Read this! If you haven’t or haven’t read any of the numerous posts I wrote plugging it or explaining it–see post under this and post on the sidebar. If you can’t figure out the article I wrote, you either don’t know my name or….I’m very rarely proud of things I wrote and I am of that
I lived on East 63rd Street off Fifth when 10021 was the richest zip in the country. I used to say I could run into Woody Allen at a phone booth and not recognize him. Now I understand why. I had a great social life but not the one my father envisioned for me when he found the apartment I didn’t want but came to love. I so belonged on the Upper West Side or The Village.
Near but not too close to the street I live on is a bowling alley nobody seems to ever go into. In back of that is a two story apartment complex, in faded sky blue and sun bleached white, that makes a pulp lover’s heart flip flop. I said flip flop, not that I would want to live in it. I can picture Veronica Lake, Betty Grable, Rita Hayworth, and numerous other 40′s, 50′s stars standing at the rail in front of the common walkway that’s in front of the apartments calling out to some man. Maybe she’s crying; maybe she’s just screaming.
Funny but all the male actors I can think of are too debonair to be in this scene. Never William Powell, Cary Grant, even Humphrey Bogart as Lauren Bacall could never be the woman.
I think my knowledge of pulp is more from books, post card and calenders one of my father’s clients had, than movies. But I so vividly see a woman standing over the railing in a bathing suit with a white terry robe half off. Next she’s standing on the railing, hair falling into one half of her face and wearing a torn silk negligee.
Whatever. It could be a European movie but the two story building with the common hallway in front of the apartments and the stair railings with weird swans pressed into the metal make it distinctly American.
If you have never read Jim Thompson, he’s wonderful, inspirational and so American. For a quick example he wrote The Grifters He is “hard boiled” but I think more pulp–and have many of his books. When I gave books away, his stayed.
Last night at the beach people were unabashedly singing “America the Beautiful” though way off-key. As a New Yorker my cynicism reigned. As an American and hopefully a resident of South Carolina by election time, I let myself just feel it as I did when I was a kid and Yankee Doodle Dandy was the best movie ever made, I thought. We had Million Dollar Movie where a movie was repeated 24/7 and I faked a flu so I could stay home and watch it. I’m sure my parents figured that out but it was cute and not something I did on a regular basis.
watching it now I can’t believe how much I loved it.
I want to be as proud of my country as other people seem to be of theirs. We can be amazing when we want to be. We can be…..
I took this from The Wombat. It’s music I’m much more comfortable with
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8dOgm7C54E&hl=en&fs=1]
i am still a huge fan of yankee doodle dandy ,, watched it just last night to be exact….. but i do feel more kinship to the hendricks version on a personal level….
You mean you’re no longer going to be a city girl? I can’t believe that. At least they’ll be new adventures to tell, right?:)
What I’d be proud of is if we could come together as one at least one time in my lifetime. Culturally that would be a phenomenal accomplishment – I don’t want to have to wait for it to happen when a Nuclear missile is heading our way.
I still get chills when I hear certain patriotic songs and teary-eyed when I think of the soldiers.
Hi Pia! Thanks for stopping by my blog. I’m enjoying working my way through yours and trying to connect-the-dots in your tangential musings, which remind me of my own
Come back soon, for much like the great Blanche DuBois, I depend upon the kindness of strangers (and must like Ms. DuBois, I will probably be hauled away by the men in white coats one day).
Ah the old Million Dollar Movies – I can still hear the theme music.
We can be amazing when we want to be – let’s hope this is the year we really begin to be!
I’ve said it down below, but your article was superb. You have much in which to be proud.
Love the scene you paint with words of the apartment complex. That was pure writing.
You are the Jimi Hendrix of NLD.