Good Old Neon

"What goes on inside is just too fast and huge and all interconnected for words to do more than barely sketch the outlines of at most one tiny little part of it at any given instant"

David Foster Wallace

This is Water

"The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day."

David Foster Wallace

On Edward Hopper

"Hopper is simply a bad painter, but if he were a better one, he would probably not be such a great artist."

Clement Greenberg

On the faith and music, 1964

"There were more songs, and finally we stood, everyone, crossed arms, clasped hands, and sand 'We Shall Overcome.' Ending every meeting of more than half a dozen with it, we sang out all fatigue and fear, each connected by this bond of hands to each other, communicating an infinite love and sadness. A few voices tried to harmonize, but in the end the one true tune welled up in them and overcame. It was not the song for harmony; it meant too much to change its shape for effect. All the verses were sung, and if there had been more to prolong it, it would have been prolonged, no matter how late, no matter how tired they were. Finally the tune was hummed alone while someone spoke a prayer, and the verse struck up again, 'We shall overcome,' with all the voice, emotion, hope, and strength that each contained. Together they were an army. Across the room I saw Clara; she had somewhere found a yellow dress to wear. There were tears on her cheeks"

A Freedom Summer volunteer
Freedom Summer, Doug McAdam

On his experience in Mississippi, 1964

"I remember one incident...We were just have a normal kind of meeting in a little corner grocery store...and [the police]...drove up, a lot of cops, dogs, the whole thing...[and they] could have decided to beat the hell out of all of us or shoot us...it was...the real psychological moment of truth...ad that moment could have gone either way...everybody was afraid...They told us to break up the meeting and instead we stood our ground...outside the little store [and] began to sing and...the psychological balance of power...[shifted] in our favor and they left. It was moments like that you felt...practically an erotic feeling...it was sexual in a certain way; you felt so close...you loved everybody in that place at that moment."

A Freedom Summer volunteer
Freedom Summer, Doug McAdam

On her experience in Mississippi, 1964

"One day when I was canvassing I met Mr. Brown. I told him my name is Ann. He said yes, Miss Ann, pleased to meet you. He is a young Negro teacher in the all-Negro Temple High School and of course he had no contact with white people before, except as Mr., Mrs., "Massa,"--well, I said, please call me Ann...there was nothing so beautiful as the rest of the conversation. At every opportunity he had, he said Ann--he didn't just say Ann--he rolled the name around his tongue, savored the taste and sang it, listening to the echo in the back of his mind. He played with the word as a child would play with a new and fascinating toy, as a person would delight in the ecstasy of a new-found love. And that converstaion has left a mark on me. I hear the name--a loved word--the start of something so big, so beautiful, so new."

Ann, A Freedom Summer volunteer
Freedom Summer, Doug McAdam