I finally read “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” the New Journalism classic by Gay Talese (included in the book Literary Journalism that I picked up at Big Apple Books the other Saturday). It lived up to its billing, capturing the mercurial singer who was warm and generous to his friends and cold and unforgiving to his enemies. And, of course, the piece is full of great lines. Listening to In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning, Talese writes: “it was, like so many of his classics, a song that evoked loneliness and sensuality, and when blended with the dim light and the alcohol and nicotine and late-night needs, it became a kind of airy aphrodisiac.”
