Adventures in the Realimaginary....

It's been an age since I posted anything....sorry!

I gave an illustrated lecture — via Zoom — on Nov. 12 as part of a program organized by the Galicia Jewish Museum in Krakow.

Lonstar and me, at the Berlin country music messe

In it I looked back over my experience in Poland, dating back to 1980, when I was a correspondent for UPI covering Solidarnosc and martial law (including when I was jailed and expelled from the country because of my coverage) and discussed how throughout my career I’ve observed how people create lived experience via dreams and desires: whether it was Solidarnosc activists aiming for civil society, or emerging Jews and Jewish communities claiming, reclaiming — or creating — identities, or fans of the American frontier finding identity in country music and home-grown swinging door saloons. 

There was a lot more I would have wanted to say in response to questions in the very brief discussion afterward, but that can be for another time.

There's a lot about the Imaginary Wild West in Poland -- with a focus on the four-decade career of my friend, the pioneering Polish country singer Michael Lonstar, whom I've written about in the past on this blog.

You can view my lecture here -- or on YouTube. It starts with Solidarnosc, then segues into the "virtually Jewish" and on to the Imaginary Wild West.