Promises Kept. Chapter One.

I got up early this morning and everyone else was sleeping.  I made coffee and lit a fire, grabbed my favorite afghan and cuddled up on the couch with my newest book.  A book that I bought a few days ago.  And.  A book I've already finished.

Aha!  I'm already on my way to a successful 2007. 

Take that all you naysayers!

All right, the book was only 78 pages.  And it was lovely and easy to devour.  And it was romantic.  And tragic.  And was written by a writer I really like.  It had a lot going for it.  But, still!  I've kept my word to myself so far, so I think I deserve a prize.  Actually, I think my prize is that I got to know a little bit more about Alice Trillin, and how much her husband, Calvin, loved her.  And how much he misses her.  She passed away in 2001.

At Barnes and Noble on Saturday, I was perusing all the newest books when About Alice jumped out at me.  I loved the simple cover design and especially the typeface.   And I couldn't resist the photograph on the back cover of the two of them leaving the London registry office where they were married in August of 1965.

There's a chapter on how pretty she was.

At parties, she often attracted what I called "guys smoking pipes," who wanted to impress her with their suavity or intellectual range.  "He wasn't smoking a pipe, by the way," she'd say, knowing just which guy I was talking about when I mentioned "that guy with the pipe" as we discussed a party on the way home...

..."Is that right?  I'd say.  "I could have sworn he was tamping down the tobacco, or whatever they do, when he made the remark about the flaws in Derrida's thinking."

I wasn't surprised that Alice attracted guys with pipes.  They didn't mean any harm, and I'm hardly in a position to criticize people for trying to impress her.

He wrote about how they met at a party in New York.

She was, as Roger Wilkins later wrote, so very pretty, but that wasn't the first thing that struck me about her; it might have come as much as two or three seconds later.  My first impression was that she looked more alive than anyone I'd ever seen.  She seemed to glow...

...after doing some intelligence work and juggling some obligations and dismissing as hearsay the vague impression of one mutual acquaintance that Alice was virtually engaged, I dashed back from a remote suburb to a party that I figured she'd be attending...I did get to talk to her quite a lot.  In fact, I must have hardly shut up.  I was like a lounge comic who had been informed that a booker for The Tonight Show was in the audience.  Recalling that party in later years, Alice would sometimes say, "You have never again been as funny as you were that night."

"You mean I peaked in December of 1963?"  I'd say, twenty or even thirty years later.

"I'm afraid so."

But I never stopped trying to match that evening -- not just trying to entertain her but trying to impress her.

He describes one scene when Alice was volunteering at a camp for disabled children.  She had made friends with a little girl who was severely disabled and as they all sat around in a circle playing duck, duck, goose, the little girl handed Alice her mail, asking her to hold it when it was her turn to be chased around the circle.  Alice noticed there was a note on top from the little girl's mom.  And she read the note, knowing how awful that was.  The note said, "If God had given us all of the children in the world to choose from, L., we would only have chosen you."  Alice's friend was sitting next to her and she quickly handed him the note and said...

Quick.  Read this.  It's the secret of life.

She was a good mom.  Calvin Trillin wrote this in The New Yorker.

By now, my wife's policy on attending school plays (a policy that also covers pageants, talent shows, revues, recitals, and spring assemblies) is pretty well known:  she believes that if your child is in a school play and you don't go to every performance, including the special Thursday matinee for the fourth grade, the county will come and take the child.

In the first book Trillin published after Alice died -- a book about parking in New York, which he felt was pretty silly, but Alice had loved it, the dedication read...

I wrote this for Alice.  Actually, I wrote everything for Alice.

Sweet. 

When I finished the book this morning, I flipped through those empty pages in the back and there was a description of the typeface that had been used.  I love when they include that.  I don't know why they sometimes do and sometimes don't.  I think they should include it always.

...yet its openness and slight irregularities give it a human, romantic quality.  Much like this little, lovely book that I bought, started to read and finished already.

Comments

[mdhatter]

In a similar feat i recently took a 2-day getaway, which included a trip to my favorite bookstore in the entire world, and then spent a solid day reading in which I devoured a 350-page novel. It had been a long long time since I spent all day reading for fun.

That is a new years resolution I can get behind.

[blue girl]

Wow, mdhatter.

I think the Skimmer and I just might have to take a little weekend trip up to that gorgeous, gorgeous place! That looks like paradise!

You're lucky you got to go.

Happy New Year!

[Bob]

Happy New Year's Blue Girly!

I grabbed my favorite Afghan this morning too, Mohammad Jones, and we cracked off AK-47s at geese flying overhead and swore at the neighbors and said a big Howdy Fuck to the New Year.

By the way, something on your blog really causes it to load slow and boggy, I'm on cable internet so it's not at my end.

[blue girl]

By the way, something on your blog really causes it to load slow and boggy

It's because all my thoughts are so heavy.

:)

[Scorpio]

Let me tell you something: not all books are worth finishing. I read every book I picked up all the way to the end until _The Dispossessed_ by Ursula Le Guin. 75 pages from the end, I realized I *just didn't care*, so I never opened it to finish those 75 pages. But that still means that for the first 32 years of my life I finished every book I started, including text books.

Since that book broke me of the habit of finshing, I have often put a book down and never picked it up again. See, if I don't care, it's not worth my time.

[Larry Jones]

1.) I used to read obsessively every word of every book I started, even if I didn't like it (except required stuff in school, of course). Not sure how I got started with that, but I finally realized that life is too short.
2.) More power to you, BG, for keeping your resolution.
3.) What a beautiful love story!
4.) That bookstore: I love that they specifically exclude Rod McKuen. But I wonder if they have any Kahlil Gibran.
5.) There has been a little boggishness in the BG site for the past few weeks, but it's not too bad, and always worth the wait, and hey, Bob - that's what tabbed browsing is for.

[Michael Bains]

RAmen to

1) Tabbed Browsing
2) Heavy Thoughts
3) Finishing books you've bought
4) Not Finishing books regardless of whether you've bought, found, borrowed or stolen them!
5) "Openness and Slight Irregularities"
6) "If God had given us all of the children in the world to choose from, L., we would only have chosen you." Good Parenting!
7) A Successful 2007 for All!

Per the sluggishness: I've always noticed that your beautiful Blue Girl banner pic is the last thing to load. Perhaps the place it's hosted is congested. Not sure how that works, but hope it helps.

Happy January 2nd!

[Kevin Wolf]

I've heard nothing but good things about Trillin's book. Maybe I'll just stand in the bookstore and read it over lunch time.

I used to feel obligated to finish books I'd started until I made the mistake of asking myself why? Now, if I really can't get through one, I stop and move onto the next book.

[Chuckles]

Calvin Trillin is good.

I am a genius and that means I am always right.

[Claire]

Hey BG, I popped by here yesterday and saw the beginning of this post but knew I didn't have time to read it properly. Then Calvin Trillin was on Morning Edition today and I thought of you. This sounds like a beautiful book.

Also, about your resolution. I'm reading a book of essays about reading by Nick Hornby (his second collection culled from his column in the Believer mag). He keeps making the point that life is too short to read books you don't like. So I suggest you amend your resolution to only finish the books you really like, not just the ones you think you should read. (I love Hornby's writing about reading, btw.)

Happy new year!

[BOSSY]

Bossy has always thought that one of Calvin Trillin's best features was his love for Alice. Way before Alice passed away or became ill, Calvin would pepper her through his food reviews and essays in a way that always captivated Bossy because Alice oozed intelligence and wit and she was smart enough to marry someone who not only appreciated that but captured it perfectly in words.

[The Fat Lady Sings]

Over Christmas vacation the hubby and I finally got our library together. It had been sitting in boxes since we moved three years ago. The room we had designated for it needed renovating, you see; so rather than put all the books out just to take them down again – we waited to finish the room. Finally, over the weekend, every box got emptied – all of my science fiction and fantasy, philosophy, theatre, humor. I’d felt almost naked without them, you know. I love re-reading old favorites. It’s like having an extended conversation with a friend; you know what their opinion is – it’s the hearing of it that’s the joy.

[Judy]

I did not know Calvin Trillin had a book out - a big, big thank you to you! I read his piece in The New Yorker, and fell in love with Alice. I would love to have known her.

Best to you in the new year.

[Jim Tourtelott]

In the summer of 1988, a friend and I, who were summer associates at law firms in New York, rented the Trillins' house on Jane Street in the Village. One of the benefits of this--maybe in some ways the principal one--is that I got to spend an hour one afternoon with Alice, receiving instructions on how the security system worked and how to water the flowers in the roof garden.

I had read any number of the books in which Alice appeared, so it was something like taking tea with Elizabeth Bennett, except a lot more fun. Alice was in fact as lively, as funny, and as blunt as she was in print.

Some time after that summer, I was talking to Calvin Trillin--whom I never met in the flesh--on the phone, and he said to me, "Alice was impressed that you actually kept the flowers properly watered." I wear that sentence, as Fluellen wore his leek, for a memorable honor.

[Gregor Samsa]

Sounds like a great love story! And based on the picture Alice is pretty foxy for a blonde!!! *tamps pipe*

I enjoyed "Tepper Isn't Going Out" (the silly parking book).

[almostinfamous]

look at you folks with the time to read.

i didnt even realize it was 3 days gone in 2007 already!

[cali]

I think I've just discovered my favorite bookstore on Earth that I'll most likely never actually visit. How I wish I could attend the Dead of Winter Film Series.

BG - I loved this post & will buy & read this book. Thank you!

[arse poetica]

Blue Girl, nice post. I read Trillin's article about Alice in the New Yorker, and I couldn't put it down. I carried it from room to room. What I loved most, besides C's enduring love for A, was that for all Trillin's ability to bring an Alice to life, you could tell there was still more to this amazing person, the Alice, and that was theirs.