Thurber Thursday: Cassettes, Anyone?

Cassettes, Anyone? 

Back in the late 1970s, early 1980s, cassettes seemed to be giving vinyl records a run for their money — they were the next big thing. Altho I had been buying vinyl albums for decades, the idea of the cassette  — especially buying blank tapes and making your own mix — was appealing. I had the beginnings of a nice little collection going until compact discs showed up.

What I never thought about back then in the cassette days was buying a spoken word tape. I never even saw one (perhaps I wasn’t looking in the right section). I never thought about them until the other day when one caught my eye when it popped up on Ebay. What got my attention was that it was a  spoken word cassette of a book, read by George Rose, of James Thurber’s, The White Deer.  

Here’s what the cover of the book looked like when first published in 1945. You’ll notice the cover art is not by Thurber, but by Don Freeman. There are, however forty-some Thurber drawings within the book (done, according to Thurber, in about a day-and-a-half)*. I’ve always wondered if the publisher had considered combing through Thurber’s completed works to find a suitable Thurber deer for the cover. As accomplished as Mr. Freeman’s work is, it seems distant from the Thurber zeitgeist.  

The idea of Thurber spoken-word cassettes as a “thing” for me to begin collecting was quickly doused. I made a quick search around the internet, but sadly, found only one other Thurber spoken word cassette, The Wonderful O, “performed” by Melissa Manchester (I’m not saying there aren’t more titles — I just didn’t see any others).  So…apparently there’ll be no Thurber cassette collection added to the Spill’s archive.  

*source: Harrison Kinney’s Thurber: His Life And Times (Henry Holt & Co., 1997)

Cassette Sidebar: 

Writing this piece about Thurber cassettes made me wander into my old work room to look for a few samples of New Yorker-related cassettes. I found these right away:

At the top is a tape Roz Chast gave to me. It was common for us to swap home made tapes of favorite music. I love that she added the drawings. Below that is an interview I did with a New Yorker grand master cartoonist, Mischa Richter — the subject was Peter Arno. Next is my first interview with David Remnick — he’d been the magazine’s editor for about three years at the time. Following that is a very brief chat with the great New Yorker cartoonist, Frank Modell. Without listening to the tape now, my hunch is it was a follow-up call after a much lengthier conversation (Frank was a storyteller). Based on the date, those conversations would also have been about Peter Arno. Finally, another homemade tape. This one from my dear friend, Jack Ziegler. He was crazy about “Assassins” — wanted me to hear it; he knew I wouldn’t go out and buy a copy. The lettering is wonderfully Ziegleresque.