Happy Birthday Alan J. Lerner

You know Alan Lerner -- of course you do. You must have heard of Lerner and Lowe. Brigadoon, Camelot, My Fair Lady, Paint your Wagon, Gigi? They did some other musicals, and later adapted them to the movies, but these are their best.

Born August 31, 1918, Alan Lerner is member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He received an Academy Award for Gigi, both the score and the title song. Can anyone forget hearing Maurice Chevalier croon "Thank heaven for little girls, for little girls get bigger every day, Thank heaven for little girls, they grow up in the most delightful way!" Lerner also received an Academy Award for writing the screenplay of An American in Paris, though George Gershwin composed the music.

One of the first live plays I ever saw was My Fair Lady, and I loved it. In fact, I convinced my mother, who had taken my brother and me to Nebraska with her while she worked on her MA, that I needed to see My Fair Lady -- every single night. I think it ran two weeks, and I never tired of Eliza Doolittle or Professor 'Iggins. From "Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?" and "All I want is a room somewhere, Far away from the cold night air. With one enormous chair, Aow, wouldn't it be loverly?" through the rain in Spain staying mainly in the plain, (finally) and "I could have danced all night," we arrive at the finale "I've grown accustomed to her face. She almost makes the day begin. I've grown accustomed to the tune that She whistles night and noon. Her smiles, her frowns, Her ups, her downs Are second nature to me now; Like breathing out and breathing in." When I later read Pygmalion I understood, even approved of, the ending. But I secretly rejoiced that I had already experienced it differently.

So today I take a little time to salute a special kind of writer, one who could write "Hand me down that can o' beans Hand me down that can o' beans Hand me down that can o' beans I'm throwing it away," then give us "The mist of May is in the gloamin', and all the clouds are holdin' still. So take my hand and let's go roamin' through the heather on the hill." and finally this 1965 Grammy winner.

"On a clear day
Rise and look around you
And you'll see who you are.
On a clear day
How it will astound you
That the glow of your being outshines ev'ry star.

You'll feel part of ev'ry mountain sea and shore.
You can hear, from far and near,
A world you've never heard before.
And on a clear day...
On that clear day...
You can see forever and ever more!"

Thanks to you, Alan J. Lerner

Read Well, Friend


(Pygmalion, written by George Bernard Shaw.)

Dear Mrs. Pollifax,

Or my Adventures with One Feisty Old Lady

I’m sorry, Mrs. P., I know you prefer not to be referred to as old, but what else could I say? Elderly is even worse, and Senior just doesn’t describe you at all. I can only hope I’ve known you long enough to get away with a little cheek. I hear that you are unofficially retiring from our organization, which you never officially worked for to begin with. I shall have to miss the lovely garden party, and seeing your Cyrus beaming over you like a benevolent guardian Cyclops, only Cyrus has both his eyes. (I was trying to think of someone very tall and strong -- oh well, if you don’t know what I mean after all these years and all we’ve been through, well, shame on you.) Of course this is a time to look back, and funnily enough my first memory of you, Emily, isn’t a memory at all. It’s that check-up you told me about during that cold, frightening night we were locked with Hafez in Castle de Chillon. The check-up where that pathetic young doctor ask you if there wasn’t something you always wanted to do with your life, and when you told him he laughed in your face. I like to think he’s a lonely old doctor by now, thinking of the dreams he once had and how sorry he is that he didn’t take them more seriously. (Don’t say that’s unkind of me, I know it is but I wish it anyway; you’re much more lady like than I.) I feel like I knew you then, but of course I didn‘t see you until you stepped off the bus, walked into the office, and offered your services. You realize, I’m sure, that everyone else thought you were nuts, but I understood your logic. You said you’d lived a full life, you were in excellent health, and our country could better afford to lose you than a young person. (You were wrong there.) I guess I understood even though I was much younger than you. (Why do I feel much closer in age to you now? You just get younger all the time.) At that point my life seemed destined to be, to my great disappointment, kind of ‘samey’ and safe. Because you took courage in hand and stepped in Headquarters, both our lives drastically changed, dear friend, and I am so thankful! You deserve to ‘retire’ but oh how I shall hate not working with you again.

I am looking forward to having you over when you get back from Sofia. Make sure Cyrus keeps you out of trouble, I should hate to miss out on any last minute escapades you might fall into. Have you talked about driving around the little square one more time? No one could justify the Panchevsky ‘Institute’ as a tourist site, except maybe those of us who helped Phillip and the others escape. Do you know what I wish? That somehow I’d managed to hold on to the list you made at our planning meeting-- the one where you recorded all our assets: geese, one pistol, fireworks, knots, motorcycle, bow and arrow. Can you believe we actually got everyone out of that prison fortress, toppled General Ignatov and managed to get that nasty Nikki in trouble, too, with only those assets, and your refusal to give up? So much has changed in Bulgaria since then, I wonder if any of the rest of them are still alive? Bishop says there’s no way to tell, and he would know. I’m sure you’ll go by the government cemetery while you’re there. Please leave a token for ‘Tsanko’. For me.

You were right about being married to Bishop, you know. He spends all day at work organizing people’s lives to protect the free world, and then he tries to organize and protect me. If you asked him who I need to be protected from, I’m afraid he might say you. But don’t worry, when he gets too bothersome I suggest a nice excursion to Mexico, perhaps a visit to a bookshop where we can look for a copy of a certain book. He starts muttering about Albania and Ferrell, and gets very pale. Personally I don’t think you can be persona non grata in a country you never officially entered and from which you escaped as quickly and quietly as you possibly could. But you know how he worries, so it works every time. I once tried to blackmail him by offering to travel back to Turkey and introduce him to Anyeta and the other gypsies. He thought it sounded like fun, so if you get a postcard of a caravan from us some day, you’ll know he took me up on it. Speaking of the gypsies, Cyrus would just adore them, and if we could arrange another love-in, well, can you imagine watching him dancing with flowers in his hair, if he had any, with all the lovely Turkish girls? There are so many fond memories of that mission I can almost forget finding Magda drugged and held prisoner in the house of Dr. Belleaux, the man who was supposed to be helping us. I learned what courage is when you and Colin dragged her down the main staircase and out the front door in the sight of him and all his important guests. Not to mention Magda, Colin, you and I hurling ourselves into the police helicopter while they chased and shot at us. I’ve always felt one of your crowning moments, Emily, was when Magda asked you if you knew how to fly a helicopter. You said “Of course not!” and proceeded to do it anyway. How many cars did you take out on the way to the Kayseri Airport? I’ve forgotten.

There is so much more to talk about, but my plane from Hong Kong is about to leave. I’ll take a bit of a nap -- or sleep like the dead, as Bishop insists -- and write more tomorrow, my dear Mrs. P. (as you will always be to me.)

Your Friend in Adventure.

Read Well, Friend

Hear about Mrs. Pollifax on NPR by clicking here.

(Books referred to in this post are The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax, A Palm for Mrs. Pollifax, The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax, and The Elusive Mrs. Pollifax, some of the series written by Dorothy Gilman.)

534 Miles, 18 Hours, 19 Boxes, and 197 Books

It was going to be an ordinary day, until my daughter, browsing through Craig’s list, cried “Eureka”! Well maybe not quite that, something more along the lines of drawling “That’s interesting,” which is pretty much the same as eureka, coming from her. It turns out that “interesting” referred to the offer of 197 Heritage Press books for $400. At two dollars each for books easily sold for $10 or more depending on condition, this was quite a find, especially for a collector preparing to open her own online book business. A perfect opportunity to gain stock -- except we live in TN and the books were in Chicago. Even if the seller were willing to ship them to us, the cost of postage on 197 books is simply too scary to think about. Betsy’s husband works incredibly long hours and makes last minute trips to other cities, so the possibility of a spur of the moment romantic second honeymoon to the fascinating city of Chicago was also out. I, however, wake up each morning practically begging for something interesting to happen, so the very next day Thelma and Louise, or maybe Hope and Crosby, cleaned out the trunk of the Corolla and headed up north. Steppenwolf would have been proud of us.
”Get your motor runnin'
Head out on the highway
Lookin' for adventure
And whatever comes our way…”
(Born to be Wild)

Born to be wild or not, nine hours of construction on 1-40, construction on I-55, and, you guessed it, construction on I-57 makes for a long, not so exciting day. As much as we enjoy each others company, if we hadn't had the books to talk about -- which ones would be there, what kind of condition would they be in, how would she get the extra shelf space -- the nine hours would have seemed a whole lot longer. Thanks to our GPS we made it to the pick up point with some time to spare. There we found an angel of books waiting for us in her garage. The Garage, filled with books, “hundreds of books, thousands of books, millions and billions and…,” oh all right, it was just those 197 books, the ones that her co-workers had urged her to throw away. Instead they were neatly tucked in 19 boxes, each box numbered with a matching list of contents. We’d had visions of lugging all those books up narrow stairs from a dank, poorly lit basement, through the house out to the street -- one armload at a time. Instead, Sue had a cart to load the boxes on and helped us tote all nineteen to our car, thrilled that someone wanted her parents castoffs. That night we loaded the hotel’s luggage cart with some of the boxes, lined them up between our two beds, opened them and plunged in. What would we find? A Shropshire Lad, Nicholas Nickleby, The Compleat Angler, Homer’s Odyssey, The Tales of Hoffman, or William Tell?

In case you don’t know, (because I sure didn’t), Heritage Books released about 1000 titles between the 1930's -- 60’s. An imprint of George Macy Companies, they were reprints of the exclusive Limited Editions Club. The idea was to offer the same special volumes, though less luxurious, to people who couldn't afford to be one of the 1500 subscribers to the special editions. Each volume was treated as an individual release, its size, cover and shape chosen to suit that title. Tucked inside is an informative, sometimes amusing, pamphlet called The Sandglass, and every volume is fitted into a matching slipcase. One surprising feature of Heritage Press books are the illustrators. Imagine, Picasso's sketches interpret Aristophanes’ play Lysistrata. Francisco Goya’s works illustrate a novel about him, This is the Hour. Norman Rockwell did Poor Richard: The Almanac, and the childrens classic The Wind in the Willows illustrator is, of course, the incomparable Author Rackham. Who else? Because of the illustrations you can't just pull out the books you recognize; you have to open every single one to see what's inside. You might find full page paintings, an occasional small woodcutting, or colorful border decorations on each page. Eager to look at our plunder, we loaded the hotel’s luggage cart with boxes of books, then lined them up in the aisle between our beds to easily share the wealth. We ooh’d and aah’d for some time until Betsy, exhausted from all the driving, fell asleep. I fondled Walden, dipped into Elegy, renewed my friendship with Paul Bunyan, and honestly goggled at the brilliantly colored, intricately Middle Eastern-style decorations on every other page of Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam until, exhausted, I couldn't hold it upright any longer.

It's always faster driving home. I don't know if it's because the impatience created by anticipation is gone, or because I begin to recognize the landmarks while still hundreds of miles from home. This way to St. Louis; here's that lousy construction stopping traffic again; 22 miles to Lambert's, Home of the Throwed Rolls. Yep, we're almost home. (Yes, they really do throw the rolls to their customers, sometimes. Mostly it's a pig out on all the Southern food you want place to eat.) Eventually we turned into the driveway, greeted the dogs, and toted in boxes of books. The driver, not surprisingly, was exhausted. The passenger, me, was energized and ready to do something. We excavated a few more boxes, then Betsy picked up one of her old favorites, one of those books you've loved for years but somehow misplaced, and settled in to read. I pulled out books only to replace them. I carried stacks to the sofa, read a bit here and there, then carefully put them back into the correctly numbered box. Darn that book fairy lady! If she hadn't been so helpful I could be alphabetizing and recording each book, matching up the sets and noting the publication dates. Instead I was left with nothing to do but read. Betsy finished The Mysterious Island and eagerly began The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan. No, not Ali Baba, though he and Hajji might be cousins I suppose. And don't assume, as I did, that Hajji Baba is a book only someone who double majored in History and Middle Eastern Studies would look forward to reading. It turns out to be a classic romantic comedy offering a true portrayal of Persia of that time. Watching her happily immersed in her second book, something dawned on me. Trying to take on 197 new books has created a type of reader’s overload in my brain, a dog pile of choices that makes it impossible for me to single anything out of the crowd. Walden Pond? Longfellow's poetry? The Brothers Karamazov? Something, please? My eyes glaze over just looking at the boxes. I've stopped peering inside them, stopped studying the six page list. Should I read an old favorite or something I've never heard of before? Maybe I'll pick the shortest one and read it really fast, and have it over with. I could pick a number or close my eyes and point, like people do when they want help from the Bible but have no idea how to find it. It's been almost a week since our drive to Chicago, and I'm still bookless, unable to find a way to force myself to make a choice. I haven't a clue how long this deadlock will go on, but if I ever manage to actually read anything, trust me, you'll be the first to know.

Read Well, Friend


"Hundreds of books" paraphrased from Millions of Cats, written by Wanda Gag.

In Love with American Names

“I have fallen in love with American names,
The sharp names that never get fat,
The snakeskin-titles of mining-claims,
The plumed war-bonnet of Medicine Hat,”
(Steven Vincent Benet)

I, too, am I love with American names, and the maps that show me those names. What better time to meditate on the great variety of our country's names then on a 'quick' drive to Chicago and back with my daughter at the wheel. Two nine-hour days of interstate, our only Chicago sightings Wrigley field and the airport. A pity really, as Chicago is a city to spend a week in, at least. Still, even super fast road trips needn't be all bad. The best part of traveling, besides arriving where you want to be, or maybe getting home from some place you didn’t want to be, is the scenery and the names of the towns you pass. Since you can’t always count on the scenery -- I-70 through Kansas, anyone -- I rely on maps and road signs for inspiration. Probably we've all joked about the oddity of travel in America. For example, on the way to Chicago we found our selves passing signs to Manhattan, which got Betsy pretty excited. The Statue of Liberty, Broadway shows! Unfortunately our deadline kept us from that detour. I did point out that it might take us on a much shorter trip to Manhattan, Kansas. But that plainly didn’t interest her at all. It seems our family has driven through Kansas way too many times already. (No offense to Kansans intended.)

In the same way, from my own little corner of the country I can travel quite easily to Egypt. Memphis and the pyramid are just a few minutes away. A little over an hour takes me to Cuba Landing where, presumably, refugees regularly sneak ashore under cover of night. I don’t begrudge them. I do, however resent our proximity to Paris. After I save up all my quarters and finally visit France I'll come back proudly sporting my Eiffel Tower T-shirt and carrying my Gay Paree hand bag and no one will even notice. They’ll just assume I spent a few days in Paris, TN. How deflating! The same would be true of Milan, Moscow, London, Hayti, (sic) and Belfast. Kind of makes you wonder why we Americans bother going overseas at all, doesn’t it?

Leaving aside the towns named by people either homesick or completely lacking in imagination, I prefer the Illinois towns of Eureka, Goodfield, Sweetwater, and Fidelity. What treasure made the towns people cry Eureka? How special is that good field, really? If I swing by Sweetwater for a quick drink will it taste better than the freezing cold, uncontaminated water coming straight from a Rocky Mountain stream? Is that even possible? Could it taste sweeter than the natural artesian that comes out of my taps everyday? I’ve drunk a lot of water from a lot of places around the world, and some of it was nasty. If all that water was lined up side by side would Sweetwater's win? I’d like to think so, but I have my doubts... As interesting as the town’s I’ve just named are, the one that intrigues me the most is Fidelity. Just think of it --Fidelity. Did the women of the town get to pick the name? Or the preachers? Is naming a town Fidelity a warning to any riff raff to keep moving? What happens to fools who don’t live up to the name? Puzzles like this give one something to think about on those long car rides.

My home state of Colorado is blessed with strong sounding town names that describe its history and terrain. Copper Mountain, Leadville, Marble, Gypsum, Granite and Silverton speak to our mining past. It’s no surprise, then, to learn that high in the Rockies one finds the National Mining Hall of Fame. Well, alright, so it did surprise me. Obviously I need to brush up on my Colorado maps. With towns called Aspen, Snowmass, Evergreen, Crested Butte and Elk Springs, who needs a glossy tourist brochure? Add Gem Village, Whitewater, Grand Lake, and my personal favorite, Tin Cup, and I’m not sure why I ever left. Personally, I think Colorado has the best town names anywhere, but I’m forced to admit some people believe the honors should go elsewhere. One of those people is a certain southern governor’s wife. Meeting a television producer who had several successful shows set in the South, the governor’s wife encouraged him to research the names in her state for the setting of his next project. And why not? Choosing from Apple Spur, Lone Sassafras, Pickles Gap and Tomato, Flippin and Toad Suck, (please don’t lick the toads, they’re hallucinogenic), Violet Hill, Frog Town and Tulip can’t be easy. One wonders how he made that decision. Why, soon after that meeting, was the television world introduced to Burt Reynolds and Marilu Henner in Evening Shade, Arkansas? What do you think of the choice? Better yet, what would Stephen Vincent Benet say? You decide.

"You may bury my body in Sussex grass,
You may bury my tongue at Champmedy.
I shall not be there. I shall rise and pass.
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee."


Read Well, Friend


Let me know what you think, share some of you favorite place names with the rest of us, or nominate your favorite state for the honor of Best Names.

Also, I want to thank you for your patience and support during this difficult time. I am doing a little better, and I hope to be up to full speed again soon.