Dear Diary: Just Deal
It was a glorious day to be out and about on the Upper East Side. The air was sunny and warm, but very clear; and all the rain that we’ve had so far this summer has laundered the city to pressed-napkin freshness. In colder weather, I’d have walked to the ophthalmologist’s office at 70th and Park. Taking a cab, though, gave me the thrill of turning left onto Park Avenue and — voilà ! what a view! The Helmsley Building (is it still called that? It used to be the Grand Central Building, not, obviously, to be confused with the Terminal, but erected as part of the ensemble) is under wraps for some kind of renovation, but the pyramidal copper roof is unobstructed.
From the distance of 86th Street (roughly forty blocks), the Helmsley Building, and the Met Life (né Pan Am) Building behind it seem to stand at the end of a fantastic canyon, and to my eye Mother Nature has nothing remotely as formidable. But don’t listen to me. I’ve seen every famous spot in the United States (or at least that’s what it feels like) except the Grand Canyon, which I’ve avoided because I’m as certain as I can be without actual experience that I would find it wanting.
The canyon effect is the doing of the Met Life building, which is why I’ve always loved it. Fossil Darling hates it for having occluded the “profile” of the Helmsley Building, which, truth be told, I’d find rather dinky, now that I’ve gotten used to the massive building behind it.
The sad truth about Park Avenue is that the majesty of the view cannot be apprehended from the sidewalks. Originally, a path twisted through the median, which was quite a bit wider than it is today. I hope that the old configuration is revived at some point, whether I live to see it or not. It will put the High Line back where it belongs, especially if, as one must imagine, the walkway is wide enough to accommodate pedestrian traffic in both directions. I have not yet been to the new High Line park thingy, and I have no plans to see it anytime soon, but, like the Grand Canyon, it will certainly be found wanting if, as I’ve been informed, everyone must walk in the same direction. What is the point of that? Diane von Furstenberg and Barry Diller could count on being seen by photographers, but I should prefer to see and be seen by other folks like myself. The designers, doubtless single young people without children to show off, have proved themselves to be astonishingly ignorant of the European promenade — or, if not ignorant, then wonderfully perverse.
I had a very jolly time at the ophthalmologist’s — I’m not kidding! — but I’ll save that for some other time. Bref, the waiting room is freshened by the sounds of WQXR, the classical music station that has just been sold by its owner, The New York Times. What, I wonder, will replace it? At the ophthalmologist’s, I mean. I’m plotting.
Because of the warmth (“heat” would be too strong a word; although, when I got home, I was dripping like a squeezing sponge), I took a taxi up to 82nd Street, where I paid a visit to Crawford Doyle. I wanted to order Methland. I asked for it last Friday and was told that I could order it, and that’s what I wanted to do today. But today there was a copy in the shop. I also bought the book about the Romantics and science that is going to appear on the cover of the Book Review this weekend (so I’m told). It was recommended to me by a staff member on Friday, but I got distracted and didn’t pick it up. Later, I felt rather awful, because I make a point of taking up plausible recommendations; I’m the rare person who will actually read the book that you’re crazy about, unless I’ve some reason to think that I’ll hate it, which I sometimes do but usually don’t.
Then I had a nice lunch, at Demarchelier on 86th. I read the posthumous Styron story in The New Yorker. At one point — long before the wrenching end — it had me in tears, and not just because my pupils were still dilated. (I look forward to writing the story up tomorrow.) Before lunch arrived, I read a bit of A Meaningful Life, which had had me laughing at the doctor’s. When I came upon the following line at the restaurant, I had to put the book down, overwhelmed by the fertile thing that can attain no more:
Once every month or so, his wife would smile apologetically and a little defensively, put on her longest skirt, and pack herself over to see her mother in Flatbush like some kind of installment-plan Eurydice.
Jonathan Lethem’s forward to the NYRB reprint of this 1971 novel tells us that L J Davis still lives on Dean Street in Brooklyn. Mr Lethem used to play with Mr Davis’s sons.
Walking up Madison to Feldman’s Housewares, between 92nd and 93rd, I wished that I’d brought along a Nano. Then I more or less stopped thinking; my brain was keeping summer hours. So much so that, at Feldman’s, I wound up with two Yodeling Pickles instead of just one, and I forgot all about the pants hanger that Kathleen asked me to pick up. I thought about taking a third taxi home, but the prospect of squeezing into a back seat and then out again made walking looking easier.
And it was a good thing, that walk, because — my brain’s having rebooted for some reason — I made up my mind about something. As an unusual person, and a very tall one, I have always oscillated between two public modes: simple weirdness and pained self-consciousness. I decided today to jettison the pained self-consciousness. The elegant Latin for “Just Deal” will be most welcome.