Southern Bookman

Back in Music City

Taking a weekend trip to Nashville, where, as Jackson Browne said during a concert beside the Cumberland River, every other person you see is a guitar genius.

Nashville, for all its Music City glamour, remains an old Southern town. I like the clash of old and new.

Andrew Jackson’s hometown rejected mass transit thanks to a pro-car campaign financed by the Koch brothers.

It’s choked with traffic and emissions, which cover downtown skyscrapers with a gauzy haze. Many progressives live here, but keep losing to the GOP right wing.

For all of its suicidal ways, Nashville is one of my favorite places. I hope to get to Broadway, walk in the Ryman’s shadow and peruse records and books at the Ernest Tubb Record Store.

 

 

The 200th anniversary of Keats' "To Autumn"

Refreshed by a pleasant breeze as I walked in my neighborhood last evening, I thought about John Keats' "To Autumn."

After observing freshly cut cornfields during a walk, Keats wrote the poem on this date 200 years ago. Each year, I reread the poem on one of those mild autumnal days like the one that inspired Keats.

I never realized until reading Garrison Keillor's now emailed "Writers' Almanac" this morning that Sept. 19 was the day Keats wrote "To Autumn," his last major poem. It was a revelation that the ode to autumn was written in late summer.

Many of the poem's images are more like summer, adding to the sense of longing for a new season. The evocation of summer adds to the poem's foreshadowing of death. Keats died a little more than a year after writing the poem.

"To Autumn" was the last of the great odes he produced beginning in the spring of 1819. Despite that astonishing outpouring, Keats grew despondent  over financial worries, the belief that he'd failed as a poet and the realization that he was dying from tuberculosis.

I, like others, believe the poem the most perfect in the English language. What appears a simple celebration of the arrival of autumn has received many interpretations, the coming of death the most prevalent. Noted critic Helen Vendler sees it as a metaphor for artistic creation. Somehow, it's been linked to the Peterloo Massacre, which happened the same year. Difficult to see that connection.

What haunts me about the poem is its understanding of the impermanence of human experience. A young poet knew the reality of walking, the vision of the cornfield, the writing of the poem. He was there 200 years ago, giving us a gift that has spoken to generations.

To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cider-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,–

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Farewell, Cokie Roberts and Sander Vanocur

Cokie Roberts and Sander Vanocur represented different eras of Washington TV journalism.

Roberts died Tuesday in Washington at age 75 and Vanocur Monday night in California at 91.

Vanocur, best known for reporting on the Kennedy administration for NBC News, personified the male-dominated news business of the 1960s. Roberts was among a generation of women journalists who demolished those gender barriers in the 1970s and 1980s.

Roberts, like Vanocur, was a Washington insider. Her father, Hale Boggs, for years represented New Orleans in the U.S. House and was House speaker when he died in a plane crash in Alaska. Her mother, Lindy Boggs, took her husband's place after his death and served as U.S. ambassador to the Vatican. Roberts grew up breathing politics, giving her an empathy for politicians unusual for a journalist.

A glamorous correspondent in the days when TV overcame newspapers as Americans' dominant news source, Vanocur was a prominent persona during John F. Kennedy's ground-breaking administration. He was the last of a four-member panel of reporters who questioned Kennedy and Richard Nixon in their 1960 debate, which changed the course of news and politics.

Reporting on Kennedy's witty and sophisticated news conferences and his trips and speeches. Vanocur with his haughty air and polished sentences was the TV counterpart of the "Best and Brightest" who served in Kennedy's cabinet. One of my most vivid childhood memories is watching a choked-up Vanocur report on Kennedy's assassination. He was one of the last journalists who interviewed Robert F. Kennedy.

A solid, insightful reporter, Roberts excelled as one of the first of a new era of TV pundits, giving insider commentary about Washington. During her career, opinion grew as prevalent as objective news reporting.

Sophisticated and knowledgeable, she presented a folksy yet informed personality. Her gossipy, gently humorous commentaries brought comfort as partisan politics grew more hostile.

Starting out at NPR before a superstar career at ABC, Roberts was also a noted author of books detailing women's contributions to American history. While at ABC, she continued to do commentaries for NPR, and wrote a newspaper column.

Vanocur thrived when the three TV networks dominated the airwaves. Roberts rose to prominence during the last years of that dominance. She witnessed the rise of cable news and the Internet and the decline of network news.

They spanned a time when Americans' trust in the news and government receded. Roberts flourished as a believable voice as Americans' political unity frayed. Now, the country is fractured into political tribes believing their own realities.

 

 

 

 

Historic Atlanta landmark threatened as Rock Spring Presbyterian disbands

The Tudor Revival Rock Spring Presbyterian Church rises above the commercial clutter of Piedmont Road, a vision from a vanishing culture.

After years of declining membership and finances, the church founded in the 1870s by some of Atlanta's most illustrious pioneer families has decided to disband, according to a report by Channel 11's Jeff Hullinger, himself an Atlanta institution.

The fate of the church designed by Welsh architect Charles  H. Hobson and completed in 1923 remains unclear. A developer bought surrounding acres from the church for $1.9 million in 2018 to build nine high-end houses, as reported by The AJC's all-time great freelance writer, H.M. Cauley.

Lovers of the old church and its historic cemetery fear the building will be torn down for commercial uses. The landmark was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990, which might save it.

The church's demise will end its many community services, as well as the live Nativity scenes that marked the Christmas season for generations of Atlanta families. Those programs didn't bring in money as the church's membership aged and young families moved to more dynamic congregations.

Following the campaign to save the historic 152 Nassau Building downtown, where Fiddling John Carson recorded the first national country and western hit record in the 1923, Atlanta risks losing another essential landmark. Rock Spring, named like nearby Rock Springs Road for a spring that once flowed in the area, could be purchased by a more thriving congregation, or converted into an arts center or concert hall.

I've never visited the church, but its commanding presence as I drove down Piedmont Road gave the comfort of faith and tradition. The church on the hill was one of those places that defined my conception of Atlanta as a true city. The building's destruction would take away another piece of Atlanta's soul.

 

Paris Review uncovers William Styron's fictional account of his depression battle

William Styron attempted to write a novel about his debilitating depression.

"Spiral," an excerpt from the novel, runs in the Paris Review's current issue. The piece comes from a handwritten draft found among Styron's papers at Duke University, according to an introduction by Styron's biographer, James L.W. West III.

Publication of such pieces is a flourishing practice among literary magazines seeking a sales boost from a famous author long after his or her death. All too often, these are juvenilia or abandoned failures that should remain hidden. The Hudson Review recently published an early short story by Sylvia Plath that was unexceptional, work that any young writer might produce.

But Styron's fragment, while not among his best writing, is worthy of publication. The piece, describing the narrator's first night at a mental hospital, was based on Styron's admission into the neurological unit of Yale-New Haven Hospital in late 1985, after he had fallen into a deep depression.

The first person narrator, Paul Whitehurst, is a famed playwright who "is plagued by an unshakable malaise," West says. "Paul's narrative is based closely on Styron's recollections of his own breakdown and hospitalization."

After a steady beginning, Styron abandoned the novel. "The prose veers from fiction to exposition," West explains. After returning home, Styron read widely about clinical depression, and "in later parts of the manuscript he seems determined to tell all he knows, but cannot find a way to do so within a fictional framework," West says.

Styron later wrote a compelling account of his struggle with the disease in the bestselling nonfiction memoir, "Darkness Visible."

"While "Darkness Visible" has become Styron's iconic contribution to the literature of psychology, "Spiral" is the author's initial attempt to set down the story of his depression, to document the complexity of the disease and its malefic effect on personality and behavior," West writes.

Styron's account of a confused, frightened and depressed man encountering his first night in a hospital falls short of his best writing. But the fragment displays enough of Styron's humor and gift for creating vivid characters to make it an worthwhile addition to his published work.

Harper Lee loved Bear Bryant's Alabama Crimson Tide

"To Kill a Mockingbird" author Harper Lee had catapulted to fame when the Saturday Evening Post in March 1963 published an article alleging that Georgia athletics director Wally Butts and Alabama football coach Bear Bryant had fixed a game.

A  friend of Bryant and a rabid Alabama football fan, the author of the 1960 best-selling novel was consumed by the charges, along with football followers around the Southeast.

Lee in a letter to her agent, Maurice Crain, wrote a detailed account of the scandal, according to reporter Ben Cohen's fascinating article in Friday's Wall Street Journal. "A wonderful letter from Nellie Harper Lee," Crain scribbled on the envelope. The letter is at Columbia University, Cohen said.

The Saturday Evening Post's article was based on Atlanta businessman George Burnett's claims that he had overheard a telephone conversation in which Butts disclosed Georgia Bulldog plays and formations to Bryant before a 1962 game won 35-0 by the Crimson Tide. Burnett said that while trying to make a long-distance call, he had somehow gotten connected to the former Georgia football coach and Bryant.

Butts won a $3.06 million judgment in a libel suit against the Post, while Bryant reached an eventual settlement of $460,000. The case, which advanced to the Supreme Court, reportedly played a role in the Saturday Evening Post's demise.

While the controversy transfixed the South, as reported in this 1963 article by famed Sports Illustrated writer Dan Jenkins, Lee's had received greater fame from a 1962 movie based on the now-classic novel. Gregory Peck won the Academy Award for his portrayal of lawyer Atticus Finch and his heroic defense of a black man accused of rape in a segregated small town in Alabama.

Cohen's article says that Lee followed college football all of her life, even listening to Paul Finebaum's Alabama-biased college football talk show. Along with her allegiance to Alabama, Lee rooted for Auburn when the Tigers weren't battling the Crimson Tide in the annual Iron Bowl.

Lee was also a close friend of former Auburn coach Pat Dye, to whom she wrote a number of letters. Dye, who once called her book "To Kill a Blackbird," refused to disclose the letters' contents to Cohen.

Other famous names of Alabama football lore rise in the article. Lee believed in Bryant's innocence because scrappy All-American linebacker Lee Roy Jordan supported his coach. Jordan came from a town near Lee's Monroeville, and Lee believed in Jordan's honesty.

Lee remained a prolific letter writer, while not publishing another novel during her lifetime. The posthumous "Go Set a Watchman" was an early version of "To Kill a Mockingbid." A recent book says that Lee never finished a planned nonfiction book about an Alabama minister accused of several murders.

The new revelations enhance Lee's renown as a writer of letters. Her gifts in the genre were revealed several years ago in retired Auburn professor Wayne Flynt's collection of letters between him and Lee. Giving an endearing portrait of the author, the collection presents her views on religion, politics, Hollywood, the South, writing and fame.

Perhaps Cohen's piece will lead to the publication of a collection of Lee's college football letters. The writer of a masterpiece that inspires new generations of readers, she's also worthy of a complete letters collection.

A woman who during her life counted as friends Truman Capote, Maurice Crain, Bear Bryant, Gregory Peck, Pat Dye and Lee Roy Jordan had an expansive, intellectually adventuresome personality that such a collection would honor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

September arrives, but summer remains

In years past, we would have enjoyed a touch of autumn by now.

September no longer marks the end of summer. Temperatures remain in the mid-90s. The continuing heat affects wildlife. Yesterday, I chased off a crazed squirrel that had run up our glass-paneled back door.

I still look forward to the season changing, the arrival of fall, the promise of new beginnings. As is my custom, I played "Try to Remember" on the piano. I'll play the wistful song from "The Fantasticks" all month, meditating upon the passage of youth and time's quickening pace. I'll also seek to learn "September Song" at last.

As climate change progresses, I wonder if future generations will enjoy the coming of autumn, cooler days, the eruption of color.

 

Ken Burns tunes up for country music

I was dismayed to hear that Ken Burns had turned his guns on country music.

Like many others, I was transfixed by Burns' Civil War series. Along with many Southern boys of my generation, I prided myself on detailed knowledge of famous battles and personalities.

But Burns put the war in a broader context, uncovering new information and giving fresh perspectives on characters like Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, U.S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman.

But I grew disenchanted by Burns' series on baseball and jazz. He embalmed both American institutions beneath a barrage of cliches, overblown pronouncements, commentary from talking heads, and archival material. His earnest, overly reverent approach fell short of expressing the simple beauty of baseball and jazz.

Nor did I care for Burns' look at the Vietnam War. His attempt at balance in discussing American war motives was misguided. In truth, Burns' treatment wasn't the reason I quit watching the show. Reliving the era was just too painful.

After seeing a couple of previews, including a concert at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium, I'm hopeful about Burns' country music series.

While countless books have been written on the Civil War and baseball, country music has received less scholarly attention, although it has generated a substantial literature. That gives Burns a less trammeled perspective from which to view country music.

Country music is loved by a broader audience than jazz, touching upon more aspects of American culture. Jazz's appeal narrowed with the rise of bebop and abstract music, while country's has widened. Country encompasses a broader variety of musical genres, including jazz.

Country has not been burdened by the semi-mystical panegyrics that have weighed down baseball with cliches and overwrought nostalgia. Burns' baseball series was plagued by seeking to match those pastoral views of the game.

Once known as the national pastime, baseball is more and more a regional sport as its appeal declines to younger generations. The genre once derided as "hillbilly music" has increased its popularity, with a range of innovative artists and musical styles.

Like the Civil War, country gives Burns a broader framework for examining different parts of American society. While known as Southern white people's music, country was influenced by black artists and has grown to include Cajun music, Western swing, rockabilly and urban pop. Country music like the Civil War gives Burns a broad palette.

Plus, I love Dolly, Loretta, Jimmie, Ernest, Bob, Hank, Sara, Mama Maybelle and many others. I hope Burns plays a lot of country songs and cuts down on the talking heads.

 

Peace and healing at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit

Enjoying a healing morning at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit, one of Atlanta’s treasures.

I came here as well two years ago after my first hospital stay with Afib. I feel better this time, for which I’m thankful.

The Monastery’s bookstore offers wonderful gifts and a great selection of books by some of the best Catholic/monastic thinkers.

I choose an early birthday gift for my sister and a collection of essays by Paul Mariani, whose biographies of John Berryman and Robert Lowell plumbed the depths of each man’s tragedy.

And of course a collection, this time poems, by Thomas Merton, one of my life’s pillars.

Hospital stay shows benefits of business-based health-care system

Back home after nine days in Piedmont Hospital, I'm grateful for life's daily blessings.

My stay in the Buckhead hospital where my three children were born and received care for a series of childhood scrapes and where my wife and I have undergone several medical procedures made me even more skeptical about Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren's Medicare for All plans.

I'm covered by Medicare, supplemented by the private insurance company I kept when I accepted a buyout from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution now 12 years ago. Piedmont's quality of care strengthened my support for our private-based health-care system.

As David Leonhardt noted in Monday's New York Times, Sanders and Warren's plan to abolish private insurance companies is highly unpopular except for a narrow segment of Democratic supporters. I don't know how a profit-based hospital like Piedmont would fare under the Sanders-Warren plan, but making it a public hospital like Grady would be a mistake.

During my Piedmont stay, I was amazed at the number of people employed by the hospital, from nurses and personal-care attendants to dining service employees, physician's assistants, nurse practitioners and doctors. The Piedmont staff is a microcosm of Atlanta.

Two years ago, I spent a week at Grady because of the same heart condition. Grady's care was excellent, but I found Piedmont's more comprehensive and responsive to my needs. I fear the Sanders-Warren proposals would bring an erosion of care in both hospitals.

Joe Biden's public-private health care system would preserve the strengths of the present system, while enhancing Obamacare's gains. Rather than Medicare for All, a Medicaid expansion would benefit millions. As Leonhardt points out, the Sanders-Warren plan would be disastrous for the Democrats' effort to win back the White House and Senate.

After receiving another up-close view of the American health system, I'm happy to be back home, grateful for the benefits of our health-care system.