How could you not? Inventory (on Lafayette).
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Entries from May 2009
Amuse-Bouche
Among the many things I did today, a highlight was meeting my friends Miriam and Emily at Babycakes to hear about their new conceptual culinary project, Society of the Crumb. If genius can be described as the ability to see connections where others cannot, they're it. Since we were in the neighborhood, I thought they should see Ale et Ange, where, even though I've gone down those steps a hundred times, I must have missed the last one today because I tumbled down and right through the doorway. If you could be certain that you would never, ever sprain your ankle, that'd be how to arrive. Always.
Windowlicker
I was at this dinner party tonight, looking at a candle through a glass of Champagne and I had this brilliant idea to write a letter and you know what? That's why I leave my Blackberry at home. By the time I walked twenty blocks back to my apartment all I wanted to do was listen to punk music and daydream about the wardrobe I need to get through the next month of work and make some money so I can blow out of here until fall, and so I shall.
[Herve Leger Melanie Bandage Dress, $1155 at Net-a-Porter]
Windowlicker - from the French for window shopping: faire du lèche-vitrine - often appears on Tuesday and Thursdays at 10am EST-ish.
Love Songs for Pretty Girls
Tonight was the third anniversary edition show for "Upstairs at the Square" – recommended by The New Yorker, New York, Time Out New York, The Village Voice, WWD Scoop, Time Out London, and more – and we blew the roof off with China Mieville (The City & The City) and Japanther (Tut Tut Shake Ya Butt). I challenge you not to love those boys! At bn.com/upstairs soon:
With The City & The City, praised by Neil Gaiman as “fiction of the new century,” New York Times bestselling author and “weird fiction” pioneer China Miéville delivers an existential thriller of a new order. With shades of J.G. Ballard and H.P. Lovecraft, Blade Runner and 1984, The City & The City is a murder mystery taken to the extreme of life as we know it now, and possibly mapping the terrain of what’s next. China Miéville is the author of King Rat; Perdido Street Station, winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the British Fantasy Award; The Scar, winner of the Locus Award and the British Fantasy Award; Iron Council, winner of the Locus Award and the Arthur C. Clarke Award; Looking for Jake, a collection of short stories; and Un Lun Dun, his New York Times bestselling book for younger readers. He lives and works in London, where he is active in political life.
Described as a “Performance Galaxy” by Vanity Fair and “Super hard, incredibly fast and overall inspiring” by Thrasher, Japanther has always been a band apart, running the gamut from performance art to punk rock and back again. Current projects include Japanther in 3-D, a New York State Council on the Arts-funded book and film companion to the band’s interactive rock opera, commissioned for the PERFORMA 07 biennial and premiered with a sold-out run at P.S. 122, plus a collaboration with Dan Graham for Beyond, his first American retrospective, on exhibition at the Whitney this summer. Tut Tut, Now Shake Ya Butt (Wantage USA) is an album of punk songs and poetry expanding on Japanther’s work with legendary Crass co-founder Penny Rimbaud as they set off on a wild sonic romp 'round Africa, the Bronx, San Pedro and Brooklyn, complete with faeries, bicycles and a few cans of spray paint. Japanther's infectious, free spirited trash hasn't let up a teeny bit – it’s gotten more focused and rad somehow, while Rimbaud's churning, clever, degenerate cadence is an oddly fitting balance for Japanther's two-minute blasts. On a special note, this record features a sleeper cover of Portland's New Bad Things' "The Dirge!” Japanther has performed at Automotive High School in Brooklyn (a community benefit to save students’ imperiled production of Guys and Dolls from budget cuts), on street corners, in people's bedrooms, in historic concert halls, on boats, and the Williamsburg Bridge. Japanther is a party band that brings much more to the show.
“Upstairs at the Square,” which celebrates three years this June, has paired authors such as William Gibson, Tom Wolfe, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, David Lynch, Anna Gavalda and Min Jin Lee with musicians including Duncan Sheik and members of the cast of Spring Awakening, Badly Drawn Boy, Sondre Lerche, Au Revoir Simone, Aimee Mann, Craig Finn and more. An archive of recordings is available on Barnes & Noble.com, where “Upstairs at the Square” is enjoyed by listeners around the world in addition to its live audiences.
A Reason to Read: Ava Gardner, "Love is Nothing"
I've been traveling lately with more to come, and so people have been asking me, will I be around on my birthday? I find this amusing because everyone knows by now that I can't be expected to have an answer to that. Remember that Christmas present that came with the beguiling assurance, I know you like to leave...
Yesterday I read Ava Gardner: Love is Nothing cover-to-cover, and that book is a blueprint for living! One of the things it reminded me of is an old joke in my family about how I don't like gifts. I just don't know what to do with them. I live in a very small apartment, don't check luggage, and give away an astonishing percentage of my possessions away on a regular basis.
But, of course, if one were to get an education on this subject, it would have to come from Ava Gardner's playbook:
"[First husband Mickey Rooney] called all day, pursued her at the studio, sent presents. He sent a messenger to deliver a ten-thousand-dollar mink coat. One night, frantic with desire, he showed up at the apartment and demanded she take him back."
She doesn't. In fact, she says to a reporter of the scandal, "We just couldn't seem to hit it off... As things stand now I'll ask for a divorce later."
Later, the love of her life, Frank Sinatra, visits her on location.
"[Upon his arrival in Barcelona, reporters] eagerly updated him on the latest details of Ava's friendship with the matador, Sinatra listening glumly, saying he had heard Cabre's name, knew nothing about him. He was holding a package wrapped in tissue paper, and someone asked if that was a present for Miss Gardner.
'What do you think, pal?'
'I think it's jewelry for Miss Gardner.'
(Sinatra had brought two gifts from home: six bottles of Coca-Cola -- she had bemoaned its unavailability in Tossa-- and a ten-thousand-dollar necklace.")
Which made me think, people can change.
Windowlicker
Last night I had four glasses of wine and a handful of olives for dinner (admittedly not entirely my idea but of course the charmingly slapdash consequences were all mine!). The social disarray amounted to little more than a flurry of text messages, emails and IMs; for some reason, the universe chimed a little bell for nearly every man I know just as I rounded round number three. Today I woke up with a plan to fail better, as my beloved Beckett once said, and happened to look up a chat from last night (transcripts are automatically saved) to see what might have transpired between me and D., my darling Australian pal in Montreal, when one line I typed took me entirely by surprise: I always think I am so Plain Jane. And that's when I realize I am not.
[Lanvin Hairy Felt Hat, $198 at Aloha Rag]
Windowlicker - from the French for window shopping: faire du
lèche-vitrine - often appears on Tuesday and Thursdays at 10am EST-ish.
Where I'll Be...
Tomorrow night (Wednesday): Philadelphia, at Brickbat Books for Ben Greenman & The Please Step Back Experience at 7PM. If you're in town, come join us. Please tell your friends!
On Tuesday, May 26, "Upstairs at the Square" celebrates three years of innovative and eclectic programming with China Mieville and Japanther! With host Katherine Lanpher at the Union Square Barnes & Noble. 7PM (doors at 6), FREE.
For Book Expo America at the end of this month: I'm hosting a happy hour in Two Dollar Radio's booth at 3 on Friday, then doing Macmillan's Cannon Tales US at 4:30. C'est tout.
I'll be in Chicago for Jean Thompson's Do Not Deny Me party on Friday, June 5th, a joint production with the boys from Featherproof.
And then I'll be at the Nebraska Summer Writers Conference again, and at the Center for Fiction Writers Conference in New York on the 27th. After that, I'll probably see you in September.
Southern Postcards
Last Thursday I flew into Memphis with my sister, where we picked up a car and drove to Florence, Alabama, home of inspired fashion luminaries Billy Reid and Alabama Chanin (more on that later). My sister and I stayed at the Limestone House (highly recommended), and had fun just knocking around. Florence was the perfect, sleepy Southern town and exactly how we wanted to start our four-day road trip. Friday we drove to Birmingham to meet my friend David Gutowski, editor of Largehearted Boy, who I've been corresponding with for years. It was a real thrill, and divine to get to hang out in person over lunch at Chez Fonfon in the Highlands neighborhood. Tip: order the coconut cake. Probably a whole one, if I had it to do all over again. Then we took off for Oxford, Mississippi, where we had a sublime dinner with charming Miss Mary Warner at Ravine followed by a drink at Snackbar. She's leaving town for Atlanta and so it was fun to do her favorite haunts with her. She used to produce Thacker Mountain Radio and work at Square Books and is now consulting with authors on effective publicity in the South; get with her if you're looking. Saturday, we checked out of The 5 Twelve (also highly recommended), picked my brother up at the airport and drove to Tupelo for my cousin's wedding. I hadn't seen my mother's side of the family in twenty years and that was the highlight and the purpose of the trip. Besides having a cheeseburger at the place Elvis frequented as a teen, obviously. Sunday my siblings and I went to Memphis, ate everything in sight, and flew back to New York. I slept the whole way. Photos from the weekend, wildly good, speeding ticket and all:
Florence
Florence
Oxford
Tupelo
Tupelo
Tupelo
Memphis
A Reason to Read: Jules et Jim
I just walked in the door from a long weekend down South for my cousin's wedding, and will have more to say later. One of the first highlights of the trip was having a couple of hours of uninterrupted reading time on the plane. I blew right through Jules et Jim and loved every word, made even sweeter by Francois Truffaut's essay which follows, telling how he came across the novel, a few years after it came out, languishing in obscurity, and was so moved he made it into a New Wave classic. It's well worth seeking out (I found it at Idlewild Books), kind of a hard, dazzling gem about friendship, love and self-awareness, and I have two favorite passages that I copied down to share with you:
One day she wanted to buy six large live lobsters from the fisherman, to play with; a beautiful but expensive idea. Jim explained that their small budget wouldn't stand it. She accused him of being mean. She wasn't afraid of living simply but she was used to getting windfalls to spend on her fantasies. She backed horses by post, in Paris and London.
That's Odile. Later, there's Kate:
There was nothing you could put your finger on. You never knew what she was aiming for until she had got it.
This clip of Jeanne Moreau singing in the film version is dreamy: