The following spring, Harold Rosenberg recommended Elaine de Kooning for a short course on painting at the museum. "The E. de Kooning idea sounds fine and I will put it to the board," Don wrote back. "I"d like, though, to have an alternative, a man, to propose-somebody who"s both a good painter and a good teacher. So, who?" Don"s preference for a man indicates his att.i.tude, common in the art world at the time, that women weren"t to be taken seriously as painters.
In any case, Elaine de Kooning arrived in June for a two-week course. "Congenial and a good teacher, she became friends with Don and with the artists active in musuem affairs," Helen wrote-a notable understatement, given others" accounts of Elaine"s energy and personality. "Elaine was vivacious: she loved a party and craved attention," say Willem de Kooning"s biographers. She was in "perpetual motion."
By 1962, Elaine was a serious alcoholic, desperate for money. At the Cedar Tavern in Manhattan, where the Abstract Expressionists boozed away their nights, she had experienced firsthand the art world"s indifference to female painters, and she had learned that the only way to overcome it was to act as manly as the men. She could outdrink and outtalk most of the guys, and she took as many lovers as they did, among them Harold Rosenberg and-less casually-Thomas Hess.
Though she and Willem never divorced, she had separated from him in the 1940s. In the late fifties, she began to travel the country as an itinerant teacher, doing stints at Pratt Inst.i.tute and Parsons School of Design, and at universities in New Mexico and California. Everywhere she went, she "partied hard with...students and faculty," according to Stevens and Swan. Though she "sometimes looked like a boorish drunk who spilled drinks and scattered cigarette ashes...she usually had a marvelous sparkle around her. She seemed to enlarge life." She was also an excellent mentor, and she knew her Kierkegaard (she used to read him aloud to Willem as he painted). She and Don hit it off right away. To promote her course, Don created a broadside, "Elaine de Kooning Paints a Picture," with a photo of Elaine at work.
"I love Texans," Elaine said later. "They just do everything in a natural and big way. An easy way. They drink big and drive fast in big cars. I think it has to do with all of that s.p.a.ce, and all of that frontier energy that"s still there. In Texas, everything is possible. And Texans are open to new ideas and to art. New things just make sense to Texans."
When The New Yorker The New Yorker published such trite generalizations, Don couldn"t abide them. Coming from Elaine"s mouth, they were charming. published such trite generalizations, Don couldn"t abide them. Coming from Elaine"s mouth, they were charming.
In 1961, Jorge Luis Borges shared the International Publishers Prize with Samuel Beckett, Joseph h.e.l.ler"s Catch-22 Catch-22 was published, and Stanley Kramer released was published, and Stanley Kramer released Judgment at Nuremberg Judgment at Nuremberg. Early in 1962, Nabokov"s Pale Fire Pale Fire emerged, Albee"s emerged, Albee"s Who"s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Who"s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was produced on Broadway, and Andy Warhol did the first of his Marilyn Monroe portraits. The world seemed edgy and at risk-the Berlin Wall had just gone up, and Cuba was a tinderbox-but the arts were dizzy with energy ( was produced on Broadway, and Andy Warhol did the first of his Marilyn Monroe portraits. The world seemed edgy and at risk-the Berlin Wall had just gone up, and Cuba was a tinderbox-but the arts were dizzy with energy (fueled, perhaps, by planetary anxieties). In the "wild wastes" of Houston, far from the creative pivot of New York, Don felt he was missing out.
On his visit to Houston, Harold Rosenberg had mentioned that he and Thomas Hess were thinking of starting a literary/arts journal in New York, with funding from the Longview Foundation, a philanthropic organization based in New Orleans. Rosenberg and Hess served on Longview"s board. In her memoir, Helen said that it was not until the summer and fall of 1962 that Rosenberg began to court Don to be the journal"s managing editor, but a letter from Don, dated March 28, 1962, indicates that the discussion was well advanced before Helen knew about it. He told Rosenberg, "In regard to working on the Longview magazine, there ain"t anything I"d rather do. It would take I think around $9000 for us to live in N. Y.-which may be more than the foundation would want to pay. Let me know what you think. We can be packed in about 30 minutes."
Despite its debts, Helen"s ad agency had expanded. Her sister Odell Pauline Moore came aboard to handle the books, leaving Helen more time to write copy and attend to the creative side of the business. Helen leased s.p.a.ce in a building Pat Goeters owned near the Museum of Fine Arts. Don"s brother Pete joined the firm as a writer. Pete had married a woman he"d known since elementary school, and her father"s medical offices were across the street from Helen"s company. Daily, Don was reminded how rooted he was among family, friends, and Houston"s upper-middle-cla.s.s community.
Helen worked hard to establish herself; Don had earned a position that provided him plenty of aesthetic challenges. It was an awkward time to suggest a risky change.
Sister Mary Antoinette, the president of Dominican College, liked Helen, and she had noticed Don"s success at the Contemporary Arts Museum. She asked Helen if Don would consider becoming the college"s development director. Helen pa.s.sed along the idea. The job didn"t interest him, but an offer from the college would give him a bargaining chip with the Contemporary Arts a.s.sociation. He stipulated a hefty salary, with mornings free to write. To his surprise, Sister Antoinette agreed to his terms. Still waiting to hear from Rosenberg, Don told the college he couldn"t make a decision until the fall.
In the meantime, Sister Antoinette urged Don and Helen to attend a meeting of the American College Public Relations a.s.sociation at the Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia. This would give them a chance to talk to development personnel from other schools around the country. Don could imagine nothing duller, but Helen was eager to go, and if Dominican College paid for part of the trip, it would be possible to take a train to New York without too much additional expense.
In late July, Don and Helen flew to White Sulphur Springs. The resort was expansive and spectacular, overlooking the Allegheny Mountains. The baroque interiors were dark and warm. Croquet lawns, golf courses, trout streams, and spas ringed the buildings. One wing of the resort was closed for remodeling; unbeknownst to the guests, the U.S. government was preparing it to be a secret bunker for Congress in the event of nuclear war.
Don rented a typewriter and spent his mornings working on "Florence Green Is 81" (he mentions the resort in the story). Each day, Helen attended sessions on university development. Don skipped them. She "found his absence disquieting." People kept asking her where her husband was. She didn"t know what to tell them.
The tension between Don and Helen mounted, a week later, when they went to Manhattan. Helen didn"t like New York any better now than she had the first time. Rosenberg had invited them to his flat in a brownstone on East Tenth Street. It was his office and a temporary residence whenever he came into the city (he and his wife, May, shared a house on Long Island). On the appointed afternoon, Don and Helen arrived early and waited on the steps. Soon, Rosenberg came limping up the walk. "How good you look against a New York background," he said as he greeted Helen.
The apartment "was not inviting; it was dark, almost oppressive," Helen recalled. She tried to "imagine living there" but couldn"t. Artwork cluttered the rooms. Paintings were "stacked on the table, in chairs, and leaning against the walls." Hastily, Rosenberg straightened the covers on his Murphy bed, then mixed them all drinks. He mentioned the magazine. "He wanted my a.s.surance that moving to New York was what I wanted to do...and then he added that as soon as plans were more concrete he would contact Don," Helen said. "Although he was restrained in showing how he felt, Don was elated."
That evening, Elaine de Kooning invited the couple to visit her loft on Broadway, near Union Square. It was up a long flight of stairs. Her painting studio occupied the front of the loft; at the other end, she"d arranged a kitchen, a bed, and a serving bar. Magazine clippings plastered the walls. Elaine loved to tell the story of how, walking home late one night, she had been attacked by a mugger outside her door. When he pulled a knife, she invited him upstairs for coffee. After that, they became fast friends.
"Elaine was cheerful and generous, but I found her a little intense," Helen admitted later. Elaine asked a number of acquaintances to drop by and meet Helen and Don, "including several younger artists who seemed to be around most of the time." Elaine showed off her latest paintings, large portraits of people without faces. "I found [them] strange," Helen wrote. "They were not abstract; details of the figures were realistic so that the blank faces made them resemble unfinished paintings."
At this point, Helen could feel Don pulling away from her, excited by the promise of New York, a place that seemed to her dirty, odd-anything but inviting. She feared losing her own ident.i.ty. In her memoir, she said: Uncertain of our future, we returned to Houston. During the weeks of August and early September, Don discussed both the CAA and Dominican College with his parents, and they both urged him to accept the position with the college...he did not discuss New York as a real option. He did not mention it to Pat Goeters or anyone else at the museum. Don faced difficult choices; he was happy at the museum, and I did not believe that he could be satisfied in college development. There was no doubt that he was considering the appointment only because it put him in a negotiating position with the CAA.
Don kept secret his longing for New York because it meant leaving his family, leaving his friends, and committing to a literary life, when all he had to show were four stories in obscure journals-stories, he felt sure, his comrades would not appreciate.
It"s possible that he recontacted Spencer Bayles-the psychiatrist he"d once seen-to hash out his feelings. At some point, Bayles told him "it was time to get out of town."
Don did did tell Pat Goeters about the Dominican College offer. Goeters was chair of the CAA board, and he discussed the situation with the other members. Funding was tight, and the board was reluctant to match the college"s offer, but Goeters fought hard for his old friend. The board conceded to a pay hike and agreed to let Don keep his mornings free for writing. tell Pat Goeters about the Dominican College offer. Goeters was chair of the CAA board, and he discussed the situation with the other members. Funding was tight, and the board was reluctant to match the college"s offer, but Goeters fought hard for his old friend. The board conceded to a pay hike and agreed to let Don keep his mornings free for writing.
Right away, Rosenberg called. He offered Don the position of managing editorship of Location Location magazine. "I"ll need you in New York by the first of October," he said. "Don accepted with almost no hesitation," Helen recalled. "This meant that we had a very short time in which to radically alter our lives." magazine. "I"ll need you in New York by the first of October," he said. "Don accepted with almost no hesitation," Helen recalled. "This meant that we had a very short time in which to radically alter our lives."
Goeters was furious. He thought Don had played him for a fool, threatening to jump to the Dominicans, when all along he meant to go to New York. Ironically, Goeters"s wife, Georgia, had recently organized a panel discussion at the museum "with about seven prominent creative types-painter, musician, playwright, etc.-t.i.tled "Why Creative People Leave Houston." " One by one, as individual board members learned of Don"s decision, they boiled.
Don"s family accepted the news warily-except for Don"s dad, who didn"t accept it at all. He said that Don was making a major blunder in not taking the college job, and he lectured his son on financial responsibility. Helen didn"t lecture, but she realized with horror that they couldn"t afford to move. "I don"t believe [Don] ever understood the seriousness of our financial plight," she said later. Whenever she voiced her fears, he brushed them off. "We"ll take care of it," he"d say.
She saw no way to "take care of it." Further, she was "uneasy about walking away from [her] responsibilities...at the advertising agency," especially now that she"d involved her sister in the business. "I would be walking away from a company that was in debt almost exclusively from my excessive withdrawals," she wrote in her memoir.
Finally, she suggested to Don that he go on to New York. She"d stay in Houston for a few months to try to stabilize the agency. Don didn"t like the plan, but he was persuaded of its wisdom.
One Sunday, toward the end of September, he and Helen drove to Galveston to say good-bye to Don"s grandmother, Mamie. They took her to lunch at John"s Seafood Restaurant, at the edge of the causeway to the mainland. Don was uncomfortable and ate little. Mamie told the couple they were making a mistake. It was a terrible idea to live apart, even for a short while, she said. She had never been separated from her husband, Bart, except for the week he"d gone to Mexico to look for Don and Pat Goeters.
George Christian was the only person in town who expressed honest sympathy for Don. He still worked as an amus.e.m.e.nts editor at the Post; Post; he knew that, culturally, Houston couldn"t hold a candle to New York, and he understood how much Don needed to write. he knew that, culturally, Houston couldn"t hold a candle to New York, and he understood how much Don needed to write.
One day, Helen drove Don to Cypress, a community northwest of Houston, so he could say good-bye to her sister Margo Vandruff and Margo"s husband. Margo and Roy lived in a modernist home designed by Pat Goeters. On the grounds outside the house, Don turned to Helen and asked her if she wanted to "stay [in Houston] and build a home like this." Helen would have liked nothing better, but she knew how devastated Don would be if she told him the truth. She said she was sure about leaving.
Helen made plans to live with her mother until she could join Don in Manhattan. The couple stored most of their possessions in the attic of the Harold Street house, then sublet the place to Don"s brother Pete and his wife, Lillian.
In his last few days at the museum, Don arranged a new show, "Ways and Means," featuring recent work by John Chamberlain, James Weeks, and Frank Stella. He prepared the museum"s annual report. He stuck to his schedule and didn"t allow the board"s anger to deter him from wrapping up his business.
Despite his note to Herman Gollob, in which he disparaged his duties, Helen has expressed the belief that the museum was a "rich" experience for Don. "When he recalled his work [there] a few years later, it was with a touching sense of loss," she wrote in her memoir. "He called it "the best job" he had ever had." Marion Barthelme agrees. "I know Don thought that working as the CAM director was one of the happiest periods of his life," she says. Helen has gone so far as to say, "I don"t think he felt as good about himself and his work again until he returned to the University of Houston to teach in the 1980s."
A few days before Don left Houston, Pat and Bill Colville, CAA board members, gave him a going-away party. His friends were civil, congratulatory, full of good wishes. Still, the occasion was stiff. Don had always "compartmentalize[d] the people he knew," Helen wrote. "I don"t think it occurred to him to include George and Mary [Christian] or other...newspaper friends in the social life of the art community."
He was scheduled to fly out of Houston"s Munic.i.p.al Airport on a Sunday afternoon. Beforehand, he and Helen lunched with his parents. His mother spoke enthusiastically about Don"s opportunities in New York and the exciting things he would see. Even his father seemed sanguine. He wished Don well. But then, as the meal came to an end, he turned to his son and said, "Be prepared for failure."
The remark stunned Helen. Don, she recalled, "did not appear to be disheartened...nothing could dampen [his] high spirits." He was leaving a real, provincial museum for what Andre Malraux had called the "imaginary museum" of the age-painting, music, literature, and the arts.
Donald Barthelme, the writer, was about to emerge. Armed, Helen recalled, with an "extraordinary ability to challenge another person, to oppose someone else"s will with his own"-strengths he had acquired from his father-he was on his way to becoming the nation"s finest prose stylist, and in the process he would change the shape of the American short story.
PART THREE.
HERE IN THE VILLAGE.
23.
LOCATION.
October 12, 1962, was Don and Helen"s sixth wedding anniversary. They spent it apart. Don was thirty-one. He had rented a room in a small midtown hotel. From there, he walked every morning to the Location Location office at 16 East 23rd Street. In Houston, Helen stayed with her mother and worked late each night to pull her ad firm out of the red. On the morning of the twelfth, Don sent Helen a telegram: "On this worst of anniversaries love and hope for many better." office at 16 East 23rd Street. In Houston, Helen stayed with her mother and worked late each night to pull her ad firm out of the red. On the morning of the twelfth, Don sent Helen a telegram: "On this worst of anniversaries love and hope for many better."
The Location Location office was small and drab, outfitted with only a desk, a typewriter, a few chairs, and a smattering of file cabinets overflowing already with paperwork and submissions for the magazine. Don, always design-conscious, must have felt ill at ease there; on the other hand, the working conditions were not markedly different from those he had known at the office was small and drab, outfitted with only a desk, a typewriter, a few chairs, and a smattering of file cabinets overflowing already with paperwork and submissions for the magazine. Don, always design-conscious, must have felt ill at ease there; on the other hand, the working conditions were not markedly different from those he had known at the Post Post. The dirty windows overlooked Broadway. At lunch, or in the late afternoon, Don left the building, walking through the dreary lobby-almost always empty, except for the elevator man-and strolled up the street to Madison Square Park, where Melville used to walk his granddaughter. The park was also the setting for some of O. Henry"s stories of New York society.
Leaving work, Don walked west on Twenty-third, past the Flatiron Building on Fifth, past Edith Wharton"s birthplace-an old Anglo-Italian brownstone-and the Chelsea Hotel, the home, at various times, of William Dean Howells, Mark Twain, O. Henry, Dylan Thomas, and Vladimir Nabokov. Though he wasn"t writing much new fiction, Don carried a single file folder containing notes and partial rough drafts everywhere he went.
Occasionally, he stopped by the headquarters of the Longview Foundation, which funded Location Location, in the Lincoln Building at 60 East 42nd Street. The building had been erected in 1929-the pinnacle of Art Deco New York-and was hailed by architects for bringing airiness and light into downtown office s.p.a.ces. After signing Foundation forms, usually in a vain attempt to get more money for the magazine, Don would walk a couple of blocks to the New York Public Library, or stroll through Bryant Park, past the statues of Goethe and Gertrude Stein. In Ralph Ellison"s Invisible Man Invisible Man, the park is the backdrop for a shooting that sets off a race riot. The novel"s modernist take on New York-hallucinatory, fragmented-remained vivid in his mind.
In the evenings, he often met Joe Maranto at Grand Central Station; they"d eat oysters in the bas.e.m.e.nt restaurant there, or catch a local to some eatery and then to a series of jazz clubs. In October 1962, the jazz world buzzed about Charles Mingus at Birdland; he appeared there on the nine-teenth and the twenty-sixth. The famous old venue, on Broadway and Fifty-second, was on its last legs, weakened by the rock-and-roll craze. It would close its doors in 1965 (a new incarnation would open later in a different location), but for now, Mingus, with Dannie Richmond on drums, revived the place with tunes like "Eat That Chicken," "Monk, Funk, or Vice Versa," and "O. P." Around this time, Bill Evans, Paul Motian, and Chuck Israels played the Village Vanguard. McCoy Tyner appeared there, as did John Coltrane with Eric Dolphy and, on drums, the great Elvin Jones. At the corner of Bleecker and Thompson streets, the Village Gate still offered evening jazz. In the bas.e.m.e.nt there, the month before, a twenty-one-year-old folk singer named Robert Allen Zimmerman had written a song called "A Hard Rain"s A-Gonna Fall." Calling himself Bob Dylan, he had just begun performing in the Cafe Wha?, Gerde"s Folk City, the Gaslight-formerly a Beat poets" hangout-and other hole-in-the-wall coffee shops around the Village. Don was a Woody Guthrie fan, but he was too busy soaking up jazz to catch much of the folk scene on MacDougal Street.
The number of clubs where he could hear his favorite music live almost every night was overwhelming. It was like stepping from the black-and-white world of the 1950s into the Technicolor sixties.
He also filled his evenings with art parties. "Once, Don took Joe to a party at the apartment of Willem de Kooning," Maggie Maranto recalls. "Elaine de Kooning was separated from Willem, but they were still great friends." Willem was preparing to leave the city for his new home in the Springs, a section of East Hampton, New York; a month before, he had taken a loan to begin building his country studio on Long Island. "Don and Joe collected Elaine from her place, and while the three of them walked over to Willem"s, the two guys kept her in st.i.tches with their quips, flinging them back and forth at one another," Maggie says. "Elaine thought they were the funniest people she"d ever met."
Elaine had embarked on a series of portraits-of Fairfield Porter, Michel Sonnabend, Al Lazar, and, most famously, of John F. Kennedy: faceless men (as Elaine depicted them) sitting with their legs apart. Frequently, on impulse, Elaine invited Don and others to her studio on Broadway and talked for hours, gesturing at her paintings with her cigarette (spraying the furniture with ashes), pouring whiskey until the empty bottles piled up along the floorboards. Earlier that year, JFK had posed for Elaine in West Palm Beach; she praised his courtliness and humor, and the fine figure he had cut in his sailing clothes. She would show her guests the charcoal sketches she had made of the president. She confessed she was a "teeny" bit in love with this handsome man who was leading the country. Sometimes, after listening to Elaine go on, Don didn"t get back to his hotel until just before dawn.
Still, he managed to maintain his writing schedule, working in the mornings in the dull Location Location office, then editing ma.n.u.scripts in the afternoon. At lunch, he would meet Rosenberg and Thomas Hess to discuss the magazine. "I spent the first several years of our friendship listening to Tom and Harold tell these ferocious, man-eating, illuminating jokes, art-jokes and politics-jokes and literature-jokes, usually at lunch," Don said. "I was astounded by the ferocity of their enthusiasms, both positive and negative. The vehicle was always a remarkable wit." office, then editing ma.n.u.scripts in the afternoon. At lunch, he would meet Rosenberg and Thomas Hess to discuss the magazine. "I spent the first several years of our friendship listening to Tom and Harold tell these ferocious, man-eating, illuminating jokes, art-jokes and politics-jokes and literature-jokes, usually at lunch," Don said. "I was astounded by the ferocity of their enthusiasms, both positive and negative. The vehicle was always a remarkable wit."
Hess and Rosenberg "were not worried about putting the magazine out on time and certainly never put any pressure on me," Don said. "We waited until we had enough decent stuff for a good issue. That experience was a great pleasure-listening to Tom and Harold talk." Hess"s favorite refrain was, "The only adequate criticism of a work of art is another work of art," a mantra Don made his own.
Often, John Canaday and Clement Greenberg were topics of conversation (and scorn) at these lunches. Canaday was the art editor of The New York Times The New York Times. In a much-discussed article, he had recently condemned the "frauds, freaks, charlatans, and worse" of Abstract Expressionism. Likewise, Greenberg had turned away from de Kooning"s paintings toward the imagist work of Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland. Don had arrived in New York, and in the midst of the Abstract Expressionist crowd, at a time when Abstract Expressionism was losing its clout in the art world.
H. Harvard Arnason had mounted a recent show at the Guggenheim that featured Louis and Noland, a gesture seen as supportive of Greenberg and dismissive of the loyalty that Rosenberg and Hess felt for de Kooning. A year earlier, de Kooning and Greenberg had scuffled in a bar called Dillon"s, near the Cedar Tavern. Greenberg was there one day with Kenneth Noland. De Kooning walked in and said to Greenberg, "I heard you were talking at the Guggenheim and said that I"d had it, that I was finished." "Well, yeah. I had said that," Greenberg admitted. "Sure. I meant it too." De Kooning claimed that Thomas Hess had "ridden his back" as Greenberg had ridden Jackson Pollock"s, to advance their careers. The yelling degenerated into punching and the men had to be separated. "I"m not scared of you. I"m not scared of you," de Kooning shouted as several people pulled him off of Greenberg.
This was heady stuff for Don. He was now among people for whom art was a serious matter, something worth fighting over. At almost the instant he"d hit town, Art International Art International published Greenberg"s "After Abstract Expressionism"-the text of his remarks at the Guggenheim that had so enraged de Kooning. To be sure, this piece was the subject of many "man-eating jokes" at Don"s first lunches with Rosenberg and Hess. Morris Louis had just died of lung cancer. Rosenberg delighted in (and tortured himself with) the nasty gossip that Louis"s death was a stroke of luck for Greenberg. Many in the art world believed that Greenberg sang Louis"s praises to raise the artist"s prices. Greenberg had stretched several of Louis"s canvases, and he helped the artist"s widow sell the paintings, sometimes keeping profits for himself after an exhibition. It may have dawned on Don that his new friends saw published Greenberg"s "After Abstract Expressionism"-the text of his remarks at the Guggenheim that had so enraged de Kooning. To be sure, this piece was the subject of many "man-eating jokes" at Don"s first lunches with Rosenberg and Hess. Morris Louis had just died of lung cancer. Rosenberg delighted in (and tortured himself with) the nasty gossip that Louis"s death was a stroke of luck for Greenberg. Many in the art world believed that Greenberg sang Louis"s praises to raise the artist"s prices. Greenberg had stretched several of Louis"s canvases, and he helped the artist"s widow sell the paintings, sometimes keeping profits for himself after an exhibition. It may have dawned on Don that his new friends saw Location Location as a weapon with which to attack Greenberg and his crowd. as a weapon with which to attack Greenberg and his crowd.
At the heart of these lunch conversations was the modernist conviction, dimmed perhaps but not extinguished, that art could change the world-that art must must change the world or the world would be doomed. Among New York intellectuals, the Eichmann trial and continuing revelations of n.a.z.i atrocities were obsessive subjects. Rosenberg had just published a long piece in change the world or the world would be doomed. Among New York intellectuals, the Eichmann trial and continuing revelations of n.a.z.i atrocities were obsessive subjects. Rosenberg had just published a long piece in Commentary Commentary comparing Eichmann to the "abstract...officer in Kafka"s comparing Eichmann to the "abstract...officer in Kafka"s The Penal Colony The Penal Colony who throws himself into the lethal machine out of fidelity to his idea." If the n.a.z.i story was not told effectively-if there was not the art to interpret it properly-then telling it over and over, Rosenberg argued, would be "inadequate and even absurd." An edgy combination of optimism (faith in art) and pessimism (recognition of humanity"s evils) shaped the spirit behind the art and literature in the pages of who throws himself into the lethal machine out of fidelity to his idea." If the n.a.z.i story was not told effectively-if there was not the art to interpret it properly-then telling it over and over, Rosenberg argued, would be "inadequate and even absurd." An edgy combination of optimism (faith in art) and pessimism (recognition of humanity"s evils) shaped the spirit behind the art and literature in the pages of Location Location.
"[The] situation has changed, almost reversed itself since the 10"s and 20"s in regard to the use of magazines: then, it seemed, what was needed was a place for poems to appear appear-not enough was published. Now too much too much is published-you know that, good lord, there is a magazine under every stamp. But what is needed now is is published-you know that, good lord, there is a magazine under every stamp. But what is needed now is ideas ideas. n.o.body can understand anything."
This was Robert Alexander"s response to Harold Rosenberg in 1961, when Rosenberg began to plan Location Location. Walter Lowenfels, a politically radical poet who had made his name in the 1920s, wrote: "Dear Harold: Hear you are committing the final sin-editing a magazine." But Lowenfels was eager to appear in its pages.
Rosenberg proposed to the board of the Longview Foundation a journal that would present "expression and thinking in art and literature that is relevant to and in continuity with the significant trends of our time." The magazine"s aim would be to "overcome the intellectual isolation of the arts in America, the growing parochialism and professionalist inbreeding that goes hand in hand with their separation from one another and from thought in general-and to further their creative inter-communication."
The Longview Foundation conducted the Creative Arts Program of one of the nation"s largest philanthropic organizations. In 1921, Edith Rosenwald, daughter of the head of Sears, Roebuck and Company, married a prominent New Orleans businessman named Edgar Bloom Stern. From their joint fortune came the Longview Foundation. At various times, Saul Bellow, Louise Bogan, Alfred Kazin, Meyer Shapiro, Adolph Gottlieb, and Hans Hofmann served on its arts panels. Bellow and Kazin were especially excited about Location Location.
Rosenberg felt that the ideal magazine should "endeavor to maintain a continuous dialogue" within the arts and "across their borders. In addition, it would be alert to fields of thought outside the arts by which the arts are being influenced." These aspirations matched the work that Don had done with Forum; Forum; Don was the perfect choice for managing editor. Don was the perfect choice for managing editor.
In his initial budget for the magazine, for the period of October through December 1962, Rosenberg projected $1,370.14 for office equipment, $890 for travel and entertainment expenses, and only $300 for Don"s position (at $1.50 per hour). For the long term-covering a year, or eight issues-Rosenberg suggested that the "Editorial a.s.sistant," working twenty hours a week, get a monthly check of $1,440-slightly more than the $9,000 per year Don had asked for.
The magazine would never make it to eight issues, and Don would see only a fraction of his budgeted salary.
His first shock came when he saw the word a.s.sistant a.s.sistant in his t.i.tle. He had a.s.sumed he would have full editorial control. Clearly, Rosenberg and Hess had firm ideas about the magazine"s contents and direction. It should be a journal "of persons not of in his t.i.tle. He had a.s.sumed he would have full editorial control. Clearly, Rosenberg and Hess had firm ideas about the magazine"s contents and direction. It should be a journal "of persons not of pieces pieces," Rosenberg said. "We oughtn"t to distinguish between artists and writers." They should all be thought of as "collaborators." Among the people he said he would not be "unhappy" working with were Willem de Kooning, Larry Rivers, Hans Hofmann, Barnett Newman, Kenneth Burke, Kenneth Koch, Robert Bly, Saul Bellow, Philip Guston, Robert Rauschenberg, and Elaine de Kooning.
Rosenberg wanted to see articles about Larry Rivers in "action situations-[he is a] hunter...of underwear, [an] actor," he said. He wanted to capture the fast talk of the sculptor Reuben Nakian: "If his words are sappy what of it, so long as his line is divine."
Kenneth Burke "has turned himself...into a meat-grinder on the edge of the linguistic counter," Rosenberg said, and suggested Location Location run a profile of him. Allen Ginsberg, he said, "should be disa.s.sociated" from the "beat idea and mob. His habits are his own business." Rudy Burckhardt"s "photos are no good....There"s Rudy in "em." Bob Bly is one of the "very few "new" people I have a positive feeling about....Let"s give him s.p.a.ce." run a profile of him. Allen Ginsberg, he said, "should be disa.s.sociated" from the "beat idea and mob. His habits are his own business." Rudy Burckhardt"s "photos are no good....There"s Rudy in "em." Bob Bly is one of the "very few "new" people I have a positive feeling about....Let"s give him s.p.a.ce."
Don did not agree with all of these a.s.sessments, but he deferred to his employers. Still, he didn"t hesitate to a.s.sert himself when he could. Though he spent most of his early days on the job soliciting ads from publishers and art galleries, he also made editorial decisions on his own, causing some friction with Rosenberg. At one point, Meyer Liben, a longtime contributor to Commentary Commentary, complained to Rosenberg that "a stranger" had rejected his ma.n.u.script (which Rosenberg had solicited). "[The magazine"s] att.i.tude was unfriendly, cavalier, not to say puzzling," Liben wrote. Rosenberg apologized to him on Don"s behalf.
Don did did share Rosenberg"s view of contemporary American fiction. "[In] vigor and originality painting and sculpture stand at present in the lead among the arts of America," Rosenberg had written in his proposal for the magazine. The "experience of painters and sculptors can be of great value in helping current American literature to reestablish contact with modern developments in form, method and thought." share Rosenberg"s view of contemporary American fiction. "[In] vigor and originality painting and sculpture stand at present in the lead among the arts of America," Rosenberg had written in his proposal for the magazine. The "experience of painters and sculptors can be of great value in helping current American literature to reestablish contact with modern developments in form, method and thought." Location Location would be an organ for reinspiriting modern fiction, he said. It would be American fiction"s salvation. would be an organ for reinspiriting modern fiction, he said. It would be American fiction"s salvation.
Immediately after Don"s arrival in New York, the Sidney Janis Gallery opened its "New Realists" exhibit of Pop Art. "The art world thronged to the opening, staged in an ample ground-floor s.p.a.ce on Fifty-seventh Street that Janis rented especially for the occasion," wrote Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan. "The show was a sensation and the talk of the town. De Kooning went to Fifty-seventh Street, but, observing the scene within, would not enter the gallery." The times they were a"changin".
Accustomed to Houston"s car dependency, Don loved to roam the streets on foot, alone or with friends, popping into one gallery after another. New York "is a collage," he said. "The point of collage is that unlike things are stuck together...to make a new reality."
Manhattan"s other great charm for Don was "all the filth on the streets." It reminded him of Kurt Schwitters, he said. "Schwitters used to hang around printing plants and fish things out of waste barrels, stuff that had been overprinted or used during make-ready, and he"d employ this rich accidental material in his collages."
Don followed Schwitters"s example, filching observations from the streets. Walking, he would pa.s.s a store that had mounted on a sidewalk stand an Olivetti typewriter. A piece of paper in the machine invited pa.s.sersby to leave messages, and "you"d go to see what crazy things people had written on the Olivetti today."
In "A Shower of Gold," one of the first stories he worked on in New York, Don used the Olivetti and other observations from his daily walks. His character, Peterson, says: Yesterday in the typewriter in front of the Olivetti showroom on Fifth Avenue, I found a recipe for Ten Ingredient Soup that included a stone from a toad"s head. And while I stood there marveling a nice old lady pasted on the elbow of my best Haspel suit a little blue sticker reading THIS INDIVIDUAL IS A PART OF THE COMMUNIST CONSPIRACY FOR GLOBAL DOMINATION OF THE ENTIRE GLOBE. Coming home I pa.s.sed a sign that said in ten-foot letters COWARD SHOES and heard a man singing "Golden Earrings" in a horrible voice....
This pa.s.sage shares the ecstatic spirit of E. B. White"s elegiac songs of the city (a city ever changing, always vanishing), which appeared regularly in The New Yorker The New Yorker-reportage made semisurreal by collage, and offered without judgment. What in later years some reviewers and critics would call Don"s "absurdity" was simply alertness and wonder on the streets.
His eager tasting of the city did not come cheaply, especially on the pittance Rosenberg paid him. Helen had supplied Don with sufficient cash to pay his expenses for at least a month, but within a week he asked her to wire additional funds. "After that, it was every two or three days," she recalled, "so that within a short time I had sent him a considerable sum and had to finally explain that we simply could not continue spending this much money.
"At that point Don called his father for financial help. He was spending every evening enjoying New York."
He frequented the Blue Note, Trudy h.e.l.ler"s, Arthur"s Tavern, the Kettle of Fish, the White Horse, where the drunken ballads of Irish immigrants sounded remarkably like the story songs emerging now from the doorways of Village coffeehouses. Don did not see much of his hotel.
Changing times are characterized by equal amounts of excitement and sadness. Frequently, new singers, like the older ones, find themselves offering elegies. E. B. White was by no means the first writer to lament the loss of old New York-nor was Henry James, though his The American Scene The American Scene, published in 1907, is perhaps the most famous of the city"s many eulogies. After a twenty-year sojourn in Europe, James returned to New York, to find its "Gothic" pride "caged and dishonoured" by "buildings grossly tall and grossly ugly." Some of these were the Beaux-Arts beauties White found charming in the 1920s and 1930s, but for James, they were filled with too many windows, a "condition never to be reconciled with any grace of building."
Don and E. B. White shared James"s deepest uneasiness. James wrote, "The precious stretch of s.p.a.ce between Washington Square and Fourteenth Street [once] had a melancholy glamour," which he found difficult to render now "for new and heedless generations." The writer"s difficult task-that of rendering life accurately-was made even harder by the speed and mutability of the modern city. The city"s changes were violently at odds with James"s memories and his inner life. His real lament, White"s lament, and Don"s challenge in 1962 were all about words-about the impossibility of rendering rendering what is beyond our absorption. what is beyond our absorption.
James wrote, "New York...languishes and palpitates, or vibrates," a line Don echoed in "City Life" (1969): "This muck heaves and palpitates." In the midst of ma.s.sive tremors, the writer, James said, can"t help but wonder if his "impressions" have any "real relation" to life as it is lived.
Don agreed, and his detractors always mistook his intent in tracing city life in fragments. He did not particularly welcome the fragmentation, the "hardness and brightness" White decried; he was trying to solve James"s old dilemma, attempting to find fresh and effective ways to render for a "new and heedless" generation what he saw.
Right before moving to New York, Don finished "The Viennese Opera Ball." It takes place in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The Waldorf-Astoria is the centerpiece of the most extended pa.s.sage in The American Scene The American Scene. For James, the hotel"s "illusions about itself"-its "wealth and variety," its superficiality-were synonyms for American civilization. Social affairs like the Viennese Opera Ball (one of the hotel"s annual events) fused business and play, and lubricated the nation"s "general machinery."