And Paris is boring?
I’d thought the store was for travelers who wanted to pick up a few things on the way home, but it’s actually a way around the Swiss blue laws demanding that shops close from Saturday afternoon until Monday morning. The laws apply everywhere but the airport, so they built a massive supermarket in the Swiss Air terminal. “It’s the place to be on a Sunday,” the woman said.
I received a letter from an American woman living in Paris who wrote to say she’d read my interview in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “I fully intend to read your book,” she said, “as I, too, have hoped to ‘Talk Pretty Someday.’” It’s always queer when people work a book title into a headline or sentence, especially this book title. She wrote about her two-year-old daughter and their upcoming move and finally got to the point. “My reason for this note is because of your comments on smoking. Because of you and others with similar opinions, people like me cannot eat in Paris restaurants (except McDonald’s). I hope you are never the victim of a smoking-related illness or have to care for someone who is—believe me—then ‘talking pretty’ will not be an option.”
There’s no return address so she won’t be hearing back from me.
June 5, 2001
Cleveland, Ohio
I was met at the airport by Marilyn, a widow who looks to be in her early seventies. It was chilly and she wore a handsome felt coat along with no fewer than fourteen bracelets. Marilyn has a great heap of wild gray hair and wears the sort of heavy-rimmed round-framed glasses favored by architects. When I told her I wanted to arrive at the bookstore an hour early, she shook her head and said she didn’t see the need. “I’ll get you there fifteen minutes beforehand. That’ll give you more than enough time.”
I’ve never appeared in a Cleveland bookstore and had no idea what to expect, so I said fine. We arrived at Joseph-Beth at six forty-five. Pulling into the crowded parking lot, Marilyn suggested that someone in the surrounding neighborhood must be having a party. “They do that sometimes and park here illegally.”
We walked into the store and she put her hand to her face, saying, “Goodness, they must be having a sale.” Susan, the manager, counted four hundred people in the audience. I signed for twenty minutes beforehand and three hours afterward, and when I was done the managers gave me a T-shirt. On the way back to the hotel, Marilyn said it was nice that so many people just happened to be in the store.
June 10, 2001
Chicago
I’m still not sold on the bow tie and have been asking people for their opinions on it. “What do you say, yes or no?”
I’d worried it suggested a wacky uncle and felt comforted when a woman at Borders said it made me look like a shy scholar. This carried me through to Barbara’s, where a young man defined it as “the pierced eyebrow of the Republican Party.” This should probably put an end to it once and for all.
June 12, 2001
Iowa City
The best thing to be said about the Iowa City Sheraton is that it’s connected to a fast-food concern called T. J. Cinnamons. In my room, there are hairs and flecks of shit clinging to the inside of the toilet bowl, the tub still hasn’t drained from last night’s bath, and even the complimentary pen is broken. The room-service coffee is served with nondairy creamer, the furniture is stained, and the closet has only one coat hanger in it. Yesterday afternoon the outside temperature reached one hundred degrees. I’m guessing it was also one hundred in the lobby and hotel restaurant, which were both without air-conditioning. All in all, it’s the most depressing hotel since the Holiday Inn in Portland, Maine.
June 13, 2001
San Francisco
On the way to the bookstore I asked Frank, the escort, what he thought of my bow tie. He hesitated for a moment and then said, “A bow tie tells the world that the person wearing it can no longer get an erection.”
June 25, 2001
Paris
While I was gone Hugh, Manuela, and Dario attended Franck’s surprise fortieth-birthday party. One of the guests was a sophisticated mother of three who announced that she hated the zoo at the Jardin des Plantes because it was cruel to keep the animals in such small cages. She went on and on and then, at the end of the evening, she unlocked her car and released her golden retriever, who’d spent the last six hours in the trunk.
July 13, 2001
Tübingen, Germany
This is my new favorite German city, and it’s nice because I really didn’t expect it. It’s a college town, but the old center is remarkable, crammed with steep-roofed buildings and intersected by a network of streams. Living here would undoubtedly get dull, but it’s beautiful to look at. We arrived yesterday afternoon. It was a three-hour ride involving two separate trains and a change in Stuttgart. On our first train we sat in a smoking compartment and reviewed our evening in Nuremberg. “That couple last night were really trampling on my nerves,” Tini said. I just love her English. It’s not as grammatically correct as Gert’s, but I find it infinitely more charming.
On the way to Tübingen we passed a smokestack with the word dick written on it.
July 16, 2001
Paris
While eating, Tini discussed her friends’ upcoming move to New York. They’re a pair of reporters going from Hamburg to West 68th Street. Hugh said the move will be difficult, especially if they smoke, and Tini said, “No, they have finished their smoking.” She said it as though when born, they’d been allotted a certain number of cigarettes. They’d depleted their supply and now it’s all behind them. Later she made a reference to the restaurant’s delicious smashed potatoes.
I called Lisa last night. She’s been getting a lot of compliments on her garden and when she mentioned this to Dad, he said that Gretchen too had been spending a lot of time in the yard. Lisa said that Gretchen’s garden was mainly wildflowers and Dad said, “Yes, well, you’re you, and Gretchen is extremely creative.” She told him that I was number one on the New York Times list and he said, “Well, he sure isn’t number one in the Wall Street Journal.”
July 21, 2001
La Bagotière