Brenda and the F Word

Gypsies used to travel with nothing but a few gold coins braided into their hair. Alas! I own no gold coins. But I am travelling light. A single bag for a month’s flight. Will try and post from distant parts. So please, check in from time to time. Otherwise, am back August 10th. I’ll miss you.

“The only difference between the rich and the poor is the rich have more money.”
                                                                                        Lord Beaverbrook

They also have the classic 40 karat “tribal” diamond ring (tribal in the sense that any woman who is one has one) and 16 car, geo thermal heated, underground garages. (And don’t you love THAT contradiction. I mean, hurray for installing the gazillion dollar geo thermal heating system but what kind of fucking carbon
 footprint do you get with sixteen vehicles?) They also have enough disposable (like literally, disposable) income to empty an Olympic size swimming pool, re fill it with unchlorinated fresh water, and dump in over 2,000 goldfish. Then cover the pool with a Lucite dance floor.
“It just looked soooo beautiful,” the bbbbbillionaire said to me. “Especially with the lights glowing beneath.”
“Must have been a hell of a fish fry,” I grinned.
“What do you mean, I don’t understand,” she said, utterly befuddled.
“The lights,” I said. “The lights must have cooked them. And how did they breathe, covered with Lucite?”
“Well, I don’t know much about fish,” she replied, haughtily. “But I’m sure they were fine.”
And with that, she took off in a proverbial huff.
Really tho, other than this tiny twisted tale, I have to confess the three billionaires I met recently were pretty much like you and me.

Oh. But this is the story  like best. It’s about learning to be thrifty.
The father of one of my daughter’s friends gave his family a lesson on saving electricity last month.
“Shall I show you what you’re doing when you leave the god damn lights on, ” he said, gently dragging his daughters towards the bathroom.
“This is what you’re doing,” he added, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a fistful of dollar bills which he then proceeded to flush straight down the toilet. “Get it?”
Got it. Lesson learned.

My oldest and dearest English male friend arrived yesterday. He’d been fly fishing for sea trout in Wales at night. That’s right, at night. Now, like most Brits I know, B. loves his wine. In fact, the more he drinks, the soberer and funnier he becomes. But the thought of him and his gang boozing it up in the Welsh countryside then climbing into rubber hip waders and stumbling into a fast flowing river in THE DARK is a pretty fucking scary prospect. As he confirms (in a voice so rich and deep, I have a friend who says she’d be happy listening to him read the phone book outloud): “It doesn’t take much water in waders to end up in the drink.” hahah!

Fortunately, or unfortunately, the ping ping of his iPhone sent him scrambling for the riverbank. A text message informed him that the American company that distributes his books had just missed a 400 million dollar interest payment on a bond. So here is, wading into a different, but equally dangerous fast flowing river. All in the hopes of figuring out what that missed payment means in terms of the life and death of his own company.

The discussion last night was too bleak for words. Suffice it to say, friends of his in the print media claim that magazines and newspapers are extinct. Which isn’t really news, right? “What they can’t believe, Brenda, is how it happened. Out of nowhere, overnight. Like the meteor that hit the earth and killed all the dinosaurs.” And it isn’t all the Web’s fault, either. It’s the 70% drop in advertising. Jesus! 70%!! Enough of talk at bleak house. I’m an optimist, remember? 

Speaking of which…Over the past months, I’ve probably mentioned how hopelessly judgmental I am. And what a despicable snob  I also am. Both of which make reading BlueGirlInARedState such a pleasure. The blog is proof that you don’t have to be either…That is, judgmental or a snob in order to be extremely funny and interesting. You don’t even have to be from New York City. And how f’ing arrogant is THAT? 
So please, check her out.

Between posts on birds, bees, and fish, this seems to be turning into a themester’s blog. 

A great evening last week with my favorite four from across the river, plus us, a few divine Italians and a German x-treme sports photographer. (Any sport is x-treme to me. But nevermind.) Now, I am, despite what you might think, an optimist. Reluctant, perhaps, but still a woman who looks at, if not the bright side than certainly the less dismal side of life. Oh dear. That doesn’t sound like much of an optimist, does it?
But there is nothing like a table of very smart and beautiful thirty somethings (with one guy clinging to 29) to test one’s buoyancy levels. I mean, reigniting the fires of my thirties is almost as impossible as wrapping my legs around my neck. (that’s a yoga position, I think.) The point is, you can not discourage the dreams of youth. Ever. They are as perishable, as fragile, as the rarest of orchids. Or so they seem when regarded from the distance of age. You also need to avoid any and all discussion of “reinventing yourself.” (I, personally, detest the phrase.) Mostly because when you’re thirty, RE inventing yourself isn’t the problem. Bottom line? I had such a good time, I was still talking way past midnight.

We also had friends up to the money pit for the weekend. Great fun, too. Except for the discovery of a beehive the size of a fucking basketball. The bees built it right next to the barbecue. Did you know that when a bee leaves a stinger in you, it’s like implanting a little GPS system? It alerts all the other bees to your location. So they can zero in for the attack. You have to shut yourself up in the house (or better yet, sell it) to get rid of them. Did you know that the hive is made of saliva (who knew bees HAD saliva?) and other organic material and that you should gas or smoke them out them only at night?When they’re all back in the hive, not busy buzzing around all over the place, getting ready to attack you? (I’m kidding there. Supposedly, bees have a lot more on their tiny minds than the thought of attacking you.) In fact, did  you know bees are like dogs? Well, minus the legs and the bark. They can sense fear in a human from from a mile away? (OK. Maybe not a mile but from pretty far, anyway) And no, I didn’t Google bees. It was our guest, the fabulous German photog, who told me. Oh. As for the birds…I didn’t see any. Now back to writing my documentary for the Nature channel…

Laura Jacobs did a magnificent reading of her novel, The Bird Catcher last night. Poised (L. is always poised, particularly when she wears her pearl drop earrings) beneath the statue of Civil War Admiral David Glasgow Farragut at Madison Square Park, she managed to dodge a swooping large-winged colombo (that’s Latin for pigeon). Which seemed entirely appropriate considering the subject, at hand. And OK. Maybe she didn’t exactly dodge it. But I did see one do a fly by. Anyway, this is a woman who never hits a false note.  Not even when she’s singing. Yes, singing. Not even when toddlers scramble past her field of vision and the formidably beautiful Russian dancer, Valentina Part, drops by, fresh from an appearance on David Letterman. Ruth Peltason, the great organizer, was also there. As was the brilliant new-born blogger, Siobhan, of In The Next Apartment fame. In short, it was quite the New York event. I fled right after the reading. I suck at small talk. But I was delighted to see the line up in front of the tent, people, patiently, waiting to buy this magic book. 

I strode towards home with another kind of bird. A lanky, pale pink pin-striped, oh so female banker from Credit Suisse. Wearing 5 inch wooden stilletos, she raced along like fucking Road Runner, hand flailing around, in a desperate attempt to hail a cab. 
“What’s your hurry?” I had to ask as I had just walked past her colleagues, playing petanque and drinking beers at the Shake Shake. It looked like fun. If you like a lot of men trapped in suits.
“They call THIS a party?” she said, disdainfully. “Burgers and beer?”
“Not fun, huh?” I replied. 
“Fun,” she said, contemptuously, “is a yacht with Dom, a six course dinner, and dancing.”
“How the mighty hath fallen,” I  muttered to myself as she stood there, one leg up like a pink flamingo. 
And God. I’ve got birds on the brain today…

and here’s The Bird Catcher (properly embedded)

It now appears that I am unable to comment on my own motherf’ing blog. Which only confirms suspicions that I’m living in the midst of some kind of cyber conspiracy. Abject apologies to those kind enough to leave their thoughts who assume they go acknowledged. They do not. 

Yesterday afternoon, I watched Mo, the antique dealer, chase after some guy with a bat.
“He pissed in front of the store. Broad daylight. What was I supposta do? Thank him?”
I’ve seen sparrows flutter around Mo’s head and sit on his palm while he feeds them. I’ve seen him sit on the stoop, gently combing through his cat’s hair, caressing her throat. But I have no doubt that, if sufficiently provoked, Mo could kill a man. His fits of rage are the stuff of local legends. 
“Show me something beautiful,” I said, trying to distract him; to deflect the anger. “I need to look at something beautiful.”
Grinning, he winks, drops the bat, and signals me to follow.

It’s astounding to me. The fact this man lives in one room with no shower, a tiny sink, john, and fridge. His daily needs are probably no different than an old-fashioned Canadian woodsman or a French shepherd.

“Go ahead!” he says, pointing vaguely towards the back of the tiny shop.”You’ll know it when you see it.”

I always feel like an explorer on these solo expeditions through the sepulchral darkness and chaos.  Within minutes, I see it. It’s Venetian, I think. A Chinoiserie desk, the original bright red enamel  faded into a delicious, pale pink. The color of peppermint ice cream. The lacquer is chipped and the wood, cracked. When I, gingerly, open the top, I know enough to realize that someone has ruined it. Someone very, very rich. Rather than leave it intact, they’ve added a series of black lacquer drawers.
 ”Obstmesser Gabeln” Fruit knives and forks reads the label on one drawer. Lined in plush blue velvet, there is space for twenty place settings. And there are five more drawers with empty slots that once held silverware for everything from meat, fish, oysters, crab, caviar, lobster, tea, ice tea spoons, dessert forks, and expresso. 

Touching the velvet triggers the memory of a fantastic castle I saw on the cliffs of Trieste. It belonged to Archduke Maximilian, the one who was assassinated in Mexico. Long ago, I imagine that there might have been 200 servants in the house with sixteen in the kitchens, alone. I see young girls, giggling and gossiping quietly while they polish the silver that comes from these very same drawers. Men are hoisting pulleys, getting ready to light the candles in the two Bohemian crystal chandeliers while the lady of the house sits in front of her vanity table mirror, upstairs. She’s powdering her face while a maid stands, attentively, behind her, fiddling with the clasp of a diamond necklace before gently placing it around her mistress’ neck. 

This is why I feel such a desire, a craving, for old things. Because they transport me. Like books. Just the act of touching them holds some kind of magic for me. I feel as if I’m in touch with the hands, the lives, the stories, of everyone who has touched them before me. This is also why I hate pieces that are too restored. Pieces like this have been around for centuries. The damage is part of their identity. When a piece is stripped down and comes back all pretty and polished, it loses the very thing that defines its beauty. Its loses the marks of its experience, which is precisely what makes it so unique. 

Lost in my reveries, I don’t hear Mo’s footsteps and I flinch when he taps me on the shoulder.
“Had that beauty in storage for twenty years,” he says. “Picked it up somewhere near the Italian Alps. Must be twenty years now..” 
“But Mo. Why didn’t you try to sell it? It’s gorgeous.”
“I did try. Once. Nobody got it. But see, if everybody “gets” it, I mean, if we’re sellin’ stuff like hotcakes, then I’d know we were doin’ something wrong. They’re not supposta get it, see? Cause it’s not for everybody, what I do. This place here…It’s all about past lives. Other stores with the guys with the bow-ties, the accoutrements, and the banal talk…They’re narcotizing. They keep ya from thinkin’ for yourself.”

Accoutrements? Narcotizing? I love how Mo makes up words. I love how he pronounces banal, ba, short a, nail. Most of all, I love his “philosophy. It gives me hope.

So what the fuck is up with the news that MJ’s brain is not in that gold casket? Leave it to good, old Al Sharpton, a man who has always loathed the spotlight, to sum it all up: “Ain’t nothin’ strange about your daddy,” he roared to little Blanket, Paris, Prince Michael and 25,000 screaming mourners. “It was strange what he had to deal with.” Well, I guess the poor guy’s still dealing with it. I mean, his brain?? Come on…
However, my absolute favorite commentary about the spectacle comes from the one and only Almighty Wolcott. The last line had me weeping…

Galaxy Defenders…