A Genuine History Book

I love Daedalus Books. I love flipping through the catalog I get every two months, circling titles that I absolutely have to buy, and checking off titles to look up on Goodreads and mark as "to-read" in my account.

I only visit the Daedalus Books site to buy the books I want so badly. I never browse there because I'd vacuum out my savings account alarmingly fast (despite the company's always-met promise that you'll save money when you buy books from them), and I need a good portion of that money to buy or lease a car that runs after my family and I move to Henderson. In fact, I'm working again on putting a full stop to buying books, except for those that cannot wait, such as The Garden of Happy Endings by Barbara O'Neal, which is coming out on April 17. O'Neal's The Secret of Everything is what makes me want to go to New Mexico so badly, and I'm a fan of hers forever.

It sounds like it could be a vicious cycle, me, a bibliophile, trying to stop buying books. I have so many in my room I can choose from, and once we reach Henderson, I'll have a library card and my book-buying habit will drop off precipitously. I'm only doing it now because I refuse to be part of the City of Santa Clarita's libraries, after the City Council cut ties with the County of Los Angeles library system, deciding to create their own, and causing the loss of a few million titles that were available through the County of Los Angeles. The Santa Clarita Valley is isolated enough as it is. This action isolated it further.

Getting back to Daedalus Books, I've found less titles to buy right away. This is no fault of the company, but rather my attempt at self-control, determining what books I can wait to read. And then there is one book, a genuine history book, that I needed so badly that, if I lived near their warehouse outlet in Columbia, Maryland, I would have rushed right over there and possibly even bought two copies, despite it being 640 pages, though thankfully in paperback.

This book, Sears, Roebuck & Co.: The Best of 1905-1910 Collectibles, is what the tablecloths at the Po Folks restaurants in Florida and Buena Park had. There were listings from Sears, Roebuck & Co. touting many items that probably were used by Southern people, my people. I looked at these drawings and read the copy of each item with pure fascination. Someone used this glass pitcher. Someone played that piano. Someone treasured that corncob pipe.

When I saw this book in the latest Daedalus Books catalog, I rushed over to the computer, found it on the website, and ordered it, having had an account on the website for almost a year now. I wanted to see what other items Sears, Roebuck & Co. had sold in its catalog. I don't know how Leslie Parr, Andrea Hicks, and Marie Stareck found these pages in good-enough condition to reprint them (I want to find out), but here they are. This is what families pored over, figuring out what they needed and what they wanted. An Edgemere banjo cost $3.80 back then. A Beckwith Imperial Grand Organ, 475 pounds in five octaves, and 550 pounds in six octaves was $46.75. That was a lot of money then.

Pulling this book out of the Daedalus Books box yesterday afternoon, I felt myself getting so close to history for the first time in weeks. There is a great deal of history in the book I'm writing about the making of the Airport movies, but it's a detached history. It's concrete. It happened. I can only get as close to it as my dogged research and interviews with people involved in the making of those movies will allow me, the people especially. I haven't interviewed everyone I've sought yet, and some may refuse for whatever reason. Here, in this Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalog, these items were sold, the families who paged through the catalog are long gone, and so are the copywriters and the artists that drew the items. But I still feel them with me. I want to know who they were. Did the copywriter in charge of writing about clocks, perhaps, like his or her work, or was it just to feed their family? Did they aspire to write more than this? Did they want to work at a newspaper or write novels? And were those artists happy enough just to be able to draw, or did they paint on the side as well, or did they look to better also? Perhaps, like me, the copywriters and the artists did this job to bring in money while they pursued their true passions.

I want to know more about the people and families who ordered from this catalog Do some of those items still exist, owned by descendants? Did those who ordered violins and organs get exactly what they ordered? Did those who smoked the pipes listed here find great quality as advertised? Who were they?

This is only a sampling, of course. These reproductions only cover collectibles, or, rather, what are considered collectibles today. There were a host of other categories that Sears, Roebuck & Co. pushed. How did this catalog manage to do so much by sheer force of those behind it? What kept them going besides good old American commerce?

This line of thinking happens with a lot of things. I walk through the aisles of the Walmart Supercenter in this valley and I wonder who created the blueprint of the store, what architect is profiting so well from such ventures, what project they're working on now. I look at the lighting fixtures high up on the ceiling and I wonder who installed those, and what stores they had done in the past, and if they only work locally or travel around the country. It's the only way to make a Walmart seem interesting. I don't feel the presence of those who worked on this Walmart or the Target in Golden Valley or anybody who worked on the casinos that line the Las Vegas Strip. But I do think about them, about who they are, and I wonder where they are now.

I remember one late night at Fiesta Henderson in which I was walking around the casino floor and saw yellow tape surrounding four video slot machines clustered together. There were a few guys there who had put down a smelly tar-like substance, I guess to repair a few small holes in the floor or whatever it was that brought them there. They were sitting around, one guy texting, two talking, probably waiting for the substance to harden. They're the people I always want to know more about. Unless there's major repairs going on somewhere, you don't see people like them often. And you don't really think about them because you've got errands to do. In my mind, I can't help being surrounded by them. I want to know their part in my world, just like I want to know more about those who put together the Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalogs, and did what should be considered heroic work, because that looks like it was a lot to do, like gathering the universe in pieces and trying to put it together in some way that makes sense.

This book is going into my permanent collection, even without me having read it all. I know I'll be referencing it for years to come. The 1897 Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalog is also available from the same publisher, so I think I'll be buying that one soon. I can't wait to wander fully through this history and learn about what people wanted in their homes and their lives.

Socks, Books, and Nothing from New Mexico

Last Friday evening, Dad, Meridith and I went out to get groceries while Mom stayed home to rest. Our usual route took us to Sprouts Farmers Market and Pavilions, with a different stop at Albertsons because the fish looks better there now than at Sprouts. It turns out that Sprouts has merged with another company, and also plans to expand into Las Vegas, so that explains why the quality of foodstuffs there has begun to nosedive over the past few weeks.

At Sprouts, there was a basket near the refrigerated case that has containers of potato salad, cole slaw, tuna salad, chicken salad, pasta salad, and whatever other kinds of salads that aren't really salads that you can glop into plastic containers. In the basket were little bags of Zapp's Potato Chips, touting a "Voodoo" flavor, a mix of five flavors, and the words "Original Cajun Kettle Recipe" at the bottom of the front of the bag. "Cajun" could only mean it was from Louisiana, but this could also have been a case of something claiming to be Cajun, yet it was manufactured in, say, Minnesota.

I turned the bag over, and indeed, it was from Louisiana. Gramercy, Louisiana. That's authentic enough for me! And it made me want to get closer to where I want to go in the future, specifically New Mexico. One thing I like to do in a supermarket, at Target, at Walmart, at any pet store, is to turn various products over to where I can find out where they come from. So I vowed to find something that came from New Mexico.

We had an afternoon of errands today, all four of us. First stop was Walmart Supercenter on Carl Boyer Drive because I needed more socks. I wore out a few pairs to the point of holes in the heels, and found myself running out of pairs more quickly and having to put them in the wash more frequently.

I don't think a great deal about clothes. 90% of my wardrobe is printed t-shirts. I don't like jeans that are too-dark blue. As long as they're a close-to-getting-gloomy blue, and they fit, I'll buy them. I love buying socks and underwear because I only have to be aware of my sizes, find the bags that match on the shelves, and that's that. That's all I needed when I found Fruit of the Loom crew socks, with gray heels and toes. Five pairs, $5.77 each, and I bought two bags. I turned the package over and found a location of Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Mom wanted to stop at Dollar Tree in Canyon Country, next to Big Lots, for a mobile thing she wanted to hang at the front door to make it a bit cheerier until we arrive at the front door we want in Henderson after we move. Near the far left of the store, in between two sets of aisles, I found racks of books and got excited, which is normal for me, but these were racks of books that looked like they might be worth something to me, so I got even more excited.

I had no idea that Robby Benson, the voice of Beast in Beauty of the Beast, among other roles, as well as a fairly prolific sitcom director in the 1990s, wrote a novel about that experience, apparently inspired by directing six episodes of Friends, called Who Stole the Funny?. There are undoubtedly elements of Benson's experience in here, though it's up to the reader to pick out what might be true or what they think is true. The Publisher's Weekly review listed on Amazon states that "Benson offers in his debut a derivative parody of behind-the-scenes Los Angeles that fails to skewer any of its easy targets." Well, he hits a few, I think. I've not been directly in the industry, but I've met many flakes involved in it, and my dad has met many Hollywood parents as well, having taught their kids. What Benson writes possibly isn't that far off. I'm on page 141 already, which is a good sign that I'm seeing this one all the way through, and I do cringe at some of the personalities featured, but it's not because of Benson's writing. It's because I wouldn't be surprised if these people do work in Hollywood.

I also found America the Edible by Adam Richman, host of Man v. Food on Travel Channel, American Adulterer by Jed Mercurio, which describes JFK's philandering ways in the clinical language of a detached psychiatrist (though Mercurio isn't one, which I think would make it all the more fascinating), Boys and Girls Like You and Me by Aryn Kyle (short stories, and one of them is about a raid on a neighbor's meth lab that strengthens a friendship between a "solitary woman and a teenage Goth girl," so I had to buy this one!), and Model Home by Eric Puchner, which I wanted to buy when it was published in February 2010, but $17 seemed steep. It's been in paperback since September 2010, the hardcover edition is being sold for $9.47 on Amazon, and I got it for a dollar. It's about a family keeping secrets from each other, including the patriarch having made a bad real estate investment, and the children are distant. They're forced to move to the patriarch's abandoned housing development in the desert and have to face head-on what may tear them apart.

I can relate. My father rushed us here to Southern California after he learned that he wouldn't have a job at Silver Trail Middle in Pembroke Pines, Florida, because the state put more emphasis on the FCAT exam, which meant far less money for electives, including him. I knew nothing about Southern California, didn't even have time to try to get used to the idea in some respect, and then there we were, living in an apartment in Valencia, which I liked well enough because it was at least surrounded by a supermarket, the local mall, the movie theater, and if you had an extra half-hour, you could reach the library on foot. But when I was a student at College of the Canyons in Valencia, trying to learn about Southern California, trying to make sense of it for myself, the books that I read were about Los Angeles, not about the Santa Clarita Valley. There were no books about the Santa Clarita Valley. That I was reading about Los Angeles trying to understand that should have been my first sign that things would turn upside down here, as they have over the years, as we've not had lasting happiness in any of those years. And that there were no books about Santa Clarita Valley should have been a sign that this was not the place for me, that there wasn't some focus on its history, which is an indicator to me about how worthwhile a place is. If its history is there in some form, either with a museum or on display at a library or a section of a library with actual books about it, then it's worth it to me. This never has been. Plus, I won't drive the freeways here. This byzantine maze has been insane from the day we arrived. Is it any wonder that drivers in this region are always ticked off? I want to see what this family in Model Home goes through in 1980s Southern California, if perhaps some of them feel as I have all this time.

Five books came out to $5.44. Let me repeat that: Five books. $5.44. For that price, I got a total of 1,518 pages to read. For as long as books remain this cheap, I will be happy for the rest of my life. While I likely won't buy as many books as I have once I get my Henderson library card (which is valid in the Clark County library system once a certain sticker is affixed to it at a Clark County branch that makes it so), I love so much that I can have all this for so little.

Contrast that with the 99 Cents Only store in Newhall. Their book selection hasn't changed in, I think, two years. I bought the hardcover edition of The War Within by Bob Woodward then, and there are still copies there. In hardcover.

Seeing this, I've come to believe that the Dollar Tree is for the rare reader that happens to walk in, like me. The 99 Cents Only store is for those who either don't like to read or don't have time to read or only read once every few years. However, this observation is based on only one store. It may be different at a store in Las Vegas, and Mom, Meridith and I did go to a store in North Las Vegas, but all I remember there, because of my excitement over it, was finding a VHS tape of The Best of Beakman's World for 59 cents, which I've since bought on DVD. They might have had books. Maybe it depends on where the store is located. They might not have reason to stock that Newhall location with books for the reason that very few sales come from books.

Before Dollar Tree, before the 99 Cents Only store, we went to PetSmart in Golden Valley, where I turned over bags of food, and toys, and cleaning supplies, hoping to find something from New Mexico. Nothing. I'm starting to think that New Mexico must not be so business friendly, at least toward any businesses that ship out goods. I have books by people who live in New Mexico, so that's good enough for me for now. I still hope to find some item from New Mexico in a store somewhere. Maybe I'll find something during our next visit to Las Vegas and Henderson, and maybe in further exploration after we become residents. Since Nevada is a bit closer to New Mexico than California, there should be something. I want to feel that I'm getting somewhat closer to my desire of traveling throughout that state, and while books and music and art do their part, I want a tangible example, something I can touch that I know came from there.

Another Rory for the Name's Reputation

A search for my first name on Google (I don't only search for my full name) reveals a fictional character on Doctor Who, an Irish golfer, one half of a musical duo called Joey + Rory, a blues singer and guitarist, a motivational speaker, another motivational speaker with the dammit-I-should-have-thought-of-that! web address, www.rory.com; a folk music artist, a Nashville guitarist, a New York State assemblyman, a minister, an author and British politician (Rory Stewart, who's written extensively about the Middle East), another golfer, a technology consultant, a so-so black-and-white photographer, a color photographer, an illustrator, and Wikipedia has a list of other Rorys, such as the ones with professions mentioned here, as well as poets, actors, football players, hockey players, a comedian, and a mixed martial artist.

Based on all that, I'm living up to the reputation of my first name. We Rorys either have artistic inclinations or unique careers. There doesn't seem to be any Rory with a job that deviates from that. And the Rory I found in a book I'm reading called Bowling Across America by Mike Walsh is no exception.

To honor his late father, as well as to do it for himself, Mike Walsh decides to bowl in all fifty states, gaining building media exposure, and soon a sponsorship from Miller to promote Miller High Life in exchange for a PR agency's support and $8,500, plus airfare to Alaska and Hawaii. Walsh is a grating attention whore after he sets out on the trip, but soon settles well enough into it that he's a decent enough guy.

While in Wisconsin, Walsh gets a call from a Rory Gillespie of American Bowler magazine, who wants to write a story about him and have someone from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel to also write a story about him. He meets with Gillespie, and learns that the magazine is part of the American Bowling Congress, which establishes the standards that bowling alleys abide by, and also tests bowling equipment, lane oils, and bowling pins, among other things. They're serious about what they do. The ABC merged with other organizations to become the United States Bowling Congress, but the aims are still the same.

So there's yet another Rory living up to the reputation of the name. When my parents named me, they had only heard of Rory Calhoun (they chose it not for Calhoun, but because they thought it was a unique name), and thought I was the only Rory in the world. Not so. But I'm proud to be upholding my end of the name.

Where Did That Come From?!

At Pavilions, I got the battered fish I've been waiting all week for (Fairly decent, but the crust at the edges was too hard), and while Meridith and I ticked a few tasks off her Pavilions list, I found in the cart a Las Vegas travel guide published by the Los Angeles Times. I flipped through it, finding ads for the Stratosphere, Carrot Top, Menopause: The Musical, and an ad for Phantom of the Opera, announcing "Final Months - Performances End September 2, 2012".

On the third to last page, there was a brief article about the Pinball Hall of Fame on East Tropicana Avenue, with photos of pinball machines and players framing it. The final three paragraphs nearly made my heart stop.

For two years now, I've had an idea for a novel that partly involves pinball, that's also a modern-day adaptation of a classic novel. The twist is that I haven't read that novel yet. I will, but what I know of it so far made me think about setting it in the United States today. I think that will only be made stronger when I actually read the novel.

The last three paragraphs in that article presented to me clearly what motivates my main character, why he's doing what he's doing. I'd been having trouble thinking of the "why" in the few times that I considered this novel, and this revelation makes me much more excited to work on this. I brought the travel guide home, especially for that article.

After dinner, I opened up the Word file for my novel and received a major shock: I wrote half a chapter, and I didn't even know I wrote it! I don't even know when I wrote it. It had to have been before I finished writing my share of What If They Lived? Maybe I had done it to let off some stress from working on that book.

The two pages, 1,287 words, read well enough, but it obviously needs a lot of work and certainly more words. I read it three times, and found that it captures the atmosphere I want. After I read those three paragraphs in that travel guide, I also was thinking about who these two characters would be, why they are the way they are, not knowing that here it was for me, already planned out.

It's a first-person narrative, from the perspective of the unwitting sidekick to the main character. I'm going to stick with that because I think if I wrote it from the perspective of the main character, it would be crazier than a reader could stand. What's the truth? What's not? The sidekick, incredulous as he becomes, at least remains clear-eyed about the journey taken.

But then, it could all change. I'm not sure yet. I'm still learning about who these two guys are. The only thing I'm sure of is that my working title is not going to be the actual title. Too obvious twice over. There's nothing in either word that would make someone want to pick up my novel to see what it's about.

The other day, I finished reading On Gratitude, which has interviews with celebrities about gratitude and what their favorite things are in their lives, and their working methods, especially those of the writers interviewed. Danielle Steel was one of the interviews, and she says she works on three to five books at a time. I can't get there yet. After we move to Henderson and I get settled, I want to work on two writing projects concurrently, but that's probably as far as I'll go. I'm going to read the source material for this novel, though, and get to know my characters more, because I want this one to work. I feel like this one could be something good.

Busted Flat in Baker

I am never unsure about what to read next, even with the hundreds of books stacked in my room. My mind goes wherever it wants and is strict about it, so I just finished reading On the Road with Charles Kuralt by Charles Kuralt, who also inspires me in my writing by his warm, easygoing style, also prevalent on camera in his "On the Road" series for CBS Evening News all those years ago, as well as host of CBS Sunday Morning. Charles Osgood, the current host, seems inspired by him, just as gentle as he was.

On the Road with Charles Kuralt contains transcripts of 91 of his "On the Road" segments, nicely laid out with images from the broadcasts included.

One chapter is called "Busted Flat in Baker" and the accompanying image is of two guitars, a clock, a model of a horse, a bowling ball, and a rifle resting on a floor. I've transcribed the chapter below, because it's exactly what Baker feels like, even today, and it's how I want to write it in my eventual play to be set there.:

Let's say you're driving home to California from Las Vegas. And let's say you're broke. And let's say you've been driving ninety miles through the desert with nothing to look at but that hot sand and the gas gauge, which is riding on empty. Well, when you see the sign that says BAKER, naturally you take the exit. Baker is at least somewhere in the middle of nowhere: a hot, dusty string of gas stations where a busted gambler might figure if he can talk fast enough he can talk himself into a tank of gas. It turns out that this is exactly what thousands of busted gamblers figure every year.

Bob Kennedy, who works in one of the filling stations, says Baker must be the fast-talking capital of America.

KURALT: What sort of things have you been offered down the years?
BOB KENNEDY: Oh, watches, rings, all sorts of jewelry. Clothing, tires, tools---you name it. If it's been made, it's been offered. They come out with some ridiculous things.
KURALT: But they get you to pump that gas first---
KENNEDY: Oh, yeah.
KURALT: ---before they admit they're broke.
KENNEDY: Oh, yeah.

Bob Kennedy has lost track of the number of old cars he has taken possession of in return for a bus ticket to Los Angeles. And gas station owner Ken George has a gaudy collection of clocks and watches and guns and radios that used to belong to motorists headed home from Vegas.

KEN GEORGE: Stories change from gettin' robbed, losin' their wallet or people just come out and tell you the truth. "Look, mister, I've lost my money in Vegas. Could you loan me two dollars and somethin' worth of gas?" You know, and of course, you get so many of these people comin' through, pretty soon you start asking for collateral.
KURALT: What kinds of collateral have you been offered?
GEORGE: Huh! Well, there's been cases where even people's kids have been offered as collateral.
KURALT: It strikes me that, living in Baker, you could pick up a bargain from time to time.
GEORGE: Well, yeah, you can pick up a bargain from time to time, but what is a guy gonna do with six or eight bowling balls when we don't have a bowling alley? Heh!

To operate a gas station here, as Bob Kennedy and Ken George and all the others will tell you, is to run a hockshop in the desert. The Las Vegas winners, of course, never slow down. They zip past the exist on the Interstate, humming a happy tune.

The losers stop at Baker.

Baker still doesn't have a bowling alley. No money in it. It's just a temporary stop for those who are Vegas-bound and heading back to wherever they live in the L.A. region. I still don't know how people can live in Baker, but they do, and those are two. I'm fascinated by it every time.

Lent: My Favorite Unaffiliated Holiday of the Year

With Manheim Steamroller's Deck the Halls, A Charlie Brown Christmas, egg nog, and actually watching A Space Ghost Christmas in season, you'd think Christmas would be my favorite unaffiliated holiday. Surprisingly, it's not. Lent is my favorite, for one reason: Fish.

On Fridays, the Christians that observe Lent don't eat meat. Therefore, there's fish. My mom likes the Filet-O-Fish at McDonald's, and they lower the price that day, and also offer a double Filet-O-Fish, two patties on one bun.

I eat as little red meat as I can nowadays (it's part of what caused me to gain a lot of weight over the years before I finally decided to do something about it late in 2010), and I like chicken well enough, but if there's the chance to have fish, I grab it. I love the light, clear taste of most fish, getting closer to the water in a way. I've no fear of it, but I could never do what fishermen do. I'm always in awe, and appreciative, of their efforts. But most of all, I love the variety of it. Haddock. Salmon. Cod. Pollock. Tuna. And I'm sure there's a lot of others I haven't tried yet.

Lent works for me because of such offerings as the one I found in the Vons/Pavlions ad for this week of what's on sale, and what's items are their $5 Friday deals. Last week's $5 Friday listings included five-piece battered fish. Alaska pollock, I'm sure. I like it, though, and don't mind having it more often than other fish (I do miss the salmon at Sprouts Farmers Market, which was salmon at its best, but I guess that store in Valencia isn't making as much profit, because the latest salmon pieces look worse than what there was before). We didn't go to Pavilions last week because Dad and Meridith got home late after a phone interview Dad had to do from school, since the company interviewing him rescheduled it on the day and he couldn't get home in time to do it from here. It was ridiculous for him to come home and then go back out about half an hour later. The battered fish, if it was there next week, could wait.

It's in the $5 Friday listings again this week, thanks to Lent, and we're going to pick up a few things from Pavilions, including spare quarts of Silk Very Vanilla soymilk, Silk dark chocolate almondmilk, and Silk Mixed Berry Fruit & Protein. I haven't had the latter in two months because of the outrageous price at Walmart, and there's a coupon in the Pavilions circular for three quarts of any Silks, and hopefully we can use the separate Vons coupon that gives $1 off any Fruit & Protein.

So I get to try that battered fish, and Meridith gets what she wants too: 8-piece dark meat fried chicken for $4.99. She doesn't have fried chicken very often, but when she does, she loves dark meat the most.

In Las Vegas and Henderson, I want to find, so far, a decent marinara sauce, the best covered fries, and an oh-my-god-I-can't-believe-I'm-alive-for-this! butterscotch sauce. I'm adding fish to that list, more fish to try. I can't wait to see what Lent is like over there.

The Family-Without-Electricity Club Forms and Disbands in the Same Day

I don't wanna get up. Maybe she won't call, like last time.

I went to bed a few minutes before 3:30 this morning. I have to be in front of the computer by 8 for a phone interview with actress/singer Andrea Marcovicci, who played Russian Olympian Alicia Rogov in The Concorde: Airport '79. It's 7:45. Her assistant originally set up the interview for this past Monday morning at 9. Ms. Marcovicci didn't call, and her assistant apologized by e-mail later.

I actually wouldn't mind if she didn't call this time either because I want to get back to sleep. But I have to do this because her assistant offered no other time in the forseeable future, citing a tight schedule. I learn later that that's not Hollywoodspeak. It's actually a tight schedule.

I should have gone to bed earlier. I wish I didn't feel like I'm trying to pull my face from a puddle of glue. But last week, Southern California Edison sent a notice that the power would be shut off from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., to ease the load on the system and to hopefully prevent rolling blackouts during the summer. Or something like that. An electric company's reasoning is like trying to figure out the true motivation behind Scientology.

Therefore, the 9 a.m. time I requested for this interview, which was rejected, would not have worked anyway. Mom suggested last night that I print out my questions and have a notepad handy just in case the power cuts out during the interview. I took that precaution, but hope I won't need it because I can type interview answers much faster than writing them.

I finally get out of bed. Bathroom. Teeth. I'm still a little tired, but I know I'll feel the effect of a little over four hours' sleep later. I wanted Cheerios soaked in Silk Very Vanilla soymilk as usual, but it's 7:56. No time. Just a banana. At least it's hefty in the stomach.

I sit down at the computer, with printed questions, notepad and pen in front of me. I stick my flash drive into a port at the bottom of the computer, open my "Questions for Andrea Marcovicci" Word file, and make sure I have all the questions I want to ask her, especially about filming in the Concorde set on stage 12 at Universal.

The phone rings. It's 8:06.

"Rory?"

"Yes, that's me."

"It's Andrea Marcovicci."

"Yes; I know that very well." (I don't tell her that her name appeared on the Caller ID at the computer, but I know the voice well enough to be able to recognize it without a Caller ID, before she said her name.)

Regretting McCambridge

When Ms. Marcovicci didn't call that Monday morning, I was worried that I was going to interview someone who was full of herself, only giving time to me because she ought to throw some peanuts sometimes. Her assistant gave me the impression that that's who I might be talking to, because she was firm in her approach, and I worried that requesting another time, if I had to, would make me persona non grata. You form your impressions, right or wrong, from the experience you have at the start.

I was totally wrong.

Ms. Marcovicci begins the conversation with an apology for not calling on Monday morning, telling me that she was involved with something else, and said I probably wouldn't want to know about why she hadn't called. Yeah, I would like to know. After all, I don't interview singers every day. But I don't press. I don't think it would be polite.

For 20 minutes, Ms. Marcovicci is as I imagine her singing must be. She's playful, laughing many times throughout while remembering what she deems "the worst Airport movie." She had hoped The Concorde: Airport '79 would make her a more well-known actress, just like director David Lowell Rich hoped that this would lead to more features for him. Neither happened.

Her biggest regret of '79 is not paying attention to Mercedes McCambridge, who played Nelli, Alicia's minder. She says she was a "young pup," "and kind of scatterbrained at the time and not as appreciative of her as I should have been." She understands now that that's why McCambridge was "relatively impatient with me and harsh to me."

Then, Ms. Marcovicci gives me the information I was jonesing for, about the Concorde set itself, and what the crew did to help simulate the plane being upside down and depressurized. I'm saving all that for the book, but it represents fully what I'm looking to do with this book. Ms. Marcovicci also expresses great pleasure at my idea, saying that fans of these movies would certainly want to know all about them, as well as disaster movie fans and others. Genuine delight.

At the end of the interview, she has time for only one or two more questions. I skip the one asking about her on the set at the end of the movie after the Concorde lands under snow in the mountains because in describing the scene to her before, despite appearing onscreen, she says she doesn't remember it. She trusts me, a fan, though. I ask her about working with indie director Henry Jaglom on two films, admiring his tenaciousness in filmmaking, and I ask about her experience working with the late Martin Ritt on The Front, Ritt being one of my favorite directors. Great admiration for him.

Earlier in the interview, she reveals something stunning to me in passing while talking about the filming: She's great friends with Susan Blakely, who played Maggie Whelan. My final question to her is a request for her to pass along my contact information to Blakely, since I couldn't find any contact information on her online, nor an agent's contact information, and an e-mail to her husband's PR firm bounced back with "unauthorized mail is prohibited." I was going to call the firm directly, but available interviews come first, and I've got a few more to do at the moment.

Ms. Marcovicci tells me she'll let Ms. Blakely know about me and my project right away. How she does it, I don't know, but I trust she will. She warns me that once Blakely gets on the phone, she doesn't stop talking. It suits me. Blakely was on the Concorde set and filmed scenes in Paris and Washington, D.C., so she could be one of the greatest resources I'll have about the making of '79, besides Peter Rich, the son of the late David Lowell Rich. Plus, on the Concorde after the final depressurization from the device that opened the cargo door in flight, she was involved in one of the main special effects, in a section of the floor bursting below her, creating a hole through which shots of the snow-covered mountain can be seen. I want to know how they did that and what they told her it would involve. I hope she contacts me. With the backing of Ms. Marcovicci, how could she not? I've no doubt she'll play up the uniqueness of this project to Ms. Blakely.

That was the end of the interview, and after saying goodbye and hanging up, I look up Ms. Marcovicci's tour schedule, finding that she's performing on March 14 and 15 in West Hollywood, and for two dates in April at the brand-new Smith Center in Las Vegas. I immediately e-mail her assistant, mentioning that my family and I are planning to move to Henderson, expressing my disappointment that I probably won't be able to go to either show, and asking her to convey my sincerest hope to Ms. Marcovicci that she'll return to the Smith Center in the years to come. Also in April, I'm missing a Gershwin concert performed by the Las Vegas Philharmonic at Smith Center, so I'm hoping that the Philharmonic will have another concert of that next season.

One Book Out, Another Book In

A few minutes after 9:30, the power goes out. Expected, but it means that we can't open the fridge. Therefore, warm water bottles and lunch will have to come from whatever's in the cabinets and on the counter near the stove. I still need to eat more for breakfast, but since I don't want to open the fridge to get the Silk milk, I settle for another banana and a Quaker oatmeal raisin granola bar. It's lucky I made Mom some tea before the power went out, because our hot water dispenser in the kitchen runs on electricity.

Suppose I had a Kindle that needed to be charged and I forgot to do it the night before, remembering to do it today, but the power being out, I can't for all of the morning and most of the afternoon. This is one reason I will never get one, but also because I love real books. And it's better just to open one up instead of waiting for a Kindle to turn on (which I imagine doesn't take long), and then going through the menu, finding what I want to read, and there's the book, but flat on that screen. Too impersonal for me.

Yesterday, I received a book in the mail called How Pleasure Works by Paul Bloom, positing that pleasure goes much deeper than simply having favorite foods and favorite music and favorite activities, and setting out to explain it. I had been thinking of other books in my room that I wanted to read, but with a title like that, and my love of pleasure, I opened it right away. But

Today, I read it more slowly than I usually read, which is a sign that it wasn't as interesting to me as I had hoped. Bloom presents many timely examples and shows that he's hip to pop culture without sounding like he's overreaching, but the apparent science he explains began to bore me. I make it to page 93 and put it in the Goodwill box. With how many books I have in my room, and how much I want to read throughout my life, I can't waste time on a book that isn't working for me. I don't have a set number of pages I adhere to before I give up on a book, but I try to give more of a chance to a book that has a topic that interests me, such as this one.

I go back to my room to look for my next book, remembering the Charles Kuralt books I want to read, including his memoir, A Life on the Road. But then, On Gratitude shoves the Kuralt books out of my thoughts. It's interviews Todd Aaron Jensen conducted with celebrities about what they're grateful for in life, what gratitude means to them, and it delves into parts of their careers and what they love in their lives. The list includes Jeff Bridges, Ray Bradbury, Elmore Leonard, Morgan Freeman, Hugh Laurie, Ben Kingsley, and Francis Ford Coppola. Some interviews were conducted by phone, others in person, and you can easily tell which were which. It's also my kind of book because it delves into pleasure in different ways, and I open it up, and judging by the speed at which I'm reading, I know I'm devouring it gleefully. It works for me.

While reading, I find such peacefulness without the humming of electricity, the refrigerator keeping cool, the TV on, and I know the refrigerator's functions are necessary, but I really like this for today. Meridith pulls out the radio that Mom has on when she takes a shower and tunes it to KUSC 91.5, Los Angeles' classical music station. I can listen to classical music like this, and did when I was a kid. But put me in an auditorium with an orchestra performing pieces from various composers, and I am deathly bored. I can't sit there and listen to it like that. I would make an exception for Gershwin, but I generally can't do it for other composers. Maybe I should, though, just to see if anything's changed since I attended a classical music concert as extra credit for a music class at the Pembroke Pines campus of Broward Community College. I could imagine it in my mind as my own Fantasia, thinking up my own images. It might help. I want to support the Las Vegas Philharmonic after I become a resident, and actually, if they have a Schubert concert, I would go to that. The sitcom Wings uses a piece of his in the opening credits, and that's how I first heard of him and wanted to hear more of his music, because I love that fluttering piano sound.

This works so wonderfully: A book and classical music on the radio. No TV. No Internet. I can't keep myself from spending hours on the computer, since I'm working on my book, but I want to scale back the hours and do things like this. I am, in some respect, reading a lot more in past months. But more, more, more. I do have a radio in my room, and I'm sure I can get 91.5 on there. Mom can't get any radio stations in her room; such is the injustice of hillsides and mountains. She's excited about moving to Henderson for many reasons, the greatest being moving out of Santa Clarita, but the second reason would be that she can have radio stations again. Complete flatlands in Las Vegas and Henderson. None of the seven or eight different climate zones that Southern California is known for, separated by mountains. And no radio signals getting cut off because of the mountains.

The First Time in a Long Time for Lunchtime

At 1:07, Mom, Meridith and I decide to have lunch, which is most unusual because while Meridith has been at work since the beginning of the new school semester, I eat at about 1:30, and Mom eats after she gets off the computer. Quick, simple, and after, I can get back to reading.

Since Bella, the woman Meridith was subbing for in the school kitchen, came back, and Meridith's home, it's back to eating together at lunch, at least this time. Otherwise, if the electricity had been on, I think Mom would have been on the computer a bit longer.

Lunch is for peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwiches for Mom and Meridith, a peanut butter and honey sandwich for me (My first time trying one, since I usually have peanut butter and honey on a Quaker rice cake (there is a difference. Store brands of rice cakes are never as good)), bagged movie theater-style popcorn, Andy Capp hot fries (made of corn and potato), and then for dessert, a banana for me and a banana for Mom, a Rice Krispies Treat for me, and apple slices for Meridith with honey. As simple a lunch as you can find with a power outage.

I always enjoy the company. And the cordless radio sits in a pottery bowl Meridith made in high school, still tuned to the classical music station, so it's my kind of afternoon. I'm not sure why I stopped listening to classical music, but it might have been that concert for extra credit that caused my interest to waver. It shouldn't have. Listening to classical music on the radio, you can read and do other things while it's playing. Nothing stops you. I do listen to ambient and chill music, so maybe it's an evolution for me since those kinds of music involve instrumentals as well. Perhaps it was an evolution of my interest in classical music. But rediscovering Gershwin, and developing an interest in Schubert, I think I'm going to go back to it and try again. I fondly remember listening to 93.1 in South Florida when it was a classical music station. It shouldn't be difficult to get back into it. I'm going to need a lot of music when I finally begin writing this book, so I'll explore now and see what suits me besides Gershwin and Schubert, but giving more attention to them because I haven't heard all their works yet.

This works. Not all the time, but these hours without electricity, this book, this music, this company, and the wisps of good feeling from that interview with Andrea Marcovicci, it all comes together to provide an afternoon that usually only happens on Friday, a feeling of contentment, of the universe having aligned. You might think a feeling of contentment couldn't happen here in the Santa Clarita Valley what with how many times I've railed against various facets of it, but I mean internal contentment. I have books, and music, and there was lunch with Mom and Meridith, so I'm feeling good. External contentment will come after we move, but as long as I have books and exploration of music, I can exist well here until we move, because I know that day will be coming soon.

Lunch is over and I go back to the couch to continue reading On Gratitude. Near 2:30, the power comes back on, and I'm on page 126. 235 pages are in this book, not counting the index. 109 pages to go. This book works for me.

I go on the computer to see if anything interesting has come to my inbox, if Ms. Marcovicci's assistant has replied to my e-mail of deepest thanks, and if Rebecca Wright of Movie Gazette Online has forwarded any new press releases, asking us three writers if any of the titles in those press releases interest us. Nothing new. Since I can be choosier about what I review, I wasn't disappointed. This time, I've got to really feel that I want to review something, that I can write something hopefully worthwhile. I've got ideas for my first three reviews, now including the final season of Adam-12, that I want to try, and see where they go. It's quite different from when I wrote review after review of completely independent movies and inevitably wasn't interested in a few of them but I reviewed them anyway.

With nothing else to do on the computer for now, I give it to Meridith, who hasn't had the chance to use it during the day because she's been at work. I turn on the Tivo and play one of the episodes she has of The Chew, four days' worth built up, without today's episode because it didn't record. Power outages do that.

Every Friday, with that feeling of contentment, I tell myself that I want to feel that all the time. I don't want it to be limited to Fridays. I want this feeling all the time, too, of being at peace, of enjoying myself like this, with books and classical music and all the other music I love. I'm going to lasso this feeling and have it with me all the time. A continuous atmosphere like this would lend itself to much creativity. That's what I need when I begin writing this book, and I'm going to have it. This is the type of day to have every day, interviews with singers or not.