'Keillor Geography'

OK, y'all. Confession time.

Sometimes -- in the wee small hours, on cold and cloudy days, anytime "Sunday in New York" is showing on TCM -- I dream of disappearing.

I fantasize about moving to Manhattan, working for The New Yorker, begging Charles Osgood for a job on "CBS Sunday Morning," going to see Jonathan Schwartz at WNYC. Other days, I head to Hawaii, Maui mornings, spectacular sunsets.

I've told you before about Garrison Keillor's novel "Love Me." My friend Bridget turned me on to it in 2008. It was my fantasy come to fruition -- writing a best-seller, leaving home for the big time in the Big Apple, working for the late, great William Shawn.

But then I'll receive a note about something I've written from someone down the street. Out of the blue, I'll get a thank you card, or someone will stop by just to shoot the you-know-what. Best of all, my loved ones are here. And I think, "No. At least for now, this is where I need to be."

To my complete and utter delight, Keillor agrees. Read his National Geographic article, folks. This is WRITING. And it has the added benefit of being true.

(Shout out to Fountain City guy Charles Williams for suggesting I read this piece to rid my mind of the fear that we're entering a new Dark Age.)

Walter Mitty dreams for a day

A few years ago I read a Garrison Keillor novel called "Love, Me" that played out one of my Walter Mitty (Danny Kaye version) dreams.

It's about a small-town scribe who writes a best-seller, moves to New York and works for Mr. Shawn at The New Yorker. I was so taken with it that I nearly moved to Manhattan. (I'd have been broke by the end of the week, but hey...)

Every Sunday (and every day if I wish), I play out another Walter Mitty (Danny Kaye version) dream listening to Jonathan Schwartz on WNYC-FM and/or his new The Jonathan Channel. He's forgotten more about The Great American Songbook than I will ever know, and he likes the Red Sox. 

Tonight, and most nights over the last 20 years, I've played out another Walter Mitty (Danny Kaye version) dream by watching Robert Osborne on Turner Classic Movies. 

For the channel's anniversary, TCM aired a special "Private Screenings" on Osborne, interviewed by his best "Essentials" co-host, Alec Baldwin. 

Osborne's life is better than even a black-and-white MGM movie. He wrote for the Hollywood Reporter back when that meant something. He had a special relationship with Natalie Wood. He hung out with Peter Lawford at Louis B. Mayer's old mansion. He moved to New York and had a morning movie moment on CBS. He talks to Olivia de Havilland each week. 

And, nearly every night for the last two decades, he's hosted primetime introductions of the creme de la creme of classic cinema on TCM. 

Some guys have all the luck, as they say. 

Other jobs I'd like...

Yesterday's post was so well received, I thought I'd share another one along the same vein. Forgive me if this is shorter than usual. I feel terrible and it is Natalie Wood Day on Turner Classic Movies.

Here are a few other jobs I wish I had -- ones I think about during those Walter Mitty moments...

Being Charles Kuralt -- Longtime Pull Up A Chair readers know this one. I have often dreamed of taking what I do for the Shopper-News and doing it from sea to shining sea.

Oh, I couldn't do it with Kuralt's eloquence and mastery of language, but maybe I could do it in print, about a quarter as well as Kuralt. His "On the Road" segments were my favorite part of the old "CBS Evening News." I own a lot of them on DVD.

After all, Kuralt said two things I very much believe:

"It does no harm, just once in awhile, to acknowledge that the whole world isn't in flames, that there are people in this country besides politicians, entertainers and criminals."

And:

"The everyday kindness of the backroads more than makes up for the greed in the headlines."

Being Ed Murrow -- I'm not and never will be anywhere near Murrow's universe, but, gosh, I admire that guy. In addition to all the important work he did with Fred Friendly, he also hosted "Person to Person," interviewing everybody from Bing Crosby to Liberace, all while the wisp of smoke floated up from his fingers.

Being on "What's My Line?" Yet another fact that won't shock all five of my longtime readers. I love this show. It is by far the classiest, coolest, most stylish "game show" in network history.

Half the time I want to be John Charles Daly, news reporter during the week for ABC, erudite host  of "WML?" on Sunday nights for CBS. The other half of the time, I wish I were Bennett Cerf, the hokey wit of the panel, but as his day job, co-founder of Random House at the high-water mark of 20th century American literature. Heck, Arlene Francis and Martin Gabel were his next door neighbors!

"That's three down and seven to go...Mr. Cerf?"

(Look up some of the mystery guest segments from "WML?" on YouTube. It's a "Who's Who" of 20th century stars from all galaxies.) Here is my favorite.

Working for The New Yorker in the William Shawn era -- Every writer's dream. A few years ago, Garrison Keillor played out my fantasy in a fun novel called "Love, Me" I would have missed had it not been for my friend and fellow bibliophile, Mercer University professor Dr. Bridget Trogden. Read it, if you're of a certain persuasion.

Being "The Announcer" -- Johnny Olson, Ed McMahon, Gary Owens ... I know, for example, I lack the talent to be Carson, so let me be Ed. For years, introducing the guests and saying, "Heeeeeeeere's Johnny!" was on my bucket list. I also had this incredible urge to exclaim, "Get ready to match THE STARS!" every time I watched "Match Game." And, yeah, I sometimes say "From beautiful downtown Burbank!" when nobody's listening. Sock it to me!

Have a good week, y'all. See you in the Shopper. Don't miss my column this week on Archie "Hee Haw" Campbell. Some things may surprise you. (This particular link will work for one week.)

'An ax for the frozen sea within us'

For all you budding authors out there, words of wisdom and inspiration from Roger Rosenblatt here, from PBS NewsHour.

"Making Toast," Rosenblatt's fine piece for the New Yorker written after his daughter's death (which was later expanded into a book) can be found here.

Finch is still a hero

MARYVILLE, Tenn. -- Here it was, the perfect film ("To Kill A Mockingbird"), shown the perfect way (on the big screen), in a perfect venue (the historic Palace Theater). Perfect, right?

Well, almost.

I walked into the theater about 6:40 last night and started looking for the projection room. My heart fell a bit when I realized the film was going to be shown via digital projection. Movies on the big screen should ALWAYS be shown via a 35 millimeter print.

Prior to the picture, organizers felt the need to have a law professor from UT deliver a bit-too-long essay on the film and its themes. The movie was being shown as part of Blount County's Martin Luther King Jr. Week festivities.

Her talk ended up OK, but she brought up an infamous 2009 New Yorker article by UK-born Canadian writer Malcolm Gladwell that attacks the notion that the beloved Atticus Finch of the novel and film is a Civil Rights pioneer.

I read the piece when it was published and did so again this morning. What the writer does is one of the biggest sins of the politically-correct era -- he uses modern-day values to judge an earlier time. He also has no sense of historical perspective. He's also just plain wrong.

Gladwell says that Finch isn't a Civil Rights hero because he doesn't do enough to shake things up in Maycomb during and after Tom Robinson's trial. (For those unfamiliar with the novel and film, Robinson is falsely accused of raping a white woman; Finch is his lawyer.)

Well, let's think about it. The novel is set in 1932 Alabama. A prominent white lawyer vigorously defending a black man of such a crime at that time in that place would have been nothing short of bold and revolutionary. Period.

The writer also claims that Finch asks the jury to exchange one prejudice (about a black man) for another (about a poor white family). Wrong. What he does is ask the jury to believe the word of an honest man over the word of a liar.

Gladwell also unconvincingly compares Finch with populist Alabama Gov. James "Big Jim" Folsom. The problem with the comparison is that Finch as a character hails from the Depression-era South. Folsom was governor of Alabama following World War II.

After my blood pressure shot up thinking about this article, I calmed down and enjoyed the only movie I've ever seen that is just as good (if not better) than the fine novel on which it's based. Screenwriter Horton Foote deservedly won an Oscar for his excellent adaptation.

It's all here -- Gregory Peck's Academy Award-winning turn as Atticus, Elmer Bernstein's haunting musical score, Robert Duvall's screen debut as Boo Radley, Mary Badham's scene-stealing turn as the spunky Scout. It's a perfect picture, pure and simple.

"To Kill A Mockingbird," both Harper Lee's novel and the Robert Mulligan film, has done much to win over the hearts and minds of at least three generations of Americans -- and it's still doing so. Sheri Webber, one of my beloved high school English teachers, told me in 2007 that the novel continues to cause a vigorous debate in her 9th grade classroom over race relations and prejudice. And, yes, she says, the racism is still very much alive.

I don't know whether the New Yorker staff writer was trying to be cute, condescending or just plain controversial. Whatever the case, his thesis stinks, his piece smacks of shameless revisionism at best and regional prejudice at worst.

As for "To Kill A Mockingbird," it stands as an appeal to the better angels of our nature, a heartwarming tribute to the human spirit, a nod to the power of a young girl's honest innocence, a sober reminder of the danger of ignorance.

And, yes, my friends, Atticus Finch still stands too, as tall and heroic as he ever was.

How I finally landed in the 21st century

Well, it seems I blinked and have landed smack dab in the middle of the 21st century.

Hope you and yours had a Merry Christmas. Mine was fantastic. Even got some snow. OK, so I got a migraine, too. Nothing is perfect.

But back to this new century business. I guess I got the ball rolling by asking for -- and receiving -- an Amazon Kindle as a Christmas present. I had hesitated for a long while, waiting to see where eBooks were headed, saw a demonstration and decided I wanted one. Jennifer bought it for me.

Early verdict: I love it.

After a few pages you forget you're holding an electronic device. The screen's font isn't like a computer's. Think back to the Etch-A-Sketch. No glare in sunlight, either.

It's lightweight. It holds a ton of stuff. Purchases are backed up on the Internet. Books can be yours in less than a minute.

I am also trying out the New York Times free for two months. That is especially handy given that finding a copy of The Paper of Record in Halls is a bit like finding an atheist in a foxhole. It ain't easy. I am mulling over giving up my printed version of The New Yorker magazine when it comes due in May in favor of the Kindle edition. We'll see.

Downloaded and read my first book, an excellent Sherlock Holmes pastiche. Yesterday, I found a copy of Gibbon's "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" for a whopping 88 cents. A bunch of titles, slipped into the public domain, are free or close to it. A nice feature is the ever-present dictionary. All you have to do is move your cursor to the word and, presto. So much for keeping that telephone book-sized college dictionary on the coffee table.

The good news is that the Kindle (and Nook, and iPad, etc.) appears to be complementing, as opposed to replacing, traditional books. Not every novel will appear in Kindle form. Some books you're still going to want to collect, or put on the shelf, or just hold in your hands.

If that weren't enough, pal Dean Harned went overboard and bought me a Blu-Ray player. Still can't believe it.

Bought a documentary on Hawaii that Jenn and I watched over the weekend. It looks stunning. Haven't yet bought a feature-length movie that was originally filmed in HD. But I have to say that "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" and "Elvis On Tour" both look fantastic -- and even standard DVDs look better on the Blu-Ray.

Then, to beat it all, Jenn brought over the Nintendo Wii that she's yet to take out of the box. Haven't felt like hooking it up yet, but I'm going to get the Wii Fit and try to lose 15 or 20 pounds. Plus, I want to bowl and play baseball, too.

Something old, something new, something borrowed -- but it's made me anything but something blue!

Good-bye to all that

And so John Updike is dead, and if you at first ask "Who?" or "Who cares?", pull up a chair and let me tell you about a literary hero.

I discovered Updike in college, in a freshman English course, when we were assigned to read a brilliant short story called "A&P." His writing was concise and sharp; his subject matter was something to which an 18-year-old male could relate -- watching girls in bathing suits.

A few years later, after I began taking the New Yorker, I gravitated toward his work. I would look forward to his stories like one looks forward to a winter snow. It wouldn't happen often, but when it did, one savored it.

I spent a memorable Memorial Day at the lake a few years ago, imbibing, talking about life with friends, and sitting on the deck as the sun set, enjoying his latest short story. I remember wondering whether I will churn out consistently well-written work when I'm his age.

He liked to write about sex in suburbia. And, if that seems dirty to you, it wasn't. Updike treated it with honesty, hunting Hemingway's one true sentence, which should be any writer's goal.

I bought his memoir, "Self-Consciousness," for a buck-fifty at McKay's last summer. Just the other night, I was skimming one of his poems in the New Yorker, and reading his article on Ted Williams' last game before bedtime. I won't say I have tried to copy his style in my own work, but through his example I have tried to write with more clarity and honesty.

Don't know why I feel as if I've lost an old friend. But I do.

It's the end of an era, a good-bye to all that tip of the cap to the time when literature seemed a central part of our consciousness.

And so John Updike is dead. I feel like a part of me is too.

A perfect pause

Macon, Ga. -- Otis Redding is still dancing around in my brain. Guess that happens here, in the cradle of soul, birthplace of a genius.

"They don't sing like that anymore" isn't a cliche. Not with him.

But, this is not about the Big O. We'll talk about him some other time.

The Garrison Keillor novel "Love Me" is keeping me company today. The Lawsons left for a perambulation at the park. This is my vacation; today I want to read.

Keillor's book isn't set -- for once -- in Lake Wobegone. It begins in Minnesota -- of course -- and will in time take me to New York, to the New Yorker, back when it was a magazine, back when William Shawn ruled the roost, back when one had to read it.

The tome is erudite -- but you would expect no less. It is funny. No surprise.

And it fits my mood, tugs at wistful thoughts of having lived and loved and lounged with literati, back when NEW YORK was spelled out in neon lights.

Someday I must read the Shawn memoir, the good one, written at the turn of the last century by Lillian Ross. I am too lazy to look up its title.

When Christmas debts are paid in full, and health care is not robbing me blind, I will buy, too, the DVD-ROM that collects every New Yorker through the set's release date -- if nothing else to read Calvin Trillin's U.S. Journal and Roger Angell's musings on baseball.

Now it's back to the recliner, to pages illuminated by the light of the afternoon, to a perfect pause in a holiday week made for such moments.