Southern Bookman

Joseph Heller's "Catch 22" the most influential novel of 1960s

Emily Temple's "A Century of Reading" series on LiteraryHub has given useful and entertaining lists of the defining American books of each decade beginning with the 1900s.

I've had no quarrel with Temple's top 10 lists until, as might be expected, she reached the 1960s on Tuesday.

My objection is that she left Joseph Heller's 1961 novel "Catch-22" off her Top 10 selections, relegating it to the much larger "See also" list.

"Catch-22" was the essential work that defined the anti-establishment, anti-military, non-conformist spirit of the 1960s. Heller's book was much more influential than those she places on the top 10.

While I appreciate Temple's honoring of poetry by including Sylvia Plath's "Ariel," on the decade's top 10, "Catch-22" inspired the 1960s generation much more than Plath's posthumous collection.

Heller's black-humor masterpiece outweighs three of the other novels she includes, "Portnoy's Complaint," "Slaughterhouse Five" and "Stranger in a Strange Land."

While Temple says in her introduction "I do not make any claim on exhaustiveness," I was mystified how she could have left Norman Mailer's 1968 classic "Armies of the Night" off both the top 10 and "see also" lists.

Mailer's new journalism landmark about the Vietnam protest march in Washington, D.C., is another defining work of the era. To my mind, it should have made the top 10 over the new journalism books Temple names, "Slouching Toward Bethlehem" and "In Cold Blood."

A strong case for top 10 status could also be made for Tom Wolfe's "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test." 

Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring," placed on Temple's secondary list, should have also been on the top 10. Carson's book launched the environmental movement and still inspires the campaign against climate change.

Temple's "see also" roll ignores several other books that illustrated the zeitgeist: Eldridge Cleaver's autobiography "Soul on Ice," Richard Farina's novel, "Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me," Hunter S. Thompson's New Journalism classic"Hell's Angels" and Frederick Exley's memoir/novel "A Fan's Notes."

While the 1960s marked television's ascendency for news and entertainment, the decade also brought an outpouring of important, vital literature. Temple's incomplete list brings more debate to a contentious time.

 

Teddy Wayne's interviews with writers on Literary Hub show vibrancy of American literature

I've been disappointed by the Literary Hub web site. Its articles often wallow in author self-indulgence and book fetishism.

An exception is Teddy Wayne's monthly interview column, "5 Writers, 7 Questions, No Wrong Answers."

In the feature, Wayne asks five young or established fiction writers the same recurring questions about their inspiration, outside of books, and critical terms they find irritating. The writers also share what was going on in their lives when they were writing their novels or short story collections.

The writers are asked to not respond in complete sentences, resulting in more imaginative, reflective and poetic answers. 

A question about each writer's strengths and weaknesses brings informative reflections on writing techniques, and encouragement for younger writers. 

Wayne's column affirms that American literature remains alive and well.

 

Author Michael MacCambridge analyzes death throes of Sports Illustrated

Sports Illustrated's decline is one of the saddest stories of the digital age's ravaging of once strong publications.

Michael MacCambridge, who wrote the best history of the magazine's glory years under Andre Laguerre, delivers an insightful autopsy report for Ringer, one of the online sites sucking away at SI's audience. 

SI's latest death rattle is switching to biweekly publication, as MacCambridge relates. After a series of staff cutbacks and dubious management decisions, SI and the even more venerable news weekly Time were sold this year to the Iowa-based Meredith Corp., which now seeks to unload the once indispensable publications began by Harry Luce.

Having grown up reading the magazine, loving its weekly accounts of sporting events by Dan Jenkins and other writers and its golf lessons by Jack Nicklaus, I subscribed to SI for a time on my e-reader. But finding little distinctive about the magazine that I couldn't find elsewhere, I canceled the subscription.

I was not alone, as MacCambridge relates. As its print edition founders, SI's web site lacks the spark of sites like the Athletic and Deadspin. ESPN's web site seems newsier. 

MacCambrige relates how SI passed on a chance to buy ESPN a few years ago, ceding its sports media dominance to the cable channel, which went on to challenge SI with a print magazine that had stronger appeal to younger sports fans.

SI remains profitable, and perhaps someone like Jeff Bezos will buy it, and Time, and restore their luster. If not, an honorable death will be merciful.

You got ideas? Mercedes-Benz wants them

Atlanta really is an international city after all.

Mercedes-Benz opened its new North American headquarters in Sandy Springs Thursday and announced that an automotive ideas lab will be opened in the Atlanta metro area, according to a triumphant report arrayed across The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's front page.

The German company has similar labs in Stuttgart, its home city, Berlin and Beijing. Now, Atlanta will get a Lab1886, referring to the year the company launched the world's first gas-powered car. With the labs, the company seeks to remain at the forefront of technology and innovation. 

Mercedes' vision appears far different from Atlanta's traffic-snarled present. The company, citing Atlanta's universities and high-tech entrepreneurial work force, showed a belief that the state and metro area will change its transportation future. 

The ideas lab will be autonomous from new headquarters campus in Atlanta's burgeoning northern suburb. Mercedes Benz USA CEO Dietmar Exler said that the lab will operate separately "from the operations of the big mothership," with the freedom to explore "promising ideas wherever they come from - internally and externally," according to the Atlanta Business Chronicle.

The company sums up the driving future with its CASE formula: connectivity, autonomous driving, flexible use (shared and services) and electric power.

Lab1886 will have limitless horizons, including business development outside of automobiles. Robots, driverless cars, ride-sharing, smart roads, flying cars. global markets, and new industrial processes and materials are some of the possibilities.

While the company built its new campus in Sandy Springs, the AJC surmised that the intown high-tech area around Georgia Tech would be attractive for the ideas lab, which will employ 24 people and open this summer. A site near Tech would give the lab the required distance from the headquarters building. 

The company is keeping its lab location secret for now, but I thought it interesting that Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms was shown in an AJC photo along with Gov. Nathan Deal and Mercedes execs looking at a primitive 19th century car.

Mercedes' news could also persuade Amazon to take a closer look at Atlanta as the site of its second headquarters. The Seattle conglomerate at least will take notice of Mercedes' ideas lab announcement.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Atlanta makes Amazon's Final 20

Amazon has chosen Atlanta among its 20 finalists for the company's second headquarters.

The finalist list was culled from 238 cities that sent proposals to Jeff Bezos' online retail giant, which says the lucky winner will receive a $5 billion investment and 50,000 new jobs. Amazon last year announced plans to establish a second headquarters outside of its home in Seattle. 

Along with Atlanta, the South was represented on the list by Nashville, Miami and Raleigh-Durham. Although it looks like a dark horse, the North Carolina tech center is considered a top contender by at least one publication.

Columbus, Ohio, was another surprise selection, although Ohio State gives the home of Wendy's hamburgers and the hometown of James Thurber and Jack Nicklaus a highly educated and industrious work force.

As with other finalist cities, the selection of Columbus would boost its surrounding region, from Cleveland to Cincinnati.  Outside of its dynamic and growing state capital, Ohio like other "rust belt" states has suffered years of economic decline.

A similar Midwestern city, Indianapolis, also made the list. Indianapolis is close to Bloomington, home of Indiana University.

Heavyweights named include New York City, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Denver and Toronto. Newark also made the list, and its selection would benefit New York City. Montgomery County, Md., and Northern Virginia, both in the Washington area, were also selected.

Although Nashvillle is four hours away from Atlanta, requiring climbing over a mountain, its selection would also help Atlanta, as would Durham-Raleigh. The size of Amazon's investment would have a regional impact that would reach down I-85 from the home of Duke and N.C. State and I-75 from Nashville. Chattanooga would be happy with the selection of either Nashville or Atlanta.

Los Angeles was the only West Coast city named, with San Francisco, San Diego and Palo Alto shunned. Nor did Bezos know the way to San Jose.

Dallas and Austin made the list, but not Houston. Nor did New Orleans, seen as a dark horse by some before the final cut. Detroit, reportedly undergoing a fitful recovery, was also left out. 

The January announcement might disrupt the Georgia Legislature's schedule. Earlier, Gov. Nathan Deal said a special session would be the best way to come up with a package of incentives and infrastructure improvements to entice Amazon to Atlanta. Now, the Legislature might not be able to wait, but have to take action during the current session.

Gee, the Legislature might have to do some work in the first weeks of the session, rather than focusing most of its attention on beauty queens and high school sports champions. The Legislature does most of its business in the frenzied final weeks, when special interests benefit from hastily written legislation that receives less scrutiny during the rush. Giving attention to Amazon would require the Legislature to spread out its workload.

The possibility of Atlanta receiving Amazon might also put "religious liberty" bills in the deep freeze. 

The Amazon announcement could also influence the Georgia governor's race, with the final city expected to be named this year. When that happens has not been reported, but if not done before November, gubernatorial candidates will seek to top each other making pledges to the company.

As Amazon made its announcement, Apple said it will also seek a second headquarters, although with fewer jobs. Atlanta was immediately mentioned as a contender for Apple.

Those tax concessions keep mounting. The poor teachers will never get a raise.

 

 

 

Wall Street Journal's Michael M. Phillips gives stirring story from America's heartland

Cathy M. Cronkhite fled her small Indiana hometown as soon as possible, ending up in San Francisco and its digital economy.

Upon a visit to her farm family, she rediscovered the unbreakable bonds of home, as Wall Street Journal writer Michael M. Phllips relates in one of the best newspaper feature articles I've read in a while. 

Phillips' piece on the front page of Saturday's WSJ combined strong reporting and simple yet gripping writing reminiscent of the best magazine work. 

The article had no news hook or earth-shaking revelations. The 27-year-old Cronkhite's common story touched upon the decline of America's small towns and rural economy, the shortcomings of American public education, the economic and social handicaps faced by girls and young women and how they can be overcome with ambition and intelligence, and the deep ties to home and childhood. 

While the Wall Street Journal's editorial page is more and more a propaganda sheet for the GOP and Donald Trump, the newspaper's news and culture coverage displays strong writing, reporting and editing. The Saturday WSJ, with its Review and leisure sections, gives an informative and entertaining newspaper experience.

Atlanta might lose again to Boston

Will Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology edge out Emory and the Georgia Institute of Technology?

The home of the Kennedy Library beat the home of the Carter Library?

Boston has emerged as the favorite to land Amazon's second headquarters, according to Bloomberg News. Atlanta and every other U.S. city with any trace of a digital economy are competing to win the site.

The Seattle-based Amazon said the $5 billion investment would bring 50,000 jobs to the winning city. That would be a lot of beans for Beantown.

A Boston victory in the Amazon sweepstakes would be bitter for Atlanta after its football team lost to Boston's in the Super Bowl, blowing a huge lead.

Atlanta has stiff competition for the Amazon deal. Fellow Sunbelt wonder Denver recently was named the leading contender by The New York Times, ignoring that Denver's in the West and Amazon wants to come East.

Rocky Mountain High? Atlanta has the world's busiest airport. And folks don't wear cowboy boots to business meetings. Coors? Might as well drink water. 

Boston had the tea party. The Georgia Bulldogs play each year in the World's Biggest Cocktail Party.

Atlanta snared the Braves, who once played in Boston. Boston has the Green Monster. Atlanta has.....the Chop House?

Oh well, even if Atlanta loses out on Amazon, it still has Coca-Cola and Delta. And 23 streets named Peachtree.

 

 

Jon Ossoff's Silicon Valley message

A Jon Ossoff ad features a high-tech entrepreneur of some type who claims that the 30-year-old Democrat will bring Atlanta's economy "to the next level."

Ossoff is running against 55-year-old Republican veteran Karen Handel for the Sixth Congressional District seat vacated by Tom Price, now the anti-Obamacare and anti-Medicaid U.S. health secretary. 

According to the AJC, Ossoff in getting 48 percent of the votes in the district's open primary carried working class Tucker and some of Atlanta's hottest economic spots, such as Dunwoody, Alpharetta, St. John's, Brookhaven and Sandy Springs. Handel edged into the June 20 runoff by capturing established GOP neighborhoods in East Cobb and Milton.

Most of those cities were created in the last 20 years or so, in a wave of distrust against the Fulton County government, where blacks from south of Atlanta can exert political power. Handel got her political start on the Fulton County Commission. A few years ago, a movement gained steam calling for a new county being formed in the northern part of the district, to better carry out the wishes of the white suburbs. That seems to to have lost momentum recently, perhaps because of increasing Democratic appeal.

The GOP ads say Ossoff will be a puppet of Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic House Minority leader from San Francisco. Pelosi discounted those claims in a "Meet the Press" appearance over the weekend.

The predominantly white suburbs that make up the Sixth District - designed to be 99 percent safe for the GOP to win - is the center of metro Atlanta's explosive growth, especially the areas that Ossoff carried. A constellation of new apartments is rising along Roswell Road in Sandy Springs near the new Mercedes-Benz headquarters that will open in 2018. Dunwoody is bursting with company headquarters and new office buildings. Alpharetta is the center of health device companies and other entrepreneurial ventures. How much higher a level could those areas reach? They're already clogged with traffic, shopping malls, bars and restaurants. 

Cities like Sandy Springs and Dunwoody are drawing a new generation of workers who would love for the suburban areas to be more and more like Pelosi's San Francisco, or nearby Silicon Valley. Ossoff in his commercials, citing a vague need for  Atlanta companies to increase their European exports, is appealing to those newcomers, who so far have not been the most reliable of voters. In recent elections, Democratic support in the district has risen, with Barack Obama breaking the 30-percent barrier, and Hillary Clinton nearly matching Ossoff's 48 percent.

Can Ossoff break through in the runoff? Turnout will be key. Republican interest appears iffy, as a GOP pol said, many of the well-off Republicans in the district go on vacation in June. Guess he's worried Democrats will still be stuck on their jobs and  available to vote, if they can get the time off.

The GOP ads feature well-off white suburbanites standing guard by their subdivision homes, calling Ossoff an outsider and "not one of us." But much of the district is made up of transplants who've moved to metro Atlanta in the last 10 years. They are probably big company managers, entrepreneurs and so-on, but their roots in the district are not deep. And, they seem increasingly to be drawn by Democratic ideas, especially if expressed by cool politicians like Ossoff.

Ossoff in making economic issues a main feature of his campaign is seeking those millennials who want a Silicon Valley life. His proposals are vague, and it's absurd that a new congressman in a Republican-controlled House will have much power over Atlanta's economy. Yet his message will resonate with those who want the district to keep attracting young newcomers. Handel is appealing to that increasingly small segment of voters who have ties in the district going back generations.

 

New Atlanta venture capital fund hardly world-class

The incredible shrinking AJC ran a breathless front page story Friday morning about 10 of Atlanta's big corporations ponying up $1.5 million each to start a venture capital fund to invest in high-tech startups.

Georgia Tech will manage the $15 million venture capital project involving AT&T, Chick-fil-A, Cox Enterprises, Delta Air Lines, Georgia-Pacific, Georgia Power Foundation, Inc., Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), Invesco Ltd., Home Depot and UPS. Surprising that Coca-Cola was left off the list. Too much bad publicity over sugar? 

Outgoing Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, who has presided over a steady if not robust economic resurgence driven by Georgia Tech's technology square and film production, took credit for the curious joint project. The AJC and press releases called "Engage" a world-class fund that will enable Atlanta to compete with such tech powerhouses as Silicon Valley and Austin, Texas. Unmentioned was that Atlanta is already behind cities like Denver, Seattle, Nashville and even New Orleans.

The AJC drum-beating article claimed that the fund would seek to seed the new Microsoft or Google. The $15 million figure left me skeptical, considering that leading Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andressen Horowitz manages $2.7 billion in its 487 investments in 308 companies, according to online reports.

Perhaps Engage will move Atlanta up the high tech ladder, but I would be more convinced if someone like Arthur Blank contributed $1 billion or more.

Blank seems more interested in football and selling seats to his pleasure dome. By the way, the state of Georgia has slowly come up with $10 million for backing high-tech firms, much less than the state's contribution to Blank and his new stadium.

 

 

 

 

Karl Marx returns to relevance

The Donald Trump campaign confirms the validity of Karl Marx's gibe that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce.

With middle class incomes stagnating and economic disparities growing between the wealthy and the rest of us, Marx's theories have returned to favor. When the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed, the old revolutionary's work was tossed into "the dustbin of history," 

But now, with economic disparities widening, and voter anger fueling Trump's buffoonish populism, the Brexit vote in Great Britain and Bernie Sanders' Democratic-socialist campaign against the "rigged" financial system, Marx's 19th century predictions appear on target.

New biographies of Marx see him favorably, making the case that his work should be seen in context of  19th century Europe rather than today.

Louis Menand, in a review of Jonathan Sperber's "Karl Marx: a 19th Century Life," and Gareth Stedman-Jones' "Karl Marx: Greatness and Illusion" in the Oct. 10 New Yorker, considers Marx as a man of his times while asserting that his philosophy provides keys to understanding today's inequalities.

Exiled to London for the last 33 years of his life, Marx was a fierce polemicist and revolutionary, spending his days in the British Museum doing research for his world-shaking works "The Communist Manifesto" and "Das Kapital." 

In his personal life, he was a gentle teddy bear, according to his biographers, scraping together money to give his children drawing and drama lessons, and a lover of Shakespeare, red wine and cigars. Poverty-ravaged and beset by illness, he scratched out a living writing for newspapers including the New York Tribune and depended on the largess of his revolutionary comrade Frederick Engels, a rich industrialist.

Menand notes that Marx was virtually unknown at his death in 1883, and would have remained obscure had his disciple Lenin not carried out the the Russian Revolution. Marx's theories fueled the 20th century communist revolutions in China, Cuba, Vietnam and North Korea, and were the basis of communist governments in Eastern European countries behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. y

While his name is associated with the totalitarianism imposed by Lenin and Stalin, Marx believed in human freedom, Menand says, conceiving a classless, property-less society after the workers' revolution overthrew capitalism.

Freed from the factory system's division of labor, people would define themselves through a range of humanistic pursuits. Alas, Lenin's enactment of Marx's theories brought about a soul-crushing monolithic state.

Many of Marx's predictions now appear accurate. The French economist Thomas Pikerty drew upon Marx's work in his surprise best-seller "Capital in the 21st Century," which showed the prevalence of economic inequality favoring the rich for most of history except for a 30-year period in the United States following World War II.

Menand in discussing stagnant incomes doesn't touch upon a basic cause: falling productivity. The prevalence of computers and the Internet has not brought a productivity leap like those of previous technological advances.

Fundamental changes in the U.S. economy are roiling the presidential campaigns. Trump's "Make America Great Again" is based on fantasies of lost jobs coming back, while Hillary Clinton has adopted many of Sanders' proposals.

The political turmoil shows the return of Marx's relevance, Menand says. "Still in the political confusion, we are seeing something that has not been seen in Western countries like Britain and the United States since before 1945, people debating what Marx would call the real nature of social relations."

Ignoring the intense social and political conflicts of the '60s, Menand also neglects to point out the continuation of Republican intransigence if Clinton is elected.

While Marx's thought gives deep insights into the American economy, he lived in a vastly different world. Yet he remains a helpful guide to the future, whether it emerges as tragedy, farce, or a new age of prosperity and creativity.