Filling In the Blanks

“Did I add you to the list for my reviews?”, Frank Behrens asked via e-mail last summer. “YES, I do receive your reviews and always find them entertaining and informative. Thanks and keep them coming” I replied. What I thought, but did not say, was “Not only do I read them, but I hear your voice in my head as I do so.” It is a voice I have not heard in many long years but of which, in fact, I retain a distinct memory. I can always hear the sound of a voice as I read something written by someone with whose voice I am familiar.

I met Franklin Behrens in the summer of 1966 at Camp Lenni Len-A-Pe, a summer sleep-away camp not far from Newburgh NY, where he was the dramatics counselor. Just 15, I had a double role there as waiter and music counselor. The next year, both he and I were back; I no longer had to bring heavy trays of food three times a day to the little kiddies. Together, he directing and I playing and conducting from the old upright piano, we produced camp versions of Guys and Dolls, Fiddler On The Roof, and archy and mehitabel. My sister Carolyn, age 10 and 11 respectively, was a camper there as well; she sang in all these shows and played Hodel in Fiddler.

One evening, Frank staged a few key scenes from Rostand’s play, “Cyrano de Bergerac” (in the Brian Hooker English translation) for an audience of the camp’s counselors. Frank took the title role himself, I was appropriately inarticulate as Christian de Neuvillette, and a shy blonde counselor whose name I cannot recall was Roxane. “Cyrano de Bergerac” retains a special place for me, as clearly it does for Frank as well. I was most recently impressed with Kevin Kline’s Broadway outing; a few years earlier, I saw Frank Langella play Cyrano. There are several operatic versions, one of which by Franco Alfano has been performed as a vehicle for Placido Domingo; there also exists a recording featuring Roberto Alagna. I happen to own the rare and long out-of-print piano-vocal score, however, of a 1913 Cyrano opera by Walter Damrosch I have never seen a trace of having had a recent performance.

The notable model for the role of Cyrano, at the time we were encamped at least, was the cinematic portrayal by José Ferrer, who won a Best Actor Academy Award for his 1950 performance.

That film also used the Hooker translation. Much later on, I sold a volume of Lieder to Ferrer in the course of my job on the sales floor of the Joseph Patelson Music House, the now-gone sheet music store on West 56^th Street in New York City. I gather it had been a hobby of his to sing German Lieder. Ferrer appeared in the 1982 Woody Allen movie A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy during the course of which Ferrer actually sang some Lieder, and I’m almost positive (memory is hazy) it was from this very same volume. I’m pretty sure it was a collection of the Lieder und Balladen of Carl Loewe.

One other note related to Cyrano de Bergerac. It was recently reported that French actor and director Paul-Emile Deiber died on 14 December 2011. He had been a member of the French Resistance during World War II and had briefly been imprisoned in Paris.  He had had a 30-year career performing classics with the Comédie-Française, during the course of which he performed his signature role, that of Cyrano (in the original language, naturally) over 150 times. He later became associated with the Metropolitan Opera where he directed several of their productions, including Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette in 1967, Bellini’s Norma in 1970, Massenet’s Werther in 1971, and Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande. It was while directing Werther that he met mezzo-soprano Christa Ludwig, starring in the role of Charlotte. He taught her French, and they then married. He had been her husband for nearly 40 years when he passed away tragically, in the aftermath of a fall in their home outside of Vienna.

In the mid-1980s, I had the privilege of participating in a series of private coaching sessions with mezzo-soprano Christa Ludwig as accompanist for Maxine Bernstein who brought Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder to study. These sessions took place in Paris, Vienna, and on Gran Canaria of the Canary Islands. (Maxine is now the director and guiding force of “Lieder Alive!”, a non-profit organization based in San Francisco devoted to perpetuating the art and practice of the German art song; she has organized concerts and master classes featuring major singing artists in the furthering of this cause.)

It was in Mme. Ludwig’s homes in Paris and the Canary Islands that we met Paul-Emile Deiber.
I remember Deiber as a quietly charming man of deep voice. Especially in the exotic locale of Gran Canaria, he was a gracious host, ferrying us around the island at the wheel of his little car, his famous wife in the front passenger seat, Maxine and I crammed in the rear (of the car, of the car) (the rear SEAT!). One evening, we were invited to dinner with them, and Ludwig cooked a delicious dish of langoustines.

By the time I was in camp, I was already very familiar with Fiddler on the Roof, having seen it on Broadway in the original production, probably at least twice at that point, including once with the original Tevye, Zero Mostel. Of course, the subject matter was of special interest to my family. But I also felt something of a personal connection, albeit tenuous, since Zero Mostel’s brother attended the same synagogue as my father and Zero’s niece Barbara was a Hebrew School classmate of mine. When I finally got to meet Zero Mostel a while later, I mentioned to him that I had known Barbara. “Yes, she’s a nice girl.”

I had previously been completely unfamiliar with archy and mehitabel. The lower case is intentional, since it is based upon the writings of Don Marquis who invented, as a newspaper column space filler, the character of a literary cockroach “archy”  with a poetic propensity ("Creative expression is the need of my soul") who would write about the big city from the underside. Archy would inhabit the newsroom late at night after everyone was gone and produced his writings by hurling himself bodily upon each of the typewriter keys. He was unable to use the shift key simultaneously, so it’s all lower case. (Yes, I used a capital A there, since Marquis acknowledged that just because the cockroach couldn’t use upper case doesn’t mean no one else can.) The title on the piano score uses lower case. That score is by George Kleinsinger, probably better known as the composer, with Paul Tripp, of Tubby the Tuba. Kleinsinger had a brother, Jack, who taught a quantitative analysis chemistry class I was in at Bronx High School of Science. The words were by Joe Darion, later much better known as the lyricist of Man of La Mancha.

Although archy and mehitabel has been a Broadway musical (as Shinbone Alley), an animated feature film*, and television special, it began life (apart from the original newspaper column) as a concept album on Columbia Records made in 1953-54 with Eddie Bracken as “archy”, Carol Channing as archy’s alley-cat best friend “mehitabel”, and David Wayne as the human newspaperman/narrator.

The version we presented with the campers was the half-hour “back-alley opera” featured on the A side of the Columbia album. At one point in the story, archy is dismayed to find that mehitabel has hooked up with a black-hearted tomcat named Big Bill. On the album, Big Bill is sung by Percival Dove. In our performance, Frank was the only non-camper in the cast, seen here being most intimidating to the poor humble cockroach.

 OH, the guy sitting at the piano, back to camera: that would be me.

What I did not know before now was that in December 1954, a concert version by the Little Orchestra Society was presented at The Town Hall in NYC (where I later performed a number of times with the New York University Varsity Men’s Glee Club as well as with the NYU Choral Alumni). That concert featured Jonathan Anderson as “archy” and none other than Mignon Dunn as “mehitabel”.

Mignon Dunn was a mezzo-soprano stalwart at The Metropolitan Opera in a long career which encompassed virtually every major role for mezzo. Since retiring from the stage, she is a sought-after teacher. I met Mignon in the mid-1970s when my first wife worked for her as a part-time assistant. In December 1976, Mignon was Ortrud in the Met’s production of Wagner’s Lohengrin in a cast that included soprano Pilar Lorengar and tenor Rene Kollo, conducted by James Levine. The Saturday that it was broadcast on the Texaco Radio Network, Mignon threw a cast party at her apartment that evening after the matinee, and I was there with my wife. I don’t remember very much about that party, since I made the mistake of mixing alcoholic beverages throughout the evening – at least two different kinds of spirits, vodka and probably scotch, wine with dinner, and somewhat later at a more intimate group supper, beer. I do remember sitting at dinner just to the right of Francis Robinson, the Met’s press and tour director. He must’ve been aware, and he was very kind to me. Nice man! Notably, René Kollo, the famous German heldentenor, also got inebriated at that party.

Though I barely remember it, my wife gave him a lift to his hotel after the party, me in the back seat where I probably remained for the rest of the trip home. I was hung over in bed the whole next day.

During my second summer at Camp Lenni Len-A-Pe, when I had a day off, I would hitchhike into the closest nearby town, Salisbury Mills NY. (It was during my first year, as a camp waiter, that I first heard of the dish “Salisbury Steak” which we served at least once a week. Unaware of its creation by a Dr. J.H. Salisbury in the 19^th century, I naively thought the chopped steak was just being given a locally-referenced name for the benefit of the campers!) Salisbury Mills is probably the epitome of a sleepy village, especially on a hot summer day. There was almost nothing whatsoever to do there except go to the movie theater. The movie Thoroughly Modern Millie had come out in the spring of 1967, and it was playing there one day that I had hitched into town. I sat through it twice. Carol Channing, rarely to be seen again after the mid-1950s in the ponytail she sported on the album cover of archy and mehitabel, was featured prominently in that film as Muzzy Van Hossmere: “Raaaaazberries!” 

One particular day off, I visited with my parents at a resort hotel not too distant from camp:

Amanda (my present wife) and I had the pleasure of seeing Carol Channing perform a concert at B.B.King’s in New York just a few years ago. Well into her 80s and newly married to her junior high school sweetheart Harry Kullijian, there was an endearing informality about the show in which she performed many or most of the songs associated with her. Alas, there was nothing from archy and mehitabel, “Toujours Gai” having become a feature of the act of Eartha Kitt who had later performed as “mehitabel”. Mr. Kullijian, sadly, passed away the day after this past Christmas. Ms. Channing will be turning 91 later this month. Here are a few brief selections from her show "The First 80 Years Are the Hardest" to give you an idea (I defy you not to LOL):

This is a classic piece:

Frank Behrens was a junior high school English and math teacher based in Queens NY during the regular school year, but I would say he is a polymath. He has expertise in music, popular and classical, the theater, Shakespeare, and Gilbert & Sullivan. He would appear to be an all-around Britanophile. I am probably leaving out numerous other talents.  At a particularly propitious point in my life and for a considerable time to come, I was deeply influenced by Frank’s wide-ranging intellectual curiosity.

I had long been out of contact with Frank, having last seen him some time in the 1970s at Patelson’s (the music store). (That is also where I had met Mostel.) Then a couple of years ago, while visiting with some friends and playing chamber music in New Paltz, there was a copy sitting on the kitchen counter of Art Times, A Literary Journal and Resource for the Fine and Performing Arts. Glancing through it, one column had a byline by a certain Frank Behrens. Could it possibly be? There was an e-mail address, so I sent a note, and sure enough it was the very same Frank Behrens. Retired from his teaching job in NYC, he now resides in Keene NH where he continues to tutor local college business majors in  “brush-up” math, but contributes regularly to a number of area newspapers and journals, offering reviews of new CD and DVD releases of concert and opera, television compilations including British series infrequently encountered in the States, and music collections from amongst the earliest in the history of recording. Other entities for which Frank writes columns include the Keene Sentinel, Reformer Extra, and Brattleboro Reformer. Frank distributes all his articles via e-mail to select people, and happily I belong to that group. 

Back at Camp Lenni Len-A-Pe, Frank Behrens had introduced me to author Wilkie Collins and, in particular, his seminal detective novel, “The Moonstone”. Frank stated his intention at the time of rereading it every 10 years or so. I thought that an excellent idea, and I got through two such rounds myself. I’m way overdue to read it again. I was gratified to be able to send Frank a copy of the New Yorker article on Collins published during the past year.

I remember discussions of Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” and how wonderful it would be if there could be an LP containing the original piano version on one side and the Ravel orchestration on the other. I’m pretty sure such has since appeared, especially since CDs with much longer playing times than LPs could easily accommodate both versions on a single disk. “Pictures” is another old favorite of mine, and I have many versions in my collection (including one by Emerson Lake and Palmer). I also have numerous copies of the piano sheet music in different editions; these include one reproduced by Kalmus from a Russian complete works of Mussorgsky edited by Pavel Lamm upon which (so legend has it) Vladimir Horowitz based his own somewhat modified performing edition. Now, Horowitz never published any of his own tinkerings; but there appears no shortage of sharp-eared aficionados who have transcribed his recordings. My most recent acquisition of a “Pictures” edition was one I downloaded of the Horowitz version. It sits awaiting me having the time to compare it with the original. As I recall, though, the recording for piano that Frank Behrens liked at the time was one by another Vladimir, the young Ashkenazy. Ashkenazy’s own editorial suggestions and fingerings are contained in an edition published by Universal. That one’s also on my shelf.

Up at summer camp in the mid-1960s, Frank Behrens liked to smoke a pipe. Something about that contributed to his entire persona as an interesting and somewhat eccentric youthfully avuncular figure. (He was “UNCLE Frank” at camp, after all.) I didn’t really know that many pipe smokers to begin with. My own great uncle Abe (Albert Schnall), who bequeathed his Mason & Hamlin grand piano to my family when I was 10 years old, the motivating factor in my taking my first lessons, had smoked a pipe. I actually own several of his pipes as well as the glass humidor with brass lid in which he kept his tobacco, and a well-worn leather tobacco pouch. Uncle Abe died in December 1963, shortly before my Bar Mitzvah.

But the tobacco scent I always associated with my dad’s uncles was of cigars. It was, in fact, Camp Lenni Len-A-Pe’s owner and director, Jerry Halsband, who was responsible for clinching the deal for me. “Uncle” Jerry also smoked a pipe and was virtually never seen without it. The tobacco he used had an exotic and intoxicating aroma I’d never previously encountered. Jerry smoked a blend of tobacco put out by Alfred Dunhill called “London Mixture”. London Mixture is a ribbon-cut blend of Virginia mixed with Turkish and Latakia varieties.

Once back in NYC, I took up smoking a pipe myself, at the ripe old age of 16, impressionable young thing was I. There I sat at the desk in my bedroom, reading Sherlock Holmes stories, puffing away at my briar pipe. Of course, I acquired my own tin of London Mixture. A year or so later, on tour with the New York University Varsity Men’s Glee Club in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, I purchased some beautiful hand-carved Danish pipes from one of the tobacconist shops there.

Over the years, I've acquired quite a few more pipes, of which these are some:

Nowadays, although I haven’t stopped in for a long time, the Alfred Dunhill shop on Fifth Avenue near Rockefeller Center appears to have become exclusively a haberdasher. I don’t know if one can still buy their fine pipes, cigars, and tobacco there. In the late 1960s and early 1970s though, it was a pleasure to go and to spend time in their walk-in humidor. One could have a custom blend of pipe tobacco created according to your own tastes. I branched out from London Mixture to try several other of their blends, such as 

My Mixture No. 965 (I liked this one too),

Standard Mixture (available in Full, Mild, or Mellow),

Early Morning Pipe, 

 Nightcap,

Elizabethan Mixture (which I don't think I much cared for, as I remember),

 Baby’s Bottom (“nothing smoother than….”),

but I always returned to London Mixture.

It does evoke a lifestyle, doesn't it, that variety? A lifestyle suggesting that you  might start the day with a different pipe tobacco than you would prefer to smoke before bedtime... 

One day, I made a trip to Dunhill’s shop to replenish my supply of tobacco. On this particular visit, I was standing toward the rear of the shop when in walks Sammy Davis, Jr. decked out in a white fur coat and all his usual bling. One of the Dunhill staff said to me, “It’s a big day – Fredric March was in earlier!” Well, I never did see March in person, and he died just a few years later, in1975. I did occasionally see Davis a number of times. He was a photography hobbyist, and as I worked in the west 50s I would see him on the street dressed in simple unflashy black attire with his camera in hand or around his neck.

I had a lesson, though, in showbiz sham from that brief encounter in Dunhill’s. The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson emanated from studios in Rockefeller Center between 1962 when Carson became host and 1972 when production of the show moved to Burbank California. When Carson had a night off, before the days of video repeat broadcasts, a guest host would fill in. It happened that Sammy Davis Jr. was the guest host either on that very same evening or possibly the next. In either case, it was definitely AFTER I had seen him in Dunhill’s. Ed McMahon: “Johnny’s guest host tonight is Sammy Davis Jr….. and now heeeeere’s Sammy Davis JUNIOR!” …….. [applause… long wait with camera fixed on curtain…. longer… longer….] Finally, Sammy Davis Jr. flings himself on stage wearing the very same fur coat I’d seen on him earlier in Dunhill’s. He then apologizes for being late, saying “I JUST got in from the airport….” WHAT?!!!

Perhaps it’s no great achievement to hear a voice in your head that you already know. What about when you know the voice but don’t know the face that’s attached to it? We hear voices all the time, on the radio for example, that are essentially faceless. Regular announcers now frequently have their photos available to view on their radio stations’ website, of course. But not always. WQXR, the classical music station in New York City formerly owned by The New York Times, and now a publicly-supported entity, has a website wherein one may find the images of almost all the on-air personalities. Notably, there is no photo of Steve Sullivan or of the indefatigable and unflappable Clayelle Dalferes. I respect their decisions to retain whatever measure of personal privacy they can achieve by being photographically anonymous. Yet, the mind wants to supply an image, a face to go with the name and the voice. My mind would do this as well with people I had only spoken to on the phone. Something about the voice evokes a potential face. It’s always a shock when the truth finally comes out. What is it about our brain that seeks these added references? Is it mere curiosity, or is there something else compelling us to fill the void?

The phenomenon has its most vivid manifestation, for me at least, in the predilection for perceiving faces in random patterns. I see faces everywhere! 

 Sometimes in silhouette, sometimes full on, often quite weird. 

This image has become infamous in the last few years:

There is a name for this, of course. “Pareidolia” does not even appear in the Merriam-Webster dictionary; but Wikipedia says it’s “a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant. Common examples include seeing images of animals or faces in clouds, 

the man in the moon or the Moon rabbit, and hearing hidden messages on records played in reverse.” (Sorry to break the news, guys, but Paul is still alive and pretending to compose classical music.) 
Here's the face from Mars:

Pareidolia is also simply defined as “the tendency to see faces in inanimate objects”. Dr. Deborah Serani says “this neuropsychological phenomenon is sometimes called a “cognitive illusion” – whereby our eyes see something and our mind interprets its structure. The result is the experience of seeing something that really is not there.” The reverse phenomenon, although perhaps neurophysiologically unrelated, is face blindness (the inability to recognize faces) or “prosopagnosia”, usually the result of brain injury. Yet, studying prosopagnosia has proved useful in investigating how pareidolia might work. “Face perception is an ability that involves many areas of the brain; however, some areas have been shown to be particularly important. Brain imaging studies typically show a great deal of activity in an area of the temporal lobe known as the fusiform gyrus, an area also known to cause prosopagnosia when damaged (particularly when damage occurs on both sides). This evidence has led to a particular interest in this area and it is sometimes referred to as the fusiform face area for that reason.” (Wikipedia)

Astronomer Carl Sagan, in his book The Demon-Haunted World – Science as a Candle in the Dark, wrote “As soon as the infant can see, it recognizes faces, and we know that this skill is hardwired in our brains. Those infants who a million years ago were unable to recognize a face smiled back less, were less likely to win the hearts of their parents, and less likely to prosper. These days, nearly every infant is quick to identify a human face, and to respond with a goony grin.”

Some people see Jesus or the Virgin Mary everywhere from a piece of toast to a tortilla to a slice of pizza. Here's Jesus on a grilled cheese sandwich:

Someone made some bacon to go with... here are the Jesus drippings:

In the spirit of ecumenism, there’s the Star of David seen in a pot of oatmeal (although it could just as easily be a sheriff’s badge, couldn’t it). 

Me, I’m on a low-carb, no-deity diet, so it doesn’t tend to be Jesus or his Mom. The Skeptic’s Dictionary says that “pareidolia explains Elvis, Bigfoot, and Loch Ness Monster sightings”. The one time I actually saw Elvis, he was still nominally alive and giving a concert at the Nassau Coliseum.

I’ve never seen Nessie or Bigfoot… yet I won’t go out on a limb and say they’re fictional (but maybe I would for, oh about… $tree-fitty.)

When I was 10 years old, my family took a car vacation up through New York State, into Canada, and down through New England. In Franconia NH, we took a look at The Old Man of the Mountain, a series of rock ledges that appeared from the north side like the jagged profile of a man’s face. Unfortunately, there was a collapse in 2003, so the old man is no more. Here is the before and after:

That image was so famous, there was a U.S. postage stamp issued, which I have in my stamp collection.

Does anyone see another profile below the Old Man's adam's apple? Possibly even 4 profiles all facing the same way?

I do notice that my perception of faces in abstractions tend to occur in rather more relaxed states than at other times. Thus, I was lying in bed staring blankly across the room when I noticed the large profile of an old man in the wood grain pattern on the inside of the closet door. Don Quixote lurks in the bamboo motif on the shower curtain.

I was standing in front of the commode late one night and saw Gabby Hayes, hat and all, within the random directional arrangement of individual tufts of terry cloth on the towel on the rack just in front of my face.

If you don’t see it here, that’s OK – neither do I: the towel has since been laundered. Well, not Gabby Hayes anymore; but I do see at least 2 faces. You get the idea.

I cannot explain away the distinct outline of a face (not my own) that repeatedly appeared for a while on the bathroom mirror after it was steamed up from the shower. That, I am guessing, was purposely traced with a wet finger by some mischievous party. Maybe it was the same party that I hear making the floor creak upstairs when I walk in the front door and no one else is home. Oooooh scaaaaarry! 

New Hampshire may have lost its famous stony profile; but it now can boast the talents and insights of Frank Behrens. Frank sent me these shots of a more recent vintage, performing as Erronius in Stephen Sondheim’s musical (“the only one I like”) A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum in a local Lion’s Club production.

 

I'm sure I'll be hearing the actual sound of Frank's voice very soon. I do have his phone number - I have but to call...

Meanwhile, "I'll be looking at the moon.... But I'll be seeing you!"

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FREE BONUS FEATURE
This time, the bonus is truly feature-length. Of course, it's entirely optional.


*The 1971 animated Shinbone Alley combines and expands on material from both sides of the Columbia Album. The screenplay is by Joe Darion together with Mel Brooks. Music and lyrics by Kleinsinger and Darion. Eddie Bracken and Carol Channing reprise their roles from the record. The film's running time is 85 minutes. I have happily discovered that it is available on YouTube, divided into 11 sections. If one is of a mind to, the entire thing may be viewed, with easy links one to the next. Therefore, and to simply point you in the direction should you wish to proceed, I embed a link here to just the first part.

"You know, boss, sometimes I think mehitabel is a little TOO "Toujours Gai" !"