tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26190019.post3306621702117236909..comments2023-10-28T07:43:49.966-07:00Comments on Thumb Jig: American Anarchist: The life of Mary FrohmanRich_Of_Spirithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01948386342600634949noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26190019.post-6694880141711065592008-09-24T12:01:00.000-07:002008-09-24T12:01:00.000-07:00You have a good recollection but you are off on so...You have a good recollection but you are off on some things. <BR/>Where do I begin...<BR/><BR/>Chicago <BR/><BR/> Mary was a medic at the 68 Convention Demonstration and it was a national gaurdsman who was waving the gun. She thought there was no proof of her being at the 68 convention. But she was wrong. In 1988 Time magazine did a 20 year retrospective on the demonstration, and there she was in a photo spread. This is also the demonstration where she ruined her knee for life. There is a very effective way to take out a riot cop without a weapon, but you sacrifice your knee. She did it and got her man, and lived with the results for the next 37 years.<BR/><BR/> You said Mary went to work for the National HQ of the IWW. That is an understatement. She was the General Secretary of the IWW at one point of her career. She burned out on the IWW and her marriage with Leslie at the same time and needed to recharge so she came back to Ann Arbor. <BR/><BR/> Leslie Fish, aka the Ex-Wife. In the divorce, Mary lost her love of Music and the rights to the lyrics she co-wrote and wrote by herself for the band. While Mary kept her skills up, Phil Ochs and Paul Simon resuscitated her love of music. Phil Ochs and the Guthrie’s were her inspirations, but Paul gave her music meaning again. Mary referred to Paul Simon as the “The Six Fingered Space Alien” Mary said no human could play the chords he (Paul Simon) wrote, he had to be a six fingered space alien. She credited Paul Simon’s dissection of the roots of rock and roll as the key to her revival. If you look at the albums that Paul did in the early 80s this is what he did. The most famous album in the series was Graceland. And as Paul stripped Rock and Roll down to it’s roots, this musical journey helped turn Mary’s guitar lessons from a way to pay the bills, back to a sharing of her love. When her love came back she was then able to address the music she wrote for the Dehorn Crew. It was interesting hearing the music Leslie played in the tempo it was intended to be played in. (Leslie speeds up the tempo to much.)<BR/><BR/><BR/>Ann Arbor<BR/><BR/>As Mary got here vitality back she changed her focus from small group tactics to one-on-one training. She helped to mold many 16+ teens that had lost their guidance. And Mary believed you could tell a lot about a person by the way they played cards. One of her favorite games was Klabbiash. House rules was that you could say anything you wanted to about or throw anything smaller then a toaster at your opponent.<BR/><BR/> One of the things she delighted in sharing, when the statute of limitations was up, was how she and her friends were responsible for many of the UFO sightings while she was in school at the University of Michigan. They would break into the weather balloon storage at the U of M, paint the balloons metallic silver and launch them in the middle of the night. Then they would laugh at the rubes in the newspaper the following day.<BR/><BR/>Later in life, she was the leader of a band of musicians called the Un-indicted Co-conspirators. They would get together and have some great jam sessions. Besides the Novel you mentioned she wrote two retrospective papers no musicians who were key to her love of Music. One paper was on Phil Ochs and one on paper was on Paul Simon. These papers focused on their music and thier contributions to the world of music. She also revived her writing of slash novellas. One of her favorite targets was Starsky and Hutch. All of her manuscripts went to mother after her sudden demise. So alas we fear they will never see the light of day.<BR/><BR/> While she liked sci-fi/fantasy literature she stopped going to conventions cause every time she went, someone died at them. 3 people died at Detroit conventions in the last 3 years and she was at each one. Two authors she liked were Fritz Leiber and Marion Zimmer Bradley. One of the things I remember vividly was the group readings of Tolkien’s Hobbit and Marion Z Bradley’s Mist of Avalon. There would be a reading of a few hundred pages with everyone reading 5-10 pages and then a group discussion about the reading. Mary had a love for history and loved to share her views on history.<BR/> <BR/><BR/> Her guitar lessons, card playing and meals for the “Mongolian Hordes” were times of education in subtle ways. She motivated the people who were around here to think and not be sheep. On this subject we agreed, that if you go far enough to the left and far enough to the right, you find yourself allied against the ignorant lemmings that make up the masses. She did not care so much that you took her position, but that you took your position because of reasoned thinking. She felt that if your logic was wrong, she could win you to her point of view but you had to be able to use your brain. Now the seeds she has sown are stretched around the globe and to this day the are still bearing fruit.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26190019.post-76035090351160678162008-09-24T06:33:00.000-07:002008-09-24T06:33:00.000-07:00Thanks for this fascinating history of her life!Thanks for this fascinating history of her life!Gary McGathhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12880087933512343984noreply@blogger.com