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This morning

Ever heard of Bob Marley?

(Give it a minute:)

The yellow parrot --- Green Eyes III --- "Ripley under ground" --- teaser

Cool, folks, cool. We somehow failed to get excited about the interaction between Sarah and her robot (the play we had started), but now, out of nothing, blissfully unprepared, we began writing the first chapter of the next installment of the GREEN EYES saga, "The Yellow Parrot"---yes, the previous part had a chapter about her already, an now we are going full Enid Blyton. (I'm fairly certain that a seasoned agent or publisher would advice a change of title, first thing in the morning).

Context: John has been asked by Alice Sandeman to replenish her shrinking stock of Eleanor Beasley paintings---Eleanor Wagner-Beasley, Godehart Wagner's spouse of convenience, now deceased. If your read the first part of the saga, you may remember that Eleanor specialized in canvasses of white dots painted on white backgrounds. So that's what John's doing in Alex's old pad, which has been transformed into a hide-away studio. 

One more thing, the chapter is titled: "Ripley Under Ground." And one more thing, we've hit another speed bump in the space-time-continuum, and were kicked right into the year of the Trump, 2017.


And now what? A typical Ampersant opening:


The doorbell rings. 

Alex’s attic is entirely on the wrong side of the tracks---compliments of his depression when he got the place three years ago---and so the bell is not a RRing, but a squirt of dying electricity. I buzz the buzzer carelessly, Amazon never rings twice.

A middle-aged man scales the stairs, huffing a bit, keeping his eyes on the rickety steps. He’s dressed in a rumpled, yet darkly-precious suit (made of silk-linen from Iran, his home country, we’ll learn later). There’s also a breast pocket handkerchief, which enters my focus when he arrives on the landing and raises his head. “My name is Souren Souleikan,” he says, lips poised, voice mildly accented, his eyes peeking past me into the den where Composition  #117 resides half-baked on its easel. 

He allows for three useless seconds of silence, then asks: “You are Alexander Iglesias, I take it?” 
“No,” I say. 
“Interesting,” he replies, his regard moving from my counterfeit composition to my left, smudge-painted hand. 
“Who are you?” I ask. 
“I’m Suren Souleikan,” he reiterates, smiling falsely. “The art critic.” He allows for more wordless seconds, then adds, “I’ve come at the right moment, I see. There’s some art that might need my attention. May I come in?”
“I’m busy,” I say, raising my dirty hand, but he’s already stepped into the den where he positions himself in front of my composition.
“You are the artist?” he asks, pointing at the canvas with an abstracted gesture. 

We told you so

Buy the book:

"Click"

From live reviews: 

"If you like Woody Allen, you will enjoy the book!" 
"I dreamt of the GREEN EYES and woke up happy." 
"Grab it an plan to read it from cover to cover immediately!" 
"A literate and wonderfully witty romp!" 
Wow! That was my first reaction to reading this book, my second reaction was plain and simple holy shit!"
"This is a perfect book for any adult reader!"

Last night

"And brother, can she write" --- book review of "Need to know" by Karen Cleveland

We get an email from John Grisham, the author, who talks about the "heady days" of his breakthrough novel, "The Firm," and about Karen Cleveland's firstling, the spy novel "Need to Know", which is apparently poised to mirror his own success.

Since we're wondering increasingly what makes a successful book of fiction, we push the Amazon button and download Cleveland's ebook.

The best thing about the book is the motto, taken from Oscar Wilde:

When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.

Not the best thing about the book is its implicit promise of authenticity. The author is herself a counter-intelligence (CI) expert with the CIA, and so one would expect her tome to convey something of an insider's view of modern spying. Well, to the extent that it does, Cleveland's profession has gone the way of most other occupations: workers and co-workers are couched in cubicles where they stare at computer screens when they don't spy on each other or drive home to collect offspring from overpriced private schools that charge five dollars per child per minute of pickup delay. And after a sexless night (Goodreads reviewers have congratulated themselves on the fact that there is no sex in the book) she kisses her husband ("Matt") goodbye and is back to Langley where she---in this age of algorithms---has been developing her own ALGORITHM, a program that's supposed to filter Russian spies from the rest of the population. Even better, her task is accomplished and today's the day to put her invention to work. She hits a few keyboard buttons and there he appears on the screen, her first Russian spy, and it is---spoiler alert---her husband, Matt.

French for beginners --- Ikea

(Maud sends us this cartoon:)

Had enough of Facebook?

Winter in a shit-hole country

(Give it 20 seconds or so)

Yesterday

Thunderstruck

Fire and fury (3)

Yesterday

Picture taken on the beach of Théoule sur mer, next to the site of the former Marco Polo restaurant.

Checking facts

We're reading the Fire and Fury book by Michael Wolff that came out on Friday, and it's much better than expected, much deeper than the usual collection of scabrous/scandalous anecdotes. Wolff really proffers insight---Krugman, in his Friday column in the NYT wonders rhetorically whether he needs to read the book---yes, Paul you do, trust us. 

And here, just in between, the funniest thing we came across so far, and by our reckoning still unaccounted for in the weekend news cycle of this publication...

Steve Bannon and you-know-who

(Dramatis personae: (a) Anthony Scaramucci,  (b) Steve Bannon, adviser to Donald Trump; (c) Ryan Lizza, a journalist with The New Yorker; Place: US East Coast; Time: July 2017)

Anthony Scaramucci

Having lobbied desperately for a White House Job for seven months, Scaramucchi has been appointed White House Director of Communication. There is a party to celebrate, and Scaramucchi ("The Mooch") has had one too many, apparently. He gets on the phone with Ryan Lizza and unloads about a few people, including Steve Bannon, we quote: 

"I'm not Steve Bannon. I'm not trying to suck my own cock."

So Ryan Lizza writes this up (he publishes roughly one piece per day on the NY blog about Trump and his White House). Next thing, the Fact Checking Department of The New Yorker contacts Steve Bannon and asks, hands down, whether he has the habit to suck his own cock.

(That was the punch line).

Reince Priebus

You may remember what followed. Reince Priebus, Chief of Staff of the White House, throws in the towel, citing Scaramucci's appointment. Priebus is replaced by John F. Kelley, a retired 4-Star Marine general, whose first order of business is to fire Scaramucci.  

Fake news

I

am

a

very

stable

genius

He won't go away

You've possibly heard of the book by now. Michael Wolf's Fire and Fury---inside the Trump White House

Here's one quote, just one:

"Trump didn’t read. He didn’t really even skim. If it was print, it might as well not exist. Some believed that for all practical purposes he was no more than semiliterate . . . . Some thought him dyslexic; certainly his comprehension was limited. Others concluded that he didn’t read because he didn’t have to, and that in fact this was one of his key attributes as a populist. He was postliterate—total television.
But not only didn’t he read, he didn’t listen. He preferred to be the person talking. And he trusted his own expertise—no matter how paltry or irrelevant—more than anyone else’s. What’s more, he had an extremely short attention span, even when he thought you were worthy of attention."

Meanwhile...

(not photoshopped:)

Murder on the Orient Express

So we finally went to Cannes to watch the movie.The box office gal was very happy to see us, since we had tried four days ago, but then we'd gotten the opening hour wrong. 

Us (our hills) seen from Cannes; all pictures by Chang (Jason Yoon)

Well...not a bad movie, although I enjoyed the previous "Murder..." more---which I saw forty years ago. Kenneth Branagh directs this remake and stars as Poirot.

Still almost the same angle. It's about 3:10 PM. We're in a hurry.

Harem rock (reposted)

People were asking: Paint it black, quartertones? Here, millennials, is the answer:



And now the post again: