National Bow Tie Day

my piece
"Gymnast of Inertia"
(1992)

the intersection of cinema & literary histories

my friend Gary was able to sell some of my stuff on ebay.

inc this Michael Keaton Batman bank with cereal that Henry Van Dyke gave me years ago:

I'm back AGAIN

apparently I needed a new operating system.  don't even know what that is.

here we go again

had my Mac back for a day before it wdn't boot again. neighbor Phil was going to take me back to Dotfoil today but unbelievably they're closed the entire weekend.

I'm pissd......

Mae Clarke Day

so sez TCM . . . .

& once again here's the picture I took of her years ago in Beverly Hills

at the opera

wonderful visit from Regina

I'm back

my hard drive was corruptd

"Washing Marbles"

these are the marbles I wrote abt in my 1998 book On the Blue Swing.

Agnar Mykle (1915-1994)

today is the centennial of one of Norway's best known novelists.

I confess that it's been so long since I read his Song of the Red Ruby that I don't remember it at all.  but I do recall having great regard for it while I was in high school.  perhaps not quite as much regard as I had for Prokosch's The Asiatics.  but they were both provocative works for a young man.

so when I think of him on this day I'm also thinking of the young me.

birthdays

today is Lucy's.

also Andy Warhol's.

Mom had both of their autographs in her collection.

60 years ago

my friend Tom & I saw Marilyn in "There's No Business Like Show Business."

today is both Tom's birthday & Marilyn's death day.

so I'm remembering them both.

it can finally be reveald

my one-time profession:

remember this?

I realize there are those out there who never saw one of these. it was calld a catalog card. they were in drawers in libraries before there were computers.

today's organizing project turnd up a small cardboard box from OCLC addressd to Kent State's catalog department.  inside were all the cards for my collection. when the library gave up its card catalog someone must've saved my cards & given them to me. this is probably the first time in 20 years that I opend that little box. 

my first inclination was to pitch them.  but then I figured that the box is so small….. why not keep it.  I bet there aren't all that many old catalog cards left in the world.

fascinating

as I continue going thru closets & drawers I found a little baggie of "stuff" with this note from Mom:

Dad and I are trying to get rid of junk.  Ha ha, my stuff he wants to throw out but not his.

Kenneth Irby (1936-2015)

Joe Allen

in any big city restaurants come & go.  so it seems a big deal that this NYC favorite is celebrating its 50th year.

I startd going there in the 70s. in my drinking days I'd be alone at the bar.  but also meals over the decades with friends. the only regular I recall from the menu was the Caesar salad.  but it was a comfortable place. the waiters cd be the chorus from "Hello Dolly" (as no doubt some of them were over the years). I recall Jean-Pierre Aumont sitting by himself & Alfred Molina coming in from the rain.

I don't get to Manhattan much anymore.  but it's good to know that it's still there.

Lee Harwood (1939-2015)

this is Lee in 1970 -- the year he &  Stuart Montgomery did an American tour.  they stayd with me in Twin Lakes.

at one time we were going to co-edit an anthology of lists.  but it never happened.

relics

lei brought back from Hawaii (2004)

one of Dad's moth-damaged ties

overlappings

my discovery online of several photographs of Rudolph Valentino with a hermit in Palm Springs led me all over the place today.

the man with beard & guitar was William Pester. he was a nudist & local character who some think was the inspiration for the song "Nature Boy."

digging deeper I discoverd that shortly before he died Peter Wild publishd a bio of Pester.  I have a couple of connections to Wild. we share the same birthday (altho he was born 3 years before me). & we both had sweet little books publishd at the same time by Abraxas Press.

mine was my first book -- Into the Sea.  his was Three Nights in the Chiricahuas.

the reason I know they were publishd together is that at some point I was sent some extra covers by the press & they included the cover for Wild's book. they may have even been on the same page when the cover stock was printd.

I love knowing that both Valentino & Wild have Palm Springs connections.

Spanish Market

in 2001 Regina & I visitd Charlie Carrillo at his home. she bought a santo & I purchasd a candle box.  some time later I realizd my piece wasn't signd.

a couple of weeks ago I was in the check-out line with Charlie at our local grocery store. I mentiond the box & he sd I shd bring it by.

so I carefully carried the box on the bus to Spanish Market where Charlie finally put his signature to it.