Clifford Browder's Blog, page 32

263. The Golden Age of Profanity, and Do We Have a Right to Swear?

         This post is about profanity.  Not New York profanity, because -- in spite of provocations like jack hammers, traffic jams, subway delays, jolting buses, and construction obstacles -- New Yorkers don't swear any more (or any less) than other people, nor are their oaths any different.  Yet what I confess here may cost me some friendships, since I'm going to reveal my dark heart and foul tongue.  But first of all, what is profanity?  There’s no easy, all-embracing answer, since opinions vary with time and place.  The word itself is a noun formed from the adjective profane, which comes via Old French from the Latin profanare, “to desecrate, render unholy, violate,” and from profanus, “unholy, not consecrated,” which in turn comes from pro fano, meaning “in front of the temple” -- in other words outside it, secular, or desecrating what is holy. 
         Yet today we use the word “profanity” to indicate indecorous language, language that is obscene and therefore forbidden; it may or may not be blasphemous or sacrilegious.  Profane language today can be blasphemous, using God’s name in vain (a violation of the Third Commandment), or obscene, often using certain common four-letter (and sometimes five-letter) English words that designate the bodily functions of sex and excretion.  Freud long ago observed that the close proximity of our organs of sex and excretion has caused humanity a huge deal of woe, and he was probably right.
         What brought this subject to mind, where it has probably been lurking long since, is a review in the New York Times of October 2, 2016, of two new books on the subject: Benjamin K. Bergen, What the F: What Swearing Reveals about Our Language, Our Brains, and Ourselves (Basic Books, 271 pp.), and Michael Adams, In Praise of Profanity (Oxford University Press, 253 pp.).  I have perused neither of these new arrivals, but note that the first sounds learned and analytical, whereas the second sounds like a joyful celebration of our use of dirty words.  The Times reviewer, Josh Lambert, salutes Benjamin Bergen’s treatment of the subject, but notes that it “saps a little of the joy out of dirty words.”  Michael Adams’s book, on the other hand, catalogs the many benefits of cursing a blue streak.  (Why “blue,” by the way?  Why not red or yellow or black?  But let’s not digress.)  He observes that today is a wonderful time to swear, involving little risk while letting one feel brave and subversive.  The 21st century in America is – for the moment, since these things can change – the Golden Age of Profanity.
         I’m glad to hear it, because as far back as I can remember, I have cursed.  Not loudly, in public, but muttering sotto voce, while swearing resoundingly in private.  Given my soft-spoken and temperate public manner, my effusions of sweetness and light, my friends probably don’t even suspect the raging curses and resonant profanities of my private moments.  What sets me off?  For the most part, trivia: a slight stumble, a misbehaving computer, something misplaced and urgently needed, something dropped on the floor, a junk phone call or even a welcome one at an inopportune moment: in short, the minor mishaps and trivial contretemps of daily living, which most people dismiss with a shrug.  And what exactly do I say?  (Here all delicate and easily affronted viewers should tune out.)  Expletives like these:
·      Shit!  A thousand times shit!·      God shit-ass damn!·      Holy fuck.·      Oh puke!  ·      You blatant prick, shut up!  (To the phone.)·      You goddam piece of shit!  (To my computer.)·      Jesus H. Christ!  (No idea what the H stands for.)·      Holy turd!·      You filthy cocksucker!  (Usually to some inanimate object.)
         So here are Christian and scatological terms in a feisty mix.  Certainly I’m no stranger to the seven dirty words banned from radio and television: shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, montherfucker, tits.  But if once, momentarily vexed in my childhood, I called a friend as “a saber-toothed tiger,” I confess that my arsenal of expletives today is sadly deficient in originality.  And when a friend, by chance overhearing a few of my utterances, thought he discerned a note of conscious and intentional blasphemy, I replied that in all honesty I was simply using the swear wordsI had grown up hearing all around me – not in my family, but on the playground, at school, and on the street -- without any thought of intentional blasphemy or sacrilege. 
         What would be a good example of truly original profanity?  There are plenty in Shakespeare, but the most memorable one that I know of is an outburst mouthed in King Lear by Kent, who to his face calls another character
Now that is swearing --  good, earthy, gutsy profanity.  While the familiar “son of a bitch,” richly renewed, is buried in there, the whole spiel reeks of a lurid originality that few of us today can match.  Indeed, our current vocabulary is by comparison tepid and threadbare.  (Why the blue print, by the way?  I have no idea.  My computer's idea.)
         Once, on the phone, while talking to a representative of my health care plan, I in frustration muttered a soft “Jesus Christ!”  “There’s no need for profanity,” the representative officiously announced, which provoked in me a rare burst of fury.  I almost said to him, “Sir, that comment was not meant for your ears, but since you heard it and saw fit to respond, please be advised that if I want to use such language, I fucking well will!”  I squelched the impulse to say it, but ever since have regretted that I didn't.  A unique incident in my experience that revealed to me my passionate belief that I have the right to swear as I please.  

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


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          My poems:  For five acceptable poems, click here and scroll down.  To avoid five terrible poems, don't click here.  For my poem "The Other," inspired by the Orlando massacre, click here.
          My books:  No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World, my selection of posts from this blog, has received these awards: 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.  For the Reader Views review by Sheri Hoyte, go here.  As always, the book is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.




The Pleasuring of Men (Gival Press, 2011), my historical novel about a young male prostitute in the late 1860s in New York who falls in love with his most difficult client, is likewise available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.




        Coming soon:  The marvels to be found on the north shore of Staten Island, and maybe a post on New York moments --  those sudden sights and encounters that reveal the essence of the city, perhaps supplemented by the strange deaths possible in New York.
         ©   2016   Clifford Browder

         

262. Halloween and Related Horrors

Since Halloween is close upon us, here is a reprint of a 2012 post about Halloween and related matters (ch. 38 in my book, No Place for Normal: New York).

31. Of Spooks, Ghouls, Mummies, and Related Horror

         It’s spook time, and I don't mean the election.  A candy store near my building features witches in orange and black in its window, and a pharmacy offers a host of eerie items: skulls, bones, skeletons, a severed arm (fake, of course; there are limits), a bat, huge spiders and their webs, a black cat, and a vulture that looks hungry.  (Not the best display for an outfit dispensing medicines meant to help and heal, but they like to be seasonal.)  So Halloween must be in the offing.
                  But I won't confine myself to the holiday.  This post's subject and the next will be our ambiguous attitude toward death and the dead, a vast subject that, given the many associations and scraps of history dancing in my head, will probably spill out in all directions.  But we'll start with Halloween.


         For most of us, Halloween means ghosts and witches and skeletons, trick-or-treating, costumes, jack-o’-lanterns, and innocent or not-so-innocent pranks  – a completely secular event.  But the name “Halloween” is a contraction of All Hallows’ Eve, referring to the Christian feast of All Hallows on November 1, and Halloween, celebrated on October 31, has both pagan and Christian antecedents.  It has been traced all the way back to the late-autumn Celtic festival of Samhain, when the physical and supernatural worlds were closest; the souls of the dead were thought to revisit their homes, and bonfires were built to ward their spirits off.
         The Christian holy day of All Saints’ Day, November 1, was a time for honoring the saints and praying for the dead, who until this day were thought to still wander the earth prior to reaching heaven or the alternative.  But this was also the last chance for the dead to wreak vengeance on their enemies before entering the next world, so to avoid being recognized by them (hmm… they must have felt guilty about something), people disguised themselves by wearing masks and costumes: the beginning of Halloween costumes.  So are the dead to be welcomed and prayed for, or dreaded and avoided?  Both, it seems.  Which shows, I think, a profound ambivalence.
[image error]                                                                                       Laszloen         As for jack-o’lanterns, they developed out of the custom in Scotland and Ireland of carving turnips into lanterns to ward off evil spirits.  Coming to this country, immigrants from those countries used the native pumpkin instead, whose size and softness made it much easier to carve.  The name itself probably comes from an Irish folktale about a man named Stingy Jack who outwitted the Devil but after his death, being barred from both heaven and hell, was doomed to wandering the earth with an ember to light his way.
         Children’s trick-or-treating came later, being first recorded in North America in a Canadian newspaper of 1911.  Wikipedia dates the first use of the term in the U.S. from 1934, but I can testify that by then all the kids in my middle-class Chicago suburb were ringing neighbors’ doorbells in hopes of goodies, though usually not in costume, without any thought of pioneering a new Halloween custom; as far as we were concerned, this is how it had always been, though we were much more into treats than tricks. (Still, my father, fearing vandalism, always wired the gates to our backyard shut, to keep out devilish intruders of whatever species or persuasion.)  By then, too, the costumes that some people donned were not confined to the eerie stuff (ghosts, skeletons, witches, and such), but included just about anyone or anything you could think of.  All of which shows how a holiday once concerned with praying for departed souls and warding off evil spirits has become, in the U.S. today, a children’s fun fest spiced with just a touch of the eerie.
         South of the border things are just a bit different.  Related to Halloween in Mexico is the Day of the Dead (el Dia de los Muertos), celebrated on November 1, a national holiday when people gather to remember and pray for deceased friends and family.  Altars are built in homes and cemeteries, and offerings are made of sugar and chocolate skulls, and bread often in the shape of a skull and decorated with white frosting to resemble twisted bones.  Photos and memorabilia are also placed there, in hopes of encouraging visits by the dead, so they can hear the prayers and comments of the living. 
                                                       Tomascastelago         Associated with the Day of the Dead is the la Catrina,the Grande Dame of Death, a skeleton presented as an elegant woman with a fancy hat.  This beloved figure of Mexican folk art first appeared in 1910 as an etching by the printmaker José Guadalupe Posada, but can be linked to Mictecacihuatl, the Aztec goddess of the dead.  She satirizes high society, but also shows how Mexicans bring death close to them and celebrate the joy of life in the very face of its opposite.  During my two trips to Mexico long ago I never encountered her (wrong season), but photos of her are unforgettable, reminding us how tame our Halloween images are in comparison.  And in the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City I saw many Aztec sculptures of gods adorned with human bones and skulls.  (They were a cheery bunch, those human-sacrificing Aztecs.)  Obviously, we mortals have many ways of facing – and facing down – death.
         All right, Mexico and la Catrina are pretty far removed from New York, the alleged subject of my blog, but I warned you that I might stray far and wide.  So to get back to the Apple, how about the doctors’ riot of 1788?  No, the doctors didn’t riot; in fact, they came close to being lynched. 

         Since the Renaissance medical science had been dissecting bodies so as to better understand anatomy, as evidenced by a Rembrandt painting of 1632.  But in England, Scotland, and the thirteen colonies that became the United States, there 
was strong popular feeling against the practice.  Fueling this feeling was the medical schools’ constant need for fresh bodies, which led them to snatch freshly buried 



bodies from graveyards.  During the Revolution, battlefields provided a good supply of unclaimed bodies, but with the coming of peace the need for more bodies intensified.  In New York the students at the city’s only medical school, Columbia College, raided the Negroes Burial Ground, where both slaves and freedmen were buried, but also the graves of paupers in Potters’ Field, while usually – but not always – respecting the graves of those “most entitled to respect.”  So great was the demand for bodies that a new occupation appeared, the professional body snatcher, or resurrectionist, whom the medical schools could hire.  Aware of the risks, grieving families often hired guards to watch over the grave of a loved one at night for two weeks following burial, since after that the bodies would be too decomposed for purposes of dissection.  The authorities were certainly aware of the activities of body snatchers, whether professional or amateur, but probably chose to look the other way, as long as it was all done discreetly and confined to the graves of the lowly, but by the late 1780s trouble was brewing.

         Then, in April 1788, the storm broke.  Accounts differ, but it seems that a group of boys playing outside the dissection room of City Hospital saw a severed human arm hung up to dry in a window, and rushed off to tell their elders.  An angry mob quickly gathered and surrounded the hospital, then broke in and, finding three fresh bodies there, one boiling in a kettle, destroyed everything in sight, including valuable specimens collected over many years, as well as surgical instruments.  Most of the doctors and students had escaped, but one doctor remained with three medical students, and only the sheriff’s removing them to the city jail for their own protection saved them from being lynched. 
         The mobs’ anger did not subside overnight, and many doctors found it convenient to take a sudden vacation out of town.  The governor called out the militia, but the mob disarmed some of them and attacked Columbia College, destroying more medical specimens and instruments.  Alexander Hamilton tried in vain to calm them, and John Jay (a future Chief Justice of the Supreme Court) was hit by a rock and knocked unconscious.  That evening the mob threatened the jail, where the doctor and students were still lodged.  When the rioters hurled bricks and rocks at the militia, the soldiers finally opened fire, killing eight and wounding many more.  Those doctors still in town treated the wounded, and the rioters dispersed the next morning, thus ending the new nation’s first recorded riot. 
         Some weeks later the New York legislature passed a law permitting the dissection of hanged criminals.  Unfortunately, there were never enough of them, so  resurrectionists and their opponents would persist well into the next century, often provoking (your choice) picturesque or grisly incidents, as my next post will show. 

         Of course body snatching is now a thing of the past, is it not?  Wrong!  In 2005 an ex-dentist in Fort Lee, New Jersey, was arrested for obtaining bodies from funeral homes in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania with forged consent documents, and then selling bones, organs, skin, and other body parts to legitimate medical companies and tissue banks for resale to hospitals, which needed them for transplants.  They did six or seven extractions a day, a male nurse involved in the operation later confessed; it took 45 minutes for the bones, and another 15 for skin, arms, thighs, and belly.  But why get involved in such a gruesome business?  Because, the nurse explained, he went from earning $50,000 a year as a nurse to $185,000 as a "cutter."  Yes, this illegal business is flourishing throughout our fair land, as a quick search for "body snatching" on the Internet will quickly demonstrate.  I myself plan to be cremated, but this doesn't guarantee a thing; so did the people whose bodies were stolen by the dentist and his fellow ghouls.
         Happy Halloween!

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          My poems:  For five acceptable poems, click here and scroll down.  To avoid five terrible poems, don't click here.  For my poem "The Other," inspired by the Orlando massacre, click here.
          My books:  No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World, my selection of posts from this blog, has received these awards: 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.  For the Reader Views review by Sheri Hoyte, go here.  As always, the book is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.



The Pleasuring of Men (Gival Press, 2011), my historical novel about a young male prostitute in the late 1860s in New York who falls in love with his most difficult client, is likewise available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.




                   Coming soon:  Profanity and me.  Do we have a right to swear in public, within the hearing of little children and other delicate souls?  How I cope with my own indiscretions.

      ©   2016   Clifford Browder

261. Scavenging in New York

         Recently, on the same day a bomb exploded under a dumpster on West 23rd Street in Chelsea, two men were seen on a security camera picking up a discarded bag on West 27th Street; finding a pressure cooker inside, they removed it, left it on the street, and went off with the bag.  In light of the bombing that same day in Chelsea, the authorities wanted to find the men and question them.  It turned out that they were two Egyptian visitors who simply liked the bag and scavenged it, but in so doing they may have defused a second bomb.
         Reporting this incident, the New York Times observes that the two Egyptians were simply following an age-old New York tradition of scavenging, of finding and appropriating something discarded on the street.  In a densely populated city where people are moving in or out all the time, books, furniture, appliances, luggage, and even paintings are all fair game for scavengers.  According to the city’s administrative code, discarded items on the street should be left for the Sanitation Department and other professional trash carters to collect, but just try telling that to New Yorkers, who routinely – out of need or curiosity or the sheer fun of it – grab stuff left on the street.
         The Times article mentions some of the items that citizens have scavenged: a Persian lamb jacket, a cat-scratching post, and a salad bowl from Ikea, all found by one woman in Brooklyn; and discarded computers that a maintenance worker, also a Brooklynite, delights to find, since he can repair them and restore them to use.  Clearly, one person’s junk is another’s treasure.  And one veteran New Yorker has boasted of completely furnishing his small apartment with the spoils reclaimed, with a friend’s help, in a single day of strenuous scavenging on the first of the month, when people move out or move in, and discarded furniture can be found on the street.
         I confess to having, in my time, scavenged.  Only a year ago, en route to a restaurant on  Seventh Avenue, I saw a small piece of nicely finished blond wood lying on the curb.  Picking it up, I detected a slight crack that probably explains why it had been thrown out, but the crack was barely noticeable, blending in with the grain of the wood.  So I grabbed it and took it with me to the restaurant, having not the slightest idea what I would do with it.  It now sits on the windowsill near my desk, where I can simply enjoy the sight of it; recently I placed a potted cactus on top of it, but I really prefer leaving it bare, so I can see it unadorned.  And this at a time when I am trying to get rid of things, not acquire more.
         Yes, New Yorkers don’t just scavenge; they also put things out on the street, hoping a passerby will take them.  When I convinced my partner Bob that we had to get rid of some of things accumulated over the years, he agreed.  Finding whole shelves of unused glassware in the kitchen cabinets, I showed them to him item by item, and he, being the presumed owner (we didn’t even know where they came from), decided which should be kept and which should go.  I then put a few downstairs beside the steps at the entrance to our building, with a sign urging passersby to help themselves, and in every instance they disappeared within a day.  Someone somewhere – or more likely several someones – can now enjoy a shelf of glistening glasses and goblets that cost them not a cent.  And when, recently, having insisted that Bob get rid of books hidden behind other books on his bookshelves, I found some hidden books of my own in a bookcase beside my desk, I vowed to get rid of them.  They were French and Spanish textbooks that I had once edited but that I had no need of, so out they went downstairs.  Within hours, they were gone.  Hopefully, someone somewhere is brushing up on their languages, exercising their mouth muscles in an attempt to pronounce French, or puzzling over the difference between the prepositions para and por in Spanish.  I wish them well.
         I’m more of a scavenger than Bob is.  Just the other day I was tempted by a large square mirror near the curb downstairs, but wisely forbore, having no real need of it.  But the prize of our scavenging over the years was Bob’s, for years ago he came home one day lugging a small bookcase that we could clearly use.  Why would anyone discard a perfectly fine little bookcase?  The explanation was soon forthcoming, when roaches began to emerge from tiny gaps between the shelves and the case.  Quickly I deposited the bookcase in the bathroom, shut the door, grabbed a can of disinfectant, and began spraying the intruders as they came out of their hiding places.  This went on for at least twenty minutes, until forty little corpses lay in heaps on the floor.  I then flushed the corpses away, scrubbed the bookcase clean, and announced to Bob that we had a new, very serviceable bookcase.  It filled up quickly and stands in our hallway to this day.
         What else have I scavenged over the years?  Books, always on an impulse and never in numbers, since we lack space for them.  Folders that a law student had discarded, each labeled with the name of course he had taken; from then on, instead of his vanished class notes, they housed manuscripts of mine.  A small rainbow flag that I found in a trash can the day after a Gay Pride parade, its splintered shaft easily repaired.  Two very usable wine glasses that someone had left in our trash area downstairs.  Two plump little throw pillows abandoned in a neighbor’s apartment when he moved out and invited other tenants to enter and help themselves.  Besides the pillows, I grabbed a corkscrew, but couldn’t use other items on display, including furniture that someone furnishing an apartment would have loved to acquire. 
         It can even happen that an item doesn’t just sit on the curb, awaiting a new owner, but goes in search of one.  Once, on a very windy day, a huge  black umbrella came flying toward me, carried along by gusts of wind.  I grabbed it, found it intact except for a missing handle, and waited for the owner, handle in hand, to come chasing after it, but when no one appeared, I  took it home.  It served us as a spare umbrella for years.
         But my specialty is pens: push-point pens or ordinary pens, blue-ink pens or black-ink pens, fine-point pens or medium-point pens – any kind of pen.  Over the years I have found them on the sidewalk while doing errands in my neighborhood, or in parks, or even along trails in upstate wilderness areas where I used to hike on weekdays alone.   And if half of them didn’t work, the other half did.  Result: for years I never had to buy a new pen.  Only recently, in the throes of advancing maturity, have I hesitated to claim them, since they are way down there, and I am way up here.  But if the item looks interesting, I’ll make the effort.  My presumed epitaph: 
CLIFFORD  BROWDERTHE  GUY  WHO  FOUND  PENS
Obviously, a stellar claim to fame.
         Of course nothing is simple in New York.  Lone scavengers and organized teams of scavengers are compromising the city’s efforts at recycling.  How so?  Before the Sanitation workers can get to the discarded items separated out for recycling – paper, plastic, glass, and metal – the scavengers get them and tote them off to be recycled.  That rusty old air conditioner can be sold for scrap metal; those cans from last night’s boozing can be turned in for a nickel apiece.  Some homeless people depend on what they get from scavenging to buy a little food.  And why does the city object, if the stuff still gets recycled?  Because it makes it difficult for the city to meet its recycling goals.  The city, not the scavengers, must get the credit for recycling.  What the scavengers are doing, says the city, is just plain theft.  To which the homeless reply indignantly that they are simply trying to get by, while at the same time helping clean up the city.
         Am I myself a thief?  No, because I have never taken stuff meant for recycling; my spoils are simply stray items found here or there, often put out in hopes that someone will scavenge them.  To grab a pen on the sidewalk, or a rainbow flag in a trash can, or an escaped umbrella flying by on a windy day, is not to compromise the city’s recycling campaign; it simply reduces the clutter on the streets, even if, in the process, I’m feathering my nest as well.  And these days I’m out to reduce my feathers, not add to them; my nest is overfull.  Anyone want some dusty old French books, or an illustrated  book on the gods of India?  Or The New York Walk Book, or The Dream of the Red Chamber, a classic Chinese novel?  If so, speak up, and fast, because that’s what I’m currently tossing out.  And if, in the process, I see a homeless person taking a few discarded bottles out of a trash can, I’m not going to have them arrested.


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          My poems:  For five acceptable poems, click here and scroll down.  To avoid five terrible poems, don't click here.  For my poem "The Other," inspired by the Orlando massacre, click here.
          My books:  No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World, my selection of posts from this blog, has received these awards: 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.  For the Reader Views review by Sheri Hoyte, go here.  As always, the book is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.




The Pleasuring of Men (Gival Press, 2011), my historical novel about a young male prostitute in the late 1860s in New York who falls in love with his most difficult client, is likewise available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.




         Coming soon:  A reprint of a post on Halloween, followed by one on profanity – especially mine -- that will reveal my dark heart and foul tongue, and raise the question, Do we have a right to swear?
         ©  2016  Clifford Browder

260. Sufism and Me, and How I Swayed and Chanted, but Didn't Whirl

         We sat in a circle in the large hall, some thirty of us, brought there by curiosity and following the gentle guidance of the American sheikha and her two assistants, dark-haired young women with a somewhat exotic Middle Eastern look.  Then, still guided by this exotic trio, we began to sway from side to side, while they chanted something in another language that we took to mean “God is great,” perhaps accompanied by a litany of divine names.  Next, they rose, we rose, and without speaking a word they showed us a simple dance step that we then did, clumsily at first and then deftly, while they continued to chant.  Then, always guided by our mentors, we began to move in a circle, hand in hand, repeatedly turning our head to the left and then to the right, while the three of them stood in the center of the circle, still chanting fervently.  We were told that any of us, if so inclined, could join them in the center of the circle, but none of us, new to the ceremony, was so presumptuous. 
         So it went for I don’t know how long; we were totally immersed in the moment, unaware of the passage of time.  When at last the dance was ended, and we returned to the ordinary world of time and schedules and obligations, it was a dismaying comedown.  Yet throughout the occasion I knew that, with the best intentions, we were play-acting, while the three of them were totally and passionately involved.  They had shown us what true commitment was.
         So ended, back in the mid-1990s, my first and only nibble at the feast of Sufism, my brief immersion in its flood of joy.  Richard Pierce, the founder and guiding light of the Whole Foods Project, which back in that time of AIDS advocated a nutritional approach to health and healing, was in the habit of following his biweekly vegan meals at a church on West 73rd Street with a demonstration of some kind of alternative approach to mental and physical wellbeing.  On this occasion he had invited Sheikha Fariha al-Jerrahi, the head of a Sufi order in TriBeCa in Lower Manhattan, to come and let us participate in a genuine Sufi act of worship.  No, I didn’t become a Sufi, but the experience taught me that there is more to Sufism than the whirling dervishes of legend; it was a memorable occasion and I still recall it vividly.
         The 1990s in New York were still experiencing a kind of spillover from the New Age explorations of the 1960s and later, as people – some people – groped toward new forms of spiritual development and worship.  Zen converts meditated; a friend of mine went deep into Transcendental Meditation; young Hare Krishnas, orange-robed with shaven heads, beat  their drums and chanted in public; pseudo-ascetics fasted and hoped for visions; and I attended a wedding where a with-it Catholic priest deformalized the ceremony to the point of clapping his hands gently while a dancer pranced and whirled about, spraying incense in the air.  At loose spiritual ends, we were all trying to hitchhike to paradise, and Sufism, a mystical form of Islam, was one of many vehicles that we hoped might get us there.
         My own stab at paradise had come years before by means of peyote buttons imported – quite legally, back then – from the Rio Grande valley, nibbling whose bitter flesh, sweetened by me with fistfuls of raisins, had indeed induced visions whose Technicolor marvels had immersed me – for a while – in a state of quiet exaltation and joy.  By the 1990s I had long since given peyote up, not because it was now illegal, but because the experience had a certain artificial quality and in time became repetitious.  I wanted no more aching eyeballs and artificial paradises; I wanted to experience miracles in the “real” world (whatever that is), in the wonders of nature and the ecstasies of music and art and poetry.  From then on it was no to cacti, yes to warblers and wilderness and slime molds, and to Van Gogh and Rimbaud and Richard Strauss.
         But some of my friends took the Sufi route.  One – I’ll call him Ben – communed with Sheikha Fariha and her followers and acquired a Sufi name, and then felt drawn to another Sufi sheikh, a charismatic visitor from Illinois, who gave him a different Sufi name.  This was one Sufi name – and teacher -- too many, for Ben sensed a certain rivalry between the two.  Aware of an unspoken tension, he finally asked the sheikha what the problem was.  She replied that the sheikh’s luring away some of her students was an offense against adab, or “etiquette,” the courtesy and respect that students owe to their sheikh, to each other, to other sheiks, and to everyone.  “If I invite you as a guest into my home,” she said, “I share my home and my meals with you, but not my spouse” – a rather perceptive and discreet response, in my opinion.  The visiting sheikh had violated this principle, though his take was different: “The rose can’t help it,” he insisted, “if its scent draws the lovers.”
         Ben was so taken with this rose’s scent that he, along with several  friends, followed him to Illinois and joined his community.  In Sufism Ben  had found an intensely emotional, poetic, and musical path – mystical, as opposed to legalistic and doctrinal – that appealed to him immensely, and his relationship with the sheikh was close.  In this Sufi community the sheikh had absolute authority.  When one of his followers showed up in a shiny new truck that he was obviously proud of, the sheikh ordered him to exchange it with the decrepit old vehicle that another of his followers possessed.  This surprised and angered the man with the truck, but he stifled his anger and obeyed.  Then, after a month, having made his point about not being possessed by things, the sheikh had the two exchange vehicles again, so that the truck owner got back his shiny truck.
         At first the sheikh encouraged a lively discussion, and even argument, about spiritual matters, but over the four years Ben communed with him the sheikh became more conservative and autocratic; the rose grew thorns.  Tolerant initially regarding gay people, he later began ordering marriages between LGBTQ followers and heterosexuals, at which point Ben, disillusioned, left the community.  Angry, the sheikh told Ben that Ben would die if he left.  Ben still had friends in the community, and from them he learned that, after his departure, the sheikh told his followers that Ben was an example of the worst that can happen to a man.  For all his holiness, the sheikh obviously nourished an untamed ego.  But Ben’s time there wasn’t wasted; he told me later that he learned a great deal from that experience, and even more from separating himself from the sheikh. 
         As for Sheikha Fariha, Ben later asked her to preside over his same-sex wedding in Massachusetts, and she did, taking him, his partner, and their hundred guests into a deep spiritual appreciation of the moment.  He hasn’t seen her since but remembers her as a gentle, warm, humorous teacher who emphasizes love, compassion, and forgiveness.
         I myself didn’t become a Sufi, but I did become a devotee of a Sufi poet, Rumi.  Reading him in translation, I’m sure I miss a lot, but much of the content still comes through, and I can see why, in a secular but spiritual-hungry age, he has become literary hot stuff and, that rarity in the U.S., a best-selling poet.  Here is an excerpt from a volume that a friend gave me.
Close your mouth against food.Taste the lover’s mouth in yours.
You moan, “She left me.”  “He left me.”Twenty more will come.
Be empty of worrying.Think of who created thought!
Why do you stay in prisonWhen the door is so wide open?
Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.Live in silence.
Flow down and down in alwaysWidening rings of being.
         And another excerpt:
Let the lover be disgraceful, crazyAbsentminded.  Someone soberWill worry about things going badly.Let the lover be.
         There is much about love and lovers in Rumi, as well as wine and music and God.  And who was he?  A thirteenth-century sheikh, religious scholar, and Sufi mystic born in a part of Afghanistan that was then part of the Persian empire, but who lived most of his life in Konya in what today is Turkey, which means that, though he wrote mostly in Persian, he is claimed by Afghanistan, Iran, and Turkey all three.  The deciding event of his life came in 1244 when, at the age of 37 and a family man, he met Shams of Tabriz, a wandering dervish with whom he formed a passionate friendship in which they were drunk with God and drunk with each other.  Was this relationship sexual as well?  Opinion today is divided, but the tone of his poems celebrating Shams is certainly that of a lover.  So jealous of Shams did Rumi’s students become, that they may have murdered Shams, who in any event suddenly disappeared.  Rumi searched in vain for Shams, then became convinced that Shams was writing his, Rumi’s, poems and so lived on through Rumi.   
         Sufism exists in many forms and imposes certain obligations like prayer five times a day and fasting at Ramadan, but for Westerners seeking some kind of spiritual path it is just plain sexy.  And Rumi has worked a similar miracle by making poetry – and worshipful poetry at that – enticingly sexy.
         And today?  A recent article in the New York Times makes it clear that Sufism is alive and well in New York.  In a small apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan a group of ten “beloveds” are greeted by their sheikh in an Arabic seasoned with a thick New York accent, and then join hands, form a circle, and for 30 minutes with eyes shut chant the 99 sacred names of Allah.  Another Sufi order founded by a Senegalese sheikh meets in West Harlem, still another in a brownstone in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, and a third in a church on Ninth Avenue in Manhattan.
         And on West Broadway in TriBeCa, Sheikha Fariha in a flowing white gown receives visitors (minus their shoes) in a prayer hall with the Prophet Muhammad’s name in Arabic calligraphy adorning the walls, prayer rugs on the floor, books scattered about, and Turkish tea and dates on a table.  Her voice then drifts across the hall summoning the faithful to prayer, and her followers, wearing white caps very much like those of surgeons, begin a service of chanting, swaying, and prayer, with one member tapping lightly on a Persian drum; on occasion they even whirl.  Tolerance and equality are emphasized; there is no dress code, and LGBT members are welcome.  That this order’s sheikh is a woman is highly unusual, but in liberal New York the rule of a charismatic sheikha attracts followers, especially women. 
         Yes, even in this time of Islamic terrorism and the resulting suspicion of Islam in America, many New Yorkers – described by some critics as “spiritual vagabonds” flitting from one tradition to another -- are drawn to this path on the fringe of mainstream Islam, pleased by its liberalism and convinced that true Islam abhors the terrorism committed by fanatics in its name.


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          My poems:  For five acceptable poems, click here and scroll down.  To avoid five terrible poems, don't click here.  For my poem "The Other," inspired by the Orlando massacre, click here.
          My books:  No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World, my selection of posts from this blog, has received these awards: 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.  For the Reader Views review by Sheri Hoyte, go here.  As always, the book is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.




The Pleasuring of Men (Gival Press, 2011), my historical novel about a young male prostitute in the late 1860s in New York who falls in love with his most difficult client, is likewise available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.




         Coming soon:  Scavenging, an old New York tradition, and how I got a roach-infested bookcase and scads of other goodies.  And after that, the Golden Age of Profanity and why I don’t swear in Indiana.

         ©   2016   Clifford Browder

259. Who Don't Pay Taxes -- Again

     Since the question of Donald Trump's taxes -- or his ability to avoid paying them -- is much with us today, here is an excerpt from my post #157 of December 14, 2014, "Taxes: Who Pays Them and Who Doesn't?"  The facts probably need updating, but the main point is just as valid today, if not more so.  And at the end of the excerpt is a note about the giant octopus that dragged a Staten Island ferry and all its passengers down to a watery doom.




     It’s fashionable to complain about our broken tax system, and there is merit to many of the criticisms.  Loopholes and special dispensations abound, sometimes through Congress’s negligence and sometimes through its subservience to special interests, who often seem to write the laws.  Recently it was reported by Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) that 26 of the biggest U.S. corporations quite legally paid no federal income tax from 2008 to 2012, and 93 out of the 288 analyzed companies paid below 10%.  Critics often decry the high U.S. corporate tax rate of 35%, but many companies exploit tax breaks, loopholes, and accounting schemes to their advantage.  And who are some of the companies that paid no federal tax whatsoever?  Here are a few:
·      Boeing·      General Electric·      Verizon·      Consolidated Edison·      Corning·      Duke Energy·      PG&E Corporation
And many other utilities.  The report is of course disputed by the companies named, who point out that it ignores other taxes that they pay, such as state and local taxes.  True enough, but the report is still pretty damning.  One online article on the subject includes a photo of a white-haired lady holding up a sign in bold print: 


MAKE  DEADBEAT  CORPORATIONS  PAY.
      And people?  Here are some who have been prosecuted for tax evasion and related charges, starting with the most recent:
·      2013: Accounting firm Ernst & Young paid $123 million.·      2008: Senator Ted Stevens, Republican of Arkansas, convicted on 7 counts of bribery and tax evasion.  He ran for re-election but lost.·      2008: Representative Charles Rangel, Democrat of New York, paid $11,000 in back taxes and – a truly rare event -- was censured by the House.·      2006: Lobbyist Jack Abramoff was fined $24.7 million and is now serving 70 months.·      2006: Representative Duke Cunningham, Republican of California, was fined $1.8 million and sentenced to 8 years, 4 months.·      2002: Six members of the Christian Patriot Association, a white supremacist organization based in Oregon, were convicted of tax fraud and tax evasion and faced up to 5 years each in prison plus a $250,000 fine.
     But why go on?  The list is endless, includes both major parties, and usually involves those in or close to government.  But often there is more to the story.  Ernst & Young had advised 200 wealthy clients who then avoided  $2 billion in unpaid taxes.  Ted Stevens got off when his indictment was dismissed because of prosecutorial misconduct.  Duke Cunningham was still entitled to a pension for his years of service in the Navy and Congress.  The Christian Patriot Association, which had helped 900 people evade taxes on $186 million over 14 years, believed that white people were the chosen people of God and therefore entitled, apparently, to not pay taxes.

     But these are the ones who got caught.  What about all those others with money stashed in offshore accounts maintained by Swiss banks, whose legendary secrecy is now under attack by the U.S. and the European Union?  Not to mention such tax havens as Luxembourg, Andorra, and Liechtenstein, tiny European countries thriving on their tax-haven status, and such exotic locales as the Bahamas, the British Virgin Islands, Monaco, Panama, Singapore, and numerous others.  In the 2012 Presidential campaign Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate, had trouble explaining why he had millions stashed away in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.  Though not illegal, it looked fishy, and demolished any chance he had (and it wasn’t much) of appearing to voters as an ordinary guy just like you and me.  Obama could be a bit distant and dispassionate, but at least he didn’t have a fortune offshore.
     Everyone agrees that our tax system needs to be drastically reformed, but few agree on how to do it.  Some want to tax the rich more, some want to tax them less.  And since Congress is a pack of millionaires who, with some exceptions, think the present system is just dandy – or at least have reasons not to meddle with it – meaningful reform is not likely to come very soon.  Meaningful reform may require a groundswell of opinion from below, and there’s little sign of that at this time.
     Here’s a novel solution proposed by nutritionist and WBAI commentator Gary Null and some others: tax both individuals and corporations a flat 10%, with absolutely no loopholes or exceptions.  Doing this, Null insists, would let us abolish the Internal Revenue Service altogether.  An enticing prospect, though I’m not sure how various income groups would fare.  And in the present circumstances there’s no chance of it being enacted or even seriously discussed.
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     Here is a note on the report in the previous post (#258) about the giant octopus attacking a Staten Island ferry and dragging it down into the depths of the harbor.  Of course it never happened; it's a hoax.  The hoaxer is Joseph Reginella, the artist responsible for the cast-bronze sculpture memorializing the fake tragedy, now on display in Battery Park.  By all means go to Staten Island, but not to see the museum about the event, since that museum too is an invention of the artist; it doesn't exist.  Go to Staten Island to see Sailors Snug Harbor (see post #251) and other sights well worth seeing, but not that one.

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          My poems:  For five acceptable poems, click here and scroll down.  To avoid five terrible poems, don't click here.  For my poem "The Other," inspired by the Orlando massacre, click here.
          My books:  No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World, my selection of posts from this blog, has received these awards: 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.  For the Reader Views review by Sheri Hoyte, go here.  As always, the book is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.




The Pleasuring of Men (Gival Press, 2011), my historical novel about a young male prostitute in the late 1860s in New York who falls in love with his most difficult client, is likewise available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.




     Coming soon:  As previously announced, the Sufis and me, and how I swayed and chanted, but didn't whirl.
     ©   2016   Clifford Browder

258. The Languages of New York, with a Note on a Giant Octopus Attack

         Parlez-vous Aramaic?  Sprechen Sie Vlashki?  Habla Euskara?  Mazel Tov!
         New York is a polyglot city.  According to the U.S. census, only 51 percent of the population speak English at home, the other 49 speaking a multitude of languages.  How many languages in all?  Students in the public schools speak 176, and in the borough of Queens alone there are 138.  But those numbers are far too low; estimates range as high as 800.
         No wonder, then, that on the street your ear is constantly tickled by the sound of foreign languages, just as your palate can be caressed by foreign food.  When I go out on local errands in the West Village, I may hear Spanish, French, German, Chinese, or some other languages – maybe Slavic – that I can’t identify.  Some of these are spoken by tourists with their nose in a guidebook or taking photos of one another in front of the famous Magnolia Bakery over which I live, but some are spoken by residents.  My partner Bob’s doctor, who makes house calls, is Norwegian by birth, though fluent in English and German; Bob’s home care aides are both Haitian and speak French and Creole; a former aide was a Russian woman from Moscow; and until recently his Visiting Nurse was Cambodian.
         From my Jewish friend Ken I learned a bunch of Yiddish phrases and have used (or misused) them ever since.  How many of these can you define or explain?  (See the answers at the end of this post.)
1.    hutzpah2.    kibbitz3.    kvetsh4.    mishegas5.    Mazel Tov!6.    Oy veh!7.    shmooze8.    shtick9.    yenta10.schlep11.blitspost12.tsvishnminik
         Over the years Bob and I have dined in Chinese, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Jewish, Indian, Mexican, Russian, Thai, and Burmese restaurants; the menus might include English, but the dishes were authentically ethnic, and the waiters or waitresses often were, too.  Long ago, on my way to my medical center on the Upper East Side, I used to pass a restaurant that boasted of being the only authentic Romanian restaurant in the city.  Memorable among our dining experiences have been Bengali meals of many courses served by a friend from Calcutta; numerous Italian meals at our favorite restaurant at Coney Island; and a sumptuous Japanese meal beginning with octopus (“the Japanese chewing gum,” said our American host) as an appetizer, and climaxed by his Japanese wife’s serving us dishes of sukiyaki that were a feast for both the palate and the eye.
         As a freelance editor I edited textbooks in French, Spanish, and German, and at some point met and conferred (albeit in English, except for one whirlwind telephone exchange in French) with authors who were native speakers.  On Fifth Avenue near the uptown diamond district I have seen bearded, dark-suited Orthodox Jews waiting for the special bus that would whisk them off to their home, probably in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.  Indian women in saris are a common sight on the street, and once, here in the Village over near the river, I saw a woman in a burka, covered from head to foot except for slits for her eyes. 
         But ethnic diversity is seen in more than language and dress. Following a meeting of the St. John’s University strikers long ago, I and others went to the Egyptian Gardens nightclub in the West 40s and saw an impressive and very athletic performance – a combination strut, whirl, and wiggle, but mostly wiggle -- by a bona fide Turkish bellydancer in a flimsy gown that left her arms and midriff bare, who was obviously and especially dancing for the benefit of a good-looking young man (not me!) in our group, a dance that was exotic and suggestive but never gross or salacious.  Just as memorable was another visit by me on my own to another such Eastern Mediterranean club in the same area, where I saw an older woman get up and dance, slowly and soulfully, by herself: a revelation to me of another culture where people feel free to dance alone to express their inner feelings.  (Think of Anthony Quinn in the 1964 film Zorba the Greek.)
         Exotic languages usually reflect ethnic enclaves, of which there are scores in New York City.  In two posts long ago (#127, #129) I described several of these communities:
·      Sherpas of Nepal, who in their homeland guide climbers to the top of Mount Everest, and here reside in Elmhurst, Queens, many of the men driving cabs or even offering computer services;·      Basques from both the French and the Spanish sides of the Pyrenees who speak Euskara, a mysterious ancient language, and live in all five boroughs and work at various jobs, including restaurants offering Basque dishes;·      Romani (Gypsies), who live in small communities in Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens, work at jobs as varied as car salesman or jazz musician or electrician, but keep a low profile here because of prejudice against them; ·      Sikhs from the Punjab in India, many of whom live in Richmond Hill, Queens, the males, mostly educated professionals, easily identified by their turban;·      Tibetans, refugees from Chinese Communist-dominated Tibet, many of whom live in Jackson Heights, Queens, the women working as nannies and housekeepers and caregivers, and the men as cab drivers, interpreters or translators, and as vendors in the greenmarkets that I patronize;·      Afghans fleeing the 1979 Soviet invasion and, more recently, American bombs, who now live in Flushing and other neighborhoods in Queens, the men driving cabs or working in restaurants or as street vendors, and the women, if not stay-at-home mothers, as babysitters or housekeepers;·      Mohawks who commute from their reservation in distant Canada to work as construction workers in skyscrapers high above the city, boarding here at various locations during the week and returning to their families on weekends.
And I haven’t even mentioned languages like Ukrainian, Polish, Swedish, Hungarian, Portuguese, Greek, Arabic, Hindi, Urdu, Gujarati, Laotian, Korean, Tagalog, and countless others, all of which are spoken here.          But these languages are not uncommon.  How about Vlashki, a variation of Istro-Romanian, spoken in Queens?  Or Garifuna, an Arawakan language spoken today in Honduras and Belize, but also in the Bronx and Brooklyn?  Or Aramaic, a semitic Syrian language spoken long ago by Jesus and his disciples, or Chamorro from the Mariana Islands?  Or Bukhari, a Jewish language with more speakers in Queens than in Uzbekistan or Tajikistan?  Many of these are endangered, as their few elderly speakers die off, though in some cases there is a concerted effort to keep the language alive.  New York is a refuge for lost languages, but as the children and grandchildren of immigrants learn the dominant language, English, it is also a graveyard.         Graveyard or not, New York is a polyglot city, its languages reflecting its rich diversity, and it has been such since its origins.  New Amsterdam, its Dutch forerunner and a center of trade from the outset, was inhabited almost from the start not just by the Dutch, but also by English refugees from the strict and dour New England colonies, and by Germans, Norwegians, Italians, Jews, Africans (both slave and free), Walloons, Bohemians, Munsees, Montauks, Mohawks, and countless others.  So it’s not surprising that The Donald’s tirades today against immigrants fall on indifferent or hostile ears in Gotham, since immigrants are part of our daily life and culture and help make this city work.

Answers to the Yiddish quiz:
1.    chutzpah: arrogance, pushiness2.    kibbitz: to give unwarranted advice3.    kvetsh: to complain, to whine4.    mishegas: craziness5.    Mazel Tov!  Congratulations!  Good luck!  Or, sarcastically: It’s about time!  (You finally got a job?  Mazel Tov!)6.    Oy veh!  Woe is me!7.    shmooze: to chat, to make small talk8.    shtick: your bit, routine, thing you do9.    yenta: a gossipy woman, a female busybody10.shlep: to drag, to carry unwillingly11.blitspost: e-mail (lightning + mail)12.tsvishnminik: transgender (between + type)
If you didn’t get the last two, no matter.  They are neologisms coined by the new Comprehensive English-Yiddish Dictionary (826 pages!), which seeks to update Yiddish for the 21stcentury.  Whether these neologisms will stick remains to be seen.  Confronted with a new concept, Yiddish speakers often just adopt the English word and shrug.  And who still speaks Yiddish?  Mostly Hasidim and other ultra-Orthodox Jews in the New York City area, plus a dwindling number of Holocaust survivors and, sometimes, their children.  Another endangered language.

*                      *                    *                      *                     *                              I recently learned of a tragic event that should be better known.  On November 22, 1963, the ferry Cornelius G. Kolff left its dock in Lower Manhattan bound for Staten Island, but it never got there.  En route, it was entangled in the huge tentacles of a giant octopus that dragged it under the water, with a loss of over 400 passengers and crew, whose remains were never recovered.  My first reaction, on hearing this, was total disbelief.  Giant octopi no doubt exist, but I've never heard of them in these waters.  And why wasn't this tragedy widely reported at the time?  This question is easily answered: the tragedy occurred on the very day when President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, so that news of the assassination, and the subsequent assassination of the assassin, dominated the media for days, to the neglect of other stories.  Even this did not totally convince me, but I was directed to a video where an eyewitness describes the incident in telling and very credible detail.  A cast-bronze monument by Joseph Reginella memorializing the victims now stands in Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan, and fliers direct tourists to the Staten Island Ferry Disaster Memorial Museum on Staten Island, where wreckage is displayed containing strange suction-cup marks -- one more reason to visit this neglected but culturally rich borough, only a short ferry trip away.  A safe crossing is almost certain, for to my knowledge no similar attacks by giant octopi have been reported since.

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          My poems:  For five acceptable poems, click here and scroll down.  To avoid five terrible poems, don't click here.  For my poem "The Other," inspired by the Orlando massacre, click here.
          My books:  No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World, my selection of posts from this blog, has received these awards: 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.  For the Reader Views review by Sheri Hoyte, go here.  As always, the book is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.



The Pleasuring of Men (Gival Press, 2011), my historical novel about a young male prostitute in the late 1860s in New York who falls in love with his most difficult client, is likewise available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.




         Coming soon:  The Sufis and me, and how I swayed and chanted, but didn’t whirl.  And the poetry of Rumi, who loved God and wine and a wandering dervish named Shams of Tabriz, and what became of that love.      
         ©   2016   Clifford Browder    
        

257. Donald Trump ... 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 historical touch.  Ah, how history can fool us!






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 Forbesmagazine 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 Timemagazine 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.
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
     Source note:  For much of the information in this post, I am indebted to Michael D’Antonio, Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success (St. Martin’s Press, NY: 2015).  D’Antonio does an excellent job of interpreting the vast amount of information available.  He interviewed many people who have known Trump, and was granted several interviews with Trump himself, until The Donald cut him off.


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          My poems:  For five acceptable poems, click here and scroll down.  To avoid five terrible poems, don't click here.  For my poem "The Other," inspired by the Orlando massacre, click here.
          My books:  No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World, my selection of posts from this blog, has received these awards: 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.  For the Reader Views review by Sheri Hoyte, go here.  As always, the book is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.


The Pleasuring of Men (Gival Press, 2011), my historical novel about a young male prostitute in the late 1860s in New York who falls in love with his most difficult client, is likewise available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.





     Coming soon:  As announced earlier, a post on the polyglot city and its many languages.  After that, me and the Sufis, and then, probably, a stunner on profanity, in which I indulge all too readily.
     ©   2016   Clifford Browder
     

256. The Morgan Library, Where an American Banker Became a Renaissance Prince

         Having recently done two posts (#252 and #253) about John Pierpont Morgan, once hailed as an Alexander the Great of finance and vilified accordingly, I thought it behooved me to visit the library that he built to house his vast collections.  That library has since been expanded into a museum, but with the original structure preserved and restored to what it looked like in his time.  So I went to the Morgan Library and Museum at Madison Avenue and East 36th Street to check it out, and a series of revelations resulted.
         Before entering on Madison Avenue, I made a short side trip down 36th Street to see the original façade and entrance.  And there it was: architect Charles McKim’s Italian Renaissance façade, sober to the point of plain, its pink marble now a quiet gray, with only scant adornments, and an imposing entrance with two monumental bronze doors approached by steps flanked by recumbent lionesses. 
Beyond My Ken
         Revelation #1:  Chaste simplicity, the very opposite of the Victorian busyness and clutter embodied in that other library celebrated in post #255, my beloved Jefferson Market Library, built in the 1870s as a courthouse.  The two libraries could not differ more: classical symmetry vs. Victorian Gothic asymmetry, monochrome discipline vs. polychrome fantasy, restraint vs. freedom that inches toward the wild and the crazy.  (The Jefferson Market Library was inspired architecturally by Neuschwanstein, the fairy-tale castle created by Ludwig II, the mad king of Bavaria.)
         I then proceeded into the interior through a spacious modern entrance that the founder might not have approved of.  My goal was the original McKim building, so I went there directly, ignoring all the other displays, not to mention the café and bookstore.  After only a brief trek and up a short flight of stairs, I found myself in the Rotunda, which visitors in Morgan’s time first entered, via the monumental bronze doors flanked by lionesses.
         Revelation #2:  Grandeur.  This was the first impression Morgan wanted his visitors to have.  I barely noticed the marble columns and floor, for my eye immediately went up to the ornate domed ceiling and, in the apse of the curved north wall, a multitude of panels in blue and white stucco reliefs, their subjects unclear to me, but patterned on works by Raphael.  The room wasn’t vast – much smaller than the Pantheon in Rome – but, lit by a skylight overhead, it gave the impression of vastness and light. This, and not the ceiling paintings by an American artist, or the rare manuscripts on display, was what held me.
Ceiling and apse of the Rotunda
Christelle2r
         Opening off the Rotunda are an East Room, a West Room, and a North Room.  I went next to the East Room, Morgan’s library, and was overwhelmed.
         Revelation #3: Ornateness beyond belief, the most sumptuous room I have ever experienced, contrasting vividly with the chasteness of the exterior.  A richly decorated ceiling, walls lined with three tiers of inlaid walnut bookcases behind glass panes, murals above the top tier, a monumental fireplace and, above it, a huge 16th-century Brussels tapestry whose subject I could barely make out, but that I knew represented Avarice, which one might, or might not, take as an ironic comment on the whole ensemble.  (Morgan did not think of himself as greedy.)  Since two upholstered benches were available to visitors, I plunked myself down on one and for several minutes savored the rich feast all around me – the ceiling and its murals, the bookcases, and the thick patterned rug beneath me.  Thanks to that rug, the presence of only a few visitors, and building’s thick walls and doors, I experienced another revelation.
The East Room
Paolatrabanco
         Revelation #4:  Quiet.  In this well insulated treasure house, the roar of traffic on Madison Avenue isn’t simply muted, it is eliminated.  In Morgan’s time this was a tranquil residential neighborhood, but there would have been some commotion of horse-drawn wagons and carriages on the streets, but none of it penetrated his library.  Here he could leave the brouhaha of Wall Street and the babble of society behind, and immerse himself in his vast collection of rare old books.  Getting up from the bench, I approached the glass-paned bookcases of the lowest tier and surveyed scores of fine-bound books, some modern (the works of Anatole France) and some old (a plethora of Bibles), most of them with bright gilt lettering on the bindings.  And there were two more tiers above me, accessible (though not to me) by two hidden stairways, the tiers covering all the walls except for the entrance, the fireplace and its tapestry, and two stained-glass windows – more books than anyone could read, or even skim, in two lifetimes.  And these books were only part of his collection!  Which brought another revelation.
         Revelation #5:  Compulsive collecting.  Morgan’s collecting was more than a hobby; it was an obsession, a compulsion.  He bought en masse – statues, paintings, ceramics, and especially rare manuscripts and books.  If a book was elegantly bound, he wanted it, and if it was old and rare and of great value, he wanted it even more, and he never stooped to haggle.  He bought boxes and boxes of them and shipped them home to be stored in his library, where some of them are now displayed in glass cases.  In one case I saw, side by side, an illustrated book of hours, several Gospel books, and a deck of tarot cards.  In another, an 11th-century Gospel book in Latin with a richly jeweled cover – the most sumptuous book cover that I have ever seen.  Posted information tells viewers that it was bought by J.P. Morgan, Jr., in 1920, but the son’s taste reflected that of the father.  I could well imagine old J.P., his knowledge of medieval Latin probably matching mine, gently caressing the gem-studded cover.  But he didn’t just buy books.  In a corner nearby was a statue of Saint Elizabeth in lindenwood, polychromed with gilt decoration, German, from the 16thCentury, bought by Morgan in 1911 --- another prize to be displayed to invited guests.
         After the East Room library, you might think anything else an anticlimax, but I knew better, for I went next, and eagerly, to the West Room, his study.  This was where, to stop the Panic of 1907, he locked in some fifty bank presidents and refused to let them leave, until they had collectively promised in writing to fork over $25 million to keep two trust companies from failing, failures that would have provoked still more failures and panic.  To see the scene of that momentous crisis, and the room where he spent much of every day in his later years, was why I had come to the library, even more than to see the opulence of the West Room.
         And I wasn’t disappointed.  This room too is ornate, but less overwhelming than the library, more restful, more intimate.  On the red silk walls (closely resembling the original red damask) hang Italian and Flemish paintings of the Renaissance, while low bookcases along the east and south walls house yet more books.  Over a monumental 15th-century mantelpiece on the west wall is an 1888 gilt-framed portrait of Morgan himself, massively seated, solemn, with an earnest gaze that, when he was intensely focused or angry, could cut right through you.  In the fireplace, as in the East Room’s fireplace, is a pile of birch logs whose peeling white bark adds a nice, homey touch, presumably provided by the museum for atmosphere, since the fumes from a log fire could have damaged the collections.  Yet another source has the old boy sitting for hours by the fire, smoking a cigar, and playing solitaire, his cigar smoke damaging the original red damask walls.  So maybe he did puff away there, knowing his books were safe in glass-fronted bookcases, and his manuscripts locked away in the study’s vault.
         Much of the study’s furniture was commissioned by Morgan in the Renaissance style, including his desk in front of the east wall, flanked by two Savonarola chairs, and behind the desk, an ornate thronelike chair upholstered, like the rest of the furniture, in red.  Between two stained-glass windows in the north wall hangs another portrait -- of Morgan, I assumed -- in a bright red robe covering his usual dark suit.  Certainly the color matched the room’s walls and upholstery, but did the man fancy himself a cardinal as well?  A pamphlet available to visitors explains that this is a 1934 portrait of his son, J.P. Morgan, Jr., showing him in an Oxford (some sources say Cambridge) University robe, since the university had awarded him an honorary degree.  The son looks very much like the father, with the same massive presence and earnest gaze.
         Over a corner doorway in the south wall is an oval painting, a Madonna and child, that I immediately pegged as a Botticelli – not too far off, since it turns out to be from the school of the master.  And the doorway below it gives a glimpse into the West Room Vault, its walls lined by McKim with steel, access to which was, in Morgan’s time, through a heavy door with a combination lock.  In the vault were lodged his most valuable medieval manuscripts, though today it holds other items on display.
         After the library and the study, the North Room, once the office of Morgan’s full-time librarian/director, was indeed an anticlimax.  In it are more displays, more books, and yet another monumental fireplace with yet another stack of peeling birch logs.  But coming away from the original building, I chanced on a small gallery containing Hans Memling’s reunited 15th-century altarpiece, seen for the first time in this country, thanks to loans from Belgium and Italy.  Morgan himself never saw it complete, since he acquired only two side panels that he hung on the red damask walls of the study, flanking his desk.  Also on display in the gallery are several remarkable Memling portraits and other works, which, combined with all I had seen already, brought me to my final revelation.
         Revelation #6: Morgan a prince of the Renaissance.  Not for nothing did McKim, constantly harassed by his constant “suggestions,” refer to him as Lorenzo the Magnificent.  Morgan was following in the footsteps of the Medici, Florentine bankers turned patrons of the arts and finally princes who ruled over Florence.  No, he didn’t plan to rule, but as a soberly dressed banker/collector he lived amid all the splendor of a prince.  What was behind his compulsive collecting?  As an American, to outdo the monarchs of the Old World?  A desire to achieve greatness beyond that of a banker who almost singlehandedly could stop the worst of panics?  A longing to secure Old World treasures against the ravages of history and time, and make them accessible to his fellow citizens?  Perhaps all of that.
         Yet Morgan was not, in the usual sense of the word, a social climber.  While the newly moneyed Astors and Vanderbilts played leapfrog on the upper Fifth Avenue, each trying to outdo the other by building yet another palatial residence, he was content to live quietly in his brownstone mansion on the lower Avenue in Murray Hill.  And if, in his younger days, he was never invited to the annual Astor ball, where the Mrs. Astor received, to the number of four hundred, the slightly curdled cream of New York society, he probably didn’t care.  Why should he?  He was a friend of kings and emperors. 
         J.P. Morgan was no more aware than Mrs. Astor of the plight of the city’s poor, revealed vividly in his own time by the photographs of Jacob Riis, but he was certain that his rare collections would benefit the nation in the long run.  So there you have it, as revealed so fully in the Morgan Library: Pierpont the Magnificent, a generous patron of the arts, an American Medici, a modern banker turned prince of the Renaissance.  Whatever we think of Morgan the banker, our lives have been enriched by Morgan the collector.

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          My poems:  For five acceptable poems, click here and scroll down.  To avoid five terrible poems, don't click here.  For my poem "The Other," inspired by the Orlando massacre, click here.
          My books:  No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World, my selection of posts from this blog, has received these awards: 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.  For the Reader Views review by Sheri Hoyte, go here.  As always, the book is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.


The Pleasuring of Men (Gival Press, 2011), my historical novel about a young male prostitute in the late 1860s in New York who falls in love with his most difficult client, is likewise available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.




         Coming soon:  Parlez-vous Yiddish?  Sprechen Sie Creole?  Habla Chinese?  How many languages do you think are spoken in New York?  A glance at the polyglot city.
         ©   2016   Clifford Browder

255. The Jefferson Market Library and the Guggenheim's Golden Throne

         In New York City every old building has its history.  My branch library, the Jefferson Market Library, an impressive Victorian Gothic structure on Sixth Avenue at West 10thStreet, is no exception.  Climbing the circular stairs past stained-glass windows (not Chartres, I admit) to the second floor to return or get a book, I am well aware that the building was once visited, albeit separately, by a notorious trio: Madame Restell, the city’s most notorious abortionist; Harry Thaw, the murderer of the renowned  architect Stanford White; and the incomparable Mae West.  Since none of these three was much of a reader, they certainly didn’t come to get books.  And why is it called the Jefferson Market Library, when there’s no market in sight, and libraries primarily dispense books?  To explain these matters requires dipping into a bit of local history.


Beyond My Ken
         Before the library, there was a courthouse, and before the courthouse, a market.  The produce market, named for our third president, opened on the site in 1833, alongside a wooden fire tower and a small jail, and continued for many years.  In 1845 the city divided the expanding city into three police districts, and the Second District police court opened at the site of the market.  Then, in the 1870s, the ever expanding city decided to tear down the market sheds and the fire tower (some sources say it had, alas, burned down) to build a new courthouse, the Victorian Gothic building of today, which opened in 1877. 
         Modeled in part on King Ludwig II of Bavaria’s fairy-tale castle Neuschwanstein, the asymmetrical structure’s red-brick walls with limestone trim rise impressively with pointed windows, steeply sloping roofs, gables, and pinnacles.  Dominating the structure is a 100-foot tower with clocks on all four sides and ringed by a balcony where fire watchers could oversee the area and ring alarms with a bell that still hangs in the tower today.  It is a strikingly picturesque monument and was recognized as such in its own time, though few passersby today bother to stop, gaze up, and admire it.


         Inside, the second floor that now houses an adult reading room was a civil court, while the ground floor had a police court where the children’s room now is, and the basement, now a reference room, served as a holding pen for prisoners on their way to jail or a trial.  Built at the same time was an adjacent prison on West 10th Street, needed to relieve crowding in the gloomy downtown prison known as the Tombs.
         And now for the notorious trio.  On February 11, 1878, bystanders on Sixth Avenue were astonished to see a fashionable carriage with a coachman in livery arrive at the courthouse.  From it emerged a well-dressed woman who turned out to be Ann Lohman, alias Madame Restell, the most notorious – and successful – abortionist in the city, who had pursued her calling for decades and shocked citizens by parading about in her carriage and expensive millinery, and building a palatial brownstone mansion on Fifth Avenue, symbols of her ill-gotten wealth.  Accompanying her was Anthony Comstock, secretary and agent of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, who had just arrested her in her office in the basement of her Fifth Avenue residence.  Entering the building, she was arraigned before a justice in the ground-floor police court for having sold articles to produce abortion and prevent conception.  The courtroom was thronged with journalists, for Comstock had alerted them in advance, to make sure the arrest would be blazoned in the press on the following day.  When the presiding justice refused to accept Madame’s government bonds as bail, insisting on real estate instead, and no one could be found to provide it, the prisoner was remanded to the Tombs, and so began an ordeal that would end only with her suicide on the eve of her trial.  (The full story is told in my biography The Wickedest Woman in New York: Madame Restell the Abortionist, which, alas, is out of print, but occasionally available secondhand, usually at an exorbitant price.)
         As for the other two, according to information provided by the library, both Harry Thaw and Mae West were tried in the Jefferson Market Courthouse, but such was not the case.  Harry Thaw, a Pittsburgh millionaire and man about town, had long been obsessed with the fact that his wife, Evelyn Nesbit, had once been Stanford White’s mistress.  After he shot and killed White at the roof garden theater of Madison Square Garden on the evening of June 25, 1906, he was arrested, taken to a station house, and confined in the Tombs.  On the following day he appeared briefly before a magistrate at the Jefferson Market courthouse and was then returned to the Tombs.  He was tried the following year in the Supreme Court Criminal Division on Centre Street, but the jury deadlocked.  In a second trial in 1908 he was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to the State Asylum for the Criminally Insane at Mattawan, New York.  He escaped from there to Canada in 1913, was brought back, then obtained a new trial that found him not guilty and no longer insane, so that he went scot free.
         On the night of February 9, 1927, the police raided Daley’s Theater on 63rd street, where, in spite of disastrous reviews, a risqué play entitled Sex was running; starring in it under the name Janet Mast was Mae West, who had written, produced, and directed it.  The entire cast of 22 were arrested on a morals charge and taken first to the local station house and then to the Men’s Night Court on East 57th Street, where the magistrate set Mae’s bail at $1,000.  Unable to raise the sum in the middle of the night, she spent that night in the Jefferson Market Prison.  Indicted by a grand jury for corrupting the morals of youth (the same charge leveled against Socrates in ancient Athens), she was tried in the Court of General Sessions on Centre Street, found guilty, and sentenced to ten days in a workhouse or a fine of $500.  Given a choice, she chose the workhouse for the publicity it would get, and was sent to Welfare (now Roosevelt) Island, where she arrived festooned with white roses, allegedly dined with the warden and his wife, and told reporters that she wore her silk undies while serving time, and not the scratchy “burlap” that other girls had to wear.  Getting two days off for good behavior (“the first time I ever got anything for good behavior”), she came away a celebrity, getting $1,000 from Liberty magazine for an exit interview.
         In 1928 her play The Pleasure Man was raided after a single performance, and she and the entire cast of 56 were arrested, but this trial ended in a hung jury and no retrial followed.  She then revived Sex and toured the Midwest – amazingly, without incident --  and in 1932 left for Hollywood and nationwide fame.
         To get back to the library building, it ceased to be used as a courthouse in 1945 and was occupied by various city agencies until 1958, when the last of them departed, leaving the Victorian Gothic masterpiece to the pigeons and rats.  Seen by many as an outdated Victorian eyesore – “that ugly old pile” – when sleek modernity devoid of ornament was “in,” it was tentatively slated for demolition, to be replaced by an apartment building, but community preservationists led by Margot Gayle launched a campaign to preserve it.  Volunteers on Village streets urged passersby to sign petitions to save the building, and my partner Bob recalls signing one.  The old courthouse building wasn’t ugly, they argued, it was picturesque and charming; far from being an outdated relic, it was a part of the city’s rich cultural history and, as such, to be treasured.  In 1961 Mayor Robert Wagner announced that the building would indeed be converted into a library.  Construction began in 1965, and the Jefferson Market Library opened in 1967.  One of the first visitors was poet Marianne Moore, a Village resident, who highly approved of the renovation, an opinion that I heartily share. 
         And in 1996, again with the help of preservationists, the tower fire bell, “Ol’ Jeff,” regained its voice after many years of silence.  At a subsequent community board meeting, some neighborhood residents complained that it droned like a death knell, but many thought it melodious.  So as not to disturb the neighbors’ sleep, it was then adjusted to strike the hours only from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m.  As for the clocks on the tower, I have yet to check out whether or not they tell the right time.
         In 1929 the market and prison adjacent to the courthouse were torn down, to be replaced by the Women’s House of Detention, but that’s another story, and a grim one. 
           A golden throne at the Guggenheim:  The ultimate in participatory art has been achieved at the Guggenheim Museum.  After a long delay occasioned by the tricky molding and welding involved in its making in Florence, Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan’s masterpiece, a fully functional solid 18-karat gold toilet has been installed on the 5th-floor ramp of the museum and is open for business indefinitely.  Mr. Cattelan hopes that his chef-d’oeuvre will not be seen as a joke, since it lets museumgoers experience a ravishingly beautiful objet d’art on the most intimate terms.  (The cost of the masterpiece, underwritten by private donors, has not been revealed.)  Invited by the artist to make use of it, a New York Times (male) journalist performed a number 1 and announced that it looks its best when in use, especially when flushed.  Though I don’t plan to rush to the Guggenheim for a golden adventure, I am firmly of the opinion that the real experience would be a #2, even if it meant foregoing the visual aspect of the interaction.  The masterpiece’s name?  “America.”  Go figure.

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          My poems:  For five acceptable poems, click here and scroll down.  To avoid five terrible poems, don't click here.  For my poem "The Other," inspired by the Orlando massacre, click here.
          My books:  No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World, my selection of posts from this blog, has received these awards: 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.  For the Reader Views review by Sheri Hoyte, go here.  As always, the book is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.


The Pleasuring of Men (Gival Press, 2011), my historical novel about a young male prostitute in the late 1860s in New York who falls in love with his most difficult client, is likewise available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.




         Coming soon:  The Morgan Library, and how an American banker became a prince of the Renaissance.  (Yes, I’m back to old J.P., but bear with me; visiting his library unleashed a few new insights.)
         ©   2016   Clifford Browder

        
  

254. The Katahdin National Monument: How Nonprofits Get Things Done

         This is a Maine story, but for me it began here in New York, and it offers a lesson for us all – a lesson in how to get things done.  On June 7 of this year I attended a small gathering of Wilderness Society supporters in an apartment on Central Park West with windows offering a fine view of Central Park just across the street.  After a few snacks and some chitchat, a Wilderness staff member unfolded a large map and briefed us on a longstanding campaign to create a national monument in northern Maine that would protect thousands of acres of land in Penobscot County, on the east side of Baxter State Park.  Back in 2001 Roxanne Quimby, the cofounder of Burt’s Bees, a maker of personal care products that is now a subsidiary of Clorox, began quietly buying up land in the area with the intention of donating it to the government for the creation of a new national park.  In 2011, having acquired thousands of acres, she announced her intention, and that’s when trouble began.
         This area of Maine has long been economically depressed.  Paper mills once flourished there, but with a steady decline in demand for paper, one by one they closed, leaving their workers jobless.  As people left the region for better opportunities elsewhere, the population of Millinocket and nearby East Millinocket went down dramatically.  You might think that this would make the local population eager for a national park, which would attract visitors and help local businesses, but the residents have long resented any interference in their affairs by the federal government, and nurse a deep suspicion of “outsiders,” which for them includes not only out-of-state do-gooders, but even people from other parts of Maine. 
         Obviously, Ms. Quimby’s proposal could not have found a less receptive audience, as was soon evidenced by the opposition of state and local politicians.  The solution that she finally accepted: instead of a national park, which would require Congressional action not likely to be forthcoming at this time, create a national monument.  For me, “national monument” suggests structures of historical and cultural significance like the presidential memorials in Washington, Independence Hall in Philadelphia, and the Statue of Liberty.  But no, a national monument can be a tract of land as well, and under the Antiquities Act of 1906, enacted during the Teddy Roosevelt’s administration, it can be created by presidential proclamation, without action by Congress.  There are many national monuments in the West, but relatively few in the East.  And this one would seem to resolve the situation in Maine.
         But it didn’t, because there was still vociferous opposition.  Leading the attack was newly elected Governor Paul LePage, a Republican and no friend of the environment, who, to judge by a recent series of articles in the New York Times, is Maine’s own homegrown Donald Trump, and just as controversial.  The monument, he declared, was “unilateral action against the will of the people, this time the citizens of rural Maine.”
         The Wilderness Society, along with other organizations, now became involved in the campaign to establish the proposed national monument.  It was doing this, the staff member at the gathering explained, by following three rules: (1) keep a low profile; (2) get local support; and (3) be patient.
         Keep a low profile.  Given the local suspicion of interfering outsiders, the worst thing you could do would be to go in banners flying, proclaiming yourself the Wilderness Society or some other alien entity.  Instead, be modest, be discreet.  Get to know the locals, blend in as much as you can, allay their suspicions, try to gain their trust.
         Get local support.  Even if the monument can be created by presidential fiat, this is crucial.  Explain patiently how the monument can benefit the community.  Yes, much land will be protected, but there will also be a large recreation area open to hunting and snowmobiling, and this will create jobs and help local businesses.  Hold public meetings to inform the public, get the local press behind you, enlist the support of local organizations, and get the backing – absolutely essential -- of at least one influential local politician.
         Be patient.  Yes, this will take time, and there will be setbacks.  But keep with it.  You have a good story to tell, and it will slowly win people over.
         And win people over they did.  In 2013, economics studies were released, showing that the proposed park and recreation area would create between 450 and a thousand jobs.  Supporters of the proposal held hundreds of one-on-one meetings with local residents to explain the benefits that would result.  In January 2015 Chief Kirk Francis of the Penobscot Nation endorsed the proposal, which was subsequently also endorsed by the Katahdin Chamber of Commerce and the Rotary Club, the Maine Innkeepers Association, and the Bangor Daily News.  In April 2015 a poll showed that 67% of residents of Maine’s 2ndCongressional District, which includes all of Maine except a small coastal area in the south, were in favor of the proposal.  At a public meeting in May 2016 at the University of Maine in Orono, out of 1400 attending, 1200 people from every part of Maine supported the monument proposal.
         Support continued to gather momentum.  In June 2016, at a Congressional Field Hearing in East Millinocket sponsored by Representative Bruce Poliquin, a Republican representing the 2ndCongressional District, Katahdin residents voiced support 4 to 1.  In July, 52 elected Maine officials sent a letter to President Obama urging him to create the monument.  By now, Roxanne Quimby was out of the picture, letting her foundation, Elliotsville Plantation, act for her in transferring 87,000 acres of land to the nation on August 12, 2016.  And on August 24, the hundredth anniversary of the National Park Service, President Obama proclaimed this land the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument, which would in fact be managed by the National Park Service.  After a long struggle in which the Wilderness Society and other “outsiders” were rarely in evidence, the war was won.
         Katahdin: Though I know only coastal Maine and have never visited the interior, this name has always fascinated me, for Mount Katahdin, the highest peak in Maine, is where the Appalachian Trail ends, and I have a dream of hiking the entire length of it – all 2,160 miles -- from Springer Mountain in Georgia to its terminal on Mount Katahdin in Baxter State Park in Maine, a trip that would begin in the spring, trudge on through the summer, and end in chilly autumn.  A dream to be realized not in this life, to be sure, but in my next one.  (On second thought, I may only hike a stretch of it, since otherwise you have to live on dehydrated portable food most of the way, let your hair grow wild, and do without a bath.  Veteran hikers advise you not to look in a mirror while on the trail.) 
         And what is in the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument?  One of the largest tracts of undeveloped land in the eastern United States, with surging rivers and streams, thick woods, high mountains, and rutted roads where only high-clearance vehicles can safely drive.  There are wide-ranging species such as the black bear, moose, Canada lynx, white-tailed deer, American marten, bobcat, and snowshoe hare, as well as the Atlantic salmon in the rivers, and rare bird species like the boreal chickadee, gray jay, ruffed grouse, and American three-toed woodpecker – all species that I,  a longtime birdwatcher, have never seen.  It’s rugged backcountry with minimal facilities, but if you want unspoiled nature, here it is on the grand scale, with opportunities for hiking, canoeing, kayaking, fishing, cross-country skiing, snowmobiling on designated trails, and hunting on lands east of the east branch of the Penobscot River.
         And Governor LePage’s reaction to the creation of this protected wonderland?  “This once again demonstrates that rich, out-of-state liberals can force their unpopular agenda on the Maine people against their will.”  He also insists that this is one way to avoid paying taxes to the state of Maine, and calls it an “ego play” both for Roxanne Quimby, who has distanced herself from the campaign for the monument, and for Senator Angus King, the junior senator from Maine and a political independent, who has supported the campaign.  The governor has also boasted, “I was Donald Trump before Donald Trump became popular.”  No doubt he was.
         Teddy Roosevelt created 18 national monuments; Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Papa Bush, none; Baby Bush 6; and Obama an impressive 23, including the Stonewall Inn in the West Village, where the gay rights movement began.  The fight to protected our endangered wildernesses and cultural sites has had some victories, but the campaign goes on … and on and on.  How could it not?
         The Hudson Yards “Vessel”:  Renderings have been officially unveiled for a 15-story “Vessel” to adorn a five-acre plaza and public garden that are a part of the Hudson Yards, a large-scale redevelopment project on the Far West Side of Manhattan where sky-stabbing high rises are going to  sprout like mushrooms.  “You can’t be small in New York,” one commentator has commented, and the “Vessel,” though no sky-stabber, ain’t small.  “Big, bold, and basket-shaped,” as the New York Times describes it, it will rise 15 stories high, weigh 600 tons, and contain 2500 climbable steps.  (Yes, that’s right: 2500.)  To my eye, the rendering suggests a stack of giant red pretzels looming up above a quiet tree-filled plaza.  2500 steps leading to what?  Nothing, so far as I can tell, but that’s not right, since there will be a fine view of the area and, for the less hardy, elevators to the top.  This monument – if monument it is – is the creation of the controversial British designer Thomas Heatherwick, and is financed, to the tune of over $150 million, by the American billionaire Stephen M. Ross, whose Related Companies is developing the Hudson Yards.  A gift to the city, the “Vessel” was commissioned and approved by a committee of one: Mr. Ross.         The bronzed-steel and concrete pieces of the “Vessel” won’t, alas, be made in the U.S.A., since they are currently under construction in Italy, scheduled for assembly here next year.  The design was presented to the public on Wednesday, September 14, in a spectacle featuring an athletic  performance by the Alvin Ailey dance troupe, watched by a crowd of hundreds that included Mayor Bill de Blasio.  Hizzoner predicts that the “Vessel” will be hotly debated by New Yorkers, with a hundred opinions from a hundred citizens.          “New Yorkers have a fitness thing,” the designer Mr. Heatherwick has observed, anticipating that his climbable creation will give us a good workout.  And his patron, Mr. Ross, wants the “Vessel” to attract multitudes to the Hudson Yards and make them, in spite of their hard-to-reach location, the center of New York.  “I’m just itching to see a thousand people on it,” says Mr. Heatherwick, who assures us that his stack of steel and concrete pretzels, rising from a base only 50 feet in diameter, can withstand another  Hurricane Sandy.  Maybe so, but I for one don’t plan to be on board when the next big wind occurs.  As for an aesthetic appreciation, I’ll wait until I see the thing in the steel and concrete flesh.  But, appropriately for the Empire City, Messrs. Heatherwick and Ross do think big.

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          My poems:  For five acceptable poems, click here and scroll down.  To avoid five terrible poems, don't click here.  For my poem "The Other," inspired by the Orlando massacre, click here.
          My books:  No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World, my selection of posts from this blog, has received these awards: 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.  For the Reader Views review by Sheri Hoyte, go here.  As always, the book is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.


The Pleasuring of Men (Gival Press, 2011), my historical novel about a young male prostitute in the late 1860s in New York who falls in love with his most difficult client, is likewise available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.




         Coming soon:  The Jefferson Market Library, my beloved branch library, where a notorious abortionist, a murderer of ill repute, and Mae West all once set foot, but they weren’t there for books.
         ©   2016   Clifford Browder