- In 1957 Bobby Darin introduced me to Paul Anka.
- In 1875 Stéphane Mallarmé, carrying a large portfolio, wanders the streets of London looking for Algernon Swinburne, intent on discussing their shared admiration for Edgar Allan Poe. In the portfolio is Mallarmé’s translation of “The Raven” and illustrations by Eduoard Manet.
- Two things my mother used to say: “It’s a great life if you don’t weaken,” and “Like this you kill a day.” “It’s a great life if you don’t weaken” is attributed to John Buchan in 1919, and later appropriated into a song made famous by Faron Young and Maurice Chevalier. “Like this you kill a day” seems to be hers.
- You are so close to the way I want someone to look that I see you different when not around. Then you show up and I think, “What have you done to yourself?”
- Francis Williams—who played trumpet with Duke Ellington—started out as a pianist in his hometown, Toledo. Williams thought he was pretty good until he met a neighbor who was so much better. Realizing he wasn’t even the best in the neighborhood, Williams changed instruments. His neighbor’s name was Art Tatum.
- While my dentist waits for his assistant to join us for a procedure, we start exchanging reminiscences, having lived through some common times. Eventually he realizes the assistant has been in the room for several minutes, silently impatient. “Stories,” he explains to her with a sweet, wan smile. “Stories.”
- If Yankee Stadium had no fences, would a ball that lands in Montreal be fair or foul?
- Charles Laughton was plagued by self-doubt, especially during the 1937 filming of I, Claudius, which was never completed. Laughton would put his head in co-star Merle Oberon’s lap and weep, “I can’t find my character. I can’t find the man.” Years later, one of the other actors lamented that Laughton “needed sun and got frost” from the director.
- Who among you agrees that Larry Keating is an underrated comic actor?
- Hemingway wrote in the Closerie de Lilas in Paris, equipped with bluebacked notebooks, pencils, and a pencil sharpener on a marble-topped table; he carried a horse chestnut and a real rabbit’s foot in his right pocket for luck. Peter Altenberg wrote at Café Central in Vienna, which he used as his mailing address; his presence continues to be felt—and seen—in the form of a dapper statue seated at a table. In the 1920s, Borges spent Saturday evenings at tertulias hosted by Macedonio Fernández at Café Perla in Buenos Aires.
- Mid-winter, late Sixties, late-night Adirondack Trailways to Schenectady. A teenager strums a guitar across from me. We talk music and he offers his guitar. I strum an E Major Seventh easing into an A Major Seventh, over and over. “Whoa, what was that!?” “Magic Major Sevenths,” and he strums them, over and over. Years later I see his name listed as a sideman on an album. No doubt he thinks of me fondly and often.