Herman Wouk at 100
Celebrated writer Herman Wouk has reached the century mark, and he has just published what he tells us is his final book, a slim autobiographical sketch titled Sailor and Fiddler: Reflections of a 100-Year-Old Author (2016).
I cannot claim familiarity with Wouk’s full body of work, but two of his signature novels, The Winds of War (1971) and War and Remembrance (1978), and the pair of award-winning television mini-series they spawned (in 1983 and 1988-89, respectively) have profoundly shaped my understanding of the Second World War. I know that I am not alone in saying this, especially among those of my generation.
The Winds of War starts in 1939, introducing us to the Henry family, headed by U.S. Navy officer Victor “Pug” Henry, along with his wife Rhoda, sons Warren and Byron, and daughter Madeline. Joining them as major figures are famous Jewish author and retired professor Aaron Jastrow and his niece, Natalie, who are living in an Italian villa. Their journeys also become focal points. Also prominent are Pamela Tudsbury, a young British woman who travels the globe helping her father, foreign correspondent “Talky” Tudsbury, as well as foreign service officer Leslie Slote.
Winds finds Europe on the brink of another war, and it proceeds on through the immediate aftermath of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. War and Remembrance picks up where Winds leaves off, continuing with the stories of the Henrys and the Jastrows. But it quickly gets much darker. Remembrance uses its characters to cover the broad sweep of the war, including the Holocaust, which is portrayed in horrific, vivid detail. The mini-series includes brutal depictions of Nazi death camps, with many scenes actually filmed at Auschwitz.
Both stories continually weave in defining political and diplomatic figures of the day, including Roosevelt, Churchill, Hitler, and Stalin, as well as many of the war’s prominent military officers.
Thanks in part to the great success of the mini-series, The Winds of War is better known to a lot of people. However, in Sailor and Fiddler, Wouk — a WWII Navy veteran — informs us that War and Remembrance was the story he had to tell.
I confess that I have immersed myself in both stories to a point of obsession, and I have learned valuable life lessons from their leading characters and lot of history from the books and the mini-series. I consider Winds and Remembrance to be the epic tales of the war era, Homeric in scope, and richly American in perspective.
If Wouk had produced nothing but these books, then I would consider his life a special one. But that is not the case. He has been a prolific writer and led a rewarding, full life. And at 100 years old, he still had enough gas in the tank to write this neat little book about his life.
I often say that if we want to live good lives, then we can learn from the stories of good people who are our seniors. Herman Wouk is a prime example.
The world-expanding virtues of study abroad
As President of Goucher College in Maryland, Sanford Ungar spearheaded internationalization initiatives that included requiring every undergraduate to enroll in a study abroad program. The school backed up those efforts with travel stipends to make such participation more affordable. In the current issue of Foreign Affairs, Ungar offers a thoughtful essay positing that a major expansion of study abroad enrollments will help to create a more informed and worldly American citizenry:
In the Internet age, the world feels far smaller than it used to. But many Americans still know little about the rest of the world and may be more detached from it than ever.
. . . One symptom of Americans’ new isolation is a sharp contrast between the positive, even zealous views they hold of the United States and its role in the world and the anti-Americanism and negative perceptions of U.S. foreign policy that flourish almost everywhere else. This gap persists in part because relatively few Americans look beyond, or step outside, their own borders for a reality check.
. . . Luckily, there exists a disarmingly simple way to help address this problem and to produce future generations of Americans who will know more and care more about the rest of the world: massively increase the number of U.S. college and university students who go abroad for some part of their education and bring home essential knowledge and new perspectives.
Of course this is music to my ears. As I have written several times on this blog (most recently here), my own undergraduate semester abroad in England was transformative. I cannot imagine my life today without that experience as part of it.
Study abroad is not the only way to see the world and become a more globally informed individual. Military and volunteer service, jobs with international travel components (e.g., working for an airline), and extended trips abroad can all be world expanding experiences.
On this note I turn to travel writer, educator, and entrepreneur Rick Steves, who long has touted European travel on a middle-range budget and strongly believes in the transformative power of international travel. Here’s a snippet from his statement describing his global travel philosophy:
Globetrotting destroys ethnocentricity. It helps you understand and appreciate different cultures. Travel changes people. It broadens perspectives and teaches new ways to measure quality of life. Many travelers toss aside their hometown blinders. Their prized souvenirs are the strands of different cultures they decide to knit into their own character.
“Travel changes people.” Indeed.
Celebrating 219 Day in Boston: The Region Rat in me
Last week on Facebook, I saw friends from my native Northwest Indiana posting stuff about “219 Day.” Of course I recognized 219 as the main area code for Lake County, Indiana, but I had no idea what this “Day” was all about. I would learn that 219 Day is a new “holiday” created by Hammond, Indiana mayor Thomas McDermott, Jr., mixing local pride with a little tongue-in-cheek. The first 219 Day was marked by a food, drink, and entertainment event that drew thousands to the local Civic Center.
The humor is in the logo. As you can see, a rat is a part of it. To explain, Lake County and the City of Hammond are located in the heart of what is called the Calumet Region, named for the Calumet River that flows through it. Denizens of “Da Region” have long been called “Region Rats.” So the Mayor (and/or his public relations team) incorporated said rodent into the overall theme.
Although Mayor McDermott caught some flak for including the little fella in the logo — apparently some of the more refined residents didn’t fully appreciate the association — on the whole 219 Day was a rousing success and will now become an annual event. Personally, I thought it was a clever way of saying, hey, we’re going to celebrate our region without taking ourselves too seriously!
In fact, when I saw folks posting stickers for 219 Day on Facebook, I contacted one of my Region schoolmates, Dave Woerpel, now Chairman of the Hammond Democrats and a close associate of the Mayor, and asked how I might get my hands on one. Well, not only did Dave send me a couple of stickers, but also to my surprise he sent a 219 Day t-shirt (“219 Day, It’s all about Da Region”), which I proudly show off in the photo above. It is a fitting addition to my leisurewear collection. Perhaps some Bostonians will ask for an explanation!
I left Indiana in 1982, bound for law school in New York City. For a long time I thought I’d never look back. But I have come to appreciate all the chapters of my life, and growing up in Da Region is an important part of it. Over the years I have kept in touch with a handful of people from Indiana, and now — often via Facebook — I have reconnected with folks I had lost touch with for decades.
So yes, I enjoyed the humor imbued in that 219 Day logo. But I also regard that t-shirt with genuine sentiment, a welcomed connection of my past with my present.
The joys of YouTube music videos
One of life’s little pleasures is getting lost in the world of YouTube music videos. I can watch some of these over and again. Here are a few of my repeat favorites:
If you need an energy boost, does it get any better than Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like The Wolf”? The early to mid 80s is one of my favorite pop music periods. On my iPad I have a music compilation of favorite songs from that time, and Duran Duran singles are prominent among them.
I spent a chunk of the weekend watching and re-watching the incredibly hilarious number from Mel Brooks’s “The Producers” (1967 movie version), “Springtime for Hitler.” With every viewing, I keep finding new things to laugh at. (If you know the movie, then the quick cut to Kenneth Mars at around 2:18 is a guaranteed crack up.) From the lyrics, to the choreography, to the crowd reaction, it is singularly brilliant.
“Carousel” is one of the darkest shows of the Rodgers & Hammerstein canon, and it also has one of the most beautiful scores. This London performance of the ballet scene with Louise and the Fairground Boy, featuring Dana Stockpole dancing to “If I Loved You,” is simply exquisite.
One of the very best opening movie scenes ever produced is that from Woody Allen’s “Manhattan,” set to George Gershwin’s lush, beautiful “Rhapsody in Blue.” It is a loving tribute to the Wonder City.
Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes” is one of the best shows ever produced. This Tony Awards performance of the title number, featuring the awesome Sutton Foster, is worth multiple viewings.
I love this Antwerp train station flash mob performance of a rocked up version of “Do Re Mi” (from “The Sound of Music”). It is so much fun to watch, over and again.
My favorite scene from my favorite movie: Gene Kelly singing and dancing to the title number is truly one of the most joyous scenes in the history of motion pictures. I first saw “Singin’ in the Rain” during a study break while in my first year of law school at NYU, a Sunday night screening at the legendary Theatre 80 on St. Mark’s Place. I knew before it was even half over that I was watching something special.
Olivia Newton-John singing “Magic” in 1980 on “The Midnight Special.” It doesn’t matter that she’s lip-syncing. How many of us had monster crushes on her? (If the comments are any indication, we still do.) Sigh, what a contrast to today’s voice synthesized pop tarts.
And finally, some (probably unintended) humor. It appears that Lawrence Welk had no idea that “One Toke Over the Line” was about smoking pot, not — in his words — a “modern spiritual.” I crack up every time I watch it.
Bookplates
I’ve been writing a lot about books over the past couple of weeks, and I’m about to inflict more of the same on you, dear readers. As I mentioned last week, I have decided to pare down my book collection, with a goal of donating or giving away some 500-750 books during 2016.
I also decided to put a little stamp of ownership on the books I’ve decided to keep. I recently ordered a pile of bookplate stickers, pictured above, from a quick-print mail order shop. I’ve wanted to do something like this for some time. While I’m at it, I’m starting to catalog these books into subject matter categories in a simple Word file.
The academic and lifelong learning geek in me likes the idea of having a personal library. Some of these books are relevant to my work, but a solid majority of volumes cover other interests. With non-fiction, history, sports, and politics are among my favorite subject areas. With fiction, I lean toward mysteries, suspense, thrillers, and stories with historical themes.
I keep telling myself that I’ll tackle more of the classics when I have more time, but I may be fooling myself, as I’ve been saying this for decades. While I’m willing to work through some pretty tough stuff for work and specific learning projects, I am not the most tenacious leisure reader! Which means that Shakespeare, Dickens, and Tolstoy, among others, inevitably fall victim to Stephen King or John Grisham. But they, too, will receive their bookplates, as I’m not giving up on them.
Books: The challenge of thinning out the herd
City-Wide Friends of the Boston Public Library book sale (photo: DY)
Four times a year, the City-Wide Friends of the Boston Public Library holds a used book sale at the Central Branch to raise monies for their support of the city’s public library system. Usually I stop by in search of bargains for my personal library. But I went to this weekend’s sale with another mission in mind: To donate a dozen of my books.
Yes, folks, although I continue to obtain new books at a regular pace, I am making a concerted effort to thin the herd. Inspired and guided by Japanese “tidying” expert Marie Kondo (author of the bestselling The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up), I am trying to pare down my book collection from around 2,000 to a more manageable 1,200 or so.
Kondo recommends decluttering by category, in roughly this order: (1) clothing; (2) books; (3) papers; (4) miscellany; (5) items of sentimental value. The first was easy. I sorted out my extraneous clothing in a few hours. Fashion — as anyone who knows me in person will attest — is not on my radar screen. I’ve donated several bags of clothes and tossed a lot of stuff that had been hanging around.
But now I’m tackling my books, and to be honest, it will take me the rest of the year to donate, give away, and otherwise reduce the piles of books in my possession. During 2016, I’ve culled about 100 books.
Why am I doing this? Well, as you can see from photos of some of my bookshelves below, my space at home has basically run out. (It’s worse at my university office.) But more importantly, I am facing the fact that I bought many of these books under a hazy assumption that I would have eons of time to (1) read even the books I’m only casually interested in, and (2) pursue a virtually endless array of writing projects. Now that I’m in my mid-fifties, I know that will not be the case.
Kondo recommends keeping only those books that bring us joy, but that’s an unrealistic standard for me. (Uh, books about workplace bullying and toxic work environments don’t exactly fit that description, but they allow me to do my job.) Instead, I’m simply asking myself what I’m likely to read, re-read, and use during the next couple of decades. I must make choices.
And so I will. It’s not easy; I do have emotional attachments to books. Most of the volumes in these photos are keepers, and many have been with me through multiple moves. But I am taking pleasure in giving away books that may be sources of enlightenment, entertainment, and enjoyment to others. There are a lot more to come.
I may complain, but I like having real seasons
Southwest Corridor Park, Jamaica Plain, Boston, this evening (photo: DY)
Today, the Greater Boston region got its first really serious snowfall, enough to close the city’s public schools for the day. Although my university was open for business, we don’t hold many law classes on Fridays. Had it been another weekday, getting into town would’ve been difficult for a lot more of our students.
Here in Boston, two of the four seasons typically give us something to complain about. Summers can be brutally hot and humid, and winters can be brutally cold and snowy (and icy and slippery). Spring doesn’t last nearly as long as I’d like. Fall, thankfully, is a showpiece of a season in these parts and often prolongs until deep into November.
All things being equal, my favorite overall annual climate is that of the Bay Area in California. But if I’m being honest with myself, I still very much enjoy seasonal changes. I grew up in America’s midwest, where changes of season were part of the cycles of life. That would continue when I moved to New York City, though the contrasts were not as sharp. Since moving to Boston many years ago, however, seasonal changes have once again been more significant and vivid.
As today’s snowfall was coming down, it made for a lot of picturesque views. I was particularly taken by the scene outside the subway station near my home, with the snow sticking to the trees, plants, and lampposts. It all made for some good photos, one of which I share with you above.
Book-of-the-Month Club: Can a middlebrow icon remake itself in an era of endless choices?
I recently learned that the venerable Book-of-the-Month Club was relaunched last fall, with a fully web-driven membership system and a considerably streamlined set of book offerings.
For those of you who don’t know about the original Book-of-the-Month Club, a brief explanation is in order. BOMC was founded in 1926, the brainchild of some New York ad agency guys who saw a commercial opportunity that tapped into America’s embrace of mail order and the reading appetite of its emerging, upwardly mobile middle class.
People typically became BOMC members by answering a magazine ad or a direct mail invitation. The Club’s marketing hook was an initial membership package that allowed you to pick several books from the club’s catalog and pay a negligible sum at the outset. However, you also had to fulfill a membership agreement, which meant buying a specified number of books at club prices within the next two years.
Every month, members would receive a packet in the mail, containing a flyer describing the editors’ main selection for that month, a short catalog describing alternate and back list selections, and a reply card. If you did nothing, the main selection would be sent to you. You could also use the reply card to indicate that you didn’t want the main selection or to order alternate and back list selections. (Folks who frequently overlooked the reply card deadlines might find themselves with a growing pile of unwanted books. Surely a steady share of BOMC sales were the result of these oversights!)
In the days before superstores like Barnes & Noble and, later, online sellers like Amazon, BOMC offered a way to bring good books into your home with minimal hassle, screened by reviewers who had discerning eyes for the reading tastes of middlebrow America. Over the years, BOMC assembled various panels of judges to evaluate and select books for its catalog, some of whom were accomplished authors in their own right. During the Club’s heyday, serving as a BOMC selection committee judge carried some prestige within mainstream publishing circles.
Commercially speaking, BOMC was a very big deal to authors seeking to broaden their readership. Main selection status equalled a stamp of approval by a trusted brand and a guarantee of higher sales. BOMC favored quality fiction and non-fiction for a general, intelligent audience, while largely avoiding books that might be considered tawdry or cheesy. Its marketing campaigns played on such appeal and the idea of building a good home library, while usually managing to avoid lapsing into higher-level snobbery.
Among some stuffier types, however, this combination of commercial advertising and middlebrow reading tastes prompted derision of the whole enterprise (and by implication, perhaps, of its customers). Nevertheless, the Book-of-the-Month Club elevated America’s literary intelligence on the whole by bringing good books to a growing swath of the American population.
Predictably, the appearance of larger, brick and mortar bookstores and the emergence of Internet booksellers would spell trouble for the Book-of-the-Month Club. I was an off-and-on member from the 1980s through the early 2000s, and I witnessed its steadily declining commercial and cultural significance in shaping reading appetites. Sometime in 2014, BOMC was folded into another commercial book club and disappeared as a brand name. Very few people took notice, perhaps marking an unsurprising end to a 20th century phenomenon.
By the time BOMC left from the scene, there were at least four big problems with its service, beyond the obvious competitive challenges in the digital marketplace: First, its prices were high compared to other mass booksellers, especially with hefty shipping & handling charges added. Second, it took forever for the books to be delivered. Third, the quality of its book production had deteriorated, to the point where a BOMC edition felt and looked like a cross between a hardcover book and a trade paperback edition. Finally, BOMC had abandoned its popular practice of using literary judges to help make its selections, which made it seem like a more crass commercial enterprise than a literary “club.”
Then last fall, BOMC quietly reappeared. Its owner, Bookspan, has relaunched the Club as a fully online enterprise, using a streamlined subscription model rather than a membership package followed by reply cards. Here’s the new approach as described on their website:
As a Book of the Month Member, you will receive an email on the 1st of each month announcing our New Selections. One of these New Selections will be pre-selected for you and placed in your “box.” You will have until the end of the 10th day of the month to review the monthly selections and decide whether you want to keep the book that was pre-selected for you, select a different book, or add additional books to your box. If you do not change your selection, the book we selected for you will be shipped to you after the 10th day of the month along with any other books you have added to your box.
Instead of paying individually set prices for the books, members are charged a flat membership fee:
Book of the Month offers three membership plan options: 1-month, 3-month, and 12-month. The cost of the 1-month plan is $16.99 per month, the 3-month plan is $38.97 ($12.99 per month), and the 12-month plan is $119.88 ($9.99 per month).
So basically, every month during the course of your membership, you get a choice of five books, with the primary selection automatically shipped unless you opt for one or more of the others.
In a world of seemingly endless consumer choices, BOMC is following what seems to be a counterintuitive business approach. It is saying, in essence: Among the thousands of books published each month, we will provide you with a curated selection of five noteworthy titles and allow you to pick one of them at a discounted price.
Can fewer reading choices make us happier? Consider psychologist Barry Schwartz’s “paradox of choice” theory, asserting that an overabundance of choices can lead to greater dissatisfaction and inertia. In other words, we may become overwhelmed by the options before us. Hmm, maybe there’s something to be said for being offered a choice among five books that stood atop a thoughtful screening process?
If you’ve read this far, then you may have guessed that I’m giving the new BOMC a try. Recently I signed up for a three-month membership, with my first book choice being Nick Stone’s The Verdict (2015), a smart legal thriller set in London. I didn’t know about this title beforehand, but the BOMC reviewer’s description grabbed my attention. I just started the book, and it seems like a good one!
Sometimes counterintuitive approaches work. If book lovers like me can be persuaded to sign up, then maybe BOMC has a fighting chance. I can say that with the arrival of my first selection, the main problems with the old BOMC appear to have been addressed: The books are competitively priced, books are shipped promptly on a designated date, and the hardcover volumes are of good quality. Also, BOMC is once again using literary judges (along with some book-loving celebs) to help make and tout its selections.
Can this leaner reincarnation of a middlebrow icon succeed? We shall see. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to next month’s selections.
***
Of possible interest
For an interesting look at America’s popular reading tastes, this Books of the Century website lists bestsellers and BOMC selections during the 20th century.
For a more detailed history of the BOMC during the pre-Internet years, check out Janice A. Radway, A Feeling for Books: The Book-of-the-Month Club, Literary Taste, and Middle-Class Desire (1997).
***
March 2016 addendum: I’ve enjoyed this reincarnated version of BOMC so much that I signed up for a full year’s subscription. I like what they’re doing with this and look forward to future selections.
Weather report: Dodging the big one in Boston (this time)
Sunday a.m. view from my building, Jamaica Plain, Boston (photo: DY)
After last year’s multiple monster snowstorms in Boston, you might think that I’ve had my fill of them. I thought so too, as news of Winter Storm Jonas built during the past week and reminders of last winter started to re-enter my head. But I admit that I also felt a bit of weather envy as other locations received so much attention in anticipation of this huge storm, while increasingly it appeared that Boston would dodge the brunt of it.
As you can see from the Sunday morning photo above, Boston was indeed spared the worst of this giant storm. While this constituted our first significant snow of the winter, it was nothing compared to what dropped on other parts of the country and the region. In my neighborhood, we had steady snowfall from late afternoon onward, but on the scale of things it added up to comparatively mild stuff.
In any event . . . I’ve spent chunks of the last few days watching The Weather Channel, keeping up with online weather reports and Facebook postings, and talking to friends in the Washington D.C. area who have been hammered by Jonas. The weather geek in me simply couldn’t turn away from this.
I’ll add another photo, taken late yesterday afternoon from right outside the subway stop in my ‘hood. The snow was starting to come down, and there was a heavy, dull, wintry look and feel to the surroundings. Upon looking at the photo, I immediately wanted to title it “Bleak Midwinter.”
Late Saturday afternoon, Jamaica Plain, Boston (photo: DY)
Ear worms for Gen Jonesers
Ear worms are those tunes we just can’t get out of our heads. Especially for members of Generation Jones (born 1954 through 1965), I’m guessing that the early 70s produced a lot of ear worm tunes. To test that theory, and our memories, I’ve put together 25 first lines of pop songs (all different artists) from that era. Let’s see how many you can get right:
- “Jeremiah was a bullfrog…”
- “What if birds suddenly appear…”
- “Who can take a sunrise…”
- “Goodbye to you, my trusted friend…”
- “I was born in the wagon of a traveling show…”
- “He was born in the summer of his 27th year…”
- “Hey girl, what ya doin’ down there…”
- “You and I must make a pact…”
- “Stayed in bed all morning just to pass the time…”
- “There’s a port, on a western bay…”
- “I’m sleeping, and right in the middle of good dream…”
- “We’ll be fighting in the streets…”
- “She packed my bags last night, pre-flight…”
- “Waiting for the break of day…”
- “There’s a spark of magic in your eyes…”
- “The marchin’ band came down along Main Street…”
- “Mother, mother, there’s too many of you crying…”
- “We can never know about the days to come…”
- “I can tell you’ve been hurt, by that look on your face girl…”
- “Well the South Side of Chicago…”
- “Daddy was a cop, on the east side of Chicago…”
- “She ain’t got no money…”
- “Day after day I’m more confused…”
- “Our love is like a ship on the ocean…”
- “I rode my bicycle past your window last night”
Okay, have all your answers ready? Check out the answer key below! If you got 15 or more right, then consider yourself a member or honorary member of Generation Jones!
Answers: 1. Joy to the World, Three Dog Night; 2. Close to You, Carpenters; 3. The Candy Man, Sammy Davis, Jr.; 4. Seasons in the Sun, Terry Jacks; 5. Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves, Cher; 6.Rocky Mountain High, John Denver; 7. Knock Three Times, Tony Orlando and the Dawn; 8. I’ll Be There, Michael Jackson; 9. It’s Too Late, Carole King; 10. Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl), Looking Glass; 11. I Think I Love You, The Partridge Family; 12. Won’t Get Fooled Again, The Who; 13. Rocket Man, Elton John; 14. 25 or 6 to 4, Chicago; 15. Betcha By Golly Wow, The Stylistics; 16. Billy Don’t Be a Hero, Bo Donaldson and The Heywoods; 17. What’s Going On, Marvin Gaye; 18. Anticipation, Carly Simon; 19. One Bad Apple, The Osmond Brothers; 20. Bad, Bad Leroy Brown, Jim Croce; 21. The Night Chicago Died, Paper Lace; 22. Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes), Edison Lighthouse; 23. Drift Away, Dobie Gray; 24. Rock the Boat, Hues Corporation; 25. Brand New Key, Melanie.
Musings of a Gen Joneser 
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