Southern Bookman

Richard Burton's Diaries

"The Richard Burton Diaries" prove that immense talent, attractiveness, fame and wealth don't bring happiness. A lover of books and the theater, Burton in the diaries he kept intermittently throughout his life shows himself a skilled writer - he published a number of articles without recourse to a ghost.

The diaries detail his life with Elizabeth Taylor and friendships and affairs with actors, directors and writers. Touchingly, they begin in his Welsh schoolboy days and last through his first acting triumphs into his drift into celebrity and mediocre films. Even such a famous life grows mundane. What's striking are his guilt and self-loathing at bad moods, heavy drinking and sleeping too late. A violated Puritan conscience rages.

I browsed through Burton's diaries soon after reading William Styron's Selected Letters. Letters are like diaries; both intimate, informal, revelatory. A letter to a close friend is like a shared diary entry; a diary entry is a letter to the self.

Neither man mentions meeting the other, but they have much in common. Both are talented men who rose from meager backgrounds to immense fame and acclaim. Both celebrate and despise their success. Sadly, their hyper masculinity conflicts with their sensitivity and creativity. That division brought forth for both of them great art and great pain.

Recalling Henry V, Agincourt on St. Crispin's Day

St. Crispin's Day recalls Shakespeare's Henry V and the British king's stirring victory over the French at Agincourt. King Harry's rousing speech to his outnumbered troops on the eve of battle in the patriotic play contributed the phrases "We Band of Brothers" and "the happy few" to the language. Robert Kennedy loved the "band of brothers" idea, and Stendahl dedicated "The Charterhouse of Parma" to the happy few, presumably those sophisticates who enjoy civilization's best.

The historic Agincourt has long fascinated me; at times I have felt the mystical sense that I was present at the battle on Oct. 26, 1425. Henry's ill and starving soldiers defeated a numerically superior French force. Reports vary on how much the British were outnumbered; it could have been as much as 5 to 1. The French also had a big edge in the number of horses. Some of Henry's men suffered from dysentery; unlike the beautiful uniforms and armor worn in films of the play, they fought naked, with watery shit running down their legs.

The British long-bow archers evened the odds, and battlefield luck did the rest. Henry stationed his archers on the sides, and their arrows spooked the French horses, which attacked from high ground and crashed into each other on a muddy, recently plowed field. The British also created a fortress with sharpened stakes from trees. With the French entangled with their fallen horses, many of them crushed into the mud and drowning, the British ran up to slaughter them, swinging swords and axes.

Another intriguing aftermath of the battle is that Henry ordered the killing of French prisoners, a severe violation of chivalric rules of battle. The controversy has raged through the centuries as to how many French nobles were killed and whether Henry was justified. Shakespeare himself gives a propaganda-ist defense of Henry.

The French military elite were decimated on that day. The tragedy echoes into the future; the English stood with the French in World Wars I and II, when French losses recalled the ancient debacle.

You Tube videos of Henry's St. Crispin's Day speech abound; one of the best is by Kenneth Branagh, from his Henry V movie of a few years ago.

Farewell Alex Karras, with memories of George Plimpton and "Paper Lion"

I just happened to see a web page report that Detroit Lions and later TV star Alex Karras has died. I associate Karras, the Lions' all-pro defensive lineman in the1960s, with one of my best childhood reading experiences, George Plimpton's "Paper Lion."

My parents subscribed for a time to the Book of the Month Club, and one of the hardbacks that arrived in a form fitted cardboard box was Plimpton's account of trying out for quarterback with the Lions. The zany Karras, who took to playing made up comic Nazi characters to ward off training camp boredom, was a star of the book, one of the first hits in the emerging literary sports-book genre. I can still remember the book's dust jacket, with a photo of the shaggy-haired Plimpton in his Lions uniform, No. 0, as I recall. Plimpton discussed his humiliation at trying to play quarterback for the Lions, who good naturedly accepted him, finishing with an account of his actual appearance in an exhibition game. The book was one of the first "New Journalism" works I read and remains one of the best.

Karras later starred in the movie version of the book, launching him on his acting career highlighted by the TV show "Webster." In the show, he and his TV wife adopted a black kid. I have a few impressions of the show, including that I had a mini-crush on the woman who played his TV wife.

I also knew Karras from my father's subscription to Sports Illustrated; he along with the Packers' Paul Hornung was suspended for a year by NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle for gambling ties. That was one of the big sports stories of the early '60s. I also recall Karras from another memorable childhood experience, watching on Thanksgiving Day as the Lions upset the undefeated Packers, totally dominating the Pack in one of the most amazing sporting events of my youth. Back then, the NFL always delivered unexpected excitement.

 The Packers went on to finish that season with only one loss. I don't remember if they played in the first Super Bowl that year, or whether that came later, and just winning the NFL championship was the thing. While I liked the Packers, the Bears and other NFL teams, I really loved the AFL, to me the most exciting football ever played.

When I was a kid reading Plimpton's account of trying out for the Lions, little did I know that Plimpton was the Paris Review's editor, and that I would later have a lifelong adult readership of the journal. At several times in my life, beginning in my college days, I have subscribed to the PR, and have continued reading it ever since. I've read many memoirs about Plimpton's New York and Paris literary days, but my  favorite  memory of him will always be as the New York writer seeking to play quarterback for the Lions. Farewell, Alex, who came to life in Plimpton's book, a great literary character as well as a great player and a fine comic actor.

A Trip to San Francisco

I've just returned from that exquisitely literary city, San Francisco, where I quickly made my pilgrammage to the Beat cathedral, City Lights Books, in a racy North Beach area. My son accompanied me, and I proudly showed him Jack Kerouac Alley next to Lawrence Ferlinghetti's book-jammed spot. Seeing Saint Jack's sign and standing in the soft West Coast light, I felt a momentary wash of emotion, a mourning for the lost days of freedom and hope that Kerouac captured.

Inside, my son was amused by the sections devoted to radical politics and writing. I found a book on Jimmy Rodgers, the old Mississippi singing brakeman, surprised that my interest in old roots music would be met by City Lights, which I place in another literary/intellectual/artistic realm than country and western. Goes to show the universality of the City Lights collection, quite an anachronism these days, but quite common at independent bookstores back 30 years ago.

City Lights is also an excellent press; and I purchased a nice City Lights poetry anthology. After making my purchases, I saw a new book by the great guitarist Ry Cooder, a short story collection called "Los Angeles Stories," published by City Lights, but didn't buy it right then. Later, at another bookstore, this one located on Second Street downtown, I did buy it to take home with me.

With all of its tomes on anarchism, socialism and the like, City Lights is a capitalist place. I pointed out to my son a book on type and fonts that I had read, checking it out of the library, and he, a type wonk, decided to buy it, then complained over and over about its $30 cost. 

My son wasn't impressed when we returned outside and I pointed out to him the nearby Hungry I, once the center of the cutting edge standup comics like Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce. I was happy to see the old spot, assuming that it still gives a forum for comedians, poets and musicians. A few days later, we happened on a cool spot called Melt, where we listed to jazz for several hours from two different bands, the first a trio and the second a packed tightly together group with piano, bass, sax, guitar, two drummers, and a guy playing trumpet and French horn. Each group had a musician playing standup bass, a wonderful instrument.

The spirit of Dashiell Hammett and Sam Spade floated in the cool bay breeze when I sat at a sidewalk spot drinking coffee and saw a sign above a storefront advising that here was the office of a private eye. Our companion, a resident of the neighborhood, said the P.I. had left a few years ago, but in my mind I was already forming the detective novel about the place. San Francisco is one of those magical places that inspires writing. 

New Yorker Examines Book, Film Industries in Changing Times

The current New Yorker offers two articles that say a lot about what's happening in the book and movie industries. The always excellent Ken Auletta analyzes the Amazon and Apple-book publishers battle over ebook pricing. Ted Friend's profile of the comic star Ben Stiller provides a wealth of auxiliary information about how it's decided which movies are made and become box-office hits.

Auletta shows how the book publishers hope to preserve the venerable system in which publishers depend upon bookstores to market their books. The e-book system is an entirely different model. The article shows that the Justice Department overreached in suing the book publishers and Apple for colludng in setting ebook prices, and sees Amazon as the monolith seeking to control the entire book operation, from publishing to sales. However, while Amazon's drive for a books monopoly is seen as potentially limiting the varety and quality of books published, Amazon does open the gates to self-publishing, letting writters bypass the traditional dependence upon publishers. The Amazon operation might let thousands of voices speak, or, as is likely, a structure will arise in which quality and popular appeal take precedence.

The conclusion reached by Auletta is an important one: The publishers make up a relatively small cottage industry and the real battle for dominance in among the giants, Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon and Facebook. They are seeking to control the Internet world's "entire equation," as F. Scott Fitzgerald said of his film producer Monroe Stahr, hardware, software, content, products.

Friend's profile of Stiller, one of the Hollywood's diminishing number of bankable stars, shows the movie business in a desperate hunger game of how to attract an increasingly distracted and fragmented audience. Fewer movies are being made and fewer stars emerging as the big profits are made from superhero vehicles and techno-franchises. Young men from 17 to 25 hold the key, with films limited for the rest of us.

 

 

Hemingway and Gellhorn Hit the Small Screen

I'm looking forward to the HBO film "Hemingway and Gellhorn," to be broadcast Monday night. The movie will look at the relationship of Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn, herself a renowned journalist and novelist. From what I've read, it appears as if the movie will be fairly true to life.

Clive Owen plays Hemingway and Nicole Kidman Gellhorn. The two writers' affair and subsequent marriage played out during the Spanish Civil War and World War II, when the much younger Gellhorn was reaching her prime and Hemingway had already done much of his best work, although years of stories and novels would follow.

Hemingway, one of the characters in Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris," looks to have continued appeal 50 years after his death. No doubt a movie is in the works about F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, especially with the latest film version of "The Great Gatsby" imminent.

Atlanta Theater Feels the Cold

As a lapsed Atlanta drama critic, I have theater envy reading the rave reviews and glowing articles about "The Iceman Cometh" revival at Chicago's Goodman Theater. Yes, Atlanta's Alliance won a regional Tony a couple of years ago, but Atlanta's premier theater is off-course seeking to develop Broadway-kitsch musical monstrosities such as the recent disaster, "Ghost Brothers of Darkland County."

The Goodman's "Iceman," with the possibly miscast Nathan Lane in the role of Hickey, is the kind of innovative revival that Atlanta audiences rarely if ever get to see. A couple of years ago, the Alliance did put on a good performance of "August: Osage County," and Georgia Shakespeare and the New American Shakespeare Tavern from time to time leave the Bard's work to do a revival, such as the outstanding "Glass Menagerie" a few years ago at the Tavern.

With the demise of Marietta's Theater on the Square and recent financial troubles at other venues, Atlanta theater has declined. The Alliance's announced new season doesnt hold much of interest for me. Chicago's "Iceman Cometh" shows the chill in Atlanta theater.

Memoirs of Punk Glory

I've been reading a cluster of memoirs from the 1960s-1970s on the punk/left wing/hippie era of New York City, from the lower east side over to the Village. All three I downloaded on my Nook, which seems all too easy too do, like another glass of wine when it's going down smooth. I doubt any of them will be on Rick Santorum's list, or that of any other GOP candidate for that matter, although Ron Paul might enjoy the liberatarian spirit of the times.

The first finished, Patti Smith's "Just Kids," about her love affair/friendship with Robert Mapplethorpe. As the 60s were burning out, and the '70s came like the horrible morning after, Patti came out with her "Horses," which I quite liked if I recall. The cover photo was by Mapplethorpe, which I'd forgotten, or perhaps never knew, until I read the book. Despite her wild, cutting edge personna, Smih comes across in her book as a shy, nice, small-town girl, an innocent in the big city always finding a new man to cake care of her. The first part of the book talks about her meeting Mapplethorpe and her close early relationship with him, and it begins with narrative energy from the time-honored motif of two kids from the sticks in Manhattan. Then, as they hang on and establish a daily life of trying to become artists, the book's drive dissipates, with too much mundane detail about squalid apartments, bad jobs, folks met and drinks downed. At end end, the book regains its opening power, fnishing with a poingnant account of Mapplethorpe's death.

The lastest I'm reading is James Walcott's account of the same time, wrriten from his jounalist's perspective. Walcott is a more fluid writer than Smith, better able to give dramatic force to the details and anecdotes he recalls, although he often overreaches with his verbal effects. His hip asides are amusing when on-target, but are annoying when he goes amiss. He too hits a dead zone in the middle of the book,which I hope he spins out of soon.

The most disappointing one is Ed Sanders' memoirs about the Fugs and his Peace Eye Bookstore, As with Smioth, he piles on surfeit of details that read more like a private diary without putting them in a broader context for the reader. The book is still entertaining, but too many chapters pile up with unrefined facts about places played, folks met, songs written.

Thoughts of Rothko on a Rainy Night

As I left the Theatrical Outfit's performance of "Red," in downtown Atlanta, a light rain fell. The play, full of art talk and aesthetic musings, left me in a sombre mood. The longtime Atlanta theater master Tom Key truly made himself into the haunted Rothko, showing a man covering an acute sensitivity with an art-cumedgeon persona, and young Jimi Kocina as his helper and dramatic foil was excellent. 

Once again, I decided against driving home on the interstate and took the local route from Spring to Peachtree. I always like going down Peachtree, imagining it a grand boulevard like say Park Avenue, although Peachtree, along with so much else in Atlanta, is quite mediocre. Still, artistic efforts like Tom's Theatrical Outfit in a once dying part of downtown kindle a hopes for the city, whose lustre has dimmed in recent years. 

Thoughts of Rothko and his ruminations on the truth of art/seeing/color/vision vs. commerce/popularity'vulgarity had me thinking about my own life, and others. The New York Times had run three obituaries on three great women who had lived well with full artistic accomplishment: Dorothea Tanning, Wislawa Szymborska and Camilla Williams.

Heading home, I passed the Memorial Arts Center, where once I'd seen some Rothkos at the High Museum. A few other signs of attempts at urban greatness passed by, along with a stretch of strip shopping centers and the like. They have their own truth too, though.

I pass places where I've lived segments of my life, in weekly repeated rituals: Barnes & Noble (alas, Borders gone), Peachtree Pres (where I fitfully go to the gym, and where my children played basketball and went to preschool and where Tom Key annually narrates a Christmas Eve service for kids), and the pond on Lakemoore. I also pass Christ the King, where my wife and I were married, and where I first met Tom at a Sunday morning adult education series. Years of images and memories built up.

The rain grows heavier, and already some parts of Roswell Road are flooded. Again, I'm thankful to make it home.

Ken Kesey's "Magic Trip"

In one of those serendipitous discoveries, I found that Comcast's On-Demand is showing a documentary on Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters' psychedelic trip across the United States in a painted bus called "Further." Although the hour was late and sleep called, I had to immediately watch "Magic Trip," the History Channel-funded film.

The film, pieced together from movies taken by Kesey and crew on the trip (the initial motive for the journey was to make a film), was exhilarating and hilarious, although the antics of the proto-hippies now seem ill-conceived, jejune and wasteful.

How wonderful and relevatory to see characters in "living color" I'd only read about previously. Kesey with his physical power and charisma, bursts from the screen. Neal Cassidy, the hero of Jack Kerouac's "On the Road," also shows his legendary physical dynamism and electric non-stop raps. Although he was constantly on speed, driving through the night and talking even when no one is listening except for the microphone, Cassidy despite his love of nutty,unexpected adventures comes off as an adult, knowing how to change tires and get out of frequent scrapes with the highway patrol. Cameo appearances are made by an amusingly proper Larry McMurtry,  perplexed when his old Stanford chum Kesey and the Pranksters show up at his home in a rarified Houston neighborhood, a sadly diminished Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. A young and beardless Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead play a significant role in the film's look at the famed Kesey acid tests, the subject of a book by Tom Wolfe (not even mentioned).

The less famous members of the crew come off as silly, confused, bewildered, infantile and mentally derangedl. I felt something like pity for them, along with the sick fascination of watching impaired people acting out their delusions. One or two of them show intelligence in commenting upon the experience. Others are just children trapped in Kesey's artistic and social experiment.

Frequent LSD trips mark the cross-country journey. Kesey is an early LSD apostle, although the film shows Timothy Leary and Ram Dass shunning the group when it shows up at Kesey's LSD experimental station in New York. Kesey first took acid as part of a government-funded experiment at Stanford. The experiment is shown is excruciating detail, with Kesey recording his observations in a tape recorder, then in an interview with a nurse who may be a Nurse Ratched prototype. Kesey's psychedelic visions sound pretty much like any other acid trip, showing how mundane and unordinary the so-called "revelations" really were.

Like other "happenings" and political street theater projects of the time, the trip of Further doesn't hold up aethetically. Most of the crews' antics while on acid don't appear very imaginative and innovative. Yet, the film, with its comments from Kesey and Cassidy and its constant attempt to show the context of the times, still possesses great charm and energy. As with Andy Warhol's similar aesthetic experiments with a crew of acolytes, Kesey's experiment looks like a grand failure. At the end, he turned against the counter-culture folks who kept showing up at his Oregon farm, and the widespread use of acid, although he kept maintaining the value of its use for select visionaries such as himself.

Kesey says to an unnamed interviewer who sounds like "Fresh Air's" Terry Gross that he kept writing to the end. Yet, at least in posthumous works that have been published so far, he never reached the heights of his earlier works, the classic "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," and "Sometimes a Great Notion." Kesey wasted much creative energy in the Magic Trip. While the film is amusing, I wish we would have had instead later, artistically mature, books from Kesey.

By the way, I was glad to hear Kesey say he didn't like the movie made from "Cuckoo's Nest," although he liked the Broadway play (Kirk Douglas played Randall McMurphy.) Kesey thought the movie, starring Jack Nicholson, focused too much on the conflict between McMurphy and the Big Nurse. On reviewing the movie several years ago, I hated the misogynistic portrayal of Ratched, although Louise Fletcher won an Academy Award for her performance.

....Note: Terry Daughtery, interviewed by Southern Bookman after his fine biography on Donald Bartheleme, will have a biography out this month on "Catch 22" writer Joseph Heller. A riveting excerpt is in this month's Vanity Fair.