So, I'm reading The Dud Avocado and it's a lot of fun but I have profoundly mixed feelings about its author Elaine Dundy for the following reason:

I used to have this old friend (she was old, I mean, I didn't know her for all that long) named Lise and when GK4 and I lived in London (she was an old friend of his family's in both senses) we spent a lot of time at her apartment. Later she and I got really close and I stayed with her a few times. She was utterly marvelous; she had the deepest whiskey tenor you've ever heard and she smoked like a chimney and drank like a fish and you could ask her anything from where to find the best salt beef to where to rent a top hat to the best car service plus how to get discounts therefrom - and she knew!And she was endlessly generous and loved to help people in a very unfussy way. She was also one of those people who's incidentally met everyone in the world. She never brought it up but if, say Peter Ustinov or Samuel Beckett or Simone de Beauvoir or the Labor Whip came up, it turned out she'd in fact known/translated for/worked with/dated all of them. When she died it was a great loss to the world.

Anyway, apparently once in the 60's she and her husband were throwing a party (they were known for their marvelous parties) and Kenneth Tynan and Elaine Dundy (to whom he was married at the time) were there, and Lise spied Elaine Dundy grinding out cigarettes into the rug. Lise asked her if she wouldn't mind not doing that, to which Elaine Dundy replied,
"Fuck off, bitch."
Said Lise, "This is my house, and if there's to be any fucking off, it shall be by you," and kicked them out.

Had the following exchange with Maeve:

"So, I made something very excellent/disgusting last night. I made a half batch and here were my quantities:

Unroll one tube Pillsbury Crescent Rolls and separate into rectangles (4.)

Spread with a mixture of 3 T butter, 1/3 c. l.b. sugar, 1 t cinnamon, 1/4 t nutmeg.

Roll, short end first. Chill at least 1/2 hour. Slice each log into 6 rolls. Place tightly (use foil to fill gap) and bake at 375 for 15-20.
(Note: in future I'd probably use half white sugar for grainier texture.)

These are very tiny."





Reply


"Interesting. I heard an excellent/disgusting tip on how to make boxed brownies palatable:

sub black coffee for water (no-brainer)
sub mayonnaise for vegetable oil (shocking!)

Am intrigued, will probably try in distant future and report back."

Here is something strange

The other night I got a call from (inebriated) GK4 Former Fiance (I was trying to go to bed at the time) in which he drunkenly trashed various friends of mine, broke into Latin, talked a good bit about "bones turning to dust", made various inappropriate sexual comments and rambled philosophically for some minutes before I hung up on him. He requested that I blog about the call, by the way, but I was too annoyed. Until now.

The next day I received a chipper text about his first day of classes. I called him back in a fury.

"Is that all you have to say?" I demanded. "No apology for that call?"

It soon transpired that he had absolutely no recollection of calling me; I made him check his calling history to verify it. It seems he'd had some Chartreuse, which went to his head.

Slim texted, "The Boy Bait has turned predatory and slightly alcoholic." We have thrown it out.

He also texted that he'd cut his hair "and look like a hillbilly's gerbil." Having seen him, I'd say more kind of creepy and militaristic/Travis Bickle.

Saw Beethhoven's 2nd last night. Also, Mozart concerto for "basset" clarinet, which they happened to have handy - and I'm a sucker for period instruments. The soloist, Kari Kriikku, was excellent, but looked uncannily like a Moomin. It's true, I have been dipping into Moominsummer Madness, which perhaps gives me a warped idea of Finland generally. (Although I thought he looked Snufkin-like before I knew his nationality.) I love the luxury of these free concert tickets (my mother works there and there are always tickets going begging.) It removes the ceremony from the experience and allows one to really just enjoy the music, go when one wants etc.

fyi: finally have a ring. It's lapis ("Some lump, ah God, of lapis lazuli, Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape, Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast!" as Browning would have it)and in the image of an ancient Egyptian piece in the Met's collection . I have been silently singing, "she has an Egyptian ring/It sparkles before she speaks" all night.

Here's Yeats for ya, "Lapis Lazuli":

Every discoloration of the stone,
Every accidental crack or dent,
Seems a water-course or an avalanche,
Or lofty slope where it still snows
Though doubtless plum or cherry-branch
Sweetens the little half-way house
Those Chinamen climb towards, and I
Delight to imagine them seated there;
There, on the mountain and the sky,
On all the tragic scene they stare.
One asks for mournful melodies;
Accomplished fingers begin to play.
Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes,
Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.

I finished Never Let Me Go, as it was too good to put down, and while it did give me some nightmares (dying elementary school classmates and some secret little sister who existed in a parallel 1940's universe), I think the fainting cannot be laid at its door! In any case, I'll get a physical. Have started The Dud Avocado - await reports.

My chum Buckingham has had a bit of trouble lately with the chap at her local 24-hour-market which, due to the hours she works, she needs to patronize pretty regularly. He's nice, but has become rather overly familiar and generally makes the process of buying canned beans a fraught and stressful one (this is the sort of thing women, especially friendly ones, understand immediately and men, not at all.) I wrote my dapper friend Peter, who lives in the same neighborhood, who says he's game to go in with jer some night - which is sadly but truly usually the easiest and kindest way to deal with this kind of situation. Await reports.

I regret any slander of the Blueberry Boy Bait. Almost a week later, it is still moist and delicious.

Yesterday got the promised haircut at a spot in Williamsburg. "Ginger" (who amongst the hairdressers had no surname on her card, the boldness of which I kind of liked) was terrific - black bob, Joan Crawford lips and a 4" heel - and we chattered a mile a minute. She was very kind about the ill-judged at-home haircut and said, "I'm going to make it look like you cut it yourself - only good." The up-shot is, it looks pretty much the same, which is what I look for in a haircut.

While over there, I stopped by this vintage menwear store and while I was waiting for someone to ring me up (never a high priority in Williamsburg), overheard the salesgirl say, "I really wasn't into the way the bouncer acted. I mean, treating someone that way, it's just so 20th Century." Am obviously now saying this about everything.

Had plans to dine with David/Moishe (always playing with his psuedo) and due to a communication error ended up at Fette Sau (hipster bbq) while he was at DuMont Burger. Downed a quick bourbon then compromised on Bonita where we had some very good tacos (fish, pork resoectively) and deemed things "20th Century" for a while, also the fact that this hipster whom he approached on the bus the other day was obviously lying when he claimed a shirt was "vintage" and it obviously wasn't. (NB this sort of behavior is highly 20th C.) Slim spent the evening with the Old Timey musicians nd did a little light tree-climbing. "We're having a party in Central park tomorrow night, you should come,' Slim told me when he came home much later. Further questioning revealed it to be the worst party ever (aka "drinking out of a paper bag") so I said I'd think about it.

I have read about half of Never Let Me Go and just don't know that I can finish it. It's heartbreaking, but more to the point, all the "donations" business makes me a bit light-headed. Well, more than a bit: I fainted on the Hoyt-Schermerhorn subway platform todayon my way home from the Greenmarket (in fairness I think there's something wrong physically) and am still woozy now. Then too, was duped: several people who know my strong feelings about fake governments and vaguely post-apolocalyptic stuff generally deliberately concealed this aspect of the novel from me, which is fair enough as I'm completely unreasonable on this point, but still galling.

Slim passed his exam with flying colors - 95% - but then hurt my feelings by opting to celebrate with the dullest sorts of debauchery instead of a dinner or something. When I told him why I was miffed, he tried to make it up to me by arranging a date for tomorrow, but I told him coolly that he'd really need to give me more notice as I'm booked through Sunday, which is really only partially true as my plans for Thursday are just going to a French movie by myself at the Film Forum.

("All-around gymnasts are like the Chinese panda: tougher and tougher to find.")

I am getting a haircut tomorrow.
"Do you want something edgy or more classic?" asked the guy at the desk (who was rocking a bob, skinny tie and suspenders.)
"I want," I said, "someone who won't scold me for having cut my own hair." Let's hope "Ginger" is that person!

I picked up a number of 60s comfort reads at the SalvA on Bedford: Hedgerow and From Secret Places, both English country-house romantic suspense. Holding them for a rainy day.

There are two very cute hipster carpenters working on the (we hear) nascent whiskey bar next door to the shop. Buckingham and the younger one are engaged in a silent flirtation. I gave Maeve explicit instructions to make Buck speak to him on some pretext and, if she won't, to go and instruct him to ask her out. Or at least talk her up. I went over to do it myself yesterday but they'd already knocked off for the day. I have no qualms about humiliating myself on my friends' account. Time allowing, I'm going to swing by Ready-Set tomorrow and, if I see a promising-looking young carpenter, put in a good work for Buckingham. (She fancies the idea of a sensitive woodworker. Well, don't we all. Slim of course is in fact a carpenter at the Met, so there you are.)

Slim came by to check on me post-faint. Now he's out with some friends from North Carolina, all of whom play Old Timey banjo and stuff. I admire this tremendously but never know what to talk about with this genre of friend as I always feel rather talky and neurasthenic, as though I ought to be able to just whip out a harp and yowl something soulful and alternately be kind of wise and silent - or at the very least throw back a lot of liquor and have a husky laugh. Well, they say the Jewish gene makes for lightweights, so that's half an excuse.