Max Ernst, A Swallow’s Nest (1966)Initiative distinguishes the excellent worker from the good worker. Both show up on time every day and work but the person with initiative is of greater value.
Real
True Narratives
Saul Bellow re-invented the American novel with a vision and diligent effort.
- Zachary Leader, The Life of Saul Bellow: To Fame and Fortune, 1915-1994 (Alfred A. Knopf, 2014)
- Zachary Leader, The Life of Saul Bellow: Love and Strife, 1965-2005 (Knopf, 2018): “ . . . it’s difficult to write an endearing biography of Bellow. “Was I a man or was I a jerk?” Bellow inquired on his deathbed. Leader put the question on the first page of Volume 1, and it bookends this two-volume opus. Nevertheless, he has managed to write a sympathetic, judicious, 700-page second volume here, which one can recommend on its own merits. I even came to admire Bellow more at the end than the beginning. How on earth did Leader do it?”
- Saul Bellow, ed. Benjamin Taylor, There Is Simply Too Much to Think About: Collected Nonfiction (Viking, 2014).
Other true narratives on initiative:
- Evan Hughes, Literary Brooklyn: The Writers of Brooklyn and the Story of American City Life (Henry Holt & Company, 2011). “Throughout the book, the physical landscape most vividly evoked is Brooklyn’s celebrated view of the Manhattan skyline, which is to say, a landscape of ambition.”
- Julia Sweig, Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight (Random House, 2021): “To paraphrase the former Texas Governor Ann Richards, Lady Bird did everything more recent first ladies did, but ‘backwards and in high heels.’”
- Lisa Napoli, Susan, Linda, Nina and Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR (Abrams, 2021): “The book is a lesson in how the fringe project of one generation becomes the mainstream of the next.”
- Jennifer Homans, Mr. B.: George Balanchine’s 20th Century (Random House, 2022): “. . . he founded what would become in 1948 the New York City Ballet, America’s de facto national ballet company. There he almost single-handedly revitalized the language of an increasingly brittle and conservative art form.”
From the dark side:
- Michael Shnayerson, Bugsy Siegel: The Dark Side of the American Dream (Yale University Press, 2021): “After a potted history of Siegel’s adolescence on the Lower East Side, where, thanks to his quicksilver temper, the teenage tough acquired his nickname, the book picks up steam, recounting Siegel’s subsequent exploits during the interwar years as a bootlegger, bookmaker and occasional hit man.”
Imaginary
Film and Stage
Fictional Narratives
From time immemorial, M. sur M. had had for its special industry the imitation of English jet and the black glass trinkets of Germany. This industry had always vegetated, on account of the high price of the raw material, which reacted on the manufacture. At the moment when Fantine returned to M. sur M., an unheard-of transformation had taken place in the production of "black goods." Towards the close of 1815 a man, a stranger, had established himself in the town, and had been inspired with the idea of substituting, in this manufacture, gum-lac for resin, and, for bracelets in particular, slides of sheet-iron simply laid together, for slides of soldered sheet-iron. This very small change had effected a revolution. This very small change had, in fact, prodigiously reduced the cost of the raw material, which had rendered it possible in the first place, to raise the price of manufacture, a benefit to the country; in the second place, to improve the workmanship, an advantage to the consumer; in the third place, to sell at a lower price, while trebling the profit, which was a benefit to the manufacturer. Thus three results ensued from one idea. In less than three years the inventor of this process had become rich, which is good, and had made every one about him rich, which is better. He was a stranger in the Department. Of his origin, nothing was known; of the beginning of his career, very little. It was rumored that he had come to town with very little money, a few hundred francs at the most. It was from this slender capital, enlisted in the service of an ingenious idea, developed by method and thought, that he had drawn his own fortune, and the fortune of the whole countryside. On his arrival at M. sur M. he had only the garments, the appearance, and the language of a workingman. It appears that on the very day when he made his obscure entry into the little town of M. sur M., just at nightfall, on a December evening, knapsack on back and thorn club in hand, a large fire had broken out in the town-hall. This man had rushed into the flames and saved, at the risk of his own life, two children who belonged to the captain of the gendarmerie; this is why they had forgotten to ask him for his passport. Afterwards they had learned his name. He was called Father Madeleine. [Victor Hugo, Les Misérables (1862), Volume I – Fantine; Book Fifth – The Descent Begins, Chapter I, The History of a Progress in Black Glass Trinkets.]
Saul Bellow re-invented the American novel.
- Saul Bellow, The Adventuresof Augie March (1953) {review}.
- Saul Bellow, Seizethe Day (1956) {review}.
- Saul Bellow, Herzog(1964) {review}. Herzog earned Bellow a U.S. National Book Award and a Prix International award.
- Saul Bellow, Sammler’sPlanet (1970). This book won wide critical acclaim, and the 1971 National Book Award for Fiction in the United States.
- Saul Bellow, Humboldt’sGift (1975). A 1976 Pulitzer Prize topped the accolades accorded to this work.
- Saul Bellow, Ravelstein(2000) {review}.
Music: Composers, artists, and major works
Robert Schumann, Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 54 (1845) (approx. 28-36’), “proffered a totally new idea of a piano concerto. In place of fiery virtuosic display, ‘putting fingers to work and musicianship to sleep’, K. 54 also demanded sensitivity, poise, clarity, and control from the soloist.” “Early listeners were struck, as Clara had been, by the extent to which the piano and the orchestra interacted, as opposed to the more standard turn-taking of the forces in standard virtuoso concertos of the day.” Schumann said: “I used to compose almost all of my shorter pieces in the heat of inspiration . . . Only from the year 1845 onwards, when I started to work out everything in my head, did a completely new manner of composing begin to develop.” Top recordings include those by Lipatti in 1948, Rubinstein in 1959, Rudolf Serkin in 1964, Kempff in 1974, Bar-Niv in 197?, Argerich in 1978, Perahia in 1997, Andsnes in 2003, Pires in 2014, and Lisiecki in 2016.
Showpieces for violin, performed by:
- Fritz Kreisler
- Itzhak Perlman
- Arthur Grumiaux
- Jascha Heifetz
- Salvatore Accardo
- Jaime Laredo
- Various artists
Violin showpieces composed by:
Albums:
- The Tubby Hayes Sextet, “Tubby the Tenor”, originally issued as “Tubbs in N.Y.” (1961): the value is best illustrated by Hayes’ forward and assertive sax playing, and also the playing of side men Clark Terry and Eddie Costa.
- Charles Lloyd Quartet, “Montreux Jazz Festival 1967” (1967): four great jazz artists, each taking his turn soloing, and contributing to group play
- Ensemble albums by Harold Land, including “Westward Bound”, “The Fox”, “West Coast Suite” and “A New Shade of Blue”
- Kristina Socanski, “Philip Glass: Piano Solo” (2022): “Because she doesn’t exaggerate her effects . . . Socanski has expanded the meaning of Glass’s music. She has made it her own, which after all is the performer’s prerogative, and thankfully so, because this is where great interpreters thrive.”