Evening Star Newspaper, October 4, 1931, Page 93

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C., OCTOBER 4, Arms and the Van On Moving Day Our Modern Furniture Comes Into Its Own—IUFor Then It’s a Case “of the Survival of the Flattest. By WEARE HOLBROOK HERE is this to be said for modern furniture. It stacks well. The chaise Icngue fits neatly over the writing desk, and the triangular bookcase (for the old triangular book-lover) rects securely on the chaise longue— ferming a solid block of furniture that can be slid, slung, dangled or dropped without disinte- grating. Imagine trying to balance a horsehair sofa on a roll-top desk, and ther piling a sectional bockcase—with glass doors—on the sofa. It sounds impossible, doesn't it? Yet that is the sort of thing our forefathers used to do every year in October. Undaunted by sad experience, they continued to equip their furniture with knobs, nubbins, bumps, bangles, cabrioles, medal- lions, buttons, fringes end tassels. All flat sur- faces were embellished with fruit and floral pieces in high relief, all angles were complicated by curlicues, all table legs had machine carved varicose veins. . These decorations seldom survived the month of October intact. The wake of the moving van was strewn with the petals of mahogany rosebuds, the toes of plaster Cupids and various bas-reliefs detached from their backgrounds. It was a case of the survival of the flattest. But modern furniture is free from decorative protuberances. It can be assembled in a com- pact mass which would frustrate the destruc- tive instincts of a stevedore. There are no legs by which to swing beds and chairs about. ‘The exposed surfaces are smooth and metallic; even the table drawers have ingrowing handles. When we presented Aunt Camilla with a futuristic end table made of aluminum and black glass (“The End Table to End Tables”), she remarked enthusiastically: “It looks as if it was just made to be moved!” And a few days later she had it taken up to the attic. Modern furniture is largely responsible for the grand shuffie which takes place twice a year in every large city. As we gaze at the substantial slabs of hardwood, bakelite and chromium of which it is composed, most of us feel as Aunt Camilla -did. We are impressed by its portability. Or at least we feel that it would look better somewhere else. People used to search for furniture to fit their homes, but now they scarch for homes to fit their furniture. It is easier and more practical. A modern apartment house i® outmoded in a few years, but a modern dining room suite is bullt to last a lifetime. The table is rustproof, fireproof and unbreakable; the chairs are as solid as rocks—and almost as comfortable. ‘This durability makes moving a painless News of the Music World lixny be received from Catherine Benson at 2107 S street northwest, or by phoning Poto- mac 1846. N organ recital of especial interest will be given this evening by Edward Rechlin at 8:15 pm., on the new three-manual organ in Christ Lutheran Church, Sixteenth and Gal- latin streets northwest. Mr. Rechlin who has been called “America’s foremost Bach inter- preter,” and who has played in hundreds of concerts throughout thes country, is organist and director of music at Immanuel Lutheran Church in New York. He gave a recital series Jast year at the Augsburg conference in Ger- many and his playing was morz than favorabiy commented upon by the continental press. Mr. Rechlin will include on his ‘program to- night the Bach “Prelude and Fugue in C Major,” two shorter selections by the same com- poser “We All Believe in One True God,” and “O Man, Bewail Thy Gricvous Fall,” and other selections, including the Brunhorst Praeludium, by Manff, Walther and Kellner. IT seems that Mary Frances Ward and not . Bertha Martin, as previously announced, is managing the Florence Hurley Foundation concert series which will begin Friday after- noon, October 30, with Mary Garden's recital at Constitution Hall. Others on this interest- ing concert series will be Clare Clairbert, Har- old Kreutzberg, Doris, Kenyon, Alfredo San- Malo and Walter Gieseking, who will be solo- ist with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra. Musigraphs ARJORIE LOWE has returned to this city and has opened her studio, at 912 Nineteenth street. Miss Lowe is director of music at the Gunston Hall School. Elsa Louise Raner, concert violinist and a former pupil of Leopold Auer, has resumed teaching in her studio, at 1332 Fifteenth street. Ia addition to her private pupils and concert operation, with no sequelae. You can't break up the old home now, even with an ax; the best you can do is to transfer it. And the business of transferring it has b2en reduccd to 2 science. You are no longer cb’iged to depend upon a horse-drawn dray and a couple eof fel- lows named Joe. The Joes did no packing; you had to attend to that yourself. All they did was to get the stuff from here to there, spasmodically. They used the “alley-oop” method employed by adagio dancers. At a given cignal, such as the lighting of a pipe, Joe No. 1 would toss a cheval-glass to Joe No. 2—and nine times out of a hundred Joe No. 2 would catch it. Yet they worked systematically. They arrived at 6 o'clock on the morning of the appointed day, snatching the very pillow from beneath your head. By noon they had carried out everything and arranged it tastefully on the sidewalk in front of the house. Then they dis- appeared for the rest of the day, leaving all your worldly goods al fresco at the mercy of the children across the street. That night it rained, and the next morning they came back bright and early—and carted everything away to the wrong address. HOSE moving days are gone forever. When an apartment dweller feels the old wander- lust stealing over him now, he simply calls up the estimator for a transportation company and says, in effect, “Will you move me in October as you did in May?” Then he gives the esti- mator his forwarding address, and takes the family out to a picture show. By the time the show is over his new home is ready for him. All he has to do is to find it. Estimating the contents of the average apart- ment is easy, in this age of standardization. It is sure to contain a cabinet radio, an electric refrigerator, an overstuffed davenport with several understuffed pillows, a set of O'Henry, a pair of elephant bookends, four department store etchings hung on silk cords, a piano lamp but no piano, an unfinjshed hooked rug on a frame, 17 small china dogs and a long- legged doll with red hair. (Some husky piano mover will have to carry this long-legged doll down to the van amid the jeers of the urchins, but it's all in the day's work.) There are thrifty souls who attempt to beat the game by moving under their own power, so to speak. That accounts for the oddly freighted taxicabs which creep through the streets at this time of year—cabs loaded with mattresses, bird cages, hat-racks, fire screens, engagements, Miss Raner heads the violin faculties of several private schools. Harry Wheaton Howard has returned from an extended trip through the United States, Alaska, Mexico and Cuba, and has commenced his thirty-second season at Immaculate Con- ception Church. Willa Semple, pianist, has returned to this city after a Summer’s study in Boston. She has announced the cpsmTlg of her studio, at 1515 Rhode Island avenue northwest. The first meeting of the Washington Pianists Club will be held on October 31 at the home of the director, Mrs. Martin M. Morrison, 3017 Thirteenth street northwest. The “tryout” for Westminster Choir to HE Westminster Choir, prominent Amer- ican choral-singing organization since 1920, when it was founded by Dr. John Finley Williamson at Ithaca, N. Y, will come to Washington after an ab- sence of several years to give a concert at Con- stitution Hall the evening of November 4. The choir recently returned from a successful tour of Europe. The local concert will be under the auspices of thz Wazshington Federation of Churches, and arrangements are being made for the active participation of chorus choirs of the city in the ccncert. Norton M. Little, chairman of the Feder- ation’s Music Ccmmittce, is being assisted by william E. Braithwaite, Rey. John R. Duffield, Percy S. Foster, R. I. Garber, Mrs. H. C. Grimes, Mrs, Fannie R Heartsill, Mrs. Ger- trude Lyons, Mrs. James Shera Montgomery, Louis Potter, Claude Robeson, Mrs. Ruby Smith Stahl and Mrs. John M. Sylvester. HE first of a series of monthly musical serv- ices will be given this evening at the Na- tional City Christian Church, W. E. Braith- waite, musical direotor, and Mrs. J. H. Smithey, organist, by the choir and soloists. The guest soloists on today's program will include J. Horace Smithey, baritone, and Louis Annis, tenor. The regular soloists are Mrs. B. D. 1931. tennis rackets, desk lamps, vacuum cleaners, andirons, electric toasters, framed diplomas, preserved fruit—and probably frankincense and myrrh. . In the neighborhcod of Greenwich Village you will see pzle young men, bare of head and dreamy of eye, trudging through the narrow streets with their arms full cf typewriters, easels, music portfolios and the inevitable sofa pillows. They are bound for loftier attics and draughtier fireplaces and—they hope—more tolerant landlords. They are modern Argo- nauts, in quest of the golcen lzase. But the self-mover scldem d-es a thorough job. After the sixth or seventh trip he becomes a bit of a dilcttante with a bit of pain in the back. He decides not to take zlong those back numbers of the “Dial” or that pair of over- shoes or the warped guitar or the desk lighter in the shape of a German he!met. And he realizes that it might be safer to leave behind all opened bottles containing spilly things such as ink, witch-hazel, cleaning fluid, floor wax and bath salts. Then there are always numer- ous little odds and ends that cannot be fitted into the final load. And so he bids an unreluctant farewell to his old home, leaving it as full of debris as a box of huckleberries. He has remcved his household effects, but it will take the next tenant two weeks to get rid of the after effects. OVING is really a form of domestic exer- cise. It k-eps the home in condition. People who live in the same house for years and years accumulate heaps of useless posses- active membership in the club will begin Octo- ber 24. Teachcrs intciestzd are requested to write the director at the above address for further information. The first rehearsal of the season of the Schubert Choral Ciub will be held Monday evening in the gold 10om of the La Fayette Hotel at 7:45 p.m. Old as well as prospective members are cordially invited to be present. Guy A. Ourand, associated for several years with the late T. Arthur Smith in the concert business and well known in musical and news- paper circles, has rciuined to his home after a prolonged illness at Garfleld Hospital. - Minna Niemann, head of the piano depart: Sing Here November 4 Shreve, soprano, and Mrs. Helen Turley, con- tralto. Tne oigan recital will begin at. 7:45 p.m. and the musica! service at 8 p.m. ANNOUNCEMENT has been made by Otto T. Simon that there are a few vacancies in his soloist ensemble of 16 voices. Applica- tion may be made to him at the Institute of Musical Art. THE first meetirg of the District of Columbia Federation of Music Clubs will be held on Thursday ifi the Frances Gutelius Studios at 1804 New Hampshire avenue. All officers, chairmen, representatives, and new members of the various clubs are cordially invited. A brief memorial tribute will be paid Mr. and Mrs, Edwin Moore, late ngembers of the Federation. HE _ District of Colwnrbia Chapter of the American Guild of Organisis will hold its first meeting cf the year tomorrow evening in the choir room of Epiphany Church. Follow- ing the business session Edith B. Athey and Louis A. Potter will report the recent conven- tion of the National Association of Organists held in New York, and vocal nuribers will be given by Margeretta M. Campbell, sroreno, and Vera Neely Ross, coptralto, : It’s all in the day's work! Drawn for The Star's Sunday Magazine by Stuart Hay. _ sions, just as a red:ntary worker accumulates layers cf fatty tissuc. But those who change their place of resiicnce semi-annually must of necessity keep their gcods and chattels at a minimum; they canrot afford a cluttered attic any more than cn athlcte can afford a bulging waistline. Portable lares and penates are more in evie dence this ve:r than evér before. It's a rare child who is able to say, with Thomas Hood, “I remember, I rcmicmber the house where I was born.” Childh-od memories today are likely to rescmble the nightmare of a real estate agent, and the similarity of 231 East and 321 Wes: SBu t be discouraging to senti- mentality. Pe.ape in time the American youth will come to fezl the same affection for the dear old moving-van that his grandfather felt- for the vine-covered cottage that was Home, Sweet Home. Therc's a brcken lease for every light on Broadway. Tenants whose incomes have been reduced are mov.ng to smaller apartments to save money, ard terants whose incomes have not been reduced are moving to larger apart- ments to take advantcge of the lowered rents. We scarcely have tme to cool”d>wn between housewarming partics. And—who knows?—this perpetual motion may be the solution of our economic difficul- ties. After &l!, when one cannot keep the wolf from the dcor the best thirg to do is to change doors—which is what most of us are doing this week. Be it ever so mobile, there’'s no place like hcme. Continued From Tzwelfth Page ment of Gunston Hall School, has moved her. ' residence to the school this Winter, at 1906 Florida avenue. Miss Nicmann gave a recital® in the school auditorium last Sunday evening.. ¢ Mary Minge Wilkins, A. A. G. O., has been’ appointed organist and choir director of the Church of the Transfiguration, succeeding’ Charlotte Klein, F."A. G. O., and has already" assumed her new duties. Miss Wilking is teacher of music at the Gordon. Junior High School. Anna May Cuthbert, soprano soloist of Christ Episcopal Church, was heard in a group of songs at the bencfit concert held Tuesday eve- ning in Ascension Episcopal Chureh, Silver - Spring, Md. She was accompanied by Willa Semple. Katherine Frost, pianist, has opened her studio, at the Institute of Musical Art, where she is an associate teacher. Miss Frost will also give her interpretive talks on piano litera- ture of yesterday and today during the season. Eleanor Blum, pupil of Felicia Rybier, well - known concert pianist of this city, has left this - city for Philadelphia, where she has begun he: studies under Mr. Sappertan, assistant to Mr. Hoffiman. Miss Blum won a scholarship at the Curtis Institute last Spring. Frances Gutelius has issued invitations for - the first recital of the season in her new stu- dios, at 1408 New Hampshire avenue, for Sat- urday evening, October 10. Those on the pro- gram will include Josephine Noel, Betty Mar- shall, Home Stcphens McAle)er. Margaret - Yanagita, Karlian and Charlton Meyer, Mar- shall and Walter Hicks, jr., and Walter D. - Swank. The Fall business meeting of the Chaminade , Glee Club was held last Monday. New members are cordially invited to attend the first re- - hearsal tomorrow evening, at 7:45 o'clock, in the Thomson Conrmunity Center. Floyd Jennings, tenor, of Atlanta, Ga., will - be the guest soloist at the National City Chris- tian Church atsthis morning's services. Mr. Jennings is the soloist at the First Church of cry-m Scientist in Atlanta.