Santa Monica

It's hard to wake up when you're not sleeping...

The French Version...and a poem by Derek Mahon

Cocoon - Hey Ya (Outkast cover)
Uploaded by lablogotheque

The Forger

When I sold my fake Vermeers to Goering
Nobody knew, nobody guessed
The agony, the fanaticism
Of working beyond criticism
And better than the best.

When they hauled me before the war-crimes tribunal
No one suspected, nobody knew
The agony of regrets
With which I told my secrets.
They missed the point, of course -
To hell with the national heritage,
I sold my soul for potage.

The experts were good value, though,
When they went to work on my studio.
Not I, but they were the frauds;
I revolutionized their methods.

Now, nothing but claptrap
About "mere technique" and "true vision,"
As if there were a distinction -
Their way of playing it down.
But my genius will live on;
For even at one remove
The thing I meant was love.

And I too have wandered
In the dark streets of Holland
With hunger at my belly
When the mists rolled in from the sea:
And I too have suffered
Obscurity and derision,
And sheltered in my heart of hearts
A light to transform the world.

The Best Fireworks Show in LA

I find myself still in that category of Angelinos precariously perched on the brink of coming or going. Admittedly, it has been two years, this month, and a little over one year in the same neighborhood, but in LA, that is the equivalent of the first two, maybe three dates of a relationship I know will end - I'm in it for the laugh, the ride, the coast to the beach, the growing climb and the view from the top!

I have been lucky enough to have had not one but two childhood friends live in LA at various points during the last two years (a real luxury), but now they are both back in New York and Boston, so what that means is plans are not guaranteed for holidays such as New Year's, or, in this case, the 4th of July. Oh, I get invited to things. And I have good, new friends. But as late as three days ago, I had neither plans for the 4th nor the required social wherewithal to make them myself, and so I agreed to pick up Nadia from LAX at 9:15PM. Then came an invitation to Jamie's party in Silverlake. Blake and Conor came to the East side to a party on Alexandria, which I left grumbling at 8:30, dreading holiday traffic and sad to miss the beer, the live music by members of the Young Dubliners, the fireworks.

Not only was there NO ONE on the road, but with the last light gone, the fireworks had started, the elaborate pyrotechnics of the professionally produced shows, as well as the lone stars of various backyards across South Central. Pinwheels and star bursts to my left and right and The French Kicks on my stereo, I felt a giddiness well up inside me, and it gurgled all the way to LAX.