THE QUEUE IS DEAD! LONG LIVE THE QUEUE!

       Umbrellas as weapons are no longer limited to Bulgarian spies and razor-edged bowlers threaten bargain-hunting Britons as well as James Bond. Black Friday has come to Blighty.

     Black Friday, as Americans know it, is always the day after Thanksgiving, which is always a Thursday, and marks the beginning of the Christmas season. It is celebrated by risking your life for a giant bargain on a giant TV. It is called “Black” because however far in the “red” a retailer may be, the sales on this day always put them in the “black.” As Gabi Thesing reports for Bloomberg News (11/30/13) the British supermarket chain, Asda, introduced the concept at 350 stores around the country on Friday, November 29. “ ‘Shortly after 8 [a.m.] most of the TV’s and tablets were gone,’ said Bryan Roberts, an analyst at Kantar Retail, who witnessed the spectacle at Asda’s store in Wembly. An altercation between two customers over a television ‘gave it an air of American authenticity.’ ” Only an air, however. It isn’t truly American unless a security guard is trampled, pregnant women are kicked to the curb and the crackle of a stun gun rises above the screaming. In all fairness, though, it has taken the U.S. decades to reach this point and arresting a shopper in Bristol for fighting over two televisions is a promising start. Add the woman who broke her arm during a stampede in Belfast and the British can be proud of their first “Black Friday.” 

        Now, the country where they queue for everything can look forward to one day a year when it’s perfectly acceptable to act like a pack of rabid corgis ravishing the Royal Family. Don’t bother to thank the United States. It’s the least we can do for our closest allies.  

YES, CANVAS LOVES ME, DE BOTTON TELLS ME SO.

     Good news for wealthy, but overstressed, professionals with “Jobs to go to, bills to pay [and] homes to manage.” Inner peace is within reach. Easily, so. No religion to study or yoga mats to lug around like a Sherpa. According to Alain de Botton in his article, “Art For Life’s Sake” (WSJ 11/2-3/13) the path to serenity leads not to the mountain top, but through  a museum.

         

     Mr. de Botton begins with several assumptions: that people need help with “some of the troubles of inner life,” that visual art is “uniquely well-suited” to the task and that he has anything of value to say on the subject. The first assumption is validated by the existence of the self-help industry. The second is obvious to anyone who can find a museum with a map.The third merits examination, but only because the author is wallowing in cultural approbation. In addition to writing for The Wall Street Journal, Alain de Botton has written four bestsellers, co-founded a demi-philosophical dodge called “The School of Life” in London and, most impressively, salon moi, is a member of two Royal Societies. Assuming, of course, that they aren’t The Royal Mountebank Society and The Royal Institute of Charlatans.

The first painting that Mr. De Botton addresses is The Linen Closet by the 17^th century Dutch painter, Pieter de Hooch. It shows two servants stocking the eponymous cupboard. “But this picture moves us because the truth of its message is so radiant. If only we, like de Hooch, knew how to recognize the value of ordinary routine, many of our burdens would be lifted.” If only he, like de Hooch, knew that this depiction of ordinary routine was preceded by centuries of exclusively religious art, the value of observing domestic chores would be self-evident. The only lifting of burdens, by the way, is being done by the servants in the painting.

Ironically, it’s their daily routine.

The next work of art is the black-and-white photograph, North Atlantic Ocean, Cliffs of Moher by Hiroshi Sugimoto. Mr. De Botton calls it “abstract” and then proceeds to talk about it in terms of sea, sky and horizon. See here, Alain, it’s either abstract or figurative, recognizable or not. Throwing around terms like that undercuts your authority and undermines your “radiant message.” In this case, a Desiderata-like disquisition about going placidly amid the haste.

          

     Finally, we have Claude Monet’s Impressionist masterpiece, Bridge Over a Pond of Water Lillies. De Botton defends its popularity against charges of vulgar “prettiness.” The precious aesthetes who supposedly make these charges deem it to be an unworthy distraction from “war, disease, political error, immorality.” Our guru, on the other hand, writes, “It is this kind of despondency that art is well-suited to correct and that explains the well-founded enthusiasm for prettiness.” All this talk about prettiness obscures the fact that when this work was painted, it was considered so radical and disturbing that it wasn’t worthy of being displayed with respectable art. Yet, today, Monet is considered so mainstream that Alain De Botton feels compelled to defend him. We could use a different Horatio, however, at this particular bridge. Instead of praising society for finally embracing Impressionism, de Botton’s “radiant message” is “Flowers in spring, blue skies, children running on the beach . . . these are the visual symbols of hope. Cheerfulness is an achievement and hope is something to celebrate.” Writing like that is the hallmark of nothing except greeting cards. As H.L. Mencken wrote about Pres. Warren G. Harding’s command of the English language, “It drags itself out of a dark abysm of pish and crawls insanely up to the topmost pinnacle of posh.”

         

     I seem to be alone, though, in not regarding Alain de Botton as a “renaissance man” of our time – unless you mean Machiavelli or a Borgia pope. To me, he’s more Rev. Ike than Sister Wendy and aspires to be Dr. Phil. Yet, his elevation continues at the bottom of the page where his WSJ article appears. The biographical note states not only that “Art As Therapy,” a book-length version of the above insights (co-authored with John Armstrong) has been published, but “From March to August 2014, Messrs. de Botton and Armstrong will rehang and recaption the works in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam according to the approach outlined in the book.” I’m trying to picture that, but all I see is a museum lobby with three different admission desks: one says, “Feeling Lonely,” another says, “Feeling Religious” and  the third says, “Feeling Cheap.” The curatorial discussions, though, could be fascinating: “Where should we hang Rembrandt’s The Night Watch? In the Jewelry Collection or the Trouble Sleeping Gallery?”

Far be it from me to insist that there is only one path to enlighten-ment. Buddhism counts eight of them. As for different types of therapy, I agree with the American newspaper columnist and author of Fables In Slang, George Ade, who wrote, “A good jolly is worth whatever you pay for it.” Yet, humbugs abound. So, for the last word on Alain de Botton, I defer to Ade’s contemporary, L. Frank Baum, who, in The Wizard of Oz, wrote, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

EDWARD SNOWDEN IN CATCH-2013.

     I wonder if Edward Snowden, the man who leaked highly sensitive information about our country’s intelligence gathering activities, is aware of the parallels between him and the character with his name in Catch-22, the famous anti-war novel by Joseph Heller? (Do I have to explain what “anti-war” means? I hope not.)

     The fictional Snowden is a waist-gunner on a WWII bombing mission, whose horrible death galvanizes the main character, Yossarian, into anti-government action. The real Snowden would - except for the dying part – probably be flattered by that comparison. Unlike the airman’s fatal wound, it doesn’t go deep enough for me. That the dying gunner is so completely in shock that all he can say is, “I’m cold,” gets closer to the truth. If Edward Snowden isn’t kicking himself every day, he’s in deep denial about the damage he’s done to his own life.

The real Mr. Snowden worked for the National Security Agency (NSA) a formerly secret branch of the government engaged in work more highly confidential than even the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Apparently, he didn’t like being a spy. It’s not for everyone. The irony is that, for the rest of his life, Edward Snowden will be known as a spy. Not for his government job, but because of what he did afterward. He took a large amount of the country’s most top-secret information and revealed it to, well, to the world. That’s what spies do and if Mr. Snowden ever returns to this country, the crime for which he’ll be tried.

Real spies, however, are either idealogues or in business for themselves. The former are treated like heroes by the country or power sponsoring them. The latter are heavily rewarded, usually with money. Since neither praise nor dollars seem to be going his way, it doesn’t look like Snowden was working for anyone – including himself. So who benefits? Supporters may point to the higher profile of the NSA and a potentially chilling effect on its purported invasions of privacy. Yet, in another example of Catch-22, Joseph Heller’s term for a perfectly ironic twist, Snowden may have helped his former employer.

         Espionage works in the shadows. Spies can’t brag about whom they’ve assassinated and breaking a code is useless once the enemy knows you’ve done it. (Even if keeping it a secret means letting the Nazis bomb Coventry, England.) Now that our country’s intelligence apparatus is experiencing an unwonted - and very unwanted – spotlight, why not turn it into a limelight? Let the rest of the world be warned, you can’t keep secrets from us. You want to hear Angela Merkel order two bratwursts with everything to go? We’ve got that – and she’s the Chancellor of Germany! (On an unrelated note – Chancellor? Isn’t it time for a new title? Just saying.) 

     The biggest Catch-22 for Edward Snowden, though, is that he must live in Russia. The man who thought he struck a blow for government transparency and individual rights is forced to live in a country with zero democratic tradition. A country that added “gulag” to the dictionary. A country run by who? Oh yeah, Vladimir Putin, the former head of the KGB, Russia’s secret police. To be fair, his future may not be that bleak. A man with his knowledge and abilities would be invaluable to Smersh or whatever the Russian spy agency is called. Chances are, though, he’d like it even less than the American version.

     I’d say that Snowden must spend the rest of his life in Russia, but it isn’t up to him. Like making love to a gorilla, you stop when the gorilla is tired, not you. Let’s suppose then that the Russians get all the information they want from him (somehow) and he is free to leave. Where does he go? A life on the lam, in permanent hiding, beckons. According to Salman Rushdie, however, that’s not as much fun as it sounds – and he should know. Let’s suppose further that after thirty years or so, the world has changed and old crimes become the new norms. It’s happened before. Why can’t an older Edward Snowden return to this country, a newly minted hero? Ask Roman Polanski. He’ll tell you. 

     My advice to Edward Snowden, therefore, is to develop a taste for irony – and vodka. Reading Catch-22 will help with the former and any Russian over the age of twelve, with the latter. If you’re gay, find an apartment with a very large closet and, finally, avoid the temptation to wear a “Free Pussy Riot” t-shirt.  See you at the Olympics.

THE SECOND COMING OF CHRISTIE DOESN'T USHER IN THE MILLENIUM.

     I don't mind giving Republicans hope. People with hope think about the future. People who don't care about the future become suicide bombers or Tea Party conservatives. So, if the re-election of Chris Christie as Governor of New Jersey gives Republicans hope, I'm happy for them. The problem is that it's a completely false hope.

     As Kate Zernike and Jonathan Martin write in their front-page article in today's (11/6/13) New York Times, "Mr. Christie declared that his decisive win should be a lesson for the nation's broken political system and his feuding party." Then he bragged about winning in a state with a Democratic majority and his success among minorities, women and youth. Of the last five N.J. governors to serve full terms, three were Republican. So, beating a Democrat is not a big achievement. Christie's opponent, state sen. Barbara Buono carried Newark, the state's biggest city, which is predominantly African-American. So, his success in that respect is qualified, too.

     Speaking of Ms. Buono, let's go out on a limb and suggest that minorities and women have minds of their own and don't necessarily vote for the same race and gender.  Maybe who Christie ran against had something to do with his being elected? Considering that Barbara Buono had no name recognition and did little or no advertising, I'd say she was handi-capped and her losing was not exactly surprising. It certainly wasn't Gov. Christie's first term that helped him win. The economy in New Jersey still hasn't recovered; a year after Superstorm Sandy, rebuilding on the Jersey Shore is far from complete or even mostly done and he passionately opposed same-sex marriage until he gave up. But it's never been about New Jersey, has it?

     Chris Christie has always been outspoken about his desire to be President. The article quotes him as saying, "I know if we can do this in Trenton, N.J., then maybe the folks in Washington, D.C. should tune in their TVs right now and see how it's done." His appeal - apart from being honest about his ambition - is that in a year when Tea Party Republicans shut down the government and the GOP's popularity dipped to a single digit, a moderately conservative Republican can win. Ed Gillespie, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, puts it this way, 'We'll be led back by our governors and Chris Christie is now at the forefront of that resurgence."

     The leap from being re-elected Governor of New Jersey to being given the power to start a nuclear war is a big one, however. A lot can happen in three years, too. There is, for instance, all that state governing for Christie to neglect while he campaigns for President. Like I said, I'm not against Republicans having hope. If the Tea Party has proved anything, though, it's that there's a limit to how much even Republicans can fool themselves.

OBAMACARE FACES CAPTAIN KANGAROO COURT.

Bob Keeshan! Thou should'st be living at this hour: Congress has need of thee: it is a pen of ignorant toddlers.

     Mr. Keeshan was for thirty years a children's television host named Captain Kangaroo. Wearing a blue uniform and a neat, grey mustache, he kept a generation of boomers quiet and well-behaved for an hour while they watched his show. Mr. Keeshan is gone, but his mustache lives on. I saw it on TV recently. It (or a close likeness) squats beneath the snout of Rep. David McKinley (R. West Virginia). I noticed it during TV coverage of a congressional hearing into the flawed roll-out of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. The irony is that it was on a congressional Republican, who was behaving worse than a spoiled child.

     At the hearing by the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday, 10/24, Rep. McKinley demanded an apology from four government contractors who worked on the trouble-plagued Obamacare website. "I haven't heard one of you apologize to the American public . . . for problems associated with not having this thing ready. Are apologies not in order?"

     No, they aren't, you fatuous booby. Not until you apologize for shutting down the U.S government. How dare you ask for an apology when you cost taxpayers billions of dollars for no reason. You didn't even apologize to fellow Republicans for embarrassing them because you got nothing in return for this bizarre stunt.

     Worse, according to The United Health Foundation, David McKinley represents a state with a crushing need for Obamacare. West Virginia ranks forty-ninth in the health of its citizens as measured by obesity, heart disease and diabetes. Its only competition is Mississippi and, sometimes, Louisiana. The Mountain State, however, is second to none when it comes to missing teeth among its elderly. Half of them have no teeth at all. What's more, the region is, shall we say, economically distressed, so the need for low-cost healthcare is acute. Yet, their Congressman is doing his best to make sure it isn't available. Instead, David McKinley is whining, pouting and petulantly demanding an apology because the Obamacare website isn't ready on schedule. 

     The real Captain Kangaroo would know what to do with this brat. He'd put him over his knee - and not to take his temperature.

THE LAUGHS MENAGERIE.

    The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams may be a classic of the American theater, but it could be funnier. It works perfectly as a tragedy, but is only a few, small changes away from being a comedy. Perhaps a great one.

     The play begins with a close, immediate family living together at home in St. Louis. There's a doting mother and a daughter with 
romantic problems. Right there, it could be Meet Me In St. Louis (1944). The only thing missing is Judy Garland's heart beating like a trolley bell. I'll go further and suggest that Tennessee Williams was a big Judy Garland fan. (I have no proof, but you see where I'm going.) Williams, of course, went in a different direction. A fatherless family - living in reduced circumstances - in St. Louis - during The Depression. Such concentrated misery that, among playwrights, it's known as, "The Quadruple Bypass."

     Still, dark and foreboding as this play seems, there are laughs to be mined here. Take Laura, the fragile, acutely shy daughter with a limp. She finds human company so intolerable that a class at the local business college overwhelms her. How will she ever find someone to care for her the way she cares for her tiny glass animals? If her name was Elizabeth Barrett and she lived on Wimpole Street, a handsome, young poet named Robert Browning would rescue her from her stern parent and they would live happily ever after. 

     Okay, not laugh out loud, but a romantic comedy nonetheless. It certainly worked for Rudolph Besier in his play, The Barrets of Wimpole Street. Unfortun-ately, the only poet in Laura's life is her brother, Tom, an aspiring writer, who works in a warehouse. Not being one of those poets with great career prospects and reserves of personal strength, his rescuing her is unlikely.

     Tom, sensitive as well as poetic, feels very guilty about not being able to save his sister. It's not, however, his only source of guilt or the only way in which he is being tortured. Standing head and shoulders above his sister is his mother, Amanda. Abandoned by her husband, Amanda is wedded to her past. A not inconsiderable past as she never tires of reminding us.

        Amanda was no mere southern belle, she was the southern belle exercising her whim of iron on an endless stream of obeisant gentleman callers. Now, though, all the whim is gone and her children must contend with the iron. They react differently. Laura is pushed so far in that her voice is barely an echo. Tom is pushed violently away, yet being the only man in his mother's life, she refuses to let go. She won't let him grow up, either, lest he become like his old man. No wonder Tom feels trapped and has to go out every night.

     Not comic gold, I'll grant you, but not beyond hope. There is lightness at the end of the tunnel. Hidden in the midst of all of life's worst situations is a door into a secret garden of guffaws: it's called being Jewish. Not that Tennessee was Jewish, his father was a minister. (I know, I know, you thought he worked for "the phone company." That's only in the play. Although, it depends on how you define "long distance.") All I'm saying is that a Jewish writer would have made this play a comedy. 

     A loving mother with a strong personality and a baleful effect on her children? Not unknown in Jewish culture. Weak or absent fathers? One or a million. Force them to share the same cramped quarters until they drive each other crazy? It's
almost impossible not to laugh. Make them two divorced men sharing a New York apartment and you've got The Odd Couple by Neil Simon. (I'll bet his father wasn't a minister.)

     Please don't list all the sad plays written by Arthur Miller. I don't consider him Jewish. Look at Death of a Salesman. You won't find boys named Biff or Happy in Hebrew school. Loman is not a Jewish name. (Loehmann, maybe.) Besides, what kind of Jew marries Marilyn Monroe except in his dreams. Most inglorious (Pronounced ime-goyish) is that he lived in Connecticut.

     Ultimately, the difference between The Glass Menagerie and, say, The Laughs Menagerie is a difference in outlook. Williams prefers a world lit by candles and the soft glow of nostalgia. As he has Blanche DuBois say in A Streetcar Named Desire, " I don't want realism, I want magic!" It's hard to be funny about that - especially when a feeling of being permanently excluded feeds your poetic yearning. To see the comedy in Amanda Wingfield and her children, you have to accept - not in a resigned, tragic way - you have to embrace a world lit by lightning - when it strikes people on a golf course! Caddyshack (1980) being a hilarious example. 

     Again, there's nothing wrong with the way The Glass Menagerie is written. It's gripping enough without electrocuting someone on stage. Yet, like the funeral guest who keeps insisting that the deceased be given chicken soup, "It couldn't hurt."

WHY DICK CHENEY?

    I saw Dick Cheney on TV last night (10/20). He was being interviewed on 60 Minutes by Dr. Sanjay Gupta. If you watch 60 Minutes, you're old enough to remember Mr. Cheney, the rest of the audience may need some help. Dick Cheney was a blight on our government for thirty years. The last eight of which he served as Vice-President to George W. Bush, a position akin to being wife to Michael Jackson: necessary, but not in the way that you think.

     The interview covered his longevity in life as well as politics. Indeed, his medical history is so unusual that he's co-written a book about it with his cardiologist. (A book whose public-ation - surprise - coincides with his appearance on 60 Minutes.) Dick Cheney has survived five heart attacks, a quadruple bypass, arterial stents, balloon angioplasty, a pacemaker, a left-ventricular assist device, two vascular procedures on his legs and a heart transplant. This man has more zippers than a motorcycle jacket. If you want to know the secret of Cheney's longevity or the significance of his survival, look somewhere else. What you get is Dr. Gupta fanning some weak flames about the Vice-President's fitness to govern while fighting severe heart disease. What he, in turn, gets is the familiar cobra stare and soft, unmodulated voice that Cheney uses to express disdain.

     What I don't understand is: why Dick Cheney? Why should this man, of all people, benefit from decades worth of advances in medicine? You don't have to know him to be outraged. He is such a malign presence that it's obvious from a short interview. Look at the way he uses the reporter's first name to belittle instead of bond. Then there's his eagerness to take credit for "enhanced interrogation techniques" - more commonly known as torture. Specifically, "waterboarding." He even refers to himself as "Darth Vader." Not mockingly, either. This is not a man who reflects. Nor does he engage in reassessment or regret. Lying to get us into war, war as an excuse for torture, torture as a form of national security, Dick Cheney dares you to make him feel guilty. You can't because he can't. He has no inner life.

     Don't get me wrong, I don't begrudge Mr. Cheney - or anyone - their medical care. I leave that to the Tea Party. What bothers me is the vast amounts of expensive, high-quality medical resources that could have been better used. The boundless amounts of sheer luck that - ideally - should have been shared. The question remains: why Dick Cheney? There were nicer people with heart disease who deserved longer lives. 

THE GRASS IS ALWAYS WIENER.

"And maybe if the internet didn't exist. Like, if I was running in 1955? I'd probably get elected mayor."                       
                               - Anthony Wiener

                                                        October, 1955

WALTER WINCHELL: Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. America from border to border and coast to coast and all the ships at sea. Let's go to press. What former New York congressman has been showing his ding-dong to every school girl between here and Poughkeepsie? Not only is this not-a-nudist eyeing the New York Democratic mayoral nomination, he's married to a sloe-eyed beauty with a gold-plated Rolodex and entree to the highest government circles. Stay tuned for more developments in what may be the best scandal of the campaign season - or the wurst!

J.P. MORGAN CHASTENED.

(Sung to the tune of "A Foggy Day In London Town." Music by George Gershwin)

Will Jamie pay

for what he's done?

His bank was fined

thirteen billion.

He viewed the headlines 

with alarm.

The bad news kept coming

and doing more harm.

How long he wondered

will his job last?

His London branch owes

six billion in cash.

Add legal fees 

and double that sum.

Now, the chairman, Mr. Dimon,

looks more like zirconium.

MARLIN STUTZMAN; VOTED "MOST LIKELY TO IMPEDE."

          An otherwise unremarkable congressman, Marlin Stutzman (R-IN) made a remarkable utterance recently. According to NBC’s Frank Thorp, Stutzman said, “We have to get something out of this. And I don’t know what that even is.” He’s not talking about selling his baseball card collection on E-Bay. Or a signed program from a Ted Nugent concert. Rep. Stutzman is referring to shutting down the U.S. government. Four days ago, He and eighty or so of his Republican colleagues in the House refused to agree on an operating budget for the federal government unless the Affordable Care Act was delayed or denied funding. Thus, forcing our nation’s government to halt many of its functions and suspend without pay thousands of employees.

         What’s remarkable is how Mr. Stutzman can act so recklessly and be so honest about it. He’s beyond caring – if he ever did – about his party’s ostensible goal of denying health care to millions of Americans or the shutdown’s undeniable results, mass unemployment among others. Stutzman and his cronies refuse to end the shutdown until they get “something.” At this point in a hostage situation, when the criminal or terrorist is surrounded, but refuses to speak with negotiators, the police usually send for the perpetrator’s mother, wife, or girlfriend to talk with him through a bullhorn. Not applicable. Nor is Rep. Stutzman risking his re-election in a state that reveres Dan Quayle and in 1924, elected a Governor, who was in the Ku Klux Klan. Our only hope may lie in the fate of Rod Blagojevich, former Governor of Illinois. In a phone call wiretapped by the FBI, he stated, as follows, his intention to “sell” the Senate seat vacated by Pres. Obama, “I’ve got this thing and it’s f***ing golden, and, uh, uh, I’m just not giving it up for f***in’ nothing. I’m not gonna do it.” Gov. Blagojevich is currently serving fourteen years for corruption in a federal penitentiary.

         Rep. Stutzman preceded his comment about getting something by saying, “We’re not going to be disrespected.” That’s a common enough sentiment among gang members and an organizing principle of La Cosa Nostra, but rarely is it copped to so bluntly - at least, in public - by U.S. Congressmen. We are beyond political compromise here. The Republicans controlling the House of Representatives clearly won’t end the government shutdown for anything less than ring-kissing. I’ll admit that my experience with the Mafia is long on Corleones and short on actual capos, but an adequate parallel might be found in Carmine “The Snake” Persico, reputed leader of the Colombo crime family. In June, 1987, Persico ordered the murder of William Aronwald, a retired prosecutor who had allegedly been disrespectful. Two hitmen killed Aronwald’s father, George, by mistake. They paid with their lives. Then, the gunmen who killed them were silenced. Persico is currently serving 139 years on charges of murder, extortion, loansharking, racketeering and gambling.

I’m not saying that Mr. Stutzman and his cohorts are criminals or belong in jail. What they’re doing isn’t illegal. It’s – what is it? Immoral? Unethical? Inappropriate? Their behavior falls outside recognizable human conduct, so it’s up to their fellow Republicans to take action. Not John Boehner, of course. That walking Dorito thinks that being crunchy is a sign of strength. I’m talking about the House - and Senate – Republicans who are neither blinded by hate nor motivated by it. I’m not expecting the School of Athens, just some professional legislators who know that

crapping and fall back into it does not constitute a political position.

THE DEVIL WEARS OPRAH.

     Office of  “O Magazine.” Like a hive filled with female drones, it’s     unnaturally busy. Oprah Winfrey, wades in and all activity stops – then starts again, focused on her. The eponymous “O,” she is, quite naturally, the queen bee.

         

     “I’m glad you’re here,” says the editor, “We’ve got a terrific idea for the cover of the next issue. Something very different.”

         

     “Great. ‘Cause I’m running out of hairstyles.”

     The editor is a small, slight woman vibrating with the intensity of an impoverished divorcee making herself up at a cosmetics counter.

         

     “We were thinking - for a change, that’s all - of putting someone else on the cover.”

         

     “Why? Are sales down?”

         

     “No, but maybe we can sell even more.”

         

     “I’m the brand. My name is on the magazine.”

         

     Exactly. What if - keep an open mind - we just have your name on the cover. One issue only – as an experiment.”

         

     “I’ve got a movie out now. You need my picture. What if I wore something different?”

         

     “African?”

         

     “No, really different.”

         

     “Tefillin?”

          

     “Something body conscious. Michael Kors?”

          

     “We don’t want to get too glamorous or we’ll lose our base.”

          

     “How about a wrap dress? That’s a classic – and I have twenty-five that I haven’t worn.”

           

     “What about someone who’s glamorous and accessible?”

         

     “Who?”

         

     “Beyonce.”

         

     “I’m sick of her. She’s everywhere.”

         

     “Just a notion.”

         

     “And I’m sick of the guy she’s married to.”

         

     “Jay Z? He’s very big right now.”

         

     “He’s always big. He ought to lay off the candy bars.”

Oprah turns to the woman closest to her, a striking blonde in her twenties, wearing, to great effect, eight thousand dollars worth of the latest fashions and hiding, with equal success, an education that cost twenty times that.

“Make a note. Send our last ten diets to Jay – what is it?”

“Z.”

“Jay Z.”

“That’s only one issue.”

“Send him ten issues.”

“Think about it,” says the editor to Oprah, “That’s all I ask. Think about Beyonce.”

“Why? She hasn’t made one movie and I’m in the biggest movie of the year.”

“With all due respect, she’s still pretty famous.”

“But I’m the star of Lee . . . Butler’s?

“Child.”

“Lee Butler’s Child? No.”

“Lee Child’s Butler.”

“Lee Child doesn’t have a butler.      He’s lucky to have a cleaning woman. Steven Spielberg has a butler. He probably has ten.”

    “The name of the movie is Lee Child’s The Butler.”

“That’s an awful name. No wonder I can’t remember it.”

“You should write it on your hand.”

“On my ham?”

“On your hand.”

Oprah turns to her blonde assistant. “Note. Make hearing aids incredibly cool. Just in case.”

A stunning brunette in her thirties, laced into a leather dress that fits like     the cover of a baseball, rises from her desk.

“Why don’t we put you both on the cover together,” she proposes.

“Oh, yeah,” replies Oprah, “great idea. And we should both wear the same dress. No? Then why don’t I put my Chanel boots on and kick you all the way back to Vassar?”

The woman sits down as Oprah, the color purple, scans the room for other brave souls. “Any more bright ideas?”     The editor assumes her decisive pose, a matter of jutting her chin out.

“It’s settled. Oprah will be on our next cover. Hair and clothes to be determined.”

J.D. SALINGER: THE PITY PALACE.

          Jerome David Salinger, the famously reclusive author, died in 2010. (“For J.D. Salinger – With Love And Squalor” TFT 1/29/10) Three years later, the documentary, Salinger, directed by Shane Salerno, parts the clouds around his life – and leaves a cloud on his reputation.

Not intentionally, the film is unfailingly positive, but it’s two hours long, so among the hero-worshipping, sensationalism and unanswered questions are a great many facts. Being the stubborn things they are, these facts lead to an inescapable conclusion: J.D. Salinger felt sorry for himself his entire life. Occasionally, he was distracted and, ultimately he replaced his pain with religion, but in addition to his literary contribution - indeed, encompassing it - Jerry Salinger built a house, nay, a palace of self-pity and lived in it to the end.

J.D. Salinger was the sensitive, intelligent, talented son of a wealthy, Park Avenue family. A man about town, he dated beautiful women, notably Oona O’Neil (daughter of Eugene and future wife of Charlie Chaplin.) As a soldier, he took part in the Invasion of Normandy, The Battle of The Bulge and the Liberation of Paris, where he met and made friends with Ernest Hemingway. Salinger’s first and only novel, The Catcher In The Rye, made him famous at the age of thirty-two. That’s a lot of good fortune to overcome, but J.D. was nothing if not determined. Having nursed his adolescent angst into a major work of fiction, he turned a raging case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder into Nine Stories, a literary reputation and, arguably, a lifestyle. He came by his PTSD honestly, however. As the documentary makes clear (in a manner more akin to hammer throwing than character sketching) Salinger was among the first American soldiers to enter the Dachau concentration camp in 1945 and was very affected by it. 

          Salinger’s precarious mental and emotional state is reflected in three of his best short stories. “A Perfect Day For Bananafish” about a brilliant, but disturbed man who commits suicide. “Teddy” about a brilliant, but disturbed ten-year-old boy who commits homicide and “For Esme – With Love and Squalor” about a brilliant, but disturbed soldier and his relationship with a thirteen-year-old English girl. Although the last one        has no body count, it may be the most unsettling because the girl in question owes more to Ava Gardner as Lady Brett Ashley than, say, Judy Garland as Dorothy.

What distinguishes these stories, apart from their style – economical and concrete like Hemingway, but more flowing and deeply personal in tone – is the overwhelming, almost palpable sympathy he has for his characters. It’s what makes these stories instantly engaging and fondly remembered. Their strength, however, is also their weakness. As no less an author than John Updike said, “Salinger loves his characters more than God loves them.” When you consider that every character in every story, every sensitive loner and highly intelligent, but tormented, individual is J.D. Salinger himself, then, even for a writer, that’s an epic amount of self-regard.

Nine Stories cemented Salinger’s literary reputation because The Catcher In The Rye, for all it’s acclaim - and the director has no trouble finding people, often famous, to acclaim it – is a qualified success. Teenagers will identify completely with Holden Caulfield and think it’s the best book they’ve ever read because it perfectly mimics their intense, shifting emotions in a voice exactly - not close, but dead on - like their own. Adults are more likely to admire the technique, but yearn for a character beside the author’s persona and anything resembling a plot. 

That brings us up to 1953. J.D. Salinger is thirty-four and he lives to be ninety-one. What does he do for the next fifty-seven years? He writes – and publishes - a short story and three novellas: “Franny” (1955) Raise High The Roof Beam, Carpenters” (1955) "Zooey" (1957) and “Seymour: 

An Introduction" (1959). That’s all. “Seymour: An Introduction” was his farewell. At the ripe, old age of forty, Salinger leaves O. Henry’s “Baghdad On The Subway” for “Shangri-La” in the mountains of northern New Hampshire. Not exactly a hardship. The idea of leaving the city for some beautiful, remote location occurs to every Manhattanite around 3.5 times a day. The reality, for J.D., was more humble. Salinger, shows us how dull and ordinary, how utterly unromantic, his house and separate writing studio in Cornish, New Hampshire were. If you were dust you might want to settle there, but they lack what real estate agents call, “everything.” Not that his life there was dull. Mr. Salerno takes great pains (ours, not his) to prove that his subject is not as reclusive as we think.

          J.D. Salinger never lacked for female companionship. He didn’t know any women, I don’t think he could, but he sure knew a lot of girls. (His only relationship with a woman his age, his first marriage, lasted eight months and she may have worked for the Gestapo. Except for her knowledge of torture methods and a taste for decorating with swastikas, that could happen to anyone. Okay, maybe not. Plus, his Jewish parents weren’t thrilled.) Then, while still pining for Oona O’Neill (whom he knew while she was in high school) he meets Jean Miller, who is fourteen (although, she states in the film, they didn’t have sex until she eighteen) Claire Douglas (Radcliffe student and his second wife) and Joyce Maynard, whom he noticed reclining like an eighteen-year-old odalisque on the cover of the New York Times Magazine. (In all fairness, she was hard to miss.) Maynard, in turn, was replaced by Colleen O’Neill, an au pair girl, whom he married and widowed. 

                                                            

            That’s all the light that Salinger sheds on the author’s romantic life. If you want heat, go somewhere else. About the only mildly kinky thing in the movie is how, during her interview, Joyce Maynard is wearing the same watch, too large for her wrist, that she wore on her magazine cover and which reminded Salinger of the watch that Esme wore in his story, “For Esme - With Love and Squalor.” That dizzy feeling is Vertigo (1958).

So much for hero worship, unanswered questions and torrents of facts.What about the sensationalism I promised? It doesn’t amount to much. When the film ends, the director tries to tease us with all the writing Salinger supposedly did and never showed anyone. He claims that Salinger’s personal foundation has copies and will start publishing them, per his instructions, in 2015. There are a lot of reasons not to hold our breath.

J.D. Salinger spent most of his life, easily the second two-thirds or about sixty years, practicing Vedantic Hinduism. Here I must plead ignorance. Everything I know about Hinduism is from the movie, Gunga Din (1939). Assuming that Salinger did not worship the goddess, Kali, he probably took a more austere path. One involving a lot of renunciation. So, he takes the beautiful palace of self-pity that is his life and starts emptying it. No more publishers wanting things or, worse, depending on him. No more crappy editors at The New Yorker, who insist on having standards that aren’t his own. No more constant distraction by wives, girlfriends and, oh yeah, those two children he had with his second wife. Harsh and unsparing, I’ll grant you, but there are two obvious benefits. One is that, like all writers, he loves the sound of his own voice and what echoes better than an empty house? The other is serenity and who needs more goddamned serenity than Jerome David Salinger?

It doesn’t guarantee good literature, though. I’ll give you The Razor’s Edge (1944) by W. Somerset Maugham, but after that the pickings get kind of slim. What’s more, Maugham was working with editors, publishers and reviewers. He wasn’t sitting around talking to himself, laughing and kissing his hand. So, when Shane Salerno rises to his full, sensationalist crouch and beats the drum for more stories about the brilliant, but disturbed Glass family, a WWII novella about a soldier exactly like J.D. Salinger and a “manual” of stories about Vedanta, forgive me if I don’t throw my hands in the air and shout, “Hallelujah.” Instead, I’ll cover my ears and chant, “Om my god.”