Summer In The City

"I love New York on summer afternoons when everyone's away. There's something very sensuous about it - overripe, as if all sorts of funny fruits were going to fall into your hands."

- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, 1925

True. I love New York in August, despite the heat and gross smells. So many people are away - and yet no matter how many people are away, Midtown, as always, is so crowded you can barely push your way down the sidewalk. It is exactly what I love and hate most about New York.

I recently started a job at a big publishing company - a job I've been hoping for, and working towards, for so long that I never thought this day would come. So far, it has been wonderful (and busy); I am loving everything about it. The feeling that my dedication to finding a job in this industry has finally paid off - after all the times I doubted and cursed myself - is so great that I feel I'm going to burst with relief. Best immediate prize for getting this job: the Take shelves scattered around my office, which are exactly what they sound like - shelves where you can just take any and all the books that you like. Hundreds of books. For the taking. It is magical.

Recently read (and soon to be written about, I swear): Rachel Shukert's Everything Is Going To Be Great, Tana French's Faithful Place, Sara Gruen's Water For Elephants, Douglas Adam's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, plus the bunch of books I read over the past few months that I never got to. They're a-comin'.

Currently reading: Joshua Ferris's Then We Came To The End. Phenomenal.

(Image via)

Shakespeare in the Park

One of the Summer in New York things I have always wanted to do, but have never been able to, is to see a performance of the Shakespeare in the Park series. Last year’s headliner was Anne Hathaway in Twelfth Night, a performance my friends and I unsuccessfully attempted to see. Our attempt was well-planned, too; we knew we would have to camp out early for the free tickets to the evening show, so we arrived at the Central Park ticket booth around 8am on a weekday. As we approached the shuttered booth and didn’t see anyone nearby, we laughed at ourselves for our excessive punctuality – oh, what fools we were. Upon further exploration we found the actual start of the line, which was littered with people in sleeping bags and tents. 10+ snaking Park blocks later, we found the end of the line and waited an hour or so, only to be turned away for lack of tickets. All was not lost that day last summer, however; my friends and I spent a lovely day exploring the Cloisters and getting pizza in Brooklyn (was that a year ago already?!).

Moral of the story: get there even earlier than 8am if you want to see a Shakespeare in the Park show. And, in New York, celebs + culture + free = impossible to get into. The tradition of Shakespeare in the Park is, of course, a double edged sword: the fact that the shows are free is great in that it opens the conversation (in theory) to anyone and everyone; in practice, however, only the most committed and die-hard fans/ people who have whole days to spend waiting in line can actually participate.

Point being: I do not want this to happen again this summer. The Winter’s Tale and The Merchant of Venice (starring Al Pacino!) are onstage until the end of July, so I only have a few weeks left to right the wrongs of summers past. In the WSJ this past weekend, a review appeared entitled “Knocking Shakespeare Out of the Park.” If I (and millions of other New Yorkers) hadn’t already been interested in the performance, this review certainly would have wooed me. The reviewer writes, “Not only is this the best Merchant of Venice I've ever reviewed, but it's one of the finest Shakespeare productions I've ever seen, period.” Wow.

Stay tuned to find out if I actually get to see Pacino as Shylock.

In Conversation: Roddy Doyle & Colum McCann

Today was another of those perfect New York days. It was the final day of the PEN World Voices Festival, which hosted a conversation between Roddy Doyle and Colum McCann at the French Institute Alliance Francaise. I bought tickets months ago – this was not something I was going to risk missing. And, as expected, they were both brilliant. After picnicking in Central Park, my friend (a fellow lover of all things Irish) and I sat starry-eyed in the audience, trying to soak up everything they said. A lot of ground was covered; the conversation flowed from what it means to be a contemporary Irish writer, to The Quiet Man, to Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach, to Japanese translations, to Don DeLillo, to talking dogs, to Wife Swap. I only wish I took detailed notes.

Because McCann and Doyle are friends (reinforcing my belief that all the best contemporary Irish writers are part of a close-knit circle), the event truly was a conversation. Though it was really all about Roddy Doyle, with McCann asking him the questions, the dialogue that emerged from these questions meant that we learnt much about both writers. McCann mentioned that the first time he came across Doyle years ago, he was trying to sell copies of The Commitments outside of a Northside Dublin concert venue. And I was amazed to learn that The Commitments was first self-published. In this age, where the number of writers that are self-publishing books is skyrocketing and the stigma attached to them is decreasing, that is encouraging for writers to hear – the truly great stuff can be recognized, even if its not through the regular publishing avenues.

Doyle also talked a bit about the business of writing, from what it means to go on tour to how long it takes to write a work to what his favorite medium is (fyi, out of the many forms he writes in – short stories, novels, children’s books, plays, Young Adult books, and screenplays – it is the novel that is most important to him). As I often hear from authors, Doyle approaches his characters like Michelangelo approached a block of marble, seeing the figure inside that needs to be released; rather than creating them, he is giving them their voice on the page. He spoke of how he was interested to see how Henry Smart had aged when he began writing his most recent book (The Dead Republic is the third in his trilogy of Henry Smart books, preceded by A Star Called Henry and Oh, Play That Thing!). I was also amazed/ impressed to learn that he never reacts physically emotionally when writing his books (other than his sense of relief upon finishing a book) – I can’t imagine reading, let alone writing The Commitments without lots of laughter.

Following the discussion, both writers came out for a chat and book signing. I approached Roddy Doyle like a giddy 12-year-old at a Justin Bieber concert, mumbling something about loving his work and studying at UCD thanks in part to him, for which he graciously thanked me and signed (personalized!) my tattered copy of The Barrytown Trilogy. Colum McCann was no disappointment either; he was so friendly and personable, signing my copy of Let the Great World Spin (which I will write about soon – amazing book) with my name and a ‘Slainte.’ I will be sleeping with both these signed books very close to me for a long time.

So, at the end of a wonderful day, here is a short excerpt from The Commitments, which I reread frequently because it is just so much fun (and it can literally be read in under 2 hours, so if you haven’t read it and have 2 hours to spare, DO IT). And, of course, a musical bit from the film adaptation, the screenplay of which was also written by Doyle and is no less amazing.

"Where are yis from? (He answered the question himself.) Dublin. (He asked another one.) – Wha’ part of Dublin? Barrytown. Wha’ class are yis? Workin’ class. Are yis proud of it? Yeah, yis are. (Then a practical question.) – Who buys the most records? The workin’ class. Are yis with me? (Not really.) – Your music should be abou’ where you’re from an’ the sort o’ people yeh come from. – Say it once, say it loud, I’m black an’ I’m proud."

- The Commitments, 1987

THE EMPEROR'S CHILDREN by Claire Messud

Lately, I’ve been exploring my overwhelming love for New York through the books I’ve been reading. First up – Claire Messud’s The Emperor’s Children – a great contemporary New York novel, set in the months leading up to September 11 and immediately after. With a bit of satire and a whole lot of insight, the novel follows three friends, and the many people in their lives, as they approach their thirties with little to show for themselves. With this many characters and such big themes and events, the book may sound overarching. It certainly is ambitious, and is a work that, in other hands, could have easily failed miserably. But Messud writes it so well, never making it overtly satiric or sentimental. She manages to create completely recognizable characters (right up to how infuriating people can be) and situations, while still making grand statements about American privilege, entitlement, and how New York/ the country was at that particular moment.

Danielle, Marina, and Julius are the three near-thirty friends – graduates of Brown University – trying to make their way in New York. They all fancy themselves as some sort of intellectual artist; excluding Danielle (the most sensible of the three and the only one who kind of works), they are writers who don’t actually write and consider themselves above the plebian duty of holding down a ‘job’ in an ‘office.’ As we see how they see their lives – their disappointments over what went wrong, what the world owes them, why they are basically failures – we also see how other people in their lives see them and themselves. There is Murray Thwaite, Marina’s renowned journalist/ talking head father, whose shadow covers everyone else in the book. There’s Ludovic Seeley, the Australian journalist/ entrepreneur who comes to New York to (successfully, though not necessarily as he intended) turn everything on its head. Then there is Bootie, Murray’s young and unfamiliar nephew who comes to New York to follow in his esteemed uncle’s footsteps, only to quickly become disillusioned and throw a wrench into the machine.

The New York of most of the novel is its own world, and one which Messud gently but deftly satirizes and exposes. As such a successful and well-known personality, Murray Thwaite and his family (complete with Marina, even as she approaches 30) live in a ritzy penthouse on the Upper West Side; it is here, and through this family, that most of the characters’ lives intersect. Murray is the typical liberal intellectual superstar: a man of the 60’s whose hypocritical head has been blown up by fame, considers himself above even his own affirmations, and who won’t lift a finger to clean their home (that, naturally, is left to his working wife – the only truly admirable character in the book and, incidentally, the only one whose thoughts we never hear). The entitlement that accompanies this life defines Marina and (despite their downtown, non-ritzy addresses), spills over onto Danielle and Julius. When Ludovic, as someone who is sort of diametrically opposed to all that Murray stands for, enters the picture and Bootie, Emerson-devotee that he is, begins to see through Murray, things get interesting (and uncomfortable). Not until towards the end of the book does September 11 hit; because no dates are used throughout the book and no hint of what was to come was ever apparent, in reading it I was, as the characters were and as it was in reality, blindsided by that day.

More than the intertwining stories of all the characters, or the satirizing of New York high society, or the reflections on the lost generation of entitled but disillusioned young people, The Emperor’s Children is about a specific and unique moment in time, right before everything changed. Covering that day in books or movies or anything is a very delicate business – how can it be represented successfully in any kind of artistic or fictional medium without reducing it or risking people’s personal experience with it? Honestly, if I had known before I began the book (and started loving it) that it would reach September 11, I don’t know that I would have read it (so I guess, if anyone is reading this and was considering reading the book, you can now make an informed decision). But I am glad I did; Messud handles it so well, perfectly illustrating the complete shift everything took right after. With that, and with her amazingly perceptive insights on her characters and the archetypes they represent, Messud wrote an incredibly compelling novel, one in which I (interestingly), became more invested in as the characters became less and less likable. Plus, for all their pretension and hypocrisy, who wouldn’t want to be a part of the Thwaite’s New York?

New York

"I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York's skyline. Particularly when one can't see the details. Just the shapes. The shapes and the thought that made them. The sky over New York and the will of man made visible. What other religion do we need?"

- Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead, 1943

(Image via)

Cheers to National Poetry Month

It seems April is National Poetry Month and, as the New York Times book blog Paper Cuts points out, what better way to celebrate than the way most great poets would - by drinking? I love the Book Bench's assemblage of literary-inspired drinks (I especially want to try the somewhat surprising Winnie the Pooh-inspired Honeysuckle Rouge). And the American Academy of Poets has a few drink recipes inspired by specific poems, as well as a list of New York bars participating this month in this literary drink-fest (many of which I hope to visit before the month is out). Personally, my favorite thing to do when I feel like channeling favorite writers through alcohol in New York (aside from visiting Dylan Thomas at the White Horse Tavern) is to have a gin and tonic (I'm not brave enough for Highballs) at a swanky bar uptown while pretending I'm in a F. Scott Fitzgerald short story. Of course, this doesn't happen nearly as often as I'd like (read: hardly ever), but it makes me happy to pretend.

POINT OMEGA by Don DeLillo

Don DeLillo is probably one of our most important contemporary authors – certainly one of America’s best writers writing today. That said, his books are not always easy to get through, or enjoyable. I haven’t tackled some of his most intimidating works, like Underworld or Libra, but I loved White Noise. His last two books – the recently released Point Omega and, before that, Falling Man – I found to be a bit disappointing. Even now, writing about Point Omega a week after I finished it, I’m having a difficult time recalling its details and my immediate reaction to it. Unlike with White Noise, the characters and ideas behind Point Omega left me as soon as I closed the book. Though, this isn’t to say it is a bad book – I don’t think DeLillo is capable of that. It was still a worthwhile read.

Point Omega follows Richard Elster, an aging academic just coming off a stint working in the government as a sort of war strategist; a “defense intellectual,” kept around to intellectually justify and explain war. Following this, he has retreated to the desert as an escape from the busyness of reality and his thoughts. He is joined in his desert isolation by a young filmmaker interested in making a sort of avant-garde documentary about the man, and whose eyes we see Elster through. As their days meld together and they silently watch the colorful desert sunsets, we learn their philosophies of self, time, and death, and who they feel they are when stripped of all reality in this strange isolation. This is mostly what the book is – what they think and feel when there is nothing else to think about, and all focus has turned inward. When Elster’s daughter arrives, their routine shifts and they attempt to adjust their lives of the mind to include her, until something strange happens and they have to figure out how to adapt to this new reality that they cannot escape. (Vague, I know, but so was the book.)

DeLillo has a wonderful way with places. When it comes to descriptions, he has no use for flowery language (which, when misused, can undermine its very point). In portraying the isolation of the desert and the glory of the sunsets, he avoids overt descriptions while still capturing the power the place holds over his characters and conveying the sunset’s beauty. Similarly, the first and last scene of the book are all about setting, though a very different one. In a story that is seemingly incongruous with the rest of the book but ultimately comes together, these scenes take place in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, in an exhibit entitled “24 Hour Psycho.” In a number of articles I read about the book when it first came out, DeLillo cited this installation exhibit – one that actually took place, in the summer of 2006 – as the main inspiration for writing the book. In writing about it, he makes the exhibit (a screening of Psycho, slowed down so that it plays once over 24 hours) somehow transcendent; a breaking down of the film and, consequentially, real life. It made me wish I had seen the exhibit when it was on display.

Clearly, I didn’t actively dislike DeLillo’s Point Omega. He is a fantastic writer who makes powerful stuff out of no plot. And yet, though there were parts and aspects I admired, the book didn’t stay with me. For all its life philosophies, none of the ideas struck me. Perhaps I’m still holding DeLillo up to his own White Noise standard, but I continue to return his recent books to the library let down. Maybe its time for me to visit his older, more daunting works – Underworld, here I come?

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Literary Drunks

Here is a fun photo gallery from Life magazine (who knew it was still around?) highlighting 'Famous Literary Drunks & Addicts.' Well, maybe fun is the wrong word - interesting. It's no seceret a vast amount of great writers and artists struggle with addiction. Among the writers featured in this gallery are some of the best (and my favorites): Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker, Brendan Behan, Ayn Rand, Kerouac, Edna St. Vincent Millais, Poe. The list goes on (there are 47 photos, after all!).

Here is a photo and the Life blurb to go with Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas. It mentions his love for the West Village bar the White Horse Tavern, which, coincidentally, has been my own favorite bar of late. Part of the reason I love it so (aside from its proximity to my office, good pints, and cool crowd) is the wealth of paintings and photographs of Thomas and other poets that decorate the walls. Appropriate, then that he loved it also.

"The legend that Thomas once returned to the Chelsea Hotel in New York after a drinking bout at his favorite watering hole, The White Horse Tavern in Greenwich Village, and proclaimed, "I've had eighteen straight whiskies, I think that is a record," might be based in fact. That is, Thomas might well have made that claim. But whether Thomas actually downed anything like 18 whiskies on that November day in 1953 is another matter entirely. Some say he did; others say he didn't; others seem to wish it were true, but have no proof. Regardless, Thomas was an avid drinker, and one of the 20th century's most deservedly beloved poets. "Do not go gentle into that good night, / Old age should burn and rave at close of day; / Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

(Text via Life, Photo via)