Diaries 1969-1979_ The Python Years - Michael Palin [155]
By 4.00 we were at the offices of Berkeley Books at 200 Madison Avenue to meet the publishers and designers of the American Fegg book. Ned Chase, a 50-year-old, who looks lean and well exercised, and has a Harvard correctness to his accent and general bearing (he was at Princeton, in fact) and Steve Conlon, big, white-haired, white-bearded, looking like a slim Burl Ives and using more down-to-earth Americanisms – his speech is littered with ‘son of bitches’ and ‘get the fuck out of its’ – for the publishers. And two younger men – about our age – Mike Gross and David Kaestle, who used to work as staff designers and illustrators on the National Lampoon.
Certainly their work is impressive – they have designed, and Mike Gross has drawn, some of the parodies of famous American artists on the National Lampoon Bicentennial Calendar – which is a calendar devoted entirely to disasters of one kind or another, ranging from assassinations and political scandals to typhoons and mass murders in the 200 years since the US was started.
They are also instantly likeable – because they like Fegg, I suppose – and the combination of their obvious experience and flair and their immediate sympathy with the Fegg character and material made us both very pleased and the meeting quite a success.
Saturday, September 6th, West Granby, Connecticut
Left the Navarro at 8.45 for a weekend in Connecticut at the invitation of Steve Cordon.
My first glimpse of New England. It is like Sussex, only with more space. No black faces up in Northern Connecticut. Houses all of wood are rather attractive, and Steve’s place is magnificent. its a large barn, across the road from a farmhouse, white and weather-boarded, in which lives Steve’s brother Henry (at weekends). Steve and his neat and organised English wife, Bet, have been converting the barn for about thirty years and its now complete. Very fine interior, all open plan except for three guest bedrooms at one end. The original wooden beams complemented with some simple old pieces of wooden furniture, a feeling of comfort, but not luxury. Immediately in front of the barn is a spacious meadow.
So a feeling of space, quietness, and inside the barn, comfortable orderliness. An utter contrast to the throbbing, noisy heartbeats of NYC.
Later in the day two other Berkeley authors arrive. Lyn and Sheila – they wrote a best-seller some years back about research into psychic phenomena in Russia.
The pace quickened and we were joined for cocktails (their word, not mine) and dinner by a local Episcopalian minister, George, who Steve rather carefully made a point of telling us earlier was doing good work with homosexuals, and two local young men, Frank, a teacher in West Hartford – again with a very New English accent – and Charles, another youngish man, with a small moustache and a lazy left eye, who was a violinist and brother-in-law of Ted Sorensen (of Kennedy clan fame). All very jolly.
TJ was in high spirits and expansive good form. I sat beside the violinist and the Episcopalian minister, feeling rather dull. The minister talked softly about his work, describing how he counsels boys who come to see him. ‘I give them the names and addresses of some gay clubs, gay discos, you know, and I tell them go on … off you go, there’s nothing wrong.’
We eat an excellent chicken casserole and a grape and cream concoction for pudding – once again served up by Bet with a sort of clean efficiency which almost detracts from one’s enjoyment.
Steve is a little shirty throughout, as the water supply appears to have run out. The fault is traced to our toilet cistern, which jammed and was left running. I think he is a little cross that the smooth running of the place, which he clearly prides himself on, should be interrupted on tonight of all nights – and I get the feeling he blames it on us.
Sunday, September 7th, West Granby, Connecticut
The sun is high and hot in a clear sky. We visit a nearby store for some last minute provisions. There