Fall chores

A pleasant homeowner day, raking leaves, running errands. The royalties from down south arrived today, before the play even opens, which is not always the case. Their prompt attention to finances lets me forgive their negligence in forgetting me on the poster. Money over fame. How much? as Yeats asked about the Nobel. Kissin' don't last, cookin' do, to quote dear Esther about marriage. The practical v. the romantic views of life and the arts.

Speaking of which, no film buys more into the romantic view of the writer than Some Came Running, which I caught on cable yesterday. Corny, melodramatic, unrealistic, I still watch it for Shirley MacLaine's performance and for the scene when she confronts the school teacher and later tries to explain the meaning of Sinatra's short story. My first love affair, in Berkeley just before I joined the Army, was with a high school senior (!) who looked like "Jennie" in this film. Astonishingly, a couple years later in Germany I ran into her in the Px, married and with a kid whose paternity puzzled me. Mine? I'll never know.

Mailer may have been the last novelist to buy into this WWII era romantic view of the writer, writer as Byronesque epic tragic warrior hero. Mailer was always trying to get his rivals in the boxing ring. It's fun to watch this myth in action now and again, and the film based on the James Jones novel does a decent job of its propaganda. I bought into it myself as a young man, though the real world is a quick, tough teacher in this regard. Kissin' don't last, cookin' do.