You Love His Music--The Great Unknown Harold Arlen

from my personal collection

from my personal collection

One of America's most beloved songs is Somewhere Over the Rainbow. It was cut from the film but director Arthur Freed insisted it was returned. MGM executives thought the barnyard scene was ugly, the song slowed the picture down, and the idea was too sophisticated for the general public. Freed insisted it was Rainbow or him.

The next screening of the movie the song was back in. 

The movie ended. The audience was silent, then broke into applause and cheers. 

Judy Garland's interpretation of the song was so good people believed she was singing from the heart in her own words. The song became associated with Garland. 

Somewhere Over the Rainbow, and all the Wizard of Oz songs, were written by Harold Arlen and the lyrics by E. B. 'Yip' Harburg.

Arlen also wrote the music to:

image from Amazon

image from Songbook

from my personal collection

from my personal collection

image from eBay

from my personal collection

Image from Amazon

from The National Museum of Play

Judy Garland loved Arlen's songs even before Wizard. She performed Stormy Weather at her famous Carnegie Hall concert of 1961. What was not included on her best selling album of that concert was her calling for Harold Arlen to stand up to be recognized for having written the music.

Arlen, biographer Walter Rimler contends, was an unknown man during his life and remains unknown today--in spite of having written some of the most beloved, ground-breaking, and complex songs.

Reading The Man thatGot Away was glorious fun. The whole early Twentieth Century musical world appears, from Tin Pan Alley to Paul McCarthy. Arlen wrote for Broadway revues, Cab Calloway at the Cotton Club, Ethel Waters, Judy Garland, for Hollywood including The Cabin in the Sky, The Wizard of Oz, and Gay
Purr-ee (which I loved as a girl).

Arlen was born Hyman Arluck, son of a Yiddish-speaking cantor in Buffalo, NY. He grew up in a mixed neighborhood and was drawn to jazz and gospel music. He competed at amateur nights and played piano at the burlesque house. He organied a local group then in his early twenties published his first song. 

His parents were not amused, and asked Jack Yellon (author of Happy Days are Here Again and Ain't She Sweet) to “talk sense” into their son. After hearing Arlen play, Yellen called the rabbi and advised he admit defeat: his son was going to be a musician like his old man. Just different music.

Arlen went to New York City where he met Ray Bolger. Arlen's group made records that caused Bob Crosby to consider him “one of the best stylists” he ever heard. From there Arlen went on to write for Broadway. After floundering he met Vincent Younmans who brought Arlen up to speed on the music scene and modern styles.

It was a pivotal moment in American pop music with the rise of Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, Oscar Hammerstein, the Gershwin brothers, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, Cole Porter, Hoagy Carmichael and Yip Harburg.

Arlen wrote Get Happy with Ted Koehler. He realized his future was not in performance; he was a song writer. He could tap into mystical inspiration and summon music. He was writing for a commercial market, but he knew he was creating “art.”

image from Ruth Etting website

Johnny Mercer founded Capitol Records which changed music. Now artists didn't need to wait for a Broadway show or a movie contract to premiere their songs. It also meant the demise of the Tin Pan Alley style of songwriting.

Arlen meet the love of his life, a beautiful seventeen-year-old chorus girl Anya Taranda. His Jewish parents and her Russian Orthodox family kept them from marrying. When an undiagnosed brain tumor caused personality changes in Anya, Arlen struggled in his marriage and drank to excess, but they never divorced.

His friends considered Arlen a decent and kind man who wanted fame but didn't like the limelight. He helped Judy Garland with her medical bills. He shared his home with his parents and his unemployed brother and his family.

Arlen's musical compositions reflected his wit and humanity and his tendency toward depression. His life had its challenges: disapproving parents, an ill wife, the lack of work or lyricists to work with, his alcoholism. His later years brought Parkinson's disease.

Arlin always had the regard of his peers. Paul McCarthy bought the rights to Arlen's songs and published The Harold Arlen Songbook. NPR celebrated his 80^th birthday with his songs. And if at his 1986 death few Americans knew his name his music is beloved.

I thank the publisher and NetGalley for a free ebook in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Man that Got Away; The Life and Songs of Harold Arlen

by Walter Rimler

University of Illinois Press

Publication August 2015

$29.95 hard bound

ISBN:978-0-252-03946-1

Gallivanting

On Saturday we left Metro Detroit on a day trip into the 'thumb' of Michigan in search of quilt shops and ancestors.

My grandmother Emma Becker Gochenour called it 'gallavanting'. She and her girlfriends from the North Tonawanda Baptist Church loved to spend a day wandering around Ontario or New York.

On our trip we took Van Dyke road north into the countryside, through Romeo and Almont to Imlay City. I went to four quilt shops to pick up their Row By Row patterns and then we went east and searched for the Lynn Township Cemetery to see my husband's mother's ancestors. (That's another post.)

Almont was having it's Homecoming Day  which is held every five years. The downtown businesses had quilts hanging in the windows. We stopped to see them. The photos are not great because of the window reflections. It seems that Stitchin at the Barn was associated with some of the quilts.

I learned that Almont is the sixth oldest village in the state of Michigan!

The quilt shops I visited included Shelby Township's Decorative Stitch, Quilted Nine Patch in Bruce Twp, and Stitchin' at the Barn, and the Pincushion in Imlay City. Each shop offered something different than I had seen before. 

On the way home we picked up sweet corn, $4.50 for a dozen huge ears. We had it for dinner and it was like eating pure sugar! 

God's Patient Joy: Poet, Seeker, and the Woman who Captivated C. S. Lewis

"A soul straight, bright and tempered like a sword. But not a perfected saint. A sinful woman married to a sinful man; two of God's patients, not yet cured.”

C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

The new biography of Joy Davidson Gresham Lewis by Abigail Santamaria arose from her interest in the woman who C. S. Lewis loved. Santamaria had turned to Lewis to help understand the tragic and senseless deaths of 9-11. She had seen the movie Shadowlands with Debra Winger and Anthony Hopkins, which concerns their relationship, marriage, and Joy's death from cancer and its impact on Lewis. Who was this brilliant, brash, and complicated woman?

Santamaria shows Joy with all her failings and her wonders--Brilliant, self-centered, brusque, driven, manipulative, strong, and always a searcher.

Joy Davidson was born to Jewish immigrant parents. At age eight she announced she was an atheist. At eleven she entered high school and at age 14 college. She won the Yale Young Poets award. Concerned with social justice, Joy joined the CPUSA and was an ardent supporter of socialism. 

She tried her hand writing scripts in Hollywood believing that literature and the arts could educate and promote the values she believed in. 

Joy fell in love with a handsome, convivial folk singer who became a writer of pulp sci-fi and noir fiction. They had two children. Joy and Bill struggled to support the family by writing, too often neglecting the children and too often unable to properly feed them. They both drank too much. Seeking answers, they became involved with Dianetics, the pseudo-science/religion of sci-fi writer Ron L. Hubbard. 

Joy had a conversion experience, a moment of grace when one night Bill didn't make it home. Still seeking answers, Joy and Bill joined the local Presbyterian church. While Bill later took up Zen Buddhism, Joy read the works of C.S. Lewis and began a correspondence with Lewis. Joy fell in love with Lewis and was determined to met him.

What in the world drew the shy, celibate, middle aged scholar to allow Joy into his life, even to marry her, and finally learn the joys of erotic love because of her?

Lewis's love for Joy was unconditional. She was flawed; her tales about her marriage unreliable. She had gone to England to snare Lewis. People thought she was unfeminine, dumpy, and dowdy. She cursed. She was also his intellectual equal, willing to be completely herself with him and was able to see past his persona to the inner man. She was witty, she talked too much but always was entertaining, witty, and full of life. Joy was open and without artifice. She understood Lewis better than he did himself. Their love was transformative.

Joy had thyroid disease and as a teen underwent radium treatment. As an adult her cancer was undiagnoised. The cancer spread throughout her body and she was expected to have only weeks to live. Instead she beat the cancer and enjoyed three years of happiness with Lewis before the cancer returned with a fury. How Lewis and Joy dealt with pain and the limitations of ill health is inspiring. Their friends saw a marvelous marriage of equals truly in love. For in Joy, Lewis combined all the forms of love: Agape, Phila, pity, and Eros.

The author notes that Joy's life shows that redemption is possible, that in spite of human nature's self centered sinfulness, we can transcend to a spiritual transcendence.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Joy: Poet, Seeker, and the Woman who Captivated C. S. Lewis

by Abigail Santamaria

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Publication: August 4, 2015

$28.00 hard cover

ISBN: 9780151013715

Domestic Noir: From the Notting Hill Mystery to The Girl on a Train

I have learned about a new genre category.

"Domestic Noir takes place primarily in homes and workplaces, concerns itself largely (but not exclusively) with the female experience, is based around relationships and takes as its base a broadly feminist view that the domestic sphere is a challenging and sometimes dangerous prospect for its inhabitants." http://juliacrouch.co.uk/blog/genre-bender

An article in The Guardian  on The Girl on the Train refers to "domestic noir" novels.

Literature can be entertaining, but it can also be informative, and these books work in some small part towards dissecting the shame and powerlessness, the psychological and often violent manipulation that abused women experience to keep them trapped in this most toxic of relationships, away from prying eyes, and in the environment we expect to be the most loving and nurturing. The Independent "Domestic Noir is Bigger than Ever

The Notting Hill Mystery by Charles Warren Adams is purportedly the first full-length modern English-language Detective Novel, serialized in 1862-3 and published in 1865. It predates Wilkie Collin's The Moonstone, which was serialized in 1868. Poison Pen Press's new edition of The Notting Hill Mystery includes an introduction tracing the history of the Detective genre, establishing the novel's place in the genre.

Adams wrote under the name of Charles Felix and had published an earlier crime novel Velvet Lawns in 1864. Adams was the proprietor of the book's publisher, Saunders, Otley, and wrote the novels to help his foundering business; it couldn't save the publishing house and it closed in 1869.

Modern readers may find Notting Hill archaic and tedious. This is the age of lightning quick plot lines and "page turner" best sellers. I just finished The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins for my book club--it's twice the length of Notting Hill and yet both took me two days to read. I enjoyed Notting Hill as much as Girl.

Girl features first person narratives, including a diary, to tell the story through three points of view. It is a suspense novel, a thriller, and a mystery. Rachel may be considered a 'detective' so it is also a detective novel. As an 'unreliable witness' due to alcoholic blackouts, the police have discounted what Rachel has seen. So she conducts her own 'investigation' and finds herself in deep water.

Notting Hill tells the story through depositions, diary entries, chemical reports, and letters collected by a Life Assurance Association employee who is investigating the death of a woman with 5000lb in insurance taken out by her husband. The story is told in pieces according to each person's knowledge of the persons and events in question.

"I submit for your consideration the facts of the case as they appear in the depositions of the several parties from whom my information has been obtained." The Notting Hill Mystery

The contemporary novel Girl wraps up the mystery with a suspenseful climatic scene. Notting Hill leaves us hanging, asking the reader to decide.

"My tasks is done. In possession of the evidence thus placed before you, your judgment of its result will be as good as mine. Link by link you have now been put in possession of the entire chain." The Notting Hill Mystery

A definition of mystery from Writer's Digest reads, Mystery: a form of narrative in which one or more elements remain unknown or unexplained until the end of the story. But...wait...Adams never solves the mystery for us! We are told to decide for ourselves! Another definition states that in a mystery the plot is geared towards solving a problem, usually murder, but problem must be resolved.

Notting Hill incorporates themes that in its time thrilled readers. Illustrations by George du Maruier highlight the Gothic elements of the story. Twin girl orphans are separated in childhood when Gypsies steal one and sell her off. The other twin, Gertrude, grows up, marries, and with her husband becomes involved with mesmerism. Mesmerism involved controversial techniques considered unsuitable between a man and a woman. Their mesemerist Baron R** brings in Charlotte who undergoes the treatment and transfers it to Gertrude. The women have a special bond. Gertrude begins to experience biweekly illnesses that eventually claim her life. Her husband in his grief does himself in. Meantime, Baron R** has married Charlotte who also suffers a similar illness and death.

Girl on the Train also has its melodrama. Rachel turned to alcohol after she failed to conceive; her husband Tom preferred to go to Vegas with buddies rather than to spend more money on IVT. Tom dumps Rachel for his lover Anna, who has given birth. Rachel daily rides the train past her old home now occupied by Anna. A few doors down she has seen a young couple (Megan and Scott) and has imagined a perfect marriage for them--the one she still longs for with Tom. What Rachel imagines is far from the truth: the girl Meagan disappears and her husband is the prime suspect in her murder. Rachel had seen another man with Meagan, and also has flashbacks of a confrontation that may be related. Readers are given a few red herrings along the way, and although some may have suspicions the mystery is not revealed until the crisis.

The horrible implication in Notting Hill will be understood by today's readers rather early. I expect that the first readers, having never encountered the genre, would have had  a later "ah-ha" moment.

Both novels revolve around women who are manipulated by men. Notting Hill's Mesmerist Baron R** is consistently described as a wonderful husband by the women who have observed his behavior towards his wife. The wife is severely judged for her coldness and bad temper. Wouldn't every woman want such a tender helpmate?

Mesmerism was believed to give complete power over the patient. And yet these witnesses never concluded that the Baron was manipulating his resistant wife. The women in Girl on a Train are all involved with a man who is charming and handsome. They all love him to the point of being blind to his faults and lies. They are all victims of Tom's manipulative and self-centered personality.

Victimization by men in the 19th c was a common theme. Women had little power, and the meek and loving soft-hearted woman was idealized. The women in Girl are harder to identify with. Is Tom really worth it? Why does Rachel hold a torch for the man who couldn't support her desperate desire for a child, who couldn't love and support her when she was in deepest need? His second wife Anna found herself mirroring Rachel: drinking a lonely glass of wine while waiting for Tom to come home. And why did Meagan put up with Scott when he monitored her Internet activity and email?  I frankly was not given enough information about Tom to understand why these women continued to care about him. Or why Megan put up with Scott.

My book club was very divided about Girl. It was a huge turn out with 27 members in attendance. One hated it, several gave it two stars, a number three stars. Most readers gave it five stars.

The biggest complaints about Girl concerned unlikeable female characters who readers could not relate to. They thought  Rachel "weak", that Anna was a manipulative bitch, and that Megan had no redeeming qualities. One complained of clichéd and predictable plot lines. Some didn't like the melodramatic ending. And quite a few found the non-linear plot line confusing; one even gave up reading it. Those who loved the book found it hard to put down. These readers found the characters very human and real. One woman understood Rachel and related to her very well. Many readers compared it to Gone Girl but were divided about which was the better novel.

My reaction was in the middle. The book was an 'easy read', it moved along quite well, and I had no problems following the time line and characters. I liked the device of alcoholic black outs creating an unreliable character. I liked how the first person narratives slowly gave the reader glimpses of the story that built on each other. I was not a fan of the ending. I wish I had learned more about Tom and his relationships with the three women; I was not convinced he could keep their "love" after his selfish abandonment. But this is not a book that will stick with me over time.

Several ladies liked the idea of Domestic Noir when I shared it; they said that was exactly what they wanted to read. I believe that writers will continue to crank such books out. There is a huge market.

I expect the market for The Notting Hill Mystery is far smaller. It was fascinating to read considering its historical place in the genre and as Victorian era literature. Each witness had a distinct voice and character coming through. Pretty amazing considering one book club reader of Girl complained that Rachel and Megan had voices so similar she couldn't remember which character she was reading about! The conclusion was unexpected. But we know who was behind the murders, even if the Life Assurance agent doesn't have enough concrete evidence to decide.

Notting Hill is not an 'easy beach read' and won't keep you up past your bed time. But if you are interested in the history of genre fiction, curious about mesmerism and the Victorian Age, it is an interesting read. And I really believe it was an early example of Domestic Noir.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Notting Hill Mystery
Charles Adams
Poison Pen Press
Publication August 4, 2015
ISBN:9781464204807

More Row By Row Blocks! And What is on My Reading Shelf

I have completed several more Row By Row blocks! They are quick projects, many using fusible appliqué, and some even have die cut pieces in the kits.

First is a sunset over the lake from Northern Hearth Quilting & Sewing Center in Cadillac; I replaced the original boy fishing on the shore with a lady under a tree looking at the sailboat.

I made two of my birthday gifts:

Creative Quilts in Brighton has this great LOVE Michigan with a map

 and a cute lighthouse from Sew What in Wyandotte.

Other updates:

• The kitchen is complete except for a few things which are ordered but have yet to come in. Our contractor is having a photographer take photos for her website! 
• I am going to the American Quilt Society show in Grand Rapids, MI next week! My friend and I are staying overnight...because who can see the whole show in an afternoon?
• I have another quilt book to review, so look forward to reading about projects inspired by Hawaiian quilts.

• I have reviewed 103 books through NetGalley since April 2014! I am like a crazy lady high on READING. I wonder how long I can last at this pace? LOL. 

Right now I am reading:

• The Pulitzer Prize winning novel All the Light You Can Not See by Anthony Doerr; my book club will dsicuss this at the end of the month.
• Pamela by Samuel Richardson, the 1741 book considered the first novel through NetGalley
• Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon, a young adult book about an eighteen year old girl in love for the first time: complication is that she can't ever touch him. She is a 'bubble' girl allergic to everything.

On my NetGalley shelf are

• White Eskimo: Knud Ramussen's Fearless Journey into the Heart of the Arctic  by Stephen R. Bown. 
• The Color of Water in July by Nora Carroll,because it is set in Northern Michigan.
• Radioactive! How Irene Curie and Lise Meitner Revolutionized Science by Winifred Conkling, written for children.
• The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood. Because I have never read Atwood and it's about time I did!
• All of Us and Everything by Bridge Asher about complicated sisters during a hurricane along the Jersey shore.
• The Year of Shakespeare in 1601 by James Shapiro.

The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman

The lush tropical paradise of St. Thomas in the Caribbean inspired Columbus to call the island Heaven-in-Earth. The sunshine can cut like a knife. The island is drenched in color-- the flowers and birds, sky and sea in shades of orange and red and blue. Mortar is mixed with local molasses.

Two Women Chatting by the Sea, St. Thomas, (1856) by Camille Pissaro

The Pomie family fled the Inquisition and landed in Danish held St. Thomas. Here they could practice their faith in a small enclave of Jews. Just after the turn of the 19th c dreamy seventeen-year-old Rachel Pomie longs for another life, imagining Paris where her father had lived. This is not a time when people made choices; their work and marriages were determined for them. Rachel is married to an older man in order to secure her family's financial security. He is good to her, but is still in love with his deceased wife. Rachel she has been told that she will have a second marriage, a true love.

After her husband's death his nephew arrives to manage the family finances and estates. Frederic Pizzaro is seven years younger than Rachel, a pious and handsome Sephardic Jew who grew up Europe. They fall in love immediately.

There are complications. Rachel is Frederic's aunt by marriage and they cannot marry. They try to stay apart but finally succumb to their passion and then live together. They are shunned until they receive permission to marry.

Their child Jacobo Camille Pissaro  is meant to inherit the family business, but is dreamy and detached. He is sent away to be educated in Paris and is brought home to work at the family business. He longs to escape and dedicate his life to art. He becomes the confident of those with secret knowledge, learning that when someone tells their story you are entwined together. A gifted and self taught artist, Camille becomes the "father of impressionism".

The Pomie-Pizzaro family are surrounded by slaves and the ancestors of slaves. Their pasts and fates are interwoven, alliances are covered up, lies become truth.

Alice Hoffman's novel Marriage of Opposites is atmospheric and romantic. She has taken a few facts and transformed them into a story full of vivid characters with mysterious and complicated pasts. The Jewish community of St. Thomas struggles with these maverick personalities who won't concede to the rules and marry and outside of their faith and race. Hoffman's story does become entwined with the reader.

I thank the publisher and NetGalley for a free ebook in exchange for a fair and unbiased review. It was my first Alice Hoffman novel. It won't be my last.

The Marriage of Opposites
Alice Hoffman
Simon & Schuster
Publication Date: August 4, 2015
ISBN: 978145693591
$27.99 hard cover

A Year With the Fairies: The Fairies' Telephone

The Fairies' Telephone
Did you ever follow the silver thread
Tat the spider spins through the air?
Did it ever tickle your nose when you ran,
Or tangle itself in your hair?

That silver thread is a telephone wire
With a ting-a-ling bell at the end,
And a Fairy is there with a spicy black clove
At her ear while she talks with her friend.

by Anna M. Scott