by Lillian Ross
We asked how things were going financially.
“Strange,” he said. “My income is growing. In 1959, I made about a thousand dollars on my work. In 1960, it was ten thousand dollars. In 1961, I’ve made five thousand dollars in two months. The New York income is a small part of it. It means I don’t have to take an outside job, and I like that. Although my tastes are inexpensive, I like to sit in good seats at the theatre, so I can see what’s going on. I don’t think about clothes. I don’t own a suit. I have a couple of sports jackets, and what I like to wear is sweater, slacks, and sneakers.”
“Any plans?” we asked. “Any special thoughts on your last birthday?”
“I’m not looking forward to getting older, but I’m not horrified by it, either,” he said. “I’ve got about two—maybe three—years’ work planned out, considering how lazy I am about what I want to be doing. I’m behind, but I’d rather be behind than be completely caught up. I have three plays in mind and I’m trying to finish two others—‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ and an adaptation of Carson McCullers’ ‘The Ballad of the Sad Café.’ I’m doing the second because it’s sort of a challenge. I’ve never seen an adaptation of anything that was any good. I’m curious to find out if it’s possible to do one without running into what usually happens—the lessening and coarsening of the material. The other play is about a two-in-the-morning drunken party of two faculty members and their wives. These will both be what they refer to as full-length plays, ‘they’ being people who think the theatre has got to start at eight-forty and end at eleven-ten.”
“Any special influences in your writing?” we asked.
Albee gave us a cool laugh. “There are anywhere between five hundred and a thousand good plays, and I’d have to go back to the Greeks and work my way right up,” he replied. “It’s been an assimilative process. Of my contemporaries, after Brecht, I admire Beckett, Jean Genet, Tennessee Williams, and Harold Pinter. In fiction, I have a special preference for Salinger and Updike. I feel happy and comfortable in what I’m doing. I’ve become freer and less free. One develops obligations to oneself, having had one’s productions reasonably well received. I more or less play it by ear. Unless you’re a man like Bernard Shaw, who knew what he was doing at all times, you get yourself in trouble trying to talk about the way you write. It makes for self-consciousness. I’d like to preserve an innocence, so that what I do can surprise me. I’ve been forced lately to articulate what’s been happening to me, and that makes you self-conscious about trying to remain unself-conscious. I go to more parties than I used to. I find I start talking and other people shut up. And that’s terrible. I’ve met more people this past year than I ever met in the past thirty. It’s interesting and valuable to meet accomplished people. It’s instructive. You can always learn from your elders and betters. When I sit down to work, four or five hours at a time are all I can manage. Then I have to go out to the San Remo and have a couple of beers with friends. Summers, I go off to the beach at Riis Park by subway and bus. I stayed with all the plays throughout casting and rehearsals. It’s a pleasant agony.”
1961
FACES — John Updike
IT occurred to us that there is one feature of the Manhattan landscape that we have never analytically described: the faces. So we went out and examined them. The first thing that struck us was how many, many there are. They occur, with rare exceptions, in a narrow belt of space between four and six feet above the pavement. A few glimmer darklingly from windows at an elevation higher than this, and once in a great while, usually late at night, a face may be seen on the pavement itself, but by and large the faces, with surprising conformity, restrict their ebb and flow, advance and withdrawal, as well as their more intricate cross- and counter-movements, to the narrow lateral area described above. Here they hover, like a dense pink cumulus, in a dogged flux as remarkable for its variety as for its nagging persistence.
One’s first impression, in scanning the faces, is of a sameness as striking as that of pigeons, wavelets, or bricks. Attentive examination, however, yields a multitude of distinctions. Not only do the faces of Manhattan vary in color and size but they differ even in individual expression. Some float with eyelids lowered; some stare straight ahead while the lips move rhythmically, producing a small snapping noise, possibly of chewing-gum or sassafras bark, deep in the molars; some glance now and then nervously sidewise at a second face while the lips move spasmodically, forming words. The cheeks of the female faces jounce slightly, under their veil of powder, as the supporting column of the body strides forward on pointed spike heels. A few faces are knitted and reddened by strong emotions, whose classification lies beyond the scope of this study. There are even, among the surging, bobbing mass, a few faces that, like tracer bullets, seem to glow—whether with beauty, piety, or unthinking animal happiness there is no way of ascertaining.
Roughly fifty per cent of the faces are in some way painted, red on the lips being most common, green on the eyelids being somewhat less common, and purple on the eyebrows being a downright rarity. Perhaps fifteen per cent of the faces—invariably male—bear some more or less purposefully shaped ornament of hair, and certainly not more than five per cent are marked by duelling scars, shaving nicks, or deeply dimpled chins. One out of three faces wears twin framed panes of glass in front of its eyes, and in one out of three of these the panes are tinted dark. Curiously—the fact may or may not be significant—the incidence in the dark-glass-pane-wearing faces of mustaches, cigarettes, and defiant scowls is disproportionately high.
How can this disproportion be explained? How, indeed, can the daily apparition of these faces on our streets be explained? How can we rationalize their perverse preference for the rather low plane that they unanimously inhabit, when just a few feet above this jostling, obviously uncomfortable concentration there are vast volumes of empty air? Furthermore, what force or natural law is it that maintains these faces in separation—that prevents them from running indistinguishably together, like the quarts of water in a river, or from swapping identities back and forth freely, like the dabs of sunlight on a ferny forest floor? These are conundrums that it may take science years to unravel.
It remains to comment on the aesthetic effect produced by these faces. There is a peculiar sense in which these natural phenomena differ from a sunset, a spectacular stunt of geological erosion, or a migration of wild birds. Passing through this tirelessly agitated cloud of visages, we felt emanations of hostility and of a danger so subtle that our perception of it was romantically tinged with awe. At the same time, we were exhilarated—despite the fact that many of the faces were wrinkled and distorted, as if from the prolonged application of some maladjusted mask. The exhilaration, furthermore, did not center on the fairer faces in the mass but, somehow, on all of them, whether rouged, bearded, bespectacled, bleary, downcast, anxious, or ecstatic. Individual facial configurations twinkled out at us much as stars must declare themselves to the mariner emerging from a storm, and aroused in us an analogous sensation of unreasonable redemption. In sum, the faces were an extraordinary sight, and we suggest that, after taking in Grant’s Tomb and The Cloisters, you go look at them sometime.
1962
THE MARCH — Calvin Trillin
WE flew to Washington the day before the march and, early the next morning, walked from Pennsylvania Avenue past the side entrance of the White House and toward the lawn of the Washington Monument, where the marchers were gathering. It was eight o’clock—three and a half hours before the march was scheduled to move from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial—and around the Ellipse, the huge plot of grass between the White House grounds and the lawn of the Washington Monument, there were only about half a dozen buses. Most of them had red-white-and-blue signs saying “Erie, Pa., Branch, N.A.A.C.P.,” or “Inter-Church Delegation, Sponsored by National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Commission on Religion and Race,” or “District 26, United Steelworkers of America, Greater Youngstown A.F
.L.-C.I.O. Council, Youngstown, Ohio.” On a baseball field on the Ellipse, three men were setting up a refreshment stand, and on the sidewalk nearby a man wearing an N.A.A.C.P. cap was arranging pennants that said “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Let the World Know We Want Freedom.” Most of the buses were nearly full, and many of the occupants were dozing. Sitting on a bench in front of one of the buses, some teen-agers were singing, “Everybody wants freedom—free-ee-dom.”
On the lawn of the Washington Monument, a group of military police, most of them Negroes, and a group of Washington police, most of them white, were getting final instructions. Women dressed in white, with purple armbands that said “Usher” and blue sashes that said “Pledge Cards,” were handing out cards to everybody who passed. “I’ve already contributed to this,” a man near us told one of the women. But the card asked for no money; it asked instead that the signer commit himself to the civil-rights struggle, pledging his heart, mind, and body, “unequivocally and without regard to personal sacrifice, to the achievement of social peace through social justice.”
Outside march headquarters—a huge tent with green sides and a green-and-white striped roof—workers were setting up a rim of tables. One table held a display of pennants, offering a large one for a dollar and a small one for fifty cents. Inside the tent, a man wearing a CORE overseas cap, a blue suit, an armband with the letter “M” on it, and a badge saying “Assistant Chief Marshal,” was testing a walkie-talkie, and another man was issuing instructions to a group of program salesmen. “Now, everybody report back by nine-fifteen, or whenever they give out,” he said. Two or three Negroes were sorting signs that said “The Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Lynchburg, Virginia.” In a roped-off area near one end of the tent, the official signs for the march were stacked face down in large piles, most of them covered by black tarpaulins. Next to the signs, in an enclave formed by a green fence, half a dozen women sat behind a long table. Two signs on the fence said “Emergency Housing.” Nearby, three or four television crews had set up their cameras on high platforms.
By this time, there were several thousand people on the lawn, many of them gathered around the Monument. An ice-cream truck had managed to drive to within a hundred feet of the Monument and was starting to do an early-morning business. Many of those gathered near the Monument were sitting on the grass, and some were sleeping. Three boys dressed in khaki pants and shirts with button-down collars were using their knapsacks for pillows and had covered their faces with black derbies. There were, we thought, surprisingly few knapsacks and sandals in the crowd. Most of the people were neatly dressed, and as they waited for the pre-march program to start, they acted like ordinary tourists in Washington, or like city people spending a warm Sunday in the park. A man took a picture of a couple standing in front of a sign that said “New Jersey Region, American Jewish Congress”; a policeman was taking a picture of two smiling Negro couples; a woman who was selling programs balanced her programs and her purse in one hand and, with the other, took pictures of the sleepers with derbies over their faces.
By nine o’clock, a group of marchers had congregated outside a green fence surrounding a stage that had been set up several hundred yards from the Monument; they were standing six or eight deep against the fence. More people were arriving constantly—some in couples and small groups, others marching in large contingents. A group of young Negroes walked behind a blue-and-gold banner that said “Newman Memorial Methodist Church School, Brooklyn, N.Y., Organized 1900.” Another group of Negroes—older, and wearing yellow campaign hats that bore the letters “B.S.E.I.U.”—followed four boys who were carrying a long banner that said “Local 144” and two flag-bearers, one carrying the American flag and one carrying a flag that said “Building Services Employees International Union.”
In front of the headquarters tent, a group of young people in overalls and T shirts that said “CORE” were marching around in a circle, clapping and singing.
“I’m going to walk the streets of Jackson,” one girl sang.
“One of these days,” the others answered.
“I’m going to be the chief of police,” another sang.
“One of these days,” the crowd answered.
Near the singing group, a double line of Negro teen-agers came marching across the lawn. All of them were dressed in black jackets. They had no banners or pennants, and they filed by in silence.
“Where y’all from?” a Negro girl in the CORE group asked one of them.
“From Wilmington, North Carolina,” one of the boys replied, and the black-jacketed group walked on silently.
We started toward the stage and happened to come across Bayard Rustin, the deputy director of the march, heading that way with Norman Thomas. Following them up to the stage, we found two other members of the march committee—Courtland Cox, of the Student Non-Violent Coördinating Committee, and Norman Hill, of the Congress of Racial Equality—looking out at the people between the stage and the Monument and talking about the crowd.
At exactly nine-thirty, Ossie Davis, serving as master of ceremonies, tried to begin the pre-march program, but it had to be postponed, because Rustin and Thomas were the only two dignitaries on the stage and many more were expected.
“Oh, freedom,” said a voice over a loudspeaker a little later. The program had started, and Joan Baez began to sing in a wonderfully clear voice. “Oh, freedom,” she sang. “Oh, freedom over me. Before I’ll be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave . . .”
Then came folk songs by Miss Baez; Peter, Paul, and Mary; Odetta; and Bob Dylan. Davis made the introductions, occasionally turning the microphone over to a marshal for an announcement, such as “Mr. Roosevelt Johnson. If you hear me, your child, Larry Johnson, is in the headquarters tent.” By ten-thirty, the expanse of grass that had been visible between the crowd around the stage and the crowd around the Monument had almost disappeared, and more people were still marching onto the lawn, carrying signs and banners. Most of the signs identified groups—such as the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity and the Detroit Catholics for Equality and Freedom—but some had slogans on them, and one, carried by a white woman who marched up and down the sidewalk in back of the stage, said “What We All Need Is Jesus and to Read the Bible.” Another folk singer, Josh White, arrived on the stage while Odetta was singing. White didn’t wait for an introduction. He merely unpacked his guitar, handed the cigarette he had been smoking to a bystander, and walked up to the microphone to join Odetta in singing “I’m on the Way to Canaan Land.” In a few moments, Miss Baez was also singing, and then all the folk singers gathered at the microphone to finish the song.
At about eleven, Davis announced that the crowd was now estimated at ninety thousand. From the stage, there was no longer any grass visible between the stage and the Monument. Next, Davis introduced a representative of the Elks, who presented the organizers of the march with an Elks contribution of ten thousand dollars; a girl who was the first Negro to be hired as an airline stewardess; Lena Horne; Daisy Bates, who shepherded the nine teen-agers who integrated Central High School in Little Rock; Miguel Abreu Castillo, the head of the San Juan Bar Association, who gave a short speech in Spanish; Bobby Darin; and Rosa Parks, the woman who started the Montgomery bus boycott by refusing to move to the back of the bus.
The official march signs had been passed out, and they began to bob up and down in the crowd: “No U.S. Dough to Help Jim Crow Grow,” “Civil Rights Plus Full Employment Equals Freedom.”
At about eleven-forty-five, Davis told the crowd that the march to the Lincoln Memorial was going to begin, and suggested that people standing near the Monument use Independence Avenue and people standing near the stage go down Constitution Avenue. We were closer to Constitution Avenue, and as we got onto the street there was a crush of people that for a moment brought back stories of the dangers inherent in a crowd of such a size. But almost immediately the crush eased, and we walked comfortably down shady Constitution Avenue. We noticed that
practically nobody was watching the march from the sidelines, and that in the march itself there was a remarkable lack of noise. Occasionally, a song would start somewhere in the crowd, but to a large extent the marchers were silent. A few hundred yards from the Monument, the march was stopped by a man who was holding a sign that said “Lexington Civil Rights Committee” and wearing an armband that said “Mass. Freedom Rider.” He asked the people in the front row to link arms, and, beginning to sing “We Shall Overcome,” they moved on down the street.
“Slow down, slow down!” the man from Massachusetts shouted as he walked backward in front of the crowd. “Too fast! You’re going too fast! Half steps!”
A few hundred feet farther on, a policeman and an M.P. stood in the middle of the street and split the crowd down the middle. We followed the group to the left, and in a few minutes found ourself standing in a crowd, now even quieter, to the left of the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial.
1963
ALL FRESH AND WIDE-EYED — John McCarten
AT an exhibition of twelve modern Irish painters now being held at the New School for Social Research, we became acquainted one day last week with Anne Yeats, daughter of William Butler Yeats, niece of Jack Yeats, and an artist of considerable standing in her own right. A buxom and beaming woman in her mid-forties, Miss Yeats, who was hobbling about on a cane, immediately apologized for seeming infirm. “Ordinarily, I leap about like a goat, but I sprained my ankle getting aboard the plane to come to America,” she told us. “Ah, well, thank God it didn’t happen on this side of the water!”