The New Year

 Good wishes for 2022...

Fictional Detection

The following is from the short story "Stan the Killer," by the writer Georges Simenon, from his collection Maigret's Pipe, published in the United States in 1977 (by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich); the stories were first published in France in the 1940s. The passage is from a conversation between Simenon's Paris-based detective/Inspector of Police Jules Maigret, and his boss:

    "Have you a plan?"

    "You know, Chief, that I gave up having ideas a long time ago.  I just go about sniffing.  Some people think I'm waiting for inspiration, but they're wrong.  What I'm waiting for is the significant fact which never fails to emerge.  The important thing is to be there when it happens and to take advantage of it."

Here, too, is a brief section from the 2020 novel/mystery Snow, by John Banville (Hanover Square Press); the novel takes place largely in County Wexford, Ireland, in 1957. Of Detective Inspector St. John Strafford, the novel's main character, Banville writes:

...His strongest drive was curiosity, the simple wish to know, to be let in on what was hidden from others. Everything to him had the aspect of a cipher.  Life was a mundane mystery, the clues to the solving of which were strewn all about, concealed or, far more fascinatingly, hidden in plain view, for all to see but for him alone to recognize.

    The dullest object could, for him, flare into sudden significance, could throb in the sudden awareness of itself. There were clues, and he was their detector.

Article from a 2002 "TV Guide"

I recently looked through a copy I have of TV Guide, from April 6, 2002.  The cover story was titled: "TV We'll Always Remember." 

(No--simply for your reference--this is not Mitchell Hadley's site, "It's About TV," where he regularly writes about--and seeks to analyze the social and historical context of--programs and articles contained within particular TV Guide issues, from the 1950s, '60s, '70s, and beyond.)

In the 2002 issue there were recollections about television--from TV stars, TV news anchors, behind-the-scenes figures (producers, directors, writers), and others.

Comments from two of television's most influential figures were included.  

One was Steven Bochco--who, as many will recall, was an executive producer, co-creator, and writer for such programs as NYPD Blue, L.A. Law, and Hill Street Blues.  

He said, in 2002:

"As a boy in the '50s, I was profoundly [affected] by shows like Studio One and Playhouse 90.   They were using some of the best writers, people like Paddy Chayefsky.  I didn't have much opportunity as a kid to go to the theater. TV was my theater--first-rate theater.  It shaped my sense of what theater was.  I didn't say, 'This is what I want to do when I grow up,' but it had to have played a role.  Then, when I was starting, the criticism you'd get on some scene you wrote for some series was, 'It's too wordy, it's just talking heads.'  But I knew from those great old shows: It's the words first."

Mr. Bochco died in 2018, at age 74.

Also featured in the article were comments from Norman Lear, who (in addition to his affiliation with many other TV programs) was the creator, co-executive producer of (and writer for) All in the Family--certainly one of television's most significant shows. Mr. Lear began his television career as a writer, in 1950; he and his then-writing partner Ed Simmons worked for such programs as Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis's Colgate Comedy Hour.

Mr. Lear said, in 2002:

"People are always talking about 'the golden age.' I think the golden age is now.  But to back that up in TV terms, there's a whale of a lot of really good television out there.  So many of the hour dramas are so worthwhile, so much of what HBO is doing.  What's missing is music and variety.  I can't tell you how much I miss music and dance--everything from Lawrence Welk to Carol Burnett to Martin and Lewis to Your Show of Shows to great variety and musical television."

At 99 years old, the legendary Mr. Lear remains active as a television producer.

Christmas

Here is Judy Garland's recording of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," from 1944.  

She introduced the song in the 1944 film Meet Me in St. Louis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLnjvEUJ_FA

Merry Christmas...

Beverly Kenney, Ellis Larkins, & Ella Fitzgerald

An automobile commercial has been airing for a while on TV (for Lincoln). It features part of a very lovely vocal rendition of the song "It's a Most Unusual Day."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVDW5KfRqFk

In listening to the commercial, the singer's voice sounded familiar to me--but I was mistaken. I learned, online, that the vocalist was Beverly Kenney.  I was not familiar with her name.

Ms. Kenney recorded "It's a Most Unusual Day" in 1957, accompanied by the much-admired pianist Ellis Larkins. The song appeared on her 1958 album, "Beverly Kenney Sings For Playboys."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vK_eS0sqGw

Ms. Kenney was born in New Jersey in 1932. She recorded several albums in the mid-to-late 1950s, and received critical praise for her work. She died in New York in 1960, at age 28, by suicide.

In Japan, according to Wikipedia, she "remains a cult figure."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverly_Kenney

As noted above, Ellis Larkins was the pianist for Ms. Kenney's "It's a Most Unusual Day"--as well as being featured on the other songs on her 1958 album (along with bassist Joe Benjamin).  Mr. Larkins is perhaps best known for his work with Ella Fitzgerald--including accompanying her on the 1950 album "Ella Sings Gershwin." The album's opening song is one of the most exquisite recordings I've ever heard (a recording I've mentioned previously in this space): it is of Ms. Fitzgerald, and Mr. Larkins, performing "Someone to Watch Over Me."  

Here is the 1950 recording of the song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYEeAOTIQ2c

Here, too, is the Wikipedia page about Mr. Larkins:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellis_Larkins

Mr. Larkins died in 2002, at age 79.  Ella Fitzgerald died in 1996, at 79.

Epigraph to "The Sentence"

In an October post, I wrote of three epigraphs I particularly like--two from novels, one from a short story collection.

Here is another, that I was recently taken by; it is from the noted novelist Louise Erdrich's absorbing work, The Sentence. The novel, published by Harper in November, takes place largely in 2019 and 2020, in Minneapolis. 

Earlier this year, Ms. Erdrich's 2020 novel, The Night Watchman, was awarded the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. 

The epigraph to The Sentence is from poet/writer Sun Yung Shin's 2016 book, Unbearable Splendor.

Sun Yung Shin, like Louise Erdrich, lives in Minneapolis.

Brian Williams' last "11th Hour" broadcast

Brian Williams--the terrific MSNBC host--signs off, tonight, from his program The 11th Hour (11 p.m.-midnight, Eastern time).  

Mr. Williams has a splendid, astute sense of how to bring about (and--re: his regular panels of guests--orchestrate) informative and excellent conversation (one element of which--as noted in a previous post about him--is the appealing wit he routinely brings to the effort).

One hopes he will soon return via another network.

Television photograph, 1969

This is a photograph I've always liked; it is from February of 1969. I happened upon it recently (along with other photographs I had not seen in years), while going through some boxes stored in a closet of my apartment.  The picture was taken from the audience of the Merv Griffin Show, which at the time was syndicated by Westinghouse Broadcasting, also known as Group W.

I don't think I took the picture, but believe it was taken by my brother, who was fifteen.  My mother, my brother and I were in New York City for a trip (I was thirteen), and, while there, we went to see a taping of Merv Griffin's program. (I am not at all certain of this, but would not be surprised if we went to the program at my request. The program aired in Boston in the late afternoons, and was a show I enjoyed watching, during this time. It is also very possible--because of my interest in television, as a child--that I asked my brother to take the picture.)

The show was taped at The Little Theater, on West 44th Street in Manhattan.  Before it became a television facility--first used by ABC, from the latter part of the 1950s into the early 1960s, and then, in the 1960s, by Westinghouse--it had been a legitimate theatre. In the 1970s it again became a theatrical venue, and in the early 1980s was renamed The Helen Hayes Theater; it is now known, simply, as The Hayes Theater. With just under 600 seats, it is the smallest theatre on Broadway. (In 1912, when it opened, it had only 299 seats--thus, its original "Little Theater" designation.)

In the photo--which I like, in part, because of the presence, in the image, of the television camera--the comedian Pat Cooper is seated next to Merv Griffin, at Mr. Griffin's desk. To the left of Griffin is the singer Jane Morgan.  According to IMDB, the episode aired on February 28, 1969--and so we were probably at the taping a week or so prior.

One of the things that sticks out in my mind about the taping is that it included an appearance by the singer Ronnie Dyson. To the best of my memory, he sang "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me," which at the time was a hit song, recorded jointly by The Supremes and The Temptations.

Mr. Dyson had become famous for appearing in the Broadway musical Hair--and for his lead vocal, in the show, of the signature song "Aquarius." The show opened on Broadway at the end of April, 1968; Dyson turned 18 in June of that year.

The recording of "Aquarius," at the link below, is from the 1968 Hair cast album. Mr. Dyson's solos, in "Aquarius," are actually not that long--much of the song also features the choral singing of the play's cast--yet his performance in the song is, I think, stunning; his singing is assured, and it has, about it, a strikingly pure quality. (Please note that the first twenty seconds or so of the song--before he begins singing--are made up of quiet, miscellaneous sounds, some discordant--including chimes, what sounds like gongs, and perhaps, as well, some electronic sounds.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_V2q07GOe28

Later, in 1970, Mr. Dyson had a hit song with his recording of "(If You Let Me Make Love to You Then) Why Can't I Touch You?"

He died in 1990, in Philadelphia, at age forty. His death, IMDB notes, was due to heart failure.

If you're celebrating the holiday...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Chanukah...

Some Recipes

Happy Thanksgiving.

Here (if you are, or might be, inclined) are some vegetarian and vegan recipes for the holiday, from The Washington Post.

https://wapo.st/3AY31Mg

Presidents

Some interests, inclinations, from childhood (perhaps more than some) continue, through adulthood. 

Such as, for me: an interest in the American presidents--the lives of the presidents, the histories of their presidencies. 

In October, I had an appointment in West Caldwell, New Jersey, less than a half hour from where I live.  I knew that a few miles away, in Caldwell, NJ, is the home where Grover Cleveland was born, in 1837 (though the Cleveland family moved to Onondaga County, New York, in 1841).  

Cleveland, of course, is the sole American president to have served non-consecutive terms.  He was the country's 22nd president, and its 24th.

I drove to the Cleveland house, after leaving West Caldwell. I knew in advance that the home was currently closed to the public, because of construction taking place at the site. (I don't know if the construction concerns plans, referred to in the link below, for a Visitor Center at the site.)  Yet I was delighted to simply see the exterior of the home.  

https://caldwell-nj.com/index.asp?SEC=EB8D8E00-9060-468C-B387-A112A72BAC3D

For what it is worth, I am certain that my interest in the subject of America's presidents began in 1963, when President Kennedy was killed--fifty-eight years ago tomorrow  At the time, I was seven.  

I still have the November 23, 1963 edition of The Boston Globe, the headline of which contained a dramatic, eloquent rhyme:  SHOCK...DISBELIEF...GRIEF.

I also still have the photograph, above, a picture I took after the assassination. The photograph is of the front page of the November 23rd Globe.  I remember placing the newspaper on a couch in our house, in order to take the picture. This partial, slightly out-of-focus, black and white image of the front page of the paper, taken when I was seven, remains interesting to me, fifty-eight years after the fact.

(Photographs of the Grover Cleveland Birthplace, Caldwell, NJ, and of the November 23, 1963 Boston Globe, © Andrew Fielding)

"New Yorker" cover, by Bruce McCall

This very funny, enjoyable cover of The New Yorker--the November 22, 2021 issue--is by the artist and humorist Bruce McCall, and is titled "Season’s Special.” 

(Please click on the image, to enlarge it.  Still, some of the signs, in the illustration, might not be entirely legible, because of the image's reduced size.  One reads, "Xtra-Stale Popcorn."  Another is "Bagel Bits."  A third reads: "Crumbs," followed by "Yum!")

Here, too, is a link to a brief conversation between Mr. McCall and Françoise Mouly, the art editor of The New Yorker, posted on the magazine's website on November 15th.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cover-story/cover-story-2021-11-22

("Season's Special," © Bruce McCall and The New Yorker)

Brian Williams, and "The 11th Hour"

I was sorry to read, on Tuesday night, that Brian Williams has decided to leave his weeknight MSNBC program, The 11th Hour--and will be leaving NBC News altogether--at the end of the year.

The 11th Hour has aired since 2016. I've been something of a latecomer to the program--having mostly watched it during the past couple of years. Mr. Williams is a very fine (and often very witty/wry) conversationalist and host.  

In addressing his end-of-December departure, on Tuesday evening's broadcast, he said: "The 11th Hour is way bigger than any one man or woman. The truth is, our secret has always been: it's always about our guests. That will never change."  

His guests (more often than not, recurring) have, indeed, been routinely superb--journalists, historians, political and social analysts, legal analysts, law enforcement, military, and intelligence experts, and, during the grim era of Covid, medical professionals. Yet despite his modesty regarding his role on the program, as expressed last night, it is Mr. Williams who establishes, each evening, the program's distinctive and pleasing tone. His stewardship of The 11th Hour will be missed.

Liz Cheney

Republican Representative Liz Cheney, of Wyoming, gave a speech in New Hampshire on Tuesday.

She said, in part:

"We are...confronting a domestic threat that we have never faced before: A former president who's attempting to unravel the foundations of our constitutional republic, aided by political leaders, who have made themselves willing hostages to this dangerous and irrational man." 

The CNN.com report, below, noted that Cheney--known for her conservatism--said she disagrees "strongly with nearly everything President Biden has done since he has been in office."  The report continued:

But while she [has] opposed Biden's policies, she repeatedly took aim at the former President, calling him a "liar" who "tragically misled" Americans and "provoked violence" on January 6.

 

"I love my party. I love its history. I love its principles," Cheney said. "But I love my country more. I know this nation needs a Republican Party that is based on truth."

 

"We need a Republican Party that is led by people who remember that the peaceful transfer of power is sacred," she added. "We need Republican leaders who remember that fidelity to the Constitution, fidelity to the rule of law — those are the most conservative of conservative principles."

The CNN.com story included the following:  "Her comments are sure to prompt speculation about a 2024 presidential run, which could potentially be against the former President." 

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/09/politics/liz-cheney-trump-reaction/index.html

Colin Powell

Colin Powell--who during his career was chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, Secretary of State, four-star general--was a noble, honorable man.  

At his funeral, this past Friday, Madeleine Albright--Mr. Powell's immediate predecessor as Secretary of State--paid tribute to her longtime friend.

She said:  "As I grew to know him, I came to view Colin Powell as a figure who almost transcended time--for his virtues were Homeric:  honesty, dignity, loyalty and an unshakable commitment to his calling and word."

She said that "beneath that glossy exterior of warrior statesman was one of the gentlest and most decent people any of us will ever meet."

Election night

Essential viewing, tonight, on CNN:  John King's election-night analyses (as he presides over the network's touch-screen electoral maps).

King, as I have written previously in this space, is a terrific analyst and reporter.  He is CNN's Chief National Correspondent, and is the host of the weekday program Inside Politics.

The Tree of Life, in Pittsburgh

Today is the third anniversary of the attack at the Tree of Life synagogue, in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh. 

At the time of the murders, in 2018, three separate Jewish congregations had a home in the synagogue:  the Tree of Life Congregation, the New Light Congregation, and Congregation Dor Hadash (Dor Hadash means "new generation," in Hebrew). The attack occurred as Saturday morning Sabbath services were taking place.

Eleven congregants were shot and killed, during the approximately twenty-minute attack. Several other people were wounded, including four Pittsburgh police officers.

The individual arrested for the killings--virulently anti-Semitic, virulently hostile to immigrants--has not yet gone to trial.  He had frequently expressed, online, his hatred of Jews. Days before the killings, he had written of what he called (I am not reproducing, here, the entire word) the "k*** infestation" in the United States.  After he was shot by police, at the synagogue, he surrendered--and said, according to a police officer, that "all these Jews need to die." 

A book about the 2018 tragedy and its aftermath was published this month.  It is by journalist Mark Oppenheimer, and is titled Squirrel Hill: The Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting and the Soul of a Neighborhood. 

Here is the link for the book, on amazon.com:

https://www.amazon.com/Squirrel-Hill-Synagogue-Shooting-Neighborhood/dp/0525657193/ref

Three epigraphs

The following is an engaging epigraph; it appears in writer Peter Orner's short story collection, Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge (Little, Brown and Company, 2013).  The epigraph is from a short story by the writer Gina Berriault:

It’s over me like a ton of water, the things I don’t know.

(I read Mr. Orner's book recently, and enjoyed it very much--while admiring, even more, his 2019 short story collection, Maggie Brown & Others, also from Little, Brown.)

Another epigraph I'm fond of is from a novel I've had for years, but have not read (one of many books I have that are still to be read): Norman Mailer's The Deer Park, from 1955.  The epigraph is from Andre Gide:

Please do not understand me too quickly.  

Recently, I tried to find, in the apartment, my paperback copy, from college, of E. M. Forster's Howards End.  I came up empty; the book seems to have disappeared. The reason I wanted to find it?  Simply to see, again (after many years), its brief, beautiful, memorable epigraph:

"Only connect..."

Alan Kalter

I always enjoyed watching (and listening to) Alan Kalter, on David Letterman's Late Show, on CBS.

He was the program's talented (and funny) announcer--from the fall of 1995, until the show left the air in May of 2015.  He was also regularly featured in comedy segments on the program.

Mr. Kalter died this past Monday, at age 78.

Here is an obituary, from The New York Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/05/arts/television/alan-kalter-dead.html

"60 Minutes," and September 11th

On Sunday, the day following the 20th anniversary of September 11th, CBS's 60 Minutes devoted its broadcast to the subject of the Fire Department of New York City, and September 11th.  343 members of the FDNY were killed that day. 

The program--employing video, audio, and still images from September 11th, as well as retrospective interviews--was extraordinary.  Its host and narrator--and interviewer--was the very fine 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley. 

Mr. Pelley's interviews for the program--of firefighters, fire officials, and surviving family members--were conducted with great sensitivity, and are deeply affecting, and gripping. 

Here is the link to the September 12th 60 Minutes program:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/september-11-fdny-world-trade-center-60-minutes-2021-09-12/

The program, for your reference, is presented in segments, via separate links; the first three are titled "60 Minutes remembers 9.11: The FDNY." 

After viewing the first segment, which will appear when accessing the above link (the segment is 14 minutes-plus in length), one must then locate the subsequent links, just beneath the video screen.  

Part 2 (it is labeled as such) can be seen within the thumbnails/links below the screen, and is nearly 16 minutes long. After Part 2 concludes, however--it is, unfortunately, a bit confusing (yet very much worth the effort)--one will then likely need to go backwards, within the gallery of links, by clicking the arrow at the left side of the links, to find Part 3 (which is just under ten minutes long). The last segment, titled "Scott Pelley on the courage of the FDNY," is a little over a minute long; one will likely, again, need to click the left arrow, after the end of Part 3, to locate this segment.  

The first three segments, one notes, appear in transcript form beneath the video screen.

September 11th

This photograph, of New York firefighters, was taken on September 11th.  It is from a special issue of Time magazine, published soon after the catastrophe.

Beneath the photo is the title "New York's Bravest," which is followed by this, about the day: "Fire fighters were still going in when the buildings collapsed.  One ducked under his truck and emerged to find everyone else in his squad dead."  

The picture was taken for Time by photographer James Nachtwey (VII Photo Agency).

Recommended Radio Host: NPR's Mary Louise Kelly

Ms. Kelly, a veteran journalist, is one of the hosts of NPR's afternoon/evening news program, All Things Considered.

She is an excellent interviewer and reporter, and her manner, on the air, is appealing. She is straightforward, thorough;  there is often, about her, an agreeable kind of reserve.

Here are two of her recent on-air conversations: 

In the first, from September 2nd, Kelly speaks with two physicians--one from Texas, one from Florida--whose hospitals have been overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients ("the vast majority" of the patients, as noted in the segment, were unvaccinated).   

https://www.npr.org/2021/09/02/1033727665/as-covid-19-inundates-hospitals-staff-is-emotionally-pulverized

The second interview, from August 31st, is with novelist Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train; Hawkins and Kelly discuss her new novel, A Slow Fire Burning.

https://www.npr.org/2021/08/31/1033002638/paula-hawkins-interrogates-tragedy-and-trauma-in-new-thriller-a-slow-fire-burnin

In addition to Ms. Kelly, All Things Considered features hosts Audie Cornish, Ailsa Chang, and Ari Shapiro;  typically, two of the hosts appear on a given broadcast.