Clifford Browder's Blog, page 19

384. How to Cope with Rejection: Five Tips

                         Coney Island:


           Summer Frenzy and Winter Desolation 



I have finished my deceased partner Bob’s other work of fiction set in Coney Island, The Coney Island Memoirs of Sebastian Strong.  If The Professor conveys the mutterings of age and experience, this novel is a song of youth.  The time is 1951 to 1961, long before AIDS, but when everyone drank and smoked too much.  Young Sebastian Strong, the narrator, falls in love with Coney Island, knows it in all seasons, connects there with a string of young male lovers.  
Here is Bob, about age 20, at Coney,
with beach and amusement park behind him.

And just when I, as a reader, was  getting tired of these connections, the author surprised me.  With a heavy snowstorm predicted, Sebastian bundles up and heads for Coney, catching the last train for Stillwell Avenue, which creeps ahead through the snow, preceded by a plow clearing the tracks ahead of it.  He goes, knowing there won't be any train coming back, and takes refuge in the shabby little Surf Hotel where he often rents a room.  Jake, the very femme and flamboyant manager, is surprised but delighted to see him, offers him a scotch, and since the room Sebastian usually rents is taken, lets him share his room for the night.  The walls of that room are plastered with pin-ups of Betty Grable and Rita Hayworth, the Hollywood glamour girls of another day, whose images, Jake insists, are holy and should be pasted to the altars of churches.  
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          The book is full of weird but fascinating urban characters like Jake, who are seen in an atmosphere of summer frenzy with roaring roller coasters and beach-strutting sun worshippers, alternating with the silence of winter desolation.  Sister Zora, a no-nonsense lesbian in engineer's jeans, reads palms for a dollar fifty, then disappears when the cold weather comes.  Jessye, a heavy black woman, tough and assertive, sells beers to gay boys in her under-the-boardwalk bar, and with an eye out for the cops, lets the boys dance with each other to music from her jukebox.  And many more.  No wonder Sebastian quits college, comes to live year-round at the Surf Hotel, and gets a job at a bingo parlor patronized in all kinds of weather by older Jewish ladies who are charmed by his youth and his looks.  Sebastian is held fast by "these juxtaposed beasts of land and sea," the "old Dragon" that is Coney, facing defiantly the force of the ocean.




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Coney Island in summer.  Sebastian loves this.
nicolaitan
Coney Island beach in winter.  Sebastian loves this, too.
BenGoetzinger

          Paperbacks are available in very limited numbers from me for $15 plus postage, and hardcovers for $20 plus postage.  The book is also available in various formats and at various prices from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Xlibris.  For my own books, see BROWDERBOOKS below.

       How to Cope with Rejection: Five Tips


         We’ve all been there: the invitation that never came, the date that didn’t happen, the prize we didn’t win, the job we didn’t get – rejection.  Life is a series of rejections, so how can we cope?  I’ll offer five tips.  I speak as an authority, because no one reaps more rejections than a writer.  For every story or poem that you send out to publishers and small reviews, the chance of rejection is probably 30 to one.  Your life becomes a chain of rejections, you learn to numb their hurt and sting, and you keep at it – bravely or foolishly – in hopes of that rare acceptance.  And what does that acceptance mean?  Your fragile little effort will appear, along with 20 or 30 or 50 others, in a small review, online or in print, that your friends and relatives and most of the world have never heard of.  That world will not be changed, the literary scene will roll on undisturbed, and you will be congratulated by a loyal friend or two, your spouse (if he or she is speaking to you), and your mother.                    The poetry scene is annoyingly small, since who reads poetry?  For the most part, other poets.  And if they ever glance at your scribblings, no matter what they say, they probably think that their stuff is better.  I found that scene so frustrating that I finally gave it up for other endeavors.  So there is Tip no. 1: Play another game. 
         I had already done this once, and it worked.  Long ago I was so deluded as to write plays for the American theater.  Not for Broadway, God knows (my delusion had limits), but for Off  and Off Off Broadway.  I took a very useful class in playwriting, threw out my inept early efforts, got to know some actors and directors, and showed my scripts around.  Total rejection?  No.  I had a staged reading done in Dallas, and a full production at the Goodman Theater in Chicago.  Result: nil.  I had a one-act play done on public television.  Result: nil.  A section of one of my short plays was done in the playwrights unit at the Actors Studio, and critiqued by Harold Clurman and the class, and then done in Lee Strasberg’s class for directors.  Result: nil.  Two readers for Lucile Lortel, who had a whole theater at her disposal (courtesy of her husband), urged her to do one of my plays.  Result: nil.  Other promised productions failed to materialize.  The final blow came when a young playwright whom I knew from the Actors Studio got a play done on Broadway to disastrous reviews.  The play was faulty, but the Times review – the only one that most people read – was savage.  At which point I gave up.  Not writing, but playwriting.  And I’ve never regretted it.  Play another game.
         I then tried my hand at biography, wrote two of that genre and – O miracle! – got them both published, one with a university press and one with an obscure small press.  The university press voted unanimously to publish the first one, and the small press accepted my second manuscript with those words so sweet to an author’s ear: “It fits our list.”  And when the second work ws published and got an ambiguously negative review from that oracle of oracles, the Times – a review that, to this day, I have failed to understand – I got a long-distance phone call from my publisher, who insisted that a bad review is better than no review at all.  This lesson, so hard for authors to accept, is true, for a bad review at least acknowledges your book’s existence, while no review does not.  So why did I give up biography?  Because I got tired of wearing out my eyes squinting at old newspapers and other sources on microfilm, and getting red-stained hands from handling – oh, so gently! – old court records bound in decaying calfskin.  So I turned to fiction.  Play another game.
         My current game is historical fiction set in nineteenth-century New York, and New York-related nonfiction derived from posts for my blog.  With the five big presses almost impossible to reach without an agent, and agents likewise impossible to reach without an agent (yes, you need an agent to get an agent), a host of small presses have appeared to fill the gap.  Some are vanity presses who publish but don’t promote, wanting only to squeeze as much money out of you as possible.  Some are presses that help you self-publish but don’t promote, giving you exactly what your contract calls for.  And some are small presses that publish and do promote.  The difference between these categories is arbitrary and debatable, since nobody wants the label “vanity press,” and even “subsidy press” and similar terms are suspect.  But all these presses share one supreme virtue: they bypass the gatekeepers.  To get to them, you don’t need an agent, an agent’s agent, or a connection, therefore no rejections.   Yes, you might be rejected by a prestigious small press, but then you can go the self-publishing route and still get published.  No rejections: a writer’s dream!  But there is one catch: lots of junk gets published, crowding out the good stuff, so you have to hustle for attention.
         I insist that my stuff isn’t junk (what writer wouldn’t?), and in the last few years I have self-published one title and published five others with small presses.  To get my books before the public, I have exhibited at book fairs, and when I do, damned it that one self-published book doesn’t outsell all the others.  And at book fairs, with your books and yourself exposed to a horde of strangers, there is great risk of – you guessed it – rejection.  You wait and wait and wait, until someone finally comes to your booth.  They pick up a book, look at the cover (it had better be sexy), flip the book over, read the blurb, and then, with your hopes now high in the ether, they put the book down and without a word, walk away.  Rejected!  Or they read the blurb, open the book and read the first page or two, dip into other sections, and then, with your hopes soaring into ecstasy heights, put the book down and walk away.  Rejected again!  So what can you do? 



Me at BookCon 2017.  No big sign, no big bookrack, the books lying flat on the table.  Yes, there's a dish of candy, but I had a lot to learn.
         Lots of things.  Hang a sign or banner in front of your booth or above it, to hook the eye of attendees.  Don’t leave the books lying flat.  Prop them up on little book racks, or better still, display a bunch of them on a big book rack that passersby can’t miss.  Add signs with witty sayings, and put out dishes of swag – candy, bookmarks, whatever.  Stand, don’t sit, and smile, smile, smile till your facial muscles ache.  In other words, Tip no. 2: Jazz up your scene.  And if you’re not exhibiting in public, jazz up your blog or your website, and any other way you have of getting yourself out there in public.  Look weird or wise or funny, wear glasses to look intellectual, or sunglasses to look sexy, and a sweater or T-shirt with another memorable saying.  In a world of slobs, be elegant; in a world of elegance, be a slob.  Modesty is out; shyness, taboo.  Jazz up your scene.


My young friend Silas and me at the 2018 Brooklyn Book Festival.  I'm a bit tousled, but that's okay for an author. Smiles, a big book rack crammed with books, and a big sign you can't see.  We jazzed it up.                   An artist friend of mine assures me that when he displays at an outdoor art show, he goes through the same pattern of waiting, waiting, waiting for a sale and smiling bravely, with the soul-wrenching risk of rejection.  So does a politician turned author, as chronicled by an article in the Sunday Book Review section of the Times of November 11, 2018: “A politician turned novelist learns what real rejection is,” by Steve Israel.  As a politician successfully elected eight times to represent a Long Island swing district in the House of Representatives, Israel admits that voters have called him an idiot, Communist, socialist, liberal, Obama lackey, Bush sellout, and worse.  And once he even needed a police escort to get him from a turbulent town hall meeting to his car.  Did this discourage him?  Not at all.  Politicians are used to voter rejection, develop a thick skin, and go on.  But once he became an author, that changed.
         Sitting behind a pile of his books at an author event, watching people pick up his book like “a piece of spongy fruit in the market,” was torture.  As was their way of frowning, weighing the book in their hands, glancing at a few pages, and then tossing it back down right in front of him.  And the questions they ask: “Is this a novel?”  (It says “novel” on the cover.)  “Are you pro-gun or anti-gun?”  And his favorite: “I shoot bear.  Will this book help?”  Each question, he confesses, was deflating.  Gone is his politician’s thick skin.  In politics, there’s a common saying: “It’s not personal; it’s just business.”  In other words, the voters don’t hate you, just that vote of yours.  Or it’s your party’s image, or just their ignorance.  But Israel the author sees his book as intensely personal, for in it he has put off his protective gear and exposed himself to the world.  Also, when voters reject you, they do it in the privacy of the voting booth, whereas people at a book event reject you right in front of you, in full view of the world.  A cartoon accompanying the article shows a table with books piled high, a sign “MEET THE AUTHOR,” and an author sitting there alone and dejected.  On top of the stack of unsold books is a bird’s nest with three hungry young birds, their little beaks stretched wide, as mama brings them a worm.
         But all is not lost.  Steve Israel is working on the problem, he’s adjusting.  If anyone asks again if his novel will help them shoot a bear, he’ll say “Yes!” and suggest that they take some extra copies for fellow bear hunters.  Which brings us to Tip no. 3: It’s not personal; adjust. 
         At the Brooklyn Book Festival last September, I hoped to beat my previous record of selling 14 books in one day.  So what did I sell?  Fourteen.  Disappointed, I decided not to exhibit there again.  But I consulted the blog where fellow authors from my current small press exchange anecdotes and advice.  One told of exhibiting at a Barnes & Noble in Texas where he sold all of seven books.  Which made 14 sound not so bad.  And another told of exhibiting somewhere with success for three hours.  I congratulated him but asked what he meant by “success.”  His answer: 6 or 7 books sold, contact with other authors, and a promising talk with a bookstore manager.  Again, my record of 14 books in a day didn’t sound so bad.  And it occurred to me that of my neighbors at BookCon 2017, not one showed up at BookCon 2018.  They never said how many books they sold in 2017, when I sold 26 in two days, but if they had sold a vast number, I’m sure they would have come back.  Conclusion: for an author lacking bestseller status, 14 in one day is acceptable; such will be my expectation in the future.  So here is Tip no. 4: Get wise, consult, scale down. 
         And to avoid depression, stop thinking and emoting, and do something physical, especially if you have been avoiding it.  Mow the lawn, do the laundry, wash the dishes, do yoga, clean.  Something not intellectual. It has to be done, so do it; you’ll feel better.  Tip no. 5: Get physical.
         So here are the five tips for coping with rejection.  Adapt them and apply them to yourself as needed.   

Play another game. Jazz up your scene.It’s not personal; adjust. Get wise, consult, scale down. Get physical.

These are my tips; what are yours?  I’d love to hear them.


                              BROWDERBOOKS

All books are available online as indicated, or from the author.
1.   No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World  (Mill City Press, 2015).  Winner of the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction; first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards; and Honorable Mention in the Culture category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2016.  All about anything and everything New York: alcoholics, abortionists, greenmarkets, Occupy Wall Street, the Gay Pride Parade, my mugging in Central Park, peyote visions, and an artist who made art of a blackened human toe.  
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you.  An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017 and 2018, and at the Brooklyn Book Festival 2018.



Reviews
"If you want wonderful inside tales about New York, this is the book for you.  Cliff Browder has a way with his writing that makes the city I lived in for 40 plus years come alive in a new and delightful way. A refreshing view on NYC that will not disappoint."  Five-star Amazon customer review by Bill L.
"To read No Place for Normal: New York is to enter into Cliff Browder’s rich and engaging sixty years of adult life in New York. Yes, he delves back before his time – from the city’s origins to the 19th Century that Ms. Trollope and Mr. Dickens encounter to robber barons and slums that marked highs and lows of the earlier Twentieth Century. But Browder has lived such an engaged and curious life that he can’t help but cross paths with every layer and period of society. There is something Whitmanesque in his outlook."  Five-star Amazon customer review by Michael P. Hartnett.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
2.   Bill Hope: His Story  (Anaphora Literary Press, 2017), the second novel in the Metropolis series.  New York City, 1870s: From his cell in the gloomy prison known as the Tombs, young Bill Hope spills out in a torrent of words the story of his career as a pickpocket and shoplifter; his brutal treatment at Sing Sing and escape from another prison in a coffin; his forays into brownstones and polite society; and his sojourn among the “loonies” in a madhouse, from which he emerges to face betrayal and death threats, and possible involvement in a murder.  Driving him throughout is a fierce desire for better, a persistent and undying hope.
For readers who like historical fiction and a fast-moving story.






Reviews
"A real yarn of a story about a lovable pickpocket who gets into trouble and has a great adventure.  A must read."  Five-star Amazon customer review by nicole w brown.
"This was a fun book.  The main character seemed like a cross between Huck Finn and a Charles Dickens character.  I would recommend this."  Four-star LibraryThing review by stephvin.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

3.  Dark Knowledge (Anaphora Literary Press, 2018), the third novel in the Metropolis series.  Adult and young adult.  A fast-moving historical novel about New York City and the slave trade, with the sights and sounds and smells of the waterfront. 

New York City, late 1860s.  When young Chris Harmony learns that members of his family may have been involved in the illegal pre-Civil War slave trade, he is appalled.  Determined to learn the truth, he begins an investigation that takes him into a dingy waterfront saloon, musty old maritime records that yield startling secrets, and elegant brownstone parlors that may have been furnished by the trade.  Since those once involved dread exposure, he meets denials and evasions, then threats, and a key witness is murdered.  What price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Reviews

"A lively and entertaining tale.  The writing styles, plot, pace and character development were excellent."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by BridgitDavis.
"At first the plot ... seemed a bit contrived, but I was soon swept up in the tale."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by snash.
"I am glad that I have read this book as it goes into great detail and the presentation is amazing.  The Author obviously knows his stuff."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by Moiser20.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.


4.   The Pleasuring of Men  (Gival Press, 2011), the first novel in the Metropolis series, tells the story of a respectably raised young man who chooses to become a male prostitute in late 1860s New York and falls in love with his most difficult client.

What was the gay scene like in nineteenth-century New York?   Gay romance, but women have read it and reviewed it.  (The cover illustration doesn't hurt.)







Reviews
"At times amusing, gritty, heartfelt and a little sexy -- this would make a great summer read."  Four-star Amazon customer review by BobW.
"Really more of a fantasy of a 19th century gay life than any kind of historical representation of the same."  Three-star Goodreads review by Rachel.
"The detail Browder brings to this glimpse into history is only equaled by his writing of credible and interesting characters.  Highly recommended."  Five-star Goodreads review by Nan Hawthorne.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

5.  Fascinating New Yorkers: Power Freaks, Mobsters, liberated Women, Creators, Queers and Crazies (Black Rose Writing, 2018).  A collection of posts from this blog.  Short biographical sketches of people, some remembered and some forgotten, who lived or died in New York.  All kinds of wild stuff, plus some stuff that isn't quite wild but fascinating.  New York is a mecca for hustlers of every kind, some likable and some horrible, but they are never boring.




Reviews
"Fascinating New Yorkers by Clifford Browder was like sitting down with a dear friend and catching up on the latest gossip and stories. Written with a flair to keep the reader turning the pages, I couldn't stop reading it and thinking about the subjects of each New Yorker. I love NYC and this book just added to the list of reasons why, a must read for those who love NYC and the people who have lived there." Five-star NetGalley review by Patty Ramirez, librarian.
"Unputdownable."  Five-star review by Dipali Sen, retired librarian.
"I felt like I was gossiping with a friend when reading this, as the author wrote about New Yorkers who are unique in one way or another. I am hoping for another book featuring more New Yorkers, as I couldn't put this down and read it in one sitting!" Five-star NetGalley review by Cristie Underwood. 


©   2018   Clifford Browder   

383. Luscious Lillian and the Great White Way

                            
                         A Note on the Weather

Last Thursday, in mid-November, a predicted snowstorm hit with fury.  More snow fell than anticipated, streets were blocked, subway service on some lines was suspended, and branches of trees overloaded with wet snow came crashing down.  Motorists were stranded in their cars for hours, and school buses were so delayed that kids got home five, six, and eight hours late.  Neighborhoods with tree-lined streets like my West Village were especially at risk.  A great snow-laden branch came crashing down but a block from my building, and on another street a falling branch hit a car and dented it; fortunately, the woman inside wasn't hurt.  Villagers were warned online to walk close to buildings and listen closely for the telltale creaking of a branch about to break.  I stayed inside and watched the falling snow; by late morning Friday, thanks to sun and milder weather, I was able to go out on errands and saw huge fallen branches sealed off with yellow caution tape, pending removal. The city is back to normal, and the blame game has begun.  The city was woefully unprepared.  Who is responsible?  The weather forecasters, the mayor, the governor, Nature, God, bad Karma, or Donald Trump?  New Yorkers love to argue, so a hot debate should follow.




                          Coney Island:
     Summer Frenzy and Winter Desolation



I have finished my deceased partner Bob’s other work of fiction set in Coney Island, The Coney Island Memoirs of Sebastian Strong.  If The Professor conveys the mutterings of age and experience, this novel is a song of youth.  The time is 1951 to 1961, long before AIDS, but when everyone drank and smoked too much.  Young Sebastian Strong, the narrator, falls in love with Coney Island, knows it in all seasons, connects there with a string of young male lovers.  And just when I, as a reader, was  getting tired of these connections, the author surprised me.  With a heavy snowstorm predicted, Sebastian bundles up and heads for Coney, catching the last train for Stillwell Avenue, which creeps ahead through the snow, preceded by a plow clearing the tracks ahead of it.  He goes, knowing there won't be any train coming back, and takes refuge in the shabby little Surf Hotel where he often rents a room.  Jake, the very femme and flamboyant manager, is surprised but delighted to see him, offers him a scotch, and since the room Sebastian usually rents is taken, lets him share his room for the night.  The walls of that room are plastered with pin-ups of Betty Grable and Rita Hayworth, the Hollywood glamour girls of another day, whose images, Jake insists, are holy and should be pasted to the altars of churches.  

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          The book is full of weird but fascinating urban characters like Jake, who are seen in an atmosphere of summer frenzy with roaring roller coasters and beach-strutting sun worshippers, alternating with the silence of winter desolation. Sister Zora, a no-nonsense lesbian in engineer's jeans, reads palms for a dollar fifty, then disappears when the cold weather comes.  Jessye, a heavy black woman, tough and assertive, sells beers to gay boys in her under-the-boardwalk bar, and with an eye out for the cops, lets the boys dance with each other to music from her jukebox.  And many more.  No wonder Sebastian quits college, comes to live year-round at the Surf Hotel, and gets a job at a bingo parlor patronized in all kinds of weather by older Jewish ladies who are charmed by his youth and his looks.  Sebastian is held fast by "these juxtaposed beasts of land and sea," the "old Dragon" that is Coney, facing defiantly the force of the ocean.






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Coney Island in summer.  Sebastian loves this.
nicolaitan
Coney Island beach in winter.  Sebastian loves this, too.
BenGoetzinger

          Paperbacks are available in very limited numbers from me for $15 plus postage, and hardcovers for $20 plus postage.  The book is also available in various formats and at various prices from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Xlibris.  For my own books, see BROWDERBOOKS below.



    Luscious Lillian and the Great White Way

         Let’s imagine that we’re visiting New York in the late 1890s and want to have a look at the city’s high life.  No, we don’t mean Mrs. Astor, the Four Hundred, and Society, for that would bore us, and we’d never get invited by her anyway.  We want to see the fun-loving, free-spending crowd, celebrities like Diamond Jim Brady and Lillian Russell, whose fame has reached us even in Omaha and Kokomo and Des Moines.  Having done some homework in the provinces, we know to look for them at night along the legendary Great White Way, Broadway from Madison Square at 23rd Street north to Longacre Square (now Times Square) at 42nd Street, a brightly lit two-mile stretch of Broadway, the most famous street in the world, crammed with forbidden pleasures we have dreamed of for years.  But first, to do it right, we have to have cocktails, dinner, and a show – stuff we couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do at home.  We’ve saved up some money – quite a lot, in fact -- for this adventure, the most exciting thing we’ve ever done.  So let’s get started.  Come along.  It should be fun.
Hoffman House bar.  The Bouguereau painting is on the right.
         We start with cocktails at the Hoffman House, a marble palace on Broadway between 24th and 25th Streets.  (Sorry, ladies, the bar is males-only, so we’ll have to leave you in a fancy parlor near the entrance.)  In the crowded Grand Saloon (a fancy name for “bar”), with one foot on the brass-plated foot rail like a regular, we sip this new thing called a martini, plenty strong, while trying not to gawk like a rube at the famous Bouguereau painting on the wall opposite, which of course is why we came.  The huge painting, Nymphs and Satyr, shows four scandalously nude young women prancing around a lecherous half-goat male.  Our minister back home cited the painting in a sermon, calling it blatantly immoral, typical of Babylon on the Hudson.  Which of course kindled in us a burning urge to see it.
         All around us is a multitude of top-hatted gentlemen whose indifference to the painting identifies them as blasé New Yorkers who have seen it a thousand times and shrug off the charge of immorality.  We look among them for Ned Stokes, famous for having shot and killed the financier Jim Fisk over the affections of the notorious Josie Mansfield.  Having served four years in Sing Sing, Stokes has long since been out and, as part owner of the Hoffmann, is often seen in the bar, but not tonight, it seems.  But we do get a glimpse of Buffalo Bill Cody in a wide-brimmed Western hat, and ex-president Grover Cleveland, portly and mustached, both of them regulars at the bar when in town.  A great beginning for our night on the town!
Here it is, seen from the front.  Naughty, naughty.
         For dinner, of course we go to Delmonico’s at Fifth Avenue and 26th Street, facing Madison Square.  We knew to make a reservation, are seated promptly. Elegance all around us, the women wearing outsized hats.  The menu has hardly a word in English, but thanks to our high-school French, we decipher potages, hors d’oeuvres, entrées, entremets, and desserts.  A fabulous dinner follows with cream-of-something soup, oysters in some kind of sauce, asparagus so delicious we marvel, mouth-watering canvas-back duck, and cooked peaches – yes, that’s right, cooked!  And served by waiters who never hurry and never make noise, but always turn up just when you need them.  At the tables near us, sprinkled in among the well-mannered regulars, are hog kings from Chicago, makers of thingamabobs from Pittsburgh, cattle barons from Texas, and other nouveaux riche (a term we learned for our trip). Burdened with money, they now flock here with their wives, speak the twangy argot of the provinces, botch the French of the menu, spend conspicuously, and hope to be taken for regulars.  (Thank God we had French in school!)  Of course the meal cost plenty – I won’t say how much.
Dining at Delmonico's.
         Next, the show.  Luckily, we have tickets to the hottest show in town, Floradora at the Casino Theater, a Moorish Revival monstrosity at 39th Street and Broadway.  The story is too silly to go into in detail, but we are there, like everybody else, for the Floradora girls, six stunningly beautiful chorus girls who appear in a double sextet with their top-hatted partners in the second act.  Coming onstage in pink dresses with frilly parasols, they sing the hit song of the show, “Tell Me Pretty Maiden,” while the audience – especially the males – gaze and sigh and gasp.  When the number ends, a lot of gentlemen sitting around us get up and leave.  Some of them, I learn later, are the millionaire boyfriends of the girls who have seen the show many times. We stay to the end, but no other number can top that stunning sextet.


The double sextet that drove males crazy.
         Not that Floradora is the peak of the evening – no, we’ve just begun.  Next, on to Rector’s, where anybody who is anybody is going: a whole flood of hansom cabs and carriages are now jamming their way uptown to a long, low, yellow building on the east side of Longacre Square between 43rd and 44thStreets,  the uptown or northern limit of the Great White Way.  Since we exit the Casino at 39th Street, we can walk there, and in doing so have the fun of mixing with the denizens of this very special stretch of Broadway.  We’re in the company of Wall Street financiers, nabobs of industry, playboys, journalists, famous actors and actresses, gamblers, jockeys, pugilists, chorus girls and kept women with their boyfriends, staggering drunks, pickpockets, panhandlers, and whores, which is about as New York as you can get.  And for a final touch, just before we arrive at Rector’s, we hear blaring trumpets, clashing cymbals, and the tinkle of tambourines, as the Salvation Army marches by, singing hymns and bringing their message of redemption to fun-loving sinners and the lost.
         Rector’s, at last.  To have a table there for a post-theater supper or snack, shows that you have arrived and are in the company of the Broadway elite.  Rector’s is to Broadway and the Great White Way what Mrs. Astor is to Fifth Avenue and Society.  We enter under an awning through the strangest contraption we have ever seen.  It's a turning kind of door where you have to squeeze into a compartment and then push your way through; it's called a revolving door, and this is the first one in the city.  Once inside, while waiting for a table, we see Charles Rector himself, a jovial fellow who boasts of having started out driving a horsecar on Second Avenue, before running a sea-food restaurant in Chicago, where he parlayed a fifty-cent oyster stew into a million dollars.  We might have been relegated to the second floor, but a discreet and generous tip to the maître d’ gets us a table on the ground floor, reserved for the smart set of Broadway.
         It’s midnight, the place is jammed.  Mirrors go from floor to ceiling, and diners dine and gab under the mellow light of crystal chandeliers.  In spite of our heavy dinner at Delmonico’s, we manage a consommé followed by a chicken fricassee cooked in wine, while sipping the requisite champagne.  But we are here to gape discreetly and see notables, and we are not disappointed.  That tall, slim young man over there, dining with a beauty said to be his wife, is Florenz Ziegfield, a young producer believed to have a future in theater.  Women say he has a “Mephistophelian” look, which surely guarantees his theatrical success.  Several young women accompanied by elegant young gentlemen are said to be from the cast of Floradora, but we can’t be sure.  Easily recognized by his monstrous dark mustache, which looks like it was pasted onto his face, is Stanford White, the famous architect, sitting at another table with a dazzling young woman, barely twenty, at his side.
Stanford White
         A gentleman at a table next to us, recognizing us as first-time diners at Rector’s, greets us graciously and gives us his card: 
Augustus Taylor IIIInventor of the New America ShirtfrontA Patented Detachable BosomNo Tuxedo Complete Without ItBuffalo,  New York
A veteran of many business trips to New York, where he promotes his shirtfront, Mr. Taylor no. 3 knows the scene and offers to helps us identify our fellow diners.  After pointing out several beauties and their escorts, and deprecating the presence of some unmannerly self-made millionaires, he directs our gaze to a solitary diner at a table not far away, his puny body sheathed in mortician’s black and topped by an egg-shaped head.  “Abe Hummel,” he says, but the name rings no bells with us.  “The most notorious criminal lawyer in America,” he explains, “and a veteran first-nighter.”  Even as we gaze at him, a string of glittering young beauties come, one after another, to greet him, while their escorts wait patiently nearby.  That this balding little worm  should get so much feminine attention puzzles us, but our informant explains.  Hummel’s specialty is breach-of-promise suits brought by rising young actresses, alleging seduction under promise of marriage by the playboy sons of the wealthy.  Approached discreetly, the families pay prodigious sums to settle the case and avoid a scandal bound to be blazoned in the press.  “That sounds like blackmail,” we venture, and our informant smiles: “It is.” 


         Suddenly, a hush.  Preceded by a beaming headwaiter, and followed by a gypsy fiddler playing a hit tune of the day, a woman of radiant beauty enters, her dark hair crowned with a huge wide-brimmed hat hanging aslant, her stylish figure tapering to the waist and out again, her daringly low-cut gown studded with diamonds.  Our forks are suspended in midair, as in stunned silence we watch her walk slowly toward us, her long train flowing behind her.  She bows to left and right, and her layered silks rustle as she passes close by, bestowing on us a warm, heart-tingling smile.  From a hundred photos in the papers, we recognize Lillian Russell, the beauty of beauties and the star of stars, making her usual spectacular entrance.  Such an entrance is the dream of every aspiring young chorus girl and actress, including those who have benefited from the wiles of Abe Hummel.  Now that we have seen her performance, all our wildest hopes in making this fabulous but costly visit to New York are gloriously and lavishly fulfilled.
         Only when Queen Lillian is ceremoniously seated at a table, do we observe the escort in her wake: a jowly, red-faced gentleman, triple-chinned, with a carnation in his buttonhole, his massive frame swelling outward and glowing with a profusion of sparklers: Diamond Jim Brady, Broadway’s night-loving master of revels, famous for his flagrant display of diamonds.  ("Them as has 'em wears 'em," he has quipped.)  Him too we recognize from photographs and accounts in the press, a prodigious diner known to down four dozen oysters, a dozen crabs, a large steak, four gallons of orange juice, and a tray of pastry at a single sitting.  As Charles Rector himself has observed: “The best twenty-five customers we’ve ever had.”  By day he sells equipment to the slew of railroads now spreading throughout the country, but at day’s end he is drawn to the lights of the Great White Way.  Now, seemingly oblivious of the many eyes upon him and upon his lovely companion, he is devouring a multitude of dishes set before him, a huge napkin tied around his bulbous neck.
         It’s late now, we’re deep into the dark early hours of tomorrow, but our experience of the high life isn’t over, not quite.  For a night-ending breakfast, once Rector’s begins emptying out, we know to head over to Jack’s on Sixth Avenue, a big place with a minimum of ornament, where burly Irish waiters serve hearty food and drinks to the night’s survivors.  (Drinks?  At this hour?  Isn’t that illegal?  Of course, but Jack Dunstan sluices a good bit of his earnings to Tammany Hall.  Need we say more?)  Clams, chops, and steaks are available, but not being Diamond Jim Brady, we settle for scrambled eggs with Irish bacon and champagne – yes, champagne! -- followed by a huge pot of steaming black coffee. 
         Thus fortified, we’re prepared to call it a night.  Outside Jack’s on Sixth Avenue, dawn is breaking, milk wagons are clattering down the street, and a line of hansom cabs are offering their services.  Even if we're just a bit out of it, we know to look sober and alert, since the drivers are amiable outlaws known to overcharge the wealthy, the unwary, and the drunk.  Given a choice among Gas-House Sam, Tenderloin Bill, and Frank the Gyp, we choose Tenderloin Bill, decline his offer to show us the sunrise in Central Park, and clipppety-clop back to our hotel without being too flagrantly fleeced.  
Back to the hotel in a hansom.
Collapsing on the bed as thousands of sober New Yorkers stride meaningfully to work, we doze off dreaming of naked nymphs, cooked peaches, a puny black-draped gnome, and luscious Lillian yielding to us her ample, fabled charms.  How we feel on waking many hours later, I leave to your imagination.  But we have tasted, and tasted fully, the high life of 1890s New York.


Source note:  This post, like the one preceding it, is indebted to Lloyd Morris, Incredible New York: High Life and Low Life from 1850 to 1950 (Syracuse University Press, 1996; first published, 1951).  A great read; I heartily recommend it.



Coming soon: Five Tips for Coping with Rejection.



                                  BROWDERBOOKS

All books are available online as indicated, or from the author.
1.   No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World  (Mill City Press, 2015).  Winner of the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction; first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards; and Honorable Mention in the Culture category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2016.  All about anything and everything New York: alcoholics, abortionists, greenmarkets, Occupy Wall Street, the Gay Pride Parade, my mugging in Central Park, peyote visions, and an artist who made art of a blackened human toe.  
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you.  An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017 and 2018, and at the Brooklyn Book Festival 2018.



Reviews
"If you want wonderful inside tales about New York, this is the book for you.  Cliff Browder has a way with his writing that makes the city I lived in for 40 plus years come alive in a new and delightful way. A refreshing view on NYC that will not disappoint."  Five-star Amazon customer review by Bill L.
"To read No Place for Normal: New York is to enter into Cliff Browder’s rich and engaging sixty years of adult life in New York. Yes, he delves back before his time – from the city’s origins to the 19th Century that Ms. Trollope and Mr. Dickens encounter to robber barons and slums that marked highs and lows of the earlier Twentieth Century. But Browder has lived such an engaged and curious life that he can’t help but cross paths with every layer and period of society. There is something Whitmanesque in his outlook."  Five-star Amazon customer review by Michael P. Hartnett.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
2.   Bill Hope: His Story  (Anaphora Literary Press, 2017), the second novel in the Metropolis series.  New York City, 1870s: From his cell in the gloomy prison known as the Tombs, young Bill Hope spills out in a torrent of words the story of his career as a pickpocket and shoplifter; his brutal treatment at Sing Sing and escape from another prison in a coffin; his forays into brownstones and polite society; and his sojourn among the “loonies” in a madhouse, from which he emerges to face betrayal and death threats, and possible involvement in a murder.  Driving him throughout is a fierce desire for better, a persistent and undying hope.
For readers who like historical fiction and a fast-moving story.






Reviews
"A real yarn of a story about a lovable pickpocket who gets into trouble and has a great adventure.  A must read."  Five-star Amazon customer review by nicole w brown.
"This was a fun book.  The main character seemed like a cross between Huck Finn and a Charles Dickens character.  I would recommend this."  Four-star LibraryThing review by stephvin.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

3.  Dark Knowledge (Anaphora Literary Press, 2018), the third novel in the Metropolis series.  Adult and young adult.  A fast-moving historical novel about New York City and the slave trade, with the sights and sounds and smells of the waterfront. 

New York City, late 1860s.  When young Chris Harmony learns that members of his family may have been involved in the illegal pre-Civil War slave trade, he is appalled.  Determined to learn the truth, he begins an investigation that takes him into a dingy waterfront saloon, musty old maritime records that yield startling secrets, and elegant brownstone parlors that may have been furnished by the trade.  Since those once involved dread exposure, he meets denials and evasions, then threats, and a key witness is murdered.  What price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Reviews

"A lively and entertaining tale.  The writing styles, plot, pace and character development were excellent."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by BridgitDavis.
"At first the plot ... seemed a bit contrived, but I was soon swept up in the tale."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by snash.
"I am glad that I have read this book as it goes into great detail and the presentation is amazing.  The Author obviously knows his stuff."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by Moiser20.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.


4.   The Pleasuring of Men  (Gival Press, 2011), the first novel in the Metropolis series, tells the story of a respectably raised young man who chooses to become a male prostitute in late 1860s New York and falls in love with his most difficult client.

What was the gay scene like in nineteenth-century New York?   Gay romance, but women have read it and reviewed it.  (The cover illustration doesn't hurt.)







Reviews
"At times amusing, gritty, heartfelt and a little sexy -- this would make a great summer read."  Four-star Amazon customer review by BobW.
"Really more of a fantasy of a 19th century gay life than any kind of historical representation of the same."  Three-star Goodreads review by Rachel.
"The detail Browder brings to this glimpse into history is only equaled by his writing of credible and interesting characters.  Highly recommended."  Five-star Goodreads review by Nan Hawthorne.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

5.  Fascinating New Yorkers: Power Freaks, Mobsters, liberated Women, Creators, Queers and Crazies (Black Rose Writing, 2018).  A collection of posts from this blog.  Short biographical sketches of people, some remembered and some forgotten, who lived or died in New York.  All kinds of wild stuff, plus some stuff that isn't quite wild but fascinating.  New York is a mecca for hustlers of every kind, some likable and some horrible, but they are never boring.




Reviews
"Fascinating New Yorkers by Clifford Browder was like sitting down with a dear friend and catching up on the latest gossip and stories. Written with a flair to keep the reader turning the pages, I couldn't stop reading it and thinking about the subjects of each New Yorker. I love NYC and this book just added to the list of reasons why, a must read for those who love NYC and the people who have lived there." Five-star NetGalley review by Patty Ramirez, librarian.
"Unputdownable."  Five-star review by Dipali Sen, retired librarian.
"I felt like I was gossiping with a friend when reading this, as the author wrote about New Yorkers who are unique in one way or another. I am hoping for another book featuring more New Yorkers, as I couldn't put this down and read it in one sitting!" Five-star NetGalley review by Cristie Underwood. 


©   2018   Clifford Browder   

382. Gettiing "in" with the Mystic Rose

            I am currently rereading my deceased partner Bob’s other work of fiction set in Coney Island, The Coney Island Memoirs of Sebastian Strong.  When I finish it, I’ll give my take on it and make it available to readers.  It has some remarkable features. (For my own books, see BROWDERBOOKS below.)



      Getting "in" with the Mystic Rose


         Known to her friends as the Mystic Rose, she was the acknowledged queen of the New York social world in the Gilded Age, a position she attained by tactful but ruthless cunning.  There were many Mrs. Astors at the time, but Caroline Schermerhorn Astor succeeded in getting herself known to all and sundry as the Mrs. Astor.  Though as a Schermerhorn she herself was clearly Old Old Money, in her palatial mansion on Fifth Avenue at 34th Street (now the site of the Empire State Building) she welcomed as guests a discreet mix of Old Old and New Old Money.  Those found acceptable had to be free of the taint of toil – at least two generations removed from the work-driven founder of the family fortune, so that the descendants could ease into moneyed idleness and devote their energy to the stressful rituals of (with a capital S) Society.  On this score she herself was safe, for her husband, William Backhouse Astor, Jr., was removed by the requisite two generations from old John Jacob, who had amassed the family fortune in the smelly but profitable fur trade, a fact that the Mystic Rose preferred to ignore.


[image error] Mrs. Astor, 1890.
         This is a story of the Gilded Age, which can be thought of as extending from the end of the Civil War (1865) to the outbreak of World War I (1914).  Other dates have been proposed, one that I like being 1913, when the Sixteenth Amendment was ratified, giving Congress the right to impose a federal income tax.  That such an atrocity should be imposed upon the nation’s rich – Old Old Money as well as upstarts like Old New Money and those super upstarts, New New Money – struck the affluent as outrageous, but the tax was soon a fact, though for many years not a fact of consequence.
         Whatever the exact dates, during the decades of the Gilded Age a flood of nouveaux riches poured into New York City, forcing the established leaders of Society to decide whom to accept and whom to reject.  There resulted a magnificent spectacle of New New Money fighting to be accepted by, or to outdo, Old New Money, while Old Old Money – the Knickerbockers, old Dutch and English families dating back to the city’s earliest years – quietly distanced themselves from the brouhaha.
         Yes, brouhaha.  To be in Society was a full-time job, fraught with strain and stress.  It took more than money and leisure; it took time, energy, and perseverance.  The moneyed husbands were out of it, leaving the real fight to their wives, whose coveted spoil was an engraved calling card dropped in the silver card receiver placed hopefully on a table by their Fifth Avenue mansion’s front entrance.  The card of a prestigious matron deposited there in the resident’s absence acknowledged that resident as the caller’s social equal; it said, “You may call on me, you may hope to be invited to my exclusive events.”  The more such cards deposited, the higher the recipient’s status in the social world, and the higher her hopes.  And the most coveted card of all was that of the Mrs. Astor, for it was she and her lord chamberlain, Ward McAllister, a displaced Southerner and king of snobs, who decided who should be admitted to their circle.  McAllister’s wife, an antebellum Georgia heiress, was long an invalid, leaving him alone and unfettered, free to impose his arbitrary and imperious dictates.
         The Mystic Rose’s poise was superb.  Well aware that her husband, his balding features graced with a formidable handlebar mustache, was boozing it up and womanizing on his yacht in distant seas, she ignored the resulting rumors with dignity.  If friends were so presumptuous as to bring up the subject, she smiled serenely and explained that sea air was good for her dear William, whereas she, a poor sailor, preferred to stay at home.  With him out of the way, she could entertain like the reigning monarch she was, garbed in regal purple and abundantly diamonded.


Mrs. Astor (dark dress, center) at one of her balls.  
Look close; is that a crown she's wearing?
         The highlight of the New York social season was the annual Astor ball, when her mansion was ablaze with light, and carriages flocked to the door.  Standing at the entrance to her magnificent ballroom under a life-size portrait of herself, she greeted her guests, the blessed Four Hundred whom she and McAllister declared to be the only socially acceptable persons in the city.  Among those automatically excluded were writers, artists, and actors, whom she and McAllister relegated to the ranks of the servile, only slightly above servants.  Nor were intellectuals of any stripe welcome: they thought and opined too much.  Appropriate topics of conversation were limited to food, wines, horses, country villas, yachts, and marriages, but never anything so subversive as an idea.  Yet for the socially ambitious, to be invited to the ball was the acme of joy, and not to be invited was doom.  
         Those who knew they would not be invited arranged to be traveling abroad at the time of the ball.  After all, to be educating one’s children through travel, or to be enrolling a daughter in some prestigious private school in Switzerland, so she could learn French and mix socially with the daughters of the continental noblesse, was more important than attending dear Caroline’s ball.  Meanwhile those who were invited went not to enjoy themselves, but to be seen.  And if invited to sit, however briefly, with the hostess on the red velvet sofa from which she surveyed the ballroom, one was lifted to the pinnacle of bliss.
         Those excluded who disdained the option of foreign travel, tried desperately to get in.  Through a third party, matrons of New New Money appealed to McAllister, insisting that they had grandmothers of impeccable lineage, an appeal reinforced by their dinners and dances duly reported in the social columns of the press.  But such appeals rarely succeeded.  More successful were those who went abroad with marriageable daughters and abundant funds, assets sufficient to entice into marriage titled but impecunious European noblemen.  Returning to this country, the family could then besiege the Mystic Rose and her chamberlain with their enhanced prestige, confident that these finicky social arbiters could not deny a newly ordained countess or baroness and her family.


Cornelius Vanderbilt: too craggy, too unlettered, too rough to be accepted by Society, which bothered him not a bit.  But the grandkids and their wives got in.
         Mrs. Alva Vanderbilt tried a different approach.  Her husband’s family, the Vanderbilts, were socially suspect.  Though separated by two generations from the founder of their fortunes, the immensely wealthy railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, known endearingly as Old Eighty Millions, the old boy was only recently deceased, and well remembered as the oath-prone and unmannerly wharf rat that he was.  So in 1883 Mrs. Alva  announced that she would inaugurate her new-built Fifth Avenue mansion with a luxurious fancy-dress ball such as the city had never seen.  Impressed, the socially elite began ordering elaborate costumes and preparing quadrilles for the occasion, Mrs. Astor’s teen-age daughter and her friends among them.  Since her daughter was a friend of Mrs. Vanderbilt’s daughter, Mrs. Astor assumed that an invitation would come.  She waited and waited, but in vain; her daughter was devastated.  Discreet queries through mutual acquaintances brought an explanation: Mrs. Vanderbilt would be delighted to invite young Miss Astor, but how could she?  She didn’t know Mrs. Astor.  Thus enlightened, and with her daughter’s happiness at stake, the Mrs. Astor announced, “It’s time for the Vanderbilts!”  Summoning her coach, she drove up Fifth Avenue to the Vanderbilt mansion.  There, a liveried Astor footman delivered her engraved calling card to a liveried Vanderbilt servant, and the next day the invitation came.  The Vanderbilts had arrived.
         As a hostess the Mystic Rose could be friendly, but never intimate.   One senses about her a certain coldness masking the vacuum inside her, the emptiness of a life given over to inviting certain people in, so as to keep others, scores of them, out.  Yet by the 1890s she was an American legend, her doings reported throughout the country by a press she professed to despise, and her coveted ballroom achieving a status just short of a national monument.
         One mustn’t think that the wealthy of New York existed in a gilded cage like Louis XIV’s courtiers at Versailles.  One winter morning late in 1896 Mrs. Bradley Martin, a specimen of the “new element” cautiously admitted to the precincts of grace by McAllister, read in her paper that the nation was in the throes of a severe financial depression; trade was paralyzed, and the poor were suffering acutely.  Shocked, she wondered what she could do.  Wouldn’t a grand ball stimulate trade and relieve the suffering of the poor?  Embracing her version of today’s trickle-down economics, she determined to give such a ball, and a spectacular one at that.  Twelve hundred invitations went out for a costume ball on the evening of February 10, 1897, at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, a palace of stupefying grandeur.  Guests were to come dressed like courtiers at the court of Louis XV.  Immediately Society was stricken with anticipation, and over twelve hundred people – or at least the seven hundred who attended -- began choosing an appropriate costume.
         Not everyone was delighted.  Far from being hailed as a philanthropist and savior of the poor, Mrs. Martin was denounced by editors, clergymen, and politicians who cited her ball and herself as examples of the heartless and flagrant extravagance of the rich.  Anarchists were rumored to be planning to plant bombs at her residence, and other radicals to hurl missiles through the windows of the Waldorf.  The hotel’s ground-floor windows were boarded up, and a squad of Pinkerton detectives were hired to scrutinize everyone entering the hotel that day, and to mingle with guests at the ball.  The hostess’s husband duly appeared as Louis XV, but his wife came as Mary Stuart, thus betraying a scandalous ignorance of history, since the Scottish queen had died long before Louis XV.   Still, she sported jewels worth fifty thousand dollars, including a necklace that once adorned Marie Antoinette, and diamonds once worn by Louis XIV.  Other guests came as Pocahontas, knights in armor, and other irrelevant personnages, and the Mrs. Astor (oh yes, she showed up), although garbed like a Van Dyck portrait, looked very much like an aging Mrs. Astor.  Three orchestras provided music, and the guests cavorted and danced and imbibed prodigious quantities of spirits until 6 a.m.  The hotel bill came to nine thousand dollars, which in those days was a prodigious sum. 


The Bradley Martin ball.
         Hailed as a success, the ball continued to be denounced in the press, and was even burlesqued on the stage, to the delight of those not invited.  When the city presumed to double the Bradley Martins’ tax assessment, the abused couple promptly decamped for permanent exile in England, but not before giving a farewell banquet at the Waldorf for a mere 86 guests, whose wealth was estimated at between five and ten million dollars each.  Exeunt the Martins in a flash of splendor and blame.
         Was Mrs. Bradley Martin so woefully uninformed and naïve in her endeavor to help the poor by giving a ball for the diamonded elite?  I argue no.  By the time you add in all the expenditures involved, her ball must indeed have stimulated at least a portion of the local economy.  For instance:
·      The fabulously costly costumes, and the wigs and jewelry to go with them.·      The 1200 invitations sent out. ·      The coaches that conveyed the guests to the ball.·      The vast suite at the Waldorf.·      The supper and liquor provided.·      The three orchestras hired.
         Those who benefited financially from the affair were dressmakers, seamstresses, and tailors; jewelers and stationers; the guests’ valets, coachmen, and other servants; Waldorf employees; Pinkerton detectives; caterers, florists, and musicians; carpenters or other workmen called in to create the elevated throne on which the hostess graciously received her guests; and who knows who else.   Surely this gave at least a momentary boost to the city’s economy, even if it left the poor as impoverished as ever.  On the other hand, the hosts’ hasty departure for Mother England deprived the city of a useful source of revenue in the form of taxes.
         Not everyone with money played the game of Mrs. Astor and her minions.  Next time we’ll take an imaginary tour of the New York night life in the late 1890s and meet the likes of Diamond Jim Brady and Lillian Russell, who cavorted joyfully without the least regard for the Mystic Rose.

         And the Mystic Rose herself?  In her last days, failing, she was a victim of delusion.  Standing regally in a sumptuous gown, diamonded, at the entrance to her empty ballroom, she greeted guests who existed only in her imagination, and chatted cordially with ghostly presences of the highest rank. She died in 1908.



Coming soon:  Naked Nymphs, Lillian Russell, Blackmail, and the Great White Way.



                           BROWDERBOOKS

All books are available online as indicated, or from the author.
1.   No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World  (Mill City Press, 2015).  Winner of the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction; first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards; and Honorable Mention in the Culture category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2016.  All about anything and everything New York: alcoholics, abortionists, greenmarkets, Occupy Wall Street, the Gay Pride Parade, my mugging in Central Park, peyote visions, and an artist who made art of a blackened human toe.  
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you.  An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017 and 2018, and at the Brooklyn Book Festival 2018.



Reviews
"If you want wonderful inside tales about New York, this is the book for you.  Cliff Browder has a way with his writing that makes the city I lived in for 40 plus years come alive in a new and delightful way. A refreshing view on NYC that will not disappoint."  Five-star Amazon customer review by Bill L.
"To read No Place for Normal: New York is to enter into Cliff Browder’s rich and engaging sixty years of adult life in New York. Yes, he delves back before his time – from the city’s origins to the 19th Century that Ms. Trollope and Mr. Dickens encounter to robber barons and slums that marked highs and lows of the earlier Twentieth Century. But Browder has lived such an engaged and curious life that he can’t help but cross paths with every layer and period of society. There is something Whitmanesque in his outlook."  Five-star Amazon customer review by Michael P. Hartnett.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
2.   Bill Hope: His Story  (Anaphora Literary Press, 2017), the second novel in the Metropolis series.  New York City, 1870s: From his cell in the gloomy prison known as the Tombs, young Bill Hope spills out in a torrent of words the story of his career as a pickpocket and shoplifter; his brutal treatment at Sing Sing and escape from another prison in a coffin; his forays into brownstones and polite society; and his sojourn among the “loonies” in a madhouse, from which he emerges to face betrayal and death threats, and possible involvement in a murder.  Driving him throughout is a fierce desire for better, a persistent and undying hope.
For readers who like historical fiction and a fast-moving story.






Reviews
"A real yarn of a story about a lovable pickpocket who gets into trouble and has a great adventure.  A must read."  Five-star Amazon customer review by nicole w brown.
"This was a fun book.  The main character seemed like a cross between Huck Finn and a Charles Dickens character.  I would recommend this."  Four-star LibraryThing review by stephvin.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

3.  Dark Knowledge (Anaphora Literary Press, 2018), the third novel in the Metropolis series.  Adult and young adult.  A fast-moving historical novel about New York City and the slave trade, with the sights and sounds and smells of the waterfront. 

New York City, late 1860s.  When young Chris Harmony learns that members of his family may have been involved in the illegal pre-Civil War slave trade, he is appalled.  Determined to learn the truth, he begins an investigation that takes him into a dingy waterfront saloon, musty old maritime records that yield startling secrets, and elegant brownstone parlors that may have been furnished by the trade.  Since those once involved dread exposure, he meets denials and evasions, then threats, and a key witness is murdered.  What price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Reviews

"A lively and entertaining tale.  The writing styles, plot, pace and character development were excellent."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by BridgitDavis.
"At first the plot ... seemed a bit contrived, but I was soon swept up in the tale."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by snash.
"I am glad that I have read this book as it goes into great detail and the presentation is amazing.  The Author obviously knows his stuff."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by Moiser20.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.


4.   The Pleasuring of Men  (Gival Press, 2011), the first novel in the Metropolis series, tells the story of a respectably raised young man who chooses to become a male prostitute in late 1860s New York and falls in love with his most difficult client.

What was the gay scene like in nineteenth-century New York?   Gay romance, but women have read it and reviewed it.  (The cover illustration doesn't hurt.)







Reviews
"At times amusing, gritty, heartfelt and a little sexy -- this would make a great summer read."  Four-star Amazon customer review by BobW.
"Really more of a fantasy of a 19th century gay life than any kind of historical representation of the same."  Three-star Goodreads review by Rachel.
"The detail Browder brings to this glimpse into history is only equaled by his writing of credible and interesting characters.  Highly recommended."  Five-star Goodreads review by Nan Hawthorne.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

5.  Fascinating New Yorkers: Power Freaks, Mobsters, liberated Women, Creators, Queers and Crazies (Black Rose Writing, 2018).  A collection of posts from this blog.  Short biographical sketches of people, some remembered and some forgotten, who lived or died in New York.  All kinds of wild stuff, plus some stuff that isn't quite wild but fascinating.  New York is a mecca for hustlers of every kind, some likable and some horrible, but they are never boring.




Reviews
"Fascinating New Yorkers by Clifford Browder was like sitting down with a dear friend and catching up on the latest gossip and stories. Written with a flair to keep the reader turning the pages, I couldn't stop reading it and thinking about the subjects of each New Yorker. I love NYC and this book just added to the list of reasons why, a must read for those who love NYC and the people who have lived there." Five-star NetGalley review by Patty Ramirez, librarian.
"Unputdownable."  Five-star review by Dipali Sen, retired librarian.
"I felt like I was gossiping with a friend when reading this, as the author wrote about New Yorkers who are unique in one way or another. I am hoping for another book featuring more New Yorkers, as I couldn't put this down and read it in one sitting!" Five-star NetGalley review by Cristie Underwood. 


©   2018   Clifford Browder   
Posted by Clifford Browder at 6:20 AM  
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381. Why I Didn't Vote

This post is short, angry, and right to the point.  On a happier note, go to BROWDERBOOKS below for my books.


                WHY  I  DIDN’T  VOTE
         I was all keyed up to vote.  New York City’s Board of Elections had sent me a bilingual notice (English and Spanish) telling me when and where to vote, but unlike in previous elections, it didn’t include a list of candidates, with statements from each.  So I scratched around on the Internet and finally got spotty information on the candidates and their positions, and even on the three propositions   I had always voted, midterms included, with a single exception: a midterm where there wasn’t a single candidate or issue to vote for in my election district, except judges, whom I never vote for, knowing nothing about them or their backers.  Also, I had many errands to do elsewhere, and the polling site was eight blocks away from my building.  But this time I wanted to vote, knowing full well that none of my candidates had a ghost of a chance of winning, but to register my opposition to the local establishment.  If Congress is a swamp, Albany, the New York State capital, is a cesspool, and I planned to make my opinion clear in my voting.  And I even knew to turn the ballot over to find three propositions to vote on, and knew how I would vote: yes, yes, no.
         So election day, Tuesday, November 6, came at last, and with it, rain.  Since it was only a slight drizzle, I set off mid-morning for my polling site, PS 3 on Hudson Street, without an umbrella, hoping to be back home before the predicted heavy showers and thunderstorms hit.  Naïve.
         When I got to PS 3, the rain was coming down hard, and for the first time ever, I found a long line out on the sidewalk, waiting to get inside.  I joined it, but a woman there holding an umbrella in one hand and in the other, a ballot clutched to her bosom, told me that if I had no ballot, I was in the wrong line; I must enter through the blue door, get a ballot from my election district table, fill the ballot out, and then join the line waiting to insert my ballot into a voting machine.  Going in with the best of intentions, I was sure that the people with ballots would think I was jumping the line, but I tried anyway.
         Finding no blue door, I went in with the crowd, and inside found a dense mass of voters trying to squeeze through another doorway giving access to where the election district tables were located.  It was total confusion and chaos, and when I saw four people abreast trying to squeeze in through that doorway, I knew I would never get in.  And there was no one to give guidance – no one.  And even if I could get a ballot and mark it, how could I keep it dry in the rain, and if I put it in my shoulder bag, how could I keep it from being wrinkled or crumpled, so that the machine would reject it?   
         Registering a great feeling of despair and disgust, I fought my way back outside and departed in a pelting rain to do other errands.  Every gutter now was a surging stream; there was no way to get past them without your feet getting wet.  By the time I got home, I was soaked through, my hat a sodden rag with water dripping off the brim.  And since the temperature outside hovered in the mid-50s, the heat wasn’t on, which meant everything would take hours to dry.  Even with the windows shut, I could sense the outside damp, and felt a chill inside.  And when at lunchtime I got the news on the radio, I heard reports from all over the city of long lines at polling sites, confusion, waits as long as an hour and a half, wet ballots, and malfunctioning machines.  So even if the rain let up and I went back to PS 3, I would have to wait forever to vote.  No thanks, this time they’d have to do without me.
         A wretched day, one of the worst in my life.  At any minor mishap – an object misplaced or dropped on the floor – I muttered curses or exploded in a volley of blasphemy.  And no heat, always that chill.  Finally, and none too soon, I dropped into bed and pulled the covers up like a carapace, embracing sleep with the one small comfort of knowing that the next day promised sun.
Coming soon:  Who knows?  I just deleted the next post by mistake.

                          BROWDERBOOKS

All books are available online as indicated, or from the author.
1.   No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World  (Mill City Press, 2015).  Winner of the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction; first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards; and Honorable Mention in the Culture category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2016.  All about anything and everything New York: alcoholics, abortionists, greenmarkets, Occupy Wall Street, the Gay Pride Parade, my mugging in Central Park, peyote visions, and an artist who made art of a blackened human toe.  
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you.  An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017 and 2018, and at the Brooklyn Book Festival 2018.



Reviews
"If you want wonderful inside tales about New York, this is the book for you.  Cliff Browder has a way with his writing that makes the city I lived in for 40 plus years come alive in a new and delightful way. A refreshing view on NYC that will not disappoint."  Five-star Amazon customer review by Bill L.
"To read No Place for Normal: New York is to enter into Cliff Browder’s rich and engaging sixty years of adult life in New York. Yes, he delves back before his time – from the city’s origins to the 19th Century that Ms. Trollope and Mr. Dickens encounter to robber barons and slums that marked highs and lows of the earlier Twentieth Century. But Browder has lived such an engaged and curious life that he can’t help but cross paths with every layer and period of society. There is something Whitmanesque in his outlook."  Five-star Amazon customer review by Michael P. Hartnett.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
2.   Bill Hope: His Story  (Anaphora Literary Press, 2017), the second novel in the Metropolis series.  New York City, 1870s: From his cell in the gloomy prison known as the Tombs, young Bill Hope spills out in a torrent of words the story of his career as a pickpocket and shoplifter; his brutal treatment at Sing Sing and escape from another prison in a coffin; his forays into brownstones and polite society; and his sojourn among the “loonies” in a madhouse, from which he emerges to face betrayal and death threats, and possible involvement in a murder.  Driving him throughout is a fierce desire for better, a persistent and undying hope.
For readers who like historical fiction and a fast-moving story.






Reviews
"A real yarn of a story about a lovable pickpocket who gets into trouble and has a great adventure.  A must read."  Five-star Amazon customer review by nicole w brown.
"This was a fun book.  The main character seemed like a cross between Huck Finn and a Charles Dickens character.  I would recommend this."  Four-star LibraryThing review by stephvin.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

3.  Dark Knowledge (Anaphora Literary Press, 2018), the third novel in the Metropolis series.  Adult and young adult.  A fast-moving historical novel about New York City and the slave trade, with the sights and sounds and smells of the waterfront. 

New York City, late 1860s.  When young Chris Harmony learns that members of his family may have been involved in the illegal pre-Civil War slave trade, he is appalled.  Determined to learn the truth, he begins an investigation that takes him into a dingy waterfront saloon, musty old maritime records that yield startling secrets, and elegant brownstone parlors that may have been furnished by the trade.  Since those once involved dread exposure, he meets denials and evasions, then threats, and a key witness is murdered.  What price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Reviews

"A lively and entertaining tale.  The writing styles, plot, pace and character development were excellent."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by BridgitDavis.
"At first the plot ... seemed a bit contrived, but I was soon swept up in the tale."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by snash.
"I am glad that I have read this book as it goes into great detail and the presentation is amazing.  The Author obviously knows his stuff."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by Moiser20.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.


4.   The Pleasuring of Men  (Gival Press, 2011), the first novel in the Metropolis series, tells the story of a respectably raised young man who chooses to become a male prostitute in late 1860s New York and falls in love with his most difficult client.

What was the gay scene like in nineteenth-century New York?   Gay romance, but women have read it and reviewed it.  (The cover illustration doesn't hurt.)






Reviews
"At times amusing, gritty, heartfelt and a little sexy -- this would make a great summer read."  Four-star Amazon customer review by BobW.
"Really more of a fantasy of a 19th century gay life than any kind of historical representation of the same."  Three-star Goodreads review by Rachel.
"The detail Browder brings to this glimpse into history is only equaled by his writing of credible and interesting characters.  Highly recommended."  Five-star Goodreads review by Nan Hawthorne.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

5.  Fascinating New Yorkers: Power Freaks, Mobsters, liberated Women, Creators, Queers and Crazies (Black Rose Writing, 2018).  A collection of posts from this blog.  Short biographical sketches of people, some remembered and some forgotten, who lived or died in New York.  All kinds of wild stuff, plus some stuff that isn't quite wild but fascinating.  New York is a mecca for hustlers of every kind, some likable and some horrible, but they are never boring.




Reviews
"Fascinating New Yorkers by Clifford Browder was like sitting down with a dear friend and catching up on the latest gossip and stories. Written with a flair to keep the reader turning the pages, I couldn't stop reading it and thinking about the subjects of each New Yorker. I love NYC and this book just added to the list of reasons why, a must read for those who love NYC and the people who have lived there." Five-star NetGalley review by Patty Ramirez, librarian.
"Unputdownable."  Five-star review by Dipali Sen, retired librarian.
"I felt like I was gossiping with a friend when reading this, as the author wrote about New Yorkers who are unique in one way or another. I am hoping for another book featuring more New Yorkers, as I couldn't put this down and read it in one sitting!" Five-star NetGalley review by Cristie Underwood. 


©   2018   Clifford Browder   

380. When Grandma Burns Your House Down

Note:  The Small Talk that follows mentions a possible account by me of gay life from the 1950s on.  For my published books, see BROWDERBOOKS below.



Small Talk: An Adventurous Young Man
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        While going through the files of my recently deceased partner, Robert, I encountered this photo (somewhat blurred, for which I apologize).  Here is Bob in 1957, age 20, towering over his mother on the right, and his mother's friend Hortense on the left.  Hortense is the mother's age, about 50, but she passes for 30 or younger.  Bob's mother flashes her standard camera smile, hearty, warm, and forthright, while Hortense poses smartly, appealingly: a woman who is used to attention.  
         At the time of this photo, there are two things that Mother doesn't know  about son Robert, who still lives at home in Jersey City with his parents. 

(1)  He is gay and recently had his first sex experience with a man named Ted who offered "to keep you good." 

(2)  He is also having an affair with Hortense.  

          Bob later learns not only that Ted is married, with a family, but also that he is a famous jockey who, having won many races, is a multimillionaire.  Meanwhile Bob has discovered a gay bar in New York where, with Hortense's full knowledge (but not her consent), he dances wildly and begins to connect with other lovers.

          All this while he is a full-time college student at Rutgers Newark, where he hopes to get his plays done by the Theater Department.  Also, he is going to burlesque shows not for thrills but for laughs, and has fallen in love with a heterosexual friend whom Bob has come out to.  Clearly, this young man has an immense appetite for life.

          All of which made for rather busy college year, and has inspired me to sort out and organize his voluminous files -- correspondence, journals, and photo albums -- in hopes of doing a biography of Bob that, with additions by me, will tell what it was like to be gay in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s.  His files yield multiple secrets, some shocking, some puzzling, some amusing, of which this brief account gives only a hint.  And his story often reads like a novel, or better still like an ongoing TV soap. Example: What happens when Bob's parents notice that he's spending an awful lot of time with Hortense, and his father bars "that woman" from the house?  And how does Bob react when Hortense falls deeply in love with him, proclaiming him the great love of her life, even though she knows Bob frequents a gay dance bar in New York?  And what does Bob do, when Hortense vows to "save" him from the boys?  
Will she save him from the boys?
Are squibs like this about Bob's adventurous life of interest today?  If so, I'll do more.  If not, there are alternatives. Please, dear viewers, let me know your preference.



When Grandma Burns Your House Down
                         If Grandma fumes and broods, make nice with her.  If she blows her top, don't argue, run for your life.  And if she burns your house down, shrug it off and build another.  Above all, remember that she's kin.
          So it goes on Hawaii, the biggest of the Hawaiian Islands.  Recently, when Grandma exploded and the earth shook, the people pointed to the home of Pele (pronounced PEH-leh).  “She is coming down to play,” said a poet as she fled.  “There is nothing to do when Pele makes up her mind but accept her will.”  
         “My house was an offering for Pele,” said a retired schoolteacher whose home Pele had once destroyed.  “I’ve been in her backyard for thirty years.  I have learned that Pele created this island in all its stunning beauty.  It’s an awe-inspiring process of destruction and creation, and I was lucky to glimpse it.”
         During the recent crisis some residents made offerings to Pele of crystals, money, incense, and cooked foods.  Others ventured near smoking fissures in the earth to place leaves of the palm lily there, and still others raised their arms in entreaty and awe against a fiery ruddy sky.
Worldtraveler         Pele, “the woman who devours the earth,” is the Hawaiian goddess of volcanoes and fire, and she is thought to dwell in the drizzle-shrouded volcanic crater of Mount Kilauea on Hawaii, and in other Hawaiian volcanic craters.  When, as happened recently on Hawaii, she erupts with earth-shattering violence, she triggers earthquakes, releases lethal gases, and sets forests ablaze.  In the recent eruption streams of lava flowed down her slopes to make thousands of residents flee, as their homes were engulfed and destroyed.  Flowing into the ocean, her lava produced a caustic plume of acid fumes with fine volcanic specks of glass, while flying lava shattered the leg of a man on the third-floor balcony of his rural residence.
          Since President Trump has at times dismissed global warning as “nonsense” and a Chinese-inspired “hoax,” I have taken an interest in how Hawaiians deal with the constant threat of volcanic eruptions and the loss of their homes to lava.  What they have to contend with I have seen in a video showing the crater hurling forth pellets of fire followed by oozing masses of lava.  Faced with this destructive force that they cannot control, native Hawaiians show a wisdom that I have to admire.  They don’t curse Pele or try to change her ways, which over the centuries have not changed.  Instead, they revere her and express admiration and awe at the spectacle of her dramatic eruptions.  When we Americans annexed the Hawaiian Islands in 1898, we were too ”civilized,” too “modern,” to appease Pele and accept  her fiery ways.  In 1935, when he was the U.S. Army’s chief intelligence officer in Hawaii, General George S. Patton, the future war hero, tried a bit of violence of his own: he bombed the Mauna Loa volcano in an attempt to divert it. 
         That tactic had mixed results at best, and the people of Hawaii preferred to revere and appease Pele, as they had done for centuries and still do.  They have even made her kin, calling her Madame Pele or Tutu Pele, an affectionate term for grandmother, and honor her as the creator of the islands.  They even go so  far as to call themselves her descendants, thus following the old injunction, “If you cant lick ’em, join ’em.”  Hawaiians worship 40,000 gods, a hula teacher and lecturer on Hawaiian culture explains, but Pele ranks high among them, for she created Hawaii and represents that primordial force existing in all land masses.  Paintings of her, often showing a red-robed woman with long black hair cradling fire in her hands, hang in shops or are painted on walls of schools.  Visitors can dine at Pele’s Kitchen or stay in a bed-and-breakfast called Pele’s Breath.  And a popular bumper sticker on trucks plying bumpy back roads proclaims  PELE  IS  MY  HOMEGIRL.
         Visitors share in the natives’ awe of Pele, an intrusion that the natives at times resent.  A bearded Pennsylvanian who calls himself Son of Pele on social media recently did yoga within a few feet of her lava flow, grinning as police called on him to retreat.  He said that, after seeing Pele up close, he felt energy beyond anything he had ever experienced.  But Pele can be vengeful.  Some natives say that she is getting angry about these intrusions by outsiders who know nothing of her ways.  Many Hawaiians like to describe how stoic they are in accepting her destruction, while others, seeing her as sacred, prefer not to divulge too much about her.  She can appear in human form, explains a hula dancer and evacuee, so if you see her hitchhiking, be sure to pick her up.  And since she likes gin, offer her some.  And always remember that, like her descendants, she enjoys a little mischief.  Mischief in the form of volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and lava flows that eat up homes.

         I don’t scorn or scoff at how Hawaiians have learned to live with their fiery volcano, for I see wisdom in their ways.  Faced with a destructive force they cannot control, they have made of her a fickle goddess, a loving but moody grandmother, a creator, and almost a lover.  Are we doing better, confronted with climate changes that some of us still refuse to even acknowledge, much less take responsibility for or at least accept?

Source note:  This post was inspired by an article by Simon Romero and Tamir Kalifa,"Goddess of Volcanoes Awes All in Lava's Path," in the New York Times of May 22, 2018.

Coming soon:  Antics of the Gilded Age: getting accepted by the Mystic Rose.



                               BROWDERBOOKS

All books are available online as indicated, or from the author.
1.   No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World  (Mill City Press, 2015).  Winner of the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction; first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards; and Honorable Mention in the Culture category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2016.  All about anything and everything New York: alcoholics, abortionists, greenmarkets, Occupy Wall Street, the Gay Pride Parade, my mugging in Central Park, peyote visions, and an artist who made art of a blackened human toe.  
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you.  An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017 and 2018, and at the Brooklyn Book Festival 2018.



Reviews
"If you want wonderful inside tales about New York, this is the book for you.  Cliff Browder has a way with his writing that makes the city I lived in for 40 plus years come alive in a new and delightful way. A refreshing view on NYC that will not disappoint."  Five-star Amazon customer review by Bill L.
"To read No Place for Normal: New York is to enter into Cliff Browder’s rich and engaging sixty years of adult life in New York. Yes, he delves back before his time – from the city’s origins to the 19th Century that Ms. Trollope and Mr. Dickens encounter to robber barons and slums that marked highs and lows of the earlier Twentieth Century. But Browder has lived such an engaged and curious life that he can’t help but cross paths with every layer and period of society. There is something Whitmanesque in his outlook."  Five-star Amazon customer review by Michael P. Hartnett.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
2.   Bill Hope: His Story  (Anaphora Literary Press, 2017), the second novel in the Metropolis series.  New York City, 1870s: From his cell in the gloomy prison known as the Tombs, young Bill Hope spills out in a torrent of words the story of his career as a pickpocket and shoplifter; his brutal treatment at Sing Sing and escape from another prison in a coffin; his forays into brownstones and polite society; and his sojourn among the “loonies” in a madhouse, from which he emerges to face betrayal and death threats, and possible involvement in a murder.  Driving him throughout is a fierce desire for better, a persistent and undying hope.
For readers who like historical fiction and a fast-moving story.






Reviews
"A real yarn of a story about a lovable pickpocket who gets into trouble and has a great adventure.  A must read."  Five-star Amazon customer review by nicole w brown.
"This was a fun book.  The main character seemed like a cross between Huck Finn and a Charles Dickens character.  I would recommend this."  Four-star LibraryThing review by stephvin.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

3.  Dark Knowledge (Anaphora Literary Press, 2018), the third novel in the Metropolis series.  Adult and young adult.  A fast-moving historical novel about New York City and the slave trade, with the sights and sounds and smells of the waterfront. 

New York City, late 1860s.  When young Chris Harmony learns that members of his family may have been involved in the illegal pre-Civil War slave trade, he is appalled.  Determined to learn the truth, he begins an investigation that takes him into a dingy waterfront saloon, musty old maritime records that yield startling secrets, and elegant brownstone parlors that may have been furnished by the trade.  Since those once involved dread exposure, he meets denials and evasions, then threats, and a key witness is murdered.  What price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Reviews

"A lively and entertaining tale.  The writing styles, plot, pace and character development were excellent."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by BridgitDavis.
"At first the plot ... seemed a bit contrived, but I was soon swept up in the tale."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by snash.
"I am glad that I have read this book as it goes into great detail and the presentation is amazing.  The Author obviously knows his stuff."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by Moiser20.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.


4.   The Pleasuring of Men  (Gival Press, 2011), the first novel in the Metropolis series, tells the story of a respectably raised young man who chooses to become a male prostitute in late 1860s New York and falls in love with his most difficult client.

What was the gay scene like in nineteenth-century New York?   Gay romance, but women have read it and reviewed it.  (The cover illustration doesn't hurt.)






Reviews
"At times amusing, gritty, heartfelt and a little sexy -- this would make a great summer read."  Four-star Amazon customer review by BobW.
"Really more of a fantasy of a 19th century gay life than any kind of historical representation of the same."  Three-star Goodreads review by Rachel.
"The detail Browder brings to this glimpse into history is only equaled by his writing of credible and interesting characters.  Highly recommended."  Five-star Goodreads review by Nan Hawthorne.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

5.  Fascinating New Yorkers: Power Freaks, Mobsters, liberated Women, Creators, Queers and Crazies (Black Rose Writing, 2018).  A collection of posts from this blog.  Short biographical sketches of people, some remembered and some forgotten, who lived or died in New York.  All kinds of wild stuff, plus some stuff that isn't quite wild but fascinating.  New York is a mecca for hustlers of every kind, some likable and some horrible, but they are never boring.




Reviews
"Fascinating New Yorkers by Clifford Browder was like sitting down with a dear friend and catching up on the latest gossip and stories. Written with a flair to keep the reader turning the pages, I couldn't stop reading it and thinking about the subjects of each New Yorker. I love NYC and this book just added to the list of reasons why, a must read for those who love NYC and the people who have lived there." Five-star NetGalley review by Patty Ramirez, librarian.
"Unputdownable."  Five-star review by Dipali Sen, retired librarian.
"I felt like I was gossiping with a friend when reading this, as the author wrote about New Yorkers who are unique in one way or another. I am hoping for another book featuring more New Yorkers, as I couldn't put this down and read it in one sitting!" Five-star NetGalley review by Cristie Underwood. 

©   2018   Clifford Browder   

379. Sensual

SMALL TALK: HATE
It's good to have a few hates, preferably things, not people, since things can't hate you back.  A blast of hate can cleanse the mind and soothe the spirit.  It's all a matter of what you hate.  Here are six things things I hate:

Wienies  (I know what goes into them.)
Dontworry
Jackhammers  (We can put a man on the moon, but we have never bothered to muffle a jackhammer.)

Mail marked URGENT or OPEN IMMEDIATELY or YOUR FREE GIFT IS INSIDE.  (Junk.  Into the trash, unopened.)Mail with no identifying return address or name of sender, but bearing the tell-tale word "nonprofit."  (Into the trash, unopened.)Telemarketers.  Sweet-voiced women (usually recorded) who begin, "Hello, this is Irma.  Please don't hang up, this is about your credit card/bank account/ computer/car registration," etc.  Or a stern male voice: "This is your last notice from the IRS.  You owe..."  (I hang up immediately.)The military's euphemisms: enhanced interrogation (torture), extraordinary rendition (sending suspects to another country where they can be tortured), collateral damage (dead and wounded civilians, and anything else not the target).So what do you hate?  Name six things.

SENSUAL
         Sensual, it’s in all of us, like it or not, but what is it?  First, some definitions.
·      Sensual:  “Relating to or consisting in the gratification of the senses or the indulgence of appetite : fleshly.” (Merriam-Webster online)·      Sensuous:  1. a. “of or relating to the senses or sensible objects.  b. producing or characterized by gratification of the senses : having strong sensory appeal.”  (same source)
I think of “sensual” as derogatory, implying overindulgence deserving of censure: The prince abandoned himself to sensual pleasures.  On the other hand,  “sensuous” strikes me as innocent, aesthetic: the sensuous delights of great music.  But since Merriam-Webster’s online synonyms for “sensuous” include “carnal, fleshly, luscious, lush, sensual, voluptuous,” perhaps the distinction is arbitrary.  It’s not always easy to tell the difference between “sensual” and “sensuous,” between naughty and innocent, but since when is life easy?


         A sculpture in the South Asian Hall at the Met of a bejeweled Hindu dancer, a celestial attendant to the gods, is wonderfully sensual even without arms.  Here is Venus, here is Eve, the Eternal Feminine, at her most enticingly seductive: males, watch out! 


         For a more modern take, how about John Singer Sargent’s Portrait of Madame X, showing a woman in a low-cut black dress, her face in profile, the right strap of her gown slipping from her shoulder.  Presented at the Paris Salon of 1884, the painting caused a sensation and constituted a setback in the career of the American painter, who had hoped to advance his career in France.  The subject was Madame Pierre Gautreau, a Louisiana-born beauty who, though married to a French banker, was notorious for her rumored infidelities.  Sargent later repainted the fallen shoulder strap, raising it to make it look less suggestive, more secure, but Mme Gautreau was humiliated by the portrait’s critical reception, and Sargent soon left the City of Light for murkier but more receptive London.  But the lady’s exposed pale skin, combined with her assertive face in profile, is, in a controlled but defiant way, sensual in the extreme.
         Another example: Looking out a window in my living room, I once saw a woman in a building just across the street combing her hair in front of a mirror.  She stood there in profile, completely unaware that I, quite by chance, was watching.  The rhythmic strokes of her comb were magically sensual, all the more so since this was not intended, she was just combing her hair.  (Some would then say sensuous, but I say sensual.)
         And how about this passage from the Song of Songs in the Bible:
   Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue; and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon.    A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse: a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.    Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphire, with spikenard,    Spikenard and saphron; calamus with cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrh and aloes, with all the chief spices:    A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon.    Awake, O north wind; and come forth, south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out.  Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits.
         “The graces of the church,” says the marginal commentary at the top of the page, followed by “The church professeth her faith in Christ.”  Some church!  Some faith!  But after all, the Christians adding commentary long after the Song had been written were hard put to render Christianly these superbly erotic, magnificently sensual lines of poetry, inviting the beloved to enter his spice-filled garden, his Eden and Eve of fulfillment.  And I’ve quoted only a snippet, and that in translation --- the King James Version.  What must it be in the Hebrew original!
         As for music, the pop scene offers Elvis Presley singing “Love me tender, love me true / Never let me go,” while Elvis the Pelvis moved his hips suggestively – so much so that they had to be censored on TV.  As for classical music, the sensuality of Carmen in the music of Bizet’s opera is supple and lithe, like the heroine, until death intrudes.  By way of contrast, the sensuality of Wagner’s lovers in many operas is dark and brooding almost from the start, with death as the alternative, or the inevitable outcome, of passion.  “There is no sensuality without spirituality,” a Sister of Mercy friend of mine has written, and “no spirituality without sensuality.”  In Wagner’s lovers, the one does seem to shade into the other.
The mezzo soprano Galli-Marlé who created the
role of Carmen in 1884.  Not much spiritual here.
         Fragrances can be sensual, and many a perfume is named accordingly: Bombshell Seduction, Sexual Sugar, Agent Provocateur, Lush Lust, Ange ou Demon, Obsession, Putain des Palaces, Dirty Sexy Wilde.  Subtle they ain’t, which is why they leave me cold.  But no need for these concoctions with silly (or brilliant?) names; nature can do it all by herself (nature is always a she), and better.  If you crush eucalyptus leaves, you will be immersed in a deeply sensual and insidiously penetrating aroma.  I discovered eucalyptus and its fragrance while in college in southern California, where it had been transplanted from Australia.

[image error]Downloadall sizesUse this fileon the webUse this fileon a wiki Email a linkto this file Informationabout reusing Eucalyptus leaves.
Geekstreet
         And speaking of nature, snakes strike me as sensual.  Hiking in the outdoors, I have often seen them – harmless little things – slithering away through the grass.  For me, their supple, nimble movements are distinctly sensual.  
Brian Ralphs
        And how about their bigger, more menacing cousins, the pit vipers, a subfamily that includes rattlesnakes?  Are these creatures, so deft and unerring in pursuit of their warm-blooded prey, sensual?  Yes, vastly and deeply so.  Their darting forked tongues, their ability to detect prey at a distance, their speed in coiling, their lunging venomous fangs – sublimely and mysteriously sensual.  Here again, danger and death are intimately involved in the sensual.  Nature is fascinating and mysterious; I don’t try to understand it, only to observe in awe its intertwining of beauty, danger, and death.
A rattler.  Beautiful?  Yes.  Dangerous?  Only if he doesn't hear you coming.  If he does, he'll scoot out of the way.
LA Dawson         If I asked you where in the city can you find the most gripping display of sensuality, what would you say?  The Museum of Modern Art?  Nope.  The Metropolitan Museum of Art?  No way.  Where then?  The Aquarium at Coney Island.  There you can see aquatic creatures splashing on the surface, and then, if you enter the buildings, you can see, through huge, thick panes of glass, the same creatures swimming about underwater.  I have seen seals and walruses disporting, eerie wide-finned manta rays gliding, and squid and octopi creeping, but for sheer sensual beauty, nothing can match sharks. 
Manta ray.
jon hanson
         Yes, sharks are beautiful.  Seen underwater, these torpedo-like killers, sleek and supple, glide noiselessly, their sense of smell detecting blood in the water miles away that guides them to their prey.  Their teeth curve back so that, if their prey struggles, the shark’s teeth dig deeper, rendering escape impossible.  Shark attacks, though often blazoned in the press, are in fact very rare.  Yet sharks are feared the world over, and their sleek sensual beauty, their boneless bodies’ maneuverability, gives them an appearance -- but only an appearance -- of evil.  (Nature is natural, not evil.)  But their teeth, which they shed frequently and readily replace, are collected the world over, the rare ones fetching high prices.  So to the mysterious linking of sensual beauty, danger, and death, we can add the passion of collecting, and plain old-fashioned greed.
Scary?  Yes.  Evil?  No.
Victor Grigas
Shark's teeth; nothing escapes.  But they too are beautiful.
Joxerra Aihartza

         I have one more candidate for sheer sensual beauty: flowers.  The Victorians were right in putting pressed petals in their parlors, rather than fresh flowers in full bloom, for what are blooming flowers if not sexual enticements to pollinators, thrust vaginas of flagrant and enchanting beauty?  Unless, of course, they come off as brazenly phallic.  Admiring flowers, especially those exuding a heady and voluptuous aroma, one can almost be sucked into them and swallowed down into a consummating and smothering extinction.   
A tiger lily.  She can eat you up.
Thomas Good

A black-eyed Susan.  More phallic than vaginal.
Connor Kurtz

Magnolia grandiflora.  Frankly, this one is almost obscene.
Anna Anichkova 
                    BROWDERBOOKS
All books are available online as indicated, or from the author.
1.   No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World  (Mill City Press, 2015).  Winner of the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction; first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards; and Honorable Mention in the Culture category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2016.  All about anything and everything New York: alcoholics, abortionists, greenmarkets, Occupy Wall Street, the Gay Pride Parade, my mugging in Central Park, peyote visions, and an artist who made art of a blackened human toe.  
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you.  An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017 and 2018, and at the Brooklyn Book Festival 2018.



Reviews
"If you want wonderful inside tales about New York, this is the book for you.  Cliff Browder has a way with his writing that makes the city I lived in for 40 plus years come alive in a new and delightful way. A refreshing view on NYC that will not disappoint."  Five-star Amazon customer review by Bill L.
"To read No Place for Normal: New York is to enter into Cliff Browder’s rich and engaging sixty years of adult life in New York. Yes, he delves back before his time – from the city’s origins to the 19th Century that Ms. Trollope and Mr. Dickens encounter to robber barons and slums that marked highs and lows of the earlier Twentieth Century. But Browder has lived such an engaged and curious life that he can’t help but cross paths with every layer and period of society. There is something Whitmanesque in his outlook."  Five-star Amazon customer review by Michael P. Hartnett.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
2.   Bill Hope: His Story  (Anaphora Literary Press, 2017), the second novel in the Metropolis series.  New York City, 1870s: From his cell in the gloomy prison known as the Tombs, young Bill Hope spills out in a torrent of words the story of his career as a pickpocket and shoplifter; his brutal treatment at Sing Sing and escape from another prison in a coffin; his forays into brownstones and polite society; and his sojourn among the “loonies” in a madhouse, from which he emerges to face betrayal and death threats, and possible involvement in a murder.  Driving him throughout is a fierce desire for better, a persistent and undying hope.
For readers who like historical fiction and a fast-moving story.






Reviews
"A real yarn of a story about a lovable pickpocket who gets into trouble and has a great adventure.  A must read."  Five-star Amazon customer review by nicole w brown.
"This was a fun book.  The main character seemed like a cross between Huck Finn and a Charles Dickens character.  I would recommend this."  Four-star LibraryThing review by stephvin.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

3.  Dark Knowledge (Anaphora Literary Press, 2018), the third novel in the Metropolis series.  Adult and young adult.  A fast-moving historical novel about New York City and the slave trade, with the sights and sounds and smells of the waterfront. 

New York City, late 1860s.  When young Chris Harmony learns that members of his family may have been involved in the illegal pre-Civil War slave trade, he is appalled.  Determined to learn the truth, he begins an investigation that takes him into a dingy waterfront saloon, musty old maritime records that yield startling secrets, and elegant brownstone parlors that may have been furnished by the trade.  Since those once involved dread exposure, he meets denials and evasions, then threats, and a key witness is murdered.  What price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Reviews

"A lively and entertaining tale.  The writing styles, plot, pace and character development were excellent."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by BridgitDavis.
"At first the plot ... seemed a bit contrived, but I was soon swept up in the tale."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by snash.
"I am glad that I have read this book as it goes into great detail and the presentation is amazing.  The Author obviously knows his stuff."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by Moiser20.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.


4.   The Pleasuring of Men  (Gival Press, 2011), the first novel in the Metropolis series, tells the story of a respectably raised young man who chooses to become a male prostitute in late 1860s New York and falls in love with his most difficult client.

What was the gay scene like in nineteenth-century New York?   Gay romance, but women have read it and reviewed it.  (The cover illustration doesn't hurt.)





Reviews
"At times amusing, gritty, heartfelt and a little sexy -- this would make a great summer read."  Four-star Amazon customer review by BobW.
"Really more of a fantasy of a 19th century gay life than any kind of historical representation of the same."  Three-star Goodreads review by Rachel.
"The detail Browder brings to this glimpse into history is only equaled by his writing of credible and interesting characters.  Highly recommended."  Five-star Goodreads review by Nan Hawthorne.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

5.  Fascinating New Yorkers: Power Freaks, Mobsters, liberated Women, Creators, Queers and Crazies (Black Rose Writing, 2018).  A collection of posts from this blog.  Short biographical sketches of people, some remembered and some forgotten, who lived or died in New York.  All kinds of wild stuff, plus some stuff that isn't quite wild but fascinating.  New York is a mecca for hustlers of every kind, some likable and some horrible, but they are never boring.




Reviews
"Fascinating New Yorkers by Clifford Browder was like sitting down with a dear friend and catching up on the latest gossip and stories. Written with a flair to keep the reader turning the pages, I couldn't stop reading it and thinking about the subjects of each New Yorker. I love NYC and this book just added to the list of reasons why, a must read for those who love NYC and the people who have lived there." Five-star NetGalley review by Patty Ramirez, librarian.
"Unputdownable."  Five-star review by Dipali Sen, retired librarian.
"I felt like I was gossiping with a friend when reading this, as the author wrote about New Yorkers who are unique in one way or another. I am hoping for another book featuring more New Yorkers, as I couldn't put this down and read it in one sitting!" Five-star NetGalley review by Cristie Underwood. 

©   2018   Clifford Browder   

378. How to Get Rid of Stuff

Hello to all those first discovering this blog, which is about anything and everything New York.  To subscribe and get notices of the new posts and other news, use the link on the right.  For my books, including cover illustrations, summaries, and reviews, go down to the BROWDERBOOKS section following the post.  And feedback is welcome; feel free to make comments below, or to contact me by e-mail: cliffbrowder@verizon.net.


                 How to Get Rid of Stuff

ForSince my partner Bob’s death two months ago, as his executor I’ve had the problem of getting rid of huge amounts of stuff that I don’t want – stuff that clutters up my living room and reminds me of his slow decline from  Parkinson’s.  Once cozy and welcoming, for years the living room had been a dying room, part hospital room and part medical supplies warehouse.  I want to liberate it, to make it livable again.  The hospital bed was gone, reclaimed by the supplier, but a wheelchair and walker remained, and a whole row of big cartons crammed with unused medical supplies.  What to do?  All kinds of people want to help.  For instance:
·      The head of acquisitions at Delgatto, the country’s leading jewelry buyer from the public, offers sincerest condolences for the passing of Robert E. Lagerstrom, wishes me peace during this difficult time,  offers a free evaluation of jewelry, diamonds, and watches, and includes an elegant brochure.·      Sotheby’s is sorry for my loss, and a senior global real estate advisor associated with them offers to sell the estate with patience, compassion, and trust.·      A licensed associate real estate broker with The Corcoran Group knows that families can be overwhelmed by the probate process and offers to help.·      The principal broker of the Stephen P. Wald Real Estate Associates wants to help remove personal property and furniture and prepare my properties for sale.·      The Ragazzi Gallery offers to appraise my property for estate liquidation.·      Connors & Sullivan, attorneys at law, want to preserve my assets and protect my family.
         While only the name of Sotheby’s is known to me, I am touched by the concern of these strangers, so eager to help, but to date I have no need of their services.  This will especially disappoint Mr. Connors of the last-named firm, who in a full-face photo, fingers clasped, flashes a fiendish smile, as if gloating over the fees for services about to flow his way.  (No offense intended to Mr. Connors; I’m sure he knows his stuff.)
         But for me, these dear folks aren’t the answer.  Thanks to a recommendation from the lawyer who did my will, I am already getting help, and in the process have learned of an occupation hitherto unknown to me.  Have you ever heard of a senior move manager?  Neither had I, until recently.  And what does such a manager offer?  All kinds of services:
·      An overall plan for clearing things out.·      Organizing and sorting possessions, and help in deciding what to give away, sell, or discard.·      Arranging to move anything you want to keep.·      Arranging for sale, donation, or disposal of items to be discarded.·      Completely emptying your apartment.·      Hiring a contractor and overseeing painting and other work to make your home ready for sale.
         Of all these services, I only needed arranging items for sale, donation, or disposal.  And what were those items?  First, that long row of cartons at one end of the living room, containing diapers, pads, examination gloves, wash cloths, and a heap of male external catheters – in other words, condoms – the uses of all of which, when not obvious, I prefer not to explain.  Plus the wheelchair with one broken brake.  Plus the collapsible walker.  Plus another carton containing a jumble of sterile pads and dressings, bottles of saline solution (a potent disinfectant), and other items whose use I could not imagine.  Plus, in a big closet in the bedroom, tons of clothing, none of which fitted me or suited my fussy tastes.         To remove all this stuff and have other items appraised, I had to sign a contract and agree to pay a substantial fee.  That done, the outfit’s head and an assistant came, looked over the clothes, and took photos of leftover medical supplies, Bob’s Coney Island files, and his jewelry.  Then, about a week later, they gave me the immediate results of their investigation:
·      Housing Works on West 10th Street, but a short distance from my building, would take the clothes, two trips by taxi anticipated.·      The AFYA Foundation, which has a drop-off site on East 17th Street, will take the medical supplies, including the wheelchair and walker.  They supply such stuff to people in need all over the world.  Two trips by taxi anticipated.·      A dealer in the Diamond District will look at the jewelry, but I must accompany them there.·      Alas, Bob’s Coney Island memorabilia don’t interest any of their dealers, nor do the three small Wedgwood items that I had discovered and informed them of by e-mail.
         I opted not to go with them to the jewelry dealer, but, being greedy for space, anticipated with joy the removal of the medical supplies and clothing, which would require only one visit by them.  It was not the memory of Bob that I was escaping, but the memory of Parkinson’s, that slow, insidious affliction.  So we scheduled the visit.
         Last Tuesday she came, the same young assistant who had come before.  (I’ll call her Verna, though that’s not her real name.)  Brimming with energy, Verna immediately started consolidating the medical supplies in cartons, emptying some cartons by adding their contents to another.  Since it was clear that I could help best by getting out of the way, I repaired to the bedroom, where I had piled Bob’s clothing in heaps on the bed, and started removing the hangars.           A series of weird shrieks then came in rapid succession from the living room, too rhythmic and repetitious to make me suspect foul play.    Curious, I finally looked in.  Verna was yanking off stretches of tape from a dispenser and taping the cartons shut.  Before my eyes the long row of cartons was shrinking down to half as many.  I could at last imagine that whole end of the living room purged of these leftover supplies, many of them grim reminders of Bob’s long decline and my feeble attempts to help.  Down the four flights Verna went with the cartons, following which she returned, collapsed the wheelchair to half its size, and took it down as well.  I had thought that just getting the wheelchair down would be an epic struggle, an ordeal, but she toted it down in no time.  Promising to return in an hour, she then summoned Uber and whisked everything away to the drop-off site.  Good-bye Parkinson’s, good-bye the stomach-twisting knots of hope and grief. 
         I swept up after her, put the emptied cartons together to create a surface where surplus bedding could be placed, stacked the bedding there, and gloried in the liberation of the living room, and in my own liberation as well.  Having long been a hospital room and medical supply warehouse, the room was now beginning to look again like a living room.
         An hour later Verna was back, having delivered the stuff with only one trip.  It was almost noon, and I was about to have lunch.           “Don’t you get a lunch break?” I asked.         “No,” she said.  “I just snack along the way.”         So while I started lunch, this young dynamo began inventorying the clothes I had laid out on the bed in the bedroom.          By now I was getting curious about this young woman’s profession.  “What is the name for your occupation?” I asked.         “Senior move manager,” she replied, while sorting out the clothes.         “Have you been at it very long?”         “About two and a half years.”         “And how did you ever get such a job?”         “Katie, my boss, put an ad in an artists’ website.  She figured that the odd hours would appeal to artists.  And they do.”         “You’re an artist?”         “Yes I am.”         “What kind of art do you do?”         “Right now, mostly collages.”         I gave her my card, telling her that I might mention her in a post for my blog.  Then, at my request, Verna agreed to add my name to her mailing list, so I would learn of any exhibition she was in.  Her strange profession struck me as very New York, since young artists, actors, and dancers have always flocked here to launch their careers, and for a little income usually work as waiters in restaurants.  An alternative, I now learned, is a job as a senior move manager.  Her colleagues include several young artists and dancers, likewise attracted by the odd hours, as opposed to a standard 9 to 5 job.         “By the way,” she said, “have you checked the pockets of the clothes?”         “No,” I confessed, wary of dirty handkerchiefs and who knows what else.         She proceeded to do so, and soon gave me a small bag heavy with coins, since Bob never bothered to make change.  And so, having just gotten rid of a stash of change I had found in his bureau drawer, I was loaded down with more.  It will take me weeks to get rid of it, a little here and a little there.
         Soon this marvel left, having loaded all the clothes into three big plastic bags.  Instead of summoning Uber again, she said she’d probably just tote the stuff to Housing Works on foot – further proof of her remarkable energy.  And she was knowledgeable as well: inventories of the medical supplies and clothing donations would be mailed me, so I could take their value off my taxable income – an advantage that I hadn’t even thought of, being focused on getting the stuff out of the apartment.  I was almost sorry to see her go.
         Two days later the inventories came by mail.  The medical supplies highlights:
·      For the wheelchair with one faulty brake: a mere $25.·      For the walker: $15.·      For 1 pair of cushioned foot booties (I hadn’t even known the name for them!): $10.·      9 boxes of synthetic examination gloves, 7 unopened and 2 opened: a surprising $80.·      For a box of Freedom Coloplast male catheters (those things again!) totaling about 100 in number, an amazing $100.
Good riddance to all.  The fair market value for these and other items: $345.
         And the fair market value for my clothing donations to Housing Works?  Here are some items:
·      2 sweaters: $10.·      3 neckties (carefully packaged by me): $9.·      1 earmuffs (tossed in by me, not sure they counted as clothing): $3, or $1.50 per ear.·      1 wool overcoat (too big for me): $25.·      4 button-down shirts (I don’t like button-downs): $40.·      8 coats/jackets: $80.
Total value: $199.
         $345 + $199 = $544.  The Housing Works statement assured me that my donations would give a second chance to New Yorkers in need, and the AFYA Foundation promised to donate the medical supplies to people in need all over the world.  Reflecting on this, I got a do-gooder’s warm, fuzzy feeling inside and basked in the glow of my generosity.  Plus $544 in income tax deductions!  IRS, this year I dread thee not.
         So if you have tons of stuff to get rid of, consider senior move managers.  God bless them.  Like estate liquidators, crematorium managers, and forensic pathologists (see posts #300 and #301), they perform a useful and necessary task.  It cost me only $326.58, and was worth every penny of it.  My living room is mine again at last.

Coming soon:  The Sensual: What Is It?

                   BROWDERBOOKS
All books are available online as indicated, or from the author.
1.   No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World  (Mill City Press, 2015).  Winner of the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction; first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards; and Honorable Mention in the Culture category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2016.  All about anything and everything New York: alcoholics, abortionists, greenmarkets, Occupy Wall Street, the Gay Pride Parade, my mugging in Central Park, peyote visions, and an artist who made art of a blackened human toe.  
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you.  An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017 and 2018, and at the Brooklyn Book Festival 2018.



Reviews
"If you want wonderful inside tales about New York, this is the book for you.  Cliff Browder has a way with his writing that makes the city I lived in for 40 plus years come alive in a new and delightful way. A refreshing view on NYC that will not disappoint."  Five-star Amazon customer review by Bill L.
"To read No Place for Normal: New York is to enter into Cliff Browder’s rich and engaging sixty years of adult life in New York. Yes, he delves back before his time – from the city’s origins to the 19th Century that Ms. Trollope and Mr. Dickens encounter to robber barons and slums that marked highs and lows of the earlier Twentieth Century. But Browder has lived such an engaged and curious life that he can’t help but cross paths with every layer and period of society. There is something Whitmanesque in his outlook."  Five-star Amazon customer review by Michael P. Hartnett.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
2.   Bill Hope: His Story  (Anaphora Literary Press, 2017), the second novel in the Metropolis series.  New York City, 1870s: From his cell in the gloomy prison known as the Tombs, young Bill Hope spills out in a torrent of words the story of his career as a pickpocket and shoplifter; his brutal treatment at Sing Sing and escape from another prison in a coffin; his forays into brownstones and polite society; and his sojourn among the “loonies” in a madhouse, from which he emerges to face betrayal and death threats, and possible involvement in a murder.  Driving him throughout is a fierce desire for better, a persistent and undying hope.
For readers who like historical fiction and a fast-moving story.






Reviews
"A real yarn of a story about a lovable pickpocket who gets into trouble and has a great adventure.  A must read."  Five-star Amazon customer review by nicole w brown.
"This was a fun book.  The main character seemed like a cross between Huck Finn and a Charles Dickens character.  I would recommend this."  Four-star LibraryThing review by stephvin.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

3.  Dark Knowledge (Anaphora Literary Press, 2018), the third novel in the Metropolis series.  Adult and young adult.  A fast-moving historical novel about New York City and the slave trade, with the sights and sounds and smells of the waterfront. 

New York City, late 1860s.  When young Chris Harmony learns that members of his family may have been involved in the illegal pre-Civil War slave trade, he is appalled.  Determined to learn the truth, he begins an investigation that takes him into a dingy waterfront saloon, musty old maritime records that yield startling secrets, and elegant brownstone parlors that may have been furnished by the trade.  Since those once involved dread exposure, he meets denials and evasions, then threats, and a key witness is murdered.  What price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Reviews

"A lively and entertaining tale.  The writing styles, plot, pace and character development were excellent."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by BridgitDavis.
"At first the plot ... seemed a bit contrived, but I was soon swept up in the tale."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by snash.
"I am glad that I have read this book as it goes into great detail and the presentation is amazing.  The Author obviously knows his stuff."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by Moiser20.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.


4.   The Pleasuring of Men  (Gival Press, 2011), the first novel in the Metropolis series, tells the story of a respectably raised young man who chooses to become a male prostitute in late 1860s New York and falls in love with his most difficult client.

What was the gay scene like in nineteenth-century New York?   Gay romance, but women have read it and reviewed it.  (The cover illustration doesn't hurt.)





Reviews
"At times amusing, gritty, heartfelt and a little sexy -- this would make a great summer read."  Four-star Amazon customer review by BobW.
"Really more of a fantasy of a 19th century gay life than any kind of historical representation of the same."  Three-star Goodreads review by Rachel.
"The detail Browder brings to this glimpse into history is only equaled by his writing of credible and interesting characters.  Highly recommended."  Five-star Goodreads review by Nan Hawthorne.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

5.  Fascinating New Yorkers: Power Freaks, Mobsters, liberated Women, Creators, Queers and Crazies (Black Rose Writing, 2018).  A collection of posts from this blog.  Short biographical sketches of people, some remembered and some forgotten, who lived or died in New York.  All kinds of wild stuff, plus some stuff that isn't quite wild but fascinating.  New York is a mecca for hustlers of every kind, some likable and some horrible, but they are never boring.




Reviews
"Fascinating New Yorkers by Clifford Browder was like sitting down with a dear friend and catching up on the latest gossip and stories. Written with a flair to keep the reader turning the pages, I couldn't stop reading it and thinking about the subjects of each New Yorker. I love NYC and this book just added to the list of reasons why, a must read for those who love NYC and the people who have lived there." Five-star NetGalley review by Patty Ramirez, librarian.
"Unputdownable."  Five-star review by Dipali Sen, retired librarian.
"I felt like I was gossiping with a friend when reading this, as the author wrote about New Yorkers who are unique in one way or another. I am hoping for another book featuring more New Yorkers, as I couldn't put this down and read it in one sitting!" Five-star NetGalley review by Cristie Underwood. 

©   2018   Clifford Browder   

377. Dirty Words -- We Love Them

Last chance for these fictional tales about Coney Island by my deceased partner Robert Lagerstrom. A signed hardcover is available from me (cliffbrowder@verizon.net) for $25.00, or otherwise as indicated below.  Fiction for the hardy few who like a good read that conveys the varying moods of an aging gay professor who chronicles his past escapades and the decay of the Coney he has known and loved, matching the decay of his own physical being.


A Coney Island of the Past:

The Professor and Other Tales of Coney Island

by Robert Lagerstrom


Hardcover available from Amazon for $30.99, and e-book on Kindle for $9.99.Paperback available from Xlibris for $20.99.

Dirty  Words -- We Love Them
         This post is about profanity.  What I confess here may cost me some friendships, since I'm going to reveal my dark heart and foul tongue.  But first of all, what is profanity? There’s no easy, all-embracing answer, since opinions vary with time and place.  The word itself is a noun formed from the adjective profane, which comes via Old French from the Latin profanare, “to desecrate, render unholy, violate,” and from profanus, “unholy, not consecrated,” which in turn comes from pro fano, meaning “in front of the temple” -- in other words outside it, secular, or desecrating what is holy. 
         Yet today we use the word “profanity” to indicate indecorous language, language that is obscene and therefore forbidden; it may or may not be blasphemous or sacrilegious. Profane language today can be blasphemous, using God’s name in vain (a violation of the Third Commandment), or obscene, often using certain common four-letter (and sometimes five-letter) English words that designate the bodily functions of sex and excretion.  Freud long ago observed that the close proximity of our organs of sex and excretion has caused humanity a huge deal of woe, and he was probably right.
         What originally brought this subject to mind, where it has probably been lurking long since, is a review in the New York Times of October 2, 2016, of two new books on the subject: Benjamin K. Bergen, What the F: What Swearing Reveals about Our Language, Our Brains, and Ourselves (Basic Books, 271 pp.), and Michael Adams, In Praise of Profanity (Oxford University Press, 253 pp.).  I have perused neither of these new arrivals, but note that the first sounds learned and analytical, whereas the second sounds like a joyful celebration of our use of dirty words. The Times  reviewer, Josh Lambert, salutes Benjamin Bergen’s treatment of the subject, but notes that it “saps a little of the joy out of dirty words.”  Michael Adams’s book, on the other hand, catalogs the many benefits of cursing a blue streak.  (Why “blue,” by the way?  Why not red or yellow or black?  But let’s not digress.)  He observes that today is a wonderful time to swear, involving little risk while letting one feel brave and subversive.  The 21st century in America is – for the moment, since these things can change – the Golden Age of Profanity.
         I’m glad to hear it, because as far back as I can remember, I have cursed.  Not loudly, in public, but muttering sotto voce, while swearing resoundingly in private.  Given my soft-spoken and temperate public manner, my effusions of sweetness and light, my friends probably don’t even suspect the raging curses and resonant profanities of my private moments.  What sets me off?  For the most part, trivia: a slight stumble, a misbehaving computer, something misplaced and urgently needed, something dropped on the floor, a junk phone call or even a welcome one at an inopportune moment: in short, the minor mishaps and trivial contretemps of daily living, which most people dismiss with a shrug.  And what exactly do I say?  (Here all delicate and easily affronted viewers should tune out.)  Expletives like these:
·      Shit!  A thousand times shit!·      God shit-ass damn!·      Holy fuck.·      Oh puke! ·      You blatant prick, shut up!  (To the phone.)·      You goddam piece of shit!  (To my computer.)·      Jesus H. Christ!  (No idea what the H stands for.)·      Holy turd!·      You filthy cocksucker!  (Usually to some inanimate object.)
         So here are Christian and scatological terms in a feisty mix.  Certainly I’m no stranger to the seven dirty words banned from radio and television: shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, montherfucker, tits.  But if once, momentarily vexed in my childhood, I called a friend as “a saber-toothed tiger,” I confess that my arsenal of expletives today is sadly deficient in originality.  And when a friend, by chance overhearing a few of my utterances, thought he discerned a note of conscious and intentional blasphemy, I replied that in all honesty I was simply using the swear words I had grown up hearing all around me – not in my family, but on the playground, at school, and on the street -- without any thought of intentional blasphemy or sacrilege. 
         What would be a good example of truly original profanity?  There are plenty in Shakespeare, but the most memorable one that I know of is an outburst mouthed in King Lear by Kent, who to his face calls another character
Now that is swearing --  good, earthy, gutsy profanity.  While the familiar “son of a bitch,” richly renewed, is buried in there, the whole spiel reeks of a lurid originality that few of us today can match.  Indeed, our current vocabulary is by comparison tepid and threadbare.  (Why the blue print, by the way?  I have no idea.  My computer's idea.)
         Once, on the phone, while talking to a representative of my health care plan, I in frustration muttered a soft “Jesus Christ!”  “There’s no need for profanity,” the representative officiously announced, which provoked in me a rare burst of fury.  I almost said to him, “Sir, that comment was not meant for your ears, but since you heard it and saw fit to respond, please be advised that if I want to use such language, I fucking well will!”  I squelched the impulse to say it, but ever since have regretted that I didn't.  A unique incident in my experience that revealed to me my passionate belief that I have the right to swear as I please.  

          (A side note: I have almost never cursed in the state of Indiana.  I have family and friends there, and they and Hoosiers generally are so welcoming, so decent, and so tolerant of this slightly depraved New Yorker venturing in their midst, that I feel no need or desire even sotto voce to curse.)
         But do I have the right to swear?  Back in 1999 I heard of the arrest of a young man in Michigan who, because his canoe capsized, soaking him, and because his buddies then guffawed, spouted a torrent of oaths.  A mother canoeing with her two young children was shocked at hearing him and covered the ears of one child, but couldn’t protect the other from this verbal assault.  A sheriff’s deputy on patrol nearby ticketed the offender for a misdemeanor under an old law of 1913 and later testified that the profanity could be heard a quarter of a mile away.  Though the ACLU rushed to the defendant’s rescue, the "cussing canoeist" was convicted and could have served 90 days in jail.  Such language, the prosecutor said, would be tolerated "maybe in New York City, but not in Standish, Michigan."  But in 2002 the Michigan appeals court overturned the 1913 law, saying that it violated the First Amendment.  Be that as it may, I would have gladly consoled the defendant by saying that, there but for the grace of You Know Who, went me.  The "curser" (as his buddies at work termed him) had no intention of offending others in public, but was prompted by a sudden unforeseen mishap.  A quick bit of online research shows that these cases, and the issues they raise, are quite common.
         While I vigorously affirm my right (except in Indiana) to swear, I also confess that, when provoked by some trivial occurrence, my profanity is just plain stupid and childish.  To counter or alleviate it, I have three stratagems.
1.    Squelch it.  Often when, provoked by the misbehavior of some trivial object, a torrent of expletives is about to burst from my mouth, I stifle the torrent and say instead, reprovingly, “Why you naughty little recalcitrant object!”  Tame, yes, and perhaps insipid, but a stab at minimal gentility. 
2.    Cancel it out.  On the advice of a Catholic friend, to eliminate an unintended blasphemy I say, “Blessed be the name of the Lord.”  And believe me, I say it a lot.
3.    Smother it in sentiment.  This, at least, shows a little originality.  When a screeching “Fuck you!” blasts forth (at some object, not a person), I soften and sentimentalize it by singing “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you…” to the tune of “Sweetheart, sweetheart, sweetheart,” the celebrated duet sung by Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy in the 1937 film Maytime, a love story so lyrically and drippingly sentimental that the mere thought of it steeps me in a cloyingly sweet stink of apple blossoms:
Sweetheart, sweetheart, sweetheart,Will you remember me everWill you remember this dayWhen we were happy in May …
Fuck you, fuck you, fuck youI’ll love you black and blueI won’t remember this dayWhen we were so gaga in May …
Or something of the sort, since my lyrics, determinedly silly and offensive, change from day to day.  Not great poetry, but it serves a purpose.
         Of course the standards of gentility, and therefore of profanity, have undergone transformations throughout the centuries, with the middle and ruling classes much concerned with such matters, and the working class much less so.  Goshand golly are softenings of God, and geeze and gee and geeze surely stem from Jesus.  Copulate and penis are 16th-century stand-ins for coarser (i.e., working-class) terms.  White meat and dark meat, commonly used even today when carving or serving poultry at the table, were coined to avoid such vulgarisms as breast and leg.  And we habitually use restroom or a room that has little to do with repose.  Victorian mores shunned any direct reference to the physical.  As a friend once informed me, back in those genteel days sweat was not to be applied to humans.  “Animals sweat,” went the rule, “people perspire, and young ladies glow.”
         Just in my own time, things have changed.  When Clark Gable, near the end of the 1939 film Gone with the Wind, uttered the forbidden word damn – “Frankly, my dear,” he tells Vivien Leigh, “I don’t give a damn!” -- it had resonance.  But in the 1974 film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, the fast-talking waitress Flo, played brilliantly by the actress Diane Ladd, utters reams of profanities that fly by the audience’s ears with the speed of lightning, but register nonetheless as profane. And for that gritty role Ms. Ladd got an award for best supporting actress.
         If we laugh at the euphemisms of past generations, someday future generations will laugh at ours.  Even in our supposedly liberated age – the Golden Age of Profanity, when almost anything goes – some words are forbidden.  Feminists have compelled us to avoid the “c-word,” designating female genitalia, and our growing ethnic sensitivity has rendered the “n-word” taboo, except when spoken by African Americans among themselves.  And if shit and perhaps fuck are slowly winning acceptance, the free use of fart and cocksucker still distresses some.  Political correctness vs. honest candor is an ongoing war, and gentility still, on occasion, raises its formidable head.  Which makes our language interesting, and thrusts upon us the eternal challenge of knowing when, and when not, to use certain juicy but forbidden words.  But let’s face it, using them is fun.
©  2018  Clifford Browder

376. Patagonia, Alinka, Caroline, and How I Won't Grow Rich

A Coney Island of the Past:

The Professor and Other Tales of Coney Island

by Robert Lagerstrom


Hardcover available from Amazon for $30.99, and e-book on Kindle for $9.99.Paperback available from Xlibris for $20.99.
Following my presentation of the book in last week's post, there’s been only one sale so far, leaving me with eight copies, which admittedly isn’t much.  Not a surprise, since I discouraged sales, saying only those who savor Proust and Beckett should buy.  To whom I now add Karl Ove Knausgaard, whose epic read, My Struggle, is now available in English – all six volumes.  Hailed as the Norwegian Proust, Knausgaard is viewed as alternately brilliant and dull.  Robert Lagerstrom’s The Professor, being much shorter (only 138 pages), is far less challenging.  In my opinion, it’s worth getting for just one of the stories, whose conclusion is heartbreaking.  But I still caution that it’s not for everyone.  Robert has heart, he identifies with freaks and misfits, of whom his book has many, and he is a master of style and mood.  But now, on to my latest adventures as a writer, a short post inspired by recent developments.  Short it certainly is, but I couldn’t resist.

Patagonia, Alinka, and Carolyn,and How I Won’t Grow  Rich

They want me in Patagonia.  No, not that dry, bleak, windy southern stretch of Argentina; my stretch doesn’t reach that far.  I mean Patagonia, Arizona, population 913, in Santa Cruz County, at the very southern part of the state, near the Mexican border.  I got an e-mail from the librarian there, explaining that they have a program to make known to their readers self-published books that might otherwise escape their attention.  If I would donate a copy of No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World, my one self-published work, they would display it and otherwise make t known to their readers, and report to me the number of times it gets checked out.  But, I asked, would Arizonans in a little town so far from New York be interested in my New York-based works?  Absolutely, the librarian replied.  I’d be surprised how many New Yorkers they had there, and the New Yorker is one of the most popular periodicals in their collection.  So off I mailed a copy, delighted at the idea of being read in this far distant little town in Arizona.  But how had they ever heard of me?  My name, the librarian informed me, was listed as “a hit new indie author in Alinka Rutkowsky’s weekly LibraryBub newsletter.  Which was the first hard evidence that Alinka and her newsletter were doing me any good.  So who, then, is Alinka? 
         Alinka Rutkowsky is, as she proclaims, a best-selling author of business and money titles who out of the goodness of her heart, and her instinct for flashy self-promotion, wants to help indie authors achieve the astonishing success that she has known.  For a fee, of course.  She has been featured on ABC, NBC, CBS, and just about any other venue you can think of.  Write and Grow Rich is the title she’s currently promoting, though all her books promise to supercharge a writer’s career.  And how have I connected with this phenomenon?  She is the founder of LibraryBub, a service that, by featuring them in her online publication, claims to connect indie authors with over 10,000 librarians.  

          I was initially suspicious, since there now exists a whole industry of shrewd authors promising to promote your career -- for a fee, of course.  The best way to promote your own career is to offer -- for a fee, of course -- advice to aspiring young and not-so-young writers.  But since librarians are a significant part of my target audience, last June I shelled out hard coin -- to the tune of $299.00 (less than a booth at a book fair, I rationalized) -- and signed up for the program.  Then I waited and waited. Finally, last August, my historical novel Dark Knowledge (and a lot of other books) was featured online for two weeks.  The results: the newsletter mentioning my book was opened 4909 times by librarians, and my Amazon link was clicked 409 times.  Did this lead to sales?  Who knows?  If librarians decide to buy the book, they will do so during their purchasing period, which may be months from now.  But I’ve had great exposure, Alinka assures me, and my book was included in a press release that was picked up by that holy trinity, NBC, ABC, and CBS.  Meanwhile I live on hope.  Which is why the request from Patagonia, even if it cost me money, was most welcome.  If dinner is uncertain, one settles now for crumbs.
          So much for her service.  But who is Alinka herself?  Book promoters all emphasize the importance of the author’s photograph; it must grab the attention of readers.  So for Alinka, who wants her readers to “write and grow rich,” I expected a figure of authority, stern and awe-inspiring, like Michelangelo’s Sibyls on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.  


The Cumaean Sibyl.  Not sexy, to say the least.  But notice how he snuck in
two naked boys behind her.Instead, I found a deliciously charming young blonde with a winsome, almost flirtatious look.  Frankly, she is just plain flat-out sexy.  For me, she inspires all kinds of thoughts, none of them about getting rich – at least, not by writing books.  Not that I doubt her success; clearly, she has written and grown rich.  And more power to her, if she can have her cake and eat it, too.  But I’m not buying Write and Grow Rich.  For advice of that ilk, I prefer Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s The Frugal Book Promoter: How to get nearly free publicity on your own or by partnering with your publisher.  It better suits my modest budget and ambitions.  And the author’s photo (not included in the book), white-haired and spectacled, though with a winning smile, isn’t trying to seduce me.  She and Alinka are both great self-promoters, but they have different styles.  More power to them both.  But Carolyn Howard-Johnson looks like she wants to be friends.

                              BROWDERBOOKS

All books are available online as indicated, or from the author.
1.   No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World  (Mill City Press, 2015).  Winner of the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction; first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards; and Honorable Mention in the Culture category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2016.  All about anything and everything New York: alcoholics, abortionists, greenmarkets, Occupy Wall Street, the Gay Pride Parade, my mugging in Central Park, peyote visions, and an artist who made art of a blackened human toe.  
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you.  An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017 and 2018.




Reviews
"If you want wonderful inside tales about New York, this is the book for you.  Cliff Browder has a way with his writing that makes the city I lived in for 40 plus years come alive in a new and delightful way. A refreshing view on NYC that will not disappoint."  Five-star Amazon customer review by Bill L.
"To read No Place for Normal: New York is to enter into Cliff Browder’s rich and engaging sixty years of adult life in New York. Yes, he delves back before his time – from the city’s origins to the 19th Century that Ms. Trollope and Mr. Dickens encounter to robber barons and slums that marked highs and lows of the earlier Twentieth Century. But Browder has lived such an engaged and curious life that he can’t help but cross paths with every layer and period of society. There is something Whitmanesque in his outlook."  Five-star Amazon customer review by Michael P. Hartnett.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
2.   Bill Hope: His Story  (Anaphora Literary Press, 2017), the second novel in the Metropolis series.  New York City, 1870s: From his cell in the gloomy prison known as the Tombs, young Bill Hope spills out in a torrent of words the story of his career as a pickpocket and shoplifter; his brutal treatment at Sing Sing and escape from another prison in a coffin; his forays into brownstones and polite society; and his sojourn among the “loonies” in a madhouse, from which he emerges to face betrayal and death threats, and possible involvement in a murder.  Driving him throughout is a fierce desire for better, a persistent and undying hope.
For readers who like historical fiction and a fast-moving story.






Reviews
"A real yarn of a story about a lovable pickpocket who gets into trouble and has a great adventure.  A must read."  Five-star Amazon customer review by nicole w brown.
"This was a fun book.  The main character seemed like a cross between Huck Finn and a Charles Dickens character.  I would recommend this."  Four-star LibraryThing review by stephvin.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

3.  Dark Knowledge (Anaphora Literary Press, 2018), the third novel in the Metropolis series.  Adult and young adult.  A fast-moving historical novel about New York City and the slave trade, with the sights and sounds and smells of the waterfront. 




New York City, late 1860s.  When young Chris Harmony learns that members of his family may have been involved in the illegal pre-Civil War slave trade, he is appalled.  Determined to learn the truth, he begins an investigation that takes him into a dingy waterfront saloon, musty old maritime records that yield startling secrets, and elegant brownstone parlors that may have been furnished by the trade.  Since those once involved dread exposure, he meets denials and evasions, then threats, and a key witness is murdered.  What price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Reviews

"A lively and entertaining tale.  The writing styles, plot, pace and character development were excellent."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by BridgitDavis.
"At first the plot ... seemed a bit contrived, but I was soon swept up in the tale."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by snash.
"I am glad that I have read this book as it goes into great detail and the presentation is amazing.  The Author obviously knows his stuff."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by Moiser20.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.


4.   The Pleasuring of Men  (Gival Press, 2011), the first novel in the Metropolis series, tells the story of a respectably raised young man who chooses to become a male prostitute in late 1860s New York and falls in love with his most difficult client.

What was the gay scene like in nineteenth-century New York?   Gay romance, but women have read it and reviewed it.  (The cover illustration doesn't hurt.)







Reviews
"At times amusing, gritty, heartfelt and a little sexy -- this would make a great summer read."  Four-star Amazon customer review by BobW.
"Really more of a fantasy of a 19th century gay life than any kind of historical representation of the same."  Three-star Goodreads review by Rachel.
"The detail Browder brings to this glimpse into history is only equaled by his writing of credible and interesting characters.  Highly recommended."  Five-star Goodreads review by Nan Hawthorne.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

5.  Fascinating New Yorkers: Power Freaks, Mobsters, liberated Women, Creators, Queers and Crazies (Black Rose Writing, 2018).  A collection of posts from this blog.  Short biographical sketches of people, some remembered and some forgotten, who lived or died in New York.  All kinds of wild stuff, plus some stuff that isn't quite wild but fascinating.  New York is a mecca for hustlers of every kind, some likable and some horrible, but they are never boring.




Reviews
"Fascinating New Yorkers by Clifford Browder was like sitting down with a dear friend and catching up on the latest gossip and stories. Written with a flair to keep the reader turning the pages, I couldn't stop reading it and thinking about the subjects of each New Yorker. I love NYC and this book just added to the list of reasons why, a must read for those who love NYC and the people who have lived there." Five-star NetGalley review by Patty Ramirez, librarian.
"Unputdownable."  Five-star review by Dipali Sen, retired librarian.
"I felt like I was gossiping with a friend when reading this, as the author wrote about New Yorkers who are unique in one way or another. I am hoping for another book featuring more New Yorkers, as I couldn't put this down and read it in one sitting!" Five-star NetGalley review by Cristie Underwood. 

©   2018   Clifford Browder   

375. Junk: An Executor's Nightmare

   AN EVOCATION OF A CONEY ISLAND OF THE PAST

As the executor of my deceased partner's will, I am sorting out his stuff, and in the process discovered copies of his two self-published books, both of them fiction set in Coney Island.  Bob loved Coney Island, visited it in all seasons over many years, and created thick files of Coney clippings and memorabilia.  So I reread his second work, The Professor and Other Tales of Coney Island.  It's a gripping bunch of stories, but they aren't for everyone.  The main character is the Professor, an aging gay male who chooses to live year round in a shabby boarding house where heat and running water are unreliable, and who records his impressions in a first-person narrative throughout.  Interspersed with his narrations are stories of other year-round residents of Coney: freaks, prostitutes, a midget who longs to meet another gay midget, and Fran Saunders, a bisexual older woman who plays Big Mama to the other residents, listening to their woes with compassion. Those who stay on in Coney through the dreary winter months, when the summer crowds are gone, do so either because they have nowhere else to go, or because, like the Professor and Fran Saunders, they have an appetite for desolation.  The Professor greets the dawn looking out his window at the deserted amusement park and the hints of an oncoming winter storm, while he has one, two, three shots of whiskey, and recalls brief trysts with younger men that never led to a lasting relationship. Later he will resume his reading of St. Augustine.  And always, looming like another character in summer and winter alike, there is the brooding presence of the sea.

I say that this work is not for everyone, because it is not a fast-paced read full of action.  If that's what you want, try my novels (see BROWDERBOOKS below.)  Bob is a superb stylist and a master of mood, presenting Coney in all seasons, but with special emphasis on the desolate winter months, when the Professor chronicles Coney's deterioration and his own.  There is gay sex at times, but no porn, and the end of one of the stories is heartbreaking.  If you read Marcel Proust and savor him, this may be a book for you.  If you read Samuel Becket and his accounts of decay and despair, this may be a book for you.  But don't get it, if you don't really want to read it.  I have only nine copies, all hardcover; they retail at $30.99, but for the moment I'm selling them for $25 (plus postage, if required).  See below for other options.

Re the cover: The cover illustration was provided by Bob, who took photos of the abandoned Thunderbolt roller-coaster, which he had ridden many times in the past.  If you look close, you will see vegetation creeping up over it.  He once showed it to me, the property fenced off and overgrown with weeds.  Especially fascinating was a little house under its hulking structure, where the widow or daughter of the deceased owner was said to live in isolation.  For Bob, the abandoned site was a symbol of the deterioration of the Coney Island he had known and loved.  He uses it in one of the stories in his book.



Hardcover available from Amazon for $30.99, and e-book on Kindle for $9.99.Paperback available from Xlibris for $20.99.

               JUNK: AN EXECUTOR'S NIGHTMARE

First, some definitions:
·      JUNK:  Anything that strikes me as unnecessary, useless, time-consuming, and occupying too much space.

·      CLUTTER:  Anything that annoys me by its proliferation and  apparent disorganization.
Junk has no reason to exist.  Examples:
·      In a basement closet in the house I grew up in long ago, a small carton labeled “mother’s hair.”

·      In a box in the home of a deceased New England spinster, discovered by neighbors who were clearing out her things: “String – too short to be used.”
Clutter often has a reason to exist.  It may be useful, even essential.  It offends chiefly by virtue of its seeming lack of order and its proliferation.  Examples:
·      My desktop.  Try as I do to keep it neat and organized, papers and small objects accumulate.  They are usually important, have to be dealt with, but can’t be immediately disposed of.

·      A small drawer in the chest-on-chest in my apartment.  In the back of it is a jumble of old glasses cases, sewing items, keys, small packages of tissues, shoelaces, and who knows what else?  Deplorable.
         Why do junk and clutter offend me?  Because I’m a neatnik.  I like order, dread chaos.  My whole life has been a fight against the primordial she-beast of Chaos, the monster bitch goddess against whom most of us, wittingly or unwittingly, fight a lifelong battle that we are probably doomed to lose.  Chaos reigned before Cosmos was created, and seeks to overthrow Cosmos and dissolve existence the flux of undifferentiated matter.  My fight against junk and clutter is an epic struggle against the Big Mama of uncreation that would swallow us up and obliterate all we know and hold dear.
         So why am I obsessed with this struggle now?  Because, as my deceased partner Bob’s executor, I am obligated to sort out and appraise his stuff.  And Bob, sweet guy though he was, was a clutterbug.  He saved everything, never threw anything out.  An example: in a thick file, all his papers from his college years at Rutgers Newark.  (I’d be embarrassed by mine.)  It’s for me to decide what, like those college papers, is junk and get rid of it, and what is clutter that needs to be weeded out and organized.  A weighty responsibility.  To help me, I’ve consulted a woman whose job it is to help people overwhelmed by an accumulation of things that they must sort out.  She knows what can be sold, what donated, and what you’re just plain stuck with.  She and her assistant came to the apartment and took photos of objects of interest.  Here are some of the items in question and her determination:
 Clothes.  Bob’s don’t fit me, and he had three times as many as I did, filling most of two closets and at least five drawers in a bureau.  Luckily, they can be donated to Housing Works, which has a thrift shop on West 10th Street.  Pending that, every Saturday morning I tote out a load or two to donate to a stand in the Abingdon Square Greenmarket that donates or recycles clothing.
 Medical supplies.  A wheel chair, a walker, surgical gloves, wipes, pads, bandages, bottles of saline solution, and condoms for a male external catheter.  (Never heard of the latter?  Neither had I, until immersed in home care.)  An outfit in Chelsea will take it all.    
     Playbills.  A huge collection.A huge collection.  But since everyone saved them, they have no value.  Out!  And are they heavy!

 Jewelry.  I was amazed to find how much Bob had.  Some he bought, some probably came from his mother.  Bright, glittery stuff, quite eye-catching, plus quiet rings that may be of value.  Probably a mix of cheap stuff and items of value.  A dealer in the Diamond District might be interested, but since the expert doesn’t think I’d get much, and the stuff doesn’t take up much space, I’ll keep it.  
Three small Wedgwood items.  All bear the Wedgwood name.  Not sellable; today there’s simply no market for china.

Two Tiffany objects.  A sterling silver letter opener that he gave his mother and reclaimed after her death, and a small vase given him by a friend, which he thought was also Tiffany, though it isn’t labeled such.  Since the vase is questionable, I’ll keep both items.
         Bob’s Coney Island files.  Memorabilia amassed since the 1950s: clippings, photos, etc., organized in files by decade, plus sundry other items.  When she opened a small box and found a stack of old postcards, the visiting expert was quite intrigued, took photos of it. But no dealers are interested, so I’ll offer it to the Brooklyn Historical Society.
          Bob’s diaries, photos, letters.  A huge collection.  Countless diaries, bulky photo albums, and correspondence from the 1950s on, with accompanying photos.  To be sorted out by yours truly – an overwhelming task that I’m now in the throes of doing – with possible donation in time to the gay history archives in the gay center on West 13th Street, just a short ten-minute walk from here.  In his letters and diaries Bob said exactly what was on his mind, whether it was socially acceptable or not.  I’ve dipped into it, and boy, am I learning a lot!  Much of it he told me, but it’s coming through now big and bold, and I’m startled, amused, baffled, and amazed.  Out of all this I may get a post or two for this blog, leading to a nonfictional account of his eventful twentieth and twenty-first years, based on his letters and diary, plus accompany photos.  What he was up to as a callow youth will amaze readers, just as it has amazed me.

         One final observation: those bulky photo albums hold literally hundreds of photos, often accompanied by handwritten notes.  For every photo he took of his father, there are 40 of his mother.  (Shades of Oedipus!)  And for every photo of his mother, there are 60 of Bob.  I can’t myself conceive of taking so many photos of myself.  Bob was a narcissist obsessed with his youthful and aging self.  But not a total narcissist: he found room  for others (myself included), had warm friendships with both men and women.  His albums, diaries, and correspondence bear witness to the fact.  He lived richly and fully, and it's my job now, not just to sort out his stuff, but to commemorate his life and make it available to others.  His life was anything but dull.  By recording it in letters, diaries, and photos, he has left me the means to do it.

Coming soon: ???  I just hope I have time to do something.  Right now, I'm overwhelmed (that word again!) by things to do.

                      BROWDERBOOKS

All books are available online as indicated, or from the author.
1.   No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World  (Mill City Press, 2015).  Winner of the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction; first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards; and Honorable Mention in the Culture category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2016.  All about anything and everything New York: alcoholics, abortionists, greenmarkets, Occupy Wall Street, the Gay Pride Parade, my mugging in Central Park, peyote visions, and an artist who made art of a blackened human toe.  
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you.  An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017 and 2018.




Reviews
"If you want wonderful inside tales about New York, this is the book for you.  Cliff Browder has a way with his writing that makes the city I lived in for 40 plus years come alive in a new and delightful way. A refreshing view on NYC that will not disappoint."  Five-star Amazon customer review by Bill L.
"To read No Place for Normal: New York is to enter into Cliff Browder’s rich and engaging sixty years of adult life in New York. Yes, he delves back before his time – from the city’s origins to the 19th Century that Ms. Trollope and Mr. Dickens encounter to robber barons and slums that marked highs and lows of the earlier Twentieth Century. But Browder has lived such an engaged and curious life that he can’t help but cross paths with every layer and period of society. There is something Whitmanesque in his outlook."  Five-star Amazon customer review by Michael P. Hartnett.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
2.   Bill Hope: His Story  (Anaphora Literary Press, 2017), the second novel in the Metropolis series.  New York City, 1870s: From his cell in the gloomy prison known as the Tombs, young Bill Hope spills out in a torrent of words the story of his career as a pickpocket and shoplifter; his brutal treatment at Sing Sing and escape from another prison in a coffin; his forays into brownstones and polite society; and his sojourn among the “loonies” in a madhouse, from which he emerges to face betrayal and death threats, and possible involvement in a murder.  Driving him throughout is a fierce desire for better, a persistent and undying hope.
For readers who like historical fiction and a fast-moving story.






Reviews
"A real yarn of a story about a lovable pickpocket who gets into trouble and has a great adventure.  A must read."  Five-star Amazon customer review by nicole w brown.
"This was a fun book.  The main character seemed like a cross between Huck Finn and a Charles Dickens character.  I would recommend this."  Four-star LibraryThing review by stephvin.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

3.  Dark Knowledge (Anaphora Literary Press, 2018), the third novel in the Metropolis series.  Adult and young adult.  A fast-moving historical novel about New York City and the slave trade, with the sights and sounds and smells of the waterfront. 




New York City, late 1860s.  When young Chris Harmony learns that members of his family may have been involved in the illegal pre-Civil War slave trade, he is appalled.  Determined to learn the truth, he begins an investigation that takes him into a dingy waterfront saloon, musty old maritime records that yield startling secrets, and elegant brownstone parlors that may have been furnished by the trade.  Since those once involved dread exposure, he meets denials and evasions, then threats, and a key witness is murdered.  What price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Reviews

"A lively and entertaining tale.  The writing styles, plot, pace and character development were excellent."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by BridgitDavis.
"At first the plot ... seemed a bit contrived, but I was soon swept up in the tale."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by snash.
"I am glad that I have read this book as it goes into great detail and the presentation is amazing.  The Author obviously knows his stuff."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by Moiser20.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.


4.   The Pleasuring of Men  (Gival Press, 2011), the first novel in the Metropolis series, tells the story of a respectably raised young man who chooses to become a male prostitute in late 1860s New York and falls in love with his most difficult client.

What was the gay scene like in nineteenth-century New York?   Gay romance, but women have read it and reviewed it.  (The cover illustration doesn't hurt.)







Reviews
"At times amusing, gritty, heartfelt and a little sexy -- this would make a great summer read."  Four-star Amazon customer review by BobW.
"Really more of a fantasy of a 19th century gay life than any kind of historical representation of the same."  Three-star Goodreads review by Rachel.
"The detail Browder brings to this glimpse into history is only equaled by his writing of credible and interesting characters.  Highly recommended."  Five-star Goodreads review by Nan Hawthorne.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

5.  Fascinating New Yorkers: Power Freaks, Mobsters, liberated Women, Creators, Queers and Crazies (Black Rose Writing, 2018).  A collection of posts from this blog.  Short biographical sketches of people, some remembered and some forgotten, who lived or died in New York.  All kinds of wild stuff, plus some stuff that isn't quite wild but fascinating.  New York is a mecca for hustlers of every kind, some likable and some horrible, but they are never boring.




Reviews
"Fascinating New Yorkers by Clifford Browder was like sitting down with a dear friend and catching up on the latest gossip and stories. Written with a flair to keep the reader turning the pages, I couldn't stop reading it and thinking about the subjects of each New Yorker. I love NYC and this book just added to the list of reasons why, a must read for those who love NYC and the people who have lived there." Five-star NetGalley review by Patty Ramirez, librarian.
"Unputdownable."  Five-star review by Dipali Sen, retired librarian.
"I felt like I was gossiping with a friend when reading this, as the author wrote about New Yorkers who are unique in one way or another. I am hoping for another book featuring more New Yorkers, as I couldn't put this down and read it in one sitting!" Five-star NetGalley review by Cristie Underwood. 

©   2018   Clifford Browder