COLLABORATORS Raquel Castedo [Design Direction] Laura Haffner [Design Assistance] Robert Cronan [Maps] Leslie Eames [Photography] Rachel Rock Palermo [Iconic Baltimore Photo Essay] Ann Berlin [Manuscript Edit] Barbara Morrison [Editorial Advisor]
Ed Berlin
A TRAVELOG
Baltimore, Maryland USA | 2020
CONTENTS
2
ON THE MOVE
55
WASHINGTON DC
57
NEW YORK
62
TRAVELING 1978–2010
73
THREE EXOTIC TRAVEL EPISODES
75
LOS ANGELES
77
LONDON
81
BERLIN
88
THE REST OF EUROPE
96
AMSTERDAM
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
7
PROLOGUE
8
INTRODUCTION
1
EARLY YEARS
10
13
PARIS THE SCANDI-NORDIC-BALTIC ROUTE SWITZERLAND, ITALY, SPAIN AND THE SOUTH OF FRANCE RUSSIA
THE WONDERS OF EAST ASIA TOKYO BEIJING
MY HOMETOWN
15
THE RACIAL DIVIDE IN BALTIMORE
20
DISCOVERING THE THINGS AROUND ME
23
HONG KONG
A FEW YEARS IN FLORIDA
33
LATIN AMERICA
A BRUSH WITH POLITICS
39
CREATION OF A COLLECTION: THE WORLD OF OBJECTS
44
106
TAIPEI SINGAPORE
113
ARGENTINA AND BRAZIL
BACK IN AMERICA
115
CHANGE, AGAIN!
119
3
IMAGES AND THE PRINTED WORD THE POWER OF GRAPHIC DESIGN
127 129
POSTERS, PRINTS, COMMERCIAL ART AND PAINTINGS: THE WORLD OF IMAGES
135
POSTERS, PRINTS AND COMMERCIAL ART PAINTINGS
4 5
CARTOON IMAGES
148
BOOKS AND BOOKSELLERS
154
THE IVY BOOKSHOP
164
MAGAZINE ART
167
HOME LIFE
175
FAMILY ART
177
FURNITURE
186
REFLECTIONS ON A NEW BALTIMORE
195
HOMETOWN REVISITED
197
ICONIC BALTIMORE
201
CONCLUSION
207
P
utting this book together was a team effort. I am incredibly fortunate to know so many talented people, the individuals who worked on this project took an idea and turned it into something special. I want to thank each of them here. All of the city and regional maps in the book were designed by map-maker extraordinaire Robert Cronan. Thanks to Bob, each map represents how each neighborhood was, circa the specific period discussed in the book. His eye for detail and his design artistry are major components of the work. Rachel Palermo shot the scenes of Baltimore towards the end of the book. She managed to capture the essence of each location and building; it was great to see her at work on location. All of the photos of artifacts in the book were shot by Leslie Eames. She spent dozens of hours and took hundreds of shots to ensure we got the right image. Those images are the core element of Adrift.
Writer, educator and editor Barbara Morrison edited the manuscript. Her suggestions regarding structure and coherence were essential. When I decided to embark on this project, my intention was to create a piece of art. I wanted people to read it. But I also wanted them to display it. Since I myself am not an artist, it was crucial to find someone highly creative and empathetic to turn all of the various component pieces into a single, coherent story. Someone who appreciates 20th century design, but who is able to create a book that utilizes contemporary design concepts. Raquel Castedo was that person. She is responsible for the layout and design of this book. It was my good fortune to have teamed up with Raquel. Throughout this whole process, my wife, Ann Berlin, served as advisor, copy reader, fact checker, and moral supporter. Ann spent most of her career in publishing. She managed a large production unit for a major educational publisher. Ann knows more about printing, paper, color bleeds, copy editing than practically anyone. Her support meant everything to me.
Acknowledgements
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
7
PROLOGUE
PROLOGUE
I
8
t’s mid-year 2020. We are living in a new world, yet to be defined or explained fully. The expectation is that this book will be completed sometime later this year. However, even before it is finalized and printed, the book is already a relic of a different age. An age of travel, human contact and relative abundance. The text of the book was completed in 2019 and handed to the designer, Raquel, in January of 2020. Unbeknownst to me, the world was already changing. The Covid-19 disease was already spreading across the globe, with the high probability that it would devastate an unprotected human species, especially those living in poorer communities. Everyone felt at risk of contracting the disease. I tested positive for the virus in May, but am convinced that it had entered my system many weeks earlier. As of this writing, I am still in the healing process. Clearly, the world has turned on its axis. Global pandemic, insurrection across the U.S. trig-
gered by decades of abuse and brutality against the black community. We are facing an uncertain future. Since the world changed on me mid-project, I had to decide whether to rewrite portions of the manuscript to reflect this new reality, or keep the contents as originally written. More profoundly, I had to decide whether or not to abandon the project altogether. In light of today’s reality, a book about my travels and the artifacts I collected along the way seems trivial, given the current level of anxiety and suffering. I decided to move forward with the project. At the very least, it provides my two kids, Sam and Maria, and my granddaughter, Isobel, a record of where most of our household pictures and objects came from. And just maybe, other friends and family would find it entertaining and finally answer the question, what I have been doing for the past 50 years! In addition, I decided not to change any of the content in the original manuscript. The story line remains the same. It’s just that the book feels
imated by the plague and the looting that accompanied the mass protests over racial injustice in our country. And, in spite of the current president, who embodies the very worst of American greed and viciousness, I still believe in the USA and its people. I truly hope you enjoy reading Adrift and looking over all of the pieces included in the book.
PROLOGUE
more nostalgic than I intended. One more relic from a different age. The world faces daunting challenges we could not have imagined a year ago. This is as true for Baltimore as anywhere else. Even before the pandemic and the enormous loss of small businesses and jobs, Baltimore faced major challenges, in terms of public safety and economic sustainability. And now, things have become even more dire. And political leadership seems to be in short supply. I devote a chapter in the book to the discussion of Baltimore’s re-emergence, on the foundation of its great neighborhoods, buildings, port and parks and, most importantly, the talent and creativity of its people. The climb is much steeper than I could have imagined. It will take years if not decades to recover from the economic and social impact caused by the events of the past several months. And as of this writing, the end of the pandemic is nowhere in sight. But I still believe in Baltimore, my home town and source of great enjoyment. I believe in New York, my second home town, which has been dec-
9
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
I
10
have been wanting to record things for quite some time. Document all the places I have been to, the many people I met along the way. The decisions taken, or more accurately, the way life has altered my path. And the things I have picked up along the way. The objects, the images, the keepsakes that enable me to remember the special people and moments that have made my life rewarding. My objectives are twofold: First, to explore the origins of my personal aesthetic. How did my mind get locked into 20th century designs, and why do they bring me so much comfort? Second, I wanted to gain a better understanding of how a location (a city, a neighborhood, a specific street or building) affects a person’s imagination or memory. And how certain objects and images reflect their habitat. Why does an asparagus plate remind me so much of Paris, or a Bakelite radio remind me of Berlin? Clearly, it has something to do with where I found the particular item, but there is something else. So I try to explore the sense of place, both in terms of a way of thinking about a location and how experi-
ences there can be best represented in memory by special artifacts. The document is loosely organized and focuses on the objects and images. It mirrors my life, but it is not about me. Rather it’s about the journey. I think of this as a travelogue. One big loop, taking me from my home town, across four continents, and back to Baltimore. In many ways, I have been adrift all my life, with no particular destination other than to live well and see as much as possible before the curtain falls. No five- or twenty-year plan. No ultimate goal. Holding onto things that meant something to me has been a lifelong habit. What started off as a handful of mementos grew into a diverse collection of various objects and images, from different periods, with different styles. It fulfills a need I have to hold onto the places and people and experiences in order to savor those special moments. To remember them and make sense out of a world of disorder and chaos. I have been bequeathed or have acquired a large number of images and objects over the last
There are many different types of collecting. Some people collect one thing—World War I posters, door knobs, Barbies. It is easy to become a fanatic, the type of collector that needs to have it all—the definitive collection. In my view, that focus is more about the collector than the collection itself. Other collectors think about their pieces in terms of investment and focus on the collection’s financial appreciation. There is nothing immoral about this. I have purchased a handful of things that I felt would be a good investment. More times than not, I regretted it because it clouded my sense of the intrinsic value of the piece. Now I never consider buying anything for its investment potential. I do sometimes worry that I paid too much for something, but that is different from trying to make a killing. Consequently, this document is not a catalog or investors’ guide. I do not discuss the cost of any of the pieces described here. Or their monetary value. The majority of the objects and images included herein have nominal market value. They are below investment grade, so to speak.
INTRODUCTION
sixty-some years. Finding a special piece provides me with the opportunity to learn about its origin, its maker, its geographical source. In that sense, each object is a portal, leading to discovery. Each acquisition, no matter how small, is like taking a trip to a new place. Living among special objects and images has brought excitement and knowledge. They are the touchstones that link my past with the present. They are snapshots, records of travel, of people I have known, of special moments. Collectively, they tell the story of my wanderings through this life. Mark B. McKinley, a psychologist who teaches at Lorain County Community College in Ohio, explained in The National Psychologist that collecting physical memorabilia is a form of “experimenting with arranging and classifying” elements of our world. This, he says, “can serve as a means of control to elicit a comfort zone in one’s life, e.g., calming fears, erasing insecurity.” It’s no wonder children are fond of collecting things—it’s critical to their mental and emotional development (Peter Funt, NYT April 7, 2019).
11
INTRODUCTION
12
In my view, collecting is an art form, building an environment with found objects. The final product is a highly impressionistic view of reality. At its core, that’s how I see my collection. That’s how I see my life. One final caveat. Since I am not a professional writer, graphic designer, decorator, or artisan, I have had to find some other way to express my creative ambitions. What I have managed to do over many years is take other people’s ideas and other people’s handcrafts and assemble a unique living space. Assemblage as a performance art, as an expression of how I interpret the vast quantity of influences that affect how we all think, how we live, how we see ourselves and the people around us. This document is intended to capture a life of exploration. I have lived in many places. Movements traceable by the people I have met, the mental images I have absorbed, and the objects and images I have secured and brought back with me. There are around 250 pieces covered in this document. What follows is a highly unscientific approach to connecting these items and places in order to express the joy of this voyage.
1
Y L R A E S R A E Y
ADRIFT SOUNDTRACK
INTRODUCTION Brian Eno – By This River William Orbit – Piece in the Old Style 1
EARLY YEARS MY HOMETOWN
MIAMI BEACH
Tennessee Ernie Ford – 16 Tons Sons of the Pioneers – Tumbling Tumbleweeds Peter Gabriel – Father, Son
Club des Belugas – Jungle Flower, remix Weather Report – Elegant People The Paul Horn Quintet –Mr. Bond Steely Dan – Any World (That I’m Welcome To)
SEEDS OF THE “OLD COUNTRY” Theodore Bikel – Shabes Shabes Sid Caesar – Roast of Arnold Schwarzenegger KID DISCOVERS MUSIC ALL SELECTIONS ARE CURRENTLY AVAILABLE ON SPOTIFY
Buddy Holly – Peggy Sue Everly Brothers – Wake Up Little Susie Johnny Mathis – Chances Are DIVIDED CITY – PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE
https://spoti.fi/3fNdEBm
Miles Davis – Blue in Green Randy Newman – Baltimore Wayne Shorter – Infant Eyes Esbjorn Svensson Trio – Where We Used to Live
TEENAGE YEARS The Impressions – It’s All Right The Beatles – I’ll Be Back Freddie Scott – Hey Girl COLLEGE Cream – As You Said Country Joe & The Fish – Thought Dream Joni Mitchell – For Free Mothers of Invention – Brown Shoes Don’t Make It
When I was born, Baltimore was still a war-time boomtown, with airplane plants and shipyards providing thousands of jobs. I was educated in Baltimore’s public schools which, unlike today, offered art, music, and a full range of mind-expanding activities across the entire school system. And all schools were heated in the winter. One of my earliest recollections is of our Victory garden on Alto Road. My grandmother, Jennie Bassin, kept up the garden well after victory in the war was assured. I can still see her inspecting the garden, with a Viceroy affixed to her cigarette holder. I remember thinking the neighborhood reservoir in Ashburton was really the ocean or sea. The view of the reservoir from Hilton Avenue is still as striking as it was when I was a young boy. Low-flying military planes buzzed overhead throughout the day, low enough for me to see the pilots who flew the planes. There were street arabbers with their horse-drawn carts brimming with fresh fruit, singing their wares at the top of their lungs. And Otis, the old black gentleman who cut everybody’s lawn well into dusk, with his old wooden mower and his face covered in sweat. My parents took me to the ballgames at Memorial Stadium. Corned beef at Attman’s, Lexington Market, where they made Utz Potato Chips from scratch.
EARLY YEARS
MY HOMETOWN
15
We belonged to Temple Oheb Shalom on Eutaw Place, one of the most striking synagogues in Baltimore. I was proud to be living here. We had heroes. People who we admire, such as Albert Schweitzer, Adlai Stevenson, Dag Hammarskjöld, Jonas Salk, Ralph Bunche and Eleanor Roosevelt. Honorable people who managed to do something special with their lives. [4] We celebrated every conceivable holiday (we had not been informed of Kwanza). We had Hanukkah candles and Christmas trees. Jascha Heifetz on the violin; Perry Como on Christmas. [1] After the war, our father, Lou, worked for the War Assets Administration in Washington DC and then in Jacksonville, FL. We lived in Jacksonville Beach. I was 4 years old and went to nursery school there. Dad had a government car, which we used for family excursions. On weekends, Dad would drive on to Daytona Beach, and we would swim all day. We lived through a major hurricane by staying in the bedroom in our one-bedroom house together until it passed. There was no early warning system so it came as a complete surprise. Back in Baltimore, we moved to our grandparents’ house on Alto Road. I attended Windsor Hills Elementary School. I had a great time living with the grandparents and we became very close. Ed was born in February 1949. We lived in the second-floor apartment above our grandparents. Dad was so excited about having another boy that he broke his toes running for the car to take Mom to the hospital. Later, after college, I lived two blocks from the old Women’s Hospital in Bolton Hill, where Ed was born. The Berlin Boys all went to Baltimore City College (Lou 1929, Dennis 1959, Eduard 1966).Eventually, EARLY YEARS
we all went our separate ways—Ed to a job in DC with the US Government, I started a Savings and
16
Loan in Chevy Chase, MD, and Dad, after a stay in Miami Beach, managed a major brokerage office in Baltimore. Ed later went to Citibank in New York City. After our parents passed away, Ed and I decided to stay close and we remain close to this day. DENNIS BERLIN
A cousin club, little league baseball (I sucked). Lancers’ Lacrosse club (not much better). Crab feasts in the back yard. I grew up in the Forest Park neighborhood, a neighborhood that blended Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant households. I went to P.S. #64, officially named the Liberty School. My class was desegregated around 1956, although I had a black playmate, Chipper Brown, before I entered school. The class bully was Chinese. So I never felt I was living in an isolated single-culture community. A sense of inclusiveness was bred into me by my mother and father. Not perfect and with all the typical biases and double standards that plagued Americans then, and regrettably, even now.
I NEVER FELT I WAS LIVING IN AN ISOLATED SINGLE-CULTURE COMMUNITY
EARLY YEARS
1 Department store Santa with Denny and Ed
17
Growing up in Forest Park. At three years of age, wandering from the tree filled backyard of my
MOUNT VERNON
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND 1949-1974, 2012 – PRESENT
home on Kathland Avenue into the alleyway and two doors away, under the watchful eye of my nanny from the house, and peering through the chain link fence surrounding the rear of the home of a little boy, Bruce, who would become my best friend.
eager st
leather underground
st
e as ch
re
ad
park ave
st
read st
Carnival at School #64 and eating candy apples and cotton candy. After school, crossing the street to go to Coopers Confectionary and buying packs of baseball cards with bubble gum.
500 feet
Walking to see horror movies on Saturdays at the Forest Movie Theater. Going to Paul’s Delicatessen on Garrison Boulevard, across from School #64, and ordering a hot dog, fries, with change to spare.
madison st
VERNON e. monument st
w. monument st
the walters art museum centre st.
george peabody library and peabody conservatory
hamilton st.
mulberry st
st
enoch pratt central library
st paul pl
franklin st
calvert st
l st pau
cathedral st
howard st
EARLY YEARS
bounded by Forest Park and Maine Avenues, and Garrison Boulevard. Attending the June Joyance
and Suburban Club Almond Smash soda. All of these items were purchased for under a dollar
MOUNT
18
calvert st
belvedere hotel
st paul st
charles st
morton st
chase st
t
antiqua mania
ral s
ed cath
m
Walking with Bruce four blocks every school day to and from Liberty Elementary School—PS 64, lvd jr b k l
orleans st
Playing baseball at the perimeter of the Forest Park Golf Course on Eldorado Avenue. Shopping with my mother at the A&P on Gwynn Oak Avenue, and upon entering encountering the permeating aroma of Eight-O-Clock Coffee; and later fishing for pickles in a floor-standing wooden cask with metal tongs, or with my hand if no one was looking. Walking to Liberty Heights Avenue to take the #28 or #32 buses to go to Oriole games at Memorial Stadium, downtown on Saturdays. AVRUM GOLDBERG
EARLY YEARS
2 Montage of favorite Baltimore scenes including Temple Oheb Shalom
Of course, there were entire neighborhoods, mostly in North and East Baltimore, where we simply did not go. Roland Park, where we now live, used restrictive covenants to keep out non-whites, including Jews. We never hesitated traveling into black neighborhoods except possibly late at night. It never dawned on us that we would be at risk. Just as my father and brother had, I graduated from City College, an exceptional high school. The style was Ivy League all the way. On the other hand, Baltimore had its share of juvenile delinquents, who we referred to as drapes— they wore tight black pants and white undershirts. Tacks in the heels of their shoes to announce their arrival. I knew enough to keep away from them. I spent three years in Miami Beach in the early 1960s, but most of my early life was spent in Baltimore. Before moving to Washington after law school, I lived at the Temple Gardens, across from the magnificent Druid Park Lake. Once I got my own wheels, I hung out everywhere across town—the harbor before it was tricked out to attract out-of-towners, the Howard Street antique and junk shops, the old ballparks, the crab houses. Once in a while, I would sneak down to the Baltimore Block, a seedy collection of old strip joints and peep houses, thrilling at the extreme horniness of the people milling around, absorbing the hopelessness of their sexual fantasies. I have wonderful memories of my early life in Baltimore. Loving family, safe neighborhoods, beautiful city parks and lakes (they were actually reservoirs). A home filled with music, thanks to my mother. Always rooting for our home teams, thanks to my father. But early on it was clear that my hometown was struggling. The loss of all of those union manufacturing jobs would have been bad enough. But the lethal combination of craven property developers’ fascination with the counties and Columbia, which accelerated white flight, poor municipal management, and later on, the crack epidemic, ultimately did Baltimore in.
19
3 Three more scenes of the city
Over the next few decades, Baltimore would lose over 30% of its population and tax base, its fabled Baltimore Colts, its ranking as a top-twenty market. But Baltimore has many positives. From its inception, Baltimore has been blessed with countless iconic buildings and structures. Farsighted architects implanted shot towers, railway stations, aqueducts and bridges, commercial buildings—one with a Bromo Seltzer bottle affixed to its roof. Neon lights, such as the Inner Harbor’s Domino Sugar sign, dotted the city. Yes, once Baltimore possessed vision. [2] The city has been robbed of many of these treasures. Buildings razed; signs removed, artifacts vandalized or stolen. The huge RCA “Nipper” dog once stood as the gateway to Baltimore from Washington DC and points south. Several of these metropolitan objects have been protected by adventurous citizens and institutions. The Maryland Institute College of Art has integrated Mt. Royal Station into its campus. The Shot Tower and the Bromo Seltzer Tower, for example, have been protected. But what about the Tower Building on Fayette Street, the old McCormick spice building? Gone. [3]
EARLY YEARS
THE RACIAL DIVIDE IN BALTIMORE
20
Almost from its inception, Baltimore has been a divided city, on racial lines, religious communities. And today Baltimore remains fractured by racial antipathy and distrust. I was raised by a black woman, Maggie Murdock. She was an honored member of our family [5]. We loved Maggie, but in retrospect, Maggie was like an indentured servant with few opportunities. I took for granted her subservient role in the household, without truly understanding the reality of her day-to-day
5 Michael, Maggie and me
life. Maggie had no formal education. She never drove a car, probably never voted. After she retired, she would walk across the city, miles at a time. A local television station actually broadcast a feature on their evening news program about Maggie. They called the segment, “These Shoes Are Made for Walking.” Maggie sang spirituals. Her favorite was “When I’m Growing Old and Feeble, Stand by Me.” She taught me how to dance. And believe. My elementary school, PS #64, was one of the first Baltimore schools to be desegregated. I had a handful of black classmates. I liked all of them. It seemed like things would finally get better, fairer. We were blinded by the soaring rhetoric of the civil rights movement. To me black Baltimore was exotic in music, in dress, in culture. We drove through it, lived next door to it, ate at restaurants, listened to black radio, tried to dance like our black classmates. As has been well-documented, Baltimore was a major destination for black families escaping the more obvious and virulent forms of racial discrimination. Baltimore’s brand of institutionalized racial separation was a bit subtler, but it was still designed to maintain racial inequality. In the 1950s, the open hostility among the racial groups and the fear that ensues was muted; there was a sense of common civic purpose. It very well might have been my own fantasy. I was too removed to understand that most black families were being crushed under the weight of commercial servitude. The land of pleasant living was not so pleasant for most black Baltimoreans. In reality most of the commercial entertainment elements of the city had been off-limits. One by one, things started to open up, grudgingly. Public swimming pools, Baltimore’s department stores, movie theaters, and restaurants began to integrate in the mid 1960s. But even with the support of sympathetic mayors, Baltimore’s political and commercial classes continued to push back against change. And by the 1970s, the black community was caught in the cross
EARLY YEARS
4 A Dag Hammarskjöld wood engraving, circa 1960s
21
EARLY YEARS
6 Favorite son, Parren Mitchell, handmade memento
22
hairs of a deep and irreversible economic downturn. Whites were fleeing the city and Baltimore’s once prosperous shopping district was eroding. By the time black Baltimore took control of the city’s political institutions, the consequences of Baltimore’s structural isolation from the wealthier parts of the metro area had become apparent. With a dwindling tax base, Baltimore was in a state of freefall. Black Baltimore had its leaders. Thurgood Marshall had become a nationally recognized legal champion of equality and desegregation. Baltimore’s Murphy and Mitchell families represented a new generation of political leaders, adhering to the Martin Luther King non-violent model. But the push for equality was blunted by white disinterest and declining economic opportunity. Tellingly, the majority of white citizens regarded Willie Adams, not Clarence Mitchell Jr. or Thurgood Marshall, as the most prominent leader in the African American community. Little Willie. The man who ran the black Democratic machine, who allegedly ran Baltimore’s numbers racket and a chunk of its narcotics trade. The “mayor of Pennsylvania Avenue,” the main street running through West Baltimore’s black community, was perceived to have the power, the street cred. A decade later, black political leadership would coalesce around Parren Mitchell and other community organizers, but by then, much of Baltimore’s wealth and political patronage had moved out of the city to Baltimore County. And things have spiraled downwards ever since. A street artist was selling his wares at an art festival around the Druid Park Reservoir. I noticed an image of Parren Mitchell woven into a piece of cloth, intermingled with applique flowers. Mitchell had served in Congress for several decades and had passed away years earlier. A strange and beautiful testimony to an early leader of the city’s civil rights era. [6]
DISCOVERING THE THINGS AROUND ME Why is it that their stuff is shit but my shit is stuff?
7 The Basssins, the Berlins and aunts and uncles on the town at a local nightclub
Most children are surrounded by objects and images. Some feel these influences far more deeply than others. Some gravitate to books, others to their brothers or sisters. Some children see their world through other people’s eyes. Some live in fantasy. Others take refuge in their surroundings. My earliest recollections of childhood are of objects and images. Some simple, ordinary, but all with the magical power to reach back to their point of origin. I was alone a lot as a child. The things around me were my friends, my markers, the organizing 8 Cousin Milton, the prodigy principle of my young life. I did not read early or well. I was a slow learner, or so I was told. For some reason, words on paper were riddles to me. I struggled to keep up. My love of words and books came much later in my life. So, pictures and objects were my sources of understanding the world around me. Our house was filled with pictures of relatives, constant references to our Eastern European Jewish heritage. The religious aspects were lost on me.
EARLY YEARS
GEORGE CARLIN
23
EARLY YEARS
24
(I never recovered from the shock that the burning bush was not a real thing.) But there was always a hint of “old country” attitude in our house, perpetuated by stories from Russia, Poland, Hungary. Constant reminders of my bloodline, my heritage. Of a much harder existence. [7] I was left to my own devices and my own imagination to fill in the meaning of these images of foreign places, mysterious sounds, other ways. I knew that a distant cousin, Milton Wohl, was a child prodigy on the violin. But pictures of him appeared as from a different planet. [8] I did not have the presence of mind to ask my grandparents and parents questions about the past, the places, the sources, the family names. Instead, I hunted for clues. Pictures, old carpets, the odds and ends resting on a cupboard or dresser represented hints of my roots, of a far-off world. I matched the images around me with the feelings I derived from them. My mind was consumed by daydreams of a romantic past. Not nostalgia exactly, but rather the promise of future discovery. A roadmap of what might still be out there in the larger world. That was long ago. I have grown up and, so it seems, grown old. But the patterns and aspirations of my childhood still remain. The very first image I can remember is a picture that hung over my parents’ bed. It shows a seated Neapolitan man on a balcony overlooking a small seaside town playing a concertina, while a woman (his wife?) stands sewing. I have no idea where it came from. My parents did not have much of an interest in art. But the image transfixed me. The image of these two in a far-off land was magical. [9] The picture is unapologetically romantic, dripping with sentiment. But it was the only image I had of the Europe my grandparents came from. Or a close proximity. When looking at that picture, I could hear the music, and feel the pace of a slower, less mechanized life. It told me there are worlds beyond Baltimore, draped in colors that we Americans could only imagine. It was an early invitation to travel the world and, whether through books or through collecting objects, rediscover my past. It was
9 The picture over my parents’ bed
10 My father’s agent certificate as a member of the War Production Board
Jeffrey taught me that being funny was almost as good as being smart. Sometimes, the two were indistinguishable. I have carried this insane concept with me for most of my life. Along with music and comedy, color was an essential part of my world view as a child. Richness of color represented friendship, peacefulness. Much later I was confronted with this richness of color in many theosophical pictures representing godliness and wisdom. Color as language. I will talk more about color a bit later on.
EARLY YEARS
the only “painting” (a reproduction) I can remember in my parents’ house. Music, politics, sports, all present, but art? Only family items and pictures. But that was more than enough to get me started. Although our home did not contain much in the way of art, there was always music. My mom sang constantly. Show tunes, popular songs from the 1940s and 1950s. Always with feeling. Maggie, the lady who worked for us, also sang. Church songs mostly, eyes closed, rhythmic melodies I can still hear today. Our music was not art or culture; it was a shield against the gloom and anxiety of everyday life. Music represented the first real bond between me and my brother, Denny. He is seven-plus years older and was listening to his own music when I was still a small kid. He introduced me to Miles Davis, Harry Belafonte, Stan Kenton, The Kingston Trio. This music shaped my early impressions of the world, my soundtrack, so to speak. I still listen to Miles’ Kind of Blue album today. Later when I turned ten, old enough to pick my own musical favorites, I elevated my tastes to include The Everly Brothers and Buddy Holly. While Denny opened the door to music, my cousin Jeffrey injected humor and (regrettably) sarcasm into my personal repertoire. Jeffrey and I would use our grandparents’ Wilcox Gay reel-toreel tape recorder to make bizarre horror shows, such as the now infamous “Mummy’s Fingernail.”
25
EARLY YEARS
26
Many of the things I played with came from my dad. During most of the Second World War, my dad worked for the War Production Board, procuring essential materials and equipment for the government’s war effort. He was very proud of this responsibility. After the war, he was responsible, along with others, for the disposal of surplus. As in Sunny’s Surplus here in Baltimore. His service certificate was, in my mind, a crucial document, linking the family to the victorious war effort. [10] Sports, or rather my sports fantasies, were central to my young life. I could throw a baseball as well as the next kid, but mostly I was a resigned spectator when it came to sports. I tried my hand at lacrosse, a Baltimore fetish, but…. In the abstract, the concept of a team, comprised of guys from different backgrounds, provided an illusion of people joined by common purpose, friendship and optimism. Early baseball and football trading cards projected this with perfection. The early 1950s cards were small hand-painted portraits of players. The artists painted over photos and used the full palette of rich colors to make these athletes visually appealing. The cards are beautiful. The blues are deep, as are the reds and greens. The backgrounds are astoundingly gorgeous with pink and violet skies, and the greenness of playing fields. The Bowman football set of 1951 was my first art collection. [11] Family history, or an airbrushed version, permeated our home. My grandparents were from lands that were ruled over by Russians. Sam from the Ukraine and Jenny from the Polish-
11 My treasured 1951 Bowmans
Lithuanian region. They fled the pogroms and managed to get to Baltimore, most likely in the 1890s. By the time I arrived, they had been here for half a century. But they still spoke with a Russian accent. They remained Russian Jews, in spite of their good fortune in coming to America. Like many immigrants from that era, my grandfather was active in socialist politics. But he was his happiest when going to the racetrack. He loved going to Pimlico (as well as Laurel, Bowie, Hialeah, Gulfstream, etc.). He loved the horses. He only bet the “daily double” and he was good at it. Won much more than he lost. [12] He and my grandmother rented a winter apartment in Miami Beach. They played Canasta with their friends every Friday night. We would drive down south to stay with them every December, 13 Good guys wore the white hats when I would get my first taste of the glamour of Miami. Along with betting on horses, my grandfather enjoyed watching cowboy movies on television every weekday afternoon. Every afternoon at 4PM, he would sit in his favorite chair in front of his 12-inch black-and-white RCA TV and watch “Boots and Saddles,” a collection of old films showing Gene Autry, Tom Mix, Roy Rogers and assorted white-hatted cowboys cutting them off at the pass. And I would be there with my grandfather. Crawling around on the large living room rug, daydreaming that I was riding along with the posse. [13]
EARLY YEARS
12 A handful of Sam Bassin’s racetrack tickets
27
EARLY YEARS
28
Televisions back then were iffy, with signal strength a constant issue, along with tube burnout. But of course, we had our local TV repairman, who would visit the house and bring whatever it took to restore our beloved black-andwhite picture to health. Television drove commercialism into everyone’s home, and brains. We take it for granted today, but back then, advertising and commercials were novel and their messages and images had a persistence. Jingles entered our day-to-day vocabulary. And, of course, there were the product logos and brand characters that adorned every milk bottle, potato chip bag and beer can. After the war, Baltimore manufacturers and merchants and professional sports franchises created memorable logos, many based on fictitious characters, who themselves became legendary and outlived the products they represented. Mister Boh, the Utz Potato Chip girl, the Suburban Club golfer. The Oriole laughing bird and the famous Colt jumping through goalposts. These were more than advertising. These were flags of our hometown. They were our friends and our identification as authentic Baltimoreans. They were our home teams. [14] If Baltimore had an unofficial mascot, it would be Mister Boh (Natty Boh to the hipsters). The symbol of Baltimore’s major brewer during my childhood, Boh was more than an icon. He was the spokesman for this blue-collar, beer-drinking town. As the commercial said, we lived in “the land of pleasant living.” [15]
14 Baltimore’s favorite logos – Suburban Club, Gunther, sports teams
EARLY YEARS
15 The one and only Mister Boh
29
16 Westinghouse Advertising Sign
EARLY YEARS
19 Daum-Nancy etched glass vase
30
17 Bethlehem Steel Night at Memorial Statium
18 Esskay hot dog vendor box
Other objects and images affected me as a child. My parents eloped with their friends Edith and Sam in 1935, escaping to Florida and then returning to a life in Baltimore. While apparently there was no wedding party, a few presents were given, including a small Daum-Nancy glass vase that seems to date back to the first decade of the 20th century. It was the gem of the household, acid-etched, with artfully rendered trees on a green blue sky. My parents lost interest in it, but I never did. A beautiful, significant piece of family history, one that was never discarded like so many other family artifacts. [19] Outside the house, there were images of a prosperous manufacturing town everywhere. The Westinghouse lighted sign represented the large manufacturing presence in my hometown. [16] Glenn L. Martin airplanes, shipbuilding at the Sparrows Point dockyards, Bethlehem Steel, Bendix radios, Fisher Body. Thousands of workers, union members, earned their wages building, assembling, and fixing mechanical devices. White
21 The Baltimore Afro-American Afro Clean Block flag
workers and eventually black workers joined the union, found work, married, built families, bought homes and served as the backbone of the city. It’s what made Baltimore run. It was our base. These companies and the unions kept property values steady and they supported Baltimore’s shaky sports franchises. [17] And of course, Baltimore had its own favorite foods and restaurants. I can still taste the special foods we had—Utz potato chips (still around), Almond Smash soda, potato coddies. Chocolate-top cookies and snowballs (crushed ice, chocolate syrup and, when lucky, vanilla ice cream). Baltimore foods, all with their distinctive packaging. And the local middle-class restaurants whose décor shouted the preeminence of the local brands. And we had Esskay hot dogs, the only franks you could buy at an Orioles or Colts game. [18] There were so many local breweries in Baltimore. Our city was a beer town. National Boh, Gunther, Arrow and American Beer. My parents would take me to the Millrace Tavern on Friday nights, sometimes to eat steamed crabs (on Shabbos, oy). They had a great organ player, Charlie, and a small dance floor. Local politicians would go table to table to shake hands and kibbitz. [20] There was always something happening of interest around town. Each year The Baltimore Afro-American newspaper would launch a campaign urging children from black neighborhoods to clean up their blocks, to plant flowers in pots the paper provided, and sweep the streets. Each tended-to street got a little flag and flag holder. The Afro Clean Block flag was given in recognition for this feat. [21] I remember these blocks in West Baltimore, in Harlem Park where Maggie lived. This was before
EARLY YEARS
20 Millrace Tavern, our favorite crab house
31
the post-MLK assassination riots. This was before the crack surge. Many of the houses on these Afro Clean blocks are now boarded up. Waiting for the new wave of civic engagement. It’s coming but it will take a while. The Millrace closed years ago. The factories are now vacated. The jobs are gone. And Friendship Airport, that late Deco streamlined structure that blended so perfectly with the Eastern Airlines Constellation for prop airplanes, is now a shad-
ow of itself in terms of form and design. Like most metro areas, our old airport was replaced with a generic glass structure, which now serves as a back-up landing strip to the two airports down the road in Washington and Northern Virginia. All that is left from the days of the old airport are the postcards and the street sign. [22] But back then, Baltimore was a happening place. Bowling leagues, Colts Corrals, Interfaith Night at the Orioles game at Memorial Stadium
EARLY YEARS
22 Friendship Airport road sign
32
23 Chuck Thompson bus advertisement
(also gone). Ameche’s Drive-ins. Hometown banks and department stores. What a town Baltimore was. We even had our own announcer. Chuck Thompson had been doing play-by-play for the Orioles and, eventually, the Colts for decades. His smooth, comforting, hometown baritone was instantly recognizable by everyone in town. During the middle of an Orioles rally, he would bellow “Katie, bar the door.” When they were about to win a ballgame, he would croon, “Ain’t the beer cold.” He was genuine, and he was our man. The Chuck Thompson sign had adorned a transit bus back in the early 1950s. [23] Our hometown is looking for its next boom period. It sometimes doesn’t seem like it’s possible, but it’s coming. 24 Letter from our young President-Elect
I spent a dreadful three years in the early 1960s with my family in once-glamorous Miami Beach. We did not live, we hung on. My father’s life-long dream of being a big shot in Florida never panned out. A proud man’s unfulfilled fantasy. The trip to Florida started off with a bang. We drove from Baltimore to Miami Beach in mid-November, right after the presidential election of 1960. Driving through quaint Georgetown, my father noticed that there were a bunch of police cars lined up along the side of the street. The newly-elected president was heading back to his Georgetown house from the hospital, where his wife Jackie had just had their son. The cops let us linger on the other side of the street. We waited in the car. And then, it happened. A convoy of three black limousines pulled up and Jack got out. My mother could not control herself. She busted out of her door and yelled at the top of her lungs, JACK,
EARLY YEARS
A FEW YEARS IN FLORIDA
33
EARLY YEARS
34
JACK! He looked across the street and smiled and waved us over. And shook our hands and hugged my mom and then ducked out of the blistering cold into his brownstone. Well, I was officially in politics, having met the head man. I could not wait to send him a letter explaining my interest in government and wishing him well. Six weeks or so later, the President-elect responded. [24] That was the high point of my time in Florida, and we were only an hour or so out of Baltimore. The rest of the Florida years were a disaster. In the early 1960s, Miami Beach was still a prime vacation destination for people with money, mostly Jews. The big late Art Deco hotels attracted Jewish royalty from New York and Chicago, Philadelphia and Baltimore during the winter season. Frank, Sammy and Dean would do the Eden Roc or Fontainebleau and pack the town. Older snowbirds, on their fixed incomes, owned the rest of the town. Mostly from Russia and Eastern Europe, they lived in small apartments and populated what is now known as South Beach. They lived a frugal existence. My grandparents were part of this community. Cuban refugees also began to reach Miami Beach, having fled Castro, and would serve as the core of the Cuban community in South Florida. We lived with my grandparents, in a tiny apartment below Surfside, barely making ends meet, in the shadow of wealth and luxury. I kind of knew Florida would be a disaster early on. My parents took me to a small circus resort up the coast from Miami, where the performers and animals hibernated during the cold winters. Wrestling alligators, small animal
25 The circus during winter months
26 Joe and Marilyn during better times | © Pictorial Press Ltd/Almy Stock Photo
EARLY YEARS
tricks. Anything to entertain the small batches of visitors with a few bucks to blow and a few hours to kill. [25] After a ho-hum performance, the one clown in the troop asked everyone in attendance to check under their seats for a special surprise. I put my hand under the seat and, guess what? I won! There was a card there, and the clown asked the lucky winner to come down and claim the prize. Sheepishly I walked down the steps of the makeshift amphitheater. Lots of laughter and good cheer. The MC and clown invited me and my proud parents backstage to claim my gift. Which we did. The clown, far less friendly offstage, handed me a box that contained—what was it? A string tie, with a seashell adorning it. A bolo tie I was told, with the name of the circus stamped on the front. My dad hung it around my neck, but as we walked to the car, the shell fell right off, leaving me with a thin black rope around my neck. Pretty disappointing for a ten-year-old who just moved to town. But that was just a taste of what was to come. The following year, we drove to St. Petersburg, Florida, to meet friends of my parents at an expensive restaurant, the Columbia. The other family included a girl a few years older than I was. While looking at menus, the maître d’ came to the table, and whispered in my father’s ear that Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe were in the house, eating in a private dining room. My father’s face lit up. This was big. And he had a great idea: Why didn’t the daughter and I go say hello to Marilyn and Joe? What? Yes, I knew who these two stars were; everyone did. But why would I barge in on them in a private room? If they wanted to see people, they could have sat at a table in the main dining area. I protested, but no one came to my defense. The next thing I remember, I was being escorted with my new accomplice to a hallway and then to a closed door, which my father opened and unceremoniously pushed the two of us through.
35
t
9th st 8th st
t
26t
hs
t
e col lin s
y av
e av
embers restaurant
t
e
nautilus hotel
ave collins
ic Ocea n
ave
At l a n t
gton a ve
14th st
news café
LUMM
wolfsonian museum
dr
12th st
US P ARK
13th st
washin
euclid ave
10th st
pennsylvania ave
lenox ave
michigan ave
11th st
hs
hs
collins
espanola way 14th pl
14th st
james ave
meridan ave
jefferson ave
16th st
drexel ave
lincoln la south
washington ave
lenox ave
michigan ave
17th st
lincoln road mall
12th st
19th st
18th st
north lincoln
PARK
k av
BEACH
CONVE NTION CENTE R
18th st
27t
wolfie’s restaurant
20t
par
d 19th st
MIAMI
ocean
to al
ad
13th st
lib
t st
n
rd
me
rid
d st
convention ctr dr
vd
FLAMIN GO
ert
ave
an
22n
21s
l eb
indian creek hotel
fl
GOLF COURS E
GOLF CLUB
15th st
a ming
pine tree dr
praire av e
n bay rd
MIAMI BEACH
BAYSH ORE MUNIC IPAL
o dr
th s
w 28
indian creek
MIAMI, FLORIDA CIRCA 1958-1963
west ave
EARLY YEARS
MIAMI BEACH
alton rd
36
There we stood, staring at a mildly disgusted Joe and a haggard Marilyn, wearing a kerchief, no makeup, and looking very sad. We were monuments to poor taste. Then, suddenly, the door opened and my father brusquely came in and asked as if onstage, “Are these two bothering you? Hey kids, you know better.” He thrust out his hand and shook Joe’s saying, “Hi. I’m Lou Berlin. I am terribly sorry for this disturbance. I’ll make sure it does not happen again.” And we were escorted to our table. I was furious at my father. In retrospect, it was an ingenious scheme. Dad should have carried a baseball and gotten Joltin’ Joe to sign it for him. The only thing I have saved from that evening is the memory of the mournful look on Joe and Marilyn’s faces. [26] The picture shows the couple on a better day. My three years in Miami Beach were more of the same. Surrounded by wealth and luxury, feeling poorer than my classmates, socially inept, with nearly failing grades. The only fun I had was when they would send all of the classes to the auditorium to watch the manned space flights from Cape Canaveral. Gus Grissom was my favorite astronaut. I spent my days and nights daydreaming among the old Art Deco hotels. And fantasizing that I was in Miami Beach on vacation. I remember watching the “Greatest Game Ever Played,” the 1958 Colts-Giants championship game at the Boom Boom Room at the Fontainebleau Hotel with my father and brother, surrounded by high-rolling New Yorkers. The Colts won and I felt like I owned the place. And one spring break, my brother Denny parked cars at the Nautilus Hotel. Pretty cool. Nothing like living life vicariously. Miami Beach had the largest collection of stream-lined, late Deco hotels in the country. The buildings’ facades were dramatic, modern, elegant. The hotel lobbies were drenched in luxury and romance. My father would take us to
500 feet
the hotel lobbies on a Friday evening as pure entertainment, enchantment. It was easy to dream about belonging. [27] The architecture and interior design of the era forced their way into my psyche. This was how things should look. This was success. In the decades that followed, this Miami Beach would fall into decay and be replaced by generic structures. Deco definitely was out. But the dynamism of that era would remain with me throughout my life. Alas, I was forced to return from the elegance of the Eden Roc and Americana hotels to my dreary junior high school life. I survived my Bar Mitzvah without screwing up the Hebrew portion (I did stumble over the part in English thanking my parents). It was followed by a bowling party. Most of the other kids had lavish parties at hotels, but everyone seemed to enjoy the bowling. I guess I was in a deep depression during my time in Miami Beach. Nautilus Junior High was a nightmare. Wrong clothes, pimples, dodgy grades. My 8th grade English teacher predicted that I would never see the inside of a college, presumably to calm me down and take the pressure off. But I knew she was full of shit. If my brother made it to college, I had a shot as well.
EARLY YEARS
27 The grandeur of 1960s Miami Beech – The Art Deco palaces
37
To lift my spirits, my parents would take me to the Saxony Hotel, more specifically, to the Noshery room (pronounced nosh-a-rye) to get a hot fudge sundae, with two scoops of vanilla ice cream, thick hot fudge and real whipped cream (no nuts, please). One afternoon, my Dad took me with him to see a guy he knew from Baltimore who was staying in town at the Americana Hotel, one of Miami Beach’s best. Nate Pinsley had obviously made it in the world. His hotel suite was the size of our apartment. And the woman he was with was stunning. He made me a drink, a horse’s neck (lemon peel and seltzer), a big deal for a twelve-year old. As he and my Dad concluded whatever business they had, he spoke to me in a serious tone. “Listen, Eduard, never forget that your books are your best friends.” This was coming from a “made man,” someone that appeared to have figured things out. It took me a decade, but I eventually understood the wisdom of his words. My one treasured artifact from three years in Miami Beach was actually from the Bahamas. We took a cruise ship, the SS Bahama Star to Nassau, and my mother purchased a modern-looking zebra at a local shop. Nassau in the early 1960s was a tiny town, with lovely shops and easy-going people. Old Nassau. Wiped off the map by large hotels and theme parks. [28] Not much else survived our time in Miami Beach. I did not have any interest in holding onto things except for a few football cards. I kept my head down and waited for a ticket out of there. Not a moment too soon, we all were heading back to Baltimore. We had had enough of the Sunshine State. The family moved back in mid-1963, bruised but not broken. Miami Beach turned out to be my Parris Island, boot camp for survivors in the age of commercialism, personal competition and faux glamour. It toughened me up. It took me years to figure out that junior high school shit was irrelevant. Not that high school shit was any better. But I was back home and could resume being myself. Just a stronger, more ambitious, more defensive version of myself. I worked a lot of part-time jobs—a soda jerk at Wagner’s Drug Store, parking cars at a country club, selling Fuller Brushes, working as a bank teller, etc.—jobs that prepared me to hate work. My cousin, Jeffrey Middleman, got me into a cool fraternity (Baltimore had high-
EARLY YEARS
28 Mom’s Nassau Market find: Beautiful zebra from Finland
38
school fraternities). Mu Sigma, the animal house of Jewish Baltimore. I took some crap from the cool dudes, but I was back home. In all, it was just a normal crazy adolescence.
A BRUSH WITH POLITICS After graduating high school, I spent several years working on election campaigns. And later, interning in the governor’s office in Annapolis. I always had had an interest in government and public service, which I felt was far more honorable than being in business or selling stuff. I was very naïve. People around me were unimpressed with the local politicians in town. It seemed that politics was the art of doing as little as possible and expecting to get tons of credit for it, while miraculously getting rich. But I hoped to prove that the naysayers were wrong.
EARLY YEARS
29 Mayor Tommy bumper sticker
39
EARLY YEARS
40
We had a strong Democratic mayor, Tommy D’Alesandro II, who seemed to run the city with efficiency and a pugnacious charm. [29] Tommy had a son Tommy III who would also become mayor and a daughter, Nancy, who would become Nancy Pelosi, the queen of the House of Representatives. My mother was a bleeding-heart liberal, who idolized Adlai Stevenson and suffered through his three failed presidential campaigns in the 1950s, before Jack came along. Stevenson couldn’t win, my Mom told me—he was too much of an egghead. I never forgot meeting President Kennedy back in 1960 on the street in Georgetown. I followed his administration, knew the names of all of his cabinet members (Douglas Dillon was Secretary of the Treasury), watched his inauguration on television, mourned his assassination, and attended his funeral in Washington along with millions of other Americans. When I got a bit older, I wanted to see politics for myself, upfront. One man, one vote, the democracy of the common man. Democracy in action. All of that romantic bumper sticker stuff we got fed back then. As soon as I had the wheels to travel, I looked around for political action. Something I could identify with. It was the mid-1960s, and there was a lot going on. The United Auto Workers’ National Convention
was taking place at the Atlantic City Convention Center, a mere three-hour drive; so I went. Walked right into the convention hall and into the proceedings. Walter Reuther, the UAW head, was a hero—a civil rights supporter, a union organizer. This would be democratic politics at its best. I was psyched. But everyone there at the convention hall was old and white, and they looked like they hadn’t lifted a tool in decades. I did not like what I saw, and neither did they. My hair was creeping over my collar and I had the expression that marked me as a future hippie or worse. But something different was happening in America in 1968. The country was deeply torn by opposition to the Vietnam war and by the King murder. Hopelessness spilled into riot. The war bred deep suspicion between generations. Even more distressing, the anti-war movement had the unintended effect of weakening white commitment to racial justice in America. It was as if we were unable to focus on two causes at once. But many believed that one person, Robert Kennedy, had the ability and presence to speak on behalf of both black and white, and to campaign simultaneously for both civil rights and the termination of US intervention in South-East Asia. He was someone I could believe in. And so I joined his campaign as a student coordinator in Maryland, going door to door with
POLITICS WAS THE ART OF DOING AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE
30 Bobby Kennedy dispensing hope
41
EARLY YEARS
my friends, Avi and Bruce, erecting lawn signs, even giving a rousing speech on his behalf on campus at UMBC. I saw him speak in Anacostia in Washington, DC. I felt deeply touched by his calls for human dignity. [30] But Bobby too was cut down, that June in California. I was honored to be invited to view the train carrying Bobby’s casket as it passed through Baltimore at Pennsylvania Station. [31] I felt hollowed out by the third assassination, but committed to blocking Nixon’s path to the White House. Hubert Humphrey versus the devil. I had to help Hubert win the day. I tried to convince as many people as possible that Humphrey was a decent
EARLY YEARS
31 Kennedy funeral telegram
42
guy, with a strong civil rights record. But people had turned off by then. A few months later, I was in Chicago at the Democratic convention. I wanted to think I had been invited because of my campaign work, but the reality was that I got there on the coattails of my girlfriend’s father, the grand wizard of the Maryland Democratic Party. Anyone in Chicago that week knew that the Democrats had self-destructed and Nixon would win. It all came apart in Chicago that summer. Yippies running amok on the streets. Setting fire to corner trash cans. Chicago police firing tear gas and mace at anyone walking around, including me, a mere jive liberal looking for some history. Everyone hating on everyone else. And all the while, the conventioneers, making forgettable speeches, gorging themselves on free food and booze. Democracy in action. I did pick up a few interesting trinkets while on the political beat. Nothing of substance. Souvenirs from the fun house. [32] Most voting-age, long-hair, dope-smoking folks like me sat the election out. Vietnam blowback. Nixon won. And in 1968, the world got to know Baltimore’s one and only Spiro Agnew. Ted Agnew to us locals. Although the Humphrey campaign was deeply disappointing, I did get to know Edgar Berman, a
renowned surgeon and friend of Hubert Humphrey, who had served as President Kennedy’s first head of the legendary Alliance for Progress project, which ran parallel to the Peace Corps. The purpose of the Alliance for Progress was to attack rampant disease in Latin America by sending young doctors from the US to poor Latin nations to help improve medical practices. Pax America with a friendly face. For some reason, Edgar took a liking to me and invited me to the Berman farmhouse in wealthy horse country. I was the pet young idealist, I suppose, but it went sour when Humphrey lost to Nixon and Edgar blamed the students for not supporting Hubert. Edgar’s accusatory op-ed pieces in the New York Times aimed at hippies and women’s libbers, and earned him the wrath of Patsy Mink, a congresswoman from Hawaii. In her own op-ed piece, Mink called Edgar a male chauvinist pig, which I believe is the origin of the term. I loved hanging out with Edgar and his wife, Phoebe, but they stopped loving me. Like lots of other students in the late 1960s, I marched against the war. Over a half of million people went to Washington to march in the November 1969 War Moratorium protest. But the fighting in Vietnam lasted for another six years. [33] I spent a few more years hacking around politics, working in Annapolis. Politics looked easier than getting a real job. There were people working to make things better, but ultimately, in politics, no good deed goes unpunished. For every right-thinking man or woman in government
32 Remnants from the Chicago Convention
EARLY YEARS
33 November 1969 War Moratorium March
43
trying to fix things, there were three clowns or buffoons standing in the way. So I lost interest. I decided that I would have to figure out how to earn money by working at a real job. I needed employment to pay for my trips to junk shops and warehouses for more stuff. A political postscript. Many years later, 2008 to be exact, I met Barack Obama at a small fundraiser at the home of former Citibanker Jeff Davis. I went with my old Citibank friend and colleague, Anne Gable. Even though Obama was behind Hillary Clinton in the polls, I felt certain that he would win the Democratic nomination. There was something about the way he handled himself, the way he smiled, listened, spoke. I became a convert, as did many others. It was a great moment when he won the election. I felt like, after losing Bobby Kennedy so many years earlier, we finally had a chance. [34]
EARLY YEARS
CREATION OF A COLLECTION: THE WORLD OF OBJECTS
44
The rest of this document is devoted to providing some background regarding various things in my sprawling collection of objects, graphic design, art and posters, advertising, cartoon characters and family art. Each section describes parts of the collection, organizing things by type and in some cases by place of origin. I think it is important to explain where things were derived from and how they came into my possession. And of course, it is essential to introduce the people I met along the way. I have always had trouble distinguishing between art objects and the ordinary everyday things most people take for granted. Stuff. Advertising versus paintings, art versus design, design versus wrappers. All in the eye of the beholder.
34 Obama signature
EARLY YEARS
WHO’S TO SAY WHAT IS ART, OR WHAT GETS KEPT AND NOT TOSSED ASIDE?
The intent of the maker used to count for something, but not anymore. Once, art had a ring of permanence, but some of the most exquisite posters were intended to last for a few weeks at most. Rarity counts a lot for most collectors, but some of my most treasured objects and images are still available in plentiful supply. So who’s to say what is art, or what gets kept and not tossed aside? An object is truly valuable to its owner in terms of his or her emotional and/or symbolic perspective. The object or image carries with it the properties of time, place, prior owner, cleverness and/or pure beauty. Monetary value is a component, but often it risks overshadowing the other elements. At that point, it’s a matter of investment rather than assembling a collection. Another thing to consider: Objects that symbolize special people or circumstances are treasures, but they do not replace the relationships or experiences they symbolize. They are markers that denote milestones in one’s life. But possessing them is not the same as experiencing them fully. And that is what this travelogue is—a series of markers or milestones in my own life. Each represents a time in place, and a place in time. They enable me to recall people who I have met, some only once, others relations for life. As a child, I inherited objects and images that made up my early environment and defined where I came from and belonged. I did not choose them. They were there. What I chose was to pay attention to was what they were telling me. Or what I interpreted from their form, their color, how family members regarded them, where they were placed in my household. Many of these treasured objects have been lost in time. Misplaced, discarded, damaged beyond recognition. But a handful remain with me. They apparently decided to make the trip with me through life. There was a point where I, consciously or otherwise, made the decision to become a collector. And to live among various things that I would find. Some people hate clutter, but I felt a need to assemble things as part of my day-to-day life.
45
35 Howdy Doody
EARLY YEARS
36 World War II airplane microphone
46
The first possession I can remember was a recording of “Sixteen Tons,” by Tennessee Ernie Ford, which I sat on and cracked right after I opened the Christmas present and saw what Santa had given me. It was my favorite song growing up. Not sure that actually counts, since I had it for a nanosecond. The following year, I got a Howdy Doody string puppet in its own cardboard box. He has been tangled and a bit mangled, even after having visited a doll hospital in NYC at one point. But he is still kicking. [35] There were a bunch of wartime pieces in the house when I showed up. An old army bugle, a heavy white civil defense helmet, and some other odds and ends. One object, an airplane handheld microphone, very streamlined, was always in my field of vision. It whetted my appetite for mechanical devices. I fantasized about assembling a wall of dials and scopes in my house to simulate a large control panel à la 20 Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. I got as far as securing the microphone. [36] The microphone was manufactured from an early plastic, called Bakelite. The phones, desktop radios, fountain pens, and hundreds of other things we had around the house were made of Bakelite. By the late 1950s, things got lighter, more colorful. New polymer variants displaced Bakelite and its sister, celluloid. At some point, I began to notice and appreciate the many things that swirled around me at school, through the window of my parents’ car, or on television. No longer would I be limited to family heirlooms and hand-me-downs. Later, as I grew older and my interests expanded, I began to build my own special environment, based on accumulating possessions. So even before I had an apartment or house, I began the process of furnishing my life. I can thank my father for opening the floodgates. It started with a Volvo. A 1962 544 model, tomato red, two-door, fourspeed stick shift on the floor. I was nosing around a car lot, Michaelson Motors,
38 Sunny’s Surplus bomber jacket from my dad
one evening with my friend Marc. We were imaginary shopping for dream cars. Rows of new and used Volvos. Marc yelled over to me to check something out. Two rows away he had spotted a car that had a SOLD ticket behind the wiper blades with the name Berlin on it. At the time, I was driving a beat-up American Motors Rambler American, in two-tone baby blue, needing serious body work. It ran, but just barely. And it was costing more in mechanical work than the car was worth. Without confiding in me, my dad went and bought the red Volvo for what I later found out was the astronomical price of $2300. What?! [37] I was blown away. It was my high-school graduation present, although at that moment, it was not clear that I had passed 12th grade math, so it was more like wishful thinking, a prayer. That Volvo was so much more than a car. It was a foreign car. It was a thinking man’s car à la Ingmar Bergman. It had an amazing hump, a more sophisticated, more elegant profile than the newest auto fad, the VW Beetle. The car was art. While I did not select it, in many respects it became my first personal possession, chosen by a loving father who got enjoyment from the car through the delight of his son. I lived in that car for four years. I had sex in that car. I painted a black yin-yang on both doors. By hand. Crazy. The Volvo was the first of five Volvos I would have. It was an early link to Europe, to European design, to streamline, to mechanical devices, to travel. Later that year, my father bought me a Korean-War-era leather flight jacket, brown cordovan. I still have it, but it is now several sizes too small. Did not know that leather could shrink like that!?! [38] Both from Lou. Both treasures. From my dad. Telling me to dream and want more. The car is gone now. So is my father. But the feelings of love from him remain with me.
EARLY YEARS
37 The Volvo 544
47
My dad took me on a junket to Las Vegas when I was about 19 or 20. He had some kind of “in” with the people who ran the hotels and casinos. And managed to get us comped— complementary rooms and food. I never got to find out why. I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know. But we got to see a lot of shows, a weird collection of top acts, has-beens, and other assortment of Vegas room acts—Nancy Wilson, Godfrey Cambridge, Danny Thomas. And the best, B.B. King. [39] On my 20th birthday, my friends threw a surprise party for me. Bruce and Marc and a few others pitched in and bought an old palmist sign from a junk dealer. It probably sat outside one of the many palm reader shops on the Block in downtown Baltimore. [40] In addition to striptease joints and porno emporiums, the Block featured gypsies who offered to tell suckers what they wanted to hear. I now had this beautiful hand-painted sign that would forever remind me that anyone who thinks he or she knows what’s coming in the future is kidding himself. I was still living at home with my parents, so the sign leaned against my bedroom wall. Hand-painted advertising pieces were once everywhere. Murals on the sides of buildings, in shop windows. Painted signs, screen doors, sandwich signs worn by out-of-work men. They were crafted by anonymous commercial artists. Mostly hand-painted or stenciled. They reflect the style of the era as well as the presumed attitudes of potential customers. Like today, they reflect the mood of the times, the nature of things, albeit in a manipulative way, and based on an imagined reality. They were alluring or funny or dramatic. Some were intended to last for a few weeks, or a few months. They were disposable.
EARLY YEARS
39 Vegas chip
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40 Palmist sign
41 Collection of doorstops
42 Ashtrays
EARLY YEARS
Advertising displays could be found in restaurants on menus and signs, hotels, and department stores—diner mugs, wooden clothes hangers, shoehorns, wall calendars. They are still being collected and admired. If you do not believe it, check out eBay. I developed a particular fondness for ashtrays and door stops. Rarely seen in today’s living spaces. But they had been essential elements of the décor. The doorstops were heavy, but colorful. They featured dogs, cats, birds, especially parrots, which I was told by Frank Whitson, the owner of Antiqua Mania, were especially collectible. Of course, this was after he noticed me looking lovingly at a hand-painted parrot doorstop at his shop on Read and Park back in the early 1970s. Frank priced his goods based on the enthusiasm of the buyer. The greater the interest, the higher the price. [41] When it came to ashtrays, my preference was for ones lifted from restaurants or hotels. I have always valued anything that had a label, or logo or well-scripted lettering. And ashtrays had some of the most tasteful advertising content around. In later years, when visiting an antique shop, I would first gravitate to the ashtrays. They had to be clean, without unsightly tobacco stains. And colorful, preferably of the streamlined Deco variety. [42]
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EARLY YEARS
43 Monitor and desktop radio
50
We do not use our ashtrays. They are the least useful but most appreciated form of obsolete object we have. Ashtrays in a smoke-free home. And of course, there were radios. Most families possessed radios of all kinds in practically every room. It’s how we found out the weather, the score of the Orioles game, the politics of the day. The early models were designed as shortwave, with lighted dials. You used to be able to find these in practically any antique or junk shop in Baltimore, Berlin, London, or Los Angeles. [43] Most surviving examples are desktop models. But I was able to purchase a beautiful Philco floor model. I was walking down Howard Street in Baltimore, which used to be the center of the antique dealer community, and noticed this big radio with a beautiful dial and cabinet in the window of a second-hand store. I think it was the Hadassah second-hand shop, similar to Goodwill. I was sharing an apartment with Avi and Jim, had no money. But I had to have this radio.
44 City College ring
45 Eastern hashish port
EARLY YEARS
I decided to walk in and offer the guy behind the counter $20, knowing he probably would turn me down flat. But before I could get a word out of my mouth, the guy said that I could have it for $4 on the condition that I hauled it away that day. All the knobs were in place and it played music. How could I say no? I spent the next hour calling friends from a nearby pay phone to help me out and come pick up my prized radio. It would never have fit into my own car. I managed to get it fixed up a bit. It has been sitting in the Ivy Bookshop. The image is in the furniture section. I got to rummage through my friend Bruce’s father’s electrical business warehouse later that year and stumbled on an old wooden TV monitor. They used to hook these monitors up directly to the TV camera and point it to the on-air announcers so they could see themselves as the TV audience would see them. No knobs, just a wooden cabinet and a cathode-ray tube. Another prime example of a now-forgotten time. [43] So, as you can see, I was already on my way to building a collection of odds, ends and an amazing group of functionally obsolete and useless objects. The course was set for a lifetime of accumulation. And for travel, since I knew the world would be full of great stuff.
51
EARLY YEARS
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My dad and my brother both attended Baltimore City College for high school. So did my cousin Jeffrey. I followed in their footsteps. City opened in 1839. And moved into its iconic “castle on the hill” in 1929. Back then it was all boys, with the best humanities program in the city, the best football and lacrosse teams, and by far the coolest guys this side of Coolsville. It’s still an amazing school today, although the women outnumber the men two to one. [44] After City, I attended UMBC in Catonsville. It was a commuter school when I was there. I met Susan Wagner (Susan Lacy of PBS’ American Masters) and a bunch of other great people. UMBC forced me out of my narrow Jewish Baltimore habitat. I met all kinds of people and decided that was the way I wanted my life to go. I smoked grass and hash. It’s true. I started around 1967 and got high most of my life. I would meet up with my friend John King on Friday nights, typically at his place. and get stoned with John and his wonderful wife, Sue. He had this picture on the wall that transfixed me—a dreamy ancient water scene somewhere in old Europe or possibly India. John gave it to me as a souvenir of our head trips. [45] My first solo road trip was in 1972. Me and my Fiat 124 Spider convertible, the day after the end of the semester in law school. (My beautiful
Volvo had fallen apart by then.) I headed west to Chicago, took in a Cubs game at Wrigley, headed to Madison and crashed at a frat house, complete with waterbed, dope and a girl I didn’t want to sleep with. Then to Thunder Bay in Canada because I liked the name Thunder Bay. On the road in northern Ontario, I picked up a hitchhiker, Andy Stock, a short, squat, long-haired Scotsman, who was heading back from Winnipeg with a sagebrush attached to his back pack. It turned out that Andy was famous in certain parts—a personality on Canadian TV and a soccer player of some repute. He had people in every town along the way from Thunder Bay to Montreal. We stayed with friends of his in Wawa, Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie. I played the part of the American guy with a cool car. And Andy entertained everyone everywhere we went. He even set me up with a place to stay in Montreal, though he decided to head south to Toronto to catch up with his girlfriend. I wound up driving from Montreal to Cape Cod and then to NYC to see my friend Shelley Wolpert, who was dancing ballet at Radio City Music Hall and moonlighting as a waitress at Max’s Kansas City. And then back to Baltimore. The trip was liberating. I learned to travel on my own, live on my own. The only down note was reading about the Olympic massacre of Israelis in
46 Cowboy Foulke
THIS UNHOLY MIXTURE
EARLY YEARS
OF FREAKS AND NERDS JACKED UP THE PARTY TO NEW HEIGHTS
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EARLY YEARS
54
I MOVED MY RADIO, MY MONITOR, AND OTHER PRICELESS BELONGINGS TO WASHINGTON DC
Munich. 1972. Reelection of Nixon and the killing of Israeli athletes. On balance, not a very good year. I lived at the Temple Gardens while I was in law school, overlooking Druid Lake in Druid Hill Park. The building was once an elegant address for wealthy older people who did not want the headache of owning their own home. Parquet floors, beautiful views of the lake, faded Baltimore charm. Avi and I decided to throw a New Year’s party and invited our law school friends to join us in a sedate celebration with wine and joints. What we did not expect was that two floors above us, John Waters was holding his own party. In 1972, Waters was still only a Baltimore phenomenon, but he had an entourage of some of the zaniest people in town. Edith Massey, Divine, Cowboy Jim Foulke, Mink Stole. For some reason, the police broke up his party on the 12th floor, and his guests had to trudge down the stairwell because the building’s elevators were stuck (that’s another story). So when his guests heard the sound of music on the 10th floor, they ducked into our party. Free wine and grass. This unholy mixture of freaks and nerds jacked up the party to new heights in the annals of law-school extra-curricular activities. I am still talking about it 46 years later. I stayed friendly with Cowboy Foulke, who made us a batch of lethal peach brandy. He had lived in Baltimore since 1929, when the Miller Brothers Rodeo Circus disbanded there after the stock market crash. [46] I finished law school at the end of 1973 in the midst of the Watergate hearings. I realized it would be hard for me to find a suitable job in Baltimore. My dad was out of a job, and I was too. But, fortunately, the government was hiring, so I moved my radio, my monitor, and other priceless belongings to Washington DC, the land of tax-payer-subsidized prosperity. And, if I was lucky, more things to find and treasure.
N O E H T E V O M
ON THE MOVE
2
55
ADRIFT SOUNDTRACK
ON THE MOVE WASHINGTON DC Alan Stivell – Marv Pontkalleg Jan Garbarek – A Tale Begun Richard & Linda Thompson – I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight NEW YORK George Gershwin – Lullaby for String Quartet Roxy Music – Avalon Blondie – One Way or Another Luther Vandross – Stop to Love Janelle Monáe – Tightrope TRAVEL Pat Metheny – A Map of the World The Durutti Column – Requiem Again Michael Rother – Flammende Herzen Lord Buckley – The Train
ON THE MOVE
ALL SELECTIONS ARE CURRENTLY AVAILABLE ON SPOTIFY
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https://spoti.fi/3fNdEBm
Los Angeles John Mayall – California Red Hot Chili Peppers – Under the Bridge Angelo Badalamenti – The Pink Room London Seal – Kiss From a Rose Jeff Beck, feat. Imogen Heap – Blanket Kensington – Control Berlin David Sylvian – The Healing Place Roedelius – As Simple As Benedicte Torget – A Song of Praise
Paris Daniel Colin – Ombrages Charles Aznavour – La Bohème Albin de la Simone – Moi Moi Amsterdam Nils Landgren – Broken Wings Scandi-Nordic Bugge Wesseltoft and Sidsel Endresen – Try Maria Kalaniemi – Namas Lars Danielsson – Pegasus Nils Petter Molvaer – Merciful; Kakonita Post-Soviet Arvo Pärt – Summa Dora – Doradura Vassilis Tsabropoulos & Anja Lechner – Gurdjieff: Trois morceaux après des hymnes byzantins: II Asia Ane Brun – Big in Japan Fakear – All of Us Brazil Estrela Branco – Canção Amiga Milton Nascimento – Cais Andy Summers – World Gone Strange BACK IN AMERICA Bibio – Lovers’ Carvings Sting – Fortress Around Your Heart Richard Thompson – The Ghost of You Walks William Tyler – Highway Anxiety Philip Aaberg – Out of the Frame
The Washington of the early 1970s was still a small town, slow and comfortable. For white people that is. Washington was deeply segregated, with the de facto dividing line at 16th Street. I eventually settled near Dupont Circle, a mixed community of ambassadorial types, hippies, Scientologists. Old-style antique shops. Not as pretentious as Georgetown. More literary and entrepreneurial, less WASPish and overtly political. I was far away from the Capital Hill movers and shakers. Which suited me fine. I was offered a job at the Federal Communications Commission, which turned out to be an important player in the formation of the advanced information technology landscape, a major factor in helping me land a job in New York a few years later. I never really felt comfortable calling Washington home. At first, I lived at my brother’s house in Chevy Chase. He was a big-time banker and had a place in old money country. After a few months with my brother and his wife, I moved into the Dupont Circle neighborhood, sharing an apartment with Bruce, an old Baltimore friend. But I was homesick. Most weekends, I would drive back to Baltimore to hang out in more familiar territory and be with people I liked better.
ON THE MOVE
WASHINGTON DC
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WASHINGTON, D.C. CIRCA 1974-1977
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ON THE MOVE
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I had good friends in Baltimore, people I grew up with. In a way, I had not moved from Baltimore, or at least not emotionally. And ironically, I had an easier time meeting new people back home than in Washington. Of course, that all changed after I met Ann Garlington. But that was two years down the road. During one of my weekend trips back to Baltimore, I met a girl by the name of Hannah at a party. We hung out but never took it very far. Hannah had moved to Baltimore along with five or six of her girlfriends from Rosary College. Back then she was struggling to find her place in her adopted Baltimore. As it turned out, Hannah’s name was Nancy Harrigan, and much later, years after I had left town, Nancy established the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance, an organization that raises and feeds money to worthy Baltimore artists and musicians. GBCA thrives today and is a legacy to Nancy’s creativity and grit. Sadly, the world lost Nancy a few years ago. If Baltimore had a Hall of Fame, Nancy would be high on the list. After a while, I began to open up to my new town. Washington was and is still a beautiful city. Filled with well-preserved parks, small galleries and museums, such as the Phillips, tucked away near Dupont Circle, and shops—bookstores, antique shops, small art dealers. It was wealthier than Baltimore. In the 1970s, it managed to keep its smugness under the surface, just barely. I received my early art education in Washington’s antique shops, galleries and museums. I walked by the shops on 21st Street at O Street every day going to and from work. Second Story Books used to be on the corner of 21st and O. I started to notice the streamlined furniture and ceramics in the shop windows. I began to hang out at Victoria Fortune, which carried pottery, mirrors and furniture. Taba, a talented clothes designer, worked at Victoria’s. She made skirts out of Guatemalan fabrics [50]. Her clothes were wonderful. I wound up trading an expensive poster to Victoria for an Art Deco mirror and a piece of Clarice Cliff pottery.
jefferson st
48 British Overseas Air ashtray
49 Palm Tree by W.E. Hentschel
ON THE MOVE
47 Deco-style Indian bookends
The most impressive shop in Washington was an Art Deco furniture and print shop, Inglett-Watson, on M Street in Georgetown. It was one of the first places Ann and I visited together. Ann and I became friends of the two owners, Gene Watson and Dan Inglett. They were great guys and knew a lot about the very things I was most intrigued by: WPA, Russian Constructivism, French Deco, Donald Deskey tables and desks. What was all of this?!? Every piece a treasure—and all but a handful so far from my budget that the shop was more museum than antique store. Their shop was a master class in 20th century design. [47-49, 52] A bright light clicked on for me. It was there in Washington that I learned to appreciate great craftsmanship and design. I also learned how to shop, to dig for and find undervalued gems. I learned the excitement of finding unique, aesthetically stunning things, in all shapes, sizes, colors, periods. Why confine one’s interests to a single style or period or type? Why limit yourself to posters, or books, or fountain pens, or ashtrays? Why worry about the monetary value of something or whether it would retain that value in the future? I would be limited only by my imagination and opportunity. I would collect for pleasure and for enjoyment, never for investment or status. Who cares if it fit into a collection or a style? It only mattered that it was intriguing, that it was made well, that it symbolized a period in time or a specific place. And that I could afford it without feeling panic. Around the corner from the Farnsboro, on Connecticut Avenue, the Venable Gallery held an exhibition of sundials and kaleidoscopes created by a California-based artist, M. U. Zakariya. One of the sundials was made in the shape of a pyramid. [51] The Zakariya pyramid is made out of papier-mâché. The artist created the measuring grids on all four sides in exquisite India ink, with
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ON THE MOVE
50 Guatemala Designs by Taba
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WHY LIMIT YOURSELF TO POSTERS, OR BOOKS, OR FOUNTAIN PENS, OR ASHTRAYS?
51 The Zakariya pyramid
52 Inglett-Watson luggage label from the Travel Show
ON THE MOVE
bronze spokes sticking out of the sides to capture the sun’s rays. It was designed to function in the latitude and longitude of Washington DC. Its design is timeless, both ancient and modern. It matches nothing else I have ever possessed. It fits into any room, alongside anything. It was the least expensive piece in the exhibit. Washington also opened another door for me. For the first time, I had access to alternative music, beyond R&B and rock. I could now listen to university-run music stations out of Georgetown and other local colleges. There was a DJ by the name of John Page who played a combination of English folk rock, jazz, acid music, spacy stuff. I got acquainted with Weather Report, Keith Jarrett, Three Friends, Richard Thompson. Labels like ECM—with jazz from Norway, Eastern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Jan Garbarek and John Abercrombie and Bill Connors. Many years later, my son Sam and I went to the Helsinki Festival and got to see some of these exotic performers in the flesh. We got to hear accordion music like I never heard in Baltimore. Finnish and Scandinavian musicians such as Maria Kalaniemi. Thanks to FM radio in Washington, I learned to appreciate exotic music from around the world. So I listened to music on the radio, smoked dope and hung out a bit in a neighborhood restaurant, Childe Harold, and a new bookstore, Kramer’s, which opened near the Circle. Not much dating. Ann had moved East from Salt Lake with her friend, Christine Nickerson, in 1974, looking for adventure. Actually, they landed in a Virginia suburb, Bailey’s Crossroads, where the circus would camp out during their tour of the nation’s capital. But eventually Ann and Christine moved into the Farnsboro, a pre-war building that had slowly deteriorated to the point where young strivers like us could afford to rent in Washington. A year later, Christine went off to graduate school in Bellingham, Washington, and Ann was left in DC by herself. Ann and I met at a rent strike meeting. We were the only two to show up, so we decided to go out for dinner. We were not an obvious couple. She
61
more outdoorsy; me more dope smoker. She earnest and down to earth; me a dreamer with a chip on my shoulder. There was something special about her. She was willing to try things, do things. She was interesting, different, and I think she saw me that way too. And she was cute. We liked bumming around together. After a few adventures, such as breaking down in a friend’s car on the highway to Baltimore and carrying her out of a wedding when she had an ulcer attack, it became clear to both of us that we could get through crap together, better than we could on our own. We trusted each other, liked each other. Liked how different we were from each other. And all of this served as the basis of a relationship. Both Ann and I had reservations about living in Washington. Too old South, too segregated, too company town for us. And then New York called. So when I got an opportunity to work in New York for Citibank, we decided to move there together. Why not? And after forty years, we are still partners.
ON THE MOVE
53 Gouache of men in a San Juan tavern. Artist unknown.
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NEW YORK New York has always been on my mind. When I was a child, my family ventured to NYC to experience the big city. We would stay at the Taft Hotel, a faded beauty nestled in the Times Square area, and we spent our time there
SHE WAS INTERESTING, DIFFERENT, AND I THINK SHE SAW ME THAT WAY TOO
ON THE MOVE
BOTH ANN AND I HAD RESERVATIONS ABOUT LIVING IN WASHINGTON. AND THEN NEW YORK CALLED
marveling at the buildings, the masses of people. The city overwhelmed us. The best and worst of everything. The New Yorker attitude was (or so we believed) if it’s not happening here, it doesn’t count. The Big Apple, as my mom would say. It all made me feel small and insignificant. But now I was about to move there and I was determined to stay. I had been offered a job in a town I knew nothing about, living with a woman for the first time, and entering the world of business. The move shifted my world off of its sleepy, slow-moving axis. Ann and I moved to New York in late 1977, in the middle of the financial crisis. The late 1970s was a strange period. US hostages in Teheran. An oil embargo. Interest rates approaching 20%. Ronald Reagan as our president. The “blackout” that had hit the city earlier that summer. Ed Koch was elected the day after I arrived. Citibank put me up at the landmark Biltmore Hotel, next to Grand Central Station. I lived there while I searched for an apartment. The Biltmore was a New York landmark [55]. “Meet me under the clock 54 Maxfield Parrish print at the Biltmore” was a well-known slogan. The hotel is gone, replaced by a Trumpowned Hyatt Hotel. A glass monstrosity. By the time Ann arrived in January, I had secured a small apartment on Jane Street in the West Village at the astoundingly expensive rent of $500 per month. We were a few blocks away from the old Meatpacking District, now the upscale Gansevoort Street neighborhood. The prosperous New York of the movies was gone. The city was hollowed
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ON THE MOVE
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out. Whole blocks of former manufacturing buildings lay dormant. Trash and dumpsters were everywhere. Times Square, Union Square, Madison Square—they all were filled with lost souls, the discarded and homeless. Once New York had been able to support the poor, the sick, the addicted. But by the time we arrived, the city was rapidly becoming the city for the few. White, educated or math wizzes from Asia. And Manhattan was in better shape than the other four boroughs. We did not realize it but we had moved to a bomb site. Austerity was chemically changing the Big Apple. New York is a city that reinvents itself every generation. In actuality, the late 1970s was a transitional period—an aberration—a holding pattern, between the old mechanized city of small merchants, unions, free universities and hospitals and the new city of high-rise living, tax abatement, global-brand shops, and horrid commutes from God knows where. But we came to live in New York, whatever may come. In spite of the hardships all around us, we thrived, falling in love with the great old bones of the city that rarely sleeps. In spite of the trash and homelessness, the city was beautiful. The streets and rivers and buildings, and people, and accents and food and relics of the past. All there for us to savor. The influences of modernism were visible everywhere. In the buildings’ architecture and, more importantly, in the social attitudes of the people we met. Sure, many New Yorkers had attitudes. It was part of the scenery. Everyone moved quickly. There was structure embedded in New York’s zany anarchy. Life in NYC was more immediate. There were lots of people from lots of places, and life seemed so much more challenging, but at the same time, surprisingly, much simpler. We moved to NYC at a time when you could actually afford to live there. You could still run a small business there. Artists could still thrive there. Neighborhoods still existed in New York. So many of the people we met were, like us, refugees from boredom. So many newcomers, bringing energy, urgency, talent and ambition. We all loved the Isle of the Manhattos (as my friend Joel liked to call it).
55 “Under the Biltmore clock”
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ON THE MOVE
FLATIRON DISTRICT
In 1980, we moved to an old manufacturing space on 20th Street between Chelsea and Gramercy Park. We paid next to nothing for this space. Converted commercial spaces were referred to as lofts. We had gotten married at my brother’s in Annapolis the year before. We both had new jobs and were feeling our way around a new city. But the loft was cheap and it felt good to invest in New York. So we closed our eyes and jumped in. Susan Kolker, a Baltimore friend living in Manhattan, helped us find the loft. She had moved from Baltimore to NYC a few years earlier and was representing artists and commercial designers. One of her close friends and clients, Sid Schatzky, lived on 20th Street in a small loft building, and there was a floor for sale. Back then, Sid was a successful graphic designer, specializing in packaging and branding and making his own art prints on the side. It was wonderful having Sid living a floor above us, offering interior design suggestions and becoming a good friend. Thanks to Susan and Sid, we became part of the landed gentry of Manhattan. Well, sort of. The building did not have the proper residential zoning to enable us to hook up a gas meter. Essentially, we were loft apartment outlaws for the first several years. Making the loft more livable was a major project. New floors, windows, kitchen. We even had to replace the old Otis hand-cranked elevator. But we found a group of would-be architects and artists turned woodworkers—Terry Hurst, Dale Furman and Salmon Redfern (or Redfern Salmon—he told us it could be said either way). The loft was long and narrow, with 12-foot ceilings, chicken-wire windowpanes along one side, and metal fire escapes front and rear. There were eight lofts in the building, each occupying its own floor. A manual elevator opened directly onto each floor (eventually replaced). We stripped the walls down to the brick and created one glorious living space—living room, kitchen, long
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narrow study area (actually a desk), bedroom and a bathroom with transom windows at the very top. And we filled it with posters, second-hand furniture and Dagmar the cat (later to be joined in battle with Hepzibah, her dark nemesis). Somehow, we managed to turn a gritty commercial space into an airy, fun place to live. Ann and I both shared a common vision of the perfect kitchen, homey, a bit art deco [56]. Impractical but fun to think about. The loft was just three blocks down Broadway from the Flatiron Building. Nestled between Union Square and Madison Square. The heart of the old novelty and toy district, where you could buy Halloween costumes and Christmas ornaments year-round. And dozens of photography studios, flashes blinking from upper windows throughout the day. [58] Our loft was a block from one of the most refined areas in the city—Gramercy Park. Once a haven for wealthy industrialists and publishing magnets, the Park was a gated sanctuary. Keys were available only to individuals whose residences faced the park. The Gramercy Hotel, once one of Manhattan’s most exclusive inns, had fallen into deep disrepair by the 1970s (but is now one of the most expensive places to stay in Manhattan). Gramercy Park was on the east side of Park Avenue South. West of Park was a jumble of old manufacturing, storefronts and studios. Our loft was west of Gramercy and east of Chelsea. It took decades for our neighborhood to
actually gain its own name—the Flatiron District. Which is strange. A hundred or so years ago, the section of Broadway between 14th and 23rd was the major shopping district of Manhattan. The Miracle Mile, the home of the original Lord & Taylor department store. And just north of 23rd was the original Madison Square Garden. But by the time we moved to 20th Street, the area was nameless, forgotten and inexpensive. Marie Bove cut my hair for 27 years. She started when she was 17 and we became good friends. She opened her own shop on 20th Street, a door away from the loft. She tried for 27 years to make me look glamorous. That didn’t work out so well, but Marie is a beautiful, spunky Brooklyn girl, and spending an hour with her each month was an essential part of my New York experience. 56 Our ideal kitchen
57 Flier for Manhattan’s Marty the Selzer Man
58 Flatiron Building
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Here we were in the middle of the most important city in America. Marty the Seltzer Man delivered soda in its original, refillable seltzer bottles right to the loft. We finally were genuine New Yorkers. [57] When we weren’t working on the loft, we were exploring the neighborhood. We found wonderful bookstores and cafes when we walked south. Museums and department stores to our north. We hunted for lost treasures in the most disposable city on earth. Back in the 1970s and 1980s there was so much discarded stuff for us to find. Relics of the past—World’s Fair souvenirs, Bakelite jewelry, beautiful books
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and posters, intermingled with new graphics, pamphlets, manifestos, crazy ceramics and clothes, wooden handbags, and the best hand-tailored suits. All jammed together in peaceful co-existence. The wealthy and famous had their world. The poor waited for things to turn around. The young aspiring whatevers, like us, just went with the flow. Everyone took the subway. We got to eat at some of New York’s great restaurants. I managed to convince Ann to lift an ashtray from one of the better places, One Fifth Avenue. The ashtray was classic Art Deco and would look great in our collection. Ann was uncomfortable about taking it, but slipped it into her purse, only to notice the waiter right behind her. Whoops. Ironically, we cannot seem to find the stolen piece. It’s somewhere hiding from us. The supply of unique, creative and historically relevant objects in Manhattan was overwhelming. The greatest collection of celluloid jewelry, radios, Art Deco ceramics, arts and crafts mantelpieces, Tiffany lamps, and so on. But much of it had already been “discovered” and priced accordingly. Priced for investors, interior decorators. Not for us. Nope, with few exceptions, the opportunity was to search for and find graphics, posters and books. [59] There still were plenty of special things to see and to buy. Small curio shops along Greenwich, Bleeker and Thompson Streets. And at various exhibits, shows, and expos. The most interesting were the semi-annual Pier Shows and the Armory Shows. From the elegant to the bizarre. From old French doors, to spaceaged time capsules. If it was clever and artful, it would eventually show up at the Pier Show or the Armory. Ann and I would make it a tradition to walk every aisle of every show to spot the rare, affordable artifact of someone else’s past. Most things were way out of our price range. But we decided we could start to collect a few mementos. We started small. [60-61] During the week, we worked hard. Citibank was both terrifying and exhilarating. The new job exposed me to advanced marketing and product-pack-
59 Washington Square by Ellison Hoover
60 Bakelite telephone
61 Ceramic elephants
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THE SUPPLY OF UNIQUE, CREATIVE AND HISTORICALLY RELEVANT OBJECTS IN MANHATTAN WAS OVERWHELMING
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aging concepts. I learned from the best minds in the business. Citibank cultivated a sleek, competitive, internationally focused working environment. Competitive but creative. Encouraging risk-taking. They taught us how to not just take, but calculate and manage risk. A mindset that extended to everyday decision-making. I grew up on Wall Street, in my twenties and thirties in the 1980s and 1990s. I always worked on the periphery of the “action.” But was always in the middle of it at the same time. We were data geeks before data was “Big.” We were UI designers before there was a “UI.” We were the masters of the universe. In 1987, one year into my job at Citibank in New York, my boss’s boss’s boss decided I needed international experience, and sent me to Tokyo to give a speech. I was treated like a rock star by the event sponsors; beautiful bento box lunch, the gift of a new camera. And a translator! Who dozed as I spoke, as did the roomful of Japanese bankers in attendance. What a trip. I worked on Wall Street for most of my career and witnessed three terror attacks in two cities during that time—first-hand and while onthe-job. The visual remnants? My friend’s soot-smudged face at my
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office door after he escaped the World Trade Center, in February
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1993; the bombed-out shell of a double-decker bus on the road in front of my office in London, in February 1996; and “The Pile” at Ground Zero I spied every day ferrying from Pier 11 in Manhattan to my temporary office in Jersey City, in late 2001. Hard to fathom. ANNE GABLE
COMPETITIVE BUT CREATIVE. ENCOURAGING RISK-TAKING. THEY TAUGHT US HOW TO NOT JUST TAKE, BUT CALCULATE AND MANAGE RISK
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I LOVED LEARNING ABOUT ALL OF THIS AND BECAME CONSCIOUS OF BRANDING AND PRODUCT POSITIONING
Despite its troubles, New York remained the center of advertising and publishing and design. There was a lot of attention paid to “brand.” Being a brand manager was an actual job description in New York. The way things were packaged meant something. Citibank had rebranded in 1976 from the First National City Bank of New York to, simply, Citibank. Its logo was international, sparse, disassociated with any particular city or language. Later, Chase Manhattan Bank would become simply Chase Bank. The language of commerce and its design were changing in a material way. Changes in design and packaging of products became a fascination to me. I loved learning about all of this and became conscious of branding and product positioning. And I found a set of objects that represented these themes right under my nose. The Citibank tableware and coffee pots were all adorned with the blue corporate logo. Whether it was the simplistic elegance of the logo or simply loyalty to the company that paid my mortgage, I fell in love with the logo. [62-64] The Citi logo, called the Sputnik at the office, the blue star, spoke of globality, authority, modernism, leadership—all things I admired. Nothing ostentatious or overbearing. The logo greeted me everywhere I traveled, from Asia to Finland. Globally connected, and for twenty-two years, I was a part of it. I found it hard to believe that there was a Citibank tie representing every country where the bank did business. A different color and pattern for each country [62]. New owners at Citibank changed the logo in 1998 to a hip, Paula Sheer rendering of the Travelers Insurance red umbrella. I left the following year. It wasn’t my team anymore. New York would change both of our lives. The job, working for an international bank, became the ticket to travel to Europe, South America, Asia. And opportunities to meet people I never thought I would meet, stay at places I never thought I would stay, and secure a whole range of things that will forever remind me how big the world is and how many interesting people and places there are to meet and explore. Ann had similar experiences.
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62 A Citibank tie for every market country
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63 Internal Citibank brochure
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64 Citibank tableware
One of the best perks I received working for Citibank was my ability to travel on business. It’s true that I worked hard during visits to London, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Singapore and LA. But I got a chance to see other countries and experience cultures that I would never have had a chance to see. And I made some good friends along the way. Travel can be frustrating. Working abroad can be challenging. Hotel beds can be dangerous. But there are benefits. You realize that the world is very large and diverse. American culture does not prepare us for this. Overall, we know very little about what is truly happening elsewhere. Media coverage is spotty at best. We see the world through the lens of warfare and human tragedy. I do not speak the local languages, so at best, I skimmed the surface of the local life. (Alas, my son Sam got the language gene.) But I captured enough to know that people are generally the same everywhere, even if their customs, language, politics and lifestyles are different. We all want the same things. In each city I visited, I learned how best to find the right hotel with proximity to local restaurants and stores. Where to find the bookshops. Each city had its grandeur, its magnificent river or
ocean scene. Each had its own unique flavor and dynamism. And each had art and local artifacts. Paris was good for dishes and street art. Amsterdam had the bookshops, hip posters. London had late 20th century streamlined housewares, Liberty of London and the amazing Elfie’s market with the finest hand-painted ceramics, and antiques. Over the next fifteen years, from 1983 to 1998, I must have traveled overseas twenty times. These were great opportunities to see the world. Some trips were very difficult. One trip to London lasted less than 24 hours. I flew the red-eye to London, landing at 6AM. Got to the Citibank offices on the Strand, sat in on a series of planning meetings, and was back on the plane at Heathrow by 6PM that day. One trip from Tokyo to London took me over Siberia. Looking out the window, I saw no evidence of human activity on the ground for over two hours. No city lights, no roads, just landmass. I busted my eardrum on a flight to LA. I got food poisoning in Berlin, London and Singapore. I was attacked by an intoxicated colleague in Tokyo (don’t ask). I was nearly fired by a senior British trading head and first-class asshole on the London trading floor, met up with small-time mafia goons in the basement of an apartment building in Naples, drank a $25 ginger ale at the Dope Club
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TRAVELING 1978–2010
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in Tokyo (that’s why they called it the Dope Club), and dealt with royal fuck-ups, mostly of my own doing, on numerous occasions. Many of my bosses were not American—Germans, Brits, Pakistanis. My various roles forced me to learn marketing, global finance, information technology, local politics—all on the fly. I ate reindeer, rabbit, nearly raw truffles, yakitori, Mongolian hot pot. I got to fly the Concorde to Paris, flew on a Belgium commuter flight through a violent storm. I was nearly detained by East German border guards flying into Berlin. I was stuck between mountaintops in a dangling gondola with three other fear-stricken men for 30 minutes. I loved every second of it. Travel is a funny thing. I never feel like I like to travel, or that I want to. But I always seem to be on my way somewhere else, always unwittingly on the move, as if I weren’t privy to the decision-making process. What is it, exactly, that drives us to move? Well, not all of us are driven to move, actually. In one of his frequent complaints about his family, my ex-boyfriend often turned to a line from his putz uncle to evidence his contempt. The line went something like this: “Why go abroad when we’ve got it all right here in our back garden?” There is, of course, more out there than is on offer on a narrow strip of grass
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behind a semi-detached house in suburban Kent. Maybe it’s disbelief in this
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ignorant surety that pushes us back into trains and onto planes. Maybe it’s the desire to disbelieve, the demand that the world offer us more than the everyday, our need to escape the tyranny of the ordinary, that compels us to move. Or at least compels those of us who want more than a suburban backyard. SAM BERLIN
WHY GO ABROAD WHEN WE’VE GOT IT ALL RIGHT HERE IN OUR BACK GARDEN?
I
t’s true that I brought lots of stuff back home with me. And much of this travelogue is about those objects and how I came to secure them. But some of the most amazing experiences were momentary and I have nothing tangible that resulted from those moments. No photos, no souvenirs. Just amazing memories. I can cite three examples. I was in Paris on behalf of one of Citibank’s businesses. The business was represented in France by an agency well plugged into the French government and bureaucracy. Our lead rep was an impressive young woman by the name of Catherine Dumazet, who set up a lunch for me with a senior French official. Clearly Catherine, a brilliant marketing person, must have enhanced my role at Citibank, because lunch was at the Luxembourg Palace, the home of the French Parliament. I was treated as a senior dignitary,
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THREE EXOTIC TRAVEL EPISODES
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and after lunch I was escorted to a special drawing room and, with a palace guard on hand, I was given a private viewing of Napoleon’s personal throne, which sat behind a thick velvet rope. Just me, my host, the guard and Napoleon. Well, his chair. As required, I expressed awe and humility, which pleased my host. Many years later, Ann, our daughter Maria, and I visited our son Sam, who was studying in Beijing. There were remnants of old Beijing still standing a year before the Olympics flattened the historic parts of the city. We got the chance to climb down into Beijing’s now-closed Underground City, an enormous maze of catacombs that were built to be used as bomb shelters in 1969 to shield the Communist Party elite from a potential nuclear strike from the once-friendly Soviet Union. We walked straight down for 30 minutes before entering the shelters, hundreds of feet below the surface of the city. Ceilings dripping water, tiny corridors lined with military photos and portraits of Mao, and miles of walkway, linking small apartments that were intended to house whole families for
months. In all, 250,000 people would have been expected to jam into the shelter. And practically no one outside of the Chinese government had a clue this even existed. It was the most claustrophobic experience of my life. And the most out-of-this-world place I could ever have imagined. I did not think anything could top the Underground City. But then, Ann and I went to Moscow and walked through Red Square. Like most Americans who grew up during the Cold War, Red Square was the center of communism, the heart of the “evil empire.” I remembered black-and-white TV images of May Day parades, with old communist leaders overseeing thousands of red troops, tanks, rockets, and huge banners reminding us of Russian malevolence. That Red Square. Lenin’s tomb, Saint Basil’s colorful steeples. And here we were. Americans strolling inside the Russian beast. No Berlin Walls. For a brief moment, Russia was a “normal” country. We were not at war. Amazing. Three moments of wonder. No souvenirs necessary. Memories for life.
LOS ANGELES – MELROSE AVE. SHOPPING DISTRICT LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
1978-1984
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LOS ANGELES One of my principal responsibilities when I started at Citibank was providing legal advice to the head of Transaction Technology, Inc. (TTI), a Citicorp subsidiary, the group that built Citibank ATM machines (which we Citi-bankers were instructed to refer to as CATS—customer-activated terminals). My client, Paul Glazer, was an all-business, buttoned-up guy who saw me as a way to
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avoid compliance scrutiny. I was his legal holy water. Most meetings with Paul and his senior guys were perfunctory. Which left me time to explore LA. Joe and Shaunna Garlington, my brother- and sister-in-law, lived outside of LA. Both artists and great people to hang out with. So I was never alone for very long unless I wanted to be. Joe and Shaunna’s art work will be featured in a later section. Thanks to them, I got to know pockets of West LA—Hollywood, Santa Monica, and Marina Del Ray. At that time, downtown was a ghost town. Along the way I met a fellow from another bank, Security Pacific, who introduced me to exotic neighborhoods and restaurants. His name was Hank Kane, Security Pacific’s in-house futurist and a far-out-of-the-closet gay guy, who was a role model for gays climbing the corporate ladder. I also got to know Richard Gingras, who ran KCET-TV’s new media lab and would later become the CEO of Salon.com. Richard was a pioneer in the use of a computer design application called videotext [65]. Global Report, a product I helped design, was another example of a videotext-based product. It was widely used in Europe and was beginning to take off in the US, but was supplanted by Mosaic, the centerpiece of the modern web browser. Interestingly, Richard’s wife Mitzie is the daughter of Dalton Trumbo, the author of Johnny Got His Gun, who was famously blacklisted from working in Hollywood during the McCarthy purges. Richard’s work with videotext was groundbreaking. I actually met him in Rennes, France, at a symposium of online pioneers, circa 1984. At that time, France was in the process of replacing all of its phone directories with videotext and KCET was launching one of the first online magazines. Knowing people with common interests makes a city much more accessible. I enjoyed my time in LA, but I was struck by its in-your-face glamour, which appears in retrospect to have been skin-deep. LA west of the 405 (Interstate) was mostly low-slung, one-story buildings, small Spanish Deco-style houses with zero lawn for privacy. The main shopping
65 Examples of KCET Videotext screens, the forerunner of the web browsers
drags, Melrose Avenue between Fairfax and La Brea and later Abbot Kinney and Main Street in Venice, were hunting grounds for art, gadgets, studio props, faded icons of 1950s LA. In the 1980s, it was still possible to find affordable treasures in these commercial strips. I am told most of this has since moved to Culver City and Pasadena, pushed out by high rents and millennial disinterest in old stuff. But in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Melrose Ave. and its environs offered some of the most interesting things around. Whenever possible while working in LA, I would duck into my rented car and rush to Melrose Avenue. The 405 to the 10, heading downtown, take the
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66 Queen Mary runner
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67 A sleek airship
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Fairfax exit to Melrose. Curse the traffic and hope the shops are still open. They were. Fat Chance, Rubidoux, dozens of shops carrying late-Deco, streamlined, Hollywood bric-a-brac, posters, carpets, chairs to die for. Everything you needed to enhance your 1940s Hollywood fantasies. Jazz offered the best in Art Deco furniture and carpets west of Inglett-Watson. They were selling sections of carpet from old ocean liners, Apparently, Robert DeNiro got everything but this long, thin strip from the Queen Mary (or so I was told). [66] Fat Chance sold1950s Eames-era material and late streamlined items. I found this DC-3 air-
plane model made of airplane-grade sheet metal, which was created for travel bureaus. This one never received its carrier decals. [67] Cowboys and Poodles sold clothes from the early 1960s. Its Mondrianesque front is one of the street’s landmarks. Off the Wall sold gadgets created for Hollywood movies, amazing mechanical props and jukeboxes and reclaimed bumper cars, things far beyond my wallet but not my imagination. I did get a Cow Bomber, made of wood and wit by artist Constance Roberts. Underneath, the bomb door opens and releases a milk carton and ice cream cone. [69]
69 L.A. Cow Bomber
Betsey Johnson’s clothes and l.a. Eyeworks both started on Melrose. The street catered to the young, restless Angelinos with some money in their pockets. Those pockets were in jeans, expensive, shape-revealing jeans. There must have been a half dozen high-end jeans stores on Melrose. Since I did not wear jeans, I was there more as a social anthropologist, so to speak. I picked up this Edwin Jeans display item in the window of one of these shops. The salesperson gave it to me and wondered why on earth I wanted it [68]. I walked into another jeans store and noticed that Lionel Richie was trying on jeans. He was the only celebrity I recognized. But in LA, everyone looks like a celebrity. Tiberio’s sold the posters that movie people collected. Rare, expensive. I found a Brazilian poster that had been stapled onto the ceiling and was in pretty terrible shape. It was magnificent and many years later I sold it in an auction for multiple times what I paid for it. But I regret selling it. The Melrose retail district later became the epicenter of Punk Rock LA in the 1980s, but I was long gone. My kind of shops were forced out by high rents. A few moved to Abbott Kinney and Main Street in Venice. I did get to stay at the legendary Beverly Hills Hotel in one of their A-list bungalows. Not sure how that happened. But here’s the thing. I got a knock at my door soon after I arrived. A bell man had been sent to recover a script left by the previous guest, Bobby De Niro. I felt like he had been following me.
LONDON In 1983, my role at Citibank shifted from legal and regulatory to product strategy and information distribution. I did not function as an attorney. Rather, I was tasked with building a team to create new online products. Most of the action
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68 Edwin Jeans on Melrose Avenue
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was overseas; I no longer had the opportunity to visit LA with any frequency. My new job sent me to London and eventually Germany and other European locations, as well as Tokyo and Singapore. Citibank’s Global Report was born in 1984 and released to corporate treasurers in the US and Europe in 1986. It was a pre-Internet online service that consolidated currency and bond prices, financial news, country intelligence and company background in a single product. Since there was no web, it was delivered over traditional dedicated telephone lines, via modems. Essentially, it was a hard-wired service, and required its own line. The web browser and simple language programming would have made the development of the product relatively straight-forward, but they had not been developed as of the mid-1980s. My job was to build it, find the data sources it required, launch its marketing effort and sell it across the globe. At its high-water mark, over 170 corporations used the product. Eventually corporate politics and changes in technology doomed the effort. But for three years, I was on the road, negotiating data agreements, finding distributors and meeting clients. An Asian variant, Citi Markets had been developed in Tokyo and the two were merged, which took me to Japan and Hong Kong. [70] Most of my international activities were based in London. On my first trip, in 1983, I stayed at the Savoy Hotel, a posh old British haunt, but I was required to wear a coat in the dining room, so I escaped to the Lord Mountbatten Hotel at Seven Dials. Small, slightly off-key but friendly, with the best muesli on earth at the breakfast buffet. Perfection. And a ten-minute walk to Citibank’s London headquarters and trading floor at the Strand. [71] The Strand was a block of old Victorian buildings that served as the home for the BBC and Citibank UK. London was and still is the center of global currency trading. And Citibank was the number one currency trader in the world.
70 Global Report Hall of Fame
71 Savoy and Mountbatten pass keys
COVENT GARDEN – STRAND
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cambridge circus
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monmouth coffee seven dials
dover booksop
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I ALWAYS FOUND TIME TO LOOK AROUND LONDON
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72 Teapot from Portal Gallery in the West End
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Much of this activity took place on a dingy floor in a crumbling building with torn carpet and glaring overhead florescent lights. I did most of my work around the dilapidated trading floor and catacomb of tiny offices. Later in my Citibank career, I took on the responsibility for managing the operations of Citibank’s trading floors in Europe, North America and Japan. Although I continued traveling to London for Citibank, I never made it to the vibrant London club scene depicted in Neville Brody’s Face magazine. Too tired, too old. But I did get around some. I always found time to look around London. The Embankment running along the river. Burlington Arcade, filled with map stores and Scottish sweaters. Fleet Street, in the center of the financial and newspaper districts. The West End, filled with small galleries that mix and match Victorian, Arts & Craft, wartime and modernist art, ceramics and paper items. [72] Jermyn Street featured English shirt-makers, such as Turnbull & Astor. A Citibank colleague asked me to bring back some shirts for him, and I discovered the neighborhood, which included high-end home furnishings and bath shops
I NEVER MADE IT TO THE LONDON CLUB SCENE, BUT I DID GET AROUND
73 Clarice Cliff bowl
and an amazing rug merchant. I actually carried back a large Kashmir rug on the airplane, to the frustration of the flight attendants. Elfie’s Market, on Baker Street off of Edgemere Road in London, was a sprawling jigsaw indoor market with dozens of tiny consignment stalls, all crammed into one building in a residential neighborhood. I discovered Susie Cooper ceramics, which were equal in grace and design to the more famous Clarice Cliff. Hand-painted bowls and tea sets. [73-74]
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74 Various Susie Cooper & Clarice Cliff pieces
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On one trip with Ann in the early 1990s, we found this amazing mold-casted mirror, with exotic fruits. [75] Liberty of London, a Victorian-age department store on Oxford Street, was a great place to peruse. I bought several Thomas the Tank Engine railroad cars there (the originals were made out of metal)—treats for Sam, who was around six at the time. My hotel, the Lord Mountbatten, was in the Covent Garden − Seven Dials neighborhood on Monmouth Street, blocks away from dozens of small theaters up and down the Strand. One lonely Saturday, I saw the Roy Orbison Story on stage, along with about another twenty theatergoers. There were jugglers (and pickpockets) all around Covent Garden. I bought Ann a Shetland sweater with sheep across the front from a small shop there. A store devoted entirely to Tintin was across the street. Neal Street was filled with boutiques, including the most amazing women’s underwear. The Ivy Restaurant is still going strong a few blocks down from Seven Dials. The Ivy Bookshop’s name derives from this restaurant. The Dover Bookshop is a stone’s throw from Cambridge Circus, made famous by John le Carré in his espionage stories. The Circus (or circle for us Americans) connects to Shaftsbury Road which, along with Charing Cross, features the largest assemblage of bookstores I have ever experienced. Every type of book, new and used, art and medical, English and foreign language—it’s all here. Years later, in 2006, our son, Sam, entered the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, or SOAS as it is known. SOAS is at Russell Square, at the foot of Bloomsbury of literary fame. He leaned toward Asia while I am a Europhile. As of this writing, Sam is hard at work on his doctoral thesis at Bristol University. He has lived overseas ever since he graduated from high school in New Jersey.
75 Fruit-laden mirror from Elfie’s Market
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THE CONFERENCE WAS REMARKABLE, WITH REPRESENTATIVES OF OVER 50 COUNTRIES
SOAS is a short taxi ride to Tavistock Square, which back in the 1980s was the location of the International Institute of Communications. In 1987 in Washington, the IIC held its annual conference. I was chairing the corporate sponsors’ committee. The IIC represented national telephone monopolies and their effort to keep commercial communications under government control. Competition was unthinkable. But advances in network technology would ultimately destroy the PTT (Post, Telephone and Telegraph) cartel. The conference was chaired by former Citibank Chairman Walter Wriston, a champion of competition and technological innovation. The conference was remarkable, with representatives of over 50 countries making speeches about national sovereignty, as scientists from Bell Labs and upstart networking companies were planning to remake global communications. In a memorable exchange, Wriston and Leonid Kravchenko, the head of the Soviet television and radio agency, Gosteleradio, argued whether the Soviet Union would be able to maintain its iron grip on information dissemination. The Russian assured us that it could. History would prove him wrong. London is filled with international relations think tanks and educational centers, known for their expertise in global politics and economics. The London School of Economics, Chatham House, the International Institute for Strategic Studies. A former Citibank colleague, Fred Perkins, wound up running a satellite redistribution company in Europe and held the exclusive European satellite rights to Russia Today (now RT), American rodeo competition and a whole host of other programming. Fred’s wife Rosie, a well-known chef in town, introduced us to wonderful out-of-the-way restaurants. And speaking of food, Lesley Cohen, who Ann met in NYC through our good friend Katharine Sergava, introduced us to great English deli food, and she became a good friend of Sam’s. London was fascinating, but then there was Berlin.
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76 Hebrew tile from East Berlin shop
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I had no business being in Berlin. Most of my work was centered in Frankfurt, Germany’s banking center. I started to visit Frankfurt in the mid-1980s, when I was at Citibank, and I continued to do business in Germany when working for Deutsche Bank, beginning in 1999. Citibank was the largest foreign bank in Germany and across Europe. And its emerging retail banking was managed from Dusseldorf, under Ron Geesie, another émigré from Baltimore. George Fugelsang, was responsible for Citibank’s corporate activities across Europe and the Middle East, working out of Frankfurt. These guys were just about the most impressive people I ever met. My first visit, I stayed at the Frankfurter Hof, the grand old hotel in downtown Frankfurt. Large, velvet curtains across wall-high windows, winding hallways, the whole bit. I did not see Peter Lorre in the lobby, however. My boss, Ken Hines, hosted a dinner for his team at the restaurant in the hotel. Everyone was served rabbit. I don’t eat rabbit. To make sure I did not starve that evening, a bunch of my colleagues gave me their red cabbage, which in Germany, is drenched in molasses. The cabbage and the potatoes were wonderful. I did not starve. And my poor rabbit was stolen off my plate, so it was not wasted. One of the most intriguing people I met in Germany was a guy by the name of Fred Irwin. The rumor was that Fred, a retired air force general, was a spook. A spy for the CIA. His cover was his imprecise responsibilities at the bank. He also was the president of the US Chamber of Commerce in Germany. I did not know there was one. I never actually saw any evidence of his role as spy, but then again, I never saw any evidence of his work for the bank. Fred introduced me to the German delicacy of pig shoulders, an Oktoberfest favorite. He also told me about the one-hour Pam Am shuttle to West Berlin. Air traffic to Berlin was controlled by East German authorities. When I first started
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77 Neue Synagogue
78 Gorbachev in print to visit Berlin in 1985, the city was the dividing line between the free world and communism. The city was a patchwork of old Germany, socialist drabness, neo-capitalist excess and bohemian hipness. Beautiful parks and foreboding alleyways. My first view of East Berlin was through high-powered binoculars mounted on a platform erected on the western side of the no-man’s-land barriers sitting behind the eastern side of the wall. Old gray buildings, almost no traffic or commercial activity. It was as if looking at the world through a black-and-white television. Foreboding. The next time I visited Berlin, I decided to go to the eastern sector to visit the GDR State Library. It must have been in 1985, because they were hanging floorlength posters of Mikhail Gorbachev, who had just been appointed as the new Soviet leader. [78] It was the size of the New York Public Library on 5th Avenue. I then walked down to see the Neue Synagogue, and what was left of the Jewish quarter. Surprisingly, there was a Jewish curio store and a kosher restaurant behind the synagogue. Apparently, the community has grown dramatically since then. [76] The synagogue, which was built in the late 19th century, had been saved from fire-bombing by the Berlin city fire chief, who against Gestapo demands to stand down, sent his trucks to douse fires that had been set by Nazi arsonists. But the building was partially destroyed by Allied bombers near the end of the war. The park across the street was the center of the roundup of Jews by the Gestapo
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during Kristallnacht [77]. The Jewish community has been raising funds for years in an effort to rebuild the structure, which will serve as the center of the growing Jewish neighborhood. Despite the obvious support for Jewish organizations located in Berlin, I could not avoid a sense of unease at seeing military-style security guards pacing along the entrances of synagogues and Jewish establishments. The heart of right-wing fanatics doing harm to Jewish institutions was present even in the 1980s. It’s hard to imagine that the situation has improved. I spent far more time in West Berlin. It seemed more New York than German. It felt youthful, more alive than Frankfurt. Modern design was everywhere. Avant-garde lighting, textiles, furniture. Bûcherbogen was a huge bookstore devoted to architecture, design and contemporary art. West Berlin was at its best in Charlottenburg, a tree-lined neighborhood of brownstone houses, small shops, warm restaurants and, of course, the Berlin Zoo. The Hotel Kempinski, the Berlin Excelsior, and Hecker’s were all in Charlottenburg, ranging from Cold War baroque to streamlined circa 2000. I first heard the news about Monica Lewinsky on CNN while I was in my room at Hecker’s Hotel. What a shock. [79] One of the most beautiful parks in Europe, the Tiergarten, is home to dozens of monuments and the Bauhaus-Archiv, a shrine to the school’s numerous contributions to modern design and architecture. It was also the site of presidential candidate Barack Obama’s July 2008 speech to Berliners. Unusual for a candidate to speak overseas during an election campaign. [80] Kantstrasse is the main artery linking the various clusters of merchants offering evidence of Berlin’s artistic and literary past and present. And Savignyplatz, reputed to be the meeting place of US and Soviet spies and memorialized in countless espionage novels, was at the foot of Kantstrasse.
79 Berlin hotel tags
80 Obama’s Berlin speech
BERLIN CHARLOTTENBURG
BERLIN, GERMANY CIRCA 1985-2001
ane nst
ras s
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T I ER G A R T E N
1000 feet
asse tierg artenstr
fas
berlin excelsior hotel har berlin zoo u-bann de n station
e eralle hofjag
rüke nburger b
charlotte
ernstreuter platz
bucher bogen bookshop art & industry gallery
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paris bar
st
ra
kantstras
hecker’s hotel en ürst kurf
se
se
as str r te pes bu da
ss
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hotel kempinski m dam
berlin zoo
hugendubel bookshop tauenzienstraße
kur
für
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hpietsh reic uf er r e uf w zo lüt lüt zow str ass e
nst
bauhaus archive
raß
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str as se
I spent several late nights in the back room of the Paris Bar, a few blocks away. I would take the shuttle from Frankfurt and a taxi to the hotel and then head to the backroom for Irish coffee and people-watching. The bar closed at 4 AM, but I never made it past 2. I needed to be up early on Saturday morning to catch the tiny shops that normally closed at noon. A shop by the name of Art & Industry featured a combination of Bauhaus-inspired furniture, lamps, fans, telephones, and tableware. Shop owner Ewe (pro-
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savignyplatz
be
bundesall ee
savignyplatz u-bann station
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82 Mechanical devices
81 Berliner clock
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83 Kaffee Hag set
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nounced Ew-va) Kneiss sold the finest modern and Deco material, exemplifying the late Weimar streamlined aesthetic. Marianne Brant lamps share a shelf with a severe East German clock. Mechanical devices in rich brown Bakelite casing combine German precision with Bauhaus utilitarianism. [81-82] An old radio shop around the corner had several dozen 1930-40-era radios in perfect condition. Most were transported to London for sale. I was able to find a Kaffee Hag cup and saucer set in one of the other shops. Kaffee Hag, a German company, adopted a distinctive Macintosh-styled logo design for its packaging and advertising. [83] Ann, Sam, Maria and I vacationed in Berlin around Easter in 1998. We met an antique dealer who was kind enough to show us his warehouse of Weimar-era ceramics. Unfortunately, he had expected me to buy an entire warehouse of ceramics when I was only interested in purchasing individual pieces. So he agreed to sell a few choice bowls and cake plates, but was quite angry, and we never did business again. I remember the first time I saw these dishes–early airbrushed and stenciled designs of all shapes and motifs. In bright blues, yellows, browns. Spritzdekor. [84] These stenciled cake plates, tea84 Spritzdekor pots, butter dishes and other household items compared favorably to the hand-painted Clarice Cliff and Susie Cooper pieces we saw in London. I became a devotee of hand-painted ceramics from that point on. Most collectors from the West never got to see the wonders of Cold War Berlin. It was inconvenient to travel there. You had to take the Pan Am shut-
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tle from Frankfurt or Hamburg—no direct flights from London, let alone New York. International politics and the demise of European communism have dramatically affected Berlin. With Germany’s reunification, Berlin has become the capital of Europe. The Bundesbank runs the Euro, and EU foreign policy is a reflection of the German domestic political perspective. The center of Berlin, Mitte, the area once covered in barbed wire, is now some of the most expensive real estate in Europe. The communist-era buildings have been upgraded or replaced by modern office buildings, a Four Seasons hotel, and luxury shops. In the center of this development, minutes from the infamous Checkpoint Charlie, is the Jewish Museum, designed by Daniel Libeskind, who became famous for his original renderings for the Freedom Tower in downtown NYC. The museum is designed in the form of a fractured Star of David—two adjoining structures—with numerous displays of Jewish daily life in pre-concentration camp Germany. One after another, typical German housewares, furniture, books. The point and the power of this museum is that Jews lived ordinary German lives. They were neighbors, co-workers, schoolmates. German Jewish families living in and contributing to German society for decades. The museum is not for Jews; it is for Germans to absorb the destruction of the lives of neighbors, good German neighbors whose ultimate crime was to practice the faith of their ancestors. It is a quiet, deeply moving experience. It was crowded with young Germans. The Berlin Wall has been demolished, except for a few blocks of graffiti. It is now a curiosity, swallowed by construction all around it. The gray scent of the Cold War is becoming less apparent, but it remains in people’s consciousness. Ann and I celebrated the end of the millennium, December 2000, in Berlin. I bought Ann a special watch to commemorate the moment. Berlin was cold, but we could feel Christmas warmth everywhere. Berliners believe in Christmas. Little did we know that the world would be jarred by the attack on the US nine months later.
MOST COLLECTORS FROM THE WEST NEVER GOT TO SEE THE WONDERS OF COLD WAR BERLIN
REYKJVIK
Atla ntic Oc ea n BERGEN
HELSINKI OSLO
PORVOO TALLINN
EDINGURGH N o rt h Se a
MOSCOW
DUBLIN
LEIDEN THE HAGUE BRISTOL LONDON
AMSTERDAM BERLIN
ARUNDEL BRUSSELS RENNES
DUSSELDORF FRANKFURT
PARIS
MUNICH
ZURICH
EUROPEAN CITIES VISITED
BERN
MONTREAUX NICE MADRID
MONTE CARLO
Mediterra nea n S ea
ROME NAPLES
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MILAN
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THE REST OF EUROPE
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AMSTERDAM
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Ann and I visited Amsterdam in 1979 and adventured as far as Leiden and The Hague. I managed to get back to Amsterdam three more times, once with Ann and the kids. Amsterdam is a city of bicycles, canals, cobblestone. Indonesian coffee, and hip comic art. There is much more but that is what I remember the most. And pot. It can be sunny but then turn dark and stormy in an instant. It was very walkable, friendly and creative when we were there in the late 1990s. On our first trip there, Ann and I stayed at a steep, narrow hotel on the Herengracht, the first of the three canals that ring the center of Amsterdam. We walked everywhere, taking in the delicious coffee and checking out the stalls of old books and street art. We found this little guy at an outdoor stall. [85] The Athenian was a newspaper shop 86 Furore magazine in the city center that carried an amazing array of magazines. And papers from around Europe. [86] The older part of Amsterdam was inhabited by squatters, who were battling to remain in place. There were few cars in this part of town. Bicycles swarmed like locusts. We took the train to The Hague to find an antiquarian book dealer, Vloormann’s, not realizing that this tiny store was a major source of prewar design and architectural books and
85 Little boy from Amsterdam
magazines. Two in particular, Wendingen and The USSR in Construction, are discussed later. We got to The Hague on a Sunday and most of the shops were closed. We noticed an old Baltimore Oriole’s jersey in the window of a second-hand shop, which was a bit strange. We never got back to find out about the jersey. Why was it there? Was it a real jersey? We will never know. Years later, I went to Amsterdam on a business trip and took Ann, Sam and Maria with me. I worked for Deutsche Bank at the time and was scheduled to give a talk, but discovered that I had left my slides at home. It was Sunday, and the talk was the next morning. My son Sam, 11 at the time, helped me recreate my slide show in the hotel’s business center. Sam has been my hero ever since. To celebrate the near miss, we found our way to Plaizier, a well-known comic book and poster shop. A freak mid-April snowstorm greeted us. We found Ever Meulen material, Joost Swarte and tons of artists we had never heard of. There was something there for each of us. On our last night in Amsterdam, Ann and I left Sam (age 11) and Maria (age 5) at the hotel, happily watching television, while we walked around the corner to one of the marijuana bars. I got stoned. Even Ann got stoned. The street looked exactly like something out of the 1960s. Or was that the pot? [87] Anyway, we returned to the hotel to find out that Maria had locked Sam out of the room and had called the front desk, declaring that her parents had left her alone. A real buzz killer. Well, we left the next day. Many of the Dutch books referred to in this document were not in fact purchased while in Amsterdam. Most were purchased from book dealer Robbert De Vries via eBay. Robbert lives in Amsterdam and offers the best selection of vintage books and pamphlets from the 1930s through the Fluxus period in the 1960s. 87 Pot cafe sticker
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88 Paris-Berlin Exhibit catalog
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PARIS
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Ann and I visited Paris in 1979 during the same vacation to Amsterdam and London. Twelve years later, we took Sam when he was seven. In between, I made a handful of business-related trips. Each trip was different, surprising, memorable. I think that is Paris. Surprising and memorable. The high point of the 1979 trip was discovering the Georges Pompidou Museum, where we were fortunate to see the Paris-Berlin exhibit, which revealed the great German and French art of the period between the two world wars. The Blue Rider movement, Expressionism, Cubism. The show was breathtaking. [88] The other high point was finding Chez Andre, a classic French bistro on Rue Marbouf. Fresh oysters, white asparagus, steak frites. The restaurant was crowded, elegant, French. Ann and I fell in love with French dinnerware, celebrating the pleasure of French food—oyster plates, asparagus plates, sardine boxes, avocado dishes, and so forth. All lovingly hand-painted. French dinnerware is all about celebration, and French food deserves to be celebrated. We found Florence Rousseau’s shop, where we were introduced to hand-painted dinnerware [89]. We brought back a number of things from Paris, including a children’s rug, complete with summersaulting man, and a saxophone player [93]. We also picked up this wooden toy train for Sam. It’s a “Pu-Pu” train [91], or so it says on the front of the engine. And we found nice pins in shops all over Paris. [90] The Five Flies, an outdoor café on Boulevard Saint-Germain was the best place to watch Parisians in their natural habitat. The coffee, the bread, the people—how you say, delectable! It was located three streets from the nicest group of galleries and shops on the Left Bank, at Rue Bonaparte, where I met Laura Vincy,
89 Asparagus plate
90 Various pins
92 French collage from Vincy Gallery
93 Plaster saxophonist
who had run a small art gallery since the 1950s, representing Italian artist Fabio Plessi and many other European artists of the 1960s and 1970s. Laura’s shop on Rue de Seine, at the foot of Rue Bonaparte, had been one of Paris’ leading contemporary galleries since 1954. [92] My business trips to Paris in the 1980s and 1990s were most notable for the elegance and style of the people. Business in Paris was conducted with flair, emotion, and purpose. You were never allowed to forget that anything French was special, unique. Generally accepted business practices were not always generally accepted in Paris. But things got done. Despite the many distractions — the beauty of the city, and of the people, and the food and clothes stores and small merchant establishments. Clothier Charles Bosquet, whose shop was a few blocks away from Chez Andre, sold beautifully made men’s shirts and ties. They reminded me of Baltimore’s Ivy League shirt makers from the 1950s and 1960s. But the cotton was of a much higher quality. I still have one of his shirts that I purchased over 30 years ago. I need to mention the coffee, bread, fruit tarts, and outdoor cafes. Come to think of it, how did things get done with all that in plain sight?
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91 “Pu-pu” train
99
On one particular trip, walking back to my hotel in Rue Passy, I heard a live Sting concert across the Seine. He was playing in front of hundreds of thousands at the Eiffel Tower. I turned on the television in my room and caught the last part of the concert. He sang “Message in a Bottle.” It was the first time I had heard that beautiful song. We took Sam to Paris when he was only seven (Maria was 2, and stayed home with Hillary). He loved the city. Ann and he actually climbed the Eiffel Tower all the way to the top. I cracked a tooth in a taxi coming in from Charles de Gaulle Airport and lived through three days of agony on French brandy and good conversation with Ann Rostow from Telerate. It pains me to hear about the terror in Paris (or for that matter, anywhere else). Paris is a special place.
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THE SCANDI-NORDIC-BALTIC ROUTE
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I have always been fascinated with this part of the world. Not sure whether it’s the furniture, the language, the politics or the remoteness. Possibly the accents. Either as a family or with Sam or by myself, I have greatly enjoyed the few times I visited Norway, Finland and Estonia. They are actually located in three distinct regions. Finns do not like being confused with Scandinavians and vice versa. And Estonia is Baltic but shares a common root language with Finland. As I mentioned earlier, Sam and I visited Finland and Estonia by ourselves around 2002. Helsinki is an old, beautiful port city, with a large harbor. Like most cities in this part of the world, the buildings are beautifully maintained in various colors and styles. While in Finland, we took a bus from Helsinki to Porvoo, to hear Maria Kalaniemi play accordion in a 300-year-old church at midnight; way too late and way too much accordion for Sam.
I HAVE GREATLY ENJOYED THE FEW TIMES I VISITED NORWAY, FINLAND AND ESTONIA
Sam and I took a ferry to Tallinn in Estonia. Our hotel was an Aeroflot hotel in the Russian district. A bit sleazy, with prostitutes roaming the lobby. We were five blocks from the tourist district, and walks home at night were a bit dicey. Tallinn has an old town which dates from the 16th century. Magnificent old structures. We ate at a Russian restaurant by the name of Troika. The waiter poured a vodka for both of us the moment we sat down. Since Sam was not drinking, I downed both glasses and needed Sam to guide me back to the hotel. Ethnic Russians are a minority in Estonia, but it seemed like everyone we saw in Tallinn was Russian.
The next day, I took a walk through a Russian neighborhood behind the hotel. Blocks of nondescript apartment buildings. No shops or commercial activity. This was over a decade after Estonian independence, but the West clearly had not arrived in this part of town. My first brush with the “evil empire.” Sam and I did find these tiny glass animals in a gift shop in Tallinn’s old town district. [94] The family visited Norway a few summers later. Oslo was friendly and prosperous. We just hung out. We took a train to Bergen on the western coast. Bergen is a fishing town, known for its boat excursions
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94 Glass toys from Tallinn
101
up the coast, to see the fjords. We sat on the top of a sightseeing boat in the middle of a constant downpour. We were soaked to our bones even with those yellow slickers. Wet and extremely beautiful. On another trip, we visited Iceland. An outdoor hot springs, called the Blue Lagoon, was a particular favorite of Maria’s. We went to active geysers and the spray of one of the geysers knocked me off a hill into a ravine ten feet below. I was hobbled throughout the rest of the trip.
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SWITZERLAND, ITALY, SPAIN AND THE SOUTH OF FRANCE
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I visited this part of Europe on several occasions. Mostly on behalf of Citibank. Switzerland is, of course, a banking center, but usually I was on a training course or I was asked to speak about something or other. Ann accompanied me to a conference in Montreux, also on Lake Geneva, which is where I purchased a Rolex watch for $300. That was in 1980. We spent the 4th of July at the American embassy in Bern being serenaded by a Swiss cowboy band and eating hot dogs. [95] Years later, at a training seminar for young up-and-coming executives, I got to spend time with about forty men and women, mostly my own age, each from a different country. An amazing opportunity to meet people from Asia and Latin America and the Middle East. Many were being groomed to become what Citibank referred to as “country heads,” the most senior executive in that particular market. That was in Vevey, right off Lake Geneva. It was quite a transition going from the austere Alpine well-being of Switzerland to the third-world cacophony of Naples. The people milling around the train station in Naples were right out of a Fellini movie. The city had a distinct post-war feel
95 Rolex
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ROME WAS WORTH THE WAIT, CRAZY DRIVERS AND ALL
to it. Everything seemed transitory and vaguely sinister. I was met at the station by a group of men who whisked me to an apartment building outside the city, so I could inspect a data center which was located, not making this up, in a laundry room in the basement of the building. That would be the high point of my time in Naples. I hurried to the station to catch a train to Rome. I was late, but the train was later by about an hour. Rome was worth the wait, crazy drivers and all. The Hotel Lord Byron was an Art Deco jewel tucked in the Borghese Park, with black onyx furniture, beautiful light fixtures and a view of the gardens. Italians like doing business over food and I was well fed. But no time to look around for artifacts, regrettably. Milan was equally beautiful. Everything far too expensive for me. Other highlights. I spent a few days in Madrid with my friend and colleague Anne Gable. We ate crawfish at 10 PM, which apparently is early for dinner. Madrid is a slightly down-market version of Paris. It seemed a bit empty but only in comparison to New York and Rome. The pinnacle of my travels to the southern part of Europe was when I attended the International Petroleum Conference in Monte Carlo in 1985. Well, IÂ did not actually attend the conference, but I met with people there whose business it was to collect data on the price of oil as it traversed the globe. Another key component of Global Report, and years before this type of information was systematically collected over the Internet. I got to Monte Carlo by taking a commuter flight from Paris to Nice and then taking a low-flying helicopter over miles of beachfront mansions that would make the wealthy in Fire Island green with envy. Every house had an Olympic-sized pool built in the shape of a piano, or some other remarkable pattern. I landed in Monte Carlo to find that I did not have a hotel reservation. IÂ spent my first evening in the casinos and later on a park bench until I was able to sneak into the room of a departing guest, the friend of someone I met the evening before.
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The majority of the conference-goers were from the Gulf, men with headwear, imperiously taking over the entire town. It was their world, with high oil prices and the memory of the latest oil embargo still in everyone’s mind. Wealth, arrogance, opulence. None of it interested me particularly. But I took it all in, figuring this would probably be my one and only petroleum conference. I was correct.
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RUSSIA
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In 2009, Ann was going to Moscow to meet software developers who were working at her publishing company, John Wiley & Sons. I went with her. This was my one and only chance to visit Russia. I mentioned earlier that we had gone to Red Square. From the very moment we arrived at the airport, it was clear that we were outside the yoke of western culture—yes, a few hints of European-style merchandise, but a halting reminder everywhere that this is Russia. Moscow was big, seemingly prosperous, with crowded department stores, most notably G.U.M., a well-known destination for wealthy communists during the Cold War period. At the time we visited Moscow, the potential of a westernized modern Russia was still a possibil-
ity. International business was still in play. Putin had not yet returned the country to single-party status. I used the opportunity of visiting Moscow to meet with representatives of petroleum companies doing business in Russia, as part of my graduate thesis on the post-Soviet region. As always, people I met would assume I was someone else, doing something far more important or official than was the case. So I met with very senior people, who laughed off my reference to graduate research. Clearly, in their eyes, I was either a journalist or a spy. Whatever. I did visit a former education minister who served in the liberal Yeltsin government and who would later come to New York to participate in an NYU seminar on Russia 2020 I helped organize. A Russian colleague of Ann’s, Viktoria, accompanied me on the Moscow subway to his offices, which were located several subway stops from the center of Moscow. The magnificence of the Moscow subway stations is well documented, and deservedly so. The murals, the wall tiles, the light fixtures all are beyond fair description. When Viktoria and I emerged on the other side of the city, we walked into the 19th century, or what I assumed it must have looked like. Dusty, poorly paved streets, bands of hungry but docile dogs hoping to be fed, two-story grey buildings. And
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96 Russian education magazine/brochure
one high-rise, a few blocks from the station, reminding us that we were actually in the modern era. Our destination. We entered the building. No security or lobby to speak of. And no elevator. Fortunately, the offices were only on the 5th floor, but with stacks of papers in my bag, I was exhausted when we arrived. We met with Andrey Kortunov, the head of the New Eurasia Foundation, a western-supported non-profit educational think tank. The session was cordial. The discussion clearly could have taken place over the phone. But I would have missed this chance to see a tiny piece of Russia outside the belt of official and comfortable Moscow. [96] On the way back to my hotel, I asked Viktoria how things were in Russia after the fall of Communism. Her reply was that before, Russians had money but were not allowed to go anywhere. Now Russians could go wherever they pleased, but did not have enough money to actually travel. I tried to bring back something of interest. I did see a few remarkable photographs of Moscow in the 1930s at a shop. I really wanted to bring them back home, but the shop owner insisted that tourists could not export historical items and she refused to sell them to me. I am convinced she was put off that I was American. You cannot have everything! Our trip back home was complicated by the raging volcanic eruption in Iceland. Most flights were canceled, but Aeroflot was still flying in spite of the potential risk from the smoke and debris from the volcano that was descending across western Europe. It was simply another day at the office for the people at Aeroflot. We grabbed the two remaining seats on a flight to New York and away we went. The flight was unlike anything we had experienced. No problem with the volcanic ash. No, our risks were entirely within the cabin of the aircraft. The food, the seats and our pilot’s Transylvanian accent that gave us the creeps. But we made it home.
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THE WONDERS OF EAST ASIA
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TOKYO
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I had the chance to visit Tokyo four times from 1984 to 1997. Mostly my visits were comprised of meetings and presentations at Citibank and customer calls. These trips typically included a stop-off in Hong Kong and, in one case, Taipei. The Citibank team was fantastic. James Sinclair, who later moved to London and then New York, ran the small information business for Citibank Japan. He and his lieutenant, Tomi Matsubayashi, were great colleagues and hosts. I wish I had saved the names of some of the others. They made the visits special. Tokyo presents some challenges for visitors. First, it takes over two hours via bus to get from Narita Airport to downtown. Second, it’s nearly impossible for a foreigner to get around the city without a guide. Few street signs are in English. Everything looks pretty much the same. I was hurrying down the street for a late-morning meeting one day and noticed a clock affixed to the side of a commercial building that read 236. 2:36PM? How could that be? How could I be so late? It turned out that I was looking at a rate board that showed the yen-to-dollar exchange rate. That gives you an idea of how essential foreign trade was and is. People care far more about that rate than about the temperature. Interestingly, the 236 yen-todollar rate was an historical low point for the Yen. These days it typically takes only around 100 yen to buy a dollar. But back in the 1980s, the Japanese government maintained an artificially low currency rate in order to keep the price of Hondas and Toyotas well below the price of an American car.
TOKYO PRESENTS SOME CHALLENGES FOR VISITORS
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I spent a lot of my time in Tokyo feeling lost, asking locals for directions, most of whom were not English speakers. But I managed to do business there, due to the patience of most of the Japanese people I came into TOKYO contact with. I gave a presentation on the bank’s strateBEIJING YOKOHAMA gic use of market information, but had to have the slide show converted from Word Perfect to Word, since no ASIAN one there had Word Perfect running on their computers. CITIES Citibank Japan was two generations ahead of the home TAIPEI office in terms of adopting new technologies. VISITED Pacific A few short stories about the business climate Oc e a n in Tokyo back then. When visiting a senior executive at a large trading firm, I followed custom and bought him a gift melon in a special wooden case, at a cost of $50. All large office buildings have gift shops for this purpose. I presented him with the gift melon, he graciously accepted it and handed it to his assistant, who I swear scurried down to the gift shop to return it. Another time, I was 25 minutes late for a meeting with one of the senior editors at Kyoto News. I was SINGAPORE trying to convince them to let Global Report distribute a portion of their vast amounts of English-language news. He kept me waiting for precisely 25 minutes. Then met with me just long enough to say no, thanks. One time, I waited for an elevator door to open and intended to let two young Japanese women enter ahead of me. The door opened but none of us moved, and the door shut. It happened again. Then one of the women told me they could not enter the elevator ahead of me, since I was the oldest. I met with managers from Sanyo Securities, the number four broker in Japan, which was striving to become the leader in a very clubby market. The first time we met, it was in a small canteen with coffee ma-
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chines. They apologized for the poor surroundings, explaining that they were about to move to their new trading floor and were packing. While waiting in the canteen, I noticed a number of large paintings leaning against the walls. They had not been crated as of yet, so I gently tipped one or two back to take a look. One was a famous Gainsborough painting, the other a Van Gogh sunflower painting, a Miro, and so on. Yes, they were real, or so I was told. The next time I met with Sanyo, I was invited to lunch at their new trading floor, the size of a major US football stadium. We ate in a sky box overlooking over 500 traders peering up at the largest set of plasma screens I had ever seen, all blinking changing prices via the newest display technology. And the paintings rimmed the hallway leading to these executive dining rooms. The executives were deeply proud of their new facilities. A few years later, Sanyo Security was bankrupt. [98] Tokyo food was wonderful, much of it surprisingly affordable working-man’s food. Yakitori, sticks of vegetables or chicken, was superb. But try buying a soft drink at a hotel bar for under $20. There is a strong club scene in Roppongi, the Upper East Side of Tokyo. I visited one dance club, but it was too loud and sweaty. I wound up at a “gentlemen’s lounge,” fittingly called the Dope Club, for dopes willing to spend a lot of money for a watered-down drink and a few-minute conversation of sorts with a pleasant Japanese woman. There are places like this everywhere. Even on the Baltimore Block.
97 Little Sleek Bean and other toys
99 Vintage Japanese baseball cards
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98 Sanyo visitor’s identification clip
The language barrier made shopping a challenge. Tokyo’s department stores were like elegant shopping malls, with everything one could ask for—clothes, toys, even an entire floor of food delicacies. Customers were greeted by a group of salespeople when entering each section of the store [99]. I did my best at the toy department, loading up on stickers, tiny plastic figures. The Japanese toy manufactures know how fascinating miniature things are to kids like me. But I still needed to find more interesting stuff to bring back home. [100] I tried to explain to Matsubiashi-san what I was looking to buy, but it mystified him. Instead he escorted me to this vast region of Northeast Tokyo, a sort of electronic city, with blocks and blocks of warehouses open to the public, selling mostly consumer devices. There were a few design-like stores selling prints and curio items. I found a few beautiful woodcuts. The hit of the day was stumbling on a Mr. Donut shop, right out of southern California. The donuts and coffee were first-rate. In between the generic electronic gear, I found a young guy who had created a series of cartoon characters. One was “Little Sleek Bean”, a friendly looking bean, who adorned bags, pocket lighters, note pads. The other was a lovable but slightly mischievous cat called Bad Badtz-Maru. His image was on stickers [97] and pencils. I supposed he was the darker version of “Hello Kitty.” I also was able to find modern Japanese baseball cards, with jelly-like gummy candy in the packs instead of bubblegum, and a set of baseball statistical guides that looked interesting but were predictably all in Japanese. Pre-war, Japanese baseball cards, produced as far back as the 1930s, used a photomontage effect that seems both antique and highly modern. They are sought after by today’s sports collectors. [99]
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On one of my last trips to Japan, a Citibank colleague and his teenage son took me to a baseball game in Yokohama [101], an hour’s drive from Tokyo. The game is the same, but the experience of watching baseball in Japan is strikingly different. Fans of the two teams are separated, presumably to reduce strife. Fans are exuberant beyond description when their team is at bat and appear disinterested when their team is in the field. The noise level of the crowd is ear-piercing. People wave flat plastic sticks joined together for maximum impact, causing the uninitiated like me to succumb to a migraine headache that could last into the following morning. It was different.
100 Tokyo Department store floor map
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BEIJING
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In 2007, Ann, Maria and I went to Beijing to visit Sam, who was enrolled at Beijing Normal University for his sophomore year of college. He was tour guide, translator, food taster — a wonderful host. The city is very large, as you would expect. Urban life on a massive scale. The other immediate impression is that you are watching a culture transitioning from ancient to ultra-modern very rapidly. People who return to Beijing after an absence of five years hardly recognize it. The destruction of the hutongs, ancient alleyway houses, is particularly saddening. Much of this change occurred around the time of the Olympics. The same could be said about urban transitions in Montreal and Seattle. Crossing the street, highly risky in Moscow, seems even more dangerous in Beijing, with nearly everyone learning to drive all at the same time. But walking in this city was a wonderful experience. Seeing the citizens go about their business. Even noticing one or two older men wearing Mao-style blue jackets (this was nearly a decade ago). Eating at a neigh-
101 Yokohama baseball game ticket
TAIPEI Taiwan is far more western than the mainland. Taipei is a crowded, smoggy, fast-paced city with lots going on. It felt like Europe with Chinese characters.
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borhood restaurant, four of us for $10 (not including the expensive Coca-Colas). Eggplant, mushrooms, duck. (Maria was fascinated by some pickled snakes in a jar in one of the restaurants.) There is nothing like this food in the US. It was good fortune that Sam speaks Chinese, since practically every taxi driver wanted to take us in the opposite direction from our intended destination. Sam had to use his Mandarin attitude on these guys. I had a bad back when I was there, and we found a clinic near the hotel. But we realized that it would have been a multi-hour wait before I could be seen. A shame. I had always wanted to receive Chinese medicine from an actual Chinese practitioner. We visited the Dashanzi 798 Art Zone, a small hamlet of old buildings that had been converted to artists’ studios and shops. It was located miles from Beijing, and isolated from most Chinese residents. Most of the visitors were foreigners like us. The art was very exciting, much of it showing 102 Dashanzi 798 Mao sculptures and art map a combination of western and eastern influences. Nothing like the traditional folk art we saw displayed around the capital. Clearly the authorities were trying to showcase the immense amount of artistic talent in the country without “infecting” its citizens with anti-authoritarian art forms. And although there was little in the way of political art in any of the studios, the artistic license on display must have concerned local party leaders. [102].
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Regrettably, I was only there for a few days in 1991. It turned out that Sam injured his leg (he was three at the time) and I flew back home quickly. But I was there long enough to eat Mongolian hot pot, visit the Chiang Kai-shek Museum and buy Sam a bunny rabbit telephone at the old Taipei airport [103]. The phone is long gone.
103 Museum model
SINGAPORE I visited Singapore in 1992 to attend an off-site. Mostly I was stuck at a western-style hotel and mall. I was not able to see much or do much. My only recollection was that the taxi driver who picked me up at the airport could not enter the center of the city without a special sticker, which he did not have. So we drove around the outskirts to find one of the sticker kiosks, which took forever. Not much else to report.
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HONG KONG
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Unlike, Singapore, Hong Kong in the late 1980s was unruly, dirty. It reminded me of New York, so I felt at home there. I stayed in the part of town called Causeway Bay, near the financial district. Hong Kong at the time was the Asian financial center. All their banks were there. Which meant there was food and entertainment. Hong Kong has one of the most beautiful harbors on earth, with many small businesses operating from junks moored in the harbor. And thousands of people living in smaller junks.
104 Chopstick holder from the Cleveland Noodle Factory in Hong Kong
Apparently, gambling is the national pastime. Horse racing, numbers, casinos. Everyone gambles. I saw my very first mobile phone. It was the size of a small shoe box. A gray device with an aerial. It was produced by Hutchison Whampoa, which controlled the local telephone system in Hong Kong. The British still controlled the island. This was before the UK handed control over to the Mainland. As of this writing, there have been street action and police violence in Hong Kong for many weeks. It is not at all clear how this will end. [104]
LATIN AMERICA ARGENTINA AND BRAZIL Ann and I visited Rio and São Paulo in 1985. I was giving another talk there. And later, I traveled to Rio, São Paulo and Buenos Aires in Argentina on business by myself. Bueno Aires was lovely. Avenue Florida, the main commercial and shopping street, was filled with shops and restaurants. Churrascariá Rodeio served the best steaks I have ever tasted, and their palm salad was spectacular. Walking down the
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105 Hotel Ouro Verde luggage label
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main drag I wondered why everyone looked European. No Hispanic- or African-looking people. Then I remembered the country’s heritage of extermination, and I remembered Argentina was still under military rule. Brazil was totally different. A country of a thousand shades and colors. Beautiful people on the streets and beaches of Copacabana and Ipanema. The country is so lush, endowed with such a wonderful culture—the art, the music and food. Striking architecture and furniture and graphic design. Rio was beautiful and the old hotels facing the Copacabana were elegant. [105] How can Brazil have so much poverty, so much crime and hardship? The music of Milton Nascimento and the samba: bittersweet, rhythmic, happy on the surface but sick at heart, tells the story of Brazil. Regrettably, Ann and I were ripped off on the beach. Even though we were warned of roving bands of kids preying on tourists, we let our guards down. We were not hurt. And we still love Rio. I went to São Paulo to meet my Latin American counterpart, the person working on information distribution in the region. Hans Wolthuis was a highly creative fellow from The Netherlands who was retrofitting electronic banking products for the large but untapped Brazilian and Chilean markets. He became a friend and a bit of a tour guide for me while I was trying to get around Latin America. Citibank attracted high-quality professionals in practically every country they operated in. Citibank was viewed as cutting edge, global and a great company to work for. I felt privileged to be part of a network of innovators from around the world, all connected via Citibank. Four continents. Over two dozen cities. Different languages, food, customs, but in all the important ways, all connected, not by technology or political influence, but by biology. We all live, and dream, and aspire and feel both disappointment and happiness in pretty much the same way. Tallinn, Helsinki, Rome, Arundel, Hong Kong, Beijing, Bristol, Edinburgh, Moscow, Rio, São Paulo, Geneva, Oslo, Reykjavik, Milan, Zurich, Singapore, Ottawa, Guatemala City. I have been fortunate to see what the world is like.
FOUR CONTINENTS. OVER TWO DOZEN CITIES. DIFFERENT LANGUAGES, FOOD, CUSTOMS, BUT IN ALL THE IMPORTANT WAYS ALL CONNECTED BY BIOLOGY
BACK IN AMERICA I remember looking at the New York skyline when coming back from the airport after a long trip. It never failed to take my breath away. The lights, the mosaic of structures. Never sleeping. There was so much to come back to. Ann and I felt as if we lived in the middle of everything. Artists’ studios in Chelsea. Gramercy Park a few blocks to the east. A nice walk to the Village. The regal but dilapidated Flatiron Building a few blocks north. The Chelsea Hotel a few more blocks west. The Empire State and Chrysler buildings looming over us. We walked everywhere. Miles each weekend and to and from work in midtown during the spring and fall. Since we were right in the center of Manhattan, everything was within walking distance. And everything else was a few blocks from a subway stop. The 1, 2 or 3 train to the Upper West Side. The E train to Rockefeller Center and Citibank. The R train to downtown. All within reach without a car. Of course, there was much of the city that eluded us. We knew little of the Soho arts scene. Warhol was a figure in the magazines, although his studio was apparently a few blocks from our loft. We avoided the club scene, although we frequently walked by the Limelight and Danceateria, both of which were just around the corner. I arrived to live in New York City at the very beginning exploring, experiencing a world that I had only previously come to know through books, art, movies and of course the news. It was as an exciting a time in my life as I had hoped—getting married and with my wife Dana and her best friend Susan having a little shop Modern Girls in the heart of The Village.
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of the 1980s and spent the decade living, working,
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We felt the excitement and had access to a lot of great music and art events. Through the store we got to meet a lot of downtown characters and became acquainted with a cultural scene in its infancy: the beginning of Raw Magazine and the East Village Eye, Soho Galleries, Danceteria and other clubs like Area, Keith Haring’s rise to fame and the East Village Art scene, Fashion shows etc. Attached to the excitement was the edginess of the darker side— riding the graffiti covered subway late at night, AIDS and the prevalence of crack—brought a wilder feeling that also contributed to the creative energy of New York City in the 1980s. Being young I think we all felt that it would go on forever but of course lives change as does the city.
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TOM FRASER
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And, while not directly affected, we were living in the epicenter of the AIDS catastrophe, with some of the most creative, vibrant men—many from our own neighborhood—falling victim to the new plague. Friends and colleagues falling all around us. But life went on in spite of the epidemic. We were spared. We continued working and accumulating interesting pieces. A colleague introduced us to Dorothy Hafner, an up-and-coming ceramic artist, whose studio was a few blocks from the loft. Dorothy, who later produced her pieces for Rosenthal and Tiffany, was selling her hand-crafted dishes to individual collectors out of the studio. Her work, inspired by the Italian Memphis design movement, was distinctive, vibrant, playful—perfect examples of 1980s Manhattan style.
106 Dorothy Hafner ceramic server
We wound up acquiring a number of her various styles, using her mugs, sugar bowl and serving trays on a daily basis. What good is having this amazing stuff if you never get to use it? [106] Dorothy went on to design glass pieces, as well as, several lines of high-end machine-manufactured dish sets for Tiffany. The handmade pieces however are her best work by far. Ceramics became a focal point for us. The Fishs Eddy shop down the street still had a great se-
108 Diamond Jim Gentile Orioles jersey
lection of vintage diner mugs. And dishes, including the iconic Citibank china. Things were percolating at our jobs. Ann got her MBA from NYU and was moving into management positions, first at Macmillan Publishing and then at John Wiley & Sons. I was working on new projects at Citibank and advancing. And meeting people who would become close friends. Anne Gable, Ken Phillips, Ketan Jhaveri and Janet Lang. Janet and I had worked together for years. She started as my secretary, after working at Entenmann’s Bakery, and wound up in marketing. The classic New York story. As Ann and my careers took off, we began to feel a bit more secure. And I started to build the collection, one object at a time. I was interested in everything. And always trying to recapture my childhood.
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107 1940s Baltimore Colts mementoes, including rare cheerleaders’ cap
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I never forgot going to Baltimore Colts games with my father and brother. The Colts were stolen from Baltimore in 1983, which was a very painful experience for my hometown, especially the kids growing up in the shadow of Unitas, Berry, Moore and Marchetti. I remained loyal to Baltimore teams. What started as an attempt to hold on to a piece of my childhood blossomed into a sports collection. My first sports piece was a Jim Gentile Orioles jersey, which led to batting helmets, more jerseys, sideline coats. Playbooks, you name it [107-108]. In the late 1980s, I sold a run of near-perfect football card sets and made enough for the down payment for our house in New Jersey. [109] One painful episode. I lost my prized 1958 Colts championship jacket; these were given to each member of the team and the coaches. Most were worn ragged, so few remained in collectible condition. And I had one. I kept it in a canvas bag in our closet in West Orange, NJ, and would check on it periodically. Apparently not frequently enough. One day, I opened the bag and to my horror, 90% of the heavy wool fabric had been eaten by moths. The jacket was pretty much gone—except for the embroidered logo on the front. And the leather sleeves. Well the only thing I could do was save that logo. [110] In the early days of eBay, a collector could find practically anything. Recreate an entire childhood. Find entire Soviet army uniforms. Buy a genuine Earl Weaver jersey with a cigarette pocket specially sown on for him. eBay was a collector’s fantasy. I wanted to get something special for Ann and asked her for some ideas. She told me to find her a vintage Humpty Dumpty. Well, I looked around and found an old ceramic Humpty and that opened the door to a Humpty collection. [111] I found things on eBay I had no idea I was looking for. Things that defy description. Toronto-based artist Linda Foster made these zany pins and bracelets out of paste and ink. [113] While it was fun searching through eBay, the things from my own past always meant more to me. They were the true artifacts of someone’s life. For
109 Production of the 1958 Jon Arnett football card
110 Colts championship jacket patch
CHANGE, AGAIN! There was a lot going on at the end of the decade. Sam was born in 1988, and in 1990 we left Manhattan. We moved to an historic community called Llewellyn
111 Humpty Dumpty pieces
112 Chalet Suzanne grapefruit bowls
113 Linda Foster jewelry
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example, the grapefruit bowls we purchased from the small gift shop at Chalet Suzanne, a small Hollywood-like Art Deco motel plopped down in the middle of orange groves in Lake Wales, south of Ocala, Florida. Chalet Suzanne was an actor’s getaway in the 1930s, a sort of a Beverly Hills Hotel, with its own smallplane landing strip and Art Deco furniture and rugs. Ann and I found the place in a guide book and drove up from Miami through what was left of the Everglades to find this oasis of charm in the middle of Orange County. Back then Orlando was tiny and harmless, not the sprawling metropolis it is today. [112] It was at Chalet Suzanne that Ann found out that she was pregnant with Sam, our oldest. Sam came into the world during the summer of 1988, making his debut at NYU hospital. Sadly, my father passed away two weeks earlier—never having the chance to meet his grandson. Sam turned out to be an incredible person. A world traveler, great language skills. Friends all over the globe. Always striving to get it right. Empathetic, smart, a bit neurotic like his father. A kid to be proud of. We had two cats when we lived in the loft. Dagmar, a small tabby with exceptional dexterity, very athletic for an indoor cat, and smart. And her cousin, Hepzibah, an overweight black cat, slow afoot and slightly out of it. Ann and I liked Dagmar more, and I am afraid that Hepzibah sensed this and took it out on the smaller Dagmar. Or maybe they just didn’t like each other. They would bat at each other—never quite making contact. Both would make the eventual trip to the suburbs with us. They became outdoor cats, but never strayed far. Each lived over 20 years.
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Park with beautiful lawns and trees and lots of room for Sam, and eventually for Maria. And Hillary Hunter, babysitter, and soon, a member of the family. Hillary answered an ad Ann placed in the Irish Echo, for a nanny to watch Sam while we were at work. Hillary Hunter was not Irish, but a 34-year-old woman, originally from Jamaica but now from Queens, who had been taking care of another family’s kid for over a decade. She was one of the most loving and professional people we ever met. When it came time to move to New Jersey, Hillary was ready to move as well. Living together, Hillary joined our family and we joined hers. We were together for over twenty years. Eventually, Ann and I decided to move to Baltimore, and a year later Hillary was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Maria’s daughter, Isobel, was born in 2013. Maria and Ann were able to bring the baby to the hospital so that Hillary could see her and give her a bottle. Hillary died a few days later. It took a while for us to get used to living in the suburbs. And the hostile commute. But we liked West Orange and especially the next town over, Montclair. Montclair became our new downtown. Once a separate urban center before being swallowed up by the Manhattan suburban commuter explosion of the 1950s and 1960s, Montclair had been a haven for actors, artists and writers. Even in the 1990s, it retained a feeling of an arts colony, a bit faded but with a personality of its own. The town was an interesting place, different in all respects from most of the NJ suburban bedroom communities. Its quaint Church Street offered interesting shops. We discovered an old-time coffee store, Beans. The store was selling these amazing mugs with thumb pads, all in festive, Fiestaware-like colors. The mugs
114 Colorway mugs and pitchers
were part of a larger line of tableware designed in the US by Lindt-Steinmetz and produced in Japan. These pieces rivaled the best of American-designed ceramics from the likes of Russell Wright and Homer Laughlin. [114] Church Street had a lot to offer. We found a wonderful mosaic tile artisan by the name of Nancy Aufiero, who made clocks, mirrors, all kinds of household items using broken ceramics and mosaic tile. Nancy created a tiled sign for Ann’s birthday. [115] Nancy also created the table top for our living room coffee table, using fish plates embedded into a field of tile. (See section on Furniture.) The world was changing, in many ways—the family, the career, the world. On the global level, the Berlin wall was smashed into chunks of souvenirs. Desert Storm became a rallying cry for America’s global presence. The victory parade rolled right by my building on Water Street in downtown Manhattan. On the family front, we adopted our daughter, Maria, in 1994 from Guatemala, bringing an Hispanic flavor to the family. 115 Ann’s Fish House, Mosaic My father and I travelled to Guatemala City to pick up Maria in December 1994. Maria was 13 months old by then—it had taken a long time to get her adoption approved by the Guatemalan Courts. Ed had visited her when she was 5 months’ old, but this was my first time seeing her. Maria had been in foster care with hotel our first day there, and she was with Dad and me from then on. Maria was beautiful and sweet, and it was love at first sight. When it got time to leave, Joanna and her husband came to the airport to say “Goodbye,” and they gave her a little Guatemalan straw hat as a keepsake. Ed, Sam and Hillary were waiting for us at the airport when we arrived. Sam had made a big sign, saying “Welcome
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a wonderful family. Joanna, her foster mother, brought her to the
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Home,” but he had fallen asleep, sitting on the floor between Hillary’s legs. The next day, Sam and I took Maria to visit Sam’s first-grade class. He got to sit in the big rocking chair and tell everyone about his new sister. He was so proud.
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ANN BERLIN
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As a child, Maria was vibrant and out-going. And also very determined. She was fearless. At about 6, she would ride her bike all over Llewellyn Park, and we would periodically get calls from neighbors saying that our child was in their kitchen. She made friends with every kid she met. She especially bonded with other Hispanic kids in the neighborhood. Maria is unique. She is able to live in the wilderness in the winter. She observes everything and seems to know where everything is. She has a deep sense of family values, which is regrettably rare among people of her generation. Her daughter, Isobel, adores her mommy. At 26, Maria is still fearless, still determined, still friendly, and she is truly a blessing. In 1998, my company, Citibank was swallowed up by Travelers Insurance, a firm run by hustlers and pirates. I had thought I would be at the bank until retirement. I had many friends there and was successful. I was mentored by Hans Angumueller and Ken Hines, and in turn, I mentored a whole generation of professionals. Some have, as I mentioned, remained lifelong friends. But the new management team was intent on pushing out most of the Citibank contingent. So I needed to find a new job at 50. Now I really was an orphan. A former Citibanker, Mary Cirillo, offered me a senior position at Deutsche Bank, and I moved over in September 1999. It was a great opportunity. Things were different then. Deutsche Bank actually paid me a sign-on bonus to join them, and we used that extra money to buy an old farmhouse on the Eastern Shore
116 Sun sculpture and old barn top
of Maryland. A beautiful 1855 house on a hill looking down at the Elk and Bohemian Rivers. Right outside little Chesapeake City. We kept the house on Town Point Road for only seven years, but managed to fill it with more stuff, a lot of which was purchased at Firehouse Antiques in Galena, down in Kent County and owned by Paul and Doug. Wonderful guys. And incredible furniture and examples of the past. [116] The demise of the Citibank culture was hard to swallow. And I would stay at Deutsche Bank for only a few years. But they were tumultuous years. Our country was attacked in September 2001. The World Trade Center across the street from my office was destroyed. Along with millions of New Yorkers, I was caught up in the terror. People I knew were killed. I was lost underground in a stalled subway car for over an hour. Ann could not reach me and was worried. Deutsche Bank wasn’t hit, but was contaminated when the South Tower collapsed, and eventually had to be torn down. My group at Deutsche Bank was disbanded. I lost my job three weeks after the attack. And I was one of the lucky ones. In retrospect, I now realize that I had lost focus. Call it mid-life crisis. Or competitive burn-out, or whatever. The collection, the successes at work, my marriage and family—none of it seemed to stabilize me. The commute to the city was becoming unbearable. The politics at a new firm were demoralizing. I felt lost in spite of “having it all.” This was my “mid-life crisis.” So I started to visit a friend in the Midwest. That part of the country where nothing seems to ever happen. Iowa and southern Minnesota were exotic, far more than Europe or even Asia. People spoke English but they thought differently than people back East. There was no place to go except for the Tasty Freeze and Perkins Restaurant. Corn fields, soy fields in every direction. Grain gins were the skyscrapers and Christian gift shops were the bookstores. A truly foreign land. It was like being dropped onto a different planet. It cleared my head and reminded me what I had waiting for me back home. And home is where I belonged.
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117 Texaco gas pump
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118 9/11 | © Associated Press/Amy Sancetta
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SEPTEMBER 11 CHANGED EVERYTHING
120 Russia 2020 booklet
But as crazy as it seems, in spite of everything, I still had my eye out for things to bring back with me. I managed to find second-hand shops that sold Redwing dinnerware designed by German ceramic legend Eva Zeisel. And an antique store that was going out of business sold me an old cast iron stove and a gas pump. What would I do with these things? How would I get them back to New Jersey? [117] Well I guess I needed them and, yes, the lovely lady who sold them to me found a fellow with a truck crazy enough to agree to drive them to my house in West Orange. Ann was not particularly happy about any of this, but since then, she has grown fond of the stove. September 11 changed everything [118]. For the first time since I left Baltimore, I was out of work. Most of my colleagues were able to find other jobs at the bank, but frankly, I was too expensive to keep. So I stayed home, while Ann continued to work. And jobs in New York after 9/11 were hard to find. So I did what any right-thinking professional would have done. Since I could not find a job, I opened up a consulting firm, Corridor Partners. Serving the Boston-to-Washington corridor. [119] And I found a partner. Victoria Hood, creative marketer, salesperson, classicist, highbrow schmoozer. Someone who would become one of my closest friends, who was also on the street. So, between my experience and her flair, brains and lack of risk aversion, and with the help of a friend James Sinclair, Corridor Partners took off. We had a few clients and somehow managed to make some money. When we met, my drive for experience—at the time I would have called it self-expression—was hard as glass, satisfaction as elusive as mercury. Always in pursuit of the next angle, I zigzagged thru continents, language, money. People.
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119 Corridor Partners card
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Boom/silence, woman/man, sprint/sleep, hollow/teeming, fog/dazzle: I was spellbound by contrast, complementarity, contradiction. I was a cat playing with a tangle of string.
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VICTORIA LEE HOOD
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Eventually I would take a new job with Thomson Financial, and Victoria would join an electric brokerage firm, EBS. I stayed at Thomson Financial for three years until 2006. And then left corporate America for good. I never held a straight job again. Not wanting to consult and not wanting to stay at home keeping Hazel the cat and Quincy the dog company each and every day, I decided to apply to NYU and get a master’s degree in international relations. And I did. I was the oldest person in the program by twenty some years, but I got to study Russia and the Caucasus. I dabbled with the idea of creating a political-risk consulting company but, as always, life intervened. Russia invaded Georgia, and the world of political risk was turned on its head. [120] I should mention our second generation of house pets. Hazel was a visual descendant of Dagmar, but with a penchant for the outdoors. She was side-swiped by a car soon after we adopted her. We thought we’d lost her, but she reappeared after four days, with a broken jaw and a broken tail. She stayed close to home after that. Quincy was a black and brown Rat terrier, a goofy, slobbering, lovable companion, who regrettably died of cancer after about seven years. Both were valued members of the household. After NYU, we realized that we needed to leave New Jersey. I felt stuck. I had a great idea. I would pitch the concept of teaching at UMBC (University of Maryland, Baltimore County). With my law degree and master’s in international relations, I could teach global something or another. So, in 2011, Ann and I decided to move to Baltimore. I never considered running an indie bookstore...
I NEVER CONSIDERED RUNNING AN INDIE BOOKSTORE
S E G A E M I H T D N D A E T N I R P D R O W
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IMAGES AND THE PRINTED WORD
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ADRIFT SOUNDTRACK
IMAGES AND THE PRINTED WORD THE POWER OF GRAPHIC DESIGN
ALL SELECTIONS ARE CURRENTLY AVAILABLE ON SPOTIFY
David Amram – Prologue Thomas Newman – Define Dancing Agnes Obel – Falling, Catching David Lang – Just (After Song of Songs) BOOKS
https://spoti.fi/3fNdEBm
Afterlife – Take Me Inside Erik Satie – Petite Ouverture à Danser Viktoria Tolstoy – Midnight Sun Sampha – (No one Knows Me) Like the Piano Sohn – Proof
DESIGN IS THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT INFLUENCE THAT GUIDES MY SELECTION PROCESS. HOW SOMETHING IS DESIGNED DETERMINES HOW I REGARD ITS IMPORTANCE
The art of graphic design is a galaxy of subtle languages, employed in an effort to influence and persuade. Graphic design amplifies language. It gives messages texture, context. It reaches out, and often seduces. The design reiterates the words that surround the image. But, it’s important to note, graphical images contain important messages on their own. The “best” products are often distinguished by their design, their feel. And the most memorable advertising campaigns are driven home by lasting images. Often, a specific design does not simply reflect the world but rather attempts to influence it. Brilliant design points the way to specific lifestyle choices and, more significantly, has the potential to pave the way to societal change. For example, it has been an essential tool in support of commercialism, but it has also been at the vanguard of political activism throughout the 20th century and into our post millennium era. In the previous century, graphic design, product design, and product packaging projected the consistent theme of progress. The recurring subtext was based on notions of growth, efficiency and invention. It was the age of machines. My collection of graphic images reflects the ethos of the machine age. Optimism,
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THE POWER OF GRAPHIC DESIGN
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progress, human endeavor. The collection is built on design approaches that dominated 20th century art. Much of 20th century design is grounded in the majestic theories of the Bauhaus, the WPA lithographers, the great mapmakers and statisticians of that age. These principles spread rapidly across Europe and throughout the Western Hemisphere and Japan. Much of the printmaking component of the WPA in the US was influenced by constructivist and utilitarian principles that had taken hold of the art and design world in Europe and the USSR in the 1920s. [122] The geometric structure became the essential message of the work. As in cubism and constructivism. It represented a cleansing away of the heavy pretext of fine art in favor of a new modernist spirit, one of internationalism, utilitarianism and simplicity over ornateness. These same concepts drove the streamlined movement in furniture, textiles, tableware and automobile design. Clean lines, geometric objects, high contrast, architectural approaches to assembling imagery. My first visit to Inglett-Watson opened my eyes to the power of graphic design and its influence on modern art and on everyday life. The architecturally drafted woodcuts of the WPA. The colorful linocuts, blending color and sharp lines. The portfolios of textiles and tapestries published around the time of the 1925 Arts Décoratifs show in Paris are pure examples of 20th century modernism at its height. [123-124] In the US, this movement is best expressed in the woodblock prints of Albert Heckman, Howard Cook and Benton Spruance. [121,126-127] The universality of modern design became clear to me in my first visit to Ex Libris in New York. Dutch, Czech, Russian, English, Italian design merged into a collaborative rejection of constraints on artists’ visions of a better, freer future. [125,128-129] Designers of today’s “big data” statistical illustrations owe much to these 20th century design movements. One of the big challenges facing contemporary design-
121 Howard Cook’s Financial District
122 Steinberg’s Riveter woodcut
124 Cassandra’s unpublished railway print
ers is how to depict large quantities of information, and how to help viewers digest complexity. This issue has vexed designers and social scientists for decades. In the 1930s, Otto Neurath and Gerd Arntz created a graphical vocabulary, a set of isotype symbols to depict data and make data representation universally understood. Isotype symbols were adopted across the globe, which made economic and scientific data accessible to the general public, circumventing language barriers. [130] Simple, utilitarian, universal, accessible, and fun. In one simple but exotic design concept, the universe of information was now more level, more democratic.
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123 V. Boberman portfolio works
131
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125 Ladaslav Sutnar’s Toy Exhibit poster
132
127 Benton Spruance’s Football series
129 Piet Zwart book designs and photomontage
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126 Albert Heckman’s Wind and Rain
128 Commercial art from 1930s prewar Czechoslovakia Design languages were often employed to influence social behavior. We often dismiss this form of communication as simple propaganda. Initially, I considered this phenomenon as random, with no particular pattern. Only later did I realize this was an art form. That there was a methodology behind it. I began to appreciate the role of designers as communicators. The emergence of a universal design language shows up in the works of László Moholy-Nagy and Herbert Bayer, whose photographic images and redesign of the Deutsche Mark currency reached deeply into everyday life. Early Soviet artists and designers believed they were constructing a new society from the ground up. Art design, starting with El Lissitzky, began to reveal the new societal blueprint in constructivist paintings, photography, sculptures, posters and book designs. [132] Things change, as they always do. The Bauhaus influence began to wane, at least in the West. A world war, mass consumerism and nativist sentiments in the US and large portions of Western Europe dampened the enthusiasm for this type of graphic
133
130 The isotype icon: Gerd Arnst
131 Citibank advertising: Future Banking
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132 Soviet wallpaper
134
representation. Design masters like Paul Rand continued to employ a universal graphic palate, but this became the exception. It’s worth noting that Bauhaus/constructivist design persisted in Eastern Europe and Scandinavia, and this persistent influence is visible in the architecture and graphic design reflected at the United Nations. Overall, post-World-War design in the West was marked by a sense of comfort and conformity. Abstract expressionism and pop art focused inward, reflecting individualism and, in some cases, a deep sense of cultural elitism. In the 1980s, club culture and its industrial-style music, the final break in the Cold War, and a new generation of designers armed with computer graphics rediscovered and reimagined the Bauhaus, constructivist motif. April Greiman in the US, Wolfgang Weingart in Switzerland, Neville Brody in the UK, and hundreds of other designers from Tokyo to Milan to Amsterdam began to create a new wave of design, expropriating major components from the pre-war era. Today, with new tools, typographical innovation is back. Designers mostly operate out of small firms or are independent contractors, less dependent on conformist advertising agencies. Even more importantly, graphic design is now acknowledged as an art form, which encourages design flexibility and independence. Big tech understands the power of good design and has incorporated sleek and clever packaging and typographical innovation to reinforce its role as change agent, unencumbered by the past. This has always been true of market innovators. For example, my old company, Citibank, used its branding and product promotion to extol its commitment to cutting-edge, technically superior product design, as reflected in their proprietary cash machines and their early development of home banking. [131]
The Wolfsonian in lower Miami Beach is a shrine to modern design. It brings together 20th century artifacts, posters, furniture. It may be the only museum to integrate commercial art, architecture, and household products, and provide a deep source of scholarship to enlighten the collector community on both the theoretical and practical aspects of 20th century design. [133] Twenty-first century design projects a world beyond human labor. A world where information is privileged over specific application. The message of the power of technical innovation is encoded in the design itself. Let’s see where that takes us.
POSTERS, PRINTS, COMMERCIAL ART
AND PAINTINGS: THE WORLD OF IMAGES
Before we get to the topic of paintings, prints, posters and commercial art, it’s worth making a few comments on my perspective on what is and what is not art. Much of what I have collected over the years stretches the definition of art. The collection includes art, but also includes brochures, artifacts, posters, advertising, souvenirs, collectibles, ornaments, devices, instruments. You get the picture. But this is not an attempt to make the case that everything in the collection is created equal, or that there should not be a special place for works of true artists. Most graphical images in the collection were created to fulfill some commercial purpose. Some of it was expected to last for a very short period of time. Most were mass-produced. In many cases, the maker of the piece was simply following the direction of a client or customer, with little involvement in establishing the intent behind its creation. Any one of these factors could be cited to disqualify a piece from the realm of art. I am not an art dealer, historian or scholar. Nor am I an artist, so my personal views on all of this are by no means definitive.
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133 Wolfsonian brochure
135
I FOUND MYSELF BEING ATTRACTED TO FORM AND COLOR, RATHER THAN SUBJECT MATTER
Paintings, however serious or whimsical, were not created for short duration. They are not documenting. Typically, they are not intended to represent another thing. They stand on their own. Their influence is more subtle. Often, it is their emotional texture that resonates most deeply with the viewer. Art is art, whatever you choose to believe. I choose to lump together paintings, posters and, oh my gosh, commercial art, such as advertising or product packaging. Because that’s how I see it. As I mentioned at the beginning, my childhood exposure to art was limited. I was drawn to an image by its color, shape and emotional connection. Other than Paul Klee and Vincent Van Gogh, I knew little or nothing about fine art. What I did know was that I did not like the Americana art forms that seemed to be everywhere in the 1950s.
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POSTERS, PRINTS AND COMMERCIAL ART
136
I found myself being attracted to form and color, rather than subject matter. When I first looked at a Maxfield Parrish print on a wall at an antique store in New Market, Maryland, I was taken by the color, mood and lyrical romance of the piece. I knew of Maxfield Parrish because of my chance purchase of one of his prints when I visited New York a few years earlier. Parrish’s painting and prints feature concentrated color, achieved by applying varnish to coat an underlying image before repainting on top of the original image. His work is also based on geometric principles he learned in architectural school. Although most of his best-known works were done between 1905 and 1920, his work greatly influenced artists working in the 1930s and beyond. [134]
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134 Maxfield Parrish’s Cleopatra
137
I found out later that this particular Parrish was advertising for a chocolate company. The shape of the frame and print is the exact cut of the candy box. Parrish, along with N. C. Wyeth and the other Brandywine artists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, redefined Americana; less Yankee-Doodle nationalism and more reverence for the land and its people. But Maxfield Parrish was regarded as a commercial printmaker, and his work adorned ads for Jell-O and other wellknown brands. Was this art? His contemporaries did not think it was. All I knew was I liked the print. It was in its original plaster frame. I had never contemplated buying something this expensive. I remember it being $165—in 1976 a major purchase. But I got it and as soon as I arrived back at my apartment in Washington, I removed a picture off the wall and hung it on the existing nail. I sat admiring my new piece and then went to bed. I was awoken around
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135 Foire poster
138
136 Harrogate poster
137 Bill Pickett poster
138 Sweets, Fruits and Birds
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2 AM by a crash. Uh oh. The Parrish, the nail too small for the weight of the framed print. I walked into the living room to find most of the plaster in tiny chunks on the floor. The glass was intact but the frame was destroyed. Or was it? Well, I spent the rest of the night on the floor with my bottle of Elmer’s glue and a black magic marker, meshing the tiny pieces back into some semblance of order. I found a larger, more secure nail and gently rehung the print. And it stayed that way for well over 30 years, until in 2014 we got it professionally restored. Whew! I learned a lesson about hanging pictures. I discovered posters. I discovered a mail-order poster shop, Miscellaneous Man. The owner, George Theophilus, published a catalog crammed with tiny images of posters, signs, and other items. A few were in color, and the descriptions were sparse. So were the prices. Even I could afford to order a few things. There were hundreds of images. Travel posters, circus posters, war posters. I would always find one or two posters that intrigued me. In all, I purchased about ten posters from George, and regrettably, due to a combination of insufficient finances, passed on many gems. I even returned a poster with a small blemish, that I now realize was a rare, spectacular Eastern European trade conference poster. What an idiot. [135–137] The Bill Pickett poster is amazing on multiple levels. It documents the fact that African American cowboys rode the rodeo and Wild West circuit in the early decades of the 20th century. He was a headliner and enjoyed a national following. The poster itself is a classic in lithographic printing and topography. The lettering appears to be hand-drawn. The coloring is rich and unique for posters of this era. The Harrogate poster, designed by British artist Paul Johnson, is far more colorful than most English travel posters and, unlike others in this genre, focuses on people rather than landscape. We met a young Brazilian artist living in Washington who showed us some of his work. He was part of a contingent doing performance art and then
139
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140
139 Willi Eidenbenz’ Girl Reading a Book selling their costumes. Anyway, Ann fell in love with a large drawing on multiple folds of brown drafting paper—Sweets, Fruits and Birds. [138] Years later, still hunting, I found a beautiful poster th on 8 Avenue in Manhattan. Striking lines and typography. Also quite Aryan. [139] Willi Eidenbenz and his brother, Hermann, were Austrian designers whose posters were hallmarks of the mid-1930s Art Deco design period in Europe. This style was replaced by social realism in Austria, Germany and other central European countries after 1938. Ludwig Hohlwein, a German poster designer, was one of the few who managed to transition from a modernist perspective, albeit totally Germanic in look and feel, to lending his remarkable talents to the National Socialist cause. His pre-Nazi poster for the Berlin Zoo, blends cubism with his darker Germanic tone. [140] Posters were advertisements, sheets of cheap paper that were expected to have a shelf life of months, not years or decades. It’s remarkable that they survived this long. This pre-independence Israeli poster for a literary event is a prime example [141]. A number of poster designers have been cited in publications and a few are considered great artists, but many masters of the genre remain unknown or were not permitted to sign their work. In the 1990s, we amassed a large number of Soviet posters, thanks in large part to Susanna, a young Russian dealer living in Glendale, California. The collection included Rodchenko and Klutsis pieces. Most were early, from the 1920s and early 1930s and documented the Soviet government’s claims and aspirations for various five-year plans. Many of the great Soviet designers of
140 Ludwig Hohlwein Berlin Zoo
141 1940s Israeli Exhibition poster
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142 Gustiv Klutsis agitprop draft on textile fabric
that period were either purged or exiled by the end of the 1930s by Stalin. Some years later, we had run out of wall space and were looking to finance college tuition, so we put most of these posters into a Swann auction. We kept the large Klutsis agitprop drawing. [142] Similarly, we sold off other parts of the collection—ceramics, WPA-era prints, and most of the sports collection for the same reasons, and to make room for pieces that had been buried in boxes and portfolios. Change is good. Of course, posters were only one of many forms of advertising and promotion. A different example is a hand-colored map of Baltimore drawn by Baltimore Sun cartoonist, Richard Yardley. I believe it was given away to subscribers to the paper during a promotion in the 1930s. [143] We found a couple of advertising mock-ups by Italian artist Paolo Garretto at a show at Inglett-Watson. These images were intended for high-end Italian magazines. They may never have appeared in print. Garretto is best known for his cover designs for Vanity Fair magazine in the 1930s. [144] We also discovered a large colorized promotional photo of our friend and former neighbor Katharine Sergava. We lived on the same floor in our first apartment building in NYC in the West Village. We met Katharine when we first moved to New York. She had been a ballet dancer (she was the prima ballerina in the original Oklahoma!), a Broadway actress, and an acting teacher, and had been married to Bernard Sznycer, a pioneering helicopter designer (he invented the first twin-engine helicopter, which was used in World War II to rescue injured soldiers). Katharine passed away in 2005 and left us some of her paintings and mementos. This is from the 1930s, promoting a play with her and Frederick March, when he was at the height of his career. Katharine used it as packing material to protect another one of her ballet photos. We found it strictly by chance, stuck inside a large picture box. [147]
141
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143 Richard Yardley cartoon map of Baltimore
142
145 Lighted Cat’s Paw clock Photomontage, which had been pioneered by European artists, such as Hannah Höch, Moholy-Nagy and John Heartfield, went from conceptual art to a widely used technique, combining the immediacy of photography and the artist’s own statement. They are cubist in structure and can be quite striking. [146] We found this wall clock with the then-famous Cat’s Paw logo. The Cat’s Paw symbol was one of the most recognizable advertising images when I was growing up. The clocks were in the shops of shoemakers across the country. [145] In my view, advertising posters and commercial design belong in any collection of 20th century art and design.
146 French photomontage
147 Katharine Sergava promotional movie poster
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144 Original advertising pieces by Paolo Garretto
143
IMAGES AND THE PRINTED WORD
PAINTINGS
144
Paintings are more challenging for me. I know very little about contemporary art that hangs on the walls of New York’s big-time galleries. Abstract images force me to think too hard. If it’s necessary to relate to some psychological explanation, or color theory, or spiritual or political manifesto, in order to understand and appreciate the art, then it’s too much work for me. I am looking for a connection with the image itself. The storylines. Or maybe I need the image to do more of the work. I am lazy that way. On the other hand, viewing a great painting is immensely satisfying. A good painting hits you on multiple levels. It uses coded language, much like poetry. We have been fortunate to have known a number of talented painters. Kris Ruhs worked out of a studio on 18th Street and 6th Avenue. He was painting in New York in the early 1980s. On paper, wood, three-dimensional. His work astounded us. We purchased the accordions and and several other pieces. Abstract objects that vibrated life. [148–149] Kris left New York and has spent the last several decades in 149 Kris Ruhs’ seated accordian player Europe creating magnificent installations in metal, glass and lights. His work resides in numerous museums. We were fortunate to have met him at the start of his career. I saw the Mark Kostabi painting through the plate glass window of Semaphore Gallery, while walking with my friend Ken Phillips on Avenue B across from Tomkins Square. Ken was confused. Why would I pay a lot of money for something he regarded as non-serious? It was $2800, approximately 50% of what we had in savings. I was kind of confused myself. Kostabi combines Warhol-like color and theatrics while questioning our current societal values. The limits of creativity, the competitive nature of creative activity, and the status placed on artistic success are
148 Khris Ruhs Accordian Players
questioned in his large sprawling paintings. But I was drawn to his symbology and use of color. [151] I bought it and met Kostabi at the gallery—a young, smirking, geeky kid. He seemed amused by this yuppie type coveting one of his pieces. The following year, Ronald Feldman, the owner of the Ronald Feldman Gallery, convinced me to include the painting in a traveling Kostabi exhibition that toured Tokyo and later, Moscow. It got to Moscow before I did. It came back 16 months later. My son, Sam, strongly identifies the Kostabi factory image with his childhood. It reminds me of
151 Kostabi Factory
my own connection to the accordion player image above my parents’ bed. We met Marianne Stikas through our friend and neighbor, Sid Schatzky. Marianne was painting in the 1980s and 1990s and may still be going strong at this writing. Her work is highly representative of the 1980s. Strong color and geometric shapes. Very downtown, bordering on the objective but possessing an abstractness that I always identified as New York art. Our daughter Maria loves both of the Marianne paintings we own. [150]
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150 Marianne Stikas painting
145
152 Two paintings by Pasadena artist, Michael Chapman
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153 Robert LaDuke Under the Bridge
146
CLASSICAL, FRESH, STRONG STORYLINE, RICH COLOR, DOCUMENTARY. ALL THE ELEMENTS I LOOK FOR
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Michael Chapman is a California painter, who uses Hopper-like images of alienation to question what is real versus imagined. His work has a noir feel, forcing the viewer to join him and see the outside world through windows. Chapman is based in Pasadena. I first saw his work in an issue of Harper’s magazine. [152] I noticed a picture of a yellow taxi cab parked outside a seemingly deserted railway waiting room. It was painted by Chapman. The name of the Tatistcheff Gallery was at the bottom of the image, and it was on 57th Street in NYC, six blocks from my building. So I called inquiring about the artist and whether the gallery had any other of his work. Just asking. The painting was still available. I walked over and got to take a look at a number of his canvases. Classical, fresh, strong storyline, rich color, documentary. All the elements I look for. I started to keep an eye out for California-based painters. I saw pictures of paintings by Kenton Nelson and Robert LaDuke. I noticed some of this work at NYC art fairs. And I found the perfect complement to the three Chapmans I had bought. The LaDuke painting is an example of the moody, noir-like, streamlined circa-1995 image of normal everyday movement in the sparkling city of our dreams. [153] And then there are our close friends, Tom and Dana Fraser. Ann and I have known Tom and Dana since 1980. Both artists, we met them at Modern Girls, a very cool clothes shop that Dana and her friend Susan ran on Thompson Street in the lower West Village, and which featured some of Dana’s phenomenal paintings. In fact, we met Dana when we went in to look at a couple of them. Tom and Dana were our connection to the lower Manhattan art scene. Dana painted huge portraits, rich in color and detail. Tom silk-screened images (often on fabric) using a wide range of decoration, inspired by aboriginal images (Tom is from New Zealand), as images of current vintage. He is a master of pattern design photomontage and sly humor, which he combines in his unique fashion.
147
154 Dana Fraser portrait of Maria
We hung out, raised kids together and moved out of Manhattan around the same time. They moved to the Catskills just after we moved to New Jersey. Tom runs the Phoenicia Belle; a beautiful B&B, and Dana continues to paint glorious portraits. Dana has painted Ann and me, Sam and Maria together, and Maria by herself. [154] Dana’s portraits capture the personality behind the facade. Her backgrounds combine an arts-and-crafts devotion to pattern with East Village phantasmagoric coloring. Dana’s painting reveals Maria’s complexity and her outer and inner beauty. (And Maria’s beauty and sense of humor have been passed onto her wonderful daughter, Isobel.)
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CARTOON IMAGES
148
Since I was a kid, I loved cartoon characters on milk cartons, beer bottles, potato chip bags. They sold me on the product. Speedy Alka Seltzer, Mr. Boh, they were all friends of mine. Commercial or otherwise, I didn’t care. Characters that lodge themselves into one’s psyche. Robert Crumb’s Mr. Natural. Ready Kilowatt. The Cat’s Paw, the Baltimore Oriole laughing bird. Playful but with attitude. My first awareness of the of the power of cartoons to sell ideas or products was in the Baltimore Morning Sun (or Sunpapers, as they were called). Each day after a ballgame, the Oriole bird was happy or miserable depending
156 Hartzell Oriole cartoons
155 Hartzell Baltimore map
157 Richard Yardley drawing
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on the score of last night’s game. The Orioles frequently lost, but we had the best logo in the league. Thanks to Hartzell. [155–156] The Sun’s Richard Yardley’s little man would give us the political score through his insightful, sarcastic eyes. Yardley’s cartoons focused on the small outrages of everyday life, sometimes political, often seeking the humorous side of serious issues discussed elsewhere in the newspaper. [157] Well-drawn and typically colorful cartoon characters were the only voices I chose to listen to. It was easier than reading. The Soviet designers of the 1920s and 1930s loved to create cartoon figures, doodads that resembled airplanes, automobiles, tractors, industrial sites. They typically appear in complex textile designs or labels for household products or food. Alexander Rodchenko, Russia’s most famous and prolific designer of that period, was chiefly responsible for bringing the sense of lightheartedness to the otherwise gray Soviet street. This is a whimsical bookmark. [158]
149
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150
In the 1960s, record album covers exploited characters, such as Bonzo the Dog, a beloved English cartoon character from the 1930s. This music group even appropriated the name, calling itself the Bonzo Dog Band. [159] One of my regrets was not being able to secure a cartoon from a young Yugoslavian (now Croatian) artist, Zarko, whose cartoons were beginning to appear in the Washington press. Zarko was living with his girlfriend in Washington and just starting out as a professional cartoonist. He is now a well-known political satirist in Europe and his work appears in numerous publications. I just couldn’t get him to sell me one of his pieces. Tom Fraser turned us onto Quest Gallery. It was a small shop on West Broadway when Tribeca was still in its infancy. Quest sold cartoon art posters from Belgium and Holland. That is where we discovered Ever Meulen (Eddy Vermeulen) and Joost Swarte. Ever Meulen’s images captured Europe’s fantasy with the myth of 1950s streamlined, hipster, car-addicted, greaseball America. Howdy Doody meets Blackboard Jungle. His books, postcards, posters, and record covers set the tone of our loft apartment in the 1980s. Joost Swarte was a bit more serious. I think he was trying to say something. Ever Meulen’s work said, “Why bother?” [160–161] A number of the 1990s cartoonish pictures that appear in The New York Times and the covers of mass-market magazines were drawn by two Toronto-based designers—Christian Northeast and Gary Taxali. Christian employed collage, enhanced with his drawings, to reflect marginally controlled chaos. Sort of, “Can you believe this shit?” Gary created recurring characters—dirty old man, an updated version of the old Henry cartoon character, etc. We managed to purchase some of the original cartoon art both had created for The New York Times, Bloomberg Magazine, and The New Yorker. Christian also created animation loops, and Gary jumped into toy making. [162–163]
158 Alexander Rodchenko playful bookmarks
159 Bonzo Dog Band, circa 1960s
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160 Ever Meulen
151
161 Joost Swarte
162 Christian Northeast magazine art
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163 Gary Taxali magazine art
152
164 Jim Avignon, Why?
165 Chris Ware poster art
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Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Gary Panter, Keith Haring and Rodney Greenblat were the most collectible of the chic cartoon art world in the 1980s and 1990s. I read Crumb’s comic books with relish and loved Keith Haring’s original New York City wall art. But both wound up becoming big time and ubiquitous, and I feel it took some of the shine off of their artwork. I was looking for something else. While in Berlin, I walked by a gallery and noticed that the staff was hanging large paintings for an upcoming exhibit. The pieces were amazingly crazy, colorful, large-scale cartoons by German artist and musician Jim Avignon. [164] The sheer scale and the powerful but humorous imagery startled me into purchasing my favorite one—the forlorn, outcast elephant. I knew nothing of Avignon, but later discovered his wide variety of images and his music. They remind me of skateboard art. Chris Ware is the most intriguing cartoonist on the scene today. His posters use a combination of exquisite color and iconic shapes, alongside hand-written script that delivers the feel of some ancient font taken from Mesopotamia. And there is always a complex game or project at hand that brings the notion of absurdity to a new artform. [165] And then there is the work of Lenny Kislin, formerly of New York and Woodstock. Lenny did not draw as far as I know. He assembled. Various pieces of found items, retrieved from dumpsters, yard sales, scrap heaps. He repurposed these discarded items in ways that extended their lives, long after their original mission had been completed. And what he would create were a series of social commentaries, parables, head scratchers. All done with precision
153
and good humor. Some hang on the wall and one robot evangelist spaceman, deep sea diver just sits on the top of a bookcase. Each piece is funny, touching. [166] Lenny was an outsider with an endless number of inside jokes. His work delights and he was a delightful guy.
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BOOKS AND BOOKSELLERS
154
Books deserve a separate document. There are so many in the collection. A near-complete collection of John le Carré’s espionage classics. History, fiction, travel, cooking. And a library of art and design books—recent, vintage, foreign, including illustrated atlases, original book illustrations, auction catalogs. And then there are the magazines. Mostly, art and design. Many pre-World War II, but a number from the 1970s and 1980s, during the second golden age of magazine design and layout. I will try to hit a few high points and leave much of the detail of my book buying (and selling) to another time. My deep reverence for books is a bit surprising and even somewhat ironic. I was a slow reader in school, and did not learn to write coherent sentences until I was in my twenties. Not coincidentally, that was when I began to read for pleasure. Rule: A person cannot write effectively unless and until he or she adopts reading as a lifestyle. Reading books was exotic for me. School was a slog, and I was used to thinking that reading was the same as studying. But books on international politics and the emerging information technologies whetted my appetite to read what I wanted to; not only want, I had to. Better late than never. I started to read in earnest when I got to New York. I was drawn into espionage, along with my nonfiction interests. My way of getting a grip on the
166 Lenny Kislin, collages from repurposed stuff
I WASN’T SO MUCH DRAWN TO BOOKS ABOUT ART, BUT TO BOOKS THAT WERE ART
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world. It was there that I discovered the wonders of fiction, mostly the translations of European writers. Once I began hitting New York’s many wonderful bookstores, I uncovered an entire universe of books on the visual arts, design, architecture, cinema, photography. I started to find books on my favorite artists in places like the Strand and other used bookstores. I gravitated to books from the 1930s through the 1950s, with their modernist designs and layouts. I shied away from traditional art books—monographs on a particular artist or genre. Instead, I gravitated to technical illustrations, maps, flight paths and economic statistics. Many book illustrators employed the same constructivist design I found so appealing in the posters and prints I was collecting. The illustrations enhanced the content of the book, both in terms of clarity and emotional appeal. I wasn’t so much drawn to books about art. I was looking for books that WERE art. That employed design, layout, illustration, maps, isotypes, fonts, to amplify the word content of the book. “Design in the service of language,” as designer and educator Ellen Lupton likes to say. So, rather than collecting art books, I started to collect books that contained art as an extension of the book’s content. Taking in the entire book from the cover to the feel of the paper. The words and the ancillary materials. Finding books with these ingredients—graphically dynamic maps, charts, keys, statistical groupings, illustrations—is a challenging but incredibly rewarding endeavor. [167–168] Shops like the former William and Victoria Dailey bookstore on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, the Strand in New York, and the dozens of used bookstores on Shaftsbury and Charing Cross in London were excellent sources. Bücherbogen in Berlin was the best source of traditional art books. Also, bookstalls in Amsterdam and Paris are worth exploring when you are in town. There are good things to find, but you have to look and take your time.
155
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167 Book covers and bindings from the 1930s and 1940s
156
169 Lyn Ward original woodcuts
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Weyhe Books, which became Weyhe Galleries later in its commercial life, in the 1980s still carried original woodcuts and lithographs from the WPA- and Depression-era printmakers, along with books by Lyn Ward and other book artists. [169] And of course, Ex Libris on the Upper East Side in NYC represented the pinnacle. With the most comprehensive library of European and American master designers from the 1920s through the 1970s. Ex Libris was an iconic oasis of 20th century book design. I stumbled onto the shop. It was owned by Arthur and Elaine Cohen, and curated by their young colleague, Michael Sheehy. Ex Libris was so much more than a store. It was library, museum, university, and auction house rolled into one. Most of its clients were institutions, spending their endowments on rare first editions, formerly undocumented works, manifestos and manuscripts that often were the private province of the artists and designers and their families. Many of these pioneering designers had passed away. Their widows and children decided to trust the Cohens to determine how best to place these rare treasures within the design community. The Cohens were known for their intimate knowledge about the work of the most influential artists and designers of the 20th century. Depero, Sutnar, Bayer, Lissitzky, Zwarte, Moholy-Nagy. They welcomed me, gave me the opportunity to look through files of material, pamphlets, posters, ink blotters, small edition 168 Range of graphical book covers books. All but a few “scraps� were way out of my range of affordability. But I was able to gain a deep insight into the work of these masters and walk away with a handful of prized publications. Consequently, our collection of books contains many beautiful publications, far too many to list here. [172] Back in the 1980s, it was possible to find self-published, small press books and pamphlets handmade by artists from across
157
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170 RAW
158
171 Cover from book devoted to the history of I-D
New York. Printed Matter, on Lispenard Street in downtown NYC, was part bookstore, part artist commune. Artists would drop off their manifestos, books, posters and other items. This was before downtown became Tribeca. This was when artists could still afford to live in Manhattan. A long time ago. The shop was filled with the work of then unknown (outside of New York) illustrators and designers such as Art Spiegelman and Lynda Barry. This is where I saw my first copy of Raw Magazine. Some of the books were early graphic novels, some were art forms, and others were political tracts that decried urban gentrification, and the destruction of Manhattan’s arts habitats in favor of million-dollar loft buildings and bizarre glass high-rises. A lot of these publications were available only at this particular shop and sat in the $1 bins. Today, they are nearly impossible to find. [170] Along the way, I hooked up with a number of private dealers, each with his or her own specialty. Joe Vasta on Van Dam Street in Lower Manhattan trades in overtly sexual material, much of it limited edition photobooks featuring the likes of Betty Page and other underground starlets of the 1950s and 1960s. But much of his inventory of exotica featured drawings and photos by highly talented, if emotionally tortured, artists. Gene Bilbrew, Eric Stanton and others offered a glimpse of a hidden social substructure that would not be truly acknowledged until decades later. The art was prurient, otherworldly and exciting to see. [174] Steven Smith, a Brit living in Prague, specialized in modernist publications published in the late 1920s, until the fall of Czechoslovakia to the Nazis in 1938. The Prague Design School and the DP Publishing House produced a wide range of Bauhaus-constructivist-inspired magazines, posters, tableware, textiles, all designed and overseen by Ladislav Sutnar. Steve was able to uncover a multitude of original drawings by commercial designers and students living in Prague before the war. [173,175]
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172 Examples of book and catalog cover art with emphasis on photo montage
159
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173 Panorama and four other Czech books
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WE ARE PASSING THROUGH A GOLDEN AGE OF PUBLISHING
174 Exotique: Gene Bilbrew, Eric Stanton, John Willie
175 Josef Capek designs
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Robbert De Vries in Amsterdam specializes in Dutch and central European political propaganda and even more specifically, the universe of isotype symbology, established in the 1920s by Austrian Otto Neurath and perpetuated by graphical statisticians and social scientists, such as Gerd Arntz. This symbolic vocabulary enabled these artists to depict economic and demographic data in a standardized, universal language that transcended national borders. It also made learning these statistics more interesting for students. There are too many vintage book and antiques dealers to mention here. But I do want to give a shout out to Christian Sturgis who continues to sell wonderful vintage art and design books here in Baltimore. He is keeping the flame alive. Sasha Lurie, Ben Guz and Michael Weintraub in New York have offered for sale the best in Soviet books, periodicals and related materials. While the lion’s share of the books I have accumulated were purchased from used bookstores or book dealers, it is worth noting that we are currently passing through a golden age of publishing, with over a dozen publishing brands focusing on art and the larger cultural landscape. New books on design, color theory, and monographs on the pioneers of 20th century art are being released on a continual basis and are worth including in any book collection. This publishing gold rush corresponds to the recent growth in the number of independent bookstores. New York has its fair share, but readers and art enthusiasts across the country, and most notably
161
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in Baltimore, are showing their support and commitment to indie booksellers. New York has a number of exceptional bookstores. Three Lives at 10th and Waverley in the West Village may be NYC’s best stop for new fiction and nonfiction. The Strand, a few blocks west, is huge, with old and new books across every genre. Good luck finding a particular title. The Mast Bookstore on Avenue A near 5th Street in Manhattan provides a wealth of literature on design arts, mixing older and newly released books from small presses with more traditional publishing sources. They feature books published by Lars Müller, Gestalten, MIT Press, Princeton Architectural. Represent the best of the current crop. When I joined Citibank, I worked at 53rd and Park Avenue. In the early 1980s, I noticed that a bookstore had opened in the lobby of one of the new office towers springing up along Park Avenue. The store, Chartwell, named after Winston Churchill’s country retreat, was owned by a young New Yorker, Barry Singer. Barry seemed to do everything. He was writing biographies of forgotten jazz pioneers. He wrote for New York Magazine. He was running this elegant bookshop on 52nd Street and hosting book launches at the shop for people like Steven Sondheim. Chartwell caters to lawyers, bond traders, tourists, high-end book collectors. People with mon-
ey. Chartwell is a small space, so it is important to limit the selection to only the good stuff. Barry has the eye and the literary sixth sense to pull it off. The store has a fabulous selection of books on music, cars, cooking, the best in fiction and biography, and of course, the best inventory of Churchill titles anywhere (many collector’s editions). It’s a marvelous store. I used to daydream that one day, I too would be able to run a bookshop and do it with as much flavor as Barry Singer. Little did I know that there was a bookstore in our future. Barry offered to host a print show at Chartwell, featuring some of our woodcuts and print lithographs, many from the WPA. We were excited to display a part of our collection in Manhattan. We wound up selling a number of our prints. And a few reference books from the Depression era. [176] Like other cities, New York has lost some of its best bookshops. Partners in Crime used to be on Greenwich Street in the Village, two blocks from Three Lives. It was a walk-down basement shop, on the same block as our favorite brunch destination, Elephant & Castle. It specialized in mystery, espionage and crime fiction, and included a few other special titles. The owner introduced me to the work of Baltimore thriller master, Dan Fesperman; a World War II noir writer, Alan Furst; the wonderful mystery writer, Philip Kerr; and Rafael Alvarez, the
modern-day chronicler of Baltimore. It was a reader’s bookshop, filled with surprise, like all good bookshops. But, like many other small businesses, it was priced out of Manhattan and has closed. There are wonderful independent bookstores in practically every city and town across the eastern seaboard, from Oblong Books in the Catskills to Politics and Prose and Kramer Books in Washington to Books & Books in Miami.
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176 Berlin’s print show at Chartwell
163
THE IVY BOOKSHOP
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W
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hen Ann and I decided to leave the New York area for Baltimore, we weren’t thinking about owning and running a bookstore. We were thinking about leaving the stress of NY/NJ life behind. Reducing our expenses. Slowing things down a bit. Not being a home-grown Baltimorean, Ann was apprehensive about the move. Other than our friends, Avi and Sheila, we really did not know many people. But then, one day, we were confronted with the opportunity of acquiring an independent book store. Neither of us had any retail experience. What could go wrong?!? The Ivy’s founder and owner, Darielle Linehan, had decided to close the store. So when the word got out that the bookstore was not closing, the book-reading community was thrilled. We were fortunate that a number of the people working at the store were interested in staying. And we were able to
hire great people to fill out the team. So when the indie book business started to improve, we were ready. Owning the shop was exciting, rewarding. The Ivy has become a core part of the cultural life in the city. So many Baltimoreans think of reading books as a lifestyle, a source of knowledge and pleasure. To some, reading is life-affirming. Entertainment with purpose. And a habit they wish to pass onto their children and children’s children. [177] The Ivy has hosted hundreds of talented authors, many of whom have read publicly for the first time. Writers and other creatives are the future of Baltimore. They need the support of booksellers and the public at large but, more importantly, we need them; they are the voices of our community. Their books incite dialogue and the exchange of perspectives, and this exchange enriches our communities. Collectively, their work documents our time and place. The role of the bookstore is to serve as the nexus of this dialogue.
Bookstores do not do this on their own. They partner with libraries, churches, synagogues, museums and community service organizations. The Ivy is a good host, a valued collaborator and a champion of the written word. It’s a THING. And Ann and I are proud to have been part of it. Baltimore produces great writers, like D. Watkins, Laura Lippman, Marion Winik, Mario Livio, Michael Downs, Dan Fesperman, Anne Tyler, Madison Smartt Bell, Sujata Massey, John Eisenberg, Barbara Morrison, Steve Luxenberg, Sheri Booker, Jen Michalski, and the dozens of excellent poets, almost all of whom have spoken at the Ivy.
177 Ivy Bookshop advertising piece, designed by Dan Shub
Living in Baltimore is a game of Throw-Up-Tackle: You ever play Throw-Up-Tackle? We played religiously. The rules are simple—a group of boys form a circle in the center of the field, one of us throws a football high up in the air—once it hits the ground, we are all charged with the task of catching the ball. The lucky person who recovers it, must rush to the end zone without being tackled. End zones are normally marked by trees, trashcans or trash. If you are tackled, you must throw the ball up in the air, giving someone else a turn. But if you score, you keep the ball and try to run through the nine other kids as many times as
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this game over at Bocek Park in east Baltimore
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178 Baltimore art and photography titles: Elaine Eff, Marty Azola, Devin Allen, MICA
possible. He with the most touchdowns by sundown wins. Living in Baltimore is a game of Throw-UpTackle. There’s ups and downs, that both reek of heroism and humanity. Throw-Up-Tackle has bought me busted eyes, bloody lips, and broken bones, but so has Baltimore. Throw-Up-Tackle has brought me some of the most glorious moments in my life, moments that made me feel special, proved I was special—moments that left me feeling like I could overcome anything and any given time, but so has Baltimore. [179]
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D. WATKINS
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179 Just a few of Baltimore’s talented authors
Many of the books that have come from Baltimore writers are of exceptional design. Among these are Marty Azola’s book on historical renovation; Devin Allen’s photojournalistic account of Baltimore under siege; Elaine Eff’s book on Baltimore’s painted screens; Amy Davis’ photos on the history of Baltimore’s old movie emporiums; Doug Frost’s history of the Maryland Institute (MICA), and Jim Abbott’s history of the Evergreen House treasures—all combine great writing and great design and layout. [178] Although art and design books, accounted for a small portion of the store’s revenues, they were a distinctive part of the store’s personality.
180 Anne Gable’s rubber book
SURPRISINGLY, SEVERAL OF THE TRADITIONAL-LOOKING MAGAZINES IN TODAY’S MARKETPLACE WERE ONCE PIONEERS OF LAYOUT AND ARTFORM
MAGAZINE ART Many great magazines have a lot to offer, such as documentary photography and frequently, topographical complexity—all the things that I crave. Magazines’ periodic nature should, conceptually, provide more opportunity for experimentation and greater artistic diversity. But, alas, there are tons of boring-looking magazines, predictable, generic. Their goal is clarity, or hipness or political outrage, none of which interests me. Surprisingly, several of the traditional-looking magazines in today’s marketplace were once pioneers of layout and artform. From the perspective of design, Vanity Fair and Fortune, in the 1930s and 1940s, both used their cover art, their experimentation with color or graphical display of data, to convey urgency and excitement. They represented the best in graphical journalism. [181–182] Big-name magazines did not have a monopoly on great design. Lesser known magazines, such as Survey Graphic, which was published from the 1920s to the early 1950s, catered to discreet audiences and therefore had very limited print runs. They were produced using the cheapest materials but, given the dire conditions, were able to attract talented designers and illustrators. [182]
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I cannot leave the topic of books without mentioning our friend Anne Gable, who made a special book for us. It’s made from rubber. It’s a special part of our book collection. It is a bit hard to read, but it’s become an important addition. [180]
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Some of the most impactful publications, from a graphic design perspective, came from Europe and the Soviet Union. The Dutch magazine Wendingen showcased the art movements overtaking Europe at the beginning of the 20th century. It covered everything from the Arts & Crafts movement, through cubism, futurism and the buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright. The covers are memorable, designed by the most creative artists of their era [183]. The Dutch continued to lead in design and architecture throughout the next several decades until Nazi occupation. But Amsterdam remained a center of publishing after the war. Dutch magazines in the 1970s and 1980s served as models for the design-heavy, hip magazines that would emerge in the UK and the US in the following decades. In Russia, early Bolshevik artists and designers established the Constructivist template that would affect everything from architecture, to photography, to textile design, to bookmaking. The great artists of the revolution — El Lissitzky, Tatlin, Goncharova, Rodchencko, Klutsis — altered the geometry of art. Lissitzky’s epic publication, USSR in Construction, was the most impactful international propaganda project undertaken by the young Soviet Russian state, printed in four languages and encompassing the mythical feats of Soviet agriculture, automobile production, military technology, medicine, etc. This magazine provided an uber-romantic image of the workers’ paradise. The photomontages are totally stunning. [184] Czechoslovakian designers were leading proponents of Bauhaus-inspired product packaging, publishing, and household items. Panorama documented these activities in Czechoslovakia from the early 1920s through the war years. Ladislav Sutnar, who ran the Prague Design School until its closure in 1938, produced a number of smaller circulation magazines, rivaling
181 Fortune
Europe’s better-known periodicals in terms of new design thinking. [185] Eva Magazine was the Czech version of Glamour in the States, with beautiful, colorized photographic covers, featuring glamorous models wearing the height of fashion. [187] After 1938, the majority of the Czech design community emigrated to the UK or the US, and Czech publications fell into mediocrity. The Second World War upended the publishing world. After the war, we entered into a new phase, with television providing the images, displacing the picture-laden publications of the past. National magazines reined in innovative graphics to satisfy timid advertisers. Then the counterculture and the Warhol phenomena triggered a shift from design to display. Magazine publishers became more innovative, beginning in the late 1970s and 1980s. In New York, Raw appeared downtown. It featured East Village artists. Spy Magazine was an innovative version
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182 Vintage Vanity Fair, Survey Graphic, Vu, and Art Industrie
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183 Wendingen
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184 USSR in Construction
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of New York Magazine, with sly graphics and photomontages. In LA, Wet Magazine took a common theme and turned it both lurid and clean. The layout was high West Coast. [189] In London, music and fashion were the twin vehicles of social change, documented in i-D and The Face. British designer Neville Brody hijacked the typography of the 1930s, blending it with space-age, club culture to create the emblems of the 1980s disaffected. [188,190] Magazines once again became artistically relevant, and exciting. They mirrored a revolution in typography and layout. New designs, coming from Basel, Berlin, Los Angeles, New York and Tokyo, were colliding to create a global language based on symbols, icons, and new font types, changing the face of popular magazines, and even business journals. April Greiman’s fluid, post-dot matrix designs and, in Basel, Switzerland, similar concepts from Wolfgang Weingart once again elevated the role of design within the publishing world. Even business journals were affected. Now fonts and typography were just as essential as the writing and editing. And older tools, such as airbrush and stenciling, were reinvented in what became a typography explosion. The magazine, Émigré, and its deep database of fonts became the graphic designers’ prime source for new fonts and design concepts in the digital world. [191] BmoreArt, a twice-a-year publication that focuses on rising artists living in Baltimore, represents the perfect blending of content, design, and production excellence. Its printing quality, color, and sharp but unstaged photographic portraits of artists and other creatives consistently spellbind. It’s more than an arts magazine—it’s art. [186]
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185 Various Sutnar Czech magazines
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186 Bmore Art
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188 i-D
189 Wet and Spy
190 Neville Brody and the Brits: The Face
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187 Eva
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191 Rudy Vanderlans Émigré
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192 Page from UK, magazine, Business, with early infographics
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MAGAZINES, THE REALLY GOOD ONES, WILL CONTINUE TO CREATE WORKS OF ART USING WHATEVER MEDIUM AND WHICHEVER TOOLS BEST SUIT THE PERIOD AND SUBJECT MATTER
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E M O H E F I L
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ADRIFT SOUNDTRACK
HOME LIFE
ALL SELECTIONS ARE CURRENTLY AVAILABLE ON SPOTIFY
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https://spoti.fi/3fNdEBm
HOME LIFE THE FAMILY Luke Howard and Nadje Noordhuis – First Harvest Nils Frahm – Re Roger Waters – What God Wants, Part I
Some objects and images have distinct intrinsic value beyond their utility, their cost, and their investment potential. They symbolize place, people, experiences— both in terms of memory and expectations for the future. It is a special feeling to possess something that was created by a friend or a member of one’s family. Both Ann and I come from close families, nurtured by loving parents, grandparents and brothers, and we have made close friendships along the way, some from our childhood and some from school and our working careers. Hopefully, by now, you can see in this document just how important those relationships have been to both of us. I do not know the origin or maker of many of the things in my collection. In most instances, there has been a break in the chain of possession. Sadly, this is the rule, not the exception. But there are many treasured items that were produced by people we met along the way. Painters, mosaic tile artisans, ceramicists, etc. And some are family or special people who have become lifelong friends. There is something magical about this. Knowing them and their stories increases the excitement and provides a deeper sense of what these things really mean. It’s a bond that becomes part of the essence of the thing itself.
HOME LIFE
FAMILY ART
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Neither Ann nor I have large families. Nor do I come from a long line of artists or musicians. My lineage stems from factory workers, merchants, educators, bankers, but there were a few exceptions. My cousin, Michael Middleman, was one of my closest friends. He died in 1980 at age 41. We went from seldom-seen relatives to daily lunch buddies when we reached our twenties. We realized we shared the same world view, liked the same things, smoked the same pot. He had been a painter, lived in Mexico and Greenwich village and landed back in Baltimore. He was a window designer for a department store and later was an illustrator for the nursing school downtown. Right next to the law school where I was passing time. [194]
HOME LIFE
194 Michael and me
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193 Michael’s Ding Dong Daddy
195 Our wedding invitation
HOME LIFE
One evening, I brought a copy of an R. Crumb comic for him to relish. He looked through it and I noticed he began to draw on a piece of oil cloth on his work table. [193] I suppose the character reminded Michael of me. I immediately saw the similarities. Notice he signed it as R.C., Robert Crumb, just as it appeared on the page. It’s a copy of Crumb but it’s an original Middleman. I value it greatly. Ann and I were married at my brotherand sister-in-law’s house in Annapolis in 1979. We wanted a special way of celebrating and decided to have our friend, Danny Shub, create an announcement that looked like a travel poster. All of the invitations were color photocopies of the original pen and ink drawing and were sent via mail. No email or Instagram back then. Notice Dan combined the high rises of Manhattan where we lived with the Chesapeake Bay waters where we were married. [195] Both Joe and Shaunna Garlington, my brother- and sister-in-law are artists, living outside of Los Angeles. We have special pieces from both Joe and Shaunna. Shaunna made us two colorful bouquets out of wooden dowels. No need for water. [196] Many elementary students are given a Flat Stanley assignment. Sam asked his Aunt Shaunna to create a Flat Stanley travelogue of Southern California—and Shaunna’s was amaz-
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HOME LIFE
196 One of Shaunna’s bouquets
180
ing. Many years later, our dog Quincy decided to feast on the old paper. Shaunna fixed poor old Flat Stanley by creating a companion book about a very naughty dog who ate up Flat Stanley. [197] Ann’s brother Joe is a talented designer and model maker. He spent several decades at Disney, creating interactive attractions, as a designer and as a team leader, with responsibilities at Epcot and several other Disney theme parks around the world. Interestingly, Joe created the infamous groundhog in the movie Caddyshack and operated the little fellow as he poked his head out of the ground. Ann grew up with two brothers: Joe, who is 2 years older, and Bobby, who was 4 years younger. Bobby was smart, charismatic, and had ADD, which translated into his being something of a rebel. Lots of drama at home. Ann was living in Washington when Bobby was killed in a car accident while travelling with some friends in Mexico. He was 19. Ann’s first job after moving to Washington was in the Mineral Sciences Department at the Smithsonian, mainly typing manuscripts for some of the curators. A friend of hers at work, Roberta Wigder, was a very talented scientific illustrator. Roberta spent most of her time meticulously drawing pictures of mollusks. Ann asked her to draw a picture of Bobby from a snapshot. It is perfect. [198]
198 Bobby’s portrait
In the early 1980s, we met Tom and Dana Fraser, also artists, who (along with their children) have become family to Ann and me and our two children. Dana painted a portrait of Sam and Maria and one of Maria by herself. The Maria painting is displayed earlier. Tom designed dozens of amazing postcards, which were sold at their store, Modern Girls, in the Village. Examples of the postcards are shown on the next page [201]. Other Fraser pieces (textiles, furniture) are shown in figures 205 and 223. Tom and Dana’s children, Chance and Viva, are both artists as well. Chance has been carving images out of wood and printing the wood cuts since he was in high school. His print of Hollywood bad boy, Robert Mitchem, is both dark and joyful and an interesting choice for a 30-year-old artist. [200] When the kids were younger, Ann would draw a cartoon for them each morning, since she had to leave for work before they were up. Regrettably, most of Ann’s cartoons are misplaced, but here is one of her classics. [199] 199 Ann’s morning cartoon to Maria
200 Chance Fraser’s portrait of Robert Mitcham
HOME LIFE
197 Flat Stanley
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HOME LIFE
201 Tom Fraser postcards
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Ann has started quilting. She had always admired the quilts her lifelong friend Mary Davis made. We have a few in the house. They are wonderful. Now Ann is producing beautiful quilts, and they definitely belong as part of the collection. Each panel is a piece of colorful fabric and pulled together with care and skill. The quilts are montages representing home, family, warmth. Ann makes them for people she loves. I am getting one for my birthday next year. [204] This section would not be complete without mentioning Sam’s short but successful career as a potter. We have over a dozen of Sam’s perfectly round, and understated pots around the house; they are practically in every room and are highly functional. [202] Maria carved two spoons while living in the wilderness. Perfect for eating out of tin cans or stirring food on an open fire. They are two of our prized possessions. [203] Since this section is devoted to our friends and family, it would not be complete without mentioning our close friends Avi and Sheila. I have known Avi
203 Maria’s spoons
HOME LIFE
202 Sam’s cups and bowls
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204 Ann made this quilt for Isobel
FRIENDSHIPS ARE A NECESSARY PART OF LIFE
HOME LIFE
205 Fraser textiles
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206 Berlin Garlington family lore
HOME LIFE
since high school. We were in the same carpool. We were roommates, psychedelic voyagers. We stayed close while Ann and I lived in New York. We raised our kids to think of the Goldbergs and their children as family. And they are family. When Avi married Sheila, she became a close friend and confidante. Ann, Sheila, Avi and I have vacationed together, celebrated together, mourned together. We even like much of the same art. Friendships are a necessary part of life, like food and oxygen. We are fortunate to have Avi and Sheila in our lives. A few years ago, I asked a Baltimore friend, Bob Cronan, a mapmaker, to design a visual story of the migration of Ann and my families from Europe to America. And then extending the story to include places where we lived and finally, to our kids, Sam and Maria and our granddaughter, Isobel. We each have unique stories and migration pathways. Along with the maps of our family’s movement, we wanted a simple family tree and a space for family folklore. And we wanted it in a Soviet-constructivist style, in keeping with our eclectic collection. [206] Bob took all of this in and produced an amazing artifact for us and for generations to come. Bob also produced all the maps included in this book.
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FURNITURE
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207 Philco floor model radio
186
We never really collected furniture. We furnished apartments, lofts and eventually three houses. Emptiness, which many prefer over clutter, always bothered me. I tried to fill empty rooms with pieces of furniture that spoke of a lost age and that had a unique character. And that provided a sense of warmth and home. Most of our acquired furniture were orphans from previous owners and homes. To put it another way, they were used, and longed to be used again by another family. Most of the furniture we purchased over our lifetime were the necessities of ordinary life: beds, dressers, tables, bookshelves. There are a handful or two that are worth noting, because of their rare characteristics or because of the circumstances of their purchase. Everywhere we went, we would find some old chunk of history, some oversized piece of furniture that nobody else had room for. We would moan about it, decide to purchase it and try to figure out where it might fit. We managed to assemble an interesting, quirky ensemble. First, there is the old Philco radio I mentioned earlier. It’s currently sitting in The Ivy Bookshop. Kids have no idea what it is or how it works. Too bad. [207] Ann saw this washstand at a French antique store on Sullivan Street in the West Village. It was in near-mint condition, with an exquisite tile backsplash and dark marble top. We used it in the front entrance in our home in West Orange, and we later used it as a special table at The Ivy. It’s now back in our home. [208] I mentioned the old enamel stove I found in a small prairie town, Malvern, Minnesota. It is in nearly perfect condition. Ann remembers her grandmother’s stove, which apparently was of the same vintage. We use the stove to keep Isobel’s art and craft materials. [209] Some of the most interesting pieces came from the now-closed Chester Carousel in Chester, New Jersey, owned by Anne Brookes, whose store offered
WE MANAGED TO ASSEMBLE AN INTERESTING, QUIRKY ENSEMBLE
HOME LIFE
208 Marble washstand
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209 Cast iron stove
an amazing array of architect drafting tables, old commercial fixtures, armoires, wood boxes, etc. Most were salvaged from old stores and taverns. These two pieces were from offices and/or libraries. The second of the two pieces has served as the front fiction table at The Ivy. [210,216] The armoire is from the West Village. Mother of Pearl inlaid. Beautiful rounded lines. It came from an old haberdasher’s shop. Older houses and apartments never have enough closets. [211] Inglett-Watson had this 1950s radio-record player combo piece in the front window of the shop for years. It is a beautiful piece of furniture with shortwave and a turntable under the hood. We keep our old rock records in the vertical shelves along the sides of the built-in speaker. An early version of a home entertainment system. [212] We found an old “low boy” in Washington, got it fixed up and have carried it to NYC, New Jersey and now Baltimore. Notice the cool Art Deco painted handles and border work. Very American modern living. [213]
HOME LIFE
210 Railroad table
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EVERYWHERE WE WENT, WE WOULD FIND SOME OLD CHUNK OF HISTORY
212 Media center, circa 1950s
HOME LIFE
211 Armoire
189
213 Low boy
214 Chinese village school desk
HOME LIFE
215 Chinese tiled hutch
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The old school desk from China was purchased at Material Culture outside Philadelphia. Looks to be from the late Mao period. It sits in Isobel’s playroom today. [214] The early 20th century hutch is based on a Chinese design, with ceramic tile and teak wood. The tilework is striking. Probably from Malaysia or Indonesia. [215] The green cupboard also came from Material Culture. Its origin is Finland. Check out the red drawer pulls and original green paint. It now houses cookbooks. [217] The 1940s table is from an optometry or optician office. Two-sided, with a leather top to support the handling of lenses. We found it at Urban Archeology on Franklin Street in downtown Manhattan. [218]
217 Green cupboard
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216 Librarian table – Ivy New Fiction
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220 Captain’s sink
HOME LIFE
218 Optometry table
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219 RCA Nipper chair
We saw two of these chairs at the NYC Pier Show. Bought one and ran back to buy the other, but it was gone. Never hesitate. Check out the RCA dog logo, Nipper. It was part of a table and chair ensemble. [219] I think we found the captain’s sink at the Armory Show in Manhattan. Its sink is connected to a water source line in the back. You close the sink to dump the water out through a pipe. (Can’t imagine living on a boat and relying on this sink to keep myself nice and fresh. But the piece makes a great planter.) [220]
221 Shoe display
This appears to have been a shoe display or possibly some other industrial shelf. From the 40s, given the lines and material. Maria enhanced the numbers when she was young and feeling artistic. [221] I mentioned that Nancy Aufiero created the tabletop for the coffee table from mosaic tiles and broken fish plates. I originally just wanted the fish plates. The table was included in the deal. From downtown Montclair, New Jersey. And one of a kind. [222]
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222 Ceramic fish table
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We found this stained-wood Hoosier cabinet at Material Culture. We were told this came from the Ozarks. [224] This end table, painted by the Frasers, captures the colorized downtown/East Village feel of 1980s NYC. It was used as a display table at Modern Girls, the Fraser’s store on Thompson St. [223] It’s a pretty eclectic collection of odds and ends. Each piece has a story connected to it, so it fits into this narrative.
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223 Modern Girl’s Store table
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224 Ozark kitchen cabinet
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ADRIFT SOUNDTRACK
REFLECTIONS ON A NEW BALTIMORE HOMETOWN REVISITED
ALL SELECTIONS ARE CURRENTLY AVAILABLE ON SPOTIFY
Jill Scott – Golden Dru Hill – Beauty Miss Li – Love Hurts UnderCover Presents – This Flight Tonight by Adam Theis Tord Gustavsen Trio – The Other Side
CONCLUSION
https://spoti.fi/3fNdEBm
Annie Lennox – A Thousand Beautiful Things Sting – The Last Ship Peter Gabriel – Here Comes the Flood Bohren & Der Club of Gore – Im Rauch
As of this writing, we have been back in Baltimore for close to eight years. It’s not the Baltimore where I grew up. It’s smaller and poorer. But it’s Baltimore. The angle of the sun’s rays looks the same. The trees and ground cover are as lush as always. In spite of all the obstacles the city faces, it still inspires its residents. Ann and I choose to live in Baltimore City. We are invested in its future. I am one of the many who still believe in this city. Too many Baltimoreans are poor, hungry, and without jobs and access to healthy food. Their neighborhoods are not safe and their children face lives of despair. Unless. Unless every Baltimorean from every corner of the city commits to changing this situation. To survive, Baltimore will need to find a new generation of accountable leaders. I predict, these people will come from the growing creative class—writers, artists, educators and cultural leaders. Baltimore has great bones. It’s true that some of our most elegant structures have been lost to insane development and sheer greed. But there are still iconic buildings, viaducts, bridges, reservoirs and vistas. Some never disappeared. Others are being reclaimed and are finding new life and purpose. But more importantly, there is new growth. Signs of reemergence. A new creative spirit that I honestly do
REFLECTIONS ON A NEW BALTIMORE
HOMETOWN REVISITED
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REFLECTIONS ON A NEW BALTIMORE
225 Baltimore blight, James Singewald
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not remember from my previous life in Baltimore. Art that we recognize and can relate to. Writing that we understand and respond to, from writers who grew up here, or who choose to live here. Signs of life. Evidence of optimism and a willingness to invest time and emotion in ushering our city into a new, sustainable period. Cara Ober publishes a world-class arts magazine, BmoreArt. D. Watkins writes and speaks about succeeding after emerging from years of oppressive conditions in some of the city’s most violent neighborhoods. Karen Stokes moved Strong City Baltimore, a highly productive community service organization, into one of Baltimore’s most poverty-stricken neighborhoods in order to get closer to families in need. They are three of hundreds of Baltimoreans on a mission to lift up their city. They are heroes. They are the builders of tomorrow. [226–229] The young creative class in Baltimore is not willing to settle for a city separated by race. And I hope they will not settle for the crushing inequities. I was talking to someone the other day who said that they used to live in DC, but they preferred Baltimore’s grit and authenticity. Although it’s a cliche, I couldn’t agree more. I grew up in rural Maryland but came to Baltimore often as a teenager, to go to thrift stores like the Zone and Oh Susanah, Louie’s Bookstore Cafe, and punk music concerts at the Hour House... and I always found this place to be magical, almost like the wardrobe in Narnia, where exquisite little gems could be found if you paid close attention but were invisible to everyone else.
226 Postcard of the Hoen Building, circa 1890, now home to Strong City Baltimore
228 Baltimore Eastside Writers Co-op flyer
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227 Revitalized Hoen Building, 2019
229 Flyer for first annual Festival of Jewish Literature
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I went to college in DC, and although I loved the international aspect of that city, there was always something that felt oppressive to me. I moved to Baltimore as soon as I could and found a tiny apartment in Charles Village with exposed brick and proximity to museums, colleges, and good coffee. I have found Baltimore to be a place that has enough space to be a creative human and grow at my own pace, rather than attempting to scale up or compromise my ambitions, as I would have to in a city like New York or DC. In Baltimore, the urgency to create and succeed has to come from within, and we can complain that there should be more financial and professional incentives to achieve one’s goals, but I have always thought that this was a gift rather than a burden. In Baltimore I can be myself in a way that I design and I’m allowed the luxury of being a late bloomer, of accumulating a variety of career and creative experiences, and all of this is directed by me, not by anyone else. Perhaps it’s not the best city for someone with rabid
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ambition? Or maybe it is, because you have the freedom and space to
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create the rules as you go. CARA OBER
Baltimore makes things—things people want. Art, music, furniture, food, chocolate, software, things that belong in collections, books, clothes. We currently lack adequate sources of risk capital and an organizing principle for the 21st century. But Baltimore does not lack competence or energy. Many of us living in Baltimore feel the sense of a shared destiny. It is a first step. There is much work to be done. But an important first step. At some point, hopefully soon, Baltimore will reemerge as a smaller more creative town. That will be worth so much more than the collection.
MANY OF US LIVING IN BALTIMORE FEEL THE SENSE OF A SHARED DESTINY
ICONIC BALTIMORE
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very great city has its landmarks and architectural wonders and Baltimore, even after the demolition of so many of its historic buildings, still has more than its fair share. These buildings, monuments, reservoirs and signs enchanted me as a child and they continue to fill me with a sense of wonder. They were the totems that marked my universe. They are the great bones of my city, the survivors of urban redevelopment. Many are overlooked and shrouded by larger generic buildings, but they are the city’s sacred grounds, they possess the spirit of our city’s builders and dreamers. And they will continue to serve future generations as long as people call Baltimore their home. [230–241]
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Photos by RACHEL ROCK PALERMO
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230 Old Oheb Shalom Synagogue
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231 Mt Royal Station
232 Bromo Seltzer Building
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234 City College
233 Washington Monument in Mt. Vernon
235 War Memorial
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237 Ashburton Reservoir
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236 Matheson Building
238 The Belvedere Hotel
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239 The Howard Peters Rawlings Conservatory and Botanic Gardens
240 Domino Sugars Sign
241 The Pagoda
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ICONIC BALTIMORE [DETAILED FIGURE CAPTIONS] 230 Old Oheb Shalom Synagogue: My family’s house of worship in the 1940s and 1950s, anchoring the Jewish Eutaw Place neighborhood, which was the center of Baltimore’s Jewish royalty 231 Mt Royal Station: The beautiful mission-designed transportation hub, now an essential part of the Maryland Institute and College of Art (MICA) 232 Bromo Seltzer Building: One of the remaining architectural symbols of Baltimore’s commercial prosperity 233 Washington Monument in Mt. Vernon: The center of historic and cultural Baltimore 234 City College: Built in 1929, the Castle is a testament to the City’s commitment to educational excellence 235 War Memorial: An icon and a tribute to the city’s municipal authority, built in 1925 236 Matheson Building: Once Baltimore’s highest building, during the city’s economic peak. An Art Deco gem 237 Ashburton Reservoir: An engineering marvel, with downtown on the distant horizon 238 The Belvedere Hotel: A symbol of the city’s former elegance and another surviving Art Deco gem 239 The Howard Peters Rawlings Conservatory and Botanic Gardens: One of the nation’s most beautiful arboretums, in the center of Druid Hill Park 240 Domino Sugars Sign: At the Inner Harbor, a remnant of Baltimore’s port and its importance in the production and distribution of food products across the eastern United States 241 The Pagoda: Located in Patterson Park, one of the city’s great public spaces and the center of Baltimore’s east side
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his document has been about the experiences of a lifetime and the people we have met and gotten to know along the way. It’s not intended to be a catalog of art or objects, although, no doubt about it, it is fun to collect things. If you live long enough, a collection will grow and take on its own life and personality. It’s very rewarding. In my case, the various objects and images collectively string together a story of a life in motion. The collection is the string of pearls, each plucked from the multitude of places I have been fortunate to visit. The lesson, if any, is try to see a lot and do a lot. And, if at all possible, bring a bit of it back with you, whether in photos or various artifacts. Secondly, try not to fill your place with the same types of things, try not to be predictable. Do not be a slave to a particular genre, period or artist. Then again, it’s your collection—do whatever you want to do, whatever makes you happy.
The other lesson is not to value the collection more than you value the experiences. Because in the end you are really collecting memories. The things are simply reminders. There are too many people in my life to thank properly. But here goes. My wife and fellow traveler, Ann, who has learned to enjoy collecting things and not taking it too seriously. Ann inspires me to try to do right by people and feel grateful. I am grateful for her presence in my life. My two children, Sam and Maria, for sharing their childhood with a bunch of stuff that one day they might appreciate more than they did as kids. I am proud of both of you for who you decided to become. Both of you have taught me what is important and what is not. My brother, Dennis, and cousins Erlene and Jeffrey, who continue to ride the trail with me. My links to our collective past.
Conclusion
CONCLUSION
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Conclusion
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My close friends, Avrum, Sheila, Victoria, Tom, Dana, Anne, and Ed, and my family by marriage, Joe and Shaunna. Some of them live far away, but they are the people who chose to invest their time and emotions on me. I hope I have given back all that I got from you and then some. To the many, many creative people we have known over the years. Too many to mention here. Writers and artists. I have always admired the ability to make things, draw things. I have never been able to create like that. But just being close to people who can has been a great thrill. To peddlers, shop owners, curators, book and art dealers. You provide a valuable service to the greater community by enabling the circulation of so many precious things. Giving them an additional life. Carrying forward our history, one picture or postcard, or painting at a time. To my beloved lost family — Lou, Mary, Maggie, Sam, Jenny, Kalman, Hillary, Bernie, Dorothy, Jean, Lea, and Michael—the Bassin-Middleman-Wohl-Berlin clan, the people who helped me grow up, I am lovingly passing these memories of each of you on to my family and friends to ensure you remain with us in our hearts and minds. Finally, to my granddaughter, Isobel Jen Berlin Delmoro, who is six as of this writing. You bring life, energy, and love into every room. You are a
smart, loving and gorgeous kid and will continue to be so well into your adult life. These stories and related artifacts are part of your heritage, your own story. You too are a collector. So, we share that as well as our love for each other. [242]
242 Isobel’s picture of a fawn
LAST WORD I have been fortunate to have met and gotten to know so many fellow travelers. They enriched my life and I fear that I may have forgotten to mention many of these wonderful souls. A number are gone now. I have lost contact with others. But most are still in my life in some fashion. It is important to me to include these individuals in this manuscript.
BALTIMORE FRIENDS PAST AND PRESENT Bruce Klein, John King, Paul Sandler, Emily Miller, Ray Plotecia, Rebecca Oppenheimer, Ed Sible, John Enoch, Josh Weis, Spike Gjerde, Jack Holmes, Myrna Cardin, Judy Meltzer, Karen Stokes, Lynette Hodge, John Ziemann, Shawn Herne, Barry Bondroff, Barry Norwitz, Susan Lacy, Doreen Bolger, Dan Inglett, Gene Watson, Paul Thein, Lois Berge, Nancy Harrigan, Margie Kovens, Harriet Rivlin, Jim Fabian, Susan Silver, Lise Haupt, Marc Strauss, Carla Truax, Marty Azola, Eddie and Sylvia Brown, Rona London, Martha Marani, Larry Miller, Shirley Fergenson, Nancy Chambers, Kyle Solomon, Lauren Potts, Tracy Diamond, Peter and Megan Warren, Christian Sturgis, Matthew Sales.
ARTISTS AND WRITERS I GREATLY ADMIRE D. Watkins, Sheri Booker, Cara Ober, Jeffrey Kent, Kondwani Fidel, Michael Downs, John Eisenberg, Elaine Eff, Matthew Crenson, Beth Spires, Madison Smartt Bell, Dan Fesperman, Jerry Litofsky, Richard Stanley, Marion Winik, Jen Michalski, Bill Egginton, Amy Davis, Jodie Holbrook, Christopher Bathgate, Rafael Alavarez, Barbara Morrison, Sujata Massey, Mario Livio.
CITIBANKERS AND OTHER PROFESSIONAL NOTABLES Ken Hines, Hans Angermueller, Pat Mulhern, Jose Lopez, Mary Cirillo, Pei Chia, James Sinclair, Ken Robbin, Herman Josef Lamberti, Ken Wagner, Walter Wriston, Tomi Matsubayashi, Hans Walthaus, Ted Fine.
THE BEST OF NEW YORK, NEW YORK Janet Lang, Ed Miller, Marie Bove, Barry Singer, Andy Caso, Ketan Jhaveri, Ken Phillips, Sid Schatsky, Susan Kolker, Katharine Sergava, Anne Gable, Phil Ambrosino. Thank you all
COPYRIGHT Š2020 BY EDUARD BERLIN All rights reserved. No part of the publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author. Copyright information regarding Kennedy photo on page 43. It is our belief that the item is in the public domain and does not infringe on copyright. If you do believe that this item is in violation of your owned copyright, and you are indeed the owner of the copyright, we ask that you please contact us.
For information, contact: Eduard Berlin 829 West University Parkway Baltimore, MD 21210 Email: edberlin@comcast.net
Printed in the United States of America. ISBN 978-0-578-73252-7
This book has been set in dT Jakob and Futura PT. It was printed in the fall of 2020 in the USA by Mt. Royal Printing and Communications, Baltimore, Maryland. Back cover isotype by Gerd Arntz.
Ed Berlin with a portion of the collection. Photo taken by Rachel Rock Palermo at the Berlin house on University Parkway in Baltimore in the Spring of 2018.