Some time after her death, it came to me to explore the archive that Miss Callas had assembled over the course of her life. The library, a room in her apartment at 36 Avenue Georges Mandel, documented Maria’s attempt to internalize the musical world for the sake of her art. It was required of Callas, she believed, to swallow the world entirely in order to emit Norma or Medea.
Her archive was not yet picked over. It looked mad, crooked, and it contained many of her possessions, her letters and scores, which would later disappear.
Everything stopped abruptly
Over the wide room, a hologram of Aristotle Onassis sprang up here and there, recommending spy fiction and a catalogue from Van Cleef & Arpels. He addressed the camera, and thus me, in a “get a load of this” tone. He blew me a kiss.
A glance took in her collection of scores and a stack of 8-track tapes for language acquisition (Introductions to Turkish, Persian, German). She spoke Greek, French, English and the Italian dialect of Veronese, usually in a blend, multidimensionally, rising and falling like the keys of a typewriter. I saw copies of Macbeth and a biography of Nicholas and Alexandra, dog-eared, which she had carried around for a while, moving from one carry-on bag to another.
This is disgusting, said Ari, looking around.
This is a disgrace, said Ari. (In the end, I would find several cremated poodles who were lost in the shelves.) Ha, he said suddenly. Mincing, he held up a trashy biography of Jackie Kennedy mid-1970s, and raffishly kissed her paper cheek. His head is the head of the minotaur, and people whisper how can she sleep with him?
Jackie Kennedy is a bag of bones, he once not only told Maria, but told her in front of guests. An incalculable gift.
My assistant asked if we might come across some special map of Greece to lead us to hidden archeological treasures. Of course not, you idiot, I said. He and I congratulated each other on the significant finds, like a purple metal garbage can sporting a silkscreened picture of Jackie at JFK’s funeral. Should I throw out the inevitable junk? I wondered if the word theft could be applied, as we shuttled away piles of hotel room stationery, covered in notes and lists and letters.
Jackie Kennedy bled into the real Kennedys, Jack and Bobby, JFK and RFK
And everything was confidential
(FBI agents burst through a tear in time)
And life was lived like something snapped off
The other woman was more interesting than Ari himself. This is for whom he would leave me, wrote Callas on Excelsior Hotel paper. This is my weight in gold. This is my value in couture. This is my bag of secrets.
This is our Hisarlik, I tell my assistant. This is our Hisarlik, this is our Troy, this is our flaming library, Alexandria under our feet, this Knossos, this is our old religion.
Nowhere is the possibility of milking as self-annihilation more evident than when it involves a beautiful woman with flawless styling. Daphne Guinness remarks later that ‘self-annihilation is a prerequisite to growth’. The milking of a model is the fashion equivalent to Pete Townshend smashing his guitar. Here, Guinness performs a wipe-out gesture of her own.
Milking began as an in-joke among young male Newcastle University students, a little light relief during exam time. Young people took bottles full of litres of milk and emptied them on their heads, for no discernible purpose other than that, for a time, it seemed like the thing to do. Milking quickly caught on through YouTube, generating tens of thousands of views, and spread to other British cities and towns, including Edinburgh, Oxford and Cirencester. People milked in trees and from a second floor window, soaking the man below and his cereal. Participants competed in choosing the funniest, most unexpected locations for their milkings, just as others had done with the phenomenon of ‘planking’.
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Planking involved lying stiff as a board in a surprising spot, and became the quintessential Internet meme. Because of a rush to outdo other ‘plankers’ in choosing an outlandish site, a variety of injuries and one fatality resulted. So far milking has proven harmless, unless you consider the fate of the milk itself.
In fact, milking was displaced by the invention of ‘porting’ at Durham University, in which male students pour a bottle of port over their white dress shirts (which are thus ruined) and dark suit pants. Although port is much more expensive than milk, no one can construct much of an argument regarding the importance of its preservation. It is hard to argue that those who waste milk are improving the world, but some might see a virtue in those who waste alcohol. These competing memes (from competing universities) can be seen on YouTube, which critic Wayne Koestenbaum refers to as a kind of ‘shame-kiln’ in his book Humiliation (2011),[1]
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Director Nick Knight’s suggestion began as a joke on the geographic spread of the milking craze, from its origin in Newcastle to Bruton Place, Mayfair, one of the most expensive neighborhoods in London. Multimedia artist and model Daphne Guinness hadn’t heard of milking before, but quickly latched onto the idea and saw that it was the best way to celebrate a pending move. Location was on Knight’s mind.
In fact, on the next day (1 February 2013), SHOWstudio itself moved to a new site on Motcomb Street, Belgravia. Milking Mayfair had the adults paying tribute to a meme developed by youth, and restaging it in a formidably expensive, grown-up context.
I try to tell him again, but he is not listening.
They’re coming to get her.
Who, grandad, I ask sadly.
He points with his nose at Catherine/Kate on TV.
Aristocrat, he says decidedly in the TV room. He leans back in the armchair with a palm on one armrest, his legs lavishly crossed. He is grand.
Soon the sentences will stop, so we try to avoid cutting off any in formation. We wait a while.
His name is Jock, a name not really in use anymore. He is a thing without a relevant name. And Kate is no aristocrat.
What we don’t know is that, for his Royal Wedding day, the nurses have given him a secret to chew on like a horse on a bouquet of flowers.
The secret, about which he is right: she should wear an off-white dress.
| OUT | IN |
| Greece | Germany |
| Mount Athos | Greece |
| Kate Middleton’s ghastly mother | Camilla Parker-Bowles |
| decorative political morons | the end of Christine O’Donnell |
| the Burmese military | Aung San Suu Kyi |
| limos | Town Cars |
| less getting to know the royal couple | let’s have the wedding already |
| Tavi: child fashionista | Karl Lagerfeld in every capacity |
| the red carpet | Lagerfeld’s private lunch with Princess Caroline in “Lagerfeld Confidential” |
| robocalls | Shepard Fairey’s Suu Kyi poster |
| Vampire squid and your mortgage | Matt Taibbi: an expert on both |
| In Treatment: new season | In Treatment’s “Sunil” character |
| Spain | Italy |
| Portugal | Spain |
| Animal shelters need $$$ now: give | Zenyatta: the magnificent racehorse |
| freak pets that end up in shelters | fish: always room for a bowl |
| hopping Asian carp | The first ever Census of Marine Life |
| Law and Order: LA | Law and Order: SVU |
| The Facebook Movie | |
| letting Buck House slowly collapse | weak jobless “recovery” throughout Europe & NA |
| George Michael not making music | Nicki Minaj |
| subway | streetcar |
| The Event: I give up | Oprah Abandonment Syndrome |
| the dying art of hiding schlock | embarrassing bits on iPod lists: Tom Jones, anyone?!? |
| CNN | BBC |
| Marc Jacob’s “Bang” campaign | Creed: Spice and Wood visuals |
| Kathy Griffin (just kidding) | Cher |
| Thierry Mugler’s “Angel” | Solange Azagury-Partridge lips ring |
| Blackglama | PETA |
| interviewing MJ’s kids | journalistic ethics: get some |
| judges | lawyers |
| doctors | nurses |
| Mick Jagger | Keith Richards |
| Sarah Palin, forever | Hillary is all that remains |
Summoning up all the wildness he possesses in his tiny frame, the little boy with the crenelated mouth is caught in a nanosecond of indecision, just before he winds up and hurls his grenade.
His empty hand, often referred to as a “claw”, forms the shape of another grenade, as successfully as a mime’s. The tension in this hand is astonishing: he grips a shape so solid and particular through empty air that you think of the circumference of an aluminum can, or a back-up grenade. Indeed, there had been a back-up grenade, lost when the boy attempted to blow up the alley next to his building (1).