Okay for Now: A Teen Novel, or Just a Good Book?

Okay for Now.

Gary Schmidt

New York: Clarion Books, 2011.

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Joe Pepitone, Aaron Copeland, and James Audubon are three names that are unlikely to occupy a lot of space in the average teenaged consciousness. Given that all three are major tropes in Gary Schmidt’s Okay for Now, one wonders whether it’s accurate to call it the “young adult” novel it’s marketed to be. I’d say probably not, but it’s a pretty gripping story no matter how one labels its genre.

The novel is set in 1968, the year fourteen-year-old Doug Swieteck and his family are uprooted from their home on Long Island by their shiftless father and plunked down in the hamlet of Marysville in the Catskills. Doug’s old man is a violent, hard-drinking, no-account loser, as is his bad boy middle brother, a petty thief and fulltime sadist. Older brother, Lucas, is in Vietnam–one of the many working-class poor kids sent as jungle fodder for American imperial ambitions. Relocation to “stupid Marysville,” as Doug calls it, removes him from two of the three things he loves: his closest friends, and the hope of attending a game at Yankee Stadium. Young Doug is a diehard Yankees fan whose one moment of glory in an otherwise dire teen life was a chance encounter with first baseman Joe Pepitone, who gave Doug his hat. (Which his brother stole and destroyed.) Call Doug’s worship of Pepitone a metaphor for Doug’s life–the chronically underachieving Pepitone was the face of the franchise of really, really bad Yankees teams of the mid- and late-60s. (He hit just .251 with 13 homers and 64 RBIs in 1967, the year of his fictional encounter with Swieteck.) The other thing Doug loves is his mother, a kindly woman who tries her best to insulate Doug from his father’s wrath and bears the marks of his violence. Doug also literally bears a cruel stigma of his affection for his mother, not to mention the scars of delayed educational and social development.      

It would be a gross understatement to say that Doug doesn’t have much going for him. As it turns out, though, “stupid Marysville” has some surprises in store. Despite his father’s brutishness and class-based oppression psychosis, Doug will encounter some people who will change his life–his father’s paternalist boss, a gym teacher with demons of his own, an eccentric writer with a fondness for art and music, and a caring teacher. Above all, he’ll find Lil Spicer, who becomes a serious 7^th grade crush, and a librarian who introduces Doug to the works of John James Audubon. In sketching Audubon’s birds Doug finds hidden talents, a positive outlet for his long-suffering patience, and metaphors for his life.

As I said, not exactly the sort of fare one would expect the average young person to consume.  I would, however, expect teens to relate to Schmidt’s prose. He simply nails the attitudes, language, and carriage of burgeoning adolescence. Schmidt’s ability to paint a portrait of the interior of teenaged minds rivals that of novelists such as Mark Haddon, Muriel Barbery, and Nick Hornby. He also describes Marysville and the Audubon prints with such clarity that they animate and become characters in their own right. This would be a wonderful book to read and discuss with a young person. It would take some adult input to explain (and perhaps mutually explore) some of the references in the book, but adults will also admire this book and parts of it will take them back to their own frightful junior high days. (The junior high principal alone will make your skin crawl.) High marks for Schmidt for writing a book that’s equal parts tough and hopeful, smart and easy to read, compelling and real. 

Flynn Cohen Guitar Album Strikes the Right Chords

FLYNN COHEN

Fierce Modal

Deadstring Music

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Flynn Cohen’s nine-track guitar solo project is a true delight. Cohen, perhaps best known for his work with Annalivia, is a man of many influences, including progressive rock, medieval dance tunes, bluegrass, and Celtic. But rather than trying to force fit his loves into arrangements, he has the good sense to let the proper mood dictate style rather than vice versa. “The Good Part,” for instance had a decided Celtic flair with just a hint of old-time music peeking through the seams. “Poor Micheál,” has a bridge inspired by Yes, but it’s a march in the style of the man it honors, the late Micheál o’Domhnaill. When it’s appropriate, as on “Don’t Spare the Horses,” he lets loose with a galloping pace that evokes a field of wild stallions. (He also showcases his mandolin prowess on that one.) But he also knows when to slow down. The next track, “Crop Circles,” is mysterious and dreamy, as befits a tune named for such unexplained phenomena. He follows with two galliards–16^th century Renaissance dances–the first with ambience of something arranged for a recorder consort, the second in tribute to the newborn son of friends Matt and Shannon Heaton and thus more lullaby-like. And what better to finish than with “Dougie’s Trip to Heaven,” a bluegrass tune supplemented by Duncan Wickel’s fiddle? Overall a crisp album that hits all the right notes, sets all the right moods, and it exactly the right length to keep us fully engaged.-- Rob Weir

Check out some samples at http://www.flynncohen.net/recordings.cfm  

Bad Math: Why Obama Is Unlikely to Win Reelection

It’s late June, the economy remains stuck in low gear, and the only thing edging upward is Barack Obama’s job disapproval rating (49%; just 43% approve). With each passing day, a Mitt Romney presidency appears more likely.

Forget Obama’s foreign affairs triumphs, Bill Clinton got it right: it’s the economy, stupid. There are 19 weeks left before Election Day (November 6) and Obama would have to break with conventional economic wisdom to eek out victory.  Pundits generally say that an incumbent is in trouble if the economy hasn’t rebounded by March of an election year; 2012 figures were dismal. Unemployment stood at 8.2% that month, and it remains mired there, despite Obama’s ludicrous gaffe that the private sector “is doing fine.” Even worse, it’s .6% higher than when he took office.

The odds are increasingly long that Obama can beat Romney, which places the president in the uncomfortable position of hoping that Romney beats himself. That’s not out of the question; Romney is an arrogant, unprincipled flip-flopper whom people tend to like less the more they get to know him. He’s also the sort of greedy and rapacious investor who caused the current financial mess. That said, Obama was elected to clean up Romneyesque-like messes and has failed utterly to do so. As the man in charge, he (rightly or wrongly) gets pinned with the blame for bad news. Liberals are simply delusional if they think the American Heartland is going to overlook the tepid economy and applaud symbolic triumphs such as the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the Shepard-Bryd Hate Crimes Prevention Act, or the repeal of DADT. His key domestic achievement, health care reform, stands a good chance of being shot down in a few weeks. Unless something truly unforeseen happens, a Romney meltdown is Obama’s most hopeful road to reelection.

If we go beyond the surface, the electoral math is in Romney’s favor. Latest polls reveal that Obama has a solid 198 electoral votes to Romney’s 133. That’s not as good as it sounds. It takes 270 to win and the remaining 72 will be as elusive for Obama as economic recovery. A mash of the six top polls breaks down the 207 electorals that remain in play. Of these, 42 are considered “likely” Democratic states. That still leaves Obama 30 votes shy. The same polls note 39 “barely Democratic” states. If Obama holds on to those, he wins, but only a fool would guarantee an Obama victory in the latter states: Colorado (9), Oregon (7), Wisconsin (10), and Virginia (13). Obama clings to a 1% lead in Wisconsin, where Scott Walker is back in the driver’s seat, and less than 1% in Colorado. Count me among those who’d call his 4% lead in Virginia “soft.” In fact, I’m not terribly convinced that his 8% lead in Michigan or Pennsylvania is solid either. I just returned from a visit to Pennsylvania and I’ve got to think that Obama must be very popular in the greater Philadelphia area, as I didn’t hear a single positive word about him from anyone living west of Lancaster County. I should also point out that Romney’s father was a popular governor in Michigan and that the Wolverine State has a higher unemployment rate (8.5%) than the US average.

Romney, by contrast, has strong leads in states offering 58 electorals, and is leading in those accounting for another 39. That puts him at 224. The only state showing a tie is–gulp!–Florida, with 29 votes. For sake of argument, let’s say those go to Romney by hook or crook. Suddenly, he’s just 17 votes away from the White House. Boil it down and it means that Obama must run an error-free campaign; one slip in a state in which he’s currently leading, including those he leads by 4% or less, and Romney wins.

The math looks bad–very bad–for Barack Obama. I’ll grant that a lot can happen in 19 weeks, but right now I’d say that those on the East Coast can make the following plans for November 6: if Obama loses any one of the following– Pennsylvania, Virginia, or Wisconsin–you can go to bed early as it’s all over except the weeping and gnashing of liberal teeth.

The Rocket Must Dock in the Hall of Fame

I spy the neon glow of self-appointed sports writer "saints" like Jeff Passan.

In 1919, a jury acquitted “Shoeless” Joe Jackson of conspiring to throw the World Series. Nonetheless, the following year Major League Baseball’s first commissioner, Kennesaw Mountain Landis, banned Jackson from the game and he remains ineligible for the Hall of Fame. Both decisions rankle diehard baseball fans and the second is considered a travesty. Why bring up ancient history? Because we may see something akin to it next year when Roger Clemens becomes eligible for induction to Cooperstown.

On June 18, a criminal trial jury handed down not-guilty verdicts on six counts relating to Clemens’ alleged use of steroids. Already, sportswriters such as Lew Carpenter, Jeff Passan, Wally Matthews, and Tom Verducci have insinuated that they and their peers hold higher standards of innocence than the jury. In their minds, Clemens’ name in the discredited Mitchell report trumps the findings of the jury. In other words, they’re prepared to play the modern-day Landis role and deny Clemens election to the Hall of Fame. To this I reply, who died and made you guys Pharisees? By what objective standard can they deny him? To mangle a phrase form the O. J. Simpson trial, if the jury acquits you must elect.   

Is Clemens worthy? Well, if 354 wins, 7 Cy Youngs, a MVP award, an ERA of 3.12, election to the All-Century team, and 4,672 strikeouts aren’t enough, nothing is. No one will ever get the warm fuzzies when they think of Clemens, but the man’s practically a saint when compared to his chief accuser, Brian (“The Juice”) McNamee. Besides, if being a nice person was a criterion for the Hall of Fame, they could clear the joint and rent the space to U-Haul. There is far less reason to deny Clemens than Shoeless Joe, who actually admitted he took money from gamblers (though he didn’t throw the World Series). The goods on Clemens are even shoddier than those attached to Pete Rose (who should also be in the Hall of Fame).

It’s beyond risible that a group of sportswriters would set itself up as moralists and judges. I double-checked; there are no baseball writers–an aggregate known to contain quite a few substance abusers–who have attained sainthood. If there are any former Eagle Scouts among them, they outgrew those virtues long ago. Want to talk about being morally compromised? Every sportscaster attached to an affiliated network swallows truth on an everyday basis because he (or the occasional she) knows that being overly critical will result in dismissal. Beat writers covering teams also follow restraints, lest they be denied easy access to the players and other sources necessary for them to file stories. Are we to believe, for instance, that no New York sportswriter ever saw Mickey Mantle or Whitey Ford drunk? Would Jeff Passan, in his Kansas City days, have written a slam piece on George Brett? Do you expect the Boston press to spill the beans on how thoroughly unlikable Ted Williams or Carl Yaztremski were? What passes for “tough” reporting is a shadow of what is actually witnessed.

So spare me all that “integrity of the game” nonsense, and stuff that “Clemens is a cheater” mantra. No–he’s not; a jury has ruled on that. You may have your private suspicions, even your deep-seated certainties, but there is no objective basis upon which Clemens can be denied entry into the Hall of Fame. Maybe the dude did steroids; maybe he’s as pure as Snow White. All we know for certain is that a lot of guys did use steroids between the 1980s and 2002. Most of them were hitters. Only one pitcher, Clemens, won 354 games. Sounds like an even match to me. Like it or not, a jury says that though his name appeared among the 47 steroid users listed in the Mitchell Report, Roger Clemens is an innocent man. The Rocket must go to the Hall of Fame. To keep him out would be worse than Shoeless Joe’s ban; it would be ideological- and innuendo-based persecution analogous to McCarthyism.

Rob Sez: We Need a New Woody

David Lutken as Woody Guthrie 

I recently drove to Cambridge to an American Repertory Theater production of Woody Sez, a musical about the life of Woodrow Wilson Guthrie (1912-67). This show has been kicking around since 2002 and is definitely one you should catch if it appears anywhere near you.

David Lutken plays Guthrie, and he has a fine sense of Woody’s wonderment and temperament. When Lutken twinkles his eyes, gazes upward, and puts on an Oklahoma draw, he transforms himself from actor to sage philosopher. (Guess it comes naturally. He’s not an Okie, but he grew up in Dallas; he’s also played Will Rogers on stage.) Frankly, Lutken sings and plays a whole lot better than Woody did.

The latter is one of many those looking to poke holes in Woody Sez can find. The play sanitizes Guthrie, starting with his physical appearance. Lutken appears in a clean work shirt and khaki pants; Guthrie–who was a Dust Bowl hobo for quite a few years–was known for being disheveled on a good day. In fact, his poor hygiene was legendary even among his closest friends. In like fashion, the show also glosses Guthrie’s irascibility and irresponsibility, viewing them as occasional bouts of crankiness lurking within a noble soul. There was indeed a principled core to Guthrie, but the man was also a lousy husband, an absentee father, stubborn as a mule, and as dependable as a Yugo.

A few other flaws: Darcie Deauville is a terrific musician, but an occasionally sour singer (unlike Helen Jean Russell and Andy Teirstein, fine interpreters of old-time music). It would also help to review Guthrie’s bio before you go. There are only four actors on stage and the “play” is more of an operetta. There is minimal dialogue–often a “Woody Sez” spoken segue–to cement a biographical sketch that also includes snippets from 33 songs in just over 90 minutes. The actors, except Lutken, play multiple roles at the drop of a hat. (They also play a dozen different instruments.)

Yet the darn thing works. The telescoped life and repertoire acts as a sort of Whitman’s Sampler and makes one appreciate how much Guthrie crammed into a short life. No one knows how many songs Guthrie actually penned–we’re still unearthing them–but though it’s seldom realized, Guthrie’s active career spanned fewer than 20 years. He was struck by Huntington’s chorea in the late 1940s, and spent more time in the hospital than he did on the road. 

Here’s the other thing Woody Sez invokes: a sense that too many of today’s musicians wallow in narcissism and/or isolation. Name a prominent post-1975 protest song singer. Had to think about that one didn’t you? They exist, to be sure, but whose modern repertoire quakes with songs of moral outrage such as    “Jolly Banker,” “Do Re Mi,” “Pastures of Plenty,” “Vigilante Man,” or “The Ballad of Tom Joad?” Who even remembers that “This Land is Your Land” was a protest song written to blow the rose-colored glasses from the faces of kneejerk patriots crooning “God Bless America?” (Check out the lyrics no one sings: http://www.arlo.net/resources/lyrics/this-land.shtml ) And how many of today’s look-at-me singers would live among ordinary folk, crash in hobo camps, pick fruit with migrant workers, or walk the picket line? Many contemporary musicians proudly proclaim their apoliticism, a pronouncement that would have sickened Guthrie’s generation (Pete Seeger, Lead Belly, Paul Robeson, Lee Hays…)

Guthrie did those things. He also emblazoned his guitar with the slogan “This Machine Kills Fascists,” spoke truth to power, and reveled in making songs simple enough to sing. (He once said, “Anyone who is using more than two chords is just showing off.”) He warned us that some men rob us with six-guns and some “with a fountain pen.” His advice for the bellicose? “Plenty of rich folks wants to fight. Give them the guns.” The pious? “Love is the only God that I’ll ever believe in.” It’s as if he anticipated today’s music when he said, “I could hire out to the other side, the big money side, and get several dollars every week just to quit singing my songs and to sing the kind that knock you down farther and the ones that poke fun at you even more and the ones that make you think you've not got any sense at all. But I decided a long time ago that I'd starve to death before I'd sing any such songs as that.”

Rob sez, we sure could use a new Woody Guthrie. --Rob Weir

unHun

African Blues Lifts the Soul

VARIOUS ARTISTS

African Blues

Putumayo 317-2

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Call this one the sequel to Mali to Memphis, the 1999 project spearheaded by Taj Mahal in which American blues artists traveled to Africa to discover their roots. African Blues largely migrates in the opposite direction; that is, African artists explore American styles. The ensemble Mali Latino opens the collection with “Ni Koh Bedy,” but don’t expect Malian guitar and Carib swing; the sexy, soulful organ licks on this are straight out of Booker T. and the MGs. Diabel Cissokho and Ramon Goose check in later with “Totoumo,” which sounds like the intersection of kora music and Ry Cooder. By contrast, Amar Sandy’s “Camel Shuffle” has the muscularity of electric Chicago blues, and the collaboration between Playing for Change and Tinariwen on “Groove in G” is a psychedelic/blues mash that ought to come with its own light show. You’ll also hear echoes of Delta blues, introspective jazz grooves, Memphis blues, and others. Make no mistake–this is not Africans playing American music. A quick listen to the chant/drone quality of the vocals of “Alam’i” dispel such thoughts. But everyone is clearly having a good time. Taj Mahal checks in with a guest turn with the Culture Musical Club of Zanzibar. The song is called “Dhow Countries,” but it’s what Barry White might have done with a plane ticket to Africa.

Check out the world blues of “Groove in G: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LQhamwJcVY Very cool stuff indeed. 

Pleasant Street Theater Closes

Death of a Theater

I needed a little time before writing this and, even now, the sadness lingers. Last weekend I attended the final screening at the Pleasant Street Theater in Northampton, Massachusetts. Its closing came on the heels of two other shockers, the demise of Pleasant Street Video, and the decision to discontinue nightly movies at the Academy of Music. For the first time in over 100 years, there is no movie house in Northampton.

Intellectually I understand that tastes and technologies change. Spiritually I grasp the reality that life itself is transitory. The Buddhists call it anicca, the notion that nothing is permanent. I tried my damndest to immerse myself in the tributes and memories shared by former owners and patrons of “P Street,” as we locals dub it. Despite my best efforts, the celebration felt more like a wake.

Americans like to take solace in two ideas: that change is desirable, and that we live in a world in which the march of history is a constant uphill trudge from primitive to positive progress. We take solace, but I doubt we really believe either of these things as much as we say we do. I’m no Luddite-–How could a Luddite even write a blog?–but I just don’t see the age of the iPad, video-on-demand, and Netflix as an improvement over places like P Street. Spin it as you wish, but in my mind the closing of the Pleasant Street Theater is nothing less than a tumble down Progress Hill and an impoverishment of art, community, and the spirit.

I concede that P Street had issues–it needs new projectors, it’s not handicapped accessible, and the downstairs space­–optimistically dubbed the Little Theater–had a tiny screen, poor sight lines, and so many uncomfortable seats that a lot of folks preferred their widescreen TVs to sitting down there. I know that it would take more to improve P Street than the cost of knocking it down and starting anew. I also confess to being a romantic who is a bit out of touch with modern preferences. In Generica (my term), most viewers like those standardized mall boxes, not P Street’s funky brick-walled ambience. They like blast-the-eardrums wrap-around sound, not quirky equipment that needs tweaking; they want seats that tilt, not wobble.

For all of that, I still think that film ought to be a public event shared with friends and family and discussed at cafes after the screening, not discrete experiences viewed in private living rooms or soul-sucking malls. Art is, above all, a shared heritage, not an act of solitary cultural masturbation. The death of small theaters correlates with the impoverishment of art. One of the things that Generica does is narrow our scope, options, and vision. P Street’s final film was, appropriately, a screening of Peter Bogdanovich’s 1971 masterpiece “The Last Picture Show.” I saw it right after watching Fellini’s “Roma.” I saw the latter on DVD, so I guess that makes me a bit of a hypocrite, but the larger point is that without venues such as Pleasant Street it’s unlikely I would ever heard of either film. Each is everything Generica is not–experimental, offbeat, and provocative. Each elevated art over commercialism. “The Last Picture Show” is even in black and white, for heaven’s sake, and don’t get me started on the ways in which Fellini films would never pass TV muster. (The nudity alone would kibosh them.)

Why should we care? Check out the bland fare offered at your local mall and you have your answer. Is that level of flabbiness and mindlessness all that we want from that once-robust and diverse entity we call American culture? In theory, of course, one can get anything on video, as I did with “Roma.” Ah, but this where theory meets reality. We all know the adage “Out of sight, out of mind.” We repeat it because it’s true. One could request any of a number of films, but how does one learn of their existence? Reviews? How often do you read a review of something not appearing in your area?

Small venues like the Pleasant Street Theater expanded our horizons by exposing us to filmmakers who waded outside of the mainstream. They challenged us, made us think, and opened doors we would have otherwise never approached. They didn’t show “movies;” they showed “films” and, yes Virginia, there is a difference–a world of difference. Here in Northampton, our world just grew smaller and less interesting. --Rob Weir