"The heart stops briefly when someone dies,
a quick pain as you hear the news, & someone passes
from your outside life to inside. Slowly the heart adjusts
to its new weight, & slowly everything continues, sanely."
—Ted Berrigan from "Things to do in Providence"
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Monday, November 12, 2007
A DEATH IN THE FAMILY
My sweet brother—the one I always refer to in my writing as “my brother the priest”—who I took to the last reunion his high school class of 1943 will ever have, only weeks ago, passed away on Sunday, while I was in Maryland for a reading at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, at which so many old friends were present, among them the poets Doug Lang, Tina Darragh, and Lynne Dreyer, as well as Terence Winch, at whose home not only me, but my sons—one with his wife and son, the other my little one—all stayed with Terence and his wife and son, my heart was full, so much so that it only took an overwhelmingly humbling introduction by another poet, E. Ethelbert Miller, to bring the tears to my eyes, me, not often humbled by praise, if ever, and then tears actually fell when I read a poem about my father and Jackie Robinson, and another about my first love Bambi, both gone, while my littlest one and my grandson sat on the floor before the podium, at the feet of two nieces and their spouses, who were keeping the news from me until I was done reading and signing books and the audience had dispersed.
And then they told me to call my sister, the only one I have left, and she told me. A surprise and not a surprise. He had not been well, but not so much that I thought this would happen so soon. But he went on his time, ready to go, in his bed in the retirement home for old Franciscans, after asking the nurse to turn off the TV around dawn, a TV that wasn’t on, my nieces saying that was the angels in the room, come to take him where he longed to be, my sister saying it was our long gone parents and our siblings that have passed.
There were seven of us born to our parents, six growing up and making it to adulthood. Three left now, missing the oldest one tonight. But as my friend Terence said, quoting an old Irishman in a story he told me I half heard, but got the gist of: “Well, he’s got that tough job behind him now.”
And then they told me to call my sister, the only one I have left, and she told me. A surprise and not a surprise. He had not been well, but not so much that I thought this would happen so soon. But he went on his time, ready to go, in his bed in the retirement home for old Franciscans, after asking the nurse to turn off the TV around dawn, a TV that wasn’t on, my nieces saying that was the angels in the room, come to take him where he longed to be, my sister saying it was our long gone parents and our siblings that have passed.
There were seven of us born to our parents, six growing up and making it to adulthood. Three left now, missing the oldest one tonight. But as my friend Terence said, quoting an old Irishman in a story he told me I half heard, but got the gist of: “Well, he’s got that tough job behind him now.”
Friday, November 9, 2007
OBAMA
He’s reminding me of Adlai Stevenson, who, when I was a kid, was the Democrats nominee against Eisenhower.
I dug Stevenson, and not only because my old man was a functionary in the Essex County Democratic machine, but because I was a smart kid and Stevenson seemed like the smartest guy out there in politics to me at the time.
But he was up against a genuine hero, who was packaged smartly and a campaign to denigrate Stevenson’s intellectual image.
The Republicans, even then, were so good at that kind of stuff, it worked.
Both Stevenson and Ike were bald, but Stevenson had wisps of dark hair above his ears that gave his dome a more egg-like shape, and a less masculine image. Ike’s hair was gray, where he had any, and buzzed enough to give him the appearance of a completely shaven head, ala the genies in old Hollywood movies and cartoons, or men old enough to be your grandfather.
When you coupled that with his smile, which all the campaign photos did, he seemed not only benevolent and harmless, i.e. not scary, but also familiar and friendly and familial. That could’ve left him seeming too nice for the fear-filled early Cold War years of the 1950s, but behind the grandfatherly smile was the hero who won the Second World War, which nobody was allowed to forget, if they even could.
Meanwhile, Stevenson was talking about policy and liberal ideals and often complicated and deeply intellectual considerations to be made in such troubled times. But there was no image created to convey what made him familiar or friendly or familial.
It was in the interest of working people to vote for him, because he represented more their interests, as Democratic candidates almost always do, but a lot of those working people were veterans or families of veterans who often revered Ike as the man who defeated Hitler and ended the war. Maybe they thought he could do the same in the Korean conflict, which wasn’t going so well.
If Stevenson’s professorial air didn’t put those people off, the Republican campaign to depict him as an aloof, out-of-touch-with-the-common-man “egghead” did. Is it a coincidence that the term “ivory tower intellectual” became one of the major epithets in public discourse at the time, or the more common term “egghead” that even kids in my Catholic grammar school would use as a perjorative against anyone smarter than them?
One of the hit songs of that time was Frankie Lyman and The Teenagers singing “I’m Not a Know it All” (“don’t know why the trees are tall, don’t know why there’s morning dew, I only know that I love you…”) and Jo Stafford’s pop hit “Come down, come down, from your ivory tower.” I forget what the title of that tune was, but the lyrics made it clear that ivory tower intellectuals were unfeeling.
Stevenson was obviously a compassionate and highly intelligent man. But what the Republicans projected onto him, the public bought to a large extent, as they did the same for Ike. In fact, Ike was known for his incredible temper, while Stevenson was known for his gracious and often bemused tact and diplomacy, as well as kindness.
But if Obama were to somehow miraculously overcome Hilary’s momentum and end up the nominee in a race against Guilliani, it might look a lot like the Stevenson-Esienhower contest.
Rudy would be cast as the 9/11 hero, with the friendly smile and honestly masculine bald dome (despite his cross dressing tendencies and equally renowned temper, etc.) who is tough enough to defeat our enemies but warm and friendly enough to beam a toothy smile at the camera and wear a dress as a bravely funny party gesture.
Obama would be cast as the aloof professor, out of touch with the realities of the common man, which oddly enough could work among both black and white voters, since many whites could interpret that projection through their latent or blatant racism without having to feel like they were letting race determine the issue, and many blacks could do it through a filter of class and racial background gradation (and how “black” or “white” your African-American characteristics are).
In an odd way, a similar thing is already happening in the contest between Barak and Hilary, where she is cast as the more macho one, in terms of supporting the military and extreme defensive measures for national security etc., as well as seen as one of the heroes of the Clinton era who kept the forces of whatever evils plagued us then at bay, helping to preside over one of the longest periods of peace and prosperity, as well as government surpluses, in our history.
I don’t think there’s any way now to reverse those images, as they are becoming more and more set with each debate and the subsequent media frenzy to capitalize on any and all perceived differences in their stances and images.
If it does, as they are now predicting, come down to Rudy vs. Hilary, then Hilary will be cast as the aloof, unfeeling, out of touch with the realities of the common person’s life intellectual, and Rudy as the smiling tough guy, the hero with a heart and the common touch.
Either way, the Democrats are going to have to do a much better job at what the Republicans have been doing well since Ike, i.e. creating the terms and images on which the contest will be determined.
I dug Stevenson, and not only because my old man was a functionary in the Essex County Democratic machine, but because I was a smart kid and Stevenson seemed like the smartest guy out there in politics to me at the time.
But he was up against a genuine hero, who was packaged smartly and a campaign to denigrate Stevenson’s intellectual image.
The Republicans, even then, were so good at that kind of stuff, it worked.
Both Stevenson and Ike were bald, but Stevenson had wisps of dark hair above his ears that gave his dome a more egg-like shape, and a less masculine image. Ike’s hair was gray, where he had any, and buzzed enough to give him the appearance of a completely shaven head, ala the genies in old Hollywood movies and cartoons, or men old enough to be your grandfather.
When you coupled that with his smile, which all the campaign photos did, he seemed not only benevolent and harmless, i.e. not scary, but also familiar and friendly and familial. That could’ve left him seeming too nice for the fear-filled early Cold War years of the 1950s, but behind the grandfatherly smile was the hero who won the Second World War, which nobody was allowed to forget, if they even could.
Meanwhile, Stevenson was talking about policy and liberal ideals and often complicated and deeply intellectual considerations to be made in such troubled times. But there was no image created to convey what made him familiar or friendly or familial.
It was in the interest of working people to vote for him, because he represented more their interests, as Democratic candidates almost always do, but a lot of those working people were veterans or families of veterans who often revered Ike as the man who defeated Hitler and ended the war. Maybe they thought he could do the same in the Korean conflict, which wasn’t going so well.
If Stevenson’s professorial air didn’t put those people off, the Republican campaign to depict him as an aloof, out-of-touch-with-the-common-man “egghead” did. Is it a coincidence that the term “ivory tower intellectual” became one of the major epithets in public discourse at the time, or the more common term “egghead” that even kids in my Catholic grammar school would use as a perjorative against anyone smarter than them?
One of the hit songs of that time was Frankie Lyman and The Teenagers singing “I’m Not a Know it All” (“don’t know why the trees are tall, don’t know why there’s morning dew, I only know that I love you…”) and Jo Stafford’s pop hit “Come down, come down, from your ivory tower.” I forget what the title of that tune was, but the lyrics made it clear that ivory tower intellectuals were unfeeling.
Stevenson was obviously a compassionate and highly intelligent man. But what the Republicans projected onto him, the public bought to a large extent, as they did the same for Ike. In fact, Ike was known for his incredible temper, while Stevenson was known for his gracious and often bemused tact and diplomacy, as well as kindness.
But if Obama were to somehow miraculously overcome Hilary’s momentum and end up the nominee in a race against Guilliani, it might look a lot like the Stevenson-Esienhower contest.
Rudy would be cast as the 9/11 hero, with the friendly smile and honestly masculine bald dome (despite his cross dressing tendencies and equally renowned temper, etc.) who is tough enough to defeat our enemies but warm and friendly enough to beam a toothy smile at the camera and wear a dress as a bravely funny party gesture.
Obama would be cast as the aloof professor, out of touch with the realities of the common man, which oddly enough could work among both black and white voters, since many whites could interpret that projection through their latent or blatant racism without having to feel like they were letting race determine the issue, and many blacks could do it through a filter of class and racial background gradation (and how “black” or “white” your African-American characteristics are).
In an odd way, a similar thing is already happening in the contest between Barak and Hilary, where she is cast as the more macho one, in terms of supporting the military and extreme defensive measures for national security etc., as well as seen as one of the heroes of the Clinton era who kept the forces of whatever evils plagued us then at bay, helping to preside over one of the longest periods of peace and prosperity, as well as government surpluses, in our history.
I don’t think there’s any way now to reverse those images, as they are becoming more and more set with each debate and the subsequent media frenzy to capitalize on any and all perceived differences in their stances and images.
If it does, as they are now predicting, come down to Rudy vs. Hilary, then Hilary will be cast as the aloof, unfeeling, out of touch with the realities of the common person’s life intellectual, and Rudy as the smiling tough guy, the hero with a heart and the common touch.
Either way, the Democrats are going to have to do a much better job at what the Republicans have been doing well since Ike, i.e. creating the terms and images on which the contest will be determined.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
TV LIST
I don’t watch TV shows much, mostly just news, documentaries, or movies. But when I woke up in the middle of the night with some shoulder pain friends tell me sounds like “rotary cuff” stuff, to get back to sleep I decided to make up an alphabet list of some favorite TV shows from over the years (many you’ve probably never heard of or don’t remember because you’re too young, so take my word for it).
ALLEN FREED’S ROCK’N’ROLL PARTY (changed to THE
BIG BEAT when others sued over who invented the term “rock’n’roll” but the man who had more to do with popularizing the music, especially the black creators of it—check out Bo Diddley, Little Richard and Chuck Berry all crediting him in a scene in the documentary Keith Richards did on Berry, HAIL, HAIL, ROCK’N’ROLL—and though it only lasted about a year (1957?) Freed featured a lot of great acts and made a point to have front and center the sexiest girls, but it was the “payola” scandal that brought him down, though he was one of the fairest d.j.s then in terms of introducing new groups of any race so it always seemed to me it was more because us newly minted teenage juvenile delinquents watching the show couldn’t figure out if he was part black or not, and hated white bread Dick Clark and his white bread AMERICAN BANDSTAND)
BIG LOVE
CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM (one of those shows that makes me uncomfortable when the characters on it do embarrassing things, so I don’t watch it that often, but when I do I’m impressed that it often addresses sticky issues of race and gender and class and other elemental realities rarely brought up on TV shows)
DEADWOOD (yeah, I’ve been on a few of the shows on this list, but that’s not why I like them, since I’ve been on tons more I would never put on a “favorites” list)
ED SULLIVAN SHOW, THE (not always great but always interesting and sometimes historic, e.g. The Beatles first appearance)
FRANK SINATRA SHOW, THE (this show had two different runs, one in the early 1950s and one in the late ‘50s. The first one didn’t last long, it aired during Sinatra’s troubled times when his star had faded and he was seen more as a has been and joke than the icon he became or the teen idol he’d been, but still, as a kid I watched it every week to hear the man sing, and not only because he was a Jersey boy who gave me hope that I too could transcend my origins without forgetting them, but because I dug his musicianship and that of the guests he had on. The later one everybody loves now, because film clips from it show how spectacular the performances were on that one after he made his comeback and was well on track to becoming the most famous singer, and swinger, the world has ever known)
GEORGE BURNS AND GRACIE ALLEN SHOW, THE (I wasn’t entirely crazy about the show, but was about Gracie Allen, who was the funniest comic on TV for my taste as a kid)
HONEYMOONERS, THE
I LOVE LUCY
JACKIE GLEASON SHOW, THE (“The Honeymooners” was originally a sketch on this variety show that showcased Gleason’s enormous talents, no pun intended) and JOHNNY STACCATO (late 1950s pseudo-crime show with John Cassavettes as a hipster who solves or resolves sticky situations, probably only lasted one season, but I can still picture scenes from it in my mind, it had that kind of impact, because it was the coolest show I ever saw on TV outside of documentaries on jazz greats)
K?
LEONARD BERNSTEIN (I’m not sure what his show was called, but it came from Carnegie Hall and he’d use the New York Philharmonic to sample pieces of classical music as he explained, in a very erudite way, even though meant for kids, what the composer was trying to accomplish and how the instruments were used, etc. I would sit and watch it in black and white, fascinated, after working all afternoon in my old man’s home maintenance business, while my mother yelled for me to come to the kitchen table for dinner and I couldn’t turn it off)
MARY HARTMAN, MARY HARTMAN (may be my all time favorite TV show)
NORTHERN EXPOSURE and NYPD BLUE
OUR MISS BROOKS (I loved Eve Arden’s brand of sarcasm, one of the few comic actors whose use of a writer’s irony didn’t turn me off)
PEE WEE’S PLAYHOUSE (from 1980s downtown punk scene to TV!)
QUIZ KIDS
ROOTIE KAZOOTIE (when every other redblooded “American” kid was watching Howdy Doody back in the early 1950s, those of us with a little more edge to our taste, were digging Rootie, with his sideways baseball cap, sort of early wooden Flavor Flave)
SOPRANOS, THE (I thought this show was more flawed than many fans and critics did, but I never doubted its impact and importance, and some of the incredible performances) and THE SMOTHERS BROTHERS COMEDY HOUR
THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH STEVE ALLEN (a man I always admired, though some jaded hipsters seemed unimpressed with his piano playing behind Kerouac’s famous appearance reading from ON THE ROAD, Allen was actually a solid piano player and great songwriter, as well as a very funny and intelligent guy who defined late night hip TV before anyone else, he invented it, and when was the last time any other late night TV show had a poet or novelist read for several minutes to the audience on their show live!?)
UNTOUCHABLES, THE (I didn’t really love this show, but the few times I caught it I got that Robert Stack’s weird stiffness and seeming disdain for what he was doing leant it this surreal quality that made it seem kind of German expressionist, if anyone can see what I mean)
VAUGHN MONROE SHOW, THE (bet nobody remembers that one, but he was big in my house as a kid, my older teenage sisters dug him, a 1940s style crooner with big ears, and I dug him too, or at least his voice)
WAGON TRAIN (hey, a Western show with Ward Bond on TV, good enough for me)
XAVIER CUGAT SHOW (another show from the ‘50s that was silly on the surface, but the Latin music wasn’t bad, and the women knew how to keep a viewer engaged, either Carmen Miranda with her comic version of the Latin hottie, or the less talented but much foxier young wife of Cugat who could just stand there and get my attention)
YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS (Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca were the funniest comedy team ever)
ZANE GREY THEATER (what can I say, I always loved Westerns)
ALLEN FREED’S ROCK’N’ROLL PARTY (changed to THE
BIG BEAT when others sued over who invented the term “rock’n’roll” but the man who had more to do with popularizing the music, especially the black creators of it—check out Bo Diddley, Little Richard and Chuck Berry all crediting him in a scene in the documentary Keith Richards did on Berry, HAIL, HAIL, ROCK’N’ROLL—and though it only lasted about a year (1957?) Freed featured a lot of great acts and made a point to have front and center the sexiest girls, but it was the “payola” scandal that brought him down, though he was one of the fairest d.j.s then in terms of introducing new groups of any race so it always seemed to me it was more because us newly minted teenage juvenile delinquents watching the show couldn’t figure out if he was part black or not, and hated white bread Dick Clark and his white bread AMERICAN BANDSTAND)
BIG LOVE
CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM (one of those shows that makes me uncomfortable when the characters on it do embarrassing things, so I don’t watch it that often, but when I do I’m impressed that it often addresses sticky issues of race and gender and class and other elemental realities rarely brought up on TV shows)
DEADWOOD (yeah, I’ve been on a few of the shows on this list, but that’s not why I like them, since I’ve been on tons more I would never put on a “favorites” list)
ED SULLIVAN SHOW, THE (not always great but always interesting and sometimes historic, e.g. The Beatles first appearance)
FRANK SINATRA SHOW, THE (this show had two different runs, one in the early 1950s and one in the late ‘50s. The first one didn’t last long, it aired during Sinatra’s troubled times when his star had faded and he was seen more as a has been and joke than the icon he became or the teen idol he’d been, but still, as a kid I watched it every week to hear the man sing, and not only because he was a Jersey boy who gave me hope that I too could transcend my origins without forgetting them, but because I dug his musicianship and that of the guests he had on. The later one everybody loves now, because film clips from it show how spectacular the performances were on that one after he made his comeback and was well on track to becoming the most famous singer, and swinger, the world has ever known)
GEORGE BURNS AND GRACIE ALLEN SHOW, THE (I wasn’t entirely crazy about the show, but was about Gracie Allen, who was the funniest comic on TV for my taste as a kid)
HONEYMOONERS, THE
I LOVE LUCY
JACKIE GLEASON SHOW, THE (“The Honeymooners” was originally a sketch on this variety show that showcased Gleason’s enormous talents, no pun intended) and JOHNNY STACCATO (late 1950s pseudo-crime show with John Cassavettes as a hipster who solves or resolves sticky situations, probably only lasted one season, but I can still picture scenes from it in my mind, it had that kind of impact, because it was the coolest show I ever saw on TV outside of documentaries on jazz greats)
K?
LEONARD BERNSTEIN (I’m not sure what his show was called, but it came from Carnegie Hall and he’d use the New York Philharmonic to sample pieces of classical music as he explained, in a very erudite way, even though meant for kids, what the composer was trying to accomplish and how the instruments were used, etc. I would sit and watch it in black and white, fascinated, after working all afternoon in my old man’s home maintenance business, while my mother yelled for me to come to the kitchen table for dinner and I couldn’t turn it off)
MARY HARTMAN, MARY HARTMAN (may be my all time favorite TV show)
NORTHERN EXPOSURE and NYPD BLUE
OUR MISS BROOKS (I loved Eve Arden’s brand of sarcasm, one of the few comic actors whose use of a writer’s irony didn’t turn me off)
PEE WEE’S PLAYHOUSE (from 1980s downtown punk scene to TV!)
QUIZ KIDS
ROOTIE KAZOOTIE (when every other redblooded “American” kid was watching Howdy Doody back in the early 1950s, those of us with a little more edge to our taste, were digging Rootie, with his sideways baseball cap, sort of early wooden Flavor Flave)
SOPRANOS, THE (I thought this show was more flawed than many fans and critics did, but I never doubted its impact and importance, and some of the incredible performances) and THE SMOTHERS BROTHERS COMEDY HOUR
THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH STEVE ALLEN (a man I always admired, though some jaded hipsters seemed unimpressed with his piano playing behind Kerouac’s famous appearance reading from ON THE ROAD, Allen was actually a solid piano player and great songwriter, as well as a very funny and intelligent guy who defined late night hip TV before anyone else, he invented it, and when was the last time any other late night TV show had a poet or novelist read for several minutes to the audience on their show live!?)
UNTOUCHABLES, THE (I didn’t really love this show, but the few times I caught it I got that Robert Stack’s weird stiffness and seeming disdain for what he was doing leant it this surreal quality that made it seem kind of German expressionist, if anyone can see what I mean)
VAUGHN MONROE SHOW, THE (bet nobody remembers that one, but he was big in my house as a kid, my older teenage sisters dug him, a 1940s style crooner with big ears, and I dug him too, or at least his voice)
WAGON TRAIN (hey, a Western show with Ward Bond on TV, good enough for me)
XAVIER CUGAT SHOW (another show from the ‘50s that was silly on the surface, but the Latin music wasn’t bad, and the women knew how to keep a viewer engaged, either Carmen Miranda with her comic version of the Latin hottie, or the less talented but much foxier young wife of Cugat who could just stand there and get my attention)
YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS (Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca were the funniest comedy team ever)
ZANE GREY THEATER (what can I say, I always loved Westerns)
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
MICHAEL KORDA, SUSAN CHEEVER AND JENNIFER EGAN
I was fortunate enough to read with all of the above last night up in Harrison, New York—two stops after Larchmont on the New Haven line—in a series called SPOKEN INTERLUDES created and run by DeLaune Michel.
Usually I’m asked to read my poetry, but this series is for writers of prose, so when asked what I’d be reading from, rather than naming some prose piece in my two books from Black Sparrow press (IT’S NOT NOSTALGIA and IT TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE), I decided to read from a memoir I’m working on, thinking that might force me to get more work done on it than otherwise.
It turned out to be a unique experience for me, which is saying a lot, since I’ve read at and attended thousands and thousands of readings all over the world since the 1950s (!). But I never encountered this format.
People paid thirty dollars for a very good dinner in a back room of a very nice restaurant (Trinity Grill & Bar) that they enjoyed from 6 to 7:30. Then Delaune stepped up onto a riser with a lectern and microphone to introduce the first reader, with no fanfare, just the name, in this case Susan Cheever.
What she did, as we were all asked to do, was make a few remarks about her latest book, AMERICAN BLOOMSBURY, then read a few pages from it, and then take a few questions.
It’s a great format, almost like watching an author at work. She talked about her interest in “genius clusters”—like “the Founding Fathers” or the “Bloomsbury group” or in the case of her book “the Concord group” which she pointed out, in response to questions from the audience, had more authors than Bloomsbury, and was the result of basically one man’s efforts, Ralph Waldo Emerson, because he provided the living quarters and in some cases the financial support for people like Thoreau and Hawthorne to do their work.
The audience was mostly middle aged and older, fifty or sixty people, almost all “white” if I noticed accurately, attentive, with smart questions that inspired terrific responses.
It worked so well for me, I couldn’t wait to read the book. And then it was my turn. Since the only recent book I had for sale there (through the local Borders, which had a table at the event) was MARCH 18, 2003, a long poem, and I was reading prose from an unpublished, unfinished, unedited manuscript, the format actually made me more at ease than I normally would be in taking such a risk.
I meant it to be risky, to make me think about what I was writing, and to be ready to test it and maybe fail at capturing and keeping the attention of such an aware crowd. But because I could explain a lot of that and then read a little and then answer questions regarding what I had read, delving even deeper into where I mean to go with this book (or books), it made me more alert and responsive to the audience even than I usually am.
It felt great, except I walked off the stage too quickly when I was finished, pulling out the lapel mic used for the recordings that will eventually be found on the web site for SPOKEN INTERLUDES.
Next was Jennifer Egan, a strikingly attractive woman. I’m not good at guessing ages, especially of women, but she was definitely the youngest in this crowd of writers.
She read from THE KEEP, a kind of updated gothic style novel, and surprised me by having her characters use the kind of foul language some (okay a lot) of my writing has often been noted for, but I was sure not to use with this crowd. But she looked beautiful reading it, so no one took offense I’m sure, if anyone even still does at that kind of thing.
She made a very interesting point in the Q&A, when asked about a remark she’d made in introducing her reading of a few pages from her novel, about how these times connect to the gothic period. She made it clear she had no theory she was pushing or she wouldn’t have written a novel, but that it occurred to her on a visit to a castle in Belgium, that particularly impacted her (she’d often visited castles elsewhere before that) that the way people walk around with “their blackberries, waiting for it” to communicate some message from the ether, so to speak (not her words exactly, but the idea) is similar to the gothic mind set, waiting for, and expecting, the unseen to communicate personally and individually.
Michael Korda was the final reader, and immediately showed himself to be the star of the evening by his forceful presentation. I was the only one of the authors who ever made a living as a professional actor, but Korda was the most actorly in his presentation, using his voice like an orator of old, rolling his well built sentences off his tongue as if proclaiming lines from Shakespeare.
Just the way he used his voice, and presence at the podium, made the importance of what he was reading plain. And it worked. I was totally impressed and enlightened, with facts I had known and not know so precisely, about Eisenhower, hitting me as if I were just learning them for the first time.
And he put them together in a way that suddenly made clear the truth of his basic premise, that Ike was a lot more than most of us remember, among the few who still do. In fact, as the subtitle of his book puts it, IKE: AN AMERICAN HERO, Korda claims for his subject a place among the greatest figures in our history, making a good case for why he was our greatest general, along with Grant, and one of our most prescient presidents, warning not only against “the military-industrial complex” which he helped create in order to win WWII, but against going to war in Viet Nam (though Korda didn’t mention that it was Ike that got us involved there in the first place, or his administration, though at first only financially) and clearly and adamantly warned against any kind of military involvement in any Arab state (even though again, not mentioned by Korda, under Ike, some forceful meddling was done in, among other areas, Iran).
In answering some questions after he read, Korda, who is also an editor (and edited Cheever’s AMERICAN BLOOMSBURY, coming up with the original title of AMERICAN PARNASSUS, but the sales department shot that title down) talked about writing and editing, with élan and clarity and frankness.
He even went so far as to state unequivocally that in his mind the two greatest books in America’s history are MOBY DICK in fiction, and Grant’s PERSONAL MEMOIRS in nonfiction.
It was a totally stimulating evening that went by too quickly, with such great food, great writing, great give and take among audience and authors. I was grateful and humbled to have been a part of it, and highly recommend all the authors and their books to you.
Usually I’m asked to read my poetry, but this series is for writers of prose, so when asked what I’d be reading from, rather than naming some prose piece in my two books from Black Sparrow press (IT’S NOT NOSTALGIA and IT TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE), I decided to read from a memoir I’m working on, thinking that might force me to get more work done on it than otherwise.
It turned out to be a unique experience for me, which is saying a lot, since I’ve read at and attended thousands and thousands of readings all over the world since the 1950s (!). But I never encountered this format.
People paid thirty dollars for a very good dinner in a back room of a very nice restaurant (Trinity Grill & Bar) that they enjoyed from 6 to 7:30. Then Delaune stepped up onto a riser with a lectern and microphone to introduce the first reader, with no fanfare, just the name, in this case Susan Cheever.
What she did, as we were all asked to do, was make a few remarks about her latest book, AMERICAN BLOOMSBURY, then read a few pages from it, and then take a few questions.
It’s a great format, almost like watching an author at work. She talked about her interest in “genius clusters”—like “the Founding Fathers” or the “Bloomsbury group” or in the case of her book “the Concord group” which she pointed out, in response to questions from the audience, had more authors than Bloomsbury, and was the result of basically one man’s efforts, Ralph Waldo Emerson, because he provided the living quarters and in some cases the financial support for people like Thoreau and Hawthorne to do their work.
The audience was mostly middle aged and older, fifty or sixty people, almost all “white” if I noticed accurately, attentive, with smart questions that inspired terrific responses.
It worked so well for me, I couldn’t wait to read the book. And then it was my turn. Since the only recent book I had for sale there (through the local Borders, which had a table at the event) was MARCH 18, 2003, a long poem, and I was reading prose from an unpublished, unfinished, unedited manuscript, the format actually made me more at ease than I normally would be in taking such a risk.
I meant it to be risky, to make me think about what I was writing, and to be ready to test it and maybe fail at capturing and keeping the attention of such an aware crowd. But because I could explain a lot of that and then read a little and then answer questions regarding what I had read, delving even deeper into where I mean to go with this book (or books), it made me more alert and responsive to the audience even than I usually am.
It felt great, except I walked off the stage too quickly when I was finished, pulling out the lapel mic used for the recordings that will eventually be found on the web site for SPOKEN INTERLUDES.
Next was Jennifer Egan, a strikingly attractive woman. I’m not good at guessing ages, especially of women, but she was definitely the youngest in this crowd of writers.
She read from THE KEEP, a kind of updated gothic style novel, and surprised me by having her characters use the kind of foul language some (okay a lot) of my writing has often been noted for, but I was sure not to use with this crowd. But she looked beautiful reading it, so no one took offense I’m sure, if anyone even still does at that kind of thing.
She made a very interesting point in the Q&A, when asked about a remark she’d made in introducing her reading of a few pages from her novel, about how these times connect to the gothic period. She made it clear she had no theory she was pushing or she wouldn’t have written a novel, but that it occurred to her on a visit to a castle in Belgium, that particularly impacted her (she’d often visited castles elsewhere before that) that the way people walk around with “their blackberries, waiting for it” to communicate some message from the ether, so to speak (not her words exactly, but the idea) is similar to the gothic mind set, waiting for, and expecting, the unseen to communicate personally and individually.
Michael Korda was the final reader, and immediately showed himself to be the star of the evening by his forceful presentation. I was the only one of the authors who ever made a living as a professional actor, but Korda was the most actorly in his presentation, using his voice like an orator of old, rolling his well built sentences off his tongue as if proclaiming lines from Shakespeare.
Just the way he used his voice, and presence at the podium, made the importance of what he was reading plain. And it worked. I was totally impressed and enlightened, with facts I had known and not know so precisely, about Eisenhower, hitting me as if I were just learning them for the first time.
And he put them together in a way that suddenly made clear the truth of his basic premise, that Ike was a lot more than most of us remember, among the few who still do. In fact, as the subtitle of his book puts it, IKE: AN AMERICAN HERO, Korda claims for his subject a place among the greatest figures in our history, making a good case for why he was our greatest general, along with Grant, and one of our most prescient presidents, warning not only against “the military-industrial complex” which he helped create in order to win WWII, but against going to war in Viet Nam (though Korda didn’t mention that it was Ike that got us involved there in the first place, or his administration, though at first only financially) and clearly and adamantly warned against any kind of military involvement in any Arab state (even though again, not mentioned by Korda, under Ike, some forceful meddling was done in, among other areas, Iran).
In answering some questions after he read, Korda, who is also an editor (and edited Cheever’s AMERICAN BLOOMSBURY, coming up with the original title of AMERICAN PARNASSUS, but the sales department shot that title down) talked about writing and editing, with élan and clarity and frankness.
He even went so far as to state unequivocally that in his mind the two greatest books in America’s history are MOBY DICK in fiction, and Grant’s PERSONAL MEMOIRS in nonfiction.
It was a totally stimulating evening that went by too quickly, with such great food, great writing, great give and take among audience and authors. I was grateful and humbled to have been a part of it, and highly recommend all the authors and their books to you.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
SPREADING DEMOCRACY
Cool. The neo-cons who shaped the invasion of Iraq and the policy of “preemptive strike” and the justification of “spreading democracy” can now chalk up another score for the big “D” in Pakistan, where Musharif has declared emergency marshal law and suspended the constitution as he rounds up any opposition to his regime and blacks out independent TV.
Hmmm… Let’s see, does the world have more democracy (or “freedom” for that matter) since they started running the show or less? Can you guess?
And yet, McCain and Rudy and other Republicans (except for Rue Paul, I mean Ron, or what’s his name again?) have top neo-cons among their top advisors, so should any of them win in 2008, we can see more wars (if we don’t attack Iran before then, we certainly will if Rudy gets elected) for spreading “democracy”—and I will take bets from anyone on whether any Republican administration ends up with more democracies in the world they inherit (more or less as kingpins of the dominant power in the world, more or less) than when they took over.
We already know that score for the Bush Jr. administration. It pretty much matches their score for everything else—largest surplus in the history of the country turned into the largest deficit in the history of the country, etfuckingcetera.
Hmmm… Let’s see, does the world have more democracy (or “freedom” for that matter) since they started running the show or less? Can you guess?
And yet, McCain and Rudy and other Republicans (except for Rue Paul, I mean Ron, or what’s his name again?) have top neo-cons among their top advisors, so should any of them win in 2008, we can see more wars (if we don’t attack Iran before then, we certainly will if Rudy gets elected) for spreading “democracy”—and I will take bets from anyone on whether any Republican administration ends up with more democracies in the world they inherit (more or less as kingpins of the dominant power in the world, more or less) than when they took over.
We already know that score for the Bush Jr. administration. It pretty much matches their score for everything else—largest surplus in the history of the country turned into the largest deficit in the history of the country, etfuckingcetera.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
NOT PERFECT 2
The best sound bite to come out of the Democratic debate the other night, was Joe Biden’s comment about how Rudy G. has only one thing to say—a noun, a verb, and 9/11.
Naturally, I’d like a champion to represent me in the White House, and in the race for same, someone who will articulate and represent my own ideas and ideals, and fight to see them realized.
But there ain’t no one out there and never has been who personifies everything I believe in, just aspects of that. So, as I have grown more mature, I accept the imperfections of candidates and look to the one who I most agree with and who most looks like they can get the job done.
I think a lot of other, especially older, folks feel the same way, after seeing Nadar idealists cost Gore the electoral-college-proof victory that should have been his against what we ended up with, or Humphrey lose to Nixon and another catastrophic (for the world not just us) administration.
So the ganging up on Hillary seemed ill-advised and self-defeating. Statements like Biden’s is what those of us who would like to insure that a Republican doesn’t take the White House in 2008 would like to see more of.
Democratic debates that take accurate, succinct, and damaging aim at the Republican frontrunners would work to keep the chances of a Democrat getting into office in ’08 alive. Ganging up on the Democratic frontrunner at this stage of the game, to my mind, just supplies more ammunition (as if they needed it) to the Republicans, and diminishes the stature of all the Democratic frontrunners.
Hillary’s straddling of controversial issues or flexing of her national security bona fides to convince independents and even right-wingers that she isn’t the devil may be misguided (the hypocrisy the latter display in demonizing her is so typical of the right, turning her into the embodiment of everything they fear and despise when she is actually a lot of the things they claim to hold dear, a dedicated and practicing Christian who supports her husband no matter what and stays in one marriage and works hard to make it work etc.).
And it might not be what I want her, or any other candidate representing my interests and beliefs, to be doing, but neither is Obama’s professorial, rambling wordiness (when he appeared in my hometown recently, observers said he sounded like John Kerry, explaining way too much and with only sporadic fire or personality injected into his explanations), or Edwards’ self-righteous sounding proclamations that he’s the only one for real change, etc.
Hillary’s proven she can work with others in the Senate to get things done, even if she has partly achieved that by supporting bills I believe she should have opposed (like the recent one on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard being “terrorists”—though they well might be supporting various violent groups). And she’s certainly as smart, or smarter, than the rest of the boys. And I believe she wants a lot of the same things I want, in terms of health care, the environment, and human rights etc.
She may be a little too beholden to corporations, but on the other hand, her and Bill’s success at turning their experiences into million dollar book deals and other financial gains might make it possible for her as president to not depend on corporate sponsorship. Though if that were the case, why isn’t she more aggressive in the Senate at curtailing the ridiculous tax exemptions and legal exemptions corporations have managed to get even more of from this administration, with the support of the Congress.
The reality I’m concerned with is who can win. And if, as some Democrats and others believe, Hillary is too “polarizing” to win, than why isn’t Obama too wordy to win, or Edwards’ too self-righteous, or Kucenich (sp.?) too marginalized and eccentric to win, etc.
Every Democrat should be taking every opportunity to call out every devious illegal unethical bullying dishonest unconstitutional clandestine self-serving democracy-destroying word and deed this administration and its Senate and Congressional lackeys have carried out over the past seven years.
And if Hillary is ahead in the polls and winning more people to her, they should be happy about that, and do all they can to make it clear why they might be the better choice on the merits, not on—as she correctly pointed out to Tim Russert (how does he get to be the inquisitor of Democratic “liberals” and “progressives” when his record shows an obvious bias against them, and when he’s not even a journalist or impartial observer?!)—on the political game of “gotcha.”
She ain’t perfect, I agree. But she’s closer to what I’m looking for than any Republican running for their nomination. (I’m sure you’ve read that Rudy’s advisor, famous neo-con theorist Norman Podhoretz, is calling for immediate military action against Iran, etc. ad nauseum.)
I know a lot of my friends support Obama or Edwards over Hillary, but take a good look at how they’ve run their campaigns so far—not well. That has to say something about how they would run their administrations, in the face of the constant right-wing Republican attacks and sabotage that they will inevitably face.
The great thing about Bill, was that he could play hardball with those guys and beat them at their own game. He wasn’t perfect either, and I‘m not talking about his personal life, but he and Hillary are seasoned in the struggles against “the vast rightwing conspiracy” that is and has been a reality for many decades, and have confronted and defeated it in various skirmishes and battles along the way, which is more than Edwards or Obama have done (if only the latter had lived up to the promise of his awe-inspiring convention speech, instead of constantly trying to prove his experience and gravitas by seemingly endlessly “holding forth” monotonously on the details of his policy perspectives).
I believe Hillary is best suited to accomplishing more of the things I am fighting for than the other guys, until they show me differently. In the meantime, I think they should lay off her, rekindle the fire in their opposition to the right-wing Republicans and what that group has stood for and done, and find ways to express their beliefs as succinctly and smartly as Biden has done on occasion (on too many other occasions unfortunately he has put his foot in his mouth).
Many of the other Democratic candidates may more perfectly reflect my ideals and goals, but they don’t articulate them under fire any better than Hillary does hers, and often come off seeming less on top of their game than she does. (Though there were obvious missteps on her part in the debate the other night, she still held her own and often seemed smarter and more clear about her ideals and ideas for achieving them than her opponents did.)
Well, as they say, “more will be revealed.”
Naturally, I’d like a champion to represent me in the White House, and in the race for same, someone who will articulate and represent my own ideas and ideals, and fight to see them realized.
But there ain’t no one out there and never has been who personifies everything I believe in, just aspects of that. So, as I have grown more mature, I accept the imperfections of candidates and look to the one who I most agree with and who most looks like they can get the job done.
I think a lot of other, especially older, folks feel the same way, after seeing Nadar idealists cost Gore the electoral-college-proof victory that should have been his against what we ended up with, or Humphrey lose to Nixon and another catastrophic (for the world not just us) administration.
So the ganging up on Hillary seemed ill-advised and self-defeating. Statements like Biden’s is what those of us who would like to insure that a Republican doesn’t take the White House in 2008 would like to see more of.
Democratic debates that take accurate, succinct, and damaging aim at the Republican frontrunners would work to keep the chances of a Democrat getting into office in ’08 alive. Ganging up on the Democratic frontrunner at this stage of the game, to my mind, just supplies more ammunition (as if they needed it) to the Republicans, and diminishes the stature of all the Democratic frontrunners.
Hillary’s straddling of controversial issues or flexing of her national security bona fides to convince independents and even right-wingers that she isn’t the devil may be misguided (the hypocrisy the latter display in demonizing her is so typical of the right, turning her into the embodiment of everything they fear and despise when she is actually a lot of the things they claim to hold dear, a dedicated and practicing Christian who supports her husband no matter what and stays in one marriage and works hard to make it work etc.).
And it might not be what I want her, or any other candidate representing my interests and beliefs, to be doing, but neither is Obama’s professorial, rambling wordiness (when he appeared in my hometown recently, observers said he sounded like John Kerry, explaining way too much and with only sporadic fire or personality injected into his explanations), or Edwards’ self-righteous sounding proclamations that he’s the only one for real change, etc.
Hillary’s proven she can work with others in the Senate to get things done, even if she has partly achieved that by supporting bills I believe she should have opposed (like the recent one on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard being “terrorists”—though they well might be supporting various violent groups). And she’s certainly as smart, or smarter, than the rest of the boys. And I believe she wants a lot of the same things I want, in terms of health care, the environment, and human rights etc.
She may be a little too beholden to corporations, but on the other hand, her and Bill’s success at turning their experiences into million dollar book deals and other financial gains might make it possible for her as president to not depend on corporate sponsorship. Though if that were the case, why isn’t she more aggressive in the Senate at curtailing the ridiculous tax exemptions and legal exemptions corporations have managed to get even more of from this administration, with the support of the Congress.
The reality I’m concerned with is who can win. And if, as some Democrats and others believe, Hillary is too “polarizing” to win, than why isn’t Obama too wordy to win, or Edwards’ too self-righteous, or Kucenich (sp.?) too marginalized and eccentric to win, etc.
Every Democrat should be taking every opportunity to call out every devious illegal unethical bullying dishonest unconstitutional clandestine self-serving democracy-destroying word and deed this administration and its Senate and Congressional lackeys have carried out over the past seven years.
And if Hillary is ahead in the polls and winning more people to her, they should be happy about that, and do all they can to make it clear why they might be the better choice on the merits, not on—as she correctly pointed out to Tim Russert (how does he get to be the inquisitor of Democratic “liberals” and “progressives” when his record shows an obvious bias against them, and when he’s not even a journalist or impartial observer?!)—on the political game of “gotcha.”
She ain’t perfect, I agree. But she’s closer to what I’m looking for than any Republican running for their nomination. (I’m sure you’ve read that Rudy’s advisor, famous neo-con theorist Norman Podhoretz, is calling for immediate military action against Iran, etc. ad nauseum.)
I know a lot of my friends support Obama or Edwards over Hillary, but take a good look at how they’ve run their campaigns so far—not well. That has to say something about how they would run their administrations, in the face of the constant right-wing Republican attacks and sabotage that they will inevitably face.
The great thing about Bill, was that he could play hardball with those guys and beat them at their own game. He wasn’t perfect either, and I‘m not talking about his personal life, but he and Hillary are seasoned in the struggles against “the vast rightwing conspiracy” that is and has been a reality for many decades, and have confronted and defeated it in various skirmishes and battles along the way, which is more than Edwards or Obama have done (if only the latter had lived up to the promise of his awe-inspiring convention speech, instead of constantly trying to prove his experience and gravitas by seemingly endlessly “holding forth” monotonously on the details of his policy perspectives).
I believe Hillary is best suited to accomplishing more of the things I am fighting for than the other guys, until they show me differently. In the meantime, I think they should lay off her, rekindle the fire in their opposition to the right-wing Republicans and what that group has stood for and done, and find ways to express their beliefs as succinctly and smartly as Biden has done on occasion (on too many other occasions unfortunately he has put his foot in his mouth).
Many of the other Democratic candidates may more perfectly reflect my ideals and goals, but they don’t articulate them under fire any better than Hillary does hers, and often come off seeming less on top of their game than she does. (Though there were obvious missteps on her part in the debate the other night, she still held her own and often seemed smarter and more clear about her ideals and ideas for achieving them than her opponents did.)
Well, as they say, “more will be revealed.”
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