I read a tweet last week from a reasonable fellow with whom I often agree (that’s why he’s “reasonable”), particularly about media and his disgust with publications/websites like National Review that’ve gone down, down, down into a state of near-irrelevance. He wrote: “Matt Hennessey might be the only reason to read WSJ these days.” I like the Journal’s Deputy Editorial Features Editor, too and found his August 25th lament “Back-to-School Is the Cruelest Time of Year” on point, although as a younger man (51) his concerns are somewhat different than mine.
Summer’s my favorite season by two grand salamis, although autumn, with its bracing windy days, remind me of carefree years as a youth (touch football, crickets, crispy apples, leaves burning in the street, Top rolling papers in shirt pocket, long bike rides in Huntington, Long Island, and for some reason Van Morrison’s song “Wild Night”), and I relish those brief Indian-Summer respites in October that stave off thoughts of bleak, drudgery-filled winter, which has no redeeming qualities, unless you’re a landscaper praying to Mercury that tree-snapping snowstorms will bring a very lucrative spring.
Hennessey: “We dropped off another one at college this year. My son, like his elder sister, chose a big state school in the South. Our family is a data point in a national trend. We are part of that wave of Northeasterners you’ve been reading about, turning our backs on the madness of campus culture at the private liberal-arts colleges of Pennsylvania and New England.”
My own sons are in their early-30s, so my nodding along with Hennessey is theoretical, but I’m in solidarity (right on, my Yeats brother) perhaps because I’m perpetually pissed off that Johns Hopkins (my alma mater), the largest private employer in Maryland, pays no property taxes. That’s left to me. I also appreciated Hennessey’s reference to the great 1967 Kinks song “End Of the Season,” which he describes as a “loping lament for sweetness lost to time’s passage.” He ignores that songwriter Ray Davies was 23, sort of young for “loping laments,” and that in a few years, after recording several brilliant records, would become an Apeman and a sappy vocalist on the wretched “Celluloid Heroes.”
Although the Journal has slipped precipitously in the past decade—what newspaper still running downsized printing presses hasn’t?—and (my hobbyhorse) still unethically allows Karl Rove, a GOP shill, to soil its op-ed page, I find writers worth reading. Jason Gay, Kimberly Strassel, James Freeman and James Taranto, for example. The front page is worthless, but Joe Queenan’s column “Moving Targets” is a reminder of the halcyon Bartley/Gigot years late in the last century. Queenan, 74, is the author of nine books and over the years has written prolifically for once-major publications, but it’s in the Journal that I particularly appreciate his cranky anti-boomer jibes and satirical (sort-of) applause for tech Luddites.
It’s September and the wind-down of MLB’s regular season (another bitter reminder that winter’s coming), is, for me, full of anticipation because the Red Sox, barring an entirely possible collapse, will make it to the expanded playoffs. But Queenan forgoes the day-to-day dipsy doodle of emotions (I swear, after the Sox’s loss to the Pirates on Friday night, I played it over and over in my mind until Saturday morning) and dings the sport he’s followed for decades.
His August 21st story, “Owners vs. Players? If Only Both Could Lose,” was buffed up by typically smart one-liners, but I disagree with his premise, which is one more the-prices-are-going-up-where’s-the-future-MLB-audience fit of whining. He zeroes in on the upcoming labor talks between MLB owners and the players’ union, and says, “I personally will not be devastated if the players go on strike next season.” (Where’s the copy editor? Baseball will go on next year: the “labor” talks commence after the conclusion of the 2026 season.)
If—and I don’t think it’s likely, too much money on the table for both sides—there’s a strike I won’t be “devastated,” but plenty pissed off. Queenan says he’ll “never take the side of the owners” because of his past union membership. Bully for Joe and his comrades. I have no such qualms. I’ve belonged to just one union, back when I was a vendor at Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium in the mid-1970s, and that was kind of bogus, since employees were paid in cash, not so dissimilar to the legitimate migrants that Stephen Miller (the bane of Trump’s administration) is trying to eradicate.
The photo above, taken on the rooftop of our family’s Tribeca condo, shows Red Sox fan Booker Smith, putting on a brave front when it’s clear this won’t be a Boston year, the Bambino’s Curse still intact. He hadn’t yet heard of Dave Roberts or the “bloody sock” (nor had I), but wasn’t so far in the future.
Take a look at the clues to figure out the year: David Sedaris’ Me Talk Pretty One Day, Philip Pullman’s The Amber Glass and (regrettably) Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point are published; Nasdaq reaches an all-time high of 5048; SCOTUS rules, contrary to the government, that tobacco can’t be regulated as an addictive drug; H. Rap Brown is captured after a gun battle in Georgia; Mark David Chapman is denied parole; The Emperor’s New Groove is released; Bobby Witt, Jr. is born and Bob Lemon dies; Rage Against the Machine plays on Wall Street, causing trading to close early; long after a brilliant emergence, Santana wins eight Grammys at the meaningless awards show; Soul Coughing disbands; and Michele Kwan wins the Women’s Figure Skating Championship.
—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023