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PASSING THROUGH
April 19, 2007

The past week and some of its visitors:

Bill Bradley, whom we helped present at Town Hall Seattle for his new book, The New American Story. He's someone we've presented before, most notably with his memoir published while he was still a U.S. Senator, Time Present, Time Past. Like other authors who have been office-holders and aspirants for higher office, there's an air of relaxation and relative ease that comes when they visit as 'simply' as authors. This evening the Senator is in casual mode - tan slacks, a sweater, open-collar shirt.

It also is somewhat painful to watch him in motion. Instead of the standard standup at podium setting, he asks for a high-backed stool and hand-held mike. Getting up and down from being seated is gingerly undertaken. The years of pounding his body has taken from playing basketball, and then years also not kind on his long-limbed frame with air travel and such, are necessitating hip replacement surgery, which is on tap soon. Let's hope that helps.

Meanwhile, he is funnier - very droll - and not above gauging questions for how good or bad there are. He teases questions that are posed in some attempt at being 'fair and balanced' - one questioner trying to carefully posit that this administration seems to be having some problems, to which Senator Bradley seems to tease, 'Are you sure this administration has been a mess?' He then is fairly withering in his assessments.

One activity he is up to I hadn't known: he hosts a weekly radio show on Sirius satellite radio. "American Voices." What is it with some of these satellite networks and who is doing radio? I have heard Bob Dylan's "Theme Time Radio" show and found it to be the best thing in eons. Not only for the music - which is extraordinary unto itself, but the spirit of generosity, of perspective (history, anecdote), of 'been there' and still care about that. All that and where our little world is concerned, there is a regular bit of poetry being read. Bill Bradley, another Midwestern guy of the same era. When we see each other, we do tend to have some reference going on as to another part of our pasts, too. This time, during the signing, his water bottle is knocked over ... I'm there mopping it up. Forty years now, I say, I've been giving you water and mopping up after you. Forty years ago, Bill Bradley was a rookie pro basketball player for the New York Knicks, and I was a rookie ballboy working with the teams that came to play in Seattle ...

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Speaking of radio, Air America host Laura Flanders, she of the "RadioNation" show is also in with her new book, Blue Grit. She and the discussion she occasions are lively, inspiring, cogent. She has greater tolerance and patience for the comments that go on and on (is there a question in there?). I realize she has to contend with this on her show. This she does and keeps her wits and her own sharp sense of language intact ... somehow. She's someone it'd be nice to sit and talk with about other things, too. It won't happen this time - she is off and on her way, and for us there is another venue to go fetch books from. One thing in Blue Grit which I comment upon that sets it apart from any other book of political commentary in this country that I can think of: she, a journalist and radio host, leads off the book with a generous poetic essay quote from the vital, late poet/essayist/activist June Jordan. Has anyone else been quoting poets? That attention to language is important - and sustaining.

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Another night and it's Deborah Rodriguez, visiting with her book, Kabul Beauty School. We're helping present this evening at Seattle's Central Public Library (the Rem Koolhaas building). Given my druthers this night, I would prefer attending a University of Washington endowed lecture by Angela Davis, which I know is full, anyway. But, duty calls. This evening duty is a good reminder.

Deborah Rodriguez plays the brassy, loud American in a foreign land part well, but unlike the almost stereotypical part of a U.S. writer who goes to abroad, assesses what is assessed through whatever lens is operative, Ms. Rodriguez has very much plunged into the life she describes. The book, whose actual writing was done by another (whom Ms. Rodriguez says she made come over to Kabul and spend six weeks' time there, working with her) gives background as to how she, a Michigan hairdresser in a family of them, came to find herself doing relief work in Afghanistan after the Taliban's ouster from power post-9/11. And from there, a Ms. Can-do sort, she found herself working with women on their approaches to beauty, and from there, helped them get started on their own way in working on hair and makeup.

That she lives there today - describes, without envy, longing or romance, the privations she lives with in contrast to the trappings of a U.S. book tour's hotels - and keeps at her work, cites the deteriorating situation with regard to the Taliban's re-emergence, the increase of suicide bombings, and her marriage there to an Afghan man - gives her a refreshing credibility that is fairly unique, at least for someone from the U.S. At the very least, it's an uncommon perspective. She voices a very long view for possible change, especially on the level of men and women. You suspect this is the only book she's likely to be involved with. More than the book, you hope and root for her - that she makes it, perseveres and prevails in a place where the odds right now may not favor the work she is doing.

Posted by Rick Simonson on April 19, 2007 | Comments (0)