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Montage Art, books, diverse creations 18 Off the Shelf 19 Sophomores, Sex, Soap 20 Venerable,Valuable Volumes 24 Chairman of the Bored 25 Open Book 26 Chapter and Verse from almost anything else out there, and audiences are re- sponding: Pink Martini’s first two albums sold more than a million copies combined, and its recently released third album, Hey Eugene!, entered Amazon’s bestseller list at number one. The New York Times headlined its review of the Carnegie Hall concert “Grab a Cocktail and Lis- ten to the Vintage-Chic Pink Martini Band.” Replace “Cock- onstage, with tail” with “Co≠ee,” and Stirred, Shaken, and Sung Thomas Lauderdale on that headline—with its piano at far o≠beat allure—could left, and have been a handwritten Pink Martini—musicians who don’t “know enough to be scared” vocalist China HOWARD AXELROD Forbes. sign from 1992 advertising by a musical night at Café Mardi in the Adams House lower common t the end of Pink Martini’s verse globalization. Rather than impose room. The founder of Café Mardi, and of Carnegie Hall debut this past one style everywhere, it draws from Pink Martini, has never had trouble at- June, a conga line broke out in nearly everywhere, ranging from Edith tracting an audience. With his platinum- Athe audience and bounced Piaf-style torch songs to Brazilian sambas blond hair, bow tie (something he gave up its way up and down one of to Gershwin standards; the lyrics are in after college), and cross-dressing, Thomas the aisles. Even in the venerable hall’s Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Arabic, Lauderdale has always cut a flamboyant tiered balconies, people were on their feet, and Portuguese, as well as English. With figure. (He threw the last, and perhaps clapping and dancing. “Our music is per- strings, percussion, two horn players, and most famous, party in the now-remodeled- mission to escape into a romantic world,” Forbes’s clear, luminous voice, the 12- out-of-existence Adams House pool: “In says lead singer China Forbes ’92. piece pop orchestra has a lush, energetic walks the senior tutor—lots of naked peo- That music—much of it written either sound, with the sweep of a Hollywood ple in the pool, at 3 a.m., with the lights o≠,” by Forbes or by bandleader Thomas musical from the 1940s or ’50s (www.- he confesses with an impish grin.) When Lauderdale ’92—represents a kind of re- pinkmartini.com). It’s a mix di≠erent not in the pool, Lauderdale, a classically Photograph by James Wilder Hancock/Pink Martini Harvard Magazine 17 MONTAGE trained pianist, could often be found late at of reproductive innovations” night accompanying Forbes on Puccini and Off the Shelf emerging from labs. Verdi arias. But he never envisioned that a band would grow out of their collabora- Recent books with Harvard connections Planets, Stars, and Galaxies: A tion. “I was more concerned with throwing Visual Encyclopedia of Our parties,” he says. “With being the cruise- Universe, written and illustra- ship director of Adams House.” The Complete Fables of Jean de La ted by David A. Aguilar (National Geo- His cruise-ship-director talents—en- Fontaine, translated by Norman R. graphic, $24.95). An almost psychedelic ergy, organization, and a penchant for Shapiro ’51, Ph.D. ’58 (University of Illi- tour of the cosmos, in text, photographs, nois, $80 cloth, $25 paper).The Wesleyan and illustrations by Aguilar, director of “I just fired the professor—who commutes from Cam- science information at the Harvard- bridge and writes in Adams House— Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. singer; we have gives in to his La Fontaine addiction. Hence, “No doubt the first to see a The First Campaign: Globalization, the these really big camel/Fled from the unfamiliar mammal,” Web, and the Race for the White and other delights. House, by Garrett M. Graff ’03 (Farrar shows coming up Straus and Giroux, $24).The author, for- From Higher Aims to Hired Hands: The merly a Ledecky Undergraduate Fellow this weekend, and I Social Transformation of American at this magazine, posits a 2008 election Business Schools and the Unfulfilled about, and shaped by, globalization and want to fly you to Promise of Management as a Profession, information technology. by Rakesh Khurana, Ph.D. ’98, associate Portland.” professor of business administration The Short Book, written and illustrated (Princeton, $35). Management is an insti- by Zachary Kanin ’05 (Black Dog & Lev- fun—have served him and Pink Martini tution—but is it a profession like law or enthal, $9.95 paper). The height-chal- well. Indeed, the band’s appeal is not un- medicine? Is the M.B.A. a professional de- lenged author, a former Lampoon presi- like that of the cruise ship: just subtract gree, or simply a license to make lots of dent, reaches out to others who, like the surfeit of dining options and the money? Khurana explores the “delegiti- him, deal with their stature every day shu±eboard, and enable the ship to trav- mation of managerial authority” and the “and sometimes at night.” el at high speed through time as well “abandonment of the profes- as space. Of writing sionalization project in business lyrics in several lan- schools,” and asks whether such guages and drawing schools can “take their future on the musical styles success for granted” or are, of di≠erent eras, perhaps, on the verge of “rein- Lauderdale says, “It vention.” frees us from the fear of sentimentality. It’s Tell Borges If You See Him: like a kid playing the Tales of Contemporary Som- piano—he doesn’t nambulism, by Peter LaSalle ’69 know enough to be (University of Georgia, $24.95). scared.” This third collection of short Pink Martini’s suc- stories, winner of the Flannery cess has surprised O’Connor Award for Short Fic- many, and that in- tion, begins familiarly enough: “I cludes Lauderdale was supposed to meet Emily himself. “When the later that night in the old Hayes-Bickford From the book Planets, Stars, and band first started, I was wearing cocktail Galaxies: A Visual Encyclopedia of Our Cafeteria right there on Massachusetts Universe dresses and we were playing ‘I Dream of Avenue in Harvard Square…” Jeannie,’” he recalls. After graduation, The Modern Element: Essays on Con- Forbes moved to New York City to Babies by Design: The Ethics of Ge- temporary Poetry, by Adam Kirsch ’97 launch a career as a singer-songwriter, netic Choice, by Ronald M. Green, Ph.D. (Norton, $24.95). Collected critical es- while Lauderdale returned to his home- ’73 (Yale, $26). The author, who pro- says, on subjects ranging from Jorie Gra- town of Portland, Oregon, hoping to get fesses ethics at Dartmouth and advises ham to Billy Collins, by one of this maga- involved in politics—he aspired to be- Advanced Cell Technology on the ethics zine’s contributing editors; in these pages, come mayor someday. While working on of stem-cell research, charts a path he has written most recently about Sea- a campaign to keep homosexuality legal toward “the responsible introduction mus Heaney and W.H. Auden. in the state, he booked bands for political fundraisers; one weekend, in desperate 18 January - February 2008 Illustration by David Aguilar need of an opening band for a show, he called up his old friend Forbes. “I just fired the singer; we have these really big shows coming up this weekend, and I want to fly you to Portland,” Forbes remem- bers him saying. With the Pink Martini sheet music in hand—Lauderdale had FedEx-ed all the songs to her—she boarded the plane. Forbes soon signed on full-time, but the band did not find its niche easily. For one thing, traveling with so many musicians is expen- sive. Without the backing of a major label (the band’s albums are on its own label, Heinz Records, named The Pink Martini After their Carnegie Hall perfor- after Lauderdale’s band lifting off, mance and an appearance on above, and China The Late dog), Forbes and Forbes on the Show with David Letterman, Pink Martini Lauderdale had to cover of their continued its North American tour to think unconven- latest CD, promote Hey Eugene! with stops in Mon- Hey Eugene! tionally. Unable to treal, Chicago, Los Angeles, and many cut expenses, they places in between. “There’s nothing increased revenue though “It’s not better than a public library, a used- instead by perform- really in young record store, and meeting strangers in ing where they were people’s reper- dark alleys,” says Lauderdale of his life most popular: in Eu- toire to go see as bandleader. Although the stage doors rope. symphony or- of leading concert halls don’t always The band got its chestras,” Lauderdale says, the sophisti- open onto dark alleys, Lauderdale has first big break in 1997, when the release of cated fun of Pink Martini’s sets has drawn certainly become cruise-ship director its version of Edith Piaf’s “Je ne veux pas tra- a mixed crowd of old and young, turn- once again. vailler” (“I don’t want to work”) serendipi- ing such collaborations into an appealing tously coincided with French legislation way for the orchestras to reach a new de- Howard Axelrod ’95, a contributor to the New that shortened the number of hours in that mographic. York Times Magazine, is writing a memoir. country’s workweek. The selection was nominated for “Song of the Year,” and the band for “Best New Artist” in France’s ver- Sophomores, Sex, Soap sion of the Grammys, the Victoires de la Musique awards.

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