Jacquie Presents Neil Simon

Jacquie's Email 

Feb 21 Hello Literary Ladies! As I've been preparing for my presentation on Neil Simon this coming Wednesday at 1pm, I have been preoccupied with Broadway, and particularly the theater seasons of the late 60s and early 70s. How many of you can read those words without your mind wandering to the memory of pulling out the Arts and Leisure section of the New York Times and delighting in the latest Al Hirshfeld, searching for the NINAs and marveling at his brilliance at capturing the very essence of a character or an actor's performance? As I am still battling to find the words to express to you the time I have been spending with Neil Simon and his many, many plays and screenplays, how I wish I could just sum it all up in just a few, pointed lines! Alas, I cannot, but I can leave you here with a few images to whet your appetite for what I hope will be an amusing afternoon. Please let me know if you will be joining us on Wednesday and would like to read. I will be sharing my screen with the text of the plays we will be reading, but I will cast in advance to keep things moving. Until Wednesday! Jacquie

Barbara's Minutes 

Real estate news dominated the chat time of the February 24 meeting of the Literature Club. Carla Potash is selling her apartment on North Broadway in Hastings and moving to Greystone, and Laura Rice is selling her house on Elm Place and moving to Ossining. Both have been engaged in disposing of many boxes of things.

At the business meeting, led by President Fran Greenberg, the minutes were accepted as read and the treasury reported at still $181.52. Jacquie Weitzman and Carol Barkin are continuing discussions with Hastings Librarian Debbie Quinn about donating books from the club to the library. VP/Program Chair Connie Stewart reminded members to think about topics for the Club’s next program year, and send her ideas, in preparation for our Annual Meeting on March 10.

Jacquie Weitzman enhanced her presentation on Neil Simon with montages and photographs, including an image of the prolific playwright, in her words “the chubby cheeked master of the one-liner, with his signature tortoise shell glasses and shy smile,” who got his start writing sketch comedy for Phil Silvers and Sid Caesar.

As Carol Barkin discovered when she revisited the work of James Thurber for her February 3 presentation, Jacquie found that due to changes in our social attitudes, some of the plays she was reading or movies she was watching were not quite as funny as she remembered them to be. But she chose to appreciate the experiences in these works and the complex, flawed, human characters that Simon created. As she noted, Simon “expressed universal truths while at the same time capturing a very specific time and place. He was a child of the Depression, born and raised in New York, who contributed to the golden age of television, and created what has been called ‘the comedy of urban neurosis,’ while also exploring family relationships, the anxiety caused by feminism and the sexual revolution to a host of middle-aged men and women, and ultimately the importance of finding one’s voice and expressing love and commitment.” With pleasure we read scenes from Barefoot in the Park, Chapter Two, and The Sunshine Boys.

Respectfully submitted, Barbara Morrow, Recording Secretary

Carol Presents James Thurber

Jacquie's Email 

Feb 3 Hooray! It's only been a few days, and yet we get to meet again this Wednesday, February 3rd at 1pm for Carol's presentation on James Thurber! Good luck with the snow! Jacquie

Barbara's Minutes 

Poketa, poketa, poketa went the keys of the computer. The minutes seemed to be coming smoothly, when suddenly QUEEP, QUEEP—coreopsis was setting in, and only the proud and disdainful writer could stop it. “To hell with the handkerchief, give me a fountain pen!” she cried, inscrutable to the last.

Or something not remotely like that. What the writer of these minutes should be noting is that it was stole weather, as Joanna Riesman’s grandmother would have said, for the February 3, 2021, meeting of the Literature Club, and during our chat time members recounted their recent adventures in the snow. Connie Stewart’s tale of her car so stuck in a snowdrift in her driveway that even the rescuers from AAA could not pull it out was the most dramatic. After President Fran Greenberg rang the business meeting to order, the minutes were accepted as read and the treasury reported at its customary $181.52. A nominating committee consisting of Carla Potash, Connie Stewart, and Joanna Riesman was formed to present a slate of candidates for the offices of two secretaries and a treasurer, to be voted on at the March 10 Annual Meeting. Connie has arranged for the children’s science book Bat Count to be donated to the Hastings Library in memory of Susan Korsten. Carol Barkin will follow up on a book for the library in memory of May Kanfer, and Jacquie Weitzman will continue her discussions with librarian Debbie Quinn on our donation of $125. At the end of our session, we voted to accept Fran’s smaller version of a Literature Club book plate to go in donated books.

Presenter Carol Barkin interwove the life and work of her author, James Thurber, noting how often in his stories he rang changes on the theme of the dominating wife and the henpecked husband. As sources, she pointed us to Thurber’s mother, the practical joker Mame; Thurber’s socially ambitious first wife; and his second wife, who ran every aspect of his life while also editing the magazines Flying Aces and Sky Birds. Her two expert topics were aircraft and machine guns. Carol also stressed the unhappy effects of a childhood accident in which Thurber lost his left eye, and the positive and nurturing creative influence of The New Yorker and its founding editor Harold Ross and writer E.B. White, on both Thurber’s life and work.

Among the stories we read and laughed our way through were “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” and “The Macbeth Murder Mystery.”

Respectfully submitted, Barbara Morrow, Recording Secretary