Reviews

In this age of selfies it's hard to recapture the bad old days when half-crazed collectors hung around New York's Shubert Alley in the hopes of getting an autographed photo of Ethel Merman or Marilyn Monroe.Alan Perna, a star struck Brooklyn teenager, was there in rain or sleet, waiting to seize the moment of the stars passing through.It's all preserved in this charming anthology that the present- day Perna, a successful Greenwich Village hairstylist, has assembled to delight his recollection and ours.John Ashbery