New York, January 1 1964
For Thorntree Christmas and for the money, thank you very much.
The five dollars have been used for holiday things like subway fares and
chestnuts and all the incredible things I've been doing. You haven't had
a letter for two weeks! I am sorry, I've been very disorganized and so eager
to tell you everything that I haven't told you anything. I promise to spread
some of the adventures of these two New York weeks over my future letters
so that you'll have it in smaller tastes.
My Christmas gifts were a pair of luxurious lacy blue babydoll pyjamas
from Mrs Voth, a black slip (see diagram), a bottle of Cotillion perfume,
and a theatre ticket for a Broadway play (you must have heard of Who's
Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) - as if they needed to give me anything -
from Auntie and Uncle.
Kingston, January 5, Sunday night
In spite of myself, I'm glad to be back at work, back at the routine,
and home in number 49. Only Marg S, Barb, Bonnie and Karen Kniseley are
back - it is great to see them again, and it has only been two weeks. Everyone
is back with new possessions, stories of parties and of bust-ups with the
hometown boyfriend (the first semester seems to change us and our interests
enough to change old boyfriend-relationships and so the second semester
finds a sharp increase in the number of 'widows'.)
My new year is beginning with a nice-sized residence debt to be handled
by Miss Royce, I hope; a newly-scrubbed room; half a jar of coffee; fifteen
dollars; three chunks of fruitcake (thank you very much Mom, here is another
part of you at university. Marg has already enjoyed a piece and the others
will too, when they get back)(Auntie sent a piece of her light cake too,
very good); church bells ringing in the Sunday night dark outside; a new
semester to begin again and do better in; fifteen pounds to lose; cards
and letters to answer from many of my special people - Mr Gruschilo and
Mrs Pinch, Uncle Ben and Aunt Mary, Dennis Maxwell and David Leonard, Janeen,
Gerald Student (on scholarship at a baseball college in California), the
Abe Sieberts (with a very nice letter), Uncle Herman.
To begin at the end (the beginning will come later), we arrived back
with Lloyd this afternoon, after traveling all morning through the sunny
Christmas card scenery of northern New York State and the Thousand Islands:
red barns, white-painted old houses, sleigh and ski tracks on the hills,
shining curves of snowbank with lavendar shadows, gnarled tree branches
in the old old oaks grasping at the china-blue faraway sky, a relatively
untraveled road on a lazy sunny Sunday, very beautiful and calm. We left
New Jersey between three and four yesterday afternoon, picked up Cathy and
Aida on our way north, traveled until 10, had a party with fried chicken
and apples and homebaked bread Cathy (let me tell you about them and their
family later) had brought, watched TV a bit, slept three-in-a-bed (cheaper
that way). And that is the trip back; much more later, I promise. Tired!
Monday January 6
Newsflash! Judy, you've put the Epps into newspapers all over Canada.
Enclosed is something one of the girls on the floor found in today's Toronto
Globe and Mail - it is a Canadian Press item, which means that it is relayed
to most every newspaper, which may or may not use it. [Headline "Epps
are apt" describing two sisters getting the same medal for grade nine
marks]
Another newsflash - my psychology mark for the midterms was a 93%, and
as I was exiting after class Professor Campbell said "Your paper was
very good, Miss Epp." So far, great, but a skinny boy with glasses
got a 96% (the only other mark in the nineties). That won't do! [The skinny
boy with glasses was Alisdair McLean.]
I'm really very happy to be back studying, enthusiastic - wish the feeling
would last for the rest of the year. Some sadist on the floor tacked a sign
onto our bulletin board reading "Only 13 weeks till the finals."
Diets and rigid schedules are the common thing now.
I'm not in a New York mood tonight at all, sorry, but will be sometime
soon.
It was very good to see the girls again, especially Olivia of course
(she was the last one to come in, having lost her luggage at the station)(and
when she did stagger around the corner we had a shrieked welcome-back and
rushed out together for coffee, that is she had coffee and I watched because
coffee at 10¢ is fearfully expensive - and swapped holiday stories.
She didn't enjoy hers very much, stayed home and had family fights and the
flu'. But she had a lot of new clothes; when she showed them off the floor
gave her a huge cheer because last term she wore mostly one favorite grey
skirt and a bulky blue pullover.)
We are having Chinook-like weather without the Alberta wind - how is
your winter?
Tuesday 7
Scheduling is fantastically useful - you probably know what huge gobs
of time can be lost by 'holes in the pocket' of a day, and scheduling is
THE way to sew up pocket leaks, but it seems that I'm sewing out some letter
time - something must be done about that. Oh, I got a letter from Karen
Gundersen (why didn't you ever tell me about Hazel Potratz' wedding?) and
one from Dorothy Heppler who wrote such a nice letter for congradulations
just before I left for school last autumn (the girl from the University
Hospital, remember?).
Olivia and I had a long talk until one last night, sitting in the total
dark in my room, progressing from books to God and so on. It is most extremely
nice to have a friend.
January 10, Friday
Catherine Downs, the General Motors winner here from Edmonton, reports
a Hawaii Christmas for Alberta - resort-like warmth. We've had rain and
wind. Exciting. (I talk about the weather a great deal don't I - and usually
I say it is exciting. Rather dull for you, but I like weather so you'll
continue to hear about it.)
Gloryouse! I was given an A for my psychology essay, in a class where
an A really IS an achievement. Another A in my English essay too. The remark
was "Excellent. You have a fresh, thoroughly readable way of expressing
yourself. However, I would repress tendencies towards the 'poetic'."
My Christmas exams were not tremendously good, but they will be better at
the end of the year. Christmas exams, too, are notorious for their stiff
marking.
New York I - January 1964
I think that I left you with Sunday, the day after I arrived at Auntie
and Uncle's. From my notes:
Postscript to Sunday: the evening was very Family. Mia and Uncle do exercises
together every night. She calls them 'gymnastik." Tonight she insisted
that Auntie and I join them, regardless of our straight skirts. So we lay
solemnly side by side on the carpet, "Right leg up. Slowly, slowly,
slowly, pflumps!" Uncle intoned. Then we put on a record of "tanz
Musik" and all four of us ran 'round the room with Mia, squeezing behind
the sofa, around the coffee table, with Mia squealing delightedly and the
rest of us enjoying our inhibited selves despite our concern for the lamps.
Then Mia was put to bed and we tackled the tree, Auntie and I, with Uncle
lying down comfortably on the sofa and criticizing the way we strung up
tinsel. They have a large irregular bushy tree that we had to turn until
it looked symetrical - poor thing - hiding its individuality. We had only
one string of lights, and the result was much trouble spreading them evenly
over the whole of its bulk. In spite of our affection for the poor gawky
duckling of a tree we had to stand back several times and laugh at it. But
Auntie went to work again, and we turned it into a swan: a tree with all
sorts of elegance and charm - and a silver corsage at the top instead of
an angel.
You can see how very good the Dycks are being to me, enclosing me in
all their family warmth and sharing their family customs without any trace
of selfconsciousness. Also they let me do things like washing the dishes
and pampering the baby, without any of those phariseic "you are a visitor"
protests. Uncle is thoroughly on holiday and participates in all the planning
of the housekeeping: food, furniture moving, and child-raising. He romps
with Mia a great deal and she worships this fun daddy of hers.
Monday the 23rd: stayed home and studied, read, cuddled 'Lizabeth, played
with Mimes, helped vacuum and stuff, babysat in the evening while Auntie
and Uncle shopped. All day the snow fell in enormous white powderpuffs,
eventually clogging the roads to the extent that people all over New York
were told to get and stay off them until the cleaning crews had been around.
Tuesday the 24th: from notes. "City of the Four Million" -
that was Walt Whitman's description of New York. I intend to see as many
of those four million as I can!
I am reporting from a coffee shop one street off the famous 5th Avenue
where the price of my cup of coffee has rented a journalating and map-studying
table, and dipping-into privileges for the bowl of dill pickles that stands
on every table.
I took the local bus into the City from New Jersey this morning - it
terminates here at the Port Authority Depot, which is a sort of city in
itself, with stacks of loading ramps for buses and a honeycomb of escalators,
and every sort of service imaginable, including eye-testing and glasses
fitting. A pudgy nice-looking Italian sold me a city map and said "I'll
give it to you without tax," with a grin and a wink at his boss's back.
There are striking, pleasant, attractive faces on the streets: then too
there are warty yellow pickle-faces with bristles of platinum hair wisping
from under their mink hats.
- There is a fruit-seller on a dirty curbside with grapefruit the size
of melons and apples like grapefruit, everything shiny and twice as big
as real. There are myriads of newspaper kiosques as well, selling magazines
and matches and the day's Times. They seem a New York landmark, low, narrow
shacks holding down the street corners, with red faces peering from them
framed by fur collars and plaid mufflers and the stacks of papers. Sometimes
the faces are young and pretty; sometimes they are cross and old; all seem
unreal and not attached to real people because they are without expression.
- Everything is in a filthy slush, the snow like thin porriage half a
foot deep. People along the curbs curse impudent taxis that whirl through
the gruel and splash it up into their faces.
- A dingy building announces that it is the Metropolitan Opera House,
the famous 'Met.' A skyscraper calls itself the McGraw-Hill Publishing House
- home of most of our textbooks!
- The taxis are yellow with red tops, brassy snub-nosed things not at
all like the sophisticated Chevs of other cities.
- A negress in the bus station had her hair dyed a happy yellow.
- A vendor has an ingenious suitcase that he can set on end and wheel
along through the porriage.
- The famous Macy's department store is, it's true, the largest in the
world, but it is very ordinary and is full today of people glued into mobs
shopping for tomorrow. The Santa Claus is a horrible beet-faced skinny
man who growls at the children, threatens their parents, and sneaks off
to "feed my reindeer."
Christmas Eve: we had a glass of 'gluvine' (I do not think that is the
correct spelling, but it is the very warming sugar and heated wine brew
that Uncle Harvey stirs up so well) and sat around in the living room with
the tree lit up and the 'kranz' (the evergreen wreath stuck with three red
candles, with a small Swedish chimes set in its centre, going round and
tinkling as the candles below set up convection currents) glowing. We sang
all the carols we could think of, ate fruitcake and tangerines, and drifted
off to bed rather early.
Christmas Day: woke in the living room when Mimes came squealing in:
she had heaps of loot under the tree, all kinds of gadgets, a doll bed,
and a shiny expensive doll carriage that was the delight of Uncle and Auntie.
Of course what delighted her most were the two candycanes in her stocking.
Auntie and Uncle were a bit disappointed.
It had snowed during the night so no one felt guilty about not going
to church. Dinner was elegant, set in the dining room with the best crystal
and china, and wine - a beautiful and enormous turkey, cranberry sauce,
stuffin', you-know-the-rest, and a pretty dessert in tall glasses. The whole
day was pleasantly misty, lazy, sunny, warm. And rather ordinary. Christmas
ain't what it uster be? Oh, gifts. Uncle had given Auntie a sewing machine,
and she gave him a certificate for one of the Russian fur hats she knew
he wanted.
Read, talked, ate, dozed, played with Mia and Babes. We got into the
habit of calling Maria "Mimes" and Elizabeth "Babes",
so Mia retaliated by calling them "Moms" and "Dads."
To include me in the family Uncle Harv calls me "Ells."
December 26, from notes:
Subway station! I am sitting and waiting for the five o'clock rush to
begin, deep in the grimy labyrinths of the ITR. The trains are caterpiller-like
short ones with three to eight cars. They tear past the stations at a terrifying
rate but to my amazement manage to scream to a stop just before the tail
end flies past. I see only scraps of faces speeding by, like montages of
photograph-snippets glued into dirty window frames. The walls on the other
side of the tracks are papered in advertisements for Broadway shows and
Tums and Old Hickory.
I spent the 26th for the most part downtown seeing the famous Times Square
which is really only a running-together of streets and not a square at all;
the length of the Avenue of the Americas; browsing through a wonderful little
shop full of wild imaginative clothes and jewellry; the forest of skyscrapers
that is Rockerfeller Center, the skating rink set in Rockerfeller Plaza,
below the street and on the same level as the huge glass windows of a pink-tableclothed
restaurant where the patrons watch the skaters as they eat; the lights of
Radio City; the glittering jewel and fur windows of the Fifth Avenue shops;
the austere apartments of Park Avenue; the distant silhoette of the Empire
State Building needling into the grey smoke-soup sky; Grande Central Station
teeming (a spiteful old lady in the restroom, a charwoman, kept grabbing
the privy doors for the pay-booths before people could sneak into them without
paying, muttering "Oh, now, you'd better pay yer dime"); and lunch
at an AUTOMAT. You put your money into slots beside the item you want, turn
the knob, pull out your lunch, elbow to a table, and stare hostilely at
the strangers across from you while you chew. (Two fat old men across from
me sat and told 'fish stories' about the one that got away on the stock
market.)
December 27 (notes):
My adventure today was a ride on the 3rd Avenue bus, a bus that travels
from City Hall at nearly the south end of Manhattan to nearly the north
end of the island. It is the longest urban bus route in the world, two hundred
blocks and over twelve miles one way, taking nearly two hours to traverse.
It slices through the middle of the East Side, laying open a colorful cross-section
of the city. I found it very exciting. Soon after it leaves the City Hall
Wall Street area it enters the Bowery, the skid row area of pawn shops and
frowsy saloons and gutters full of drunks. Here a thin, drooling old man
who must have been about 45 literally crawled onto the bus. He fell into
the front seat and began to sing loudly while the two ladies in the seat
behind him poked each other and moved to another seat. What he was singing
was "I had a dream dear."
The bus passed a corner of Chinatown, then moved into an area of antique
shops, gradually becoming more wealthy and more glittering, windows full
of dusty lamps becoming windows full of chandeliers. The bus became crowded,
the poor old drunk being jostled against a thin-eyebrowed woman in a brocade
coat with black fox cuffs, a redhead with maroon lipstick clinging in anguish
to a post to keep from careening into some gentleman's lap, a haughty young
man looking very anxious as he balanced just over me. The aisle was full
of feet and there really wasn't room for mine - I would dearly love to have
folded their toes in like socks being put away, but they had to stay where
they were and be tripped over by the whole mob.
-
January 16, morning
Folks - as a recess from NY narrative, a bit of a real letter. Your three
letters arrived this morning, I was most pleased for them. Have I told you
about Catherine Egan who shares my mail box? I think so. Yesterday she was
gloating because she got two, and I had none. Last week, though, Mrs Kroeker
in Grande Prairie wrote me a fairly long letter in Gothic German - I was
flattered and managed to read most of it. It is always interesting to hear
what old acquaintances are going, and to hear that Jake is entering theology
is a novelty to say the least.
New developments here are that last Monday when the Camera Club held
its first meeting I joined, to become the only girl in the 13-person organization.
It is a bit embarrassing, but to say that I MIND would be a lie. I'm newspaper
correspondent for the club. They are outfitting a darkroom, and have promised
to help when I decide to try some developing and enlarging and printing
of my own.
Had coffee last night with a tall thin porky-eared Artsman named David
Dowsley who is a schoolteacher who is in his second year in Arts after two
years of teaching and one of Normal - strange that older men (and that should
be in quotes) are so much more attractive.
My new phys ed schedule is modern dancing, which you needn't worry about
because the fancy name means doing exercises to music - an all-girl class.
Minds at ease?
The coming weekend is "Snowball Weekend" and besides the snow
fun, socializing, and sports planned, there will be judging of snow sculptures
going up now all over the campus. One is a snow shovel formed to look like
a gargoyle with a grotesque grin and naughty eyes. One is a Buddha - they
have an iron out and are sizzling the knotty clumps of his hair into the
ice with it.
You asked about McGill University Mother - it is larger, I think, than
Queen's, and because our U is its most deadly rival I am in no position
to say anything nice about it, but it does have an extremely good reputation
and also the added advantage of being situated in Montreal - it is likely
that I shall do some graduate work there. It is a good bet, Judy, and an
Edmonton girl got a General Motors Scholarship there last year.
My financial problems are mended now, thanks to a loan of $275 which
Miss Royce produced out of a hat today - not exactly out of a hat, but:
she simply pushed me into an office and said "Mr Bannister, here is
one of our good students from Alberta who needs some money. I'm backing
her." So the formidible Mr Bannister wrote "backed by Jean Royce"
on a card and said "Pick your money up on Monday morning."
Monday January 20
Weekend over and back to work. This has been an extraordinary weekend
- the very pleasant date with Norm (pleasant is exactly the word); and the
Sunday! Letters written before church, a very good service at the chapel
with the padre speaking on "Religion: Problem or Privilege?",
a SCRUMPU*SUMPTU*OUS dinner (fried chicken legs with squash and peas and
cheese with ice cream cream puffs) spent talking to a new friend Maureen
[Law] (have I told you about her? redheaded, very intelligent, good company),
then several hours of work in the library, then when the library closed
at five, coffee and tarts in the Union with Ghazali and Leslie (both from
the West Indies) talking on the frustrating and rather pointless but exciting
topics of what is life, what is conformity, is man capable of choice, etc.
Then a rush downtown to see the German film, "Die Brücke,"
presented by the film society. It is one of the most magnificent movies
I have ever seen; and one I am sure you would like as well. Not enjoy, however
because its subject was what happened when a group of six sixteen-year-old
German boys did when they were inducted into the war, just the day before
the Allied army stormed their town. They were set to guard a bridge which,
although they didn't know it, was to be blown up to prevent Allied entrance
to the town. Their commander, who knew about the explosion plans, was to
evacuate them when the time came. However, he was killed in an accidental
scuffle when he went into the village to get coffee for the boys. They were
left with the bridge and an impassioned desire to do their best to defend
"das Vaterland." Dawn came, and the German army was on the run,
their trucks roaring past the boys on the bridge. But the boys refused to
leave. When the Allied tanks came, the six banged and battered at them -
dying one by one - until they turned around and waited for a while. Only
two boys were left. They started back toward the town. They met the demolition
squad just as they were beginning to set the charges. The boys refused to
believe that what they had defended was to be blown up anyway. In his excitement,
one of them pulled a gun and shot the officer. One boy was left to stumble
back to the surrendered town. The last scene was a long shot of the bridge
with the spread-eagled figure of the last boy alone on the bridge as the
smoke from the burning town blew across the screen.
I had arranged to meet Don [Carmichael] there after the film to give
him "The Sun Also Rises" in exchange for a book of Salinger short
stories, so he walked me through the puddles to the Laverty's. The padre
invites about two dozen students to his home every Sunday night, plays games,
chats with them. We had coffee and homemade cookies by candlelight, listened
to records before the glowing fireplace, met people. I spent some time speaking
to Mrs Laverty, who is the perfect wife for the padre - gracious, but warmly
and comfortably gracious. And there was no prostelizing during the whole
evening.
Tuesday 21
I thought of you today as I wandered about campus in the sun and the
slush in shoes and a sweater. And yesterday it rained, rained, as Olivia
and I stood in the window and watched the water sliding down the slate roof
and choking away down the drain. I ran around campus from class to class
all afternoon smiling at people I don't know.
So today I visited the lake; it is frozen over, smooth to the islands
far across. The sun was at late afternoon and the ice reflected it in a
sheet - skaters were spidery silhoettes. There is a funny island on the
horizon that looks like a palm-treed desert island, just from the shape
of the trees.
Tom and I are moving into another English class.
Thursday 23
The university is sponsoring a series of three lectures by an eminent
American writer and historian, Dr Muller. The subject is individualism in
the twentieth century: Monday features "Individualism in Historical
Perspective"; last night, "The Pressures against Individualism";
and Monday night will be "Prospects of the Individual." Last night's
lecture was rather good: he states the problem well. But I do not like much
of his rather stereotyped humour. What he said in effect was that today's
widespread industrialization, organization, and mass communication have
made non-conformity in its real sense almost impossible. My addition would
be "probably not possible at all." However, a well-stated question
is about as far as any lecturer on any subject can go.
So when we came back from the lecture Oliver and I sat up until one talking.
I think I forgot to tell you that on Sunday night she and I and Cathy Widdess
(who is an extremely likeable person) talked until quarter to three.
So you want to hear more about Oliver? She is inviting me to Toronto
for a weekend in February so that I can meet her family. She already feels
as though she knows you all because I read her bits of my letters from you
and show her pictures and so on. She has a fifteen year old sister too,
who seems to be rather different from you, though, sibling, and she has
a four year old brother named Richard. Her father is a corporation lawyer
and her mother is a school teacher and a hobby-artist. They seem a highly
interesting family. Last night O was telling me about some of her eccentric
relatives in Wales. The whole tribe is nearly pure Welsh, therefore high
strung and terribly erratic. Always committing suicide and getting divorces
and things like that. Also fighting over inheritances. Her grandfather frightens
his grandchildren by taking out his glass eye and staring his socket at
them! One of her aunts is on her fourth husband. One of her great uncles
comitted suicide last summer (because he had been cut off from an inheritance)
by jumping from an upstairs window in his long underwear and drowning in
the horse trough. Or perhaps he was pushed - nobody knows for sure. When
we go to Europe Olivia is going to show me some of these - we'll probably
stay with them for a while.
As for Olivia herself, she is feeling a bit more cheerful since Andy
has been phoning regularly and has cut out some of his undesireable friends.
Her English marks at Christmas were good: a first class in her advanced
course and about 10% more than me in the final - ah, but wait till next
time!
As a few examples of Oliviations: she was talking about the Grandmother
who lives with them yesterday, describing what had happened when her Granny
hammered a picture - and her thumb - up onto the wall (she has a little
accident whenever she feels that she is being ignored). "So she whacked
this thing, and all the skin came off and all the nerve ends came BOMBING
out." And when she found a run in her stocking, "Oh, dammitdammitdammit
I have a ladder, I have two ladders!" All of this on an epic scale
too. We laugh at each other quite a bit: but so far, although she has rained
brimstone and black looks on nearly everyone on the floor at one time, I've
escaped. She's a real honey - she would very much like to meet you (although
she is sure you won't approve of her) and I would love to bring her home
to see some Peace River Country.
Friday 24
Yesterday Olivia and I did some house hunting in the afternoon - have
I told you that we plan to live together? (Good training for me in living
with temperament, good training for her in living with a prude). Afterward
we made paper boats and sent them floating down the rivulets of melted snow
flowing along University Avenue. Then we stocked up in Chalmers Grocery
down by the lake for a midwinter's picnic: a huge sack of wilted grapes
that they gave us for a dime, some wee squares of Gruyère (a white
cheese, extremely good), some crackers and some ice cream. We ate all this
sitting on a red and white bench amid the frozen grass along the lakeshore,
watching the skaters. It was warm and seemed like spring. Then we came back
to residence and curled up under blankets to get warm - and read poetry.
This funny Oliver is going to be an adventure to live with. We have dropped
into a very peculiar habit of thinking of my room as 'our room,' mainly
because when I am home and in it she usually is too.
This weekend is going to be a bit different from the last - a minimum
of ten hours of studying per day is what it will amount to.
The next letter will feature New York again.
The new English lecturer that we are going to now is very satisfactory.
He made an exciting deviation yesterday into his pet mania, architecture.
He is especially interested in Kingston architecture, and I am becoming
enthusiastic about it too. There are many strange houses with strange stories.
The very big problem now is finding a summer job. I am clearly not going
to be coming home, at least not before September, and then only if I make
a fantastic heap of money.
[New York part II]
More dusty pawn shops, thrift stores, lineups outside mission soup kitchens,
musical instruments hanging in headhung dejection in shop windows.
Only a few streets further, money. White marble office buildings, dinner
clubs. The antique shops become more dazzling, gilt furniture and red Ming
vases with their chipped edges inside.
At last our drooling derelict staggered off; a man outside at the bus
stop corner looked at him sadly and said, "How's it going, Skipper?"
He walked away stiffly, like a toy soldier, holding his very thin coat together
where the safety pin had fallen out.
Furs draped over doorways like very tired old animals, a funny store
advertising "things and things and things and things."
And then the area becomes slowly infiltrated with signs in Spanish, "Iglesia"
(church, a mission usually), "Farmacia Latina," "Madame Lora,
Spiritual Advisor: Love, Marriage, Business." This is the beginning
of Spanish Harlem. I fell into conversation with a brown-faced little Spanish
man in a wide-brimmed hat who shared his Spanish newspaper with me. We sat
and flirted, roaring over his Spanish funnies, and rolling eyes at each
other.
This is a slum area, lean brick tenaments with gay plants in blue and
green coffee cans sitting on the fire escapes, posters plastered onto grey
walls, a heavy-set cop leaning against a door swinging his stick, a very
old lady powdering her face in a window, a beautiful negro smirking behind
his hotdog stand, a peculiar sharp smell that I cannot place, pink underwear
sagging on a clothesline, a cluttered meatshop window offering chitterlings.
As a study in contrast, quick views of the breathtaking Washington Bridge
between the walls. Firemen in rubber coats returning from a fire. A sudden
hill sloping steeply down for a long way, shining mysteriously in reflection
of the sunset - New York is really everything they say about it.
When we had made the complete circuit, my busdriver (a pleasant negro
who had been on that same route for twelve years) bought me a cup of coffee
and told me a bit about the real New York, the city he sees everyday. Impersonal,
lonely, pushy.
December 29: at home again, reading, studying a bit. Uncle was working
hard on an article.
December 30: In the afternoon Uncle drove over to the Island to pick
up Uncle John from the bus station, and after I'd said hello to him too
I spent the afternoon exploring. There is a street shaved off to one side
of Manhattan, Nineth Avenue, that slides corners of Greece into this new
American setting - there are butcher shops with whole rabbits hanging unskinned,
upside down in the windows, and piglets with ferns and a red light bulb
in their mouth leering at the passers. Heaps of brilliant red peppers. Sacks
lining the sidewalk full of Columbian coffee beans, cowpeas, poppy seed,
spices, paprika, 'favas'; butcher shops offer squabs and unfeathered ducks;
a small café displays a dirty skillet in its window with red peppers
and onions sizzling sadly in it greasy corners; heaps of fruit carefully
guarded from the kids playing hockey nearby on roller skates; pyramids of
purple cabbage and purple eggplant; raw fish in barrels full of ice; cheeses
hung from ropes in a display window; scrubbed white stomach lining looking
like sponge; barrels full of fire for the outdoor merchants to warm their
hands at; a very black negro smiling mysteriously over his fire; a swarthy
gypsy who gave me a handful of greasy black olives to taste when I bought
an orange; a very old woman leaning in a doorway with a child's sucker in
her mouth; signs like "Couphopaulos Meats" above a doorway; and
the Greek pastry shops!
Before I could stop myself I was inside one of them. There were beautiful
tangles of bread baked especially for the holiday season, glazed and sprinkled
with seeds; other trays of flaky little rolls. When I asked about these
I was told that they were almond and honey pastries that the Greeks specialize
in. I bought half a dozen to take back to the Dycks, after the shopkeepers
gave me one to taste. While I ate and watched all sorts of people came in
to buy the enormous round paska-like holiday breads, some bought handfuls
of webby-looking noodles as well, and when the little serving girl ran back
and forth with heaps of them I caught glimpses of the baking activities
in the back. The proprietor caught me taking notes and asked very anxiously
whether I was taking a survey.
Near this street is another, lined with shabby small theatres advertising
second-rate musicals and burlesques. The theatres in New York, even the
large important ones, are shabby outside although some of them are gilt
and shiny inside.
The Village - to tell you about the village I think I'll describe the
two people I met who seemed an essence of the Village.
There was Curran of Horizon Galleries. I saw his sign above the doorway
of a half-flight of stairs going down into a basement apartment, and followed
it to a door that rang when I opened it and a roomful of paintings. And
a young man with the hopeful signs of a new beard. He had a rather wistful
face, a light voice barely touching down occasionally on an arty accent,
longish hair, a very thin body, a hammer in his hand - I discovered that
he was Curran, painter, actor, and gallery manager. While he showed me his
paintings and those he exhibits for his friends, he brought me a cup of
coffee in a very ladylike white cup - he drank his from an enormous mug.
Those were probably the only cups he had. His gallery was his home as well.
Behind the two little exhibition rooms was a dark kitchen with one sink;
a single grey window looked out onto a courtyard of ashcans and fire escapes.
Because he desperately needs more exhibition space, an abstract was pinned
onto his bathroom door, and the closet where he sleeps (one skimpy pillow,
one sheet) has a metal mobile swinging above it and a telephone at its foot
end.
There was a small flight of stairs leading to the upstairs hallway. This
too was piled with canvases and small sculptures. Another very large painting
was propped up in the sink. One of Curran's favorite objects was an awkward
pottery vase, huge and heavy, with a rim of metal half-melted into the top
- a rather hideous but beautifully natural-looking thing. One of my favorite
pieces was a metal sculpture of a girl's hooded head - another favorite
was a dreamlike painting of the New York skyline as I saw it in my mind
before I saw it in real; and actually the way I still see it in my mind;
blues greens hazing together but strong rather than truly haze-like.
Curran's friends wandered into the gallery while I was leafing through
pictures. To one of them Curran said, "Have you been eating?"
"Well, not today." "I am - I went to my banker yesterday
and said, 'I think I'll eat this week, rather than pay my rent.' And he
said, 'You'll be sorry' and I said 'I'd rather feel sorrow than hunger.'
So - stay and I'll give you supper." This I think sums up my reasons
for loving Greenwich Village: these young people really are often hungry
and their income is hugely uncertain. But they don't care; they don't run
to the hideous security of a dull job; they live dangerously and do what
they like. It's courage!
I'll give you another example:
Shirley is a rather pretty, very thin negro girl with a little independent
dress shop in the Village. When I wandered into her shop (Village shops
open about two o'clock and stay open until midnight) she was behind the
colorful floor-to-ceiling curtain that closed off the back wall. She emerged
to chat and show me some of her favorite dresses, then impulsively invited
me to her tiny workroom behind the curtains to inspect a bolt of figured
velvet she was particularly keen about. The workroom was overflowing with
snippets, a sewing machine, a combination sewing-cutting-drawing-coffee
table, a phonograph, and pattern tissue. She designs, sews, plans, balances
accounts, everything by herself, with a boyfriend called Tommy working the
leather sandals that she sells as well. All of her clothes are striking
and imaginative. She set the shop up by herself, runs it by herself, all
against the advice of wiser friends. And she is making a profit just large
enough to live on now. Tomorrow, who knows?
Not long after I'd reached home again that night Lloyd Zbar called asking
whether he could take me for an additional bit of night-light-sightseeing:
result, I didn't see much of Uncle John that night. Just as we left in Lloyd's
convertible - I had to mention the car! - however, he and Uncle Harvey were
running around the house like burglars with a ladder, trying to rescue the
babysitter downstairs because she had locked herself out with no key.
An aside on doors and keys and locks, here. In New York everyone locks
their outside door, particularly in a duplex like Auntie and Uncle's where
the front door opens onto a small vestibule (this particular one is carpeted
in moss green with a naked plaster cupid standing in a corner with some
draggly rushes leaning over his shoulder). When I push the outside doorbell
button, Uncle upstairs pushes a buzzer which activates the two-way talkie
system connecting upstairs and downstairs, and the door automatically unlocks
and flies open. This vestibule then opens to the staircase, also carpeted
in moss, and to a door at the top which is also locked - here a knock brings
Mimes or Dads running to open it.
Lloyd - at my request - showed me through the emergency area of Bellevue
Hospital (one of the world's most famous hospitals, situated in the slum
areas - lots of knife wounds and much experimental-developmental work).
It was very quiet during the time we were there. All the "no smoking"
and direction signs were in Spanish as well as English. (In subways too.)
Then we went to see the Village at night, wandered through the bookstores
where piles of best-sellers are selling at reduced prices and many of the
tables have 59¢ signs - new books. During his 'broke' days Lloyd used
to take girls book-browsing for an expenseless date.
And then we went to a Village coffee house for coffee and a chance to
stare at the natives. The waitresses were thin longhaired creatures with
heavy eye make-up and a few of the patrons wore paint-splattered bluejeans,
but most of the young people - and the village seems made for and populated
only by young people - were extremely attractive.
The Figaro is a two-story restaurant with loud piano classical upstairs
(for highbrows) and jazz downstairs (for lowbrows, you see, under the floor).
The walls are covered with newspapers shellacked to a shiny syrup color,
the lights are dim and yellow, the tables small and tightly spaced and the
floor is a sort of flagstone. Really very attractive. When in New York,
see it. Oh, you may use this as a travel guide for your next trip to New
York, family; you may even publish it if you like. Books like "New
York on Five Dollars a Day" and "Subways are for Sleeping"
are very popular.
Somewhere in the tangle of afternoons, mornings and evenings I've told
you about was one that I forgot to put in its proper place. The evening
that Uncle took Auntie and me to the movies. We drove over to Manhattan
in the lights, across the rather wonderful George Washington Bridge whose
two six-lane levels are nearly continuously busy. The movie we decided to
see was an Italian film (subtitled) called "8 1/2" by a famous
"New Wave" producer called Arturo [I know better now] Felinni.
It was a psychological study of a young movie producer showing three levels
of consciousness, memory, imagination, and awareness of the present, all
confused so that the present would fade away into memory of something that
happened when he was a child, and then brighten to the scenes his very lively
imagination pieced together from the present and past. Though confusing
in spots (depicting very well that the present is a composite of memory
and imagination as well as reality, and showing as well what trouble the
main character himself had in telling them apart) the film was an exciting
thing in the same sense that an algebraic puzzle is exciting.
After the movie Uncle took us down Broadway to one of their old student
haunts, a tiny pizza gallery - squashed in on both sides by larger buildings,
so long and narrow looking - with just a counter, a large oven, and two
spindly thin tables, and a pretty daughter flirting with a guest in the
back room. There was one other customer, a garrulous and semi-drunk little
Sicilian woman who made eager semi-understandable jokes with us and was
no end amusing. Meanwhile the pizza making wife shrieked at her, at her
husband, at the daughter in the back. Uncle and Auntie recalled enjoying
a pizza there once to the accompaniment of a pizza-hurling fight between
the woman and her husband, all in perfect unselfconsciousness of both the
customers and the display window.
Auntie and Uncle both bring up very interesting little stories of their
student days - living in the little Broadway boarding house, all their lunatic
neighbours, the Christmas they were broke.
You should hear about that Christmas. They had no money at all, Auntie
had been working at the library to support them and was practically emaciated,
Uncle had been studying slavishly. No money for Christmas. But they had
heard that American hospitals buy blood for as much as twenty-five dollars
a pint. So they went to the nearest hospital the day before Christmas: fifty
dollars for gifts and a turkey! But Auntie was too thin, they refused to
take any blood from her. And for Uncle's pint, they were given only five
dollars. So they bought each other books and even managed a very, very small
turkey. Those two really are delightful people. Never in the whole two weeks
did anything petty upset either of them, and never in any way did they let
me feel that I was being a nuisance. And they still like each other. They
could reconcile me to the idea of marriage, if it is possible for anyone
to do it. Uncle calls Auntie "Hunsel" - it looks like German doesn't
it - I think tho it is just a corruption of the good old English "Hon."
The night before New Years, when Uncle John was with us, we had tickets
for a Broadway play, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" by Albee
who is an obscurist American playwright. This particular play has been running
on Broadway for about two years, has received much good reviewing, and was
convenient - so we went to the Billy Rose Theatre, which I'm sure you've
read about. From the outside it is grimy and very New York. (All important
places built before the skyscraper rage are grubby.) Inside, it is mirrors,
gilt paint, red velvet and white, white walls: rather palace-like but not
ostentatious really: elegant. It is not the immense sort of theatre we are
so used to in the west. Rather, it is small and personal, the sort of theatre
you could see people like Molière writing plays for. We took the
subway downtown from a parking lot, the four of us mushing through the snow
arm-in-arm and then riding bang-lickety-bang through the tunnels staring
at people and commenting about them. Uncle John is good company - we pretended
he was my date. After the film we walked up along Broadway. Beautiful. The
lights along the street, blazing from all the marquees on the most famous
theatre street in the world. The sky was strange colors, luminous oranges
and green-purples between the roofs. Uncle told me it was only the smog,
but I think it is magic. New York style smoggy magic.
New Years Eve? We listened to the radio, some lovely soft music by Corelli
(a name I've picked up from Music 1). We all read our separate books with
the Christmas tree shining in its corner and the lamps low. Candles by the
window. (Uncle Harvey has a passion for candles.) We had some gluvine (you
know, the Burgundy heated with cloves) and it made us all so sleepy that
by the time New Years officially arrived we had just the energy to say "Have
a happy ..." and tumble into bed.
Oh, when Uncle John arrived he got the sofa in the living room and I
got a cot in the dining room, which was very funny because through the iron
legs of the cot I could hear everything going on downstairs. In the mornings
we would both solemnly pack up our blankets and haul them away to the closet.
Uncle used to tease us: "Arise, take up your beds and go"!
Watching Uncle John with Mia was fun! He wound her entirely around his
big masculine little finger - she was always crawling into his lap. And
he brainwashed her: that is, he and Jenny did. Auntie and Uncle were having
a bit of fun with poor gullible little Mimes. Whenever she was a bit orn'ry
they would say "But Jenny does ...," "But Jenny doesn't ..."
Well, Maria has a doll called Susie whom for a completely unknown reason
she disliked enormously. She refused to take it for rides in her new buggy,
refused to feed it, squalled if anyone mentions the discriminated-against
doll. Then Uncle John, one day, with a rather fiendish glee, said, "But
Jenny has a Susie, and Jenny is very nice to her Susie. She LOVES her Susie.
Do you love your Susie?" And Maria melted: "Ja." From that
moment Susie was a guest of honour!
And there was the dinner party! Uncle had invited two couples, other
faculty people. I decided to eat early to leave more room at the table and
to be able to look after the kids and incidentally to escape from the horrible
conversation-cranking-out of dinner parties. So I strugglingly subdued Mia
who was determined to join the fun and cocktails rather than go to sleep;
rocked unhappy Lizabeth for hours; washed all the dishes. And when at last
the people had left Auntie Anne collapsed into a chair and spluttered. One
of the wives evidently was a Snob: carefully dropping names of prominent
relatives at every turn in the conversation, bragging about her children,
generally patronizing poor Auntie (who was twice as slim and twice as pretty).
So we spent half an hour tearing the poor woman to shreds and went to bed
laughing at what a dismal flop the whole thing had been.
There was one more excursion into New York before I left for Kingston
again, a trip to the United Nations. This one was rather funny because I
was very, very nearly broke and had to count every single penny. Spent most
of the morning getting lost in the subway, roaring back and forth underground
until I found the right one. The UN is on the side of Manhattan opposite
to New Jersey. The streets are fairly wide and fairly old. There seemed
to be something unusually crisp and tidy about them, but perhaps it was
only the sun and the cold.
The tall slim Secretariat Building truly is a beautiful thing, very straight
in contrast to the curves of the Assembly Building. I can't explain the
emotional effect of the lines of the whole set of buildings - but
it is there, and pretty definite. Or perhaps I'm merely architecture-prone.
I took a tour, the details of which would be pretty boring to you because
it is only so much description of things you have to see to understand anyway.
One of the most interesting things about the tour was the incredibly lovely
creature who guided us. What a goddess! All the guides are attractive, slim,
long-legged, bilingual, and charming. Ours had everything: beauty, warmth,
liveliness and wit. Well ...
Near the beginning of the tour she asked whether any of us were from
other countries. There was a Pakistani and a Yugoslav, and during the tour
a bedraggled Saskatchewan-looking couple approached me and said they were
from Canada too: from Manitoba.
One room I was struck by was the meditation room. It is long and narrow,
nearly dark, furnished with six low benches set in symmetrical rows, and
a strange box-like object in the middle, glowing in a ray of light coming
from the ceiling. So I meditated. When I emerged, a friendly guard at the
door said "Did you pray?" "In a way. Did you?" "Well,
in a way too." "What did you pray for?" "Peace."
But you will have to see it for yourselves someday. I can't describe
the UN.
That is about all of the New York holiday. Kissed everyone goodbye on
Saturday, arrived back at Ban Righ on Sunday: that beautiful cold gleaming
Sunday that I've told you about.
New York - I've been there! So have you.
Tuesday 28 January
I'm sure that I've told you about the lectures I've been going to, by
Dr Muller on individualism. Tonight, as well as Dinner with the Dean, the
meal became Dinner with Dr Muller. And Mrs Muller. And Others. The one girl
in engineering, the one girl in law, several scholarship freshmen and the
Levana executive were at the Thing. After the ceremonial dinner (during
which I gasp rested my elbow inadvertantly on the table several times) there
was a ghastly coffee in the common room before the blazing (I should have
been able to think of another word there, I know) fireplace. The reason
that it was ghastly was that we bravely clustered about the Great Man and
asked him eager questions. He is a fraud, utterly, utterly. Not only does
he not have a scrap of humour or one spark of visible individuality, but
he also has not one original opinion and little intelligence, at least not
any that showed. His lectures were rather lousy too.
Something that was more fun was last night's Indian reception. It was
the Indian Independence Day. After showing films of the Taj Mahal, or saris
in various parts of India, of Indian marriages, the guests (including all
sorts of important people in fur coats - eg Jean Royce) had various types
of Indian foods. My friend Mohammed Amil Sheikh took my elbow and steered
me through it all telling me what everything was - lapudi, samoza, gugee
- something that looked like pink potatoes studded with raisins was a type
of rice-flour candy. Samoza are delicious meat pastry. My favorite was a
type of deep-fried fish and onion.
When we left, a fresh snow at last had begun to blow in. Amil has only
been here for about two weeks and snow still excites him. We decided, in
a fit of snow-madness, to take a taxi-ride (I didn't feel guilty about his
spending money because he is Assistant Something of Economics in Pakistan
and the Pakistani gov't is giving him believe me a rather nice living allowance).
So we whirled uptown. Had a huge strawberry sundae. Whirled back to residence
again.
Came in and waited up for Olivia. She came in at l:30. We talked until
four. Decided it was too late to go to bed anyway. Stayed up and wrote a
letter, watched the night dissolve into sudden turquoise at seven o'clock
(that was a rather nice line wasn't it). Had a great breakfast with two
bananas and a talk with a girl who went to school in an English boarding
school for four years (her father is with the UN). Then went to the university
service to hear Padre Laverty speak. Dashed down to the lake to find the
ice piled in castle-heaps of blue along the banks, wet snow blown into ridges
along the tree trunks, the whole lake looking like a wasteland in its mist
and its uneven covering of ice. And quite understandably slept all afternoon,
until Olivia woke me at five with a fresh cup of coffee, waved in front
of my nose!
Today, several exciting books. Paul have you heard of the French flier
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry? He also wrote several extremely good books
called "Wind, Sand and Stars," "Night Flight," and a
delightful children's book about a little boy who lives on a tiny asteroid,
called "Le Petit Prince." I'm reading "Le Petit Prince"
in French and am having no trouble at all - it is a good feeling to be able
to skim along in the language nearly as quickly as in English.
The two stamps I'm enclosing are for you, Paul, from Amil. He says that
they are specially printed only one day so they may after about fifty years
be rather valuable. Notice the three languages used on them. English is
one of their official languages, and the language spoken in both universities
and in the civil service.
Olivia and I had a fight yesterday afternoon. I refused to go for coffee
with her because I had to do some work. I yelled that I had to show some
character sometime. She yelled that, well, was she being a bad influence?
In that case ... I yelled that if I was a dissipated old woman it wasn't
her fault. She yelled that why was I accusing her then, and why didn't I
come for coffee with her. I yelled that I refused to be so easily led. She
yelled that for heavens sake I was not being easily led. I yelled that I
was going to do some French. She yelled that I couldn't walk out
on an argument. I yelled that we were really having a fight I think and
wasn't it fun. She yelled well have coffee with me then so that we can enjoy
it. And I yelled that I was going to do some French and I went. She
yelled over her shoulder that she hated people who walk out on arguments.
As a fight, though, it was rather a flop because we were grinning at
each other during the whole thing and couldn't seem to raise any real anger.
What do you think of this madcap friend of mine? You must meet her. Apart
from the fact that she smokes like a petroleum refinery, you'll be sure
to like her.
Ooooo Mother you are slipping as a correspondent. Mr Wiebe's apprehensions,
Mrs Bentrud's new coat indeed! No to be fair I should add that the news
of Johanna's death was most interesting. And Melita does seem to have wandered
into a sticky spiderweb.
A note of reassurance Mother: I'm rather disappointed that you still
think you have to warn me not to get involved with men. That is a lesson
I've overlearned I'm afraid; if anything you should begin now telling me
to by all means and in all possible speed become as deeply involved as passionately
as possible, so that by the time I'm thirty I'll be reconciled to the idea.
If you really want to know, I'm waiting for a prince. I've seen a few here
- or what look like princes - but I've not met any and surely not been out
with any. And also if you want to know, going out with anyone more than
once makes me restless. And I think that is an emotional handicap. So for
goodness sake don't rub it in.
I'm beginning to think that I'm a reincarnation of Uncle Walter, well
as I know that he hasn't died yet and so can't really be reincarnated. But
I think I'm beginning to know what makes him tick. Luckily, I don't think
I'll turn out the same way - partly because of Olivia, who is doing a good
job of reconciling me to humanity.
You said you liked to hear about her. Have I ever told you what she looks
like? She's about my height but thinner: about 120 pounds. She has what
she calls a bottom-heavy European figure which no matter what she calls
it is rather good. Her hair is about as dark as mine, short and usually
tousled. Her face is difficult to describe. It has everything a face needs,
you know, forehead, mouth, nose, chin, etc, but somehow it never looks like
a face to me. One never notices it as a face, just as an intense expression
and a pair of Welsh hazel eyes. That is no help to you I know. Her favorite
outfit as I've told you is a skirt and flats and the blue sweater she knit
herself. That and sometimes an accidental bit of lipstick. Seldom any other
makeup. But it isn't that she is unfeminine, because she is, rather overwhelmingly.
She just can't be bothered. Today she was in a dreadful state because Andy
had been scheduled to go home with her for the weekend, but at the last
moment his parents said no. As a result, I'm going with her as a substitute,
to see if I can't keep her from being too disappointed. And I have been
wanting to meet the Howells. So that is this weekend. Perhaps you'll have
a few days sans the usual page of letter per day. We are taking the noon
train on Friday, and will be back on Sunday night. As an added draw to Toronto
this weekend is a special exhibit of Picasso in the main gallery.
Thursday 30 January
Letter deferred by impending psychology assignment.
31, Friday morning early
Everyone is up at an unheard of hour this morning, to pack for the weekend.
Only five girls will be left, the other eight going to Toronto and other
places. Janet's visiting Marlene, your Marg Spurgeon is meeting Karen Kniseley's
parents (Marg and Karen are living together next year), Barb, Olivia are
going home, Sue is away at a volleyball tourney. And I'm off to the mad
Howells of Toronto!
You must hear about my latest baby-sitting acquisition, the Evertons.
They are Aussies - Australians - with what sounds like a thinned out squeaky
version of the cockney accent. Mr Everson is doing research in the biology
department. He is a very queer little man, tiny-boned and about 5'2"
with a little bit of wispy blond hair, a sharp shrewish little nose, a pointed
chin, and a merry skipalong type of walk. Mrs Everson is large boned and
hefty, with enormous muddy brown eyes, a shaggy mossy head of cropped hair,
a ponderous way of moving. Wee William who is the nine-month-old baby, is
long and thin with a funny but rather dear face, sharp and frightened and
anxious looking but dear nevertheless. They live in an old old two story
house with bare wooden floors, low ceilings, warped linoleum in the kitchen,
reluctant central heating and two faucets which, with the john and a round
archaic bathtub (patterned with flowers from the outside, no less! and with
a queer round shower curtain arrangement) qualify as plumbing. The living
room has a wonderful brick fireplace and a number of beautiful wood carvings
they picked up in Bali on their way here, with embroidered raw-wool Indian
rugs. One bit of the décor that amused me was the effort at a fruit
centerpiece; two apples, an orange and a lemon in a bowl, poor wilted things
looking as if they had been there since the Eversons came from Australia
and perhaps even accompanied them on the sea voyage. But centerpieces aren't
to be eaten, didn't you know? What the Eversons lack in entertainment, however
(no radio, record player, or phone - only one type of magazine - and stacks
of that - Esquire Magazine for Men) they seem to make up in exotic marmalades
and nibblers - ginger marmalade, pineapple marmalade, Old English marmalade,
Australian orange marmalade; Spanish peanuts, a funny grey microscopic walnut,
enormous Australian dinner raisins in a fancy package - and liqueurs [liquors]!
Tidy rows of connaisseur wines in half-empty bottles arranged decoratively
all over both living room and kitchen. Baby sitting is a great outlet for
natural born snoopers, don't you agree?
part 6
- raw forming volume 1: september 1963 - april 1964
- work & days: a lifetime journal project
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