ustxtxb_obs_1989_11_10_50_00021-00000_000.pdf

some, though not all, of James’s work. His refusal to treat sports and popular entertainment with condescension defmitely set him apart from most Marxists. In his brilliant volume on the history and culture of cricket, Beyond a Boundary, James wrote, “Trotsky had said that the workers were deflected from politics by sports. With my past I simply could not accept that.” He saw perfect continuity between his love of Greek literature and philosophy and his passion for sport. In the same book, he explained, “Those who laid the intellectual foundations of the Western world were the most fanatical players and organizers of games the world has ever known.” All of James’s work, including his more abstruse texts on Marxist theory, resonates with his artistic sense of the potential for popular creativity the energies of which he first discovered in calypso, cricket matches, and the costumes of Mardi Gras festival-goers. Still, there are problems with Bulge’s thesis that portrays James as a man of letters. James had planned to write a second novel when he landed in England; but as he later put it, “Fiction-writing drained out of me and was replaced by politics.” Almost immediately upon coming to the United States, he formed a faction within the Trotskyist organization. Now, factionleading is a full-time job and leaves little time for artistic work. Except for the occasional critical essay, James appears to have abandoned literature as a field for creative work for quite some time. It seems that, upon becoming a radical activist, James became a teacher, like his father before him. As Buhle explains in the chapter on James’s youth in Trinidad, “Next to the schoolteacher in the small village only the priest and minister were held in higher esteem. The schoolmaster educated on all fronts, for all ages, and in that sense represented the social and cultural link of the villager to the outside world.” The encyclopedic and boundlessly energetic James was an instructor to three generations of Third World leaders. labor activists, and intellectuals. And his most creative work represents an effort to provide a “social and cultural link” between the sometimes insular world of left politics and the “outside world” of popular culture and social history. To anyone interested in a this truly remarkable figure, C.L.R. James: The Artist as Revolutionary is a book to read, despite its imperfections. Eventually, James will require a longer biography. A Victorian “life and letters” compilation, at least the size of a triple-decker novel, would be most fitting of the subject. But Buhle acknowledges from the start that his book is not the definitive statement; the enormous range of James’s work, Buhle writes, “will require a large collective scholarship barely underway.” Still, the author has done pioneering work in that scholarship, to which his book is a distinctive contribution. SOCIAL CAUSE CALENDAR REFUGEE ASSISTANCE BOOK DRIVE Poet/Novelist Sandra Cisneros has organized a book drive to provide reading material for detainees held in the Immigration and Naturalization Service Detention Center in Laredo. Cisneros recently visited the center to conduct interviews for a work in progress and was disturbed to find few books or reading material. Books and magazines in English or Spanish for adults or children are requested. Some detainees are held for up to two years. For information call Leander L. Bethel, Pastor, First Presbyterian Church, to Laredo Refugee Assistance Council, P.O. Box 3338, Laredo, Texas 780443338. L.A. PRINTS IN AUSTIN The work of Los Angeles painter Delores -Guerrero Cruz will be displayed in Austin at Galeria Sin Fronteras, 1211 E. Seventh St. An opening reception is scheduled for Saturday, November 11 from 6-9 p.m. The Galeria Sin Fronteras exhibit, titled “L.A. Prints: A Collective Serigraph Exhibition, will be displayed from November 11-January 13. For MEXICAN WAR EYEWITNESS Lithographs, engravings, and daguerreotypes of the Mexican War, 1846-1848, will be displayed at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth. The exhibit, scheduled from November 18-January 14, considers the Mexican war as the advent of a new communication, when lithography and photography joined the written word to provide an eyewitness reports of the war. Prints and sketches that have some eyewitness connection to the war and were reproduced from actual sketches made at the battlefield are included in the exhibit. Many are products of soldiers and naval officers who participated in the invasion of Mexico. Amon Carter’s collection of Mexican War daguerreotypes, the largest known collection of its kind, will provide some of the displays. For information about In conjunction with the exhibit, Texas Christian University will offer six classes on the Mexican War, or the Invasion Yanqui, as it was described in Mexico. Classes are scheduled for November 7, The Mexican War Overview; November 14, The Mexican War and the First Foreign Correspondents; November 28, Invasion Yanqui, The Mexican Perspective; December 5, Daguerreotypes of The Mexican War; and December 12, Prints of the Mexican. War. All lectures are scheduled from 7 to 8:30 p.m. on Wednesdays. Cost is $38.00. To register, contact TCU November 13, 1933 First recorded sitdown strike, Hormel Packing Co., Austin, Minnesota. November 14, 1916 Margaret Sanger arrested for operating a birth control clinic. November 17, 1973 President Nixon says, “I am not a crook.” November 21, 1966 National OrganiNovember 22, 1963 President Kennedy assassinated in Dallas, Texas. LOUIS DUBOSE In the I.N.S. Detention Center THE TEXAS OBSERVER 0 21