Monday, October 27, 2008

re Marilyn Horne

from Rebecca Kaplan Boroson • Random Kinds of Blogging
Published: 09 October 2008

The great soprano Marilyn Horne wrote in her autobiography (1983) about an incident that occurred during the time she was studying in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. A bunch of American singers, including a black baritone, were in a café one night “when a group of townfolk came in and drank themselves into advanced loutishness. One of the brutes detached himself, walked over to our table and stood weaving behind the baritone. He flopped his arms around the singer’s chest, gave him a bear hug and announced loudly, ‘You are a black man, but we don’t mind you or your color. It’s the Jews we don’t like!’”

Horne wrote, “That’s all I needed to hear. I jumped up from my seat and proclaimed, ‘Well, I’m Jewish, so get the hell out of here!’”

The drunk quickly returned to his companions, and they left the café.

The baritone took Horne’s outstretched hand.

“Gee,” he said, “I’m really sorry that happened” — adding sincerely, “I didn’t know you were Jewish.”

She wasn’t and isn’t.

Labels:

McCain

1--contemptible

in his desperation to malign obama

2--stupid

because of his nonsensical comments about sharing the wealth (and many other things)


As David Sedaris wrote, we are on an airplane and the hostess has asked us,

do we want chicken for dinner, or a platter of shit with ground glass?

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Patti LuPone

She was trying out for a drama school, and read some
Shakespeare.
John Housman, school's director, came to the front of the stage and said,
I don't think that that's what Shakespeare had in mind.

She was performing at Grossinger's.
A woman in the audience got up and shook her arms for attention.
Patti stopped the show. What was wrong?
The woman said, Patti, you're singing too loud!

Distantly related to Adelina Patti, opera singer.

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Wednesday, October 22, 2008

What Rachmaninov Said about Chaliapin

He sang the way Tolstoy wrote.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Schroeder on Buffett

I’m so glad that the New Yorker gave Alice Schroeder’s new biography of Warren Buffett a bad review (“Snowball”)!
One reason: her arrogance. A while back, she had given Berkshire Hathaway a glowing, over-the-top evaluation—other analysts were appalled. But Buffett liked it. I called her up, asked her for a phone interview (I was writing a book about Buffett). At the appointed time, I called her. Too busy. Some other time. I guess she had already been asked to write a Buffett book, and decided to push me off.
Second reason: There’s already a superlative biography of Buffett—“The Making of an American Capitalist,” by Roger Loewenstein.
(My own book, by the way, isn’t to be sneezed at.)
Here’s what the New Yorker wrote about this authorized biography:
“Ultimately, the book lacks both the revelations that even a cautious autobiography sometimes betrays and the sustained scrutiny of an independent account.”

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Saturday, October 11, 2008

A compliment for Lenore

I sent out a report on how beastly McCain had allegedly behaved on a vacation. Author presumably a professor.

Person A sent me a Snopes article expressing skepticism about the report: Purported author has denied writing it. Person A sent it to all my friends, too. And when two of Person A's emails bounced, Person A told me to send it to them myself.

Lenore sent the Snopes article only to me, trusting me to forward it. Which I did.

That's the difference between class and no class.

When I myself find that an email msg I have received is false, I send the correct information only to the person who sent it to me, trusting that person to do the right thing.

+++

Person A is no longer on my email list.

Yo beautiful

Today, filling up my car with gas on route 17. Black attendant. He gives me back my credit card and says Yo beautiful!

I liked hearing it.

Perhaps he said it because, on my back bumper, are two OBAMA stickers?

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Notes

A young woman holding a large white sign on the Village Green in Woodstock, NY:

THE PRESIDENT AND THE FBI ARE TORTURING ME

I inspected her as I walked past--she looked back at me intently--

Should I have spoken with her? Probably not possible to persuade her that it's unlikely she's being harassed--but maybe she could have used some words of comfort--

***

I recently gave $5 to a woman who seems to live on the street--out of remorse for my not having been so generous to other poor people in the past?--the mother on the street who burst into tears--sitting on a blanket, next to a saucer for coins--her young son reached out a hand to comfort her--I gave her $5--
the time I walked past a Chinese laundry in the morning and exchanged glances with a Chinese woman doing the laundry--hunched over an ironing board--she looked so tired and sorrowful--

***

A word often used to describe Palin: preposterous.
Terrifying might be another word.
But it would make a good movie. A bimbo is nominated for vice president--and winds up assuming office. But in the movies she would turn out to be a fine leader. In the movies. Palin's not just a bimbo. She has strong scary views.
'

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Monday, October 06, 2008

What a lady I know called Sarah Palin

trailer trash.

Sunday, October 05, 2008

A Prostitute from the Neck Up

"There you go again, Joe," said Palin--
What Reagan said to Jimmy Carter in their debate--
She had been programmed to say it--

what a disgusting woman--

a prostitute from the neck up--

Karl Rove must have told her, if we can get all the low-class morons in america to vote for us we'll win--

say, so doggone and pronounce it nucular--and pretend that you just an ordinary person and not an ambitious ignorant lying schemer--