Dispatch from Los Angeles--Part 2

The book salon feast and its creator, reflected in the mirror.

"Despite the shock of walking into an empty flat, the absence isn't immediate, more a fade from the present tense you shared, a melting into the past, not an erasure but a conversion in form, from presence to memory, from solid to liquid, and the person you once touched now runs over your skin, now in sheets down your back, and you may bathe, may sink, may drown in the memory, but your fingers cannot hold it."--from Anthony Marra's novel "A Constellation of Vital Phenomena."

A story set during the two recent Chechen wars, Marra's novel has a lot to say about loss, love, cultural identity, betrayal, survival, war, and the art and objects we humans use to connect, commemorate, and remember one another.

The meal was sublime. Yes, of course there was vodka. We poured it into white creme de menthe to make a cocktail called a stinger and we poured it into pomegranate lemonade. There was also dovga--yogurt soup with greens and herbs. There was beef manti and stuffed grape leaves and a dish with peppers that I wish I could be spooning into my mouth right now. And you might want to lie down in case you feel faint when I tell you that we had homemade halva ice cream with homemade chocolate sauce and salted peanuts for dessert.

Then I dove into my bed for the night where I looked out over the City of Angels. Really.

I went to LACMA again this morning, as has become my habit, where I visited the Art of the Americas Building. It lives up to that rather broad name. The heyday of American furniture and decorative arts, and all that, and in a sort of reverse chronology, on the top floor there's this:

The photo can't capture the experience at all.

I gasped when I rounded the corner and caught a glimpse of this gallery with its draperies of reds and greens floating above and its curving walls fashioned of wooded slats. There are one of a kind chandeliers and  lighting that cannot be captured in a photo, and in about 5 seconds you forget all of this because the ancient art is positively stupendous.

And there's this somewhat more modern piece, which was different from everything else, but quite fitting with the larger theme of this 24 hours.

And downstairs, before I walked up the steps to the long, long ago past, there was this:

It fits right in. There were several conjoined couples in the ancient Mexican/Central American clay pieces.

Friday Beach Report /Dispatch from Los Angeles

It's hard to see in this photo, but all of the white thing are velella velella (by-the-wind sailors) In real life they're shiny and look a bit like discarded condoms, as if there'd been a safe sex orgy on the sand.

Today there were hundreds of washed up dead by-the-wind sailors. Who knows why they aren't blue. The question mark from the stalk of some kind of reed or tall grass is not staged. I guess the universe also wants to know why the velella velella aren't blue.

But I saw dolphins on my walk. So we haven't killed everything yet. A stroke of luck.

And I found a parking spot on La Brea Ave. (I'm writing this from L.A.) so that's lucky too. I'm having a latteé at a nice little coffee place in preparation for my 24-hour break from caregiving. I'm hoping for a good night's sleep after my friend Elizabeth's fabulous book salon. Last night my mom yelled a lot in her sleep. This morning while I made my coffee, she was still at it. "Well!" she said, "I'm going to need the car!" Maybe she was trying to get to L.A. so she could be here waiting for me. That could be fun. She's a little unclear on this book salon thing though. Every time I tell her that I'm going to a book club, she thinks it's to a discuss a book I've written. Thanks, mom. I appreciate the vote of confidence.

So yeah, if you want to buy my book, scroll down.

I also highly recommend "A Constellation of Vital Phenomena" by Anthony Marra. It is profoundly amazing and my favorite book salon selection so far.