1A & 1B: Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)

Hemingway Passport Photo, 1923

The New York Times has posted their extensive collection of Ernest Hemingway articles. You'll find links to his life story, book reviews, author commentaries, interviews and audio recordings.

Here's the first paragraph of a July 11, 1999 article summarizing his life:

Hemingway in Our Times

By MICHAEL REYNOLDS

 

n October 18, 1925, an American writer, not yet turned twenty-six, was first reviewed in The New York Times, whose anonymous critic called his short stories "lean, pleasing, with tough resilience," "fibrous," "athletic," "fresh," "hard," and "clean," almost as if an athlete, not a book, was being reviewed. Hemingway had that effect on reviewers and readers alike. His prose style was dramatically different, demanding equally new ways of describing it. Not more than a handful of the newspaper's readers likely knew the Hemingway name, but the review of "In Our Time" could not have been more propitious.

The above article continues here.

PBS American Masters presents a timeline of Hemingway's life. Another PBS page, this one for Michael Palin's "Hemingway Adventures," is a great place to start to learn about Hemingway. Palin, a formerly of the English comedy group, Monty Python, can be seen here on his "Hemingway Adventures," or search Michael Palin and Hemingway at YouTube. 

Hemingway was interviewed by the Paris Review for its Spring 1958 issue.  Conducted by editor George Plimpton, Hemingway talks about his writing methods and theories.  

Hemingway wrote often about war. Read "Hemingway on War and Its Aftermath" for a good overview of the topic.  You can find it here.

 

The copy of In Our Time, above, reports bookseller The Manhattan Rare Book Company, "is a FIRST EDITION, one of only 170 numbered copies, printed on Rives hand-made paper, of Hemingway's second book. With woodcut portrait  frontispiece after Henry Strater."

Published in "Paris [by]: Three Mountains Press, 1924. Tall octavo, original publisher's decorated tan paper boards; custom cloth box. Bookplate on front pastedown. A few spots of rubbing to spine, one corner lightly bumped; boards a little bowed; usual discoloration to endpapers. A very nice copy. $36,500."

It gets better.  As of October 8, 2014, Abe Books was listing a first edition copy of In Our Time for $75,000. 

Yes,  you read that right.  It is not a typo.  $75,000.  The lesson: don't sell your books back to the bookstore.  Unless they are giving you a very good price.

Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn

HBO premiered Hemingway and Gellhorn, with Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman, on May 28th, 2012. (It was not a hit with the critics.) Hemingway and Gellhorn met in 1936 and were married from 1940-45.  Gellhorn was a distinguished writer and among the most  important correspondents of the 20th Century, reporting on the Spanish Civil War (alongside Hemingway), the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp, and the Vietnam and the Arab-Israeli wars.  Here's the trailer for the film:

Hemingway's Literary and Artistic Influences

James Joyce

from The New York Times, July 6, 1961, Ernest Hemingway speaks of James Joyce, one of the greatest writers of the 20th Century:

"Hemingway was quick to see the merit in the work of James Joyce. . . . In a letter to Sherwood Anderson dated March 9, 1922, Hemingway wrote:

"'Joyce has written a most goddam wonderful book (Ulysses) * * *. Meantime the report is that he and all his family are starving, but you can find the whole Celtic crew of them in Michaud,' (then a moderately expensive Paris eating place).

"Nevertheless, on several occasions Hemingway contributed to the funds raised to aid Joyce, with whom he did a considerable amount of stout drinking in Paris. When Joyce's "Ulysses" was pirated in the United States Hemingway was one of the organizers of the protest which bore the names of many of the most distinguished figures in world literature."

You can read James Joyce's Ulysses here.  It was published in 1922 to much acclaim and controversy.  Regarding the latter, some thought it to be a "dirty book."  Finnegans Wake, a novel that Joyce worked on from 1922 until its publication in 1939, is far more experimental.  Read it here.

"Portrait of Gertrude Stein"
 by Picasso (1906)

Hemingway was influenced by many writers and artists early in his career, among them Gertrude Stein, who was known for her literary and artistic salon in Paris after World War I.  Dennis Ryan examines Stein's influence on Hemingway's early career--she critiqued his prose--in his article "Dating Hemingway's Early Style/Parsing Gertrude Stein's Modernism".  Stein was a fierce experimentalist, and you can read a sample of her work here.

Hemingway wrote about his time in Paris in his nonfiction account, A Moveable Feast.  Alfred Kazin's essay, "Hemingway as his Own Fable," from The Atlantic, June 1964, reviews Hemingway's book and offers some insight to his autobiographical impulses as seen in his prose.

Cezanne's "Mont Sainte-Victoire
 Seen from Les Lauves" (1904-06) 

Artists like Paul Cezanne were also important models for Hemingway, who claimed that he made repeated visits to museum galleries to see how the post-Impressionist captured the landscape. While in Paris during the 1920s, Hemingway also came to know Pablo Picasso and would later make a film about The Spanish Civil War, the subject of Picasso's famous "Guernica".

Picasso's "Guernica" (1937)
 portrays the destruction of Guernica, Spain
 by German and Italian bombers during the Spanish Civil War

Hemingway filming The Spanish Earth (1937),
the story of Spain's Republican resistance
 of fascist Gen. Francisco Franco,
 who had the support of Nazi Germany and Italy.
Written with John Dos Passos,
 Hemingway also served as the film's narrator.

The Spanish Earth is a 55 minute film. You can watch it above.

The "real" Hemingway, as he is presented
 in Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris."

More "real" Hemingway
 from "Midnight in Paris."



There is nothing to writing.  All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

--Ernest Hemingway

Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America

Jill Leovy

In conversation with Warren Olney, radio host, "To The Point" and "Which Way L.A." on KCRW 89.9 FM

Thursday Feb. 5th @ 7:15 P.M.

LOS ANGELES PUBLIC LIBRARY (LAPL - Downtown L.A.)

This program is presented by LAPL's [ALOUD]. It is Free, but Full. Standby tickets might become available.

Ghettoside tells the kaleidoscopic story of one American murder—one young black man slaying another—and a driven crew of detectives whose creed is to pursue justice for forgotten victims at all costs.  This fast-paced narrative of a devastating crime in South Los Angeles provides a new lens into the great subject of why murder happens in America—and how the plague of killings might yet be stopped. KCRW’s Warren Olney sits down with award-winning reporter Leovy to discuss this master work of literary journalism that is equal parts gripping detective story and provocative social critique. Read the review of Ghettoside at The New York Times BOOK REVIEW website.

Jill Leovy is a reporter and editor at the Los Angeles Times, where she has worked for fifteen years. She's the recipient of numerous journalism awards, including, as a member of a six-reporter team, the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News. In 2007, Leovy created an innovative blog project called “The Homicide Report” that covered every single one of the 845 murders in Los Angeles that year.

Warren Olney is the host and executive producer of Which Way, LA? and To the Point. WWLA is the signature daily local news program on 89.9 KCRW Santa Monica and KCRW.com. Olney reaches a national audience with To the Point, distributed by Public Radio International, and several other public radio markets nationwide. Olney and both of his programs have been honored with nearly 40 national, regional and local awards for broadcast excellence since its inception. Most recently, Olney received the 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award for his broad achievements in television news, as well as his storied career over 20 years on public radio, both locally and nationally.

Main image: Photo of interactive map from "The Homicide Report" showing murder victims in Los Angeles in the past 12 months.  

Reservation Policy for Free Programs:
As most [ALOUD] at Central Library programs are free of charge, it is our policy to overbook. In the case of a FULL program your free reservation may not guarantee admission. We recommend arriving early. Space permitting, unclaimed reservations will be released to standby patrons at 7 PM. 

Book signings
ALOUD is one of the many free programs the Library Foundation makes possible at the Los Angeles Public Library. Most ALOUD author programs are followed by book signings.  To help sustain this valuable cultural exchange, at least one copy of the author’s book must be purchased from theLibrary Store if you wish to participate in the post-program book signing. Proceeds support the Los Angeles Public Library.  Library Foundation members receive a 15% discount on all Library Store purchases.

Directions/Parking:
Unless otherwise indicated, ALOUD programs take place at the Los Angeles Central Library's Mark Taper Auditorium, 630 W. Fifth Street, Los Angeles, CA 90071.

1C: Errol Morris & Ricky Jay & Lies

Jacob Receiving the Tunic of Joseph. Diego Velazquez, c. 1630

Errol Morris & Ricky Jay & "Joseph's Tunic"

The painting, above, by Diego Velazquez appears with the Errol Morris column, "Seven Lies About Lying," The New York Times, August 5 and 6, 2009. Try these links for Part 1 and Part 2 of the column.  If the link doesn't work for you try the following: Errol Morris archive and look for his "Opinator" columns.  You can also try registering at The New York Times website and search for it, go to ProQuest and search, and go to Google and search.

Sarkis Boyadjian of our English 1C kindly sent this note to me for posting.  "I googled 'seven lies about lying' and it showed up [as] part one and part two. Here [are] the links":

Seven Lies About Lying Part-1, August 5, 2009

Seven Lies About Lying Part-2, August 6, 2009

More Lying, August 25, 2009

PLEASE NOTE:  You do not need to print the pictures that accompany the Morris column.

How well do you know Bible stories?  Not me. So this might be a good place to offer a link to the Biblical story that  Morris discusses.  Here's the link to a summary of the story from Genesis.

Errol Morris

Errol Morris (from Grantland . Photo by JEFF VESPA/WIREIMAGE)

Grantland has Q&A with Errol Morris and links to numerous clips from his films.  Both are worth your time. A fascinating interview with Morris, "How Typography Shapes Our Perception of the Truth," appears in Fast Company, a design publication. Smithsonian Magazine also profiles Morris, and The New York Times Book Review reviews his book, Believing is Seeing.

Decide for yourself if Errol Morris has a pretty good website. And after you do, watch this video in which Morris, a documentarian, talks about his desire to "recover reality."

Ricky Jay

Ricky Jay (from Roger Ebert)

Watch Ricky Jay: Deceptive Practice, a PBS American Masters program. Watch it below or try this link.

See Ricky Jay's website.  For more information about Jay you can read The New Yorker's April 5, 1993 profile of him and May 19, 2011 interview with him. See Vanity Fair for a Jay Q&A and videos. What are Jay's favorite 10 films? The answer is here. More on Jay from Grantland here.

"Ricky Jay Documentary Reveals His Magical Life and Mentors," appeared in the Los Angeles Times, May 16, 2013. You can also read the Los Angles Times review of Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay. But most definitely watch this card trick by Jay:

After watching these video clips and reading the Errol Morris column from The New York Times and the article on the Jay documentary, answer the following question in 52 words or less: Would you like to have dinner with Morris and Jay?  Why?  Click on the "comments" and post your response. 

And for fans of Ricky Jay and Bob Dylan, who like a little music with their card tricks, here you go.

This one is a young man (not Ricky Jay) who has a lot of talent.  He is a master with a deck of business cards.  Thanks to Tony Huynh for the link to this master of business card throwing.

Writers on Lying

Stephanie Ericsson's "The Ways We Lie." from The Utne Reader, 1992. Ericsson classifies lies as The White Lie (truth vs. "harmless" untruth), Facades (wearing a mask; illusion), Ignoring the Plain Facts, Deflecting (abuse the messenger), Omission (withholding information), Stereotypes and Cliches, Groupthink (combination of ignoring the facts, selective memory, omission, denial), Out-and-Out Lies (baldfaced lie easily confronted).

Sissela Bok's, Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life. New York: Vintage, 1978, 1989, 1999. (Some of her topics: the perspective of the deceived and the liar. Letters  of Recommendation. Excuses. Avoiding Harm. Benefits. Fairness. Threats to Survival. Expanding Deception. Lying to Unmask Liars. Giving Enemies Their Due. Confidentiality. Fidelity to Colleagues and Clients. Political Deception. Deceptive Social Science Research and Experimentation. Professional Responsibility. Paternalistic Deception. Lies to the Sick and Dying. Deception as Therapy. Respect and Truthfulness.)

A Liar and the Law

The New York Times
Opinion, February 19, 2012

Is There a Right to Lie?

By William Bennett Turner

XAVIER ALVAREZ is a liar. Even the brief filed on his behalf in the United States Supreme Court says as much: “Xavier Alvarez lied.” It informs us that he has told tall tales about playing hockey for the Detroit Red Wings, being married to a Mexican starlet and rescuing the American ambassador during the Iranian hostage crisis. But as the brief reminds us, “none of those lies were crimes.”

Another of his falsehoods, however, did violate the law. In 2007, while introducing himself at a meeting of a California water board, he said that he was a retired Marine who had been awarded the Medal of Honor (both lies). He was quickly exposed as a phony and pilloried in the community and press as an “idiot” and the “ultimate slime.”

But his censure did not end there. The federal government prosecuted him under the Stolen Valor Act, which prohibits falsely claiming to have been awarded a military medal, with an enhanced penalty (up to a year in prison) for claiming to have received the Medal of Honor. Mr. Alvarez was convicted but appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which held that the act violated the First Amendment.

The government has taken the case to the Supreme Court, which is scheduled to hear arguments this week. The question before the court is not whether there is a constitutional “right” to lie. Rather, it’s a question about the scope of the government’s power over individuals — whether the government can criminalize saying untrue things about oneself even if there is no harm to any identifiable person, no intent to cheat anyone or gain unfair advantage, no receipt of anything of value and no interference with the administration of justice or any other compelling government interest.

The court should rule in favor of Mr. Alvarez. Harmless fibbing should not be a federal offense.

The Justice Department argues that the Stolen Valor Act serves an “important” government interest: preserving the integrity and credibility of the military medals program. False claims, it maintains, dilute the reputation and meaning of the medals.

But the government has offered no evidence that lies by crackpots like Mr. Alvarez have in any way damaged the honor or prestige of medal recipients. A few instances of dubious characters lying about medals does not require the government to deploy the heavy artillery of criminal sanction. The United States has had military medals since the Revolutionary War, but the founding fathers didn’t seem to think such legal protection was necessary, and neither did Congress until 2006, when it passed the act.

Nor has the government shown that the law is necessary and narrowly tailored to protect any valid government interest. Those who lie about being awarded medals could easily be exposed if the government maintained an online database of medal awardees; the government could even shame known liars by publicizing their names.

The Stolen Valor Act is also dangerously broad: it puts satire and parody at risk of criminal prosecution. The comedian Stephen Colbert could not safely perform a skit in which his blowhard patriot persona claimed to have a medal. The act doesn’t require proof that anyone believed or was deceived by the false claim.

If the Supreme Court were to accept the government’s argument, other disconcerting legislation could easily follow. Congress could enact a law that criminalized false claims by political candidates about their qualifications for office, or false claims about their opponents. Surely the government has an “important” interest in preventing voter deception. But as much as we want to encourage factual accuracy in our politicians, do we really want the government to prosecute, for example, Senator Marco Rubio, the Florida Republican who falsely stated on his Senate Web site that his parents moved from Cuba after — rather than before — Fidel Castro took power? Who among us has not said things about ourselves that are untrue? Who has not exaggerated or embellished details to tell a better story?

The public humiliation that follows such exposure is punishment enough. The recognized constitutional remedy for false speech, as Justice Louis D. Brandeis famously said, is not suppression but “more speech.” The court should reject Congress’s attempt to police what we are allowed to say about ourselves.

William Bennett Turner teaches a course on freedom of speech at the University of California, Berkeley, and is the author of “Figures of Speech: First Amendment Heroes and Villains.”



The New York Times
June 28, 2012
Lying About Earning War Medals Is Protected Speech, Justices Rule
by James Dao 

A divided Supreme Court on Thursday overturned a law that made it a crime to lie about having earned a military decoration, saying that the act was an unconstitutional infringement on free speech.

Enlarge This Image

Therese Tran/Inland Valley Daily Bulletin

Xavier Alvarez said he was a Medal of Honor winner.

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Supreme Court Ruling on Stolen Valor

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The case arose from the prosecution of Xavier Alvarez under the Stolen Valor Act, a law signed in 2006 that made it a crime for a person to falsely claim, orally or in writing, “to have been awarded any decoration or medal authorized by Congress for the Armed Forces of the United States.”

Mr. Alvarez, an elected member of the board of directors of a water district in Southern California, said at a public meeting in 2007 that he had received the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military award, after being wounded in action as a Marine.

All of those claims were lies, his lawyers later conceded.

Charged with violating the law, Mr. Alvarez argued that his remarks were protected speech under the First Amendment. The trial judge rejected his defense, saying the First Amendment does not apply to statements the speaker knows to be false.

But in 2010, a divided three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, reversed that decision, saying that if the law were upheld, “there would be no constitutional bar to criminalizing lying about one’s height, weight, age, or financial status on Match.com or Facebook.”

On Thursday, a six-justice majority of the Supreme Court agreed with the appeals court, ruling that the law was overly broad and posed a threat to First Amendment rights by criminalizing speech, even when it was knowingly false.

Though the government has a clear interest in protecting the integrity of military honors, the court said, the Obama administration had failed to demonstrate in its defense of the Stolen Valor Act how Mr. Alvarez’s falsehoods undermined the awards system.

“The First Amendment requires that there be a direct causal link between the restriction imposed and the injury to be prevented,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in an opinion joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor. “Here, that link has not been shown.”

A concurring opinion written by Justice Stephen G. Breyer and joined by Justice Elena Kagan agreed that criminal prosecution of false statements could have a chilling affect on public debate. But Justice Breyer also provided possible templates for rewriting the act, saying it had “substantial justification.”

“The First Amendment risks flowing from the act’s breadth of coverage could be diminished or eliminated by a more finely tailored statute,” Justice Breyer wrote. “For example, a statute that requires a showing that the false statement caused specific harm or is focused on lies more likely to be harmful or on contexts where such lies are likely to cause harm.”

In a sharply worded dissent, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote that there had been “an epidemic of false claims about military decorations,” which Congress had reasonably concluded were “inflicting real harm on actual medal recipients and their families.”

He was joined by Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

“By holding that the First Amendment nevertheless shields these lies,” Justice Alito wrote, “the court breaks sharply from a long line of cases recognizing that the right to free speech does not protect false factual statements that inflict real harm and serve no legitimate interest.”

Thursday’s ruling by the court was somewhat surprising. During oral arguments in February, most of the justices seemed to accept that the First Amendment did not protect calculated falsehoods that caused at least some kinds of harm and that the government did have a substantial interest in protecting the integrity of its system of military honors.

First Amendment advocates hailed the decision.

“The First Amendment reserves to individual citizens, not the government, the right to separate what is true from what is false, and to decide what ideas to introduce into private conversation and public debate,” said Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union.

But many veterans organizations expressed dismay, saying that criminal prosecution was the only way to deter false claims about military awards. The act called for fines and imprisonment of up to one year.

Mark Seavey, a lawyer who is the new-media manager for the American Legion, said he was confident that a more narrowly drawn Stolen Valor bill would easily pass Congress.

“It’s not a good day for us, but it’s not Black Thursday,” he said.

A bill that would make it illegal to knowingly misrepresent military service with the intent of obtaining “anything of value” was introduced in Congress last year by Representative Joe Heck, Republican of Nevada.

Mr. Heck contends that his bill will pass constitutional muster because it does not attempt to restrict speech but instead prohibit a type of fraud.

UPDATE: STOLEN VALOR ACT

Obama Signs Stolen Valor Act Into Law

ABC News, June 3, 2013

by Lee Ferran

If you lie about being awarded military honors for profit, you can now be subject to criminal prosecution, according to a new law signed by President Obama today.

The Stolen Valor Act of 2013, introduced in January by Rep. Joe Heck (R-Nev.), “makes it a Federal crime for an individual to fraudulently hold oneself out to be a recipient of any of several specified military decorations or medals with the intent to obtain money, property, or other tangible benefit,” the White House said today, announcing the signing.

The law was the latest attempt by the government to help protect real military heroes from phonies. The original iteration of the bill, the Stolen Valor Act of 2005, had been in effect for six years before the Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional.

At the time, the law was written to say it was a crime simply to lie about military service and awards — a broad characterization the Supreme Court said violated a person’s First Amendment right to free speech.

A new version of the bill, introduced by Heck in late 2012, narrowed the act to say the liar must be attempting to somehow materially profit from the lies, making the would-be crime more akin to fraud. A tweaked version of that bill was reintroduced in 2013.

President Obama took a hard stance against military phonies last year when he announced a new government website to track awards for legitimate heroes.

"It may no longer be a crime for con artists to pass themselves off as heroes, but one thing is certain – it is contemptible,” he said in reference to the Supreme Court’s ruling in 2012. “…[N]o American hero should ever have their valor stolen."

To read the above article on the ABC News website click on this.

To read "Stolen Valor ‘More Than Just Lying,’ SEAL Watchdog Says" click on this.

To read the Department of Defense’s listing of the top military honor winners click on this.

To read about viral videos combating "stolen valor" click on this.

Martin Luther King, "I Have a Dream" speech and the March on Washington

Bet You Didn't Know: March on Washington
video from the History Channel, (2:33)

NBC Meet the Press Special Edition: Remembering the Dream
Includes "the Aug. 25, 1963 edition of Meet the Press, featuring interviews with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and NAACP executive secretary Roy Wilkins." -- NBC Meet the Press, air date, August 25, 2013

50th Anniversary March on Washington
The above links to the numerous anniversary events scheduled to remember the March on Washington, DC of 50 years ago.

PBS NewsHour: Conversation.
Air Date: Aug. 14, 2013
"50 Years Ago, March on Washington Had More Radical Roots Than Remembered Today." You can watch the embedded video below or go directly to the PBS NewsHour webpage for this interview.



From the PBS NewsHour: "Historian William Jones joins Gwen Ifill [above] to offer an overview of how the March on Washington came to be, why President Kennedy wanted it to be called off and what roles women of color played on that historic day. Their discussion is one a series of conversations looking back at the legacy of August 28, 1963."

A book review of  The March on Washington by William P. Jones,
who appears with Gwen Ifill, above.--The New York Times on August 18, 2013. 

Martin Luther King, Jr., greeting the crowd in front of the Lincoln Memorial, August 28, 1963,

 where he delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech.

 You can watch a video of the speech here. Also, you can read the speech here. 

Other Links of Interest

"The FBI and Martin Luther King," by David J. Garrow. The Atlantic, July 2002. web.
FBI Records: The Vault.

Freedom of Information Act: FBI Vault file on Martin Luther King, Jr. Parts 1 and 2. 

Final Plans for the ORGANIZING MANUAL NO. 2 MARCH ON WASHINGTON FOR JOBS AND FREEDOM

Photographs of the March on Washington 
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, an overview

"50 Years Later, Looking Back on MLK's Famed Speech" by Kurt Streeter, Los Angeles Times, August 25, 2013
"Witnesses to History, 50 Years Later," The New York Times, August 23, 2013

NPR: "A People"s History" of the March on Washington, August 8, 2010 (5:51)
Remembering the Many Voices at the March on Washington, Center for American Progress, Sam Fulwood III | July 23, 2013

YouTube video: The March on Washington (20 min b&w film.)
YouTube video: March on Washington performances (Mahalia Jackson, Odetta, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, etc.) (26 mins.)

NPR: Bayard Rustin: the Man who Organized the March on Washington (7:30), August 15, 2003

Please post comments on our blog--they can be informal--about your reactions to or remembrances about the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Do you find it surprising that a lot of attention is devoted to its 50th Anniversary? Have you studied this topic before? Have you been to Washington and visited the Lincoln Memorial?  Have you found other sources about the March that you'd like to share with others?  I am curious what you have to say.

The view of the March on Washington from inside the Lincoln Memorial, August 28, 1963.

1C: Pickpocket

THE NEW YORKER

JANUARY 7, 2013

A Pickpocket's Tale

The spectacular thefts of Apollo Robbins.

By Adam Green

In magic circles, Robbins is regarded as a kind of legend. Psychiatrists, neuroscientists, and the military study his methods for what they reveal about the nature of human attention. Photograph by Martin Schoeller.

A few years ago, at a Las Vegas convention for magicians, Penn Jillette, of the act Penn and Teller, was introduced to a soft-spoken young man named Apollo Robbins, who has a reputation as a pickpocket of almost supernatural ability. Jillette, who ranks pickpockets, he says, “a few notches below hypnotists on the show-biz totem pole,” was holding court at a table of colleagues, and he asked Robbins for a demonstration, ready to be unimpressed. Robbins demurred, claiming that he felt uncomfortable working in front of other magicians. He pointed out that, since Jillette was wearing only shorts and a sports shirt, he wouldn’t have much to work with.

“Come on,” Jillette said. “Steal something from me.”

Again, Robbins begged off, but he offered to do a trick instead. He instructed Jillette to place a ring that he was wearing on a piece of paper and trace its outline with a pen. By now, a small crowd had gathered. Jillette removed his ring, put it down on the paper, unclipped a pen from his shirt, and leaned forward, preparing to draw. After a moment, he froze and looked up. His face was pale.

“Fuck. You,” he said, and slumped into a chair.

Robbins held up a thin, cylindrical object: the cartridge from Jillette’s pen.

Robbins, who is thirty-eight and lives in Las Vegas, is a peculiar variety-arts hybrid, known in the trade as a theatrical pickpocket. Among his peers, he is widely considered the best in the world at what he does, which is taking things from people’s jackets, pants, purses, wrists, fingers, and necks, then returning them in amusing and mind-boggling ways. Robbins works smoothly and invisibly, with a diffident charm that belies his talent for larceny. One senses that he would prosper on the other side of the law. “You have to ask yourself one question,” he often says as he holds up a wallet or a watch that he has just swiped. “Am I being paid enough to give it back?”

Go to "A Pickpocket's Tale to see the full article." Print it, read it, and bring it to Thursday's, January 14th, class.

You may also want to watch a video or two or three with Robbins. Find some online and, if you can, post a link to it in the comments section of this post. Here's one I found for your viewing pleasure:

One more: the trailer for the great film Pickpocket (1959) by Robert Bresson.