Southern Bookman

Farewell "Goodfellas" star Ray Liotta, memorable in galaxy of performances

Ray Liotta portrayed Frank Sinatra, Shoeless Joe Jackson and Henry Hill, yet was always Ray Liotta.

Memorably playing a variety of roles with his distinctive style, Liotta possessed the gift of making tough guys endearing.

Liotta died in his sleep Wednesday night or Thursday morning in the Dominican Republic, where he had been working on the film "Dangerous Waters." He was 67.

Like his "Goodfellas" co-star Robert De Niro, Liotta was a character actor with star presence. He stamped Hill as the central character in Scorsese's 1990 organized-crime saga, standing out among a stellar cast of De Niro, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco, Paul Sorvino and Michael Imperioli.

Verbally narrating Hill's true story about a brazen heist at New York's Kennedy Airport, Liotta portrays a descent from vulnerability to criiminality,  bringing the audience to identify with an average man caught up in forces bigger than him.

While Pesci won the best supporting actor Academy Award for his "Goodfellas" performance, Liotta's Hill defines the film.

Like Al Pacino with Michael Corleone and James Gandolfini with Tony Soprano, Liotta portrays Hill as a person like us.

Liotta brought the same authenticity to his astonishing spectrum of roles.  While Liotta gave each of his characters a distinctive personality, he's one of those special, instantly recognizable actors.

 

 

 

Photos of Uvalde children give silent witness to America's shame

The faces of innocent children murdered in Uvalde, Texas, appeared on The New York Times front page Thursday morning.

They shouldn't have been news. But on the day the students were to have begun summer vacation, they had replaced photos from Ukraine, and stories about the midterm primaries and the stock market.

Another mass slaying, America's third in recent memory, had killed 19 fourth graders and their dedicated two teachers in a small predominantly Mexican-American town near San Antonio.

In a scenario re-enacted over and over since Charles "Texas Tower" Whitman began the modern mass shooting era in 1966, a troubled young white male took out his life failures on innocent people, this time 10-year-old children and two beloved educators. The 18-year-old murdered the children in their classroom and was killed by law enforcement officers after a delayed police response.

Following America's threadbare script, anguished Democratic leaders called for "common sense" gun control measures, condemning Republicans for their fealty to the NRA and the gun lobby.

Before a playoff game in Dallas 400 miles from the massacre, Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr uttered the most impassioned cry of grief and outrage against the GOP senators who block any modest gun control proposals. Kerr accused the GOP of worshipping power and money rather than caring for human lives.

Still, the game was played. Dallas Mavericks fans cheered their team's victory.

Republicans like Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Texas Sen. Ten Cruz spewed out their usual defenses of the GOP's gun addiction. In Washington, the GOP will again subvert the will of the American people, who overwhelmingly support measures like background checks, banning assault weapons and placing age restrictions on gun purchases.

Surprisingly, the editorial page of Rupert Murdoch's New York Post supported a practical agenda of gun-control legislation. Murdoch's Wall Street Journal engaged in its typical sophistry and obfuscation, discounting the effectiveness of any action.

 In their silence, the photos of the children on The New York Times front page spoke loudly, asking the nation why.

 

 

 

Farewell Roger Angell, the New Yorker's iron horse and baseball's Virgil

Roger Angell, the revered baseball writer, stands among the legendary New Yorker stalwarts who defined the magazine from its first frivolous days in the 1920s through its rise as a paragon of serious journalism.

Angell's life intersected with that of the magazine, a cultural and intellectual beacon founded by Harold Ross as a humor magazine to chronicle the Jazz Age.

One of Ross's first hires was Angell's mother, Katharine Sergeant Angell White. As literary editor, she shaped Ross' vision of a breezy, sophisticated magazine for a new generation leaving rural America for the bright city lights.

Divorcing Angell's father, the attorney Ernest Angell, she fell in love with another New Yorker pioneer, E.B. White, who also set an urbane tone for the early magazine, with his "Talk of the Town" essays and humorous pieces. He collaborated with James Thurber in giving direction to the magazine, piloted by the exacting standards of the Ross, the legendarily uncouth editorial genius.

Angell, who died at age 101 Friday at his New York City apartment, wrote his first New Yorker piece in 1944 after serving in World War II.

At the start of his career, Ross and his successor, William Shawn, published John Hershey's account of the Hiroshima nuclear bombing, which took up an entire issue and established the New Yorker as the leading American magazine.

After a period editing the now vanished Holiday magazine, Angell followed his mother and stepfather as a major influence over the New Yorker's editorial mix.

Working in his mother's office, Angell guided an American short story renaissance, editing the first publications of Ann Beattie, Donald Bartheleme and Bobbie Ann Mason. He also edited midcareer stories of John Updike and John Cheever.

Along with his lauded baseball sagas for the magazine, suggested by Shawn, Angell mirrored his stepfather in composing Talk of the Town pieces. He also published his own short stories, and was known for writing the magazine's annual New Year's verse retrospective of the year before. 

While others fulsomely praised Angell's baseball writing, I liked best his memoir "Old Man," which looked back on pre-World War II New York City, recalling a magical time before Rockefeller Center’s rise.

Angell's career touched every era of the New Yorker.  He witnessed and chronicled enormous changes in American society and culture.

Like other literary authors, he found baseball the key to American life, at times overloading his metaphorical flights. 

Honored by the Hall of Fame late in his career, he idealized the game as it lost ground to football and basketball. In his work, baseball's glow never dimmed.
 

 

AJC political reporter Greg Bluestein gives inside story of Georgia's Democratic wave in 2020

With another Georgia election in full swing, Greg Bluestein's "Flipped: How Georgia Turned Purple and Broke the Monopoly on Republican Power" ends like a TV series cliffhanger.

As state voters head to the polls for the primary Tuesday and another general election in November, Georgia Democrats hope to repeat on a state level their stunning 2020 wins for national offices.

Bluestein's "Flipped" tells the often amusing inside story of how Joe Biden won Georgia's presidential election over incumbent Donald Trump, followed soon after by U.S. Senate upset wins by Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock over GOP incumbents David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler.

Along with nuts-and-bolts reporting, Bluestein colorfully sets the scenes of campaign events, giving a vivid picture of Georgia places inside and outside metro Atlanta.

Upholding the AJC's legacy of Ralph McGill, Jack Nelson, Gene Patterson, Cynthia Tucker, Jim Wooten, Bill Shipp, Harold Martin, Steve Oney and others, Bluestein covers Georgia politics like the dew, to echo the old Atlanta Journal motto. In "Flipped," Bluestein draws upon deep background notebook material outside of his robust daily newspaper coverage of the 2020 campaigns.

With the current election bringing back Bluestein cast members Brian Kemp, David Perdue, Stacey Abrams, Brad Raffensperger and Raphael Warnock, Bluestein's detailed account seems like a prequel that might require an update only two years later.

Continuing his indefatigable reporting in the AJC about the current campaign, Bluestein will have ample information to write a sequel or several new chapters to his fast-paced book. Democrats hope that they remain the triumphant heroes rather than quickly fading.

Kemp plays a leading role in "Flipped," heroically bucking Trump by naming Loeffler to replace the late Johnny Isakson as U.S. senator rather than Trump's preferred candidate, Doug Collins, and resisting Trump's intense pressure to intervene in Biden's victory in Georgia.

Bluestein also gives a chilling account of Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger's telephone showdown with Trump in which Raffensperger stood firm against the president's threats in beseeching him to overturn Biden's win. Raffensperger's refusal of Trump is a true profile in courage.

While Kemp and Raffensperger suffered intense vilification from Trump and his supporters, as recounted by Bluestein, both men rebounded from near political death. Kemp appears headed to victory over Trump's chosen candidate Perdue without a runoff, while Raffensperger is favored to narrowly defeat Trump candidate Jody Hice.

Along with Perdue, whose dismal Senate campaign against Ossoff was repeated in his lackluster race against Kemp, Warnock is another Bluestein subject returning for the 2022 election.  Bluestein praises Warnock's 2020 ad campaign and political organization in beating the often clueless Loeffler.

In seeking to head off Trump-backed Republican front-runner Herschel Walker, Warnock is returning to his 2020 strategy of early TV ads emphasizing his warm, compassionate and family-oriented personality. With Walker showing substantial strength, Warnock must also revive the Democrats' organizational depth.

While Trump's false claims of a rigged presidential election in Georgia are blamed for dampening Republican turnout for the Senate runoff elections, Bluestein establishes that Ossoff and Warnock's networking efforts to bring Democratic voters to the polls were decisive.

In contrast to previous runoff elections in which Democratic turnout plummeted, especially among black voters, the 2020 Democratic runoff turnout exceeded that of presidential elections.

Bluestein gives a blueprint for political strategists to win Georgia elections. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and the Democratic ticket need that same organizational power to regain control of the statehouse.

The Democratic political turnover that Bluestein analyzes had thin roots, with Republicans regaining control of the state House and Senate, and passing restrictive voting legislation that brought widespread national opposition.

Kemp’s support of the harsh voting law and other extreme conservative legislation restored his popularity among Georgia voters. With Republicans united behind him, he appears formidable in his re-election bid against Abrams, whom he defeated in 2018 without a runoff.

To truly turn Georgia purple, the Democratic Party must regain control of state government.

 

 

 

Georgia the biggest test of Trump's GOP power

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp's expected knockout victory over GOP challenger David Perdue will hand Donald Trump an embarrassing defeat.

Perdue's Trump-backed campaign was declared dead this week by AJC columnist Bill Torpy, who noted that the former U.S. senator has pretty much disappeared from the campaign trail. During Perdue's single Senate term, he was known more for his subservience to Trump and insider stock deals than any legislative accomplishments.

Kemp, who's built a huge lead by citing tax cuts, pay raises for state workers and popular pork-barell programs, likely will win without heading to a runoff. That will allow Kemp to focus his efforts immediately on Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams in the general election.

More than 700,000 Georgians had participated in the state's early voting by its final hours Friday afternoon, according to media reports.

Perdue could still force Kemp into a runoff with an unexpected surge on election day Tuesday, but the incumbent's lead appears insurmountable. Dismayed by Perdue's lackluster campaign, Trump reportedly has withdrawn his support from the former corporate raider,  according to MSNBC. 

Kemp's surge apparently received a boost from a large number of Democratic voters switching to the Republican primary ballot.

Many of the Democratic ballot switchers are supporting Kemp to send a message to Trump, although backing Perdue to force a runoff would be more beneficial to Abrams. In a runoff, Kemp would have to devote resources to defeating Perdue rather than immediately concentrating on Abrams.

Trump despises Kemp for rebuffing the former president's spurious campaign to overturn Joe Biden's Georgia victory in the 2020 presidential election.

While a Kemp blowout would mark a serious downfall for Trump, he still dominates Georgia's GOP in other races. GOP lieutenant governor candidate Burt Jones heads a Trump-backed GOP ticket.

Endorsed by Trump, former U.S. Rep. Jody Hice is embroiled in a tight contest with incumbent Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who also upset Trump by refusing his entreaties to overturn Biden's win. Raffensperger now supports unsubstantiated GOP claims about election fraud. Those Democratic crossovers might decide the winner.

In Trump's most heavy-handed power move in Georgia, he recruited former University of Georgia running back Herschel Walker to run for the U.S. Senate, despite Walker's lack of qualifications and his living outside of Georgia.

Although Walker has refused to participate in debates with Republican opponents, the former Heisman Trophy winner leads the GOP primary field, and shows strength in the polls against incumbent U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, who's already running a heavy schedule of TV ads.

After Biden's 2o20 victory in Georgia, Perdue was upset by Democrat Jon Ossoff in a Senate runoff election. Warnock beat incumbent Kelly Loeffler in the runoff. Following Trump's bogus claims that Biden had stolen the Georgia presidential election, many GOP voters didn't turn out for the runoff because they falsely believed it would also be rigged.

The national media have been frequently disparaged for covering politics like horse racing. Keeping score of Trump's wins and losses in primaries across the nation is the latest gambit in this pack journalism ritual.

As in the 2020 election, Georgia again looks like the biggest horse race of them all.

 

 

 

Farewell, "This Is Us"

I'm one of the many "This Is Us" fans grieving for Rebecca Pearson, who headed to TV Mom heaven in Tuesday's episode.

After six years telling the Pearson family saga with flashbacks and surprise plot shifts, "This Is Us" will end next week.

Showing that network TV is capable of high-quality shows, creator Dan Fogelman's "This Is Us" offered novelistic writing, memorable archetypal characters and virtuoso acting.

I've been involved in many cable and network shows over the years, but only "30 Something" rivaled "This Is Us" in expressing a generation's desires, ambitions and anxieties.

"This Is Us" defined the Miillennials as "30 Something" did the Baby Boomers suddenly finding themselves adults in the early 1980s.

That succession was reflected in "30 Something" star Ken Olin directing the final episodes of "This Is Us" and making a cameo appearance in Tuesday's show.

Mandy Moore deserves an Emmy for her portrayal of Rebecca Pearson, ranging from a winsome, doe-eyed young bride and mother to an elderly woman ravaged by Alzheimer's. As Sterling K. Brown's Randall Pearson says standing besides Rebecca's deathbed, everyone had a crush on her.

Wonderful to see the return of Ron Cephas Jones and Gerald McRaney greeting Rebecca on her wonderfully imagined last train ride.

Milo Ventimiglia as the all-time TV dad Jack Pearson also elevated the show, along with Chrissy Metz, Justin Hartley, Chris Sullivan, Susan Kelechi Watson, Jon Huertas, Griffin Dunne, Alexandra Breckenridge and an endearing troupe of child actors. 

Among so many stories, it's hard to identify a dominant theme, but to me the growth of Hartley's Kevin Pearson from a self-absorbed sex symbol into a compassionate, caring and mature father and husband was central. At the end, Kevin has become an admirable man like Jack Pearson.

I'll always have a special fondness for "This Is Us" because I first discovered the show battling acute insomnia from Afib, which later turned into heart failure and a long hospital stay.

Binge-watching the first season of "This Is Us" was the only thing that let me sit still and stop pacing through the long night. The inter-generational narrative surprises were something new.

I'm much better now, as I say farewell to another favorite TV show that marked an era of my life.

 

Farewell Larry Woiwode, an American literary master

Larry Woiwode's saintly dedication to writing made him a hero to fellow authors and a small following of readers.

The author's acclaimed multigenerational novel "Beyond the Bedroom Wall" drew national acclaim and wide readership.

Much delayed because of his writing struggles, the 600-age work triggered an emotional breakdown and nearly ruined his marriage. Washington Post critic Jonathan Yardley cited the book as one of the 20th century's greatest novels.

After that success, Woiwode wrote additional novels, short stories, essays, biographies and poetry, and taught the writing craft at a number of universities. He was also named North Dakota's poet laureate.

Outside of a dedicated readership, he never again achieved national recognition, more and more engaging in a career as a "regional writer."

Woiwode died April 28 at age 80 at a hospital in Bismarck, N.D., after a short illness, according to obituaries in the New York Times, Washington Post and other publications.

Like James Salter and Richard Yates, Woiwode was known as one of the high priests of fiction whose critical appreciation didn't result in sustained wide readership.

A North Dakota native and graduate of the University of Illinois, Woiwode began his literary career in New York City, where he was one of the writers tutored by New Yorker literary editor William Maxwell, also a native of the Midwest. Like Maxwell, Woiwode was haunted by the early death of his mother.

Maxwell published many of Woiwode's early stories, and often brought sandwiches to the near-starving writer. They often ate lunch together in a park, discussing writing.

After a decade in New York, Woiwode moved with his wife and young family to a farm in rural North Dakota, where Woiwode followed dual careers as a writer and farmer. His wife, Caroline, who survives him, left with their young son for a while as he battled to complete "Beyond the Bedroom Wall." The New York Times obituary tells of Woiwode's harrowing farm experiences, including near fatal accidents involving his children and brutal weather.

Raised Roman Catholic, Woiwode and his wife later converted to a conservative faction of the Presbyterian Church. Woiwode was one of the few late 20th century American writers for whom religion was a central theme. Catholic writers Walker Percy and Flannery O'Connor come to mind; perhaps Woiwode's Catholic upbringing influenced his religious outlook.

Woiwode's career traces several dominant themes of American literature: the rural vs. urban mileus, the conflict between the American West and the Northeastern literary establishment, and the regional sense of place given universal significance.  

Tracing influences of Willa Cather, O'Connor, William Faulkner, Maxwell, Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain, Raymond Carver, Robert Frost and other writers, Woiwode was an original writer whose "Beyond the Bedroom Wall" will remain a classic.

 

 

The Atlantic to expand book coverage, striking a blow for reading

The Atlantic will expand its book coverage, citing its heritage as a major force in American intellectual culture.

"Expect more book reviews and essays — plus provocative arguments, reported stories, profiles, original fiction and poetry, and, of course, recommendations for your every reading need," said Jane Yong Kim, the venerable publication's literary editor, in announcing the expansion.

Founded in 1857 in Boston amid the country's turmoil that led to the Civil War, the Atlantic Monthly published many of the landmark pieces of American literature.

With founders like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow William Dean Howells and James Russell Lowell, it set the abolitionist agenda that led to the Union victory and the end of slavery.

In its early years, it published landmark work by Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mark Twain, Howells, John Greenleaf Whittier and Julia Ward Howell. It later published work by a galaxy of American writers through the 20th century and first decades of the 21st.

The publication galvanized the civil rights movement by publishing Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail."

Emerging from years struggling to survive, the Atlantic is one of America's traditional media companies enjoying a renaissance in the online publishing world.

After Apple founder Steve Jobs' widow Laurene Powell Jobs bought the company through her Emerson Collective, the company gained profitability from a boost in Web site subscriptions. Under editor Jeffrey Goldberg, the publication has hired a vibrant lineup of writers and regained prevalence in political and cultural debates.

As general book readership declines and publishing industry consolidation increases, the Atlantic is seeking to draw from a shrinking audience of book readers. Many Atlantic subscribers likely also read Harpers, the New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, the New York Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement and the London Review of Books. 

While many of those readers are members of an aging elite, the Atlantic's younger writers appeal to a rising generation who seem returning to books in some degree. Younger novelists, mainly women, and non-fiction writers keep publishing a strong offering of books.

Along with books appealing to urban liberals, a Fox News-bred publishing industry churns out books condemned as factually spurious.

The decline of daily newspapers has brought a decline in book coverage. The Los Angeles Times and Washington Post still cover books in depth, with strong reviews, and journals like the Los Angeles Review of Books have proliferated online.

After a move from literary Boston to Washington, D.C., in 2005, the Atlantic retrenched. Cutting back to 10 issues a year, it changed its name from the Atlantic Monthly to the Atlantic. 

Focusing more on politics and social issues, it also stopped publishing fiction and poetry, leaving the New Yorker and Harper's as the sole mass-audience journals offering short stories and poems. The rise of university literary magazines filled the void as creative writing programs proliferated.

The Atlantic's return to publishing fiction, essays and poetry is welcome news for a rising generation of young writers and the readers they hope to reach. As in the past, the Atlantic aims to set the standard for American literature.

 

Black hole images raise awe at universe's majesty

Spooky to see those images of the Milky Way black hole on Friday the 13th.

Those extraterrestrial scientists who released photos of the black hole's spectrum must have a sense of humor.

On Friday the 13th, the black hole appears even more ominous and strange. Scientists say a black hole sucks into its endless dark chamber anything that gets too close.

And I'd thought the black hole was the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection. Will it ever hold public hearings?

Another black hole is the U.S. Senate, where progressive legislation goes to die.

Black hole: that would be a good name for the coal mining corporation that made Joe Manchin a millionaire.

The big cookie monster at the center of the universe is 4 million times larger than the sun. A few years ago, scientists released images of an even bigger black hole farther out toward the universe's edge.

Those cosmic images are not actually the black hole, called Sagittarius A*, like the title of a sci-fi novel. Black holes, as their name implies, can’t be seen or photographed.

The international organization of scientists captured images of the black hole's outer spectrum, the light and matter that surrounds the black hole's swirling gravitational pull. The images reveal an orange halo resembling a misshapen doughnut. Images of Sagittarius A* match Einstein's theory of relativity. 

Capturing the first images of the black hole closest to earth - a mere 27,000 light years away - is an impressive accomplishment for an international group of researchers involved in the Event Horizon Telescope project. The term event horizon refers to the point where there's no escaping the black hole's embrace.

The black hole's images illuminate another mystery of the universe.

Too bad the United States now lacks the cooperative spirit of the Event Horizon team. Terrestrial black holes proliferate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Atlanta among nation's most inflationary cities

Atlanta's affordability, along with its pleasant year-round weather, long attracted newcomers from bigger, more expensive cities.

Now Atlanta's a national leader for rising costs,  reaching a 10 percent annual inflation rate in April, according to the Wall Street Journal. The inflation rate for the entire country was 8.3 percent, lower than expected, but still disturbingly high.

New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, some of the nation's most expensive cities, registered an annual inflation rate of around 7 percent, according to the April figures.

Those cities have long been plagued by outlandishly high housing costs. They've suffered staggering population declines caused by Covid, high crime rates, deteriorating urban life and the lack of affordable housing.

Atlanta's housing costs have escalated in recent years, as in other cities large and small. Similar Sunbelt cities such as Austin, Nashville, Charlotte and Tampa have also experienced a jump in housing costs, lessening their allure for transplants seeking more sunshine and a less expensive urban lifestyle.

The housing crunch in Atlanta has driven young families to more affordable suburbs like Cherokee, Forsyth, Douglas and Fayette counties. Georgia's 2022 elections will show whether that shift adds to the Democrats' 2020 victories.

Based on anecdotal evidence - my daily walks through my North Buckhead neighborhood - the city still draws many young professionals with small children. It appears that many now work from home, post-Covid.

After years of declining population - the late Dick Williams in his Atlanta Journal columns used to chortle about the "incredible shrinking city" - the city of Atlanta enjoyed a modest but steady population increase in recent years. Rising housing costs may stifle the city's renaissance.