Dr. Metablog

Books I Read, 2023

Ian McEwan, Black Dogs; Ian McEwan, Saturday; Julian Barnes, The Noise of Time; Ian McEwan, Amsterdam; Marcia Davenport, East Side, West Side; Thomas Halliday, Otherlands; Joseph Sassoon, The Sassoons; Jane Austen, Persuasion; Jane Austen, Mansfield Park; Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles; Jonathan Raban, Bad Land; David Thomson, Sleeping with Strangers; Michael North, The Baltic; Niall Williams, This is Happiness; James Vincent, Beyond Measure; Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove; Andrea Wulf,The Invention of Nature; Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield; David Hone, How Fast Did T. Rex Run?; Richard Klein, Cigarettes are Sublime; Claire Keegan, Foster; Howard Koch, Casablanca: Screenplay and Legend; Jeremy Dauber, Jewish Comedy, a Serious History; Caroline Pennock, On Savage Shore; The Best of Sholom Aleichem, ed. Howe and Wisse; Richard S. Laub, Two Acres of Time; Susan Rubin Suleiman, Daughter of History;  Rachel Brownstein, American Born; Mabee Weinstein, Ferns; Jane Austen, Emma (2x); Margo Jefferson, Negroland; Marsha Gordon, Becoming the Ex-Wife; Judith Hicks Stiehm, Janet Reno, A Life; Elliot Willensky, When Brooklyn was the World; Pete Hamill, A Drinking Life; Roger Cohen, The Girl from Human Street; Dorothy B. Hughes, In a Lonely Place; James Sturm, The Golem's Mighty Swing; Ian Smith, Black Shakespeare; Robert A.M. Stern, Between Memory and Invention; Paul G. Bahn, Cambridge Illustrated History of Prehistoric Art; George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia; Barry Manilow, Sweet Life; Jonathan Balcombe, Super Fly;  Eric R. Kandel, There is Life after the Nobel Prize; Barry Menikoff, Stone Mother; Norman Podhoretz, Making It;  David Scheel, Many Things Under a Rock; Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises; Eric Kandel, In Search of Memory; Timothy Garton Ash, Homelands.

Another Brooklyn Memoirist -- Marty Glickman

 In the late 40s and 50s, Marty Glickman was the radio voice of the New York Knicks. As a basketball announcer, he was simply the best. Most of us from that era, especially Brooklyn guys, can still recall in our mind's ear his melodious, accurate and rapid-fire recreation of the game. "Gallatin to Braun on the left wing. Swish."

Until a couple of days ago, I did not know that Marty Glickman had written (in an "as-told-to" kind of way) an autobiography called The Fastest Kid on the Block (1996), and that, believe it or not, one copy of this book is among the holdings of the Michener Library of the University of Northern Colorado, in Greeley, Colorado -- and is now in my very own hands. A warm thank you to UNC and to Interlibrary Loan.

Glickman was not only an announcer; he was also a student at fabled P S 217, my own not-so-"alma" mater, which he attended from first through sixth grade. He was born in 1917 so that would be in the 1920s. He was, get this, the fastest kid on the block in my very own neighborhood. 

He was not just a voice but an athlete, best known as a two-way football player at Syracuse University. He was also a top of the class sprinter who once ran a hundred yards in 9.5 seconds (the great Jesse Owens held the world record at 9.3). In 1936, Glickman was scheduled to run the second leg of the 4 x 100 at the Berlin Olympics.  He was scratched at the last minute for reasons that are still murky, but Glickman's opinion, and mine is that Adolf Hitler didn't want a Jew to win a medal, so he had Goebbels whisper to Avery Brundage, who was the head of U. S. Olympic committee, that Glickman not be allowed to run. (Brundage was a notorious racist, misogynist, and Jew-hater, known as "slavery Avery." (There's an unverified report that Brundage spoke at the February, 1939, Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden; it would nor have been out of character for him to have done so.)

Glickman is philosophical about not being allowed to run in the Olympics. It would have been good to show his grandchildren his gold medal, he says. I myself am indignant for him.  

Once, when I was still a Brooklyn yoot, a rumor swept the P S 217 schoolyard that "Marty Glickman is going to be here this afternoon."  He appeared, but all that I can remember is that he spoke to a knot of kids. I remember nothing more.

Another Brooklyn Memoirist -- Barry Menikoff

I met Barry Menikoff a couple of times. The first time was at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California and the second time when he was a visiting professor here in Boulder. A Robert Louis Stevenson specialist, he was; I've had a fondness for RLS from my childhood, and I've read a substantial percentage of his voluminous works, so we had something to talk about. Menikoff was then teaching in Hawaii and mighty anxious to find his way back to the mainland.

I knew nothing of his childhood except that like me he was a Brooklyn boy. Then, a while ago, I heard through a mutual acquaintance that he had written a memoir of his childhood and youth. And so he has. It's called Stone Mother, and it's privately printed but available on Amazon, and it's a damn good book that might with a few judicious edits have been a successful commercial publication. 

I used to tell my friends that I was the most naive boy in the history of the known universe ever to arrive on a college campus. But now I have a competitor. Menikoff knew a lot of things -- principally how to survive the death of his mother and the disappearance and neglect of his father, so he was not without resources. Socially, he was behindhand, and in terms of books and intellectual life, he was nowhere. It was quite an achievement for him to get from Brownsville to Brooklyn College and then on to a successful career as a teacher and scholar. 

I think that what I liked best about this memoir is its honesty.  It tells the truth and by doing so creates a strong, credible picture of Brooklyn life back then,

Basketball in My LIfe

My father, who was born in 1904, was a basketball enthusiast when the game was in its infancy. He was a guard on Eastern District High School's team and later played as a freshman at CCNY under legendary coach Nat Holman. But Dad came from an impoverished family and left college after one year because, he told me once, "I couldn't see how I could stay in school when my family needed so much." So while his formal education went by the wayside, he was able to make up the difference by a lifetime of reading. And although he was not a complaining sort, it was clear to me and I think to my brothers that he felt a bit grieved that his formal athletic career had been cut so short. He kept at it, though, on his own. Well into his forties, he was absent from family dinner one night a week. "Wednesdays," my mother explained, long before I could understand what the words meant, "your father goes to the gym." And Saturday mornings, in warm weather, were reserved for tennis. Dad very much wanted his three sons to carry on his athletic tradition, but I think, in retrospect, that in the long run we all disappointed him. Both my brothers were fine athletes although not big or fast enough for professional careers; I was, alack and alas, a disappointment. Dad, who had also been a semi-pro catcher in baseball, taught Gene and Jon how to throw an "inshoot" and an "outshoot," but he could not bring himself to coach me because it was obvious that with my 55 mile an hour fastball and scattershot arm, I wasn't going anywhere, pitching-wise, and although he showed me a couple of basketball moves he was, I recognize, a bit embarrassed by my want of athletic skill. (In my defense I must report that although I was more academic than athletic, I was voted "class athlete" by my P. S. 217 (8-5) eighth grade class -- a group which must have been, now that I think of it, quite a collection of klutzes). My older brother was a good enough basketball player to play for his college team for a year, and my younger brother was an outstanding sandlot all-star in baseball who once struck out Joe Torre, who, it will be remembered, finished his major league career with a .300 lifetime average. (The second time he pitched to Torre, my brother says, the future MVP hit a ball that "is still circling the earth.") I myself had the briefest career on the diamond. The pinnacle of my experience was that, once, playing second base, I turned a double play -- took the toss from the shortstop, stepped on the bag, gracefully wheeled, and pegged the ball perfectly to the first baseman. It happened once and once only, but it was glorious -- definitely a Hall of Fame moment. The peak of my basketball career occurred in the slippery court (which doubled as a dance floor) in the basement of the Flatbush Jewish Center on Coney Island Avenue and Avenue J. I was, I estimate, thirteen years old. Wearing number 3, in black and gold, I was steaming down the left side of the court on a fast break and was forced away from the basket, so instead of a layup I managed a sweeping running left-handed hook which caught nothing but net. There was modest applause. None of my teammates guessed that I had intended to bank the ball off the backboard and that it had slipped out of my hand and swished, entirely by accident. I only reveal this deep secret now, very now.  Another high point in my career: I once won a local foul shooting contest. I hit 23 of 25. One small caveat, though. The contest was conducted in the P.S. 217 schoolyard, where the baskets were, how shall I say this correctly, unsteady and soft. As a result, they were like sewers -- everything flushed. I doubt that I would have made 23 on a standard rigid rim. Nevertheless, I did win the medal and the other competitors all used the same ball and basket as I -- so, therefore, a modest triumph. And then playing basketball faded into the background, because I didn't get my growth until very late and for a while I was playing at 4' 11" or 5' 1" against hairy guys who had already reached their full mature height. But I continued to pursue my undistinguished career -- including the most competitive activity of my life -- three on three half court in the EHHS gym, one basket wins, and "winners out." And then a little intramural in Ithaca; an occasional pickup game in Cambridge. Oh, and twenty years later on, I played a bit with my own offspring, all three of whom were more athletic than I. My last pathetic hurrah (almost a decade ago, now) was being obliterated at h-o-r-s-e by my granddaughter Ella. 

Nevertheless, I retained my interest in the sport. No longer a participant, I became a serious spectator. I know enough about roundball to appreciate both player and play. For thirty years or so, I had a good seat at the home games of the CU Buffaloes -- it was high quality college basketball (although the Buffs rarely enjoyed a winning season). One source of interest and fun for me was to evaluate the talent and try to predict which of our guys (or the visitors') were talented enough to move up to the next level. Over the years, I followed the early days of many a later NBA regular -- and even a couple of stars. I remember in particular Jay Humphries, who played four excellent seasons for CU and then averaged in double figures during an extended NBA career. Also local lad Chauncey Billups, "Mr Big Shot" himself. Andre Roberson, a terrific defender and rebounder who never lived up to his potential because he just couldn't master the corner three; Matt Bullard, a fine outside shooter; Scott Wedman; Alec Burks; Derrick White (still playing for Boston and getting better each year); and Spencer Dinwiddie, whom I didn't judge to be an NBA player but who has become a steady professional. The high point of my CU spectatorial career occurred in 2006 when the Texas Longhorns brought to our stadium a gangly teen-ager named Kevin Durant. One didn't have to be a sophisticated evaluator of talent to recognize that KD had a spectacular career ahead of him; it was grandly obvious. It took him only two years to lead the NBA in scoring. I stopped attending CU games when the athletic department, an independent entity with only a loose connection to the University, demanded that I make a donation of $400 for the privilege of purchasing season tickets. I resented the presumption, and I felt that there were many causes more worthy of my limited philanthropy than CU basketball. Although I stay away from our local Events Center, I'm still an occasional arena visitor. In fact, just last season, LERM and I bought incredibly expensive tickets to watch the Cavaliers take on the Pelicans at the Smoothie King Arena in New Orleans. The venue was up-to-date but way too brightly lit, and crowded, and noisy. Moreover, I dislike the theory that attendees must be continually entertained and placated with garish novelties. I don't go to basketball games for the half-time acrobats or the animal acts or the costumed dancers or the "kiss-cam" or the ear-popping "music" nor to be commanded when to cheer or when to chant "DE-FENSE." I go to watch and admire the players. Despite the distractions it was a good game, even though Zion Williamson was out with an ankle injury. These pros, even the unheralded ones, are fabulous athletes and they are especially impressive in person. 

So for most of my life it's been the electronic medium that has kept me abreast of the game. It all started with radio; I suspect that very few readers of this entry will be able to recall the fast-paced narration of Marty Glickman on WHN, but he was, let me tell you, a hoops artist who could bring the Knicks alive with voice alone. Then came television, sometime around the early 1950s. The thirteen inch black-and-white Dumont that my father acquired displayed an image that seemed miraculous at the time but paleolithically primitive compared to the 60" HDTV that entrances me nowadays. It's all present -- right there before my astonished eyes. Incredible no-look passes and sensational blocks and three-pointers from downtown -- and also horrid tattoos -- in brilliant color. In my TV-basketball saturated brain is stored the entire history of the NBA from then until now. In the 50s, Max Zaslofsky, Harry Gallatin, Sweetwater Clifton, Carl Braun, the McGuire brothers Dick and Al, and Ernie Vandeweghe, who played only home games because he was a full-time medical student. A team that was good but always managed to lose to the Celtics -- who had Cousy and Sharman and later Bill Russell, the Jones boys (Sam and KC), Havlicek and Heinsohn. I was in those years a most loyal and enthusiastic fan of our own New York Knickerbockers -- the championship teams composed of Willis Reed, Dave DeBusschere, Bill Bradley, Earl Monroe, and Walt Frazier, names and faces as present in my memory as the more celebrated Dodger boys of summer. Then came the Magic-Bird era, LA "showtime," Michael Jordan, Duncan-Ginobili-Parker-Popovich, and now LeBron James, who, although, he is certainly the most effective player in history, is less exciting to watch than his innovative contemporary, Steph Curry. During this last while, I've become a devoted GSW fan; when they were at their best, a few years ago, they played an extraordinarily beautiful game. There were nights when they'd score 30 baskets on 25 lovely assists. It's been a great ride that's now coming to an end, but there's another generation of players on the horizon and perhaps I'll be around long enough to enjoy them. After all, I've been there for the entire history of the NBA. What developments I have seen! What was once a local, coterie sport has gone international, with many of the best players coming from overseas or south of the border. Where once all the players, save a few, were White and middle-class, now 75% to 80% are Black and inner-city, bringing with them a heck of a lot of skill and flash and dazzle. Lumbering awkward centers, with their slow roundhouse hook shots, have been superseded by astonishingly mobile 7-footers who can protect the rim but also drift outside to nail a three. Salaries, in the old days, were little more than nominal and now there are marginal players making millions as backups. The athletes have become celebrities -- and their shoes have become almost as famous as they are, and more lucrative. Franchises, which once went for a song, are now worth billions.

When I'm watching a game on a Sunday afternoon, I think about my father. I wish he could sit with me and discuss the progress of the sport. I'd like to show him what has happened since he left us in 1985. He'd like it that the players are bigger, faster, stronger, in better shape, and that the shooting is more accurate and the defenses more subtle and sophisticated. He'd love the pick-and-roll and the pick-and-pop. He'd appreciate the alley-oops and the accurate full court passes. I also know what he wouldn't like -- the overhasty three, the lenient interpretation of walking and palming, and the occasional showboating, Most of all, he'd hate it that the NBA is now in cahoots with the gambling establishment. He would see it, as I do, as a major miscalculation -- as a scandal waiting to happen. 

Every once in a while, even at this advanced age, I dream that I'm in the midst of a game, and I rise up and with an effortless flick of the right wrist launch a perfect 40-foot three that hardly even grazes the net. A childish fantasy, perhaps, but still very  satisfying.  

Amnesia on Film: Black Angel

[Warning, metablogians: do not read the following paragraphs if you're planning to see Black Angel, a curious, interesting 1946 noir. Your viewing pleasure will be ruined by the following "all spoiler" entry.] 

Once again, it's amnesia, Hollywood style -- an alcoholic blackout that is granted a patina of respectability when a doctor calls it Korsakoff's syndrome. The plot in brief: a whiskey-soaked amnesiac (Martin Blair, played by Cornell's own Dan Duryea) has just plain forgotten that he murdered his bad-girl blackmailing wife.

I must say it's a difficult premise for me to swallow -- but is nevertheless the kind of oddity that's par for the course in the Hammett-Chandler-Woolrich universe.

To add to the complexity, forgetful Martin sets out to find the killer, and is hot on the trail when his memory suddenly returns -- and in a flash he realizes that he himself is the guilty party for whom he's searching. It's a mighty contrived and out-of-left field kind of revelation -- but I must confess that I fell for it. I was deceived by a series of red herrings and was surprised by the film's outcome. I rather doubt that most viewers will be as much a sucker as I was. 

Like many noirs, Black Angel gets off to a very fast start. Scarcely thirty seconds in, Mavis Marlowe (Constance Dowling) opens a bureau drawer and retrieves her nice ladylike pistol. I respect a movie that's thoroughly and instantaneously loyal to its genre. I wonder, though, whether future generations, studying those many black-and-white crime films of the 1940s and 50s, won't think that every chest of drawers, armoire, lowboy, highboy, tallboy, dresser, and chiffonier in Los Angeles or New York City harbored an easily accessible derringer, rod, gat, or piece.  

 

"Hereditary Meritocracy"

"Hereditary meritocracy" is a phrase, and a concept, that hits home. Reluctantly, I must concede that these words characterize my small corner of the American experience (at least in part).

"Hereditary meritocracy" is a pointed irony. It's obviously an oxymoron -- a contradiction -- in which an adjective that goes one way is sutured to a noun that goes another -- juxtaposing, as it does, unearned heredity to earned merit.  

Heredity, as it defines an individual, comprehends the talents or defects that happen to lie in one's genes. In the wider social sense, it refers to what is often called "ascribed status" or "ascribed value." You can be a marquis or a mogul because your father or grandfather was "well born" or because he made a ton of money -- not because you yourself ever lifted a finger. But to be a member of the meritocracy, you must have achieved something intellectual, financial, political, artistic, or whatever. Your own abilities, your own work. 

But heredity and merit are not as distinct in practice as they are in theory, as the phrase "hereditary meritocracy" indicates. The hereditarily rich and well-born have advantages that allow their offspring to "achieve" and prosper. Children of the advantaged develop, it's been shown, larger cerebellums. They attend better schools, enjoy a richer home life, have better medical care and are coached in music and art and athletics. Of course they then perform better on standardized tests, which is then interpreted as as a sign of merit. It's a better forecast of "success" to be rich with mediocre genes than poor with excellent genes and good work habits -- though it's hard for some of the privileged to admit this obvious fact.

And now to the point. I myself and my family have during this last century made our way into the "hereditary meritocracy." Although we're not particularly rich in cash, we're rich in family resources and intergenerational support. I believe that every one of my own parents' descendants, and there are now 24 of them, has or will graduate from college. We are almost uniformly "professionals":  accountants, lawyers, teachers, librarians, journalists. Not a one of us rolls cigars for a living, as did my grandfather. We're prosperous.

Should we be embarrassed or ashamed that we can provide a privileged life for our descendants. I don't think so, because we didn't step on anyone's heads to get here. We need not apologize for our successes in this new world. 

But we do have obligations. The first is to be aware of our good fortune and to realize that our successes owe as much to opportunity as to effort. (After all, with the same genes, we were stagnant and miserable for a thousand years in the "old country"). And then we must also make sure that we do not put barriers in the way of others -- or more positively, we must try to help others find themselves in the same comfortable niche that we have reached. It's an imperfect system, this "hereditary meritocracy," but it is far from the worst the world has known.