Reflections on the passing of Alix Dobkin

 When news of Alx Dobkin’s stroke and immanent death broke last week, I felt a twinge of guilt before recognizing my sorrow and sense of immanent loss. As I thought of her occasionally during recent years, the first memory to pop up was an uncomfortable conversation with her at a conference over a political disagreement several years ago. In the face of death, the great equalizer, all disagreements seem trivial, and I suddenly felt it was churlish and a waste of time to even remember it. What’s worth remembering are the gifts she had in her life and the difference she made in mine. 

Alix, who died at 80, was a pioneer of what became “women’s music", a genre she helped birth in the early 70s. It was a genre that celebrated women’s autonomy, our right to love and make love with each other and our proud membership in what was called the second wave of feminism. With Kay Gardner and other lesbian-feminist musicians, she recorded the first recorded album of lesbian music: Lavender Jane Loves Women in 1973.  Then no mainstream recording label would touch an album by an artist who only wanted to perform for women, so Alix formed her own record company, Women’s Wax Works. It was a breakthrough album for lesbian-feminists seeking a sound track to our lives. 

Alix was already a celebrity of sorts, having played with Bob Dylan and other early folk greats of the 60s. At one point, her obituary in The Washington Post notes, she reportedly turned down the chance to record one of his songs. She married and had a daughter, but later separated from her husband and made a major life change. The catalyst was a radio interview with British feminist Germaine Greer, one of many consciousness raising events that marked that period. She took her daughter, partnered with a female lover, Liza Cowan, and took a new turn in music and toward lesbian-feminist organizing.

I remember playing songs from Lavender Jane in the Chicago apartment I shared with five other women in the early 70s. We lived collectively and felt we were part of something new. I had just quit my first job, writing for The Lerner Newspapers, and was searching for something that I hadn’t quite defined yet. I had been volunteering with the Emma Goldman Women’s Health Collective, which was trying to help women navigate a sexist health system and get good screening and counseling services for their reproductive needs. In the larger culture women were questioning whether the traditional career path of marriage and children was the only way to go—or whether it was wise at all in an often-oppressive culture  “I am a woman giving birth to herself” was the phrase on a poster, one of many aimed at women’s autonomy in that era. Alix’ s song “The Woman in your Life is You”, resonated with me and so many other women I know or once knew. I realized after her death was announced this week that the feelings of sorrow I had came not only from the end of a fine woman’s life, but also losses in mine: a person who was familiar to me over half a century, a reminder of my youth, and part of what seems a stream of losses as I age. 

At 74, I confess that I am a regular reader of obituaries—not out of a morbid search for who’s dying at a younger age than mine. Rather it’s because obits have become a kind of art form, the ultimate short story of the arc of someone’s life. In papers like The Washington Post, the writer is aware that readers want to know the deceased ’s contributions to the larger culture—a new invention or contribution to some field. In Alix’s obit in The Post, she was identified as the source of a meme that resonates in our time: ”The future is female”. Her lover, Liza Cowan, photographed her wearing a T-shirt with that phrase, and decades later it was echoed by Hillary Clinton and young feminists empowered in ways Alix could only hope for in her and my youth. It made me laugh, as I had not even been aware of the origin of the meme in the years since I first heard her songs.

Social media posts by friends and admirers focus on her music, and a tribute from Liza, her lover in those early days, told more of the story. Alix “called on her roots in folk music, Broadway musicals, and Balkan songs…based on storytelling.” Her confidence came early, “from a loving Jewish family in Philadelphia”, members for a time in The Communist Party, “and  she spent her early years listening to the music of Paul Robeson—who once visited her family—Pete and Peggy Seeger, Leadbelly, The Red Army Chorus” and others. There, Liza writes, “she gained a passion for civil rights and storytelling.” She later published a biography of her young years as a “red-diaper baby”.

Alix recorded 5 more albums after Lavender Jane and toured various countries, always performing for women. As she aged, she remained a performer and organizer, especially with Old Lesbians Organizing for Change (OLOC). In the last half of her life, Liza writes, she lived in Woodstock, New York, raising her daughter along with former husband Sam, leaving only to tour. And in her last years, performing took a back seat to helping care for her three beloved grandkids. This recent photo was taken in Woodstock.

Alix, like all of us, had many influences in her life, and no doubt she made decisions she either regretted or wished she had handled differently. Our uncomfortable discussion at the 2016 OLOC gathering revolved around the steering committee’s decision to disallow a Native American drumming circle from performing at the event because the group included men. The drummers had been invited by the guest speaker, a Native American poet, who later called out the conference for racism during her address. As an attendee, I felt embarrassed and angry. When I asked whether the issue would be discussed, Alix responded with a vague answer: it could be brought up at the Sunday finale. I did not follow through with that, leaving the gathering with the feeling that such a lesbian separatist stance, perhaps appropriate in the second wave’s early feminist days, was clearly inappropriate in the present. Perhaps Alix later re-evaluated that decision as both OLOC and the white-majority culture began to deal seriously with racism in following years. Like many, I have a tendency to freeze my ideological opponents in the past. 

Alix contributed much to music, lesbian-feminism and to those who loved her. Looking at the arc of her 80 years, it seems to me that she expanded more than she rejected the traditional family. She and her ex-husband Sam both raised their daughter, Adrian, for years. At the end her daughter  and son-in-law were with her, and lesbians around the world kept vigil online and perhaps in person. Obituaries select sections of a life to make a short story for the news. As we know intuitively, we all deserve a novel. If our lives end with the love and admiration Alix experienced, we will definitely be fortunate.

The beauty of armchair travel

While a number of my friends are happily planning trips now that pandemic restrictions are eased, I'm not one of them. The exceptions are my upcoming summer sojourns on Linda Lane's land near Guffey, a beautiful place where my tiny house sits; the other, a trip to Chicago, where until last year I travelled every year to visit family and friends. What I'm talking about here are the other kinds of trips, the ones to new places or adventure opportunities. 

Despite my love of travel--I've had so many opportunities, especially during my Japan years--I find that the relative solitude of the past year jumpstarted a new appreciation for travel via a screen. In January I decided to do an informal project--look for international films that would give me the sense of having visited places. I looked for films from countries I never had the chance to visit, and given the narrowing window of opportunity brought about by getting older, I probably never will. Consequently, I avoided historical dramas or fantasy in favor of more current offerings, preferably those including a road trip or characters using a lot of shoe leather on city streets. The project is still ongoing and is still very limited in scope, but I'd like to share a few of my favorites from the past 5 months. If you're in the "I've seen everything already" doldrums, here are a few you might have missed:

1. Cuba and The Cameraman. This 2017 Netflix original documentary by Jon Alpert covers 45 years of this journalist's visits to post-revolutionary Cuba. The film got a rather stunning 100% rating from Rotten Tomatoes, and  I think it's deserved. Alpert, who gained the trust of Fidel Castro early on, had unprecedented access to the late leader. Brief interviews are sprinkled throughout the film, but what really makes it outstanding is its focus on stories of ordinary Cubans over time. On each visit Alpert looks up the same people, and if you're like me, their stories, told with humor and heart in the face of suffering and resilience, stay long after the film is over. (113 minutes in English and Spanish)

2. One Man and His Cow (La Vache). This French language 2016 film directed by Mohamed Hamidi takes viewers on a road trip from Algeria to Paris. It's a"charming and feel-good" production which will take you to Paris, mostly on foot, from a small Algerian town  where our protagonist devotedly cares for his cow, Jacqueline. After years of unsuccessful tries, he finally gets an invitation to enter Jacqueline in a Paris agricultural fair. Along the way he meets a variety of kind and eccentric people, gets embroiled in a social media scandal, and in the end transforms just about everyone's life or viewpoint in both countries. Yes, I'm betting you'll cry and laugh, as I did, wishing it were a whole lot longer. And, of yes, you'll see a lot of scenery along the way. (91 minutes.Available for rent on Amazon Prime, Vudu or Apple TV)

3. Atlantics. This 2019 drama from Senegal is a genre-bender, blending social commentary with the paranormal--generally not my favorite genre. A group of desperate construction workers, unpaid for months, set off by boat for Europe, but their boat capsizes and they are lost. How they "return" is the mystery of the film which is beautifully photographed and directed by Mati Diop, a woman making her debut as a director. The protagonists of the film are the women left behind and the lost men who are "with" them. It took me awhile to figure out just what was going on, but when I did it drew me in through its beauty and message. (105 minutes, original language Wolof, subtitled in English. On Netflix)

4. The Mole Agent. This 2020 documentary from Chile got a 95% rating from Rotten Tomatoes for its portrayal of the residents of a home for the elderly. Our protagonist, an 80-something widower, is hired to infiltrate the home and check to see that a client's mother is being treated properly. You'll quickly see that this is less an investigation of possible abuse and more a look at the varied stories of residents and workers there. Our investigator knows how to listen with an open heart and he is valued for that. The film ends with a message for the client and a feeling among viewers like me that we've gotten a view of Chilean society that would be impossible to get on any tour. (90 minutes, on Hulu. In Spanish with English subtitles)

5. The Disciple. This 2020 music-filled drama comes from India, a recent addition to Netflix that has a 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It's the story of a vocalist who has devoted his life to the spiritual practice of Indian classical music. However, he struggles with his ability to achieve his goal of mastery amid challenges both internal and external. This is no standard drama of success after beating all odds. Rather it's a very nuanced look at talent, perfection, a media-saturated music environment, and the necessity of choice in an imperfect world. (127 minutes) As a traveler-viewer, you'll ride with our protagonist on the streets of Mumbai and attend a number of concerts. It's too good to be depressing, but feel-good is not the first word that comes to mind.

6. Magical Andes. This two-season series of short half-hour episodes was my favorite pre-bedtime viewing for several weeks. It is an incredible photographic journey along the Andean mountain range which extends through various countries along the western edge of South America. Each episode focuses on a different area and introduces you to locals whose livelihoods or passions are connected to this amazing 7000-km long mountain range. It makes no attempt at social commentary in favor of letting viewers tag along for the ride. I've mentioned this series most often when people ask what I've been watching. May well watch again for the sheer beauty of the photography and the joy of visiting 7 different countries--Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Venezuela and Bolivia. (On Netflix)

7. If you're in the mood to stay awhile longer in South America, consider El Pepe: A Supreme Life in Uruguay. It's a 2018 documentary about Jose Pepe Mujica, known as El Pepe, a 1970s revolutionary who later became president of the country and then a farmer devoted to teaching kids about sustainable agriculture. Based on interviews conducted by Serbian director Emir Kusturica. I watched this film in January and it still echoes with me. "My youth belongs to the world of illusion", El Pepe tells the camera. The real revolution is in our minds and cultural values. 

Happy viewing and traveling, reader.

Remembering Joanne Hauschild Kastrul

 In sorting through my digitized family photos lately, I've been especially touched by those of my oldest cousin, Joanne. She died last year in February, just days after her 84th birthday, of pancreatic cancer. Because it was a cancer with a poor prognosis and often rapid spread, Joanne chose to forego treatment for that reason and another more important one: She had met the love of her life just 15 years before. "He is the most wonderful man I've ever met," she told me just months before her death, saying that she wanted every moment of quality time with him--without the side effects of treatments unlikely to extend her life. The wonderful man was Jack Kastrul. Joanne and Jack married in 2008--her for the first time, he for the second--at the tender ages of 72 and 71.

Another wonderful man in Joanne's opinion was Joe Biden, who she thought was just about the kindest man she had ever heard in the political arena. She would have proudly cast her vote for Joe and Kamala had she lived, and when Joe and Kamala succeeded, I felt I had to celebrate double--for me and Joanne, and of course, for the world too.

Here are Jack and Joanne on their wedding day. In front are me--one of the lucky maids of honor, my sister Joan and brother-in-law Jim. Also part of the wedding party were Sandee Kastrul, Jack's daughter, and her partner Kim Crutcher. We all felt like we were creating a new family that day.

Joanne and Jack's wedding reflected one of the important things that brought them together: love of the Bible. What was somewhat unusual was that Jack was Jewish and Joanne Catholic. Their wedding, at the Catholic church Joanne had long attended in her Chicago neighborhood of Rogers Park, included a priest and a rabbi--something unthinkable in my Catholic childhood. They continued attending services--both at a church and a synagogue--for several years after their marriage. They also shared a love of music, having met in a choir. It seemed to me that for the ensuing decade each gave the other what they most needed--a family. Joanne, who had no siblings or children, had lived with her late mother, Marie, for decades. Jack had lost his beloved first wife, Clair, to cancer years before.

Before their marriage, I had met Joanne yearly on my visits to Chicago, and our relationship bloomed again after years of relatively little contact. Starting in the late 90s, we would usually make a date to go to the cemetery, where my mother, her mother and adopted father were buried. Joanne had been tending their graves regularly for years, and she understood, after my mother died in 1994, how healing cemetery visits could be. Then we would go out to dinner and talk and get-reacquainted telling family and teacher stories. Joanne had been an elementary school teacher all of her life, most of the time teaching second graders, and she had the energy and enthusiasm that I've seen with others who spend their daytime hours with young children. Here she is (circa 1980) with her mother, Marie, my mother's oldest sister.

Joanne blossomed after her marriage. She cut and dyed her hair--previously worn in a graying bun--and started calling herself JoJo. She and Jack built a life together in an apartment on North Kedzie Avenue, traveled often, and developed a close relationship as a couple with Jack's daughters, Sandee and Kim. Every year when I visited my sister and brother-in-law in Chicago, we would visit them. We'd talk, eat pizza, and sometimes Joanne would play the piano and sing. Here's a picture from the early years of their marriage.

The sadness and suddenness of Joanne's passing was all the more jarring because she was the last of a generation in my mother's family. She was already a grown-up--age 14--when I celebrated my 3rd birthday in 1950. She's sitting across from the cake next to her friend, Babs in this photo:

To me, Joanne always seemed part of a bridge generation--almost like a much younger aunt. I was still in elementary school when she graduated from college--the first in our family to go. Her choice of career was a surprise to no one, as I remember when I was a young child, she would play school in her bedroom when we visited, and her young cousins were willingly corralled as students. Later, when she had been teaching for a few years in Arlington Hts., she was courted by the principal. Everyone expected them to marry but in the end she backed out, choosing to live with her mom and adopted dad, Jack Beck. Her birth father, Bill Hauschild, had died early in her life, and Jack was Marie's loving husband, the one who entered later in her life and became her real dad.

Joanne's death came just weeks before the world shut down due to Covid, but already it had become unsafe to fly. Add jury duty for me and an incipient snowstorm in Chicago in the days after her death. I was unable to attend her modest funeral, though I plan at some point in the future to do some tending to her grave and our respective parents' graves which I think would please her very much. 

Joanne's death took a toll on Jack, whose health declined and then exposure to Covid led to his death earlier this year. At that point he had lost two wives to cancer, a sadness that must have been so difficult to bear. I had written him a letter, sent just a week before he died, telling me how much I appreciated his being in our family, though I'm not sure he either received or read it. I hope so. May his memory and Joanne's be a blessing for those of us who loved them both.