Let Your Fingers Do the Tapping

From the Jazz Vault Dept.: How nice to note that 35 years ago, almost to the day, I was enjoying my first live-concert exposure to guitarist Stanley Jordan. He’s still going strong, settling in (as I write this) for three days at the Iridium in Manhattan before he takes his new show “Stanley Plays Jimi” around the country. And that’s Hendrix he’s talking about. Here’s what he did in Troy, NY, in 1987.

                                                                                              

WHEN ARTIE SHAW WALKED OFF THE BANDSTAND in 1938, he was fed up with the hit-seeking audience that wanted to hear only the songs it knew. Guitarist Stanley Jordan’s easygoing manner suggests none of that hotheadedness, but he certainly faced a similarly-minded crowd at the Troy Music Hall Sunday night.

Jordan is a young, extraordinarily gifted player. He knows the standards. His own songs also are impressive. But the star of a Stanley Jordan show is his technique, which he refers to as “tapping.”

It’s a method of playing amplified guitar by striking the string at the point of contact with the fingerboard, so one finger does the work of two. And ten fingers therefore sound like a small combo.

Jordan improvises with a well-honed bop voice; there is a lot of Wes Montgomery in his playing. Three years ago he played as the Las Vegas opening act for Bill Cosby; now, with a top-of-the-charts recording behind him, he is the star.

And that’s a mixed blessing. It puts him in the dilemma of attracting a large audience that responds not to his music, but to his hits.

The Critic Is a Ass

From the Classical Vault Dept.: First, let me note that Max Lifchitz remains, as I write this, a distinguished member of the faculty at SUNY Albany (back when the pieces below were written, the newspaper’s style was to represent it as ASU, for Albany State University). He has done an incredible amount of work bringing music old and new, but especially new, to the public’s ear. Trouble is, critics like yours truly come along with some kind of snob-assed chip on the shoulder, and write snarky crap like the review that follows the interview piece below.

                                                                                

MAX LIFCHITZ IS QUICK TO RECOGNIZE the large amount of chamber music that gets performed in this area.

Max Lifchitz in younger days.

“I think that's good,” he says pleasantly. “But there isn't enough new music on those programs, so for three days I am packing new music into concerts that I hope might put into people’s minds that there is a lot of it worth listening to.”

He is a new associate professor at Albany State University, a composer-performer-conductor who founded a chamber group especially to reinforce that hope.

The North/South Consonance Ensemble comes to ASU for three performances in the Recital Hall of the Performing Arts Center at ASU, beginning at 8 p.m. tomorrow and running at the same time the two successive nights.

“We give five or six programs each year in Manhattan,” he says, “and we also tour the boroughs, New Jersey, and Long Island. This will be our debut in Albany.”

Noting an Increase in Bigamy

Guest Blogger Dept.: Robert Benchley points out that he hasn’t been featured on these e-pages since late last year. Fear not, my friend: there’s always room for you. And here he tackles one of those social problems that just won’t go away.

                                                                                       

EITHER MORE MEN are marrying more wives than ever before, or they are getting more careless about it. During the past week bigamy has crowded baseball out of the papers, and while this may be due in part to the fact that it was a cold, rainy week and little baseball could be played, yet there is a tendency to be noted there somewhere. All those wishing to note a tendency will continue on into the next paragraph.

There is, of course, nothing new in bigamy. Anyone who goes in for it with the idea of originating a new fad which shall be known by his name, like the daguerreotype or potatoes O'Brien, will have to reckon with the priority claims of several hundred generations of historical characters, most of them wearing brown beards. Just why beards and bigamy seem to have gone hand in hand through the ages is a matter for the professional humorists to determine. We certainly haven't got time to do it here.

But the multiple-marriages unearthed during the past week have a certain homey flavor lacking in some of those which have gone before. For instance, the man in New Jersey who had two wives living right with him all of the time in the same apartment. No need for subterfuge here, no deceiving one about the other. It was just a matter of walking back and forth between the dining-room and the study. This is, of course, bigamy under ideal conditions.

Part Expatriate

From the Classical Vault Dept.: Here are liner notes I wrote for a proposed CD release of Bohuslav Martinů’s Violin Sonatas, which would have been released on the Dorian Recordings label had that particular deal gone through. So you’ll have to pull out whatever version you have in your collection in order to listen along with the words below.

                                                                                    

WE ARE ALL EXPATRIATES to some extent. If not cut off from our native soil, we still find it hard to stay connected with our communities. A sense of loss and of alienation is outstripped, we hope, by the excitement of discovery as we make the most of our travels.

You can hear that in these sonatas, written by a man of Moravian descent whose Bohemian childhood took him from a country church to a city orchestra and soon, like a dream, to Paris. Bohuslav Martinů lived there in near poverty, absorbing the mad cris-cross of culture between the wars while avoiding any specific cultural camp.

Thus the Sonata No. 1. Written in 1927, as Martinů was gaining a reputation as a Czech-loyal individualist, it’s jagged, jazzy, hewn with cells of melody that pop in and out of its syncopated propulsion. To the French – to much of Europe – at that time, American jazz was a revelation, examined and celebrated with far more enthusiasm than the so-called serious musicians of its native country could spare.

Symphonic Sax

From the Jazz Vault Dept.: I regret that I was unable to attend the concert described below, but I did see Nick Brignola perform on other occasions, which fully justified his reputation as a major star of the jazz scene, one who just happened to live in the Albany area. (He died in 2002.) Here’s a preview of the kind of fascinating music melding that could happen in the area in 1988.

                                                                                     

“SOMEBODY ASKED ME the other day, ‘Are you playing the Firebird Suite?’” Baritone sax virtuoso Nick Brignola is speaking about his concert this Saturday with the Schenectady Symphony. “I said, ‘No, but I might play Yardbird Suite.’”

An unusual programming move teams the orchestra with a jazz quartet led by the man considered by many to be the leading baritone player in jazz – and Brignola has an equally-high reputation with much of the rest of wind-instrument family as well.

Although Brignola lives in the neighborhood, it’s a lucky treat to find him performing in the area. “I’ll be playing at Justin’s in Albany in February and in March. I’ll also be in Austin and in Baltimore, and I’m doing something with the US Navy Band in Washington DC. So I’m in and out.”

The Schenectady Symphony Orchestra concert takes place at 8 PM at Proctor’s Theatre; music director Charles Schneider will be on the podium.

Brignola is looking forward to working with the symphony: “It’s going to be a nice experience in the sense that we don’t get this chance very often where there’s a meeting between a jazz group and a symphony orchestra, and I’m sure the Schenectady Symphony doesn’t get this chance very often.”

Virtual Dreams

From the Smut Vault Dept.: Alongside those straight-up, technically detailed pieces I wrote for a variety of computer magazines in the early 1990s was my stint as a writer for an array of salacious magazines. This was akin to being a comedian working strip joints: The customers don’t pay attention, but you get a chance to hone your skills. The technical requirements described below are the best part of the piece – how antiquated it seems a mere quarter-century later!

                                                                                          

HOWARD STERN CALLS IT the first good reason for computers to exist. If you enjoy calling 900 numbers, it certainly gives you far more value for your money. If you’re frustrated by the lack of real-time tits on the Internet, this is the alternative. It’s called Virtual Dreams, and you use the same resources that the Internet calls for – personal computer, color monitor, fast modem – to get online.

Jean Harlow wasn't a
Virtual Dreams option

Once you’re there, you get an online date. But she’s not some kind of nerdish frump. You’re face to face with a gorgeous cyberbabe. That is, you see her face, because she’s looking at a camera. And she’s sitting in front of a computer monitor and keyboard. You’ll see her type a greeting to you. She’ll ask your name. She’ll try to get to know you a little.

And she’ll do whatever you want. In fact, she can’t wait to take her clothes off for you. Control yourself. Don’t be like Howard – he didn’t even wait to be introduced before exhorting his virtual date to take off her bra.

Because we prefer to take our time, let’s look at the technical side of Virtual Dreams while our new girlfriend gets comfortable. It’s kind of a one-way videoconferencing system, sending text and full-motion images your way. There’s no trickery here: your date is at the other end of the phone line. Full motion doesn’t mean TV quality motion – computers and modems aren’t that fast yet.

Counter Intelligence

From the Tech Vault Dept.: I can’t find tearsheets for this piece, which I wrote for Computer Life magazine in 1995 or so. This means you’re spared the step-by-step illustrations, which is just as well. This is a completely outdated piece of software put out by a company that, as far as I can tell, no longer exists. And anyway, your kitchen is just fine.

                                                                              

THE CONTROVERSY STARTED SHORTLY before Thanksgiving. “We need a new stove,” my wife declared. We both used to cook professionally and never have been happy with consumer-grade kitchen appliances. “We’ll look for a restaurant stove,” I said. “A used one.”

You don’t want to hear the whole saga. It started with a used stove, sure, for a great price. But it turned out to be fitted for natural gas, as opposed to propane. And my rural town only has propane available. So that would mean a costly upgrade. Still, the upgrade was cheaper than a new stove. Or so I thought, until I saw a nice new one finished with stainless steel that would look terrific in our kitchen-to-be. So we upped the budget a bit, learning as we did so that we’d also need a hood and exhaust system, and the price tag grew.

We got the stove in and it threw everything else out of whack. All the elements of a kitchen work together--a good kitchen is practically organic. But now our traffic patterns were confused. And with six burners to help us cook the extravaganzas we like to prepare, we knew we’d need to up our kitchen to two sinks and three workstations.

Concerted Reality

From the Classical Vault: These anniversaries can be tedious, but I, at least, find it interesting to see what I was doing on this date in a year that is something-divisible-by-five years ago. In this case it’s 35 years, the venue was Union College’s Memorial Chapel, and the performers I reviewed were the Prague String Quartet, an ensemble founded in 1955 by violinist Břetislav Novotný, who had been part of the just-disbanded Prague Quartet. Novotný died in 2019 at the age of 95. I can’t find any reference to current activity by the quartet, so I suspect it, too, is gone.

                                                                                         

IT WORRIES ME THAT THE RECORDING has become a standard by which performing groups are judged, forcing upon them a standard created in the artificial environment of a studio that lacks the excitement of audience interaction.

Another worry is that the recording has lulled the listener into a too-passive mode, allowing the music to drift into the background while some other activity is carried on.

Both worries were supported by Saturday night’s concert by the Prague String Quartet which, with guest pianist Gloria Saarinen, performed at Union College’s Memorial Chapel.

The two big pieces on the program were by Czech composers, certainly the group’s strong area. The Quartet No. 2 by Janáček, subtitled “Intimate Letters,” brought my first worry into play. The ensemble explored the four-movement work with an energy and intensity that made the most of the fragmented moodiness of Janáček’s work. But they did so with enough abandon to result in less-than-perfect playing. Is this a drawback?

Like a Big Pizza Pie

From the Food Vault Dept.: It’s long gone, I’m afraid. Owner Victoria Gelaj sold Pasquale's and moved south, the better to deal with some family issues, as I understand it. Which was a shame: this had become a favorite Albany hangout since my first visit to the place in 2009, described below.

                                                                                           

YOU HAVE YOUR HALLOWE’EN INDULGENCE, I’ll have mine. As my wife and daughter plied the streets of Albany with a passel of costumed friends, a friend and I went in search of good pizza. And did we ever luck out.

The website AllOverAlbany.com voted Pasquale’s pies the best in its 2008 Tournament of Pizza, and the restaurant is again one of the top contenders in this year’s contest – the results of which will be announced as this issue of Metroland hits the streets.

While I can’t weigh in on Pasquale’s from a tournament-style perspective, I can anecdotally laud it for a superior product in a high-competition field. Of course, the general standards aren’t all the highest – there’s plenty of mediocre pizza out there, and even mediocre pizza can be satisfying if it’s late and you’re hungry.

Dogging the Classics

 From the Classical Vault Dept.: One memorable weekend twelve years ago, the Albany Symphony gave a pair of concerts at a spiffy new hall in Troy – or halls, I should say, because the Symphony itself was in the Concert Hall, the smaller Dogs of Desire unit in the Theater. I was impressed enough to beg for more than the usual space for this longish review.

                                                                                   

IT’S POSSIBLE THAT A HALF-CENTURY AGO you could have seen, say, Copland, Bernstein and Schuman at a concert hall during a performance of their music. But back then it was almost unheard of for a major orchestra to put three living American composers on the same bill, never mind in the same room.

James Primosch

Not that we’ve made a whole lot of progress since then, which is why the Albany Symphony Orchestra’s dogged pursuit of new and recent works remains admirable. Friday night’s Dogs of Desire program at EMPAC’s Theater gave us composers Patrick Burke, Ted Hearne, David Mallamud and Todd Reynolds, each with a premiere. Saturday night’s concert at EMPAC’s Concert Hall featured the presence of three of the four represented composers, with a program that included two premieres. That’s an unprecedented amount of new stuff.

ASO conductor David Alan Miller encouraged composer James Primosch to consider a Hudson River theme for his Meet-the-Composer commission. Primosch’s relationship with the orchestra goes back to 1992, when they premiered his “Some Glad Mystery;” for this concert, he drew inspiration from the Hudson River School of painters (Frederic Church. Thomas Cole, et. al.) and wrote a piece titled “Luminism,” a sort of synesthesia – reversing the best-know type – in which color and light inspire music.

Fiddler on the Hoof

From the Classical Vault Dept.: The bane and glory of a performing artist is the incessant touring the job demands. But this has allowed me to see Itzhak Perlman in performance near my home turf several times during his years of travel. Here’s an account of a recital he gave in Schenectady in 2010.

                                                                             

IT’S HARD TO SAY that a performer is at the peak of his career until you see him start to falter, at which time the judgment becomes hindsight. So let’s just say that violinist Itzhak Perlman continues to perform as inspiringly as ever.

Itzhak Perlman and Rohan De Silva
Photo by David Bazemore

Perlman and pianist Rohan De Silva last played Proctor’s in 2004, a concert I’ve reminisced about often enough to seem much more recent. And the program was similar insofar as it featured slightly lesser-known works in the violin-piano repertory.

Beginning with a sonata by Mozart (in A Major, K. 526), which is variously numbered as 14, 15, 18 or 35 depending on whether you count the youthful sonatas and throw out the fragments and/or possibly spurious works. Over the course of writing those works (between 1763 and 1788), Mozart improved the role of the violin from accompanying instrument to full-fledged partner, so by the time he got to this work, a nice balance had been achieved.

Eliza's Mother

Guest Blogger Dept.: Let’s welcome back Barry Pain with the third chapter of his wonderfully droll book Eliza. Chapter one is here, two is here. I don’t wish to put you off by overstating the case, but leave it to you to decide how funny they are. You will, of course, be inclined to swoon with pleasure if you wish to remain my friend.

                                                                                            

I GENERALLY SEND ELIZA to spend a day with her mother early in December, and try to cheer her up a little. I daresay the old lady is very lonely, and appreciates the kindly thought. The return ticket is four-and-two, and Eliza generally buys a few flowers to take with her. That does not leave much change out of five shillings when the day is over, but I don’t grudge the money. Eliza’s mother generally tries to find out, without precisely asking, what we should like for a Christmas present. Eliza does not actually tell her, or even hint it – she would not care to do anything of that sort. But she manages, in a tactful sort of way, to let her know.

"It was true I ran into the horse."
Drawing by Wallace Goldsmith

For instance, the year before last Eliza’s mother happened to say, “I wonder if you know what I am going to give you this Christmas.”

Eliza said, “I can see in your eye, mother, and you sha’n’t do it. It’s much too expensive. If other people can do without silver salt-cellars, I suppose we can.”

Well, we got them; so that was all right. But last year it was more difficult.
 
You see, early in last December I went over my accounts, and I could see that I was short. For one thing, Eliza had had the measles. Then I had bought a bicycle, and though I sold it again, it did not, in that broken state, bring in enough to pay the compensation to the cabman. I was much annoyed about that. It was true I ran into the horse, but it was not my fault that it bolted and went into the lamp-post. As I said, rather sharply, to the man when I paid him, if his horse had been steady the thing would never have happened. He did not know what to answer, and made some silly remark about my not being fit to ride a mangle. Both then and at the time of the accident his language was disrespectful and profane.

Behind the Lines

EDWARD SOREL’S COVER ART for his book Profusely Illustrated pictures him at a drawing board, pen poised in his right hand. In all other respects, as we learn from the narrative’s autobiographical details, he was an unapologetic lefty, committed to progressive causes, often functioning as a contemporary Hogarth or Daumier when he had the right (left) forum at hand.

At 92, Sorel is taking stock, not only of his life and work but also the society amidst which he’s been working. He notes at the outset that he sought to “save a few of my drawings from the oblivion that awaits most protest art and ... magazine illustrations,” and so we have 177 such pieces enshrined here – all the more admirably considering that, as Sorel explains later, the book was put together during a time when coronavirus shutdowns limited his access to library-stored originals, leaving his photographer-son Leo the task of photographing many of them from tearsheets. You’d never know it. The reproductions look terrific.

He also promises to “offer up an explanation for how the United States ended up with a racist thug in the White House. My belief is that it was made possible by the criminal acts committed by the twelve presidents who preceded Trump.” This promise is depressingly fulfilled as we regularly veer from his own well-told tale to incisive White House visits, beginning with Truman’s red-baiting tactics.

Orchestral Harris-ment

From the Classical Vault Dept.: It numbs me sometimes to think that a review such as the one below was crafted 34 years ago. Although my doctor insists it’s merely neuropathy. In any event, here’s a review spotlighting a Roy Harris work I’m eager to hear again.

                                                                                   

THE MOST REPRESENTATIVE FLAVOR of 20th-century American music is in the music of Roy Harris. It may not be a majority representation – there are too many disparate paths to follow. Nor is it a popular representation – anything that could possibly be labelled classical is damned where popularity is concerned. But a merry amalgam of the many voices of this country sparkles through Harris’s work, as his 1940 (but only recently premiered) violin concerto reveals.

Roy Harris

Soloist Gregory Fulkerson did a magnificent job performing it with the Albany Symphony Orchestra on Friday night at theTroy Music Hall, proving Harris to be a quiet champion in the virtuoso tradition. There was no question that the violin was the star, but a benevolent one, happy to share the spotlight with the orchestra. Led by music director Geoffrey Simon, the ASO was a strong and effective partner.

Tinkering with the concerto tradition a little, Harris opens the single-movement work with a languorous melody on the violin, echoed by a plaintive oboe. The several changes of mood are anticipated by the soloist, urging the orchestra into ever-faster dances, until the piece sweeps to a jaunty finale in which the soloist gets to fiddle his heart out, replete with an impressive parade of technical devices that Fulkerson negotiated with ease.

Harris absorbed the folk-song traditions of this country, and, although he could tend toward the mawkish, as in his “Folkaong Symphony,” he captured, when at his his best, the sense of protest and adventure characteristic of that tradition.

Parchment Treats

NORWEGIANS DON’T WAIT for a holiday to put treats on the table. This I know, having grown up with a Norwegian grandmother. So did Isabel Burlingham, although her mormor stayed in Norway. During her many visits, Burlingham learned recipes that she now employs in the delectable offerings she bakes and sells as Parchment, a Troy-based enterprise that offers its comestibles at the ongoing Troy, Saratoga Springs, and Schenectady farmers’ markets, as well as on the shelves of the Honest Weight Food Co-op. Come May, her products will be back in many seasonal markets as well.

Isabel Burlingham in Troy

Burlingham left a career in chemistry to do this, a career that resonates with the science of baking. What drew her to chemistry in the first place? “A desire to understand how things work. I watched Bill Nye the Science Guy when I was really little, and that inspired my love of the magic behind life and the planet. So chemistry was a natural progression for me – especially versus biology or physics. It wasn’t the science or how bodies work. It was, Why is a stone blue? Is it because there’s a mineral in it that is reflecting a blue light? Or is it like a green leaf, absorbing everything but the green color? The chemistry perspective came more naturally to me.”

She worked for over a decade in that career, first in a corporate setting, then with a Saratoga County-based startup company. “I didn’t start my career as a baker until Covid, when the startup laid everyone off so that we could collect unemployment. I’d been unhappy with corporate life, which is why I moved into the startup field. But even then, I was not satisfied.”

Musically United

From the Classical Vault Dept.: Stripling that I was at the time, I remember that there was some excitement in the music press when Ursula Oppens’s recording of “The People United.” came out in 1979, three years after the work premiered at the Kennedy Center in 1976. I bought that record and fell in love with the piece, written by Frederic Rzewski (who died last summer) on a commission from Oppens and as a political gesture as well, something that was always important to him. The piece stands alongside Bach’s Goldbergs and Beethoven’s Diabellis as one of the towering works in the keyboard literature. You can also read my account of seeing Rzewski perform the work in Troy, NY, here.

                                                                                           

WRITTEN IN 1975 for a commission from pianist Ursula Oppens, Frederic Rzewski’s hour-long “The People United Will Never Be Defeated” is one of the most fascinating, monumental works of the 20th century. It explores the sound of the piano with sometimes bizarre results, indulges in oddball time signatures and calls upon the soloist to slam the lid and whistle along.

Yet it’s a defiantly tonal work, paying as much tribute to Bach as it does to Rzewski’s post-Cowell contemporaries. The short, tuneful theme, which shares a chord structure (“changes,” in jazz lingo) with a well-known Paganini variation subject, is followed by six sets of six variations apiece, each set exploring a different concept (rhythm, harmony and more).

But it’s more intricately constructed still, with the sixth variation of each set serving as a summary of the preceding five, and the component variations of the sixth set referring back to each ordinal correspondent.

This puts the work in a structural league with the ’70s output of such writers as John Barth and Gilbert Sorrentino and the seeming non-sequitur style of Donald Barthelme – and, like the work of those authors, Rzewski’s piece is dramatically effective even without a knowledge of its innards.

Honest to Goodness

From the Food Vault Dept.: Albany’s expansive food co-op has been in business for 45 years. Since the time I wrote the piece below, it moved to larger quarters (with easier parking), went through staff and management upheavals, successfully waged some union-busting, and has settled into a corporate-like entity still beloved by many. The pricing and selections reported below have, not surprisingly, changed, and Gustav has long since left the place.

                                                                                   

NO MATTER WHAT ELSE I take away from this place to eat, the picture I always take away is that of Gustav Ericson, factotum of the cheese department, beguiling me – and everyone else who happens to standing nearby – with a taste of something I’ve never before sampled, something pleasingly aromatic and exciting to the palate.

Gustav Ericson, recommending

“Now try it with some of this chutney,” he says, and suddenly I’m in a spicy, more complicated flavor arena, and he knows I’m hooked and cheese and chutney both join my shopping basket.

Thus it was on a recent visit. I cruised the produce aisles, admired the bulk staples, looked longingly upon the hair and skin care products, then made my way past the deli case into the next room. “Have you had a sample yet?” asked Gustav, and who am I to say no?

Ericson has been a protean presence in the region, a pastry chef who spent time in a variety of shops and kitchens before settling in at Honest Weight. “I joined the co-op well before I started working here,” he explains. “I came in as an assistant manager, and seven years ago I became manager of the cheese department. But I have some customers who’ve been following me for about 15 years, buying their bucheron from me every week. I love the co-op, and I love the way of doing business here.”

I’ve Heard That Song Before ...

WHAT DO BEETHOVEN, CHOPIN, Tchaikovsky, Schubert, Haydn, Dvořák, and Grieg have in common? You’ll find their music in vintage jazz recordings by the John Kirby Sextet, an infectiously bouncy little group that also swung its own versions of melodies by such less-known classical composers as Sinding, Toselli, Donizetti, Delibes, and Massenet. These were terrific versions, too. Listen to Evan L. Young’s arrangement of Schubert’s “Serenade” (“Ständchen,” D 957 #4), and marvel at how the song’s heartbreaking quality is maintained against the band’s swinging pulse.

Kirby believed that his sextet was the ideal size to give such pieces a “tasteful treatment,” as he put it, telling downbeat in 1939, “I believe that symphonic pieces can be handled by jazz groups in such a way that serious music lovers won’t throw their hands up in despair.”

But jazz ensembles large and small have been unable to resist the lure of the longhair, and we can enjoy everything from Duke Ellington and His Orchestra playing “The Nutcracker” to Eddie Lang’s solo guitar performance of Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C-Sharp Minor.

That’s because music professionals don’t see rigid lines between different types of music. Strict boundaries have, however, been thrown up by others – especially those who market music to particular demographics, and thus it is that we’re inculcated with the canard that classical music is an elitist pursuit, and that those who pursue it merit scorn.

Silent Night

I'd like to share another of my video collaborations with Ann-Marie Barker Schwartz, this time realizing a project she suggested to honor her late mother. With Maria Riccio Bryce's arrangement of "Silent Night" as the heart of the piece, Florin Vlad and Natalia O'Connor Vlad created a lovely dance sequence, and it was captured by the skilled videographers at Chromoscope Pictures.

Mark Twain’s Christmas Elephant

Guest Blogger Dept.: Mark Twain’s recently published autobiography runs three volumes, or two and a half if you discount the padding at the end of the third book; but it’s in that book that we read the account of the gift of an elephant that he was supposed to receive for Christmas in 1908. He hired Isabel Lyon as his secretary in 1902 as his wife grew too infirm to handle his correspondence. Ralph Ashcroft was a business associate whom Lyon married in 1909.

                                                                                    

TEN DAYS AGO Robert Collier wrote me that he had bought a baby elephant for my Christmas, and would send it as soon as he could secure a car for it and get the temporary loan of a trainer from Barnum and Bailey’s winter-quarters menagerie at Bridgeport. The cunning rascal knew the letter would never get to my hands, but would stop in Miss Lyon’s on the way and be suppressed. The letter would not have disturbed me, for I know Robert, and would have suspected a joke behind it; but it filled Miss Lyon with consternation – she taking it in earnest, just as he had expected she would. She and Ashcroft discussed the impending disaster together, and agreed that it must be kept from me at all costs. That is to say, they resolved to do the suffering and endure the insomnia and save me. They had no doubts about the elephant. They knew quite well that if Robert was inspired to do a kindness for a friend, he would not consider expense, but would buy elephants or any other costly rarity that might seem to him to meet the requirements.

Miss Lyon called up New York on the telephone and got into conversation with Robert. She timidly suggested that we had no way of taking care of an elephant here, it being used to a warm climate and –

“Oh, that’s all right, put him in the garage,” interrupted Robert cheerfully.