A Late Summer Night’s Fantasy
So here we are, my partner and I, sitting at the bar in the American Hotel in Sag Harbor. An annual retreat within this staycation; this de rigueur summer flight to the Hamptons. And of course if it’s August, it must be my birthday. A BFD in my self-aggrandizement.
We had secured the last two precious seats in this place where people come and go, never speaking of Michelangelo. The buzz being about the being there. And there might have been not more than a crevice of space at the corner of the bar adjacent to where I'm sitting, when a young woman, as if from nowhere, slips in to occupy it. She orders a stiff drink from Vinnie tending bar. They apparently know each other.
Young, pert, cute, where have I seen her before? I don’t know how the conversation started, but it seems she’d just come from a birthday gathering. Of course she has. The coincidence of it being my birthday, strikes me immediately. As if she's now dropped by to wish me a Happy Birthday as well. After her working 12-hour day that started at 5:00 a.m. on nearby Shelter Island.
She tells me she tends to the grounds of a golf course there. Even showing me the dirt still on her hands from that day’s working the earth. Hmmm. Interesting. And her name is Ariel. Really? As Disneyesque and fantasy-like a name as one can imagine. If one is into imagining. Of which I plead guilty.
She quickly has her drink (which I put on my tab), and with her leaving Vinnie a $20 tip, (just how lucrative is a golf course groundskeeper’s job anyway?) she's gone. Though leaving me a phone number, as we say we'll do this again next year at this time.
It would not be until I returned home the following day and gazed upon the painting that sits on an easel in our living room, that I realized... I’d met my muse in the flesh. Yes, that was her face. Or close enough as I had remembered. I don’t do selfies.
Some background on this whole muse thing. When I began doing these “Muse Letters” in November of 2004, I had just published my book of poems. A writing form to which I had come much later in life. And had imagined the inspiration coming from a place, metaphorically, within a foxhole at the forefront of the battle that is life. What with its invariable struggles and skirmishes, life can often seem that way. I felt a need for a surrogate in this battle. And decided to create one. To help put into the written word, what was in my mind's eye and often on my lips. And curious enough to write home about.
I turned to an art director friend at the ad agency in which I’d been working (a foxhole of a sort in itself), Jeff Weekley, a poignant artist in his own right, to ask if he might create a muse for me. He graciously said yes. As he had the previous year, to art-directing my poetry book.
We had discussed every element that should be included in that painting. Even about having tattooed stripes on her bare arms. And how many should there be? And facing in which direction; up or down? Included in this tableau of course, must be a feathered pen in her hand to denote "old school," with which she is writing in a journal. Mine now in its 48th year.
Do I really believe it was her? One can never be too old to fantasize. But now on to fall and leaving behind, the summer time. "When the living is easy." Though I can't say I saw any fish jumping up to the sky. Just my muse at a bar.
Medley of Memory and Mention of Ms. Steinem
For me, at the forefront, there is always the remembrance of that first time I met her. In which we discussed a cookie mix, of all things. Something called Brownies and Blondies that our client Nestle was test marketing.
I was at an ad agency here in New York in 1979, when Ms. Steinham had come by with someone from the sales rep staff of Ms. Magazine, to discuss how the publication could offer a unique opportunity, in which to advertise some of our client’s products. But that Nestle brand which I’d been involved with as a media strategist, in Ms.? “Sure she replied,” and went on to diffuse some of the misconceptions one might have about her readers and how they too use traditional “woman’s products.”
She passed away shortly before Labor Day at age 92. It was of course big news. Though not with as much fanfare as that of Dolly Parton’s passing. While Ms. Parton had a massive audience given her stature as a global music and pop icon, Gloria Steinem was an iconic figure in the women’s movement… a journalist…a political activist. Hardly a trifecta that appeals to all tastes.
“I like cookies,” she said laughingly, thirteen years ago at the defunct Cornelia Street Café in the Village when I reminded her of that relatively brief encounter we’d had a mere 35 years ago. Oh Gloria, you melted the chocolate chips in the valentine of our hearts. What a warm gracious human being.
My first awareness of her existence, came through a cover of New York Magazine. It was in its first six months of existence that October of 1968, when I was reading it on the subway enroute to see my fiancée living in Queens.
I couldn’t put it down. And almost missed my stop. Which in retrospect, I should have.
When I recently re-read that cover story on Learning to Live with Nixon focusing on what she had witnessed in a week on a road with the Nixon campaign, it made me recall how crisp and pointed and eye-opening a piece it was. So filled with those ironies that tend to be on board when now traveling by time, not by subway train then. When parallel lines can't ever be seen in real time, just the straight line of the moment. Especially in those coming of age years. But all that for another day.
She didn’t start out as a feminist or activist. Just another young journalist from out of the Midwest. Toledo, Ohio to be exact. By her own account from what I’ve read (our discussion never went beyond cookies and Avon Calling! ; another client’s ad campaign), her shift in life focus towards public organizing and political activism didn't occur until 1969. This following an abortion rights hearing in New York. From which her turn of life focus, would soon be in evidence with the co-founding of Ms. magazine three years later. Through which she reintroduced an honorific in our language, which had never become part of the nomenclature previously.
A piece in The New York Times a few days after her death recalled the role Steinem played in replacing the honorifics of Miss and Mr. with Ms, and how it would gain traction. Despite the resistance she encountered, particularly from the very paper reporting on this battle— the haughty Times itself. Steinem’s stance: “It isn’t possible to continue forcing women to disclose marital status when men are not forced to do the same.”
With its lofty reputation as the national “newspaper of record,” executive editor A.M. Rosenthal responded in a letter to Steinem saying…”We could call everyone Ms. We don’t want to do that because it really is not part of the English language yet and because an awful lot of people would object.” Thinking about it, he was right. There are, "an awful lot of people.”
A one-of-a-kind, she flew in the face—with her pretty face—of the faulty stereotypical associations made about the feminist movement. Often derisively referred to in my neck of the woods as, "doze Women Libbiz". And even up to her final years, she remained active in the discussion. Literally. As she was known for hosting a “talking circle” in the living room of her Upper East Side home. A foundation will now maintain that home as a place for organizing and continuing the discussion. I wonder if they will serve cookies as these gatherings?
Her highly anticipated last memoir was published on September 22nd. I’ll stop here to go out to get a copy. I won't be gone long. You come too.
Quote of the Month
"How strange a world, how strange an existence, that one's equal must argue
for one's equality, that one's equal must hold a station that allows airing of that argument, that one cannot make that argument for oneself, that premises of said argument must be vetted by those equals who do not agree."
— Percival Everett
from James, a novel
No September issue
MuseLetter \’myüz-‘le-tər noun
1: a personal message, inspired by a muse of one's own creation, addressed to a person or organization, in the course of which, the sender becomes absorbed in thought; especially turning something over in the mind meditatively and often inconclusively.
2: a letter from a poet, or one who envisions oneself as such, in which he or she “muses” on that which is perceived to be news, or newsworthy, usually in some ironic or absurd way.
Last month marked the 25th anniversary of that tragic day in our history, September 11, 2001. A reprise of a poem
written not long after that fateful event ...
In the beginning there was the end:
The Colossus of Rhodes
had once again been toppled.
Though this time not while protecting the harbor.
We still had the Lady up to that task.
This time the stumps of those muscular legs
remained standing in a field of fire
fueled by contempt
in the form of crashing planes— caught on camera
where no flowers in the field of mythology
can grow too far off the main road
of concrete, iron, glass and steel
blood and mangled human form —
this time was in real time,
an instant understanding of plight and doom
the ensuing goodbyes via cellular phones.
And death came dressed in foreign clothes
looking like the man at the falafel stand
near 666 and Fifth
and he did not bother
with the good form of knocking
and other such gestures in dignity.
And so that this time
the whole planet Earth itself was shaken.
It said as much in a cluster of candles
that encircled its girth in the days that followed
all seen live through the eyes of technology.
And in the end there was the beginning.
The prodigal sons and daughters returning
from their bell-bottomed days
to their Mother Country and Founding Fathers;
to the family dog, dry-nosed, dying in the corner.
The Third World War
2002
It Takes a Looney Premise
And upon hearing of it, I'm in.
Wile E. Coyote of Looney Toons fame is doing what? Suing the Acme Company for all of those faulty products that have blown up in his face since 1949, in his raison d’etre pursuit to apprehend the ever-elusive Roadrunner. They’re joking. Right?
Growing up in the heyday of Looney Tunes, during what has been called the golden age of American animation, I had to see it. And in a word, to quote Tony the Tiger, it was… Grrrreat!
While it would seem to be a one-trick pony of a premise, a singular joke that would grow stale ten minutes in, it only becomes more fascinating as it progresses. Going into territory never expected. In one sense, literally, at it was primarily shot in and around Albuquerque, New Mexico (March to May 2022). Some scenes in an actual desert.
To be “on location” in a film essentially built on the marvels of animation, is just one of the film’s many surprises. As it serves to show how seamlessly actors and cartoon characters can live in a real world. And this is just one small aspect of what turns out to be, not a kid’s movie really. What 7-year-old is going to comprehend the corporate greed that is so clearly depicted? Where profit can override product safety concerns. Something in adulthood we are all too familiar with. What tween is going to appreciate the frustration of a perpetually elusive goal, yet never giving up in the pursuit of it? How about some of the moral or emotional issues that get to the heart of what makes us human? Wherein, we can at times, be heroic and vulnerable simultaneously? These are things that can rarely be understood, or even recognized, in the absence of maturity.
But spoiler alert: don’t despair. The movie is still outright funny and subversive in that way
that all those old Looney Tune shorts were. Savagely satirizing the way we are, with all
our foibles; all our excesses. In a way that Disney would only gently touch upon. Donald
is ornery; Daffy is mad. Certifiably so in this movie. He's in an insane asylum.
How politically incorrect it all was when seen through the lens of today’s hyper sensitivities within our cancel culture. Which this movie can’t help but make any true “Tooniophile” recall, even though they are not particularly in evidence in the narrative of this movie. Which does have a plotline. And one with flash backs and conspiratorial overtones. Even spoofing a Watergate “deep throat” scene at one point.
And though Sylvester doesn’t speak here, who can forget his exaggerated lisp? Or Porky’s signature stutter? So hilarious then, but such a no-no now to take delight in another’s speech impediment.
Then there's Pepé LePew who makes a cameo. His moves on Penelope Pussycat, funny then, n’est pas, but now might be
recognized for the sexual harassment and stalking that it was. Rather than the
spoofing of prototypical gallic lover type, that Charles Boyer often portrayed? And how many
today have even heard of this sauve actor whose heyday was the mid-thirties to the mid-forties.
Take all that violence in those old Warner Bros. shorts. Elmer Fudd (who plays a prominent role in this film in a way you’ve never seen him before), forever trying to shoot-to-kill the ball-breaking Bugs Bunny.
As too did the hot-tempered Yosemite Sam; guns always ablaze.
Sylvester who makes a cameo in the film, was always
trying to eat Granny’s bird Tweety. (Tweety and Granny
both have featured roles in the film).
Foghorn Leghorn? “Ah say boy,” he’s an uncomfortable good ole boy type now in a villainous role. Going beyond the comical loud- mouth rooster we once knew.
And of course, the star of this show, Coyote himself.
Forever in pursuit. Who even while trying to make
his case, keeps blowing up and destroying things.
Including a real, not animated, car. Yet, his case is valid. Which of
course always got lost in the cartoon shorts, what with all those faulty Acme products exploding in his face.
There is a lot of backstory for the movie that one need not know going in, but I found interesting afterwards.
The inspiration for the script came from a satirical piece in a 1990 issue of The New Yorker. While Warner Bros. made and completed the film in 2022, they decided to not release it for tax write-off purposes, in 2023. A corporate decision with an eye on the bottom line that ironically mirrors the core of the plot: greedy suits driven by financial considerations in lieu of business ethics and the common good.
With the intense pressure that ensued in the backlash from fans, cast members and filmmakers, Warner Bros. relented and shopped the film to other studios. An independent distributer Ketchup entertainment, bought the rights and released the movie to theaters. Resulting in a classic case of all's well that end's well.
It is still being shown in select theaters and is transitioning to digital video-on-demand platforms. I would suspect this film will be on an awards list when award season comes around. It is that good.
poem by Ron Vazzano; photo by the Artemis II astronauts
