Southern Bookman

Millennials' jibe "OK Boomer" shows nothing new under the sun

Bob Dylan told baby boomers not to trust anyone over 30.

Now, the millennials, who comprise several generations, snarl "OK, Boomer" to us aging postwar babies.

The generational putdown, an Internet sensation, has received rebuttals from New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd and Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page.

Generations X, Y and Z - what will new generations be called now that the letters have run out? - blame us boomers for climate change, declining economic prospects, Donald Trump and the Eagles. They probably think Dylan can't sing.

Dylan and other Baby Boom heroes were not even Baby Boomers. Dylan, born in 1941, and John Lennon, in 1940, were of the "Silent Generation," which came after the "Greatest Generation," and before the post-war baby explosion. With all of their music and social protest, those rockers weren't very silent.

Once we sang "The Times They Are a Changin'." Now, the younger generation wants us gone. As college football old-timer Lee Corso would say, "hey, not so fast."

In the pre-industrial age, people lived pretty much the same year after year. The generations' experience stayed the same, and people died young. Retroactively, historians branded ages like the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, but Shakespeare, Michelangelo and Voltaire didn't think of themselves as members of defined generations.

Generational conflict goes back to ancient times. Ecclesiastes, in the passage from which Ernest Hemingway found the name for his novel "The Sun Also Rises," warned that "one generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth forever."

Britain in the 19th century began identifying historical periods with the reigns of monarchs: the Victorian Age, the Georgian Age. Literary critics retroactively called Keats, Shelley, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Lord Byron and Charles Lamb the Romantics. Romanticism was also a European movement, including Beethoven and Goethe.

During the 20th century, enormous changes from decade to decade led to the rise of  distinct generations. Those of the Depression Era had different outlooks from those born in the 1950s. Music, fashion, art, culture, and social mores shifted.

The designation of generations emerged after World War I, when Gertrude Stein told Hemingway that he and  his contemporaries were members of a "Lost Generation." Then came the postwar flowering of writers like John Updike, Truman Capote, Robert Lowell and Gore Vidal. New waves of writers, musicians and film stars followed. From Chuck Berry to Katy Perry, the world kept turning.

The Baby Boomers reached a new level of self-consciousness, or bloated self-importance. Talking about my generation, we did bang the drum and blow the horn quite loudly.

Now, the millennials look at us as old duffers.

But remember, kids, a new crop of babies is being born, who will look at you as hopeless.

 

 

 

 

New York Review of Books Daily boosts literature on Internet

The New York Review of Books, outside of its semi-monthly print and online magazine, offers an excellent article each day on its Web site.

Ranging from politics and social commentary to views on literature, art and culture, the NYR Daily articles give a more personal perspective than the magazine's book reviews. From autobiographical essays to trenchant reflections on current issues, the pieces in tandem are like a separate digital journal, a small but welcome effort to raise the Internet's literary standards.

Recently, the NYR Daily has published former New York Times columnist Verlyn Klinkenborg's thoughts on the Victorian critic and artist John Ruskin, Garry Wills' account of his growing dismay during his academic career at how qualified women were denied professorships, and Daphne Merkin's recollections of New York's literary life.

Klinkenborg looks back on his  deep involvement with Ruskin's life and work, prompted by the current exhibit, "Onto This Last: 200 Years of John Ruskin," at the Yale Center for British Art.

As a young staff member at New York City's Morgan Library, Klinkenborg fell under the spell of Ruskin's landmark books "Modern Painters," "The Stones of Venice" and "The Seven Lamps of Architecture." An early environmentalist and a pioneer of aesthetics, Ruskin was also a reactionary who opposed Darwin and a misogynist disgusted by women's bodies. Klinkenborg ponders how Ruskin's dualities echo in our times.

Wills in his autobiographical piece "How I Learned to Fight the Patriarchy"  recalls with anger and regret how American universities discriminated against women with outstanding scholarly credentials. He recalls resigning from a leadership position because male members of his department refused to even interview a distinguished female scholar. Male professors opposed to women were often the most mediocre in their fields, Wills recalls. His personal growth into a champion of women's equality is a story worth emulating.

Merkin in eulogizing her late friends James Atlas and Barbara Probst Solomon looks back on the vanished world of New York intellectuals. The article's centerpiece is her memories of a party given by Diana Trilling, at which she encountered Philip Roth, George Plimpton and other literary figures, many now forgotten.

She praises Atlas, the first biographer of Saul Bellow, for breaking the bonds of literary politics. Championing Solomon's forgotten novels, she calls for a revival of her work.

 

 

 

 

 

Emmylou Harris shares love, music with Atlanta fans

Emmylou Harris gave adoring fans a generous helping of beloved songs Sunday night in a performance at Atlanta's Symphony Hall.

Now white-haired like many of those in the audience, the 72-year-old Harris kept the love flowing. Her energy remains high, her voice glorious.

Harris upheld the protest-song tradition with a searing anthem about Emmitt Till's murder in Mississippi, and a number honoring a Nashville program that matches foster children with pet animals.

With her band tautly ranging from rockabilly to bluegrass to old-time mountain laments, Harris thrilled the crowd with favorites like "Together Again," "Green Pastures" and "Pancho and Lefty."

She honored her early muse and partner Gram Parsons with "Las Vegas" and "Wheels," leaving Parsons fans longing for a few more songs from "Grevious Angel," "GP" or "The Gilded Palace of Sin."

Along with a heart-tugging encore of her own "Boulder to Birmingham," Harris presented an anthology of American songwriters, from James Taylor to Don Williams. Her signature performance of Billy Joe Shaver's "Old Five and Dimers" mirrored the life experience of the many aging hipsters present.

She closed the show with a rousing cover of Neil Young's "Long May You Run," raising our hopes of carrying on.

Feeling paranoid on Peachtree Street? It might be those cameras watching you

Welcome South, (Big) Brother.

Atlanta is a global city after all, at least when it comes to spying on its citizens and visitors. Henry Grady's "brave and beautiful city" ranks 10th in the world in public street surveillance, with nearly 11,000 security cameras watching the sidewalks, according to a recent AJC article.

With 15.6 cameras per 1,000 residents, Atlanta ia the only American city to make the top 10 list, according to the Comparitech report. Eight of the top surveillance cities are in China, which holds the top five spots. London, with 58 cameras per 1,000 residents, ranks sixth. Chongqing, in central China, is the world's top snoop, with 158 cameras per 1,000 people.

Years ago, Atlanta aspired to be an international city. Little did we know it would be for video surveillance.

Go to a strip club, the giant eye will see you. Tipsy after too many drinks at lunch? Surprise, you're on candid camera. Starting a new relationship? The camera knows. Those 11,000 unblinking eyes will see what books or magazines you've purchased.

Notoriously repressive Singapore and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates rank below Atlanta. Perhaps Atlanta can hold on to the camera-security lead as the UAB's Dubai's airport closes in on Hartsfield-Jackson as the world's busiest.

City police keeping watch on the city's streets from monitors in the Loudermilk Visual Intregration Center downtown say the prying on Peachtree reduces crime. But the ACLU says the watching handcuffs personal freedom.

If you're going to see the Falcons or Atlanta United at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, enjoy the game. The city will be watching you.

 

 

 

 

 

Farewell, Ray Jenkins

Ray Jenkins' reporting for small-town Southern newspapers brought major changes.

Jenkins, who wrote the local story that led to a landmark Supreme Court decision that broadened newspapers' First Amendment protections, died at age 89 Oct. 24 at his home in Baltimore from heart failure complications, according to obituaries in The New York Times and Washington Post.

Early in his career, Jenkins wrote stories for the Columbus, Ga., Ledger's Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation of criminal activities in Phenix City, Ala.

As a 24-year-old reporter for the Ledger fresh out of the University of Georgia, Jenkins was given the uncoveted Phenix City beat. Across the Chattahoochee River from Columbus, Phenix City lured Fort Benning soldiers and poor farmers to its gambling dens, nightclubs and prostitution houses. Gen. George Patton ordered his tanks to the 12th Street Bridge connecting the two cities, and threatened to blow Phenix City away.

Public outrage and demand for a crackdown reached the breaking point in 1953 when Democratic Attorney General nominee Albert Patterson was assassinated outside of his law office in Phenix City after making a campaign pledge to clean up the town. Stories by Jenkins and other reporters and Ledger editorials led to the prosecution of 144 people involved in Phenix City's criminal activities.

As city editor of Montgomery's now vanished Alabama Journal, Jenkins made a bigger impact with a small story about a New York Times ad seeking contributions for a Martin Luther King defense fund. The ad made several minor mistakes in calling out Alabama officials' attempts to derail the civil rights movement.

Although unnamed in the ad, several Alabama officials sued the Times, claiming libel. In the landmark New York Times Co. v. Sullivan decision, the Supreme Court ruled that public officials have to prove "actual malice" to win libel damages from a newspaper.

Jenkins later served in President Carter's press office and as the Baltimore Evening Sun's editorial page director. Like its fellow afternoon newspaper the Alabama Journal, the Baltimore Evening Sun is no longer in operation.

With more and more newspapers on the endangered list, vital reporting such as Jenkins produced is threatened. And with courts turning more conservative during the Trump administration, the First Amendment protections established by Times v. Sullivan are also under fire.

 

 

 

Farewell, Ernest Gaines

Many writers look back from exile at their origins. Ernest Gaines was different. To tell the stories of the illiterate, impoverished black people he knew growing up in rural Pointe Coupee Parish, he had to return to his native Louisiana.

Gaines, who gained international recognition for his books about his small plot of earth, died in his sleep Tuesday at his childhood home. The revered Louisiana author was 86.

As a child,  he worked in the fields among people a few generations removed from slavery. From his meager schooling, he'd learned to read and write, and composed letters for his co-workers and family members.

Along with many other blacks fleeing the South's racial violence, he moved to California as a young man. For the first time, he found himself free to read in a public library, and discovered Turgenev and other 19th century Russian novelists.

Loving the bohemian life of San Francisco, he graduated from San Francisco State, then received a prestigious Stegner fellowship to study writing at Stanford. The voices he knew in childhood remained with him.

Struggling in California to finish a book based on the strict, wheelchair-confined aunt who raised him, Gaines returned to Louisiana at the height of the civil rights movement. Back in Louisiana, he gained a clear vision of the plantation life he knew growing up and quickly finished "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman," his breakthrough novel.

Tracing how history echoed in a life of quiet dignity, the book gave the world one of its most enduring characters, a woman raised in slavery who lived to 101 and saw the changes of the 1960s. Cecily Tyson gave a memorable performance as Miss Jane Pittman in a TV movie that won nine Emmy Awards.

Gaines further drew upon his memories of the black community in "A Gathering of Old Men," "A Lesson Before Dying" and other lauded books. He received a MacArthur "genius grant," and traveled the world. He always returned to his childhood home close to a body of water known as False River that had once been part of the Mississippi.

A genial, warm-hearted man who spoke with Louisiana's French-inflected cadences, Gaines revealed how the love of family and community overcame bitterness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Martin Scorsese takes on Marvel movies

Film god Martin Scorsese says Marvel superhero movies "are not cinema."

In a New York Times op-ed piece Tuesday, Scorsese expounded on comments first made to the British magazine "Empire" in which he blasted superhero movies as "theme parks" lacking the artistic depth of films like his own "Taxi Driver" and Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window."

Softening his "hey, get off my cinematic lawn" stance, Scorsese conceded that those making the comic book flicks have talent and creativity. He  just doesn't find them interesting.

Scorsese complained that his recently completed "Irishman" starring Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci will have a limited theater release, before heading to TV streaming service Netflix. The film is now playing at Broadway's opulent Belasco Theater, which was outfitted with a movie screen for the one-month showing. He praised Netflix for financing his film about the murder of Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa, probably unknown to most millennials.

The director said that Hollywood's support of predictable superhero films has crowded out artistically challenging films like his. Movie theaters are now dominated by films loaded with special effects to appeal to younger audiences hooked on video games.

As a longtime movie goer who finds fewer films I want to see in theaters, I agree with Scorsese's comments. Yet I'm skeptical at Scorsese's claiming the power to define what's cinema. While I love fully developed characters and plots and intricate dialogue, I see cinema as a visual medium.

Marvel films are not just about visual gratification. The Marvel film "Black Panther" offered strong characters and was lauded as an artistic triumph for black filmmakers. The "Spiderman" series has examined Peter Parker's adolescent angst.

Reviewers like the Wall Street Journal's Joe Morgenstern praised "Wonder Woman.," based on a D.C. Comics character. "The Joker," based on the villain from D.C.'s "Batman" series, sounds like a challenging film.

Scorsese's complaint about being closed off from theaters also sounds off-base. While only one theater in Atlanta  is now showing "The Irishman," Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-Ho's arty "The Parasite" is playing at three Northside theaters near my home. Alas, a movie I want to see, Noah Bombach's "Marriage Story" starring Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson will also have a short theater life before heading to Netflix.

While the adult movie selection is more and more limited, I find it strange that Scorsese is praising Netflix. Only last year when Alfonso Curaron won the best director Academy Award for his Netflix-backed  film "Roma," the streaming service was accused of killing movie theaters.

Scorsese's "New Hollywood" generation was blasted by old-time critics for movies like "Bonnie and Clyde," "Mean Streets," "Taxi Driver," "The Deer Hunter" and "Easy Rider."

Yet, Scorsese's right in fearing that artistically challenging movies are endangered. Younger audiences no longer go to theaters to watch those kind of films. When I saw Quentin Tarentino's "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood," the audience was filled with gray-haired and physically challenged boomers like myself.

As Scorsese notes, watching films like Hitchcock's "Psycho" on the big screen was once a monumental experience. No matter how excellent the movie or TV series, the small screen doesn't deliver the same aesthetic punch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fall book selections: Vivid personalities, virtuoso writing

I've always liked those "Autumn Books," "Spring Books," "Summer Reading" and "Holiday Books" wrap-ups that literary-minded journals do.

Looking toward the holidays, gasp!, here are a few books I've liked recently, and some on my reading list.

Books I've Read

"Ragin' Cajun: Memoir of a Louisiana Man." Doug Kershaw and Cathie Pelletier (Mercer University Press): The flamboyant Louisiana fiddler, singer and writer of the classic song "Louisiana Man" tells a hair-raising tale of his boyhood on a remote Louisiana river and rise to fame. Kershaw's encounters with Nashville stars and the Music City's drug culture make "Ragin' Cajun" a perfect companion to Ken Burns' "Country Music" PBS series. Kershaw takes a deeper, and more honest, look. He and Pelletier give an unflinching and compelling narrative of redemption: How he overcame drug addiction and found enduring love. Here is a link to my Southern Bookman review.

"A Good American Family: the Red Scare and My Father." David Maraniss. (Simon and Schuster): The  Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of Vince Lombardi and Roberto Clemente and noted author of books on American politics and history turns his attention to his own family. Maraniss' father, Elliott, for several years was a fervid member of the Community Party, as was his mother, Mary. Elliott was called before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee during the 1950s "Red Scare" and immediately lost his newspaper job. For years, he had difficulty finding work until establishing a career at the Madison, Wisc., Capital Times. Maraniss in his account of his family's ordeal takes a broader look at the era's fraught politics and some of its villains and heroes.

"I Used to Be Charming." Eve Babitz. (New York Review Books):  Babitz's writing flows like a virtuoso jazz improvisation in the best pieces in this journalism collection. The book gives a vivid picture of Los Angeles, New York and cultural battles in the 1960s. She is one of those rare writers whose sentences I must read out loud.

On My List

"Sontag: Her Life and Work." Benjamin Moser.  (Harper Collins): The avant garde critic and novelist Susan Sontag led a combative, adventuresome life. Reviews of Moser's biography agree that he captures her wildness and critical acumen.

"Janis: Her Life and Music." Holly George-Warren. (Simon and Schuster): Janis Joplin, the Susan Sontag of rock and roll, fled a bleak east Texas childhood and achieved stardom in San Francisco. She remained a lost child, joining the club of counterculture drug martyrs. That voice will live forever. Her raw and tender rendition of Kris Kristofferson's line "Busted flat in Baton Rouge" evokes my hometown for me. George-Warren shows how Janis' pain drove her music, as New York Times critic Dwight Garner recently noted.

"Never So Lovely a Real: The Life and Work of Nelson Algren." Colin Asher. (W.W. Norton and Co.): Best-known for "The Man With the Golden Arm," Algren was the poet of Chicago's underclass. Asher's life reveals a writer whose work is worth rediscovery, reviewers found.

"Vernon Subutex 1. Virginie Despentes. Translated by Frank Wynne. (MacLehose):  Despentes' novel sounds like a wild plunge into Paris' hip underworld. Wall Street Journal fiction critic Sam Sacks said the book possesses a raw honesty most American books lack. It comes out Tuesday, with Subtex 2 to follow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Deadspin crashes after staff revolts against corporate demands

The Internet has ravaged newspapers and magazines. The new age is also perilous for digital news sites.

Cheeky sports site Deadspin looks all but dead after a staff revolt against its corporate overlords.

Deadspin's staff resigned this week after a demand from its private equity owners that the site limit its coverage to sports. The site drew a hip audience with articles that branched out from sports to politics and popular culture. Writers were given wide latitude to give personal views and throw bricks at revered sports figures and institutions.

As with ESPN, Deadspin owner Great Hill Partners grew uneasy with its staff's left-leaning political coverage. Great Hill gained control of Deadspin and sibling Jezebel from Univision and formed G/O Media to run the sites. Deadspin and Jezebel were originally part of Gawker, which collapsed after wrestler Hulk Hogan won a $140 million judgment against it.

G/O Media Editorial Director Paul Maidiment's meddling with Deadspin's articles led to the resignation of Editor Megan Greenwall a few months ago. This week, interim Editor Barry Petchesky was tossed out after opposing Maidment's demands that the site limit itself to sports. The staff resigned in support of Petchesky. The writers also objected to pop-up video ads that disrupted readers. An outpouring of outrage from Deadspin fans followed the turmoil.

Deadspin's self-immolation follows massive staff cutbacks at Sports Illustrated, engineered by another private equity firm. SI soldiers on, scoring a First Amendment victory over the Houston Astros during the World Series when an Astros executive was fired for making misogynistic comments to a female SI reporter.

With Deadspin reeling, sports fans have fewer digital choices. The site's demise is another blow to free, reliable information on the Internet.

Along with ESPN, newspaper sites and the diminished SI, those hungry for comprehensive sports news on the Internet can turn to the self-congratulatory and subscription-based the Athletic, funded by venture capitalists. With a roster of mainstream sportswriters pirated from local newspapers, The Athletic labors to match Deadspin's snarkiness and unconventional views.

Private equity firms have plundered local newspapers as well as digital sites. The old press barons were greedy, but had some commitment to journalism.

 

As reading declines, Philip Roth's $2 million bequest to Newark Library supports books

Philip Roth in his novels wrote about Jewish life of his youth in Newark. Honoring that heritage, Roth left $2 million to his hometown's public library, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The bequest from Roth's $10 million estate shows his faith in reading and literature. Roth stipulated that the money be used to purchase books, not for capital projects. The gift will be placed in an endowment, and $80,000 a year in interest will go to the library to add to its selection of new books.

Before his death, Roth left his extensive book collection to the library. The books, with Roth's annotations, are housed in a dedicated room open to the public.The library also sponsors special events to honor Roth.

Growing up in a prosperous, middle-class Newark, Roth was dismayed by the city's decline in the 1960s and 1970s. During his youth, he often visited the city's public library, which opened the literary world to him.

Fewer children are discovering that world, according to an alarming report from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. National tests showed a 3 percent decline in reading ability among eighth graders and 1 percent falloff among fourth graders. Math tests showed a 1 percent gain for fourth graders and a 1 percent drop for eighth graders.

Struggling students keep falling further behind, while those at the top are regressing, the report found.

The declines reverse significant gains in test results from 1990 to 2015, according to reports. Now, as China and other countries tout educational achievements, American students fall behind

Some commentators blamed the reversals on students' dependence on mobile phones, television and computer screens. Others said more and more parents don't read to their children from an early age. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos predictably called for more "school choice" and tax breaks for private schools rather than spending more on public education.

Like Philip Roth, children deserve the gift of reading.

 

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