S. O. S.

Early last August an S. O. S. call was sent out through Minneapolis and over the way to St. Paul. The proud Minneapolis Symphony was in distress. It would go on the rocks unless a new guarantee fund could be promptly raised.

The Junior Association of Commerce undertook to salvage the Symphony. It relayed the S. O. S. ("Save Our Symphony") into schools, office-buildings, homes. Doctors, lawyers, merchants and insurance-men organized committees to ask for anything from $1 up. One A. K. Johnson, truck-farmer, drove 17 miles from Wayzata with his dollar. Bands paraded the loop daily.

Last week $106,000 had been raised, $64,000 less than last year. Operating expenses run to over $200,000 but this year Mrs. Carlyle Scott, the Orchestra's manageress, counts on ticket sales to make up the difference. She hopes for big things from Eugene Ormandy, the youthful, enthusiastic conductor who was called to Minneapolis suddenly last year vice ailing Belgian Henri Verbrugghen (TIME, Nov. 16, 1931). Last week the despaired-of season opened with a concert at the University of Minnesota's Northrop Auditorium. It was an occasion for champagne. Pretty, sparkling Lily Pons appeared as soloist.

Free & Temperamental Man

Last winter when few European artists could make a go of a U. S. debut, Vicente Escudero, a bold-eyed Spanish gypsy, sauntered one evening on to the stage of a Manhattan theatre and proceeded to dance as he had danced many times in the streets and cafes of Spain. There was nothing ingratiating about Escudero's performance that evening. He strutted about like a cock in smart, skin-tight costumes which Artist Pablo Picasso had designed for him. He did amazing footwork to a dozen complicated rhythms. He conversed with his castanets, brutally, insolently, insinuatingly. He swelled out his chest and shot meaningful glances at his partners, Carmela and Carmita. He clucked with his tongue, sniffed with his nose, even snapped a fingernail accompaniment to one of his dances.

Thirteen sold-out houses in Manhattan alone followed Escudero's debut recital. Michael E. Paterno, rich realtor, paid him $1,000 for dancing three minutes at a private party. Month ago Escudero returned to the U. S. to follow up last winter's success. After another Manhattan recital, he set out last week on a transcontinental tour which should make him $50,000.*

Fifty thousand dollars means 600,000 pesetas to Vicente Escudero--a fabulous amount to one who was born in a gypsy wagon, helped his parents peddle laces and thread, clicked out his first dancing steps on manhole tops. In his early days Escudero's tricks were not confined to his dancing. He rarely had money to pay his hotel bills, so he would throw his mattress out the window before the proprietor was up in the morning, jump for it and disappear. He was arrested once at a bullfight for squeezing the juice of an orange at a fellow spectator who held his umbrella in the way. He still cannot resist frightening women by suddenly snorting at them like a horse.

But not even the prospect of making 600,000 pesetas can quell the mortal dread of the sea which Escudero shares with many another gypsy (TIME, Jan. 25). For him the ocean and all water, he says, is hell. He spent his six days aboard the Aquitania this autumn lying in his cabin in a pair of red silk pyjamas, trembling lest he should die and be thrown overboard for fish to devour. Ashore he soon becomes the soul of assurance again. He wears grey flannel shirts for formal and informal occasions, usually with a tie he has crocheted himself. But last winter in Washington he went to a reception at the Spanish Embassy in a flannel shirt and no tie. "There you have me," he said afterward to a New York Herald Tribune reporter, "the free and temperamental man.''

*On his way West last week Escudero danced in Cleveland, Ripon, Wis., Milwaukee. He will give 55 performances, working his way back East for Christmas, then South and into Mexico.

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