I'd like to say it was the first piece of art I ever bought, but to be fair, it was more like the first painting I persuaded a man I was dating to buy me. He loved it. I thought of artist Maria Scavullo today and went by her site, where I quickly fell for the above image. She's up to great things. And I'm off to dinner at Bacaro.
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Entries from April 2011
Off to the Ball
Off to the One Story Benefit, a.k.a. the Literary Debutante Ball (the Host Committee includes Pretty in Pink's Andrew McCarthy). I'm so tired, I'm going to have a car drop me off at the VIP bit and truly, I may not make it past eight. But I can get a frock on.
Image: Cecil Beaton, The Wyndham Sisters, after J.S. Sargent (1950).
On Affirmation
I'm saying yes this week. I mean, I do. Two interview requests, a university in California wants me to pencil them in for 2013, and I'll be appearing on a panel at the next Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) conference in 2012. Any chance to check into the University Club of Chicago (Cathedral Hall, pictured)...
It Could Be Sweet
Went to the Fat Radish for oysters, bubbly, burger & duck fat fries, grilled cheese and chocolate cake with Katherine Lanpher and broke the news that I'm moving away (not far): "THAT'S THE WORST NEWS I'VE EVER HEARD," said the manager who I spent Christmas Eve with, sitting at the bar, discussing astrology. I won't be a stranger, but you know New York, neighborhoods. I promised I'd have a big party before I leave, with as many people as can be seated and champagne and cake for everyone who works there. It's a wait for a month now, you know, for a table.
On Pastimes
The other night around eleven, I was quaffing bubbly and sharing bread pudding at the Fat Radish with my friend Maya, executive director of Girls Write Now, and we were talking about life, mostly mine, as I resigned as chair of the board of directors last year so that I might have one. I was musing on the future by way of the recent past and she kept saying, but what do you want to do? I don't want to do anything, I replied with a sigh. I'm tired. I've been working as hard as I can for as long as I can remember. She insisted that I would need to find some satisfaction from work, to do something. I demurred. I've spent enough summers hanging out with zen monks to know that doing nothing could keep you fully occupied for a lifetime or two. Just now, as I came across yet another black tie gala I wish I could afford, not to mention the free evening, I realized that's exactly what I would do, if money were no object and my time were my own: I'd go to balls. All of 'em.
Portland Meets New York
Enjoyed a brilliant conversation over coffee with Matthew Stadler, who runs Publication Studio, in town today, from Amsterdam on his way back to the West Coast, at La Colombe Torrefaction in SoHo this morning. Every little thing he does is magic! We are talking about a Diana Balmori book, with an event in Oregon in the fall. I convinced him to part with a copy of Walter Benjamin's Berlin Childhood, Circa 1900, so that I can give it to Jen Bekman.
The Quotable Lana Turner
"A gentleman is simply a patient wolf."
To Balthazar, and Storyville
Off to breakfast at the usual spot with Paul Vidich, founder and publisher of Storyville, which serializes stories from newly published collections and delivers them weekly to your iPad or iPhone. If you discover a writer you like, there's more. If not, there's another story coming soon. And after a year, you'll be effortlessly better-read than anyone. Recently, the New Yorker's digital pick of the week, "for those who know where to look."
Postcards From Today, Chinatown
Credits: Lydia Rodrigues, Caroline Berger.