Hopeless Utopian

Vintage Roll Top Desk Delivered to Correct Address – Only Forty Years Late

2008-07-14T16:39:00Z

Miami -- Hector Ruiz remembers moving here from San Antonio in 1962, when he was only six years old.

The Ruiz’s were an upper-middle-class family. Hector’s mom worked as an executive secretary and his dad was a pharmaceuticals salesman. When his father was promoted to Southeastern sales manager, the Ruiz’s used a moving company to transfer all their possessions the 1,400 miles from their three-bedroom Texas home to Florida.

One piece of important furniture never arrived – at least not until June 2008.

As Hector relates in an interview, his grandfather, Alejandro, purchased the 54-inch cherry roll top desk in 1941 at a furniture auction and used it proudly until his death in 1953.

The desk passed to Hector’s father. As a child, Hector remembers being fascinated by the desk and all its “magical” drawers.

Upon the Ruiz’s arrival in Miami, Alejandro’s roll top desk was not among the family’s boxes and crates. The desk never showed up and ultimately the mover (www.x-moving.com) paid the Ruiz family $2,500 in compensation.

“The lawyer told me he has no idea why the desk had never been delivered or why no one else had every bothered to track down its rightful owner,” Hector says.

Hector says he doesn’t know what his grandfather originally paid for the desk, but assumes it was quite well made because even 40-years ago it was valued so highly.

In the four-decades since the Ruiz family arrived in Miami, Hector’s parents both died and his four siblings moved to new locations. Only he remains at the Miami family home.

“I was stunned,” is how Hector describes his reaction when he was contacted by a San Antonio attorney in mid-June who informed him that he was handling the estate of the Texas man who had owned the moving company that the Ruiz family used in 1962. The business owner died in October 2007 and his real estate holdings were being liquidated.

In a storage facility owned by the San Antonio movers, the Texas lawyer came across Alejandro’s cherry roll top desk in a crate addressed to the Ruiz family’s Miami home. The lawyer did an Internet search and found that Hector still lived there.

“The lawyer told me he has no idea why the desk had never been delivered or why no one else had every bothered to track down its rightful owner,” Hector says.

Although technically the claim on the desk had been paid decades earlier, the lawyer told Hector he believed the desk belonged with the Ruiz family and the mover's estate paid to ship the desk to Florida.

When the roll top finally arrived “home,” Hector says, he and his siblings gathered to see what kind of time-capsule mementos might still be locked away in the desk. But all the drawers and compartments were empty.

“Whether dad shipped it empty or it was emptied along the years,” we’ll never know says Hector. “What I do know is if I ever move from here, I’m taking the desk with me in a U-Haul.”

WILL FERRELL and HUGH LAURIE: Would You Recognize a True Celebrity if You Saw One?

2008-07-09T20:13:00Z

WHO ARE THEY: Strangers on a Plane, Faces in a Crowd, The Driver in the Rear-View Mirror?

I suppose that living in Los Angeles, I should expect to have that periodic encounter with a genuine celebrity. Yet each time I do, I'm wowed by the convergence of circumstances that must take place in order to put me and some famous entertainer, business leader or politician in the exact same location at the exact same time.

Yesterday my wife and I were running late, rushing to an appointment in a multi-story Beverly Hills office building located a brief stroll from Rodeo Drive. We both boarded an elevator only to realize we didn't know what floor our meeting was on, so we made a hasty exit to consult the building directory.

Scurrying into the next elevator we joined a single occupant, standing along the back wall at the far left, humming to himself. "We've seen a few of your movies," I said casually, trying to distance myself from the ordinary star-struck fan. "Our whole family is a big fan."

This is true.

A Chance Encounter: Will and Talya

A year earlier, I, my wife and our two kids made a day of it standing in line and waiting endlessly as movie extras, just so we could watch Will Ferrell film Semi-Pro in a mock stadium constructed near Chavez Ravine, not far from where the Los Angeles Dodgers play baseball. At the time, the closest we got to Ferrell was row 135A.

Now we are standing alone with the movie star and Saturday Night Live alum in a closed elevator. He is my captive audience. At least for another 15-30 seconds until the elevator deposits him on the next floor. (We got off with him and he kindly and warmly agreed to pose for a picture with my wife.)

Coincidentally, it's not been a week since my kids and I were standing in the checkout line at a Malibu coffee shop and I glanced over to recognize a very pregnant Minnie Driver paying for her order in the adjoining line. Like Will -- (having shared that elevator moment I'm now on a first-name basis with him) -- Minnie seemingly went unrecognized by others. Either that, or the Malibu crowd was just too cool (jaded?) to acknowledge her.


The paparazzi were so focused here...	...they missed Minnie and her pooch

As we watched Minnie leave the shop and recover her dog -- which had waited obediently outdoors for her return, we found it funny that 100 yards away a swarm of paparazzi were waiting to catch a glimpse of some lesser-light models who were doing a promotional gig for some cosmetic or fashion designer. They were oblivious to Minnie, who wasn't wearing makeup and was quite unplugged from the usual celebrity trappings.

Beyond Will and Minnie, in the past year I've been at a urinal at LAX when TV and movie star Craig T. Nelson pulled into the stall at my left; sat behind legendary Cleveland Brown's football star Jim Brown on a flight from Newark to LA;

Even the 'Hulk' can't hurry the luggage

browsed for magazines at a newsstand with 3rd Rock from the Sun's John Lithgow, and waited to retrieve my luggage with Lou Ferrigno, who played the Hulk on the 1966 television series.

Actually, my most memorable celebrity encounter of late came about six months back when driving on Los Angeles' congested surface streets. I glanced into my rear view mirror only to see that I was being followed closely by Hugh Laurie, aka Dr. Gregory House. Dr. House, em...Hugh Laurie, was driving a vintage two-seat red Porsche and glaring at me as if I were responsible for the miserable traffic.

I'm a regular fan and viewer of House M.D., so it was both exciting and a little eerie to think that for a few exhaust-fume filled minutes, House and I were bonded in inconvenience.

Besides giving me the opportunity to let you know how many cool celebs I've spotted, I was motivated to write this post because of a thought I had after sitting with (okay, near) Jim Brown on a plane, and then again when we ran into Will Ferrell yesterday.

I recognized these celebrities and struck up conversations with them. Being inquisitive and I hope friendly, I regularly strike up conversations with people on planes and in elevators who I don't recognize.

Hugh Laurie, in the red Porsche at right, got
tired following me and eventually passed.

But most people don't. My plane flights and elevator rides are typically marked by encounters with silent strangers who not only never engage me, more often than not they look vexed when I nonchalantly engage them. What a missed opportunity.

The next time you fly or find yourself alone in an elevator with a stranger, ask yourself, 'Who is this unrecognized celebrity?'

Maybe she's not a movie star, but perhaps she is an awesome 5th grade school teacher. Or a cardiosurgeon? Or an expert on mid-evil art? Or the spouse of the Governor of Montana. Or an heiress. How much do you risk by striking up a conversation?

All of us - whether we live near Hollywood or not -- have unplugged encounters with genuine celebrities everyday. Most of the time, we just don't know it.

Also See: My Lunch with Tom Hanks

Personalities in a Parisian Salon: More Portraits in Pencil and Pen

2008-06-29T20:32:00Z

Originally Published: The Century Magazine Vol. 110, No. 2 -- June 1925

BY WALTER TITTLE

Social life in the Latin countries is not the free and open institution to which we are accustomed in America and England. The Anglo-Saxon has his barriers that are more or less easily passed, and, this achieved, social intercourse is so general that it can easily become a cumulative burden, with some a business. To the Frenchman his home is particularly his castle, which he guards most carefully and jealously. He may have "cafe" friendships" with men for long periods without a thought on either side of introductions into the respective homes of the participants. When this finally comes, it may be taken as the best compliment that its donor can bestow.

My first invitation to a Parisian home came from Baron Denaint, who, being half English, was a partial exception to the rule. Another was from a French boy whom I had met casually in Rome, and whose undying gratitude I had won by a trifling loan of a sufficient number of lire to tide him over until his belated allowance arrived. These were pleasant and alluring glimpses into French home life. A third was from a member of the Chamber of Deputies at a time when his family were at their country place; whether this was carefully timed because of that fact, I do not know.

Paris, which usually dwells in the rosiest chambers of my mind as a city of sunshine, gaiety, and laughter, can at certain seasons rival London in its chill inclemency. On a dismal October day of violent downpour I sat in the writing-room of my hotel answering accumulated letters that I would have joyously neglected were Paris only living up to the reputation that I still reserved for her. Suddenly I was confronted by two men, objects of dripping misery, with hats and umbrellas that seemed to weigh pounds, or kilos if you prefer, because of the moisture that they had absorbed.

"How do you do, my friend?" one of them addressed me. "I am Monsieur Bélugu. We met often at Baron Stoops's in London. My wife sends her most cordial greetings. Do you remember us? I was just passing the Galerie Devambez and saw the posters of your exhibition there. The gallery attendant gave me your address."

Mme. Carolus-Duran, our hostess

I was touched by the kindly interest that braved the weather that I was carefully shunning, and I greeted my visitors with corresponding enthusiasm. The following Sunday found me at M. Bélugu's house for luncheon, the party having been arranged not only as a reunion with my host and hostess after our pleasant contact in London, but also for me to meet the Due de Guise. The bearer of that historic name was unable to come on this particular day, however, and the pleasure of meeting him was reserved for another time. Among the guests were the Count Dumiere and Mme. Carolus-Duran, daughter-in-law of the celebrated painter.

The luncheon passed with much gay chatter; fortunately for me, the English language was in evidence in sufficient, but varying degrees of, perfection, saving the strain of my slender stock of French. Toward tea-time we all repaired to the house of Mme. Carolus-Duran near by, where a most interesting company gradually assembled. Among the early arrivals were the principals of the Moscow Art Theater, fresh from their first successful season in New York and full of praise of my native land.

The cordiality of their reception in America had warmed their hearts to us, and their leading actress, Mme. Chekhov, widow of the great writer, voiced her enthusiasm in excellent English for everything American. They were to open soon for a short engagement at the Theatre Champs-Elysees, and after that a brief sojourn in London was planned; but these, apparently, were mentally hurdled with an eager eye turned toward New York, where, she told me, after a second engagement in the metropolis they were to have their first real view of our broad land in a tour from coast to coast. She was expecting keen enjoyment of the scenic wonders of our great West.

Russians were much in evidence, and all classes and regimes were represented, from the czar's, in the person of his former procurator-general, to several persons of apparent Bolshevist convictions. Between these extremes stood a venerable gentleman greatly resembling Tolstoy, who had been president of the Douma under Kerensky, and the diminutive, alert, smiling General Skouraud, Tatar from top to toe, who had achieved fame during the war by capturing a German general with his entire staff. In this same house on another occasion two Russian noblemen played with a skill and beauty that was astonishing upon balalaika and zither for the amusement of a company as mixed as the present one; their spirits found vent in song as the concert progressed, and the climax was reached when the impish Skouraud leaped to his feet and launched into a wild Cossack dance that would have been creditable in any Russian ballet. Some of his audience emphasized the rhythms with their hands, and echoed his almost savage cries with joyous enthusiasm.

Aside from the Russian contingent, there were many interesting French people in the party. One was a favorite prima donna from the opera whose name escapes me, another M. Mille, director of "le Temps." M. Edouard Julia, publisher of the "Journal Politique et Parlementaire," was most interesting, as was also the Marquis de Castellane, the former Count Boni, of whose doings I had read with much interest as a boy. He is still quite handsome, with his patrician cast of features and exceedingly erect carriage; his salient chest suggests military training, and his blond hair is still worn high, though time has thinned it considerably. He was clad in light tweeds, with white boutonnikre and kerchief in evidence, the note being repeated by white spats, which he always wears. He had a bulldog in leash, smart with its curious clown-like ruff of heavy leather trimmed with monkey fur, and the frantic greetings between it and Mme. Carolus-Duran's dog, one of the same litter, stopped all conversation temporarily and threatened the physical equilibrium of guests and furniture alike. In acknowledging our introduction I was surprised to find the marquis's English almost wholly without accent, and further surprised, and pleasantly, when he said:

"I know all about you. I saw your exhibition in London last year. I can remember many of your sitters: President Harding, Lord Balfour, Lord Beatty, Marechal Foch—" and he enumerated more of them. His manners suggest the old school of courtliness, his voice is low and pleasant, and the impression that I received on the whole very agreeable indeed.

Certainly the most charming person in the entire assemblage was madavic, my hostess. One could readily understand how she had naturally become a rallying-point around which so many interesting personalities had gathered. She had beauty, intelligence of a high degree, and esprit far beyond the usual allotment. She writes with ease, paints and draws with unusual skill, and is talented musically as well. I sometimes think that people who consume their talents in the very fine art of living must be happier than the ones who labor unceasingly to pass their product on to the world at large. Mme. Carolus-Duran chooses the former expression; direct acquaintance with her is necessary to share the delightful result, and this of necessity can be accorded to comparatively few; but a visit to her salon proves that Parisian society is not insensible of its privilege. M. Anatole France was one of her closest friends. A bust of him by her brother-in-law, Francois Sicard, recently created an academician, at whose studio I spent a most delightful afternoon, adorns her dining-room. The grave and witty Aristide Brand, whom I had met before and portrayed at the Washington conference, may frequently be encountered in her drawing-room. Gabriele d'Annunzio, André Gide, Countess de Noalles, Maeterlinck, tout Paris, in fact, find at her hearthstone a common meeting-ground.

§2

"Whom would you like to meet while you are here?" she said one evening, looking up with appraising eyes from a sketch she was making of me. "Who would interest you most? Name any one you like; I can probably arrange it for you,"

I cast about in my mind for a moment, thinking that there was no one about whom I was particularly curious, when suddenly a figure of my adoration loomed very large indeed. With a feeling of reckless adventure and a challenging smile, I replied:

"Forain."

"That will be very simple," madame replied quietly; "he is my very good friend." She stopped her sketching and opened a portfolio near at hand. "Here are some caricatures I made of him, and also some that he drew at the same time." I examined with eager interest the fragments of paper bearing the inimitable line of this master draftsman.

She picked up the telephone, and soon the miracle was done. M. Forain said that he would be glad to meet me if I would come to the Institut de France on the following afternoon.

"I told him," madame continued, "that you wish to make an etching of him; so be sure to take a few of your portraits with you."

"Well," I exclaimed, somewhat aghast, "I have let myself in for it this time with a vengeance! To sketch the pope would not perturb me in the slightest degree, but to sit down before the great Forain with a plate of copper and try to make a dry-point of him is like putting one's head in a lion's mouth. Does he speak English?"

"No, not at all."

"Then you must come with me to translate," I begged.

"No, it would spoil your interview to have me along. Have confidence;

M. Forain

your French is sufficient. Now, is there any one else you would like to meet?"

"Oh no, no; this is quite enough for the present," I protested. "If I suggested Anatole France, you would doubtless commit me to a debate with him on medieval French literature at the Sorbonne, or some equally enticing thing." She laughed.

Late that night I walked from madame's house, near the Etoile, the entire length of the Faubourg St. Honoré to my hotel at Place Vendome, chatting busily with the Spanish painter Del Pina and a former minister of the czar, there being about enough French in the possession of the three of us to equip one Parisian taxi driver. Excellent practice for the morrow, I thought.

I was in the entrance office of the Institut at the appointed hour on the following day. M. Forain had not yet arrived, an attendant told me, and in the same breath: "Wait; I hear his voice on the stair. That is M. Forain," as a head appeared over the balustrade. He came up very briskly, evidently finding his seventy-two years no burden.

He was not in the least what I expected him to be. The keen and piercing eyes alone proclaimed the great wit and satirist. They seemed able to penetrate to any depths, and there was an element of forceful determination in his expression and quick decisive movements that to some degree identified the man as one knows him through his work; otherwise there was no hint of the artist about him. Of medium height, of rather stocky build, with sallow skin and conventional dress, he would tempt few to follow him with a second glance. His greeting of me was most cordial and kindly. He was staying at his place in the country, he said, and invited me there for the following Sunday afternoon. He drew a little diagram to assist me in finding his house, and wrote the address beneath it.

The following Sunday found me in a fiacre rolling through the park at Versailles to the village of Le Chesnay, three miles distant. The house was easily located, and M. Forain received me with a hearty greeting. Madame, his wife, a cheery and buxom little person, was with him, and we got acquainted over a glass of Cointreau. I was somewhat taxed in answering a running fire of questions from both of them about myself, and soon M. Forain asked to examine the contents of my portfolio. With some inward trepidation I produced it, and was relieved and most agreeably surprised by the generous praise that my work received from the master. I had, unreasoningly, expected him to be intolerant of anything differing at all from his particular point of view, but such was not the case. Each of the twelve prints he carried to the window for careful examination, commenting most enthusiastically on the quality of the work, and asking many technical questions about points, copper, paper, and methods of wiping and printing. He asked to see my tools, and wanted to see the particular instruments that yielded certain effects. The compactness and arrangement of my etching-box interested him greatly, and he examined it carefully. One particularly vigorous and sinuous line in my portrait of Briand brought numerous inquiries, and I had to produce the stout, blunt diamond that achieved it.

"Come," he said, "I will show you my park before we get to work," and off we went through the considerable expanse of luxuriant old trees and shrubbery that surrounded the beautiful eighteenth-century house. He told me the names of some of the trees and shrubs; at the back was a kitchen and flower garden. Beyond the wall that surrounds the park he has a farm, the working of which is his chief recreation, he said. Returning to the house, he showed me various rooms that possessed much architectural beauty; in some of them the original eighteenth-century wall-paintings were still preserved. Madame then showed me some of her own works in oils, and I was delighted with their excellence.

M. Forain's summer studio occupies the second floor of the stone lodge beside the main entrance to the park. Climbing a narrow stairway, the ample square room was revealed. Several easels stood about, and an etching-press occupied the middle of the floor. Stacks of canvases leaned against the walls, and about twenty of his latest paintings he brought out for me to see. They were in varying stages of completion, and consequently more interesting than they could possibly be otherwise, as they clearly revealed his method. First he evolves his form in a sort of mist that recalls in some degree the work of Carriere, giving the final definition by drawing on top of this atmospheric under-painting with his powerful, flowing line. Twice in rests between his sittings to me he worked on one of the canvases, and to see his marvelously robust line emerging rapidly from under his hand identified this man as Forain more vividly than anything else could have done. His latest work is an undoubted advance over any of his previous product. The painting is more colorful and voluminous, and the line freer and more flexible. He showed me many sketches on tinted paper in two colors of chalk, different from anything I had previously seen of his. He had not exhibited any of these, his son told me later. Many were of nudes, and often a single swift line, varying in quality and intensity as it sped along, would describe one whole side of a figure.

M. Briand

I produced my portrait in about an hour and a half, directly on the copper, my eminent sitter conversing the entire time. When my French was inadequate, he would adopt a different phraseology until I understood. He had about six words of English, which he recited proudly, with an accent that was exceedingly funny. Greatly did I regret my inability to converse with him freely, as I am told that no wittier man exists in France to-day. Constantly was I impressed by his keen, almost hypnotic gaze; it made me feel that he could see more than I knew about myself.

He examined my plate from time to time, approving the composition and finally the likeness. He brought me a tube of black paint to rub into the lines so we could see them better, and when I added to it some powdered whiting, a bit of which I found in his studio, stiffening its consistency and adding greatly to its efficacy, he was delighted, never having seen it done before. He tried a couple of my points on a corner of the plate. The marks can be seen below my signature.

My first glimpse of M. Forain's son was when, in the midst of my sitting, I became aware of a third presence, and turned to find him busily sketching his father. We were introduced, and he apologized for sharing my sitter so unceremoniously.

"I have begged my father for years to allow me to sketch him," he said in English, "but without success. He has stubbornly refused to sit to any one until now. When your plate is finished, it will be the only portrait of him extant." I ventured the hope that the result would not be displeasing to his father. "If he does not like it, you will not be kept in doubt for a single second. He is rather merciless in his condemnation of anything that displeases him," he replied, with which comforting assurance I pursued my task.

Like the Americans, the French people frequently elevate their idols only to demolish them later. The greater the first grand burst of worship and adoration, the more extreme is the final iconoclasm.

The approach of the time for my return to Paris dictated the cessation of my activity. M. Forain suggested that I take a proof of the plate on his press. This was impossible unless we dispensed with tea that he had ordered to be served, and his kindly hospitality decided in favor of the latter. It was necessary for him to announce its arrival several times before I could tear myself away from some portfolios of his marvelous drawings that the son was showing me. M. Forain still contributes his weekly cartoon to "Figaro," and often redraws it as many as forty times before he produces a result acceptable to him. The others he destroys.

Tea concluded, M. Forain accompanied me to the house to take my leave of madame, and then to the gate, where his son awaited me in their car to drive me to Versailles. Later I took a proof of the plate to his beautiful house in Paris, and was gratified by his kindly approval of it. At my departure he warmly urged me to come to see him whenever I happened to be in Paris.

§3

Returning a few days later to my salon, I found that Mme. Carolus-Duran and M. Julia were conspiring to have me portray M. Georges Clemenceau. My current stay in Paris was rapidly drawing to a close, and careful machinations were being concocted so as to approach the wily Tigre as diplomatically as possible.

First of all, I was not to show him my portrait of Briand, who is to M. Clemenceau as a red rag is to a bull. One or two more of my portraits were withdrawn from my portfolio for reasons of political animosity.

The morning chosen for my call upon M. Clemenceau was the one devoted to the celebration of the visit of President Masaryk of Czechoslovakia to the French capital. I entered a taxi with time to spare for the journey from my hotel to his house in rue Franklin, but, unfortunately, I found myself on the wrong side of a prodigious procession that seemed to span Paris. Farther and farther west we went in our endeavor to circumvent the huge parade, and beyond the Etoile I was forced to abandon my cab and take to the tube. I arrived at the Trocadéro ten minutes after the time appointed, and at my destination five minutes later. Number eight is a pleasant old house inclosing a small court. The concierge directed me to the entrance door, and a butler led me to M. Clemenceau's study, a handsome room furnished lavishly in the style of Louis Quinze, the walls being entirely concealed by heavy silk draperies.

What a splendid figure he was, with his beautiful, massive head, his clear, blue eyes and full, white hair, which grew with vigorous volition from his broad, low brow in thick waves that any woman well might envy! With like vigor his handsome mustaches seemed to spring from his lip, and his bushy eyebrows shot forward with a long upward curve that provided a necessary balance for his other hirsute protuberances.

Like the Americans, the French people frequently elevate their idols only to demolish them later. The greater the first grand burst of worship and adoration, the more extreme is the final iconoclasm. I had heard M. Clemenceau described, with an expressive shrug, by several of his countrymen as "old and ga-ga," by which they meant to convey that his powers had deserted him and that the second state of infancy had arrived. In view of his eighty-two years this seemed probable, but as I sat on a divan busily preparing my copper and tools for the sitting that I expected would immediately follow, he entered briskly and greeted me with a vigorous hand-clasp, a broad smile, and a cheery sentence in excellent English. I was astonished. No one could appear more fit or fuller of energy than he. Of medium height and massive frame, few people can boast a better physical equipment at any age. He spoke rapidly, and with a marked English accent:

"I see you are preparing your materials. You expected to begin work this morning?"

"Oh, yes, Mr. President," I replied. "I am leaving for London at four o'clock this afternoon."

"What! Do you mean to tell me that you can produce a portrait as quickly as that?"

"I have often produced my best work quickly when limited time has made it necessary."

Maréchal Joffre

"But, I am sorry, it was not made clear to me that you intended to work to-day. I thought this was merely to be a preliminary interview. My morning has been filled entirely with important conferences. If I had known you were leaving to-day, I would have reserved my entire time for you."

"I am greatly disappointed," I replied. "Is there no way to arrange it?"

"No, devil take it! it cannot be done. Hello!" catching a glimpse of my open portfolio, and picking up my portrait of Mr. Lloyd George, "here's an old friend of mine, and very like him, too. And Lord Balfour! Excellent!" Secretary Hughes and Lord Beatty he recognized as well, and his interest in the production of a portrait of himself seemed to be greatly increased.

"When do you return to Paris? Around Christmas? Well, ring me up when you arrive, and it will give me pleasure to sit to you as much as you require. There will be no hurry about it then."

My next visit, however, found him recovering not only from a serious automobile accident in which he suffered numerous cuts from flying glass, but from an attack of influenza as well, so that, to date, our portrait has not been born. I hope to achieve it later, however, as a more interesting problem could hardly be imagined.

§ 4

The lovable Marshal Joffre I had met before, at the time of his second visit to America. It was in Washington, when I was having my first portrait exhibition there, several months after the arms conference. His host, Mr. Hill, arranged a sitting for me on the day of their departure, and I was just able to get a sketch well started that was destined to be finished two years later in Paris. What a splendid figure he was, with his beautiful, massive head, his clear, blue eyes and full, white hair, which grew with vigorous volition from his broad, low brow in thick waves that any woman well might envy! With like vigor his handsome mustaches seemed to spring from his lip, and his bushy eyebrows shot forward with a long upward curve that provided a necessary balance for his other hirsute protuberances. And the leisurely calm of the man! It was like a healing lotion as I hurriedly endeavored to make that first sitting count for as much as possible. He looked at my portraits of his fellow-Frenchmen, and slowly and distinctly in his native tongue, as he has no English, praised them with the utmost generosity. As I turned to assemble my materials, he plucked at my coat, and in his calm, quiet voice repeated his speech all over again, for fear I had not comprehended.

Mme. la Marichale is a gay and capable woman, attractive, and possessed of very good English. Two years later, in Paris, she seemed to welcome my visit as the occasion for a review of her pleasant experiences in the United States.

"I love America, you know. I have never had a better time anywhere than I had there. And my husband, you will not know him! He is no longer a Frenchman at all! He is an American out and out. He says so himself!"

Some visitors arrived for madame, and I was shown into the study of M. le Maréchal. As he rose to greet me, I was amazed. Madame was right; I hardly knew him. I was utterly at a loss to discover the change at first; then it dawned upon me. The fine mass of hair was cut short, and the eyebrows and mustaches trimmed as well!

"Monsieur!" I could not restrain myself. "I see quite a difference in you. Your hair, your mustaches— why have you changed them?" With an amused twinkle in his eyes he leaned toward me and replied in a voice even softer than usual:

"It is madame. She prefers them this way. She thinks it makes me look younger," and the twinkle developed into a somewhat sheepish smile.

Madame's head was thrust into the door for an instant.

"Don't you think he looks much better, much younger?" I temporized, not being able to overcome my disappointment immediately; nor did I alter my portrait in accordance with these tonsorial innovations. I am quite sure that madame would have been better pleased had I done so. But to me the clipping of this kindly old lion seemed almost a sacrilege, at once humorous and outrageous. What power women possess! Since Samson have men suffered thus, and in other ways since Adam. Possibly if Washington were alive to-day, he would be forced to maintain his dignity in spite of a Jack Dempsey hair-cut and a Charlie Chaplin mustache.

During the several visits that I enjoyed with Maréchal Joffre our conversation was carried on under conditions similar to those with M. Forain. With unfailing gentleness and utmost patience this splendid old gentleman would cause me to understand whenever my limited knowledge of French presented difficulties. He had much to say in praise of America and the manner in which he was received there, and enthusiastic words of approval for his generous and thoughtful host, Mr. Hill. On the completion of the plate he autographed a number of impressions for me, including the one reproduced herewith. As I parted with him for the last time, I felt quite loath to have the pleasant contacts terminated.

§5

The kindly interest of my new Parisian friends was evinced most pleasantly on an occasion that, in advance, bore a sentimental threat of being a lugubrious one. Not only was a superfluous birthday anniversary approaching, but one that marked the turning of a decade. My readers will doubtless recall that on an occasion like this one becomes, mentally, ten years older in a single day, and "all our piety and wit cannot escape a single year of it," if I may be permitted the inaccurate paraphrase. So I awoke on this fateful day thoroughly resolved to make the worst of it and indulge in an orgy of self-pitying gloom.

A Renoir of the first importance, both in size and quality, of a transitional period combining a purity of linear design and color the counterpart of which I had never seen in the works of this artist; two large Manets of great power; and examples of Degas, Sisley, Pissaro, Jongkind, Sir Thomas Lawrence, and numerous other masters converted his abode into a museum.

Before I had risen from my bed, where I lay fortifying myself for the catastrophe with coffee, I was summoned to the telephone. A feminine voice extended cordial congratulations and good wishes, and would I accept as a souvenir of my anniversary a little drawing by Forain that she would like so much for me to possess? Also, I was advised to bestir myself and get to the gallery where my pictures were on view, it being the closing day of my exhibition, as my informant knew of a number of people who planned to call there to extend appropriate felicitations and to see my portraits.

M. Blanche

I arrived at the gallery at a reasonably early hour in view of other congratulatory telephone calls that retarded the process of dressing, but several visitors had been there before me, one of them having purchased three pictures. Each left a message of congratulation on my birthday, and these were no sooner communicated to me than other visitors began to arrive. One brought a car to take me riding, a pleasure that I was unable to accept, and several more insisted on purchasing pictures, which proved to be doubly embarrassing in view of the fact that most of my callers were new friends, and but few of the pictures were for sale because of the ruinous rate of exchange. My anticipated day of sadness proved to be anything but sad, one of the gayest that Paris held for me, in fact, with its splendid climax of a superb birthday dinner at the Crillon, this being the contribution of a generous American friend, however. At its conclusion it did not matter in the least to me if I were double or half my age.

Another interesting contact was with the well known painter, Jacques-Emile Blanche. At a reception in his house in the rue Docteur Blanche, named for his father, who was a celebrated surgeon, his immense studios were filled with the flower of the aristocracy of Paris, as well as leading figures in the official and artistic world of the gay capital. The presence of numerous dignitaries connected with the Ministry of Beaux Arts seemed to indicate a fine handling of the politics of his profession by this successful portrait-painter. On several subsequent occasions he asked me to his house, and showed me a great number of his canvases, covering the entire period of his endeavor. They presented immense variety and a considerable succession of influences, from that of Manet in several of the earliest, through Degas and Renoir into a brief, but charming, Venetian phase, settling down later into his best known manner in which a marked indebtedness to Sargent, with a dash of Boldini, strikes the dominant note. Some sixty of his works were assembled in preparation for a retrospective exhibition soon to be held. He had examples also of his work in dry-point and lithograph, and besides his efforts in the graphic arts, he has been prolific as a writer as well. He speaks English with a perfection that could easily deceive one as to his nationality, and his charming wife, with whom I had a good opportunity for conversation at luncheon, is almost equally proficient in this respect. Most fortunate, indeed, is this man in his spacious and beautiful living- and working-quarters and generous garden in the heart of Passy. These I thought could easily be a paradise for any artist, but still more did I envy him certain canvases that adorned his walls. A Renoir of the first importance, both in size and quality, of a transitional period combining a purity of linear design and color the counterpart of which I had never seen in the works of this artist; two large Manets of great power; and examples of Degas, Sisley, Pissaro, Jongkind, Sir Thomas Lawrence, and numerous other masters converted his abode into a museum.

"It was not surprising that my marriage caused a considerable stir. It was the first in which an American heiress of great wealth married a titled European, and this naturally concentrated the limelight upon it. What was your own opinion of me before we met? I dare say you thought me a very different person from the one you find."

Another pleasant afternoon at the house of Mme. Carolus-Duran yielded additional attractive personalities to explore. Among them was Princess Kelemachi, a Rumanian, who, like the true Slav that she is, seemed to have all languages at the tip of her tongue and enough of interesting things to say to find them all useful. The Marquis de Castellane was there again, and this second contact resulted in several invitations to his house before my departure from Paris. He has a spacious and exceedingly attractive apartment in the Avenue Victor Emmanuel, just off the Champs-Elysees. The furnishing of his domicile begins before the threshold is passed, the vestibule outside his entrance door being adorned with bas-reliefs and sculptures in the round. Entering, the eye is most pleasantly greeted by luxurious furnishings, for the most part in the style of Louis Quinze, many of these excellent pieces being heirlooms. Numerous ancestral portraits by the leading artists of the periods to which they belong adorn the walls, among them splendid examples of Rigaud, Lebrun, Mignard, and Gounod, fils. The subjects of these portraits bore the titles of nearly all of the ducal families of France. Equally important among his lares and penates is a superb library, mellow with age and of largely uniform binding of brown leather with gold tooling, exquisite examples of the bookbinder's craft, and full of thrilling surprises in the rarity and antiquity of their contents. In his study was a large portrait in oils of himself as a young man, very slim and very blond, aristocratic and gallant in its pose and lineaments, a veritable Prince Charming from a fairy-tale.

In a comer of the library I found a painting of a gorgeous fete, such as one would associate with the most glorious days of Versailles; in the foreground a lagoon, covered with fairy craft filled with revelers in gay costumes, reflected a gorgeous pavilion beyond. A host of people disported themselves before the pavilion and on the hanks of the lagoon, and, the time being night, sky and water alike were ablaze with a display of fireworks such as one would rarely see except at a great exposition of some sort. It was a subject for Watteau, or at least for Gaston la Touche. A friend of M. de Castellane enlightened me as to the origin of the picture.

"This was a party given by M. le Marquis in the days of his opulence. The single evening cost him half a million francs,"

How different was my host, as he appeared to greet me, from the impression that one would naturally have as a result of the mass of accounts of him that have appeared over a long period of years in the public prints! His welcome had a warm and convincing sincerity, combined with a graceful courtliness that coupled him pleasingly with the peruked portraits on the walls. There was not the slightest forced note about it; it left in a simple way the feeling that he was genuinely glad to have me under his roof. On the occasions when I observed him with guests in his house there was always the feeling that, without effort, he was constantly alert to anticipate anything that would contribute comfort to those about him.

At luncheon he told me that the impression of him current in America because of his marital difficulties had long been a source of sorrow to him. He assured me that this opinion did him a great injustice, and that his side of the case had never been fairly presented.

Marquis de Castellane

"I love America, and have there many good friends. I would like that nation to know me as I am, instead of thinking me the unscrupulous wastrel that I have been pictured. Recently I wrote a volume of memoirs, the principal purpose of which was to dispel the erroneous estimate of me that is current in America. I cannot express my indignation at the newspaper that printed it. It is true that they took no liberties with the actual text, but in their sensational captions and shocking illustrations they succeeded in putting me in a worse position than before. The lurid way in which my story was advertised and presented made me writhe in agony. I am preparing a second volume of reminiscences that will recount my experiences from the time of my divorce to the present date. I will be most careful in the selection of my publisher this time. The thing must be presented in a dignified manner, and I hope then that America will know me as I am."

He presented me with a type-written synopsis of the new work; these notes gave promise of a very interesting story indeed.

"It was not surprising that my marriage caused a considerable stir. It was the first in which an American heiress of great wealth married a titled European, and this naturally concentrated the limelight upon it. What was your own opinion of me before we met? I dare say you thought me a very different person from the one you find."

The butler entered to call him to the telephone. Before leaving, he asked my permission, and apologized for the interruption on his return. A mirror that he confronted as he resumed his seat reflected a gray smudge on his forehead about which I had been wondering.

"You may have suspected that I forgot my bath this morning," he said smilingly, "but such is not the case. The priest sprinkled me with ashes at mass. This is Ash Wednesday, you know. I have always been a most devout Catholic, and my religion means much to me. I have never thought of marrying again because my divorce, as yet, is only a civil one, and to obtain the sanction of the church is most difficult. I could not bring myself to go against the church. Several times I have made pilgrimages to Rome, as a special dispensation from the pope only can dissolve my marriage. A civil divorce is not sufficient for me."

He told me about his sons with great pride, about extremes of poverty that he had known, and the various activities that he had pursued to recuperate his waning fortunes. On another visit I made the accompanying sketch of him, and on still another I had the pleasure of meeting his aged mother and a number of distinguished guests. My short acquaintance with him yielded a most pleasant and interesting addition to the generous sum total of hospitality that Paris, loveliest of cities, granted to me.

Buckminster Fuller Was A Utopian: Whitney Museum to Showcase His Inventions

2008-06-26T19:11:00Z

New York's Whitney Museum is showing the works of master innovator and Utopian, Buckminster Fuller at a new exhibit entitled, "Buckminster Fuller: Starting With the Universe."

In its June 30th edition, Newsweek magazine describes Fuller, who nearly everyone called Bucky Fuller, as "an impossible figure to pigeonhole." Among his many hats were architect, artist, professor, poet, philosopher, futurist, and of course, inventor.

Fuller is best remembered for his creation of geodesic domes. But he also tinkered with a one-piece take-it-with-you bathroom, a three-wheeled automobile, and a patented blueprint for an underwater city, the magazine notes.

"The Whitney show dips a toe into very deep and swirly waters," reporter Cathleen McGuigan writes. "The limitlessness of his thinking can sometimes strike you as kind of arrogant or even nutty, but it's inspiring nonetheless."

Identical Twins, Separated as Toddlers, Marry on the Same Day, Same Chapel in Vegas

2008-06-24T00:59:00Z

Las Vegas - At first, the wedding chapel receptionist thought it was a practical joke. "But you were just married here a few hours ago to someone else," she recalls protesting.

What Lydia Martinez, the receptionist at the Blue Heaven Chapel just off Vegas' famed gambling strip, didn't realize was that two brothers, identical twins separated when they were three years old, were both - unbeknownst to each other - getting married on the very same day, at the very same chapel, in the very same city.

"Eric and his bride came in the morning and had a beautiful ceremony," Ms. Martinez reports. "Around 4 p.m., James and a different bride showed up, wanting to be married."

Eric and James Rodale, both 27 years old, had not seen each other since their parents separated in a bitter divorce in 1984. The Rodale brothers are identical brown-eyed, 5-feet 10-inch tall, huskily built siblings. Both have receding hairlines and dimpled ear lobes.

"At first, I thought James was joking, then when I realized he was serious, he thought I was joking," says Ms. Martinez, who has worked at the chapel for four years. "I had to show James digital copies of Eric's wedding photos before we all realized something truly unique was underway."

Since Eric Rodale and his bride, Jill, had registered with them and mentioned that they were staying at the nearby Luxor hotel, Ms. Martinez was able to reach the newlyweds by phone. Indeed, Eric and Jill returned to the chapel to witness James and his bride, Shelley, become man and wife.

James told Ms. Martinez that he knew his brother lived somewhere in Missouri, but had never been able to locate him. Eric, who lives in Michigan, said that he, too, had searched in vain to locate James. The brothers' parents are both still alive, although they've not spoken in nearly a quarter center.

Ms. Martinez says she has heard about various coincidences that arise surrounding Vegas weddings, but never one this bizarre. Above her desk, now, hangs a photo of the two Rodale brothers and their brides, alongside the photo of Liberace who once attended a wedding at the Blue Heaven Chapel.

"They may not be as famous as Liberace," Ms. Martinez says. "But no doubt they are even more rare.

Man, 81, Files for Bankruptcy for the 8th Time

2008-06-20T00:42:00Z

An 81-year-old retired Illinois shopkeeper may be the most broke man alive, having recently filed for bankruptcy for the 8th time.

Edward S. (he didn’t want his full name used) has the court records to prove that he, indeed, has asked to have his debts forgiven seven previous times and most recently filed for bankruptcy on – you guessed it – Friday, June 13th.

Ironically, Edward does not now and never has possessed a credit card. All of his bad debt has stemmed from either business or investment losses, including most recently lease payments for his shuttered grocery business.

The shopkeeper’s first bankruptcy came back in 1950, when Edward and his eldest brother, Victor, borrowed $12,000 to buy shares on margin in an early maker of television sets. For several months the brothers thought they’d be gloriously rich, only to lose all their investment when the television manufacturer, itself, went out of business overnight.

“My father taught me that it is better to try and fail than never to try at all,” Edward says only half jokingly.

Among the undertaking’s he has tried – and failed at – are a multi-level marketing effort to sell timeshares (failed 1961); ownership in a locally produced and bottled soda shop (failed 1974); shares in now-defunct electronics superstore Crazy Eddie (failed 1989); and an 11th-hour go-for-it-all bet that Enron Corp. would pull out of its nosedive (failed 2001).

“When I tell my friends how many times I’ve been to court, they really don’t believe me,” Edward says. “They think a punch line is coming any minute.”

Edward says bankruptcy runs in his family. While big brother Victor only filed for bankruptcy that one time back in 1950, he says his two younger brothers and a step-sister have filed for bankruptcy five times between them.

Edward’s latest bankruptcy attorney – only his third, says he’s submitted Edward’s record and related documents in the hopes of having his client declared the world record holder for going broke.

“He really is the genuine ‘Biggest Loser,’” his lawyer says.

18 Rare Coins Mistakenly Returned to General Circulation - Value $600,000

2008-06-19T13:38:00Z

Los Angeles, CA - A rare coin dealer has reported that 18 rare coins, reportedly worth nearly $600,000, have mistakenly been returned to general circulation.

Robert Williams, 43, who buys and sells rare coins for his private collection, told Los Angeles authorities that a family friend visiting from Argentina did not understand that coins he had left in his office were collectible and hence exchanged them for three one dollar bills.

The coins included two 1969-S Lincoln Cents with a Doubled Die Obverse, each worth roughly $25,000.

Williams said his entire family retraced the steps of their Argentinean visitor, including purchases made at a nearby supermarket and fast food restaurant, but were only able to recover four of the valuable quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies.

The coin collector said all of the coins were insured against theft or damage, but it is still unclear whether spending them accidentally constitutes a recoverable loss.

"Our friend is heartsick knowing that he purchased groceries and lunch that ended up costing us more than one-half million dollars," Williams said. "Truthfully, it was irresponsible of me to leave coins of such a high value out of their cases and in open view. I blame only myself."

The Williams family spent six hours going through coin bags at the supermarket where their friend had shopped and did recover four of the missing coins. "Searching for them was nasty and really was like searching for a needle in a haystack," he said. "I'm surprised we recovered any."

Williams said he plans to post a full list of the missing coins and to offer a reward for any that turn up. He acknowledged that the longer they stay in general circulation, the less likely they will turn up and the more likely their condition will be compromised.

"There is no telling where these coins might be by now," Williams said. "You probably have a better chance of winning the lottery than recovering one of these coins."

When the World Came to Chicago

2008-05-30T23:51:00Z

Further Memories of the Midland
By H.C. Chatfield-Taylor

Carpenters were hammering frantically one afternoon in order to finish a temporary floor in the Auditorium on which little feet in satin slippers were soon to glide beside spurred heels. Florists, meanwhile, were attaching garden garlands to gilded balconies, and nimble decorators, high up on ladders, were fastening banners of red and yellow silk— the oro y sangre of Spain—to Venetian masts, when into the midst of this hubbub came the governor of a sovereign State, very red in the face, to demand of a pair of tired young men why a box for the ball of that evening bad not been reserved for him.

One of the young men was John L. Chamberlain, then a first lieutenant of artillery, but now, so has time flown, a retired major-general, with a D. S. M. for "exceptionally meritorious service" as inspector-general of the armies of the United States. The other was the writer of these memories, functioning as secretary of the Inaugural Reception Committee of the World's Columbian Exposition of which brave and stately General Nelson A. Miles was the chairman, its members being Hempstead Washburne, Mayor of Chicago; Marshall Field; George M, Pullman; and N. K. Fairbank. For days and days Lieutenant Chamberlain had been helping me to solve the seemingly insoluble problem of how to place in forty boxes, of six chairs each, at least four hundred importunate officials each of whom demanded not a seat only, but an entire box labeled with his name and rank in letters so large that all who ran might read. Before a wrathful governor began to upbraid us for a fancied slight to his dignity as ruler of a great and glorious commonwealth, we had been prodding carpenters, florists, and decorators for hours and hours, while counting the precious moments that remained to us ere John Philip Sousa's bandsmen were due to play a march dedicated to a great republic, and its dignitaries to appear upon a floor not yet finished, while the figures "1492-1892" blazed forth on a stage where banners were still being hung to slender poles.

Just when the anger of one who had not had the politeness to reply to a courteous invitation had reached its apogee, a citizen who was either a camcriere del Papa, or something quite as hierarchical, appeared upon the scene to demand with more politeness than his Excellency had shown, yet with equal insistence, the tickets for the box of his Eminence Cardinal Gibbons. Now, it happened that the secretary of an exposition which was holding its dedicatory ceremonies six months before its doors were to open in order to make prospective exhibitors aware of its existence had failed not only to inform Chamberlain and me that this great prelate had been invited to attend them, but that he was actually in Chicago, accompanied by Archbishops Satolli and Ireland. Luckily, we had had the foresight to retain for such an emergency the tickets for a box which, although well situated, bore the number thirteen. But between the demands of an angry governor and an insistent camcriere, we were in a quandary until, putting our heads together, we came to the conclusion that whereas the chief executive of a State was able, no doubt, to create a rumpus within its confines, a cardinal might, if offended, spread an unfavorable impression of Chicago's cherished enterprise throughout the entire Christian world. To the emissary of his Eminence, therefore, the tickets for box thirteen were given, his Excellency being placated by the inclosure within red ribbons of six orchestra chairs, and the hanging upon a neighboring pillar of a flag on which were blazoned the arms of a commonwealth.

When the last banner had been hung and the last nail driven, my able coadjutor and I dressed in a jiffy and bolted a hasty dinner; then, with the assistance of a corps of white-gloved young men wearing red-and-yellow sashes across their shirt-bosoms, we formed upon a floor completed but an hour before a receiving-line composed of a score of the city's most prominent ladies, with Mrs. Potter Palmer, beautiful and bejeweled, at its head.

An ungracious chief executive of the nation having remained in Washington, our next duty was to marshal the members of the cabinet, the diplomatic corps, and the Supreme Court, together with the governors of some thirty States, their gold-braided staffs, and sundry senators, congressmen, and officers of the army and navy, all in order of precedence behind Vice-President Morton, who, being "kind and affable to every creature," fulfilled a definition of a gentleman made centuries ago.

This task performed, Sousa, on a sign from me, raised his baton; whereupon the most imposing array of personages Chicago has ever beheld filed in slow procession into the Auditorium, to dazzle with gorgeous costumes, stunning uniforms, and glittering decorations, eyes unaccustomed not only to the sight of Orientals in court-dress, but to that of stately diplomats as well, with orders on their breasts, swords at their sides, and cocked hats in hand. To startle with his fierceness the many eyes that gazed that night, there was a mustachioed grenadier with a plumed Pickelhaube on his giant head, and to entrance the onlooker with his manly grace, a blue hussar with dolman, sabretash, and tasseled boots. But the most impressive marcher in that unwonted procession was a noble knight of Calatrava in a cloak that swept the floor majestically; the quaintest being, without a doubt, a little ocher-colored Korean who wore high up on his glossy coiffure a contrivance of wire that looked for all the world like a fly-trap.

When the last pair of spurs had begun to click to the wearer's forward step, I glanced into the room in which these men of many lands had assembled and, to my consternation, saw a scarlet-clad figure entering its farthest door. Again Cardinal Gibbons had been overlooked, and to save an unpleasant situation, I introduced myself forthwith as one appointed to await his coming. Offering him my arm, I led him past a slowly moving procession to a place near its head belonging to him as a prince of the church; and from that chance meeting I have carried through the years an impression of an upright man, at once kindly and courtly, in a word, "a wealthy priest, but rich without a fault."

Of the ceremonies during which the edifices so magically built by Daniel H. Burnham were tendered by him to the officers of the Exposition, then dedicated to humanity by Vice-President Morton, my recollection is less vivid. I remember, however, that medals in recognition of their truly wonderful achievements were given not only to architects such as Charles F. McKim, Richard M. Hunt, Stanford White, and Frederick Law Olmstead, but to Louis Sullivan, William Holabird, Francis Meredith Whitehouse, and other Chicagoans whom I was glad to find were not without honor in their own land, neglect or ridicule rather than recognition being only too often the lot of Americans who devote their lives to what Mr. Higinbotham, the president of the fair, spoke of that day as "the civilizing arts."

§2

Painting and sculpture, too, were acclaimed when, for its beautification at their hands, a grateful exposition awarded its medals to Augustus Saint-Caudens, Frederick MacMonnies, Francis D. Millet, Carroll Beckwith, and a number of their confreres, as well as to Chicago's gifted citizens, Lorado Taft and Walter McEwen. Literature, moreover, was remembered, and local talent also, when Miss Harriet Monroe's "Dedication Ode" was read to an audience of a hundred thousand souls, who, to us upon the platform, were, in words of Robert Browning, "human beings, like spiders newly hatched."

These happenings were in 1892. On May day, in the following year, Grover Cleveland came to press the button that was to start gigantic wheels, and, at the same time, send the Stars and Stripes fluttering up a gilded pole between the banner of Castile and that of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic sovereigns. But before these flags were given to the fitful breezes of a day, half rain, half sunshine, a great President said:

"The machinery that gives life to this vast exposition is now set in motion. So, at the same instant, let our hopes and aspirations awaken forces which in all times to come shall influence the welfare, the dignity, and the freedom of mankind."

Five years later to a minute, through one of fate's strange ironies, the epauleted officers who listened to this idealism of their commander-in-chief were directing in Manila Bay the fire of ruthless guns against the very flag in whose honor cannon boomed when he had finished speaking. But the crowd, surging before a platform while women fainted in its midst, thought not of war or peace or idealism, but of how to edge closer to the Duke of Veragua in order to see his resplendent uniform and gilded collar of the Golden Fleece.

At the invitation of Congress, this descendant of Columbus had come to view the exquisite buildings that had arisen beside the belching chimneys of what, until then, the world had looked upon as the least imaginative of its cities. He was a stately grandee, with features such as Goya would have taken delight in painting; and when he reached the shores of Lake Michigan, he was escorted in pomp to his hotel by the yellow-plumed cavalry and blue-coated infantry of his host, the American nation. Being of a race whose manners are courteous and whose ways are leisurely, he did not view himself in the light of a nine days' wonder, but rather as the guest of a rich and powerful people invited, as its emissary had led him to believe, not for a day or a week, but for the duration of an exposition held to commemorate the achievement of his ancestor.

An official in Washington who counted the very pennies of the ducal board-bill thought otherwise; so, in due course of time, this guest of our people was bluntly told that he had outstayed his welcome. When in chagrin he departed, no blue-coated soldiers stood in line to honor him with their salute; but at my instigation, I having been at the time the honorary consul of his land, a troop of amateur hussars sat on black chargers before his hotel, ready to escort him to his train. Not being enrolled in either the regular army or the organized militia, the honor these troopers paid was without official significance; yet they rode fine horses and carried gleaming sabers; so when they wheeled into line before his Grace's carriage, they looked an imposing escort, and to his European eye they appeared as soldiers of his host. Thus by a pardonable subterfuge was a heart humiliated by official discourtesy made glad for the moment. This duke and his duchess, let me add, were gentlefolk as unpretentious as any it has been my good fortune to meet, while the courtesy once shown by them to me in their native land was of a kind such as I shall remember always with delight and gratitude.

The Infanta Eulalia of Spain also came to Chicago as the nation's guest in that year 1893, and being of royal birth, she set the city's heart aflutter. By nature a joyous Parisienne rather than the proud and haughty Spaniard of romance or the gracious princess of fairy-tales, her playing of the part of royalty was at variance with the exalted notion of it held by a city remote from kings and their majesty, and believing with Euripides that "it is necessary for a prince to please the many."

Now, the pretty princess who journeyed across the seas Columbus had sailed thought not of pleasing the many, but rather of pleasing her own vivacious self, she being a somewhat wilful lady, filled to overflowing with la joie de vivre. She was accompanied, furthermore, by a royal husband who took delight, like a calif of old, in roaming incognito in search of questionable adventures through the streets of the city by night. Being the antithesis of democracy's own picture of royalty, this princely pair was not the ideal one to present it in a favorable light; and when it became apparent that neither the infanta nor her consort would play the royal part in the pompous way in which it had been written into the agenda of the Exposition, many an official heart was in despair.

Upon the very evening of her arrival, in fact, and while sky-rockets were still exploding in her honor behind a white peristyle, her Royal Highness said to me in a tone of ennui: "In Havana, in New York, and in Washington, which cities I have visited since leaving Spain, and now in Chicago, it has ever been the same tiresome story of officials to meet, officials to placate, and officials to bore me to distraction. I want to see the World's Fair in peace and in comfort and without an official in sight. You must arrange it."

Being a young man still in the twenties, the idea of protecting a fair princess from pestering officials appealed to me, I confess, as an adventure at once bold and romantic. To a telephone, therefore, I went straightway, and called up Allison Armour. Although only a namesake of the founder of a noted industry, and not in any way related to him, this friend in need possessed, nevertheless, sufficient worldly goods to have enabled him to be the owner of a steam-yacht named the Gryphon, which speedy little craft he agreed to have within hail, off the the lake-front, on the morrow. Every day during a fortnight Allison Armour and I managed to spirit the infanta aboard her, and, after reaching the Exposition grounds, to land first at one place, then at another, but always with a retinue of wheeled chairs in waiting.

Besides the infanta and the bold conspirators, the party during these clandestine cruises was composed of two ladies of the city, whose presence had been royally commanded, and her Highness's own suite, consisting of the Spanish minister plenipotentiary, the cynical and sophisticated grandee who was the royal chamberlain, an ancient marchioness who played the dual role of duenna and lady-in-waiting, and an American naval officer, who, detailed as official escort to royalty, was incongruously accompanied by his wife and a daughter still in her teens.

Once having set foot within the Exposition grounds, the infanta was usually able to enjoy herself undisturbed until the luncheon hour, and during these unceremonious wanderings she proved to be a delightful as well as a merry companion. At "Old Vienna," however, at the "German Village," the "Pickwick Inn," or wherever her noonday repast had been ordered, the reporters were pretty certain to discover her, generally about the time when, in her most affable mood, she had lighted an after-luncheon cigarette. Her gracious manner changed then to one of coldness or even of vexation should an official chance to enter the royal presence and proffer his services.

The story of her ill humor at the reception given for her by Mrs. Potter Palmer I prefer to tell in the graphic words of Mrs. William J. Calhoun, who, before marrying a minister plenipotentiary and learning by a court experience of her own how to judge of royal breaches of etiquette, used, as Lucy Monroe, to assist in editing that little magazine of enchanting memory, "The Chap Book."

"Unfortunately," says this accomplished lady, in "Chicago Yesterdays," "the Infanta learned that her host to be was the landlord of the hotel where she was lodged. An innkeeper she thought him, and therefore unworthy to entertain a princess. She was constrained at last to put in an appearance, but she arrived an hour late and departed outrageously early, making no response, meanwhile, to the greetings of the guests as they were presented.

She sat upon the dais, which, with too much courtesy perhaps, had been prepared for her, in sullen, unsmiling, unbending silence, while her beautiful hostess, standing at her side and offering martyred Chicago society at her altar, tried in vain to thaw the icy atmosphere."

Being a Spanish official at the time, I had my own unpleasant moments, too, such as when at a party given by my wife and myself I was obliged, on account of the infanta's aversion for officials and desire to be surrounded only by gay and amusing people, to seat at a supper-table other than hers not only the Spanish commissioner-general, whom she disliked heartily, but Carter Harrison as well, whose Southern hospitality she had enjoyed at the house in which but a few months later he met death at the hand of an assassin. Indeed, my most vivid memory of the courtly old politician who so adored to rule Chicago is not of the impressive sweep of the hand with which he was wont to doff his slouch-hat to a cheering multitude while riding through the streets, but of the hurt look that crossed his benign face when he discovered that although mayor of the city, his seat was not to be at the royal table.

Had not the Infanta Eulalia rebelled against her own caste since then, and expressed in candid words her contempt for it, I should have been loath to tell, even in borrowed words, of the incidents of her visit that angered Chicago. To her entourage she was graciousness itself, and to have been her courtier for a day was an amusing experience. Yet the memory of it, coupled with stories told me by friends who were behind the scenes during other royal visits, has led me to suspect that a monarchy may best serve its own interests, in a democracy such as ours, by keeping its royal persons at home.

§3

My glimpse of court life was luckily too short to prevent me from enjoying happiness during it or from attaining it elsewhere, this, according to La Bruyere, being the fate of those who haunt royal antechambers. Nor was it the experience of World's Fair days to which I look back with the keenest pleasure. For such a memory I must turn from white buildings beside a blue lake to the lawn of my father-in-law, Senator Charles B. Farwell, where under his greenwood tree the Augustin Daly Company gave, for the benefit of a creche in the Exposition grounds, its only al fresco performance of "As You Like It."

No doubt the dual role of publicity and property man played by me upon this occasion was humble. Yet it was not without its difficulties, particularly when I was called upon to stick a number of freshly hewn saplings into the ground beneath the gnarled oaks of Lake Forest in such a way that the actors might have their exits and their entrances between them, and the tents that served as tiring-rooms be hidden by them, while the saplings themselves appeared as the undergrowth of the Forest of Arden.

Still, in spite of my arduous duties, this performance lingers in memory, together with Celia's words in the play, as "wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful." It had, in fact, a joyousness, a naturalness, and a youthful buoyancy such as I have never seen beneath a spot-light. Ada Rehan, girlish and exuberant, was "Rosalind of many parts," the virtuous Orlando being John Drew who, though verging on forty, still looked to be a youth of twenty. "The melancholy Jaques" was played by George Clarke, and Audrey, "honest in deed and word," by pretty Isabelle Irving.

James Lewis, the inimitable, was Touchstone; yet upon the first sunny day of a rainy June the part was not to his liking, his legs, though still nimble, being, alas! rheumatic. So, when not making merry as a motley fool, he stood upon a pair of wooden blocks which when it became his cue to cry, "Come apace, good Audrey, I will fetch up your goats," he hid behind a tree. Yet he but cursed beneath his breath the cruel lord and manager who had forced him to play upon wet grass; whereas John Drew, when he appeared in grease-paint in the dazzling glare of a noonday sun, nearly broke up the performance; for when Ada Rehan saw him she burst into laughter, "John," said she in a perfectly audible stage whisper, "you look like a Pawnee." The audience meanwhile joined the chaste Rosalind in her mirth, the actors being unable to play their parts coherently until Orlando had removed his war-paint.

This thought of John Drew, grease-painted in broad daylight, recalls a joyous evening passed with him in the little cafe" which in more convivial days than these was to be found in the tunnel under Congress Street connecting two of Chicago's hotels. There, with a zither-player who made sweet music for us upon his instrument and the waiter who served us from time to time as our sole companions, John and I made good cheer while chatting the whole night through; for when we emerged, the sun was rising over a wind-swept lake. Alas! I wonder if friendship such as a poet has ealled "the mysterious cement of the soul" is not doomed to disappear from the face of American earth!

Had Eugene Field never yielded to any worldly temptation, had he been animated solely by a spirit such as the one that caused his ancestors and mine to lash helpless women with bared backs through the streets of New England towns merely because they were Quakers,—a spirit still abroad, I fear, — could he have penned the generous and sympathetic words of this letter received from him at the time my first book, a novel of Chicago, was being slated by the local critics?

"My dear Taylor: If you intend to follow writing as a profession, you must cultivate your skin until it becomes a hide—the hide of a pachyderm. I have been all through the experience with which you are beginning. The Herald said of my first book that it was evidently written by a man who lampooned Chicago society because he could n't get into it. I believe it is better to be antagonized than to be patronized. Go right along doing the best work of which you are capable and you are bound to succeed in spite of the ill will of some people. There are in the midst of us many who, incapable of ambitious endeavor, themselves, envy and hate those who do try to do somewhat and to be somebody. Do not let these creatures worry you. After a while they will be only too glad to fawn upon you. With all faith in your future, and with honest regard for your abilities, ambition and pluck, I am and shall be ever your friend,

"Eugene Field.
"December the tenth, 1891."

I was one of Eugene Field's pallbearers, and whenever I hear his name, sadness enters my heart. Full of sympathy and understanding such as he expresses in this letter, he was a genius both lovable and unaccountable, as true to his friends as he was tender to children.

His mentor, Dr. Frank W. Reilly, beside whose sanctum Field used to sit with his feet on a desk while writing "Sharps and Flats," is another one whose place in my affection is still vacant. Long before he became the editor of the morning edition of the Chicago "Daily News," and, by frequent and fervent quotation from Horace, the inspirer of Field's love for a Sabine farm, "Doc" Reilly, as his friends used to call him, had served as a surgeon in the Civil War, a mellowing experience that may account for my recollection of him as the most human editor I ever knew. The kindest, too, let me add, since he used to accept my articles, and even trust me with difficult assignments in the days when I was apprenticed to the newspaper craft.

In memory I see Field and Reilly strolling together into the remote and delectable corner of McClurg's bookstore over which for many a year George Millard presided. There sit the Rev. Frank W. Gunsaulus, the Rev. M. Mosely Stryker, and the Rev. Frank M. Bristol, its "Saints," thumbing rare tomes in company with George Armour, Ben Cable, and "Charlie" Barnes, who were its "Sinners."

The fear, alas! of being an unwelcome Philistine kept me from venturing too near this hallowed spot, though I longed to hear the bibliophilic ravings of

"Maniacs shrewd or imbecillic,
Urban, pastoral or idyllic,
Richly clad or dishabillic,"
When, "George Millard is home!"

Fear came upon me, too, and also trembling, when with manuscript in hand I ventured up-stairs to the lair of General Alexander C. McClurg. In wearing gray side-whiskers of the style known as "Burnsides" during the war, of which they both were veterans, this publisher and bookseller resembled Doctor Reilly. Yet here the likeness ceased, for never did the general sit in an oyster-house at midnight with a plate of Rockaways and a bottle of claret before him; nor did he share the editor's keen sense of humor, since he even looked upon the free advertising Eugene Field gave his rare-book department daily in "Sharps and Flats" as an offense against the dignity of literature. But he was a gentleman of the old school, who in manner was courtliness itself. He published my first book, moreover; hence there is affection for him in my heart; while in my recollection there is a stirring picture of him standing sword in hand before a gray-coated regiment with white cross-belts and immaculate duck trousers, he having been the first commander of Chicago's "Dandy First."

§4

Others who are gone cross the stage of memory like actors after the curtain has fallen: my debonair friends and clever publishers, Herbert S. and Melville E. Stone, Jr., sons of a grand old father, and victims, the one of the Lusitania, the other of a dread disease; Major Lyman B. Glover, the dramatic critic, who, by inducing me to talk upon Moliere in a course of lectures he was arranging for a woman's club, led me unawares into a path in which I wandered for years; and engaging "Biff" Hall, too, newspaper man, justice of the peace, and scintillating president of the Forty Club in the days when every actor in the land who starred enjoyed its hospitality. One by one they pass: William Morton Payne, apostle of good literature; Bert Leston Taylor, with his "Line o' Type or Two" to rival "Sharps and Flats"; Emerson Hough, his glance as keen as that of the pioneer sitting rifle in hand in a covered wagon; and, finally, Charles Francis Browne, the modest painter whose heart was the bravest I have ever known, whose ideals were dimmed only by death.

The most enchanting heart still beats, I am glad to say, though shyly, in the breast of Henry B. Fuller, whose grace of style and whimsicality led James Russell Lowell to exclaim, after reading "The Chevalier of Pensieri-Vani," "A precious book; it tastes of genius." To us (we are, alas! too few) who know his insight, subtlety, and quaint perception, the books of "Henry B.," as we fondly call him, are precious still; and since his mind is of "a diviner pattern" than any of ours, he fulfils for us Horace's conception of a genius.

High up in a sky-scraper that has been profitably consecrated to the fine arts there is a studio leased by Ralph Clarkson, doyen of Chicago painters. On one of its walls hangs "Las Meninas," reproduced by the tenant's skilled hand; and, to invoke with still more incongruity in the midst of a city seething with commerce not only the spirit of Velasquez, but of his land as well, there stands against another wall a Spanish cabinet with rusty lock and a nest of tiny drawers inlaid with ivory and gold. Into this soothing spot "Henry B." flutters on Friday in his shy way, for while it is a painter's studio six days of the week, on Dies Veneris it is "The Little Room."

A wealth of charming memory lies for me in this name of a club composed of Chicagoans who practise the fine arts, a name derived, I believe, from the title of a story by one of its founders, in which there is a ghostly little room that disappears and reappears at intervals. To me, however, it is Shakspere's "little room confining mighty men." A grandiose phrase, perhaps, with which to describe a studio where the few and lonely artists of a commercial city gather to talk joyfully for an hour, while drinking tea together, a language not of its streets. But if, as Bulwer Lytton says, "The pen is mightier than the sword," those who use it should be mightier than warriors; and if this be so, are not the wielders of both brush and chisel mighty, too, I ask?

But mighty men alone are not to be found in the Little Room. At a table, in fact, where Clara Laughlin is pouring tea from a samovar (if you 're going to Paris be sure to make her acquaintance), I see, in memory, Jane Addams sitting beside Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler, and surely they are mighty women. Elia W. Peattie, delightful as her stories, perceptive as her book-reviews, sits there, too, in company with valiant Anna Morgan, whose love for Chicago is "a malady without a cure," and upon whose little stage, two floors below, many a play by Ibsen, Maeterlinck, Shaw, Yeats, or Lady Gregory has received at the hands of her clever pupils its first American performance.

In a corner, where there is a divan beneath a hanging lamp, is Harriet Monroe, founder of "Poetry" and discoverer of poets, and there in "sweet clover," too, sits Clara Louise Burnham, side by side with Edith Wyatt, who is enjoying "great companions," I suspect; for hovering near, with cup in hand, I see Lorado Taft, and Robert Herrick. Of "men of enchanting spirit" there is, indeed, "dear variety": Will Payne, for example; Henry Kitchell Webster; I. K. Friedman; Frederic Clay Bartlett; and "Bob" Peattie, as I am constrained to call him, "Robert Bruce" being far too stately a name for one of his good-fellowship and parts.

Yes, and into that room of dear memory come the McCuteheons,— John T., cartoonist and mighty hunter, with his Majesty, George Barr of Graustark; likewise Harrison Rhodes, another delightful friend, who sits afar off today upon a reviewing-stand. At the threshold these three are greeted, as is every one, by Ralph Clarkson, most courteous of painters, and in their wake I see George Ade, Rex Beach, and "Mr. Dooley," though they are but occasional visitors rather than habitue's of the Little Room. But standing near its steaming samovar of a certainty are Wallace Rice, the poet, and Oliver Dennett Grover, the painter. There of a certainty, too, expounding his views upon art, is Hamlin Garland, "the handsome Westerner," as Mr. Thomas Beer calls him, who has done fine things besides writing, such as creating the Cliff Dwellers Club, but nothing half so fine as being "the rescuing angel" of Stephen Crane.

Indeed, it is not as the world's butcher that I dream of Chicago, nor as a smoke-ridden Babel where thirty tongues are spoken by as many alien races, and murder is of almost daily occurrence. Rather is it of a city out of which a university sprang fully equipped, like Athens from the head of Zeus, and where from the ashes of a holocaust three libraries have arisen; a city, moreover, where a hall for an orchestra and an auditorium to house a civic opera company have been built by the public spirit of its citizens, as well as one in which a marble museum of natural history and an art institute attended by more students and entered by more visitors than any other in the land are standing where, in boyhood, I sailed with my father in a white-winged sloop. But the Chicago of my deepest affection is under the skylights where the painters, sculptors, musicians, and writers who are my dear friends still strive with might and main to foster and spread abroad the spirit of the idealism that has brought these and other fine things to pass within the material place in which I was born, a city that has grown fifteen-fold during my lifetime, and numbers now some three million souls instead of a paltry two hundred thousand.

Airlines to Install Pay Toilets to Help Close Revenue Gap

2008-05-22T09:07:00Z

Beverly Hills, CA -- In the effort to bolster their bottom lines, some air carriers have begun to charge passengers extra to check their baggage. In the spirit of giving, this site's editors have devised some other steps the beleaguered air carriers might test in order to offset the rising costs of fuel.

"Not everyone who flies needs the bathroom in-flight, so why should everyone on board have to pay," asks HopelessUtopian.com. Instead, the website suggests the airlines could install credit card swipe devices on each toilet stall, allowing passengers to be charged a minute-to-minute rate depending upon usage.

A second popular idea on the HopelessUtopian.com site is to charge extra for experienced pilots. "Just as better hitters in baseball get paid more, those pilots with more experience are worth more than those who just emerged from flight-training school," HopelessUtopian.com writes. "If you want a pilot who knows what to do in an emergency, you should be willing to pay more. It's kind of like life insurance: some people want a lot, some only a little, and others none at all."

The editors at HopelessUtopian.com fielded numerous related suggestions from their readers. Among other frequent suggestions: Charge extra for fat customers and pregnant flyers; make seat belts a paid amenity just like headphones; create seated and non-seat sections on board, charging more for those who don't wish to stand the entire time; make passengers pay extra for on-time departures; and offer bus service for those who can't afford to actually lift off.

In recent years, the airlines have struggled to remain viable, fighting to offset rising fuel prices, stricter security measures, and record new levels of flight attendant dissatisfaction and surliness. Since air transportation is vital to the global economy, HopelessUtopian.com said it believes consumers must carry a larger share of the responsibility for corporate mismanagement and lack of vision.

"Why should airlines take it upon themselves to operate with more efficiency and imagination when their passengers are a captive audience upon whom they can push pretty much any absurd idea?" HopelessUtopian.com asks. Indeed, the web sites thinks the airlines may well serve as role models for other cash-strapped industries, such as hospitals. "Would you like your surgery with (extra cost) or without anesthesia?" may indeed be the next question we all hear.

In an era of increasing content segmentation, HopelessUtopian.com aims to provide visitors a cornucopia of piquant outre substance.

Inspired by the very popular "How to of the Day" that appears on Google.com, HopelessUtopian.com regularly posts engaging articles that don't have a single good 'because' or 'therefore'. Readers just like them.