Endless Knots

On this day in 1850, Margaret Fuller...

...drowned off the coast of Fire Island, NY, in a shipwreck that also took the lives of her husband, Giovanni Ossoli, and their little son, Nino. Five years (and one day) ago, a group of us Fullerenes commemorating Margaret's Bicentennial met to give her a proper memorial service at Mount Auburn Cemetery.

I blogged about it here. And I've blogged about Margaret (her grandnephew Bucky) here. And this is a picture of "the two of us" at Margaret's memorial stone at the cemetery in May 2006, taken just after I finished the first draft of my novel about her, "The Quintessence."

 

 

Happy 205th, Sarah Margaret Fuller

Let every woman, who has once begun to think, examine herself.
--Margaret Fuller, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, 1845

On this day in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, the singular genius and most prolific writer among the Transcendentalists was born. The first child of Margarett Crane Fuller and her husband, the Massachusetts legislator Timothy, Margaret, as she chose to be known, was an autodidact--a child who learned Greek and Latin, who read Shakespeare while others her age were struggling with the alphabet, and who became the first woman in the US to file articles as a foreign correspondent was a nonpareil. Biographies of her abound, including the 2013 Pulitzer-Prize winner by Megan Marshall, Margaret Fuller: A New American Life.

I first became entranced with Margaret in the 1970s while researching women in the American Revolution for Addison-Wesley, whose best-selling American history textbook needed some updating. Joan Labby, who was editing that book, asked me and a few others to write features for the book and one of us, either she or I, came up with the idea of bringing some feminist history into greater relief.

I did, penning a straightforward account of such women as Deborah Sampson, who donned men's clothing, picked up arms, and fought in the American Revolution, serving 17 months as "Robert Shurtliffe." But before I could learn all there was to know about Deborah, I was stopped in the Encyclopedia of American Woman by another even more fascinating entry, the brief biography of Margaret Fuller.

And thus began my lifelong obsession with Fuller.

For many years on this day, I've visited her monument in Cambridge's Mount Auburn Cemetery, usually inviting others to go with me, sometimes going alone, and one year making a film with Cambridge filmmaker Ron Mortara (2008). Here are links to those visits. Today I'm traveling to my partner's parents' graves and there I will read a few words of Margaret's. Spirit knows no geography.

With John Halamka, whose birthday also is May 23, and who has attended several Margaret birthday celebrations with his Shakuhachi

And, for the record, Margaret is also a central character in my novel-trilogy-in-process, Woman in the 21st Century, of which the first volume, The Quintessence, is complete.

 

Megan wins a Pulitzer for Margaret

If they'd been awarding Pulitzers during her lifetime, Margaret Fuller surely would have been deserving -- first in nonfiction for the ground-breaking books she wrote (including Woman in the Nineteenth Century) and in journalism for her insightful and daring reporting that she did on the Roman Revolution of 1848 for the New York Tribune. Well, let's be honest: given where woman was in the 19th century, she probably wouldn't have received the highest writing honors but thanks to the talented Megan Marshall, her name is in big lights these days.

For any of us who know her, happiness abounds for Megan Marshall's having won this year's Pulitzer in biography for Margaret Fuller: A New American Life. It took chuztpah to write a biography of Fuller after so many others -- I don't know the full count of the body of bios but it's got to be at least 50, some superb, some not so superb. Megan's falls into the former category, with her having chosen and faithfully executed her desire to have history read like a novel. Many a biographer has tried this but not all succeed where Megan has.

I am so happy for her. Megan and I met as a result of her having written her Pulitzer-finalist biography of The Peabody Sisters. I told this story here seven years ago. Shortly after she began work on the Fuller book, we arranged to meet again (also at Whole Foods -- you have to click the link to understand). Megan was asking questions of people like me, people for whom Fuller has served as an inspiration. It was an interesting way for her to be gathering insight into Fuller because there are so many people like us.

Forty years after I first discovered her in the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women, Margaret Fuller is with me still as I progress with the second volume of a novel-trilogy that I'm writing about her and her contemporary counterparts, "Woman in the 21st-Century." I am grateful to Megan for this too as she's provided many new windows into this eternal soul.

"Bucky and [really] Me" - and Ed Hauben and Jeff Stamps on Feb 2

Unless we're blizzard-ed out on Wed, Feb 2, Jeff, Ed, and I will be the post-performance discussion folks following "R. Buckminster Fuller: THE HISTORY (and Mystery) OF THE UNIVERSE" at the A.R.T. in Cambridge.

Specific focus is Margaret Fuller's influence on Bucky - but I would never have met Bucky had it not been for Ed, who worked with Bucky in New York and Carbondale, and Jeff (who introduced me to Ed), whose work, like that of so many others, has been profoundly influenced by the man whose self-description included this very sensible idea: "I Seem to Be a Verb."

Annie DiMario, production dramaturg, will lead the discussion.

Bucky on Brattle

Just up the street from Brattle House, where Margaret Fuller lived with her parents for a short time (known to us as the Cambridge Center for Adult Education), her grand-nephew is holding forth. "R. Buckminster Fuller: The History (and Mystery) of the Universe" is the one-iconoclast/one-genius show at the A.R.T. (runs through Feb 5).

If you're wondering what to do with your life, see this show. It's all-Bucky, 100 "topics," and completely engrossing. He thought about the history of everything, how stupid it was to call it sunrise (that's seeing things from precisely the wrong perspective); and how love is primary, primordial, pervasive.

Staging is terrific--an old-fashioned steel table, an overhead projector with transparencies, a big roll of white paper that Bucky pulls across the desk (and stage), a blackboard, a Victrola, a screen...a pen, a high-back wooden chair, family photos, and, of course, artifacts from Bucky's design science revolution. At the end, there's the night sky.

For those who know Bucky's work, you'll likely find yourself nodding at many points; you may even hear yourself completing certain sentences. Hats off to D.W. Jacobs, who wrote the play, who inhaled and then exhaled Bucky for the rest of us to enjoy and learn again.

Having listened to Bucky for many hours, I watched the show with my inner Buckolator on. Does he sound like him? Look like him? Gesture like him? Enough, Tom Derrah, who plays Bucky, more than enough. Very well done. Impersonation is tougher than characterization, I think, and Derrah, tasked with doing both, is definitely very Bucky-ish. The single simple improvement that could be made, to my mind? Walk more like a penguin. Derrah-Bucky has a more graceful gait than Bucky- Bucky. Quibble quibble.

Loved it. And then it was capped off with the second in the after-play "Bucky and Me" conversations, on the night we saw it with Allegra Fuller Snyder, Bucky and Anne's (Hewlett) daughter, who answered questions from the audience (she also appeared in home movies during the play--dancing at about age 2; she went on to be professor of Dance and Dance Ethnography at UCLA). Among the questions, the usual one for the children of famous people: what was dinner like in Fuller household? Funny, she said...

Go. Maybe twice. The monologue and visuals will stay with you, asking questions long after the performance is over.

And speaking of Bucky and me, I repost this picture from 1977, taken at our house on the night Bucky came to dinner. The newspaper folded on his lap? Boston Globe, Feb 8, 1977, my cover story in Focus (the old Ideas section), "Bucky: The Prophet Returns." He inscribed it; I framed it.

 

Margaret's memorial service, a bit delayed

How many people show up at a memorial service, say, 160 years after the person's death when it's a Sunday in the middle of July and the temperature is 95? In the case of Margaret Fuller, a chapel-full, as per yesterday at Mount Auburn's Bigelow Chapel, perhaps as many as 75 (sorry, I failed to count).

The Rev. Rosemarie Smurzynski led the service, giving the eulogy (please publish it, Rosemarie), which was followed by Jessa Piaia, portraying Margaret and reading a sampling of Margaret's premonitions about her death (there were many; Jessa read from a letter Margaret had written to her mother), and original "rememberances" written by her contemporaries: Emerson (Wendell Refior), Thoreau (Richard Smith), James Freeman Clarke (Rob Velella), Elizabeth Peabody (Dorothy Emerson), and Julia Ward Howe (Deb Goss).

From the chapel, we walked to the Fuller Family Plot at the cemetery, where I made  brief remarks,* read the cenotaph, and encouraged people to step forward, take a snapdragon, bouquets of which my husband, Jeff Stamps, and I had carried from the chapel in baskets, to say a few words about Margaret. Many came forward, including one of Margaret's descendants and her namesake, Margaret Fuller. Rob Velella placed a wreath at the cenotaph that Fuller's family had erected in her memory in 1854.

Jeff and I took two snapdragons and placed them on the marker for Bucky and Anne Fuller's graves, about twenty feet away.

Many snapped pictures during the service and at the plot. Please post them, friends, or send some to me and I'll post them here.

*I can't recall exactly what I said but here's the gist:

Margaret liked to walk and she also liked to push people to their limits so the long walk from the chapel to the plot in the terrible heat was fitting. (I then read the text of the cenotaph--above). After people had placed the flowers, I noted that it's customary among her biographers and admirers to say that Margaret's life was cut too short, that she should have lived longer than to 40. But, perhaps, she had lived just the right number of years because here we were, 200 years after her birth, dozens of us, still celebrating her life and works. And perhaps 200 years from now, when she will be 400, there will be a similar number gathered to honor her remarkable spirit which fills the sky.

Margaret Fuller Memorial Service - Sun, July 18 - 160 years after fact

 
Margaret Fuller, along with her husband and young son, died in a shipwreck off the coast of Fire Island, NY, on July 19, 1850. The Rev. Rosemarie Smurzynski, a student of Margaret's life and a member of the Margaret Fuller Bicentennial committee, had the brainstorm to conduct a proper memorial service for her at Mount Auburn Cemetery, where her memorial stone stands in the midst of the Fuller family plot. I thought it was a brilliant idea, and barring unforeseen circumstances, which seem to be my lot at the moment, will be part of the group, speaking a few words at the actual plot. Here's the press release.

This Sunday, July 18th, at 12:30 there will be a memorial service in commermoration of the life and legacy of Margaret Fuller Ossoli at Mount Auburn Cemetery, 580 Mount Auburn Street, Cambridge, MA.  Actors will appear in costume to pay tribute to this significant woman.  The doors of Mount Auburn’s Bigelow Chapel will open for a reception at 12:30.  Bree Harvey, Director of Education and Visitor Services for the cemetery, will welcome guests promptly at 1:00 P.M.   Rev. Rosemarie Smurzynski will lead the Memorial Service and Eric Huenneke will provide the music.  After the service, participants will walk to the Fuller family lot for a wreath-laying ceremony at 2:00 PM.

The actors participating in the program are as follows: Jessa Piaia as Margaret Fuller, Wendell Refior as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Rob Velella as James Freeman Clarke, Dorothy Emerson as Elizabeth Peabody, Richard Smith as Henry David Thoreau, and Deborah Goss as Julia Ward Howe.

This event is part of the Bicentennial’s Conversations Series, supported by a grant from Mass Humanities and modeled after the “Conversations” Margaret Fuller offered for women (and later men) in Boston in the late 1830s and early 1840s.  It is co-sponsored by the Margaret Fuller Bicentennial Committee and the Friends of Mount Auburn and is part of a year-long series of events celebrating Margaret Fuller’s life and work.  This event is FREE and open to the public.

Morning at Mount Auburn with Margaret and the Fullerenes - Sun May 23 8AM

Sunday, May 23, 2010, 8:00 A.M. 

Begin Margaret Fuller's 200th birthday with the Fullerenes, admirers of Margaret Fuller and her grand-nephew Bucky Fuller, for our annual birthday meeting at her memorial in Mount Auburn Cemetery. As per tradition, we'll mark the dawn of Margaret's life with music provided by John Halamka on his Shakuhachi (Japanese flute) and with brief remarks by me, who counts both Fullers as inspirations.

Procession begins at 7:45 from Mount Auburn Cemetery parking lot; ceremony at 8 at Fuller Family plot, Pyrola Lane.

The Persuasion 74

“We’re playing a game to redistribute the world’s resources so that everyone has enough.”

He took a breath and I saw the small door to gaining some context.

“I don’t get how it’s a game. Is there a board with players or what?”

Teddy laughed. The “board,” such as it was, comprised a huge floor map of the world the size of a basketball court. “It’s the Fuller Projection,” Teddy said, “not the stupid Mercator Projection, which really distorts the land mass relative to the size of the ocean.” I’d never thought whether those great big maps of the world with their bumpy mountains that hung on our elementary classroom walls were stupid, distorted or otherwise.

“OK.” Fuller had his own projection. “So what about the players?”

Teddy didn’t seem to hear my skepticism, going on with more detail than I could absorb: Players took on the roles of governments, corporations, NGOs, and religions; they assumed their proper places on the map, equipped with the resources they had. Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and South America had most of the people and most of the natural resources. “We’re playing World Game all the time,” Teddy said, “whether we know it or not.” He said that everyone had common responsibility for the whole thing and that when you played it, you got to see what was involved “in making the world work, all of it. It’s really intense.”

He was very intense, very emphatic, far more certain than Teddy had ever sounded before and I was absolutely certain that I couldn’t comprehend much of what Teddy was talking about.

—“The Persuasion,” p. 74

The Persuasion 73

“Call Teddy,” said the note in Tonin’s handwriting taped to our front door.

Yelling for him (I thought he might be out back in the garden) and getting no reply, I scooped up a handful of coins that we kept in a mason jar on the bureau for just this purpose and headed to the payphone outside the dining hall. I dialed Teddy’s number, which I’d known by heart since I was old enough to use a phone. His exuberant hello was clue that something very exciting was happening in New York, the very city we’d left two years earlier because nothing was going on.

“We have the capacity to provide for the material needs of everyone on the planet by 1980,” Teddy squealed into the phone.

He’d just finished his first week in a month-long seminar with “Bucky, you know, Bucky.” Right, I said, Fuller, the one with the domes.

He was talking so fast that he sounded like he was calling a horse race: He was attending Fuller’s World Game seminar in New York, which he’d heard about in advance from Marvin Gable, another friend, who was studying with Fuller at Southern Illinois University where he’d finally gotten an institute devoted to his work in Carbondale. I was losing track of which who “he” referred to but that hardly mattered as Teddy quickly change the topic to ask if it were true that I was with “that guy Tonin,” whom he’d met during those first few weeks at Columbia and did I remember that Tonin had met Marvin in 1968 when the latter was traveling through Paris, and, naturally, I, Mariana, knew Marvin because of course I remembered that Red Bird had met him in London and when Teddy said he wanted to attend the seminar, Marvin suggested that Teddy write directly to Fuller, who answered back immediately, inviting him to join the crew producing the event, which Teddy was now doing as floor-manager for the group of thirty invited to spend the month with Fuller.

—“The Persuasion,” p. 73