BEGINNING OF BLOG ENTRY #16 -  JULY 19, 2024          "A SISTER IN THE CHOIR"

 

       The small clubs all had some form of ‘Naked Dance’ on their bills and flyers.  Often these accompanied some mock lecture on anatomy or physiology.  A buffoon in a white doctor’s coat would drone on about the joint between the legs and the hips, while some limber dancer or acrobat revealed the movement “unencumbered by clothing.”

       The large stages put on Revues.  They had several dance numbers, musicians, a small play, comediennes, an animal act,  jugglers, and at least one full stage tableau that presented a dozen naked women, representing Elysian Maids, Spring Fairies, Greek Goddesses, and some categories that have never before or since been seen.  There were cabarets, such as the ‘Tingle-Tangle’ and one called ‘Under and Over’ featuring the notorious ‘Slide on the razor.’  This last bit was a ten foot long prop straight razor, set at an incline, upon which naked ‘dancers’ would slowly slide and moan and shout as if in ecstasy.  Believe it or not; it got great reviews in the magazines.

       Anita started her act by portraying women of classical mythology.  She tried to keep her off-stage antics separate from her on-stage persona.  Despite her growing reputation for being lewd and flamboyant, she acted as an actress on-stage.  Needless to say, people came to the cabaret to see Anita get naked and outrageous on stage.  What they got was a history lesson.  In order to keep the audiences coming back to the theatre, Anita had to become more outrageous in her personal life.  The more she took off at a party, the more she wore on stage.  Her costumes became very elaborate.

       As might have been expected, her audiences began to disappear.  Several theatres and cabarets wouldn’t book her act.  Then she had the realization that she couldn’t keep her public and private life separate any longer.  The truth was that her private life was her public life.

       One night, without telling anyone, Anita walked out on stage wearing a heavy topcoat, carrying a riding crop.  She marched back and forth on stage until she was sure that the tourists were thoroughly bored.  She stood center stage facing the audience and dropped the topcoat to reveal that underneath she wore black high-heels, black silk stockings and a wide black leather belt.  She wore nothing else.  There was an audible gasp from the audience.  She stood at center stage, smacking her own thigh with the riding crop, until you could see the red welt from the back seats.  Then she began to scrutinize the audience.  She told me she was looking for a woman who winched and then smiled as Anita hit her own thigh.  She found one.  She walked into the audience, placed the riding crop under the woman’s chin and motioned for her to go onto the stage.  The woman obliged.  On stage she began to undress the woman.  As the woman, standing in her underwear began to balk at going any further; Anita smacked her full across the buttocks with the riding crop.  The woman screamed.  The audience cheered.  The woman began to cry but she didn’t leave the stage.  Soon the woman was naked and on her knees, while Anita danced around her.  Each gesture with the riding crop toward the woman brought cheers from the audience.  Anita finished her dance by grabbing the woman’s hair and rubbing her face on Anita’s thighs.

The curtain was pulled and Anita was again the talk of the continent.

       Anita repeated the act, sometimes dressed in a man’s formal suit with a cane and monocle.  Sometimes she would grab a man from the audience; sometimes a man and a woman; never a couple, always two strangers.

       Then she began to portray the satanic side of dreams on stage.  She wore full leather outfits and danced to classical music, such titles as, “Suicide,” “Cocaine,” “The Whip Dance,” and “Dance of Depravity.”

       As we met, Anita was developing a dance style that expressed emotions.  She could carry the audience through several complex emotions, from laughter to tears, by simply dancing.  It wasn’t rhythmic but her dance was spell-binding.  She was losing her stamina for long spectacles.

       Anita and I became friends and business partners.  Every club that booked her booked me, too.  Every gig that I found, she danced there, too.  In the end we put together a single act that pulled in three times as much money as us working separately.  I would sing and play the piano and she would dance the allegory of the song.  As long as she was naked by the end of the last song, we got a great applause and plenty of tips and Anita was happy.  She’d finish every performance by walking over to my piano and kissing me.

       Anita got sick with consumption; tuberculosis, the wasting disease.  Being that close, I worried that I might get sick, too.  She was also drinking and taking too much cocaine.  Poor thing just got weaker and weaker.  In a matter of a couple of months I watched her fade from the stage.  She simply did not have the strength to dance any longer and her beautiful body became skin and bones. 

       A bass player and a drummer from the stage band wanted to form a Trio and head for Paris.  There wasn’t much I could do for Anita.  I checked her into a sanitarium and headed for Gay Paree.

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END OF BLOG ENTRY #16 -  JULY 19, 2024          "A SISTER IN THE CHOIR"

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BEGINNING OF BLOG ENTRY #17 -  JULY 22, 2024          "A SISTER IN THE CHOIR"

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       It was a cold welcome.  I wanted to go back to Germany and sit with Anita.  The weather was cold and I was exposed.  I found a hotel suite, although the word ‘suite’ is misleading.  It was a large room with a small alcove near a window.  Until then, it was the largest room I’d ever had.  Also, and this was what I liked the most, it had a concierge.  Monsieur Montangue watched the door and the comings and goings of every tenant.  He and his Danish wife, Elke, took turns at the desk.  There was always one or the other watching the door.  They made me feel safe and secure, sort of like an Uncle and Aunt, something I’ve never before had.

       Two months later at the Hotel Cadet a telegram informed me that Anita had died.  That was the first time in my life I remember crying for someone else, other than myself.

Up until that moment, I thought of myself as a woman from America.  When Anita died, something changed inside of me, too.  I cropped my hair short and thought of myself as a French woman, living in Paris.  I was never going back to America.  There were only bad memories and experiences, there.  There was nothing in America for me.  I wanted none of it.  I liked the way I looked and I felt good about myself.  I began to sleep better at night but I was still a little ‘jumpy.’  A door slam or other loud noise would make me jump.  I needed to have a crowd of people around me and I didn’t like being with just one or two people.

       Paris was like a candy store.  The French loved the Americans.  They loved ‘Le Jazz Hot.’  Honey, I could kiss my lipstick on a postcard and some Frenchman would give me money for it.  I loved Paris.  I loved climbing the stairs or riding the little funicular up to the top of Montmartre near Sacre Coeur in the morning and looking at all of Paris beneath my feet.  There’s a little artist’s square there.  I’d sit at a café table and have coffee and a croissant or brioche for breakfast.  For you non-musicians that’s lunch.

In the morning, in Paris, the pace of living is slow.  People move through the morning through an easy fog of thought.  They think about the upcoming day, whether they want to do this or that.  They think about what to buy at the market, whether they want fish or eggs for lunch.  Mostly, they just wake up slowly, even though they are out and about the streets.  Parisians sit at little café tables and drink their morning coffee.  Often the man drinking his morning coffee at eleven o’clock is really drinking his last coffee from the night before and then heading to bed.  In Paris, you sit, drink your coffee, often flavored with a little chicory, and watch the people of Paris go by.

       We were never without work and the people loved us.  Each club, each neighborhood, had its own brand of people.  Montmartre was full of artistes.  Montparnasse was full of writers.  The Latin Quarter held the musicians.  The working girls strolled along Place Pigalle in the afternoon and evening.  After a show we were always invited to go to a party or an opening.  You could walk down any street and hear a friend calling from a café or club.

Parisians have this wonderful habit of seeing and being seen.  The old-fashioned Boulevardier, who would stroll in fancy dress and top hat along the boulevards, became the modern-day Flaneur, who would go out and about to be seen and to see who else was out on the town.  You could sit at any café and within a half-hour meet someone you knew who would introduce you to a new friend, and so on. 

Josephine Baker was rising to the top at the Fête des Caf’ Conc.  Kiki was at the Jockey.  The ordinary everyday people now fill history books.  Artists, such as Duchamp, Man Ray, Picasso, Dali, were all there.  Writers; Ezra Pound, James Joyce, Jean Cocteau, Gertrude Stein, Djuna Barnes.  Dancers, Dada, Surrealists, Impressionists, Realists, and they all came to the clubs at night.  I met them all.  It was like a mad dream.

 

[Song]  ‘How ya go’na keep ‘em down on the farm (after they’ve seen Paree)’–Andrew Bird

 

Reuben, Reuben, I've been thinking

Said his wifey dear

Now that all is peaceful and calm

The boys will soon be back on the farm

Mister Reuben started winking and slowly rubbed his chin

He pulled his chair up close to mother

And he asked her with a grin

 

How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm

After they've seen Paree'

How ya gonna keep 'em away from Broadway

Jazzin around and paintin' the town

How ya gonna keep 'em away from harm, that's a mystery

They'll never want to see a rake or plow

And who the deuce can parleyvous a cow?

How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm

After they've seen Paree'

 

Rueben, Rueben, you're mistaken

Said his wifey dear

Once a farmer, always a jay

And farmers always stick to the hay

Mother Reuben, I'm not fakin

Tho you may think it strange

But wine and women play the mischief

With a boy who's loose with change

 

How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm

After they've seen Paree'

How ya gonna keep 'em away from Broadway

Jazzin around and paintin' the town

How ya gonna keep 'em away from harm, that's a mystery

Imagine Reuben when he meets his Pa

He'll kiss his cheek and holler "OO-LA-LA!

How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm

After they've seen Paree'?

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END OF BLOG ENTRY #17 -  JULY 22, 2024          "A SISTER IN THE CHOIR"

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BEGINNING OF ENTRY #18 - AUGUST 11, 2024    "A SISTER IN THE CHOIR"

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     Talk about mad dreams; I always considered myself to be level-headed but my first week in Paris I met an artist from New Jersey. He called himself Man Ray. He was somewhere between plain and handsome. His eyes were dark and piercing, as if he could look right through you. This scared me a little and it excited me at the same time. He spoke French rather well and rumor had it that he was a ladies’ man. We had just been introduced to each other and within five minutes he asked me to pose for him. He wanted to take some photographs of me. Before he could close the deal, his girlfriend and model, Kiki, wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him away. From head to toe, Kiki was a model. Her nose was too big for her fine features but she moved with an air of sensuality. As you looked at her, you’d swear she was naked. Then upon thinking that thought, you’d look at her again, just to make sure and find the she was fully clothed. She just wore her clothes, as if she didn’t wear clothes.
    Kiki pulled her Man away from me and left me with the other gentleman who was originally talking to Man Ray. Francis Picabia, a close friend of Man Ray’s, started talking to me and wouldn’t let me go. Francis was a dashingly handsome man and I was flattered that he paid so much attention to me. I found out later that he had the habit of ‘talking people’s ears off’ and everyone else was happy to leave him with me. He kept rambling on about his ‘Dada.’ I had not yet picked up enough French to understand him and thought he was talking about his father; his Daddy. It turns out that he and Man Ray were involved in starting an art movement called ‘DADA.’ Man Ray took photographs without a camera and called them ‘Rayographs.’ Picabia took photographs from magazines and made abstract line drawings from them. I wasn’t sure what he called these. Every time I met either one of these two artists, they had a pamphlet or flyer announcing their next show or DADA exhibition. If a reporter or gallery owner was nearby, they’d start talking gibberish, as if it made sense, and call it DADA.
    While I was still learning French, I often spoke with Man Ray, because he spoke English. He was a regular guy. I think I reminded him of home. He came from humble beginnings and worked and played hard to make a living from his artwork and photography. Somewhere in his studio is a portrait of me singing at a piano.
    Picabia on the other hand was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He wanted for nothing. He liked to drive around the countryside in the most expensive car. He wanted to show it off and offered every pretty woman a ride in his automobile. I declined the invitation. I told him that I don’t ride in automobiles, unless I am alone in the back seat. He was always talking about DADA this and DADA that. He had a beautiful smile that always said much more than his words implied. Francis did introduce me to many interesting people. He seemed to know every artist and musician in Paris. He often met them at a restaurant called Le Boeuf Sur Le Toit. Some of his artwork and Man Ray’s photographs hung on the walls. ‘The Beef,’ as we affectionately called it, was a lively club. I was told that it started in the Middle Ages as a cooking hearth for travelers. The building had the ‘feel’ of a stable. Stepping through the doorway into The Beef was like stepping back in time. Once you got beyond the bar, the smell of grilled steaks made you hungry. There was a large opened grill that poured heat and the aroma of braised meat into the air. They burned only mulberry wood and the smoke gave the meat a unique flavor. In the front was an open area filled with tables. As more and more people gathered in the club, the tables were moved outside into the street. Day or night, music seeped from its doors. Kiki, Man Ray’s lover and model would come over from the Jockey and sing a folksong or two. She wasn’t at all a good singer but she had a reputation and drew a crowd. Our trio would play there on Tuesday and Saturday nights.
Late one morning, while I was eating my breakfast alone at the top of the city, a dapper young man with a pencil thin moustache sat at my table, as if he knew me. Within a moment he became very apologetic, explaining in a confusion of Catalan, French, English and Spanish, that we had almost met at The Beef and he wanted to introduce himself. He said his name was Salvador. “Dal-eee,” he exclaimed, thumping his walking stick to his chest. He was an artist.
    He continued to speak, almost without stopping for a breath and with the strangest cadence. He explained that what he liked about my playing and singing was that I somehow took all the parts of a piece and blended them together, each with another, so that the entire song echoed with meanings. “Your voice was, How do you say? ‘Jazz.’ You add all the notes, all the feelings, and then just pour them out into the air at once and let them flow through our bodies. I like this.” He said this is what he does with his painting; he blends everything together, so that each item within the picture reflects everything else in the picture; “Sometimes happy, sometimes sad, always Dali!” He was trying to paint dreams. He said, “Like arrows shot from the bow and stones slowly rolling on the floor.” I had no idea what that meant but it stayed with me all these years.
    He seemed very pleased with himself that he had explained this to me. “I want to, maybe someday, paint music,” he said in a very matter of fact manner.
    A slightly older woman approached our table. She carried a small tray with food. Dali stood and took the tray from her. He made the formal introductions: May I present, Gala, mi espousa (my wife.) We kissed each other on the cheeks, as they do in France. She was Russian but spoke enough English to join the conversation. She was beautiful. Dali called her his Muse. She took a brioche from the tray and a cup of coffee, to which she added a shot of vodka, leaving a glass of milk and two brown eggs. Dali cracked the eggs into the milk, added a pinch of salt and then drank the concoction in one gulp. It was so sudden that I must have gasped. Gala laughed. “Don’t mind him. He’s always looking for ways to startle people.”
    As we sat and ate, I noticed that they inhaled and exhaled in synchrony. As he exhaled, she inhaled, as she exhaled, he inhaled, even while they conversed. It was very unusual. It reminded me of a machine with some sort of piston or bellows device.
    We chatted about Paris and the people. I mentioned Man Ray and Picabia. Dali knew them both. “DADA is dead! Now is Surrealism (He pronounced it “Sewer-eel-phantism.”) Come to the show, tonight. You will see Sewer-reel-ists and phantasmagoria.” I explained that I had to work that evening. Gala added, “Come after work. The party will continue long after the exhibit.”
I left them in the afternoon shadow of Sacre Coeur Cathedral and walked down the hill to my Hotel in the Opera District.
 

END OF ENTRY #18 - AUGUST 11, 2024      "A SISTER IN THE CHOIR"

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BEGINNING OF ENTRY #19 - AUGUST 25, 2024      "A SISTER IN THE CHOIR"

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     It’s funny how we remember some things and forget others.  I remember wandering around Paris, as if it happened yesterday but I can’t remember the face of the waitress who brought yesterday’s breakfast to me.

     I loved walking around Paris, just to explore the neighborhoods.  The rue Cadet is a short alley.  My Hotel and room were on the corner.  I’m told it’s gone, now; replaced by a supermarket. 

     Then, as I walked, open air markets and food stalls lined the rest of the alley.  You never had to go far to find whatever you needed.  Next to the fruit stall was a vegetable stand.  Next to the bakery was a cheese shop.  Ever shop had a few bottles of wine for sale.  The butcher had rabbits, chickens, ducks, and boars’ heads hanging in his window.  The open air markets yielded to shops and both sides of the streets were lined with stamp dealers with a few book dealers interspersed.  Art galleries begin to appear. 

     I liked to take a short-cut through the arcade Passage Verdeau Conduisant Faubourg-Montmartre.  The Parisian arcade is something unique to Paris.  If you ever see a photograph of an arcade, you immediately see Paris.  The arcade alleyway is roofed with glass and the shops spill into the walkway.  Although, in those days the floor was tiled, you could see the ancient ruts and cobblestones, as shadows beneath the smooth tiles.  You’d step through the entrance, usually a high arch, and immediately sense that the lights went out.  Even with the high glass roof, it was noticeably darker in the arcade.  Rain or shine, day or night, the light in the arcade was constant.  Six small gas lamps lit the interior of the arcade.  The rest of the light, except on a sunny day, came from the shops lining its sides.  The flower vendor had a small stall, just inside the entrance.  On clear days, she spread the bunches of flowers out into the street, as well as the arcade.  Each arcade had its own aroma.  This one, the Faubourg-Montmartre, greeted you with the scents of Violets and Lilies of the Valley.  Whenever I smell these flowers, I’m transported back to the Paris of my youth and the arcade, Passage Verdeau Conduisant Faubourg-Montmartre. 

     Beyond the flower seller was the Café Berta.  The Berta catered to an older crowd.  The ladies who always seemed to fill its tables were old but not yet withered.  It seemed that they were there regardless of when I walked by.  The chatter and conversations merged into a constant tonal buzz.  Men, older men, must have been a rarity because whenever an elderly gentleman would walk into the café, the background drone stopped; absolute silence prevailed for a moment or two and then the conversations resumed.  The coffee was terrible.  The tea was good but I didn’t seem to fit with the older woman.  They viewed me as an outsider, not because I was black but because I was young.  I didn’t live through the last century.  I didn’t endure the privations of the recent war.  They had their memories and I had my vitality, so we politely ignored each other and peacefully parted.

     Opposite the Café Berta was a small art shop.  It was not really a gallery.  It was more of a framing shop.  It did some restoration of small works but mostly survived by selling gilded wooden frames for small pictures.  The framer sat in the window of the shop while he worked.  He had a small pot of glue simmering next to him.  Rabbit hair from the butcher was added to the pot from time to time.  The thin rabbit hair glue was spread on a small section of the surface of a frame.  Then he would pick up an odd shaped brush and snap it back and forth in the air a few times.  This whipping motion built up a little static electricity in the flat bristles of the brush.  He’d then lay the brush on top of a small square of gold leaf.  The gold was so thin and light that it clung to the bristles of the brush.  The frame maker would then transfer the gold leaf to the frame and it immediately stuck to the frame.  It almost jumped from the bristles to the frame.  He then picked up a piece of smooth amber and burnished the gold until it was smooth and flawless.  He’d repeat this process until the whole frame looked as if it was made of gold.

The bookbinder’s shop never seemed to be opened, although his sign said that he was there “From first light until dark.”  I enquired at the stamp seller’s stall about the bookbinder.  “Oh, he’s there all the time.  Maybe, he just stepped out.”  In the years I spent in Paris and the many times I walked through the ‘Passage,’ I never saw anyone in the bookbinder’s shop but I must admit that it never appeared to be neglected or abandoned.

     Further along was a toy shop.  The craftsman sat behind his counter, carving the heads for dolls, puppets and marionettes.  At One O’clock each day a small group of children would gather outside the window of the toy shop to watch a short puppet show.  It was always about the adventures and travels of a little boy named Jean-Luc-Damien-Henri Gaspar, a tousled tow-headed character with a straw in his hand.  Sometimes the straw was used as a pea shooter, whenever Jean-Luc-Damien-Henri Gaspar had to wreak revenge upon an adversary.  Sometimes the straw was just a straw used to sip some milk from a bottle.  The straw once even became a baton with which Jean-Luc-Damien-Henri Gaspar led a parade.  During and after each performance the puppet would stop and turn toward the children and say “This looks like it may be fun for someone such as … and then he would pause and wait for the children to shout “JEAN-LUC-DAMIEN-HENRI GASPAR.”  After shouting their puppet friend’s name at the end of the show, the children all ran to the candy vendor at the other end of the arcade.

     Next to the candy vendor’s shop was chocolate maker.  You could watch the chocolates being made through the window.  They were sold next door at the candy shop.  One afternoon, as I approached the chocolate maker’s window, I noticed a tall thin man standing in front of the window smoking a pipe.  The mixture of the aroma of chocolate and his pipe tobacco were intoxicating.  I recognized him.  He was an acquaintance and an artist.  He was Marcel Duchamp, a friend of Man Ray and Salvador Dali.  I stood next to him for a moment to prolong the exquisite aromas and to see what so fascinated him in the window.  As I took my position next to him he turned and noticed me.  He hugged me, warmly, kissed my cheeks and then went back to staring into the window.  He was watching a chocolate grinder.  After a few minutes, I simply asked “Why?”  He did not stop watching the three large rollers slowly rolling over the flat platen grinding the fine chocolate powder into a paste.  He said in a very matter of fact low voice, “It is like watching sex.  The slow motion producing the sweet and bitter taste, the smell of love, the mechanism of sex, the thick paste that promises everything but in the end is just a machine.”  He looked at me, smiled and said, “I just love it.”  Years later I found out that he was working on his masterpiece called The ‘Large Glass’ or, as he called it, ‘The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even.’  In it was an image of this chocolate grinder.  I continued my stroll, leaving Marcel to his reverie.

     Recently, I saw his work in Philadelphia.  I’ll never understand Surrealists.  He was far more interesting than his artwork.  I miss Paris and those years.

     Across from the Chocolatier was an antique shop.  Here one could find all of the small items that furnished a Belle Epoch home; fireplace andirons, caste iron pots, pictures of the boar hunt, pictures of thatched county cottages, elaborate carpets and tapestries, lamps, jewelry that a Czarina might wear, wooden ice skates, books that had not been read by anyone for at least fifty years, glassware, pens, knick-knacks and chioches of every type.

     At the far end of the arcade you could step out into the sunlight, again.  The atmosphere changed, abruptly.  The air was filled with Paris, rather than the past.  Of course, having said this I realize that Paris is now my past.  Nonetheless, then it was Paris present.  It had an air of growth, industry, freedom and a quaint adherence to the past; as if the past was something that stuck to me as I walked along the Boulevard Montmartre toward the Opera district.  Within a short walk the Boulevard Montmartre, Boulevard Italiens, and Boulevard de Capucines turn on to the Avenue de l’Opera.   Looking back, at the end of the avenue is the old opera house, at the other, ahead of me, is the Louvre.  The avenue has the flavor and bustle of New York with the added spices of beautiful architectural elements on old buildings at every step.  It was as if I was stepping through history.  A building built in the 1600s sits next to a modern shop, as if they were brother and sister.

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END OF ENTRY #19 - AUGUST 25, 2024      "A SISTER IN THE CHOIR"

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BEGINNING OF ENTRY #20 - SEPTEMBER 10, 2024      "A SISTER IN THE CHOIR"

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       I was thinking about my choices of music for the evening, strolling, somewhat absent-mindedly, when a three legged dog caught my attention.  It was just an ordinary mutt but it had lost a rear leg.  He reminded me of the many wounded men, the Mutilate de la Guerre, that one saw on the streets.  These guys were tough.  They lost almost everything of themselves yet continued to live.  I admired them.  In fact, I was proud of them, even though they went through Hell without me in mind.  Somehow, I swelled with Parisian pride just being among these men.  I felt that way about this little three legged dog.  He was a survivor.  He and I were both survivors.  Then he did something that amazed me; he stopped to pee.  While he sniffed at the corner of a building, I just assumed that because he had only one back leg, he would just pee.  He wouldn’t have to lift a rear leg, because he had none to lift.  I was wrong.  This little soldier lifted himself up on his front legs, lifting his only rear leg in the process of peeing.  He stood on his two front paws.  With or without a rear leg, he was going to lift one to do his business.  I said to myself, “Now, that’s determination!”

       That evening the club was packed with writers.  I’m not a literary type, so I didn’t have many things to say that made sense to the audience.  During our break a tall gentleman spoke with me.  He had a heavy Irish brogue.  I had a little trouble understanding him.  His name was Joyce.  He requested some Irish folk songs.  I tried to explain that we were a jazz trio and folk songs were not normally part of our performances.  He was insistent.  He was half blind and had to lean in close just to see me.  The small group of his companions seemed to be well to do, so we put together a rendition of The Coachman for them.  It’s an old Irish drinking song.  It’s quite bawdy.  We played it so the crowd could join in the chorus of “…I drove her ten times ‘round the room.”  It was great fun.  The entire crowd was singing with us. 

 

[Song] The Coachman - Traditional

 

I once took a job as a coachman

Me money was paid in advance

I then took a trip down to London

From there I crossed over to France

There I met a charming young lady

Who addressed me and said with a smile,

"Young man, I'm in need of a coachman

To drive me in the old fashioned style."

 

Oh she was such a charming young lady

All in the height of her bloom

And I being a dashing young coachman

I drove her ten times 'round the room

 

She then took me down in the cellar

And filled me with whiskey so quick

I hadn't been there many moments

When she asked for a look at me whip

She held it, she viewed it a moment

And then laid it down with a smile

"Young man by the look and the length of your slash

You could drive the best part of ten miles."

 

She bid me get up to the chaise-box

So I climbed right up to the seat

Three swishes I gave with me cracker

And drove her straight down the high street

I handled my whip with good judgment

Until I was up to her ways

But the very first turn that I gave on the wheel

I broke the main spring on her chaise

 

Oh she was such a charming young lady

All in the height of her bloom

And I being a dashing young coachman

I drove her ten times 'round the room

 

When my mistress grew tired or grew weary

She called me to stop for a rest

Then she'd call for her serving maid, Sally

The girl that I loved second best

"Now, Sally we've got a good coachman

Who understands driving in style.

While the spring on me chaise is repairing

I'll let him drive you for a while."

 

Oh she was such a charming young lady

All in the height of her bloom

And I being a dashing young coachman

I drove her ten times 'round the room

 

       After the set Mr. Joyce and his friends thanked us for the number.  At first, while they were sitting, I thought his two friends were men.  They were wearing waistcoats and had their hair groomed very short.  As they stood, however, they turned out to be women; Gertrude and Alice.  Gertrude was stocky and masculine.  Alice was thin and dainty.  James, Mr. Joyce, towered over both of them.  They were off to a party and invited us to come along.  I explained that I already had a commitment for the evening and our drummer had a new family and had to go home; the bass player was otherwise occupied.  The truth was that he had started smoking opium and was going out with a few friends to ‘kick the gong around.’  The writers insisted that I join them.  The party they were attending was supposed to be the first public display of Surrealism. 

       Gertrude kept saying, “Art. Art. There. There. Art. Art.” in a raised voice, as if I was hard of hearing. 

       “Oh, you mean the artists Dali and Duchamp?  That’s where I was heading.”   They were surprised and amused that I was one step ahead of them. 

       We all trundled off to the party.

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END OF ENTRY #20 - SEPTEMBER 10, 2024      "A SISTER IN THE CHOIR"

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BEGINNING OF ENTRY #21 - OCTOBER 6, 2024      "A SISTER IN THE CHOIR"

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     The party or ‘Event,’ as it was to be called, was held in an old Huguenot church.  It was a very old building.  Jokingly, I said that I thought whenever they threw the Huguenots out of France; they forgot to take their church.  That’s how old and dilapidated this building seemed to me.  I was assured that the church was built in the 1800s and still used as a house of worship.  Times were hard, however, and the congregation rented the building out during the week to make ends meet.

     The pulpit was a simple podium and lectern on a slightly raised floor.  This functioned as the stage.  Each artist was introduced and some comment about their work was passed.  Then a cart of desserts was wheeled into the center aisle and wine bottles appeared from the other end of the room.  Within a few minutes everyone had a sweet in one hand and a glass of wine in the other.

     You would think that a bunch of surrealists, creative in the extreme, would know how to put on a good party.  Other than excellent desserts and vin ordinaire, it was dull.  Some of the artwork, displayed along the pew benches, was outlandish but most of it was thrown together just to shock people.

Rather than being shocked the well to do literati seemed to be amused.  They seemed to regard the art and the artists with a mild amusement; the way you might treat a child who was ‘showing off.’ 

Marcel kept talking about something he called Three Standard Stoppages.  He had taken some pieces of string, glued them to boards, and was proclaiming these to be the new measures of the world.  He kept pointing to a nude woman, who was supposed to be an artist’s model but was really their just to tease the guests, as the model for these new measures.

     Dali just wanted to be the center of attention and whenever someone else seemed to be stealing his audience, he would begin a completely unintelligible sentence in a real high pitch. 

     The main event was a recitation by Tristan Tzara in honor of James Joyce’s recent publication of Ulysses.  Unfortunately, Tristan parodied the work and offended Joyce.  It went something like this:

“I, Tristan Tzara, father of the bastard Da-Da present the Dada players and assembled guests in our improvisational version of the recently published and immediately banned book Ulysses, by James Dada and simultaneously the Odyssey attributed to the Greek epic Dada poet, Homer Dada.”

     “Our stories begin in Paris, which is exactly half way between Dublin and Ithaca on June 16, 1904 or the 8th Century BD, ‘Before Dada’ dependent upon whether you are Leopold Bloom or Odysseus of Ithaca.  In this case you are both...”  He rambled for a long time.

     Tzara was still talking as Man Ray showed up with his camera, to everyone’s relief, interrupted the performance and took a group photograph for a magazine.  After he was done he stood around drinking some wine and confessed to me that this whole gathering was a publicity stunt to draw the attention of some of the bigger art buyers, such as Gertrude Stein.  He motioned in her direction.  I told him I arrived with her and her group.  He said “It’s a shame you’re not a painter, she’d buy your works.  As it is, she knows nothing of music and even less of Jazz.”  Then after a pause, he said, “Come, I’ll walk you home.  I need some fresh air.”

     He picked up his camera box, said a few adieus, grabbed my hand and we walked out into the street.  During the walk to my hotel room, he confessed the reason for his foul mood.  He and Kiki had just had a fight.  She left and he couldn’t find her.  He had checked all of her usual haunts.  “She is gone,” he sighed.  I half-heartedly assured him that she would be back.  “That’s the problem.  She will be back.”  I was lost.  He was making no sense.  “She’ll come back.  She’ll come back after she’s slept with everyone who is not my friend, after they grow tired of her demands, after she runs out of money and is too drunk to sing.”  He didn’t paint a very pretty picture of Kiki. 

     “If she is so terrible, why are you so sad?” 

     He sighed, again, and shrugged his shoulders, “L’amour.”

     The street sweepers were already at work.  The cafes would start to open in an hour or so.  I asked if he wanted to wait for a cup of coffee.  In front of my hotel, he embraced me and said that he really had to develop his plates before the sun came up.  He turned around and slowly headed toward Montparnasse and his studio.

     Not even a week later, I heard that Kiki had returned and Man Ray had welcomed her back.  In fact he took a photograph that was his visual ironic joke; a photograph of Kiki’s back.  It’s, now, a famous image but then it was full of sadness and hope.  She told him she needed some time alone to think.  She said she had gone west to Normandy.  I heard a rumor she had run away to Nice with a gambler.  Just after her return Man got a postcard she had mailed from Nice, confirming the rumors.  She wasn’t a very good liar.

 

[Song]   ‘Fever’ - John Davenport and Eddie Cooley

 

Never know how much I love you

Never know how much I care

When you put your arms around me

I get a fever that's so hard to bear

You give me fever (you give me fever) when you kiss me

Fever when you hold me tight (you give me fever)

Fever ... in the mornin'

Fever all through the night

 

Sun lights up the day time

Moon lights up the night

I light up when you call my name

'cause I know you're gonna treat me right

You give me fever (you give me fever) when you kiss me

Fever when you hold me tight (you give me fever)

Fever ... in the mornin'

Fever all through the night (WOW!!)

 

Everybody's got the fever

That is somethin' you all know

Fever isn't such a new thing

Fever started long time ago

 

(You give me fever)

Baby, turn on your love light

Let it shine on me

Well, baby, turn on your love light

And let it shine on me

Well, just a little bit higher

And just a little bit brighter, baby

 

You give me fever

You give me fever

You give me fever

You give me fever.

 

Romeo loved Juliet

Juliet she felt the same

When he put his arms around her

He said, "Julie baby you're my flame"

Thou givest fever when we kisseth

Fever with thy flaming youth

Fever I'm on fire

Fever yea I burn forsooth

 

Captain Smith and Pocahontas

Had a very mad affair

When her daddy tried to kill him

She said "Daddy oh don't you dare"

"He gives me fever with his kisses"

"Fever when he holds me tight"

"Fever, I'm his missus"

"Daddy won't you treat him right?"

 

Now you've listened to my story

Here's the point that I have made

Cats were born to give chicks fever

Be it Fahrenheit or centigrade

We give you fever when we kiss you

Fever if you live and learn

Fever till you sizzle

What a lovely way to burn

What a lovely way to burn

What a lovely way to burn, ah

What a lovely way to burn

 

     Such things make me think about the way we see things.  For example; take a photograph; not a snapshot but a composed picture.  What did it mean to the photographer?  What does it mean to the observer?  Rarely, are they the same things.  The meanings of things and people change over time.  Years from now, items, once full of meaning, will be gathering dust in an antique shop and no one will know anything about them.

     Often I would stare at a photograph or portrait in a shop window and try to imagine the life of that person.  Was the well-dressed woman someone’s wife, lover, mother?  Did the dress with the Spanish brocade mean that she was born in Spain?  Was it a gift from her father?  Did she buy it while traveling?  Regardless of the story I made up for them, they were who they were.  They were not whom I imagined them to be.

     In the window of an antique shop, I noticed three glass display vials.  They were elegant and each stood about four inches tall.  Each one was filled with a different colored powder.  Each one had a hand-written label with a red border.  The labels were faded and only a few words were visible.  The words might have been Latin or Italian.  They were some sort of scientific display or experiment.  I entered the shop and asked the owner about the vials.  “Oooh, la la, No one knows anything about these vials or what they contain.”  It seems they were found in a trunk from a little traveling museum that joined a circus.  It was believed that these originally belonged to an alchemist who was later burned as a warlock.

They were beautiful to look at but their history was lost in time.  I imagined that somehow the life of the alchemist was distilled and powdered and placed into these little vials.  Each vial containing one of his vital elements; three of them, like the Holy Trinity; Earth, Water, and Wind.  Somewhere the alchemist left a little recipe book for their reunion and his reanimation but the notes were lost in time.  Now, he sits bound in three beautiful vials, a jinni in three bottles.  They burned his body but some day someone will open these vials or maybe they will fall to the floor and break open and an alchemist will emerge.  Sometimes, my imagination runs away with itself.

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END OF ENTRY #21 - OCTOBER 6, 2024      "A SISTER IN THE CHOIR"

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BEGINNING OF ENTRY #22 - NOVEMBER 9, 2024      "A SISTER IN THE CHOIR"

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One day, I was standing under the Arc de Triomphe, just enjoying the warm weather.  In the distance to my left I could see the Eiffel Tower and over my right shoulder way off on its hill was the marble dome of Sacre Coeur Cathedral.   A woman with perfect posture walked up to me and said “I’ve heard a lot about you.” 

I recognized her as one of the stars of Paris; Josephine Baker.  I said, “You must be Josephine.  I’ve heard a lot about you, too.”

We talked, as if we knew each other.  She had a beautiful smile and her eyes sparkled with a genuine ‘joie de vivre.’  We were surprised that our paths to Paris fell along similar lines.  We talked about home with sadness for the way we were treated at home.  We talked about the freedom we had here in Europe.  We talked about being blessed to have enough talent to make a living doing something we enjoyed.  She said that I must come to the ‘Conch’ and watch her act.  I told her I would.  She handed her ‘Carte de Viste’ to me and told me to come through the stage door.  The doorman would let me in.

We parted and I couldn’t stop myself from watching her walk away.  She moved like a queen.

Within a week or two I had a free evening and went to the Fete des Caf’ Conc to see Josephine’s performance.  The doorman ushered me in, even without seeing Josephine’s card.  He thought I was her new understudy.  She had just accepted a position at the Follies Berger and the club was preparing an understudy to fill her shoes.  After watching her show from the wings, I knew the ‘Conch’ would never replace her.  She sang with a voice that made you fall in love with her and in those days her dance was completely eccentric.  She moved her body as if each limb and spine had their own independence.  She had one bit where she played a native and striped down to a belt of feathers.  I saw Anita’s ghost on stage.  Later at the Follies the feathers became papier maché bananas.  I guess the Follies had a bigger budget and a more creative art staff.

The music in the clubs shifted with the wind.  Our bass player quit.  He was too stoned on opium to make our practices and his performances became less and less spectacular.  He took a semi-permanent position as the house musician at a brothel.  I found another bassist who also played a jazz cello.  We really started to swing.  After Josephine closed at the Conch, we took her place three nights each week.  The pay was good and I didn’t have to accept any other work.  That gave me most of the week to wander around and explore Paris.

I decided to go neighborhood by neighborhood, or Arrondissments, as they are known in France.  I thought of it as peeling an onion.  Viewing each layer, each skin, revealed a deeper, more succulent Paris.  This became my education.  I didn’t get a diploma.  I learned about life and living. I learned about Paris.

These days, if someone is surprised by my ability to speak with a certain distinction and eloquence and they ask me where I went to school, I tell them I went to the University called Paris.  Parisians know how to live.  I suspect they always did.

The River Seine runs through the middle of old Paris.  I was told that the pre-historic village was originally built on the Ile de St. Louis in the middle of the Seine for protection.  The Seine divides the city into the Left Bank (the ‘Rive Gauche’) and the Right Bank which is rarely referred to as the ‘Right Bank.’  On the Left Bank was the Latin Quarter and Montparnasse.

Cross from the city to the Left Bank at the Pont Royal and you will walk passed Voltaire’s haunts at the Quai Malaquais and the Quai de Conti.  On the corner there was a little patch of grass and flowers, not big enough to hold a bench, which had a small statue of the great philosopher. 

The stalls of the booksellers line the quays.  Their stalls appeared much as they must have decades ago.  Every imaginable book, pamphlet and printed piece of paper is for sale by the vendors.  I found posters advertising my performances.  I felt like a star.  I held up a poster and stood tall.  I looked around at the moving crowd of shoppers.  No one stopped to notice that the picture on the poster and the woman holding the poster were one and the same.  I went from being full of myself to being embarrassed in the span of a few heartbeats.  I bought some postcards and admired the books. 

There was a street artist selling beautiful street scenes for 2 centimes.  I bought two for my room, as mementoes. 

The booksellers seem to each have a specialty topic or genre; some sell only philosophy, some only music, etc.  All seem to have some form of souvenir cards or pictures.

I entered the Left Bank at the Pont Neuf.  The flavor of the streets changes, immediately.  This is a quieter more artistic area; through the alleys you catch glimpses of the Latin Quarter.  Cubans and Haitians, brought to Paris during the Colonial Period, settled here in what then were the slums.  You could walk on the rue Grand Augustians, rue Dauphine, rue Bonaparte, rue Jacob and remain in the Quarter. 

Along rue Jacob a small group of women burst out of a large doorway into the street.  They were laughing and talking with such joviality that I had to ask them what was going on.  They had just come from a meeting of a ‘literary club’ at the residence of Natalie Barney.  By the way they were laughing and the way they avoided directly answering my questions, I knew it was something other than some book club.  One of their group stepped forward to address me.  I recognized her from a printed photograph as Djuna Barnes, a newspaper and magazine writer.  Before she could explain, I told her that I was an admirer of her work.  She took me by the elbow and led my aside in a conspiratorial manner and confided that “This was a woman’s group, organized to overthrow the male dominated aristocracy.”  I gave her a knowing nod and she invited me to their next meeting.  By the time she and I had finished our brief exchange the crowd of women disappeared. 

Djuna asked if I’d had lunch, yet.  She suggested we eat at the Deux Magots.  We walked in that direction.

Further along, a street performer slowly balanced a small glass sphere (about the size of an orange,) while he moved in the manner of a Chinese acrobat.  At first I didn’t notice anything remarkable about his performance.  Then all at once, it struck me.  This man was keeping the glass sphere perfectly still, while he was moving around, over and under it in a balletic manner.  The ball never moved!  I tossed a Franc into his hat.  He called after me, “Merci Mademoiselle.”

We examined the menu at the Deux Magots.  It was too chilly and all the inside tables were full.  I did not want to sit outside.  Catching a chill or a cold interferes with my ability to sing and my work suffers more than I do.  We moved to the Café Flore.  I did not object to sitting inside, there.  We shared a club sandwich, some cheese and drank Riesling. I pilfered a menu as a souvenir of the quarter.  I like to imagine that some years later Simone deBeauvoir was sitting at the next table, writing.  The crowd could have been philosophers, shoppers, lovers, students, housewives, old, young, all, despite the many variations in appearances, seemed to belong in that setting.  I was looking at Paris!

            After our meal, Djuna said she wanted to show something to me; something that few people in the world dream of seeing and most Parisians ignore.  She had piqued my interest.

We wandered along the rue Galandre, through a genteel neighborhood, along the rue Saint-Severin and rue Danton, through the Latin Quarter.  Shops, cafes, restaurants serving what looks like Portuguese rodesio line the streets.  After strolling along the Blvd Saint-Germain, we found a small alleyway that appears to be in its original form.  It was sealed with a heavy gate but Djuna called to a window and an old woman appeared, recognized her, and let us in.

There was the site of Marat’s printing press; hidden along an alley that had no direct access to the streets.  The owners of the buildings along this alley kept the actual press in a small empty shop front.  Parisians had a strong sense of independence and did not trust the government.  Centuries ago the alley was sealed from outside traffic.  Once that was done, the small shop had no reason to exist.  It became the perfect place for a revolutionary pamphleteer.  We found this unofficial shrine to a martyr of the French Revolution, through a locked door and our boldness.  The residents controlled this alley.  The only other public entrance was through the back door of the cafe Procope.  As a journalist, Miss Barnes was standing at the site of the beginning of an article about a hero.  I was standing a hundred years in the past, even though we stood right next to each other.

           As we walked along, Djuna pointed out number 13 rue de Beaux-Art; the hotel where Oscar Wilde spent his last months in exile and died in a room on the second floor.  We talked about her work and my work.  She wanted to write a series of articles about the artists and expatriates, living in Paris.  I told her she should start by meeting Man Ray.  We were very near his apartment studio.  I offered to make the introductions.  Man seemed to know every artist living in Paris.  He explained this was so because he had a camera and a dark room and knew how to use them.  Artists, a little more than ordinary people, are egotists.  They make their art to project themselves into the future.  They came to Man Ray to have photographic portraits made.

            It was early evening by the time we knocked on his door.  Man greeted us.  He was wearing a colorful silk kimono.  An extremely long cigarette holder with a lit cigarette hung on the tip of his lips.  He held a wire twisted into a torturous mass.  After a glass of wine, I excused myself and left Man and Djuna to talk with each other.

            I was tired and took a cab home from Montparnasse to the Opera District.

            There was a lecture and subscription charity ball at the Leo Bellan Foundation near the Gare du Nord and St. Chapelle, to raise money to help some of our shell-shocked veterans.  I was asked if I would sing at the event.  Of course, I said, “Yes.”  This was an opportunity for me to help these men whom I admired.

            What I was not prepared for was what greeted me as I entered the hall.  Along either side of the entrance hall were soldiers in uniforms, standing at attention.  In front of each military man was another; these in wheelchairs.  Their faces grotesques of normal faces or just staring blankly into space.  These were some of the shell-shocked veterans that we were going to help.  The poor souls, some of them bound with leather straps to their chairs, twitched and spasmed, is if they were being pricked and nipped by scissors.  The sight of these poor be-deviled men upset me in the strangest manner.  I was filled with a sense of honor and compassion for them.  They had given so much for their country.  I was also filled with a sense of revulsion from the horrific effects of their illness.

            As I approached the lecture amphitheatre a small crowd slowed my progress.  I passed very near one of the seated veterans.  He was well groomed and did not appear to be in any distress.  He had a pleasant smile upon his face as our eyes met.  He extended his hand, as if to greet me.  I did likeways.  Within an instant, he grabbed my wrist and held me tight in his grip.  His face became contorted and his hand held my wrist so tightly that I might have fainted from the pain.  I almost fainted.  The hallway began to spin.  He began to mutter, “Let me go.  Let me die. Let me go.”  The young soldier, standing behind this man, gently but firmly grabbed the man’s shoulder and said, “Let her go Emil.  Let her go, now!”

            As his grip upon me loosened and my hand became free, I dashed into the lecture hall and found a seat along the side.  I collapsed into the seat and felt dizzy.  The din of the people filing into the seats around me seemed to disorient me.  Once everyone settled into their seats and the lecture began, I felt better.

            A middle aged physician wearing a white smock introduced himself and gave us some basic facts about the numbers of soldiers from France who fought in the previous war.  He presented the numbers of those injured and dead.  Then he introduced a third category of veteran; those with no physical trauma yet suffering from ‘Shell-Shock.’ 

            The cadence of his speech became slower.  His voice dropped a little and the effect was one that riveted my attention to his words.  He began listing the tell-tale signs and symptoms of these veterans.  He said that these men seemed to be held in the grip of the war, even though the war itself had ended.  They still saw images of war, within their mind’s eye.  Their dreams and nightmares were of war.  If their wives were to drop a pot, the sound was that of a gunshot or a mortar.  They jumped and twitched with the slightest provocation.  The smell of gunpowder was always in their air.  Most distressing, was that they believed they were still at war, still in the trenches.

            Our physician continued to tell us that not all sufferers of this malady appeared as grave as those we met as we entered the hall.  He assured us that many hid their problems and suffered in silence.  Such men may simply be often nauseous.

            As he said this, I realized that I, right then and there, was nauseous and, I too, am often nauseous.  I attribute my queasiness to simple stage fright.

            He said that headaches were common among these men.

            I had a headache, at that moment.

            He said that their sleep was troubled.  They often had nightmares and sometimes could not sleep through the night.

            I have never been able to sleep through an entire night.

            As he continued to describe the condition of these soldiers, I found that I exhibited each and every sign of being shell-shocked.  This was absurd.  I was safe and secure in my life.  A feeling of bewilderment overtook me.  I was confused.  I had never been in a war yet I believed this doctor was addressing me, as if I were his patient.  My body began to ache.  I was afraid I would be sick and vomit.  I ran out of the hall before the lecture was finished, before my performance and the ball.  I simply couldn’t stay there.  I panicked, thinking and feeling that something wasn’t right.  I ran.

            I wasn’t sure what was happening to me.  I was disoriented yet knew who I was and where I was.  The rest of everything around me seemed to be spinning out of control.  Everything was a blur.  I knew I had to gain control of myself or I might stumble and fall into a dangerous situation.  Once outside of the lecture hall, I looked up and down the street.  Within a minute’s walk I saw a café.  I moved toward the café.  As I stood in the doorway, I could smell the aroma of the coffee.  It was mingled with a faint aroma of pipe tobacco.  The coffee attracted me.  The tobacco added to my nausea.  I sat at a table.  I must have been a bit unsteady, as I sat, because the waiter asked me if I was alright.  I told him I just needed a cup of coffee.  I think he thought I was tipsy with drink, because he gave me a ‘knowing’ nod and went to pour a cup of coffee for me.  I held on to each cup, as if it were a talisman to protect me and hold me to this spot.  By the time I’d finished my third cup of coffee, the world had settled down.  I knew where I was and I felt like a fool for running out of the lecture hall.

            Back in my room, I felt as if I were back in Scranton with the Sisters.  I expected Sister Genevieve to walk in and comfort my through this illness.  I covered myself with my warmest blanket and shivered until I fell asleep.

            The next morning, I awoke, as if nothing was ever wrong and I was well, again.

I sent along a sizable bank draft to the veterans’ organization along with my apology, explaining that I became ill and had to leave.