he lived in the same apartment buildingrnas Frank Costello and accepted mobrnprotection. Damon Runyon picked uprnhis gangster lingo from the originalrnsources—^Al Capone and Arnold Rothsteinrnbeing two of them. His stories, forrnall their colorful language, affirm thernvalues of the mobsters. The mob hadrnnothing to fear in New York from writersrn—quite the opposite, in fact.rnTwo particularly notable episodes inrnthe New York of the Jazz Age are missingrnfrom Douglas’s account—notable, I sav,rnbecause they entered everyone’s consciousnessrnand were politically embarrassingrnto Jimmy Walker. One is thernmurder of Arnold Rothstcin in 1928;rnanother is the disappearance of JudgernCrater in 1930. Arnold Rothstein, ofrncourse, actually did fix the 1919 WoddrnSeries, as Meyer Wolfshicm, the gangsterrnbehind Jay Gatsby, is reputed to haverndone in Fitzgerald’s superb romance—rnthe greatest literary product of its timernand place.rnThe criminal connections had literaryrnrepercussions, and their echo should bernnoted in the silence. Raymond Chandler,rnwhose phrase Douglas has taken forrnher title, put a bigshot mobster in cvcrvrnone of his seven novels. He did so notrnonly because of the melodramatic andrnverbal or Runyonesque possibilities, butrnalso because he insisted on representingrnhis part of America as mob-connectedrnfrom top to bottom. He did it because itrnwas terribly honest, and secondlv because,rnI believe, Fitzgerald had shownrnthat it was mandatory.rnhi spite of what we might think of asrnthe displacement of Lucky Fuciano byrnCertrude Stein in Professor Douglas’srnvision of New York in the old davs, I amrnconvinced that lerribk Honesty is an importantrnwork about America now (not tornmention then)—and perhaps most importantrnto those who do not share thernvalues that may be implied by it. Arndense, challenging, and subtle work, itrndeserves mam- readers and will no doubtrnevoke all sorts of responses. Let me addrnthat its Bibliographical Essa’ is itselfrnworth the price of admission. I know ofrnno book that more decisively demonstratesrnhow old modernism is, howrnentrenched in our minds. It is, I think, arnsort of inverted handbook—an infernalrnguide to just about everything that isrnwrong with our country. Neither MaryrnBaker Eddy nor the revolt against herrnseems attractive today, but the choicernwas a false dilemma even then. Andrneven in the 1920’5, there were Americansrnwho knew it. Such a consciousness doesrnnot register in this account, but evenrnAnn Douglas’s everything must have arnstop.rnYes, we have no bananas. Her insightrnand energy notwithstanding, the heritagernof the 1920’s does not seem to offerrnenough positive value to justifv the emotionalrninvestment of Douglas’s study,rnwhich is best as revisionist anaKsis, notrnaesthetic advocacy. Even the discographyrnappended to it is an admission (forrnthe recordings are all historical) that jazzrnWHY HEATHER CAN’T WRITErn”One overlooked corner of the academic madhouse bears in particular on graduates’rnjob-readiness:… today’s education is not just an irrelevance…. For years, compositionrnteachers have absorbed the worst strains in both popular and academic culture. Thernresult is an indigestible stew . . . ” (Emphases added.)rn—from the opening of “Why johnny Can’t Write” by Heather MacDonald.rnthe lead essay in the Summer 199S issue of the Public Interest.rnhas become a museum piece, most oftenrnheard today—mostlv bv whites—as a recreation,rni’hc popular arts have largelyrnbecome—how can I put this generouslyrnand objectively?—a coarse, boring, andrnindustrialized mess, one largeh the resultrnof the destructive centralization packagedrnin that noble center of art and culture.rnNew York in the I92()’s.rnGoing to the big city where TerriblernMom can’t see you get drunk and getrnlaid is something that people have beenrndoing since Nineveh. As an urbane classicistrnonce pointed out to me, access tornalcohol, prostitutes, and gambling isrnwhat cities have always provided, alongrnwith enough hoochie-coochic musicrnto help ()u gag it down. Though thernimpulse to seek such services is quiternunderstandable, it is, finally, somethingrnless than a cultural statement and evenrnless a prescription for art. Worst of all,rnone result of excess is the tedious confessionrnand sermonizing wc have to endurernfrom the survivors of it. Surveying thernwreckage of a countrv, a culture, and arnwodd, we would do well to look over atrnthe emerging disaster in Eastern Europe,rnwhere freedom and Western or Americanrnculture mean alcoholism, gangsterism,rnpornography, swinging night clubs,rnand the rest of it. Sound familiar? Andrnall of this without Christian Science!rn’Ibday nobody wants to take thernA train up to Harlem anymore, andrnLawrence Wclk “plays” “jazz” for oldrngeezers. I he excitement of what wasrnonce a provocative beat has become thernrobotic nranipulation of a computerizedrnsound system. The prostitutes on EighthrnAvenue actually twirl their handbagsrnunder streetlamps, and being young andrnaddicted to the hard stuff, they seemrnghoulishly appealing, if that’s your taste.rnSkinny runaways from Podunk andrnHicksville, they don’t live long, as a rule.rnIbday we could not hope or even imaginernthat their pimp might be a geniusrnlike Jelly Roll Morton. But look on thernbright side: toda’ arious drugs give vourna better hit than booze ever did, and thernbookies are still wired by the mob whenrnthey are not literally part of the staternbureaucracy. Ain’t wc got fun? I keeprnthinking of what a cultural critic morernradical than Ann Douglas once said,rnthough he didn’t sa’ it in English andrnhe was once rude to his mother: “Ye arernthe salt of the earth; but if the salt havernlost his savom, wherewith shall it bernsalted?”rn30/CHRONICLESrnrnrn