B Ra I Y Remembered Through Contest Ife Than Getti Ng Loose"
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,March 25, 1981 Page 7 B ra I y remembered through contest the winning entries will be honored with a wearing tee shirts. and a lot of them spent received letters from well-known authors formal transcript, a notation in the offIcial weekends lying around the lowe; yard ,uch as Norman Mailer, John Cheever, commencement program when the student catching a suntan. and for a few months. William Burroughs, and Kurt Vonnegut, graduates, and publication of the work in they looked as if they'd been hanging out at who highly praised Braly's writing ability. Bartleby which is the student literary the beach. But Red knew the tans wouldfade In the spring semester of 1979, Braly magazine. in the fall. without ever having been began teaching two creative writing courses Summission must be given to the English admired. and winter would find the same at U MBC. He also helped with the department secretary before April 1. Each white-faced cons huddled under the rain publication of Bartleby. the English Council submission should have a cover sheet with shed. telling each other the same lies. " of Major's literary magazine. The artist was the author's name in it only. The secretary in his third semester of teaching at UMBC will then assign each entry a number, and the (An excerpt from On the Yard. by Malcolm when he died. cover will be flied to preserve the writer's C. Braly.)- anonymity. Submissions should be typed on On this book's cover, is an artist's standard typing paper, and double-spaced. sketch of four men with their dark glowering The entries will be judged by an ad hoc eyes staring hoplessly · at an unidentifIable committee consisting of four faculty fixed point with their raised wrinkled fIsts members of the English Department and a and narrow pointing fIngers painting a student members representing Bartleby. distinct shadow hovering over the cell wall in Depending on the committee's judgement of the background. On the back, it simply notes the quality of the submissions, either one that "Mr. Braly'S research for this novel was prize, both prizes, or neither in any given done the hard way. year will be awarded. "The hard way" seems fItting in describing "Malcolm C. Braly was a natural-born Malcolm Braly's life. This was a man whose teacher," said Dr. Patricia Meszaros, Acting parents deserted him when he was only 14. Associate Chancellor for Academic Affairs. Branded as a ward of the courts and living "So, we think it is very appropriate to have a with few necessities, he began to steal and prize for students named after him." had to spend nearly a year in reform school "Malcolm was probably one of the fInest because of it. A few short years later, he was writers who has ever graced this campus," sentenced to prison for the armed robbery said Mr. David Beaudouin, a UMBC charge. English instructor. "It is appropriate that Braly was released from prison in 1965 this particular prize, which is long overdue, and he secured a job writing screen plays for Malcolm C. Braly: writer and teacher. should be named after him." Warner Brothers and Paramount Pictures. How do the students and peers who knew h Instructor. "The prize is named in Malcolm Braly's He appeared on The Tonight Show with the artist feel about him? forgotten. The English Department is honors out of respect to his memory as a Johnny Carson in 1968. Braly was also an "He was always up front. There was instituting an annual award, known as the person, and because of the fact that he associate editor of a New York -book nothing pretentious about him," said Malcolm C. Braly Writing Prize. All represented artistic achievement in the face publishing fIrm. He continued writing Harold Quinn, a UMBC English graduate. officially registered UMBC students are of adversity," said Dr. Ken Baldwin,another novels. "And with the force he had, Braly was kind eligible to compete for two-fIfty-dollar cash English instructor. In the summer of 1978, Dr. Ken Baldwin, of a hero, you know? He was kept down so prizes: one for excellence in creative writing an English instructor who was then the long and still made it." "Society Red walked the big yard alone. head of the Personnel Committee in the "When he passed on suddenly and I took lie and the other for excellence in· critical or With summer coming on. the cons were English Department, received a phone call over his class, I sensed a feeling of regard, ot scholary writing. In addition to the money, from a man who he labels as •• ... having a very ::ommitment and affinity from the odd-sounding voice." The man on the other students", said Mr. David Beaudouin.. end of the line identifIed himself as Malcolm "When his funeral was held, half of the Braly. Baldwin said Braly expressed an Writing and Fiction class attended. It is interest in teaching a few writing courses at ;tranle. Wherever Malcolm went he UMBC. Baldwin told the author to write his ~enerated a sort of awe that engaged credentials in a letter of application to the - respect." English Department. "The main thing he did for me ws to get me Baldwin said that three months later he Interested in college," said senior Bryan found a letter in his mailbox from Braly Denson. "Malcolm turned me on to school. I which read: "Dear Professor Baldwin, I was so excited to talk to him and write. He never fInished high school and my was sort of my guru. elementary school grades would not stretch "When Malcolm was buried, I was driving for a C- average." However, Baldwin added to the cemetary in Gary Leventhal's big that the author wrote he would send a couple Buick. A friend of Malcolm's from the of letters of recommendation to the Catskills, where Malcolm wrote False Chairman of the English Department. Shortly after that, Dr. Patricia Meszaros CONTINUED ON PAGE 8 over full ·control and took away a lot of things Crack the Sky had, and put it in things they shouldn't have .... triple stacked ife than getti ng loose" the vocals so you couldn't even understand the words." I remark in agreement that if you read the words to "Nuclear Apathy"-"When they bo doesn't just rock n' roll spit, do you wash their floors/ And pray that they don't spit no morel Or, rise up children, life goes on and on/ Wise up children, life clouds started forming. Some towns (like leave it, because it's not going to work-I we goes on and on," you might think it was an Baltimore) had been real hot for the bands's know that. There's no way I'm going to early Clash song, but on the record it-just est fInish a record that I have no belief in. And ;hy progressive flavored rock, but the general slips by. reaction had been frustratingly lukewarm. my statement to them was, if you want me to "That's the only regret I have, that I didn't 1 I "The next thing I knew we were in go home and write songs and record this get to record "Nuclear Apathy" because ble Woodstock and we had to have a record, album, I'll do that but I won't go back on the that's one of the favorite things I've done .. J Ind and I hadn't written anything.... that was the road for a while." think it's an important statement. It got to last thing on my mind. I just wanted to get Well, you can imagine that the rest of the stacked and drifted away ... they got carried ent home and forget about it for a while, and .,group was so thrill~d about that they could away with the whole big production end of \Dd have just done the fandango all over John's it ... stacking vocals and acoustic guitars am head .. And there were other people with a until there were no holes or spaces." !O's God forbid if the thing .ested interest in having CTS continue. There was also the curious way the "Now there were people behind the whole original members of the band didn't put the the that . goes in the time situation... everyone looking out for their new singer or keyboard player's picture on the own ass ... what they did was talk to the band the cover with them. ich capsule is Ted Nugent ... and psyche them up into thinking, 'Yeah let's "That was all a suppressed ego thing. See· om there was no time for that. So I wrote some carry on, because I don't want to lose this when I was with the band their egos really Photo by Wong ed. job, and he's [Palumbo] always stifled us John Palumbo Crack the Sky ace stuff real quick, like 3 or 4 days before we took a lashing because people were picking 0' went in and started doing demos. I wanted it anyway so we'l do it ourselves." me out. And that hurts anybody, it would I was hurriedly scribbling. I began to won~er . "So the end result was ... 2 and 1/2 years in ted to be something special, to go farther than have hurt me ... especially if you're not if my hand had gone out and learnt Egyptlan Animal Notes. the studio, spending an enormouse amount prepared for it, and we weren't.