I've been feeling a little overwhelmed with some of life's fine print, so I'm taking some time off Litsy to be obsessive-compulsive about other things. So... (see next post)...

I'll catch back up with you all some time later in July (My copy of The Summer Book is in transit, so I'll be ready for the buddy read). Wishing you all a fantastic literary journey!

"Memory must remain silent, a go-between for rainy days..."

"Between these two companions I could easily think of myself as a clock, a clock that was too sentimental to have any concept of time..."

"Dawn was hanging strips of innocence on the trees. A small boat finished rusting, abandoned by mankind."

While you don't have to go and "set the watchman" by these stories, the quality ranges from great to poor-- some are really just sketches for films. And you can't help reading between the lines and wondering if Fitzgerald attempted to make a Faustian bargain with Hollywood and suffered for it. The NYT asked a biographer to review this book, and while I don't agree that the introductions are better than the stories, there is plenty to snark about.

"The flower, a rose, is almost done wilting in the toothbrush glass.
Yesterday, at the same time, it was resplendent on my coat, the buttonhole high enough for it to surprise my face at the slightest tilt of my head."

This illustrated love story tells the true tale of a young JD Salinger and the even younger estranged daughter of Eugene O'Neill, Oona. The French author knows quite a bit about mid-20th century American literature and enjoys bringing the writers alive for the reader (although imagining Salinger's dialogue proves problematic). The profuse illustrations steep the novel in a delightful nostalgia that can only be regained by reading.

That evening at home, Oona asked Truman Capote for advice. Should she go? Capote could never stand Salinger: Socialites often confuse misanthropy with arrogance.

"So, you're really going to see the ex-soldier who writes like a baby?"

"Don't! You were lucky. You were too young to fight. You wouldn't have lasted ten minutes."

"Me? Surrounded by handsome boys in battle dress? Cherie, you're describing my wettest dream!"

... the patient was in an increasingly impatient and nervous mood.

"Mr. Monson, you can't cook with a temperature of a 103."

"Why not? Think of the Huns. They used raw steak for their saddles all day-- that broke down the fiber-- just like a modern kitchen range."

"Mr. Monson!"

?

Painting by Deborah DeWit (she does a lot of bookishly themed paintings).

I thoroughly enjoyed the apotheosis of the 12-year-old narrator from extravagant child into recalcitrant puberty. (The older one gets the more mythologized our youth becomes.) I loved his observations as a 1st generation American child of immigrants from India. The contrasts of exotic Orientalist desires with suburban Ohio was entertaining, but I thought the protagonist's hedonism bordered on a disturbing and undiagnosed psychosis.

"I've been creating my own whimsy--or at least my heart has-- and that whimsy has led me to exhibit my artistic self in its most unfettered state. The world can be as uncommonly beautiful as you want it to be as long as you've given yourself over to that whimsy, however melancholy and lonely it may be sometimes."

Quote paired with a Pierre et Gilles photograph.

"The trouble was not so much the lack of boys as the impossibility of doing anything gay and glamorous without boys."

After spending most of the night up with a persistent cough, I took the afternoon off work to convalesce. I lounged by a huge picture window while a storm raged outside and I just read and read and... coughed.

"Books are much better companions to me than people. A book's content never changes, and yet it is always intriguing; something you read can mean something completely different to you at a different time. This is not the case with my classmates. If I've learned anything, it's that people can be devastating at any given moment."

Painting by Giovanni Giacometti.

Re: Salinger's woods in NH:

"In this sepulchral forest, even in broad daylight, beneath the interlacing branches, it felt like midnight. Entering a forest is a magical rite: There are woodland traverses in every fairytale, in German Romantic literature as much in Disney films. The sun was blinking through the trees: day, night, day, night. The light appeared & disappeared again as if the sun wanted to send a message in Morse--Turn back. Stop."

Look what happened when I tried to fit this erudite book on my overstuffed shelves! The book waterfall is by sculptress Alicia Martin, but it depicts how I feel after reading Levy's beautiful book from which there is much to glean--even for goyim like me. It's a whirlwind of poetic prose, philosophy, biblical exegesis & politics. While some sections run long for my tastes (single sentence paragraphs), he often seems more French than anything else.

"The genius of Judaism, its main genius, resides in the ability-- whether or not one prays... to produce a little of the intelligence that will offer people, all people, a little of the teaching that they need to be different from others, to stand out from the crowd to which they are never fated to belong..."

"I think history is like a long sentence interspersed with silences that give the human learner time to breath. To save the world, it is enough to save fragments of true speech, knowing that the intervening jumble was nothing more than breathing space."

I woke up with a really bad head cold and saw the sign... maybe I can get some reading done today. (Actually I saw this sign on Tumblr, but it will do just fine...)

A new book every month from the #NYRB is such great joy. This month's book is about a Danish expedition into Yemen. Six men (an artist, a botanist, an astronomer, a doctor, a philologist & a manservant) set out on an ill fated voyage. Seven years later only one returns to a country that had entirely forgotten about them. Apparently the material that comprises this book was stored in a Danish archives & not brought to light until the 20th century.

This is one of Eric Fischl's new paintings at the Skarstedt Gallery in NYC. Fischl continues to mine America's psychological landscape just in time for our #memorialday . (I put a little sticker over the figure's pop tart.)

Regarding the narrator's pundit at his Temple in Ohio: "He had an obsidian comb-over. And he transitions from Hindi to Sanskrit to English so quickly that I often don't know which he is trying to speak. It's Hinglishskrit."

And about his mother: "Even though my mother has come to the Midwest from the most exotic and dangerous lands, Ohio can scare the hell out of her. India may be full of man-eating tigers, but Ohio is full of Ohioans."

"I wish... you could read letters you wrote 46 years ago. It is very painful reading," taunts JD Salinger in this transcript of a legal deposition from 1986. The book scrapes the very bottom of the barrel for sundry articles republished from various publications. It takes advantage of fans like me who are desperate for Salinger materials. The old writer comes across both world weary & ridiculously naive about legal proceedings. For phonies only.

For our last night in NYC, we're back at the ballet: Giselle. The background photo is of the spectacular lotus ceiling... I don't want to go home...

Albertine Bookstore carried a number of collectibles too. I got all out of breath...

The French Embassy's Albertine Bookstore in NYC is literally HEAVENLY! The celestial ceiling is swoon-worthy and the entrance stately and statuesque. They carry books in French AND translation (I'll share a pic of my stack later). It really is a wonderful bookstore! I'll post another pic in just a sec...

#AlbertineBookstore

Christine Ebersole & Patti Lupone "face off" as Helena Rubinstein & Elizabeth Arden in War Paint. Bottom photo is of the scrim when you enter the theatre.

Tonight we saw Kevin Kline's hilariously virtuosic performance in Noel Coward's Present Laughter. He was all that and a bag of fish and chips. (If you're wondering why his photo has a line down his face, it's because the poster was plastered over the theater's door.)

Went to an interesting exhibit at the Japan Society entitled, "The Third Gender," about wakashu--young men who were highly desirable by both men and women. The book in the upper left dates perhaps to 1729, and shows two women watching a wakashu make out with his man. The wakashu are often difficult to distinguish from women in art, but are noticeable by a small shaved mark behind their forelocks.

One of my most favorite places in the world-- the Morgan Library and Museum. Bottom right photo is from their Emily Dickinson exhibit (I was in heaven-- they even had a lock of her bright auburn hair--lower left).

We passed Penguin Random House all closed up for the night. I love how their books are all lit up and behind glass like cold desserts in a cafe.

While I'm not an Amazon fan (I hold nothing against those who are), I couldn't help being curious about their new store on Columbus Circle that opened today. Unless you're a Prime member, the books are list price.

Seeing Laurie Metcalf & Chris Cooper in A Doll's House Part 2!

To get into the Whitney Biennial, you have to stand in line by all their art books... the agony! As for the show, one nihilistic artist had large panels of text (lower left) and seemed to suggest censorship of just about everything... Appears to be the era we're living in... (at least in the US).

Hey, did y'all know they made a musical from Thornton Wilder's Matchmaker?! 😉We decided to check it out tonight!!!

Up next: seeing a matinee of Whipped Cream at American Ballet Theatre with production design by pop surrealist Mark Ryden.

I took the time this morning to do some research at the NY Historical Society. I photographed this old cookbook of my ancestors'! 🤓

First up: New York City Ballet!

When I read on the train I feel very stationary and yet I know the world is whirling by.

#ReadersOnVacation

After I stopped blaming this book for not being what I thought it was (quirky & fun), & took it on its own terms (dark & serious), I appreciated it more for daring to ask how we can possibly have true relationships in a disparate world. The book catalogs all the vicissitudes of alienation: from nature, from God, from sex, from violence & war, from assimilation & culturalizaton, from language, from despots real & imagined, familial & feline.

I've been trying to research what real New Yorkers were reading before I get up to the city (I don't want to look like a bumpkin).

#fakebooks #ScottRogowskySubwayBooks

In planning our upcoming trip to NYC, I so regret I didn't get tickets for Little Foxes! I bought all my tickets about 4 months ago & I couldn't tell then which nights Laura Linney would play Regina. But I ended up with other great shows-- all heavily nominated for Tonys, et al. We had to hire a pet sitter for our little cat who's been feeling under the weather so now I gotta go clean house... but wait...what's that book at the edge of the table?

Tonight we ate dinner @ the Greek Fest. They said there would be dancers so of course I thought of all the beautiful kouroi from this book, dancing naked with cymbals on their fingers & beads in their hair. But NO. The men had on black woolen culottes with go-go boots & red sashes on their heads like they were l'il Edie Beale or something. And there must have been a lot of Germans there because they all kept screaming for their grandpas: Opa ! 🙄

I gave this limited edition book to my spouse for his birthday yesterday. It is a very realistic replica of a sketchbook that Egon Schiele carried around with him-- including pencil smudges and soiled paper edges! It comes with a presentation box and a small hardbound book of notes (the sketchbook is softbound like a small moleskin pad). I attached this post to an older record, although this book is newly published by the Neue Galerie in NYC.

Here's Virgina Woolf's passport photo I found online. It says she wants to go to... hard to make out... the lighthouse or something. I dunno...

#WritersOnVacation

Who dunnit? Hmmm... so hard to choose...

#pulpfiction

I think I just found a history of my family!

@Suet624

Gertrude's & Alice's passport photos! Amazingly they were both the same height (at least according to their passports) 5'2.5". Gertrude wrote a note that they attached to Alice's passport which stated Alice was her secretary and she lived with her in that capacity. That's kinda like Donald Trump calling everyone's attention to something only to deny what it really is.

#WritersOnVacation

Or should I take this one?

#queerbooks

I'm trying to decide if I should take this book on vacation to Fire Island... Has anyone read it??? 😉

(I love how the call boy is going straight for the john's pocket square 🙃)

#ReadersOnVacation #queerbooks