Friday, May 28, 2010

Edith Massey May 28, 1918 - Oct 24, 1984

Sweet as could be.  Edith Massey was a sweet bartender in a dive bar in Baltimore.  John Waters discovered her in that role.  He turned her into the perfect actress for several different roles in his films.  Her stardom in no way diminished her sweetness, and she was funny.  I once was chatting with her at a party when John Waters walked by.  "There's the boss," Edith said, indicating him with a hitchhiking thumb gesture.  "If he tells me to comb my hair I have to comb my hair."

I've loved John Mellencamp's music from his early days, but I realized how seriously cool my fellow Hoosier was when he chose Edith Massey to play his "true" lover in the video of his song "This Time" and also pictured her on the cover of his 1980 album "Nothing Matters and What if it Did" on which "This Time" was one of the tracks.


Tuesday, May 25, 2010

This Driver's Definitely Going to Hell

Not really ... forgiveness is a virtue and Jesus was virtuous.

Monday, May 24, 2010

Sylvia Plath - Part VIII

A couple weeks ago I told a man at work that I couldn't stand to listen to Tom Waits though I thought I'd like his lyrics.  He made me a CD of what he called "tuneful" Tom Waits.  I listened to it but was distracted while doing so.  He asked again today if I'd had a chance to listen to it and did I like it.  I said that meanwhile a release of Sylvia Plath reading her poetry had arrived in the mail and that it is all I've listened to.  He said, "Can you hear the sound of hissing gas in the background?" 

Sunday, May 23, 2010

One in A Thousand

Ralph Hatke, Portage Lake, Michigan; circa 1968

I never think I'm an especially good photographer but I came to realize that if you take, say, one thousand photographs, one or two or three might turn out to look professional.  This is my friend and former Western Union co-worker, Ralph, who loves boating.  

Saturday, May 22, 2010

New Wallet

My brother and I, after a few nights in Rouen -- where we viewed the famous "lace" cathedral(much of which, unfortunately, was enclosed in scaffolding), and visited the very interesting museum at the hospital where Gustave Flaubert was born (his father was a doctor there), and took a train up to Caen where we purchased a five-hour guided tour of the somberly amazing scenes of the June 6, 1944, invasion of Normandy -- were now back in Paris, deboarding at Gare St. Lazare.  We went directly from the station into the Metro; I had to get out my wallet in which I had tucked my stash of Metro tickets; I extracted one ticket and replaced my wallet and buttoned my pocket.  We rode to Station Oberkampf, exited the station, and were walking to our hotel.  I don't know what made me reach again for my wallet but I said, "Oh my god!  My wallet is gone!"  Shucks!  Not to worry; we were putting everything on my brother's credit card anyhow, but I did have something like $500 in Euros and dollars in my wallet, plus the usuals ... credit cards, driver's license, two poems that I've kept in there for years (Emily Dickinson's "Because I could not stop for Death" and e e cummings' "I thank you God")  We walked a few more steps, my crest fallen, when suddenly Bernard announced that his wallet too was gone!

Ah, still not to worry.  Our passports and some traveler cheques were in our suitcases.

Here's what I recalled:  As I'd stepped onto the Metro car a girl just in front of me, perhaps twelve or thirteen, stopped so abruptly that I bumped into her; she immediately reached both arms out and grabbed the poles one grasps so as to not be jostled; I was irritated and puzzled that she didn't proceed on into the car so that I too could, or that she might at least lower her arms so I could step around her; simultaneously someone behind me bumped into me.

Classic!  I've seen it on "Sixty Minutes"!  How did I not recognize immediately what was happening?

And how my brother, who was carrying his wallet in his front pants pocket, and who had immediately taken a fold-down seat just inside the door of the Metro car, got it picked I can't imagine, though the gorgeous young woman at the Police Station who took down our report said that pickpockets are truly artists of stealth.

We gained a good perspective quickly enough ... I hoped that my money would go towards food for some people who were hungry.  And I was grateful that of all the misfortunes that one may meet at any moment of any day, this one was of the minor class.

It was the second pickpocket of my life.  At Mardi Gras in 1965 a pal and I, having just that afternoon arrived from Chicago on The City of New Orleans, were, come evening, walking down a street looking for a place to eat.  Suddenly a somewhat elderly woman behind me fell down, jostling me as she did so.  I took pity upon her, hoping she was not hurt.  I reached to help her up but, giving me a dirty look as if I had caused her fall, she scrambled to an upright position on her own, and marched off in the opposite direction with, presumably, my wallet, my eighty bucks spending money, and an autograph of Joan Baez which I'd tucked into said wallet.

A night or two later I met a nice-looking thirty-ish man who lived in New York City and who thought I was that era's equivalent of today's to die for.  He took me to dinner at Antoine's, a fine restaurant.  I was not accustomed to such elegance. and was uncomfortable in the setting ... thick white tablecloths, tuxedo-ed waiters each with a starched napkin draped over his forearm.  This man told me that if I'd go to New York City and live with him he would put me through college.  "You're too smart to be wasting your life working at Western Union," he said.

I was living in Michigan at the time.  I was having fun.  I had too many good friends there to even think of up and moving to New York City.  Besides I didn't want to go to college.  I did consider, though, that it would (perhaps) have been a handsome return on my $80 loss.

When I declined his offer he said, "You need a psychiatrist," and offered to pay for that as well.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Hiatus/Hejira


This guy who gets crushes on all sorts of writers and deals with numerous grave matters is headed for France and will have some fresh posts come about May 18th. His primary goals: to pay homage at the grave of Susan Sontag at Cimetiere de Montparnasse in Paris; to pay respects at Normandy to those who gave their lives for a great cause; and to see "The Lace" Cathedral in Rouen. And, more immediately, to check if Proust had any comments about this particular cathedral in his 4000-page novel, comments which I should read before I visit the cathedral. (Luckily, the excellent Modern Library edition of In Search of Lost Time has, at the end of Volume VI, wonderful indexes of (a) characters, (b) persons, (c) places, and (d) themes. Thus, I can see, and at just a glance, that Rouen is mentioned on page 147 in Volume 5, and again in Volume 6 on page 170! Additionally each volume contains its very own synopsis.)

So: Au revoir!