270. Meet the Trumpies, Our New First Family

         First to enter the restaurant, passing under the balcony famously lined with 21 cast-iron lawn jockeys, were Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, a young real estate operator whose father, also big in real estate, had been a regular.  Then a motorcade zoomed up, disgorging the Donald  with wife Melania, accompanied by Tiffany Trump, Donald Jr.  and Vanessa Trump, and Eric and Lara Trump, plus the inevitable Secret Service contingent.  They had surprised everyone, and especially the press and their staff, by leaving the security of Trump Tower on Tuesday evening, November 15, to dine at the famous 21 Club, a time-honored Manhattan institution on West 52^nd Street but a few blocks from the tower, a former speakeasy now known for its superb cocktails and mediocre food. 

         The block was promptly shut down by the police, and when the press, alerted by a report from a diner inside, came flocking, only a few reporters were allowed to stand outside while the royal banquet proceeded within.  A standing ovation greeted the president elect as he arrived and again, albeit modestly, as he left; in between, fellow diners were snapping photos of him.  Since his usual table, no. 11, was too small for the group, the Donald and his family were seated at no. 14.  And what did our teetotaling future lord indulge in?  According to an observant fellow diner, a burger with fries and a virgin (meaning nonalcoholic) Bloody Mary.  A modest repast, but a burger there costs $36.

         Ivanka, Melania, Tiffany, Donald Jr., Vanessa, Eric, Lara – what a lot of Trumpies!  With Bill and Hillary it was just three, then four once Chelsea got married – so easy to keep track of.  But the Trump clan is huge by comparison.  So let’s sort them out while they’re still all here in New York.  And since Melania is the third of the Donald’s beauteous marital adornments, we’ll include the two exes as well.

         His first wife was Ivana, but that’s about as much as is certain about her earlier life.  She was born in either postwar Communist Czechoslovakia, or maybe Austria.  When they were married in 1977 by the Reverend Norman Vincent Peale in his Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan, she gave her last name as Winklmayr, having married an Austrian by that name so she could get a passport.  But at times she used her maiden name,  Zelnickova, and while residing in Catholic Montreal she claimed to be married to a live-in Czech boyfriend named Syrovatka, a skier who had defected to Canada.

         Clearly, a woman of mystery, and that’s just the beginning.  She may have been on the Czech skiing team at the Winter Olympics of 1972, or she may simply have been a good non-Olympic skier.  In any event she made her way to Montreal, where she became a much sought-after fashion model, or just one of many such.  Certainly she was attractive; photos show a young beauty with abundant blond hair.  It was probably at a fashion show in New York that Trump met her in 1976, and he was instantly smitten.  He followed her to Montreal, introduced her to his parents in New York, and whisked her off to Aspen for Christmas, where he skied clumsily while she whipped past him on the slopes.  Yes, she was an expert skier, and he didn’t like being outskied, least of all by a woman, however beautiful.  But his bruised ego recovered, and he proposed on New Year’s Eve and then, after she broke off with Syrovatka, they were married in April 1977.

         But first there was the little matter of a prenuptial agreement that he asked her to sign, stipulating that, in the event of divorce, she must return any gifts he had given her – an agreement suggested by his attorney, the notorious Roy Cohn (see post #237, June 22, 2016).  Ivanka was no fool; a lawyer represented her in the ensuing negotiations with Trump and Cohn, and she demanded $150,000 to be deposited in an account under her name.  Both finally yielded a little, an agreement was signed, and they were married in Peale’s lily-adorned church before 200 guests, including Mayor Abe Beame.

         The married couple were apparently at first quite happy, and three beautiful children resulted: Donald, Jr., Ivanka, and Eric.  It was Ivana who gave her husband the name “the Donald,” and it was stuck to him ever since.

         Alas, happiness is a perishable item, especially among the rich and famous.  Trouble came in the form of another dazzling blonde, this one from Georgia, U.S.A.: Marla Maples, a frequent beauty pageant contestant who had almost won the title of Miss Hawaiian Tropic International in 1985.  In that same year she moved to New York, hoping for a career in theater, and met Trump at the gala reopening of the famous Rainbow Room.  When he invited her to lunch, she hesitated, then accepted.  The lunch was a five-hour affair at the St. Regis Hotel, in the course of which he confessed that his marriage was all but over.  Marla was 24, 14 years younger than Ivana, and her relationship with Trump developed slowly and, at first, out of the public eye.  Becoming aware of the affair, Ivana confronted Marla in Aspen and allegedly said, “You bitch, leave my husband alone!”  Rumors circulated, and it was soon known that the Trump marriage was unraveling.  When the New York Post blazoned on its front page “Marla Boast to Pals About Donald: ‘Best Sex I’ve Ever Had,’” Marla denounced the anonymous story as false, but the scandal shredded her budding career in theater.  Ivana was distraught, her children troubled; finally she filed for divorce, and after prolonged negotiations got a check for $10 million plus $650,000 a year to support herself and their three children.  But Marla didn’t marry him at once, even when pregnant with their daughter Tiffany; meanwhile, ever resourceful, she introduced and promoted a new line of fashionable maternity clothes.  Finally , on December 20, 1993, they were married before 900 guests at the Marble Collegiate Church, but only after she had been pressured to sign – you guessed it! – a prenuptial agreement.     

         The new marriage did not go well.  Marla discovered that her husband was so obsessed with business that he was emotionally detached from loved ones, including his four children.  For Trump, life was all about getting and   less about keeping, and it showed in his failed marriages.  In his third book, Trump: The Art of the Comeback, he would depict women as sexually voracious “killers” who used their beauty to dominate men, then observed that “I seem to bring out either the best or the worst in women.”   By 1997 they were ready to divorce, but months of quiet negotiations followed before she accepted the prenuptial agreement’s provision of $2 million and ongoing support.  The divorce was finalized in 1999, but they still met from time to time, having a shared interest in their daughter Tiffany.  Their marriage had lasted a mere six years.

         In 1998, a year before the divorce, another woman entered his life: Melania Knauss, an immigrant from Slovenia, an attractive model whose affair with him went for many years before they married on January 22, 2005.  This time the wedding took place at a church in Palm Beach, with 350 guests at the reception, including Oprah Winfrey, Rudy Giuliani, and then-Senator Hillary Clinton and her husband.

         To have your name linked to the Donald is to expose you to scandal-hungry tabloids and gossip magazines (those mags that assault your eyes at checkout counters of supermarkets); privacy is hard to come by.  Those two divorces involved real heartbreak for the rejected wives, and confusion and insecurity for the children.  The kids are all now involved with their sire, but what deep feelings they harbor is not known to the public.  More temptations and dangers await them as the Donald ascends the throne of this nation.  So let’s sum them up:

By the first wife, Ivana:

·      Donald Jr., 39, a real estate developer and Executive Vice President of Development & Acquisitions of the Trump Organization; married to Vanessa, a former model and actress; 5 children.

·      Ivanka, 35, a former fashion model, Executive Vice President of Development & Acquisitions of the Trump Organization (which makes two of that breed), founder of Ivanka Trump Fine Jewelry, its flagship store in the Trump Tower; married to Jared Kushner, described by Wikipedia as “an American businessman, investor and political operative,” owner of a real estate holding company and publisher of the weekly New York Observer; 3 children.

·      Eric, 32, Executive Vice President of Development & Acquisitions of the Trump Organization (which makes three), founder of the Eric Trump Foundation, owner of Trump Winery, and overseer of his father’s 18 golf clubs (courses, not implements), married to Lara, who is described as “an avid equestrian” and animal lover; no children to date.

By the second wife, Marla:

·      Tiffany  (named for the famous jewelry store, whose air rights her father bought so as to build the Trump Tower), 23, an Internet personality, singer, and model; unmarried.

By the third wife, Melania:

·      Barron, 10, who lives with his parents in the Trump Tower. 

         And what do the kids say of their father?  Here’s a sampling, culled by his biographer Michael D’Antonio in interviews:

·      “There’s no more all-American guy than him.” – Eric

·      “He’s going to say exactly what he is thinking.  He doesn’t need to hear what the question is or the story is in advance so he can craft an answer.” – Ivanka

·      “He’s a polarizing guy.  That person who hates Trump the most still wants to get their picture taken with him when he walks by.” – Donald Jr.

Their remarks convey admiration and wonder, not resentment.

         The whole slew of Trumpies are a beautiful bunch, with a tendency toward long-haired blondes among the women.  The Donald won the election by appealing to white blue-collar workers in the Midwest, but he and his family are elite in the extreme, steeped in glamour and glitz: real estate men and fashion models, investors and entrepreneurs, most of them executives of one sort or another and linked to the Trump Organization, connections with which may prove problematic, now that the president elect plans to turn his businesses over to them so as to avoid conflicts of interest. 

         Daughter Ivanka’s presence at her father’s meeting with the prime minister of Japan has already stirred controversy.  And her New York residence at the Puck Building (owned by her husband and his father), at the corner of Houston and Lafayette in downtown Manhattan, inspired a peaceful demonstration there on November 28 by more than 150 artists, curators, and gallery owners protesting her father’s policies and pronouncements, while a new Instagram account is posting similar messages to her, since she is thought to be more attuned to culture and art than her father is.

         And the two ex-wives?  Ivana has since married and divorced, then married again, the wedding for 400 guests hosted by none other then the Donald at Mar-a-Lago, his palm-tree-adorned estate in Palm Beach, with daughter Ivanka as maid of honor.  Ivana has since separated from hubby #3, with whom she has an “on-again/off-again relationship.”  She has also developed lines of clothing, fashion jewelry, and beauty products sold through TV shopping channels; has investments in Croatia; and has written several books.  Hardly a has-been.

         And Marla?  She has appeared in films and on radio and television; supports charities and non-profits; has declared herself “mostly vegan”; and has released an album, one song from which won a Hollywood musical award.  Yes, there is life after Trump; these girls don’t fade away.

         As for Melania, future challenges await her as First Lady.  She has already been described as unsmiling and ice-cold, a sharp contrast with Michelle Obama.  In September she filed defamation lawsuits against a British tabloid and a Maryland political blogger, because of their allegations that she had worked as an escort for a gentlemen’s club in Italy in the 1990s; the tabloid and the blogger both published retractions and apologies.  As First Lady she hopes to help women and children, and especially wants to combat cyberbullying among children, having herself quit social media because of the “negativity.”  Good luck on that, Melania.  She will not immediately move with her husband into the White House, since she wants her son Barron to finish his school year here in New York.  (From Barron I anticipate a future blockbuster memoir: “I Grew Up in the White House.”)  So the Donald will probably be hopping back and forth between Washington and New York.  Trump Tower, after all, has things the White House can’t offer: spaciousness, glitz, and Melania.

         Source note:  For much of the information in this post, especially as regards the two previous wives, I am indebted to Michael D’Antonio’s biography, Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success (St. Martin’s Press, 2015).  For a reliable survey of the Donald’s career to date, one can’t do better.

         The Naked Cowboy (and others) at the Tower:  The Trump Tower, the subject of the previous post, is hosting more than Trumpies and potential cabinet members and staff.  The Tower is still open to the public, albeit with heightened security, for the Donald has followed the example of Louis XIV, the Sun King, who decreed that the palace and spacious grounds of Versailles should be open to the public, so as to dazzle them with the wonders therein.  So it is that the Tower’s lobby has recently witnessed performances by none other than the Naked Cowboy, wearing his spangled undershorts and a slung guitar and not much else, with TRUMP blazoned across his vibrant behind. 

         A fixture in Times Square for decades, the Cowboy has migrated there to pose with potential cabinet members, boost the numbers of his social media following, promote his Naked Cowboy Oysters, and voice his admiration of the president elect, whose victory has given him faith in American and human potential; the Cowboy wants to be a New York icon, too, and live in a top-floor apartment like the Donald.  In a corner of that same lobby a man reads aloud from Howard Zinn’s The People’s History of the United States by way of protesting Trump’s election, while on the sidewalk outside another malcontent sells pins bearing the message DUMP TRUMP.  So  it goes now on traffic-jammed, security-ridden, prestigious  Fifth Avenue in the heart of midtown Manhattan.

         Coming soon:  No idea, but it won’t involve the Donald.

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          My poems:  For five acceptable poems, click here and scroll down.  To avoid five terrible poems, don't click here.  For my poem "The Other," inspired by the Orlando massacre, click here.

          My books:  No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World, my selection of posts from this blog, has received these awards: the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction; first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards; and Honorable Mention in the Culture category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2016.  For the Reader Views review by Sheri Hoyte, go here.  As always, the book is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

The Pleasuring of Men (Gival Press, 2011), my historical novel about a young male prostitute in the late 1860s in New York who falls in love with his most difficult client, is likewise available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

         ©   2016   Clifford Browder

269. Childe Donald to the Dark Tower Came: Trump and His Tower

In the penthouse of his 58-story tower (he claims 68), far above the urban hurly-burly and up near soaring falcons and God, the future lord of these United States has hunkered down with family, friends, and advisers, reading the Times and the Post each morning, tweeting, and deciding staff and cabinet appointments that will shake the nation and the world.  (Please note: he never watches television.)  Down below in the realm of ordinary mortals, the Fifth Avenue entrance, topped by the letters TRUMP TOWER in gold, is defended by legions of Secret Service agents, teamed up with New York’s Finest and their bomb-sniffing dogs, against hordes of gawking tourists, casual passersby, visiting high school students who spit at the edifice and with their fingers flash obscene gestures at it, sullen Democrats, dismayed feminists, and other presumed terrorists.  Buses creep by in a jam of traffic, and shoppers eager to access the Gucci and Nike flagship stores in the innards of the tower complain of being scrutinized unduly by the vigilant minions of order.  So it goes now on Fifth Avenue between East 56^th and 57^th Streets in the heart of Midtown (and very Democratic) Manhattan.

         I confess that I have never seen, much less set foot in, Trump Tower, know it only from photographs.  Viewed from the west from across Fifth Avenue, its mass of black glass, steel, and concrete soars majestically above the main entrance, but if viewed from the southwest, one might think a great chunk of it had been ripped off, leaving a jagged surface (sometimes termed “sawtooth faceting”), a design permitting more corner windows and therefore, I assume, higher rents.  At least it’s not just another big glass-and-steel box, like so many other Manhattan high-rises.  Inside there are public spaces in pink marble, gold-painted elevators, a slew of shops and cafés, and a five-level atrium topped by a massive slanting skylight, with a plummeting 60-foot waterfall and a footbridge spanning the waterfall’s pool.  For me, it all registers as supermodern and glitzy to excess – dazzling to the point of satiety. 

         The tower’s upper floors house 256 residential condominia owned by moneyed foreigners, corporations, pop stars, and Hollywood celebrities, as well as Trump’s office on the 26^th floor and, crowning it all, the president elect’s three-floor penthouse.  And how much do the condo apartments cost?  Anything from $625,000 for a studio (there are only a few) to more than $28 million.  And what amenities do they offer?  Marble bathrooms, Jacuzzi bathtubs, state-of-the-art appliances, walk-in closets, and panoramic views of the city, as well as a full-time doorman, concierge, and valet, a “fitness room,” maid service, and a common storage room.  (As if anything in  Trump Tower could be “common”!)

         Photographs of the penthouse’s interior show a living room in ornate French rococo with an abundance of gold, a huge chandelier flanked by murals overhead, sofas big enough to seat a large family, Louis XV chairs with elegant curved legs, and a large window giving a spectacular view out over the city.  Impressive, but hardly cozy.  The chairs and sofas are spread out at too great a distance for easy conversation; to be heard at the other end of the room, one would have to shout.  Fine for entertaining hordes of guests, or perhaps the Japanese prime minister (with daughter Ivanka controversially present), but not so good for quiet daily living.  There are photographs online showing the apartment and, posing in it, the Donald, his wife #3, Melania, and their ten-year-old son Barron.  Melania is gorgeous, but she looks more glamour puss than mother.  Here are some of the comments, dated 2012 to 2015, that the photographs have elicited online:

·      Melania is beautiful and elegant.  Reply: Or dumb as the floor she walks on.

·      Oh god this is ugly.

·      I just can’t see a toddler playing there.

·      All that money … and still no taste.

·      No $$$ in the world can buy her a smile.  [As seen here, Melania looks businesslike, though often displaying her shapely legs, and offers a paucity of smiles.]

·      [One commentator castigating another.]  You are JEALOUS.  Leave the cat lady alone.  Let her live in her glass castle.

Obviously, comments on the décor slide quickly into comments on Melania.  And all this before she became the presumptive First Lady.

         To judge by these pre-election photographs, the penthouse looks quiet and spacious, its privacy sealed off from the world outside.  Today, with the Donald and his staff deciding the weighty matter of appointments, it may be a bit hectic as they confer, tensions arise, and the president elect makes phone calls to prospective appointees and summons them into his royal presence.  (Unless, of course, all this is done in his 26^th-floor office.)  And the skies above the tower have now been declared a “national defense    2016   Clifforairspace,” permitting the government to use deadly force against any aircraft thought to pose an imminent threat – a designation to be lifted on January 21, 2017, the day after Childe Donald moves from 725 Fifth Avenue to  somewhat more humble quarters at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW.

         Meanwhile, the brouhaha continues far below.  The intersection of Fifth Avenue and 56^th Street is now restricted by portable roadblocks, concrete barriers, metal barricades, and even some booted and helmeted police officers carrying heavy weaponry who looked like an occupying army, if not invaders from Mars.  On the east side of Fifth Avenue the sidewalk between 56^th and 57^th Streets is closed, forcing Tiffany customers to enter that stellar emporium by its 57^th Street entrance.  The west side of the avenue is still open to pedestrians, but passage there is hampered by an impromptu press pen, construction litter, and selfie-snapping tourists.  And the whole block of East 56^th Street between Fifth and Madison Avenues, with the residential entrance used by the president elect and other occupants, is now closed to pedestrians and vehicles. 

         “There will be some disruption,” Mayor de Blasio admits, “but look at the bright side: the holidays are coming.  Midtown is going to be all messed up anyway.”  He urges New Yorkers who don’t need to be there to stay away from the block with the Trump Tower, yet at the same time endorses the New York tradition that lets protesters do their thing close to what they are protesting, which in this case means the Donald and his tower.  Should protesters again arrive en masse, as they have been doing at intervals ever since the election, it will be a test of nerves for all concerned.

         Disruption there is, and at that very time of year when, with the holidays approaching, retailers register their best sales of the year.  And this on Fifth Avenue, crammed with pricey retailers who, while being coy about it, are so scant of sales that they’re sending scarfed employees out into the street to lure shoppers past the barricades and into the bowels of elegance.  A woman from New Jersey who wanted to buy the Sylvie, the latest pocketbook from Gucci with a glittering gold chain down the front, had to talk her way past three different police officers who searched her shopping bag before she could enter those sacred precincts, and a young man also from New Jersey likewise had to run the security gamut before forking over $500 for a pair of Gucci sneakers.  Selfie-snapping visitors from England and Italy and Mexico, as well as Harlem, the Bronx, and the Upper East Side, rub elbows outside with a male honeymooning couple from Birmingham, England, who have come to get a glimpse of “the Devil himself,” while  young protesters flaunt  NOT  MY  PRESIDENT  signs and posters.  “We haven’t seen chaos quite like this back home,” observed a hospital worker from a small town in Minnesota who was in the city for a business conference, as she gazed up at the tower in bewilderment.

         OPEN  TO  THE  PUBLIC  is emblazoned in gold on the lobby entrance of the tower, and so it is, with only a newly installed magnetometer to scan bags.  For those who survive the affronts of security, the famous Atrium still gives access to the Trump Bar, the Trump Grill, the Trump Café, Trump’s Ice Cream Parlor, Trump Events (whatever they are), and the Trump Store, this last offering Trump colognes with names like “Success” and “Empire” on sale, next to “Make America Great Again” hats.  On the ground floor is the Ivanka Trump Fine Jewelry Boutique, Ivanka being not one of Trump’s trio of wives, beauteous adornments who sport the melodious names of Ivana (#1), Marla (#2), and Melania (#3), but an  attractive golden-tressed daughter of the Donald and his no. 1, Ivana.  In the café Secret Service agents now lunch on such delicacies as “Trump’s Mother’s Meatloaf,” served by an immigrant from Mexico who insists that he’s a taxpayer and no criminal and therefore under no threat of deportation.

         Just as we must all get straight our future Chief Exec’s several wives and their offspring, so we must sort out the numerous Trump Towers.  How many are there in the world?  Seven and counting, since more are evidently under construction.  (Towers, not wives.)  Not just America, but the whole world is being Trumped.

         Source note:  For much of the information in this post I am indebted to two recent articles in the New York Times: “Trump Tower, Once a Tourist Attraction, Is Now Restricted From Ground to Sky,” by David W. Dunlap and J. David Goodman, November 11, 2016; and “Hunkering Down at His Tower, Grinding Fifth Avenue to a Halt,” by Sarah Maslin Nir, November 17, 2016. 

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          My poems:  For five acceptable poems, click here and scroll down.  To avoid five terrible poems, don't click here.  For my poem "The Other," inspired by the Orlando massacre, click here.

          My books:  No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World, my selection of posts from this blog, has received these awards: the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction; first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards; and Honorable Mention in the Culture category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2016.  For the Reader Views review by Sheri Hoyte, go here.  As always, the book is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

The Pleasuring of Men (Gival Press, 2011), my historical novel about a young male prostitute in the late 1860s in New York who falls in love with his most difficult client, is likewise available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

         Coming soon:  Meet the Trumpies, Our New First Family. 

         ©   2016   Clifford Browder

268. Confessions of a Comma King: My Career in Freelance Editing

         The diversity of New York City – a common theme in this blog – is seen in the diversity of the occupations of its residents.  This post will glance at one of them, freelance editor, since that was my profession for many years and was – and probably still is – peculiar to New York.

         In the New Yorker in 2015, veteran editor Mary Norris told how she had, almost by chance, become a “comma queen” at the prestigious magazine, thus introducing the term and notion of a “comma queen” to the general public.  That being the case, as a longtime freelance editor, now retired, I can present myself as a onetime “comma king,” though not one so prestigious as a New Yorker practitioner of the trade.

         To start with, why do manuscripts need editors?  Because authors screw up.  If you ever read a book that was lightly edited, or even not edited at all, you’ll find yourself entangled in confusing sentences, needless repetitions, misspellings, puzzling omissions, and other annoyances that keep you from focusing on the book’s content.  So editors exist for a reason.

         And what is a freelance editor?  A freelance editor is an editor who operates independently – probably because he or she wants more free time and a more flexible schedule than a regular job would allow.  The profession is a refuge for would-be novelists and playwrights and other literary ne-er do wells at the outset of their hopefully brilliant careers, when they must focus on the manuscripts of others, and not on their own presumed masterpieces.  And it is peculiar to New York, since that is where publishers cluster, though today there are probably freelance editors elsewhere in the country, thanks to the Internet.     

         As a profession, editing requires good knowledge of grammar, punctuation, and spelling – stuff that pupils were forced to study in school long ago, but in today’s schools generally neglected -- and a fiendish attention to detail.  One is constantly having to decide whether or not to put a comma here, a semicolon there, and one must have mastered the subtleties of the colon and the apostrophe, and the differences between American and British spelling and punctuation.  Details, details, details.

          And how do freelance editors get manuscripts to work on?  By networking, by telling friends in publishing what they’re up to, by advertising or sending out letters to publishers (rarely successful, in my case), by getting to know editors who will then recommend them to other editors.  Once you get your foot in the door, résumés and interviews are rarely necessary; personal recommendations are all that matters.  And why do publishers hire freelancers?  To save money.  They hire them when they need them, and not when they don’t.  And they don’t have to give them pensions or other benefits; freelancers are on their own.

         What is a freelancer’s equipment, aside from sharpened pencils and an eye for detail?  When I was a freelancer back before the Internet, three books:

1.    Merriam-Webster’s New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, 2^nd edition, 1934.  A huge hunk of a dictionary that sits on my desk today, but is rarely used, since now it’s easier to consult the Internet.  This was the Bible of freelancers, much preferred to the 3^rd edition of 1961, since it indicated preferred usage; it was the schoolmarm of dictionaries.

2.    The Chicago Manual of Style, 13^th Edition, Revised and Expanded, The University of Chicago Press, 1969.  A second Bible, “for authors, editors, and copywriters.”  No graduate student writing a dissertation could be without it.

3.    The Elements of Style, William Strunk, Jr., with additions by E.B. White, 2^nd edition, Macmillan, 1972.  Affectionately referred to as “Strunk” and known to the knowing few.

         From Strunk one learned to use serial commas and commas with nonrestrictive relative clauses; to delete “the fact that” as superfluous; to express co-ordinate ideas in similar form; not to put slang in quote marks; to differentiate between “among” and “between,” and between “farther” and “further”; not to confuse “anybody” with “any body”; and to distinguish between “comprise” and “constitute.”  (“A zoo comprises many species of animals,” but “Many species of animals constitute a zoo.”)  If the very thought of all this baffles or exasperates you, you’ll understand why editors exist.

         But there are different kinds of editing, requiring different skills.  I mostly worked on textbooks from several major publishers – Holt, HarperCollins, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich -- with a scattering of novels and nonfiction titles from Viking, and scholarly works from Oxford University Press’s New York branch.  Proofreading involved reading the galleys of a manuscript and making corrections in the margin, using proofreading  symbols.  Copyediting involved reading the manuscript at an earlier stage and, depending on the needs of the publisher, doing light or heavy editing.  Light editing meant the manuscript was already in good condition or, more likely, the author was resentful of changes.  “She doesn’t like her words being monkeyed with,” one inhouse editor warned me, “and some of her words are just begging to be monkeyed with.” 

         Finally, there is manuscript editing, where the manuscript may be in need of changes, in which case the editor, often working with the author, is expected to intervene.  This was common with textbooks, rare otherwise.  On one occasion I was invited, even urged, to make suggestions about additional material, and this with the full consent of the exhausted author; I in fact became a collaborator, and was generously acknowledged as such by the author when the book came out.  This was a foreign language textbook, and such textbooks usually required heavy editing and a working knowledge of the foreign language.  “The most difficult books we do,” the production people often complained, because they rarely knew the language in question.  I edited occasionally in Spanish, often in French and German, and once or twice even with a book requiring some knowledge of Latin.  (Ah, how I loved to strut my high-school Latin among the hoi polloi!  Oops – that’s Greek.)

         When editing textbooks, I often got to know the authors, either by phone or in person, and a rum bunch they were.  Some of them, at least.  My least favorite one was the coauthor of a very successful English college reader.  A former salesman, he knew the market and knew how to present his book to the professors who might adopt it.  Which evidently entitled him to be nasty.  Me he spared, but everyone else involved in the project he dismissed with scorn.  The top editor of the department hiring me was lazy, he insisted, and had to be prodded to give his manuscript the attention it required (not true; he was diligent but in charge of some fifteen or twenty manuscripts), and the inhouse production editor was “just your or anyone’s Polish grandmother” (she was likable and quite competent).  I was glad to be done with him and came away unscarred.

         The French author of a second-year reader was described to me as “quite dashing and continental; when he’s due to drop in, all the girls are aflutter with anticipation.”  When I met him, I found him to be continental indeed and very sophisticated, but a rather homely forty-year-old.  His French sophistication had dazzled them all, more than making up for his lackluster looks.

         A German textbook author based in Salt Lake City had amusing stories to tell about the Mormons.  But the best story of all, relayed to me by an editor who had visited him there, concerned the noted Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges, whose unique and challenging stories I have read in translation.  Borges had visited the author, who asked the blind writer what he would like to do.  “Take me to the mountains,” said Borges, and to the mountains they went.  It was spring and the birds were singing, and Borges listened intently with great pleasure – a revelation for his host, fascinated to see how a blind man could richly appreciate the unseen spectacle of spring.

         Especially challenging was one of the last manuscripts I worked on before retirement: The HarperCollins World Reader, an ambitious anthology of world literature in translation, with an American editor whose enthusiasm recruited contributors, and an English editor who was hired to do the nuts-and-bolts work of editing; I worked with them both.  My job was not to edit the manuscript, but to be in touch with the twenty or more contributors, each a specialist in his or her field, and to encourage them to get their contributions in on time.  The schedule was tight, so the pressure mounted.

         Some of the contributors were a delight to work with, others were cranky and opinionated – supreme examples of the academic mind at its worst.  “You keep changing your mind!” complained the Korean contributor, when I told him HarperCollins had decided to present the book in two volumes, so he would have to do two introductions, instead of one.  I explained tactfully that for the publisher this was an undertaking without precedent, a truly ambitious project, and we were of necessity feeling our way.  “All right,” he said, “but you do the second introduction!”  So I did it, focusing on the postwar division of Korea and the onset of the Korean War – subjects not requiring a profound knowledge, or any knowledge, of Korean literature.  By way of contrast, when I informed another specialist of the need for two introductions – a woman who was busy moving from one university to another, having just been made department head at the second school -- she answered “Got it!” and soon delivered what we needed.

         An unforeseen dilemma arose when one of the contributors, a respected specialist in African literature, suddenly died; fortunately, a substitute – another distinguished scholar – was found to replace him.  But we weren’t always so lucky.  The Australian who was supposed to work with another specialist to present the literature of Polynesia and other regions of the Pacific kept putting me off: “Yes, yes, I’ll get to it soon.”  Then he announced that he would be disappearing into Tahiti for the summer and would be incommunicado, but of course he would be sending the needed material.  By now my suspicions were aroused.  And sure enough, HarperCollins got a brief note soon thereafter, announcing that he was resigning from the project, no reason given.  It was too late to find a replacement, so the Pacific region had only half the material intended.  What the fellow’s problem was we never knew, but he shortchanged the publisher and the book’s future readers.

         Always hanging over us was the schedule, forcing us to constantly hurry the contributors along.  When the inhouse editor informed me that, because of budget considerations, they would have to terminate me, I was relieved.  I wished them and the project well, but I was free at last from the constant pressure.  The anthology appeared in 1994 in two volumes with the thinnest of pages -- 2,796 in all.  Given a copy, I skimmed those pages often, lingering over the Chinese poetry, and tasted an excerpt of Lady Murasaki’s 11^th-century Tale of Genji, considered by many to be the world’s first novel,  a Japanese epic relating the amorous adventures of Prince Genji, an emperor’s son by a concubine.  Intrigued by the excerpt, I obtained a copy of the novel in modern translation and read it through, amazed that the chain of seductions didn’t become repetitious, but held me to the end.

         In the same year that saw the publication of the anthology, I retired from freelance editing, though since then I have helped several friends write their memoir: a gay prison inmate who recounts his arrest and imprisonment; a lady from Calcutta whose memoir/cookbook combines accounts of an idyllic childhood with Indian recipes related to each of her reminiscences; and a Sister of Mercy who tells of her bout with life-threatening illness and the recovered memory of being molested in her childhood.  The latter two have now been published, and I’m hoping that the inmate’s memoir will likewise soon appear.

          Another New York moment:  On the 14^th Street bus the other day a black man in his forties got on, wearing a knit cap of many colors, a sort of skull cap run riot.  Immediately he began talking loudly left and right, which is not the New York way; one doesn’t address strangers unless you have a particular reason to do so.  He sat down near me and continued his boisterous monologue, mostly incoherent, while flashing a broad toothy grin.  Of what he said I could only make out snatches, as for instance, “No!  I won’t dance!” followed by a chuckle, and then something about how Jesus Christ turned water into wine, which he evidently approved of.  He wasn’t crazy, just ebullient and talkative.  And lyrical, since at intervals he burst into song and, when done, applauded himself.  And how did his neighbors on the bus react?  By remaining expressionless and turning their face away from him, so as to avoid eye contact.  Since he was right in front of me, I could hardly avoid his gaze, so I smiled faintly, then looked casually out the bus window as if there was something there of interest.  At one point, while still blabbing, he took out a small bottle and put a dash of perfume behind each ear.  When he got off at Union Square, still blabbing, the bus was immersed in quiet relief.  I wish the fellow well, but from a distance. The lesson to draw: when you get on a bus in New York, you never know what to expect.

          An election note:  A friend of mine in Florida tells me that when he went to vote, he saw pickup trucks lined up on the grass behind the parking lot, all with shotguns and rifles visible in the rear windows.  Also, there was a tent-kiosk selling Trump T-shirts.  He voted straight Democratic, but wasn't surprised when the state went Republican.

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          My poems:  For five acceptable poems, click here and scroll down.  To avoid five terrible poems, don't click here.  For my poem "The Other," inspired by the Orlando massacre, click here.

          My books:  No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World, my selection of posts from this blog, has received these awards: the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction; first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards; and Honorable Mention in the Culture category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2016.  For the Reader Views review by Sheri Hoyte, go here.  As always, the book is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

The Pleasuring of Men (Gival Press, 2011), my historical novel about a young male prostitute in the late 1860s in New York who falls in love with his most difficult client, is likewise available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

         Coming soon:  Childe Donald to the dark tower came: our president elect in his tower.

        

         ©   2016   Clifford Browder