September 2, 2009. Yesterday was one of the most beautiful days of the year in New York – Sunny and clear, in the mid-70s by mid-afternoon and cooling to the mid- to low-60s by midnight, it was just cool enough to give us a hint of autumn and its glories.
Meanwhile, the town is already quieting down as the final long holiday exodus of the season begins, with people leaving for a five and six-day holiday weekend. (If you can call that a weekend).
For those of you following the catastrophic fires in Los Angles, my friend Anne Crawford reported today that the “cats” at the Shambala Preserve, are remaining sheltered there, safe from the threat of fire and danger of evacuation. Some good news from the well of tragedy.
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| DPC and Jh with Carol Joynt at Michael's |
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Yesterday lunchtime, I went down to Michael’s to lunch with JH and Carol Joynt, our correspondent who writes the Washington Social Diary, and her son Spencer.
Carol was up from DC for the day to sign her contract with Crown Publishers for her memoir called “Innocent Spouse.” The title comes from from her experience when her husband, Spencer’s father, died suddenly and unexpectedly, leaving her a very popular restaurant in Georgetown called Nathan’s and a tax problem that took her years to solve.
Carol, who was always a journaiist by profession, as NYSD readers already know, kept Nathan’s going until a couple of months ago when her landlords, certain that their property was worth a great deal more rent-wise, demanded a prohibitive monthly figure and made the situation financially impossible.
Landlords both commercial and residential for quite some time have believed that they can get (I was going to say “squeeze”) more out of their renters. It’s an old story and an increasing sad and unfortunate one in these days when the “Going Out of Business” and “For Rent” signs are going up in windows all over this town and many others.
Which reminds me: Dominick Dunne fans will be very happy to know that in the final months of his life he completed his final oeuvre Too Much Money, a roman a clef with obvious references to his own life and experience as a novelist and social chronicler. It goes on sale on December 1st, published by Random House, and you can order it now on Amazon [1].
Dominick, as you may know, had a lawsuit brought against him by former Congressman Gary Condit which resulted in a multi-million dollar settlement in Condit’s favor. It was during that time that he was planning a novel based on the death of the international banker, Edmund Safra. The Safra death led to a conviction of Ted Maher who served out his term in a Monaco jail. At first Dominick believed the accused man’s story but later ceased to believe him and retracted his support of Maher when he heard his testimony in the courtroom and realized that he was “listening to a deeply troubled man.” The matter brought Dominick a lot of personal difficulties and sadness in certain relationships in his life.
Too Much Money and its use is an old theme in Western literature, and has, ironically, brought fame and fortune to many writers who have tackled it. The other night I finished Edith Wharton’s House of Mirth in which the leading character Lily Bart, star-crossed and ill-fated in her pursuit of it discusses its ramifications with Lawrence Selden, a man who might have been her lover had she not been convinced from childhood that money would be the solution to her problems in life:
“Don’t you think,” Lily Bart asked Mr. Selden, “that the people who find fault with society are too apt to regard it as an end and not a means, just as the people who despise money speak as if its only use were to be kept in bags and gloated over? Isn’t it fairer to look at them both as opportunities, which may be used either stupidly or intelligently, according to the capacity of the user?”
Selden’s response: “That is certainly the sane view; but the queer thing about society is that the people who regard it as an end are those who are in it, and not the critics on the fence. It’s just the other way with most shows – the audience maybe under the illusion, but the actors know that real life is on the other side of the footlights. The people who take society as an escape from work are putting it to its proper use; but when it becomes the thing worked for it distorts all the relations of life.”
All’s well that ends well, and alas it did not for Lily Bart. I was reminded of it contemporary similarities and an interview that I did a couple of years ago with BigThink.com in which the subject was discussed in contemporary terms.
Here is a clip from that interview (which can be seen in its entirety by going to BigThink.com [3] and doing a search for my name): |
[2]