My Times in Black and White: Race and Power at the New York Times

Here is a book that I was unable put down for any significant length of time — spellbinding, informative, fascinating and eye opening. The author is Gerald Boyd, the format is a memoir. In his career he reached the second highest editorial position at the Times against all odds, being black, coming from "stifling poverty" in St. Louis to this very senior post after having decided that journalism would be his only escape. How did he manage all of this? Well, no parents around, the mother dead, the father a drunkard, and it is a grandmother who raised him and his brother. Gerald Boyd worked all his life, first in a grocery store, then later he received a full scholarship to the University of Missouri, various positions at various newspapers, always stepping up the ladder and finally ending up for twenty years or so at the Times. It is an incredible success story of a dedicated and driven black man who was, I don't know how many times, the first black man reaching a certain position. This is a fact that he is always very much aware of. Boyd preached and accomplished diversity wherever he was, mentored, received awards, helped countless other people of color, formed incredible friendships. He liked the Times "I was addicted to the paper and all it represented, cloaking myself in its power and prestige," he says. He faced discrimination and racial slights  many many times. And it is to suspect that his white superiors patronized and betrayed him, but he definitely changed the diversity within the newspaper substantially and he certainly believed in it. I would not consider him a happy man throughout his life and only when he marries his third wife, Robin Stone, and has a son he is finally able to derive some personal pleasure.

The even more captivating facet of the book though is to learn about the "inner workings" of the newspaper, how thoroughly stories are investigated and written; trust and distrust among editors/reporters; personal grudges that exist but are not acknowledged openly, and the incredible competitiveness with each other to be recognized and to be valued. This is also at a time before the economy went downhill and money is spent more easily, the time when the Internet was looking for it's own place and subscription rates to the printed media went down — at the time before and after 9/11. The frantic storm that hit when the World Trade Center came down and how stories are born and carried out by a huge corps of reporters and editors.

Unfortunately Boyd's reputation gets forever involved with that of Jayson Blair, a black man, who fabricated many events, and this finally leads to Boyd's departure from the Times. Boyd is accused of favoring Jayson Blair, a fact that he strongly denies.

Well, he goes back to private life, cancer is discovered in 2006 and he dies.

I swallowed a Camera!

This is the probe containing the camera!

I knew that I always liked photography a lot but I think I went a bit too far this time! When the doctor suggested to swallow a probe with a tiny camera inside to see if additional damage had occurred to my heart, I jumped for it and spent half a day today at the hospital. Result: no damage at all! What can I say, I am happy, woozy also, but this will wear off soon. With other words, I am almost new.

Today I feel like standing on top of the roof and scream
 "I can see much better again!"

Of course I am still blind on one eye, and probably will be so forever, but it does not bother me as much as it did before. Ever since I lost the complete vision of my left eye I told myself that this is not so bad, it could have been much worse. But every day I was strongly aware that I had only one eye — the other one was just a black shadow and I just could not adjust. I did not complain and used magnifying glasses and ordered all sorts of enlargement devices, but nothing really helped. What a pain in the neck to read a book while holding a magnifier very steady just so that the page does not warp; the light must come from the back and you shouldn't move your head — all of this made the reading process very slow.

Not any more! My eye doctor recommended a place in Englewood (Spectacles) and a certain doctor (Dr. Steve Weisfeld http://www.spectaclesnj.com/) and so I went. I brought in my old frames, got newly reevaluated, and spent a fortune for two pairs of lenses, one just plainly for reading and one bifocal pair, anti-glare, progressive, bifocal, you name it, I got it. Without much confidence I went to pick them up today, but oh boy, what clearness, what sharpness  I gained —  how great is that now! I can see better than ever! I will discard all these things that have quickly accumulated the last few weeks in my apartment, all these assorted reading aids, off they go! I can see, I can read, I can work, hurrah! The new lenses are shatterproof and you can punch me into the eye and there will be no harm. Ha!

The March Storm

It was a tough winter, lots of snow, and each storm was always forecasted in greatest detail for days ahead. So there was another forecast talking about rain and strong winds. How much attention does one pay after all? But there it was with incredibly strong winds that whined endlessly, turned over any umbrella and rain, rain, rain non-stop for two days. The damage was incredible — all around us  we saw the felling of huge old trees; they landed on roofs or cars or in middle of the streets, it resulted in lack of electricity for a few days and similar inconveniences; the Hudson was roaring with wildness and was topped by white caps; my neighbor's window on the 21st floor was pressed in and I sure enough had more than enough leaking damages from the ceiling. And then as always followed the  clean-up.

And like a miracle the weather turned around again and a few days later it was mild and sunny, yes, springlike! Nice. Heidi, my friend, called up to visit and both of us are nature lovers and we decided for a walk alongside the river on the Hudson Walkway. Surprisingly it was closed up with one of these yellow crime scene tapes.

We crossed through to look at the damage. The beautiful rust red brick stone walkway was partially gone, the water had risen all the way to the houses alongside the river, the huge rocks from the banks had moved, and cars in the shopping center parking lot were still sitting in the water! Not a nice scene. The walkway looked one hundred years  old now and dilapidated and sad. What damage! It will be weeks until this is all cleaned up again!

Awed by all of this we continued our walk and had a cup of coffee outside in the sun at the river in a restaurant not affected by the storm. This early spring day brought back this long poem that we had to learn by heart when we were kids:

Der Osterspaziergang

Vom Eise befreit sind Strom und Bäche

Durch des Frühlings holden, belebenden Blick,

Im Tale grünet Hoffnungsglück;

Der alte Winter, in seiner Schwäche,

Zog sich in rauhe Berge zurück .......

Von dort her sendet er, fliehend, nur

Ohnmächtige Schauer körnigen Eises

In Streifen über die grünende Flur.

(In short it talks about an Easter walk in Spring describing the wildness of the winter and the glory of a Spring day giving us an inkling of summer. This is a very poor translation, the poem is very dramatic and very beautiful, well ... it's by Goethe).

The Amish

Jay wanted to go to Philadelphia to see a movie about the noir writer Davis Goodis http://www.allanguthrie.co.uk/pages/noir_zine/articles/hardboiled_philadelpiha.ph He had been interviewed for this and of course wanted to see himself. I was also curious and decided to go along. It was a documentary that was interesting with lots of interviews and a review of the writer's life. Since it was only Friday and there was plenty of time we decided to take a ride the next day and drive around and do some sightseeing in the Lancaster area. We ended up in a town called Intercourse with a large concentration of Amish people. It was a great day, cold all right, but not too icy. I looked around in a handsome quilt shop with the most colorful quilts,  and sure enough I ended up with a quilted jacket! Afterwards we took a horse driven buggy ride through the countryside, looking at the huge barns with their spotless windows, the white farm houses, now at night time all dark and without a light peaking out from inside. The driver was extremely talkative; he told us that of course the Amish don’t have telephones, but if they need a telephone they will send somebody to call for them. Of course they don't use electricity but they milk their cows somehow with the help of a Diesel motor. And we heard the summing of the Diesels all around us. Or he showed us the one-room school houses with their green shutters for approximately 30 children (they only attend school up to 8^th grade.) Plenty of information was squeezed out of him about customs and habits. He grew up Amish, but married a non-Amish women whom he divorced later. And of course he was informed that this happened only because he had stepped out of the Amish circle.

Anyway, it was a good day again and so we decided to have dinner in one of these roadside restaurants offering Mennonite and Amish cooking. Since there was a bit waiting for a table involved we went upstairs to look at the books in the gift shop. Reading about Amish customs I suddenly realized that my sight was sort of "cloudy" . I did not pay attention to it, but later on when we sat at our table to start our dinner I covered my left eye and realized that I could see Jay only as a shadow and with a halo around it. A few minutes later I realized it was completely dark, no vision at all. That's how it was, 1-2-3 and my eye sight on the left eye was gone. Jay had to drive all the way home and suggested that we go to a hospital.  I hesitated, but when we finally reached home Stefan also strongly suggested to go to Englewood Hospital. All sorts of doctors poked around, tests were done, an ophtalmologist came around 2:00 AM. Enough. I stayed in the hospital until Tuesday and now I have only one eye with vision! Altogether I was lucky, it could have been much worse. I can drive (carefully) and fortunately don't look different from before! That counts also. But the fact remains, I am blind on one eye from now on.

Max Raabe and the Palast Orchester

A while ago we went to the MOMA to see a movie and to our surprise the admittance to the movie theater was quite delayed. We finally detected a row of policemen, dressed in black, with their ready machine guns standing there outside the museum — we assumed this maybe was in connection with our delay. But we never found out. Sitting around and waiting, I got to talk to a lady next to me and learned that Max Raabe and the Palast Orchester http://www.palastorchester.de/en/home/ were in town. She talked about this in such an animated and charmed way that I was hooked immediately although I had to admit that I never heard of him. But when she mentioned that this included music and cabaret from the time of the Weimar Republic I was completely sold. And so Jay and I went to Carnegie Hall www.carnegiehall.org/article/the_basics/art_overview.html.

Mr. Raabe and his gifted musicians performed in immaculate evening dress—tailcoats and double-breasted black or white dinner jackets, with shirtfronts and batwing collars starched to a board-like stiffness forgotten by us very casual present time dressers lacking any formality.

If he was not singing romantic ballads and "pop" songs of the twenties in his “schmaltzy", beautiful and oh so flexible voice he was just leaning against the piano, one arm on top of it, looking incredibly elegant and bored. One was just transported for a moment into the twenties sitting in one of these sleazy night clubs. The lady next to me breathed “Oh there is Max!” Some of the songs were quite familiar to me from my father singing these tunes ("Wenn die Elizabeth nicht so schoene Beine haett' etc.) and there was also some Brecht — just great! One felt like humming along. The musicians sat behind individual old fashioned podiums and each of them got up here and there for a solo or a special performance, yes, great entertainment and even clowning around in Carnegie Hall! What an enjoyable evening. The theater was sold out completely and the audience was extremely enthusiastic.

The ocean in winter

Today I went on the spurt of the moment to Spring Lake, NJ to visit with my good friend Dimi. She was not home when I arrived and so I decided to go to the beach and walk on their famous boardwalk which I remembered well from the summer. Today all was different. The wind blew from the North and hit my face with great force and I had to labor against its force. The ocean was completely white capped into the far distance and the most incredible waves collapsed over and over rolling in from all the way out, spilling over the jetties non-stop until they disappeared for a moment before hitting the beach. The boardwalk was windblown and layered with beach sand and, of course, there was not a single person idly walking around. After 15-20 minutes I had enough also, but the beauty and wildness is still in my mind, and I guess this was the best part of the day!

CARMEN

"Whatever, the woman is a goddess in the untamed, reckless style of the outcast outsider, and as such, threatening as well as irresistible." (quote by Jay)

Bizet's brilliant and exciting music and CARMEN in a new production had opened at the Met! We could not get tickets and “ended up” seeing it at the tenplex movie house — a life performance in HD. And these tickets also sold out quickly. What a performance — great, overwhelming, sexy and mind blowing! It is like sitting in the first row at the Met, looking directly at the singers, seeing the pit, the conductor, and staring directly into the faces of the performers. The sound was overwhelming. Great interview with the singers at intermission and a good peek at what happens behind the curtain once the singers leave the stage. Oh so great. Carmen (Elīna Garanča) is very beautiful and she put all her artistry into her Carmen. She also dances the Flamenco while she sings (yes!) If you love opera and cannot get tickets at the Met, go to the movies! It's much better than sitting at Family Circle all the way up there where we normally are. No wonder that the movie house was also sold out.

Jay alerted me to the original story of Carmen written by Prosper Merimee in 1870 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosper_Mérimée. I always found the Carmen character fascinating, and I loved her spontaneity, her selfishness and her lust for life. I think this was the third time that I attended a Carmen performance, and this to me was the best! The original book story is vaguely the same as the opera libretto, but ever so vaguely. The book is much more detailed and focuses on Carmen, the gypsy, exclusively. Don José’s crazed attraction and love to her is described in greatest detail, the different ways of gypsy life and their thinking, their thievery, and their love to move around. But in the end it all comes together, there is of course the Picadore who has a love affair with Carmen and then dies in the bullfight; Don José kills Carmen to free himself from her before he also dies.  Oh boy, oh so great.

I looked up the history of “gypsies” on the internet, read about their flight from from India and their moving all over the continent, their own languages, their holidays, their violence, their habits, and the world's many ways of pursuing, exploiting and killing them. All this made the Carmen opera more alive to me and together with Bizet's music it is hard to dismiss from your mind.