You wouldn't ordinarily go to a newspaper's letters to the editor column if you were looking for a multimedia work of art, but one showed up this morning in The New York Times. From the headline – "In the Old Balducci's, a Hollywood Sighting" – to the writer's signature – Michael Tilson Thomas – the presentation was distinguished. It was a unique story, with provenance, sentiment, surprise, erudition, humor, whimsy, affection, correct writing, and stunningly illustrated – yes, a letter to the editor with an illustration – and, for complete enjoyment, requesting of the reader a degree of cultural awareness.
Balducci's was a Manhattan gourmet food shop, founded by an Italian immigrant in 1946, expanding from a single shop into a chain. Last week, its corporate owners (since 1999) shut down Balducci's Manhattan locations. Michael Tilson Thomas was one of thousands of New Yorkers, in New York and around the world, who read the news "with regret." At the end of the letter, Thomas is identified as the music director of the San Francisco Symphony and artistic director of the New World Symphony.
In his letter, Thomas recalled a Christmas Eve morning in the 1980s when he went to Balducci's for some Christmas dinner fixings. It was early, before opening time, "but if you were there a few minutes early and they knew you, there was never any problem." In the deserted store, Thomas saw a woman, in fur coat and hat and oversized sunglasses. Thomas artfully describes how he recognized her – Greta Garbo – and honored her space when she recognized his recognition. She resumed her conversation with a Balducci's meat man.
Then, Thomas wrote, "At a certain moment, she turned toward me and said, 'It must be a fine old bird to make strong soup for a sick friend – at least five pounds!' " She got her chicken, paid, and left the store. When he got home, Thomas said he called his parents and told them he had had "an ultimate Jewish show business experience! I saw Garbo buy a chicken!" And then, with understatement and class, Thomas simply signed off: "I'll always be grateful to Balducci's for fresh food and lasting memories."
Above the letter and below the headline was the illustration, by Louise Fili and Jessica Hische: a caricature of Garbo, in an art nouveau style, one eye and famously arched brow, and a brush of hair, and in cursive script these words: "I vant to buy a chicken." Perfect. You can see it, with the entire letter, here.
It blew me away. Maybe I am overeager in a search for signs that newspapers should not, cannot, be abandoned. The new argument says don't worry about newspapers, it's not newspapers, but journalism, that must be preserved. Of course that is correct. The true battle for the future of the democracy is to move journalism online at as high a professional level as it has enjoyed in newspapers. But what about the future of casually turning a page and, in the midst of the journalism, discovering a short letter that has been recognized as a work of art, and presented in that way? You cannot link to discoveries, of art or anything else unique.
And the complete enjoyment of this art depended not on anything new or searchable, but on the individual reader's awareness that Greta Garbo was sensitive about her space, and she knew her chickens. It does in fact take a fine old bird – at least five pounds – to make a strong soup. I am beginning to think it's that reader awareness that I am really going to miss, after newspapers are gone. I wonder if that has become part of the editors' thinking, at least those who treated us to this art, in The New York Times.
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