Sunday, August 30, 2009
Arts & Extras: Salem authors help veteran tell his 'Pirates' tale
Arts & Extras column
Mike Allen, arts columnist
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After Robert Schultz published his first novel, one of his neighbors came to him and suggested he might have a good story to share.
Schultz went to Robert Hunt's house, started looking over the archive Hunt had kept of his World War II experiences -- photographs, a battle flag, a diary he kept from his time as a submariner aboard the USS Tambor -- and realized his neighbor's story needed to be told.
Yet the book, "We Were Pirates: A Torpedoman's Pacific War," didn't come together until Schultz moved from Iowa to Salem and met freelance writer James Shell. Shell became his partner, helping to transform Hunt's recollections into a book that provides a rare perspective into one of the less thoroughly explored aspects of the U.S. military campaign in the Pacific.
Schultz and Shell say their research and consultations with others confirm Hunt's astonishing war experience. The 90-year-old veteran, who still lives in Iowa, served 12 consecutive patrols on board the USS Tambor when a typical seaman would serve only four before being rotated to a different submarine.
Hunt witnessed the fires on Wake Island, where the Japanese bombed the American base just hours after attacking Pearl Harbor. He was on board the Tambor during several sea battles, and lived through a dangerous 17 hours spent submerged and resting on the ocean bottom while a destroyer ship repeatedly passed over, dropping depth charges. He was in San Francisco on V-J Day, when the Japanese surrendered, and wound up getting attacked during the infamous riots there that left 11 dead.
Because the story of the submarine campaign in the Pacific has rarely been told through the eyes of an enlisted seaman, and because Hunt's service aboard the Tambor made him a witness to many crucial developments in that campaign, "I think we've been able to add something to the historical record," Schultz said. "This is a history told from the point of view of a sort of everyman sailor."
The title of the book comes from Hunt's own explanation of the roles submarines played. Often they acted as raiders, attacking Japanese cargo ships to cut off supply lines. The men on board would create battle flags -- even though they were never flown -- that often were based on a pirate theme.
One of the details Hunt was very frank about in his account was the wild parties submariners would participate in during their two weeks leave between patrols. Each time they came onto land, "they thought they were going to have their last two weeks on terra firma," Schultz said.
Schultz had already discussed the book in depth with Hunt before he took a job as an English professor at Roanoke College in 2004. Later, Shell took a creative writing class taught by Schultz -- though Shell, who currently works as a district manager in The Roanoke Times' circulation department, was already an accomplished freelance writer with several publications under his belt.
The two men became friends, and Schultz recruited Shell to help him finish writing Hunt's story. Schultz credited Shell with much of the research that allowed them to place Hunt's story within the larger context of the war.
Hunt has told the authors, "This is my life. I've always wanted to get this out."
Naval Institute Press has scheduled "We Were Pirates" for a Sept. 8 release.
Taubman Museum announces new exhibits
Three new exhibits will open Friday at the Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke.
• In "Pae White: Lisa, Bright and Dark," the museum has assembled a career overview of the playful and lively work of Los Angeles-based artist Pae White. Her work with sculpture and cascading mobiles caused the Los Angeles Times to write that she makes art "out of almost nothing but thin air." She has described her lighthearted abstract works as "a flurry of color and gentle movement, suspended for contemplation."
White's exhibition is organized by the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, sponsored by the Peter Norton Family Foundation and the SMoCA Salon, and supported in part by a National Endowment for the Arts award.
• "Judith Schaechter: A Relentless Pursuit of Perfection" pulls together lighted stained-glass art by Philadelphia artist Judith Schaechter that draws on the centuries-old history of the medium while taking inspiration from modern sources. Her sumptuous stained-glass creations are often strikingly surreal, sometimes even grotesque, though the artist herself has said her interests are not unique. She has written, "My main interests are sex and death, with romance and violence the obvious runners-up," and that her inspiration can come from the most ordinary everyday occurrences.
• The Taubman will also host Alberto Gaitan's unique creation, "Remembrancer." In this exhibition, three machines drip red, green and blue paint onto three stretched panels in a manner similar to seismograph or brainwave recordings. The amount of paint placed at any given moment is controlled by input from gallery-installed sensors that register the presence of visitors, as well as Internet sources that track national and global data. According to an article in Sculpture magazine, the paintings are intended to make a record of the "health" of the world during the time period the machines are active.
A field of sound is also generated in response to that data. The completed work, an accumulation of overlapping color and sound, will be displayed through the exhibition's final weeks.
Schaechter will give an Art Talk at 6 p.m. Thursday in the museum's Taubman Theatre. Advance tickets $10; $5 for members. She and Gaitan will then be at a reception for museum members from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. For more information, call 342-5760 or visit www.taubmanmuseum.org.
Ballet announces 'Nutcracker' auditions
The Southwest Virginia Ballet has announced auditions for its annual performance of that time-honored Christmas classic, "The Nutcracker." The auditions, for ages 7 and older, will take place at Tanglewood Mall in Roanoke, upstairs beside J.C. Penney, from 2 to 5 p.m. Sept. 13. Dance experience is preferred but not required. For more information, e-mail artistic director Pedro Szalay at pedrogszalay@cox.net or visit www.svballet.org.
Art show in Roanoke
Four cutting-edge artists who describe themselves as members of the "Bjoranges Art Collective" will exhibit their work starting at 6 p.m. Friday at the Water Heater in Roanoke.
Called "Loose Lips and Ink Drips: new artworks from Patrick Yagow, Spencer Erickson, Hunter Dickenson, and Jess Henry," the event will also feature music performances by Tim Barry, Red Clay River, The Two Funerals, Clayton England and My Fair Oak. Admission is $6.
