The acerbic pianist

I took a bushel of admittedly undesirable coffee-table books of the American West purchased at auction to Half Price Books. They offered one dollar. I politely demurred and dragged the lot uphill to the shabby, smelly Twice Told Tales where I was offered fourteen dollars credit. It took an impossibly long time to find anything remotely readable in the shop. They have either the worst instincts or the worst luck possible. Eventually I unearthed a copy of Claude-Edmonde Magny's "The Age of The American Novel: The Film Aesthetic of Fiction Between the Two Wars" and a biography of Oscar Levant, the dog-faced cohort, from which the following anecdotes are culled:
It was William Goetz, an executive at 20th Century-Fox who finally fired Levant. Goetz, who had married one of Louis B. Mayer's daughters and so owed his job to his father-in-law had harbored a grudge against Levant ever since Levant had one-upped him in a battle of insults at a Hollywood party. Goetz had snidely asked Levant "Why don't you play us a medley of your hit?" referring to Levant's one hit song.
"Why don't you play us a medley of your father-in-law?" Levant responded.
and
The perennial bachelor Moss Hart entered a room with Edith Atwater on his arm. "Ah, here comes Moss Hart and the future Miss Atwater," Levant said.
and
After playing his moving, elegiac composition dedicated to his late friend George Gershwin, Levant's mother comments, "You call THAT a dirge?"

What progress I'm making!

The next batch:

An obituary of the painter Balthus (Balthasar Klossowski) the maestro of the hiked skirt, the akimbo legs and the bared pudendum. Illustrations accompanying are by the decedent.

An article on 200 Afghani refugees wandering the mountainous wilderness: During the night the people on the outer edges of the sleeping pile rotated inward, and the people in the middle were spun outward. In this way no one froze to death.

An incisive description by Kevin Kelly of the way recording technology influenced the shape of music:
There is no music made today that has not been shaped by the fact of recording and duplication. In fact, the ability to copy music has been deeply disruptive ever since the invention of the gramophone. When John D. Smoot, an engineer for the European company Odeon, carted primitive recording equipment to the Indonesian archipelago in 1904 to record the gamelan orchestras, local musicians were perplexed. Why copy a performance? The popular local tunes that circulated in their villages had a half-life of a few weeks. Why would anyone want to listen to a stale rendition of an obsolete piece when it was so easy to get fresh music?
As phonographs spread throughout the world, they had a surprising effect: folk tunes, which had always been malleable, changing with each performer and in each performance, were transformed by the advent of recording into fixed songs that could be endlessly and exactly repeated. Music became shorter, more melodic and more precise.
Early equipment could make recordings that contained no more than four and a half minutes, so musicians truncated old works to fit and created new music abbreviated to adapt to the phonograph. Because the first sound recordings were of unamplified music, recording emphasized the loud sounds of singers and de-emphasized quiet instrumentals. The musicologist Timothy Day notes that once pianists began recording they tried, for the first time, to ''distinguish carefully between every quaver and semiquaver -- eighth note and sixteenth note -- throughout the piece.'' Musicians played the way technology listened. When the legendary recordist Frederick Gaisberg arrived in Calcutta in 1902, only two decades after the phonograph was invented, he found that Indian musicians were already learning to imitate recorded music and lamented that there was ''no traditional music left to record.''
As the technologies of reproduction bloomed in the last century, consumerism boomed. What consumers consumed -- whether in the form of a book, a CD or a can of Coke -- were exact copies. The ability to make copies in mind-boggling quantities, ceaselessly and perfectly, was the chief ingredient of mass culture. Music rapidly adapted to the culture of the copy. Reproductions were made exact, while copies were multiplied vigorously. Music lived in its constant reproduction

A marvelous and important article on the authenticity of 20th century "antiques":

The market for modernist furniture, once young, fun and inexpensive, is superheating. But it's also getting uncomfortably hot. As Richard Wright, a co-owner of Wright, a Chicago auction house that specializes in modernism, put it, now that big money is involved, ''people have the incentive to cheat.''
As is advisable with fine 18th-century furniture, an unspoken rule has become advisable with modern design: let the buyer beware.
Authenticity, the issue that defines mature antiques markets, is being called into question as objects by the most fashionable names in the business, like Charlotte Perriand, Pierre Chareau and Jean Prouvé, become the newest blue chips of decorative arts. As pieces are rebuilt, repainted, reproduced and newly assembled, or as hybrids of new and old come to market, assumptions about what is original or real are being redefined as rapidly as the prices.
Does refurbishment respect or disguise a designer's intentions? Shortly before the Christie's sale, Ms. Grajales explained that for each of her clients, authenticity was very personal. For some, only a piece without restoration, even if its condition was poor, would carry rarity and value, as is true for traditional antiques. For others, a reconditioned piece, with obvious work, recalled and revalidated the strength of the design.
That Prouvé cabinet, bright red and factory-fresh-looking, in its 50's and still sexy? Read the condition report. It's had more work than Catherine Deneuve. But hey, the loft needs a star for the dining room wall. Would Prouvé be proud?
James Zemaitis, the head of 20th-century design at Sotheby's, which sold the cabinet described above last Wednesday for $78,000 (above its estimate of $30,000 to $50,000), said he thought that modern furniture buyers were savvy and aware of distinctions in condition, which differ by designer.
''If you're seduced by the aura of Prouvé or Perriand, you have to accept the prevailing market realities of condition,'' Mr. Zemaitis said. ''The entire Prouvé market is built on things being refinished and rebuilt. I don't think collectors are being duped. They're completely understanding of this.''



The entire article is here:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D05E2DB163BF935A25755C0A9639C8B63

Sargent's tots

I love John Singer Sargent

Kings, Devils, Chimps, and Laureates

Pictured left: Vice-President of the United States William Rufus DeVane King




More articles from the NYT:

*******The Vatican issues a revised rite of Exorcism: It cautions exorcists "must not consider people to be vexed by demons" when they are merely annoying. A Vatican bureaucrat said that demonic possession can be recognized by several criteria including: speaking an unknown language, sudden enormous strength and the disclosure of unknown occurrences. The Devil, he stressed, is a real and active entity and his existence is a cornerstone of Catholicism.
*******On 3-19-99 as Germany prepares to mark the 250th annniversary of the birth of Goethe, an article on the secret exhumation in 1970 of his remains by East German scientists. What flesh still clung to him was macerated from his bones which were cleaned and strengthened before his laurel wreath was polished and reattached to his cranium and his body re-interred in the crypt in Weimar.
******An article on the discovery of the AIDS virus in African chimpanzees.
******An article on the discovery that Rigoberto Menchu, the Guatemalan Nobel Peace Prize winner lied about much of her biography. She maintains, for instance, that her brother Felipe died from starvation. He denies this.
******A peculiar local matter about an African-American King County (Seattle) Council member, Larry Gossett, proposing that the county include an image of Dr. Martin Luther King with every designation. Obviously, no one has the temerity to object, but there is also little enthusiasm.
King County was named in 1852 for William Rufus DeVane King, an Alabama Senator who was the Vice-President Elect at the time. The county to the south of King was named after Pierce, the President-Elect. King was ill with tuberculosis and died six months after being sworn into office. (His swearing-in was held in Cuba.) He was never replaced by President Franklin Pierce. Aside from his sickliness he was widely disparaged for some perceived unmanliness and his close friendship with bachelor Senator James Buchanan was ridiculed. King was also unmarried.
As Steve Tally writes in "Bland Ambition" a history of the Vice-Presidency: "King did nothing to dispel the stereotype of the effeminate homosexual. He was a flowing dandy who favored silk scarves, brilliant stickpins, and glittery accoutrements. he continued to wear powdered wigs years after they passed from fashion. King's political peers did not view his esoteric air with quiet tolerance. Andrew Jackson, who had a manly reputation as the winner of numerous duels. referred to King as Miss Nancy. Aaron Brown, a senator from Tennessee gave King the nickname Miss Fancy."
Of course, no one could use King's own qualities to defend leaving the County name alone in 1985 when the Council, by a single vote passed some sort of resolution instructing residents that the county name, crafted in 1852, should be considered to signify a tribute to Martin Luther King Jr.. Problematically, Vice-President King was a slave-holder as was George Washington.
Though the black population hovered around 5% in King County, no one seemed to begrudge honoring this truly significant role model with the name re-rooting, especially as the frightening and depressing traffic corridor which was renamed Martin Luther King Boulevard has come to look more like a slander than a tribute. As existing names are each a lesson in history whether they continue to have immediate recognition or not, I have a innate distrust of this kind of rebranding. Frankly it showed enormous ingenuity to find another foothold on the late civil rights leader.

By the way, when Buchanan was made President, succeeding Pierce, he selected the handsome John Cabell Breckinridge as his Veep. Breckinridge was an epic mess, but the street and mall in Little Rock are kind of nice.

New portrait

The fierce bidding at the auction did not allow many things to percolate down to my budget. This lovely portrait of a gentleman in a stiff collar was the only thing I was able to get at auction- fortunately it was my favorite piece and I would have stayed in the bidding beyond a reasonable price. Not signed, as far as I can see in the murk, but written on the stretcher bar is "Alan Beeton" who was a British artist, active in the 1920's, died in the war years, '42 or thereabouts. He has work in the Tate. Our art specialist believed this to be a portrait OF Beeton, possibly by Ambrose Patterson, possibly just once belonging to him. I thought I might rearrange my crowded mantle to put him there.
Here, also along with my mantle, are photos of the carousel bull, the Russian sailor boy and the delirium tremens.

Pseudo-randomness

In the second batch of sere, yellowed piles of flammable information ripped from the New York Times, I was surprised to find an article on the creation of deliberately random numbers. Random numbers naturally do not behave as if they believed they were random numbers. They are just as imprecatory as bank balances. I'd rather not know how one arrives at numbers, nor watch an autopsy. Numbers have far too much power and if you ask me, they can go screw themselves.

******"A sociologist or a statistician surveying a random sample of the public, a biologist analyzing the mercurial spread of a disease or the growth of a population, a psychologist studying whether an avowed clairvoyant can guess the identities of hidden cards with a success rate better than chance -- all need random numbers to calculate the uncertain outcomes of processes that can only be described using probability. ''The world consists of the tension between order and chaos,'' said Gregory Chaitin, a mathematician at the I.B.M. Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. ''When simulating physical phenomena, order is supplied by the laws of physics and chaos is supplied by random numbers.''
Before high-speed digital computers were invented, mathematicians compiled tables of random numbers by blindly flipping through phone books, casting dice, spinning spinners or drawing cards from a hat. As automation came of age, the RAND Corporation used a kind of electronic roulette wheel to generate a classic work, published in 1955, called ''A Million Random Digits With 100,000 Normal Deviates.'' The seemingly oxymoronic term ''normal deviates'' (random numbers whose occurrence can be plotted on a bell-shaped curve) inspired the New York Public Library to shelve the book in the psychology section.
But as science's demand for random numbers continued to grow, even the longest tables were quickly exhausted. A way was needed to produce torrents of random numbers on the fly, and nothing could spit out digits faster than a digital computer.
Therein lay the paradox: how to use order to generate disorder. The best that could be hoped for, it seemed, was pseudorandomness -- numbers that, though produced by a completely deterministic and repeatable process, appear to be patternless.

and some other apparently random interests:

*****An article on an Italian psychologist studying what she calls the "Stendhal syndrome" an over-reaction to art- occasionally even fainting as Stendhal did in Florence in 1817

*****on vagrants:
"The civil war gave vagrancy its first big boost- its immediate effect was to accustom a generation of men to riding in trains, camping out and foraging for food. The word 'tramp' originally described a military foraging expedition, a 'bum' was a soldier who foraged too enthusiastically."

*****Easily disposable articles on Webb Hubbell, the hunched, bloated, droopy-lipped law partner of Hillary Clinton who reached a plea agreement with Kenneth Starr. Also the transcript of Bill Clinton's affadavit.

*****An obituary on Richard Moon, the inventor of the first three digits of the zip code or Zoning Improvement Code (est. 1963)

The Pile: The first 1/16th of an inch

I heard a sinister buzzing the other night. I have been plagued most of the summer by the solitary mosquito- (why do they not collaborate?) passing my ear at night and waking me to saw the air. This buzzing was different. It had sparks. I looked down at the slivers of light being thrown from an extension cord. The buzzing was the incendiary crackling of an electrical short. The wiring in this house is troubling at best. The fuses are the antique screw-in type and the outlets are rare, ungrounded and easily overloaded.
I have several cartons of articles torn from the New York Times (mostly)- saved for many years, lugged from place to place and now stored near faulty wiring in a hundred year-old house. I think I should examine what I have saved, and why, summarize the pile and get it out of here.

The first article showed what period I had randomly reached back to. It was from:
*Jan 31, 1997 and concerned the further posthumous adventures of Gandhi. Additional ashes from his funeral pyre were discovered in a provincial bank vault. They were ceremonially dispersed in the Ganges by his chubby, bearded grandson.
*The largest Marian library in the world is in Dayton, Ohio. September 8 is her birthday. She is again appearing to adolescents in Medjugorje. Since the second Vatican council she has been pictured mingling with other biblical figures or at least in the vicinity of other people rather than aloof and alone.
*From 12-7-96, an article on an exhibition which celebrates the 18th century English "grand tour" mostly undertaken in and around Rome as Greece was then occupied by the uncongenial Ottoman empire. (The painting which best captured the scene is "Tribuna of the Uffizi" by Zoffany ...above) The grand tour disappeared when the Napoleonic wars began in 1796. When the wars were over the package tour replaced the grand tour. A man named Thomas Cook booked the rooms, set the itinerary and so it remains to this day.
*An article on the dangers of Fen-Phen- I suppose I had worries that my clients might suffer some adverse consequences. I never recommended it, luckily.
*A fragment which states that the monastery of St. Catherine, in Syria I believe, attracts pilgrims to view a sprig from the burning bush of the Old Testament.
*Another fragment regarding Scientology which teaches that humans are clusters of spirits trapped in ice and banished to earth 75 million years ago by Xenu, ruler of the 26-planet galactic federation.
*Part of an article on the increasing storage problems with leftover frozen embryos.
*A description by a writer of her first encounter with peanut butter which evoked feelings of suffocation and oddly, persecution.
*An article on PETA's protests against an artist named David Arnold at Columbia University who created frog-muscle sculptures that moved when electrically stimulated.
*Anthony Bourdain and the search for the perfect french fry. The debate over using the Russet Burbank "it does have a greater purpose when fried in oil. Its interior expands like a souffle and its exterior becomes crispy before absorbing too much oil. And coloring the outside which means caramelizing the potato's sugars gives it just the right bitterness- french fries need a touch of bitterness and loamy flavor smoothed out with fat."
*Renaming Fillmore St. in SF. A black leader states: "For African-Americans the name Millard Fillmore has extremely negative connotations."
*"Passover Cleanup Can Exhaust Orthodox Jewish Women" "Jewish law requires that a house be purged of all traces of hametz or leavening before Passover begins. Over the centuries the search for wayward crumbs has evolved into a frenzied assault.. 'If there is a crumb in the kitchen hiding in the corner, you should do everything to remove it', a Chief Rabbi instructed. 'If need be you should take a hammer and chisel and destroy the wall until the crumb comes out'".
*And finally a September 8, 2005 article from the NYTimes by the polymath Edward Rothstein whose effortless style is beautifully applied to so many very interesting things with equal curiosity, ardor and fun. A long excerpt:
"In the history of humankind, there has rarely been a disaster like the New Orleans flood without a theodicy to go along with it. The word "theodicy," coined in the 18th century by the philosopher Gottfried Leibniz, derives from Greek roots invoking the "justice of the gods." A theodicy is an attempt to show that such justice exists, to prove that we really do live in what Leibniz insisted was the "best of all possible worlds."
So theodicies have been plentiful after earthquakes, floods and droughts. Explanations are readily offered: disasters are the wages of sin, they herald an apocalyptic age, they cleanse the earth of evil. Theodicies aim to demonstrate that devastation does not really disrupt or overturn our understanding of the moral and social order. Instead, disorder provides evidence of order. The theodicy is that order. It explains forces that seem to lie beyond human powers, evils that lie beyond human cause.
Theodicies are not casual matters, and in the weeks after Katrina, they are bound to evolve, even in secular culture, even when they may not resemble the ones that Leibniz had in mind. So they need to be better understood.
The classic theodicies in the West are biblical. The flood of Noah's time, for example, is a reflection of the divine will, cleansing the earth of humanity's evil. A more powerful theodicy later evolved out of the trials of the ancient Israelites, in which destruction and exile were treated not as random accidents of history, but as forms of retribution for violating the Mosaic law and its ethical consequences. Suffering could become proof of divine attention and not its opposite.
Scholars like Norman Cohn have shown how in medieval Europe the worst human trauma could be interpreted as proof of imminent apocalypse and redemption, inspiring millennial expectations and movements. Meanwhile, the theodicy of divine retribution still thrives today and was invoked by some fundamentalist believers after Katrina.
But between medieval Europe and contemporary America something profound changed in the way natural disasters are interpreted and the kinds of theodicies they inspire. And one of the turning points, as many scholars have argued, was the 1755 earthquake in Lisbon. It destroyed perhaps a third of the city's population, with deaths in the tens of thousands. It overturned the confidence of European royalty and seemed to drive a wedge between the earthly and divine realms.
For the growing forces of the Enlightenment, it also seemed to overturn the very idea that a theodicy could account for the disaster. Voltaire, who had once seen nature as benevolent, was whipped into a rationalist fury by the experience. Leibniz, he believed, had been refuted by nature. Voltaire wrote a "Poem on the Disaster of Lisbon" in which the quake's victims are called "Tormented atoms on a heap of muck/ That death devours and that fate trips up." His character Candide watches the earthquake from a distance, seeing it as morally blind, killing the good and preserving the wicked.
In a sense, the earthquake actually ended up strengthening the hand of the Enlightenment, as if a replacement theodicy had fallen into place. Kant wrote about the quake. Scientific investigation took place. The response of Portugal's prime minister to the disaster was practical, not religious. "We will bury the dead," he said, "and take care of the living."
Recently, the philosopher Susan Neiman argued in "Evil in Modern Thought" that the Lisbon earthquake also destroyed an ancient idea that nature could itself be evil. After Lisbon, she argued, moral evil was distinguished from natural disaster. Earthquakes and floods could no longer be fitted into traditional religious theodicies.
But this did not mean, of course, that theodicies faded away. Ms. Neiman argued that for philosophers theology had been replaced by history. The fates of peoples and nations reflected other forces, and disruptions were given other forms of explanation. Hegel saw history as an evolutionary series of transformations in which destruction was as inevitable as birth. Marx believed other kinds of economic and human laws accounted for destruction and evolution. This mostly left natural disasters for the growing realm of science: if they couldn't be prevented, at least their origins could be understood.