Mallory's Camera

B emailed me a Kindle copy of Fear.

Ugh.

I have zero interest in reading Fear. In fact, you could say my interest in reading Fear is a negative number.

Three days went by, and B emailed me Fear again.

I guess because I didn’t acknowledge it the first time.

I was raised by wolves who had no social graces whatsoever, so I had to teach myself manners; and I have what you might you might call an autodidactical zeal about acknowledging small kindnesses, writing thank you notes etc. For me not to acknowledge a gift is Unusual Behavior.

I didn’t want to get Fear a third time, so this time, I emailed B back: THANK YOU, all in block letters. With a smiley face.

He texted me back immediately, wanting to know whether I thought Brett Kavanaugh was going to be confirmed, and I thought, Dude! We haven’t communicated in weeks. You might want to start off the conversation by asking, “How are you? What’s new in your life?”

I was curt and dismissive.

But the text exchange did remind me that I’ve run out of books.

Camille has loaned me David Sedaris’s diaries, but that’s not exactly the type of book you immerse yourself in. That’s a book you skim, thinking, Wow! David Sedaris can write boring stuff, too!

So yesterday I set off for the quaint and picturesque village of Rhinebeck.



Rhinebeck has no grocery stores, gas stations, or dry cleaners, but it does have three (count ‘em) liquor stores, a number of upscale dining establishments, and an assortment of cute little shops that sell shit that nobody really needs but that do make you think for a fraction of a second, Hmmmm… Maybe my world would be more complete if I bought this adorable little Buddha-Meets-the-Day-of-the-Dead table lamp!

And it has Oblong Books.

###

First day of autumn. Miserable day. Cold. Grey. All I wanted to do was sleep.

I’d spent the morning generating income in the most boring manner imaginable, writing endless descriptions of automotive suspension systems for a new client who pays reasonably well. (Go ahead! Ask me about Nissan Altima struts! You know you want to!)

I have been living beyond my means thanks to the magic of credit cards, but really—that has got to stop.

Weird thing: I always feel incredibly ugly when it’s cold, grey, and miserable out. Ugly, invisible and old. Like self-confidence is some kind of thwarted photosynthesis.

Yesterday was no exception. I wandered through a host of cute little shops on my way to the bookstore. Not even the sales staff acknowledged my existence. Perfect opportunity to exercise your shoplifting skills!! thought some irrepressibly cheerful and anarchistic portion of my mind. But that was the wolf-training talking.

I ignored it.

When I finally got to the bookstore, there was absolutely nothing on the shelves.

I mean, there were hundreds of books.

But nary a single one I wanted to read.

Kind of a depressing revelation for a writer.

Oblong is the kind of place where staff members are encouraged to write reviews and paste them on the bookshelves. The reviews are always in pencil. Half the time, the books the reviews are touting are no longer on the shelves.

Also, I noticed a number of books that should have been on the shelves weren't. Like Tayari Jones’ American Marriage. Bestseller, right? Oprah’s Book Club selection! Were they sold out? Or was Algonquin Books, the publisher, no longer selling to Oblong because Oblong owed them too much money?

That happens a lot to independent bookstores. Cash flow is inevitably a huge problem for indie booksellers: No big-ticket items to offset the crunch when there aren’t enough customers buying small-ticket items. The stores end up featuring books from fewer and fewer publishers. A strange kind of selection bias built right into the business model.

So instead of buying books, I bought half a pound of milk chocolate truffles at Krauss.

And wandered off to what is absolutely my favorite store in Rhinebeck: A.L. Stickle 5 & Dime.



A.L. Stickle is a portal in time.

Step into it, and you’re immediately transported back to the 1960s when life was kinder, gentler, and a helluva lot cheaper.

How do they keep their prices so low?

They must own the building.

Anyway, here are a few of the treasures you can find at A.L. Stickle:

Buttons! In button tubes:



Fabulous toys:



Tea towels celebrating fifty, fifty U-Nited States from thirteen original col-o-neez:



And candy you remember from when you were a kid:



A.L. Stickle is quite the happy-making place:



Came home and watched the first three episodes of Maniac on RTT’s recommendation. Kinda Mr. Robot meets Wes Anderson. He’s right: It’s right up my alley. I liked it a lot.

But I still need something to read.

The big deal on NYC subways right now is ads that don’t mention the product they’re advertising.



What the hell is Makiage?

I’m one high maintenance B…

It could be makeup. It could be Ben Wa balls. It could be an app that reminds you when it’s time to pick up your drycleaning.

The only thing that’s clear about Makiage is that it’s something aimed at women.

The dude in the black shirt pictured here, who between 53rd and Court periodically sprang from his seat and crouched on all fours to perform pushups on the subway floor, was not at all interested in Makiage. He stopped doing pushups when we got to Manhattan.

There’s another product that dominates the vast underground grotto between the 42nd Street shuttle and all the other subway lines. Its ads were all about gorgeous and racially diverse individuals trying to look casual in various beautiful locales. Lots of children but no adults over 40.

I can’t even remember the name of the product this campaign was pitching.

But then, I’m 66. That ad campaign would probably be deemed a failure if I remembered the name of the product.

###

Also overheard on the subway:

Girl One: Do you do Father’s Day?

Girl Two: Not really. You know my mother used to watch Jeopardy twice every day. Once at three in the afternoon. She’d memorize all the answers. Then when my father got home from work, she’d switch to an affiliate station, and they’d watch together. And my father was always really impressed by her because she got all the answers right!

Girl One: It would be hard to celebrate someone that stupid.

Girl Two: Tell me about it.

###

I took my pesto ingredients and traveled into the city to hang out with (not her real name) Camille.



I decided V didn’t deserve my pesto because V showed up two hours late to a house-hunting assignation.

Meet me at 11am at De Laval Place, she’d messaged me.

So, at 11am, there I was at De Laval Place.

But no Val.

“The real estate agent called me up 10 minutes ago and canceled the viewing,” the woman who owned the house told me. “But why don’t you come in and take a look? Maybe you can tell her about it.”

She was an incredibly sweet-faced woman, and omygawd! That house! If I had $150,000 lying around, I would have bought it on the spot. A jewel of a domicile, lying back maybe 100 yards from the street with secret gardens and a vine-covered terrace and a greenhouse. Its interior was equally incredible. The owner is an artist and had decorated it amazingly. There was a bright blue colander instead of a conventional lampshade on one of the kitchen overheads! (I know that sounds weird but it was both whimsical and utilitarian.) She’d placed these glass shelves on her dining nook windows and put antique wine glasses on them, all different colors, so that in the morning, you could tell, her kitchen was filled with shafts of colors as the sun shone through glasses:



“Why are you moving?” I asked. “Don’t you know you’re my new best friend?”

“I know, right?” she laughed. “My kids are all on the west coast. And they’ve kept up the pressure. So, I guess it’s time for me to move to the west coast, too.”

###

V showed up a couple of hours later. She was barely apologetic.

The house was wrong for her since she has two about-to-become-teenager sons, and the house is tiny and jewel-like. But the faults she found with it were the wrong faults.

“I won’t be able to keep chickens here!”

“Well, Val,” I said, “You won’t be able to keep chickens anywhere within Poughkeepsie city limits. I believe there’s an ordinance against it. It’s okay in Hyde Park, though.”

V is one of those pals I’ve collected through… I guess you’d have to call it attrition. She’s someone I know from my circus days. There are people from my circus days I liked much, much better, but I am simply awful at staying in touch with people; I live in a kind of protracted present tense where past and future both are alternate realities tethered to the real world of here and now by the most insubstantial of valences. V puts her claws into people and never lets go because she’s never sure when she may be able to use them. So, I’ve stayed in touch with V. By default.

I like V okay, and I admire her resourcefulness. She’s also an immensely talented photographer. So, you know. Not all bad.

Still. I was not about to cook for her.

I took them instead to the Jamaican restaurant where my ESL student Imane used to waitress.

“Does Imane still work here?” I asked.

“Who?”

So Imane. Through the cracks. Hopefully, not into the sewer. Though I’m not optimistic about that.



I hadn’t seen V’s boys in some time. I’d known them well as babies; it was fun to see how they turned out. I thought they were behaving remarkably well considering how bored they must have been and wished I had adhered to my earlier plan, which was to bring them some comic books. (Whenever I meet up with pals and their kids, I always try to bring distractions for the kids. Grownups are so-o-o boring; I figure it’s the least I can do.)

But V was cutting them no slack at all. Dylan, the older and taller of the two, began drumming on the table with his knife and fork.

“I told you: Cut that shit out!” V barked. “You are getting on my nerves, and there will be consequences!”

Ah! So Dylan is the fuck-up in the family dynamic. See his skeptical right-looking, upwardly slanting glance away from the camera. NLP fanatics would say, Ly-ing! Nicolas beaming full-frontal is Mama’s little suck-up.

Over lunch, V caught me up on all the circus gossip and berated the boys’ father ten different ways while I studied her (new!) buzz haircut and wondered whether I was a baaaaaad person for speculating that she’d found a new gender preference. I mean, she could be getting chemotherapy, right? Or maybe she just likes the look.

“So, why did Juliet and Corey the World’s Best Tiger Trainer break up anyway?” I asked.

“Because Corey couldn’t keep it zipped!” V snapped. “Men and their fucking dicks. These two Australian contortionists joined Kelly Martin in Fort Smith. Twins! By Mountainburg, he was doing one of them. Or both of them. She walked in on him and a twin. Turned around, walked out of the room, packed up the kids and the dogs, and boom! She was back in Paris, Texas in 24 hours.”

“I can’t imagine anyone cheating on Juliet!” I said. “She’s one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen.”

“Nice, too!” said V. “But crazy religious. Anyway, you probably heard: JDK bought Kelly Martin. So, it’s a piece of shit now.”

“No!!!!! Really? Is Fernando still working for him?”

“Fernando’s running the circus. But JDK isn’t paying him shit. Why did you ever work for him anyway?”

“Because I made sure he paid me a lot of money,” I said. “Are you still married to Fernando?”

“Yeah. That lying sack of shit.”

Dylan looked anxiously at his flatware.

###

In NYC, Camille and I spent the day at Rockaway Beach. A new ferry! It left from the old Brooklyn Army Terminal! It was fab!

So great to lie on a sandy beach and bake. So European! They don’t bake on California beaches. If you go to a beach in California, it’s generally with a specific purpose in mind: You’re going to surf, or dive for abalone, or collect shells, or if you are going to sunbathe, it’s a nude beach, and you’re showing off the results of three weeks on the Paleo diet.

I lay on the beach and emptied my mind of all thought.

I went swimming! For like five minutes, but still! The Atlantic Ocean experience! I got my hair wet.

For the rest of the time, I read and eavesdropped on various slice-o’-life groupings around us. Four Caucasian princesses who had obviously patterned their lives after the protagonists of Girls. A sextet of pallid, pot-bellied, French-speaking guys and their hot bikini-clad girlfriends. An older man and two younger men.

(“Father and sons?” I asked Camille. “Or aging homosexual and two young lovers?”

“Father and son,” Camille said. “And friend of son.”)

“The reason I started smoking dope is because I’m individual and different,” one of the young men was saying.

He launched into a long explanation of the many manifestations of his individuality and differences, but David Sedaris was more interesting. That’s one of the great things about Camille: She reads as much as I do, so we spend a great deal of time when we’re together reading rather than worrying about trying to make relevant conversation.

The young man did eventually hit the water. I watched him watching the shore; he wanted to make certain his companions were looking at him. He reminded me so much of RTT!

When we got hungry enough, we braved the line at the one food place on Rockaway Beach, an awesome Venezuelan restaurant, and then ferried back.



And I got to use Camille’s beauty products!

So, you know.

Just the best weekend.

Finished When You Are Engulfed in Flames.

After I turned the last page, I just sat there for 15 minutes or so, unblinking and unmoving, in that state of mindful self-extinction you’re only supposed to be able to achieve after years and years of rigorous meditation and contortionist yoga poses. The final sections of the book are that good.

David Sedaris is a fucking genius.

###

Later, I tried to finish The Club Dumas.

I’d been looking for that book for years when I finally stumbled across it in a secondhand bookstore in Ithaca two weeks ago. I crowed about my discovery to the BoyZ when I got back T-burg.

“I don’t understand,” said Robin. “If you wanted the book that much, why didn’t you just order it off Amazon?”

I blinked at him. “Well, it was kind of like a treasure hunt,” I tried to explain.

He rolled his eyes and shook his head.

Just one more reason to hate on Millennials, I guess. Who wants to live in a world where serendipitous discoveries are co-opted by book-delivering drones?

I sat under a horse chestnut tree on the Vanderbilt Estate grounds and read three chapters. It was a beautiful day, and I loved that horse chestnut. When I was growing up in New York City, horse chestnut trees were all over the place. I used to use to use their lovely pink, trumpet-shaped flowers to dress up sticks.

Eventually every horse chestnut tree in New York City succumbed to some sort of hideous leaf blight so that now there is not a single horse chestnut tree still standing in all of the five boroughs. More than the rising price of real estate, more than the destruction of the Cosmic Diner and the Coliseum Bookstore, the death of the horse chestnut trees signifies to me that the New York City I grew up is as dead as Pompeii even if you can still tour its charred remains.

I was overjoyed when I found a few survivors here in sleepy little Hyde Park.

Anyway, The Club Dumas is a vastly entertaining book for anyone who loves books because it’s all about forging antiquarian manuscripts. All I need to do now is find a financial backer, and I’m good for at least one Guttenberg Bible.

It’s also a handy reference to the life and working habits of Alexandre Dumas. I’ve always been fond of Dumas. The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers were two of my favorite books growing up. I knew, of course, that Dumas was mixed race; I did not know that his father was born a slave. I also did not know that he ran the writing equivalent of a Thomas Kinkade painting studio, and that his best known books were actually written by other people – when the first drafts were complete, Dumas would go over them and inject the necessary panache and zest into the prose and plotlines.

There are many, many lovely characters and passages in The Club Dumas – I’m particularly fond of the Cenizia Brothers and can’t think how I managed to pass up the opportunity to visit their shop when I was in Madrid – a place where (it seems increasingly likely) I will never go back. The novel was originally written in Spanish, and I imagine it would be a real treat to read in its native language. A lot of playfulness and poetry survived into translation, but one suspects the primary source has more.

Where the book falls apart is in plotting. It actually has two plots that aren’t at all connected, and this makes it very difficult to get caught up in either one. I kept forgetting who the characters were, where I had seen them before.

The hero is a kind of down-at-the-heels book detective named Corso (great name!) He drinks a lot of gin and is described as looking rather like a rabbit. (Maybe this description reads better in Spanish.) Corso is charged with verifying the authenticity of an original draft of The Three Musketeers and with verifying the authenticity of a 15th century occultist instruction manual entitled Of the Nine Doors of the Kingdom of Shadows. The publisher of that last was burned at the stake by the Inquisition.

When Roman Polanski made the book into a movie – with Johnny Depp as Corso – he focused on the occult plot. But the Dumas plot is actually the more interesting of the two.

###

After reading all afternoon, I came home and began working on an editing assignment. I’m kind of out of my depth on this one. It’s a highly technical scientific paper. Its author commissioned me to do line edits, but, in fact, it needs massive structural changes if it’s ever going to be printed in a professional journal as its author hopes it will. I am not a tech writer. I did not conceal that fact from my client when I took the job, and I’m a quick study – yadda, yadda, yadda – but the fact remains that the piece needs a tech writer.

I mean, I’ll get paid in any event. But…

###

In the evening, I stumbled across a link Max posted on FB to an NYT article about “the humiliating practice of sex testing female athletes.”

And remembered back to one of the great Olympics controversies of my youth, which involved some female East German athlete who had XY mosaicism.

And thought, You know, Max, there is no right or wrong here, there are only cultural trends.

Now, of course, it is the in thing to prate about the vicissitudes faced intersex/transgender/gender-nonconforming women.

Forty years ago, it was not so, and 40 years hence – after ISIS successfully imposes Sharia law across the U.S. – it may not be so. These things are not moral absolutes; they are fads.

Once again, I was just filled with annoyance at that whole self-righteous Millennial generation. Kind of as though I was contemplating those sentient cockroaches who will take over from humans after the collapse of our civilization.

Does every generation view its successors with such intense dislike?

Or am I just over-reacting? Once again?