Robert Birnbaum
November 2000
I was born in Bamberg, Germany, on February 20th, 1947. My parents,
Alfred and Rachel Birnbaum, had been displaced by the war from their
homes in Lvov in the Ukraine. My parents are the only two survivors
of two large Jewish families. After a brief stint in an American
displaced persons camp our family of three immigrated to the United
States of America and in December 1951 landed in Chicago, Illinois.
My father was trained as a civil engineer at the Gymnasium. He
spoke no English, so he took a job as a baker. We lived on the South
Side of Chicago — a neigborhood once proudly inhabited by Jews
— but which was turning 'colored' (Black). My first American
friend was a neighboring black boy who owned a German Shepard. I
was sent to the JPI (the Jewish People's Institute), an institution
that mirrored the horrors of the Catholic parochial school in its
adherence to a medieval approach to education.
Around 1954 we moved to the North Side of Chicago and a mere three
blocks from the Chicago Cubs' ball park, Wrigley Field (there was
also a mini Puerto Rican enclave). I knew this because of sounds
that came from their neighborhood (not barrio). I began to attend
public schools at the LeMoyne school, a mere one block from Wrigley
Field. My father (who is multilingual) had mastered enough English
to take a job as Fuller Brush Man. My mother was employed in various
office-worker positions. I became a United States citizen in 1956
and in the spirit of assimilation changed my name from Isadore (not
Izzy) to Robert (not Bob). I had adjustment problems at school and
was double promoted in the 4th grade. Also, my sister Faye was born
in 1956.
In 1957, we moved to West Rogers Park, yet further north within
the Chicago city limits. I attended the Phillip Rogers Elementary
school. It was a relatively benign period. I continued to have deportment
problems in school. I also got into my one and only fight in school.
I won handily: neither party to the scrap suffered injury. My one
friend, who was quickly anointed my best friend, was interested
in music, both jazz and folk. The seeds of my fascination with the
island of Cuba were sown by my introduction to the Afro Cuban music
of Charlie Parker and Dizzie Gillespie and Chano Pazo.
In 1959, the beatniks of Cuba triumphed over the puppet dictator
Fulgencia Batista. If nothing else their efforts in trying to govern
a former de facto American possession made for interesting television.
Like many impressionable young American males I admired Fidel, Che,
Sandy Koufax, Dave Brubeck (I've already mentioned Charlie and Dizzy)
and Steve Allen. I graduated high school in 1960 and entered the
virtually new Stephen Tyng Mather High School in the honors program
carrying five majors including German. Which is to say that I was
studying five courses that I had little interest in. I was dismissed
from the honors program by the second semester of my freshman year.
I continued to have deportment problems all through high school.
I did excel in European History and occasionally English. Mostly
because my history teacher, Dawn McKee was compelling in many aspects.
I am tempted to say sexually, but at the time I didn't recognize
such an impulse about an older woman. She did have nice legs.
My English teacher with whom I also had a controversial relationship
predicted I would never get into college. I graduated 451st out
of the 551 eager Americans that comprised our Class of 1964. I think
I was still technically a virgin. I had my driver's license. I had
a girl friend, Lois Jacobs. I think I spent the summer between high
school graduation and college as a drug story delivery boy and hanging
out at the corner of Pratt and California in Rogers Park. I had
heard rumors of a such a thing as the American dream.
In the fall of 1964, I matriculated at Loyola University's lakeshore
campus in East Rogers Park, Chicago. The previous year Loyola had
won the National Basketball championship. It was a grand time to
be there. One friend from high school, Bruce Bahrmasel, attended
with me. I was passingly friendly with the incoming freshman basketball
players (we all took compulsory non-denominational religion classes)
and I became friends with another freshman from Nebraska.
In 1965, having been sufficiently alienated from the collegiate
educational experience as rendered by the Jesuits, I flirted with
dropping out of college. Viet Nam was -- as they say now -- ramping
up. My mother's good sense prevailed and I enrolled at the local
outpost of the state junior college system. I spent one year at
Wright State College and applied for and received a scholarship
to the University of Wisconsin. My interest in Wisconsin was based
on the reputation of historians George Mosse and William Appleton
Williams. And the fact that some good friends from my high school
days were at Madison, Wisconsin, a very picturesque Big Ten town
situated on a lake.
Just days before I was to register at the University of Wisconsin
I was arrested (the charges were later dismissed in Federal Court)
for the sale and possession of two kilos of Indiana 'gold'. The
progressive U of W refused to allow my registration based on my
legal travails. Again, for the sake of appearances I was told to
register in school. I promptly registered at Roosevelt University,
a liberal arts/ commuter university located in one of Chicago's
architectural treasures. I began majoring in philosophy -- the Anglo
American ordinary language strain -- and in 1967 married a Jewish
girl from the neighborhood (we divorced as friends three years later).
I was no longer a virgin.
After three years at Roosevelt University I graduated, fully intending
to pursue an academic career…
Intermission
The more visible social dislocations of Mid-century America were
a great entertainment and influence. In August 1968, in Chicago,
I was both an observer and a participant in the Grand opera of the
1968 Democratic Presidential Convention. My most treasured image
from that era is a foto I have of William Burroughs on the stage,
in a group, at the Grant Park band shell, flashing a peace sign.
Jean Genet is sitting in the far background. In the first election
I was eligible to vote in, I voted for the Peace and Freedom Party's
presidential candidate, Black Panther Eldrige Cleaver. Looking back
on it, I am glad he ran and glad he lost.
After a string of amusing odd jobs (record company promotion man,
Earth Shoe salesman, short order cook, elementary school teacher)
I moved to Boston, Massachusetts in August of 1973. More odd jobs,
until I began teaching at a middle school in Hyde Park. Boston Public
Schools were going through their so-called busing crisis and it
was a compelling time to be in the public schools. At night, I went
to graduate school at Boston University, focusing on American history.
Some time in the late 70's, I switched careers
By 1982, after some experience at a number of publications, and
with a new partner (an innovative retailer and frustrated art director,
Don Levy) we began to publish an advertising supplement to the New
York Times called Dazzle and shortly thereafter we began the
re-engineering of STUFF Magazine. In 1998, I was fired from my position
as publisher/creative director of STUFF Magazine, by the short-fingered
vulgarian who purchased it from me in 1990.
I was married to Robin Lapidus in 1996 at the Hall of Philosophy
at the Chautaqua Institution in upstate New York near Lake Erie.
In spring of the following year our son Cuba was conceived (we believe)
the night of my return from a trip to Havana, Playa Giron and Cienfuegos
Cuba. Cuba Maxwell Birnbaum was born at Brigham and WOMEN'S hospital
at 9 am on January 24, 1998 after about 24 hours of his mother's
labor(s).
Amongst the blessings visited upon me by my parents was the devotion
and attention to reading. This was begun by weekly trips to the
Chicago Library. It even continued through my woefully inadequate
public and undergraduate education. In fact, to this day…
Which could go some distance to explaining my ongoing conversations
with practitioners of the narrative arts (amongst which I number
photographers) as diverse as Isabel Allende to Howard Zinn. In the
publication of STUFF Magazine through the 90's I interviewed hundreds
of writers. Young old, first time and accomplished and wizened veterans.
My conversations continue and the fruits of those chats have occasionally
appeared on IdentityTheory.com and other places.
I am currently living in Brookline, Massachusetts with my five-year-old
Labrador. Rosie, learning how to be a good father to my precious
son, Cuba, writing and dreaming in Cuban.
For a listing of Robert's interviews
and author portraits, visit The
Narrative Thread. Also
see: "I
am the Son of my Son"
E-mail Robert Birnbaum.
Links: Review
of Cuba: A Traveler's Literary Companion at Hyde Park Review
of Books | The
Morning News - Robert Birnbaum
|
