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Monday, March 21, 2005 Volume VII Number 11
by Ken Kemp
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’ve got my list of favorite writers. Lance Morrow is on that list. A favorite writer for me is one who writes in an engaging fashion. There should be a freshness about the work, an unpredictability. There ought to be plenty of surprise phrases and poignant metaphors. A good writer brings clarity, not confusion. Some define intelligence as the capacity for obfuscation. I’ve never bought into that theory. True intelligence illuminates. As you read, you say, or more often think, “ah-hah!” You get it. |
This is not to say that good writing simplifies. It’s not that either. Good writing will approach complex themes. It can be complicated. It can require hard work, focused concentration, stretching the boundaries, if you are going to enjoy the pay-off.
It won’t surprise you that I’ve been an avid reader of TIME MAGAZINE since the late nineteen-sixties. I guess I’ve felt some sort of obligation to keep in touch with the view on the other side of the world, the view embraced by uptown New York City. My conservative up-bringing has taught me to maintain my guard when in the presence of such unashamed liberalism. I’ve tried to use caution. Usually, what keeps me interested is the level of writing, particularly the essays.
I aspire to write like that.
Years and years ago, I was so inspired by the brilliance of an essay by long time staff writer Lance Morrow, I wrote him a five page personal letter filled with admiration for his work. It was a cover story. He wrote the introduction. I can’t recall the story, but I remember a feeling of utter astonishment at his ability to craft a phrase, and I told him so.
Some weeks later, an envelope appeared in my mailbox. He wrote back. He thanked me for the kind words. He interacted with some of my thoughts. He even told me he would welcome me to his New York office and that we could kick around some ideas.
I never took him up on the invitation.
Missed opportunities haunt us, don’t they?
So every time I see his name on the by-line, I always read it, and then I wonder what we would have talked about up there in his high rise office overlooking New York and from that vantage point what dreams might have been born? He’s getting older now, and the big cover stories are introduced consistently by a new writer – Nancy Gibb. (She is another favorite, indeed.)
But this week, Morrow wrote about the year 1948. He called it the year everything changed. He cited some weighty evidence. Three politicians came close to watching their careers vanish. But in the year that Israel came into existence and the Marshall Plan was marshaled and George Orwell wrote his anti-totalitarian novel (Big Brother is watching…) switching the numbers around (1984) imagining a world thirty six years into the future controlled by authoritarian governments and veterans moved into suburbs with their new families and the Baby Boom generation populated the post-war nation, in that year, those three politicians launched careers that would impact the course of history. It was the birth year of Howard Dean and James Taylor and Prince Charles and Al Gore… and me.
Lyndon Johnson. Richard Nixon. John F. Kennedy.
Johnson nearly was defeated in a Senate race. Nixon was nearly drummed out of Washington for his unbridled zeal in the Alger Hiss case. Kennedy nearly withdrew from public life over the shocking deaths of his brother (Joe) and sister (Kathleen) and the onset of Addison’s disease. But all three overcame the odds, and built powerful careers.
How different history might have been without 1948.
* * * * * * *
On this Monday morning, you are a leader.
We can be thankful for writers who inform, inspire, illuminate, and take us to a higher level. You’ve got your favorites.
And in the crucible of the challenges we face, consider how this year might look fifty plus years from now to the casual but perceptive observer.
And you are right there in the middle of it.
Posted in Placentia, California
© Copyright Kenneth E. Kemp 2005
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