Moment Magnitude

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.

January First

I spent most of yesterday traveling, returning from New Mexico, after spending the holidays with Mom and Step-dad.

The trip was uneventful, despite snowy weather and a two-plus-hour layover at Chicago-O'Hare.

I have spend, oh, probably thousands of hours on airplanes and airports, but this is a first.

Once boarded upon the second flight and final leg bound for New York's La Guardia, the bursar, or head flight attendant, or whomever, came on the public announcement system with this information: A passenger, who had told the flight attendants of her "airborne peanut allergy," requested that all other passengers, if they had any food items containing peanuts, to refrain from eating them during the flight.

I raised my eyebrows, and at first, said to myself, "Only in New York." Except that we weren't in New York, yet.

Then I thought of the little white masks I have seen folks wear in Chinatown. Couldn't one with such an allergy wear one of those, instead of making such a request - to a whole planeload of people?

Okay, maybe the allergy is so bad, that this person would go into anaphylactic shock at the merest whiff of a peanut. Maybe. I'm just saying.

The words "high maintenance" fluttered across my mind.

Anyhow, once back in NYC, and back at my loft (sans automobile), I bumped into friend-neighbors, and we set off for dinner at decades-old Florent on Gansevoort Street. Half way through our meal, Ethan Hawke came in with companions. My friends commented that they see him frequently, on the street. We all live in Chelsea after all.

Later, back at my now semi-empty loft, I popped around "My Favorite Blogs," scroll down below the photo albums in the left-hand column, yep, over there (<<<).

I hadn't checked my favorites in a while, and I am so happy to say that (with the exception of one that has been dormant), they are as vibrant, witty, and as wonderful as they have ever been. Bless you, insomnia haiku. I laughed out loud many times. You rock.

I also received my first comment of 2008, on the post, Lemonade, comparing my writing to Susan Orlean (!). Except that there is no bloody way I could ever have a crush on Dick Cheney (urgh), ironic or otherwise (apologies to Ms. Orlean).

Still, that's what I call a nice start to a New Year.

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.

Bookmarkers

A longtime publishing friend sent me one of those compile-info-about-yourself emails, to which I was to respond by supplying a list of my favorite books.

Whenever I am asked for that, I sigh. My favorites? It's more like a top eighty-five favorites. Or more.

This time, however, I drafted the list according to the time-line of my life. Which books hallmark significant times in my life, as well as I can remember them? The first book(s) I recall as a child? The books that resonated with (or that I was simply reading at the time) specific growth stages, or specific ch-ch-changes?

Anyhow, here it is, beginning with early childhood recollections, with an augmentation or three:

Dr. Seuss: Green Eggs and Ham. I could list all of the Dr. Seuss titles, but this one always made my brother and me laugh the hardest. We were living in Okinawa, and my mother bought a subscription plan. When the next book came in the mail, we went out of our minds with excitement. When Mom read Green Eggs and Ham to us the first time, she couldn't do it straight, and we three laughed so hard, we cried. Strange, I cannot recall any of the Golden Books' titles, though I know we had them.

Frances Hodgson Burnett: A Little Princess. My mother read this one to me, and I remember that it was so, so sad. But, oh how sweet that redemptive ending is.

Marguerite Henry: Misty of Chincoteague. A little girl's fascination and right of passage with horses.

Mark Twain: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Madeleine L'Engle: A Wrinkle in Time. One word: "Tesseract."

Gertrude Chandler Warner: The Boxcar Children. Mrs. Hopper, my grade school teacher when we lived in Germany, read Twain, L'Engle, Chandler Warner, and others aloud to us. She had a warm, southern accent, and read just one chapter each week. Often we would protest, and remain on tenterhooks until the next reading. Once, we convinced her to read two chapters in a row. That was a good day.

Frances Hodgson Burnett: The Secret Garden.

Louis May Alcott: Little Women.

Kenneth Grahame: The Wind in the Willows.

Robert Ruark: The Honey Badger. I was in fifth or sixth grade, still in Germany, when I read this one. I probably shouldn't have. It's subject was too mature for me at the time, and I suppose my parents should have kept it away. Still, we were a family of voracious readers, and maybe my parents didn't notice. We didn't watch much German television. The black and white programs seemed odd. I remember absurdist mussel munchen (garden gnome-like characters) cartoons and depictions of surgical procedures.

Taylor Caldwell: Dear and Glorious Physician. Oh, the dubious influence of a strict, Catholic upbringing. Caldwell's tales of Satan and exorcisms scared the crap out of me.

A spate of fast reads by Josephine Tey, Anya Seton, and Daphne DuMaurier followed. We had just returned to New York. I was finishing grammar school at St. Patrick's in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

John Knowles: A Separate Peace.

J.R.R. Tolkien: The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings. All of them. I wished there were more.

Rosemary Rogers: Sweet Savage Love. I would argue the preeminent bodice-ripper. I was in high school by now, and very pubescent. I would race through my in-class algebra exercises (so easy!), and then hide this book inside my textbook. The phrase "throbbing manhood" was etched in my mind at the age of fifteen. Thank you, Ms. Rogers.

Ann Rice: Interview with the Vampire. Where Rosemary Rogers ignited my romantic imagination, this was the first book to make me feel sex on the page. Too bad all of the sequels suck. Suck.

John Kennedy Toole: A Confederacy of Dunces. Time to come of age. My first job, at the age of sixteen, was in a B. Dalton Bookseller in the Eatontown Mall, New Jersey. I was devastated to leave New York and move to what I called "hick town." Books saved me. Confederacy paved the way for a years-later romp through most of Walker Percy's novels.   

John Irving: The World According to Garp. And many of Irving's other, earlier novels. College, the late 70s, drugs, sex, and Studio.

William Styron: Sophie's Choice.

Pat Conroy: The Great Santini. Close to home, that one. (Just thinking about Conroy's The Prince of Tides makes me want to scream. That book disappointed in crucial and fundamental ways.)

Mark Helprin: Winter's Tale. A gorgeous, heartbreaking, otherworldly imagining of the great New York City.

Tom Wolfe: The Right Stuff.

Tom Wolfe: Bonfire of the Vanities. Or, as one friend called it: "Vampire of the Bonities." Fresh out of college, I'd landed my first publishing job.

Jay MacInerney: Bright Lights, Big City. I was living in Cambridge, and discovered that MacInerney had been a graduate student at my alma mater when I was an undergrad. Who knew? I hustled down to the Harvard Coop and bought a first printing, as published, in paperback.

Nabokov: Ada or Ardor.

T.C. Boyle: World's End. Magic. And so begins the influence of Rust Hills, then fiction editor for Esquire Magazine.

Milan Kundera: The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

Larry McMurtry: Lonesome Dove.

Richard Price: Clockers. "The self-cleaning oven."

Graham Swift: Waterland. And all his other novels too.

Cormack McCarthy: All the Pretty Horses. But not all his other novels too.

Hemingway: The Garden of Eden.

Michael Ondaatje: The English Patient. How in blue blazes were they going to make a film out of that? But they did, and oh, how they did.

Peter Hoeg: Smilla's Sense of Snow. Part III: The City, the last page of Chapter One. Find it, read it. Really.

Sebastian Junger: The Perfect Storm.

Mark Jenkins: To Timbuktu.

Don DeLillo: Underworld. More than 800 pages long (and its type set tight), I never wanted it to end.

Margaret Atwood: The Blind Assassin.

Arundhati Roy: The God of Small Things. The ending made me weep. A few hours later, I read the ending again, just so I could bawl my eyes out some more.

Javier Marias: A Heart So White. Wow.

Monique Truong: The Book of Salt. I read it during a month-long stay in Paris

David Sedaris: Me Talk Pretty One Day. 

Adam Gopnik: Paris to the Moon.

Colm Toibin: The Master.

Richard Ford: Independence Day. I ain't done with it yet, but it has to be here.

Maybe I'll read my friend's list here. Maybe, I'll ask another friend, after Sundance, to compile such a list and read it here.

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.

Conversation with Another Woman

Most of the time, I do not write about popular culture, apart from the culture that my friends and I experience - and since we are New Yorkers, we are part of a bellwether for popular culture for the rest of the country, if not the rest of the world - excepting California. Okay, so maybe I do scrawl about pop culture, but I want to believe it is less banal than the crap you can read anywhere about B-celebrity stalking and the like.

I do make the occasional reference, though not as obscure as Dennis Miller, that is, before he had his self-induced personality transplant, which is to say, when he was funny, back in the Holocene - to erstwhile popular music, my favorite films, and classic books.

The point here and now, is about a film I went to see, its premiere weekend, in but a handful of cities, one of them mine, of course. C'est normal. We are an island of cineastes, among the many personas we are or adopt.

Muck. I am sounding like Henry James again. Forgive.

Well. My hair colonist-stylist did aver that I was a "gay man trapped in a straight woman's body." Except that I like straight men. Well, my gay brethren do too - that's most likely what he meant.

The film my biz partner and I saw was Conversations with Other Women, a profoundly mis-titled piece of work. And I do know one or eighty-seven things about titles, given my history in book publishing. Yes, not only titles, but covers do matter. Shocking. Right.

The film starred two compulsively watchable actors: Aaron Eckhart and Helena Bonham Carter.

My pithy, literary, politically-charged, former editor, writer friend - who traffics among movie reviews, blurbs, and interactions with stars - for a living, described it within the structure of that well-known, Japanese, structured verse here.

Wrong title. After watching this gorgeous tone-poem of a film, more like an intensely wrought duet that could have played itself well on a stage, before a live audience, I thought: "Why the shit did they name it that?"

Even though I visited the film's official site, and read the writer's rationale, I wanted to say:"Huh?" Or, "No freakin'; way!"

The writer is a young woman, and kudos to her for crafting such pitch-perfect characters, such worthy dialog. And the less than subtle, but oh-so-appreciated references to Jane Austen and Edith Wharton. Brava, young, smart thing that you are. Keep at it. Don't stop now.

But. She - or the director or producers - got the title dead wrong.

Skip the obscurity. Audiences of a certain age and appreciation would prefer a straighter line. Not a deviation.

How about a modification? How about: "Conversation with Another Woman?" Dead-on. Ping. Just replace the question mark with a period, or better, nothing at all.

More incredible - and this film is by no means distinct - is that here is a film, a story brought to cinematic life - the split-screen device at first disorienting, then essential and brilliant - made out of the minds of the writer and director. Bravi for them. Make the film in which you believe, cast remarkable talent, in this case, both of whom have indy-cred (and in truth, more), but probably liked the excellent script, and saw roles upon which they could dig in and chew. Or so, I'm supposing.

But where were the rainmakers? Where were the taste makers? Where were the people - behind the scenes - those folks who could have dialed into the target audience(s) and devised a demand for this film - way in advance? For surely, and I as one person - among a handful - can attest that there is not only a target audience, but it would be rabid.

Too often, films get made under the rubric: "If you build it, they will come." Well, news flash: they won't. That wall of noise is several hundred stories high.

Whether or not Snakes on a (mother fuckin') Plane is worth the price of $10.75 - yes, hello the rest of the world, that's how we roll here - I expect it will have a killer opening weekend. You would have to be living on a stopped elevator for the past year not to know about that film.

Sure, I'll go see Snakes on a Plane.

But I'll wind up buying the DVD (or future equivalent) of Conversation with Another Woman (my title), and watch it over and over again. Like, oh: Something's Gotta Give, Amelie, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Door in the Floor.

And almost any other film starring the guy, yep: Aaron Eckhart.

The Jane Austen Quiz

I'm back on the Brits.

I had gone off them for several months, I found them a bit too snarky, oddly protectionist, boring. The last few times I visited London, I was dismayed by the proliferation of American mass-culture icons everywhere. Where was the London of my university days, smaller and quirky, funny and charming? I know it's there, but the city center smacks of big-box consumerism, more like Chicago or Denver, with blocked off walking malls. And never mind the cost, the pound-to-dollar value. Egad.

Every so often, Jane Austen's stories recapture my imagination.

The recent feature film remake of Pride and Prejudice has caused a slow, consistent burn in my consciousness these last weeks. It almost caught me by surprise, but after repeated viewings, including the director's voice-over analysis cut, I find that I am mesmerized by the Mathew MacFadyen twists and turns his hands, clenching, fiddling, splaying them, as a way to convey Darcy's inner turmoil.

I returned to the BBC/A&E version of Pride and Prejudice, by way of comparison, and found almost as delightful, and certainly more didactic, more complete.

It's all about the relationships among the women, isn't it?

Just as Emma or Sense and Sensibility are. Jane Austen's themes are recurrent, and I find no need to belabor them. I did, however, find several Jane Austen character quizzes on-line. In contemplating my inner circle of girlfriends, I wondered, how would each of of us score? With which Jane Austen character would we most align? I put it to the test, and asked them to take the quiz and report.

The quiz can be found here. There are many versions, but this inventory seemed the most complete.

A fast synopsis of the characters - that we approximate:

Elizabeth Bennet (the heroine of P&P): As one of Austen's most beloved characters, Lizzie represents what most women would like to be: strong, independent, and loyal. She has her shortcomings: for all her smarts, she is often times too stubborn and too quick to pass judgment - both to her detriment. Rather than own to her errors, she will take time alone, preferring the outdoors and reading. Still, she remains intelligent, witty, and warm-hearted, and is able to sort her way through ill-conceived first impressions.

Jane Bennet (P&P): Eldest of the Bennet sisters, Jane is beautiful, good-natured, sweet, selfless, and universally well-liked. She refuses to judge anyone badly, and instead will make excuses for others' bad behavior or character flaws. Her tenderness and forgiving nature allow others to sometimes take advantage of her generous nature. Nevertheless, her opinions of others are often exactly correct.

Emma Woodhouse (Emma): "Handsome. clever, and rich," Emma is used to getting her way. She holds herself in high self-regard, and is possessed of a healthy self-esteem. She is a meddler, and although well-intentioned, her actions sometimes result in foibles and hurt feelings. She is clever, however, and through successes and mistakes, she learns to be more considerate, aware, and over time, comprehends the real meaning of love.

Elinor Dashwood (S&S): Eldest of the Dashwood sisters, she has a great awareness and obligations of social decorum - and common sense. She is an adept people-person, and tempers her own emotions and judgments with discretion and reason. That is not to say that her feelings do not run deep and powerful - they do. She keeps her innermost feelings private, and takes pains not to burden others with her personal problems.

Marianne Dashwood (S&S): Younger sister to Elinor, Marianne is impetuous and romantic. She lacks her older sister's sense and discretion and says exactly what she feels, holding nothing inside. Elinor often must apologize for Marianne's behavior - since she does not conceal her contempt or derision for those she dislikes, and often disregards politeness and good manners. She has a good heart, but her exuberant behavior is sometimes embarrassing.   

Herewith the results of us:

Hot Momma scored as Elizabeth Bennet, with Jane Bennet as a close second. I tend to think of her more as Jane, since men seem to fall for her the instant they meet her, and because she is kinder by far than I am - or so I believe.

Striptellectual came in as Elinor Dashwood, as did La Latina and Liz Taylor, Jr. By far, this was the most popular outcome - although Liz may have taken the quiz more than once, and the second time yielded a different result.

The Voice of Reason turned in as Emma Woodhouse. So did Surfer Girl - a surprise, until you think about it. I thought the quiz might melt or self-destruct as she took it. But Emma? Yes, it fits.

Datomantrix weighed in as Marianne Dashwood. But of course.

And me? No surprise. Lizzie Bennet all the way (and Liz Taylor Jr., too on one of her tries).

I think a marathon movie night/girls night in is on the near horizon. Champagne toasts to the almost-bicentennial of Miss Jane Austen.