Lary Bloom

Writer, Editor, Teacher

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Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Dark Chocolate

The writer David Hays recalls the eulogy he delivered about his mother's life at her funeral. Or, more precisely, he recalls his opening comment. He looked at the casket, and, setting aside for a moment his prepared remarks, he observed, "All that dieting..."

Then there was Erma Bombeck, who said when critically ill, "If I had it to do over again, I'd have more ice cream and less cottage cheese."

And so, in the time left to you before the eulogies delivered on your behalf, precisely how much dark chocolate can you eat without hastening the fateful day? The answer: 48.2 pounds.

I made that up, of course. But you should take dark chocolate as metaphor (and as a cure for your ills). For a very long time in my life, I avoided all rich deserts, and a lot of fats. This kept me at a reasonable weight, but not what you'd call perfectly fit. The problem was that, like a lot of Americans, I made up in volume what I lacked in real taste.

This brings me to the South Beach diet, which I reluctantly undertook a few months ago. I say reluctantly because no diet works. This one, however, may. Because it could change you forever. It holds the promise, for example, of dark chocolate. And, if you have chocolate, in small amounts, and a cold glass of water, well then, you can be mighty satisfied.

The point is to eat beautifully, not bountifully. Cook wonderful meals. Don't look at the calorie count. Look at the portion size. Period.

And of course you must exercise, even though Winston Churchill, who lived a long time despite trying to kill himself with food and drink, observed, "Every time I get the urge to exercise, I sit down and wait for the urge to pass."

Posted by:Lary Bloom at 3:46 AM

Saturday, November 26, 2005

"Readers Won't Notice"

My professional alma mater, Knight-Ridder, is trying to put itself up for sale. The chain where I completed my newspaper career, Tribune Company, probably should do the same. These companies, as other media businesses, are still hauling in a ton of money, and have a higher profit margin than most industries. But they suffer, stock-wise, because investors can't see how, ten years from now, newspapers will be the same marketplace force they have been over the last couple of centuries.

In response to Internet competition, newspapers chains have tried to make themselves a more appealing investment by cutting costs. I remember over the years many meetings in which top editors and publishers would say to us something like, "It'll hurt, but readers won't notice."

That always struck me as self-defeating. The newspaper business exists only because of a trust with its readers. The intent of most chains in the last couple of decades has been to undo that trust -- to tell readers that they're making "improvements" when they are actually cutting staff, space, coverage, and expenses.

When you think of growth industries, you think of the need to offer real innovation in order to stay competitive. Computer manufacturers, for example, extend themselves to come up with products that offer more to customers: more memory, quicker response, a greater array of bells and whistles. The newspaper business is just the opposite. It offers its customers less and less, and then wonders why its circulation base dwindles.

I still think newspapers can be better and stay profitable -- can capitalize on their local franchises by becoming the ultimate sources of information. But it'll take publishers and editors who understand that readers aren't nincompoops, and that they can tell the difference between what's better and what's worse.

Posted by:Lary Bloom at 6:18 AM

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Thanksgiving Thoughts, 1955

We are thankful, at this Thanksgiving Day dinette set table, for all of this food, particularly the three varieties of Jell-O mold derived from ancient Native American recipes and handed down, unaccountably, to my mother, who produces these miracles every Thanksgiving Day after the Detroit Lions game. Just like Squanto, we are inheritors of the historic cherry Jell-O mold with floating carrot shreds and celery, the only "vegetable" dish, at age 12, I will agree to eat. Like the settlers at Plimouth Plantation, I savor the orange Jell-O mold that features bites of canned peaches and pears. And like all who ever called this glorious land home, I look forward to, once the turkey has been served, the grape Jell-O mold with Some Kind Of Creamy Stuff In the Middle. What have we done to deserve such bounty?

Posted by:Lary Bloom at 10:13 AM

Monday, November 21, 2005

House of Cards

I spent some time over the weekend examining C-Span's tapes of the House debate on Iraq, though raking leaves might have been a less stressful pursuit.

I was struck, of course, by Jean Schmidt's loathesome behavior. Even fellow Republicans quickly pointed out that Schmidt, in her very first speech in the House, was merely misinformed. She didn't know that Jack Murtha, the House member she swift-boated, was a war hero. This is a lame excuse -- by Friday, all of America was reminded of Murtha's distinguished war record.

But I'll leave Schmidt for another time. What I'll focus on here is poor old Sam Johnson, representative from Texas. I have a natural affinity for fellow Vietnam vets like Johnson. I certainly understood his point about supporting troops. In that regard, I agree. We should never have another Vietnam. He seemed to be saying that, given that standard -- total support for the troops -- it is not wise to debate war policy. This is a typical Republic argument, a syllogism without a middle. Troops have to be reported. Therefore the war policy goes unquestioned.

"Now is not the time" is another plea heard. When is the time? In Vietnam, was the time to hold public debate when 2,000 soldiers had been killed (as in Iraq now), or when 20,000 had been killed, or when 50,000? I know what Sam Johnson says is true. That the children, brothers, sisters, wives, and parents of the dead will feel betrayed if we quit in Iraq now. But, Sam, look back at Vietnam. the same argument was made about the dead not dying in vain. And so more bodies were piled on an already huge pile.

Yes, we can support our troops at the same time we engage in meaningful discussion about foreign policy (not the kind of political sham that took place last week, initiated by House Republicans).

Whenever it is that we leave Iraq, and I hope it's soon, that country will have to address important issues on its own, and, yes, there would be a likelihood of civil war. I happen to think it will happen anyway. So why insist on more American sacrifices now? Our effort should be spent otherwise: tracking down of international terrorists. That's a mission everyone can support.

Posted by:Lary Bloom at 3:33 AM

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Sam Waterston, Privately

Last night, at the Bushnell theater in Hartford, the actor Sam Waterston was among five who received the Governor's Arts Awards, a ritual that goes back twenty years.

Before the festivities began, I ran into Lynn Fusco, the dynamic New Haven developer who is married to Doug Hughes, one of the honorees, and a prominent theatrical director (Doubt, on Broadway, and a ton of regional triumphs). She introduced me to Doug's father, Barnard Hughes, the veteran actor, sitting in the first row. He was a kick. When Lynn told him that I write plays, he agreed that if the festivities on this night were in any way boring, I would hand him a hurriedly written script and he could go up on stage to perform it.

But of course it wasn't a boring evening. The hosts, the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism, did an exquisite job, with the help of videos of the honorees made by Connecticut Public Television. And, before he accepted his award, Sam Waterson was honored in one of these. He seemed humble and funny on video. And I thought, well, maybe I'm wrong about him -- he's not aloof. I remembered that 20 years ago I had written a letter to him asking him to comment on why he lives in Connecticut, for a special magazine issue. He wrote back saying, basically, that it was no one's business that he lived in the state. He needed his privacy.

Last night, however, he seemed human, at least from a distance. After those in charge had a bit of a hard time putting the medal over his noggin and around his neck, he commented, "I guess I do have a swelled head." Then he confessed that he had to read off his computer because he couldn't figure out how to print out his speech. Well, that's human. Even a man who is famous for his longtime role on Law & Order, and for many excellent movies (The Killing Fields was a classic), and memorable stage triumphs of classic comedies and tragedies, he is, after all, just another guy. Tall and distinguished, but just another guy,

Another guy, it turns out (I learned later) who pretty much demanded that he and his wife be brought dinner from Vito's on the Park, near the Bushnell, because they hadn't had a chance to eat, and were very hungry. The staff of the event had no budget (or time) for meeting such demands, but did this anyway.

I've never been a big fan of honoring actors. What they do is show up for work and talk into the camera. On Oscar night, I cringe through the whole thing. Sam Waterston had a chance to prove to me that I was wrong. He should have arranged for his own dinner.

Posted by:Lary Bloom at 9:05 AM

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Presidential Patterns

The president says that criticism of the war effort is un-American. It undermines the troops. It gives the wrong signal to the enemy. It protracts the war because it makes the present mission more difficult. He says that opponents of the war are political opportunists. He says freedom is the goal, and that we're clearly making progress.

What president is this? Lyndon Baines Johnson, in defending the war in Vietnam.

Posted by:Lary Bloom at 2:35 PM

Monday, November 14, 2005

Book Tour (Part 5, The Birthday Gaffe)

Linda Williams runs Burgundy Books, a tiny but exquisite new shop in East Haddam, Conn., just down the street from the Goodspeed Opera House. To call attention to it, she signed up a host of local authors to appear over the weekend.

My turn came at 3 p.m. Sunday, which also happened to coincide with my 62nd birthday. Linda set me up in the little art gallery behind the shop (all the merchants work together in this effort), and assigned me a "personal host" named Danielle. I have had many book signings over the years but I had never been given this sort of special treatment, and soon found myself with a slice of homemade pumpkin pie, designer water, and other treats.

As this was Linda's first local author's festival, the timing was a little off. At 3 p.m., no one was there. I thought, well, this embarrassing for all involved. But Linda was smiling. "People will be here. There are other talks going on, overtime." By 3:15, the little art gallery was full of people, as Linda had predicted.

I usually wait until the day of the reading to decide what stories I'll read from the book. This time, because of the birthday, I knew I'd read "Sixty Rules," the piece I wrote to mark that occasion two years ago. It is an observation on the aging process, and always draws response. A lively discussion ensued about the value (and the distresses) of growing older.

Afterwards, folks lined up to have their books signed. As customary, I wrote the date of the signing under my signature. But instead of November 13, 2005, I automatically wrote November 13, 1943. I had been so used to listing my birth date on forms and applications that this habit carried over even to a book signing.

Well, there's a comment on an aging author.

Posted by:Lary Bloom at 3:09 AM

Friday, November 11, 2005

Kiss A Veteran

No mail today. No school, either. The banks are closed. We are "celebrating" Veterans Day. But of course, we celebrate this as we do other holidays. It is, for many, merely a day off from work.

This is 38th Veteran's Day since I returned from Vietnam. And, for the 38th time, I feel no sense of celebration, and no sense of the country's gratitude, if there is any. I read in the paper yesterday about how charities designed to help veterans actually steal from them. I see photos of old men wearing their legion hats saluting a flag and I think, well, we have failed our veterans.

Yesterday, I had a conversation with the widow of a man who caught hepititis in the Vietnam War, and died of liver disease a few years ago. I asked her if he ever applied for disability. No, she said, it was too hard to figure out how to do so, and to prove the connection. But the connection was real. The man is dead, and we know why.

It's too late for us to say thanks to him for what he did on our behalf. But it is not too late to thank the veterans you know, each of whom assume that they will get no thanks today.

Posted by:Lary Bloom at 5:39 AM

Kiss A Veteran

Posted by:Lary Bloom at 5:39 AM

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Book Tour (Part 4)

I could spot her easily in the audience yesterday -- a lithe and handsome woman, sitting alone at a rear table. A cancer patient. I knew this because, well, it's what you learn when that disease intrudes on your family. Besides, she wore the telltale scarf around her head, to my way of thinking a much better solution to the hair issue than a wig.

After my presentation, she asked if she could talk to me a few minutes. Odd, but I knew almost exactly she would say, and I was right. This was a literary event after all -- a book signing after a reading. And I could somehow see in her hazel eyes her intent. She said, "I have written a memoir about my illness that almost was published by a major house." She also said, "It's an inspirational book." This made me sad. Not because her book wasn't a worthy effort. But because I knew why the publishing world didn't, in the end, embrace it. Publishers are inundated with "inspirational" cancer stories. Sometimes, of course, they work. Lance Armstrong. That works. The new book, "The Woman at the Washington Zoo," by Marjorie Williams, works. But the latter isn't meant to be inspirational. It's meant to be real. And that's the trouble with "illness" books. The machinery of illness overwhelmes the narrative.

The woman at the book signing told me that she has other stories that she wants to write but this one is hanging over her, and it's particularly frustration because she's had the disease for a long time, and, as it continues to intrude, she gets more and more frustrated over lack of prospects for her book. If I had come across her years ago, I would have told her to just keep trying to sell the book, that someone would take it. But that's not what I felt here, not after learning what I have learned about the publishing world and the realities of cancer.

And so I told her just what she didn't want to hear. I told her to put aside that book, and to get onto the other stories she wants to tell, and, when appropriate, "borrow" from the book she had written in doing so. That is, tell the stories that have nothing to do with chemotherapy, but allow herself the licence at any point to mention it. Make her stories more metaphorical, and much less a blow-by-blow account of cancer horrors. She took notes, and thanked me. I don't really know if she took the advice to heart. I hope so. I could tell she is a storyteller. And I sincerely hope she finds the right story to tell us all in the time that she has to tell it.

Posted by:Lary Bloom at 3:02 PM

Monday, November 07, 2005

Terror At The Dinner Table?

The other night at a dinner party I set off an intense discussion when I mentioned a recent book by Francine du Plessix Gray. In the volume simply and elegantly titled Them, she writes of the lives of her mother, Tatiana, who was a prominent fashion designer, and her step-father, Alexander Liberman, who became the most powerful editorial director in magazine publishing at Conde Nast.

At the point in the book where Francine addresses her mother's early relationship with the great Russian poet Mayakovsky, she writes that she didn't discuss the relationship with her mother while she was alive "in part because of my own dread of confronting the past, in part because like most mothers and daughters we lived in terror of each other."

When I quoted this, most of the women at the dinner table expressed doubt about the author's conclusion. But one of the women said, "Yes, I can see that -- fearing a mother." She went on to talk about her own relationship with her late mother, who terrified her. I asked her if she thought her mother was also afraid of her. "Yes, in a way," she said.

The men at the table -- at least most of them -- simply nodded or shook their heads, and had little to say on the subject, hoping perhaps that it would conclude quickly with the point that nothing has been right since the Dodgers moved from Brooklyn. But it raises, of course, deep issues. It is telling that some women in middle age reserve much of their fear for family matters. I can understand it, because as quickly as men may dismiss this, they are not immune to terror. I do wonder about the sweep of Francine's statement, and how you, reading this, feel about it. Let me know, if you like.

Posted by:Lary Bloom at 7:27 AM

Friday, November 04, 2005

Organ Donor

The woman in line behind me, also waiting for the attentions of the clerks at the Department of Motor Vehicles, felt it necessary to fill the time by accounting to strangers every ailment that has distressed her over the last dozen years. As the line was not moving very quickly -- why should it in a government office? -- we were treated to a tour Gray's Anatomy.

As a matter of principle, I did not turn around to look at the woman. I tried to imagine her appearance simply from the medical litany. That she hadn't yet contracted Lyme Disease, a revelation she hesitated to offer but finally did, made it possible for a twelve or fifteen second pause in the monologue when, presumably, she could think of anything to say.

Silence is a rare commodity in this world, and I have noticed that people who have the least to say are the ones who persist in their blabbering. We are, however, all guilty of filling the air with nothingness, or worse than nothingness.

When I finally reached the window, the clerk asked me if, for my drivers licence renewal, I wanted to identify myself as an organ donor. "Interesting question," I said. She said, "Is that a yes?" Not wanting to argue, I nodded. "That's a good thing you're doing," she said.

On the drive home, I wondered if I could make an exception to the organ donations -- only to people who promise to keep one particular body part shut.

Posted by:Lary Bloom at 2:01 PM

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

The Big Business Of Could

I don't know about you, but I'm tired and wary of could. As in, the avian flu could become a pandemic. As in home heating bills could double. As in America could certainly become the target of a terrorist attack.

For news organizations, particularly television, could is a gold mine. It's always accurate, in its own perverse way. It's always frightening. It's always big business. It gets viewers to tune in at 11 to "see if we're going to get hit by that snowstorm that's heading east with a fury. Yes, tune in to see if your life as you know it is over."

The master of could is Wolf Blitzer. I regularly count his coulds in "The Situation Room" on CNN the way I used to count the times my eighth grade history teacher said "at any rate," a habit that left me without any real notes to study with for tests. ("At any rate, Abe Lincoln was a good guy," I might have written.)

There are lots of reasons to mistrust television news, and could is one of them. That's not to say newspapers (where I made my living for so long) are free of scare tactics. There are never headlines that say, "Everything Will Be Fine, So Don't Worry." Many readers argue for more "good news," but that stuff just doesn't sell.

I hesitate to bring all this up. You may never be able to watch Wolf Blitzer or any other news person (for, indeed, the could outbreak is not in any way limited to him), without obsession on the matter. But remember, don't worry so much about could. For in the end, it's the will that will get you.

Posted by:Lary Bloom at 4:04 AM

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