Leader of Scholarly Society To Step Aside During Inquiry Into Her Credentials

Leslie C. Berlowitz, the president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, has requested time away from her day-to-day responsibilities at the prestigious scholarly society while a law firm hired by its board conducts an independent inquiry into charges that she had falsely claimed to hold a doctoral degree.

According to a statement issued by the board on Thursday, the academy convened a committee on Wednesday to supervise the inquiry, which will be conducted by the law firm Choate Hall and Stewart. Ray Howell, a spokesman for the academy, declined to answer further questions about the board’s statement or the committee.

Mr. Howell also would not confirm whether the academy, based in Cambridge, Mass., had been contacted by the state’s attorney general, Martha Coakley, whose office has said it would reach out to the board regarding issues raised by a Boston Globe inquiry into Ms. Berlowitz’s credentials and compensation. In the fiscal year ending in March 2012 Ms. Berlowitz was paid more than $598,000, according to filings with the Internal Revenue Service.

In the statement, the academy’s board reiterated support for its leader, who arrived in 1997, following a 27-year career at New York University, where her most recent title had been vice president for institutional advancement.

“Ms. Berlowitz has led the organization during a period of extraordinary growth and achievement,” it read. “She will remain as president of the academy. She has requested time away from her day-to-day activities to help resolve any questions related to this issue, and is cooperating fully with the review. Together, we believe these steps are appropriate to address and resolve the questions that have been raised.”

Ms. Berlowitz, who holds a master’s degree in English from Columbia University, was enrolled in N.Y.U.’s Ph.D. program from 1967 to 1978, but the university had no record of her having received a doctorate.

Yet the National Endowment for the Humanities confirmed earlier this week that it would investigate false statements regarding the doctorate, which appeared on grant applications from the academy to the N.E.H. between 2003 and 2013. In an earlier statement, Mr. Howell attributed references to the doctorate, which also appeared on other documents created by the academy, to an unspecified staff member.

One New York Poet Honors the New York Poems of Another

“You’re being very good,” Patti Smith told a sold-out audience at the Bowery Ballroom on Wednesday night. “I’m very proud of you.”

The source of her pride was the crowd’s quiet and attention while Smith and others read the poems of Federico García Lorca. The reading and concert was part of a months-long celebration of the Spanish poet, and more specifically of the brief time he spent in New York in 1929 and 1930, which inspired his collection “Poet in New York.”

Ms. Smith unassumingly wandered on to the stage 10 minutes before the event’s listed start time of 9 p.m. She spoke about Lorca’s work, calling “A Poet in New York,” “a very American book” that offers “special insight into New York City.”

Several friends of Ms. Smith, including the writer John Giorno and her longtime musical collaborator Lenny Kaye, then read words by Lorca. The standing spectators expressed their appreciation, but after nearly an hour there was a growing sense that the evening would have to start rocking at some point.

When Ms. Smith announced that there would be a brief intermission before she and her band launched into the fully musical portion of the night, someone in the crowd shouted a request. Ms. Smith responded with a laugh: “Oh yeah, like I’ve got nothing better to do than a 14-minute improvisation.”

Ms. Smith regularly invoked the spirit and work of Lorca, but during a set that included old favorites like “Ask the Angels” and new songs like “This Is the Girl” (written in memory of Amy Winehouse), she was clearly the center of attention: spitting water across the stage, explaining that her shirt was really a pajama top from Bergdorf Goodman and making jokes about how New Yorkers could look forward to seeing her on the streets more often when she’s back from a summer tour overseas. (“I’ll be like a wandering homeless person with at least two homes,” she said.) In a rousing encore, she made the connection between her own work and the honored poet’s more explicit by performing “Piss Factory,” her 1974 spoken-word plaint about a menial job. “I got something to hide here called desire,” Ms. Smith recited. “And I will get out of here.”

‘Bridges of Madison County’ Musical Will Open on Broadway

“The Bridges of Madison County” is going to Broadway. Bartlett Sher (“South Pacific,” “The Light in the Piazza”) will direct a new musical based on the hit film and best-selling novel by Robert James Waller, the producers announced Thursday.

Jason Robert Brown, a Tony winner for “Parade,” has written the music and lyrics; the show has a book by Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Marsha Norman. Performances will begin January 13, 2014 at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater, with an opening night planned for late February.

“Madison County” tells the story of Francesca Johnson, a small-town 1960s Iowa housewife who has a brief but intense affair with Robert Kincaid, a photographer from National Geographic. Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood played the lead roles in the 1995 film. Elena Shaddow and Steven Pasquale will play the parts in the show’s premiere this summer at the Williamstown Theater Festival. (Kelli O’Hara, who starred for Mr. Sher in “South Pacific” and “Light in the Piazza,” had played Francesca in an earlier workshop.)

No casting for the Broadway production was included in Thursday’s announcement, which did say that Mr. Sher would be reunited with his Tony Award-winning “South Pacific” design team: Michael Yeargan (sets), Catherine Zuber (costumes) and Donald Holder (lighting).

A Look Back at the Films of Esther Williams

The swimmer-turned-movie star Esther Williams, who died today at the age of 91, became famous for taking her swimming skills to the big screen in technicolor spectacles from the 1940s and ’50s. Below are clips and trailers from some of her memorable films.

A Scene From ‘Bathing Beauty’ (1944)

A Trailer for ‘Thrill of a Romance’ (1945)

A Trailer for ‘Easy to Wed’ (1946)

A Trailer for ‘This Time for Keeps’ (1947)

A Scene From ‘Neptune’s Daughter’ (1949)

A Scene From ‘Duchess of Idaho’ (1950)

A Trailer for ‘Million Dollar Mermaid’ (1952)

A Scene From ‘Easy to Love’ (1953)

A Scene From ‘Jupiter’s Darling’ (1955)

At Pun Competition, Bad Jokes but Good Company

Katie Orlinsky for The New York Times Contestants on Wednesday night  at the monthly pun competition at Littlefield, a performance space and bar in Brooklyn.

By day, the jokes revered at Punderdome 3000 are more likely to earn a groan from the next cubicle than a standing ovation.

But for the contestants in a monthly pun competition at Littlefield, a performance space and bar in Brooklyn, forming puns is a spigot they can’t turn off. They are artists who never before had a stage. And in their everyday lives, not everyone appreciates their talent.

“It’s less like telling a joke and more like lancing a boil,” an actor and playwright calling himself Jerzy (Do Pun to Others) Gwiazdowski said of the typical response to his pun habit.

On Wednesday night at Littlefield, an audience of about 400 people shared their love of wordplay. At the beginning of each round, groups of four to six contestants were given a category and 90 seconds to conjure as many related puns as they could. They then performed them one by one, with the top finishers, as gauged by crowd response, advancing.

Jo Firestone, a Brooklyn-based comedian and producer, created the show two years ago and hosts it with her father, Fred Firestone, a Rodney Dangerfield impersonator who flies in from St. Louis for it every month. It’s one of several events she produces that involve the audience. “Most of my shows focus on highlighting different weirdos around the city,” Ms. Firestone said.

Here are a few examples of those weirdos. Fair warning: They may make you cringe.

In a round about poisonous things, Rekha (Punky Brewster) Shankar, a video editor for NBC, told this story about a man: “I noticed something was wrong with his eye. It was very black. I took him to the doctor and the doctor freaked out and was like, ‘Have you been hanging out around coal mines?’ And he was like, “Yeah, I have been.’ And then the doctor goes, ‘Eeeeee, coal eye!”

Later she added: “I am a little out of my element, but I’m doing asbestos I can.”

Tim (Forest Wittyker) Donnelly, a reporter for The New York Post, said: “I hate people who don’t have all their digits. I am lack-toes intolerant.”

On pastries, Frederic Clark, a graduate student at Princeton University, said: “My name normally is Glutton for Punishment, but given this round I might have to change it to Gluten for Punishment. Did that Celiac the deal for you?”

On internal organs, Richy Salgado of the Punder Twins said to his cousin Joe Salgado: “Do you remember back in grade school â€" I can’t recall, it’s in my recent mammary â€" but the teacher yelled at us because one of us did it. So she got the both of us and she’s like, ‘Did you or your fellow pee in the tube?’”

On babies, Mr. Gwiazdowski said: “There’s a guy in the back there. He’s not really digging my puns tonight and he’s cold as well. So he’s sitting back there like, ‘Grrrrr. Brrrrr.’ ”

On rappers, David (Puntouchable) Pepose said: “I actually went to a hip-hop themed restaurant because I’m a notorious P.I.G.”

Noah (Noah Constrictor) Klinger, in a round about the New York mayoral race, said this after making a joke about “Dinkin Donuts”: “I don’t know if we can really afford to be blasé-o about this whole thing. It’s really important. We’re searching high and Liu for candidates.”

Ms. Shankar, the night’s winner, said: “The Punderdome is a really Quinn-tessential event for Brooklyn.”

Maybe you had to be there.

The contestants struggled most with the New York mayoral campaign, and few people in the audience caught the reference to former Mayor David Dinkins. But City Room readers are, we are certain, a different breed. So we ask you: What puns can you offer on the mayoral race? Please leave them in the comments field below.

At Pun Competition, Bad Jokes but Good Company

Katie Orlinsky for The New York Times Contestants on Wednesday night  at the monthly pun competition at Littlefield, a performance space and bar in Brooklyn.

By day, the jokes revered at Punderdome 3000 are more likely to earn a groan from the next cubicle than a standing ovation.

But for the contestants in a monthly pun competition at Littlefield, a performance space and bar in Brooklyn, forming puns is a spigot they can’t turn off. They are artists who never before had a stage. And in their everyday lives, not everyone appreciates their talent.

“It’s less like telling a joke and more like lancing a boil,” an actor and playwright calling himself Jerzy (Do Pun to Others) Gwiazdowski said of the typical response to his pun habit.

On Wednesday night at Littlefield, an audience of about 400 people shared their love of wordplay. At the beginning of each round, groups of four to six contestants were given a category and 90 seconds to conjure as many related puns as they could. They then performed them one by one, with the top finishers, as gauged by crowd response, advancing.

Jo Firestone, a Brooklyn-based comedian and producer, created the show two years ago and hosts it with her father, Fred Firestone, a Rodney Dangerfield impersonator who flies in from St. Louis for it every month. It’s one of several events she produces that involve the audience. “Most of my shows focus on highlighting different weirdos around the city,” Ms. Firestone said.

Here are a few examples of those weirdos. Fair warning: They may make you cringe.

In a round about poisonous things, Rekha (Punky Brewster) Shankar, a video editor for NBC, told this story about a man: “I noticed something was wrong with his eye. It was very black. I took him to the doctor and the doctor freaked out and was like, ‘Have you been hanging out around coal mines?’ And he was like, “Yeah, I have been.’ And then the doctor goes, ‘Eeeeee, coal eye!”

Later she added: “I am a little out of my element, but I’m doing asbestos I can.”

Tim (Forest Wittyker) Donnelly, a reporter for The New York Post, said: “I hate people who don’t have all their digits. I am lack-toes intolerant.”

On pastries, Frederic Clark, a graduate student at Princeton University, said: “My name normally is Glutton for Punishment, but given this round I might have to change it to Gluten for Punishment. Did that Celiac the deal for you?”

On internal organs, Richy Salgado of the Punder Twins said to his cousin Joe Salgado: “Do you remember back in grade school â€" I can’t recall, it’s in my recent mammary â€" but the teacher yelled at us because one of us did it. So she got the both of us and she’s like, ‘Did you or your fellow pee in the tube?’”

On babies, Mr. Gwiazdowski said: “There’s a guy in the back there. He’s not really digging my puns tonight and he’s cold as well. So he’s sitting back there like, ‘Grrrrr. Brrrrr.’ ”

On rappers, David (Puntouchable) Pepose said: “I actually went to a hip-hop themed restaurant because I’m a notorious P.I.G.”

Noah (Noah Constrictor) Klinger, in a round about the New York mayoral race, said this after making a joke about “Dinkin Donuts”: “I don’t know if we can really afford to be blasé-o about this whole thing. It’s really important. We’re searching high and Liu for candidates.”

Ms. Shankar, the night’s winner, said: “The Punderdome is a really Quinn-tessential event for Brooklyn.”

Maybe you had to be there.

The contestants struggled most with the New York mayoral campaign, and few people in the audience caught the reference to former Mayor David Dinkins. But City Room readers are, we are certain, a different breed. So we ask you: What puns can you offer on the mayoral race? Please leave them in the comments field below.

nCooper-Hewitt Museum Names New Director

Caroline Baumann, the acting director of Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York, has been officially given the chief job, the museum announced on Thursday.

“She has been key in the museum’s growing success over the years and has been especially adept at forming substantivepartnerships in New York, in Washington, across the nation and, indeed, around the world,” the Smithsonian Secretary Wayne Clough said in announcing the appointment.

The museum, housed in the Carnegie Mansion at East 91st Street and Fifth Avenue, has been undergoing a $54-million expansion and is set to re-open in the fall of 2014. Ms. Baumann has been at Cooper-Hewitt since 2001, and took over as acting director last year after the death of the previous director, Bill Moggridge.

“We’re rolling out an extraordinary plan for a vibrant future and establishing Cooper-Hewitt as the Smithsonian’s design lens on the world,” Ms. Baumann said in a statement. “The new Cooper-Hewitt visitor experienceâ€"physical and digitalâ€"will be a global first, a transformative force for all in 2014 and beyond, impacting the way people think about and understand design.”

The chairman of the seven-member search committee, Richard Kurin Smithsonian’s Under Secretary for History, Art, and Culture, said that Ms. Baumann had the panel’s unanimous support.

Stephanie J. Block and Will Chase to Star in ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ Musical

Stephanie J. Block and Will Chase, who will be up for Tony Awards this Sunday for their performances in “The Mystery of Edwin Drood,” will co-star in Second Stage Theater’s production of the new musical “Little Miss Sunshine,” the Off Broadway theater announced on Thursday.

The stage adaptation of the Oscar-nominated film features a book and direction by James Lapine and music and lyrics by William Finn. Previews for the show, the first in the theater’s 2013-14 season, begin October 15, with opening night set for mid-November.

Mr. Chase and Ms. Block will play Richard and Sheryl Hoover, a couple who takes their dysfunctional family on a trip to a child beauty pageant. Hunter Foster and Jennifer Laura Thompson played the roles when the show had an out-of-town production at La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego in 2011. (Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette were the couple in the movie.) Additional casting for the New York run is still to be announced.

Mr. Lapine and Mr. Finn previously collaborated on the Tony-winning shows “Falsettos” and “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” which was produced at Second Stage in 2005 and moved to Broadway.

An Uncertain Return at 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza

It took “both imagination and a sense of citizenship to clear an open plaza on some of the city’s most valuable land and to throw it open to the light of the sun â€" and to the public.”

Those were the words of David Rockefeller, the president of Chase Manhattan Bank, when 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza opened in 1961. He was speaking about himself, but he happened to be right.

David W. Dunlap/The New York Times Part of a sculpture by Jean Dubuffet in the plaza can be seen above a barricade on William Street.

Among the shadows of Lower Manhattan, there are few oases as inviting as 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza, a landmark in every sense, including official. There is room to breathe, two and a half acres of it. There is reason to delight, in Jean Dubuffet’s monumental sculpture. There is opportunity to reflect, in the austere sunken sculpture court by Isamu Noguchi.

At least there was until September 2011, when JPMorgan Chase, successor to Chase Manhattan, barricaded the plaza. The bank offered no explanation, though the move seemed clearly intended to foreclose any attempted takeover by the Occupy Wall Street movement. As the protesters’ presence diminished downtown, however, the plaza stayed closed. Some construction work occurred, on and off. Chase maintained its silence. And its barricades.

Now, it seems almost certain that another summer will go by in which the public is deprived the use of the plaza. This would also mean the second cancellation of the popular Dine Around Downtown fair sponsored by the Downtown Alliance.

The plaza is “an important amenity downtown,” said Catherine McVay Hughes, the chairwoman of Community Board 1 and a resident of the financial district. “It was a place of beauty where you could pass through and have a sense of relief and calm.” She said the plaza provided a vital east-west pedestrian route along the former line of Cedar Street, which was closed in 1956 from Nassau to William Streets to accommodate the Chase development.

A view of the sculpture installation shows the size of the plaza.

In 2012, after numerous approaches, bank officials sat down with community board members to explain the construction project. “We were told that the work would be completed this spring,” Ms. Hughes said. The board expects to get another update next month. “Hopefully, when Chase comes to the meeting, they’ll be telling us when the opening date is,” she said, “because we’re approaching the two-year closure point.”

A bank spokeswoman remained vague about when the public might again be able to use the space. “Once construction is complete, we intend to operate the building in a way that makes the plaza available to the public for passive use and enjoyment, in accordance with appropriate rules,” the spokeswoman, Melissa Shuffield, said.

JPMorgan Chase received approval in September 2010 from the Buildings Department for “waterproofing repairs to plaza areas.”

Carl T. Gossett/The New York Times David Rockefeller, president of Chase Manhattan, with Mr. Dubuffet in 1972. Mr. Rockefeller said 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza was open to the public.

The project is not simple. The plaza is directly over a spacious Chase bank branch. As a rule, plazas atop interior spaces pose challenges. They’re not merely flat roofs, with inherent drainage problems, but roofs on which hundreds walk each day. They’re bound to develop leaks. Water infiltration can be hard to trace if the roof extends two and a half acres and the site is battered by storms like Hurricane Sandy.

Almost certainly complicating logistics and timetables is the facade repair project at the 20 Pine Street apartment tower, because it abuts and overlooks the plaza.

Construction hurdles aside, the question remains whether the bank is obliged to keep 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza open.

JPMorgan Chase & Company asserts that it is not. A memorandum of law filed by the bank last December in a related lawsuit stated: “Because 1CMP is private property, JPMC as its owner has the fundamental right, protected by the federal Constitution, to exclude the public from the plaza.” The plaza was built before the 1961 Zoning Resolution and the advent of privately owned public spaces, in which owners provide public access in return for benefits like being able to construct buildings larger than normally allowed.

Manhattan Land Book (1934) The 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza block, outlined in red, used to be bisected by Cedar Street, at center.

However, a compelling historical wrinkle appears in the records of the Board of Standards and Appeals, which granted the zoning variance needed by the bank to construct an 806-foot tower without setbacks. In its June 12, 1956, resolution, the board noted that “the building will only occupy 27.3 percent of the entire plot, leaving 72.7 percent for a plaza, which will afford light and air and room for relaxation for the applicant’s employees and for others in the area.”

To Jerold S. Kayden, a professor of urban planning and design at Harvard and the author of “Privately Owned Public Space: The New York City Experience” (2000), that suggests the bank did make a pledge, even if it was not legally binding.

“The B.S.A. of the time may not have dotted every legal ‘i’ and crossed every legal ‘t,’” Mr. Kayden said, “but the intent of both bank and city is crystal clear. I hope JPMorgan Chase recognizes not only that it more or less promised a public plaza, but that it has provided a terrific, and now terribly missed, public space for more than 50 years. Your public is calling. My only request is, this summer, please.”

David W. Dunlap/The New York Times The plaza is a vision of tranquillity but, for now, beyond public reach.

An Uncertain Return at 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza

It took “both imagination and a sense of citizenship to clear an open plaza on some of the city’s most valuable land and to throw it open to the light of the sun â€" and to the public.”

Those were the words of David Rockefeller, the president of Chase Manhattan Bank, when 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza opened in 1961. He was speaking about himself, but he happened to be right.

David W. Dunlap/The New York Times Part of a sculpture by Jean Dubuffet in the plaza can be seen above a barricade on William Street.

Among the shadows of Lower Manhattan, there are few oases as inviting as 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza, a landmark in every sense, including official. There is room to breathe, two and a half acres of it. There is reason to delight, in Jean Dubuffet’s monumental sculpture. There is opportunity to reflect, in the austere sunken sculpture court by Isamu Noguchi.

At least there was until September 2011, when JPMorgan Chase, successor to Chase Manhattan, barricaded the plaza. The bank offered no explanation, though the move seemed clearly intended to foreclose any attempted takeover by the Occupy Wall Street movement. As the protesters’ presence diminished downtown, however, the plaza stayed closed. Some construction work occurred, on and off. Chase maintained its silence. And its barricades.

Now, it seems almost certain that another summer will go by in which the public is deprived the use of the plaza. This would also mean the second cancellation of the popular Dine Around Downtown fair sponsored by the Downtown Alliance.

The plaza is “an important amenity downtown,” said Catherine McVay Hughes, the chairwoman of Community Board 1 and a resident of the financial district. “It was a place of beauty where you could pass through and have a sense of relief and calm.” She said the plaza provided a vital east-west pedestrian route along the former line of Cedar Street, which was closed in 1956 from Nassau to William Streets to accommodate the Chase development.

A view of the sculpture installation shows the size of the plaza.

In 2012, after numerous approaches, bank officials sat down with community board members to explain the construction project. “We were told that the work would be completed this spring,” Ms. Hughes said. The board expects to get another update next month. “Hopefully, when Chase comes to the meeting, they’ll be telling us when the opening date is,” she said, “because we’re approaching the two-year closure point.”

A bank spokeswoman remained vague about when the public might again be able to use the space. “Once construction is complete, we intend to operate the building in a way that makes the plaza available to the public for passive use and enjoyment, in accordance with appropriate rules,” the spokeswoman, Melissa Shuffield, said.

JPMorgan Chase received approval in September 2010 from the Buildings Department for “waterproofing repairs to plaza areas.”

Carl T. Gossett/The New York Times David Rockefeller, president of Chase Manhattan, with Mr. Dubuffet in 1972. Mr. Rockefeller said 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza was open to the public.

The project is not simple. The plaza is directly over a spacious Chase bank branch. As a rule, plazas atop interior spaces pose challenges. They’re not merely flat roofs, with inherent drainage problems, but roofs on which hundreds walk each day. They’re bound to develop leaks. Water infiltration can be hard to trace if the roof extends two and a half acres and the site is battered by storms like Hurricane Sandy.

Almost certainly complicating logistics and timetables is the facade repair project at the 20 Pine Street apartment tower, because it abuts and overlooks the plaza.

Construction hurdles aside, the question remains whether the bank is obliged to keep 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza open.

JPMorgan Chase & Company asserts that it is not. A memorandum of law filed by the bank last December in a related lawsuit stated: “Because 1CMP is private property, JPMC as its owner has the fundamental right, protected by the federal Constitution, to exclude the public from the plaza.” The plaza was built before the 1961 Zoning Resolution and the advent of privately owned public spaces, in which owners provide public access in return for benefits like being able to construct buildings larger than normally allowed.

Manhattan Land Book (1934) The 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza block, outlined in red, used to be bisected by Cedar Street, at center.

However, a compelling historical wrinkle appears in the records of the Board of Standards and Appeals, which granted the zoning variance needed by the bank to construct an 806-foot tower without setbacks. In its June 12, 1956, resolution, the board noted that “the building will only occupy 27.3 percent of the entire plot, leaving 72.7 percent for a plaza, which will afford light and air and room for relaxation for the applicant’s employees and for others in the area.”

To Jerold S. Kayden, a professor of urban planning and design at Harvard and the author of “Privately Owned Public Space: The New York City Experience” (2000), that suggests the bank did make a pledge, even if it was not legally binding.

“The B.S.A. of the time may not have dotted every legal ‘i’ and crossed every legal ‘t,’” Mr. Kayden said, “but the intent of both bank and city is crystal clear. I hope JPMorgan Chase recognizes not only that it more or less promised a public plaza, but that it has provided a terrific, and now terribly missed, public space for more than 50 years. Your public is calling. My only request is, this summer, please.”

David W. Dunlap/The New York Times The plaza is a vision of tranquillity but, for now, beyond public reach.

The Bob Benson of His Office: James Wolk on His ‘Mad Men’ Role

Michael Yarish/AMC Who wears short shorts? James Wolk as Bob Benson on “Mad Men.”

Every office has its Bob Benson: that one person whose hard work and good intentions are unfortunately canceled out by their overeagerness and  ingratiating ways. (Don’t worry, it’s not you.)

On “Mad Men,” at the offices of Sterling Cooper & Partners, that position has been filled by Bob Benson himself: the guileless character played by James Wolk, who showed up at the start of the season and never really went away. His unparalleled aptitude for showing up at the right place at the wrong time has everyone wondering what he might really be up to.

Mr. Wolk, who has  appeared on  “Lone Star,” “Political Animals” and “Happy Endings,” among other shows cannot yet divulge what â€" if anything â€" might be in store for his character, but he did speak recently to ArtsBeat about how his own inner Bob Benson (and perhaps a few years spent working in his father’s shoe store) helped him win his “Mad Men” role. These are edited excerpts from that conversation.

Q.

I don’t mean to blow anyone’s cover, but the publicist who just connected us on the phone introduced you â€" jokingly â€" as Bob Benson. Have you embraced the fact that you and the character have become one and the same?

A.

[laughs] I don’t mind that association at all. It’s amazing to see everyone really respond to Bob Benson. Just the other night I was out for dinner with some friends, and someone comes up to me and they go, “Hey, is it you?” And I didn’t know what to say. “My name’s James Wolk.” And I waited for him to finish the sentence. And of course he said, “Bob? Bob Benson?” And I said, “Yes. Yes it is me.”

Q.

How were you chosen for the part?

A.

In my short career so far, “Mad Men” was something that in the back of my mind, I always thought, God, it would be wonderful to be a part of that group. So when the opportunity presented itself to read for Matt Weiner [the creator and show runner of "Mad Men"] and the people who make those decisions, I leapt at it. I didn’t fully know, exactly - as none of us really do - where the character was going. But you trust Matt and the pedigree of “Mad Men” and go with it.

Q.

What do you think you did right in the audition?

A.

One anecdote I can share: when I went to leave the audition, the door wouldn’t open. I don’t know why it wouldn’t. I’m finishing what I felt  was a pretty good read and I have the handle in my hand, and I decide I have to say something, so I turn around to the group and I go, “I promise, don’t worry, I know how to open a door.” I think I said it in a kind of Bob Benson way. I’d like to think I’m very different from Bob Benson in a lot of ways. But perhaps the inner Bob came out in that moment.

Q.

What are the qualities you hope you don’t share with him?

A.

I think he fancies himself a fixer, as we’ve seen  so far. He’s attempted to solve some problems for people, whether it be taking Joan to the hospital or helping Pete with a nurse. That part of him, wanting to help, is something that I’d like to associate myself with. I think he can go a little far with it. Always walking around with two coffees? I’d like to think I have a little more eloquence.

Q.

You work in an industry where people will do just about anything to get their foot in the door.

A.

That is where we do differ. I always feel like hard work leads the way, and from there, I leave it up to the powers that be. I try to stay away from the more schmaltzy side of things. That can backfire quickly.

Q.

Have you ever actually worked in an office?

A.

My work experience is really unique. My father owned - and still owns - a women’s shoe store, and has for almost 40 years. So I grew up selling women’s shoes, from age 9 to when I graduated high school. At 9 I was doing stock work and putting shoes away. As I got older I would sell shoes to full-grown women, which is always an interesting thing for a 13-year-old boy to be telling them they look really nice in this high heel.

Q.

Do you think that had some lasting effect on your psyche?

A.

It absolutely did. I feel like if you took a sampling of really successful people, people who fancy themselves hard-working individuals, there’s some sort of shoe salesman in their past. It’s just you and the shoe and the customer. It was an interesting way to grow up - you have to have confidence as a 13-year-old to do that.

Q.

But when people tell you they’ve worked in offices with guys exactly like Bob Benson, you don’t necessarily know what that means.

A.

That’s very true, and I’ve heard that from numerous people. For a little while I worked as a paralegal, right after college. But in talking with friends who are in the office place, and talking with Matt, hearing his stories, I think this is definitely based on those individuals that everyone can associate with. Perhaps it benefitted me that I never really did work closely with one of those individuals, because it allowed me to play Bob with no judgment, so I really want to get behind him and believe in my actions as the character.

Q.

The purposefulness with which Bob goes around the office, and the way he seems to turn up everywhere, has viewers suspicious of his true motivations, and has spawned a lot of theories about the character. What do you think of them?

A.

They’re hilarious. I can tell you my favorite one. Someone said he was Peggy’s son, time-traveling back from the future. [starts laughing] I laughed for like 10 minutes. I thought that was hilarious.

Q.

I notice you’re not denying this.

A.

I am saying nothing.

Q.

One scene from this season that will live on is the sight of Bob Benson in his summer shorts. What was it like for you to shoot that?

A.

I personally am not a shorts-wearing guy. That goes for any form of shorts, beside sports shorts, that I have to wear. So for me this was like someone who’s afraid of heights bungee-jumping. I remember in fitting, we were looking at a number of shorts. These were the shortest of those shorts that we looked at.

Q.

And you chose them?

A.

It was done by jury. I don’t think my vote necessarily counted. And after seeing the episode and seeing the shorts, now I’m thinking about getting a pair in my closet. I enjoyed it.

Q.

You’ve already been cast in a coming CBS series, “The Crazy Ones,” with Robin Williams and Sarah Michelle Gellar. Does that imply some sort of finiteness to the tale of Bob Benson?

A.

What I can say is that, if there is a story to be told further for Bob, hopefully there’ll be a way to figure that out. As of right now, I’m revving up for the fall show. Time will tell.

Q.

We’ve only been speaking for a little while but you seem like a pretty eager and hard-working guy. Are you going to start barking orders at an assistant as soon as we finish this conversation?

A.

Hold on one second. [slightly away from phone] Keep it down, Isaac, and go get my coffee! [comes back on] What was your question?

Life Across Borders: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Talks About ‘Americanah’

“Americanah,” the third novel by the Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, follows Ifemelu, a young Nigerian woman who moves to the U.S. and finds a certain amount of fame as a blogger writing candidly about issues of race and nationality. In her review in The Times, Janet Maslin called the book’s first half “tough-minded and clear,” but expressed disappointment in the “simple romance” of what followed. In a recent e-mail interview, Ms. Adichie discussed the state of American fiction, the tropes she wanted to avoid in writing about race and more. Below are edited excerpts from the conversation:

Q.

Your first two novels were set in Nigeria, and this book takes place there and in the United States. Did you feel you had to live here a certain amount of time before you wanted to approach it in fiction?

A.

I don’t believe in writing what I don’t know. So I feel, having lived in the U.S. off and on for a number of years, that I can tell a story partly about America. That said, the setting of my fiction isn’t a primary consideration for me. Character and story come first.

Q.

Ifemelu, one of the two protagonists in “Americanah,” is a Nigerian-born writer who moves to the U.S. and eventually receives a fellowship at Princeton. Aside from these details, is there a deeper autobiographical connection you feel with her?

A.

Ifemelu spends 13 years in the U.S. before moving back to Nigeria. I spent only four years in the U.S. before I went back, and have since lived in both countries. That is a significant difference, as much of Ifemelu’s character is shaped by being disconnected from home for so long. I quite like that she is a female character who is not safe and easily likeable, who is both strong and weak, both prickly and vulnerable.

Q.

Obinze, the other main character in the book, thinks that in contemporary American novels, “nothing was grave, nothing serious, nothing urgent, and most dissolved into ironic nothingness.” Is this an opinion you share with him?

A.

I’m reading new novels by Elizabeth Strout, Elliott Holt and Claire Messud, and they dispute Obinze’s opinion. I do think there is a tendency in American fiction to celebrate work that fundamentally keeps people comfortable. There is also an obsession with “original” for the mere sake of it, as though original is automatically good, and original often involves some level of irony and gimmick.

The U.S. has been at war for many years now, and there is also an ongoing intense ideological war in the U.S., but you would hardly know that from American literature. But of course this is also about my own biases. I love fiction that has something to say and doesn’t “hide behind art,” novels that feel true, that are not self-conscious experiments. I read a lot of contemporary American fiction and find the writing admirable, but often it is about individuals caged in their individuality, it says nothing about American life, is more about style than it is about substance (style matters but I struggle to finish a novel that is all style and has nothing to say). “The Great Gatsby,” for example, says something about American life in a way that many contemporary novels no longer do.

Q.

Another character says that when black American authors write about race, they have to “make sure it’s so lyrical and subtle that the reader who doesn’t read between the lines won’t even know it’s about race.” Would you say that your book is in some ways a response to this, since race is a very clear theme throughout?

A.

The character was talking about African-American, rather then African or American-African writers, and this distinction is also partly what the novel is about. I think “Americanah” is a response of sorts but it is complicated by my not being African-American. I could have done “Americanah” differently, in a way that was safer. I know the tropes. I know how race is supposed to be dealt with in fiction (you can do a “novel of ideas” about baseball, but not about race, because it becomes “hectoring”), but I wanted to write the kind of novel about race that I wanted to read.

Still, there is a certain privilege in my position as somebody who is not an American, who is looking in from the outside. When I came to the U.S., I became fascinated by the many permutations of race, especially of blackness, the identity I was assigned in America. I still am fascinated.

Ivara Esege Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Q.

You began your college career in Nigeria studying medicine. When and why did you decide to make writing your career?

A.

Writing has always been what I loved and wanted to do. But I didn’t think I could earn a living from writing. So I planned to be a psychiatrist, have a regular salary and use my patients’ stories for my fiction. But then I left medical school because I was bored and thought I would then get a job in media to earn a living. Now I am doing what I love and earning a living from it, and I feel ridiculously lucky.

Q.

Do you see any differences in how your work is reviewed in the U.S. compared to in Nigeria?

A.

I’m very pleased that more Americans than I thought are reading it in a way I hoped it would be read. Still, it seems it is mostly American readers who most miss the fact that “Americanah” is supposed to be funny. I laughed a lot when writing it (although it is a bit worrying to be so amused by one’s own humor). But I suppose race when bluntly dealt with does not blend well with that wonderful, famed American earnestness.

Q.

You teach writing in your home country. What are two or three principles you think it’s important to instill in young writers?

A.

This is what I tell my students: read widely, read what you don’t like and read what you like, and try not to consciously write like either. And writing has to matter in a deep way. You have to make the time to actually write â€" seems obvious enough, but I often hear from people who say they want to write but have no time. And finally I tell them not to think of family and relatives and friends when they write, otherwise they will censor themselves without even knowing it.

Q.

Can you imagine writing a novel set entirely in the U.S.? Have you started another project, and can you share anything about it?

A.

I never say never to anything. My next work will be a novel of ideas about baseball. More seriously, I have many ideas, I am reading and absorbing and watching. I am also, deep down, a superstitious Igbo woman, and so don’t like to talk about future work lest the spirits desert me.

Hailing a Taxi on a Rainy Night

Dear Diary:

I am a senior citizen, age 92.

While trying to hail a taxi on Second Avenue on a busy, rainy Saturday night, a well-dressed young couple came along behind me, also trying to hail a taxi. They seemed impatient, so they walked one block uptown to get the first cab.

A few minutes later I saw them get into the first oncoming cab â€" my loss.

As their cab approached me, it slowed down and came to a full stop. The door opened and, as they both got out, the young man said, “It’s your cab.”

I thanked them profusely, got in, and went on my way.

Read all recent entries and our updated submissions guidelines. Reach us via e-mail diary@nytimes.com and follow @NYTMetro on Twitter using the hashtag #MetDiary.