Such dreary news! Everyday!
Even my PC and Mac laptops collapse under the strain, one week apart; malicious viruses lurking w/in the former; irritated hardrives clinking about in the latter, who knows, who cares when hourly backups may save the day in our robotic world, precious novel and biz data saved, respectively.
Crashes here and there, but really, what are the odds.
Actually, they say the odds must simply disappear on the stock market. "Betting" on whether the market's going 'up' or 'down' is now very much out, Socialism's protective elder brother is very much in; don't worry angry populace, dear, dear gov't will take of every little thing.
Lenin and Stalin would approve. Dearly.
Not sure the liberal market will join in the jubilee, why, you're inhibiting the very animalistic qualities that make the market go voom voom! Say it aint so Joe!
C'est la vie and c'est vrai, France is positively glowing in this financial climate, after all, they allow interns to run their daily banking duties, quoi?, credit?!, pas problem. When we secured our bank guarantee for this flat, giving them large piles of dosh, they treated is as a loan. Quoi, pas problem.
Merde. Who cares. Well, we all must care on somedays, but last samedie, I didn't.
Time to buy books, best sort of investment I say, hardcover items you can lovingly skim, caress, carefully, slowly opening to the contents, the crease slightly broken, that sound, you don't dare allow a glass of liquid anywhere near, 'cept when you do.
Donc, I bought so many last Saturday that even the skinny n prissy french proprietress came out to 'sniff sniff' a bonne soiree mon cherie, merci!!! while running after me down rue princess off boulevard st. germain...Colette and I couldn't get away fast enough, my little muffin, like a Welsh kitten, wishing, wanting, Colette's long fur lending nicely, giving license to quick getaway; she positions her pointy ass upward, white tail wagging like a flag, fiercely, demanding attention, planting her delicate nose in between her two paws on the tile, stretching into a solemn bow to the cashier, elegantly, almost in defense of her mistress, eyes blinking, ears pinned back, "allez!" and so we do.
What did I buy? You're curious, come one, why else would you read this blog, this blissquertation.
First off, predictably, Dawn Powell's collection of novels from 1930-1942, the Library of America edition. It's the companion volume I've ordered to live comfortably next to Dos Passes USA trilogy by LOA edition, of course. The brilliant panoramic scope of the 20th century into the next, explaining away all things "American", as they are, a random series of events...., alors, plus ca change plus c'est le meme chose, mais oui?
Also bought William Patten's new memoir, "My Three Father's" what else!, (what a showoff), so deliciously waspy, son of most elegant and deceptive of mothers, Susan Mary Alsop, hostess for those most famous, titled and grand. Their pads in Paris, Georgetown and Maine entertained JFK, Jackie, Papa Joe 'n such. Good read, material's reliable, ripe, why not. Not that I need so much in that department.
Bought another JCO. Another channeling exercise from the masterly Joyce Carol Oates, what is it with her; so prolific, so accurate, so clever, I love her, like so many women of gargantuan talent and good will, but somehow better than the rest, I bow in deference, bended knees practically broken with devotion to Dawn Powell, both writer's wrote all the time, beautifully, fiercely, like no other, 'cept one another.
Well, people either read to escape or read to really, really, escape, knowwhatimean?
Not like Updike "Oh, another adulterous affair, where is the fainting couch?!"
Actually, it's just over there, next to my library, where else "I've my own, don't you?", 'specially now.
Refer to above financial katrina.
BTW, my fainting couch is velvet, dove gray, sterling silver claw feet (collateral for my 401K)...powderlike finish with velour navy puff pillows falling on top of one another, from one to the next, until they completely pass out.
Silly boast, back to the better bits. JCO, this time, have to say, she aims but just misses the bulls-eye, but let's learn to agree to disagree, shall we. When she aimed for Marilyn, spot on, with "Blonde". Genius.
Sex; how we exploit it, fear it, embrace it, love it, how it owns us...'course, this book is really written for straight women. Just watching youtube version of Charlie rose interview Miss Oates on this book was painful. She may say it's for everyone, but it's not, gay men, maybe.
The new book, "Wild Nights", finds JCO's living out the last days of Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James and Hemingway. I just can't abide. I want and miss Mmmmmmarilyn. Or maybe it's just the 60's, I was alive for at least 7 of them, a product of the last gasp when our country jumped the shark from producer to consumer.
Modernity. Was there ever any there there? Where's the importance of being Ernest, M. Wilde? Oscar might thrive in this decade, actually, he'd own it. The media maniacs, snarky blogs becoming snarkier and scarier than ever, journos just above self loathing, barely, nails slipping, scraping, people are actually pining for ledges and all they may imply...
"golly gee, you don't mind if I crawl back into the womb do you?".....in that breathy voice, a dumb blonde, she was anything but...
Gabbing with a galpal, again, last nite, I recommend this book called "Blonde". I've loaned or recommended this book to a diverse set of women; pseudo socialites, working gals recovering from bouts of breast cancer, incapable of recovering from lupus, or personal loneliness, I've given it as gifts to stay at home moms, greedy, gotta have it all superwomen, just about all sorts, net result, identical.
"This is driving me crazy!" It's as if they ARE Marilyn. When I finished the book a few years back I bought the entire MM collection and watched the last 100 day video, knowing almost every second that made up that manufactured life like no other....and slipping in the first disc, I couldn't quite believe her first big role was playing a psychotic baby sitter who practically pushes the 5 year old off the ledge of the hotel window!. The movie's called 'Don't Bother To Knock', black and white, she hasn't even begun the sugar kane hairdo nor mastering the make up routine with her man 'Whitey' but still! incroyable! She manages to steal every scene she's in and when's she's not holding you in thrall with her acting technique, owning the crazy character called "Nell". She wipes off the box office star Richard Widmark completely, as if both he and Anne Bancroft are completely unnecessary. What a dame. Built like no other, she was sex, wasn't she...just look at the Vanity Fair cover. Angelina sure, but Marilyn, mmmmmmmmmm.
The book is fierce, shoulda won more awards. 800 pages of heavily researched, gorgeously written, scripted, crafted content, perfectly weighed, worked, verbiage you cannot believe, the make believe conversation between rat beauty Ava Gardner and Marilyn is worth the read alone and more real than anything you've never read before.
Ironically enough, the aftertaste is pure compassion, almost as if you must forgive her in order to forgive yourself, the ultimate martyr. The political roller-coaster that allows some men to fear and therefore manipulate some women, and worse yet, why women fear other women. My friend said to me the other day, based on my trip to Seattle, "you really like women", as if this was odd, sad, but true, I adore women,'cept for the malicious few, the mean spirited cross eyed christians with loud lipliner (shading anyone?!)
JCO loves women quite a bit and that's exactly why she gets Marilyn and the rest of us....she takes the blank slate we once were and paints the canvas liberally, literally, so that when you stand back you see just how the world conspires it's own demise, but back then, the illusion appeared so much more beloved and vulnerable, like Mmmmmmarilyn Monroe....
