So I see New York as maybe Francoise Sagan might see it, if she were alive and still greeting Tristesse, having spent one exquisite morning which I luckily wrote about before it started to rain. This is definitely a city of ups and downs, with which I confess to having a love-hate relationship. That is to say, I hate it when it doesn't love me.
We have almost come to the end of our New York sojourn, me and Mimi. She is still not too sure about New York dogs, which is okay. It is a hard city, and the dogs are not all sweet-natured as she is.
We went out yesterday morning walking in Central Park, where the air was crisp and clear and the view around the pond was paintbrush dazzling. Any good artist could have captured the beauty: trees along the far bank, their leaves all changing, reflected in the water. All the colors of Autumn, lined up twice.
That was Then. NOW: IT"S POURING!!! Mimi is at the Groomer's, preparing for her return to LA(they do groom her better here, I like my dermatologist, my dentist, and some friends I cannot do without, but autremente I could just stay West.)
Dazzle to the brain occured at the First Amendment Breakfast, a feature of the Columbia School of Journalism that makes me feel very alive, even though it takes place at eight in the morning. Floyd Abrams, the great 1st Amendment atty(though not as great as Gary in my opinion, which is constitutionally protected) presides, and this time the subject was protecting confidential sources. On the panel besides Jim Kelly from Time was the reporter who broke the Barry Bonds steroid story and now faces a jail sentence because the Balco(made the steroids company) case was before a Grand Jury and someone leaked and he won't/can't say who.
Dazzle to the eye, quiet dazzle, was at the retirement party for Owen Laster, my long-time-while-ago agent, at the Four Seasons restaurant where he was once afraid to go because it cost too much money, Imagine he made some, being at Wm. Morris for lotsof years. Met some nice people, including Dominick Dunne whose full attention I caught several minutes into our conversation when I said, of a mutual friend, gone now, that "her whole life was a struggle to seem superficial." His eyes widened at that, and he said "Great line," so look for it in his next book..
Stayed in the city long enough to find out who the hypocrites are and the ones you can't count on, which is relaxing to the spirit when you stop trying to connect with them. So on balance, which it apparently gets to be if you stay centered against the odds, what with the energy here, all driven and desperate(catching!!) you can accomplish a great deal. Why, simply by staying the course in the course of my stay I have watched the weather-vane catch the wind and move us in a new direction. I devoutly hope.
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Will Blog for Jools
Dear Everybody,
Went to the Ellen Barkin auction last night at Christie's, and wrote the following piece, which in case The New Yorker doesn't accept it, I thought you might enjoy.
Local color that isn't emeralds and sapphires: walked Mimi this morning in a darkening Central Park(the bright, warm days appear to be over.) I ran into a homeless woman and having been deeply moved by last night's Boston Legal, a truly great show, I asked her what she would do in winter. "Don't worry about me," she said, through only occasional teeth, "I'm a survivor. I lived in an unheated log cabin in Montana when I was a little girl."
She was very far from being a little girl, and, still touched by that teleplay, I gave her two dollars, which she was reluctant to accept. So she let me choose from a variety of postcards and I picked the one with Times Square blazing, that I will send to some little friends in Paris who, childlike as they are entitled to be, being children, imagine this city to be one continuous treat. Not complaining, you understand, just observing. I can't go too far into the park in the dark as there are rafts of Homeless, and one can't be sure they are all in the benign mode of this woman. James Spader, one of the lead actors in that amazing series asked in the course of his closing argument why we have a million homeless in this country. More importantly, why aren't some of them Congressmen?
Here, the piece on the auction.
A few minutes into the Christie’s Auction of the jewels Ron Perelman had given Ellen Barkin, I heard her voice saying, like Marley’s Ghost, “I wear the chains I forged in marriage.” Several of the chains were of diamonds, long loops of them connected like crystals, hanging low on the model’s spare breast, some ropes of huge pearls, strands of cabochon rubies, that looked to the untrained eye (mine) like beads, but went for small and not so small fortunes to those who knew better. One cord of emeralds the size of immies in a long- ago children’s marble tournament was sold for $480,000. The woman behind me, one of the few visibly chic bidders—I kept looking for the Beautiful People, but if there are still any above ground they were someplace else—told me that most of the prices were “justified.” But there were bidders on the phone connected to Hong Kong who were clearly there for the celebrity value, paying $7000 for a Cartier lipstick holder (was the lipstick radioactive? Did it still have the imprint of her lips?)
The lips themselves were captured in a black and white photo portrait that hung in the front of the room, with Ms. Barkin’s interesting and unsmiling face, the eyes double-lashed, top and bottom, with fake lashes, framed in a neat side-sweep of hair, and dangling diamond earrings, the only item that did not seem to appear in the sale, four rows on either side down to her sharp collarbone and bare right shoulder, over which she peered challengingly. A sweater hugged the top of her arm. There appeared to be jewels edging the sweater, too, but perhaps that was just the glitter attached to such a fascinating not-quite beauty. The portrait captured her unique combination of insolence and vulnerability, which I suppose must have been called heavily into play when Mr. Perelman dumped her.
As with hearing her voice, my imagination leapt to the possibility that perhaps the earrings in the portrait had been kept by Ms. Barkin in an unfettered burst of sentimentality. There were any number of other dangling diamond earrings, the prettiest of them, like chandeliers, bought by the stylish woman behind me, others with huge stones hanging at sort-of discreet intervals all the way down to the throat of the model who sported them. The model’s own comportment was well worth observing, as she began her low-cut, black-gowned, tiny-framed saunter around the stage fairly shyly, but by the evening’s end, apparently fortified by the jewels she had worn, appeared absolutely brazen, casting a self-assured, puckishly arrogant eye into the audience as though searching out Mr. Perelman to give him What For, and show that she, like Miss Barkin herself, was undiminished by his caddishness.
The courtship and marriage of this couple has of course captured much print, though none to match the furor over the divorce. Mr. Perelman, the well-known bald billionaire(I wondered if while wearing one of the many rings she ran her fingers through his scalp) has a penchant for noisy, much publicized divorces, so much so that the poem ‘Ithaca’ is called to mind, in which the poet explains it is not the destination that is important, but the journey to get there. One has the feeling it is not the marriage that so intoxicates him as the prospect of the press explosion when it ends.
In the course of this one, though, one would hope he loved her, sexy woman that she seems from her films, reputedly good mother, talented and clever actress. Certainly there is evidence that he was enchanted, from the mounds of jewelry that he heaped on her, some of it, like diamond wrist cuffs, seeming to have been duplicated, so either he has A.D.D. or didn’t remember he’d already given her a pair of those. But everything was sold for astonishing prices, tallying twenty million by evening’s end, including her Bulgari wedding band, which the auctioneer, tres discreet up to that moment, being French and a master of his game, took Gallic pains to announce was, indeed, “Miss Barkin’s actual wedding ring.” That set off a flurry of phone bids from Hong Kong, where they love movies.
Went to the Ellen Barkin auction last night at Christie's, and wrote the following piece, which in case The New Yorker doesn't accept it, I thought you might enjoy.
Local color that isn't emeralds and sapphires: walked Mimi this morning in a darkening Central Park(the bright, warm days appear to be over.) I ran into a homeless woman and having been deeply moved by last night's Boston Legal, a truly great show, I asked her what she would do in winter. "Don't worry about me," she said, through only occasional teeth, "I'm a survivor. I lived in an unheated log cabin in Montana when I was a little girl."
She was very far from being a little girl, and, still touched by that teleplay, I gave her two dollars, which she was reluctant to accept. So she let me choose from a variety of postcards and I picked the one with Times Square blazing, that I will send to some little friends in Paris who, childlike as they are entitled to be, being children, imagine this city to be one continuous treat. Not complaining, you understand, just observing. I can't go too far into the park in the dark as there are rafts of Homeless, and one can't be sure they are all in the benign mode of this woman. James Spader, one of the lead actors in that amazing series asked in the course of his closing argument why we have a million homeless in this country. More importantly, why aren't some of them Congressmen?
Here, the piece on the auction.
A few minutes into the Christie’s Auction of the jewels Ron Perelman had given Ellen Barkin, I heard her voice saying, like Marley’s Ghost, “I wear the chains I forged in marriage.” Several of the chains were of diamonds, long loops of them connected like crystals, hanging low on the model’s spare breast, some ropes of huge pearls, strands of cabochon rubies, that looked to the untrained eye (mine) like beads, but went for small and not so small fortunes to those who knew better. One cord of emeralds the size of immies in a long- ago children’s marble tournament was sold for $480,000. The woman behind me, one of the few visibly chic bidders—I kept looking for the Beautiful People, but if there are still any above ground they were someplace else—told me that most of the prices were “justified.” But there were bidders on the phone connected to Hong Kong who were clearly there for the celebrity value, paying $7000 for a Cartier lipstick holder (was the lipstick radioactive? Did it still have the imprint of her lips?)
The lips themselves were captured in a black and white photo portrait that hung in the front of the room, with Ms. Barkin’s interesting and unsmiling face, the eyes double-lashed, top and bottom, with fake lashes, framed in a neat side-sweep of hair, and dangling diamond earrings, the only item that did not seem to appear in the sale, four rows on either side down to her sharp collarbone and bare right shoulder, over which she peered challengingly. A sweater hugged the top of her arm. There appeared to be jewels edging the sweater, too, but perhaps that was just the glitter attached to such a fascinating not-quite beauty. The portrait captured her unique combination of insolence and vulnerability, which I suppose must have been called heavily into play when Mr. Perelman dumped her.
As with hearing her voice, my imagination leapt to the possibility that perhaps the earrings in the portrait had been kept by Ms. Barkin in an unfettered burst of sentimentality. There were any number of other dangling diamond earrings, the prettiest of them, like chandeliers, bought by the stylish woman behind me, others with huge stones hanging at sort-of discreet intervals all the way down to the throat of the model who sported them. The model’s own comportment was well worth observing, as she began her low-cut, black-gowned, tiny-framed saunter around the stage fairly shyly, but by the evening’s end, apparently fortified by the jewels she had worn, appeared absolutely brazen, casting a self-assured, puckishly arrogant eye into the audience as though searching out Mr. Perelman to give him What For, and show that she, like Miss Barkin herself, was undiminished by his caddishness.
The courtship and marriage of this couple has of course captured much print, though none to match the furor over the divorce. Mr. Perelman, the well-known bald billionaire(I wondered if while wearing one of the many rings she ran her fingers through his scalp) has a penchant for noisy, much publicized divorces, so much so that the poem ‘Ithaca’ is called to mind, in which the poet explains it is not the destination that is important, but the journey to get there. One has the feeling it is not the marriage that so intoxicates him as the prospect of the press explosion when it ends.
In the course of this one, though, one would hope he loved her, sexy woman that she seems from her films, reputedly good mother, talented and clever actress. Certainly there is evidence that he was enchanted, from the mounds of jewelry that he heaped on her, some of it, like diamond wrist cuffs, seeming to have been duplicated, so either he has A.D.D. or didn’t remember he’d already given her a pair of those. But everything was sold for astonishing prices, tallying twenty million by evening’s end, including her Bulgari wedding band, which the auctioneer, tres discreet up to that moment, being French and a master of his game, took Gallic pains to announce was, indeed, “Miss Barkin’s actual wedding ring.” That set off a flurry of phone bids from Hong Kong, where they love movies.
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Autumn in New York
There are patches of Silence in Central Park, places where you can sit on a bench as though waiting for the leaves to turn or the House to be won by Democrats. I mean, you sort of know it's coming, but there is still no certainty, no evidence, except for a few treetops swaying slightly yellowish in the borderline bluster.I had heard that the weather in New York was the best it had been in many a season, but naturally it was raining when I arrived, had one brilliant day and then it turned cold and windy. That's fine with me, as it was the weather that drove me away, at least on the face of it, so it would be disconcerting to have it be beautiful and seductive and welcoming. As there is little danger of what really chased me out of town turning around and becoming those things.
It is a city that is all about being driven, which is good in only one aspect, and that is when it is literal: my friend Chase has a London taxi lined in Burberry, with a gentle chauffeur named Alex, and that is when it becomes a joy. The rest of the time I see the look on people's faces as they rush to whatever they';re chasing, little pulls of anxiety at the corners of their lips, lest success elude them. That look is almost always often softened when they see Mimi, who is at her best in New York, groomed by Jose at A Cut Above, who knows how to cut Bichons, something they have not perfected in LA, where they know how to cut Paris Hilton. Speaking of which, Mimi, a traffic stopper here except when you try to cross the street when you have to make eye contact with the drivers in cars careening onto Central Park South, as though they were bulls and you the matador, dazzled a woman exiting the Essex House yesterday. She is a jewelry designer from LA, who has a friend who designs jewelry for dogs, and asked if Mimi would be willing to model. I of course said Yes, as I know every dog has its day when they belong to me, and immediately thought of getting Mimi in a sex video released to YouTube, in which case she could become a Superstar, although she has many more gifts than Paris, and is probably more articulate.
There is no question there is much to do in Gotham, all of it seemingly rushed, even if you take your time which I seem to be doing, carrying the ease of California with me, so I lost the whole day yesterday doing nothing-- didn't even read the paper till I went to bed. I was supposed to meet my friend Enid Nemy who is very strict at the Metropolitan Museum at 5:45 for a chamber music concert, when I saw to my horror it was 5:30 and I had still been unable to get a cab. So I frantically hired one of those bicycle rickshaws ridden by those who know when someone is in time trouble, so charged me $40 to get to the Museum. His gears locked and broke down at moments, but I got there by 5:55, and went with her to the Patron's Lounge on the 4th floor, where they have these Friday evening events, courtesy of the Dorothy Strelsin Foundation of which Enid is the administrator. Dorothy was (I understand) in her youth a breathtakingly beautiful blonde showgirl who married The Industrialist(he was always described as) Alfred Strelsin. He left her a fortune and jools that she kept in a box. The rest of her bounty, though, she shared openly and generously, letting friends stay in her Fifth Avenue duplex aerie overlooking the park and a few eagles that perched on her terrace. I stayed with her often when I came to New York, and Franco Zefferelli stayed there with his whole entourage when he would come to do an opera, cooking with her pots which he would then take back with him to Italy, not inviting her to dinner parties in her own home, nor, the last time, even to his opening. A real prince. By the time I met her she was more Dotty than Dorothy, but a good soul to the core, so I miss her and it's nice there are concerts in her name-- Enid noted that Dorothy would enjoy having her name around.
Her name is also on the statue in the park commemorating Lewis Carroll, surrounded by all his Alice creatures in metal. I am feeling oddly akin to him at the moment because I wrote a nonsense poem after reading Harry Potter to my two little grandboys, and having tripped my tongue over Dumbledorfs and Thrumwhistles or whoever they were, realized that a part of Rowling's success was giving children words that sounded funny and so enchanted them. So I awoke the next day and write a nonsense poem called 'Gobbledegook,' in which i included a carload of words that were synonyms for nonsense. I sent it to my friend who handles children's books. She wrote me back the following.
Dear Gwen,
Both Meredith and I read your story, and we both loved it. And so, we took it to our in-house expert, George Nicholson. George was formerly the publisher of Delacorte Press and has now become an agent and is our expert on picture books for children. Here is what he said.
Essentially, he felt that what you’ve created here is a political fable for adults, in which the protagonist – when he appears – is basically an adult. We all agree that children love language, and the language here is indeed incredibly clever and fun. But George informed us that verse of any kind sets up an immediate wall with most editors. He was further concerned that the average child reader would not understand phrases like “some dim politician,” “a fustian bombast” or “an angel has fallen,” nor easily comprehend who the enemy of this story really is. An editor would say that the concept behind the story is simply not something most children could digest.
I know how important it is to let children explore the complexities of existing language and experience the freedom of creating their own. But unfortunately, our expert ultimately felt the context of this book has an adult aim – it’s really an adult, bureaucratic fable. And because the incidents of the story never really involve the protagonist directly, the feeling remains abstract and faraway throughout and not something that children could glom onto or make their own in a way that would make this book saleable in the current children’s book market.
Well, I loved it, but I’m glad that I took it to George because I think I read it without analyzing its content in terms of children in that market.
A POLITICAL FABLE. Holy Shit. I wonder what he would say about Jabberwocky.
I wonder what the world would say about anything I tried to do. I am in a struggle not to feel despondent, when the world is so welcoming of bullshit, and we have this administration. I read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho on the plane here, a book that has sold about a billion copies world wide, looking for its secret: it seems to me to be spiritual Gobbledegook, filled with that same kind of nauseating would-be-hidden-currents of WISDOM as The Celestine Prophesy. Coelho's bio says his parents, alarmed by his wish for a life devoted to art, put him in an asylum and gave him electro-shock therapy. Later he lived in Amsterdam where he met a man who came to him in a vision, probably in the same coffee shop you buy hashish. Also he was in the music business in Brazil, which I imagine comes with some really good plants from the Amazon.
Those of you who know my early history or read The Motherland or met my mom, Helen Schwamm, understand I have had the equivalent of electroshock therapy just in my home environment, and as I have followed Jack my Jewru on the path to enlightenment, also spent a bit of time in Amsterdam, and its Hollywood Branch, Abbott Kinney Road, would imagine I could be like-minded, or like-out-of-my-minded, what with how the world is. So my life-changing work should be just around the corner. Oh, if only I knew which corner it was.
At any rate I sat through the concert last night (piano and clarinet and a claque of young operatic male Russians who screamed "Bravo!" at everything and openly fondled each other) trying to be present, and Quakerly. Though I could not perceive That of God in everybody, I did see That of June Allyson in a heavy-lidded but bright-eyed blonde who pressed against a column, and That of Ina Balin in a crook-nosed brunette. I understand that sounds judgmental and shallow, but that seems to be how one becomes in New York. Unless of course everyone is after you, entreating, admiring, all the superficial lathering that one spends a lifetime struggling not to long for, succeeding only on occasion, and then, only if one lives long enough. Towards the end of one interesting cacaphony, I saw That of Andy Warhol in one lively old woman, wearing a cape, and a rapt expression. And I remembered how once, on the best day of Memorial Day weekend, I passed Andy himself on Madison Avenue, alone and vacant-eyed lonely, and realized that not even the Fifteen Minute Icon in the pallid flesh was assured of a weekend invitation, or someone to play with.
So New York, like the rest of life I guess, remains a struggle between Faith, losing Faith, Face and losing Face, and finding Face or Faith in other people, who may or may not have in them That of God. If there is One. We will know better after the election.
It is a city that is all about being driven, which is good in only one aspect, and that is when it is literal: my friend Chase has a London taxi lined in Burberry, with a gentle chauffeur named Alex, and that is when it becomes a joy. The rest of the time I see the look on people's faces as they rush to whatever they';re chasing, little pulls of anxiety at the corners of their lips, lest success elude them. That look is almost always often softened when they see Mimi, who is at her best in New York, groomed by Jose at A Cut Above, who knows how to cut Bichons, something they have not perfected in LA, where they know how to cut Paris Hilton. Speaking of which, Mimi, a traffic stopper here except when you try to cross the street when you have to make eye contact with the drivers in cars careening onto Central Park South, as though they were bulls and you the matador, dazzled a woman exiting the Essex House yesterday. She is a jewelry designer from LA, who has a friend who designs jewelry for dogs, and asked if Mimi would be willing to model. I of course said Yes, as I know every dog has its day when they belong to me, and immediately thought of getting Mimi in a sex video released to YouTube, in which case she could become a Superstar, although she has many more gifts than Paris, and is probably more articulate.
There is no question there is much to do in Gotham, all of it seemingly rushed, even if you take your time which I seem to be doing, carrying the ease of California with me, so I lost the whole day yesterday doing nothing-- didn't even read the paper till I went to bed. I was supposed to meet my friend Enid Nemy who is very strict at the Metropolitan Museum at 5:45 for a chamber music concert, when I saw to my horror it was 5:30 and I had still been unable to get a cab. So I frantically hired one of those bicycle rickshaws ridden by those who know when someone is in time trouble, so charged me $40 to get to the Museum. His gears locked and broke down at moments, but I got there by 5:55, and went with her to the Patron's Lounge on the 4th floor, where they have these Friday evening events, courtesy of the Dorothy Strelsin Foundation of which Enid is the administrator. Dorothy was (I understand) in her youth a breathtakingly beautiful blonde showgirl who married The Industrialist(he was always described as) Alfred Strelsin. He left her a fortune and jools that she kept in a box. The rest of her bounty, though, she shared openly and generously, letting friends stay in her Fifth Avenue duplex aerie overlooking the park and a few eagles that perched on her terrace. I stayed with her often when I came to New York, and Franco Zefferelli stayed there with his whole entourage when he would come to do an opera, cooking with her pots which he would then take back with him to Italy, not inviting her to dinner parties in her own home, nor, the last time, even to his opening. A real prince. By the time I met her she was more Dotty than Dorothy, but a good soul to the core, so I miss her and it's nice there are concerts in her name-- Enid noted that Dorothy would enjoy having her name around.
Her name is also on the statue in the park commemorating Lewis Carroll, surrounded by all his Alice creatures in metal. I am feeling oddly akin to him at the moment because I wrote a nonsense poem after reading Harry Potter to my two little grandboys, and having tripped my tongue over Dumbledorfs and Thrumwhistles or whoever they were, realized that a part of Rowling's success was giving children words that sounded funny and so enchanted them. So I awoke the next day and write a nonsense poem called 'Gobbledegook,' in which i included a carload of words that were synonyms for nonsense. I sent it to my friend who handles children's books. She wrote me back the following.
Dear Gwen,
Both Meredith and I read your story, and we both loved it. And so, we took it to our in-house expert, George Nicholson. George was formerly the publisher of Delacorte Press and has now become an agent and is our expert on picture books for children. Here is what he said.
Essentially, he felt that what you’ve created here is a political fable for adults, in which the protagonist – when he appears – is basically an adult. We all agree that children love language, and the language here is indeed incredibly clever and fun. But George informed us that verse of any kind sets up an immediate wall with most editors. He was further concerned that the average child reader would not understand phrases like “some dim politician,” “a fustian bombast” or “an angel has fallen,” nor easily comprehend who the enemy of this story really is. An editor would say that the concept behind the story is simply not something most children could digest.
I know how important it is to let children explore the complexities of existing language and experience the freedom of creating their own. But unfortunately, our expert ultimately felt the context of this book has an adult aim – it’s really an adult, bureaucratic fable. And because the incidents of the story never really involve the protagonist directly, the feeling remains abstract and faraway throughout and not something that children could glom onto or make their own in a way that would make this book saleable in the current children’s book market.
Well, I loved it, but I’m glad that I took it to George because I think I read it without analyzing its content in terms of children in that market.
A POLITICAL FABLE. Holy Shit. I wonder what he would say about Jabberwocky.
I wonder what the world would say about anything I tried to do. I am in a struggle not to feel despondent, when the world is so welcoming of bullshit, and we have this administration. I read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho on the plane here, a book that has sold about a billion copies world wide, looking for its secret: it seems to me to be spiritual Gobbledegook, filled with that same kind of nauseating would-be-hidden-currents of WISDOM as The Celestine Prophesy. Coelho's bio says his parents, alarmed by his wish for a life devoted to art, put him in an asylum and gave him electro-shock therapy. Later he lived in Amsterdam where he met a man who came to him in a vision, probably in the same coffee shop you buy hashish. Also he was in the music business in Brazil, which I imagine comes with some really good plants from the Amazon.
Those of you who know my early history or read The Motherland or met my mom, Helen Schwamm, understand I have had the equivalent of electroshock therapy just in my home environment, and as I have followed Jack my Jewru on the path to enlightenment, also spent a bit of time in Amsterdam, and its Hollywood Branch, Abbott Kinney Road, would imagine I could be like-minded, or like-out-of-my-minded, what with how the world is. So my life-changing work should be just around the corner. Oh, if only I knew which corner it was.
At any rate I sat through the concert last night (piano and clarinet and a claque of young operatic male Russians who screamed "Bravo!" at everything and openly fondled each other) trying to be present, and Quakerly. Though I could not perceive That of God in everybody, I did see That of June Allyson in a heavy-lidded but bright-eyed blonde who pressed against a column, and That of Ina Balin in a crook-nosed brunette. I understand that sounds judgmental and shallow, but that seems to be how one becomes in New York. Unless of course everyone is after you, entreating, admiring, all the superficial lathering that one spends a lifetime struggling not to long for, succeeding only on occasion, and then, only if one lives long enough. Towards the end of one interesting cacaphony, I saw That of Andy Warhol in one lively old woman, wearing a cape, and a rapt expression. And I remembered how once, on the best day of Memorial Day weekend, I passed Andy himself on Madison Avenue, alone and vacant-eyed lonely, and realized that not even the Fifteen Minute Icon in the pallid flesh was assured of a weekend invitation, or someone to play with.
So New York, like the rest of life I guess, remains a struggle between Faith, losing Faith, Face and losing Face, and finding Face or Faith in other people, who may or may not have in them That of God. If there is One. We will know better after the election.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
A Lioness has left the Streets
Ann Richards is gone, the great, funny, feisty woman who was Governor of Texas, beaten unexpectedly for re-election by George W. Bush in 1994, thus ending her own political career, and signalling the end of America's being held in esteem. I was with Ann in the earthquake of 1989 in San Francisco, where she'd come for a fund-raiser in her gubernatorial campaign, due to start just after the quake hit. So she huddled with a group of other women in Huntington Park, none of whom knew each other, waiting for the aftershocks. A friend came by and picked us all up and took us back to her house, built on solid ground, as Ann was. We spent the night by a great picture window, the living room lit by the firelight of explosions in the Marina, and each of us told our stories, like it was Chaucer.
Her story was best, because she was so ribald, and honest, and savvy, taking herself not so seriously as she did the future of the country. She had aged in the way that fortunate men do, so she was handsome, senatorial, her white mane leonine, her strong face craggy. At the time it occured to me she might become the first woman president, but of course we all underestimated George. As she was later to say to Harris Wofford, "Don't underestimate his skill as a campaigner."
It is a great loss to the political scene, an even greater loss to the nation, as she was the best of us: frank and forthright, but kind. We will not see her like again. Unless someone gets braver and funnier.
Went last night to yet another political event at UCLA, this one featuring Elizabeth Holtzman, who drafted the original articles of Impeachment for Richard Nixon's unseating, and who wrote an article in The Nation, calling up the same for 'W', whom I might have forgiven the squandering of Ann, had he not turned out such dangerous jerk. The other speaker was John Dean, of Watergate fame, who carefully weighed the offenses Holtzman listed as to whether they were legally impeachable offenses. He has become no less measured, if balder, and struck one again with his quiet intelligence, making one(Me, anyway) wonder how he could have ever allied himself with the people he did. But I have a once close friend who explained to me long ago he was a fiscal conservative, and liked the Republican conservatives better than the Democrats. He stayed my friend for almost my whole adult life until the rent in the country appeared, and we all stood on either side of the Great Divide,unable to speak to the opposition, even those who might once have been good friends.
John Dean lived up above me on Rembert Lane. I have a Friend, David, who once said I was Zelig-- that when these people turn up, I always know them. I had spent the early 70s devoted to the task of bringing Nixon down, in my head, anyway. During that period, my most metaphysical one, I was sure the Founders were all back, reincarnated, rather than simply twirling in their graves, determined to get the country in shape for the Bicentennial. As my looney but darling friend Pattie the psychic had said I was one of the Framers in a previous life, I hoped I was up to the task.
At the time, I was researching in Washington for my novel TheMotherland, staying in the home of my then good Republican friend, making friends with others of them, like Deputy Press Secretary Gerry Warren, who also gave me sanctuary when I went to D.C. Every time I would fly there from LA, something would happen to damage Nixon: Agnew's resignation, the Saturday night massacre, the firing of Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. So when I would call my Republican friends and say I was coming, they would respond with "Oh, my God, what's going to happen now?" Staying with the Warrens, every morning the phone would ring with at 4 AM with another revelation from the Washington Post. Naturally I began going as often as I could until I had finished my job, and Nixon was out of office.
All this time we were living on Rembert Lane, a fairly deserted street up off Cherokee Lane, with one vacant piece of land above us, on which building began. In the Spring of '74, on the day The Motherland was published, the house on the hill above finally finished, a moving truck having installed my new neighbors, the doorbell rang. I opened the front door and it was John Dean, asking to use the
phone. If anyone had doubts until then that in some invisible way I was connected, they sort of vanished. I wish I had those powers still. I wonder why it is that every time we have a Dick in the Executive branch, the country goes down the tubes.
I asked Gerry Warren when it was all over why he had let me observe so closely what was going on in the Nixon White House, when he knew I was the Enemy. He said "Because I knew you would be fair."
I try to be, but it gets harder. Still, I went to the event last night with a bossy Democrat I met at the Vidal event, who has a handicapped parking permit although she appeared okay to me. I asked her about it, and she said she has sciatica, and would be in constant pain if it weren't for taking Vicodan every few hours. I have a close friend who was famously addicted to Vicodan, so I asked this overbearing woman if she wasn't worried. "I am not an addictive type," she said to me as she drove me home, "so I don't have to be concerned." At that point she turned left into Barrington, in the wrong lane, and faced opposing headlights obviously driven by someone sane and sober, so they got out of the way.
It is a relief, somehow, to know that all those in denial are not Republicans.
Her story was best, because she was so ribald, and honest, and savvy, taking herself not so seriously as she did the future of the country. She had aged in the way that fortunate men do, so she was handsome, senatorial, her white mane leonine, her strong face craggy. At the time it occured to me she might become the first woman president, but of course we all underestimated George. As she was later to say to Harris Wofford, "Don't underestimate his skill as a campaigner."
It is a great loss to the political scene, an even greater loss to the nation, as she was the best of us: frank and forthright, but kind. We will not see her like again. Unless someone gets braver and funnier.
Went last night to yet another political event at UCLA, this one featuring Elizabeth Holtzman, who drafted the original articles of Impeachment for Richard Nixon's unseating, and who wrote an article in The Nation, calling up the same for 'W', whom I might have forgiven the squandering of Ann, had he not turned out such dangerous jerk. The other speaker was John Dean, of Watergate fame, who carefully weighed the offenses Holtzman listed as to whether they were legally impeachable offenses. He has become no less measured, if balder, and struck one again with his quiet intelligence, making one(Me, anyway) wonder how he could have ever allied himself with the people he did. But I have a once close friend who explained to me long ago he was a fiscal conservative, and liked the Republican conservatives better than the Democrats. He stayed my friend for almost my whole adult life until the rent in the country appeared, and we all stood on either side of the Great Divide,unable to speak to the opposition, even those who might once have been good friends.
John Dean lived up above me on Rembert Lane. I have a Friend, David, who once said I was Zelig-- that when these people turn up, I always know them. I had spent the early 70s devoted to the task of bringing Nixon down, in my head, anyway. During that period, my most metaphysical one, I was sure the Founders were all back, reincarnated, rather than simply twirling in their graves, determined to get the country in shape for the Bicentennial. As my looney but darling friend Pattie the psychic had said I was one of the Framers in a previous life, I hoped I was up to the task.
At the time, I was researching in Washington for my novel TheMotherland, staying in the home of my then good Republican friend, making friends with others of them, like Deputy Press Secretary Gerry Warren, who also gave me sanctuary when I went to D.C. Every time I would fly there from LA, something would happen to damage Nixon: Agnew's resignation, the Saturday night massacre, the firing of Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. So when I would call my Republican friends and say I was coming, they would respond with "Oh, my God, what's going to happen now?" Staying with the Warrens, every morning the phone would ring with at 4 AM with another revelation from the Washington Post. Naturally I began going as often as I could until I had finished my job, and Nixon was out of office.
All this time we were living on Rembert Lane, a fairly deserted street up off Cherokee Lane, with one vacant piece of land above us, on which building began. In the Spring of '74, on the day The Motherland was published, the house on the hill above finally finished, a moving truck having installed my new neighbors, the doorbell rang. I opened the front door and it was John Dean, asking to use the
phone. If anyone had doubts until then that in some invisible way I was connected, they sort of vanished. I wish I had those powers still. I wonder why it is that every time we have a Dick in the Executive branch, the country goes down the tubes.
I asked Gerry Warren when it was all over why he had let me observe so closely what was going on in the Nixon White House, when he knew I was the Enemy. He said "Because I knew you would be fair."
I try to be, but it gets harder. Still, I went to the event last night with a bossy Democrat I met at the Vidal event, who has a handicapped parking permit although she appeared okay to me. I asked her about it, and she said she has sciatica, and would be in constant pain if it weren't for taking Vicodan every few hours. I have a close friend who was famously addicted to Vicodan, so I asked this overbearing woman if she wasn't worried. "I am not an addictive type," she said to me as she drove me home, "so I don't have to be concerned." At that point she turned left into Barrington, in the wrong lane, and faced opposing headlights obviously driven by someone sane and sober, so they got out of the way.
It is a relief, somehow, to know that all those in denial are not Republicans.
Monday, September 11, 2006
How to Commemorate September 11th
One of my closest friends, who shall be nameless in case of patriotic ricochets, is ostriching out, hiding his eyes and his spirit from the barrage of Sept. 11th programs on TV, whether controversial(ABC's ill-advised and irresponsible miniseries) or respectfully inane, articles in the papers, interviews with orphaned children, etc., choosing instead to watch The Wire, or read pleasant books from yesteryear, when life was simple, or, perhaps, simply mercurial. I remember waking up that morning to the news, the full, surreal view of it on my TV which I never turned on in the daytime, but I had been alerted by a phone call, and thinking there was no point in getting out of bed again, maybe ever, my dreams of making a difference in an indifferent world now obliterated.
Yesterday I went to a Democratic fund-raiser in Malibu that seemed to shore up the American Dream as some used to dream it, especially in other places, held in or rather alongside an enormous mansion with huge grounds, pool, gazebo, shaded porches, and its own three-block long parking lot, that had been built by a Sikh dentist, who immigrated from India in the 50s, and apparently found gold in them thar fillings. The key speaker, after a scatterspray of local candidates, was Gore Vidal. Though obviously physically compromised, he is still handsome and commanding, the voice strong, opinions stronger, wit undiminished. He can go back through history in a sentence, calling up facts and quotes from his grandfather Gore or Teddy Roosevelt, and seems to hold onto little that is less than brilliant, except perhaps an irrational dislike for Woodrow Wilson, of whom I am personally irrationally fond, as he was briefly president of Bryn Mawr.
The highlight of Gore's (I can call him that, we have some history) restrained rant-- he was never overtly passionate, his voice steady, like his hooded gaze-- was his coming out for the first time publicly endorsing his cousin Albert for president. He has gotten hold of, Vidal conceded, "the only issue that really matters," because if we have no planet, we have no elections. Then he went on to some lesser issues, like deceit, and profit, and exploitation, and the demonization of the word and position 'Liberal.'
Afterwards he signed books, and I bought one, leaned over and whispered "I used to be Gwen Davis." Without looking up, he said "I'd heard that, that you had a sex change." Tired as he was-- he had spoken for a very long time, and his hand was less than steady after much signing of just his elegant name-- he personalized his inscription to me. I was suddenly moved, by his frailty, his unflagging intelligence, our history, and by how evanescent everything is, and asked if I could kiss him. "You've been important in my life," I said truthfully. He offered his cheek, and I kissed it, backing away just as he reached out his hand to touch me, so it fell on air, and we missed each other, which is pretty much the story of our relationship.
Then I came home to the news that my Aunt Bessie, the last except one of my mother's siblings, had died. Bess was the one in the family who was funniest, an uneducated kind of humor, combining boisterous irreverence, lusty femininity, and yoga(which she still taught into her eighties) with great generosity(she was the relative who scratched my back when I was little, while singing 'Twas on the isle of Capri.') She lived a long life, was Susie's mother, which leant her a touch of unexpected spirituality-- as Catholics see the Virgin Mary in really strange places, Bess saw Susie's face in the swirling water when she washed her hands after Susie died. That's a lie. She saw her face when she flushed the toilet, but I had trouble writing that as it seemed past irreverent even for Bess, though she never saw Susie till after the waste had disappeared.
I had a number of funny dreams last night-- I was about to miss planes-- the usual anxiety crap-- and awoke this morning wondering what I could do to improve the day, seeing what day it was. So I made French Toast, one of two dishes my mother knew how to make(the other one was spaghetti) in spite of my Grandma's being one of the great cooks ever. There were blueberries in my fridge, and I'd tried to eat them for their anti-oxidant wonders, but they were sour. So I put them on the French Toast and doused the whole concoction with Maple Syrup from New Hampshire which Heidi, the most American spawn of my most American friends, Muggy and Marty, had brought me for my housewarming, but which, before today, September 11th, I had never even thought about using, self-indulgence of the eating kind being outside my permitted perameters. Perpetually on a diet, I have had maple syrup only on the day the doctor was checking my blood, so I had to fast and then eat something with maple syrup on it, HOORAY! License!
So that, it seems to me, is how we should commemorate today. Do something you wouldn't ordinarily have dared to do, outside your boundaries, that harms no one, except maybe yourself if you consider self-indulgence harmful, and if you do, forget it for today.
Life, even when you think you hold it in your hand, is quicksilver. Fate is capricious, those you love vanish, none of us can predict what our end point will be. Add to that unstable mixture zealots who despise us, and what are the odds?
EAT FRENCH TOAST.
Or, if you have to connect your mind to the obscenity, read David Friend's astonishing book, Watching the World Change, which actually puts you there, on the spot with the photographers who bore witness, giving you a safety net of quiet intelligence, and a shield of compassion to hide behind. And while you read it, eat French Toast.
Yesterday I went to a Democratic fund-raiser in Malibu that seemed to shore up the American Dream as some used to dream it, especially in other places, held in or rather alongside an enormous mansion with huge grounds, pool, gazebo, shaded porches, and its own three-block long parking lot, that had been built by a Sikh dentist, who immigrated from India in the 50s, and apparently found gold in them thar fillings. The key speaker, after a scatterspray of local candidates, was Gore Vidal. Though obviously physically compromised, he is still handsome and commanding, the voice strong, opinions stronger, wit undiminished. He can go back through history in a sentence, calling up facts and quotes from his grandfather Gore or Teddy Roosevelt, and seems to hold onto little that is less than brilliant, except perhaps an irrational dislike for Woodrow Wilson, of whom I am personally irrationally fond, as he was briefly president of Bryn Mawr.
The highlight of Gore's (I can call him that, we have some history) restrained rant-- he was never overtly passionate, his voice steady, like his hooded gaze-- was his coming out for the first time publicly endorsing his cousin Albert for president. He has gotten hold of, Vidal conceded, "the only issue that really matters," because if we have no planet, we have no elections. Then he went on to some lesser issues, like deceit, and profit, and exploitation, and the demonization of the word and position 'Liberal.'
Afterwards he signed books, and I bought one, leaned over and whispered "I used to be Gwen Davis." Without looking up, he said "I'd heard that, that you had a sex change." Tired as he was-- he had spoken for a very long time, and his hand was less than steady after much signing of just his elegant name-- he personalized his inscription to me. I was suddenly moved, by his frailty, his unflagging intelligence, our history, and by how evanescent everything is, and asked if I could kiss him. "You've been important in my life," I said truthfully. He offered his cheek, and I kissed it, backing away just as he reached out his hand to touch me, so it fell on air, and we missed each other, which is pretty much the story of our relationship.
Then I came home to the news that my Aunt Bessie, the last except one of my mother's siblings, had died. Bess was the one in the family who was funniest, an uneducated kind of humor, combining boisterous irreverence, lusty femininity, and yoga(which she still taught into her eighties) with great generosity(she was the relative who scratched my back when I was little, while singing 'Twas on the isle of Capri.') She lived a long life, was Susie's mother, which leant her a touch of unexpected spirituality-- as Catholics see the Virgin Mary in really strange places, Bess saw Susie's face in the swirling water when she washed her hands after Susie died. That's a lie. She saw her face when she flushed the toilet, but I had trouble writing that as it seemed past irreverent even for Bess, though she never saw Susie till after the waste had disappeared.
I had a number of funny dreams last night-- I was about to miss planes-- the usual anxiety crap-- and awoke this morning wondering what I could do to improve the day, seeing what day it was. So I made French Toast, one of two dishes my mother knew how to make(the other one was spaghetti) in spite of my Grandma's being one of the great cooks ever. There were blueberries in my fridge, and I'd tried to eat them for their anti-oxidant wonders, but they were sour. So I put them on the French Toast and doused the whole concoction with Maple Syrup from New Hampshire which Heidi, the most American spawn of my most American friends, Muggy and Marty, had brought me for my housewarming, but which, before today, September 11th, I had never even thought about using, self-indulgence of the eating kind being outside my permitted perameters. Perpetually on a diet, I have had maple syrup only on the day the doctor was checking my blood, so I had to fast and then eat something with maple syrup on it, HOORAY! License!
So that, it seems to me, is how we should commemorate today. Do something you wouldn't ordinarily have dared to do, outside your boundaries, that harms no one, except maybe yourself if you consider self-indulgence harmful, and if you do, forget it for today.
Life, even when you think you hold it in your hand, is quicksilver. Fate is capricious, those you love vanish, none of us can predict what our end point will be. Add to that unstable mixture zealots who despise us, and what are the odds?
EAT FRENCH TOAST.
Or, if you have to connect your mind to the obscenity, read David Friend's astonishing book, Watching the World Change, which actually puts you there, on the spot with the photographers who bore witness, giving you a safety net of quiet intelligence, and a shield of compassion to hide behind. And while you read it, eat French Toast.
I Feel Bad about Nora Ephron
Some years ago I had a novel, Romance, coming out at the same time as Heartburn, Nora Ephron's less than heavily-disguised roman a clef about the end of her marriage to Carl Bernstein. As the novelist who had become, alas, the landmark libel case in Fiction, (Bindrim vs. Mitchell,) I was booked onto the CBS Morning Show with Ms. Ephron. Though it was agreed within the writing and publishing community that my case had been ridiculous-- the plaintiff being a trendy California psychologist who said he was the therapist in my novel, Touching, grew a beard and gained weight to appear more like that character, alleging I had ruined his nude encounter business by looking at it with a scathing eye--Imagine!-- and The New York Times after it was all over quoted several prominent lawyers who deemed the decision "an aberration," one that would have never stood in New York where they better understood what fiction was, the case itself threatened to doom my career. The prospect of appearing on TV, bright as I still seemed to be at the time, and lively, promised me a chance at Redemption, not to mention life for my novel.
The day before the show, I was called by Shirley Wershba, the producer, to tell me that Nora Ephron's publisher had said if I was on the show, Nora would not appear. So I lost the best chance I had to promote the novel I wrote in spite of the huge setbacks, professional, emotional, and monetary I had suffered.
Still, I wrote on. ("They could cut off your arms," Gay Talese said generously, "and you would write with your stumps. They could cut off your legs and you'd crawl. All you have to do is decide not to die and you'll live forever.") But the novels after that had a hard time finding a home. ("There's a cloud over this writer," Don Fine, my last great maverick publisher, head of Arbor House, was told when he took my novel to market for paperback sale, which never happened.)
From time to time I would try moving back to New York, home of "serious" writing. I loved writers, and having suffered the isolation of being a novelist in Los Angeles, I was searching for 'community.' "Do your work," said Jules Feiffer, a trusted friend, "and your community will find you." Said Annie Navasky, delightful wife of The Nation's brilliant publisher. Victor, “He forgot to add ‘provided you are wildly successful.'"
Needless to say, I wasn't. But in the meantime I had entered the land of Everything Happens for a Reason. As Nora Ephron herself said in a recent interview, if it hadn't been for her unfortunate--as it turned out-- marriage to Mr. Bernstein, she wouldn';t have her house in the Hamptons, not to mention.. it did seem an afterthought... her two wonderful boys.
If I hadn't been booked on the Morning Show, I wouldn't have the friendship of Shirley Wershba, one of the great television journalists, along with her husband Joe(see 'Good Night and Good Luck',) a connection made more intense by my having been elbowed off the air. As it turned out, Shirley cancelled the whole segment, as she wasn't about to have a booking dictated by a publisher, especially since she had envisioned it as a stimulating literary discussion about romans a clef. Had the program gone ahead as originally conceived, I might have been witty on the air, maybe even clever, and my novel might have taken off, so the dark shadow of the lawsuit might have been erased by light. But then, if I had been more successful in placing my next six books (see Mr. Talese, above) I might have become spoiled and rotten and lazy and complacent, and not risen to the life worth examining, (see Socrates) and some(I hope) true perspective on what constitutes success, nor been in tune for today's #13 on The Times' Best Seller list, Overcoming Life's Disappointments.
Still, I have not evolved enough not to feel a bit of a twinge in my spirit at seeing at #1, Nora Ephron's I Feel Bad About My Neck. How charmingly she wrote in Heartburn about faithless man's inhumanity to woman. But where has she addressed the issue of woman's inhumanity to her fellow woman?
The day before the show, I was called by Shirley Wershba, the producer, to tell me that Nora Ephron's publisher had said if I was on the show, Nora would not appear. So I lost the best chance I had to promote the novel I wrote in spite of the huge setbacks, professional, emotional, and monetary I had suffered.
Still, I wrote on. ("They could cut off your arms," Gay Talese said generously, "and you would write with your stumps. They could cut off your legs and you'd crawl. All you have to do is decide not to die and you'll live forever.") But the novels after that had a hard time finding a home. ("There's a cloud over this writer," Don Fine, my last great maverick publisher, head of Arbor House, was told when he took my novel to market for paperback sale, which never happened.)
From time to time I would try moving back to New York, home of "serious" writing. I loved writers, and having suffered the isolation of being a novelist in Los Angeles, I was searching for 'community.' "Do your work," said Jules Feiffer, a trusted friend, "and your community will find you." Said Annie Navasky, delightful wife of The Nation's brilliant publisher. Victor, “He forgot to add ‘provided you are wildly successful.'"
Needless to say, I wasn't. But in the meantime I had entered the land of Everything Happens for a Reason. As Nora Ephron herself said in a recent interview, if it hadn't been for her unfortunate--as it turned out-- marriage to Mr. Bernstein, she wouldn';t have her house in the Hamptons, not to mention.. it did seem an afterthought... her two wonderful boys.
If I hadn't been booked on the Morning Show, I wouldn't have the friendship of Shirley Wershba, one of the great television journalists, along with her husband Joe(see 'Good Night and Good Luck',) a connection made more intense by my having been elbowed off the air. As it turned out, Shirley cancelled the whole segment, as she wasn't about to have a booking dictated by a publisher, especially since she had envisioned it as a stimulating literary discussion about romans a clef. Had the program gone ahead as originally conceived, I might have been witty on the air, maybe even clever, and my novel might have taken off, so the dark shadow of the lawsuit might have been erased by light. But then, if I had been more successful in placing my next six books (see Mr. Talese, above) I might have become spoiled and rotten and lazy and complacent, and not risen to the life worth examining, (see Socrates) and some(I hope) true perspective on what constitutes success, nor been in tune for today's #13 on The Times' Best Seller list, Overcoming Life's Disappointments.
Still, I have not evolved enough not to feel a bit of a twinge in my spirit at seeing at #1, Nora Ephron's I Feel Bad About My Neck. How charmingly she wrote in Heartburn about faithless man's inhumanity to woman. But where has she addressed the issue of woman's inhumanity to her fellow woman?
Saturday, September 02, 2006
Morphing Through Babylon
So having failed to take my cues from inside my own consciousness and write about losing Don all those many end-of-the-summers ago, listening to a friend who said there was nothing that interesting about widowing, I doff my curls to Joan Didion who has done it better than anyone could, except that she was spared the additional gut-wrench of watching it happen, slowly, and unashamedly parodize her best title to tell you where I am now. Having settled in Brentwood, quite surprisingly an actual neighborhood in this spread-out locale where neighborhoods don't much exist, that is to say, those little patches of community one can feel a part of and walk the streets of without being stopped by a Black and White to ask you what you're doing there, not quite ready for the answer "Walking," much or most of the interaction being on the telephone, with any movement in cars-- not even a lot of splashing in the fairly ubiquitous swimming pools, since I seem to be the only one using them for exercise, at least in my building, the pool being at the rear of the parking garage so it offers little lure for lounging-- and having forsworn, for the nonce, travel,like Napoleon's army I am traveling on my belly. That is to say, I am donning the cloak of Foodie, and touring through my tongue.
Mimi and I have been lunchtime headquartering at an amiable trattoria called 'Sortino', where I can sit under an umbrella at a table with a friend I actually have something to say to, though that, too, has become occasional and minimalistic, as I got an e-mail from my Scottish Quakerly buddy Rosie in response to one of my poems, saying I am best when I travel inside, so I am paring off people rather than pairing off, and farming my solitude. Then, down San Vicente I found an exquisite Italian restaurant called 'Pecorino', where the fior di zucchini was as light and creamy when the crunch of the breading was bitten into, oozily, as opposed to that in an impossibly noisy restaurant in Hollywood called 'Jar', which is, as the late Paris Hilton might have said if she could speak, 'Hot', except it is also tasteless. The waitress, one of the few doubling as actress women in town who was charmless and funless, announced they had 'squash blossoms,' and when I asked if she meant 'zucchini blossoms,' that most delicate of summer dishes in Rome, gave me a stare as blank as her brainpan, and brought the dish, so flat and heavy it was, indeed, squash blossoms. All this to say I will do an extensive piece on Pecorino to inaugurate my new websites, www.theworldonaplatter.com, and www.willblogforfood.net. I am transforming into my next skin, that of Foodie, since I am still cuter than Gael Greene and writing food is the same as writing about sex, with all the like adjectives, and I always did that better than almost anybody, Don would be the first to tell you if he were here.
In the meantime, I go for actual lunches, and write poems. Here, the one from Katsuya, newly opened just down the road on San Vicente.
Now whether or not you've been there
Japan is very pricey
So the tourist
Which I am,
Just passing through Life
On my way to someplace else
I sincerely hope
Feels somewhat pressed
At a sushi bar in Tokyo
So I recommend Katsuya
On the corner of San Vicente
Where the pale, stripped wooden floors
Recall a ryokan in Kyoto
And the recorded music
Sings of a vanished love
That only seemed like love at the time
For the heart was empty
And the arms ached to be full.
So much for the poem. The food, Pan-Asian or something equally affected and bullshitty unless you're having handrolls, --for example, the seared tuna and spinach salad comes with too much soy sauce. Mimi, however, enjoyed her water in a very fine ceramic bowl.
Much love to you all. We who are about to eat salute you.
Mimi and I have been lunchtime headquartering at an amiable trattoria called 'Sortino', where I can sit under an umbrella at a table with a friend I actually have something to say to, though that, too, has become occasional and minimalistic, as I got an e-mail from my Scottish Quakerly buddy Rosie in response to one of my poems, saying I am best when I travel inside, so I am paring off people rather than pairing off, and farming my solitude. Then, down San Vicente I found an exquisite Italian restaurant called 'Pecorino', where the fior di zucchini was as light and creamy when the crunch of the breading was bitten into, oozily, as opposed to that in an impossibly noisy restaurant in Hollywood called 'Jar', which is, as the late Paris Hilton might have said if she could speak, 'Hot', except it is also tasteless. The waitress, one of the few doubling as actress women in town who was charmless and funless, announced they had 'squash blossoms,' and when I asked if she meant 'zucchini blossoms,' that most delicate of summer dishes in Rome, gave me a stare as blank as her brainpan, and brought the dish, so flat and heavy it was, indeed, squash blossoms. All this to say I will do an extensive piece on Pecorino to inaugurate my new websites, www.theworldonaplatter.com, and www.willblogforfood.net. I am transforming into my next skin, that of Foodie, since I am still cuter than Gael Greene and writing food is the same as writing about sex, with all the like adjectives, and I always did that better than almost anybody, Don would be the first to tell you if he were here.
In the meantime, I go for actual lunches, and write poems. Here, the one from Katsuya, newly opened just down the road on San Vicente.
Now whether or not you've been there
Japan is very pricey
So the tourist
Which I am,
Just passing through Life
On my way to someplace else
I sincerely hope
Feels somewhat pressed
At a sushi bar in Tokyo
So I recommend Katsuya
On the corner of San Vicente
Where the pale, stripped wooden floors
Recall a ryokan in Kyoto
And the recorded music
Sings of a vanished love
That only seemed like love at the time
For the heart was empty
And the arms ached to be full.
So much for the poem. The food, Pan-Asian or something equally affected and bullshitty unless you're having handrolls, --for example, the seared tuna and spinach salad comes with too much soy sauce. Mimi, however, enjoyed her water in a very fine ceramic bowl.
Much love to you all. We who are about to eat salute you.
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