Showing posts with label New York. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New York. Show all posts

Saturday, July 15, 2023

Evocative Literary Works -- Avid Reader and The Personal Librarian

 

JP Morgan Library
 

While recently traveling, I read two different, interesting books: Robert Gottlieb’s Avid Reader and a historical novel, unusual as it was written by two people, Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray, The Personal Librarian. 

 

The former was recommended to me in 2017 by a friend of my son Jonathan.  He knew I’d find it particularly relevant as Gottlieb was a leading trade publisher (very different than my publishing world though) and my literary interests.  Apparently, I put the book on my Amazon wish list, and finally was able to find a used copy through an Amazon partner.  It turned out to be a “withdrawn” copy from the Public Library District of Columbia, a labyrinth path to languish on my shelves until recently.  It’s also ironic as the protagonist of the other book, The Personal Librarian, was from the District of Columbia. At the core of each work are books and publishing.

 

My wife recommended the latter, an unusual tale about the remarkable woman, Bella da Costa Greene a person of color who passed for white and lived her life that way, dedicated to building the J.P Morgan Library, in effect becoming a partner in that endeavor with the most powerful man in the world at the time.  Although historically accurate, many of the personal details had to be imagined; hence, a work of historical fiction.

 

Both books were redolent of aspects of my past.  At one time I was nearly enrolled in Pratt’s Master of Library Science program but life had different plans for me, starting in publishing right out of college, which leads me to the more personal work (for me) Gottlieb’s memoir, Avid Reader. 

 

His career in trade publishing a little parallels mine in academic publishing, both of us compulsive workers, both loving our jobs which we considered a way of life more than working itself.  He was ten years older than I, quickly rising to Simon & Schuster’s editor-in-chief, then occupying that same position becoming president of Alfred A. Knopf.  He then served as the Editor of The New Yorker returning to Knopf as “editor ex officio.”

 

If our paths crossed at all it was at the American Bookseller’s Association or PEN.  He did not bother attending the Frankfurt Bookfair as I did.  My kind of publishing required me there to negotiate co-publishing rights with English publishers and develop the international marketing of our own publications.  Plenty of trade publishers sought out the Frankfurt Bookfair (for the parties alone), but Gottlieb was dedicated to the art of editing and had no time for the usual trade frivolities, such as those parties and long two martini lunches, etc.  He was an editor in the mold of Maxwell Perkins and Gordon Lish (with whom he worked). 

 

Among the literary luminaries he worked with was his own discovery (and Gottlieb was only 26 years old then), Joseph Heller, and his then titled novel “Catch 18.”  By the time it was being set in type, though, the best- selling Leon Uris was coming out with Mila 18 so Gottlieb and team scrambled for a new title, and it was suggested that “Catch-11”might be used but then there was the fear that it would be confused with the film Ocean’s 11. Heller suggested 14 but Gottlieb considered it “flavorless” and with time growing short, spent a sleepless night and finally came up with Catch-22.  He called Heller: ‘”Joe, I’ve got it! Twenty-two! It’s even funnier than eighteen!’ Obviously the notion that one number was funnier than another number was a classic example of self-delusion, but we wanted to be deluded.”

 

 

But when I read that he considered Heller’s Something Happened one of the greatest novels of its time (I agree), it was then I resolved to write him upon completion of his autobiography to say how much I admired his work and his work ethic.  What are the odds that a book I bought years ago, and just recently picked up to read, should be written by someone who passed away while I was reading it?  I was heartbroken about missing the opportunity. He had an uncanny ability to communicate his life in such a personal voice.  I feel as if he was talking to me.  It is a rare autobiography which lacks self-censorship (the greatest fault of my own memoir in process), vital, a man who loved, loved what he did.

 

 

My old, beaten clothbound copy of Something Happened has followed us from house to house in Connecticut and now Florida.  Perhaps the time has come to put it on my “to be read (again)” list, a list that simply is like the expanding universe.

 

What a life and career.  He was indeed an avid reader as a kid. It helps that he was brilliant, and a quintessential New Yorker, who took advantage of all the cultural opportunities of the city.  In fact, in his later years became involved in the world of ballet, befriending Lincoln Kirstein and George Balanchine.  He became a ballet critic and he thought his attraction to the art was because it is all about movement, a world of difference from his literary life.  My wife’s favorite ballet company of the last 20 years has been the Miami City Ballet and its very continued existence was due to Gottlieb’s efforts and his friendship with Edward Villella, the company’s founder (Gottlieb maintained a home in Miami as well as an apartment in Paris).

 

He sometimes would pull all-nighters on behalf of his authors to read their new works or to edit ones submitted for publishing. He took no vacations and long holiday weekends meant he could get more work done.

 

Again comparing my own publishing life, I always felt that the more I got done, the more there was to do.  My family knew my favorite working day of the week was Mondays.  I wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

Gottlieb said "I hated dinners out. Restaurants didn’t appeal to me. I didn’t go to movies or parties, play sports or watch sports. I literally didn’t know how to turn on the TV."  He saw himself in service of the author; authors, coworkers and friends were all part of his extended family.  He did have a family, married twice, the second marriage the charm (as was mine), to Maria Tucci the actress.

 

As I was finishing the book, he died at the age at 92.  I lamented his death and the lost opportunity of writing to him.  In his own voice, he makes a good point though: “I attempt not to think about death, but there’s no avoiding the fact that we are all the pre-dead.  I try not to brood about my lessening, physical forces, and try to avoid what I’m sure is the number one killer: stress. Luckily, I don’t use up psychic energy and living in regret. What’s the point? Or in worrying about the future. Why encourage anxiety ? The present is hard enough.”

 

Speaking of anxiety, indeed, can one imagine the day-to-day grind of living a life of self-imposed duplicity, such as the one portrayed in The Personal Librarian? 

 


Bryan daily eagle and pilot 28 Feb 1913
 

This work of historical fiction by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray is about Belle da Costa Greene’s personal and professional life. As J. P. Morgan's “personal” librarian, she helped build the incredible J.P. Morgan Library, JPM, many years her elder, never realized she was black.  She passed for white and that's how she had to lead her life, to protect her position, one of enormous responsibility as she represented JPM at auctions, operating completely autonomously.  It was a disadvantage enough being a woman in that world of antiquarian collecting and preservation.  It was also the way she protected her mother and siblings, who she supported throughout her life.  One can imagine the ensuing complications and her perpetual fear of being “outted.” 

 

Passing for white estranged her from her father, Richard Theodore Greener, Harvard College's first Black graduate.  He became Dean of Howard University’s Law School and a tireless advocate of equal rights during the Reconstruction.  This became a schism in his family.  His wife wanted her and her children to have the benefits of being thought of as white, fabricating a tale about Portuguese lineage and changing their name from Greener to Greene to disassociate them from him.

 

Belle finally found a way to embrace her father’s teachings and at the same time creating a research library second to none when, after JP Morgan’s death, she convinced his son Jack to make the library a gift to New York City.  She thought he could approve, putting these treasures indirectly in the hands of the people.

 

This gave her some closure and it took the writing team of the experienced novelist, Marie Benedict, and a bestselling writer, Victoria Christopher Murray to imagine the complete tale.  In the process, they became best friends and the joy they shared researching and writing shows on every page.

 

Avid Reader and The Personal Librarian, as different as they are, share that commonality, the joy of books. That was my world and how lucky I was to be a small part of it.

 

Wednesday, May 3, 2023

NY, NY, In the Cold Rain

 

Every year we try to get to NYC for a stay on the Upper West Side, go to theatre, and see our “kids” (Jon and Tracie, Megan and Chris).  I usually write lots of details about the numerous sites and high points, but alas, weather at the end of April did not cooperate and instead an intense and raw rain made some of our plans obsolete. 

 

But first upon our arrival, when the weather was still good, dinner at Jon and Tracie's apartment which overlooks the Hudson River.

 

 

As luck would have it, though, our son booked us into a boutique UWS hotel, the Wallace, and in spite of the construction across the street, the requisite NYC street sounds, fire engines, police, early morning garbage trucks, it was a wonderful choice as we had a separate living area to hunker down with family or just ourselves to “duck out” of the weather, mostly a cold blustery rain.

 

The weather spoiled some of our plans but we managed to enjoy, not only all six of us being together, but being able to get to most of the shows and performances we had booked, special restaurants too such as the Boulud Sud where it looks like we arrived from the frozen tundra.  (The photo, left to right, Megan, Ann, Bob, Chris, Tracie, Jon.)

 

 

The highlight for me, though, was going back in time to the Village Vanguard, remembering I was there in the early 1960s for a performance by Oscar Peterson.  I was in college and sat at the bar with one of my college or HS buddies. Doesn’t look like they changed much.  This time the rising luminary was Samara Joy, just in her early 20s.  We saw her first perform at Emmet’s Place before she even graduated from college and then again on the Jazz Cruise. 

 

Unfortunately, I was unable to get a good photograph of her because of the crowd and lighting so this will have to do.

 

 

Nonetheless, her Web Site has all the pix and information one might need. Her team has swung into high gear with performances scheduled all over the world and to see her emergence as a top jazz performer in such a short time is remarkable.

 

She is the real deal, a natural, titanic talent, often compared to Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan, you might even say having Ella’s range and Sarah’s smoky quality. But she is herself, her own style.  We once heard her sing Guess Who I Saw Today, perhaps it was on Emmet’s Place, exactly as the song was written, with the unforgettable final verse,

Guess who I saw today, my dear!

I've never been so shocked before.

I headed blindly for the door.

They didn't see me passing through,

Guess who I saw today? [Repeat: x3]

I saw you!

 

Instead at the Vanguard she inter-spaced lyrics from another song, affecting in some ways but lacking that three word axe that falls at the end.  Many singers have made “”Guess” a signature song.  We love the one by Edie Gorme and hope that Samantha stays with at least some of the standard lyrics.  But she could sing the telephone book, and we’d be there.

 

The two shows that we managed to get to in spite of the weather were like the bookends to one another.

 

Some Like It Hot is loosely based on the movie and it is traditional Broadway energy with fabulous performances and clever, complicated staging, tap dancing galore too.  I thought it had all the best elements that a Broadway production had to offer plus farce with the moving doors, not knowing what characters would dance, or sneak out of each one.  Huge cast.  While the music was enjoyable, maybe only one or two songs were memorable in some way, yet no wonder it has just been nominated for 13 Tony awards.

 

Then there was the Lincoln Center production of Camelot, reimagined by Aaron Sorkin.  This production is minimalist, with lighting being particularly important (almost like a Greek Tragedy), and although the “book” has been revised they have essentially retained the glorious Lerner and Lowe songs and orchestrations with a 30 piece orchestra.   Ironically, who should we see there for that performance, but none other than Lin-Manuel Miranda, a special collaborator for New York, New York, with John Kander which we were unable to get to (although we had tickets) because of torrential cold rain and the inability to get a cab or Uber.  So that was the one major plan that fell through.

 

 

Nonetheless, being in NY, and at a hotel where we had some separate living space during the storms, made it another wonderful visit to the past.  Maybe we will have to avoid future April showers and storms and visit during the lusty month of May, “that lovely month when ev'ryone goes / Blissfully astray.”









 

 

Friday, September 23, 2022

Family and a Sense of Place

 

With the “relative” safe COVID travel easing, we ventured once again, six weeks later, by returning to New York City, this time for ten days and then, finally, after three long years, to our former life as boaters in Connecticut for a week.  There we were reunited with the boat we lived on each summer since I retired, mostly at the same dock in Norwalk, the ‘Swept Away’ (now Captained by our son, Jonathan, and his wife/first mate, Tracie).  Our other son Chris and his significant other Megan were able to meet up with all of us at the end of that week.  To be with our four “kids” was the highlight of our trip. 

 

The flight to NYC went flawlessly, thank you Jet Blue, and there was an orderly line to get cabs when we arrived at the gleaming new LGA terminal.  For the following ten days we enjoyed living like the Upper-West-Siders we once were, staying at Jon and Tracie’s apartment overlooking the Hudson River (while they vacationed on the boat).  Ironically one can see part of the West Side Highway from their windows, which I drove each morning in 1970 commuting from our little rent controlled apartment on West 63rd Street, to where I worked at a new publishing job in Westport, CT, not moving there until a year later.  It was a more civilized drive in those days.  I became the President of that company and was there for the rest of my working life.  I feel deep roots in Manhattan and Southwest Connecticut.  Florida has its merits but the verdant hills of Connecticut and Manhattan’s macadam still call out.

 

Jon and Tracie’s apartment also fronts Riverside Park which on some mornings I walked, especially enticed by a visit to the pier which juts out into the Hudson River and sitting on a bench where I could marvel at the 360 degree skyline.  Manhattan was literally a breath of fresh air, in the 70s, low humidity, a nice breeze.  The juxtaposition of the old West Side Highway and the new gleaming condos reaching for the sky, and the George Washington Bridge to the north in the distance and New Jersey to the west made for expansive viewing, dazzling in the light. 

 

 

 

 

Manhattan people-watching is still so much fun.  I was lucky to photograph a man and his dog enjoying that fresh morning air on the pier, and later, walking with Ann on Central Park West, the sweet mother and daughter strolling in lock step, Mom transporting her child’s roller skates. 

 

 

Or an elderly woman feeding Manhattan's requisite pigeons at Riverside Park in the morning. 



From a cab I saw a flight attendant who noted I was taking photos and stopped to pose as she crossed the street.  My pleasure!

 

Not allowing grass to grow under our feet our first full night we were thrilled to catch our favorite jazz pianist at Birdland, Emmet Cohen.  In addition to his steadfast drummer, Kyle Poole, and a guest bassist, he was joined by Bruce Harris on the trumpet, and Ruben Fox on the sax. 

 

We had a front row table, directly facing Harris, probably one of the leading trumpet performers, but the young Aussie, Ruben Fox did some other-worldly riffs, to such an extent that Harris and I made eye contact, acknowledging what Fox was doing, both wondering, how the heck?  Cohen meanwhile was smiling at his crew and doing his usual virtuosity on the ivories.  We were able to chat briefly with him afterwards, “old” fans that we are, in both sense of the word.  


Another night we were able to see Sondheim’s Into The Woods.


 

There were so many new cast members that it felt like an opening night.  When the curtains opened and the cast came out to perform the “Into the Woods” Prologue, the audience jumped up to a boisterous standing ovation which DID NOT STOP to the point that the performers began to look uncomfortable.  It was a mutual audience/performer love fest all night.  What a high bar for them to clear, but, clear it they did. 

 

Among the almost entirely new cast were several well known performers including Stephanie J. Block, and Sebastian Arcelus of Madam Secretary fame.  But to me it’s Sondheim’s glorious music and lyrics which makes this show a true work of art.  A thunderous wave of ovations concluded the show.  We exited to 8th Avenue and it became a battle to even move among the throngs of humanity in the light rain forcing us to walk blocks and blocks to get a cab or an Uber.  It was some distance until the aggressive crowd filtered out that we finally were able to hail a cab in the rain.  This may be our swan song for an evening Broadway performance.  But never say never!

 

Another theatre event I was looking forward to, not for the faint of heart, is The Butcher Boy downtown at the Irish Rep., a very dark coming of age, absurdist production, a musical no less, based on Patrick McCabe’s contemporary piece of literature.  The book, lyrics, and music are by Asher Muldoon, only 19 years old attending Princeton University.  He has been compared to a young Sondheim, and some of the lyrics and music had a Sondheim quality to it.  Imagine if Sondheim’s Saturday Night was performed as intended when he wrote it in 1954.  I felt that seeing a work by this young artist was a must, sort of getting in at the ground floor.  This piece of theatre, like Sweeny Todd, progressed to a very dark place.  But dark places are where we now live in the world.  Bravo to Mr. Muldoon and the cast!

 

Part of our days and nights were centered on some of the great restaurants of NY but my favorite was the old NYC diners, Greek owned, mostly booths.  There is a sense of comfort being part of that scene and the food is darn good.  That is yet another essential ingredient of the UWS which makes it unique, a village within a great city. 

 

But then of course there were the “finer” restaurants, including this one recommended by our son, a great UWS French restaurant, Cafe Luxembourg.   With a staff like this, how could it go wrong?

 

 

 

Most of the NYC time was spent walking the UWS, visiting its markets (call outs to Fairway, Citarella Gourmet, and of course Zabar’s) and then days at some of our favorite museums.

 

The Jewish Museum was new to us, but it had an exhibit everyone is raving about, NY 1962-64, exactly matching three of our formative years as New Yorkers!  It’s a collection of all art forms of the period, including photographs and artifacts, arranged chronologically, sometimes day by day or weekly. 

 

 

The New York Historical Society -- which we make a point to visit anytime we are in NYC -- showcased The Art of Winold Reiss: An Immigrant Modernist whose book designs captured my imagination. 

 

 

 

Their special exhibit Confronting Hate 1937-52, is a terrifying harbinger of our present times. 

 

 

 

 

The NY Historical Society also has its affiliated restaurant which we love, an oasis within an oasis, Storico.

 

 

I enjoyed the replica of the oval office the the NY Historical Society has created, and I felt very comfortable running the country from there.

 

 

Another beautiful day was spent at the JP Morgan Library Museum which features the Gilded Age magnificence of its interior and the breath taking library of JP Morgan.

 

 

 

The highlight of that visit was seeing their extraordinary collection One Hundred Years of James Joyce’s Ulysses with priceless Joyce documents and artifacts.

 

 

The Morgan gardens were also open, revealing the original entrance to the mansion.

 

 

Then to cap off our wonderful ten day stay in the City, we returned to Dizzy’s Jazz Club at Columbus Circle, for a tribute to Duke Ellington.  Three wonderful singers performed all of his iconic pieces, backed up by the bass, piano, sax and drums.  This Lincoln Center supported venue is unique overlooking Central Park.  It is where we first discovered Emmet Cohen four years ago when he was relatively unknown, just coming up in the jazz world at the age of 28.

 

 

The following Monday we closed up Jon and Tracie’s apartment and headed up to Connecticut for another week.  All I wanted to do at that point was to enjoy our old boat, see family, read and relax, and meet up with a few of our old boating friends we haven’t seen since Covid.  It was strange walking down the dock to our old boat, our summer home for 20 years.  The cool CT breeze and the lovely sunset made it seem like no time at all had gone by.

 

 

 

So many of our boating friends have either moved away or passed away.  Those three Covid years have certainly taken a toll on the health of others that remain.  It was nice to see them but a painful reminder of aging.

 

The following weekend our small but close family was able to get together, the first time since Covid.

 

Jonathan prepared the boat for a cruise to our beloved Crow Island where we spent so much time during our boating years.  Add to that time those at the dock during our retirement years, and cruising to ports as far as Nantucket, with extended stays in Block Island, we figure we have lived on a boat for a total of about eight years.  We miss the waters of the Long Island Sound. 

 

 

So although Jon fired up the starboard engine, the port engine failed to turn over.  The fuel pump failed.  Always something in boating.  By the time the replacement part arrived, we were there with our family for the last day, but just being at the dock was sufficient, beautifully soul-satisfying.

 

We then flew home, just beating a thunderstorm out of Westchester Airport.  How many times remain for such trips?  We wonder, and hope.