Why I’m Going to Miss Newspapers

I’ve said it before:  my favorite time is when I sit down in the morning with my first cup of coffee and start to read the three newspapers that I devour every day.

One reason this is such a guilty pleasure is the contrast to my first job, in public relations at Lever Brothers in New York, when I had to walk into an empty office at 8 a.m. carrying five newspapers, then read and summarize all the business news of interest to the company’s executives, who would get a mimeographed newsletter from me when they drifted in around 10 a.m.  Now, of course, all executives can get their own news summary on their I-phones right in the taxi or commuter train on the way to work.

The paper that I read first with my coffee is the local paper—the Worcester (MA) Telegram & Gazette.  I need the comfortable perspective of the T&G before I tackle the increasingly depressing first page of The New York Times.

 The T&G on Monday, March 11, for example, devoted much of the front page to Sunday’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade-- photos and the title “Smilin’ Skies” with two subtitles “Sun Shines on St. Pat’s Parade” and “One band finds itself out of step.” Inside on page three was a feel-good story and photo about how the library in Hardwick is sponsoring a seed exchange, lending seeds as well as books to its patrons, who are expected to bring seeds back from their crop for the next year’s sowing.  That’s the kind of uplifting local story that I like.

While The New York Times likes to lead with photos of mass graves and starving refugee children, the T& G has featured page-one photos of firemen rescuing a cat from a telephone pole.  When I’ve finished the T&G and checked to see if anyone I know has died or been arrested, I go through The New York Times methodically, section by section.  Often the obituaries of fascinating people I’d never heard of are my favorite part.

 I need a second cup of coffee before I tackle The Times, and when I’m through, I go about my chores. But sometime during the day I go out and track down a copy of the New York Post, which is famous for its lurid headlines like “Headless Body in Topless Bar” (that one was voted a readers favorite.  Here are some more below.) 

 People often ask me “Why on earth would YOU read the Post every day?” (Meaning—since I’m an educated professional with presumably better taste.)  But I reply truthfully that I need my daily gossip fix, and often I find my New York friends and acquaintances and their misadventures chronicled on Page Six.  Where else but in the Post would I find articles like the one last Monday about: “Why does everyone hate Anne Hathaway?” 

 My kids and their friends get all their news on line.  And I understand and respect their reasons why I shouldn’t read the print version: it kills trees, it gets your hands and furniture dirty, and by the time the paper appears in the driveway at 6:30 a.m. (usually in a plastic bag landing in the snow), it’s already out of date.

But I love handling the newspapers; the smell of the ink that smudges my hands.  I love being able to tag with post-it notes and later cut out articles I think would be of interest to my kids.  I regularly send them clippings, which I suspect they never read (but if I forward the article by e-mail I sometimes get a comment back.)

Today we get breaking news via internet the instant it happens—and we also get all the confusion and fear and wrong information gleaned by bystanders.  Think about the Newtown massacre and how many wrong “facts” were reported until, by the afternoon, the terrible truth was pinned down and rendered into print for the next day’s papers.

I graduated with a master’s degree from Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism and I realize the serious dangers of broadcasting breaking news while it’s still rumor. I understand how easy it would be to cause mass hysteria , serious injury and even death using no more than your Twitter or Facebook account.   Look what Orson Welles did with “War of the Worlds” on the radio in 1938, before the days of television.

The ability of bystanders to report the news on line is also a good thing—it can uncover and document police abuse, domestic abuse, all kinds of criminal acts. But I still prefer my news on paper, evaluated and fact-checked by the reporters of the Great Gray Lady presenting “all the news that’s fit to print.” 

I know we’re approaching the end of the road for print media. Newsweek is gone, except for on-line. The Boston Phoenix just folded after 47 years. The New York Times, suffering financially like everyone else, is trying to find someone to buy the Boston Globe and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. One day soon there won’t be any more news delivery people or any more newspapers landing in the snowdrift at the end of our driveway.  And millions of trees will have been saved.

When I was born on Feb. 4, 1941, my parents saved the entire Milwaukee Journal: (“Score Hurt as Big Locomotive Explodes in Streets of Denver”.)  In September of 1970 I cut our wedding announcement out of The New York Times and put it in an album. Like everyone else, I saved the paper from Nov. 23, 1963, about Kennedy’s assassination.  That was the first time the nation pulled together to mourn a tragedy as it was taking place on television, but, still in grad school, I didn’t have access to a television, but stood over the teletype machine in Columbia J School’s newsroom as crumbs of information were typed out at an agonizingly slow pace.

When all the newspapers are gone and news comes beeping through our phones and computers all day long, my first cup of coffee in the morning won’t taste the same.  And as one friend asked, what are we going to use to pack up the china and line the birdcage?

A Movie about the Barbizon Hotel’s Glory Days

 Four years ago on A Rolling Crone, inspired by seeing “The Devil Wears Prada”, I wrote a post called “Those Fabulous Magazine Divas –A Memoir.”

It told tales of eccentric and glamorous magazine editors I’ve worked for, long before the days of Anna Wintour (the current Vogue Editor who was allegedly the template for Meryl Streep’s character in the film.)

In that post I wrote about my first taste of glossy fashion magazine work—when I came to New York as a Mademoiselle Guest Editor in 1961. I was one of 20 college girls who won the contest that year and were housed at the Barbizon Hotel at 63^rd and Lexington for the month of June during their dizzy whirl of activities at Mlle. Magazine.

About six months later, in May of 2010, I again mentioned the Barbizon in a post called  “Bring Back the Mlle. Guest Editor Contest!”  in which I made the point that there are no opportunities today for young women with talent in writing or art to get a foot up the ladder of success-- only reality shows which encourage bad behavior and drama instead of actual talent.

Those reminiscences about the Barbizon brought me to the attention of Melodie Bryant, who is a New York-based documentary filmmaker with 20 years of experience in television and film, as well as a composer who has provided sound tracks for many top television shows.

Melodie interviewed me by phone about my stay at the Barbizon and then on camera when I was visiting New York last year.  During her research she has flown from coast to coast interviewing women of a “certain age” who remember the experiences that gave the Barbizon such a glamorous aura and mystique, especially during the forties, fifties and sixties.

 The Barbizon, beginning in1928 as a residence for single women, attracted the best and most beautiful girls from respectable families, young women who came to New York to conquer the city.  Parents insisted their darling daughters stay at the Barbizon, secure in the knowledge that their morals, dress, behavior and social life would be carefully monitored.  The rules were strict: no men were allowed above the first floor. (You can guess how well that worked.)

Former residents of the Barbizon, in addition to all the Mlle. guest editors and the students at Katie Gibbs secretarial school and the Eileen Ford Models, included Grace Kelly, Ali MacGraw, Joan Didion, Nancy Reagan, Joan Crawford,  Dorothy McGuire, Liza Minelli, Cybil Shepherd, Ann Beattie, Mona Simpson, Betsey Johnson and, famously, Sylvia Plath, who wrote The Bell Jar about her stint as a Guest Editor in 1953 during which she had a nervous breakdown, threw her fashionable new clothes off the roof of the “Amazon Hotel”, then went home to Connecticut and her first suicide attempt.  (What she published as fiction was completely faithful to her actual experiences at the Barbizon, as Melodie has found out by interviewing some of Plath’s Barbizon buddies.)

I can’t wait to see the finished documentary, because in talking to Melodie I’m getting hints of stories even stranger than Sylvia Plath’s—tales of men smuggled upstairs, rebellion against the strict parietal rules, even suicides leaping from the Art Deco roof terrace.

Now Melodie has prepared a trailer of her film, which she will post on sites like Kickstarter  to raise interest and funds for its completion and distribution.  I think it’s a good trailer, which effectively evokes the aura of the Barbizon in its glory days—even if it does include a clip from my interview which leaves me devoutly wishing I’d at least had my hair and makeup done first! 

Here's the Barbizon movie trailer

Daughter Eleni wrote on Facebook: Watch my mama, Joan P. Gage, talk about the Barbizon hotel in it's early 60s heyday. Here's a companion drinking game: take a swig of sauvignon blanc every time she says "slacks"

Eleni (and everyone else who has seen the trailer and is under 70 years old) thinks both my Midwest accent and my use of the word “slacks” are side-splittingly funny.

Then last weekend I did a two-hour telephone interview with a young woman from California, the thirty-something author of well-reviewed novels, who is researching the Barbizon in its heyday as the background for her next book.

In 1981 the Barbizon began to allow men in as residents and in 2006 the building was converted into condominiums.  And in 2012 it was declared a New York landmark. Although its glory days are long past, I think the Barbizon is about to have another moment in the sun.

(For more information about the  upcoming documentary,  see www.Barbizonmovie.com.)

If 72 is the new 30, Then I’m Not Even Middle-aged!

 (This post is also published on the Huffington Post in the "Fifty" section. -- If any pals would like to leave a comment there, I'd be mighty grateful!)

I heard it from a radio disc jockey as I was driving to the hairdresser last week- “Scientists report that 72 is the new 30!”  It caught my attention, because I just passed my 72^nd birthday a month ago

So the next time I got to my computer, I Googled that sentence and found out it didn’t mean exactly what I thought.  Researchers in Germany have decided that a 72-year-old human being today has the same probability of death as 30-year-old hunter-gatherers back in the cave-man days.

In other words, I’d better make sure that my insurance policies are paid up. 

If you read this article in the British Daily Mail on line , published on Feb. 26, you will learn that the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany have published a report saying that  a primitive hunter-gatherer at 30 would have had the same odds of dying as a 72-year old in a developed country today. And the biggest drop in mortality has occurred in the past four generations.

Thanks to improved medicine and nutrition, life spans are now past 80 in some developed nations. The findings were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

To illustrate, the Daily Mail trotted out a photograph of Faye Dunaway with the caption “Alive and kicking, Faye Dunaway, 72, is as healthy as an ancient 30 year old, scientists have said.”

 This is interesting to me, because Faye Dunaway went to Boston University at the same time as my husband, and they used to double-date.  So this is what I know about her:  she was a brunette and she was a little overweight then.  Here’s something else: Dave, the young man she was dating, died decades ago.

Right now, I know that Faye has had extensive plastic surgery (so have I, but I haven’t had my nose replaced). 

 I’II tell you who looks amazingly good despite being wicked old (79) and that’s Jane Fonda, who also probably has a plastic surgeon on speed dial. Did you see her at the Oscars?  But then, I suspect neither Faye Dunaway nor Jane Fonda has ever led the hard-scrabble life of a primitive hunter-gatherer.  And the cave men and women didn’t have sun screen.

So after studying the facts behind the statement “72 is the New 30”, I’ve learned the following:

1. I’m as likely to drop dead tomorrow as an early caveman was to be trampled by a mastodon or disemboweled by a saber-toothed tiger.  In other words, very.

2. German scientists should find better use of their time.

But here’s what seems to be a more cheering scientific statement about longevity that I saw on a billboard on the way to San Francisco airport recently.  It said in very big letters, “One out of every three babies born today will live to be 100.”

It was paid for by an insurance company.

Amalia's Playa Iguana Adventure--Nicaragua Part 2

Setting out to drive to the seashore from Granada, Amalia made sure to bring along her stuffed owl, named Kookoovaya.  Owls are one of Amalia's favorite things.

When they got to Playa Iguana on the Pacific, the surfers were already there.  The waves bring surfers from around the world.

Don't forget the sun screen!

Papi didn't forget.

Papou took Amalia in the pool, while Mommy and Papi went to the ocean.

Later Yiayia showed Amalia funny videos of things she did when she was smaller.

Amalia's counting the seashells they found on the beach.

Papi brought her a teeny crab and they put it in a pail shaped like a tortuga.

Everybody's beach towel had a different design.  Amalia chose the crab.

Crabs are another one of Amalia's favorite things.

Then Amalia took a nap in a green hammock.

Mommy took a nap too.

Later Papou whispered a story in Amalia's ear.

Sometimes his stories are shocking.

A walk on the beach as the sun began to set.

Then hummus and pita and wine by the pool.  Hummus is definitely one of Amalia's favorite things!

Sunset.

The next day Amalia did a lot of work.  She arranged the chairs around the table.

She collected the beach towels...

And dragged them off to the washing machine.

Then took a nap after all that work.

Lunch was a big paella with lobster tails.

Then it was time to drive back to Granada, so Amalia could sleep in her own bed, with an owl and a hedgehog and a squirrel on the wall overhead.

And an owl pillow and a tortuga pillow for company.   Tortugas are another one of Amalia's favorite things.

Amalia's Adventures in Nicaragua ...Part 1

 

Since October, granddaughter Amalía and her Mommy and Papi have been living in the quaint, quiet, colonial city of Granada, Nicaragua, with occasional trips back to swinging South Beach, Miami.

 Granada, with its horse-drawn carriages, almost weekly religious festivals and handicraft markets is very different from the wacky modern vibe of South Beach, but Amalía’s day is still just as busy in Nicaragua as in Florida.

                                Photo taken during the Poetry Festival by Eleni Gage de Baltodano

 Amalía wakes up demanding to eat huevos and gallo pinto—the national dish of Nicaragua, 

made of beans and rice.  ( “Gallo Pinto” literally means “spotted rooster”.)

 Then everyone goes out to have fruit and yogurt and coffee by the swimming pool. 

 

 But Amalía can’t tarry; she has to go find the tortugas, 

which are always hiding somewhere in the garden.  

 

 She likes to feed them leaves but sometimes they run away (very slowly). 

 Then she has to check on Tonia, the parrot, who comes out of her cage in the morning 

to eat sunflower seeds and wake everyone up with her shrieks. 

 After breakfast, Amalía and her Mommy may walk to the center of town 

to have juice and sweets with friends.

 And do a little shopping.

 Everyone knows Amalía and says “Buenos dias.” 

 Or Mommy and Amalía might take a taxi to the market at Masaya, to buy handicrafts.

                                 A mural at Masaya Craft Market, 14 kilometers from Granada

like hammocks, handmade masks and textiles.

Then it's time for a nap.

  After lunch Amalía likes to play in the pool with Papou, when he’s visiting,

Or with her two grandmas:   Yiayia Joanie and Abuela Carmen.

Or she might go out with her babysitter Maria José—
maybe to the lakeside where she can see parrots and monkeys,

                                                            
large water birds

                                           

 and one of Nicaragua’s famous volcanoes.

Coming Monday—Part 2--everyone goes to the seashore....