Thank you, Mr Buchwald
When Amerloque was growing up in the USA during the 1950s, he took great pleasure in biking over to his local Carnegie Library and searching through the latest national newspapers for the most recent columns by Paris resident Art Buchwald.
Buchwald's perceptive humor about the French and French society always brought a smile to Amerloque's face. Along with Gene Kelly, Art Buchwald was a quintessential "American in Paris", for Amerloque, who promised himself that he, too, one day, would be living in Paris.
Reports on the USA Today website indicate Art Buchwald passed on today, at the age of eighty-one. Having now been an "American in Paris" for many, many years, Amerloque simply says "Goodbye Mr Buchwald, and thank you !"
L'Amerloque
Text © Copyright 2007 by L'Amerloque
Buchwald's perceptive humor about the French and French society always brought a smile to Amerloque's face. Along with Gene Kelly, Art Buchwald was a quintessential "American in Paris", for Amerloque, who promised himself that he, too, one day, would be living in Paris.
Reports on the USA Today website indicate Art Buchwald passed on today, at the age of eighty-one. Having now been an "American in Paris" for many, many years, Amerloque simply says "Goodbye Mr Buchwald, and thank you !"
L'Amerloque
Text © Copyright 2007 by L'Amerloque
Image © Copyright reserved to copyright holder(s)
posted by L'Amerloque at 7:41 AM
7 Comments:
Hi, Amerloque!
Thanks for remembering Art Buchwald. His columns on Nixon and Watergate were the high point of my day, once upon a time.
Rest in Peace, Art.
Best,
Cellequilit
PS. In my senior year in HS, I spent all my open periods in the local Carnegie Library (imposing Greek Revival, most imposing building in town, indeed, C. wanted to live there when she grew up!) with my friend Kerry reading and debating the most recent issue of Harper's---oh that horrible Mr. Mailer, what lovely fights we had!
Thanks for the link about the libraries! Hooray for Carnegie!
Salut Cellequilit !
Thanks for stopping in !
Carnegie Libraries are apparently disappearing ... the one Amerloque speaks of, for example, was razed in the early 1960s and replaced by a "modern" library.
For "modern", one might read "soulless" (sigh).
Best,
L'Amerloque
Hi, Amerloque!
"soul-less"
Oh, razing a Carnegie Library...!
Well, I shouldn't sound so surprised. The grand one in my hometown survives only because its endowment is still large enough to allow some minimal refurbishment. But much of the third floor has had to be closed...
The one in the town I live in now is new but has a wonderful skylighted entryway with a gas fireplace (brick) and armchairs. There is a nice fountain outside too, and a view of the river and the cliffs opposite. So not soul-less in its physicality...
But check out this article by a librarian with some bad news about the readers, not the buildings.
Here in Pennsylvania we have a thing called "Access Pennsylvania" which links all libraries in the state, allowing me to get wonderful books from Drexel and UPenn in under a week.
Most recently I read a rather hard to find early 19th century 2 vol. excerpting of Etienne Pasquier's work, along with B. Cerquiglini's Eloge de la variante, a truly wonderful book, truly wonderful, knock me down wonderful, about medieval writing and philology.
So our libraries here still seem to function well. For how long, I don't know.
Best,
Cellequilit
Salut Cellequilit !
Oh, razing a Carnegie Library...!
Yup. Amerloque found a whole list on internet the other day: if he reacalls correctly, it was on one of the links from the Wiki article ...
But check out this article by a librarian with some bad news about the readers, not the buildings.
This is a very depressing article.
The world is indeed changing.
Amerloque once thought he would retire to / live in a "village de livres", but if no one is reading books anymore, it would be a deadend, for sure ...
On the other hand, in France it might not be the same ... (grin)
Best,
L'Amerloque
I loved the writing of Mr Buchwald. He was so funny. I enjoyed his really fast tour of the Louvre-in and out in no time at all.
Hello Linda !
/*/I enjoyed his really fast tour of the Louvre ... /*/
Yes, Amerloque appreciated it as well, to such an extent that he developed a little circuit based on Art's when he took his own visitors to the Louvre ... (grin)
Best,
L'Amerloque
Hi !
Of course, Art will be remembered with fondness by every American expat in Paris, especially in the autumn ...
His column explaining Thanksgiving to the French is a classic. It has been published for years in the International Herald Tribune, although there was a serious glich when the NYT bought out the IHT a while back ... the best place to read it - with all the italics, as AB intended ! - is at the Washington Post:
http://tinyurl.com/92bxf
The Washington Post
Best,
L'Amerloque
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