lapsedmodernist | (no subject)

I am hung over. I bought, like, three containers of Body Shop Lip Butter (shea karite, mango and grapeseed). It has a very satisfying texture, and I keep putting it on my lips and licking it off. I ate Eggs Benedict for breakfast, and since then it's been Lip Butter, all Lip Butter as far as sustenance goes.

The thing about my hangovers is they usually don't dissapate until very late in the evening. Sure, the throbbing temples and acute misery usually subside by early afternoon, especially if I was smart and took Advil before going to sleep, and then coated my stomach with greesy diner fare and scalding coffee upon awakening. But the effects linger well into the evening, and I just feel slowed down all day. I am also very particular when I am hung over. Mostly, I am a bitch. But that's in terms of interpersonal encounters. But in terms on consumption, well, when I am hung over, I love things I normally loathe, and things that I normally love make no sense. For example, yesterday I got a recording of Shostakovich's Symphony No 11, that I've wanted for a while. Normally I would be listening to it right now. But hung over? I can't deal with the musical deconstruction of The Revolution of 1905, even when Rostropovich is conducting it. I am not even talking about "Babiy Yar," which I also acquired at the same time. I can't read Cosmo and Glamour because when I am hung over the ironic nuance prism is deactivated in my mind, and I feel like the glossy pages are irradiating my remaining lone brain cell, and they make me want to howl. I can't watch TV because TV is in the other room, and "the other room" is not in the same universe as "my bed." In fact, the only thing I am willing to deal with at the moment is "The Golden Spur" by Dawn Powell, which has been my subway reading for about a week now. Dawn Powell reminds me a little of Lionel Shriver, author of "Female of the Species," which is a beyond-bizzarre book, with which I familiarized

nuncstans and

totalvirility sort of against their wills. Except Dawn Powell isn't psychologically yucky, and she is fun like champaign bubbles. Like, comedy of manners meets Fitzgerald if he wrote happy, and not depressing novels. The similarity is that both ladies periodically puncture their writing with an incredibly astute observation that redeems the entire page, nay, the entire chapter within which it glows. One of my favorite quotes ever is from "Female of the Species" in which the female protagonist, Gray Kaiser, the austere 50-something virginal anthropologist with a colonial kink, tells her would-be lover and destroyer: "Just because you find someone is like you, does not mean either of you should be that way." Short and to the point, and kills you. Or me, at least. Dawn Powell casually tosses out similar gems in matter-of-fact narrative bridges and from her characers' mouths:

1. "Artists get away with more human nature than anybody else," Earl muttered morosely to Jonathan.

2. "Hugow, Hugow, Hugow--the way damn fool women carried on about him--sometimes not seeing him for years, too--you would think he was the Great Lover of the Ages, a perfect panther of a man, wonderfully equipped, wonderfully insatiable, every nuance at his command. Well, it just wean't that way at all, and all his men friends, who were sure taht was it, plain stupid. Ask the women (not that they'd admit the truth). There was the big rush at the outset, while he was on a binge between pictures, a hungry-farm-boy technique, that was all; then you could wait for weeks for another pass, living right with him, too. That was what got you,--the cruel, indifferent, teasing withdrawal, all the worse because he had no idea he was being heartless. He could be lying on the bed right beside you, buck naked, absently flipping your eager hangs off his body like so many horseflies, till you got so hurt you had to go off to some corner and bawl, with him lying there staring at the ceiling with nothing on his mind but how blue is sky and how black is night."

3. "Deborah was his wife, Anita was his mistress, but Amnesia had been his true friend, the doctor reflected candidly, permitting him to stare straight through some little sophomore trollop who thought she had something on him after his passes of the previous evening. Amnesia gave him back his arrogance and dignity, the proper contempt for students and fellow men that was necessary to a teacher."

4. "Alvine was in a mood to be curious."

And many, many others.