Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 24

February 21, 2025: Places I Love and Hate: Salem

[For thisyear’s installment in my annual anti-favorites series, I wanted to complicatethings a bit, considering places from across my life with which I havelove/hate relationships. I’d love to hear your own complex (or simple!)anti-favorites, whether places or anything else, for the crowd-sourced weekendairing of grievances!]

I saidmost of what I’d want to say about why (during the 22 years I’ve lived andworked in Massachusetts since coming up here to finish my PhD dissertationlong-distance and staying for my job at Fitchburg State) I’ve come to both hateand love Salem inthis post on how the city remembers the Witch Trials. Here I’ll just addthis: while I think some of that strange balance is unique or at least specificto Salem, I think a great deal of it also reflects the worst and best of Americaas a whole, and certainly of our collective memories. So, as I put it in this Shepherdbook recommendation list, I love and am frustrated by Salem very much like Ilove and am frustrated by the US of A.

Crowd-sourcedpost this weekend,

Ben

PS. So onemore time: what do you think? Anti-favorites you’d share?

February 20, 2025: Places I Love and Hate: Philly

[For thisyear’s installment in my annual anti-favorites series, I wanted to complicatethings a bit, considering places from across my life with which I havelove/hate relationships. I’d love to hear your own complex (or simple!)anti-favorites, whether places or anything else, for the crowd-sourced weekendairing of grievances!]

Onfrustrating attitudes, fantastic academics, and a secret third thing.

I used tothink it was probably apocryphal, but apparently it’s entirely real: in the1970s, a billboardon the highway leading into Philly, sponsored by the civic group ActionPhiladelphia which was seeking to drum up tourism for the city, featuredthe slogan “Philadelphia Isn’t as Bad as Philadelphians Say It is.” Obviouslythat was a joke and thus a hyperbolic portrayal of local attitudes andnarratives, but like many jokes, this one was definitely also a reflection ofreality. I’ve never lived anywhere where the locals had a more consistently andcomprehensively negative self-image than did Philadelphia and Philadelphiansduring the few years I spent there (as a grad student at Temple University),and for a congenital optimist like myself, encountering that attitude toward myhome and our shared city on the regular was a pretty painful thing toexperience.

On theother hand, one of my very favorite people and certainly one of my favoritefellow academics is a local Philadelphian born and bred. I’ve featured JeffRenye quite a bit in this space, from multipleawesome GuestPosts to my own impassionedtribute to his awesomeness (since I made that plea, he has indeed gotten afull-time teaching gig, in the UPenn WritingProgram). I don’t think I’ve said it specifically or overtly on any ofthose prior occasions, but Jeff is profoundly interconnected with Philly, and Idon’t just mean because I met him in grad school there and he became a guide tomuch of the city for me (although that’s certainly the case)—I mean because Ithink the best of Philly and its ethos, of what the city stands for (comparedfor example to more smug and self-confident places like Boston and New York),is captured by Jeff and his work and identity alike.

Those twoparagraphs capture the duality of this place pretty well, I’d say. But I wouldadd this: one of my favorite places in Philly is a relatively unknown historicsite that’s drastically overshadowed by the more famous and to my mind lessinteresting ones located nearby. I really love the BenjaminFranklin Museum and would recommend it to any visitor to historic Philly—butnearly all such visitors, it seems to me, stay in the area of neighboring siteslike Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, which are certainly historic butmuch less interesting in their presentation and exhibits than the museum. Andthat sums it up too, perhaps—Philly has tons of great stuff, but you’ve got towork a bit harder to find it, and you’ve got to make it through theself-deprecating narratives to do so.

Nextlove/hate place tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Anti-favorites you’d share?

February 19, 2025: Places I Love and Hate: Harvard

[For thisyear’s installment in my annual anti-favorites series, I wanted to complicatethings a bit, considering places from across my life with which I havelove/hate relationships. I’d love to hear your own complex (or simple!)anti-favorites, whether places or anything else, for the crowd-sourced weekendairing of grievances!]

I’vededicated a number of prior posts to impressive individuals who contributedmeaningful moments to my undergraduate experience, including:

PeterGomes, the groundbreaking minister who sat down with us at lunch one day inthe freshman dining hall;

AlanHeimert, the most demanding teacher I ever had and (despite all our differencesin style and tone) one of my clearest inspirations for my own teaching;

And MarkRennella, my senior thesis advisor who became a lifelong friend.

I alwayssay that the people were my favorite part of my time at Harvard, and those area few of the many reasons why. But my least favorite part was the institution’ssnottiness about itsown legacies and self-importance, and I have to admit that as a publicuniversity professor who despairs at how many news stories focus on Harvard andits Ivy League peers as if they are the norm for (or even vaguely representativeof) higher education in America, my frustrations with those aspects of Hahvahd hasonly deepened over the quarter-century since my graduation.  

Nextlove/hate place tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Anti-favorites you’d share?

February 18, 2025: Places I Love and Hate: CHS

[For thisyear’s installment in my annual anti-favorites series, I wanted to complicatethings a bit, considering places from across my life with which I havelove/hate relationships. I’d love to hear your own complex (or simple!)anti-favorites, whether places or anything else, for the crowd-sourced weekendairing of grievances!]

Onprisons, pains, and promises in a public school.

In lieu offull paragraphs in today’s post, I’m gonna point you to prior posts where I’vethought about these layers of my public high school, Charlottesville High.First, there’s thisone on how much this first integrated high school in town seems to have beenmodeled on a prison.

Second,there’s thispost, on my own painful high school experiences with hazing.

But third,there’s thisone on just a handful of the many inspiring and important teachers I was fortunateenough to learn from in (as well as before and after) that public high school. Thereare certainly things I hated about high school (join the club, I know), andcertainly very challenging things about my school in particular. But there werealso powerful positive presences there, ones that have remained with me eversince.

Nextlove/hate place tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Anti-favorites you’d share?

February 17, 2025: Places I Love and Hate: Cville

[For thisyear’s installment in my annual anti-favorites series, I wanted to complicatethings a bit, considering places from across my life with which I havelove/hate relationships. I’d love to hear your own complex (or simple!)anti-favorites, whether places or anything else, for the crowd-sourced weekendairing of grievances!]

Fivepieces through which I’d chart my evolving, fraught feelings on my hometown.

1)     TalkingPoints Memo (2015): I’d certainly written about Charlottesville here on theblog before 2015, but it was with the violentarrest of UVa student Martese Johnson in that year (also the origin pointfor one of my favorite shortstories) that I really started to lean into public scholarly engagementswith race, community, and Cville, if in a pretty preliminary way at that time.

2)     HuffingtonPost (2016): The evolving debate over Charlottesville’s Confederate statueswas a driving force in my continued thoughts, as reflected in this HuffPostcolumn—also the first time I started to more directly link, in my writing atleast, the city’s histories of segregation and racism to those broaderquestions of collective memory.

3)     Segregated Cville(2017): This Activist History Review article remains one of my favoritepieces of my writing, not just about Cville but on any subject, and I’d ask youto check it out in full if you read any one of the hyperlinked pieces in thispost. It brought together those two earlier columns, but also and especially deepenedmy thinking about all the American histories and issues that Cville soprofoundly embodies.

4)     SaturdayEvening Post (2019): That’s one of a few Considering Historycolumns I’ve written about my hometown, but I’m focusing on it here because itwas the one in which I had the chance to write about the destruction of theVinegar Hill neighborhood, one of the most painful and telling stories fromCville and any American community.

5)     Hereon the Blog (2020): Over the last five years I’ve returned many times inthis space to Cville, with updates on both its unfolding stories and my ownevolving thoughts. That’s just one example, and of course since 2020 my perspectivehas likewise continued to shift. As I imagine it always will on my fraught,frustrating, foundational hometown.

Nextlove/hate place tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Anti-favorites you’d share?

February 15-16, 2025: One More Love Letter to the Big Easy

[Lastmonth I got to return to myfavorite American city for the 2025 MLA Convention. So forthis year’s Valentine’s Day series I’ve offered some love letters to what makesNew Orleans so unique, leading up to this special tribute post!]

On a fewmore magical moments my wife and I experienced on our January visit.

1)     A Food Find: It will come as no surprise toanyone with even a passing familiarity with New Orleans that we ate very wellthroughout the trip. But while that was true of the expected spots, especiallythose throughout the Quarter and environs, what really makes NOLA so deliciousis the culinary perfection awaiting in even seemingly out-of-the-way spots. Probablythe best meal we had on the whole trip was at one such spot, Blue Oak BBQ; not gonna say anything else,other than go if you get the chance!

2)     Musical Moments: We experienced plenty of plannedmoments of musical magic on our trip, including a jazz cruise on the city’sonly working steamboat (the Natchez)and a jazz concert at the legendary PreservationHall. But my favorite music (or least music-adjacent) moment was the kindof spontaneous one you can only find in NOLA—I was buying a copy of WendellPierce’s TheWind in the Reeds in a used bookstore, and the employee told me thathis uncle is none other than DeaconJohn Moore, the wonderful jazz musician who guest-starred as Pierce’strombone teacher on Treme!

3)     Great Galleries: For whatever reason, on myearlier visits to New Orleans I hadn’t spent much time in art galleries, butthis time we were drawn to multiple of them as we walked the French Quarter,encountering works by profoundly talented artists in the process. I don’tremember any specifics, but that’s at least partly my point—these weren’tplanned or pre-scheduled visits to places or works we already knew, they werejust impromptu walk-ins that gifted us with beautiful art in compelling spaces.I recommend you do the same if you get the chance!

4)     A Moving Museum: By far the most movingexperience we had on our trip was another entirely unplanned one: not longafter our initial arrival, we followed signs to TheHistoric New Orleans Collection, a museum in the heart of the Quarter. Everythingtherein was striking and impressive, but I’d highlight two exhibits inparticular: the absolutely heartbreaking Captive State: Louisiana andthe Making of Mass Incarceration; and the evocative Prospect.6: Gesture to Home,artist Didier William’scontribution to the city-wide ProspectNew Orleans project.

5)     A Missed but Still Meaningful Second Line: TheSunday during our visit featured aSecond Line, a unique part of New Orleans culture that I’ve never gotten tosee in person (despite loving every one featured on Treme). Unfortunatelythe timing was too tight with our Preservation Hall concert, and after waitingfor a while to catch a glimpse of the Line, we had to leave before it arrived.But every part of the experience still felt meaningful, from walking through ArmstrongPark and Treme to get to our viewing spot, to waiting out there with thefolks preparing food and playing music and adding their own contributions tothe day and city. In its own very real and very moving way, one of my favoritemoments ever in my favorite city (and with my favorite person)!

Anti-favoritesseries starts Monday,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Cities you’d love on?

February 14, 2025: Love Letters to the Big Easy: Literary New Orleans

[Lastmonth I got to return to myfavorite American city for the 2025 MLA Convention.So for this year’s Valentine’s Day series I’ll be offering some love letters towhat makes New Orleans so unique, leading up to a special tribute post thisweekend!]

On five ofthe many books through which we can read New Orleans.

1)     TheGrandissimes (1881): I love George Washington Cable’smessy and magnificent multi-generational historical novel so much that I featuredit in that hyperlinked post in my very first week of blogging (and made it thesole focus of the last chapter of mydissertation/first book to boot). I also don’t know any novel that morefully captures its setting than does Cable’s for New Orleans, making it doubly amust-read for anyone who loves the Big Easy.

2)     TheAwakening (1899): Kate Chopin’s masterpiece, which as illustrated by thathyperlinked post I’ve taught many times and always to great effect, isn’tnecessarily about New Orleans—indeed, I’d argue that Chopin’s story could takeplace most anywhere. But at the same time, Chopin was consistently interestedin portraying her Louisiana and Creole communities through localcolor writing, and there’s a lot we can learn about them in this novel.

3)     AStreetcar Named Desire (1947): That hyperlinked post focuses on TheIceman Cometh, because for whatever reason I haven’t written at length inthis space about Tennessee Williams’s iconic New Orleans-set play.I also know it less well than I do other Williams works, or even than I do thefilm adaptation with Brando’sfamous t-shirt. But we can’t talk literary New Orleans without Williams andStreetcar!

4)     TheMoviegoer (1961): As I argued in that hyperlinked post, Walker Percy’s uniqueand quirky debut novel is profoundly interested in where American society and culturewere in its early 1960s moment, and thus is more interested in portraying andengaging with the time layer of setting than the place one. But Percy’s protagonistBinx Bolling spends the whole novel roaming his native New Orleans, making thisbook for many readers then and since an iconictour guide to that city.

5)     TheYellow House (2020): Mostly I want to take this last entryon the list to recommend Sarah Broom’smulti-generational family memoir as enthusiastically as I can. But it also offersan excellent book-end to the first post in this week’s series, as I don’t knowany book that captures all the layers of New Orleans and of the America itreflects better than Broom’s.

Specialpost this weekend,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Cities you’d love on?

February 13, 2025: Love Letters to the Big Easy: Fats Domino

[Lastmonth I got to return to myfavorite American city for the 2025 MLA Convention.So for this year’s Valentine’s Day series I’ll be offering some love letters towhat makes New Orleans so unique, leading up to a special tribute post thisweekend!]

On a fewiconic moments in the career of the legendary New Orleans rock ‘n roller.

1)     “The Fat Man”: Domino’s first hit under hisdebut recording contract with Lew Chudd’s Imperial Records,co-written with his frequent producer and collaborator (and an influentialartist in his own right) Dave Bartholomew and recorded at Cosimo Matassa’s J&MRecording Studios on Rampart Street, wasn’t just the first rock record tosell a million copies (although it did hit thatgroundbreaking number by 1951). It also embodies rock’s profoundlycross-cultural origins, on so many levels: from Domino’s own French Creoleheritage (his first language was Louisiana Creole) to Matassa’smulti-generational Italian American New Orleans legacy, from Chudd’s childhoodin Toronto and Harlem as the son of Russian Jewish immigrants to AfricanAmerican artist Bartholomew’s time in the US Army Ground Forces Band (anintegrated band despite the army’s segregation in the era) during WWII. It tookall those individuals and all those legacies to make “Fat Man” and get Americanrock music rolling.

2)     “The King”: Over the next couple decadesDomino would record many more hit records and albums, with “Ain’t That a Shame” (1955)and “BlueberryHill” (1956) the two biggest smashes. A February1957 Ebony magazine featuredubbed him (on the cover no less) the “King of Rock ‘n Roll.” But it was anoffhand line from another “King,” more than a decade later, that most potentlyreflects Domino’s status and influence. On July31, 1969, Domino attended Elvis Presley’s first concert at the Las VegasInternational Hotel; during a post-concert press conference, a reporterreferred to Presley as “The King,” and he responded by pointing at Domino andnoting, “No, that’s the real king of rock and roll.” At the same event Elvis tookan iconic picture with Domino, calling him “one of myinfluences from way back.” I’ll have a bit more to say about Elvis and hisinfluence in a couple days; but regardless of any other factors, thisrecognition for Domino from one of the most famous American rockers in historyillustrates just how iconic Fats was within (and beyond) the industry.

3)     Katrina: Domino was known to be one of themost humble and grounded rock stars, and he and his wife Rosemary continued tolive in their home inNew Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward throughout the late 20th centuryand into the first decade of the 21st. Because of Rosemary’s ailinghealth they did not evacuate in the days before Hurricane Katrina hit the city,and in the storm’s chaotic aftermath their home was flooded and Domino andRosemary were feared dead for a couple long days. But it turned outthey had been rescued by a Coast Guard helicopter, and in 2006 and 2007 Dominomade triumphant returns to the city and the music world: first with his 2006 albumAlive and Kickin’, the proceeds from which benefittedTipitina’s Foundation; and then with his last public performance (and first inmany years), a legendary May 19,2007 concert at Tipitina’s. If there had been any doubt that Dominorepresented New Orleans just as much and as well as he does rock ‘n roll, theseculminating iconic moments laid them forever to rest.

Last loveletter tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Cities you’d love on?

February 12, 2025: Love Letters to the Big Easy: Treme

[Lastmonth I got to return to myfavorite American city for the 2025 MLA Convention.So for this year’s Valentine’s Day series I’ll be offering some love letters towhat makes New Orleans so unique, leading up to a special tribute post thisweekend!]

On fivecharacters through which the wonderfulHBO show charts Katrina’s and New Orleans’s stories.

[NB. Thehyperlinked clips are just relatively random ones from YouTube, not summationsof everything about these deeply human and multi-layered characters.]

[Also NB.Here be SPOILERS, so if you haven’t watched this great show yet, hie theehence!]

1)     Creighton Bernette: I wroteabout John Goodman’s Creighton and his righteous rants about New Orleans andKatrina in thispost, and those rants are what made Creighton famous, both on the show andin the responses to the show. But while those rants were indeed righteous, theywere also fueled by Creighton’s inability to move on, his permanent state ofmourning for what had happened to his adopted, beloved city. In retrospect,everything in this character (and in many ways in the show’s first season)built inevitably to his suicide at the end of that season’s penultimateepisode, as a statement about Katrina’s all too permanent effects for NewOrleans and many of its residents.

2)     LaDonna Batiste-Williams: KhandiAlexander’s fiery bar owner LaDonna’s first season arc embodies a different,even more tragic lingering effect of Katrina: all those families who literallylost loved ones in the storm and its aftermaths, and who never knew (or did notlearn for months if not years) what had happened to them. But while the storyof LaDonna’s brother Daymo wraps up by the end of season one, LaDonna’scharacter endures, experiencing another decidedly different tragedy of her ownwhile fighting to maintain a foothold in a city that seems intent on pushingher and her family out. New Orleans is still trying even in the series finale,but against LaDonna I don’t like even an entire city’s odds.

3)     Janette Desautel: KimDickens’ chef and restauranteur Janette reflects a third, slower burning kindof post-Katrina tragedy—someone who tries her hardest to stay but finds thestorm’s lingering effects too much for her, and more exactly for her career andpassion. Like her on-again/off-again boyfriend, Steve Zahn’s DJ Davis McAlary,New Orleans post-Katrina seems as if it might be more destructive thanconstructive for Janette, a passionate but unsustainable relationship. But intruth, even what would seem to be a significant relationship upgrade (to theNew York City culinary world) can’t ultimately compete, and the show’s endfinds Janette back in New Orleans and back with Davis—and despite ourselves wefully understand and support her in those choices.

4)     Albert Lambreaux: Myfavorite character is Clarke Peters’ Big Chief Albert, a handyman whose truetalent and passion is in the world of Mardi Gras Indians. Albert’sreturn to New Orleans and his decimated house (and to masking Indian) seem formuch of his arc like the acts of sheer stubbornness that his children(especially Rob Brown’s jazz trumpeter Delmond) believe them to be. But thetraditions and legacies that Albert embodies and carries on are too potent tobe broken and, it turns out, too charismatic to be resisted, even by hisfrequently resisting son. Like New Orleans post-Katrina, Albert may be fightinga losing battle—but he makes the fight so irresistibly appealing that we’rewith him every step of the way.

5)     Antoine Batiste: And thenthere’s the first character we meet, Wendell Pierce’s jazz trombonist Antoine. WhileAntoine is certainly affected by Katrina (particularly in the loss of hishouse), in some ways he is the character who seems least by either the storm orthe events of the show’s multi-year arc, who feels the closest in the finalepisode to where he was in the opening one (down to his continued disagreementswith cab drivers). But Antoine’s difficulties finding steady gigs (which mightbe an effect of Katrina, but might be the challenge of a city jam-packed withjazz musicians) push him into a new profession, that of middle school musicteacher, and through that work Antoine becomes connected to the most crucialquestion of all when it comes to post-Katrina New Orleans: what it will meanfor the city’s young people, and especially young people of color. That remainsa painfully uncertain question at the show’s conclusion, but with Antoine atthe front of the classroom I feel better about the answer to be sure.

Next loveletter tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Cities you’d love on?

February 11, 2025: Love Letters to the Big Easy: The Battle of New Orleans

[Lastmonth I got to return to myfavorite American city for the 2025 MLA Convention.So for this year’s Valentine’s Day series I’ll be offering some love letters towhat makes New Orleans so unique, leading up to a special tribute post thisweekend!]

On three striking sides to one of America’s mostinsignificant victories.

The first thing that stands out about the January 1815Battle of New Orleans is that it was entirely unnecessary. Not in the “War:what is it good for?” sense, but quite literally unnecessary: the War of 1812had been ended by the Treaty ofGhent in December 1814, but the various signatories were still in theprocess of ratifying the treaty and word had not reached the British troops whowere trying to take the city and with it the rest of the Louisiana Purchaseterritory. So the attack continued, theAmerican troops led by Major General Andrew Jackson fought back, and theU.S. won its clearest military victory of the war after that conflict hadofficially ceased.

If the victory was thus officially meaningless, however, thecomposition of those American forces was far more significant. I’ve writtenelsewhere in this space about the uniquely multicultural,-national, and –lingual identify of New Orleans, and the army fighting toprotect the city reflected that identity very fully: the relatively small force(it numbered around 8000, noticeably fewer than the British forces) includedFrench Creole troops from New Orleans (some commanded by the former pirate Jean Lafitte),both free African American residents of the city (colloquiallyknown as fmcs, “free men of color”) and slaves who had been freedspecifically to aid in the battle, and ChoctawNative Americans, among other communities.

Moreover, one particular such community is even morestriking and unremembered in our national narratives. Since the mid-18thcentury, a group of Filipino immigrants had settled in a Louisiana townknown as Manila Village, comprising what seems likely to be the oldest (andcertainly the most enduring) Asian American community. Men from the village joined Lafitte’s forces forthe battle, helping to create the truly multicultural fighting unit knownas the “Batarians.” It’s difficult for me to overstate how much would change inour understanding of American history and community if we acknowledged at all,much less engaged at length with, this fact: that in one of our earliestmilitary efforts, our forces included French Creole and Filipino Americans,fighting side by side to defend the city and nation that were and remain theirhome.

Next loveletter tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Cities you’d love on?