This note of recollection just received from Robert Krulwich:
Hey,
Reading your Village Voice profile of Mel Brooks, I want to write down something that happened -- at least I think it happened - in the mens' department at Brooks Brothers on Madison Avenue around 1963. I was there one afternoon to buy shoes and the salesman was showing me 'oxfords', soft leather footwear with little dots hand punched into the surface, something that a banker or under secretary of state might wear. The thing was I was in high school so these shoes were a reach for me, but the salesman was saying I was ready and I was on my feet, looking down at one of those low-on-the-floor mirrors when another customer, an older man about five seats to my left, began looking at me, then at my feet, then at my shoes and began making noises, not words, exactly, but grunts -- I'm not sure he was addressing me or the salesman -- but he was shaking his head and saying "no, no, no..." and I had no idea who this guy was, but the salesman, instead of being annoyed looked a little giddy and kept moving his eyes from the man back to me, as if to say, "Isn't this fantastic!!" while I was thinking "who is this guy and why does he have an opinion about my shoes?" until, a few seconds later, the man got up, moved four seats over so now he was right behind me sharing my mirror and then he sort of elbowed my salesman aside so he could rummage through the boxes of shoes to announce which ones were out of the question, which were acceptable and, seizing one pair -- "This!" he announced is "the best!" trumpeted loud enough for everyone on the sales floor to hear, and he told the salesman to wrap up the pair he liked and make the others all go away.
I don't believe he ever said anything directly to me. What happened after that is a little blurry. I think I retreated, trying to ignore what had just gone on, mumbling something about having to 'think it over' and planning, which I did, to come back an hour later when that guy was gone and I could do what I wanted without all this kibbutzing, which, by the way, is what it felt like. I'd been to Grossingers and had stood in the lobby while 'tumlers' made fun of guests on the registration line and pulled bananas out of peoples' ears and this guy, I thought, was one of those, though finding him in Brooks Brothers was a little like finding a penguin in the Sahara. I remember, or think I remember, coming back an hour or so later, getting the shoes I wanted, which weren't the ones he liked and went home and kept wondering who that man was until...well, two things happened. First the shoes I didn't want, didn't order and didn't pay for arrived at my home, to me, at my parents' address and second, that the invoice from Brooks Brothers said the sender was someone named "Mel Brooks", a name recognized by my mother. "Why would Mel Brooks be buying you shoes?" she asked me. I didn't have an answer. I still don't. I don't know how he got my name, though Brooks Brothers had my address, I don't know why they let Mel (I guess I can call him that) use private information to send me a gift and how to explain his interest, my salesman's smile, the free shoes, why or why he was he so adamant? Sometimes, wandering through life, things happen that never get explained, that stay in a fuzzy space between "it happened" and "I'm not sure it happened." And that, Ren, is my Mel Brooks story.
(A thought: maybe he was a distant cousin to the original gentile Brooks Brothers and had family privileges. Maybe they'd let the yiddish Brooks do yiddishkeit things on the salesfloor because....I don't know. I don't even know why I'm writing you this. I guess it was your article that got me going.) .
I read what you send from top to bottom, even things I've read before.
Dear Ren! Bravo! Profoundly wise and, as always, profoundly informed.
Here's my humble contribution/solution to the Supreme Court high treason IMMUNITY CASE. Stupidly trying to proclaim their Hitler-like master, Donald, untouchable and above the USA Law, they have, (perhaps unwittingly?), proclaimed the current President, Jo Biden, the first KING in the USA history - King Jo I, and this country a new KINGDOM, replacing our traditional REPUBLIC. Biden should, now and immediately, use his new royal powers and prerogatives and arrest the traitor and insurrectionist, Donald Trump, with most of his co-insurrectionists, committing them to life imprisonment, in high-security US prisons. King Jo I still has full six months to carry out this excellent plan, after whose implementation, he can easily "abdicate," as a proper king, and reestablish the good old USA Republic.
Sounds good to me. My only addition—or maybe it's just a clarification—being that while he is at it, King Joe could arrest the illegitimate Imperial Six Supreme Court Justices (maybe spare Coney Barrett), throw them in prison too and throw away the key, and install a fresh crop (no need for Senate approval in the new Imperial Dispensation)...and yes, then abdicate, having amply fulfilled his promise to be a decisive transitional figure.
Incredibly interesting story about Arthur Koestler, who I‘d known nothing about. I walk past Ullsteinhaus everyday on my way to my art studio a building or two down the street. It has a small gallery inside exhibiting covers of magazines published there, and exhibits showing the construction of the building, and so forth. I‘m going to look for a copy of his book now. Thanks for sharing.
This note of recollection just received from Robert Krulwich:
Hey,
Reading your Village Voice profile of Mel Brooks, I want to write down something that happened -- at least I think it happened - in the mens' department at Brooks Brothers on Madison Avenue around 1963. I was there one afternoon to buy shoes and the salesman was showing me 'oxfords', soft leather footwear with little dots hand punched into the surface, something that a banker or under secretary of state might wear. The thing was I was in high school so these shoes were a reach for me, but the salesman was saying I was ready and I was on my feet, looking down at one of those low-on-the-floor mirrors when another customer, an older man about five seats to my left, began looking at me, then at my feet, then at my shoes and began making noises, not words, exactly, but grunts -- I'm not sure he was addressing me or the salesman -- but he was shaking his head and saying "no, no, no..." and I had no idea who this guy was, but the salesman, instead of being annoyed looked a little giddy and kept moving his eyes from the man back to me, as if to say, "Isn't this fantastic!!" while I was thinking "who is this guy and why does he have an opinion about my shoes?" until, a few seconds later, the man got up, moved four seats over so now he was right behind me sharing my mirror and then he sort of elbowed my salesman aside so he could rummage through the boxes of shoes to announce which ones were out of the question, which were acceptable and, seizing one pair -- "This!" he announced is "the best!" trumpeted loud enough for everyone on the sales floor to hear, and he told the salesman to wrap up the pair he liked and make the others all go away.
I don't believe he ever said anything directly to me. What happened after that is a little blurry. I think I retreated, trying to ignore what had just gone on, mumbling something about having to 'think it over' and planning, which I did, to come back an hour later when that guy was gone and I could do what I wanted without all this kibbutzing, which, by the way, is what it felt like. I'd been to Grossingers and had stood in the lobby while 'tumlers' made fun of guests on the registration line and pulled bananas out of peoples' ears and this guy, I thought, was one of those, though finding him in Brooks Brothers was a little like finding a penguin in the Sahara. I remember, or think I remember, coming back an hour or so later, getting the shoes I wanted, which weren't the ones he liked and went home and kept wondering who that man was until...well, two things happened. First the shoes I didn't want, didn't order and didn't pay for arrived at my home, to me, at my parents' address and second, that the invoice from Brooks Brothers said the sender was someone named "Mel Brooks", a name recognized by my mother. "Why would Mel Brooks be buying you shoes?" she asked me. I didn't have an answer. I still don't. I don't know how he got my name, though Brooks Brothers had my address, I don't know why they let Mel (I guess I can call him that) use private information to send me a gift and how to explain his interest, my salesman's smile, the free shoes, why or why he was he so adamant? Sometimes, wandering through life, things happen that never get explained, that stay in a fuzzy space between "it happened" and "I'm not sure it happened." And that, Ren, is my Mel Brooks story.
(A thought: maybe he was a distant cousin to the original gentile Brooks Brothers and had family privileges. Maybe they'd let the yiddish Brooks do yiddishkeit things on the salesfloor because....I don't know. I don't even know why I'm writing you this. I guess it was your article that got me going.) .
I read what you send from top to bottom, even things I've read before.
And I'm a subscriber!!
Robert K.
Dear Ren! Bravo! Profoundly wise and, as always, profoundly informed.
Here's my humble contribution/solution to the Supreme Court high treason IMMUNITY CASE. Stupidly trying to proclaim their Hitler-like master, Donald, untouchable and above the USA Law, they have, (perhaps unwittingly?), proclaimed the current President, Jo Biden, the first KING in the USA history - King Jo I, and this country a new KINGDOM, replacing our traditional REPUBLIC. Biden should, now and immediately, use his new royal powers and prerogatives and arrest the traitor and insurrectionist, Donald Trump, with most of his co-insurrectionists, committing them to life imprisonment, in high-security US prisons. King Jo I still has full six months to carry out this excellent plan, after whose implementation, he can easily "abdicate," as a proper king, and reestablish the good old USA Republic.
Just a thought... :-)
Bravo, again!
Let them (The Six King-Makers) feel their own "medicine" (poison).
Sounds good to me. My only addition—or maybe it's just a clarification—being that while he is at it, King Joe could arrest the illegitimate Imperial Six Supreme Court Justices (maybe spare Coney Barrett), throw them in prison too and throw away the key, and install a fresh crop (no need for Senate approval in the new Imperial Dispensation)...and yes, then abdicate, having amply fulfilled his promise to be a decisive transitional figure.
Incredibly interesting story about Arthur Koestler, who I‘d known nothing about. I walk past Ullsteinhaus everyday on my way to my art studio a building or two down the street. It has a small gallery inside exhibiting covers of magazines published there, and exhibits showing the construction of the building, and so forth. I‘m going to look for a copy of his book now. Thanks for sharing.