MEN’S CLUB NEWS
BY HOWARD ARKIN
RICHARD KNOX IT OUT
OF THE PARK
CONDUCTS GREAT LECTURE ON
LEONARD BERNSTEIN
The Men’s Club lecture on
November 10 was "the Celebration
of Leonard Bernstein." Our speak-er
was Richard Knox who joined us
via Zoom. Richard, who has recent-ly
given talks on the Golden Age
of radio and TV and the life and
times of Rogers and Hammerstein,
is fast becoming the club’s resident
lecturer. I'm sure that Jerry Siegel
will be contacting him again.
Prior to Richard’s talk, Club
President Toby Horowitz intro-duced
us to Seymour Tester, the
club’s newest member. We would
be hearing from Seymour later in
the evening during the Q&A por-tion
of the lecture. He would tell us
that his daugh-ter
Francine
played under
B e r n s t e i n
during his
last season at
Tanglewood
in 1990.
Bernstein’s
career experi-enced
a mete-oric
rise after
his graduation
Lecturer Richard
Knox
from Harvard in 1939. The next
year would see him at Tanglewood
as assistant conductor under his
mentor, Serge Koussevitsky. Three
years later he would be catapulted
onto the national stage when he
was asked to substitute for an ail-ing
Bruno Walter on a nationwide
radio concert given by the New York
Philharmonic.
The 1940s and 1950s saw him
collaborating with others on “On
the Town,” “Wonderful Town”
and “Candide.” In 1957, along
with Jerome Robbins and Steven
Sondheim, he gave us “West Side
Story,” considered by most to be
his greatest stage triumph.
Television was the next medium
to be conquered. In 1958, CBS put
on a Sunday afternoon show called
“The Young People’s Concert.”
Being somewhat young in 1958, I
felt obliged to watch it. The show
ran for about 14 years and in it
Bernstein tried to connect his
audience to the world of classical
music. Yes, music encompassed a
lot more than just Frank Sinatra,
The Beatles and Elvis. I did watch
it, but I did share my viewing with
the sporting events that were usu-ally
on at the same time.
Richard touched on Bernstein’s
private life too. He was married and
had two children but still had time to
be bisexual. His politics, as you might
suspect, were
quite liberal
and he did have run-ins with con-gressional
committees, but his career
seemed to be unaffected. A fervent
Zionist, we saw film clips of him in
Israel both during the war of inde-pendence
and the 1967 Six Day War.
He also conducted Beethoven’s 9th
symphony commemorating the tear-ing
down of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
Bernstein died in 1990 and seeing his
funeral procession leaving his home
at the Dakota on West 72 St. and
arriving at Brooklyn’s Greenwood
Cemetery were very compelling.
The comments from our audi-ence
during the Q&A period of
the lecture were truly positive. This
was a great lecture. In fact one of
our guests, Judy Tulchin, was so
impressed with the lecture she
might ask to join the Men’s Club.
Toby gave her hope by telling her,
"Anything is possible!"
Monday Open Mike
Hoping to attract a larger attendance,
the Men’s Club changed its usual
Monday morning open mike meeting
to a 7.30 pm start in the main card
room. Alas, we had about the same
number of attendees, but we did have
one more addition: President Toby
Horowitz introduced us to Alfred
Gollomp. Alfred, having been a long
time Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn
resident, certainly assures the club of
another first rate member. Unfortunately
Toby also informed us of the passing of
two of our club members, Mal Salit and
Bernie Jacobson, both of whom we all
held in high regard.
Prior to discussing the evening’s
topics, moderator Gary Darche always
asks us if we have any other subjects
that we might wish to discuss and this
evening, the portable microphone was
handled by Toby. You cannot imagine
the demands that the club puts on its
officers.
The New York sports scene invari-ably
comes up. We all seemed to agree
that the Knicks and the Nets seemed
be on the rise and would be having
successful seasons. But as for the Jets
and Giants, why not spend your Sunday
afternoons following more pleasant
pursuits? Seeing your children and
grandchildren might do the trick. We
were also told that we would be getting
a new neighbor next month when the
Islanders move into the new UBS arena
at Belmont Park.
The two main topics this evening,
as is usually the case, centered around
politics. The Eric Adams election and
other statewide and national elections
took center stage. Over the last two
years I have come to appreciate the
knowledge of topics and the way our
members are able to express them.
Although our members are in agree-ment
most of the time, things have been
known to get a bit testy. When this does
happen, Gary ably separates the com-batants.
This evening we did have a little
excitement when one member objected
to us all wearing masks at the meeting.
As you might suspect, his position had
no support from any other members in
the room (or no one offered any).
Harold Hershman told us of a safe
driving course he had taken given by
the American Safety Institute, saving
him $300 on his insurance policy. If you
see Harold I'm sure he will be happy to
fill you in on the details.
Future open mike sessions will
be returning to their regular time on
Mondays at 10.30 am.
Bingo!
The Men’s
Club meeting
was sched-uled
for 7:30
pm, but it is
not unusual
to see mem-bers
arriving
before 7:00.
No harm in a
bit of socializ-ing
2021
December before this
evening’s Bingo was to start.
Attendance is definitely on the
upswing as the effects of the Covid
seem to be subsiding.
¢This evening’s crowd numbered 51
COURIER members and that number figures to
rise in the upcoming months.
Every Monday at 10:30 am
Irwin Shanes, as he was been doing
Gary Darche's Open Mike in
over the past few years, called this
the main card room
TOWERS evening’s games in his usual profes-sional
Thursday, December 9, 7:30
manner. This evening he was
pm – via Zoom
ably assisted by Bob Mark, Paul Arden,
Jack Schnur on the life of Carl
Steve Auerbach and me.
Reiner 7:30
SHORE My job is to take the Bingo equip-ment
Tuesday, December 14, 6:30 pm
from the card room closet, get it to
Club dinner at La Baraka
the table and return it to the closet after
Sunday, December 26, 7:30 pm
NORTH the games. As you might have figured
Bingo in the main card room
out, they gave me the easiest job, which
For information call Toby
I must say took me no time to master.
Horowitz at 718-279-0082 or
22 The games went very well this
Jerry Siegel 347 235 4513 Men at work l-r: Bob Mark, Paul
Arden, Irwin Shanes and Steve
Auerbach
evening--not one player called out
“Bingo!” mistakenly. You could feel the
tension rising during the evening’s final
game…four prizes had already been
won but now the men were playing for
"THE BIG ONE." The winner turned
out to be Bob Bader, which he accepted
with his usual humility.
Bob Bader, First
Prize Winner!
DECEMBER MEN’S CLUB
EVENTS