The Exhibitionist by Karl Katz

Author:Karl Katz [KATZ, KARL]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ART015000; ART059000
ISBN: 9781468313482
Publisher: ABRAMS (Ignition)
Published: 2016-06-21T00:00:00+00:00

Karl showing Yitzhak Rabin the Israel The Reality exhibition at The Jewish Museum. 1968.

And there was Jacob “Jakey” Brackman, whom I found on the plane ride back from Israel, in the trusty pages of my New Yorker magazine. He’d written a lengthy review of The Graduate, the seminal Mike Nichols film then sweeping the nation. Brackman’s review spun out into a treatise on American society and coming of age in the 1960s. After I’d landed in New York, the article stuck with me, and after my first hectic weeks at the museum, I wrote Brackman through the magazine explaining that I had no idea who he was, but that from his review I could tell he had a great understanding of what was going on in the United States. “I’d love to meet you,” I offered.

No reply came. I called the New Yorker’s offices several times. “Did Mr. Brackman get the letter?” My persistence was driven by more than a need to understand the most recent cartoons in the magazine. I’d been in and out of the country since the mid-1950s—I’d missed presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, and much of the civil rights movement, not to mention the first years of the Vietnam War. I wanted to talk to someone who could shed some light on the world outside Israel, and I had a feeling Brackman was my man.

“He doesn’t show up that often,” the receptionist admitted, “and he doesn’t have a phone. We don’t know how to reach him.” She didn’t offer that the Graduate review was his last article for the New Yorker before leaving to become film critic at Esquire.

“Okay,” I sighed. “Well, when you do see him, please just give him the message that the director of the Jewish Museum would like to meet him for breakfast at the Stanhope Hotel.”

The stately Stanhope—just down the street from the Adams Hotel were I was a tenant, and across the street from the Metropolitan Museum of Art—didn’t serve bagels. So I made a habit of bringing my own. I’d present it to my waiter, then have them slice and lightly toast it for a “toastage” fee—the morning equivalent to corkage. That day I came in with two of New York’s finest rustling in a bag: one for me, one for the elusive Brackman. I’d finally tracked him down. I ordered a coffee and waited.

A gangly young man stepped into the dining room. The gawky figure looked like he couldn’t have been more than sixteen, and was wearing a somewhat disheveled ensemble: torn sweater, khakis, and loafers. “Katz?” he stage-whispered from the doorway. I flagged him down.

“Jacob?” I asked. “Nice to meet you.”

It turned out the Harvard grad was actually a youthful-looking twenty-six, and that he was thirsty. He ordered three glasses of orange juice and one of milk, and I got down to business. “Listen,” I said, “I’ve lost touch with America, with the art and the politics of this country. I’ve read your articles in the New Yorker.

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