Events, Places, and Things
DIARY 3867
6/2/73
ACC SITUATION
Walthur and Tom Aloisi insisted it had to be in the schools (grades 7 & 8) by September 1 because contracts were signed for then. Any suggestion to the contrary, Syva insisted practically shouting, had been turned down. Finally Barbara and Syva, the new coordinator Anne Herrick (!), and Dror came up with a schedule GIVEN the necessary completion date, moving BACK to now. The SCHEDULE was impossible, if only because "last manuscript TO ACC on 6/29," and "last EDITED manuscript to translation on 6/29" obviously impossible to EDIT as many as 20 units in ONE DAY. But they keep talking about the "assumption" pages. So I copy them from Barbara's copy, read it, and am appalled to see: "This based on the following assumptions," which include the "facts" that each department CAN do its workload provided they get more funds, people, time, etc. But the impression IS (and Marge agreed) that the schedule IS possible. Syva shrieks that that's what she told TOM, but TOM took HER assumptions (which SHE says can NEVER be met) and put them into HIS letter. Nothing's signed, and I say it's obvious Tom didn't write it, since there's so much of Syva and Barbara in it, and THEY can be held responsible. So Barbara is SAYING no and WRITING yes. She's quiet and glum while Syva shouts that that's NOT the case, saying that in her FORMER experience they did the SAME thing, then the schedule WASN'T met, and it was extended, failed, extended, failed, extended before finished, and I said that was UNFAIR since it gave the impression the WORKERS failed, rather than the FACT that MANAGEMENT failed. "Well, maybe Walthur will have a talk with Marketing, who made the mistake in the first place." Well, hardly, if he got the technical people to AGREE that the schedule was there, "based on certain assumptions," which could be conveniently FORGOTTEN because they were on a different SHEET OF PAPER. Then Anne Herrick wrote a MARvelous section about how impossible it was to work this way, nicely worded, and THAT bodes fair for SOME kind of change (though I know it won't, because I REPEAT what I said about Tom: he's the PERFECT person for the job: his boss says to DO it, and he immediately, ignoring FACTS, says it CAN be done.)
DIARY 4198
11/3/73
THE END OF APPLETON-CENTURY-CROFTS!
I wondered if I should include myself with them. I ask Ron "I don't want to come in tomorrow and be told I shouldn't have," and Ron goes and ASKS Tom and I DO come in until further notice!! Incredible!! There's also the statement that some of the staff may be released and then used on a freelance basis, when Tom makes up the plans for the department and presents them to Walther sometime early next week. Everyone's wandering around the halls DESPITE the notice on the memo (which I copy as a classic) that everyone is expected to put in their full wages worth of work. But later everyone admits that THESE people fired got the WORST of the lot, since others got far MORE severance pay, and the only change they get is to be left out of work if they have another job interview. Then, just to finish the week at ACC HERE, on FRIDAY Ginny Croft announces that she's gotten a $1500/month job for someone working for Nam Pak at Van Nostrand at 33rd and 10th starting a week from Monday, and she's VERY happy, but that leaves NO one who has ANY knowledge of publishing production left in the department! And the work keeps piling up on MY desk, MUCH to my amusement---but then I seem to be the only person DOING anything, too! Jerry sits in our office for a long time telling tales about the past fiascos he's been involved in for ACC, and they reminisce about the November 17, 1971 SAME-DAY layoff of the entire fifth floor. Leave at 5:30, fairly depressed because the streets are DARK now that we've gone back to standard time, and home to talk to John about going to the Spike for the costume contest, and he says not everyone will be in costume, so I decide I DO want to see it, and John's going to the Cube first, which I won't join him at, only meet him there at 11. Smoke a pipeful first and go downstairs to experience a strange stoned experience in the enormous elevators in the St. George going down to the subway, and fantasize all sorts of orgies there, it going down forever, getting stuck, getting hotter, etc. Into the Spike at 11:30 well before the festivities (see next page), and then up to the Eagle at 12:30 for THEIR contest, and home at 2! OH, forgot that I sat and finished "Sturgeon Is Alive and Well" by 8 pm, after doing the dishes. Happy times!
DIARY 4226
11/17/73
ASI MEETING
Alan Greengrass, vice president, isn't there, sick; Fred Patterson, treasurer, with $2,678 in the treasury, is the tall ugly fellow from WSDG, to my surprise, Peter's there looking too-neat in a suit; Dee Atkinson is the financial committee chairperson, much too interrupty, but she's in LMP for addressing about financial things; Marlene Hurst shows up from wherever, and there are ANSI and ASI indexing STANDARDS committees. Gloria Dougherty substitutes for sick Jeannine Green on freelancing, and she doesn't say much except that the NICB index could be limited to three subjects per manuscript, pretty small. Then Anne Pelowski speaks from 8 to 8:20 about her 10,000 books, 8,000 B&W photos, 2,000 art items, and 1,000 transparencies in the growing collection, and she holds up a picture of Hong Kong students, saying "Guess what they wanted to know about," and I shouted out "footwear," and was right, so on the basis of that, went up to her and gave her my name for freelance indexing services. She's great: gets to know all the indexes and glossaries and toy collections here and in India and Africa, but deals with great questions and a neat indexing service. This is the thing that I could volunteer for if I need a job to take time off my hands as John does. They have no thesaurus yet, since it changes so rapidly. Find out that Congo (Kinshasa) is now Zaire. The CUNY Graduate Center is a neat building, the main thorofare blocked, but the elevator doors on the side area are VERY elegant, service is speedy, and there's a nice openness about the classrooms that are all white and black that I like. Have two cups of coffee and about a dozen butter cookies since no one else is eating them, strike up conversations with lots of visitors, and they seem to have a going thing in the last five years of existence, hope to get in a group Blue Cross plan, maybe I can become their travel agent, and Peter is getting HIMself into the organization, too. Talk with someone from France, get looked at my cruising gals, chatted at by an oriental, and there are lots of neatly dressed old ladies who don't look TOO poor, so it might be worth going back to---if only they'd served PUNCH: I robbed Jerry Steinhart's cache of wine to two FULL cuplets to give myself a nice glow, and needed it in the suddenly cold and very breezy weather through my SHORT hairs.
DIARY 4230
11/19/73
SECOND AND LAST SCRABBLE TOURNAMENT
I'd forgotten the awful feeling of contempt for the people who DIDN'T know how to play, whom I could beat with no trouble, and the terrible feeling of contempt for the people who WERE expert, spending all their time memorizing all the two and three and four-letter words in the Funk and Wagnall's in order to make the best use of their seven little tiles which relied so much on LUCK, anyway. But one of the former champions was around with a tight white woolen sweater on, and his large pectorals almost drew my attention away from his paunch to think him attractive, particularly from the back, where his thick thighs filled in his black levis attractively. But Steckowitz was scholarly and unattractive, Skolnick was lean and Jewish, and the 80 or fewer people who were playing were mostly unattractive, and even Madeline Sunshine didn't show up, though I'd forgotten they didn't like you playing against people you knew, and to help people challenge more, they said they'd add 50 points to the winner's score, so that there wouldn't be as many nonsense words. The prizes were fabulous: silver plated Scrabble pins and Scrabble Players T-shirts. Oh, gee wow! I won the first game from 1:05 to 1:57, thankfully going more quickly than last time, 382 (including the bonus 50) to 264, but was sad to see Krausher with 522 and Efflinger with 509, which sort of put me out of the running. The second game, from 2:15 to 3:07, I won 276 to 392, giving me a two-game total of 774, hardly up to Krausher, who soared to 1012, and there were at least 4 who totaled over 900. Third game was dreary, I lost 436 to 270, when she got two bingos, from 3:25 to 4:17, and I barely stayed around to watch some of the 1350+ scores go up on the board, and since I only had 1044, there wasn't any reason at ALL to stay around, certainly not the sad-eyed girls who obviously thought to meet someone there, nor the Blech brothers who fretted about their chances of being passed to the quarter-finals through all the scoring. Channel 2 would cover us at their 7 pm news, Channel 11 at 8, and I saw a shot in the News, and the Times was there, too, and Ron announced that there would be a PAY tourney in February, and I smiled and said that was nice, but that I would NOT be participating. I rather hope, sour-grapishly, that it doesn't work, either!!
DIARY 4253
12/4/73
LOSING MY SECOND ENGINE
Happy at the thought of a tail wind, getting into Oslo at 2 am, and the dinner is delayed because of constant turbulence reported ahead by planes going through, and the strong drinks help to cushion the bounces, but then the pilot hesitatingly comes on and says "In case you wondered about that outboard engine on the left, we're turning around to return to Gander or Boston or New York, but now that tail wind is against us, and we're going back to New York (he says FINALLY, after about an HOUR'S wait) and will get there at 2 am, just the time we would have gotten into Oslo, but there are airports all along below---as soon as we get back to Gander, since we're out of touch with Pan Am now -- but there wouldn't be any on the way to Oslo, but you'll have a new plane and crew waiting for you there." I feel like calling the whole thing off, and DO, deciding that I CAN'T go with Mom, she SHOULD go (though when I leave her she says she isn't), and the idea that the flight to Leningrad is THREE hours means that the flight will essentially take the ENTIRE day of Monday, so that, as it later turns out, if the plane leaves at 11:30 am on Friday, it'll get in about 6:30 am, getting settled into the hotel about noon, and being EXHAUSTED for the rest of the day, so it would just be SUNDAY in Moscow, and 3 days in Leningrad, and someone else said that only the CHURCHES are open in Moscow on Sunday, so it wouldn't really be SEEING Moscow, only Leningrad, and I'd rather spend the time with John, since they show "Jeremy," which is a nice, simple, touching film about two youngsters very much in love, that a plane flight separates when they want to be together. I KNOW John's going through a rough time, and I want to be with him. But I really don't know if I WOULD have gotten off the plane charter if I knew that he didn't WANT me back! But the plane KEPT the seat belts fastened, people went to the john ANYWAY, since it wasn't really THAT bad, and the drinks were served and people talked and laughed back and forth "Is this you first time to New York?" "I feel like a scene from 'Airport,'" said another. And no one was there to help with luggage, and I didn't want to stay in an airport hotel WITHOUT grass, so I subwayed home after paying $3.60 for a cab to Lefferts and Linden, or wherever!
DIARY 4288
12/15/73
WINE AND CHEESE-TASTING FESTIVAL
Notes written (scrawled) on the envelope. Start with rosés, but the Roma is awful (explaining the no-line), Premier Rosé Superior is tasteless, and Valpolichella is merely fruity. Red Rooster is good and SWEET, a kosher syrup. Pepper cheese is awful after a tiny wait, and the New York cheddar, fast line, is bland. Cribari rosé is mediocre, and all that follows came after John left. Gekkeikan Plum is less sweet than Fuki, and really ESSENCE of PLUM. Tavel cheese is good. Aalsburg cheese is swissy, not too distinctive, and Dorman's muenster is familiar and good. Bonbel is still itself. Fleur du Cap (South Africa) is white, acid, and tasteless, and Swiss Emmenthaler cheese is very dry and bland. Lumpfish caviar is awful, but Romanoff hickory smoke and almond spread is less than it promises and sherry and mushroom is tasty, but not by much. Tight-jeaned fellow staring solemnly into the bottom of his plastic glass. Old man smiling spastically and crunching a plastic glass underfoot. People wandering TRYING to look serious but BOMBED out of their SKULLS! Green's ginger wine is currants and ginger, zippy, but a bit blander than ginger ale. Exhibitors with suspiciously slurred speech, like my writing. Limit of 7 wine tickets make wine available and the cheese lines huge. Woman with white-stockinged knobby knees wandering about wall-eyed. Swiss cheese, everything tastes the same by now! Caprice de Dieux (Bongrain) smooth, but not very tasty. Borden cheese is longest line, biggest portions, and their gouda is saltier and pastier than Bonbel. Slovire Yugoslav Riesling is too dry and acid. MORE NY State cheese, just because it's there, and one cheese table just hands things out and LOTS of people take about a half-dozen of the tiny pieces that they meticulously cut, "better" where the line is slower but everyone is sure of getting ONLY one small piece---better meaning more controlled and not capable of permitting people to make such stupid pigs of themselves. Dizzy, out at 5:15 pm, and John said it was an awful atmosphere, and I countered by saying it was a sybaritic circus, and they'd probably have to burn the carpet from dried wine and mashed-in cheese wax.
DIARY 5423
January, 1967
AVANT-GARDE FESTIVAL
So MANY are wandering around writing that I actually felt RELUCTANT to start it myself---in an Avant-Guard festival it's hard to tell the "put-on" from the sincere, and one great SHOW would be a perfectly ordinary MAN, as compared to the fellow in the white suit, shirt, hat, and yellow and black plaid tie, the fellows and girls walking around in black cheesecloth shrouds, the enormous preponderance of cameramen. Two saxophones quarreled across the boat pond, and, predictably, walked toward each other as a beautiful woman with beautiful eyes pulled a dolly on which sat a man operating a movie camera that recorded the scene for "posterity," which means "making a few bucks." A Parks truck rolled in a piano. An "Art piece" looking like huge Monopoly or poster ("Will that be a door prize?" "It'll go on all day") chess, but it is an art work called "Mornings, Past and Present," for pieces from 0.00 to 1.008 to 7.49. Certainly many of the boys have beautiful, soulful, sensitive, compelling eyes, and a great quality. Large numbers recording the whole thing on film, and through microphone booms, and how MUCH is put on? Many fallings out among the presenters, the camerawoman/producer/director arguing with the stage director/ idea maker, and none agreeing. But the guitarist plays on and on and CBS news comes and shoots scenes and shoots photographers shooting scenes and a large aluminum rectangular skiff is brought in and the guitar sings continually as the corn flakes rain down and the women gape at the shaving as if Hercules himself was being unmanned, and the jets, unimpressed, still roar far above curls of gooey hair lay at my feet and float on the water and there's a feeling that the whole thing may degenerate into INFINITE boredom as 9 am comes near and people stand, expressionless, hopping from ONE new thing to another and the kids must be the barber's and the barbered's, since they grapple around and through legs and are very well accepted, but the father, denuded, neither laughs nor frowns at the guitar, repeating indefinitely, plays on and on and a photographer at my right taps me lightly to move back so he can get a better picture. And then came artists, hanging a canvas from the trees along with window frames, hang where they hung last night at midnight as I returned from the Thalia, passing the area where a teenager had been knifed by a troop of twenty Puerto Ricans only a few hours before (but what a COME ON if a hoax by the butch cute, large fellow who "controlled" the deserted area). And, in what must be the best spontaneous UNCAUGHT bit of the day, the shaved, HALF shaved, THREW a program at the guitarist and we exchange an anguished dialogue---but WHERE WERE the CAMERAS? Bits of blood appear and spread and the practical hurts the ideal, as ALWAYS happens in love, orgies, pubic charges, happenings, Broadway plays on menstrual days, and the sore seat at the "end" of a "be-in" that hinders the LSD appreciation of the sensory impacts. Chinese couple walking with two white girl twins, about 2, and the bicycle-tricycle rolls with silver instruments in the back. More emphasis on the ELECTRONICS than on people, people with recorders and cameras and record players "Joe and Ralph, 1966," as a tape identifier. Curly haired fellow got clipped---looking so awfully self-conscious, that rather spoils the effect. I, sitting just behind a camera at pool's edge, writing and ignoring the goings on by IGNORING them could be as much of a spectacular as anyone else. People in odd hats, strange colored ties, yarmulkes and high shoes and Bea Lillie cloches, yet audience STILL attended to innocent amazement of two little girls, unrehearsed, in girl dresses, and flakes of corn flakes rain down on me as couple above eat them out of box broken open like cereal bowls, and the LEGS and socks and shoes in front of me are enough of a collage in itself, and nicely from college, too.
"TOTAL" experiences: Disneyland, Freedomland, World's Fair, amusement parks (sight, sound, smell, taste); new "light" discothèques; churches (organ, incense), and religious ceremonies---weddings, funerals, forty hours, veneration of the saints; sex; fireworks; military reviews (bagpipes, masses of men, colors); football half-time spectacles; spectacle scenes in movies and plays (Radio City, Casino du Liban, Eden Roc, Mikado, Latin Quarter, Folies Bergere, Stardust)---ballet and opera and Ice Capades and beauty pageants and circuses; Olympics (marching, bands, doves released, cheers); holiday fiestas in small native towns; parades (floats, bands, confetti, ticker tape); areas (Greenwich Village, Gaslight Square, Fisherman's Wharf, Latin Quarter, Montmartre, Carnaby Street, Asakusa, Acropolis); "Son et Lumiere"; zoos and botanical gardens and parks and jungles and mountain peaks and waterfalls. Negative total experiences: hospitals and schools and offices and apartments.
DIARY 5477
June 10, 19
EXPO
TOP THIRD (25 of the best)
A. MUST NOT BE MISSED
1. Czechoslovakia: positively the best: best portrayal of art, handicraft, industry, excellent slide show, great food. Worth any wait.
2. Kaleidoscope: absolutely fantastic: relatively short line for a relatively short show. Be sure to stand in front.
3. Canadian Pacific: great movie, charming "Five Senses" exhibit.
B. GREAT PAVILIONS
4. Labyrinth: Don't let expectations get the upper hand; if the line's too long, don't wait for it, but there are some arresting moments to be had. Definitely "early morning."
5. Great Britain: line moves very fast, don't let it bother you, good shows inside, too many details to mention.
6. Man and the Polar Regions: very good film.
7. Burma: beautiful inside and out; a little gem.
C. VERY GOOD PAVILIONS (These are not in order)
8. Art Museum: some great paintings from all over the world.
9. Scandinavia: Swedish film and Finnish section the best of all.
10. Man and Life: a huge amount with much that's very good.
11. United Nations: "To Be Alive" possibly the best film at Expo.
12. Israel: VERY effective presentation.
13. Quebec: Great elevator ride, quick "walk-down" pavilion.
14. Ontario: Technically the most imaginative and revolutionary film.
15. Canada: There's so much of it, some is bound to be very good.
16. Australia: To be lectured while sitting down: it's great.
D. GOOD PAVILIONS (Some of these could even be very good)
17. Photography: some of the shots are quite unbelievable.
18. Steel: Better than most of the commercial pavilions.
19. Ceylon: Beautiful little pavilion.
20. Canadian Indians: Poignant and hard-hitting.
21. Thailand: Beautiful little pavilion.
22. Western States of Canada: Unusual building; atmospheric.
23. Man and Health: Good medical progress shows.
24. Canadian National: Good films and exhibits.
25. Monaco: They make the most out of a tiny kingdom.
MIDDLE THIRD (30 which have ONE aspect worth seeing)
1. Switzerland: good film.
2. Belgium: diamond display.
3. Netherlands: charming 3/4 size Dutch street.
4. Industrial Design: some pleasant patches in a boring whole.
5. Jeunesse Musicales: wild computer music.
6. Gyrotron: enormous.
7. Laterna Magica: amusing idea.
8. Man's Planet and Space: some good films, much old stuff.
9. Man and the Ocean: aquanauts.
10. Brewer's: puppet show.
11. Judaism: richness of religion.
12. Barbados: good bar.
13. Canadian Telephone: 360Ε movie
14. France: great pavilion layout.
15. Aquarium: good tanks.
16. Man and Community: some good exhibits.
17. Habitat: interesting idea.
18. Quebec, Industries: go in the EXIT for Manic 5 show.
19. Man the Producer: sheer enormity.
20. United States: to say you've seen it.
21. Morocco: great entranceway.
22. Venezuela: great sculpture "Cosmos."
23. Italy: "different" pavilion.
24. Africa: fill up your passport fast.
25. Germany: nice tent.
26. Canadian Kodak: see slides on water.
27. Trinidad and Tobago: carnival costumes.
28. Man the Provider: farm exhibits.
29. Canadian Pulp and Paper: amusing live exhibit.
30. USSR: to say you've seen it.
LOWER THIRD (25 to miss)
1. Japan: industry.
2. Vermont: lousy slides.
3. Iran: handicrafts.
4. Mexico: arts and crafts.
5. India: crafts and slides.
6. Greece: not memorable.
7. Olympic House: athletes.
8. Tunisia: handicrafts.
9. Ethiopia: hot.
10. Economic Progress: industry.
11. Arab Nations: small.
12. Cuba: propaganda.
13. Mauritius: in the Indian Ocean.
14. Haiti: handicrafts.
15. Yugoslavia: slides.
16. Air Canada: airplanes.
17. Maine: artificial.
18. Korea: not good.
THE FOLLOWING FOUR ARE THE WORST OF THE LOT
19. Polymer: lousy.
20. Eastern States of Canada: restaurant.
21. New York State: junk.
22. Jamaica: bar.
The following three are ones that I missed:
23. Sculpture.
24. Austria.
25. Christian Pavilion.
DAY 1, Saturday, June 10
1. Switzerland (1:30-3:30) Lunch and movie.
2. Belgium (3:30-4:00) Diamonds and art and industry.
3. Japan (4:00-4:15) Ikebana "Dawn" and industry.
4. Vermont (4:30-4:45) History and granite statue and five minutes of unsynchronized slides.
5. Netherlands (4:45-5:15) Dike model and industry and quaint dike street.
6. Place des nations (5:15-5:30) Jazz band in amphitheater.
7. Expo Express (5:50-6:00) Place des Nations-La Ronde-Place Accueil.
8. Art Museum (6:00-7:00) Great stuff from all over.
9. Expo-Theater (7:00-7:15) Buy tickets.
10. Photographs (7:15-7:45) Some great, many good.
11. Industrial Design (7:45-8:15) Getting tired, some good.
12. Jeuness Musicales (8:15-9:15) Wild music from computer and tapes.
13. Expo Express (9:15-9:45) Place Accueil-La Ronde.
14. Klondike (9:45-10:45) Pleasant steak.
15. Gyrotron (10:45-11:30) Enormous, slightly suspenseful, tame.
16. Hofbrauhaus (11:30-11:45) Tilted walkways and barrel at exit.
17. Fireworks (11:45-12:15)
18. Laterna Magica (12:15-1:15) Some fun things, unappreciative audience.
DAY 2, Sunday, June 11
19. El Mansour-Moroccan Restaurant (12:15-12:45) Lunch, tomato and green pepper marinade as salad good; cut oranges and cinnamon.
20. Man the Explorer-His Planet and Space (1:00-3:00) Few good films, exhibits spread out and not terribly good.
21. Scandinavia (3:00-4:00) Great Swedish film; great Finnish plates.
22. Man the Explorer-Man and Life (4:00-6:00) Much to see, nothing to remember, except great cell, and good films, takes time.
23. Man the Explorer-Man and the Oceans (6:00-6:30) Aquanauts and "crab-sub" film and undersea equipment and aquariums.
24. Man the Explorer-Man and the Polar Regions (6:30-7:15) GREAT movie.
25. Free Center (7:15-7:30) Armenian dances.
26. Iran (7:30-7:45) Slides and handiwork. Expensive restaurant.
27. Japanese Restaurant (7:45-9:00) Dinner of Kushikatsu with couple.
28. Shopping center (9:00-9:15) Souvenir hunting and fudge.
29. Brewer's Pavilion (9:15-9:45) Cute puppet show, silent audience.
DAY 3, Monday, June 12
30. Esso Information Booth (9:15-11:15) Wait for four reservations.
31. Snack (11:15-11:30) Snack food universally terrible.
32. Steel Pavilion (11:30-12:15) Cute cartoon and passable movie.
33. Kaleidoscope (12:15-1:00) INCREDIBLE triple show, to infinity.
34. Judaism (1:00-1:15) All religion and torahs.
35. Mexico (1:15-1:45) Arts and Spanish crafts and mariachis on steps.
36. India (1:45-2:15) 360Ε slides, some poor; handicrafts, industry.
37. Indian restaurant (2:15-3:30) Veal stew with two vegetarian Indians.
38. Ceylon (3:30-3:45) Charming guide and colorful exhibits.
39. Barbados and Guyana (3:45-4:00) Good drinkery and smokery; photos.
40. United Nations (4:00-5:00) "To Be Alive" still wonderful.
41. Canadian Indians (5:00-5:15) Excellent social comment against whites.
42. Greece (5:15-5:30) Interesting, but not memorable.
43. Israel (5:30-05:45) Good presentation, arresting exhibits.
44. Canadian Telephone (5:45-6:30) 360Ε movie; seen one, seen them all.
45. Polymer (6:30-6:45) Lousy.
46. Blue Minirail (6:45-7:15) Metro-Agriculture-Theme-Canada.
47. Thailand (7:15-7:30) Same as New York, good stuff still.
48. Canadian Pacific (7:30-8:30) Great film, fabulous 5+1 exhibit.
49. USSR (half) (8:30-9:15) Much to see, confusing conglomeration.
50. Blue Minirail (9:15-9:30) Agriculture-US Pavilion-Metro.
51. International Carrefour 99:45-10:30) Great shopping streets.
52. Abbaye (10:30-11:30) Good dinner with French party singing.
53. Fireworks (11:30-12:15)
DAY 4, Tuesday, June 13
54. France (10:00-11:30) Films, art good, GREAT layout, poor industry, Art one of each, poor lighting, good electronic music.
55. L'Oriflamme (11:30-12:45) Lunch, good sauce, poor service, fuss with exchange.
56. Quebec (12:45-1:15) GREAT elevator, HUGE displays, good all-over music.
57. Ontario (1:15-2:15) Open, airy, kids and robots, GREAT "any-screen" film.
58. Canada (2:15-5:00) Photo tree, IBM CAI, Sanctuary, Cine-Carousel, Katimavik (great music), communications and transport good, large display areas, one-way classrooms, lousy modern art.
59. Eastern States (5:00-5:15) Jokes and a line for the restaurant.
60. Western States (5:15-5:45) Underground, GOOD exhibits and smells.
61. Raphael Snack (5:45-6:45) Pepsi Cola ice skating, leave for opera.
62. New York State (7:45-8:00) Junk and two slide shows.
63. Marlene Dietrich (8:30-10:15) Great.
64. Aquarium (10:30-11:30) Spacious and expensive.
65. Fireworks cancelled. To metro by Ballade.
DAY 5, Wednesday, June 14
66. Metro and bus 169 (8:30-9:30) To Place d'Accueil.
67. Labyrinth (9:30-11:15) Maze, tall hall, elevator, fabulous lights, balconied show, five screened show, very eastern.
68. Man and Health (11:15-2:00) with power failure from 12-1, good shows.
69. Man and Community (2:00-2:30) Good, though rained out, Great roof.
70. Habitat (2:30-3:00) Interesting idea, poor decorations.
71. Quebec Industries (3:00-4:45) Crashing industrial bore; GREAT Manic 5.
72. Olympic House (4:45-5:15) Photos and films and slides, not bad.
73. Hovercraft (5:15-6:00) Fast, noisy ride.
74. Ballade and Metro (6:00-6:30) through far reaches of park.
75. Great Britain (6:30-8:30) GREAT, particularly tri-screen movie.
76. Man the Producer (8:30-9:30) Resources, Man in Control? Progress, Finale, enormous little-used areas. Metro and SKY-RIDE.
77. Safari Restaurant (10:00-11:00) Cold food and GREAT fireworks.
78. Safari and Carrefour and Le Village and fireworks (11:00-12:15).
DAY 6, Thursday, June 15
79. United States (9:30-12:00) Movie: to be young, three screen; Indians, Santos, quilts, decoys, guitars, cowboy trappings, spurs, brands, saddles, dolls, old hats, campaign junk, huge escalator to space craft level, stairs down to moon, LEM modules, broken escalator down to mod art, down to movies and film stars. Positively all there is to see.
80. Tunisia Restaurant (12:00-1:00) Veal on cruddy low stools.
81. Tunisia (1:00-1:15) Handicrafts, small.
82. Morocco (1:15-1:30) GREAT entry, mainly artifacts.
83. Ethiopia (1:30-1:45) Axum? HOT.
84. Venezuela (1:45-1:45) GREAT cosmos sculpture, movie dead.
85. Italy (1:45-2:15) Fabulous ambiance, though it overwhelms exhibits.
86. Canadian National (2:15-3:00) Good film, on motion and time.
87. Economic Progress (3:00-3:15) Industrial, film not on.
88. Africa (3:15-4:00) Tiny 13 countries and only passports and stamps.
89. Arab Nations (4:00-4:30) Algeria and UAR small.
90. Burma (4:30-4:45) Absolutely beautiful inside and outside.
91. German dinner (4:45-5:30) $15 for two, good, but not great.
92. Germany (5:30-6:30) Nice tent, but not much inside.
DAY 7, Friday, June 16
93. Czechoslovakia (9:00-12:15) Glass, Bethlehem, fairyland, up to "Industrial Symphony" moving slide blocks, "Creation of the World" on Mosaic screen: FABULOUS, good fashion and jewelry.
94. Czechoslovakia Bratislava lunch (12:15-1:15) GREAT. Urp!
95. Cuba (1:15-1:45) Unorganized and preemptory. Poor and propaganda.
96. Canadian Kodak (1:45-2:15) Slide show, good, and on water, too.
97. Mauritius (2:15-2:30) Shells and birds in the Indian Ocean.
98. Jamaica (2:30-2:30) Stamp machine, brochures, and a bar.
99. Monaco (2:30-2:45) Stamps and good kingdom and "fiairy tale" film.
100. Haiti (2:45-3:00) Few handicrafts grouped around a saloon.
101. Yugoslavia (3:00-3:15) Seats and slides and industry in basement.
102. Trinidad and Tobago (3:15-3:30) FABULOUS carnival gowns.
103. Man the Provider (3:30-4:45) Child's farm, soil, sun, water, fertilizer, insecticides and great egg farm, cows, pigs.
104. Canadian Pulp and Paper (4:45-5:45) People and film on paper, and kooky live exhibit on paper.
105. USSR (5:45-7:00) Everything but "Cosmos"; THUNDERSTORM that closes one level as water floods building. MANY details on exhibit, plus moon and Venus views.
DAY 8, Saturday, June 17
106. Air Canada (10:00-10:15) Rather poor on flying.
107. Maine (10:15-10:30) So-so.
108. Korea (10:30-10:45) A few interesting objects.
109. Australia (11:00-12:15) Great ideas from "talking chairs."
DIARY 5494
October, 1964
BORING MEETING
Again the crashing boredom of meetings (this time SHARE XXIII---23), when will I ever learn? Meet Gio briefly, and he disappears right after meeting (and picking up four reproduced listings as "souvenirs.") Surprised by the number of reasonably pleasant-looking people, and even more amazing, the presence of facially decent young women. Not hard to see what I SHARE is MUCH, but not all IBM, as the number of beards, wash and wear cord sport jackets, and desert boots attest. AMAZING how similar the discussions are---pre-bring up obscure points which will never come up; beating an obvious point to death; skipping thousands of times from point to point; getting heated over complete trivia, the booby fellow who throws in his most RANDOM comments; the "personally affronted" people who argue for themselves; the pompous one "offensively bright" who monopolizes a conversation; INCREDIBLE amount of HORN BLOWING; HIDEOUS smokers---why can't a law be passed compelling them to wear a plastic hood to make them absorb ALL their smoke? STUPID speakers who slowly ramble on and say how pressed for time they are and how they must make their speech brief and ramble for minutes. The amazing effect of the marvelous accents in questions and answers. The Chinese authority, the German response, the Slavic question, the French observation. PHENOMENA! UNUTTERABLE crudity of people conversing in audiences, and the damn fellows with their dammed fingernail clippers clicking through the ENTIRE hall. HOW could the speakers RESIST a rebuff? Obviously, I do NONE of those things.
DIARY 5632
January 1965
ROBBED
Well, it's happened again, you could say I asked for it; I guess I let myself in for it. I had just come from a very busy day, 360 class at work, on this Thursday, October 8, 1964, and after a busy day at work, dashed out to buy tickets to Carmina Burana at the New York State Theater by the Chilean National Ballet, and at the City Center, then across to the ABC building, where I met Jim and a vivacious Rene Lerner and Ann and Rick Suar, and two girls Jim and I had had over at his place a couple months ago, so we talked at ABC until 6, got into Rick's car and drove over to the Plaza, where we went to a reception for Connie Francis in the Terrace Room, fancy hors d'ouvres, cheese on wheat toast, rolled salami on wheat, hard boiled egg slices with a mound of mayonnaise, anchovy on top of roll on top of bread, hot pastry puffs filled with goose liver paste---chicken liver paste, hot Vienna sausages, free drinks (I had cold ginger ale), and that lasted until I left to get my binoculars, which I had left at work, got back to look at some of the sights again, Connie Francis was there by this time, a short, stacked, black-haired girl and at ten of eight left to see Nathalia Petrovna, a world premiere, at the city center. All in all, Nathalia Petrovna was a very delightful opera, comedy, tragedy, high emotion, beautiful sets and costumes, unfortunately mediocre singing. Out, at twenty minutes to eleven, walk home, walk up Third Avenue as usual, and catch up at 57th Street with this tall, black-haired, crewcut, slim-legged fellow, with a very nicely cut suede jacket; follow behind him until I pass him; he passes on the wrong side of the light so I can look at the traffic and look at him as we cross 59th, and he stays behind, I occasionally looking back, I turned down 70th and stopped for a second, he passes and looks back, pauses, keeps going, I walk to the corner to watch him; he stands, looks back at me, walks to the window, and as I follow, he continues on to 72nd Street, which he crosses and turns right, and I follow on the other side of the street. 3/4 down the block, in a brownstone, he goes down and looks at the mailboxes. I cross the street, come up from the other direction, he comes out, looks out at the front middle windows, which are lit. I pass and say, Nobody home? He said, Those are probably the lights he keeps on to keep burglars out, and I pass by, he stands for a while and passes my way, and I say, going to try again, he says, no, he'll be back about twelve. We stand and talk for a couple of minutes, and I ask, Do you want to wait at my place? He asks where it is, and I say 70th, between 1st and 2nd. He says OK. He asks my name, I say Bob, and his name is David. He doesn't talk very much, very plainly handsome face. We get up to the apartment, I ask if he lives alone, he says yes, and I say I don't, then, have to apologize for the state of the apartment, which is a mess, so I come in and pull the bamboo curtain over the dishes in the sink. He sits down in the orange chair after bouncing off the sofa, and he looks at Cue, looks through Life, looks through Time. We talk about Kennedy, and he tells me that Bobby Kennedy was the mystery man in Marilyn Monroe's life. He's gotten this from "people who know." Why did anyone think Peter Lawford was the first to break down the door four hours later? The person Marilyn was trying to call was Bobby Kennedy, and Kennedy waited four hours, called Lawford, who went over to break down the door, and Frank Sinatra, sick, flew him out to the West Coast to get him away (to Las Vegas). He said Kennedy's NOT going to win: he's voting for Johnson, even though the entire family is mentally deranged and terribly ugly. I try to keep the talk going: I'm in computing, we talk about hustlers a bit, and I tell him I found they could usually make more if they simply worked for a living, instead of hustling, and he said OH? I say except for the exceptional few that I see every so often. He said with his head back, eyes closed, so that I asked, "What should I do if you fall asleep? Oh, sorry, he said. He goes to NYU, accounting, one more year to go; I ask if he's happy to get out of school, he says, oh. VERY noncommittal. He lives on 76th Street, alone. It's three after twelve, and I say, if you call, and get no answer, will you stay? He says, I won't call, because I know he'd answer. I ask, Well, will you stay or will you go? Because if you stay, I'll be a good host and take a shower. This is after I remarked about his aftershave lotion. And about Rene, who stank at the reception. So he says, well, take a shower, and then we'll find out. And a little twinge at the back of my head pokes, but not very hard, so I take a shower and he turns television on. I step into the shower, and hear things banging, and I think he's left, so I open the door and he's standing right in front of the desk, looking at TV, combing his hair. He looks around, surprised, and I say, Oh, I thought you'd gone. He said, No, just taking my sweater off. It may have been that that gave him the idea, because in ten minutes, when I came out of the shower, after drying, the apartment was empty, and my wallet was gone. I looked around the apartment to see if he'd dropped it anywhere; I thought it was rather unfortunate he'd taken the wallet with him, with my ID card, and cards, but it wasn't in the apartment. My watch was there, my change purse was there, everything was there except the wallet. The money in the top drawer was there. So I proceeded to dress, thinking to try to trace him down, dressed, stepped out the door, walked two steps down the hall, and there's my wallet, lying in the hallway, empty, He'd almost ripped one of the side panels out, making sure nothing was inside. In the wallet had been a twenty-dollar bill, and a few singles, not much more. Twenty-three, twenty-four dollars, If I hadn't been thinking of what an expensive evening it MIGHT be I would not have put the twenty in, but I put the twenty in, and so he got away with twenty-four dollars. I came back in, took my clothes off, and recorded this. I wonder if I coaxed him into it, almost, by checking up on him when I was in the shower? Probably not. Probably that explained the contented expression on his face when he sat back as I said, "Hustlers could make more money if they worked than they make at hustling." $25 a day; I make $35 take-home pay a day. So today's money's gone; I'll see what happens tomorrow.
DIARY 8167
2/10/74
BROOKLYN HEIGHTS BARS
[Feel the luxury of short-paging the last sheet, and being able to refer to page numbers in ANY order, since they're not KEPT in order, so I can tell in DETAIL what I remember BACKWARDS in time, and it doesn't make ANY difference.] Watch "Omega Man" until 11, John comes in to read the Times on the other side, and I dress in my new red pants and red pullover, looking pretty good, we both agree, and smoke a fairly large pipe and shiver my way to "Gracie's Mansion." No one's going in or out, but it's too cold to wait and see what the clientele's like. Into the long foyer which goes quickly to the door, and there's the long bar past the coat check, which I don't use, and a large dance floor to the left surrounded with widely spaced tables. Order a screwdriver for a $5, and get $3.85 in change, leaving a quarter. With my $6.50 I'll have enough for one drink in each place. Go to the end of the bar and see that the curtains are thick enough to prevent anyone from outside seeing anything more than SHAPES inside, but thin enough to let the people inside KNOW that these are windows around the sides, so that you can see the lights from the streets, giving an open feeling to the bar. There are a few people dancing, only about half the tables are taken, but all the barstools are occupied and about a dozen are standing. Not too many attractive people at the start, but I see a beautiful mustache sitting in the shadows across the room. But when he dances he's so TERRIBLY stiff in the torso, and his chest and arms are SO thin in his trimly tailored silk shirt, that though his face is nice I'm attracted to a MARVELOUSLY limber scrawny-faced southern-type (Italian or Greek) who steps as lively as Byrd Hoffman and moves his arms as bonelessly as Maya Plisetskaya. Enjoy watching him dance, the handsomeness of the other face, and then there's another good dancer, a beautiful black from a table on this side, but HE'S with a set of friends, too. Some singles at tables are finally joined by friends, people talking at bar, a handsome virile fellow dances with a girl who's been sitting at the end of the bar nearest me, and there's a VERY dark, large-faced, straight-big-nosed Turkish-looking fellow with a too-tailored shirt that gives his shoulders and waist the unattractive disproportion that Peter Ream had above too-wide hips---more feminine than masculine, really. He was also lotioned too heavily, standing near me, almost seemingly trying to touch, and when I saw that almost everyone else was taken up with friends, or the singles who were eyeing me were too old or too pot bellied, I decided he was the best yet, and tried getting close to him, bobbling back and forth in time with the music, but though we touched "accidentally" a few times, he moved away finally, to come back close and swoop near again, and then move away a SECOND time. There were others cute in the bar, a very tall person who looked at the person in front of me, some more nice dancers doing jitterbugs to the Andrews Sisters "Swinging Bugle-Boy of Company C," and some affectionate close-dancing, but not too frequently. So the attractive people were positive, but none of them looked at me and they were all taken by friends; the unattractive singles wanted me, which made it even worse. The one attractive (semi-, anyway) seemed too constipated to make a move, so I finally moved toward the door and made my way out, determined to see the other bars, figuring that I may have been here until 1. Out into the cold (the screwdriver was thoroughly finished, but the pot was higher in effect than it was) and check at the subway stop that it's 12:30, so I was there an hour and a half. Then down to the Piano Bar, encouraged because of a group going in right then, and in to find there's a SHOW going on upstairs, starting tonight at 11:30, and it's only $1, but it's filled up, so they recommend that I come next Friday or Saturday about 10:30 to be sure of getting a seat. I stand in the small bar area downstairs, finding no one I care for until the kid talking to an AWFUL old man, even worse than Ari's friend, goes to the john and comes back down the stairs to show a NARROW set of hips above nicely formed thighs below a heavy chest and a pleasant face, and then I concentrate on him but he hardly looks at me. At 12:50 there's an intermission in the show, people leave, I try again to get in, but they say I should see the whole thing. The sharp-faced balding blond I'd cruised in so many bars so many years ago, whom I've recently seen sweeping the steps at something like 147 Hicks, is there with friends, passing me on the way to the john practically looking away from me over his shoulder. The cuties get up to leave and we LOCK glances nicely, but then he stumbles out, coatless, with his keeper. Waiters are faggoty and unattractive, female impersonators come in and out of the show area, and a flabby black digs into her tights to retrieve money so deeply fallen that it looks like she's got staggers. A short platinum-yellow haired transvestite comes down with wrinkles and black fans for eyelashes and shouts "Make way for an old lady" at the bar, and people rush back and forth. There's a stuffed-crotched skinny kid in red jeans and platform shoes so ludicrously high he can't even successfully negotiate the stairs, shouting at friends and being VERY nasty, roaring in and out of the bar about five times. Again, ugly singles try looking at me and I sternly stare off away from them. A real agony to stay through until my predetermined 1:30, but the laughs and applause and shouts from the show help the time to pass, and I step up a couple of times to see the record-mimics, and note the smiles on the handsome face of the light handler. Finally 1:30 comes, my screwdriver, indistinguishable from the other, though he tossed back one of the 2 dollars that I put on the bar, and I figured if he didn't have the sense to ask if I wanted change he didn't deserve a tip. Not quite so cold now, maybe because there's no wind on Montague now, I walk across under the moon to Danny's. The lower bar is fairly crowded, I order another screwdriver when the bartender has time for me from his busy corner, and I say "Change, please" when he takes the second single and raises his eyebrows at me, leaving him a quarter, so that's $3.60 spent in all for THAT evening. Crew is almost uniformly single and unpleasant, so I go upstairs to see a younger, friendlier crowd, and there's almost the possibility that "this is it," but though I stand near the dance floor watching the gyrations, no one who's anyone cares to look at me. There are enough cute ones: the tiny doll at the center table under the Xmas tree lights blinking in time with the music on the drapes across the windows, the petite older blond with the black, who really knows how to throw his bare feet and legs around while dancing, almost professionally, with his black friend, a lovely-faced boy marred by too-wide hips, a cute Spanish number standing next to me the whole time who never ONCE returns my appreciative gaze, and other dolls of singles and people with friends. The dark fellow with the neat beard is there, dancing outlandishly with cross-footed sureness, a shaved-head black whips his arms through the air like flails, a fatter black squats to the floor with surprising swiftness and just as fast is up on his feet and dancing. Some of the footwork is quite impressive (and some, like the old couple, are too embarrassing to watch), some of the spins remind me of the professionalism of Jim Maher's, and some of the couples are enviable. The music is much the same (at the Piano Bar they put the jukebox on only at intermission, so I could hear 30's show tunes and "Visi d'arti" for the record-mime jobs). The red stuffed-crotch platform-toddler is back, shouting angrily and dry-facedly at a smaller friend, using every "mother fuck" he can illogically muster into every sentence, and then he starts swinging, fairies back away and bouncers rush up to separate them, and for the rest of the hour they're scuffling on the stairway, twice bursting into the room with a flurry of fists and patrons, shouts still not very loud under the loud music, and I move away then they get too close. Wait and wait and wait. Enjoy the dancers, smile at the antics, but no one speaks to me. There ARE cuties, as at Gracies, but all with someone. I get cruised by people too ugly to even acknowledge. Then, mercifully, it's 2:40, and they give the last call. People leave upstairs fairly quickly, so I'm down before the exodus, into the more-filler-than-ever lower room, and there's lots of looking and lots of contact, but none with anyone I like. Another tall attractive person evades my looks. A staggeringly drunk suited type kicks the backs of my legs a few times until I move away. Friends even stop talking to watch the closing time predation. People move through looking at anyone who'll be looked at, most people now with coats on, drinks at the bottom, ready for action at last. My third drink, indistinguishable from the other two, has had larger ice cubes in it so has stayed fresher longer, and now that it's 2:50 I can drink the last of it. Then the huge light in the back comes on and I'm glad I've moved into the front (though it would be better to stay in the back and get, not silhouettes, but the FACES lit up by the light---but on second thought that might NOT be so desirable). Some come and stand near me, and I figure if I wanted them, I could have them, but I don't WANT them. Shy-faced short elderly men stand nearby and look up at me, but I totally ignore them, perpetuating the very elements of the bars that I hate. But I DON'T want them; look at the people I WOULD want; they don't look back at ME. WHERE is the click? WHERE is the fortuitous juxtaposition of two sets of desires? There was ONLY the locked glances of the cutie in the piano bar, obviously he was tied up with his keeper. And there were faces, finally at Danny's, from the other places: the twisted-lip lispy one who was feeling up his fat friend at the Piano, the hawk-eyed one from the Piano, some of the dancers from the Gracies, notably the VERY slender brown-suited one who seemed MUCH too old of face for me. It seemed that I'd found the way to look at the bars, but the only thing I found was the show that I'll probably come back to next weekend, and the knowledge that bars are NOT the place to find anything on a Saturday night. People started filing out, staring at everyone, and when the room more than half emptied I decided that enough was enough, it WAS 3, I'd spent 4 hours trying, that was quite enough. In fact, the long standing MAY have caused the shin cramps when I was lying in bed trying to sleep. Out onto the street, too bombed to notice any cold, and find many are filing into the jammed Montague Restaurant, a seedy, too-lit place that looks moist and smelly and loud from outside. So it could continue into the night. Sorry, I don't want any: I've seen it. Home to eat scads of stuff to feed SOME of my hungers, and get to bed at 3:45 am.
DIARY 8333
3/2/74
NEW YORK INCIDENTS
Left "Ulysses in Nighttown" at 10 and walked south to the express station at 42nd, crossing Broadway at 49th. A man and a kid about 15 are coming across against me, the kid grinning and running, and as he passes me he PUNCHES me, hard, on the arm (he probably intended the chest?), though my padded coat tends to absorb the blow. I turn and stare at him, and he turns back when he reaches the corner and grins at me. I'm left with a horrible feeling. (Thurs. pm) Then on the subway going into town on Friday afternoon, two blacks are tussling, not totally seriously, not totally in fun, wrestling each other down onto the seats, causing people to move quickly out of the way, and I'm NOT about to move out of the way so I put my foot up: if they fall in my direction, they'll hit my foot. But then they stop and accuse me of trying to KICK them, and I point at them and shout "If you fall into my foot, I'm NOT kicking you." The smaller, about 14, of the two blacks says "I'll cut you up, man," and other blacks shake their heads and some whites look at me with apprehension (obviously they'd be NO help if it DID come to violence). (John later says I should have said I was just protecting myself, but I said that I wasn't feeling totally rational. I guess that's bad.) When I leave at 13th Street, I'm vaguely relieved that they're not getting off there, but as I'm going up the stairs I hear the metallic whine of the advertisement dividers that John said he'd seen used as whirling projectiles from the moving cars before, and IT strikes me on the back of the padded coat. I turn around to look at them, and am instantly struck with the packet of tickets that I'd seen one of them pull from a display card before, struck just at the neck: he'd obviously been aiming for the face. An older black man mutters to me: where are the damn cops now? Yeah, I wonder. Onto the street, debating if the BLACKS feel the same frustration I now feel about violence foisted on them for no good reason, but THAT doesn't let me get very far. Then I see the headlines in the EVENING about someone spraying the Guernica, though John later says that there was no permanent damage, since there was probably a protective coating applied when it was falling apart 5-6 years ago. BUT STILL!!
DIARY 8469
4/18/74
WHIP-UP DISH
Been collecting ingredients to feed my pot-cravings for a few weeks now, but tonight it reached a crescendo even BEFORE I got the honey, which sat in the cupboard unopened for more than a week, to show how I reacted to the gluttony of this evening. But I HAD gotten butter, peanut butter, and maple syrup, and had a supply of Sara Lee, raisin bread, and muffins, and when I went into the kitchen I was sorry I didn't have honey because I wanted honey butter, but I wondered if it wouldn't work with maple syrup, so I got out a dish and poured syrup into it, worrying right from the start because it seemed so runny, and then plunked some butter into it and tried to mash it up with a fork. It wouldn't work: the butter was too cold and the syrup didn't cling enough, so I had to end up trying to scrape the butter which had congealed around the tines of the fork off onto the toast, which crumpled because it was toasted rather too darkly. So I ended by just dipping the butter into the syrup to get as much as I could, and biting off a piece of toast and then stripping the syrup and a skein of butter from the fork, and this glob of butter on the fork, being literally eaten in chunks, seemed to be the height of decadence and gluttony. Then, to make things worse, I wondered how the peanut butter would go into the mess, and put some of THAT into the syrup and tiny bits of butter, messing it all up, and I thought vaguely of the raisins that could be added, and munched some granola on the side, and took about five pieces of toast, putting one in while I'd barely eaten another, and some I just wanted butter on, to savor the greasy pouring over the hot bread, and some I spread with butter and sprinkled on sugar and then dusted it (and the purple straw placemat, liberally) with cinnamon, eating THAT. Engorged, I decided I'd had enough about two slices of toast before I actually stopped, and I may have had some milk or soda to go along with it, too, though it was only later that I finished up the orzata and soda. In the morning, I woke with a full-feeling stomach---all the carbohydrate just SAT there through the evening, making me not hungry through the next day, but ravenous AGAIN the next night, which would be heightened AGAIN by smoking. PERVERSION of appetites!
DIARY 8513
4/24/74
KRON'S
When Arnie was settling into his cheesecake shop (which he STARTED because he responded to an ad by Tom Kron in New York to take Tom's chocolate-making class) he was offered Tom's business for $110,000 plus the inventory, and he and Norma might have been thinking about it for awhile, but decided against it. I thought that was amusing. Then on Saturday when I was helping Arnie, and a depressed, customer-hating Tom came into the cheesecake factory, Arnie said he REALLY wanted to sell, and on the subway he said Tom made CLEAR $100,000 a year, which he said MAY be as low as $80,000 a year, and I fantasized that I could work there for 4 years and get $320,000, which could furnish me with an income for the rest of my LIFE! Talked to Arnie about the place, and he said that of course Tom has done the hardest things: getting the place into shape, building a reputation, paid off the health inspector, got in well with Mrs. Ritz, and ESTABLISHED the business. But he'd rather play around in the stock market and hates the routine of making and molding chocolate. So Arnie said he wanted $10,000 and maybe $5,000 for the inventory, but since I didn't have anything LIKE $15,000, it was just a pleasant fantasy, THEN I'd thought Bob Grossman had something in the back of his mind when he talked to Arnie when he visited the factory with me, talked about starting a small business. He had, but only a vague thing about decorating accessories (living room chatchkas) or a clothing boutique, and when we got into his apartment with the mail from the small business administration, I told him about the chocolate factory, and he said "Well, we can go into partnership." I confessed that it'd been a fantasy for me up to that point, and I asked him how much was fantasy for HIM. He said that he was tired working for someone else, DID want to go into business, why NOT chocolate, HE would furnish the business skills and wanted someone to work with customers and the product itself. Our joking about "a pound of love" and a "pound of SHYT" (since they don't have an I, but I suggested getting TWO of them from an H), and how they couldn't service "I. Magnin," etc. We chatted a bit about how I'd have to accommodate to the job (see DIARY 8514) and I said we'd have to talk to Arnie to get more information; to Tom for MORE details; and THEN think about it!
DIARY 8516
4/26/74
THE END OF KRON'S
Incidentally, I'd mentioned to Bob that he should EXPERIENCE being on a jury before he puts down juries, and on Wednesday he GETS NOTICE that he's to report to jury duty! Arnie gives me lots MORE information: he's only been open a YEAR TODAY (celebrating his anniversary on Saturday, the 27th), and ONE of the reasons he's unhappy with the retail business is that his girlfriend works there and everyone treats her like hired help, and she also doesn't like it when the women "jolly" with Tom. Tom needs the $10,000 cash because he wants the liquidity: all this money is tied up in the stock market. He at a certain point even was thinking of coming DOWN from $10,000, since he couldn't even find anyone with THAT much cash. THEN, partly after Arnie kept telling him how silly he was to charge so LITTLE, his price seemed to go up to $15,000, and then the idea of selling by mail came in, and he seemed now to NOT know WHAT he wanted to do. I suggested to Arnie that HE might be a partner, but he said that would be fraught with troubles, that he didn't know how well he could work under or even WITH someone, having had some small troubles with Norma about the arrangement and details about his OWN shop. I assured him that I knew nothing about business, HE could only handle the health inspector (they DON'T have ANY proper permits!) and Mrs. Ritz, and Bob could handle the rest of it. He said that with three, when the shop only needed ONE person, would be nice for lots of time off, and he even suggested that HE might get Norma to back HIS part of the financial bit. When he told me Tom WASN'T going to sell, he offered to sell HIS place for the same amount of money (and I'm sure he was serious), but we just laughed at that. Tom WOULD probably take his name, but Arnie assured me that they didn't come for the name or him, they came to the funny place downstairs on 83rd Street. Bob was very disappointed, having already fantasized about outlets in Paris, London, and Rome, and about liquor-mixed chocolates; while I fantasized doing nothing but running BOTH shops while they handled the business ends of it. But it was with some relief that THAT decision was taken out of MY hands, though, with Tom's quick-change talents, there's no guarantee that it might not come up again in the FUTURE.
DIARY 8533
5/1/74
ASTOUNDINGLY BORING MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
Out of the "Last Days of Pompeii" at 4:30 and the bottom floor has the same old movie posters that have been there for a couple of years now, and the Lumia is out of order. Up to the closed-still room of Avedon's photos of his father (?), but from what I can see from the cracks, they're just close-ups of an old man who looks a little like Balanchine. Into the retrospective of modern art and sculpture, and the walls are large and bare, with great hunks of color, witty things like the man in yellow trousers (when I have on yellow trousers) painted on a golden aluminum sheet, or a black rubber fan, or a "big N," that I don't get until I look CLOSELY [DRAWING] at the whiteness, and the guards rattle around like dice in a painted box. So what's there to SEE? Rope hanging from the ceiling is a sculpture, and the door to a workroom is open, affording a GREAT artistic view of a clutter of tools and a tangle of hoses and implements for cleaning. (That WAS a workroom, wasn't it?) Around to the Japanese photographs, not too many interesting, and I'm sure the women unposing for "Hags" would complain bitterly! The paintings by the guy who was a friend of Hemingway and Faulkner et al (Al who they didn't say) were nothing. Ten minutes for the floor! Up to the second floor and there are all the OLD paintings I've looked at a dozen times. So I breeze past the Redons and Picassos and get back to the Monets before I feel they haven't put up anything new except for the "Captain's Family" a surrealist-primitive painting of sausage people, the only thin item being the slaughtered fox fur around a sausage neck. Though the juxtaposition of "Christine's World" and ANOTHER distant-horizon-with-detailed-foreground-with-something-in-it picture was fetching. Up to 3, centered around the graying Guernica, and I look at another Dali closely, get involved in the shadows of the Tanguey's again, see a FEW new things, and then go down to sit in the lounge, hoping to write down my impressions, but Chuck Choset is there and we talk about early films of Helen Hayes and Mary Pickford and Raoul Walsh, jabber-jabber, and in to the last film, which I almost slept through the first part of, but when Warner Baxter told his "friend" to kill his "lover" by forging a letter from her, I SUPPOSE it was some kind of acting.
DIARY 8543
5/3/74
CENTRAL PARK FOR THE FIRST TIME IN AGES
It's chilly and windy, Avi has a cold and wheezes from climbing only a tiny hill because of his cigarette-filled lungs, and I'm sorry to feel the earth so VERY hard beneath my feet, with grass growing only in clumps. There are few people in the eastern half of the park, and the skyline is dominated by a strange red-metal lit construction from the middle of the fenced-off area near the Metropolitan, and Avi expressed gratitude that Riverside Park has been restored from ITS construction. Across to the Ramble and there are two attractive-looking guys talking on one of the benches, but our hearts are broken by a broken TREE, newly planted, leaves still green, that must have been JUST pushed over--- really a CRIME. Down into the darkness by the stream, and it hasn't changed there at all, dim moon glimmering off the murky water's surface, but almost ALL the lights are off in there, and there are NO people wandering the paths until we get to the top of the hill, where someone who looks possible passes and stops. Avi seems interested and so am I, so we go down to more people talking near the exit, and he goes up the hill and I up the path, saying we'll meet at the corner. The fellow goes up the road to the Observatory ahead of me, and I follow, cutting through one of the MANY paths which used to be scarcely visible trails and are now so broad a car could be driven through, a great shame. Partway up the hill he cuts off to a trail that didn't even used to BE there, quite remote, and he stands on a rock, I come up in back, displeased by his BULK, and reach around to a soft cock, he takes himself out as he grapples for me, then commands "Suck it," and I go down, but he just doesn't get hard at all, and finally zips up and walks rapidly off, so quickly that I think there must be something wrong, but there's nothing. Avi is waiting for me, I lament again about the beaten-downess of the paths and ground, he says he uses it further down along the bridle path near 72nd for cruising. We stop on the bridge for a TOTALLY advertisement-less and nameless (no MONY, no RCA, no Essex House) skyline of clear beauty, I get a GOOD drink from a STRONGLY working fountain, we pass more people, the benches are completed along CPW, the side streets are VERY well lit, and we get to Avi's; I'm happy that I've seen CP after over a YEAR away.
DIARY 8553
5/6/74
OOBA PARADE
Young beautiful people (more men than women), OLD actors and actresses (more women, and DESPERATE looking), middle-aged nobodies trying to be somebodies, and only a FEW who looked like they were in it for fun, others were determined to make "it" and money and fame and fortune DESPITE the fact they were terribly unhappy now. IN GENERAL it was the same kind of thing: more attention to costumes and makeup than to story or theme, many times the acting job was SO painfully bad it's acutely embarrassing. The KNOWLEDGE that more people will be turned off than turned on, and that the people who attend (the girl scout troupes, the young couples, the old ladies with an afternoon free) wouldn't attend a THEATER, ANYWAY. And the kids get lesbian kissing, bare breasts, and jail talk. As much a costume festival as anything, with the glitter-spangled and ribbon-hatted in the center of interviewers, gapers, and photographers. "If your hand's sticky, raise your hands," said a teacher with her brood of non-theatergoers. SOME gorgeous blue-jeaned crotches. But I like DANCE and MOVIES better, and SEX in preference to the coitus interruptus of the touch and the tease with body and word. But, anyway, there will ALWAYS be something to see. And I can SEE the day when OOB is too restrictive and formalized and we'll get OOOB! Soon it'll be a badge of courage to NOT recognize the TDF vouchers. TV provides more thought. As Art Bauman says [Oh, a bazooka, meaning a kazoo], "It's a bit political and a bit gay lib, too. Miss Ooba is a DTW scholarship male. In the Blue Dome I watch "Theatre for the Forgotten," all spent time in jail: "In theater, people have to listen to ME." No, friend, I DON'T have to listen to you---I choose not to GO. The Actor's Experimental Unit did a bit from "The Tower," pretty awful, with a lion who turned my stomach; and "Time and Space, Ltd" did three Beckett plays simultaneously, and I left in the middle of that. Downstairs, two women the same age and style were playing mother and daughter, and the "Angels of Light" were being interviewed in their dirty bare feet, and WSDG's group had more weight than style, and some camp "Cinderella" was a REAL turn-off. I have more fun at the BATHS, but I picked up a TDF application ANYWAY, just in case.
DIARY 8599
5/13/74
PROMENADE ART SHOW
Paintings called "primitive" that are done by cagey old men who can't paint any better, stupidly sewn throw-pillow covers, filigree silver jewelry for about ten times the price you'd pay for it in India, palmed off as handmade by HIM, slick "psychedelic" paintings that are bright and go nowhere, and a cloud filled "Jack and the Beanstock" that's Disney-cute being about the only thing I would even care to LOOK at to buy for a greatly inflated $2. Miniatures on stones, the same earth colors in ugly thrown pots and flower hangers, inlaid wood children's pieces, rip-offs of Sesame Street's Big Bird to entrance the children, and glittery framed photographs of the New York skyline. Not many people were buying, more were cruising, showing off their dogs and children, and looking at other people, or finding out how THEY could show THEIR junk next year. I doubt if they even paid their RENT, most of them were so bad. And the hopeful-hopeless faces of the watchful artists sitting on folding chairs, or the ingenious brick-weighted upside-down coffee tables used for reproduction vees, casing the people casing the junk. The kids reminding of what I used to do: "I'll take this half, and you can have this half, but I want THIS one, too." Dogs barking at other dogs, with a TERRIBLE Media-type woman in hard glasses, showing hard teeth, sicking her leashed white dog onto a poor terrier, who trembles, and she actually HISSES "He's scared," showing what SHE must be like inside. Kids howling for their mothers, fathers PUNCHING kids to try to stop them from crying, what ANGERS they must have inside. And I felt that I wasn't happy with MYSELF, so I could hardly be happy with the artistic endeavors of people who could barely paint better than I could. And of course there's that air of jealousy, too. Didn't see anyone I knew but Eryol, remarking about my hair, but then I didn't know anyone who I really wanted to talk to ANYWAY---if anyone from the orgy had come past, I probably would have ignored them just as I had ignored Pope Hill, silly with a curl in back, whom I didn't feel like talking with. Relieved when the cold sent me clammily home to popcorn and SOME kind of pampering---FEELING SORRY FOR MYSELF (see DIARY 8601).