“To ‘live’ is an expression which has had much harm done it by second-rate writers who seem to think that ‘life’ is limited to pretending you like absinthe and keeping a mistress in Montmartre.”

Ralph Vaughan Williams, “Gustav Holst: An Essay and a Note”

Last fall I pulled Mary McCarthy’s Intellectual Memoirs off the shelf for the first time in years and found two fifty-dollar bills tucked inside. Nice, but alarming enough that I can now confidently say–after an evening of on-the-ground investigation–that there is not another red cent hidden in any book in my apartment. This is not my usual notion of a savings account–my money didn’t earn a lot of interest there, needless to say–and I’m going to be very careful next time I take a box of books to the local bookstore.

A piece in today’s Wall Street Journal (subscription required) catalogs some of the amazing items discovered in used books at New York’s Strand and a few other bookstores. These items include an activist’s rap sheet; sketches by Bosch, Michelangelo, and the unidentified; birth certificates; dirty pictures; and, natch, love letters. Some of the gaudier finds:

The Strand did buy a $15 doodled-over book of drawings by the Renaissance artist Ucello. The doodler was Salvador Dali. Fred Bass, the Strand’s owner, once opened a book titled “The Bill of Rights” to find it was hollowed out. The bottom of the inside was signed, “Boo! Abbie Hoffman.” Mr. Bass says he learned later from Mr. Hoffman that he had hidden a tape recorder in there during the Chicago Seven trial.

Mining the dusty stacks, browsers can strike gold too: a signed photo of Bette Davis; a dried four-leaf clover; a ripped-out flyleaf from a first edition with a poem scrawled on it: “A plague upon / and to perdition / the Hun who mars / a first edition…”

Harvey Frank wasn’t pleased, though, to learn that a personal note he wrote had landed in a customer’s hands at the Strand. Mr. Frank had slipped it into a copy of his own self-published book of poetry, “My Reservoir of Dreams,” before sending it to WOR Radio host Joan Hamburg. “I thought I would bring her into my life,” says Mr. Frank, who is 80. Ms. Hamburg remembers the book, vaguely. “I was sort of touched,” she says. “I put it on my desk. Or somewhere.” She says she has no idea how it ended up in a used-book bin.

Ouch, and d

“Naturally we become timid about making our insights known, in such inhospitable conditions”

Raise your hand if eww. The grammatical errors and infelicities found by Louis Menand in the punctuation guide Eats, Shoots & Leaves are enough to make this editor’s hair stand on end. Thanks anyway, Lynne Truss, but I’ll stick with the foundational texts in “the Edward Gorey school of grammar” (as one Amazon reviewer nicely puts it), Karen Elizabeth Gordon’s Deluxe Transitive Vampire and New Well-Tempered Sentence. They’re trustworthy and titillating–what more could you want in a grammar guide?

I’m here on a visit, but no more than that. First thing Tuesday morning I remove myself to an Undisclosed Location for three days of rest and relaxation. I won’t be attending any performances of anything whatsoever, except maybe dinner. I’m not bringing my iBook, either, so don’t ask me.

I plan to be back and blogging on Friday, but in the meantime I’ve left behind a few postings to keep you warm (see below), and I’ve also updated the Top Fives in the right-hand column. Take a look.

I now return you to the capable hands of Our Girl in Chicago, who kept the home fires burning very nicely last week. Give her a kiss for me.

Toodle-oo.

Lots and lots has happened since last we met, some of it in New York and some of it elsewhere.

– I’ll start by bragging. Harcourt e-mailed me the layout for All in the Dances: A Brief Life of George Balanchine, my next book, and I’m still bedazzled. The design and typography couldn’t be more handsome. Having already seen the dust jacket, my guess is that the finished product is going to be at least as good-looking as the Teachout Reader, if I do say so myself.

– On Wednesday and Thursday I was in Washington, D.C., where I saw Mark Lamos’ revival of Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at the Kennedy Center. (That’s for The Wall Street Journal, so I’ll keep my opinions on ice for the present.)

– In addition, I watched a performance by William Forsythe’s Ballett Frankfurt, also at the Kennedy Center. Somewhat to my surprise, I very much liked the last piece on the bill, a dance called One Flat Thing, reproduced in which the members of the company dragged twenty metal tables downstage, lined them up in five rows, and danced on top of, underneath, and in between them, accompanied by the electronic music of Thom Willems. Yes, it’s a gimmick, but a brilliant one, rather like the strobe lights in David Parsons’ Caught, and Dana Caspersen’s program note summed up the results aptly, if a bit breathlessly:

Twenty tables, like jagged rafts of ice, fly forward and become the surface, the underground and the sky inhabited byh a ferocious flight of dancers. A pack of bodies raging with alacrity, whipping razor-like in perilous weaves, in a hurtling intelligence. The music of Thom Willems begins quietly and then blows up into a gale, hurling the dancers toward the end, their bodies howling in a voracious, detailed storm.

As you probably know, Ballett Frankfurt is disbanding any moment now, but Forsythe is starting up a new company, and I trust that One Flat Thing, reproduced will figure prominently in its repertory. I’ve never been a great fan of Forsythe’s work, but this dance was terrific, and I want to see it again.

– Earlier that same day I paid a quick visit to the National Gallery. I looked at American Masters from Bingham to Eakins: The John Wilmerding Collection, which contains two exquisite “minute” sketches by John Marin and a wonderful trompe l’oeil still life by John Peto, one of my favorite nineteenth-century American painters, and Drawings of Jim Dine, which contains, among other things, a profile drawing of a woman smoking a cigarette that I would have been more than happy to hang in the Teachout Museum.

– I took the train back to New York on Friday to hear Jo

“The estate office was still empty, lit silently by the sun through closed shutters. Although the scene of more frivolity than anywhere else in the villa, its appearance was of calm austerity. On whitewashed walls, reflected in wax-polished tiles, hung enormous pictures representing the various Salina estates: there, in bright colors contrasting with the gold and black frame, was Salina, the island of the twin mountains, surrounded by a sea of white-flecked waves on which pranced beflagged galleons; Querceta, its low houses grouped around the rustic church on which were converging groups of bluish-colored pilgrims; Ragattisi, tucked under mountain gorges; Argivocale, tiny in contrast to the vast plains of corn dotted with hard-working peasants; Donnafugata, with its baroque palace, goal of coaches in scarlet and green adn gilt, loaded with women, wine, and violins; and many others, all protected by a taut reassuring sky and by the Leopard grinning between long whiskers. Each picture was festive–each trying to show the enlightened empire, like wine, of the House of Salina. Ingenuous masterpieces of rustic art from the previous century; useless, though, at showing boundaries, or detailing areas or tenancies; such things remained obscure. The wealth of many centuries had been transmitted into ornament, luxury, pleasure; no more; the abolition of feudal rights had swept away duties as well as privileges; wealth, like an old wine, had let the dregs of greed, even of care and prudence, fall to the bottom of the barrel, leaving only verve and color. And thus eventually it cancelled itself out; this wealth which had achieved its object was composed now only of essential oils–and, like essential oils, it soon evaporated. Already some of the estates which looked so gay in those pictures had taken wing, leaving behind only bright-colored paintings and names. Others seemed, like those September swallows which though still present are grouped stridently on trees, ready for departure. But there were so many; it seemed they could never end.”

Giuseppe di Lampedusa, The Leopard

A friend of mine who recently published a book is giving a bookstore reading in a couple of weeks, and wrote to me the other day to ask me if I had any tips. I had plenty, since I gave a couple of dozen such talks while promoting The Skeptic: A Life of H.L. Mencken, so I sent him a long e-mail crammed with advice. It occurred to me that some of you might possibly find it interesting, so I decided to post it.

If you’ve ever seen me give a speech, you can judge for yourself whether I practiced what I preach!

* * *

A speech–and this includes a reading–is a performance. It’s theater. The people who came to hear you don’t want you to shamble up to the podium, mumble a few unintelligible introductory words, open up a store copy of your book, and stick your nose in it for the next half-hour. They expect you to look and sound prepared–and you’ll feel more comfortable if you do.

To that end, here’s how I do my readings, step by step:

(1) Don’t read too much. No matter how good your book is, you don’t want to spend all your time reading from it. You also need to make direct contact with your listeners, which is harder to do when you’re reading out loud from a text written for the eye, not the ear. If you’ve been asked to perform for thirty minutes, speak for ten, read for just short of twenty, then deliver a prepared coda at the end of the excerpt from the book.

(2) Write your speech out word for word. If you’re an experienced public speaker accustomed to working from sketchy notes, fine. If you know you can wing it like a virtuoso, more power to you–but in either case, you wouldn’t be asking for tips from me. If you’re anybody else, write the speech out word for word, then practice reading it aloud until your delivery sounds natural and conversational. (See below for instructions.) Otherwise, you’ll get lost in a thicket of likes and you knows and ers and ahs–and you’ll talk too long.

Which brings us to

(3) Time the speech exactly. Do not under any circumstances exceed your allotted time. In fact,

(4) Never speak for as long as you’re asked. In my experience, thirty minutes is ideal, especially if you’re new at this. Go on for much longer and people will start to squirm, which is contagious. If you’re asked to speak for forty-five minutes (including the reading), hold it to a half-hour, then go straight to questions from the audience. You don’t have to ask permission from the presenter!

(5) Choose a fairly self-contained excerpt from the book. It doesn’t have to begin or end neatly–you can set up the excerpt as needed in your introductory remarks–but do take care that what you read will be intelligible to those who haven’t already read the book. (Don’t be afraid to leave ’em hanging at the end!)

(6) Don’t read from a printed copy of the book. Not only does it look awkward, even unprofessional, but too many things can go wrong (i.e., dropping the book and losing your place). Instead, I printed out my speech and reading text in a single manuscript set in large, bold type, big enough that I could read it without my glasses if need be.

(7) Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse! Read the speech and the book excerpt aloud, at least twice and preferably in front of somebody else. Then pay close attention to what they tell you.

(8) Strive for vocal emphasis and variety. Most authors are ineffective in front of an audience because their delivery is dull. The goal is to sound like you’re talking informally, not lecturing (and that includes whatever passages you choose to read from the book itself). Each sentence should have its own point of emphasis. Find it and mark it in your manuscript. Don’t trust your memory–underline key words, or highlight them in boldface. And be sure to keep your energy level high. If you don’t sound excited, your listeners won’t feel excited.

(9) When you can, look at the audience. You don’t have to look at them all the time, though. If you’ve done what I told you to do in (8), your oral delivery will be sufficiently varied that you can hold the audience’s attention without making constant eye contact. Still, do try to look up from your speech at least once on every page. The more direct contact you make, the more books you’ll sell.

(10) After you’ve read the speech out loud, change it. A speech is written to be spoken. The point of reading it out loud in advance of the performance is to discover what sits naturally on your tongue and what doesn’t. Remember that the audience isn’t following a printed copy. They must understand every word you say. Whenever you stumble over a word or have difficulty picking your way through an over-complicated phrase, change it.

While you’re at it, don’t hesitate to change the text of the book excerpt if you find you have similar problems reading any part of it out loud. Your listeners won’t know the difference. (You can also make cuts without telling them.)

(11) Start with something funny. I know, it’s the biggest cliché in the world, but it really does loosen up the audience–and you, too, which is at least as important.

(12) When quoting someone else for more than a phrase or two, hold up a page of the printed speech and “read” from it. This is a visual aid intended to make it obvious to your listeners that you’re not reading your own words. It’s amazing how this will increase audience comprehension.

(13) If at all possible, e-mail copies of your speech to the various presenters before leaving town. This isn’t so they can review it and ask for changes–it’s to ensure that there’ll be a copy of the speech on hand in case you lose, misplace, or forget yours. (That happened to me once, in Philadelphia. Don’t ask.)

(14) Before you leave town, double-check your printed copy of the manuscript. Make sure it contains each numbered page and that the pages are in the correct order. Do the same thing before you leave your hotel room to go to the place where you’re speaking. Do it every time. The one time you forget to do it is the time that pages 16 and 22 will be switched, thus causing you to crash and burn.

(15) Arrive early enough for a soundcheck. Don’t trust the presenter. Make sure there’s a podium (yes, it’s happened to me), that it’s deep and wide enough to hold your manuscript, that the sound system works, that the microphone can be raised to an adequate height, and that there’s a glass of water–without ice–within easy reach.

(16) Never apologize for being nervous. The only time you should do this is if you are visibly nervous, in which case a self-deprecating remark will help to put the crowd on your side–but only do it once.

(17) Never apologize for stumbling over a word. Correct it, then move on.

(18) Make sure the audience knows when you’re through. You don’t have to say “thank you.” Just pause, then lower your head. That way they’ll start clapping.

(19) Be sure to allow enough time for questions. If the presenter doesn’t oblige, take matters into your own hands. Audiences love to ask questions (except for students–they usually clam up tight, especially in a classroom setting).

One last thing:

(20) Be polite with hecklers–but be firm. If you’re polite, the audience will back you all the way. That gives you permission to be as firm as necessary. Point out that other people also have questions to ask. If you run afoul of an obsessive, over-persistent questioner, politely suggest that he speak to you privately afterward, then go straight to the next question.

It’s Friday, but I’m in Washington (and in a blessedly iBook-free state), so Our Girl in Chicago has been kind enough to post my weekly Wall Street Journal theater teaser for me, bless her.

Anyway, I reviewed two plays this morning, Lynn Nottage’s Fabulation, a new play by the author of Intimate Apparel, and Charlie Victor Romeo, an off-off-Broadway performance piece based on transcripts of the black-box recordings of six airplane crashes.

Fabulation is terrific:

Unlike the simple, poignant “Intimate Apparel,” “Fabulation” is a sardonic look at the complicated life of Undine Barnes Calles (Charlayne Woodard), a credit-card-carrying member of the black bourgeoisie whose husband empties out her bank account and blows town, leaving her broke and pregnant. Undine, we discover, is a hoity-toity Dartmouth grad who changed her name from Tameka Jo Greene, disowned her working-class Brooklyn family and started “my very own fierce boutique PR firm catering to the vanity and confusion of the African American nouveau riche.” Now she makes the long journey home to Brooklyn, scared to death and fumbling to figure out her next move.

The sassily appealing Ms. Woodard leads a spot-on ensemble cast, and Kate Whoriskey, the director, puts them through their paces like a team of thoroughbreds. What lifts “Fabulation” well above the level of a don’t-get-above-your-raising soap opera, though, is the shiv-sharp wit with which Ms. Nottage hacks away at the clich