Still feeling groovy
ART
Garfunkel’s publisher, Knopf, calls his new book “a memoir (of sorts).” And that’s pretty accurate. “What Is It All But Luminous: Notes From an Underground Man” is filled with musings, observations and lists. Lots of lists. And poetry (or maybe they’re lyrics).
Here are some of the interesting, odd or just plain random things the book reveals about the angelic-voiced singer, who some know as Paul Simon’s partner.
Garfunkel says he first met Simon backstage at their grade school graduation play, “Alice in Wonderland.” Young Simon and Garfunkel played the White Rabbit and the Cheshire Cat, respectively. “To him, I was the blond kid who sang. To me, he was the turned-on kid in the neighborhood, the son of a bass-playing bandleader, who moved to our neighborhood [Kew Gardens Hills] from Newark.”
Garfunkel is star-struck when Beatle George Harrison approaches him at a London party following an S&G concert in 1982. “Your Paul is to you exactly as my Paul is to me,” Harrison whispers in Garfunkel’s ear.
Garfunkel is a James Taylor fan. “I sing to James Taylor [songs] before every show,” he writes. “I warm up in my dressing room to ‘ Handy Man’ . . . ‘ Sweet Baby James’ and about 20 other favorites.”
One of his lists tells us what he’s devoted to. His wife, not surprisingly, makes the cut. “A 21-year love affair with Kathryn,” he says in an early journal entry about their relationship. Sweet. But the Philadelphia Phillies? Unexpected from this boy from Queens, New York City.
In 2010, Sony wants Garfunkel to sign a contract authorizing the release of an album billed as “Simon and Garfunkel with Paul Simon.” Instead of signing, a rankled Garfunkel goes to Switzerland.
His list of life achievements is 25 items long. No. 25 is singing the soundtrack to “The Graduate.” No. 21 is reading “all 275,000 words” of the Random House Dictionary. No. 1 is marrying his wife, Kathryn, in 1988 and “creating” two sons, James and Beau.
Now 75, Garfunkel has some health worries: “These days I sing ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ for a full arena with fear of a hernia.”