politics da may appear hollow in retrospect, it typically works in the moment, write the authors,both professors at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Develop- ment.Since the dawn of advertising and modern communications, Americans have shown that they BUYER would buy whatever war their pres- ident was selling. Moran, a retired U.S. Marine who still recruits for the corps, and Secunda, an Army veteran who was a senior executive at J.Walter Thompson advertising, BEWARE felt compelled to tell this story be- cause, Moran says, “[People] buy a A NEW BOOK CONSIDERS HOW war with less attention than they PRESIDENTS USE ADVERTISING buy an automobile.”We are, after STRATEGIES TO SELL WAR all, they argue, “gunfighters” at heart—John Wayne’s DNA strands seem woven deep into our cultural by Robert Polner character.“[A]ny president selling a war has a customer base that is al- hink of war as a break- technologies and techniques of ready half sold,”they write.“A few fast cereal, a skin salesmanship. Many a White House well-chosen slogans and images will cream,or the iPhone. has used branding, media manage- complete the deal.” T Far-fetched? Not ment, and pop culture to ensure a Even the biggest skeptics have really, say Terence P. patriotic response to their military had trouble resisting the hard sell, Moran and Eugene Secunda in their adventures. McKinley transmitted say the authors, given the tools of comprehensive and timely new his messages about the war-hungry persuasion in the hands of a presi- book, Selling War to America: From penny press’s “Splendid Little War” dent.Woodrow Wilson appointed the Spanish American War to via a newfangled invention,the tele- George Creel,an investigative jour- the Global War on Terror graph; Franklin Delano Roosevelt nalist, to head the Committee on (Praeger Security Interna- had his “fireside chats”; and George Public Information, and Creel en- tional),in which they ar- W. Bush declared premature victo- listed artists to create paintings, gue that a president’s case ry on an aircraft carrier in front of a posters, popular songs, and sculp- for military intervention “Mission Accomplished” banner. tures to help make the case for the often resembles the mar- Though a president’s propagan- “Crusade for Democracy.” His keting of any product. FROM LEFT: THE GOVERNMENT ENLISTED ARTISTS TO STOKE AMERICANS’ HATRED From 1898, when William OF THE KAISER, AS SEEN IN THIS WWI POSTER; AS THE CRISIS IN INDOCHINA McKinley unleashed American sea ESCALATED, KENNEDY USED MAPS OF COMMUNIST INFILTRATION IN LAOS TO power and imperial ambition upon JUSTIFY PROSPECTIVE ACTION IN THAT COUNTRY. the islands of the Caribbean and Philippines, to the present war in Iraq, U.S. government and military leaders have turned to the latest committee organized choirs, civic Harbor, he created the Office of War protracted conflict provoked the “classic example of good marketing clubs, religious institutions, and re- Information, which influenced the antipathies of the baby boomers, killing a weak product.”While Pres- cruited 75,000 volunteers to give tone and content of hundreds of who denounced its underlying ident Bush’s persuasive arguments four-minute speeches in 5,200 Hollywood comedies, dramas, and rationale and turned against it, as for toppling Hussein marshaled communities.Though the Allies musicals to boost civilian and mili- did much of the mainstream me- strong public support,his claims that won the war, the example of the tary morale if not provide a few hours dia. It was a war characterized by the Iraqi strongman had weapons of danger of overselling a war’s poten- of escape from the realities of war. tial is evident in the failure of Wil- Patriotic songs filled the airwaves son to achieve his sweeping (“Praise the Lord and Pass the Am- “People buy a war with less “Fourteen Points” in the Versailles munition”) and even comic book attention than they buy an auto- Treaty negotiations.The unmet ob- heroes like Batman stepped up to en- jectives to spread democracy list. Meanwhile, press censorship and mobile,” says Terence P.Moran. through the crumbling empires of government regulation curbed con- old Europe led to more than two tradictory messages in the media. political manipulations and mass destruction and something to decades of public disillusionment The Korean War, say Moran and promises unfulfilled. Even the do with the terror attacks of Sep- and isolationism at home. Secunda, was by contrast the for- triggering event for the escala- tember 11, 2001, have not been The successful rallying of Ameri- gotten war, despite the fact that it tion of U.S. military actions borne out—nor have proclamations can support for entry into the First was the first major national event proved flimsy—according to of quick success. “The question is World War nonetheless became a covered by all the U.S. television many historians, two alleged at- whether Americans can act like the primer for the marketing of World networks, reaching nearly 30 mil- tacks by North Vietnamese tor- informed, enlightened, and War II, which, from a selling per- lion Americans. Harry Truman pedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin thoughtful citizens necessary for spective, was the most successful downplayed its importance, not were but invented provocations any democracy to flourish, or will American war of all time,say the au- even calling it a war (it was a “po- to win Congressional authoriza- they continue to be willing buyers thors. Initially Roosevelt had a lot of lice action”) and waited more than tion. “The Vietnam War,” they of whatever war an administration is persuading to do to reverse public three weeks after the North Kore- write, “was a textbook example selling,”the authors write.“We hope suspicion of U.S. military engage- ans invaded South Korea to go to of a war that was badly sold.” that the former is true, but fear that ments abroad. He skillfully leveraged the American people about his de- The war in Iraq, in contrast, is a the latter is more likely.” F

radio, however, bringing his reassur- cision to commit troops. Holly- R O M ing, stoic attitude and faith in the wood, too, took little notice. L E F T :

cause of democracy and liberty to Those years planted the seeds ©

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living-room listeners across America. for Vietnam, a war the authors R A R Y

Six months after the attack on Pearl view as a marketing fiasco. The O F

C O N

BELOW: MILITARY OFFICIALS IN THE PERSIAN GULF WAR DAZZLED AMERICANS G R E

WITH “SMART BOMBS,” WHOSE HIGH-TECH PRECISION, BROADCAST REPEATEDLY S S ;

IN SATELLITE PHOTOS, PROMISED FEWER CIVILIAN CASUALTIES. RIGHT: IN A ©

B E

MISGUIDED MEDIA STUNT, PRESIDENT BUSH APPEARED IN A FLIGHT SUIT BEFORE T T M

A “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED” BANNER ONLY SIX WEEKS INTO THE IRAQ WAR. A N N / C O R B I S ;

©

A P / S K Y

N E W S ;

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P H O T O / D E N I S

P O R O Y

NYU / SPRING 2008 / 31 P H O T O

©

B E T T M A N N / C

IN O P R B I S R I N T

nonfiction Sky Girls

A LOOK AT THE GLAMOROUS— even breakfast in bed—were on the transformed into “I’m Going to Fly AND ACTIVIST—HISTORY OF FLIGHT forefront of labor history. Among You LikeY ou’ve Never Been Flown the first to use the Civil Rights Act Before”).Barry ends her study with ATTENDANTS of 1964 to fight sexual discrimina- weight-restriction battles that car- tion, for example, they were pio- ried into the 1990s and an aviation by Andrea Crawford neers in the air and in the courts. bill that finally, in 2003, legislated Barry’s story travels a rich histo- safety requirements for flight atten- n February 1930, a young presence would reassure passen- ry: from the first adventurous dants, certification for which they woman named Ellen Church gers—with “great psychological women flying during the Depres- had been lobbying for decades. walked into a meeting at Boe- punch,” he noted—that this new sion to the mid-century “Golden From the time Barry began re- Iing Air Transport.Trained as a mode of travel was both safe and re- Era” of flight when searching the topic nurse and a pilot, Church spectable. It would also, he predict- “well-heeled air trav- while a graduate stu- pitched an unusual idea: She sug- ed, earn his airline enormous elers enjoyed leisurely dent in history at gested that the airline hire nurses national publicity.Three months flights on roomy,well- NYU, the activism to serve passengers.At a time when later,on a 10-passenger plane flying appointed planes,” and angle intrigued her: flights were rough, air-sickness the Oakland-Cheyenne-Chicago flight attendants,as she “Just the idea that rampant, and emergency landings route, the world’s first “stewardess- writes, “could borrow these women who are far too commonplace, her medical es” took to the air. plenty of prestige from seen as genteel and expertise, she argued, would be an The great success of Church’s both customer and set- glamorous actually set asset in the air. idea is chronicled in Kathleen M. ting.”The history con- up a union in the Airlines had been ferrying pas- Barry’s Femininity in Flight:A Histo- tinues through the 1940s—it flies in the sengers along with mail and cargo ry of Flight Attendants (Duke Uni- hypersexualized late face of the stereo- since the early 1920s,and many had versity Press). In the account, Barry 1960s and early ’70s, describing type.”The book details, for exam- experimented with male stewards, (GSAS ’02) argues that those stylish how National Airlines, for exam- ple, the fight to overturn in vogue on trains and ocean liners. attendants who pampered elegant ple, ran an infamous advertising outrageous rules that for decades The Boeing manager, however, im- passengers with seven-course meals, campaign featuring a beautiful forced “retirement”upon marriage mediately grasped the power that cigars,cocktails,fresh flowers—and, flight attendant and the headline, and age limits as young as 32. In women would have on board.Their in old sleeper accommodations, “I’m Cheryl—Fly Me”(which soon 1965, when several stewardesses

32 / SPRING 2008 / NYU P H O T O

bibliofile ©

H U L T O

N SHOOTING WAR It’s 2011, and the world’s gone to

A R C

H (GRAND CENTRAL PUBLISHING) hell. The United States is still mired I V E /

G ANTHONY LAPPÉ in Iraq, terrorism is ravaging the E T T

Y WSUC ’93 globe, and splinter reactionaries

I M A

G AND DAN GOLDMAN are goading President John Mc- E S Cain to nuke Iran back to the Stone Age. Wise guy lefty video blogger Jimmy Burns suddenly becomes the media wunderkind when he catches the bombing of a Williams- burg, Brooklyn, Starbucks on tape. Hired by Global News on the merits of his serendipitous break, he gets more than his ego’s worth of griz- zly footage in the guerrilla-war- fare-wracked wasteland of Iraq. New York magazine hailed this graphic novel, written by Lappé and illustrated by Goldman, as “fierce, shocking, over-the-top, and wickedly smart.” Employing an innovative blend of digital painting and photographs alongside crisp, witty dialogue, it is a pointed, up- to-the-minute commentary on America’s affairs abroad. —Andrew Flynn

LEARNING A NEW LAND: From the schoolyard brawls in IMMIGRANT STUDENTS IN northern California between Asian AMERICAN SOCIETY and Mexican immigrants—dubbed (HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS) “Rice and Beans” by other stu- CAROLA SUÁREZ-OROZCO AND dents—to the Chinese children with MARCELO M. SUÁREZ-OROZCO Ivy League dreams in a small Mass- CO-DIRECTORS OF IMMIGRATION achusetts town, Learning a New

LEFT: THE FIRST FLIGHT ATTENDANTS TOOK TO THE SKY TO SOOTHE THE DANGER STUDIES AT NYU AND Land examines the effect of the AND DISCOMFORT OF EARLY AIR TRAVEL. ABOVE: AS FLYING BECAME SAFER, AIR- CO-AUTHOR IRINA TODOROVA American education system on the LINES BANKED ON THE SEX APPEAL OF ATTENDANTS IN THE 1960S AND EARLY ’70S. youngest of the nation’s 37.5 mil- appeared before a House Labor days, and even as their jobs grow lion immigrants. The authors fol- Subcommittee to fight industry more difficult, flight attendants lowed 400 children from China, age discrimination, New York have become a potent symbol of Central America, the Caribbean, Representative James H. Scheuer a lost time when air travel was and Mexico through their first five asked them to stand so he and his both elegant and pleasurable.Due years in the United States. The colleagues could “visualize the in part to the downgrading of probing and socially consequential dimensions of the problem.”To services since deregulation, it is book, which won Harvard’s 2007 the Congressmen, Barry writes, also certainly a psychological re- Virginia and Warren Stone Prize, “the more interesting matter was sponse to the fact that flying has combines detailed statistical analy- not stewardesses’ function in become so scary.“We can look sis with lively student interviews commercial aviation but the age back to this golden age,” Barry and descriptions of the classrooms, at which women ceased to be says, “and think, Oh, wasn’t that homes, and neighborhoods that attractive.” nice? Everyone behaved them- shape the strugglers, the strag- Nevertheless,recent years have selves and wore white gloves, and glers, and their high-achieving seen a strong sense of nostalgia you didn’t have to worry about fellow travelers. for the so-called glamour of those terrorism.” —Suzanne Krause

NYU / SPRING 2008 / 33 history must be seen as greatly contribut- had every expectation of renew- ing to the creation of an economi- ing their efforts to expand into cally retarded,balkanized,fratricidal France and the rest of Europe,but IN Europe that, in defining itself in civil strife back in the Maghreb P opposition to Islam, made virtues and Iranian Khurasan prevented

R out of religious persecution, cul- them. Not only would they

I A CIVILIZING tural particularism, and hereditary forego another serious attempt to N aristocracy,”he writes. push deeper into Europe, but ul-

T Al-Andalus,as Muslim Spain and timately the cosmopolitan spirit Portugal was known, boasted a vi- that illuminated al-Andalus for FORCE? brant and diverse civilization where several hundred years would fall religious minorities and heterodox victim to Muslim fundamental- PULITZER PRIZE–WINNING ideas flourished. “The conveyor ism.And that,Lewis argues in this HISTORIAN DAVID LEVERING belt at Toledo transmitted most of impressive account packed with LEWIS NARRATES HOW what Paris, Cologne, Padua, and personal drama and battlefield ISLAM HELPED CREATE EUROPE Rome knew of Aristotle and Plato, detail, developed in large part as a Euclid and Galen,”Lewis writes. It response to the very Christian was far more cosmopolitan than fundamentalism it had helped by Adelle Waldman the rest of Europe—then a stew create in the first place. pot of frequently warring tribes— “At the end of the day,” Lewis he way we talk about founding the new religion in 610, would be until the Enlightenment, says,“tolerance was squeezed out of globalization fre- Muslim power stretched from centuries later. the picture. There are here in- quently implies that Samarkand, in modern-day Uzbek- After the setback at Poitiers, escapable inferences about the con- it’s a new phenome- istan,to Tangier.In 711,Islamic war- the militarily mighty Muslims temporary situation.” P

T H non,one ushered into riors made their first advance into O T O

being by the Internet and ease of what we now know as Spain,which ©

F R A

air travel. David Levering Lewis they would occupy until the end of N K

S T

dismantles that notion in his the 15th century.“Islamic Iberia’s E W A R

sweeping and informative new his- importance to Europe proper has T tory, God’s Crucible: Islam and the never been made as clear and con- Making of Europe,570–1215 (W.W. nected as I’ve tried to do,”Lewis said Norton). Lewis, a two-time in an interview.“The emergence of Pulitzer winner and professor of a militant and intolerant Christiani- history at NYU, argues that me- ty was a response to Islam.” dieval Europe was profoundly in- Interactions with Islam gave Eu- fluenced by its interactions rope its very name. In 732, when with—and opposition to—Islam. the Muslims attempted to cross the The great Islamic Empire, he de- Pyrenees and occupy France, they clares,“made Europe Europe.” were defeated by Charles the Ham- Lewis begins his story with the mer, the grandfather of Charle- rise of Islam, which itself flour- magne, in the famous Battle of ished in the geopolitical vacuum Poitiers. Not long thereafter, a created by the collapse of the Ro- Spanish priest dubbed the victors man and Persian empires. “The “Europenses,”from the ancient Se- world’s newest revealed religion mitic word ereb,which means “land seemed to roar out of the Arabian of sunset or darkness.”For the first Peninsula like a cyclone, a force so time,the people who inhabited the irrepressible that nothing with- continent had a common name stood the advancing faithful,” he and,along with it,a common iden- writes. While much of its power tity as Christians, distinct from the has long been attributed to mili- Muslims of the Iberian Peninsula. tary prowess, avarice for the spoils The Western attitude about this of war,and religious zeal,Lewis ar- battle has long been that Euro- gues that the Islamic Empire peans—thankfully—stopped the spread, too, simply because its “en- “barbarians” at the gate. But Lewis PROFESSOR DAVID LEVERING LEWIS ARGUES THAT THE MUSLIM INVASION OF emies had exhausted themselves.” turns that attitude on its head:“The MODERN-DAY SPAIN NOT ONLY BROUGHT ARABIC NUMERALS TO EUROPE BUT Within a century of Muhammad victory of Charles the Hammer SEALED ITS IDENTITY AS A CHRISTIAN CONTINENT.

34 / SPRING 2008 / NYU bibliofile

FROM BOTH SIDES OF THE In this unconventional memoir, MY DAUGHTER’S EYES Annecy Báez weaves poetry into COUCH: REFLECTIONS OF A the writer’s troubled relationship AND OTHER STORIES her fiction in this beautifully writ- PSYCHOANALYST, DAUGHTER, with her father, renowned federal (CURBSTONE PRESS) ten first book, My Daughter’s TENNIS PLAYER AND OTHER judge Edward Weinfeld, illustrates ANNECY BÁEZ Eyes and Other Stories. Centered SELVES (BOOKSURGE) how the unconscious can possess SSSW ’95 around a large Dominican family FERN W. COHEN us but also set us free when un- in the Bronx across three STEINHARDT ’75, GSAS ’93 raveled through psychoanalysis. decades, 14 short stories laced Known for his uncompromising with Spanglish highlight the standards and ethics, the late ju- struggles the young daughters rist had one outlet for relaxation: face as they grow up caught be- tennis; for Cohen, the game be- tween two cultures. “The world came a source of both self-worth— out there is not the world of this as the strongest link to her distant, family,” the precocious Mia in- difficult-to-impress father—and sists to her strict father. Báez inadequacy. With candor and hu- draws in the reader with vivid de- mor, Cohen demystifies psycho- scriptions that make the smell of analysis as she relates how it rancid New York subways as pun- helped her reckon with her fa- gent as the homemade garban- ther’s ghost and realize her own zos criolles. At times unnerving talents as a psychotherapist—and and heartbreaking, the stories tennis player. come full circle as the girls grow —Nicole Pezold into women with daughters of their own and learn to see things through their parents’ eyes. —Renée Alfuso

INHERITANCE Olivia Bonocchio doesn’t know (ST. MARTIN’S PRESS) much about her father Luigi’s life NATALIE DANFORD before he emigrated to America GSAS ’98 from Italy during World War II. But after his death, she discovers the deed to a house in Urbino and trav- els for the first time to his home- town. There, while struggling over whom to trust—a newfound cousin or a lawyer she’s growing smitten with—she uncovers a horrible se- cret about her father’s past. As the story shifts perspective from Luigi’s life to Olivia’s adventure, Natalie Danford creates a heart- felt portrait of father and daughter and an intricate exploration of memory and truth in this debut novel that Booklist calls “a sweet and tender tale.” —R.A.

NYU / SPRING 2008 / 35 TOO BIG TO PARADE THROUGH PENN STATION, ELEPHANTS TRUDGE UNDER THE EAST RIVER EACH YEAR IN A IN LATE-NIGHT CIRCUS RITUAL. P party of the enchanted and the less

R so stared into the Manhattan maw

I of the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, N waiting for the improbable.

T Elephants. Normally, only creatures of the genus Vehicular Traffic inhabit this small asphalt plain on the East Side. They leave the savanna of Queens, emerge from the tunnel, and fol- low their behavioral instincts: up- town, downtown, crosstown. But this was a once-a-year night,when the traveling circus of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey tries again to compete with the everyday circus of New York. It parades the elephants through the tunnel and along Thirty- fourth Street to Madison Square Garden, where they live and per- form for three weeks. journalism A rube might ask why the ele- phants must come through the tunnel, requiring the closing of one of its two tubes. The circus UNDER THE has its own mile-long train, after all.Instead of parking in a rail yard P H O T

O in Queens, couldn’t that train pull

© C

H into Penn Station, directly below

COVER OF NIGHT R I S

H the Garden? O N D

R Well, let’s break it down. O S / G First, commuters on the 7:04 ELEPHANTS TAKE MANHATTAN AND MORE IN DAN E T T Y

out of Ronkonkoma are rarely in I BARRY’S COMPILATION OF NEW YORK STORIES M A G

E a good mood to begin with;imag- S ine how they’d feel about board- ho feeds the penguins in Central Park Zoo? Where do dis- OBLIGED TO ing an escalator behind Juliette carded Christmas trees go? Who exactly is Dr. Zizmor of PAUSE IN ITS the elephant. Second, the best subway advertisement fame? publicity comes wrapped in the Under the care of New York Times reporter Dan Barry’s TRACKS, gauze of tradition, and this tradi- W observant eye and poignant pen, the city has yielded its MANHATTAN tion dates back to 1981, when secrets. For three and a half years, from 2003 to 2006, he wrote his week- development overtook the West ly “About New York” column, reveling in the magic of city life and reveal- TAKES NOTE Side rail yards that once accom- ing many of its wonders. Last fall, the best of these columns were collected OF THE modated the circus train. into a book, City Lights: Stories About New York (St. Martin’s Press). All of which explains why In it, Barry (GSAS ’83) uncovers the rich tales of the masses, introduc- MANHATTAN overtired children and childlike ing readers, for example, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art security OF BEASTS. adults, anxious circus employees guard—a painter with a master’s degree in fine arts—who learns from the and angry animal-rights activists, paintings he guards all day while directing visitors to the restrooms. Or the along with various police officers elderly pair who once graced the best ballrooms of Hollywood and now Word had come from the other and photographers, now gathered dance twice weekly in a rented studio in the theater district just for the side of the East River by police ra- on this asphalt plain, freezing, love of it. These short, incisive narratives inspire, surprise, and sometimes dio crackle:They’re in.Now,in the fussing, facing Queens. sadden, but always delight—as in the following, from March 22, 2006: midnight freeze, a welcoming Among them was Michael

36 / SPRING 2008 / NYU Shea, a veteran bridge-and-tun- various trainers and assistants. bibliofile nel officer assigned to the Cheers rose to warm a cold and Queens-Midtown, like his fa- cheerless city corner. ther before him. He had worked The elephants seemed dimin- ELLERY’S PROTEST: HOW ONE Ellery Schempp was only a 16-year- the three-to-midnight shift, but ished at first by their urban sur- YOUNG MAN DEFIED TRADITION old student in 1956, but his under- when he heard the elephants roundings. But as they drew AND SPARKED THE BATTLE standing of the First Amendment were coming through again, he closer they became larger, larger, OVER SCHOOL PRAYER led him to question the mandatory seized the offer of overtime.“It’s until at last they somehow be- (UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN) Bible readings that his Abington, a good thing,”he said of the ele- longed—so much so that their STEPHEN D. SOLOMON Pennsylvania, high school imposed phants, and perhaps of the over- grayish skin blended like cam- ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR AND DI- each morning. In a bid to test the time as well. ouflage into the asphalt and con- RECTOR OF GRADUATE STUDIES, rules one day, he instead read silent- His police radio’s chatter told crete around them. DEPARTMENT OF JOURNALISM ly from a copy of the Koran, sparking the tale of the elephants. How In a few minutes they would a battle that got him ejected from Jewell was being taken by truck be hustled west along Thirty- class and had him sitting, seven over the 59th Street Bridge;“not fourth Street, across Lexington, years later, in front of the Supreme Court, which ruled in his favor. In this gripping historical account, Stephen “Come on, ya freaking animals,” D. Solomon charts how this case proved to be one of the nation’s said a freezing photographer. most important decisions on reli- gious freedom, what factors led even a big fan of the tunnel,” a circus Park, and Madison, past Macy’s conservative judges to take Ellery’s spokesman later explained. How and at least three Duane Reade side, and how a backlash against the the other elephants were mus- drugstores, while cabs and cars ruling—in the form of debates on tering at an elephantine pace in paused in deference. Their mas- school prayer and teaching cre- Queens. How, nearly an hour sive ears would snare the hoorays ationism—continues today. later than planned, they were of the enchanted and the boos of —Jason Hollander lumbering toward the entrance those who believe the circus mis- and—they’re in. treats its elephants and other an- Imagine what these natural imals—a charge the circus denies. THE CHINATOWN DEATH It’s 1937, the golden age of pulp miracles experienced as they And beginning tomorrow, CLOUD PERIL fiction, and Walter Gibson and walked more than a mile through they would star in the Big Top of (SIMON & SCHUSTER) Lester Dent—authors of The this man-made miracle snaking cities, repeatedly performing a PAUL MALMONT Shadow and Doc Savage series, under the East River.The echo- hip-hop act called “Wave That TSOA ’88 respectively—are hunting for the ing clop of their massive feet. Trunk,”while children of all ages ending of a classic Chinatown The sleek walls of off-white De- marveled at creatures never seen tale. With prose that invokes the pression-era tile. The soft light- through the scratched windows pulp magazines he celebrates, ing befitting a strange dream of the D train, or on the sands of Paul Malmont reimagines the about a journey. Jones Beach. world of Gibson and Dent, two of At 12:46, the police radio How the elephants feel about the genre’s real-life storytellers, said the elephants had reached all this, no one can tell for sure, and their cohorts at the White Marker 21. though their eyes, small marbles Horse Tavern, including Scien- “Almost halfway through,”said set in massive skulls,always man- tology creator L. Ron Hubbard, Officer Shea. age to convey a mood short of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, and At 12:54, Marker 49. happiness. others. In pursuit of the story, “Come on,ya freaking animals,” But they are veteran perform- the group’s gumshoeing leads said a freezing photographer. ers by now, professionals—even them on a perilous trail, replete Then,at 1:03,a grayish smudge Sara, the baby. Fresh from the with “Chinamen” villains (and emerged to blot the light at the tunnel, they paused, took their good guys), stunning physical distant tunnel’s mouth. Elephants cues, and greeted Manhattan feats, and sensational twists, in Manhattan. with a little dance. prompting U.S. News & World Karen and Juliette, Nichole Report to call this debut novel and Minyak, Bonnie and Kelly From City Lights: Stories About “a genuine page-turner.” Ann—and Sara,at four, the baby. New York by Dan Barry. Copy- —N.P. They ambled up the road,trailed right © 2007 by the author and by a pair of zedonks—half zebra, reprinted by permission of St. Mar- half donkey—some horses, and tin’s Press.

NYU / SPRING 2008 / 37 memoir mostly Jewish middle-class who would later join Greenspan strivers, Greenspan (STERN ’48, in the Nixon White House. Dur- GSAS ’50, STERN ’77) was part ing stage breaks, while most band IN of a large, raucous family whose members enjoyed tobacco or mar- P members worked on Wall Street ijuana, Greenspan read library

R The Scene and on Broadway, and part of a books about business and finance

I public school system that chal- and wondered if he could possibly N lenged the brightest city kids make a life on Wall Street.In 1945,

T Makes (Henry Kissinger was a high he followed that question to the school classmate). School of Commerce, Accounts, Music was his primary obses- and Finance—at the time,“possi- the Man sion, however, and he studied at bly the least prestigious part of Juilliard until he fell in love with NYU,” writes Greenspan, who jazz.At 15,standing in front of the was not a distinguished high ALAN GREENSPAN REMEMBERS Glenn Miller bandstand at the school student. Hotel Pennsylvania, he inadver- At NYU, he began to believe TALES OF JAZZ, BASEBALL, AND tently yelled out,“That’s the Pathé- he had an intellectual calling and WASHINGTON SQUARE tique!” when the band struck up developed an interest in econo- an arrangement of Tchaikovsky’s metrics. “I was enthralled by by Ben Birnbaum Sixth Symphony. Miller turned supply-and-demand curves, the toward him and said, “That’s ter- idea of market equilibrium, and n life—as in real estate— an original scorekeeping system rific, kid.”A few years later, sitting the evolution of international location is destiny, and Alan that allowed him to compile and in a student saxophone ensemble trade,”he remembers. By his jun- Greenspan’s memoir,The Age analyze data from the 1936 World beside a boy named Stanley Getz, ior year, recommended by his sta- Iof Turbulence: Adventures in a Series between the New York he awoke to the fact that he’d tistics professor, he and his slide New World (Penguin), makes Giants and Yankees. He was 10. never be a great jazz musician.But rule landed a job on Wall Street the case for location in time as Much of the charm of this he was good enough that when devising better ways to measure well as place. Close proximity to memoir—even The Economist the World War II draft board re- the Fed’s seasonal adjustments for the Polo Grounds—where “kids called it “an unexpectedly enjoy- jected him (a spot on his lung department store sales. He would from the neighborhood could of- able read”—lies in such moments portended tuberculosis), he was later expand his education by join- ten get in free”—led the future that reveal how a great city shaped able to land a job playing saxo- ing author Ayn Rand’s objectivist Federal Reserve Board chairman a great man. Raised by his di- phone in a respectable big band. salon, which met regularly in her to his earliest use of mathematics vorced mother in Washington The young man playing sax apartment on East 34th Street to to tame chaos:the development of Heights, then a neighborhood of beside him was Lenny Garment, talk and argue the nights away. Joining together an autobiogra- phy and a set of lectures on eco- nomics, the memoir (written with the eminent ghost Peter Petre) un- folds with offhand grace. And as much as readers might have en- joyed some self-investigation as sharp as the author’s dissections of others (Nixon, he explains, was not “exclusively anti-Semitic”but “hat- ed everybody”), the man in the dark suit—whom Rand nicknamed “the Undertaker”—just isn’t a con- fessional kind of guy.“Not having a dad left a big hole in my life,” he writes of his childhood—leaving it at that. But as demonstrated by this spare, rather old-fashioned “life and work”of the most influential Amer- ican financial planner since the New Deal, the gifts of a valiant mother

ALAN GREENSPAN, ONCE AN ASPIRING JAZZ MUSICIAN WHO PLAYED WITH STAN GETZ, CO-FOUNDED THE SYMPHONIC and city were more than sufficient SOCIETY, PICTURED HERE, AS AN NYU UNDERGRAD. to fill the void.

38 / SPRING 2008 / NYU