The Great Gray Bridge – Page 44 – Spanning urban life, books, music, culture, current events

Lee Lorch, an Exiled American Hero Who Found a Haven in Canada

March 8, 2014/7 Comments/in Books & Writing, Canada, Urban Life & New York City /by Philip Turner

Until reading this March 1 obituary by David Margolick about Lee Lorch I had not known about this brave man, or the vital role he played in ending racial bias in publicly-subsidized housing in New York City and the rest of the United States.

A WWII vet, Lorch came home from the war amid a nationwide housing shortage that was particularly severe in New York City. Then living with his wife Grace and daughter in what the NY Times reports Lorch called “‘half a Quonset hut’ overlooking Jamaican Bay in Queens,” he applied to live in the housing complex of Stuyvesant Town then being developed on the east side of Manhattan by Metropolitan Life Insurance Company with generous subsidies and accommodations from the city. He learned that African-Americans were explicitly barred from living in the development, as Met Life’s chairman Frederick Ecker told news media, “Negroes and whites don’t mix. If we brought them into this development, it would be to the detriment of the city, too, because it would depress all the surrounding property.” The Lorches and fellow tenants invited African-American families to come stay in there apartments as their guests, a move that drew Met Life’s ire and threats of eviction.

As a result, Lee Lorch lost his job teaching math at City College, and was made unwelcome at other universities where he applied to teach, including Penn State, which hired and then fired him in less than a year. For a time, he and his family were in Little Rock, Arkansas, where in 1957 Grace famously comforted Elizabeth Eckford, one of the “Little Rock Nine,” as she tried to attend Little Rock Central High School.

In addition, Lorch’s unapologetic membership in the American Communist Party caused civil rights leaders, including Thurgood Marshall, to keep their distance from him. After years of erratic employment in the States, in 1959 Lorch was offered a teaching position in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and later York University in Toronto. The Lorches emigrated and much like young draft-age American males of the Vietnam era, the Lorches found a new home and haven north of the 49th Parallel.

Lorch lived a remarkable life, and one that should be remembered. In addition to the March 1 NY Times obit and a 2010 article, here are other Web resources:

1) Video with a 2010 interview of Lee Lorch

2) A segment with Lee Lorch’s daughter Alice from CBC’s As It Happens, remembering her father and the family’s life in Canada.

3) A review of David Margolick’s book Elizabeth and Hazel, on Elizabeth Eckford, of the Little Rock Nine, and Hazel Bryan, a white woman who yelled at her as she tried to enter Central High School in 1957.

4) An Arkansas Times Web feature with lots more information on the Little Rock Nine.

Cross-posted on my blog Honourary Canadian.

Nearly Three Years Later: A Manuscript That (Still) Can’t be Read

March 3, 2014/2 Comments/in Books & Writing /by Philip Turner

March 3, 2014 Update: I first wrote about the Voynich Manuscript on this blog more than two years ago. As was the case then, decipherment of the mysterious codex still continues to elude linguists and scholars, though two recent posts in the Moby Lives blog (one and two) indicate they may be getting closer to at least getting a geographical fix on the plants that are included in the extravagantly illustrated work. Julia Fleischarker reports that “Dr. Arthur Tucker of Delaware State University…writes that taking the botanical illustrations as a starting point enabled them to help place the manuscript geographically,” which he now believes to have been in Mexico. It should be said that other scholars don’t accept this explanation, and continue to believe the book may be a hundreds-year old forgery, though they offer no explanation why any talented book artists in an earlier century would’ve gone to the trouble of creating a fake book.

Original post from November 30. 2011:

“A booke…containing nothing butt Hieroglyphicks, which booke his father bestowed much time upon: but I could not heare that hee could make it out.”–son of 16th century astrologer John Dee

I love mysteries like this. The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale houses the Voynich manuscript, named for the rare book dealer who acquired it ninety-nine years ago.
Prior to Wilfrid Voynich’s purchase of it, “the codex belonged to Emperor Rudolph II of Germany. . . who purchased it for 600 gold ducats and believed that it was the work of Roger Bacon,” the 13th century English mathematician.

After Wilfrid Voynich died, it ended up at Yale when his widow sold it to another dealer, H.P. Kraus, who donated it to the Library in 1969. Though the Voynich, printed on vellum and covering some 240 pages, has been the object of much study by scholars and antiquarians, none has yet been able to decipher the language in which it’s written or discern its hidden meanings. The presentation, with dozens of illustrations, two sets of which are reproduced here, includes elements of a treatise on the cosmos, the zodiac, botanical life, human anatomy, and cooking. But the purpose of the book continues to elude even intensive examination.

This all puts me in mind of the astounding philological and linguistic accomplishments of J.R.R. Tolkien, who knew many ancient alphabets and languages, and invented more than a dozen for the denizens of Middle Earth. I’ve always loved the fact that Tolkien was on the editorial board of Doubleday’s Jerusalem Bible (1966). I recall reading that he was literate in Hittite, Aramaic, Akkadian, and Ugaritic, not to mention of course ancient Greek and biblical Hebrew.

In my naivete, it hadn’t occurred to me there are still written languages that remain terra incognita to classicists; the indecipherability of the Voynich manuscript seems to me the bibliographic analogue of anthropologists finding themselves unable to communicate with a hitherto unknown tribe they’ve discovered in the Amazon. Sadly, when tribes like that are happened upon they often suffer due to the sudden exposure and attention. Well, in the controlled humidity of the Beinecke I’m sure the Voynich ms. won’t be contracting the equivalent of a devastating disease, with crumbled and foxed pages, but exquisite preservation alone hasn’t brought the librarians and archivists any closer to riddling out the mysteries of the codex.

Toboggan Days with Noah

February 28, 2014/0 Comments/in Nature, Animals, Adventure, Personal History, Family, Friends, Education, Travels /by Philip Turner

Photo: 1970, on a toboggan as my black Lab Noah looks on http://t.co/QUovtpU2aO

— Philip Turner (@philipsturner) February 26, 2014

The above picture with my dog Noah patiently waiting for me as I prepared to slide down a hill was taken during an outing for students of the School on Magnolia, the alternative high school I attended in Cleveland, Ohio in the early 1970s. In those days, my hair was sort of like that of NBA star Anderson Varejao, who plays for the Cleveland Cavaliers. The second picture here was taken by my late brother Joel, in the living room of the home we grew up in, in the suburb of Shaker Heights, a few years after the wintry picture.

Pete Seeger Tribute Night at the Jalopy Tavern

February 25, 2014/0 Comments/in Music, Bands & Radio, Urban Life & New York City /by Philip Turner

As a follow-up to the post below, Celebrating Pete Seeger & Enjoying “Mr Personality”–a Music-filled Weekend in NY, the Pete Seeger tribute turned out to be a fun night. The program, well organized by folksinger Jan Bell, was held at the Jalopy Theatre in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn. The Jalopy, and its next-door tavern, are a combined performance space, instrument store, bar and restaurant. About ten acts peformed Sunday night, playing from a single song to several tunes. Most of the songs were compositions of Seeger’s, or songs the performers believed influenced Pete, or were influenced by him. Proceeds from the sold-out show benefited WhyHunger, a social service organization that is a legacy of the great singer and activist Harry Chapin. $900 was raised to support their important work.

Below are pictures from the show, with captions describing what the artists played. In addition to the musicians pictured here, artists who performed at the tribute included: Tamar Korn, Ernie Vega and Samoa Wilson, Wyndham Baird, Geoff Wylie, and Feral Foster. If you’ve never been to the Jalopy, I recommend you take in some shows there. The venue offers great company in a mellow setting, superb musicians, and very fair admission and food and drink prices. Also, please note that April 18-20, the Brooklyn Folk Festival, organized by Eli Smith (pictured below) will be held at Bell House. I give the Jalopy and the Festival my highest recommendation.

Celebrating Pete Seeger & Enjoying “Mr Personality”–a Music-filled Weekend in NY

February 23, 2014/0 Comments/in Music, Bands & Radio, Urban Life & New York City /by Philip Turner

Good musical weekend unfolding. Tonight Kyle, Ewan, and I are going to a Pete Seeger tribute show at the Jalopy Theatre in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn. We enjoy the music and the community that surrounds the Jalopy, where one of the house bands is the Downhill Strugglers, a group that includes people who will be playing tonight, such as John Cohen, founding member of the New Lost City Ramblers, Eli Smith and Jackson Lynch. Smith is the founder of the Brooklyn Folk Festival, coming up soon on its sixth year April 18-20 at the Bell House. I hope to post some photos and a report later on about tonight’s tribute to Pete Seeger.

We kicked things off on Friday night when Kyle and I went to see rhythm & blues legend Lloyd Price, aka “Mr. Personality.” The hitmaker behind such chart-toppers as the eponymous “Personality” and “Stagger Lee” began his performing career in 1949, as a singer with a band that included Fats Domino on piano. He will turn 81 on March 9. We were guests of our friends Mike Shatzkin and Martha Moran, who also invited two other old friends of theirs. One was Linda Davis, originally from Liverpool, England. She still has a charming accent, if not, she says, as pronounced as it was when she first came to the States in the ’70s. She told us that back in the day she worked as a coat check clerk in dance halls where the local Liverpudlian music scene of the early ’60s unfolded. She saw twin bills with Gerry and the Pacemakers and the Beatles. Imagine! Mike and Martha’s other friend whom we enjoyed meeting was Tracy Young, a magazine writer. Linda and Tracy had also not met each other before then. All the ingredients were assembled for a great evening, thanks to Mike and Martha.

There was, however, a fly, or a flaw, in the soup: The venue stunk. It’s called The Cutting Room, and it should be cut out of the address book of any live-music fan who expects a club to be run to a minimal standard of consideration and courtesy, with fair value for the customer. I won’t even link to it because it really doesn’t deserve your traffic, either the Web kind or walk-in. I will though link to its Yelp page where my friend Mike left his comment which begins “This is the worst-run club in my 47-year history of going out to hear live music in New York City.” None of us will ever go there again. Fortunately, the company was first-rate and it was a special treat hearing the ebullient Lloyd Price, who moves around on stage, singing and performing with tremendous ease. Not only does he make it look easy, he does it all with great good humor. He put on a fun show with an excellent band that was so numerous on stage there were several horn players I never did actually see, given our partial view. Below is a youtube clip of his 1952 hit “Lawdy Miss Clawdy.” Also, more of the photos Kyle and I took from our perch above the stage.

http://youtu.be/nQZVufJfcG0

Judith Butler, Once More a Target of Critics Who Would Silence Her

February 23, 2014/0 Comments/in Personal History, Family, Friends, Education, Travels /by Philip Turner

Readers here may recall I’ve written and shared about literary scholar and contemporary philosopher Judith Butler, a frequent target of criticism by right-wing conservative Jewish commentators, owing to positions of hers such as support for the boycott/divest/sanction (BDS) movement with regard to Israel. Some people in this debate–like Peter Beinart in his book The Crisis of Zionism–support boycotting only those goods that come from the Occupied Territories, not all of Israel. That’s my position, too. I’m not certain where Butler lands on that point–but regardless, unlike her opponents, I fully support her right to freely express herself and be heard, in all realms–political, critical and aesthetic.

All this comes up again because of a new instance of the Jewish establishment trying to banish her voice from the communal conversation. In the current episode, Philip Weiss writes in a blog post headed, “Jewish community commits intellectual suicide before our eyes,” that Butler had been asked to participate in a March 6 discussion of Franz Kafka at NYC’s Jewish Museum, but the invitation was withdrawn, owing to what Weiss believes was ‘pressure from donors.’ Weiss writes, “One critic said, ‘The hosting of [BDS] advocate Judith Butler by The Jewish Museum is a slap in the face to every Jew,’ Richard Allen, head of JCC Watch, told JNS.org.” This, all about a discussion of Kafka, with no direct relevance to Israel.

In the same vein of craven submission to angry types, the museum also recently canceled a panel that was to discuss John Judis’s important new book Genesis: Truman, American Jews, and the Origins of the Arab/Israeli Conflict. Many Jews on the right are nowadays inflamed by discussions like these, and many organizations, whether or not they share the same conservative ideology, succumb to threats and pressure.

This is all kind of personal to me. Judith Butler and I grew up in the same Jewish community in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, where her father, known to all his patients as “Danny,” was a friendly family dentist. He looked after the teeth of all five Turners. He resembled Jack Paar, but nicer looking. Judith’s sister Diane was in my same year in school, where we knew each other. She moved to NY at around the same time I did, as part of a modern dance company, and we continued to see each other in the city from time to time. I occasionally heard from Diane about her sister, Judith, already then a professor, and a rising star in academia. She is an honorable person and a serious scholar. She should not be castigated or exiled for what I know to be an honest expression of belief, arrived at through careful deliberation and the weighing of difficult moral choices. As an example of her thoughtfulness, I submit this transcript of a talk she gave last February at Brooklyn College. It is well worth reading, and all in her own words.

Edward Robb Ellis, Our Most Prolific Diarist, Born Feb 22, 1911, Remembered Today

February 22, 2014/0 Comments/in Books & Writing, Philip Turner's Books & Writing /by Philip Turner

Tweeps-let it be noted that on 2/22/1911 Edward Robb Ellis was born-most prolific diarist in history of US letters- pic.twitter.com/UfQShSXSFg

— Philip Turner (@philipsturner) February 23, 2014

#FridayReads, April 4–A Week for Bookselling & Publishing Memoirs: “Amazonia” by James Marcus & “Stet” by Diane Athill

February 21, 2014/0 Comments/in Books & Writing, Publishing & Bookselling /by Philip Turner

#FridayReads, April 4–AMAZONIA: Five Years at the Epicenter of the Dot.com Juggernaut by Employee #55, James Marcus’s witty and winning memoir of working at Amazon from 1996-2001, which he published with The New Press in 2004. Having earlier this year read and written about Brad Stone’s THE EVERYTHING STORE: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon, which briefly cited Marcus’s book, I also read Marcus’s review of it in Harper’s. I made a point to also read George Packer’s February 2014 New Yorker articles on Amazon, “Cheap Words” and “Amazon and the Perils of Non-Disclosure.” In the latter piece, Packer likens Amazon executives, secure in their Seattle redoubt parceling out only the most limited information about the company, to American officials during the Iraq War confined to Baghdad’s Green Zone who only shared information that suggested the war was going great. I found this analogy quite striking, and suggested, that at least from Packer’s perspective, things may not be going so well for the retail “juggernaut.” Seeing that Marcus was a quoted source for Packer, Marcus’s book has been squarely on my radar for a few months, so I’m glad now to have gotten a copy and begun reading it. It’s immediately enjoyable, with Marcus chronicling the decidedly weird and geeky culture of Amazon and his first meeting with Bezos, when the Amazon founder asked him to “explain a complicated process in as simple a manner as possible.” Humor is sprinkled throughout, as when he begins his new editorial job by writing a 45-word spiel on the seafaring novels of Patrick O’Brian.

I’m also reading STET: An Editor’s Life, Diane Athill’s London publishing memoir spanning the end of WWII 40s to the 90s with Andre Deutsch Ltd. Athill knew and edited many great writers, including Brian Moore and Mordecai Richler for several of their early books. She recounts having also published Philip Roth’s first novel, LETTING GO, which did well enough that they were going to make an offer on his second book, WHEN SHE WAS GOOD. I love the way she presents this embarrassment:

“[We] decided to calculate the advance on precisely what we reckoned the book would sell–which I think was 4,000 copies at the best–and that [offer] was not accepted. As far as I know WHEN SHE WAS GOOD was not a success–but the next novel Philip wrote was PORTNOY’S COMPLAINT.

This space represents a tactful silence.”

These are illuminating and humorous recollections, gossipy but never malicious, coupled with a wise presentation of editing essentials. She’s also a very endearing narrator. I heard a lot of good things about this publishing memoir when it came out in 2000, and bought it on a trip to a Bay Area publishing sales conference back then. I’m glad I’ve finally made time to read it.