The Moscow toast
For the publisher:
I was pleased to see Jason Zinoman recognize “Harpo Speaks!”, By Harpo Marx, as the gold standard for the comedian’s memories (February 21). As a teenager in the early 1960s, I put my hands on the book and found it a lot of fun.
Particularly enjoyable is the chapter on Harpo’s trip to Russia in the fall of 1933. He ended up spending eight weeks there and did shows that earned him a standing ovation. Posters announcing his appearances, written in Cyrillic, spelled his name XAPIIO MAPKC. Harpo had no idea how to pronounce it, so he called himself “Exapno Mapcase, the Moscow toast”.
His trip to Russia ended in intrigue. On his last day in Moscow, he met with the United States ambassador, who asked him if he would be willing to smuggle some confidential dispatches to America. They were taped to his leg and hidden by a sock, and after a desperate ocean voyage, he successfully handed them over to Secret Service agents in New York.
As an artist, Harpo never spoke a word while in the character, but as a member of the Algonquin Roundtable, he lived with names like George S. Kaufman, Robert Benchley and Dorothy Parker.
He was a fascinating and multitalented man who led an extraordinary life.
Richard Gallagher
Fishkill, NY
Making history
For the publisher:
Discussing Robert Elder’s biography of John C. Calhoun (February 28), Andrew Delbanco writes that, in the wake of the January 6 uprising, a study of the “ideological father of the Confederation may be as welcome as an exhumed corpse. “.
But when it comes to official approval, Calhoun wasn’t even buried. Go back and watch that man waving the Confederate flag around the Capitol that day, and behind him you will see, still occupying a place of honor on the wall, a portrait of Calhoun. Was it a smile on his face that I detected while he looked?
David Margolick
New York
♦
For the publisher:
Delbanco concludes his astute portrait of John Calhoun, that “zealous defender of slavery”, characterizing those who supported last year’s vote count in states challenged by Donald Trump and his supporters as having adopted the Calhoun states’ philosophy of rights – a juxtaposition that Delbanco labels “One of the supreme ironies of American history.”
No way. Defending the popular vote for president of a state in November 2020 is a far cry from what Calhoun understood as “state rights”. South Carolina – in which Calhoun was an important political figure for four decades – did not even allow its citizens to vote for president before the Civil War, long after his death.
So my Republican lawmakers who sought to override Pennsylvania’s popular vote – some even proposed that the legislature itself choose voters – are Calhoun’s heirs, not those of us who demand that “all votes count.” And just as the idea that blacks would vote would have horrified the racist Calhoun, his heirs today were, above all, opposed to Philadelphia’s great African-American vote.
Robert Shaffer
Mechanicsburg, Pa.
Who says
For the publisher:
In Ibram X. Kendi’s By the Book interview (February 28), one of the questions asks: “How do you advise readers to approach books like ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’, books with conflicting racial attitudes or difficult to analyze? “
There is nothing conflicting or difficult to analyze about this. The novel is an unquestionable accusation of racism, as well as one of the greatest studies on human nature ever published.
Have we strayed so far that we no longer recognize a true classic of American literature? What a field day Mark Twain would have had with this.
Cory Franklin
Wilmette, Ill.