Southern Bookman

Reading Louise Gluck in a time of troubles

A few years ago I downloaded on my old Nook e-reader Louise Gluck's "Poems 1962-2012."  But I never progressed far into the collection.

Since Gluck won the Nobel Prize for Literature last week, I've been reading a few of her poems everyday.

When she won the award, she made a comment that she didn't want to be a popular poet like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

At least Longfellow wrote a few lines readers remember. While I like some of Gluck's poems, many of them, called "austere" by the Nobel committee, are too solipsistic. If anything, she's anti-poetic with her trite language and ordinary insights.

Poets like Shakespeare, Frost, Stevens, Keats, Eliot and so on are known for memorable speech. I don't find much of that in Gluck's poems.

I grew tired of her Pulitzer Prize-winning collection "Wild Iris," although the title poem was fine. Poem after poem was written from the point of view of flowers, although they all sounded like Louise Gluck. After a while, I had enough of the garden.

Now I've progressed into poems I like better, based on the Odyssey. Still, the poems don't excite my imagination as my favorite ones do.

I'll keep reading through. It's better than watching Amy Coney Barrett, with those weird Republican witch eyes.

Ella Fitzgerald's "The Lost Berlin Tapes" brings echoes of history

Ella Fitzgerald's "The Lost Berlin Tapes" restores a vanished slice of time.

Fitzgerald on March 25, 1962, performed at West Berlin's ancient Sportpalast as part of her producer Norman Ganz's Jazz at the Philharmonic tour of Europe.

Ganz recorded the concert on reel-to-reel tapes, but they were lost for years until recently rediscovered in the archives of Verve Records, which Ganz founded to produce albums by Fitzgerald.

The recently released "Lost Berlin Tapes" album comes from Ganz's recordings, digitally remastered with high-tech software.

The recording captures one performance in an exhaustive European tour that also featured trumpeter Roy Eldridge and legendary saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, according to Stuart Nicholson's liner notes. Fitzgerald's trio, pianist and leader Paul Smith, bass player Wildred Middlebrooks and drummer Stan Levey, would play before Fitzgerald came out for an hour-long grand finale.

Under Ganz's punishing schedule, the musicians often gave a performance at one city beginning at 6 p.m., then traveled hundreds of miles to another city for a midnight show.

As the "Lost Tapes" reflects, Fitzgerald generated energy from the relentless pace. She's ebullient, witty and effervescent in interacting with the Berlin audience, which responds with thunderous applause after each number.

Built in 1907 as a hockey arena, and the site of speeches by Hitler and Goebbels, the 14,000-seat arena had been retrofitted for musical concerts. In a place where rock groups would later blast the walls with electric instruments, Fitzgerald captured her fans with an acoustic trio, a microphone and her fabulous voice. The arena was demolished in 1973, nearly 20 years before the end of the Cold War.

As Nicholson notes, Fitzgerald's performance includes songs not in the American Songbook mainstream.

While she delivers dynamic interpretations of classics like Irving Berlin's "Cheek to Cheek," which she recorded with Louis Armstrong, the Gershwins' "Someone to Watch Over Me" and "Summertime," and Jerome Kern's "I Won't Dance, Don't Ask Me," she displays her virtuoso stylings on obscure numbers like "Jersey Bounce," "Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie," and her signature novelty "Mr. Paganini."

She turns the unorthodox songs into stirring vehicles for her famous "scat" singing. Her voice swoops and soars with a range of innovative sounds, as if she's invented a new instrument.

In more straight-forward performances, she gives resonance to the haunting "Angel Eyes," the vibrant "C'est Magnifique" and the jaunty"Mack the Knife," a reprise of her hit record from a 1960 Berlin performance. In a nod to the rock generation, she swings on Ray Charles' "Hallelujah, I Love Him So."

The recording brings haunting historical echoes. The audience's rapturous applause made me wonder about their lives in the shadow of the recently built Berlin Wall.

Fitzgerald's voice is that of freedom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

AJC sportswriter D. Orlando Ledbetter witnesses another Falcons downfall

How fitting that longtime AJC Falcons beat writer D. Orlando Ledbetter broke the news that coach Dan Quinn and GM Thomas Dimitroff were fired.

Ledbetter has been through all of the Falcons' ups and downs for more than a decade. He covered the crash of Michael Vick, and wrote about the heralded arrival of Quinn and Dimitroff.

When the Falcons flew a 28-3 lead to the Patriots in the 2017 Super Bowl, Ledbetter was there to dissect the disaster. Late Sunday, he closed the book on Quinn and Dimitroff's once-promising Falcons era.

Although I'm a Saints fan, I sympathize with Falcons followers. With his sad bloodhound face, Blank has been pushing the rock up the mountain and watching it fall back to the bottom for years.

Sunday afternoon after Matt Ryan's game-killling interception gave the Falcons an 0-5 start to the season, Blank on the sidelines in his dark three-piece suit looked like an undertaker.

Ledbetter is among a stalwart crew of AJC sportswriters who've been chronicling the Atlanta sports scene for decades. After all of the newspaper's changes, Ledbetter keeps marching on along with Tim Tucker, Steve Hummer and Mark Bradley.

Columnists Hummer and Bradley have seen the comings and goings of generations of players. They saw Braves Chipper Jones and Brian McCann progress from fresh-faced kids to seasoned veterans.

While they watched from the press box, Glavine, Smoltz and Maddux pitched themselves into the Hall of Fame. Hummer and Bradley have told AJC readers about Matt Ryan's hits and misses, and Jeff Francoeur's shooting-star rise and fall from his high school days in Gwinnett County to the major leagues. The columnists' careers have spanned many afternoons of UGA and Georgia Tech football.

Reading Tucker's recent pieces on the Braves playing the Dodgers in the National League Championship Series, I marveled to recall that Tucker as a brilliant young beat writer captured the joy and sorrow of the Braves' 1982 season, when they won the Western Division title and lost the National League Championship Series  to the St. Louis Cardinals.

The man who followed the exploits of Dale Murphy and Bob Horner now writes about Ronald Acuna Jr., Freddie Freeman and Marcell Ozuna.

And Ledbetter will be there to report on Blank bringing in yet another miracle worker who promises to lead the Falcons to a long-sought Super Bowl victory.

 

Dodgers-Braves and memories of 1982

The Braves playing the Dodgers for the National League pennant brings back memories of 1982.

Just arrived in Atlanta, living in a small apartment in Little Five Points and expecting our first child, we turned into Braves fans watching them unexpectedly win the Western Division title over the Dodgers, their biggest rivals.

Now, the Braves of Dale Murphy, Bob Horner and Phil Niekro have turned into the Braves of Freddie Freeman, Ronald Acuna Jr. and Max Fried. Generations come and go, but the game remains.

Because of the coronavirus, the teams will be sequestered in Arlington, Texas, with no travel and few fans.

It'll be strange to see the Dodgers not playing in their fabled home stadium, where the late afternoon California sun casts a giant shadow, haunting opposing hitters with the memory of Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale and Orel Hershiser.

Both teams will be far from home, playing in an unknown American League stadium.

But even in this Covid-19 season, the series will be special, reminding us that baseball is timeless.

 

M.O. Walsh captures Baton Rouge's affluent subdivisions in "My Sunshine Away"

M.O. Walsh's debut novel "My Sunshine Away" captures Baton Rouge's strange suburban lifestyle.

Walsh understands the fetishization of large homes, manicured lawns and air conditioned comfort in the city's affluent middle-class neighborhoods, covering a deep social anxiety.

A subdued wilderness remains on the edge of the pristine subdivisions, giving children a taste of pioneer adventure. Eruptions of crime and violence sometimes shatter the prevailing bonhomie. There's also a high toll of young people dying in traffic accidents, which Walsh touches upon.

Long overshadowed by New Orleans and its exotic culture, Baton Rouge was known as a staid, blue-collar town, despite the presence of a major university and state government workers. Baton Rouge felt inferior about its cuisine, music (John Fred, Johnny Rivers and Joe Tex notwithstanding) and nightlife.

Tim Parrish's short story collection "Red Stick Men" examined the city's gritty northside neighborhoods near the Exxon Refinery. Walsh looks at Baton Rouge's affluent middle class.

The book''s ungrammatical title, taken from former Gov. Jimmy Davis' "You Are My Sunshine," matches the book's gauzy coming of age story. The unnamed first-person narrator tells about his awkward boyhood growing up on Piney Creek Road in Woodland Hills and his obsessive love for a beautiful girl who lives on the same street. His and the neighborhood's idyllic lifestyle is shattered by the girl's brutal rape.

Along with gripping elements of a crime novel, the book presents a gallery of fascinating characters struggling with the pressures of adolescence, marriage and career changes. The hot and humid Louisiana climate intersects with their lives.

In a brilliant digression, Walsh discusses the shift in New Orleans and Baton Rouge's roles following Hurricane Katrina.

For years New Orleans' stepchild, Baton Rouge took in refugees from the flood-ravaged city 80 miles down the Mississippi River. Walsh amusingly looks at how New Orleans' residents still treated Baton Rouge with condescension. Not so amusing was the transfer of New Orleans' crime to Baton Rouge.

Books about New Orleans have dominated Louisiana literature. As with Stephanie Soileau's  short stories about Lake Charles in her brilliant collection "Last One Out Turn Out the Lights," Walsh demonstrates that the state's other cities possess literary riches.

The director of the University of New Orleans' creative writing department and a graduate of Ole Miss' MFA program, Walsh is receiving national acclaim for his second novel, "The Big Door Prize," about a strange machine changing the fortunes of the mythical Deerfield, La.

"My Sunshine Away" registers the joys, anxieties and tragedies of Baton Rouge's aspiring middle class.

 

 

 

 

Farewell, Eddie Van Halen

Eddie Van Halen didn't seem to take himself too seriously, as if his talent were as much of a surprise to him as anyone else.

Despite his image as a decadent rock star, the guitar virtuoso was dedicated to his playing. As a heavy-metal musician, he set a standard comparable to that of a classical pianist or violinist. His death Tuesday from cancer at age 65 was noted in a front-page New York Times obituary.

When I was trying to master acoustic guitar, Van Halen inspired me with a guitar magazine article on practicing. I made progress by following his advice to build technique one or two notes at a time.

I wasn't a big fan of his music, but admired his technique and guitar innovations. He was my unlikely model; I wanted to play like Eddie Van Halen.

 

Ella Fitzgerald's "The Lost Berlin Tapes" brings back 1962 concert

Ella Fitzgerald forgot the words to "Mack the Knife" during a 1960 concert at Berlin's Deutschlandhalle.

That didn't dissuade the singer, who stands alone with her artistry. Fitzgerald brilliantly improvised the lyrics, referencing Bobby Darin and Louis Armstrong's hit records of the song and winning over the audience with her infectious delivery.

Her impromptu performance was so dynamic that a recording made of the concert was called "Mack the Knife" by Norman Ganz, Fitzgerald's producer and the founder of Verve Records. The concert album won two Grammy Awards, and Fitzgerald's rendition of the song was lauded as a classic.

At the height of the Cold War, Fitzgerald returned to Berlin two years later. Granz also recorded that concert at the divided city's SportPalast. But the high-quality reel-to-reel recordings, done in mono and stereo, were lost for years until recently rediscovered in a box, held together by Scotch tape.

Using new software, the tapes were digitally remastered to better highlight Fitzgerald's voice. In the jazz event of the season, an album called "The Lost Berlin Tapes" was recently released to widespread critical approval.

As with the previous album, Fitzgerald's swinging quartet was led by her pianist and musical director, Paul Smith.

Jazz is known for live recordings that give listeners the sense that they were there at that moment. "The Lost Berlin Tapes" will stand as a classic to pair with Fitzgerald's previous Berlin recording.

 

 

 

 

Atlanta newspaper memories

Monday marks the 39th anniversary of the day I started work at The Atlanta Journal, which "covered Dixie like the dew."

Driving home down Peachtree Road Monday morning with the happy news that my new pacemaker's keeping my heart in rhythm, I remembered all of my newspaper colleagues who've passed away since that similarly sunny October morning when I began my Atlanta career.

I was a newlywed, recently moved with my bride to Atlanta. The Journal was a separate afternoon newspaper, publishing three editions a day, not yet mortally wounded by declining circulation.

The afternoon newspaper still dominated the local market despite the national recognition given the Constitution's Ralph McGill. In Atlanta, Journal sports columnist Furman Bisher was king.

When I began working the 4 a.m. shift, the Journal and Constitution ran separate newsrooms on different floors at the dreary gray newspaper building at 72 Marietta St. in downtown Atlanta. Visitors could freely come and go, unimpeded by guards, who came later.

Sportswriters from each paper followed the Falcons, Braves, Hawks and college football. Competing reporters covered state and local government. Separate Journal and Constitution critics gave their opinions on theater, the movies, pop music and the Atlanta Symphony.

The newspapers were not a cash cow for the Cox family, they were a cash hippopotamus. The Thanksgiving paper was so full of ads that we had to start working on it in September. With so much space having to be filled, separate sections examined obscure subjects such as the history of the Balkans.

With the Journal bleeding circulation as the intown population plunged and suburban areas boomed, the staffs merged in a couple of years, with bitter rivals unhappily turned into colleagues. News operations were placed on the Journal's old sixth floor, and features thrown together on the Consti's eighth.

For a few years, the papers came out under separate brands, produced by the merged staff. The Journal, with its own day-shift news desk, still put out an early metro edition for news boxes, and the "final home" for home delivery.

Then came the street "blue streak" edition, which because of its before noon deadline lacked any news that broke in early afternoon that TV would report that evening.

The newspapers' editorial-page staffs remained separate, oddly mismatched for their separate audiences.

The liberal Constitution had larger circulation in the more conservative suburbs, while the conservative Journal had more readers in the liberal inner city.

When the newspapers reached the peak of their power before and after the 1996 Olympics, the Internet was the small creature scurrying along the jungle floor.

A few newspaper people began to realize that was was then called the World Wide Web offered advantages in presenting advertising and news.

The AJC presciently launched a pay-wall Internet site, too quickly abandoned. Now paid online subscriptions offer the most promising future for old media companies.

Sept. 11, 2001, gave The Journal a final blaze of glory, with the late old-school newspaperman Frank Hyland writing a masterful article about the attack, beating anything the next morning's Constitution produced after hours of editorial planning. Then, like the World Trade Center, the Journal was gone.

Abandoning downtown for the suburbs, the AJC staggered on, hemorrhaging circulation and ad revenue.

Now, with a much smaller staff, the newspaper marches on. Several of my former colleagues still bravely carry out their mission. Each morning, I walk outside to find the AJC at the end of my driveway.

 

 

J.C. says farewell to Times Literary Supplement's NB column

The Times Literary Supplement's NB column on the back page of each issue is a light dessert at the end of a heavy meal.

For years, a witty and learned writer who called himself J.C. penned the column, presumably named after the Latin term Nota Bene.

J.C. in his Sept. 18 column delivered the melancholy news that it would be his last.

In saying farewell, J.C. revealed that he is James Campbell, the Scottish author of several books including a biography of James Baldwin and a study of Beat writers.

Campbell didn't give a reason for his leaving. NB continues under a different writer with the initials M.C.

A gem of British stylishness, J.C.'s column was like a letter from a brilliant friend. J.C. reported on his "perambulations" to find rare books at quirky bookstores, and gave attention to obscure literary publications such as a quarterly devoted to Victorian novelist George Gissing.

He also carried out jests like the imaginary TLS stylebook for freelancers, giving valuable writing lessons along the way, and satirized literary prizes and academic writing.

Another amusing feature was his contests, such as asking readers for TLS references in literature.

Campbell's exit follows the recent naming of Martin Ivens as TLS' editor to replace Stig Abell, who in a brief period made over the venerable review's layout. With a few typographical glitches and shorter reviews, the literary quality remained high under Abell, who also added book excerpts to the editorial mix, and tightened the letters page.

J.C.'s leaving is the first move of Ivens' first few weeks on the job.

In recent columns, J.C. spoke out against literary censorship stemming from racial and gender sensitivities. He criticized Poetry magazine for firing its editor for publishing a poem that blacks found objectionable. Whether J.C.'s unfashionable opinions led to his ouster has not been reported.

We hope that Campbell's happy perambulations continue, and that his writing again appears in the TLS and other publications.

 

 

National Gallery of Art, other museums blasted for delaying Philip Guston exhibit

A major Philip Guston retrospective hasn't been canceled, yet. It's been impounded for three years.

The National Gallery of Art and three other museums delayed the Philip Guston Now exhibition until 2024 out of fear that Guston's cartoonish depictions of hooded Klansmen would be too controversial in today's racial climate.

Already delayed by Covid-19, the exhibition of 125 paintings and 70 drawings was to have opened at the Tate Modern in London early next year and continue at the National Gallery and the Boston and Houston Museums of Fine Art.

Those bastions of free artistic expression believe that Guston's art needs further buffering before it can be safely shown to the public and that racial conflict will disappear before 2024.

The museums in a joint statement said they will seek "additional perspectives and voices" on presenting the work without upsetting anyone.

An open letter in the Brooklyn Rail signed by 100 black and white artists condemned the delay. "But the people who run our great institutions do not want trouble," the letter said. "They fear controversy. They lack faith in the intelligence of their audience."

The decision also drew strong criticism from critics Jason Farago in The New York Times and Eric Gibson in the Wall Street Journal.

Gibson pointed out that National Gallery Director Kaywin Feldman supported the Whitney Museum's decision to continue displaying Dana Schutz's "Open Casket" when black artists demanded the removal of the work depicting Emmitt Till in his coffin.

Although Guston was Jewish and sought to ridicule Klansmen, the museums apparently believe the paintings could be misinterpreted as supporting white supremacy and bring them criticism. The 100 artists claim that the museums' fear the exhibition will give attention to their own white privilege.

Gibson blasts the museums for their timidity in seeking further explanatory material, pointing out that the exhibition's catalog has already been printed and interpretations of the work already gathered. What more is needed?, he asks.

Guston turned from abstract expressionism to figurative paintings later in his career to express his progressive political commitment. Critics like the conservative Hilton Kramer attacked Guston for the shift. Guston's figurative work receives strong admiration from younger artists.

After several major retrospectives since Guston death in 1980, including one at the Museum of Modern Art, the four museums are now afraid to let his work speak for itself.