Writing on the Wall
Does anyone talk about "penmanship" today? Even the word connotes a lost trade, like a cooper or farrier. From the sound of it, "penmanship" is practiced by a "penman," someone trained in the Art of the Pen.
But back in grade school, penmanship was a dreaded subject—a category of achievement. We were taught handwriting by rote, filling pages of ruled newsprint with "G" after "G" after "G," after which the teacher would check each entry to correct the curve of every arc and the horizontality of each dash.
Poggio Bracciolini.
I did not excel in the Art of the Pen. The good sisters of St. Jude the Apostle school, sensing, perhaps, a rebellious spirit--or the creep of slovenliness--attempted to correct this by inviting me to spend some quality reading and writing time in the convent every Saturday morning.
I have little to show for those mornings, other than the memory of sitting in an empty room that smelled like canned peaches. I didn't become much of a reader until my college years, and my scrawl still looks like a forgotten sub-genre of Abstract Expressionism. If it was used to send secret messages, it would stump the savviest codebreakers at Bletchley Park.
De varietate fortunae, Vatican Library. Copied by Poggio Bracciolini.
What brings this to mind today is reading about Poggio Bracciolini, the Renaissance "book hunter" at the center of Stephen Greenblatt's captivating history, The Swerve. For Greenblatt, Poggio made his mark on Western history by discovering and disseminating the ancient Roman manuscript, On the Nature of Things, a poem by Lucretius that, Greenblatt argues, ushered in the human-centered ethos that dragged The West out of the Middle Ages and into The Renaissance.
When Poggio wasn't donkey-ing around Italy, wheedling his way into monasteries to have a look at their libraries (which, in the 15th century, held the majority of books), Poggio made a good living with his exquisite handwriting. His "script" was celebrated around Europe. Before typefaces, emojis and spell checks, Poggio was part of a culture that considered books to be visual works of art. I doubt, however, that knowing about him in third grade would have inspired me to buckle down and improve the artistry of my lowly letters.
Tana French
Since I was once a student of lit-trah-chure, I tended to shy away from so called genre fiction. But a recent discovery has me lamenting the great writing I’ve missed. Tana French, for example. She is a best-selling spinner of tales involving murders and the cops who occasionally solve them. And she is a stunning wordsmith. Here's a taste from The Likeness, a book narrated by Detective Cassie Maddox, who goes undercover to investigate a murder. Here, Maddox has just closed the case and returned home for the first time in months:
Tara French. Photo by Jessica Ryan
"I don't think about my parents much. I've only got a handful of memories, and I don't want them wearing away, textures rubbing smooth, colors fading from overexposure. When I take them out, once in a blue moon, I need them bright enough to catch my breath and sharp enough to cut. That night, though, I spread them all on the windowsill like frail pictures cut from tissue paper and went through them, one by one. My mother a nightlight shadow on the side of my bed, just a slim waist and a ponytailed fall of curls, a hand on my forehead and a smell I've never found anywhere else and a low sweet voice singing me to sleep: A la claire fontaine, m'en allant promener, j'ai trouvé l'eau si belle que je m'y suis baigneé . . . She was younger then than I am now; she never made thirty. My father sitting on a green hill with me and teaching me to tie my shoelaces, his worn brown shoes, his strong hands with a scrape on one knuckle, taste of cherry ice pop on my mouth and both of us giggling at the mess I made. The three of us lying on the sofa under a duvet watching Bagpuss on TV, my father's arms holding us together in a big warm tangled bundle, my mother's head nudged under his chin and my ear on his chest so I could feel the buzz of his laugh in my bones. My mother putting on her makeup on her way out to a gig, me sprawled on their bed watching her and twisting the duvet cover around my thumb and asking, How did you find Daddy? And her smiling, in the mirror, a small private smile into her own smoky eyes: I'll tell you that story when you're older. When you've got a little girl of your own. Someday."
Gio Swaby in Chicago
If you are headed to Chicago to stroll through The Art Institute's semi-blockbuster Van Gogh and the Avant-Garde, do not limit yourself to the Paris landscapes of Vincent and his pal Georges Seurat. Be sure to spend some time in the museum basement to see the exhilarating show Gio Swaby: Fresh Up, a gorgeous celebration of personality and the power of style.
Click on each image to enlarge.
Swaby grew up in the Bahamas, the daughter of a seamstress, and she uses fabric appliqué and stitchery to create monumental yet intimate portraits of Black women. Her subjects exude confidence and joyful self-presentation, and Swaby’s technique celebrates the traditionally female craft and hoists it to a new level of artistry. She purposely displays the backs of her images—the loose threads, the connecting stitches—making the process clearly visible. It’s a different kind of blockbuster. And since Swaby is only 29 years old, the first of many to come.
Hail the Conquering Hero
The reluctant war non-hero (Eddie Bracken) is touted by the mayor in Hail, The Conquering Hero.
It may not be one of his best-known movies, but Preston Sturges is still Preston Sturges, and Hail, The Conquering Hero is a testament to the director’s knack for satire. Released in 1944, the height of World War II, it’s simultaneously a parody of jingoism and an affectionate honorific to America’s wartime heroes. The superbly everymanish Eddie Bracken plays Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith (the name alone could have earned Sturges his Oscar for screenwriting). He’s the son of a World War I hero, but is discharged from the army for medical reasons (hay fever!). Ashamed, he writes home that he’s been shipped out to the Pacific, breaks up with his fiancé, and vows to never return to the small town of his youth. Drowning his sorrows at a bar, he buys a round for a crew of marines just back from Guadalcanal (led by Sturges regular William Demerest). They try to assuage his guilt and convince him to return home, eventually calling his dear mother and hinting that he has performed heroically in battle. The word spreads, and Oakridge, California, goes bananas for him, unleashing parades and marching bands and eventually trying to elect him mayor. Full of Sturges’s trademark wit and crackerjack timing, it was his last film for Paramount. He signed off his contract with the comment: “I guess Paramount was glad to be rid of me eventually, as no one there ever understood a word I said.”
Summertime (Rhythm &) Blues
Donny Hathaway and Robert Flack
At the Slate Culture Gabfest, part of my regular podcast diet, this is the time the hosts and listeners assemble their “Summer Strut” playlist, a collection of songs appropriate to the season and encouraging of assorted spontaneous dance moves. My strutting days are on the wane, so I prefer an alternative: a “Summer Swoon” anthology. Top of my list this year is a soulful classic, Donny Hathaway & Roberta Flack. The 1972 release includes hits like Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend” (released almost simultaneously with James Taylor’s version) and “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” (written by Barry Mann, Phil Spector and Cynthia Weil). But my go-to track is the bluesy, near operatic, Leiber and Stoller classic, “I (Who Have Nothing).” Listen here and swoon away.
Have a good week.