Hey Ray (Johnson) -- Bob Box Exhibition In Berkeley -- Proto-Blogging

 

Ray Johnson: Untitledcorrespondence from Bob Box Archive, 1988–95; mixed media; dimensions variable.From Esopus 16 (Spring 2011).


 
BERKELEY,CA.-

        The University of California, BerkeleyArt Museum and Pacific Film Archive presents Tables of Content: Ray Johnson and Robert Warner Bob Box Archive/ MATRIX 241, an exhibition exploring the seven-year exchange of correspondence between legendaryartistRay Johnson (1927–95) and collagist RobertWarner.The presentation features the contents of thirteen cardboard boxes given toWarner by Johnson in 1990.

        Warner, an opticianworking in New York City, first encountered Johnson’s work on a postcard sentby a mutual friend in 1988. Intrigued by the possibilitiesof corresponding with an artist, Warner initiated what evolved into an intense exchange between the two that continued untilJohnson’s death of an apparent suicide in 1995. Over the course of theirfriendship Warner received hundreds of pieces ofmail artfrom Johnson, ranging from collages to a piece of driftwood that washand-delivered. On one occasion, Johnson Xeroxed a copy of Declaration ofIndependence and requested that Warner have it signed by John Cage—which hedid. While they spoke on the phone nearly every day, Johnson and Warner met inperson only seven times. At one of their rare in-person meetings, Johnson gaveWarner thirteen cardboard boxes tied with twine, labeled “Bob Box 1,”“Bob Box 2,” and so on. Although never stated, the understanding was thatWarner would preserve the boxes.

Ray Johnson(1927-1995)   


    
         In June of this year, fifteen years after Johnson’s death, Warner unpacked the boxes one at a time and cataloged theircontentsin public view through the course of an exhibition at Esopus Space in New YorkCity. The opened “Bob Boxes” reveal an array of found objects,drawings, photocopies, and correspondence. Warner has described the contents as“a window into the world of Ray Johnson in the ‘70s and ‘80s:everything from signed-and-dated empty toilet paper tubes to a box thatcontained nothing but hundreds of envelopes that were addressedbut never mailed.

Table of Content catalog



        Tables of Content displays all thirteen boxes and their contentsfor the first time on the West Coast. Warner has selected and arranged the letters,drawings, photocopies, and found objects like t-shirts, tennis balls, andrandom beach trash—the material ofJohnson’s art—on an assembly of thirteen tables and surrounding gallerywalls. Johnson annotated many of these things with personalcodes,puns, and dark, irreverent jokes. Johnson’s work—collages, correspondence art,and performance events—remains mysterious and a bit hard topin down.But his influences are obvious and surface repeatedly, among them Andy Warhol, Joseph Cornell, Rauschenberg, and Elvis Presley. His collage approachwas diaristic, a stream-of-consciousness flow through the matter and memory ofeveryday life, shifting from one topic to another, acrossall variety of things. Johnson once remarked, “My work is like driving acar. I’m always shifting gears.”

Ray Johnson in JosefAlbers' class at Black Mountain College 1945-48 , Photo by Hazel Larsen Archer.


NOTE:


Fascinating to come across this Ray Johnson announcement in asemi-dream state sometime earlier or later this semi-night-morning. 

And as clever/strained exhibition titles go, Table of Content isn’tbad.  (Long experience devising titlesfor presentations, as well as subtly – I like to think -- effective subjectlines for business letters, makes me sympathetic to titlers.)

The first thing I thought of – this must have been said before –is how strongly the mysterious Ray Johnson seems like a proto-blogger in hishermetic-in-plain-sight, serial, dreamy, collagist, diaristic work.

I have vivid Ray Johnson memories dating from my earliest days touringManhattan art galleries.  My first personalencounter must have been when I  workedat the Richard Feigen Gallery on Greene Street in the spring/summer of 1971,although I’m sure I saw him several years earlier at the Leo Castelli galleryand heard someone mention his name. Of course he was a regular presence throughpublished appearances (today we’d say postings) in the Village Voice.  Later at the Whitney, a colleague of mine (astrange lonely woman) turned out to be a Johnson correspondent, would-be accompliceand acolyte.


Johnson and his art were both quietly insinuating, disconcertingpresences, impossible either to comfortably embrace or ignore.  SO much art material, sheer volume, and yet teetering on the knife- edge of, almost defining, ephemera.   You ask yourself: Modest proposal or a new sort of Grandachievement?


Now, to my surprise, I seem myself  to inhabit a portion of that same dreamyworld.

The John Cale song, Hey Ray, linkedbelow isn’t very good, although it’s always nice to see a Caleperformance.  It’s as though Cale hasn’t worked RayJohnson out yet either, or he thinks he hasand gave up too soon, before saying anything incisive. So I’ve also included a recent Cale rendition of the Modern Lovers’ Pablo Picasso, which is much, much better.


Link:John Cale -- Hey Ray (2011)

Link: John Cale -- Pablo Picasso (2010)



        By the way, I love the final Ray Johnson quote in the pressrelease about "driving a car" and “shifting gears.”  Johnsonwas from Detroit and I guess auto similes were in his blood, the way they seemto be for many Detroiters.

Ray Johnson

Ray Johnson, Nothing, 1993

Ray Johnson, How ToDraw A Bunny, ca. 1955

Small Nostalgia (Judy Nylon)

      

  

Judy Nylon photographed by Eno


Because I feel very little nostalgia for anything, this can be short.  

        I could hazard a guess about why this is, but "hazard" would be the operative word and, as they used to say, I don't want to "go there."

Judy Nylon, London 1971

        Earlier this week, however, I felt some small nostalgia for a few moments and wondered where Judy Nylon was and what she was doing these days?

        I only met Judy a couple of times and didn't know her very well at all, but when I first (unexpectedly) was introduced to her in 1977, over lunch at Gallagher's Steakhouse on West 52nd Street in Manhattan,  I was extremely excited because she was a major celebrity known to me through the pages of Rock Scene magazine, as a back-up performer on John Cale's Fear lp (on the song The Man Who Couldn't Afford To Orgy) and a "name-checked" personage in Eno's song Back In Judy's Jungle on the Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) album.  The circumstances of the lunch might possibly make for interesting reading, but would distract from the main point.

Judy Nylon and Pat Palladin -- Snatch

 

      Judy was tall and striking.  An American expatriate in London, contemporary with some other eventually to be better-and-less-well-known American female London ex-pats, including Chrissie Hynde, Kate Simon, Pat Palladin, Gerry Hall and (I might as well mention for the sake of completeness) Ruby Wax, Judy was terribly friendly, nice and well-mannered and a great lunch companion.  In those days, I was working at ABC Records in the publicity department while also attending art history graduate school, and Caroline and I ran into Judy a few other times, in the ABC offices and at rock clubs around town.

Judy Nylon today

      A brief but completely good memory, I was pleased to use social media to summon Judy's shade and fill in the colors the other night.  She currently works as part of an interactive online art/literature collective called Aether9.  She occasionally gives interviews (mostly about the past) and they are highly articulate and, dare I say it, wise.  (In one, she fielded a question about Patti Smith's "achievement" about as deftly and delicately as one can possibly imagine.)  She even responded to one of those ridiculously, but addictively, readable "Proust Questionnaires" for one publication in a highly impressive and entertaining way.  And she still looks like Judy, which prompted feelings of small nostalgia in me.  Wherever Judy is tonight, I hope she's well and happy.

Pal Judy lp

June 1, 1974 (Ayers, Cale, Nico, Eno)

        I thought  it might bea good and right thing  to take note ofan event that happened thirty-seven years and one day ago today:  the June 1, 1974 RainbowTheater, London. concerts featuring Kevin Ayers(headliner) plus guest artistes John Cale, Nico  (both former members of the Velvet Underground) and(Brian) Eno (ex-Roxy Music).

        These two shows (early and late; that’s how it used tobe done) marked a wonderful time in late 20th century art history where resplendently decorative, beautiful and eccentric birds of a (sortof) feather briefly flew together. Like a sunspot eruption thatwreaks havoc with terrestrial radio signals or a powerful summer shower, which brieflyconfuses but also clarifies everything, the June 1^st effect was palpable and temporary (like Achilles).  It seemed to offer the best hope since the Beatles that rock could both be taken seriously as a powerful and sophisticated part of avant-garde art and also succeed commercially by attaining a broad, committed audience.

 Nico

 

        Kevin Ayers’ extraordinary band, The Soporifics, backed all the acts.  When the June 1, 1974 story is eventually and inevitably re-writtenby our descendants, it’s entirely possible that the musical talents of Soporifics’ lead guitarist,Ollie Halsall, will be the only subject deemed worthy of discussion and "how did Ollie manage that?" symposia will be held in temples and under triumphal arches displaying his image and Gibson SG guitar in colossal effigy.   That would be regrettable, however, because a lot of talentwas on display that evening.

 

 

Eno

        The rush-released live album of the event was sort ofweirdly produced and omitted some key moments of the show.  But the track selection:  Driving Me Backwards (Eno), Baby’s On Fire(Eno), Heartbreak Hotel (Cale), The End (Nico), May I? (Ayers), Shouting In ABucket Blues (Ayers), Everyone’s  SometimeAnd Some People’s All The Time Blues (Ayers), Stranger In Blue Suede Shoes(Ayers) and Two Goes Into Four (Ayers) is basically sound and captures the essence of each artist's work at the time, i.e., Eno breaking in to his future, Cale breaking out of his past, Nico burrowing into her image and Ayers blossoming as an artist and "rock star".

John Cale

        I eventually  had theprivilege of discussing the background of the concert (rehearsal period through post June 1^st UK mini-tour) fairly extensively with two of theprincipals, Kevin Ayers and Ollie Halsall.  It was, naturally,  the usual “truth is stranger than fiction”story related by two differently gifted and temperamentally disposed raconteurs.  As good as the performances were, and ascommitted as each of the artists was to the truth of their art, the performingarts world always ends up resembling a soap opera that reminds me of the old New Yorker cartoon, which said something to the effect of "In the future, hatred will no longer be based on race, creed or gender; Everyone will hate everyone else for purely personal reasons." Fortunately, most of the artistswho played at the concert are still alive (I believe we've only lost Nico and bassist Archie Leggatt) and many scaled great heights after June 1, 1974.  For others, crevasses opened; some climbedout and some didn’t.   At least, the rest wasn’t silence and it's nice to report that KevinAyers recently made his finest record, The Unfairground.

Kevin Ayers

        Seemingly soulmates, these artists were all approaching their creative maturityon June 1, 1974.   I’m certain each of them changed many other lives than just my own, which they affected decisively. 

Note:  The official June 1, 1974 concert recording pictured above is still available both in its integral, original version, as well as an anthologized selection of material from the show, which is included in the Kevin Ayers' collection, Didn't Feel Lonely Till I Thought Of You.   Completists can also obtain fairly poor quality audience recordings of the "missing" songs (e.g., Cale's Buffalo Ballet and Gun, Nico's arresting Song Of The Germans, Ayers' rude, but funny and tuneful I've Got A Hard-On For You, Baby, and his magnificent anthem whatevershebringswesing, featuring a spectacular Mike Oldfield performance) from various sources.  These recordings are not available on Youtube in the US for copyright reasons, but Youtube contains other excellent performances of these songs by each artist.  This morning, poised on the cusp of "Recovery Summer 2", I'm feeling like a cross between Kevin Ayers' Shouting In A Bucket Blues and John Cale's rendition of Heartbreak Hotel, with a dash of Eno's Baby's On Fire thrown in, seasoned with a soupcon of Nico's version of the Doors' The End.

Nothing To Fear -- Onigiri (お握り)

 

Metropolis, dir. Fritz Lang (1927)

        Riding up from Paoli to Manhattan on Amtrak Thursday morning, filled with more fear, fatigue and nervousness than optimism, I several times reflected on the one sure good thing awaiting me in New York: Onigiri (お握り) at Menchanko-Tei.

        For years I worked near this restaurant, which is on West 55^th Street, between 5^th and 6^th *Avenues, and I have enjoyed countless solitary, mind-clearing  onigiri lunches there.  (Incidentally, this is a block I could probably navigate blind or blindfolded, so much of my life has unfolded there.) 

British Light Infantry and Light Dragoons Attacking the Pennsylvania camp, 20th September, 1777 (Paoli Massacre) by Saviero Xavier Della Gatta, 1782


        Frankly, I would have preferred to have had company a lot of the time, but I never had much success luring people to sample either onigiri or the restaurant’s trademark ramen-based soups.  My crowd of working New Yorkers gravitated instead toward generally more expensive and luxurious sushi emporia, which was their loss because entering Menchanko-Tei is like taking a step into Japan, from the day’s beginning and the restaurant’s early morning  breakfast until late in the evening, which brings different  offerings than the lunch bill of fare.  A sojourn at Menchanko-Tei is budget exotic travel with no put-on airs and no jet-lag.  It’s a place where you can definitely leave your home-based troubles outside the door and I’ve never felt anything but bliss and clear thoughts ensconced in those two long, simple rooms.

Onigiri

        Onigiri, for the uninitiated, translates as “rice balls”.  Traditionally, they take the form of large triangular pillows of plain rice that are loosely wrapped in nori seaweed and contain in their centers (like buried treasure)  small quantities of highly flavorful seasoned fish like salted salmon (sake)(鮭) or marinated pollock roe (mentaiko)(明太子) or pickled vegetables like plum (umeboshi)(梅干) or radish (daikon)(ダイコン). Onigiri rice, unlike sushi rice, is unsweetened and unvinegared, although it is also sticky and sometimes salted, the salt acting as a preservative in the same way sushi rice seasonings do. 

Pickled umeboshi

        Onigiri accompaniments and condiments include other pickled vegetables (oshinko), a Japanese dried spiced pepper mixture, or Japanese mustard or chili sauces.  If you choose to add any of these to your onigiri, you must do so in fairly minute quantities in order to achieve a logical and appealing balance and to avoid overpowering the basic flavor of the onigiri and your enjoyment of its light but hefty (a contradiction in terms though that might seem) texture.

Mentaiko 

        Onigiri traditions are ancient and long pre-date even Lady Murasaki’s (the author of The Tale of Genji) account of them in her 11^th century diary, Murasaki Shikibu Nikki, where she describes serving rice balls (called tonjiki then) at picnics.

Lady Murasaki by Tosa Mitsuoki, 17th century

        By the 17^th century, samurai warriors are recorded storing rice balls wrapped in bamboo leaves for quick wartime lunches, and over the centuries (culminating with the advent of the widespread availability of nori during the Genroku period beginning in 1688) onigiri acquired its current status in Japan as a ubiquitous, delicious quick meal.

        It was long believed, however, that onigiri could never be mass-produced because the hand-rolling technique used to form the triangular pillows was too difficult for machine replication.  However, by the 1980s the country that invented the commercial rice cooker in 1945 solved that problem and machine-made onigiri began appearing on store shelves. (The linked Youtube video is well worth watching.)

 
Commercial onigiri making machine 

         At Menchanko-Tei, however, fabrication of onigiri is strictly “old school” and my lunches usually consist of two onigiri (usually one mentaiko and one umeboshi) a bowl of their excellent miso soup, a green salad, an extra order of pickles and green tea.   It is superb, extremely inexpensive and completely satisfying.  (Menchanko –Tei’s ramen and other noodle soups, the house specialities, are excellent and the dishes the crowd seems to prefer, but they are far too filling for me.)

Hakata-ramen at Menchanko-Tei 

    Often the only non-Japanese person attending Menchanko-Tei’s constant throng, I wonder: 

1.  How do the Japanese stay so thin when they seem to eat so much?; 

and 

2.  Why am I the only person I ever see ordering onigiri and assembling my particular menu?  (Am I weird or doing something wrong?)   

        The first question, I think, will remain forever shrouded in mystery.

Ray Milland and Carl Esmond in Ministry of Fear, dir. Fritz Lang (1944)

        As for the second, I am untroubled and the restaurant has never questioned my choices or my judgement.

        On Thursday, though, I did wonder about the two new 7.1 magnitude earthquakes (considered aftershocks) in Japan, the mini- tsunamis that followed,  and how the restaurant’s staff and customers were feeling both about last month’s devastation and what lies ahead for Japan in the wake of such destruction.

        I myself was also seriously disconcerted by the cover photos appearing on the New York Daily News and the New York Post showing President Obama embracing the “Reverend” Al Sharpton at a political event in New York to garner 2012  re-election support.  Having lived through the vicious and destructive Tawana Brawley hoax years ago that destroyed innocent persons' lives and which all sane observers, liberal and conservative, agreed permanently scarred New York City and branded as maggots its protagonists (the former lawyers, Alton Maddox (permanently suspended from law practice) and C. Vernon Mason (disbarred), the criminal, fraud and clown Sharpton, and the feckless but vile Miss Brawley herself), I found the photograph sickening and impossible to see as anything other than a nightmare image of the decline in public decency and morality.

         Years ago, while the Brawley hoax was still fresh in people’s minds, I met in court (we were on opposite sides of a civil case involving a prisoner incarcerated in Westchester County Jail)  a famous black civil rights attorney named Conrad Lynn, who told me that as a participant in some of the major 20^th century battles to establish racial equality in America, he found the actions of (then) fellow attorneys Maddox and Mason, and the beyond-the-pale disgraceful Sharpton reprehensible and shameful.  (He referred to them simply as The Three Stooges).  And now this.

Original Pennsylvania Station designed by McKim, Mead and White (1910-1963)

Ruins of the original Pennsylvania Station designed by McKim, Mead and White (1910-1963), RIP

         Lunch at Menchanko-Tei, following a shoeshine  at Andrade’s (ahead of an important meeting later in the afternoon) erased, or at least put a decent distance, between me and the unhappy, unhealthy-looking subway wraiths I encountered on the way uptown from Penn Station.  I had never seen such a grim, enervated group of people and you would need to be a Subway Saint, I think, to feel anything except a desire to escape into your imagination during the ride (a bad idea; better to pay steely attention) and into anywhere outside the city for a long while afterward.   

        As a teenager I loved the subway.  Something has happened since then, however. 

        The subway and city have both changed and so have I. 

        I look at those people and wonder how on earth they can sleep at night in that city.  

        I can’t even sleep in sleepy suburban Pennsylvania.

        My afternoon meeting went very well, by the way.   A colleague and I went to an uptown hotel to discuss with an actor and director their highly unusual, extremely marketable film project, which was one of surpassing interest.  The actor was quite well-known and had once been a featured player in a very successful television series I liked quite a bit and watched regularly.  He told great stories and their movie was excellent and well worth my late arrival home on the Paoli Local in the middle of the Main Line night. 

        I’m still wondering about the fear, however, and what to do about it?

John Cale, Fear (1974)

Reader Note:  *Speaking of 6^th Avenue, you can always spot non-New Yorkers, Stalag 17-style (i.e., the scene where William Holden reveals that Peter Graves is a Nazi spy by showing  his ignorance of American baseball statistics) if they refer to it as “Avenue of the Americas”.  I remember reading one of Leslie Charteris's Saint novels (it may have been The Saint In New York), which contained a description of Fiorello LaGuardia's unconvincing attempt in the early 1940s to dress up the then-shabby, unprestigious avenue, by giving it a fancy name.  Decades (and a much fancier avenue) later, the name is still unconvincing and largely unused.  It’s strictly 6^th Avenue, which is fine with me and more obviously consistent with New York City’s basic street and avenue ordination system.)

John Cale, OBE; Henry Graham Greene OM CH

 

"I'm stunned. It makes you think 'well maybe I did something right’? and now I've got to figure out what that was. I thought I was too much of a tearaway."

-- John Cale, OBE

Just yesterday I mentioned my out-of-control Google News Alert habit, but it seems that it’s more moderate and modest than I had thought because I completely missed the news about HRH Queen Elizabeth II's selection of John Cale to receive the Order of the British Empire (OBE) citation in her June 12th Birthday List Honors announcements. 

Awards like this are a turn-on to some, but a turn-off to others because, among other things, they focus our attention on the institution of monarchy, which for many people (and certainly for  Americans) is a legitimate source of objection and vexation.   Still, it’s very nice to see John Cale recognized in this way because his achievements are so impressive and the granting of the award, as he himself -- the composer of The Gift, Guts and Fear, among other disruptive classics, and a man who used to perform concerts wearing a menacing "Michael Meyers"-type hockey mask -- clearly recognizes, is so unexpected and incongruous.

I had actually been planning to post something about Cale’s song Graham Greene, from the 1973 Paris, 1919 lp, for some time, but had hesitated because I couldn’t find a good performance of the song on Youtube to include as a link.  I’ve always liked the song without getting under the surface of it or thinking there was much under the surface. Although enjoyable, it seemed like one of the slighter efforts on that great record.  Recently however, I’ve come to think that it paints an acute, multi-faceted, almost cubist picture of the author of Brighton Rock, A Gun For Sale and The End of The Affair (and recipient of the high royal honors, Order of Merit and Companion of Honour) and his Worlds, which is both impressive and augments beautifully the themes, embroidered language, imagery and music of Paris, 1919, one of the few rock albums written with an intention toward discerning history.

Like many Youtube devotees, I have come to expect too much from it at times.  I think that I should be able to instantly dial up live footage of artists I admire performing material I would like to to see, either because I’ve never seen it or I wish to relive it.   Unfortunately, that’s not always possible.   

Therefore, while I was able to content myself yesterday (not nearly a strong enough term of approbation) with some fantastic Pretty Things footage, Youtube is almost vacant of key John Cale solo career footage from the “amazing” performance years of 1975-1979.   During that time I saw Cale on many occasions in and around New York City performing a range of material extending from his Velvet Underground days to his then-most recent record Helen of Troy. There simply wasn’t anyone like him (with the possible exceptions of Iggy Pop, Television and The Ramones, each of them originals but, I would say, John Cale disciples all) for bringing total commitment to live performance.  

 

This period also coincided with Cale’s stripping away most of the “literary” and musically "arty" references from his work (both of which had formed part of his artistic toolkit since his debut solo album, Vintage Violence) and choosing instead starkly to confront humanity face-to-face in the trilogy of records that includes Fear, Slow Dazzle and Helen of Troy, his best album. 

What I most wanted to find on Youtube were performances of the song Helen Of Troy (Cale's unforgettable, gripping set opener) and Leaving It Up To You, the explosive rumination on the implications and consequences of passivity that  got Cale into so much trouble that Island Records even excised it from the Helen of Troy album for a period until the advent of the CD with its acres of available space compared to the vinyl lp and the song's "banned in Boston" reputation caused them to restore it.  Cale's crazed performances of Leaving It Up To You definitely caused some people to believe that he was actually crazy, that it wasn't a performance.  I can personally say that they changed my life and perspective on things.

 
Instead, Youtube presents Cale’s solo career mostly as a series of pleasant, well-performed, but less intense clips, mirroring the less full-blooded music he eventually settled into making as the 1980s progressed and he himself settled down considerably in his personal life.  A notable exception is the marvelous Dead Or Alive from the 1981’s Honi Soit lp, which can be heard here. It's a beautiful and unique piece of music and lyric that also might change your life and your impression about what "pop" music can achieve.

This decline (or possibly simply a shift of focus) to other types of material and performances is of no great importance.  What John Cale accomplished during his "punk" period, i.e., the period when the younger punk and the "new wave" bands were in their ascendancy, was extraordinary and it’s great that he is still alive, healthy, musically active and here with us to receive his OBE honors from Her Majesty. 

 

The lyrics to Graham Greene follow.  It’s a sprightly, sardonic, slightly sinister song that hints, I think, at the dark, deeply pained heart and view of humanity that Greene carried inside him and described so well in the character descriptions and incidents in his novels.  It is even evident in some of his apparently lighter works like Our Man In Havana. 

 

Graham Greene

You’re having tea with Graham Greene

in a colored costume of your choice.

And you’ll be held in high esteem,

if you’re seen in between.

Stiffly holding umbrellas,

catching the fellows, making the toast,

to the civil servant Carruthers

making the others worser than most.

You’re making small talk now with the Queen

and the elegant ladies in waiting.

You’re very nervous, they can all tell,

pretty well they can tell.

So save yourselves for the hounds of hell,

they can have you all to themselves.

Since the fashion now is to give away

all the things you love so well.

Welcome back to Chipping Sodbury,

you can have another chance.

It must all seem like second nature,

chopping down the people where they stand.

According to the latest score

Mr. Enoch Powell is falling star.

So in future please bear in mind,

don’t see clear, don’t see far.

When the average social director

mistook a passenger for the conductor,

it’s so shocking see the old Church of E

looking down on you and me.

So, welcome back to Chipping Sodbury,

you can have another chance.

It must all seem like second nature,

chopping down the people where they stand.

In my continuing efforts to ferret out cocktails named for celebrities, I have included below a recipe for the Graham Greene Cocktail, as served at the Sofitel Grande Metropole in Hanoi, the successor establishment to the hotel Greene himself frequented during the 1950s and the gestation of The Quiet American.  (Readers of that book will recognize the drink, which looks quite good.)

Graham Greene Cocktail

Ingredients for 1 Cocktail

• 2 Ounces gin
• 1/2 Ounce dry vermouth
• Splash of creme de cassis

Preparation

1. Combine ingredients in a cocktail shaker or mixing glass.
2. Add ice, stir and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Note:  A suggested variation is to reverse the amounts of dry vermouth and gin.

The wall plaque pictured below is from the legendary Oloffson’s Hotel in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, signifying that the peripatetic “Graham Greene Slept Here”. Similar signs are posted in legendary hostelries throughout the Greene's literary world, which was a source of pain to Greene's fascinating and long suffering wife, Vivian. Greene was a talented, but difficult and contradictory person.  His own works, letters, and the accounts of him written by others all make this extremely clear. 

 

Joi

One further note.  Joining John Cale in this June's rock and roll Honors section is Graham Nash, erstwhile key member of Manchester's marvelous Hollies.  For that signal achievement alone, Graham can be forgiven a lot, including most of Crosby, Stills & Nash.  Congratulations, Graham.