Darryl Henriques was the instigator behind bringing "It Can't Happen Here" back to stages across the US recently.


Nation-Wide Reading of It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis
Published on The Nation (http://www.thenation.com/)

| November 2, 2011

IT CAN’T HAPPEN HERE (CAN IT?): Fascism in America? Nah, it can’t happen here, people said. But Sinclair Lewis, Nobel Prize–winning author (and a Nation contributor), challenged that shibboleth in his 1935 novel It Can’t Happen Here, a dystopian fantasy in which a folksy, Huey Long–style demagogue is elected president and soon becomes an American Hitler. In 1936 the WPA Federal Theater Project mounted twenty-two simultaneous nationwide productions of the novel, which Lewis and John C. Moffitt adapted for the stage. In October, in commemoration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of those productions, about twenty-two theater companies and universities across the country staged readings of Lewis’s play.

The instigator was California actor and comedian Darryl Henriques, who calls the Federal Theater Project “the greatest flowering of theatrical talent the country has ever witnessed” and says his idea for the revival “had everything to do with what’s going on in America.”

“We have a form of fascism that hides behind the illusion of elections, a government that is wholly owned by the corporations and consistently ignores the well-being of its citizens in order to enrich the rich.”

Most of the readings took place on October 24—the date of Black Thursday, the 1929 stock market crash that ushered in the Great Depression. In Seattle Arne Zaslove mounted a lavish reading with the Endangered Species Project, dedicated to putting on “the great plays you seldom see.” Producing director Mark Seldis of the Ghost Road Company in Baldwin Hills, California, says of its performance, “It was clear from audience reactions that It Can’t Happen Here certainly resonates today.” Mike Smith Rivera of Burning Clown Productions, who held a reading in New York with the WorkShop Theater Company, says “much of the discussion was centered around” Lewis’s prescience “in foreseeing many of society’s present-day problems”—problems currently dramatized by Occupy Wall Street.

As Federal Theater Project director Hallie Flanagan once put it, dictatorship comes in “an apparently harmless guise with parades and promises…[but] the promises are not kept and the parade grounds become encampments.” RICHARD LINGEMAN


https://www.facebook.com/pages/Nation-Wide-Reading-of-It-Cant-Happen-Here-by-Sinclair-Lewis/152921454785776

Ed Leddy was a jazz trumpeter best known for his work with Stan Kenton, but Leddy also was a player at the Lighthouse and all the famous places that helped birth and nurture the cool jazz of the late 50s and early 60s known as West Coast jazz. He appeared on many lp's which were testaments of the shift from big band to be-bop. (The image on the right is Ed's own scrapbook of newspaper clippings of his music tours primarily those with the military.)

As one of the more curious coincidences, he'd played on one of the first jazz lp's I ever bought, West Coast Jazz in Hifi. At that early point in history in Los Angeles, my sister knew some jazz musicians, and coincidentally again was introduced to Ed Leddy who had given her a small can of rum babas, a confection that his aunt in New Jersey had mailed him on his birthday. This had to have been 1960 or so that I opened and ate the rum babas.

In 1968 or 1969, I didn't put together that I might have even heard of Ed Leddy until I saw Ed Leddy himself walking down from the manor house one day with a package. His aunt had sent him a birthday present, his favorite, a can of rum babas. What's more, the confection was put out by the same company, so it was an exact duplicate of the delight I had ingested nearly a decade prior. I was truly surprised when I saw that.

Ed had attended West Point Academy and played in the US Army bands. He toured around the world with them and played everywhere towards the end of WWII. Apparently he'd reenlisted after that as he was rumored in the mid-60s to be playing in the US Marine Band. He often traveled with them which is why he was so seldom seen on the estate. I remember seeing his scrap book on the table in Darryl's cottage once. His scrapbook is pictured above, purchased from Ebay by a military collector.

In 1969, a person Ed used to play with had recently died, and there was a record jacket near the turntable in Darryl's cottage. I noticed the title "Burrito Borracho" and Darryl and I laughed a bit about that as Borracho was the name of the character who Darryl was playing on a Mime Troupe tour.

Mostly the conversation drifted to Latins who make music and art, as "Latin" and "Mexican" was on the air with the Mime Troupe and an offshoot El Teatro Camposino as they were performing together at that time. And Darryl even was onstage once with El Teatro, back when the names of the characters were identified by signs hung around the necks of the actors. And Johnny's record aside from the copy we'd just listened to was nearly destined for the scrap heap drowned as it was in the oceans of rock music being released, as was a recording called Cuban Fire which was similarly doused and one which would likely never again see re-release until some music historian took interest. So the conversation that afternoon was something about the transience of art.

The West Coast jazz scene of the early 60s had nearly disappeared with the bursting popularity of rock and roll recording, with Los Angeles nearly as the hub. Most jazz players who wanted to continue with jazz relied on European tours, some relocating permanently to Europe in order to play jazz regularly. Other jazz musicians took on jobs playing television and sessions and tours with rock and roll bands who needed musicians to actually play the music. Ed survived by touring and playing with the US Marine Band.

Because we shared an interest in a particular delicacy, I told Ed about a wonderful restaurant called the Balabosta down on University near Mandrake's, the blues and jazz club. I had the idea he might want to stop into Mandrake's sometime to catch some of the major jazz that was pumping out of the club. I ran into him at the Balabosta one time, each of us seated at different tables covered with red and white checked cloths. We each had set before us a small dish of their famous chocolate baba a rhum.


http://www.jazzwax.com/2007/10/somethng-else.html
Retrieved: 7.30.11

The Williams College Tennis Court

In early 1967, on one of my first trips to the estate to visit people I knew who'd moved in there, I heard stories of how those theatrical types had just entertained themselves by recreating a famous scene from the Antonioni film "Blow Up" on the estate's tennis court. Peter Cohon, Ronnie, Darryl, maybe Sandy ... I don't know for sure who was on the court that day.


I'd just seen "Blow Up" over in Albany, as had half of the East Bay. All I remembered thinking was those mimes sure were noisy, weren't they?

There was a small cornet hanging from a braided cord on the wall of the cottage that Sandy and Ronnie were handing over to Darryl and his friend. And Ed Leddy by all reports had given a trumpet lesson or two to one of the residents of the cottage recently.



(Photo of Ronnie Davis and trumpet
"Vietnam veteran R.G. Davis, one of the founders of the San Francisco Mime Troupe, rides his bicycle to an Iraq war protest in San Francisco while playing "Reveille" on his bugle. Chronicle photo by Deanne Fitzmaurice"
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2003/03/22/BA125137.DTL
Retrieved: 7.28.11

Ed Leddy: Jazz Trumpeter

Darryl's cottage was quite large, an unpainted wooden structure with steeply pitched roof covered in forest green tarpaper. The great room boasted an ancient gas furnace which was never that I recall used, as that would have been futile because the room was wrapped around with windows. The floor of was covered with an equally ancient huge single piece of linoleum of indeterminate well-worn design, nailed in place around the edges and peeling away from the walls. That was layered with large braided woolen rugs or rugs with floral borders acquired on various thrift store outings. Furnished with couches, upholstered side chairs, occasional tables, and bookshelves with books and papers falling into each other.

The outside door led directly to the great room. A hard right turn from the entry door carried visitors into the kitchen, which was large enough to hold an ample kitchen table and three wooden table chairs all set beneath the window which afforded a view of the shrubbery outside. And a 1930's gas stove with a sink next to it set into a short wooden counter with shelving underneath for pots and pans, an area that was covered with thin curtains held in place by small brass curtain rods. There was a small gas wall heater in the wall of the kitchen that adjoined the bedroom, which was farther to the right through a door. That was at a different level because of the natural geography of the estate, built as it was on a hill, so you had to step up a stair or two into a small hallway and two steps carried you past the shower and bathroom facilities and on into a bedroom expansive enough to hold a bed, looking glass in a standing frame, two dressers, large woven baskets with lids containing clothes. That room, too, was wrapped on two sides with windows, under which on one side had built-in large cupboards and shelving.

Another cottage, set almost directly across the estate on the southern edge of the grounds, was much, much smaller and more primitive. This structure truly was ramshackle in appearance, and despite framed windows and a small step up porch under a small covered porch roof looked to be a building that had originally been erected to hold gardening tools, but which over the course of time had been improved and expanded upon. This small unpainted wooden cottage, no bigger than ten foot square, with a door once painted blue was the rental residence of a mysterious resident who was seldom seen on the estate. Squeezed inside was a bed, an easy chair with reading lamp, a small dining table with one chair, a stove for cooking and heating. There was a kitchen sink and towards the back, though I never saw this area, was the bathroom and shower. The tenant who was seldom seen was Ed Leddy. Ed lived on the estate for some undetermined number of years, certainly from 1966 to 1971, who knows how many other years on either side of that span.

Darryl Henriques: Comedian in Residence 1966-1969

So Ronnie and Sandy relinquished use of the desirable cottage and the Mime Troupe went on tour. Darryl Henriques the next season portrayed Borracho in "Olive Pits", a play which opened the tour in Delano and eventually won the troupe an Obie that year.

Although history remembers and often mentions Peter Cohon's (he wasn't Peter Coyote just yet) role as writer and actor, as I recall, Darryl was the only performer whose image was pictured on the poster, his face beamed out from the middle of a large blue star. That poster is missing from the San Francisco Mime Troupe official site, and to my knowledge the only place on earth you can view it is the lobby of Dell Arte International, 615 H Street, in Blue Lake, California.

While in residence at Williams College, Darryl Henriques stayed busy with the Mime Troupe throughout the year and especially during performance seasons. As a Mime Trouper, Darryl handled the crankies and made paper movies of his own. He was also an actor in the early plays about the parking meters and the telephone credit cards which the Mime Troupe performed at Provo Park in Berkeley among a number of other locations.

Darryl founded the East Bay Sharks, a Musical Theater Group, which also performed in parks throughout the Bay Area, including the park in San Francisco's China Town. The East Bay Sharks also performed onstage at the Freight and Salvage Coffee House and Mandrake's, both popular Berkeley venues of the time.

Sometime during this period, Darryl traveled to Mono Lake to be in a movie called "Shoot the Whale", which is still offered for viewing at places like Pacific Film Archives.

The cinematographer for "Shoot the Whale" was Philip Makanna, who'd recently aired a short cinematic piece on local PBS television station KQED (see San Francisco Cinematheque below).

Darryl moved from the estate sometime before close of 1969. Before he did, one of his visitors was an old college friend, Barry Leichtling who had run a rock palace in San Diego called the Hippodrome briefly in 1968 and who'd gone on to co-write a script and appear in a film, which had been released briefly to popular acclaim before being withdrawn for decades, now regarded as a cult classic, called "Captain Milkshake."

Darryl moved from the estate in 1969, but many of the scripts and ideas he'd been working on there found realization within the next short period of time.

In early March of 1971, the East Bay Sharks shared a bill with Commander Cody at Mandrake's where Darryl likely ran into film student Bill Farley when Bill was tending bar at the club. Eventually Farley made a documentary (2006) about Darryl, called: "Darryl Henriques Is In Show Business" and Peter (Cohon) Coyote found his way into that film.

And to conclude, Darryl Henriques is in show business.



http://www.cfiwest.org/sos/archives/newsletter/about.htm
Retrieved: 7.18.11
From Darryl's resume:

About Darryl Henriques

Member of the San Francisco Mime Troupe. 1967 Park Season and National Tour of Obie winning L'Amam Militaire.
Founder of East Bay Sharks Musical Theater Group in San Francisco Bay area. Appearing in parks, schools, and nightclubs. 1972-76.
Writer and performer on Scoop's Last News Show on KSAN FM in San Francisco Bay area '76-'86. Voice of The Swami from Miami, Joe Carcinogenni, Jacques Kissmatoe, Rev. Clyde Fingerdip.
As a stand-up comedian has performed at benefits for such groups as the Rainforest Action Network, the Sea Shepherd Society, the Alliance for Survival, the Abalone Alliance, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Various Waldorf Schools, Fair, Media Alliance, etc.
Author of 50 Simple Things You Can Do To Pave The Earth, Ulysses Press.
Darryl played Nanglus, the Romulan Ambassador to the Federation in Star Trek VI, the Undiscovered Country.



Darryl Henriques, partial filmography
http://www.blockbuster.com/browse/catalog/personDetails/28066
Retrieved: 7.28.11

Darryl Henriques, partial filmography
http://www.moviezen.com/celebrity/darryl-henriques/filmography
Retrieved: 7.28.11

Darryl Henriques, partial filmography
http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Darryl_Henriques
Retrieved: 7.28.11

"Olive Pits is an adaptation of Lope de Ruede's sixteenth-century farce, El paso de las olivas. The original is a short skit about a husband and wife who begin counting the profits from their olives the day they plant the olive tree. Olive Pits was banned at California State College at Fullerton. The Jack London Society had invited the troupe to perform it on their campus in February 1968. However, after learning from administrators about the troupe's use of obscene language in A Minstrel Show, the Faculty Council voted to forbid the performance. Four hundred students and faculty attended an anti-censorship rally on campus, then walked off to an orange grove where the show was performed."

The San Francisco Mime Troupe Reader
by Susan Vaneta Mason
(University of Michigan Press, 2005)
pp 57-58

San Francisco Cinematheque

"Originally aired on KQED TV (PBS) in San Francisco in 1969, the Dilexi Series represents a pioneering effort to present works created by artists specifically for broadcast. The 12-part weekly series was conceived and commissioned by the Dilexi Foundation, an off-shoot of the influential San Francisco art gallery founded by James Newman. Newman, who operated the Dilexi Gallery from 1958 until 1970, saw this innovative series as an opportunity to extend the influence of the contemporary arts far beyond the closeted environment of the commercial gallery.

"Formal agreement was reached with KQED in 1968 with the station's own John Coney designated as series producer. No restrictions regarding length, form or content were imposed upon the works, except for Newman's stipulation that they be aired weekly within the same time slot in order to gather an audience.

"Of the 12 artists invited to participate in the Dilexi series (Julian Beck, Walter De Maria. Kenneth Dewey, Robert Frank, Ann Halprin, Philip Makanna, Robert Nelson, Yvonne Rainier, Terry Riley, Edwin Schlossberg, Andy Warhol and Frank Zappa), ten of them completed new works, and two, Andy Warhol and Frank Zappa, submitted extant works. The tapes and films are far-reaching in their approaches to the medium and the circumstance of the broadcast series.

"'If the 60s meant anything as a unifying principle or idea, it meant a lack of caution that I don't see around much anymore. Certainly, there is nothing like the KQED of the 60s. You could barely get past the reception lobby today at Channel 9 with a proposal for a Dilexi type series. It was wide open: all the facilities, color quad studio cameras, location film equipment, whatever, were available at what was calculated to be their cost, an amount not to exceed $1,000 per production. The artists were commissioned for $500 each. It seemed daring at the time, perhaps it was. Anyway, we just went ahead and did it and, to a degree, it worked.'"

Makanna's piece was "The Empire of Things", an experimental narrative, using a text by H.L. Mountzoures which describes a post-apocalyptic culture.

San Francisco Cinematheque
1991 Program Notes
THE DILEXI SERIES
Curated and presented by Steve Seid

http://www.archive.org/stream/sanfranciscocine91sanfrich/sanfranciscocine91sanfrich_djvu.txt
Retrieved: 7.18.11

Sandy Archer and Ronnie Davis: Cottage Residents to 1966

Bay Area theater people had close ties with Williams College during the 1960s at least.

One of the cottages, in fact the one which journalist Phil Small had rented previously, had a steady line of theater people in residence for the better part of a decade.

Until 1966, R.G. Davis and Sandy Archer rented and used the cottage. Each of their names are legendary to this day in theater circles.

Sandy Archer is well loved and remembered for her contributions as an actress, teacher, and overall inspiration to theater throughout Northern California. R.G. Davis (or Ronnie as he was known to people closer to him) is the founder of what has become the San Francisco Mime Troupe. Trained as a dancer and in pantomime, "after studying with French mime master Etienne Decroux, R.G. Davis founded the Troupe in 1959" as an experimental project of the Actor's Workshop, "creating pieces, some silent, some with words, that were considered avant-garde. Today it would be called performance art. So, in fact, the first year of our long history we did perform pantomime." In their earlier performances the troupe was named the R.G. Davis Mime Troupe.

In fact, it was R.G. Davis's arrest mid-performance that "thrust the Troupe onto the stage of the Bay Area arts community" on August 7, 1965. "The Mime Troupe's performance of Peter Berg's adaptation of "Il Candelaio" by Giordano Bruno was stopped in mid-performance by San Francisco police on orders of the Recreation and Park Department. The Mime Troupe's permit had been revoked on grounds of obscenity. After the police arrest Director R.G. Davis, subsequent organizing efforts thrust the Troupe onto the stage of the Bay Area arts community." The subsequent benefit either to raise bail bail or pay for court costs attracted the attention of promoter Bill Graham, and so began a long relationship between the SF Mime Troupe and Graham. The Mime Troupe won the lawsuit, establishing the right of artists to perform uncensored in city parks.

Unlike most theater companies around the world, the Mime Troupe took its politics seriously. Even in the 1960s, Mime Troupe shows were not just busted for “indecency” and “obscenity.” The performances most often harassed were the most controversial like the devastating civil rights parody that was A Minstrel Show and the biting anti-war farce L’Amant Militaire, which a Des Moines, Iowa critic slammed as “shocking”, “unpatriotic”, “blasphemous”, before confessing “I don’t know when I’ve enjoyed an evening of theater more.”

(From Mission Local
The S.F. Mime Troupe Turns 50
by Mark Rabine
December 10, 2009)
http://www.sfmt.org/company/archives/50anniversary/articles/missionlocal12_10_09.html
Retrieved: 7.26.11

In early 1966, the SFMT was taking the show on the road. Sandy and R.G. also had another place to live in across the Bay and had been maintaining the keys to this cottage for occasional use. A fellow Mime Troupe actor, Darryl Henriques, knew of this pleasant, quaint, infrequently occupied, and most desirable Berkeley cottage and suggested that Ronnie and Sandy turn it over to a friend of his who was moving into the area and needed a place to live, which they did do. Darryl's compelling argument to convince Ronnie and Sandy was their having use of two houses was "bourgeois".

Another visitor to the estate during this same period was Julian Beck, founder of The Living Theater. I recall seeing the Living Theater present "Frankenstein" in Berkeley. But long before that performance, I was shown a black and white photograph of Ronnie and Julian standing together in conversation on the great patio near the mansion.

It's probably because I associated with some of these people back in the mid-sixties and being steeped in moving through the same times that I find myself relishing these memories.




http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sandy-Archer/134897503226235
Retrieved: 7.18.11

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Mime_Troupe
Retrieved: 7.18.11

http://www.nytimes.com/1991/03/21/obituaries/etienne-decroux-is-dead-at-92-master-of-modern-french-mime.html
Retrieved: 7.18.11


Audioclip of Ron Davis in 1998 in the interview by Celine Deransart and Alice Gaillard for the film "Les Diggers de San Francisco".
Contains actual footage of Mime Troupe Bust in San Francisco
http://www.diggers.org/mime_troupe_bust.htm
Retrieved: 7.18.11
http://www.sfmt.org/company/archives/minstrel/minstrel.php
Retrieved: 7.18.11

Staging the Revolution: Guerrilla Theater as a Countercultural Practice, 1965-1968
By Michael William Doyle
[First published in Imagine Nation: The American Counterculture of the 1960s and '70s, New York: Routledge, 2002]
http://www.diggers.org/guerrilla_theater.htm
Retrieved: 7.18.11

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Beck
Retrieved: 7.18.11

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_theater
Retrieved 7.16.11

The purpose behind the Mime Troupe, according to founder R.G. Davis:

"The radical stuff we did in the '60s was a combination of avant-garde and rejection of bourgeois theatrical stuff. Anyone, especially Joan Holden, who talks about the Mime Troupe talks about it as if it was a political entity and not an art entity. And we were art people, avant-garde people. We did events and happenings and I performed with other artists who were also breaking rules, Tape Music Center and dancers and young painters from the Art Institute. I then got political, but that was because I thought that political people were more interesting. People joined us because we were ready to open up to ideas, anything that was subversive, radical, disruptive, entertaining and freewheeling. Then I left the Actors' Workshop and decided to play to audiences that seemed to be volatile, people who were active. I would say that's the definition of a radical theatre group. Otherwise you're playing to the bourgeoisie and telling them that they're stupid, or what the Mime Troupe does now, tells the middle class that they're really sharp and that the stupid people are in government."

(Encore: R.G. Davis
by Sam Hurwitt)

Ronnie Davis when discussing agit-prop:

"When the Mime Troupe first went to the streets to do short skits, crankies (paper movies a la Pete Schumann), and puppet plays, we didn't try to insult or assault people; we decided to teach something useful. We began by teaching general city-folk how to stuff parking meters with tab-tops, using a simple puppet-and-actor skit to inform them of the.free use of parking meters. Another skit in this vein, telephone credit cards, was also designed to teach people something useful."

R.G. Davis, "1971: Rethinking Guerilla Theater", in Performance (1), Vol. 1, No. 1, December 1971

The New Radical Theatre Notebook
by Arthur Sainer
1975 p. 50

Physician Takes a Lease on Farley Hall 1966-1971

In 1966, Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld saw a newspaper ad for a place to rent in a Berkeley newspaper, dialed the phone number for his initial inquiry, and eventually rented Farley Hall on the campus of Williams College. Farley Hall was a building once used to house the English department at Williams College, and Gene remained in residence there from 1966-1971. Dr. John W. Hopkins was Gene Schoenfeld's landlord during that period.

Dr. Schoenfeld is an iconic figure from the sixties who continues his work and publishes to this day. A graduate of U.C. Berkeley, Schoenfeld early in his career worked with Dr. Albert Schweitzer in Gabon, Africa in 1960, served as a Ship's Surgeon for the American Lines in 1964, after which he settled in the Bay Area to continue his practice. He remains a highly respected and much beloved figure certainly for Bay Area residents.

Dr. Schoenfeld's column on health matters was first published in the Berkeley Barb c.1967, and his Dr. HIP Pocrates column soon appeared regularly in the San Francisco Chronicle, before being nationally syndicated. Schoenfeld's column remained in print steadily from 1967-1973 and was revitalized 1978-1979.

As an early claim to radio fame, Dr. Schoenfeld appeared first on the hip underground radio station KMPX (Jive-95) founded by Tom "Big Daddy" Donahue c. 1967. Dr. Schoenfeld was one of the first, if not the first, doctors to answer call-in questions live on the air. Gene continued with his broadcasts when the radio station moved up the dial to become KSAN, and soon he was broadcasting weekly (1971-1972). Everyone, but everyone, in the Bay Area and beyond knew Gene Schoenfeld as "Dr. Hip".

(Eugene Schoenfeld, M.D. Resume
http://www.eugeneschoenfeld.com/resume.html
Retrieved: 7.15.11

On March 7, 1969, Dr. Hip was featured in Time magazine in which he outlined his concerns:

"Why does he write his ill-paying column? Someone, he feels, should minister to the barricade brigade's medical ignorance, and "the best approach to any serious problem must be education." Now Grove Press has published a collection of his columns called Dear Doctor HIPpocrates — Advice Your Family Doctor Never Gave You. Yet Schoenfeld, at 33, has no desire to rise above the underground, 'where I don't have to censor my material.' Instead, from his ramshackle little bachelor home in the Berkeley hills, he continues his public-health work and the column for the sense of fulfillment it brings."

(Note to Time: Farley Hall was hardly a "ramshackle little bachelor home in the Berkeley Hills", but I guess that's how you preferred to write about anything to do with "hippies" or "the underground" at the time.)

(http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,839789,00.html
Retrieved 7.24.11

Here is a recent online television interview, where Gene talks about the golden years of the '60s and working with Dr. Schweitzer at his famed leper hospital in Lambaréné.

I remember that Dr. Schoenfeld always had a large photograph of Albert Schweitzer, obviously clipped from a newspaper, tacked on his bulletin board at Farley Hall.

The memory of Albert Schweitzer continues to inspire and be held dear, as this one statement about him best shows: "Schweitzer, however, considered his ethic of Reverence for Life, not his Hospital, his most important legacy, saying that his Lambaréné Hospital was just 'my own improvisation on the theme of Reverence for Life. Everyone can have their own Lambaréné.'" 1]

1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Schweitzer
Retrieved: 7.24.11

http://www.archive.org/details/JonHammondDr.Hippocrates_EugeneSchoenfeld_akaDr.HiponHammondCastKYOURADIO
Retrieved: 7.24.11


(Photo of Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld by Alvan Meyerowitz, 2009)
(Photo of Dr. Albert Schweitzer in Lambaréné, Gabon, Africa, 1960 by Marilyn Silverstone)
http://www.magnumphotos.com/Catalogue/Marilyn-Silverstone/1960/GABON-Dr-Albert-SCHWEITZER-NN132056.html
Retrieved 7.24.11

I was a poor, struggling student at UC Berkeley in 1969. I was working my way through school wiping spilled beer off the tables in a tough blues club. I was so lucky to land a job. I was lucky to even find a place to lay my head at night, as in Berkeley rentals were hard to come by with only a 1% turnover in vacancies. And if you found a place, the rent would be steep. So I was lucky to find a little place to rent.

Don't think so? Take a look at this show of the John Hopkins Spring Mansion.


See that skylight at the top of the thirty foot high atrium?


That's where the saucers first descended for Dr. Hopkins.

Unexplained and Unusual Happenings

Sometimes, the mustard seed pendant just spun wildly on the chain seemingly of its own accord. In these instances, there would be no movement of the crystal from side to side. There would be no movement at all at first. The chain was straight and the crystal unmoving, just a quick refraction of a beam of light caught from the drawing room window, then the crystal began vibrating a bit as if having been given a nudge, then rotating slightly all the way to the left soon spinning around and around and around, going faster and faster, picking up speed as it went, twisting the chain into itself, then the chain unraveled as the crystal began revolving in the other direction. And many times it took awhile for the crystal to completely stop all movement which meant the question had really been answered and for the crystal to be tucked away in a pocket with a small "Ummm" uttered or sometimes merely a silent nod of understanding, but always done with a willingness to accept the oracle's directions. Sometimes the "ummm" had the slightest upswing at the beginning of the sound, to denote pleasure like the oracle's pronouncement had promised a really good outcome.

The first time I saw this happen, Charles was perched on the edge of a velvety wingchair in the office as Mr. Hopkins held the chain aloft. Sometimes, because of the manner in which Mr. Hopkins made decisions, it took a long time for him to make a decision to act and spectators or those awaiting a simple order could grow weary. When the crystal paused as if poised immobile for a moment, as if making up its cosmic mind, then began revolving in the opposite direction, Charles shot me a quick glance as if to say, "I told you so" or "I was right about that", as if the crystal was giving us all understandable verification of that cosmic truth that he also knew how to read and he seemed to assume that I might even know what the question was that had been asked: Charles should go repair that faucet now or Mr. Hopkins was free, let's say, to proceed on his errand to town.

Personally, I came to have experiences with other even stranger occurrences at the estate.

One early morning, I was walking quickly up the hills through the estate to make my way to the small private road at the top for a quick stroll among the eucalyptus so I might better invigorate myself for the coming day. I had rounded a corner at the mansion and paused momentarily to regain my breath. I glanced towards the coach house, which was in a direct line of sight through the drive that was covered by the porte-cochier.

There was a large rock in front of the coach house doors. This is the truth, now. The rock was larger than Mr. Hopkins's old black Cadillac that he parked next to another car for every day use in the old coach house. The rock, actually, was larger than those two vehicles as it nearly covered the entire span of the coach house doors. Well, I didn't know about that, you see. I was fairly certain I hadn't seen it there the previous sunset, or I would have easily noticed it then. How did it get there? What was its purpose? What's the meaning of this apparition?

I wanted to find out about this, and I approached the small side door to the mansion which led into the kitchen. I had just stepped up onto the doorstep and was prepared to knock and I was thinking of what I would say to Mr. Hopkins about this ("Oh, Good morning, Mr. Hopkins. Say ... there's a big boulder in front of the garage door") when Mr. Hopkins himself pulled the door open. He was wearing his striped bathrobe over his trousers and shoes, and already was wearing a white shirt and I could see the top edge of a knotted tie. His sudden appearance surprised me. I actually said, "Oh, Good morning, Mr. Hopkins" and then the words just froze in my throat and I just inexplicably stopped. He just looked at me for what seemed a long strange moment and did not say a word. I did not say a word. Then he pulled himself back inside and closed the door. I stared at the door for a moment.

What? I said to myself. After I finished staring at the door, my eye followed the bell rope up to the top as if were throwing my eyes to the heavens and begging for an answer of some kind. At that time on the estate, there was still a bell and rope next to the kitchen door, a remainder from an older era when housemaids might need to be summoned from the massive expanse of the interior to greet a deliveryman. Who needs it, I said to myself.

And I went back to the edge of the drive to where I had first seen the boulder through the porte cochier, and looking through again, I even bent a bit to gain a clearer line on the edge of the outlines, and, yes, the boulder was still there. So I was wondering about these events, and put my hands in my pocket, and walked back and forth a bit kicking small clumps of grass at the edge of the drive, deep in contemplation. I admit I felt a bit nervous about this event.

When I saw the small door open again and who should step out but Mr. Hopkins himself, who was now wearing his suit jacket. In an event of this magnitude, and everything about this seemed momentous, I was certain Mr. Hopkins would have summoned Charles to assist in some way, but I was quite wrong.

Mr. Hopkins walked straight out from the small door and veered to the right and took two long strides. As he walked, and the object came into his full view, he raised his arms slightly to his sides as struck by disbelief.

Mr. Hopkins was a slightly rotund man who stretched the fabric of his suitcoat; even the back of his jacket was a bit taut, but held small imperfect wrinkles as if he'd sat in the seat of the Cadillac too long on one of those many drives into the far away desert. He stood there staring at the bolder with his own eyes. His arms were still lifted slightly at his side. He shook his own head in disbelief, or in small annoyance at what to him may have been a small harmless prank, I couldn't tell. Then he gave his head another more vigorous shake as if he were ridding the back of his neck of some small drop of water that had remained on his nape hair from the morning shower. He dropped his arms to his side and began walking towards the coach house, this time his was a more casual stride like, "you little devils". Then he stopped and stood stock still for the longest time.

Well, I was frankly tired of watching this display because I'd watched him with the mustard seed and knew it sometimes could be tedious, taking Mr. Hopkins a long time to make a decision and then to act, and I was going to be late for the bus that carried me to school.

So I left, and went to classes for a few hours and returned home into the hills on the old number 7 bus that propelled itself up through the steep grades of the Berkeley Hills, after making a harrowing spin at the round about traffic circle. I hopped off the bus slightly north of the estate at the bus stop as I always did, and made my way back to the stairs for the entrance which on Arlington was still marked with a brass placquard announcing entry to Williams College. I had been gone four, maybe five hours counting the bus trip.

I walked again up the hills in the estate, with a purposeful stride, determined to find out the truth of the matter. When I encountered my friend coming down the hill who always parked her small volkswagen at the edge of the drive where I had been located when I saw the bolder that morning. And I was sure she must have seen it, so I picked up my conversation with her nearly where I had left off with Mr. Hopkins earlier in the day, "Say ... what do you make of that boulder in front of the coach house?"

And she said, "What boulder?"

What the .... ? Was she kidding me?

What boulder, I nearly laughed in derision. We'll see what boulder.

"Well, we'll just have to ask Mr. Hopkins or Charles about this when we see them," I tried not to be snide. "Let's go!" "Come on, it's just a little walk," I tried to be encouraging though I was getting a little miffed when I remembered what she'd just said, 'What boulder?' What boulder indeed, and I would walk a little faster and more determinedly.

We made our way back up the hill, and I was not about to explain an iota about the morning's activities. She tried to make idle chit chat as we journeyed up the hill and I grew impatient and just ignored her. I let her conversation turn into a monologue. She was prattling on and I paid no attention whatsoever to what she was saying. I was going to let her see for herself, and with luck hear for herself what Mr. Hopkins had to say about it all.

When we reached the top, looking down the drive again to the coach house through the port-cochier, things were back almost to as they had once been. The boulder, the immense boulder that would have taken a crane and a flatbed truck to remove, was gone. But not only was the boulder gone. The doors to the coach house were open, and both the Cadillac and the every-day automobile were missing, which meant likely so were Mr. Hopkins and Charles and likely for days. But even this was unusual, as Charles always closed and locked the coach house doors. It was obvious they were gone, and that they had left in a hurry.

And my friend said, "I guess they left."

Now I had a new question, "Where'd they go?"

Dr. John W. Hopkins Digs For Buried Treasure

Mr. Hopkins sometimes waited a while to make up his mind. He had the ability to wait patiently until the mustard seed informed him the universe was in agreement with a movement or an action he was considering.

At some point between 1966-1969, the lady with the volkswagen who rented a small cottage began experiencing plumbing problems and backups and had regularly reported these difficulties and inconveniences to Mr. John Hopkins, who was landlord.

As a consequence, Charles, the estate's handyman, was often a visitor to the cottage during that period, as the plumbing difficulties seemed to have no solution nor was the cause easily discernible in any way.

Which is why I was not surprised one morning to discover Mr. Hopkins and Charles slowly wending their way down from the mansion with Mr. Hopkins holding his pendant with the mustard seed.

"Oh, they're on their way to fix that problem with the shower," I said to myself as I waved hello.

Nor was I at all surprised to eventually find a huge hole dug on the grounds between the mansion and the cottage, where I'd seen the landlord walking with his handy man.

Well, actually, I had been surprised to find that hole. Because previously, before the hole appeared (and again suddenly, within a day, as if by magic), one evening I had begun walking up the hill with the idea of looking at the panorama of city lights from a viewpoint.

The woods were strange that night, and there was a bit of wind kicking up, and I tried to push up along the small trail and ignore the strange sensations I was feeling (which if I were put into words would be, "Go back! Go back!").

I simply decided the weather had suddenly turned too inclement and the evening too dark to continue my simple walk up the hill and so I returned to my own place.

The next day, when I mentioned this event to the lady with the volkswagen, when we were beginning to talk in general about how strange the vibes had become around the estate over past the day or so, she sat up suddenly in her chair and said, "When? What? Mr. Hopkins said the saucers were visiting here last night!!!"

And, truthfully, I didn't know what to make of a statement like that.

So sometimes I'd give the mansion a funny look and tip toe far around the edges as I came down from where we were obliged to park at the edges of the road far above.

I would often arrive rather late at night, or actually very early in the morning. And I'd wind my way through the darkened grounds and usually could find my way even in the dark when it was clouded over because I had a small flashlight. But on this particular evening the batteries gave out so I'd put the flashlight away in my pocket to have two hands free to better grope my way through the dark. In the dark sometimes, even though I knew the paths, I could sometimes go astray and get a bit turned around. As I was indeed doing, that evening in 1969.

As I walked, I sometimes was forced into longer strides and gained unexpected momentum, propelled a bit too fast due to the incline. Because of a bit of a skid I had gone into and because I had bumped up against a tree trunk, I knew I was off the path and turned around.

I was pushing small branches apart and out of my way, stepping back and trying to peer through them to better see what I hoped would be the outlines of the path, when my gaze went towards the shadowy outline of a large hump of dirt, one that was newly appeared in the once familiar geography ... which in the dim light and because of my recent loss of balance and growing apprehension seemed to be escalating from unusual to weird if not slightly strange.

At nearly that precise moment, when my perception was shifting from "unusual" to "weird", I saw a flash of light coming from somewhere inside the mound. After what seemed to be an interminable amount of time, as time was nearly as frozen as I had been immobilized by wonder, there was another flash of light.

And I confess I couldn't help but think of all that flying saucer business, the orbs darted into my mind and flew about, and the outlines of the mound, which had once seemed merely an unusual silhouette in the dim light could now be regarded as the outlines of a crater of some kind.

So I crept forward slowly, inching my way step by step as it was dark and I didn't want to so much as brush a twig or make a noise in any way. Holding on to a small sapling to steady myself and gathering courage to move on in the dark, towards the blink! (long pause) blink! And my heart was nearly in my mouth when I peered over the edge and saw a construction horse with a blinker still going, which must have toppled into the hole when the edge had collapsed a bit.

I stared into the large hole, and said to myself, "So that's all it is." And I decided that Mr. Hopkins and Charles had begun work to fix the plumbing problem in the cottage and that's why they'd been walking with the mustard seed.

Days would elapse and I later encountered the lady who lived in the cottage, and I would say, "I guess they're fixing the plumbing" and mention the big hole, which was still there, though changing course day by day, as if they were trying to find a hidden sewer line.

She'd laugh and say, "Oh no. Mr. Hopkins said Charles is digging to find the hidden Filipino gold."

I would sit there stunned and my first response would be utter disblief: "That's ridiculous!" I'd think to myself, and then I'd wonder in spite of myself, "Where'd they get that crazy idea?"

And another day on the estate would continue.

I moved to Williams College (the large manor house was also known as Spring Mansion) on the No. 7 Arlington bus with my impedimentia, a large pullman suitcase and a tasteless small duffle bag. Later in the afternoon the move was completed with the assistance of a friend and his pickup truck to carry those heavier boxes filled with records and books. All accomplished on a warm summer's day in June of 1969. I made my entrance up the stairs directly from Arlington Avenue, the walkway and stairs separating into two near identical parts a tall stucco wall that could at casual glance because of the overgrowth of greenery appear to be contiguous and so the stairs between completely remain unnoticed, despite one wall bearing a brass plaque announcing the general location to be Williams College. Before I write so much as another line, I feel obliged to make two emphatic points here.

The first, that I believe when assembling the "missing years" of Williams College, those fuzzy around the edges and near indefinable years when the college found itself under the tutelage of Dr. John W. Hopkins, a history which must be filled out and completed because the official history thus far stops abruptly with Cora Williams as if not knowing what to say about any of this that followed and so leaves a huge blank for all those intervening decades until such time as 1975 arrives when a rich real estate mogul appears and buys the place and is fawned over as the new very wealthy owner, for the time that Dr. John W. Hopkins was in residence as President of Williams College, the responsible historian must and should rightly assume the respectful and highflown tone of Ms. Daniela Thompson, Berkeley historian, as she has here outlined the breathtaking history of the original immensely wealthy inhabitants, John Hopkins Spring and his wife, Celina, whose predilection for the opulent made the Spring Mansion physically what it is to this very day.

I will remind historians here of their duty to the future reader and with some firm but gentle insistence because the college as it functioned under the benign auspices of Dr. John W. Hopkins, then President of Williams College, did continue to flourish despite all outward appearance in the genuine spirit and tradition of Miss Cora Williams herself. What came to be known as Williams College, founded shortly after her purchase of the estate in 1917, as you might know, was originally the Institute of Creative Development and was dedicated to the study of languages, poetry, music, and literature. In reality, this is the first college that devised a course of study and became dedicated to what has become known since as the New Age.

Dr. John W. Hopkins and his associates as devotees themselves often acknowledged that concept as the philosophical underpinning of their continued research and often employed the phrase "New Age" in their own writings.

When reading or researching any history of this time encompassed under the name Williams College, please feel free to allow your mind to wander and perhaps try to imagine what these times and people may have been like and feel free to make your own associations.

When I was there at Williams College, also assembled in cottages and living spaces scattered throughout the grounds of the estate having been selected or drawn to the college in some mysterious way and now residing there as a direct result of Dr. Hopkins's benevolence, were musicians, artists, dancers, theatrical troupes, respected men of science, scholars, devotees of physical regemines, and even a young person or two who by sheer accident of birth had themselves been descended from families of greater than usual inherited wealth. All brave, courageous, and sturdy types in their own ways and naturally possessing or acquiring as they grew into life the fiber and character required to assume the challenge of moving into a completely unknown and as yet unexplored New Age of being. And so, I argue here, the types of persons on the estate had essentially remain unchanged from the founding of the college by Miss Cora Williams and again in the time I am writing of, when Williams College was administered by Dr. John W. Hopkins.

The second point I need to remind the reader of is this: Williams College under the auspices of Dr. John W. Hopkins glittered like a rare and occult gem, often unnoticed and unrecognized, tucked away as it was among other mansions in the Berkeley hills, much in the same way the metaphysical or paranormal sometimes is veiled from public view. As such, the Spirituality of the place, with its attendant occultism, or ethereal metaphysical, or downright paranormal, and most certainly the more common every day garden variety versions of the unique, startling, or strange were nearly diurnal in occurrence there, and that is true to this day for almost every person who resided there at that time in 1969, as the place appears in memory and dream to this day for those who resided there. Williams College also, importantly to me at least, was a place of what could be regarded as eerie coincidence, sometimes an immediate collision of events, and others with the beginning of the coincidence occuring far in the remote past and concluding at some point in time far in the distant future. But eerie coincidence.

Dr. John W. Hopkins, President of Williams College and Landlord

Dr. John W. Hopkins was President of Williams College and he, and his aged father (who I believe was John O. Hopkins) resided in the John Hopkins Spring Mansion. They were originally from Indiana, I have learned, where the elder Mr. Hopkins had made his fortune selling bicycles. In the time I am writing of, beginning with June 1969, Dr. John W. Hopkins had been in residence at and had likely been President of Williams College since the early 1950s, if not before. I base this on a conversation I had in 2001 with a former newspaperman and his wife, who had lived on the estate from 1945 to 1954, during which period they recalled that Mr. Hopkins was their landlord.

If I were an historian, I would call these entries, "The Spring Mansion: The Missing Years (which encompass those five decades the estate was known as Williams College to its residents)" but before it was purchased by a real estate speculator in 1975, but I can only account for the years 1969-1971, plus a suspected single blip during the period 1945 and 1954)"

In 1945, after his military service concluded at the end of the great war in Europe and VJ Day in the Pacific, and no longer a merchant marine on convoy duty, one Philip Small, a graduate of the University of Chicago whose career in journalism had been delayed by World War II, relocated to California with his young wife Audrey, who on a trip to America from her native Britain at the onset of the war was advised by her father to remain Stateside as her safe passage home could not be guaranteed, which she did do and matriculated with a degree in English from the University of Chicago. The young couple moved into a small rental cottage in the Berkeley Hills on the grounds of Williams College. He'd a new civilian job, reporting and writing for the Berkeley Daily Gazette newspaper, and Audrey worked at the U.C. Library. Phil passed his spare time with wood carving and Audrey passed hers writing poetry and making elaborate string figures such as the cat's cradle, a folk art which involves story-telling while fashioning the string figures. Audrey since has published several books of poetry and string figures. In 1954, the Smalls moved from the cottage because their family numbers were increasing and they needed a larger space for their children.


During the decade following the great war, during 1945-1954, the Smalls, residents then of a small rental college in the Berkeley Hills, experienced plumbing problems and reported these difficulties and inconveniences to Mr. John Hopkins, who was landlord. Many years later, at various times between 1966-1969, my friend with the volkswagen rented that same cottage, and she, too, experienced plumbing problems and backups and had reported these difficulties and inconveniences to Mr. John Hopkins, who was landlord.

Coincidence? I don't think so.