Reed Gratz

Overview presentation for ULV Town Meeting, 2/20/02

Goede morgen. Ik hoop dat alles voor iedereen in dit nieuwe jaar helemaal goed en gezond is. Mischien kunnen jullie iets over mijn ervaringen in nederland vragen, maar ik denk dat het veel beter is als ik in het engels praat. Als ik de nederlandse taal gebruik, vinden jullie het erg moelijk om mij te begrijpen. Mischien vinden jullie het ook een beetje eng om mij te zo horen. Mijn taal is niet zo geweldig, omdat ik in nederland een buitenlander, of vreemdeling ben. Ik klink een beetje kroepoek maar ik kan wel met de andere buitenlanders, uit bijvoorbeeld turkij, afrika, enzovoort, heel duidelijk communicieren. In Amsterdam (waar mijn echtenoote is opgegroied) zijn vele mensen uit deze landen woonachtig.

When I first visited the Netherlands, ten years ago, my first encounter with this foreboding language, outside ja and nee /a couple of words I figured I could handle, was in a cafe with some friends, where I overheard the question,Mag ik nog een Grolsch, graag? Trying to appear somewhat sophisticated in my world experience, I asked what that might mean. Imagine the dismay I felt when I was told by the friend, I asked for another beer.

Gradually over the next few years, aided by a two year straight stint (93-95) playing music in Holland nearly every night in blues bars, jazz clubs, Brazilian cafes, with an Israeli band for bar mitzvahs and weddings, an Indonesian dance group, touring with a group of top Dutch actors with a Cole Porter musical, and a fusion funk band led by the Russian version of James Brown, I began to make a little sense of this difficult language that recently topped two European polls for the most challenging language - outdistancing Mandarin and Wolof, for a foreigner to learn. Just when I think I have made some good headway, or have a successful in depth conversation with someone, and begin to feel confident and brilliant, I will confront something or someone else /an interview on television, something on the radio, or my mother in law asking a simple question, that leaves me stumbling foolishly. It is humbling, humiliating, and discouraging at times, but exciting and continually intriguing / living, working, learning in another culture. By the way, I did teach this fall semester in English.

Many of you have met my wife Judith. The two of us have been going back and forth to the Netherlands since we were married nine years ago. A quick calculation of those past years puts me in Amsterdam over four years of the past 9. One would, at first glance, assume that there are many similarities between the Netherlandsı and American culture. I assure you that that view is completely in error. Judith and I have found that the only thing in common is that people in both countries drive on the right side of the road - and they do that very differently. Lights turn on differently, doors open the opposite direction, the stairs are at a different angle and width, the geography, climate, history, religion and its level of importance, music, food and the way one eats it, clothing and the manner in which it is worn, toilets and use and control of water, and certainly the level of openness, directness in relationship, and in culture, differ to an enormous extent.

Netherlandse culture is a mature one. Many of the major issues we currently deal with in America were dealt with by the Netherlanders generations ago. I continually feel that we live here in a cultural state of hormonal puberty when I compare it to Dutch perspective on art and artists in society, sexuality - individual and cultural, basic human behavior, religion and its place in everyday life, and certainly, education.

With that said, I was thrilled when I was notified by the Fulbright commission that I had been selected as the - and this is a gurgling mouthful/Walt Whitman Distinguished Chair of American Culture Studies at Leiden University for this past fall semester. It was slightly embarrassing because frankly, about all I could remember of old Walt from my college days was his beard and his use of the word undulating. Leiden is the oldest university in the Netherlands, and the university of the royal family, dating back to 1574. There were two Fulbright professors chosen to teach in the Netherlands this past fall/the other, a professor of literature from the University of Maryland; and then a third for the spring semester. I had proposed to teach a course in Jazz history and one in American music - two courses I began teaching here at La Verne a number of decades ago, and two courses with which I continually expand and enjoy. I was thrilled not only at being chosen, but probably more so that I was providing an opportunity for Judith to be in Holland. Sheıs usually comfortable in America for about a month, then is ready to go home.

We went to Amsterdam toward the end of June /as some of you know, we have a home there, a very nice houseboat in the old west center of the city, less than 10 minutes by bicycle from the Anne Frank house. Because we have two young men living there currently - and actually paying rent, we had decided to spend the next 6 months in an apartment in the old south - close to the Amstel river. One of the highlights from the summer was nearly a week spent in New York City, choosing the Universityıs new concert piano, then visiting high school friends of mine / whose apartment sits on the Jersey shore offering a never to be forgotten view of the very soon to be changed city skyline.

My schedule for the fall was to teach both classes/ 2 one hour sessions each/ on Wednesday /18 to 22 students. My first day of class was September 12th. The evening before was spent, like many of us, trying, nervously, to contact friends and family in New York, first unsuccessfully by phone, then finally, by e mail. I think all of us were challenged to find something meaningful for students and ourselves in those first few classes following that fateful Tuesday. My choice was to present some of the sacred music of Duke Ellington - who I consider to be Americaıs most important musician - and our most successful artist at touching people of every color, creed, and sensibility. His music was maybe too good a choice. By the following week I had over 45 students in each class changing my fall from an easygoing, relaxed sabbatical semester to a deluge of e mailed assignments, encouraging comments, the most in depth student work I have seen in 25 years of teaching, a continual view of students taking responsibility for their own education, writing - in what for all but a couple of those students was in their second or third language - at a level of insight and style that bolstered my faith in young people and their ability to communicate, and a raising of my expectations in the classroom to a level I have not felt in many, many years.

Our Amsterdam apartment is located in a predominantly Muslim neighborhood. The schools are Islamic, many of the shops are owned by Dutch muslims from Egypt, Morocco, Turkey, and a variety of other countries. I had met a number of our neighbors during the summer - the older Tunisian from across the street, living there for 30 years; his friend from Turkey; the young Egyptians downstairs - one of whom brought us grilled lamb and vegetables straight from his barbecue the weekend following September 11, and the other, the newspaper carrier in the neighborhood, who stuffed our mailbox with any leftover newspapers at the end of his route /from 3 to 7 different papers a day! so that we could keep up with the news; a gracious and much appreciated gift in a country where the newspaper costs the locals the equivalent of $2.50 each! The people were lovely to live near, in such a middle of a city atmosphere - quiet, polite, and I think, more than a little tense, unknowing and suspicious of the future, in a foreign land. Judith and I, taking the war saying, You never know... to heart, spoke only Netherlands in the street. It was strange to be so far from family and American friends during such a time, but because much of our family and many friends are also there; Amsterdam was a comforting place, nevertheless, to be.

First reactions in the Netherlands, following the 11th, were very supportive /empathy, understanding. We received phone calls from every Dutch person I know. The front yard of the US consulate in Amsterdam was covered with the typical Dutch expression of beautiful flowers - of all colors and varieties. During the next couple of months, however, that empathy turned to confusion, bewilderment, and aggressive words concerning Americaıs intentions, particularly among the Netherlands academia. It was an interesting reaction that kept the conversation active, sometimes purposefully and obviously withheld and guarded by some, sometimes blatant and accusingly challenging from others.

I was confronted by students who knew more American history/from a musical point of view /although only one was a musician, more American literature, theater, philosophy, and political history than I have ever experienced at this university or Claremont McKenna College, where I have been a visiting professor of music in the history department for the past four years. While the large majority of my students were, of course, Netherlands, eight were sent to Leiden University by the Chinese government in order to complete masters degrees in English or American literature. They are on the English faculties of various Chinese universities and were brilliant, personable, and a delight with whom to share and learn.

Besides the students, highlights for me during these six months include: using bicycles and an occasional train for all of our transportation, reinforcing my commitment to avoid burning gasoline in a car for at least two months every year; attending a number of performances by the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orkest and Netherlands National Ballet (two of the best groups in the world at what they do), enjoying a culture where art is considered something normal and essential to a successful society and the enrichment of human life, being surrounded by Arabic and Surinaman dance music from apartment stereos on an ongoing basis, and eating the food that goes with it, enjoying extensive time with my Dutch niece who spent nearly every weekend with us, and Judithıs 94 year old grandmother, both of whom are continually loving and patient with my strange accent in their language, and living in a city I have come to love/ one I consider to be the most beautiful, frustrating, and continually exciting in the world.

A few things that have stuck in my mind since returning to California. I hope that we as a faculty might sometime look at the importance of establishing an American studies program here at La Verne. I believe that without an in depth knowledge of our own culture, history from many perspectives, and ourselves as a young society, we face a frustrating and ignorant future connected to our sometimes uninformed and superficially educated past. This was accented during this past January term when I discovered that not ONE of my 58 students in Music 100 had ever heard of Leonard Bernstein. Maybe I should relish in the fact that I got to introduce them to him. Iım a little disappointed in a couple of things I had hoped from a distance that we had learned as a society this autumn, but from the number of gaudy Christmas lights burning night after night at 2:oo in the morning, dodging new monster Expeditions [or is it Exhibitions?] and Navigators, the continued violence we inflict upon one another, the blatant censorship of what we call television news, and our dried up Blood Banks, that some of the things we might have learned in the weeks following September 11th, seems, from my humble perspective, to have been nearly as quickly forgotten.

I want to sincerely thank Professor Kathleen Lamkin for dealing with the administrative havoc I left behind this past fall, Dr. Scott Farthing for launching his formidable skills upon ULV without my sermonizing, ULV sound engineer Bob Mathieson and board of trustee member Bev Ruple who lovingly cared for our house, Profs. Colby, Lamkin, Flaten, and Gingrich for their eloquent stretching of the truth in their letters of support for my Fulbright application, and particularly to Mr. Steven Biondo of the Music Department, who performed duties I hardly understand, setting up music web pages, listening lists and various other inexplicable technical wonders that gave the artistic illusion of me being much more brilliant than I could ever hope to be.

I offer my experience to any faculty or students who would like to pursue a Fulbright grant. I would be pleased to assist you with your application in anyway possible and encourage you wholeheartedly to consider these annually awarded opportunities that will honor you and the University of La Verne with an experience you will never forget.

Thank you. I wish you all a successful semester /and want invite to you to attend ULV Music Department concerts this spring. I assure you that they will lift your spirit and add a bit of beauty to your lives.