Moment Magnitude

Independence Day

Independence Day takes on special meaning this Fourth of July holiday weekend.

Yes, Richard Ford's luminous touching novel has the same name, and I read it last summer. I hope to dig in to his latest segment of that so-far two-book trilogy, The Lay of the Land. I am an unabashed admirer.

Never mind that same-named throw-away film however many years ago.

Yesterday, the Colombian government somehow managed to complete a covert, daredevil ploy to free fifteen hostages held by Marxist guerrilla forces, each for several years. One is Ingrid Betancourt, who once ran for president of Colombia, and who, in the middle of that campaign, was kidnapped. A few months later, three American "contractors" were likewise kidnapped, and likewise rescued yesterday. Read it here.

There is a connection.

Some ten years ago (approximately), when I was publisher for the sciences at Columbia University Press, I attended the summer meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in Boston. I was there, to first, promote our latest book, authored by Cornelia Dean, science editor for the New York Times. The book is: Against the Tide: the Battle for America's Beaches. I reference it often now that I am living in Sag Harbor and working real estate in the Hamptons.

At that meeting, in a session addressing possible hazards about transporting nuclear waste to Nevada's Yucca Mountain, I met Victoria Bruce. The AGU meetings are attended by some 85% men: Earth, ocean, and space scientists. Imagine boy scouts with big brains. I don't think I need to say much more.

I was used to - and liked - being one of the few women allowed into this club.

And then there was Vicky. Gorgeous, sexy, forthright, and asking tough questions of the big science boys - on the g-forces that would pull on the proposed containers intended to transport nuclear waste down under the mountain with known underlying fault zones (hey Vic - I can still dredge up the old science verbiage). I wondered to myself: Who the hell is this?

I learned later that she has an advanced degree in earth sciences, but was (and is) ever the pistol. We became fast friends. She wrote a provocative adventure-disaster book, No Apparent Danger: The True Story of Volcanic Disaster at Galeras and Nevado Del Ruiz (Harper Collins - as a former ex-boss from the pantheon of my ex-bosses wrote recently: "We're scratching our heads" about the resignation of Harper Collins' CEO Jane Friedman. I know I am. She's tremendous.) The book's true story setting is Colombia.

While there, Vicky allowed herself to be seduced by the Colombian culture. Not long after the publication of her book, she returned to the country, and started to film footage for what would become the documentary (that she co-produced with her partner, Karin Hayes), The Kidnapping of Ingrid Betancourt.

That film won the audience appreciation award at Slamdance, the film festival adjacent to and in the same location and time as Sundance. Later, it won the Columbia (the university) DuPont award in 2005, and was picked up by HBO to air on cable.

A few months later, Vicky and Karin made another documentary film, Held Hostage in Colombia, this time about the three American contractors who, while conducting airborne surveillance in Colombia, crashed, and were held hostage. That film aired on Public Television.

As has been exhaustively documented by the mass media in the last day, these people were held in captivity in the Colombian jungle for years.

Now they are free.

Vicky and I exchanged holy-shit-holy-fuck email messages last night.

I've been shaking my head intermittently all day today.

The eve of the Fourth of July. Where the Town of East Hampton will not have beach fireworks - lest they disturb the natural environment of the piping plovers.

Where I've run into an ex-boyfriend (from hell), done with some three years ago. And felt nothing. Except that I didn't want to be in the same particular location, and I just left.

It's all independence.

Time, rescue, maybe without fireworks.

But freedom.

Bruce Willis Mac 'n Cheese

Last month I conducted business over a late lunch in a favorite neighborhood hang: Cafeteria.

Cousin T. is its unofficial mayor. Open twenty-four hours, I've been there all hours of the day and night. When I've gone there with Cousin T., it's as if we are dining in "our" family restaurant.

I ordered a side of their mac 'n cheese (my favorite), and assembled papers and documents with my client. We were talking when Simone leaned in to my left side, and asked, "Excuse me. What do you think of the mac 'n cheese?"

Without missing a beat, and without looking up, I responded, "It'll change your life."

And when I turned my head, I cam almost nose to nose with Bruce Willis.

"Okay," he said. "I'll order it."

He, and this gorgeous brunette woman sat at the table just next to us. I looked over to my client, and tried to gesticulate while mouthing the words, "That's Bruce Willis (!)."

My customer joined us and I managed to focus on the transaction at hand, mindful the whole time of the party dining just behind my right shoulder.

I looked up at the faces of the people sitting at the table across from me. They looked dumbstruck and stared agape at the table behind me.

I turned as the waiter served Mr. Willis his mac 'n cheese.

"Excuse me," I said, "You got bacon. Bacon on your mac 'n cheese."

"Yes I did." I saw a flash in his movie star eyes, the look we know from the mega roles he has headlined.

The waiter interrupted. "Oh I'm so sorry! I'll get you bacon the next time." (Such a doll.)

My client, customer, and I completed our transaction. In the back of my mind I knew I had to seize the moment. I remembered something. Something from two decades earlier.

Mr. Willis and company were paying their check. When he finished, I turned to him and said, "I have to ask you something."

He looked at me. "Okay..."

"I have to ask you about...Sam Shepard. I saw you perform in what was it...?"

"Fool for Love. It was Fool for Love."

Yes it was."

"You're one of the privileged few."

"I am?"

"Yeah. That show ran (x number ) of performances, and let's see, (another x number) of people saw that show."

"And I was..."

"And you were one of them. That show got me my agent. It changed my life."

"You were incredible. I'll never forget it. I've wondered about that performance." (This was before Moonlighting.)

He smiled, and before stood, I asked, "So. What did you think of the mac 'n cheese?"

He leaned toward my client. "It's criminal. It makes you want to do crimes. White collar."

He walked around our table and introduced us to his girlfriend (very beautiful, great smile).

"Are you buying and selling something something here?"

My client smiled at me.

"Well, yes. I represent real estate in the Hamptons."

"Do you have anything in the Caribbean?"

We laughed.

And then he looked at me with intent. "You are going to be great at this."

For what it's worth, I got my first commission check this week.

Summer Reading 2007

I have selected - and purchased(!) some of the novels I plan to read this summer.

They are:

Alice McDermott's Child of My Heart. This looks to be the one, decent novel whose setting is the East End.

Jincy Willett's Winner of the National Book Award. Yes, that's the title, audacious, isn't it? I have had a tough time reading, much less liking the real National Book Award Winners, and this ersatz-titled volume looks enticing - New England twin sisters are the protagonists.

Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. After the resurgent-ongoing fascination with this timeless story, I think I need another dive back into the original.

Lily Tuck's The News from Paraguay. Speaking of the National Book Award, I've had this volume (a signed first printing no less) on my shelf for almost three years. I need to give it a solid attempt.

Last summer, I read Colm Toibin's The Master. I adored every single page of it. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize (never mind the Man), and I am a sucker for Booker Award winners. I believe Kiran Desai's book is the latest winner - maybe I'll get to it.

I've read many more Bookers than NBA or Pulitzer Prize winners - although the summer of 2005, I read Philip Caputo's Acts of Faith (brilliant in places, and trite in others, I thought).

I did get around to reading Richard Ford's Independence Day - which is magnificent (better than The Sportswriter - to me anyhow). His third in the Frank Bascombe series, The Lay of the Land will be out in paperback in June. I may add it to this summer's list.

Right now, I've started Boris Akunin's Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog, a suggestion from a friend. Maybe that's the first of the warm weather lot.

As I finish any or all of these, I'll add them to the list on the left.

No Parking

Last weekend, the NYPD closed off my street, the block north of me, and two blocks west of me, both Saturday and Sunday. Friday, the big-rig Haddad trailers and orange cones lined some four blocks square.

When this happens, since I live in a perpetual movie set, the street noise is lessened. This time, I thank The Bourne Ultimatum.

They shot two blocks away. I heard and saw nothing. Well, a crowd gathered at one production assistant-NYPD-cordoned-off intersection, trying to get a look.

When the film releases, I'll see if my neighborhood made the final edit.

Venus and Mafioso

It snowed all day on Valentine's Day. I was out and about in it, from a meeting in Soho to another near Columbus Circle.

After the second, I ducked into Lincoln Plaza Cinemas to catch a 2 p.m. showing of Venus, for which Peter O'Toole has been Oscar-nominated.

It was but moments before the show started, and yet the elderly ticket-taker snarled and ordered everyone to stand back in a line/holding area some dozen feet away from him.

I backed away to stand next to a silver-haired couple. The woman turned and asked me, "What did he say? Are supposed to form a line?" referring to the ticket-taker.

"He told us to stand here. A holding pen for a line, from what I can determine."

Not a minute later, he called out for the the next shows. However, he shouted away from where we were standing. What was going on?

The couple next to me looked his way, and he appeared to be waving us over to him - angrily.

He shouted, "Venus! Mafioso! This way!"

I couldn't help it. I laughed as I walked up to him, gave him my ticket, that he vexedly tore in half, returning the stub to me. I shook my head and walked down the carpeted corridor. Mafioso was showing adjacent to Venus.

There were, perhaps, ten people in the theater. And they all looked to be long-time members of AARP. I was, by far, the youngest moviegoer in the house.

Venus is a wonderful film. I agree with the reviewers. Peter O'Toole is amazing after all these years. If Forrest Whitaker was not so dominating in his portrayal of Idi Amin, I'd say the man who embodied Lawrence of Arabia would be a foregone Oscar conclusion.

I had forgotten that Hanif Kureishi wrote the screenplay. I uttered a small "Ha!" when I saw his name on the credit roll, instantly recalling My Beautiful Laundrette and Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, as well as various published pieces in Granta.

As I stood to leave, wrapping my big, red scarf around my neck, re-donning, my slightly wet, black, furry, trooper hat, I heard someone from the back row of the the auditorium. I turned and squinted to from where the voice had emanated.

"How'd it end? I fell asleep. How'd it end?" A retiree was hoisting himself upright in his seat.

A silver-haired woman was standing at the end of the aisle and she looked me, and I at her.

I turned back to the man, and answered, "Much as expected..."

"Well, how'd it end?" He had cut me off before I could complete my sentence.

"He dies."

"Well that was obvious," he snorted. "It took a long time getting there." He sounded angry - at me, like I had something to do with it. "That's why I fell asleep."

"Actually," I said, the storyline was excellent. Hanif Kureishi wrote the screenplay. It was marvelous."

"Enh. It could have been better..."

I had zipped up my parka.

"Well. Everyone is entitled to an opinion," said I.

And then I skedaddled. I sensed this surly snarler wanted to have an extended argument, and he showed no signs of leaving his seat, there in the dark recess.

As for me, I wanted to get back into daylight, gray and snowy still, a song of Corinne Baily Rae's repeating in my mind.

A day later, dining with friends who live up in that Lincoln Center neighborhood, I told then about Venus and Mafioso ("This way!"), and they explained that the daytime shows at Lincoln Plaza Cinemas are filled with ornery senior citizens. They will berate anyone making the slightest peep (I like that), but will make a fuss if they don't like the way someone is sitting in front of them ("Do you have to sit so tall?").

In my mind, however, I was rewinding and hearing Peter O'Toole sonorous voice, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day..."

Counting Blocks

Yesterday I walked fifteen short blocks north and four long (avenue) east to the attorney's offices for the closing meeting of the cash-out refinance on my loft. My ass will be out of this financial sling in three days, and I will have breathing room until I establish regular cash flow from the various ventures I am starting-up. After signing and signing and signing some more, I walked home again. In all thirty short blocks and eight long ones.

Two and a half miles closer toward a financial respite.

Later in the afternoon, I received an invitation to see a premiere screening of Perfume, based on Patrick Susskind's novel by the same name. I couldn't resist. I read the book twenty years ago. In fact, I located my copy and realized that the printing is a First American Edition, copyright 1986. Deckle-edged, it has accumulated its own scent.

Like millions of its readers, I have distinct mental images for the story. I wanted to see how the film handled it, now two decades later.

I walked thirteen short blocks south, and four long blocks east to the theater, where I met Catnip, my most frequent movie-going date.  A little more than a mile.

In short, I liked the film. The story is about a serial killer, and more so than Showtime's Dexter - to which I am addicted - it portrays the lead character's absence of human empathy. The murders look like works of art, very different from the recent spate of blood-and-gore, slaughter-style films.

It has that European fairy tale quality, which may elicit guffaws from American audiences, who cannot suspend disbelief required for the final scenes.

Still, the images reflected the ones the book created in my mind's eye. And I like that. It's a beautiful-looking film, and worth seeing for that alone. That, and Dustin Hoffman's turn as the perfumer, Giuseppe Baldini.   

Afterward, Catnip and I walked to Employees Only for Liz Taylor Jr.'s birthday. Counting blocks from the East to West Village is tricky. Arm in arm, Catnip and I pointed out second-story, evening-lit windows to each other. The rows of holiday-festooned townhouses from East Twelfth Street to Hudson comprised six long blocks and another six short. The night was beautiful. Another mile.   

Liz was transcendent, ravishing in her perfectly-tailored white blouse. Hail, hail, the gang was there, of course including Surfer Girl and CeeCee.

Surfer Girl reminded me that one year ago, same place, same reason: Liz's birthday at EO, she and I sat at the bar, and smoked. There is no smoking in NYC bars, especially not the kind of smoke we smoked, and yet we did. We did not reprise that moment, but laughed well in its memory. 

   

After a mere three glasses of champagne, I walked the last twenty short and two long blocks home, the final mile and a half of an excellent walking day.

Snow Blind

Snow Blind: The Movie premiered in select cities last weekend. It is definitely a fan's flick. Some of the professional snowboarders were in town for it. Cute fellas. Reminded me of that guy I dated when I lived in Colorado.

I invited Surfer Girl, Monsieur, and a handful of other dear friends, each one connected in some way to the NYC media world.

My favorite friend comment went something like this: "I was at a screening of the new Rocky (Balboa) film this week. And someone sitting in front of me was talking about Snow Blind." Right on.

I took a walk yesterday afternoon, and saw Snow Blind "wild posts" on 33rd Street and 25th Streets at Eighth Avenue. Love that. I love street-level movie-concert-music advertising. The late afternoon sun was glorious yesterday - and unseasonably warm again. Ah, it won't last.

Anyhow, here are photos from the New York City event.

How about that Banana George?

Indulgence to Diligence

This week tested me. I started the process of a full-blown refinance on my loft. It's the one way, right now, to reorganize my personal finances, to get myself square by the end of the year, and to provide a fiscal cushion for the first six months of 2007.

My business partner and I plan to have initial funding in place for our company within the the first half of next year. We've been building the plan all this year. I'm ready, and I know the people who are depending on us are past ready. Breathe, two, three, four.

At the same time, I am in talks this week with an executive firm, possibly to go back into the workforce, functioning at a monetary level close the that which I left two years ago. Full-time.

All of this, plus a wicked, pernicious, head-cold-body-flu virus, put me into a funk. That deep kind of funk, where just thinking exhausted me. I've been falling over onto the sofa, prone, remote control in hand, watching anything On Demand.

I lost the ability to fantasize, much less write.

Once, someone said something to me about losing the ability to fantasize, losing the creative motivation. It was Dale Launer. I had dinner with him over ten years ago. We had just met, and if I recall right, we met a couple of times over as many days and talked and talked.

Given the unreliability of memory, I think he said something like, "When I'm depressed, I can't fantasize." He might have said, "I can't fantasize when I'm depressed." Either way, that statement stuck in my head.

I think he was right.

("Ruprecht, do you want the genital cuff?")

The freedom to accept creative inspiration, for me, means the elimination of money worries. If that were true, then the world's richest would be the world's writers. That blasted worry nearly shut me down.

The indulgence of creative writing, that indescribable urge that takes hold and requires the creation and assembly of words into phrases, sentences, stories, and more, it's like a drug. When it takes hold, it is a privilege and a pleasure. The goose bump kind. I cannot ignore it, it has to be addressed, and in that process, I take on a kind of diligence, striking a delicate balance between the torrent of inspiration and the subsequent rounds of editing - an iterative refinement.

I fell off the log for the past two weeks.

And then, mid-last week, my partner and I went to see a screening of the documentary film, God Grew Tired of Us. For the first time in Sundance Film Festival history, a documentary won the Grand Jury Prize as well as the Audience Award. The film traces the history of the "Lost Boys" of Sudan, focusing on three from among the thousands of boys displaced by the twenty-plus years of civil war in that ravaged country. Their families annihilated or forced into refugee camps, these boys flee, many perish, the remaining boys come together in a Kenyan refugee camp, before many are taken in my the United States, and given the opportunity to start anew. These boys, who grow into young men, who have suffered unspeakable horrors, somehow manage to convey a love and hopefulness that transcends the evil, and frightful hardships they have faced. They are beatific. I met one of them at the screening, John Dau, now in his twenties, who is doing the good work to help his homeland and his people. He is luminous.

The film was picked up by National Geographic. Everyone, go see it. 

My money troubles pale in comparison, and I am reminded again that living in the here and now is most important, and that life is a gift.

I'm not out of the weeds yet. But I will be. It's a small thing.   

Horse Latitudes

I could call it the doldrums, but horse latitudes has that Olde English sound to it.

When just about everyone seems to be feeling grey, if not living grey (or gray- never could get that quite right, evidently grey is a variant of gray, making gray the preferred usage, ah, pedantry), what else can you call it?

It is the hey-day (hey-grey and day-gray) of the season, and we ought to be filled to the brim. Filled with the potential excitement of every day, the surprise warmth of the select few days of early fall, before the inevitable hiss of steam heaters, and thick socks and wishing for the summer that just ended. The last day when you can sit outside in Madison Park and sip on a frozen black and white custard from the Shake Shack.

Only five months until spring.

We all of us seem to be in a kind of...stasis. Me. I need investors to get this new company off the ground. In the meantime, I push my personal network for any and all freelance writing, editing, and various other media work. Scary. As yet, I am still sleeping through the night, but the hovering, the grey hovering, it looms, it threatens.

I am not alone.

Monsieur is waiting for investors, those who said they are ready, ready to embrace his concept for changing the company for whom he works, driving forward, making it a viable entity in this mad, vast, media world.

We're in New York. Walk the street. This is where it happens.

We talk, Monsieur and I, the grey tones in both our voices. I am deciding to be upbeat in the face of uncertainty, and after, I leave him funny voice messages. Heck, I laugh as I leave them. I laugh after I've left them, a lighter shade of grey.

Hot Momma and I spent Halloween - one of the handful of amateur nights in the city - she on my sofa with her funny, little dog, and me with Jake the cat, who was slouching in the background, all of us sneezing. We were happy in each other's company. We could not muster the energy to dress up and go out. And it was nice. Geez: the season finale of Weeds! Better than grey.

Datomantrix has burrowed under too. She's not been out on the scene so much either, cleaving to work and family. Sometimes, I wish I could do exactly that.

GVWonder is closer, or further. He's been using that big brain of his. He's on the precipice. His success will color the rest of our outlooks.

Tomorrow, I'm co-hosting an event for a snowboarding film: Snow Blind. It's Prima-downhill's gang - and they are a good lot. The venue has wall-to-wall plasma flat screens, and every one will run the film in a run-time loop. Gotta wave the guns.

Spare the costume and make-believe festivities. I gotta put on the snow dog. For now.

August's End

A list, from the final, eerily quiet but tense Tuesday to Tuesday, in August.

1. It was raining in the East End, and Tennis Pro asked me to meet him for lunch.

2. I got a late start on the return drive home to the city.

3. I checked in with a girlfriend who would be be staying with me one night, to coordinate her time of arrival. She lives in Boulder, CO, from where we know one another, and she was visiting here back East, then en route from Newport.

4. My phone rang - it was the husband of a longtime NYC girlfriend. He's a location manager for film and television. Could MTV use my loft for a one-day shoot? The producer and director would meet me at my loft to check it out.

5. We all arrived at my place about the same time.

6. The MTV gig was scheduled - they would film the following week. They would pay. Hooray.

7. My gal-pal and I caught up. We lolly-gagged and took our time to get ready for the evening, a Frenchtuesdays all-white party at Nikky Beach in midtown. She told me Nikky Beach is a club in Miami. I guess they opened a city outpost.

8. The Silver Fox phoned, agitated. He could not get into the Frenchtuesdays party, despite his white blazer and white shirt - something about his seersucker trousers. All I can think of is the line from Sophie's Choice, about Stingo, looking so nice in his "cocksucker."

9. I persuaded The Silver Fox to join us. He came down to the loft, after which we went around the corner to Sapa for a light dinner - and he picked up the tab. Afterward we headed to Frenchtuesdays for the last hour. We all of us strolled right in.

10. MTV shot the next day. Two distinct "oh-shit" moments. The first: One of the production assistants lost my extra set of keys - that provide intensive lock-security for the whole building (we don't have a doorman). One of my neighbors had fetched them from the freight elevator, and told me later, that he thought I had mistakenly left them there. Order was restored. The second: every piece of my furniture, and all my electronics, were disconnected, moved around, and up to thirty people were everywhere (mostly gaffers and grips). A dolly track, huge cameras, lights. Shyte!

11. As if a miracle, the entire crew departed before midnight, and everything was put back in place - 95%.

12. The floor was filthy, so I took a few hours to clean.

13. Look for two of a few MTV spots - advertising their new bilingual channel: Spanish-English.

13. After a three-hour nap, I headed East to The Savior's home to await the delivery of a new fridge. He'd been without for a month, and was out of town.

14. Afterward, I passed out for a little while, worked out, and had dinner with Tennis Pro.

15. Monsieur arrived chez The Savior's, and the next very rainy day, he, Tennis Pro, and I chilled indoors all day: television, food, and more (the latter-most with TP).

16. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. The lowering, rain-filled clouds. I met Tennis Pro for lunch, and I drove back to town, a vague foreboding that summer was ending. Soon.