Simone Plastrik: 1919 - 1999
Levinson, Mark
On October 28, Simone Plastrik, a founder of this magazine and its business manager, died in her home. Her contributions to our work were many and most often unsung. We print here some...
...When I first started working at Dissent, we did not have computers or even an adding machine...
...But it won't be easy...
...Manny loved to talk and tell stories...
...ONE OF THE most important people to this magazine, Simone Plastrik, never appeared in its pages as a writer...
...Mark Levinson's and Maxine Phillips's remarks are adapted from those made at the Dissent editorial board meeting on November 6. Michael Walzer and Brian Morton spoke on behalf of the magazine at her memorial service...
...For almost thirty years Stanley had been his closest friend and col laborator in putting out Dissent...
...He asked if I was interested in helping Dissent...
...I said I would...
...Finally, Irving said he wasn't sure Dissent could continue...
...We sat there...
...The IRS has bigger things to worry about...
...For those who have been around the Dissent office, who can forget how Simone worked, tallying long columns of numbers with paper and pencil...
...The way she lived embodies what Dissent is, or should be, about...
...She made sure the work got done...
...94 n DISSENT / Winter 2000...
...No one will care...
...But one of the last things she said to me was that she lived her life as a socialist...
...We print here some reflections and remembrances of her life...
...No one spoke...
...Those of us near Simone never had to talk about the moral basis of anything, since we felt through her its constant warming pres ence...
...If the numbers were off by a few cents, she would start all over again with simple paper and pencil...
...I will never forget this meeting...
...Irving insisted that we be there together...
...Dissent will continue...
...EDS...
...Simone was a taskmaster at the office...
...I once overheard Simone and Irving arguing in the other room...
...We spoke about many things—our families, our mutual friends, and the future of Dissent...
...He couldn't imagine doing it without him...
...But no, it had to be done absolutely correctly...
...In fact, when I think about Dissent, I think about Simone...
...On October 28, Simone Plastrik, a founder of this magazine and its business manager, died in her home...
...meant to be on call for whatever task was needed...
...He left the room...
...We are getting old," he said, "maybe we'll put out a few more issues and call it quits...
...And to be one meant to be like Simone, meant to stand fast in good times or bad...
...meant to live by a code, largely unspoken yet not to be violated, of concern for the lives of men and women...
...Simone laughed and relented...
...There were times when she pored over those numbers late into the evening...
...The only person more shattered than Irving about Stanley's death was Simone...
...The kid might learn something," he said...
...In my last conversation with Simone she announced she was dying...
...Eighteen years ago, shortly after the unexpected death of Stanley Plastrik, I received a call from Irving...
...I used to tell her, "Simone, it's only a few cents...
...Simone was telling Irving that when Manny was in the office I never got any work done...
...DISSENT / Winter 2000 • 93 SIMONE PLASTRIK She only insisted that "the kid" learn and work at the same time...
...Let me say about Simone what Irving said about her husband, Stanley, at the time of his death eighteen years ago, because it applies equally to Simone: The idea of socialism may have become increasingly problematical, but the rightness of being a socialist had remained clear...
...We need your help...
...This is not only because of the role Simone played as business manager for the last eighteen years, or because when I first came around the magazine twenty-two years ago the editorial board meetings were in her living room, or because the office was in her apartment, although all of these things are part of it...
...And it always was...
...He suggested that I come to the Plastriks' apartment the next day to meet with him and Simone...
...I loved it and it drove Simone crazy...
...When I worked at Dissent, one of the things I used to look forward to was when [executive editor] Manny Geltman would come to the office...
...Simone, who hadn't said anything up to that point, looked at me and said, "Irving talks nonsense...
...If we are true to what Simone stood for, Dissent will also continue now...
...MARK LEVINSON is the chief economist at the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE...
...He was devastated by his friend's death...
...And we will need your help...
...Trotsky, Shachtman, the Lovestonites, the Goldmanites, the origin of the term "bureaucratic collectivism," the early years of Dissent, Meyer Schapiro and on and on...
...She wanted no more treatment...
Vol. 47 • January 2000 • No. 1
