{"id":9732,"date":"2018-02-21T22:15:15","date_gmt":"2018-02-21T22:15:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=9732"},"modified":"2018-07-11T22:27:55","modified_gmt":"2018-07-11T22:27:55","slug":"reflecting-on-rich-mangelsdorff-and-lake-michigan-waves-of-raised-consciousness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=9732","title":{"rendered":"Reflecting on Rich Mangelsdorff and Lake Michigan waves of “raised consciousness”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Fb-Button\"\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>
<\/fb:like><\/div>
<\/div><\/div>

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Back cover of “The Collected Essays of Rich Mangelsdorff,” Dustbooks, 1977. Courtesy Harvey Taylor<\/em><\/p>\n

“I love all men who\u00a0dive<\/strong>. Any fish can swim near the surface, but it takes a great whale to go down stairs five miles or more…”<\/em> \u2013 Herman Melville, in a letter to a friend, critic-editor Edward\u00a0Duyckinck, March 3, 1849, three years before the publication of Moby-Dick.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Until I visited him in the hospital a few days ago, long-time Milwaukee arts journalist, essayist and poet Rich Mangelsdorff had faded somewhat in my memory, but not my consciousness. I think he would readily appreciate the distinction. Despite his comparative absence from the scene in recent years, part of my sense and critical understanding of the city\u2019s cultural scene is formed by Mangelsdorff.<\/p>\n

He wrote insightfully about the importance of \u201craised consciousness\u201d in his substantial book Collected Essays of Rich Mangelsdorff<\/em> published in 1977.<\/p>\n

Mangelsdorff always cut an imposing intellectual as well as physical figure, as a tall, large-framed man with a high forehead and a fulsome black beard. He spoke deliberately and sometimes with pointed pungency. He doesn\u2019t suffer fools gladly. Yet, as I describe him in my forthcoming book Voices in the River: The Jazz Message to Democracy<\/em>, a high-pitched giggle incongruously emitted from his hulking frame, disarming some who might\u2019ve been otherwise intimidated. This man\u2019s character and personality intrigued and attracted me.<\/p>\n

Today he remains \u2013 even lying in a hospital bed after surgery to diminish his serious bladder cancer \u2013 keenly attuned to the idea of comedy. As we talked, he brought up the\u00a0 acerbic, machine-gun-mouth social-critic comic Lenny Bruce. I\u2019d asked him about what sort of perspective might have been lost from the days when he was writing his essays in the 1970s.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo much of it has to do with the use of computers and smartphones.\u201d Mangelsdorff said, referencing recent research showing how excessive use of smart phones may negatively impact cognitive and literacy abilities. Ironically, Rich now struggles to speak, due to medications and cancer\u2019s ravages, but his brain remains vise-like. \u201cBut also, years ago we had somebody like Lenny Bruce,\u201d he says. \u201cHe wouldn\u2019t be listened to now, but I saw him at a Milwaukee club in April of 1966 or 1967, and one woman stood up and called him an asshole. Then there was Mort Sahl, who paved the way for Lenny Bruce and others.\u201d<\/p>\n

These comics fearlessly spoke truth to power, as harpooners of squirming hypocrites. Bruce fought the law and the law won \u2013 the battle, but not the war.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Front and back cover of Lenny Bruce album, “What I was Arrested For,” Douglas Records,\u00a0 1971.<\/em><\/p>\n

A brief Lenny Bruce bit from\u00a0“What I was Arrested For,”\u00a0\u00a0which punctures conventions of perception based on skin color:<\/em><\/p>\n