So says Gregory to me this morning. No explanation needed, seems to me.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
"VULCANS ARE LIKE SPACE JEWS"
So says Gregory to me this morning. No explanation needed, seems to me.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
IT'S JUST ON THE STREET WHERE YOU LIVE
"I just don't feel like I get as drunk as other people," I boasted to my friend last night. It was girls' night. We were sitting in a back "garden" (alley) of our first destination, sipping our first glass of wine, waiting for the other two to arrive.
Two hours later found me traipsing down Sackett Street, singing all the hits from My Fair Lady at full voice:
I am sure that it was the volume of my interpretation of the Lerner and Loewe ballad rather than its musicality that caused the poor relaxing man-at-home to look up towards his window, and I wonder what he thought when a woman in a hat and poncho screamed in his face and ran down the street.
Don't get as drunk as other people, I says. Total. Lie.
Two hours later found me traipsing down Sackett Street, singing all the hits from My Fair Lady at full voice:
ARE THERE LILAC TREES IN THE HEART OF TOWN?I asked an indifferent Monday night borough neighborhood.
CAN YOU SEE A LARK IN ANY OTHER PART OF TOWN?Here I went for a highly inelegant tour j'ete.
DOES ENCHANTMENT SOAR OUT OF EV'RY DOOR?I never finished the phrase, to everyone's great relief, though my performance's abrupt termination had nothing to do with any concern for my friends' suffering ear drums, something they must have realized when they saw me running down the street squealing. Swept up as I'd been with the romance of this Musical Theater Classic, I'd leaned into a window dreamily as I belted. The window into which I'd leaned was on the first floor of a brownstone. Why I assumed the apartment would be unoccupied, I couldn't now guess, but it wasn't. Maybe a foot in front of the window, a man sat in an easy chair, quietly watching television.
NO IT'S JUST ON THE STREET WHERE YOU...
I am sure that it was the volume of my interpretation of the Lerner and Loewe ballad rather than its musicality that caused the poor relaxing man-at-home to look up towards his window, and I wonder what he thought when a woman in a hat and poncho screamed in his face and ran down the street.
Don't get as drunk as other people, I says. Total. Lie.
Thursday, May 07, 2009
NOM DE PLUME
One of the great joys of writing a novel is that one can feel justified indulging one's interest in any passing curiosity, all in the name of research. In the last year I have made myself an expert in topics ranging from the history of Coney Island high school basketball to "pump and dump" penny brokerage schemes of the early nineties. Productive? Not really. But its better than looking at a cursor blink menacingly at you when you don't know what to write next.
Towards this end, I have spent much of the last week reading about the rock-glam-punk scene of the late sixties and early seventies. I am fascinated by the different ways women participated in the scene, either as artists (Patti Smith, Debbie Harry), as muses (Patti Boyd, inspiration for "Wonderful Tonight" and "Layla" by Eric Clapton) and as groupies. This last category with provided me with hours of distraction. If you have any interest in groupie lore I recommend I'm with the Band and Let's Spend the Night Together by Pamela Des Barres. Oh, the places she's been!
In any case, though I think I have mostly worked it out of my system, I had a small New York Dolls-Iggy Pop spasm today, when I came across the name of a world famous punk journalist, the man who claims to have been the first to coin the phrase, Legs McNeil.
Legs McNeil, I thought, what a name! And it got me thinking...being that I am basically unpublished (other than this blog, of course, and a short story in a teeny tiny Brooklyn literary journal), I can have any name I want! Legs Manaster would be amazing, but a bit copy cat. Plus, what if the book gets published and someone wants to interview me and the interview starts with, "Anyway, Legs..." How could I get through that?
Iggy Pop got his name by combining two nicknames. I've had very few nicknames in my life. Lonnie Manaster is lame. In high school I had a friend who called me Twiggy, a barely-guarded dig at my chubbiness. My friend Emily and I call each other Balki. Balki Manaster? Twiggy Manaster? None of them are as good as Legs...
Many people have called me by my last name. My boss, for example. I often refer to myself by my last name. As in, "Jesus, Manaster. Get it together!" I could be Manaster Manaster! Like Mister Mister, only stranger and harder to pronounce correctly.
Obviously none of these will do, so I am turning to you, my meager readership, to come up with a good pen name. Something zippy, provocative. The whole thing is a publicity stunt, after all, so best not to waste it.
What say you?
Towards this end, I have spent much of the last week reading about the rock-glam-punk scene of the late sixties and early seventies. I am fascinated by the different ways women participated in the scene, either as artists (Patti Smith, Debbie Harry), as muses (Patti Boyd, inspiration for "Wonderful Tonight" and "Layla" by Eric Clapton) and as groupies. This last category with provided me with hours of distraction. If you have any interest in groupie lore I recommend I'm with the Band and Let's Spend the Night Together by Pamela Des Barres. Oh, the places she's been!
In any case, though I think I have mostly worked it out of my system, I had a small New York Dolls-Iggy Pop spasm today, when I came across the name of a world famous punk journalist, the man who claims to have been the first to coin the phrase, Legs McNeil.
Legs McNeil, I thought, what a name! And it got me thinking...being that I am basically unpublished (other than this blog, of course, and a short story in a teeny tiny Brooklyn literary journal), I can have any name I want! Legs Manaster would be amazing, but a bit copy cat. Plus, what if the book gets published and someone wants to interview me and the interview starts with, "Anyway, Legs..." How could I get through that?
Iggy Pop got his name by combining two nicknames. I've had very few nicknames in my life. Lonnie Manaster is lame. In high school I had a friend who called me Twiggy, a barely-guarded dig at my chubbiness. My friend Emily and I call each other Balki. Balki Manaster? Twiggy Manaster? None of them are as good as Legs...
Many people have called me by my last name. My boss, for example. I often refer to myself by my last name. As in, "Jesus, Manaster. Get it together!" I could be Manaster Manaster! Like Mister Mister, only stranger and harder to pronounce correctly.
Obviously none of these will do, so I am turning to you, my meager readership, to come up with a good pen name. Something zippy, provocative. The whole thing is a publicity stunt, after all, so best not to waste it.
What say you?
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