Saturday Mar 29

by

Well I had the sought pleasure
of the 20th Century girl to be with
me at the opera.

She is very nice, although poor
she likes only the high places,
she cannot mix with common
people, and is rather serious
minded, find she is fairly well
educated, fine manners in
conversation, has a passion
for cigarette smoking. peppy.

Her little slim figure is very
fascinating, that beautiful
face, those eyes of enchantment.

In conclusion she is beautiful
type worthy of admiration. —
I am glad to count her among
my friends.

This little adventure tonight
was rather expensive but worthwhile.

———

Matt’s Notes

Papa saw an opera double-feature on his date with the 20th Century Girl. The main attraction was Nicholas Rimsky-Korsakoff’s Le Coq d’Or, which concerns an Eastern European warlord (not unlike those who were making life miserable around the world for people like Papa) who gets his comeuppance for being a jerk. Papa certainly had a rooting interest in the outcome, and since I’m sure he knew the Pushkin poem, “The Golden Cockerel,” on which the opera’s based, he would have really enjoyed himself if he wasn’t too distracted by the “little slim figure” in the next seat.

Then again, if the 20th Century Girl’s education afforded her a working knowledge of opera, Papa would have had cause for worry; the performance apparently wasn’t that good. Though the New York Times had blessed the production, it had saved its highest praise for Rosina Galli-Curci. Alas, she was indisposed on the night of the 29th, thus casting a pall over the proceedings. Irving Kolodin, in his Story of the Metropolitan Opera, describes the consequences thus:

The large repertory was further varied by the return of Le Coq d’or on January 21 with Galli-Curci singing the Queen with excellent style and indifferent pitch, and Laura Robertson as the Voice of the Golden Cock. Giuseppe Bamboschek conducted a cast otherwise very much as before, and the production was Pogany’s…As one was to notice with increasing frequency, the heavy schedule often resulted in cast changes that not merely deprived the audience of a favorite voice, but substituted one of notably inferior quality. Thus, Sabinieeva for Gallie-Curci in Coq d’or…

Oh well. Perhaps the 20th Century Girl’s “passion for cigarette smoking” had her too distracted with thoughts of bodice-ripping ashtrays and tumescent match heads for her to notice the compromised work up on the stage. If not, she at least would have enjoyed the one-act opera that preceded Le Coq: Franco Leoni’s L’Oracolo, a tale of murder and intrigue (a “brilliant little ‘shocker’,” according to the Times) set in San Francisco’s Chinatown. I’m listening to L’Oracolo as I write this, but since I don’t speak Italian and am also sitting on a loud plane with a distressingly chipper flight crew chatting away behind me, much of the dramatic effect is lost.

In any event, there’s plenty of drama building in Papa’s delightfully 19th Century-style account of the 20th Century Girl. The phrases he uses, like “those eyes of enchantment” and “she is worthy of admiration,” sound like the words with which an awkward-but-secretly-loaded Jane Austen hero might stoically torment himself. Papa, of course, was not secretly loaded, and we know the 20th Century Girl “cannot mix with common people.” If Papa were writing a novel instead of his own life’s story, this description of her low tolerance for the low-born would certainly give the experienced reader pause.

———————–

Additional Notes

I still can’t get over how Papa cites the 20th Century Girl’s “passion for cigarettes” as one of her standout qualities. I’ll have to remember to credit myself with a “passion for bourbon” the next time I feel Maker’s Mark-induced shame creeping up on me.

Meanwhile, I’ve tried to figure out how expensive Papa’s night at the opera really was, but I’ve yet to learn what ticket prices were like in his day. Good tickets nowadays run $200 or more — the equivalent of $16 in 1924 dollars — but I doubt he spent that much. I’ll have to keep poking around, but if anyone out there can tell me more, please write to me or drop a comment.

——-

My mother adds:

Papa must have seen Galli Curci other times, because I remember him mentioning her a lot; I guess in an effort to improve my musical taste, which in those days ran toward the top 40. I think Papa probably disapproved of the passion for smoking of the 20th century girl, but was listing her many fine attributes as well as some things not so good, like not mixing with the common people. The fact that he counts her among his friends does not bode well for romance.


————

Sources

Sunday Mar 30

by

Wrote to Henriette (the 20 C. girl)
a letter, asking for admission
into her circle of intimate friends.
She got me thinking of something

Visited Sister Clara at hospital
in afternoon saw the baby.

Saw some friends during day
in evening had a little
sociable game at my house
with Blaustein Friedman and
Zichlinsky.

The operas heard last
night were L’Cock D’or and
L. Oracolo

—————–

Matt’s Notes

I’ve found Papa’s writing style for the last couple of days to feel particularly formal, but this one really rings of 19th Century drawing-room drama. What does he mean when he says he wrote a letter to Henriette “asking for admission into her circle of intimate friends?” Has he given up on his prospects with her, or is this a euphemism for a love letter? (If it was a love letter, I wonder if it was euphemistic and oblique itself, or if he came right out and declared his intentions.) And why has he decided to refer to her by name, at last, instead of as the “20th Century Girl?” Is it just easier to write, or does it reflect his desire for deeper intimacy?

Questions, questions. Still, his abandoned sentence in the first paragraph — “She got me thinking of something — intrigues me most of all. What “something” did he decide not to write about? Or did he just cut his thought short because he needed space to talk about the other events of the day?


Monday Mar 31

by


What keep me at home for
an entire evening, the radio.

In my quest for a rest of
my longing soul there is no
better remedy as the radio
The fascinating music, and
other features.

I heard just new, Rubensteins
Romance which was wonderful

—–

Henriette will undoubtedly
answer my letter, I am
anxious to see what she will
write.

It’s her kind that appeals
to me, but has a poor dog [like me]
a chance? Is a girl even of
her type ripe enough to see
my qualities, and truly love
me despite my poor standing?

Heard Sleeping Beauty Tchaikovsky
Waltz

———-

Matt’s Notes

Papa’s fascination with the radio may seem quaint, but it fairly represents the excitement most radio listeners felt in 1924. Up until then, wireless broadcasting had been a tool for a military and a toy for amateur enthusiasts who were willing to build their own transceivers and spend their days and nights sending, receiving and praying for a signal. If Papa came to America in 1913, it would be eight more years before he’d see an all-in-one radio set in a shop window, and still another year before the radio business really took off.1

So, when he wrote this entry Papa was still discovering, along with broadcasters, advertisers and artists, what the medium could do. That’s not to say it wasn’t widespread — I just mean it had exploded before Papa’s eyes as a commercial and social force in the same way the Internet exploded before our eyes in the mid 1990’s. In describing how the radio distracts him, however incompletely, from his woes, Papa may have shown us an early prototype of the lonely guy who sits and home, channel- or Web-surfing while everyone else is out having fun.

Speaking of which, the song this “poor dog” listened to, “Rubenstein’s Romance,” was a classical piece by Anton Rubinstein properly called “Romance in B-flat, Op. 44, No.1.” A popular adaptation known as “If You Are But a Dream” became a Frank Sinatra hit, and though this didn’t happen until the 1940’s I think the lyrics sum up Papa’s feelings about Henreitte:

If you are but a dream, I hope I never waken,
It’s more than I could bear to find that I’m forsaken.

If you’re a fantasy, then I’m content to be
In love with lovely you,
And pray my dream comes true.

I long to kiss you but I would not dare,
I’m so afraid that you may vanish in the air,
So darling, if our romance should break up,
I hope I never wake up, if you are but a dream.

I long to kiss you but I would not dare,
I’m so afraid that you may vanish in the air,
So darling, if our romance should break up,
I hope I never wake up, if you are but a dream.

——————–

Additional Notes and References:

1 – This is very roughly condensed from information presented in Erik Barnouw’s A Tower in Babel: A History of Broadcasting in the United States to 1933.

————————

Music:

Tuesday Apr 1

by

This day will long be remembered
because of the terrific snowstorm.

Visited Clara at Hospital
with David.

Again the radio brought me
old familiar tunes, tunes that
I’ve heard when I was a little
boy, on the old little square
of my European hometown when
I with my playmates [used to follow] the old man
[with the] playing box, who played the
same identical melodies whose
music I always remembered.

Listening to the music I close my
eyes and in my illusions I found
myself on the little marketplace
or outside my fathers house surrounded
by my little friends merrily dancing
around the man with the playing box
who so gladly repeated those enchanting
melodies at our request.

——————

Matt’s Notes

In light of his stylish, expressive prose, it’s hard to remember that Papa was not a native English speaker. Once in a while, though, a missing word or strange turn of phrase serves to remind us: A few weeks ago he repeatedly referred to the headmaster of his brother-in-law’s school as “the school man,” and it looks like he didn’t have the word “organ grinder” at his disposal while composing today’s entry. Still, I don’t think it detracts from the sweetness of his recollection.

In case you’re wondering what early 20th Century Eastern European organ grinders looked like, here are a few photos courtesy of the Yivo Institute’s “People of a Thousand Towns” project:

photo of an organ grinder

photo of an organ grinder

photo of an organ grinder

We also know what Papa’s brothers and sisters looked like when they were children, so perhaps we can get a little closer to imagining the “illusions” Papa saw when he closed his eyes:

photo of an organ grinder

The children in this 1898 photograph are, clockwise from top left: Issac (he gave Papa some grief earlier in the year) Nettie, Ettel, Clara, Papa (his face is distorted in this photo, but that’s him at 3) and Gitel.

Clara, as Papa mentions in this entry, was now all grown up and in the hospital with her new baby. The weather Papa and her husband David braved to visit her was indeed “terrific”: New York got over 8.5 inches of snow accompanied by gale-force winds, resulting in, among other disruptions, an elevated train crash in Long Island City that injured over 50 people, one fatally.

Wendesday Apr 2

by

Movie & home
Sent home to parents $10.00

It is funny how I am trying
to pass my idle hours,
nothing seems to cheer me.

Its a period of one great
longing for me.

—————-

Matt’s Notes

Movies Papa might have seen in this day included:

  • Sporting Youth, a car-racing comedy starring Reginald Denny (“a good-looking, virile young man who does not overact,” according to the New York Times)
  • Try And Get It, a farce about competing salesmen, accompanied by a short film of boxing match recreations called Great Moments in Great Battles (the latter sounds more interesting to me)
  • Woman to Woman, a Moulin Rouge drama with Betty Compson condemmed by the Times for its overuse of rain effects, a bad habit perpetuated, unfortunately, by modern movies
  • Three Weeks, an adaptation of an Elinor Glyn novel by the same name (Papa probably saw this if he was in the mood for a first-run movie at a big movie palace, since it was playing at The Capitol Theater, one of his preferred venues)
  • Beau Brummel, starring John Barrymore in the title role and Mary Astor as Lady Margery
  • Virtuous Liars, a light comedy dismissed by the Times as “a modern entertainment, the story of which does not bear close scrutiny.”

Papa’s local theaters like the Loews Delancey or the Clinton Theatre probably showed movies a few weeks after they had opened rather than first-run movies, so if he was in the mood to pass his “idle hours” in the neighborhood he might have seen:

  • The Covered Wagon
  • America
  • Secrets
  • The Thief of Bagdad
  • The Ten Commandments

And for those of you just joining us, note that Papa’s $10 disbursement to his family back in the old country was larger than usual. He was no doubt worried about his father’s ongoing convalescence from an injury sustained in a fall a few weeks earlier. This, along with a bevy of romantic woes including his infatuation with an aloof woman named Henriette, would have contributed to his ongoing malaise.

—————–

Additional notes

We’ve talked about the Loews Delancey Theatre and Clinton Theatre before. Both were within walking distance of Papa’s apartment on Attorney Street.

Thursday Apr 3

by

Met Miss Beck, she is
a fine girl, Really something
is wrong with me, Why do
I always go to the farthest
points in the city for certain
girls company, when I can
have some within my grasp.

Miss Beck is my neighbor
and I like her company
I will make an effort
to see her often, as she
told me that I am always
welcome to come up the house.

——————-

Matt’s Notes

I think it would be easy to dismiss Papa’s observation about himself — “why do I always go to the farthest points in the city for certain girls company when I can have some within my grasp” — as a variation on the complaint of a certain type of single New Yorker who claims to want to settle down but who, for whatever reason, just keeps playing.

I don’t think it’s that easy, though. My mother recently told me that Papa had a reputation in my family as a “ladies man,” which may well be how he outwardly appeared. We know he was good-looking, well-dressed, and socially active, and he seemed to suffer no shortage of dates and even dramatic encounters with secret admirers despite his intense, inner loneliness.

I think what we may be observing here as he agonizes over the birds in the bush is the flip side of his capacity for idealism. We’ve already observed his tendency to idealize — causes, Presidents, his past, the lives of others — and I think he applied it to women as well. Henriette, the woman for whom Papa’s been pining for days, may well be beautiful and socially ambitious, but, as my mother observes, “she was only a poor girl from the Bronx, after all, who may have had a high school education, if that,” and certainly not worthy of descriptions like “the perfect 20th Century Girl” with “eyes of enchantment” who “stands above other women.”

This idealized image was, I think, what made Papa’s crush on Henriette so hard on him. She may have stood above other women in his eyes, but as a side effect she also stood above him. In contrast to her, he saw himself as a “poor dog,” a “wage earner” who had no right to expect anything of her, which was of course unreasonable; it’s not like he was some groundskeeper in a British novel who wanted to marry the daughter of his lord and master. He was just a struggling Jewish immigrant from the Lower East Side who wanted to date someone from his same social caste. But unlike his neighbor Miss Beck, whose proximity allowed him to see her in less-than-ideal condition once in a while, Henriette lived far away and could only be observed on occasion; she made a perfect target for his idealization, and, unfortunately, an inadvertent trigger for his sense of romantic hopelessness.

What I don’t understand, and will keep thinking about, his how Papa’s idealistic nature remained intact but evolved into something more constructive as he grew older. Idealists may find themselves disappointed on occasion, but they also have the capacity to be forgiving, resilient, thrilled by little things — the very qualities that made him such a fine activist, dedicated husband and father, and memorable grandfather. When, and how, did this evolution occur? Are we all capable of such change?

Friday Apr 4

by

Visited Clara at hospital
and Max Breindel,

Max is really besides
a relative a good friend
He is not like some
others of the family

—————–

Matt’s Notes

As noted in a previous post, Max Breindel is the man who met Papa and his sitter Nettie at Ellis Island when they first arrived from the old country. Max also invited them to stay in his apartment, where they shared a bed with his children, sleeping head-by-toe, until they could find a place of their own. Papa always recalled this as a great, adventurous time in his life, and I think his kind words about Max reveal his ongoing gratitude. (Check out the Lower East Side Tenement Museum’s tenement tour to get a better idea of what their living quarters must have been like.)

I don’t know whom Papa refers to when he says “some others of the family” are not as good as Max, but it’s about as harsh a statement as he ever makes. Perhaps he means his brother Isaac, the previous recipient of a disapproving nod for pressuring Papa from the old country for money. I also know his sisters Nettie and Clara didn’t get along, so I wonder if Nettie earned a demerit for some kind of misbehavior or lack of interest while Clara was in hospital with her newborn son.

I’m also trying to figure out if it was unusual back then for an immigrant woman to stay in the hospital for so long after giving birth (it’s been eight days now). Papa had expressed surprise at how early his nephew was born, so maybe there was some sort of medical complication. Then again, a week or more might have been a normal post-childbirth stay in 1924; as always, if anyone reading this knows a little more, please post a comment or send an e-mail.

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