Lary Bloom
Writer, Editor, Teacher
The Bloom Blog
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Monday, April 24, 2006
Wally Lamb And His Flock
On Sunday afternoon, Wally Lamb came to an auditorium in Deep River. He brought with him two of the 11 co-authors of Couldn't Keep It To Myself, the collection of memoirs that stirred all the trouble at the highest levels of Connecticut government a couple of years ago.I have known Wally for more than 20 years, since he submitted his first piece of fiction to me when I edited Northeast magazine at the Hartford Courant. Like everyone who knows him, I celebrated his subsequent great success as a novelist (She's Come Undone and This Much I Know Is True) -- for once, the phrase "It couldn't happen to a nicer guy" really applied.
Even the inmates at York Correctional Facility -- women who committed felonies ranging from fraud to murder, and who enrolled in Wally's memoir class -- found him so. When I did a piece about Nancy Whitely, one of the authors of Couldn't Keep It To Myself, she told me, "You knew instantly that Wally would nothing to hurt you."
In his remarks in Deep River, Wally recalled the outrageous reaction of the state Department of Corrections to what happened at York. After working with the inmates, Wally decided that their memoirs could be collected into a compelling book. Harper Collins agreed, and in 2003, Couldn't Keep It To Myself was published. Each writer was given a $5,600 advance, small in the publishing world, but huge to them. And to the State of Connecticut, which sued the women. It wanted not only the money they were paid but reimbursement, under a rarely enforced law, for the costs the state incurred for incarcerating them -- $117 for every day they were under lock and key.
It was ridiculous. The state was punishing prisoners for learning a skill that could help them when they got out. Many observors (I was one of them) thought part of the state's motivation was that the book contained criticism of York and its policies. After an anti-state onslaught in the press, the DOC backed away from its demands.
And yet, as Wally pointed out yesterday, ironies abound. For one: Many of the inmates are now free, and leading productive lives. The governor of Connecticut, who supported the action against the inmates, became an inmate himself. The head of the DOC at the time went on to a position at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
In the program yesterday, two former inmates read work by them and others. Brenda Medina said her greatest challenge after getting out of prison was technology. She didn't know what an ATM was. And she confided that she was startled just before she came on stage in Deep River when the toilet in the women's room flushed automatically.
Robin Cullen said she was startled when she first went to York. She had assumed that a prison wouldn't kick people while they were down. But it was clear to her that York wasn't interested a the time in rehabilitation (a position that has changed).
Wally, it would seem from the evidence, has started a new prison industry: Memoir. And poetry and fiction and art and dance (taught by others, and inspired by Wally and by Dale Griffith, who co-taught the memoir workshops).
We shouldn't, of course, forget the victims of the crimes of these inmates. But it seems a reasonable idea that it is possible for people to emerge from prison with the tools and motivation to become productive citizens.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 8:20 AM
Friday, April 21, 2006
Twain's Minister At War
Last night, I went to R.J. Julia book store in Madison to hear Steve Courtney talk about his new book, a collection of the Civil War letters of the Reverand Joseph Twichell. This isn't the book Steve first set out to produce. Back when we were colleagues at Northeast magazine, he began working on Twichell's biography. But then the opportunity came to co-edit letters, in a collection at Yale, that the minister sent home from Gettysburg, the Wilderness, and many other legendary American battlefields.Twichell, Steve is well aware, is not a household name. The minister's modest fame, if that isn't a contradiction in terms, comes from the fact that he was Mark Twain's preacher at the Asylum Hill Congregational Church in Hartford -- which, because of its upper crust members, Twain referred to as the Church of the Holy Speculators. Twain and Twichell became fast friends, and it was a relationship that lasted for decades. The writer was fascinated by his friend's knowledge and experiences -- including the war.
What struck me about Steve's book signing last night was that many of the people in the crowd appeared to be there largely because they are Civil War buffs. In the question and answer period, they asked intense questions about certain battles. It was almost as if they had been at Gettysburg themselves in the brutal summer of 1863, at Little Round Top, the Wheat Field, or in the Peach Orchard.
This has always fascinated me -- the Civil War Industry. Of all the wars America has been involved in, none bring out the experts as this one. There are tons of books on the subject, of course, but the Twichell book adds a dimension that hasn't been seen; it is a view from behind the lines but graphic in its descriptions and elegant in its prose. And it ought to help create a Twichell industry, particularly when the University of Georgia Press brings out, finally, Steve's bio of the minister next spring.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 6:01 AM
Friday, April 14, 2006
The New Pharaohs
The Passover Seder tried to keep on track, and not disintegrate into familiar political commentary. This was not easy. I asked the question, at the beginning of the meal, how the story of Exodus relates to today. We managed, not surprisingly, to mention Darfur, and a few Middle Eastern countries in the news. I wanted to focus on this issue: What does a person in America do about the suffering of others short of declaring war and dropping nuclear bombs?Iran, of course, was at the center of this. We know about oppression there, as we knew about oppression in Iraq. Our promise, as people who gather at the seder table every spring, is to help those in bondage. But the Bush Administration's only answer to that question seems to be the threat of bombs. Bomb them into freedom.
It is true that the Haggadah story that we read every year is violent. Pharaoh gets his in a big way: 10 plagues including the death of the first born, and then the drowning of much of his army. There's no denying that Biblical tales more than infer that violence is an option. But all of that is in a context of virtues people are supposed to recognize and acquire.
One person at the seder offered the usual advice: We've got to vote Democrats into office. That's practical. But there's more. We need to be on this case every day. We need to be vocal. We need to be less consumed by American Idol and more by the world around us.
That's the message, updated, of the story of Passover.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 5:18 AM
Monday, April 10, 2006
The Kristof Awards
Pulitzer Prize judges will soon announce their choices for 2006 awards. In my view, there is no competition in commentary category -- Nicholas D. Kristof, of the New York Times, wins by acclamation. Any other result would be a farce. In fact, they should rename the Pulitzers the Kristofs.Who else has had the courage to report from the most dangerous spot on earth? And I don't mean the Green Zone in Baghdad. In a one-writer crusade, he has pounded away at the genocide in the Darfur region of the Sudan. He has seen first-hand the reign of devastation by government-backed militia -- while the world has looked away, as it did in Rwanda, and when the Kurds were gassed, and when the Khmer Rouge terrorized fellow Cambodians, and when the Nazis began to carry out their endgame.
The Times has won more Pulitzer Prizes than any other newspaper. It is a distinguished body of work. But this one will be special -- a reminder that there still are selfless and courageous journalists who address the universal sin of indifference.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 6:23 AM
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Chief Wahoo, Proudly
The poet David Holdt sent me a gift the other day. He explained that years ago his children bought him a Cleveland Indians jacket, and that he no longer wears it. He tried to think of someone to give it to -- in New England, there is something less than a great demand for Tribe memorabilia (though I have often argued, to deaf ears, that the Indians are Connecticut's real home team, because they play in what once was the state's Western Reserve). David remembered that I have something of an attachment to the Tribe. Or, more precisely, I have not been able to overcome childhood behavior.The problem, of course, with Cleveland Indians gear is that it displays, proudly, the mascot: Chief Wahoo. It is a symbol I grew up with, and one that became over the years the object of scorn from those who think it is demeaning to Native Americans. It may well be. And yet I display it. And so does my friend, the artist Sol LeWitt, who is the champion of all liberal causes. When I asked him why Chief Wahoo is so prominent at his studio in the woods, he just shrugged. I can only conclude that baseball fans, all of us, are conveniently nuts. Or, as the sage put it: Baseball is not a matter of life and death. It's more important than that.
By the way, I'm wearing my Tribe jacket as a write this. (And Chief Wahoo says hello.)
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 8:32 AM
Thursday, April 06, 2006
The Blue Blood Bluegrass Blues
Barry Bingham Jr. died earlier this week. Unless you live in Louisville, you may not have noted his passing, or recall his soft voice and enormous handlebar mustache. But if you are an Honorary Kentucky Colonel, you know very well that Barry Bingham Jr. and the Bingham family made big news among the bluegrass set.Bingham, like his father before him, was publisher of the Louisville Courier Journal, once considered among the finest American newspapers -- in particular in the way it aggressively reported bias and bigotry in a state that was never known to be progressive except in the way it marketed its bourbon and racing industries.
Every spring, around Kentucky Derby time, I visited Louisville to attend a magazine conference, and Bingham Jr. held forth, hosting a reception and handing out awards. We always had the impression that the Bingham family, including the old man, Barry Senior, was genteel Southern, and in a sense we were in awe of them. Courteous, smart, with the community's welfare at heart. Until it all fell apart. Until brother and sisters started suing each other, and battling over control of their newspaper.
The height of the mess coincided with an annual conference. As usual, we gathered on Saturday night at River Club (hard by the Ohio). The bourbon flowed and the band played the "Tennessee Waltz." That's when Barry Bingham Sr., whom I barely knew, pulled me aside. With the hand that was holding a glass of Kentucky's best, he gestured toward his son, who was talking to an editor from Chicago. Senior said to me, "Barry's such a fool. I can't believe what my children have done."
When I saw the obit in the New York Times, I thought of that moment -- instead of the enormous achievements of a courageous newspaper.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 5:46 AM
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
O Jackie
For many years, I tried to convince Jackie McLean that we should collaborate on his life story. But he was reluctant. Besides, he said, that if he did decide to undertake an autobiography he would likely do it with a jazz writer. I objected. "Yours isn't a 'jazz' story as much as it is the story of an American triumph.' "That is, while it's true that Jackie Mac, as friends referred to him, ascended to the very top of the jazz world -- the pre-eminent alto sax player -- the real story is something else. It is is that, in mid-career, he decided to use his street experience (a former heroin addiction) to become a force for good among black youths. Through his insistence that they learn heritage and music and what it takes to make a good apperance in life, Jackie sent thousands of young people on the right path. That's the story I wanted to tell.
Well, there are references to it now in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, and every other major newspaper in America. They carried Jackie's obit over the last few days -- he died peacefully at home with his wife Dollie and his children around him. All of the obits pointed out his community work, though none really got to the heart of it.
I still see in my memory scared little kids coming into his Artist's Collective when it was in its old building on Clark Street in the troubled north end Hartford. And I see these kids, weeks later, up on stage, dancing and singing and playing to an audience as if they were born to do it. That's the music of life -- and Jackie knew how to play it better than anyone I ever met.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 7:45 AM
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Fear Never Struck Out
Last night, TMC showed the 1957 film, Fear Strikes Out. I couldn't bear to watch it. Tony Perkins was not at all convincing in portraying an athlete; his Jimmy Piersall, the mentally ill centerfielder, could hardly throw a baseball. (in other films,, Gary Cooper as Lou Gehrig, William Bendix as Babe Ruth, and Ronald Reagan as Grover Cleveland Alexander at least had some natural athletic grace).But that wasn't my real issue. The movie, based on Piersall's book, was meant to articulate the difficulties of mental illness at a time when this disease was considered scandalous. A brave thing for Piersall to come out with. But of course the illness is the kind that is forever hard to control, even with drugs.
And here's what I thought of: a scene four years after the movie came out. Cleveland Municipal Stadium, the summer of 1961. I am sitting behind the Cleveland Indians dugout, thanks to my penchant that season for dating the niece of the team's public relations director. That afternoon, the Indians are playing the Yankees in a doubleheader and getting spanked hard. Piersall, now playing for the Tribe after spending his most productive years with the Red Sox, is having a rough afternoon. By the midst of the second game, he has had no hits yet for the day. He is in the batter's box, and taking boos from the crowd. On a three and two pitch, he astoundingly tries to bunt to get himself finally on base. But he fouls the pitch off, and, as the rules of basesball state, it's a strikeout. As he walks back to the dugout, he hears the voice of a fan two seats to the right of me. The guy yells, "You're still crazy, Piersall."
The centerfielder looks up -- clearly and justifiably furious. And for some reason he looks directly at me, his eyes intense now. He concludes, apparently, that I am the culprit, and, moreover, has already decided that my heritage is a part of the problem. He shouts, "I'll get you, you Jew bastard." And, still holding his bat, he tries to leap over the dugout. I have no time, of course, to reason with him -- to say that I admire his candor in the book he wrote, even if I wasn't entirely impressed by his day's batting average. Before Piersall can get to me -- and therefore make me front-page news all over the country -- his teammate Vic Power grabs him by the ankles and brings him back down to earth.
I have often thought of this incident, and how sad it made me. Fear never struck out. As a batter it has no weaknesses.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 7:44 AM
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