Despite a huge backlog of really fine reading matter waiting for my attention, I found myself drawn to an old paperback on my shelf of the seemingly last collection of the writings of Janet Flanner, the longtime New Yorker Paris correspondent, who wrote under the pen-name "Genet." (Yes, I know the second e should have a circumflex but this program being what it is...)
This volume of her uncollected writings followed what would have seemed to have been a complete gathering of her articles contributed over 50 years in four previous volumes. It was published in 1979. Reading these pieces--many of them were written on reporting trips to Germany before and after World War II, with side trips to Vienna and Warsaw after the war--makes one remember what great writing is like. Her prose always has a knowing, commanding tone without acting like it does. But it grabs you and holds you, just as her seemingly numberless Letters From Paris did every time The New Yorker arrived with one of her pieces, almost every month or more frequently.
In this particular collection, you get to read a famous early profile she wrote in the early 30s of Hitler, and then a post-war account of the Nuremberg trials, along with side trips to Bayreuth for the Wagner Festival and Vienna for a description of how the state opera carried on postwar without its own opera house. Lastly, there are several pieces from Italy in the very early 50s. All superb, of course, but probably the perfect subject for such a magisterial writer--and I use the word to mean one with great authority or assurance--was the writer Thomas Mann, resident in the U.S. after fleeing Germany in the late 1930s. Flanner, whose elegant style makes one forget at times that she was born an Indiana Quaker, takes the full measure of Mann the individual as well as the famed author.
Her 1947 "Letter From the Ghetto" recounts conversations with the few surviving Polish Jewish leaders, who are wondering why the U.S. was taking quite good care of former Nazis it deemed of possible use in the already incipient Cold War, while denying entry to the Jewish refugees who might quite justifiably have been given the unused German and Austrian quotas from the war years as an easy bureaucratic device. Everywhere she went she seemed to put her finger on the key issues that others missed amid the turmoil of largely destroyed Europe.
She wrote with the ease also that came from knowing everyone who mattered in Paris. Her obituary of Margaret Anderson, who ran The Little Review, and her review of the memoirs of Sylvia Beach, who published Joyce's Ulysses when no one else could or would, are magnificent, especially as she knew the subjects well. Probably to me the capstone was a 1975 piece that summed up the "years alone" Alice B. Toklas spent in Paris after Gertrude Stein's death in 1946. I don't think I've ever seen a more comprehensive summary of both the difficulties of the survivor and the sheer amazing quality of her story.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Friday, June 17, 2011
It's Bloomsday
For those who find Joyce endlessly fascinating, yesterday--June 16--Bloomsday as it's called--remains the great day of the year to deal with all things Irish, beyond March 17, which, so far as I have gathered, is hardly celebrated in Ireland save for pleasing tourists. But this was the day--June 16, 1904--Joyce picked to be the time of his great novel, Ulysses. Everything occurs within the 24-hour span. Apparently, it was the day he met his wife-to-be, Nora Barnacle.
What is it about Joyce that is so compelling? Ulysses, of course, is the definition of a tour de force. First of all, he sets up a wonderful, often satirical parallel with Homer's original. Joyce, raised a Catholic but an exile both from religion and his homeland for most of his life, understood what it meant to wander as Odysseus did; in Joyce's case it was from Rome to Trieste to Zurich to Paris. It was not a romantic journey, either, as he struggled to make a living while writing his masterpiece(s). So Leopold Bloom wanders through Dublin, encountering everyone from a bile-spouting editor who rejects his ad canvassing (Aeolus), to observing a girl on the beach (Nausicaa) to an encounter with a blind, bigoted old soldier (Cyclops). He befriends a young man in search of himself, Stephen Dedalus, sort of a stand-in for Joyce himself, and who may become a surrogate for Bloom's deceased son, and finally Bloom manages to wind up first in the last night thoughts of his wife Molly, who has committed adultery in their house that very afternoon.
It is the richness of life that Joyce captures, including the ads of the day, references to the art and music of the ages, and even some arcane satire of Irish intellectuals discussing Shakespeare. Some of his parallels with the Odyssey are fantastic--the enchantress Circe appears in the form of bawdyhouse madam Bella Cohen. Nor does Joyce shrink from including all thoughts, many uncensored, including the scatalogical and the sado-masochistic, contrasting the vision of Bloom engaging in voyeurism as he gazes upon a group of young women on the beach while bringing himself to climax with the sublime yet wordly measures of Mozart's DaPonte operas, for which Joyce reputedly enjoyed exercising his tenor voice.
If you couldn't get a bad childhood memory out of your system--consider Father Dolan, who punishes the young Stephen in the preceding set-up novel for Ulysses, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, only to appear hundreds of pages later in the dream sequence of Nighttown popping out of a jack-in-the-box to remind Stephen that he remains "a lazy little loafer." The quotidian discussions of a group of men put together in a carriage to ride to a funeral become timeless in Joyce's hands.
You somehow keep reading while realizing that the master has been engaging in wordplay among multiple languages. Each chapter is written in a different style--from the headlines describing the scene in the newspaper office to the dramatic events in Nighttown written as a play. In one chapter, he provides a complete history of English language and literature. Another chapter is written in imitation of the catechism Joyce learned as a boy.
While some have told me of the even greater wonders to be found in Finnegan's Wake, where Joyce seems to have sought to invent his own language, I find his last work virtually impenetrable. I know every time I pick up Ulysses, though, at any page I will discover things I never noticed before.
What is it about Joyce that is so compelling? Ulysses, of course, is the definition of a tour de force. First of all, he sets up a wonderful, often satirical parallel with Homer's original. Joyce, raised a Catholic but an exile both from religion and his homeland for most of his life, understood what it meant to wander as Odysseus did; in Joyce's case it was from Rome to Trieste to Zurich to Paris. It was not a romantic journey, either, as he struggled to make a living while writing his masterpiece(s). So Leopold Bloom wanders through Dublin, encountering everyone from a bile-spouting editor who rejects his ad canvassing (Aeolus), to observing a girl on the beach (Nausicaa) to an encounter with a blind, bigoted old soldier (Cyclops). He befriends a young man in search of himself, Stephen Dedalus, sort of a stand-in for Joyce himself, and who may become a surrogate for Bloom's deceased son, and finally Bloom manages to wind up first in the last night thoughts of his wife Molly, who has committed adultery in their house that very afternoon.
It is the richness of life that Joyce captures, including the ads of the day, references to the art and music of the ages, and even some arcane satire of Irish intellectuals discussing Shakespeare. Some of his parallels with the Odyssey are fantastic--the enchantress Circe appears in the form of bawdyhouse madam Bella Cohen. Nor does Joyce shrink from including all thoughts, many uncensored, including the scatalogical and the sado-masochistic, contrasting the vision of Bloom engaging in voyeurism as he gazes upon a group of young women on the beach while bringing himself to climax with the sublime yet wordly measures of Mozart's DaPonte operas, for which Joyce reputedly enjoyed exercising his tenor voice.
If you couldn't get a bad childhood memory out of your system--consider Father Dolan, who punishes the young Stephen in the preceding set-up novel for Ulysses, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, only to appear hundreds of pages later in the dream sequence of Nighttown popping out of a jack-in-the-box to remind Stephen that he remains "a lazy little loafer." The quotidian discussions of a group of men put together in a carriage to ride to a funeral become timeless in Joyce's hands.
You somehow keep reading while realizing that the master has been engaging in wordplay among multiple languages. Each chapter is written in a different style--from the headlines describing the scene in the newspaper office to the dramatic events in Nighttown written as a play. In one chapter, he provides a complete history of English language and literature. Another chapter is written in imitation of the catechism Joyce learned as a boy.
While some have told me of the even greater wonders to be found in Finnegan's Wake, where Joyce seems to have sought to invent his own language, I find his last work virtually impenetrable. I know every time I pick up Ulysses, though, at any page I will discover things I never noticed before.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Pomp and Circumstance
My daughter Vanessa was awarded her Master of Public Health degree recently at a nice ceremony the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health conducted at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall in Baltimore. She was part of a rather large group of MPH candidates, other health-related masters, and PhD and DPH recipients. It was noteworthy to me because she had worked very hard in an intensive one-year (eleven-month) program that effectively compacted two years of work into one. She also took even more of all the science courses her mother and I never went near.
The large complement of degree candidates did remind me of the late Georgetown President Father Healy's comment upon awarding 616 J.D. degrees to Eileen's class at Georgetown Law just a quarter-century ago, when he preceded his conferral of those degrees with the introductory "With fear and trembling for the future of Western civilization..."
I'm hoping she finds something she enjoys by way of work--even though the common parlance these days would have it that new graduates had better be satisfied with getting a job. Until proven otherwise, however, I have great confidence that with some application on her part, she will wind up with something she will enjoy as well as earn a paycheck. At a time when many also are questioning the value of much that is labeled higher education, it struck me that she did get reasonably good value for her year's investment at Hopkins. She threw herself into both her coursework and her required project work and I suspect made the most of the bargain of getting all this in one year.
She also enjoyed living in the Mt. Vernon section of downtown Baltimore and frequented some of the more interesting eating places and entertainment venues there. In honor of her getting her MPH, her friend Dave's birthday, and our 41st anniversary, we celebrated at Woodberry Kitchen, an excellent restaurant that focuses on locally-grown and natural ingredients, which has become common, of course, but also presents a varied and stimulating carte de jour. Best of all was a selection of four varieties of revived local Chesapeake Bay oysters followed (in my case) by perfectly-braised veal accompanied by farro and wild mushrooms. By the by, in case you're interested in who serves what I regard as the tastiest mussels in the area, I heartily recommend Granville Moore's, a old barely-renovated bar on the now-being-redeveloped H Street, N.E., near the Atlas Theater complex.
The commencement remarks by the incumbent Maryland Secretary of Health (and recently interim head of the Food and Drug Administration) were, most significantly, blessedly brief. I might have found the address at the overall Hopkins commencement the next day on Homewood Field, the university's lacrosse citadel, worth hearing as they were delivered by the editor and columnist Fareed Zakaria, who had written only days before an enlightening column on why Obama was right on about the Middle East. But mine was the only vote favoring attending the big ceremony, as it seems the MPH crowd figured they had all sat through both their own ceremony, and no more than a few years ago, their own undergraduate commencements.
In a strange sort of way I tend to like commencement ceremonies, despite the ludicrousness of much of the content. I sat through two of them at Cornell--for my graduation and Vanessa's-- where headline speakers are never on hand because the university generally grants no honorary degrees and the university's President delivers the commencement address. I can't say I recall much of either talk. I think this year's convocation speaker was Rudy Giuliani, whose shelf sell date has clearly expired.
I also missed my "second commencement"--from law school, mainly because I hurried back from Reserve basic training to complete my degree one semester late in January; I did get a copy of the program from that following June and I think the lead honorary degree was given, in Harvard's infinite wisdom, to the Shah of Iran. But probably my first introduction to the general zaniness of these occasions was when a more knowledgable (musically, that is) high school classmate mentioned to me that the recessional, Berlioz's Marche Hongroise (Hungarian March), being played at the end of our ceremony came from a scene in his now-more-often performed opera, Le Damnation de Faust, when the condemned march into Hell.
The large complement of degree candidates did remind me of the late Georgetown President Father Healy's comment upon awarding 616 J.D. degrees to Eileen's class at Georgetown Law just a quarter-century ago, when he preceded his conferral of those degrees with the introductory "With fear and trembling for the future of Western civilization..."
I'm hoping she finds something she enjoys by way of work--even though the common parlance these days would have it that new graduates had better be satisfied with getting a job. Until proven otherwise, however, I have great confidence that with some application on her part, she will wind up with something she will enjoy as well as earn a paycheck. At a time when many also are questioning the value of much that is labeled higher education, it struck me that she did get reasonably good value for her year's investment at Hopkins. She threw herself into both her coursework and her required project work and I suspect made the most of the bargain of getting all this in one year.
She also enjoyed living in the Mt. Vernon section of downtown Baltimore and frequented some of the more interesting eating places and entertainment venues there. In honor of her getting her MPH, her friend Dave's birthday, and our 41st anniversary, we celebrated at Woodberry Kitchen, an excellent restaurant that focuses on locally-grown and natural ingredients, which has become common, of course, but also presents a varied and stimulating carte de jour. Best of all was a selection of four varieties of revived local Chesapeake Bay oysters followed (in my case) by perfectly-braised veal accompanied by farro and wild mushrooms. By the by, in case you're interested in who serves what I regard as the tastiest mussels in the area, I heartily recommend Granville Moore's, a old barely-renovated bar on the now-being-redeveloped H Street, N.E., near the Atlas Theater complex.
The commencement remarks by the incumbent Maryland Secretary of Health (and recently interim head of the Food and Drug Administration) were, most significantly, blessedly brief. I might have found the address at the overall Hopkins commencement the next day on Homewood Field, the university's lacrosse citadel, worth hearing as they were delivered by the editor and columnist Fareed Zakaria, who had written only days before an enlightening column on why Obama was right on about the Middle East. But mine was the only vote favoring attending the big ceremony, as it seems the MPH crowd figured they had all sat through both their own ceremony, and no more than a few years ago, their own undergraduate commencements.
In a strange sort of way I tend to like commencement ceremonies, despite the ludicrousness of much of the content. I sat through two of them at Cornell--for my graduation and Vanessa's-- where headline speakers are never on hand because the university generally grants no honorary degrees and the university's President delivers the commencement address. I can't say I recall much of either talk. I think this year's convocation speaker was Rudy Giuliani, whose shelf sell date has clearly expired.
I also missed my "second commencement"--from law school, mainly because I hurried back from Reserve basic training to complete my degree one semester late in January; I did get a copy of the program from that following June and I think the lead honorary degree was given, in Harvard's infinite wisdom, to the Shah of Iran. But probably my first introduction to the general zaniness of these occasions was when a more knowledgable (musically, that is) high school classmate mentioned to me that the recessional, Berlioz's Marche Hongroise (Hungarian March), being played at the end of our ceremony came from a scene in his now-more-often performed opera, Le Damnation de Faust, when the condemned march into Hell.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Opera All Over
This turned on to be my week for opera. Saturday afternoon we once again
went to The Met at the movies and saw the live transmission of Die
Walkure in wonderful HD, sound, and close-ups. It was a marvelous
performance and even the Met's crazy, pricey new set (the 40-ton monster) was
better than in Rheingold last year. Eva-Marie Westbrook in her Met
debut was a charming Sieglinde and Jonas Kauffman a stalwart Siegmund. Once
again Bryn Terfel brought off his portrayal of Wotan well. I think I enjoy the Walkure Brunnhilde the most and the slimmed-down Deborah Voigt gave it
plenty of personality. Everyone's voice was brilliant--and I even found
Stephanie Blythe, a very very large woman in the old Wagnerian tradition, fit in
as Fricka. I think I forgot how exhilarating the whole opera is, so that when
Act III begins with the famed Ride and by the time it ends with the glorious
Fire Music, you are already won over and in fine spirits.
An added
fillip comes with the immediate interviews right as the leads come off-stage,
done in this instance by none other than Placido Domingo. It humanizes the
performers. And then there were the previews of the 11 operas the Met will
broadcast to the theatres next season. What could be better than to end it with
Nathalie Dessay (if memory serves me right) bursting into the Sempre
libere from Traviata?
We actually got to the theatre late
and had to sit up front. But the seats were very comfortable and leaned back
quite far, so they turned out to be excellent. Even though we were late, the Met
was later. The computer controlling the 40-ton monster set went on the blink and
it was not until about a half hour later that the performance began.
Last night (Tuesday) Eileen and I took in the rarely-performed Iphigenie en Tauride, revived this season at both Washington Opera,
where we saw it, and the Met, for none other than Senor Domingo. This Gluck
opera once was a mainstay of the repertory but it has disappeared for many
years--the Met revived it a few seasons ago after a lapse since 1912. Gluck was
regarded as something of a change agent in opera, moving away from the trilling
of the early periods. He was a German composer working in Paris, so of course
there is a ballet (a requirement set by the Paris Opera in the 1800s) which is
more ludicrous than most of them. Mostly, however, the opera is very very
static. You do enjoy Patricia Racette's wonderful singing in the title role as
the priestess who was the sister of Orestes and Electra in the good old House of
Atreus. (Unhappy families can be unhappy in wildly bloody ways!) And it was
delightful when Domingo materialized as Oreste and just began singing in that
luscious tenor he still maintains at a good level at his advanced age. I think
the piece plays better as a Greek drama--it's not a tragedy, incidentally. A
friend with whom I spoke today told me she had seenit near Sparta at a
rediscovered ancient theatre and that it was wonderful in that original form and
forum.
The opera was popular 100 years ago at time the delightfully
mordant Saki referred to it in one of his most classic stories, The
Reticence of Lady Anne:
"The bullfinch lazily filled in the interval with an air from Iphigenie en Tauride.
Egbert recognized it immediately because it was the only air the bullfinch
whistled and he had come to them with the reputation for whistling it. Both Egbert and Lady Anne would have preferred something from The Yeoman of the Guard, which was their favourite opera. In matters artistic they had a similarity of taste. They leaned towards the
honest and explicit in art, a picture, for instance, that told its own story, with generous assistance from the title. A riderless warhorse, for example, with harness in obvious disarray, staggering into a courtyard full of pale swooning women, and marginally noted, "Bad News," suggested
to their minds a distinct interpretation of some military catastrophe. They could see what it was meant to convey, and explain it to friends of duller intelligence."
P.S. Saturday night was a slight detour from the lyric stage to 1940s Hollywood as represented by the Berlin and Vienna emigres who wrote songs for the movies and the opera composer Erich Korngold who wrote the score for Errol Flynn's famous rendition of Robin Hood. I had not
heard about Friedrich Hollander, who wrote all kinds of wonderful songs but then there also were wonderful songs like "The Saga of Jenny" from the Kurt Weill-Ira Gershwin Lady in the Dark, a fascinating musical play put together by the master showman Moss Hart. And what better to end the evening than a rousing run of "The Boys in the Backroom" by a singer mpersonating Marlene Dietrich?
went to The Met at the movies and saw the live transmission of Die
Walkure in wonderful HD, sound, and close-ups. It was a marvelous
performance and even the Met's crazy, pricey new set (the 40-ton monster) was
better than in Rheingold last year. Eva-Marie Westbrook in her Met
debut was a charming Sieglinde and Jonas Kauffman a stalwart Siegmund. Once
again Bryn Terfel brought off his portrayal of Wotan well. I think I enjoy the Walkure Brunnhilde the most and the slimmed-down Deborah Voigt gave it
plenty of personality. Everyone's voice was brilliant--and I even found
Stephanie Blythe, a very very large woman in the old Wagnerian tradition, fit in
as Fricka. I think I forgot how exhilarating the whole opera is, so that when
Act III begins with the famed Ride and by the time it ends with the glorious
Fire Music, you are already won over and in fine spirits.
An added
fillip comes with the immediate interviews right as the leads come off-stage,
done in this instance by none other than Placido Domingo. It humanizes the
performers. And then there were the previews of the 11 operas the Met will
broadcast to the theatres next season. What could be better than to end it with
Nathalie Dessay (if memory serves me right) bursting into the Sempre
libere from Traviata?
We actually got to the theatre late
and had to sit up front. But the seats were very comfortable and leaned back
quite far, so they turned out to be excellent. Even though we were late, the Met
was later. The computer controlling the 40-ton monster set went on the blink and
it was not until about a half hour later that the performance began.
Last night (Tuesday) Eileen and I took in the rarely-performed Iphigenie en Tauride, revived this season at both Washington Opera,
where we saw it, and the Met, for none other than Senor Domingo. This Gluck
opera once was a mainstay of the repertory but it has disappeared for many
years--the Met revived it a few seasons ago after a lapse since 1912. Gluck was
regarded as something of a change agent in opera, moving away from the trilling
of the early periods. He was a German composer working in Paris, so of course
there is a ballet (a requirement set by the Paris Opera in the 1800s) which is
more ludicrous than most of them. Mostly, however, the opera is very very
static. You do enjoy Patricia Racette's wonderful singing in the title role as
the priestess who was the sister of Orestes and Electra in the good old House of
Atreus. (Unhappy families can be unhappy in wildly bloody ways!) And it was
delightful when Domingo materialized as Oreste and just began singing in that
luscious tenor he still maintains at a good level at his advanced age. I think
the piece plays better as a Greek drama--it's not a tragedy, incidentally. A
friend with whom I spoke today told me she had seenit near Sparta at a
rediscovered ancient theatre and that it was wonderful in that original form and
forum.
The opera was popular 100 years ago at time the delightfully
mordant Saki referred to it in one of his most classic stories, The
Reticence of Lady Anne:
"The bullfinch lazily filled in the interval with an air from Iphigenie en Tauride.
Egbert recognized it immediately because it was the only air the bullfinch
whistled and he had come to them with the reputation for whistling it. Both Egbert and Lady Anne would have preferred something from The Yeoman of the Guard, which was their favourite opera. In matters artistic they had a similarity of taste. They leaned towards the
honest and explicit in art, a picture, for instance, that told its own story, with generous assistance from the title. A riderless warhorse, for example, with harness in obvious disarray, staggering into a courtyard full of pale swooning women, and marginally noted, "Bad News," suggested
to their minds a distinct interpretation of some military catastrophe. They could see what it was meant to convey, and explain it to friends of duller intelligence."
P.S. Saturday night was a slight detour from the lyric stage to 1940s Hollywood as represented by the Berlin and Vienna emigres who wrote songs for the movies and the opera composer Erich Korngold who wrote the score for Errol Flynn's famous rendition of Robin Hood. I had not
heard about Friedrich Hollander, who wrote all kinds of wonderful songs but then there also were wonderful songs like "The Saga of Jenny" from the Kurt Weill-Ira Gershwin Lady in the Dark, a fascinating musical play put together by the master showman Moss Hart. And what better to end the evening than a rousing run of "The Boys in the Backroom" by a singer mpersonating Marlene Dietrich?
Friday, April 29, 2011
Encamped in Canton
This has been an enjoyable couple of days based in North Canton, Ohio, which has several malls and about every chain store and restaurant in America. There's one nonstop each day each way between Akron-Canton airport and National. It's a small plane and given the various weather problems this week, it was running late Wednesday night so I arrived about 1 1/2 hrs late, which was no big deal as I had no plans for that night anyway. The Budget folks had closed and left me a sign telling me to pick up the car down the hall at Avis--but everything worked, including my being a Priority Club member at Holiday Inn, which got me a free breakfast each day here, assuming that was what I needed.
Thursday turned out to be a bit cloudy and threatening in the morning as I headed for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, about five minutes from where I'm staying. The Hall is pretty good--lots of memorabilia, good TV clips of famous plays and games, and good action photos and bios on the biggest stars, like the exhibit on all-time runners, which featured Jim Brown, Walter Payton, and Emmitt Smith. Records exist of all the ancient teams that were once in pro football like the Pottsville (Pa.) Maroons, who claimed they were robbed of the title in 1926.
I guess to me the only shortcomings were an overemphasis on historically-significant owners and commissioners, particularly Pete Rozelle. Just reminds you re the current labor situation that they see it more as a business and less as a game. At least they haven't removed O. J. Simpson's bust from the Hall of Fame but there's no other mention of him and rather minimal reference to one Howard Cosell, despite a large exhibit on Monday Night Football, where you have to look hard to find his picture.
Went onto Akron and visited Dr. Bob's House, where once resided the co-founder, with Bill W., of AA. It's on a red-brick street in an old middle-class residential section of an old city and actually, they're renovating the foundation of his real house, so you get to see his stuff moved into the house next door which is almost identical. I liked stuff like his old doctor's bag and Royal manual typewriter and that the woman on duty invites you into the kitchen for coffee on the house.
Decided I had the time to make it to Cleveland to take in the Rock'n'Roll Museum & Hall of Fame and the day cooperated, having become sunny and almost warm, if windy. As with everything else, it seemed, this museum was undergoing its first major renovation--lucky me. But they really do have tons of artifacts--clothing, guitars, letters, etc all associated with all sorts of performers and the interpretation given rock is a broad one. Some of the history stuff is fun--the re-creation of the Sun Records studio in Memphis (made famous in Million Dollar Quartet) and lots of stuff connected with the early rock DJ Alan Freed. Wonderful films and tapes all over the place and plenty of opportunities to stop and listen to artists of your choosing.
Best part I thought was a theater showing clips of the artists inducted each year. They put together great collages of the half dozen people elected each year to the Hall. Even exhibits devoted to Rolling Stone, all the many British groups beyond the Beatles and the Stones, Cleveland locals, Motown, Elvis, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix etc etc etc. Could have spent a lot more time--and even enjoyed the store, particularly for the fantastically eclectic collection of CDs, DVDs, etc of groups and artists. Anyone you can think of that had any connection to pop music in our time is there--I got a kick out of finding CDs by Mama Cass, Jerry Vale, Pete Seeger, Del Shannon, and Dusty Springfield. The cashier pointed to one guy and said he's the one who picks out all the recordings they feature on sale.
I opted not to stick around Cleveland for an Indians-Royals game last night at Progressive Union Park (nee Jacobs Field). The Tribe has been winning like crazy--nine straight--but the fans haven't come back yet, as several recent games had attendance under 10,000. There's an Indians store right here in North Canton and I barely resisted getting a jacket with a huge version of Chief Wahoo, America's most politically incorrect mascot/symbol, on the back. Also held off at the Pro Football Hall of Fame store, where Raiders regalia kept jumping out at me.
Today at the 50th anniversary conference of the Horatio Alger Society, my reason for the trip, there were three presentations--one on an obscure author of boy's books set in Northern Maine, a second on the big four of boy's series authors in the 19th century--Alger, Oliver Optic, Edward Ellis and Harry Castlemon, and a last one on what universities were like in Alger's college days, viz., Harvard between 1848 and 1852.
Then we had the auction and I managed to get a couple of books I wanted. Prices were down largely because a couple of regular high rollers were not on hand--some of us wished we were buying the books now we acquired over the years. Last night I went out for dinner with Carol Nackenoff from Swarthmore and her husband Jim, who actually grew up here in North Canton! They wanted to go to a highly-regarded Serbian place in Barberton (about 20 minutes from here) that specializes in Serbian fried chicken! Like most Balkans cuisine, it was fairly heavy. Tonight's dinner was at a restaurant built in what was once the headquarters (next to the airport) of the 356th Fighter Group. Echt amerikanische but pleasant enough and I liked the old pilots club decor.
And tomorrow morning early I head out--it's been good.
Thursday turned out to be a bit cloudy and threatening in the morning as I headed for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, about five minutes from where I'm staying. The Hall is pretty good--lots of memorabilia, good TV clips of famous plays and games, and good action photos and bios on the biggest stars, like the exhibit on all-time runners, which featured Jim Brown, Walter Payton, and Emmitt Smith. Records exist of all the ancient teams that were once in pro football like the Pottsville (Pa.) Maroons, who claimed they were robbed of the title in 1926.
I guess to me the only shortcomings were an overemphasis on historically-significant owners and commissioners, particularly Pete Rozelle. Just reminds you re the current labor situation that they see it more as a business and less as a game. At least they haven't removed O. J. Simpson's bust from the Hall of Fame but there's no other mention of him and rather minimal reference to one Howard Cosell, despite a large exhibit on Monday Night Football, where you have to look hard to find his picture.
Went onto Akron and visited Dr. Bob's House, where once resided the co-founder, with Bill W., of AA. It's on a red-brick street in an old middle-class residential section of an old city and actually, they're renovating the foundation of his real house, so you get to see his stuff moved into the house next door which is almost identical. I liked stuff like his old doctor's bag and Royal manual typewriter and that the woman on duty invites you into the kitchen for coffee on the house.
Decided I had the time to make it to Cleveland to take in the Rock'n'Roll Museum & Hall of Fame and the day cooperated, having become sunny and almost warm, if windy. As with everything else, it seemed, this museum was undergoing its first major renovation--lucky me. But they really do have tons of artifacts--clothing, guitars, letters, etc all associated with all sorts of performers and the interpretation given rock is a broad one. Some of the history stuff is fun--the re-creation of the Sun Records studio in Memphis (made famous in Million Dollar Quartet) and lots of stuff connected with the early rock DJ Alan Freed. Wonderful films and tapes all over the place and plenty of opportunities to stop and listen to artists of your choosing.
Best part I thought was a theater showing clips of the artists inducted each year. They put together great collages of the half dozen people elected each year to the Hall. Even exhibits devoted to Rolling Stone, all the many British groups beyond the Beatles and the Stones, Cleveland locals, Motown, Elvis, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix etc etc etc. Could have spent a lot more time--and even enjoyed the store, particularly for the fantastically eclectic collection of CDs, DVDs, etc of groups and artists. Anyone you can think of that had any connection to pop music in our time is there--I got a kick out of finding CDs by Mama Cass, Jerry Vale, Pete Seeger, Del Shannon, and Dusty Springfield. The cashier pointed to one guy and said he's the one who picks out all the recordings they feature on sale.
I opted not to stick around Cleveland for an Indians-Royals game last night at Progressive Union Park (nee Jacobs Field). The Tribe has been winning like crazy--nine straight--but the fans haven't come back yet, as several recent games had attendance under 10,000. There's an Indians store right here in North Canton and I barely resisted getting a jacket with a huge version of Chief Wahoo, America's most politically incorrect mascot/symbol, on the back. Also held off at the Pro Football Hall of Fame store, where Raiders regalia kept jumping out at me.
Today at the 50th anniversary conference of the Horatio Alger Society, my reason for the trip, there were three presentations--one on an obscure author of boy's books set in Northern Maine, a second on the big four of boy's series authors in the 19th century--Alger, Oliver Optic, Edward Ellis and Harry Castlemon, and a last one on what universities were like in Alger's college days, viz., Harvard between 1848 and 1852.
Then we had the auction and I managed to get a couple of books I wanted. Prices were down largely because a couple of regular high rollers were not on hand--some of us wished we were buying the books now we acquired over the years. Last night I went out for dinner with Carol Nackenoff from Swarthmore and her husband Jim, who actually grew up here in North Canton! They wanted to go to a highly-regarded Serbian place in Barberton (about 20 minutes from here) that specializes in Serbian fried chicken! Like most Balkans cuisine, it was fairly heavy. Tonight's dinner was at a restaurant built in what was once the headquarters (next to the airport) of the 356th Fighter Group. Echt amerikanische but pleasant enough and I liked the old pilots club decor.
And tomorrow morning early I head out--it's been good.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Cornhusking
This was a very quick trip but even with one day mostly a rainout--leaving aside the hours I was working--some perceptions about Lincoln, Nebraska, came through. First of all, Lincoln isn't as small as I expected. It has a population that exceeds 250,000. The day we arrived, that was bolstered by the simultaneous arrival, almost all of them at our hotel, it seemed, of the annual state gathering of the Future Farmers of America, which is big stuff out this way.
Probably should have expected something like that when you decide to stay at the leading hostelry, the Cornhusker Marriott. The FFA members are high-school age, clean cut in their navy FFA sweater-jackets with gold lettering and black trousers or skirts. The room clerk was being thoughtful in asking us to wait for available rooms so she didn't have to put us "on a floor with the kids." We spoke to a few who had medals for raising dairy cattle.
The rain kept me from seeing the campus of the University of Nebraska across town but we met in a room of the skyscraper state capitol, which is quite a building in itself. It looks to be about 18 storeys high with a dome. Inside there is a marvelous three or four-storey open space with gothic stonework, rose windows, and mosaics, most devoted to agricultural themes.
In the main hall are sculptures of some famous Nebraskans, from George Norris, the U.S. Senator who may be remembered more for the Norris-LaGuardia Anti-Injunction Act than the Tennessee Valley Authority, both of which were his accomplishments; to General Pershing of World War I fame, to, of course, Nebraska's most famous literary figure, Willa Cather, and not to forget the immortal William F. Cody, aka Buffalo Bill. The Supreme Court sits at the end of one of the four corridors, a distinguished chamber featuring inlays and woodwork.
The prudent Plains denizens even anticipated the need for an intermediate court of appeals so built a notable chamber for it across from the Supreme Court's courtroom back when the capitol went up--in the 1920's, although the court itself didn't come about until the 1970s. Until that happened, it was used for legislative hearings.
The legislative chamber is close to the central hall and you will note I said chamber in the singular. There is a 40-member Senate which makes Nebraska the only state with a unicameral legislature. They got rid of the Assembly in 1934, in what was regarded as a progressive move supported by Senator George Norris; one major argument was that the conference committees that resolved differences in bills enacted by the two chambers met and acted secretly. It is surprising to look to the other side of the great hall at the center of the building and see only two small closed doors that denote where the second chamber once met. The Senators, by the way, are elected on a nonpartisan basis.
We stayed over mainly to meet with the Chief Justice and another judge leading the caseflow management effort who had been sitting in Omaha the first day. Our meeting place was a restaurant in an old house, nicely remodeled to serve its current purpose with much memorabilia -- mainly posters and lithographs -- befitting its name, Billy's. That, of course, referred to perhaps the most famous, if non-native, Nebraskan of them all, the three-time Presidential candidate, William Jennings Bryan, the Boy Orator of the Platte.
Probably should have expected something like that when you decide to stay at the leading hostelry, the Cornhusker Marriott. The FFA members are high-school age, clean cut in their navy FFA sweater-jackets with gold lettering and black trousers or skirts. The room clerk was being thoughtful in asking us to wait for available rooms so she didn't have to put us "on a floor with the kids." We spoke to a few who had medals for raising dairy cattle.
The rain kept me from seeing the campus of the University of Nebraska across town but we met in a room of the skyscraper state capitol, which is quite a building in itself. It looks to be about 18 storeys high with a dome. Inside there is a marvelous three or four-storey open space with gothic stonework, rose windows, and mosaics, most devoted to agricultural themes.
In the main hall are sculptures of some famous Nebraskans, from George Norris, the U.S. Senator who may be remembered more for the Norris-LaGuardia Anti-Injunction Act than the Tennessee Valley Authority, both of which were his accomplishments; to General Pershing of World War I fame, to, of course, Nebraska's most famous literary figure, Willa Cather, and not to forget the immortal William F. Cody, aka Buffalo Bill. The Supreme Court sits at the end of one of the four corridors, a distinguished chamber featuring inlays and woodwork.
The prudent Plains denizens even anticipated the need for an intermediate court of appeals so built a notable chamber for it across from the Supreme Court's courtroom back when the capitol went up--in the 1920's, although the court itself didn't come about until the 1970s. Until that happened, it was used for legislative hearings.
The legislative chamber is close to the central hall and you will note I said chamber in the singular. There is a 40-member Senate which makes Nebraska the only state with a unicameral legislature. They got rid of the Assembly in 1934, in what was regarded as a progressive move supported by Senator George Norris; one major argument was that the conference committees that resolved differences in bills enacted by the two chambers met and acted secretly. It is surprising to look to the other side of the great hall at the center of the building and see only two small closed doors that denote where the second chamber once met. The Senators, by the way, are elected on a nonpartisan basis.
We stayed over mainly to meet with the Chief Justice and another judge leading the caseflow management effort who had been sitting in Omaha the first day. Our meeting place was a restaurant in an old house, nicely remodeled to serve its current purpose with much memorabilia -- mainly posters and lithographs -- befitting its name, Billy's. That, of course, referred to perhaps the most famous, if non-native, Nebraskan of them all, the three-time Presidential candidate, William Jennings Bryan, the Boy Orator of the Platte.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Some Bright Signs
Those of us who live here inside the Beltway occasionally realize that the so-called experts who devote immense amounts of column inches, especially in the Washington Post, to gauging the latest political breeze or whisper, are influenced by those who shout the loudest. So for what seems like years now, we've been hearing about the asserted power of the tea-baggers and other species whose significance is built up by such as Fox.
But all the sincere protests at state capitals from Madison to Columbus that followed the GOP attack on collective bargaining rights has made some of the pundits sit up and listen. Some even suspect that the next elections may turn out differently in those states and many others. I even feel I'm getting an answer to my question--Where were those folks last election day? The answer is that they didn't realize the true evil that corporate America, as represented by the corporate American party, the Republicans, had planned to wreak on the working people of this country.
First, their tax cuts for the rich have created more inequality in the U.S. than we had known for generations. Second, they have set out to wreck the last institution that stands up for working people: the unions. Seeing all these normal, fired-up people willing to stand up for their rights in state capitol buildings wasn't enough to dissuade the GOP from its planned course. Only a huge landslide against the party of the rich and the greedy next time will accomplish that goal.
I hope the Democrats now will show some bravery hitherto hidden and stand up for their constituents. Maybe they will stop trying to show that they are kind-hearted Republicans, only willing to cut less than the GOP. We know that the Dems are also bought--by Wall Street and other major contributors. Can they stand up to their cashflow? Democrats always had to run against the GOP-dominated press in the old days. Now they have to run against Fox and the Murdoch media machine.
They have to start by being clear about what's needed. No more tax cuts for billionaires--or even millionaires. No compromise on Social Security or health care or education or environmental regulation. The media and the GOP would have us forget about the crooked coal companies that fought the outnumbered mine inspectors for years and then bought a judicial election in West Virginia so blatantly that the Supreme Court, if only by 5-4, said it was too loathsome to allow the result to stand.
The Democrats mainly have to remember that they represent working people, yes, of all kinds and colors, but the similarities matter more than the differences. Enough of multicultural posturing that just divides our constituencies. Let's focus on what brings us together. Let's take care of the real majority--plain, hard-working citizens, employees, people who work for a paycheck not a dividend coupon.
Tax the runaway corporations where it hurts--when they want to sell their products in the U.S. If they want to run away, let them pay a large penalty to get their goods back in here. Tax the greedy rich -- especially the Wall Street types who got away scot-free with their thievery. Tax outfits like Wal-Mart who think that not enough people care about the rights of workers--women and men alike--to stand up against their sleazy discrimination and payoffs in poor communities to get their stores opened. Clinton showed that a fair tax structure will balance the budget and write down the debt. As Carville put it and we have failed to follow, it's always the economy, stupid.
But all the sincere protests at state capitals from Madison to Columbus that followed the GOP attack on collective bargaining rights has made some of the pundits sit up and listen. Some even suspect that the next elections may turn out differently in those states and many others. I even feel I'm getting an answer to my question--Where were those folks last election day? The answer is that they didn't realize the true evil that corporate America, as represented by the corporate American party, the Republicans, had planned to wreak on the working people of this country.
First, their tax cuts for the rich have created more inequality in the U.S. than we had known for generations. Second, they have set out to wreck the last institution that stands up for working people: the unions. Seeing all these normal, fired-up people willing to stand up for their rights in state capitol buildings wasn't enough to dissuade the GOP from its planned course. Only a huge landslide against the party of the rich and the greedy next time will accomplish that goal.
I hope the Democrats now will show some bravery hitherto hidden and stand up for their constituents. Maybe they will stop trying to show that they are kind-hearted Republicans, only willing to cut less than the GOP. We know that the Dems are also bought--by Wall Street and other major contributors. Can they stand up to their cashflow? Democrats always had to run against the GOP-dominated press in the old days. Now they have to run against Fox and the Murdoch media machine.
They have to start by being clear about what's needed. No more tax cuts for billionaires--or even millionaires. No compromise on Social Security or health care or education or environmental regulation. The media and the GOP would have us forget about the crooked coal companies that fought the outnumbered mine inspectors for years and then bought a judicial election in West Virginia so blatantly that the Supreme Court, if only by 5-4, said it was too loathsome to allow the result to stand.
The Democrats mainly have to remember that they represent working people, yes, of all kinds and colors, but the similarities matter more than the differences. Enough of multicultural posturing that just divides our constituencies. Let's focus on what brings us together. Let's take care of the real majority--plain, hard-working citizens, employees, people who work for a paycheck not a dividend coupon.
Tax the runaway corporations where it hurts--when they want to sell their products in the U.S. If they want to run away, let them pay a large penalty to get their goods back in here. Tax the greedy rich -- especially the Wall Street types who got away scot-free with their thievery. Tax outfits like Wal-Mart who think that not enough people care about the rights of workers--women and men alike--to stand up against their sleazy discrimination and payoffs in poor communities to get their stores opened. Clinton showed that a fair tax structure will balance the budget and write down the debt. As Carville put it and we have failed to follow, it's always the economy, stupid.
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