The Lennon Diary 1969

Hey.  Wait a minute.  What IS this?  It seems to be a reproduction of John Lennon's diary.  I hope so.

His life was out-sized yet this is bit-sized.  The diary booklet measures 2 x 3 inches and is oddly formatted.   Each double page accommodates 6 days, so there is an intriguing rhythm to the way the weeks break.  It reminds one of the way human calendars and celestial movements require that extra day in leap years.

John Lennon - a giant of our times!  I could hardly wait to see how he'd spent 1969.  I was especially interested to see what small event or observation he would choose for the tiny space allotted each day in the diary.

woke up. went to work. came home. watched telly. went to bed. 

Written over and over again.  Occasionally fucked wife or went out.  July 14: went to Majorca.  blank pages until July 26: came back. Sunday July 27:  woke up - late watched telly. went to bed. 

This can't be right.   Is someone pulling my leg?

I wanted it to be real.  That it is the only explanation I have for my continuing and unreasonable gullibility.

A bit of scientific skepticism finally kicked in.  I checked July 21, the day  Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon.  No diarist could fail to mention this.  According to The Lennon Diaries, John was in Majorca at the time.  Even so.

Further checks saw no mention of Colonel Mummer al-Qaddafi driving Libyan King Idris 1 into exile; no mention of the Woodstock Extravaganza in August of that year; no mention of George Harrison releasing his own album; no mention of Lennon, himself, refusing the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire award as protest for UK involvement in Vietnam.  Were these too inconsequential for limited diary space?

And what about his marriage to Yoko Ono on March 20, 1969:  got up. went to work. came home watched telly. went to bed.

Okay.  It's not real then.  It's a joke.  Good one.

As it turns out, it really is a good one.  The Lennon Diary 1969 was written by John Lennon in November 1968 as part of a future diaries project.  It was published in 1970 and included as one of 14 items in the box that was issue No. 7 - The British Issue - of Aspen.  Aspen is "The Multimedia Magazine in a Box".

1969 was quite a year.  John Lennon was quite a man.  This little book introduces me to Aspen Magazine and Dave Dyment.  I'm glad to know of them both.

                                                ******************

relevant links:
Aspen, the index page gives a good sense of this remarkably interesting project:
http://www.ubu.com/aspen/siteIndex.html

Aspen page of John Lennon's future diary - includes the entire book:
http://www.ubu.com/aspen/aspen7/diary.html

Artists' Books and Multiples -  Dave Dyment has a great blog showcasing artist books and other stuff he calls "editioned artworks".  He has reproduced the entire The Lennon Diary and given bibliographic information.  Apparently Dyment's leg was not pulled.
http://artistsbooksandmultiples.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-lennon-diary-1969.html

An audio diary - John Lennon talking about his life - on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ko839Ppuq24

more plausibly real John Lennon's diaries
http://www.beatlesarchives.com/diaries.htm

Moon-Face

Jack London, born John Griffith Chaney, did not have an easy childhood.  The lack of ease started early.  His mother was embarrassed by his illegitimate conception, irritated that Jack's father left, and overwhelmed at Jack's birth.

London's parents lived in San Francisco where they plied their trades.  William Chaney was an astrologer.  Flora Wellman was a spiritualist.  She channeled the spirit of Black Hawk. This notable American Indian was born a century before as Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kis-kiak of the Thunder Clan.  He aligned himself with other Sauk Indians who were hostile to the settlers and wanted to return to the old ways.  Black Hawk became a leader of the Sauk and Fox Indians.

 It is unclear just how he presented his spirit through Jack London's mother.

Though from a wealthy family, Flora Wellman did not have an easy childhood herself.  She had various troubles.  One was an illness that left her physically deformed and perhaps mentally unbalanced.

Flora gave over the care of infant Jack to Virginia Prentiss, an ex-slave.  Mrs. Prentiss had just lost her own baby in childbirth.  She nursed Jack.  They remained strongly connected for life.  Through the Prentisses, Flora met John London.  He was a widowed veteran of the Civil War with many children of his own - several grown and one recently deceased  Eight months after Jack was born, Flora and John London married.  Their household included baby Jack and John London's youngest three children.  Flora drew on her training as a privileged young girl, and taught piano.

Everyone worked hard.  Jack shoveled coal, cut wood, and went to hunt seals in the Pacific.  As a teenager, London went to the Yukon to search for gold at Klondike.  He suffered a term in jail, pirated oysters, and rode trains.  In his spare time, he read.

The letters that Jack London wrote home convinced his mother he should be a writer.

He became one.  His colorful descriptions of the sea and the frozen north fascinated readers all over the world.  He wrote novels, short stories, essays, magazine articles and newspaper columns.  He was enormously popular in his (short) lifetime.  He used his influence to promote socialism and to speak about justice and beauty.

NOTE:  Moon-face is not his most famous novel, but the above pictured first edition recently found its way into riverrun.  It has that letter, featured in the earlier post, tucked in. 

links:

This Jack London World is a trove of information, photographs, writing and anecdotes.  The list of links to additional sources is a trove within a trove
http://www.jacklondons.net

Project Gutenberg's free online Call of the Wild
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/215/215-h/215-h.htm

It's fascinating to see these many images for Call of the Wild from google images.  Most of them are book covers but there are also cartoons and movie stills and sculpture.
the call of the wild

Black Hawk biography
http://www.historynet.com/black-hawk
also: http://www.blackhawkpark.org/History/Black_Hawk.html

google images of the Klondike Gold Rush

Jack London Writes Out Some Thoughts

a few quotes from the letter:

"But I am learning, slowly.  The great difficulty is to get the proper co-ordination of the various parts so essential to good photography..."
"Of course I like beautiful things..."
"...the aesthetic should simply be ...one of the many things for  the raising of the human."

That last paragraph pulls at the heart.  So many great things to do - such limited time.  Jack London died in 1916 at the age of 40.  Look at that handwritten last line.

"Only a little while and I am not."

More Detective Tales

All 12.  Each 2.75 x 4.25 inches, 64 excitement filled pages.

Detective Tales

Midway in the Golden Age of Pulp Magazines, Detective Tales put out 12 tiny book supplements to the magazine.  These books were only 2¾ x 4¼ inches, printed on poor paper, and bound with double staples.  

So flimsy, they were as ephemeral as butterfly wings.  How could a full dozen have lasted through more than 90 years and found their way to riverrrun?  Perhaps it was the tough guy writing that kept them intact.

Each little book has a dramatically illustrated cover and contains a hot-action novelette or condensed novel.  Each is 64 thin pages of text with slightly heavier covers.  Just holding one of these gems brings you back in time.  They were published 1922 - 1924.  Prohibition.  Rampant crime.  Women gone mad with suffrage, smoking on street corners and whatnot.  Corruption.  Betrayal.  Homicide.  Irresistible reading pleasure!

The tiny book supplements to Detective Tales were published by Rural Publishing Company, founded by Jacob Clark Henneberg and J.M. Lansinger.  Rural published other pulp magazines as well, including the more enduring Weird Tales.  When the publishing company hit difficulties, the founding partners divided assets.  Lansinger kept Detective Tales and retained Edwin Baird as editor.  The magazine went through several name changes, but didn’t print little book supplements after 1924.

It is not only the action packed covers and swiftly moving stories that bring you right into the pulp world.  The advertisements do too.  Each little book has the same three ads.  On the inside front cover, you are invited - urged - to attend the University of Applied Sciences in Chicago to learn the skills for the fast-expanding field of the fingerprint expert.  As the ad says, it’s an uncrowded field and a wonderful opportunity.

On the back cover a 21 jewel Burlington watch beckons.  You can get this watch, plus a free book about watches, for only $1 down and an unspecified monthly payment for an unspecified number of months.

Sure.  Anyone would like a great fingerprinting career and who wouldn’t want a  classy 21 jewel watch?  My favorite advertisement, though, is on the inside back cover.  This ad explains that science has uncovered the secrets of Enrico Caruso’s beautiful singing voice.  For a fee, and no matter what your natural voice sounds like now, Prof. Feuchtinger of the Perfect Voice Institute can train you to sing like Caruso.

I’m sold.  These little books pack lots and lots of fast action, new career possibilities, a splendid watch, and a velvet Caruso-like singing voice. 

                              ************************************************

related links:

Interesting article featuring Vincent Starret, Edwin Baird, & Sherlock Holmes - brief mention of Detective Tales and subsequent iterations of the magazine

http://www.bakerstreetjournal.com/images/WickedBeginnings_Betzner.pdf

pulp magazine notes - includes an entry for Detective Tales

http://www.philsp.com/data/data380.html

fascinating history of the long-lived and much sought after magazine, Weird Tales, which was also a Rural Publications magazine and also first edited by Edwin Baird

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/troubled-history-weird-tales-magazine/

Pulp Magazine Project: “The Project is dedicated to fostering ties between communities of collectors, fans, and academics devoted to pulp magazines, and will offer opportunities for research and collaboration to both scholars and enthusiasts alike. “

http://www.pulpmags.org/default.htm

google books: Caruso

https://books.google.com/books?id=wbgLIMjkfpMC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

Lipchitz at the Library

Jacques Lipchitz sculpture in front of the Hastings on Hudson Public Library - photo 2013

"Local" Sculptors: Lipchitz and Zazel

Lipchitz was born in Lithuania in the last decade of the 19^th century.  He lived in Lithuania until he was 18 and then he moved to Paris to study art.

Paris was the center of exciting art and now-legendary artists at that time.  Lipchitz flourished.  Considered the first Cubist sculptor, he broke new ground and met with much success.

World War ll brought great danger to Lipchitz.  He escaped to America in 1941.

After the war, Lipchitz settled in America – in the lovely river town, Hastings on Hudson, New York.

riverrun bookshop settled in the same lovely river town 30 years later.  Lipchitz died in 1973, 5 years before riverrun, but the store’s original founder, Frank Scioscia, did live in Hastings on Hudson at the same time as Jacques Lipchitz did.  I don’t think they knew one another. No doubt, however, they both admired the same majestic palisades towering over the Hudson River and both liked the same comfortable streets in town.

By this time Lipchitz was spending months of each year working in his studio in Italy. I’ve heard a story – possibly true – that the village trustees mistook his long studio trips for a permanent move away from Hastings on Hudson.  The sculptor was a village treasure. The trustees tried to purchase one of his sculptures for the town to commemorate his long-time residence here.  According to the story, Lipchitz laughed, assured the trustees that he and his wife had no intention of moving, and GAVE a large sculpture to the village.

However it happened, Hastings on Hudson does have an impressive Lipchitz sculpture mounted in the prominent grassy space by the town library and courthouse.

The artist himself died in Italy and is buried in Jerusalem, but part of him presides over the village from the hill by the library.  You can see that sculpture on your walk to riverrun.  Or, in case you are too far to stroll over to riverrun, I will post a photo shortly.  As well as the little I know of Zazel.

*********

A lengthy and fascinating article about Lipchitz, his art, his life, and his religion.  There is a sense  of immediacy in this article that makes the reader feel privy to inside knowledge:

http://www.chabad.org/therebbe/article_cdo/aid/393257/jewish/How-Jacques-Lipchitz-Found-G-d.htm

Tate Gallery artist biography:

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/jacques-lipchitz-1518

art directory biography:

http://www.jacques-lipchitz.com/

searchable interview plus photos of work:

http://www.imj.org.il/lipchitz/

 Lithuania:

http://europa.eu/about-eu/countries/member-countries/lithuania/index_en.htm

John Hancock and the Declaration of Independence

 

John Hancock put the most famous signature to the Declaration of Independence even though he was not the most famous signer.  His signature made its way into riverrun en route to The University of Texas. 

The document was an appointment, of someone name Robbins, to military office.  Hancock signed in his capacity as governor of Massachusetts. With awe, I scanned the document.

The Hancock signature is large and bold.  He signed the Declaration of Independence as the president of the Continental Congress.  The confidence expressed in that signature lent additional authority the Declaration that we celebrate today.

But isn’t it interesting that we have selected that document, that event, to mark the beginning of our country?

Lots of revolutionary activity went on beforehand.  The Committees of Correspondence were established well before 1776.  The Boston Tea Party took place in 1773 and the First Continental Congress met in 1774.  Those key early battles at Lexington & Concord were fought in 1775 and so was the Battle of Bunker Hill.

The Green Mountain Boys captured Fort Ticonderoga and valuable cannons and the Second Continental Congress sent “The Olive Branch Petition” to King George lll all before the Declaration of Independence was issued.

If I were writing the history books, I wouldn’t date the beginning of the USA to the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  I would date it neither from the restive disturbances and outright battles of the early 1770s nor from any of the many battles of the Revolutionary War, not even the one at Yorktown in 1781 when General Cornwallis surrendered.

For myself, I select the 1787 summer of the Constitutional Convention as the birth of the United States of America.  My USA is 230 years old this summer.  Not everyone would agree, but I have my reasons. Nevertheless, I am perfectly happy to celebrate on this day that others have chosen.

Actually, I am impressed with my fellow Americans in selecting the publication of our Declaration of Independence as the most significant moment in the birth legend of our country. 

It is with the glory of oratory, not of battle, that we choose to date our beginning.

Helen Keller

Two incredibly talented women, Helen Keller and Ann Sullivan, somehow wove communication out of some other warp than sight; some other weft than hearing.

Keller was “trebly defective”: blind, deaf, and mute.  Sullivan also faced triple obstacles: partially blind, mistreated in childhood, and parentless young. How did they manage to overcome such formidable hardships?  It couldn’t have been done with only one incredibly talented person.  Both had to be remarkable.  Both were.

Helen Keller went on to live a generous life of helping others, especially children.  She campaigned for better treatment of people with physical disabilities.  This letter, which found its way into riverrun, is of another one of her areas of interest.

The civil war in Spain, just like any war anywhere, left children without family, without country.

The sentiment in the letter is well expressed.  It is the careful signature at the bottom, though, that is so very poignant and so very admirable.  

A 1930 newsreel with Keller and Sullivan demonstrating how Keller learned talking from Sullivan.  Fascinating.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv1uLfF35Uw

very moving newsreel of Helen Keller speaking to disabled youngsters in Australia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARdSEljce6Y

American Foundation for the Blind includes a biography and photos of Helen Keller

http://www.afb.org/section.aspx?FolderID=1&SectionID=1

AFB bio & photos of Ann Sullivan

http://www.afb.org/annesullivan/

Article about Basque child refugees in UK

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/11/forgotten-children-spain-civil-war

Spanish Civil War: Refugees

http://histclo.com/essay/war/ww2/camp/eur/ea/scw/scw-ref.html

autobiographies of Spanish child refugees in a Quaker Home in France

http://framespa.revues.org/268

The Hollywood Ten

The House UnAmerican Activities Committee was, as a phenomenon, first cousin to an oxymoron.

How could the persecution of people for what they believe possibly be considered American? Wasn't there a Big Fuss over the U.S. Constitution? All those states refused to ratify without the assurance of a Bill of Rights to protect the individual from a frivolously malicious government.  A frivolously malicious government.

Nevertheless Senator Joseph McCarthy was able to take over the reins of the HUAC and tromp over much touted American freedoms.

The government printed pamphlets of all that tromping.  riverrun recently got whole boxes of the House UnAmerican Committee Proceedings.

The Hollywood Ten and Blacklisting are representative of the havoc wrecked across many industries in many regions of the country.

In 1947, members of the movie industry were brought before the committee as accused Communists.  The accusation in itself, at that time, carried the implication of treason or near-treason. Some people squirmed and cooperated with the committee.  The Hollywood Ten didn't.  They faced inquisition because anonymous "friendly witnesses" had suggested their names to the HUAC. As a group, The Ten refused to play the HUAC game. They were jailed for contempt of congress.

Who were they?

alphabetically:

Alvah Bessie - 1904 - 1985 - went to Columbia University - worked in theater - wrote short stories, novels and screenplays - leftist political views - volunteered in the Spanish Civil War -theater and film critc -later wrote Inquisition in Eden about his bout with the HUAC -sentenced to 12 months prison and fined $1000.

website by his son, Dan Bessie about books etc. http://www.alvahsbooks.com/ books.com

LA Times Obituary: http://articles.latimes.com/1985-07-24/news/mn-4727_1_alvah-bessie

Herbert Biberman - 1900 - 1971 - attended Yale and Univ PA - joined Theater Guild - stage manager and director - wrote and directed B movies for Warner Bros. - 1950 served 6 months in prison and blacklisted

YouTube excerpt of HUAC bullying and Biberman resisting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds2SDTFXIgM&noredirect=1

bio: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?GRid=6817557&page=gr

Lester Cole - born 1904 NYC – high school dropout - actor - screenwriter - one of the founders of Writers' Guild - joined ACP in 1934 - wrote many screenplays, after blacklisted could only sell screenplays under other peoples' names - wrote autobiography Hollywood Red -paid $1000 fine and served 10 months in prison and then was blacklisted

http://www.darcy-kane.com/html/lestercole.html

Edward Dmytryk  - 1908 – 1999 – born in Canada, Ukrainian grandparents - served time in jail but lost his resolve.  He gave the HUAC names of alleged Communists to win release from the Hollywood Blacklist. He was an employable director again. Wrote Odd Man Out: A Memoir of The Hollywood Ten about that time and some books on directing including On Film Editing which advises that every scene should begin and end with continuing action.

somewhat pitiable attempts at justifying himself + film advice:

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/e/edward_dmytryk.html

bio and more info on the times:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAdmytryk.htm

Ring Lardner, Jr  - 1915 – 2000n – wrote screen plays (also books) – fined and served a full year in prison for contempt of congress – even after he was released, he had to get non-blacklisted friends to front his screenplays for him – went on to do impressive work, eventualty under his own name again.

Very nice life timeline and filmography:

http://www.tridget.com/rwljr.htm

somewhat scrambled info:

http://www.adherents.com/people/pl/Ring_Lardner.html

John Howard Lawson - 1894 – 1977 – screen writer – helped organize The Screenwriters’ Guild – worked, then later volunteered for Red Cross in World War I – formally protested Sacco and Vanzetti trial.  – he was fined, imprisoned and blacklisted for his refusal to talk to HUAC – moved to Mexico after release from jail and wrote under pseudonym.

Site set up by Lawson’s son, Jeffrey, includes bio and much more:

http://www.johnhowardlawson.net/Home_Page.html

Intro and transcript of part of Lawson’s hearing:

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6441

Albert Maltz  - 1908 – 1985 – a talented, well-educated, and successful and rich screenwriter, Maltz struggled with ideas and creativity – he was a sympathetic member of the Communist party but bridled under the party’s push to have writers be spokesmen for the party.  In his famous essay, Maltz says, “It has been my conclusion for some time that much of the left–wing artistic activity—both creative and critical—has been restricted, narrowed, tuned away from life, sometimes made sterile—because the atmosphere and thinking of the literary left–wing had been based upon a shallow approach…" "I have come to believe that the accepted understanding of art as a weapon is not a useful guide, but a straitjacket.”

NY Times Obituary:

http://www.nytimes.com/1985/04/29/arts/albert-maltz-a-screenwriter-blacklisted-by-industry-dies.html

Accolades and bio information by an admiring family member:

http://www.pomerantz.org/albert_maltz.htm

Samuel Ornitz - 1890 – 1957 -  social worker for New York Prison Association and for Brooklyn Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children – later a screenwriter – outspoken advocate of the Soviet Union – like the other 9, he was fined, imprisoned and blacklisted.  Later he lived in Mexico and wrote novels.

These novels were apparently more substantial and experimentally creative than generally acknowledged -- except here:

http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/08.14.97/cover/lit6-9733.html

bio:

http://www.answers.com/topic/samuel-ornitz

Robert Adrian Scott  - 1912 – 1973 – writer, later producer – especially film noir – after HUAC and blacklisting his second wife, Joan LaCour fronted for his screenplays.

Mini biography includes some interesting family relationships:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0778789/bio

CIA testimony from congressional hearings:

http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/cla/legacies/rsimon/rsimonsite/Hum410/ScottHUAC.htm

Dalton Trumbo - 1905 – 1976 – lived in western USA – held various jobs during the depressed years – screenwriting starting in 1934 – in 1947 defied HUAC and was punished along with the rest of the Hollywood 10 - Blacklisted but was very active writing from Mexico City ad then southern California behind fronts and under assumed names -  a movie written under the assumed name, Robert Rich, won an Academy Award which presented a puzzle since award winner “Rich” seemed mysteriously non-existent.  The award ceremony was in 1957 – 3 years after Senator Joseph McCarthy had been censured by the Senate for his wild excesses.  Trumbo revealed himself behind the fake name.  Shortly afterwards he was credited for several other hits and the lengthy decade of Hollywood Blacklisting was effectively over.

San Francisco Chronicle – includes photographs:

http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/He-was-blacklisted-in-a-national-witch-hunt-Yet-2726044.php#photo-2178181

American Masters biography:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/dalton-trumbo/about-dalton-trumbo/1166/

American Communist Party

http://www.cpusa.org/

A lengthy and extremely interesting article, including several YouTube documentaries and extensive quotations both sympathetic to and horrified by McCarthyism

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAmccarthyism.htm

Thank you, Anne Fadiman

   Anne Fadiman may be responsible for riverrun’s survival and we never thanked her properly.  In fact, though profoundly grateful, we never thanked her at all.

     The transition from riverrun owner Frank Scioscia, who always subsidized the bookstore quite heavily, to his son in law Chris Stephens, who did not have the luxury of outside funds, was fraught with peril.  At one very dark moment I was beginning to wonder if we could make it.

Then there was a miracle.  Someone told us that they’d read a zippy article about the store.  Several other customers came in telling us how they’d read of riverrun in a complimentary article by Anne Fadiman.  We didn’t know Anne Fadiman.  A stranger had discovered us!

     Someone brought us the article from the Library of Congress magazine, Civilization.  We loved it.  It isn’t really an essay about riverrun.  It is an essay about the love of books, the way books furnish an outward environment for the inward self, and about a husband who has the good sense to share one’s love of books.  Only incidentally does the essay mention a birthday surprise expedition to riverrun bookshop, the long browse there, and the 19-pound purchase carried back to New York City.  The way we read it though, it was an essay about riverrun.  It buoyed our spirit and strengthened our will and eased our way across the difficult transition.

     We taped that article to the front windows of riverrun and it continued to smile at us daily as we came into the store.

     Seasons passed.  The ink from the article transferred itself to the window glass.  The paper became brown and tattered but remained in place until the landlady had to replace the store windows.

     Gone with the discarded old windows!  Why hadn’t we made copies of the article when it was fresh and new and still readable?

     No matter.  Anne Fadiman’s collected essays from Civilization were published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in a wonderful book called Ex Libris.  The essay mentioning riverrun is the last in the book, “Secondhand Prose”.  Clever.

     My first copy of Ex Libris was given to Chris and me by a beaming customer.  Re-reading “Secondhand Prose” was such a pleasure that I read and reread every essay in the book, oblivious to all else.  I read them again today when I took this book out to scan for the blog.

    These essays are perfect.  I wanted more.  Luckily there are more.  I just ordered another couple of books by Anne Fadiman.  At Large and At Small and The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down.  I have a treat coming in the mail.

     Not everyone knows about these jewels.  Why not? For one thing essays are hard to categorize.  I know of a case of mis-categorization.

     Our daughter Mary – quite a good bookwoman herself – was working at a bookstore in Memphis.  Mary was keeping a low profile for reasons of her own, but she couldn’t keep silent when she saw Ex Libris shelved in the foreign language section.  “This book isn’t written in a foreign language,” she told another worker.

    “It isn’t?”  He stared at the title, baffled.

     If I had been Mary, I’d have stood on a chair waving the book in the air and making noise.  “This book mentions my family’s bookstore,” I would have shouted.  “And it belongs in a high visibility spot so people can buy these superb essays!”

     I thank Fadiman for those superb essays.  They are a delight to read and to reread.  I also thank her for mentioning riverrun at a point in history when the bookshop might have winked out of existence.

    Thank you, Anne Fadiman, thank you!

Books by Anne Fadiman (all readily available)

Ex Libris

At Large and At Small

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

Rereading: Seventeen Writers Revisit Books They Love (edited by Fadiman)

Bio from Yale:

http://english.yale.edu/faculty-staff/anne-fadiman

article and interview from Atlantic online:

http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/bookauth/ba981028.htm

Isaac Asimov

photo by Chris Stephen at NY Book Fair in 1970s

   Isaac Asimov was a scientist and an historian.  He wrote what seems like millions of books (really just over a half thousand).  Most famously, he wrote science fiction but he also wrote an analytic critique of Shakespeare’s plays and he wrote mysteries and hard science and philosophical speculation about the future of humanity.  Through his heroic futuristic novels he opened up, not only the possibility but, the expectation of commonplace human space travel.

   As a young girl, I read Inside the Atom by Asimov and as a teenager I read his sci fi.  I believed it all.

   Asimov was part of an optimistic generation that had survived both the Great Depression and the second world war.  Asimov helped to popularize the miraculous march of science. He and others promised children more from harnessing the power of the atom and more from the space program than has yet been delivered.

   No matter.  He wrote so well that I still believe him.  I’m ready for the spaceports, when they’re built.  At that time I’ll rocket out to explore the great cosmos.  In the meantime I’ll settle into a comfy chair and read another interesting book by Isaac Asimov.

                                                 Isaac Asimov  1920 - 1992

A very appealing 1988 interview of Isaac Asimov by a young Polish

fan, Slawek Wojtowic

http://www.slawcio.com/asimov.html

A good overall website for Asimov by Edward Seiler

http://www.asimovonline.com/asimov_home_page.html

youtube of Asimov extolling the present and future use of computers with libraries of knowledge available to peruse at one’s own speed and along the lines of one’s own interests.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U6xXqElj08

the missing bit more

Even as a Little Kid, Chris Stephens was a Big Reader.  He was a library regular.  He had an inquisitive mind too, but overwhelmlngly his was an acquisitive mind.  He acquired knowledge.  He acquired information.  He wanted to know things.

     Young Chris read about animals and trees and Native American tribes.  He read history and etymology.  He read about countries where the stamps in his stamp collection originated.  He read about coins and about moths and butterflies.

     Much later, when I met him, he was still collecting butterflies.  He looked great leaping through meadows with his net held high above his head.  Like Vladimir Nabokov, Chris collected moths, butterflies and interesting words.

     Young Chris read mostly non-fiction, but he read some fiction too.  Cowboy fiction.  Science fiction.  Baseball stories.  Comic books.

     Chris acquired so darned much information that he seemed a perfect candidate for the Quiz Kids Radio Show.  In the “green room”, before the show started, the personable Quiz Kids host chatted with Chris, taking notes with which to later betray Chris.

     Young Chris was too short to reach the microphone so an assistant got a couple of telephone books to put on Chris’ chair.  I don’t think those 4-inch thick telephone books even exist nowadays.  Three other kids sat at the table.  They were able to speak into their microphones without the assistance of height boosters.

     The red light went on for live radio.  The host asked questions.  Three little geniuses were eager to answer.  Not Chris.  It wasn’t his style.

    When Chris sat on his hands, even for easy questions, the host took out his notes and asked the kids obscure questions about Native Americans and insects and tiny countries that issued lovely stamps.  The other kids scowled.  Only Chris knew these particular answers.  He didn’t raise his hand though.  Didn’t want to.

    But it was radio.  No one could see whose hand was up and whose hand was quite resolutely down.

     “Ah.  I see little Chris Stephens has his hand up”, lied the host smoothly.  Trapped on live radio by an entertainment professional, Chris was forced to answer questions. He didn’t like it though, and wouldn’t come back to the show.

     Chris went back to the hobbies he loved: collecting interesting things and reading lots of books.  Now, ten Little Chris lifetimes along, these are hobbies he continues to love.

     His disinterests have endured all this time too.  For instance, I’ve always thought that Chris and I would make a great vaudevillian-style comedy team.  His extremely dry humor cracks me up.  He would be the straight man, delivering very funny lines without breaking a smile. For contrast, I’d be only too happy to ham it up a bit.

     Alas.  Even after all this time to reconsider, Christopher Stephens still has no interest in show business.

Clips from old quiz kids shows (Chris’ single show is not included)

http://archive.org/details/QuizKids

NY Times article about Vladimir Nabokov and his alternate identity as  lepidopterist extrodinaire

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/science/01butterfly.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

CPS 70

Even as a Little Kid, Chris Stephens was a Big Reader.
(Obviously there quite a bit more to this post.  Where is it though?)

Jed Levin Talks About Ira Levin

   “I knew him both as a father and as a writer,” Jed says.  “He involved us in his writing life.  Not when he was writing books - he needed time alone then.  But once he finished something, especially plays, he brought us into that part.”

   Jed and his two brothers saw one of Ira Levin’s plays repeatedly.

   “I have no idea how many times I saw Deathtrap.

    “My father went to the out-of-town tryouts and, in New York, he went to every performance with a new actor – not just new leads, but any new actor.  He wanted to be able to confer with the director as to directions for the new actor.  Also, he liked to go to Deathtrap.  And he liked to take us with him.

“We went out to dinner at Sardi’s before hand.  We went backstage afterwards.

   “It was so much fun to be in the back of the theater.  We weren’t watching the play as much as we were watching the audience.  My father didn’t have tickets, of course, no seats - we just sat on the steps. We were fascinated by audience reaction.   We’d wait on the edge of our steps in anticipation.  How hard would they laugh at the jokes?  How much would they jump at the scares?  We never really got tired of it.”

    Jed wondered if I knew the play.

    “It’s great,” he said.  “It’s two plays – kind of a play about a play – something like the little play within Shakespeare’s Hamlet.  It’s funny and it’s suspenseful at the same time. There are lots of good twists.  I can’t tell you the plot.  You have to see it.  Go to one of the frequent revivals.”

     Ira Levin’s sons didn’t spend all of their time on the steps.  Sometimes they spent the second act backstage with Marian Seldes in her dressing room.

     “Marian was the female lead for the duration of the show.  She never missed a performance.  She was so nice.  We loved hanging out with Marian in her dressing room."

     Hanging out with performers in their dressing rooms, dinner at Sardi’s, fussed over by staff and celebrities, aware of his father’s impact in the theater, movie and book business – this was all part of Jed’s and his brothers childhoods.

     “Deathtrap is the work of his that involved us most.  That was about 1974.  I was in the 4^th or 5^th grade when it opened and it ran for a good chunk of time.  Death Trap was something that was always going on in the background of my childhood.”

     When Ira Levin and Jed’s mother, Gabrielle, divorced the boys still saw their father frequently.  He took an apartment nearby their Wilton, CT home.  (Wilton likely provided the inspiration for Ira Levin’s “Stepford Wives”.)

     “It was a small apartment.  We slept on a foldout sofa, I think. We ate on his desk.  It was a big desk and at dinner time he would just move the typewriter.”

     What about all his papers and notes and other things spread out all over the desk?  I wondered.
     “No, no.  He was a neat person.  Meticulous really.  There would just be a folder of notes and an orderly stack of papers.  Easy to move.”

     Jed told me about “Drat! The Cat!”, a musical Ira Levin wrote.

     “He wrote the play, the lyrics, and he actually wrote the music too. They didn’t use that music though.  They advised him work with a musician for the melodies.  His were good though.  Very good.  My father played some of his songs for us in the on the piano.  We liked it.

    “Elliott Gould was in Drat! The Cat!  He was married to Barbra Streisand.  She recorded one of my father’s songs – “He Touched Me” – maybe as a way to help promote the play Gould was in at the time.   The song was a big hit lasting a lot longer than the play ran.

     “Such a charming play.  Too bad it flopped.”

     It flopped?

     “The New York Times went on strike just as the musical opened.  It was a disaster. The review wasn’t printed.  Wasn’t read.  No one knew about it.  The play closed early.

     “It’s just a matter of time, though, before someone puts it on again.  I’m surprised it hasn’t already happened. It was such a good musical.”

    Some time afterwards, the music for He Touched Me was used as background to a perfume ad.  “It was funny,” said Jed, “to hear it come on the TV.  ‘There’s Dad’s song’ we’d say.”

     What did Jed get from his father, Ira?

     “I really treasure his influence on me.

     “I value those interests of his that he passed on to me.  Movies – he loved movies.  The original King Kong was his favorite.  He was pretty clear about that.  That’s one of my favorites too.   I have his same general taste in books.  We both like Dracula and Sherlock Holmes and Poe.  Certain things I read make me think of him.

     “I remember him best when I am reading something we both liked.”

YouTube snippet from Deathtrap 2010 movie – British version

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdW7Aft5MSI&noredirect=1

YouTube excerpt from 1982 Death Trap with Christopher Reeve

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrGqLW-ySj4

IMDb

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083806/

about the Roman Polanski movie, Rosemary’s Baby, based on Ira Levin’s novel

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063522/

Guide to Drat! The Cat!

http://www.guidetomusicaltheatre.com/shows_d/dratcat.htm

Ira Levin bio

http://www.biography.com/people/ira-levin-20703551