WHAT SHOULD WE BE READING?
We should be reading now, more than ever. Whether it’s pleasure reading, escapist reading or serious reading. That said three books come to mind: Rock Crystal a beautiful Christmas gem by Adalbert Stifter, The English Understand Wool, a thoroughly unsettling novella by Helen DeWitt, and Victoria by Knut Hamsun, a story of young love that captures the all-consuming desire of falling in love. When my future wife gave it to me to read, I knew that I would marry her.
WHAT DO YOU COLLECT?
I’m a bit embarrassed to answer this question, because my collecting interests are many. This is a sample: vintage bow ties, American art pottery, Minton portrait plates, Pre-Raphaelite art and art books, vintage fountain pens, and from the age of nine—when John F. Kennedy was assassinated—postage stamps from around the world that honor his memory.
WHAT IS YOUR PERFECT MEAL?
As a child I used to love to visit my mother’s family, first-generation Italian Americans whose heritage traced back to Sicily and Calabria. My aunt, who lived in the southern part of New Jersey, would occasionally cook bucatini pasta with blue crab gravy—a summertime-only delicacy. The gravy pot would be on the stove for what seemed like forever, and the spaghetti and crabs were divine.
DO YOU HAVE A SOUNDTRACK TO YOUR LIFE?
Soundtracks, I think, are associated with different stages in life. As a teenager it was Going Mobile by The Who and 21st Century SchIZOID Man by King Crimson. As a young adult, it was Your Smiling Face when I first fell in love. And now, perhaps, it is Billie Holiday singing Autumn in New York.
WHERE WOULD YOU FIND YOUR DOPPELGÄNGER?
Probably in a story that already features the trope—William Wilson by Edgar Allan Poe, or The Sandman by E. T. A. Hoffmann.
WHAT IS GOOD DESIGN?
This may be one of those questions where it is easier to answer by saying what is NOT good design. Good design is whatever is left over.
WHERE DO YOU FIND GOOD DESIGN?
Almost always in nature; always in mathematics. On a personal level, I find good design in the Neue Galerie New York. I never tire of visiting.
WHAT IS A RULE THAT SHOULD NEVER BE BROKEN?
I have never been good with the concept of rules or with having to follow actual rules. I spent a fair amount of time in psychoanalysis trying to figure this out. I never really did, but I did learn that there are real-life consequences when making the choice to break rules.
WHAT IS A RULE THAT SHOULD ALWAYS BE BROKEN?
You must not wear white after Labor Day.
WHAT IS MOST DIFFICULT TO FIND IN CONTEMPORARY CULTURE?
A keen appreciation and understanding of the antecedents of contemporary culture.
WHAT DO YOU FIND MOST EXCITING IN CONTEMPORARY CULTURE?
The sometimes blinding speed at which what is contemporary becomes yesterday’s news.
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CANDY?
This one is easy, the chocolate from Chocolat Moderne.
WHAT THOUGHTS CURRENTLY OCCUPY YOU?
Why was King Lear the William Shakespeare play that resonated most for me when I was still young and in my twenties? Shouldn’t it have been Hamlet? And as corollary, thoughts on mortality.
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ANIMAL?
A wire-haired dachshund. Delilah was a family pet who lived for 19 years and who was seriously agoraphobic. I loved her.
WHAT DO YOU FIND HUMOROUS?
When I find myself taking myself too seriously. It’s been happening with some of my answers.
WHAT TAKES YOU TO CLOUD 9?
Reading Inferno by Dante Alighieri.
WHAT DO YOU LOOK FORWARD TO?
The FIFA World Cup soccer tournament beginning very soon. I played soccer from age five, played in high school and college, and used to go religiously to New York Cosmos games in the 70s and 80s.
WHAT SHOULD WE LISTEN TO?
We should listen to our children. Their innocence makes them very wise.
WHAT IS THE BEST CULT CLASSIC?
Le Rayon vert by Eric Rohmer. I have watched it many, many times. The character Delphine elicits powerful rescue fantasies in me.