Sometimes before you can move forward (happy new year!) you
have to look back.
What happened in Ruby’s life this year (1958) in Greenwich Village--and on author's days? Just a few highlights I want to share:
1. Sophie and Ruby’s Paris dreams:
"...J’attends, tu attends, nous attendons, vous attendez… we are all waiting for
Paris. But. I promise you. We’re not going to Versailles or La Tour Eiffel, boring! We’re going to live like Scott and Zelda and Anais Nin. And like
Ruby says Gertrude Stein said, “I write for myself and strangers.” That’s what
Ruby’s going to do." --Sophie Tanya
2. Elena’s fiancé Jimmy talks about how he got together with
the woman of his dreams:
"I had to have something
though, something I do that would impress her. I can cook pretty good, but her
mom can too. I started lifting weights and I got pretty strong. But that wasn't
enough either. Then I started filling out, getting older, you know, and she
started to look at me more.
You're not like the other boys, she said, and I said, I'm just being me, Elena. And miracle of miracles, she started to like me.
You gotta be tough in the
ring, but I didn’t tell her I was doing it. Wanted her to think I was always
nice, you know, listening to people’s troubles and buying their kids lollipops.
I knew you could do it,
Jimmy, she says in a whisper. I always knew you were holding back. I don't say
nothing, just stare at her. And just like that, she kisses me so hard I’m
nearly faintin’ in front of the guy I just knocked out." --Jim
3. Ruby shares the last line of one of her poems:
In
the Key of Heat
Sweet fleet beat of the street
Rising heat
From the white of the sidewalk
And the conga sound of the
Bonga bonga bongos
Every spring they sprout like
toadstools
In the key of heat
Over Egypt and Khartoum and
the
rain
In Brazil
Drum rain beating on the
heads of
birds
And umbrellas while the sky
goes
Clean white empty trumpet
beating
RED out of the sky
And we’re moving into it or
is the beat moving us
Every spring
In the key of heat
Sweet, fleet Beat Street
Waking dreams
--Ruby Tabeata
96 Perry Street, NYC
1958
Author days (2014):
1. Thirties movies did better by women than any other decade:
"...My favorites are
the 1930s and 40s movies with sassy heroines—the reporter played by Rosalind
Russell in His Girl Friday, Joan Blondell in Mr. Smith Goes to
Washington, and all the characters played by Katherine
Hepburn. Women in those films weren’t wimpy like they were in fifties
films. Yeah, some of them fainted from time to time, but never the
heroines. And they weren’t all plastic-surgeried up like they are today.
As my friend Jennifer says, they looked like us—in better clothes."
2. Is art really a luxury?
"Two of my favorite lines from the Sondheim musical Sundays in
the Park with George, framed as a conversation between husband and wife:
“Artists work, Franz. I think
they work very hard.”
“Work is what you do for
others, liebchen. Art is what you do for yourself.”
Yeah, sure. But I’m still wondering… how long do you go without those movies, books, etc.
Week? Day? Minutes? You tell me."
Those are my picks for this year’s news. If you have other ones,
let me know...
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