Feldman's Faves: April 22, 2024

GOOD MORNING EVERYONE

Happy Passover to all of you who are celebrating this week.

Things are really hopping at Goodmans.  I can’t recall a start of the year that has been as busy and intense as this one. A big thanks to all of you who have been (and continue to be) working so hard. Your hard and really smart work is really appreciated.

Well – in case you felt that you weren’t getting enough Taylor Swift in your lives, she just released her much anticipated  album, The Tortured Poets Department, and, to be honest, it is  entertaining but I’m not sure its her best work.  Don’t tell my daughters I said this….

Speaking of great entertainers, if you haven’t seen the Articling Students’ Oscar-worthy video from last week- Here it is.

After an incredible few weeks of sports (with March Madness being one the best in history, the Masters, Austin Matthews 69 goals, NBA and NHL playoffs – and of course, the death of OJ), I decided to dedicate this week’s theme to sports.

THE BOYS IN THE BOAT By: Daniel James Brown –  My daughter Noa bought me this book for my birthday since in her words is covers all the boring stuff I like – history, politics and sports, which it sure does. In The Boys in the Boat, Daniel Brown does an incredible job describing both the US and Nazi Germany in the late 19220s and early 1930s with the 1936 Berlin Olympics as the centre of this story. We get a real sense of dread that existed during the Great Depression years as well as the terror that was growing and mounting in Nazi Germany. One microcosm of this history was sports and within that microcosm was the story of the men from Washington State who put together a Gold Medal Winning performance to beat the Germans (at the same time Jesse Owens was doing it on the track).  The history of the team members was fascinating and the detailed explanations of what in involved in creating rowing success ( from the building of the boats, to the picking of the right mix of people, to the training required and pain involved) was just fascinating. As one reviewer notes, “I've always admired Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, thereby infuriating Hitler, who stormed out of the stadium after this black man from Alabama so visibly challenged Nazi fantasies of racial superiority (at least as the usual story goes; there is now some doubt). So what if a group of brawny white boys from the University of Washington managed to win a gold medal in the eight-man boat race? Their feat – however impressive – will always seem less spectacular by contrast. In the hands of Daniel James Brown, however, their story becomes a fine-grained portrait of the Depression era, with its economic and climatic horrors set against youthful dreams. Brown finds a representative figure in Joe Rantz, a poor boy whose determination to overcome odds make him an ideal hero. Brown learned the details of Rantz's brilliant rowing career from the athlete himself. But this story wasn't just about him; it was always about the boat: nine rangy boys – sons of farmers, fishermen, and loggers – who managed to coalesce into a rowing team that would march confidently into the 1936 Olympics under the hawkish eyes of Hitler, emerging victorious over rival crews from Germany and Italy. Like other members of the team, Rantz struggled to survive difficult circumstances. But if he was buoyed by his teenaged sweetheart, Joyce, their relationship needn't have been described in passages that might have issued from the pen of a run-of-the mill romance novelist. "And so when Joyce had first laid eyes on Joe Rantz," says Brown, "when she had first heard his boisterous laugh and seen mirth in his eyes … she had been drawn to him, seen in him at once a window to a wider and sunnier world." A hackneyed element dogs Brown's prose. Joe is "poor as a church mouse"; the rowing team were lost in "a whirl of activity"; a "gentle autumn breeze tousled their mostly fair hair." He nevertheless has some gift for narrative, and one quickly gets lost in the story, in the lore of rowing, which has a rich history in the US, reaching back to the mid-19th century, when elite universities began to assemble teams. The Harvard-Yale race in 1852 was, Brown informs us, "the first American intercollegiate athletic event of any kind".  Before the dawn of TV sports, when bouncing balls rose into their current lofty position in pop culture, successful rowers were held in very high esteem. One can't imagine a ticker tape parade for a rowing team nowadays, not like the one that greeted a victorious crew in Seattle in the early 30s, with speeches by the mayor and other dignitaries. The press often swarmed around the coaches, begging for tidbits and prognostications, and there were rumours of huge payouts for topline coaches, such as Tom Bolles, who assisted his former teammate, Al Ulbrickson, at Washington. (In the background of this narrative lurks Ky Ebright, a former Washingtonian who took over the California team – Washington's major rival on the west coast.) Standing behind the coaches is George Pocock, an English boat-builder who learned the art of building wooden shells for racing from his father. He is the "quiet master" throughout, on the sidelines, ever inventive, full of wise words. His comments, in fact, serve as rather corny epigraphs to each chapter. Pocock says, for instance: "Good thoughts have much to do with good rowing. It isn't enough for the muscles of a crew to work in unison; their hearts and minds must also work as one." But then one does not expect wit or irony in coaches. The task of shaping a motley crew of young men into an Olympic team to venture into the heart of Nazi darkness seems like cinematic gold…..Brown digs into his material with impressive energy, trying to understand the dynamics of the sport, which he conveys with enthusiasm. "One of the fundamental challenges in rowing," he writes, "is that when any one member of a crew goes into a slump the entire crew goes with him." Such slumps occur, and Brown dramatises them well, arranging the facts in ways that create a narrative drumbeat that never eases till the end. As the Washington crew races in Seattle, Poughkeepsie, New York or, finally, in Nazi Germany, one roots for the good guys.  And it doubtless helps the narrative that the bad guys are so bad. We get intermittent snapshots of key members of the Nazi Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, run by Joseph Goebbels, who appears in all his monstrosity in these pages, limping around the Third Reich and leering at young starlets, much to the annoyance of his wife, Magda. He was rejected in love by the "beautiful and brilliant" Leni Riefenstahl, at least according to Riefenstahl, who produced, directed and starred in her own films. Riefenstahl, much to Goebbels' annoyance, won the affections and gratitude of the Führer as she produced several of the most successful propaganda films of all time, such as Triumph of the Will, which documented a massive Nazi rally at Nuremberg in 1934. Riefenstahl's film of the 1936 Olympics was meant to record the splendours of the Reich, but the American team denied her a "proper" ending to the eight-oar race, a very popular event. Among the good cards Brown has been handed are that two of the American rowers fell desperately ill before the race, though they persevered at the insistence of their coach. Also, as if to increase the tension, the American team was given the worst lane, putting them in the path of severe crosswinds. Throughout the race, the crowd cheered wildly for Germany, as they would. Everything seemed to tilt against the boys in the boat, but they prevailed, coming from behind, beating Italy by eight feet, leaving the German crew in third place. I was impressed with Brown's research, imagining the countless interviews, the exhumation of journals and logs, and the patient review of long-defunct newspaper articles and photographs it must have involved. The Boys in the Boat is, then, an often inspiring feat of narrative non-fiction, though it could never be as thrilling as the victory of those nine boys from Washington state on a windy day in Berlin once upon a very dark time.”  I am so glad to have learned about this incredible story. I also have a new found respect and admiration for those crazy men and women who compete in rowing at the highest level. I will certainly be watching this year in the Paris Olympics with a different understanding of this incredible sport. BTW, this book is also a movie that was produced by George Clooney (so that’s another way to learn about this story). Here is a good review from Kirkus -  https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/daniel-james-brown/the-boys-in-the-boat/

30 FOR 30 PODCASTS – Through the Flames: Reggie’s Church – Other than Lawrence Taylor I don’t think the NFL has seen a scarier player on the field than Reggie White. He was a stone cold killer that no quarterback ever wanted to face. White’s Hall of Fame career is legendary. Beyond his life on the field, White was a real leader off the field and led a church that was welcome to everyone. Tragically, this church was burned down and the story was not exactly what one would have expected. In this PODCAST we get a deep dive into what happened, even though to this day it is not entirely clear. Here is an excerpt from the PODCAST itself, “NFL Films producer Courtland Bragg investigates the mysterious 1996 burning of Reggie White’s church in Knoxville, Tennessee, and in the process, shines a light on the greater legacy of the NFL Hall of Famer. In the midst of a rash of mid-1990s church burnings across the United States, White’s Inner City Church boasts a growing interracial congregation, and after the building is firebombed and reduced to ashes, White believes the attack is the work of racists. The NFL legend and pastor uses his platform to maintain public pressure on the investigation, even as the sensitive nature of the crime causes government officials to tread carefully. As the story unfolds, questions are raised about the church’s financial status, along with the possibility of arson. The podcast brings the story to life through the voices of those involved with the church and the investigation – and in the process, draws a powerful parallel between these ugly incidents and the deeper challenges the nation still faces.”https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/30-for-30-podcasts/id1244784611?i=1000645978670

Thank you for your ongoing engagement and participation.And remember to stay safe, stay healthy and to docket daily.

Jon