Los Angeles Notebook, essay by Joan Didion

LOS ANGELES NOTEBOOK (Excerpt)

Essay by Joan Didion

It is three o’clock on a Sunday afternoon and 105 degrees and the air so thick with smog that the dusty palm trees loom up with a sudden and rather attractive mystery. I have been playing in the sprinklers with the baby and I get in the car and go to Ralphs Market on the corner of Sunset and Fuller wearing an old bikini bathing suit. This is not a very good thing to wear to the market but neither is it, at Ralphs on the corner of Sunset and Fuller, an unusual costume. Nonetheless a large woman in a cotton muumuu jams her cart into mine at the butcher counter. “What a thing to wear to the market,” she says in a loud but strangled voice. Everyone looks the other way and I study a plastic package of rib lamb chops and she repeats it. She follows me all over the store, to the Junior Foods, to the Dairy Products, to the Mexican Delicacies, jamming my cart whenever she can. Her husband plucks at her sleeve. As I leave the checkout counter, she raises her voice one last time: “What a thing to wear to Ralphs,” she says.

“Los Angeles Notebook” by Joan Didion is found in her collection of essays Slouching Toward Bethlehem, available at Amazon.com.

On days when it was too hot, quote by Gustave Flaubert

“On days when it was too hot, they did not leave their room. The dazzling brilliance from outside plastered bars of light between the slats of the blinds. Not a sound in the village. Down below, on the sidewalk, no one.” GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, A Simple Heart

Bear in There, poem and drawing by Shel Silverstein

BEAR IN THERE
by Shel Silverstein

There’s a polar bear
In our Frigidaire—
He likes it ’cause it’s cold in there.
With his seat in the meat
And his face in the fish
And his big hairy paws
In the buttery dish,
He’s nibbling the noodles,
He’s munching the rice,
He’s slurping the soda,
He’s licking the ice.
And he lets out a roar
If you open the door.
And it gives me a scare
To know he’s in there—
That polary bear
In our Fridgitydaire.

 

It’s Hot, poem and drawing by Shel Silverstein

IT’S HOT
by Shel Silverstein

It’s hot!
I can’t get cool,
I’ve drunk a quart of lemonade.
I think I’ll take my shoes off
And sit around in the shade.

It’s hot!
My back is sticky.
The sweat rolls down my chin.
I think I’ll take my clothes off
And sit around in my skin.

It’s hot!
I’ve tried with ’lectric fans,
And pools and ice cream cones.
I think I’ll take my skin off
And sit around in my bones.

It’s still hot!

“It’s Hot” appears in Shel Silverstein‘s collection of poems of drawings A Light in the Attic.

It Was Hotter Then, quote from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

“Maycomb was a tired old town, even in 1932 when I first knew it. Somehow, it was hotter then. Men’s stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon after their three o’clock naps. And by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frosting from sweating and sweet talcum. The day was twenty-four hours long, but it seemed longer. There’s no hurry, for there’s nowhere to go and nothing to buy…and no money to buy it with.”  HARPER LEE, To Kill A Mockingbird (J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1960)

Photo: Author Harper Lee pushes actress Mary Badham (Scout Finch) during production of the 1962 film version of her novel. To Kill a Mockingbird was filmed in Southern California, and some sharp-eyed viewers have noticed mountains in the background of the “mad dog” scene — geographic features that don’t occur in the story’s setting (Maycomb, Alabama).

Los Angeles Notebook, Essay by Joan Didion

LOS ANGELES NOTEBOOK (Excerpt)

Essay by Joan Didion

It is three o’clock on a Sunday afternoon and 105 degrees and the air so thick with smog that the dusty palm trees loom up with a sudden and rather attractive mystery. I have been playing in the sprinklers with the baby and I get in the car and go to Ralphs Market on the corner of Sunset and Fuller wearing an old bikini bathing suit. This is not a very good thing to wear to the market but neither is it, at Ralphs on the corner of Sunset and Fuller, an unusual costume. Nonetheless a large woman in a cotton muumuu jams her cart into mine at the butcher counter. “What a thing to wear to the market,” she says in a loud but strangled voice. Everyone looks the other way and I study a plastic package of rib lamb chops and she repeats it. She follows me all over the store, to the Junior Foods, to the Dairy Products, to the Mexican Delicacies, jamming my cart whenever she can. Her husband plucks at her sleeve. As I leave the checkout counter, she raises her voice one last time: “What a thing to wear to Ralphs,” she says.

“Los Angeles Notebook” by Joan Didion is found in her collection of essays Slouching Toward Bethlehem, available at Amazon.com.

Photo: Joan Didion and her daughter Quintana Roo Dunne photographed for Life Magazine in 1972 by Julian Wasser.

Success, Poem by Charles Bukowski

SUCCESS

Poem by Charles Bukowski

I had a most difficult job

starting my 14 year old car today

in 100 degree heat

I had to take the carburetor off

leap back and forth

adjusting the set-screw,

a 2 by 4 jammed against the gas pedal

to hold it down.

I got it going — after 45 minutes —

I mailed 4 letters

purchased something cool

came back

got into my place

and listened to Ives

had dreams of empire

my great white belly against

the fan. 

###

“Success” by Charles Bukowski is part of his collection entitled Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Unitl the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit. Find the book at Amazon.com.

Photo: Tara Holland, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED