Moroccan Hashish

Come with me to the kasbah.

Natasha Richardson

Truly tragic, and we all know about it because she was 1) a celebrity in her own right, 2) married to a celeb, Liam Neeson and, 3) comes from a celebrity family, the Redgraves. And I'm not going to digress about the word "celebrity" here, but it's an interesting word.

I'm inordinately fascinated by causes of death, and this one is no exception. She had an epidural bleed, a medical/surgical emergency, allegedly from a small fall on a bunny slope (and you do wonder how small that fall really was). Then a fatal comedy of errors, blowing off paramedics, a delay to get to a medical center, in hindsight, so many shoulda this, shoulda thats, with the result that a healthy, vibrant mother, wife, daughter, actress is now dead, no re-dos. That she's a celebrity brings it all into world focus, the uber fragility of life, the nothingness of our individual existences, and yet, the everything factor of them.

She was a perfect candidate to be an organ donor, but nothing was said about that. I would think the family was approached; it's kind of a hospital's mandate to approach a family in these circumstances to donate much needed organs, and maybe the hospital staff did and maybe Natasha's family agreed, understandably electing to not publicize this to avoid the media frenzy that would carry over to the recipient. I hope her organs were harvested because I know some non-celeb person somewhere is dying for her heart, her lungs, her liver, a kidney.

If you're an atheist, in my opinion, this kind of stuff makes life even more precious, cuz baby, this is it, one fast whirl on the planet, liable to go up in a puff of nowhere fast. I'm gonna take this tragedy and do something fun because of it, something rewarding, decadent, something life-affirming. I'm gonna take a moment or ten and think of how lucky I am at this moment in time to not have anything greater than a stinking economic crisis to worry about. I'm going to see the tax man today, get that out of the way, and then go see my best pals at the beach (with the BF at my side, natch), observe the earth (it might rain in L.A. today, woo hoo!), drink champagne and toast to life. Natasha, I promise a sad-but-somehow-merry libation to you.

SmokeLong Quarterly Issue 24 is LIVE. Light up the smokeable of your choice and go there.

Yates Fever

Richard Yates

I found this: Richard Yates hisself reading his short story, "The Best of Everything". It's totally cool to hear him read it. So don't say I never gave ya anything.

Some Writing News

When I'm out and about in my car or grocery shopping* or walking the dog, I think of brilliant and witty blog posts, and resolve to get in here and turn the blog world on end with my shrewd and zany blahgspot observations, my pithy opinions. Then I sit in front of this thing and d'oh.

So, some writing news: I have a tawdry whirl of addiction called "Tango" that just came up at DOGZPLOT, and may I say that Barry Graham is one cool cat.

I'm another bridesmaid, pulling up as a finalist in Narrative Magazine's Fall Fiction Contest, and I'm as happy as lemon meringue pie that they will be publishing "Afterlife" as a Story of the Week in the sometime future.

And a short story "Gravitas" is forthcoming in Hobart 10.

Enough about me, let's talk about you for a minute. What do YOU think of me?**


*In this time of the New Frugality, I'm cooking a lot more and enjoying it too. Tonight I'm-a making a version of pizzoccheri: pasta with cabbage, kale, leeks, potatoes, sage and butter, fontina, Parmesan, gruyere.
Addendum: It was finger lickin' good.

**And apropos of nothing, may Bernie Madoff rot in hell.