10. Other investors in the group were Darwin Crawley, grocery store chain magnate Owen Sampson, and Benito Jannuzzi. Rowan, ’Tis Better to Give, 28–46. Friendships with both men were short-lived. Sampson succumbed to a heart attack while attending a performance of Haydn’s Surprise Symphony. Jannuzzi disappeared at sea while attempting to disprove Thor Heyerdahl’s theory on the ancestry of the Pacific Island peoples. Heyerdahl set out in his rudimentary “Kon-Tiki” to show that Peruvians could very well have sailed and paddled their way to, as Jannuzzi contemptuously put it, “Bali Ha!” According to Jannuzzi’s more intriguing theory, Polynesians originally came from France. Jannuzzi’s hand-hewn boat, the “Funny, Little, Good-for-Nothing Mimi” went down somewhere off the island of Cyprus in the Mediterranean.
Jannuzzi, incidentally, was the husband of Naomi Fillcrest Jannuzzi, best remembered for walking up to General Patton at a London fish market in late 1943 and slapping him silly with a fresh cod. “That’s for the shell-shocked boy you struck, you insensitive cabbagehead lout,” she snarled as bobbies dragged her away from the red-faced general. Patton allegedly shrugged off the incident, although some witnesses noted that the surprise attack had the unfortunate effect of loosening his bowels.
11. Each new undertaking proved more interesting than the one before. Ibid, 56–57. Another project from which Jonathan drew special satisfaction was the commissioning of a piano concerto for his fellow World War I trenchmate, Adam Hines. Hines, whose hopes of a career on the concert stage were nearly dashed, courtesy of a Hun-launched minnie, asked Jonathan for money to fund a unique commission. Inspired by one-arm pianist Paul Wittgenstein (also a “Great War” casualty) who commissioned composer Maurice Ravel to write a piano concerto for left hand only, the result being the now legendary staple of the classical repertoire, Concerto for the Left Hand in D Major, Hines made an even more audacious request. Having lost all of his left arm and all but one digit on his right hand, Hines proposed what would eventually, through the genius of French composer Henri Bagatelle (member of the junior varsity “Les Dix”), become the “Concerto for Thumb of the Right Hand.” The piece was unevenly received in its premiere performance in Paris on June 13, 1947, although Le Monde was effusive in its praise, hailing it as a “triumph of the human spirit, a testament to artistic ingenuity and brio in the face of missing limbs and digits.”
Despite infrequent performances, a tradition has evolved over the years. In lieu of applause, audience members customarily offer a Caesarian thumbs-up or thumbs-down at the conclusion of the performance.
12. Though he was an avid collector of American art, Jonathan’s preference for the esoteric and unusual placed him, nonetheless, outside the mainstream. I had an opportunity to examine the painting in question, which now hangs in the conference room of the national headquarters for the American Association for the Elderly in Grove Dells, Wisconsin. The folk art primitivism and unnatural perspective of the colorful, well-populated landscape make it doubtful that Frolics in the Spring could have been painted by anyone but Grandma Moses. But another hand — a clearly mischievous one — is also evident, and Jonathan’s charge in an undated memo to Interim Foundation Director Alva Block that someone may have perpetrated a little artistic vandalism is a plausible one.
In the top left corner behind a barn, two tiny naked figures appear to be engaged in some kind of close body contact that may or may not involve copulation. At top center someone has endowed a draft horse with an abnormally oversized equine phallus. At bottom right, a Boschian devil figure is chasing a cow with a trident. Hanging from the roof of a small farm house is a Salvador Dali-like droopy clock.
I asked the Executive Director for AAE, Lemuel Boychoir, if he had ever noticed these anomalies before. He scratched his head and said, “Well, no.” Then he leaned in and examined the painting a little closer and said, “Oh, goodness.”
13. He was laid out for several days with a bout of hepatitis. Davison believes he contracted the disease from a tainted Bloody Caesar he drank at a family wedding reception. Davison’s diary, 20 April 1948.
14. The rash covered his entire body. Jones’s case was an exceptional one. Failing to settle the matter on his own, Jonathan dashed off this final letter, then turned the complaint over to his attorneys.
DANDY-DE-ODOR-O
388 Park Avenue
New York City
May 31, 1950
Mr. Leon Jones
1515 Higbee
Jacksontown, Illinois
Dear Mr. Jones,
I have offered you more than enough money to cover the cost of your visit to your physician and the prescribed ointments, which, though initially ineffective, have now done the trick. The rash is gone. You are a well man.
I refuse to make an additional payment to you for “pain and suffering.” Even a fool knows that you could have avoided this full body rash if you had simply applied the product as directed — to underarms only. It was your own ill-thought decision to heat the product to a state of viscous goo, then slather great globs all over your body that resulted in the pervasive rash. A part of me wonders if you knew full well the potential for this allergic reaction, but made the application, nonetheless, for the sole purpose of wringing from me a large legal settlement.
Well, think again, Mr. Jones. You would be an idiot on both counts.
If you choose to proceed with this threatened lawsuit, I am prepared to defend myself by whatever means possible.
I stand behind my product and its safety and efficacy under normal use. Only fools (or tort twits) would employ it as you have. I refuse to reward your idiocy and/or greed.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Blashette
President and Chief Executive Officer
Dandy-de-odor-o, Inc.
15. The deposition took three days. Jonathan’s relief upon completing the grueling examination by the plaintiff’s attorneys was short-lived. Upon receipt of the transcripts, plaintiff’s counsel immediately moved for the presiding judge to force Jonathan to be redeposed. The court reporter assigned to record the original deposition, a frustrated dramatist, had invalidated Jonathan’s deposition by turning his testimony (and the questions posed by opposing counsel) into a full-fledged play script. A “scene” follows. JBP.
PLACE: OFFICES OF WILLARD, WILLARD AND VOORHEES, ATTORNEYS AT LAW
TIME: THE PRESENT
DRAMATIS PERSONAE:
Percival Willard, counsel for the plaintiff, nattily dressed with patrician bearing
Jonathan Blashette, three-legged corporate executive and defendant, pensive, world-weary
Cyrus Tammey, counsel for the defendant, bulldog store-front type
Court Reporter, ruggedly handsome, rakishly charming, exuding confidence and imperturbability, and possessed of a certain je ne sais quoi that women of taste find seductively irresistible.
AT RISE: A law office conference room. A deposition in progress.