Clifford Browder's Blog, page 23

348. Must We Hate the President? Trump, the Clintons and Obama

For two poems of mine, click here and also here.  Awful stuff.

In the Offing:

A pioneer in female erotica who had two husbands and kept a "lie box" with lists of lies so she could keep her two lives straight.



SMALL  TALK

What they've said about New York:

"No urban night is like the night there.  Here is our poetry, for we have pulled down the stars to our will."  Ezra Pound

"One belongs to New York instantly, one belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years."  Tom Wolfe 

"I'm from New York.  I will kill to get what I need."   Lady Gaga


Must we hate the President?


         No, I don’t hate the Donald.  I dislike and deplore him as president and think him at times a fool and a child, but I don’t hate him.  I’m thinking of the visceral hate that the Far Right has felt for Obama and both Clintons.  Hillary has been accused of murdering her husband’s deputy White House counsel, Vincent Foster, and of ordering the murder of others.  And the GOP candidate Ryan Zinke, when campaigning in Montana for a House seat in 2014, actually called her “the Antichrist.”  (And where is Zinke today?  In Trump’s cabinet as Secretary of the Interior.)  When her name came up at pre-election Trump rallies in 2016, that hate was well expressed by Trump’s moniker “Crooked Hillary” and his followers’ vehement cries of “Lock her up!”  And this from supporters of a candidate now under scrutiny for possible pre-election misdeeds of his own.  What gives?


The Clintons at the Donald's inauguration.  Amazingly, they could smile.
         Let’s start with Hillary and her recently published election memoir What Happened (note the absence of a question mark).  This post was inspired by a review of the memoir by Annette Gordon-Reed in the New York Review of Books of February 8, 2018.  I haven’t read the memoir, but the review, entitled “Female Trouble,” raises many relevant questions.  The Founding Fathers who wrote our Constitution – all men, of course – never specified the qualities needed to fill the office of President.  Nor did it ever occur to them that a position meant to be a symbol of the nation might be filled by a black man or a woman.  The Fifteenth Amendment gave the vote to newly freed black men in 1870, but women, significantly, didn’t get the vote until the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920.  And the first black man  became president in 2008, eight years before Hillary became the first woman to try for the office backed by a major party. 


Hillary caricatured.
DonkeyHotey
         There are many reasons why Hillary failed to be elected, but significant among them, Annette Gordon-Reed emphasizes, is the fact that Hillary is a woman.  Hillary’s memoir notes that it is easier for a woman to rise to the top in a parliamentary system, where the candidate is chosen by the party, than in a presidential system, where a woman candidate has to deal more directly with voters’ sexism and stereotypes.  A segment of the U.S. population, both male and female, disrespects and even hates women in public life and cannot take them seriously when they act outside of traditional roles.  For them, hating Hillary as a politician cannot be separated from hating her as a woman.  This animosity may be unconscious, but it is virulently present and helps explain the hate of Hillary as a candidate and helps also explain, in part, her loss.
         I have to agree with this appraisal by the reviewer, who endorses the views of Hillary the candidate and author.  But besides being a woman, Hillary is clearly of the establishment, and American voters in 2016 were so angry at the establishment that many of them embraced Trump, the outsider.  Criticized for getting a hunk of money for talks to various interest groups, including Goldman Sachs, Hillary explained that “everybody does it.”  What everybody does was precisely what voters were tired of and aggressively denouncing.  Her unawareness of this further inflamed their anti-establishment mood and reinforced her image as the darling of Wall Street.  Worse still, she refused to release the text of the Goldman Sachs talk to the public, a gesture that might have somewhat allayed the suspicion that she had something to hide. 
         Hillary isn’t warm and outgoing, lacks her husband’s charisma and love of campaigning, his ability to mix with people.  Diligent and serious, she can come off as detached and icy, an impression accentuated by her rather shrill voice.  Rarely has she ever let go emotionally in public and spoken from the heart.  Furthermore, she has always appeared to voters as not quite honest, just a bit too clever, too slick.  I confess that I have been of this persuasion, recalling vaguely the complicated Whitewater real estate deal in Arkansas that, like most people, I couldn’t understand.  Likewise I recall how some significant documents – I don’t remember what – mysteriously disappeared from her law firm and then, two years later, just as mysteriously reappeared.  All of which seemed suspect – not quite criminal, but not on the up-and-up. 
         These many impressions fed the hate of her critics, who during the 2016 campaign even accused her of running a child sex ring in the basement of a Washington DC pizzeria.  Such accusations are patently false, and the hate behind them I cannot share.  I may distrust Hillary and deplore her unawareness of the mood of the voters, but I simply cannot hate her.  I liked the idea of a woman becoming President, but had to acknowledge that this woman came with too much baggage.  She aroused in me suspicion and regret, but never hate.


Obama besieged by supporters in the 2008 campaign.
Sage Ross
         And how about Barack Obama?  When he became a presidential candidate in 2008, he impressed many voters as a new guy in town, someone fresh and exciting.  Far from being a symbol of the establishment and the status quo, he brought a promise of hope and change.  But the Far Right wasn’t convinced.  His Ivy League background and perceived elitism alienated many.  They labeled him a scheming opportunist, a secret Muslim, an immigrant with no right to be president (until he produced his birth certificate, and some expressed doubt even after that), a bungler, a socialist, a criminal.  As with Hillary, I don’t ask why such criticism, since all presidents get criticized, but why such hate?  If hatred of Hillary often masks a deep-seated and perhaps unconscious hate of women in public life, the attacks on Obama surely masked a deep-seated and perhaps unconscious hate of blacks.  For many, Obama was an uppity golf-playing black who had no business in the White House.  Like Hillary, he was a challenge to the stereotype of the typical American leader as a righteous, dynamic, and patriotic white male.  Obama inspired fear and hate in whites who saw him as representing the browning of America, the undermining of white privilege by the growing number of minorities, especially immigrants.  What we fear and feel threatened by we come to hate, and from the very start this intruder from Kenya was hated, and hated passionately.




         And Bill Clinton, who was neither a woman nor black?  Certainly the Monica Lewinsky affair motivated his critics, even to the point of attempting to impeach him, but their hate of him long preceded it.  They saw in him an irresponsible, self-indulging Baby Boomer, a child of the 1960s to whom success had come too easily, a man whose lax personal morality – evident in his many affairs – they found deplorable.  He was “Slick Willie,” a proverbial liar, and for genuine conservatives his lies and philandering – and his ability to get away with it – debased the presidency.  Yet in researching this post online I found far more articles on the Far Right’s hate of Hillary than on their hate of her husband.  Maybe they can let go of Bill, but even now, with the 2016 election a thing of the past, they can’t let go of Hillary.
         The only president I disliked personally was Richard Nixon.  I sensed in him a meanness and an inability to laugh at himself, but my antipathy  never reached the level of hate, and I always recognized that much of what he accomplished, both in foreign and domestic affairs, was good.  I opposed almost every policy decision of Baby Bush (meaning “W,” as opposed to Papa Bush), but the man himself was rather likable.  He could take a joke at his expense, and videos of him clearing brush on his ranch in Texas -- which may well have been carefully stage-managed -- showed the public a down-to-earth guy they could identify with, as opposed to John Kerry, his challenger in 2004, whose windsurfing in flowery shorts off Nantucket struck many as distant and elitist.  


On his Texas ranch.  Just one of the guys.
           If my dislike of any recent public figure ever approached the level of hate, it was inspired by Dick Cheney, Baby Bush’s vice-president, who throughout his career has had his fingers in every profitable pie.  Beside this shrewd opportunist, whose flag-bedecked official photo shows a self-satisfied smile, Bush Jr. looks almost innocent.  But Cheney was never president.


As V.P., 2003.  With not one flag, but two.
         All right, if we must hate, let’s hate Trump; certainly he invites it.  But don’t hate the majority of his supporters.  Instead, find out why they voted for him, the only candidate who seemed to speak their language.  In this regard, I speak as a child of the Midwest, well aware that Midwesterners – certain segments of them – gave the election to You Know Who.  They aren’t all bigots, racists, and homophobes (though some are).  In this post-industrial world we now find ourselves in, they feel ignored, disdained, and desperate, looked down upon by coastal elites.  Like most of us, they voted their gut feelings, their hurt.  Whether the Donald can really help them, I doubt; time will tell.  Meanwhile many are hailing him – prematurely, I grant -- as the worst president we have ever had, threatening to dethrone such contenders as James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Andrew Jackson, and others, each of whom has had his defenders and detractors.  One thing is sure: unlike Millard Fillmore, William Henry Harrison, Chester Alan Arthur, and (my favorite) Franklin Pierce, the Donald won’t soon be forgotten.

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.  In her Reader Views review, Sheri Hoyte called it "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City."
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you.  An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017.
Review 

"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.
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. 
The back cover summary:

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, taking slaves from Africa to Cuba, 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.  Chris has vivid fantasies of the suffering slaves on the ships and their savage revolts.  How could seemingly respectable people be involved in so abhorrent a trade, and how did they avoid exposure?  And what price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Early 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.
New release; 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, if you like, but no porn (I don't do porn).  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.

                 *                 *                 *                  *

Coming soon: Life in a Supertall High-Rise
©   2018   Clifford Browder




 C

347. Wonder: Can We Find It in New York?

In the Offing

This new feature will announce things to come, starting next week.

SMALL  TALK
What they've said about New York:

"When I saw Manhattan, I wanted it." -- Quentin Crisp, the self-styled Stately Homo of England

"The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding." -- John Updike

"Today America is the Roman Empire and New York is Rome itself." -- John Lennon

"New York is appalling, fantastically charmless and elaborately dire."  --  Henry James

Also: Martin Shkreli -- yet again!

Yes, just when we thought he'd been packed off to Durance Vile for a seven-year sentence for fraud, he reappears.  No, he's still locked up, but journalist James B. Stewart, in an article entitled "Deceit and Demeanor" in the Business Day section of the New York Times of March 23, 2018, contrasts his fate with that of Elizabeth Holmes, founder of the Silicon Valley blood-testing start-up Theranos, who was recently accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission of massive fraud.  It seems that she deceived investors into believing that Theranos could perform comprehensive tests on a single drop of blood -- a claim that the SEC insists was false -- and also misrepresented the company's financial condition.  Result: Ms. Holmes, an attractive young woman with long blond hair, settled with the SEC without having to admit guilt.  She is barred for ten years from being an officer or director of any public company and paid a fine of $500,000, but is still CEO of Theranos, a private company.  Published with the article is gimmicked photo showing Mr. Shkreli, with a mischievous smirk, behind bars, while Ms.  Holmes, with flowing blond hair, well lipsticked and garbed sveltely in black, stands at liberty in front of the bars.  In court Ms. Holmes appeared appropriately subdued, drawing no attention to herself, whereas Mr. Shkreli, to his attorney's despair, showed not a hint of humility or contrition, smirking and rolling his eyes throughout the proceedings.  Mr. Shkreli, one must remember, was convicted not of arrogance or pharmaceutical misdeeds, but of fraud, and the extent of his fraud was far less than hers.  His attorney believes that his behavior added years to his sentence. Admittedly, many of us cheered at the news of his conviction, but we were cheering his punishment for youthful arrogance and greed far more than fraud; we wanted him to be taken down, and he was.  But few of us were even aware of Ms. Holmes's misdeeds and the modest price she paid for them.  So it goes in these United States.


WONDER
         Wonder: we need it; without it, our lives are bleak and bare.  But what is it?  According to the dictionary, “a feeling of surprise mingled with admiration, caused by something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar, or inexplicable.”  To which I might add, “and a feeling of joy.”  But can we experience it in New York?  The night sky with its myriad stars provokes wonder, but it isn’t easily seen in the city.  But we can find wonder here, and must.  Einstein, who was not conventionally religious, memorably observed, “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead -- his eyes are closed.”  His “mysterious” is surely the same as wonder, or close to it.  So here is where I have found wonder in New York.
         First of all, Lower Manhattan at night, when seen from Brooklyn or the air.  That fantastic panorama of high-rises ablaze with lights, as well as the bridges and waterfront.  Every time I see it I am overwhelmed.  Though familiar, it is wondrously beautiful and reminds me why I love New York.  A friend recently told me of a sign on the old Chemical Bank building at South Ferry: “New York is New York.  Is there anywhere else?”  Indeed, is there?  The world has many magical and strikingly beautiful cities, but they aren’t New York.

[image error] Download
all sizes Use this file
on the web Use this file
on a wiki Email a link
to this file Information
about reusing King of Hearts
         Next, for a similar effect I’ll mention Lincoln Center at night, preferably in mild weather, with all the buildings and the fountain lit up.  Magnificent.
          And the George Washington Bridge, that marvelous span across the Hudson, with its twin towers and harplike chords of steel, leaping gracefully and majestically across the river far below.  Walking across it, as I have done many times, you forget the noise of the traffic and find yourself immersed in air and light, close to sky and far from solid land and the water below.

John O'Connell
         But these are familiar sights, you may object, beautiful but not surprising, given the marvels of modern technology.  All right, let’s try something else.  Across the Hudson, the looming gray-basalt cliff face of the Palisades, almost vertical, 400 and 500 feet high.  I have hiked there many times.  Taking the shore path down near the river, one comes to the Giant Stairs, a jumble of boulders that have cracked off from the cliffs and tumbled down there to create this strange lunar landscape whose great chunks of rock often wobble as you scramble zigzag over them.  And below those boulders, in dark caverns and recesses that never see the light of day, lurk lizards, foxes, raccoons, small rodents, and venomous cottonmouths that you will never see, since they hug the shadows when they hear you coming.  This landscape humbles me, for it hints of great natural forces at work over eons of time, shaping and reshaping the land we profess to own and control.  That those forces are still at work became clear in May 2012, when they broke off a huge face of the cliffs and sent it crashing down to the edge of the river, sweeping with it into the river a whole stand of trees.  Since the slide occurred in the evening, no hikers were injured, but the warning of danger resonated and that stretch of the shore path had to be closed.
The Palisades, looking south toward New York City.
Erhudy
         Maybe you will tell me that the Palisades and their Giant Stairs inspire a feeling of awe that isn’t quite the same as wonder, so I’ll try something else.  How about buds opening in April, and the miracle of life?  

Evelyn Simak
We take it so for granted, our being here for a certain stretch of time, as if this wasn't the most unlikely and miraculous of events.   At least we can utter a two-line poem that I encountered in a high school English class long ago:
I.Why?
         Too philosophical?  Too abstract?  Then I’ll trot out my memory of a huge sycamore tree that thrusts its mottled trunk skyward at a certain spot in Van Cortland Park.  It is the largest sycamore, and one of the most massive trees, that I have ever seen, its trunk measuring at least six feet across.  Like all sycamores, its brown bark flakes off in jagged pieces, exposing the yellow and white underbark beneath.  And right near it, in the shadows under some smaller trees, grow the umbrella-like clusters of small white flowers and the delicate fernlike leaves of poison hemlock, whose juices conveyed Socrates from ancient Athens to the hereafter.  (Don’t try it, anyone contemplating suicide.  Plato makes it sound calm and peaceful, but other sources say that hemlock poisoning is very unpleasant indeed.)


Not my tree, whose trunk is not this thick.  But this gives an idea...
Msact
         In Jamaica Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, wonder has come to me with a sudden flapping of two hundred snow geese that I have startled into flight.  Or when I walked softly on a gravel path, one September morning, into a flock of several hundred migrating tree swallows that rose from the ground ahead of me and flew over me, and around me on either side, to land on the path behind me.  For a few marvelous moments I was completely surrounded by swallows.  Never had this happened to me before, and never has it happened since.
Snow geese in startled flight.
Brocken Inaglory

Tree swallows in migration.
Russ         A hidden treasure probably known only to me grows in the rotten wood of an old Hudson River pier under the new pier at the end of Christopher Street.  The rotten wood has tiny pockets of soil, and there every October, if I look over the sides of the pier (which no one else bothers to do), I see here and there a stalk with thick, fleshy leaves and a clublike cluster of tiny yellow flowers: seaside goldenrod, the last of the goldenrods to bloom.  There’s no sea here, but the Hudson has salt water and that’s all that seaside goldenrod needs.  For me, it is indeed a wonder that a seed of the plant should find a tiny bit of soil in the rotten wood of an old pier under a new pier, suck nourishment there, and bloom.  Which it does, faithfully, every year.
Seaside goldenrod.
Katja Schulz
         There’s plenty of wonder in the city’s museums.  In the South Asia hall of the Met, a statue of a Hindu dancer stands frozen in movement, her arms and legs broken off, but enticingly sensual: wonder.  And in that same hall a dancing Shiva, poised on one leg while raising the other one, renders the dance of life … and death: wonder.  And in close proximity to these dancers, Buddhas sit gracefully, radiating spirituality: wonder again.


Jean-Pierre Dalbéra
         And four Kandinsky paintings, totally abstract, featuring swirls of color with lines and dots and curlicues that seem to pulse with the energy of life.  Since I have seen them in both MOMA and the Guggenheim Museum,  I’m not sure where their permanent home is, but they are probably the only abstract paintings that totally and absolutely grab me: wonder yet again.
         Even lines of poetry, often at the close of a poem, can induce in me a sense of wonder. Do you recognize any of these?  (The answers follow below.)  These work for me; they may not work for others.
1.    DETERMINED, DARED, and DONE.2.    … plus vaste que nos lyres …3.    … with the absolute heart of the poem butchered out of their own bodies good to eat a thousand years.  4.    For every thing that lives is holy.  5.    The still, sad music of humanity … 6.    … lacrimae rerum …7.    Time held me green and dying / Though I sang in my chains like the sea. 

1.    The triumphant closing line of Christopher Smart’s A Song to David, 1763.2.    Arthur Rimbaud, "Bateau ivre."3.    The last lines of Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl.”4.    William Blake, last line of “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.”5.    William Wordsworth, “Tintern Abbey.”6.    “tears for things,” in Virgil’s Aeneid.7.    Last lines of Dylan Thomas’s “Fern Hill.”
         Finally, I’ll come back to architecture.  Many of the high-rises built in the last few decades in Manhattan are just big clunky boxes, totally without inspiration.  But there are exceptions, as for instance the supertall tower designed by Jean Nouvel and going up right next to MOMA on West 53rd Street.  Once named the Tower Verre, and since rechristened more banally 53W53, its glass-clad exterior tapers to a glass pinnacle immersed in light.  Luxury housing, to be sure, but strikingly, wondrously unique.
         One may well accuse these soaring high-rises of mindless folly and presumption, of going where no buildings have ever gone before: much commented-on Towers of Babble that somehow risk the downfall of their Biblical predecessor.  But our architects are wondrously in love with height, with skinny steel-reinforced, glass-encased towers soaring heavenward.  No matter what it costs us, we shall stab the sky.


High-rises in Long Island City, Queens.
King of Hearts
         Wonder redeems us from the trivial, the daily, the routine.  We  treasure it, glorify it.  Of all the wonders about us in this striving, striding city, these high-rises seem almost frighteningly appropriate for a ruthless, enterprising, wildly creative, and fiercely conquering nation.  But maybe quiet wonders – a green sprout here, a bird call there, a few lines from a poem – best satisfy our needs.  They cost nothing, do no harm, don’t risk the wrath of the gods.    

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.  In her Reader Views review, Sheri Hoyte called it "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City."
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you.  An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017.
Review 

"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.
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. 
The back cover summary:

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, taking slaves from Africa to Cuba, 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.  Chris has vivid fantasies of the suffering slaves on the ships and their savage revolts.  How could seemingly respectable people be involved in so abhorrent a trade, and how did they avoid exposure?  And what price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Early 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.
New release; 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, if you like, but no porn (I don't do porn).  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.

                 *                 *                 *                  *

Coming soon:  Maybe what it's like to live in a supertall Manhattan high-rise.
©   2018   Clifford Browder

346. New York Architecture, Its Glories and Horrors

Featured this week:

No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World.   An award-winning collection of stories about anything and everything New York.  

"Wonderful inside tales about New York.  A refreshing view on NYC that will not disappoint."  Five-star Amazon customer review by Bill L. 

Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.






SMALL  TALK


Funeral Wells: gray-bearded with sunken eyes, he'd weep bitter tears at a funeral, while helping himself to your wallet.

Banjo Pete Ellis, who gave up minstrel shows to rob banks.  Minstrelsy's loss was crime's gain ... for a while.

Annie Reilly, nicely scarfed with an earnest look: a diligent servant who would fuss over the children and then elope with all the jewelry in the house.

Lord Courtney, a.k.a. Sir Harry Vane of Her Majesty's Lights, a tall and gentlemanly smooth-talking British impostor who dazzled wealthy belles to the point that they snipped buttons from his fake uniform to cherish as mementoes of the Empire, unaware that he was swindling them out of a fortune.

John Larney, a.k.a. Mollie Matches, who in his younger days did drag as a little girl selling matches and picked the pockets of people in large gatherings, before graduating into adult-style burglary.

These are some of the crooks whose mug shots, showing them nicely dressed but with a somewhat miffed expression, appear in the New York City Rogues Gallery of Inspector Thomas F. Byrnes, chief of New York City's Detective Bureau.  Accompanying each photo was a brief description to help in identification.  This information appears in Byrnes's Professional Criminals of America, published in 1886 and now in the public domain.  Though credited with reforming the Detective Bureau, Byrnes was not above beating a thief into a confession, while at the same time accumulating a small fortune with the help of tips and advice from Wall Street friends like Jay Gould.  But thanks to Byrnes, we can savor the appearance and activities of the most diligent and colorful rogues of his time, without having to worry about their fingers sneaking into our pockets, or their smooth talk swindling us out of our hard-earned cash.

(For info about the Rogues Gallery and Byrnes I am indebted to Dan Barry's article "Cheats, Swindlers and Ne'er-Do-Wells" in the Metropolitan section of the New York Times of Sunday, February 11, 2018.)

NEW  YORK  ARCHITECTURE,  ITS  GLORIES  AND  HORRORS 

        Construction in Manhattan is rampant.  My own dear bank, that generous dispenser of free candy and tissues, is going to demolish its midtown headquarters in 2019 and build a new world headquarters on the site, the site being Park Avenue between 47th and 48th Streets.  The existing building, an oldie built in 1961, has a mere 52 stories; the new one will soar to 70 stories and contain an additional 1 million square feet of office space to accommodate 15,000 employees, compared to the 6,000 now crammed into a building meant for 3,500.   This move, says CEO Jamie Dimon, will ensure that the bank operates “in a highly efficient and world-class environment for the 21st century.”  That’s good to hear, given the awkward fact of the bank’s losing $6 billion (yes, billion, though some say more) in a single bad trade in 2012.  This is the first sky-scratcher to go up under new zoning rules for Midtown East that encourage the development of taller, more modern structures.  Mayor Bill de Blasio is happy about the news, almost cackling with approval.   Some architects and preservationists lament the loss of the present building, which has no landmark status, but photos show a big box of a thing with lots of gray glass and black steel panels, impressive in its way but, to my mind, disposable.  What the new building will look like, I have no inkling.  More than just another big box, I hope.
         Current construction in Midtown isn’t just BIG BIG BIG; it’s also TALL TALL TALL.  432 Park Avenue, a 96-story residential tower between 56th and 57th Streets completed in 2015, tops out at 1396 feet, making it the third tallest building in the U.S., and the tallest residential building in the world.  Its design, they say, was inspired by a 1905 trash can, which gives one pause for thought.  Photos show a squarish skinny tower standing out like a proverbial sore thumb and overtopping everything around it.  Its condos are now going for up to $17 million, some of them with 10 by 10 foot windows offering spectacular views of Central Park, across whose sacred green spaces the building’s shadow must at times fall like a sacrilege.  “This building is about seeing forever,” said a real estate broker in 2016, stating that the current real estate demand was for high in the sky, for “see everywhere.”  Certainly it’s visible from everywhere, which makes some people call it an eyesore.  Worse than that, “a giant matchstick,” “a toothpick,” “a dried piece of spaghetti.”  Yes, critics at first derided the Eiffel Tower, but the Eiffel had ample grounds around it and wasn’t residential, least of all with condos at sky-high prices.  Have I seen it?  432, that is.  No, not from ground level, in the flesh (or should I say concrete?).  Who wants a pain in the neck?
It does stand out ... and up.
Fashawkss8
          Another example of TALL TALL TALL is New York by Gehry, a 76-story residential tower at 8 Spruce Street in Lower Manhattan, named modestly for its architect, Frank Gehry, which opened in 2011.  Helping to justify its soaring existence are the first five floors devoted to a school hosting 600 students ranging from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade, plus a fourth floor with play space for the kids.  Above this noble enterprise rise the luxury apartments, now renting from about $3,000 a month for a studio up to almost $30,000 for a four-bedroom apartment.  Rarely available, the 76th floor penthouse goes for $45,000 a month and offers incredible views (on sunny days) in every direction; wherever you look, there is New York.  The building’s rippled stainless steel façade is said to glitter in the sun, and reviews have been mostly favorable, some even calling it the first Lower Manhattan high-rise to match in grandeur that nearby neo-Gothic wonder that I so love, the Woolworth Building.  Certainly it is striking to behold -- much more so than 432 Park -- with wiggly lines creeping up its sides like skinny worms, though the top is cut off bluntly, without any crowning spire or glass pinnacle to shimmeringly dissolve in light.  This is world-renowned architect Frank Gehry’s only New York achievement.  Canadian born and now a resident of California, he is especially acclaimed for designing the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, which to my eye looks like a rather clunky Cubist warship, though I’m sure it houses marvels inside. 
It ain't the Woolworth, but striking it is.
giggel
         Not all the new buildings scratch the heavens.  The Queens Library at Hunters Point, a Long Island City waterfront construction on the East River, hugs the ground against a backdrop of recently built boxlike high-rise condos.  Designed by architect Steven Holl, it has been called “quirky” and “zany,” and it is certainly creatively weird.  Still unfinished after many delays, its aluminum-painted concrete cube of an exterior is said to have a subtle spark, but what catches the eye is a bunch of big cutouts that look like some angry giant repeatedly punched through the walls with his fist.  The cutouts let one peek into the interior, and let patrons inside enjoy panoramic views of Manhattan as they climb or descend a series of bookshelf-flanked stairs.  (Sounds great, but I hope there are elevators, too.)  The location is spectacular, and unlike the residential towers now cluttering up the Manhattan skyline, this structure will truly serve the public.  At night its glowing presence is flanked by a giant Pepsi bottle and the letters LONG ISLAND, both of them in bright, brash light.  Hopefully (and a lot of hope has already been expended), the library will be completed in August 2018 and opened to the public in 2019.  Why the delays?  For one thing, the special glass needed for the windows had to be manufactured in Germany and glazed in Spain, where a dockworkers’ strike held it up for six weeks  before it was exported to Connecticut, and then shipped to Long Island City.
Yes, it's a library, and yes, it's finished.  Just takes a little getting used to.
Jim.henderson
         Another weird structure that bulkily hugs the ground is the Spring Street Salt Shed at the corner of Spring and West Streets, across busy multilane West Street from the Hudson River.  Completed in 2015, it has been called a “functional piece of architectural eye candy,” but to me looks like a half-crumpled windowless box.  (During one meeting of the Public Design Commission, Commissioner James Polshek crumpled up a piece of paper and said, “Do this.”)    Supposedly designed to look like a 69-foot-high salt crystal, it can hold up to 5,000 tons of salt imported from Chile and Argentina.  And why all that mountain of salt?  For the Department of Sanitation (DSNY) to spread on the city’s streets when snowstorms hit, of which we’ve recently had three within ten days.  Huge doors measuring 35 feet high and 24 feet wide let DSNY trucks go in to deliver a load of imported salt, and salt spreaders go out to spread the salt when a snowstorm hits.  The waterfront site exposes the building to the fury of the elements, and the constant truck traffic could damage the walls, so the walls are six feet thick and reinforced with steel plating.  The walls now have a blue tint resulting from slag, but in time sunlight will hopefully turn them the color of salt.  For a structure that is basically functional, the salt shed is a marvel of engineering and architectural daring.  No other salt shed in the city can compare with it. 
But does it look like salt?
Beyond My Ken
         All these creations, towerlike or squat, come alive at night, when their lights help create the spectacular nighttime panorama that is the city of New York.  My favorite of the new buildings is 1 World Trade Center, aka the Freedom Tower, a 104-floor high-rise dating from 2014 that is 1792 feet high, making it the tallest building in the Western hemisphere and the sixth tallest in the world.  (Unless you discount the antenna, which reduces the height to 1776 feet.  The exact height depends on how and what you count, and has been controversial.)  It has been hailed as a symbol of the city’s renascence after the devastation of 9/11.  Since I can see it from my south-facing bedroom and kitchen windows, it is the last thing I see at night and the first in the morning.  At night its windows are ablaze with light, and the antenna is topped by a red light blinking on and off.  I call it my Tower of Light.
It's the tall one in the center.  On the right is 7 World Trade Center.
Antony-22
       Who lives in these soaring residential towers?  What’s it like up there?  Are we in another real estate bubble, and if so, when will it burst?  These and similar questions will be considered in another post.  But now I want to sign off calmly with my thoughts on my Tower of Light.
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.  In her Reader Views review, Sheri Hoyte called it "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City."
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you.  An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017.
Review 

"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.
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. 
The back cover summary:

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, taking slaves from Africa to Cuba, 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.  Chris has vivid fantasies of the suffering slaves on the ships and their savage revolts.  How could seemingly respectable people be involved in so abhorrent a trade, and how did they avoid exposure?  And what price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Early 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.
New release; 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, if you like, but no porn (I don't do porn).  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.

                 *                 *                 *                  *

Coming soon:  Wonder: Can we find it in New York?
©   2018   Clifford Browder

345. Guns and Me

Featured this week:
The Pleasuring of Men.  A young male prostitute in nineteenth-century New York falls in love with his most difficult client.  Historical fiction, gay romance.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
"At times amusing, gritty, heartfelt and a little sexy -- this would make a great summer read."  Four-star Amazon customer review by BobW.





For more books by Clifford Browder, see below following the post.

SMALL  TALK


         The day of judgment has come at last for Martin Shkreli, the “Pharma Bro” notorious for arbitrarily raising the price of a drug 5,000 percent, thus earning himself the title of the Most Hated CEO in America.  Mr. Shkreli has graced these pages many a time, the last instance being in the Small Talk section of post #344 only a week ago, for I confess to a certain fascination with this brilliant but enigmatic young rogue (he’s only 34).  It wasn’t his pharmaceutical misdeeds that got him in trouble with the Law, those misdeeds being quite legal, but his financial hanky-panky, specifically, lying to investors in one of his many enterprises.  Last August he was convicted on several counts of fraud, and when, out on bail, he offered $5,000 per hair to anyone who snipped a hair of Hillary Clinton’s hair, Judge Kiyo A. Matsumoto found his “prank” unfunny and revoked his bail, confining him in Brooklyn's Durance Vile.  But last Friday, March 9, he appeared before her in court for his sentencing.
         He showed up in drab prison garb, and while sitting with his lawyers at the defense table, insisted, with tears in his eyes, “I was never motivated by money.  I wanted to grow my stature and my reputation.  I am here because of my gross, stupid and negligent mistakes I made.”  This is a new Mr. Shkreli, tearful and remorseful -- a far cry from the insolent defendant of the trial, often flashing a mocking smirk.  I don’t mean to demean him now, since the change of attitude may be sincere, and his claim about not being motivated by money may well be true.  And it now comes to light that, according to a consultant hired by his lawyers, he was physically abused by both parents as a child, suffered panic attacks, and funneled his energy into numbers.  By age 6, one of his sisters says, he was calculating square roots and knew the periodic table.  And when in high school he was hired as an intern by a Wall Street firm, a friend recalls, Mr. Shkreli saw millions of dollars being traded, yet often arrived at school without lunch money.  All of which, if true, makes him that much more fascinating.
         So what was the sentence of this first-time offender?  His lawyers argued for 12 to 18 months; the prosecutors recommended 15 years.  Noting his “egregious multitude of lies” to investors, Judge Matsumoto sentenced him to 7 years in prison and ordered him to forfeit $7.36 million to the government to cover his fraud.  Also, noting his net worth of $27.2 million, she imposed an additional fine of $75,000.  If, even so, he shouldn’t be able to pay the restitution, she authorized the government to seize his assets, including a unique Wu-Tang Clan rap album and a Picasso.  For the album he is said to have paid $2 million, but appraisers now suggest that he paid too much; it may now be worth only half that, another comedown for the once irrepressible Mr. Shkreli.  “He wants everyone to believe that he is a genius, a whiz kid,” said one of the prosecutors before sentencing.  “He can’t just be an average person who fails, like the rest of us.”  Average?  No, he certainly isn’t that.  He has failed, but failed spectacularly.  Before adjourning the session, Judge Matsumoto encouraged him to continue teaching inmates, as he has been doing in jail.  "Thank you very much, Your Honor," said Mr. Shkreli.  One does wonder what he has been teaching them; on certain subjects he certainly knows a lot.  So ends this chapter of his adventurous life.

 GUNS  AND  ME

         In the wake of the latest school shooting, there has been more than the usual debate about guns, with the students of the school in question up in vocal arms.  I have never owned a gun and know nothing about assault weapons, but it behooves us all, whether pro- or anti-gun, to know a little more about them.  So here goes.
         An article in the New York Times of March 3, 2018, entitled “Once Banned, ‘America’s Rifle’ Is Fiercely Loved and Loathed,” states that the AR-15 rifle used in the Florida school shooting is a staple of American gun culture, its silhouette easily recognized and polarizing. That silhouette is indeed impressive: a long, thin barrel with handles or accessories attached.  It looks evil to some, sleek and effective to others; I share both reactions.


Steelerdon
         The AR-15 re-entered the gun market when the ten-year federal assault weapons ban ended in 2004, and was popularized by the rise of a video game culture that made shooting a form of mass entertainment.  Post-9/11 patriotism heightened interest in our Middle Eastern wars and the guns used there by the military.  Also, the government ban had, as usual, the opposite effect intended: it made the forbidden AR-15 enticing – something that gun lovers simply had to have.  Its ownership is valued by many as proof of their independence, self-sufficiency, and Second Amendment freedom.  Buyers view it as a new thing, the very latest; it’s “in.”  Some owners keep it in the house for recreation (“It’s fun to shoot”), and some want it handy for self-defense.  Returning vets respect it, parents pass their love of it on to their children, friends share and esteem it at the rifle range.  A civilian version of the military’s M16 rifle, it is light and accurate, with little recoil.  Promoted by the National Rifle Association as “America’s rifle,” it exists in many forms, and competition among the various makers has kept the weapon affordable.  Online it can be had for anywhere from $768 to well over $3,000.
         Still, it is a formidable weapon meant to kill, and it can fire and reload rapidly.  Though most shooting crimes involve small handguns, the AR-15 has been used in a series of spectacular mass shootings, the most recent being the shooting in Florida.  Anti-gun advocates see the marketing of it as hypermasculine and inflammatory; the power associated with it is the ability to fire rapidly and kill many victims with a few quick blasts. Where a handgun can kill two or three, an AR-15 can kill fifteen or twenty … and has.  So the current debate pits passionate defenders of the AR-15 against passionate advocates of gun control.  Which side am I on?
         As a New Yorker and a resident of the Northeast, you might expect me to be an ardent advocate of gun control, which I am … up to a point.  But as a child of the Midwest, I learned to shoot a shotgun at age sixteen.  Yes, me, a bookworm who loathed sports, a wimp, a nerd who wore glasses from an early age – the first in my grade-school class to do so, prompting a beefy coach to once address me as “Glasses” (for which I instantly loathed him) – yes, there I was with a shotgun.  Having been the last of my peers to learn to swim or ride a bike, at sixteen I was determined to be the first to learn to drive.  And who should teach me but my father?  He was a an excellent driver, but the toughest of teachers.  My mother had learned from a neighbor, and my brother never learned until, years later, I taught him.  But I wanted to learn to drive, and my father agreed to teach me, if I went out with him on Saturdays to shoot.
         My father was an outdoors enthusiast, a dedicated hunter and fisherman.  Among my most vivid childhood memories are Saturday morning trips with him to a distant gun club, a small frame house in the country, where he communed with other gun owners and shot trap.  Trap shooting involved going with a small group of shooters to various locations and, from each, shouting “Ho!” or some such cry, prompting some invisible employee in a low wooden tower to send a clay pigeon flying through the air so you could shoot at it.  There were three possible results.  The shooter might nick the clay pigeon and send it, mostly intact, to the ground.  Or he (almost always a “he”) might hit it dead on and blast it to smithereens, to the congrats of his fellow shooters.  Or he might miss it completely, letting the target fly merrily on to land intact in some distant weeds.  Scores were kept, and if a shooter hit every target, his name was added to a list posted conspicuously on the wall of the club.  Though he was a good shooter, it was several years before my father’s name was added to the list.
          Such was my first introduction to guns and their owners.  Children were allowed in the clubhouse, if well behaved, but my brother and I were usually the only ones there, our only entertainment, when a round of shooting ended, to go out and scavenge the discarded empty shells of the shooters, whose bright red and green colors (the shells, not the shooters) attracted us.  It was definitely a man’s world, with talk of guns and hunting over coffee, and occasionally a risqué joke not fit for ladies’ ears.  Usually told in a hushed voice so my brother and I couldn’t hear, those jokes were climaxed by a loud burst of laughter, my father’s the loudest of all.  My mother often went with us for the ride, but sat in our parked car for two hours or so, reading quietly.  Yet there was one woman in the club, the wife of a member, who loved to shoot and held her own among the male participants.  She was welcome, and my father, who loved to coin nicknames, greeted her warmly as “Pistol-packin’ mama.”
         Time passed, the gun club came to an end, the clubhouse was rented to a family of limited means.  My father did his shooting elsewhere, and I spent my Saturdays researching this or that obscure subject in the great massive structure of the Chicago Public Library in the Loop.  So it was until, at age sixteen, I conceived this desperate urge to learn to drive, and I learned to shoot a shotgun as well.  My father and I went out to the site of the gun club, where my gregarious father struck up an acquaintance with the resident family, and was allowed to go into a nearby weedy field to shoot.  It was my job to hurl out clay pigeons with a hand device, which I did ineptly, sending the targets skimming low over the ground, when they should have been sailing high in the air.  Then it was my turn to shoot.
         The first thing my father taught me was safety: always carry your gun pointed at the ground, except when actually shooting, and carry it open at the breech, so it can’t possibly go off.  And then he hurled a clay pigeon and I, as instructed, tried to sweep the sights past it and, as I did so, to fire.  Needless to say, the target usually sailed on, mockingly intact, to land in the distant weeds.  And the recoil hit my shoulder hard, confirming my hunch that shooting was not, and never would be, for me. 
         After an hour or so of shooting, and with no flock of blackbirds offering us a real live target, we collected the undamaged clay pigeons in the grass and headed home.  It was on the trip home that my father gave me my first driving lessons on some deserted country lane, only in time allowing me to drive on the busy highways.  He was a tough teacher, at times harshly critical, but I stuck with it and finally learned to drive.  In my circle of high school friends, I was indeed the first to get a license.  And so, after a few further forays with my father into weedy fields in search of rabbits I had no desire to slaughter, I ended my adventures with the gun.  Those adventures were eliminated by various high school activities, foremost among them a wartime military training corps (with only fake guns, not real ones) where, unbelievably, I ended up a cadet major.  And in that same busy senior year I went steady with a girl and learned to neck like crazy.
         So in the fiery gun debates of today, where do I end up?  First of all, I am not hostile to gun ownership.  My father owned shotguns meant for recreation, had no handgun or semiautomatic rifle.  He tended to his guns diligently, cleaning them at intervals, and to test them, fired at big sheets of paper, so he could check the pattern of the shot.  (Me, alas, he coerced into counting the bullet holes, paying me a trivial sum per hole – the most tedious of tasks.)  Otherwise the guns lay in their cases under his bed in his bedroom, nor did it ever occur to me or my brother to even go near them.  They were his property, not to be meddled with. 
         Years later, when he died, my father’s will left the guns to his sons, neither of whom chose to retain them; they were quickly sold.  I’m glad he never knew how little we valued them.  But once, when my English teacher deplored hunters’ shooting such beautiful creatures as deer, I had asked him about hunting.  Instead of a tirade against old maid schoolteachers who know nothing about such matters, my father gave a thoughtful answer.  “Hunting,” he said, “is an instinct.  It’s stronger in some people than in others.”  It surely disappointed him that neither of his sons, and least of all me, shared that instinct.
         But what about the AR-15, a gun that in my father’s time didn’t even exist?  Though a gun lover, he would never have craved it, since the targets he hoped for were blackbirds and rabbits, and failing that, clay pigeons.  Many today want to ban the AR-15 outright, but experience has taught us that banning something only increases the desire for it, makes it “sexy.”  It has become a vital part of the life of some of us, a symbol of their freedom.  Like it or not, to get some kind of law through a very polarized Congress, compromise is necessary.  So tougher background checks are called for, to keep the mentally unbalanced, and those convicted of a serious crime, from getting guns.  As a child of the Midwest, I say let responsible people have their guns, but with the understanding that, if someone else gains access to them and misuses them in any way, the owner is liable.
         Do I think this will stop mass shootings?  Probably not.  It will make them less likely, but it won’t stop them altogether.  Nothing will.  No matter what we do by way of prevention, sooner or later someone will manage to get hold of a gun and start shooting.  Such are the dark desires lurking in the depths of our psyche.  We can, and must, lessen the chances of such shootings, but I doubt if we can stop thm altogether.  So it goes in the Land of the Free and the Brave.



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.  In her Reader Views review, Sheri Hoyte called it "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City."
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you.  An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017.
Review 

"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.
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. 
The back cover summary:

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, taking slaves from Africa to Cuba, 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.  Chris has vivid fantasies of the suffering slaves on the ships and their savage revolts.  How could seemingly respectable people be involved in so abhorrent a trade, and how did they avoid exposure?  And what price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Early 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.
New release; 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, if you like, but no porn (I don't do porn).  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.


                *                 *                 *                  *


Coming soon:  As usual, no idea.


©   2018   Clifford Browder

344. Donald Trump Again: Twelve Things to Know about Him

Featured this week:

Bill Hope: His Story.  A young pickpocket recounts his wild adventures in nineteenth-century New York.  Historical fiction; action/adventure; crime.

Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  Signed copies available from the author (cliffbrowder@verizon.net).


"A must read."  Five-star Amazon customer review by nicole w brown.
"A fun book.  The main character seemed like a cross between Huck Finn and a Charles Dickens character."  Four-star LibraryThing review by stephvin.


For more books by Clifford Browder, see below following the post.


SMALL  TALK


         Recently I noticed an online reference to an article about the most hated CEO in America.  Thinking it was about Harvey Weinstein, I decided to have a glance, and was surprised to find that the subject was none other than Martin Shkreli, whose youthful charm and financial escapades have graced this blog more than once.  Mr. Shkreli now languishes in Brooklyn’s Durance Vile, the result of his having, while out on bail last September, published a post on Facebook offering to pay $5,000 per hair to anyone who stole a hair from Hillary Clinton, who was then on a book tour.  He insisted that this was just a prank, and when the Secret Service, concerned about Hillary’s security, protested to the court, America’s bad boy deleted the post.  But Judge Kiyo Matsumoto, like Queen Victoria in her time, was not amused and therefore revoked his bail and sent him to jail.  And now the courts have given him more bad news.  On February 26, 2018, a U.S. district judge ruled that Shkreli was legally responsible for $10.4 million that his investors lost because of his financial hanky panky. 
         And why is Mr. Shkreli in jail?  It’s a complicated story that I have tried to tell in posts #306 and #317, not to mention earlier accounts in posts #214 and #223.  His status as most hated CEO stems not from his financial misdeeds, but from his misdeeds as a pharmaceutical company CEO, in which capacity he arbitrarily raised the price of a drug by 5,000 percent, thus provoking the public to an outburst of protest and rage.  But he was on trial in Federal District Court in Brooklyn for other dubious undertakings.  To put it simply, the government accused him of robbing Peter to pay Paul, Peter being a financial concoction of his, and Paul its predecessor, another enterprise whose investors he paid off with funds from his latest creation.  This, said the government prosecutors, amounted to fraud, and on August 4 the jury announced its verdict: guilty on five out of eight counts of fraud, which could mean up to 20 years in prison.  So now he languishes, awaiting sentencing on March 9.
         I confess that Mr. Shkreli fascinates me, hence this series of posts.  He is my polar opposite, and I am shocked, intrigued, and amazed not just by his misdeeds, but by his obsessive vanity, his imagination and daring, his arrogance, his utter lack of shame or guilt.  Only 32 at the time of his arrest, he is boyishly handsome, with a few dark curls dangling on his forehead, and a smile that seems mockingly insolent.  He revels in notoriety, insisting that his status as most hated CEO enhances his image and makes him that much more attractive to women.  When not involved in financial or legal matters, he used to tweet provocatively online, and indulged in endless live-streaming on YouTube, chronicling his moods and trivial daily doings and playing online chess.  Whatever he did, it was always me me me, and if a young woman posted that she would like a date with him, he assured her that the waiting line was long.  Such was his life, prior to confinement.  How it is today I have no idea.
         Speculation now is rampant regarding his forthcoming sentencing.  Judge Matsumoto could note that he is a first-time offender and give him modest time.  Or she could emphasize the amount of the loss to investors and his unrepentant attitude, and give him the maximum.  We should know on March 9.  Meanwhile the once irrepressible Mr. Shkreli continues to languish, a unique New York hustler, Donald Trump writ small.                
DONALD  AGAIN


Here is a reprint of my post #208 on The Donald, published on November 29, 2015, before he became the Republican candidate for the presidency.  Like most of us, I couldn't believe he'd become the GOP candidate, which gives my post a certain quaint charm .  It drew much of its information from Michael D’Antonio's biography Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success (St. Martin's Press, NY: 2015), which I had just read.  D'Antonio interviewed many paople who have known Trump, and was granted several interviews with Trump himself, until the Donald cut him off.





Sunday, November 29, 2015208. Twelve Things to Know about The Donald
     We all know that he’s a loud mouth full of himself.  That, like his predecessor, P.T. Barnum, the master of humbug, he loves publicity and is a genius at getting it.  That, again like Barnum, he makes grandiose claims unsubstantiated by facts.  That he lives big and wants everyone to know it.  That he’s a fighter and fights nasty.  That he’s a billionaire, though the latest annual Forbes magazine list of the 400 richest Americans credits him with a mere $4.5 billion, and not the $20 or $200 billion that he claims, which makes him only no. 129 on the list.
     So why feature him in a post?  Why, as my friend John asked, should I give him more publicity, when he already has more than his share of it and  covets even more?  Because he’s a New York phenomenon, and this post is all about New York.  Because there are other things about him, some good and some bad, that we should know, a few of them surprising.  Because his antics can be amusing.  And because, whatever publicity I give him, this post won’t go viral, won’t make a speck of difference in how the great mass of people regard him.  But I’ll put my two cents in anyway, so all aboard for The Donald.



     Donald Trump today stands tall and straight at 6 foot 3, his well-preserved features topped by a mop of bright blond hair carefully sprayed into place, his suits expensive and his shirts monogrammed, with silk ties and gold accessories.  His latest biographer, who had several interviews with him until Trump cut him off, describes him as a rooster in a tuxedo, or a Hollywood star all wardrobed up for a role as an executive. Enhancing his image is his office in the luxurious Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, where one wall is plastered with magazine covers adorned with his features;  his penthouse apartment there is valued at $100 million.  As for hopping about the world, he has his private jet, a $100-million Boeing 757 with the name TRUMP blazoned on its sides in big gold letters, and whose seat belts fasten with gold-plated buckles.  No question, he moves about in style.  Here now are twelve things about him we all ought to know.
Adamkriesberg
1.  His parents
His father, Fred Trump, was the son of a German immigrant who came to this country in steerage, made money in Alaska, and invested in real estate in Queens.  Fred Trump too invested in real estate, focusing on the outer boroughs while keeping clear of Manhattan.  Tough, savvy, and inventive, he knew how to cultivate judges and politicians, and to buy up mortgaged properties cheap – lessons not lost upon his son.  His advice to Donald: “Be a killer.”
     The Donald’s mother, Mary Anne MacLeod, was a Scottish immigrant who went from poor beginnings to accompanying her husband as he made the rounds in a Rolls Royce collecting rents.
     Both his parents were superior beings, Trump insists, and thanks to them he has good genes that make him better at everything from golf to business.
     (A note on Fred Trump.  A friend of mine and her husband once rented an apartment from him on Staten Island.  Not in good shape, the apartment  was overrun with roaches.  One winter they were about to go off on a trip, but her husband got the flu and had to stay behind.  The day after she left, he heard fierce pounding on the door.  Feverish, he dragged himself to the door, found two burly men with crowbars who were trying to break the door down. They were surprised to see him.     “What are you doing?” he asked.     “We’re here to evict you,” the bigger one announced, waving a piece of paper from Trump Management.     “I paid my rent,” said the husband, showing a receipt.  He had indeed, but eight days late.     “Too bad, we gotta getcha out.”     Her husband, big and broad-shouldered, announced, “You may get past me, but it’ll ruin your day.”     The bluff worked; they hesitated, they left.  But if he had gone off with his wife, the two men would have come, battered the door down, and put all their furniture out in the snow, and a new lock on the door.  You didn’t fool around with Fred Trump.)
2.  His love of fighting
Donald Trump’s love of fighting – all kinds, including physical – dates back to his youth.  If attacked, he counterattacks, no matter who the perceived assailant is, a celebrity, a journalist, or the federal government, and in so doing he always insists that he is the party wronged.  Today, in the age of the Internet, he knows he can use Twitter and Facebook to reach millions and clobber any unfavorable book or news item almost as soon as it appears.
3.  His dread of being a sucker
He dreads being seen as a loser.  Suckers are those who cling to the sidelines and watch others – people like Trump -- acquire wealth and power.  He sees life as a relentless battle, a struggle for survival of the fittest, and he means to be a winner.
4.  His charm
Yes, this mountain of ego has charm, can be likable.  When offstage, or onstage when it’s to his advantage, he oozes it.  When schmoozing, he shares supposed secrets, is ready with praise, and offers sympathy, thus creating a kind of synthetic friendship. He admits to having a con man’s talent for persuasion.  To pull off a deal, along with connections and insider status, he uses charm.
5.  His kindness
Yes, this bully can be kind.  His employees describe him as demanding, but generous with pay and benefits.  His former chauffeur tells how Trump paid for the doctor’s bills stemming from his wife’s pregnancy, calls him “a good guy.”  A loving father, too, even though he’s gone through three wives to date.  And when a boy of ten with terminal cancer asked to be “fired” by Trump on his TV reality show The Apprentice, where the losers were always fired by him, Trump couldn’t bring himself to utter the words “you’re fired”; instead, he gave the kid a check for several thousand dollars and told him to go have the time of his life.
6.  His optimism
For all his talk of a struggle for survival, he is an optimist, an advocate of the “power of positive thinking” of Norman Vincent Peale, whose church he and his father attended.  He has experienced many bankruptcies (of his properties, never of himself), many defeats, but always bounces back. 
7.  Trump on Trump
He has lots to say about himself.  For example:
I only go first-class.Part of the beauty of me is that I’m very rich.I was never a drinker.  I was never a drug guy, and I was never a cigarette guy.I’ve been much more successful than people even admit.I am the creator of my own comic book, and I love living in it.I don’t like to analyze myself, because I might not like what I see.
8.  Trump on others
Of Graydon Carter, a founder of the gossip magazine Spy, which had pilloried him more than once:  “A sleazebag.”  Or, alternatively: “A scumbag.”
Of Jamie Dimon, the CEO of banking giant J.P. Morgan Chase, for settling a case with the Justice Department for $13 million, instead of fighting it: “The worst banker in the United States.”
Of President Obama:  “Stupid.”
Of Hillary:  “If Hillary Clinton can’t satisfy her husband, what makes her think she can satisfy America?”
Of the elderly actress Kim Novak:  “She should sue her plastic surgeon.”
9.  Others on Trump
Michael D’Antonio, his latest biographer:  “A rooster in a tuxedo.”
Attack-dog attorney Roy Cohn, whom Trump had often employed: “Donald pisses ice water.”  (For more on Cohn, see post #137.)
Playgirl magazine:  “One of the ten sexiest men in America.”
An acquaintance:  “That Donald, he could sell sand to the Arabs.”
His first wife, Ivana:  “He’s the people’s billionaire.”
David Segal of the Washington Post:  “The people who know the least about business admire him the most, and those who know the most about business admire him the least.”
Columnist Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune:  “He knows how to turn audacious and even obnoxious narcissism into pure gold.”
His son Donald Jr.:  “The person who hates Trump the most still wants to get his picture with him when he walks by.”
The New York Daily News, when he announced he was running for President:  CLOWN RUNS FOR PREZ.
Gossip columnist Liz Smith:  “I’ve known him forever, and I can’t figure him out.”
10.  His fights
When insulted by Trump, Kim Novak felt so humiliated that she took shelter in her home and didn’t go out for weeks.  But others were tougher and met him taunt for taunt: singer/actress Cher, Mayor Ed Koch, and hotel owner Leona Helmsley, known also as the Queen of Mean.
M  Abancourt
Cher of Trump:  “Loudmouth racist cretin.”Trump to Cher:  “I promise not to talk about your massive plastic surgeries that didn’t work.”


Trump:  “The city under Ed Koch is a disaster.”Koch:  “If Donald Trump is squealing like a stuck pig, I must have done  something right.”Trump:  “Koch is a moron.”Koch:  “Piggy, piggy, piggy.”(For more on Ed Koch, see post #101.)
Smiling through adversity: her mug shot when
arrested on various charges, including tax evasion.
Trump of Helmsley:  “Vicious… horrible … a living nightmare.”Helmsley of Trump:  “Sick … a skunk … I wouldn’t believe Donald Trump if his tongue was notarized.” (For more on Leona Helmsley, see post #81.)
All the participants in these public exchanges show themselves at their grade-school worst.
11.  His hair
It fascinates friend and foe alike.  Fearing baldness, he uses special creams and evidently had a surgical procedure to close a bald spot on the back of his head.  He has denied having surgery, but circa 1990 his brown hair was mysteriously transformed into a swirl of reddish gold, with strands from one side to another, and from back to front. Speculation raged in the media, and Time magazine published an account of how hair grown long in back can be combed forward, then swept back and fixed with a spray. Insisting that his hair is his own, Trump sometimes invites visitors to pull on it.  Meanwhile, costume makers have begun selling Trump wigs for Halloween. 
This photographer got him from behind.  Sneaky, what?
Imagine this hairdo protected by the Secret Service.
BostonJerry
12.  The primacy of image
With Donald Trump, image trumps reality (no pun intended).  This explains his preoccupation with the confection topping his pate, and much else.  Everything depends on his keeping his name out there as an image of wealth and success.  His face has appeared on the cover of countless magazines.  There is a Trump Tower, a Trump Plaza, a Trump Park, and by the start of this century there were – albeit briefly -- Trump steaks, Trump loans, and a website called GoTrump.com. 
The Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue.  As unpretentious as The Donald himself.
Ingfbruno
     From 2005 to 2010 there was also a Trump U, offering retreats on “wealth preservation” and “creative financing” for  a mere $5,000 each, and much more.  Even though this was sponsored by a man whose business ventures have ended in multiple bankruptcies, students flocked.  Since then the Attorney General of New York State has filed a lawsuit claiming that Trump U was not a bona fide university but simply an overpriced how-to-get-rich program making bogus claims, and there are class-action lawsuits filed by disenchanted former students in California.
     The success of the reality TV show The Apprentice depended on contestants competing against one another for a one-year job with a glamorous businessman named Trump, and more than 215,000 people applied to be among the first 16 contestants on the show.  Because whatever his critics say, and no matter how many business failures he has racked up, or how many polls show that most Americans dislike him, lots of us still love what he offers; we feast on the image, not the fact, of success.
(Almost) Final thoughts
Donald Trump has little time for reflection or analysis, just blurts out his thoughts regardless of the consequences.  This pleases many voters, who notice the contrast with Hillary Clinton’s cautious, calculated approach. This brashness passes for candor, though some might call it folly or imprudence.  But is he serious? He offers many an outlandish opinion with a grin or a scowl or a poker face, as if daring others to guess if he really means it or not.  Michael D’Antonio, his most recent biographer, knows him as well as anyone can, and believes that Trump’s 2000 presidential campaign was “the first true pseudo-campaign in the history of the presidency, a determined effort to exploit the political process by a man whose real purpose was profit.”  Or profit and self-aggrandizement.  So is his 2016 effort, under way already, another pseudo-campaign?  Serious or not, it’s my opinion that, if he sees he won’t be the Republican candidate, he will bow out with a grin, as if it all really was a joke.  Why?  Because he can’t stand being labeled a loser.
His star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
     And let’s face it, we Americans do like risk-takers, do admire wealth and success, do want to achieve them for ourselves.  And we do envy those who strive big and get away with it, or get away with it almost.  So maybe The Donald is us, blown up to gigantic and offensive proportions.  Alas.
     But clowns belong in a circus, not the White House.
Michael Vadon
Final thoughts

Now I'll add a comment from today, when we live in the era of Donald. The Tweeterer in Chief's critics (and they are legion) wonder why the evangelicals support a man whose moral and social lapses are obvious to all except his hard-core base.  Enlightenment on the subject comes from David Brody's article "In Trump Evangelicals Trust" in the Sunday Review section of the New York Times of February 25, 2018, which I recommend in its entirety.  Trump has told Brody, the host of "Faith Nation" on the Christian Broadcasting Network, that his father was a fan of the recently deceased Billy Graham.  And Trump was so impressed by the work Billy's son Franklin did for flood victims in Louisiana in 2016, that he wrote him a six-figure check.  Evangelicals believe that God uses flawed individuals to accomplish his will.  God, who has a sense of humor, gave evangelicals this very flawed president, who has done much for them: court appointments, pro-life policies, religious liberty issues, and more.  Yes, God works in mysterious ways.

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.  In her Reader Views review, Sheri Hoyte called it "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City."
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you.  An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017.
Review 

"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.
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. 
The back cover summary:

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, taking slaves from Africa to Cuba, 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.  Chris has vivid fantasies of the suffering slaves on the ships and their savage revolts.  How could seemingly respectable people be involved in so abhorrent a trade, and how did they avoid exposure?  And what price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Early 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.
New release; 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, if you like, but no porn (I don't do porn).  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.


                *                 *                 *                  *


Coming soon:  As usual, no idea.


©   2018   Clifford Browder

343. Aristocracy: Are Some of Us Better Than the Rest of Us?

For an announcement of my novel Dark Knowledge, go here.


SMALL  TALK

Signs on the wall of a Mexican restaurant where I lunched recently:


It's fun untilthe BEERruns out

You are thebacon to myscrambled eggs

LOVEis all youneed

No Fumar

CLOTHINGOPTIONALBEYONDTHISPOINT


Aristocracy: Are Some of Us Better Than the Rest of Us?

     “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” So states the opening of the Declaration of Independence, though it would be nice to include the women, too.  Which would seem to squelch any notion of aristocracy right from the start.  And the Constitution: “No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state” (Article 1, Section 9, Clause 8).  Clearly, the newly established United States of America was a democratic nation that wanted no truck with titles of nobility or, by extension, with any class-based society ruled by an aristocracy.  And we held the very concept of monarchy in contempt, as witnessed by the Declaration’s long litany of complaints against King George III, whose arbitrary and unjust actions prompted our fight for independence.
     Yet Martha Washington, our first First Lady, in holding weekly receptions on Fridays for members of Congress, visiting dignitaries, and people of the community (meaning New York and then Philadelphia, for Washington D.C. had not yet been invented), presided with dignity and formality.  Such dignity and formality, in fact, that she was criticized by some for imitating the rituals and fashions of the abhorred British crown.  Worse still, perhaps, she was addressed by many as “Lady Washington,” and by some as “Our Lady Presidentress.”  Later prints and paintings show her presiding over these affairs in dazzling gowns and with an air of majesty worthy of Marie Antoinette before the Revolution.  All of which does smack just a little of monarchy, though in fairness to Martha it should be remembered that she did this out of a feeling of duty, a feeling that she owed it to her husband.  She really preferred the quiet domestic life of Mount Vernon, from which she and George had been plucked by his election, and to which they would return at the end of his second term.  As First Lady, she would tell her niece, she felt “more like a state prisoner than anything else." Which sounds rather like the British royals today.



[image error] Download
all sizes Use this file
on the web Use this file
on a wiki Email a link
to this file Information
about reusing
Martha Washington receiving.  Versailles transplanted to America?
An 1861 painting.
     And come to think of it, our Founding Fathers, many of whom attended these affairs, were well-educated, well-mannered gentry – WASPS of course -- and not riffraff from the streets.  Most of them had money and property, and some of them owned slaves.  The Constitution that they created was designed, among other things, to protect the property and interests of two key elements of society: Northern merchants and Southern landowners.  So right from the first, the newly hatched republic had at its head what might be called a kind of aristocracy.  No titles, but plenty of property and self-interest.
     Still, ordinary Americans nursed a keen resentment of class differences and aristocracy.  This was what bedeviled Frances Trollope, the mother of the novelist, when she came here in 1831 in hopes of launching a business to revive her family’s dwindling fortunes back in England.  If she took exception to America and Americans, she had good reason, for in launching her business in hog-slaughtering Cincinnati, she was fleeced by the locals, who had no need of the grandiose bazaar that she built at great cost; lacking customers, the store left her ridden with debt.  The Americans she dealt with there and elsewhere seemed to bear out Talleyrand’s two-word appraisal of us, when queried by Napoleon: “Proud pigs.”


Frances Trollope, circa 1832.  Here she looks so sweet, but her pen was savage.
     Wherever Mrs.Trollope went, she heard comments on “British tyranny” and her “paltry little place of an island.”  She resented being called “the English old woman,” when butcher boys were referred to as “gentlemen.”  The American males she met were braggarts and boors who ate with their knives, chewed, schemed, and spat.  Even in church, they spat.  Were there no gentlemen at all?  When she observed a session of Congress where sprawling Westerners put their feet up on their desks and, of course, spat, she also saw, by way of contrast, certain members who dressed and behaved properly.  Whenever she inquired  about one of them, she got the same answer: “He is a Virginia gentleman.”  But in her travels here, gentlemen were few and far between.
     Mrs. Trollope happened to come when Andrew Jackson, the first president from beyond the Appalachians, and thus the first one from the “West,” was in office, to the extreme discomfort of the Eastern elite.  America was a raw adolescent nation that had fought two wars with Great Britain and took delight in putting Mother England down, and Frances Trollope was England incarnate.  She bristled with preconceived notions and prejudices of class, and resented the uppity presumption of ordinary Americans.  Her finery, her manners, and her shrill, piercing voice made her just the sort of English biddy that Americans loved to insult.  She was herself solidly middle class and no aristocrat, but represented a class-based society where inferiors were expected to show good manners and above all know their place.  But in Jacksonian America no one was required to know their place.
     Ironically, in and around New York City and in the Hudson Valley there was a landed aristocracy implanted here long since.  Back in the seventeenth century the Dutch West India Company, the founder of New Amsterdam, had granted title to large tracts of land to landholders called patroons, so as to encourage colonization and settlement.  The patroons enjoyed many rights and privileges, such as appointing local officials, creating civil and criminal courts, and holding land in perpetuity.  And when the English took over from the Dutch in 1664, they continued the patroon system and themselves granted large tracts of land, called manors.
     The largest of the patroonships was Rensselaerswyck, granted to the Dutch merchant Kiliaen van Rensselaer in 1630, comprising most of Albany and Rensselaer counties and parts of two others.  This huge estate was kept intact by his descendants until the death of the last patroon, Stephen Rensselaer III, in 1839.  Following Stephen’s death the estate’s 3,000 tenant farmers, resenting their subjection to a landlord living in semi-feudal splendor, launched an anti-rent rebellion against Stephen’s heirs that soon became a statewide revolt against the whole system of leasehold tenure. When the anti-renters got support from the legislature and courts, the various Rensselaer heirs sold out their interests in the late 1840s and this particular patroonship was ended once and for all.
     In New York City there were no huge estates with tenant farmers paying rent – or refusing to do so – to any lords of the manor; there wasn’t room.  But there was what could be called an aristocracy, the oldest, quietest, and most exclusive of whom were the Old Knickerbockers, descendants of the old Dutch families of the region, with names like Van Rensselaer, Stuyvesant, Bleecker, Van Cortlandt, and Roosevelt.  (“Knickerbockers” also designates the baggy knee trousers, or knickers, that the early Dutch male settlers wore.)  The Knickerbockers impressed others as being refined but clannish, quietly proud of the gilt-framed portraits of ancestors on their walls, but not too bright.
     Not quite on a par with the Old Knickerbockers were descendants of early English settlers who had amassed fortunes here, and also, in smaller numbers, descendants of Huguenots, French Protestants who had fled persecution in Catholic France and come here long before the Revolution.  These families intermarried and often provided mayors and governors, since public service was considered an obligation of the elite, though by no means a career.                All the old families guarded their position quietly but determinedly, and looked with scorn on any pushy New Money folks who aspired to join their ranks.  So in New York City, as in the state and the nation, if all citizens were created equal, some were more equal than others.
     In burgeoning New York City the situation was aggravated by the heavy influx of Irish fleeing famine in Ireland in the late 1840s.  They were turbulent, poor, and Roman Catholic, traits not likely to endear them to the WASP majority, least of all the self-styled elite who up till then had governed the city.  The election of Fernando (“Fernandy”) Wood as mayor in 1854 marked the advent of the full-time professional politician, and the Tammany machine was already organizing the Irish as a massive block of voters (“Vote early and often”) who could swing an election.  The so-called New York aristocracy withdrew in disgust from politics, abandoning it to Tammany and its grubby cohorts, except for occasional reform movements like the one that ousted Boss Tweed and his cronies.  But those movements rarely lasted.  As the Tammany spokesman George Washington Plunkitt observed, “Reformers are like morning glories, they wilt by noon.  But Tammany’s a fine old oak.”
     Even as Tammany took over the political scene, another aristocracy was appearing, one based on money.  Entrepreneurs like John Jacob Astor, the fur king, and Cornelius Vanderbilt, the railroad magnate, amassed fortunes that let their descendants distance themselves from the grubby details of business and fortune-making, and aspire to social preeminence.  They were the real snobs of the day, being newly arrived, with the Astors looking down on the Vanderbilts, and the Vanderbilts looking down on others, while the Old Knickerbockers quietly looked down on them all.  Taking a hint from Oliver Wendell Holmes’s line, “Build thee more stately mansions,” the New Money clans did just that, rearing up palaces like the Vanderbilts’ French chateau-style residences on Fifth Avenue, Jay Gould’s Gothic castle at Lyndhurst on the Hudson, and a slew of palatial residences at Newport, Rhode Island.  The old elite had been tasteful and discreet, but the parvenus now coming to the fore lived more blatantly.  If you had money, you wanted the world to know it, and an imposing residence was a fine way to display your millions.


Lyndhurst today.  Gould took refuge here, when his enemies on Wall Street turned nasty.
The place was ringed with guards.
urban-commonswiki
     Meanwhile, whatever their feelings about class, Americans nourished an abiding fascination with the aristocracies and monarchies of Europe.  When the young Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII of England, came to the U.S. in 1860, he was greeted and feted with enthusiasm.  In New York there was a grand ball at the Academy of Music that everyone who was anyone managed to attend, the jam so great that the floor collapsed beneath them, though with no injury to anyone.  When Grand Duke Alexis of Russia, the fourth son of Czar Alexander II, came for an extensive tour in 1871, the city honored him with balls and receptions and a torchlight parade of the firemen, before he visited other cities.  The climax of his American tour was a buffalo hunt in Nebraska in the company of Buffalo Bill Cody and several hundred Sioux recruited for the occasion.  Clearly, Americans were in love with both aristocracy and monarchy, as long as they weren’t the ones being dominated.
     Could Americans aspire even further and become members of European aristocracies?  The answer wasn’t long in coming.  In 1874 Jenny Jerome, the daughter of Wall Street speculator Leonard Jerome, married Lord Randolph Churchill, the result being Winston Churchill.  Widowed, she would catch the roving eye of the Prince of Wales, Victoria's son and the future Edward VII.  (Any good-looking woman of the proper rank was apt to catch his eye.)
     And Anna Gould, the daughter of New York financier Jay Gould (called by some the Mephistopheles of Wall Street) married a titled Frenchman in 1895 and so became the Comtesse de Castellane; that she had inherited millions from her father was not irrelevant.  Then, in Paris in 1906, after her high-living hubby had gone through half her fortune, she divorced him on grounds of infidelity (and there were plenty of grounds).  This event was celebrated hilariously in a cartoon by the satirical magazine Puck.  The cartoon showed her arriving in the courtroom in black, almost like a bride at a wedding, carrying a bouquet of incriminating affidavits, while her husband swoons.  Not that she and her millions were in any way out of the marital market.  In 1908 she married her ex’s cousin, a titled nobleman of the illustrious house of Talleyrand-Périgord, thus becoming the Marquise de Talleyrand Périgord, Duchesse de Sagan.  This marriage – and the title that came with it -- stuck.
     As international social climbing went, Anna Gould’s ascent was remarkable.  But as a Wall Streeter once observed, if you aim for the stars, you get chorus girls; if you aim for chorus girls, you get nothing.  Admittedly, a very male-oriented observation, but the message applies to both sexes: aim high.  How about majesty?  Well, that took a little longer.  In 1956, movie star Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier III of Monaco in what was called “the wedding of the century,” thus becoming Princess Grace.  Not bad, but let’s face it, Monaco, however pretty, is a pretty small place.  Could an American woman aim even higher?
     It had already happened.  In 1934 Wallis Simpson (born Wallis Warfield), a divorced woman, had become the mistress of Edward, Prince of Wales, who, still unmarried at age 40, was charmed by her very American ways, her domineering manner and irreverence toward his exalted position – a liaison that the British court and government found increasingly worrisome.  Matters came to a head when, at his father’s death in January 1936, Edward became King Edward VIII of Great Britain.  A prolonged crisis followed, since the new king was determined to marry the woman he loved, and divorced women – she would soon divorce her second husband as well – were not welcome at the Court of Saint James.  So in December of that year Edward abdicated, so as to marry Wallis Warfield, who after the marriage would become the Duchess of Windsor.


President Nixon receiving the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, 1970.
     Wallis Warfield’s success fascinated Americans as much as it dismayed and angered the Brits, among whom the Prince of Wales had been especially popular.  But not all Americans approved.  A friend of mine told how, at an early age, he overheard his matriarchal grandmother announce to his mother at the time of the abdication, “He has abandoned the ship of state for a tramp steamer!” 
     Was there any truth to the allegation?  There were rumors of other lovers, but they were rumors only.  One critic described the Duchess as “charismatic, electric, and compulsively ambitious.”  In 1936, having become the adored favorite of the most eligible bachelor in the world, she was surely the most famous woman in the world, and no doubt the object of envy.  In suburban Evanston, Illinois, at a tender age I became aware of her when I saw, on a table in the living room, a biography entitled Her Name Was Wallis Warfield, with a photo of a rather handsome dark-haired woman on the cover.  Such was my mother's reading of the moment.

     Once her second divorce was finalized, Wallis Warfield and the Duke married and settled in France.  But in 1937 they visited Nazi Germany and were welcomed personally by Hitler.  The Duchess, it was said, was a fan of Hitler’s and was influencing the Duke accordingly.  (It was also said by some that she had had an affair with Joachim von Ribbentrop, the German foreign minister.)  Rumors circulated that the Nazis hoped to put the Duke back on the British throne, once they had defeated the Brits.  When France fell in 1940, the Windsors removed to neutral Portugal, where German agents courted them.  So the Brits found an ingenious solution: they made the Duke governor of the Bahamas, thus getting him and his wife out of Europe and the reach of the Germans.  He was governor until 1945, when the Nazi regime collapsed and Germany surrendered.
     Ostracized by the British court, after that the Windsors had little to do but become, in the words of some, social parasites, gadding about from one international gala to another and risking boredom.  To her credit, those who met the Duchess were impressed by her stately manner, her grace, and her charm.  Famous for saying “A woman can’t be too rich or too thin” (and she achieved both), she also memorably remarked, “You have no idea how hard it is to live out a great romance.” 
     In America the Duke and Duchess remained popular.  Maybe we were delighted that an American – however estranged and controversial – had snagged the most desirable bachelor in the world.  Today we are still fascinated by monarchy, as seen in Helen Mirren’s brilliant portrayals of Elizabeth II on stage and screen.  But maybe aristocracy and monarchy aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.  Maybe we commoners should thank our lucky stars that we aren’t onstage constantly, aren’t besieged by paparazzi, don’t have to flee them and risk dying in a high-speed auto accident like Princess Di and her Egyptian boyfriend in Paris in 1997.  Maybe we can live quietly and contentedly, glorying in our snug obscurity. 
     Today’s partisan politics have added a new twist to the story of aristocracy in America.  The people of the deindustrializing heartland – many of whom voted for Donald Trump in 2016 – feel looked down upon by the coastal elites.  A nonprofit named Better Angels is trying to bring red state and blue state residents together for long conversations that will help them understand each other.  When asked to name the five stereotypes that the other side throws at them, the Reds gave these in this order:
1.    Racist2.    Uncaring3.    Uneducated4.    Misogynistic5.    Science deniers
The Reds feel much more shamed by the Blues than the Blues feel shamed by the Reds.  As a result, the Reds are reluctant to enter into conversation with the Blues, fearing still more shaming.
     And what stereotypes do the Blues feel the Reds hurl at them?  Here are three:
1.    Against religion and morality2.    Unpatriotic3.    Against personal responsibility
     There is mutual misunderstanding here.  For the Reds, the Blues are a kind of self-appointed aristocracy that think themselves inherently superior to the Reds, and this the Reds bitterly resent.  As a committed New Yorker who hails from the Midwest, I find myself on both sides of the divide, sympathetic to Blues and Reds alike, perhaps more of a Blue than a Red, but eager to make peace between them.  Not easy.  Even in democratic America, where all are supposedly equal, the notion of aristocracy dies hard.
Source note:  For information on Better Angels, I am indebted to a column by David Brooks in the New York Times of February 20, 2018: “Respect First, Then Gun Control.”  Brooks argues that Reds and Blues must talk to each other and show mutual respect, before they can work together to achieve meaningful gun control.




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.  In her Reader Views review, Sheri Hoyte called it "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City."
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you.  An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017.
Review 

"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.
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. 
The back cover summary:

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, taking slaves from Africa to Cuba, 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.  Chris has vivid fantasies of the suffering slaves on the ships and their savage revolts.  How could seemingly respectable people be involved in so abhorrent a trade, and how did they avoid exposure?  And what price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Early 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.
Just released; 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, if you like, but no porn (I don't do porn).  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.



                *                 *                 *                  *


Coming soon:  As usual, no idea.


©   2018   Clifford Browder

342. Gilded Phrases: They Provoke, They Inspire, They Kill

SMALL  TALK

     A woman who loved to see well-groomed dogs was walking down a street in New York.  Seeing a man approaching with a really well-groomed dog, she said, "Gorgeous!"  "I know," said the man.  "I work out a lot."

     Walking on Bleecker Street for three blocks, with its pricey designer clothing and perfume stores, I saw seven empty storefronts, often with the sign  RETAIL  SPACE  AVAILABLE. Are tenants finally refusing to pay exorbitant rents?  One can hope.

      Recently I located an old friend I hadn't seen in decades by googling her name on the Internet.  Surprised, since I thought she had left the city long ago, I got her phone number and phoned.  We both went to the same college, Pomona, in southern California, but we didn't know each other there; we met here in New York.  She answered.
     "Hello," I said.  "This is Cliff Browder, Pomona, class of '50."          "I can't give any money!" she almost screamed.  
     "I don't want your money, not one cent," I quietly explained. "I'm an old friend who wants to say hello."
      She softened at once, explaining that she got so many phone solicitations that she was always ready to say no.  No explanation was necessary, since I get them too and go to the phone teeming with hostility.  And the conversation proceeded genteelly from there.


GILDED  PHRASES

         A college roommate once told me long ago of attending a military school where, over the entrance, were the words ENTER, THAT YE BE MEN.  He had found it quite moving, and still did, when he told me of it.  Recalling that recently, I began pondering the statements and phrases that embed themselves in our minds and motivate us, whether in a positive or negative way.  Many came to mind, and I labeled them Gilded Phrases.  Here are some of them.

Ecrasez l'infame (Crush the infamous).  This phrase appears in Voltaire's letters, without his ever defining precisely, and consistently, what he meant by "l'infame."  It can be taken to mean the Catholic Church, but it can be interpreted more broadly, albeit vaguely, as whatever he (or anyone) views as objectionable or repressive.  So whatever it is, let's crush it.

Deus lo vult (medieval Latin for God wills it).  The much-acclaimed motto of the First Crusade, 1095.  Gilded Phrases can send men marching off to war.

La propriété, c'est le vol (Property is theft).  The dramatic affirmation of the French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in a publication of 1840.  Gilded Phrases can be provocative.

Today Germany, tomorrow the world.  Attributed to Hitler in the 1930s, and certainly expressive of his nationalistic thought.

Yes, we can!  Used by Barack Obama in his successful 2008 presidential campaign, and chanted by his followers throughout. He at first thought it corny, but his wife convinced him otherwise.  So Gilded Phrases can inspire and sustain a political campaign.

Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute.  Spoken in 1798 by Robert Goodloe Harper, a U.S. senator from Maryland, when he heard that Talleyrand had demanded a bribe to stop French ships from attacking American ships.

Cotton is king!  Proclaimed by Senator James Henry Hammond of South Carolina in 1859, and repeated by Southerners thereafter. The Panic of 1857 had stricken the commercial North but left the agricultural South untouched, encouraging Southerners to think the South invincible in its brewing struggle with the North.  Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.

Remember the Maine!  A popular slogan in America's brief war with Spain in 1898.  The battleship Maine had exploded and sunk in Havana harbor, and the Spaniards, who then ruled Cuba, were blamed, though later evidence suggested an internal explosion. And what was a U.S. warship doing there anyway, when Cuba was a Spanish colony?  But Gilded Phrases are great wartime cries.

The war to end wars.  A popular slogan in the U.S. during our participation in World War I, 1917-18, showing our perennial need to turn wars into noble crusades.  No such illusion plagued us during World War II, as I recall.

De l'audace.  Encore de l'audace.  Toujours de l'audace.  (Hard to translate.  l'audace = audacity, boldness, daring.  One translation: To dare, and again to dare, and without end to dare!)  Spoken by Danton, a fiery revolutionary, in 1792, when the French Revolution was threatened by foreign and royalist armies. The result: the September massacres, when hundreds of suspected royalists were slaughtered.  Gilded Phrases can have dire results.  

America First!  A motto of isolationists in the months preceding our entry into World War II, when isolationists debated interventionists.  I heard it often in the Midwest.  An America First Committee was active 1940-41, but was dissolved when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, ending the debate.  But the sentiment persists today, witness our president.

Power to the people!  A popular slogan among student radicals of the 1960s in their revolt against the establishment.  Also adopted by the Black Panthers.  Of course one can ask: Which people?

Workers of the world, unite!  Right out of Marx and Engel's Communist Manifesto of 1848.  And don't say Gilded Phrases can't have repercussions.  This one has been reverberating ever since.

Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable! The words of Senator Daniel Webster, of Massachusetts in his 1830 debate with Senator Robert Haynes of South Carolina, a champion of states' rights.  Often hailed as the most famous speech in the Senate's history, with these words appearing on the pedestal of a statue of Webster in Central Park.  

          So there you have it: this post is all about big words.  Gilded Phrases are short, memorable, quotable.  The excite, they provoke, they inspire.  They can lead to patriotic renewals and reforms, and to wars, revolutions, massacres.  And today?  How about "America for Americans," "Make America great again," "Me too."  Let's not get too carried away.  We may regret it later; time will tell.



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.  In her Reader Views review, Sheri Hoyte called it "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City."
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you.  An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017.
Review 

"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.
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. 
The back cover summary:

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, taking slaves from Africa to Cuba, 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.  Chris has vivid fantasies of the suffering slaves on the ships and their savage revolts.  How could seemingly respectable people be involved in so abhorrent a trade, and how did they avoid exposure?  And what price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Early 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.
Just released; 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, if you like, but no porn (I don't do porn).  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.


                *                 *                 *                  *


Coming soon:  Again, no idea.


©   2018   Clifford Browder

341. Nightshades and Aphrodisiacs: Getting It On and Up in the Kitchen

For a five-star review of my novel Dark Knowledge, go here and scroll down.

SMALL TALK
        
Ambulances are a part of daily life in the city.  We hear their screeching sirens in the street and see them racing by, hopefully to save someone's life.  And I have encountered them -- or at least, their drivers -- four times in my apartment.

Visit #1.  Some years ago, when my partner Bob's temperature spiked up, his home care aide Jacques and I called an ambulance.  Bob has Parkinson's, but he was quite clear-minded, didn't want to go to a hospital, and by now his temperature had come down a bit.  The ambulance driver in charge, who was quite sane and civil, suggested that we wait till morning; then, if the temperature was up again, call an ambulance.  We agreed, and the two ambulance men left.  In the morning his temperature was down and close to normal -- no emergency.  And I remembered that his catheter had been installed the day before, which probably explained the temporary spike.  Lesson learned: if temperature spikes up, consider the context before calling an ambulance; it may well be a temporary spike.

Visit #2.  On another occasion Bob's nurse suggested that he go to the hospital for a check-up, to make sure that no other condition besides Parkinson's was affecting him.  So we called an ambulance and they came, a rather hefty woman and an older man who was obviously too old to be taking a patient down four flights of stairs.  But they managed, and off he went.  The verdict: a lot of medical gobbledygook, but in the end, no other condition to worry about.

Visit #3.  One day Bob fell asleep and couldn't be wakened by Jacques and me, so Jacques called the Visiting Nurses.  Two came, then two more.  They took his vital signs, diagnosed an infection, and called an ambulance.  Four husky firemen came.  There were now ten people in the room, but Bob slept peacefully on.  The firemen rigged up an apparatus that let them take Bob down the four flights while keeping his chair level and off they went.  The infection was healed in the hospital, and back Bob came, with another strange apparatus that I, a layman, was supposed to monitor, dripping an antibiotic into him.  But it all worked out.

Visit #4.  This one is still in progress.  Yesterday evening Bob seemed to fall asleep while trying to read, and neither Jacques nor I could waken him.  Finally I went to the kitchen to have supper.  Soon I heard a loud voice -- was Jacques trying to waken him again?  I went to the living room and found two strange men there, and Jacques off in a corner, trying to keep out of their way.
        "Who are you?" I asked the one who seemed to be in charge.
        "Ambulance," he said.  "Do you have his hospital discharge papers, or something about his case?"
        "No," I said, taken aback.  "What's happening?"
        "Stroke," he said.  "Do you have a list of his medications?"
        "No, but they're right over there."
        "How long has he been like this?"
         "I don't know.  Ask Jacques.  He's been here all the time, I haven't."
         "I'm not asking him," the man almost screamed.  "I'm asking you!"
          "And I'm telling you I don't know."
          "You're nervous," he said (though I wasn't), "and you're making me nervous, too.  So get out of the way and let us do our job."
          "Do it," I said, stepping back, eager to get rid of him.
          They strapped Bob into a chair they had brought, and took him out to the hall. 
          "Do you have a belt or some rope?" he asked from the top of the stairs.
          "What for?" I asked.
          "To tie his legs."
          "I'll look."
          I looked, finally found some rope, but by then they were down the stairs and gone.  Jacques had gone with them and hours later returned to tell me Bob was now in Lenox Hill Hospital. "Stroke," he confirmed, and as of now that's all I know.  The hospital will phone and I will give them his insurance info.  They must know the medications, since the ambulance men took them with him.  So now I wait.  But Lenox is an excellent hospital; he's in good hands.  I'm concerned, but I refuse to worry until I know more.  And I marvel at how fast you can get an ambulance in this city.  You phone, and they arrive within minutes.  And usually, though obviously not always, they are civil.

          It may seem odd to go from this subject to aphrodisiacs, but it's all a part of life.  
          

Nightshades and Aphrodisiacs


         This started out as a post about nightshades, but morphed into one about aphrodisiacs, which must mean something, though I’m not sure what.  We’ll start with nightshades: a slow start, but we’ll get to the real stuff soon enough.  The word itself, “nightshade,” has always fascinated me; it suggests something dark and sinister.  All the more so since “deadly nightshade” is another name for belladonna, a plant common in both the Old World and the New, whose leaves and berries are extremely poisonous. 
Belladonna, also called Devil's Berries.
H. Zell
And if belladonna means “beautiful lady” in Italian, that only adds to the word’s mystery, suggesting something dangerously seductive, which isn’t so far off, since Italian women once used the juice from the plant to enlarge their eyes and make them more attractive.  So here is a plant that can both create beauty and kill.  No wonder the plant or its fruit has also been called devil’s berries, death cherries, naughty man’s cherries, and devil’s herb.  And if that isn’t sexy, what is?
         I have never encountered deadly nightshade in my hiking, but the wildflower of my acquaintance with the most haunting name is enchanter’s nightshade, with its suggestion of a sinister magician worthy of Swan Lake’s villain, that Harvey Weinstein of fairyland who held captive a bevy of enchanted ballerinas.  Alas, the plant itself, though common in the woods in summer, is humdrum in the extreme: a terminal stem of tiny white flowers above paired leaves likewise without distinction, and the plant isn’t even in the nightshade family.  So how did this impostor get its name?  According to Witchipedia (yes, it exists), it may have been used in ancient herbals and magical compendiums, though this is not certain.  Also, it grows in shady woods, avoids sunlight.  Another explanation: European herbalists once thought the sorceress Circe used it to turn Odysseus's crew into pigs.
Enchanter's nightshade: inconspicuous little
 flowers, and little round seed pods forming.
ceridwen
         So what plants are in fact in the nightshade family, or Solanaceae?  Many plants that have stimulating and medicinal powers, such as tobacco, a New World plant, and mandrake, a hallucinogen and narcotic found in the Mediterranean region.  Because of these powers, many nightshades have been viewed with suspicion, and yet we eat them.  The edible nightshades include many peppers, eggplant, potato, and tomato.  I shy away from hot peppers, having once overdone cayenne in a dish with scathing results to my palate, and as for eggplant, that glossy purple lump of a thing, often almost black, that I have often seen in the greenmarket, I have never messed with it, view it as alien to my interests and tastes.  But potato and tomato, which I also see at the greenmarket, cannot, and should not, be ignored.
         Both potato and tomato are denizens of the New World that came to Europe only after Columbus’s “discovery” of America brought a host of new foods to the Old World.  The words, in fact are right out of Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs: potatl and tomatl.  (This doesn’t quite exhaust my knowledge of Nahuatl, though it comes close.)  Long grown by the Incas in Peru, the potato was discovered by the conquistadors and taken back to Europe, where it slowly spread.  Sir Walter Raleigh is believed to have brought the potato back from the North America and planted it on his estate in Ireland.  He presented it to Queen Elizabeth and, as a result, it was featured in a royal banquet.  Alas, the uninformed cooks threw out the lumpy tubers and cooked the stems and leaves, which, being poisonous, made all the diners ill.  Not a good start for potatoes in England, but fortunately it didn’t cost Raleigh his head.  (That would come later.)
Yukon golds.  Great for mashing.  But an aphrodisiac???
         Elsewhere throughout Europe potatoes were at first considered weird, poisonous, and evil, allegedly causing leprosy, syphilis, scrofula, early death, and sterility, and for some reason were also feared as an aphrodisiac.  (See, we’re getting to it.)  That they grew underground had something to do with it; they were nicknamed “devil’s apples.”  Only in time were their virtues discovered.  The French today, of course, call them pommes de terre, “apples of the earth,” and, like most people, devour them readily.  (Why the apple was linked to the lowly potato in terminology escapes me, I see no connection whatsoever.)  I just rediscovered potatoes by baking some russets and then seasoning them with olive oil, salt, and pepper: the simplest of dishes, but delicious!
Great for baking!         The tomato too had trouble getting accepted in the Old World.  If the potato is a lumpy, dumpy tuber associated with, and bound to, the earth, the tomato is a round, usually bright red fruit that surely belongs in the upper regions of sunlight, not in the bowels of the earth.  I've never been partial to it -- a childhood hangup that I've never managed to get rid of -- but I'll admit that it looks far more enticing and sexy than the potato.
Fastily
         The tomato may have been brought back to Spain by Cortes, the conqueror of Mexico, and from there, like its lowly cousin, the potato, it spread elsewhere.  The French called it pomme d’amour (“love apple”) and the Italians pomodoro (“golden apple”), while in England and elsewhere it was at first thought to be poisonous and so acquired the name “devil’s food.”  Bright, smooth, and red with a navel, it was grown at first for decoration, but was also thought to be an aphrodisiac and as such was known in England too as the “love apple.”  One additional reason to view it with suspicion (especially in Protestant circles): it wasn’t mentioned in the Bible!   
         Whether the tomato is a fruit or a vegetable has long been debated.  The matter was finally considered in an 1893 Supreme Court case, when an importer wanted it classified as a fruit, because fruits had a lower import tax, while a tax collector insisted it was a vegetable.  Botanically, it is a fruit, being the ripened ovary of a flowering plant.  How a flower becomes a fruit I have witnessed when looking at a blackberry bramble, for the same plant may have five-petaled white flowers; flowers where the petals have dropped off, leaving a green swelling, the fertilized ovary, that vaguely suggests a blackberry; unripe red blackberries; and black, glistening, fully ripe berries just begging to be picked and consumed.  But botany be damned, said the court in its wisdom, labeling the tomato a vegetable, since it was cooked and eaten and commonly referred to as such.  How wonderful to have the black-robed solons of the highest court in the land decide such matters for us!
         Many foods other than nightshades have likewise been viewed as aphrodisiacs, but one wants to know why.  Consulting the Internet, that fountain of knowledge and wisdom, I have encountered the following, all promoted as ways to get it on or up in the kitchen:
·      Oysters, a food that both Casanova and Cleopatra loved, which surely is proof enough.  Not convinced?  Well, they’re also high in zinc, good for healthy sperm.·      Watermelon, which some researchers, citing its effect on blood vessels throughout the body, hail as the new Viagra.·      Chocolate, known as chocolatl to the Aztecs (them again!), who called cacao beans, from which chocolate is made, the nourishment of the gods.  If it’s good for them, what can’t it do for us?·      Asparagus: take a good look at it, and you’ll know why.  Ditto bananas and celery.·      Avocados, a name derived from the Nahuatl word ahuacatl, meaning “testicle”; take a look at two of them together and you’ll recognize Tweedledum and Tweedledee.·      Pumpkin seeds: like oysters, good old zinc.  ·      Celery: researchers (them again, too) say it boosts the pheromone levels in men’s sweat, making them more attractive to women.  (Pheromone: a secreted or excreted chemical that triggers a social response in members of the same species.)  So sweat, guys, sweat!·      Figs: Cleopatra (her again!) loved them, and some see a resemblance in them to the female sex organs.·      Raw garlic may make your partner turn the other way in bed, but it whips up the libido.  (To calm down, try yogurt.)·      Ginger: said to increase the blood flow in sex organs, and you know what that can lead to.·      Vanilla, another import from those knowing Aztecs.  In the 18th century, doctors prescribed it to boost male potency, and of course we trust the profession.·      Raw bull’s testicles.  (Available at your local pharmacy, no doubt.)
        But does any of this stuff work?  Having a healthy diet surely helps us have a good sex life, but beyond that, one is tempted to be skeptical, all the more so since the FDA, that pillar of wisdom, insists that no alleged aphrodisiac has been scientifically proven to be effective.  Far more significant is one’s state of mind, and that of your partner, too.  The best rule: if it works, it works.  What gets it on for one may not do it for another.  But beware of ads promising rejuvenated pep and the promise of fabulous sex; they've been around forever, implying aphrodisiac qualities, though with plausible legal deniability.


A 1926 ad by a company right here in dear old New York.
They promise men "youthful vigor" without ever mentioning "aphrodisiac."          And now for a bit of youthful reminiscence.  When I was growing up, the magical whispered phrase among knowing young males was “Spanish fly,” said to turn virtuous females into sex-crazed wantons. 
       
A Spanish fly.  Lovely to look at, but beware of consuming it.
I never looked into the stuff, but today, thanks to the Internet, I’ve learned a lot about it.  Yes, there is such a thing as Spanish fly: a preparation made from a ground-up emerald-green beetle (Lytta vesicatoria) that really does seem to work, spunking up the male, though not the female.  But one can get too much of a good thing; even a little can produce a prolonged and often painful erection that, far from enabling a night of love, may require medical attention.  Also, greater doses can poison and irritate the urogenital tract and cause serious medical problems.  The Roman philosopher Lucretius, who should have known better, is said to have died of an overdose.  So keep away, guys, and try Viagra.  Or maybe chocolate-coated oysters stuffed with pumpkin seeds, avocado, and a touch of ginger; if anything can do it, that should.  Warning: this concoction is not FDA-approved; I haven’t tried it, nor do I plan to ever.  But good luck!
        One last thought: why “Spanish”?  The Internet doesn’t inform me, it just repeats the info above and tells me why I should learn Spanish.  But when I google Lytta vesicatoria, I learn that the beetle is found throughout southern Europe, which of course includes Spain.  I like the idea of a post of international appeal that begins with the Aztecs and ends up in Spain.



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.  In her Reader Views review, Sheri Hoyte called it "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City."
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you.  An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017.
Review 

"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.
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. 
The back cover summary:

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, taking slaves from Africa to Cuba, 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.  Chris has vivid fantasies of the suffering slaves on the ships and their savage revolts.  How could seemingly respectable people be involved in so abhorrent a trade, and how did they avoid exposure?  And what price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Early 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.
Just released; 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, if you like, but no porn (I don't do porn).  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.


                *                 *                 *                  *


Coming soon:  No idea.


©   2018   Clifford Browder

340. Goldman Sachs: The Vampire Squid Thrives On

For a five-star review of my Dark Knowledge, go here and scroll down.
SMALL  TALK
     He's back.  At least, I think it's the same guy.  A ragpicker, probably homeless, who is squatting on the sidewalk in the little park across the street from my building.  This time I haven't laid eyes on him, because he's lying under a pile of blankets pulled over his head.  But I think he's the same guy who was here a year ago, and this time with even more stuff.  In the gutter next to his blankets -- more accurately, in the bike lane -- are no less than four carts, each piled high with loot, most of it in a rainbow of bulging plastic bags, dozens of them, scores, if not hundreds.  Packed, I assume, with recyclables, though he and his cart have now been there for at least three days.  There's other stuff crammed in among the bags on the carts: pots and pans, a small air-conditioner, a blanket or fabric of some kind, scraps of clothing, parts of a vacuum cleaner, other hulking strange objects, and poles that poke out at odd angles, suggesting mops or brooms or legs of some unidentified object.

      If he's collecting recyclables, as some homeless people do, why hasn't he recycled them?  Instead, he amasses and amasses, and now, with his carts heaped high, snoozes under blankets in the cold. Will the police make him move on?  No sign of it.  Two days ago I saw a squad car at the curb, and officers looking him and his stuff over. He must have looked harmless to them, because they then left without bothering him.  So there he is, with his amassed treasures.  If I see him, I won't approach him, because when I approached him a year ago -- if indeed it was the same guy -- his eyes flashed angrily and he yelled at me to get out.  Not someone you want to cultivate socially, then, but a king of ragpickers.  I've never seen anyone with so much stuff heaped up on carts in public.  

Goldman Sachs: The Vampire Squid Thrives On 
     “It’s everywhere.  The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.”
A vampire squid.
Citron/CC-BY-SA-3.0
Mouth of a vampire squid.
     So wrote journalist Matt Taibbi in a memorable article of July 9, 2009, in Rolling Stone magazine, presenting an image that resonated then and still resonates.  His target was the multinational investment banking firm Goldman Sachs, now headquartered in a soaring 44-story tower at 200 West Street in Lower Manhattan.  Certainly this ultra-modern edifice proclaims its occupant a major player in the global world of finance, and one not to be trifled with.  So why has it inspired such venom?  I know nothing of vampire squids, but I’m sure I wouldn’t care to meet one.  And why, when I utter the words “Goldman Sachs” to friends and acquaintances unversed in the world of finance, do they reply with phrases like “big investment firm … dubious practices … cheating”?  What’s the story with this alleged blood-sucking predator?  Does it really merit such censure?  Bear with me as I, a layman with no special knowledge of finance, poke into the story and try to find some inklings of the truth.
The Goldman Sachs Tower at 200 West Street.
Beyond My Ken
     First, a little history.  Who was Goldman and who was Sachs?  The firm was founded by Marcus Goldman, a Jewish German immigrant from Bavaria who began as a peddler with a horse-drawn cart in Philadelphia, became a shopkeeper, and later removed to New York, where in 1869 he opened an office dealing in IOUs.  (If you don't quite grasp that, neither do I, but it sure paid off.)  In 1882 his son-in-law Samuel Sachs joined the firm, which from then on was known as Goldman Sachs.  The firm prospered, turning over $30 million in commercial paper a year, and in 1896 joined the New York Stock Exchange.  No longer controlled by the Goldman family, in the twentieth century the firm survived the 1929 crash and became involved in investment banking as well as trading.  Today its stock is publicly traded, much of it owned by institutions like pension funds and banks.  It has a global presence, and its former employees have served on the White House staff and headed the New York Stock Exchange, the World Bank, the U.S. Treasury Department, the New York Federal Reserve, Citigroup, and Merrill Lynch.  Rare is the financial pie it doesn’t have its finger in.  So it is indeed everywhere, but is it a vampire squid?

    For me, in the 1990s the face of Goldman Sachs was that of Abby Joseph Cohen, the firm’s chief investment strategist, who often appeared with one or two other women in the semiannual Barron’s roundtables, where a dozen or so financial experts were assembled to forecast the near-term developments of the economy and the markets.  (Yes, in those days I was actually reading, or at least scanning, Barron’s.)  Abby had reaped renown by predicting the bull market of the 1990s, and there was something about her that won you over.  New York-born, she looked unpretentious in photos,  nothing glitzy, little or no jewelry, her hair short, with the warmest smile: a Jewish momma from Queens who had made good in the hard-slugging male world of finance.  You simply wanted to believe her and wish her well.  And she was indeed a momma, having two teen-age daughters.  You couldn’t imagine her arriving at the office in a chauffeured limousine (though maybe she did), or jetting about the world to attend exclusive financial gatherings or advise clients (though in fact she did).  Abby was one of us.
Abby Joseph Cohen
     So influential was she in the 1990s that when a rumor hit Wall street in 1996 that she was switching from bull to bear, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 60 points; then, when she got on the firm’s worldwide communications system to refute the rumor, it bounced back up again.  Power was hers.
     Alas, like many other experts, Abby failed to predict the brutal bear market of 2000 and was ridiculed for her persistent bullishness as stocks plummeted.  Worse still, again like most experts, she failed to foresee the brutal bear market of 2008, and in March of that year was replaced as Goldman Sachs’s chief forecaster.  But she continued to be associated with the firm and today, though semi-retired, is still an advisory director with the firm.
      In the 2007-2008 mortgage crisis that caught so many investment firms by surprise, Goldman Sachs sold subprime mortgage-backed securities short, so while other outfits faced catastrophic losses, it was reaping billions in profit.  In my eyes, nothing wrong with that; it was just smarter than the rest of the boys.  (No gender bias intended; this was a boys’ game primarily.)  No wonder the New York Times proclaimed Goldman Sachs without a peer in the world of finance.
     But then the picture darkened.  In October 2007 a Fortune magazine senior editor noted that Goldman Sachs had sold a $494 million issue backed by risky second-mortgage loans, the very kind of transaction that had facilitated the housing bubble, and the resulting bust that triggered the financial crisis then under way.  Was Goldman Sachs too shrewd for its own good?  Not in this instance.  Many borrowers defaulted on these junk mortgage loans, and investors who bought the issue suffered heavy losses, but not Goldman Sachs, since it had shorted the junk mortgage market, betting that prices would drop.  Clever Goldman!

     Even so, Goldman Sachs was not immune as the financial crisis developed.  Chaos followed when Lehman Brothers went into bankruptcy, triggering panic throughout the world.  Then in September 2008 Goldman Sachs became a traditional bank holding company, ending the era of wild investment banking on Wall Street.  Why did it do this?  To get aboard the federal gravy train, of course.  The change in its status meant that it would henceforth be regulated by the Federal Reserve, so that it qualified for a $10 million investment from the U.S. Treasury as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), a government program to purchase assets from troubled financial institutions in hopes of stabilizing a very shaky financial system.  In other words, the government used taxpayers’ money to bail out Goldman Sachs and other big financial institutions endangered by their risky speculative investments.  Big Brother was rescuing the bad boys when their misdeeds came home to roost.  (Pardon the inept image.)  To be sure, the firm repaid the Treasury’s TARP investment with 23% interest in June 2009, so the government was not suckered in the deal. 
Henry M. Paulson, Jr.     And who was Treasury Secretary during all these tumultuous events?  Henry M. Paulson, Jr., a former Goldman Sachs CEO.  And who were his assistants at Treasury?  A clutch of other Goldman alumni, all of them talented, but it does make one wonder.  Goldman insisted that, in a time of dire crisis, they were serving their country by making their expertise available in Washington.  Though unaware that patriotism raged on Wall Street, I’ll grant that in this assertion there may be a grain, a tiny grain, of truth.  And in Washington one makes so many useful contacts…
     These complicated financial doings can only baffle the layman.  Is Goldman Sachs a good guy or a bad guy?  If only it were that simple.  To even have a clue, you have to understand at least a little what these complex financial transactions involved.  Derivatives, it should be noted, are contracts deriving their value from some underlying entity such as an index or an interest rate or an asset, in this case subprime mortgages (sometimes endearingly termed “junk mortgages”).  And so, that said, here is what this layman has grasped:
1.    Back in 2000 Congress, in its infinite wisdom, passed something called the Commodities Futures Modernization Act, which, inserted at the last minute into an 11,000-page spending bill with almost no debate, “modernized” derivatives trading by freeing it from most existing federal regulations.  In this shadowy sector of the market, then, banks like Goldman Sachs were free to do as they wanted.2.    Eager home buyers were encouraged to take out a mortgage, even though their shaky finances made it unlikely that they could make the periodic payments required.  As Barnum said, there's one born every minute.3.    These subprime mortgages were bundled into packages of risky mortgage-backed securities (a form of derivative) and sold by Goldman Sachs and other banks to unsuspecting pension funds and insurance companies.4.    Even as it was doing this, Goldman Sachs was betting that the value of these mortgage-backed securities would decline, which it did.5.    The buyers of these securities suffered a whopping big loss.6.    Goldman Sachs raked in a whopping big profit.7.    Meanwhile lots of homeowners were defaulting on their mortgage payments and facing foreclosure, meaning they would lose their homes.
The enticement: a subprime mortgage offering, 2008.  But God help those who were enticed.
The Truth About
     What is one to make of all this?  The home buyers acted unwisely, but they were encouraged to do so, and all they wanted was to own their own home.  The buyers of the securities failed to do their homework, didn’t grasp how risky their investment was; they paid the price of their negligence.  Goldman Sachs, by selling risky securities that it wanted to see decline in value, may or may not have been committing securities fraud (it depends on who you talk to), but this was hardly ethical.  And why were these risky securities, backed by junk mortgages, on the market anyway?  Because too much money was looking for too few investments; in the absence of sound investments, investors were offered junk, which they eagerly snapped up.  Permeating the whole scene was ignorance on the part of some, and feverish greed and wild speculation on the part of others – a formula for disaster.  And disaster came.


     If you’re still baffled by all this, so am I.  These are complex and esoteric financial matters best understood only by seasoned traders and analysts, which makes these markets just that much harder to regulate.  Laymen could just ignore the whole shebang, except that this unregulated market provoked a financial crisis that engulfed us all, and whose repercussions were long felt.  Ask anyone who couldn't find a job, or had to hold two or three jobs to support themselves, or lost their home through foreclosure.
     It is interesting to note that, in the crisis year of 2008, Goldman Sachs paid $14 million in taxes.  Does that sound like a lot?  Its profit that year was $2.3 billion, and in 2009 it paid its CEO $42.9 million.  But how could it pay a mere 1% in taxes?  Because it shifted its earnings to subsidiaries in low-tax or no-tax countries, a manipulation beloved of multinational corporations and quite legal; it had 15 subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands alone.  Said one Democratic Representative from Texas, “With the right hand out begging for bailout money, the left is hiding it offshore.”  Ah, clever Goldman, it doesn’t miss a trick.            Or does it?  As a result of the 2017 tax reform bill passed with glee by the Republicans, Goldman will pay the government a onetime "repatriation tax" of $5 billion for money held overseas. And will it then bring the money back to the U.S.?  The firm declines to say.  Its report for the fourth quarter of 2017 announces its first quarterly loss since 2011, a result not just from this onetime payment, but also from its trading.  The markets have been less volatile than usual, meaning calm, without sudden and dramatic ups and downs, causing its clients to trade less frequently.  On January 17, as soon as this bad news was reported, Goldman's stock plunged 3 percent, and a New York Times article of January 18 was captioned, "Weak Results For Goldman Show Depth of Its Fall."  Granted, these developments tarnish Goldman's image of invincibility, but don't count it down or out, since in the long run it will benefit from the new law.  The squid has a way not just of surviving but of richly prospering.  



     In 2012 Greg Smith, the former head of the Goldman Sachs equity derivatives business in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, resigned his position, saying in a letter made public in the New York Times that Goldman had a “toxic and destructive” environment in which “the interests of the client continue to be sidelined.”  This caused quite a stir, even though his account was found to be wanting in specific details.          On the positive side:
·      The Goldman Sachs Foundation has given $114 million in grants to promote youth education worldwide.·      Goldman has been on Fortune magazine’s 100 Best Companies to Work For list since 1998, with emphasis on its support for employee philanthropy.·      In 2008 it initiated the 10,000 Women program to train women from developing countries in business and management.·      In 2008 it pledged $500 million to help small businesses in business and management education and philanthropy.·      In 2012 it offered a loan of $9.6 million to deliver therapeutic services to teenage inmates on Rikers Island.
     So is Goldman Sachs a great vampire squid, as alleged in the Rolling Stone article?  How is a layman to say?  But a Forbes magazine article of August 8, 2013, entitled “The Great Vampire Squid Keeps on Sucking” said the following:
Goldman Sachs, the vampire squid, and its Wall Street cohorts see money everywhere.  They will attempt to squeeze a deal even if it’s not a banking project.  Like street thugs, Wall Street banks are manipulating prices, such as aluminum, to profit.  The result is higher prices for consumers.
If even the financial press condemns Goldman Sachs, the basic charges of the Rolling Stone article would seem to be confirmed.  Big financial institutions like Goldman Sachs have money and connections and power.  What they don’t have is respect.




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.  In her Reader Views review, Sheri Hoyte called it "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City."
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you.  An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017.
Review 

"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.
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. 
The back cover summary:

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, taking slaves from Africa to Cuba, 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.  Chris has vivid fantasies of the suffering slaves on the ships and their savage revolts.  How could seemingly respectable people be involved in so abhorrent a trade, and how did they avoid exposure?  And what price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Early 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.
Just released; 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, if you like, but no porn (I don't do porn).  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.

                *                 *                 *                  *

Coming soon:  Nightshades and Aphrodisiacs: Getting It On and Up in the Kitchen
©   2018   Clifford Browder

339. Symbols of Hate

Dark Knowledge, the third title in my Metropolis series of novels set in nineteenth-century New York, was released by Anaphora Literary Press on January 5, 2018, making it available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  Signed copies are available from the author.  For more about this and other works of mine, see below following the post.


SMALL  TALK

         Before the 2016 election New York City developers and businesses proudly displayed the name TRUMP on the fronts of residential buildings and hotels, but ah, how times have changed!  The condominium at 200 Riverside Boulevard bears on its façade, in large brasslike letters, the words TRUMP PLACE, and the residents aren't happy about it.  The Tweeter-in-Chief's name has already been removed from three rental buildings on Riverside Boulevard, as well as hotels in SoHo and Toronto, but the case of 200 Riverside Boulevard is a bit more complicated.  Trump bought the property in the 1980s, but subsequent business pressures forced him to sell it to some Hong Kong billionaires who, with his help, developed it.  A four-page licensing agreement signed in 2000 described him as a "worldwide renowned builder and developer," but for the use of his name stated its value as one dollar in all.  At the time, his name was not an issue.


In the inaugural parade.
          With the 2016 election this changed.  The Donald was elected, but in Manhattan he got only 64,929 votes, compared to 579,013 for the Hillary.  An anonymous survey of residents at no. 200 by the condominium's board's residential committee showed that a majority favored removing the Trump name.  This provoked a response from the Trump Organization that this would be a "flagrant and material breach of the license agreement."  So of course the matter went to court.  The residential committee has asked a New York State Supreme Court judge in Manhattan to declare that the condominium has the right to remove the name without violating the licensing agreement with DJT Holdings, a corporate entity owned by the Donald.  Just when the ruling will come isn't clear, but among the condo residents, as well as interested observers, anticipation is keen.  Manhattan is stuck with the Trump Tower smack in the middle of midtown, with consequent disruption of traffic; isn't that enough?  Which leads us easily into a discussion of symbols of hate.

SYMBOLS  OF  HATE
         It’s all the rage now, when not denouncing male sexual predators, to remove statues from public places, if they remind us of an objectionable or embarrassing part of our past.  Especially vulnerable in the South are statues of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Jefferson Davis, and Nathan Bedford  Forrest, Confederate leaders in our Civil War.  
Lee in Charlottesville.
Carptrash
For me this is a strain, since I grew up idolizing Lee and Jackson, much more colorful figures than the Union generals Grant and Sherman, who struck me as cold and ruthless – two qualities that helped them win the war.  Needless to say, the issue of slavery rested lightly, if at all, on my juvenile psyche, which simply craved male heroes I could look up to.  Davis, the president of the Confederacy, never much impressed me, least of all in comparison with his opposite, Abraham Lincoln, and Forrest, whose troops slaughtered black Union soldiers trying to surrender at Fort Pillow, appalled me when I learned of him later.
         New York City wants to play the game as well, so last summer, in the wake of the Charlottesville riots provoked by the threatened removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee, Mayor Bill de Blasio named a commission to review all possible “symbols of hate” in public places.  Since New York has a dire shortage of statues celebrating the Confederacy, the commission had to go after other suspect sites and now, after due deliberation, it has made its report.  To the surprise and dismay of many, it has targeted just four sites, three of which I have until now been blithely unaware of.
         In Central Park at Fifth Avenue and 103rd Street stands a statue of Dr. J. Marion  Sims (1813-1883), a South Carolina slave-owner and physician who did pioneer work in gynecological surgery.  So far, so good.  But he did many experiments on female slaves, often without anesthesia.  The city has decided – wisely, I think – not to destroy objectionable statues, but to banish them, so Dr. Sims will be banished to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, which hosts his mortal remains.  No controversy, here: out he goes, and good riddance.


Sims in Central Park.
         But now the plot thickens.  Down near Wall Street there is a plaque honoring Marshal Philippe Pétain, who following the French defeat in 1940 headed the collaborationist Vichy government, helping to send thousands of French Jews to German concentration camps and death.  How could such a man merit even a lowly plaque?  Here the history buff in me intervenes.  The plaque dates from 1931 and is one of more than 200 honoring those celebrated in ticker-tape parades in the so-called Canyon of Heroes in Lower Manhattan.  In 1931 Pétain was remembered as the heroic French leader in the 1916 battle of Verdun, when German troops commanded by the German Crown Prince tried to crack the French defenses and failed.  Such considerations must have swayed the mayor, for he has decided that the plaque shall remain, stripped of its Canyon of Heroes title, and perhaps supplemented with additional information to provide context to it.
         But now the plot really thickens, and controversy rages.  What about the statue of Christopher Columbus, perched loftily on a pedestal overlooking the traffic-clogged circle that bears his name?  Admittedly when New Yorkers, in vehicles or on foot, negotiate Columbus Circle and its swirling mass of traffic, they have no time or inclination to eye the distant statue or ponder the fact that the circle bears his name.  Yet Columbus, in his first report to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, informed their Catholic Majesties that the inhabitants of the New World seemed docile and ripe for slavery; in light of what followed, he can justifiably be accused of the genocide of the native peoples of America.


There he is, way up there above the traffic.
         But it ain’t that simple, for Columbus has long been hailed as a hero by Italian Americans, who march in celebration on Columbus Day, just as Irish Americans march on St. Patrick’s Day.  And, I might add, there are lots of Italian Americans in New York, and yes, they do vote in elections.  Proud of his heritage, Governor Andrew Cuomo has announced that as long as he is governor, the statue will stand “tall and proud in the City of New York.”  (Though both are Democrats, the governor and the mayor have tangled repeatedly on many matters.)  So Columbus will not be banished.  The mayor has now said as much, adding that new historical markers will be placed in or around Columbus Circle, explaining the history of Columbus and of the monument itself.  At this gesture Rick Chavolla, a spokesman for Native Americans, scoffs, noting that there are plaques all over the city, and no one pays them any attention.  But Columbus was a hero too, for it took plain old-fashioned guts to sail westward day after day into the unknown, hoping to sight land somewhere in the offing; he risked his life and that of his crew in so doing, but it did in the end pay off.  History is complicated and messy.
         Finally, we come to the obstreperous Teddy: a bronze equestrian statue of Theodore Roosevelt, dating from 1939, that looms heroically in front of the Museum of Natural History.  Though I have in the past visited the museum a number of times, I never noticed the towering ten-foot statue, but now I see a photograph of it in the Times: the rough-riding, game-hunting Roosevelt, the very essence of macho, astride a horse, flanked by two stalwart half-nude flunkeys on foot, one “African” and one “American Indian,” carrying his rifles.  Never have white dominance and WASP superiority been more flagrantly proclaimed.  And today it’s common knowledge that Roosevelt, a fervent trust-buster, the founder of our national park system, and an ardent outdoorsman, was also an imperialist (“Speak softly but carry a big stick”) and a racist who dismissed the non-white peoples of the world as inherently inferior to whites.  So what to do? 



         In effect, nothing.  Roosevelt is a complicated figure, opines the commission, since he was both an environmentalist and a devotee of eugenics.  True enough, but for some observers this amounts to a rank cop-out.  Their criticism has some validity, but the hesitation to judge can also be defended.  How are we to know if today’s mood will be that of tomorrow?  Roosevelt was once hailed as a rough-riding hero and progressive, his trust-busting cheered, his imperialist views approved, and his racism either approved or at least tolerated.  Tomorrow our readiness to condemn may look a bit hasty and one-sided; who is to say?  So let the statue stand, but maybe with a plaque explaining why.  Or remove it to the New York Historical Society or some other location, where it can be presented in a historical context, rather than as a glorification of the man and what he stood for. 
         I say this in a spirit of evenhandedness, since, as chronicled elsewhere in this blog, I grew up hating the fellow, whom my father held up to me as a onetime sissy who, by going out West and roughing it, became a real man, a lover of the outdoors and all it entailed.  In other words, Roosevelt was the opposite of me, a near-sighted bookworm who preferred ichthyosaurs and pterodactyls to the wildlife of today, including even a rare cardinal sighted, to my father’s delight, in our backyard.  My urge to mount a picture of the man – Roosevelt, not my father -- and then hurl darts into his toothy grin was only too human, but childish, and I have since matured into a more balanced view of the irrepressible Teddy, even while decrying his “splendid little war” with Spain.  So let’s put up with him, and with Columbus too, albeit with grave reservations.
         Here now are a couple of hate symbols, or at least symbols of utter contempt, that I encountered while growing up.  These were used by boys and young men to insult someone and show them a fine streak of enmity.  I first encountered the gesture of two fingers up, two fingers down, sometimes termed the horn gesture, which was a way of saying (I’ll use the tamer version) “Frig you!”  



I once used it on my brother, more to show how “in” and “with it” I was, and he reacted with fury.  Then, sometime after that, I encountered the gesture with the middle finger upraised and the other fingers down, bearing the same cheery greeting.  


Michiel Gebruiker

No question, a lot can be said with the fingers.

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.  In her Reader Views review, Sheri Hoyte called it "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City."
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you.  An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017.
Review 

"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.
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. 
The back cover summary:

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, taking slaves from Africa to Cuba, 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.  Chris has vivid fantasies of the suffering slaves on the ships and their savage revolts.  How could seemingly respectable people be involved in so abhorrent a trade, and how did they avoid exposure?  And what price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Early 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.
Just released; 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, if you like, but no porn (I don't do porn).  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.


The supreme 20th century symbol of hate.
Coming soon: Goldman Sachs: The Vampire Squid Thrives On.

©   2018   Clifford Browder