"Henry James wrote, a lot"

While rummaging through piles of cable bills and whatnot, I came across some notes that I jotted down the day before I took the GRE Literature in English Subject Test. Without further ado, here they are, typed up in their original quaintness and hilarity.

Day before Test Day:

1. Really try to remember character names. Your best bet.
2. Shockingly, the meaning of the word is not the most obvious one.
3. Sound out the Middle and Old English passages. Quietly, though.
4. Multiple persons wrote “Apologies for Poetry”
5. Interpret the meaning of the passage to guess at the author
6. The answer is that the best-known author wrote those lines. You just don't know it.
7. Note prepositions to determine time period of piece
8. Henry James wrote, a lot
9. Molière–royaliste, Volatire–Enlightenment, Balzac–Realisme, Hugo–Democracie, Baudelaire–decadence, Proust–psychologie, sort of, Zola–naturalisme
10. Read everything thrice. It’ll be OK.

--Miss Cottonwood

Rockaway Beach Vignettes: (4th of July) night ride

I told him that I was riding my bike to the fireworks this year. He was quiet and without protest. This is a good sign, let me tell you, because otherwise he would be a pain about it and I would have to give. He was ready on his bike come Fourth of July and I was ready on mine Schwinn (of course and cruiser too). It is already approaching sundown when we join bikes on the boardwalk and the others are waiting. The bike messengers are leading and we follow their pace uptown. I drank too much RedBull and penny tasting beer. The yoga instructor is in front of me and I introduce myself and she tells me that she is leaving soon so I take note of that and then I introduce her to this new person I met who is a bike messenger, “What is your name?” His name is Ryan or Brian. Ryan Brian it is.

He introduces himself and is polite and talks amongst all of them. I race forward because I am not ready to talk to anybody yet but when I am ready then I will because they seem nice.

We stop at 116th Street for beer and it is Him and Pretty Boy and Mulroney and Ryan Brian and Yoga girl and myself. The beach is quiet and beautiful so the bums came out from the methadone house and they sat on the benches on the boardwalk. They are smoking and asking for smokes, they are talking to themselves and to no one at all, and they are all in rehabilitation. The nursing home attendants appear at the stairs of the boardwalk to take a normal moment out of the homes and to breathe salty air.

The Clam is still going and the rowdy crowd is here still drinking and smoking cigarettes. I remember seeing photographs from 100 years ago of women and men wearing white cotton that tugged in the breeze with umbrellas and quiet faces. They stood where The Clam is now and took in the sea where Bro is screaming in Joe’s face about “This guy—Can you believe this guy?” but I don’t know what they were saying because their lips are stern and closed.

Mulroney has the beer now and we are ready to go and the boards rustle and bang under our wheels. We make a turn at 126th Street off the boardwalk to the street where we go up Rockaway Beach Boulevard but “My, how you should see it now!” because the trees are emerald green and the grass is neatly tendered. The pavement is smooth and almost white so that the bike tires are fast past St. Francis Church. Pretty Boy hits a ramp with his BMX bike and causes a loud bang outside the church and I cringe. He turns back and gives me a prolonged grin and moves on ahead of me.

Past Neponsit and the Orthodox and the Old Irish, rich and silent behind their mansion shrubbery, we race toward the tuberculous Hospital at the edge of Riis. The brick building is empty now. It towers above the ocean with views made for the sick and dying. There are no wooden boards here but rather a concrete lane that periodically opens into plazas. We are riding very fast toward the bathhouses and no one remembers what they used to be. Offices, bathrooms, lifeguard stations, and first aid have replaced the crumbling bathhouses for twentieth century beach goers to rent and leave their belongings. The light is fading: pink and orange twilight is on the horizon’s rim. The lights on the lane are the suggestion of yellow and barely illuminate the space they occupy.

I keep falling behind because the bag of beer in my basket is very heavy and making it hard to steer the bike. After we pass the bathhouse, Mulroney, Pretty Boy, and Ryan Brian want to stop to drink beer before they arrive. We go on but they have caught up to us before we lost our way. Mulroney directs us down a black covered path that is a mere separation in the bushes. The concrete path has worn away into gravel and we duck our heads under the tree branches. It is all the sound of tires and shouts to watch the potholes and we all laugh at the beers getting shook up. Suddenly the sky comes back and we arrive at the bombed out barracks, covered in graffiti and empty of the men who once laid in them.

We race another mile or so before we reach the main road into the Breezy where we are supposed to find Flanagan. When we finally get to the Catholic Church, Flanagan is outside wheeling a cooler of beer in a homeless man’s cart with no shoes and enormous clothing. Mobile is with him and greets his neighbors Pretty Boy and Yoga. Sugas told me about Mobile first then his roommate Pretty Boy.

We push the bikes past the houses with Flanagan our Ambassador to this Irish town. We park ourselves by the beach restaurant’s lights to watch the fire in the sky. The night is not long because the explosions are upon us in the sky. And oooooooo and ahhhhhhhh.
I am with Him and he is drinking beer for the long ride home. The night gets shorter as we stand outside of the beach restaurant full of the people. They are trying to remember when they were us and we are trying to not think of being them.

Pretty Boy wants to smoke so we hop a fence behind the restaurant and find a grove in the sea dunes for the venture. They pass around blunts and new people have arrived to join but Mobile, Yoga, and I hang back to laugh and do get-to-knows. Some of the party are too tired so they sit around each other and its Woodstock in the dunes. Free share and lay down next to one another. But I see him walk towards me and he and I know that the night is for us and not for others.

He and I leave the party in the parking lot of the church because Flanagan promised things that aren’t happening. Flanagan found a girl and he was talking to her of a night that he had already promised away. Mobile was stuck with him and Mulroney, Yoga, and Ryan Brian peddled away into the darkness. I am ready to be alone in the darkness and give Him the face so we turn away and head towards Tilden.

We travel down the road a bit before veering off right and into the ever-fading street lights. At the mouth of the path he traveled behind me. It became night completely.
“Let’s do this” and I smiled but he chuckled because we were drunk and free. Two of us. Alone and alone.

I went first and he followed with trepidation: Fools do go forward. Soon the black velvet soft summer night was all around and we peddled to the sounds of racing thoughts. Around the bend on the bluff, the large bellied moon appeared and said Hello to us. But he was calm now because he could believe in the darkness and in my lead. And finally, finally, finally he let that salt breeze under his shirt.

We stopped at the bluff overwhelmed by the joy of being alone in this City. Its all Ocean now licking grainy lips and seagulls are fast asleep. He handed me an ice-cold beer and I knew I was in love with this man in this dark. A bell chimed and was carried over to us in the breeze. He smiled and pointed quiet to the fisherman flying solo on the beach near the bluff. “I don’t use the bells because I don’t need them.” This is what he said.

Archer & Claire

Claire was zoning out at the Yale Club.

She was sitting at a corner table in the Tap Room, pretending to listen to the blue blazers discuss bond prices. The hall was oppressively hot. No one seemed bothered though, Claire noted, as they milled about in their starched finest.

Claire made an excuse and got up, smoothing her pencil skirt. So and so transferred to Goldman Sachs, and so and so was finally moving to Boston for graduate school, she heard as she weaved her way to the bar.

She had just asked for a glass of white when someone screamed out her name. Claire turned and saw a sparkly blond at the other end of the table waving furiously at her. She had called out so loudly that several people were now watching. Claire picked up her drink and walked toward the woman, who was sipping on a pinkish cocktail.

“Oh sweetie, it has been ages,” Annabel gushed as they kissed each other on both cheeks. “And you look gorgeous.”

“So do you,” Claire said, meaning it. Annabel looked blonder than ever. Her hair was almost white and her skin a deeply-freckled brown. She was wearing a beaded flapper dress that stood out in a crowd of corporate attire. Annabel spun around, laughing, letting the beads glitter and click in the air.

“Thank you, darling,” Annabel said, looping her arm into Claire’s. “Now, tell me where you’ve been keeping your fabulous self.”

Claire began telling Annabel about Doré, and Annabel mentioned that she owned a few pieces from last fall’s collection.

“I knew you’d wind up with something like that,” Annabel said, smiling toothily. “You were so glam in college.”

Claire found the comment strange coming from Annabel. They had been in the same fashion society at Yale. Claire was the president and Annabel, a year younger, was the secretary. But Annabel was the one who wore mink coats to lecture and had her hair done in New York every week. Annabel’s freshman-year dorm room was even featured in the New York Times Style section. Claire remembered giggling with friends at photos of the glitzy freshman’s zebra-print armchairs and crystal lamps.

She was now telling Claire about her new gig as a research assistant for a D.C. think tank. Annabel had launched a short-lived campaign for student body president her sophomore year, but Claire didn’t know that she harbored any interest in politics beyond that. Annabel said she was in New York for a conference and had to attend a dinner function later in the evening.

“Oh, hon, I am just so thrilled to catch up with you,” Annabel said, squeezing Claire’s arm tighter. “By the by, you haven’t said one word about that enormous rock on your finger.”

“Oh!” Claire said, blushing.

“If I had a hunk of ice that heavy, I wouldn’t forget it,” Annabel winked.

Claire blushed deeper and received Annabel’s well wishes.

“You married that fella you were going with in school, Arthur was it?”

“Yes, Archer.”

“Archer, of course.”

Annabel loudly kissed Claire’s cheek. “Now, you give him a kiss from me.”

Claire kissed Annabel on the cheek and waved goodbye. Annabel’s glittery figure sashayed around the cloud of dark suits and out the door.

A half hour later, Claire left the stultifying room.


-- Miss Cottonwood

Rockaway Beach Vignettes: The Booleyvaard

The City is thick hot. It is the space between you and the stranger’s body standing next to you. The wind has steamed and is a canopy over Rockaway Beach Boulevard today. Hipsters are pouring off the train and spilling onto the boulevard. I’m with Pretty Boy and we are eating fried plantains out of a Styrofoam container with our backs to The Wave. I like to watch the boulevard though I don’t want it to notice me. It is all good though as I am with a loud-mouthed twenty something and he likes to talk back to the bums and the drunks: he is my spokesperson.

A woman is rolling our way and she looks like she stinks. Sick and dead hair tied into what girls call a ponytail. She getting close now and we can hear her talking to herself. She bumps into a patron of a corner saloon—this is a place that the only the true rogue drinks. He is an old man and he is mean drunk with a face like a balled up fist. They fight and the old hag screams for retribution and evokes Jesus down on the old mean drunk. Pretty Boy and I decide to move along. We walk past the gangstas coming, going, lingering, and fleeing the corners we pass. We are in a walking mood but decide we had enough of this boulevard of nightmares and take a quick left around the deli and towards the beach.

We find ourselves on a friendly street and our pace slows with every block we put behind us. On our right, the revival tabernacle jesuschrist of all saints including god church hung out a new banner on its flagship building: a broken down house with a caved in porch. We take note—and we look with our best stare.

We pass by the Captain’s house and he is leaning over his gate talking to Flanagan. We stop and chat for a few: they are talking coke but we are talking drinks. Flanagan never wears shoes and Capt. Jack never wears shirts and this hippie stuff drives us nuts. Flanagan is going uptown in a few but we don’t want to go besides his route is not direct and we prefer express. Pretty Boy is the new man in town and his childish face attracts more drunk girls than Flanagan’s former protégé Mulroney. Flanagan eyes to bring him into the fold but Pretty Boy stands off too far for him to reach.
We are persuaded to come back to Captain Jack’s that evening to attend a birthday party for the Musician—he is turning who the hell cares. Flanagan jumps onto his skateboard and with toes gripped leaves us standing with Captain Jack. We all watch as he rolls up the street with a hand outstretched toward the sky until his lithe form disappears around Holland Avenue.

We take leave of the Captain and walk a little quicker to get back to the bungalow. Pretty Boy is almost sprinting because now we have something to do and we have to at least smoke before we swim. The Victorian houses on each side of the street sag and are broken; the people who built them are gone and now the owners are the slumlords, the elderly, and us. There are houses with many different windows and balconies, with wide open porches that stretch around the entire home—they are Escher drawn dwellings—and all with surf boards or boxed up garbage in the yard.

We are close now to Pretty Boy’s place and I smell the violet candy locust trees so late in June. Mulroney has a new neighbor and he is sitting on the porch, we wave but there are things to accomplish and we have wasted too much time. Down the alley of bungalows, we sidle up to the apartment and I make plans to meet up later. We are going to that party tonight and I will bring the tequila. Tonight the Musician will play and begin the summer properly-before he drags his cello out to the sand to perform under the boardwalk.

-- Lady Gravesend

Summer books, beach reads

On a trip to the beach, Lady Gravesend and Miss Cottonwood spotted something funny. As we threw our towels and too-pale bodies down onto the sand, we saw a young woman nearby reading a book. She was reading Nietzsche.

We thought, “Really?” and giggled a bit. But then that sparked the question, what is a summer book, a beach read? Neither of us really goes for the bodice-ripping variety; beach reads don’t have to be as flimsy and pointless as our cover-ups. On the other hand, neither of us was tossing Beyond Good and Evil in our totes anytime soon. So, we thought hard about our ideal summer book.

Lady Gravesend: I find that a book about love, tragic and fleeting, is perfect for lazy summer consumption. Among the best summer books, is Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. This book is the ultimate paperback to throw in your beach bag and read while lying in the sun. The main character opens with a memory of first love on the beach during a childhood summer. Nabokov creates that “little girl with the seaside limbs” that haunts you and the narrator while both follow Lolita around the novel.

But this is not my favorite. No, of the creepily sensual variety I prefer Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice. It is a filling read best enjoyed in late July or August when you start to contemplate the quickening end of the summer. Mann’s prose is textured and rich--like running your hand over expensive linens at an overpriced beach resort. The novel follows Gustav Aschenbach, a disciplined and successful artist as he follows an urge to vacation in Venice. As one can imagine, a struggle ensues for Aschenbach as his own Xanadu threatens to consume him.

Miss Cottonwood: My favorite summer read is F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night.

The book opens hauntingly on a midsummer day. A story unfolds on a beach, under a scorching French sun that, we learn, burns the delicate legs of an American ingénue. Fitzgerald undercuts the oppressive heat emanating from the pages with a chill of sad nostalgia that weaves in and out of the lines. Rarely have I felt more mixed in with the sand, the air, and the figures of a writer's imagination.

The book goes on to sketch the lives of a wealthy circle of friends living in South of France. The central storyline, the curve of the Diver marriage, sharply mirrors Fitzgerald's own struggles with his wife Zelda's mental decline and, eventually, his own. According, his characters are strange, fragmented, and deceptive in the most alluring way. Who can forget Dick Diver's instant magnetism, Nicole Diver's malefic loveliness, and Rosemary Hoyt's ambrosial innocence?

The book is rich, tragic, and imperfect. You may really fall in love with Dick Diver -- something that you never could do with Jay Gatsby because you were told that you had to -- or maybe you will despise him. Either way, you are likely to feel something under the French sun.

But will you enjoy this book? Well, it's a Fitzgerald! Let the words wash over you. Let him take you to the passionate and torturous fragment of his psyche that forever floats along the French Riviera. You would be hard-pressed to find a more transporting summer experience.

With that, we hope that everyone enjoyed the first official weekend of summer!

-- Lady Gravesend and Miss Cottonwood

Rockaway Beach Vignettes: Judas, Brutus, and Cassius

This vignette series will be running over the summer about Rockaway Beach, New York.


Ran into Mulroney on 96th eating fish tacos and he was off the junk so he and Red Hat and Pretty Boy and I went to the Bar for a pina colada. Yeah Mulroney was good with soul present eyes and we were all feigning for that frozen rum drink. I said to Mulroney “I thought you were wearing tanks all summer: what’s with the button down.” He smiled and opened his shirt to show his commitment – a black tank revealed. “It’s a little chilly, ya know.”

As we walked down 95th to the Bar, a car pulled up to park. Mulroney familiar with its driver ran up to the passenger window. “Its Bodi!” I knew of this person and was curious to meet this storied surfer. Mulroney waived us on to the Bar and said that Bodi would be joining us there. Past a group of children perpetually playing on the street who were all too curious and then on to the first tier of our favorite place. It is the afternoon during the week and in the seventies, cooler than usual. The Bar is empty but for a few others craving the summer drinks. I just bought two packs of American Spirits and was happy to sit down to a rum high and smoke my American tobacco. I gave a cigarette to Red Hat even though I felt bad—his being young and all. We were waiting for our drinks. I didn’t feel like a lecture but reminded him that they cut off the oxygen to your brain. He looked a little disturbed—good…success.

The drinks arrived and we settled into a long relaxed sip on this beach veranda. It was a pleasure to have this spot so Appollonian and quiet—the nights erupt into a Dionysian ritual of sex, jealously, drunkenness, and the deafening roar of the present. All are completely in the moment with no future and only few are unfortunate enough to bring in a past.

We wait for Bodi to arrive—his Guinness foams and settles long before his arrival. Red Hat and Pretty Boy take off for the skate park after one. Mulroney convinces me to stay for at least two more—how could I say no with nothing to do for the afternoon. Mulroney nods to an approaching car, “ugh, here comes Fake Frank.” “why do you call him that?” “You will find out in about two minutes.” A far too blond man with no shoes and a Grateful Dead T-shirt approaches us with a drunk and cheery girl. “Hey, there Mulroney…Oh man, I haven’t seen you in (pause for fist bump)…wow, how are you?” Introductions. “Hey I know you?” “Uh, nah but maybe I have seen you around.” No matter Fake Frank is already consumed the annoying banalities uncharacteristic to the neighborhood. Mulroney placates then rolls his eyes as the two disappear into the bar for their drinks. “Yeah, I got ya, Mulroney” Laughter. Sip Drinks. The kids from the sidewalk come up towards us—one boy gave me a white flower taken from the house next door. He is our instant friend.

A man rounds the corner—big and husky. He is wearing white linen pants and a button down, sunglasses, an Irish cap, and using a wooden cane. Banged up clearly. This is the surfer from Nicaragua. This is the man all the other surfers talk about. He sits down with big warm handshakes all around. He sits down like Santa with his beard and his legs apart for a listening lean. After he lifts his warm beer, Mulroney looks pleased and they catch up. He was injured in an accident—hence the cane. I am out of my league and thinking I should depart. Not good for ladies to be hanging out with so many men— as I stand to leave Mulroney insists that I stay for at least one more. Bodi takes notice of me then and offers his introduction. “I am the girl who lives with the dark haired man” Ahh…yes, there is recognition now—he came to one of our yard parties. Already warm on rum I say “I have heard of you—the surfer from Nicaragua.” This pleases the crowd and Bodi who is attentive to me now. We talk of Nicaragua while Mulroney gets my drink—of international relations and drug trafficking—of the people and the jungle. Mulroney arrives with a rum floater on my pina colada. I avoid these but am not upset at its arrival. I settle back into my wrought iron chair of curly-cued roses and chipped paint and take the golden brown rum off with a slow sip.

The rum is getting me now as the banter is quicker and Fake Frank arrives to speak more banalities to Bodi whose patience is of the worldly kind. Fake Frank and the girl tuck themselves into the corner for some making out while we continue a better conversation now about Dante’s Inferno and who was the third man in the mouth of the devil. No one can remember and Bodi says he can’t because he is too high. He is reading Don Quixote in Spanish –“DO you know Spanish?” No. “My friends are teaching me.” I think they are …Yo quiero cerveza...ha.

- Lady Gravesend

Carrie on, and on

I remember my first trip to New York City.

I was thirteen and on my eighth-grade art class field trip. We visited the galleries and also managed to cram in a Yankees game, two Broadway shows ("Phantom" and "Stomp"), Ellis Island, and a tour of Columbia University. I remember going to sleep every night on my bunk in the Big Apple Hostel, happily filled with streetside hotdogs and bright new memories.

This was my first impression of the city: it was a place larger than its physical size, maybe a little rough around the edges, but nevertheless glowing with positive energy and endless possibilities. In New York City, there could be something for everyone, and no limits at all.

But the next time I stayed in the city, it felt different. You see, by then, I had discovered "Sex and the City."

People say that the four women of the HBO show obviously live in a fantasy world, a hyperreal New York. But that wasn't obvious to me. The fantasy was spliced with just enough reality to make it believable. Carrie Bradshaw buys $400-dollar heels but she also struggles to make ends meet when her building goes co-op -- that sort of thing. Besides, the show was based on true New Yorker Candace Bushnell and her jazzy social column, which I read.

Before moving, I subconsciously decided that my life in the city would be scripted by "Sex." For awhile, my footwear was five-inch heels that I couldn't walk in, my nourishment was sugary Magnolia cupcakes that I couldn't really stomach, and my transportation was a taxi cab that I couldn't afford. Being seen at flashy restaurants and sauntering around the Meatpacking District became not just the height of living, but the only way of living.

It seems pretty silly now, looking back. The funniest part of it all was that I had come to New York to explore, live without limits, and find myself. I wasn't doing very much of that while trying to live Carrie's life.

I actually feel a little sorry for Carrie and her friends. As it turns out, after six years on television and two movies, the "Sex" women are done exploring. They now live in a frozen Cosmopolitan. By the second movie, the women are settled in their ways and finished with the city. They are so finished, in fact, that the screenwriters keep them in Abu Dhabi for most of the movie to make it seem like they're still the adventuresses that we once knew.

How lucky the rest of us are, then, to have unscripted lives. No limits, rules, or absolutes can hem us in. Maybe New York really is the place that I thought it was when I was 13 after all.

- Miss Cottonwood