Savannah: Ever Changing, But Still The Same If You Know Where To Look

May 2 is a significant date in Savannah's modern history. On that day in 1981 Jim Williams shot and killed Danny Hansford. It marked a violent end to a tragic love story and the catalyst for an enormously successful non-fiction novel and the economic and social transformation of a city. In 1977 I moved to a new job near Savannah and was soon seduced by the city's charm and opportunities. I bought a townhouse in the historic district and in a matter of weeks realized the city was a most unusual urban tapestry inhabited by a full range of entertaining and eccentric characters. There could have been a book about Savannah in my future but I was too busy adjusting to new work, stumbling through a failing relationship with the woman who came with me, and serving as general contractor restoring my "livable" townhouse.

John Berendt, the man who would eventually write that book, first visited the city around 1981 long after I escaped to the beach. He returned two or three times gathering even more fascinating and compelling characteristics about the city and its people. Three years later he moved to Savannah in search of broadening his writing career. The project that emerged was a travelogue built around the Williams-Hansford story. The result was unlike any proposal the publishing industry had ever seen.

The book was a sensation, a best seller with a broad impact. Savannah's tourism exploded, also enhanced by the highly successful Savannah College of Art and Design and its historic preservation initiative. For comparison, there were 5 million tourists who spent $600 million in 1993. The numbers jumped to 12.5 million and $2.2 billion in 2013. A decade later nearly 20 million tourists visited the city. They spent $5 billion and made the city a leading destination for international tourism.

Yes, Savannah experienced change quickly. There were more restaurants to enjoy. The night life flourished. Tour options abounded, from ghost, to pirate, to transsexual. The pace changed: faster, broader, deeper, never ending, and more expensive. The downtown historic district became a hot real estate market on an international scale. It also became a fishbowl brimming with tourists. Soon the preservation pioneers from the '70s and '80s paid $6,000, $8,000, then $10,000 or more in city/county taxes to live in the homes they had lovingly restored. Many of them left. Had I stayed, I too would have been displaced.

Today, the people go about their daily lives shadowed by those magnificent, moss draped live oaks. The wonderfully restored facades provide a pleasing backdrop. The ships glide in and out of port with the flood and ebb of the tides. And Bonaventure's ancient gate welcomes the living and the dead into what I believe is by far the nation's, perhaps one of the world's, most beautiful cemetery. So much has changed in Savannah, but in the quiet hours, in the intimate gardens, and in the music of the squares as well as that of a piano a few door away, you can still find the essence of the old Southern city I knew over forty years ago. One thing you can't find is my book. You'll have to look to another author for the story.


John Berendt's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil was published in 1994. It was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in non-fiction in 1995. More than 3 million copies have been sold. The book remains the longest running title - 216 weeks - on the New York Times Best Seller list. Trust me. It's a good read.




Sources


Photos and Illustrations:
front cover art, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Random House, New York, 1994, fair use


Text:
Wikipedia.org
interview, Booknotes, interview with Brian Lamb, C-SPAN, August, 12, 1997

In 1994 One Book Changed The Life Of A City

May 2 is a significant date in Savannah's modern history. On that day in 1981 Jim Williams shot and killed Danny Hansford. It marked a violent end to a tragic love story and the catalyst for an enormously successful non-fiction novel and the economic and social transformation of a city. In 1977 I moved to a new job near Savannah and was soon seduced by the city's charm and opportunities. I bought a townhouse in the historic district and in a matter of weeks realized the city was a most unusual urban tapestry inhabited by a full range of entertaining and eccentric characters. There could have been a book about Savannah in my future but I was too busy adjusting to work, stumbling through a relationship with the woman who came with me, and serving as general contractor restoring my "livable" townhouse.

John Berendt, the man who would eventually write that book first visited the city around 1981 long after I escaped to the beach. He returned two or three times gathering even more fascinating and compelling characteristics about the city and its people. Three years later he moved to Savannah in search of broadening his writing career. The project that emerged was a travelogue built around the Williams-Hansford story. The result was unlike any proposal the publishing industry had ever seen.

The book was a sensation, a best seller with a broad impact. Savannah's tourism exploded, also enhanced by the highly successful Savannah College of Art and Design and its historic preservation initiative. For comparison, there were 5 million tourists who spent $600 million in 1993. The numbers jumped to 12.5 million and $2.2 billion in 2013. Yes, Savannah experienced change quickly. There were more restaurants to enjoy. The night life flourished. Tour options abounded, from ghost, to pirate, to transsexual. The pace changed: faster, broader, deeper, never ending, and more expensive. The downtown historic district became a hot real estate market on an international scale. It also became a fishbowl brimming with tourists. Soon the preservation pioneers from the '70s and '80s paid $6,000, $8,000, then $10,000 or more in city/county taxes to live in the homes they had lovingly restored. Many of them left. Had I stayed, I too would have been displaced. 

Today, the people go about their daily lives shadowed by those magnificent, moss draped live oaks. The wonderfully restored facades provide a pleasing backdrop. The ships glide in and out of port with the flood and ebb of the tides. And Bonaventure's ancient gate welcomes the living and the dead into what I believe is by far the nation's most beautiful cemetery. So much has changed in Savannah, but in the quiet hours, in the intimate gardens, and in the music of the squares as well as that of a piano a few door away, you can find the city I knew over forty years ago. One thing you can't find is my book. You'll have to look to another author for the story.


John Berendt's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil was published in 1994. It was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in non-fiction in 1995. More than 3 million copies have been sold. The book remains the longest running title - 216 weeks - on the New York Times Best Seller list. Trust me. It's a good read.




Sources


Photos and Illustrations:
front cover art, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Random House, New York, 1994, fair use


Text:
Wikipedia.org
interview, Booknotes, interview with Brian Lamb, C-SPAN, August, 12, 1997

Midnight In The Garden Of Savannah

 

May 2 is a significant date in Savannah's modern history. On that day in 1981 Jim Williams shot and killed Danny Hansford. It was a tragic end to a gay love story and the catalyst for an enormously successful non-fiction novel and the economic and social transformation of a city. In 1977 I was employed near Savannah and seduced by the city's charm and opportunities. I had been living in the historic district only a few months before realizing it was a most unusual urban tapestry inhabited by a full range of entertaining and eccentric characters. There could have been a book in my future but I was too busy adjusting to a new job as well as being the general contractor managing the restoration of my "livable" townhouse.

The man who would write the book was John Berendt. He visited the city a few times before 1982 and noticed its interesting if not compelling characteristics. Three years later he moved to Savannah in search of broadening his writing career. The project that emerged was a travelogue built around the Williams-Hansford story. It was unlike any proposal the publishing industry had ever seen.

The book was a sensation, a best seller, and tourism exploded, also enhanced by the highly successful Savannah College of Art and Design and its historic preservation initiative. For comparison, there were 5 million tourists who spent $600 million in 1993. The numbers jumped to 12.5 million and $2.2 billion in 2013. Yes, Savannah experience change quickly. There were more restaurants to enjoy. The night life flourished. Tour options abounded, from ghost, to pirate, to transsexual. The pace changed: faster, broader, deeper, never ending, and more expensive. The historic district became a fishbowl. Soon, the preservation pioneers paid $6,000, $8,000, then $10,000 or more in city/county taxes to live in the homes they had lovingly restored. Many of them left. Had I stayed, I too would have been displaced. My wife and I could no longer have afforded to live in the home I restored. 

Today, the people go about their daily lives shadowed by those magnificent, moss draped live oaks. The wonderfully restored facades look down on them daily. The ships glide in on the incoming tides. And Bonaventure's ancient gate welcomes the living and the dead into what I believe is by far the nation's most beautiful cemetery. So much has changed in Savannah, but in the quiet hours, in the intimate gardens, and in the music of the squares as well as that of a piano a few door away, you can find the city I knew forty years ago. One thing you can't find is my book. You'll have to look to another author for the story.

John Berendt's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil was published in 1994. It was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in non-fiction in 1995. More than 3 million copies have been sold. The book remains the  longest running title - 216 weeks - on the New York Times Best Seller list. Trust me. It's a good read.

Sources

Photos and Illustrations:

front cover art, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Random House, New York, 1994, fair use

Text:

Wikipedia.org

interview, Booknotes, interview with Brian Lamb, C-SPAN, August, 12, 1997

Burned By The Fires Of Gynecological Theology

Hell                                                                  Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450 - 1516)

While perusing some of his favorite blogs beyond politics, OTR found a perfect addendum to yesterday's entry on fundamental transformations. It comes from the mind of John V. Fleming, the Louis W. Fairchild Professor of Literature emeritus at Princeton University. Fleming writes occasional entries at his blog, Gladly Lerne, Gladly Teche. As one could imagine, a retired medievalist professor who is also a superb writer can produce some remarkably entertaining observations on our contemporary world. Fleming's journey to the voting booth resulted in this post, Tale of Two Booths, and an observation on the election outcome:

. . . Bottom line: we have the same president we had before along with a Republican House of Representatives and a Democratic Senate. As President Obama recently said, "We know what change looks like." In this regard there were some happy surprises. The Republicans are expert at plucking defeat from the jaws of victory, but never before in living memory have they employed gynecological theology as an accelerant of self-immolation.  

Wonderful assessment. And some solid advice on how Republicans - not OTR's party of choice - could improve their chances in 2014 and beyond.

Fleming's Gladly Lerne, Gladly Teche is never dull, always entertaining. Do explore it.

Profesora Rita Geada de Prulletti: A Cuban Refugee Embraces The Mother Of Exiles

Rita Geada, Miami, 2010

We sat in high school Spanish class early in the year awaiting an introduction to our new teacher, Rita Geada de Prulletti (1934 or 1937-  ). Weeks earlier, we had heard that she was a most learned woman, a professor, and would impart her native language upon us with great skill.  We expected anything but a deeply shy woman of barely 26 years old, with raven black hair, dark eyes, and a polite and nervous smile. The "profesora" seemed reluctant to meet us. When she spoke, we understood. She knew virtually no English. On hearing her, I'm sure more than one boy began constructing a list of how best to terrorize Spanish class for the rest of the year. As an academic and intellectual - she published her first book of poetry when she was 22 - the year was difficult for her. Where she expected respect and classroom order as in her home country, she was tested repeatedly, one time to tears, but she prevailed. We were immersed in Spanish as there was no alternative and we - most of us - learned it well. Through the profesora's shyness, her search for discipline and respect, the tears, and her perseverance, we learned far more than a second language. We learned about life. 

First, Rita Prulletti was a Cuban refugee from Castro's communist and equally fresh revolution. She was a scholar, having received her doctorate from the University of Havana. The Organization of American States enabled her to complete post-doctoral studies at the University of Buenos Aires. No doubt, she left Cuba in haste, perhaps escaping with the usual suitcase of clothes and leaving family, future and homeland behind. She refused to talk about her experience. A biography mentions her arrival in the United States in 1963 to teach at Southern Connecticut State College. There is no mention of her teaching at Wi Hi.  Was it too painful? An embarrassment? Reasons why are in the past, but they are never really dead.

In mid-October 1962, the Soviet Union attempted to place missiles in Cuba. For the United States, the Cold War suddenly took on a much hotter dimension. Soon, the drone of aircraft heading south from Dover Air Force Base was a daily occurrence. At the first sounds, we  moved to the windows or gazed up from the playing fields to watch the formations of twenty or thirty aircraft overhead. In wave after wave, they flew into the confrontation that, at this point, was beyond our horizon but in our eyes and ears with every evening newscast. Curiously, OTR does not recall if Profesora Prulletti was in the classroom at that time. How odd, he thinks. Could her introversion, the nervous fleeting smiles, have masked her so well that even her presence at the height of such a crisis could go unnoticed? The answer rests in the profesora's need to be somewhere, anywhere, at the time, but not fixed in place. The Cuban revolution forged her into a searcher. Within two years, she moved on from what was a holding pattern. All of us have at some time or another found ourselves suspended between past and future in a necessary but not ideal present. "La profesora" found her physical place in Connecticut and in retirement today in the Cuban community in Miami where she continues to lecture and write poetry.

Rita Geada is recognized as a leading poet, essayist, short story writer, and member of the "First Generation of the Cuban Diaspora." In her work, she longs for the security of place and family she knew in Cuba before her life was uprooted. For Geada, history is not so much forgotten as it is polluted by self-interest and confusion. It is a world drifting with little hope of finding safe harbors in institutions that at one time held humanity together in both purpose and direction. Still, in this dark world, she longs for the lost years in her homeland, for hope in the restoration of freedom, and joy in camaraderie among the exiles. 

In so many ways, Rita Geada, never left the holding pattern that was our Spanish class. Today, she is likely an after-though in the faculty annals at the old alma mater. OTR doubts that very, very few English speaking Americans would recognize her name. Still, a quirky mismatch forty years ago led to five years of academic Spanish on the part of this writer and temporary harbor for a significant participant-observer in the American Experience. OTR hopes that we can learn from Geada's shattered years and their aftermath. A renewed appreciation for family, faith, respectful debate, and national institutions in this difficult time would be a fine tribute to my shy profesora who found her refuge with the Mother of Exiles so many years ago.


For Spanish-speakers, here is Rita Geada discussing her life and work at a conference in south Florida in January 2012:

Sources:

Paradise Lost or Gained?: The Literature of Hispanic Exile, Fernando Alegria and Jorgo Ruffinelli, Arte Publico Press, 1990;

Handbook of Hispanic Cultures in the United States,  Nicolas Kanellos and Claudio Esteva Fabregat, Arte Publico Press, 1994

Amazon.com has a list of the Spanish editions of Geada's recent publications. 

The Nation's Bellwether State Meets The Dark Ages

As a farmer, scholar, and writer grounded in reason and history, Victor Davis Hanson is one of our most significant interpreters of the contemporary American experience. His most recent essay appearing in National Review Online is a combination of beautiful, descriptive prose and urgent politics. The story involves Selma, California, and elsewhere in the Central Valley where  modern-day Vandals are destroying civility while the powers in the city-states on the coast sustain the policies that will surely undermine what gold is left in the Golden State.  California has been a reliable trend-setter for the nation over the last sixty years. That we have no reason to think this role will end makes Hanson's words important for the rest of us.

Christopher Hitchens

Today, bloggers and pundits across the Internet are writing about the passing of Christopher Hitchens, certainly one of the most entertaining political writers of the last thirty years. He covered a broad range of the political spectrum in his own way, personally and professionally, over the years, becoming more pragmatic and conservative after the September 11, 2001 Islamist attack in New York. Whether readers loved or hated him, they had to admire his skill with both language and humor. Here is a sample of what others have said:

James G. Wiles at American Thinker
Ronald Radosh at National Review Online
John Derbyshire at National Review Online
Steven Hayward at Power Line

And here is a collection of "his most memorable bons mots" selected by editors at The Guardian. The column to the right of the article has links to additional commentary from his fellow Brits.

Punctuation Inside Outside

OTR likely produced several thousand pages of planning documents in the last two decades of his career. That's a lot of words, and an equally large amount of punctuation, most of it written according to the laws of The Chicago Manual of Style and a few specialized guidelines from the Department of the Interior. No matter the duration, the quantity or the audience for the written word, writers often face the question, "Is that _____ in the right place?"

For the writers among us, OTR offers this observation on the rise of "logical punctuation," which recently appeared at slate.com. Hat tip goes to Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds.