Karl Gude

Lou Silverstein (NY Times)

Speaking of judging…

He answered the hotel room door in his “shorts.” I felt immediately awkward at his presumed intimacy but I pretended that there was nothing at all odd about it. It was the second time in my life that I had knocked on a door that was answered by an older guy in his boxer (thank God) underpants.

Ted Majeski, my boss at United Press International, called me to his office one day and when I knocked on his door he peeked it open a tiny bit and stayed kind of half hidden behind it, which was tough for a man of his size. I spotted a brilliant white glow coming from where his pants should have been below his ample waist. It was his sun-starved legs.

Ted claimed that he had spilled coffee on his pants and needed me to run down to 36th and Lex. to pick up his dry cleaning, but I knew this was just one of his usual ploys to get me to do something for him. He held up a beefy knee to prove it and I was off.

(more about Ted: http://visualeditors.com/gude/2006/09/bligh-at-upi/)

On this second occasion I had been in Bogotá giving a lecture on information graphics, which caused me to be one day late to judge visuals at a statewide competition in Florida. I was to do this with only one other person, a man whose name had always struck fear and admiration in the newspaper design world, Lou Silverstein, the recently retired Assistant Managing Editor for visual design at the New York Times. This was the guy who had redesigned the Times with nine new sections and adopted a six-column format. Word on the street was that Lou was one tough hombre to work for if you didn’t deliver the goods. At that time, he was the number one newspaper designer on the planet.

And I was this dopey AP artist.

Lou had already been at the hotel for a full day when I arrived and there was a message to come right to his room. I took a deep breath and headed down. But instead of encountering the notorious Terror of the Times I met a sweet, older man with welcoming eyes and a smile, and no pants, who motioned me into his room. (We all had grandpas, and that’s how I decided to process this. For instance, a friend of mine’s grandfather dropped his pants and tucked in his shirt in line at a McDonalds. What’s up with that? Are we all doomed to do that?)

Now, I had a plan on how I was going to handle judging with a superior being, and it was brilliantly simple: whatever Lou picked, I would pick. He would be the real judge and I would be the guy who brought coffee and told jokes, my usual role in a newsroom. The thought of trying to defend my opinions against any opposition from him was unimaginable. I mean, Hell, I made maps!

In Lou’s room, near the pants, were piles of newspapers. With a wave of his hand, Lou said the words that chilled my heart,

“I’ve already made all my selections, so why don’t you take these back to your room and make yours and we’ll see where we match up?”

“Oh crap,” I thought.

In my room I had one goal, to figure out which ones Lou might have picked, but it was not to be. I had to choose for myself and pray that my inexperienced eye might luck onto a match.

Having made my selections I knocked on his door while balancing the massive pile of heavy papers. Tortured, I pulled out my selections one at a time and presented them to Lou on the floor before his throne, I mean chair. To my utter astonishment more than three-quarters of them were a direct match (there was some pretty bad stuff in that pile), and, as proof that you can’t always believe what you hear about people, Lou gently explained, after saying that he had seriously considered the one I had chosen, his reasons for choosing his and offered, almost insisted, actually, that we go with my choice every time.

Now that’s a good guy.

After that we palled around, judged more stuff (photography, graphics) and had dinner, where I met grandma. (Turns out Lou lives in Florida.)

See ya around, Lou.

——————————————

Later: more encounters with the famous!