F. Scott Fitzgerald, Circa 1935

After the Good Gay Times, by Tony Buttitta.


I was browsing the stacks of a univesity library recently when I came across this title wedged in among the other books about F. Scott Fitzgerald. I had never heard of this title before, though I have read most of the Fitzgerald biographies---Arthur Mizener, Scott Donaldson, Turnbull.

Those biographies may be more polished than this book, but this one contains the first-hand recollections of one who had known and befriended Fitzgerald during the summer of 1935. The summer of 1935. That phrase alone summons thoughts of desperation and great want.

That summer Tony Buttitta was an aspiring writer and owner of a small bookstore in Asheville, North Carolina. His description of his first encounter with Fitzgerald elides smoothly with our image of a faded author with an undying lust for alcohol, but his character soon grows wider and more complex.

By 1935 Fitzgerald was in bad shape---The Crack Up essays would appear within a year---alcoholic and still stung by the failure of Tender is the Night, the book into which he had thrown all he had. Most biographers write about the Fitzgerald of these years in piteous tones, and this wonderfully lyrical writer assumes tropic dimensions. Fitzgerald becomes a plaything. But this book gives Fitzgerald a new voice, one that bridges the long gaps between novels after 1925. Buttitta recalls a man still in possession of a sharp mind, concerned about the fate of civilization, and whether drunk or sober willing to discuss Spengler and Marx. Fitzgerald was still attractive to women; he broke off a relationship---too late, it turned out--- with an adoring woman willing to pay off his ample financial debts, in part out of loyalty to Zelda but also because he was well aware of the the ruinous effect he had on the women around him. Meanwhile, he admitted and regretted that he pushed his ailing wife Zelda into dancing--this contradicts the claims of some biographers that he attempted to prevent it. His feelings toward Ernest Hemingway were complex: a mixture of envy, respect, and tenderness.

There is a chapter about 2/3 of the way into the book, where Buttitta and Fitzgerald, with an eye to taking a room, pay a visit to the mother of Thomas Wolfe, whose Look Homeward, Angel Fitzgerald had admired. Wolfe's mother was loquacious, and she spoke at some length about the effect that her son's autobiographical novel had had on her and her family. At the end of the visit, Mrs. Wolfe mentioned that she didn't take in drunks. Buttitta's recollection of the effect of that remark on Fitzgerald speaks volumes about the depth of his despair; he couldn't even rent a room from the mother of a far inferior novelist than himself.

Above all, Fitzgerald was alone, and hopelessly so. He spoke of friends but never seemed to have any. He had retained his honor through it all--conveying deep concern about his daughter and wife---but I got the impression of a man waiting impatiently for it all to end.

Reading List

China: Empire of Living Signals, by Cecilia Lindquist
Tender is the Night, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Living with Jazz, by Dan Morgansten
I Will Bear Witness: 1942-1945, by Victor Klemperer
Autobiography, by Mohandas Ghandi
My Name is Red, by Orhan Pamuk
Slavery by Another Name, by Douglas A. Blackmon
Gulliver's Travels, by Jonathan Swift
The Tale of Genji, by Murasaki Shikibu
A People's History of the United States, by Howard Zinn
Oracle Bones, by Peter Hessler

It's all over the map, but so is my existence.

Hell is other people

Sartre supposedly said or wrote this---I can't remember whether he said it or wrote it---but the point is that it contained the brilliance of simplicity and Sartre was responsible for it. The problem occurred when he foolishly continued and tempered his initial insight with a bunch of prattle about our using others' perceptions of us as a window unto ourselves---or something like that---and with that the promising beginning fizzled out into nothingness. Now I grant that you--if you must--might indulge in a bit of sloppy thinking and find yourself agreeing with Sartre's window fancy. Only don't give me that crap about hell not being other people and that it was all a misunderstanding...if hell isn't other people, then what is it? A rectal abscess?

The Horror

If the young are innocent,
And the old to be pitied,
Then what are we to make of the intervening horrors?

Roger Ebert

If you don't know of Roger Ebert, you're only partly alive. Without thirty years of access to his insight, wit, intelligence, and humor, I might never have learned of such movies as "The Third Man", which I think about on a weekly basis.

Ebert once defined a four-star movie as one which a viewer would appreciate, regardless of its genre; even a fan of action films should enjoy "A Woman under the Influence", for instance.

With this in mind, I have created my own criterion for the worth of a film: Am I still thinking about the movie a week after I see it? If so, then the movie has affected me in some way, and, in my eyes, is worthy of top-tier status. Films like "Open Water" and "Paranormal Activity" fill the bill perhaps on the strength of their genre, but so does "The Third Man."

"The Third Man" contains every element certain to appall the casual movie watcher. It is a black-and-white film. None of the main actors---Joseph Cotton, Orson Welles, Trevor Howard---is a household name today. Only three people die (one of them off-screen), and there are no noteworthy explosions and no gratuitous sex.

Yet this is a masterful film for its score, acting, and cinematography. I will refer you to Roger Ebert's review of "The Third Man", as this is the review that got me interested in film when I first read it in 1985 (this is the link to Mr. Ebert's site: http://www.rogerebert.com/. Check out the Great Movies section, where a lifetime of intellectual stimulation awaits you). Twenty-five years of wonderful insight into the movies. They are a part of my life.

Roger Ebert has shaped my taste much in the same way as did certain literature professors of mine. From them I have read and re-read Mark Twain, T.S. Eliot, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Tolstoy, Turgenev, and Dostoevsky, writers I might never have otherwise experienced. Ebert has done the same for Cassavettes, Bergman, Orson Welles, Wim Wenders, among many others.

Cheers to you, Mr. Ebert.

Um...New hitting coach?

As a child, I failed to appreciate the worth of a hitting coach to a major league baseball team. Good players simply hit well, in my estimation. I was a Baltimore Orioles fan, and Boog Powell simply hit well, as did Eddie Murray and Ken Singleton. Mark Belanger, well, did other things well. I followed the Orioles rather closely in those days, and I can't for the life of me recall the name of their hitting coach. But they won World Series, those O's.

In 1980, I would catch a Reuters line telling me that the O's were down 3-1 in the ninth, and I knew they would win the game. Good pitching of course, but it was always a key late-inning hit that spelled the difference.

I can't make sense of baseball these days. Batters simply exhibit no discipline at the plate and swing wildly for the fences in the hope of a highlight. Consider the following line from the Orioles/Nationals game on May 22:


Seventh inning:

CoreyPatterson struck out.
Nick Markakis struck out
Miguel Tejada grounded out.

Eighth inning:

Scott struck out
Wiggington fouled out
Wieters popped out

Ninth inning:

Jones struck out
Itzuris struck out
Moore grounded out

A one run game. In the final three Oriole innings: nine outs. Zero balls hit out of the infield. Indeed, only two balls hit into fair territory. This is a team that scored 6 runs in the first 6 innings, but when the chips are down, it loses.

In 1980, with the O's down by a run in the 7th, the line might well have read:

Bumbry bunt single, stole second
Decinces singled to right, Bumbry to third
Murray sacrificed to deep right, Bumbry scored
Singleton homered to left, Decinces scored
Roenicke flied out to center
Dauer walked
Dempsey singled to left, Dauer to second
Crowley singled to right, Dauer scored, Dempsey to second
Belanger struck out

Now you have your strikeout. But before that came three runs scored on five hits, a walk, and a stolen base. And the Orioles won 9-7. Note from this hypothetical box score how the hitters of 1980 pushed the ball to right field, behind the runners. And Dauer coaxed the BB. And a stolen base? Where did that come from?

This little experiment has been drawn largely from my memory of how a fine team played baseball, but I think it throws light on the lousy execution and selfish play of today's players. Where are the walks, stolen bases, and bunts on this gathering of players?


All those strikeouts in the late innings. Somebody was swinging for the fences.

Musings on Mao Zedong

I've been reading a bit about China recently--who hasn't?---and for some reason my attention has been drawn to Mao. He is often overlooked when people mention the terrible figures of the 20th century, but if you read the following two books, you will get a fair glimpse into a person who saw little wrong in condeming 70 million Chinese to death. The first book, The Private Life of Chairman Mao was written by Li Zhi-Sui, who was Mao's personal physician for the last twenty years of his life. Li sheds light on Mao's personal proclivities, such as his unslakable sexual thirst, his avoidance of bathing and brushing his teeth (this must have beena great turn-on for his lovers), his keeping of odd hours and whimsical change of plans. Li's book is fascinating in its depiction of the habits--none of them endearing---of a horrible person. Li, however, lends little insight into the Great Leap Forward or The Cultural Revolution, Mao's two great programs to modernize China. Both of these came at terrible human cost, which Jung Chang illuminates in her book Mao: The Unknown Story. Jung Chang authored the popular Wild Swans, and readers of that book will recognize many of the grim details life under Mao. Where Li Zhi-Sui retained a small amount of affection for Mao---perhaps this is a product of proximity---Jung Chang loathes the man, and for good reason. These books, and there are many written about Mao to choose from---left me better informed about this dictator, and also a bit depressed. And I have even mentioned Mao's wife.

One question comes to mind: Why does a country with such a rich cultural heritage as China's seem intent on destroying so much of what others can only envy?