Category: Restaurants / food

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Bella Italia Romantica!

This year has been one of the busiest of my life. I moved from the city to the desert, bought a house that needed more significant work than I’d thought, and started a new job. Adjusting to a very different lifestyle has been more challenging and time consuming than I ever would have thought, and I didn’t have a lot of time to write this year. But I took a short trip to Italy at the end of the summer and it really re-invigorated my desire to return to the dance romance I’d begun at the end of last year. Crowded and touristy as it was in late August – try not to go to Europe in August; wait till September if possible!! – Italy was so beautiful, so romantic. It just got me in the mood to write again, even if the house isn’t all done 🙂

At top is one of my favorite pics, in Venice. We had to be tourists and take a gondola ride of course! It was truly beautiful. I hadn’t been to Italy before and I’d heard so many stories of how smelly and dirty Venice is, and I didn’t find it to be that way at all. I guess maybe because I studied history in grad school, I couldn’t stop thinking of what a gorgeous human creation the whole city structure was, the beautiful old buildings, how it must have looked in the eighteenth century, what it must have been like to walk through the mysterious, narrow, winding streets, and stroll along the canal. I’m a water person – I love all kinds of bodies of water, but mostly rivers and canals because they’re often found in urban areas, and they serve as vital part of the modern cities.

I was just so enchanted with Venice. Here are a few more pics:

Above is the Grand Canal.

A very interesting piece of art as part of the upcoming Venice Biennale exhibit. So, it’ll be taken down after Biennale ends in November.

A quaint little boutique along a canal. There are boutiques everywhere. I wished more of them sold original things, like this one, but most sold only souvenirs. Enchanting as they were at first, by about my third hour there, I felt like if I saw one more cheap face mask I might just jump in the canal.

 

Okay, I can’t help but include a pic of the back of our hot water taxi driver 🙂

This is the island of Murano, off of the big island in the Venice lagoon. The smaller islands were much less crowded. I loved the buildings here. Their colorfulness reminded me a bit of San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Below, is Rome. Rome was super packed with tourists – because of the Sistine Chapel, the Vatican, the Colosseum, etc., but beautiful as well.

A restaurant across from a piazza where we had dinner.

The vegetarian secondi portion of my dinner at a restaurant near the Colosseum. The red wines don’t have sulfites there, unlike ours. So, I could relax and drink without fear of a migraine!

The Trevi Fountain.

The Vatican, which is far more huge than I ever thought. I was there right after the terrorist attack in Barcelona and security was super tight.

Gorgeous art work in the Vatican Museum. We weren’t allowed to take any pictures in the Sistine Chapel, which of course was breathtaking, albeit a little smaller than I’d imagined. But we were allowed to take flash-free photos in the other Vatican museums.

Bacchus, the god of wine – my favorite statue in the Vatican Museum 🙂

The Colosseum, which was far more huge than I’d imagined. It was packed! At first I was a little worried about a terrorist attack, especially after what had just happened in Barcelona, but soon I was so carried away by the history, the marvel, the grandeur of it all, it was impossible to even let your mind go to bad things.

We also visited Verona, where Shakespeare set Romeo and Juliet. Lovely little city.

 

“Juliet’s balcony.” This house belonged to a family called the Capulets. According to JULIET, a really engaging novel by Anne Fortier, the oldest known telling of the story of Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare’s was not the first) took place in Siena, in Medieval times. So this balcony generally serves as a tourist attraction 🙂

What would a trip to Italy be without visiting the Leaning Tower of Pisa! Although, this building didn’t seem to be any more leaning than others I saw throughout. It’s just the most famous. And man was that place touristy. I did have just about the best gelato I had in Italy, outside of a little gelato shop adjacent to the Trevi Fountain.

My absolute favorite place we went, though, was Florence. I love art, and I love walkable cities with history and interesting architecture, and lots of water, and Florence had all of the above in absolute spades.

The Ponte Vecchio covered bridge, which crosses the Arno River. So many shops inside the little buildings along the bridge!

The Uffizi museum. The street leads down to the Arno River. We didn’t get to go into the Uffizi, shamefully, because we hadn’t bought tickets ahead of time and the line would have taken all day. Next time I go, I will remember to get all my tix online well ahead of my visit!

The breathtaking Duomo (cathedral). It you read the opening pages of my old novel, SWALLOW, main character Sophie compares her little Arizona town, named Florence as well, to the real thing, noting sarcastically that while the famous Florence boasts the Duomo and the Uffizi, her little town houses the Arizona State Penitentiary 🙂

The inside of the Santa Croce cathedral, which is like the Pantheon in Paris, and houses many of the tombs of Italy’s most revered such as Dante, Michelangelo, Galileo.

Dante’s tomb.

And the tomb of Michelangelo.

Of course we had to visit The Accademia Gallery, which now houses many of Michelango’s statues, including David 🙂

Okay, I kind of went crazy with David pics 🙂 I couldn’t help it!

Here are a couple of lesser-known Michelangelos.

Anyway, off to work on TREMOR, my next dance romance, which I am hoping to have out by the end of this year, or early next year at the latest. Thank you so much for your patience and continued support! In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed my mini pictorial tour of Italy 🙂

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Careening Down Mulholland Drive, and Blue Line-ing to Long Beach

Last weekend was so nice (temps reaching 80!), I had to put work aside and get out and explore more of L.A. Friday evening I took the snaky Mulholland Drive home, which, thanks to a short story by Michael Connelly, I will always think of as Mulholland Dive. (It’s also the title of a surrealist, rather haunting David Lynch film.)

The street wends itself through the entirety of Hollywood Hills, from west to east L.A. and is the official dividing point between Los Angeles (to the south) and the Valley (to the north). Despite its reputation – and I did find it to be frightening at some points, especially when locals fly around some of those precipitous curves and intimidate you into doing the same – it’s more touristy than I would have thought. There are overlooks everywhere, inviting you to park your car and take pics. Which is what I did. Here are some from the east point, right above Hollywood, looking out over downtown.

It kind of looks like Oz, right? Oz in the distance anyway, beyond the cliff.

On Saturday I wanted to go to a beach. I haven’t been to Laguna yet, but after researching it, thought it was something my mom might like to do when she comes to visit next month, so decided to save it. I haven’t been to Venice yet either but just didn’t feel like driving all the way across town again on my weekend. I get enough of the west side on my weekdays 🙂 Ditto for Malibu.

So, I decided to go down to Long Beach, and to take the Blue Line (one of the seven Los Angeles subway lines) to do it. I’m a rather proud rider of the Los Angeles subway. I guess it’s the New Yorker still in me… (It’s actually called the Metro rail but I like to call it the subway :)) I’ve now taken three of the lines: “my” line  – the Red line, which is probably the most popular, as it goes from the Valley down to Universal City (where Universal Studios is), down through the most touristy parts of Hollywood, then to the trendy Los Feliz, then on to downtown (one of the two big work hubs), and ends at the train station; the Purple line, which is a rather short line and goes to Koreatown; and now the Blue line, which I now know travels not below- but above-ground, and stops first at the Staples Center (which is like Madison Square Garden), then continues on to several more stops in downtown and south L.A., passing through Watts, Compton, and ending at Long Beach.

Curving upward as we leave Long Beach.

This is taken from the Compton station, which is lined with these these big, bold letters spelling the town’s name. I thought they were so artistic. Unfortunately, I couldn’t really get a good picture as the train rolled by, but here is part of the M. I’ve heard Compton is a poor part of town but, if that was ever true, it must have enjoyed a renaissance because it didn’t seem run-down at all. The train passed a big shopping center with a Best Buy and other electronics and high-end stores, and a very snazzy-looking casino.

I found the train ride more interesting than the destination though. I don’t think Long Beach has much of an actual beach; it’s more of a harbor.

…with lots of restaurants and stores.

and a small lighthouse.

and a ferris wheel, which wasn’t being used.

I am learning that much of the food in L.A. tends to be Mexican-ized (this is particularly true of Italian where pasta sauce tastes strangely like mild salsa and risotto like it belongs beside refried beans). I ordered “jerk salmon” at this dock-side restaurant. In New York that would mean the fish would be drenched in that mouth-watering Jamaican sauce that is somehow super spicy, tangy, and sweet all at once. But this was simply grilled salmon topped with mango salsa. Very well-prepared grilled salmon and delicious mango salsa, but IT WAS NOT JERK SALMON!!! Oh well.

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How to Find the Studs in the Wall, How Do Valets Not Lose Keys, and Other Settling into LA Conundrums

Aye, still trying to figure out how to live here… The other weekend I was perusing the antique shops on Magnolia Boulevard in Burbank and this piece of furniture stood out to me. I’ve needed a bookcase since I moved here but I haven’t liked anything I’ve seen in the regular furniture stores. But I loved this one. It’s actually a baker’s rack, not a bookcase, but it serves the same purpose. Plus, ever since shopping the Rose Bowl flea market, I’ve kind of been into unique furniture functioning as something other than it was originally meant for. So I bought the baker’s rack.

But I remembered reading in The Elegant Variation, one of my favorite lit blogs written by a New Yorker turned Angeleno, that when he moved to his new L.A. home, one thing he had to do before loading the bookcases was to earthquake-proof them, meaning fastening them securely to the wall so they wouldn’t topple over in the event of an earthquake.

So this was in the back of my mind when I bought the piece of furniture. The man I bought it from told me no worries, just go to a Home Depot and buy an earthquake proofing packet. It should have everything I need, with instructions. So I did. And the guy there also acted like it should be no big deal; just follow the instructions.

I thought package would consist of some burlap straps which I could tie around the furniture and nail into into the wall. Simple. But so not. According to the instructions, after finding an ideal place to velcro and snap the straps securely around the rack (which was hard because of the rack’s kind of ornate design), I was supposed to screw the things into the wall, for which I’d need a drill of course. But I couldn’t just screw anywhere – I needed to find the studs in the wall so that the furniture would attach to something that would actually hold it, which drywall would not. For this I would need an instrument called a stud-finder. You could also just knock on the wall, but you have to know what you’re listening for – ie: the difference between drywall and a stud – which I most definitely do not. So I bought the stud-finder.

When I got the stud-finder home, I found that it operated on these rather unusual batteries, which I didn’t have and which didn’t come with the instrument, so I had to go out to the drugstore for those. When I finally got the stud-finder all ready to use, I carefully read the back of the package, which contained a kind of hidden warning that you need to be very careful that when the little red stud-finder light goes off, it’s actually a stud it’s found and not a pipe or electrical wire. The stud-finder can easily mix all these up. If you drill into an electrical wire you might be electrocuted and if you drill into a pipe you could really screw up the plumbing. In order to avoid electrocution, the package recommended turning off all electrical outlets. Which of course I needed to operate the drill.

I finally decided to call my management company. I was trying not to be a helpless woman, but, seriously, I have no carpentry skills; this is just way over my head. And I don’t even own this place if I do mess up piping or electrical wiring. I don’t remember the lease saying anything about not letting tenants drill, but I wouldn’t want tenants who know nothing about studs and drywall and pipes and electrical wiring drilling about if I were the owner.

So, a nice man from maintenance came and fixed it up for me. Funny, because he didn’t follow the instructions on the package at all – or even use anything in the package. He just drilled a couple large screws into the wall in strategic places so that if the bookcase were to be volted forward, it would probably be stopped by a screw. Not as secure as the earthquake proof kit, but I guess at this point I’m just not going to worry about it.

When I went to work the next day and told everyone about my angsty weekend, pretty much all of my co-workers laughed, and said they’ve never secured anything into a wall. Most people here don’t, they said – they just figure if it’s a small earthquake like the vast majority are, nothing’s going to happen, and if it’s a big one, we’re all doomed anyway.

So I guess that’s that. Anyway, for better or worse, I loaded the bookcase:

I don’t know what made me think all of my books were going to fit on it. I sold about 80 percent of my print books in N.Y. to the Strand and gave about ten percent more away to Housing Works, but somehow I kept so many that I still have more than will fit in one large floor to ceiling wrought iron case. And of course I’m buying more here (thanks mainly to Book Soup in West Hollywood), which I said I wouldn’t do. Didn’t say I wouldn’t buy books, just that they be of the e-version now.

Speaking of books, I also joined this book club called Ladies’ Guilty Pleasures Book Club, which reads mainly mysteries combined with romance. It’s run by a fantastic book publicist I met here through a journalist networking event named Liz Donatelli.

Anyway, their first meeting at which I joined was at this Italian restaurant on Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks. It was held on a  weeknight, so I left work as early as I could so that I could find the parking lot. Not so that I could find the restaurant, but so that I could figure out where to park. I’m not kidding. Parking is by far the most confusing thing about this city to me, far more frustrating than driving.

As expected, I found the restaurant right away, then spent the next half hour driving back and forth past it trying to figure out where the parking lot was, or if they had one, and if they didn’t, where else to park. I found several general lots on the street, but I couldn’t gauge how far they’d be to walk. Here, it always seems like something is close by, and then when you try to walk it, you realize the streets are wider and longer than in New York and it’s actually much more of a trek than you thought.

Anyway, I finally found a narrow narrow driveway with an arrow pointing down with the words Panzanella (the name of the restaurant) written underneath, so I slammed on my breaks and turned on my – at that point I think left – turn signal, and when traffic finally cleared, sped into the narrow driveway. The parking was valet only. I figured okay, fine, my first valet experience. More of an expense, but I’m just happy to have my car and myself in the lot with five minutes to go before the dinner’s set to begin. But it made me worry the restaurant was going to be all five course $250 prix fixe plates or something.

Of course the valet wanted my car keys and I was all butterfingers as I tried to detach the car fob from the rest of the bundle. When I finally got it free and handed it to him, he flashed me a suave smile and delicately placed my receipt in my hand. Definitely an actor. But then all throughout dinner I kept wondering how he kept all those keys straight. There were so many cars in the lot. What if he mixed them up?

But nothing to worry about. Entrees in the restaurant were priced in the teens and low twenties and most wines weren’t more than $10 per glass. This is one of the oddest things about L.A. to me: a restaurant doesn’t have to be at all high-priced to have a valet only parking lot. The food was very good, and the valet was really good looking and smooth, and he didn’t lose my keys. And the book club was fun, and I made lots of very cool new friends. Next time, we’re meeting Jackie Collins at a restaurant in El Segundo, which should be a blast!

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Roberto Bolle’s Fridge

 

In a recent issue of the Italian magazine Corriere della Serra, Roberto Bolle (along with several other celebrities) revealed the contents of his refrigerators – both the one he keeps in his New York home, and the one in his Milan kitchen. The blogger Gramilano has nicely translated. (Above photo from Gramilano as well.)

So, he’s one of those dancers who’s a real health nut. He eats seitan 🙂  Seriously though, I think seitan is actually quite good. But I’m not sure what he means by not being able to buy mineral water in the United States…

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My Own “Goodbye to All That”

I copied this post from my lit blog, Literary Aperitif (hence the mention of the Sweet Melissa :)). I decided to copy it here to explain (kind of) my decision to leave New York this fall. More on that later. I still plan to cover the dance scene, just the L.A. one!

Not that Joan Didion’s writing could ever really be characterized as “sweet” but Pier 1 Cafe on the Upper West Side, at the Hudson River, is one of my favorite places in NYC (or at least it used to be), and thus seemed to be the perfect place for me to go when I wanted to re-read her 1968 essay “Goodbye to All That,” about her decision to leave New York. I needed to contemplate my own reasons for wanting to leave this city, that I once found so electrifying. The Sweet Melissa (prosecco, peach schnapps, and a splash of orange stoli) is simply what I always have there (though the bartenders seem always to forget how to make it).

When I first read “Goodbye” (which is in her essay collection Slouching Toward Bethlehem), I was new here, and very in love with New York. I really couldn’t understand a word of that essay – emotionally, I mean. It’s funny, but re-reading it, I still don’t understand her exact reasons for becoming so disenchanted. Nor do I understand my own. She opens with the words:

It is easy to see the beginnings of things, and harder to see the ends. I can remember now, with a clarity that makes the nerves in the back of my neck constrict, when New York began for me, but I cannot lay my finger upon the moment it ended, can never cut through the ambiguities and second starts and broken resolves to the exact place on the page where the heroine is no longer as optimistic as she once was.

She goes on to talk about that exact moment when NY began for her. I remember my moment with clarity too. It was May 1993. I’d just received my masters from a school in New England and I’d decided not to continue on with the PhD. But I didn’t really want to go back to Phoenix, where I’m from. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, just knew that academia was not for me. A friend of mine from grad school had a summer job on Wall Street and invited me to stay with him. We sublet his friend’s East Village railroad-style apartment.

We drove down from Providence, Rhode Island. My belongings consisted of two suitcases of clothes and a backpack of books. After we unpacked the car, we walked around the corner of Avenue A to St. Marks Place, the busiest street in the hood, in search of food. We ended up at a cozy-looking fifties-style diner called Stingy Lulus, with shiny red glitter-covered seats and the most beautiful entertainer I’d ever seen – a statuesque black drag queen with sky-high cheekbones and a gorgeously rich, deep voice. And he wore bright red pumps that reminded me of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. And, cliche as it is, I did have a little laugh to myself: you’re not in Kansas anymore! My New York began with that drag queen.

Nowadays, you might, might find such a thing in a tourist spot. Probably not. But this was not a tourist spot. The park at the end of the block – Tompkins Square – was gated shut at night and surrounded by police in riot gear. There’d recently been a squatter’s riot in the area. People sold crack on our doorstep. My friend suggested we abide by Abbie Hoffman’s dictum and be polite and say “no thank you” to them. He also gave me strict warnings not to walk any direction but west – we were surrounded by very bad neighborhoods: Alphabet City, the Lower East Side, and Kips Bay. Only the west village was safe to venture into. I was simultaneously terrified and thrilled.

Eighteen years and eight apartments later, both of those feelings are gone. My only real fear is that I’ll get hit by a car. Seriously. It seems there are more drivers in Manhattan than ever before and they have no respect for the law – not to mention human life – whatsoever. I subscribe to the Gothamist daily and it seems that every other day there is a report of a pedestrian death due to a vehicular assault. In doing research on NYPD for an upcoming book, I read Paul Bacon’s memoir, Bad Cop, and he said something like 75 percent of all drivers he stopped as a traffic cop turned out to be driving with suspended licenses. I dunno, to my mind that’s pretty astounding.

But the bigger problem is there is no thrill for me anymore. Haven’t seen any theater, any dance, been to any restaurants – haven’t really experienced anything for the better part of a decade that really made me feel the way that drag queen did. Which leaves me complaining ad nauseam about things that bother me – noisy neighbors, lack of space, lack of peace and quiet, year-round unpleasant weather (freezing all winter, rainy and humid all summer), exorbitant rents that skyrocket even during a serious recession, once New York phenomena – like the Halloween parade – overtaken by tourists and thus beyond borified. (I don’t know if it’s a word but if it isn’t, I just made it up.)

A friend recently asked me whether I think it’s more me or the city that’s changed. I’m not sure. Probably both. I don’t remember drivers being so horrible for one thing. This is, of course, the most pedestrian-friendly city in the U.S. I also don’t remember neighbors being so noisy. Everyone in my building used to abide by the 85 percent carpet rule (or, if they didn’t, they at least didn’t stomp around in hard-soled shoes all night) and no one blasted music after 11:00 on week nights. Of course this building used to be filled with young professionals who worked 14 hours a day and then partied outside at bars in their free time. Our shoe box apartments were just for sleeping. Now it seems all the studios in my building are inhabited by couples – and even one by a family with two children (which makes no sense to me at all) – instead of single people. Because there are so many more people here, it’s all the noisier. But a lot of the things – like noise and lack of space – probably didn’t bother me as much at the beginning because I was just so excited to be a New Yorker. They came with the package. The fascination far outweighed the annoyances.

All I know is that I need a break. At least for a while. I have two months before I leave and I’m already having bouts of sadness. New York will always be the place where I first felt inspired and then compelled to write. I’ll continue to write about this city, just from L.A. As one friend said, “perspective.”

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Disturbing Dancing Dead Squid

One of my Google+ circle people posted this and I’ve been talked into re-posting it here, which I guess is apt, given that this is a dance blog?…

The squid is actually dead but the soy sauce activates its electrons in this traditional Japanese dish, ika-don, or odori-don. Wonder how popular it actually is in Japan? Go here for more info.

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Codfish “Caviar” in Koreatown

Despite the heatwave, last night my friend and I went to Koreatown for some Korean barbecue. I ordered a dish that looked interesting, which was translated as “Codfish caviar and clams.” Hehe, my friend surmised that perhaps caviar meant the entire reproductive organs of the fish. I looked again. It was rather veiny, did kind of look like a uterus and ovaries. It certainly wasn’t what I was expecting – which was roe about the size of salmon! I tweeted a picture and a Twitter friend told me they actually are eggs, along with the egg sac. His father has them all the time, he said. Funny, I thought I’d tried practically everything, but apparently not! Anyway, they didn’t really have much of a flavor to me, but their consistency was similar to English pudding.

Also ordered a glass of plum wine, not realizing I’d get the entire bottle. Even I couldn’t polish off the whole thing 🙂 Best thing we had, imo, were the spicy little sausages, right at the front of the bottom picture. Delic!

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Maira Kalman at the Jewish Museum

Last week my friend, Alyssa, who’s an independent art curator, invited me to an art / law celebration at the Jewish Museum. The Jewish Museum really knows how to put on a party! They had the most splendid array of hors d’oeuvres, two big carving and sushi stations, and a full bar (not just wine and champagne). I hadn’t been to the Jewish Museum since I saw a Marc Chagall exhibit there I don’t know how many years ago. So, in between nibbling on mini Tuscan pizzettes and sipping Glenmorangie, I wandered into the main exhibit, which is currently featuring the work of Maira Kalman.

Kalman’s mainly a painter and illustrator but is also an essayist and performance artist; kind of an artist at large. She illustrates a lot for the New Yorker. The top picture is from an illustration from that mag.

I really love this one, though. It’s called Grand Central Station. I love it because it evokes the kind of sentiment I was going for in the closing line of Swallow (which I’m not giving away 🙂 )

Then I came across a couple of illustrations of dancers, which of course excited me.

I don’t know who the dancer in the first illustration is, but the bottom is of Pina Bausch. The little explanatory caption below the illustration said that Kalman had a deep admiration for Bausch, got along well with her, and, before Bausch’s death, had wanted to collaborate with her on a dance.

As I walked through the exhibit, I happened upon a couple of sets of videos. In one Kalman, who seems to be quite a character, was collaborating on a performance piece with Nico Muhly and an opera star (whose name I forgot). Muhly was his usual slightly whacked self. Fun! Kalman’s also been involved in a lot of social projects, such as helping to design and create art work for a new library in Harlem. And, much of her work features her dog (below).

Hehe, I was so excited when I saw this. I actually have this picture, clipped from a old New Yorker copy, hanging above one of my bookcases at home. That’ll teach me to look at the name of the illustrator more often!

Anyway, it’s a very good exhibit, and I recommend it. It’s at the Jewish Museum through the end of July.

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Delicious Kumato

I recently found these in the produce section of my local Food Emporium, near the tomatoes. I guess they’re a different kind of tomato – plump and juicy and very mild, not acidic at all.

They’re very deep red, almost brownish in color, both inside and out. Citrus with high acidity tends to give me a stomachache, which these didn’t do at all. I loved them. Not too expensive either. Very happy find!

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Writers Cake!

How sweet is this cake! Last night was the annual Writers Room party, where all the books published by Writers Room members throughout the past year are honored. The Writers Room of NYC, by the way, is the oldest and largest writers’ colony in the country. A membership gives you a quiet space in which to write 24/7, seminars and little lectures from time to time, and group readings at local cafes that you can participate in. Those readings have always been really helpful to me.

Anyway, since Swallow was published so late last year, they waited till this year to celebrate it with the 2010 books. I love how they did the cover of the cake – the top layer with images of all of our book covers was actually edible.

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Page 99 Test for This Week’s Sample Sunday

I hope everyone had a good Christmas. I did. Went to a friend’s to make mulled wine and roasted chestnuts but somehow neither happened. My friend ended up taking me out for a massage, which I seriously needed (especially after spending all morning listening to my next door neighbor’s four unsupervised children run, scream, wail, jump off of his bed loft, and repeatedly ram themselves into the walls of his approximately 200 square foot apartment, nearly sending several of my paintings crashing to the floor). Then when we got back to her apartment, another friend came over with a bottle of vintage Scotch, which was lovely, and which, for the same aforesaid reason, I desperately needed. But somehow we just didn’t get a whole lot of cooking done after that…

Anyway, I almost forgot about Sample Sunday this week. (This is a new promotion for authors on Twitter, to link to a sample passage from one of their books.) I recently uploaded page 99 of Swallow for the newish Page 99 Test site (wherein readers rate how likely they’ll be to buy your book based on a random page somewhere in the middle), but I didn’t realize you couldn’t access the site without signing up for an account. So, I’m pasting my page 99 into the body of this post instead. Here it is:

Okay, I made it worse. I decided to cut my losses and just shut up.

We found Stephen in the next room examining a sketch of Rodin’s sculpture of a woman with her legs splayed in the air.

“This is the ideal woman,” he nodded.

“She’s upside down,” I said.

“Well, obviously. I mean the proportions. Fleshy womb, generous hips, well proportioned-breasts…” He sounded lost in a dream. I cocked my head to try to see her right-side up as Stephen became interested in a Gauguin Polynesian princess. From what I could tell, her body seemed very unlike mine.

I followed Thom’s laughter to some advertisements. There was a hilarious turn-of-the-century one of a woman riding witch-like not a broom, but an uncorked, exploding champagne bottle. Another, more contemporary one, depicted a naked woman, her back to the viewer, but head cocked over shoulder, demurely smiling, sitting at an outdoors picnic with two fully clothed men and a stereo. Caption read, “We could all use a bit of romance in our lives.” Like, buy the stereo, get the woman included. There were naked women selling sports cars, men’s cologne, everything under the sun. This room could have gone on forever and a day.

I saw Stephen shaking his head at something. I walked up. It was an advert featuring a naked female model being sprayed playfully by a hose. Honestly couldn’t tell exactly what it was advertising though. Tap water? Didn’t think so.