I’m here with my coffee gearing up to proofread a project before sending it back to the editors. I’ve been off this week but intentionally staying away for most work- and writing-related things. The past twenty-four hours I’ve been reading of Pelé’s passing with great sadness. It was not unexpected; news of his illness was widespread during the World Cup. Still, when someone so iconic passes away it is always a shock. Soccer is not something I follow regularly and although losing interest the last few cycles due to people and events related to the organizing bodies, I do enjoy the World Cup when it comes every four years. There are different ways of putting it but watching makes you feel like an international citizen, or something like that. Not to mention that the game is, well, beautiful.

Pelé is the only player to have won three World Cups, in 1958, 1962, and 1970. I don’t think I quite understood until reading some of the obituaries and tributes the extent to which his playing elevated the nation of Brazil in those decades just after the Second World War. Prior to Brazil’s 1958 victory the only three nations to have won the Cup were Uruguay, Italy, and West Germany. England won in 1966 before Brazil’s third title in 1970. The symbolism of this seventeen-year-old from the barrios of Brazil leading his country to victory at the height of the decolonization movement would not have been lost on many. The details are different but he was much like Muhammad Ali in this respect, which explains their respective international stature. I remember when he played for the North American Soccer League’s New York Cosmos in the mid-1970s. Pelé’s best playing days were behind him at this point, but his presence brought soccer to millions of Americans who otherwise would never have been exposed. And oh yes, he led the Cosmos to the Soccer Bowl title in 1977. (I was having lunch with someone a week ago when we got on the topic of ins and outs of the NASL shootout.) If you want to read a good book and/or watch a good film, check out Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos. You want to talk about 70s excess? Yikes.

Like all persons Pelé could sometimes disappoint. I found it unseemly the way he sometimes denigrated the accomplishments of later players like Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. I never understood why he felt the need to do that. Still, people’s feet of clay are part of their humanity and thus what make them even more interesting. I feel fortunate to have lived in the world at the same time Pelé was in it as well.

I emailed someone today to acknowledge and pay my respects to the great Loretta Lynn. I would have to say hands down that she was favorite female country singer. One of the things I always found most intriguing about Lynn was how little she spoke publicly while seeming to emanate so much wisdom and intelligence. The cliche of country music is that its essence boils down to three chords and truth. With no one was this truer than Lynn; sexuality, motherhood, marital strife, spirituality, and just the everyday struggles of life were all grist for her mill. As a cultural figure she also seemed to cut across generations and fan bases in a way that, unlike with certain other country artists of her time who latched on to whatever genre was happening at the moment, seemed uncontrived. I have no way to verify this, but I read this morning that more Loretta Lynn songs were banned from the radio in the twentieth century than those of all male Country Western artists combined. It seems plausible. Outlaw artists singing about dance floors and booze is one thing, but a woman discussing the independence accorded her via The Pill at the height of the Sexual Revolution was too much for many.

Like so many, for Loretta Lynn it began with gospel and the church.

A friend and I visited Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx a week ago today. We had a map with us but decided instead to meander without purpose and take in what we saw along the way. Woodlawn was found in 1863, twenty-five years after Brooklyn’s Green-Wood though very much part of the same Garden Cemetery Movement of the mid-eighteenth century. The thing that strikes me the most about Woodlawn vs. Green-Wood is that, generally speaking, the residents of the former were clearly wealthier than the residents of the latter. You can see the Gilded Age wealth in the mausoleums of Frank W. Woolworth, J.C. Penney, and numerous others. On the whole Woodlawn’s resting place are much bigger and on a grander scale than the ones in Green-Wood. Another contrast is that Woodlawn contains many more twentieth and twenty-first century artists. Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, and Illinois Jacquet are there with others in Jazz Corner, a silent testimony to the fact that while most of these men came from elsewhere they saw New York as their home. In our meandering last week we happened upon LeRoy Neiman. I took the pictures you see below and told my friend I would post today, the tenth anniversary of Neiman’s passing.

I read with shock and sadness this morning of the death of cultural critic Terry Teachout. I sent the news to someone this morning who emailed a few minutes later saying the he was about to send me the news when my own missive came through. I never understood why Teachout was not better known than he was. His output was prolific and his intellectual interests vast. He also had a generosity of spirit, liked artists, and wanted to see them and their work succeed creatively and financially. Among other things he gave us biographies of H.L. Mencken, Louis Armstrong, and Duke Ellington. There is also a fine anthology assembled in 2004 entitled simply “A Terry Teachout Reader.” He also wrote the successful one-man play “Satchmo at the Waldorf.” This barely touches the surface of his career. He wrote on a number of topics about which I have little interest, like the theater. Still, I almost always found myself reading until the end because the prose was so tight his wit so sharp. He suffered a great blow several years ago when his wife died. Both were too young to leave when they did. I can hardly believe we now live in a world with Terry Teachout not in it.