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And today I'm here with Mara Comstock, who is the editor of the Elgonquin Roundtable, 25 Years with the Legends Who Lunch. And the book was originally written by her grandfather, Conrad Burr. So, Mara, could you start out by kind of talking a little bit about how this came to be, how you found this manuscript of your grandfathers and decided to put it out there in the world and let us all read it? Okay, I mean, there's a story in this in itself. He was a quite prominent lost generation author and some of his work was literally lost. And he was friends with Hemingway and Fitzgerald and Drizer and a lot of people of that era. In addition to having written 40 books, he was also a journalist and a foreign correspondent. So he got to meet a lot of people in that capacity and a lot of them just liked him, so they became friends with him. There were quite a few interesting friendships across different areas of that period of time. And I was in the process of selling my house and moving and going through papers and just what would he save? What do you keep? I had 500 paintings, which I still have sitting behind me right now in the loft. I'm in. But in the, going through the papers, I found several books that had not been published before. And I recognized them because I had all of those books that were published. The stories, it was hard to recognize because there's hundreds of them and then it's really, really hard to tell because some of the magazines don't exist anymore. It's really hard to check on the copyrights because they owned some of them. But the books I knew, and when I started reading, I realized it was sort of memoir of his years at the Algonquin Roundtable. He was part of the Roundtable and it was decades worth of really fun stories about Valentino and Melvin Douglas and the cat at the Algonquin Hotel and all this kind of stuff. And I asked around a couple of agents and they suggested going to the academic group. And I got in touch with SUNY and SUNY, because they do publish a lot about New York history. And Richard Carla and the senior editor there within a few days was like, oh yeah, they wanted to do it. And then they asked me to edit it and I'm not a writer, but I'm not experienced as an editor, especially editing my grandfather's work. So that was pretty heavy duty and I wrote the forward to it also. So it was just one of those things of finding the papers themselves that I found them in. The New York Historical Society acquired them last month. So there's like 12 bankers box bins full of papers that are going to be available for scholars and stuff. So that was kind of nice too. That's kind of a relatively new piece of information there. Well, that was one of you answered one of my questions I had with what was going to happen. So when you found these, so did you just find a number of kind of stories that he put together and kind of writing? And then you kind of picked and chose what to put in here? Or was it fully fledged out? It was bound. And a few little handwritten notes of his still on it, but it was bound. And it was very obviously a finished book. Right. Yeah, that's one of the things I was wondering. So can you talk before we get into what he wrote about? Because you mentioned your grandfather, but can you? You want to share a little bit more about him and his history and his kind of work as a writer so that people who might not be familiar with his work can get a little bit of an idea of who he was and his sort of importance in the literary world, especially during his lifetime. He was quite prominent, which is one of the things that I know, Richard Carlin at SUNY feels like it's undeservedly unknown at this point, and he was very well known during during his time. I mean, he had more short stories and, you know, the Brian best short stories of the world collection than anybody. He was prominently reviewed, there are reviews from the New York Times that were like full page reviews of almost everything, almost every book he ever wrote. And it was arranged, some of it was short stories and it was very specifically gypsy short stories, which he became very well known for, but that was maybe 25% of his work. He also did exposés and sociological studies of Scandinavians moving to the Midwest. He also, he also wrote exposés of the royal family in Romania, which got him beaten up a few times because they weren't too happy what he had to say. But he also wrote romances and dramas and things that were not that were, you know, across different genres. He didn't really stick to just one, though I think he maybe had more success in some areas than other areas. But, yeah, it is a bit of a mystery why he didn't keep some of his fame that he had. There was a hand wild was a graduate student at Cornell who passed away, unfortunately, was majoring in grandpa and was writing her thesis about him and she had some interesting theories that that part of it was he did not align himself left or right politically. And you did during those eras, for sure, this is World War I, World War II. And there was a lot of lining up things that you did for to power and to maintain your fame. And he was very, very ethical and would tell somebody off to their face and wasn't worried about that, which was not always the wise move. But he would, he would, he did what was right or wrong and that that was part of the problem and also that part of his mystique and part of what they created about him was this gypsy writer. And he was like handsome with long hair and gray eyes and he was just gorgeous and he played into it and why not, you know, he loved gypsy and he loved the music and he had been around them growing up in Romania, for sure. And so he played into it and then when the 50s came and you had McCarthy and stuff like that, he was sort of the other all of a sudden. And he, he has the last name, Burke, a VC, whereas Hemingway and Drizer and Fitzgerald are more Anglo in terms of, in terms of what's it was acceptable. So she was, she was definitely in the process of writing that as part of her thesis that she thought that was one of the mysteries that she thought she'd helped solve. But, but I don't know, you know, who knows, who knows with fame, what, what, why, how you keep it, how you don't keep it. It's it's fickle fame, you know. Well, one of the things that I think is really fascinating about this book and fascinating about what he wrote is that we do have people who write about the history of the Algonquin round table. Often it's a literary history, but this is very much first person and first person kind of narrative narrating, you know, this story. At the time, right, it's very, it's happening. It's happening. Yes, right. Right. So it's this. So it gives a very different feel. And so can you talk a little bit about the for people who don't know. Because he also goes into some of the history, like talks about Frank case, who's the owner. Can you talk a little bit about sort of setting this stage and what the Algonquin was and what the round what the Algonquin round table was and sort of what he's talking about. Sure. And I didn't necessarily know all that much about it until until I found the book and got into it. I knew it as a phrase. I know there was a few documentaries about it. I knew, but, but I started thinking that it was sort of like they were the influencers of their day. These were the people who affected film, which was sort of a burgeoning field at that point early in the early in the book and early in the day of the Algonquin film and fashion. And if somebody was a famous explorer, they would have lunch there. I mean, it sort of. And the people who were concentrating, they were journalists, so they could get that message out as influencers. And they really affected classical musicians would go that affected what the concert stage. People were what people were going to go see. They affected what people wore. They affected what people read. They were all very, very much in their way, like in the influencers of today, I think. And maybe a little more talented. Shall we say, there wasn't really this wasn't really a vapid crowd. This was this was, you know, this was a very, very intelligent and very clever crowd. But, yeah, I mean, even Kevin Fitzgerald spoke at the launch of the thing who's head of the Dorothy Parker Society and has written eight books about this era. And he would his what he said was like, you know, there won't be another book like this because everybody is gone. You know, this is written 70 years ago, and it's a firsthand account of being in there. And even if somebody found something somebody wrote, they wouldn't necessarily be as good a writer as grandpa was. Grandpa was a very, it doesn't feel it doesn't feel dated his writing in any way because I think I think part of it is because his style is just so individual. Part of it is also as a journalist. He puts you in the picture, you're sort of there at that scene. You're like staying at the hotel and going downstairs in the elevator and scratching the cat's back as you wait for somebody to have a drink with you. I mean, it sort of has a very insider's thing. And I think because he was sort of an egalitarian person, he gets into the help too. It's a little bit of upstairs downstairs kind of going on there, in which he talks about the people in the kitchen and he talks about the waiters and the one who's who's studying and the one who's writing and what their families are like. And he gets into that as well as the people. But everybody was anybody went there. There's one story in the book when it's World War II and everybody is ordered down from upstairs and and somebody looks around and says, if somebody drops a bomb on this building at this moment, it's like. Every writer and every major actor in this country will be gone. What will happen? Because it was everybody who was anybody would be staying there from Houdini who would sit there and practice his practices, escape routines there to Charles Lawton who would be like practicing his readings for a part. Like in the hall that there's just it was just everybody was anybody would would stay there and and a lot of writers and movies and books would. And they had what even when they were successful and had their major studios and they had their their beautiful houses on the Hudson to to write and they still wanted to go back there because they had their lucky rooms. And if anybody changed anything in the decor of those lucky rooms, they would get really angry. They wanted the old chair and the burnt rug with the cigarette buttholes and they wanted this because this represented the luck to them. Yeah, so it was just kind of it was very, very much a celebrity scene. Very much so. Yeah. Yeah, one of the things that I really appreciated because when you kind of when you've heard what I guess I should say when I have heard kind of stories about the Algonquin Roundtable and all this, it was very much this like, yes, this one location. And that people would sit around this. It felt like it was you're just going to sit around this you know this group sitting at this table. And he really brought in. Yeah, it really became like it like this book really shows you just all the different spaces he talks about even talks about like in the oak room there's this table and here there's a right he kind of talks about that and talks about how it kind of differs from other like hotels and spots that people might visit in either in the United States. I think there was one he mentioned in Hollywood but also outside of the United States and in Europe. So I really, he gives this. It just changes for me. It changed sort of the imagery and sort of how I pictured what this piece even looks like. His journalist, the journalism part of his style gives you that sense of place he puts you there fast. You're there you're there you're listening you're staying at the hotel you're going up in those elevators you're hearing Charles Lawton down the hall you're like, you know, you know, it's a little bit of a bad kid is like talking to you and saying good morning. I mean, it definitely puts you puts you there and I think that's that's something as a writer that he has whether he's talking about people crossing the boss first in a snowstorm. Or whether he's talking about, or he's talking about the Roma camps or he's done it wherever whatever he's talking about you you're kind of there with him and that's I think makes it not a stuffy historical work. It becomes like it feels like it's part of today. Yeah. Yeah, and it's one of those because of how it's sort of put together he has these sort of summer shorter some are a bit longer but they're sort of vignettes right. And what I love about it is you could literally you can read the book straight through or you could open it up to a page and start a vignette and right like so you can kind of also you can there's multiple ways to read it and sort of enter it to and sort of experience what's happening in it, he sneaks in some history and some things about the world and some worldview stuff in there to he goes, you know, back to like you mess up a time he goes all the way back to biblical things it's up. I just throws and yet he had a lot of knowledge as a person, and he puts it in there but he doesn't doesn't hammer you over the head with it. But sometimes you have a moment of you going like well, I'm not sure where this is going and then when it gets there you go ah, it all comes it all comes together like it's all been braided. You know, and you see, oh look how beautiful that is like I understand what those separate strands were about because they've all come together to make this statement. Yeah. What do Mattel, Banana Republic, Butcherbox and Glossier all have in common? They power their businesses with Shopify. Shopify is the most innovative and scaled commerce platform on the planet that also happens to have the best converting checkout on the planet. And that's no industry secret. That's Shopify. Learn more at Shopify.com/enterprise. And you brought it up but I really wanted to like sort of emphasize this and if there's anything else you want to add or stories you have about it but he not only talks about the people who are kind of famous who are there but he really gives time to the wait staff, the workers, the chefs and not only kind of like talks he mentions them by name right he we know who they are which I really appreciated too. I mean I think it's towards the end where I think there's some a quote about how like the longevity of the workers there right like if you worked for 10 years you were a new work office. Yeah right and so that like it really also made this show the importance of this place for not only the people who came in frequented but the people who worked there as well and the sort of support there. They were like a family. They were much like a family connected with each other and Frank Casey that and so did Ben Bodney who ended up buying the hotel afterwards and I think headed from 46 to 87 or something like that. And his grandson when we did the book launch. His grandson wrote a book called the algonquin kid because he basically sort of grew up there, which was really fun and, and what do you call he wrote a musical about it and he did a song from the musical at the book launch. Michael Colby. So that was kind of fun because we were both we're both the grandchild of some connection there he was the grandchild of the people who owned it at one point and I was a grandchild of the person wrote the book about it so that was kind of that was kind of a fun thing and he said how special it was to be there it was very very special place really special. Yeah. Yeah, you have before you get into like the certain stories that you really liked or found or interesting but there's also it's not only text right you have a number of images throughout So I'm going to get word I'm going to guess they weren't part of the original manuscript. No, I mean I had the ones that included grandpa with chaplain and grandpa was with Joe DiMaggio which is so random. And that's with Ben Bodney who was actually the person I just said it was like the next owner of the hotel. But that was that was I was like what is that who I think it was just. I have to think that he was connect but but people and but sports people would be there would be there too you know so so but also his connection with Marilyn Rose might have been part of it because Marilyn Rose did stay there to among other people. Yeah. Yeah, so like where you were did with the images and the photos that were you did you have did you kind of pick which ones or was it just like ones that you could find like I was just wondering how some of those were chosen. I picked the ones of grandpa but I as editor I got to write all those little biographies of every single person mentioned in the book all 157 of them. At the end of the book was like oh I'm doing that but what what was that. And so there was sort of like the goings were in figure out who what was available what wasn't available. And that a lot of that was was Sunni actually was was Richard Carlin I think. And that was kind of fun I think for for to find pictures and capture the time with with with Elsie Janis and some of these who some of the people who were household names at the time and you don't know who they are now. So it's kind of nice to put them back in the limelight a little bit you know. Yeah and I love the like the photos and there's also some cartoons and so we get a kind of feel for who was there. And yeah cover cartoon which is which is so cool is is from the 20s and grandpa's in it you know which was just such it was such an amazing thing. But much as I love the cartoon he didn't really have bushy hair or bushy eyebrows. So it's almost like a little more otherness put put in there just a though I love it and it's great you know and I don't want to critique it because I think it makes a great cover. But grandpa had kind of silky hair and and it was long you know but but he wasn't like was she like that. Yeah and you can see and there's pictures of him in the book so you can kind of see that and see the comparison there. It's a handsome guy. It's very cool looking guy. Yeah yeah. So what were like were there stories in here that you just kind of. And he's like because there's stories throughout we could talk probably forever about different stories. But like yeah like what are like I was there was one I think that I was about like because I because you talk about how so many different people because there was one where there was. And it was things like some royalty some woman who would just sort of show up and she was there and she would write but she wouldn't really talk to anybody right. But she and and she did the same thing in Europe she just was sort of a pretender. Yeah she wasn't she wasn't really writing that was somebody who just was a hanger on kind of person which he thought somebody would ask why was she why was she writing and then he saw her in Europe doing this doing the same thing and was surprised she hadn't gotten some like you know defunct count to marry her by now because that's kind of what she was was looking for. So you have some of the hanger on that that that are that are that are also sort of like a fun read. But I thought the Valentino there was a story by Valentino that I thought was extremely extremely cool that in terms of the ego and the grandpa quite obviously did not like Valentino he did not appreciate him because he has some some really negative descriptors of him in there. But but but then again he says I'm a man I can't fully understand what women saw in him so I don't I don't I don't pretend to but Valentino gets very upset because nobody makes a big fuss about him at when he's at the Algonquin because they're so used to everybody's and I mean you know Eleanor Roosevelt saying out there you know I mean it's just they're so used to everybody that there is that that he doesn't get a fuss and he goes off and a huff because he's like really mad that nobody is bothering him even even though they say they don't want to be bothered. You know but they really they really do you know and so I thought that was an interesting story and there was a really nice story about him and Melvin Douglas Melvin Douglas was was also was also a friend actually met Melvin. When I was a kid and Melvin Douglas's daughter lived a few blocks away from me growing up and she she used to hang out with my mother and my aunt. But there's a there's a really nice story in there about how somebody people were coming to his table asking for autographs and all that kind of stuff. And there was another actor sitting with him who was and sort of sort of become a has been at that point and he felt bad for her so he actually left for a few minutes and came back and when he came back a whole bunch of people came over to her. And he had asked them to you know it comes out in the punch line that you know they did grab because they did what they were asked to you know because he figured out what was going on there. But, but things like that are like sort of humanizing. And then you have stories about like there's a there's a weird story about it and explore who had an all meat diet so he was asking the kitchen to bring them this strange meat sandwiches and things and stuff. So there are people who may have been prominent during their day that we don't we don't know their stories at all now. And I also thought there's a there's a section in there which grandpa talks about which I thought was very appropriate for the recent strikes in which he talks about the writers being taken advantage of and how the writers killed and some of these unionizing things. But she sort of the planning for this stuff took place at the Algonquin, not that they wouldn't have happened somewhere else potentially, but the fact remains that because all these people were there at the same time. That they got power from that because they congregated together and could discuss it and could talk about it. And the roots of a lot of the unionizing happened there too. And a lot of casting happened there too because that's where people would go to to hang out if they wanted to be cast. So it's it's sort of was more than a place to go eat and drink for sure. Yeah. And I also love that because you and even in your forward you kind of talk about how writing was how your grandfather paid the rent right like he would write stories but you kind of talk about in the book really shows that there were these sort of yes these big name writers that would visit and be there but that writing was really for many of the people, many of the writers there like this yes this way to pay the rent. It was a job. It was this something that they were, you know, doing everything. Much of the rent. Yeah. I don't know if you said it or he said it but like something about like sometimes you might not get paid for a year. Or you know that stuff came about but they would sit there and start talking about these things or they would or they would buy up all of your stories from a thing and go make movies out of them and you got nothing and you got nothing out of it and grandpa I think at that point says I know I know it happened to me. You know so so there was a lot of that going on there was a lot of power plays but people were all the Edgar Allan Poe would be like working in a day job. You know I mean yeah and that was when he was famous. And the translators could make more than the writers may, you know so so there there was a lot of mean for that to happen for sure. But the writing is currency yeah that that's that was that my mother and my aunt and and the family members like definitely sort of thought of it that way like well well we want to have that why don't you just go write a couple of stories and then we can have that. And I thought it basically is as a currency so I thought that was kind of cool. Yeah and I really like it but I love how this kind of shows that like what it was like in that writing life and you talk about the unions and sort of how at this like what what started happening at that time to make to make like make writing a profession that would like live off of right you can become a stage writer you can work for the you know writer skilled or you know do those kinds of things and we kind of get this sort of. We get an idea of why that happened and how that happened from looking at what your grandfather wrote about. One of the other things that like and you mentioned this too but you mentioned like sort of like how he brings in history and I love like he talked about like the stage door johnny's and different kinds of terms. That might have been more like yes we're current at that time but have sort of like disappeared now so I really love that too about this is like sort of finding language and finding sort of imagery that is not used as much anymore. And but really you can find it in this book and sort of the ways he talks about people and things and the fans that I thought that was interesting to stage or guys it became the fans and they would be trading pictures. You know back and forth and one would be worth more one day than the next day you know I'll give you three Loretta Young's for one to little bank it. Yes, I mean I love like those are the kinds of things that you like don't really hear about right I know you know I was like stage door johnny's what are those right and somebody might know what they are. But for me I was like oh this is really great. So those little like there's these fabulous yeah yeah there's these fabulous gems throughout so it's not only like you've talked about but these these really lovely little sort of gems about just what it was like and what sort of the sort of the common cultural like pop cultural spaces of the time was a crossroads for for so much just so much of that because all of these related fields and and anybody was in the news would somehow go go there so yeah. Did you're when you were growing up do you remember your grandfather talking about his time there and I was growing up he was still going there for life. Yeah so like I mean you mentioned him going for lunch but did he come back with these stories that you were like like or was it just kind of like he goes to lunch. Oh no no I was I was I was aware because he he always come back sort of bursting and he was always happy to be have been there. At that point I mean he passed away when he was like 80 so at that point he was like older and stuff like that and wasn't necessarily the center of it anymore but he was doing. There was an old television show at your beck and call with Betty Furness. And the last week he was alive he did it and I think a Norman Mailer was on was on one of the shows with him and I hope and I think I'm trying to think who else. There were some quite prominent people and they loved him because because he because he was a very charming likable person but at the same time he had so much knowledge me just knew so much and it's just kind of like. It was just not like a normal human being. In fact I still find it even more difficult to realize now how he wrote that much because he was hugely prolific. There are literally hundreds possibly thousands of short stories that were published in every single magazine continually as well as the foreign correspondent work as because he was covering Germany when Hitler was coming up and I found a story he wrote about being there for one of Hitler's first speeches. And he basically says I have one more grad in my life I didn't go there with a gun. He would have done it too he wouldn't have cared if he went to prison. He knew what was going on he got it. He was very very good intuitive about people and figuring out who was going to do what and he was like this is what's going to happen and warned about it and people like oh yeah you're just so romantic story writer who should why should we listen to you. And he knew exactly what he was talking about but he did all of that while raising four children and while having like places on both coasts. And I was like I don't know when did he do when did he do all of this. It's like there's no television okay that helps but when did you do all this. When I thought well maybe he doesn't edit much maybe just pours out of him like already fabulously organized but when I look through the papers there's edits a lot of edits on some of this stuff a lot of handwritten edits which is one of the reasons that the Historical Society wanted it because that's you know a wonderful thing to have versions of things and handwritten edits but was like no he actually did edit so how did I don't really understand how we did all of this. I think it was like he like had to write. It's like what you're saying about the you're saying earlier about the writing being something you do even no matter what money you're being paid for it. I think he had to write but he started out as a musician and his first his first jobs when when he left Romania for Paris because of the pogroms and he went to Paris he was going to study with the door who studied Albert who taught Alva Dreydzer on the organ. He went there to study violin and organ and and had a couple symphonies he wrote that were played in Notre Dame and stuff like that. And then when he came to this country he guys first jobs were among other things were playing the neck playing the piano for the Nickelodeon for the move for the silent movie theaters. And he taught himself English while he was playing a book out and he was reading reading in English to learn English and so one of his first jobs he got after that was writing music reviews. So it that sort of gotten into the writing thing and then he was an insurance investigator which led to his first book which was crimes of charity which was about how the orphans and the and people were exploited by by charity and stuff like that from his investigations. So, so things he didn't start out to be a writer he just, I guess, sort of had to be one. Yeah, just went there. Yeah, you I mean, talking about musicians like there was some a story in here that I really loved about some young man who people kept kept saying he was the Messiah. Oh yes. Yeah, I really thought that was kind of a lovely story with the end like don't judge a book by its cover kind of thing. And, and somebody doing work because they love it. Maybe. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It had to be because of that because they're showing more amazing money, right? We're making money out. So why do you think so one of my questions I wanted to ask you right because like it's why do you think he did not publish this? I mean, like do you have any idea why he might not have published it or tried to publish it during his lifetime? Like when he wrote it, do you think it was something where he was just kind of taking notes and putting this together but just put it on the shelf for a later time or, or, or somebody was foolish enough to turn it down. Yeah, who knows. I don't know. Maybe they didn't maybe they didn't see the importance at that moment of the round table but we do afterwards. It could be that hindsight kind of situation. I really, I really don't know and there's two other works. There's another there's another collection of memoir stories, which may be next out of the gate, which has stories about chaplain and, and Hemingway. And as I was finding those papers, I thought other papers is one about Mahler, the story about Mahler when he was just a conductor and I'm like, it's about what the heck. There's another one by energy Robinson because he was from Romania also and they were there were fellow Romanians and apparently he liked to play a lot of tough parts and even wrote tough parts from self but was totally educated and totally elegant and soft spoken and played these like gangster, these horrible torturing gangster people and that's what he wanted to play when he was the opposite as a person. So, and I found a novel also about gentrifying Greenwich Village in the early 50s about these two sisters that we may be turning into a mini series called the China closet that's very cool. So, that I can recognize when the books weren't published because, because I have all the books and that, but the stories it's really hard to know because there's so many of them. And you go was this published was this not published at all. You know, he didn't, if he didn't have the copyright in the magazine doesn't exist anymore. It's really, it's really hard to, to trace it, you know, so. But, so I don't, I don't know what the story about this book was I probably never will know, you know, it's a, I never found anything. I didn't find an acceptance letter and find a rejection letter I didn't, I didn't find a thing from whatever agent he had at the time. So, I, I don't know that's, that's a mystery. And it's so wonderful that you have it right because again, at that time it's not like it was tight, you know, on the computer, like typed up and put in that space of the fact that he saved just like a lot of this work that wasn't published is, you know, wonderful as well. There's, there's no question about, but when you're going through papers it's very distracting because you start reading it and everything is good and he wasn't the only person who wrote my aunt wrote my mother was a painter but she also wrote my grandmother was a painter but she also wrote. So everybody's everybody sort of wrote that I think I told a story in there that when I was a kid, I thought that we had ink in our veins. You know, and, but that's why they were blue, you know, and, and I told that to a third grade class of mine one time which was subject to derision at that point. So why is it blue because there's ink in it, you know, I love that though I was like this is awesome. But, but, because everybody, because everybody wrote so, so it's, you know, it's, it's kind of like I found a lot. And hopefully I'll be bringing more of it out. I mean, there's, there's different ways to go with this. You go like well, should the documentary movie like whatever happened to Connor Bergavisi and follow it through and, and, and bring this stuff up and see. And then there's another other people said enough thought there's there's a there's a play there's a show in this of somebody opening up a trunk and finding stuff and reading it and then on stage the characters come to life reading it. The grandpa's up there reading it instead of me, and my aunt's reading what she wrote and maybe they started arguing with each other because that's supposed to be me in that scene. Excuse me. But what are you talking about? You know, and then, and then my aunt left me a whole musical. So do it, do it, do a scene of the musical while I'm reading about it. I think that that's, that's, it's, it's sort of jelling into a show called legacy, which is, which has those elements in it, and then has the paintings in the theater on the walls for intermission. You know, because who else can do that and that way everybody in the family gets their moment in the sun at the same time. Instead of my going, okay, who do I do next, you know, who do I bring it next. So yeah, like, so you get a kind of you, you've sort of got at my sort of final question right like so with this book or with the other things like is there anything else like either with this current book or things you're working on that you kind of want to promote or talk about. So yeah, you sort of have started that. I started already, I started already started that. And, and then, but then there's the, then there's the other thing too like I'm a writer and I'm a musician and you go like, is what about my work. And you start, you start getting a little worried. It's a wonderful thing having a legacy but there's also something that you have to be careful about because it starts becoming. You don't want it to compete with what you're doing with your own with your own work, but you still are a product of them being that way, which pointed me in that direction. Though there was a, there was a family story when I was a kid that the reason I didn't go the art place was because there was no wall space left. I had to do writing music because the walls were already covered with paintings from three generations of painters. So, so you, you're going to have to write kid you know. So, so there's that but, but I think in terms of in terms of his work. There's definitely different ways. There's definitely different ways to go. There's two other full books. I mean, the, the one of the memoir stories, which is the most logical following this because this is sort of memoir stories that just all happened to go out the alcohol and the other ones are not. The other one has one about pretty boy Floyd in it, which is like we met on a train platform when he would doing lectures and the guy asked him if he was paid for the lectures they started talking and he picked up on something word and said no. Later on, he recognized a picture of him and he was like whoops. Yeah. So, so that's sort of the most like this, but it's not centered in New York and centered in one place is just it's basically about the people he knew and there's things about Hitler and Gurbel and some, some not nice people, you know, that he interviewed over the years as well as, as well as, you know, chaplain and, and driver and Fitzgerald and, and Hemingway and stuff like that. So, you know, so much. There should be more. He said, he, he is, he's a really good writer and very easy to digest. He was, he did not like the term intellectual, even though he kind of was one. You know, he knew a lot of stuff. But, but he did not like that term at all. And I think he kind of wrote for the masses. Yeah, and you can, I feel like it is it very much. Yes. And it's like one of those things like I said before where you can read it, but you can also be like, Hey, there's this really great, you know, story, this thing yet right here. And you can like quickly sort of make and choose what you want to, or if you're like, Oh, I want to return to that or this story was lots of fun. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, Marana, Comstock, thank you so much for talking with me about the Algonquin round table 25 years with the legends who lunch that was originally written by your grandfather Conrad. Thank you. Thank you for talking with me for new books and popular culture. Thank you. I've enjoyed it. Now I can figure ahead and turn this off. You (gentle music)
