Titles, Inc.

I Drink Whiskey

Art’s slide show and talk had finished, the large crowd was milling. This was a second bar that had scheduled him for a speaker.  A strange venue, I thought, when he was invited to lecture with his photos in a bar the first time.  The tables are moved and seats are set up in rows like a little theater.  The audience loves him. 

I sat at the bar facing out, leaning back on my elbows, people watching .  A tall, handsome man (50? 60?), sat down next to me.  “What are you drinking?”  “Um, actually nothing.”  “Let me get you a Jack Daniels.  That OK?”  I didn’t think it worldly to ask, What’s a Jack Daniels?  But I did.  He told me it was the best whiskey, I should take it with a water chaser.  He ordered two.  I faced in to the bar and he gave instructions on how to drink this set-up in front of me.

“Take a tiny sip, then a sip of water.”  Oh.  Yes.  I can see why you need that sip of water.  He asked, “Great? Right?”  I took another sip.  Not bad.  He was from the neighborhood, and assumed I was too, and very animatedly discussed local Chicago politics.  I suddenly understood the bar scene.  Instant camaraderie.  An immediate audience.  No more aloneness.  (You can see this was my first time solo at a bar).  I sipped. He was much more engaged in his conversation than I was, so when I saw a familiar face out there, I excused myself and walked away saying I would be back – which I think I meant.  When I did return, he was gone.  The bartender in front of my empty seat said apologetically, “He drank your drink, too.” 

So I have a new favorite drink.  But you can’t drift around at a cocktail party holding a Jack Daniels in one hand, and a glass of water in the other.  What do you do with your purse?  So much to learn. 

---Florence

From What Part of the World…?

He had the opened book up to his face and he sniffed.  He said, “I can tell where a book came from by its smell.  I mean where in the world it came from.”  Uh huh. Simone and I were polite.  He continued, “Of course you can tell if it came from a smoker’s house.”  I nodded.  I had heard that cigarette smoke permeates books. 

“Books from the UK have a musty smell.  No air-conditioning.  Books from France have a wine smell – very pleasant.”  We encouraged him.  He loves books, travels a lot, and looks for bookshops wherever he finds himself.  “Belgium and Holland have a damp smell, they have little sun. Australian books have very little smell, it’s dry there.”

“Arizona is also dry, hardly any smell.  Florida’s books have a humid smell.”

I said, “But I get all my books from the neighborhood.  How does that smell?”  He said, “I smell where the book spent most of its life.  I smell kitchen smells.  Even different paper has different smells.”

We were getting into it.  Simone said, “You can be a perfume tester.”  He said he wouldn’t like that.  I said, “You can sniff out drugs.  And you won’t be nearly as conspicuous as a dog.”  He thought I was teasing, but I thought it was a great idea.

“What do you do, actually?” I asked.  He said he was a semi-retired trial lawyer, and yes, he chose whom he would represent, and his clients were not criminals, they were involved in white-collar infractions.  I didn’t ask whether he could sniff out their truthfulness, because that didn’t matter anyway.

I asked whether he could smell where people came from.  He said, “No.”

On reflection, one can easily tell where people come from by their accents.  Did I say easily?  I asked my waitress and she said, Bulgaria.  I thought Greece.  I’m not good at this game.

We had lunch with a couple visiting from Spain.  Anticipating a Spanish accent, I got instead, a man with a heavy French accent, and his wife with an intense South African accent.  She had grown up in South Africa and moved to Spain with her husband.  Her French husband was born in Russia, but there was not trace of that in his voice.  Instead his English sounded as though he was speaking French, and I found myself trying to translate his English back into English. 

Yes, he spoke a little Spanish, she none at all.  She said she understood very little Spanish, but everyone speaks some English in Spain.  I forgot to ask why they were living in Spain.  He is a publisher and keeps his main office in Paris, but can carry on handily in Spain.  Perhaps they were in Spain because he had already lived in Russia, Paris, New Zealand, and South Africa.  Why not Spain? 

“But,” his wife confided, “I love New York most of all.  I love New York.  I expect that we will live there in the future.”

I was very enthusiastic about this vision of her future.  “Eric,” I said, “You will love living in New York.  It’s a logical place for a publisher, and an adventurer like yourself.” 

He looked puzzled.  “New York?  New York?  I will never live in New York.  I cannot live in an apartment.  I have to have a garden around me. New York? Never New York!”

I looked at my new friend who was hearing this for the first time.  I was immediately sorry that it was I who had wakened her to reality and destroyed her beautiful future - fantasy that it was. 

Spain forever?  Oh dear. 

---Florence

Two Men Walk Into a Bar….

She said to her husband, “Tell them the story about your friend at the bar.”  We were all at a restaurant talking about our younger days.  We perk up to listen to the anecdote.  He started, “My friend was at this bar…”  “No,” she said, “He met you on the street.”  He said, “You tell it, you remember it better.”  “No, it’s your story, you tell it.”  He began again, “We were walking down the street…”  “No,” she interrupts, “He met you and said…  Oh, all right, I’ll tell it.  But it’s your story.”

She relates, Greg was walking down the street and he runs into an old friend.  The friend said let’s have a drink, I’m on my way to the bar right now.  So Greg agrees, and they go into the bar.  As they walk up to sit down, the friend sees someone he knows and he hurries over to greet him.  “Arty!” the friend say, “Arty, I haven’t seen you in years!”  He introduces them, “This is Arty Miller, we went to school together, we were really good buddies!”  They shake hands all around. 

The friend is excited to find his long ago classmate.  “Arty, how are you, how’re you doing?”  Arty says, “Fine, how are you doing?”  And the friend says, “Great, I’m doing great.  I have a ladies shoe store, and you know ladies and their shoes, I’m doing great.”

“So Arty,” he asks, “What are you doing these days?”  Arty answers, “I’m writing.”

Friend says, “Writing?  Like what? What’re you writing?”   Arty says, “Plays.”

Friend looks at him dubiously, “Plays?”  Arty says, “Plays.”  Friend says, cautiously, “Any I heard of”  Arty shrugs, “Maybe.”  Friend says, “Tell me one.  Maybe I did hear of it.”

Arty says, “Death of a Salesman.”

Friend is frozen.  “YOU’RE  ARTHUR  MILLER ?????????????”

We laugh hysterically, and she looks at her husband with a satisfied expression – that’s how you tell a story.  Yes, indeed.

----Florence