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[MUSIC PLAYING] BETH FRIEND: Hi. I'm Beth Friend. Welcome to First Friday for the month of February. How can you look in the face of evil and turn away? Poet Christopher Merrill puts the question to all of us on the eve of his sixth trip to Bosnia.

While in Southern California, sci-fi writer Octavia Butler creates a character who can't avoid feeling other people's pain. Geraldine Brooks introduces us to Islamic women behind the veil. And we take in an exhibit on the diversity of American Art from war feathers to Warhol.

All this, the latest on who's lobbying who for arts funding in Washington, and a love spell for those who want to be proactive this Valentine's Day. Don't knock it. It comes your way, as does all of First Friday, after these news headlines from Washington. So do stay with us.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Hi. This is Beth Friend. And you're listening to First Friday. There are many who say that the world, in its complacency, has failed the people of the former Yugoslavia, that we in the West have watched the warfare and brutality on our television sets for years now, and we have not responded with any compassion nor courage to Bosnia's beleaguered Muslim communities, nor to the plight of their besieged capital city, Sarajevo.

Poet Christopher Merrill is one of those who is dismayed at the paucity of international response, particularly among artists. He has visited the former Yugoslavia five times in the past several years and has formed many fast friendships there. He leaves again in a few weeks to teach American literature in Sarajevo as part of a program to keep the cultural corridor open. We spoke with him about the first time he experienced the complete disinterest of his artistic colleagues in Bosnia and what's happening there. It took place at a film festival.

CHRISTOPHER MERRILL: I traveled to the Venice Film Festival in early September of 1992. This took place about a week after the London Conference on the war in the Balkans, where the great powers gathered with the hopes of trying to find some solution to the terrible atrocities occurring then in Bosnia.

There was a large political gathering at the Venice Film Festival. The organizers had brought together an incredible list of luminaries from the literary world and from the film world, including people like Gabriel García Márquez, Wim Wenders, Lina Wertmüller, Peter Handke, Costas-Gavras.

It was one of those great events at which I presumed we would be looking at the burning issue of the day. After all, Sarajevo was really only about a hundred miles away. We were right on the Adriatic Sea. If we were to take a speedboat across the Adriatic, we could be on our way to Sarajevo in a matter of hours. It seemed to me that this was a chance for artists to stand up and talk about what seemed to be the most important event of our time.

However, the occasion was much different. It was a great exercise in America bashing because we had not signed on to the Berne treaty, honoring an artist's moral rights, which essentially comes down to this-- who owns the copyright to a commercially made film, the filmmaker or the studio for which he or she works? Now, that's an important issue. But if you're going to bring-- spend hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring together such important people to talk about a burning political issue, it seemed to me that they missed the real story of the day, which was taking place--

BETH FRIEND: How is that possible? How is that possible? People who are considered gifted, people who consider themselves to be sensitive, people who consider themselves to be highly politicized people-- García Márquez, right? Many others who consider their work to be so much about politics and about issues around the globe.

CHRISTOPHER MERRILL: Well, I think of the great essay that the French surrealist Benjamin Péret wrote after World War II called "The Dishonor of the Poets." I suspect that in certain ways, this is another one of those times where we have the dishonor of certain artists of a certain age who have not been keeping their eyes open as to what's really going on.

During the Sarajevo Film Festival, there was a remarkable event, the War Congress of the Writers' Association of Bosnia-Herzegovina, at which the president of the War Congress said, except for Susan Sontag, why haven't the world's poets and writers spoken out on this issue? It's something that I think about all the time. I can't understand why that is.

I have given any number of talks around the country. And what I am routinely amazed by is our feeling that what's going on in the center of Europe doesn't concern us. The fact is, if people are being slaughtered simply for their ethnic or religious identity in the center of Europe, that has to concern all of us.

BETH FRIEND: But why doesn't it? I mean, people think about why it didn't concern the world that that slaughter was occurring to Jews during World War II. And the same question does apply, why won't people see the depth of brutality that is occurring in the world today?

CHRISTOPHER MERRILL: What's remarkable about this, and I agree with you completely, is that we have complete documentation about the nature and the extent of this tragedy. In this case, we've had two administrations in a row that have tried in every possible way to put the-- to keep the story on the back burner.

And what that does, on some level, even on a subconscious level, I think, is leaves us feeling very, very nervous because, the fact is, we know something terrible is going on over there. We've been watching it on TV. We've read the news accounts. And yet, we have not had the political will to step in and try to stop it. It's to our everlasting shame.

As many commentators have noted, how ironic it is that even as we were opening the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, last winter, saying in every possible way, "Never again," we were letting it happen yet again. And the net effect, I believe, is to further numb us, to further deaden our spirit. And that can only lead to more tragedy.

BETH FRIEND: Let's talk about who you met with in Sarajevo, specifically artists and writers.

CHRISTOPHER MERRILL: The longest journey I made to Sarajevo was in conjunction with the Sarajevo Film Festival, which took place in late October, early November of 1993. Over the course of 10 days, more than a hundred films were shown in this war-torn city. And while I was there, I had the chance to meet with and talk with various artists, filmmakers, writers, and poets who have managed to stay or have decided to stay in Sarajevo for the duration of the war as a way of bearing witness to this awful tragedy.

One who sticks in mind was the poet Ferida Durakovic, a young poet who had been featured on a Phil Robinson Nightline special. He did a film called Sarajevo-- One Woman's Odyssey. And when I walked into the writers' association of Sarajevo, there were eight old men and one young woman. And I looked at Ferida, and I said, well, I recognize you because I had seen the film that Phil Robinson did, and we hit it off immediately. And I recall her saying to me late one night that she could talk about the atrocities with any journalist, but that with me, as a poet, what she really wanted to talk about was poetry and life.

BETH FRIEND: Can you read some of those poems now? Can we hear at least one poem?

CHRISTOPHER MERRILL: I'll read a poem called "Beauty and the Beast." This is a poem by Ferida Durakovic, a poet who's 37 years old. And she is the author of three collections of poetry, two children's books, and a number of newspaper articles, which she has written during the war. The poem, "Beauty and the Beast," refers to the old Cocteau film. And the difference here is that the homeland, the Bosnian homeland, plays a prominent role. "Beauty and the Beast" by Ferida Durakovic.

The dishonest beauty

Slammed the door

Finally

As the Homeland did

Then vanished

Into History

The beauty, therefore, the dishonest one,

And the Homeland

Have something in common:

Both leave behind

The boys

Who will die

For them

Do you want to hear the poem by Goran Simic?

BETH FRIEND: Yes, I do.

CHRISTOPHER MERRILL: Goran Simic is a Bosnian-Serb poet living in Sarajevo, married to a Muslim woman. What's remarkable about his story is that his brother is up in the hills outside of Sarajevo. He's one of those firing shells into the city, while Goran stays behind and writes poetry.

His friend, Ferida Durakovic, said that she didn't like his poetry very much before the war. She felt it was too hermetic, too mysterious. But since the war began, he has become a very clear and direct poet, somebody who writes only about what is most important to him. And it seems to me that his poem, "The Apprentice," addresses that change in his thinking about poetry. "The Apprentice" by Goran Simic.

I have spent half of my life looking for a vocabulary of beauty,

Which will exceed the strange love of stupid paper and a smart pencil

I have acquired knowledge from shadows.

I have learned from monuments

I have associated with ghosts

Now, when I spend more time at funerals than at my desk,

I notice how the covers of my books of fairy tales burn quite appropriately while on the frozen stove

I try to warm up the tea for my sick child

And how beauty returns to me

Through the ruddy cheeks of my boy and the linden flower

I could have never supposed to be more beautiful than a rose

BETH FRIEND: What is the role of poetry in the world of Sarajevo?

CHRISTOPHER MERRILL: I think of the story of Anna Akhmatova, the great Russian poet, who, when her son was imprisoned during the Stalinist era, found herself standing outside the prison with a long line of women desperate to have the chance to say a word to their husbands, their sons, their fathers. And someone called out in the cold air, who will tell this story? And Anna Akhmatova said, I will.

And it seems to me that during a war, one of the ways in which we get the texture of the daily life is through the long-lasting news of poetry. So Ferida Durakovic, Goran Simic, and so many others give us that part of the story that we won't get from the newspaper or from the TV or radio. They give us something of the texture of life.

BETH FRIEND: So are you suggesting that it's the responsibility of the artist to be chronicler of history as opposed to peacemaker, as opposed to activist?

CHRISTOPHER MERRILL: I don't know that the artist really can be a peacemaker or an activist. The artist's role, in my view, is to try to bear witness to what goes on in history and to be the repository of the cultural values, if only by preserving the language, by using the language well, by finding ways to tell the truth through the language. That's the most, I think, an artist can hope for. And of course, that's an awful lot to ask.

BETH FRIEND: Tell me, is there any poem of yours that you would like to read in the context of what we've been talking about today?

CHRISTOPHER MERRILL: Well, Ferida Durakovic and I have been working on a poem together for some time. We do it through these satellite phones and satellite faxes.

BETH FRIEND: I mean, you guys are actually on the phone, creating a poem?

CHRISTOPHER MERRILL: Through the faxes, yes. There's a remarkable development in this war, and that is that George Soros set up a phone bank in Pittsburgh so that I can call to Pittsburgh, or fax to Pittsburgh, and that signal gets beamed up to a satellite and then down into an office in Sarajevo.

And on one trip to Sarajevo, Ferida gave me a poem of hers called "Morning Glory, Sarajevo." The last section of the poem was the only section which had not been translated. And she said, why don't you write the last section? I wrote that.

And by then, she had gotten that last section translated for me and sent me her last section. And when she saw what I had done with her last section, which proposed a different kind of ending, she said, why don't we continue trying to write this poem together? And so back and forth, we've been sending drafts of poems, trying to see what we can do with them. And this is the little section that I wrote called "Morning Glory, Sarajevo."

Let us stand in the spray from the waterfall, adding, subtracting

It is all the same

The morning glory, like a guardrail, winds along the riverbank,

Dividing us among the carriers of water and light

The ruins multiply, like lovers, restless and divine

Our Homeland, dust,

A city rising, like words or mirrors from a waterfall,

A hand releasing songbirds, blossoms, breath

BETH FRIEND: It's hard to imagine that there's a woman in the midst of Sarajevo with all that means around daily life, and sniper bullets, and no electricity, and little food, et cetera, et cetera, who's on the phone to you, writing a poem.

CHRISTOPHER MERRILL: Isn't that incredible?

BETH FRIEND: It is.

CHRISTOPHER MERRILL: I remember walking with Goran and Ferida through the streets of Sarajevo. And shots were ringing out all around us, and I was absolutely terrified. And at one point, I looked at Goran and Ferida and wondered why it was that they didn't even flinch when the shots rang out. And Goran looked at me and very soberly said, if you hear the shot, you're still alive.

And I realized that kind of Sarajevan humor was what kept them alive as artists and as human beings. They still have a kind of lightness of spirit. And that is what I've always loved in my travels through that war-torn country, is encountering people with a sense of humor, a way to make it through the day, a way to find a bottle of brandy and talk about the poetry of Czeslaw Milosz or Rainer Maria Rilke, and imagine that someday, this tragedy will be over and they will get on with their lives and write a different kind of poem.

BETH FRIEND: Poet Christopher Merrill, his accounts of Bosnia under siege and of refugees there, will appear later this year in the book, Only the Nails Remain, Three Balkan Journeys from Henry Holt and in The Old Bridge to be published by Milkweed Editions.

You also might be interested to know that opening tomorrow at the Sarajevo Youth Theater is a production of Alfred Jarry's Ubu in Chains. It features one of Sarajevo's best known actors, Nermin Tulic, a Muslim whose legs were blown off when a Serbian shell hit him near his home in the center of the city.

Believing that fascism in the form of Serbia's drive for an ethnically pure state is knocking once again on Europe's door and that the Western world has acquiesced in this threat, Mr. Tulic, on stage, wears a cap from the US Military Academy in West Point. A can of American vegetable oil, which is part of the US food aid to the city, is tied to his wheelchair, that because Sarajevans like to joke that the world wants to fatten them up for the slaughter.

[VOCALIZING]

You're listening to First Friday. I'm Beth Friend. Well, the committee meetings, the debates, and the lobbying go on in Washington as the Congress tries to decide how much to cut funding from the National Endowment for the Arts budget. Reauthorization seems certain, but NEA critics say they will not accept what they call, of course, business as usual. There are no headlines on the issue this week, but arts commentator, Randy Davidson, joins me for a latest status report and some news of how local arts administrators are strategizing. How are you doing, Randy?

RANDY DAVIDSON: Great, Beth.

BETH FRIEND: Who's meeting where, on what?

RANDY DAVIDSON: Well, right now, since the new Congress was formed, everything's happening all at once at the same time. And every day, I think one of the things that's starting to kick in is headline fatigue. Every day, there's another wave of reports. If you're following--

BETH FRIEND: Because these meetings are going on?

RANDY DAVIDSON: Always. And they're going on, and decisions are being made quickly in-- if you think of the contract for America taking a hundred days, and all of the issues that are going to be addressed, and the arts are not the most important thing on the agenda. So we're being scurried around, doing all sorts of things. There's many people being mobilized for and against the NEA right now.

BETH FRIEND: Who's lobbying in Washington from our community?

RANDY DAVIDSON: Well, it's very interesting. In this community, meaning the state of Minnesota, we have 10 representatives, 2 senators, 8 congressmen. There are a number of national efforts that have local applications. There's a group called AAA, or the American Arts Alliance, that has a 1-800 number that you can call. And it costs about $20. And they send a letter, form letter, to all of your representatives, whoever--

BETH FRIEND: But we have bodies in Washington.

RANDY DAVIDSON: We do.

BETH FRIEND: There are a lot of Minnesota bodies there.

RANDY DAVIDSON: We do. And we have both-- locally, we have the Minnesota Citizens for the Arts, which is a lobbying organization for the arts. And there's sort of a clearinghouse for a lot of the information that's being generated. And there are people from this community who are going to meet with congressmen and with staff people, people who are both private citizens and also who are somehow associated with the arts, either as administrators or as individuals.

BETH FRIEND: Like who, for example?

RANDY DAVIDSON: Well, I know that folks from the Minnesota Orchestra, and the Minnesota Composers Forum, and the Opera, there are many institutions who have gone and met, sat down with individuals. Tomorrow, for example, representative Minge is sitting down with about 20 to 30 people. And the effort that's taking place in Minnesota is people are sitting down with them in their home communities.

Here in Minnesota, the way they're dealing with it, some people are going to Washington. But most folks here are waiting until their representatives comes back into town and then they descend on them. There's a meeting tomorrow in Willmar, and there are going to be about-- there are people from arts organizations to attorneys who live in Green River. I mean, there are all sorts of people who are going to be involved. So that's one thing that's going on. The other thing is that there are a great number of discussions going on in the state level as well.

BETH FRIEND: Yeah. What's--

RANDY DAVIDSON: Well, the state level--

BETH FRIEND: Because, meanwhile, while people are in Washington, then there are folks back home strategizing, trying to adapt to different times.

RANDY DAVIDSON: We get about 6 million from the NEA, the state of Minnesota. That's about what the state puts aside for the arts as well. And so we're doing quite well. Last year, we had about a 40% increase in funding to the arts, which was not expected at all on a tight budget year. This year, the State Arts Board, staff wishes to basically double the amount of money for the arts.

BETH FRIEND: They asked for 96%--

RANDY DAVIDSON: Yeah, well--

BETH FRIEND: --more funding?

RANDY DAVIDSON: A lot more, yes. And the governor has not taken that recommendation to the legislature. He has basically said, we aren't going to cut the arts, but we're not going to increase it, because they're tight, again, in the budget. What's curious is that amount of money, is if they got the double amount, it would only be about 1/15 of a percentage point of the total state budget. So it's a very small amount of money.

BETH FRIEND: Now, what does Grabarski, Sam Grabarski, who's head of the State Arts Board, how does he argue when he goes to Carlson, when he goes to the legislature?

RANDY DAVIDSON: Yeah. He talks about the economic impact that it's going to have. He talks about the role that the government plays with the-- it has to step into a void that's being created. Foundation money is being cut, and it's going to social agencies and educational institutions, and the arts are going to be high and dry.

BETH FRIEND: Right. And he knows-- and he has to do it because he knows his federal sources are--

RANDY DAVIDSON: Otherwise, we're going to lose--

BETH FRIEND: --going to be drying up. Foundation sources are drying up.

RANDY DAVIDSON: And who knows what's going to happen with the NEA? It's going to be quite interesting. So that's what's happening right now, is there's-- everything's in flux, but there are positive signs everywhere. And the other issue about the NEA is whether it's going to be reauthorized.

BETH FRIEND: But everyone always thinks reauthorization is certain. And that's a real cry wolf kind of issue.

RANDY DAVIDSON: It is.

BETH FRIEND: Everyone says, oh, they're going to get rid of us. And the truth is, that's been talked about for many years. NEA will not be gotten rid of, but it could be drastically altered and reduced in terms--

RANDY DAVIDSON: Well, I think--

BETH FRIEND: --of its effectiveness.

RANDY DAVIDSON: --everybody's budget is going to be cut. And what's going to happen is the arts will be cut fairly. And I do think that's probably going to be the outcome. But it's hard to say because every day, it's another picture, and we don't know what's going to happen.

BETH FRIEND: Do you feel fairly confident that the people here in the state level who are heads of arts, advocacy groups, and people like Sam Grabarski, are smart and doing a good job?

RANDY DAVIDSON: Incredibly good job.

BETH FRIEND: Yeah?

RANDY DAVIDSON: We are one of the highest funded communities for the arts. We get more money from the NEA than 45 states in the union. So this is a very, very positive place. And we may be one of the last good stories on this. In Minnesota, we may be one of the last places where the arts is a good story. And I think things are actually looking fairly positive.

BETH FRIEND: Thank you, arts commentator, Randy Davidson, who, himself, is a composer. Let's end our conversation. I'd like to end our conversation by offering a little quote from actor singer, Theodore Bikel, who's gone to the Hill many times to testify on behalf of the arts.

RANDY DAVIDSON: Also a composer.

BETH FRIEND: That's right. And as he says, he reinvents the wheel every time. But this is the basic message he delivers.

THEODORE BIKEL: Human lives are very perishable, but art endures beyond it. Nobody remembers what battles were won, or fought, or lost, or who won them, who fought them unless there is a song, a painting, a poem, or a play that speaks of the event. So in the end, we are a nation's tears, and nation's laughter, and a nation's memory.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

BETH FRIEND: The time is 20:25. The place is Southern California, where small walled communities protect themselves from hordes of desperate homeless scavengers and roaming bands of Paints, people addicted to a drug that activates an orgasmic desire to burn, rape, and murder. Water and food are scarce commodities. Illiteracy is widespread.

This is the world of Octavia Butler's newest science fiction novel, Parable of the Sower. Our guide is a 15-year-old African-American girl, Lauren Olamina, who lives with her Baptist minister father and the rest of her family in one of those walled neighborhood enclaves. Through Lauren's diaries, we experience the chaos of the times. Now, here's one of her entries.

"We hear so much gunfire, day and night, single shots and odd bursts of semi-automatic weapons fire, even occasional blasts from heavy artillery, or explosions from grenades, or bigger bombs. We worry most about those last things, but they're rare. It's harder to steal big weapons. And not many people around here can afford to buy the illegal ones, or that's what dad says. The thing is, we hear gunfire so much that we don't hear it.

A couple of the Balter kids said they heard shooting. But as usual, they paid no attention to it. It was outside, beyond the wall, after all. Most of us heard nothing except the rain.

God, I hate this place. I mean, I love it. It's home. These are my people. But I hate it. It's like an island surrounded by sharks, except that sharks don't bother you unless you go in the water. But our land sharks are on their way in. It's just a matter of how long it takes for them to get hungry enough."

Now, this is not such a far-fetched future. There are people living in certain sections of American cities who would find much of this landscape familiar. And it comes as no surprise that Butler was, shall we say, inspired by the events in her own Pasadena community, by listening to the news constantly, and watching how people reacted to it.

OCTAVIA BUTLER: One of the things you notice about people is if bad things happen slowly, they can pretend that nothing unusual is happening. Very popular game, I think, the idea that somehow, if it's happening slowly and it's not really hurting you a lot, then it's not really happening, until it starts to hurt you. And that it's important. But then, it made me too late to do anything about it.

BETH FRIEND: Right. But we reached that point, where everyone has been hurt and brutalized on a daily basis in the world of this book.

OCTAVIA BUTLER: Yes, but it's a little bit too late for these individuals to do anything about it. There is some talk about politicians who promise that they're going to do something, just elect them, and they don't. I mean, they can't. They don't have any idea what to do.

BETH FRIEND: But the book's heroine, the teenager, Lauren, does have an idea of what to do. In the face of her society's disintegration, she makes a plan to escape north to safer territory. And she creates a religion, a philosophy, she calls Earthseed.

OCTAVIA BUTLER: I think the first verse in the book kind of gives a good feeling of what Earthseed is about. Can I read that one to you? It's very short.

BETH FRIEND: Yes.

OCTAVIA BUTLER: OK.

"All that you touch

You change,

All that you change

Changes you,

The only lasting truth

Is change,

God is change."

And that's pretty much what she has come up with, the idea that the only force that she finds so strong that nothing seems to be able to stop it or slow it is change.

BETH FRIEND: And despite the fact that, in a way, it feels a little bit inadequate to the task, given the extent of the evil she faces, it is very appealing.

OCTAVIA BUTLER: It's not a god that you would pray to. It's a god that you need to understand for the purpose of survival.

BETH FRIEND: In addition to prophetic powers, Butler has endowed Lauren with a most unusual condition, a delusional syndrome called hyperempathy, in which Lauren experiences other people's pain as viscerally as her own. Lauren calls it sharing.

OCTAVIA BUTLER: I wanted her to have this kind of biological conscience. I wanted it to be difficult for her to hurt people. One of the things that's scary right now is how easy it is for people to kill each other for any reason or no reason. And I wanted to-- I thought about that, and I thought, what could we possibly have as a problem, as an affliction, as whatever that would make us a little bit more thoughtful about what we did to our fellow humans? And the obvious thing was, if we felt it, too, we would be less likely to do it to somebody.

BETH FRIEND: Right. Yeah, I was going to say to you, in the course of this conversation, I kept thinking about saying to you that it seems to me that hyperempathy is exactly what the world needs now. We should all have that delusion.

OCTAVIA BUTLER: But just imagine, who would want to be a dentist, for instance, if there were hyperempathy syndrome for everybody?

BETH FRIEND: Right. OK. OK. So only certain-- well, it would only apply in certain kinds of situations.

OCTAVIA BUTLER: Yeah. But if it's really a syndrome that has a biological base, it would apply regardless. That's why I fought with that for a long time, trying to figure out just how to do it.

And I think reading books like The Boy Who Couldn't Stop Washing, which is about obsessive compulsive disorders, and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and some other-- I have-- I love specialized dictionaries, and I have a lot-- I have several specialized medical dictionaries and a psychiatric dictionary, things like that.

And reading the books that I mentioned and a few others, and going through these dictionaries, I got the idea of how to give her this problem and make it actually possible. I mean, it would be a lot more difficult to make somebody psychic. I mean, you would just have to say, well, they are, and that's all there is to it. That's what people tend to do in science fiction. This person has this power because they come from this planet or something. I didn't want to do that. I have done it in other books, but I want it to be a bit more realistic in this book.

BETH FRIEND: In Parable of the Sower, we don't find out exactly what happens to Lauren's hoped-for community. She does begin her escape from California, heading north, with several neighbors. And she does win their loyalty and trust as they join in the effort to remake their lives. But for the long-term outcome, we must wait for the sequel to Parable of the Sower.

OCTAVIA BUTLER: I had a letter from another writer a few days ago. And she said, I hope you're not going to have Lauren set up a hippie commune, where there's nothing but love, and joy, and peace, or something.

BETH FRIEND: God forbid.

OCTAVIA BUTLER: It was not my intention, no. So what she has to do in the next book is build the thing that she's been saying she wants to build. And there are people who don't want her to build it, not because they're evil or out to get her or anything, but just because they have their own agendas. And they're not real interested in this daydream she has, this fantasy of starting this new thing.

I mean, for instance, it's one thing to get people to stop and build a little community on some vacant land, where the owner says it's OK. But to keep them there, and to keep them building, or to keep them working toward what she thinks of as the destiny, when they're fairly comfortable and no longer frightened of thugs coming to kill them, and they have enough to eat, they have enough money, how do you do that? This is something that she's going to have to worry about.

BETH FRIEND: Award-winning science fiction writer, Octavia Butler, author of Parable of the Sower. The book is out this month in paperback from Warner Books. Butler, herself, will be in town on Friday, February 10, at 7:00 PM at Barnes and Nobles in Edina and then on the following Saturday morning at 10:00 at Uncle Hugo's Bookstore in Minneapolis.

[THE FAIRFIELD FOUR, "STANDING IN THE SAFETY ZONE"] In the safety

Whoa, I'm standing in the safety zone

So many times, I'll stand alone

Or when all of my friends see me

And they called me to weep and moan

Whoa, I'm standing in the safety zone

So many times, I stand alone

And if you want to get to heaven,

Whoa, you better stay in the safety zone

Well, how well

You're listening to First Friday on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Beth Friend. I'd like to tell you that one way that you can help Minnesota Public Radio is by volunteering during our upcoming membership drive. Our drive runs from February 11 through the 17, and we need many volunteers to answer phones and take pledges.

If you'd like to help out for a few hours, please give us a call at 612-290-1441. Your help is especially needed during the early morning, of course, and the early evening hours. So call us at 290-1441 to volunteer for the membership drive. And we thank you.

Well, an Alfred Stieglitz photograph, a Frank Lloyd Wright chair, a clay pot from New Mexico that dates back to the 12th century-- these objects and many more can be seen in a new exhibit at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. The show is called Made in America-- 10 Centuries of American Art. And all the objects in it were culled from the collections of five museums.

Now, when the curators from these institutions first began work on the exhibit, they envisioned a rather modest display of paintings. But the project soon forced them to present a much more complex and wide sweeping view of American art. The FM news station's Tom Fudge has more.

EVAN MAURER: This is a bowl from a Hopi pueblo called "sikyatki."

TOM FUDGE: Minneapolis Institute of Arts director, Evan Maurer, handles a 500-year-old Hopi Indian bowl. Its brown and orange earthenware surface shows images of feathers and a bear's paw.

EVAN MAURER: The thing I want to point out is this decoration on the outside of the rim that scholars have shown is actually the signature mark of the artist who made the bowl. And it's one of the rare instances of this type of pottery we find in other southwestern pots as well of early American artists who were particularly known for their art.

TOM FUDGE: The exhibition, Made in America, includes objects from 10 centuries of American art, ranging from thousand-year-old Indian art objects to Andy Warhol's portrait of Elvis Presley. Curators assembled the show from collections in museums in Minneapolis, Kansas City, Saint Louis, Pittsburgh, and Toledo. Maurer says the final shape of the exhibition has come a long way from the original proposal to put together a collection of American paintings.

EVAN MAURER: We had a very long discussion. Took place in Kansas City. For about four hours, we talked about the fact that American paintings exhibition that only showed paintings from our collection wouldn't show the fullness of American art and the American art tradition.

[NATIVE AMERICAN FLUTE MUSIC]

TOM FUDGE: The primary issue in that discussion between museum directors was the inclusion of American Indian art. Henry Adams, the former curator of American art at Kansas City's Nelson-Atkins museum, says Maurer argued the exhibition should include Indian artists. Adams says, once the museums agreed to that, the exhibition was suddenly open to much more than paintings.

HENRY ADAMS: Many of the most beautiful pieces of American Indian art are objects. They're vases. They're costumes. They're shields. They're things of that type. And then it seemed evident that we really should include decorative arts also.

TOM FUDGE: Made in America follows a chronological path. Works of colonial and federal America feature Thomas Sully's portrait of George Washington and silver by Paul Revere. A section of the exhibition called Democratic Vistas shows how the American landscape inspired 19th century painters and photographers. Art objects include a Tiffany platter commemorating the completion of the Stone Arch Bridge in Minneapolis. A group of businessmen presented it as a gift to railroad magnate James J. Hill.

American Indian art in the exhibition is not restricted to ancient relics. Minneapolis Institute curator, Louise Lincoln, says the 19th century was a tremendously fruitful period for Indian art, as artists created jewelry and other pieces for barter with whites. Common threads connecting a decorative Plains Indian shield and a landscape painting by Thomas Cole can be hard to find. Adams says that's typical of the American clash of cultures.

HENRY ADAMS: When I was in graduate school, it was common to talk about what's American and American art, and people would try to define that. And then anything that didn't fit in that definition, they would say, was un-American. I think that this show is an attempt to represent diversity more fully.

TOM FUDGE: Minneapolis Institute of Arts director, Evan Maurer, points out, the exhibition is limited to the collections of the five contributing museums, which he says learned quite a bit from creating the exhibition.

EVAN MAURER: All of the museums, all of the five museums, said to themselves, well, gee, what does this mean in terms of what we don't have in our collections? And we've actually all gone out and tried to work specifically to broaden our representation of American art from this exercise.

TOM FUDGE: Made in America-- 10 Centuries of American Art opens at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts on Sunday. The Minneapolis exhibition will be the first of the show's five appearances around the country. For the FM news station, this is Tom Fudge.

[COUNTRY MUSIC]

BETH FRIEND: Australian-born journalist Geraldine Brooks has covered wars and insurrections for six years in the Middle East. Then suddenly, on a posting in Cairo, she turned her attention away from the headline events to what she found to be the more enduring drama, the daily life of Muslim women.

In much of the Arab world, women are secluded, mutilated, and denied civil rights, all in the name of Islam. Brooks set out to hear from the women themselves about their status and their beliefs, and to find out if their repression was actually supported by Islamic scripture.

Her travels ranged from Saudi Arabia, where women are flogged for not wearing the veil, to Iran, where she discovered that the ayatollah's widow had dyed her covered hair a bright red for years so as to ignite her husband's passion. She spoke to Hamas supporters in Gaza, to housewives, secretaries and activists. And in Egypt, she spoke to belly dancers, whose art form is under attack from Islamic fundamentalists. But before all this, there were her own rude awakenings.

GERALDINE BROOKS: The first thing you notice are the things that affect you personally. And I found myself arrested for trying to check into a hotel by myself because in Saudi eyes, there's no reason for a woman to be traveling alone unless she's a prostitute. So I found myself in a police station in the middle of the night, having to try and convince a young police lieutenant that I had a bona fide reason for needing to spend a night in a hotel.

BETH FRIEND: Did you convince him?

GERALDINE BROOKS: Yeah. I got back there sometime in the early hours with my permission signed and stamped to spend about three hours in a room. And then they put me on a completely empty floor with an armed guard.

So there's these things. But for the women who live there all the time, it's much more serious because it's total deprivation of rights. They literally cannot leave their home without the permission of the man that's in charge of them, whether that's their father, or their husband, or their son. You have ludicrous situations where grandmothers have to ask their grandson's permission to do things if there's no closer male relative. It's degrading. It's dehumanizing.

Women aren't supposed to have jobs in the government. They can be flogged for appearing out of doors without the officially sanctioned total veil that, in fact, turns young women into the equivalent of invalids because you can't see well. You can't breathe properly. You stumble. And you can't drive, of course. And there's really no redress because you have no voice in the society. Even the very marginal political voice that men might have in Saudi Arabia is denied to you.

BETH FRIEND: And who did you meet in Saudi Arabia then? Who did you want to talk to find out about women's perspective on?

GERALDINE BROOKS: I spent a lot of time with women there because-- Saudi men talk a lot about these restrictions being born out of respect for women. But in fact, it's the antithesis. And I've never been harassed and hassled so much as in Saudi Arabia.

I spent a lot of time with women, some of them very brave. One of them actually working as a reporter, breaking the law every day by going to work in an unsegregated workplace and really trying to report within the tight constraints of censorship that were imposed. She had to be completely veiled when she was outside and in the office. She had to be very careful of her behavior with the men in the office because it's so easy for it to be misconstrued. She had a driver to take her to and fro because she wasn't able to drive herself.

And many other women, I didn't-- obviously, I met the best of women. The ones that would meet me are the most oppressed, would never be allowed to speak with a Westerner, even a woman, because it would be considered contaminating.

But the thing that outrages you about Saudi Arabia is that the laws and restrictions that are being imposed on women are said to be coming from Islam, but they're not there in the texts. They're not there in the Quran. They're not there in the life of Muhammad. And so it's all stuff that's been layered down on top of it.

BETH FRIEND: This is not what one finds in the Quran or in original teachings of the prophet?

GERALDINE BROOKS: Not at all. In fact, when you look at Islam as it arrived in seventh century Arabia, you find a very liberating message. You find one of the first revelations that Muslims believe God sent to the prophet was that you must stop exposing your infant daughters to die.

There's huge appreciation for women's social and political role. Muhammad's own wives went into battle. They worked. They contributed to the economy. His first wife was a very rich businesswoman whose wealth underwrote basically the foundation of the religion.

BETH FRIEND: So what happened as Islam developed?

GERALDINE BROOKS: What happened was, as it moved out of Arabia, every time that the faith encountered an anti-woman custom, somehow it didn't prove resilient. And it--

BETH FRIEND: Customs such as?

GERALDINE BROOKS: When Islam moved into Egypt, for example, genital mutilation of females had been practiced there for years. Islam didn't stamp it out. Instead, Islam in Egypt became bound up with, you must do this to your daughters. And then as the faith moved into Persia and Assyria, where upper class women had always been veiled and secluded, these customs also made their way back into Arabia when it moved into societies, where women had no political voice, its own lively tradition of women's participation with it.

And there's only one opposite example that I was able to find, when Islam moved into India and encountered the custom of women widows burning themselves to death on their husbands funeral pyres. The Muslim governors found that custom abhorrent, and they wouldn't allow it in their territory. And my question is, why didn't the faith stand up more often to anti-women customs, particularly something like genital mutilation, which is really the antithesis of Islam's really celebration of sexuality within the confines of Islamic rules, which is basically within marriage?

But it was Muhammad's son in law, Ali, who preached that almighty God created sexual desire in 10 parts, then gave 9 parts to women and 1 to men. And there's this appreciation of women's right to sexual pleasure, that this is a thing given by God.

One of the lovely traditions of Islamic marriage, which often happens between people who haven't-- who don't know each other, are an inspired way to vault the hurdle of a stranger's first touch. The groom is supposed to wash his bride's feet. That's supposed to be the first time he touches her. It's very tender, and it's very romantic.

And yet, often, the reality of the wedding night in Islamic countries is this horrible brutality, where husbands actually taking a dagger to open the infibulated genitals of his wife. So where did this go so wrong? And why aren't more Islamic scholars speaking out against this abuse of the message of the faith?

BETH FRIEND: For fear?

GERALDINE BROOKS: I don't think it's fear. I think that it's a kind of misogyny, I think, the same way that Christianity's message got perverted, in my opinion, by Saint Paul with a very anti-women overlay, with a stress on Eve as the temptress and women as the weaker vessel. I think that patriarchal societies are misogynistic, and Islam has been afflicted with this, just as we in the West have been.

BETH FRIEND: I'd like for you to talk a little bit about your time in Cairo, in Egypt, because I thought there was a very interesting segment of the book with regards to women artists and what's happening to the tradition of women as performers and dancers as they have to protect themselves against this encroaching fundamentalism that really seeks to take them off the stage and out of public light, take away their art.

GERALDINE BROOKS: That's right. The years I was in Cairo, we started to see the beginnings of women artists, either actresses, or dancers, or singers, renouncing their talents and their careers and veiling themselves, and some of them even buying up the old prints of their films because they didn't want to, as they said, be seen in this un-Islamic way anymore.

BETH FRIEND: Whose money helped them do that?

GERALDINE BROOKS: Saudi money was behind a lot of it. At least, that was certainly what people in Cairo, in the film studios, told me. And that was a paradox because the dancers particularly are mostly patronized by Saudi tourists who come and want to see these entertainers and enjoy the freedoms.

When I went to Cairo and saw some of the wonderful women dancers there, I learned that oriental dance, what we know is belly dancing. But often, what we see is a kind of a corrupted form of the dance. It's all to do with the most womanly parts of a woman's body. It's all to do with hips and abdomen. And all the movements are centered in that part of the body. It's not about fluttering extremities.

And it's a very artful elaboration of Arabic music. You understand the music through watching the dancer. And I just felt very strongly that this is something really worth defending.

BETH FRIEND: So what did you do? You have to share this with our listeners, what you did.

GERALDINE BROOKS: Well, first of all--

BETH FRIEND: This is a reporter taking things into her own hand.

GERALDINE BROOKS: First of all, I studied oriental dance. I learned with a very great dancer. And eventually, I decided that as an act of solidarity with the women dancers of Cairo who are coming under such threats and pressure from the Islamists, that I would do a performance, even though the government had stopped licensing new dancers. So I did. I performed on stage in Cairo.

BETH FRIEND: Where? Explain where.

GERALDINE BROOKS: Well, I went to see a musician friend and asked him where would be a suitable place for my modest talents. And he said, well, you can't go to the big hotels or the clubs on the Pyramids Road because they range from first rate to fifth rate. What you need is something really 10th rate. So I ended up at the New Arizona nightclub, which cost $0.90 admission. And the dancing was indifferent, and that's about where I belonged.

BETH FRIEND: But your audience appreciated it?

GERALDINE BROOKS: They certainly did. I got an ovation and an encore.

BETH FRIEND: And some money sent your way?

GERALDINE BROOKS: That's right. 10 Egyptian pounds, a tip from one of the Saudi [CHUCKLES] customers.

BETH FRIEND: Was that your last public dancing?

GERALDINE BROOKS: Yes. Well, I have done it occasionally when I might have abused too many un-Islamic substances.

BETH FRIEND: [LAUGHS]

GERALDINE BROOKS: [CHUCKLES]

BETH FRIEND: But did you feel a sense of satisfaction from your act of defiance?

GERALDINE BROOKS: I did. And when I came out of that club, it was early hours of the morning. And there were Egyptians in the cafes still sipping coffee, and laughing, and having a good time. And I felt convinced that the dancers will be back in Cairo, that this kind of dour extremist idea of the religion, I don't think it can take hold there for very long.

BETH FRIEND: Geraldine Brooks, author of Nine Parts of Desire, The Hidden World of Islamic Women.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

This being the month in which many of us get fixated on romance, we thought we'd offer a practical how to attract it kind of suggestion.

LAURA CHERKOWSKI: Hi. My name is Laura Cherkowski, and I go to Webster Magnet. And I'm in third grade. And I'm here to tell you about the love chain.

BETH FRIEND: Now, that's love chain. It's a letter that begins, "Once touched by another, must keep this a love test." It goes on to explain that upon receipt of the letter, you have to send it at once to seven of your girlfriends and then, says Laura Cherkowski, wait five days.

LAURA CHERKOWSKI: On the fifth day, you drink a glass of water. A glass of water, OK? So then you say a boy's name, like Justin, Nicki-- I mean, Kevin. And then he'll ask you out or he'll say he loves you.

BETH FRIEND: How do you know it works?

LAURA CHERKOWSKI: My guess is that it leads a path. There's one side and another. And there's a path where my boyfriend is supposed to come through. So that leads a way for me to come in, and we like each other.

BETH FRIEND: Which would you rather have, somebody asking you out or someone saying that they love you?

LAURA CHERKOWSKI: Asking me out.

BETH FRIEND: Why is that?

LAURA CHERKOWSKI: Because, I mean, I don't want someone to say that they love me because they could just be faking it, like, I love you, because there's a different kind of love. There's a love that you love someone, and there's a love like a heart love.

BETH FRIEND: What's the difference?

LAURA CHERKOWSKI: Well, a heart love is your heart because your heart is full of love. And love is love like, I love you, like a kissy love thing.

BETH FRIEND: [CHUCKLES] You mean your heart isn't involved in love all the time?

LAURA CHERKOWSKI: Well, individually.

BETH FRIEND: Well, what do you look for in a boy? What makes you like a boy? What qualities do you look for?

LAURA CHERKOWSKI: A guy that is nice, sensible. He can be smart, or he can be dumb.

BETH FRIEND: When this boy asks you out on a date, will your mom let you go?

LAURA CHERKOWSKI: Mm-hmm.

BETH FRIEND: And where would you go on a date? What would you want to do? What would be your ideal date?

LAURA CHERKOWSKI: Well, we'd go bike-riding to maybe a movie. We lock our bikes up wherever it's supposed to lock our bikes up, and we might even see the movie, Dumb and Dumber. I like that movie. I really want to see that. We might do that. Or we could just go to the park or go to a hockey game. And that's probably about it.

BETH FRIEND: Laura Cherkowski, third grader at Webster Magnet in Saint Paul, and her mother Sue Winking.

[NINA SIMONE, "MY BABY JUST CARES FOR ME"]

(SINGING) My baby don't care for shows

My baby don't care for clothes

My baby just cares for me

My baby don't care for

Cars and races

My baby don't care for

High-tone places

Liz Taylor is not his style

And even Lana Turner's smile

Is something he can't see

My baby don't care

Who knows if

My baby just cares for me

And that's First Friday for the month of February. Thanks for being with us. And by all means, tell us what you think of the program. Your comments, your criticisms, your suggestions are all welcome at 290-1191. Please do it. Call 290-1191. First Friday is produced by Kitty Eisele, with assistance today from Mike McCall-Pengra. Our technical director is Randy Johnson. I'm Beth Friend, and I hope you have a great weekend.

(SINGING) Baby, my baby don't care for shows

And he don't even care for clothes

My baby just cares for me

My baby don't care for

Cars and races

Baby don't care for

He don't care for high-tone places

Liz Taylor is not his style

And even Lana Turner's smile

Is something he can't see

Is something he can't see

I wonder what's wrong with baby

My baby just cares for

He just says his prayers for

My baby just cares for me