Mid-Manhattan

On a beautiful spring night last week picture story teller Ben Katchor came to Mid-Manhattan to do a reading of his work. I had asked Ben Katchor to come do a program almost a year ago and through many correspondences and date changes Wednesday, May 7th finally arrived. To be honest, I discovered Ben Katchor a few months before I had invited him to speak at the library. In a conversation with a friend, his name was mentioned as someone I should come to know. Ben Katchor I learned is a comic strip creator unlike any before.

His comic strips reveal the absurdity of everyday life. He presents wonderfully drawn scenes, using characters who are quintessentially human. The characters, sometimes subtle and sometimes not, always pack an ironic punch. Katchor has the uncanny ability to show the funny side of the ordinary, the mundane and the pedestrian. His work focuses on the parts the rest of us don’t think about until we happen to read one of his comic strips. The obvious we take for granted is the palette Ben works from. This is where the beauty of Ben Katchor’s work lies. I admire and enjoy his intuitive understanding of what can be funny… for Ben Katchor it is anything.

Ben Katchor has been making comics strips for years and his work has been in many publications, currently his work can be found in Metropolis Magazine. He has published a number of books and written operas. He is constantly working. I was a bit nervous about meeting him because of his stature. He was the recipient of the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship Award, a 500,000 dollar Genius Grant, an award aimed at gifted and largely unrecognized talents. Ben Katchor is a big name and I was enormously proud when he came to Mid-Manhattan to do a reading.

At 6:15 PM the room was filling nicely. I stood at my usual spot in the hallway, greeting the people as they arrived. Ben came into the hallway at one point and we chatted briefly. I discovered he was pleasantly warm and easy to talk to. He expressed pleasure and appreciation of the people arriving. At 6:35 PM my programming director, Debbie Hirsch, suggested we begin. I ushered Ben into the room. I told him I would introduce him and then he could begin. At 6:40 PM I stood at the podium and read my introduction. I then turned the stage over to Ben Kacthor and the lights went dark.

Ben Katchor’s work is wonderful on paper. However Ben’s reading of his panels, displayed huge on a screen is truly special. Frame after frame in beautiful colors appeared in front of us. The written narrative normally seen in his comic strips was hidden from view. Ben read the narratives aloud, in the most calm and understated manner, he then punctuated the narrative with the animated voices of the characters. The audience responded with appreciative laughter throughout the program. 70 people attended a most enjoyable and intimate event.

Picture Story: The Call of the Wall by Ben Katchor

Links to articles on Ben Katchor: Bomb Magazine, Identity Theory

Programming is great. Not only do I get to select the programs I present, I am then rewarded 10 fold by attending interesting and entertaining programs and I get paid for it! What could be better? About a year ago I happened to be reading Christopher Gray’s Streetscapes column in the Real Estate Section of the Sunday New York Times. It is the first column I read in the Sunday paper. Generally the focus of the Streetscapes column is a building. However on Sunday, April 29, 2007 Christopher Gray did something quite different. On that day the Streetscapes column was devoted to a man, Paul Shaw. Mr. Shaw is a designer and design historian, specializing in architectural lettering.

The subject of the article was completely new to me and I found it fascinating, exciting even. In the article Christopher Gray went on a walking tour with Paul Shaw whose focus was on letters: letters on buildings, in the subway and on monuments, letters which appear everywhere in the city. After reading the article I had experienced a visual revelation, allowing me to see beyond my pedestrian eyes. I found myself looking anew at buildings, monuments and signs that before I would glance over.

I knew Paul Shaw would present a wonderful program and decided to invite him to come speak at the library. I contacted Christopher Gray and inquired about Mr. Shaw. Christopher confirmed my thoughts about Paul Shaw and happily provided me with contact information. After receiving Mr. Shaw’s email address I wrote a lengthy email to him, introducing myself and what I do, followed by a polite request for him to come speak at the library. My wishes were granted with a response of “yes, I’d be happy to speak at the library!”

Months went by and then came the creation of the promotional materials for the program. There was further correspondence between Paul and I about content and title of the program. Initially there was some confusion between Paul and I about what the title should be for the program. Paul’s title was, how should I say, not the most exciting it should be to attract an audience. Paul’s title seemed geared to a specific audience, with perhaps more expertise in the field of typographic design, definitely not appropriate for a general audience. We went back and forth on this discussion for a few more emails till Paul understood what I had been politely trying to tell him. We want people to come to the program, not avoid it. “Oh” he said. “You want something more jazzy sounding.” “Yep, exactly!” I said. The next title fell right into the perfect range of jazzy/sexy. Then came the wrangling with the look of the flyer. Naturally Paul wanted to see everything and I was happy to oblige. He is a designer and I was told by my supervisors to expect it. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it can be problematic. We create an effective, nice looking flyer, with an already established template. It was initially created with lots of input from present and former employees. Hence we produce a solid looking flyer. Many of our patrons have told me how handsome the flyers look and I take this as a good sign. Paul made some comments and some changes and I tried to appease his requests. Finally we came to an agreement on an appropriate flyer that he could be happy with. Phew!

The night of the event we got our biggest crowd ever, 135 attended. And Paul Shaw did not disappoint. If ever there was a blockbuster program, this was it! Paul worked hard on his presentation, you could tell. He had us on the edge of our seats. He presented a program in three parts: letters in the subways, letters on apartment buildings and finally letters on department stores (Paul Shaw counts Lord & Taylor as a former client). Interesting stories, as well as a bit of design theory and history melded into a fascinating and visually exhilarating experience. It's all in a letter, I just never knew how much. Paul Shaw will be coming back in the fall to do another program. I hope you can attend!

Generally in the same subject area, I have included a review of Helvetica, Gary Hustwit’s 2007 documentary that uses the legendary typeface to weave a broader story about typography, graphic design and visual culture in the last half-century.

My father moved into my Brooklyn home about 10 years ago when my mother died, and thus began my career as his personal librarian. When he first moved to Brooklyn, I showed him how to use the bus system so he could travel to and from the Brooklyn Central Library. I gave him a simplified explanation of the Dewey system; telling him what I tell everyone who comes to the reference desk, “think of the number as the address where the subject or book lives on the shelf.” I knew my father’s reading preferences very well and it was with assurance that I sent him to the 940’s to find exactly what he would like. For the most part he took care of his reading material himself, with his weekly jaunts to the library. I would pepper his selections with other books I thought he might enjoy from the collections at Mid-Manhattan. Favorites in the category were Samuel Pepys: The Unequaled Self by Claire Tomalin , Sweet and Low: A Family Story by Rich Cohen, Wild Swans:Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang, The Color of Love: A Mother’s Choice in the Jim Crow South by Gene Cheek and much more. His reading was varied, but mainly it was WWII history he loved and always non-fiction. While at my house he watched no TV. My father just read for his entertainment. As far as I could tell he loved it.

A year and half ago my father became quite ill. I had noticed he did not seem himself so I forced him to go the doctor. I was informed that my father was very sick with congestive heart failure, a common affliction of the elderly. He was so sick there was cause for concern whether he would even live. For 10 days I maintained a presence at the hospital. I sadly watched him turn old right before my eyes. I brought him books while at the hospital but they remained unread. I surmised he was distracted by his plight. Naturally he became depressed. Life was now different and he would have to adjust, or not. The trips to the library would now become memories. Within a matter of days his world became miniscule to what it had been. Miles of travel would now be reduced to blocks, if he was lucky. There was nothing neither he nor I could do; this was life, cruel and ironic.

Once home my father tried to manage a hefty depression. He now had to get used to a new self and that new self would be drastically different from a few weeks before. I brought him books, foolishly thinking reading would be a welcome distraction. How wrong I was. The books gathered dust and their beckoning was left unanswered. I finally broke down and bought him a TV and had cable installed. My kids were thrilled and my father became a zombie in front of the blue screen. He watched for hours and would sleep and then watch more. It broke my heart. He seemed unable to focus on a book. Outwardly he seemed fine, but to me he had become a mere shadow of himself. He no longer seemed an active participant in life, but rather a passive ride taker. I became resigned to my new father and just tried to make him comfortable.

There came a time recently when I brought home two books, the book I was reading A Death in the Family by James Agee and Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides the book I planned to start reading afterwards. My father is Greek and our family is from Detroit so I made a point of showing him Middlesex because of the Greek author and the Detroit setting for his book.

My father in his old age has developed a keen interest in everything Greek. I thought the Eugenides book would interest him, if not to read then to simply marvel at the author’s heritage. To my surprise it was the Agee book that caught his interest. He said about the Agee book, “I always wanted to read this book.” With that, I said “here pops, take it, you read it.” That was months ago and my father has been reading fiction every since. Perhaps by reading fiction my father has been able to recapture a part of life that he has lost in his own life. Author Paul Theroux once said “fiction gives us a second chance that life denies us.” I bring him mysteries like: Georges Simenon, Henning Mankell, Elmore Leonard and other works of fiction from Ian McEwan to Somerset Maugham and many more. I am happy to be of service to my father for as long as it lasts. I am also so thankful to be working at Mid-Manhattan, with such an incredible collection of fiction to choose from.