Jackie Robinson Day 2013

by Gregg Chadwick

Jackie Robinson 

"A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives."
-Jackie Robinson

Today marks the 66th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's first game for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Jackie Robinson was the first African-American baseball player to compete in the major leagues when he joined the Dodgers in 1947. Robinson broke baseball's color line and ended a sixty year era of segregation in professional baseball. Robinson's career with the Dodgers lasted only ten years. But in that time, he won six pennants and a World Series title. Robinson retired in 1957 and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962.

I was heartened to see that the new film "42", based on Robinson's momentous debut, has exceeded box office expectations. Today in honor of Robinson, every player in Major League Baseball  will wear Jackie Robinson’s No. 42. 

Rachel Robinson at the stadium. 
(From Spike Lee's documentary on Baseball and Jackie Robinson)

Rachel Robinson, Jackie's wife, had vivid memories of April 15, 1947:

"It was an exciting, exhilarating time — but it also was a stressful time," Rachel Robinson said.
Rachel and Jackie met while they both were students at UCLA. Rachel Robinson earned a degree in nursing from the UCSF School of Nursing in 1945 before marrying Jackie in 1946. A few years after Jackie Robinson's retirement from baseball, Rachel returned to school and earned a masters degree from New York University. In 1965 Rachel became an Assistant Professor of Nursing at Yale University.

Jackie Robinson during his collegiate years at UCLA played football,
ran track, was the leading scorer on the basketball team, and played baseball.

More on Jackie Robinson and Rachel Robinson at:

Baseball pays tribute to pioneer Robinson

Los Angeles Dodgers Site on Jackie Robinson

New York Times on Jackie Robinson

Incident at Hanging Rock

by Gregg Chadwick

At the Hanging Rock  by William Ford (1820–1886)

1875, oil on canvas, 79.2 x 117.5 cm

Collection of the National Gallery of Victoria

As March drew to a close, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street band played a concert that Australian music writers have lauded. I wish I could have been there to see Springsteen and the band rip it up at Hanging Rock. 

Incident on 57th Street in Australia 
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band 

Live at Hanging Rock - Second Night - 31-03-2013

 Major international musicians often perform outdoor concerts at the Hanging Rock reserve. Leonard Cohen graced the venue in 2010 and last month Springsteen performed two shows at the conclusion of the Australian leg of his 'Wrecking Ball' tour. The musical venue at Hanging Rock is temporary and currently used about once a year for large concerts. 

Though I have spent quite a bit of time travelling through Australia over the years, I have not been to Hanging Rock in person. But, I have been there in the visions of painting and film, especially Peter Weir's remarkable Picnic at Hanging Rock. Weir's film, based on the novel by Australian author Joan Lindsay, focuses on a group of girls at a fictional Australian women's college  who vanish during a Valentine's Day picnic at Hanging Rock in 1900.


Roger Ebert described Picnic at Hanging Rock as "a film of haunting mystery and buried sexual hysteria" and remarked that it "employs two of the hallmarks of modern Australian films: beautiful cinematography and stories about the chasm between settlers from Europe and the mysteries of their ancient new home." That chasm between European culture and indigenous Australia especially revolves around the conception of time. Joan Lindsay in her autobiography, Time Without Clocks, describes how these mysteries felt to her:

"There were certain days when I sat at my typewriter in the empty green-aired room feeling like a deep-sea fish suspended in its natural element. Not only in my fish tank but outside in the sheltered valley all natural objects seemed in a state of suspension as they do immediately before an earthquake. It was a characteristic of the Marsh and perhaps had something to do with the old volcanoes seething and boiling so far below the earth’s crust that even the geologists hadn’t discovered them." 
- Joan Lindsay,  p124 (Time Without Clocks)

Art in all its guises evokes the mysteries of time and the most compelling creations leave the questions unanswered.

 

The Darkness - Leonard Cohen

Live at Hanging Rock - 21-11-2010