Southern Bookman

Midnight strikes again watching the NFL Draft

OK, I like the NFL draft.

Once again, I succumbed to watching the pro football spectacle Thursday night.

Grown men wearing ridiculous costumes. Cheerleaders and girlfriends. Mamas and daddies, brothers and sisters. Nick Saban in a pink sportcoat. Roger Goodell lifted off his feet by a burly lineman. Tears, hugs, kisses.

You know you're in deep when you find yourself contemplating Mel Kiper Jr.'s rule against drafting running backs in the first round and Booger McFarland's rhapsodies about obscure Big 10 defensive ends.

The young men parade across the stage, wearing hip-hop suits and hair. In interviews with the ebullient Suzy Kolber, they thank God and family. The new recruits will soon face the reality of the NFL meat grinder, receiving millions to risk permanent injury or death.

Some of them will fail, others achieve stardom. They will be analyzed on ESPN talk shows. From July through February, they will crash against each other, warriors like ancient knights transported to our TV screens.

Each team is like a small medieval kingdom. The Lions. The Packers. The Bears. The Eagles. The Giants. The Cowboys. The Bucs. The Saints. The Falcons. We know their histories, their personalities, their uniforms, their players.

Once again, I can't resist the NFL's hype machine.

 

Semicolon wars of Robert Caro, Robert Gottlieb blaze in documentary "Turn Every Page"

American history lovers anxiously await Robert Caro's completion of his monumental Lyndon Johnson biography.

At 86, Caro painstakingly works on the fifth volume of his life of Johnson, covering how the president's escalation of the Vietnam War wrecked his progressive administration.

Earlier volumes recounted Johnson's rise from Texas Hill Country poverty, his ironclad control of the U.S. Senate and his humiliating turn as John F. Kennedy's vice president before Kennedy's assassination in Dallas thrust Johnson into the White House.

The burning question of whether Caro will finish his work is a central theme of the documentary "Turn Every Page: The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb," available for streaming on Prime Video.

Gottlieb, the New York publishing titan, has edited Caro's ambitious work for 50 years, beginning with Caro's "The Power Broker," his exhaustive account of New York City Public Works executive Robert Moses' transformation of the city during the 20th century.

Produced by Gottlieb's daughter, Lizzie, the documentary looks at Caro and Gobblieb's contentious working relationship, in which they have fiercely battled over manuscript cuts and grammatical questions such as the proper use of semicolons.

The film, whose title comes from advice Caro's first managing editor gave him when he was a young investigative reporter for Newsday, shows the two Roberts' advancement from young men into aged literary lions still editing typewritten pages word by word and line by line with old-fashioned No. 2 pencils.

Caro, who still completes his pages with a typewriter after initially writing longhand on a legal pad, was reluctant to participate in the film, and remains skittish about Lizzie peering too closely into his working techniques.

Visibly aging during the film's five-year completion, Caroslowly reveals details such as how he persuaded Lyndon's brother, Sam, to express the truth about their harsh relationship with their father, demolishing sunny myths about their childhoods.

The author also tells how he tracked down an aged Johnson operative who reveals to Caro how he fixed Johnson's initial election to the U.S. Senate in 1949.

Gottlieb, the 91-year-old former chief of Simon & Schuster and Knoph, comes across as arrogant and self-satisfied. In a visit to the Strand Bookstore, the still spry Gottlieb shows his grandson the cornucopia of books he's edited.

Luminaries like superagent Lynn Nesbit, New Yorker editor David Remnick, writer Daniel Mendelsohn, New Yorker "Comma Queen" Mary Norris, actor Ethan Hawke and former President Bill Clinton reflect upon the careers of Caro and Gottlieb.

Caro's wife, Ina, whom Caro met when he was a Princeton student, receives well-deserved recognition. Ina has contributed to Caro's books as his sole researcher through the years.

Gottlieb's wife, the former Broadway star Maria Tucci, fondly recounts Gottlieb's personality quirks. She admits her dislike of his bizarre extensive collection of women's plastic handbags.

Caro insists that an editorial meeting between him and Gottlieb be shown without sound. 

At the end of the movie, they sit side by side, peering over Caro's typewritten manuscript, making changes with pencils, their voices unheard.

Perhaps one day Caro lovers will read those pages.

 

 

Rediscovering "Hill Street Blues" on Hulu

"Hill Street Blues" remains one of network television's most exciting and innovative shows, 36 years after the NBC series ended.

I've been rewatching the ground-breaking police drama/comedy on Hulu, which also offers "NYPD Blue" and other classics from the 1980s.

When Michael Post's dreamy piano theme begins the show and the police cars scramble down the street of the gritty, unnamed city, I'm transported to a small, complex world of human frailty, kindness, heroism and despair.

The series' themes of racism, poverty and criminal justice inequities still roil the nation.

Originally broadcast from 1981-1987 on NBC, "Hill Street Blues" revived  the moribund network. After a slow start, the show grew into a ratings sensation, and won numerous Emmy awards.

Daniel J. Travanti's Capt. Frank Furillo commands the Hill Street precinct with judicious wisdom, treating his officers and the neighborhood's ethnic minorities with kindness and respect. He cooly handles the myriad crises that beset the precinct. Too bad more American police officers aren't like him. 

Furillo's torrid affair with public defender Joyce Davenport, portrayed by the sultry Veronica Hamel, smolders with an eroticism unmatched by cable television's more explicit shows. Their teasing love scenes, heightened by partial, sheet-covered nudity, say a naughty good-night to each episode. 

The precinct's police officers are a microcosm of humanity, like characters in a complex novel. Unlike with other network shows of the era, their storylines continue from episode to episode.

Michael Conrad's Sgt. Phil Esterhaus is the precinct's caring avuncular foundation. Conrad, who died of cancer after four years on the show, portrayed Esterhaus with experience-rich masculine authority, leavened by understanding humor.

Esterhaus' morning roll call, which he closed with the plea "let's be careful out there," opened each episode's new day.

Bruce Weitz's Mick Belker, Michael Warren's Bobby Hill, Charles Haid's Andy Renko, James B. Sikking's Howard Hunter, Betty Thomas' Lucy Bates, Kiel Martin's J.D. LaRue and Taurean Blacque's Taurean Blacque displayed a full range of emotions.

With all of their flaws, the officers carry out their police work with diligence, compassion and courage. Despite their good intentions, urban conflicts erupt into shocking violence.

NBC's then young chief Brandon Tartikoff eommissioned the series from MTM Projections. Developed by Steven Bochco and Michael Kozoll, the show's frenetic pace, gauzy visuals, overheard off-screen dialogue and theatrical character interactions gave it the cinematic authenticity  of a Robert Altman movie.

Tartikoff took a chance on the show because NBC had sunk to the bottom of the ratings. The series fueled NBC's resurgence, leading to hits like "The Cosby Show," "Cheers," "NYPD Blue," "L.A. Law" and "Family Ties."

For my money, "Hill Street Blues" equals or surpasses lauded HBO's  shows like "The Sopranos" and "The Wire."

"Hill Street Blues" remains the exemplar of "quality television."

 

 

Atlanta Beltline should follow MARTA and commit to rail construction

The Atlanta streetcar extension will bring a small portion of the Beltline's long-promised rail transit line.

That raises the question of when a decision will be made to complete rail transit along the Beltline.

Beltline originator Ryan Gravel envisioned light rail connecting Atlanta's neighborhoods as the centerpiece of his original idea to refurbish abandoned train lines circling the city.

Gravel and Atlanta Beltline say they remain committed to rail along the Beltline. But the popularity of portions completed so far raise doubts about whether the rail lines will ever be built.

The MARTA board recently approved extending the low-ridership downtown streetcar line to the Beltline. Under the plan, a rail line would run a short distance along the Beltline from Irwin Street to the Ponce City Market.

Gravel told business columnist Maria Saporta that he foresees the Beltline rail line as embedded upon grass, and running alongside the popular paved trail, crowded with walkers, bikers and skateboard riders. An artist's conception shows a rail car running upon a track laid upon grass beside a bucolic grassy embankment.

Work is continuing to complete the Beltline, with agreement not yet reached on Norfolk Southern's still active train lines near Buckhead.

The Beltline nonprofit organization is beginning construction on a new portion of the trail that will extend through Piedmont Park, connecting to the busy segment that goes through Virginia-Highland, Poncey Highland and the Old Fourth Ward.

MARTA's streetcar extension, supported by Mayor Andre Dickens, gives a starting stub for Beltline rail transit.

Beltline planners can accelerate the process by coming up with their own rail construction plan in conjunction with MARTA's project. A more extensive Beltline segment could even begin sooner, eventually linking with the streetcar line at Ponce City Market.

Such a decision by Atlanta Beltline Inc. would be a major step toward making Gravel's conception a reality.

Columnists Maria Saporta, Bill Torpy battle over MARTA plan to extend Atlanta streetcar to Beltline

A media duel has broken out over plans to extend the Atlanta streetcar from downtown to the Beltline.

Longtime business columnist and civic booster Maria Saporta enthusiastically supports the $230 million project, approved by MARTA's board April 13.

But The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Bill Torpy in a column Monday expressed skepticism about the plan, pointing out the streetcar's dismal ridership along its limited downtown route.

Torpy also fretted that costs likely will rise, an especially heavy burden to taxpayers because MARTA and the city are not seeking federal funding for the project.

The streetcar extension from downtown Atlanta to the Beltline and Ponce City Market is part of an MARTA expansion funded by a special half-cent sales tax approved by city voters in 2016. 

Saporta in a column for her Saporta Report web site praised MARTA for remaining with rail for the streetcar extension after changing to rapid bus transit for its other expansion projects.

While rail costs more to build initially, its continuous operations cost less than buses and rail brings more commercial development, she said. 

In contrast, Torpy disparaged rail as a nostalgic relic of 19th century technology. He also said that space is limited for rail along the popular Beltline, already crowded with individual walkers, families with strollers, bikers and skateboarders.

Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens and Atlanta Beltline Inc. support the streetcar extension, which led to the MARTA board's approval on an 8-0 vote, with two abstentions.

Dickens and the Atlanta City Council recently imposed an audit of MARTA's project delays.

Saporta talked to Beltline originator Ryan Gravel, who welcomed the extension as an opportunity to make the streetcar a successful transportation system.

Gravel told Saporta he envisions the rail line as embedded upon grass, instead of paving, and running alongside the Beltline's pedestrian and bicycle path.

Opposition is stirring in neighborhoods along the streetcar expansion, which will run down Edgewood Avenue to the Beltline at Irwin Street before going along the Beltline to the Ponce City Market. Five stations will be built.

The work is to be completed by 2030, if not derailed by opponents.

Trip to Athens brings memories of football games past

On our annual visit to Athens, the home of the University of Georgia, I again reflect upon my long history with this hip old college town.

I first came to "the classic city" with my parents for a game between Charlie McClendon's LSU Tigers and Vince Dooley's Dawgs.

A young man then, I'd recently moved from my native Louisiana to Columbus, Ga., to work for the morning newspaper the Enquirer. The Ledger was the mill town's afternoon paper.

Later, after marrying and moving to Atlanta, I attended a series of intermittent LSU-Georgia games at Sanford Stadium.

I witnessed one of LSU's rare victories with childhood friends who drove up from Baton Rouge. In subsequent years, I drove over to Athens from Atlanta with my son, who followed in my family's footsteps and graduated from LSU.

Over the years, I've grown fond of UGA's beautiful campus, and Athens' historic downtown area. Generations of students have come and gone over the years.

Walking the old part of the campus, I saw students already taking photos in their graduation caps and gowns. I silently gave them my best wishes for the future.

Returning to Philip Larkin's "The Trees"

This is the time of year when I return to Philip Larkin's "The Trees."

 

Larkin is a prominent example of a writer of dubious character who wrote wonderful poetry.

 

Like T.S. Eliot, Larkin expressed appalling anti-semitic, misogynistic and racist views. A number of his poems display a world-weary cynicism, etched with acidic humor.

 

But poems like "The Trees" reveal that Larkin's negative personality traits covered an exquisite sensitivity to beauty.

 

When my birthday approaches each May, I'm called to Larkin's poem, with its promise of renewal.

 

The Trees

 

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In full grown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

 

United Talent Agency's arts exhibit space elevates Atlanta's cultural scene

Atlanta's receiving a burst of attention as a fine-arts center.

The United Talent Agency, which represents actors, comedians, screenwriters, musicians and artists, recently opened a fine arts exhibit space at its Atlanta office in Midtown.

That's a significant boost for the Atlanta arts scene. The Atlanta gallery is only UTA's second, following an earlier one in Beverly Hills.

The new gallery gives Atlanta artists fresh hopes that they no longer have to go elsewhere to find success.

Yet an article Wednesday in The New York Times Arts section raised doubts about whether the UTA space will benefit Atlanta and Southern artists, or mainly represent those with already established international reputations in New York or Los Angeles.

Writer Tariro Mzezewa's feature titled "Can a Global Talent Agency Make Atlanta an Arts Destination" expressed local arts boosters' expectations that regional artists will find the UTA a nurturing home. 

Displaying a regional awareness, the new gallery opened with Atlanta artist and musician Lonnie Holley's exhibit "The Eyes Were Always on Us," which continues through the end of April.

The black Birmingham native's works examine racial violence in the South, the struggle for civil rights and the perseverance of black culture.

While the new gallery should aspire to encourage regional talent, a mixture of international exhibitions will boost Atlanta's global stature, moving away from from the city's long-established provincialism. As a major international presence, the UTA center can accomplish multiple objectives.

UTA's arts gallery is another jewel for Atlanta's Peachtree cultural corridor, encompassing the Woodruff Arts Center, the Museum of Design Atlanta and the Peachtree branch of the Fulton County Library.

The Fox Theater rises a few blocks south, near the Atlanta History Center's Margaret Mitchell House, which has not yet reopened after shutting down during the Covid epidemic.

While Atlanta's fine arts and entertainment scenes flourish, the city's theater community suffers from declining audiences and funding.

As the city's movie lovers welcomed the imminent reopening of the Tara Theater, the Lyric Theater announced its closure after 42 seasons.

The Lyric's shutdown mobilized the Atlanta theater community, which issued an emergency letter calling for more financial support from corporations, business leaders and local and state government.

Atlanta's theaters are spread across the metro area. The failure of a campaign to build a grand opera house at the Woodruff Arts Center led to the Atlanta Opera Company joining the Braves in moving to Cobb County. The Atlanta Ballet Company also performs outside the city.

While suburban theaters have done admirable work through the years, Midtown's art district needs more live theater along with the Woodruff's Alliance and the Atlanta Shakespeare Tavern.

A new professional company on Peachtree would showcase the original work of regional playwrights, as well as perform worthy plays from elsewhere. Midtown also needs a new music venue for classical, operatic and popular performances

The UTA gallery is only one step in Atlanta fulfilling its artistic dreams.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Charles Portis receives Library of America recognition

Charles Portis is the latest writer to receive canonization from the Library of America.

The chronicler of American literature has published a volume of Portis' collected works. Edited by Jay Jennings, the book includes Portis' celebrated "True Grit," as well as his lesser known novels "Norwood," "The Dog of the South," "Masters of Atlantis" and "Gringos." The collection also offers a selection of Portis' journalism.

Portis is one of those writers acclaimed by a passionate inner circle of readers. Like Mark Twain, Portis was a comic master who found literary gold in the American South's vernacular. 

The Library of America volume has brought new critical appreciation for Portis' off-beat characters, outlandish plots and droll dialogue. While "True Grit" remains in print, Portis' other work is difficult to find.

Praised by fellow New York Herald-Tribune writer Thomas Wolfe as a new journalism pioneer, Portis stepped away from his post as the newspaper's London correspondent in 1964 and returned to his native Arkansas to write novels. The success of "True Grit," made into two popular movies, stirred Wolfe's admiration.

Portis, who died in 2020 at the age of 86, deserves the wider recognition the Library of America volume will bring as one of his generation's most distinctive writers.

 

 

 

Adam Hochschild in examination of World War I-era political violence sees parallels to today

The United States' brief entry into World War I unleashed four years of extreme political violence and repression.

Author Adam Hochschild looks back on that still shocking era in "American Midnight, The Great War, a Violent Peace and Democracy's Forgotten Crisis."

Hochschild sees the horrifying events of 1917-21 as a precursor to today's political conflicts. As with today, disinformation, fears of immigration, labor unrest, racial violence and censorship fueled turmoil.

President Woodrow Wilson plays a central Shakespearean role in the book, heralding the U.S. entry into the war in 1917 as spreading global democracy and freedom while condoning his administration's suppression of groups painted as un-American.

Wilson's already tarnished reputation is further diminished by Hochschild's exposure of his racism, political rigidity, self-righteousness and authoritarian policies.

Hochschild credits A. Scott Berg's monumental biography of Wilson for his portrait of the president who accepted Great Britain and France's harsh reparations imposed on Germany. Felled by a serious stroke, Wilson also suffered the severe disappointment of the U.S. Senate rejecting his grand ambitions for a League of Nations.

The United States' late intervention into the war to bolster the depleted French and British armies in their war against Germany  triggered the passage of the Espionage Act, which remains in force today, most recently leading to charges against Donald Trump for removing classified White House documents and Jack Teixeira for distributing secret reports over the Internet. Teixeira follows Daniel Ellsberg, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Reality Winner among those charged under the act.

After the U.S. entry into World War I, the Espionage Act and related sedition legislation led to widespread arrests of union members and Socialist Party followers. The overwhelmingly nonviolent radicals were sentenced to prison for giving speeches or writing articles opposing the American involvement in the war.

Imprisoned dissenters deemed unpatriotic included Socialist leader Eugene Debs, who had shown surprising political strength in a presidential campaign, and the spellbinding anarchist leader Emma Goldman.

Like a raging fever, the political paranoia and repression rose in a series of waves. After Wilson brought the nation into the war, political violence targeted German citizens and immigrants, many of whom were forced to change their names and sell their businesses.

The Bolshevik Revolution raised to a boiling point irrational fears of a Communist overthrow of the American government, a paranoia stoked by right-wing politicians. The deadly flu epidemic at the end of the war exacerbated tensions.

As the grand finale of the "red summer" of 1919, a series of raids under Wilson Attorney General A. Wilson Palmer, directed by the young J. Edgar Hoover, resulted in massive arrests and efforts to deport hundreds of Eastern European immigrants, many of them Jewish.

Hochschild in one of the memorable character studies that distinguish the book unveils the heroic action of Assistant Labor Secretary Louis E. Post to prevent many of the deportations.

Sadly, Ellis Island, the symbol of American openness to oppressed people from Europe, was used as the makeshift prison for those facing deportation. The anarchist Goldman, after several years in prison for expressing her ideas, was one of those expelled from the country that she had come to love.

In a memorable scene, Hochschild pictures Goldman encountering the young Hoover on a tugboat taking Goldman to the ship that would transport her to the Soviet Union, which she eventually hated because of its totalitarianism. She later traveled to Canada, but never again returned to the United States.

Hochschild's expansive examination of the era encompasses censorship of books and radical publications by the U.S. Postal Service, vigilante attacks against members of the International Workers of the World, whose members were known as "Wobblies," and increasing attacks against blacks, often veterans of the war.

Despite the right wing crackdowns against unions, violent strikes continued in the last years of Wilson's presidency, especially after he'd suffered the debilitating stroke during a courageous cross-country train trip to build support for his League of Nations. Wilson was incapacitated for the last 17 months of his presidency, during which his wife, Edith, carried out his duties.

Wilson's successor, the often maligned Warren G. Harding, is seen by Hochschild as almost heroic in curtailing the excessive violence, although outbreaks kept flaring up.

Harding freed Debs from prison, although he commuted his sentence rather than giving him a full pardon. Barely mentioned are the scandals of Harding's administration, uncovered after he died of a heart attack before completing his term.

Hochschild touches briefly upon the destruction of Tulsa's black business sector by white residents in 1921, and the growth of the Ku Klux Klan through the 1920s.

"American Midnight" ends with a warning that today's political conflicts could accelerate into a repeat of  rhe World War I-era's political violence, if the country's not already at that hour of darkness.