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Traducción: Carlos Pranger
Prólogo: Paul Bowles

Aquel verano Jane trabajaba en En el cenador, la pieza teatral que con tanta delicadeza estrenaría en Nueva York. Yo no soy muy aficionado al teatro; casi nunca aguanto una obra más de dos veces, pero ésta la vi tres, y no por lealtad a la autora, sino porque tenía un ingenio espinoso, el aroma de una buena copa, un amargor refrescante… las mismas cualidades que me atrajeron de entrada en Dos damas muy serias, la novela de Jane Bowles. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (16)

Tippins, FEBRUARY HOUSE
Dianne Hunter's Review
This absorbing social history of a year-long experiment in group living, written in 2005, details the creative life organized by George Davis and W.H. Auden at 7 Middagh St., Brooklyn, NY. The house (torn down in 1945 to make way room for the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway) was called February House because several of its residents had birthdays in that month. This house provided living, working, and partying space for, among others, Carson McCullers, Benjamin Britten, Paul and Jane Bowles, Richard Wright, Oliver Smith, and Gypsy Rose Lee, who composed THE G-STRING MURDERS with help from George Davis. Members and friends of the household welcomed Europeans who were fleeing Fascism. Auden wrote several of his most successful works and once considered murdering Chester Kallman in this house. Tippins's well-researched and well-written book provides an account of a louche social scene, musical, visual, and literary compositions, and the NY publishing world in the period that ended 7 December, 1941.

February House
For me this was an amazing discovery. I read a review of it in a literary magazine in the waiting room of my optician and when I got home I immediately ordered it from Amazon.
What caught my eye in the review were the names of the inhabitants of the February House - Auden, Britten,McCullers... in that amazing year. I knew of their work individually but to read of them living under the same roof was a revelation.What a cauldron of creativity! All against the background of the war in Europe and the period leading up to Pearl Harbour.As I read the book I felt as though I were there. I hope that someone will make a documentary about it or better still a dramatised reconstruction. The two Truman Capote films have blazed the trail.

What a great read!!!
A friend just recommended this book to me and it's fabulous!!!I live in an artist bldg and it's nothing compared to the energy of Middagh Street. The book is a great read and the research is most impressive. I cannot wait to read the one she's writing about the Chelsea Hotel!

That House on Middagh Street
Thomas Wolf once famously said "only the dead know Brooklyn."There might be some truth in that, but some of us know Brooklyn, N.Y.,U.S.A., pretty well,and are still very much alive.Quite a few people are aware of Brooklyn's brownstone belt, that swath of historic houses stretching from the East River to Prospect Park and beyond.Many of these people would declare Brooklyn Heights the ultimate Brooklyn brownstone neighborhood.It's beautiful, and gets scenic views of Manhattan.It's got history galore--an important Revolutionary War battle was fought here;and it's been, and still is,home to a lot of well-known important people.

One little-known fact is that a number of celebrated people shared a house on Middagh Street, in 1940-41, right in the middle of the Second World War.That house, which came to be known as February House-- a number of its residents had February birthdays-- has long since been torn down to make room for the Promenade that provides storied views of Manhattan.But among occupants of February House were poet W.H.Auden, writer Carson McCullers, writers Jane and Paul Bowles,composer Benjamin Britten, and stripper Gypsy Rose Lee.

Writer Sherill Tippens has produced an interesting, pleasantly gossipy book about the house's residents and their accomplishments.Jane Bowles began "Two Serious Ladies," her only completed novel here.The young lesbian Carson McCullers had just tasted, at the age of 23, great success with her novel "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter." She began two other great successes, "The Member of the Wedding," and "The Ballad of the Sad Cafe," between drinking bouts, right here on Middagh Street.

Auden and Britten, both homosexual, but not involved with each other, were being raked over the coals at the time by the British press for choosing to sit out World War II in the U.S. But they were working: they collaborated on the opera "Paul Bunyan,"not critically well-received. Auden who continued to live in the Heights, on his own, to pursue his lifelong, unrequited love for the young American Chester Kallman, was working hard in the interstices of his personal soap opera: He produced "The Double Man" in February House.Britten produced "Peter Grimes;"considered one of the great masterpieces of 20th century opera.Meanwhile, he pursued his own personal soap opera: many critics believe this opera echoes developments with his partner, tenor Peter Pears, at the time.

The most unexpected resident of February House would have to be Gypsy Rose Lee, burlesque artiste.She was talked into joining the fun by George Davis, homosexual himself, fiction editor of "Harpers Bazaar" magazine, whose idea February House was, and who worked hard to keep it alive.Davis had published some of his own writing, but he was best known for the talented writers he kept on discovering.

In Gypsy Lee's case, she brought some money, a lot of common sense,and a cook to Middagh Street.The house's residents needed all the above.Her reward for her support: George Davis, great editor, midwifed her book, "The G-String Murders," a publishing sensation for many years.

George Davis continued to live at 7 Middaagh Street after its time as an artistic commune had passed.After Kurt Weill's death, Davis married his widow, Lotte Lenya, and devoted his life to introducing America to Weill's great works,such as "Three Penny Opera,"from which we get "Mack the Knife."

There are some informative photographs, extensive notes and acknowledgements in February House.Tippins evidently did a lot of primary research, but she managed to organize the voluminous results in a very readable style.February House well rewards the reader.

The bump and grind of a literary bawdy house
Sherill Tippins has done an amazing job of finding the significant narrative threads in the chaotic convergence of creative lives that occurred in the months before Pearl Harbor when Harper's Bazaar editor George Davis and British expatriate poet W.H. Auden rented a brownstone on 7 Middagh Street in Brooklyn Heights and actively recruited other creative artists to live with them. Among the co-renters were Carson McCullers who had recently published her highly acclaimed first novel, "The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter," soon-to-be famous British composer Benjamin Britten and his parnter, singer Peter Pears, unpublished novelists Paul and Jane Bowles, Broadway set designer Oliver Smith, writer Richard Wright and his wife, and burlesque sensation Gypsy Rose Lee, who it turns out was the most reliable in the rent-paying department and joined the little "creative commune" on the condition that she could bring her own cook and maid. Her fiscal reliability and drive along with Auden's willingness to take on the unpleasant role of house disciplinarian (collecting rent and other "dues" and establishing and enforcing many house rules) are probably sufficient explanation for why this menage managed to last the two or three years it did.

Tippins wisely focuses her attention on the leading figures (without neglecting to name the many others who partied but did not reside at 7 Middagh--Salvador and Gala Dali, Lincoln Kirstein, George Balanchine, Erika Mann and her brothers Klaus and Golo, to name a few). One passer-through, Anais Nin, christened the dwelling "February House" because so many of the residents had February birthdays. Tippins has a good knowledge of the works of these creative people and is able to see how one of the artists intentionally or inadvertantly influenced a subsequent work of one of his or her co-residents. For example, McCullers was struggling with the novel that would later become "The Member of the Wedding" when she was able to appropriate an experience from Chester Kallman's childhood to explain her heroine's profound sense of alienation and abandonment (Kallman was Auden's lover).

Tippins other great achievement here was her ability to slice through history and palpably recreate the political atmosphere in pre-war New York and to do so in a way that reflects on both British and US perspectives. She takes a good hard look at the criticism expatriates like Auden, Christopher Isherwood, Britten, and Pears faced from the British press and fellow artists who chose to remain in Great Britian during the war. She is similarly insightful in her analysis of the role the Mann family had in trying to get an apathetic America to respond to the European crisis. A lesser writer might not have bothered with these issues and chosen to report only the salacious and saleable anecdotes about the goings-on of the February House residents.

I highly recommend this book to anyone even passingly interested in one of the artists who lived at 7 Middagh Street (you're sure to learn something new), to anyone who ever wondered how great works of art come about, or to anyone interested in knowing how history and art intersect. I'm sure I'm going to use Tippins's Selecte Bibliography as a basis for future Amazon.com purchases. ... Read more

Product Description
If Only You Could Read My Mind, by Clare Bowles, addresses the problems of couple communication in modern times. The author has analyzed a number of different combinations in couples that can cause serious problems with communication. For example, introvert-extrovert combination, where one partner is outgoing and lively and the other is quiet and silent; or the thinking-feeling combination; or the relationship where one partner is disciplined and organized and the other is a free spirit. Bowles shows us that all is not lost: even such disparate types can make a go of a relationship - and she shows us how. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Down to earth and practical to a couple new to MBTI
The cartoon of a couple each reaching past the other is what attracted me to pick up this book. Then when I flipped through it and saw that it was Psychological Type based, I bought it for my collection.

This is a book that a couple therapist wrote and had published to fill a need. It is something a couple could take away with them and are likely to read. Usually the couple can understand the concepts in the therapist's office but when they get back home the ideas get rather fuzzy. This book is short enough with lots of examples that it is likely to be read and understood.

There is a movement within the type community to look at the whole type and its complexity, but most of us working in the trenches are still dealing with helping people understand the differences within the eight preferences. Usually we don't have them long enough to get into anything more complex than the difference between being an introvert and an extrovert, etc.

This book does just that. It looks at how relationships have changed over the years due to changing roles of men and women. Then it devotes a chapter to each of the dimensions of behaviour with lots of short examples of dialogue. The last four chapters deal with better listening techniques, how to be understood, dealing with anger and criticism, and other difficult communication issues. Each of these relates to the information on type gained in the previous chapters.

This is a book I would recommend to professionals and casual readers. The professionals can gain some additional anecdotes they can use in their sessions and it is a book to recommend to their clients. The casual reader can also just pick it up, read it and gain some useful insights without having someone more knowledgeable to interpret it.... ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A Gem of a Book
I agree completely with what the previous reviewer [Parhat] said and will not bore you with variations on a theme . I have all the books on Financial Astrology that have been published and this together with the books by David Williams and Louise McWhirter are the best around . Those who know French should read also G.L. Brahy .

Cycles and Stock Maket
I purchased this book a long time ago and did not realized itsimportance. Apparently the book keeps the good stuff later in the book,prefering to teach the reader with the basics of astrology. The technique is very valuable even for those who do not believe in astrology, which is the method of averaging GDP, Stock market indexes in relation to the cycles of the planets. Of course the techniques can be applied to cycles where it can be 1 year, 1.5 year, 4 year. Once you averaged them out , then using the bradley model, you can predict the stocks - non-linearly, with a VERY GOOD predictive accuracy! Softwares are critical for you to explore and can be obtained at Alphee.com or other books by Rob Merridian or David Williams in case this book is no longer available. I have explored every technologies known in the stock markets from chaos theory, neural networks, moon tides, technical analysis, fundamental analysis, cycle analysis, EMH, factoring analysis, value line, multiple linear regression, visual recurrence analysis, etc. etc. etc. and I can say with great confidence that there is something to astrology their timing can be deadly accurate!W.D. Gann predicted the stock market crash in 1929 to the very month, missing by only a couple of days. Two British astrologers actually predicted the stock market Crash of 1987 to the very day before the crash by one year in advanced. These are all documented and are reported to newspaper before it actually occurred. You will find the details how they managed to predict them. David Williams made a million in the stock market using his astrological techniques. One astrology fund outperformed the stock markets averages in 5 out of 7 years. You will find this and other information in this book, It will change how you view the markets. It totally changed me! All these amazing fact is well worth the reading. Use it along with your fundamental and technical indicators, it is indispensible!END ... Read more