Bearing Up Nicely

Bearing Up Nicely c Peri Lyons

From the "Yahoo News" site:

"Hungry bears invade homes:

Driven from their habitat by drought, black bears are breaking into homes looking for food."

*************************************************

I live alone, so this evening when I pushed open the door of my small but cozy flat in the Village, I almost screamed, to see someone sitting in my large green velvet armchair.

"hello", he said. He was holding a bottle of Chilean wine in his paw, and scrutinizing it closely.

"Excuse me", I said,"but I think you're in the wrong apartment."

"You said it, sister", said the bear, for that's what he was. "What kind of person has filet mignon in the icebox and only a ten dollar Chilean red to serve with it?"

"Excuse me? How do you know about the filet I have?"

"Had, babycakes, HAD. Gone now. Along with the fishfingers, the yogurt and the frozen ravioli hidden in the freezer. Now, about this wine-"

"LOOK, pal," I said. I am an environmentalist and a strong believer in animal conservation, but I draw the line when the animal in question is criticizing my wine selection."I'm sorry my food choices disappoint you, but do you get so much vino in the wild that you can suddenly call yourslef an expert? And by the way, my landlord doesn't allow pets."

"Good thing I ate your cats, then," he said. "Save you getting evicted.And yes, Miss Conservationist Except When It Comes To Sharing, this wine is way too tannic to properly bring out the middle tones of the filet. Sheesh. Even I know that, and I am only a simple black bear from the forsts of the far Northwest." He crossed his legs and placed the wine on top of the radiator.

"You're a simple black bear who is a complete poser when it comes to oenology, Buster. If that radiator goes on, that wine's more delicate flavors will be destroyed in 30 seconds flat. And how did you get in here? "

He was studying a Chinese takeout menu now. "Does this place use MSG?", he asked in a concerned way. "It wreaks havoc with my sinuses. And I get puffy. I don't like getting puffy."

"Who let you in here?" I yelled.

He raised his eyebrows at this, as though I was committing a faux pas. "Your next door neighbor. I said if he didn't use his spare keys, I'd eat him."

"Oh my God."

"I ate him anyway. I'm a simple forest creature, I have pretty bad ethics. And all he had in the fridge were Tater Tots. He deserved to die. The man had a naugahyde palate." His paw kicked the now empty Haagen Dazs container near his foot. I was pretty steamed.

"Look, my new boyfriend is coming over in ten minutes, and I don't think he's going to take kindly to a 600 pound carnivore in my living room. He has a hard enough time with my exhusband. If I give you the address of a someone who always has a wellstocked fridge, will you scram, please? I feel I've done my part for conservation, if it's all the same to you."

He stood up and stretched. He yawned, to show me he didn't care and he was leaving anyway. "Fine, fine. Honestly, your place needs a little fixing up anyway. You call this an oriental rug? I don't THINK so."

"yeah, well, the blood stains don't improve it much, Mr Decorator Bear Guy."

"Are you kidding? They MAKE it! Neo sauvage! The red really ties the room together!"

I started pushing him out the door. "Okay" he said "I'm going, I'm going."

As he was leaving, I said "Wait, by the way...aren't you supposed to be hiberanting already?"

He shrugged. "What can I tell you? The Ambien wore off."

Tying my one Hermes scarf around his head, he ambled off down the hallway, off to invade another home.

With any luck, the next householder would have a tranquilizer gun...or failing that, a LOT of Chateau de St Emilion 1982.

Adam Cvijanovic. Seven art fair

Adam Cvijanovic. Seven art fair
Originally uploaded by Spor welcomes you to the good life...

It's a supernova. Actually FANTASTICALLY good in real life. I might be biased-no, actually I'm not--but this is the artist I'd be buying as an investment right now. Google him and his work: he's an old fashioned genuine genius.

Peri Lyons as a Goddess, by Adam Cvijanovic version 1

Peri Lyons as a Goddess, by Adam Cvijanovic version 1
Originally uploaded by perilyons

The Oriental Trading Company Will Lie To You And Make You Sad

"The Oriental Trading Wedding Catalog" Will Lie To You And Make You Sad.

 I recently discovered that, when one gets engaged,one mysteriously starts receiving bushels of wedding-related catalogs. They're really kind of amazing, in their fervent belief that NO object is too trivial to be turned into a fetishistic wedding decoration/ornament/rather doubtful gift. I spent the hours in which I should have been cleaning, today, mesmerized like a cobra by a mongoose,  by the wares featured in the mysterious and possibly-not-really-Asian, bridal  catalog, "Oriental Trading Wedding!Everything from "Will You" to "I do"!""  - Yikes. No, really. Yikes.

 Apparently, there is an insatiable demand for items such as: custom flip flops for one's wedding guests, something I thought was pretty amazingly tacky,until I learned that Ivanka Trump had those at her recent wedding to Jared Kushner. (Wait...which is the Trump daughter? Ivanka? What's the mom's name? Why do I care? Did Heidi and Spencer really break up? Is Heidi now going to pursue a career as an inflatable pool toy? But we digress. -And how.) But I still think flip flops are tacky.

There are also slightly distressing items. Somehow, the photo of wooden chairs set up outside with customized paper fans on them, is not reassuring. 

Why not  go all out, and have huge monogrammed blocks of ice for the VIP guests to sit on?Or  why not skip the fans altogether and have the damn thing INside? I hate outdoor weddings. My stiletto  heels always sink into the grass/sand/Jello/best man, and I wobble in an unflattering manner.  Not good. Also, there are always gnats in the crab dip. Between wobbling, spitting out gnat-filled crab bits unobtrusively into the shrubbery, and wrasslin' the mother in law for a seat on the monogrammed ice block, it all goes to hell in a handbasket quickly. -A tasteful, monogrammed, white satin handbasket. See catalog. Page 5.

We will quickly pass over the "Personalized Wedding Knife", on page 9. It doesn't bear thinking about. Although it will come in handy at about three AM when the bride accuses her new hubby of staring at the bridesmaids' cleavage, and he responds that she shouldn't have dressed her closest female friends like "Little Bo Peep Becomes A Prostitute: The Movie", and pretty soon the Personalized Wedding Knife's TRUE purpose becomes all  too apparent.

Some of these catalog items have the reek of desperation about them, an air of "methinks the couple doth protest too much."  One catalog is very big on having you, the Gentle Reader, engrave the phrase "Bruce and Carleen: Two Hearts, One Love." on everything-  Well yes. Two hearts, one love: One would hope so: these people are getting married, after all. "Two Hearts, One Mutually Unspoken But Relieved Agreement To Settle" is accurate but depressing, and "Three Hearts,One Love" while amusing, would be complicated. And probably French. And  finally, "Two Hearts, Four Kidneys, One Appendix, and Two Silicone Implants: One Love", while interesting and informative, would be prohibitively costly to engrave.  And who, exactly,are Bruce and Carleen? Unless you are a 1950's country singer and/or own a small hair salon in Atkins, Georgia, you should not be spelling your name with two successive "ee"s. 

-Bruce, you're fine. Though probably gay.

Oooh, look, we're at the "Excessive Crosses" section already! Reaffirm your faith AND make your Jewish guests uncomfortable! Talk about win-win! -And here! Page 18! There are WASPy butter mints tastefully wrapped in Episcopal Cross wrappers, which say to me: 1) The food at this wedding is NOT going to be tasty,  but WILL have all the crusts cut off; and 2) After this evening? This couple will never have sex again.

(I grew up Episcopal. I'm allowed to say this. Besides, it is a truth universally acknowledged, that the WASPier the wedding, the crappier the food.) 

I could go on and on. The "Save the Date" wedding magnet, which OSTENSIBLY shows a cartoon couple "taking the plunge" in snorkels   (?), but ACTUALLY looks like they are hanging themselves simultaneously. (Image to come...it's awesome.)  There are other "Save The Date" magnets, that seem to read "Eric and David Are Getting Married!", which I LOVED, but which seemed a little unexpected. I also read one as "Dawn and Marie:Gettin Hitched!" but it turned out to be "Dawn and Marc", much to my disappointment.-On page 23, there is a white, wedding themed birdcage, to symbolize your coming entrapment, despair, and your ultimate fate of,metaphorically, winding up ,feet in the air, on a seed strewn page of last week's newspaper. Fun! -The "cartoon bride and groom" themed toilet paper, page 29, makes the "Personalized Knife" seem both optimistic AND tasteful.  The "Round Silver Cardboard Dinner Plates" (page 32) look -by accident or design- EXACTLY like the tinware found in prison mess halls; page 46 features, grimly, THREE MORE personalized Wedding Knives; and this Trilogy Of Resignation And Doom is rounded off, on page 72, with the suggestion that you gift your bridesmaids with--wait for it--engraved flasks. Because they will crave the sweet embrace of that one special man on this romantic day: yes,  we mean Johnny Walker Black. 

{An upbeat note here: the Jordan Almonds in your wedding colors are cool. I love Jordan Almonds. You can never go wrong with Jordan Almonds. And the personalized candy corn is cool too, although it might confuse your guests into thinking it's actually Halloween, and your "bride and groom" outfits are costumes. But only if you've already given them their flasks.}

To sum up: In the words of one satisfied  customer, under "Advice From The Bride", are these golden gems of helpful wisdom:

1) Put a SPECIAL centerpiece on the table of the bride and groom! [Um, yes. DUH. The "Dixie Cup with a daisy in it",while sweet, won't really do it.]

2) Have plenty of champagne and wine glasses on hand for the adult guests! {Because everyone lying under the wine box spigot and gulping, just TAKES too damn long.}

3) Polyester flowers make EVERYTHING more elegant!  [Well, no. No,they don't. Truly not. Please,God.No.}

and, this final, enigmatic gem:

4) When it comes to your Wedding Day, skimping on the special details shouldn't be optional.   {Well, of course not! Or, of course! Or...wait, what does this MEAN?" Not not skimping on the details should not be not optional?" Or, "Skimp away?" What???]

So pull up a block of monogrammed ice, sharpen your Wedding Knife, and call yourself Bruce And Carleen. Remind guests that you are getting married because you are in LOVE, with two hearts and one love and a vestigial appendix, and not because you're almost thirty and let's face it,  the dating pool is dwindling. Put on your flip flops, fill up your flask and relax! , secure in the knowledge that: The divorce rate is 53 %, your BRIDESmaids, at the end of the day, will -unlike YOU- still be single; and really: Jordan Almonds are SO TASTY!! Especially in Your Colors.

And polyester flowers go with everything.

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Peri Lyons c 6/1/2010 all rights reserved

Two Novembers (hard comfort)

Two Novembers (cold comfort)                                         by peri lyons                                                          
For Betsy and Danielle

November now, when shadows hide their shadows.

Hard to remember now, as trees stand stripped,

And water pours out holy,and unholy, from the sky

That birth is coming: ripped and yet not ripped

Out, timely and untimely; That this cry,

will bring tomorrow running to our room

To make us see the shadows as they be:

The sun just chasing darkness from the sky

(The only story. From the only script.)

The promise of the tree is drinking rain.

 The shadow of the tree is not the tree

These tears will turn out shadows of this pain

This tearing birth that's heralded by tears

Turns into blessing, as this turns again.

So shadows, chased by sunlight, turn the years.

peri lyons copyright 2010

randomness in all its glory

Random observations, NYC

                    [Author's note: wrote this a year and a half ago. Have calmed down somewhat, since. xo]

1) In my current neighborhood, there is a fair amount of no money. And a more-than-average-share of homeless folks. One very tall, very very drunk homeless gentleman has been standing on the corner lately,

aiming acute and pointless and very good observations at his entourage of invisible friends.

Today, he pointed at one of "them" (who was very specifically NOT standing exactly three fet to the left of me, leaning negligently against an invisible lamppost)- and shouted sternly, "We will only be free when ALL of our eyes are perpendicular! Perpendicular eyes equal freedom!"

Appraently his friend raised an invisible skeptical eyebrow because the homeless gentleman became rather insistent on the subject, as though to both warn and convince his ethereal fellow. 

I left, and went home, in order to look up "perpendicular". It means "exactly vertical or upright".

I am still impressed, both by his conviction and his ability to pronounce "perpendicular" shortly after replacing all the fluid in his body with MadDog 2020, Vintage: Tuesday.

Also? I think he may be right. 

I'm just not sure what about.

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2) My cat Princess has become more and more spoiled, because I've been home writing nonstop and she's been on my lap the entire time. Her demands are getting increasingly specific. First, no more dry food. Okay. Next, no more cheapo "Friskies" crap: nope, it's either "Fancy Feast" or a hunger strike a la Bobby Sands, except much much sillier. Now She won't eat off of paper plates. She likes china. China only. Or else.

I'm worried that my lack of perspective about her right now--we've become close--is going to wind up, where this escalates to a point that is obviously ridiculous to everyone but me.And Princess.

"Oh, just ignore the liveried servants", I'll say airily, to visitors to my home. "Oh, and remember, after we cross the threshold, we're only speaking Chaucerian English to her. Got that?"

"What happened to "French only?"", my nervous suitor will inquire. [Note; All of my suitors are nervous. Can't imagine why.]

I will look at them in disbelief. [I like "them". It suggests that I am visited by rotating squads of suitors on a pre-arranged schedule. History will remain mum on whether or not that's a fact.]

 "Please!" I will snort in derision. "That was LAST week! Sheesh. -Now, everyone..." -commanding pause--"please don your cashmere unitards."

-Okay. That's it. We're going back to "Friskies". Frankly? I just can't be arsed to re-learn Chaucerian English.

****************

Speaking of suitors, what is with the new mania of sexual coyness that seems to be springing up as a trend in NYC Men? History will remain mum on where I stand on this subject, but I am HEARING nothing but complaints frpm my gorgeous woman friends about how difficult it is to, well, get any action in this town. 

Men are succumbing to fits of the fantods; calling-(apparently, from a reclining position alone on a Victorian settee-)-at the last minute to cancel dates with genuinely beautiful and accomplished women. THIRD dates.! We all know what third dates are supposed to mean.Ahem.[Note to my parents: I wouldn't know. Every night, I go back to the Upper West Side,to sleep in the chapel of the Episcopal Convent school you sent me to. So relax.]

Are boys the new girls? Are men the new women? Is up the new down?  When did the "thing", in the traditional, motherly warning, "Men only want ONE thing, o daughter mine,", become: Celibacy?  

Sometimes I think there are only two flavors of people: those who are "in love" and those who aren't. When I am in love, I can't imagine NOT being in love; when I'm NOT in love, I can't imagine being so again. I DID  almost get this quote ( of Matt Groening's) as a tattoo:

"Love is like a snowmobile, speeding along an icy path. 

Suddenly it flips, pinning you underneath. 

At night, the ice weasels come."

The tattoo artist talked me out of it, on the grounds that it would be 1) somewhat deleterious to my love life, in future; 2) prohibitively expensive; and 3) take up so much room that I might have to continue it on another person. So... am inkless. -Unlike ANYONE else in Brooklyn.

Not playing "hard to get": I AM hard to get. ...not intentionally..just got so much stuff to do. I've spent most of my adult life in relationships, and it has always been a point of pride making my guy happy, fulfilled, well fed, coddled, and eventually, rich and famous. (There are some women who are just really good luck to be with. Not to brag. But I'm one of them. Hell, I'm THREE of them.-Okay, that's bragging. -Yay!) But now I'm making me happy, fulfilled, etc etc . It work! Who knew?

Been doing some volunteer work, instead. I go and hang out with old people. Whether they want me to or not. We play cards and tell stories, knock back some juice, and have some laughs. At an Old People's Home, which is somehow an entirely different thing from an Old Person's HOUSE. Go figure.

So:  Men of New York! Arise! You are heroes, descended from heroes! Awake from your illusion of passivity!  Go live your true, passionate nature! Kiss that girl! Make a fool of yourself in a brave and dashing manner!
-Or? don't. That's okay too. No worries. No pressure. Me,  I've got a life to lead and a book to finish (and if there's any time left over, get my legs waxed.)

We'll figure it out.

love Peri

Lyrics: "The Dare" 2010 peri lyons (copyright reserved)

The Dare

I might look like I'm open to receiving love

but you must know that looks can be deceiving, love

I'm live on the outside

but something inside me has died:

oh baby

I couldn't fall in love if I tried

baby 

if you're able

to read my label

the warning's printed plainly outside:

ooh baby-

I couldn't fall in love if I tried

baby

if you're lookin

to get me cookin

the ingredients are listed outside

contains: one woman

who couldn't fall in love if she tried

I couldn't fall if you pushed me

I couldn't feel if i fell

The funny thing about paradise lost

is that it's right next to hell

So if you're missin

somethin in my kissin

don't let it go hurting your pride

You keep trying

But I couldn't fall in love if I tried

May look hot but my heart is so cold

May look young but this heart feels one thousand years old

so don't go kissing me and feel you're somehow missing me

no, don't go hurting your pride

it isn't me, it's you sugar

I couldn't fall in love if I tried

pl 2010 valley cottage music ASCAP

Finally! New Year's Resolutions You Can Live With! Hooray!

Because I believe that the main reason people drink so much on New Year's Eve is because they already feel guilty about the fact that they are going to break every resolution they come up with, here is a new, improved way of listing one's intentions. So now you don't have to drink! And now you especially don't need that bottle of Veuve Clicquot you just bought. So just toss that over here, wouldja? Thanks.
Signed, Your Conscience.

For 2011:

1) I intend to tell everyone I have stopped smoking entirely, and totally absolutely do so. -In public. Except when I bum one off someone. Or have a cigarette I don't tell anyone about. -Which means, I guess, that my New Year's resolution is to continue lying about whether or not i smoke. Both to myself and others. Hooray! 

2) I intend to write a list of nourishing organic veggies to use in my upcoming weeklong juice fast, and then I intend to take the list to to the market, buy the veggies, then notice there's a special on my favorite breakfast cereal,buy that, and then get some soy milk to go with it,and maybe a couple of other things, like bacn, bacon is good, and then go home and feel guilty as the vegetables stay in the crisper drawer eying me reproachfully as they wither, while the breakfast cereal and bacon and Mallomars* are gone in a weeek.-Okay, three days.

3) I intend to make an absolute ton of money this year. But this time?  Legally. God, it will feel good to have to stop harvesting kidneys.  Besides: I think eBay's getting suspicious.

5) I intend to have a ton of plastic surgery and then tell everyone I didn't have any plastic surgery: that I just look great because I did a week long juicefast, and completely let go of all of my resentments about my relationship.-Which I guess means that, once again, my New Year's Resolution is to be JUST like Demi Moore! -Again.    (Oh, Aaaaashtoonn........)

6) I intend to just go ahead and tell people the truth: my cat is a Scientologist.- Okay. Now you know.

7) I intend to just go ahead and keep lying about my age, except now in a different direction. Dammit, I'm PROUD to be one hundred and forty seven  thousand years old.-It's the juicefasts. Right, Demi?

8)This year,  I intend to be able to come up with more than seven intentions. -Done!

Seriously, I am truly just kidding about everything on this list, especially the actionable stuff. I love and respect all of my exes, I believe women should age gracefully with self love and acceptance, and that smoking is bad for you and I never do it. I also believe that truth is what you make of it,and most of all I believe that both my parents and my exes' lawyers all read this blog.

Happy New Year, everyone! Thank GOD 2010 is over. Glad to see the back of you, Year of the Tiger. 

Next year is Year of the Cat, so everyone should probably start now on practicing both complete indifference and licking themselves publicly. Thank you.

xxxxooooo

peri lyons

peri lyons
Originally uploaded by perilyons

Peri Lyons is kind of like a NYC version of Edith Piaf, except tall, blonde, and rather importantly, not dead.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Anniversary Poem: rough draft

anniversary poem:thinking about an apartment you painted a fresco of us, as "Orpheus and Eurydice" on the wall of, 1994, Greenwich Village

The problem was, we got our myths mixed, you and I.

You Orpheus, looked back , while I was  (wrongly?) singing;

And then that time you showered me with gold-  Danae!-

i loved that they were chocolate coins...the taste without the ringing.

And when we fought, we'd turn each other into trees:

Zap! Myrtle!  Daphne! Zap! The oak of Nimue! -There!

And we'd remain as trees and shake our leaves in angry glare

-But hey, at least we had SOME sort of belief.

Our lares and penates, homemade as they were, 

Were some relief.

part 2 (prediction: change)

The oldest myth of all is from gorillas: not exactly "told"

By them; (though silverbacks all are  raconteurs when old)

I read it at a zoo, a sign nailed to a "tree":

Where my friend (who is a goddess for a living)

took me as comfort for my poverty

The sign said: "Gorillas live in tribes; their tribal boundaries 

Are rigidly maintained; the only ones who travel troupe to troupe

with no trouble, fights or visas, and are the least forgiving
 of all the  social groups,

 "Females from 13-23, in human age." I read this carefully 

as though looking at a diamond, through a loupe.

Doing lines in bathrooms, behind red velvet creeper vines,
I dreamt gorilla "it girls", 13 to  23,

the wombs of whom: provoking, Che incendiaries

are criminals, all innocents. We"ll lay the blame on Time.

I was one of those "It Guerillas" once:

"We're REAL evolutionaries", we would sniff

our bright red bottoms and  Guevara tees distracting good gorilla family men. 

We'd shriek "As if!" and run away, displaying:

pretend to play "dismayed"- without being TOO dismaying. 

-And always, then...

Then

Part 3 1/2 (the missing link)

Myths to me

be half apology 

half warning

half shaman

half danger:

all love.

The warning that no love at all, is itself, a gift;

as much as the presence of love, that gift, is taken, 

Or not taken,

at command or whim.

The words of "yes" and "no" are, finally, Man's. 

Yes, you know. Him.

So when I skipped the flowery Greek translations

And bluntly was a stupid vain gorilla in a tutu, young enough and cruel

Preverbal, premyth but, uh-oh , somehow, knowing mythic endings:

I knew, someday, I'd be replaced in school

by the New Gorilla Goddess on the block, whose fecund abacus

Had fewer beads than mine now. -But? Now I  had learned to talk.

You showed me that nurture may be red in claw and tooth;

She showed you that an It Girl's always climbing

But then you found palette'd colors where'd you'd hidden truth :

And, Love, I found my real job, while resigning.

We were a self; we are a history.

We helped each other translate, draw, identity

Each

Goddamn

Not entirely gorilla free

Tree.

Happy Baby:

Anniversary.

peri lyons
from:

"Dawdle: Some Poems"  2010 copyright 

************************************

For Adam Cvijanovic, friend, artist, former husband with love Dec 29 2010

Merry Christmas, loves.

I am grateful for everything that happened this year: yup, finally got to that point. Everything. EVERYthing.

Voltaire, in "Candide", had a character named Dr. Pangloss, meant as satirical, who often opined that "everything happens for the best in this best of all possible worlds."

Since it's Christmas today, I'm going to go out on an optimistic limb and say I agree. And not even ironically. I believe that being with someone I loved more than I've ever thought possible, and then losing him, taught me more in six months than I'd learned in the whole decade previously. I learned how to take responsibility for my own actions; how to love someone when you don't love his/her behaviour; how to not say the first angry thing that comes to mind (mostly), but to take a deep breath and figure out what the real need is and how to communicate it lovingly; how important it is to remove all trace elements of "victim" from one's worldview--cuz there are no victims, just volunteers; ; how (apparently) not to be sick again, but to ask for nurture and attention instead if I need it; how to be more compassionate; and that envying someone for being 22 is simply silly,because I was 22 and had a DAMN good time being 22; now I'm having a damn good time being -thank God- NOT 22.

I discovered that people are kinder than I ever imagined possible; also that the kindest people can be cruel unexpectedly; I learned not to do unasked for favors for people and then reproach 'em for it; I learned that if people can be compared to pies, then we're all 9 slices Divine and one slice poop, and that's just how folks are.

My friends and family showed me love and support and infinite patience--but this year I actually really recognized and was grateful for it.

If you're reading this, I send my love, my gratitude, and my wishes for your best and most joyous and healthiest year ever.

Next blog will be funny. Honest. But for now? Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

love from

Peri

Norris Church Mailer: The Purpose of Beauty, The Beauty of Purpose 1949-2010

Norris Church Mailer  has left us at 61.  The world is visibly dimmer today.

I hope it's okay to describe the arc of a comet...someone I only knew for three years, but who lit up the sky like a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence.

There are  no words to describe Norris Church Mailer .  Our language has superlatives, but they have been degraded by advertising, TV, our rackety culture. So when you meet someone who truly DOES "amaze" you, delight you, and whose achievements on the private AND public stages surpass (and subsequently expand)  your own ideas of what is possible..
.who inspires an adulation just short of worship in everyone she meets...
whose voice on the printed page, is just like her voice in real life-and is there a harder thing to do than that?---what words work here?

Some words to describe the Norris Church Mailer I knew, would be "radiant", "funny", "strong without seeming tough", "loving" and "self disciplined.". . If you met her once, you just adored her. Ever after.   -Oh and....Beauty. Her literally astonishing physical beauty was flatteringly backlit by her beauty of spirit, and her love of creating beauty and comfort for herself and everyone around her. 

She gave warmly, unstintingly, and with such grace, to her kids, her stepkids, her family, her friends, her fans....the last two categories numbered in the range of  "countless." Her love of beauty -and fun; her love of a family she found disparate and helped make whole; her love of painting.... Norris made  the people around her want to be their best real (and sometimes most mischievous) selves.
 The houses she decorated were both beautiful and delicious to stay in....the books she wrote were both hugely engaging AND beautifully written; it seems like everything I saw Norris do, I saw her bring her whole heart to. Is there anyone better to be around, than someone who brings their whole self to every minute? That quality also made her something as rare in New York city, as snow is in Arkansas: : a great listener.

I was a friend of her son John's: a man who, like his brother Matthew, shares his mother's astounding physical beauty, charm and tawny-eyed charisma.
The first time I met NCM, in Provincetown, she was supervising a house filled with her kids, her stepkids, the spouses, kids, and stepkids of her kids and her stepkids, their cousins, friends, wives..
-yikes-

and I remember thinking "how does she manage all of this and stay so damn gorgeous? It ain't fair."

(I also remember thinking "She's like: if Florence Henderson's character in "The Brady Bunch" was played by the goddess Athena.")

I never met her late, beyond-legendary husband, but I do have a love for his work, and I remember thinking "holy cats, ARE there people who, in their marriage, let themselves be THIS "matched" by a mate's charisma?  Guess so. But wow." Hard to imagine even meeting two such people in one lifetime. 

Even though one may know this act,  this passing, is really  just a passing from one room to the next,...even though the work I do has shown me this....still, just as a selfish ,regular person who was lucky enough to have known Norris, I want her back.
 Everyone who's \ met her, in life or in her books,  \will miss her .  We'll miss her emotional generosity, wry humor, complete unvarnished and sometimes blunt truthtelling; the " wicked-little-Soth'n-girl-" giggle, and the gloriously Technicolor movie-stah-presence that was NCM.

 She taught me to value qualities I had never valued before--as global as "femininity" and as specific as "neatness"--and I remember, every day, things she taught me without seeming to teach at all. 

For some reason, I  spent the last two weeks rereading all of her books: "Ticket to the Circus" (which is destined to be a classic memoir of its time); "Windchill Summer"; and "Cheap Diamonds."
( I remember my friend Ann saying she had proofread "Cheap Diamonds" and had stayed late -without overtime- at her copyediting job, in order to read it again-this time for sheer pleasure.)
Norris's  voice on the page has the same sideways melody as her real voice. Same quirky music and lightning flash insights.  Go read the books, now. -Please.

My deepest sympathy and condolences to John, Matthew, and her family and friends.

Norris Church Mailer was, to a dazzled young woman from a little town upstate, the definition of Glamour; the definition of Generosity, and most of all, the definition of what it is to be, well... a Lady.
To me, she will always be that gracious,  gogeous, dignified, and  just a bit rebellious  belle, who brought more than a roomful of light,  into every room she entered.


love. always.

peri

This is what happens when you stay up all night because you have to catalogue your song lyrics for publishing, while taking breaks to read Rudyard Kipling poems. While eating figs. You wind up rewriting a ten year old lyric of yours, in a very specific style: the internal rhymes,insistent rhythms and general showoffiness of the poems of Rudyard Kiplong.Then you ask yourself "And who exactly is going to sing this? Is Taylor Swift right now stomping her skinny-ass little feet and shouting "I WANT A CLASSIC COUNTRY SONG! YET WRITTEN IN A METRICAL STYLE REMINISCENT OF VICTORIAN WRITER RUDYARD KIPLING'S POEMS!! NOW, Dang it!"-Well, who knows. Maybe she is. And maybe i am a dish of eggplant parmesian.-You never know.
I also have a great lyric about the auction of the effects of a famous Cambridge-educated Englishman, who became a Russian Communist spy and wound up in alcoholic exile, in Moscow, in a tiny apartment filled, to the last, with the touchstone artifacts of his upper class ness: a silver martini shaker, a perfect Knox top hat, etc.
Yup. I bet Mariah carey is RIGHT NOW asking her people to find EXACTLY that song. For her. To sing. Yes!-Did I mention already that  the chances of that happening are roughly equal to the chance that I might actually be a delicious Italian dish with eggplant and tomato sauce? -Right. Okay then.

ALL LYRICS C 2010 PERI LYONS/Valley Cottage Music/Registered 2010 ASCAP

******************************************************************************************ThA Country Western Song, Written After Reading Too Much Rudyard Kipling Verse

When I first saw you I was nonplused

Your lips were wet and your hair was mussed

(Something about you my girl didn't trust-)

my mind said "something's missin'"

my heart said "I won't listen"

I tried to be dismissin you

Until it came to kissin you

I left my nuclear family and went straight to nuclear fission, you

(chorus)

And now my baby's bags are in the hall

The girl who really loves me's up and gone

You thought I thought I loved you

But I don’t return your call

And now my life's a country western song

You done me right- and then I done her wrong

when I first saw you I said to myself

she's whiskey walkin and she's top shelf

-sure she has looks, but I have my health-

-my baby said “You staying?”

I  didn’t think of straying

But five beers later on, it’s not my mind I was obeying

Well, I got home when dawn was in the sky

My baby said "You know this means goodbye"

I tried to bluff and bluster

I said she'd lost her luster;

She said "And you'll lose something,

 if you don't skedaddle, Buster...!"

My girl said “Bye, you’ll miss me when I’m gone-

You love her now but you won’t love her long”

Now I'm alone at night

Turns out my girl was right

I rue the day that I confused

True love, with  appetite

And now my baby's stuff is in the hall

The one who really loves me's up and gone

You thought I thought I loved you

But I don't return your call

And now my life's a country western song

You done me right and then I done her wrong

You did it right but baby it was  wrong

And now my life's a country western song.

No Thank You, I Don't Want Some Dip. -Not Ever.

When you do a lot of yoga, live mainly on protein shakes, and work out two hours a day, three things happen:
1) You feel really really good;
2) You look a hell of a lot better;
3) You completely lose the ability to metabolize alcohol.

I haven't had anything in the nature of fun beverages for months, so last night's three glasses of Sancerre made me a very festive young lady indeed. (And a very somber and reflective young lady, when the alarm clock went off at 6 this morning. Eeep.)

After dinner at a pretentious yet overpriced restaurant staffed by waitresses who looked like they've just escaped from a Helmut Newton photograph, and decorated with taxidermy of animals that appear to be practicing yoga positions (the restaurant, that is, not the waitresses), headed off to go meet X and Y and go to a Posh Fancy Bash. The fashion alone was worth it:  Y and I spent hours walking around like freelance fashion critics, critiquing as we went. Here are some things we learned:

1) Extremely-and I mean EXTREMELY- short minidresses are in. This is a difficult thing to pull off: for one thing, you have to be VERY careful when wearing something crotchlength: one wrong move and the world is your gynecologist. Also, if you're over 19, it looks less like a mini, and more like you got drunk and forgot your pants. A problem. -One short, pretty girl was wearing a VERY short skirt, which, because she spent so much time essentially doing a very showy,wildly inappropriate, VERY territorial lapdance on top of her actor/hottie boyfriend, afforded onlookers rather more than they'd bargained for. Hey, it's only a black tie gala. Don't mind us. Make yourself at home. I bet you could use the dip as lube.-No no WAIT!-I was kidding!!! -Oh no...    (This might just be sour grapes on my part. That IS an absolutely surefire way to get a guy's attention. I wish I could do that sort of thing- it certainly Works- but alas, was brought up to be a Lady (in public) and alas,cannot. I am forced to rely on nonlapdance activities, some of which include: having really interesting conversations; listening intently to the people I'm with, and staying really,REALLY far away from that dip. )


2) The bubble skirt is back. And metallic silver is back. And the combination of "lots of pouffy fabric around your butt" AND "-the pouffy fabric is a light, shiny color", means that one's bottom looks preety much like the Goodyear Blimp, which I'm just going to say is not an optimum look for anybody. You very seldom hear a man saying "Yeah, she was so hot! She looked sort of like a dirigible." Bad. No. Put the pouffy skirt down and back away slowly.

3) Herve Legere bandage dresses. These are, essentially, dresses made of stretchy bandages sewn together. They take an hour to squeeze into. I saw one woman look fabulous in this dress, but unfortunately there were TEN women wearing it, and the other nine now owe me money for therapy, please. -And the only reason the other woman looked good in it was because she was Gisele Bundchen, whose face is, frankly, a little iffyy but no one notices because no one has ever actually LOOKED at her face. Her body is so fantastically good tha it's like God put her on earth to make the rest of feel bad. But man, did she rock that dress, although frankly Gisele does look a little horsey--sort of like a cross between Marilyn Monroe and Secretariat. [There will be a brief pause while the writer stops to lap from a bowl of milk and then sharpen her claws on some furniture.]

4) Sequins: No. Just don't. I don't care what your reasons are. Nothing justifies sequin use. Especially not a skin tight, iridescent sequin dress, unless you WANT to look like a rainbow trout. If the onlooker's first impulse upon seeing you is to think, "hey. I bet she'd fry up good with some almonds and butter," you have not really succeeded.

Me, i was wearing a black strapless cocktail dress. My friend was wearing something cute from France, bu not from the xpensive part of France.. The outfits we were criticizing probably started at upwards of two grand. But we looked sorta cute, in a minimalist wa, as opposed to the beautiful Asian woman who was wearing a ten thousand dollar dress that looked, quite literally, like a glazed chintz window treatment. I had to restrain the impulse to run up and put an expansion rod through her sleeves.

Wobbled home to write some illconsidered emails, the kind where you check your "sent" box the next day and say "Oh GOD no", and so, after work this afternoon, will then make arrangements to change my name and move to the forests of Borneo to work with the gentle indiginous peoples, who live in harmony with nature and also don't have any access to the Internet. Trust me-It's the only way.

Nice knowing you. Keep in touch. Simply write to me at: The Tall Blonde Broad,c/o  Gentle Tribal Peoples, Big Forest, Borneo, and I will get back to you by the next available post, which is only accessible by a 12 hour dugout canoe ride up the Amazon so, frankly-- don't hold your breath.

Love
p