Saroyan, The Time of Your Life (1939)

You're the first man to ever believe my stories
Kit Carson (James Barton) to Joe (James Cagney)
The Time of Your Life, movie, 1948
(source: Niagara Falls Reporter)
no copyright infringement intended

A dive bar somewhere in Frisco, with the habitual patrons. An old cowboy (fake or genuine, if that matters) whose stories nobody listens to. A woman with a past, traced by a man who could be a probation officer or a pimp, whatever. A slot machine maniac. A guy rather naive falling for the woman. A tap dancer telling jokes and laughing alone. A guy with harmonica. A youngster with a dilemmatic love keeping the phone booth busy. A cop hating his job, and his friend who works in the harbor. The melancholic woogie-boogie pianist. And Nick, the bartender interested in horses and horse races, in control of this universe of gentle anybodies, making the show run.

Now and then accidental clients who come and go, trapped by problems of their own, looking here maybe for an answer. Like that lady starring at her drink. Or the couple nearby. Memories of the great depression are very recent, a new world war is in the air, life is a freaking joke. Is it 1939, is it today?

Then Joe, the guy sitting at a table all day long, observing the others, listening patiently to their stories, with a subtle sympathy for each one (sympathy wrapped in something that smells like mild irony, mixed even with small bits of cynicism - to put things straight), encouraging them to forget their inhibitions, just live and enjoy. And Nick's Pacific Street Saloon becomes The Time of Your Life. Magic.

Saroyan wrote this play in 1939, having in mind a real saloon that he frequented, Izzy's Café in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco. Definitely Saroyan took from there some of his characters. The saloon owner, Izzy Gomez (a guy famous in the epoch, as it also was his saloon), became in the play Nick, the bartender. And Saroyan himself became Joe, the guy with the great gift of listening to the others.

The Time of Your Life was played firstly on Broadway, at Booth Theatre, with Eddie Dowling staring as Joe. A very young Gene Kelly was playing the tap dancer. Dowling did also the staging, together with Saroyan. Julie Haydon was playing as Kitty Duval, the woman with a past. And William Bendix (remembered today firstly for The Babe Ruth Story) was playing the bartender.

Julie Haydon (as Kitty) and Eddie Dowling (as Joe)
The Time of Your Life (Booth Theatre, New York, 1939)
(source: eBay)
no copyright infringement intended

Gene Kelly as Harry, the tap dancer
The Time of Your Life (Booth Theatre, New York, 1939)
(source: freewebs)
no copyright infringement intended

A movie was made in 1948, with James Cagney as Joe. Jeanne Cagney was playing Kitty, the woman with a past. In the role of Nick, again William Bendix. A nice surprise for me was to see Broderick Crawford in the movie. I had seen him in Felinni's Bidone, from 1955, really a great role. And another great role, in the Yugoslavian-American Square of Violence, from 1961. Here in The Time of Your Life he was playing Krupp (the cop who was hating his job). I watched the movie on youTube very recently and, frankly, its rhythm, its cinematic composition, seemed to me outdated, though it had some scenes with a polyphonic quality: the moments when the miracle unfolds in front of your eyes, the miraculous transformation of a bunch of nobodies in a superb group of personae.  

The Time of Your Life, 1948
(with James Cagney as Joe)
(video by PublicChampion)

And so Saroyan's play started its own life. It came again on Broadway in 1969 and 1975. In 1972 it was staged at Los Angeles, at the Huntington Hartford Theater (with a cast including Henry Fonda and Richard Dreyfuss). In 2008 it was put again on stage in Los Angeles, this time at Pacific Resident Theatre on Venice Boulevard. In France The Time of Your Life came as Le bar aux illusions (superb equivalence), in Spain as El momento de tu vida, in Brazil as Nick Bar, in Romania as Clipe de viaţă, in Russia as Лучшие годы вашей жизни, in Italy as I giorni della vita.

I saw the play of Saroyan in 1964, at Bulandra Theatre in Bucharest. It was staged by Liviu Ciulei, who was also staring as Joe. Gina Patrichi was Kitty Duval, Fory Etterle played the role of Kit the cowboy, Petrica Gheorghiu was Nick the bartender, Dumitru Furdui was Dudley (the youngster keeping the phone booth busy). Dorin Dron was playing Tom, Joe's admirer, disciple, errand boy, stooge and friend .... The great generation of the Bulandra Theatre ... Ciulei and all that generation, playing Brecht and Saroyan and Nash, Shakespeare and Gorky, Büchner and Williams and O'Neill ... I was very young and going to the theater was an existential need. I was sometimes going even twice or thrice a week. A generation of actors that is no more... years have passed, they are now in the world of shadows, together with all my memories of a time when life was in front of me, so promising, now so far.

Gina Patrichi as Kitty Duval
Clipe de viaţă (Bulandra Theatre, Bucharest, 1964)
(source: Ziarul Metropolis)
no copyright infringement intended

Looking for references on The Time of Your Life across the world I came upon a photo showing Maria Mercader and Vittorio De Sica as Kitty and Joe, sometime in 1945, or immediately after. It was a surprise, as I knew next to nothing about the stage activity of De Sica.

Maria Mercader (as Kitty) and Vittorio De Sica (as Joe)
I giorni della vita (Teatro Olimpia, Milan,1946)
B. Cardullo: Vittorio De Sica: Actor, Director, Auteur, Cambridge Scholars Publ, 2009
(source: Vlad Niculescu, Anthony Frost Bookshop, Bucharest)
Maria Mercader, Un amour obstiné - Ma vie avec Vittorio de Sica, Ed. L'Herminier, 1981
(source: Ann Harding in Silver Screen Oasis)
no copyright infringement intended

The photo was accompanied by a splendid text about Maria Mercader [1]. Unfortunately it was no mention about the venue, and also the year was extremely vague. I sent an eMail to Ann Harding, the author of the text, who replied immediately: the photo was from a book (Maria Mercader, Un amour obstiné - Ma vie avec Vittorio de Sica, Ed. L'Herminier, 1981) that she didn't have anymore. I looked for the book to see if I could find it, without success.

So I started a search on the Internet, looking for Italian sites dedicated to De Sica, or The Time of Your Life, or both.

A review of the play was making an interesting parallel with Hopper's heroes from his Nighthawks [2] (I must say I disagree with the parallel made with The Nighthawks; Hopper's painting is telling a story of paradoxical solitude, while the play of Saroyan tells the opposite). Anyway, it wasn't giving any information about De Sica in the lead role. Then, a book by Silvia Bizio and Claudia Laffranchi (Gli italiani di Hollywood: il cinema italiano agli Academy Awards) had a lot of good stuff (though not indication about the year or venue): rather a summary of the whole theatrical activity of De Sica, putting the staging of Saroyan's play in a larger context [3].

I found soon plenty of Italian web sites about De Sica in I giorni della vita: but the information they provided was contradictory.

The page of De Sica from the Italian Wikipedia was giving 1948-1949 as the season in which the Italian actor stared in Saroyan's play (also in Le cocu magnifique, a comedy by the Belgian Fernand Crommelynck) and mentioned Mario Chiari as director for both stagings [4].

So, 1948-1949? Not that simple! Because Sapere Enciclopedia was giving the 1945-1946 season and also mentioned De Sica's staring in Le mariage de Figaro under the direction of Visconti [5].

So, Mario Chiari was the director? Maybe not: Il Porto Ritrovato mentioned Visconti as the director for Saroyan's play [6].

Well, 1946 or 1949? And what about the venue? Or about the director? Visconti? Chiari? Somebody else?

I didn't know how to advance anymore, when I got a call from Vlad Niculescu, the manager of the Bucharest English Bookshop, and a good friend of mine. He had found for me a book having all information I needed! It was Vittorio De Sica: Actor, Director, Auteur by Bert Cardullo:

1946 - De Sica appeared with the Spettacoli Effe company in the following: Il matrimonio di Figaro, by Pierre de Beumarchais, as Figaro - Director, Luchino Visconti; Le cocu magnifique, by Fernand Crommelynck - Director, Mario Chiari, Teatro Olimpia, Milan; I giorni della vita, by William Saroyan, as Joe - Director: Adolfo Celi, Teatro Olimpia, Milan; Ah... ci risiamo by Oreste Biàncoli and Dino Falconi, a musical review, Teatro Olimpia, Milan.

So, 1946, with the Spettacoli Effe company, at Teatro Olimpia, Milan; directed by Adolfo Celi. Later I found the same information on a web site that seemed to me the ultimate source for this topic (Treccani, la cultura italiana). Adolfo Celi was making his directorial debut, by the way - it was his graduation project for l'Accademia nazionale d'arte drammatica Silvio D'Amico of Rome [7].

Saroyan, Dowling, Cagney, Ciulei, De Sica ... a long path, sometimes smooth, sometimes tortuous, some other times totally at random ... The Time of Your Life came into my mind one afternoon in August, I was spending some time in a street corner café in Chelsea ... but all in good time.


AKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Ann Harding (who keeps a great blog dedicated to the movie art) found the photo with Maria Mercader and Vittorio De Sica in I giorni della vita and published it on the web. She answered graciously my questions related to the image source. Mara Chiriţescu (manager of Pavesiana, the Italian Bookshop in Bucharest) offered me precious advice on my search. Vlad Niculescu (manager of Anthony Frost, the English Bookshop in Bucharest) found for me the book having all information I needed to localize in time and space the performance of Vittorio De Sica in Saroyan's play. I thank them all.

NOTES

1. during the past few days, I have been reading Maria Mercader's memoirs where she recalls her life with Vittorio De Sica. Maria Mercader was a Spanish actress, born in Catalonia. She studied acting in Paris with the great French actor Louis Jouvet. In 1940, she landed a movie contract with Italian producers. At the studios in Rome, she met Vittorio De Sica. He was just starting to work as a director. Considered a matinee idol, he struggled to get a chance to direct his own pictures. Maria Mercader got a part in one of his early features, Un garibaldino al convento (1941), a costume drama. They fell in love, but there was a serious obstacle for them, Vittorio was already married. And according to Italian laws of the time, divorcing was impossible. So for decades, Maria lived separately with her two sons (who couldn't even be recognized legally by their father!) while Vittorio commuted between his two homes. As you can imagine, it was a very difficult situation for Maria who did her best against the odds. Reading about her life as the 'other woman', I kept thinking of all the brilliant Italian comedies which describe this kind of Kafkaesque situation. I felt that screenwriters didn't have to look very far to find subjects for their films! Italian life, very family-centred, was constrained by some rigid laws, almost medieval in their outlooks. She describes very warmly the man whom she lived with for 34 years. They finally got married in 1968, but only after acquiring the French nationality. He had serious flaws like the inability to make decisions regarding his two homes and his compulsive gambling. Otherwise, she describe him as generous and nice. I was very interested by her memories of his first films after the war which started the neorealist movement in Italy. Actually, Sciuscià (1946) was a flop with the Italian public. The film was considered depressing and financially it was a disaster, in spite of the fact that it became a highly regarded film abroad. The story was about the same for Ladri di biciclette (1948). One of the most famous Italian films was at the time criticized by the Italian Prime Minister as giving Italy a bad image. Only after its success abroad, did Italians start to take notice of the film's quality and novelty. After Umberto D. (1952), De Sica accepted to make more 'commercial' pictures of the kind Italian producers liked. I never realised what a struggle it had been for him to get all those 'neo-realist' pictures with little money and amateur actors. When he needed money later on, he took on a massive amount of small parts in big pictures which allowed him to feed his mad gambling habits. She mentions Il giardino dei Finzi Contini (1970) as one of his best later efforts. (I agree with her.) In 1974, Vittorio De Sica died of lung cancer.

(Ann Harding in Silver Screen Oasis)

2. si ambienta tutta nel locale di Nick - sembra di vedere i nottambuli di Hopper - in una zona poco raccomandabile di San Francisco, intorno a personaggi a volte grotteschi, a volte umanissimi e teneri

(Diceros in anobii)

3. iniziare la carriera fondando nel 1933, con la moglie Giuditta Rissone, una compagnia teatrale che metteva in scena non solo pièces brillanti, particularmente adatte alle caratteristiche del giovane attore, ma anche testi come I giorni della vita di William Saroyan

(Silvia Bizio and Claudia Laffranchi, Gli italiani di Hollywood: il cinema italiano agli Academy Awards)

4. infine, nella stagione 1948-1949, partecipò alle due novità, I giorni della vita di William Saroyan e Il magnifico cornuto di Fernand Crommelynck, entrambi diretti da Mario Chiari. Quella fu la sua ultima apparizione sul palcoscenico: in seguito, sempre più assorbito da impegni cinematografici e televisivi, non vi farà più ritorno

(Wikipedia)

5. lasciò le scene nel 1946 dopo un'ultima impegnativa stagione in cui aveva interpretato I giorni della vita di Saroyan e, con regia di Visconti, Il matrimonio di Figaro

(Sapere Enciclopedia)

6. nel 1933 con sua moglie Giuditta Rissone, attrice comica e maliziosa e Sergio Tofano, fonda una sua Compagnia teatrale. Si specializzano in un repertorio brillante ma mettono in scena pièce come Il matrimonio di Figaro di Beumarchais e, per la regìa di Visconti, I giorni della nostra vita di William Saroyan

(Il Porto Ritrovato)

7. L. Visconti firmò la regia de Il matrimonio di Figaro di Beumarchais, messo in scena dopo il veto fascista di sei anni prima, in una lettura assai discussa per le propensioni verso il balletto ma di grande resa spettacolare (teatro Quirino, 19 genn. 1946)... Se ne Il magnifico cornuto di Fernand Crommelynck (Teatro Olimpia di Milano, 26 marzo successivo) ebbe una parte di fianco, dominò nella novità di W. Saroyan I giorni della vita (ibid, 6 aprile successivo): si trattava del saggio di diploma in regia presso l'Accademia di arte drammatica del giovane A. Celi cui De Sica e N. Besozzi avevano offerto l'opportunità di portarlo, con la loro compagnia, a dimensioni professionali; V. Pandolfi scrisse che "centro di questo fluttuare di casi e di uomini, delle gioie e delle tristezze di ognuno è sempre Joe e De Sica descrive con molta aderenza questo personaggio, accorato apostolo e tenero fratello di ogni uomo"

(Treccani, la cultura italiana)

(Saroyan)

E. B. White

Elwyn Brooks White
1899-1985
(source: American Society of Authors and Writers)
no copyright infringement intended

published his first article in The New Yorker in 1925, joined the staff in 1927, continued to contribute for around six decades; published there essays and unsigned Notes and Comment pieces (look here for some); co-author of a famous English style guide (commonly known as Strunk and White); maybe above all, author of children's books (his Charlotte's Web is famous); so, journalist, essayist, authority in matters of language style, author for children; indeed a man of many seasons and of many talents; well, someone who was so many years with The New Yorker could not be other than a great NY lover; and a city must be understood also through his authors; just ordered his Here is New York (info source: wiki)


(A Life in Books)

Damon Runyon

Damon Runyon
1880-1946
(source: NewsOK)
no copyright infringement intended

a great bard of the Broadway universe (that unique world that grew up during the Prohibition years, a world of its own, unique even within Manhattan); his stories, be them sentimental or humorous, depicted all kind of hustlers, gamblers, smaller and bigger gangsters, also - that's funny - actors; all of them known only by their nicks (Good Time Charley, Benny Southstreet, Harry the Horse, that kind of stuff); all these guys got in turn a common nick (from the readers) - Runyonesque characters; his vernacular language was a mixture of formal and slang, almost always in present tense, and - interesting - almost always devoid of contractions; his readers found a special name for this language - the Runyonese; all this being said, it's time to look for some of his books.

(info source: wiki)

(A Life in Books)

Giovanni Paolo Pannini: Interior of a Picture Gallery with the Collection of Cardinal Silvio Valenti Gonzaga (1740)

Giovanni Paolo Pannini: Interior of a Picture Gallery with the Collection of Cardinal Silvio Valenti Gonzaga
oil on canvas, 1740
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT
The Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund
(source: wikimedia)
no copyright infringement intended

(Giovanni Paolo Pannini)

Giovanni Paolo Pannini

Giovanni Paolo Pannini
1691-1765
portrait by Louis Gabriel Blanchet
current location unknown
(source: wikimedia)
no copyright infringement intended

mainly known as a veduta artist (veduta: highly detailed large painting or print of a cityscape or other vista); among his works, most noted perhaps is his view of the interior of the Roman Pantheon (he painted it on behalf of Count Francesco Algarotti, the Venetian polymath, philosopher, poet, essayist, anglophile ... well, one of the finest Esprits cavaliers of the age); also noted his Roman vedute and capricci; Canaletto and Bellotto were influenced by him.

• Interior of a Picture Gallery with the Collection of Cardinal Silvio Valenti Gonzaga (1740)

(Old Masters)

Pierre Subleyras: The Portrait of Cardinal Valenti Gonzaga (c.1745)

Pierre Subleyras: Cardinal Silvio Valenti Gonzaga
oil on canvas, c.1745
Galleria Cini, Rome
(source: wikimedia)
no copyright infringement intended

(Pierre Subleyras)

Pierre Subleyras: Selbstportrait im Atelier (1747)

Pierre Subleyras: Selbstportrait im Atelier
(L'Atelier du peintre, The Artist Studio)
Gemäldegalerie der Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna
(source: wikimedia)
no copyright infringement intended

A strikingly modern composition for a painting created almost three centuries ago. It gives some impression of controlled chaos, the personages seem the leave their canvasses, and the selfportrait is in the background. Well, the main character in a selfportrait is supposed to be its author, only here the author shows us his back.

I have just received this image on the mail today: not email, just mail, regular mail. My son and my daughter-in-law spent some days in Vienna, and enjoyed it a lot. It brought into my memories my own trip there. I visited then the Kunsthistorisches Museum. I wanted to see there a painting by Giorgione, Die drei Philosophen: many years earlier I had read a whole book about it. Of course, it was not only that painting in the museum. I spent there a whole morning, and probably I should have come the following day again. But I was not having time. I noted the preference there for Catholic painters, which could not have been a surprise in a city that for centuries had been one of the glories of the catholic world.

I couldn't find time to go to any other art gallery in Vienna. There are a lot, large museums, and small galleries, old masters and modern art. My kids went also to the Akademie der bildenden Künste, as I could see on the image from the postcard. And to other Viennese places, museums and palaces, and gardens. It's a place to enjoy culture, to breath culture, classic and contemporary. You can be a nostalgic for the old times and the good old order, you can be a free spirit experimenting the radical new in any direction, Vienna means all of these, because it has a great sense of keeping the balance. And also a gracious city celebrating the joy of life. With its breweries and heurigeren and the Prater. It's a great place to be.

I looked then on the web to find the painting of Subleyras, his self portrait in his studio.



(Pierre Subleyras)

Pierre Subleyras

Pierre Subleyras
1699-1749
selfportrait, oil on canvas, c.1746
Gemäldegalerie der Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna
(source: Anthony Bond, Joanna Woodall, Self Portrait: Renaissance to Contemporary, fig.34)
(wikimedia)
no copyright infringement intended

French painter active mainly in Italy during the late Baroque and early Neoclassic periods (the middle term between Poussin and David), known for his works with religious thematic (for example his Mass of St. Basil), for his incisive portraiture (Pope Benedict XIV, Cardinal Valenti Gonzaga), as well as for his genre pictures (where his true relation to the modern era comes out - wiki).

• Selbstportrait im Atelier (1747)
• The Portrait of Cardinal Valenti Gonzaga (c. 1745)

(Old Masters)

Tiphanie Yanique, Last Yanique Nation

Tiphanie's Smile
(source: Mosaic Magazine)
no copyright infringement intended

splendid poem, like a double fugue, the two themes weaved together within lines, even within words

The pit in my womb where the doctor lover
says is my self, is not a nation
My soul is called Che, as in Guevara,
but my body has not died for the nation
I told my enemy I loved her, as
I love my nation Guevara,
was no coward which means he tended towards
fool I want to be a fool in love and thus
a fool for this nation My soul doesn’t
care about nations My soul makes its country
in the backyard or bedroom of wherever
I carry it. My islands do not make
a nation.  Yet my soul guards
their bodies, their waters. That then
is the nation. Yes, the pink pit
does bear the possibility of nations.
Che rests its teeth into my belly. I feel
the love and remember Guevera,
the man, had no nation but nations
He died for the end of our nations
I speak my soul’s only language, dear
doctor revolutionary, in the name
of no nation Despite the proxy
of vows I am both body and nation.

(from her poetry collection Wife)

(source: TiphanieYanique.com)

(Tiphanie Yanique)

Tiphanie Yanique

Tiphanie Yanique
(source: Philly Fun Guide)
no copyright infringement intended

Caribbean writer, born in the Virgin Islands (with ancestors from St. Thomas, Tortola, St. Croix, and Dominica); her debut collection (How to Escape from a Leper Colony) was praised as fiercely original and poetic, revealing a Caribbean beyond tourist brochures (quote: For a leper, many things are impossible, and many other things are easily done. Babalao Chuck said he could fly to the other side of the island and peek at the nuns bathing. And when a man with no hands claims that he can fly, you listen); it was followed by I am the Virgin Islands, a children's picture book (quote: I am green mountains and blue sky / I am scratch band and steel pan); Land of Love and Drowning is a novel spawned on three generations, from 1916 to the 1970's, a story of love and magic set in her native places, echoing Márquez (quote: Eona is so beautiful that many call her pure and they think on the virgin hills. Or they call her pristine and they think of the clear and open ocean... So on damp nights men imagine that they are angels and may touch her as they please, but when they wake, they sign themselves with the cross); her most recent book is Wife, a poetry collection whose spellbinding language offers the reader an experience of transformation and song (Stacey D'Erasmo); this being said, let me give you the address of her website:

http://tiphanieyanique.com/

• Last Yanique Nation

(A Life in Books)

Sharon Millar: On Tobago, Mermen Come Calling

Sharon Millar in the garden at her home in St Ann’s
photo: Mark Lyndersay
(source: Trinidad and Tobago Guardian)
no copyright infringement intended

A friend of mine used to work for several years in Trinidad-Tobago and in Barbados. He was a flight engineer and by that time Romania had a contract with several Caribbean countries to operate its airplanes there. My friend is now retired, and he enjoys telling his Caribbean stories. He was very impressed that in Trinidad any kind of beverage was based on sugar, including the beer. I read in one of Joseph Mitchell's stories that any beverage in Trinidad is based on rice, but my friend certainly has a better knowledge in this matters. I would like to hear from him stories about some of his experiences with beauty queens from Barbados and around, but we always meet in the presence of our wives, so there is a reason for his discretion. Well, here is a description of what he met for sure in Tobago: jumbies, jabless, fairy maids, kingly mermen... It was published in NY Times and the author is Sharon Millar. You'll enjoy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/11/travel/tobago-caribbean-islands.html

(Sharon Millar)

Sharon Millar

Sharon Millar
(source: Art, Recognition, Culture - ARC the Magazine)
no copyright infringement intended

Trinidadian author, with a collection of short stories (The Whale House and Other Stories) where hard back woman give talk and big man stand up and cry; with handsome boys with bullets in their backs and high-class women with babies in their bellies; with women having turmeric eyes, men too beautiful to die, and unborn babies would-be baby sharks; where the characters barb and the language sings.

(info source: Art, Recognition, Culture - ARC the Magazine, Tiphanie Yanique)

• On Tobago, Mermen Come Calling

(A Life in Books)

Jonathan Franzen

Jonathan Franzen
photo: Dan Winters for TIME
(source: TIME)
no copyright infringement intended

novelist and essayist; Pulitzer finalist, all that stuff; for his Freedom, TIME put him on its cover with a headline like Great American Novelist; great headline, isn't it; for his Corrections had a feud with Oprah; that's not nice, you'd say (but as the old saying goes, stuff happens); has opinions on almost everything, from the social networks and e-books (it sucks: the ultimate irresponsible medium) to the future of Europe (it sucks: the technicians of finance make the decisions there - that has little to do with democracy - I agree); Lev Grossman considers him practically a Victorian (a devotee of the wide shot, the all-embracing, way-we-live-now novel); says Grossman, his Freedom is not a microcosm, it's cosm; his last novel, Purity, is described in El País as una cruzada contra Silicon Valley (alerta de las ilusiones que las grandes corporaciones de Internet venden en todo el mundo).

Purity can be found these days at the English Bookshop in Bucharest (with a notice: limited stock). On their website it is praised as a magnum opus for our morally complex times, Franzen's edgiest and most searching book yet (the price is also magnum opus: I'll let you the pleasure to discover it by yourselves, by visiting the place; it is a hard-cover edition and there are 496 pages).


(A Life in Books)

Ofra Haza, Yerushalaim Shel Zahav

Ofra Haza
from Tapuz Blog Website
(source: wikimedia)
no copyright infringement intended

(video by itvirtual)

(Blogosphere)

James Traub

James Traub
at the Texas Book Festival, Austin, 2008
photo by Larry D. Moore
(source: wikimedia)
no copyright infringement intended

freelance journalist, contributing writer for NY Times Magazine since 1988; previously staff writer for The New Yorker; NY is the background of several of his books (which explains my interest for him); his recent writing focuses on politics and international affairs - including profiles of Obama, Gore, and McCain, along with a book on Kofi Annan and the U.N. (The Best Intentions: Kofi Annan and the UN in the Era of American World Power, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006).

I have ordered one of his books just today and I am waiting for it to come: a history of Times Square (The Devil's Playground: A Century of Pleasure and Profit in Times Square, Random House, 2004). 



(A Life in Books)

A llama in Times Square, by Inge Morath

A llama in Times Square, 1957
photo by Inge Morath
Inge Morath/The Inge Morath Foundation/Magnum Photos
(source: NY Times)
no copyright infringement intended

Photography is a strange phenomenon ... You trust your eye and cannot help but bare your soul

(Inge Morath: Camera Austria: 1985/86, no. 19/20. p. 80)

(America viewed by Americans)

(New York, New York)

A. J. Liebling

A. J. Liebling (1904-1963)
pencil sketch by Jonathan Burlinson
(source: Wikimedia)
no copyright infringement intended

born into a well-off family on the Upper East Side of Manhattan; after early schooling in New York, was admitted to Dartmouth; left Dartmouth without graduating, later claiming he was thrown out for missing compulsory chapel attendance; studied French medieval literature at the Sorbonne in Paris; by his own admission his devotion to his studies was purely nominal, he seeing the year as a chance to absorb French life and appreciate French food; his writing was often memorable, as was his eating, and he nicely combined the two passions in Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris, of which the following extract gives a taste:

In the restaurant on the Rue Saint-Augustin, Parisian actor and gourmand Yves Mirande would dazzle his juniors, French and American, by dispatching a lunch of raw Bayonne ham and fresh figs, a hot sausage in crust, spindles of filleted pike in a rich rose sauce Nantua, a leg of lamb larded with anchovies, artichokes on a pedestal of foie gras, and four or five kinds of cheese, with a good bottle of Bordeaux and one of champagne, after which he would call for the Armagnac and remind Madame to have ready for dinner the larks and ortolans she had promised him, with a few langoustes and a turbot — and, of course, a fine civet made from the marcassin, or young wild boar, that the lover of the leading lady in his current production had sent up from his estate in the Sologne. "And while I think of it," I once heard him say, "we haven't had any woodcock for days, or truffles baked in the ashes, and the cellar is becoming a disgrace — no more '34s and hardly any '37s. Last week, I had to offer my publisher a bottle that was far too good for him, simply because there was nothing between the insulting and the superlative."


A. J. Liebling was an American journalist closely associated with The New Yorker from 1935 until his death.

(info source: wiki)

(A Life in Books)

Ochiul lui Dumnezeu

(Bucureşti)

Marian Godină

Marian Godină
(source: Facebook)
no copyright infringement intended

Este poliţist de circulaţie în Braşov, şi îşi povesteşte în blogul său întâmplările la care e martor în trafic zi de zi. Le povesteşte cu un umor nebun, iar unii dintre cititorii lui cred că are harul de povestitor al lui Ion Creangă. Cred mai curând că are în el ceva din Ion Creangă, dar si din maiorul Lăcusteanu, cel ale cărui amintiri îl entuziasmaseră pe Camil Petrescu, aflat în căutarea unui exemplu perfect de anticalofilie. Şi este în primul rând el însuşi, este Marian Godină. Are har, este dăruit cu harul de povestitor, are umor cât cuprinde, umorul lui este, cum să zic, rotund, perfect consistent, fără cea mai mică fisură, iar peste toate astea nu uită niciodată  că e poliţist, ceea ce adaugă poveştilor sale un umor suplimentar, de data asta involuntar (iar aici îmi vin din nou în minte amintirile maiorului Lăcusteanu). Până una alta, citiţi-i blogul şi o să vă placă.

http://mariangodina.ro

• Povestea lui Luca

(A Life in Books)