"Conversations with Friends" by Sally Rooney

For us singletons, Valentine's Day is a non-event, except that at the Y today, Carole was giving out pink chocolate kisses, and my friend Sylvie had a beautiful little heart-covered box for me, with homemade chocolate cake inside. What a sweetheart.

And at the same time, her husband John was here at my house, smashing through walls. What a mess. There was so much dust, the smoke alarms went off twice. It's thrilling, mind you - those walls were built in 1887, so the lath and plaster he extricated are 131 years old. This is just a preliminary exploration; the main work won't begin for months, we have to get permission from the city, which will take forever, and I have mountains and mountains of stuff to get rid of first. Yesterday, I started on the books, piled up scores to put in my Little Free Library, but there are still way, way too many left. Getting rid of books is tough.

Three treats today - it was warm and sunny, just a gorgeous day. I've been looking for a big enough handbag for my travels next month, and Doubletake came through today - a beautiful maroon bag by Ralph Lauren, which will hold many New Yorkers, my main criteria for travel bags. Imagine, someone gave this away.

And I finished a superb novel: "Conversations with Friends," by a very young (born in 1991!) Irish writer, Sally Rooney. Wonderful writing, fabulous dialogue, profound understanding of the complexities of human nature, about fear, love, friendship ... Here's the narrator, Frances, talking with her mother.

I laughed, and she offered her hand to help me up. Her hands were large and sallow, not at all like mine. They were full of the practicality I lacked, and my hand fit into them like something that needed fixing. 

And here she is, falling in love with a married man:

Eventually Nick looked over and I looked back. I felt a key turning hard inside my body, turning so forcefully that I could do nothing to stop it. His lips parted like he was about to say something, but he just inhaled and then seemed to swallow. Neither of us gestured or waved, we just looked at one another, as if we were already having a private conversation that couldn't be overheard. 

It has been a long time since I felt that key turning in my body, but this book brought the feeling back. I loved the book; it's as delicious as a big piece of chocolate cake.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/may/24/sally-rooney-conversations-with-friends-interview-salinger-snapchat-generation?CMP=share_btn_link 

On another note, however, I left the Y to get the streetcar home, but College Street outside the police station was blocked by a demonstration - First Nations people protesting the Colton Boushie verdict again. The police were there, protecting the protestors. I wondered if my daughter was there with them, but not on a school day, I guess. But today, Trudeau offered a new recognition of indigenous rights, which sounds like a good start.

And - Ontario is going through the horror of uncovering the trail of a serial killer of gay men, Bruce MacArthur. Wayson told me he'd met him a number of times; he was apparently a nice, kind man who helped out at the gay village's community centre. I guess that's where he picked people up. If Wayson had been a more vulnerable man, he might not still be here. Horrifying.

Tonight's present: Samantha Bee.

Eric Clapton

I just happened to check the Olympic medals total - and though I do not care much about the winter Olympics and have seen little of it, still, my jaw dropped: Germany first, Norway second, Canada THIRD, United States FOURTH, France fifth, Sweden sixth.

How is this possible, when we have a tenth the population of the U.S.? Still, there it is. My nationalism surges. Woo hoo! Go Canucks go!

It's still winter here. Much snow and ice. I was going to go to a spectacular documentary called Spettaculo today, and didn't. Hard to get out. It's time for snoring in the cave.

Watched a documentary about Eric Clapton on TV, however - mon dieu, what a life. Through the crazy Sixties, a brilliant young man addicted to black American blues, unusual in England; the tragedy of his obsession with Patti Boyd, who happened to be his best friend George Harrison's wife - how he wrote an entire album for her, including the famous "Layla," and still she did not leave her husband. By the time she did, Clapton was an alcoholic and drug addict, so their time together was misery. And then he got it together, got sober for his beautiful baby son Conor, only to have the boy fall out of a window of a New York high rise and die. The grief is unbearable, only he bears it as he does best, with a hauntingly beautiful song. Finally he emerges, sober and happy with a wife and new family, and a clinic he has established for addicts.

What they make clear is that Clapton was haunted by his past. At the age of 9 or 10, he learned that the woman he thought was his mother was in fact his grandmother; his mother had left the baby behind and gone to Canada. She returns infrequently into his life and does a horrible job, leaving him wounded and angry. Voila - a young man who spends his life making love to a guitar and adoring inaccessible or inappropriate women. Until, at last, he doesn't.

When I saw the Beatles in June 1965 in Paris, the warmup act was the Yardbirds. But Eric Clapton had just a few months before quit. I saw the talentless Jeff Beck and Jimmy Paige instead. LOL.

All this is forefront in my mind because I had a meeting today with fellow Macca lover Lisa Roy at the Miles Nadal JCC. We so enjoyed working together on the powerpoint presentation and talk I did there last November about my great-grandfather that we're doing it again - this time about my life as a Beatlemaniac, in conjunction with my memoir. I am talking there May 24, and there WILL BE MUSIC.

Tomorrow my friend John comes and starts smashing through walls to see what's there. The beginning of the long journey to something new in this house. Going under.

snowed in

Snow and snow and snow and snow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day ... Sigh. We are snowed in here, more than a foot since yesterday, and it's still coming down. Luckily, I, unlike my daughter, do not have a houseful of sons and nephews and nieces to keep busy in inclement weather. And to top it all, Anna's plan for midday was to take some of them to Nathan Phillips Square, for the protest against the verdict just handed down in the Colten Boushie trial. Boushie, a First Nations youth, a drunk prankster, was shot dead by a farmer whose yard he had entered. The farmer was just found not guilty of murder, and many are very upset, taking this as evidence of systemic racism in Canada. So Anna went off to protest in the snow.

It is a monochrome world out there - white and dark. Very very white with some dark brown, black, green. Mostly, however, white. As usual during these conditions, I think of the pioneers in log cabins in the middle of nowhere. How did they survive the deprivation and isolation? I am feeling very shut off, here in the middle of the metropolis with a furnace, running water, a full fridge, and a million amusements at my disposal, including FIVE library books and an episode of "Call the Midwife" tonight. Who could ask for more? Besides a tiny bit of sunlight, perhaps?

On Thursday I went to the Bloor to see one of a series of lectures on the life and career of Leonard Cohen; my friend Lynn again had been given tickets. The huge theatre was jam packed at 10 a.m. on a Thursday morning. It was fascinating to hear the circumstances around the songs and then to hear the actual songs. For example, he went into Cohen's brief, unfortunate partnership with Phil Spector, which turned his plaintive poetic folksongs into massive pop songs awash with horns and strings. Horrible.

One of Sam's childhood friends, William Di Novi, runs this lecture series there; he spoke beforehand, and it was great to see him for the first time since he was about twelve, when the boys went in separate directions. William called me last year to ask if I could put together a six part lecture series on the Sixties in Paris - or on any other topic. Much as I'd love to - my mouth watered, seeing that packed auditorium - still, I can't think of anything I know well enough to talk about for many hours to thousands of people. Certainly not Paris in the Sixties, since I was only there for a year. If you think of anything, let me know.

Another meeting about the reno - it looks as if I've got a contractor, that is, if he's free in June when I hope we can start. It'll be a massive project, beginning next week when John will smash through some walls to see what's there. So it begins, along with all the dust and mess. The worst part is that I'll have to sort and organize and get rid of a ton of stuff. Though I know I need to do it, it'll take forever, and it'll hurt.

But it'll be summer. No snow. Sunshine. We'll get there.

The library books:
Conversations with Friends, by Sally Rooney - a novel about a fascinating young woman and her relationships. Beautifully written, fabulous dialogue, enjoying it very much.

Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process, by John McPhee, a series of essays by a master non-fiction writer about his process

Thinking about Memoir, by Abigail Thomas: a lovely writer on one of my favourite subjects

Transit, by Rachel Cusk: I have the feeling I won't like this novel but felt I should at least try, as it's getting such buzz

Conversations with Canadians, by Lee Maracle: Lee is speaking at our CCNFC conference, so I want to know what she is writing about.

This plus both big weekend papers, many New Yorkers stacked up and some other mags, and a stack of at least 40 books to get to if I am ever stuck on a desert island. Or snowed in.

not watching the Super Bowl

My father's cousin Lola, a lifelong New Yorker, is exactly the age he would have been had he lived - 95, 96 later this year. She has shrunk since I visited her last year, after 3 weeks in the hospital last fall, but she's still in her bright studio apartment at 70th and 3rd, albeit now with a succession of live-in African caregivers. "I'm learning so much about Africa!" she says.

"I'm reading such an interesting book," she says. "Have you heard of Christopher Hitchens?" She's reading a book of his essays. Before that, an out of print novel by Pearl Buck, all on her Kobo. She doesn't get out any more, though until recently, she was still going to theatre - at extremely reduced seniors' rates - and art exhibits. And, in fact, she has been to see the Michelangelo exhibit at the Met, in a wheelchair with her daughter. "It was so crowded," she said. "I got discouraged. But," she told me, "I learned to draw when I was young by copying Michelangelo." Mother of 4 children and wife of a businessman, she was also a painter, ceramicist and jewellery-maker; a ring I never take off was made by her.

And then she told me about the time she met Tom Stoppard.

It's too bad so many of my New York relatives do not speak to each other. There are so many feuds, it's hard to keep track. I think that's one reason my father was happy to move to Canada and stay there.

I'd stopped at La Maison Kayser on the way and brought us French sandwiches and treats. And then, I was on my way, hoping to see her again soon. She is a powerful link to my father, "the guy," she said, "who taught me, when we were seven or eight, what 'fuck' means." Of course he did.

                                                     

Picture taken by Wendy from Burkina Faso.

The trip to the airport was stressful - nearly an hour's wait for a train at Penn Station, in a hall where there is not a single bench or chair, I guess because the many, many New York homeless would camp there - so we all sat on the floor. Finally the train was announced and set off, and then stopped because a bridge ahead was stuck open. "Delay," they said, "not sure how long." Just what a person heading for the airport likes to hear, with no more flights that day. I panicked, of course. Infrastructure in the U.S. is appalling - roads, trains, everything - but of course their fine president is going to fix that. Anyway, we got there and took off. Canada looked even colder than New York.

Home. Room in the bathroom to put things down. A change of clothes. A snowstorm. Though my son who'd stayed a few days here had made everything in the fridge vanish, he'd left me a plate of delicious pasta and 3 fine bottles of wine. Today - the pleasures of the hot tub at the Y, scrubbing off the grime of NYC. And then, across town. I'd bought a little teepee at Flying Tiger. Poor Thomas, it took an engineering degree to assemble it, but he did.

Anna was making chili for the Super Bowl, because she cares about football. Incomprehensible.

It is quiet. I am fuller than before - of the Angel Orensantz Centre and what happened there, of contact with friends and family, three spectacular pieces of theatre, Michelangelo, the fervent buzz of the city. Four days is my limit, but what a fine four they were.

I heart Noo Yawk

Madly, madly in love with this wunnerful town. Sometimes when I come, this metropolis overwhelms, but this time, it's been a treasure trove.

Okay, so where were we? Ah yes, Thursday. Thursday morning was Bloomingdale's, buying black pants on sale. The last three times I've come to New York, I bought Gerard Darel black pants on sale at Bloomingdale's - maybe I have enough pairs now? Can one ever have too many great black pants?

Walked back along Lexington, wondering how all those little stores survive. Like this one, an engraver since 1878 ...

I took it easy because I had the show again that night. My friend Harriet - Dame Harriet Walter now - came for a visit at Cousin Ted's, or, as she said, "tea at the museum." We had a great talk about her life, dashing about making movies - in the next two months, in Savannah, Georgia, Wales, and Northampton, and in between, doing something with an orchestra in Rome. When we talk, I envision what my life would have been if I'd stayed an actress, as she did; we are the same age and were at LAMDA together in 1972. She has an exciting high wire life. Not for me.

And then back down to the Lower East Side. Perhaps you could read between the lines, but anyway, now the truth must out: I was not happy with the show on Tuesday. In fact, I was deeply unhappy. The producer had reduced my great-grandfather's 4 act tragedy to 80 minutes with lots of songs and jokes and mugging; my ancestor was rotating in his grave. My own talk was truncated because I'd been asked to cut it short. I'd brought six books and sold not a one. So I was not looking forward to a recap.

Full!

Well - a miracle. It was like night and day. King Lear relaxed, the others in the cast relaxed, I relaxed. The show made more sense, went more slowly, had more charm. It was a big audience, and though a few left, many loved it. And my talk, this time, went really well - I could take my time, tell them more of the story, and it grabbed them, I could feel it. At the end, there was a line of people waiting to buy books - and I didn't have enough! Many interesting people were there, including an old friend, David Mazower, whom I met very early in my research decades ago and had lost touch with. David's great-grandfather was ALSO a famous Yiddish playwright, only he speaks Yiddish and is connected to that world, and way back, he introduced me to some fabulous characters from the Yiddish theatre. And then he vanished back to London, but now, there he was. So we arranged to have lunch today.

People wanted to talk, the cast were lovely, David Serero was charming - the Thursday experience could not have been more different from the one two days earlier. And even - it was supposed to rain, and I got into a cab just as it started and sped home, watching New York flash by in the rain, with the job behind me and all books sold. Heaven.

Today - spectacular. To the Met, to see the Michaelangelo exhibit. The man could do everything - sculpture, painting, architecture ... And oh, how he loved bodies, especially male torsos. He himself was not a handsome man, but he had lots going on, professionally, personally, and it seems sexually, in his very busy and successful life.

 Admiring a little naked statue

Michaelangelo's poem about painting the Sistine Chapel

The actual poem, with doodle - he doodled a lot

His magnificent statue of Brutus

The man himself, with his broken nose. What a life.

I didn't walk across the park afterward as I usually do, it was hideously cold, a vicious wind blasting down those concrete canyons. To my favourite shoe store, Harry's, which sells big sizes and just happened to have a pair of boots in size 10 1/2 at 2/3 off, the last pair after she'd brought out every hideous shoe in my size. The pair I wore there, I'd bought at Harry's with Brucie many years ago; they're falling apart. Now, spiffy black boots to go with my spiffy black pants.

To lunch with David Mazower and his colleague Lisa from the Yiddish Book Centre, where he now works. A long lunch with us gossiping about people dead for many years, our own ancestors and their compatriots. So so much fun - there aren't many people like David who care as much about these stories as I do. He has written an article on my great-grandfather that he'll send me, and there's stuff about his in my book. A literary friendship that goes back a century or so.

I'd planned to go to another museum, but it was too cold, even to stand waiting for a bus - I got a cab back to Ted's and emailed until it was time to go to the theatre. Ted had suggested a Broadway show, but luckily I happened to hear about a recommended show on E. 59th, only two subways stops away. Not having to deal with the loud twinkling chaos of Broadway, especially on a horribly cold Friday night, is always a plus. And it started at 7.15! Perfect.

In fact, it was perfect in every way. "The Undertaking," a play about death, our fear of death, how we avoid it or confront it, what anxiety is and does. This company, called Civilians, does documentary theatre - taking interviews, real voices, and turning them into theatre. Tonight's was a kind of meta-theatre in which the writer, played by an actor, and his collaborator, played by an actress, were preparing a theatre piece about death, and inhabit some of the characters who were interviewed - a woman with cancer who took LSD and ended by actually seeing her fear and getting rid of it; a gay man whose lovers kept dying of HIV and who said, "I'm not crazy about life. I'm not an optimistic person";  a British philosopher who says that philosophy is about how to accept death and discusses Socrates and Plato.

The actors changed voices and characters brilliantly, and what we heard was a conversation between two very honest, clever, creative people trying to figure out the final puzzle of existence, with interjections from interesting others. "Maybe fear of death is fear of life," she says at one point. The anxious man confronts what haunts him - his mother's slow decline from MS, "being left behind" - and opens to life. He sees how beautiful a tree is. The end.

And I, weeping.

Back two stops to Ted's, the subway packed with loud interesting crazy people. And here I am. Tomorrow, visit my father's cousin Lola who's soon 95, and then off to Penn Station, the train to Newark, we do it all in reverse. I am coming home with black pants, black boots, and a glad heart.