Southern Bookman

St. Valentine's Day brings hope of springtime

St. Valentine's Day brought a strong lunchtime crowd to Phipps Plaza.

On one of Atlanta's early spring days in midwinter, restaurants were full, giving hope that the pandemic might really be over. 

No balloons overhead, just a perfect blue sky. With the Super Bowl and pro football finished, thoughts turned to the Braves beginning spring training.

Valentine's Day revelers packed the shopping mall's old and new restaurants, and a long line had formed at Starbucks. At Alon's, diners at the patio tables basked in the sunshine. The look of love shone everywhere, proving once again that God's greatest miracle is the human face.

Headed to my old car, I saw one of my favorite Atlanta sights: the Wieuca Road Baptist Church steeple reflected in the glass of a soaring office tower on Peachtree Road. Over the years, I've taken photos of that perfect symbol of Atlanta's past and future.

Back home, the tulip tree had already bloomed, its white flowers returning with memories of the past.

The Super Bowl, Valentine's, Mardi Gras. They blend together as I grow older.

I'm thankful for each day, each new season.

 

 

 

 

Poet laureate Ada Limón's Emory reading muted by inadequate sound system

U.S. poet laureate Ada Limón gave a compelling reading Feb. 11 at Emory University.

Unfortunately, many of the crowd packing Glenn Memorial Auditorium on a rainy Saturday afternoon could barely hear her poems. A faulty sound system made key phrases inaudible.

Limón, a native of Sonoma, Calif. and the first Latina poet laureate, presented work from her recent collections "The Carrying" and "The Hurting Kind" with warmth and gentle humor.

She read in an easy, conversational tone, avoiding overly dramatic vocal effects. Alas, her lines often faded away, diluting their dramatic power.

The appearance for the Raymond Danowski Poetry Reading Series was sponsored by Emory's Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library.

What could have been a triumphant event for Atlanta's literary community was deflated by the technical difficulties.

The audience deserved to hear Limón's voice in full register.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Farewell, Burt Bacharach

Burt Bacharach's music had a signature cinematic quality, making his pop songs like movies.

His brass flourishes, bossa nova beats and piano reveries created an almost visual background for the voices of his mostly female singers and the lyrics of his main collaborator, Hal David.

Yet, his distinctive chord changes and time signatures were also like a chorus, a musical language commenting upon the words. Like all great songs, his work told stories.

Bacharach, who found success as a movie and Broadway composer as well as the writer of numerous pop hits, died Wednesday at age 94 at his home in Los Angeles.

Dusty Springfield's recording of "The Look of Love" for the 1967 James Bond film "Casino Royale" is the pinnacle of Bacharach and David's art.

Springfield's husky, yearning voice rises to the near breaking  point, blending desire and vulnerability. A bossa nova rhythm, bluesy piano and soaring sax solo underscore her declaration of love. At the end, a driving big band's dance beat carries the song away to new heights of passion.

Dionne Warwick, Bacharach's favorite singer, gave an alternative musical sophistication to the rock-dominated era. "Walk on By," "Do You Know the Way to San Jose" and "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" gain in stature through the years.

The most poignant interpretation of Bacharach's music is Karen Carpenter's "Close to You," recorded with her brother, Richard, and a tight group of musicians and background singers. Carpenter's aching, angelic voice elevates the overly sentimental lyrics, showing that she was one of America's great singers.

Bacharach's impressionistic melodies hold a distinctive place in American music. They are haunting dreamscapes, telling complex stories of love and desire.

Chiefs-Eagles Super Bowl battle colored by history

The Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles, two teams with deep pro football histories, clash in the Super Bowl Sunday.

When the Chiefs play in the big game, I always remember the 1970 Super Bowl in New Orleans, played just five years after the American Football League All-Star game in the Crescent City was canceled because of virulent racism against black players by the city's taxi drivers, bars and restaurants.

Hank Stram's Chiefs beat the  heavily favored Minnesota Vikings in the fourth Super Bowl, the last played before the AFL and the senior National Football League merged.

The Chiefs' dominant victory in the 1970 game validated the shocking win by Joe Namath's AFL Champion New York Jets over the favored Baltimore Colts the year before.

Before the game before a crowd of around 80,000  at New Orleans' old Tulane Stadium - the Superdome didn't open until 1975 - sportswriters believed the Jets upset had been a fluke and that the old NFL teams still ruled. 

Behind quarterback Lenny Dawson, the Chiefs dominated from the start, routing Bud Grant's Vikings 23-7. Stram, an offensive innovator, ran plays that befuddled the Vikings' vaunted "purple people eaters."

Owned by AFL founder Lamar Hunt, the Chiefs began as the Dallas Texans, playing in Dallas' Cotton Bowl along with the NFL's expansion Cowboys. As the Cowboys rose into one of the NFL's glamour teams, Hunt moved the franchise to Kansas City, then a segregated city where black players had difficulty finding homes, according to a Washington Post story.

New Orleans' history of racism had not fully ended when the 1970 Super Bowl was played, but local businessman Dave Dixon had persuaded the NFL to give the city the expansion Saints, who began play in 1967 at Tulane's Stadium, longtime home of the Sugar Bowl. Dixon was the promoter of the canceled 1965 AFL all-star game.

The old Sugar Bowl Stadium, which opened in 1926 on Willow Street on Tulane's campus, was torn down in 1980. Now the Tulane Green Wave plays at 30,000-seat Yullman Stadium, opened in 2014.

Sunday's game also raises memories of the Eagles' rich history. During World War II, the team merged with the Pittsburgh Steelers, playing games as the Steagles.

The Eagles in 1960 gave Vince Lombardi his only post-season defeat, beating Lombardi's Green Bay Packers 17-13 in frozen Franklin Field. The game was played on Monday, the day after Christmas.

Along with quarterbacks Sonny Jurgensen and Norm Van Brocklin, the Eagles were led by Chuck Bednarik, one of the roughest players in league history. He played 59 minutes a game at center and linebacker as the last man in the NFL to go both ways.

In November of that year, Bednarik's vicious tackle crippled the New York Giants' Frank Gifford, who was sidelined for 18 months. Bednarik's hit is the centerpiece of Frederick Exley's classic novel/memoir "A Fan's Notes."

An Eagles win Sunday would give the team three championships, along with its 2017 Super Bowl win over New England and the 1960 NFL title.

But the city leader in championships remains Connie Mack's Athletics, who won five World Series titles in the early 20th century before the team moved to Kansas City and Oakland, as detailed in an excellent New York Times article.

Kansas City's Patrick Mahomes and Philadelphia's Jalen Hurts are the first two black quarterbacks to compete against each other in the Super Bowl And the Kelce brothers will take opposing sides.

Chiefs coach Andy Reid previously led the Eagles, losing the Super Bowl in 2004. Reid and Mahomes won the championship for Kansas City in 2020.

The Eagles-Chiefs clash will make new history for teams with colorful pasts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Farewell David Harris, 1960s counterculture hero

Each week brings the death of a 1960s icon.

David Harris, leader of the Vietnam-era draft resistance movement and former husband of folksinger Joan Baez, is the latest to go. Harris, 76, died Monday of lung cancer at his home in Mill Valley, Calif., according to a New York Times obituary.

Reading about Harris' death rang a distant bell for me. Serving a jail sentence for refusing the draft, he was one of the heroes of the anti-war movement.

I vividly recall being inspired by his resistance, and the counterculture glamour of his relationship with Baez, who remained a musical icon even after rock gained prominence over folk songs.

After his release from prison and divorcing Baez in 1973, Harris embarked upon a journalistic career, writing for Rolling Stone and the New York Times magazine. He left magazine journalism to write books.

Harris in his brief moment of fame was one of those who defined the era. In going to jail for his beliefs, he was an American hero. Like other 1960s protesters, he went on to a long, productive career, finding success in the country's mainstream.

 

Journalist Jim Schutze's "The Accommodation" reveals Dallas' history of racial violence

Veteran political columnist Jim Schutze's "The Accommodation: The Politics of Race in an American City" uncovers Dallas' dark history of racial oppression.

Pressure by Dallas' white power structure halted the original publication of Schutze's book in 1986. After a limited press run by another publisher, a warehouse fire destroyed most of the book's copies.

After years out of print, the book called "the most dangerous book in Dallas" by D magazine columnist Peter Simek was rediscovered in the last decade, passed around digitally and in samizdat photocopies.

At last, Dallas' Deep Vellum Books republished the book in 2021 under its LaReunion Imprint, which specializes in books on Texas history.

Deep Vellum has reclaimed a classic study of one of the strangest and conflicted American cities, torn between provincial pro-business boosterism and cosmopolitan aspirations.

Haunted by the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy, the sprawling north Texas metropolis long claimed a history of racial tolerance.

Schutze, a D magazine columnist and former political columnist for the Dallas Times Herald and Dallas Observer, explodes that myth in his dynamic chronicle. 

In the early 1950s, dynamite bombs exploded at the homes of blacks moving into working-class white neighborhoods in South Dallas, repeating a wave of such attacks in the 1940s.

No one was killed, but white leaders grew alarmed, especially when the black homeowners began shooting back at those seeking to drive them out of the white areas.

Worried that the violence would hurt the city's business reputation, white power-brokers organized a "blue ribbon" grand jury to investigate the bombings.

Yet, outside of a couple of arrests of minor criminals, the grand jury took no action. Schutze claims that the grand jury issued no indictments because high-up political and religious leaders would be implicated.

However, the investigation resulted in the "accommodation" of Schutze's title, an agreement between the all-white "Citizens Council" that truly ran the city and black religious and community leaders to dampen racial protests.

After years of resistance to the 1954 Supreme Court agreement outlawing school segregation, the city won praise for a limited plan to integrate schools. The schools were never truly integrated, and Dallas engaged in efforts to destroy black neighborhoods for commercial projects.

Despite blatant housing and economic discrimination, Dallas escaped the racial turmoil of other Southern cities, because of the complicity of black leaders with the pro-business white community, as Schutze documents.

Civil rights organizations like the Southern Christian Leadership Conference ignored Dallas' racial inequities for years. At last, a SCLC organizer from Atlanta led effective protest efforts, leading to court victories and concessions by the power elite.

A key moment was  the overturning in federal court of Dallas' strange system of at-large council seats rather than districts, which like Georgia's notorious county unit system diluted black political power.

In a chilling chapter, Schutze castigates the Dallas Morning News for its rabidly racist and anti-Kennedy administration editorials before the assassinated president's fatal visit to the city. Schutze blames the then ultra-conservative newspaper for fostering a sinister atmosphere that he claims led to Kennedy's death.

He apparently believes accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, but his documenting of Dallas' right-wing paranoia leaves room for the conspiracy theories many Americans now accept.

Schutze writes with a distinctive voice, like that of an extended newspaper column blended with historic depth. He skewers white leaders with a sardonic tone, while maintaining a rigorous objectivity.

In one amusing chapter, he satirizes a group of white leaders for seeking to stop "communist" modern art from being displayed a at the Dallas Art Museum.

Dallas department store executive Stanley Marcus is a progressive hero of the book, preventing the removal of a sports art exhibit that somehow was characterized as "communist" by the local Philistines. Marcus is also a lonely voice of racial justice.

Such leaders were rare in the Big D. Their pro-business gospel and the city's amazing growth into a major metropolis covered a sordid history of racial oppression.

Schutze shines a bright light on that long-shrouded past. His illuminating book has also emerged from the darkness.

 

Atlanta's red-hot political dramas examined in Sunday New York Times

Atlanta stands in the glare of the national media spotlight with two connected stories - the battle over the $90 million police training center and Fulton District Attorney Fani Willis' likely indictment of former President Donald Trump.

The dual dramas of political conflict and racial dynamics received their latest national examinations in the Sunday New York Times.

Noted environmental novelist Richard Powers in an article in the newspaper's Sunday Opinion section called for a city referendum on the massive police training center, to be built in a wooded area in South DeKalb County.

The nonprofit Atlanta Police Foundation's plan has resulted in violent confrontations between environmental protesters and law enforcement officers at the site, including the killing of an activist by police.

Powers, noting the similarities between his 2019 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "The Overstory" and the confrontations between environmental protesters and police, pointed out that the construction would disrupt plans for the South Forest Greenbelt.

Citing the potential importance of the greenbelt to Atlanta's environmental future and the conflict over the training center site, Powers said the issue should be decided by city voters. The Atlanta City Council approved a $30 million appropriation for the training center, mainly funded by the Atlanta Police Foundation.

In the Sunday New York Times magazine, writer Mark Binelli in an in-depth profile of Willis portrayed her as an aggressive prosecutor who will likely use the same forceful tactics against Trump if she charges him as she has against rap stars, gang members and schoolteachers convicted in the Atlanta cheating scandal.

Binelli's profile revisited recent Atlanta flashpoints such as the downtown protests over the George Floyd killing and the killing by police of Rayshard Brooks at a South Atlanta Wendy's, the scene of violent protests in which the restaurant was burned down and a young child murdered.

The article also claims that Buckhead political powerbroker Mary Norwood's support carried Willis to her decisive 2020 victory over former District Attorney Paul Howard, for whom Willis was chief prosecutor. Now an influential member of the Atlanta City Council, the reputed Republican Norwood has twice run for mayor, receiving narrow defeats to black candidates.

The two Times articles taken together give a searching examination of Atlanta's racial and political undercurrents, involving police brutality and training, shifting Republican and Democratic allegiances and the city's economic divisions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Remembering James Dickey on 100th anniversary of his birth

James Dickey rose to prominence when poets could still gain national attention.

Dickey, who served as the nation's poet laureate from 1966-1968 and won the National Book Award for his 1965 collection "Buckdancer's Choice," is best remembered today for writing the best-selling novel "Deliverance."

The Atlanta native also wrote the screenplay for the Academy Award-nominated film based on the novel, in which four Atlanta businessmen have a horrifying encounter with primitive mountain residents on a hunting trip to North Georgia.

Christopher Buckley, marking the 100th anniversary Thursday of Dickey's birth in Atlanta, wrote a fond remembrance of Dickey for the Atlantic, recalling meeting the famous poet as a teenager when accompanying his father, William F. Buckley, to the launch of Apollo 7 in 1968 at Cape Kennedy in Florida. Buckley recalls Dickey as a warm, generous man who cheerfully responded to the young Buckley's requests for help with school projects.

Reading Buckley's piece continued my recently revived interest in Dickey's work, awakened by Gordon Van Ness's excellent biography "James Dickey, A Literary Life," published by Mercer University Press.

Dickey, who gained fame as a poet after a career as an Atlanta advertising executive, was a leading member of the Southern macho school of American literature.

A World War II veteran of the U.S. Army Air Forces, Dickey flew 38 missions in the Pacific Theater as a P-61 Black Widow radio operator and was awarded five Bronze Stars. He later served in the Korean War.

Known for his prodigious drinking, beginning in the early morning, Dickey delighted in bow hunting, weight-lifting and playing the guitar. He also created outlandish myths about himself.

At the end of his career, he was a well-regarded teacher at the University of South Carolina, where he mentored another famous Atlanta writer, Pat Conroy.

His Atlanta upbringing was immortalized in his poem "Looking for the Buckhead Boys," still a talisman for an aging group of Atlanta men who grew up in the northside Atlanta neighborhood. Each year, the group known for its charity work gathers to read Dickey's poem and remember old times.

Dickey is one of the poets whose work I re-read through the years. Many of his poems I find bombastic and overwritten, but his best work achieves a rare beauty, like that of an Atlanta morning in early spring.

 

CEO James Daunt's revival of Barnes & Noble draws praise

Barnes & Noble is receiving media accolades for its book-centered revival under CEO James Daunt.

Columnists Ezra Klein of The New York Times and Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times recently praised Daunt for saving the book chain, which had been rushing toward bankruptcy.

Daunt, who took over Barnes & Noble in 2019, reversed the corporation's previous disastrous strategy of broadening its product line beyond books. He also gave local stores autonomy to meet their communities' book interests and resisted publishers' onerous return policies and efforts to control which books receive prominent display.

Before Elliott Advisors installed Daunt after acquiring Barnes & Noble, he was known for reviving Great Britain's Waterstones book chain, also owned by Elliott. He still runs Waterstones for the company.

As a longtime lover of bookstores, I'm heartened by Barnes & Noble's revival. The B&N at Union Square is one of my favorite haunts in New York City, and I also enjoy the Fifth Avenue store.

Here in Atlanta, I often go to the Barnes and Noble at Peach Shopping Center. Once I saw Elton John in the store, looking at records. Sir Elton in those days lived a few blocks away in a high rise across Peachtree Road from Christ the King Cathedral. Braves slugger Andruw Jones also had a condo in the tower.

When I was editor of Buckhead Patch, I interviewed Georgia environmentalist and Rolling Stones keyboardist Chuck Leavell at the B&N Starbucks.

The Peach Center Barnes and Noble is the last bookstore in Buckhead, following the demise of locally owned Oxford Books and the once dazzling Borders.

Once I feared Barnes and Noble would also pass away. Thanks to Daunt, B&N will keep the flame lit for book lovers.

 

 

 

 

Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, DeKalb CEO Michael Thurmond launch police training site

The Atlanta Way lives.

Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens and DeKalb CEO Michael Thurmond on Tuesday announced an agreement that will start construction on Atlanta's embattled police and fire training center, a $90 million, 85-acre mini-city of urban landscapes, fire towers, meeting rooms and firearm shooting ranges.

The extensive training center is to be built on a wooded site in south DeKalb Country, where neighborhood opposition resulted in Dickens agreeing to Thurmond's demands for buffers from firing ranges and fire towers, preservation of wooded areas and the planting of hardwood trees. The site is part of the proposed South River Forest conservation area.

After months of violent battles between protesters and police, the agreement pushes the training center forward, the latest manifestation of the ages-old "Atlanta Way" partnership of white business leaders and black politicians.

The private, non-profit Atlanta Police Foundation is funding much of center, staunchly supported by The Atlanta Journal Constitution. Alex Taylor, the CEO of AJC owner Cox Enterprises, has raised money for the police foundation and the training center, sometimes noted in AJC articles.

A gun battle between state troopers and protesters led to the shooting death of protester Manuel “Tortuguita” Terán, an avowed pacifist whom police claimed wounded a police officer who has not been named.

Police wouldn't release the wounded officer's name because of possible retribution by protesters. Yet he should be identified in the interest of transparency in the case.

Environmental activists dispute the police account. State police involved in the gunfight say they were not wearing body cameras during the battle, so the required GBI investigation will depend on conflicting eye-witness accounts and forensic evidence.

Unlike national media including The Washington Post, the AJC has not complied with Terán's preference to use the trans pronouns "they" and "them,"  instead of "he" and "him."

Terán's death led to a violent protest in downtown Atlanta in which Peachtree Street high-rises were damaged and a police car burned. One of the damaged buildings is the Philip Johnson-designed 191 Peachtree Tower, where the Atlanta Police Foundation's offices are located.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp declared an emergency, allowing for him to call out 1,000 members of the Georgia National Guard. A number of protesters have been charged with "domestic terrorism" under a constitutionally dubious Georgia law enacted in 2017.

I've been following the story through the AJC and national media, and haven't formed a clear judgment.

It sounds as if the wooded area is not as pristine as the protesters claim - one absurdly called it "the lungs of Atlanta" in a Washington Post story. Dickens said the site doesn't encompass original hard-wood trees, and is overgrown with invasive species.

The Dickens-Thurmond deal will preserve the most environmentally sensitive forest areas. The South River and a creek are seriously polluted, according to an Atlanta magazine piece by former AJC reporter Timothy Pratt, the most comprehensive article on the center conflict I've read.

Over the years, a work camp and other operations have been located at the city-owned site, originally the home of the Muscogee Indians before they were forced to leave. For years, the area served as a trash dump. The nearby predominantly black neigbhorhoods already hear gunfire from an existing police firing range.

Ryan Gravel, the originator of the Atlanta Beltline, did a comprehensive study that called for making the area an extensive nature park. The Atlanta City Council agreed to the plan, before former Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms surprised residents, local officials and Gravel with plans for the training center, according to Pratt's article. The council subsequently approved allocating $30 million for the center.

Overall, the training center appears needed, but other options could be considered. The removal of trees should be limited, but thousands of trees are destroyed in the metro area each week as development relentlessly progresses.

While protesters vow to fight on to stop the training center, its building appears inevitable. That's the Atlanta Way.