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RED LEATHER DIARY is chock full of Manhattan culture, composers, books, music, street signs, lamp posts, Park Avenue & Harlem, the Stock Market Crash and Schrafft's.

How to even begin?

Well, for those of you who care to explore a few of the thousands of wonderful references, I am including below some links to e-books, wiki-pages and Grooveshark tabs so that you might be able to explore at least a small number of this amazing bounty.

Let's start off with Ibsen's Hedda Gabler (which I love.) It is referenced in the middle section of the book when Florence develops a passion for theatre and an obsession with actress and activist, Eva Le Gaillienne.

Here it is, e-book ready:

http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/i/ibsen/henrik/hedda/act1.html#act1

and the Chopin that Florence played? The Waltz in A Minor:

http://grooveshark.com/s/Waltz+For+Piano+In+A+Minor+Op+34+2+CT+208/2HrvmO?src=5 

and the kiss, in THE KISS, with Greta Garbo (1929, silent):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk6qkcZzyWo

It's kind of fun to play the Chopin and then let it lead into THE KISS. The soundtrack almost sounds like a burlesque of the Chopin. Weirdly related somehow, although it really isn't at all...