Chapter thirty-eight: what the memory accumulates

“Nothing is lost of what the memory accumulates”: ST, random notes of his life through 1978, probably an early version of the chronology prepared for WMAA, as corrected by “BS,” n.d., YCAL, Box 38.

his only fairly regular correspondence: Judith Steinberg Bassow married a doctor and became a lawyer. One of her two daughters graduated from Brown and Brown Medical School and the other from Princeton, with a doctorate from Harvard. The Bassow family resides in Denver. Judith Bassow prepared the Steinberg family genealogy, for which she and ST exchanged correspondence and information throughout the 1980s. She has a personalized collection of art given to her by ST; she inherited one example of Lica Roman’s art from Martin Steinberg, another was given to her by ST, and a third was given to her by Stéphane Roman.

He formed a close friendship: A copy of the Steinberg family genealogy is in YCAL, Box 9; related materials may be those classified as “miscellaneous” or “unidentified” in YCAL, Boxes 6 and 7. Correspondence between Judith Bassow and ST is scattered throughout these boxes and in some correspondence folders from the 1980s.

Phil’s letter was an honest: Phil Steinberg to ST, June 28, 1978, YCAL, Box 22.

“the mysterious cousin”: ST to AB, September 4, 1978, SSF. ST had just returned from a trip by plane and car to Monument Valley, Arizona; Logan, Utah (where he thought of living for several months); Idaho; and Wyoming.

“a powerful desire to meet a cousin”: ST to AB, October 24, 1978, SSF.

“These days,” he told Aldo: ST to AB, September 18, 1978. SSF; also “random notes” in YCAL, Box 38.

“where dignity was the most important thing”: The drawing and its companions was first published in The Passport; the one in question appears on p. 23 of The Catalogue. ST drew the woman from a drawing by Lica Roman that she made from a photograph of Judith Bassow and told Bassow he meant it to be her; he also told her there was another portrait very like her in the book, but he did not identify which one. From Judith Steinberg Bassow’s notes appended to photocopies of her collection for DB, February 14, 2011.

Over the years he had amassed: ST clipped advertisements from New York newspapers about the regular flea markets on 26th Street and some of the occasional ones that happened at various times of the year; YCAL, Box 32. In many of the other boxes there are business cards and advertisements for dealers in stamps, books, and photographs, all of whom he frequented.

Eventually both his new drawings: TNY, December 1978 and May 1979. A description of ST’s technique is in “Old Photographs” [AB #4], R & S Outtakes.

“He thinks he’s funny”: ST to AB, May 15, 1979, SSF.

“First and Second Class Reality”: ST to AB, April 25, 1978, SSF. The quotations that follow are from notes in YCAL, Box 38, in a folder titled “Notes and Dreams,” n.d. but internal evidence suggests 1979.

One of his most famous first- and second-class realities: The photo is the frontispiece in R & S. In ST to AB, November 20, 1982, he writes that the rug came from a house in Barnes Landing owned by the descendants of Alexander Graham Bell. Bell’s widow left the contents to her church when she died, to be sold at auction; ST attended and bought the rug for $100.

During the fourteen years they had lived: Information about Phil and Rita Steinberg and all quotations are from ST to AB, October 21, 1979, SSF.

In the end he stayed there: ST to AB, October 21, 1978, SSF. Many of his friends could not understand how ST could live in such a dark apartment, Mary Frank among them: “It seemed like a grim place to me. It was very dark, while Washington Square Village was very light and bright”; Mary Frank, interview, January 25, 2009.

“playing it loudly”: ST to AB, December 9, 1979, SSF.

“with admiration”: ST to AB, January 12, 1980, SSF.

He made no reply: Mary Frank, interview, January 25, 2009.

He was disgruntled all evening: ST to AB, November 19, 1980, SSF; Mary Frank, interview, January 25, 2009.

“Johann Christian Bach”: ST to AB, January 12, 1981, SSF. In YCAL, Box 9, he notes the dates for lessons as October 28, 1980, through January 8, 1981.

“made progress”: ST to AB, December 1, 1980, and April 4, 1981, SSF.

He thought the structures were interesting: ST to AB, January 12, 1980, SSF.

Besides these renderings of buildings: ST to AB, July 27, 1981, SSF, with brief remarks or allusions in other 1981 letters to AB.

He caught Sigrid in many different poses: ST to AB, August 13, 1978, SSF.

He played with postcards: ST to AB, January 12, 1980, SSF.

He liked to use airmail envelopes: ST to AB, August 25, 1982, SSF: he asks AB to stick some stamps on a fake letter and send it back to him; in ST to IF, April 28, 1983, he writes that he still gets “strong emotion at the sight of airmail envelopes with striped borders. What a cheerful invention!”

In his almost frenetic search for pursuits: ST to AB, February 4 and 25, 1980, SSF.

“horror of hotels”: ST to AB, February 4, 1980, SSF.

“periods of paranoia”: ST to AB, November 30, 1979, SSF.

While he was visiting Phil in Tucson: ST to AB, October 21, 1979, SSF.

“greedy, avaricious characters”: ST to AB, November 30, 1979, SSF.

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