R.I.P. in 2020: The Write to Remember

 

  Just as day is done

 we exhale our perfumes

   into the night

      we’ve won

 --Michael McClure

 Every December I devote some time to seeking out the names of people who died during that year that I want to particularly remember and honor at year’s end. I go through the lists of the most prominent compiled by major media, plus a few specialized lists. And then I even scroll through Wikipedia’s day by day lists, which tend to be heavy with the names of European soccer stars. This year my eye stopped on at least 20 names that turned out to not be the person I remember, but someone else with that name. The person I remember usually had died years before. 

 But I also come across names I am dismayed to see: people I admire who didn’t make the big media lists, but who I regard as especially important.

 Most of the time, those names turn out to belong to writers. Not to surprise anyone, but writers aren’t valued much in this society, though what may surprise many is that this is very unusual in human history. Their storytelling counterparts in Indigenous societies were vital, and writers and artists were central to most cultures since. Their status even in America has been higher, including in my lifetime.

 These days writers are central to a largely self-selected segment of the population, but to these individual readers and listeners (for readings and audio books have revived the aural tradition), individual writers are very important. And though they may no longer be recognized for doing so, they may influence the culture and even the course of history. 

 

One writer who died this year and didn’t make most national media cuts but who clearly was a big time player in how American culture changed in the past sixty-five years was Michael McClure.

 McClure was one of the poets featuring in the San Francisco poetry reading in 1955 that exploded into the culture as the Beat movement. The event is famous for Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl,” but Gary Snyder also read for the first time that night, and Jack Kerouac was prowling the audience, passing jugs of wine and cheerleading. (McClure became a character in several Kerouac novels.)

 Steeped in the literature of the past, McClure was a fearless innovator. His first public writing was poetry, but he achieved more fame as a playwright, particularly for The Beard, which got its lead actor and actress arrested—twice-- for indecency, and went on to win awards in New York. 

 Mating poetry and theatre was only one of his many cross-fertilizing adventures. He became friends with Jim Morrison and Robbie Robertson, and wrote a song with Janis Joplin—her “Mercedes Benz” hit. In more recent years he performed his poetry many times accompanied by former Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek.

 He was friends as well with avante garde filmmaker Stan Brakhage and actor/director Peter Fonda, and contributed to and appeared (sometimes as an actor) in several Fonda films. (He’s also in Scorcese’s The Last Waltz, a film of the last concert by the Band.)

 

He was passionately interested in painting in the 50s, and considered himself a naturalist, and so became a point of connection between literary artists and scientists like his friend, DNA-decoder Francis Krick. McClure consciously connected the vertical—the older literary gurus like Kenneth Rexroth, Robert Duncan and Jack Spicer, and connected horizontally with literary contemporaries, like Ginsberg, Kerouac, Snyder and poet Diane DiPrima (who also died in 2020) but also Robert Creeley and his mentor, Charles Olson.

 He was an early and close friend to Richard Brautigan, who became the most famous of the San Francisco writers in the late 1960s. In the 60s McClure was an active facilitator, not only introducing Creeley to Jim Morrison, but literally introducing Marshall McLuhan to Bob Dylan.

 

I recall having this 
early 60s book, so
probably my first
dip into McClure's 
work.

He also wrote essays and newspaper journalism, eventually becoming a kind of elder statesman, an embodiment of recent history, as well as a teacher to later generations.

 Earlier this century I interviewed Michael McClure on the phone for a piece I did for the San Francisco Chronicle on Buddhism in the Bay Area. He explained how Asian a city San Francisco was in the 1950s, and so how naturally it became the first center for Buddhism in America. He mentioned his own meditation practice as part of his “Hummingbird Sangha,” a group that meditated together facing a garden where hummingbirds hummed. He was generous and personable, making sure I had good quotes for the piece. After it was published, he emailed me his delight, saying that the article had advanced or contributed to “the Dharma,” probably the greatest compliment I’ve ever received. 

 In recent years, McClure emphasized how different the 1950s were when the Beats emerged: how repressed and conformist and reactionary, with little tolerance for anything different. When asked by a young man where the Beat Generation spirit, the 60s spirit had gone, he answered: look at yourself. You’re wearing jeans and an organic cotton t-shirt, a hemp cap. You care about the environment, you’re aware of racism and you’re against war. Where has it gone? It’s you.

 Today in America there are occasionally groups of writers in the same place and a community that knows them. It doesn’t seem to happen a lot anymore but when it does, it owes something to the San Francisco that McClure saw over decades, and in large measure nurtured and helped to live. Michael McClure died in May at the age of 87. 

 William Kittredge died in December. He lived and taught in Montana for many years and wrote about that part of the country (and he was a co-producer of the movie A River Runs Through It), but the books of his I have and know are about the country in Oregon where he grew up: a book on the Klamath River to which he contributed text, and the books that evoke his youth.

 A Hole in the Sky is pretty much devoted to his experiences growing up on the ranch his father owned. I had never read anything quite like it: at once a braided memoir of exaltations and mistakes in dealing with the land, and a evocation of the landscape as eternally sacred, written in cadenced prose like crystal.

 The Nature of Generosity is more various and ambitious but the prose is just as mesmerizing. The introduction alone makes it an American classic. Language and story are themselves themes. “Narratives may well be our fundamental survival strategy, from which all the complex rest of our schemes follow.” His ecological vision is broad, deep and original. William Kittredge deserves to be read and remembered.

 I first encountered the work of Eric Bentley in the 1970s in connection with the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee—probably his 1972 play based on transcripts of hearings. But it was his writing on theatre that captivated me in the 1990s. I believe the first book of his essays or reviews I read was The Life of the Drama (1983.) If it wasn’t, it should have been because that’s what his writing did for me—it brought life to drama and dramatic criticism that motivated me to go deeper into the subject. All of which came in handy when I started writing regularly on theatre. 

 Bentley was a playwright and a singer, but most of that work was in New York when I wasn’t. But I could read his essays in a half dozen other collections, plus some specialized works, particularly on Brecht. Just as Michael McClure embodied ideals, accomplishments and change in American culture since the 1950s, Bentley embodied the ideals advanced in western theatre since the 1940s. He died in August at the age of 102.

Le Carre

 Other writers who died in 2020 include playwrights Terence McNally (of Covid), Israel Horovitz and Murray Schisgal, poets Ernesto Cardenal and Ann Stevenson, and another poet (besides McClure and DiPrima) associated with the San Francisco Beat era, Ruth Weiss.

 The premier novelist John Le Carre died in 2020, as did fictionists Alison Lurie, Tim O’Brien and the last of the science fiction magazine generation, Ben Bova. Two novelists whose stories achieved almost mythic status when transformed into films were Charles Webb (The Graduate) and Winston Groom (Forrest Gump.)

 Barry Lopez wrote about the natural environment, often as reports of his travels, as in his most famous book, Arctic Dreams. Michael Soule co-edited The Re-Invention of Nature to counter the devaluations of deconstructionists. 

Stanley Crouch

 Freeman Dyson was an esteemed physicist (with some blind spots on the environment) who also wrote well—I enjoyed several of his books. Stanley Crouch wrote about jazz and black culture; he was a poet and novelist and raconteur. On television he radiated charm and intelligence and originality—every time I saw him I wished I knew him so I could listen to him for hours more.

 

I first knew of Jan Morris when she was James, an acclaimed writer about people and places whose gender reassignment surgery was pioneering and therefore prominent news. While she remained a symbol for some, eventually her transformation was all but forgotten by many—I’ll bet some of her readers over these many decades didn’t even know.

 Pete Hamill was an exemplary New York journalist who bridged old school and new. Richard Reeves was a columnist I read and listened to, and subsequently the author of books on political history.

 

Gail Sheehy was a magazine journalist associated with the New Journalism of the 60s who became famous for her book Passages. Robert Sam Anson was a hot commodity as a magazine writer when I was prowling editors’ offices in New York in the 70s and 80s.

 Bruce Jay Friedman is another name associated with humor in the 60s, especially for his screenplays. George Steiner wrote fiction and literary criticism of breadth with an individual and moral point of view. A.E. Hotchner was a novelist and biographer best known for his books on Hemingway. 

 

And finally—because I am most familiar with her name after the end credits of PBS programs I loved—Rosalind P. Walter, known as a philanthropist especially in humanities and great PBS funder, who in her youth was the model for that World War II icon, Rosie the Riveter.

May they all rest in peace.  Their work lives on.

R.I.P. in 2020: Moments To Remember

We value those closest to us for their continuing presence, for their support and their surprises, their questions and comments and movement through our mutual world, their words (of wisdom or of hilarity or both), their particular physical presence, their expressions and the sound of their voices. But once the continuity is broken by death, what we eventually remember is mostly moments, when their lives intertwined with ours in some memorable way. If we have been close for a time and over time, it takes time to see those moments clearly, beyond the fog of grief. 

 The moments are easier to recall when they are people we value in some way but that we never knew personally, or only briefly. We may admire their achievements but we remember the moments that stay with us. In some way, or even at some moment, we have formed a personal relationship, so our memories have both of us in them, even if we weren’t there at all. I expect that’s true even of those who made a vast public impression, and changed many lives, like Rep. John Lewis and—in his brief moment—the young Chadwick Boseman.

 

But as much as I admire the achievements, principles and example of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, what I remember first is looking her in the eye as she marched to the Columbia University graduation ceremony I attended.

 

Railsback conferring with Chair Rodini

In a different way, the death of an otherwise obscure politician evoked distinct moments both in history and my experience.

 Tom Railsback was a Republican Member of Congress, representing a district in Illinois that I believe included Galesburg, where I went to college and otherwise lived for about 5 years. It was only about five years later that I was seeing him on TV in the epic Watergate committee hearings, which I watched obsessively every day. With his tremulous voice he was clearly agonized and reluctant to accept the mounting evidence, but eventually he became a key Republican in writing the two articles of impeachment that were finally adopted. I watched him writhe in one or another of those awful 1970s suits for weeks, but his journey from Nixon acolyte to defender of the Constitution was extraordinary, and riveting to watch. 

 The memories in moments is especially true of actors and other performing artists and entertainers, and part of their mystery: they may have lived long lives and performed many times, but may be remembered for only a few portrayals, or moments.

 

Shirley Knight in Petulia (1968)

So although Sean Connery was famous for other films, I’ll remember him as Indiana Jones’ father, and as Danny in The Man Who Would Be King. I’ll recall Shirley Knight for the impact of one short mesmerizing scene with George C. Scott in Richard Lester’s 1968 film Petulia. Or Pamela Tiffin with Paul Newman in Harper. I remember Wilford Brimley best in another Newman film: Absence of Malice, but also in a fairly obscure 1984 film called Country. Or Max von Sydow in those Bergman

 films, but also as a quietly methodical hit man opposite Robert Redford in Three Days of the Condor.

 Perhaps we remember those most fondly who were characters in our childhood, or some specific part of our lives. Ken Osmond created the immortally awful Eddie Haskell in Leave It To Beaver, which was his only successful role, playing it in the 1950s and again in the 1980s and 90s, with a stint as an actual Los Angeles motorcycle cop in between.

 

Abby Dalton in Hennessey

Abby Dalton is better known for other television roles, but for me she was one of my first crushes playing opposite Jackie Cooper in a favorite late 1950s/early 1960s TV comedy: Hennessey. (I still remember the theme tune.) Ed Byrnes as Kookie was a kid’s delight in 77 Sunset Strip. 

 

Honor Blackman

And of course, Diana Rigg as Mrs. Peel. I knew she was sexy even if I was too naive to get the joke of her character’s name. Then she was replaced on The Avengers by the very fit and sexy Honor Blackman, who went on to a long and varied career which included the ultimate Bond girl as well as musicals, a Tom Stoppard stage play and television, including classic Doctor Who. And speaking of sexy, there was Ann Reinking in the amazing 1979 film All That Jazz.

 Later on TV there was Kevin Dobson as Kojack’s second, a peculiar contributor to a hometown exile in the 1970s, and James Lipton, whose BRAVO Actors’ Studio interviews were among the presentations that momentarily justified the claims of cable TV, though that sure didn’t last. 

 

When I was first going to the movies with my friends as a kid, among the big male stars were Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis and Kirk Douglas. Of course Douglas is indelible for Spartacus, but I remember him also in Disney’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and his very different roles opposite Curtis in The Vikings and Lancaster in Seven Days in May. 

 I was always drawn to comedy, and certain practitioners helped define their eras. I remember Carl Reiner best as Sid Caesar’s second banana on his 50s TV shows (where he was also in that fabled writers room), which along with Steve Allen and Ernie Kovaks was 50s comedy to me. In a different way, Buck Henry was characteristically 1960s, Terry Jones with Monty Python bridged the early 70s, as Fred Williard did the late 70s and 80s. 

 

Ian Holm

Then there were the character actors who I always recognized and valued: Brian Dennehy (whose greatest moment may have been one I didn’t see: playing Willy Loman on Broadway in a production of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman in 1999 that made grown men cry) and especially Ian Holm. 

 There was no role Holm couldn’t play and elevate it in the process, so he was memorable in Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, and The Day After Tomorrow, for instance, as well as his more famous roles in the Lord of the Rings films. Though he had mostly supporting turns in movies, he played the big parts in UK theatre, including one I did see—on film at least—namely, King Lear. 

 

And then this year, just as I was getting deeply into a DVD of Tom Hanks’-directed 1996 movie about the rise and fall of an Erie, PA one hit wonder band in the early 60s, and ecstatic about its title tune, “That Thing You Do!”, I saw in the news that the principal writer of that song, Adam Schlesinger, was an early fatality of Covid-19. 

 

Then there are those with whom I shared a moment or two in person. My first professional interview with a rock star was with Bill Withers in the first flush of his fame. He immediately calmed my nervousness, as we sat on the steps of his trailer near where he would be performing on the Boston Commons. When I asked him about a thematic thread I detected on his new album, he said softly he didn’t think anyone would notice that.

 Later I interviewed Hugh Downs, when he was a familiar presence alongside Barbara Walters on 20/20. But I remembered him from the 50s when he was almost everywhere as an announcer: on the first Today show alongside Dave Garroway, then Jack Paar’s stint at Tonight and part of Johnny Carson’s. He was even the announcer on a year of Sid Caesar. He struck me as a gentle, modest man with real intellectual enthusiasms, but someone who also was guarded and wary.

 Sports figures have their claim on our memories, sometimes over a long period: I followed Kobe Bryant for much of his career and have a number of his great playing moments on tape. But his death reminds us that one of the usually unseen and perhaps few noble traditions of pro sports is the mentoring of younger players. (In his case that included very young players like his daughter Gigi, who died with him.) The little retirement time he got before his shocking death in a helicopter crash showed unique promise. He was his generation’s Michael Jordan, but he had more ability to communicate through writing and other forms. 

 

Whitey Ford

Others sports figures who died this year were magic names in my childhood: Whitey Ford, ace Yankees pitcher (who I once saw pitch in the 1960 World Series at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, though at that point I was desperately rooting against him) who I revered also because he was a southpaw like me. Other pitchers of the era also died this year: Johnny Antonelli, Don Larsen and Bob Gibson, as well as later star Tom Seaver. Al Kaline was another familiar face on my baseball cards, and I remember football running backs Paul Hornung and Gale Sayers.

 Of course there are also those who provided their moments to me as a reader, some of whom I will remember in a post to follow.

It's Not Over

 

We’re coming to the end of a terrible 2020, with the New Year in sight.  I’ve seen at least one article emphasizing that it won’t always be like this, and we can look forward to a better 2021.

 Perhaps.  But we’re still living in 2020, and we’re going to be for some time after the calendar flips to 2021. In fact, if we are not careful and if we are not lucky, the worst of 2020 will be in the first months of the new year. 

Yes, we’re getting rid of Trump—but not just yet, and he’s currently sowing more destructive chaos.  And yes, the first million Americans have gotten the first jab of the vaccines that may give us the possibility of ending this pandemic, but not anytime soon.  Meanwhile we may still be busily making that happy ending harder.  Partly because we’re not truly facing the import of 2020. 

“This is the deadliest year in U.S. history,” the AP reported.  Preliminary data suggests that by year’s end some 3.2 million Americans will have died in 2020, almost half a million more than in 2019.  In absolute numbers, American deaths have never exceeded 3 million in one year.  

It appears that the difference between last year and this year is almost entirely due to the Covid crisis.  The current official death toll is moving towards 350,000.   The death rate accelerated in December, exceeding 3,000 for several days in a row, and sometimes edging close to 3500.  This represents the “Thanksgiving surge,” or deaths resulting from covid infections traced back to Thanksgiving travel and gatherings.  

So in December the New York Times featured an essay on the meaning of death, and the Washington Post published a story puzzling why Americans aren’t paying more attention or taking more precautions, theorizing that it is harder for people to respond to large numbers than it is to individual deaths.  This theory seems an incomplete and possibly dubious explanation.  At worst, it’s an inexcusable excuse. Not just morally, but in terms of societal survival.

 There was no moral excuse for allowing travel and gatherings at Thanksgiving—for not shutting down the airlines and the trains, and monitoring the highways. And there was less moral excuse for allowing it at Christmas. 

But obviously that didn’t happen, and travel did.  The evidence on how much travel there was (and is) is mixed.  Airlines saw the highest numbers since March, though half or less than last Christmas.  I have to believe that many people took precautions, even if they were in fact insufficient.  But maybe people just gave up, or gave into their fatigue, or don’t care.  Because in my very limited purview, I’ve seen less mask wearing and distancing, not more.

 Whatever aspects of human nature, politics and societal behavior are involved, another surge—the Christmas surge—is now expected.  As a country we are barely making it through the Thanksgiving surge in hospitalizations, and some places it’s worse than that. 

 Another surge on top of this one—beginning in a couple of weeks and rising in intensity and numbers through January into February-- could cause catastrophic failures in hospitals and the medical systems of entire cities or regions.  Shortages of equipment are already showing up again.  I can’t even imagine what it is like to be a front line medical worker, working feverishly in a relentless nightmare, while knowing that people outside are blithely ignoring simple precautions that might slow this thing down instead of accelerate it. 

Meanwhile the political system has failed those who need it the most, leaving them frantic and hopeless, if not actually hungry and homeless.  But the covid crisis may be coming for even more of us, because we are failing each other. 

It’s true that in terms of the smooth running of society, especially for the currently better off, the deaths of a lot of old people don’t much matter, or the deaths of minority and other hourly workers, as long as it’s not more of them that can be easily replaced. But hospitals in crisis can be a crisis for almost everyone, and frayed or broken supply lines eventually take their toll on society as a whole. 

The high number of infections means the next surge will very likely be worse, resulting in larger numbers of hospitalizations and deaths. Add to that the likelihood of new and more infectious strains appearing in the US in the next month or so. That we’ve gotten through even the Christmas frenzy of buying and sending with supply lines intact is no guarantee that the system won’t break under further strain.  And once it breaks, the chaos could spread.  

We’re left to do what we can as individuals and on a personal level with family and friends, even if it’s not much.  Many are doing so, and they are the eventual source of hope.  Others are doing their best, at times their heroic best, to keep societal systems working, amidst fallibility and folly.  Hope rests with them as well.

But personally I’m keeping my metaphorical champagne cold for a couple of months after New Years before it’s safe to celebrate.