Frederic Rzewski

EL PUEBLO UNIDO JAMAS SERA VENCIDO! The people

united will never be defeated.
(Record of a Chilean revolutionary folk song,
which is the theme of the 36 variations..... See
preceding two pages.)
You never heard that?
No. When was it recorded? In Chile?
No, it was done in Italy, this album. There are
several Chilean groups in Europe. This is one of
them, the INTI-ILLIMANI. They live in Rome.
They left Chile

before or after?

They were both touring in Europe during when the

coup took place. One is INTI-ILLIMANI. And the
other was called QUILAPAYN. They've just
produced a new album too, this one here.
So they stay in Italy now?
best place for them.

I think that's the

Currently yes. Well, that's where the Chilean

government in exile is located, a lot of the
Unidad Popular. There was a recent assassination
attempt about three weeks ago in Rome,
apparently organized by the Chilean Secret
Police.
So you've just come from Rome I heard. How did
you find the whole scene there?
In Italy? Well, there are a number of younger
people I know who are active. Basically the
Italian musical scene is rather conservative.
The institutional concert structure is quite
conservative and always has been, and probably
will continue to be for quite some time. The
most that what's happening right now in Italy as
far as I can see is in the area of folk music
and jazz.
I mean folk music has always been very big in
Italy, because it's always been connected with
the political left. And now of course there's a
very broad based massive cultural campaign
underway in Italy, which is mainly being
stimulated by the Communist Party, which is part
of its electoral strategy, which is to win over
as many of the petty bourgeoise people as
possible through the use of culture.
telephone ringing
Hello. Hello, Steve. How are you? I heard you
were in town. Okay, I was surprised to find out
that you were here. I didn't get to Venice, but
I was in Rome of course.
....... Well, I'll be here for the whole month
of November.
And then I'm gonna try to get over to Italy
again in December at some point. I'm going to
be like flying back and forth I think..... Do
you know something about this artists' travel
bureau that MARK AMMERTON is mixed up with?.....
Are you interested in doing COMING TOGETHER at
some time? Because we have this group, THE
MUSICIANS' ACTION CLUB. And we're supposed to
be doing an ATTICA benefit concert, on the 22nd
possibly. We have a meeting of MAC
tomorrow..... Listen, I have somebody here who's
come from Germany who wants to talk to me. So I

can't stay on the phone.

Bye bye.

A good friend of mine from the LIVING THEATER.

Are you still doing

music with them?

Well, I worked with them a long time while they

were working on their new play. And then they
moved to Pittsburgh. And even though I did a lot
of work for preparation for what they were
doing, working for them is a situation where you
really ah have to be with them all the time.
Because when they do something, they do it
collectively, and it takes a lot of time. And so
we just decided that
there was really no possibility, I mean I
couldn't.
They changed too in a similar way that you
changed.
I remember we were just talking
about the MEV group, that it was very
anarchistic, that you've from what I've seen
from your scores changed to a more constructive
and concrete kind of music. Which motivations
did you have for this change from anarchism to
let's say concrete music which is definitely
orientated?
Yeah, well I would call it realism basically.
Do you remember how
your writing?

this change came about in

Well, I suppose it came on many different

levels, both a personal level and on a social
level. I think that probably if one is going to
talk about styles and things like that, then
it's best not to talk about individual, personal
styles, but rather in terms of larger movements.
Especially in the case of a problem like this,
you have to see it from a social and political
viewpoint rather than from a personal and
aesthetic one. So what has been happening really
both in Europe and the United States since 1968
has been this gradual process of maturing,
especially those groups of people who acquired
their political consciousness through the
student movement for instance, which is what is
in this country loosely described as the "new
left", which has by the way a different meaning
in the United States than it does in England.
It's not really a good term of use.
Anyway, getting back to your question, the.
LIVING THEATER has very rigidly adhered to an
anarchist viewpoint. They're still very much
pushing the anarchist-pacifist line, although
they have moved in a certain direction toward
accommodation to what you might call Marxist
currents. They have attempted to find some way
of integrating their whole world view of the
other groups. But they're still very much with
the anarchism.
Actually this going to a realistic kind of music
writing, I know one song you wrote, the
APOLITICAL INTELLECTUALS'.
Where do you know THAT from?
From MICHAEL BYRON's anthology, PIECES. So does
realistic writing mean for you personally to
support a text to its most powerful
understanding?
Well, let me see. That's a rather difficult
question. First of all, let's say that realism
in music doesn't necessarily require text.

That's one of the first questions that always

comes up in discussions of this kind. People
always say, "Well, how can music be political if
it has no text?" And if it requires a text, why
is the music political in that case? Well, the
answer is of course that it doesn't require a
text. It DOES however require some kind of
consciousness of the active relationship between
music and the rest of the world. And the use of
the text is one method of accomplishing that.
But it's not by any means the only one.
Yeah, there are of course inner musical
decisions you have to make too, to make the
music generally more experiencable for a
broader public.
What would you say is required
for a kind of realistic writing then?
That would certainly be one condition for
realism in music. A conscious employment of
techniques which are designed to establish
communication, rather than to alienate an
audience. That does not necessarily mean that
one must be confined to familiar languages. It
doesn't necessarily mean an exclusion of what's
called avant-garde style, by any means.
Is it then necessary to get close to another
established style which is acknowledged as a
language by the broader public?
Or, do you
think it is possible to go beyond
writing in styles but feeling what's really
basic in music?
Well, let's put it this way.
I think that if
one were to forbid oneself to use familiar
stylos in one's music, then one would be
imposing a very serious limitation on one's
ability to communicate.
And so that if one is
seriously interested in communication, then I
suppose statistically speaking that a rigorous,
say formalistic, style such as the style of the
serial composers and so on would be at a
serious disadvantage.
But on the other side, especially in America,
there is music called "popular".
And through
the repetition of the media it becomes popular.
And so you hardly can distinguish what is basic
and what is popular.
I know.
This is a very serious problem.
And it's a very tricky problem, too.
And it's
very important to become clear on it.
It's
after all a war that we're fighting. And if you
put yourself in the position of someone who's
fighting a war or helping to fight
a war, then
you have to be very careful that you're going
to win.
And so we mustn't make foolish
mistakes.
Ya, but I think you should be careful not to
deny yourself. Because I see that as a danger in
having just a political goal in mind, but
forgetting that the music you actually use is
established as popular by people that try to
make commercial music.
Yeah, I know.
No, we have to find a way of
not using that. The important thing is not to
speak about people in general, but rather pose
the question of who the audience is in
particular, what people.
Who is your audience.
This is the main thing you have to become clear
about.
See, for a whole generation of music,
the generation that I grew up in, we were taught
that the most advanced music was abstract,
serial formalistic music, which had a kind of
universal validity, and that the audience was
not important. It was not important to the music

what kind of people listened to

it.

No I think the new question that we're coming

up with, that composers are beginning to ask
themselves, is precisely the first question,
WHO is the audience, who am I trying to speak
to, and what am I trying to say.
Who am I
working for, really.
Am I working for the
bourgeois public?
Am I working for ROCKEFELLER
or the Arts Council or the banks or the
students.
Or am I working for, trying to work
for an entirely different group of people, you
see.
And when you pose a question in those terms,
then you stop thinking about music as something
universal, in the sense of like BEETHOVEN'S
NINTH SYMPHONY is supposed to be "universal".
It's supposed to say something to everybody.
Well, if you're working in a political
direction, you give up that idea.
You don't
want to talk to everybody.
You don't want to
talk to the capitalists and the bourgeoisie.
That's what I mean.
If you wrote the song
APOLITICAL INTELLECTUALS, you wrote for a
certain kind of people.. And possibly exactly
the people you wrote it for listened to it.
The people of the KITCHEN.
Did you perform it
there?
No, I haven't done it there.
But I've done it
in a number of different places.
For apolitical intellectuals?
Well, we'll see.
I'm doing the concert at the
end of the month there.
I don't know WHO the
audience will be.
I talked to CHRISTIAN WOLFF two weeks ago.
And
he said that to be "apolitical" for Americans
means protest.
I

know what he was talking about, sure.

Isn't it very hard here in America to have so

many people that still believe in like if they
get independent of what the government is doing
to believe that they can do it for themselves,
to build up something new?
Yes, I think it is very hard, at least among
the sort of broad masses of the small
bourgeoisie which constitute such a large
element of this country.
And yet on the other
hand, precisely this class of people is
extremely crucial, because the future of the
world politics may in many ways depend on which
direction this class of people decides to take
in the next ten years or so.
It may go in a
progressively left direction, which is a strong
possibility.
But it may also go in a right
direction, which would be an extremely serious
development.
You don't see any way besides these
categorizations of left and right?
In this country?
No, personally I
think that
the country is going to be more and more
polarized toward the left and right.
Just like
almost every other industrialized country for
that matter.
I don't think the United States
is an exception.
But I wouldn't be overly
optimistic about any very major changes taking
place here.
I think that whatever is happening
here is bound to be a very progressive kind of
happening.

You see I came here like four weeks ago without

any fixed conceptions about Americans. I was
just really curious about them. The U.S.A. seems
to me famous because of its failures somehow,
not only because of its failures, but because
of the enlightenments happening during the
crucial points. Isn't this like a growing toward
the right understanding through failures?
Well, I would HOPE so. Whether that's actually
true is a big question. I mean, that would be a
very optimistic way of regarding America. I
think one should be very careful here about
being too optimistic about the ability of the
American people to take control over the
present chaos in the country. I think the
proper attitude here must be rather one of
constructive pessimism. Working for change but
at the same time being very realistic about the
enormous problems. And one of the major problems
here as you must have observed traveling through
the country as you have, if you've been reading
the newspapers in any of the large cities,
you'll see that the newspapers contain almost
NO information.
And if you watch the
television in America, you'll agree that the
television is a form of keeping the people in a
state of ignorance.
And as soon as people stand up against it, they
get wiped out.
Because the power of the police
is so strong that the people fear trying it.
Like you wrote this COMING TOGETHER piece for
Attica.
And Attica is a classical example for
what happens.
Yes it is.
That's why it's a very important
milestone in American history.
As you know,
the issue is still very much alive.
The
inmates who were indited at that time have still
not come to trial.
And it looks now as though
many of these inmates may be pardoned by the
government, because the government is not able
to carry on these trials without revealing
itself as the guilty party.
So I think Attica
is still very much a live issue.
I'm sorry
that in Europe people don't know about it that
much.
I've traveled around in Europe.
And
Europeans do not seem to be terribly informed
about this...although Europeans tend to be more
informed about American conditions than the
Americans themselves.
We have to.
Of course.
Well, also your media of
information are much better.
Ya, okay.
But we still don't feel very good
having all this this American commercialism in
our countries.
Of course. Seventy percent of your industry is
owned by the United States. But here it could
possibly change if the gap between what the
government is doing and what the people are
actually trying to do gets so huge that just
the government has to adapt.
Well, I certainly hope so. But again, I think
you're very optimistic.
Like in the Attica piece you wrote, IT'S COMING
TOGETHER. You had a voice which stated.....
The voice was the guy who just called me on the
phone, STEVE BEN ISRAEL. He's a long-time actor
with the LIVING THEATER.

Why did you write the

ATTICA piece?

I felt at the time when the event took place

that this was an autrocity that demanded of
every responsible person that had any power to
cry out, that he cry out. And as it happened, I
discovered a text which was published shortly
thereafter in RAMPARTS Magazine which seemed to
fulfill the conditions. Yet the text itself
cried out for some further elaboration. It was
simply a piece that had to be written. It was
necessary at the time. I don't know how
effective it was. Looking back on it I can see
that it was, it already belongs to a stage of
work that I no longer would do anything like
that. It's not really a very clear political
statement except in its sort of extramusical
connections with the historical event.
So but in the pieces that followed you just try
and deepen the connection of music and what you
wanted to say.
Yes, I think that I've learned some more
about.....
What did you write after that?
Well, I did a long Cantata called STRUGGLE,
which was based on a text by FREDERIC DOUGLAS,
one of the great black leaders of the nineteenth
century, which was about how there can be no
progress without struggle and this process of
liberation may require the sacrifice of life and
so on and so forth.
I also did a number of songs and some
instrumental music some smaller instrumental
music. And just now I've finished working on a
lot of piano music. So I've just finished a long
series of variations for piano on the theme that
I've just played for you, the PUEBLO UNIDO. This
piece is going to be done in February at the
Kennedy Center. It was written for another
pianist friend of mine, URSULA OPPENS. But I
think that's, you see, one way of relating your
work to the struggles ah that are going on.
Ya, I just remembered this one sentence from
your article. "Musicians and artists must listen
to the sound of struggle if they are to
contribute anything in the way of harmony."
Yeah, I think that this is very important. And
the new thing about this development in music is
again not confined to a few individuals, not
just CORNELIUS CARDEW and CHRISTIAN WOLFF and a
few other people. But it's by this time you can
see that it's a part of a general cultural
movement which is going on all over the world.
The important thing about this is it's not just
an aesthetic phenomenon.
I heard you're doing benefit concerts
UNITED FARMWORKERS and so on.

for the

Yes, we have a group of musicians here in New

York called the MUSICIANS ACTIVE COLLECTIVE. And
this is a group of about forty New York
musicians who are ah, perhaps not revolutionary
musicians, but they are musicians who are eager
to find a political connection between their
work and what's going on in the world. It's a
very broad kind of group there, people from all
kinds of different directions who are working in
it. One of the things we're trying to do is
we're trying to create a kind of solid base of
very high quality professional musicians who are
eager to change things. And one of the ways that

we do this is to put on benefit concerts in

support of various causes that we want to
support.
The first one that we did was in support of the
CHILE SOLIDARITY COMMITTEE, which was a part of
the demonstrations on Chile which took place
here. It was of course extremely important here,
because every little demonstration ..... We
don't have huge demonstrations here like you
have in Europe.....But even if you can get three
or four hundred people together in a hall for a
concert in support of the CHILEAN PEOPLES'
STRUGGLE, this is extremely important in this
country, even if it's a small thing. Because
there's almost nothing else that's going on
here. The second one we did was in support of
the UNITED FARM WORKERS. And now we're doing one
this month in support of the ATTICA DEFENSE
COMMITTEE. This last, this final project that we
have now with the Musicians' Action Collective
is to create an Oratorio which tells the story
of May Day, which is of course something that
most Americans don't know anything about. They
don't realize that it started in Chicago in
1886. The first May Day celebration was a
demonstration to commemorate the martyrs of
Haymarket who were executed as part of the
struggle for the eight-hour working day. But now
in America nobody knows about May Day any more.
It just disappeared, even though it's a holiday
that's celebrated all over the world..
This is particularly important this year,
because this is the year of the 200th
anniversary of the American Revolution. So of
course there's a lot of cultural crap going on",
a lot of shit which is being handed down by the
ROCKEFELLERS and the FORDS and what have you.
And although people like us are very few of us
in culture who are trying to do something
opposed to this, our existence I think is rather
important.
So this kind of attitude is reflected in our
concerts. And one of the effects that it has is
to combine the kinds of music of many different
directions, so that a concert of the collective
consists not only of new music but also of jazz,
Puerto Rican music, and so on and so forth.
What do you think about your personal writing
now in forming the necessary evocative power in
order to awaken people to an understanding? What
musical techniques do you use to achieve this?
Well, there are all kinds of different musical
techniques which you can employ for different
kinds of situations. Personally, I don't think
that I've ever developed what you might call a
"style". At least I can't see any style in my
music. Every music that I do seems to be very
different than the thing that came before; So
there's always a new technique available for
every specific situation. It depends on your
audience again, on who you're writing for and
playing for.
I think perhaps that one development that one
must be conscious of is the fact that you cannot
rely on any one historical tradition anymore. If
your background is classical European for
instance, as most of us composers have come out
of this tradition, we have to become aware of
the fact that the future of our music does not
lie merely in a continuation of the classical
European mode of thinking, that we have to
become aware of the cultural influences which
have become very strong, which come from other
parts of the world, such as Africa, and Latin

America, and Asia.

We have to begin to think in terms of a "world
music", kind of global music.
And I don't
mean by that in the way STOCKHAUSEN talked about
a "global" music as a sort of a kind of
imperialist concept, but rather a music which
integrates, tries to harmonize with some of the
most revolutionary developments which have come
out of the third world, such as of course in
North America the whole idea of jazz
improvisation.
But if you take South American music.
It has
it's evocative power just from the folkloristic
background it comes from.
And it speaks to
people from this geographical area, became it's
folkloristic style which developed through
generations there.
It's different.
It's different from the basic
South American music.
Of course there are lots
of different kinds of South American music.
For instance this song that I just played you,
the INTI-ILLIMANI song, is known by everybody
in Italy.
EVERYBODY knows this song.
It's
become an Italian song practically.
Ya, because it's a revolutionary which fits
into the political situation.
Precisely.
But not only for that reason.
Also for musical reasons.
One of the
peculiarities about that song is that it's not
folklore song.
It's not just a folk song. It's
a very subtle kind of mixture of different
cultural influences.
But it gives at least the recognition for some
people that it's THEIR music. These are the
people that the musicians want to talk to in
this moment. So what I mean is, if it's possible
and necessary to find out what the local
necessity is for you living here in New York.
And your personal background of being a pianist
and all this technology of playing new music
available for yourself. And from this personal
background and from this locality trying to find
out what could be revolutionary.
Yeah, that's an interesting problem.
And it's
very important.
Of course a place like New
York is a very peculiar place.
There's no
other place like it on earth.
It's not even
like the rest of the United States.
It's a
very unique place.
Probably culturally I mean
the thing that distinguishes New York from every
other place is the vast quantity of different
kinds of information that reach you here every
day.
When you walk the streets, I mean, you
are confronted by cultural influences from the
entire planet practically.
So, if one lives
here and listens to the sounds, it's almost
inevitable that you develop a kind of a global
consciousness.
Although I'm not even sure that
that's true, what I'm saying.
I mean it's also
true here that people live very much in boxes.
There seem to be a lot of Puerto Ricans living
around here.
Not Puerto Ricans so much as Dominican Republic,
Cuba, Haiti, the Caribbeans.
The Taxi driver himself was one of these.
You
know, he had this music on.
They have special
radio stations for their music. They don't want
to be mixed up so much with the downtown
culture.
And do you see that this situation

could influence the kind of music here?

Oh, it definitely does.
I mean, unless one is
completely deaf, of course many of our composers
are completely deaf, especially the ones who
teach in schools, but the ones that are not
deaf, obviously you can't live here without
being influenced by the cultural forces at work
here.
I mean, how can you be a composer in the
United States and not be influenced by jazz for
instance?
Jazz is perhaps the most powerful
music that this country has produced, even
though it's not regarded as such by the official
culture.
It's certainly the only kind of music
that's universally respected in the rest of the
world as a genuinely American music which is
worthy of recognition.
But as a music which gets much more and more
response in the rest of the world because of the
condition of the...
Yes, it's become an international

platform.

But I ask again if it's because of its genuine

power or because of the mechanism of media.
I think it's because one of the basic ideas of
jazz is the combination of the African rhythm
based conception with the melodic conception
which partly comes from say Scottish ballads of
the highlands, which were a part of the American
folk tradition.
And also the very important
contribution that was made by say Russian and
eastern European countries who came to this
country after the First World War, who wrote
many of the popular songs on which jazz
compositions then were based.
So that the idea
of a combination of many different cultures,
popular cultures, is really at the heart of
jazz, even though the main vanguard of jazz has
always been the black people. So in that sense
you can say that it's black music.
The fact is
that the black people of America are not the
black people of Africa.
They are a people who
have been in intimate contact with other
cultures on this continent for many generations.
And this is what gives to jazz its international
character.
It's also the simplicity of jazz, in so far
that it's easy to communicate certain kinds of
agreements.
Well of course.
I think most good jazz is
entirely based on communication, yes.
And this fact makes it open to communicate with
other people.
That's what makes it so
necessary to tune into it.
But then again I
ask if it's really necessary.
Is it necessary
for instance that people like from Germany,
where I come from..... You can say Hawaii if
you want.....But is it really necessary to tune
in on jazz?
Well, of course it's not necessary for me to say
what is necessary for Germany.
You have to
find the answer to that.
I have my own
OPINIONS about the German musical situation.
Well, we can certainly talk about that too.
But what I mean is, we're just talking now about
the world-wide availability of this music.
Is
it necessary?
The more I talk to people, the
more I'm coming to the point where I see the
necessity now to again find out more about the
music where you yourself geographically come
from. And here we can learn from the Third
World.
They can be proud of their music.
They wouldn't give up their music for any price.

You know?
But now countries under strong
United States influence did.
It might sound
ridiculous. But in this sense I feel pretty
close to people from Hawaii.
So I'm coming
more and more to the conclusion that we
shouldn't forget the music we come from.
I think if you did something like that, you
would probably find that this music that you're
talking about is not dead at all. It may not be
on the radio in Germany, and there may not be
many records of it, but I bet you'd find it if
you went to Bavaria, especially to small
villages and so on. I bet you would find a lot
of music there.
I really ask myself why so many German
musicians, if they want to be like spontaneous
acting and communicating musicians, why they get
addicted to jazz music.
To jazz or to rock music?
To kind of a melange of both.
It's obvious why. Because that's what's offered
for sale. If- all you were offered for sale in
the stores is shit, you get addicted to shit.
It's very simple. But among the younger
composers in West Germany there is now for
instance in the last few years a very strong
renewed interest in the work of HANNS EISLER.
I have to say something about that too.
becoming more and more an
"Entschuldigung".....

It's

excuse.
.....excuse for thinking about music.
It's
rubbish to give up the whole experience of the
last twenty years and make tabula rasa with
defining music now.
Of course there are fanatics in this movement as
there are in any other movement.
Like CHRISTIAN WOLFF is very careful about it in
integrating the experiences of the last twenty
years into his
politically conscious writing.
He doesn't just turn 180 now because he's seen
that there was something wrong.
I think
CHRISTIAN WOLFF weighs his musical decisions
very carefully.
CHRISTIAN is an extremely careful worker.
And
his work is one of the most exciting works done
in this area.
Although it certainly is, none
of CHRISTIAN'S music is ever easy to listen to.
It always demands some kind of active
participation, both on the part of the performer
and on the part of the listener.
That is part
of its strength and it's also part of its
weakness.
Because it's part of CHRISTIAN WOLFF.
Like
CARDEW is an example for a musician
who went
through being an assistant of STOCKHAUSEN, went
through making very exciting things with his
SCRATCH Orchestra in London, and now....
I know what you are going to say.
sceptical.

You are

He made a lot of tabula rasa with his music.

Well, I would say in this connection, that
CORNELIUS is a composer who is not afraid to
make a mistake..... You're turning off the
machine?

No, no.
tape.

I just look if

there is still enough

He is not afraid to make a big mistake and fall

flat on his face, as an experiment.
He is a
real experimental composer.
And part of being
an experimenter is to create conditions where
you can make mistakes.
And he certainly made
plenty of them.
The thing is, he is not afraid
to do that.
Like for instance, when he started
first this new direction years back, making
pieces based on Chinese songs and stuff like
that.
It's not just a musical trick he is
doing.
He is really profoundly convinced by
his whole thinking along these lines.
And he
is quite a powerful mind.
In my opinion, the latest things that he has
been doing in this direction are very successful
indeed.
The first piece I think was a really
good one was the ERNST THLMANN VARIATIONS,
which he wrote a year ago.
And this year he
has written several new pieces, including by
the way versions of some of CHRISTIAN WOLFF's
music.
Maybe CHRISTIAN doesn't even know about
that.
CHRISTIAN wrote a number of songs, based
on texts like ROSA LUXEMBURG
and MAO TSE TUNG
and stuff like that, which are one line, very
angular, abstract songs, very difficult to sing.
CORNELIUS took these songs and added harmonic
components to them, arranged them so they became
extremely singable, very melodious.
I think
they are really fine.
See!
Learning from mistakes.
We can get back
to what I said about failures people go
through...
Well, what you say is partly true.
I think I
agree with you in part.
But for instance the
Viet Nam War was one of the biggest mistakes
this country has made in a long time. It's true
that probably it has resulted in some positive
developments in this society as a result of the
mistakes they have made.
However, again I
would prefer to err on the side of pessimism
than on the side of optimism.
It's still true
that most Americans care more about the price of
meat than they do about the exploitation of
Bolivian minors.
Do you think this crisis can be finished by the
people?
I certainly hope so.
We'll see.
I think
we're going though
the next ten or twenty
years in this country to have an extremely
crucial period in this country and also for the
rest of the world.
There is a very great
danger here, which is something like perhaps the
situation which you had in Germany in the early
1930's.
One must be extremely concerned about
the directions the things are going to take
here.
Because most people believe in this
country that democracy is very strong.
There
is a faith in democracy here, which is one of

the strongest things that there is in America.

This is the basic belief in democracy.
However, it's also a weakness because this faith
may not be founded on solid grounds.
You know,
people all say, "Well, fascism couldn't possibly
happen here!" That may possible be true.
It IS fascist in a certain way.
Well, not YET.
but it is the kind of silent
take note of.

fascism you don't

Well, certainly there are very strong fascist

elements in this country, but I wouldn't say
that the country is...
No, not fascistic in that it declares to be. But
it has some elements of it. like if you drive
through certain suburban areas, you feel
fantastically.....
You can get a good idea of what American Fascism
would be like.
Ya, that you don't have the slightest idea of
what's on the back side of the coin. But you
drive through it, and you have a feeling of
security.
And that is a similar feeling that
people had in Germany before the war.
The
German media of that time were "calming" the
people down, and giving them good feelings,
thinking positively.
This mechanism is working
here.
Yes, it's very strong here.
But fortunately
this is a very large country, and we have other
things, too.
The main problem is that the
other thing, whatever it is, is not organized,
it has no structure.
So it's an extremely
precarious dangerous situation.
Nobody knows.
I just heard on the phone you're returning to
Rome.
I'm trying to organize it.
At this moment it's
hard for me to think ahead more than one month.
My life is very improvisational.
My family is
European basically.
My wife is Belgian.
And
my children grew up in Italy.
So we are
straddling both sides of the Atlantic ocean
right now without being very clear about where
we are.
And do you feel responsible to stay here because
you've grown up here?
WELL, that's not the reason.
I try not to
think in terms of "either-or", EITHER the United
States OR Europe, because I've lived so long in
both places that I try to think in terms of
being in both places.
And after all, that is
possible today, even though it's not easy.
I
think it's very important.