Southern Bookman

Anthony Davis trade demand ends brief love affair with New Orleans Pelicans

I began caring about the New Orleans Pelicans when they made some bold moves toward NBA relevance.

Building on my excitement for the Saints, also owned by the Bensons, I began following the Pelicans' games. I was upset when DeMarcus Cousins blew out his ankle.

But the Pelicans didn't sink. With the splendid Anthony Davis' MVP-caliber play, the fiestinesss of point guard Rajon Rando, and the all-star emergence of Jrue Holiday, the Pelicans made the playoffs, blew out Portland in the first round, and threw a scare into the Warriors.

Now, it's all crashing. It was a passionate but brief affair. My heart is as bitter and empty as Bourbon Street on an early Monday morning.

After last year's brilliance, the franchise looks dysfunctional. Davis has demanded to be traded, and he might not even play anymore this year. Rondo has gone to the Lakers, and a rehabilitated Cousins has given the Warriors yet another star. Davis will leave New Orleans behind and head to the Lakers or Celtics or Knicks. Holiday might also be gone.

The Athletic's Frank Isola even suggested that the franchise might move to another city. (I'd accept a move to Seattle, if it meant Howard Schultz won't run for president.)

Really, it is silly for New Orleans to have an NBA franchise. Last year, though, I fell hard for the Pelicans. Now, we're through.

 

 

 

Welcome South, Brother and Sister

Super Bowl week is under way in Atlanta, which means that national media are spooking local boosters with stories about our self-conscious town.

New York Times food writer Kim Severson Wednesday morning gave a fair overview of the city's restaurant scene.

Assessing that Atlanta never receives recognition as a premier food city, Severson credits Atlanta for its diverse ethnic restaurants, flourishing in neighborhoods outside of downtown. The exotic Buford Highway corridor, the Ponce City Market and the Beltline receive notice.

Still, I winced when Severson concludes the roundup with Atlanta's love for breakfast and wings. I don't think breakfast and wings will challenge New Orleans or San Francisco anytime soon.

Rating good food towns is subjective. New York and Boston have fine restaurants, but I've had some of the worst meals of my life in each.

I find many of Atlanta's most lauded restaurants pretentious and over-priced. But what do I know? One of my favorite places is the Buckhead Arby's at Wieuca and Roswell roads. And my favorite meal in New York City is a street pretzel, or a sleeve of hot nuts.

Meanwhile, the Boston Globe's Dan Shaughnessy seems to have warmed to Atlanta. In his typical recycled condescending column, old Dan salutes our "Southern hospitality," while slyly bringing up the Falcons' Super Bowl collapse against the Patriots.

Once again, Shaughnessy smugly rips Atlanta as a college sports town rather than rabidly supporting pro sports. Dan apparently hasn't heard about Atlanta's intense love for Atlanta United, and its MLS championship.

Like all Boston sportswriters, Shaughnessy must have a reference to all of Beantown's sports championships on a laptop save key.

No doubt the Patriots will win again, following the Red Sox' World Series title. And Shaughnessy will recycle the same column about Brady, Gronk and Bill.

Jimmy Breslin, Pete Hamill and the rise/fall of New York

Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill's glory days as New York newspaper columnists coincided with dark days for the city.

High crime. A bankrupt municipal government. Deteriorating infrastructure and public services. Migration of business and population.

The HBO documentary on Breslin and Hamill, which aired Monday night, touches on events of the city's downward spiral, mainly through Breslin's work.

For all of its troubles, New York was an exciting place for new music, art, literature and sexual and social experimentation. The city was packed with exotic small businesses. Each block was electric with adventure. The city had a vibrant middle class of workers, who read the tabloids that published Breslin and Hamill.

The documentary juxtaposed two photos. One from several decades ago showed New Yorkers on a subway car, all of them immersed in tabloid newspapers. The other, from today, shows subway riders transfixed by their smartphones.

These days, a billionaire makes news by buying an apartment on Central Park for $243 million. Small shops, and big ones, are squeezed out by high rents.

On a once lively Westside area now called billionaires row, residential towers blot out the sun and stars. The hulking monoliths stand empty most of the time. Their owners are Arab oil titans or Russian oligarchs who don't actually live in Manhattan.

The documentary was OK, if predictable. The usual array of talking heads, making unoriginal points.  Snippets from Breslin's greatest hitts, which showed that he was a greater writer and journalist than Hamill. I loved Hamill's memoir, "A Drinking Life," but his newspaper work was overwrought. Breslin displays a truer sense of language.

In Hamill's corner, photos of the glamorous women he dated, including Jacqueline Onassis. A few shots of Hamill's battle for control of the New York Post. A mention of Rupert Murdoch taking the Post off the scrap heap, but no discussion of his turning the once liberal newspaper into a right-wing print version of Fox News.

Interviews with Breslin and Hamill shot before Breslin's death in 2017 captured the devastation of aging.

The documentary ended with the fact that The New York Daily News, which once employed Hamill and Breslin, has gone from 400 employees to 45. Gloria Steinem and others pushed the unconvincing argument that journalism like Breslin's will survive in different forms.

That was taped before several digital web sites announced massive layoffs.

Breslin and Hamill reached a mass readership. Now, those people on their cellphones find a disparate clash of voices. Yet the digital revenues are controlled by Google, Facebook and Amazon.

The city is much richer today, and much poorer.

I wish someone would do a documentary in which Breslin's columns are read, like poetry, or the Gettysburg Address.

 

 

 

 

Robert Caro, still working to finish Lyndon Johnson biography, gives recollections on research methods

Robert Caro in an article last week's New Yorker disclosed that his Lyndon Johnson biography won't be finished for several more years.

At 83, Caro is still doing research on the final volume of his lauded narrative of Johnson's rise from rural Texas obscurity to supreme political power. The fifth installment of the exhaustive work will cover the downfall of Johnson's presidency over the Vietnam War.

Instead of the finale of the Johnson book, Caro this spring will publish"random recollections" on his research methods for Johnson's life, and his earlier ground-breaking biography of New York public works commissioner Robert Moses. The New Yorker published a segment of the "recollections."

Along with finishing the Johnson opus, Caro plans to write his full-scale memoirs. Conceding that he might not have time to do the Johnson book and the memoirs, Caro said he decided to publish his thoughts on his work.

Caro seems confident that he will finish the Johnson book. A dogged researcher, Caro even found it necessary to move to Vietnam for a time to investigate the aftermath of the war.

Concerned Caro fans might remember William Manchester's inability to finish his excellent biography of Winston Churchill. Manchester's two Churchill volumes ended in 1940, and he couldn't complete the work after suffering two strokes. Writer Paul Reid used Manchester's research to write a concluding book on Churchill, with less critical acclaim than Manchester received.

Following veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh's memoirs last year, Caro's examination of his research methods will be valuable to journalists, historians and Johnson scholars. Hersh also subscribes to Caro's mantra, imparted to him by a crusty newspaper editor when he was a young reporter, to turn every page.

 

Terry Teachout, Ben Brantley swing their laptops at Broadway revival of "True West"

The Wall Street Journal's Terry Teachout and The New York Times' Ben Brantley trained their big guns Friday on the Broadway revival of Sam Shephard's "True West."

Like David Rabe's "Hurlyburly,"" Shepard's kichen-table rumble between two brothers is a  career showpiece for macho actors.

Over the years, Tommy Lee Jones, Peter Coyote, Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Gary Sinese and Chad Smith have flung their acting chops at the voluble play.

John C. Reilly and Philip Seymour Hoffman starred in the original Broadway production, switching roles between the emerging playwright Austin and his destructive alcoholic brother, Lee.

Now, Ethan Hawke and Paul Dano notch the play on their career highlight board. In a production photo, a leering Hawke as Lee looks as if he's swallowed a large swath of scenery. Dano appears more subdued.

As usual in the Brantley-Teachout faceoffs, Brantley was more enthusiastic about the Roundabout Theater Co. production, directed by James MacDonald at the American Airlines Theater.

Teachout finds the play seriously flawed after the first act, but recommends the production to those who want to immerse themselves in Hawke and Dano's fevered acting.

While Teachout faults Hawke for over-emoting and taking too much pleasure in the role, he praises Dano for what he views as a more subtle performance.

In contrast with Teachout, Brantley sees both performances as electric and the play as a classic worthy of Eugene O'Neill. While Brantley lauds Hawke's portrayal of the malevolent Lee, he sees Dano as not quite achieving full emotional intensity.

With Hawke and Dano starring, the production likely will be a hit, if not a runaway smash like Aaron Sorkin's "To Kill a Mockingbird." It's shaping up as a good year on Broadway for drama.

Farewell, Reggie Young

Reggie Young's distinctive guitar licks propelled many songs into hits.

Young, who felt at home in Memphis and Nashville, died last week at age 82, according to a New York Times obituary.

From Chip Momans' American Sound Studio in Memphis to Nashville's Music Row, Young created combinations of notes that accented songwriters' melodies and gave deeper meaning to lyrics.

Young's simple but effective runs were the glue on hits ranging from The Box Tops' "The Letter" to Elvis Presley's "Suspicious Minds" and Dusty Springfield's "Son of a Preacher Man."

After Momans' studio closed, Young moved to Nashville, where he played on country-flavored hits like Waylon Jennings "Luckenback Texas" and Willie Nelson's "You Were Always on My Mind." He also gave the signature intro to Billy Swan's "I Can Help," a slice of music that combines rock, jazz and the blues in an other-worldly spin.

He also played with several bands, including the Bill Black Combo, formed by Elvis' former bass player. The band toured with the Beatles on their 1964 American tour. Young said he gave Harrison tips on playing the blues, according to the Times. Perhaps the mentoring was reciprocal: Young played sitar on several recordings.

A master of a variety of styles, from Southern "chicken picking" to bluesy runs, Young was "a cross between B.B. King and Chet Atkins," he said in an interview. The many streams of Southern music flowed through his guitar.

 

 

Farewell, Russell Baker

Russell Baker in his newspaper memoir "The Good Times" remembers walking through London to cover Queen Elizabeth's coronation, wearing a top hat and tails and carrying his lunch in a paper bag.

Baker, who died Monday at age 93 after a fall at his home in Leesburg, Va., knew the full range of human experience. Through his New York Times column and classic memoirs, Baker chronicled the American century. While he wrote numerous books, his daily newspaper columns define his career. He began "The Observer" in 1962 in a bountiful era of New York newspapers and ended it in 1998 at the dawn of the Internet.

Growing up in rural Virginia during the Depression, Baker never lost his sense of boyhood wonder. A master of American language - he joked that his short sentences, in contrast to The Times' orotund style, made him a humorist - he also displayed a classical elegance. He was a natural American aristocrat.

He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1979 for his column and another Pulitzer in 1993 for his autobiography "Growing Up," in which he vividly recalled his boyhood during the Depression in rural Virginia. In "The Good Times," he joyfully remembered his career as a young reporter, especially his days as the London correspondent for The Baltimore Sun, an experience unimaginable these days.

After leaving the Times, like Joe DiMaggio saying farewell at the top of his game, Baker enjoyed a second career as the host of "Masterpiece Theater" on public television. He also wrote incisive literary criticism for The New York Review of Books and carried out other projects, including a libretto.

He never lost his pride that he could write fast. He was a newspaper man.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Former Times Editor Jill Abramson looks at media's fractured new world

Former New York Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson's "Merchants of Truth"  is breaking out as the hottest new book of the year.

An examination of how Internet technology has disrupted the news media, "Merchants of Truth: The Business of News and the Fight for Facts" delves into her experience at The New York Times.

The book also looks at Amazon owner Jeff Bezos' purchase of the Washington Post and the rise of Internet news sites BuzzFeed and Vice.

Along with her Times recollections, Abramson did original reporting for the book.

"Merchants of Truth" has generated a burst of attention and controversy in New York media circles.

The New Yorker's Isaac Chotiner conducted an interview with Abramson for the magazine's web site, and competitor New York magazine is publishing an excerpt before the book's Feb. 5 publication date.

Abramson tells Chotiner that she was fired as The Times' first female executive editor because of her abrasive management style and her opposition to efforts undermining traditional boundaries between the newspaper's business and news operations. Since leaving the Times, Abramson has taught at Harvard and written a column for the Guardian.

In the Chotiner interview, Abramson also questions the Trump obsession by the Times, the Post, CNN and MSNBC. She alludes to negativity in Times coverage of Trump, although she then backs away from that claim.

While pointing out that the Times web site recently had posted nine Trump stories, she also concedes that Trump coverage receives high readership and has boosted online subscriptions.

Her criticism of the Times for firing copy editors and her advocacy of media truth clash with her own controversy over incorrect reporting. The publication of Abramson's own book on media disruptions shows the negative effects of media disruption.

Arielle Duhaine-Ross, a Vice reporter Abramson interviewed, criticized the author several mistakes. The worst was that Abramson falsely called Duhaine-Ross a trans woman, when she identifies herself as a "queer, non-gender conforming woman," according to an Out story. Abramson said the mistakes were in an early galley proof, and have been corrected for the book.

Another objection was Abramson's claim that Duhaine-Ross was hired because of her appearance and that she has little expertise in the environmental field. Duhaine-Ross pointed out that she has a major in environmental reporting. Abramson's assertion apparently remains in the book.

Abramson also erred in reporting that Duhaine-Ross gave insufficient coverage of Donald Trump pulling out of the  Paris global climate change agreement. Duhaine-Ross apparently did substantial reporting on the decision.

A second reporter disputed Abramson's claim that he failed to wear a haz-mat suit at an African clinic while covering the Ebola crisis. The reporter said he followed the same protocol as other reporters and that the protective clothing wasn't required outside of a high-risk area.

An article posted on Literary Hub blamed the mistakes on  publisher Simon-Schuster, like the Times, cutting back on its fact-checking operation. Abramson told Chotiner that the book has been thoroughly fact-checked.

New Republic writer Josephine Livingstone in a review said that the book's section on Abramson's firing at The New York Times is essential for understanding how digitial technology is shaking traditional media companies. But Livingstone blasts the Vice and Buzzfeed sections as showing a severe misunderstanding of the shifting media landscape.

Despite Abramson's missteps, "Merchants of Truth" will be an essential book for old Times watchers and media junkies such as myself.

I respect Dean Bacquet, Abramson's successor at the Times. But firing Abramson after her valiant defense of traditional journalistic values was a low point for the newspaper.

Despite the disturbing mistakes showing a misunderstanding of new media and the rising generation's gender issues, Abramson remains a stalwart defender of factual reporting and commitment to the truth. Her book will make a significant contribution to upholding those values.

 

 

 

Watching the lunar eclipse

Standing on my driveway in the cold, I watched the full moon disappear into the earth's shadow late Sunday night.

Nature's show gave a welcome respite from NFL exhaustion and the drumbeat of the news.

A few months before, I'd witnessed the solar eclipse on a hot afternoon from the nearby patio. The lunar event was much quieter, a lyric poem to the sun's grand opera.

Imperceptibly, the darkness spread across the moon's surface until a bright sliver remained along the edge, and I felt a sense of silent majesty, if not quite wonder.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Texas Observer exposes fallacy of Trump's wall demands

A package of Texas Observer articles demonstrates the sham of Donald Trump's border wall stance.

Gus Bova's main article reports that construction will begin in February on 33 miles of wall slicing through two Texas counties along the Rio Grande River. Land for the 30-foot-high structure already has been seized through expedited eminent domain, Bova reports Local residents say they have no problems with illegal immigrants crossing the border.

The seizure covers land a Hispanic family has owned since before Texas became a state. Other property includes a state park, a federal wildlife refuge and the national buttterfly center, all of which will be bisected by the wall. Parts of the land will be cut off, and access restricted. Bova reports that 95 percent of the property is privately owned.

The wall will harm rare wildlife species and ruin the river's scenic beauty. While the Rio Grande is reduced to a trickle in some areas, the portion along the new wall has expansive water vistas.

Approved by Congress last March with a $545 million appropriation, the new section of wall adds to the 110 miles already built under the Bush and Obama administrations.

Another Observer article notes that border security is already a multi-billion operation, including an increase in the number of border and ICE agents, observation towers, and Texas enforcement operations. A third article details the civil rights abuses carried out by border agents, who have strayed behind their 100-mile limit in surveillance and apprehension operations.

The Observer's articles show the idiocy of Trump's $5 billion wall request. Despite Trump's delusions, there's no "open border," and the United States is already paying an exorbitant price for "border security," in terms of money, corruption and civil rights abuses.

Relentlessly reporting on Texas politics and culture since the 1950s heyday of Ronnie Dugger and Willie Morris, the Observer keeps producing essential work as local newspapers decline. The New York Times or Washington Post should reprint the Observer's articles or do similar in-depth stories from the border.

Along with the Observer, which keeps producing a monthly print magazine, Texans also receive the benefit of strong reporting from the online Texas Tribune. While the Observer receives some ad support and contributions from nonprofits and readers, the Tribune is funded by a civic-minded wealthy investor.

Another online news site, the Bayou Brief, shines a needed light on Louisiana and Mississippi politics. While the Bayou Brief is welcome, Baton Rouge and New Orleans readers have fairly vital local newspapers, with the Baton Rouge and New Orleans Advocate competing strongly with the New Orleans Times-Picayune and its NOLA web site.

The newspaper industry's decline is troubling for America's endangered democracy, but an increasing number of local news web sites strive to fill the need.