Asa Zatz, who translated nearly 100 books from Spanish to English, was 100 years old when he died last month. Asa was a modest man. He once compared translating to dentistry and joked he was the guy publishers called once they found out Gregory Rabassa wasn’t available. But he was truly (and rightly) proud of his 1987 translation of José Luis Gonzalez’s classic novella of Puerto Rico, “Ballad of Another Time.” (You can find out more about “Ballad’s” undervalued author in this companion post by Irene Vilar—a slightly compacted version of the foreword to University of Wisconsin Press’s 2004 edition of the novella.) What follows is a chapter from “Ballad.” Take it as our public tribute to its (humble) translator who was a longtime supporter of “First of the Month” and a dear friend. B.D.
George Ohr: A Free Man in Biloxi
“I love George Ohr. More freedom in his head then in just about anyone’s.
Ohr was a 19th century ceramic futurist. Looking at his work rubbing my fingers together, thinking about the feel of wet clay. his mind must have moved like clay moves when you throw it on a wheel or pinch it…it always seeks freedom…the potter seeks control…the dance is between the authority of the material and the will of the potter. It can be a discussion or a debate. A lot of talking.”—Michael Brod
Brod’s musings prompted your editor to ask him to say more on George Ohr, “mad potter of Biloxi,” (who surely looked the part—see the photo at the bottom of this post). Ohr, himself, was more than willing to think out loud about his works and days: “I brood over [each pot] with the same tenderness a mortal child awakens in its parent.”[1] A few of Ohr’s numberless creations were exhibited in NYC last year at the Craig F. Starr gallery. These three were in that show. (You can find many more examples of Ohr’s art pots here.)
One More for the Road: Sinatra at The Desert Inn, 1993
A version of this previously unpublished non-fiction article was incorporated into the author’s novel, “The Death of Frank Sinatra” (1996).
Peggy’s last breath, for all of us
The piano I can play
The singing comes harder
I notice that on the beach
When I walk it after my long swim
Having taken the current down
No fighting with it to get back
Side by Side
Bobby Keys and Jim Price put some horns on the end of “Honky Tonk Women” mixed down so low you can only hear them in the very last second and half on the fade. Chuck Berry had a saxophone just for the very end of “Roll Over Beethoven.” We loved that idea of another instrument coming in just for the last second. Keith Richards, Life
Double Trouble: Dramas of American Communism
News an Oxford don has bought into b.s. about Alger Hiss’s innocence sent your editor back to Aram Saroyan’s play, UNAMERICAN, which is based on the public record of the confrontation between Whittaker Chambers and Hiss. UNAMERICAN is posted below along with the second act of My Confession, Saroyan’s “solo performance play” based on Mary McCarthy’s memoir of her encounters with Stalinists in the 30s (which she published in Encounter in 1954).
In Transit
I was on the train last night heading home. Two young brothers–early teens–were standing in front of me. Both were wearing worn but clean clothes, one had his hoodie up, the other didn’t. Both had light jackets—too flimsy for the weather and knockoff hightop sneakers. It was a look I knew all too well. It reminded me of an entire winter I spent with a blue double-knit jacket as my “winter coat.”
They were chatting usual urban teen talk. I paid little attention until I heard one of them mention what Trump had said earlier in the day about the Pope.
Primary Wisdom
The author recently answered queries about Trump and the Democrats.
The Witnesses
Whittaker Chambers is my idea of an exemplary conservative. He dug Beats and Sorrow Songs, did in Ayn Rand in a definitive National Review piece, distanced himself from William Buckley, hung tight with his old friend James Agee, and tried to convince other conservatives Khrushchev wasn’t Stalin.
Museum of Sorrows (Or, What We Owe the Russian People)
Originally published in the print version of “First of the Month” in the 60th Anniversary year of V-E Day.
The Mamayev Kurgan, the highest ground in the city now called Volgograd, is the site of the memorial to the battle still called Stalingrad.
The Revisionist Museum of Neoliberal Eternity
I was out walking, sweaty and with hair plastered/to my face/when I saw Ernesto Cardenal approaching/from the opposite direction/and by way of greeting I said:/Father, in the Kingdom of Heaven/that is communism,/is there a place for homosexuals?/Yes, he said./And for impenitent masturbators?/For sex slaves?/For sex fools?/For sadomasochists, for whores, for those obsessed/with enemas,/for those who can’t take it anymore, those who really truly/can’t take it anymore?/And Cardenal said yes. –Bolaño
Gypsy Joe (& Camden Town)
I used to drink at Dale’s Bar on Broadway in Camden.
Minds of the South
It is, by now, well known that Atticus Finch, beloved hero of the late Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, is revealed to be a segregationist in Lee’s recently published novel Go Set a Watchman.
Street Life…and Death
Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America by Jill Leovy, Spiegel & Grau, 2015
I was raised during the Seventies on a cramped block of rundown tenements in Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood. Each building on my block was a five-floor walk-up. Each apartment–two to a floor–was a railroad-style flat. And in those apartments lived poor families raising passels of kids. Not only was this pre-gentrification but by modern hipster standards, this was downright prehistoric.
Group Grope: The Theory of Microaggression
Eugene Goodheart has invited responses to his new First piece (posted below) which takes in student protests against microaggressions and the more macro analysis of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me.[1] I’m skeptical of Goodheart’s attempt to hook-up the world-view of those students with Coates’s World. (More on that anon.) But his critique of the protesters has pushed me to think through the theory of microaggression.
The Price of Victimhood
Instances of police brutality and killing of unarmed Blacks, first revealed by social media, have been a catalyst for widespread expression of grievances about racism in colleges and universities. According to 538, “the most frequently requested data by protestors was for a survey on the atmosphere in classrooms that would collect information as part of end terms evaluations of subtle forms of racism, often called microaggressions, that are committed by specific professors and lecturers.” Microaggression: “everyday verbal, non verbal and environmental slights, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, which communicate hostile, derogatory or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership.”
Emma Quangel’s Spooks
Just remember this. All agents defect, and all resisters sell out. That’s the sad truth, Bill. And a writer? A writer lives the sad truth like anyone else. The only difference is, he files a report on it. – William Burroughs
Feeling the Bern
Bernard Avishai has been blogging more lately. Here are two recent sharp posts about the other Bernie and a brush with neo-Zionist extremists.