Mallory's Camera

Read Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom which I’ve surprised myself by liking very much – I loathed The Corrections – and Marion Meade’s antic biography of Nathaniel West and his wife, Eileen McKenney, the ultimate ‘30s shiksa and inspiration for My Sister Eileen.

West died while he was on his way to Scott Fitzgerald’s funeral. His eyes blurry with tears, his mind distracted with a thousand fleeting insights into the ironies of fame and dissolution, West ran a stop sign in the Imperial Valley, was broadsided by a migrant farm worker. I suppose the Coen Brothers’ Barton Fink was kind of a biopic of Nathaniel West, though West was much more the consumate shyster: He plagiarized the transcripts he used to get into Brown University and huge portions of A Cool Million were lifted straight from the pages of a long out-of-print novel by Horatio Alger. Nevertheless, Miss Lonely Hearts and The Day of the Locust remain two of the most original novels to come out of the 20th century --

Although, of course they leave one burning, unanswered question: Did Matt Gruenwald name his trademark character after the hotel manager who stomps an obnoxious child star to death at the end of Locust?

As for me, I am writing better than ever, better than I have in a long time which is really surprising given how fucked up everything else in my life is right now, particularly on the monetary end of things. I made a record amount of money in the last two weeks doing the literary equivalent of going blind while I embroider dainty eighth-of-an-inch stitches on Puff Daddy’s boxer shorts, but it still wasn’t enough. Thus I am left with the always disheartening decision of which bills to pay and which bills to push off.

I have been exploring a lot on my new bicycle – for example, the grounds of a very odd place called the Temple of Truth. Why Truth should take up sojourn in Freeville, New York is anyone’s guess. Apparently this is some kind of home base for a group of mediums and psychics. Also found the Ozymandian remnants of an old drive-in a little ways outside of Dryden.

I have also entered into a kind of Edwardian epistolary courtship with a very nice gentleman who lives outside of Syracuse.

We’ve been debating whether Harry Truman could get elected today.

I'm not sure that our system allows for a true forward-thinker to be effective, he writes. Colonialism, at least in the world's view, still rules the roost and it's just not working. My opinion, of course, but I think we are paying for decades of that kind of thinking. Why we aren't ALL OVER alternative fuel sources is a complete mystery to me. Our entire technological infrastructure has become vital - essential - and it's a very, very fragile thing, very open to attack or failure. There will be no potatoes at Wegmans without it - and that's pretty scary.

Of course, I imagine that if and when we finally meet, he will run not walk for the nearest exit.

Sitting next to B in the library yesterday, I noticed what I thought must be the beginning of age spots on his hands – he’s younger than me but much fairer skinned. His tattoos are blotchy too – the ink bleeding into the dermis. This is precisely why I have avoided tattoos my entire life. Debatable whether they look cool when you’re young – I don’t happen to think so but I’m aware that’s a matter of taste. Absolutely undebatable that they look hideous when you get old – and trust me, Junior, you spend a long, long time on this planet being old.