Where's Armand?

Philological Papers, Volume 4

 

West Virginia University has just published Volume 54 of its Philological Papers as a Festschrift in Armand Singer's honor. Armand had been the editor of the Philological Papers from 1952 until his passing in 2007. He was working on the 31st Annual Colloquium while in the hospital and sent me a little note for Where's Armand? readers in June of 2007.

Festschrifts are traditionally published and presented to the honoree during his or her lifetime as a celebratory gesture. Volume 54 faced an unusual situation with the death of its editor and honoree. This volume has been four years in the making.

Janice Spleth, the succeeding editor writes:

This collection of essays, for which Armand himself was active in the selection process, reflects the breadth of his knowledge in literature and film and includes contributions by colleagues throughout the profession, many of whom have been previous contributors to the journal or frequent participants in the colloquium....Two articles are dedicated specifically to scholarship on Don Juan, and others resonate with Armand's personal interests in areas such as travel literature, jazz, and science fiction.

Those who experienced Armand as an editor found that he was always willing to offer suggestions toward improvement, one woman kindly offered  that he "made my prose sing". Colleague and friend, Hart Wegner, stated in his remarks during Armand's memorial service:

You were welcome in Armand Singer's world if you had something to say and could say it well. He would help you to say it better. I cannot tell how much he contributed to the shaping of my own style, cannot tell anymore where I end and he begins.

 

I like holding the book in my hands because it physically represents years of Armand's intentions and interactions. The process that once consumed and occupied him has been completed, bound, and paginated, in his honor this time. I think Armand would be quite pleased.

The North Pole, Part 4

From the Armand Diaries, we continue with his North Pole adventure in 1984:

Left Tanqueray at 11 A.M. Watched latitude digital readout on plane's instrument panel after we left north end of Ellesmere, another 200 or so miles north of Tanqueray. Just endless ice and snow, fissured cracks and bumps, even bit of open water here and there. They can seemingly set their instruments to point to Pole (not magnetic, of course) by getting satellite readings...

We touched down momentarily twice at pole, then completely circled at 5 to 10 feet above ice. As he (pilot) touched ice first time, stall buzzer sounded, and he instantly gunned the engine. Said too much gas in drums, plane too heavy to land. We were to go south to a camp where survival and some science studies being made and land. Unload drums. Return to pole; go back, refuel from drums and return to Eureka.

Anyway, we landed after having trouble finding the camp...someone said it had been moved, pilots couldn't find it. Actually they started to open drums in flight and siphon gas into tank - considered a no-no! Banged open bung holes with hammer and wrench. I had visions of a spark (in this desert, dry arctic air, electric spark and shock gets you easily if you touch metal).

...continued next week.

The North Pole, Part 1 

The North Pole, Part 2 

The North Pole, Part 3

Photo: The Corner Corner

 

The North Pole, Part 3

Monday, April 16, 1984. We left about 8:50 A.M. from nearby airstrip (2 walrus on road as we drove out) with our pilots Ken Lee and Norman Charlebois (co-pilot) for N. Pole. Grise Ford is on Eastern time. Here, it's Atlantic Standard!

The longitude lines very close this far north and local groups pretty well name their own times. Reached Tanqueray by 10:30 A.M., to roll up about 10 huge rums of gasoline from supply dump which is all Tanqueray really is, situated on edge of a beautiful mountain locked inlet, about 200 miles NE of Eureka.

I peed and it froze on rocks in about 20 seconds (35 degrees below Celsius at Eureka Sunday evening). Title for Polar talk if I make it: North to the Pole - No Sweat.

 

 

Photo: Cities.org 

 

The North Pole, Part 1 

The North Pole, Part 2

The North Pole, Part 2

From The Armand Diaries: Sunday, April 15, 1984:

Felt fine. We took a snowmobile ride to the top of a glacier just out of town (the natives call all of them skidoos, but it was a Yamaha, I recall). Went like hell, I was leader, with my driver Jopee. Fairly steep climb, not too rough, but you had to hold on with both hands, well gloved, to bars under back seat. -30 degrees or lower.

On top of glacier, colder. Call it 55 below Celsius, plus wind factor. Say 40 below. Had to keep bare face out of wind or it hurt, despite parka hood and balaclava and wool scarf from Iceland. My legs began to hurt just above the thermal boot tops, where two pairs of trousered (heavy Harris tweed wool) and thermal underwear didn't stay down far enough. Got mild frost bite from it, but made a somewhat raw and sore band.

Splendid now on top. About 2 or 2 1/2 hours in all. Weather fine. Got to Eureka before 6, straight, smooth flight. Saw herd of musk oxen (20 of them) from fairly high up.

Eureka is a Canadian government weather station with large number of new rooms, excellent food, color satellite TV (as Grise Fiord had), large library of books. Saw lots of big arctic hares, almost entirely snow white and a wolf out our window (or shower room window), they put out food and that attracts them. Thought it was a dog, but no dogs at the base.

One of the personnel, so nice to us, as all of them were, took us in a snow cat way out of town to see a hush-hush tracking station, filled with scads of complicated electronic gear and sensitive devices that monitored any attempt to tunnel under it or tamper with door or devices, all this after we looked over their less hush-hush weather devices on the base.

Then he drove us four kilometers out over the ice to get out and look at a huge, 2 blocks long at a guess and 30? feet high, oblong iceberg frozen in the ice. Bitterly cold except in snow cat. A beard, or my moustache turns white in a few minutes from freezing breath as it hits the hairs.

The berg and scenery across the bay, really beautiful. Eureka is on west side of Ellesmere, about halfway up at 80 degrees, N. Lat (just 69 land miles and 10 degrees from North Pole).


Photo: Erik Charlton 
The North Pole, Part 1 

The North Pole, Part 1 (The Setting)

From Volume 13 of The Armand Diaries, the following sets the scene for Armand's North Pole adventure at age 69. I was able to find a bit of information on all but one of his tour mates, quite a group of people set out on Friday, April 13, 1984, in search of the North Pole.

Hotel Leduc, Edmonton, Alberta, Room 304, $48.00 Canadian (less 20%). Nice room. Next a.m., 7:30, left for Resolute Bay, arriving early aft. in cold snow and ice. Then off by First Air's Bradley charter division Twin Otter for beautiful flight to Grise Fiord at south end of Ellesmere Island.

Dipped low over Devon Island to see ice floe and two polar bears running hard. Rough and scenery spinning past my eye. Sicker than usual. Puked my guts out. I skipped dinner at Grise Fiord hotel, but it looked scrumptious.

Beside Skip Voorhees of Special Odysseys Tours (Medina, Washington), our very able tour leader, there's big lawyer of 75 or so from Atlanta, who knows Allan Little (from 1982 Tibet trip) and who's been to South Pole (he makes about number 12 who's done both, we were told after we did make it); named Hamilton Lokey; Ladislaw and Peggy (she's Australian) Reday (Hungarian noble - told me Satori - like others in "y" are all noble - so grandma was doubtless a countess, and father and I counts!), 60-ish; Steve Tabb, retired engineer, aged 37, from Signal Mountain, Tennessee and me. Only 6 in all.

Before I went to sleep, with my roommate for the trip, Lokey, ate some of my Hershey chocolate, 4 squares. No ill effects.


Stay tuned for next week's installment. It gets cold!
Image: The North Pole

There was an old man named Armand...

 

 

 Thinking we were due for a limerick or two
(I really did not mean to rhyme), I checked the Armand blog to see what had been previously published.  I was reminded of the time Armand went to Las Vegas, just a few days after having surgery, and  followed that up with a fall that broke a few ribs.

A woman named Nikki was there when he read his limericks. This is her story: "There once was an old man named Armand"...

Listening to Horowitz

From the Armand Diaries:

Saturday, January 11, 1947 in Pittsburgh, at Syria Mosque. We drove up with Rebecca Wade, Sara Smith of History Department, plus a Miss Brown from town (rich as Croesus). I piloted Rebecca's '41 Mercury up and back. Dinner at Schenley Hotel out by U. of Pittsburgh.  Set us back between us $5 and scarcely worth it. Cooking and decor of dining room stodgy and uninspired, air of Saratoga Springs in 1895.

But the concert! Horowitz at his best. Everything he played was good, but outstanding were:

- Sonata in A major by Mozart (Kolchel 331), very good;

- Moussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, very fine, especially Gnomus, also Tuilleries, Bydlo, ballet of the Unhatched Chicks, Two Polish Jews, Limoges - The Market, The Hut on Hen's Legs, the finale,  "The Great Gate of Kiev", in its pyrotechnics, runs, splendor and strength was splendid;

- Variations on a theme by Clara Wieck by Schumann - fine;

- several superb Chopin pieces: A flat major Impromptu; C minor Etude, op. 10 with very strong left hand work - this is a well known Chopin number, perfectly rendered;

- Nocturne in F sharp major, so delicate and singing (as Mary said) was his fingering that it brought tears to my eyes and does again as I recall it now - so rippling, light.

The last regular number was Liszt's "Legend: St.Francis of Paola Walking on the Waters" - here that old master of the piano and showman met his master. Such a tempest, a flood of notes from one piano scarcely seemed possible. (Listen to an actual 1947 recording of this piece, by Horowitz).

 

I bravo'ed and bravo'ed! And he plays with no theatrics, no German gestures, so simply. For his third and fourth encore he played his famous version of Mendelssohn's Wedding March, which he also did last year - this number is also quite unbelievable.

 

Image of Syria Mosque: Mary Kunz Goldman

Photo of Vladimir Horowitz: Life Magazine

The New Year

A few quick takes from the Armand Diaries:

Sunday, January 5, 1947 - The New Year. Thought for the N.Y.:

STRIPTEASE SALE-
Coats and Dresses Half Off. An idea of mine for selling post seasonal surpluses.

Title for a book:
The Physicled Phoenician by Philmore Potts.

Next week, Armand's review of a concert by Vladimir Horowitz.


Photo: Glamour Daze

What About Smugglers?

From the Armand Diaries:

January 16, 1948.

Why do we despise the crook who steals, yet don't mind the smuggler (Mary does, though even she wouldn't equate the two crimes), who let us say can steal several hundred dollars duty from the government when he smuggles a coat or a watch worth a thousand?

Is it our anti-government, laissez-faire, independent feeling? Is it because people subconsciously rebel against the illogic of boundaries (never set, after all, by plebiscite but by a "green table" elite)?

Certainly, in all times and places, the smuggler has been a romantic (romanticized), condonable peccadillo of a sin, and in stories our sympathies are always with the law breaker. Is it, finally, because smuggling is a healthy, swashbuckling sort of crime, with all the glory but little of the murderous meanness, say of stagecoach robbing (even this, in U.S. past, not to heinous a crime if no one killed).

Photo of the Songbird Smuggler: National Geographic

A Generous Christmas in 1954

From the Armand Diaries, where Armand recorded the gifts they received from his generous mother (often referred to as Geefer):


January 1, 1955. Xmas was mainly money for us, since we asked for it, but Ann had everything: metal dishes, a stove, a nice gold ring, a large fire engine,
clothes, a set of Wedgwood child's dishes, etc., etc.

We went again to Toronto, Wednesday, December 29. Been to the White Horse Inn, near Paris, for 8 or so meals, give or take one. Otherwise, quiet rest, read and gossip.



I don't think you could get past three pages in Armand's diaries without some reference to Mother or Geefer. She wrote to him regularly, sent food and money when he was in college and later, lavished gifts and attention on his only child. It must have been a memorable Christmas,  Ann still cherishes her Peter Rabbit dish set.