NOTES OF A USED AND OUT-OF-PRINT BOOK DEALER

Issue 25, August 10, 2002

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Sometimes standing in a post office line I think back to a lecture given by Hans Gerth (famous sociologist) at Columbia University to a small class of perhaps ten students. I don't remember the content but vividly recall his method: The initial sentence of subject and predicate was followed by the conversion of the predicate to the subject of the next sentence. And on he went, the statements linked by these repeats into a chain. Toward the end of the hour he edged toward the door, then he walked back and produced another link. To the door again, then back, scribbling a doodle on the blackboard. Then, finally reaching his ultimate sentence, he ended back at his original subject, this time as last predicate. He had completed the circle and then allowed himself to exit the room.

(See Gerth and Mills. "Character and Social Structure.")

1. A Backward Glance
2. Damon Runyon as a Writer
3. A Conshohocken Character Goes to a Baseball Game
4. Damon Runyon: Biographical Stories
5. Tough Love
6. Sing a Line
7. Waiting in Line

WHO IS ANASTACIA?

A backward glance: In our last issue we presented a story about a young journalist's encounter with syndicated crime on a Brooklyn pier in the mid-1950's. As a puzzle we omitted the name of the crime family involved. A follower of the organized crime scene, calling himself "The Scarf," correctly identified the Anastasia brothers as the benign heavies: There were three: Albert, who had been assassinated in a barber chair; Tough Tony, the angry man on the pier; and Jerry, who bought the drinks.

"The Scarf" is the street name of an old time Manhattan resident, born and bred on the Upper West Side, who on occasion thinks of himself as a character out of Damon Runyon. We thank him for his contribution.

THE BROADWAY WRITER

Damon Runyon, the journalist and short story writer, who in his declining years hung out with Walter Winchell at the Stork Club, arrived from out of the West to become the successful chronicler of Broadway's demi-monde in the years between the world wars. Runyon's characters were gamblers and boozers and irresponsible lovers, memorable people who managed, serendipitously, to spread a little good even as they continued their obsessive commitments to Lady Luck, Demon Rum, Eros, and the Devil.

Runyon's success as a columnist and author carried over to the movies. "Little Miss Marker" (1934) introduced Shirley Temple to her audience. The plot: A gambler leaves little Shirley with his bookie as a promise to pay a gambling debt, with all the complications this implies. In "Lady for a Day" (1933) a gambler converts a curbside apple seller called "Apple Annie" into a society lady for a few hours to advance the economically advantageous marriage of her daughter. Altogether 16 stories and one play translated into movies.

Jimmy Breslin, who is in the Runyon tradition, wrote a biography, "Damon Runyon" (1991) which followed earlier works: by Tom Clarke, "The World of Damon Runyon" (1978), and Edward Palmer Hoyt, "A Gentleman of Broadway." (1964).

For Runyon's own words see "Damon Runyon's Omnibus."

DON'T SHOOT UNTIL YOU SEE THE GREEN
Another Conshocken Story

Elmer Conshohocken is a composite book dealer. The centers of all his stories are true, the fringes are embellished.

Dave Booker, a distant cousin of Elmer, was a well-known Philadelphia bookman who specialized in gambling literature. This was in the 1930's about the same time as Runyon was patrolling his beat in New York. Dave spent part of each working day with his clients in the various venues of the sporting crowd. During the summer, the baseball season, he and the gang, about 400 men and a few hearty women, would gather in the left field stands of Shibe Park to watch whichever of the two Philadelphia baseball teams (the A's or the Phillies) were playing at home.

Neither team had much success during this era so aside from left field the stands were always near empty. Only someone like Bobby Feller pitching for the Cleveland Indians could fill the park.

The gamblers formed their own exchange market, each player running his own book. Dave kept track of his bets along the margins of his Philadelphia Bulletin. Like the stock exchange, people would shout out offers of odds and others would signal acceptance. The odds would shift as the game progressed so the action tended to be continuous, people laying off an advantage by a contrary bet, like in the commodities market. At game's end there was a general milling to pay off. The number of people involved was low enough for easy recognition, and each man's pride in his reputation plus an occasional spat maintained a surprisingly placid order.

One hot summer day there was a stir in the crowd, a little ripple as the news traveled and everyone realized that a distinguished visitor was among them. Jack Swank, bet-a-thousand-Jack, renowned up and down the East Coast was in town and hungry for action. Of medium height, tanned, a little on the portly side, always impeccably dressed: seersucker suit, straw hat, and pearl-headed cane. Grey at the temples. Cool and affable under risk and stress. A student of statistics. He wore a diamond ring on the little finger of his left hand.

After the ball game the cognoscenti, about fifty strong including Jack and Dave, their gambling instincts still at a boil, retired to the back room of a local garage and started shooting craps.

Picture this, the fifty men forming a horseshoe circle with a wall on the open side. Dave is on one knee holding the dice. Jack is to his left. Everyone waiting. "I'm backing the shooter," Jack announces. Everyone loves Jack, one of their own who is fabulously successful: with stories in newspapers, glamorous girl friends, travel, hobnobbing with the famous and wealthy, a persona and life they would all emulate if they could. They love him but he has the big money and each and every one of them wants a piece of him. Everyone else bets against. And each man lays his bet on the floor at his feet, twenty here, fifty there, one hundred. This is serious. Jack takes out his bankroll and walks around the circle covering each bet. Takes ten minutes at least, seems like time stop to those present. Finished at last Jack says to Dave, "Shoot."

Dave doesn't move. Jack repeats, "Shoot."

"How can I shoot?" asks Dave, "No one is covering my bet." On the floor before him are two lonely dollars.

"OK," says Jack, "I'll cover you," and he peels off the two bills and gently places them on Dave's little pile.

Dave rolls and comes out with a seven. Yah! A winner.

Jack repeats his tour of the circle, sweeping up the money, all except Dave's four dollars. He gives Dave an order for three copies of "Hoyle's Games," tips his hat and walks toward the exit. A general silence. One voice, "Hell, Jack. Aren't you going to give us a chance to get even?"

"I'd stay," says Jack, now into a singing voice, "Except I got a date with my baby." And out he goes.

PANCHO VILLA AND ALL THAT

Stories from Runyon's biography seem apiece with his fiction.

On alcoholic addiction: His wife who initially resisted their alliance because of his alcoholism later became alcoholic herself.

And on May-December romance: His second wife was much younger. The relationship started with his avuncular interest. She was a child messenger for Pancho Villa along the Mexican border, and Runyon financed her to a local convent education. On maturity, now a flamenco style dancer, she came to New York and became Runyon's lover and eventually his wife. During his final years, when he was debilitated by cancer, she left him for a much younger man.

For a quick summary of Runyon's career visit http://www.pressclub.org/about/history/drunyon.htm for the Denver Press Club's fine biography of Runyon by Michael D. McClanahan

A COLLECTING INTEREST

May-December. Sounds familiar. It has been frequently treated in novels, cinema, and in biography. I think of Georgia O'Kieff and Alfred Steiglitz, of Gloria Swanson and Joseph Kennedy, of Oona O'Neil and Charlie Chaplin. A social and literary category worthy of a collector's attention and a scholar's skill. Each story shows another side, another outcome. Happiness or pain, redemption or hell.

Anyone interested in this road might start with Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion." And if you're in the mood for sin and storm try Paul Horgan's novel "The Thin Mountain Air."

MAY-DECEMBER

"The September Song" provides the theme music for any May-December story. Lyrics by Maxwell Anderson, music by Kurt Weill (of Beggar's Opera fame), it was one of a number of songs in Anderson's musical play, "Knickerbocker Holiday," adapted from Washington Irving's "The History of New York by Diedrich Knickerbocker." On Broadway in 1938, Walter Huston starred and, in his role as Governor Stuyvesant of New Amsterdam, introduced this song.

Stuyvesant sang "Oh, the days dwindle down to a precious few, September, November," in his futile attempt to seduce the young maid, Tina Tienhoven, while her brash, young suitor is off on a mission for the Governor.

The song has outlasted in popularity both the play, which ran for 168 performances, and the movie version of 1944, starring Nelson Eddy, Charles Coburn, and Constance Dowling.

For a synopsis of the play: http://www.kwf.org/pages/k7main.html#synopsis

Discussion of movie version. http://www.dandugan.com/maytime/f-knicke.htmlMusical rendition of September Song, No lyrics. http://www.broadwaymidi.com/cgi-bin/schlabo/dl.pl?KnickerbockerHoliday-SeptemberSong http://www.volcano.net/~jackmearl/songs/ssongs/september_song.html For the words of the September Song.

For an academic view of Anderson's life and work see Shivers. "Maxwell Anderson." We have a copy listed at http://continentalbooks.com/books.cgi?bk=2824

WAITING OUT THE LINE

Waiting interminably on line at the post office I often hum these lyrics and recite "And these few precious days I'll spend with you, these precious days I'll spend with you."

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Where's the door? I'm out-a-here.

Alvin Katz copyright 2002