“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, May 3, 1924, 6 Gateway Drive, Great Neck, Long Island, New York

Surrounded by 17 pieces of luggage, several crates filled with volumes of the Encyclopedia Brittanica, and copies of his own novels and short story collections bound in pale blue leather with gold lettering, F. Scott Fitzgerald, 27, sits in his living room waiting for the taxi to take him, his wife Zelda, 23, and their two-year-old daughter Scottie, to board the SS Minnewaska to sail to Cherbourg, France.

SS Minnewaska

They have also thrown in a one-hundred-foot roll of copper screening. Might be bugs.

Scott and Zelda had been to France once before, a few years ago, right after the publication of his first novel, This Side of Paradise. Zelda was sick the whole time, pregnant with Scottie. They didn’t like it.

But now they both feel they need a big change. Scott has been working on his third novel, and he feels as though he is stuck. They have a small nest egg, and income from the magazine short stories he’ll keep writing. At the current exchange rates, the money will go a lot further in the south of France than in Great Neck.

This time, the Fitzgeralds decided to plan ahead a bit more. They hosted a dinner at Christmastime to get some tips from friends about where to go, whom to see.

Their Great Neck neighbor, Esther Murphy, 26, suggested that they make contact with her brother Gerald, 36, a painter, and his wife Sara, 40. They have children around Scottie’s age and moved permanently to France a few years ago.

Esther Murphy

They sound interesting. Scott will be sure to look them up when they get to Paris.

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the paperback series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I through V, covering 1920 through 1924 are available at Thoor Ballylee in Co. Galway, and as signed copies at Pan Yan Bookstore in Tiffin, OH, City Books on the North Side and Riverstone Books in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA. They are also on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in print and e-book formats. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

Mark your calendar! The Greater Pittsburgh Festival of Books returns to the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in Highland Park on Saturday, May 11. Stop by the “Such Friends” booth in Writers’ Row.

This summer I will be talking about the literary 1920s in Paris and New York at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with, Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”:  Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, Spring, 1924, 3 rue Gounod, Saint-Cloud; and 23 Quai des Grand-Augustins, Paris

This beautiful home, overlooking the city of Paris from one of its posh suburbs, is owned by the heirs of the late French opera composer, Charles Gounod. As they are experiencing some financial difficulties, the heirs are delighted to rent the three-story, rosy brick, walled property to the American ex-patriates Gerald, 36, and Sara Murphy, 40.

3 rue Gounod, Saint-Cloud, Paris

The Murphys are just as delighted to move in. They fell in love as soon as they saw it.

On Easter Sunday, they are hosting a luncheon and competitive Easter egg hunt on the broad lawn, under the oak trees. Their three children are hunting with both their grandfathers, visiting from America:  Sara’s father, Frank Bestow Wiborg, about to turn 69, co-creator of the printers’ ink manufacturer Ault & Wiborg Company; and Gerald’s father Patrick Murphy, about 66, owner of the Mark Cross retail chain. Both children and adults are all dressed in their Sunday best.

Baoth, almost five, easily beats his brother, Patrick, three; their sister Honoria, six, is much more interested in the tin whistle from Grandfather than looking for eggs with her stupid brothers.

Gerald has been making quite a name for himself lately in Paris with his painting. In February, his 18-foot by 12-foot Boatdeck caused quite a stir in the Salon des Independents at the Grand Palais. There were so many complaints about its size, the organizing committee called a special meeting to toss it out, but a majority voted to keep it in. Two members of the committee resigned! (But were talked in to coming back the next day.)

Boatdeck by Gerald Murphy in the Salon des Independents

In one of the many newspaper interviews he has given, Gerald is quoted as saying that he is

truly sorry to have caused such a bother with my little picture.”

After all, he points out, Boatdeck is smaller than an actual boat deck. The pieces he’s working on now, Razor and Watch, are not quite so large.

Razor by Gerald Murphy

The Murphys have welcomed friends new and old to this house on the hill overlooking Montmartre, with a view of the Eiffel Tower. Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, 42, has brought some British artists. Painters Vanessa Bell, 44, and Duncan Grant, 39, along with Vanessa’s husband, art critic Clive Bell, 42, came and all dined outside. The Murphys played Chinese music on the gramophone, and Picasso began sketching pictures of Chinese dancers’ feet, as he imagined them.

One of the main attractions of this home is the easy access to Paris city center. The train trip on the line from Versailles-Rive-Droite is only 15 minutes, and there are more than 50 trains each day. This makes it easy for the Murphys to go back and forth from their pied a terre on quai des Augustins.

*****

In their city apartment—with its view up and down the Seine, and large black and white vases holding flowers as well as stalks of light green celery—the Murphys have been meeting some more new friends.

23 quai des Grands-Augustins

American writer Donald Ogden Stewart, 29, comes by for dinner almost every night and reads aloud pieces of the comic novel he’s working on, Mr. and Mrs. Haddock Abroad, which has Sara in stitches. Sometimes he brings along novelist John Dos Passos, 28, and former Dial managing editor Gilbert Seldes, 31, who know each other from Harvard.

Stewart has also introduced the Murphys to an American couple whom he met at Yale, poet Archibald MacLeish, turning 32, and his wife, concert singer Ada Hitchcock MacLeish, 31. Mutual friends had helped the MacLeishes find a fourth floor walk up with no heat or hot water on Boulevard St. Michel where they’ve been living since arriving last fall.

When in the city, all these ex-pats pay late night visits to Zelli’s Royal Box in Montmartre. The jazz and the pretty young women are better than what you’ll find at last year’s hotspot, Le Boeuf sur le Toit. And arriving with the Murphys gets you a special seat.

Montmartre jazz clubs

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the paperback series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I through IV, covering 1920 through 1923 are available at Thoor Ballylee in Co. Galway, and as signed copies at Pan Yan Bookstore in Tiffin, OH, City Books on the North Side and Riverstone Books in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA. They are also on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in print and e-book formats. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

Mark your calendar! The Greater Pittsburgh Festival of Books returns to the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in Highland Park on Saturday, May 11. Stop by the “Such Friends” booth in Writers’ Row.

This summer I will be talking about the literary 1920s in Paris and New York at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”:  Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, end of November, 1923, Century Theatre, 62nd Street and Central Park West; Frazee Theatre, 254 West 42nd Street; and Belasco Theatre, 111 West 44th Street, New York City, New York

When the Ballets Suedois performed part of its repertoire as a preview for an invitation-only audience, including two American writers, John Dos Passos, 27, and Donald Ogden Stewart, about to turn 29, at least two of the sketches went over the heads of the posh crowd.

Century Theatre

Stewart had seen the show in Paris, where it has been a big hit for weeks, so the producers asked him to introduce those two pieces with a funny monologue in front of the curtain at the next performance.

Didn’t work. Fell flatter than a pancake.

But since they have been including another piece from the Paris production, the one-act ballet Within the Quota, by American ex-pats living in Paris Cole Porter, 32, and Gerald Murphy, 35, the show has been doing much better. Even Broadway pros such as producer and composer Irving Berlin, 35, have been coming by. Ballets Suedois will definitely keep the ballet in its tour of the northeastern United States.

Within the Quota

*****

One mile south, in the theatre district, two experienced American playwrights, Marc Connelly, 32, and George S Kaufman, just turned 34, are trying to improve one of their own flops, West of Pittsburgh. Putting their hometown in the title hadn’t helped this dud from last year, so they fixed it up and renamed it The Deep Tangled Wildwood.

Frazee Theatre

Connelly and Kaufman have decided that their mistake this time was asking for and then following advice from all their writer friends who they lunch with regularly at the nearby Algonquin Hotel.

*****

Just two blocks away, Laugh, Clown, Laugh, by this theatre’s namesake, David Belasco, 70, and Tom Cushing, 44, both of whom have had recent Broadway successes, is doing well. Adapted from an Italian play, Ridi, Pagliaccio, the star is veteran actor Lionel Barrymore, 45, playing opposite his new (second) wife, Irene Fenwick, 36, who stands less than five feet tall.

In the New York World, drama critic Alexander Woollcott, 36, says,

Lionel Barrymore deepens an old conviction that they do not make many actors like him in any one generation.”

Barrymore is hoping for a hit after a few failures, including his disastrous Macbeth of a few years ago.

Belasco Theatre

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the paperback series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I through IV, covering 1920 through 1923 are available at Thoor Ballylee in Co. Galway, as signed copies at Pan Yan Bookstore in Tiffin, OH, and Riverstone Books in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA. They are also on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in print and e-book formats. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

In the new year, I will be talking about the literary summer of 1923 at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Pittsburgh, and early 20^th century arts patrons in the Osher program at Carnegie-Mellon University.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”:  Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, October 25, 1923, New York (Paris) Herald, Paris

The front page of the New York (Paris) Herald announces, “American Ballet in Paris Tonight,” with a photo of Gerald Murphy, 35, who designed the ballet with his fellow American ex-pat, composer Cole Porter, 32.

Months ago, French painter Fernand Leger, 42, commissioned Gerald to create a curtain-raiser to go with the premiere of La Création du monde, a 15-minute ballet Leger composed for the Ballets suedois with French composer Darius Milhaud, 31, based on African folk mythology.

Season program for Ballets suedois

Gerald and Cole worked on Within the Quota this summer on the Riviera and then in Venice. Gerald is listed in the program as set and costume designer, but in reality his wife Sara, 39, designed and made many of the costumes, especially for the women. The title refers to current anti-immigration legislation in the U. S. Congress.

Within the Quota costume design

Leger was so impressed with the results he decided to switch the order so Milhaud’s piece will be the curtain-raiser for Within the Quota tonight at the Theatre des Champs Elysees. Leger didn’t want his serious piece to be overshadowed by Murphy and Porter’s jazzy satire.

Murphy’s sets include huge black and white blow ups of American newspaper headline parodies:  “RUM RAID LIQOUR BAN,” “MAMMOTH PLANE UP,” “UNKNOWN BANKER BUYS ATLANTIC,” and “EX-WIFE’S HEART-BALM LOVE TANGLE.”

Within the Quota

In the Herald article, Gerald is quoted as saying that the ballet is

nothing but a translation on to the stage of the way America looks to me from over here. I put into the play all the things that come out of America to me, you see, as I get things into perspective and distance…Paris is bound to make a man either more or less American.”

Porter adds,

It’s easier to write jazz over here than in New York…because you are too much under the influence of popular song in America, and jazz is better than that.”

Rumors are that Hollywood “royalty” such as Rudolph Valentino, 28, and John Barrymore, 41, may be in the audience tonight.

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the paperback series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I through IV, covering 1920 through 1923 are available at Thoor Ballylee in Co. Galway, at Pan Yan Bookstore in Tiffin, OH, and as signed copies at Riverstone Books in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA. They are also on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in print and e-book formats. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

Next month I will be talking about art collector John Quinn at the Tiffin-Seneca Public Library, co-sponsored by the Heidelberg University English Department, in Quinn’s hometown of Tiffin, OH. That talk will be livestreamed; email me a kaydee@gypsyteacher.com for details of how you can sign on to watch.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”:  Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, end of August, 1923, Venice, Italy

Sara Murphy, 39, is contemplating her options.

On the one hand, she could stay here in lovely Venice with her husband, Gerald, 35, and their fellow ex-pat Americans, Cole, 32, and Linda Porter, 39.

Gerald Murphy, friend Genevieve Carpenter, Cole Porter and Sara Murphy in Venice

The couples have interrupted their summer at Cap d’Antibes to come here so Gerald and Cole can work on the ballet they’ve been commissioned to write. Cole is composing the music; Gerald is outlining the scenario and designing the sets.

But they don’t need Sara around to do that. And she gets the feeling that Linda, who has a lot of her socialite friends stopping by, doesn’t really like the Murphys anyway.

Sara also thinks that Cole is sneaking out at night to hit the gay bars. Is Gerald going with him?!

On the other hand, Sara could go back to the Riviera where her three children are being cared for by their nanny. Their friends Pablo, 41, and Olga Picasso, 32, are still there. Sara and Gerald have picked up some presents to take back to them.

Sara has sent a note addressed to both Pablo and Olga, saying how much she looks forward to seeing them again, ending,

We love you very much you know.”

But Sara feels that Pablo has become a bit too touchy feely and may have misinterpreted her use of the word “love.”

Sara decides to go back to the Riviera.

Sara Murphy and Pablo Picasso

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the paperback series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I through IV, covering 1920 through 1923 are available at Thoor Ballylee in Co. Galway, at Pan Yan Bookstore in Tiffin, OH, and as signed copies at Riverstone Books in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA. They are also on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in print and e-book formats. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

This fall I will be talking about the women of Bloomsbury and the Left Bank at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University, and about art collector John Quinn at the Tiffin-Seneca Public Library, co-sponsored by the Heidelberg University English Department, in Quinn’s hometown of Tiffin, OH.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”:  Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, early July, 1923, Hotel du Cap, Cap d’Antibes, Riviera, France

Sitting on the beach, about a half mile from the hotel, Russian ballerina Olga Picasso, 32, is watching her two-year-old son, Paolo, playing with their American friends’ children.

Portrait of Olga by Pablo Picasso

Shortly after Olga arrived here with Paolo; her husband, Spanish painter Pablo, 41, and his mother, Maria Ruiz, 68, the Murphys, a family they’ve gotten to know back in Paris, showed up at the same hotel. Gerald, 35, has worked on some theatre projects with Pablo, and the Picassos have attended many of the fabulous parties Gerald and his wife Sara, 39, have given.

What’s odd is to be here on the Riviera in the summer! The French won’t come near the place after May. But Gerald and Sara enjoyed the remote quiet so much last summer, they vowed to keep coming back. The Hotel du Cap owner agreed to keep the place open; he’s hoping that the damp, cold weather up north this year will lead many more Parisians to give the south a try.

At first, communication between the two couples was a bit formal. Olga received a note from Sara, in French, saying,

Cher Mme. Picasso…Our children are going to the beach at 945 and will return at 1130 (they eat lunch at 12). We would be so happy if your baby could accompany them, with his nurse. Would you and M. Picasso come swimming with us later, at 11? The beach is really very nice and we have an American canoe.”

The hotel is so empty, the two families have taken to having dinner together in the big dining room, with a kids table for Paolo and the Murphys’ Honoria, 5, Baoth, 4, and Patrick, 2. The only other guest is a Chinese diplomat and his family, who decided to stay on when they found out the hotel would remain open.

Baoth, Sara, Patrick and Honoria Murphy

The Murphys are getting along just great with Pablo’s mother, who is on her first trip to France from Spain to see her grandson, even though she speaks no English or French. She’s trying to teach the Murphys Spanish.

Olga is watching Pablo and Gerald rake seaweed in the sand. He is interested in Gerald’s unique style, but they rarely talk about art.

She turns her gaze to Sara, sitting on a small rug, her linen dress blowing in the warm Mediterranean breeze, her string of pearls running down her back.

Sara makes motherhood seem so effortless. She enjoys her children.

Olga is a wreck. She and Pablo have been growing apart. They fight more often. And he has been doing many more drawings of Sara than he is doing of his own wife. In some, he incorporates sand from the beach. In one he is depicted as Mars and Sara is Venus. There is even one nude portrait—it must be of Sara. The figure is wearing her pearls draped down her back.

Oil and pencil drawing for Woman in White by Picasso

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the paperback series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I through IV, covering 1920 through 1923 are available at Thoor Ballylee in Co. Galway, and as signed copies at Riverstone Books in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA. They are also on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in print and e-book formats. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

This fall I will be talking about the women of Bloomsbury and the Left Bank at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”:  Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, June 17, 1923, Pont de la Concorde, down river from Quai Anatole France, Paris

Those Americans are throwing a party. Again. This time on a barge.

Ex-pats Sara, 39, and Gerald Murphy, 35, are so enamored of Les Noces, the ballet premiered last week by Serge Diaghilev, 51, that they have invited everyone associated with the production to a huge party on this restored barge, which serves as a restaurant during the week.

Les Noces

Well, almost everyone. Diaghilev wouldn’t let them invite all the dancers and the Polish choreographer, Bronislava Nijinska, 32, isn’t here because she is still feuding with the Russian costume and set designer, Natalia Goncharova, 41.

The Murphys had wanted to hold the party at Cirque Medrano, but the circus manager refused, stating that his venue “isn’t an American colony yet.”

Sara forgot that the markets on Ile de la Cite would be selling birds, not flowers, because it is a Sunday. So instead she went to the Montparnasse bazaar, bought a whole lot of cheap toys and arranged them as pyramids up and down the banquet table.

Sara and Gerald Murphy in party dress

The evening starts with cocktails under the canopy of the upper deck. The ballet’s composer, Igor Stravinsky, celebrating his 41^st birthday, sneaks downstairs to re-arrange the seating cards to his liking.

A huge laurel wreath with a banner reading “Les Noces—Hommages” greets the guests when they enter the party room.

French poet Jean Cocteau, 33, steals a dress uniform from the captain’s room and runs through the barge carrying a lantern, shouting,

On coule!” (“We’re sinking!”).

Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, 41, here with his wife Russian wife Olga, celebrating her 32^nd birthday, is taking all the toys from the banquet table and piling them into one large pyramid, topped with a stuffed cow standing astride a fire truck ladder.

Marcelle Meyer, 26, French pianist with Les Six group, is playing Scarlatti on the piano.

Les Six with Marcelle Meyer

Designer Goncharova is reading the guests’ palms.

Both the publisher, Scofield Thayer, 33, and the editor Gilbert Seldes, 30, of the American Dial magazine, are here. Seldes is getting all the guests to autograph his copy of the menu.

As dawn approaches, Les Noces’ Swiss conductor, Ernest Ansermet, 39, takes down the large wreath and holds it as the ballet’s composer, Stravinsky, takes a flying leap straight through the middle.

Igor Stravinsky

Then everyone goes home.

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I through IV, covering 1920 through 1923 are available at Thoor Ballylee in Co. Galway, and as signed copies at Riverstone Books in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA. They are also on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in print and e-book formats. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

This fall I will be talking about the women of Bloomsbury and the Left Bank at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”:  Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, June 12, 1923, Aeolian Hall, 135-137 New Bond Street, London; and 43 Avenue Henri-Martin, Paris

The audience sees six musicians on stage, being conducted by the composer of the piece, William Walton, 21, as well as a huge megaphone protruding from a hole in a beautifully painted screen. Coming out of the megaphone they hear lines and lines of poetry, read by the poet herself, Edith Sitwell, 35, standing behind the screen in all her six-foot, turbaned, bejeweled glory.

Edith Sitwell by Roger Fry

Façade—An Entertainment was first performed privately early last year, at the posh Chelsea townhouse Sitwell shares with her brothers, who have all taken in Walton as their protégé since he dropped out of Oxford. Edith and William have since tweaked the poetry and the staging a bit.

William Walton

The audience includes novelist Virginia Woolf, 41; Oxford student Evelyn Waugh, 19; and new hot West End musical theatre star, Noel Coward, 23. They are…confused? Bemused? Angry? Coward dramatically stomps out in obvious protest before the piece is even finished.

Most of the major newspapers have sent critics, including Walton’s former teacher, Edward J. Dent, 46, president of the International Society for Contemporary Music, representing the Illustrated London News. Walton is hoping that at least Dent will be appreciative of his work.

*****

In Paris, tonight is the final of 10 rehearsals for the new ballet being presented by impresario Serge Diaghilev, 51. With music by fellow Russian Igor Stravinsky, about to turn 41; conducted by Swiss Ernest Ansermet, 39; choreography by Polish Bronislava Nijinska, 32; and sets and costumes by Russian Natalia Goncharova, 41; tomorrow night’s premiere of Les Noces is much anticipated. In front page articles the Parisian press has called it “an aesthetic revelation” and “this year’s gift.”

Les Noces rehearsal

Nijinska told Diaghilev to ditch the folkloric costumes and sets Goncharova designed and replace them with modernistic brown and white muslin, putting her on a tight schedule. Goncharova called in her student, American ex-pat Gerald Murphy, 35, to help her paint muslin flats brown and white.

Gerald in turn brought in his new friend, American writer John Dos Passos, 27, who is eager to learn everything he can about Diaghilev’s theatre.

What he learned was that the working conditions are hot and noisy, and he doesn’t like being surrounded by artistes shouting in Russian and French. Gerald would take Dos Passos out for a few drinks to keep him calm.

Gerald and his wife Sara, 39, have been to all 10 Les Noces rehearsals at the Theatre Gaiete Lyrique. When they invited Dos Passos to join them one night, they were pleased that he brought along his friend, visiting American poet Edward Estlin Cummings, 28. Until Cummings refused to sit with them and made a big show of grabbing a seat three or four rows behind.

E. E. Cummings

This final dress rehearsal before the premiere tomorrow is being held here at the home of the American Singer sewing machine heiress, Princesse Edmond de Polignac, 58, actually Winaretta Singer, known to everyone as Tante Winnie, one of Stravinsky’s benefactors.

Princesse Edmond de Polignac

Stravinsky originally scored Les Noces for player piano and percussion; he has now expanded the orchestration to include four pianos, a chorus, drums, bells and a xylophone. Najinska’s choreography has male and female dancers performing the exact same steps. Unheard of.

Until now.

Let’s start the show…

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I through IV, covering 1920 through 1923 are available at Thoor Ballylee in Co. Galway, and as signed copies at Riverstone Books in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA. They are also on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in print and e-book formats. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

In the fall I will be talking about the women at the center of the Bloomsbury Group and the Americans in Paris at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”:  Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.

“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, March 23, 1923, corner of quai des Grands-Augustins and 1 rue Git-le-Coeur, Paris

Visiting novelist John Dos Passos, 27, is enjoying tagging along with his fellow American writer Donald Ogden Stewart, 28, walking around Paris, visiting some of the ex-pats Stewart knows.

Quai des Grands-Augustins

At this address Dos Passos is introduced to the Murphys—Gerald, about to turn 35, and Sara, 39. Stewart was a few years behind Gerald at Yale, and he has given the couple a big build-up, describing them as a prince and a princess. Dos Passos, a cynic from Harvard, figures he won’t succumb to their allure.

Dos Passos is impressed with Sara, one of the most charming women he’s ever met. Gerald seems a bit distracted. He’s getting ready for a big dinner party they’re throwing.

John Dos Passos

The Murphys are in the process of renovating this apartment, with its white walls, lacquered black floors, Mexican rugs, and floor to ceiling windows surrounded by red antique brocade drapes, a perfect frame for the fabulous view down the River Seine.

Gerald and Sara have become huge fans of the Kamerny Theatre from Moscow, and this party is to celebrate their successful run at the Theatre de Champs-Elysees. The Murphys have been to all 10 of the Kamerney’s performances..

Kamerny Theatre poster

The Murphys’ new Algerian chef is making couscous; dessert will be slightly obscene-shaped chocolate mousse with crème Chantilly; and there will, of course, be plenty of wine.

Because they are in the midst of the renovation, there are few pieces of furniture for guests to sit on. Gerald and Sara have improvised, placing mattresses and pillows all over and covering them with brocade fabric. Planks mounted on blocks will serve as tables. Plumbers’ lamps will do for lighting. And, supporters of the arts that they are, the Murphys have attached to the walls “found sculptures” made from bicycle wheels and other discarded junk by their new friend, Fernand Leger, 42.

Sara graciously invites their guests, Stewart and Dos Passos, to stay for the party. But Dos Passos declines. He never feels comfortable in situations like this and is embarrassed by his stammer.

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I through III, covering 1920 through 1922 are available at Riverstone Books in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA. They are also on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in print and e-book formats. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

Later this month I will be talking about F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”:  Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, February 23, 1923, corner of 23 quai des Grands-Augustins and 1 rue Git-le-Coeur, Paris

American ex-pat Gerald Murphy, 34, is looking out the window of his apartment in this dilapidated 16^th century building (he and his wife Sara, 39, will renovate as soon as the sale of their Manhattan house goes through), up the Seine, past the Ile St. Louis, over to the Tuileries Gardens on the Left Bank. He really enjoyed the party tonight.

Gerald has been having an awfully good month. He was thrilled to have four of his paintings accepted into the Salon des Independents, which opened at the beginning of February. It’s certainly not selective—Motto:  “Neither Jury nor Rewards”—but many good artists are included, such as his own painting teacher, Natalia Goncharova, 41. When the officials told Gerald that his oil Boatdeck was too large, he responded,

If you think mine is too large…I think the others are too small.”

Boatdeck by Gerald Murphy in the Salon des Independents

The Paris edition of the Herald said his work showed, “a very personal point of view in the study of machinery…[revealing] a feeling for mass and a sense of decorative effect.”

Soon after the show opened, Gerald was asked by some friends to design the American booth at a major charity event—the Bal des Artistes Russes, in aid of Russian immigrants in France.

Today was the opening of the four-day festival, and what a party!

Four orchestras! Murphy thought the jazz band was the best. The guests were dressed either as Russian peasants or cubist paintings. The rooms were filled with paintings by artists such as Russian Goncharova and Spaniard Juan Gris, 35.

For entertainment, Romanian-French writer Tristan Tzara, 26, read one of his poems, and the fabulous Fratellini Brothers performed their usual star turn.

The Fratellini Brothers

Goncharova sold her masks in the Russian booth; the Japanese booth had kabuki theatre with dancers.

One of the showstoppers is Gerald’s futuristic American exhibit, featuring a reconstruction of huge skyscrapers with blinking electric lights, recreating New York City’s Great White Way right here in Paris. It is sooo American…

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I through III, covering 1920 through 1922 are available at Thoor Ballylee in Co. Galway, and as signed copies at Riverstone Books in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA. They are also on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in print and e-book formats. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

This summer I will be talking about F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”:  Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.