putterings 603 < 604 > 605 index
Abstract painting has given dignity to people’s putteringing with colors.
The voices break above the noise of traffic on Madison Avenue, slips of speech during an intermission at a Town Hall recital, even while waiting for a Monday night lecture to begin, voices among people you’d least expect to talk about their psyche as freely as an appendectomy. The girl examines your admission ticket to a lecture class at the New School. The next time, you stop and talk. She plays with clay, making glazed ash trays. Abstract painting has given dignity to people’s puttering with colors. Why don’t you sit in with the class, you ask, instead of taking a seat against the wall? “Oh, [191] I feel kind of left out as a ticket-taker. And that’s exactly what my analyst warned me against. You have to mingle with people in order to relate to them. You just can’t wish it in your mind.” What about the professor, do you ever feel like disagreeing with her? “Oh her! She thinks the entire world is an Oedipus situation!”
ex Julius Horwitz, “The Voices,” in The City (1953) : 184-196 (190)
borrowable at archive.org : link
Julius Horwitz (1920-1986)
About the Author (same volume) : link
Julius Horwitz papers (73 boxes) at Boston University
SPE-00421 : link
an interesting “Scope and Contents”
—
“Julius Horwitz Is Dead; Wrote on Social Issues”
The New York Times (May 20, 1986) : link
Julius Horwitz, the author of nine books, many of them dealing with the welfare system and other social issues, died of a heart attack Sunday at his home in Larchmont, N.Y. He was 65 years old.
A native of Cleveland, Mr. Horwitz worked from 1956 to 1962 as a caseworker for the New York City Welfare Department.
His first novel, “The Inhabitants,” a critical look at the city's welfare system, was published in 1960.
In 1953, the year he graduated from the New School for Social Research, Mr. Horwitz published “The City,” a collection of short stories and sketches about New York.
His novels included “Natural Enemies,” which was made into a movie starring Hal Holbrook, Jose Ferrer and Viveca Lindfors; “Can I Get There by Candlelight,” about Americans in England during World War II, and “The W.A.S.P.,” about the explosive relationships between a young black minister of a Harlem storefront church and a group of sympathetic whites.
Mr. Horwitz is survived by his wife, Lois, of Larchmont, and two sons, Jonathan, of Salem, Mass., and David, of Philadelphia.
all titles at LoC
- The City (1953)
LoC : permalink - The Inhabitants (1960)
LoC : permalink - Can I Get There by Candlelight (1964)
LoC : permalink - The Wasp (1967)
LoC : permalink - The Diary of A. N. : The Story of the House on West 104th Street. (1970)
LoC : permalink - The Married Lovers (1973)
LoC : permalink - Natural Enemies (1975)
LoC : permalink - Landfall (1977)
LoC : permalink - The Best Days (1980)
LoC : permalink
other marked passages, in “The Voices” —
- The typewriter has six lines of a poem on ruach. Dust on the piano. [185]
- In Washington Square men always speak to the trees, for only the trees will listen. [187]
- “I had to quit writing scripts for a while,” the hostess speaks up, “to get myself cleared. I went from on analyst to another up and down Central Park West riding the leather couch circuit. You know, even when you’re a writer and think you’re pretty clever, even if it’s only radio shows. It’s like a long-winded soap opera the way they dig down into your past — uncensored of course by NBC officials.” “And I’m just beginning,” the secretary announces. “It’s funny to think you're just at the beginning. It’s a little like being born with everything but yourself.” [191]
- “But you know, Zus, I shudder sometimes when I think of all the girls in publishing in New York. I think they’re the ones who rush off to the psychoanalysts. What are they after in the printed word? And that includes me! Who’s left to have the babies? Do you know what I think? We all want to be artists. God, what a curse the legend of the artist put on us poor people from Chicago. An artist is free the way people are really supposed to be free, he expresses himself the way people are really supposed to express themselves — and the expression is understood. That’s an idea you know, and not a little one. I think analysis must be delicious, really delicious!” But not on $55.00 a week less tax deductions, social security, phone bill, lunches, subway fare. [194]
22 May 2026