Love Walked In

Emily, Laura, and I all just finished this novel. I finished it for the third time, and I finally convinced them to read it for the first. I may have to convince you as well, because, I know, it looks like something that only a certain middle aged desperate female set would appreciate. The cover is of a young girl with knee socks and the title has the word 'love' in it. Its chick-lit, FINE.

But I am of the twenty-something New York professional gal crowd, and before I lose my credibility as someone with impeccable taste (don't deny it)... hear me out. I love this book.

Marisa de los Santos writes the story of a young woman finding unexpected love. A simple concept, but its gorgeous. Heart-stopping. Its me on the subway hoping that my stop will never approach because I hate leaving the world within these pages. Feel-good at its most brilliant.

A friend of mine once said that she liked people more if they liked Harry Potter. Harry Potter was her barometer for friendship. Harry had little to do with it, it was the reader that she liked. She found that she and those who liked Harry Potter shared an understanding. She liked people who could become invested in something as obscure as the lives of wizards. She felt a kinship with those who could be caught reading tween literature and who would appreciate imaginations of a certain British intelligence.

Well, I like Harry Potter well enough, but Love Walked In just might be my barometer. If you like this novel, we probably understand each other. And if you are still concerned, know that my favorite novels are Dickens and Fitzgerald, Collins and Homer. I like Smith and Cather and Coetzee. Its just that this novel links reader and idea in a way that I have yet to come across.

The writing style is uniquely forward, and reads as something incredibly familiar. The author writes to us, as if we share a common prior knowledge. de los Santos, as Cornelia in the first person, talks her way around situations by anticipating judgment and confusion. She is quick to back herself up and quick to explain action and reason. The story is laced with references and idioms that come from Cornelia's world, a world that we feel we are part of and not just watching from above. Its deeply intimate and reads a bit like Austin's Mansfield Park-- Fanny Price invites us in by talking to us.

de los Santos also writes with the depth of someone who grew up on old movies. She is of course somewhat nostalgic in this, but makes up for it with sarcasm and sass. The old movies and classic novels come up throughout the story as a point of understanding between reader and character (remember, this is what will also link you and I as sharing a great understanding) and they serve as a catalyst for idea and comprehension. The Philadelphia Story plays a lead role, as do Hitchcock and Montgomery. You can see why I was struck.

The novel follows the tale of Cornelia Brown, a thirty-something cafe manager. Cornelia is a character to whom I often return for strength and for wit. Cornelia gets it in a way that so few do. She is uprightly moral yet an utter realist. She's feisty and questioning and content. Cornelia built a world for herself out of material and goodness and moved to Philadelphia because of Tracy Lord. She loves Cary Grant, real pajamas, and making lists. And her imagination is as thick as my own. I like Cornelia for the same reason that I like my coffee mugs... because she innately feels like home.

Cornelia meets Clare, the second leading lady, mid-plot, and there creates the most beautiful of all love stories. In this story exists philia... friend-love. Clare is an eleven year old girl who just lost her mother in every way that a mother can be lost-- amidst a mental breakdown. She found Cornelia and Cornelia found Clare, and philia enters the tale with generosity and compassion.

The story whips and wraps and encloses on reader much like old movies do. Its complicated and sad and comforting. Its the 1940's silver screen shining into the Starbucks generation. And speaking of the silver-screen, my girl S-J is said to have picked up this script and will play her in the film version. My thoughts on New York's Victorian starlet as Philadelphia's Cornelia Brown? I'll embrace it faster than you can say cosmopolitan.

Rear Window

Rear Window is a Butler family favorite. We all love Hitchcock and this is what we consider the cornerstone of Hitchcock films. Jimmy Stewart is collectively our favorite actor, and Grace Kelly steals every heart. This film is great in so many ways. Let me name a few...

1) The entire film takes place in Jeff's apartment, almost in real time. Similar to the best Friends episode ever made... 'The one when they are getting ready' when Rachel can't find a dress, Pheobe 'gets the hummus', Monica calls Richard and leaves a breezy message, Joey wears all of Chandler's clothes, and Ross almost 'drinks the fat' in an Abraham and Isaac allegory for love. Kind of like that. If only the Ugly Naked Guy made an apperance, it would pretty much be the same movie. (Reaching? Maybe.)

.... more to come.

2.)

Tomma Abts

Aaron and I attended the Tomma Abts opening at David Zwirner last week. It was our second big opening of the night, the first show at Pace being somewhat of a disappointment. I failed at researching the Zwirner show ahead of time, a point that I will circle back to later, so I had no idea what to expect.

We walked into the gallery on 19th street and both immediately drew back in complete retreat. It was bizarre. The Zwirner space is a huge, grand box with ceilings that stretch two stories high and white that goes on forever. And while this isn't at all uncommon for Chelsea, it must be stated that the Zwirner space is big. Bigger than most Chelsea galleries. So when you walk into a huge white box and see ten or so small, meager canvases hanging at eye level with over eight feet between each one, you pretty much lose your balance. The white starts caving in on you and the paintings look like they're going to get eaten by the void. Bizarre. Again... even for Chelsea.

We both crinkled our noses in confusion, made some agreeable comments on how the paintings looked forced (we're really into labeling paintings 'forced' or 'felt' these days) and how they seemed to be stuck in 1992. Yuck, we stated with confidence. Don't like it.

So we moved into the adjoining gallery space housing a very handsome photography exhibit, grateful to be away from the 'uncomfortable painting show.' We had a beer and chatted photography with my publisher and another work colleague whom we had happened to run into. Did you like the Abts show? asked Susan, c'ette work colleague. Ummm... no, we both answered. Susan nodded in understanding, stating that most people either love it or hate it. She completely valued our honest dislike. But still she hesitated. Susan, turns out, loves Abts. Of this I was suddenly interested.

Susan gave a very brief history of Abts and her work, including the highly regarded Turner prize. Also that each painting took over a year to complete. Her loving tone and protective statements were extremely refreshing... but still confusing. After all, the paintings were bad. Aaron and I listened, nodding along, but remained in the nice photography room for a while longer, preferring the comfort of the symmetric and thoughtfully planned narrative C-prints to Abts's random little paintings that were getting eaten by white in the next room over.

But before we left, we told ourselves to reconsider and to look at Abts's paintings again, post-Susan. If Susan, with her articulate thoughts and impeccable taste likes the show... lets try to like it too. So we stood once again in the big white room and looked at a few pieces. We discussed their merit and payed closer attention to color. We squinted up close and breathed a few steps back, noting the shapes. We tilted our heads with our hands on our hips in what has become the Chelsea mudra and reevaluated the placement. And then both decided, once again, that we hated them. I believe that the word 'blechk' was used more than once.

However. Being me, I've been thinking about this show. A lot. Its been bothering me that I couldn't see whatever it was that Susan saw. I've become obsessed with reading Abts articles and viewing her work online, trying to pinpoint what it is that makes this artist tick. Turns out... I love her too.

Abts proves my strong convictions about art in context. Its almost embarrassing how much she proves this. I should have known that David Zwirner and those pretentious Tate officials aren't idiots. I should have been the one telling myself to read-up before I make any snap judgments, especially at a gallery of this caliber. I should have known.

I am of the (old-) school of thought that honors artists' statements and press releases. Reading, looking, considering... so very important. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder? Oh, please. This is contemporary art...what does beauty have to do with it? There is good art and bad art, there just is. Its not up to the viewer to decide. Opinions absolutely count, but its like arguing with someone about their taste in food. If you don't like peach pie it, you don't like peach pie. It still might be good pie.

Zak Smith once said that the biggest misconception of the art world is that it is has anything to do with those outside of it. Translation: if you don't get it, its not intended for you. My not-for-profit art friends are going to hate that statement, but I actually agree with him. We must put in some effort. Do some reading, spend time with the piece, draw a few conclusions... that's what its all about. That's what its for.

Tomma Abts starts with a blank canvas. Okay, I know, doesn't everyone? Well, yes, but Abts actually doesn't have a plan before she starts painting. She doesn't sketch or even envision. She purposefully starts with a mark and goes from there. Its completely felt, completely fluid (which throws my earlier conclusions back in my face) and the final image is one of profound process. Its a map of her working mind.

Her paintings do take years to finish and she works tirelessly until she suddenly feels their completion. She says that when a painting done, she can sense it immediately, like the painting is at once floating and existing on its own, as a new entity completely separate from her part in creating it.

The final product includes the ghosts of the underpainting. We can see the shapes that Abts painted then later covered up with a flat color. This is important and part of it, she says. And she doesn't paint shapes, she paints the space around the shapes, making hers a negative process. Interesting. Her colors pop, ebb, and flow, aiding in their sudden independence from artist. The color helps each painting and each shape within that painting stand on its own.

Knowing this, we can find these random little paintings worthwhile. Beautiful, even. I can see why Susan spoke of them with such grace. We can't help but begin to cherish these works as Abts so clearly did while creating them. They turn into jewel boxes, into memories. We suddenly feel privileged to be in their presence.

The idea of taking time to understand a work of art is so obviously transferable into every aspect of life and learning. That is my lesson for the day. Conversations with paintings can and do exist, and you don't have to be an 'art person' to do so. And as Clare Danes so eloquently speaks of art in a lovely scene of a lovely movie... its there for you. You just have to want to see it.

The Death and Life of Great American Cities

Jane Jacobs and I are kindred spirits. Thats what Anne Shirley would say.

........more to come...

Slumdog Millionaire

I like when the audience starts clapping at the end of a movie. Its always spontaneous because it can never be expected. No one is there to hear it-- no final bows, no obligatory encores. Movie applause is the purest form of all applause because we do it out of true gratitude. It legitimizes thankfulness and honors excitement. As I said, I like when the audience starts clapping at the end of a movie-- we all clapped at the end of this one.

Slumdog Millionaire is a love story in that it is a story about love. Its about a very pure form of love and the story is one of loving, not the act of falling into nor the art of searching. The love exists to its utmost extent from the moment Jamal loses Latika as a young boy and it extends through the final scene when he finds her again as a grown man. There is no guessing nor jarring character transformation... Jamal loves Latika and Latika loves Jamal. Done. The guessing comes in how the hell they can ever be together.

Unlike dear Romeo and Juliet-- who also had a few hurtles in coming together--Jamal and Latika are from the same walk of life. They come from the slums of India. But like Romeo and Juliet, they are undoubtedly star crossed.

The depth of this movie is found in its emotion, not in the dissection of character. I tend to gravitate toward films driven by dialogue. I like to collect bits and pieces of character evidence that I can reassemble into reason, motivation, and explanation for why a character does what he does or acts as she will. My favorite type of movie takes place over a weekend, in one house, and its all talk, talk, talk. (The Philadelphia Story anyone? The Family Stone? The Big Chill?) This movie is nothing of the sort. Its sweeping, its majestic, and epic (in its own quiet way.) And I couldn't take my eyes from this tale.

Its also about a type of love of which I'm not always convinced... this isnt phillia, this is eros. It isn't the gracefulness of agape, nor the tension of passion. Its eros... true love. All-knowing-never-second-guessing-love. Dickens puts it best... I'll tell you, says Miss Havisham to a terrified young Pip, what real love is. It is blind devotion, unquestioning self-humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief against yourself and against the whole world, giving up your whole heart and soul to the smiter. (As we all roll our eyes.)

Well, Jamal's devotion carried him back to Mumbai after successfully escaping an evil child-blinding gangster. His self-humiliation brought out rage and violence in his otherwise gentle self anytime anyone dared disgrace Latika with word or action. Jamal submit himself directly to danger by vowing to help Latika escape her form of slavery, and he gave up his heart long ago. He gave Latika his heart the moment his hand left hers as children running after a train. And-- eye rolling aside--Jamal convinced me of eros. Of course he did.

The coming together of Jamal and Latika forms in mechanical clicks. You can hear it as every piece of Jamal's life starts pointing toward a single moment... click, click, click. Like one of those crazy deadbolt locks in old spy movies. And suddenly the pieces snap into motion and the clock starts ticking and Jamal and Latika are where they should be because it is written.

This unfolds under the lens of the Hindi version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire... curious, right? But the clicking pieces of Jamal's young life absolutely mirror a game show. And the emotional impact serves us flawlessly. We hold our breath for Jamal in both his life and his vital million dollar answers. Its a clear metaphor for all of our lives and for our... well, our destinies.

Each step we take, hurdle we jump, and Siren we avoid brings us one step closer to the final destination. Just like a trivia-based game show. Get it? And you mustn't cheat, either. You must live honestly, just as Jamal proved to all of us. In his game show, Jamal recalls another harsh, painful, pivotal moment of his life with each question he is asked. In the end, it was his life and the living of it that brings him finally to Latika, who turns out to be (wait for it...) his phone-a-friend. Its beautiful. And extremely smart writing. Click, click, click.

This is a gorgeous film. Just stunning. And it's rumored to be Oscar-worthy. So, just as I rooted for Jamal's million dollar answer and for his million dollar kiss... I will be rooting for it's statue as well. Standing ovation, everyone. Applause all around.

Slouching Towards Bethlehem

It would be a long while because, quite simply, I was in love with New York. I do not mean “love” in any colloquial way, I mean that I was in love with the city, the way you love the first person who ever touches you and you never love anyone quite that way again.

I remember walking across Sixty-second Street one twilight that first spring, or the second spring, they were all alike for a while. I was late to meet someone but I stopped at Lexington Avenue and bought a peach and stood on the corner eating it and knew that I had come out out of the West and reached the mirage.

-Joan Didion, 'Goodbye to All That'

Joan Didion's Goodbye to All That from her collection of essays entitled Slouching Towards Bethlehem both affirmed and frightened me. It really is quite terrifying to read as a 23 year old new New Yorker, which is the age I was when I first read it. I love it and I hate it but I think I love it more. It changed me, no doubt, and jerked me into a better understanding of self in my current life, however odd that may sound.

Didion writes an account of her love affair with and subsequent fall from New York City. Her words are so familiar that they bite. They were familiar the first time I read them, shockingly so, and even after I read them again today, for what have been the twentieth time, they still bite.

My roommate Meg often tells me that no one loves New York as much as I do. I don't know if that is true, but I do know that few love it in the same way that I do. But Joan Didion absolutely understood what it felt like to be in love- real heartbeating love- with a city. With this city. (Remember how lovingly she phrased it? 'the way you love the first person who ever touches you and you never love anyone quite that way again...') The problem is that she fell in it and then she fell from it and she wrote about it with such bitterness. One can only fall that hard and be that hurt if she is in very, very deep. Joan was, and I am.

Didion moved to New York when she was twenty and it was the summertime. She had no idea what she was doing but she thought she did. She dove in and without coming up for air, embraced everything around her. She went to parties and roamed the streets and stayed up all night and never bought any furniture. She talks about the smells, the snowflakes, and the very clear naivete. She writes about her young self not with fondness as most writers do, but with a sort of dissonance. Sour grapes, almost.

Didion has always written with a certain harshness. She can go on about the scent of L'Air du Temps perfume mixing with Henri Bendel soap and the salty smell of the crab markets without getting the least but romantic. In fact, she isn't romantic, not in the slightest. She is a gorgeous, crafted writer--sentimental, even. But her words and sentences and phrasing are nothing but honest. The way that she writes takes you into her world with a clear lens and felt truth. It scares me a little bit. So much that I can't stop reading her.

The 'long while' that she refers to in the passage above is an understanding of what it means to become jaded. It would be a long while before she would fall from the girl not understanding the big joke and not caring in the slightest due to the distractions of Christmas trees on Fifth Avenue, the first snow as seen from a cab, a new party dress, and Park avenue in December. She didn't care to pay attention to the naysayers because she wasn't one yet and that's a good enough reason as any.

Didion started to fall when she began to avoid the city. This is what struck me to the core the first time I read this. I think about it all the time. Everyday maybe. Once she had been here for a few years she learned what spots to avoid... couldn't bear upper Madison Avenue on weekday mornings, couldn't stand Times Square in the afternoon, and stopped going to the New York Public Library all together.

If you live in New York, you understand. These things are helpful and even necessary. But for Didion it started building on itself. Pretty soon you can't leave your apartment because you are paralyzed by all of the places you can't stand to be. And Didion eventually sat in her apartment on Seventy-Fifth street for days, too frightened to go outside. You can see why she started falling out of love. The city had stopped loving her back, or so she believed.

I know that Soho is horrific on the weekends, so is Times Square. The village is crazy after midnight and Prospect Park is a madhouse of buttercream cake, helium balloons, and sticky children every Sunday afternoon. But you have to go anyway. You have to. Didion stands as a warning as to why its so important. My dance class is in Soho on Saturdays and Times Square has the good movie times, not to mention most of the theater.

We go to the Village for its craziness and there is enough room in Prospect Park for all of us. Its a goddamn piazza (as Tom Hanks once so eloquently said). The city as a whole is a place we all can gather and must do so to keep its pulsing streets alive. You can't just love New York as an abstract concept, you have to love its parts too. This is what Didion failed to understand. Its why she had to move and she knows it.

I had a huge party marking my One Year Anniversary with New York... one year from the day I moved into my first apartment on 102nd and Central Park West. I told the same joke over and over-- that my relationship with New York is the longest, most significant, and most rewarding relationship that I have ever been in. New York and I are getting on fabulously, I gushed. Its been a whole year, and I know its still the honeymoon phase but I think this might be the real deal. We're just so in love... It was self deprecating, clearly, but everyone thought I was really funny and they all bought me drinks to cheers my love story. The fascinating part, however, is that its true.

And I am the naive girl, I know that. This entire blog is naive in its tone, right? (Was anyone ever so young, she asks.) This is where the better understanding of self kicks in--I am Young Joan still, not Wise All-Knowing Joan. I know.

Didion lives in Los Angeles now, and has for many many years. She stayed in New York for eight and never regrets leaving. She loved New York (still loves? Its hard to tell...) but her love affair ended at twenty-eight. And that's okay. Its not easy for me to say that, ask Meg. I get harshly defensive when people don't love New York as much as I do. But I'm trying to work on it. To understand that New York has many many stories. Eight million, in fact. And Didion moved on to what some would consider to be a 'more important' love story--take an afternoon to read A Year of Magical Thinking, you'll know what I mean. And perhaps someday I will have a story like that too.

To Catch a Thief

I watched To Catch a Thief on Sunday afternoon. It started out normal enough-- curled up with my Auntie Fay quilt, Paris tea, and pumpkin cookies made by my Sunday movie buddy Alison. Read on, my friends.

The film is about a jewel thief. Its all about jewelry and the stealing of it. Diamonds, sapphires, pearls, rubies... its about jewels, the people who wear them, and the people who steal them. (Stay with me here, I do have a point.) Its Cary Grant dressed all in black, crawling across Spanish tiles and over perfect European chimneys... Grace Kelly, stating that she doesn't wear jewelry because she doesn't like anything 'hard and cold against my skin'... Jessie, dripping with diamonds, proving that she isn't afraid of losing them.

So you can imagine my surprise when the doorbell rang (a sure oddity in Brooklyn) and opened the door to one of New York's finest--a bonafide NYPD cop-- asking if my name was Sarah and if I called to report missing jewels. I will repeat that... a cop came to my door in the middle of Hitchcock's jewelry thieving film, asking if my name was Sarah and if I called to report stolen jewelry.

Umm... no... I answered in complete shock, slight panic, and building excitement. I suddenly was Grace Kelly and this strapping cop my Cary Grant! All that was missing was my perfectly cut white evening gown (I was wearing a Nebraska sweatshirt and pajama pants), a black cat to aid in the sleuthing (the stray cats living on my stoop are all calico), and fireworks out the window (this is Bed-Stuy, after all. The 'fireworks' are usually gunshots. Yeek.) It was a perfect movie moment.

Well... almost. The thieving turned out to be from my sweet British landlady, Sara-Jane, whose precious rings were stolen at the manicurist. And the cop turned out to be... a cop. Not Cary Grant. Ah. Reason. Not a good thing, but definitely an explanation.

To Catch a Thief is stunning and completely enjoyable. Its a gorgeous Hitchcock escape film that Ocean's Twelve (the best Ocean movie--don't even try to argue with me, haters) absolutely robbed from in all its Mediterranean sleuthing glory. The fashion is impeccable-- Grace Kelly defines glamor. (The white and black beach number made Alison and I gasp in unison.) The car chase on the windy roads of Monaco is even more terrifying when you know that Princess Grace later crashed to her death on those very twists and turns. If you didn't know this information, watch that scene again... goosebumps.

So. Even if I didn't actually enter To Catch a Thief during my NYPD fiasco, I do feel a little closer to it now. And to make up for the disappointment of not being Grace Kelly this time, I am planning to steal all of her good lines and claim them as my own in the future.

Miss Stevens?
Yes, Mr. Burns?
You know what I think?
About what?
You.
I don't really care.