Michael Davidow's Blog: The Henry Bell Project, page 3
April 24, 2013
Beginner's Luck
He had often needed to stand still until a hand could reach down for him through the stepped-back apartment buildings, the patchwork brick alleyways, the asphalt circuits of New York City; a hand to prop him up, and keep him safe. He would be one moment on a wharf by Sutton Place, or a bar in Yorktown, or an automat in Times Square, then the next moment, he would be in bed, his wife’s white arms around his middle…
There was a charming piece in today’s Times (no, not more of Allesandra Stanley, waxing rhapsodic about the charm of Watergate): a little story about the Morgan Library’s purchase of some letters written by J.D. Salinger to a woman named Marjorie Sheard. They corresponded about their respective writing careers when they were young. Salinger went on to fame and fortune; Ms. Sheard folded away her manuscripts. But she kept those letters, all these years.
I never wrote to famous writers when I was young. I wish I had. But when I started my writing career, after law school, you could still send your manuscripts to actual editors, and a striking number of those people actually wrote back to me. Morgan Entrekin was friendly and encouraging. So were Ann Godoff and Nan Graham (whose telling me that I wrote with “grace and precision” probably made me write another two novels-- gracefully, and precisely). And more. A baker’s dozen were friendly in this fashion.
It’s amazing, really, because when I recall them, my first stories were pretty traditional affairs. The females were beautiful and broken; the males were sensitive and torn. Stoic suffering abounded. So did epiphanies. I can no longer write that way. I can only have sympathy.
So strong is that sympathy, however (“You understand, though. Don’t you, Henry. Every flower in every field. Every Maybelline eyelash, and every Revlon mouth. Every drop of Fanta Orange spit, in every kiss you ever stole. Tell me you understand, man. Please.”), that I find the Salinger-Sheard correspondence to be truly touching. Salinger is a guy I admire, and I miss him, and I’m glad he was nice to Marjorie Sheard.
And now that I think of it, the New York City of Henry Bell belongs to the forties even more than to the seventies. So maybe he overlaps with Holden Caulfield after all.
There was a charming piece in today’s Times (no, not more of Allesandra Stanley, waxing rhapsodic about the charm of Watergate): a little story about the Morgan Library’s purchase of some letters written by J.D. Salinger to a woman named Marjorie Sheard. They corresponded about their respective writing careers when they were young. Salinger went on to fame and fortune; Ms. Sheard folded away her manuscripts. But she kept those letters, all these years.
I never wrote to famous writers when I was young. I wish I had. But when I started my writing career, after law school, you could still send your manuscripts to actual editors, and a striking number of those people actually wrote back to me. Morgan Entrekin was friendly and encouraging. So were Ann Godoff and Nan Graham (whose telling me that I wrote with “grace and precision” probably made me write another two novels-- gracefully, and precisely). And more. A baker’s dozen were friendly in this fashion.
It’s amazing, really, because when I recall them, my first stories were pretty traditional affairs. The females were beautiful and broken; the males were sensitive and torn. Stoic suffering abounded. So did epiphanies. I can no longer write that way. I can only have sympathy.
So strong is that sympathy, however (“You understand, though. Don’t you, Henry. Every flower in every field. Every Maybelline eyelash, and every Revlon mouth. Every drop of Fanta Orange spit, in every kiss you ever stole. Tell me you understand, man. Please.”), that I find the Salinger-Sheard correspondence to be truly touching. Salinger is a guy I admire, and I miss him, and I’m glad he was nice to Marjorie Sheard.
And now that I think of it, the New York City of Henry Bell belongs to the forties even more than to the seventies. So maybe he overlaps with Holden Caulfield after all.
April 21, 2013
Cutting it Short
He also stopped by the pool to watch a swimmer take laps, and he stared at her mutely when she surfaced and climbed to the patio. Wet footprints on dry cement that faded to nothing, step by step; and shorn hair like a beaver’s pelt, easy for skimming the water from.
We think of the early seventies as a time when women had long hair. That was certainly the most popular style. But it makes no sense to take that style and apply it across the board, as if every female alive in 1972 would have rushed out to conform (and to look the part). Then, as now, many women would have kept whatever had worked for them in the past (Henry, remembering Paula: “When she ran her hands through her dark bouffant, shiny red stones peeked out like accidental garnet…”). And a few would have struck out on their own. The result being a patchwork quilt at street level: styles from the past thirty years, out and about.
Selma Kahn, of course, both stuck with something she liked, and struck out on her own. And while her immediate inspiration may have been Edie Sedgwick, she probably had Mia Farrow in mind as well; not to mention Twiggy; and not to mention Jean Seberg.
But it didn’t even start with Seberg. Shirley MacLaine claimed the gamine cut for her own, all the way back to fifties, while Leslie Caron and Elizabeth Taylor showed some moxie, too.
This is all to say that my research into the Mad Men phenomenon has disappointed me in at least one respect: that show seems to believe that everyone alive in 1965 (or whenever) automatically wore whatever seemed fashionable in 1965, and you can make people believe it’s 1965, by wearing that stuff.
The styles of SPLIT THIRTY are timeless. They’re also a total mess.
We think of the early seventies as a time when women had long hair. That was certainly the most popular style. But it makes no sense to take that style and apply it across the board, as if every female alive in 1972 would have rushed out to conform (and to look the part). Then, as now, many women would have kept whatever had worked for them in the past (Henry, remembering Paula: “When she ran her hands through her dark bouffant, shiny red stones peeked out like accidental garnet…”). And a few would have struck out on their own. The result being a patchwork quilt at street level: styles from the past thirty years, out and about.
Selma Kahn, of course, both stuck with something she liked, and struck out on her own. And while her immediate inspiration may have been Edie Sedgwick, she probably had Mia Farrow in mind as well; not to mention Twiggy; and not to mention Jean Seberg.
But it didn’t even start with Seberg. Shirley MacLaine claimed the gamine cut for her own, all the way back to fifties, while Leslie Caron and Elizabeth Taylor showed some moxie, too.
This is all to say that my research into the Mad Men phenomenon has disappointed me in at least one respect: that show seems to believe that everyone alive in 1965 (or whenever) automatically wore whatever seemed fashionable in 1965, and you can make people believe it’s 1965, by wearing that stuff.
The styles of SPLIT THIRTY are timeless. They’re also a total mess.
April 14, 2013
The Price of Things
“We aren’t that different, Henry. You and I. Not in the long run, and not in the short run. I think we should be better friends.” “We’re ad-men,” Bell told him, close to being insulted. “Just because we sell something, doesn’t mean we have to buy it.”
There’s an article in today’s Times about how cynical we have become in our feelings about politics. Every new television show flaunts our disdain for that profession. There is no more Frank Capra, no more Mr. Smith. If you want to see good guys, says cultural critic Alessandra Stanley, you should watch a show about cops or doctors.
The fact is, cynicism has been a growth industry for a long time now. The Second World War, for instance, featured approximately eighteen million Americans in uniform, a few of whom were smart kids, and who found (to their chagrin) that the United States Army was filled with jerks. These guys had names like Norman Mailer, J.D. Salinger, and Joseph Heller. They wrote about their discovery in some pretty good books.
Then, in the fifties, another group of people realized that their post-war suburban neighborhoods were populated with alarmingly empty souls. Then, in the sixties, another cohort figured out that Wall Street had issues... and so on and so on, until you hit our own time -- in which a popular television program dares to suggest that the advertising business (wow) might lack depth. (“‘I have children,’ the Tolle man confessed. He looked at Bell like a church-goer looks at stained glass; soulful, softened at the core. ‘I have two,’ he said. ‘One of each. A boy and a girl. And I’ll tell you this, Henry. This world is full of crap.’”)
You can go back further, too. The Book of Ecclesiastes has some words to say on this subject.
There is a danger in high quality cynicism. It turns glossy fast, and it starts getting attractive. A lot of books, a lot of shows, and a lot of art -- they seem devoted to that trap. It has the mark of youth about it. It has vitality. And who can deny that the world is full of fakers? (“A teenager needs to rebel,” Bell tells the Tolle man. “I wouldn’t trust a kid who didn’t.”)
The question is what to do about it, after you find that out. And while great work often follows after that first blush of contact with the world-- when its cruelty and unfairness still seem fresh, and revelation alone suffices -- I wonder if an older artist can still go that route. I found that I could not.
If Alessandra Stanley wants a non-cynical hero, Henry Bell is her man.
There’s an article in today’s Times about how cynical we have become in our feelings about politics. Every new television show flaunts our disdain for that profession. There is no more Frank Capra, no more Mr. Smith. If you want to see good guys, says cultural critic Alessandra Stanley, you should watch a show about cops or doctors.
The fact is, cynicism has been a growth industry for a long time now. The Second World War, for instance, featured approximately eighteen million Americans in uniform, a few of whom were smart kids, and who found (to their chagrin) that the United States Army was filled with jerks. These guys had names like Norman Mailer, J.D. Salinger, and Joseph Heller. They wrote about their discovery in some pretty good books.
Then, in the fifties, another group of people realized that their post-war suburban neighborhoods were populated with alarmingly empty souls. Then, in the sixties, another cohort figured out that Wall Street had issues... and so on and so on, until you hit our own time -- in which a popular television program dares to suggest that the advertising business (wow) might lack depth. (“‘I have children,’ the Tolle man confessed. He looked at Bell like a church-goer looks at stained glass; soulful, softened at the core. ‘I have two,’ he said. ‘One of each. A boy and a girl. And I’ll tell you this, Henry. This world is full of crap.’”)
You can go back further, too. The Book of Ecclesiastes has some words to say on this subject.
There is a danger in high quality cynicism. It turns glossy fast, and it starts getting attractive. A lot of books, a lot of shows, and a lot of art -- they seem devoted to that trap. It has the mark of youth about it. It has vitality. And who can deny that the world is full of fakers? (“A teenager needs to rebel,” Bell tells the Tolle man. “I wouldn’t trust a kid who didn’t.”)
The question is what to do about it, after you find that out. And while great work often follows after that first blush of contact with the world-- when its cruelty and unfairness still seem fresh, and revelation alone suffices -- I wonder if an older artist can still go that route. I found that I could not.
If Alessandra Stanley wants a non-cynical hero, Henry Bell is her man.
April 12, 2013
As Seen on TV
He took his practical place on the sidewalk with flocks of kids in Levi jeans and pea coats, pinch-faced women in brown or tan, carrying shabby shopping bags with small clutching hands, sour-faced men in navy-blue overcoats, cops, hustlers, housewives, teamsters; he was just passing through these parts, and he never pretended otherwise…
Pity Matthew Weiner. All he has done is successfully entertain millions of people for the past five years, by making a show that has launched careers, sold clothing, and driven one guy from New Hampshire up the wall. But he apparently botched his take on St. Mark’s Place in his show’s new season, so people are criticizing him. He apparently showed it as being dangerous, back in the day, when it was not.
It looks like he was riffing on a well-known murder that took place in that area, a few blocks to the east. And in making a minor geographical adjustment to that story (perhaps out of respect for the actual event), he deviated too much from reality.
Now I tried hard to keep Henry Bell’s Manhattan (and his Los Angeles, and his Washington) as real as possible. I am sure I also messed up, though, and more than once. So I sympathize with my imaginary friend on this score.
When Henry and Pooch and Walton are cruising Times Square, for instance, “the stars above them stayed invisible in the smoky autumn sky, the sidewalks underneath them providing better constellations, foil wrappers, and hidden mica; mica set into the pavement like ice cubes floating in scotch. Flashing neon above their heads somersaulted downwards, too, reflecting in every taxicab’s windshield, and streams of light electrified the onyx rows they traveled through…”
Maybe Times Square really wasn’t like that in 1972; maybe there really weren’t “cars and cops to keep him company, and tense teenaged hookers; needles of neon at the corners of his spectacle lenses, and shallow oil rainbows in the gutters by the street…” I hope those things existed. Otherwise I’ll get panned.
As for St. Mark’s Place itself, it shows up just one time in SPLIT THIRTY: it’s where Selma Kahn decided to bleach her hair and cut it short. Only makes sense if you know this extra fact: Andy Warhol ran the Exploding Plastic Inevitable at a dance hall called the Dom, in St. Mark’s Place, in 1966. Edie must have been there.
Pity Matthew Weiner. All he has done is successfully entertain millions of people for the past five years, by making a show that has launched careers, sold clothing, and driven one guy from New Hampshire up the wall. But he apparently botched his take on St. Mark’s Place in his show’s new season, so people are criticizing him. He apparently showed it as being dangerous, back in the day, when it was not.
It looks like he was riffing on a well-known murder that took place in that area, a few blocks to the east. And in making a minor geographical adjustment to that story (perhaps out of respect for the actual event), he deviated too much from reality.
Now I tried hard to keep Henry Bell’s Manhattan (and his Los Angeles, and his Washington) as real as possible. I am sure I also messed up, though, and more than once. So I sympathize with my imaginary friend on this score.
When Henry and Pooch and Walton are cruising Times Square, for instance, “the stars above them stayed invisible in the smoky autumn sky, the sidewalks underneath them providing better constellations, foil wrappers, and hidden mica; mica set into the pavement like ice cubes floating in scotch. Flashing neon above their heads somersaulted downwards, too, reflecting in every taxicab’s windshield, and streams of light electrified the onyx rows they traveled through…”
Maybe Times Square really wasn’t like that in 1972; maybe there really weren’t “cars and cops to keep him company, and tense teenaged hookers; needles of neon at the corners of his spectacle lenses, and shallow oil rainbows in the gutters by the street…” I hope those things existed. Otherwise I’ll get panned.
As for St. Mark’s Place itself, it shows up just one time in SPLIT THIRTY: it’s where Selma Kahn decided to bleach her hair and cut it short. Only makes sense if you know this extra fact: Andy Warhol ran the Exploding Plastic Inevitable at a dance hall called the Dom, in St. Mark’s Place, in 1966. Edie must have been there.
April 9, 2013
Seconds Count
“And why do you think good old Chandler hired you, Henry? Because he needed to borrow a Rockefeller man, to babysit the pooch? Because he needed a guy who made his name working for Tom Dewey?”
One of the challenges in writing about history is keeping the outcome a secret, not to your readers, but rather to your characters. It would be too easy, in other words, for Bell to lecture Chan Peterson (over their bottle of era-correct Bordeaux): “Hey Chan. That Watergate business is more trouble than you think.” But he never would have done so. Not without a crystal ball. Even though Bell lives in a very particular moment, he sees that moment through the blur of his own experiences.
A corrolary lies in how hard it is to remain coherent for readers who are not only unversed in the history you are writing about, but who may not even care about it. At heart, after all, SPLIT THIRTY concerns a father who is mourning his son. And while that mourning plays itself out during the course of a presidential campaign, where it finds itself mirrored in the losses and needs of every other character, someone else could write a similar book, have it take place at a fashion show, and use Dior and Balenciaga for Rockefeller and Goldwater.
Henry and Pooch and Kahn and Walton are truth-seekers. Where they seek it, is less important than their doing so at all.
Writing this book was therefore a balancing act, between keeping it credible and keeping it meaningful. And that meant introducing certain historical figures, showing why they mattered to these characters, and letting the casual reader in on the secret.
There is Rockefeller himself, of course; a man who never even managed to get nominated for the presidency, but whose political gallantry and personal magnetism gave Bell his war cry (“I’m a liberal, man. You can go fuck yourself.”); there is Barry Goldwater, crushed by Lyndon Johnson in sixty-four, but still the champion of his party’s right wing, whose supporters had thrown rocks at Bell’s wife, a scant eight years before SPLIT THIRTY takes place; there is Tom Dewey, the square to end all squares, but also the moderate and basically decent man that Dick Nixon tried to emulate; and there is Adlai Stevenson, not just the fuddy-duddy who lost to Eisenhower twice, but the bold pioneer of a new politics-- the politics of involved amateurs, housewives with time on their hands, celebrities, and college kids, all “madly for Adlai.”
“Money was money, Walton’s childhood was Walton’s childhood, and there was a hole in the sole of Bell’s shoe from all the walking he had done in Manhattan that month.” That hole was actually borrowed from Stevenson; there’s a famous photograph taken during one of his campaigns, showing his worn-out shoes.
A post-script: My friends at the WordPress site (high five, beautiful people!) seem most interested when I write about fashion and wine. My friends at the Goodreads site (hello strangers! and Laura!) seem most interested when I write about science fiction. I should therefore combine these things, and write about Barbarella, or Princess Leia’s hair. And if I can, I will. But sadly, I’ve written a book about politics. And advertising. And religion. Okay, and hair. (“Would you ever cut your hair like Selma Kahn’s used to be? Short, I mean. Like Mia Farrow. What did she call that. Her Edie Warhol look.” “Andy Sedgwick, you mean. Honestly, Henry.”) So stay tuned, and I will do my best.
One of the challenges in writing about history is keeping the outcome a secret, not to your readers, but rather to your characters. It would be too easy, in other words, for Bell to lecture Chan Peterson (over their bottle of era-correct Bordeaux): “Hey Chan. That Watergate business is more trouble than you think.” But he never would have done so. Not without a crystal ball. Even though Bell lives in a very particular moment, he sees that moment through the blur of his own experiences.
A corrolary lies in how hard it is to remain coherent for readers who are not only unversed in the history you are writing about, but who may not even care about it. At heart, after all, SPLIT THIRTY concerns a father who is mourning his son. And while that mourning plays itself out during the course of a presidential campaign, where it finds itself mirrored in the losses and needs of every other character, someone else could write a similar book, have it take place at a fashion show, and use Dior and Balenciaga for Rockefeller and Goldwater.
Henry and Pooch and Kahn and Walton are truth-seekers. Where they seek it, is less important than their doing so at all.
Writing this book was therefore a balancing act, between keeping it credible and keeping it meaningful. And that meant introducing certain historical figures, showing why they mattered to these characters, and letting the casual reader in on the secret.
There is Rockefeller himself, of course; a man who never even managed to get nominated for the presidency, but whose political gallantry and personal magnetism gave Bell his war cry (“I’m a liberal, man. You can go fuck yourself.”); there is Barry Goldwater, crushed by Lyndon Johnson in sixty-four, but still the champion of his party’s right wing, whose supporters had thrown rocks at Bell’s wife, a scant eight years before SPLIT THIRTY takes place; there is Tom Dewey, the square to end all squares, but also the moderate and basically decent man that Dick Nixon tried to emulate; and there is Adlai Stevenson, not just the fuddy-duddy who lost to Eisenhower twice, but the bold pioneer of a new politics-- the politics of involved amateurs, housewives with time on their hands, celebrities, and college kids, all “madly for Adlai.”
“Money was money, Walton’s childhood was Walton’s childhood, and there was a hole in the sole of Bell’s shoe from all the walking he had done in Manhattan that month.” That hole was actually borrowed from Stevenson; there’s a famous photograph taken during one of his campaigns, showing his worn-out shoes.
A post-script: My friends at the WordPress site (high five, beautiful people!) seem most interested when I write about fashion and wine. My friends at the Goodreads site (hello strangers! and Laura!) seem most interested when I write about science fiction. I should therefore combine these things, and write about Barbarella, or Princess Leia’s hair. And if I can, I will. But sadly, I’ve written a book about politics. And advertising. And religion. Okay, and hair. (“Would you ever cut your hair like Selma Kahn’s used to be? Short, I mean. Like Mia Farrow. What did she call that. Her Edie Warhol look.” “Andy Sedgwick, you mean. Honestly, Henry.”) So stay tuned, and I will do my best.
April 7, 2013
In Vino Veritas
“Right. Was it Chianti wine?”
“What?”
“Chianti wine.”
“Beats me, buddy.”
“Some prefer Montepulciano,” the grand jury man advised.
Did you ever make a mistake, then have to correct yourself? Only a few days ago, I advised the entire planet that Bell drank scotch. Someone saw that, and accused me (hmm) of trying too hard to prove that my hero is (well…) grittier than (ahem) Don Draper (whoever he is). So for the record: yes, Bell does drink scotch. But he also drinks wine.
He is actually hung over from too much wine, when he meets Chan Peterson on Sixth Avenue. He and Paula drink something “cheap” and “Italian” when he returns from California. Peterson finishes a bottle for him, at the old Brasserie (I shouldn’t call it that, because it still exists) (but it isn’t like they save me a table, these days). And he is certainly interested when Bertie Kahn tells him about the “dago restaurant in Rutland” where Pooch probably gets his stock while staying in Vermont.
As for what Bell prefers: though he does not seem particular, our best indication is “claret.”
So, for those of you kind enough to care about these things, please show your support for Henry (and grit in general) by buying (and drinking) a red, with tall shoulders.
And your author promises to get serious again in another posting, soon.
“What?”
“Chianti wine.”
“Beats me, buddy.”
“Some prefer Montepulciano,” the grand jury man advised.
Did you ever make a mistake, then have to correct yourself? Only a few days ago, I advised the entire planet that Bell drank scotch. Someone saw that, and accused me (hmm) of trying too hard to prove that my hero is (well…) grittier than (ahem) Don Draper (whoever he is). So for the record: yes, Bell does drink scotch. But he also drinks wine.
He is actually hung over from too much wine, when he meets Chan Peterson on Sixth Avenue. He and Paula drink something “cheap” and “Italian” when he returns from California. Peterson finishes a bottle for him, at the old Brasserie (I shouldn’t call it that, because it still exists) (but it isn’t like they save me a table, these days). And he is certainly interested when Bertie Kahn tells him about the “dago restaurant in Rutland” where Pooch probably gets his stock while staying in Vermont.
As for what Bell prefers: though he does not seem particular, our best indication is “claret.”
So, for those of you kind enough to care about these things, please show your support for Henry (and grit in general) by buying (and drinking) a red, with tall shoulders.
And your author promises to get serious again in another posting, soon.
April 6, 2013
Get the Look
His hair was long but neat, his moustache long but trim. He wore bell-bottom denim pants, an open-necked, silver-threaded shirt, and a Navajo medallion strung on rawhide twine across his chest.
No, that’s not Henry. That’s the guy who sells marijuana at the antique store down the street from Walton’s office. But it’s all about fashion these days, and I would hate to think that the stalwart crew at the Fifty-Ninth Madison Committee to Re-Elect the President would disappoint any potential readers in that regard, especially when you can now easily purchase your "Mad Men" bona fides at J. Crews and Banana Republics all across this nation.
So here’s Henry himself: “Heavyset, five-foot-ten, dressed in a grey suit, with white shirt, slim dark tie, and silver tie clip; he was almost burly, almost truculent-seeming, but for nut-brown eyes that glittered with wit, covered by eyeglasses made from thick black plastic, that he could slap on and off his face to notable effect.” Not sure where you can get those nut-brown eyes, except to say that my father had them, and yours might have had them, too.
So if that’s too hard, you can also try the Pacinetti approach: “Shirt sleeves with precocious cuff links, that stuck out too many inches from the pipecleaner arms of a loudly-patterned suit; soiled Hush Puppies on his feet; a mop of black hair like an electric guitar player might have.”
Or better yet, channel your inner Walton: “He was tall and handsome in tight-fitting trousers, nonchalantly paired with a gold-buttoned blazer; those pointy shoes turned out to be cowboy boots, too. They went with long sideburns, an untrained thatch of auburn hair, a natural suntan, and an angular western face betraying the barest beginnings of middle age.”
But honestly, these are just suggestions. Fashion is a way of expressing yourself; just like painting, just like writing. Try to have fun with it, then. Try to uplift your fellow man. And don’t just follow a recipe, either. Follow Selma Kahn’s recipe.
Because according to Bell -- she had style. “Not exactly a beauty queen. But style to spare. She could make a party dress from tin foil and bubble gum.” Her secret was pretty simple, too: she stole her hats from Bergdorf Goodman.
No, that’s not Henry. That’s the guy who sells marijuana at the antique store down the street from Walton’s office. But it’s all about fashion these days, and I would hate to think that the stalwart crew at the Fifty-Ninth Madison Committee to Re-Elect the President would disappoint any potential readers in that regard, especially when you can now easily purchase your "Mad Men" bona fides at J. Crews and Banana Republics all across this nation.
So here’s Henry himself: “Heavyset, five-foot-ten, dressed in a grey suit, with white shirt, slim dark tie, and silver tie clip; he was almost burly, almost truculent-seeming, but for nut-brown eyes that glittered with wit, covered by eyeglasses made from thick black plastic, that he could slap on and off his face to notable effect.” Not sure where you can get those nut-brown eyes, except to say that my father had them, and yours might have had them, too.
So if that’s too hard, you can also try the Pacinetti approach: “Shirt sleeves with precocious cuff links, that stuck out too many inches from the pipecleaner arms of a loudly-patterned suit; soiled Hush Puppies on his feet; a mop of black hair like an electric guitar player might have.”
Or better yet, channel your inner Walton: “He was tall and handsome in tight-fitting trousers, nonchalantly paired with a gold-buttoned blazer; those pointy shoes turned out to be cowboy boots, too. They went with long sideburns, an untrained thatch of auburn hair, a natural suntan, and an angular western face betraying the barest beginnings of middle age.”
But honestly, these are just suggestions. Fashion is a way of expressing yourself; just like painting, just like writing. Try to have fun with it, then. Try to uplift your fellow man. And don’t just follow a recipe, either. Follow Selma Kahn’s recipe.
Because according to Bell -- she had style. “Not exactly a beauty queen. But style to spare. She could make a party dress from tin foil and bubble gum.” Her secret was pretty simple, too: she stole her hats from Bergdorf Goodman.
April 5, 2013
I and Thou
I started this blog to augment my author’s page on the Goodreads website; then I added it to my Amazon author’s page. Then I recreated it on the Wordpress platform, where three friendly guys have since pressed the “like” button on an entry called “Mad Man.” That was where I mentioned Matthew Weiner’s Mad Men, the AMC television show. That fact stands out to me. Nothing else has produced such an effect.
So in a shameless attempt to market my work accordingly, here is a brand new entry in which I helpfully compare Don Draper to Henry Bell. I am somewhat handicapped in doing so, because I have still never seen Mad Men. But you can learn a lot about it, by reading the news.
Don Draper is the handsome lead character in a glossy soap opera seen and loved by millions. Henry Bell is the burly lead character in a literary novel known to around five people in New Hampshire, Boston, and Washington, D.C. (there is also someone in Los Angeles). Early on, he is described as the “ant” to another ad-man’s “grasshopper.”
Don and his friends seem to drink a lot, but I’m not sure what (there’s an awful lot of discussion out there about how to make “Mad Men” cocktails). Henry drinks scotch, because he’s a Republican (as for his friends: Bertie drinks bourbon, because he’s a Democrat; Walton drinks tequila, because he’s from California; and Pooch drinks anything, because he’s an alcoholic).
Don seems to have some problem with his wife. Henry loves Paula, in spite of their being divorced.
Don has some other existential crisis going on, too, which seems to manifest itself in various shades of sex and wardrobe changes. Henry’s existential crisis has something to do with Ecclesiastes and the work of Thomas Kuhn.
J. Crew is marketing a line of clothing based on Don and his friends. Henry wears the same grey suit in nearly every scene, and I don’t think Peterson’s neckties survived 1973.
Don is haunted by his time in Korea. Henry fought in Italy, where he attempted to avoid getting the clap.
The actor who plays Don shows up on a lot of magazine covers. When I think about who could possibly play Henry, I think about Sterling Hayden, and Bill Holden. Then I wake up, and I go to work.
And I should probably end with this: Mad Men was created by some forty-something Jewish guy who was born in Baltimore, and who really liked the sixties. SPLIT THIRTY was written by some forty-something Jewish guy who was born in Boston, and who really liked the seventies. He wishes Matthew Weiner well. Perhaps they will meet someday.
So in a shameless attempt to market my work accordingly, here is a brand new entry in which I helpfully compare Don Draper to Henry Bell. I am somewhat handicapped in doing so, because I have still never seen Mad Men. But you can learn a lot about it, by reading the news.
Don Draper is the handsome lead character in a glossy soap opera seen and loved by millions. Henry Bell is the burly lead character in a literary novel known to around five people in New Hampshire, Boston, and Washington, D.C. (there is also someone in Los Angeles). Early on, he is described as the “ant” to another ad-man’s “grasshopper.”
Don and his friends seem to drink a lot, but I’m not sure what (there’s an awful lot of discussion out there about how to make “Mad Men” cocktails). Henry drinks scotch, because he’s a Republican (as for his friends: Bertie drinks bourbon, because he’s a Democrat; Walton drinks tequila, because he’s from California; and Pooch drinks anything, because he’s an alcoholic).
Don seems to have some problem with his wife. Henry loves Paula, in spite of their being divorced.
Don has some other existential crisis going on, too, which seems to manifest itself in various shades of sex and wardrobe changes. Henry’s existential crisis has something to do with Ecclesiastes and the work of Thomas Kuhn.
J. Crew is marketing a line of clothing based on Don and his friends. Henry wears the same grey suit in nearly every scene, and I don’t think Peterson’s neckties survived 1973.
Don is haunted by his time in Korea. Henry fought in Italy, where he attempted to avoid getting the clap.
The actor who plays Don shows up on a lot of magazine covers. When I think about who could possibly play Henry, I think about Sterling Hayden, and Bill Holden. Then I wake up, and I go to work.
And I should probably end with this: Mad Men was created by some forty-something Jewish guy who was born in Baltimore, and who really liked the sixties. SPLIT THIRTY was written by some forty-something Jewish guy who was born in Boston, and who really liked the seventies. He wishes Matthew Weiner well. Perhaps they will meet someday.
April 4, 2013
Verisimilitude
It snowed that night; polka-dot smudges, that Bell watched fall from his living room window. And even though it was early for snow, the months of the year had gathered momentum, winter would be arriving soon, and Bell had exposure now, too. His own, and nobody else’s...
October in New York City does not typically feature snow. It did in 1972, though. I learned that while researching a separate matter, so I documented it, accordingly. The moon phases in this book are similarly correct. And yes, there was indeed a fistfight when Nixon appeared at the Nassau Colliseum. “It was a full moon that night,” deadpans Peterson to Bell. “Brings out the worst in people.”
Too much research is the bane of historical fiction, and the internet makes it absurdly easy to find these sorts of details. And while the lion’s share of my reading for this novel came the old-fashioned way (I went to the library and I took out books), I still faced these standard questions: how much is too much, and why. I answered them as best I could: by focusing on the details that mattered to my story, and either ignoring or glossing over those that did not.
That’s why Bell walks in the rain so much, for instance. I believe I had slated him for a rainy autumn even before I found out that he really, truly, and factually would have had a rainy autumn; Manhattan seemed stuck under a cloud that year. And since that rain suited both his mood and my story, he ended up in his Burberry raincoat in nearly every chapter (“hands pocketed against that day’s weather, staring as he went at skirts that stoked his loneliness, and wondering if he would ever again find solace in this world.”). It’s also why Paula Bell was fond of Robert Young (whose television show, Marcus Welby, M.D., topped the charts in ’72), and why Bell kept threatening to eat at the Shun Lee Palace (getting lots of press at the time for its recreation of Nixon’s dinner in Peking) (sic). But a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. I did not want to go too far.
In the early renaissance, an Italian named Pollaiuolo fixated on being scientifically accurate in drawing the human body; his men had muscles in all the right places, basically. But he also drew each muscle flexed for action. He had not yet learned that when you move your arm, for instance, one muscle works and its companion relaxes. His works therefore came out stilted. They didn’t look life-like at all.
He didn’t make into SPLIT THIRTY, but one of his companions did. “‘The east coast is built for humans,’ Peterson asserted. ‘It puts man in the middle of things, right where he belongs. Pico della Mirandella. Give him a shot, and see.’ ‘Is that a new place in the Village, Chan?’ ‘No, Henry! He’s a renaissance philosopher!’ Peterson cracked up. ‘I told you. My daughter is in college now. What a gas. Ask me about Noam Chomsky.’”
Bell, however, chose not to ask. Some sleeping dogs are best left alone.
October in New York City does not typically feature snow. It did in 1972, though. I learned that while researching a separate matter, so I documented it, accordingly. The moon phases in this book are similarly correct. And yes, there was indeed a fistfight when Nixon appeared at the Nassau Colliseum. “It was a full moon that night,” deadpans Peterson to Bell. “Brings out the worst in people.”
Too much research is the bane of historical fiction, and the internet makes it absurdly easy to find these sorts of details. And while the lion’s share of my reading for this novel came the old-fashioned way (I went to the library and I took out books), I still faced these standard questions: how much is too much, and why. I answered them as best I could: by focusing on the details that mattered to my story, and either ignoring or glossing over those that did not.
That’s why Bell walks in the rain so much, for instance. I believe I had slated him for a rainy autumn even before I found out that he really, truly, and factually would have had a rainy autumn; Manhattan seemed stuck under a cloud that year. And since that rain suited both his mood and my story, he ended up in his Burberry raincoat in nearly every chapter (“hands pocketed against that day’s weather, staring as he went at skirts that stoked his loneliness, and wondering if he would ever again find solace in this world.”). It’s also why Paula Bell was fond of Robert Young (whose television show, Marcus Welby, M.D., topped the charts in ’72), and why Bell kept threatening to eat at the Shun Lee Palace (getting lots of press at the time for its recreation of Nixon’s dinner in Peking) (sic). But a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. I did not want to go too far.
In the early renaissance, an Italian named Pollaiuolo fixated on being scientifically accurate in drawing the human body; his men had muscles in all the right places, basically. But he also drew each muscle flexed for action. He had not yet learned that when you move your arm, for instance, one muscle works and its companion relaxes. His works therefore came out stilted. They didn’t look life-like at all.
He didn’t make into SPLIT THIRTY, but one of his companions did. “‘The east coast is built for humans,’ Peterson asserted. ‘It puts man in the middle of things, right where he belongs. Pico della Mirandella. Give him a shot, and see.’ ‘Is that a new place in the Village, Chan?’ ‘No, Henry! He’s a renaissance philosopher!’ Peterson cracked up. ‘I told you. My daughter is in college now. What a gas. Ask me about Noam Chomsky.’”
Bell, however, chose not to ask. Some sleeping dogs are best left alone.
March 31, 2013
Space Cadets
“You take someone else, though. Someone like Bob Haldeman, Henry. He doesn’t grok these things.” Pooch indicated his forehead to show what he meant, and Bell smiled again, to show loyalty in return. “He lacks the right receptors. He’s gotten onto the wrong track.”
Leave it to Pooch to borrow a word from Robert Heinlein’s classic 1961 sci-fi novel, Stranger in a Strange Land; to “grok” means to understand completely. That book was a hippie favorite for its emphasis on free love, spirituality, and individualism. Not that I see Pooch as an inveterate sci-fi reader. No character in SPLIT THIRTY would have had more than a glancing familiarity with the stuff (with these provisos: Bell thinks that Walton is carrying around “a piece of science fiction garbage,” so Stevie himself might have read some-- only fitting for a boy growing up in the land of the aerospace industry-- and I bet that Bertie Kahn had seen Kubrick’s 2001 at least once).
Like many other pre-teens (male division), though, I went through a phase of sci-fi reading myself. It was my personal bridge between children’s literature and the lower rungs of Steinbeck and Hemingway; I also never made it past Arthur C. Clarke. But because it served that purpose in my life, I’ve always kept a sentimental fondness for it (bothering to read Stranger in a Strange Land in college, for instance, which was just the right time to hit upon that book). And last summer, I found a stack of Heinlein paperbacks in the outdoor stalls of the Brattle Book Store in Boston, I picked out a few of them (for the covers, of course), I put up with the clerk’s snobbish disdain for me at the cash register, and I finally read them, just this past week.
It was hardly a scientific sampling of his work: Space Cadet from 1948, Red Planet from 1949, and Between Planets from 1951. And they were all of a piece, besides. Cardboard characters, lots of focus on the mechanics of gravity, a great deal of corny slang. Yet I enjoyed them pretty completely, and each one surprised me. Between Planets seethes with a distrust of authority and the joy of combat. Red Planet not only idealizes colonial revolt; it also touches on the same type of quasi-religious mysticism and love of the alien that made Stranger in a Strange Land so popular twenty years later. And Space Cadet strikes me as quietly profound. It features a population that wholly distrusts its rulers; rulers who consider themselves better than the population; and their entirely valid reasons for feeling that way. It does not resolve the conflict between democracy and professionalism; it simply presents it as a post-war fact.
“Always beware when amateurs get involved,” Bell warns Walton. “Government is a difficult business.” And it isn’t kid stuff, either. Not on Venus, and not on Earth.
Leave it to Pooch to borrow a word from Robert Heinlein’s classic 1961 sci-fi novel, Stranger in a Strange Land; to “grok” means to understand completely. That book was a hippie favorite for its emphasis on free love, spirituality, and individualism. Not that I see Pooch as an inveterate sci-fi reader. No character in SPLIT THIRTY would have had more than a glancing familiarity with the stuff (with these provisos: Bell thinks that Walton is carrying around “a piece of science fiction garbage,” so Stevie himself might have read some-- only fitting for a boy growing up in the land of the aerospace industry-- and I bet that Bertie Kahn had seen Kubrick’s 2001 at least once).
Like many other pre-teens (male division), though, I went through a phase of sci-fi reading myself. It was my personal bridge between children’s literature and the lower rungs of Steinbeck and Hemingway; I also never made it past Arthur C. Clarke. But because it served that purpose in my life, I’ve always kept a sentimental fondness for it (bothering to read Stranger in a Strange Land in college, for instance, which was just the right time to hit upon that book). And last summer, I found a stack of Heinlein paperbacks in the outdoor stalls of the Brattle Book Store in Boston, I picked out a few of them (for the covers, of course), I put up with the clerk’s snobbish disdain for me at the cash register, and I finally read them, just this past week.
It was hardly a scientific sampling of his work: Space Cadet from 1948, Red Planet from 1949, and Between Planets from 1951. And they were all of a piece, besides. Cardboard characters, lots of focus on the mechanics of gravity, a great deal of corny slang. Yet I enjoyed them pretty completely, and each one surprised me. Between Planets seethes with a distrust of authority and the joy of combat. Red Planet not only idealizes colonial revolt; it also touches on the same type of quasi-religious mysticism and love of the alien that made Stranger in a Strange Land so popular twenty years later. And Space Cadet strikes me as quietly profound. It features a population that wholly distrusts its rulers; rulers who consider themselves better than the population; and their entirely valid reasons for feeling that way. It does not resolve the conflict between democracy and professionalism; it simply presents it as a post-war fact.
“Always beware when amateurs get involved,” Bell warns Walton. “Government is a difficult business.” And it isn’t kid stuff, either. Not on Venus, and not on Earth.
