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Farewell Lewis Lapham, stylish writer and innovative Harper's editor
New journalism zealots castigated Lewis Lapham for replacing beloved Harper's editor Willie Morris.
The Mississippi native Morris thrilled the New Yorker literati by shaking up the venerable journal, running articles like Norman Mailer's 90,000-word report on the Vietnam protest in Washington.
But Harper's, founded in 1850, hemorrhaged money. Morris' innovative but expensive pieces dismayed the magazine's corporate owners, the Minneapolis Star and Tribune, which at last ousted Morris.
Lapham took over, restoring the magazine's editorial decorum and producing shorter, more economical articles. While the financial losses continued, Lapham kept Harper's going until a savior emerged
The patrician editor, who led Harper's from 1976 to 2006, with a hiatus from 1981 to 1983, died Tuesday at age 89 in Rome. He also served as the magazine's managing editor from 1971, when he replaced Morris, to 1975.
Descended from a wealthy family, Lapham wore stylish suits and enjoyed upper class amenities while lampooning the foibles of the elite. One of his grandfathers was a founder of Texaco and another served as mayor of San Francisco, where Lapham grew up.
After graduating from the Hotchkiss School, Yale and Cambridge University's Magdalene College, Lapham discovered a passion for journalism. He worked as a reporter for the San Francisco Examiner and New York Herald Tribune before finding success as a freelance magazine writer
Along with his insightful editing, Lapham was lauded for the progressive essays that skewered America's crass materialism and provincial outlook.
Satirizing his fellow members of the upper class, Lapham wrote with a haughty, Mandarin style that recalled 18th century British essayists. While he published writers like Tom Wolfe and Christopher Hitchens, Lapham as an author was a throwback to classic journalism.
While Lapham was seen as the corporate henchman who ousted Morris, he brought several innovations to Harper's that continue today, including an index of surprising facts and a compilation of annotated writings titled "Readings."
After leaving Harper's, Lapham edited the Lapham Quarterly, which published selections from classical literature along with work by contemporary writers. Each issue was devoted to a particular theme.
I personally admired Lapham for a long, thoughtful response he made to a letter to the editor I sent to Harper's. He personally signed the typed reply.
Harper's financial difficulties persisted under Lapham, and the magazine hovered near death until 1980, when it was purchased by the John D. and Catherine T, MacArthur Foundation and the Atlantic Richfield oil company, which made the publication a nonprofit.
It continues on under the foundation's guidance, gamely competing against the well-endowed Atlantic, also founded in the 19th century, and the New Yorker, whose corporate backer Conde Nast is under financial duress. Another intellectual journal, the New Republic, recently launched a revival.
While Morris is acclaimed for his ground-breaking editing at Harper's, Lapham saved the magazine, also giving it a new burst of energy.
Farewell Lewis Lapham, stylish writer and innovative Harper's editor
New journalism zealots castigated Lewis Lapham for replacing beloved Harper's editor Willie Morris.
The Mississippi native Morris thrilled the New Yorker literati by shaking up the venerable journal, running articles like Norman Mailer's 90,000-word report on the Vietnam protest in Washington.
But Harper's, founded in 1850, hemorrhaged money. Morris' innovative but expensive pieces dismayed the magazine's corporate owners, the Minneapolis Star and Tribune, which at last ousted Morris.
Lapham took over, restoring the magazine's editorial decorum and producing shorter, more economical articles. While the financial losses continued, Lapham kept Harper's going until a savior emerged
The patrician editor, who led Harper's from 1976 to 2006, with a hiatus from 1981 to 1983, died Tuesday at age 89 in Rome. He also served as the magazine's managing editor from 1971, when he replaced Morris, to 1975.
Descended from a wealthy family, Lapham wore stylish suits and enjoyed upper class amenities while lampooning the foibles of the elite. One of his grandfathers was a founder of Texaco and another served as mayor of San Francisco, where Lapham grew up.
After graduating from the Hotchkiss School, Yale and Cambridge University's Magdalene College, Lapham discovered a passion for journalism. He worked as a reporter for the San Francisco Examiner and New York Herald Tribune before finding success as a freelance magazine writer
Along with his insightful editing, Lapham was lauded for the progressive essaays that skewered America's crass materialism and provincial outlook.
Satirizing his fellow members of the upper class, Lapham wrote with a haughty, Mandarin style that recalled 18th century British essayists. While he published writers like Tom Wolfe and Christopher Hitchens, Lapham as an author was a throwback to classic journalism.
While Lapham was seen as the corporate henchman who ousted Morris, he brought several innovations to Harper's that continue today, including an index of surprising facts and a compilation of annotated writings titled "Readings."
After leaving Harper's, Lapham edited the Lapham Quarterly, which published selections from classical literature along with work by contemporary writers. Each issue was devoted to a particular theme.
I personally admired Lapham for a long, thoughtful response he made to a letter to the editor I sent to Harper's. He personally signed the typed reply.
Harper's financial difficulties persisted under Lapham, and the magazine hovered near death until 1980, when it was purchased by the John D. and Catherine T, MacArthur Foundation and the Atlantic Richfield oil company, which made the publication a nonprofit.
It continues on under the foundation's guidance, gamely competing against the well-endowed Atlantic , also founded in the 19th century, and the New Yorker, whose corporate backer Conde Nast is under financial duress. Another intellectual journal, the New Republic, recently launched a revival.
While Morris is acclaimed for his ground-breaking editing at Harper's, Lapham saved the magazine, also giving it a new burst of energy.
"Easy Rider's" cinematic beauty salvages film's fatuous script
"Easy Rider's" visual majesty contrasts with the film's time-worn performances.
Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda's counterculture epic creaks with the fatuous dialogue of their screenplay, co-written with Terry Southern. Under Hopper's direction, the film's fast pace does build suspense and narrative momentum. While the script seems dated overall, some of the lines retain their power.
Laszlo Kovacs' gorgeous cinematography eloquently expresses the film's message of corrupted American beauty. The soundtrack also enhances Hopper and Fonda's flamboyant performances as hippies riding from Los Angeles to New Orleans for Mardi Gras.
Hopper's zany antics as Billy result in a hippie caricature, more cornball than cutting edge after all of these years. Fonda's Wyatt - the equally trite "Captain America" - displays moments of quiet dignity reminiscent of his father Henry. Wyatt and Billy - yes, we get it, Wyatt Earp and Billy the Kid. Instant irony, kids.
The two groovy dudes finance their trip with a cocaine deal - deemed heroic at the time, but contemptible now. Phil Spector makes an amusing cameo appearance as an all too easily pleased drug dealer who eagerly buys their cocaine stash, which they had acquired in Mexico.
Jack Nicholson's brief appearance in his breakout role as the dissolute lawyer George Hanson raises the film's temperature. Karen Black, Nicholson's co-star in the more accomplished film "Five Easy Pieces," also injects energy as a New Orleans prostitute forced to act out an unconvincing acid trip in New Orleans' above-ground tombs.
Once again, I resented the film for slandering my native state by depicting Louisianians as violent, prejudicial rednecks. Many are, but I doubt they'd murder white hippies. At the time, plenty of longhairs roamed the state.
Despite their heavy-handed performances, the shots of Fonda and Hopper cruising past American vistas deliver a rare cinematic excitement, thanks to Kovacs.
Farewell John Mayall and Jerry Miller, 1960s blues pioneers
John Mayall and Jerry Miller shared a devotion to the blues.
Mayall and Miller, who played significant roles in boosting the popularity of the American black music in the 1960s, both died recently: Mayall Monday at age 90 at his home in California and Miller July 21 at age 81 at his home in Tacoma, Wash., according to Washington Post obituaries.
Both men excelled as blues guitarists, and evangelists of the music, one of the major influences on American and British rock in the 1960s.
Mayall was a leading progenitor of the British blues surge in the late 1950s and early 1960s. His Bluesbreakers launched the careers of blues prodigies Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Mick Taylor, John McVie, Mick Fleetwood and others who went on to greater stardom.
American blues masters like B.B. King credited Mayall with introducing the music to a new generation of fans. Mayall often accompanied bluesmen when they performed in Britain. Mayall went on to a solo recording and concert career.
Moby Grape's 1967 album "Moby Grape," with its driving psychedelic anthems and harmonic love ballads, is considered one of the classics of the San Francisco sound.
Along with Peter Lewis and Skip Spence, Miller wrote songs and laid the musical foundation for the group. After their first burst of fame, the group abruptly collapsed from management difficulties and dissension exacerbated by Spence's drug problems. Spence, a former member of the Jefferson Airplane, suffered a severe mental breakdown.
A teenage friend of Jimi Hendrix, Miller returned to Washington, playing in several bands and joining Moby Grape reunion tours over the years.
Clapton, who first gained renown with the Yardbirds, left the Bluesbreakers to form the supergroup Cream with Bruce and Ginger Baker, rising to new heights. Taylor joined the Rolling Stones, whose blues pedigree was inspired by Mayall.
Green, who some place alongside Clapton as a guitar master, formed Fleetwood Mac along with McVie and Fleetwood. He left the group after suffering a drug-induced mental collapse, which hampered his career.
During my college days, I loved the Moby Grape songs "Murder in My Heart for the Judge" and "Can't Be So Bad," which the popular Baton Rouge band The Greek Fountains performed in clubs around town.
While never achieving major stardom, Mayall and Miller played essential roles in pushing the blues to the center of popular music.
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Rosanna Warren looks back on sunny Breton summers with her parents, Robert Penn Warren and Eleanor Clark
Poet, biographer and literary critic Rosanna Warren in an article in the current Harper's magazine recalls two idyllic childhood summers in France's Brittany region.
Warren and her brother Gabriel lived in local homes with their famous parents, the poet, novelist and critic Robert Penn Warren and the writer Eleanor Clark.
"My Mother's Oysters: Recollections of Breton Summers" gives an intimate glimpse of her family's life, portraying her illustrious father and mother as warm and loving parents.
The family came to the village of Locmariaquer in the summer of 1961 so that Clark could do research on the rustic village's oyster-based economy. The next year, the family lived in the Basque region in the south of France before returning to Brittany.
Rosanna celebrated her eighth birthday and Gabriel his sixth during their first year's sojourn. She remembers receiving a birthday gift of a small plastic carriage drawn by eight miniature horses.
Brittany, unlike other parts of France, was settled by Celtic tribes who migrated from Britain in ancient times and lived among the region's original inhabitants. The region was separate from France until 1532.
Rosanna Warren, interviewed by Southern Bookman in 2009, remembers going to school in Locmariaquer with oyster workers' children. She and Gabriel were taught by nuns who conducted their lessons in French, although she and her brother didn't speak the language.
The trips weren't always blissful: Rosanna broke an arm in a beach accident, and the entire family caught the mumps. When they left France in 1962, they found themselves thrust into the French-Algerian war. Clark tensely drove the family to the airport through Paris streets lined with machine gun-bearing soldiers.
In the article, Rosanna Warren examines Brittany's rich history and special geography. She recalls ancient churches with martyr's bones, and viewing in astonishment the ancient stone monuments known as dolmens and menhirs.
Clark's immersion with the rustic oyster workers resulted in her 1964 book "The Oysters of Locmariaquer," which won the National Book Award.
Rosanna Warren, now 71, says at the end that the region's people, history and oceanic geography remain real to her. Her fondest memory is of her parents, who allowed her to explore childhood wonder.
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