The Wish for Kings : Democracy at Bay by Lewis H Lapham

The Wish for Kings : Democracy at Bay by Lewis H Lapham

Durante is old now. His face is permanently subdivided by ravines that seem to radiate from the well publicized extension in its center. But the skills that first drew people to him in a Coney Island saloon in 1910 still work. Durante continues to play Durante, a warm, good, oppressed, not fully lettered man in whom everyone can see a bit of himself. He is a throwback. In a day when entertainment is a prefabricated commodity and we are told performers are the stars before we even know their skills, Durante raucously reminds us of a time when entertainers were fun, genuine, alive. More than Durante's nose relates him to the storied wooden boy Pinocchio. They share the same impish, wondering quality.

If you believe in numbers, he should have been a lawyer, maybe an insurance salesman. Because the figures were terrible. It was January 7, 1968 and teams of the National Football League were choosing the college players they wanted to hire. Rocky Bleier was not at the head of anyone's list. As a matter of fact, he wasn't even on most lists. With thousands of athletes pouring out of colleges each year, the pros need some orderly way to rate and eventually pick those few, of the thousands, they would like to add to their rosters. The worst possible rating is 2.5. Above 1.8 the player is not capable of playing pro ball. Bleier was judged from 2.2 to 2.4. Wait, it gets worse. One Bleier observer noted, Can't win in the NFL with this kid. Another, I don't think this boy can make a pro club. The Steelers picked 18 players that year. Bleier, number 18, is the only one still in pro ball.

Andreas Austilat is the deputy editor of the Sunday supplement of Der Tagesspiegel, Berlin's leading daily, where he has worked since 1987. He has interviewed many celebrities, documented conversation with the last survivors of the Hindenburg, and discovered the lost copies of the oldest existing Titanic movie hidden in a Berlin archive. He has published three travel and culture guides about Brandenburg and a history book about Zehlendorf, an affluent Berlin suburb. He lives in Berlin. Lewis H. Lapham is the founder of Lapham's Quarterly and the former editor of Harper's Magazine. His writing has been published in publications such as Life, Forbes, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, and The Wall Street Journal. He is the host and author of the PBS series, America's Century. He is also on the Board of Trustees of the Advisory Council of the Mark Twain House in Hartford, Connecticut. He lives in New York City.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780802114464
ISBN 10	0802114466
Title	The Wish for Kings : Democracy at Bay
Author	Lewis H Lapham
Condition	Unavailable
Publisher	Grove Press / Atlantic Monthly Press
Year published	2018-02-20
Number of pages	213
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable