Titles, Inc.

A Funny Thing Happened

Last night Larry Gelbart kissed me. 

"Who is he?" you ask.   Who, indeed.  He wrote The Sid Caesar show, Mash, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Tootsie (which was nominated for an Oscar.  Gelbart said the two big contenders that year were a man in a diaper and a man in a dress.  The diaper* won. Gelbart told us he once said, I don't like working with anyone smaller than the Oscar.  When he ran into Dustin Hoffman later, Dustin told him, I'm glad the only thing you found fault with was my height.)                           *Ben Kingsley as Mahatma Gandhi.

He told the audience these stories after the Sunday night preview performance of this play he wrote with Craig Wright called "Better Late".  It features two of my favorite theater actors, Mike Nussbaum and John Mahoney.  I considered us lucky to get two seats at the last moment until I saw where they were.  Picture a horseshoe shaped auditorium, seats wrapped around the stage.  We were at the tip of the horseshoe lined up with the absolute back of the stage which projected way forward.  We saw the backs of the actors, sometimes a profile, or nothing, as the character was blocked by the fellow at his side.

I couldn't hear a word.  Oh, an occasional fragment, but since it was out of context I didn't laugh along with the audience.  As a pantomime the play did not hold up.  I can hardly wait to read the reviews.  If it's great, I will go again and sit front and center.

In the lobby before the performance, Art recognized Dick Christiansen, Chicago's finest critic, now  critic-at-large in his retirement.  We went up to say Hello and were introduced to the large smiley man next to him.  Larry Gelbart.  Wow.  We all chatted, so exciting. 

It had been advertised that Larry Gelbart was to come on stage and engage with the audience after the show, which was why we got tix for that performance.   When the play ended, we watched avidly as some people put on their coats to leave, and rushed to two vacated seats in the first row, slightly off center, and settled in to watch Christiansen lead the discussion.

Dick Christiansen was a great interviewer.  Instead of reviewing the play, he asked questions of Gelbart's personal history and his work. This prompted charming, often riotously funny anecdotes.  Gelbart grew up in Chicago.  His father was a barber.  They moved to LA where his father was a celebrity barber to the stars.  He mentioned this irony - his dad was the barber for Jack Ruby and JFK.

He started writing comedy when he was in High School.  He said it's been like High School ever since, without the homework.

Gelbart wrote the "Oh God" movie. (Was that the name?)  He wanted Mel Brooks to play God, but Mel turned it down, saying he didn't want the demotion.  They got George Burns instead. It was easy for George, because George is God. 

Sid Caesar was a lovely man, easy to work with.  He often didn't get the satire, or whom he was satirizing, but he trusted the writers and didn't question the work. He could do whatever was required. Sid told Gelbart this story.  Sid was shaving, his little girl watching.  "Daddy, what's your last name?"  "Caesar, just like yours."  "What's your first name?"  "Mom calls me Sidney.  My friends call me Sid."  She stares at him. "  "You're Sid Caesar?"

I laughed, and howled, and screeched for the half hour they chatted on the stage.  As they left the stage, they had to pass us, so they both said Goodbye, and as I shook Larry's hand, I said, "I loved it." .

He hugged me, and gave me a big kiss.  Sigh.

---Florence

You Can't Even Donate Them

She hauled a huge canvas shopping bag with books into the store.  I told her, "I can look at them here," stopping her near the door and bringing over the round step stool for that cumbersome thing, saving her some steps.  Out came the sorriest books.  It was an offering I've seen too often.  Books in shabby covers, no dust jackets, faded, damp stained, torn.  But even if pristine, they would have no value because they were by authors you might have heard of but probably not. 

I'm so kind.  I don't say, "Take your junk, garbage, trash out of here."  Instead I explain that when someone buys a book, they want a fresh clean copy, that when someone comes to my store they are looking for a very special book. 

She plays her trump card,  "These are all first editions.  They all say first edition," in her Gotcha attitude.  But she doesn't get it when I explain that every book, every single book ever made was a first edition, the first time around. 

By rote now I say, "It has to be by an author who is prominent, the book has to be important, it has to be the nicest copy, it has to have a crisp dust jacket."  We are taking for granted that it is a first edition we are even discussing.

And why do you think a person will pay a big price for such a book?  Because most of the books that come into the store are Used Books and worse.  They are brought in by people who listen in awe to the marvelous fairy tales on TV about great-uncle's one good book, or read in the papers about Dumpster Diving and finding a treasure.  You see it and read about it because it is a rare event and newsworthy.  The other books were thrown out because they were dead. 

In the future when we are all reading our books on electronic devises, we will not be troubled by books that are obsolete and best forgotten.  We will just hit Delete.

---Florence

Sing For Your Supper

Is this funny? Or sad? 

At a popular hamburger hot-spot restaurant in the city (Chicago), my husband reported the following: 

Apparently the crowd is entertained by singing waiters periodically during the day.  The counter Art sat at for a quick hamburger had an extension abutting it for the performers.  While he was waiting, three young men around 20 years old wearing slacks and colorful shirts, hopped onto the "stage". The irresistible beat of the Village People exploded, and the crowd sang lustily along with the entertainers. The men did the traditional dance as they led the diners in song. 

The singing waiter closest to Art was bellowing, "Y M C A!" then sotto voce "I hate my job, I hate my job,  Y M C A !  I hate my job.....

---Florence

Live and Up Close

Driving in the city with our car pool of four on our way to the monthly Caxton Club meeting we only sometimes attend, we saw a large cluster of police cars, and a crowd of policemen with others walking to join them.  Knowledgeably I said they are getting ready for the protests to get China out of Tibet. 

We parked a few blocks from the assembled police, in the lot of the Newberry Library, the site of this month's special meeting with the annual auction of books donated by the members, as well as the usual program - this month, a film and discussion of auctions in the past.

First, the silent auction with books laid out waiting for bids to be written. We circled and circled.  I wanted only one - Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls in the first issue DJ (no photog credit under the picture, quickly reprinted to include the name. Of course the very first printing with the error is the collectible book.)  I won that one by making a large jump in price to show I was not kidding. Another book I liked had a $5 minimum (a rather new book with photos of Annapolis in its horse and buggy days.)  I wrote $5, and being the only bidder I got that too.  I looked it up when I got back to the shop the next day.  Only three on the Internet, with $100 being the cheapest price!  Really!

Then into the large room for dinner, followed by the lecture and film. There was a roar in the street, the sound coming clearly to us at our table near the window.  The sounds of metal drumming and amplified voices competed with the film that kept turning itself off, to the speaker's consternation.  Then the sound of sirens. 

Choosing to be rude over being bored, I went to the second story window to see the action.  What a crowd.  The paper the next day said thousands although it didn't appear to be that many from my view.  From the signs, I saw I was mistaken.  This being the fifth anniversary of our troops in Iraq, it was a peace rally.  I watched the police cars approach, reach the crowded intersection of Oak St. and Clark, and not being able to penetrate the crowd which didn't move, they circled back.  Stalemate.  I returned to my seat to try to focus on the presentation.  New sirens.  I jumped up, this time accompanied by my dinner companion.  We saw police on small motorbikes moving through the crowd, until they reached the intersection.  Not only did the the crowd not disperse, they moved slowly ahead towards the police motorcycles.  The police paused, and then drove backwards.  I didn't know a motorbike could back up. 

We sat down.  Another cry from the crowd drew us to the window.  Approaching were helmeted police on HORSEBACK.  The crowd fell back from the intersection.  The horses lined up side-by-side, flanks almost touching.  We tried to count.  I got twelve.  She thought fourteen.  What a sight.  Those horses are big and a solid mass.  They just stood there.  They did not advance.  A formidable sight.  Slowly the crowd drifted away.  Very slowly.  But they dispersed.  No tear gas, no bludgeoning, no physical interference.  Just quiet horses.

Winning a bid ($800.)for the only book I wanted at the live auction that followed was not nearly as exciting as the view from the window.

---Florence

Snow Joke.

So out the window, again, it's a gorgeous snow covered winter wonderland.  But today is the second day of spring, so don't expect me to rhapsodize.  Enough already.

---Florence

Random Thoughts

When my granddaughter was about five, we went to the movies at some odd hour, maybe 4:30.  There were only two other people in the theater, a father and his little daughter.  I let Gabi choose the seats, and she sat down directly behind the two others.  In this whole empty chasm.

Today I returned to my car in a large parking lot, almost empty with a scattering of cars.  I got in, turned the key thinking to pull ahead, and a car slides into the space nose to nose with my car.  I look at the empty spaces all around us.  I had to back up to pull out. 

Is there a clustering gene?

Why, when we go to the movies, are all the aisle seats taken?  Everybody has to squeeze past their knees to get in.  Most times they have to stand up.  Are they all disabled?  Do they want to rush out of the theater first?  "Two seats on the aisle" were the favored seats at Broadway theaters long ago.  I wonder why. You can lean out for a clear view?

What about the thrill when you're on line to check out behind a person who appears to have selected one of everything in the store, and a cashier opens a new lane, and says, "Next."  The last on my line slides over, but she says, "No.  You," pointing at me.  Jackpot!

At the shoe store, a clerk was checking to see whether my size was available at another branch, when a man comes up holding a shoe, and says, "This is on display.  Show me where the shoes are."  The clerk starts to walk away.  Firmly, I address the intruder.  "He will help you when he is finished with me," and my clerk returns.  Yes!  (But they don't have my size.)

At the same shoe store I have on a pair of wonderfully comfortable shoes.  I need a nice looking walking shoe, and I'm afraid these look like what they are, black gym shoes.  I see a mother and her eleven year old daughter.  The daughter has on 3" heels and a joyous look.  I say to her, "Maybe next year."  She grins.  I say, "Now you tell me.  I need a shoe dressier than a gym shoe.  What do you think?"  We look at my feet. The mother starts to answer, but I say I really want her daughter's opinion.  The little girl considers, and says Yes, she thinks they are very very nice.  The mother agrees.  I buy my walking shoes for Paris.  They really are black gym shoes.  But very very nice.

---Florence

A Beer, Please

This was another book signing at a neighborhood bar.  Since this is only the second neighborhood bar I've visited, the statistics don't allow me to generalize especially since these two had nothing in common with each other, except for the fact they were sites for author's signings. 

This place was so dark, I had to feel with my toe as I walked through a doorway of one little room into the next because I thought there was a step between them.  There might have been.  We found a dark shape that appeared to be our  hostess, but I asked cautiously, Maud?  She greeted us enthusiastically I think.  The boom pounding through the area (it had a beat so maybe it was music) masked all conversation.  Reading her body language, I was assured we were welcome.  Art, whose ear was closer to her mouth determined that we were suppose to retreat to the bar for our drink, and say we were with the party. 

He sat on a stool, and I paused tentatively at the adjacent one.  Noticing my hesitation, a nice lady at his other side, said  "Am I sitting in you guys's place?"  I assured her we were fine, and sat.  I ordered a light beer, and when the bottle was placed on the counter, I asked for a glass.  We walked back, peering through the dark, but we lost our hostess and could not recognize anyone we knew.  We found the table with a lovely repast of fruit, veggies, cheese, nuts, dates, and dessert squares.   Filling our paper plates we looked into the several open rooms before settling down to our snacks.  Art sat on the "leather" bench along the back wall, and I sat across on this huge round pouf.  (That's what they called it in Victorian days.  I don't know its modern decorating name. It was scarred enough to have lived through its Victorian times.)  Straining to hear his conversation, I left my seat to sit closer at his side, and watched as a couple sat down on the pouf I had just abandoned.

She was wearing black lace stockings that ended thigh high.  The dress ended much higher.  Engaging.  She was faced away, we saw her back with his hand slowly caressing up, and, down.  And Up. And. Down.  It paused at the lower extremity and circled and circled slowwwly.  It was hypnotic.  For me anyway.  The hand came up and worked the shoulder.  Repeat.  Dowwwn.  Around at the bottom, and around.  Luckily he had to get up to replenish their drinks, and it broke my entranced voyeurism.  She immediately took out her ipod and worked at it, obviously not nearly as scintillated as I had been.

We groped our way to the front, bought a book, great name, "The Oldest We've Ever Been", edited by Maud Lavin.  A collection of personal stories of midlife reflections.

We got it signed, and went out into the bright quiet night.

---Florence   

Get Movin'

Trickle down economics has finally become comprehensible.  I could have done without the intimate knowledge of this principle.  The only part that is relevant is the lousy housing market.  You can't sell your house so you're killing my business.

If you don't sell your house, you can't pack up and leave.  You keep all the books on their shelves because you're going nowhere.  So what am I supposed to do for inventory? 

You sell me your books when you move. Books are so heavy it costs a lot for the van to transport them, and your new residence is too small, or they are your grandpa's books anyway, or they were there when you moved in, or they were your husband's before the divorce and you got them in the settlement because you know it would hurt him.  Or, alas, the owner died, and you have to clean out the house to sell it.  All these are good reasons for you to call me in to buy those books. 

But you haven't put the house on the market because you'll lose a fortune, or you must put it on the market, loss or not because you have to leave town, but that house ain't moving.  It sits there with my books. 

It's not trickling down.  It's not even a reluctant dribble.  Maybe a drip?  I feel sorry for both of us.  Sorrier for you, really.  I'll just sit and read a book while I wait.

---Florence

Better Than Scratch-My-Back

Ahhh, ecstasy.  The exquisite pleasure of a body massage.  My daughters and granddaughter sent me a very handsome gift certificate to the Red Door.  The certificate isn't handsome, the number on it is.  Yes, the certificate is handsome too.  Great job of packaging.  It comes in a similarly shaped red gift box, in a shiny red little shopping bag, and all this was delivered by the manager herself.  That should give you a clue to the number on it.

At check-in, I asked about the various massages offered.  I rejected the gentle stroking one.  I once had such a massage, and dozed off into a delightful slumber.  But at the price charged, I didn't want to sleep through it again.  I wanted to experience every moment of it.  I expressed that preference, and was asked whether I would prefer a masseur to a masseuse.  (Actually, she said, "Would you mind a man?  I warn you, he's tough".)  Let's go with the man, I tell her. 

You go into the room swathed in wraps and robes, to meet Victor, a very handsome tall blonde Russian man.  He leaves the room as you remove your bundling, and slide under the sheets on the table.  Everything is very discreet.  Lights are dim, soft music playing. 

Rub-a-dub-dub.  Like the lady said, he digs in.  The only conversation, "Too hard?"  "No, perfect."  This is repeated only a few times. It might be his only English.  And I know why he asks.  You could swear his fingers pressing your back have gone clear through your body and are coming out the front.  When you realize that could not be possible, you expect to find yourself bruised purple when you dare to peek. 

No bruises.  I am at least two inches taller after leaving his rack.  I thank him for his splendid job of kneading.  He looks proud.  Yes, I'll be back.  My gift certificate assures that. 

I know some people do not like to be touched, and shudder when you say massage.  I was talking about it to a young man in the shop.  He said, "I had a massage once.  The masseur said, "I am gay, will you have a problem with that?"  "So I left my pants on."  "You're an idiot," I said politely, "you are covered, and they touch just your body and limbs.  If it bothered you why didn't you get a different person?"  "I didn't want to insult him."  "I think you insulted him by wearing your pants." 

Is this discussion too candid?  We're just talking about skin and bones and some muscles thrown it.  But in the right hands....

---Florence

Personal Advisor

It's a story about emerging jobs.  This one described in The New York Times is called life coach.  Not Life Coach which sounds more professional.  While many life coaches are accredited, it says, no degrees or credentials are required, and there is no federal or state oversight of the industry. One man is quoted as saying he charges $50 to $75 an hour for a coaching session.

I am losing money every minute.  I sit in my store dispensing advise whether asked for or not, and I don't charge a penny.  But I thought I was being neighborly.  I didn't realize I was a practicing life coach. 

I read this news article (Jobs 1/11/2008, Fresh Starts) several times over, and it appears I am so qualified that I just might add it to my store window in gold, Life Coach.  The only illegal part is putting it in caps.  I might even add Walk-ins Welcome.  I won't need a couch.  One lady conducts her sessions over the phone or with e-mails.  I prefer the personal touch, literally.  A pat on the shoulder, let's say.  A handkerchief for the tears when I pull no punches. 

Already I teach English as a Second Language, or ESL.  People struggling to speak English get a lot of help from me.  A young lady was telling me about the jung children she baby sits for.  When I corrected her, she said, "Ahh, like Yellow."  When she said Jesterday, I said yellow, and she said, "Ahh, yesterday."  I asked whether she minded that I kept interrupting her, (her grammar was a bit convoluted as well) and she said, "No, I must learn."  She was a chemist in Mexico, and is an au pair here, which ironically is French although most of the young ladies working in that capacity are Hispanic or of other nationalities.  A Russian man was in today, and his English was pitiful. But drop me into Russia, guaranteed I couldn't speak even as poorly as he did no matter how long I lived there.  With his very limited vocabulary, he made clear that he was looking for large books with hand colored plates of flowers or animals.  Which I didn't have.

But, see?  When I don't have the book you want, I can sit you down and get your $75 by telling you your life will be much easier if only you would..........

---Florence