Jazz June (Review)

For reasons that I cannot explain, I once found myself in the old Brooklyn Heights branch of the public library, leafing through the 1970s Manhattan Telephone Directory.

There they all were, the grocery stores – the A&P, Grand Union – restaurants -- Cafe Heidelberg, Kleine Konditori -- and clothing shops – Gee-The-Kids-Need-Clothes, Melnikoff’s -- of my childhood.

Reading Clifford Thompson’s latest essay collection – Jazz June – brought me back to that summer afternoon at the library where I stepped back in time, revisiting a previous life, in a neighborhood I no longer lived in, with a family now splintered by age and mortality.

“It was easy to feel,” Thompson writes, “in those moments of contentment, that life would remain as it was: that my brothers and sisters would stay under my parents roof, that my parents themselves would both remain alive and in that house, going to work and reading the paper and drinking instant coffee, that I would be in the capable hands of my whole family until…well, until a time I couldn’t imagine.”

As I found one childhood gem after another in the telephone directory, I pictured my parents, like Thompson’s, in our Yorkville apartment, my father in his armchair reading The New York Times, while his instant coffee kept him company on the side table, and my mother, knitting while sitting on the living room sofa.

One of Thompson’s many talents – he illustrated the cover of the collection – is his ability to reflect on the small moments, the ones most people miss, in breathtaking language. In The Moon, The World, The DreamThompson meditates on his Washington, DC childhood:

“In my memory this sleepiness was at its sweetest in the spring and summer, when the front doors of houses up and down my street were routinely left open to let the breeze it, when, as darkness came, people rocked on metal gliders on their small porches, when sounds were mostly of cicadas whirring and crickets chirping and the occasional car passing with a lazy roar up the street, when the only other movement was of moths floating near the yellow glow of the streetlamps.”

Such lyricism, especially in reflecting on childhood, is not easily found these days and Thompson here evokes a certain type of writer – Horton Foote and Harper Lee come to mind – whose storytelling abilities are slow, measured, and perfectly paced. That these writers are Southern and Washington was once considered part of the South, is not lost here.

Yet Thompson is hilarious. Here he is reflecting on his ability as a word nerd and complete inability to navigate directions:

“I am capable…of spotting a dangling modifier…but if you need a lift to the airport, call Lyft, not me: I have what I am convinced will be diagnosed in the future as a disability…which is not a bad sense of direction but a sense of misdirection…My cousin…once compared me to a ‘homing pigeon on LSD.’ ”

The collection follows Thompson from childhood through late middle age, while tracing his evolution as a writer. In adolescence his discovery of comics and their use of words is beautifully traced in Ming Yang Fu, Or Seeking Words at Age Thirteen:

“There were the human failings of the characters, and there was also the power…of Stan Lee’s writing. And there was the other irony. The words that so often failed me in my daily life – failed me with girls, with friends, with my own mother…these words made up so much of what I embraced in comics.” Indeed, this is where Thompson’s taps into the writer’s universality: words are “a way of being in the world.”

In addition to comic strips what places this collection particularly in the mid-to-late 20th century is Thompson’s television references to “the programs I had actively viewed or had on in the background while I did my homework or played with my toys”. No moment is more absurd – or familiar, as I might have bought this book -- than the image of Thompson on a late night New Orlean’s-bound bus, reading The Complete Directory to Prime Time TV Shows, 1946-Present.

Time in Thompson’s collection is a theme that returns over and over. There is the passage of time, in terms of growing up and crossing the river into adulthood, but there is also the use of time and Thompson’s dogged determination to become a writer, while marrying, having children, and holding down day jobs that are less than dreamy.

When I first met Thompson – I had written an article that he edited – he discussed his first novel and how he wrote it for one hour a day before work. I was struck by his level of self-discipline – it reminded me of my father, a classical pianist who, into his late 80s, practiced for one hour every morning – and the fact that a working New Yorker who was married and raising a family managed to write a novel in the most distracting and expensive city in the world.

There is one question Thompson poses – “What is a personal essayist if not self-obsessed?” – that I challenge. While there are many non-fiction writers who are only concerned with themselves on the page, I don’t think Thompson is one of them.

His work, rather, is about reflection and in this beautiful collection he has dared to make sense of the world and his place in it with courage and, above all, conviction.

 

The List: Part Six

Joe

At Purchase I studied drama. Specifically plays.

While I read many a 19th century novel, it was the structure of a play that I learned inside and out. At the feet of the master: Professor Joe Stockdale.

Everything I ever learned about – really everything – I learned from Joe.

It took years to finally get it all down: What’s Your Problem?

The List: Part Five

Careless People

High school was all about the journey. Every book represented what Joseph Campbell referred to as the Hero’s Journey.

The list included The Odyssey, Animal Farm, Hamlet, Of Mice and Men, Lord of the Flies, Invisible Man, Oedipus Rex, Julius Caesar, and Native Son. A highlight of this era was my stint as stage manager on a production of As You Like It, which brought Shakespeare’s language to life

Then there was Gatsby.

There’s something about it -- I just read it for the fourth time since ninth grade -- and what stuns me is that it never disappoints.

Gatsby is such a short work, clocking in at 182 pages, and it reads like a novella. I am a huge fan of this form, and in fact my novel, One Way to Whitefish, began life as one. Until friends convinced me I was wrong.

What is extraordinary about Gatsby is what Fitzgerald manages to pack in those pages. For one thing, the period of time is rather short – one summer – and therefore lends itself to the kind of casual storytelling one might have with a friend.

In addition, Nick’s insider-yet-outside-observer narration, as opposed to a third-person perspective, gives an added storytelling feature to the narrative: “I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled…”

Fitzgerald’s gift for language, what one scholar referred to as his “breathtaking lyricism” is what captivates me. As scholar James L. W. West III writes: “I was struck anew by the beauty of the language in the novel. Fitzgerald had a pitch-perfect ear. Some of those passages—Daisy and Jordan floating on the sofa, Nick woozy with drink in Myrtle’s apartment, Gatsby smiling down on his guests—these are unforgettable.”

In the end, I find Gatsby to be a lush, all-encompassing sensory experience. Why, for example, do I keep returning to the shirt scene over and over? Perhaps it is because Nick’s view of Gatsby’s unattainable world is (just as Gatsby’s view of Daisy’s is, when he first meets her) measured in suits, dresses, marble and music. Consider the scene when teatime is over and Gatsby tells Nick “I want you and Daisy to come over to my house…I’d like to show her around.” Highlights of the tour include:

“Instead of taking the short cut along the Sound we went down to the road and entered by the big postern. With enchanting murmurs Daisy admired this aspect or that of the feudal silhouette against the sky…the frothy odor of…pale gold kiss-me-at-the-gate. It was strange to reach the marble steps and find no stir of bright dresses in and out the door and hear no sound but bird voices in the trees…”

and

“…he opened for us two hulking patent cabinets which held his massed suits and dressing gowns and ties, and his shirts piled like bricks in stacks a dozen high…he took out a pile of shirts and began throwing them one by one before us, shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel which lost their folds as they fell and covered the table in many-colored disarray. While we admired he brought more and the soft rich heap mounted higher — shirts with stripes and scrolls and plaids in coral and apple green and lavender and faint orange with monograms of Indian blue. Suddenly with a strained sound Daisy bent her head into the shirts and began to cry stormily. They’re such beautiful shirts,” she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. “It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such — such beautiful shirts before.”

I loved listening to The Great Gatsby at 100, an extraordinary exploration of Fitzgerald’s “complex view of money and class” by Professor Sheila Liming, of Champlain College. I highly recommend it.

What I'm Working On This Fall

The Common App Essay

The college application season is in full swing, and my students have been hard at work, organizing their ideas, writing first drafts, and polishing their finished products. For some of them, it’s been months, if we began the process in June.

 Then the task was long and languorous. We met during the day, we had energy, and lots of ideas flowed. If we started in the fall, we had school schedules and exhaustion to contend with. Either way, these students are dedicated to writing the best personal statements they can, utilizing a four-step method: Prewriting, Drafting, Editing, and Proofreading.

 In Prewriting, the student and I review the six Common App prompts, and they choose three possibilities, eventually narrowing them down to one. In Drafting, we outline the three ideas they’ll want to cover, in addition to their introduction and conclusion. Sentence construction does not begin until the student has a solid outline. Editing takes place after the first draft has been written and it is ready to be polished into a final product. A final Proofread makes sure all spelling, grammar, and punctuation is correct.

The collaborative nature of this work is crucial in order to make sure the student has organized their thoughts before sentence construction begins. Why? Because we are on a time frame, deadlines need to be met, and students who struggle with writing often draft without a plan, which is like baking a cake without a recipe. Without the all-important steps, the final product may not turn out right. Another reason a plan is effective is that it prevents a laborious editing phase, which takes tremendous time.

 Some of the most challenging prompts are the Supplementals, where each college asks their own Why-Do-You-Want-to-Attend ___? question which is broad in nature, and best answered with specifics. This isn’t always easy, and sometimes students can’t say why a certain school is on their list. Conversations take place and, once more, I make sure the student knows exactly what they’ll discuss before they begin sentence construction. Other applications I’ve worked on this fall are the U.S. Fulbright, which limits answers to 6,000 characters, or approximately 1,000 words, a challenge that requires students to plan carefully.

 Ultimately, these student collaborations are delightful, leading to rich conversations, that produce the best personal statements possible.

The List: Part Four

The Might of White

How could I have omitted the most necessary title from Mr. Shapiro’s Most Excellent Eighth Grade English List?

While all of the books on the list were works of fiction, The Elements of Style represented the first time I discovered the perfect non-fiction title. That it was about grammar and editing should tell you a lot. I even wrote a piece in Object Essays called Book on the grammar textbook Mr. Shapiro assigned.

Of course, I had read E.B. White’s fiction, in the form of Stuart Little and Charlotte’s Web, and could not have delighted more in his charming animal tales. That they were pared with the heartbreakingly beautiful illustrations of the great Garth Williams is a testament to what was known as the Golden Age of children’s publishing.

The Elements of Style took a subject that few were fond of and made it so simple and somehow humorous that it was irresistible. I believe I own four copies. It even gets honorable mention in my forthcoming book for struggling writers: “The loyalty that Strunk and White devotees displayed for this slim elegant volume can know no better example than a friend’s late mother, who kept a copy in her car, reaching for it anytime she had a few moments to spare before an appointment.”

And there is no question that my own writing style, always striving for the “clear and clean”, owes everything to the three powerhouses of this reading era: White, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald (who I’ll discuss next week).

The List: Part Three

When I think of adolescent reading, I remember lying around on a lazy hazy late summer day and devouring something I shouldn’t have, like Sybil, by Flora Rheta Schreiber. Talk about wrecking the mood. This was the era of fascination with the adult world – after all isn’t adolescence about opening that door to an alter universe, like the one in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe?

Now, that the door was opened the truth came crashing in: the world could be a terrible place, unleashing brutal behaviors at the family, community, and national level.

Thank goodness for the school reading list, which at least prepared me, in an age-appropriate way, for what was to come. There’s one, which I refer to regularly, which was the official transition to a lifetime of reading: Mr. Shapiro’s Most Excellent Eighth Grade English:

Welcome to the Monkey House (Kurt Vonnegut)

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou)

To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)

The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)

A Separate Peace (John Knowles)

Flowers for Algernon (Daniel Keyes)

Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck)

The Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway)

I have thought about these multi-genre books repeatedly and remember most of them, each of which was life-changing in its own way. I’ve even incorporated two of them into my own fiction, an example, if there ever was one, of “to be a better writer you need to be a better reader.”

The List: Part Two

Later Childhood

One of the absolute joys of chapter books is the independence you’ve gained. You can read. On your own. And your parents, though they might miss the snuggle at bedtime, are free from the tyranny of the inevitable “read it again!” that so defines the life of the pre-literate child.

Another America opened up when our teacher at the Rudolf Steiner School, Barbara Palesty, read us The Little House in the Big Woods. No longer in 1970s New York – picture dirty streets and graffiti-covered subways – I was transported to 1870s Wisconsin, and the world of a working family – everyone did their share – as they planted, harvested, then ate all their own food. A particular sense memory was the description of a holiday breakfast – bacon, coffee, and griddle cakes that Ma made into “pancake men” – that was my introduction to writing about food. I was also enamored of the long cotton prairie dresses Laura and Mary wore. So much better than the pleated polyester mini-skirts of the current day.

Mrs. Palesty may have read a few of the books, or the whole series – I’m not quite sure – but my own children read each and every one. And we still discuss them. When winter gets intense, I think of Laura, feeling “dull and stupid”; in my case, though, I have heat and enough food. In hers, there was none, and food was reduced to plain bread because massive snow drifts had stopped the supply trains from running.

Other notables from this era include The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett, about an orphan and her adventures in an English garden, and Mandy, written by one Julie Andrews Edwards, about another orphan in a similar setting. I loved identifying the back cover black-and-white photo of the author as the one and only Maria Von Trapp from the bursting-with-color Sound of Music.

A special mention goes to The Cricket in Times Square, a small masterpiece by George Selden, with illustrations by the glorious Garth Williams, he of Little House books fame. For a New York child, nothing could be more delightful than the tale of Chester Cricket of Connecticut, adopted by Mario, the son of Mama and Papa Bellini, who run a newsstand in the Times Square subway station. It seems Chester has found his way to the Bellinis via the picnic basket of some day trippers to the country. “What ensues is an altogether captivating spin on the city mouse/country mouse story, as Chester adjusts to the bustle of the big city. Despite the cricket's comfortable matchbox bed (with Kleenex sheets); the fancy, seven-tiered pagoda cricket cage from Sai Fong's novelty shop; tasty mulberry leaves; the jolly company of Tucker Mouse and Harry Cat; and even his new-found fame as "the most famous musician in New York City," Chester begins to miss his peaceful life in the Connecticut countryside.” -- Goodreads

And then there is From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, a fantastic tale of running away to the perfect setting. For Claudia and her little brother, said setting is the Metropolitan Museum of Art. How they board a train from — again —Connecticut, manage an overnight stay in the museum, and come in contact with one Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, is the stuff of dreams. Who wouldn’t want a night at the museum? I loved this book and apparently so did many others. It won the Newberry Medal in 1967 and was a Time Magazine Best YA Book of All Time (2021).

But what about Nancy? As in Drew. I knew I was a reader when I devoured one book after another and prided myself on eventually attaining the whole series. I still have it. In addition to the satisfaction of acquisition -- children are acquisitive by nature -- there was an addictive quality to the Nancy Drews that I got swept up into. Get lost in one tale, finish, move on to the next. Then look at how nice they look on your shelf.

The small army of writers, under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene, was onto something – formulaic writing -- when they created the characters, setting, and dialogue of Nancy’s girl world, where adventures and independence ruled the day.

My favorite Nancy Drew story is not one written by the Keene team, but told by a dear friend: She asked for one for her birthday, and a backpack arrived with the collection inside. “Best birthday gift ever!” she said.

Next week, the paperbacks of adolescence.

 

 

The List

Well, an approximation of the list of books I can remember reading. And, of course, enjoying.

Let’s start with Phase One: Childhood.

My Dolly and Me (Patricia Scarry, Eloise Wilkin)

A delightful Wonder Book with lovely illustrations by Eloise Wilkin about a little girl who takes her doll everywhere she goes. I wanted desperately to be transported to her Victorian house, with its sweet front porch and rolling lawn. Written by the wife of Richard Scarry.

Mr. Pine’s Mixed Up Signs & Mr. Pine’s Purple House (Leonard Kessler)

A hilarious tale about what happens when the town sign maker misplaces his glasses. With humorous illustrations and an engaging, easy-to-read style that automatically made me want more. Luckily, there was Mr. Pine’s Purple House, which urged non-conformity, in the guise of one purple house on a block of many other colors.

Billy Brown Makes Something Grand (Tamara Kitt)

If there is one book that defines my early childhood, it is Billy Brown, who insists he will make his mother a birthday cake. Chaos ensues when he locks mom out of the kitchen and throws in everything but the sink, including – almost – the family cat. Like the Mr. Pine books, Billy Brown was an easy reader that used rhyming and word repetition to help children learn basic literacy skills. My father and I could recite lines from Billy Brown years after I’d stopped reading it.

And then Peanuts. I read the books, I had a stuffed Snoopy, and years later used said Snoopy as a teaching tool. Small children loved when I justified a classroom rule because “Snoopy says so.” As a child, my mother was horrified that I was reading Peanuts, not the classics. My argument has always been that I was reading so it didn’t matter. And I grew up and read the classics, as well.

A word about Richard Scarry and the Ramona books.

I somehow missed the Richard Scarry books when I was little, but when they entered the lives of my own children I could not get enough. Neither could they. Their favorite activity was identifying all the produce in the market in The Best Word Book Ever. This became a favorite activity in my classroom, as well.

And Ramona.

What can I say? Except that we read all the books, and listened to all the tapes where Stockard Channing brilliantly did all the voices in Ramona’s world. Whole car trips were spent laughing hysterically over Ramona’s antics, including the one where she sabotages her sister’s birthday cake by throwing her doll in the oven, after reading Hansel and Gretel.

Next week, the chapter books.

Doing the Math

Over lunch the other day a friend posed the following problem: “I need to read 50 books a year.”

“One per week, roughly,” I responded.

“That’s right,” he said.

“But,” I countered, “all books are not equal. A Dickens and a Didion are different. Are you really going to finish a long book in a short week?"

“Exactly!” He laughed.

In fact, we both laughed, both at ourselves and at the luxury of having such problems in a world gone mad. Still, what a delight to discuss the mathematical challenge of immersing oneself in the world of books, and how to take the hands of all the authors who want to tell their stories.

This is what I call a crossroads moment, where several events take place that bear further examination in order to gain better understanding.

First, another friend recently challenged me to write a list of all the books I’ve read. More on this later.

Second, as I wrote about recently, I’ve changed my own reading habits, based on the season – summer – and the fact that I was spread too thin in a post-modern dilemma of too much information, yet not enough concentration.

Finally, several articles in the news have discussed not only our changing reading habits but the demise of critical thinking, as a result of defunding education and turning schools into testing centers. Technology, often the monster blamed for this dilemma, is apparently only a distraction, and not the root cause of the problem.

Let’s start with math.

In July, I began the month by reading The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, and The Girls of Slender Means, by Muriel Spark, whose novels are short, yet exquisite in their ability to create setting, character and dialogue, through thought- provoking language. 

I read both in one week, thereby increasing my ability to take on more volumes in July. I did not, I might add, read Dickens, an endeavor that last year took months.

Yet another friend once told me he read the three volumes of Proust – Remembrance of Things Past – in one summer. Math, once more. One season.

For the moment, then, let us agree that the dilemma of how many books read in one year must be based on a time factor of how much one can read in one day, week, or month. Perhaps the challenge is to rewrite the equation in order to accommodate a reality check.

Next week, the list.

Well, an approximation of the books I can remember reading.

And, of course, enjoying.

One at a Time

The week in writing was really the month in reading.

For some time now, I’ve noticed I am reading more but processing less. An article for work, a book for pleasure, a book on tape for walking.

It was too much.

“I only read one book at a time,” several friends told me.

So, for the month of July, I tried an experiment. I read one book until I finished it.

And, not surprisingly, I was so much more satisfied. I retained more of what I read, connected with one writing style, and only exposed myself to one genre at a time.

I also felt calmer, less fractured, and more invested in the work of the writer I was reading.

And I finished multiple books. It’s all good…


Odd Job

Friday Field Trip. In the weeds.

“Nature had come into her own again and, little by little, in her stealthy, insidious way had encroached upon the drive with long, tenacious fingers. The woods, always a menace even in the past, had triumphed in the end.” – Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

The first time I read these words I was in high school. Eventually I’d write a master’s thesis on Rebecca. However, I wasn’t yet in the weeds.

The thing about gardening is wanting to do the work. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t. I got my first job at age ten and I’ve been working ever since. Every odd job there is, I’ve done it. Even packaging false eyelashes.

But gardening is its own reward because you are always in a race against weather, time, or weeds. Sometimes the reward is a cleaned-up bed. Sometimes it’s a spring bloom.

I often find myself doing more weeding – maintenance – than planting. This seems to be the story of my life, making order out of chaos, or battling the natural monsters that are stealthy and insidious and have “long, tenacious fingers”.

The father of a dear friend just passed, and I grew up watching him work on his house and garden. What a work role model he was. He taught me the value of work, and the satisfaction of a day’s job done.

Work is sometimes rewarding and sometimes it is odd. As when you don’t tend to the garden after a season of rain. All your previous work is gone. That’s when you, as Irving Berlin wrote, “pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again.”

Happy Fourth of July.

Going Public

Friday Field Trip: The gorgeous Goods for the Study.

Where does one even begin? Papers and cards and those pens. Oh my.  

I’d been planning this Upper West Side trip for several weeks, in order to discuss teaching a cursive handwriting workshop there. I’d met the manager of the Rockefeller Center location of the store and we had a great conversation about what I call the “hunger for the analog arts”. She delivered some good news: “I sell fountain pens all day long.”

Wow.

Years ago, I was in another store, Housing Works, and I signed a paper credit card slip. “Your signature!” the clerk said. “You should teach handwriting.”

I wrote about this scene in my Object Essay Pen. The upshot was that, at the time, I didn’t think it was possible. My reasoning? I didn’t have the training, it takes a lot of time, and simply having the skill myself was not a basis for teaching it.

Years went by. Without my even mentioning it, the cursive conversation would come up with outraged parents. Why weren’t their children learning this crucial skill?

I started thinking about it. What’s the worst that could happen? I wouldn’t be good at it and I’d drop the whole idea.

In a New York Times article about the documentary Turn Every Page, Robert Gottlieb refers to the idea of “…making public your own enthusiasm.”

I’ve now taught at least five cursive workshops at the New York Public Library and Artist & Craftsman and the only reason for their success is my enthusiasm. I am passionate about the subject matter and love sharing it with anyone who will listen. It’s certainly not because I taught cursive in the classroom for years. That would help but, I happily learned, was not a precursor for making it public.

The workshops follow a format: an introduction to the subject and the research (which states still teach it, which might soon return; how the mind processes information better when we write by hand; the importance of cursive for speed, as well as the ability to read historical documents). Then, we do arm, wrist, and hand exercises. Next, we dive in and start working with pen, pencils, and tracing sheets. Finally, we work on a letter to a friend or family member. The takeaway? An inexpensive Pilot fountain pen. Everyone loves some swag.

I have the Rudolf Steiner School to thank for this. I learned curisve in third grade and have never stopped. I wrote about it here.

Oh, and another thing. My dad, that Bronx boy I mentioned last week, had perfect Palmer penmanship. He’d be thrilled I was teaching cursive.

Breaking Bread in the Bronx

New York is so big. Then there’s the Bronx.

My late dad grew up there. Yesterday was his birthday.

This is a borough I know nothing about. Oh, I’ve been to the zoo and the Botanic Garden. But that’s different.

To get an authentic feeling about a place you need to walk its streets, see its people, and, most of all, eat its food.

Which is why I boarded the D train Friday bound for Arthur Avenue. I’d always wanted to go. 

This part of the Bronx is old school, a New York I remember from childhood, when we lived in Queens. Pre-war apartment buildings, an occasional clapboard house, open windows.

When I got to the Arthur Avenue Retail Market, I found Mike’s Deli and the counter women who were very enthusiastic when asked about the best chicken sandwich they could recommend. A cutlet with fresh mozzarella and roasted peppers? I was in! Add a cappuccino, which I sipped while I ate and listened to a couple of gents speaking in Italian next to me. I could not believe how easily I’d discovered my new happy place.

Oh, did I mention how Mike gave me a lesson in how to “bathe” my mozzarella?

After, I walked the avenue and bought a pound of espresso, as well as chocolate from Piemonte at Cerini Coffee and Gifts, and breads with prosciutto and olives at Addeo Bakers. Last stop was Madonia Brothers Bakery for chocolate lace Florentine cookies. My bag was brimming. I had to cut myself off so I could haul the load home.

On the way to the subway, a mother and small child were dancing to music at an outdoor barbeque.

I love these summer days, when I get to be a tourist in my hometown.

Happy Birthday Dad. I salute your roots.

A Child of the Subway

One of the delightful parts of writing is research.

For my current short story collection, a character and his girl board a subway for a beach day at Coney Island.

However, it’s the 1950s and New York City subways didn’t have letters. What to do?

Too much information on the web? Always go to the source. Which is how I found myself on a hot afternoon descending the stairs to the cool underground of the New York Transit Museum.

Not only did I have a delightful conversation with an employee, but he was kind enough to refer me to the research team that supports folks like myself.

“Oh,” I mentioned before leaving, “I can’t tell you how happy your promo video made me.”

 Children learning about the subways? And buses? I was a child of the subway. Still am.

Yes indeed, doing research is delightful.

The City Lives of Others

There’s a certain summer sound you rarely hear in New York. 

When I was a kid, you heard it all the time. Someone was playing a musical instrument, heard through an open window.

Often it would be from across a courtyard; it might be a piano, or saxophone. Sometimes it would be vocals, practiced by an opera singer. When I moved to my current home it was a performer of show tunes.

Rear Window is a masterpiece of certain summer sounds, as among other things you hear the composer practicing on his upright piano. The sounds are, of course, muted because they are not in the room with wheelchair-confined James Stewart, but what Hitchcock does brilliantly is capture the city lives of others, in an era before air conditioners, when you could hear the birds and the tinkling of a piano, as I did the other day while walking to the subway.

Sometimes summer sounds still survive.

Field Trip

In a short sorry I’m writing a character walks along Greenwich Avenue and spots a rooftop water tank.

A conversion ensues with his girl about a childhood memory.

I recently visited the location to determine where the building with said tank would be. Currently such a building does not exist.

I stood. I looked. I argued with myself. Then I remembered. It’s fiction. I can write anything I want.

That’s the beauty of the form. The ability to take liberties.

It’s all in the details

The Details of Yesteryear

To be a better writer you need to be a better reader. I’d add, you also need to be a great observer.

On the way to a downtown appointment, I noticed a building, the kind of old-school tenement you now notice mainly when it’s gone, its hand-laid brick and carvings replaced by machine-made steel.

One such building in Chinatown had open windows, some with books lined up across the sills. There were small screens I haven’t seen in years.

But it was the fluorescent lighting, as well as a fan, in a small produce store that captured the essence of old-school New York.

Nothing fancy here, just the kind of yesteryear details a writer notices when they look up.

A Winner

It’s been a good week. We all need one from time to time.

The good ones motivate us, urge us forward, remind us why we do what we do.

First, I heard from an online journal that picked up my essay, Black and White, one which I’ve been trying to place for some time.

Then, I taught another cursive handwriting workshop at Artist & Craftsman, Park Slope. I had a fabulous group of students, and we practiced the alphabet, looked at handwriting samples, and wrote letters. I loved every minute of it. Can’t wait to teach the next one.

Finally, I stopped by Troubled Sleep Books, Park Slope. “You’re just in time,” the clerk said. “I just sold the last copy of your novel!”


 

Connecting on the Q Train

One never knows where one will find it.

I was reading the paper, trying to decide which article I could stomach, when a rich glorious voice emerged from behind me, singing Nat King Cole’s Unforgettable.

A tall man of a certain age walked forward, serenading his subway riders, as I reached into my change purse and produced two sad dollars.

“Thank you so much,” the man responded, as I handed him the folded-up bills.

“This simply is not enough,” I answered, “for a voice as glorious as yours.”

The man described his conversation with God this morning and his struggle to get up and leave the house.

“But you came out and shared your gift with us,” I said.

The singer, another passenger, and I looked at each other, clearly grateful that we could all encounter joy for a moment on the Q train.

I was reminded of the epigraph from E.M. Forster’s Howards End: “Only connect!”