Southern Bookman

Baton Rouge's Confederate soldier statue housed at Old State Capitol

With all of the controversy over the removal of Confederate monuments across the South, I wondered what had happened to the statue of the Rebel soldier that stood for years in downtown Baton Rouge.

A Thanksgiving-weekend visit to Louisiana's Old State Capitol solved the mystery. The generic "silent sentinel," installed in 1886 to honor soldiers from East and West Baton Rouge parishes killed during the Civil War, resides in the Old State Capitol's history museum. 

The museum display includes information cards giving historical context about how such Confederate monuments were placed across the South at the end of Reconstruction to mark the restoration of white rule and to honor the South's "lost cause."

Baton Rouge's Confederate soldier was removed with little or no opposition, according to a 2016 article by Walter Pierce in the Lafayette Independent. The Acadiana city for several years has debated taking down a statue of Confederate Gen. Alfred Mouton. But The Baton Rouge Advocate didn't even publish a story on the moving of the Baton Rouge statue.

That was before the taking down of the Robert E. Lee statue in New Orleans, the Charlottesville violence in which a young woman was killed, and the toppling of "Silent Sam" at the University of North Carolina.

Kudos to my hometown for unobtrusively placing the Confederate statue in its proper place in a museum. The change came in the wake of the Town Square development on North Boulevard. The square within sight of the Old State Capitol is a popular spot for festivals and concerts.

Other Confederate memorials have been removed in Baton Rouge without opposition. A few years ago, LSU changed Raphael Semmes Road, named for the Confederate admiral and blockade runner, to Veterans Drive. Kirby Smith Hall, a monstrous dorm named for the last Confederate general to surrender, will be torn down.

Robert E. Lee High, my alma mater, is now just Lee High, and its teams are known as the Patriots, not the Rebels.

But LSU's Beauregard Hall, named for P.G.T Beauregard, remains. Roadways in Baton Rouge's Southdowns section called Stuart, Hood, Pickett and Lee likely will stay the same.

And LSU will never consider changing the name of its athletic teams from Tigers, honoring the Louisiana soldiers who fought with Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee and came close to overwhelming the Union army on Cemetery Hill on Gettysburg's second day. LSU's teams will be the Tigers for evermore.

 

 

 

 

Louisiana's Old State Capitol registers state's tragic history

The spiral staircase and stained glass dome at Louisiana's Old State Capitol in Baton Rouge are astonishing monuments to a vanished society's sense of elegance and beauty.

They are also vestiges of an era of racial violence and repression. The white ruling class that regained control of Louisiana after Reconstruction built the imposing structures as symbols of its dominance.

The Old State Capitol traces the state's tormented political history like sedimentary rock. Abandoned for years, the Neo-Gothic structure has kept watch over the Mississippi River for nearly 175 years. Baton Rouge's history is registered through carved wood, polished floors, golden chandeliers and resplendent windows.

Exhibits and furnishings trace the state's agonized path from the Antebellum period through the Civil War and Reconstruction, the restoration of white rule and the tragic usurpation of blacks' civil rights, and the reign of Huey Long.

Along with impressive exhibits, the building considered a monstrosity by Mark Twain preserves the old legislative chambers and offices where political deals were consummated. A beautiful stained glass window graces the House's side, which looks ready for business. The Senate chamber, decorated with a glorious Christmas tree after Thanksgiving, is a favorite spot for weddings. A bride's room has been established where lobbyists once cajoled legislators.

Originally designed by New York architect James H. Dakin, the building resembling a medieval castle opened in 1845. During the Civil War, Union troops occupying Baton Rouge set fires that destroyed the interior. When Union forces gained control of Baton Rouge, the state capital moved to Opelousas and Shreveport, where the Confederacy made its last stand.

After a brief spell of Republican rule during Reconstruction, which saw the election of black officials including Gov. P.B.S. Pinchback, the Bourbon planters and merchants regained white control with the Louisiana Constitution of 1879. Baton Rouge was restored as the state capital, and the Legislature allocated $153,000 to realize architect William Freret's vision of adding the staircase, dome and towers. The renovated building opened in 1884.

In the next decade, the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court case that originated in New Orleans would cement white rule with the ignominious "separate but equal" standard. Belying the dome's serene beauty, Louisiana imposed white power enforced by lynchings and barriers to blacks' voting.

Depression-devastated Louisiana turned to Huey Long, who gave the state new roads, schools and hospitals. Long, who broke the Bourbons' power, built the soaring new state Capitol on the other side of downtown Baton Rouge from 1929-32.

Before the state government moved to the art-deco edifice where "the Kingfish" was later assassinated, the State Senate tried and failed to impeach Long in the last political drama played out at the Old State Capitol. Long gleefully referred in political speeches to his clinching victory over the Bourbons. The Old State Capitol's intensive exhibit on Long's career includes recordings of his orations as the melody of Long's anthem "Every Man a King" plays in the background.

The memorable Civil War diarist Sarah Morgan Dawson is also remembered at the Old State Capitol in an entertaining multimedia theatrical production "The Ghost of the Castle." Like the more heralded Mary Boykin Chestnut's diary, Dawson's work gives an absorbing eyewitness account of daily life in the Confederacy. Written from March 1862 until April 1865, Dawson's diary records the deprivations suffered by Southern women under Union occupation.

Like its staircase and dome, the Old State Capitol glorifies Louisiana's history. But the state's tragic and violence-stained past comes through. The Old State Capitol, like the river it overlooks, endures through the years.

 

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving

It's time to give thanks for our blessings.

This year has dealt me highs and lows. Here are a few snapshots from my 2019 album.

Eight days in the hospital. I'm thankful for the doctors and nurses who helped me feel better again.

A trip to New York City to see Jeff Daniels' masterful performance as Atticus Finch in Aaron Sorkin's theater adaptation of Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird."

The Miro show at the MOMA, before the museum closed to receive a new look. Miro's stance against Fascism in the 1930s gives us courage to resist Trump and the GOP's assaults on truth and human dignity. I was overwhelmed by Picasso's "Guernica" when I first visited MOMA nearly 50 years ago. I'm looking forward to visiting yet another new MOMA.

Trips to Portugal and Amelia Island, Fla., two places where rivers join the Atlantic Ocean. Both are threatened by rising sea levels and the crush of tourism. Like distant cousins, they are battling to preserve their proud cultures.

The Braves' rush to the pennant. Joe Burrow and the Tigers. Anne-Marie and I getting together with our children Sara, Luke and Ruthie in Nashville, Tenn. Learning to play Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" on the piano.

We'll soon turn the calendar to another year, which looms as one of history's crossroads. The personal decisions of millions will determine whether the nation follows the course of freedom or an American totalitarianism.

No matter what happens, truth and beauty eventually will prevail.

 

Memories of Lisboa and Porto

Young male clerk wearing John Lennon glasses
at Livaria Bertrand, world's oldest bookstore,
stamps my books: Virginie Despentes and Pessoa.

"How did you get here so fast," I ask him
when he's already at the door,
without glasses, as I leave.
"I'm like that," he answers,
his smile like the sun on the Tagus.

Guitarist and trumpet player on the sidewalk.
playing Amy Winehouse songs.
Joyful music by young men in suits;
an old schizo joins their dance.

Smiles of women with dark hair,
the embrace of the female doctor
in her lab coat,
who takes my pulse
and assures me
my heartbeat is OK.

Small children in their school uniforms
at Sanhora do Rosario.
Community center for kids who grow up
wild on Porto's streets.
The director with his stutter
speaks of holiday barbecues,
afternoons playing football
with the young men.

At the nursing home, an old woman
wails in the corner as the elderly priest
awakens in a dusty glow
floating through the windows.
Doors flung open reveal
Christ on his cross, his downcast eyes.

How beautiful their Portuguese voices
searching for English words.
The man with legs bent backwards
begging on the Avenida de Liberdade,
men selling chestnuts on the street,
smoke rising in the light
reflected from the slippery sidewalks
made of yellow tile.

The happiness of old and middle aged men
gathered for lunch, hugs and kisses
cheek to cheek. The rain, changing to sun,
changing to rain, changing to sun,
the rivers, rushing to the Atlantic.

The suave guide John,
handsome as a rock star,
leads us to the castle,
tells how Ulysses founded Lisboa,
Tall pine trees, shaped like arrows,
cork held between our fingers.

Stylish young woman
guides us through
the immigration center.
Solemn faces of refugees
as they wait
in the enormous room.

Walking in the darkness
from the hotel to the airport,
5 a.m. departure.
Old oak trees, broken sidewalk.

As we sit on the bus,
to take us to the plane,
a song fills the space:
"I see fire burning the trees."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Millennials' jibe "OK Boomer" shows nothing new under the sun

Bob Dylan told baby boomers not to trust anyone over 30.

Now, the millennials, who comprise several generations, snarl "OK, Boomer" to us aging postwar babies.

The generational putdown, an Internet sensation, has received rebuttals from New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd and Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page.

Generations X, Y and Z - what will new generations be called now that the letters have run out? - blame us boomers for climate change, declining economic prospects, Donald Trump and the Eagles. They probably think Dylan can't sing.

Dylan and other Baby Boom heroes were not even Baby Boomers. Dylan, born in 1941, and John Lennon, in 1940, were of the "Silent Generation," which came after the "Greatest Generation," and before the post-war baby explosion. With all of their music and social protest, those rockers weren't very silent.

Once we sang "The Times They Are a Changin'." Now, the younger generation wants us gone. As college football old-timer Lee Corso would say, "hey, not so fast."

In the pre-industrial age, people lived pretty much the same year after year. The generations' experience stayed the same, and people died young. Retroactively, historians branded ages like the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, but Shakespeare, Michelangelo and Voltaire didn't think of themselves as members of defined generations.

Generational conflict goes back to ancient times. Ecclesiastes, in the passage from which Ernest Hemingway found the name for his novel "The Sun Also Rises," warned that "one generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth forever."

Britain in the 19th century began identifying historical periods with the reigns of monarchs: the Victorian Age, the Georgian Age. Literary critics retroactively called Keats, Shelley, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Lord Byron and Charles Lamb the Romantics. Romanticism was also a European movement, including Beethoven and Goethe.

During the 20th century, enormous changes from decade to decade led to the rise of  distinct generations. Those of the Depression Era had different outlooks from those born in the 1950s. Music, fashion, art, culture, and social mores shifted.

The designation of generations emerged after World War I, when Gertrude Stein told Hemingway that he and  his contemporaries were members of a "Lost Generation." Then came the postwar flowering of writers like John Updike, Truman Capote, Robert Lowell and Gore Vidal. New waves of writers, musicians and film stars followed. From Chuck Berry to Katy Perry, the world kept turning.

The Baby Boomers reached a new level of self-consciousness, or bloated self-importance. Talking about my generation, we did bang the drum and blow the horn quite loudly.

Now, the millennials look at us as old duffers.

But remember, kids, a new crop of babies is being born, who will look at you as hopeless.

 

 

 

 

Fall book selections: Vivid personalities, virtuoso writing

I've always liked those "Autumn Books," "Spring Books," "Summer Reading" and "Holiday Books" wrap-ups that literary-minded journals do.

Looking toward the holidays, gasp!, here are a few books I've liked recently, and some on my reading list.

Books I've Read

"Ragin' Cajun: Memoir of a Louisiana Man." Doug Kershaw and Cathie Pelletier (Mercer University Press): The flamboyant Louisiana fiddler, singer and writer of the classic song "Louisiana Man" tells a hair-raising tale of his boyhood on a remote Louisiana river and rise to fame. Kershaw's encounters with Nashville stars and the Music City's drug culture make "Ragin' Cajun" a perfect companion to Ken Burns' "Country Music" PBS series. Kershaw takes a deeper, and more honest, look. He and Pelletier give an unflinching and compelling narrative of redemption: How he overcame drug addiction and found enduring love. Here is a link to my Southern Bookman review.

"A Good American Family: the Red Scare and My Father." David Maraniss. (Simon and Schuster): The  Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of Vince Lombardi and Roberto Clemente and noted author of books on American politics and history turns his attention to his own family. Maraniss' father, Elliott, for several years was a fervid member of the Community Party, as was his mother, Mary. Elliott was called before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee during the 1950s "Red Scare" and immediately lost his newspaper job. For years, he had difficulty finding work until establishing a career at the Madison, Wisc., Capital Times. Maraniss in his account of his family's ordeal takes a broader look at the era's fraught politics and some of its villains and heroes.

"I Used to Be Charming." Eve Babitz. (New York Review Books):  Babitz's writing flows like a virtuoso jazz improvisation in the best pieces in this journalism collection. The book gives a vivid picture of Los Angeles, New York and cultural battles in the 1960s. She is one of those rare writers whose sentences I must read out loud.

On My List

"Sontag: Her Life and Work." Benjamin Moser.  (Harper Collins): The avant garde critic and novelist Susan Sontag led a combative, adventuresome life. Reviews of Moser's biography agree that he captures her wildness and critical acumen.

"Janis: Her Life and Music." Holly George-Warren. (Simon and Schuster): Janis Joplin, the Susan Sontag of rock and roll, fled a bleak east Texas childhood and achieved stardom in San Francisco. She remained a lost child, joining the club of counterculture drug martyrs. That voice will live forever. Her raw and tender rendition of Kris Kristofferson's line "Busted flat in Baton Rouge" evokes my hometown for me. George-Warren shows how Janis' pain drove her music, as New York Times critic Dwight Garner recently noted.

"Never So Lovely a Real: The Life and Work of Nelson Algren." Colin Asher. (W.W. Norton and Co.): Best-known for "The Man With the Golden Arm," Algren was the poet of Chicago's underclass. Asher's life reveals a writer whose work is worth rediscovery, reviewers found.

"Vernon Subutex 1. Virginie Despentes. Translated by Frank Wynne. (MacLehose):  Despentes' novel sounds like a wild plunge into Paris' hip underworld. Wall Street Journal fiction critic Sam Sacks said the book possesses a raw honesty most American books lack. It comes out Tuesday, with Subtex 2 to follow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vintage World Series stories by New York Times reflect how writing changed through the years

World Series joy, heartbreak and drama come alive in vintage New York Times sports stories.

The newspaper has been reprinting its coverage of World Series moments such as Brooklyn Dodgers catcher Mickey Owens' passed ball that gave the Yankees an unexpected victory in 1941, Yankees pitcher Don Larsen's perfect game over the Dodgers in 1956 and Boston Red Sox catcher Carlton Fisk's 12th inning home run against the Reds in t976.

From the ornate style of the early 20th century to the streamlined writing of later years, the articles register baseball's once central place in American culture. The game's hold on the popular imagination reached its peak in 1976, when the Reds recovered from Fisk's blast to beat the Red Sox in seven games

Times sportswriter John Drebinger wrote the accounts of the famous 1941 and 1956  games between the Yankees and Dodgers, whose World Series battles through the years made for some of the fall classic's most exciting chapters.

With newsreel clarity, Drebinger captures the games' drama and historic importance. A Hall of Fame writer, Drebinger possessed a descriptive gift that still makes a reader feel he's there at old Ebbets Field or Yankees Stadium.

In the 1941 game at Ebbets Field, the Dodgers were on the brink of tying the Yankees two games apiece in the series. When Owens let a third strike get away from him in the top of the ninth inning, Yankees hitter Tommy Heinrich dashed to first base, leading to a game-winning rally by the Yankees. The Bronx Bombers closed out the series the next day. Famous Yankees Joe DiMaggio, Charlie "King Kong" Keller and Joe "Flash" Gordon come alive in Drebinger's piece.

Drebinger's wit and stylish writing shine in his report on Larsen's masterpiece. A journeyman pitcher, Larsen on that bright October afternoon stifled the Dodgers hitters Pee Wee Reese, Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, Gil Hodges, Carl Furillo, Sandy Amoros, Junior Gilliam and Roy Campanella. Dodgers pitcher Sal Maglie held the powerful Yankees to two runs and five hits. The Yankees' Mickey Mantle hit a solo home run.

John Durso's report on Fisk's home run to give the Boston Red Sox a sixth-game win over the Cincinnati Reds shows how the late 20th century's less convoluted style lessened the fun and drama of sportswriting. Compared with Drebinger's stories, Ourso's piece is drab and workmanlike.

The vintage Times articles capture moments of young men's moments of glory or defeat. After baseball, they grew old, as will today's players.

 

New MOMA expansion continues museum's real estate maneuvers, as Times critic Michael Kimmelman details

The Museum of Modern Art's relentless expansion since moving to its permanent home on West 53rd Street in 1939 has transformed its Midtown Manhattan neighborhood.

In an early review of the MOMA's latest renovation, opening Oct. 21, ace New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman shows how the museum turned over the years into one of New York City's insatiable real estate brokers.

The $450 million project adds 47,000 feet of exhibition space, allowing MOMA to display more of its permanent collection. It also adds a performance stage, a rooftop restaurant and a dramatic canopy. On the negative side, the MOMA's sculpture garden will be less accessible.

One of MOMA's most touted additions is a gallery for changing exhibits, visible from the street and free to visitors. Alas, MOMA had to tear down the American Museum of Folk Art to build the new space.

The MOMA expansion continues major museums' race to grow bigger and attract more visitors. The MOMA turns ever more corporate as its masterpieces speak against capitalism's ravages. Co-founded by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, John D. Rockefeller Jr.'s wife, the museum has navigated between those poles since its beginning.

Kimmelman's review implies that the project by Diller Scofido +Refro, in collaboration with Gensler, undoes mistakes from Yoshio Taniguchi's widely criticized 2004 expansion. Taniguchi's work led to crowded hallways and escalators as the museum's visitors surpassed 3 million a year, as Kimmelman details. The new MOMA will ease traffic flow. Earlier expansions had been done by Philip Johnson and Cesar Pelli.

When the MOMA moved to West 53rd Street in 1939, the area consisted of low-rise rowhouses, Kimmelman says. The MOMA's six-story home of white marble, clad in a new kind of insulated glass called Thermolux, according to the MOMA's web site, transformed the street like the landing of a spaceship, as Kimmelman said.

Now, skyscrapers in that part of Midtown soar toward the sky, blotting out the sun. Owned by foreign oligarchs, many of the outlandish high-rises remain vacant, killing the area's small businesses.

Conceived as a palace of modern art, the MOMA with its real estate hunger has enervated the area's vitality. Monstrosities rising to an inhuman scale,  empty storefronts and a corporate uniformity have replaced interesting shops and middle-class homes.

Art lovers will flock to the MOMA, which expects an increase to 3.5 million annual visitors. The main interest for many will still be taking selfies before Van Gogh's "Starry Night," as Kimmelman notes.

 

 

 

 

Farewell A. Alvarez, Robert Hunter and Dr. Bob McClelland

The New York Times obituaries Wednesday served a feast for 1960s aficionados.

A. Alvarez, the British critic, poet and reporter who chronicled Sylvia Plath's final days, died Monday at age 90, according to his Times obituary. The newspaper also noted the death of Robert Hunter, born Robert Burns, who wrote the Grateful Dead's lyrics. Hunter died Monday at age 78.

Dr. Robert McClelland, one of the surgeons who operated on the mortally wounded John F. Kennedy, was also remembered. McClelland, who died Tueday at 89, also worked on Kennedy's alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, after he was fatally shot by Jack Ruby.

Alvarez's study of suicide, "The Savage God," introduced me to the saga of Plath. The Times obituary quoted Alvarez's recollections of Plath visiting him in the last days of her life, reading him the electric poems published in her posthumous "Ariel." The survivor of his own suicide attempt, Alvarez regretted not taking action to save the poet.

He also published a ground-breaking anthology of poets Thom Gunn, Robert Lowell, John Berryman, Plath and others. He went on to write a nonfiction work on competitive poker that, according to the Times, popularized the pastime.

Hunter also gained renown as a wordsmith, writing the lyrics to Dead classics like "Uncle John's Band," "Truckin'" and "Dark Star." Hunter's words, joined with the music of his childhood friend Jerry Garcia. gave the band its identity. While his work lay on the other side of the poetic spectrum from Plath and Alvarez, they all achieved widespread popularity from the English lyric.

McClelland joined the surgical team that sought to save the president's life in the emergency room of Dallas' Parkland Hospital on Nov. 22, 1963. Two days later, he performed surgery on the dying Oswald.

The surgeon disputed the findings of the Warren Commission that Oswald had acted alone. He believed from his examination of Kennedy in the emergency room that the fatal, large wound at the back of Kennedy's head had not come from Oswald, shooting from behind the president's car. McClelland believed the shot causing the wound had been fired from the front, coming from a gunman stationed on the famous grassy knoll.

Watching the Abraham Zapruder film strengthened his belief in a second gunman. Completing a trifecta of treating Kennedy assassination figures, McClelland years later performed a cancer operation on Zapruder.

The lives of A. Alvarez, Bob Hunter and Bob McClelland covered a large slice of 1960s history and culture. Kennedy, Plath, the Dead are faces in a gallery of the age that might have been painted by Andy Warhol.

As the Trump-congressional collision dominated the Times' front page, the obituaries gave a historical longview of political tumult and cultural changes.

 

Nashville's literary scene more vibrant than Atlanta's

Nashville boasts a better literary scene than Atlanta's.

The recent death of popular novelist Anne Rivers Siddons highlighted that writers often leave Atlanta after launching their careers here. A writer for Atlanta magazine early in her career, Siddons examined Atlanta in her best-selling "Peachtree Road." But she left Atlanta behind and called Charleston home.

The late Pat Conroy returned to Atlanta for a while, but soon left for South Carolina. A couple of years ago, Tayari Jones, author of the acclaimed "An American Marriage," came back to her hometown. But the novelist recently accepted a professor's post at Cornell, according to the university's web site.

Georgia State professor David Bottoms and Emory's Jericho Brown are nationally known poets. But Atlanta was hurt by the departures of poets Natasha Trethewey and Kevin Young.

Nashville receives mega national attention from the presence of acclaimed novelist Ann Patchett, co-owner of the overrated independent bookstore Parnassus. Publication of Patchett's newest novel, "The Dutch House," brought a new burst of features about Patchett and Parnassus, including the obligatory mention of the dog who roams the store.

Accomplished short story writer and novelist Lorrie Moore is the star of Vanderbilt's creative writing faculty. Poet and critic Mark Jarman is a longtime pillar of the school's program.

Though her "our old silver" and Southern mists pieces make me shudder, Nashville-based Margaret Renkl frequently writes for The New York Times op-ed page.

A few miles south of Nashville, Sewanee boasts one of the nation's top summer writers' conferences, directed from the start by nationally regarded poet and critic Wyatt Prunty.

Noted novelist and short story writer Jamie Quarto stands out among the University of the South's faculty. Biographer, presidential historian and TV pundit Jon Meacham, a University of the South alum, lives in Sewanee.

The university also publishes the venerable Sewanee Review, which recently received a long overdue facelift and jolt of new energy from Editor Adam Ross, author of the novel "Mr. Peanut." Bottoms a few years ago established the literary journal Five Points, which publishes nationally known writers. But it lacks the stature of the Sewanee Rivew.

On a recent visit to Nashville, reading the weekly news magazine Nashville Scene, I wondered why Atlanta can no longer support such a publication that strongly covers politics, arts, books, food and music. Nashville's many local music venues give Nashville Scene a strong advertising base. Atlanta's once vibrant Creative Loafing is now a fading monthly, while Atlanta magazine's features show more desperation than creativity.

I'm sure Atlanta has a flourishing literary scene of which I'm unaware. The annual Decatur Book Festival brings out a huge population of readers, and a couple of independent bookstores seek to maintain the legacy of Oxford Books.

But the smaller Nashville outshines Atlanta.