Thus it was that on the afternoon of Arev(sp?) Yom Kippur,the eve of Yom Kippur, so perhaps it was Arev Arev Yom Kippur, that Sorah Gwen, a renegade Jew, that is, she was not so much rebellious as lazy in her prayers, at least to the Israelite G_d, which is what her cousin Susie used to refer to H_m as, wandering instead into the quieter realms of Quakers and Buddhists, the last of whom were mostly fallen-away Jews, so she could meditate in Silence, which she liked better but was still lazy about, so it was that on the sunlit terrace of the Cipriani in Venice she sat down with friends to have her last self-indulgent meal before beginning her Yom Kippur fast. And as it was her day to try and be very much a lady, she wore a flowing skirt. And as she sat down a wasp did enter into the underfolds of that skirt just as she met what would have been chair but instead met stinger, and stung her thrice on the upper inner right thigh, quite near what Anais Nin would call her sex, but she was not a Jewish writer.
So far had she come that she did not scream or even react except to say in quiet voice to her friend Elisa, "I sat on a bee," which it was not, as it turned out, but a wasp, as they discovered when they retreated to the ladies room and it did fly out from under her skirt and land on the wall, as witnessed by another woman who did change out of her bathing suit. Then came the pool man with ammonia which Elisa did apply and all went back to dine, as though naught had occured of major moment but it stung like hell.
Now all night long, having begun her Yom Kippur fast at sundown like the good Jew she tried to be on occasion, Sorah Gwen did writhe and smart and took of many anti-histamines which she hoped G_d would not consider breaking her fast, and prayed to G-d all through the night to relieve her from her discomfort, but so pained and swollen was she on that tender inner thigh by morning that she didn't give a damn and ate breakfast.
Then three rabbis met on the deck of the Giudecca to discuss the question Sorah Gwen had in her mind, not to mention the tender part of her inner thigh.
Rabbi Gamaliel said: "Why would this woman who thought herself a good person be stung thrice by a Wasp?"
Rabbi Eleazer said: "Was she not eating lunch with Goyem?"
Said Rabbi Herschel, "They were not Wasps, but Wascs, being mainly Catholics and as they were two of them Italians they were certainly not Anglo-Saxons when it is well known that WASP stands for White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, not White Italian Catholics."
"But if a bee stings in the bush, and nobody feels it, is there any harm?" quoth Rabbi Gamaleil.
"You miss the point," said Rabbi Eleazer.
"So did the wasp," said Rabbi Herschel, imagining himself to be a wit.
"But why the tender part of the inner thigh when no one has been there in decades?"
"Perhaps to remind her there is no pleasure that cannot be remembered in pain, especially since it has been so long since it brought any pleasure."
"But why this woman?" said Rabbi Gamaliel. "Had she not been brought out of the railroad station at Santa Lucia with her dog only to be greeted by stinging nettles with gummy glue on them that had to be removed pulling hair by hair all through the night from the little dog, whose Jewish name was Miriam, although she was called Mimi, and never made but a slight whimper of protest because she understood she was being helped? And if the little dog could survive such an ordeal, why does the woman complain at being stung thrice by a wasp?"
"She is not complaining," said Rabbi Herschel. "She is only wondering why it happened? And why was she stung not once but thrice?"
"Three," said the Rabbi,"if you study the Kabbalah not necessarily in the group with Madonna, is the mystical number that means creative imagery."
"There is not much that is creative in a wasp sting," said Rabbi Herschel.
""There is the next day. How it does swell and change colors more mysteriously than the sunset. And that is the hand of the Creator."
"But do you dare to say that Yahweh is underhanded?"
"I say only that there are mysteries too mysterious to question, like why are there mosquitoes when they serve no purpose."
"Perhaps they do to other mosquitoes," said Rabbi Herschel.
"But what does this have to do with Yom Kippur?" Rabbi Eleazer asked.
"Everything," said Rabbi Gamaliel. "For four days Sorah Gwen had the best time of her life at the Cipriani in Venice, where there is a drink called by George Clooney when he was at the Venice Film Festival last year the Buona Notte, vodka and bitters which he invented and she thought tasted terrible, and as a result had for her final breakfast on that perfect day the Gwendollini, which name she made up to get even both with George Clooney and Hemingway who had invented the Bellini, but the Gwendollini she had the ego to think was better, being cranberry juice and prosecco, a fine way to start that last glorious day.
"There is no pleasure without pain. To be a Jew in this world having so much pleasure would be a sin were you not stung three times on the tender inner thigh by a wasp, as not to feel pain as a Jew would be a pain."
All were impressed by his wisdom, except for Sorah Gwen with her big welt on her tender inner thigh, and still wondered 'Why me, G_d?"
And then she remembered the even wiser words of her cousin Sorah Lori, who had explained to her once the basis of the Jewish religion, why, at the end of every prayer and show of faith and abstinence, each celebration of great and terrible days in their history, Jews sat down for a meal. Sorah Lori summed up in very few words the entire history. And it went thusly:
"They hate us. They want to kill us. Let's eat."
Happy New Year. East something. You'll feel better.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
MIMI DOES DEAUVILLE
I am reliqishing today's report to my petite chien, Mimi, who, in addition to her other virtues, has unexpected gifts of observation.
MIMI DOES DEAUVILLE
Although I, Mimi, a Bichon Frisee ( that means curly-haired lap dog in Francaise, for those of vous who are not international) arrived at Deauville too late to catch my great love, George Clooney-- (there's still time-I'm a young dog, and so is he,) reports about his new film,Michael Clayton, are OUTstanding. Less radiant is the word about Brad Pitt's The Assassination of Jesse James: a bitch who got there before me said she could hardly wait for the coward Robert Ford to get it over with. And the locals were a bit en colere that Brad and Angie made their exit from the ville so vite (Six hours. One French journalist described him as une etoile filante: (a shooting star.) Matt Damon, there for Bourne (La Vengeance dans la Peau-- sounds meaner in French), was courtois (polite) and accessible, so was liked by all.
The Deauville Film Festival( this is the 33rd) is deliberately known as American, (Festival du Cinema Americaine.). Not as screamy or as pushy as Cannes, the weather far more chill (it is Normandy, the Northern coast of France, facing La Manche( and September) and the people less hysterical than their cousins to the south, lining up respectfully behind the gates to await and ogle, when indeed it would be easy to storm the barricades or even walk around them, the entire staff being open to conversation and wheedling, the festival has an elegant air. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead was the center of this year's hommage to Sidney Lumet, the most luminous presence among the older set except for Marlon Brando, whose ghost hung over the proceedings via a brilliant documentary from Turner Broadcasting with Canal 1, a very long but riveting demonstration that Brando dead is still bigger than most people alive.
Ira and Abby is Woody Allen manque,(not quite up to the freckled one), but funnier than the Ben Stiller would-be comedy The Heatbreak Kid, Bonneville offers a still hypnotically gifted Jessica Lange with the always amazing Joan Allen and Kathy Bates in a road saga more literate than Kerouac's without so many words, and Waitress shows up just as dear on this side of the Atlantic. Zoe Cassavetes makes her directorial debut with Broken English with a nice personal assist from mama Gena Rowlands, both in the picture and at a press conference.
Terrible surprise of the festival is Teeth, from director Mitchell Lichtenstein about a sweet young thing with vagina dentatum, every unsure man's imagined nightmare. It shouldn't happen to a dog. Moi-meme, I had to stop watching about the time the third thing got bitten off.
My personal favorite was The Dead Girl, a series of powerful vignettes concerning all the women touching on the finding of an anonymous woman's corpse, featuring some of our most brilliant actresses: Toni Colette, Marcia Gay Harden, Piper Laurie, still in powerful fettle voice-wise; a gallery of your favorites whose names you might not know, but should. My amie du voyage, Suzie, an Apricot poodle, hated it. But then, she loved Teeth, proving once again, chacun a son gout.
But turns out I was right! Dead Girl won! Mimi, LA CRITIQUE!!!!
MIMI DOES DEAUVILLE
Although I, Mimi, a Bichon Frisee ( that means curly-haired lap dog in Francaise, for those of vous who are not international) arrived at Deauville too late to catch my great love, George Clooney-- (there's still time-I'm a young dog, and so is he,) reports about his new film,Michael Clayton, are OUTstanding. Less radiant is the word about Brad Pitt's The Assassination of Jesse James: a bitch who got there before me said she could hardly wait for the coward Robert Ford to get it over with. And the locals were a bit en colere that Brad and Angie made their exit from the ville so vite (Six hours. One French journalist described him as une etoile filante: (a shooting star.) Matt Damon, there for Bourne (La Vengeance dans la Peau-- sounds meaner in French), was courtois (polite) and accessible, so was liked by all.
The Deauville Film Festival( this is the 33rd) is deliberately known as American, (Festival du Cinema Americaine.). Not as screamy or as pushy as Cannes, the weather far more chill (it is Normandy, the Northern coast of France, facing La Manche( and September) and the people less hysterical than their cousins to the south, lining up respectfully behind the gates to await and ogle, when indeed it would be easy to storm the barricades or even walk around them, the entire staff being open to conversation and wheedling, the festival has an elegant air. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead was the center of this year's hommage to Sidney Lumet, the most luminous presence among the older set except for Marlon Brando, whose ghost hung over the proceedings via a brilliant documentary from Turner Broadcasting with Canal 1, a very long but riveting demonstration that Brando dead is still bigger than most people alive.
Ira and Abby is Woody Allen manque,(not quite up to the freckled one), but funnier than the Ben Stiller would-be comedy The Heatbreak Kid, Bonneville offers a still hypnotically gifted Jessica Lange with the always amazing Joan Allen and Kathy Bates in a road saga more literate than Kerouac's without so many words, and Waitress shows up just as dear on this side of the Atlantic. Zoe Cassavetes makes her directorial debut with Broken English with a nice personal assist from mama Gena Rowlands, both in the picture and at a press conference.
Terrible surprise of the festival is Teeth, from director Mitchell Lichtenstein about a sweet young thing with vagina dentatum, every unsure man's imagined nightmare. It shouldn't happen to a dog. Moi-meme, I had to stop watching about the time the third thing got bitten off.
My personal favorite was The Dead Girl, a series of powerful vignettes concerning all the women touching on the finding of an anonymous woman's corpse, featuring some of our most brilliant actresses: Toni Colette, Marcia Gay Harden, Piper Laurie, still in powerful fettle voice-wise; a gallery of your favorites whose names you might not know, but should. My amie du voyage, Suzie, an Apricot poodle, hated it. But then, she loved Teeth, proving once again, chacun a son gout.
But turns out I was right! Dead Girl won! Mimi, LA CRITIQUE!!!!
RETOUR A PARIS
Had the best day in Paris I ever had, probably because I took it as a day, living in the Moment(French pronunciation,) not expecting or hoping that something was just around the corner, just looking at the corner itself. And of course there are no more beautiful corners in the world than the ones in Paris-- a friend of mine once called it an open-air museum, and that is what it is. My clever daughter-in-law had come here once on an architectural tour so had given me a destination I had never even heard of the two times I lived here(very young and not that old,) the Butte Chaumont, a park in the 19th where I'd never been.
The day began exceedingly fair, not a cloud in the sky, rare for Paris. Mimi and I walked the Champs Elysees, crossed the Avenue Montaigne, where I'd begun as a sprite-in-training, to the Pont de l'Alma. There were still fresh flowers on the Herald-Tribune monument, a gold torch in symbolic imitation of the Statue ofLiberty's. Most people think that a memorial to Diana, since that was the place she went into the tunnel. A Parisian woman put a rose on the pile at the base, and said it was good that people still remember. Someone said in the course of this journey that the whole thing about Diana had gone on too long, but I'd read a wonderful piece in the NYTimes about our need to grieve, and that this at least gave us something good to grieve about.
Then Mimi and I crossed over to the Left Bank, made an attempt to talk reason to Air France which charged $150 for Mimi to come and refused to let me pay round trip at the start, wanting the 150 Euros to take her back, which by the time I leave will probably be about $250. Every day sees another bad hit thanks to George Bush, whom the good George(Clooney) called an imbecile in an interview with the French press. Anyway, it has been worth it to have her here as she is loved by all the French, even those who can't stand each other. I am lucky enough to have a wonderful friendship with the family who lived upstairs from me on Rue de la Pompe; they'd invited me to dinner my fist night here, so I could renew my love affair with Gaspard, who is now eleven and was my favorite little boy(he was two) until my gifted son made me a grandma.
Walking along the Quai D'Orsai I stopped at Cafe Fregate across from the Louvre and wrote the following pome.
Je trouve my groove
En face du Louvre
Trying not to move into rage
At seeing George Bush
With his moosh like a tush
On the Herald-Tribune front page.
They were just out of it
When we stopped for a bit
At the Pont de l'Alma ce matin
Where Diana's face
Still haunts the place
Where the end of her life began.
The absence of news
Liberated my Muse
And Paris became its own pome
Where the sky looks much higher
And souls aspire
To make this work of art into home.
The air is so frais
On this rare, sunlit day
That you think you could live here forever
With a heart full of love
And that sky high above
And a head full of things that are clever.
But the unvarnished truth
Is that even with yourh
And a truly original flair
Though the place won't erase you
Neither will it embrace you
It's a city that just doesn't care.
Actually when I first returned to live here in '97 I met a woman who'd been Art Buchwals's secretary. She was still beautiful, Dietrich-ish, and when I told her how much I loved(or wanted to be loved by) Paris, she said the city was "indifferent." I suppose it's easy to be indifferent when you're that beautiful. Used to praise.
Adoration.
Anyway, I loved the park in the 19th, took Mimi home for her first ride on the Metro which was almost her last. There was a pit bullwithout a leash, against the law but that doesn't bother Parisians, and Mimi had the same innocence I guess I used to have, and greeted him with a friendly bark. Fortunately he was as indifferent as Paris, so ignored her, lying fat and panting under the seat of his owner, a few chairs away from a baby in terrified Mother's arms. Ah, Paree! Toujours an avanteur.
Had dinner with a French mother and daughter I knew from Bali, and the next day lunched with a lovely Frenchwoman, Dominique, and her son Dorian, whom Robert, my son, calls "the little boy who killed Happy." If you remember the story, Happy and I on a visit here in '97 had lunch at Pere La Chaise, at the tomb of Oscar Wilde, and that night ate at a small restaurant where a chubby little boy, just over one year old, ran up and down the sidewalk and played with Happy. A beautiful woman came and put a glass of champagne in front of me and said, in French I could understand, "this is because you were so kind to my son Dorian." "Dorian?" I repeated. "After Dorian Gray," she said.
Being then in the deepest trough of my mysticism, I could not think it a coincidence, made friends with her and invited them to come to my hotel the next evening for a drink. Dorian was in his full puppyhood, and Happy, quite old, seeing the presence of a younger dog, went fully into his macho, and became Happy of the Jungle, fiercely running around the room, holding his toy bone in his mouth, his youth and vigor restored.
Right after that, we all left the hotel. They went their way, and Happy suddenly fell to the sidewalk, legs outstretched, rigid. I called the vet and he said it was a heart attack, and I would have to put Happy down. We sat a restaurant, Happy in my lap as I sobbed, and gave him a strand of fettucini Alain Delon. I took him back to the hotel, called Robert in LA, and we wept over it together. Then I told Happy I didn't want to have to put him to sleep. I turned off the light and patted him, comforting him, asking him please to help me. When I turned on the light at four in the morning, he was dead.
I took him to Vanves in the back velvet bag I had used to smuggle him into the Literary Guild party, and cremated him, afterwards sprinkling his ashes on all the greats of Pere La-Chaise. The poem about it exists, if any of you want to read it. Gregory Peck liked the poem so much he was kind enough to record it for me.
Dorian,.a beautiful boy, now eleven, still has Happy's toy bone on his wall, his mother told me. And, oh yes, he has a CD that his mama, gave me. I do hope it's wonderful. And that he will become a great vedette. That's star.
It would be only right. Happy was sooooooooooooooo talented.
The day began exceedingly fair, not a cloud in the sky, rare for Paris. Mimi and I walked the Champs Elysees, crossed the Avenue Montaigne, where I'd begun as a sprite-in-training, to the Pont de l'Alma. There were still fresh flowers on the Herald-Tribune monument, a gold torch in symbolic imitation of the Statue ofLiberty's. Most people think that a memorial to Diana, since that was the place she went into the tunnel. A Parisian woman put a rose on the pile at the base, and said it was good that people still remember. Someone said in the course of this journey that the whole thing about Diana had gone on too long, but I'd read a wonderful piece in the NYTimes about our need to grieve, and that this at least gave us something good to grieve about.
Then Mimi and I crossed over to the Left Bank, made an attempt to talk reason to Air France which charged $150 for Mimi to come and refused to let me pay round trip at the start, wanting the 150 Euros to take her back, which by the time I leave will probably be about $250. Every day sees another bad hit thanks to George Bush, whom the good George(Clooney) called an imbecile in an interview with the French press. Anyway, it has been worth it to have her here as she is loved by all the French, even those who can't stand each other. I am lucky enough to have a wonderful friendship with the family who lived upstairs from me on Rue de la Pompe; they'd invited me to dinner my fist night here, so I could renew my love affair with Gaspard, who is now eleven and was my favorite little boy(he was two) until my gifted son made me a grandma.
Walking along the Quai D'Orsai I stopped at Cafe Fregate across from the Louvre and wrote the following pome.
Je trouve my groove
En face du Louvre
Trying not to move into rage
At seeing George Bush
With his moosh like a tush
On the Herald-Tribune front page.
They were just out of it
When we stopped for a bit
At the Pont de l'Alma ce matin
Where Diana's face
Still haunts the place
Where the end of her life began.
The absence of news
Liberated my Muse
And Paris became its own pome
Where the sky looks much higher
And souls aspire
To make this work of art into home.
The air is so frais
On this rare, sunlit day
That you think you could live here forever
With a heart full of love
And that sky high above
And a head full of things that are clever.
But the unvarnished truth
Is that even with yourh
And a truly original flair
Though the place won't erase you
Neither will it embrace you
It's a city that just doesn't care.
Actually when I first returned to live here in '97 I met a woman who'd been Art Buchwals's secretary. She was still beautiful, Dietrich-ish, and when I told her how much I loved(or wanted to be loved by) Paris, she said the city was "indifferent." I suppose it's easy to be indifferent when you're that beautiful. Used to praise.
Adoration.
Anyway, I loved the park in the 19th, took Mimi home for her first ride on the Metro which was almost her last. There was a pit bullwithout a leash, against the law but that doesn't bother Parisians, and Mimi had the same innocence I guess I used to have, and greeted him with a friendly bark. Fortunately he was as indifferent as Paris, so ignored her, lying fat and panting under the seat of his owner, a few chairs away from a baby in terrified Mother's arms. Ah, Paree! Toujours an avanteur.
Had dinner with a French mother and daughter I knew from Bali, and the next day lunched with a lovely Frenchwoman, Dominique, and her son Dorian, whom Robert, my son, calls "the little boy who killed Happy." If you remember the story, Happy and I on a visit here in '97 had lunch at Pere La Chaise, at the tomb of Oscar Wilde, and that night ate at a small restaurant where a chubby little boy, just over one year old, ran up and down the sidewalk and played with Happy. A beautiful woman came and put a glass of champagne in front of me and said, in French I could understand, "this is because you were so kind to my son Dorian." "Dorian?" I repeated. "After Dorian Gray," she said.
Being then in the deepest trough of my mysticism, I could not think it a coincidence, made friends with her and invited them to come to my hotel the next evening for a drink. Dorian was in his full puppyhood, and Happy, quite old, seeing the presence of a younger dog, went fully into his macho, and became Happy of the Jungle, fiercely running around the room, holding his toy bone in his mouth, his youth and vigor restored.
Right after that, we all left the hotel. They went their way, and Happy suddenly fell to the sidewalk, legs outstretched, rigid. I called the vet and he said it was a heart attack, and I would have to put Happy down. We sat a restaurant, Happy in my lap as I sobbed, and gave him a strand of fettucini Alain Delon. I took him back to the hotel, called Robert in LA, and we wept over it together. Then I told Happy I didn't want to have to put him to sleep. I turned off the light and patted him, comforting him, asking him please to help me. When I turned on the light at four in the morning, he was dead.
I took him to Vanves in the back velvet bag I had used to smuggle him into the Literary Guild party, and cremated him, afterwards sprinkling his ashes on all the greats of Pere La-Chaise. The poem about it exists, if any of you want to read it. Gregory Peck liked the poem so much he was kind enough to record it for me.
Dorian,.a beautiful boy, now eleven, still has Happy's toy bone on his wall, his mother told me. And, oh yes, he has a CD that his mama, gave me. I do hope it's wonderful. And that he will become a great vedette. That's star.
It would be only right. Happy was sooooooooooooooo talented.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
An Open Apology to George W. Bush
I stopped by Barnes and Noble yesterday and thumbed(all thumbs) through The Reagan Diaries. There is no such entry as the one cited in my last report, in which Ronnie was alleged to be anticipating a meeting with George H.W.'s son, the doofus, a word he does not use but might have if he was actually confronted with him, Ronnie being a man of the people and a former president of the Screen Actors Guild, when the screen was filled with a number of Doofi.
So I apologize for attributing as fact something that was obviously just an Internetnik's attempt at wit. Just because it wasn't true, though, doesn't make it false. Still, as W has never admitted he had made a mistake about anything, I think it correct to one-up him on graciousness. Reagan never said that, but that doesn't mean he didn't think it, or that it wasn't accurate.
Further to W- we congratulate him on the engagement of Jenna to a Rove trainee.
It put me in mind of the night many of us gathered on the windswept hill outside San Quentin protesting the coming execution of Caryl Chessman, a robber and rapist who had had a visible change of heart and mind, educated himself and written, quite well too, while on Death Row, becoming the poster child of those who opposed the death penalty. I was a graduate student at Stanford then, and went with Ken Kesey, a buddy, along with "hundreds of students" the radio said, though maybe there were forty of us, who ached through the chilled vigil that night. There were sandwich trucks, and Marlon Brando arrived around four in the morning, and he and his lawyer announced around 7 AM that in the event they were unable to save Chessman, he had agreed to let Marlon play him in a movie about his life... and death, it turned out at 8: 01 AM. Though Marlon never made the movie, and Chessman was very dead, a number of those on the hill that night connected and became lovers, in what seems somehow a livelier(execution notwithstanding) manner than what was to come: Match. com.
In the same way, all who have fallen, or come back on stumps, have not done so in vain. Mr. Bush's war has given this couple the time to discover each other. God Bless America, a nation of lovers.
So I apologize for attributing as fact something that was obviously just an Internetnik's attempt at wit. Just because it wasn't true, though, doesn't make it false. Still, as W has never admitted he had made a mistake about anything, I think it correct to one-up him on graciousness. Reagan never said that, but that doesn't mean he didn't think it, or that it wasn't accurate.
Further to W- we congratulate him on the engagement of Jenna to a Rove trainee.
It put me in mind of the night many of us gathered on the windswept hill outside San Quentin protesting the coming execution of Caryl Chessman, a robber and rapist who had had a visible change of heart and mind, educated himself and written, quite well too, while on Death Row, becoming the poster child of those who opposed the death penalty. I was a graduate student at Stanford then, and went with Ken Kesey, a buddy, along with "hundreds of students" the radio said, though maybe there were forty of us, who ached through the chilled vigil that night. There were sandwich trucks, and Marlon Brando arrived around four in the morning, and he and his lawyer announced around 7 AM that in the event they were unable to save Chessman, he had agreed to let Marlon play him in a movie about his life... and death, it turned out at 8: 01 AM. Though Marlon never made the movie, and Chessman was very dead, a number of those on the hill that night connected and became lovers, in what seems somehow a livelier(execution notwithstanding) manner than what was to come: Match. com.
In the same way, all who have fallen, or come back on stumps, have not done so in vain. Mr. Bush's war has given this couple the time to discover each other. God Bless America, a nation of lovers.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
A Comedy of Terrors
So to begin with, while still in LA, there was the saga of my apartment key. Twice in one day I was locked out, once because I forgot my key-- the young, rock-climbing-in-the-gym neighbor scaled my terrace wall and let me in, later in the day the Time-Warner man came and as I stepped out into the hall to welcome him, my door blew shut. "Do you know how to break into an apartment?" I asked. "I'm from South Central," quoth he. So I got in.
Where was your extra key? you may ask, and rightly. I had had many made but none of them worked. My knowledgeable friend Pam Korman who knows where to find everything sent me at last to a locksmith who knew what he was doing, so finally I had many extra keys, one of which I attempted to put in those magnetic boxes you attach to something you can get into, only to discover I couldn't open the box. At last, everything seemingly in order, I set off for New York, via the fabled Jet Blue. We were diverted to Buffalo.
Mimi was the only one allowed off the plane, as she had been under the seat for nine hours by then, imagining she was on her way to Paris, where sadly she will not be going because in spite of losing the requisite weight she has acquired a tendency to bark when left alone in a hotel room, so it will not do to try and sneak her into the Cipriani. She will stay instead in New York with her other mother, Carleen, who is kinder and gentler anyway. In Buffalo, where we were kept for many hours till Jet Blue could complete its paperwork, Mimi found a post that could accommodate her needs, which was a better chance than many of the passengers had. When we finally were allowed to make our way into JFK, it was almost four in the morning, and the terminal floor was strewn with sleeping passengers whose flights had been postponed until the next day. At the luggage carousel, as we waited, hoping, an announcement came over the loudspeaker that all passengers from cancelled flights would not be receiving their luggage until the next day, so they should all go home and get some sleep and come back the next morning. At that point the offices of Jet Blue were stormed by a hundred furious passengers, so the poor man in charge, who wasn't really, had no choice but to release the luggage even though all the handlers had long before gone home.
I got a car into New York with two young men(24 and 25,)former roommates from Cornell so they could not have been morons who work at Goldman Sachs and another equity firm-- their flight had been cancelled after they'd waited since 6 AM. I said I was sorry about what the market was doing to innocent people, but that it would be appropriate if in addition to destroying everything the country stood for Bush also left office having torpedoed the economy, and one of them said "Yeah, it would be a tough way to go out."
"Do I detect a note of compassion in what you're saying?" quoth I.
"Well, uh, I guess," he said.
"Don't you care about what he's done?"
"Well, uh, I don't really pay that much attention."
"What about Iraq?" I said.
"Well, I don't really relate," he said. "Neither my father or my mother was ever in the service."
"And how about the fact that we are loathed worldwide. Don't you read the papers?"
"Not really," they said. I mean both of them. The second said: "We focus on our work and the rest of the time we communicate on the Internet, mostly with our friends on Facebook."
So the next day I saw Facebook on the cover of Newsweek and called my broker to buy some(Hey, if we're going to go down in flames we might as well have a smart asbestos suit,and my last broker had ignored my call to buy Google before the original offering) But he said it is not for sale yet. Apparently it was thought up by some kids at Harvard who couldn't work computers so they asked their friend the Geek to set it up for them and he stole it. What a world. Insensate graduates at Cornell and thieves at Harvard.
To travel back to a time when Ivy League and Seven Sisters stood for something, I was wined and dined by my friend Evie Rich the next evening, along with some other classmates from Bryn Mawr, and they were all still smart and touchingly concerned with the world we sort of live in. Evie was the first black(they were still called then) admitted to Bryn Mawr, which happened because her mother worked for a Main Line lady(they were still called then) who went into the kitchen and found young high-schooler Evie reading Catallus in the original Latin, so, astounded, sent her to Bryn Mawr for an interview and she got in. When Evie arrived the first day of college, they sent her to the maid's quarters. In spite of that, she was not then and is not now bitter, but only a fighter, and brilliant, and she says Obama can't win because this country isn't ready to elect a black man. Like me, she likes Edwards, and says if she could organize all the seniors they could get him in, but I suggested she not call them seniors as none of us likes being called that, so we arrived at Boomers and Beyond.
How did this happen? Nobody ever told us there was this thing called aging. Oh, maybe Shakepeare, but he was such a Drama Queen. All we ever knew to fear was death and failure, not necessarily in that order. I spent the first Monday of my sojourn here in the dentist's chair, under gas, and even under gas still had an inspiration. As the dentist grafted in a piece of bone(Dear God, was it Your purpose to degrade us for staying longer than You originally intended except for maybe Methuselah?) I asked him where the bone came from, and he said "a cadaver." Ugh. But still, as I was gassing, curiosity and still functioning intellect overwhelmed repulsion and I queried where he got the cadaver, and he said the University of Miami tissue lab.
So here's it is: 'A HALLOWEEN CAROL." A mild mannered middle-aged(to be generous) man gets this bone graft and every Halloween turns into a drug lord. Robert di Niro can play Alistair Sim, for those of you seasoned enough to remember Alistair Sim.
Oh, God,if you're really out there, how did this happen? To think how afraid we were that we would never find love, or have children, and now understand fully how fallow were those terrors. Of course the upside is/was that we were here when this was still the greatest country in the world, admired by almost everyone in those countries we could still afford to visit. When our turning to torture was unthinkable, not having to ferret out plots against us because even those who were jealous had to admit there was much to admire. Where did it go? Though we do understand by whose hand.
The following from Reagan's Diaries, sent me by my friend Hal:
'A moment I've been dreading. George brought his ne're-do-well son
around this morning and asked me to find the kid a job. Not the
political one who lives in Florida. The one who hangs around here all
the time looking shiftless. This so-called kid is already almost 40 and
has never had a real job. Maybe I'll call Kinsley over at The New
Republic and see if they'll hire him as a contributing editor or
something. That looks like easy work.'
From the just published REAGAN DIARIES. The entry is dated May 17, 1986.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Where was your extra key? you may ask, and rightly. I had had many made but none of them worked. My knowledgeable friend Pam Korman who knows where to find everything sent me at last to a locksmith who knew what he was doing, so finally I had many extra keys, one of which I attempted to put in those magnetic boxes you attach to something you can get into, only to discover I couldn't open the box. At last, everything seemingly in order, I set off for New York, via the fabled Jet Blue. We were diverted to Buffalo.
Mimi was the only one allowed off the plane, as she had been under the seat for nine hours by then, imagining she was on her way to Paris, where sadly she will not be going because in spite of losing the requisite weight she has acquired a tendency to bark when left alone in a hotel room, so it will not do to try and sneak her into the Cipriani. She will stay instead in New York with her other mother, Carleen, who is kinder and gentler anyway. In Buffalo, where we were kept for many hours till Jet Blue could complete its paperwork, Mimi found a post that could accommodate her needs, which was a better chance than many of the passengers had. When we finally were allowed to make our way into JFK, it was almost four in the morning, and the terminal floor was strewn with sleeping passengers whose flights had been postponed until the next day. At the luggage carousel, as we waited, hoping, an announcement came over the loudspeaker that all passengers from cancelled flights would not be receiving their luggage until the next day, so they should all go home and get some sleep and come back the next morning. At that point the offices of Jet Blue were stormed by a hundred furious passengers, so the poor man in charge, who wasn't really, had no choice but to release the luggage even though all the handlers had long before gone home.
I got a car into New York with two young men(24 and 25,)former roommates from Cornell so they could not have been morons who work at Goldman Sachs and another equity firm-- their flight had been cancelled after they'd waited since 6 AM. I said I was sorry about what the market was doing to innocent people, but that it would be appropriate if in addition to destroying everything the country stood for Bush also left office having torpedoed the economy, and one of them said "Yeah, it would be a tough way to go out."
"Do I detect a note of compassion in what you're saying?" quoth I.
"Well, uh, I guess," he said.
"Don't you care about what he's done?"
"Well, uh, I don't really pay that much attention."
"What about Iraq?" I said.
"Well, I don't really relate," he said. "Neither my father or my mother was ever in the service."
"And how about the fact that we are loathed worldwide. Don't you read the papers?"
"Not really," they said. I mean both of them. The second said: "We focus on our work and the rest of the time we communicate on the Internet, mostly with our friends on Facebook."
So the next day I saw Facebook on the cover of Newsweek and called my broker to buy some(Hey, if we're going to go down in flames we might as well have a smart asbestos suit,and my last broker had ignored my call to buy Google before the original offering) But he said it is not for sale yet. Apparently it was thought up by some kids at Harvard who couldn't work computers so they asked their friend the Geek to set it up for them and he stole it. What a world. Insensate graduates at Cornell and thieves at Harvard.
To travel back to a time when Ivy League and Seven Sisters stood for something, I was wined and dined by my friend Evie Rich the next evening, along with some other classmates from Bryn Mawr, and they were all still smart and touchingly concerned with the world we sort of live in. Evie was the first black(they were still called then) admitted to Bryn Mawr, which happened because her mother worked for a Main Line lady(they were still called then) who went into the kitchen and found young high-schooler Evie reading Catallus in the original Latin, so, astounded, sent her to Bryn Mawr for an interview and she got in. When Evie arrived the first day of college, they sent her to the maid's quarters. In spite of that, she was not then and is not now bitter, but only a fighter, and brilliant, and she says Obama can't win because this country isn't ready to elect a black man. Like me, she likes Edwards, and says if she could organize all the seniors they could get him in, but I suggested she not call them seniors as none of us likes being called that, so we arrived at Boomers and Beyond.
How did this happen? Nobody ever told us there was this thing called aging. Oh, maybe Shakepeare, but he was such a Drama Queen. All we ever knew to fear was death and failure, not necessarily in that order. I spent the first Monday of my sojourn here in the dentist's chair, under gas, and even under gas still had an inspiration. As the dentist grafted in a piece of bone(Dear God, was it Your purpose to degrade us for staying longer than You originally intended except for maybe Methuselah?) I asked him where the bone came from, and he said "a cadaver." Ugh. But still, as I was gassing, curiosity and still functioning intellect overwhelmed repulsion and I queried where he got the cadaver, and he said the University of Miami tissue lab.
So here's it is: 'A HALLOWEEN CAROL." A mild mannered middle-aged(to be generous) man gets this bone graft and every Halloween turns into a drug lord. Robert di Niro can play Alistair Sim, for those of you seasoned enough to remember Alistair Sim.
Oh, God,if you're really out there, how did this happen? To think how afraid we were that we would never find love, or have children, and now understand fully how fallow were those terrors. Of course the upside is/was that we were here when this was still the greatest country in the world, admired by almost everyone in those countries we could still afford to visit. When our turning to torture was unthinkable, not having to ferret out plots against us because even those who were jealous had to admit there was much to admire. Where did it go? Though we do understand by whose hand.
The following from Reagan's Diaries, sent me by my friend Hal:
'A moment I've been dreading. George brought his ne're-do-well son
around this morning and asked me to find the kid a job. Not the
political one who lives in Florida. The one who hangs around here all
the time looking shiftless. This so-called kid is already almost 40 and
has never had a real job. Maybe I'll call Kinsley over at The New
Republic and see if they'll hire him as a contributing editor or
something. That looks like easy work.'
From the just published REAGAN DIARIES. The entry is dated May 17, 1986.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Friday, August 10, 2007
A Tale of Two Pats
There are some great women in my life, many of whom you are. One of the outstanding is Pat McPherson, who was president of Bryn Mawr when I went back there in my second teen-hood, whose wisdom I have long followed, especially apt since she is now seated in the elevated stands of the American Philosophical Society. Twas she who told me there would never be another Happy but I should have a creature, and so influenced am I by her I stopped in after that Fateful-in-a-Good-Way lunch to the pet store next to the restaurant, and found Mimi. At our last lunch she told me Edwards was a "lightweight," so I considered not wanting him for the candidate.
Then there is the second Pat, one of the smartest women I have known even though she has spent most of her adult life in Southern California which turns out to be a particular blessing for me as we lunch frequently and it keeps my mind going. At our lunch yesterday she said Edwards was a "lightweight," so having heard the same word twice from two different Pats, each one of them singular but of a special breed, I teetered on the brink of stopping loving him completely, though along with all bright women I would have liked the chance to elect Elizabeth..
But having made that teetering almost decision, I went to the gathering for him yesterday, a ludicrously organized or rather disorganized event at a place on La Cienaga called 'Republic' where all cattle-called while waiting too long and having parked too far away(I hadn't listened to the warnings of no available space so found a spot a block away) while I and the politically enlightened Bill Boyarsky enjoyed a shadowy bar next door to the cow pen till the "organizers" got their act together and let us in.
Meanwhile, across the way at Area, where the Lindsay Lohan S-I-Ts(Sluts in Training) usually gather in too short skirts and silver sequins there was a dinner for Barack. Some blocks away was Hillary at a gay bar, all these Dems being in town for an interview by LOGO or LOCO the gay TV satellite station.
We heard Edwards on a speaker and then he showed up. Much as I love both Pats, they're wrong. He is, as I felt about from the last go round when he was dragged down by Kerry, the most honest of all of them, his positions on health care and the insurance and drug companies drafting the bills so there is no chance for the people, as well as his stand on lobbyists, which is FIRM, are clean and clear, his energy is terrific, and he is smart enough so that if he did get it and get in, he would choose the right people for his cabinet and advisers so he could catch up to Hillary on the international problems in which he seems weaker than she, although Bill thinks she would keep us in Iraq forever. (By the way, I was told by a pleasant Dem that Hillary has gotten more money from the drug companies than anyone except Rick Santorum.)
So he's my candidate, and I hope people will listen to him and he can make it through to a photo finish with Elizabeth okay at his side. At the end of his speech Bill gave him a fist-up, which meant he was moved and it was kind of his high-five into the smoggy air of LA where he thinks bicyclists should train for the Olympics in China where they won't be able to breathe.
Meanwhile, cleaning up my computer in preparation for my trip(NY-France-Suisse, Italie) I found the following old Report from April, 2006, which seems just as apt but even sadder now.
It has occured to me that what's wrong with this war, besides that it never should have happened, is that there are no songs. The Civil War had 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic,',' WorldWar I had 'Over There!' and WorldWar II had 'Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition', the last being the early work of the great Frank Loesser, who went on to give us 'Guys and Dolls.' A fine tunesmith, as those guys used to be known. I began to wonder what Frank could cook up, with his endless versatility, for this epic error. 'Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition into the head of Pat Tillman'? 'There'll be Blue Birds Over the Un-Armored Land Rover'? 'I'll be Home for Ramadan? I mean, what's a songwriter to do? Even George M. Cohan, our Yankee Doodle Dandy, would be hard-pressed to come up with a ditty for this one.
But perhaps it's the Chicken and the Egg. Perhaps if we had a really good song it would all get better. Even seem okay. Put your mind to it, all. Let me know if you come up with any ideas. I used to be a songwriter myself, when the world was young, which was one of the better bar-room ballads, when singers were singers, and presidents were presidents.
SOOOOOOOOOOOO, that's all the news that's fit to grouse about, at least right now, from yesterday and April 4,2006. Le plus things change, the plus they stay the same. Helas.
Love and xx
Committed
Then there is the second Pat, one of the smartest women I have known even though she has spent most of her adult life in Southern California which turns out to be a particular blessing for me as we lunch frequently and it keeps my mind going. At our lunch yesterday she said Edwards was a "lightweight," so having heard the same word twice from two different Pats, each one of them singular but of a special breed, I teetered on the brink of stopping loving him completely, though along with all bright women I would have liked the chance to elect Elizabeth..
But having made that teetering almost decision, I went to the gathering for him yesterday, a ludicrously organized or rather disorganized event at a place on La Cienaga called 'Republic' where all cattle-called while waiting too long and having parked too far away(I hadn't listened to the warnings of no available space so found a spot a block away) while I and the politically enlightened Bill Boyarsky enjoyed a shadowy bar next door to the cow pen till the "organizers" got their act together and let us in.
Meanwhile, across the way at Area, where the Lindsay Lohan S-I-Ts(Sluts in Training) usually gather in too short skirts and silver sequins there was a dinner for Barack. Some blocks away was Hillary at a gay bar, all these Dems being in town for an interview by LOGO or LOCO the gay TV satellite station.
We heard Edwards on a speaker and then he showed up. Much as I love both Pats, they're wrong. He is, as I felt about from the last go round when he was dragged down by Kerry, the most honest of all of them, his positions on health care and the insurance and drug companies drafting the bills so there is no chance for the people, as well as his stand on lobbyists, which is FIRM, are clean and clear, his energy is terrific, and he is smart enough so that if he did get it and get in, he would choose the right people for his cabinet and advisers so he could catch up to Hillary on the international problems in which he seems weaker than she, although Bill thinks she would keep us in Iraq forever. (By the way, I was told by a pleasant Dem that Hillary has gotten more money from the drug companies than anyone except Rick Santorum.)
So he's my candidate, and I hope people will listen to him and he can make it through to a photo finish with Elizabeth okay at his side. At the end of his speech Bill gave him a fist-up, which meant he was moved and it was kind of his high-five into the smoggy air of LA where he thinks bicyclists should train for the Olympics in China where they won't be able to breathe.
Meanwhile, cleaning up my computer in preparation for my trip(NY-France-Suisse, Italie) I found the following old Report from April, 2006, which seems just as apt but even sadder now.
It has occured to me that what's wrong with this war, besides that it never should have happened, is that there are no songs. The Civil War had 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic,',' WorldWar I had 'Over There!' and WorldWar II had 'Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition', the last being the early work of the great Frank Loesser, who went on to give us 'Guys and Dolls.' A fine tunesmith, as those guys used to be known. I began to wonder what Frank could cook up, with his endless versatility, for this epic error. 'Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition into the head of Pat Tillman'? 'There'll be Blue Birds Over the Un-Armored Land Rover'? 'I'll be Home for Ramadan? I mean, what's a songwriter to do? Even George M. Cohan, our Yankee Doodle Dandy, would be hard-pressed to come up with a ditty for this one.
But perhaps it's the Chicken and the Egg. Perhaps if we had a really good song it would all get better. Even seem okay. Put your mind to it, all. Let me know if you come up with any ideas. I used to be a songwriter myself, when the world was young, which was one of the better bar-room ballads, when singers were singers, and presidents were presidents.
SOOOOOOOOOOOO, that's all the news that's fit to grouse about, at least right now, from yesterday and April 4,2006. Le plus things change, the plus they stay the same. Helas.
Love and xx
Committed
Monday, July 30, 2007
What I Wish Dick Cheney
A friend of mine who is more clever by three halves than Cheney,(pronounced Cheee-ney, which sounds more like what the man is, but no one gets right except Chris Matthews on MSNBC) sent me what amounts to a psychological background check of our benighted Vice President. It seems that in Natroma County High School, where my friend also went, the lovely Lynne, whose strong-willed mother carried a deputy badge even though she did only clerical work for sheriff's office, had this tendency to go after girlfriends' boyfriends, baton-twirling her way to the state championship, with what was referred to in the piece from "Truthout.org" as a "Playboy figure"which my friend, who was in high school with them says is an exaggeration-- she wasn't that sexy. But apparently she was to little Dick, who had been a fairly pleasant fellow up to that point, according to friends, which he had then. She took him from her closest friend, Joan Frandsen, became Homecoming Queen, at which point he became her campaign manager for Mustang Queen, another Wyoming honor. Passive and dazzled by her, he followed her urgings, abetted by a scholarship she got him from a rich Casper donor, to Yale where he flunked out.
I have to say now, intruding myself, that I am in a great struggle not to chortle. He floundered at Yale, and eventually flunked out. From the University where 'W' got Cs.
As Cheney himself later explained it, Lynne "made it clear she wasn't interested in marrying a lineman for the county." So she pushed him along and ruined the world for us all, except for those who have relatives or stock in Halliburton.
He went to Casper Community College, then the University of Wyoming, married her and got five draft deferments, the fifth one three months into a pregnancy the fruit of which was their daughter, (that daughter?) born exactly nine months and two days after Selective Service eliminated special protection for childless married men.
I have to interrupt this bloodless(except for other people's) saga to tell you that I had an emergency sushi run yesterday afternoon, where I talked to a man, an Iranian, who now lives in Dubai, and very well, too, I would imagine having heard some stories about Dubai and seen his card. Having just come from reading this piece, I imparted some impressions about Lynne being a strong woman, and the real cojones of the operation. "You think that's why their daughter is a lesbian?" he asked me. (Did you know Lynne once wrote erotic lesbian books? And when Wolf Blitzer tried to talk about that on her interview on CNN she blew him to blitz?)
Anyway, it's all very sad, especially as the authors, one a college professor specializing in the creative process, the other a retired psychotherapist, conclude Bush, like Lynne, offers the role of bully to Cheney's passive. So it's really Bush who's in charge, in spite of all the jokes. Oh, Hurry clock! Tick us alive into better days. And let nothing happen to that failed Wyoming lineman, except, since he's such a fiend for secrecy, that he die by a thousand revelations.
Another one, my life being sweetly serendipitous: when Cheney shot his friend in the face, my Jewru was in Bali. And as his life is more than serendipitous, he was at the time with a co- owner of the ranch where the shooting occured. It turns out the reason it took so long for Cheney to call in about the shooting was not because of his blood alcohol rate(which probably might have high, and so illegal, at least for shooting a buddy, and he had a history of drink as an anxious post-schoolboy) but because he was at the ranch with a woman, the wife of a European ambassador, and had to get her out before Lynne found out.
My friend, whom I believe is the country's greatest libel lawyer, even knowing my history, wants me to do something with the early part of this tale as fiction. Oh, I would, I would, but I doubt I'd be able to afford him to defend me.
As Fitzgerald might have said, the very Republican are different from you and me. Yes, might have answered Hemingway: they have passively aggressive Dicks.
I have to say now, intruding myself, that I am in a great struggle not to chortle. He floundered at Yale, and eventually flunked out. From the University where 'W' got Cs.
As Cheney himself later explained it, Lynne "made it clear she wasn't interested in marrying a lineman for the county." So she pushed him along and ruined the world for us all, except for those who have relatives or stock in Halliburton.
He went to Casper Community College, then the University of Wyoming, married her and got five draft deferments, the fifth one three months into a pregnancy the fruit of which was their daughter, (that daughter?) born exactly nine months and two days after Selective Service eliminated special protection for childless married men.
I have to interrupt this bloodless(except for other people's) saga to tell you that I had an emergency sushi run yesterday afternoon, where I talked to a man, an Iranian, who now lives in Dubai, and very well, too, I would imagine having heard some stories about Dubai and seen his card. Having just come from reading this piece, I imparted some impressions about Lynne being a strong woman, and the real cojones of the operation. "You think that's why their daughter is a lesbian?" he asked me. (Did you know Lynne once wrote erotic lesbian books? And when Wolf Blitzer tried to talk about that on her interview on CNN she blew him to blitz?)
Anyway, it's all very sad, especially as the authors, one a college professor specializing in the creative process, the other a retired psychotherapist, conclude Bush, like Lynne, offers the role of bully to Cheney's passive. So it's really Bush who's in charge, in spite of all the jokes. Oh, Hurry clock! Tick us alive into better days. And let nothing happen to that failed Wyoming lineman, except, since he's such a fiend for secrecy, that he die by a thousand revelations.
Another one, my life being sweetly serendipitous: when Cheney shot his friend in the face, my Jewru was in Bali. And as his life is more than serendipitous, he was at the time with a co- owner of the ranch where the shooting occured. It turns out the reason it took so long for Cheney to call in about the shooting was not because of his blood alcohol rate(which probably might have high, and so illegal, at least for shooting a buddy, and he had a history of drink as an anxious post-schoolboy) but because he was at the ranch with a woman, the wife of a European ambassador, and had to get her out before Lynne found out.
My friend, whom I believe is the country's greatest libel lawyer, even knowing my history, wants me to do something with the early part of this tale as fiction. Oh, I would, I would, but I doubt I'd be able to afford him to defend me.
As Fitzgerald might have said, the very Republican are different from you and me. Yes, might have answered Hemingway: they have passively aggressive Dicks.
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