Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin Page 11

  As it turned out, though, that thought would have been premature. Bierce had left a daughter. The daughter could read and write English and owned a supply of stationery. In a few years, Mencken found himself locked in correspondence with her about a memoir she proposed writing about life with her father—a memoir to be produced with the literary assistance of Stephen Crane’s niece. Not long after that, Mencken found himself composing letters to Stephen Crane’s niece, who had decided, after the Bierce collaboration, that she was ready to write a memoir about life with Stephen Crane. That didn’t stop the letters from Bierce’s daughter. She asked Mencken’s advice about republishing a Bierce anthology and about the possibility of selling movie rights to Bierce’s short stories. She asked Mencken’s advice about getting the novel of a friend published. After some years of such requests, she, too, died, which would have brought an end to the letters Mencken had to write to the Bierce family except that he was already deeply involved in a correspondence with her cousin, Edward Bierce.

  Edward Bierce wanted Mencken’s advice on a number of subjects, such as how to get a job on a newspaper. He also enjoyed sending Mencken chatty letters that contained no specific requests but had to be answered fairly quickly in order to avoid another letter asking if anything was wrong. In the thirties, then, Mencken was steadily writing letters not only to Theodore Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis, but also to the last remaining letter-writing heir of Ambrose Bierce.

  Edward Bierce’s letters seem to have fallen off in the forties. Then, in 1953, Mencken received a letter on the stationery of the Long Beach, California, Independent-Press-Telegram. It was signed not by Edward Bierce but by a newspaperwoman who said she knew him—and casually tossed in the information that, two and a half years before, she had covered the trial in which he had been convicted of second-degree murder in the death of his wife. (“He was justified in beating her,” the newspaperwoman wrote, “but he should have stopped before he killed her.”) The reason for the letter was not to report on Bierce’s domestic misfortune but to ask Mencken’s help in obtaining a publisher for the newspaperwoman’s eighty-thousand-word novel about the Nebraska sand hills and early Wyoming.

  That was forty years after the apparently innocent compliment on the Smart Set articles. If I had been in Mencken’s place during that span of years, I might have begun to feel guilty at some point about having Ambrose Bierce’s still unanswered letter in my desk. But, then, nobody would be asking my help in obtaining a publisher for an eighty-thousand-word novel about the Nebraska sand hills and early Wyoming. The blessings of sloth.

  1971

  Answer Man

  In the most recent Great Canadian Literary Quiz, a contest that runs annually in the Toronto Globe and Mail, I was the answer to No. 18. Not to boast. Well, to boast just a bit. Being an answer in the literary quiz of an entire country—one that just happens to have the second-largest landmass in the entire world—is not an honor that comes someone’s way every day. It’s true that at Southwest High School, in Kansas City, I was voted Third Most Likely to Succeed. That was in 1953, though, and a year or so ago I stopped mentioning it if someone happened to ask “Had any honors lately?” I’d decided that my wife was correct in observing that it might have lost a certain freshness.

  On the other hand, being the answer to No. 18 in the Great Canadian Literary Quiz was something I considered worth bringing up, in an offhand sort of way, at the office water fountain. The response of one of the office’s premier scoffers, I regret to say, was, “I would have thought that every answer in a Canadian literary quiz would be Robertson Davies.”

  Wrong. Not just wrong, but wrong in a way that reflects the patronizing American attitude that we figures in the Canadian literary world—even those of us who haven’t been figures for terribly long—deeply resent. In fact, I can just imagine discussing that very subject with others who are answers to questions on the Great Canadian Literary Quiz. We’d be at a literary soirée at the top of some swanky high-rise in Toronto—Saul Bellow and Robert MacNeil (both answers to No. 34) and Michael Ondaatje (No. 33A) and, even though it crowds the room a bit, British Columbia (No. 49C). We’d all know one another well enough to use the numbers of the questions we’re the answers to as sort of in-crowd nicknames:

  “You know, Twenty-two, that remark about Robertson Davies demonstrates just the sort of Yank arrogance you were talking about in your opposition to NAFTA,” I’m saying to Margaret Atwood. “Say, isn’t that Forty-one coming through the door?” Forty-one is Alice Munro, who has just entered the room chatting with Brian Moore, whom we all call Twenty, of course, or in particularly affectionate moments, Twen.

  Just for the record, by the way, I informed the office scoffer that of the fifty answers in the Great Canadian Literary Quiz, many of them multiple answers, Robertson Davies was the answer to only No. 14E. And what was the question whose answer was Robertson Davies? I don’t know. Actually, I don’t know the question whose answer was me—or as we literary figures tend to say, I. My friend Dusty sent me the Globe and Mail that carried the answers to the quiz—she’d circled the answer to No. 18—but not the Globe and Mail that carried the questions.

  I suspected that question No. 18 had something to do with my longtime contention that I should be recognized as one-sixth Canadian content. For some years, one method Canada has used to avoid being culturally subsumed into the United States is to insist that, say, a film or a broadcasting project include a certain percentage of Canadians—what’s called Canadian content. Since I live in Nova Scotia in July and August—one-sixth of the year—I have long maintained that for every six books of Mordecai Richler’s on the Canadiana shelf, there should be one of mine.

  In making this claim, I’ve taken the sort of low-key approach that might be expected from a literary figure in Canada. I’ve simply laid out the simple math at the heart of it and said, in effect, “How about it, guys?” Actually, given the fact that Canada has twice as many official languages as some countries I can think of, I’ve also said, in effect, “Alors, qu’est-ce que vous en pensez, les mecs?”

  Maybe No. 18 was an indication that my Canadian content papers have finally come through. (“Which writer has just been certified as fractional Canadian content?”)

  But what if No. 18 had been something like “Which American writer with vague Canadian connections has made a pest out of himself on the issue of Canadian content?” or “Which Nova Scotia summer resident named Calvin has been observed smiling modestly when complimented on books about the art world that were actually written by Calvin Tomkins?” It occurred to me that, in the world of literature, the pleasures of being an answer are not really dependent on knowing the question.

  1998

  Publisher’s Lunch

  For a long time, I’ve had a lot of ideas for improving the publishing industry, many of them acquired in the course of doing research for a book I have been working on for years—An Anthology of Authors’ Atrocity Stories About Publishers. (So far, I have failed to find a publisher for the book, despite a friend of mine having improved the original idea considerably by proposing that the anthology be published as an annual.) It has recently occurred to me that there is a way to make my ideas for the industry mandatory through the simple vehicle of New York City ordinances. Because publishers are concentrated in Manhattan, their activities could be regulated in the same way that taxi rates and building permits are regulated. The city council could simply pass a law, for instance, that read “The advance for a book must be larger than the check for the lunch at which it was discussed.”

  Yes, the publishers would say that such a law was unrealistic. They would threaten a mass move to New Jersey—the way the Wall Street crowd threatened to move to New Jersey when the city hinted about imposing what amounted to a parasite tax on stock-and-bond transactions—but the threat would obviously never be carried out. Where would publishers eat lunch in New Jersey?

  Some of the ordinances would be simple consumer protection. Any perso
n furnishing a blurb for a book jacket, for instance, would be required to disclose his connection to the author of the book. A one-sentence parenthetical identification, supported by an affidavit filed in triplicate with the Department of Street Maintenance and Repair, would suffice. If, for example, a new novel by Cushman Jack Hendricks carried a blurb by a famous novelist named Dred Schlotz saying “Hendricks writes like an angel with steel in its guts,” the blurb would simply be signed “Dred Schlotz (Drinking buddy at Elaine’s)” or “Dred Schlotz (Hopes to be chosen shortstop on the author’s team at next East Hampton writers softball game)” or “Dred Schlotz (Just a fellow who likes to keep his name before the reading public between books).”

  I suppose the publishers would put up some First Amendment quibble to the Open Blurb Law. But what I propose is really no different from the truth-in-packaging legislation that requires, say, frozen-food manufacturers to list how much MSG and cornstarch the consumer will be eating if he thaws out what purports to be a spinach soufflé. Although there may be writers who believe their books to be different in spirit from a spinach soufflé, spiritual differences are not recognized by the Department of Consumer Affairs.

  One ordinance would require any novel containing more than three hundred pages and/or fourteen major characters and/or three generations to provide in its frontis matter a list that includes the name of each character, the page of first mention, nickname or petname, and sexual proclivities. Under another ordinance, passed despite some opposition from an organization called Urban Neurotics United, each publisher would be limited to one Kvetch Novel per month (“A Kvetch Novel,” in the language of the ordinance, “will be defined as any novel with a main character to whom any reader might reasonably be expected to say, ‘Oh, just pull up your socks!’ ”). All profits from books published by convicted felons who have held public office would, by law, be turned over to a fund that provides kleptomaniacs with scholarships to Harvard Business School. An author will be legally prohibited from ending a book’s Acknowledgments by thanking his wife for her typing. There would be no books by any psychotherapist who has ever appeared on a talk show. Each September, under the joint supervision of the Office of the Borough President of Staten Island and the Department of Marine Resources, the city itself would publish a book called An Anthology of Authors’ Atrocity Stories About Publishers.

  1978

  MADLY MAKING MONEY

  “My long-term investment strategy has been criticized as being entirely too dependent on Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes.”

  New Bank Merger

  A bank has swallowed up the bank that swallowed up my bank.

  It condescends to smaller banks that it will now outrank.

  My checkbook must be changed again, I fear.

  The branch I was beginning to hold dear

  Because it’s now familiar, and so near,

  Will be well merged, and quickly disappear.

  And so again I hardly know which CEO to thank.

  A bank has swallowed up the bank that swallowed up my bank.

  1995

  An Outtake from Antiques Roadshow

  ROSS LINKARD, LINKARD & SONS ANTIQUES, ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA: And what can you tell us, sir, about this bowl you’ve brought in—ceramic, it appears, with a rustic scene on it that looks to me like … Is that a man standing in a hole?

  RED-FACED MAN: We’ve never really been able to determine whether he’s in a hole or it’s just a very short man. People were a lot smaller in those days, you know.

  LINKARD: And may I ask how you come to have this bowl?

  RED-FACED MAN: I bought it at a garage sale in New Jersey. From an old woman. Quite old. Blind, actually. Legally blind, that is. A lot of those legally blind people can see, you know. But I remember she never contradicted me when I kept saying how if we bought the bowl we’d probably have to spend a lot more money on it getting the stain out.

  LINKARD: I don’t see any stain here.

  RED-FACED MAN: Well, that’s just it. There wasn’t any stain. I read in one of those books about how to bargain that you have to take advantage of your adversary’s weakness, and I figured that her big weakness was that she couldn’t see. So I think I really outsmarted her and picked me up a real bargain.

  LINKARD: You cheated a blind person to get this bowl?

  RED-FACED MAN: I wouldn’t say “cheated.” It’s what you call a negotiating device. If some ignorant bozo came into your shop to sell you some old picture he’d found in the attic, and you recognized it as a Henry David Thoreau, would you tell him that? No, you’d take advantage of his weakness—ignorance, in this case—and you’d buy it for a pittance. Isn’t that what this whole business is about—putting one over on people?

  LINKARD: Henry David Thoreau was not a painter.

  RED-FACED MAN: Just my point. That would make the picture all the rarer, wouldn’t it?

  LINKARD: Well, I’ve gone over this bowl, and I should say first that this type of artifact is relatively common in the Middle Atlantic states.

  RED-FACED MAN: Is New Jersey a Middle Atlantic state?

  LINKARD: Yes, indeed, it is.

  RED-FACED MAN: Right! That checks out exactly! I think we’re onto something.

  LINKARD: As I was saying, these artifacts are relatively common in the Middle Atlantic states. They tend to be wide, hemispherical vessels, used to hold food or fluids. We see them quite often in kitchens. This one has the classic bowl-like shape. Concave. And then, you see, if you turn it around it becomes convex. That’s classic. You’ll find that in all of them.

  RED-FACED MAN: This is all starting to fall into place. I’ve obviously got a real find here.

  LINKARD: Did the woman tell you anything about how the bowl happened to be in her possession?

  RED-FACED MAN: She said it had been in her husband’s family for generations. Her husband had recently died and she felt she had to sell it, along with a lot of other items in the garage, to raise money for his headstone. But I wouldn’t try going to the bank with that headstone story. You probably hear that a dozen times a day in your line of work, right? I mean, if every helpless-looking old blind woman who said she wanted to sell something to get money to pay for her husband’s headstone really did, the countryside would be littered with headstones. We’d be tripping over headstones. The highways would be blocked.

  LINKARD: Did she have any idea how the bowl got into the family?

  RED-FACED MAN: Her husband had always been told that one of his ancestors got it as a wedding gift in the late eighteenth century from a wealthy flax broker. Since then, a cousin of mine has told me that in the late eighteenth century it was a custom to do pictures of men standing in holes, and that there was also a custom of doing pictures of short men. I understand that when they did both at the same time, you sometimes couldn’t see the man at all. So all that checks out.

  LINKARD: Well, I don’t doubt that it could be of Middle Atlantic origin, but I’d say it’s a piece that’s quite a bit more recent than the eighteenth century.

  RED-FACED MAN: What makes you say that?

  LINKARD: Well, for one thing, this inscription on the bottom here that says “microwave safe.”

  RED-FACED MAN: You don’t think that could have been added later?

  LINKARD: I think it’s highly unlikely. May I ask you, sir, how much you paid for this bowl?

  RED-FACED MAN: I paid a hundred dollars. Got her down from a hundred and fifty.

  LINKARD: You paid a hundred dollars for a bowl you can get for two or three dollars at Wal-Mart? You’ve got to be kidding!

  RED-FACED MAN: I don’t see anything funny about this.

  LINKARD: Oh, my, that’s rich. Mercy me. A hundred dollars. Lance, Charlie—did you hear that? A hundred dollars. Oh, that’s just too good.

  RED-FACED MAN: Stop laughing!

  LINKARD: Got her down from a hundred and fifty! Got the blind woman down from a hundred and fifty! I can’t stand it. I’m going to split a gut.… Sir, I don�
�t think you should hold the bowl above your head that way.… Argghhh!

  [Brrnng. Cut to graphic.]

  CERAMIC BOWL: $2 TO $3

  2001

  Dow Plunges on News of Credit Crisis in the United Arab Emirates

  Here’s something that will make you sigh:

  We’re all connected to Dubai.

  2009

  The Alice Tax

  The proposal by the House of Representatives to put a 10 percent tax surcharge on income over a million dollars a year—the proposal that so horrified the White House and caused grown senators to shake in their tasseled loafers—is seen by the tax specialists around our house as a considerably watered down version of what we call the Alice Tax.

  If George Bush had heard about the original Alice Tax—which has been proposed for years by my wife, Alice—he would have had, to paraphrase the populist philosopher Bart Simpson, a horseshoe. The true Alice Tax would probably inspire what the medical profession sometimes calls “harumph palpitations” in those senators who used the word “confiscatory” to describe a surcharge that would have brought the highest possible tax on incomes over a million dollars a year to 41 percent. To state the provisions of the Alice Tax simply, which is the only way Alice allows them to be stated, it calls for this: After a certain level of income, the government would simply take everything. When Alice says confiscatory, she means confiscatory.

  The Alice Tax is not Alice’s only venture into economic theory. She also came up with Alice’s Law of Compensatory Cashflow, which holds that not buying some luxury item you can’t afford is the equivalent of windfall income. So that she might say, “Well, of course we can go to the Caribbean, now that we have the money we saved by not buying that expensive sound system,” while I, a befuddled look on my face, start patting various pockets in a desperate effort to find the money she’s talking about. But Alice’s Law of Compensatory Cashflow is more in the realm of what the experts call Personal Finance. The Alice Tax is meant as Alice’s contribution to national economic policy.