Mark Weiss wrote:

>> Can you teach Huckleberry Finn in college English courses anymore or 
>> has it been pushed out there too?
>
> Yup, taught it several times myself, with in fact a discussion of the 
> use of the word nigger, which remains in fact in uncontroversial use 
> among black people--I overheard a bunch of kids on my subway line 
> using it extensively just yesterday. Tho use in other contexts is of 
> course verboten.

What I missed by teaching only composition courses:-).

> I don't know how I'd put over "Nigger of the Narcissus," tho. I have 
> managed "Heart of Darkness, " which is essentially counter-racist. But 
> in all of these things level of education makes a difference. Huck was 
> forced to vacate the HS libraries of mostly less well-read 
> communities, where describing someone as a niggardly scotsman would be 
> assumed to refer to his appearance.

Sad, isn't it?  My teacher in a freshman lit course, Leonard Albert, 
taught the required BritLit sequence to those of us lucky enough to sign 
up with him.  We all were aspiring literary hotshots.  He asked people 
to say aloud the subjects for their term papers.  He allowed me to work 
on The Sound and the Fury even though it was a British Lit course.  He 
played favorites and I was one of them, God knows why.  Some kid in 
class was Black.  He mentioned "The Negro of the Narcissus."  You could 
feel the shiver go through the room.  Albert just stared at him.  I 
don't remember what he said.  The embarrassment was class-wide and 
immense.  We could not imagine anyone's sensitivities being offended by 
the word "Nigger" especially coming from Joseph Conrad.  It was 1962.  
Times changed.

A friend of mine wanted to read Dick Gregory's autobiography.  He had a 
problem saying to the Doubleday's clerk what he wanted.

> I'd throw in Lena Horne here in terms of precedence, which is to take 
> nothing away from Eartha Kitt.
>
> Wasn't there a NY production in recent years, maybe at one of the 
> opera houses, or am I hallucinating?

It was done last in NYC in 1994 in a Harold Prince production that 
omitted the ferocity of "niggers" in favor of "colored folk."  A small 
change to an emotionally wrenching drama.  One reviewer (in _Dance 
Magazine_, 12/94) said Prince, language apart, gutted the emotional core 
of the show, the impact of the life-changing events that happen to good 
people even if they are stage characters.  I don't know how you do 
this.  The expulsion of Julie and Steve from the Cotton Blossom is 
painful even to hear on CD, as is the desertion and destitution of 
Magnolia who has been left with her child in Chicago.  Still, said the 
reviewer, go and see it--it was 60+ years old back then and it is still 
about and of us, good and bad.  I wish I had.  If it comes around again, 
I shall.  A straight-no-chaser version of Show Boat is a gutsy enterprise.

I'd misplaced Lena Horne, one a great and brave artist, who compounded 
her sin of being obviously mixed-race with being drop-dead gorgeous and 
a white man's guilty sex-fantasy (another Julie LaVerne/Dozier), and 
then really marrying a white man, Lenny Hayton.  And singing 
wonderfully.  And being political in her own right as well as being 
openly friendly with Robeson.  She was a blacklisting victim but had the 
inner power to endure the rubbish and offal that were hurled at her.

> Kern wrote wonderfully with a lot of people, among them P.G. 
> Wodehouse! "'Till the Clouds Roll By" is a favorite of mine. Rodgers 
> was considerably less treacly when he wrote with Harte, by the way.

You've got me.  I had no idea Wodehouse ever went near a musical.  The 
problem with a classic standard song is that people think the songs 
wrote themselves or "just growed."  Kern: "The Last Time I Saw Paris," 
"Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" (covered even by old time rock 'n' roll 
singers), "A Fine Romance," and "Lady Be Good"....immortality guaranteed 
right there.  I feel like I've got Jonathan Schwartz playing in my 
head:-).  Pal Joey comes to mind for Rodgers & Hart: a book by John 
O'Hara?  "I Could Write A Book" is one of those surface-sentimental 
tunes that smells of cigarette smoke after bad sex at 3 AM, and 
"Bewitched" etc is near the top of my Perfect Martini Song list, dry but 
hurting.

The whole composer-lyricist thing is a hard study.  Who affects whom and 
in what measure?  It's difficult even with opera composers.  Verdi 
shifted librettists as his music seemed to evolve from 1839 to 1893.  Or 
did the librettists bring him a new sense of what he could do with the 
music?

I'm sorry.  I've been rambling.  I've got an offended boss who was 
miffed that I resigned and I still don't know who I am talking to about 
exit matters.  There's not much to do except live by Woody Allen's 
precept about life being 80% showing up.

Well, Library of America Vol. I of I. B. Singer's stories just showed 
up, so I'm going home to curl up with a few good universes.

Ken