Pheaturing Cathy Goldsmith

 

Hey, kids, welcome to the Phile for a Monday. How are you? President-elect Joe Biden visited the graves of his first wife, Neilia, and his baby daughter Naomi on the 48th anniversary of their death. The two were killed in a devastating car crash that also badly injured Biden’s sons, Hunter and Beau. The 78-year-old visited the graves at the Roman Catholic Church St. Joseph on the Brandywine in Wellington, Delaware. He also attended the morning service Friday morning accompanied by his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, their daughter Ashley Biden and her husband Howard Krein, according to the Associated Press. The crash occurred on December 18th, 1972, weeks after Biden was first elected to the Senate. He was in Washington D.C. at the time of the crash, setting up his new office when he learned of the tragic news. Neilia was driving home from Christmas tree shopping with the couple’s three children, 13-month-old Naomi Biden, 4-year-old Beau, and 3-year-old Hunter when their station wagon collided with a tractor-trailer at an intersection outside Wilmington. Biden was 30-years-old at the time. According to local news reports at the time, the station wagon was “demolished” and “A Christmas tree, briefcase, telephone index cards and literature from Biden’s Senate campaign were thrown from the car.” On January 5th, 1973, the former vice president, who is a Democrat, was sworn in as a U.S. Senator for Delaware at Beau’s bedside while he was in Wellington Hospital still recovering from the crash. Both boys made full recovery from the injuries, with Biden saying during his 2015 speech, “by focusing on my sons, I found my redemption.” Unfortunately, Beau died in 2015 after a long battle with brain cancer at the age of 46. His death was a factor in the president-elect’s decision not to run for president in 2016. He told "60 Minutes" it was a decision that took a long time for them to decide, and that “everybody grieves at a different pace.” Biden often spoke about his personal tragedies while he was on the campaign trail during the presidential election relating to voters currently grieving the death of loved ones due to the coronavirus pandemic. Five years after the tragic crash, he married his now wife Jill Biden to which he credits with anchoring his emotions and faith in the decades following their losses.

It’s interesting to see how long it actually has taken to ban symbols that have represented hate for decades now, but no matter how late it may seem, at least there’s progress. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has just signed a bill that goes into effect immediately that states that the New York state will, “no longer sell or display anything considered a ‘symbol of hate,’ including the Confederate flag.” I’m curious to see the uproars against this bill. The bill was introduced earlier this year, stating the prohibition of, “selling or displaying of symbols of hate or any similar image, or tangible personal property, inscribed with such an image,’ on public property. It states, “The term ‘symbols of hate’ shall include, but not be limited to, symbols of White supremacy, neo-Nazi ideology or the battle flag of the Confederacy.” The Confederate symbol’s historical purpose has been proudly represented by those who claim its heritage and pride but also shunned by those who claim its representation of racism. Nevertheless, it has been popularly used among White Supremacist groups, and the Anti-Defamation League has officially deemed it a hate symbol. Gov. Cuomo addressed the potential attitudes of intolerance and hate as a reason for signing the bill, writing, “The horrific rash of anti-Semitic, anti-African American, anti-Hispanic and anti-LGBTQ behavior spreading across the United States is repugnant to our values as New Yorkers and Americans, and a new generation now bears witness to a rising tide of discrimination, hatred and violence that threatens generations of progress. By limiting the display and sale of the confederate flag, Nazi swastika and other symbols of hatred from being displayed or sold on state property, including the state fairgrounds, this bill will help safeguard New Yorkers from the fear-instilling effects of these abhorrent symbols.” With everything that has happened this year, from the murder of George Floyd to the tricky presidential fight between Trump and Biden to dealing with the COVID-19/coronavirus pandemic, many Americans have either deemed the Confederate flag as a symbol of racism or of classic American culture, with no room for indifference in standing neutral. Many had addressed their detest for the flag, while others try to contest by emphasizing free speech as stated by the First Amendment. However, according to CNN, the U.S. Navy and the Marines have already banned displays of Confederate flags, and voters in Mississippi have approved changing their state flag, which contains the Confederate battle emblem, to one that has a magnolia flower. I don’t think there should be an issue in banning “symbols of hate,” even if people could advocate for why they are not. Everyone does understand that even if advocating for the Confederate flag is plausible, it can still represent hate to others. And I do believe that should be enough motivation to make moves in ridding our country of it. I think it’s important that we do our best to remain unified more than ever, and the Confederate flag, if anything, is a reminder of division in the United States.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell got their first doses of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine. The Congressional leaders are among the highest-ranking government officials to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, following Vice President Mike Pence who was vaccinated on live TV Friday morning. Pence decided to have the Pfizer-Biontech COVID-19 vaccine on live TV in order to promote the safety, “and efficiency of the vaccine, and build confidence among the American people. After getting the vaccine, Pence thanked a technician at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, stating, “I didn’t feel a thing... well done.” Pence, who is a Republican, stated it was “truly an inspiring day” as he promoted the vaccine and praised the work of the coronavirus task force he leads. He did add that vigilance was still necessary and encouraged Americans to keep practicing social distancing and keep wearing their face mask as recommended by the CDC. His wife, second lady Karen Pence, also took the vaccine on live television. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, stated that this day should remind the rest of the country to “step up to the plate.” He also reassured people who are skeptical of the COVID-19 vaccine, noting that the decision to call the new vaccine effective and safe “was not in the hands of the company, nor was it in the hands of the administration,” but in the hands of independent vaccinologists and scientists. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell both got the first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine as well. Through Twitter, Pelosi released a statement noting, “Today, with confidence in science & at the direction of the Office of the Attending Physician, I received the COVID-19 vaccine. As the vaccine is being distributed, we must all continue mask-wearing, social distancing & other science-based steps to save lives & crush the virus.” Pelosi’s announcement was followed by McConnell, tweeting, “Just received the safe, effective COVID vaccine following continuity-of-government protocols. Vaccines are how we beat this virus.” Capital Physician, Dr. Brian P. Monahan was the one who administered the shot, informing all members of the House of Senate that they are eligible under government continuity guidelines. If so, lawmakers were asked to make separate appointments in order to be vaccinated. President-Elect Joe Biden is set to receive the COVID-19 shot on Monday in Delaware along with his wife Dr. Jill Biden. Vice president-elect Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff will get it the following week. As far as President Donald Trump, he has not gotten the COVID-19 vaccine yet. He tweeted, “I am not scheduled to take the vaccine, but look forward to doing so at the appropriate time.”

A new billboard located in downtown Phoenix shows where anti-trump citizens hope President Donald Trump will end up after leaving the White House. The billboard features Trump in an orange prison jumpsuit behind bars. He has a name tag that reads “Don the Con.” There are also mushroom clouds behind Trump with swastika-like dollar signs right next to him. The billboard is said to be located on Grand Avenue near 11th Avenue. Below the picture of Trump is a digital clock that reads “TRUMP DEATH CLOCK” and gives the number of COVID-19 deaths in the United States, which as of December 18th is more than 311,000. The billboard also notes that people should wear face masks to go with COVID-19 guidelines. The new billboard comes after similar billboards were there for around three years. It had Trump in a regular suit with the same mushroom clouds behind him and the dollar signs that look like swastikas. That billboard was said to be created by Los Angeles artist Karen Fiorito, who was commissioned by the billboard’s owner Beatrice Moore. Check it out...

Fiorito posted several images to her Facebook of the artwork being installed, asking her followers, “What should we call it? 1. Don the Con 2. Lock Him Up 3. Bye Don! 4. Trump for Prison 2020.” Moore also decided to post images of the billboard to her social media account which lists her occupation as Director at the Grand Avenue Billboard Project. This is the third political message that was created on the billboard, over the last 4 years. The project Facebook page notes, “Artists are commissioned to create an image for this privately funded billboard project.” The billboard comes after Trump lost the November election to President-Elect Joe Biden, and the question if President Donald Trump may face criminal charges since he will no longer be granted presidential immunity was brought up. The New York district attorney is pursuing an investigation into whether Trump or his companies or family members committed any fraud, following the release of his tax returns during the campaign which showed that he paid minimum contributions.

It's official: Boba Fett and Fennec Shand will be off on a new adventure in a new original series "The Book of Boba Fett" In addition to that, "The Mandalorian" director Robert Rodriguez could direct the upcoming Star Wars show. The announcement comes from the official Star Wars Twitter account, which shared the show's logo. 

This is excellent news for fans who were hoping that Boba will be getting his own series that can efficiently show off just how bad-ass he could be. In addition to that, I'm loving the idea that Fennec will be joining the former bounty hunter. "The Book of Boba Fett" was teased in the final episode of "The Mandalorian" Season 2 where the post-credits scene showed Boba and Fennec heading for Jabba the Hutt's palace and unceremoniously killing Bib Fortuna. If the sequence is a clue, there's a big chance that Boba will be going after everyone who did him wrong in the original Star Wars film trilogy. But what are the chances that Rodriguez will be brought in to do more than just serve as an executive producer? Fans believe that the Alita: Battle Angel director was chosen to take on the project as he could serve as the director for most of the episodes. 

Instead of doing this blog I should be listening to this album...

I bet it's good... finger linking good. Haha. That album would make me too hungry. This season a lot of NFL teams are changing their logos, like this one...

Ever see those panhandlers with their signs? You never know who you're gonna see...

Ha! You know that mysterious object thing that kept on showing up? It first showed up in Utah then other places? Well, the mystery has been solved...

That's the clearest pic they can get of it? Damn! So, once in a while I like to go on Twitter and see what people are saying about certain words. One of those words os "Foghat" and this is a tweet I saw recently...

So, you heard about Elf on the Shelf? What about this?

And now from the home office in Port Jefferson, New York here is...

Top Phive Things Said About Holiday Shopping In 2020

5. Can't wait to give my brother a fifty dollar gift card for Christmas and get a fifty dollar gift card from him. 

4. Everyone is talking about being done with Christmas shopping and I haven't even started. 

3. Has anyone failed to buy a single Christmas present yet or is it just me? 

2. I can't wait for Christmas present I'm gonna get for myself... so thoughtful of me. 

And the number one thing said about Christmas shopping in 2020 is... 

1. All I want for Christmas is... to not be invited to anymore Zoom parties for the rest of 2020.

If you spot the Mindphuck let me know. Okay, let's take a live look at Port Jeff, shall we? I wonder if the snow has melted over the weekend...

Nope, snow is still there. That's pretty cool. 

Snot

Sneeze gravy

In every movie that has Santa no one believes in Santa YET every year presents magically appear and no one wonders? Like "bey, hon, did you buy that?" "No, I thought you did..."

A lady goes to her priest one day and tells him, "Father, I have a problem. I have two female talking parrots, but they only know how to say one thing." "What do they say?" the priest inquired. "They say 'Hi, we're prostitutes. Do you want to have some fun?'" "That's obscene!" the priest exclaimed. Then he thought for a moment. "You know," he said, "I may have a solution to your problem. I have two male talking parrots whom I have taught to pray and read the Bible. Bring your two female parrots over to my house, and we'll put them in the cage with Francis and Job. My parrots can teach your parrots to praise and worship and your parrots are sure to stop saying that phrase... in time." "Thank you," the woman responded, "this may very well be the solution." The next day, she brought her female parrots to the priest's house. As he ushered her in, she saw that his two male parrots were inside their cage, holding rosary beads and praying. Impressed, she walked over and placed her parrots in with them. After a few minutes, the female parrots cried out in unison: "Hi, we're prostitutes. Do you want to have some fun?" There was a stunned silence. Finally, one male parrot looked over at the other male parrot and exclaimed, "Put the beads away, Francis, our prayers have been answered!" 

Today's guest is president and publisher of the Beginner Books line and the Dr. Seuss publishing program at Random House. She has been an art director at Random House for 38 years and worked with Dr. Seuss himself on the last six books published during his lifetime. The latest Dr. Seuss book Dr. Seuss’s Horse Museum is the 142nd book to be pheatured in the Phile's Book Club. Please welcome to the Phile... Cathy Goldsmith. 

Me: Hello, Cathy, welcome to the Phile. How are you? 

Cathy: I am great, Jason. How are you? 

Me: I'm good. So, you knew Dr. Seuss? When did you first meet him?

Cathy: I met Dr. Seuss in I believe it was 1977 or 1978. It was such a long time ago. I was 28 at the time, he was I believe 72. And clearly the most famous person I ever met in my whole entire life. Then or now. 

Me: Ha. What was he like? What was your first impression? 

Cathy: My first impression was first of all he was very tall. 

Me: He was? 

Cathy: Yes, he was well over 6 feet tall. I stand about 5'1 so he was both very famous and very tall. 

Me: So, you worked for him, am I right, Cathy? You were his art director? 

Cathy: Well, when I first met him I was the senior designer there. There was another woman who was the art director but when I first met him I was senior designer there. 

Me: So, what kinda work did you do for him? 

Cathy: Well, its interesting, I always say my job was taking care of what he had done and making sure it came to the public the way he wanted it to. Because clearly the man didn't need an art director. He was his own art director as well as an art director for so many other authors and illustrators over the years. But he had a clear idea how he wanted his books to look in terms of color and page layout and it was my job to make sure anything I worked on with him happened the way he wanted it to happen. 

Me: Was he particular? My dad was. 

Cathy: Absolutely. And why shouldn't your dad be? 

Me: What he finicky? 

Cathy: When you think about it some of his earliest works like Cat in the Hat and Horton Hears a Who has a limited color pallet, they were printed in maybe 2 or three or maybe four special inks but around 196 the entire children's industry started publishing books in full color and at that part in time we had really got to see what color meant to Dr. Seuss. And his world explodes with color, and he used color in a way other people didn't use it. So, yes, he was particular about it. 

Me: So, how did this book and the other book What Pet Should I Get? come about? 

Cathy: In 2013 I got a call from Claudia Prescott. 

Me: Who is she and what did she tell you? 

Cathy: Claudia was Ted's long time assistant for decades while he was alive. When he died she stayed on and became the executive assistant to Ted's widows, Audrey Geisel and I got a call in my office and she said to me they had as she put it had found a box that had things in it that she thought Random House would be interested in. Would I come out and I pretty much hung up on her immediately and went running down the hall to my bosses office and said, "We're going to California." 

Me: This sounds something out of the Da Vinci Code. Hahaha. 

Cathy: Well, it was really interesting to us because he's been dead for at that point in time over 20 years and we thought we knew what was left behind. This case there was one box that hadn't been inventoried. 

Me: That's crazy. What about the other stuff in his office? 

Cathy: Most of the items in his office went to his archives at the University of California San Diego shortly after he died. Somehow this one box got detached from everything that left the house and went to the archives and got put in a closet. 

Me: What was it like when you got to California? 

Cathy: First of all his house is at the top of a hill called Mount Soledad. You can see north to Los Angeles on a good day. So we're coming up the hill to the house and when we get to the house the trucks from UCSD were all ready in the drive way, so we got a very limited time to look at what's in the box. The contents that were in the box were laid out on the dining room table in nice neat stacks with folders around them, which I think Claudia might have created, I'm not sure they were in the box that way. What was interesting to me was to see his originals again. 

Me: Why is that? 

Cathy: Because I haven't them since before he died. His originals looked very distinctive. 

Me: Were people there in hazmat gear with gloves, in a tent? Haha. Like in E.T.? 

Cathy: Not quite. We were allowed to touch things. 

Me: Ahhh. So, what was it like when you first saw the manuscript? 

Cathy: Well, there were different things in the box. The question was which one do I look at first? Since there were a couple of people there some looked at this folder, some looked at that folder. I honestly don't think Horse Museum was the first folder we looked at. Possibly because it wasn't the most complete project that we found. We tended to pay more attention to things like What Pet Should I Get? because it was a bulkier folder shall we say? 

Me: How far along was the Horse Museum? 

Cathy: Not very far actually. It was the beginning of an idea. There was a partial manuscript, probably amounts to maybe half the book what it now stands. There may be 10 or 11 sketches but not finished artwork. On What Pet Should I Get? there was finished line work, there was no finished art for this book. 

Me: So, what's the concept of the book? 

Cathy: What's interesting about this it amounts to the only book that we've ever published by Dr. Seuss which is non-fiction in its orientation. It's not a book in rhyme, its not lighthearted in the sense of being nonsense rhymes, etc. It's about the creative process, and its about how artists and creative people see the world and how they show us what they've seen. 

Me: The artwork is very different in this book. Is this what Dr. Seuss wanted? 

Cathy: Yes, any place that Ted had indicated which work he wanted to talk about we tried very hard to clear the rights to be able to show that artwork. But at one point he simply stopped working on the progression of art through the ages and simply said "and everybody who comes after this." Which was sort of okay. 

Me: When did he write this manuscript? Do you know? 

Cathy: We believe he wrote it in the 1950s so anything that happened in the art world after that is not in the notes that he left us. And yet if he was to finish the book himself today it certainly would have covered modern art and things that have happened more recently than when he worked on this. So we took our cue from what he wrote and used the pieces where he indicated where we could and where we had to flesh out his manuscript and add the people that happened after that. The editor I worked with and I chose the pieces of art together and of course they had to feature a horse but we had some guidelines. 

Me: What do you think is the main attraction for this book, Cathy? Do you think people buy it because it's Dr. Seuss and new or what? 

Cathy: I think what's nice about it is most of it is Ted's own words, was his attempt to make it non-scary and make it interesting and fun. Because when you think about it all children naturally when they see crayons or paint want to pick them up and start filling a page, a blank page with their artwork. Yet as we get older we stop doing that for whatever reason, but I think what he wanted to talk about is that's the beginning of being an artist. Of being somebody who has something to say about the world around them. 

Me: I have to show a few pages from the book so people get an idea. 

Me: So, how would you compare this book to The Cat in the Hat? 

Cathy: When Ted wrote The Cat in the Hat I think it was his intent to bring children into the world of reading and make it fun and interesting and easy. I think this is him once again extending a hand to children and to adults to say here is something else you might find interesting. 

Me: So, why do you think it remained unpublished? 

Cathy: I think at the time, I think it was written before he wrote The Cat in the Hat, that was published in 1957 as was How the Grinch Stole Christmas, so it was started right before a very prolific time in his life which took him in a different direction. I think he got preoccupied with that direction. But I also wonder when I think about it whether we would have published this book in 1957, so arbitrarily... 

Me: Why is that? 

Cathy: He wasn't the famous Dr. Seuss we know him today to be. He was about to become that person where every one knew his name and they knew what books he wrote but he hadn't written a lot of those books yet. Cat in the Hat hadn't come out when he wrote this, Grinch hadn't come out, One Fish, Two Fish hadn't come out, Green Eggs and Ham hadn't come out, none of those books had been published yet. So I think it probably would have been a riskier book to publish in those days than it is today. 

Me: So, you got Andrew Joyner to do the artwork in the book. How did that happen? 

Cathy: The funny thing is we spent a very long time in House talking about who in point of fact would illustrate this book. 

Me: Why is that? 

Cathy: Because we needed somebody who would be creative and inventive but also respectful that it wouldn't be entirely their project. It was a Dr. Seuss project that they had to be a part of but they couldn't deviate from the image that had started in Ted's head. 

Me: So, how did Andrew get picked? 

Cathy: At the time we had seen some of Andrew's work. He was doing new illustrations for an out of print bright and early book for us called The Hair Book which originally had been illustrated by the wonderful Roy McKie but had gone out of print because some of its illustrations came to be over the years politically incorrect, I think would be the way you would put it. So it had been gone for a couple of years but we thought with some very minor tinkering with the text but new illustrations it could come back with a healthy life again. So we had chosen Andrew to re illustrate it, so we were starting to see how wonderful his illustrations were when he started to work on our sister imprint Schwartz & Wade on a book that he wrote and illustrated himself called The Pink Hat where we got to see the thinking part of Andrew, not just the creative fun part of him, but the thinking part. It suddenly became clear to us that he might be the partner that we've been looking for. 

Me: How did he respond when you called him? 

Cathy: He lives in Australia first of all so that's number one, so we never met him. Point of fact, I did not meet him until the day the boo was published last year when he came to the United States. We spoke on the phone and we emailed a lot, but we never met. I think he was flabbergasted quite truthfully, happily he had grown up on Dr. Seuss who is, I'm not going to say as important in Australia as he is here, but probably almost so. So he was familiar but the first thing he did when we asked him to maybe work with us on this was to go back and read it all over again. Which I thought was interesting and he did a lot of research. He did some samples for us and he came with those well prepared, shall we say? 

Me: Dr. Seuss did more than write and illustrate children's books, right? 

Cathy: Absolutely. We published a book called The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss which was his paintings, his lithographs, anything that wasn't a book illustration. 

 Me: Was he frustrated by that? 

Cathy: I don't think so. 

Me: Do you know when he first started drawing? 

Cathy: I think he'd be drawing since the time he was a child. I am told that he drew on the walls of the house that he grew up in in Springfield, Mass. 

Me: So, I have to say congratulations on retiring by the way. I hope to retire in less than five years. 

Cathy: Thank you. It seemed the right time for me, I've been at Random House since 1977 so that's a long time and I actually stayed a couple of months longer to make sure this book was happily finished. I looked at the second set of colored proofs and then thought okay, I could do this now. 

Me: So this book has a special meaning for you? 

Cathy: It does, but it also a project that once I got started I didn't want to go until it was happily formed, so I'm glad I got to see that. 

Me: That's cool. Cathy, thanks for being on the Phile. I loved this. 

Cathy: It was my pleasure, thank you for talking to me today.

That about does it for this entry of the Phile. Thanks to Cathy Goldsmith for a fun interview. The Phile will be back tomorrow with A Peverett Phile Christmas 12 Pheaturing Midge Ure. Spread the word, not the turd. Don't let snakes and alligators bite you. Bye, love you, bye. Kiss your brain. 

I don't want you, cook my bread, I don't want you, make my bed, I don't want your money too, I just want to make love to you. - Willie Dixon