What is KlezKamp?

This is the question of the day, after our four days as Kampers. So here goes.

Imagine Interlocken Music Camp, in the woods of northern southern Michigan, near the shore of the lake of that name, with hundreds of campers taking performance and related music theory and culture courses.

Now take that camp, remove it from the Michigan woods and instead put it on a cruise ship.

Now, lower the temperature from about 80 degrees to about 35 degrees.

Now, take the cruise ship and put it in the middle of the mountains of the Hudson River Valley, and turn it into a hotel, which resembles a cruise ship, in that you cannot disembark from it.

Now take the restaurants on the cruise ship and compress them into one restaurant, serving three meals a day, under the supervision of the local kosher authorities.

Now change the music from classical to klezmer, and the language from English to Yiddish.

Now give each camper the opportunity to attend four ninety minutes classes a day, whether they are performance related (instrumentation, voice or dance), culture related (Yiddish literature, or the history of the language, etc.), language related (Yiddish instruction at various levels), or art related (Hebrew/Yiddish calligraphy, papercutting, etc.) along with eating his/her three meals a day (dairy breakfasts and lunches/meat dinners).

Now in the lobby of the hotel, place several artists who are hawking their works, a piano around which there are jam sessions going on most hours of the night or day, and sellers of related books, tapes and cds (along with Kamp tshirts and sweat shirts). And because it is Hanukah, put several tables together on which Kampers can place and light their menorahs.

Every night, schedule an activity (a staff concert, a student concert, productions by Klezkids and by Klezteens, a spoof on the Purim megilla written by a Yiddish poet and produced in Yiddish, a showing of the 1970s movie Hester Street, with a discussion with Joan Micklin Silver, the director.

Add an orthodox morning and evening minion. And create a general feeling of informality and music making, and you get the general idea.

The instructors include some of the most accomplished klezmer players in the country, the instructors include well know authors and university professors.

Picture about 500 or 600 campers, ranging in age from 3 year old toddlers to 93 year old toddlers.

You begin to get the idea.

Vice President Cheney in Kehonkon?

It's a perfect place for his secret location. It is not only remote, but Al Quaida's ability to find it would be vastly limited by their inability to spell it correctly. Al Quaida? Al Keida? Al Qayda?

Still in Kerhonkon

To find out what I am doing here (more or less), go to www.klezkamp.blogspot.com, or www.klezkamp.org.

Back in DC tomorrow night.

I am in Kerhonken, New York (2 cents)

Wanna guess why?

Capote and I would have made quite a team

He said that he had 94% recall of any conversation he heard (this is how he wrote his book without taking notes).

I have 6% recall.

Together, we'd have been perfect.

Capote [17 cents]

"Capote" may be the darkest movie I have ever seen. Also, one of the best. Based on Gerald Clarke's biography of Capote, it tells of the writing of "In Cold Blood", the story of the murder of a Kansas family of four in 1959, and the two men arrested for, convicted of, and executed for the killings. Capote spent almost five years on the story, which was the subject of his acclaimed and best selling book.

Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Capote extraordinarily, and Caroline Keener plays Harper Lee, his friend and sometime assistant, who wrote "To Kill a Mockingbird" when some of her friends did not even know she wrote.

Of the two murderers, Perry is the more central character. Truman and Perry, both products of terrible homes, virtually abandoned to the world As Capote says, it is like we were the raised in the same house, only I went out the front door and he went out the back. This is obviously one of the reasons for their drawing so close to each other, and one of the reasons that Capote suffered a virtual nervous breakdown and never wrote another book.

The movie is in color, but its memory is in black and white. It is slow moving, it is fascinating, and boy, does it make you think.

Do I Hate Bagpipes

more than anyone else in the world?

Could be.

All the News That's Fit to Print

1. War continues in Iraq: Middle East stability nowhere in sight.

2. Global warming threatens civilization as we know it.

3. United States President believes anything he wants to do is legal and authorized by the war powers resolution.

4. Baby penguin missing in London.

Or, do I have the order of importance wrong?

At the National Gallery

By the way, the website for the National Gallery of Art is www.nga.gov. If you go to www.nationalgallery.org, you wind up at the National Gallery of Jordan!

There are a number of exhibits at the National Gallery, and I saw four of them briefly today--the ones in the West Building. None are bad, but if you don't see them, you probably won't miss them.

Briefly, I saw:

The exhibit of Audubon bird prints (handcolored lithographs). They are very striking, but you have seen them before, if only in book reproductions. So, they are not "new". The exhibit is there through March and I may go back and look again, with more care. You can't say anything negative about Audubon; it's just that I have been exposed to them for so long.

The exhibit of Peter Claesz still lives. Claesz lived in Holland in the 17th century and was one of the pre-eminent still life painters, who brought more realism into his paintings than did his predecessors. The exibit closes on December 31, and was the primary reason for my visit today. Still lives have never been very attractive to me and, as still lives go, these seemed pretty ordinary. I expect this is why I had never heard of Claesz before (or at least don't remember hearing of him). And this is the first exhibit of his work in this country, ever. There are 25 tabletops on display. As far as food in Holland goes, the baked goods and the cheeses don't look like they have changed a bit. The meat pies are different (peacock, mincemeat and pheasant are shown), and highly decorative. The olives and nuts look like our olives and nuts. But the fruit is not quite the same, and my guess is that there has been more variation in apples, pears and grapes than in other types of food.

There is an exhibit of 19th century engravings and acquitints by Felix Buhot. He was a perfectionist, who kept altering the plates as additional strikes were made, so there is a lot of almost-duplication in the exhibit. His scenes of urban Paris and the rural French coast are very interesting, but I can't say that the prints themselves are particularly appealing. You have to see this one for yourself and decide. For some, this may be just the ticket. It is there through February 20.

Finally, there is a small exhibit of photography by Nicholas Nixon called "The Brown Sisters". He is married to one of them and has taken pictures of the four sisters, in the same order left to right, every year since 1975. Then, they were in their twenties; now their fifties, and you can see how they age not only year to year (sometimes imperceptible), but over 5, 15 or even 30 years. I found it moderately interesting. But I wouldn't go see it again.

There is a Winslow Homer exhibit and an exhibit of drawings from the Getty Museum that I did not have an opportunity to see. Next time.

You are what you eat.

From today's Jerusalem Post's article on Ariel Sharon's minor stroke:

"A day before suffering the stroke, Sharon reportedly dined on hamburgers, steak in nchimichurri sauce, lamb chops, shish kabab and an array of salads... For dessert, Sharon had double servings of chocolate cake."

Is Kent Conrad My Favorite Senator?

I had the absolute pleasure last night of hearing his remarks on the Senate Floor (interrupted a number of times by Paul Sarbanes, who also said all the right things, and acted as a foil for Conrad) on the administration's proposed budget reconciliation legislation (styled deficit reduction, while it expands the deficit). I am waiting to see if Conrad's statements will appear on his website; they will be worth re-reading.

The question is: should I move to North Dakota so I can vote for him? I know they need Democrats out there? And I hear the weather is nice, and surf very gentle.

Another Side to Novgorod

In addition to the exhibit described in the previous posting, the comment book at the museum was almost worth the price of admission.

Other than a number of long and (I am sure) very thoughtful comments in Russian, there were such comments as:

This was a really great exhibit and besides, today is my birthday (that by a sixth grader)

December 7, 1941, a day that will live in infamy.

This exhibit proves that Christ as risen.

I am an Isralite of the tribe of Juda and I love Jesus.

Novgorod (3 cents)

The exhibit at the Walters in Baltimore on artifacts (more than just icons) from Novgorod is very interesting. Novgorod is an old, old city in the heart of Russia that has always been exceedingly Russian. It has existed since at least about 800 C.E., and because of the nature of the soil and ground, and the wood construction which has always been predominant, it provides fertile ground for archeologists and anthropoligists, who have identified twelve different layers of the city, one on top of the other. Excavations are continuing, and will continue for a long time, bringing up items that demonstrate some of the basic characteristics of Russian life for over a millenium.

The Walters exhibit is sponsored by the museum, as well as by museums in Moscow and Novgorod, so it presents one of the only opportunities to see some of the many items on display. The icons and other religious pictures on wood (actually on canvas on treated rough wood, with a varnish for protection) are striking, with their bright colored dyes, all made (of course) from natural sources (plants and rocks). There is also jewelry and other articles of adornment, ceramics and metal cookery, coins, books and writings on wood and parchment, toys, riding aides and so forth. The signage is excellent, both for its content and its placement. There are also objects (particularly cloth fragments) that demonstrate that Novgorod was a major trade center on routes to the west, to the north, and to the south (Constantinople) from which Christianity (of the eastern orthodox variety) arrived at any early date.

Photos and models of cathedrals and reminders that this has always been a cold and muddy place complete the picture. It is there until sometime in February and worthy the drive. It is too bad that the book created for the exhibit is hardback, $65, and not that attractive at that.

Campbell Brown and Colonial Lane

Campbell Brown is the accomplished and attractive NBC Today Show weekend host (and weekday sometime substitute). The only other thing I knew about her is that she had an interesting first name.

So, much to my surprise, in looking a the most recent quarterly alumni magazine of Ladue High School, I see reference to Campbell Brown, NBC personality and daughter of Ladue graduate Jim Brown. This particular Jim Brown (I assume this is the right one, based on his graduation year) was a year or two older than me, and lived about 12 houses away on Colonial Lane. We were not friends, and during high school probably had nothing really to do with each other, but were part of the same group that spent their summer evenings on bicycles through the neighborhood in junior high school years.

At any rate, it got me thinking that there were a lot of kids on Colonial Lane. Some stayed there until I left after high school graduation, but others moved away earlier, to be replaced by families with kids much too young for me to pay attention to (not being a pedophile).

And, I don't know what happened to (virtually) any of them. So, here are the names of those I remember. Your job is to locate them.

John Vencill (saw him a few years ago; lived in Atlanta working for some aircraft company)
Anne Richardson (saw her a few years ago; retired in North Carolina playing golf)
Cindy Richardson
Marsha Steinberg
Nancy Laba
Jody Laba
Barbara McCracken
Dick Elliott
Brian Zingsheim
Steve Kunkel
Barbara Kunkel
Ann Braznell
Joann Larsen
Lanny Jones

Some of them may not remember me. They've been gone a long, long time. But I think I have the names right.

The Worst Play in the History of American Theater

We saw last night what is either the worst play in American theater history, or perhaps one that is tied for last. "The Beautiful Child" is its name, and it played at a small black box theater near the new Washington convention center. We went because the daughter of a friend of my wife's was involved in its production.

The staging was fine. The acting ranged from OK to abominable. And the text is horrific, generally involving a tragic spoof (if there wasn't such a genre before, this is it!) on a pedophile school teacher who confesses to his parents his love for an 8 year old student (with whom he has developed a physical relationship) and their decision to save him by hiding him out, but also to cut out his eyes so he can never see another child. Meanwhile, his parents are engaged in a 24-7 spat, his father has impregnated his secretary, and a deus ex machina (as opposed to deus sax machina--see recent posting) psychiatrist (who is sometimes called a psychologist) hangs around talking about her own problems.

The play was compounded by our return home, and happened to turn on the Dateline show about the MSNBC sting in Fairfax County to catch real pedophiles, who had met fake 13 year olds on on-line chats, and arranged to meet the kids when they were "home alone". No spoof here. Pure tragedy.

Eli Evans Again

In speaking about his interviews with Jews in small towns, Evans said that he asked one man why his grandfather settled in this particular place. He said he was told that the man's grandfather was moving west, and stopped there because his horse died.

In a review yesterday in the New York Times of a new book which chronicles the life of several families affected by the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, the author was quoting as saying that one of the families he was following was living in a small town because, as the family was moving west, their horse died.

If I had only heard Evans, I would have believed him. If I had only read the Dust Bowl history, I would have believed it. But now it reminds me of the story told by a law school professor, who said: If you are listening to a clock strike the hour and it strikes 13, you not only disbelieve the 13th chime, but all that came before.

But, if you are ever asked by someone how your family got to your home town, one thing is clear. You can't beat a dead horse.

More Morning Thoughts

I obviously hit the Post button too soon.

But it goes with my first morning thought. Au Bon Pain, on L Street, has several thermoses of coffee from which its customers pour their own cups. OK, so far, so good. But Au Bon Pain, on L Street, changes the order and placement of the thermoses from day to day. Sometimes, the one closest to the door is Cafe Roast, sometimes Hazelnut, etc. There should be a law against this, don't you think? The whole purpose of getting coffee is to enable you to read signs and process what you read. You cannot be expected to this first thing in the morning.

One other thing. An article I saw this morning on CNN's website talked about an explosion in Russia. It was quoting a source from what may be the world's most difficult to pronounce word (other than those without vowels and with Slavic consonent order):
Rosenergoatom. Want to tell me how you think you say it?

Morning Thoughts (16 cents)

Sax, Sax, Sax (1 cent)

This week's Tuesday concert at Grace Episcopal Church was fascinating. A saxophonist (Noah Getz) with a piano accompanist (Matthew van Hoose), both Levine School faculty members, among other things.

The pieces were all 20th century (not that the sax is too much older than that). The pieces were all in teh nature of tone poems, meant to be evocative of particular settings or events. Briefly:

"Holy Roller" by Libby Larsen was, to me, just noise, with no redeeming qualities. I did not understand it at all, and saw no relationship between the music (very, very abstract - a squeak here, and a sqawk there) and the title. The program notes says it was based on three year revival meeting in Los Angeles, 1906 to 1909. Of course, I was not there.

"Wings" by Joan Tower was terrific and very saxophony. You could just imagine a hummingbirds wings as the entire piece was played with rapid flutters (di,dah; di, dah; di,dah; etc., very very fast).

"Sonata: Deus sax machina" by Gregory Wanamaker was comic classical music at its best. Imagine it: the first part basically a Rube Goldberg machine put to music, the second part called 'Refrigerator' a slow modern piece with what appear to be random "slap-tonguing" (so says the program) meant to represent ice falling from the ice maker; the third section just good twentieth century modern music, non-melodic and highly rythmic.

Finaly, "Tableux de Provence" by Paule Maurice, six short representations of the south of France, not quite as abstract, almost (if not actually) as much jazz and classical, with a strong taste of Gershwin-like urban chaos.

Next week is the Christmas concert, which I will skip.

Eli Evans and the Jews of the South (24 cents)

Author Eli Evans spoke on the Jews of the South at the DC JCC last night, as part of the Nextbook series, and I have to say I was disappointed. Evans has written a number of books abouth Jews in southern communities, as well as a biography of Judah Benjamin, the first Jewish U.S. Senator and the Confederacy's Secretary of State. He does a lot of lecturing around the country. I had great hopes.

But his talk was primarily anecdotal, stories about his grandfather, his father, his brother, and people he has met along the way, and while they were sometimes amusing and moderately interesting, I don't think that they imparted much in the way of new knowledge. And when speaking of broader trends in today's south and with regard to its Jewish community, he was, I thought, fairly hackneyed, and did not demonstrate any significant depth in his thinking.

Not that the evening was a waste; it was just disappointing.

He did bring out some points which resonated, however. He has not lived in the south since he left Yale Law School 42 years ago, although he has devoted much of that time to his subject, and is obviously an expert in this field. When his son was born in New York City, he carried a bag of North Carolina soil into the delivery room, so his son would not be all Yankee. In fact, his son chose to go to UNC, leading his wife (she from Alabama; he from North Carolina) to suggest that the bag must have worked. Evans says that, wherever he lives or goes, he always carries his southern upbringing with him, and he believes that to be unique.

I am not sure how unique that is. As a native of St. Louis, who has lived in Washington DC for over 35 years, I still consider myself a St. Louisan, and consider that my world view was set by my upbringing in the St. Louis Jewish community. This is no different from the way Evans appears to feel. St. Louis is, to some people, the South, and to others, an eastern outpost in the midwest, and to still others, the heartland of the country. I don't know what it is, but it has (or had) its own distinctive personality and social structure. I consider my daughters, who were born in and still live in Washington, D.C., to be from St. Louis, too. And, I was very surprised once, when I said this out loud, that one of them looked at my like I was crazy, and said to me "what did you say?" But I know the truth, even if she did not recognize it.

One of my favorite author (most of the time) is Calvin Trillin, who writes in the New Yorker and is a product of the Kansas City Jewish community. In his "Letters from my Father" (I think that is the name), an extraordinary book, I thought, he tells of raising his daughters in Greenwich Village, but wanting them to in fact be as if they were raised in Kansas City. They too thought he was a little nuts, but I know exactly what he means.

Fateless

Fateless is the name of a semi-autobiographical novel by Hungarian-Jewish writer Imre Kertesz, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2002, in large part on the basis of this book. It is also the name of a movie, produced in Hungarian in Hungary, scheduled to be released in the United States in January. The movie has been playing in Hungary to large audiences since February of this year, and has been shown at several film festivals, including the Washington Jewish Film Festival, where it was screened on Sunday night.

The story is of a 14 year old boy in Budapest in 1944, who is rounded up off a bus with a number of other Jewish men and shipped to Auschwitz. Told to say, when asked, that he is 16 (to be old enough for a work detail), he does, and winds up on work details at Buchenwald and other, smaller work camps. He is in these camps for over a year, holding himself together under obviously horrendous conditions, until he develops a severe knee infection that leaves him unable to stand, much less walk. By some chance event (which the real Kertesz still cannot explain), rather than being shot, he is carried to the Buchenwald hospital, where he is well cared for in a bed with a blanket and clean sheets, and where he gets real food. He is there a short time, when the camp is liberated. He chooses to go back to Budapest (now under Soviet control), and finds himself fairly alone (his father has been killed; his mother apparently survived, but he does not have a reunion with her during the film), wandering the streets, wondering what his future will bring. He is still in his camp clothes, he has no money, he feels an outsider in the city of his childhood, he even longs for the regularity and comeradery of the German work camps.

It is a harsh picture (although one wonders if the concentration camp scenes are all harsh enough). The director, Lajos Koltai, was in town and gave a very nice introduction to the film and its creation. As he said, when he finished his introduction: "The one thing I cannot say here is, 'sit back and enjoy the film. This is not a film to enjoy.'" The young actor who plays the lead, Marcell Nagy, is excellent in his first film role. The cast is all Hungarian. The musical score, by Italian composer Ennio Morricone, is haunting.

It will be very interesting to see the American public's reaction.

Are You a Man or a Mouse?

That is the question being asked to those lucky mice whose brains are being injected with embryonic human brain cells.

This may be great science, but is is clearly news of the weird.

They say that it will be great for research. I say: Will Mickey Mouse become a reality? And if so, was it really Walt Disney pulling the strings of intelligent design? When he wakes from his frozen stupor, he will be one surprised guy.

Schwarzenegger and Clemency

The issue, to me, is not this particular individual, but the death penalty itself. Perhaps the reaction in California will be strong enough for the state to change its policy.

Tookie Williams is a very unsympathetic guy, having founded a deadly gang and participated in several murders. I am not sure that one can reform sufficiently from that to be qualified for a particularized "mercy" clemency and there were no allegations that I know about that would lead one to give clemency on the basis of legal insufficiency in connnection with the conviction.

So, the result is not surprising.

We will see what happens.

Another Direct Quote from the Post

"[Pakistan's] Supreme Court has extended a ban on making, selling and flying kites that it imposed two months ago after ruling that the sport had become increasingly deadly...."

Richard Pryor, 1940 - 2005

Talented guy. Very active. But....

1970's, charged with failing to pay federal income taxes for four years
1970's, convicted of marijuana possession
1978, heart attack
1978, charged with firing a .357 magnum (that's a gun, I believe) at his wife's ear (he missed?)
1980, set himself on fire while freebasing cocaine
1986, diagnosed with multiple sclerosis

Married and divorced six times (twice to the same woman: times 5 and 6)

How did he live as long as he did?

Christmas vs Holidays: the question of the year

Not that I can understand why the religious right is so upset about the lack of Christmas in advertisements that they want to boycott those stores whose ads say "happy holidays", but aren't these the same guys who were complaining that all of the commercialism was taking Christ out of Christmas??? You just can't please some people.

I did look at the first section of today's Washington Post. There are 28 pages in the section, and 59 ads (yes, I was surprised the number was that low). Only one ad, on page A27, advertises a Christmas sale. Creative Playthings of Gaithersburg and Chantilly. And, the sale ends December 13.

From Today's Washington Post

And I quote:

"The man accused of killing the American nun and rain forest defender Dorothy Stang told a jury (in Belem, Brazil) Friday that he acted in self-defense after mistaking her Bible for a gun".

End quote.

Presumably

I used the word 'presumably' three times in close proximity in my most recent posting. Presumably, this is too much.


Answer: Dr. Livingston, I Presume.

Question: And what is your full name, Dr. Presume?

Guantanamo: Good Radio?

"Guantanamo", at the Studio Theater in Washington, would make good radio. That is because there is no action on the stage. The characters are either sitting or standing in place. There is no direct dialogue. They are all talking to the audience, either directly as if one-on-one, or directly as if making a public speech, or indirectly by mouthing the words of a letter they had written to a family member. There is no reason to have your eyes open, unless it is to distinguish the characters one from the other, but this could be done by other means, as simply having a radio announcer state their name in an undertone before each speech.

That is not completely a criticism. The play is about inactivity, the inactivity (or inability to take action) of "enemy combatants" detained at Guantanamo, and the inactivity (or inability to take effective action) of their family members or attorneys. So, the lack of action on the stage is appropriate.

The story is about U.K. citizens, Moslems all, detained at Guantanamo, and focuses on the life stories of five of them, presumably all innocent of whatever they could be charged as having done (in fact, they were not charged specifically of anything). The words are taken from official documents, presumably, and organized by the two playwrights, on British, one South African, into a two hour, two act play. It premiered in London where it played for over a year.

The purpose of the play presumably is to show how a democracy like the United States (and its ally Britain) could fail abysmally in protecting human rights, and innocent people can be caught in a terrible situation by happenstance. It therefore both describes the forest and the trees.

The problem (in addition to a fair amount of wordiness) is that it is impossible to grasp truth regarding these individuals one way or another. There is no way you can believe, or disbelieve, the stories you hear. Also, there is nothing "dramatic" about it: you know exactly where it is going from the beginning. It is a manufactured documentary play.

The acting was very strong, and most of the audience stayed awake during the full production (except for one elderly man who slept through it all leaning forward on his cane, and who was unfortunately in the first row, no more than three feet from one of the lead actors).

It is also hard to judge the political goals of the authors of this very political play. It may be more than your typical American liberal type opposition to the war. One of the authors, Gillian Slovo, was the daughter of Joe Slovo, the former head of the South African Communist Party and the only white member of the executive committee of Nelson Mandela's ANC in opposition to the apartheid government of the U. of S.A. The other playwright, according to her mini-bio in the program heads a Palestinian rights organization.

From the Sublime to the Ridiculous

Tuesday, at lunch, I went to back to Grace Episcopal Church, for their weekly music program, this one featuring the Washington Bach Consort. The program was very enjoyable - a lengthy organ solo, followed by a melodic contata that I did not recognize, "Es ist dir gesagt, Mensch, was gut ist".

What surprised me was the size of the audience. When I went to the piano solo last week, I would guess that there were between 100 and 150 people there, which I thought was a respectable group. Yesterday, the church was filled with what I estimate to be 500-600 people. I was led to the balcony, coming in a little late, which had about 150 sitting (or standing) there.

The Consort had 11 singers, and 11 instrumentalists, plus the conductor, J. Reilly Lewis. I believe that it performs with more musicians in some of its other venues.

That evening, we went to the (formerly British) Embassy Players' winter panto, "Babes in the Woods", featuring Michelle as a very pretty Maid Marion. Slapstick comedy all the way, it was ridiculous in the best of senses, just as it set out to be. It plays all this week at the Kensington Armory, through Sunday matinee.

Memoirs

I have just finished reading two books, each of which are, in their own ways, memoirs. They are very different from each other.

The first was Richard Halliburton's "The Glorious Adventure", published in 1927, being the story of the young post-college Halliburton determining to follow the route of Odysseus, starting and ending in Ithaca. A student of the classics, Halliburton travels with few possessions, but for his many translations of "The Odyssey", all annotated. His style is breezy and appealing, as he visits some very primitive locals (primitive compared to how they are in 2005), in Greece, Italy, Turkey and North Africa. He starts with a friend, who needs to cut his trip short, but finds others (male and female, old and young) as he wends his way from improbable adventure to adventure.

It is hard to tell what is the truth, and what is exaggeration. But exaggeration there must be, as even Halliburton the narrator implies in his conversation with Calypso (real name: Fifi. Age: about 65) near the end of the book: "At twenty six, I hadn't an especially crimson record to confess. However I wasn't going to disappoint her by admitting it. Fifi never listened to a more profligate autobiography than the one I made up and related to her on the porch of Calypso's cave. Of course she was far too sophisticated to believe me entirely."

Very different is a much newer book, "A Walk Toward Oregon", published when the author, Alvin M. Josephy, Jr. was 85. (He died last year at 89.)

My guess is that Josephy was planning on a multi-volume memoir, but that time caught him short. His first 40 years take up, perhaps, 80% of the book, and his many accomplishments of the last half are handled much more matter-of-factly. What makes the first part of the book so good is that, in addition, to detailing his life to you, he paints a very clear portrait of the United States in the period 1920 through 1960. His style of writing is, perhaps not as breezy as Halliburton's, but equally appealing and accomplished.

Josephy was a man of many accomplishments. A long time editor of Time Magazine of the American Heritage, a New York Herald Tribune reporter, and the author of many volumes on the history of American Indians, Josephy, born in 1915, started out with a life of privilege (his mother was a Knopf of the publishing family), but his father's poultry business fell apart in the Depression, forcing him to leave Harvard after his second year, never to return. For a while, he lived in Hollywood, working with an uncle, who was an MGM screenwriter. For a while, he was down and out. He traveled to and from California; he went on a long road trip with a friend to Mexico. He interviewed Trotsky there. He became active in liberal Democratic politics.

He tells the story of privilege, of poverty, of ethnicity, and of history. And he tells it remarkably well. (Even the final few chapters, where everything seems so rushed, are fascinating; the difference here is that they primarily tell the Josephy story, while the earlier book tells the story of an entire country.)

And, as Halliburton seems prone to exaggeration as poetic license, you feel that Josephy is staying very close to the truth. His first marriage fell apart, and he does not tell that story: "..seemed too personal and melodramatic to pour it all out in a book for others to read about". That quote is from page 230.

On the same page, he introduces the woman to whom he will be married for the rest of his life (almost 60 years). She was probably one of the reasons that his first marriage disintegrated, although he obviously does not want to say so. Yet, he cannot tell a lie. He does not say that he met Betty (that's her name) after his marriage to Roz ended. He says: ".....at about the same time as the end of my marriage, some friends introduced me to......."

For this reason, I conclude that Josephy's book, in addition to being enjoyable and very interesting, is completely honest.

Act of God and OJ

Looking out this morning after the season's first measurable snowfall, you can see white covering the lawns and the branches of the trees. Very nice. But the streets stayed clear of snow and even the walkway to the driveway was basically clear, with only small patches of snow here and there.

Why was it, therefore, that the two cars in the driveway were totally covered (like top to bottom, side to side, front to back) by about four inches of packed snow on top of about a quarter of an inch of ice?

You can look at it in one of two ways, each starting from the basic premise, which I think that I learned I law school, that any natural tragedy or any inclement weather is an "act of God". OK, I will accept that for now.

If so, would former Israeli Sephardic chief rabbi Ovidiah Joseph (hereinafter called "OJ") conclude that God put four inches of snow on both cards as a punishment, if not for me, for the reincarnated souls of dead Jews that I carry around (after all, this is what he said about Holocaust victims), or perhaps as a punishment from me because I don't spend all my time studying Torah (after all, this is what he said about Katrina victims)?

Or, looking at the more positive side of things, is it possible that God put 90% of the snow that fell around our house on our cars because he wanted to be certain that I got sufficient upper body exercise this morning?

OJ?

Maybe It Will be Better (2 cents)

I was writing a very nice review about Alvin Josephy's "A Walk Toward Oregon", when everything went kaputt.

I bought a new computer today. An Apple or a Mac or something like that. I will try to get it hooked up soon. Maybe it will be better.

George Catlin at the Renwick

Several hundred Indian and related paintings by George Catlin are in the upper gallery at the Renwick. All are part of the Smithsonian collection.

Catlin painting Indian scenes from 1828-1848. His catalog shows that he made over 600 paintings during this time period. Each is numbered and described in an 1848 catalog, that the Smithsonian has reproduced for this exhibit.

His Indian portraits are of obvious interest, as are his scenes of buffalo hunting, Indian dances and Indian villages. Even one of his few non-Indian paintings, that of the St. Louis waterfront painted from across the river in Illinois is of interest. His notes say that at the time of this painting, in the early 1830s, St. Louis had 25,000 residents. It looks like quite a big city. No high-rises, of course, and not even the "old" court house, but it stretched for quite a way on the river. About a dozen large river boats are also in evidence.

But, having said all of this, the fact of the matter is that these paintings are of historic value only; they are not works of art. Catlin could not draw well (of course, he could draw better than I can, but not well), and has no concept of depth. It is as if these would fit into a category of "naive" or "primitif" art. That surprised me.

What do they have that we don't? (6 cents)

Again, from today's Wall Street Journal:

"Mexico's [President] Fox basked in near-record approval ratings as polls found voters strongly approved handling of Hurricane Stan and Wilma relief efforts."

Take that, FEMA!

Not Possible (2 cents)

The Wall Street Journal today, in an article about luxury automobiles, says that Rolls Royce is now offering purchaser their choice of 45,000 different shades of paint.

There goes the credibility of that paper.