Lary Bloom
Writer, Editor, Teacher
The Bloom Blog
Photo by Nancy Dionne
Monday, January 30, 2006
Go, Penn Pigs!
Chowan College, a small liberal arts institution in North Carolina, revealed that it would comply with new NCAA guideliness and renounce its long-standing nickname for its sports teams. So say goodbye to the fighting and occasionally victorious Chowan College Braves. The school is now entertaining ideas for a new way to refer to its athletes.I have an idea of course. But first a little historical perspective. In the early 1950s, in a poem in Sports Illustrated, Ogden Nash showed he was well ahead of the NCAA policy committee. But for different reasons. His argument against Braves, Indians, and other nicknames was not that they are insensitive, only that they failed to distinguish one school from another. There are so many Tigers and Lions and Wildcats, for example, it can make a sports fan's head spin. He concluded his poem in this manner:
When I read that the Cohawks are playing the Zips
My disposition becomes sweeter than saccharine.
Because then I know the game afoot pits
Cohawk College and the University of Akron.
Nash's poem got me to thinking. I took it upon myself to rename several college teams (though none have ever seen fit to adopt my suggestions).
You will have to agree that the Harvard Crimson could do with an update every few hundred years. How about the Harvard Beats? And while we're in the Ivy League, Harvard's arch rival could certainly use something more sophisicated than Bulldogs. So clap your hands for the Yale Locks. Also, among the Ivies,consider the Brown Outs. Or the Columbia Gems of the Ocean. Certainly you could easily root for a team called the Penn Pigs. Out west there could be the California Here I Comes and the Colorado Rocky Mountain Highs (everybody'd want to play them.) Then there's the team that nobody would want to play, Capital University in Columbus, Ohio. I have no idea why the athletic department there refuses to consider my sensisible idea: The Capital Punishments.
But back to Chowan College, which I read on its official website is a Baptist institution with "Judeo-Christian" values. Well, then, the Chowan Chosens. No?
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 4:27 AM
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Mary Poppins, Please
It's much too late for you to nominate films as the best of the 20th Century. But if you could, would you cast your vote for masterpieces by Fellini or Bergman or Trauffaut, or perhaps Citizen Kane, which you've never stayed awake through, but which all the critics praised to the heavens?How could any of those compare to the spoonful of sugar that perks you up when you watch your four-year-old granddaughter, whom you don't see enough of because she lives far away, clap joyfully at Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, and get entirely lost in the sidewalk immersion scene as Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews transport everyone into an imaginary paradise?
In 1965, there you were, in the fraternity house in Athens, Ohio, playing Let's Go Fly A Kite and I Love To Laugh and Feed The Birds on the old upright, only to hear a frat brother bark, "What kind of crap is that?" That's what we're growing here, an American fraternity that doesn't know how to open its heart to miracles. Mary Poppins in one such miracle -- a perfect movie. When you need a jolt, when you are convinced that life is overrunning you, take a copy of it out of the local library and pop it in. Remind yourself of what's possible when the stars are aligned, and you want to get re-acquainted with the child in you.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 1:55 PM
Thursday, January 26, 2006
The Ford Foundations
My father would have twisted his thin lips, in that Spencer Tracy way of his, at the news that the Ford Motor Company is closing 14 plants and laying off 30,000 workers.A.W. Bloom was a union man -- had seen too many violations of decency standards in his years as a municipal employee. He would see Ford's decision this week as another of these. Executives, at their exalted levels of pay, made decisions to make cars that didn't offer what the Japanese offered -- reliability coupled with good gas mileage. The workers, as always, suffered the consequences.
But there is more to this. The other side of my father (he was always wrestling with sides) would say that the Ford family finally got what it deserved. Though not a religious man, my father defended his fellow Jews.
In the 1950s when people of our class had to buy cars, the decision was between Ford and Chevy. Period. No Ford product would ever be found in our driveway. My father knew of Henry Ford's blatant anti-semitism and of his hand in spreading the lie of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," purported to be a genuine document that demonstrated on its face the worldwide plot by the Jews.
In recent years, the Ford Foundation found many ways to address social issues, and donated impressive amounts to worthy causes. But the company, in many eyes, never rid itself of its original sin.
A.W. Bloom never bought a Japanese car. Few men who served in the Pacific during World War II did. But he never objected when I bought a little Mazda in 1978. He could forgive the Japanese. He could not do the same for Henry Ford or the Ford family.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 6:20 PM
Monday, January 23, 2006
Martha Stewart Living?
For several years now, the "last issue" of my subscription to Martha Stewart Living has arrived faithfully by mail. The warnings have been voluminous. If I wanted to know what Martha had to say, and have the benefit, if that is the word, of the rest of the content, I simply had to pay up quickly. I never did, but the issues come anyway. That's no way, of course, to run a profitable magazine. Nor is it wise, as Omnimedia, owner of the magazine, saw fit to do when Martha went to prison, to minimize her in the logo for Martha Stewart Living. In the beginning, the name was printed in large type. Now, Martha has become much less important than Living.But, as the company feels obliged for some reason to send these issues, I feel an obligation to at least browse the content and to, of course, read Martha's helpful prose.
In the new issue, she got me right in the gut. She begins her column: "How often have you gone to a party and been confronted with large trays piled high with small squares of medium-hard yellow cheeses and undistinguished crackers and crudites?"
I was just thinking this the other day. My life would be perfect; but, as it is, it is dragged down into despair by regular confrontations with medium-hard yellow cheeses and celery sticks.
Many years ago, when I was a magazine editor, I sent a writer to Martha's house to interview her. When the reporter finished the interview, she called me. I asked how it went. "Horrible," she said. "Martha didn't offer me so much as a glass of water."
Perhaps Martha abhors that confrontation, too. Water, like medium-hard yellow cheeses, etc, is not a good thing.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 9:31 AM
Friday, January 20, 2006
The New 4F Army
The U.S. Army today raised the age limit for enlistment to 39, an increase of five years. This is a response to flagging recruitment. Young folks, apparently, don't seem enticed by the prospect having their asses shot off while fighting a war on behalf of America's chickenhawks.The Army's new plan is a step in the right direction, but I think the Pentagon would be wiser to adopt an entirely new , enlightened, and cost-saving age policy.
We should bring back the draft, and select only men who are at least 62 years old (coincidentally, my age). In this way, we wouldn't be shipping the young and promising off to war and death or dismemberment -- only the generation that, well, doesn't have that long to live anyway. Think of it. The government would need to finance only a one-way trip to Iraq. We'd never make it back. And, if we were lucky enough to survive with disabling wounds, the cost of keeping us in VA hospitals would be less taxing.
There was a time when being 4F (physically or otherwise disabled) kept a person out of the service. But I like the sound of the new 4F Army: Fainting, Farting, Forgetting, and (Finally) Falling.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 11:26 AM
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Tooth Number 14 -- What Am I Bid?
I read today that William Shatner, the actor who turned one decent role into much more than he deserved, sold the kidney stone he passed for $25,000 and gave the money to Habitat For Humanity. A neat gimmick. Though his bank account didn't benefit, he did get his name in the news again, and that's what counts.I have so far avoided kidney stones (thank goodness) but on this very day I am able to offer for public auction tooth number 14, a troublesome molar for many years, which has just been extracted with skill and persistence by my excellent periodontist, Dr. Michael Perl. I, too, will donate all proceeds to charity -- the Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay Prosecution Fund.
I will start the bidding at -- what? -- a dollar and a half? Do I hear a buck? Come on now -- it's a fine little tooth, though it is now in little bitty pieces. Fifty cents? Well then, that's what happens when you aren't William Shatner.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 2:59 PM
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Munich and Peter Jennings
Steven Spielberg's film about the murder of 11 Israeli athletes in the 1972 Olympics has some brilliant touches. But it makes better history than art.The actual event left me exhausted and undone, and the film never matched that emotion. The Munich Olympics had great promise. In the days before the tragedy, the world was brought together by the most successful 4 feet 10 inch peacemaker in history. Olga Korbut, a little doll and a product of the heartless and cruel Soviet Union, lit up living rooms around the world with her spectacular gymnastic performance and spontaneous smile. What diplomats and armies had failed to do she had done overnight; with backflips on the balance beam, she created her own United Nations.
And, in a flash of gunfire, it was destroyed. Jim McKay, the most articulate and insightful sports reporter television ever had, became by necessity the narrator of horror. As Spielberg's movie
smartly shows, he was the one who announced at 3 a.m. EST the terrible news: "They're gone. They're all gone." All day and night he had done great work trying to make sense of what was going on, though he was saddled with Howard Cosell and others whose jobs in Munich were to report on games and who had no experience in covering massacres.
ABC executives quickly had flown in Peter Jennings to lend a hand. He was already stationed in Europe, and could give the sports team of reporters the help it needed. I remember him standing in the street below, Connollystrasse, authoritatively providing his commentary during the hours the athletes were being held hostage in the Olympic village.
He knew the world was watching him, including the culprits in the attack. And he said, inexplicably, to his audience the following (which I've paraphrased, because I can't recall the exact words): The thing about Arabs is that they seldom carry out their threats.
When I heard it, I couldn't believe my ears. This young punk Jennings saying something like that. Why? Perhaps in his own mind he was trying to offer hope. Perhaps he was trying to show off his erudition -- his knowledge of contemporary history to that point. Or just filling airtime. But whatever reason, it was inexcusable, and, to this day, I think his comments had an effect on the terrible outcome.
In the years since, I never watched a Peter Jennings news report, and I always wondered why nothing was ever made of his comments in Munich. In a lifetime of good work, it stands out as a moment of disgrace, and I've often wondered what would have happened differently if, on that black day in Munich, Peter Jennings had just shut up.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 4:43 AM
Friday, January 13, 2006
Tribal Warning
Though I may wish otherwise (and you, too), this space will be consumed from time to time with various rantings about a baseball team that I cannot shake, no matter its level of play. Spring training is but a month away. Consider this fair warning. For now, I will be brief, and say only that, as the sage points out, baseball is not a matter of life or death. It's more important than that.Posted by:Lary Bloom at 3:28 PM
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
The Art Of Florida
Over the last few days, I was in Florida to conduct interviews for a book, and so saw little of the sun, or of the attractions. And certainly didn't run into Jeb Bush, a circumstance that did not disappointed either of us.Florida is of course something of a political cartoon, though as a former resident (if for only four years) I don't quite see it that way. It is a mix of cultures: Midwestern retirees, New Yorkers, Cubans, South Americans, Crackers, natives of the state (though outsiders are always surprised that such people exist).
It has always had something of a cultural inferiority complex, largely deserved, but it has been working to address this. Miami has become a center of the arts, Sarasota has a fine art museum, Key West has drawn writers going back to Papa Hemingway and Tennessee Williams, and even in less glamorous towns progress is being made. In Jacksonville, the Orange Park Community Theater recently celebrated its 50th season, which in Florida terms is ancient.
Speaking of ancient, I did manage during this visit, thanks to the generous folks I was interviewing, to see a fine theatrical performance in an unlikely place -- America's oldest city. St. Augustine has been a tourist center for a very long time but has not been known for theater. Only recently a family in town donated a great deal of money to build a performing arts center. And so the Limelight Theater has a new home. Its production of Alfred Uhry's Tony-Award winning play, "The Last Night of Ballyhoo," was swell. There were actors in it who could succeed anywhere, particularly promising young ones.
I hadn't been to Florida for several years, but I'm glad to have visited it again. The last time was in Key West. At a party tossed by Leonard Bernstein's executor, I was hit on by three fellow guests. (Wrong gender, but they did like my shirt.)
I'm not as high on the state as my late mother was -- she was a one person tourism bureau. To her, the sun always shined, and there was no better place on earth.
I won't go that far. But I will visit once in awhile.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 5:27 AM
Friday, January 06, 2006
Two Memoirists Needed
Next Thursday, a new memoir class, another incarnation of my "So Write Already" series, begins in West Hartford -- another chance for a person so inclined to enter a seminar room of strangers, risk everything by putting her talent on the line, decide that she won't read her stuff aloud (until she changes her mind because others seem so willing to do it), have a few laughs (some at their teacher's expense), dip into a reading list of exceptional published memoirs, and ultimately produce, over the course of eight consecutive Thursday early evenings, work that she is proud of. We have two openings left. Call Elana (860.231.6327), at the Greater Hartford Jewish Community Center. And no, you don't have to be Jewish. Or, for that matter, be a woman. I simply had to settle on a pronoun. The last class included Philip Ettman, whose memoir, The "F" Word, set a standard for insight and humor -- we'll be reading that in class.Posted by:Lary Bloom at 10:15 AM
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Iraq/Vietnam (2)
Senator Richard Russell, of Georgia, then chairman of the Armed Services Committee, on Nov. 26, 1964:"We either have to get out or take some action to help the Vietnamese. They won't help themselves. We made a big mistake in going there, but I can't figure out any way to get out without scaring the rest of the world."
And so we stayed for nine more years.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 6:14 AM
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Brokeback As Issue
In his review of Brokeback Mountain in the New Yorker, Anthony Lane writes that this blockbuster should not be interpreted as an issue movie. To do so would ignore its artfulness and subtleties. And, after all, love is a messy business anyway, no matter the social and political context. His argument is persuasive.Even so, as I watched the film, and afterward, I couldn't help but think of gay friends in the '60s and '70s whose struggles were complex and sometimes terrifying. I think of a colleague who was by far the most talented writer at our newspaper, but who never was seen in that way by management. This, naturally, had an effect on him, and contributed to a downward spiral. As Brokeback Mountain wound down to its final scenes, I thought about Bill, and about reading his obituary last year -- this brilliant writer, dead at 56, after having worked his final years on the copy desk. A newspaper's version of Siberia.
The movie in general release that broke ground on the subject of homosexuality in "polite society," Far From Heaven, documented the struggle in its way, but much less artfully than in Brokeback Mountain, where silences and averted eyes do much of the talking.
It is, as its predecessor, a period piece, and needs to be. But there will be those moviegoers today who will avoid the film simply because in their view it is an issue movie, and it's an issue they'd rather not see on the screen. Too bad for them, and for the rest of us. The period should be over.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 5:31 AM
Monday, January 02, 2006
Vietnam/Iraq
Many years ago in an antique store, I bought a stack of old magazines. Among them was the October 20,1967 issue of Life. The cover showed a United States prisoner of war in North Vietnam. He was sitting in his cell, beneath the words "Clean, Neat."I bought that copy because I knew that one day I would write a book about a childhood friend who never returned from the Vietnam War. He might have been taken prisoner, or might have been killed when his fighter jet crashed over the Ho Chi Minh Trail. No one yet knows for certain. Now that I've taken up that book project, I have been reviewing materials collected over the years.
The issue of Life contains an editorial about Vietnam. I reprint a paragraph of it here in the hopes that those who conduct our present war, many of whom did not have the advantage, if that is the word, of actually knowing combat (or even reading history), might at last make the connection between Vietnam and Iraq.
"Life believes that the U.S. is in Vietnam for honorable and sensible reasons. What the U.S has undertaken there is obviously harder, more complicated than the U.S. leadership foresaw. And in 1967 we are having another hard, complicated year out there. There is the encouraging fact of the Vietnamese elections...there is straight military progress...We are trying to defend not a fully born nation but a situation and a people from which an independent nation might emerge. We are also trying to maintain a highly important...strategic interest of the U.S. and the free world. This is a tough combination to ask young Americans to die for."
In terms of historical perspective, this editorial appeared a few months before the Tet Offensive, and, in the years following the publication, more than 30,000 U.S. soldiers, sailors, and airmen were killed.
An oddity about that magazine issue: It also contains a history of the Middle East -- and points out that in the early part of the last century, shortly after piecing together the new state of Iraq, the British threw up their hands, convinced that unity there was a hopeless cause.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 4:25 AM
Sunday, January 01, 2006
Torture
And so my friend announced at the New Year's Eve party that his resolution was "to learn to love a liberal." This is a swell idea, as his wife is a liberal.As it turns out, his is already an empty resolution. As we approached midnight, he was delivering the same old stuff. He admitted that he found John McCain to be one of the few politicians he could trust, "though I don't like his position on torture."
"That he's against it?" I asked.
"Right," said my friend, who said war is war, and there are no rules.
I expressed the notion that McCain has every right to be against torture, because he suffered from it during his more than five years as a prisoner of war -- and that he has an insider's view of this issue, which gives him extra qualifications to make judgments.
My friend shrugged this off. "He's no more qualified to speak on it than anyone else." He defended the view that draft dodgers like Bush and Cheney have just as much authority on the subject as McCain.
The only solace one can take from a "conversation" with such a man is that America is beginning to see through the rhetoric and dastardly politics. It isn't enough, but it's a start. So, last night, I could just shrug, dip my hand in the mixed nuts, and say "Happy New Year, even to you."
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 10:41 AM
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