Words and music.

When I first moved to Manhattan in 1980, things looked pretty dire on the financial front. While I waited to close on my ‘luxury high rise’ co-op apartment (an L-shaped alcove studio with but 450 square feet of space which the realtor somehow managed to advertise as having 6 rooms) my temporary landlord made off with my deposit. Some $1,000 poorer and every penny deposited on the luxury high rise, I was down to my uppers. Dinner was at the McDonald’s I could see from the 14th floor window on 8th Avenue and the Citicorp branch next door was advertising 18% pass book savings rates, courtesy of the Idiot Carter.

But the stroll from 56th and 8th to Broadway and 57th was but two minutes and you could find me there every night at what had become my local free library. After the splendid repast at Mikey Dee’s, I would traipse round to Coliseum Books and enjoy a chapter of something favorite, no hassles involved. You see, I could afford nothing in the store.

The all time favorite was this:

The master.

Fans of Gershwin may carp, but the reality is that George had to retain his brother Ira to write the lyrics. Cole Porter needed no such help. He wrote the words. And the music. And what words and music they were.

The large tome, available used though Amazon, is replete with period photographs, this one being one of the best:

Fred and Ginger.

And who could not thrill to the magic of Cole’s gorgeous word mastery?

You’re the top!
You’re the Coliseum
You’re the top!
You’re the Louvre Museum
You’re a melody from a symphony by Strauss
You’re a Bendel bonnet
A Shakespeare’s sonnet
You’re Mickey Mouse
You’re the Nile
You’re the Tower of Pisa
You’re the smile on the Mona Lisa
I’m a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop
But if, baby, I’m the bottom, you’re the top

The Henri Bendel store, repository of high fashion and kept women, was just across 57th between 5th and 6th Avenues. Sadly, both stores are gone but Cole Porter’s words and music will live forever.

Don’t make my mistake of waiting 40 years to buy this special book.

Harry Gruyaert’s masterpiece.

The Belgian Magnum photographer Harry Gruyeart, born in 1941, has summarized his beach landscapes in a magnificent book titled simply ‘Edges’.

The book, which appropriately opens in horizontal format, contains 89 color images printed on matte paper. This works well. Gruyaert is a master of sparse color, in the tradition of Saul Leiter, Fred Herzog or Keld Helmer-Petersen. But he is very much his own man and it takes no degree in art history to expostulate “That’s a Gruyeart!”

‘Edges’ is a retrospective of 40 years of Gruyaert’s work and is recommended without reservation. While the images were mostly made in Europe and North Africa, the feel is intensely European throughout. This is fabulous work, beautifully seen and composed, pure and simple.

The master summarized.

Click the image to order.

If Irving Penn is a new name to you, you must get this book. If not, there’s no better place to find a summary of the many genres Penn mastered. Fashion, still lifes, African primitives, portraits of the famous, platinum printing.

Long discontinued, good copies can be had through Amazon’s booksellers. Mine ran me $40 in near-mint condition.

Unreservedly recommended.