Courtesy of Washington's Shakespeare Theater Company, we saw a broadcast of the Royal National Theatre's production of David Hare's play, Skylight, at Sidney Harman Hall Monday night. The performance was in London this past July, so this was a tape delay, ostensibly broadcast in HD. The play is scheduled to open on Broadway in a few months.
Carey Mulligan starred, opposite Bill Nighy. I've liked both of them in the past and Miss Mulligan definitely rose to the occasion. She plays a teacher living in a scruffy part of London, having fled after six years' service as caretaker for the son of a successful restaurant entrepreneur. Now she is visited, for different reasons, by both the son, and his father, with whom she had an affair.
Carey Mulligan makes the part of the thirtyish teacher come alive. You sense her bright mind and her need for independence that drove her away from the restaurateur, even though her departure was ostensibly brought on by the discovery of the affair by his dying wife. Bill Nighy, a good actor, whom I first saw in the movie Love, Actually and then on Broadway in Hare's The Vertical Box, seemed miscast in the first act but grew into the part in the second. The original Tom in 995, when the play debuted, was Michael Gambon, whom I would have loved to have seen in it.
One big problem with the show was the lighting. We did have seats in the gallery, where I hadn't previously sat, which may have affected our perception of light, but the stage seemed so dark at the start that I couldn't even make the faces out. I'm accustomed to the excellent production values of the Metropolitan Opera's movie house broadcasts in HD; this lighting may have suffered from being in an old London playhouse, even older, of course, than the Broadway legit houses, and unlike the relatively modern National Theatre complex.
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
Thursday, December 18, 2014
Always a Friend
It's starting to get too close, people I know well, and now someone my age, starting to fall. Word came today that my law school roommate and later the best man at my wedding, Guy Blynn, collapsed of what turned out to be a pulmonary embolism and never regained consciousness. We had stayed in touch the way old friends and comrades do, but it had often been a year or so between get-togethers. Nevertheless, it was like old times when we did see each other.
In recent years, the occasion usually was sitting as judges on a moot court for Guy's son Dan's legal writing class at George Washington Univ. law school, where my wife also continues to teach as an adjunct. Guy was his old self on this bench, only mildly terrorizing first-year law students during oral argument, for their own good, as it always was broadcast to us from our own law school days.
Guy really was cut out to be a lawyer. He became interested in trademark law right out of law school, when starting out at a big New York firm. His moving to Winston-Salem and going to work for RJR made seeing him less frequent but he became well-known in the trademark bar. He was a Stephen Colbert before his time, often taking a conservative position on anything for the sake of argument and yes, at the time, he probably even believed some of it.
When I heard of his death, I started googling him and so much more emerged. His enthusiasm for sports I of course knew--going back to his days as sports editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian and wrestling manager at Penn. I'm a sucker for most sports--at least once--and he dragged me to wrestling meets at Harvard and left me with an appreciation for the fine points and those who love the sport, such as author John Irving. He also put up with my mediocrity on the squash court when we meet at prime time--lunch hour--only because he had bothered to give the desk guys a bottle of scotch at Christmas so we got on as Harvard Law professors stood by and wondered how those guys rated.
But now I learned that he had contributed a major collection of Holocaust materials to Forsyth Technical Community College where the Blynn Holocaust Collection resides. He chaired a committee that apparently was formed by the mayor of Winston-Salem to examine the fairness of a criminal proceeding and recommended that the defendant, convicted by a jury, be set free after 15 years in prison despite the local judge's having denied habeas based on untimely filing of the motion.
He was a benefactor of the arts in Winston-Salem and I recall his telling me he had acquired half of a season's ticket to Arsenal, the football club in north London to which I have always been partial. I once told him I'd meet him over there for a match and regret that we never got to do that. His three sons have all turned out fine.
Many people who knew him or knew me would ask how he could represent tobacco, or as Guy inimitably put it, "I'm the guy (Guy?) who keeps the world safe for Joe Camel." That was part of Guy--and if you accept the view that everyone is entitled to be represented, which I generally do, that was his choice to live with. Guy used to come up and see us and tell everyone that they hadn't proven that smoking was harmful--but then he had stopped smoking himself.
He had a real zest for life. I think I liked him partly because I could put up with his needling--which was amazingly similar to the same trait practiced by my father. I met his dad once, and he was the same way. What was even more amazing was that we first met when I was in high school in Mt. Vernon, attending the New York State Key Club convention where Guy was running for the highest office, Governor. He didn't win, despite the efforts of the mighty Long Island bloc, which was overwhelmed by the mightier Upstaters. But as always, he made a lasting impression.
His last e-mail to me was about a month ago, asking the derivation of Fenno, a humor column in the Harvard Law Record I had inherited from who knows how many predecessors (going back to the ancient days of 1946, I believe). "I'm doing well for someone almost 70 (yikes!!!!) travelling a bunch since the kids are in good places to visit: denver, miami and...d.c.," he related.
Good-bye, Blynner--you were truly one of a kind.
In recent years, the occasion usually was sitting as judges on a moot court for Guy's son Dan's legal writing class at George Washington Univ. law school, where my wife also continues to teach as an adjunct. Guy was his old self on this bench, only mildly terrorizing first-year law students during oral argument, for their own good, as it always was broadcast to us from our own law school days.
Guy really was cut out to be a lawyer. He became interested in trademark law right out of law school, when starting out at a big New York firm. His moving to Winston-Salem and going to work for RJR made seeing him less frequent but he became well-known in the trademark bar. He was a Stephen Colbert before his time, often taking a conservative position on anything for the sake of argument and yes, at the time, he probably even believed some of it.
When I heard of his death, I started googling him and so much more emerged. His enthusiasm for sports I of course knew--going back to his days as sports editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian and wrestling manager at Penn. I'm a sucker for most sports--at least once--and he dragged me to wrestling meets at Harvard and left me with an appreciation for the fine points and those who love the sport, such as author John Irving. He also put up with my mediocrity on the squash court when we meet at prime time--lunch hour--only because he had bothered to give the desk guys a bottle of scotch at Christmas so we got on as Harvard Law professors stood by and wondered how those guys rated.
But now I learned that he had contributed a major collection of Holocaust materials to Forsyth Technical Community College where the Blynn Holocaust Collection resides. He chaired a committee that apparently was formed by the mayor of Winston-Salem to examine the fairness of a criminal proceeding and recommended that the defendant, convicted by a jury, be set free after 15 years in prison despite the local judge's having denied habeas based on untimely filing of the motion.
He was a benefactor of the arts in Winston-Salem and I recall his telling me he had acquired half of a season's ticket to Arsenal, the football club in north London to which I have always been partial. I once told him I'd meet him over there for a match and regret that we never got to do that. His three sons have all turned out fine.
Many people who knew him or knew me would ask how he could represent tobacco, or as Guy inimitably put it, "I'm the guy (Guy?) who keeps the world safe for Joe Camel." That was part of Guy--and if you accept the view that everyone is entitled to be represented, which I generally do, that was his choice to live with. Guy used to come up and see us and tell everyone that they hadn't proven that smoking was harmful--but then he had stopped smoking himself.
He had a real zest for life. I think I liked him partly because I could put up with his needling--which was amazingly similar to the same trait practiced by my father. I met his dad once, and he was the same way. What was even more amazing was that we first met when I was in high school in Mt. Vernon, attending the New York State Key Club convention where Guy was running for the highest office, Governor. He didn't win, despite the efforts of the mighty Long Island bloc, which was overwhelmed by the mightier Upstaters. But as always, he made a lasting impression.
His last e-mail to me was about a month ago, asking the derivation of Fenno, a humor column in the Harvard Law Record I had inherited from who knows how many predecessors (going back to the ancient days of 1946, I believe). "I'm doing well for someone almost 70 (yikes!!!!) travelling a bunch since the kids are in good places to visit: denver, miami and...d.c.," he related.
Good-bye, Blynner--you were truly one of a kind.
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Signs of Incipient Curmudgeonly Tendency
We like to think that we don't fall into the trap of thinking and saying how good things used to be and how so much that occurs today is terrible. Here's a quick rundown of some stuff in our 24/7-oriented media that aroused my ire recently:
1. LeBron James criticized for touching Kate Middleton. Since when do royalty have any right to expect that this country accepts the ridiculous protocols prevailing in their home nation which derive from the days when the royals asserted divine rights? We fought a Revolutionary War against the Brits following our issuance of the Declaration of Independence specifying the many offenses committed by the then-king, George III. It's bad enough that our media and the UK media assume that Americans are enamoured of the British royals and share the regard that some Brits have for them. These people are spongers who deserve very little respect much less deference. They have done nothing to deserve any special treatment.
2. Columbia Law School students demand and receive exam postponement because of the effect on their concentration of the Ferguson and Staten Island grand jury results. This egregious catering to law students ostensibly upset by the failure of grand juries to indict -- it should be noted that the facts of the two cases are very different -- is yet another instance of our academic institutions promulgating policies that accept the idea that students have a right not to be made to feel "uncomfortable"--whatever that means, in the phrase of my recently-retired criminal law professor. Too often, this ersatz "principle" is used to justify restricting freedom of speech on college campuses. We need more recognition of the precept advanced by both Voltaire ("I may disagree with everything you say but will defend to the death your right to say it.") and Thomas Paine ("He that would make his own liberty secure must guarantee rights even to his enemy, for if he fails to do so, he establishes a precedent that will reach unto himself.").
3. Universities need to get out of the adjudication business. College panels of amateurs--when it comes to determining matters by any legal standard--have no place today in acting on charges of serious offenses such as rape. The criminal justice system surely is far from perfect, but we have devised a series of procedures that seek to guarantee the rights of both complainant and defendant.
4. Journalism needs to re-emphasize a focus on facts before and separate from opinion. Rolling Stone discredited itself by only looking for one side of a story at the University of Virginia. Yet our media today are filled with simplistic opinions and refusals to pursue the underlying facts. We should not assume it was better in previous times--the vicious tone of journalism in the 1790s, for example, has not yet been equaled, fortunately.
5. The recognition of the dangers in football presented by the long-term effects of concussions will have more impact over time in changing the sport and perhaps ending it than the issue of the Redskins' name. The concussion reports and analysis remind me of the barring of the dangerous "flying wedge" play after President Theodore Roosevelt summoned the major football powers to the White House in 1905 and told them that change was required. It's almost humorous to recall that Harvard and Yale were those major football powerhouses in those days. Eventually, it may well turn out that the frequency with which players' careers and lives are shortened by head hits will cause the demise of the sport. As for the local gridiron eleven, the appropriate new name might be the Deadskins, based on their now-standard haplessness on the field and off.
1. LeBron James criticized for touching Kate Middleton. Since when do royalty have any right to expect that this country accepts the ridiculous protocols prevailing in their home nation which derive from the days when the royals asserted divine rights? We fought a Revolutionary War against the Brits following our issuance of the Declaration of Independence specifying the many offenses committed by the then-king, George III. It's bad enough that our media and the UK media assume that Americans are enamoured of the British royals and share the regard that some Brits have for them. These people are spongers who deserve very little respect much less deference. They have done nothing to deserve any special treatment.
2. Columbia Law School students demand and receive exam postponement because of the effect on their concentration of the Ferguson and Staten Island grand jury results. This egregious catering to law students ostensibly upset by the failure of grand juries to indict -- it should be noted that the facts of the two cases are very different -- is yet another instance of our academic institutions promulgating policies that accept the idea that students have a right not to be made to feel "uncomfortable"--whatever that means, in the phrase of my recently-retired criminal law professor. Too often, this ersatz "principle" is used to justify restricting freedom of speech on college campuses. We need more recognition of the precept advanced by both Voltaire ("I may disagree with everything you say but will defend to the death your right to say it.") and Thomas Paine ("He that would make his own liberty secure must guarantee rights even to his enemy, for if he fails to do so, he establishes a precedent that will reach unto himself.").
3. Universities need to get out of the adjudication business. College panels of amateurs--when it comes to determining matters by any legal standard--have no place today in acting on charges of serious offenses such as rape. The criminal justice system surely is far from perfect, but we have devised a series of procedures that seek to guarantee the rights of both complainant and defendant.
4. Journalism needs to re-emphasize a focus on facts before and separate from opinion. Rolling Stone discredited itself by only looking for one side of a story at the University of Virginia. Yet our media today are filled with simplistic opinions and refusals to pursue the underlying facts. We should not assume it was better in previous times--the vicious tone of journalism in the 1790s, for example, has not yet been equaled, fortunately.
5. The recognition of the dangers in football presented by the long-term effects of concussions will have more impact over time in changing the sport and perhaps ending it than the issue of the Redskins' name. The concussion reports and analysis remind me of the barring of the dangerous "flying wedge" play after President Theodore Roosevelt summoned the major football powers to the White House in 1905 and told them that change was required. It's almost humorous to recall that Harvard and Yale were those major football powerhouses in those days. Eventually, it may well turn out that the frequency with which players' careers and lives are shortened by head hits will cause the demise of the sport. As for the local gridiron eleven, the appropriate new name might be the Deadskins, based on their now-standard haplessness on the field and off.
Sunday, December 7, 2014
Rolling Stone Comes a Cropper at UVa
The Rolling Stone fraternity gang rape story at the University of Virginia has exposed many of the faults of the current trends in American popular journalism, garnished with an unhealthy helping of political correctness. First, the journalism part: the writer and the editors failed to follow the most basic rules of the trade, which have long mandated that reporters seek out all sides of a story and never rely on merely one involved party for a full picture.
Now it turns out that the woman may not have been assaulted by multiple men, nor that she was so attacked at the particular fraternity house she told the writer that it was where this all occurred, and that she may not have had the date correct. Yes, the whole event may well have occurred but her credibility has been damaged severely, largely because the writer failed to check the facts. That Rolling Stone said that fact-checking had occurred makes its role in this sorry process even less sympathetic.
Now, some will say we are missing the point. They urge us to focus on sexual assault as a problem on college campuses and forget about the specifics. Not so fast, I would suggest. It has been said that rape is easy to allege and hard to disprove. All the more reason why such allegations should be tested in a court where the rules of evidence are in full force. And all the more reason for the U.S. Department of Education's sorry campaign to lower the burden of proof should be resisted and ended.
Fraternities remain a malignant influence on American higher education. They inhibit students from associating with fellow students who may not share the same cultural background. This is also true of ethnic-based living arrangements in Latino, African American, Jewish, Catholic, evangelical, or Muslim-oriented houses, whether these are secret societies, like fraternities, or not. It is also clear that fraternities are generally anti-intellectual and at best, neutral in their attitude toward learning. They encourage irresponsible drinking, which leads to worse behavior.
Nevertheless, the current attitude among bien-pensant types assumes that all fraternity men are guilty of sexual assault until proven otherwise. So writers clearly without experience in adhering to long-established standards of good journalism are encouraged to tell merely one side of a story when it comes to sexual assault. This--as we now have seen from the UVa case--serves neither victims nor defendants nor the institutions themselves.
Now it turns out that the woman may not have been assaulted by multiple men, nor that she was so attacked at the particular fraternity house she told the writer that it was where this all occurred, and that she may not have had the date correct. Yes, the whole event may well have occurred but her credibility has been damaged severely, largely because the writer failed to check the facts. That Rolling Stone said that fact-checking had occurred makes its role in this sorry process even less sympathetic.
Now, some will say we are missing the point. They urge us to focus on sexual assault as a problem on college campuses and forget about the specifics. Not so fast, I would suggest. It has been said that rape is easy to allege and hard to disprove. All the more reason why such allegations should be tested in a court where the rules of evidence are in full force. And all the more reason for the U.S. Department of Education's sorry campaign to lower the burden of proof should be resisted and ended.
Fraternities remain a malignant influence on American higher education. They inhibit students from associating with fellow students who may not share the same cultural background. This is also true of ethnic-based living arrangements in Latino, African American, Jewish, Catholic, evangelical, or Muslim-oriented houses, whether these are secret societies, like fraternities, or not. It is also clear that fraternities are generally anti-intellectual and at best, neutral in their attitude toward learning. They encourage irresponsible drinking, which leads to worse behavior.
Nevertheless, the current attitude among bien-pensant types assumes that all fraternity men are guilty of sexual assault until proven otherwise. So writers clearly without experience in adhering to long-established standards of good journalism are encouraged to tell merely one side of a story when it comes to sexual assault. This--as we now have seen from the UVa case--serves neither victims nor defendants nor the institutions themselves.
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
New View of Rodgers & The H Men
I've had much more of a liking for Rodgers & Hart than for Rodgers & Hammerstein. Richard Rodgers probably was the finest melodist of all the great Broadway composers. That is a given. Larry Hart was one of the cleverest lyricists, rivalled only by Cole Porter, Ira Gershwin, and E.Y. (Yip) Harburg. If you know anything about Larry Hart, an immensely talented man whose personal frustrations led him to drink himself to death, you can never listen to "My Funny Valentine" without thinking of how much of himself he threw into that song.
As for Oscar Hammerstein II, I found him, from my vantage point as a child of the '60s, a total cornball. We cringed at "You Have to Be Carefully Taught" from South Pacific. And it struck me early and often that every good thing in Showboat comes from Jerome Kern's fantastic music rather than the often pedestrian book and lyrics. That show did change what musicals were--something Hammerstein also accomplished 17 years later with Rodgers in Oklahoma!--but I've seen one great production a few years ago on Broadway which brought out the strengths of the show, and one locally which seemed to go on desultorily at best forever. It really does need a great, imaginative production to work today.
But listening to Robert Wyatt's wonderful presentation at the Smithsonian last week on Rodgers & Hammerstein, I did start to see some qualities in Hammerstein's words that I'd not noticed before. I'll never like "You Have to Be Carefully Taught" but even that doesn't ring as preachily as it used to do when I heard it. And South Pacific--beyond that one song--has no bad numbers, none. It is a fantastic musical.
This summer I was lucky enough to catch a fine production of Carousel at Glimmerglass. That too is an absolutely superb musical, almost operatic in many ways. It was fun at Wyatt's program to see clips of the original Julie, Jan Clayton (remember her as the original mom in Lassie?) singing "If I Loved You" and "When You Walk Through a Storm". Seriously, can you beat either of those two marvelous songs?
To me, The Sound of Music, their last show, was as it was parodied in a long-ago Broadway revue I saw starring Hermione Gingold--playing the Mary Martin/Julie Andrews leading role, of course--as she croaked out the lyrics in "The Sound of Schmaltz". I'll never hear "My Favorite Things" without thinking of her rhapsodizing about "oodles of noodles" and "cute little babies, with runny noses". Yet even that behemoth of what the late Dwight Macdonald would likely have blasted as total kitsch seemed in the clips, especially of Mary Martin, fabulous--both her and the show--even though she was getting on by then. And apparently Hammerstein had thought she was too old for South Pacific--the clips proved to me that she was absolutely perfect.
But in the end, I have to give Hammerstein his due. He wrote a lot more good than bad. Even The King & I holds up, much to my surprise. And I don't know if very many others enjoy hearing Yul Brynner sing "A Puzzlement"--Wyatt was good enough to play at least part of it. The capstone of the evening came early when Wyatt was telling the story of both Rodgers and Hammerstein before they were Rodgers & Hammerstein. It was the clip of Paul Robeson singing "Old Man River"--it just doesn't get better than that.
As for Oscar Hammerstein II, I found him, from my vantage point as a child of the '60s, a total cornball. We cringed at "You Have to Be Carefully Taught" from South Pacific. And it struck me early and often that every good thing in Showboat comes from Jerome Kern's fantastic music rather than the often pedestrian book and lyrics. That show did change what musicals were--something Hammerstein also accomplished 17 years later with Rodgers in Oklahoma!--but I've seen one great production a few years ago on Broadway which brought out the strengths of the show, and one locally which seemed to go on desultorily at best forever. It really does need a great, imaginative production to work today.
But listening to Robert Wyatt's wonderful presentation at the Smithsonian last week on Rodgers & Hammerstein, I did start to see some qualities in Hammerstein's words that I'd not noticed before. I'll never like "You Have to Be Carefully Taught" but even that doesn't ring as preachily as it used to do when I heard it. And South Pacific--beyond that one song--has no bad numbers, none. It is a fantastic musical.
This summer I was lucky enough to catch a fine production of Carousel at Glimmerglass. That too is an absolutely superb musical, almost operatic in many ways. It was fun at Wyatt's program to see clips of the original Julie, Jan Clayton (remember her as the original mom in Lassie?) singing "If I Loved You" and "When You Walk Through a Storm". Seriously, can you beat either of those two marvelous songs?
To me, The Sound of Music, their last show, was as it was parodied in a long-ago Broadway revue I saw starring Hermione Gingold--playing the Mary Martin/Julie Andrews leading role, of course--as she croaked out the lyrics in "The Sound of Schmaltz". I'll never hear "My Favorite Things" without thinking of her rhapsodizing about "oodles of noodles" and "cute little babies, with runny noses". Yet even that behemoth of what the late Dwight Macdonald would likely have blasted as total kitsch seemed in the clips, especially of Mary Martin, fabulous--both her and the show--even though she was getting on by then. And apparently Hammerstein had thought she was too old for South Pacific--the clips proved to me that she was absolutely perfect.
But in the end, I have to give Hammerstein his due. He wrote a lot more good than bad. Even The King & I holds up, much to my surprise. And I don't know if very many others enjoy hearing Yul Brynner sing "A Puzzlement"--Wyatt was good enough to play at least part of it. The capstone of the evening came early when Wyatt was telling the story of both Rodgers and Hammerstein before they were Rodgers & Hammerstein. It was the clip of Paul Robeson singing "Old Man River"--it just doesn't get better than that.
Saturday, September 27, 2014
There's Only One New York
We opted to slip away to New York City for my birthday and it's been a wonderful day. Started out at the New-York Historical Society seeing the sampling of objects from Sam Roberts' A History of New York in 101 Objects, which was both compelling and enjoyable, even if they should have done all 101 of them. Then we took in The Two Faces of January, a new film based on a Patricia Highsmith novel hitherto not known to me and here I thought I'd read all of her deliciously weird tales. Viggo Mortenson and Kirsten Dunst were the leads along with Oscar Craig and the locations--all the real ones--in Athens, the Greek islands, and Turkey were well utilized too. These are mostly antiheros of the Tom Ripley ilk and the picture holds your attention.
High point came with The Country House, a Donald Margolis play put on by Manhattan Theater Club and previewing on Broadway before it opens next week. Margolis has lots of great lines, much like his Dinner With Friends some years ago. Blythe Danner leads a fine cast of six. The play has much fun with throwaway lines enjoyed by anyone who recalls a tad of theatrical history and the underlying plot holds up through three acts and one intermission. A first for me was four members of the cast coming out on stage after the show to participate in a feedback session run by an assistant director.
We grabbed dinner at Eataly, a sprawling combination of dining spots, grocery store, and bookstore at 23rd and Fifth, that has you choose to dine in a dining area devoted to fish, vegetables, meat, pasta, or pizza. The idea is good and the place is packed although you can get seated if you arrive early. The fish, which we chose, was good but not great, even if cooked to order.
Then on to the Village where I again returned to hope for a home run from Neil LaBute, who, alas, has come up short ever since reasons to be pretty a few years back, which sadly just missed taking a Tony during its run at the Lyceum. This outing is entitled The Money Shot, about two fading Hollywood stars and their mates as they embark on a foray to get back in the hit column and never really get to discussing whether they will do an all-out sex scene. LaBute seems to have lost his direction because despite a few decent lines, the characters were rarely believable.
Couldn't quite make it to the Museum of Modern Art for a show of posters and prints by Toulouse-Lautrec, always an enticement for me. Then I happily recalled that I doubtless saw the same show a while back when it was at the Baltimore Museum of Art. It's likely been travelling the country ever since then.
Had we had a few more seconds to stop for breath, might have walked in Central Park when we left the Historical Society, but we made up for that by walking from 23rd and Fifth--well, actually we started at 28th & Broadway but that's another story--to the Lucille Lortel on Christopher Street. One thing I noticed was that New York still has plenty of non-Starbucks coffee joints and their coffee is just about as good which means it's all right.
It was just a gorgeous day to be in Manhattan and I think we made more than the most of it.
High point came with The Country House, a Donald Margolis play put on by Manhattan Theater Club and previewing on Broadway before it opens next week. Margolis has lots of great lines, much like his Dinner With Friends some years ago. Blythe Danner leads a fine cast of six. The play has much fun with throwaway lines enjoyed by anyone who recalls a tad of theatrical history and the underlying plot holds up through three acts and one intermission. A first for me was four members of the cast coming out on stage after the show to participate in a feedback session run by an assistant director.
We grabbed dinner at Eataly, a sprawling combination of dining spots, grocery store, and bookstore at 23rd and Fifth, that has you choose to dine in a dining area devoted to fish, vegetables, meat, pasta, or pizza. The idea is good and the place is packed although you can get seated if you arrive early. The fish, which we chose, was good but not great, even if cooked to order.
Then on to the Village where I again returned to hope for a home run from Neil LaBute, who, alas, has come up short ever since reasons to be pretty a few years back, which sadly just missed taking a Tony during its run at the Lyceum. This outing is entitled The Money Shot, about two fading Hollywood stars and their mates as they embark on a foray to get back in the hit column and never really get to discussing whether they will do an all-out sex scene. LaBute seems to have lost his direction because despite a few decent lines, the characters were rarely believable.
Couldn't quite make it to the Museum of Modern Art for a show of posters and prints by Toulouse-Lautrec, always an enticement for me. Then I happily recalled that I doubtless saw the same show a while back when it was at the Baltimore Museum of Art. It's likely been travelling the country ever since then.
Had we had a few more seconds to stop for breath, might have walked in Central Park when we left the Historical Society, but we made up for that by walking from 23rd and Fifth--well, actually we started at 28th & Broadway but that's another story--to the Lucille Lortel on Christopher Street. One thing I noticed was that New York still has plenty of non-Starbucks coffee joints and their coffee is just about as good which means it's all right.
It was just a gorgeous day to be in Manhattan and I think we made more than the most of it.
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
The Last Prof Retires
It made me realize how much time has gone by since school days when the last professor I had in law school retired quietly this summer. Next year I might make it to my 45th law school reunion--there are a few of my old friends who now are making an effort to turn up at these occasions--but it will be different knowing that no one on the faculty in my day is still teaching.
Lloyd Weinreb, as with so many of his colleagues, became nationally known--at least in the law school world--as a master of teaching and writing in the field of criminal law and procedure, both of which courses, one required, the other not, I took when a student. He'd only been teaching for a couple of years then but his casebooks in both courses were already written and in use--in loose-leaf form. By the time I graduated they were in print and probably used all over the country.
Despite the usual law professor wunderkind background--law review, Supreme Court clerkship, and in his case, practical experience consisting of a couple of years in the U.S. Attorney's office for D.C. and, more exotically, as a staff lawyer on the Warren Commission--he seemed to lack the pretentiousness of so many of the law school faculty. It was clear from the first day that he actually enjoyed teaching criminal law and procedure.
He challenged everyone's thinking the way good law school professors should. When someone was unable to come up with a solid reason for prosecuting a putative defendant, he would push them to supply a good basis or else admit that the prosecution rested on the mere assertion: "because he's a bad man." He would press the class to define accepted terms meaningfully by re-stating the term--reckless endangerment, for example--and then appending "whatever that is."
While he imparted some of the aspects of criminal practice he learned as a line prosecutor, he drew more shrewdly on the traditional limited-span immersion in the world of practice most law professors have. He would refer to particular instances of decision-making that confronted him or to the decisions every prosecutor, including him, had to make every day as to which cases to proceed with and which to resolve summarily by plea agreement.
It was heartening to read that he was even more of a Renaissance man that most of the law professors seemed to be then and now. He apparently spends his mornings learning ancient Greek and has both taught courses outside his central area of criminal law, such as copyright, with the aim of expanding his horizons, and written some major work on legal theory; no, I haven't read it but I'm more likely to look at something like that because he wrote it, and he probably wrote it just because it seemed like something interesting and worthwhile.
He's really the only law professor whom I still had plenty of regard for after taking two courses with him. Since he's not that old, I do hope he enjoys many more years of making fine use of his amazing and wide open mind.
Lloyd Weinreb, as with so many of his colleagues, became nationally known--at least in the law school world--as a master of teaching and writing in the field of criminal law and procedure, both of which courses, one required, the other not, I took when a student. He'd only been teaching for a couple of years then but his casebooks in both courses were already written and in use--in loose-leaf form. By the time I graduated they were in print and probably used all over the country.
Despite the usual law professor wunderkind background--law review, Supreme Court clerkship, and in his case, practical experience consisting of a couple of years in the U.S. Attorney's office for D.C. and, more exotically, as a staff lawyer on the Warren Commission--he seemed to lack the pretentiousness of so many of the law school faculty. It was clear from the first day that he actually enjoyed teaching criminal law and procedure.
He challenged everyone's thinking the way good law school professors should. When someone was unable to come up with a solid reason for prosecuting a putative defendant, he would push them to supply a good basis or else admit that the prosecution rested on the mere assertion: "because he's a bad man." He would press the class to define accepted terms meaningfully by re-stating the term--reckless endangerment, for example--and then appending "whatever that is."
While he imparted some of the aspects of criminal practice he learned as a line prosecutor, he drew more shrewdly on the traditional limited-span immersion in the world of practice most law professors have. He would refer to particular instances of decision-making that confronted him or to the decisions every prosecutor, including him, had to make every day as to which cases to proceed with and which to resolve summarily by plea agreement.
It was heartening to read that he was even more of a Renaissance man that most of the law professors seemed to be then and now. He apparently spends his mornings learning ancient Greek and has both taught courses outside his central area of criminal law, such as copyright, with the aim of expanding his horizons, and written some major work on legal theory; no, I haven't read it but I'm more likely to look at something like that because he wrote it, and he probably wrote it just because it seemed like something interesting and worthwhile.
He's really the only law professor whom I still had plenty of regard for after taking two courses with him. Since he's not that old, I do hope he enjoys many more years of making fine use of his amazing and wide open mind.
Monday, September 1, 2014
The Real Labor Day
I've come to the only sensible conclusion about how Labor Day should be observed: anyone who casually rails against unions, works for an anti-union organization, or supports elected officials who oppose a fair minimum wage and other benefits provided by just about every other country in the world, including some not-so-free ones, should go to work on Labor Day and stay there until they've put in a full eight hours, right, with the lunch hour not counting.
A perfect example of anti-labor vitriol can be found in the endless disputes about what kind of schools we need. Teachers unions are blamed for the idiotic administration by incompetent and politically-wired local school boards or state boards. Charter schools as a whole have not shown themselves to be any more effective at educating children than public schools, but the great and the not-so-good looking to make some quick bucks urge us to expand them without any proof of real success. They seem to be good only at turning over their complement of teachers almost annually instead of developing skilled, experienced teachers.
All the propaganda put out by corporate America has had an impact: people really feel that the market system is how to run anything. In many places, we once had excellent public schools. I went to them. Then when white people fled the inner city and the inner suburbs, the administrators stopped paying attention to the schools. Some of education's problems were brought upon it by reliance on trying to implement one faddish scheme after another with no time allowed for evaluation and assessment.
But the public as a whole has been conditioned to accept the outrageous pay of CEOs--who take it because they can,whether they are successful or not. We of course have a Congress, both parties, totally in thrall to major donors, who want tax breaks so companies can do better by moving overseas. And despite the excellent analysis of Paul Krugman and a few others, the conventional wisdom purveyers want our policymakers to focus more on inflation than employment. All the deficit-cutting hawks were proven wrong but they still get treated more than respectfully.
People wonder why the middle class has been hit so hard and that the only people who benefit in our society are the rich. They should consider every time they've disparaged the idea of a union and start thinking about how none of the Wall Street scoundrels who brought us economic disaster have gone to jail, or even paid any significant price for their crimes against our society.
A perfect example of anti-labor vitriol can be found in the endless disputes about what kind of schools we need. Teachers unions are blamed for the idiotic administration by incompetent and politically-wired local school boards or state boards. Charter schools as a whole have not shown themselves to be any more effective at educating children than public schools, but the great and the not-so-good looking to make some quick bucks urge us to expand them without any proof of real success. They seem to be good only at turning over their complement of teachers almost annually instead of developing skilled, experienced teachers.
All the propaganda put out by corporate America has had an impact: people really feel that the market system is how to run anything. In many places, we once had excellent public schools. I went to them. Then when white people fled the inner city and the inner suburbs, the administrators stopped paying attention to the schools. Some of education's problems were brought upon it by reliance on trying to implement one faddish scheme after another with no time allowed for evaluation and assessment.
But the public as a whole has been conditioned to accept the outrageous pay of CEOs--who take it because they can,whether they are successful or not. We of course have a Congress, both parties, totally in thrall to major donors, who want tax breaks so companies can do better by moving overseas. And despite the excellent analysis of Paul Krugman and a few others, the conventional wisdom purveyers want our policymakers to focus more on inflation than employment. All the deficit-cutting hawks were proven wrong but they still get treated more than respectfully.
People wonder why the middle class has been hit so hard and that the only people who benefit in our society are the rich. They should consider every time they've disparaged the idea of a union and start thinking about how none of the Wall Street scoundrels who brought us economic disaster have gone to jail, or even paid any significant price for their crimes against our society.
Thursday, August 28, 2014
World Gone Mad--or Just Biz as usual?
Perhaps the most infuriating aspect of the coverage of the 9-year-old shooting a range instructor and killing him with a fully automatic Uzi is that none of the stories questioned the absolute idiocy of a 9-year-old being given any real weapon to fire. Until now--when the gun people have gone crazy with "stand your ground" laws that undermine centuries of careful delineation of the criminal law of retreat and other perversions of common sense, I have not been able to muster outrage about the NRA or gun laws.
This incident, however, discloses how nuts so many people have become in this country. Actually, when I was a kid at camp, I loved firing a 22-calibre rifle. The range was carefully monitored, one shell at a time. Even in the Army, when we qualified on the range with the M-14, the control of weapons--loaded or unloaded--was one thing (one of the few) that the service appeared to take seriously. To me, the fanatacism of the gun people has now passed way beyond reason.
And, as I said, I've never been against responsible use of guns. I found D.C.'s total resistance to allowing anyone to have a gun almost as extreme and ill-advised as the NRA's opposition to any regulation on gun ownership. Granted, D.C. lost in the Supreme Court by one vote and I dare you to read Stevens's dissenting (5-4) opinion and not agree that it makes Scalia's majority one appear ridiculous. But to some extent, D.C. got what it deserved for taking an extreme position. Perhaps we shall see the current idiocy exposed when we start hearing the nuts defend automatics for 9-year-olds.
I've been participating in a colloquy with some friends, one in particular, about two significant articles about Israel and Gaza that have appeared this week. One by the former AP reporter Matti Friedman emphasizes how the world--Europe especially--holds Israel to a different standard than any other country and also tolerates anti-Semitism masked as anti-Israeli policy. The other by veteran reporter Connie Bruck in The New Yorker takes on AIPAC as a bunch of right-wing nuts who slavishly propound Netanyahu's hard-line positions and are essentially a Republican mouthpiece.
Both articles are right. My good friend points out that even agreeing that Israel has adopted bad policies--encouraging the right-wing settlers and its right-wing policies in general--it palls compared with Hamas launching rockets from schools and civilian bases on Israeli civilians. True enough. And I'm willing to agree, too, that ill-advised or even perverse Israeli government policies have not themselves inspired anti-Semitism.
But AIPAC's long campaign to equate anti-Israeli policy positions with anti-Semitism and to silence Jewish critics of Israeli policy as "self-hating Jews" have besmirched the Israeli cause. Israel was moving along the right path when Rabin and Olmert engaged with the Palestinians. Yes, the Palestinians rejected even the reasonably decent Oslo-era proposals. Had Isreal continued along those lines, much opinion now massed against it would likely have been focused on the Palestinians' intransigence.
Netanyahu is akin to the right-wing Republicans pushed even further to the right by the settlers and their ilk--who may make the Tea Party look centrist. These people exemplify the old adage of the extremes meeting--the Arabs who want to push the Jews into the sea and the settlers who want to push the Palestinians out of any territory the rightists claim.
This incident, however, discloses how nuts so many people have become in this country. Actually, when I was a kid at camp, I loved firing a 22-calibre rifle. The range was carefully monitored, one shell at a time. Even in the Army, when we qualified on the range with the M-14, the control of weapons--loaded or unloaded--was one thing (one of the few) that the service appeared to take seriously. To me, the fanatacism of the gun people has now passed way beyond reason.
And, as I said, I've never been against responsible use of guns. I found D.C.'s total resistance to allowing anyone to have a gun almost as extreme and ill-advised as the NRA's opposition to any regulation on gun ownership. Granted, D.C. lost in the Supreme Court by one vote and I dare you to read Stevens's dissenting (5-4) opinion and not agree that it makes Scalia's majority one appear ridiculous. But to some extent, D.C. got what it deserved for taking an extreme position. Perhaps we shall see the current idiocy exposed when we start hearing the nuts defend automatics for 9-year-olds.
I've been participating in a colloquy with some friends, one in particular, about two significant articles about Israel and Gaza that have appeared this week. One by the former AP reporter Matti Friedman emphasizes how the world--Europe especially--holds Israel to a different standard than any other country and also tolerates anti-Semitism masked as anti-Israeli policy. The other by veteran reporter Connie Bruck in The New Yorker takes on AIPAC as a bunch of right-wing nuts who slavishly propound Netanyahu's hard-line positions and are essentially a Republican mouthpiece.
Both articles are right. My good friend points out that even agreeing that Israel has adopted bad policies--encouraging the right-wing settlers and its right-wing policies in general--it palls compared with Hamas launching rockets from schools and civilian bases on Israeli civilians. True enough. And I'm willing to agree, too, that ill-advised or even perverse Israeli government policies have not themselves inspired anti-Semitism.
But AIPAC's long campaign to equate anti-Israeli policy positions with anti-Semitism and to silence Jewish critics of Israeli policy as "self-hating Jews" have besmirched the Israeli cause. Israel was moving along the right path when Rabin and Olmert engaged with the Palestinians. Yes, the Palestinians rejected even the reasonably decent Oslo-era proposals. Had Isreal continued along those lines, much opinion now massed against it would likely have been focused on the Palestinians' intransigence.
Netanyahu is akin to the right-wing Republicans pushed even further to the right by the settlers and their ilk--who may make the Tea Party look centrist. These people exemplify the old adage of the extremes meeting--the Arabs who want to push the Jews into the sea and the settlers who want to push the Palestinians out of any territory the rightists claim.
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
A Most Wanted Actor
Tonight it struck me after seeing A Most Wanted Man how much we will miss seeing Philip Seymour Hoffman on screen or stage. He took what was a pretty good John Le Carre spy novel, made it a wrenching picture that held my attention, and left the story better than he found it. That's saying a good deal because even a pretty good Le Carre is better than most people's best.
It was a masterful performance because in the Hamburg setting, Hoffman starts off with a little German to establish his bona fides and then turns to English with just enough of an accent to make it real. He makes you accept his character, too, as the author intended: a veteran in the cloak-and-dagger trade actually trying to do some good while doing what his job demands.
It's also good to see this picture because Le Carre has in his post-Cold War novels turned from casting the Soviets as the villains to putting the Americans in that role. The fine actress Robin Wright carries out that theme. Le Carre now has the Brits--and in this instance, the Germans--wrestle with the values at stake. (At least the Germans have more than one view--and strategy--so much of the struggle is between their agencies and personnel.) It will be interesting to see if Putin manages to change Le Carre's current views.
What also jumped out from the screen is how Le Carre's characters are old school in one major way: they smoke and drink--well, Hoffman's character does--to abandon. In this story, the smoking and drinking merely emphasize the tension his character has brought upon himself.
A few words to recall Betty Bacall. At 89, she may have been the last link with the old Hollywood she broke into when she was 19. She also lasted long enough to become more than Mrs. Humphrey Bogart, not that there was ever anything wrong with that or with the three pictures she will be remembered for co-starring in with him: To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, and Key Largo.
The Big Sleep was the best of those, helped by Faulkner's adaptation of Raymond Chandler--but she was the major reason that To Have and Have Not was better as a picture than it was when Hemingway wrote it. Bogart was stalwart in it, Walter Brennan overacted as always, but Lauren Bacall, all of 19, blew them away with her cool, she a model only just arrived on the West Coast, a New Yorker out of Julia Richman High School. Her singing wasn't terrific but she managed to do "How Little We Know" convincingly, too.
I never saw the Broadway stage productions for which she won the Tonys that took the place of Oscars on her shelf. But I did remember seeing the picture where she held her own as an acerbic, sarcastic, absolutely delightful and highly attractive woman when up against no less than Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable: How to Marry a Millionaire.
Although her marriage to Jason Robards ended in divorce, she did at least find in him a man who could hold his own when put up against the imperishable image of Bogart. Best of all, she was a stand-up person who held her own, whether it be against the studios who made her movie career an endless roller coaster or the politicians who feasted off a usually supine Hollywood.
It was a masterful performance because in the Hamburg setting, Hoffman starts off with a little German to establish his bona fides and then turns to English with just enough of an accent to make it real. He makes you accept his character, too, as the author intended: a veteran in the cloak-and-dagger trade actually trying to do some good while doing what his job demands.
It's also good to see this picture because Le Carre has in his post-Cold War novels turned from casting the Soviets as the villains to putting the Americans in that role. The fine actress Robin Wright carries out that theme. Le Carre now has the Brits--and in this instance, the Germans--wrestle with the values at stake. (At least the Germans have more than one view--and strategy--so much of the struggle is between their agencies and personnel.) It will be interesting to see if Putin manages to change Le Carre's current views.
What also jumped out from the screen is how Le Carre's characters are old school in one major way: they smoke and drink--well, Hoffman's character does--to abandon. In this story, the smoking and drinking merely emphasize the tension his character has brought upon himself.
A few words to recall Betty Bacall. At 89, she may have been the last link with the old Hollywood she broke into when she was 19. She also lasted long enough to become more than Mrs. Humphrey Bogart, not that there was ever anything wrong with that or with the three pictures she will be remembered for co-starring in with him: To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, and Key Largo.
The Big Sleep was the best of those, helped by Faulkner's adaptation of Raymond Chandler--but she was the major reason that To Have and Have Not was better as a picture than it was when Hemingway wrote it. Bogart was stalwart in it, Walter Brennan overacted as always, but Lauren Bacall, all of 19, blew them away with her cool, she a model only just arrived on the West Coast, a New Yorker out of Julia Richman High School. Her singing wasn't terrific but she managed to do "How Little We Know" convincingly, too.
I never saw the Broadway stage productions for which she won the Tonys that took the place of Oscars on her shelf. But I did remember seeing the picture where she held her own as an acerbic, sarcastic, absolutely delightful and highly attractive woman when up against no less than Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable: How to Marry a Millionaire.
Although her marriage to Jason Robards ended in divorce, she did at least find in him a man who could hold his own when put up against the imperishable image of Bogart. Best of all, she was a stand-up person who held her own, whether it be against the studios who made her movie career an endless roller coaster or the politicians who feasted off a usually supine Hollywood.
Thursday, July 24, 2014
Roger Ebert at the Movies
Roger Ebert was my favorite film critic because, first of all, I tended to like movies I saw after reading his positive reviews, or alternatively, I found that when I read his reviews after seeing a movie, I usually agreed with his views. He possessed a deep knowledge of the medium and had a fine ability to perceive what kind of audience would enjoy a particular movie.
So last weekend we saw the bio film on his life, entitled Life, Itself. While the picture seemed to spend more time on his last days in a rehab hospital, after losing most of his jaw to cancer, it told me things about him that I'd not known. He was editor-in-chief, for example, of the Daily Illini at the Univ. of Illinois and after securing a foothold at the Chicago Sun-Times as an intern, more or less fell into the movie critic's chair where he remained and thrived and developed an international reputation for the next several decades.
He made his encounter with illness in his last years public partly, it seems, because his partner on public tv, the late Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune, had kept his final illness a secret. Siskel and Ebert (the order of billing was determined by a coin toss) had their differences but each apparently disclosed at the end of each of their lives how much they respected the other. They were a good match. Siskel was a bit of a highbrow, having majored in philosophy at Yale while Ebert liked to style himself as a man of the people who grew up in Champaign-Urbana as the son of an electrician and a schoolteacher and went to the home-town school, Illinois.
It was also delightful to see that although Ebert was able to pal around with movie stars at Cannes and elsewhere, he retained his sense of himself and place, rejecting offers to leave Chicago. After all, it took some years for Siskel and Ebert to get their public tv show shown in New York and L.A. but ultimately they became the two best-known critics in the country.
I thought of how he is missed--despite his having trained a cadre of young critics who carry on his work as reviewers at RogerEbert.com. I was reading a review in the Baltimore edition of the City Paper of the classic Sunset Boulevard. The critic found the movie compelling despite his visceral dislike of most everything about it. He missed appreciating how Gloria Swanson had really been a silent star, how Erich von Stroheim who played her butler had truly been a great director in the 20s, and the irony of the tyrannical Cecil B. DeMille, whose extravaganzas are mostly ludicrous today, comes off in the picture playing himself as a kindly veteran who tries to let Swanson down with affection.Ebert doubtless would have remarked on most of these aspects, as well as the delight in seeing true silent stars such as H.B. Warner and Buster Keaton as companions of Swanson at a card-playing evening.
So last weekend we saw the bio film on his life, entitled Life, Itself. While the picture seemed to spend more time on his last days in a rehab hospital, after losing most of his jaw to cancer, it told me things about him that I'd not known. He was editor-in-chief, for example, of the Daily Illini at the Univ. of Illinois and after securing a foothold at the Chicago Sun-Times as an intern, more or less fell into the movie critic's chair where he remained and thrived and developed an international reputation for the next several decades.
He made his encounter with illness in his last years public partly, it seems, because his partner on public tv, the late Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune, had kept his final illness a secret. Siskel and Ebert (the order of billing was determined by a coin toss) had their differences but each apparently disclosed at the end of each of their lives how much they respected the other. They were a good match. Siskel was a bit of a highbrow, having majored in philosophy at Yale while Ebert liked to style himself as a man of the people who grew up in Champaign-Urbana as the son of an electrician and a schoolteacher and went to the home-town school, Illinois.
It was also delightful to see that although Ebert was able to pal around with movie stars at Cannes and elsewhere, he retained his sense of himself and place, rejecting offers to leave Chicago. After all, it took some years for Siskel and Ebert to get their public tv show shown in New York and L.A. but ultimately they became the two best-known critics in the country.
I thought of how he is missed--despite his having trained a cadre of young critics who carry on his work as reviewers at RogerEbert.com. I was reading a review in the Baltimore edition of the City Paper of the classic Sunset Boulevard. The critic found the movie compelling despite his visceral dislike of most everything about it. He missed appreciating how Gloria Swanson had really been a silent star, how Erich von Stroheim who played her butler had truly been a great director in the 20s, and the irony of the tyrannical Cecil B. DeMille, whose extravaganzas are mostly ludicrous today, comes off in the picture playing himself as a kindly veteran who tries to let Swanson down with affection.Ebert doubtless would have remarked on most of these aspects, as well as the delight in seeing true silent stars such as H.B. Warner and Buster Keaton as companions of Swanson at a card-playing evening.
Thursday, July 17, 2014
Two Traviatas in One Day--Neither in Lisbon
[This entry should have appeared two weeks ago--for which, apologies.]
Yes, this past Saturday, I managed to attend two performances of La Traviata: one was a video relay shown in the Bethesda Row movie house of a production at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, with Renee Fleming, Joseph Calleja, and Thomas Hampson; the second, that night at the Gala Hispanic Theatre (nee Tivoli) on 14th Street in DC, was The IN Series production, with string ensemble and two stirring, totally able lead singers.
The IN Series production may have been the best operatic performance this series has yet produced, and that includes the modernizations of two Mozart-Da Ponte gems: Don Giovanni: the Long Island Version and Marriage of Figaro: the Vegas Version, in the first of which, the title character is truly a Mafia don, while in the second, the Count is a Wayne Newton type in the Vegas nobility.
Traviata always gets to me, beginning with the prelude, which usually brings the tears right at the start. The first act is absolutely perfect--musically it moves from one high point to another, ending with Violetta's two glorious arias, finally Sempre libere, the significance of which remains a wonderfully arguable issue.
The position of the late Alberta Masiello, told during one of those wonderful old-time Met intermission lectures on the Saturday radio broadcasts, was that in this aria she has decided she will not go off in love with Alfredo but will continue to live her life as a high-priced Parisian courtesan and enjoy joy after joy for however she endures (which in any case will not be for long).
I always have found this a worthy position to take, except that her expressed love for Alfredo in the very next act and her horror at having to give him up both tend to go against the point of the imperious if delightful Miss Masiello.
Renee Fleming was superb in her rendition, of course, and the Royal Opera's production was magnificent. In recent years, though, I've seen all kinds of Traviata productions--the trend is to stark, modern ones--and they all can work with this seemingly indestructible vehicle.
In between the late morning and evening shows, I also managed to take in the Shakespeare Theatre Company's Private Lives, probably Noel Coward's finest play. It remains a delight of his sharp comedy and he maintains the high level of dialogue through three strong acts. The players here were also fine, although seeing the company do Design for Living a couple of seasons ago makes me yearn for the impossible: the original cast of design, for whom Coward wrote the show: the Lunts and himself.
Yes, this past Saturday, I managed to attend two performances of La Traviata: one was a video relay shown in the Bethesda Row movie house of a production at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, with Renee Fleming, Joseph Calleja, and Thomas Hampson; the second, that night at the Gala Hispanic Theatre (nee Tivoli) on 14th Street in DC, was The IN Series production, with string ensemble and two stirring, totally able lead singers.
The IN Series production may have been the best operatic performance this series has yet produced, and that includes the modernizations of two Mozart-Da Ponte gems: Don Giovanni: the Long Island Version and Marriage of Figaro: the Vegas Version, in the first of which, the title character is truly a Mafia don, while in the second, the Count is a Wayne Newton type in the Vegas nobility.
Traviata always gets to me, beginning with the prelude, which usually brings the tears right at the start. The first act is absolutely perfect--musically it moves from one high point to another, ending with Violetta's two glorious arias, finally Sempre libere, the significance of which remains a wonderfully arguable issue.
The position of the late Alberta Masiello, told during one of those wonderful old-time Met intermission lectures on the Saturday radio broadcasts, was that in this aria she has decided she will not go off in love with Alfredo but will continue to live her life as a high-priced Parisian courtesan and enjoy joy after joy for however she endures (which in any case will not be for long).
I always have found this a worthy position to take, except that her expressed love for Alfredo in the very next act and her horror at having to give him up both tend to go against the point of the imperious if delightful Miss Masiello.
Renee Fleming was superb in her rendition, of course, and the Royal Opera's production was magnificent. In recent years, though, I've seen all kinds of Traviata productions--the trend is to stark, modern ones--and they all can work with this seemingly indestructible vehicle.
In between the late morning and evening shows, I also managed to take in the Shakespeare Theatre Company's Private Lives, probably Noel Coward's finest play. It remains a delight of his sharp comedy and he maintains the high level of dialogue through three strong acts. The players here were also fine, although seeing the company do Design for Living a couple of seasons ago makes me yearn for the impossible: the original cast of design, for whom Coward wrote the show: the Lunts and himself.
Two Fine French Flicks
Seeing two good French pictures within a few days' spread makes me realize how much I've missed seeing them. Saturday we went to the Eric Rohmer--A Summer's Tale--released in the U.S. finally 18 years after he made it. It suffered not at all from the wait, although Rohmer died, at 89, in the interim. It's a slight story about a slightly goofy guy who goes to the beach, hoping his travelling girlfriend will join him.
Meanwhile he encounters the still-charming Aurelia Langlet, who was Pauline in Pauline at the Beach, another Rohmer seaside feature, who is the improbable waitress at her aunt's restaurant for the summer, until she returns to working on her PhD in ethnology. She intros him to yet another friend and suddenly he has to balance three relationships and begins to falsify just enough to keep all the balls in the air.
Eventually his girlfriend turns up and you can see how he is drawn to her even if she is unpredictable and sometimes downright mean to him. The beach scenes at St Lunaire and Malo and other Breton spots are delightful and the whole story leaves you with a satisfying feeling.
Last night was a much more serious film, both at the wonderful Avalon in Chevy Chase, D.C., Diane Kurys' Pour Une Femme, or For a Woman. The Avalon's promo material emphasized that the picture had some relation to people having been in the Holocaust. This did not serve to attract me, but perhaps it does for some. Had they bothered to mention that it was a Diane Kurys film, that would have clinched it for me, though.
She has made several memorable films, one was One Sings, the Other Doesn't, and often she deals with her own life, which is all the more timely today as she frequently explores lives of Jews in France. This one is the story of a marriage--he saves her by getting her out of the French concentration camp with him and she marries him in return; alas, this is not necessarily the basis of a loving life together. Then some mysterious "relatives" appear with a totally different agenda from his somewhat contradictory goal of becoming a full-fledged member of the bourgeoisie, while maintaining full identification with the French Communists.
The picture explores how the couple cope with the challenges they face, through a long series of flashbacks told by their daughters. Kurys always seems to identify with one of the daughters, as she did in one of her earliest films, Peppermint Soda. French pictures often deal with working class characters more meaningfully (when was the last American picture to deal with them at all?) as in the 2010 picture, Potiche, where Catherine De Neuve is the seemingly incapable wife who takes over a company and deals with Gerard Depardieu as the union leader with whom her husband had come to a standstill.
That picture also demonstrated how "aging" stars like those two could appear as leads though in their 60s--and even though a rather huge Depardieu didn't look as well as De Neuve, who was definitely une femme d'une certaine age. Lastly, these pictures actually treat Communism seriously, including making fun of the Party while appreciating its role in the French society of the postwar 1940s.
Meanwhile he encounters the still-charming Aurelia Langlet, who was Pauline in Pauline at the Beach, another Rohmer seaside feature, who is the improbable waitress at her aunt's restaurant for the summer, until she returns to working on her PhD in ethnology. She intros him to yet another friend and suddenly he has to balance three relationships and begins to falsify just enough to keep all the balls in the air.
Eventually his girlfriend turns up and you can see how he is drawn to her even if she is unpredictable and sometimes downright mean to him. The beach scenes at St Lunaire and Malo and other Breton spots are delightful and the whole story leaves you with a satisfying feeling.
Last night was a much more serious film, both at the wonderful Avalon in Chevy Chase, D.C., Diane Kurys' Pour Une Femme, or For a Woman. The Avalon's promo material emphasized that the picture had some relation to people having been in the Holocaust. This did not serve to attract me, but perhaps it does for some. Had they bothered to mention that it was a Diane Kurys film, that would have clinched it for me, though.
She has made several memorable films, one was One Sings, the Other Doesn't, and often she deals with her own life, which is all the more timely today as she frequently explores lives of Jews in France. This one is the story of a marriage--he saves her by getting her out of the French concentration camp with him and she marries him in return; alas, this is not necessarily the basis of a loving life together. Then some mysterious "relatives" appear with a totally different agenda from his somewhat contradictory goal of becoming a full-fledged member of the bourgeoisie, while maintaining full identification with the French Communists.
The picture explores how the couple cope with the challenges they face, through a long series of flashbacks told by their daughters. Kurys always seems to identify with one of the daughters, as she did in one of her earliest films, Peppermint Soda. French pictures often deal with working class characters more meaningfully (when was the last American picture to deal with them at all?) as in the 2010 picture, Potiche, where Catherine De Neuve is the seemingly incapable wife who takes over a company and deals with Gerard Depardieu as the union leader with whom her husband had come to a standstill.
That picture also demonstrated how "aging" stars like those two could appear as leads though in their 60s--and even though a rather huge Depardieu didn't look as well as De Neuve, who was definitely une femme d'une certaine age. Lastly, these pictures actually treat Communism seriously, including making fun of the Party while appreciating its role in the French society of the postwar 1940s.
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Jersey Boys Again
I may have written something here when I saw Jersey Boys in Washington on tour. At the time, I was pleasantly surprised, having gone to the National Theater with low expectations. The story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons was just enough of a plot to carry all the fabulous musical numbers. You also had the feeling that you were right there with the performers in whatever venue they were on stage, much as the Broadway production of Master Class some years ago re-created Callas singing in La Scala.
It permitted me along with much of the rest of the audience to walk out of the theater humming, in this case, quite familiar rather than new-found tunes. Last night I saw the new movie of the same name in a perfect venue, the wonderful Uptown Theater in Cleveland Park, DC. It was fun, and for the most part, moved well, but it didn't strike me that it was as well-assembled as the stage show had been.
Now we are not as willing to accept the scrubbed scenes in movie musicals the way we were when such classics as Singin' in the Rain were appeared. Director (and producer) Clint Eastwood seemed to have unbelievably stagey sets for even locations in not-so-pristine locales, such as, well, New Jersey, and downtown New York too, for that matter. The story did take too long getting going, until it takes off when the group finally encounters Bob Crewe, who will be their producer and songwriting support for group composer and singer Bob Gaudio, for the first time in the Brill Building.
Crewe, incidentally, didn't come off half so swish in the show as he does in the picture. A point for accuracy here, I presume. The two best acting jobs are turned in by the amazing Christopher Walken as the reigning Mafia don, and Vincent Piazza as the least-talented member of the group but the most assertive and ultimately failed leader. John Lloyd Young was Frankie in several of the stage companies--possibly the original--and he's passable. In that the songs themselves are the original recordings, I believe, it's hard to tell how much his singing falsetto is truly at the level of the real Frankie.
So once again a movie has opened up a stage show, and I for one found that the result was all right but didn't generate for me the excitement of the live performance. I haven't seen all that many of these "music musicals" but did take in Million Dollar Quartet last year, I believe, on Broadway. This thinly-plotted vehicle drew on one real day when Johnny Cash, Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins happened to turn up at Sam Phillips's Sun Records studio in Nashville. The plot focuse on how all of them, including Sam, was figuring on where their next main chance would come from and how they would seize it.
In the end, this show was mainly a vehicle for the music and at the end of the show, the music went on past the finale for quite some time. I'm not sure of the other similar shows but I still favor some more of a play in the theater and when we get to the movies, alas, the flimsiness of the plot may detract from even as musically delightful an outing as Jersey Boys.
It permitted me along with much of the rest of the audience to walk out of the theater humming, in this case, quite familiar rather than new-found tunes. Last night I saw the new movie of the same name in a perfect venue, the wonderful Uptown Theater in Cleveland Park, DC. It was fun, and for the most part, moved well, but it didn't strike me that it was as well-assembled as the stage show had been.
Now we are not as willing to accept the scrubbed scenes in movie musicals the way we were when such classics as Singin' in the Rain were appeared. Director (and producer) Clint Eastwood seemed to have unbelievably stagey sets for even locations in not-so-pristine locales, such as, well, New Jersey, and downtown New York too, for that matter. The story did take too long getting going, until it takes off when the group finally encounters Bob Crewe, who will be their producer and songwriting support for group composer and singer Bob Gaudio, for the first time in the Brill Building.
Crewe, incidentally, didn't come off half so swish in the show as he does in the picture. A point for accuracy here, I presume. The two best acting jobs are turned in by the amazing Christopher Walken as the reigning Mafia don, and Vincent Piazza as the least-talented member of the group but the most assertive and ultimately failed leader. John Lloyd Young was Frankie in several of the stage companies--possibly the original--and he's passable. In that the songs themselves are the original recordings, I believe, it's hard to tell how much his singing falsetto is truly at the level of the real Frankie.
So once again a movie has opened up a stage show, and I for one found that the result was all right but didn't generate for me the excitement of the live performance. I haven't seen all that many of these "music musicals" but did take in Million Dollar Quartet last year, I believe, on Broadway. This thinly-plotted vehicle drew on one real day when Johnny Cash, Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins happened to turn up at Sam Phillips's Sun Records studio in Nashville. The plot focuse on how all of them, including Sam, was figuring on where their next main chance would come from and how they would seize it.
In the end, this show was mainly a vehicle for the music and at the end of the show, the music went on past the finale for quite some time. I'm not sure of the other similar shows but I still favor some more of a play in the theater and when we get to the movies, alas, the flimsiness of the plot may detract from even as musically delightful an outing as Jersey Boys.
Monday, June 23, 2014
World Cup and World Series
I spent an absolutely delightful day Saturday at Yankee Stadium. Not bad, since I've never been a Yankee fan. Not really a true Yankee hater, either. But I still have some liking for the O's, built up during my ten years of driving up to Baltimore to see a few games a season on a shared series. Alas, I did pick the really bad years for the franchise, but I still enjoyed their coming back after losing the first two to the Bombers and leading right from the start. (They even went on to shut out the Yanks Sunday.)
Baseball on a nice -- actually, perfect -- day is wonderful. You watch for the good plays, the exciting turnarounds. They also honored Tino Martinez with a plaque in what is now called Monument Park -- it had so much more significance when the three monuments--Ruth, Gehrig, and Miller Huggins -- were right there in center field and Joe D (never saw him, alas) or the Mick had to retrieve a ball from behind them. I'm also not sure that anyone but the true greatest belong there and to me, that would be the Babe, Lou, Joe D, and the Mick.
It was also great to see a lot of O's shirts--some for Manny or Adam or Wieters--but more than a few Cals and Brookses. Lots of Orange in the crowd, as it turned out, because it was Syracuse U day at the park. The O's played well, as they have been capable of doing for the past two or three seasons. Manny hasn't settled down, he's still only 20. But they have the makings of a steady club--Adam Jones, Markakis, JJ Hardy, Witers when he comes back, next year, I think.
The exciting part of the weekend was having the Nats turn it around mid-series against their tormentors, the Braves, and take the last two games after suffering painfully close losses in the first two. It would be great to have two contending teams right around here.
So then I watched the U.S. v. Portugal encounter in the true jungle. Getting beyond the World Cup environment--the FIFA sleazebags who almost make the Olympic Committee look good, the horrible waste of Brazils' building all those needless stadia--the match was wonderfully enthralling to watch. Lots of good play--plenty of room for improvement on the U.S. side although they did play well enough for most of the game.
I was surprised that after playing total defense for the last few minutes, that they had no one around the defense area in front of the goal when the Portuguese attacked. Did they forget about keeping a close watch on Christiano Ronaldo because he had been "not a factor" until the very final seconds? I would berate Klinsmann for that egregious and disastrous oversight, or maybe the team captain, too.
The organized attack that Portugal mounted was also impressive; I was amazed that for most of the game, it was more or less ineffective. I'm afraid that the wrenching tie (which the U.S. would have readily settled for before the match) may still inspire overconfidence among U.S. supporters. Anyone is crazy should they underestimate everyone's most traditional opponent: the Germans.
Baseball on a nice -- actually, perfect -- day is wonderful. You watch for the good plays, the exciting turnarounds. They also honored Tino Martinez with a plaque in what is now called Monument Park -- it had so much more significance when the three monuments--Ruth, Gehrig, and Miller Huggins -- were right there in center field and Joe D (never saw him, alas) or the Mick had to retrieve a ball from behind them. I'm also not sure that anyone but the true greatest belong there and to me, that would be the Babe, Lou, Joe D, and the Mick.
It was also great to see a lot of O's shirts--some for Manny or Adam or Wieters--but more than a few Cals and Brookses. Lots of Orange in the crowd, as it turned out, because it was Syracuse U day at the park. The O's played well, as they have been capable of doing for the past two or three seasons. Manny hasn't settled down, he's still only 20. But they have the makings of a steady club--Adam Jones, Markakis, JJ Hardy, Witers when he comes back, next year, I think.
The exciting part of the weekend was having the Nats turn it around mid-series against their tormentors, the Braves, and take the last two games after suffering painfully close losses in the first two. It would be great to have two contending teams right around here.
So then I watched the U.S. v. Portugal encounter in the true jungle. Getting beyond the World Cup environment--the FIFA sleazebags who almost make the Olympic Committee look good, the horrible waste of Brazils' building all those needless stadia--the match was wonderfully enthralling to watch. Lots of good play--plenty of room for improvement on the U.S. side although they did play well enough for most of the game.
I was surprised that after playing total defense for the last few minutes, that they had no one around the defense area in front of the goal when the Portuguese attacked. Did they forget about keeping a close watch on Christiano Ronaldo because he had been "not a factor" until the very final seconds? I would berate Klinsmann for that egregious and disastrous oversight, or maybe the team captain, too.
The organized attack that Portugal mounted was also impressive; I was amazed that for most of the game, it was more or less ineffective. I'm afraid that the wrenching tie (which the U.S. would have readily settled for before the match) may still inspire overconfidence among U.S. supporters. Anyone is crazy should they underestimate everyone's most traditional opponent: the Germans.
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Fathers and Sons
Yes, it is the title of a fine novel by Turgenev, which I did read quite some time ago, but it merely provides a title for my ruminating about my father this Father's Day. (This novel is likely the only place where you will find yourself having to learn what nihilism means.) A weekend visit to my uncle, now nearly 96, made me think back about so many things, including my father. As for my father, I took his presence for granted for years on end, until one day he wasn't there any more. And that, amazingly, was 27 years ago, since he still looms large in my sights.
Since he was an outsized personality--literally and figuratively--it's taken some time for me to wrestle with both him and his image. Over time, I understood that I had been conditioned to hold the view of him that the world saw: he was engaging, funny, charming, a man's man, and impossible to equal. At least, that was how I saw him as I grew up and until I was forced to gaze more deeply much much later, as Frank Sinatra was brainwashed by the North Koreans in The Manchurian Candidate to regard Raymond Shaw, as played by Laurence Harvey, as a hero when in reality he was anything but.
I'll start with his having been a head counselor, a role he easily filled for life. That meant he assumed he was in charge. He was strong and confident--I always felt that this persona resulted from his early success as a swimming champ. (That was even more of an accomplishment because he apparently took to the water at an early age to overcome an early and blessedly light case of polio.) He had a good sense of humor--though it did include plenty of teasing that could get on you. He was incredibly popular, in that high school definition of the word. Very few didn't like them, and I have to admit that those few--when I happened to meet them, which was rarely, because they were few--were not a very likeable bunch.
Although he loved comedians, including W.C. Fields, he was the opposite of WC in that he enjoyed both kids and dogs, and his liking was invariably reciprocated. Actually, he liked animals of all kinds, and I remember my Uncle Bill telling me how they had rabbits and other animals at the old house where they grew up at 68 Buena Vista Ave., Yonkers. When he returned to Yonkers, he remained something of a mythic figure. There he would always be "Hooks"--who retained a perfect crawl stroke in the water, had directed amateur shows at the JCC, was a respected member who occasionally attended his Masonic lodge, and would likely have been even more involved in that community had we not moved to Mt. Vernon when I started school. He did abjure titles--he might've headed a number of boards and organizations, including the lodge, had he been willing to spend any major amount of time at it. In this, I would like to think I've at times emulated his example.
That move to Mt. Vernon was something for which I was always grateful. The schools in MV were way better than those in Yonkers and I had great experiences growing up. Harold commuted to New York--he always worked within three or four blocks of Grand Central--and never got that connected to MV, except for when they got him to serve on the temple board. In that he was unlike many of his friends in not being well-off, he served one short term and quickly exited that board. Afterward he warned me never to join a shul until I found out if they had building plans.
He was Groucho's kind of clubman in a way, since he rarely sought out membership but was sought after by members of the Lambs and Players, as well as the N.Y. Regional Board of the Anti-Defamation League. (He fit a slot they needed--a board member who was not a member of B'nai B'rith.) That he resembled an Irish cop probably enabled him to escape being ticketed several times, and allowed him to be invited to join the New York Athletic Club, which he declined, not liking any possibility that he was a token.
He travelled to California often, during his many years with both AFTRA and SAG (they merged about two years ago, only about 50 years after the idea was first broached and only when merger became critical to the survival of both actors' unions). This made it possible for him to keep in touch with the several parts of his family located in Southern California, including my imperious Aunt Ruth, who invariably assumed that the purpose of his being in L.A. was to visit her, and two of my several grown-up (when I was in grade school) first cousins, Bob, a savvy doctor then living in Malibu Beach in high style, and Herb, a sage lawyer who had gone from the Atomic Energy Commission in DC to working for a nuclear reactor builder based in San Diego.
He maintained contact with many members of his family, something in which I've followed his example. As with so many of his generation, he never spoke of what must have been searing experiences in both the Depression (he graduated from law school in 1932, in case today's grads think they have it rough) and World War II. To use one of his lines, he "came on like Gangbusters" because you never failed to notice when he entered a room. He encouraged me to study rather than go out for sports, which in retrospect was wise in view of my limited athletic prowess. He was stalwart in supporting my mother, who developed MS, which limited her mobility for 30+ years. He made sure she accompanied him on many of their trips.
He had no patience so despite what most who knew us thought, he could not teach me to swim or to do anything else. As it turned out, his friends, many of whom were my counselors at camp, couldn't either, but I never figured out why I never learned to breathe correctly when swimming until I taught myself about 40 years later. But I accompanied him to swim meets, where he was usually meet director, armed with the governing whistle round his neck, and comfortably in charge as always. In a way, this set me up to be a college sportswriter, and to a lifelong enjoyment of sports--both in running, a sport he disdained, and as a spectator, which he was incapable of being--yes, Harold Hoffman walked out of the 7th game of the World Series. Why? Because he was bored, as a spectator.
Since he was an outsized personality--literally and figuratively--it's taken some time for me to wrestle with both him and his image. Over time, I understood that I had been conditioned to hold the view of him that the world saw: he was engaging, funny, charming, a man's man, and impossible to equal. At least, that was how I saw him as I grew up and until I was forced to gaze more deeply much much later, as Frank Sinatra was brainwashed by the North Koreans in The Manchurian Candidate to regard Raymond Shaw, as played by Laurence Harvey, as a hero when in reality he was anything but.
I'll start with his having been a head counselor, a role he easily filled for life. That meant he assumed he was in charge. He was strong and confident--I always felt that this persona resulted from his early success as a swimming champ. (That was even more of an accomplishment because he apparently took to the water at an early age to overcome an early and blessedly light case of polio.) He had a good sense of humor--though it did include plenty of teasing that could get on you. He was incredibly popular, in that high school definition of the word. Very few didn't like them, and I have to admit that those few--when I happened to meet them, which was rarely, because they were few--were not a very likeable bunch.
Although he loved comedians, including W.C. Fields, he was the opposite of WC in that he enjoyed both kids and dogs, and his liking was invariably reciprocated. Actually, he liked animals of all kinds, and I remember my Uncle Bill telling me how they had rabbits and other animals at the old house where they grew up at 68 Buena Vista Ave., Yonkers. When he returned to Yonkers, he remained something of a mythic figure. There he would always be "Hooks"--who retained a perfect crawl stroke in the water, had directed amateur shows at the JCC, was a respected member who occasionally attended his Masonic lodge, and would likely have been even more involved in that community had we not moved to Mt. Vernon when I started school. He did abjure titles--he might've headed a number of boards and organizations, including the lodge, had he been willing to spend any major amount of time at it. In this, I would like to think I've at times emulated his example.
That move to Mt. Vernon was something for which I was always grateful. The schools in MV were way better than those in Yonkers and I had great experiences growing up. Harold commuted to New York--he always worked within three or four blocks of Grand Central--and never got that connected to MV, except for when they got him to serve on the temple board. In that he was unlike many of his friends in not being well-off, he served one short term and quickly exited that board. Afterward he warned me never to join a shul until I found out if they had building plans.
He was Groucho's kind of clubman in a way, since he rarely sought out membership but was sought after by members of the Lambs and Players, as well as the N.Y. Regional Board of the Anti-Defamation League. (He fit a slot they needed--a board member who was not a member of B'nai B'rith.) That he resembled an Irish cop probably enabled him to escape being ticketed several times, and allowed him to be invited to join the New York Athletic Club, which he declined, not liking any possibility that he was a token.
He travelled to California often, during his many years with both AFTRA and SAG (they merged about two years ago, only about 50 years after the idea was first broached and only when merger became critical to the survival of both actors' unions). This made it possible for him to keep in touch with the several parts of his family located in Southern California, including my imperious Aunt Ruth, who invariably assumed that the purpose of his being in L.A. was to visit her, and two of my several grown-up (when I was in grade school) first cousins, Bob, a savvy doctor then living in Malibu Beach in high style, and Herb, a sage lawyer who had gone from the Atomic Energy Commission in DC to working for a nuclear reactor builder based in San Diego.
He maintained contact with many members of his family, something in which I've followed his example. As with so many of his generation, he never spoke of what must have been searing experiences in both the Depression (he graduated from law school in 1932, in case today's grads think they have it rough) and World War II. To use one of his lines, he "came on like Gangbusters" because you never failed to notice when he entered a room. He encouraged me to study rather than go out for sports, which in retrospect was wise in view of my limited athletic prowess. He was stalwart in supporting my mother, who developed MS, which limited her mobility for 30+ years. He made sure she accompanied him on many of their trips.
He had no patience so despite what most who knew us thought, he could not teach me to swim or to do anything else. As it turned out, his friends, many of whom were my counselors at camp, couldn't either, but I never figured out why I never learned to breathe correctly when swimming until I taught myself about 40 years later. But I accompanied him to swim meets, where he was usually meet director, armed with the governing whistle round his neck, and comfortably in charge as always. In a way, this set me up to be a college sportswriter, and to a lifelong enjoyment of sports--both in running, a sport he disdained, and as a spectator, which he was incapable of being--yes, Harold Hoffman walked out of the 7th game of the World Series. Why? Because he was bored, as a spectator.
Saturday, June 7, 2014
No Going Home Again
Today was a day for me to take a spin around the two Westchester County (NY) cities where I spent the first two decades of my life:Yonkers, my birthplace, and Mount Vernon, the adjoining community where I spent all my public school years through high school. I was in the area for a 70th birthday party at Saxon Woods, probably the premier public golf links in a county with six or so public (and many, many private) courses. So that afternoon, on my way to the gathering, I drove around the two towns which lie directly north of The Bronx.
Part of the reason I decided to check these places out was spurred by my meeting a woman on the trans-Canada train last week who related how her physician daughter was living right on the river in Yonkers by the pier where the Day-Liners used to stop in the summer. True enough, that area, once known as the destination of all the Yonkers trolley cars--"Foot of Main St."--has been revived and there are a few smart-looking restaurants and shops near the classic N.Y. Central-designed rail station, also by the Hudson. The old car barn is now a luxury apartment building and there are even streets that did not exist down by the river to provide upscale housing with fabulous views of the Hudson and the Palisades across the way on the New Jersey side.
.
But I drove up the street by the old car barn where my dad grew up, Buena Vista Ave., always pronounced "Buna Vista" by locals, and most of the housing stock was in bad shape or torn down. On the river side the old sugar factory was being turned into upscale housing. The rest--including my father's old place, looked pretty bad. His old home had a "For Sale" sign slapped on it and it didn't look like one aimed at attracting anyone interested in doing anything but tearing it down and starting over.
So it was with almost all of the rest of downtown Yonkers. The kind of stores that you find in neighborhoods that are going nowhere. The old newspaper building for The Herald Statesman was there but was occupied by others as there now is a county-wide paper so neither Yonkers, the fifth-largest city in the state, nor Mount Vernon has its own daily paper anymore. South Broadway, once a bustling commercial avenue, was mostly forlorn and had some down-market enterprises.
Nor had Mount Vernon yet participated in the great revival lifting all of New York City's outer boroughs--Brooklyn has gone the farthest but the others are close in pursuit. The old Sears is a community college branch and the commercial streets again have discount clothing and cosmetic and other shabby emporia. The old YMHA in Mt. Vernon is boarded up, along with the Elks, and the Masonic Temple in Yonkers where my dad's lodge met. In contrast, the Yonkers YMCA, where my dad became a swimming champion, looked fine and much the same as it always had (it replaced my grandfather's fruit and vegetable store in 1915) although its environs were spare of much active enterprise. Perhaps it is close enough to the magical riverfront to benefit from patronage by the young successful types in that housing.
My 50th high school reunion was held at a White Plains hotel because there's no place in Mount Vernon to have such an event. White Plains isn't an unalloyed success story but Mamaroneck Ave., the main drag, has lots of prosperous-looking shops and snazzy restaurants and modern-looking bars as well. The county seat has always managed to keep itself alive as a going community, even if the new county courthouse was badly designed because of the traditional low-grade political corruption endemic to the county.
I found little to object to in the current White Plains, even if they had torn down the storefronts on Main St. next to where the courthouse once stood--the spot how houses a concrete-walled but at least functioning Macy's. Our old family friend's liquor store, aptly named Main Court Liquors, has been replaced by a small park. These are minor carping as White Plains comes off as almost entirely a success story, likely aided by both its status as county seat and its central location amid the major portion of the county that remains a high-status suburb or exurb.
Part of the reason I decided to check these places out was spurred by my meeting a woman on the trans-Canada train last week who related how her physician daughter was living right on the river in Yonkers by the pier where the Day-Liners used to stop in the summer. True enough, that area, once known as the destination of all the Yonkers trolley cars--"Foot of Main St."--has been revived and there are a few smart-looking restaurants and shops near the classic N.Y. Central-designed rail station, also by the Hudson. The old car barn is now a luxury apartment building and there are even streets that did not exist down by the river to provide upscale housing with fabulous views of the Hudson and the Palisades across the way on the New Jersey side.
.
But I drove up the street by the old car barn where my dad grew up, Buena Vista Ave., always pronounced "Buna Vista" by locals, and most of the housing stock was in bad shape or torn down. On the river side the old sugar factory was being turned into upscale housing. The rest--including my father's old place, looked pretty bad. His old home had a "For Sale" sign slapped on it and it didn't look like one aimed at attracting anyone interested in doing anything but tearing it down and starting over.
So it was with almost all of the rest of downtown Yonkers. The kind of stores that you find in neighborhoods that are going nowhere. The old newspaper building for The Herald Statesman was there but was occupied by others as there now is a county-wide paper so neither Yonkers, the fifth-largest city in the state, nor Mount Vernon has its own daily paper anymore. South Broadway, once a bustling commercial avenue, was mostly forlorn and had some down-market enterprises.
Nor had Mount Vernon yet participated in the great revival lifting all of New York City's outer boroughs--Brooklyn has gone the farthest but the others are close in pursuit. The old Sears is a community college branch and the commercial streets again have discount clothing and cosmetic and other shabby emporia. The old YMHA in Mt. Vernon is boarded up, along with the Elks, and the Masonic Temple in Yonkers where my dad's lodge met. In contrast, the Yonkers YMCA, where my dad became a swimming champion, looked fine and much the same as it always had (it replaced my grandfather's fruit and vegetable store in 1915) although its environs were spare of much active enterprise. Perhaps it is close enough to the magical riverfront to benefit from patronage by the young successful types in that housing.
My 50th high school reunion was held at a White Plains hotel because there's no place in Mount Vernon to have such an event. White Plains isn't an unalloyed success story but Mamaroneck Ave., the main drag, has lots of prosperous-looking shops and snazzy restaurants and modern-looking bars as well. The county seat has always managed to keep itself alive as a going community, even if the new county courthouse was badly designed because of the traditional low-grade political corruption endemic to the county.
I found little to object to in the current White Plains, even if they had torn down the storefronts on Main St. next to where the courthouse once stood--the spot how houses a concrete-walled but at least functioning Macy's. Our old family friend's liquor store, aptly named Main Court Liquors, has been replaced by a small park. These are minor carping as White Plains comes off as almost entirely a success story, likely aided by both its status as county seat and its central location amid the major portion of the county that remains a high-status suburb or exurb.
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
Continental Crossing
Tuesday night at 8:30 P.M. found me striding down the platform at Vancouver's Pacific Central Station en route to my cabin for one on VIA Rail's Train 2, The Canadian, bound for Toronto after about 4 1/2 days crossing Canada. The walk brought back old rail memories from accompanying travelers when I was all of 9 or 10 to equally lengthy trains at the old New York Central changing stop at Harmon.
This train was out of those days in length--24 cars. Of course, way back then all of the long-distance trains had consists of that size. I remember in particular seeing someone off at Harmon on the Ohio State Limited and we finally found their sleeper after passing about 25 cars.
The Canadian is big enough to have two diners and two activity cars--situated at the front and back. We managed to switch my sleeper so that I wouldn't be heading in one direction to the diner and my friends a car or two back would be going the other way. Each activity car had a dome, as did the last car on the train, the Park Car, and between Vancouver and Edmonton, probably the most scenic section of the run, there was a panorama car, somewhat like the lounge cars on Amtrak.
From Vancouver, we passed along the rushing torrents of the Fraser River for a good distance until it got dark. Waking up, we passed along wide and narrow parts of the river and then began to climb into the Canadian Rockies, passing snow-capped peaks and Pyramid Falls, until reaching Jasper late in the afternoon. A large tourist group detrained there and a huge crowd surged on board to replace them, fresh from negotiating the icefields highway and other high spots of Jasper National Park.
From here, as it got dark, we moved toward the great plains of Canada, passing Edmonton late that night and then coming into Saskatoon the next day, finally reaching the midpoint and major stop in central Canada, Winnipeg, the next evening. There were ample provisions on the train, continental breakfast in the Park Car, so named because these cars once had murals from one of the Canadian national parks, which also came with a bullet lounge giving us a great view out the back of the train, as well as another dome.
The Canadian train comes out ahead of Amtrak in accommodations, tight but well-designed, and the diner, which can now and then achieve a level reminiscent of the old days, such as the B&O's Royal Blue. Dinners were the high point--yes, complete with great rack of lamb one night--but when the crew changed at Winnipeg, we must have acquired a chef who hailed from Quebec because his omelettes for breakfast were light and fantastic.
Amtrak, however, seems to have been more successful in negotiating with the freight carriers who own the tracks to give the long-distance passenger trains priority. In Canada, by contrast, we pulled over to let every freight train pass and there were quite a few, carrying grain, we were told, by government order. This put the train behind schedule, and even halving the two-hour stop in Winnipeg, still brought us in a few hours late.
But the scenery continued to hold fascination. Beyond the plains, we crossed the geologically-famous Canadian Shield, with much granite outcropping as we moved past so many deep blue lakes even if not on the old Canadian Pacific route closer to Lake Superior. Then we came down along Georgian Bay and saw all the cottages to which Torontonians repair when it gets warm.
Finally, we were in Union Station, Toronto, and I was able to join up with my friend from Toronto, check my bags to head right across the way to see the Blue Jays take on the Royals in a day game. They were already up by five by our arrival in the bottom of the first.
This train was out of those days in length--24 cars. Of course, way back then all of the long-distance trains had consists of that size. I remember in particular seeing someone off at Harmon on the Ohio State Limited and we finally found their sleeper after passing about 25 cars.
The Canadian is big enough to have two diners and two activity cars--situated at the front and back. We managed to switch my sleeper so that I wouldn't be heading in one direction to the diner and my friends a car or two back would be going the other way. Each activity car had a dome, as did the last car on the train, the Park Car, and between Vancouver and Edmonton, probably the most scenic section of the run, there was a panorama car, somewhat like the lounge cars on Amtrak.
From Vancouver, we passed along the rushing torrents of the Fraser River for a good distance until it got dark. Waking up, we passed along wide and narrow parts of the river and then began to climb into the Canadian Rockies, passing snow-capped peaks and Pyramid Falls, until reaching Jasper late in the afternoon. A large tourist group detrained there and a huge crowd surged on board to replace them, fresh from negotiating the icefields highway and other high spots of Jasper National Park.
From here, as it got dark, we moved toward the great plains of Canada, passing Edmonton late that night and then coming into Saskatoon the next day, finally reaching the midpoint and major stop in central Canada, Winnipeg, the next evening. There were ample provisions on the train, continental breakfast in the Park Car, so named because these cars once had murals from one of the Canadian national parks, which also came with a bullet lounge giving us a great view out the back of the train, as well as another dome.
The Canadian train comes out ahead of Amtrak in accommodations, tight but well-designed, and the diner, which can now and then achieve a level reminiscent of the old days, such as the B&O's Royal Blue. Dinners were the high point--yes, complete with great rack of lamb one night--but when the crew changed at Winnipeg, we must have acquired a chef who hailed from Quebec because his omelettes for breakfast were light and fantastic.
Amtrak, however, seems to have been more successful in negotiating with the freight carriers who own the tracks to give the long-distance passenger trains priority. In Canada, by contrast, we pulled over to let every freight train pass and there were quite a few, carrying grain, we were told, by government order. This put the train behind schedule, and even halving the two-hour stop in Winnipeg, still brought us in a few hours late.
But the scenery continued to hold fascination. Beyond the plains, we crossed the geologically-famous Canadian Shield, with much granite outcropping as we moved past so many deep blue lakes even if not on the old Canadian Pacific route closer to Lake Superior. Then we came down along Georgian Bay and saw all the cottages to which Torontonians repair when it gets warm.
Finally, we were in Union Station, Toronto, and I was able to join up with my friend from Toronto, check my bags to head right across the way to see the Blue Jays take on the Royals in a day game. They were already up by five by our arrival in the bottom of the first.
Monday, May 26, 2014
Ridin' the Rails
Your intrepid correspondent is back on the rails, right now between trips. After spending a few wonderful days in Everyone's Favorite City, San Francisco, I boarded the bus in front of the Ferry Terminal at the foot of Market St. that carried me over the Bay Bridge to Emeryville, from whence Amtrak runs all its trains in the Bay Area. A dozen delicious West Coast oysters from the Hog Island Oyster Co. in the Ferry Terminal--overpriced, yes, but excellent all the same (as well they should be)--armed me for the trip.
Amtrak's Coast Starlight, which started at Union Station, Los Angeles, arrived right on time and I found my roomette and hunkered down for the first part of the trip, up to Sacramento and thence north on an inland route through Chico and Redding, awakening in extreme northern California in the mountains near Mt. Shasta, noticing we were an hour behind as the train moved slowly around the curvy mountain ledges.
Beautiful scenery of course and it got even better when we crossed into Oregon, in and out of 22 tunnels through the mountains and then racing past lush green valleys. The Coast Starlight represents in one small way an improvement over rail service in these parts in the pre-Amtrak days. Then if you arrived from southern California, you had to change in Oakland to one of three carriers headed north. Now you can take the one train that makes the trip the whole way.
Amtrak has tried to make the Coast Starlight somewhat special by including in the consist the Pacific Parlour Car, an old example of Santa Fe rolling stock that was built in 1955. It features nice plush armchairs and a small restaurant section with an alternative menu to the dining car next door. It also has the extra windows up top like the lounge car on the other side of the diner and a bar upstairs and downstairs.
The staff, as with all Amtrak folks whom I've encountered out west, is pleasant and friendly, if a bit California-style laid back. The diner doesn't quite open at the scheduled time. No matter. The announcements made it seem that you'd be lucky if they squeezed you in (although sleeping-car passengers get priority) but then you would find empty tables, unlike my experience on the Cardinal or the Southwest Chief. Of course, I was riding in the middle of Memorial Day weekend. And I shouldn't forget to mention that the lamb shank served for dinner in the parlour car was absolutely superb!
They made up the delay by the time we rolled into Portland at about quarter past three in the afternoon. An hour stop--not quite enough for a dash over to Powell's bookstore. Then on across the mighty Columbia, untamed by the eleven dams, and into Washington State, where we met the not entirely unexpected rain. King Street Station in Seattle, where the Starlight terminates, is beautifully renovated, but despite the bright white-painted plaster, the marble, and the floor mosaics and brasswork, the station has no services beyond a ticket office, rest rooms, and vending machines.
By this time the train had taken advantage of all of the slack Amtrak builds into the schedules, andwe arrived there a good 55 minutes ahead of schedule, which left me an hour and a half to wait for the connecting bus to Vancouver. Amtrak runs trains to Vancouver but not one that connects with the Starlight--who knows why not? The bus was efficient, and not even disturbing to my system as they sometimes are, but we lost some time at the border because two passengers had issues.
Anyway, we arrived close to schedule quite late at night at the Pacific Central Station in Vancouver, where fortunately many taxis were in readiness for our dozen or so riders. I will return there tomorrow to board the Canadian (ViaRail train number 2) for the trip across Canada to Toronto. In the meantime, today was spent with friends walking through Vancouver's bustling downtown and back by city bus to the marvelous Museum of Anthropology on the University of British Columbia campus. The signs refer to it as MOA which I guess beats DOA.
It has what must be the finest collection of totem poles and many other artifacts from the First Nations, as Canada refers to its earliest inhabitants, and almost everywhere else. Here is where I got to see pictures and objects from the Kwakiutl potlatches I studied about in the course I took at Cornell that somehow included some classic anthro studies by Ruth Benedict.
Amtrak's Coast Starlight, which started at Union Station, Los Angeles, arrived right on time and I found my roomette and hunkered down for the first part of the trip, up to Sacramento and thence north on an inland route through Chico and Redding, awakening in extreme northern California in the mountains near Mt. Shasta, noticing we were an hour behind as the train moved slowly around the curvy mountain ledges.
Beautiful scenery of course and it got even better when we crossed into Oregon, in and out of 22 tunnels through the mountains and then racing past lush green valleys. The Coast Starlight represents in one small way an improvement over rail service in these parts in the pre-Amtrak days. Then if you arrived from southern California, you had to change in Oakland to one of three carriers headed north. Now you can take the one train that makes the trip the whole way.
Amtrak has tried to make the Coast Starlight somewhat special by including in the consist the Pacific Parlour Car, an old example of Santa Fe rolling stock that was built in 1955. It features nice plush armchairs and a small restaurant section with an alternative menu to the dining car next door. It also has the extra windows up top like the lounge car on the other side of the diner and a bar upstairs and downstairs.
The staff, as with all Amtrak folks whom I've encountered out west, is pleasant and friendly, if a bit California-style laid back. The diner doesn't quite open at the scheduled time. No matter. The announcements made it seem that you'd be lucky if they squeezed you in (although sleeping-car passengers get priority) but then you would find empty tables, unlike my experience on the Cardinal or the Southwest Chief. Of course, I was riding in the middle of Memorial Day weekend. And I shouldn't forget to mention that the lamb shank served for dinner in the parlour car was absolutely superb!
They made up the delay by the time we rolled into Portland at about quarter past three in the afternoon. An hour stop--not quite enough for a dash over to Powell's bookstore. Then on across the mighty Columbia, untamed by the eleven dams, and into Washington State, where we met the not entirely unexpected rain. King Street Station in Seattle, where the Starlight terminates, is beautifully renovated, but despite the bright white-painted plaster, the marble, and the floor mosaics and brasswork, the station has no services beyond a ticket office, rest rooms, and vending machines.
By this time the train had taken advantage of all of the slack Amtrak builds into the schedules, andwe arrived there a good 55 minutes ahead of schedule, which left me an hour and a half to wait for the connecting bus to Vancouver. Amtrak runs trains to Vancouver but not one that connects with the Starlight--who knows why not? The bus was efficient, and not even disturbing to my system as they sometimes are, but we lost some time at the border because two passengers had issues.
Anyway, we arrived close to schedule quite late at night at the Pacific Central Station in Vancouver, where fortunately many taxis were in readiness for our dozen or so riders. I will return there tomorrow to board the Canadian (ViaRail train number 2) for the trip across Canada to Toronto. In the meantime, today was spent with friends walking through Vancouver's bustling downtown and back by city bus to the marvelous Museum of Anthropology on the University of British Columbia campus. The signs refer to it as MOA which I guess beats DOA.
It has what must be the finest collection of totem poles and many other artifacts from the First Nations, as Canada refers to its earliest inhabitants, and almost everywhere else. Here is where I got to see pictures and objects from the Kwakiutl potlatches I studied about in the course I took at Cornell that somehow included some classic anthro studies by Ruth Benedict.
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Explaining Alger-2
So having explained who Alger was, what he wrote, his one plot, and a bit about the Horatio Alger Society, I'll now get into what continues to interest me about both Horatio Alger and the Horatio Alger Society.
Alger's career provides a window into the literary world of the second half of the 1800s. While at Harvard, studying divinity, he developed his interests in writing poetry, short stories, and ultimately, longer pieces. When he turned to writing novels for boys, there were many periodicals aimed at this audience. School & Schoolmate, Gleason's Youth Companion, and many others could be found on newsstands and more often, were delivered to homes through the mail. Adults enjoyed Frank Leslie's Illustrated Weekly, which remains a prime source for Civil War coverage, but which also published fiction.Recall the immense popularity of the Dickens novels which first appeared in serial instalments in publications such as these.
While Alger's moralizing in his novels is both characteristic of "uplifting" literature for children of those times, his portrayal of the New York of the late 1800s is fascinating. In creating the character of Ragged Dick, he included more personality in terms of humor as well as the manly virtues. One is made familiar with such major settings in old New York as Barnum's Museum, the Astor House, and the theaters. Alger, of course, takes a dim view of youth who waste their free time at such haunts as Tony Pastor's theatre when they might be home improving their minds.
The Alger Society not only has a membership who are well versed in the particulars of Alger novels. One member has published a series of collecting studies on different publishers, there are several bibliographies that are especially useful in identifying first editions, In recent years, many members are more interested in 1850-1950 boys' series generally or in particular authors or series, and often now, not so much in Alger.
This is part of a movement to study popular culture that formed the Popular Culture Association, which presents annual conferences attended by many HAS members. One outstanding analysis of the history of the period reflected through writers like Alger was produced by member and Swarthmore political science professor Carol Nackenoff, The Fictional Republic.
As with any popular American institution--and Alger was the best-selling author of his time--all sorts of episodes arise over the years about the subject. Herbert Mayes, who became a well-known magazine editor who revived McCall's in the 1960s, published a satirical biography about Alger that was intended to mock the trend in the 1920s of publishing "debunking" biographies. The biography was accepted as true for years until Mayes years later conceded that it had been intended as a joke and was fraudulent.
Alger clearly regretted his behavior when a minister and wrote at least one poem later that expresses his hope that his later works would make up for his offenses. Rather than condemn him, one is more inclined to consider our more recent tendency to give offenders a second chance. In Alger's case, he provided for millions both entertainment and some heavy-handed "moral uplift" that may grate on our sensibilities but was characteristic of his times.
Since I do possess at least some of the collecting bug that has lurked in my family--my grandfather not only wrote several Lincoln books but blew much of a fortune collecting Lincolniana and one great-uncle not only was a major stamp collector but had Pony Express covers, I recognize my Alger connection as a less costly (I won't spend all that much for any book and these days, the prices have fallen anyway, even for firsts) way to enjoy history and literature of a period in America that continues to hold much interest.
The society has often invited academic lecturers who speak about writers of Alger's time as well as him. A few years ago, one discussed a contemporary, Louisa May Alcott, who possesses and deserves a higher literary reputation. Nevertheless, I recalled that in her books beyond Little Women, past which many readers rarely venture, she indulged in many of the character cliches of which Alger is guilty. In Jo's Boys, for example, there are the stereotypes of boys--good, bad, indifferent--and they are not much more personalized than some of Alger's.
Even if Alger is only remembered today in a phrase seen in obits, he helped create an ethos in American life that persists, whether or not it has become even harder for someone without means to make it to the top through hard work and moral behavior. So maybe it's not true today and might not have been very true then? It had and continues to have a powerful influence on American culture and politics, for better or worse.
Alger's career provides a window into the literary world of the second half of the 1800s. While at Harvard, studying divinity, he developed his interests in writing poetry, short stories, and ultimately, longer pieces. When he turned to writing novels for boys, there were many periodicals aimed at this audience. School & Schoolmate, Gleason's Youth Companion, and many others could be found on newsstands and more often, were delivered to homes through the mail. Adults enjoyed Frank Leslie's Illustrated Weekly, which remains a prime source for Civil War coverage, but which also published fiction.Recall the immense popularity of the Dickens novels which first appeared in serial instalments in publications such as these.
While Alger's moralizing in his novels is both characteristic of "uplifting" literature for children of those times, his portrayal of the New York of the late 1800s is fascinating. In creating the character of Ragged Dick, he included more personality in terms of humor as well as the manly virtues. One is made familiar with such major settings in old New York as Barnum's Museum, the Astor House, and the theaters. Alger, of course, takes a dim view of youth who waste their free time at such haunts as Tony Pastor's theatre when they might be home improving their minds.
The Alger Society not only has a membership who are well versed in the particulars of Alger novels. One member has published a series of collecting studies on different publishers, there are several bibliographies that are especially useful in identifying first editions, In recent years, many members are more interested in 1850-1950 boys' series generally or in particular authors or series, and often now, not so much in Alger.
This is part of a movement to study popular culture that formed the Popular Culture Association, which presents annual conferences attended by many HAS members. One outstanding analysis of the history of the period reflected through writers like Alger was produced by member and Swarthmore political science professor Carol Nackenoff, The Fictional Republic.
As with any popular American institution--and Alger was the best-selling author of his time--all sorts of episodes arise over the years about the subject. Herbert Mayes, who became a well-known magazine editor who revived McCall's in the 1960s, published a satirical biography about Alger that was intended to mock the trend in the 1920s of publishing "debunking" biographies. The biography was accepted as true for years until Mayes years later conceded that it had been intended as a joke and was fraudulent.
Alger clearly regretted his behavior when a minister and wrote at least one poem later that expresses his hope that his later works would make up for his offenses. Rather than condemn him, one is more inclined to consider our more recent tendency to give offenders a second chance. In Alger's case, he provided for millions both entertainment and some heavy-handed "moral uplift" that may grate on our sensibilities but was characteristic of his times.
Since I do possess at least some of the collecting bug that has lurked in my family--my grandfather not only wrote several Lincoln books but blew much of a fortune collecting Lincolniana and one great-uncle not only was a major stamp collector but had Pony Express covers, I recognize my Alger connection as a less costly (I won't spend all that much for any book and these days, the prices have fallen anyway, even for firsts) way to enjoy history and literature of a period in America that continues to hold much interest.
The society has often invited academic lecturers who speak about writers of Alger's time as well as him. A few years ago, one discussed a contemporary, Louisa May Alcott, who possesses and deserves a higher literary reputation. Nevertheless, I recalled that in her books beyond Little Women, past which many readers rarely venture, she indulged in many of the character cliches of which Alger is guilty. In Jo's Boys, for example, there are the stereotypes of boys--good, bad, indifferent--and they are not much more personalized than some of Alger's.
Even if Alger is only remembered today in a phrase seen in obits, he helped create an ethos in American life that persists, whether or not it has become even harder for someone without means to make it to the top through hard work and moral behavior. So maybe it's not true today and might not have been very true then? It had and continues to have a powerful influence on American culture and politics, for better or worse.
Tuesday, May 6, 2014
Explaining Alger
Why do I attend the annual convention of the Horatio Alger Society? And why did I agree to host the confab this year, a challenge that only wrapped this past weekend when the convention ran successfully under my stewardship in Annapolis? Finally, why did I agree to accept being vice president for the next two years?
You might first ask who was Horatio Alger and why am I even interested in him and his work. He is recalled today only, based on his approximately 120 novels for boys (with two heroines) that extolled the work-hard, become-successful theme, when someone dies who rose from nowhere and his life is described as a "Horatio Alger rags-to-riches story."
He was born in 1832 in Massachusetts and like all well-bred New Englanders then, attended Harvard, from which he graduated in 1852, in divinity. We forget that Harvard began as a divinity school for Puritans. He was clearly a college litterateur, writing stories, poems, and serving as class day speaker. His career in the cloth crumbled when he was accused of molesting two boys and blew town, leaving his minister father to clean up the mess by promising that Horatio Jr. would never fill a pulpit again.
And he never did. He repaired to New York City and began to pen tales of the children of the street, who made their spare livings as bootblacks, runners for financial houses, and other bottom-rank work. He developed a snappy style that appealed to younger readers of the second half of the 19th century. His third book, Ragged Dick, was set in the New York of the 1870s--sort of the flip side of Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence. His lead character was engaging, nervy, brave, and sometimes even funny.
This book was the one that broke open the market. Parents, aunts and uncles gave Alger books to sons, nephews, and grandchildren. Alger took lodgings at the Newsboys' Lodging House, advising the superintendent and learning about life on the streets from the boys who resided there. He took trips out west and several novels followed. This was a one-plot writer: boy on farm faces family disaster when local squire is about to foreclose on farm, so he seeks fame and fortune, encounters nasties in big city, works hard, avoids smoking and drinking, performs act of bravery, is befriended by rich man, and achieves fame, fortune, and girl, sometimes rich man's daughter, and not necessarily in that order.
It all comes together, spurred always by coincidences, because our man was not too strong on creative plotting. He must have figured that one would do. By the time he died in 1899, he had sold millions, but unlike his heroes, he had given much away and died relatively without much in the way of assets. His assistant, Edward Stratemeyer, finished about ten unfinished novels, and then started a syndicate, eventually hiring writers to create Tom Swift, the Hardy Boys, the Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew, and many more. The Syndicate is still in business.
Someone gave me an Alger book when I was in junior high. My excellent English teacher told me to lose it. Librarians had banished these young-adult (as they would now be known) volumes at the turn of the century because they lacked the gravitas of the classics. The image stayed that way, as attested to by my English teacher.
I liked the style and found the plots and the classic values of modesty, sobriety, and the rest of the Scout law amusing. I started picking up Alger books in second-hand book stores and antique stores. When I started to travel, often all around the Northeast and later the U.S., I would seek them out. I bought them by mail as a teenager from the fabled Leary's Book Store in Philadelphia. Before long I had a collection. I almost entered it in a book-collecting contest when I was at Cornell. I bet the librarians there would have given me the heave-ho.
A friend who read antiquarian publications saw a notice for the Horatio Alger Society and knowing of my collection, suggested that this might be something I'd find of interest. I joined up but only attended every three or four years because I travelled often and usually was unable to make the May conventions. They were attended mostly by collectors and book dealers and some who found Alger interesting. The folks who worshipped his values gradually disappeared over the years. Some university librarians and professors joined and I found their company stimulating.
The society tended to meet outside beltways of third-level cities and looked for motel rooms for under $50. You could get the books you needed at the annual auction and book sale. Much that was auctioned was sold that night in private sale and more went on sale the next day at the book sale.
Gradually the society began to have speakers on both aspects of Alger and other series books for boys. The other authors of that genre were William T. Adams, writing as Oliver Optic, Harry Castlemon, and Edward S. Ellis. G.A. Henty captured the spirit of the British Empire in With Wolfe at Quebec, or With Clive at Plassey, etc.
--to be continued--
You might first ask who was Horatio Alger and why am I even interested in him and his work. He is recalled today only, based on his approximately 120 novels for boys (with two heroines) that extolled the work-hard, become-successful theme, when someone dies who rose from nowhere and his life is described as a "Horatio Alger rags-to-riches story."
He was born in 1832 in Massachusetts and like all well-bred New Englanders then, attended Harvard, from which he graduated in 1852, in divinity. We forget that Harvard began as a divinity school for Puritans. He was clearly a college litterateur, writing stories, poems, and serving as class day speaker. His career in the cloth crumbled when he was accused of molesting two boys and blew town, leaving his minister father to clean up the mess by promising that Horatio Jr. would never fill a pulpit again.
And he never did. He repaired to New York City and began to pen tales of the children of the street, who made their spare livings as bootblacks, runners for financial houses, and other bottom-rank work. He developed a snappy style that appealed to younger readers of the second half of the 19th century. His third book, Ragged Dick, was set in the New York of the 1870s--sort of the flip side of Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence. His lead character was engaging, nervy, brave, and sometimes even funny.
This book was the one that broke open the market. Parents, aunts and uncles gave Alger books to sons, nephews, and grandchildren. Alger took lodgings at the Newsboys' Lodging House, advising the superintendent and learning about life on the streets from the boys who resided there. He took trips out west and several novels followed. This was a one-plot writer: boy on farm faces family disaster when local squire is about to foreclose on farm, so he seeks fame and fortune, encounters nasties in big city, works hard, avoids smoking and drinking, performs act of bravery, is befriended by rich man, and achieves fame, fortune, and girl, sometimes rich man's daughter, and not necessarily in that order.
It all comes together, spurred always by coincidences, because our man was not too strong on creative plotting. He must have figured that one would do. By the time he died in 1899, he had sold millions, but unlike his heroes, he had given much away and died relatively without much in the way of assets. His assistant, Edward Stratemeyer, finished about ten unfinished novels, and then started a syndicate, eventually hiring writers to create Tom Swift, the Hardy Boys, the Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew, and many more. The Syndicate is still in business.
Someone gave me an Alger book when I was in junior high. My excellent English teacher told me to lose it. Librarians had banished these young-adult (as they would now be known) volumes at the turn of the century because they lacked the gravitas of the classics. The image stayed that way, as attested to by my English teacher.
I liked the style and found the plots and the classic values of modesty, sobriety, and the rest of the Scout law amusing. I started picking up Alger books in second-hand book stores and antique stores. When I started to travel, often all around the Northeast and later the U.S., I would seek them out. I bought them by mail as a teenager from the fabled Leary's Book Store in Philadelphia. Before long I had a collection. I almost entered it in a book-collecting contest when I was at Cornell. I bet the librarians there would have given me the heave-ho.
A friend who read antiquarian publications saw a notice for the Horatio Alger Society and knowing of my collection, suggested that this might be something I'd find of interest. I joined up but only attended every three or four years because I travelled often and usually was unable to make the May conventions. They were attended mostly by collectors and book dealers and some who found Alger interesting. The folks who worshipped his values gradually disappeared over the years. Some university librarians and professors joined and I found their company stimulating.
The society tended to meet outside beltways of third-level cities and looked for motel rooms for under $50. You could get the books you needed at the annual auction and book sale. Much that was auctioned was sold that night in private sale and more went on sale the next day at the book sale.
Gradually the society began to have speakers on both aspects of Alger and other series books for boys. The other authors of that genre were William T. Adams, writing as Oliver Optic, Harry Castlemon, and Edward S. Ellis. G.A. Henty captured the spirit of the British Empire in With Wolfe at Quebec, or With Clive at Plassey, etc.
--to be continued--
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Sorry for the lag
Sorry that I haven't posted here for a while. I've had two theatrical experiences recently, actually three. First was Henry IV, Part One at the Shakespeare Theatre with Stacy Keach as Sir John and Edward Gero (seen most recently as Rothko in Red) as Henry IV. Then last Saturday I caught Henry IV, Part Two. They are two wonderful plays but require players at the top of their form.
Alas, most of the cast was disappointing. I hadn't seen Keach in years and though he's old enough to be a good Falstaff, he lacked both fervor and diction. They all were difficult to understand and I usually don't have trouble catching Shakespearean dialog. Gero was fine, but King Henry is not the greatest part. Ted Van Griethuysen got some kudos for Mr Justice Shallow and he is one of my favorites in the company. But longtime company stalwart David Sabin played Falstaff a few years ago (maybe not a few years ago) and was far better than Stacy Keach.
The Lord Chief Justice was strong in Part Two and Hotspur was magnificent in Part One. Otherwise, it was something of a wipeout. These are Shakespeare's prime efforts to combine history and comedy -- while the famous lines are wonderful--Henry IV's "Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown" was done well, but Falstaff's fabulous moment of reflection "We have heard the chimes at midnight..." came off unconvincingly. It's a giveaway when the Falstaff gang (Peto, Pistol, Poins, Bardolph, Mistrees Quickly, Doll) come off as stronger than the fat knight.
But then last Friday we took in Camp David at the Arena Stage. This was a marvelous evening. The Egyptian actor who played Sadat was superb, and Ron Rifkin was a terrifically annoying Menachem Begin, while Richard Thomas captured both the hopefulness and innocence of Jimmy Carter. Some of my friends thought he was weak but I disagreed--he captured him nicely. Hallie Foote, whom I last saw in NY in her father's Dividing the Estate, is wonderful at playing tough Southern women--she did a great job with Rosalynn.
It really did a fine job setting out the issues, the personalities, the conflicts, and the varied pressures. Yes, the ending is a bit pat, but then, this was the only real success at Middle East peacemaking we've had.
Next I hope to see a production of The Threepenny Opera at Signature Theatre here. The production which opened quite recently in New York used the Mark Blitzstein libretto. Blitzstein was a fabulous musical mind but I think he came up short here, likely because he was pressured to massage down Brecht's rough edges. Brecht certainly had many of those, but they make him what he was. There are newer versions which I hope Signature has opted to draw on.
Alas, most of the cast was disappointing. I hadn't seen Keach in years and though he's old enough to be a good Falstaff, he lacked both fervor and diction. They all were difficult to understand and I usually don't have trouble catching Shakespearean dialog. Gero was fine, but King Henry is not the greatest part. Ted Van Griethuysen got some kudos for Mr Justice Shallow and he is one of my favorites in the company. But longtime company stalwart David Sabin played Falstaff a few years ago (maybe not a few years ago) and was far better than Stacy Keach.
The Lord Chief Justice was strong in Part Two and Hotspur was magnificent in Part One. Otherwise, it was something of a wipeout. These are Shakespeare's prime efforts to combine history and comedy -- while the famous lines are wonderful--Henry IV's "Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown" was done well, but Falstaff's fabulous moment of reflection "We have heard the chimes at midnight..." came off unconvincingly. It's a giveaway when the Falstaff gang (Peto, Pistol, Poins, Bardolph, Mistrees Quickly, Doll) come off as stronger than the fat knight.
But then last Friday we took in Camp David at the Arena Stage. This was a marvelous evening. The Egyptian actor who played Sadat was superb, and Ron Rifkin was a terrifically annoying Menachem Begin, while Richard Thomas captured both the hopefulness and innocence of Jimmy Carter. Some of my friends thought he was weak but I disagreed--he captured him nicely. Hallie Foote, whom I last saw in NY in her father's Dividing the Estate, is wonderful at playing tough Southern women--she did a great job with Rosalynn.
It really did a fine job setting out the issues, the personalities, the conflicts, and the varied pressures. Yes, the ending is a bit pat, but then, this was the only real success at Middle East peacemaking we've had.
Next I hope to see a production of The Threepenny Opera at Signature Theatre here. The production which opened quite recently in New York used the Mark Blitzstein libretto. Blitzstein was a fabulous musical mind but I think he came up short here, likely because he was pressured to massage down Brecht's rough edges. Brecht certainly had many of those, but they make him what he was. There are newer versions which I hope Signature has opted to draw on.
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