Hans Fallada: Every Man Dies Alone

This remarkable, disturbing, upsetting book puts you right down in the middle of Nazi Germany and in an almost unforgiving way it keeps you there. Every word of that horrible time rings true in this novel, more than any documentary film or Hollywood treatment or grainy footage of marching soldiers and little men with big salutes ever could. I'll say little else except to recommend this book, and to offer an excerpt:

In the course of his morning walk, which lasted from ten to eleven, Dr. Reichardt would sing to himself. Generally he confined himself to humming softly, because a lot of the warders wouldn't allow it, and Quangel got used to listening to his humming. Whatever his poor opinion of music, he did notice its effect on him. Sometimes it made him feel strong and brave enough to endure any fate, and then Reichardt would say "Beethoven". Sometimes it made him feel bafflingly lighthearted and cheerful, which he had never been in his life, and then Reichardt would say, "Mozart", and Quangel would forget all about his worries. And sometimes the sounds emanating from the doctor were dark and heavy,and Quangel would feel a pain in the chest, and it would be as though he was a little boy again siting in church with his mother, with something grand, the whole of life ahead of him, and then Reichardt would say, "Johann Sebastian Bach."

--pp.426-427, Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada

A Gift

A gift of getting older is the ability to finally forgive your parents, and hope that your children will finally forgive YOU!

On listening to Parsifal

We're coming up to Holy Week and I find myself non -church affiliated these days (is that even a term?) But as I age I am drawn more to the contemplative in music. The Donizetti-Bellini can still thrill but I'm more sustained now by Wagner and Bruckner (Monteverdi will always be a great love for his mixture of piety and eroticism) Years ago when living in New York I made it a habit to see Parsifal whenever it was being done at the Met. For me, unless Texaco was picking up the tab-which they did once, with brunch yet-that meant upstairs standing room. Two dollars back in the day. You could easlily touch the rotting gold leaf on the Met's ceiling. Friends and I used to walk in with sandwiches and beer. No bag checksor exams in those more relaxed days!

We needed the sustenance for Parsifal. Let's not kid ourtselves. It's nearly five hours. I never found Parsifal long in the way I still find Die Meistersinger or Siegfried. From those first muted chords in the darkness, I was always enthralled. Parsifal always began in total darkness, with the music rising up out of the pit and up, way up into the air, above the dirty ceiling and bottles of beer of those of us standing. Remember too, no titles in those days. I never knew this opera well enough to know what they were singing. German is not my language, except for the ocassional 'ach so!' and 'recht gut!' I looked up "Der reiner Thor (the innocent fool), and "Wein und Brot" was easy enoguh. But the music itself cast a spell. I know Tristan is Wagner at his most devastating, driving people nuts with its delayed and sometiems absent resoultions. Parsifal has always taken me to a deeper place, more of contementmet and a kind of cathartic sadness. I looked forward to Parsifal every year-I was drinking beer in those days so it may have helped, no more-and always left contented, feeling I've had an experience akin to worship in preparation for Easter. And mine was a pretty profane life back then.

My Parisfals were Jon Vickers and Timthy Jenkins (who alas died young) Placido Doming came a bit later. Vicker's cry of "Amfortas! Die Wunde!" still frightens me and I last heart in in 1984! My Guremanzes (?Gurnemanzen?) were Kurt Moll or James Morris...Simon Estes was Amfortas (how I wish I could have experienced Goerge London!) and Kundry was Tatiana Troyanos or Leonie Rysanek. Many of them are in heaven now, presumably, Morris and Domingo God love them soldier on. Levine condcuted. I remember his balance between music and emotion was perfect. He never wallowed and he never allowed the drama to sag or get lost. He knew we needed the hedonistic Act II and we got it. And the magnificent Met orchestra and chorus. For $2 in stnadin room and you didn't mind bringing your own beer.

I can't get to the Met anymore. Youtube, the web, and my own collections bring me Parsifal from 1936 in Buenos Aires, 1951 Bayreuth, the 50s and 60s, Vienna, Levine, Domingo, and my touchstone, the 1962 Bayreuth performance with Knappertsbusch conducting London, Thomas, Dalis and Hans Hotter. Hotter's may be the most beautiful voice I've heard on a man. Ah! It is good to get older!

Samuel Barber

This is Samuel Barber's 100th birthday. He died in 1981. His was a long career and his was the career of creativity in classical music in America. In American music. Meaning that, to me, while he embraced his predecessors, like Ravel and Satie, like Brahms and Stravinsky, he didn't need them. Barber brought a European sophistication to an American-democratic "get out there and do it because ain't nobody gonna do it for you" ethos. Virgil Thomson used the French models in music often to snobbish ends, to parse down his audiences. Barber, who at firs could be less listener friendly, did the opposite. He used dance, rhythm and texture to draw people in. Barbe's music lifts up. A good example of this is the warmth of his violin concerto. It does without a lot of slash and burn until the final movement, the "perpetual motion' composed to satisfy the commission-people wanted show off for show off sake and I don't think Barber knew how to do that.

The world knows Samuel Barber for his Adagio for Strings. It's said that Toscanini encouraged the young composer to orchestrate part of his String Quartet-hence the Adagio, which the Italian conductor pronounced 'semplice e bella" Simple and beautiful. Indeed. Barber worked well in several genres. I'm especially partial to his songs, and to his three short choral pieces 'Reincarnations' to poetry by James Stephens. I like his opera 'Vanessa' very much, and I really admire 'Antony and Cleopatra'. The failure of this work, written to open the Metropolitan Opera House in 1966, ruined Samuel Barber's life. He lived another fifteen years but his productivity fell off, and he grappled with alcoholism and depression. Still, the composer of the Adagio, of Hermit Songs, The Essays for Orchestra, a 1961 Piano Concerto written for John Browning and the opening Lincoln Center-the composer of the sublime Knoxville, Summer of 1915 and the very grand Antony and Cleopatra, this composer, Samuel Barber, deserves a statue. Better yet, more and more performances! Don't just sit there. Go to youtube and type in his name. Listen (watch) Enjoy.

Attila

I've had the pleasure over the past few weeks of actually sitting down and listening to the live broadcasts from the Met. There was a beautiful La Boheme on February 27, and then this past Saturday the Met's broadcast premiere of Verdi's Attila. Hard to believe a big Verdi opera has waited 150 years to be done by America's preeminent opera company. Attila is no stranger to New York: it was a staple at the New York City Opera with Samuel Ramey for many years from he early 1980s, and as Mr. Ramey approaches retirement age he took on the cameo role of Leone in the Met production, a nice "pass of the torch" gesture.

What a great opera! I hadn't heard Attila in a long time and I've missed something. There are starkly beautiful religious chants, big, wonderfully nasty cabalettas for the warrior Odabella, bel canto line and beauty for he baritone Ezio and some nice soprano-tenor duets. Foresto, the tenor is one of Verdi's few supporting tenor roles, but the Met did it justice by casting the wonderful Ramon Vargas.

This was the first time I had heard Ildar Abdrazakov, the young bass (33!) who sang the title tole. Like Ramey in his prime, who owned this opera for my generation, Mr. Abdrakazov has a large voice with plenty of beauty, a deep, pleasing presence that he never sacrificed to make dramatic points. He didn't have to. With Ricardo Muti conducting-in HIS Met debut!- the balance was perfect between Verdi's long melodic lines and the crash and dash moments that give the opera its forward momentum. What I loved was how Muti-and thus everyone-respected and loved this work, for all of its violence we heard two hours of great MUSIC,beautifully made.

I can't comment on the production because I heard it without seeing it. What I heard was an afternoon of superb music making, being re-introduced to an early Verdi opera, like encountering a past girlfriend from long ago and finding her aged but in every way alluring. Bravo.

The recording of this broadcast will make the rounds. Meanwhile, don't forget the first modern stereo recording of Attila, conducted by Lamberto Gardelli, with Ruggero Raimondi, Sherrill Milnes, Carlo Bergonzi and Cristina Deutekom. Muti's recording has Samuel Ramey, Giorgio Zancanaro and Cheryl Studer from La Scala, and I believe there's a DVD with this cast, too. No excuses! Go find Attila!

In case you're wondering......

There seems to be some shmutz going on with this blog and all the nonsense spammy comments with no relevance to what I'm posting,etc. Just skip over 'em. Sorry.

Alexandra

I've just watched a film I liked very much, "Alexandra" filmed in Chechnya in 2006 by Director Alexander Sokurov. It's the story of an old woman who leaves her home in St. Petersburg and travels to Chechnya-at war with Russia, invaded by them-to visit her grandson who is part of the occupying Russian army. I didn't realize the searing political implications of this film until I watched the press conference with the director and leading actress after seeing the movie. "Alexandra" is much more controversial, indeed politically loaded than I even now realize-I'm just responding to the powerful imagery and the simplicity of the story.

The film stars Galina Vishnevskaya. She is the widow of the Russian cellist conductor Mstislav Rostropovich. For many yeas, Vishnevskaya ("Galina Pavlova") was the leading soprano of the Bolshoi Opera-the most famous of all Russian singers since the 1950s. I recall her concerts in Boston of all Russian music, with Rostropovich at the piano-shortly after the couple was expelled from Russia in the 1970s for sheltering Solzhenitsyn. Vishnevskaya was a tall, slim, stunning dark haired woman. People play at being a diva. She WAS. Not in "Alexandra". She's a frumpy, dowdy old lady, moving slowly and achingly through the desert heat-reprimanding her grandson for a dirty uniform but taking remaining unimpressed by the privations around her and the military hierarchy. At the press conference the director said, "I warned Galina Pavlova that the conditions of making this film in Chechnya, in the 120 degree heat would be terrible, and she told me that she had survived the blockade of Leningrad in the 1940s. She could survive this."

Alexandra is a film of understatement that finds beauty in a desolate physical setting. The heart of the film is when an old Chechnyan woman in the market place clucks over Alexandra's exhaustion, takes her home and makes her a cup of tea. Its that simple and that moving. I had heard about this move and I had seen stills of the imperious and stunning Vishnevskaya playing a lady her own age but from a very different walk of life. In the distance, one in a great while you hear a woman singing but it is indistinct-Vishnevskaya is not necessarily the leading character. There is on one leading character. You pay attention to the soldiers, the elderly, the kids, the desert, the tanks, the guns and futility and uselessness of it all. But when I think of Vishnevskaya as Tosca or Tatiana I will add the elderly Alexandra to my list of unforgettable portraits, and this one is without music.

The Great Dawn Powell

I suspect most of us would never had heard of Dawn Powell without the efforts of her biographer, Tim Page, who not only wrote a scrupulous biography of this heretofore neglected writer, but also published her diaries and volumes of her letters. Dawn Powell was a small town girl from Ohio who made good in New York around World War I. She remained a devoted New Yorker for the rest of her life (1896-1965). Her sixteen novels divide evenly between those set in rural Ohio, and those set in Manhattan. The locations may vary, but Powell's biting wit, humor and unapologetic style remain in the forefront. I warn you, Dawn Powell's writing is addictive. Don't believe me?

LETTER TO CHARLOTTE JOHNSON January, 12, 1919

If I have ugly babies I am going to kill them. Unless they happen to have a rich father. Then I might let them live a few years to see just what sort of numb skulls they develop into...Beauty is after all the only thing in the world that matters-not mental or spiritual beauty or any of that lying rot, but splendid physical beauty-healthy or unhealthy beauty so long as it is beauty.

_______________

Well now. That throws down the gauntlet, doesn't it? Here are some excerpts from her diary:

June 22, 1934

I am lost without a novel. Those plays confuse me with their hysterical bursts into my life. A novel is like a gland pill--it nips of the cream of my hysterics and gets them running on track in a book where they belong instead of rioting all over my person.

June 22, 1965

Most important thing for a novelist is curiosity and how curious that so many of them lack it. They seem self absorbed, family absorbed, success absorbed, but the new social climbing writer professes indifference to the people across the aisle, the noise from the next apartment, as if a gentleman does not concern himself with things not his business.

LETTER TO HER COUSIN JACK SHERMAN June, 1931

As for New York City, it's the only place where people with nothing behind them but their wits can be and do anything. A young man, particularly with a tuxedo and decent manners, can go anyplace, be welcomed in the ritziest circles and even fought over by debutantes. All he needs to do is act wise...men are too scarce for girls to care whether they were brought up anywhere. The chief difference between New York and everyplace else in the world is that you brag of your early struggles-how you worked on the section or delivered ice and your folks were mountain whites or blacks-and everybody brought up at Harvard or Vassar or in convents abroad is very envious and hates their folks for always coddling them....

From THE BRIDE'S HOUSE published 1929

Buggies and wagons lined the streets of the self satisfied little town, flew flags, bands played parading down the street, Civil war veterans marched and a group of youngsters bore a Loyal Temperance Legion banner and sang, "Saloons, saloons, saloons must go!" But on the contrary saloons had sprung up overnight to meet the country's annual thirst. A fragrant alcoholic haze hung over the town, and tented the entire fairgrounds. Streets were giddy with laughter and the shrill voices and megaphoned speeches of visiting politicians. There were clusters of starched white and flying ribbons here and there, groups of rosy farm girls giggling and ogling each passing man. By nighttime the groups, with good luck, would be scattered, each girl giggling with an awkward young man in some tree shaded buggy behind the fair grounds, hysterically sipping from a jug of corn whiskey and abandoning herself to private yearnings. The wretched little frame hotels, supported comfortably all year by a half a dozen traveling salesmen, now bulged with guests and window shades were drawn night and day, boasting of the iniquity of their bedrooms. Carnival gods rode over the city and sprinkled the orthodox with their confetti.

From A TIME TO BE BORN, published 1942

This was a time when the artists,the intellectuals, sat in cafes and in country homes and accused each other over their brandies or their California vintages of traitorous tendencies. This was a time for them to band together in mutual antagonism, a time to bury the professional hatchet, if possible in each other, a time to stare at their flower arrangements, children bathing, and privately to weep, "What good is it? Who cares now?" The poet, disgusted with the flight of skylarks in perfect sonnet form, declaimed the power of song against brutality and raised hollow voice in feeble reproof. This was no time for beauty, for love, or private future; this was the time for ideals and quick profits on them before the world turned to reality and the drabber opportunities. What good for a new soprano to sing 'Vissi d'arte, vissi d'amore?' What good for eager young students to make their bows? There was no future. Everyone waited, marked time, waited. For what? On Fifth Avenue and fifty-seventh hundreds waited for a man in a hotel window ledge to jump' hundreds waited with craning necks and thirsty faces as if this single person's final gesture would solve the riddle of the world. Civilization stood on a ledge, and in the tension of waiting it was a relief to have one little man jump.

George Jellinek

George Jellinek was the kindest man I ever knew. I did not know him well, or for very long, but he was enormously generous in sharing his knowledge, not only of vocal music but of the humanities, of LIFE, and he always spoke to me as if I were his peer, and that I will never be. George died a few days ago at the age of 90. A friend pointed out to me in my sadness, "that was ninety years very well lived" and he's right. Very well lived in the sense of providing education and enjoyment to thousands from his wonderful radio series The Vocal Scene, originating at his home base, WQXR is New York, and achieving a long productive life in syndication. Today, George would be blogging and posting all over the web and boy would we be lucky.

I met George in the early 1980s. I was trying to figure out what to do after grad school at NYU. I lived in a dump, and had funky and delightful friends (many now gone and that's another reason for tears)and sold records (RECORDS not yet CDs) at Barnes and Noble on 5th Avenue. I found myself a panelist on the august Texaco Opera Quiz-the story how THAT happened is told elsewhere on this blog. (Type Richard Mohr in the search engine)There I was with Edward Downes, Alberta Masiello, Father Owen Lee, the most articulate and intelligent of people, and with George Jellinek. I was a devotee of the vocal scene (YOU should have been) and had read his biography of Maria Callas, which apparently had not annoyed that lady. George was modest and kind. He never let me feel like I was a kid record salesman with no right to be there. Quite the contrary (and this was true of every person I ever encountered on the Met Quiz over twenty years). George didn't care I was wearing a borrowed suit and had to leave before the last act of "Eugene Onegin" to work the evening shift at B&N. He and his dear wife Hedy fed me occasionally and took me to concerts I never could have approached on my $200/week. Victoria de los Angeles at the Manhattan School of Music was unforgettable, as was her very warm embrace of George and Hedy after the performance and her smile at me, as if she knew I was lucky to be in their presence rather than hers...and I was.

George wrote two more books in his later years. "History Through the Opera Glass" is indispensable for those who love Don Carlo or Boris Godunov and what to know what REALLY happened. "My Road to Radio and The Vocal Scene: Memoirs of an Opera Commentator" takes him from refugee to radio star (he'd shake his head at that description). I recommend both warmly. Even better, listen to recordings of your favorite operas and your favorite singers, enjoy them, think of George and fall in love with the music all over again. That would be a lovely tribute to a lovely man.

Nelson Eddy

To Whom It May Concern:

I have just had the pleasure of listening to an interview that Christopher Purdy did with Kaye Ballard (www.wosu.org/interviews). I am co-authoring a biography of the late Nelson Eddy. Based on information Mr. Purdy imparted during the interview I would like to contact Mr. Purdy to ask some questions about about information he may have, or may have been told during other interviews about Mr. Eddy

Thank you.
JH

Dear JH:

Thank you for your recent e mail concerning my 2007 interview with Kaye Ballard. I don't remember talking about Nelson Eddy with Ms. Ballard-perhaps we did, I haven't heard the interview in a while. I did enjoy Ms. Ballard enormously!

Concerning Nelson Eddy, here's a bit form my blog-a review of Mr. Eddy's concert in Boston's Symphony Hall in April of 1940. The writer is Edward Downes (1911-2001) who at the time was music critic of the Boston Evening Transcript. Edward was the son of NY Times chief critic Olin Downes (1886-1955). I got to know Edward through the Metropolitan Opera broadcast intermsisions when he was the host of the popular weekly 'Texaco Opera Quiz'. I was a panelist for a number of years. Edward, in fact was the subject of my DMA thesis here at Ohio State.

NELSON EDDY
April 3, 1940

Nelson Eddy, famous all American baritone of the stage, screen and ether waves, gave a recital last night in Symphony Hall which began with Albert Hay Lamotte's setting of Shelly's "Ode to a Skylark" and ended with "The Lord's Prayer", set to music by the same intrepid composer. The program informed us "Of all vocal compositions, Lamotte's setting of The Lord's Prayer is requested most often, a significant indication of the reverence of a people who know how to turn to God." This last confused us considerably. Does it mean the real way to turn to God is to write a fan letter to Nelson Eddy asking him to sing "The Lord's Prayer"? Or does it mean that the number of requests for this kind of vocal composition is a kind of barometer of the devoutness of the American public?

I'm afraid this review is not very flattering. A man who performed Wozzeck and sang in the movies proved his chops!

Good luck on your book, and thank you for contacting me.

Christopher Purdy

Dear Mr. Purdy:

Thank you for my inquiry. It is much appreciated.

Just to clarify--you didn't mention Nelson Eddy during your interview with Kaye Ballard. The item that caught my interest was when you made the comment that you "teach opera" and how unaware students are when you play "old stuff" for them. Based on that comment, I was hoping you might have conducted an interview with someone at some time when Nelson was discussed. Barring that, I wanted to ask your assessment of Nelson's voice and talent and possibly ask for your comment on how he, too has been relegated to obscurity.

While conducting research and interviews, I have had the good luck to be able to talk with Lillian Murphy and her husband Earl William Sauvain. I wonder if you have any comments or thoughts about either of these individuals or their talents.

Thank you for the link to your blog. I have read the review of Nelson's concert written by Edward Downes. Although you are correct it is "not very flattering", it seems Mr. Downes went to that concert for the sole purpose of finding something negative to write about. I find it humorous that the only thing he could find was information written in the program. His review never addressed the quality of the concert or Nelson's performance. It would appear he couldn't find anything negative to say about hem, so he simply didn't comment on them but chose to make nasty little innuendoes implying Nelson must have thought of himself as God. Mr. Downes was not being fair to anyone with this review-including his readers.

JH

Dear JH

Edward Downes's papers are at Boston University. I went through them after his death. The only snarky mail I found from his days as a music critic concerned the Nelson Eddy review. There were a few notes, well preserved for sixty years, objecting to Edward's attitude toward a concert that was probably sold to the walls and well enjoyed. In person Edward was a bit of an aesthete with high standards. Still, his tone is surprising. Nelson Eddy, as you know better than me, had a very distinguished career in opera before he went to Hollywood. He studied with David Bispham, the first American born baritone to have an international carer in opera. Eddy not only did the bread and butter operas, but sang leads in the American premieres of Ariadne auf Naxos, Wozzeck, and Maria Egiziaca. This was no dilettante.

One more Edward Downes story. He lived most of his life in New York's Dakota apartments. Forty years ago he was on the board, and was asked to interview prospective new tenants, a couple who were musicians. They came for tea, barefooted and needing a bath. But he liked them and they were allowed to buy into the building. He liked John Lennon and Yoko Ono--this was in 1969, immediately post Beatles, and he had no clue who they were. He died at 90 in the apt. upstairs from Yoko Ono, who today owns most of the building. (To his credit, Edward always enjoyed telling this story on himself!)

You can't make this stuff up.

CP

Sam Savage

I know very little about the writer Sam Savage, author of two terrific novels. I read them in reverse order. The second, "The Cry of the Sloth" was one of my favorites for 2009. I just read his first novel, "Firmin", the autobiography of a rat who lived in a bookstore in Scollay Square. Where? Scollay Square was a Boston neighborhood that was bulldozed, completely wiped out, in the late 1950s to make way for the ugly and barren Government Center. Scollay Square was home to pimps, hookers, thieves, strippers, sailors, crooks and the like. As such it was the bustling heart of the city, the alternative to sometimes chilly Friday afternoons in Symphony Hall. (A digression: My mother's first cousin, Mary Elizabeth Corbett, became the voluptuous Marie Cord, headliner at the majestic and infamous Old Howard, complete with swinging tassels. Go ahead, laugh. Marie died young on Christmas Day 1963, but to this day her elderly siblings live in a fine house she bought and paid for). Firmin, our rat friend, is not only born in a bookstore-in a nest made of shredded bits of Moby Dick, but he becomes a voracious reader himself. He eats up great books, often literally. He falls in love with Ginger Rogers, whose films he sees regularly at the Rialto Theater-which becomes a porno house at the stroke of each midnight. Firmin also falls in love with Norman, proprietor of the bookshop, but Norman resorts to rat poison and that's the end of THAT Romance. Ultimately Firmin is adopted by the down at heel writer and philosopher Jerry Magoon, who likes rats. Alas, the street life catches up with our Jerry and finishes him off. Leaving Firmin in a cleaned up neighborhood devoid of interest and humanity-the very qualities this novel has in abundance!

All I know about Sam Savage is what I read in his brief author bio: advanced degrees from Yale, born 1940 in South Carolina, now living in Madison Wisconsin. He's a complete original. Read "Firmin" and "The Cry of the Sloth"-put them on your Best Book list of 2010. Thanks Sam, whoever you are!

Here's an excerpt:

And you don't have to believe stories to love them. I love all stories. I love the progression of beginning, middle and end. I love the slow accumulation of meaning, the misty landscapes of the imagination, the mazy walks, the wooded sleeps, the reflecting pools, the tragic twists and comic stumbles. The only literature I cannot abide is rat literature. Including mouse literature. I despise good natured old Ratty in The Wind in the Willows. I piss down the throats of Mickey Mouse and Stuart Little. Affable, shuffling, cute they stick in my craw like fish bones.
--Sam Savage, "Firmin" pp.37-38 Coffee House Press

Books in 2009

Early this morning I was reading in bed, it was still dark out but it was time to get going. I had 10 pages left to read of John Irving's new novel Last Night in Twisted River. I'll get back to it tonight. I loved this book. John Irving rules!

Also on my reading table:
To Serve Them All My Days by R.L. Delderfield
-a World War I vet's life teaching in an English public school

and

Ted Kennedy's autobiography, "True Compass"

and the books I've finished most recently I've really loved:

Jane Eyre-Charlotte Bronte

The Humbling, Phillip Roth. I'm not much of a Roth fan, although I did like The Human Stain and The Plot Against America. But I loved The Humbling, the story of what it means to be an artist. This short novel made me run out and re read Isaak Dinesen's sublime Babette's Feast, then I read The Humbling again.

My most unforgettable books in 2009:

The Humbling-Phillip Roth
Jane Eyre-Charlotte Bronte
No Future Without Forgiveness-Desmond Tutu
The Help-Kathryn Stockett
An Infinity of Little Hours-Nancy Klein Maguire
Zeitoun-Dave Eggers
Last Night in Twisted River-John Irving
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WHAT DID YOU READ IN 2009? LET ME KNOW!
__________________________________________________________________________

These are the books I read in 2009. *= a favorite

Thomas Beecham, An Obsession with Music--John Lucas
The Reluctant Fundamentalist-Moshin Hamid
War as They Knew It-Rosenberg
Chic-Bob Hunter (OSU football great Chic Harley)

Homeboy-Seth Morgan

Laura Keene -V. Bryon (Keene was the actress manager on stage at Ford's Theatre the night Lincoln was shot, starring in "Our American Cousin". There was a lot to her story).

Moth Smoke-Moshin Hamid
Mrs. Astor Regrets-Meryl Gordon

The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran--Homan Madj
Love,Work, Children-Cheryl Mendelssohn
The Scarlet Letters-Louis Auchincloss

Embracing the Wide Sky-Daniel Tamnent
Verdi-Julian Budden

Cakes and Ale-Somerset Maugham
*Push-Sapphire
*Animals Make Us Human-Temple Grandin
In Spite of Myself-Christopher Plummer

*No Future Without Forgiveness-Desmond Tutu
War Journal-Richard Engel
Theatre-Somerset Maugham

*An Evil Cradling-Brian Keenan-an Irishman kidnapped in the Middle East

Victor Fleming-Michael Sgrabin-the bio of the director of The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind

Lincoln-Gore Vidal
The Violent Bears it Away-Flannery O'Connor
Flannery O'Connor-Brad Gooch

Inside the Recording Studio-Peter Andry

*The Last Dickens-Matthew Pearl unfolding the mystery of "The Mystery of Edwin Drood"

*The Believers-Zoe Heller
Murder in the Marais-Cora Black
Rough Weather-Robert Parker

Falconer-John Cheever
*Cutting for Stone-Abraham Verghese
Cheever-Blake Bailey

White Heat: Emily Dickinson and Thomas Higginson-Brenda Wineapple
Music Therapy: Death and Grief-Chava Sekeles

Now or Never-Jack Cafferty
The Lady Elizabeth-Alison Weir

"*The Unlikely Disciple-Kevin Roose-undercover at a fundamentalist Christian university

The Sound of Freedom: Marian Anderson and the Lincoln Memorial-Raymond Arsenault
The Last Lion: Ted Kennedy -ed. Boston Globe

Manic-Terry Cleary

*Joseph P. Kennedy Presents-Cari Beauchamp--the patriarch's years in Hollywood, with and without Gloria Sanson

*Columbine-Dave Cullen harrowing

*The Help-Kathryn Stockett. READ THIS BOOK

Go Down Together-The Story of Bonnie and Clyde--Jeff Guinn

*Closing Time-Joe Queenan

*Brooklyn-Colm Toibin
The Gardner Heist-Ulrich Boser

*An Infinity of Little Hours-Nancy Klein Maguire-the lives of Cistercian monks in England. Magnificent book.

Dead Line -Brian McGrory
*Gabriel Garcia Marquez-Gerald Martin
Horse Boy-Rupert Isaacson
Peace Mom-Cindy Sheehan

Requiem Mass-Dufresne
A Whole New Mind-Daniel Pink hope for those of us who are right brained!

*The Unit-Nikki Holmquist

A Drink Before Dying-Dennis Lehane

Remembering Laughter-Wallace Stegner
Losing Mum and Pup-Christopher Buckley
Crossing to Safety-Wallace Stegner

Strange Child of Chaos: Norman Treigle-Brian Morgan

*The Speed Queen-Stewart O'Nan

Answered Prayers-Truman Capote
Father Joe-Tony Hendra

*Parallel Play-Tim Page a struggle with Asperger syndrome
A Pale View of Hills-Kazuko Ishiguro

*A singer's Silent Sounds-Linda Esther Gray-what happens to an opera star who loses her voice

Siegfried-Harry Mulish--what if Hitler had a son?
Homer and Langley-E.L. Doctorow

The Confessions of Edward Day-Valerie Martin
The Biographer's Tale-A.S. Byatt

*The Cry of the Sloth-Sam Savage-a compulsive letter writer and curmudgeon. My type of fella!

That Old Cape Magic-Richard Russo

Born Round-Frank Bruni
Tenors-John Potter
This is Where I leave You-Trotter

Strength in What Remains-Tracy Kidder
*Zeitoun-Dave Eggers--one family survives Katrina
The Queen Mother-Hugo Vickers

Intervention-Robin Cook

The Mammy-Brendan O'Carroll
The Friends of Eddie Coyle-George Higgins
Busted-Art Schlicter

*Wolf Hall-Hilary Patel Man Booker prize winner-the life of Thomas Cromwell at the dangerous court of Henry VIII

A Strange Eventful History: Henry Irving, Ellen Terry and Gordon Craig--Michael Holyroyd

*Jane Eyre-Charlotte Bronte
Sinatra-Anthony Summers
*The Humbling-Phillip Roth
Put Out the Flags-Evelyn Waugh
*Invisible-Paul Auster

*Practicing Catholic-James Carroll

*Last Night in Twisted River-John Irving

*Firmin-Sam Savage-READ THIS

Offical Book Club Selection-Kathy Griffin

Lit-Mary Carr

New York Trilogy-Paul Auster

The Man Who Saved Christmas-Les Standiford

John Irving's "Last Night in Twisted River"

I love John Irving's books and this new one is a honey. What I especially admire among Irving's themes is the profound love between fathers and sons. Especially the concern and protectionism of an older father to a growing son. None of this Oedipal crap that gets in the way. I understand John Irving didn't know anything about his own biological father-who had been a war hero during WWII-until very recently, and that Irving has three boys of his own. Lucky boys.

I'm further attracted in "Last Night in Twisted River" by advice given to writers:

"In the media, real life was more important than fiction; those elements of a novel that were, at least, based on personal experience were of more interest to the general public than those pieces of the novel writing process that were 'merely' made up. In any work of fiction, weren't those things that really happened to the writer-or perhaps, to someone the writer had intimately known-more authentic, more verifiably true, than anything anyone could imagine? (This was a common belief, even though a fiction writer's job was imagining, truly, a whole story-as Danny had subversively said, whenever he was given the opportunity to defend the fiction in fiction writing-because real life stories were never whole, never complete in the ways novels could be.)"
John Irving, Last Night in Twisted River, pp. 372-373

Cardinal Cushing

Richard Cardinal Cushing (1895-1970) was archbishop of Boston during my Boston Irish Catholic youth. I remember him as the ancient gravelly voiced prelate rumbling the rosary of the radio. He seemed to have a gift for public relations and established a power base in my politically minded hometown. He wasn't afraid of controversy and he was known as good copy. I remember during the busing riots in Boston in the mid 70s, after his death, my parents saying "Cushing would walk right into Southie and tell them all to knock it off." He was known as a friend of the Kennedys (surprisingly, not always a good thing in Boston) and his support of Jacqueline Kennedy at her marriage to Onassis was cited as contributing to his resignation in 1968--his resignation was not accepted by the Vatican, which continued to criticize the President's widow. Cushing was said to me discouraged and angered at the volume of hate mail he received in support of her.

I thought of Cardinal Cushing again while reading "Practising Catholic" by James Carroll. A lot it is a re evaluation of Cushing, who if remembered at all is as a sodden old man. Cushing stood up to the conservative movements tying to overtake Vatican II. He complained loudly when the sessions were conducted in Latin. He wouldn't tolerate the anti Semitic rants of Father Feeney and he practically invented the dialogue between Catholicism and other faiths. Cushing's sister was married to a Jew-very dicey in Boston 80 years ago-and the Cardinal's love for his sister and her husband enabled him to face down criticism and hierarchical nonsense and embrace people as he found them. No Nulla salus ex Ecclesia for this Ironmonger's son. If Cushing himself wasn't a comfortable man he made Catholicism a structure to embrace all of humanity. Yes, he took the Nuns to the Dodge 'em cars at Nantasket Beach-he dodged the Curia too, and seemed to remember the working people who made up the church in his day. I'm sure he would have hit abusive clergy right up side the head, and they woulda been history, goddammit!

Cardinal Cushing awaits a serious biographer.

What do you read in the gym?

Readers of this blog will know of my misadventure last year in moving a large, heavy, bulky elliptical machine from the top of my house to the bottom. Suffice it to say that unlike Humpty Dumpty, who I otherwise resemble, the machine was put back together again and had a few more good months before a final collapse. It is now in pieces, in the basement, with cobwebs and worse, like the old wreck that rode it for years--me. The old wreck has joined the local gym, the better to abuse the Ellipticals (ellipticii?) Stairmasters, Precors or whatever over there. The sight of me growling and huffing away resembles a polar bear in acute bowel distress no doubt, but I at least try to read while running, the better to improve my mid while my girth grows, Elliptcii or not.

What do you read in the gym? I've found that trash and smut work best, but I'm, usually too embarrassed to take my own advice. Recently, "The Lost Diary of Mary Queen of Scots" by Erickson had me mired in chick lit lite, historical fantasy with Mary Stuart consorting with Elizabeth I in a mud bath, alas not what you think. This was too fuzzy (muddy?) even for me, but I did finish the book. Better was Anthony Summers's bio of Frank Sinatra. Our Tony (!) has mafia on the brain, and the best bedfellows weren't Mia or Ava Gardner but Sam Giancana with the Kennedys. Who needs Marilyn?

Michael Holyrood's very, very long book about Henry Irving and Ellen Terry and Gordon Craig and all their friends and relations over 100 years of the British and European theatre (re please, theatre) was, like this sentence, long, long, long. I kept thinking as I pounded away, Are these people ever going to die?! They did. A bio of the Queen Mum was okay, if you like twee and lilacs. I kept hoping she'd beat up a chamber maid or do a hit and run on the Duchess of Windsor or at least spill a little of the pink gin, but no. William Shawcross's new 1000 page "authorized" bio of the late Royal Mother is on my list. The papers thanked the abdication crisis for adding a little spice to the sugar, even a spot of bother but that isn't until page 431! I may lose weight on that one. "The Tenors" had the attractive Placido-Luciano-Jose buddy boy photo on the dust jacket, but you'd better want to know about Heddle Nash and the rest of 'em too.

And then there's "Practising Catholic" by James Carroll. He focuses on the 60s,when he was studying for the priesthood with the socially aware Paulist Fathers, and its nice to see a hero made of the Prince of my youth, Richard Cardinal Cushing, who survives today in memory as an irascible old guy with more than a touch of the Irish virus. His diplomatic skills and bloody smarts are shown time and again. Reading light this is not, but a provocative, sometimes infuriating bloody good read it certainly is. Books like this will keep me going to the gym. Tell me I'm losing weight. Go ahead, lie to me!

AIDA in HD

I'm one of those people always yelling that yes, you need to have committed actors for opera and sure it helps I guess if they're good looking but bottom line I want to hear the great voices who understand what they are singing about. And I underline great voices. Like many of us, I grew up on recordings and added the visual element later in life. My opera going days during the 700s and 80s were mostly from standing room way WAAAAY upstairs so my perspective was very different from seeing youtube at my desk (and what a blessing youtube is!)

The Met's HD presentations in movie theaters are changing things. I suspect that many of the productions, staged in the past four or five years were designed to be seen from a closer perspective. Showing the twenty year old Aida gave us close ups of hollow columns that from a distance look spectacular. And then there were the singers.

Look, you need big magnificent voices for Aida. The tenor and the mezzo had 'em. The mezzo owns this music, all over the world. I haven't heard anyone touch her for power. But the camera was not kind to her. The close ups of this princess of Egypt did no one any favors. After all these years her voice is undiminished. It's a force of nature. I don't approve of my attitude in even noticing anything else about her. The tenor is a big BIG boy. A really big boy. I loved the fact that he was unafraid to use the sweetness in his splendid voice for Radames. He really sang the music, and he sounded like a lover. I suspect the experience live in the theater was more powerful than in the cinemas. Again, I'm worried that I even noticed, but up on the big screen, blown up the size of a building people's physicality can't be missed or discounted. I did love our mezzo throwing a few skinny bitch looks to Renee Fleming during an awkward intermission interview. Renee looked great but she can't sing Amneris. Our mezzo...my God!-certainly did!

Opera Columbus: This is what I would do

RANT ALERT!

What follows is only my opinion. We all know what opinions are like.

After an okay staged concert performance of Pagliacci with a grievous error in sight lines that pissed off the public and embarrassed the company. After producing one opera when they should have done two-no Cav-no nothing*-after staging the opera in such a way that many upstairs couldn't bloody see it...well...

Look, Opera Columbus does not need to be doing Pagliacci. They don't have the chops to compete in the big boy Italian repertoire that depends upon vivid-and rare-singing actors. A mediocre Pagliacci plays mediocre, (a mediocre Boheme can still break hearts) not exciting and does no one any favors. And Jesus God almighty, did NO ONE know that the show couldn't be seen from a number of the upstairs seats? How was this allowed to continue? The whole thing playedlike an attempt to further a few careers on the backs of a company. Cut it out. Right place right time and luck help us all but Tullio Serafin is not conducting in the Ohio Theater. There's no reason for this company to fold finally-finalmente-because of ill advised artistic choices and stupid mistakes.

Revive the Columbus Light Opera. Do a spring or summer festival. Month of May or June....perform every three day weekend.. Fri Sat night, Sunday matinee. Stick to G&S Offenbach, Romberg et al; cast locally with the terrific people who packed em in in the Light Opera days.(And stop saying "Opera Columbus Center" when you answer the phone. Center of what? for Pete's sake. Phony.)Do this for two seasons and build back your audience. If the Southern is unavailable use the Lincoln (Go ahead! I dare ya! It's beautiful) Use the Riffe Center and collaborate with Ohio State at the Thurber. THEN start adding a Boheme, A Barber of Seville, A Figaro, a Traviata with more adventurous-if you will-casting. Study the writings and films of Walter Felsenstein. Invite Nic Muni up to supervise. I'd work for him for nothing, just for what I could learn. So should you. Get serious. Give the audience a lot of what is proven and THEN surprise them with lovely, fully integrated operatic productions on a reasonable scale. And yes I think new work is crucial but I'm talking about restoring fiscal sense first.

Anyway, that's what I would do. Nobody asked me.

*I don't want to hear about it. LA and Washington can get away with Pag alone when Domingo sings. Otherwise, its cheap.

Dont' throw away your old LPS

Not a month goes by that I don't get a call from someone cleaning out Grandma's attic. They don't know what to do with the stacks of records-they were 78s, but I'm getting nearer to Grandma's age so now there are more 33s-the LPs and records treasured in the house for years, often well played and well worn and well loved but of no use to anybody in this digital age. I never tell people they are no use to me either. I do refer them to a few dealers who can maybe help, but despite Antiques Roadshow, unless you have a pristine 78 of Edwin Booth or Christ himself, I doubt you'll see a penny for any of them. Sarah Bernhardt is on youtube for goodness sake!

I have stacks and shelves of LPs I can't bear to give up. Many are well worn. Most of them represent times in my younger life I don't want to forget, good and bad. These records were my introduction to music I have loved so much all these years. I first heard Don Giovanni, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Monteverdi's Sixth Book of Madrigals, and The Last Train to Clarksville on these now warped and beaten down shellacs. Throwing them away feels like a betrayal. Its like hanging on to your first time when your first time was ecstasy-an other first times seldom are. Messy and inconvenient ("why would people do that?") but seldom ecstatic.

My first Don Giovanni, on five RCA LPs from the library was ecstasy. Just the sound of the overture, those crushing, dark chords changed my life and I was 8!
A few days ago at the OSU Music Library record sale I came across that LP set for $5 and I didn't buy it. I realised I could never play it, and I had the performance now on Cd. I wish I had bought it! Just to have for $5! My bad.

Recently a friend took a stack of my LPS-titles that have never made it on to CD,irreplaceable-and put them on CD for me. It wasn't easy and it wasn't cheap but he did it. Now I can listen again to:

Purcell: Did and Aeneas, Boston Camerata, to hear the divine D'Anna Fortunato in this music again!

Cesare Valletti in recital, the wonderful Italian tenore di grazia in Pizzetti, Schumann, Schubert, Handel-a rare performance of lieder but an Italian artist.

Massenet: Werther with Valletti and the beautiful Rosalind Elias from Lowell, Mass.

The Boston Camerata in Josquin's Missa pange lingua and in Flemish music from Renaissance Italy

The Last Train to Clarksville has long been on CD. The Monkees don't need any help. Adrian Willaert and Purcell and Massenet, apparently do.

I'm so glad to have these performances back. No, they aren't as great to me now as they were nearly forty years ago. But they are very beautiful and its like recovering a lost piece of myself to hear them again.

Renata Tebaldi's Last Tosca

It was hardly the end of her career; she sang opera until 1973 and retired from concerts three years later. On January 10, 1970 Renata Tebaldi sang her last Tosca. She had given over eighty performances of the role in twenty years and I doubt she expected this last leap into the Tiber was to be her last. It just happened that way. Tebaldi continued to sing in Otello, La fanciulla del West, La boheme, Andrea Chenier and Falstaff. I bring this up because in digging through the avalanche of Met broadcasts I came across this Tosca performance, and was able to really listen to it for the first time.

I must have heard it live on my transistor radio (If you're reading this blog and you're under forty, God bless you, you don't know from transistor radios. Think I-pod with a battery). Tebaldi was forty-seven and her voice was in decline. She was still a gorgeous woman-I saw her in 1973-and there's a lot of the old velvet left to the middle of her voice. Unlike Callas, her press fueled nemesis, Tebaldi's voice didn't separate. There were no glaring holes, but it became more difficult to sing in tune. The sound remained huge, and often very beautiful. You can hear the effort it was taking her to make this sound-she really worked to get the voice to flow. But the unmistakable timbre remained. Hers remained a very great personality-a vocal personality clearly identifiable. And what commitment! She had to know the top notes weren't going to be pretty, but she shirked nothing, and every sound she made served the drama. I was drained after listening to this Tosca. Thank God for transistor radios. I wish I could have been there (I was thirteen). Her colleagues were the Hungarian tenor Sandor Konya, having a nasal day. I think he was pushing his beautiful, lyrical voice into the Italian parts without the Italian cojones-and the great American baritone Cornell MacNeil. He was another one who always used text to propel the stage action. His voice lacked the sensuousness and beauty of Robert Merrill's. Merrill on record sounds too good to be a convincing Scarpia. MacNeil is terrifying. I saw him in the role later in his career and from all the way up in standing room you FELT him.

I have cases of Met broadcasts, going back to 1934. They are my baseball cards. I especially like to revisit the performances, like this Tosca-from my earliest listening days, which began in 1968. Back then, whether you liked the voices or not they meant what they were singing.Most of the great names of the 1950s, like Tebaldi, were fading when I got to hear them-but they bring joy and pain both forty years later.

The Met's Tosca...so what did you think?

Whole lotta brouhaha and gnashing of teeth over the Metropolitan Opera's new staging of Puccini's "Tosca", which made its way internationally last Saturday via the Met's first HD transmission of the season. "Forty one countries, one thousand theaters" trumpeted the Met's Peter Gelb, a media maven who has been capo di tutti capi at Broadway and 63rd St. for the past three? four? seasons. Gelb promises a new way to look at and experience opera and boy-o he wasn't kidding. The HD presentations are terrific. I've seen most of them. I may not have liked everything I saw and heard but its fun to be onstage with the caked make- up and heaving bosoms. The HD experience, like opera titles a generation ago, is here to stay. More people are hearing more opera.

You could argue whether or not more people are hearing better opera. I suspect Gelb knew what he was doing is producing a de- constructionist Tosca that did without the candelabras and crucifixes attributed to Sarah Bernhardt and Victorien Sardou (in that order). And if you are going to replace Franco Zeffirelli's gargantuan, realistic Roman sets (I loved them. I loved that staging) in the midst of a horrible recession you are going to use a lot of bare brick walls and turrets and some faux-contemporary furniture in primary colors.

Conductor Joseph Colaneri led a big boy interpretation-loud, and swept up and with an occasional Brucknerian fatness that I loved. Colaneri is one of those very gifted maestri you can count on both to do it up right and to add a few touches-the Act I love duets were slower than I'm used to, but also sounded sexier. It was hot. Colaneri can do slow in this opera without dropping the dramatic thread. That's an accomplishment.

The Met cast three charismatic singers, requirement one for Tosca. Look, go ahead and laugh but I've always maintained that the soprano singing Tosca can be an adequate singer is she is a sensational actress. Karita Mattila, lacking the Mediterranean warmth and fatness mid voice (no body fat on her by he way...she's stunning) nevertheless spared herself nothing vocally. It's a bright, forward sound with just the bit of cut you need to ride the thick -blaring!-orchestra. She came off stage after Act 2 to be interviewed by the luscious Susan Graham and I was impressed at seeing how much the performance had taken out of her, while she was clearly eager and pumped to continue. And what's with no applause at Tosca's entrance? Are you kidding me? Forget the purists. Do we no longer buzz in anticipation of Tosca's entrance?

I've always loved Marcelo Alvarez's singing. The phrasing of recondita armonia was choppy. I was waiting for the silken line of a Bjoerling or Pavarotti but Marcelito wanted to pump out the sound and he certainly did. Cavaradossi, unlike Tosca can be as charismatic as hell but he better be able to sing, sing, sing and Alvarez delivered. And I liked Georgi Gagnidze, the Scarpia in spite of a few Snidley Whiplash grimaces up on the big screen. The costumes were attractive but suggested nothing as to period, and Alvarez has quite a fanny on him that even the dark clothes couldn't hide. The Met has no girdles?

Yes, people have been whining about the Act 2 blow job with Scarpia in flagrante-his vicious isolation is a part of the story, this man wouldn't resort to tarts-and about Tosca taking to the couch to fan herself slowly after murdering Scarpia-with a knife- thrust to the cojones, yet. The great tension and anguish of the scene fell off a cliff. And the final jump took too long-Puccini's music indicates the horror of the opera's last ninety seconds-the staging had us waiting around for a 2 second look at an affect. Still, Luc Bondy clearly didn't rely on sets or costumes to tell the story, and he kept our attention on the principals. That's quite an accomplishment. Even the current Met dares not put lasers into 19th century Rome--there were strobe lights.

It's a new day. Gelb is hiring Luc Bondy to crate buzz and if its negative buzz that's fine, maybe better. The boos on Tosca's opening night (stupid) made the evening news. Even Brian Williams talked about it !

An Interview with A.S. Byatt

Yesterday I had the good fortune of sitting in on a telephone interview between book critic and literary wonder woman Kassie Rose (don't miss her blog: www.thelongestchapter.com) and writer A.S. Byatt. Ms. Byatt, or Dame Antonia as she is addressed, will be speaking at Capital University on October 13th.

We were lucky to get her. The author of "Possession", "The Biographer's Tale", and "The Virgin in the Garden" among other titles, Byatt has been shortlisted for the 2009 Man Booker Prize for her new novel, "The Children's Book." Kassie made sure I understood that the Man Booker Award is the world's most prestigious literary prize....not quite second to the Nobel. Dame Antonio won back in 1990. She told Kassie that she was pleased to note that if won this year she would be the first woman to receive the prize more than once. J.M. Coetze has won twice already and is shortlisted again this year. Jeez. Even Candace Bergen withdrew her name after her fifth consecutive Emmy for Murphy Brown!

You can hear the interview at Scott Gowan's wonderful web site: www.wosu.org/blogs/arts

Here's a quote from yesterday:

"I have a terrible fear that I write dark novels whether I want to or not. I fear the world is a dark place. That's one side of the equation. The other side is that when I am writing a novel I so intensely enjoy writing that the world is a very bright place, with lots of beautiful pots and lovely trees and people running in the woods...I think I'm extremely double and I think the novel is double..."

Again...you can hear the interview at www.wosu.org/blogs/arts

Rossini on Mozart

I love this:

"Mozart roused my admiration when I was young; he caused me to despair when I reached
my maturity; he is now the comfort of my old age."

--Gioachino Rossini

The Hyatt Hotels and The Cry of the Sloth

I'm blissing out right now listening to a new recording of Mozart's "Idomeneo" while preparing it for broadcast and am having a lovely time. Late last night I finished reading Sam Savage's recent novel, "The Cry of the Sloth". Quite a contrast to "Idomeneo"! "Sloth" is the tale of writer-landlord-narcissist-nutcase Andrew Whittaker, who lives to write vituperative letters-, and operates at full glee in victim mode. It's like watching a train wreck: horrible, but you can't not watch. "The Cry of the Sloth" is perhaps the grown up cousin of the wonderful "A Confederacy of Dunces", the latter one of my all time favorites.

I bring this up because while I don't mind being a curmudgeon, and while I too like to rail at injustice, I hope I'm not sinking into Andrew Whittaker's craziness. "Idomeneo" brings me up for air. If I can wallow in this beauty-and I do, then I feel safe in continuing to rant.

So...
What's up with Hyatt hotels in Boston? Three of 'em have fired 98 housekeepers, mostly minority women and single mothers who after years of service had gotten themselves up to $15/hr to clean the toilets, etc. These ladies, as reported in the Boston Globe and NPR, were asked to train some vacation replacements, even more hapless workers being paid $8/hr to do twice the work, then our core 98 was fired. Not laid off, fired. Yesterday's NPR report (and don't roll your eyes) had the fired ladies reporting they were sent into the locker rooms and given a few minutes to change out of their uniforms and collect their things, all under the eye of HR staff, and then ushered out. Period, goodbye, get out of here.

Two sides to every story? I don't care. Hyatt management either thought this would escape any kind of public notice, which makes them stupid, or knew there'd be a brouhaha and didn't care, which is worse ("No such thing as bad publicity")
The Governor of Massachusetts has called for a boycott of Hyatt Hotels (I hasten to add-AFAIK this action is limited to three hotels in Massachusetts) and the chain has back pedaled a bit by sending out press releases offering "retraining" -to clean the toilets?-and three months of medical coverage, which is nice but doesn't help these workers when the extension runs out around Christmas time!

Shame on Hyatt. Shame on anyone who is unwilling to take a little less so that everyone can have a job.

You can follow the Hyatt ruckus at www.boston.com.
And don't forget "The Cry of the Sloth" by Sam Savage.
And really don't forget Mozart. Mozart makes Hyatt and lousy management bearable.

Ted Kennedy Goin'Home

Yes, of course I watched the news feeds of the motorcade going from Hyannis Port to the JFK Library in Boston. For miles and miles up Rte. 93 there was nothing to see. But I timed it right, and when I tuned in the cars were gliding through Haymarket past Faneuil Hall, through the North End where Rose was born, across the Rose Fitzgerald Memorial Greenway which was a dump in my pre -big- dig era. And thus to the Kennedy Library with the wall of glass overlooking the harbor and JFK's boat, the Victura.

If you go into my grandparents' house, in Arlington, Massachusetts today, and my 85 year old uncle still lives there, you'll find the Infant of Prague statue, probably very dusty but complete with dress, a framed blessing from Pope John XXIII (go look him up if you're so disgustingly young) and a larger framed photo of JFK, faded and worn out but with dried palm branches above the frame, no doubt from Palm Sunday circa 1966. That's what you'll find in my grandparents' house in Arlington, Massachusetts if you were to visit today, in 2009.

Ted Kennedy and "The Rascal King"

I suppose I should be sadder than I am over the passing of Ted Kennedy. He wasn't the martyred saint of my childhood the way his bothers were. He was, happily, able to live out a full span of year and die an old man in his bed, not in the back seat of a car in Dallas or on the floor of a hotel kitchen in L.A. It may be because his death was not appalling or horrific. Ted didn't seem to touch me the way his brothers did (though Bobby seemed rather a shit). With all the health care chazerei in the press these days it will be both sobering and useful to become better informed about his decade long fight for health care. The remarks today insist Ted Kennedy was comfortable with everyone and worked hard to improve the lives of minimum wage workers. That is ringing true. But by the time I was old enough to take it in, Chappaquiddick had happened and his reputation never really recovered. Not among the Boston Irish politicos I called family forty years ago. Smarter, savvier people you'll never meet, with a low tolerance for bullshit (they called it 'blarney' in those more genteel days!) unless they were slinging it themselves (and oh, boy...). It does seems Ted earned his rest after a long career helping others. There were bumps along the way, but who among us hasn't sinned?

I don't know why I've been thinking so much of a contemporary of Ted's parents, the raffish James Michael Curley (1874-1958) the oft elected Mayor of Boston and Governor of Massachusetts, one of whose favorite mantras was "Vote early and often!" Not for our James clean electioneering. Your grandmother and all her lady friends would be casting their ballots for "James Michael" in every election in spite of the fact that Grammie and the ladies had long since called Gate of Heaven Cemetery home. You didn't have to alive to vote for James Michael Curley! There were shamrocks cut into the expensive shutters of his white brick palazzo in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. Run against him? Rose Kennedy's father tried it. At the same time the hapless Mayor Fitzgerald was rumored to be enjoying the charms of one Toodles Callahan, a hat check girl in a downtown boite. James Michael, a fabulous public speaker with no shame announced he was giving a series of lectures in history at the Boston Public Library, the first to be called "Great Love Affairs From Cleopatra to Toodles." You could love a guy like that.

Ted Kennedy learned shame and humility with horribly difficult lessons that left one woman dead. He was successful is restoring dignity to his life. Today, with his passing, the newspapers don't ignore Chappaquiddick and the aged frat boy bouts, but they give plenty of space, top of the fold, to decades of selflessness and public service as well. As it should be.

Excerpt from Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

The experiences of camp life shows that man does have a choice of action. There are enough examples, often of a heroic nature, which proved that apathy could be overcome, irritability suppressed. Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions...We who lived in the concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms--to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.


...And there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate.

Seen from this point of view, the mental reactions of the inmates of a concentration camp must seem more to us than the mere expression of certain physical and sociological conditions. Even though conditions such as lack of sleep, insufficient food and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis it became clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone. Fundamentally therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him, mentally and spiritually. Dostoevsky said once, "there is only one thing that I dread, not to be worth of my sufferings." These words frequently came to my mind after I became acquainted with those martyrs in camp, whose suffering and death, bore witness to the fact that the last inner freedom cannot be lost. It can be said that they were worthy of their sufferings. The way they bore their sufferings was a genuine inner achievement. It is this spiritual freedom, which cannot be taken away, that makes life meaningful and purposeful.
--Viktor E Frankl (1905-1997) "Man's Search for Meaning" (1959)
pp. 65-67 Beacon Press edition

Dublin Grand Opera Society

This just in from the September 09 issue of OPERA NEWS, in a "Letter from Dublin" by Brian Kellow:

There's still a conservative faction to contend with, however. In 2007, Opera Ireland presented Gavin Quinn's sexually charged production of "Cosi fan tutte". "There were two chorus members on the floor at one stage", recalls COO Claire Kendlin, "and I took a complaint call in the office. This person said, 'They were fornicating onstage'! I went down and said, 'Listen you two, I took a complaint about last night'. The girl said to me, 'Last night? No. Last night, we were fine. If you'd said Monday night, I would have said, yeah-we actually were having sex onstage. Are you sure it was Monday night?'"

From "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas" by Gertrude Stein

Gertrude Stein was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. As I am an ardent californian and she has spent her youth there I have often begged her to be born in California but she has always remained firmly born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. She left it when she was six months old and has never seen it again and now it no longer exists being all of it Pittsburgh. She used however to delight being born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania when during the war, in connection with war work, we used to have papers made out and they always immediately wanted to know one's birth place. She used to say if she had been really born in California as I wanted her to have been she would never have had the pleasure of seeing various french officials try to write, Allegheny Pennsylvania.

reading the autobiography of alice b toklas

well this is a fun summer read but I have read this before but still enjoyed it it seems gertrude stein for years nagged alice b toklas into writing her memoirs she said you could call it wives i have sat with or my twenty five years with a genius or something and alice b toklas said i don't have time to be writing on top of everything else i have to do so gertrude stein wrote this book and it made her famous in america not three lives the making of americans and not certainly tender buttons but this witty book written in alices voice a memoir going back to 1903 and has chapter headings like gertrude stein in paris i come to paris the war and like that alice recalls the vernissage in paris around 1907 when the portrait by matisse of his wife made such a scandal people attacked the painting and tried to scrape off the paint but gertrude stein bought the portrait and hung it on the all of her atelier at 27 rue de fleurus and nobody could say why the portrait antagonized people so until it was revealed that the woman whose face looked like a horse was matisses wife it was thought insulting but alice goes on to say lovely things about madame matisse and tells a story of the five year old son of the janitor at 27 rue de fleurus who when all the paintings were ignored that is all the paintings on the walls of gertrude stein's atelier the paintings werent worth anything nobody wanted them that is to say nobody thought they wanted them the walls were filled with nudes and braques and cezannes and matisses and picassos this little boy jumped into getrude steins arms and looked over at a large nude and cried oh la la une femme and gertrude stein knew then the paintings would be worth something some day later gertrude stein told alice b toklas to take french lessons from fernande olivier who was picassos mistress because they were splitting up she and picasso and fernande needed the money and alice was agreeable fifty cents hour the problem was that for all the conversation and fernande was lovely and had a beautiful speaking voice and spoke elegant french but for all that fernande only had three topic hats perfumes and ive forgotten the third topic thats why gertrude stein said later oh wives bother me they bore me they bore me to tears helene was a wife she was also the femme de menage or housekeeper for gertrude stein and her brother at 27 rue de fleurus in fact helene being a wife became a problem since her husband made her quit the household he did not approve of helene working for americans but helene was a thrifty and efficient housekeeper i can feed the entire household on five francs a a day it is my pride she would say and so she did sometimes if company was expected she had to go up to seven or eight francs that was her pride also after all but she resented guests who would invite themselves to dinner she resented matisse who once asked in advance what was to be served then later gertrude stein told helene monsieur matisse will stay to dinner and helene said in that case i will fry the eggs rather than making an omelet it requires the same amount of eggs and butter but it lacks respect he is a french man and so he will understand and if youre looking for a fun read to the end of a hot dull summer do yourself a favor and read the autobiography of alice b toklas by gertrude stein the end is funny as i said earlier gertrude stein had been after alice toklas to write a memoir for years and alice b toklas said im not a writer and i dont have time so gertrude stein said well you know what i am going to do i am going to write it myself the autobiography of alice b toklas and she did and she has and you should read it

A Wonderful Way to Go

Yesterday a colleague and I had a lunch date scheduled with Nancy, who used to be a colleague but has now gone on to a new job. We waited and we called and finally reached Nancy who was in crisis mode. She works in a nursing home and a resident had just died. Back at the office this e mail from her was waiting. I thought it was lovely, and in a way life affirming, and wanted to share.

Nancy writes as follows:

So sorry to stand you up but things got quite out of hand here. During the 11:30 aerobics class, Pennsylvania 6-5000 was just getting the ladies going when Anna seemed to stumble and fall. No nurses around, so who gets called? Yours truly. No pulse, no breathing, a peaceful expression. Death is pretty easy to identify. I ask that she not be moved, and go to find the nurse practitioner. She's out to lunch, and the doc is never there on Wed. Somebody official has to certify the death, so my only alternative is to call the squad, so I call. The other ladies in the class pull up chairs and wait prayerfully. They know how to do this kind of thing with real grace. Rosaries appear, and they all somehow agree to recite the Lord's Prayer for Anna.

EMT's arrive-but so does Anna's daughter, THE MESS as she known by the other ladies. And messiness ensues. She tries to do CPR, although Anna has a do not resuscitate order (and is wearing the bracelet), The wonderful EMT man and woman try to deflect her, but nothing doing. Full hysterics, and the EMTs have to treat her with oxygen and hook her up to a monitor because she says she's experiencing chest pain. The ladies ignore her, and one of them says I might call Anna's pastor, who comes to see her weekly. I get his cell phone number from her records and call--he is minutes away and I think might be good for the daughter, and the other ladies as well. The aerobics instructor has disappeared--I hope she doesn't quit.

I stay with the ladies, who seem to be taking it all in stride. Anna is on the gurney now, and covered with a white sheet. One of the ladies keeps a hand on her arm "so she knows we're helping her get to heaven-in spite of the distractions." Eyebrows raise and all gaze at the whimpering daughter who is clutching the wrist of the handsome young EMT.

The pastor arrives WITH A COOLER. He opens it and pulls out a full plastic pitcher, and 3 Tupperware containers: orange slices, maraschino cherries and ice. Plastic wine glasses and napkins appear. He says, "Anna loved to have a whiskey sour when we visited." The ladies smile at him and hold out their glasses. We all have a belt (except the EMTs and the daughter, who is now wailing and hiccoughing) and then he says like he does this every day (and maybe he does!) "let us pray for our deceased sister Anna as she enters the mansion of our heavenly father." I love that man. I haven't had a whiskey sour that good since Christmas 1962, when my Uncle Pete made one for me on the sly.

So, how was your day at work?

Eunice Kennedy Shriver

The Kennedys still push the old Boston-Irish-sentimental button with me. I'll probably have a good cry when Ted dies. What can I say? I remember JFK, I was six when he was assassinated but I still remember all the hoopla surrounding his Presidency. I remember being in the car with my parents, box cameras the the ready, sitting in stopped traffic 100 feet form the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port. The state police allowed you to get but so close, and no closer. Snap, snap, snap. The flag was flying on the lawn because the President was there visiting his parents. We actually got close enough to see the front porch. That would never happen today.

Eunice for me was a mouthy, toothy lady with a raspy voice who looked her age. Until I became involved the world of special kids. Then I looked again. I saw someone who banished the word 'retard'. More importantly, she banished the entire idea of wasted, useless under utilized lives. If you have two legs and two feet, use them. If you have one leg, use it. Find a way. Get up and do. And Eunice Kennedy Shriver seemed to say, as she lived her life, If you can't really get up and do on your own, don't worry about it. We'll get someone to help you until you can manage on your own. And you will manage on your own. Period.

RIP. The lady has earned her place in heaven.

"I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it any more!"

I spent a hot Saturday night, after the disaster of kayaking (q.v.) watching "Network." I hadn't seen it since its original release in 1976. You remember "Network". Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Robert Duval and above all Peter Finch as Howard Beale, the mad newscaster. He harangues us all, via TV- the great leveler, the 1970s Valium , to get up, GET UP! go to the window, open the window and yell, "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more!" And people do. In Keokuk, Kalamazoo, Kenosha and Kentucky, you name it, windows go flying open and neighbors, probably many of whom had never met the guy next door, scream "I'm as mad as hell!" out into the night..

I loved every line of this film. I don't remember if it was a shocker back in 1976. It did win a spate of Academy Awards. Good. Thirty- three years later isn't this relevant? Peter Finch/Howard Beale/Paddy Chayefsky were predicting the Howard Sterns and Rush Limbaughs who would make huge livings tapping into the public rage. And you can go ahead and rage against Stern and Limbaugh et al all you like. You can also turn them off and ignore them. Too many people don't do that. Don't blame the messenger and don't even blame the broadcast hucksters who fan the flames. Blame us. Blame me and blame you. We listen to them. Not enough of us direct our mad as hell moments to elected officials and big business-those who control the destinies of the rest of us. You don't like it? Don't buy it and don't vote for it and tell your friends why. It's your right.

Back to the picture. It's the work of director Sidney Lumet and the great Paddy Chayefsky (1923-1981). I need to read more of Chayefsky's work and learn more about him. I know his plays were called "kitchen sink realism". This comes from television in the 1950s. Loretta Young might have been glamorous and Pat Boone was selling big cars, but Chayefsky was writing about lonely people living ordinary lives. That's his gift: the ability to resonate completely with his audience. In "Network" we watch in horrified fascination at Faye Dunaway's man- eating robotics, and in horror at Peter Finch's meltdown. I suspect most of us would like to be Peter Finch long enough to tell the world via TV to fuck off; or be William Holden so we can be a decent man who stumbles long enough to have sex with Faye Dunaway and regrets it.

Chayefsky wrote "The Hospital" "A Catered Affair" (superb!) and above all "Marty" which swept the Oscars twenty years before "Network". Rob Steiger starred in the 1953 TV production. Ernest Borgnine won an Oscar for the movie three years later.
"Network" was an accurate mirror in 1976. It seems more accurate now. It did pave the way for the shit of yak radio. The missing ingredient is art.