Dang! We Did It Anyway!

How do you get to Book Soup? Practice!

Since I first heard of its existence back in 1975, I've wanted to get to Book Soup. Located on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, it's been the hip home of the literati for nearly half a century. So when I got a message from Larry Upshaw, the founder of Ageless Authors, that he planned a reading and signing of Dang! I Wish I Hadn't Done That! for four Southern California contributors and one of the Ageless Authors judges, I agreed to show up. For me it felt like making it to Carnegie Hall.

I've done dozens of readings in the past fifteen years since I've been writing about my life's adventures, but never one at a venue quite so chic with a group of authors quite so enthusiastic.

The area where we read our stories.

Larry Upshaw, from Dallas, introduced us as enormously talented writers. Not a single one of us raised a hand to object to this lofty praise. Larry already had staged readings in Dallas and Albuquerque, so by now he knew how to get the authors to look cheerful.

Larry begins the intros...Geoffrey at right.

My fellow contributors at this reading included Geoffrey Graves of Laguna, Brenda Mutchnick of Beverly Hills, and Gered Beeby of Encinitas.  Candice Kelsey of Los Angeles, a literature teacher at a private girls high school in the vicinity and an Ageless Authors judge, also read several poems from a collection she's about to publish. 

Book Soup, with its floor-to-ceiling shelves stuffed with some of the most memorable books ever written, proved distracting. I'd have loved to have bought more books there...saw so many I want to read. But I already have stacks piled up in the corners of my tiny apartment, so steeled myself to resist. But I know I'll return to Book Soup.

The next afternoon the same group assembled at Barnes & Noble, Irvine Spectrum. Again, we enjoyed chatting with the audience members who came up for autographs...but it wasn't quite like Carnegie Hall, er....Book Soup! Dang! I'm glad we did this.

L-R, Gered, Terri, Candice, Brenda, Larry

Thanks to Myrna Beeby, Gered's wife, for taking the photos of the authors.

You can buy this book here:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=dang%2C+i+wish+i+hadn%27t+done+that&crid=1XOOCETNSHC5N&sprefix=Dang%21+I+Wish+I+%2Caps%2C222&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_14

50 Years of Nichols Togetherness

Don & Mary, Still Swinging After All These Years

Once in a while, things last. They may frazzle a bit and fade around the edges, but they last. Such has been the marriage of my friends here at FountainGlen Goldenwest, Mary and Don Nichols. Today they shared their 50th anniversary with family, friends and neighbors here in our apartment senior living complex.

What a wonderful occasion...complete with an Italian buffet, featuring lasagna, pizza, salads and a variety of soft drinks. Their family decorated the entire clubhouse with 1970s posters, golden, silver and black balloons, gold cutlery, fold-edged plates and enough candy, cookies and cake to cause us to gasp with delight. The music of the seventies kept us all tapping our toes. 

Most memorable moments? When Don & Mary revealed the "Escape" signs on the back of their respective walkers...and when Mary smeared Don's face with the first bite of anniversary cake.  

Thanks to son Don, Jr. and all the other family members and friends for contributing to this fantastic celebration. Don, Jr. says we all have to wait now for another 25 for the diamond jubilee!

An Evening With Roz Chast

No matter where I've lived, and I've lived in some of the far corners of the earth, I've lived a literary life. Back in Southern California, though, it's less of a stretch to do so. Nearly every month there's an author I admire speaking someplace near.

Last  night, it was graphic novelist, Liz Chast, at the Bowers Museum in nearby Santa Ana. My Westminster library book group will later this month be discussing her National Endowment for the Arts book, "Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?". I'd finished reading it a couple of nights ago. It brought back a lot of memories about my own mother's last days.

Chast has been a featured cartoonist for "The New Yorker" since the late '70s...I always turn to her cartoons first each Friday or Saturday when my issue arrives. Last night a number of women in the audience stood during the concluding Q&A session to relate how they feel that Chast has chronicled their own lives. I'm not Jewish...my mother wasn't similar to Roz Chast's. Nonetheless, I've known that sometimes stereotypes become such because of prevalent examples. So when these Jewish women began to talk of their moms, I still could chuckle. I've known a few.

So has Roz Chast. When one woman mentioned that her mother had the audacity to die on Mother's Day, Roz said, "Oh, yes. Maximum effect." The audience howled.

Chast's talk began with the photo above. "Me, Age 9." The gentleman seated next to me helped me decipher the titles of the books surrounding her. We managed to squint enough to make out, "A Child's Garden of Maladies," "The Big Book of Horrible Rare Diseases," "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Scurvy," "Lockjaw Monthly," and "Merck's Manual."

Chast explained that she's sometimes been called "The Poet Laureate of Neurosis." This began in her early childhood. Her aunt, a nurse, gave each year's outdated "Merck's Manual" to the family when a new edition appeared. When Roz thumbed through it, she found much of it way over her head. But she knew what signs and symptoms were. So she always was seeking these. 

She explained that she realized that leprosy was rare in upper Brooklyn. But rare did not mean impossible. So when she found a symptom that she thought she'd experienced herself, she knew right away that she'd contracted this disease. 

Lockjaw? The playgrounds surrounding her home had lots of old rusty swings and slides. Consequently, her playmates all obsessed about contracting this disease. They'd scratch themselves on a rusty nail and figure that in fifteen minutes their jaws would clamp down, so consequently they'd starve to death. Such was preadolescence in Brooklyn in the 1960s.

After showing the sketches she made of her mother on her deathbed, Chast closed her talk with displaying what recently has been my favorite cartoon of hers. When I look at this, I think how appropriate it would be for some of my health food-obsessed California friends. I mean, fair is fair. There should be payoffs!