one thing today

  I never loved to read.  You don't love breathing.  Harper Lee

  Thanks for Thanksgiving - a glorious repast, talk of Jeffrey Dahmer   and Armie Hammer and macrophilia at the table, a nephew accusing his mom of sending guests home with his food - but hey, he’s only 23.    wine,   cheesecakes, Tums, live chickens, dogs, cat, lots of nutty ooohing and aaaaahing over the animal circus, naps, debating whether or not Dolly should have stuck to her guns and not accepted her induction into the rock and roll hall of fame, nephew in laws people whose faces I don’t recognize Facetime greetings, picture taking and sharing, a bad Julia/George rom com,   fab roaring fire, laughs, no tears - all this & more. Thanks to my lovely niece and the universe for giving us this and more galore.  

  O nce again … Pops was right; know it all son was wrong.   He loved Mickey Rooney, almost as much as John Wayne (see Sept 5th blog entry).   I just watched J and M’s ninth and last movie together - Girl Crazy 1943.   The Times called 21 year old Judy an  “earthbound angel” and as for shorty …"the protean Mickey does everything but play Hamlet. He sings, bears the brunt of an Apache dance, impersonates the sundry characters at a prizefight, bangs a piano with considerable finesse, and finally does a hep-cat hoedown with Miss Garland that must have caused a minor earthquake." They were on fire with full blast talent and fun.   A thing of beauty and … my one thing today on this latest  Thanksgiving Eve .  

  Had dinner tonight with best friend from youth Dave - he has six kids … ten year old twins who are the spi-i-i, I mean spitting image of Lindsay Lohan in Parent Trap -  a 30 something son who looks like his dad and wild twin brother Tom - and beautiful redhead actor daughter Crosby Fitzgerald who is in an HBO series with Laura Dern and other A listers come August.   Such a glorious family.   I shared my memories of their very much her own person grandmother who drove us to the beach in a red convertible smoking and barefoot. Time runs like a freight train.

 

  Watched Boys in the Band '69 - with captions on for the first time.   There are too many great lines to choose just a few. When I was in college in Ohio and looking forward to living in the the Village a couple of years from then - I wanted an apartment just like the one in the movie. All the actors are dead I think - except for Larry Luckinbill. My favorite character, Donald, actor Frederick Combs, reminded me of my most handsome ex. S uch a long gone sensual time not to be beat.  

  I looked through Patti Smiths new   Book of Days today - 365 photos and short comments of hers - one for each day of the year.    I own only one valuable photograph - one of hers she took in a Glasgow cemetery.   Like me, she photographed Frida Kahlo’s bed outside Mexico City.   She photographed her son Jackson on his birthday which he shares with me.   She is a wonderful writer and succeeds at what I try to do - report as simply as possible.  

  I stayed up until five in the morning reading Ned Rorem’s "Knowing When to Stop." I read his famous diaries decades ago. He knew everyone and was outrageously frank about them and his own struggles with creativity, intimacy and booze.  Truman Capote described him as "an outlaw Quaker bent on candor."  I wiki him to see when he died and am surprised to find out he is still lives here in the city. Then this morning, I read in the Times  ... Ned Rorem, Composer for Both His Music and his Diaries, Dies at 99.

  I reflected on two pairs of amazing eyes today.   First was Olivia’s - the newest new kid on the block in our apartment house.   She’s three and a half months old and has soft blue beauties - like something rare in a Tiffany showcase or on the beach when you search for sea glass.   And then there was War Winds, Liz Taylor’s horse in Giant .  So  soulful and orbs the size of billiard balls. The equine eye contains worlds and is one of the largest of any land mammal.

Richard Pousette Dart (1916-1992) was a painter, ceramicist, sculptor, photographer, journal maker, professor.  I didn't know him until I saw a show of his yesterday.   He wrote very cool things in his journal ... i.e.  every stroke presents a possibility and a limitation ... order is something life creates .   I love his work.  It reminds me of my scribblings when I was bored and not paying attention in school. I wish I knew anything was worth exploring back then. Seeing his show made me want to write or make something.  I love that stark feeling, like an itch or laugh or push.

 

  Sun 11/13 I read in my college alumni magazine that one of my junior year housemates, Mike, died. There are more and more names listed these days in the in memoriam column. From my graduating year - seven this quarter.   As Dylan sings … for us lucky ones -   “it’s not dark yet but it’s getting there.” I think what I recall most about my peers who’ve died - I think it’s their “miles per hour.”   How they moved in a room, or walked down a street or on a beach, through space.   Mike had an easy way and held his preppy own in a houseful of burgeoning hippies.   He was blond, wore black framed Buddy Holly glasses and had a deep, measured voice.   I liked him even though we didn’t spend much meaningful time together.  

  Whenever I’ve run out of reading material and can’t sleep, I pull out   Updike’s 1500 pages Rabbit tetralogy. Its the great 20th century American novel. Sometimes I pick a page at random. Sometimes I compare opening or closing sentences. For example:   Rabbit Run   Boys are playing basketball around a telephone pole with a backboard bolted to it.   Rabbit Redux   Men emerge from the little printing plant at four sharp, ghosts for an instant, blinking until the outdoor light overcomes the look of constant indoor light clinging to them. Rabbit is Rich   Running out of gas, Rabbit Angstrom thinks as he stands behind the summer-dusty windows of the Springer Motors display room watching the traffic go by on Route 111, traffic somehow thin and scared compared to what it used to be.   Rabbit at Rest   Standing amid the tan, excited post-Christmas crowd at the Southwest Florida Regional Airport, Rabbit Angstrom has a sudden funny feeling that what he has come to meet, whats floating in unsee

  Fri 11/11 I walk to a doctors visit and HBO is shooting in Emily’s apartment right below me - something with Molly Shannon. I ask my doc if its true she’s been practicing for 35 years, like it says online.   She says yes - I am amazed.   I thought she was about 50.   She tells me she’s retiring next month.   I tell her she’s been a great help to me and that I thought it was about 15 years ago that I first started seeing her. She looks it up.   It’s been 9.   She says “time flies when you’re having fun, right.” She hugs me goodbye and it surprises me. She's never been the warm, touchy type. It’s a beautiful afternoon. The sun is just right at the right time and place for a moment and it turns out I am, too.  

Thurs 11/9 Stars are hardly ever fun. They're neurotic, self centered, nervous and insecure.  I'm more comfortable with farm people. Joni Mitchell  

Wed 11/9 My fab niece Summer Reign visited me the summer before last at the beach when she was five.   We had a five star fab time.   We watercolored and this is my favorite work she did. I asked her if it had a title - “yes,   it’s called  "The Girl Finds God and Her Luggage.”

Tues 11/8 The Little Rascals are having an election for their All for One Club. Froggy is running. His opponent tells him to “dry up.” It’s a tie and they campaign some more. Froggy gives out   jellybeans.   His posters read “the Peepuls Choice” and he insists “There's something rotten goin' on here. What we need is a one cent lollipop.” The club is heavily divided. Buckwheat gives a speech - "the country once had a president named Mr. Abe Lincoln. A situation like this was goin' on and he told the people that united we stand. He show was a smart man.” They vote again. Janet wins and she decrees that from now on the boys have to comb their hair and wash their faces before meetings and attend weekly afternoon teas.  

  Mon 11/7   I walk up 7th to see if the weekend half price book guy is set up. He is.   I search though his tables and bins. The driver door is open and he sits sideways and hunched over in his van. He looks small and weary.   I ask him if he has Dylans new book -   “yeah, I got it somewhere.”   He searches and searches, huffs and puffs and finally finds it. He looks like he needs a comfy recliner if not a hospital bed. His eyes are bone naked - “I’m so old” he says more to himself than to me. I shift my sight to his clavicle but he sees me not miss the moment and tells me to enjoy the book.  

  Sun 11/6 The first records of the word bookworm  come from the late 1500s. The word was first used to refer to people who read a lot, often as an insult. In a work by English author Ben Jonson, a bookworme  (as he spelled it) is described as a candle-waster .      The booklouse is a wingless insect that often lives among books and papers and is known to feed on the binding paste used to hold some books together.

                              Sat 11/5         Dance and architecture are the two primary arts.   You have to have the gesture, the real effort to communicate with another human being. And you must have a tree to shelter under in case of storm or su n.          Martha Graham

Wed 11/3 I walk past my fav ice cream place in the Village. Sitting outside stranger Lynn says hello.   She exudes style and beauty. I ask her if it’s the best pistachio she’s ever had - “no, I was just in Italy.” She asks me what my book is, I show her and she says "I just read it."   We agree it was a good read but I say I wanted it to be better. “I wanted to picture the house more” she adds and I tell her I was just thinking the same thing about two minutes ago.   We discover we’re the same age, we’ve both been massage therapists, born and bred New Yorkers, are big readers and lots more.   Sweet  street synchronicity as easy as can be.  

  Tues 10/2        Take a long look at Julie Christie in Don’t Look Now. 1978.   The most beautiful face in the cinematic blast-o-sphere - sharp, soft, treasure tressed, mouth more mouth then wider still with regal, high court smile and eyes so sad then shifting, plush, lushest lower lip and always thee creamy gold medal top line delicious dream.         She’s the ginchiest.  

  Tues 11/1 It was confirmed yesterday that next door nabe five year old Felix is still a Halloween delicate flower. We put cobwebs and smiling ghosts on our front doors. Our other neighbors got in on the action and put a three foot long skeleton dressed in Hunchback of Notre Dame rags on theirs. He’s motion activated - when you pass him, cathedral bells gong, his eyes flash red and he slowly raises his arm as if he’s about to drop you dead.   Forget the kid - new gangsta on the block shook ME up.   When Felix and his mom encountered him, my frightened pal grabbed her hand and told her “guick, close the door.”   Beware of five year old Halloweeners.   Again - tender petunias.