact, interpreting the UK as a single country would lead to a fundamental misunderstanding of what makes it so divisive.

What the UK actually is remains an immense source of confusion for many, even for those who live there. Today, it refers to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and is, in essence, a union of four countries, namely England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. However, it once referred to a United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, namely the two largest islands in the British and Irish Isles, until

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26 counties in Ireland seceded to become an independent republic while six in the north remained in the UK. In short, the UK is confusing, to say the least, and even living there until the end of your days is no guarantee you’ll understand it. To some, it is a country in its own right with a shared culture, while to others, it is a collection of countries with as many cultural similarities as the Nordic countries have between each other.

And therein lies the problem, how can the country stay united if it can’t even agree if it’s a country?

So where to begin in explaining this mess? After the end of the Roman Empire in the 5th century, Great Britain, like much of Europe, was in turmoil with migrating peoples seeking out new lands.

The natives of the island of Great Britain were generally Brythonic Celts south of Edinburgh and Picts north of Edinburgh. They were invaded by people from Ireland, including a Gaelic Celtic group called the Scots, and people from around Germany, including the Saxons and Angles.

Over a period of hundreds of years, the native Britons were pushed out of many of their lands and eventually into what is modern-day Wales and Cornwall as Anglo-Saxon Germanic tribes conquered what went on to become England.

Meanwhile, the Scots joined with the native Britons and Picts of the north of Britain to form what would then go on to become Scotland. By the 10th century, the three groups of English, Scottish, and Welsh had more or less formed, with vastly different cultures, languages, and

histories. Oh, and the Vikings did their fair share of invading too, leading to a significant Norse influence in the region.

Over the centuries to come, the English kingdoms united and, after being conquered themselves by the Normans, they successfully conquered Wales and Ireland, although they maintained their unique identities.

When England and Scotland both moved away from Catholicism and the influence of Rome in the 16th century, the two kingdoms moved closer together before eventually uniting in an initially rather unpopular union, both in England and Scotland, in 1707 as the Kingdom of Great Britain. The divide between Catholics and Protestants is still deeply felt in many parts of the UK and has played an essential role in the formation of identities in Ireland.

With the union of England and Scotland, a new British identity was formed, with some in Scotland describing themselves as North Britons instead, while “forward-thinking” English and Welsh people may have defined themselves as South Britons, with the older national identities perhaps being seen as somewhat provincial. Indeed, in much of England today, defining oneself as English rather than British is sometimes seen as closed-minded, a phenomenon once ridiculed by George Orwell who wrote about an ancient embarrassment of Englishness.

In 1800, the Kingdom of Ireland was united with the Kingdom of Great Britain, with Ireland being seen as an unruly place with a markedly different culture

It is impossible to understand the reasons for the divides in the modern UK without understanding its roots as a nation of nations. In fact, interpreting the UK as a single country would lead to a fundamental misunderstanding of what makes it so divisive.

and religion to Great Britain. Despite this, there were indeed some Irish people who were keen to participate in the new British identity, seeing themselves as West Britons. “West Brit” remains an insult in Ireland.

Over the next century, the British Empire would grow, something in which many English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish people alike participated in. It became the largest empire the world had seen and helped to forge a “progressive” British identity that would be based on a sense of “civilizing” the rest of the world.

In contrast to the English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish identities, the new British identity was often seen as inclusive and forward-thinking, and this identity was built upon during the First and Second World Wars in which the UK came to see itself as a defender of justice and a “winner” in contrast to the “losers” of mainland Europe.

As this post-war British identity developed, the much-older English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish identities evolved too.

And as the world changed and the ugly reality of much of the British Empire emerged, it became apparent that there were diametrically opposing contradictory British identities depending on one’s own identity: a liberating oppressor, a forward-thinking imperialist, and a civilizing tyrant. To many, the British identity has negative connotations of

oppression while to many others, it has positive connotations of the defender of the oppressed.

RACE AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE: A PROBLEMATIC LEGACY On paper, the UK is often mentioned (rather depressingly perhaps) as being the least racist place in Europe. However, racism and imperialism can be seen as built into the fabric of the UK’s past and the racist legacy of the empire is becoming harder to reconcile in the modern age.

From the discrimination against the Irish to pogroms against Jewish people, there is a long history of racial conflict in the UK. In the same sense, arrivals from the British colonies often experienced discrimination, racism, and aggression due to a mix of fear and a belief in superiority instilled by the British Empire.

When increasing numbers of people from countries like Jamaica, India, and Nigeria started to move to the UK in pursuit of a happier life in what was presented as the idyllic “motherland” of Britain, they were often disappointed with the reality they found. They were often turned down from jobs and targeted by the police, with many British people being unwilling to rent or sell their properties to them. Many immigrant groups subsequently moved to poorer

areas, taking worse-paying jobs, and experiencing poverty.

However, as the decades passed, immigrants from the former British Empire became part of the new, modern Britain and have had an undeniable impact on its culture. In parts of the UK, there has been something of a sense that being British is inclusive, an overarching term that includes the very different English, Welsh, and Scottish identities, and now immigrant identities from all over the world.

In essence, there is a conflict evident between the ideas of Britishness with regard to race and the empire, adding to the question of what it even means to be British. As in Dutch and French society, there is also an uncomfortable truth about British society that seems to have been ignored by many, namely the history and impact of the British Empire, with a significant share of the British public seeing the British Empire as ultimately a force for good. This is the same empire that traded slaves with zeal and slaughtered the natives of Australia, to name just a couple of “problematic” episodes.

There seems to be a willful ignorance of the evils of the empire, while the likes of slave traders, colonizers, and arguably those who have committed genocide have often been publicly honored in the UK, with statues built for them and buildings named after them. This hono-

Churchill symbolizes the complexity of the empire’s legacy in Britain, with impassioned arguments over whether he and the empire were a force for good or evil.

There seems to be a willful ignorance of the evils of the empire, while the likes of slave traders, colonizers, and arguably those who have committed genocide have often been publicly honored in the UK, with statues built for them and buildings named after them.

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ring understandably has its critics, unsurprisingly including the descendants of those who were oppressed, with such monuments being a major target in the recent Black Lives Matter movement in the UK, inspired by the protestors in the USA. The dispute over the statue of the slave trader and Member of Parliament Edward Colston in the English city of Bristol is a good example of this. Edward Colston was celebrated for his philanthropic actions and brought wealth to the city. However, he was deputy governor of the Royal African Company, which held a monopoly on the Atlantic slave trade and undoubtedly profited from the unimaginable suffering of countless innocents. In a series of BLM protests in Bristol in 2020, after years of calls to remove a statue of the man were ignored, the statue was torn down and thrown into the sea.

This prompted widespread reflection on many other figures celebrated in British history, with statues of colonial imperialists like Cecil Rhodes, a man who promoted the colonization of southern Africa and said “I contend that we are the finest race in the world and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race” possibly being removed. Many incredibly influential British figures have also been targeted for their racist and colonial attitudes, including Winston Churchill.

Churchill is widely celebrated in the UK as a symbol of British resilience during the very difficult years of the Second World War. However, the man’s attitudes and many of his actions around the world have shown something of a hypocrisy to this worship as a defender against terror, running counter to the widespread veneration of the man.

From Churchill’s imperialist record in India and racist remarks about Indians, to promoting the feared Black and Tans in Ireland, he is a figure of destruction and hatred for many, the very evil that his supporters view him as having fought against.

Churchill symbolizes the complexity of the empire’s legacy in Britain, with impassioned arguments over whether he and the empire were a force for good

or evil. In truth, like most matters, it is complex and what both sides share is a sense that their history is being insulted and attacked. The divisiveness over British history and the empire’s legacy mirrors the divide in the British identity itself, with deep-rooted beliefs on both sides.

THE BRITISH CLASS DIVIDE It is not race that seems to be the largest divide in the UK, but class, and as Orwell wrote, Britain is the “most class-divided country under the sun.” While class issues are by no means unique to the UK, it may be one of the strangest places in the world for its obsession with class. It is a land where supermarkets are secretly divided by class and visiting the wrong one may get you accused of being a class traitor.

On one side are some of the richest places in Europe and the world, with London being an example of an extremely wealthy city. On the other side, Wales and Cornwall are the poorest parts of Western Europe and are significantly poorer than even many former communist nations in the center and east of Europe.

The class divisions in the UK are deep-seated and based on a social hierarchy that much of Europe once shared. However, unlike many other European countries that went through revolutions to dispossess their ruling classes and establish republics, the British never really did so and restored their monarchy and aristocracy in 1660, albeit with limitations enforced by parliament.

This led to a demonstration of a preference for “stability” evidenced by a monarch in contrast to the violent republicanism in much of Europe as the British establishment looked on in horror and disapproval of the French Revolution, perhaps remembering that the spark that ignited the anti-monarchist movement was lit in England when King Charles I was executed in 1649 for treason following the English Civil War. As much of Europe was forced to reflect on itself and try to somewhat res-

tructure its hierarchal societies, the UK did not, and although class mobility is still easier today than perhaps a couple of hundred years ago, the UK remains a rigidly class-based society. To this day, the UK has the second-largest unelected political body in the world in the House of Lords, a symbol of the upperclass, only surpassed by the Chinese Politburo.

Class is not just about one’s money, education, or job in the UK. It is possible to be very wealthy, well-educated, and in a managerial role and still be seen as working class, while the opposite is also true. It is ultimately not just a social status, but also a cultural one that remains a symbol of pride and identity for many. It is these cultural identifiers with class, both in the lower and upper classes, that make it difficult for British society to move on, even with social welfare programs.

The difficult social ladder inherent in the British class system also makes it hard for many immigrant groups to get ahead, facing race and class-based discrimination as they are trapped in a vicious circle of living in poorer areas, then receiving worse quality education, getting poor-quality pay, and being unable to move to a wealthier area. This cycle is the same for many working people in Britain, regardless of their ethnic background, yet it can exacerbate tensions between minorities and communities.

The class issue has also stoked separatist sentiments in parts of the UK. Wales, for example, was once famed for its industry and wealth in resources, with people from all over the world moving there for its coal, slate, and steel industries. However, the attitude has generally been that the money did not stay in Wales and many people feel taken advantage of, and now the industry has mostly gone with the closure of the mines in the 1980s, it has been as if this wealth never existed.

A NATION OF NATIONS While race and class divisions permeate British society, these are exacerbated by the reality that the UK itself is so-

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mething of a union of four countries, each with its own histories, languages, cultures, and issues, and further aggravated by a general lack of understanding between the nations. It does not help matters that the shared history of the nations is often one of conflict and conquest.

While many may be able to brush aside age-old historical grievances between the nations of the UK as just that, “historical” grievances, and believe that the breakup of the UK is unthinkable, part of the UK has indeed already broken off and did so a century ago with the creation of the Irish Free State, which followed a brutal war of independence.

Today, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales each have their own parliaments that control issues such as education and healthcare, while England does not have an independent parliament other than the general UK parliament in which England controls the majority of seats.

Independence has largely, up until recently, been something of a fringe movement and in 2010, only some 30% of Scottish people and 5% of Welsh people supported full independence from the UK. By 2020, this had risen to 58% and 35%, respectively. Support for English independence is at around 33%. With increased support and aggravating difficulties, never has the breakup of the UK looked so likely.

This increase in support is not just because of a belief that the countries should be independent due to cultural and historical reasons; these reasons existed and were given by supporters of independence a decade ago. The increase is largely due to a change in what the British identity is.

A new British nationalism seems to have emerged, one that is less outward-looking, less inclusive, and less tolerant not just of Europe but also of the cultures and right to governance of the Celtic countries. In short, it is seen as a form of Anglo-British nationalism, while many English people are also finding that they do not identify with Britishness or the British government.

The existence of devolved parliaments is a threat to this centralized British identity, which openly attacks the rights of the Welsh and Scottish to govern themselves, and so this British identity is seen as a threat to the Scottish and Welsh identities.

For much of modern British history, politicians have tried to carefully walk a ti-

ghtrope to please the disparate interests of the nations of the UK, yet now, the interests of the Celtic nations have been flatly ignored by the current British government, adopting a one-size-fits-all approach with an apparent ignorance or lack of care as to how this is perceived in these countries.

It is this disregard that is fueling independence support, with a perceived English disdain for the Scottish, Welsh, and Irish that echoes historical grievances and has led them to question what it even now means to be British. This conflict is also causing English people to ask themselves what it means to be British.

THE BREXIT CONFLICT AND COVID CATALYST The question after considering all of these divisions over class, race and imperialism, and nationality may not be when will the UK break up, but how has it stayed together for so long in the first place? In a world of shifting identities, what place does the British identity and indeed the UK hold?

Once seen as a forward-thinking, modern, and inclusive identity, the British identity for many no longer truly represents this and in a desperate nostalgic attempt to “restore” the Britain of yesteryear, the British identity has undergone perhaps irreversible damage.

It is an identity that many in the UK look to and feel nothing, instead feeling a greater attachment to their English, Welsh, Scottish, and Irish identities. A new “inclusive” and “forward-looking” identity has also emerged, the European identity, that many who find themselves disenfranchised and opposed to the UK’s exit from the European Union identify with. With a government as divisive as the current British administration, it seems that the binds once holding it together have been loosened, now coming undone at the seam.

Fifty years ago, the breakup of the Soviet Union and the Soviet identity, one supposedly built on modernity and inclusivity, was rather unimaginable. Yet it happened.

Fifty years ago, the breakup of Yugoslavia and the independence of its various republics was rather unimaginable. Yet it happened. Irish independence. Indian independence. American independence.

All of these were dismissed as non-issues at one point by the British establishment.

Yet they all happened. With this in mind, the end of the United Kingdom has never looked so inevitable, especially considering the two-headed monster of Brexit and COVID-19.

Brexit is a complex topic but, in short, the current form of leaving the European Union is one that is only supported in reality by the Conservative Party, which holds a majority in England and, therefore, the British parliament. The Scottish, Northern Irish, and Welsh governments are staunchly against the move, citing a loss of support from the EU, a loss of markets, increased friction on borders, and a desire to impose the will of the British parliament on people who did not support it. It has created a constitutional crisis for a country that doesn’t even have a constitution.

The mess of the entire Brexit debacle and the potential economic fallout for the various economies of the UK have made the current British administration, perhaps a symbol of soured British delirious imperialism, unpalatable to many, stoking support for independence.

COVID-19, meanwhile, has provided something of an opportunity to the devolved administrations of the UK. Many in the UK do not trust the British government over COVID-19 and those in Scotland and Wales typically have more trust in their own governments than the British administration, showing a turning point in handling public crises in a devolved matter. As healthcare is devolved, policy on COVID-19 has been too, with a contrast between the British administration and their counterparts.

It has shown people that people in Wales and Scotland, contrary to what they may have been told, are capable of self-rule.

All this is in a wider, worldwide context of racial reckoning, with it becoming ever harder to deny that the origins of the much-divided British identity are built on empire and exploitation as much as they are on spirit and ingenuity. Unsurprisingly in the modern age, this older empire and class-based British identity does not feel like it belongs and is one that many choose to ignore, leading some to question who they are at all. If the festering foundations of an identity built on outdated attitudes are not changed, will the identity remain standing or fall into a bloody swamp? ◆

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Travelogue

WEEKEND GETAWAY TO GEORGIA’S VOGEL STATE PARK wit h Donny and Madison Karr, and t heir dog Big g ie S malls

E

ach September, I look for a fresh, new outdoor adventure to enjoy with my wife, Madison. We love to plan an unforgettable trip each year in September—a birthday month we share. This year we wanted a mountain vacation with all the scenic beauty we could find.

The goal was a spot near one of southern Appalachians’ majestic mountains that also offered comfortable lodging, fishing, and waterfalls. Georgia’s Vogel State Park won as the perfect place to go.

Vogel State Park is nestled deep in the wilderness among some of the tallest mountains in the state.

It covers 94 acres and features Lake Trahlyta, a 20acre reservoir that is circled by trails and cabins. The lake is aptly named for a Cherokee maiden who was renowned for her beauty.

My wife and I are avid anglers, and we were excited to try our hand at fishing. The crystal-clear waters are home to abundant numbers of largemouth bass, bluegill, and rainbow trout. Wooded mountains surround the lake, reflecting breathtaking backdrops around the water, as trees burst into vibrant red, orange, and yellow hues each autumn.

My wife and I prefer secluded cabins when we travel and Vogel is home to 35 cottages that are spacious and comfortable. Some were more impressive than others, but each cabin offered everything we needed

BLOOD MOUNTAIN IN VOGEL STATE PARK, GEORGIA. ©DONNY KARR

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to make us feel right at home.

Once settled in our cabin, we took a short stroll around the lake and enjoyed a clear view of the night sky. A sky alive and sparkling with more stars than we could ever see from our urban home. It was breathtaking. And, being a few thousand feet above what we normally call home, it was as if we were high above the stress of daily life. It was a tangible feeling of bliss.

The next morning, we decided on a hike to the summit of Blood Mountain, the highest peak along Georgia’s section of the Appalachian Trail. Vogel State Park sits at the foot of Blood Mountain and there are two ways to go to the top. We could drive to the nearby Byron Reece Trailhead, or simply embark on our journey from the unforgiving Coosa Backcountry Trail. We opted for the Coosa Backcountry

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trail. The Coosa Backcountry Trail was more strenuous than expected, with it’s fair share of challenges, but it was also full of amazing natural splendor.

We were warned by some of our fellow park goers that we’d need a map and that it was a tough trail to navigate. Thankfully, trails leading to the summit are all dog-friendly, and our pup, Biggie Smalls, took it upon himself to lead the way through much of the trip. The trail, at 8.5 miles long, starts with a gradual wind up the mountain, flattening out into a beautiful vista overlooking Lake Trahlyta.

The Coosa Backcountry Trail meets other trails along the way to the top of Blood Mountain, crisscrossing various creeks and piles of large boulders. There are a few portions where other hikers built carefully constructed cairns to mark their passage.

“Vogel State Park is nestled deep in the wilderness among some of the tallest mountains in the state.

It covers 94 acres and features Lake Trahlyta, a 20-acre reservoir that is circled by trails and cabins.”

THIS PAGE: HELTON CREEK FALLS, VOGEL STATE PARK, GEORGIA. ©DONNY KARR OPPOSITE PAGE CLOCKWISE: DONNY KARR ON THIER TREK UP THE COOSA TRAIL; CAIRNS ALONG THE COOSA BACKCOUNTRY TRAIL; BIGGIE SMALLS HIGHLY RECOMMENDS THIS AS A PERFECT DOGGIE VACATION SPOT! HELTON CREEK FALLS, VOGEL STATE PARK, GEORGIA. ©DONNY KARR

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OPPOSITE PAGE: LAKE TRAHLYTA AT VOGEL STATE PARK, GEORGIA. ©DONNY KARR THIS PAGE CLOCKWISE: MADISON AND BIGGIE SMALLS ENJOYING HELTON CREEK FALLS; HELTON CREEK FALLS, VOGEL STATE PARK, GEORGIA. ©DONNY KARR

“Helton Creek Falls, which consists of two separate waterfalls that are less than a hundred feet from one another, is located just a short distance off a winding gravel road.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON VISITING VOGEL STATE PARK, PLEASE VISIT WWW. GASTATEPARKS.ORG/VOGEL OR CALL 706-745-2628. TO MAKE RESERVATIONS, PLEASE CALL 1-800-864-7275

The peripheries of the trail are covered in giant hemlock, oak and evergreen trees that are hundreds of years old.

We were almost to the point of the final climb upward to the summit when we realized that the weather did not intend to cooperate with our plans. Ahead of us, we could see that the top of the mountain was enveloped in thick, dark clouds.

We decided to turn back as a hard rain moved in, setting course for a new destination, we headed back toward the cabin to take a short car ride over to Helton Creek Falls.

Helton Creek Falls, which consists of two separate waterfalls that are less than a hundred feet from one another, is located just a short distance off a winding gravel road. We took the narrow trail through the thick undergrowth, the roaring sound growing louder with each step. Then, just around the turn, the lower falls became visible through the forest.

My wife and I kicked off our boots and walked barefoot in

the icy waters of Helton Creek.

Biggie Smalls took to the water immediately too, bounding through the creek and exploring every nook and cranny around the large rocks.

We were pleasantly surprised to find that we were the only ones visiting the falls that evening just before sunset. Enjoying the beauty and solitude, we made our way up a set of wooden stairs to the upper portion of the falls. The water there cascading over a huge rock outcrop and tumbling into the calm, shallow pool below. We spent some time in the solitude, listening to the falls and watching the sunset, then made our way back to the cabin.

My wife, Madison, and I agree that Vogel State Park and nearby Blood Mountain and Helton Creek Falls have become our new favorite destination in the Georgia Appalachian Mountain range. We plan to make a return trip again next September when the mountain vistas are alive with autumn’s fiery colors! ◆

Behind the Scenes:

SUBBOTINA ANNA

MAKING ART, CREATING CULTURE

by J o s h u a Ko ch i s

MASQUERADE, ©GVS –STOCK.ADOBE.COM

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Beauty is in the eye of the kind of person who uses the word "beauty" and really means it.

I

t’s a new night and you’re out for aestheticism, seeing all kinds of people doing all kinds of things in the name of creative expression.

Quiet types dressed in black sip wine from plastic cups at the gallery downtown. Pretty people wearing rings bounce on their toes to ambient techno loops. Kids on skateboards take turns tagging that half pipe. Drag queens cat-walk up and down an alley turned runway, cameras going click and flash as the sun sets. Groups of busy hands are in a yard somewhere using old cardboard to make protest signs with big letters. A solitary guy stares at the empty frame of a torn-down house packed with a grid of toy cars that used to scoot on busy neighborhood streets. Two friends walk past a giant mural animating the old brick warehouse next door. These are subcultures, maybe. Outcasts if you ask the wrong person. But more than anything, they are the makings of a local art scene - and could all be happening in the same place.

The scene is dynamic and always changing.

Every city has at least one, and it is a constant work in progress. It is a series of concentric circles with overlapping edges. One person can be involved in two or ten separate orbits

contribute to the lake at the end of the line in the same way.

Any scene, at its core, is built from a group of like-minded individuals with the shared goal to determine a creative culture. This includes artists, musicians and bands, galleries and dive bars, protestors, gardeners, poets, craftspeople, and performers across the board. What a scene looks like depends on who you’re asking.

Beauty is in the eye of the kind of person who uses the word “beauty” and really means it.

A good art scene includes opportunities for people with various degrees of experience to participate without feeling self-conscious or stifled. This means open mic nights, accessible programming in terms of cost and time, a willingness to elevate voices that have historically been suppressed, and no tolerance for harassment or judgment of any kind.

It could be free drawing prompts through a social media page, or simply providing space for people to gather and draw, read, and discuss methods with each other. This is in addition to the typical kinds of events one would think of, like gallery exhibitions with the wine and the cheese and the clean walls and vaulted ceiling. The key to a healthy scene

Scenes are connected to places, and places have history. What happened during the 1967 rebellions in Detroit still affects the content of political art shown in the area today. that might not share a single defining quality.

What they do have in common is that someone is expressing an idea, feeling, or style; and someone else is experiencing it. Art of any kind doesn’t need to be seen or heard to be art, but throw the word scene on the back end of that term and there is no getting around the fact that it has to be witnessed by someone other than the person or people who made it. Art without the scene is still valuable, of course, but for the purpose of this attempt at catching a slick fish in a fast river, it does not

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is balance, where all of the art events in a particular area are distributed evenly among many smaller locally-driven organizations and large well-funded institutions alike. There should always be the option between visiting a packed opening reception or an intimate poetry reading on any given night.

There are no rules deciding who or what counts as part of the scene. A DIY show is just as significant as the gallery funded by Quicken Loans if even one person happens to visit both of them. Exposure is a different story. We are

“FACEBOOK” (2017-18) BY GEORGE CONDO.CREDIT...COURTESY OF GEORGE CONDO, SKARSTEDT, NEW YORK, AND SPR SPRÜTH MAGERS, BERLIN, LONDON, LOS ANGELES.

much more likely to hear about the latest exhibition at Red Bull Arts than the house music set at the underground after hours spot - but both have the potential to be equally meaningful (or superficial, depending on one’s approach and the location of choice).

All that matters is that someone made a thing and someone else picked up on it.

If a tree falls in the forest with nobody else around, will anyone be talking about it at the next biennale? Probably not, but maybe they should. Even Andy Goldsworthy took great pictures of his temporary earthworks to show off later. While there is an important discussion to be had about available space vs. accessible space, the point is that it happens in a place that isn’t your bedroom. If, by chance, that’s where the magic happens, there’s always social media to help artists of all stripes connect with their community without leaving their comfort zone. The ubiquity of social media makes this digital space much more accessible than the kind that relies on real live experience, especially now that coronavirus hangs like a dark cloud all over everything. It is vitally important to support the creative culture even when we can’t catch it all in person.

Scenes are connected to places, and places have history. What happened during the 1967 rebellions in Detroit still affects the content of political art shown in the area today. Murals on popular storefronts and abandoned buildings function as a way of reclaiming public space that has been forgotten by the people who label an entire city as “up and coming” or “coming back.”

There is no escaping the past, and any

meaningful creative endeavor takes this spatial and geographic context into account.

Being an active participant in any city’s art scene isn’t always easy, and definitely isn’t free. One must put their time and resources into communities where personal work and collective participation can develop simultaneously. This is the cost of building a healthy artistic landscape from the ground up.

You get what you put into it. There is a constant conflict between the scene defined by the artists of a particular city, and the scene recognized from the outside looking in. The end goal is to have agency in your city’s scene, to determine for oneself what that means, rather than letting someone else decide for you. There is a responsibility to make sure the scene is democratic, with space for every kind of voice and not just the voices in front of a robust social media presence or big time funding. There is equal significance in the annual mile-wide art fair downtown and the volunteer-organized conference of free lectures and performance art taking place in backyards across the city.

The beautiful part of all this is the fact that anyone can have an active role in the art scene they belong to. Whether it’s hanging a bunch of paintings in a f riend’s basement, or putting a sculpture in that vacant lot next to the bus stop, or reading a poem off the f ront porch, or playing music on the corner across from the busy gas station - it all contributes to the creative pulse of a scene that will continue to grow as long as the right people stick around to keep it going. ◆

Origins:

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SUBBOTINA ANNA

SUBBOTINA ANNA

The Indus Valley

By Jaffar Ali

N

o matter the age we live in, there is a connection between our souls and the past. We have a curiosity to know how life was for those that came before us.

To satisfy this urge to know, we explore the past civilization.

The word civilization comes from the Latin term ‘Civitas’, meaning ‘city’. Renowned historians defined civilization as, “A complex culture in which large numbers of people share a variety of common elements.”

Historically, riverbanks have been the breeding grounds for civilizations during different periods between 7000BC1500BC, including the Egyptian civilization along the River Nile, the Sumerian civilization along the Euphrates-Tigris Rivers, and the Indus valley civilization, along the mighty Indus.

In his book, “Ancient Pakistan: An archaeological History”, Mukhtar Ahmed communicates the point that the Indus River or ‘Sindhu’ was a major landmark for ancient Pakistan, even so for the modern-era. The name was referred to as ‘Shentu’ by the ancient Chinese, ‘Indos’ in Greek texts, and ‘Hindu’ in Persian inscriptions. The Arabs had used ‘Sind’ or ‘Hind’ to describe this area.

The mighty Indus River originates from the mythical Himalayas (Tibet), flows through Ladakh (India), into Gilgit-Baltistan (Pakistan), and finally enters Sindh to progress towards its final destination of the Arabian Sea. Over the millennia, Indus has been a witness to the rise and fall of the great Indus Valley/ Harappan Civilization.

According to prominent historians, the history of the Indus Valley civilization dates back thousands of years to the time of around 3300 BC-1600 BC, however, the time around which it culminated was during the period when it flourished in Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa (both cities are located in modern day Pakistan in Sindh and Punjab provinces) circa 2500 BC1800 BC, making it part of the Bronze age.

In 17th and 18th century, the region was colonized by the Britishers, tracing all the initial discoveries to the Britishers or Europeans. The initial site in Harappa was discovered by Charles Masson in the 19th century AD; however, proper excavation of the site wasn’t carried out until the 20th century. It was in 1921, when formal excavation was initiated under the supervision of Sir John Marshall which led to the uncovering of pottery, jewelry, and stone, hinting towards the remnants of a highly civilized society.

Harappa ruins, spread over an area 150 hectares or roughly 1 sq mile, architecturally have the same characteristics that are found in Mohenjo-Daro; say for example the presence of several mounds with walls or fortifications, and grain silos.

However, no “Great Baths” resembling that of Mohenjo-Daro have been discovered yet. As a visitor, you will find ruins and thousands of years old debris. But, there is "something else" in the air that recollects ancient times and offers tranquility.

Mr. Salman Rashid, a travel writer and fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, with 10 books on travel and history of the region to his credit, says of the Indus Valley Civilization, “If we compare the Indus Valley civilization to its contemporaries, the former was equally developed and civilized, rather more advanced, if we take into account the way they spent their lives. It’s just that certain aspects of their lives are yet to be uncovered. We’re unsure as to what happened to them, plus their scripture/language is still un-deciphered, so a lot remains to be explored.” Mr. Rashid also stresses the fact that since Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa were contemporaries, they also had strong trade ties.

The ancient-marvel city of Mohenjo-Daro – literally means ‘mound of the dead’ in Sindhi language, it was the most glorious city just a few millenniums ago, located approximately 17-miles away from Larkana city in the Sindh province of Pakistan.

Sikander Hulio, an anthropologist hailing from Sindh translates Mohenjo-Daro as the ‘village of fishermen’. A German anthropologist and archaeologist Dr Michael Jansen, who carried out extensive research on the Mohenjo-Daro and Harappan civilizations for three decades, says that due to the un-deciphered Indic scripture, the fate of those people is unknown. It is still a mystery whether they became victim to an epidemic, were conquered and eliminated by invaders, or if the climate change caused their extinction.

While delivering a lecture at a university in Sindh, Pakistan, Dr Jansen, terming the Mohenjo-Daro Civilization as far more developed than its contemporaries (Egyptian and Mesopotamian Civilization), regretted the fact that more than 90% of the ruins remained to be explored.

Revealing some important facts about Mohenjo-Daro, Mr Rashid says, “Beneath the excavated site, there are several undiscovered layers that can’t be excavated, validating the

Reliving History: A Quest for the Lost Cities of the Indus... argument that the area could pre-date even the Bronze Age.” He said, “This is exactly the same period when Sargon-I, the Sumerian king who is also referred to as ‘Sargon the Great’ was ruling the empire of Akkad, modern day Iraq, between 2400-2300 BC.” Expressing his views about the religion of the Mohenjo-Daro dwellers, he says that there can’t be anything certain about their religion. They might have been Buddhists, worshiped the sun, trees, or Mother Goddess. The presence of stupas in Mohenjo-Daro ruins raises the possibility that the place might have been the birth place of Buddhism. The idea that they used to worship the sun is possible as the Harappans used to bury their dead with their faces towards the east (from where the sun rises).

While visiting these ancient marvels of city planning and architecture, you can easily find the traces of symmetrical elegance and high-levels of civic planning. One of the most prominent features in the Mohenjo-Daro’s architecture is the ‘Great Bath’ or ‘Public Bath’, where bricks and tar were extensively used in construction, showing excellent skills and intricate craftsmanship.

Harappa was discovered and excavated one-year prior to Mohenjo-Daro, so both the cities are collectively referred to as Harappan civilization.

These people were not only advanced city-planners but were also clever businessmen, manufacturers and tradesmen. Mr. Rashid is certain that there were strong trade ties between the Indus Valley civilization and other civilizations of that time.

Ms. Sidra Gulzar, who works at the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden and carried out extensive research on the Harappa civilization, believes that pots and gold/silver ornaments – discovered from the area which was ruled by Sumerian and Egyptian civilizations – have similar characteristics to those found in Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, suggesting the high probability of strong trade-ties.

Another important site ‘Ganweriwala’ was discovered in the early 40s by Sir Aurel Stein. Further excavation and field work was initiated in the 1980s by Dr. Muhammad Rafiq Mughal a Pakistani archaeologist working collectively on the South Asian and Indus Valley Archaeology. The area was discovered on the dry ‘Ghaggar-Hakra’ riverbed. The ‘Ghaggar-Hakra’ river used to flow parallel eastward to the Indus, in an area currently comprising the Cholistan desert, close to Bahawalpur, and near the Pakistan-India border. At this site, the most significant discovery to date has been of a clay tablet with an engraved yogi, which is a common attribute among all discovered sites in the region, making it easier for historians, archaeologists and anthropologists to link it with the Indus Valley Civilization.

Gregory Possehl, an eminent anthropological archaeologist and author of various books on Indus Valley/Harappa civilizations says that the historical site of ‘Ganeriwala’ is equi-distant from both Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa and has many cultural similarities with these cities that make it a part of Indus Valley Civilization.

The ‘Ganweriwala’ site, spread over an area of more than 80 hectares or 0.5 square mile, is more or less equal in size to Mohenjo-Daro. It is largely an un-excavated site; however, the discovery of a few artifacts has led archaeologists to believe that it could be a contemporary of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa.

The Indus Valley Civilization stretched across much of present day Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, and to some extent, Iran. A majority of these sites have been discovered in Pakistan and India, with the most ancient discovery “Mehergarh”, in Balochistan Province of Pakistan. The historic site of Mehergarh, located near the Bolan Pass in Balochistan, is spread across an area of 250 hectares or 1.5 square miles and was excavated by French Archaeologist Jean-François Jarrige. The site pre-dates even the Harappan Civilization and can be traced back to Neolithic times, around 7500 BC, and it is regarded as one of the oldest archaeological sites on earth.

During the excavation at Mehergarh it was discovered that the people used to live in mud houses that had granaries.

They had developed tools for cultivation of wheat and barley. Sheep and goats were part of almost every household.

Counting similarities between Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro and Mehergarh, Mr. Rashid says, “The Mehergarh, Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa dwellers were the same, people who migrated from one site and settled at another with the passage of time and according to the requirements of time” If you consider the example of Mehergarh and Mohenjo-Daro, the likelihood is that inhabitants of Mehergarh, over the centuries and millennia, migrated from the mountains, stumbled upon Mohenjo-Daro, found it more suitable for life sustenance, and hence settled down there. The argument has a solid basis, as there is a striking resemblance between the discovered relics, use of farming techniques, sewage system, and cultivation tools.

According to experts, prominent historical sites in Lothal, Dholavira, Rakhigarhi, and smaller, lesser known settlements at Gola-Dhoro and Daimabad, all located in present day India, are from the same Harappan-period, since relics unearthed from the sites matched those from Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa.

Besides the current famed sites, there are scores of other historic sites dating back to the same era; some of them are ‘Sokhtagen Dor’ near Gwadar in Balochistan, Pakistan; Kot Diji and Chaudaro in Sindh, Pakistan.

Until the Indic scripture is deciphered, there’s no certain way to figure out what actually caused the downfall of such an organized and intelligent people. Until then, we have to rely on best-guesses and assumptions. The Indus Valley peoples remain another unsolved mystery in the history of our world.∞

PHOTO CREDITS: PAGE 96-97, INDUS, NUBRA VALLEY. PISIT RAPITPUNT ©DEVILKAE; PAGE 98, WELL AT MOHENJO DARO, ALEKSANDER PAVLOVIC ©ALEXELA. PAGE 97, INDUS, HARAPPA DIG SITE. PICASA, ©ROBNAW–STOCK.ADOBE.COM. RIGHT, PAKISTAN, INDUS PYRAMID, ©TARIQ–STOCK.ADOBE.COM.

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Workin Song After Mark Levine Jack. Look. It’s morning.

I grab the clock from my ear, sand from my pocket. I am a mirror, a two-way lazy susan. I spin on my nose and walk in circles. I see myself become a moon.

I am a lens, I am convex. I magnify, concentrate light rays like old friends, pull their hairs through the head of a pin, one at a time.

Say hello, Jack, nose full of tobacco and lint. I live just south of the frost line.

I tell elaborate lies for cash. If you catch me in a good mood, I might crack two eggs over easy. I also sing and dance, but slow. When I see a stop sign, I tie my limbs together. It’s easy for Jack, digger of mad holes and tunnels, scratch his feet with a hammer.

Talks to plants about the weather.

Smells like television and seems to have it all down. A trick of the light. I’m this close to finding out. We find out when we break – I run around telling folks to have a seat. I bisect, whistle, throw dirt at the crowd’s feet. bow deeply and spit shine yr shoes. How do you do, I am not a pen.

I am dry. I can’t stand still. Itch my head til it burns. I shed my fur in the summer.

I am the 8-ball on the lip of the corn hole.

I am an easy win.

The light approaches and I become the earth. I spin on my axis, elongate into an oval, careen forever.

Some say I am just another open gutter.

I call myself the phantom limb.

Cus round here, you make the biggest bang for yr buck by standing upside down.

~Joshua Kochis

Addendum Marissa Mullins, "Humming" p. 3, Poetry and Photography, on various pages. For more poetry by Marissa, please visit her website at www.MarissaMullins.com or view her photography at www.Marissamullinsphotography.pixieset.com.

Joshua Kochis: Showcase Artist - Terra Incognita p.10-12, Making Art, Creating Culture p. 92-95, poetry p.103. For more information about Joshua and his work, visit his webpage at Https://Jakochis.wixsite.com or find him on Instagram @Jak_vista.

You can email him at Jakvista1@gmail.com. If you are in the Detroit area be sure to check his website for a showing near you.

Joshua is a regular contributor to Serenity Cafѐ, so be sure to check out our website and future print issues for more of his work!

Robert Tustin: Showcase Poet - Interview with poems, p. 22-27, Selected Poems, p. 13 & 19. For more information please contact Robert at Robert.tustin@aol.com.

Gloria Makori, On the Topic of the N-word, Essay & Photographs, p.14-17. If you'd like to contact Gloria, please email us at scmedia620@gmail.com and we'll be happy to forward your comments to her.

Jack Thompson: The Man Behind the Camera, Interview and Photo Essay, p. 30-79. Visit Jack's Studio at 503 9th Ave North in the heart of downtown Myrtle Beach, SC. You can reach Jack by email at: JackThompson1936studio@gmail.com or by phone at: (843)-450-3555. Prints of the photographs used in this issue, along with many others, are available for purchase: 11x14 print $85 with standard framing $115; 12x18 print $125 with standard framing $145; 16x20 print $145 with standard framing $195.

Copies of Jack's coffee table book, "Memories of Myrtle Beach" are available for $125 plus shipping. Copies of Jack and Joe Thompson's book, "Growing Up with 'Shoeless Joe,'" are available for $45 (large print edition only) plus shipping.

Luke Owain Boult, A Disunited Kingdom p.80-85. For more information, you may contact Luke at LukeOwain@gmail.com. Luke is a regular contributor to Serenity Cafѐ, so be sure to check out our website and future print issues for more of his work!

Donny Karr, Travelogue p.86-91. For more information contact Donny at DonnyKarrWriting@gmail.com.

Jaffar Ali, Origins: The Indus Valley p. 96-101 For more information please contact Jaffar at Jafferdar41@gmail.com Photo Credits (not listed with photos): Front Cover: Background composite photo ©marissa mullins (Red Fin ©nuamfolio/ adobestock.com ) , JACK THOMPSON in the 1950's ©JOE THOMPSON - ©JACK THOMPSON PHOTOGRAPHIC TRUST; Inside Front Cover: © sergey chumakov/adobestock.com; Page 3 Red Fin ©nuamfolio/adobestock.com ; Page 14, Profile with Gold ©SUBBOTINA ANNA; Page 20, Elderly Man edited composite ©Marissa Mullins (original ©xalanx–adobe.stock.com); Page 21, Mr. Vereen ©Jack Thompson; Page 80-81 background ©Maxim Grebeshkov–stock.adobe.com; Page 81 UK Composite ©Matt Gibson; Page 82 Flag Abstract , Svitlana Shalar ©Artlana–stock.adobe.com; Page 85, Composite —©Markus Mainka ©Maxim Grebeshkov —stock.adobe.com; Page 102-103, Male, Stefano Cavoretto ©theartofphoto–stock.adobe.com; Pages 106-107, Siamese Fighting Fish ©Nuamfolio–stock.adobe.com; Back Cover: Background composite ©Marissa Mullins (Red Fin ©nuamfolio/adobestock.com/ Profile with Gold ©SUBBOTINA ANNA).

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∞M

aris

sa M

ulli

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how she loves As the mirror loves The face reflected — As the water loves The sun that warms it — As the lake loves The night that chills it — As the air loves The lungs that breathe it — As the peach loves The mouth that tastes it — As the word loves The pen that writes it — As the poem loves the poet That hears it speak —

Beyond Dichotomy ~for J.D.

I live in atomic realms where light play darkness energies combine combust transmute transform.

Stardust speaks from a human mouth dies into Love becomes a feather, birdwing, birdsong.

Glowing light of morning breaking across the ocean — falls into laughter becomes a smile, a taste of sweetness on God’s tongue.

Physical metaphysical multilayered existence in the humming thrum — truth of quantum physics of power and light of darkness and grief (what we look at shows itself to us) Point and Counterpoint — The complexity of Union.

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108 Serenity Café