Southern Bookman

Nation severely divided before Independence Day

As another Independence Day arrives, the United States has collapsed.

The nation is divided into different countries with separate realities.

Now, we are ruled by the Supreme Court's gang of six, a religious conservative cult that cares more for big corporations and the wealthy than American citizens.

Goodbye, separation of church and state. Goodbye, equal protection under the law. Goodbye, separation of powers.

The Supreme Court once upheld the law of the land. Now, in overturning aborition rights, the Court has returned to the pre-Civil War rule of individual states.

Women in Mississippi and Texas don't have the same rights as those in California and New York. This violates the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal protection under the law.

Joe Biden's election gave hope that normal government would return. But the turmoil and chaos of the Trump era has worsened.

Despite supporting the violent overthrow of the government and false claims of election fraud, the Republicans appear headed to control of the Congress, and likely the presidency in 2024.

Beyond  fuming and muttering, the Democratic Party seems incapable of developing effective programs.

On this Independence Day, John Prine's "The Great Compromise" looks more on target than ever.

I knew a girl who was almost a lady
She had a way with all the men in her life
Every inch of her blossomed in beauty
She was born on the fourth of July

 

Well, she lived in an aluminum house trailer
And she worked in a juke box saloon
And she spent all the money that I gave her
Just to see the old man in the moon

 

I used to sleep at the foot of Old Glory
And awake in the dawn's early light
But much to my surprise
When I opened my eyes
I was a victim of the great compromise

 

Well, we'd go out on Saturday evenings
To the drive-in on Route 41
And it was there that I first suspected
That she was doin' what she'd already done

 

She said, "Johnny won't you get me some popcorn?"
And she knew I had to walk pretty far
And as soon as I passed through the moonlight
She hopped into a foreign sports car

 

I used to sleep at the foot of Old Glory
And awake in the dawn's early light
But much to my surprise
When I opened my eyes
I was a victim of the great compromise

 

Well, you know I could have beat up that fellow
But it was her that had hopped into his car
Many times I'd fought to protect her
But this time she was goin' too far.

 

Now some folks they call me a coward
'Cause I left her at the drive-in that night
But I'd druther have names thrown at me
Than to fight for a thing that ain't right

 

I used to sleep at the foot of Old Glory
And awake in the dawn's early light
But much to my surprise
When I opened my eyes
I was a victim of the great compromise

 

Then she writes all the fellows love letters
Saying, "Greetings, come and see me real soon"
And they go and line up in the barroom
Spend the night in that sick woman's room.

 

But sometimes I get awful lonesome
And I wish she was my girl instead
But she won't let me live with her
And she makes me live in my head.

 

I used to sleep at the foot of Old Glory
And awake in the dawn's early light
But much to my surprise
When I opened my eyes
I was a victim of the great compromise

 

Princeton University Press publishes W.H. Auden's complete poems

The publication of W.H. Auden's complete poems is the summer's major literary event.

Princeton University Press' "The Complete Works of W.H. Auden: Poems, Volume I: 1927-1939" and "The Complete Works of W.H. Auden: Poems: Volume II:1940-1973" gather Auden's best-known poems as well as those never published, giving a complete history of each composition, including Auden's at times misguided corrections.

The volumes, which cost $60 each, include each of Auden's published collections, along with unfinished poems from his notebooks.

Edited by Auden's literary executor, Edward Mendelson, the poetry volumes finish Princeton's publication of Auden's complete works, including prose.

Washington Post critic Michael Dirda in an admiring review Thursday praises Auden's astonishing literary brilliance exhibited in Auden's poetry as it changed throughout his life.

From his early work inspired by T.S. Eliot to the emergence of his original voice to his more colloquial later poems, Auden displayed a perfect ear for English rhythms.

As Dirda says, the new collections show the entire range of Auden's achievement, supplanting the paperback edition of Auden's selected poems, also edited by Mendelson.

The two volumes will allow Auden lovers to trace the course of his poetic imagination, from youth to old age. Rediscovering well-known poems and discovering unfamiliar ones will give readers a deep understanding of Auden's work. Princeton University Press has given a rare gift to readers.

Emma Cline's "Pleasant Glen" redeems Paris Review's summer issue

The Paris Review now makes no distinction between short stories, essays and memoirs.

For some reason, the table of contents of the journal's summer issue placed all non-poetry writing under the rubric "prose."

Perhaps recently installed editor Emily Stokes issued a justification somewhere for the curious editorial decision, which equates fiction and non-fiction. Perhaps there's no difference anymore.

Whatever, I as usual found most of the journal's prose unreadable, except for interesting art of fiction interviews with the Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and American novelist and critic Sigrid Nunez.

I also was drawn by Darryl Pinckney's personal essay about the Sidney Poitier-Paul Newman jazz film noir "Paris Blues," directed by Martin Ritt and also starring Diahann Carroll and Newman's longtime wife Joanne Woodward, with a cameo appearance by Louis Armstrong.

In an overly involved piece, Pinckney recalls viewing the 1961 film as a young adolescent, awakening his sexual and artistic aspirations.

Emma Cline's thrilling short story "Pleasant Glen" at the end of the journal redeemed the issue. Displaying the mastery of her collection "Daddy: Stories," Cline in "Pleasant Glen" creates memorable characters, dialogue and scenes in an amusing/disturbing saga of Hollywood decadence.

Cline is one of the few writers of her generation whose short stories enthrall me like classics by John Updike, John Cheever, Thomas McGuane, Jean Stafford, Richard Yates and others.

Unfortunately, most of the stories published in today's literary journals make me think American writing's in decline.

 

"Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story" celebrates Crescent City's cultural jewel

The documentary "Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story" casts a shining light on the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, a crowning achievement for the dysfunctional, poverty-stricken city.

Directed by Frank Marshall and Ryan Suffern, the film focuses on the festival's 50th anniversary in 2019, before a two-year covid shutdown. The festival returned this spring.

Showing performances and commentary on the festival by a range of musicians, the film sees the festival as a culmination of the city's diverse cultural mix. 

Along with jazz, the festival showcases hip-hop, rhythm and blues, rock, gospel, folk and Cajun music.

Several years ago, the festival began offering performances by big-time acts like the Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen.

Yet, the festival still strives to give attention to local and regional performers, as the film records with scenes from the festival's many musical tents and stages.

The film opens with a supercharged performance by Earth, Wind and Fire at the 2019 festival. Also shown are Pit Bull, Jimmy Buffett, Katy Perry - with a gospel choir - and others.

A heart-rending scene shows the late jazz pianist Ellis Marsalis performing with his famous sons Branford, Wynton and Delfeayo, one of the rare times the family played together. Ellis Marsalis was an early victim of the covid pandemic.

Tears will also flow at Springsteen’s 2006 performance at the first jazz festival following the city's devastation by Hurricane Katrina. Springsteen is shown with his acoustic guitar singing "My City in Ruins," leading the audience to a rousing affirmation of the city's resilient spirit.

Looking back to the festival's origins, the film interviews the late founder George Wein, who launched the New Orleans event after achieving success with the Newport Jazz Festival. Longtime jazz festival producer Quint Davis, who succeeded Wein, is the film's guiding spirit.

Local legends Irma Thomas, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and the late Allen Toussaint make appearances, along with a new generation led by Trombone Shorty and hip-hop artists. The city's Mardi Gras indians display their gorgeous costumes.

Along with historic jazz festival performances, the film looks at the city's diverse musical culture, with a long sequence exploring the jazz funeral tradition. Marshall and Suffern also trace the origins of jazz and the blues in the city's slavery era, including the Congo Square slave market.

The festival also offers a sumptuous array of Louisiana food. The film looks at the regional cuisines that make the festival a major dining event.

Glossing over the city's poverty and high murder rate, the film presents the city as a major contributor to American culture, as reflected in the jazz fest.

The festival presents New Orleans at its best, a city of joy, community spirit and unbounded musical creativity. 

Anne Enright examines depths, beauty of James Joyce's "Ulysses"

James Joyce's "Ulysses" is a living presence for Irish writer Anne Enright.

Enright, who was born in in Dublin and unlike Joyce returned to the city, has written a series of brilliant analyses of Joyce's ground-breaking masterwork to mark this year's 100th anniversary of the modernist classic's publication.

Along with an introduction to a new Penguin Classics edition of the novel, Enright has written essays examining "Ulyssess"  for publications ranging from the Guardian to the New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books. Her articles give a reliable, clear guide to Joyce's language, literary techniques and use of real Dublin people and city places.

In a recent piece in the London Review of Books, Enright retraces the journeys through Dublin of Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom on June 16, 1904, the day in which the novel unfolds. She revisits Dublin places where the characters experience major moments, including Dublin's landmark Sandymount Strand, where two key scenes occur.

"Ulysses" lovers hope that Enright publishes a book based on her essays. As a lifelong Dubliner and perceptive writer, she understands Joyce's deep love for his native city, from which he was exiled.

John Milton's life gives comfort for troubled era

During my convalescence from knee surgery, I've been thinking about John Milton.

The English author of "Paradise Lost" and a landmark essay supporting freedom of speech lived in a time of political turmoil rivaling ours. Milton supported the revolution that brought the death of King Charles I and served Oliver Cromwell's republic.

After the restoration of King Charles II, Milton was an outlaw, serving time in jail. After a general pardon of those who had participated in regicide, the blind Milton returned to his home to write "Paradise Lost," "Paradise Regained" and "Samson Agonistes," dictating his blank verse epics to secretaries.

Reviews of two new Milton biographies, "Making Darkness Light: A Life of John Milton" by Joe Moshenska and "Poet of Revolution: The Making of John Milton" by Nicholas McDowell, rekindled by interest in Milton, whose work I read as a college English major.

Milton's tumultuous life leading to the triumph of "Paradise Lost" gave me solace during the grueling knee rehab  and my distress at New York Times stories about the Great Salt Lake disappearing, the ravaging of the Central Africa rainforest, wildfires and drought. The Jan. 6 committee hearings eerily echoed Milton's times.

My college "Norton Anthology of English Literature" is one of my life treasures. As the heat soars, I'll once again take the old book from the shelf and read Milton, John Donne, Shakespeare, Andrew Marvell, George Herbert and other poets.

Their words give hope that virtue will prevail in the end.

 

 

 

Notes from rehab

Nearly three weeks after knee replacement surgery, normal life is slowly returning.

Thanks to the resolute support of my wife and family, I've completed the first stage of rehab. After a regimen of home visits from competent  and cheerful physical therapists, I'll switch to outpatient work next week. My steady progress so far encourages me for the hard months to follow.

In between exercises - the old squats, leg lifts and calf raises along with new stretches and bends - I've kept reading newspapers, magazines and books while watching “Law and Order” and “Andy Griffith” reruns on TV.  The Braves winning streak helped ease the pain.

My young neighbors brightened a couple of days, bringing me a handmade-card, a home-grown cucumber and banana bread. Friends and sisters sent encouraging messages and cards.

Walking's one of those gifts I took for granted. Now, with the help of a cane, I'm relearning how to place one foot after another, bend my knee, land on my heel.

I'm thankful for each step across the floor.

Goodbye, old knee, thanks for the memories

I'll soon complete the trifecta of Atlanta hospitals.

Following my long association with Piedmont, where my three children were born, and a week in Grady Hospital after a minor stroke, I'm headed to Northside Hospital Wednesday for knee replacement surgery.

The new knee will join a pacemaker in my heart and artificial lenses in my eyes.

Growing old had changed me into the bionic man.

Sure, I'll love to smash 300 yard drives with the new knee, or run the Peachtree.

But I'll be happy if I can just walk down the street without pain.

 

Farewell "Goodfellas" star Ray Liotta, memorable in galaxy of performances

Ray Liotta portrayed Frank Sinatra, Shoeless Joe Jackson and Henry Hill, yet was always Ray Liotta.

Memorably playing a variety of roles with his distinctive style, Liotta possessed the gift of making tough guys endearing.

Liotta died in his sleep Wednesday night or Thursday morning in the Dominican Republic, where he had been working on the film "Dangerous Waters." He was 67.

Like his "Goodfellas" co-star Robert De Niro, Liotta was a character actor with star presence. He stamped Hill as the central character in Scorsese's 1990 organized-crime saga, standing out among a stellar cast of De Niro, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco, Paul Sorvino and Michael Imperioli.

Verbally narrating Hill's true story about a brazen heist at New York's Kennedy Airport, Liotta portrays a descent from vulnerability to criiminality,  bringing the audience to identify with an average man caught up in forces bigger than him.

While Pesci won the best supporting actor Academy Award for his "Goodfellas" performance, Liotta's Hill defines the film.

Like Al Pacino with Michael Corleone and James Gandolfini with Tony Soprano, Liotta portrays Hill as a person like us.

Liotta brought the same authenticity to his astonishing spectrum of roles.  While Liotta gave each of his characters a distinctive personality, he's one of those special, instantly recognizable actors.

 

 

 

Photos of Uvalde children give silent witness to America's shame

The faces of innocent children murdered in Uvalde, Texas, appeared on The New York Times front page Thursday morning.

They shouldn't have been news. But on the day the students were to have begun summer vacation, they had replaced photos from Ukraine, and stories about the midterm primaries and the stock market.

Another mass slaying, America's third in recent memory, had killed 19 fourth graders and their dedicated two teachers in a small predominantly Mexican-American town near San Antonio.

In a scenario re-enacted over and over since Charles "Texas Tower" Whitman began the modern mass shooting era in 1966, a troubled young white male took out his life failures on innocent people, this time 10-year-old children and two beloved educators. The 18-year-old murdered the children in their classroom and was killed by law enforcement officers after a delayed police response.

Following America's threadbare script, anguished Democratic leaders called for "common sense" gun control measures, condemning Republicans for their fealty to the NRA and the gun lobby.

Before a playoff game in Dallas 400 miles from the massacre, Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr uttered the most impassioned cry of grief and outrage against the GOP senators who block any modest gun control proposals. Kerr accused the GOP of worshipping power and money rather than caring for human lives.

Still, the game was played. Dallas Mavericks fans cheered their team's victory.

Republicans like Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Texas Sen. Ten Cruz spewed out their usual defenses of the GOP's gun addiction. In Washington, the GOP will again subvert the will of the American people, who overwhelmingly support measures like background checks, banning assault weapons and placing age restrictions on gun purchases.

Surprisingly, the editorial page of Rupert Murdoch's New York Post supported a practical agenda of gun-control legislation. Murdoch's Wall Street Journal engaged in its typical sophistry and obfuscation, discounting the effectiveness of any action.

 In their silence, the photos of the children on The New York Times front page spoke loudly, asking the nation why.