#Daniel &039;Alain&039; Brustlein

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A Decade of Delights

With this post (No. 413), we mark the tenth anniversary of The New Yorker. Since I began A New Yorker State of Mind in March 2015, I’ve attempted to give you at least a sense of what the magazine was like in those first years, as well as the historical events that often informed its editorial content as well as its famed cartoons. Those times also informed the advertisements; indeed, in some…

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A Tadpole on Wheels

Above: British architect Norman Foster's 2010 recreation of R. Buckminster Fuller's 1933 Dymaxion car. (Wikipedia) Despite the limitations of 1930s technology, a few architects and designers were hell-bent on building a streamlined future that until then was mostly the stuff of movies and science fiction magazines. May 5, 1934 cover by Rea Irvin. One of them was R. Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983),…

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Everything's Jake

Lois Long employed the Prohibition-era slang term “Everything’s Jake” (“it’s all good��) to headline her latest installment of “Tables for Two.” If you’ve been following the exploits of our nightlife correspondent in this blog, you might recall that for a time in the early thirties she found the New York club scene lackluster, without the daring and grit of the speakeasy era. Lately, however, she…

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Music in the Air

Above: The Cat and the Fiddle (Pete Gordon) and Mickey Mouse (a monkey in a very creepy costume) were featured in 1934's Babes In Toyland. We close out the old year and ring in the new with a bit of song and dance from three musicals that entertained New Yorkers in the waning days of 1934. Dec. 22, 1934 cover by Arnold Hall. The work of composer Jerome Kern and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II were…

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An Industrial Classicist

Above: Walter Dorwin Teague's design for Kodak's "Brownie" camera, circa 1930. (Milwaukee Art Museum) Walter Dorwin Teague pioneered industrial design as a profession, firmly believing that great, heirloom-quality design could be available to all, and that even mass-produced objects could be beautiful if they possessed “visible rightness.” Dec. 15, 1934 cover by William Cotton. Cultural critic…

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Al's Menagerie

Above: The Dec. 2, 1934 opening of the reconstructed Central Park Menagerie drew such luminaries as Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, pictured at left with his family, and, at right, former New York Governor Al Smith, who was designated honorary zookeeper. Smith, who, lived across from the zoo at 820 Fifth Avenue, poses with two donkeys at the Menagerie in 1940. (New York Parks Archive) The Central Park…

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Portraits and Prayers

Above, left, a 1935 portrait of Gertrude Stein by Carl Van Vechten; right, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas arriving in New York aboard the French Line’s SS Champlain in 1934. (Library of Congress/AP) Much of America’s literary world was abuzz about the arrival of Gertrude Stein in New York after her nearly three-decade absence from the States. Audiences were mostly receptive to Stein’s…

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Bojangles

Above: Bill "Bojangles" Robinson demonstrating his famous stair dance, which involved a different rhythm and pitch for each step. At left, Robinson in Broadway's Blackbirds of 1928; at right, publicity photo circa 1920s. (Vandamm collection, New York Public Library/bet.com) Bill “Bojangles” Robinson (1878–1949) is considered one of the greatest tap dancers of all time, introducing a style of…

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Dizzy Drinks

During the roughly thirteen years of Prohibition, many Americans had forgotten how to mix a decent cocktail; the concoctions they devised during those dry years were often created to mask the taste of bootleg liquor—sales of Coca-Cola steadily increased throughout the 1920s in part because it made ardent spirits such as rum and whisky a bit more palatable. August 18, 1934 cover by Ilonka…

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Men of Mystery

Photo above circa 1930 via mensfashionmagazine.com. Lois Long took a break from reviewing the latest fashions to offer some thoughts on the relations between men and women, and more specifically, what was expected of women if they ever hoped to land the type of man who represented a “potential Future” for them. August 4, 1934 cover by Otmar. Likely Otmar Gaul, sometimes spelled “Ottmar.” Based on…

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The Happy Warrior

Above: Al Smith waving to crowds on arrival at Chattanooga, Tennessee during his presidential campaign in 1928. (Museum of the City of New York) It’s hard to not like Al Smith, the governor of New York from 1923 to 1928, a man who avoided the temptations of political power and stayed true to his working class roots of the Lower East Side. July 14, 1934 cover by Rea Irvin. The son of Irish,…

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Moses Parts a Yacht Club

Power broker Robert Moses always made sure he was few steps ahead of any possible opposition to his grand development plans in and around New York City. That included the yacht clubbers along the Hudson River, who were more or less erased from the scene by Moses in one fell swoop. May 19, 1934 cover by Ilonka Karasz. The Upper West Side’s Columbia Yacht Club probably thought it was just swell…

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America's Sweetheart

Above: A scene from Mary Pickford’s 1922 film Tess of the Storm Country. (Library of Congress) In today’s celebrity-saturated culture it is difficult to find a parallel to silent film star Mary Pickford, who was dubbed Queen of the Movies more than a century ago. Indeed, during the 1910s and 1920s Pickford was regarded as the most famous woman in the world. April 7, 1934 cover by Rea…

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Art of the Machine

Above, at left, self-aligning ball bearing from SKF Industries, featured in MoMA's 1934 Exhibition of Machine Art; at right, judges for the exhibit were aviator Amelia Earhart and professors John Dewey and Charles R. Richards, holding first, second and third prizes, respectively. (MoMA) The notion that machine-made objects have aesthetic value has been with us for some time, dating back to…

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The Power Broker

Above: Robert Moses in 1939 with a model of his proposed Battery Bridge Park Reconstruction; at right, 1934 Bryant Park renovation, view to the south on 6th Avenue from 42nd Street. (Wikipedia/NYC Parks Department) The title for this entry comes from Robert Caro’s landmark 1974 biography of Robert Moses, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, which questioned the benefit of…

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A Joycean Odyssey

Above, James Joyce and his longtime partner Nora Barnacle, in Zurich, 1930. They would marry the following year when Joyce established residency in the UK. (SUNY Buffalo) It began 103 years ago when the American literary magazine The Little Review published its latest installment of James Joyce’s landmark novel Ulysses—a chapter that featured an account of a wanker on a beach. Jan. 20, 1934 cover…