Still Life with Cat (Apologies to Schrödinger and Hirst)
I don’t care much for Guy Trebay’s writing (although I’m sure he’s a lovely person). His passion for long, winding sentences and circuitous trains of thought makes my own prose look as spare and straightforward as Ernest goddamn Hemingway. Drives me nuts.
That said, his review of the men’s shows in Milan is capped off with three of the best paragraphs I’ve read all week–which I appreciate not only because I remember Andy Williams, but also because, sadly, I was once a Judith Butler devotee. Didn’t understand but every other word the bitch said, but still: worshipped her. Today, I feel somehow vindicated…
Unlike McQueen or Prada, Frida Giannini, the stylist (“designer” is probably not the right word) at Gucci has an operative relationship to sexual presentation that is so uncomplicated and kittenlike that she makes her predecessor Tom Ford seem like some tortured soul at a Judith Butler seminar. Ms. Giannini’s show was as sexually transparent as the others were freighted or obscure.
In a way, it was not a fashion show at all. With its fur benches and fieldstone fireplace, the show resembled the set for an Andy Williams special in Aspen, circa the days when the magnesia-voiced crooner was still married to Claudine Longet.
Life was an innocent romp when the world and Gucci were young. People wore fur boots, as they did on Ms. Giannini’s runway. They wore fur parkas and carried fur totes (to keep their fur wallets warm) and if, as it actually happened, the Williams marriage would turn out to have been a mess; and Ms. Longet and Mr. Williams would eventually divorce; and Ms. Longet would take as her lover the skiing star Spider Sabich, whom she would shoot and kill in a tabloid-tale incident for which she was sentenced to 30 days (she performed community service), these small details should not detract from what is of true significance here. Everybody really does look sort of groovy in zillionaire ski bum clothes.
FYI, I think “freighted” is a misspelling or misprint or something. Second one in that article–the first being a weird, non-poetic fragment strewn across the eleventh paragraph. Does the Times even have an online editrix? Sheesh. Hire me, already….
In significantly less self-pitying news, my sister’s radio show has been fantastic the last few weeks. Check her set from January 8, featuring a ditty about wigs by New Orleans’ own Fats Domino:
Wig over here
Wig over there
Wigs everywhere
They sellin’ them fast
And you should know
They even sellin’ wigs
In the grocery store
I’m turning into someone I don’t like very much–someone that scares me a little, someone I don’t think I want to be. I’m turning into Little Edie.
I don’t mean I dislike Little Edie, per se. I do. Or did. I totally appreciate the pantyhose-headdress revolutionary-costume. And the raccoons in the wall? Charming. But the fact that Edie stayed at home–and I know she was doing so in part because of her mother, but still–the fact that she stayed home, that’s what bothers me. That’s what I see in myself–this kind of illness or paranoia or fixation about sticking to what you know. It’s the “Wow, I coulda had a V8” way of life. Wow, I coulda done something interesting, I coulda traveled, I coulda, coulda, coulda. Instead, I’m happy to sit on the sofa.
I don’t like that one bit. Drastic measures are warranted.
If I were normal, I’d be 36,000 feet above Virginia right now. If I were normal, I’d be knocked up on sedatives and drooling on the shoulder of a complete stranger–who, also being normal, would be too timid to shove me across the aisle, even though it would be pretty obvious that he or she was being slobbered on by a fag. Ewww.
But like I said: “if”.
I arrived at the airport late thanks to some poor planning (by me) and some sloppy driving (by a guy whose car slammed sideways into a guardrail and skidded to a stop across three lanes of I-10). I rushed through security, not at all sure I’d make it, but when I arrived at the gate, the waiting area was still full of bored, listless, and occasionally irate travelers. Hooray.
That’s when the problems began. That’s when I had time to sit and think about my trip to New York–how pointless it was, really. How I could accomplish most of the things I wanted to accomplish from the comfort of my desk in New Orleans. How the conference in question always seems like a great idea, but inevitably devolves into a semi-vacation, only instead of bringing back cute sale sweaters for Jonno, I bring back press kits and business cards for my lateral filing cabinet.
The weather wasn’t helping matters. It’s miserable here, and even more miserable there: wet and rainy and cold. And of course, there are the memories of last year, which saw an eerily similar storm pattern and a life-flashing-before-eyes flight in to JFK. I’m creeping toward the Grecian Formula fast enough, thank you very much.
The big factor, though, was work–namely, the abundance of it sitting on my desk and all around my house. I really don’t have time to waste on something so…well, frivolous.
So, I’m standing there with my Diet Coke (bought on the concourse for a small fortune) pondering all this, and Jonno texts me to say that our eldest hound has been howling inconsolably since I walked out the door an hour before, and that was it. Decision made, no turning back: I snapped my phone closed and headed home.
Some people are travelers. For me, it’s never a good time to go.
And in New Orleans news, Brangelina is upon us for good. Or evil. Take your pick.
(FYI, I do not read US Weekly, except when stuck on line at Sav-A-Center behind customers–generally women of a certain age–who insist on writing checks. One of whom sent me the link. So there.)
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
First, the bad news: Johnathan Safran Foer’s novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close occasionally goes so far over the top that jaded people (myself included) will want to roll their eyes. It revels in the sort of cloying sentimentalism that can only come from child savants investigating the death of a parent, or immigrants sharing stories of young love crushed by the Holocaust. The cast of eccentric characters and flashes of magic realism are often used to drive the author’s points home, when in fact, he’s already made himself perfectly clear. Like a filmmaker using Albinoni’s Adagio as background music for a funeral, it can all seem a bit much. (Odd side note: that piece of music has a direct connection to Dresden, which figures prominently in the novel.)
Now, the good news: beneath the schmaltz lies an engrossing, heartbreaking story that’s impossible to put down. Like a younger Tony Kushner, Foer juggles a multitude of themes and symbols, all of which converge in beautiful, sometimes breathtaking ways. In the end, we’re left with a magnificent, hopeful fairy tale about love, loss, New York, and September 11. And I suppose given all that, and given the subject matter, the sentimentalism is probably more than justified.
NB: If you appreciate “X meets Y”-style comparisons, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close feels a lot like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time crossed with my all-time favorite short story, The Last Words on Earth. Just so you know.
While everyone else was in the Quarter celebrating the Saints’ win Saturday night, I was peeping through my neighbor’s screen door at her nonstop non-erotic holiday cabaret of twinkly lights and wonderment:
I’ve taken about a bejillion trillion photos of it over the years, but none of them ever do it justice. Particularly difficult to convey: the sublime beauty of Miss Beatrice’s Santa/television diorama on the far side of the room.
Yesterday, someone asked me what I’ve got against Common Ground. From what he’s read in the news, they’ve been here since right after the storm, doing a lot of work that no one else has wanted to do. And yes, I have to admit that although I think their effectiveness has been slightly overrated, and although they haven’t always been equally polite to the citizens of New Orleans since descending on our city in great unwashed hordes, I suppose Common Ground has done some good.
The problem is that beyond the social services they attempt to provide, they’re a bunch of activists–and not the smart kind of activists, either. They’re strident, humorless, and self-important; they talk to people, not with them; they’re unwilling to meet anyone halfway or to speak of compromise. But worst of all, they’re guilty of the most heinous sin I know, one that we in New Orleans can ill-afford to tolerate at the moment:
They refuse to give anyone the benefit of the doubt.
Common Ground’s rhetoric is oddly similar to that of our president: either you’re with us, or you’re against us. If anyone disagrees, or if anyone wants to offer a suggestion, it’s greeted with hostility. There is no room for discussion. Everyone else is the enemy.
But of course, Common Ground folks aren’t the only ones with bluster on their hands. Many people and groups in New Orleans are riled up just as easily at the faintest suggestion of conflict. In fact, I think much of the racial strife that exists here (and elsewhere) is grounded in this kind of knee-jerk defensiveness. On occasion, that may be justified, but more often than not, it stems from people not trusting one another.
So, not to be all touchy-feely and shit, but you should give it a try. I’m not just talking to Common Ground, I mean everybody. Give someone the benefit of the doubt. Assume that you’re from the same planet. Assume you’re on the same side. Lighten up. Laugh at yourself. Or I’ll be forced to smack you around.
An image selected at random from my vast personal archive of crap:
Perhaps our Commander-in-Chief could use this one as a visual aid to persuade the general public that, hey, it ain’t so bad over yonder in Eye-rack.
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