One of my favorite things about my job is getting Philip Glass’s fan mail.
One of my favorite things about my job is getting Philip Glass’s fan mail.
My camera died before I could capture the view from the left side of the plane- New York laid out like a pristine grid, beautiful as a myth and welcoming me home with big, sloppy kisses.
This morning we sat down for breakfast and I felt like I was in New Orleans, the room open, spacious and sunny with ornate corners and smooth white tablecloths. It was half full, the only other tables crowded with serious-looking men talking business as they sipped their coffee and ate their eggs.
The tactile pleasures of good food and delicate clothing have become almost entirely foreign to me and I find myself admiring my meals and simply wandering through stores, touching everything between my thumb and forefinger. If I could, I would dress like a 1940s businessman every day- a well cut suit and conspicuous cuff links.
We’ve been drinking since breakfast and it makes the entire day feel unreal- velvety and smooth and silly. Breakfast drinks, lunch drinks, afternoon drinks. I’m wearing a dark green dress to dinner tonight and by now my hair is so long it almost kisses my waist and it’s clear that the only way to survive living in New York is to constantly have the means to leave it behind.
A story about hotdogs.
His leather belt, which secretly hid thin folds of twenty dollar bills in the inside lining.
Being reprimanded via a long distance telephone call about my incorrect use of a hyphen.
Knee socks (mine) and Aviator sunglasses (his).
Last night at Richard Maxwell added to my tally of plays where I’ve unintentionally been seated next to the playwright. When this happens, I always find myself more interested in watching the writer watching his or her play, rather than simply immersing myself in the piece. There are so many little tics to absorb- the way they show pleasure or frustration with their work, the way they take notes, the way they study other people studying their play. It’s an artist-spectator hall of mirrors.
A few years ago when a trip to London fell through at the last minute and I found myself stranded in New York for a week, I spent a small fortune on theater tickets, including one to the first preview of The Year of Magical Thinking. I sat third row, one seat in from the aisle, and at about 7:59pm a very small, sharp-edged old woman sat down next to me. It took me a few moments to realize it was Joan Didion, petite, wrinkled and with eyes so enormous there was something slightly alien-ish about her.
She seemed in excruciating pain throughout the duration of the play, usually staring at her lap instead of the stage and fidgeting with her hands. This likely had something to do with the subject matter of the piece, but it was also my first glimpse of a writer of high caliber regarding her work with the same sense of acute torture as a high schooler forced to read aloud to the class.
