Contributor Confab: Lynne Burns
"This broadsheet is having me call people that I haven’t spoken to in a while."
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“A Toast to Judy,” appearing in slips slips #2, is a beautiful piece of memoir from Lynne Burns—an account of Lynne’s decades-long connection with her late friend Judy Berkowitz. What makes this piece especially moving for me is that Lynne is a longtime family friend who I’ve only gotten to know recently, despite the fact that she was my mom’s college roommate and has been close with my dad my entire life. We lived in the same city for decades without crossing paths, which is about as New York as it gets. Her portrait of Judy is another classic city story—a poignant glimpse of twilight while the busy world bustles on.
ss: Is there any special background/context to your slips slips contribution that you’d like to share?
LB: A few years ago, I took a memoir-writing class and discovered a new passion. As an English major, I always thought I wanted to write, but except for some magazine and newspaper articles, my life went in a different direction. Memoir writing is a different animal, and it was like discovering photography so many years ago.
“A Toast to Judy” was one of my first memoirs, and it was almost three times as long. They read it at both her life celebrations in New York City and Provincetown.
For the 500-word limit of slips slips, I had to edit out a lot, including our trip to a Halloween party in Brooklyn where Judy, dressed as a flasher in a flesh colored bodysuit with pubic hair, made so many people laugh as she opened her raincoat on our subway rides to and from Manhattan.
I sent a copy of my original essay to photographer Roland Scherman, who was part of the story, and he thanked me profusely. I felt it was important also to try and reach the enigmatic Bob Dylan to let him know his friend had passed. I emailed a copy to a musician friend, Mary Lee Kortes, who knows Dylan’s manager. Mary Lee liked my story and was kind enough to forward it to his manager. The manager thanked her for sending the piece, but, as with all things Dylan, we do not know if Bob actually received it. I’m going to believe Judy made sure that he did.
ss: If you could arrange an uninterrupted 30-minute dialogue with anybody, living or dead, that you’ve never met before, who would you pick, and what would your first question be?
LB: I am choosing two people for this question.
First, I would love to ask the photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson: When he quit photography for painting, was it because he chose NOT to manipulate his prints in the darkroom? He only printed full frame and supposedly didn’t burn or dodge light on them or use any filters. That can be so limiting. And yet, he had so many great photos. Maybe the question should be, “What is your secret?”
I would also love to spend those 30 minutes walking with him, Leicas around our necks and snapping pictures from our bodies, never holding the camera to our eyes. I read he used that technique, and I tried it when I travelled through Morocco (where people preferred not being photographed) and had some interesting results.
The second person is Al Pacino. I read his memoir, Sonny Boy, last summer. I grew up watching and loving his movies. I just rewatched Carlito’s Way, a 1993 Brian De Palma film I hadn’t seen since the first time I watched it. Wow. Plus Sean Penn.
To Al, I would say: “You said that your ‘whole life was like a moon shot’, that you have been lucky in so many ways. I read your memoir and listened to the audio version of you reading it as well. It wasn’t gossipy, especially when you talked about women in your life. Is there any story not in your book that was life-changing that you can share with me? Also, when did you find out your grandfather came from the Sicilian village, Corleone—before or after you made The Godfather?”
ss: What do you think contributing to a weird little print-only art newspaper can do to foster dialogue with others?
LB: A broadsheet newspaper is a fading art form, and with AI, I worry that may be the future of actual writing. I took more than my share of papers to hand out to writing groups, friends and an independent bookstore. I had a lot of dialogue with many people about our fear of books and newspapers leaving us and how it is so easy to (at this time) recognize AI writing.
This broadsheet is having me call people that I haven’t spoken to in a while. I am glad for another reason to dialogue and keep in touch with others. Even when the subject might turn to politics. Seems we usually think alike, but if not, it can be a safe way to start a conversation.
See more of Lynne’s work on Instagram
Learn more about slips slips (including how to get a copy) at slipsslips.net
Stay tuned for more info about upcoming events and submission opportunities!