Thomas Beller

Newcomb Art Museum to host public forum on lead featuring Tulane faculty

Panelists include Thomas Beller, associate professor in Tulane's Department of English, whose writings deal with the dynamics of relationships, a sense of place, and a preoccupation with the nature and effect of time...

The joys and heartbreak of my 20-year friendship with poet-songwriter David Berman

David Berman’s mind was always doing unexpected things, and this was what made him such a fascinating writer and also such a maddening person to know. In both his capacities as poet and leader of the rock bands Silver Jews and Purple Mountains, he was beloved for the couplets and stanzas that poured out like tiny Escher drawings, each a jewel in the crown of a song or poem that usually had many of them, each one surprisingly portable. “Half hours on earth, what are they worth? I don’t know.”...

Russell Westbrook, Kawhi Leonard, Anthony Davis, and the N.B.A. Kaleidoscope

The era of N.B.A. superstars being empowered to choose the teams that they play for with free agency began when Oscar Robertson’s antitrust lawsuit, initiated in 1970, was settled in 1976. The era of superstars also functioning as their own team builders began when LeBron James, then of the Cleveland Cavaliers, staged a live television special in 2010 called “The Decision,” during which he announced, “I’m going to take my talents to South Beach.” I missed the live announcement, because I was at dinner with my wife for our anniversary, celebrating our own “Decision.” Afterward, I was driving through a small town in Long Island, when a man wearing a blue Knicks jersey burst out onto a porch, yelling obscenities into the night. From this, I gathered that James was not coming to the Knicks...

The Shot That Stopped Basketball

The nature of basketball is such that its most cathartic moment—when the ball goes decisively and irretrievably through the hoop—is the same every time. The ball piercing the basket is both a discrete event and a continuous waterfall of motion that, for active players, is constant throughout their careers. They shoot in practice, they shoot in the game, they shoot and shoot and shoot. The motion becomes so ingrained in their muscle memory that the gesture requires only its activation; everything else—the elevation, the aiming at the basket, the cocking of the elbow and the follow-through of the hand—is programmed...

Gathering moss: Acclaimed author on teaching at Tulane, making NOLA home

Editor’s note: This piece is a personal essay by Tulane professor Thomas Beller. It appeared first in the September 2018 issue of Tulanian...