September Song

It’s not an everyday love story. A robust young man is introduced to a glamorous woman more than twice his age. Famous and adored as she is, he, being several generations behind her, has never heard of her. She, seasoned and wiser, knows a good thing when she sees it.

Asked to drive her home from the evening’s event, he finds an unexpectedly long ride engrossing, their conversation full and flowing, her laughter endearing. She hasn’t had much to laugh about lately, and he makes her happy.

She invites him to a screening, and then, again and again to somewhere. Quite soon, they’re spending most of their time together. The months between May and December fade softly from sight. They’ve fallen in love.

A few basic facts: She was 81 at the time, he, 36. Less than a year later, he moved in with her. They were inseparable, but they didn’t rush anything: they waited five years to get married. She gave herself the wedding as a birthday gift.

A few more facts: He is an opera singer whose big baritone voice has also taken him onto concert, theater and cabaret stages. She is an actress/singer who has done it all in every show business medium. He devotedly collects the tangibles of her golden memories: of winning an Oscar; appearing in 34 films, 26 Broadway shows, and countless TV shows—including her own; recording 6 albums. Now, and long overdue, he is drawing on his own wealth of unlikely experiences with a solo cabaret show aptly called, “Memories… Are Made of This.”

He and she are Mr. and Mrs. Frank Basile. She is Celeste Holm. And if you are several generations behind, go to celesteholm.com.

“Memories… Are Made of This” is an unusual amalgam of song and patter—patriotic songs that don’t sound hokey, arias that don’t sound out of place in a cabaret room, popular and romantic songs infused with warmth and humor, and anecdotes that candidly acknowledge youthful folly as well as unexpected good fortune. Frank is having fun remembering, and his memories, even the bitter ones, are sweet, delivered with an irrepressible grin that seems as if it could only have been drawn by the sweep of a cartoonist’s hand.

This would not be New York if there were not skeptics in the room, and I sensed, not for the first time, that Frank’s unabashed homage to Celeste, radiant at 94, brought out the worst in more than one of them. Full disclosure here: Celeste and in time Frank were my neighbors and dear friends for many years, which gave me as good a chance to observe them—not always in the best of their circumstances—as anyone from the world of people looking either directly or askance at them. Let the skeptics cavil and carp about them all they want. They’re the real thing.

My favorite part of the evening? With apologies to Frank, it came after the show when his 73 year old mom, leaning down and hugging Celeste, looked up at me, her face beaming, and said, “I’m happy to be with my daughter-in-law.”
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Note: You can see Frank Basile in “Memories… Are Made of This” at the Metropolitan Room, 34 West 22nd Street, New York City. Remaining performances: September 20th and 27th at 7 p.m.

Three Guides and One Twilight Zone in the Two Chinas

Sabbath in the Lama Temple with Zion

When the professor escorting an irreverent band of six journalists through Beijing says it's time to return to Zion, he's not thinking of the Holy Land or Zionism—he's trying to collect us and shepherd us back to our touring van and our Chinese superguide, Zion Zhu.

Zion, the son of missionaries, knows everything there is to know about: the Ming, the Qing and every other dynasty in China's long history; Nyngmapa and Galupa and presumably any other kind of Buddhism; and Hollywood movies. Ask Zion how he knows an English word he's just surprised you with and he'll tell you the film he learned it from. Then he'll tell the driver to "hang a right."

In addition to the “usuals,” the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, et al, Zion led us to "Longevity Hill," and through the Lama Temple and "The Hall of Longevity"—the hall of you should live so long, as I like to think of it.


Tuesday in the Park with Teresa

As Shanghai-modish as Beijing is quaint, our guide Teresa graced and grinned us through the gardens, canals, tunnels and towers of Shanghai. Teresa eschews a business card for a rubber stamper, a delicate pink one, which she uses to imprint her name and cell phone number on the document you’re least likely to lose. (That she presented the stamp after she lost me once is a Chinese puzzle.) Not exactly traipsing over hill and dale, we followed Teresa through the Humble Administrator’s Garden, the Master of the Fishing Nets Garden, Blood Alley and Tiger Hill. I remain seduced by the poetry of the names.

They say the national bird of China is the crane. The Chinese wear face masks to prevent contagion from foreigners bearing flu, but it is the edifice complexes that are catching. Park Hyatt Shanghai boasts of having the highest restaurant in the world. A presidential suite at Shanghai’s Hyatt on the Bund becomes “The Emperor’s Suite.” It followed that I was dubbed—by the incongruous professor of architecture and comedy—the Son of the Cucumber Emperor.


‘Tis the Season to Be Airy

“September Song” declares, “It’s a long, long time from May to December.” In an inscrutable reversal, Air China gave us December in May by piping “Oh Come All Ye Faithful” into its cabin of seven sole Caucasians amid an untold horde of Asian passengers airborne between two predominantly Buddhist countries, China and Taiwan. “Oh cuh-uh-ome all ye-ye fai-yay-aithful.” A gospel-soul rendition, in English. Ha-al-lelu-oo-oo-yah and amen. The evergreen Christmas Carol, the lone musical offering, was so felicitous for take-off they repeated it on landing.


Four Days on the Road with Lily

Bitten by the mine’s-bigger-than-yours bug, Taiwan’s capital, Taipei, boasts of the tallest building in the world (for now). Be that as it may, the poetry of Taiwan is the roll call of the cities. By bus, plane and bullet train the Caucasians go rolling along. Taipei to Taichung to Lugang to Tainan to Kaohsiung to Hualien to Taroka. A street festival, a lantern shop, a night market, a foot massage. A serene trek through the sublime Taroka Gorge, for which there are no adequate words or camera lenses. And everywhere, our Taiwanese guide Lily charging forward to rein in the pace-setter of the pack and scampering back to bring up the laggards. Pen to pad, camera in hand or short on breath, I am laggardly.