Tomie performed with Children’s Radio Theatre on December 20 and 21, 1985, at the Kennedy Center in a production called “A Christmas Gift From Tomie dePaola.” The recording was broadcast on National Public Radio stations on Christmas Day.
Here’s a link to the article about Tomie in THE WASHINGTON POST… https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1985/12/21/for-the-eyes-of-children/2aab5372-93d8-4418-ba56-4764d3b3d378/ (Bob)
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Diane Deckard and I were standing in Tomie’s yard in 1987. Diane is holding Tomie’s Welsh terrier puppy, Madison, and I am holding Diane’s West Highland terrier puppy, Daisy. Diane helped me in the office and occasionally lined paper for new book projects for Tomie. After a book’s art director told Tomie the dimensions of the pages of a new book, Diane - his best paper liner - would cut art paper to the correct size and draw lines on the paper to indicate margins. After she completed that task, Tomie would start drawing and painting on the paper.
Diane would bring Daisy to work and the two puppies would chase each other throughout the barn. Madison was usually in the lead with his slightly longer legs.
When Tomie and Diane worked in Tomie’s studio, they would talk about movies and Broadway. Diane had been an actress in New York City. She bought a house in New Hampshire with residuals from some of her jobs. Her best known work was a commercial, produced in 1971, for Alka-Seltzer. (Bob)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFKifpMtlNs
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Painting by Tomie during summer of 1952 of Meriden (CT) High School classmate Georgia Bradley (married last name, Gast). (Bob)
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Bernadette Peters was one of Tomie’s favorite musical theater performers. He especially liked her in “Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Song & Dance” in the 1980s. Bernadette Peters’ character was Emma, a young Englishwoman who travels to New York City to seek work and to chase love. But, that relationship in New York City doesn’t work out. She next meets film producer Sheldon Bloom and follows him to Los Angeles. It doesn’t take long for Emma to realize she is just “one of his things… a soggy crumpet floating around the pool all day long.”
During the song, “Capped Teeth and Caesar Salad,” singing is interrupted by a phone call Emma makes to Sheldon’s office. Emma asks if she may speak with Sheldon, but the secretary tells Emma that Mr. Bloom is at a screening. The secretary offers to take a message, but instead of taking a message from Emma, the secretary says “Have a nice day,” and hangs up. Yet, Emma continues to speak into the phone, “You have a nice day, too… and a nice swim.”
After hearing the Original Broadway Cast Recording of “Song and Dance,” we began to use the phrase, “Have a nice swim.” It became a comfortable way to say “goodbye,” but mean much more than “goodbye,” at the end of the day, or at the end of phone calls, or when one of us left for travel. (Bob)
https://www.allmusicals.com/lyrics/songdance/cappedteethandcaesarsalad.htm
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Judy, Kate, and Susi (not pictured) visited Tomie not many days after he fell in the early morning hours of October 30, 2019, and spent nearly five hours on a concrete floor until I found him when I arrived for work. Judy, Kate, and Susi had been students at Newton (MA) College of the Sacred Heart when Tomie taught there. Judy had bought an Alexa device for Tomie and insisted that I set it up in her presence. I made Judy happy and got Alexa operational, but Tomie and I were well aware of the stories of Amazon Alexa researchers/eavesdroppers. As they drove out of the driveway, I unplugged Alexa and put “her” back into the box.
After the second fall, I thought we needed to put eavesdropping concerns aside and put Alexa to use. I programmed it so Tomie could tell Alexa to “call Bob” to make my cell phone ring.
I’ve kept Alexa “alive” in the barn as I am usually the only one here and “she” might be helpful in the event of a future emergency. Yesterday morning I hoped the Amazon “researchers” were eavesdropping so that there was proof that I roared when I read the first sentence in Delli’s email. Delli (pictured) was Tomie’s friend at Pratt. She was the one who told Tomie about a new monastery in Vermont called Weston Priory. Delli’s note was in reaction to the story Tomie told me that he left the priory because of psychosomatic headaches.
Delli’s email-
“Subject: Addendum to ‘history’”
Note-
“Psychosomatic headaches, my a$$.
“He had a hard time with discipline, not being able to draw, paint whenever he wanted. Got his panic call in NYC - he was afraid to call Flossie about leaving - to escort him out of the Priory.
“I took a train, arriving in Weston in below zero temperatures. Dressed the ‘fallen woman’ part - wearing a snug blue Bloomingdale’s knit dress, matching shoes, hair swept up, dangling sculptural earrings. They were most gracious, serving me the absolute best homemade bread and butter with coffee.”
Tomie tried the priory two more times. One of the times, I think he was only there on weekends. After the failed third attempt, his friend Gene Youngken - who called people “Duck” or “Dearie” so that he didn’t need to remember first names - said to Tomie, “Duck, next time, just phone it in.”
Tomie used many subtle techniques to discount me over the decades. The one he used during the last year or two was to cite the film “Rashomon” whenever I shared a story involving us both. (“Rashomon” is a film in which characters give contradictory versions of the same incident.) That is, his version was always correct, and mine was always incorrect. I don’t doubt that “Rashomon” would have been mentioned in reaction to Delli’s recollection. (Bob)
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