Bosch didn't know how people in this place could stand it. It felt like the wind off the lake was freezing his eyeballs in their sockets. He had come totally unprepared for the surveillance. He had layers on but his top layer was an L.A. trench coat with a thin zip-in liner that wouldn't keep a Siberian husky warm in the Chicago winter. Bosch wasn't a man who gave much credit to clichés but he found himself thinking: I'm too old for this.
The subject of his surveillance had come down Wabash and turned east toward Michigan and the park. Bosch knew where she was going because she had headed this way on her lunch break at the bookstore the day before as well. When she got to the museum she showed her member pass and was quickly admitted entrance. Bosch had to wait in line to buy a day pass. But he wasn't worried about losing her. He knew where she would be. He didn't bother to check his coat because he was cold to the bone, and he didn't expect to be in the museum more than an hour-the girl would have to get back to the bookstore.
He moved through the galleries quickly on a direct route to the permanent Hopper exhibition. There he found her sitting on the one long bench. She had her notebook and pencil out and was already working. He had been surprised the day before to find she was not sketching in her notebook as she repeatedly glanced up and studied the painting.
She was writing. Bosch surmised that the Hopper painting was the biggest draw in the museum. Many people came for it and often carelessly stood in front her, blocking her view. She never cleared her throat to alert them. She never said anything. She sometimes
leaned to her left or right to see around one of the blockers and Bosch thought he would see a slight smile on her lips, as though she were pleased with what the new angle of observation had brought her.
The lone bench was crowded with four Japanese tourists sitting in a row next to her. They looked like high school students come to study the master's most well known work. Bosch took a position on the other side of the gallery, behind the surveillance subject's back so she wouldn't notice him. He rubbed his hands together and tried to get some warmth into them. His joints were aching from the cold and the nine-block walk to the museum. He had found no interior space with an angle on the front doors of bookstore. He had waited outside, hovering around the entrance to a garage, for her to emerge at lunchtime. Bosch saw a spot on the opposite end of the bench come open when one of the students got up. He moved toward it, sitting down and using the three students between him and the surveillance subject as a blind.
Without leaning forward and exposing himself, he tried to look down the bench and possibly see what she was writing in her notebook. But she was writing with her left hand and that blocked his view. He looked up at the painting when there was a moment the crowd cleared and it could be seen clearly. His eyes were drawn toward the man sitting alone at the counter, his face turned toward the shadows of the painting. There was a couple sitting across the counter from him. They looked bored.
The man sitting alone was ignoring them.
"Iku jikan."
Bosch turned his eyes from the painting. An older Japanese woman was signaling the sitting students impatiently. It was time to go.
The two girls and a boy stood up and scurried out of the gallery to join the rest of their classmates. Their five minutes with the masterpiece were up. That left Bosch alone on the bench with the subject of his surveillance.
Four feet of space on the bench separated them. Bosch realized that sitting down had been a strategic mistake. She could get a good look at him if she looked away from the painting and her notebook. She might remember him if this lasted another day. He
didn't move at first because that might draw her eye. He decided to wait two minutes and then get up. He would turn quickly away so she wouldn't see his face. In the meantime, she did not seem to notice his presence and he went back to looking at the painting. He wondered about the painter's choice to show the interior of the diner from the outside. To paint it from the shadows of night.
But then she spoke.
"Magnificent, isn't it?" she asked.
"Excuse me?" Bosch asked.
"The painting. It's pretty magnificent."
"That's what they say, yes."
"Who are you?"
Bosch froze.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Which one of them do you identify with?" she said.
"You've got the man by himself, the couple who don't look all that happy to be there,
and the man working behind the counter. Which one are you?"
Bosch turned from her to look at the painting.
"I'm not sure," he answered.
"How about you?"
"Definitely the loner," she said.
"The woman looks bored. She's checking her nails. I'm never bored. It's the one all alone."
Bosch stared at the painting.
"Yeah, me too, I guess," he said.
“What do you think the story is?” she asked.
"What, with them? What makes you think there's a story?"
"There's always a story. Painting is story telling. Do you know why it's called 'Nighthawks'?"
"No, not really."
"Well, the night part is obvious. But check out the beak on the guy with the woman."
Bosch did. He saw it for the first time. The man's nose was sharp and bent like a bird's. Nighthawks.
"I see it," he said. He smiled and nodded. He had learned something.
"But just look at the light," she said.
"All light in the painting comes from within the coffee shop. It is the beacon that draws them there. Light and dark, yin and yang, clearly on display. "
"I would guess you are a painter but you are writing in your notebook, not drawing."
"Not a painter. But I am a story teller. A writer, I hope. One day."
He knew she was only 23 years old. It seemed too young to have accomplished anything yet as a writer.
“So you are a writer but you come to look at a painting," he said.
"I come for inspiration," she said.
"I think I could write a million words about it. When I am having trouble I come here. It gets me through."
"What kind of trouble?"
"Writing is about what happens next. Sometimes that doesn't come so easily. So I come here and look at something like this." She gestured toward the painting with her
free hand, then nodded. Problem solved. Bosch nodded too. He thought he understood inspiration and how it could travel from one discipline to another, how it could be harnessed for an endeavor seeming completely different. He had always thought that studying and understanding the sound of a saxophone had made him a better detective. He wasn't sure why or if he could ever explain it to himself or anybody else. But he knew that hearing Frank Morgan play "Lullaby" somehow made him better at what he did.
Bosch nodded at the notebook in her lap.
"Are you writing about the painting?" he asked.
"Actually, no," she said.
"I am writing my novel. I just come here a lot in hope that something about the painting rubs off on me." She laughed.
"I know, sounds crazy," she said.
"Not really," Bosch said.
"I think I understand. Is your novel about someone alone?"
"Yes, very much so."
"Based on you?"
"Sometimes."
Bosch nodded. He liked talking to her even though it broke the rules.
"So that's my story," she said.
"Why are you here?"
It took him by surprise.
"Why am I here?" he asked, buying time to think.
"The painting. I wanted to see it in person."
"Enough to come back two days in a row?" she asked.
Bosch was caught. She smiled and pointed to her eye.
"They say a good writer is an observer," she said.
"I saw you here yesterday."
Bosch nodded sheepishly.
"Couldn't help notice how cold you were," she said.
"That jacket... you aren't from around here, are you?"
"No, not really," Bosch said.
"I'm from L.A." He watched her as he said it. His words were as freezing as the wind outside the museum.
"All right, who are you?" she asked.
"What is this?"
Bosch waited in the foyer twenty minutes before Griffin's security man took him back to the office. Griffin was seated behind a large mahogany-topped desk.
The same place he was sitting the day Bosch had met him.
Through the open curtain of the window to his right Bosch could see the still surface of a pool. Griffin was wearing a long-sleeved workout ensemble with a zip-up turtleneck. His face was flush from whatever activity accounted for a workout for him.
"Sorry to hold you up, Bosch," he said.
"I was rowing."
Bosch just nodded. Griffin gestured to one of the chairs in front of his desk.
"Have a seat," he said.
"Tell me what you've found."
Bosch stayed standing.
"This won't take long," he said.
"The lead didn't pan out. I went to Chicago but it wasn't her."
Griffin leaned back in his seat, digesting Bosch's words. He was a man of wealth and power and was unused to being told that things didn't pan out. Things always panned out for Reginald Griffin, producer of three Academy Award-winning films.
"Did you speak to her?" he asked.
"Yes," Bosch said."At length. I also checked out her apartment while she and her roommate were at work. I found nothing that indicated she was hiding her true identity. It's not her."
"You're wrong, Bosch. It was her. I know it."
"She ran away eight years ago. That's a long time and people change. Especially kids that age. The photo was not a good shot of her."
"You were supposed to be good, Bosch. Highly recommended. I should have hired someone else. Looks like I have to now."
"You won't have to bother. Just find a geneticist."
"What are you talking about?"
Bosch's hands had been in the pockets of his coat. He had zipped out the lining after returning from Chicago, but the El Niño rain pattern continued in the City of Angels and he needed the trench coat. It may not have kept him warm in Chicago but it would keep him dry in Los Angeles, even if it did make him look like a walking cliché. His daughter had reminded him of that. At least he wasn't wearing a fedora with it.
From the left pocket of the coat he produced a plastic bag. He leaned forward and placed it down on the desk.
"DNA sample," he said.
"It's hair I took off her brush when I was in her apartment. Get a lab to extract DNA and then compare it to yours. You'll have scientific results then and you'll see, she's not your daughter."
Griffin grabbed the bag and looked at it.
"You said she has a roommate," he said. "How do I know this isn't her fucking hair?"
"Because her roommate is African-American and she's also a guy," Bosch said.
"Any lab will be able to tell you the content of that bag comes from a Caucasian female.
" Bosch put his hand back in his pocket. He wanted to get out of there. He knew he should have never taken the job in the first place. The stories Griffin's daughter had told him while sitting on the bench in front of the "Nighthawks" made it clear that he needed to vet his employers before agreeing to do anything for them. You live, you learn. Bosch was new at the private eye business. It had been less than a year since he pulled the pin at the LAPD.
Griffin pulled the plastic bag across the top of the desk and put it into a drawer.
"I'll have it checked," he said.
"But I want you to stay with the case. You must have other ideas, all those years you spent on cold cases tracing people."
Bosch shook his head.
"You hired me to go to Chicago, follow the photo, you said," Bosch said.
"I did that and it wasn't the right girl. I don't think I am interested in the rest. When
your daughter wants you to know where she is, she'll reach out."
Griffin seemed incensed-either by Bosch's rejection or the idea that he should wait on his daughter to make contact.
"Bosch, we're not done here. I want you on the case."
"You can get anybody to do what I do. Just look in a phone book. I'm not interested in continuing the relationship. We are, in fact, done."
Bosch turned toward the office door. Griffin's security man was there. He was looking over Bosch's shoulder at his employer, looking for a signal or some direction on what to do; let Bosch leave or stop him.
"Let him go," Griffin said.
"He's useless-no wonder he demanded his money up front. She got to him. I know it was her in the photo but she got to him."
The security man opened the office door and stood to the side to let Bosch pass through.
"Bosch!" Griffin called.
Bosch was about to pass through the door. He stopped and then turned around to take Griffin's final verbal assault head-on.
"She told you about Maui, didn't she?" Griffin asked.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Bosch said.
"I told you, it wasn't your daughter."
"I was drunk, goddamnit, and it never happened again."
Bosch waited for more but that was it. He turned and walked through the door.
"I'll show myself out," he said to the security man.
The door was closed behind him and the security man trailed him as Bosch made his way through the house to the front door. At one point he heard Griffin shouting again from his closed office.
"I was drunk!"
As if that were an excuse, Bosch thought. Outside the house Bosch got into his car and drove off the property. He hoped the old Cherokee dropped oil on the cobblestone driveway. When he was several blocks clear of the Griffin estate he pulled to the curb and grabbed the burner out of the cup holder between the seats. He called the one number that was programmed into the throw-away phone on a speed dial.
The call was answered after three rings.
"Yes?" a young woman's voice said.
"It's me," Bosch said.
"I just left your father’s house.”
"Did he believe you?"
"I don't think so. But I don't know. He took the hair, said he'd have it tested. If he does that he might be convinced."
"And it won't come back to your daughter?"
"No, she's never been DNA typed anywhere. It will come back as no match. Hopefully he'll leave it at that."
"I'm going to move again. I can't risk it."
"It might be the smart thing."
"Did he mentioned Maui?"
"Yes, as I was leaving."
"The same story I told you?"
"He didn't tell the story but his bringing it up, that confirmed it for me. I knew I was doing the right thing.
" There was a silence before she spoke again.
"Thank you."
"No, I should thank you. Did you figure out the photo yet?"
"Oh, yes, I did. It was from a book signing we had at the store with D. H. Reilly, the mystery novelist. The book he was signing No Trap So Deadly was optioned by my father's company. I didn't know that. At his office they have a clip service that pulls all media hits regarding their productions and properties. It helps them target promotions. It was just dumb luck. I was in the photo in background and he must've seen it when he was looking through all the newspaper clips on Reilly and the book he optioned." Bosch thought about that for a moment. It seemed to work. A photo at a book signing tips off a search for a runaway daughter. Griffin had not told Bosch the origin of the photo he had given him when he hired him and I put him on the case.
"Angela," Bosch said.
"Considering all of this, I think you might want to change jobs too. You might even want to do more than just move house. You might want to change cities too."
"Okay," she said in a quiet voice.
"You are probably right. It's just that I love it here."
"Pick someplace warm," Bosch said.
"Maybe Miami."
His attempt at humor fell flat. He heard only silence as Angela considered having to move again to avoid her father finding her. During the silence Bosch flashed for a
moment on the painting. The man sitting alone at the counter. He wondered how long Angela could last as a nighthawk, moving from city to city, always being at the counter by herself.
"Listen," he said.
"I'm not going to get rid of this phone, okay? I know that was the plan but I'm going to hold on to it. You call me anytime, okay? If you need help or even if you just want to talk. You call me anytime, okay?"
"Okay," she said.
"Then I guess I keep this phone as well. You can call me too."
Bosch nodded even though she couldn't see this.
"I'll do that," he said.
"You take care."
He ended the call and slipped the burner into the pocket of his trench coat. He checked the sideview mirror for traffic coming up behind him. He waited for it to clear
and then he pulled away from the curb. He was hungry and wanted to get something to eat. He thought one more time about the man sitting alone at the counter. I
am that man, he thought as he drove.
This short story - "Nighthawks" - in the book In Sunlight or In Shadow was written by Joyce Carol Oates. The anthology, edited by Lawrence Block, features stories inspired by the paintings of Edward Hopper.
EDWARD HOPPER 1882-1967 AND NEW YORK CITY
Edward Hopper was America's best realism painter back in the Inter-War period. He was born in Nyack, New York on the 22nd of July, 1882. His parents were of mostly of the Dutch origin.
Hopper had already decided to take Art as a profession by the young age of seven, but his parents persuaded him otherwise; to take up a Commercial Illustration field, Hopper says later, "my parents said that, Commercial Illustration provided a more secure future, and as art could only be only be useful asa hobby".
Hopper first attended the New York School of Illustrating, and then transferred to the New York School of Art in 1900. Hopper was a slow developer and studied at the School Of Art for seven years; Hopper's dream was to study in France and finally after a lot of help from his parents he left for Paris in 1906. He generally paints of New York, such as urban and rural scenes; he mostly paints his personal vision of Modern American Life in the Inter-War period.
Usually, he paints American coffee shops, gas stations, street scenes, etc. He also paints seascapes and rural landscapes, such as; pure landscapes/seascapes of rocks, beach, grass, and the occasional light house, farm house and sailboat; sometimes he would combine the elements to create a "mix and match" of scenes.
Edward Hopper believed that his paintings should speak for himself, "If you could say it in words there'd be no reason to paint". . Hopper's paintings are a chronicle of American history and a realistic vision of what life was like during his period. An immensely prolific painter Hopper died sitting in a chair in his studio two months before his 85th birthday. Hopper's art lives on, coloring the perceptions of his viewers, making one look at the world through new eyes.
He envisaged the importance of the railroad and the automobile as a means not only of transport but also of distancing human beings from one another.
SOIR BLEU (1914) - Whitney Museum NYC
What do you see?
What do you think is going on?
When might this scene be set?
Where might the scene be set?
Who could the characters be?
Why are they there?
How does this painting make you feel?
THERE'S A BOAT THAT'S LEAVING SOON FOR NEW YORK
Find the following missing words in the lyrics and in the text below
Queens - cornet - New York City - riverboat - Paris - worldwide - Louisiana - spirituals
Fifth Avenue - Carnegie Hall - improvisation - Harlem
There's a boat that's leavin' soon for New York
Come with me
That's where we belong, sister
You an' me can live that high life In New York
Come with me there you can't go wrong, sister
I'll buy you the swellest mansion
Up on Upper ____________
An' through __________
we'll go struttin'
We'll go a-struttin'
An' there'll be nothin’
Too good for you
I'll dress you in silks and satins
In the latest ___________ styles
All the blues you'll be forgettin'
You'll be forgettin'
There'll be no frettin'
Just nothin' but smiles
Come along with me that's the place
Don't be a fool come along come along!
There's a boat that's leavin' soon for New York
Come with me that's where we belong, sister
that's where we belong!
Jazz was the first American music style to influence music ___________. The music called Jazz was born around 1895 and really caught on in the American south. It developed from a mixture of _________ and field hollers from the slaves working on
the plantation farms, The beat of ragtime syncopation, marches and low brass bands, and of course, blues. What made jazz different is that it was really focused on the use of __________ , and having only one musician play at a time (solo). Louis Armstrong was born on August 4th, 1901 in New Orleans, ___________. He lived in an area of New Orleans which was so poor, that it was called the Battlefield. Armstrong was often left in the care of his grandmother, since his father abandoned the family when he was born, and his mother often turned to prostitution. On New Year's Eve 1912, Louis fired his step-father's shotgun into the air, and was arrested shortly after. He was sent to the Colored Waif's Home for Boys. In the Colored Waif's Home For boys, Louis learned how to play the __________ and fell in love with music. When he was 13 (in 1914), he left the home and started to work some odd jobs like delivering newspapers and hauling coal. Even at this time, Armstrong had a very fine reputation as a blues player. Joe "King" Oliver took interest in Armstrong's talent and became a mentor to Louis. He soon replaced Oliver in Kid Ory's Band. Armstrong was able to stop working manual labor and began playing full time. He would play at parties, funeral marches, dances, and at local "Honky-Tonks". In 1919 he played in a __________ band lead by Fate Morable. In the summer of 1922, Oliver asked Armstrong to come and play second cornet in his Chicago Creole Jazz Band. Louis made his first recordings with Oliver, and also his first recorded solo in "Chimes Blues" on April 5th, 1923. The Creole Jazz Band was the first famous jazz band in Chicago that highlighted New Orlean's sound. Louis also married the female pianist in the band, Lillian Hardin. She encouraged Louis to cut ties with his mentor because she thought that Oliver was holding Louis back. So in 1924, Armstrong joined the top African-American dance band in ____________ , The Fletcher Henderson's Orchestra. This move helped revolutionize jazz, as Armstrong’s innovative trumpet playing and swing feel changed the way musicians approached improvisation and rhythm. Throughout his career, Armstrong played at legendary New York venues like the Savoy Ballroom, the Cotton Club, and ____________
. He became a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Later in life, Armstrong settled in Corona,___________ , where he lived from 1943 until his death in 1971. His home is now the Louis Armstrong House Museum, preserving his legacy. New York played a crucial role in Armstrong’s growth as an artist, and in turn, he helped shape the city’s jazz history.
VOCABULARY - Match the following words to their definitions
Hemmed (pp “To Hem”)
Slender
Ebb Tide
Masts
Aloft
Thronged (pp “To Throng”)
Spires
Unruly
A tapering conical or pyramidal structure on the top of a building, typically a church tower.
Gracefully thin
Disorderly and disruptive and not amenable to discipline or control.
Flying or situated in the air; overhead.
The period between high tide and low tide during which water flows away
from the shore. Also called falling tide.
Fill or be present in a place
Turn under and sew the edge of (a piece of cloth)
Tall upright posts, spars, or other structures on a ship or boat, in sailing
vessels generally carrying a sailor sails
LISTEN TO THE POEM, THEN ANSWER AND DISCUSS
What emotions does the poem evoke?
How does Whitman describe the city?
What is his attitude toward urban life?
Some people love the energy of big cities, while others prefer small towns. Which do you prefer and why?
WELCOME TO MANNAHATTA
‘Mannahatta’ by Walt Whitman is a poem that marvels over the island city of Manhattan through the eyes of a speaker attempting to wrangle all its colossally juxtaposedmoving parts.
The poem begins as a search for a definition: the speaker insinuates he’s looking for a word that’s “specific and perfect” for his city. It’s this line of thought that leads him to the indigenous name for the island from which the title gets its name. Certain he’s found the right word, what follows is his attempt to convey the many different
exemplary visions that “Mannahatta” represents.
He then lists and catalogs a series of images that attempt to coalesce for the reader a sense of the abstract sentiments that the speaker is trying to convey.
Because of all the cataloging many of the lines are end-stopped. Yet the commas between images offer only a slight pause that — instead of slowing the reader — seems to launch them with increasing speed into the next series of images. Creating a swift and rushing cadence that appears to mimic the high velocity of urban
life.
The final lines of ‘Mannahatta’ pull away from the rapid catalog of images the speaker has just unfurled to help coalesce his definition of the island around. He emphasizes again the city’s colossal variety — “a million people” , and also asserts the inherent liberty of this mass of people whose manners are “free and superb,” wielding
“open voices” and “hospitality”.
MANNAHATTA (1860)
I was asking for something specific and perfect for my city,
Whereupon lo! upsprang the aboriginal name.
Now I see what there is in a name, a word, liquid, sane, unruly, musical, self-sufficient,
I see that the word of my city is that word from of old,
Because I see that word nested in nests of water-bays, superb,
Rich, hemm'd thick all around with sailships and steamships, an island sixteen miles long, solid-founded,
Numberless crowded streets, high growths of iron, slender, strong, light, splendidly uprising toward clear skies,
Tides swift and ample, well-loved by me, toward sundown,
The flowing sea-currents, the little islands, larger adjoining islands, the heights, the villas,
The countless masts, the white shore-steamers, the lighters, the ferry-boats, the black sea-steamers well-model'd,
The down-town streets, the jobbers' houses of business, the houses of business of the ship-merchants and
money-brokers, the river-streets,
Immigrants arriving, fifteen or twenty thousand in a week,
The carts hauling goods, the manly race of drivers of horses, the brown-faced sailors,
The summer air, the bright sun shining, and the sailing clouds aloft,
The winter snows, the sleigh-bells, the broken ice in the river, passing along up or down with the flood-tide or ebb-tide,
The mechanics of the city, the masters, well-form'd, beautiful-faced, looking you straight in the eyes,
Trottoirs throng'd, vehicles, Broadway, the women, the shops and shows,
A million people—manners free and superb—open voices—hospitality—the most courageous and friendly young men,
City of hurried and sparkling waters! city of spires and masts!
City nested in bays! my city!
FINAL DISCUSSION
1 - Although they belong to different artistic fields, Edward Hopper, Louis Armstrong, and Walt Whitman share several common traits. Can you mention any?
2 - Innovation in their disciplines: Each one of them broke the conventions of their field. How?
3 - Their works often explore themes related to solitude, introspection, and the human condition. Any idea?
Riccardo Zambon, 15 febbraio 2025
POSSIBLE KEYS:
1 - Hopper influenced modern painting, Armstrong became an icon of jazz, and Whitman is considered one of the fathers of modern American poetry. All three, through their work, explored and represented America in distinctive ways. Can you explain?
2 - Hopper, with his paintings often capturing urban solitude and scenes of daily life, offered a reflection on isolation and the human condition within an American context. Armstrong, through jazz, embodied a form of musical expression deeply rooted in African American culture, but also at the heart of American popular music. Whitman, with his poetry, celebrated democracy, freedom, and individuality, becoming a symbol of the "American Dream". Hopper experimented with light and shadow to reveal subtle emotions, Armstrong revolutionized jazz, pushing it toward new technical and expressive frontiers, and Whitman innovated poetry with free verse and unconventional language.
4 - Hopper is known for his scenes that capture moments of silent solitude, while Armstrong, though famous for his energy, also brings a melancholic quality to many of his performances. Whitman, in his poems, addresses the solitude of the individual, as well as the desire for universal connection
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