by Lillian Ross
In an auditorium near the exhibit, the guests gathered to hear reminiscences of Garland from Mr. Bracken, Carleton Carpenter (he had a bit part in “Summer Stock”), and Elaine Stritch, who told affectionate, down-to-earth stories about her friend. More movie clips were shown—each song got a round of applause—and afterward John Fricke stood outside the auditorium and talked to fellow-fans. He was bursting with enthusiasm as he said to one of them, “She knocked me sideways when I was five. I think she’s the total personification of everything that’s joyous, positive, and ongoing.” We asked him what had triggered his interest in Judy Garland’s career. “The first thing was ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ ” he said. “And my parents were Garland fans. They loved her. Whenever there was a movie of hers on TV late at night in Milwaukee, they would put me to bed at seven-thirty and wake me up at ten-thirty to see the movie. I admired her so much that I was interested in the facts behind her career. You know, she got reviews when she was twelve—this was before M-G-M—that said things like ‘This is what Bernhardt must have been like at this age.’ When you find out about Judy Garland, you find out about the history of American popular music in this century, from Al Jolson and Sophie Tucker all the way up to Barbra Streisand. And when you talk to people who worked with her you find out that so many of them consider that the high point of their professional lives.” Mr. Fricke, who is forty-one, said that he began saving clippings about Judy Garland when he was eight or nine, and he now has tens of thousands of documents, which amount to an archeological record of Garland’s career: scripts, scores, posters, photographs, sheet music, repertoire lists, concert schedules, theatre programs, reviews. Some of them were on display in the gallery, and many more will appear this fall in a book Mr. Fricke has written, called “Judy Garland: World’s Greatest Entertainer,” which will also contain four hundred previously unpublished photographs.
We talked to Mr. Fricke again a few days later, and he told us that he, too, makes his living as an entertainer, singing mostly in night clubs and on cruise ships. He had put his career on hold for several years in order to work on a big book about “The Wizard of Oz,” which came out in 1989, and to put the Garland book together, and now, he said, he was “hoping to go back to being the oldest living boy singer in America.” We said he sounded like one of those destined-for-show-business people you occasionally read about, who started subscribing to Variety when they were still in elementary school. “I didn’t subscribe, but I used to look at it in the Milwaukee library,” he said. “Everyone else my age was asking for ‘Curious George,’ and the librarians didn’t quite know what to make of me. When I watched the Judy Garland–Mickey Rooney movies, I noticed that the credits would say ‘Story by So-and-So.’ I thought that meant that the movie was from a book, so I’d say to the librarian, ‘I want to read books about people who get together and put on a show.’ ”
1992
SPLURGE — Susan Orlean
SO there’s this husband and wife, and one day they decide to go to Saks Fifth Avenue. They walk over to the store and end up in designer handbags. Before you know it, the wife is checking out the merchandise. Right away, the husband’s getting nervous. Suddenly, he notices this pleasant-looking gray-haired woman behind the counter. This woman, believe it or not, happens to be Judith Leiber, the most famous designer of designer handbags, who is making an in-store appearance with her fall collection. For those of you who just recently fell off the turnip truck, a Leiber handbag is tiny, rhinestone-encrusted, and shaped like something cute—maybe a bird, or a panda, or a butterfly, or an egg—and is also, we mean to tell you, not cheap. A Leiber panda, say, runs three thousand bucks. Anyhow, the wife falls in love with the panda and then takes a deep interest in an egg bag, too, so the husband starts hyperventilating. Maybe she’s a new wife, maybe she’s an old wife—what’s the difference? He just knows she’s getting hung up on these three-thousand-dollar little handbags and he’s going to have to do something quick. Finally, the husband—he’s sweating now—says to Mrs. Leiber, “Hey, look, if I buy two, would I get a special price?”
Mrs. Leiber looks him in the eye and says, “No, but we would thank you very nicely.”
O.K., O.K., so there’s a priest, a rabbi, and— No, seriously, there’s a reporter who walks into Saks Fifth Avenue this same day and heads over to the Judith Leiber counter, jots down a few notes about the handbags, and then goes up to Mrs. Leiber and says, “Listen, I was wondering. You were born in Hungary and learned to make handbags there, and then came to this country in 1947 and went into the handbag industry in New York, and then started your own company in 1963, designing and manufacturing luxury evening bags that have become the must-have status object for certain women, and you have fans who own dozens and dozens of your designs, including a fan in New Orleans who lent fifty of her Leibers for a show at the New Orleans Museum of Art a few years ago. But what I was wondering was: What sort of handbag do you carry?”
So Mrs. Leiber looks at the reporter and says, “One of my own, of course. Either that or a paper bag. And I won’t carry a paper bag, so you figure it out.”
But seriously, now—another husband and wife come up to the counter. The wife is going crazy for the handbags, and the husband is doing the death grip on his wallet when he notices Mrs. Leiber. So he says to her, “Are you Mrs. Leiber? I’ve long been an admirer of yours.”
Mrs. Leiber says to him, “Oh, really?”
The husband says, “Actually, my wife more than me.”
Mrs. Leiber says, “That’s good. You shouldn’t be carrying handbags. You’re not the type.”
Could you die?
All right, it’s the same afternoon, and this skinny woman in thigh-high boots and a baggy sweatshirt comes up to the counter. She’s here to meet Mrs. Leiber, but also she decided when she woke up this morning that life is short and, God willing, today she’s going to splurge and buy a Judith Leiber pillbox. The pillboxes are also tiny and rhinestone-encrusted and shaped like pandas and what have you. Anyhow, this hippie type is looking at the pillboxes, and she says to the saleswoman, “Do you have any pillboxes that are bigger? I mean, these are exquisite, but I need something bigger, because I take a lot of vitamins.”
So the saleswoman says to her, “We do have one shaped like an egg, which holds quite a lot.”
Mrs. Sweatshirt-and-Thigh-Highs looks at her and says, “Hey, maybe I should just eat an egg. That way I wouldn’t need the vitamins or the pillbox!”
You cannot make this stuff up.
O.K., now, the afternoon is rolling along, and Mrs. Leiber is the center of attention—some Japanese women have their pictures taken with her, and a lot of Saks brass come to pay their respects, because, after all, she’s got a lot of real estate on the first floor. Are you still with us? So two young women in those itwasn’t-enough-for-me-to-have-a-lovely-husband-and-children-I-had-to-have-a -career suits come up to Mrs. Leiber, and one of them says, “Mrs. Leiber, you make me so happy. I want to thank you for doing what you do.”
Mrs. Leiber looks at her and says, “Please. Don’t thank me. Buy.”
The other young woman says, “Mrs. Leiber, I just love coming to see your bags. It’s like going to a museum.”
Mrs. Leiber looks at her and says, “Sweetie, you have it all wrong. Believe me. These are to own, not to be in a museum.”
Did you hear, by the way, the one about the Leiber pig bag? This is one of her new designs—a fat little pig covered with pink rhinestones, hinged at the haunches, and with a grin on his face. Hey, you’d be grinning, too, if you cost three thousand dollars, right? Anyway, the pig is the big hit of the day. One woman picks it up and says, “I’ve got to have this, even if it’s trayf.” Another one says, “Take a look at this, he’s even got cloven hooves. Is that biologically right?” Another one finally puts her MasterCard where her mouth is. She picks up the pink pig and hands it and her card to the saleswoman standing next to Mrs. Leiber and says, “My husband’s going to kill me, but I’m going to die i
f I don’t get this, so, the way I see it, I’m going to go one way or the other, right?”
The saleswoman takes the pig and the credit card, and then she pulls Mrs. Leiber over for a private moment and says, “Mrs. Leiber, this pink pig is just a sample. Maybe we should keep it.”
Mrs. Leiber looks at her, looks at the pig, looks at the customer, looks back at the saleswoman, rolls her eyes, catches her breath, and finally says, “Darling, please. Don’t give me a heart attack. Sell the pig. There’s more where that came from.”
1992
GOOD CITIZEN — John Seabrook
LOUIS, our main dog, went to try for his Canine Good Citizen certificate the other day. Terry and Diane, Louis’s owners, weren’t sure that he was ready, but they sent him for private cramming sessions with a local trainer and at the last minute decided to give it a shot. We went along.
The test was held on the lawn in front of the Western Greenwich Civic Center, in Greenwich, Connecticut, on a beautiful Saturday morning. Scattered across the lawn, at a haughty distance from one another, were the aspirants. Louis was the only German shepherd. There were three boxers: Dempsey, Jezebel, and Alex. There was a poodle named Rudy and a Doberman named Rudy. There was a French bulldog named Larry, with a sun hat, and a Shih Tzu named Maccabee, who looked like a wig with legs. There was a female bichon named Riley—a classic white fluff ball with big black eyes and a powder-blue leash. Also present was Manny, a Lowchen, or Little Lion dog. “His real name is Manet, after the painter, but we call him Manny,” his owner, Carole Kramer, told us. “His brother, Andante, just became a champion at nine months. We’re projecting he’ll be the top Lowchen in the country next year. We don’t know, but we’re hoping and we’re thinking. Lowchens are one of the rarest breeds in the world, and one of the oldest. There are pictures of them in tapestries from the fifteenth century. No, say the sixteenth. I think it’s the fifteenth, but that sounds like a lot.”
Mary Ann O’Grady, the trainer in charge, called the proceedings to order. The test, she explained, involved ten acts of canine forbearance. Among other things, the dog had to let a stranger pet him and let the examiner inspect his ears, teeth, and paws the way a veterinarian would. He had to walk through a crowd on a leash. He had to confront distractions, including other dogs, without barking or going nuts. And he had to lie down and stay, on command, while his owner walked to the other side of the lawn and walked back. In other words, he had to do calmly and competently all the things that a dog might be called upon to do in the course of a normal life. More ambitious dogs could go not just for their C.G.C. but also for their T.D.I.—membership in Therapy Dogs International, an élite corps of dogs authorized to visit nursing homes and mental hospitals. Dogs going for the T.D.I. had to face additional trials, including having people come toward them in wheelchairs at high speed.
The test got under way. Maccabee, Dempsey, Larry, Jezebel, and the Rudys passed with flying colors. Manny flunked, despite his ancestry. So did Alex and Riley. Riley’s disqualification was especially poignant. Among other things, she couldn’t bear to let her owner, Joan Williams, walk away from her across the lawn. She tried to follow and, in the process, got all balled up in her leash. Finally, she just lay back in the clover, a tangle of white fluff and blue leash, and gazed up imploringly at her examiner, Sherry Holm, who stood over her with a clipboard. Sherry is strict. “Come on, Rile,” Joan said, scooping up the dog with one hand. “We’ll go home and practice.”
Mary Ann let us be part of the test. A few times we got to be the Stranger Who Tries to Pet the Dog, and we always got to be the part of the Crowd That the Dog Has to Walk Through. But we never got to be the Old Person in the Wheelchair or her sidekick, the Nurse. This act was reserved for Margie English and Sue Sternberg, two trainers who were helping Mary Ann, and they went at it with a dramatic flair rarely seen, we believe, in dog trials. “That dog! I want to pet that dog!” Sue hollered as, waving a hot-water bottle, she shot across the lawn on silver wheels, her vehicle aimed directly at Maccabee. Margie, as the Nurse, ran after her, yelling, “It’s time to go back to your room now, Mrs. McGillicuddy!” Undaunted, Maccabee stood his ground and won his T.D.I.
Soon it was Louis’s turn, and a hush fell over the crowd, for everyone knew how hard he had studied for the test. He trotted over to the veterinarian-simulation area with a determined gleam in his eye, but already things weren’t looking good. Instead of sitting and raising his paw in a sedate manner to let the tester inspect it, he flipped over onto his back and waved his legs in the air, apparently thinking that she wanted to scratch his stomach as well. Once he was induced to sit up, he began licking her face zestfully.
The suspense built as he proceeded to the stay-on-command task. Diane gave Louis the signal to lie down, but he didn’t see it. The examination area had many distractions: balloons bobbing in the breeze, airplanes crossing the sky, people buying snacks at the concession stand across the street, dogs getting their nails done at the Clip-N-Care clinic, which had set up a stand at the edge of the lawn and was offering pedicures at a special test-day price of five dollars. (Normally, it’s ten.) Louis was looking at these things, not at Diane. For a very long time, Diane stood in front of Louis and signalled energetically, as he craned his neck this way and that, taking in the scenery. Finally, having studied everything else, his eyes came to rest on her. He lay down, waited for her to cross the lawn and come back, performed the remaining tasks without incident, and, as a shout went up across the lawn, became a Canine Good Citizen.
Every dog who passed the C.G.C. received a certificate. A dog who also passed the T.D.I. got a picture I.D. and a badge saying “I am a therapy dog.” “I think the certificate is suitable for framing,” Mary Ann said. “As for the therapy dogs, they should definitely wear their badges, and their owners should carry their I.D.s.” She got out her wallet and showed us the I.D. earned by her Norfolk terrier, Tyler. Tyler couldn’t show us his badge. He was having his nails done.
1992
SCOUTING — Susan Orlean
INVENTORY of the liquidation sale of the recently vacated headquarters of the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A., at Third Avenue and Fiftieth Street:
Fourteenth floor. Three dozen assorted two-drawer lateral files. Ten workstations with acoustic panels. One case of booklets entitled “The Impact of Minority Presence in Girl Scouting on White and Minority Communities.” Animal footprints, acorns for special craft projects, toasting sticks whittled from fallen tree branches, packages of gorp, illustrated chart of bandanna tricks: none. Girl Scout cookies, assorted flavors: none.
Twelfth floor. Orange Herman Miller Eames chairs, straight-backed wooden desk chairs, plastic stackable shell chairs in various colors. Troop Camper activity badges embroidered with little tents and trees, which Mom always promised to sew on when she had a free minute but never did: none. Cookies: ditto.
Eleventh floor. Wall-size chalkboard bearing message “We’ll Miss You, Carole! Goodbye 11th Floor at GS-USA! I’ll Miss You!!! Suzy.” Assorted vertical files. Those neat Brownie Girl Scout uniforms, with the little brown jumpers and the orange bow ties and the sash with membership stars, troop numbers, and trefoil Brownie pins on it, and with plenty of space for the activity badges sitting in a drawer and just waiting for someone with one minute to sew them on, the way all the other mothers managed to: negative. Cookies: zero.
Tenth floor. One package of brochures from the 1984 Girl Scout convention. Mechanicals of a Girl Scout book, opened to a section suggesting troop activities—a Saturday lunch cookout, a Halloween tea, carolling with a junior troop, a teen fashion show, a Thinking Day event, and a supper and square dance for fathers. One heavyset woman in a black plastic windbreaker “looking for something for the house.” No cookies.
Ninth floor. One impatient guy from a financial company looking for credenzas and worktables. Wait a minute—a guy?
Eighth floor. Fifteen Steelmaster file cabinets. One gross of small bottles of Liquid Paper. Approximately ten Gi
rl Scout–green tape dispensers. Approximately three employees of the Affordable Used Office Furniture Company, which was liquidating the items left behind by the Girl Scouts when they relocated to their new offices, on Fifth Avenue at Thirty-seventh Street. One Presto quartz heater in as-is condition. No Buddy burners, Vagabond stoves, or kindling. No cookies.
Seventh floor. More stuff, none edible.
Sixth floor. One Wilbur Curtis Model RU-300 coffee machine. One Diet Coke/Sprite/Coke dispenser. Cookies: no way.
Fifth floor. Acoustical office dividers covered in Scout-green fabric. Several boxes of green No. 2 pencils, embossed with the Girl Scout logo. No sunshine ponchos made by cutting up one of your mother’s cocktail dresses. Cookies: still none, although an employee of Affordable Furniture walking by confirmed having sighted and then eaten several boxes of Thin Mints, Peanut Butter Sandwiches, and Peanut Butter Patties.
Fourth floor. A box of books entitled “Girl Scout Educational Opportunities,” marked “THROW OUT.” Defective telephones. Stepladders. Coffee tables. Coat-racks. Typing tables. People singing the “Brownie Smile Song”: none—at least, not audibly. Former members of Junior Scout Troop 453, Daffodil Patrol, performing paper-bag dramatics to an audience of seven vertical files with slide locks, two metal desks, and some commercial shelving: one.
1992
THE SMELL — John Seabrook
ABOUT a month ago, a terrible new smell turned up on North Moore Street, in Tribeca. It did not coexist peacefully with the other smells on the street: the coffee and cooking smells from Bubby’s, a local hangout; the sweet, strong smell of olive oil stored in Hillside Imperial Foods; pepper and nutmeg smells from Atalanta, a spice warehouse; the beer smell from Walker’s, the neighborhood bar; and the hay, manure, antiseptic, and horse-sweat smells coming out of the police stables on the corner of Varick. The new smell routed all those other smells. The rich olfactory texture of the street was shattered.