Mansion
on the Hill was supposed to be a
refuge,
and how, with my
antics,
as she called them, I had sullied the reputation of the Mansion and endangered its business plan, and how it was clear
that assaulting strangers while wearing a rubber mask is the kind of activity that proves you are an unstable person, and
I just think, well, I don’t see the point in discussing it with you anymore and I think you have some serious choices to make,
Andy, if you want to be part of regular human society,
and so forth, which is just plain bunk, as far as I’m concerned. It’s not as if Brice McCann were a
stranger
to me.
I’m always the object of tirades by my supervisors, for overstepping my position, for lying, for wanting too much —this is one of the deep receivables on the balance sheet of my life —and yet at the last second Glenda Manzini didn’t fire
me. According to shrewd managerial strategy she simply waved toward the door. With the Mansion crowded to capacity now, with
volume creeping upward in the coming months, they would need someone with my skills. To look after the cars in the parking
lot, for example. Mark my words, Sis, valet parking will soon be as big in the Northeast as it is in the West.
When the McCarthys flung me through the main doors, Linda Pietrzsyk was waiting. What unfathomable kindness. At the main entrance,
on the way out, I passed through a gauntlet of rice-flingers. Bouquets drifted through the skies to the mademoiselles of the
capital. Garters fell into the hands of local bachelors. Then I was beyond all good news and seated in the passenger seat
of Linda’s battered Volkswagen. She was crying. We progressed slowly along back roads. I had been given chances and had squandered
them. I had done my best to love, Sis. I had loved you, and you were gone. In Linda’s car, at dusk, we sped along the very
road where you took your final drive. Could Linda have known? Your true resting place is forested by white birches, they dot
the length of that winding lane, the fingers of the dead reaching up through burdens of snow to impart much-needed instruction
to the living. In intermittent afternoon light, in seizure-inducing light, unperturbed by the advances of merchandising, I
composed my proposal.
On the Carouse
I s the celluloid of Los Angeles —in editing-room strips, unassembled by freelancers —influenced by the lives of this city?
Or are the lives of Los Angeles influenced by this high-profile movie business? Or is the relationship between the two fluid,
circular, and continuous, and therefore not to be separated into two discrete quantities —Los Angeles and the movie business?
Who has
time
for questions? Lily is late. If Thea wants to have juice for godsakes, she’s not so late that she can’t stop for juice, since
she has borrowed her friend Ellen’s Mercedes —her own is in the shop. Thea can have juice even though Evan is after school
being I.Q.-tested and she’s supposed to pick him up and then she’s supposed to pitch a woman at the Fox lot and the script
needs another writer, another in a series of writers, some entire sewing circle of writers.
Here’s how the back end works,
according to the letter of agreement that came from the lawyer this morning —2½% net, which is frankly embarrassing, herlawyer told her, and the term of license is all wrong, way too short, the term is ridiculous even if it is a small movie,
the story of a strong, sympathetic woman from the South and her conflicts with the political and social institutions of small-town
America in the early decades of this century —just right for a self-starting independent director who’s not bound by the constraints
of the studios. Lily’s not sure if she’s attracted to the script because she herself is a strong, sympathetic woman from the
South (relocated to the Brentwood area) or rather if the action of pitching the script reconfigures her in a way, so that
on the Hill was supposed to be a
refuge,
and how, with my
antics,
as she called them, I had sullied the reputation of the Mansion and endangered its business plan, and how it was clear
that assaulting strangers while wearing a rubber mask is the kind of activity that proves you are an unstable person, and
I just think, well, I don’t see the point in discussing it with you anymore and I think you have some serious choices to make,
Andy, if you want to be part of regular human society,
and so forth, which is just plain bunk, as far as I’m concerned. It’s not as if Brice McCann were a
stranger
to me.
I’m always the object of tirades by my supervisors, for overstepping my position, for lying, for wanting too much —this is one of the deep receivables on the balance sheet of my life —and yet at the last second Glenda Manzini didn’t fire
me. According to shrewd managerial strategy she simply waved toward the door. With the Mansion crowded to capacity now, with
volume creeping upward in the coming months, they would need someone with my skills. To look after the cars in the parking
lot, for example. Mark my words, Sis, valet parking will soon be as big in the Northeast as it is in the West.
When the McCarthys flung me through the main doors, Linda Pietrzsyk was waiting. What unfathomable kindness. At the main entrance,
on the way out, I passed through a gauntlet of rice-flingers. Bouquets drifted through the skies to the mademoiselles of the
capital. Garters fell into the hands of local bachelors. Then I was beyond all good news and seated in the passenger seat
of Linda’s battered Volkswagen. She was crying. We progressed slowly along back roads. I had been given chances and had squandered
them. I had done my best to love, Sis. I had loved you, and you were gone. In Linda’s car, at dusk, we sped along the very
road where you took your final drive. Could Linda have known? Your true resting place is forested by white birches, they dot
the length of that winding lane, the fingers of the dead reaching up through burdens of snow to impart much-needed instruction
to the living. In intermittent afternoon light, in seizure-inducing light, unperturbed by the advances of merchandising, I
composed my proposal.
On the Carouse
I s the celluloid of Los Angeles —in editing-room strips, unassembled by freelancers —influenced by the lives of this city?
Or are the lives of Los Angeles influenced by this high-profile movie business? Or is the relationship between the two fluid,
circular, and continuous, and therefore not to be separated into two discrete quantities —Los Angeles and the movie business?
Who has
time
for questions? Lily is late. If Thea wants to have juice for godsakes, she’s not so late that she can’t stop for juice, since
she has borrowed her friend Ellen’s Mercedes —her own is in the shop. Thea can have juice even though Evan is after school
being I.Q.-tested and she’s supposed to pick him up and then she’s supposed to pitch a woman at the Fox lot and the script
needs another writer, another in a series of writers, some entire sewing circle of writers.
Here’s how the back end works,
according to the letter of agreement that came from the lawyer this morning —2½% net, which is frankly embarrassing, herlawyer told her, and the term of license is all wrong, way too short, the term is ridiculous even if it is a small movie,
the story of a strong, sympathetic woman from the South and her conflicts with the political and social institutions of small-town
America in the early decades of this century —just right for a self-starting independent director who’s not bound by the constraints
of the studios. Lily’s not sure if she’s attracted to the script because she herself is a strong, sympathetic woman from the
South (relocated to the Brentwood area) or rather if the action of pitching the script reconfigures her in a way, so that
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