“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, February 28, 1923, The New York Herald European Edition—Paris

World renowned American dancer Isadora Duncan, 45, is once again in the uncomfortable position of having to defend the behavior of her husband, Russian poet Sergei Esenin, 27.

This time he has totally trashed their room at the Hotel de Crillon in Place de la Concorde because he wants to go back home to Russia. And she doesn’t.

Hotel de Crillon

Isadora tells the reporter from The New York Herald European Edition—Paris (the Paris Herald) that Sergei had one of his

momentary fits of madness…He wanted to go back [to Russia]…so I sent him…He can smash things up in Moscow and no one will care because he is a poet.”

“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.

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 Fitzgerald, 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, 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.