{"id":1838,"date":"2019-11-03T18:56:14","date_gmt":"2019-11-03T18:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/?p=1838"},"modified":"2021-06-14T16:19:07","modified_gmt":"2021-06-14T23:19:07","slug":"happy-to-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/2019\/11\/03\/happy-to-help\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy to help"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Twice in the last week I have helped to prevent a calamity from befalling a colleague. One colleague was irritated and the other was infuriated to receive my editorial help, though they each requested it. Both will come out \u201csmelling like a rose\u201d (to use an expression my Dad always loved and that I now love, too).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my last couple of years in book publishing back in the early 1990s, I spent more than half of my time, it seemed, addressing legal matters: Making sure that my authors weren\u2019t going to get the company I worked for, Prometheus Books Inc.<\/a>, sued for defamation, libel, invasion of privacy, copyright infringement, and the like. Although I did not become an editor so that I could act as an ersatz lawyer, I did enjoy the role, especially because I got to talk to a REAL lawyer, and a great one, Stefan Bauer-Mengelberg<\/a>, a lot. Stefan provided his services for free, because he liked the books we published. He was a wonderful and brilliant and eclectic man, who reached the highest levels of accomplishment as a musical conductor and mathematician and teacher before starting his career in Law. I didn\u2019t know he\u2019d been a conductor until I called him one afternoon regarding a lawsuit. Leonard Bernstein had died the day before, and for some reason I brought that up with Stefan. \u201cI was his assistant conductor for a year,\u201d he said. \u201cThis sounds more impressive than it was. My main job was to have a cigarette lit and ready for Lenny when he came offstage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back to my point: Because of Stefan Bauer-Mengelberg, many of my authors *didn\u2019t* besmirch their reputations and *didn\u2019t* get their butts sued. To a person, they were unhappy receiving the help they received, because they believed they didn\u2019t need it. They all asked: What could go wrong?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A calamity is smaller than a comma when it\u2019s born, and I am indifferent to gratitude.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Originally posted on basil.CA, October 2010; photo August 2019, Manhattan<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twice in the last week I have helped to prevent a calamity from befalling a colleague. One colleague was irritated and the other was infuriated to receive my editorial help, though they each requested it. Both will come out \u201csmelling … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[32,50],"class_list":["post-1838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-roberts-posts","tag-editing-2","tag-gratitude-2"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1838"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2165,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1838\/revisions\/2165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}