Marie Mutsuki Mockett

I'm devastated.

The above was going to be my Halloween costume. All I needed was an afro and then maybe some camouflage pants I intended to pick up at the Salvation Army (or I was going to jerry rig my Gap capris). Since I live in Jackson Heights, home of a substantial sub-continent immigrant population, it was going to be easy to get Gordon one of those little white hats. He was nervous about dressing up as Obama, but I explained that pretending to be Obama was not just for black people anymore--I seem to recall a Time Out New York cover with two people dressed up as the satirical Barack and Michelle but numerous searches have resulted in no Jpeg. (And, yes, I realize this might have been offensive for some, but I live in New York and it's Halloween).

Our friends were going as Sarah Palin and John McCain. We were going to pose for a group photo. It was going to be fun.

Now, one of us has a pre-marathon injury, one is sick and one is on some kind of medication. Which leaves just me. With my afro. With no context. Which leaves the entire ensemble sort of meaningless.

Sigh. Back to a Halloween-less adult life it is. There's always next year, but I doubt I'll come up with such a fun ensemble again!

The neighbors downstairs are perfect. They are environmentally friendly and I suspect do not even exhale CO2. They taught everyone in the building to crush plastic bottles so we use fewer plastic bags for recycling. They can repaint, repatch, refix, retile, redo everything. They have cool accents. They never get mad. They wear nice clothes. They are both gorgeous.



We recently visited their apartment, (they served us food they made) and it looked like something out of a Design Within Reach catalogue. I got sleepy because their lighting was soothing and perfect. When we went home, my husband said, "What did you think of their place?" And I said, "It was cool." And he said, "It was so calm. They have no clutter." And I said, "Yes, decorated spaces always look calm because they have no books and no CDs."



Seriously, if you look at any decorating magazine featuring rooms that have been feng shuied to death, you will see few, if any, books. People who live in magazine-worthy designed spaces do not appear to have hobbies.

I started to think that I should shed some books.

I called a good friend and asked her: "How often do you book purge and how do you decide to get rid of certain titles?" She told me her criteria, which I won't list here because it touches on matters rather personal. I said that I noticed I had a certain book on my shelf--a "media endorsed book group" book that had been turned into a Hollywood film a few years ago, and my friend said, "Oh, just get rid of that." I said, "Did you read it?" And she said, "I don't have to. Just get rid of it." And I thought, right, what am I doing with this overwrought tome on my shelf? I like to keep books from which I'm inclined to learn something about technique, or which I enjoyed. This media-mogul endorsed book does not fit the bill. The book is going to go.

Then I thought again about the perfect neighbors downstairs. Maybe I had judged them too cynicaly. Maybe they have plenty of books, but because they don't believe in killing trees, they have books in digital form. Maybe they have a huge library of CDs (at least one of them is a musician) and their music is all in a library on the computer. Maybe, I thought, they each have a Kindle.

I've started seeing the Kindle on the subway in New York, and while I still think it is ugly--it looks like some kind of KSwiss shoe from the 80s--it's intriguing.






If I had a Kindle, I could download the new "literary hit" for about 10 bucks. Better still, I could read the first chapter for free to see if it is the kind of book I'm inclined to finish. And if I love the book, I could go buy the hardback. I could read the latest nonfiction title heralding disaster and absorb it and freak out and forget about it when it turns out to be wrong, without having to buy the book, the object, and look at it sitting on my shelf without any relevance six months later. I could travel with several novels pre-downloaded, and would thus have more space in my suitcase. I could declutter the apartment. I would never be like the perfect neighbors downstairs, but maybe I wouldn't have to look at my pile of books and sigh and wonder how many I can carry at a time to Housing Works for recycling.



I took a look at Sony's eReader bookstore. Um, no. Not much for me. The Amazon bookstore on the other hand--and the new deal that Google has signed with the Author's Guild--makes me feel that the electronic book "revolution" is really here. I can take it. I recently read a book on my iPhone (Dear Steve Jobs: Can't you work something out with Jeff Bezos? He needs you). I think I'm almost ready for the Kindle.

The obituary finally runs today in the Monterey Peninsula Herald. Text and photo are reprinted below. You can sign the guestbook here if you like.

Carmel--John Hilliker Mockett, 69, passed away June 8th at the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula in Monterey, California. His wife Kazuko, daughter Marie and brother Paul were at his side. John was born in Mill Valley, California on September 30, 1938. He spent his formative years in Kimball, Nebraska after the family moved when he was seven years old to run the family wheat farm. Ever the intrepid traveler, he visited Libya, Greece, Western Europe, the Balkans, Japan and beyond, where he carefully photographed locals and artifacts; later he would compile his photos into slideshows he loved to share with friends and family.

An accomplished musician, John played piano, violin and French horn. During his military service, he serenaded the Kennedys in Washington DC. In college, he frequently played the lead in theater productions, including “The Man Who Came to Dinner” and “The Glass Menagerie”; he performed in MPC’s production of Sam Shepherd’s “Buried Child.” A lover of all the arts, his particular interest in opera sent him to Vienna, Austria where he met his future wife, Kazuko, on a chance encounter in the standing room section at the Vienna Opera House. At six foot two, John was substantially taller than the petite Japanese woman and he gallantly offered her a place in front of him so she could see. A romance was born, with the two initially speaking in German to communicate—the only language they had in common at the time. After marriage, the couple moved to Carmel, California, which would be their home for the next 40 years.

A connoisseur of art and antiques, John became adept at art restoration and repair, frequently fixing objects for his friends. He used his skill at handiwork to build half of the family home himself, to design and craft his daughter's childhood dollhouse and mend her violin, and to invent and install an invisible cat door. A farmer by training, John's green thumb was always evident in the orchids he raised and shared with the local Orchid Society and in the lush garden he landscaped and tended carefully with his family. Neighbors were often offered apples, berries, and vegetables. Despite childhood dyslexia, John was a dedicated reader and his wide-ranging intellectual curiosity filled the Mockett house with books on Jungian psychology, archeology, biographies of the founding fathers, physics, computer programming, and other subjects. His creativity extended to business; John developed several real estate properties in Carmel, and pioneered cost-cutting and environmentally friendly techniques on the family wheat farm, which he ran with his brother, Paul.

A gentle and intuitive man of great integrity, John is tremendously missed by family and friends. He is irreplaceable. John is survived by his wife Kazuko H. Mockett, and their daughter Marie Mutsuki Mockett, a writer, who is married to Gordon A. Drummond, originally of Broughty Ferry, Scotland. A private memorial service has already been held at the Mockett home. In lieu of donations, the family asks that mourners support the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States, the candidate John enthusiastically endorsed.

Regular readers know of my longing to go home. What does it say about me that I am supposed to be an adult, but that I don't have a fixed sense of home, or that I still want the one I had as a child?

It is raining this morning in New York. So far, it's a gentle rain and the sound reminds me of the kind of rain we get in California. It's a cozy, contemplative rain. If I could transport myself right now, it would be either to just north of San Francisco in Marin County, perhaps looking over the Golden Gate Bridge, or to a certain rock by the beach in the Carmel Meadows.

If I could just be in one of those two places, then I would feel that the world would be okay again, that it isn't futile to press forward. Sometimes my imagination takes hold when I feel this way and I actually start to imagine that I'm in the place I want to be. I suppose that would be considered unhealthy by some, but I find it helpful when I am locked in by geography. This morning I fooled myself into thinking I heard seagulls, and that I was up high on a hill with fog below. If I turned my head, I would see redwoods.

We writers think we are so smart. We think we know you.

We watch you and we observe what you do and we tabulate all the little gestures and words and actions that you perform and we create a picture of you in our heads. We are sure that we can predict what you will do and often we are right. We think we are more often right than those who think they are right about these things but aren't writers. When we run into someone new--some type of person we have not met before--we are fascinated and want to spend time with you to understand where you fit in the pattern of our experience. Sometimes, if you are different enough, you end up inspiring us. But we still think we have you all figured out.

When we run into a people problem, we are sure we can think it through because . . . we already think we know who you are and what you will do. We think that once upon a time we might have been considered witches because our knowledge of what makes you tick is so sensitive. It's fun for us to sum you up in one pithy statement. We like to retell the one anecdote that sums up the key to your personality. We are, we admit, arrogant, geeky pains in the rear.

Except . . . if this is true, then why on earth isn't writing a character any easier? Why does it take draft after draft after draft to make our fake people come to life if we are such experts at understanding the human animal? Maybe we are wrong. Maybe we don't understand you at all. Maybe all our attempts to sum you up in once sentence are futile. Maybe we aren't so empathetic. Maybe we can't figure out what you feel at all.

I have a particular craving when the dark time of the year arrives. I want to spend more time in the kitchen cooking up squash and pork and drinking wine from my favorite vintners. I want to sink into a lush novel--preferably something transporting and rich in imagery. I'm a little more curious about movies than I am in the summer.

And I want a nice, fat, juicy video game.

I forgot to take my iPhone to our local Gamestop, so I'm unable to show you photos of the scene in there, of the 7 foot statue of some metal war hero, the 20-something tattooed youth who nodded with approval at my choice of game, of the recent cover of Game Informer covering my beloved Bioware's upcoming DragonAge for console game. I can however direct you to the review of Fable II at MSNBC--which triggered my curiosity--and show you a screenshot or two. (For hardcore fans, yes, I did play and enjoy Fable I).

We have begun to play and I'm so very pleased that in this recent incarnation, I get to be a girl. I can't wait to run around in a fantastic landscape, to learn to shoot archery (which, actually, I did at one point know how to do), to practice magic, to find some hunky hero to romance, in short, save the world. And since my next novel will incorporate elements of virtual reality (a serious and contemporary topic for any of you doubters out there), I can chalk it all up to research. (Even Scarlett Thomas approves of video games--or at least she said she did when her site was working).

Thus far the graphics are gorgeous, the AI intelligent and the storyline compelling. It's pretty much de rigeur now that video games give us the chance to go good or bad--it's annoying when an otherwise good game doesn't give us that choice--but Fable II promises to be an even richer experience than the norm. It is fascinating to me how this game--and games like it--draw on so many seminal works that inform the imagination: there is the vaguely English accent of the semi-Dickensian world narrated by a Judi Dench like narrator (Stephen Fry does show up, btw), the magic a la Tolkien, the difficult moral choices cum Star Wars. Put these things together and you have the universe in which virtual heroes mostly live. Miss this, I think, and you miss a cultural trend that influences many. Is it all a waste of time? Perhaps. But then, they said that about the novel too. See what the Independent has to say, and maybe the skeptical among you will reconsider.

A huge congratulations to my friend, Angela Choi, who has just signed with super agent Andrea Somberg. Angela and I met years ago when I was teaching SAT prep to kids in San Francisco. Her personal story is hers to tell--and not mine--but let me just say now that that she impressed me enormously as a tenacious, intelligent and individualistic person. I was thrilled for her when she won a scholarship for Yale, and it's exciting to see her talents develop as she becomes increasingly confident and outspoken.

I've been spoiled enough to read an early version of her novel. In it, she goes to great lengths to amuse and entertain her reader, and to upend certain stereotypes we still hold of Asian girls. I'm proud of her and will eagerly follow her success.

My friend, Laurence, invited me to an Obama benefit last night, which took place at N boutique in Harlem. Since returning home from the Scottish wedding, I've spent most of my time squirreled away in front of my computer, trying to put the finishing edits on my novel. When I am sucked into work like this, extroverted Marie disappears and is replaced by introverted Marie, which is another way of saying that I become less and less adept at picking out a nice outfit to wear to a party, let alone socializing! But still, I went.



There was a man at the party wearing a "That One" T-shirt. I wanted to take a photo of him, but was too shy to ask. So here is a picture of the T-shirt itself. You can buy one here if you would like.



So, how does one hold a benefit in a boutique? Well, there was a hosted bar, which served a kind of cognac which had been "especially designed for women." Since I was coming off of a migraine, I had no cognac, but stuck to water (sigh). We paid an entry fee, then proceeded to drool over the clothes; the proceeds of any sale went to benefit Obama's campaign.

I have to say that the clothes were marvelous--a combination of high end name brands, interesting independent labels and local designers. Laurence warned me that the clothes would be wonderful, and indeed they were. Here we are trying on some hats. He eventually bought the one on my head.

I'm sort of fascinated by the way that fashion writers these days use the term "well edited selection" to describe the inventory of an admired boutique. The implication is that a "well edited" boutique doesn't have a lot of crap in it--like a well edited short story. But why has "edited" come into favor when there are similar terms that don't reference writing? I suppose that "carefully selected" doesn't do the trick--it doesn't capture that sense of a ruthless merchandiser turning down fluff or unnecessarily overpriced nonsense. I wonder if the term "edit" is going to morph in meaning over the next decade to be applied to more than writing and fashion.

Will anyone every run a well edited campaign?



I admired this Tshirt (for men) and pondered buying one for my husband. Eventually I passed because I wasn't sure the color scheme was right for him, but a salesman did come over to explain the graphic. I thought that the shirt was a random print of subway life, but actually it was inspired by Rosa Parks, sitting in a bus. Who says politics and fashion can't come together?



The party was catered by Food for Life Supreme, an organization that fascinated me. It originated in Kansas City, Missouri and now runs about 15 different stores. Its aim--and it is a nonprofit--is to teach healthier eating habits. Though no one explicitly brought up the fact that targeted clientele are African American youth, I'm assuming this is the case, reading in between the lines and looking at the literature. Stated goals also include the use organic ingredients, grown in partnership with farms, cooking and dining room decor. Of course, considering my rants over the summer, this was of interest to me.

After leaving the party, I was hungry, so we decided to check out Harlem's local Food for Life Supreme, in lieu of the soul food joint across the street. I only managed to eat about half of my white fish and quinoa and broccoli dinner, but I will certainly save the rest for lunch. It was quite good.

In the past, whenever I've expressed an interest in visiting Aberdeen, I've been told: "Och. Aberdeen. That's a cooooold place." This is generally followed by a shiver. But I had the chance to visit the city, however briefly, on my recent trip. The weather was extremely good, which put the town in a lovely light and made it difficult for me to really understand why anyone would be hesitant to see the place.



I made a few new friends on this visit, including the young lady in the photo here, who is a reader of books. I'm always looking for book friends because I generally feel that I don't have enough in my life, and you never know when someone is going to recommend something new and good to read that you have never heard of before.



I loved this view of these kids on top of the car park. They yelled down to me and asked why I had taken their photo. I explained that they looked "cool" at which point they asked me to come up and join them. I didn't go. Honestly, if they discovered that I was just another boring adult, I think they would have been very diappointed.



The visit to Aberdeen also included my one and only trip to a bookstore: Waterstones. I like to go to bookstores in the UK because I usually find something not available in the US. It's because of Waterstones that I've been able to read Iain Banks, AL Kennedy, Jonathan Coe and Sebastian Faulks (the latter had a huge campaign in 1998 in the Underground which made me feel guilty if I didn't pick up Charlotte Gray). Though I can find Kennedy and Coe in the US, it isn't always easy and I'm convinced that more of their work is available in the UK, which is too bad. In hindsight, I'm kicking myself for failing to pick up Rupert Thomson on this trip; I need to make a list for myself for when I return.

I did however buy a copy of Robert Ryan's novel "Empire of the Sand" about which I know absolutely nothing, except that it is set in a part of the world I'm always keen to learn more of, the opening paragraph didn't irritate me, and it came with one of those "3 for 2" stickers and I needed a third book since I'd already picked up two books with the stickers. A cursory look tells me that the book isn't available in the US (yet), or that the reviews and blogs I frequent haven't discussed it at all, so I might end up feeling special to have an early treasure. Time will tell. It looks to be a thriller, but of the intelligent kind; winter is coming and I feel like settling down with something exciting in the midst of all the serious "literary" reading I plan to do. More when I finally finish reading.

I just learned that my essay, "Letter from a Japanese Crematorium," was cited as a "distinguished essay" in the 2008 Best New American Essays. The volume was edited by Adam Gopnik. I was also pleased to see that Lia Purpura, whose essay "The Lustres" appeared in the same volume as mine, has also been specially noted.

To read the essays chosen for the actual award, you can pick up a copy of the collection here or here.

Once I finish edits on my novel, I'm hoping to spend a little bit more time with nonfiction. Before I wrote this essay, I had no idea that I could actually write something other than stories, and it's been nice to find out about another outlet for writing. And, obviously, every writer needs a little ego boost now and then; so much of our time is spent in a vacuum. So, thank you.

I learned to square dance in grade school, and ever since have loved any kind of traditional dancing that involves some choreography and a partner. I've always been jealous of those characters in period pieces who get to dress up and go to dances and write the names of their partners on the slats of a fan.



So, here we are dancing--Scottish country style. That is my orange dress, which I confess to having picked up at the Escada sample sale.



I hope one day to have a party of my own in a Scottish castle where the focus is purely on country dancing--a ceilidh. I imagine all the Americans hiring kilts, and the party lasting till dawn.

After driving from Dundee to Aberdeenshire, we settled in for a night of catch up. Here I am, probably around midnight, red in the face from whatever was thrust into my hand (beer? wine?) and laughing over something that a new friend has told me. I stumbled off to bed around 2 AM.



Friday morning I woke up to find myself at Thainstone House, which is in Aberdeenshire. To call this place a "house" though is an understatement, because it was once a grand manor, owned by a landlord. To a romantic American, of course, a visit to this kind of place is absolute magic and something close to wish-fulfillment; it's impossible for me to look at any part of Europe and not think about its glorious past and to want to experience it just a little bit.



The night we arrived, we managed to stay up until 2 AM, and the night porter managed to stay up with us and make sure we had enough to drink (scotch, of course, which I did not drink) and that there was enough coal on the fire. Somehow, the following morning, we all managed to rise for breakfast.



And what breakfast would be complete in Scotland without a little patty of haggis?

Now, let me just say something here about the Scottish diet mystery. To be specific, I always manage to lose weight in the UK. I don't know why this is. Well, sometimes it is obvious, as when I ate an entire round of Mull Cheddar cheese and my lactose intolerance protested and I spent the night over a toilet. But in general, I eat far more cheese and cream in the UK than I would at home, with the end result that I weigh less. This is not true of my trips to France, by the way.

I'm thinking that the miracle weight loss has something to do with the cold. If you are busy shivering, then any and all calories simply evaporate.



Ah, men in kilts. They were everywhere.



Generations of kilts all the way to the horizon.



And bagpipes!



I liked these corsages, which incorporated the thistle, the flower of Scotland.



The kilt doesn't have to limit your look. I liked the way this couple reinterpreted the kilt so it had a tough black-and-metal kind of vibe. Very creative.



And here was the littlest kilt. He was extremely cute but also, says his mother, a complete terror. Once they walk, you can't stop them.



While waiting for the wedding to get started, the little girls sat in the window and looked at the guests, sharing secrets and observations, the way little girls do all over the world (until they blog).



And the boys, well, they were boys. (Their mother tried to put the chess set back together again).



After gathering around, waiting for the day to start, guests assembled in a large drawing room which was converted to accommodate the wedding ceremony. I liked the sight of so many kilts in chairs.



Not the best photo, but you can see the bride and groom exchanging vows.



Just before the couple exchanged rings, their 18 month old daughter had had enough of feeling excluded. "Daddy Daddy!" she cried, and ran up to her father. So it was that the rings were exchanged while the little girl watched.



After the wedding, we all waited for dinner. Like kids everywhere, these children played games. The girls used pink handhelds.



And the boys played their games.



Eventually, the bagpiper came indoors and played on the staircase, waiting for the bride and groom to reappear.



I was happy to see the Cassidys again, one of my all time favorite families. I really like the children--here you see me with Joanne (sp?) and her mother, Mary, both bright and colorful and smart.



Nine hours after the wedding began (no joke), we went to the ballroom which, of course, had a lovely bar all kitted out with scotch.



Not the best photo of the first dance, but it's all I have.



I don't have many photos of the dancing, mostly because I was actually dancing. I am a convert, now, to Scottish country dancing. In general, I think I like it when there are steps to a dance, rather than the loose gyrating that is so popular--in this, I am an old-fashioned girl. I now think that I am going to have to have a party in Scotland sometime with Scottish dancing--it is so much fun!

Twelve hours later, there we were on the dancefloor, dancing around in a circle. Gordon is very good at the polka, which means that we invariably passed anyone who was slow. The men in kilts were twirling--a dangerous but entertaining thing to do for men in kilts. The children somehow managed to stay up and dance and play. And in the morning, we all got up and ate haggis again.

By forcing myself to sleep on the flight from New York to Edinburgh, I've pretty much managed to come up with a system that allows me to get through a 5 day trip while remaining mostly functional. This trip involved a wedding in Aberdeenshire, which meant that the very day we arrived, we drove from Dundee up north. Fortunately, Gordon's brother was up to driving, even though he himself had just undergone a 12 hour nighttime bus ride from London which, quite frankly, sounds more demanding than our flight.



Due to recent changes in my life, I'm much more interested in farming around the world than before. I loved seeing the remainder of harvest on the Scottish landscape.



Scotland is far north enough that the sunsets take a long time. Not as long as Iceland, perhaps, but still long enough to make a 2 hour drive a glorious juorney in amber.



We took a coastal route, which revealed that the farms in many cases snuggle right up to the edge of the island. It's interesting to see how the landscape clearly shows the history of the UK--once most people farmed and very few people owned land and those that did owned big houses. If you spend all your time in a city, you might miss the very recent history of the UK, and how modernization has changed it. In fact, you'd probably miss this if you spent your entire life in a US city as well. But once you go into the country, the past reveals itself. The evidence is still there.

An ad in the subway for extra storage--something city people always need. The text reads: "What's more limited, your closet space or her experience?" It's funny how nothing overtly screams "Sarah Palin" about this ad, but something about the way the model is standing, and the red jacket makes it clear who the ad is in reference to. I think it's safe to say that this isn't the kind of ad that would be running in all parts of the country, but it plays well in New York City.

Congrats to Graywolf for picking The End, a novel that has been nominated for the National Book Award. I know what I'll be reading next. (What a gorgeous cover!)

I'm heading to the airport--Scotland bound. I'll try to catch a little of the debates in the gate area. Otherwise, I hope to upload photos of a Scottish wedding in a castle in a day or two.

Critical assessments of Margot Fonteyn's dancing life invariably point out how her extended career got in the way of other younger dancers. This was brought home to me today while reading the obituary of Royal Ballet principal Nadia Nerina. Apropos my gushing post about Nureyev and Fonteyn, I was struck by a very funny passage in the aforementioned obituary.

By the early 1960s Ms. Nerina was often spoken of as the natural heir to Fonteyn. But her career path was diverted by the defection of Rudolf Nureyev, who joined the Royal Ballet and whose pairing with Fonteyn postponed Fonteyn’s expected retirement and revitalized interest in her career. Ms. Nerina danced successfully with Nureyev, but their relationship was often testy. He discomfited Ms. Nerina’s frequent partner Erik Bruhn by aggressively critiquing his performances.

In one famous incident, Nureyev, in a performance of “Giselle” with Fonteyn, created a sensation by inserting 16 entrechats-six — a figure in which, in a single jump, the legs open and close and open and close with the right leg first passing behind and then in front of the left — into the choreography of the second act. Ms. Nerina, feeling this was simply showing off and not artful, rebuked Nureyev when she danced “Swan Lake.” She inserted 32 entrechats-six to replace the 32 continuous fouettées — whiplike turns that are elegant but less muscular — in the ballet’s “Black Swan” pas de deux. Nureyev, seated in the hall with Ms. Nerina’s husband, Charles Gordon, stormed out.

Even pretty ballerinas seek their revenge. I admire her pluckiness.

As a child, the most romantic thing in the world to me was a future in the Royal Ballet, where I would change my name to sound more Russian. Obviously, it never happened, but like lots of young girls, I read and reread Camilla Jessel's Life at the Royal Ballet School, even trying to pucker my lips the way the girls in the photos did. There is a Royal Ballet school "face." For an updated version, look here.

Today I meant to haul my lugubrious self to adult ballet class, but edits kept me sitting and dreaming in my seat. No ballet for me.

I looked for Youtube clips of Nerina; none were to be found. But I did find this lovely tribute. Included is Nerina's own take on her infamous entrechats.

(....) I only once decided to show off, and if it was naughty it was also great fun. When Rudolf Nureyev did his first 'Giselle' in London he caused a sensation by interpolating sixteen superb entrechat-six into the second Act. it was a rare achievement but it caused dismay amongst some of the company, who could do as well but, not being guest artists, would not dare change the choreography (....)

One night in Swan Lake with Erik Bruhn, when we came to the Black Swan pas de deux, on a sudden impulse I decided to do thirty-two entrechat-six instead of the usual fouettés. I would show our guest artist what the Royal Ballet could do, for I knew that Nureyev was in the audience watching the performance. I always like the music for the fouettés to be slow, and the thirty-two entrechat-six fitted perfectly. Erik was absolutely amazed, and so was the conductor. And so was I, because I just went on beating sixes. If I had thought about it I don't suppose I could possibly have done them. But the audience loved it - I know I did - and so did the company."

Left out of both accounts is the fact that Bruhn and Nureyev were lovers. What a tangle.

Recently I was at a gathering when a woman brought up parties she used to attend in the 60s and 70s with Nureyev and Leonard Bernstein, and it made me think what a fine time that must have been to be alive and to be in New York surrounded by artists. Of course, the past always seems terribly rosy, but I can't help but feel that it must have been a marvelous period of history. Is the party still going on? By all account it is, and maybe now that the bankers aren't going to own everything here, there will be more artists again.

The mention of Nureyev's name made me think of Collum McCann's wonderful book, Dancer, which is a fictionalized account of Nureyev's life. Of the many things I enjoyed about reading Dancer--and I am becoming an increasingly ornery reader--was the unapologetic way in which Nureyev comes off as an artist; he has something to show and something to do and isn't sorry about it in the least and minds very much when anyone gets in his way. The art comes first. Best of all, the book made me feel, which is what I want when I read.

There was a point in my childhood when I was obsessed with the Nureyev/Fonteyn partnership. This was before the internet, so all I had to look at were pictures in oversized dance books in the library. I'd look at the photos and project on to both of these performers what it must be to make art and to be in love. It's easy for a child to romanticize. I stumbled today across a number of reviews of a relatively recent biography of Fonteyn's life, which of course details the Nureyev/Fonteyn partnership. I haven't read the book, but am keen to now. Notes one reviewer:

The broad outlines of the lives of this pair - who bullied and charmed each other into discovering in themselves theatrical qualities they did not know they possessed - will be familiar to many potential readers of this biography.

Bullied and charmed. The thing about being a writer is that so much time is spent alone; I almost never collaborate. What would it be like?

Fonteyn herself, like the Nureyev in McCann's novel, is a perfectionist of the highest order--but she is seeking something beyond mere physical truth.

Fonteyn's greatest gifts, Meredith Daneman shows, were her musicality, her inner balance and poise, and her integrity, her submission to her art, her refusal to make an unfelt gesture, and her ability, right to the end of her long and exalted career, to learn.

It's a tall order, but must be what it means to drive oneself to make real art. Authentic art. Will we live in authentic times again? Reading through all the material online, I was again lured into the story of Margot and Rudi, and fortunately, this time there was Youtube to feed me.



This is wonderful theater. Why did it work when she was twenty years older than he? Fonteyn says:

“Genius is another word for magic, and the whole point of magic is that it is inexplicable.”

Somewhere, I imagine, the magic is still happening.

Writers drink. This is what I was told by Richard, the-ex-boxer-ex-80s-artist who hung out on the corner of my street on the upper West Side while wearing a navy pea-coat. I protested that I doubted I'd ever become much of a drinker--years of attempting to build up tolerance have been futile. He persisted that I'd have to learn to drink and maybe get into a few fights if I was ever going to be a true writer, which I thought was pretty funny. I generally don't like being told what I "have" to do.

But it's true that at these writer-editor-agent lunches alcohol is generally involved. And it's nice. Except that today I had a raspberry mojito with one very intelligent editor and I currently can't feel my toes. My husband thinks this is funny.

I'm now in a sort of nostalgic mood, mostly because I had really wanted the Watermelon Martini. People who know me know that I am a watermelon fiend (no, I am not continuously pregnant). It is one of the few things I like about summer--the excuse--hell, the need--to eat watermelon to stay cool. But, I was informed, "Watermelon is no longer in season."

It is indeed technically autumn. It is also 77 degrees today and I feel like I ought to be able to have watermelon. It feels like watermelon should still be in season.

Last night I went to hear some music at Birdland and then, because we were feeling super hyper from said music, went for a walk through Times Square. It was still warm and I didn't need my beautiful black trench coat. (Oh, how I want to retreat to the safety of my black trench coat! I mean, it's fall!). The temperature made it seem as though we were still in summer. We ran into some record executive and I stood there and smiled and pretended to understand what was going on. Then we watched a bunch of mostly high-school aged girls allow themselves to be penned behind some metal gates because they were waiting for Harry Potter to come out of his dressing room. Times Square was awash in neon and I said: "If you didn't know better, you'd think this is a place to hang out." We listened to some more music at the Kitano Hotel, after which I declared I was simply too hungry to last much longer and we went to Korea-town.

It was still warm by the time I finally got home. Part of choosing the neighborhood in which I live hinged on access to food at all hours of the night. My husband and I called this the "basil test." We didn't want to live in a place where we could not get basil at 1 AM. Well, last night I learned that I could get watermelon at 1 AM. So, see? It's not completely out of season. At least not everywhere.

"The only way to prevent Mad Max that I can see is to somehow monetize private debt, and print it away once the fed gov'y has it.

I scoffed at the stimulus check last summer. The sorry thing is that that did more good per dollar spent than all the tricks played sense."

"I have received more calls than usual this year from neighbors who want to fill their freezers with deer, so I have opened up my timberland on farms for them to shoot the deer they need for meat."

"I hear ya . . . , I'm armed and dangerous!
I grew a large garden this year to self sustain my family knowing this melting cauldron was coming.
My very fears is, my seed corn cheques will not be coming until Dec. will I be able to cash those cheques and take out the cash?"

"The repubs had control or the senate, house and white house. Point it, it went down when the repubs were on watch. Surely with them being as smart as they are could have figured the problem out and fixed it right?? How about the next president... is he going to get blamed for the mess we are in now when it gets worse? the past is the past, the future is now and what are we going to do to fix it??? you have a time machine?? Placing the blame in the right place is really not the issue now... its how to fix the problem that matters now. I would also have to say the budget was balanced 8 years ago and now we have double the debt... What is the real problem??? Looks like the rest of america took the governments lead and spent more than then could afford... way to be a leader government..."

"For some reason we just don't get it. I have a great extended family all over this country that have done quite well with the existing structure. My close family has as well. But the corporations seem to have gotten to the point where they can run rip shod over individual rights and if you blame corporatism you get lambasted. So yea we are in a cage fight. Only it is not as civilized as cage fighting it just takes on the appearance as more civilized. They the corporation can destroy you and no one will notice... the sheep just keep on grazing as the wolf grabs one after another."

Every now and then I hear someone say something along the lines of "I believe in marriage," or even, "I don't believe in marriage." I've never really understood what this means. Can you believe or disbelieve in marriage the same way that you do Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny? It doesn't make sense to me. How can marriage be some thing that is "out there"? How can our belief in it impact our experience? What makes much more sense is the idea that marriage is a mystery; it is something that happens to you over which you have far less control than you think.

I had a conversation with one of my cousins over the summer. We were talking about those moments when we look at the men we have married and marvel that we were smart enough to make a choice that is still paying us in riches so many years after we chose our partners. I think this happens in many marriages--many of the good ones I have seen, anyway. It's as though a part of your psyche chooses a person not just for who they are today, but for who you know unconsciously they will be tomorrow. It's a fascinating thing. I consider myself terribly lucky to have found who I did.

The ability of our minds to "know" what we need and that we will need a particular person for a very long time in our lives strikes me as a very peculiar kind of wisdom. In another conversation about marriage I had with a friend recently, I recalled the lyrics to this song from "The Sound of Music." Maria and Captain Von Trapp finally realize they are in love, and sing the following to each other:

Perhaps I had a wicked childhood
Perhaps I had a miserable youth
But somwhere in my wicked, miserable past
There must have been a moment of truth

For here you are, standing there, loving me
Whether or not you should
So somewhere in my youth or childhood
I must have done something good

Nothing comes from nothing
Nothing ever could
So somewhere in my youth or childhood
I must have done something good

And there it is, in song form; the sense that who we love and who we will love comes from something we have done when we were still forming. If we love and we love well, it must have come from something good and deep within, some capacity we developed when we were younger.

There is a man I know, around my father's age, whom we watched struggle mightily through a number of failed romances and strained relationships with his children. My mother was terribly uncomfortable around this very unsettled person, and yet my father believed in him--in some essential goodness in this man. Once he said to my father: "I will never have what you have with your wife," and my father, ever the optimist, said, "I hope that you will." And, without getting too specific, one day this man did fall in love and the change in him was a truly beautiful thing to watch. He was in love with one person, and suddenly able to be loving to himself and to others. I was quite young when the transformation happened, but I understood it on some level, and ever since then, I've never been able to give up the idea that the right person can unlock some essential goodness in most of us.

West 18th street, home of the Altman Building, was recently host to two large groups of people. Lined up on the street from west to east were the twitchy, edgy people photographed above. They are what I call the "New York Cerebrals," and they were waiting to get tickets for the New Yorker Festival. You see people like this in most major American cities, but I'd still argue that New York has the highest concentration; these are people who like to think and want to think and value thinking and irony and all that and it was fun to watch them squatting down or leaning against a wall earnestly filling out some kind of questionnaire or debating with strangers in line whom it was best to see at the Festival (and how Palin had performed the previous evening).



Lined up from east to west were a group of women. They were kept in place by tall men dressed in black who, in bearing and more importantly in job function, resembled bouncers. This is because these women were waiting in line to get into the Escada Sample sale. In line were the orthodox Jewish women in hats and skirts, overly tanned emigrees from ex-Soviet countries, anorexic and anti-social fashionistas, teams of Korean and Chinese women and the occasional gay male stylist.

Women were handed tickets with a number; there was to be no cutting in line. Traffic was carefully monitored. Inside, I found the scene to be tamer, though, than in years past when teams of women kept a sharp eye out on a momentarily abandoned and enticing dress in order to "steal" it for a try-on in the dressing room ("Oh, well it's mine now. You weren't paying attention." The stress!) Still, it's best to attend a sample sale of this caliber with wingmen; some of the ex-Soviet block ladies are really tough--tanks in disguise.

The last time we had a recession, the sample sale pickings were very good. I remember a hand-bag designer saying to me in 2001; "there has never been a year of sales quite like this." Clothes had been overproduced, and needed to be liquidated. I'm curious to see how the end of 2008 and the start of 2009 go. I asked two recent acquaintances about the sample sale prospects in New York and they grimaced; they work in manufacturing and aren't looking forward to the downturn. The tough--the sample sale pickers--are ready.

Somehow I have gone from being a girl who wanted to be a writer, to a girl with a book coming out next year.

At the same time, I find myself enormously pleased by the success of my fellow-writer friends, who are rapidly ascending to the level of "hot young writer." As much as I'm not crazy about this photo, I thought I'd post is a evidence that we do, in fact, all know each other.

My friend Kaytie, to the far right, has written a wonderful and adventurous novel, and has signed with Robert Guinsler at Sterling Lord Literistic. They are lucky to have her. Kaytie has an amazing work ethic and always reminds me that I, too, must keep working even when I don't feel like it.

Alexi Zentner, my stalwart champion who once urged me on declaring: "Have some fucking confidence in yourself," has just won the top prize at Narrative Magazine for a short story. Another story comes out next year in Atlantic Monthly.

Maud Newton I cheered earlier this year for her prize-winning essay on Narrative, titled "Conversations You Have at Twenty."

Lisa Gluskin Stonestreet just placed a couple of poems in typically highbrow journals; blackbird, failbetter and Third Coast.

Finally, I was able to see Vanessa Hutchinson in California during my father's memorial when we stole away for a few minutes to talk. She won a Stegner two years ago, and was nominated for a Pushcart last year. She's returned from a research trip to the Carribean looking all glowly and soulful and I can't wait to read her novel.

It's a New York tradition to gather together with friends to watch presidential (and vice presidential) debates, so I was very happy when a good friend invited us to his apartment to view Biden vs. Palin on his high def wide screen television.

But not long after the debate started, I found myself fidgeting. It wasn't the stress of watching the two candidates, though I felt that too. I've simply grown accustomed to watching debates while checking the blogs to see how officially sanctioned "smart people" are feeling as the drama unfolds on television, and it was strange to be a guest in someone's home and not have my laptop on my lap. I couldn't very well ask to borrow his computer either.

Then I noticed that another guest sitting next to me was quietly tapping through his iPhone. "What are you doing?" I asked.

"Reading the blogs," he said.

Aha! See, I caved and bought and iPhone (which I love), and soon I too was sitting there, watching the debates, checking the liberal and conservative bloggers alike to see how my candidate was faring in their estimation.

Was my viewing experience substantively helped by my obsessive blog-reading? Maybe not. But I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one out there clutching my smart phone and trying to get up on just a little bit more information. I suspect that a number of people are now following the election just like this--with all media resources put to use. I am of the iPhone generation at last.

Newly elevated stress levels (I've gone from green to, oh, orange) sent me running to the garment district today to see a friend for comfort and meet my husband for lunch. I passed this psychedelic store front and couldn't resist taking a photo. I think it's a wig shop. I don't know how anyone could find these wigs to be invisible . . . but maybe being literal isn't the point.

Over at Japundit, I posted a little snippet on banks and bailouts. I wrote that while I did not understand the current banking collapse (no one does, my banking friends assure me which, let me tell you, does not reassure me), I do know that Japan underwent something similar in the 90s, and that it led to what is commonly referred to as the "lost decade." "Before the bubble . . .but then the bubble came . . ." my friends in Japan will say to me mournfully, aware that they missed out on Japan's materialistic heyday.

Here's what I wrote.

Examining the Swedish banking collapse and the Japanese banking collapse, the author draws the following conclusions.

RESOLUTION: The Japanese government recouped a sizable amount of its bailout funds by reselling collateral, most often land, and other assets. The abysmal times in Japan during the 1990s are now known as the “lost decade.” Even though the economy is better now, the Japan’s stock market still hasn’t returned to its peak before the bubble burst. And Japan still has about $9 billion worth of property held as collateral that needs to be sold.

LESSON FOR U.S.: Japan waited too long before resorting to a bailout using taxpayers’ money to write off the mountain of bad loans on banks’ balance sheets, experts say.

The Swedish government, claims the article, intervened quickly and as a result, the banking system recovered more quickly.

Regardless, I’m assuming (ahem, Mr. Pink, ahem) that we will begin to see a number of Japan-related articles in which the dangers of too much debt are examined and rexamined. Are any lessons applicable? Will anyone be smart enough to heed the lessons

I was distressed when the publisher of the site cautioned me from pursuing this story, as it touched on the subject of American politics, which is not allowed on Japundit. I felt that this was a shame since I fully expect the mainstream media to begin examining Japan's history with banks and debt and bailouts and it seems like an interesting subject for Japanophiles to discuss.

Well, the articles have begun. Here's one in the New York Times.

Just as in the U.S. today, most Japanese did not initially appreciate how devastating a banking crisis could be to the real economy. Banks and real estate tycoons in Japan were corrupt, profligate and unsympathetic figures, and no one wanted to help them. On corporate expense accounts, they sipped coffee with gold leaf and patronized “no-panties shabu-shabu” restaurants, which had mirrored floors and miniskirted waitresses.

In short, the businessmen involved were jerks. And, whether in Japan or the U.S., it’s challenging for politicians to frame a bailout with the slogan: Save the jerks!

Japanese politicians didn’t want to rescue such unpopular fat cats and didn’t see any emergency. So Japan’s economy slowly lost air, and the biggest losers were the small futon makers who couldn’t get credit and the farmers on remote islands who lost ferry service when the government eventually had to cut back on spending.

For those of you accustomed to bull markets, who think we’re sure to come out of this quickly, remember this: Japan’s main stock index is still less than one-third of its level of 19 years ago.

The anger at Wall Street and bankers aside, the message seems to be that we must bail out the fat cats. Ugh.

The New York Times article also contains this quote, referencing one of my huge intellectual crushes, Peter Drucker, the only person to whom I ever sent a fan letter (and he wrote back!)

Among the strongest critics of inflated executive pay have been Warren Buffett and the late management guru, Peter Drucker, who argued that C.E.O. salaries should peak at no more than 20 or 25 times those of the average worker. (Last year, C.E.O.’s got an average of 344 times the wages of the typical worker.)

The truth is that with the complicity of boards of directors, C.E.O.’s hijack shareholder wealth in ways that are unconscionable. As The Wall Street Journal reported in June, if Eugene Isenberg, the 78-year-old C.E.O. of Nabors Industries, were to drop dead one of these days, his estate would be entitled to a “severance payment” of at least $263 million — more than the firm’s first-quarter net earnings.

Of course, CEO pay in Japan has never been what it is in the US; I remember reading in the 80s (when we were afraid Japan would take over the world) that Japanese largess could never be what it is in the US; we are simply far less modest. Will we change? Will populist anger change this country for the better? It's hard to know. Incurable optimist that I am, I hope so.