Anything That Burns You

by Terese Svoboda

  p. 270 Defining what was American in music: “Copland and the American Sound,” pbs.org/keepingscore.

  p. 270 “Most friendful man in America”: Ridge to Lawson, 24 July 1930.

  p. 270 “Piano Variations”: “Copland and the American Sound,” pbs.org/keepingscore.

  p. 270 Rewriting “Symphonic Ode”: Ridge to Lawson, 10 Sept. 1930.

  p. 270 Approved in 1955: Crist 2000, 262.

  p. 270 “Only got to work today”: Ridge to Lawson, 15 Sept. 1930.

  p. 270 Glick’s oratorio: Ridge to Louise Adams Floyd, 21 Jan. 1930.

  p. 270 “I reading aloud to her”: Ridge to Floyd, 21 Jan. 1930.

  p. 270 Collaboration with LaViolette: Ames to Ridge, 28 Apr. 1930.

  p. 270-271 “You belong definitely with the coming group”: qtd. in Pollack 2000, 106.

  p. 271 “Essence of contemporary reality”: Copland to Ridge, 21 Apr. 1931, qtd. in Copland and Perlis 1984, 183.

  p. 271 “We listened to Aaron Copland’s Billy the Kid…”: Ridge, Diary 10 and 11 Nov. 1940.

  p. 271 Strand and Copland friends: Pollack 2000, 257.

  p. 271 Reading Frazer, working on Sonnets: Kukil 2014.

  p. 271 “White hope”: William Rose Benét to Ridge, 9 Aug. 1930.

  p. 271 “Second bottle of Gynergen”: Ridge to Lawson, 24 July 1930.

  p. 272 Another on Aug. 9: Ridge to Lawson, 9 Aug. 1930.

  p. 272 “A bottle…to you tonight”: Lawson to Ridge, 11 Aug. 1930.

  p. 272 “Some time together”: Ridge to Lawson, 16 Aug. 1930.

  p. 272 “You’ll take me to Museum of art”: ibid.

  p. 272 “Suppose you won’t want to”: Lawson to Ridge, 27 Aug. 1930.

  p. 272 Clock and Gynergen: Lawson to Ridge, 7 Sept. 1930.

  p. 272 “Don’t forget the Gynergen”: Ridge to Lawson, 15 and 22 Sept. 1930.

  p. 272 “You called up to me”: Kukil 2014.

  p. 272 Eight vases of flowers: Ridge to Lawson, 16 Aug. 1930.

  p. 272 “If you had more interest in my work”: Ridge to Lawson, [Aug.] 1930.

  p. 272 “Powwow on the trend of American letters”: Ridge to Lawson, 23 Aug. 1930.

  p. 272 “Dare to talk to you as an equal”: “Stan” to Ridge, [Sept. 1930].

  p. 272 Ames asked to meet Lawson: Ridge to Lawson, 17 July 1930.

  p. 272 “It won’t be possible for me to come up”: Lawson to Ridge, 23 Sept. 1930.

  p. 273 “Care and attention…should help”: ibid.

  p. 273 “They seem quite eager”: Ridge to Lawson, 25 Sept. 1930.

  p. 273 Had to find another publisher: Ridge to Lawson, 12 Oct. 1930.

  p. 273 “Frightful headache and ready to scream”: Ridge to Lawson, 3 Oct. 1930.

  p. 273 Money for teeth: ibid.

  p. 273 Once wrote her husband twice a day: Ridge to Lawson, 14 Oct. 1930.

  p. 273 “I must have Gynergen”: Ridge to Lawson, 21 Oct. 1930.

  p. 273 “Trees like evening fountains of gold”: Ridge to Lawson, 12 Oct. 1930.

  p. 273 Group to select new guests: Ames to Ridge, 24 Jan. 1933. Kukil 2014. All Kukil citations show photographs of the letters at smith.edu/libraries/libs/ssc/yaddo/lola6.html.

  Chapter 29 — Europe on Patronage

  p. 274 Ridge set sail on the Tuscania: Ridge to Louise Adams Floyd, 18 May 1931.

  p. 274 “Building a Babylon”: McCarron 1995, 22.

  p. 274 “Until I lost their dear faces in the dark”: Ridge to Louise Adams Floyd, 18 May 1931.

  p. 274 “Mrs. Richter…”: Ridge to Josephine Boardman Crane, 18 Oct. 1931. According to the address scribbled on Ridge to Lawson, 17 Aug. 1932, Mrs. Richter lived in Warren County, Malverne Lodge.

  p. 274 “If only…Palestine”: Ridge to Lawson, 29 June 1929.

  p. 274 Asked around for additional funding: Ridge to Lawson, 15 June 1931.

  p. 274 “Make friends with other women”: Ridge to Lawson, 20 May 1931.

  p. 275 “This thought troubles me”: Ridge to Floyd, 30 July 1931.

  p. 275 “Babylonian notes and my slippers!”: Ridge to Lawson, 24 May 1931.

  p. 275 “The sea…thunderous song”: ibid.

  p. 275 Never getting seasick: Ridge to Lawson, 16 June 1931.

  p. 275 “Got a match?”: Ridge to Lawson, 24 May 1931.

  p. 275 “We’ve been depending on America”: Ridge to Lawson, 26 May 1931.

  p. 275 Major European banks: Coy Apr. 20, 2011. bloomberg.com/bw/magazine/content/11_18/b4226012481756.htm

  p. 275 17th century country house: Ridge to Lawson, 26 and 30 May 1931.

  p. 275 “Enchanted with the English countryside”: Ridge to Lawson, 1 June 1931.

  p. 275 “Algerian claret”: Ridge to Lawson, 2 June 1931.

  p. 275 “Ruthless female hate”: Ridge to Lawson, 8 June 1931.

  p. 275 “He’s an old satyr”: Ridge to Lawson, 10 June 1931.

  p. 275 Richard Hughes: “Richard Hughes,” biography.yourdictionary.com.

  p. 276 “Sat and talked for two hours”: Ridge to Lawson, 16 June 1931.

  p. 276 Five hundred drowned: “Taunted to Disaster,” Advertiser and Adelaide 18 June 1931.

  p. 276 Lost baggage, withdrawal: Ridge to Lawson, 15 June 1931.

  p. 276 “Stupid self-absorption”: Ridge to Lawson, 16 June 1931.

  p. 276 Ajaccio reminiscent of New Zealand: ibid.

  p. 276 Paintings by Paterson: accessible online at bonhams.com/auctions/17228/lot/12/.

  p. 276 Center of European organized crime: Hamel 2013.

  p. 276 “As safe here as…New York”: Ridge to Lawson, 16 June 1931.

  p. 276 French invasion: “Cleaning up Corsica! [1931],” britishpathe.com/video/cleaning-up-corsica. Also reported in “Rival Arguments: Corsican Bandits Fight,” Morning Bulletin 11 Nov. 1931.

  p. 276 “Let him rest, poor chap”: Ridge to Lawson, 24 June 1931.

  p. 276 No bread money: Ridge to Lawson, [11] July 1931.

  p. 277 “Pushed into the position of a parasite”: Ridge to Lawson, 21 July 1931.

  p. 277 Kennan’s activism: Ferguson 2011.

  p. 277 Lover of Cyril Kay-Scott: Falk 1996; and Lloyd 1995/1996.

  p. 277 “Malicious behavior”: Ridge to Lawson, 16 Mar. 1932.

  p. 277 Always too poor to return the money: Ridge to Lawson, 23 July 1931.

  p. 277 “Did you get your expected raise?” Ridge to Lawson, 5 July 1931.

  p. 277 “I shall write to Mrs. W. Murray Crane”: Ridge to Lawson, 25 July 1931.

  p. 277 Helped found the Met, weekly salon, checks to Ridge: Wheelock 2002, 173; Willis 2010.

  p. 277 Checks to Ridge: Ridge to Josephine Crane, 26 Oct. 1928.

  p. 277 “Some epidemic on”: Ridge to Lawson, 23 July 1931.

  p. 277 “Bad form of malaria”: Ridge to Lawson, 26 July 1931.

  p. 278 “Unboiled for the first month”: Ridge to Lawson, 31 July 1931.

  p. 278 Bennett’s Parisian death: Westley 1959.

  p. 278 Suspected Thomson’s rumor: Ridge to Lawson, 4 Aug. 1931.

  p. 278 “Cost of traveling in Arabia enormous”: ibid.

  p. 278 “Decrease by train the distance”: Ridge to Floyd, 30 July 1931.

  p. 278 “I’ll die with hatred of this city”: Ridge to Lawson, 3 Aug. 1931.

  p. 278 “My place is with the outlaws”: Ridge to Lawson, 11 Aug. 1931.

  p. 278 Avoidance of the poor old Frenchman: Ridge to Lawson, 31 July 1931.

  p. 278 He could solicit their friends: Ridge to Lawson, 12 Aug. 1931.

  p. 278 Accepted sixty dollars, chided him: Ridge to Lawson, 14 Aug. 1931.

  p. 278 “Learned to live cheaply”: Ridge to Joseph Brewer, [1931].

  p. 278 “All those bourgeois”: Ridge to Lawson, 23 Aug. 1931.

  p. 278 “Fearful of its cosmopolitan expensiveness”: Scott to Ridge, 4 Oct. 1931.

  p. 278 Dietrich in Blue Angel: “Movie Star Heightens Allure of French Riviera,” travelnostalgia.com.

  p. 278 N
abokov, Hemingway, Fitzgerald: T. Jones 2004, 71.

  p. 279 The wine was cheap: Ridge to Lawson, 23 Aug. 1931.

  p. 279 “Do not think I am starving”: Ridge to Lawson, 30 Aug. 1931.

  p. 279 “Only one policeman”: Ridge to Lawson, 8 Sept. 1931.

  p. 279 “Communism will sweep the entire world”: Ridge to Floyd, [1931].

  p. 279 16 percent unemployment: Kangas 1996.

  p. 279 “I must not let my work spoil yours”: Ridge to Lawson, 4 Sept. 1931.

  p. 279 “Do not send me any money Oct.”: Ridge to Lawson, 8 Sept. 1931.

  p. 279 Started her Babylon poem: ibid.

  p. 279 “Hunch-backed beauty”: Ridge to Lawson, 4 Oct. 1931.

  p. 280 Falling markets, bad exchanges: Rothbard 2000, 257-277.

  p. 280 “Everywhere whispers of revolution”: Ridge to Lawson, 13 Oct. 1931.

  p. 280 “Try and save a little”: Ridge to Lawson, 19 Oct. 1931.

  p. 280 “Most gorgeous sunset”: Ridge to Lawson, 25 Oct. 1931.

  p. 280 “Huge rats”: ibid.

  p. 280 “I can’t think”: Ridge to Lawson, 26 Oct. 1931.

  p. 280 “Someone had been murdered a few minutes before”: Ridge to Lawson, 31 Oct. 1931.

  p. 280 Bird’s travels to Baghdad: Bird 1891, 26-45.

  p. 280 Bell’s travels: Freeman 2014.

  p. 280 Ridge travelled with one of Bell’s books: Ridge to Lawson, 16 Mar. 1932.

  p. 280 “Conceited, gushing, flat-chested”: qtd. in Freeman 2014.

  p. 280 “Well-spent morning”: ibid.

  p. 280 Bell died: ibid.

  p. 280 Bell appeared as a ghost: Ridge, Diary, 29 Mar. 1941.

  p. 280 “I’m in the old mood”: Ridge to Lawson, 31 Oct. 1931.

  p. 281 28-hour desert crossing: Ridge to Lawson, 28 Oct. 1931.

  p. 281 “Hate streamed like a deadly fire”: Ridge to Lawson, 2 Nov. 1931.

  Chapter 30 — Babylon and Back

  p. 282 Largest city in the world: George 1992.

  p. 282 “Gate of the Gods,” evil, whore, first wheel, agriculture, base-60, writing, Hammurabai: Mark 2011.

  p. 282 Site of the ancient Flood: MacDonald 1988.

  p. 282 Nebuchadnezzar’s Hanging Gardens: Dalley 2013.

  p. 282 Tower of Babel, working conditions: MacFarquar 2003.

  p. 282 “Disney for a Despot”: McLachlan 2012.

  p. 282 Babel software: babel.ifarchive.org/program.html.

  p. 282 Destruction of the city’s history: Tucker 2009.

  p. 282 Ritz stationary: Ridge to Lawson, 31 Oct. 1931.

  p. 282 “On special request”: ibid.

  p. 282 Another American writing about Babylon: ibid.

  p. 282 “These things are in the air”: ibid.

  p. 282 “Filled with appalling filth”: Ridge to Lawson, 1 Nov. 1931.

  p. 283 “Someone will come to the rescue”: Ridge to Lawson, 31 Oct. 1931.

  p. 283 “I’m without reliable information”: Ridge to Lawson, 2 Nov. 1931.

  p. 283 Stoned by the locals: Ridge to Lawson, 1 Nov. 1931.

  p. 283 “Are they not hated everywhere?”: ibid.

  p. 283 “Old lung trouble”: Ridge to Lawson, 11 Nov. 1931.

  p. 283 Two servants: ibid.

  p. 283 “Worst climate…in the world”: ibid.

  p. 283 Death toll of 415/787: “Cholera Epidemic Sweeps Irak,” The Straits Times 14 Sept. 1931, 12; and “Port Health,” The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser 6 July 1931, 17.

  p. 283 “I’m glad I’ve come”: Ridge to Floyd, 12 Nov. 1931.

  p. 283 Hillah terrible for tourists: Ridge to Lawson, 1 Nov. 1931.

  p. 283 “Very dirty town”: Ridge to Lawson, Nov. 1 1931.

  p. 283 “You will need the money: Ridge to Lawson, Nov. 17 1931.

  p. 283 “A bit like living on my wits”: Ridge to Lawson, 11 Nov. 1931.

  p. 283 “Ought to get together soon”: ibid.

  p. 284 Iraq’s Kristallnacht: Ehrlich 2011.

  p. 284 Arabs educated in Germany: Jankowski and Gershoni 1997, 18.

  p. 284 Return to Islamic values: Yousif 2012, 23.

  p. 284 “Only death will stop me”: Ridge to Lawson, 11 Nov. 1931.

  p. 284 “Like an out-raged turkey-hen”: Ridge to Floyd, 12 Nov. 1931.

  p. 284 Bell’s heroic maneuver at Hillah: Bell 1927, chapter 26.

  p. 284 Excavations from 1875: Transactions 1877.

  p. 284 “Intact but for the head”: Ridge to Lawson, 17 Nov. 1931.

  p. 285 “She peed copiously”: ibid.

  p. 285 “Very nice Irishman”: ibid.

  p. 285 Asked for a $100 advance: ibid.

  p. 285 “Dear persons and angel-publishers”: Ridge to Joseph Brewer, 3 Dec. 1931.

  p. 285 “Same with most everyone”: Ridge to Lawson, 17 Nov. 1931.

  p. 285 “Fifty dollars a month”: ibid.

  p. 285 “Help you to bear it”: ibid.

  p. 285 “6 cases of Bubonic plague”: ibid. Reports of one case of plague ran in The Straits Times on 23 Mar., 13 July, 14 Sept., and 28 Dec. 1931, under the heading “Health in Eastern Ports.”

  p. 285 “Killed a scorpion tonight”: Ridge to Lawson, 17 Nov. 1931.

  p. 285 Travelled to Kish: ibid.

  p. 286 Ancient bricks and pottery: Gertrude Bell to H. B., 30 June 1923, 28 Nov. 1923, and 22 Jan. 1924, in Bell 1927.

  p. 286 Beirut or Jerusalem: 17 Nov. 1931.

  p. 286 “Could not get any reduction”: Ridge to Lawson, 22 Nov. 1931.

  p. 286 “The Great Death Pit”: Mark 2011.

  p. 286 Complex series of streets: “Shops and Businesses in Ur” 2010.

  p. 286 Sumerian ziggurat: “The Ziggurat of Ur-Nammu” 2010.

  p. 286 Goddesses important until married off: Leick 1991; and Neill 2011, 85.

  p. 286 Woolley gave Ridge a tour: Ridge to Lawson, 2 Dec. 1931.

  p. 286 My wonderful friends: ibid.

  p. 287 “I’d love to make India”: ibid.

  p. 287 “Cholera…kept them away”: Ridge to Lawson, 18 Nov. 1931.

  p. 287 Doctor wanted her hospitalized: Ridge to Lawson, 8 Dec. 1931 [misdated 8 Nov.].

  p. 287 “Inadequate covers”: ibid.

  p. 287 “Your brave clear spirit”: ibid.

  p. 287 Driver ignored her urgings for speed: Ridge to Lawson, 16 Dec. 1931 [misdated 16 Nov.].

  p. 287 “Approach of danger has put me into high spirits”: Ridge to Lawson, 19 Dec. 1931.

  p. 287 Fortune-telling Englishman: ibid.

  p. 287 Funds from her Park Ave. doctor: Ridge to Lawson, 9 Dec. 1931. Her Guggenheim application mentioned his address at 940 Park Avenue.

  p. 288 “Starving young men would be trying not to die”: Lebesque 1960.

  p. 288 Moved to Rue Arago, fancy Hotel Slavia: Ridge to Lawson, 15 Jan. 1932; and “Slavia Hotel,” europeana.eu.

  p. 288 President assassinated: “Paul Gorguloff” Wikipedia.

  p. 288 “Surprised at your silence”: Ridge to Lawson, 25 Dec. 1931.

  p. 288 “Practically suicide”: ibid.

  p. 288 “Some mysterious force”: Ridge to Lawson, 15 Jan. 1932.

  p. 288 Changed the wallpaper, breakfast in bed until noon: Ridge to Lawson, 28 Jan. 1932.

  p. 288 “Buy a roll and a slice of ham”: ibid.

  p. 288 “Hitler will make Paris”: Ridge to Floyd, 17 Jan. 1932.

  p. 288 Half million recruits with six million hungry: Mühlberger 2004, 539.

  p. 288 Continuous turmoil: “The Rise of Adolf Hitler: Hitler Runs for President,” historyplace.com.

  p. 288 France was the archenemy: Kershaw 2008, 151.

  p. 288 “Fighting year of peace”: Ridge to William Floyd, 17 Jan. 1931.

  p. 289 “My work, my work”: Ridge to Lawson, 21 Jan. 1932.

  p. 289 “Haven’t really done any work…”: Ridge to Lawson, 21 Feb. 1932 [misdated 1931].

  p. 289 “We had not corresponded for years…”: Ridge to Floyd, [Paris
, 1932].

  p. 290 “I have not forgotten you”: Alexander Berkman to Ridge, 25 Dec. 1927, qtd. in Avrich 2005, 58.

  p. 290 Berkman’s suicide: Goldman 1936.

  p. 290 “The only thing I am going back for is you”: Ridge to Lawson, 8 Feb. 1932.

  p. 290 “I’ll be able to cook cheaply”: Ridge to Lawson, 21 Feb. 1932 [misdated 1931].

  p. 290 “Help raise my passage money”: ibid.

  p. 290 Marquis, artist and photographer: Lawson 2010/1976, xvi.

  p. 290 “I won’t take advantage of Hyman”: Ridge to Lawson, 11 Mar. 1932.

  p. 290 Isadora Duncan: Flanner 1927.

  p. 291 “I am strangely hardy”: Ridge to Lawson, 16 Mar. 1932.

  p. 291 “Stately and rather weighty content”: ibid.

  p. 291 “I think it’s good”: ibid.

  p. 291 “I should die right there”: Ridge to Lawson, 22 Mar. 1932.

  p. 291 No identification, no contacts, no money: Ridge to Lawson, 30 Mar. 1932.

  Chapter 31 — The Radical Left in the 1930s

  p. 292 Emergency Committee for Southern Political Prisoners: Cohen 2011, 18.

  p. 292 Dos Passos and sixteen writers: Carr 2004, 277.

  p. 292 “We might possibly make it more humane”: qtd. in ibid., 278.

  p. 292 “Take Communism away from the Communists”: Wilson 1931, 238.

  p. 292 Members of the National Defense committee: Dilling 1934, 144; Sherwood Anderson, fundraising letter, Jan. 1932, CUNY Digital Archives; W. E. Woodward, letter to members of the Writers’ League Against Lynching, 24 Dec. 1934, University of Florida Digital Collections. In 1938 Grattan proclaimed there were no Australian women poets of note, according to Vickery 2007, 78.

  p. 292 Poets promoted conscious participation: Filreis 2008, 314.

  p. 292 “Anarcho-individualistic, Freudian”: Filreis 2008, fn 126; and Rosenthal 1956.

  p. 293 Stein was still getting positive reviews: Filreis 2008, 9. Communist art theorist Sidney Finkelstein (1947) wrote that Stein “stimulat[ed] a sensitivity to the sounds and rhythms of speech [and] a careful examination of each word” (194-198).

  p. 293 “Naïve, sentimental and hackneyed”: Filreis 2008, 9.

  p. 293 “Disgust for institutions”: Deutsch 1935, 29.

  p. 293 “Some wild incomprehensible”: Filreis 2008, 105.

  p. 293 The Left neglected women: Wald 2002, 256.

  p. 293 “I discovered that the John Reed club”: Edwin Rolfe to Ridge, 9 June 1932.