At my busiest, I work through every weekend. At my most decadent, I work through half of them. Last weekend put me in Virginia Beach, for the first time, to cover a special election that sounded interesting and, in a lucky break, actually was interesting. This weekend put me back home with Margarita, doing wedding planning and making a few small trips toward Glendale.
Yes, there was a lot of rain, and yes, people lost their ability to drive in it. Disappointing when the hackiest joke about a place is true. We avoided the roads as we did our work; most of mine used notes from Washington, anyway.
There was one day in New York between Virginia and here, for two interviews and a tasting at the caterer we’d already hired for the wedding. The first part was in Chelsea, the second part in DUMBO, and I was irrationally proud of getting between them in 30 minutes to show up at the caterer’s office five minutes late. My goal for the service - I could say “our goal” but it was mine first - was nobody going home talking about how bad the food was at our wedding. We’d reduced the risk by springing for buffet tables instead of of set meals, so there would be no looking with peeved, drunk eyes at the uneaten pile of food from the table that got served last, peeved, drunk mind calculating how much wasted money it represented.
Problem solved, food very good. I caught up with a friend who’d moved from L.A. to New York about the crypto scam investigation he was working on, then stayed with a friend whose WGA membership had earned him a stack of For Your Consideration movies on DVD. We mostly caught up instead, reminiscing about awful wedding receptions to give me more ideas. His sour memory of a wedding we’d both been to, in which he and half the attendees were stuck in a separate room during all the toasts, helped me remember that I’ve smoothed away the details of all the weddings I’ve been to. My friend CJ had apologized to me more than once for his dry reception with spaghetti and meatballs and music played through an iPod. I remembered that as a fun wedding.
What is this, a wedding planning diary? That would probably be popular, but no, this is the rundown of what I got up to all week.
The best thing I read: English heartthrob Dan Stevens did it for me, narrating of Robert Fitzgerald’s translation of “The Iliad.” I’d bought it before a long Michigan drive I had to take in November, and listened chapter by chapter, stopping if my attention was waning, because I really wanted to savor it. Fitzgerald’s language is beautiful, and each line sounds like there was no better way to say it. I stopped to write down Achilles talking about his honesty: "I hate as I hate Hell’s own gate that man who hides one thought within him while he speaks another. What I shall say is what I see and think.”
So, right, nothing was going to top that. I read four other books: the Very Short Guide on the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians (I planned to give it away but hadn’t read it), Junji Ito’s “Black Paradox,” Philip Roth’s “The Plot Against America,” and Joostein Garder’s “Sophie’s World.” I’d grabbed the last of those because it’d been on my mind for years, as a strong recommendation from a high school classmate who now records Dale Carnegie-esque positivity videos for corporate executives. It would have landed harder in high school, because it’s an uncomplicated YA novel with the real history of philosophy serving the role that magic farglebargle fills in a teen fantasy.
The best thing I watched: Tough week for that. A tie: “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” and “Skinamarink,” two movies I liked and probably won’t see again. Both are horror films; the first is the sort of socially relevant horror film that wins the Palme d’Or, the sort with an aborted fetus onscreen. (No humans were harmed in the making etc.) Two Romanian girls, one pregnant, navigate the abortion black market in 1987. No indignity or humiliation is too much for our heroines, who put up with it in excruciatingly long takes. Again: I liked it.
I was the only member of my crew to like “Skinamarink,” a cheap Canadian horror film in which very little happens and everything looks awful. It’s supposed to look awful. The film opens with a shot of two children wandering by their parents’ bedroom, shot by a camera on the floor that sees mostly carpet, saturated with VHS grain. The image quality never changes. Each shot, usually static or a slow pan, focuses on a liminal space that your eye scans for something menacing. My packed theater was audibly disappointed, one guy letting out a lust “HA!” as soon as “THE END” came onscreen. I like experimental film, so I stayed interested, even if no one else did.
The best walk I took: A 90 minute stroll from Los Feliz to Hollywood, which I picked over a bus or cab ride to meet two friends at Lily’s Bar. I do this every time I’m here with a loose schedule, partly because I like walking and partly because it confounds the snob’s view of the city, that you can’t get by without a car.
You can’t, really, but you can take an afternoon off without a car. No need to park. Just stop inside if a shop looks interesting, don’t buy anything you don’t want to carry back.
That meant buying almost nothing except a mineral water and a coffee, until I got to Hollywood. Counterpoint Books was one of the first places I went in LA, meeting a friend there before a UCB show in 2013; I stopped there and picked up John Banville’s novel “The Sea” and James Kaplan’s “Sinatra: The Chairman,” the concluding volume in a series I haven’t started.
Amoeba, at its new, heretical location, didn’t tempt me this time. Vinyl’s the last thing I want to get more of before a move, but I got to see what was popular and nod respectfully at the people who still listen to it.
Best thing I drank: The Death and Taxes at the Lily’s: mezcal, sweet vermouth, Cynar, cherry herring, and banana liquor on the rocks. Subscribe to Suderman’s newsletter if this is your thing, because I only drink when meeting people or (there it is) weddings.
I liked the "disappointing when the hackiest joke about a place is true". Concur on the strolling strategy of never buy anything at a store you aren't planning on carrying back. That one has caught me a few times. Sounds like LA was fun!