#722 The Book Signing- Pete Hamill

#722 The Book Signing- Pete Hamill

Pete Hamill is a New York writer. He has written for every major NY newspaper, several NY based weeklies and of course his novels and memoirs outline a New York life in a way that has made the name Pete Hamill synonymous with the great five boroughs. He is the perfect writer to open this collection of stories, Brooklyn Noir.

Buddy Carmody is also a writer. He moved out of Brooklyn and headed west in 1957, the same year and direction as the Brooklyn Dodgers. He needed to leave, to free himself, to allow himself the things that would make him a writer. Now, forty years and seventeen successful novels later, he returns for his first book reading in his home town.

Before the reading, he walks his old neighborhood, now clean and gentrified. His memories make him uneasy and a run in with the brother of the woman he left behind reveals some unpleasant truths. His past, one he didn’t know existed, now comes back to haunt him. His freedom came at a cost, and the bill is due.

Notable Passage: “On this high slope the harbor wind turned snow into iron.”

Rating: 8-7-8-7 Total= 30

#631 The Trimmed Lamp- O.Henry

#631 The Trimmed Lamp- O.Henry

It’s been a while since we’ve done an O.Henry story, so here we go. It’s O.Henry Friday! In my collection of 100 of his short stories, I randomly opened to this one, The Trimmed Lamp. Like most of his stories this one seems old fashioned and outdated, but quaint.

Lou and Nancy are two young woman just moved to the big city. They have two different ideals about life and love and go about securing their future. Lou gets a job working at a garment shop ironing clothes. It’s not glamorous but she makes good money and gets to keep some of the nice clothes that are left behind. She is seeing a working class man, but does not take him too seriously; she is having fun. 

Nancy on the other hand gets a job working in a high-end boutique. She makes only half of what Lou does, but she believes being around high-end people, she will meet a millionaire husband. She turns down some offers, waiting for perfection. She doesn’t find it, but she does find love. What does Lou find?

Like I said, the sensibilities of 100 years ago are different from today; a story about woman who’s life mission is to work menial jobs so they can find a suitable husband wouldn’t fly today, or shouldn’t at least. But we judge art from the times they were written, and this is vintage O.Henry.

Notable Passage: “She was surrounded by beautiful things that breathed of taste and refinement. If you live in an atmosphere of luxury, luxury is yours whether your money pays for it, or another’s.”

Rating: 7-7-7-7 Total= 28

#362 The Dive Bar- Katherine Heiny

#362 The Dive Bar- Katherine Heiny

This is the first story in the debut book by Katherine Heiny, Single, Carefree, Mellow. This is my first time reading anything by Heiny…she had me at Dive Bar. I like dive bars, I like drinking at dive bars…hell I just like drinking. Of course this story isn’t really about a dive bar.

What I do like about this story is the setting, New York City. There are a lot of writers that are from, have lived in, or pretend to understand NYC. Not all of them succeed. Having moved away from NY just a year ago, and recently returned, reading about the bar and singles scene in Manhattan makes my heart twitch just a bit.

It’s small things, but familiar things, like Sasha and Monique deciding where to drink by walking towards each other on Broadway, and just stop in whichever bar they meet in front of.

“Sarah looks up and sees Monique down the block, and has that thrill you get from seeing someone familiar on the streets of New York, like looking through a box of old paperbacks at a garage sale and finding a copy of a novel you love.”

This collection is about being single. Heiny’s writing style is easy and treats this topic without pretense. So far, she gracefully avoids stereotypes of gender norms, which is hard when dealing with such a topic.

Now I want to go hit up a dive bar and talk with a friend about topics, both meaningful and not.

Rating: 8-8-8-8 Total= 32

#245 The Furnished Room- O. Henry

#245 The Furnished Room- O. Henry

We end this calendar year where this project began, with an O. Henry Story. I hope this past year treated you well, and I hope your New Year is prosperous, and happy. I urge you, as you celebrate with family in warmth and comfort, to spare a thought to those less fortunate souls that suffer in the cold; hungry, needy and just steps outside our doors.

This is an apt tale to tell in such times. “Homeless, they have a hundred homes. They flit from furnished room to furnished room—transients in abode, transients in heart and mind.”

Of course this story is more than just about that. It’s about change, and loss, and loneliness, and longing. This encompasses all the emotions one can feel being alone in an apartment in New York City. The impermanence of apartment living, wondering who lived there before, can make you feel insignificant, meaningless, and cold.

I sincerely hope your New Year’s is happier and less ominous than this story.

Word of the Day: Fugacious –tending to disappear, fleeting. (google)

#225 Sisters of the Golden Circle- O. Henry

#225 Sisters of the Golden Circle- O. Henry

We are aboard a Glaring-at-Gotham tour car. There is a Newlywed couple in the back. We have a case of mistaken identity and a fun vintage O. Henry twist. I’m not sure which adage fits more aptly here: Behind every man is a good woman-woman are crazy- you never know what you’re going to see in New York, etc. Take your pick.

As usual, the writing here is fun and theatrical. I particularly liked this gem about NYC people watching:

“The sidewalk was blockaded by sightseers who had gathered to stare at sightseers, justifying the natural law that every creature on earth is preyed upon by some other creature.”

Notable Passage: “The scent of flowers, the booty of the bee, the primal dip of spring waters, the overture of the lark, the twist of lemon peel on the cocktail of creation—such is the bride. Holy is the wife; revered the mother; galliptious is the summer girl—but the bride is the certifies cheque among the wedding presents that the gods send in when man is married to mortality.”

Rating: 8-7-8-7 Total= 30

#190 From the Cabby’s Seat- O. Henry

#190 From the Cabby’s Seat- O. Henry

Welcome back to a true O. Henry Friday! For the past few months I switched to authors winning the O.Henry prize, but like they say, there’s nothing like the original.

As usual, O. Henry paints a picture of late 19^th century New York that no one else could. There are certain things in life that we all experience the same, no matter rich, poor, big, small, woman, child. This story relates the doings of a Hansom Cab driver making his way through the Urban Jungle.

“The cock-of-the-roost sits aloft like Jupiter on an unsharable seat, holding your fate between two thongs of inconstant leather. Helpless, ridiculous, confined, bobbing liker a toy mandarin, you sit like a rat in a trap—you, before whom butlers cringe on solid land—and must squeak upward through a slit in your peripatetic sarcophagus to make your feeble wished known…Then, in a cab, you are not even an occupant; you are contents.”

Rating: 8-7-7-7 Total= 29

#50 The Love Philtre of Ikey Shoenstein- O. Henry

#50 The Love Philtre of Ikey Shoenstein- O.Henry

Ikey Shoenstein is a night clerk at the Blue Light Drug Store.  He is in love with Rosy.

“Behind his counter he was a superior being, calmly conscious of special knowledge and worth; outside he was a weak-kneed, purblind, motorman-cursed rambler.”

“There as it should be, the druggist is a councellor, a confessor, an advisor, an able and willing missionary and mentor whose learning is respected, whose occult wisdom is venerated and whose medicine is often poured, untasted, into the gutter.”

Now, I know these stories can seem a little quaint and outdated, but they’re short and fun little tales… and where else will you hear someone described as: “a weak-kneed, purblind, motorman-cursed rambler?”

Ikey finds out that his best customer has plans to marry his Rosy but needs him to make a love potion.  Schemes unfold, and twists abound, and O. Henry strikes again!

Rating: 7-6-6-5 Total= 24

#43 Memoirs of a Yellow Dog- O. Henry

#43 Memoirs of a Yellow Dog- O. Henry

It's O. Henry Friday. This short little tale begins with a disclaimer: “I don’t suppose it will knock any of you people off your perch to read a contribution of an animal.” And such as the title suggests, this is a small narrative told from the perspective of a dog.  Being an O. Henry story, the dog of course, grew up in a cold-water flat in old New York City.

I can imagine this story printed in the evening paper and being read aloud after the Sunday meal to the whole family.  I can imagine the following passage getting big laughs:

“Say, gentle reader, id you ever have a 200 pound woman breathing a flavor of Camembert cheese and Peau d’Espagne pick you up and wallop her nose all over you, remarking all the time in an Emma Eames tone of voice: ‘oh, oo’s um oodlum, doodlum, woodlum, toodlum, bitsy-witsy, skoodlums?”

Notable Passage: “If men knew how woman pass the time when they are alone, they’d never marry.”

Rating: 7-7-6-6 Total= 26

#36 The Cop and the Anthem- O.Henry

#36 The Cop and the Anthem- O.Henry

Soapy, a homeless man in New York prepares for the onset of winter. While others set upon the warm islands of the Mediterranean, Soapy merely wishes for the warmth and sustenance of Blackwell’s Island, his longtime winter prison retreat.

He fails in a series of petty crime,s to be picked up and thrown in jail.  Upon hearing an anthem of the Sabbath, he promises to become a better person and a productive member of society.  I’m choosing to ignore the use of obvious false homeless stereotypes, only because O.Henry presents him not as a symbol for all homeless but as one man who acknowledges choosing this lifestyle.  However, it’s hard with modern ears to completely ignore these things.  That said, the quote below is as salient now as 100 years ago. It’s a sad reality that prison is often a preferred choice to homeless shelters.

Word of the day- Epicurean:  Epicurus was a Greek philosopher that believed in material over superstition.  To live modestly and gain knowledge of the practice ways of the world, to know your limits and live within your means is to be Epicurean.

Notable Passage: “The law was more benign than philanthropy…If not in coin you must pay in humiliation of spirit for every for every benefit received at the hands of philanthropy. Ass Caesar had his Brutus, every bed of charity must have its toll of a bath, every loaf of bread its compensation of a private and personal inquisition. Wherefore it is better to be a guest of the law, which though conducted by rules, does not meddle unduly with a gentlemen’s private affairs.”

Rating: 7-7-8-6 Total= 28