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In Monterey, I overheard RTT boasting to Wells about one of my stranger habits: “You know, my mother never reads a book from beginning to end. She’ll read the first few chapters of something and then flip to the end! And then read the other chapters out of sequence.”
Indeed.
I’ve been reading books this way since I was a very young child.
And this is not only the way I read books, it is also the way I watch streaming media.
I suppose because plot per se has never interested me. In my own private universe, everything that will ever happen has already happened, so what’s interesting is not that it happened but how it happened, how an infinite number of probabilities can rearrange themselves into a single possibility.
It’s a very hard internal philosophy to articulate, but it is how I see the world: All of this has already happened.
###
Anyway. This is how I rewatched Mad Men, zooming through the first season (context!) & then piecemealing my way through the subsequent 78 episodes.
And now I’m through and have nothing to watch!!!
And also nothing to read!
This is a problem because as I whine incessantly, this time of year, my day-by-day life is really kind of a flatline so the Life of the Imagination is paramount.
Mad Men is a particularly brilliant show, not only just for the cultural anthropology but also because it is as richly textured as a well-written novel. (Case in point: 10-year-old Sally, petulantly collapsing upon her bed, wears a blue patterned dress. Later, in that same episode, her beautiful, icy mother Betty also throws herself petulantly on Sally’s bed—and she is wearing a blue dress that’s like a grown-up version of Sally’s dress. This is art direction at its most subtle.)
I tried to start watching A Hundred Years of Solitude. And it’s good! But the cultural nuances just don’t resonate for me, so it’s not emotionally engaging.
And books!
I quite liked Dolly Alderton’s Everything I Know About Love (being a big fan of chick lit in general), so I picked up Good Material, but it is beyond ghastly, a gurglier version of Nick Hornby, so you know, yuck!!!
How am I going to distract myself?
###
Also, I found out Bradburn died.
Back in the day, Bradburn was one of those WELL-peeps with whom I tried to forge real-life chumhood. He was intelligent, amiable, humorous, tolerant.
The real-life chumhood never quite took.
Nevertheless, one of the defining moments of Bradburn’s life took place in my house in Monterey. He had come down for the weekend with his wife Kerry. She was participating in some kind of bridge tournament. He was gonna hang out with me & Ben.
And then Kerry didn’t come back till three in the morning Saturday night…
And it turned out that she had finally consummated la grande passion for her bridge partner!
And there was lots of muttering & sobbing & the sounds of objects bouncing against walls from the guest room I’d assigned them & from which they emerged at 6 in the morning to announce—grimly—they were driving back up to Oakland.
“Should I take up bridge?” I asked Ben.
Subsequently, Kerry & Bradburn divorced & Bradburn became Cynthia Heimel’s boy toy.
Cynthia Heimel was one of those Famous People who periodically popped up on the WELL & who everyone fawned over because you know—Famous Person!!
Okay, Cynthia Heimel wasn’t all that famous although at that time, she was writing a lot of television. She’d also written one very sharp, very funny book—Sex Tips For Girls.
But she was a real fucking bitch and mad as a hatter, too—though that didn’t stop people fawning over her because… Famous Person!!!!
There were a lot more famous people on the WELL. David Crosby! Robin Williams! But they weren’t quite as interactive as Cynthia Heimel who liked to pretend the WELL was Versailles & she was the Sun King.
Anyway, I was quite shocked when Bradburn became Cynthia Heimel’s boytoy—he had never particularly struck me as the toadying type.
But I understood it better when I saw the beautiful iridescent green New Beetle Cynthia Heimel bought for him.
Bradburn & I were never particularly close after that, but through the magic of Facebook, one can be connected forever to everyone one has ever exchanged so much as a significant smile with!
And I was quite shocked to learn of his death.
Natural causes, said the announcement.
What exactly did that mean?
###
I have a great photo of Bradburn somewhere, wearing mirror shades poolside at the Claremont Hotel.
But I’m too lazy to hunt it down.
Indeed.
I’ve been reading books this way since I was a very young child.
And this is not only the way I read books, it is also the way I watch streaming media.
I suppose because plot per se has never interested me. In my own private universe, everything that will ever happen has already happened, so what’s interesting is not that it happened but how it happened, how an infinite number of probabilities can rearrange themselves into a single possibility.
It’s a very hard internal philosophy to articulate, but it is how I see the world: All of this has already happened.
###
Anyway. This is how I rewatched Mad Men, zooming through the first season (context!) & then piecemealing my way through the subsequent 78 episodes.
And now I’m through and have nothing to watch!!!
And also nothing to read!
This is a problem because as I whine incessantly, this time of year, my day-by-day life is really kind of a flatline so the Life of the Imagination is paramount.
Mad Men is a particularly brilliant show, not only just for the cultural anthropology but also because it is as richly textured as a well-written novel. (Case in point: 10-year-old Sally, petulantly collapsing upon her bed, wears a blue patterned dress. Later, in that same episode, her beautiful, icy mother Betty also throws herself petulantly on Sally’s bed—and she is wearing a blue dress that’s like a grown-up version of Sally’s dress. This is art direction at its most subtle.)
I tried to start watching A Hundred Years of Solitude. And it’s good! But the cultural nuances just don’t resonate for me, so it’s not emotionally engaging.
And books!
I quite liked Dolly Alderton’s Everything I Know About Love (being a big fan of chick lit in general), so I picked up Good Material, but it is beyond ghastly, a gurglier version of Nick Hornby, so you know, yuck!!!
How am I going to distract myself?
###
Also, I found out Bradburn died.
Back in the day, Bradburn was one of those WELL-peeps with whom I tried to forge real-life chumhood. He was intelligent, amiable, humorous, tolerant.
The real-life chumhood never quite took.
Nevertheless, one of the defining moments of Bradburn’s life took place in my house in Monterey. He had come down for the weekend with his wife Kerry. She was participating in some kind of bridge tournament. He was gonna hang out with me & Ben.
And then Kerry didn’t come back till three in the morning Saturday night…
And it turned out that she had finally consummated la grande passion for her bridge partner!
And there was lots of muttering & sobbing & the sounds of objects bouncing against walls from the guest room I’d assigned them & from which they emerged at 6 in the morning to announce—grimly—they were driving back up to Oakland.
“Should I take up bridge?” I asked Ben.
Subsequently, Kerry & Bradburn divorced & Bradburn became Cynthia Heimel’s boy toy.
Cynthia Heimel was one of those Famous People who periodically popped up on the WELL & who everyone fawned over because you know—Famous Person!!
Okay, Cynthia Heimel wasn’t all that famous although at that time, she was writing a lot of television. She’d also written one very sharp, very funny book—Sex Tips For Girls.
But she was a real fucking bitch and mad as a hatter, too—though that didn’t stop people fawning over her because… Famous Person!!!!
There were a lot more famous people on the WELL. David Crosby! Robin Williams! But they weren’t quite as interactive as Cynthia Heimel who liked to pretend the WELL was Versailles & she was the Sun King.
Anyway, I was quite shocked when Bradburn became Cynthia Heimel’s boytoy—he had never particularly struck me as the toadying type.
But I understood it better when I saw the beautiful iridescent green New Beetle Cynthia Heimel bought for him.
Bradburn & I were never particularly close after that, but through the magic of Facebook, one can be connected forever to everyone one has ever exchanged so much as a significant smile with!
And I was quite shocked to learn of his death.
Natural causes, said the announcement.
What exactly did that mean?
###
I have a great photo of Bradburn somewhere, wearing mirror shades poolside at the Claremont Hotel.
But I’m too lazy to hunt it down.
