Subway Sketching & Movie Skepticism

Dear person with a notepad on the subway,

Please stop sketching me. I get ‘the world is your canvas’ mentality. I’m an artist too. But right now my roommate and I are sleepy, hung-over, in gym clothes, and trying to talk about our sex lives. So can you just leave us alone?

The fact that we’re even serving as inspiration to you right now is mind-boggaling to me. Me with my greasy hair. Her in her sweatpants. Not exactly a Vermeer get-up. Yes, I know what you’re doing – your eyes are darting up and down between us and your scrap paper on which you’re frantically scribbling. You know I’ve caught you, and I just really don’t want to be observed right now. And you’re probably making me look bad…

We had to pass the boho artist when exiting at 59th street. I tried to glance down at his scrap paper which he subtly and protectively buried in his chest. In some old movie, a character referenced an ancient Indian tribe that believed drawing someone took away their power, obliterating a part of their soul. For some reason, on this particular morning, I felt like I was being robbed.

….

In a previous post, I mentioned the orgasmically good book The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory that is now being made into a movie with Natalie Portman and Scarlet Johansson (casting directors, why?). Now the juicy trailer’s come out. Not sure what I think, but it doesn’t really matter since I’m paying to see this one no matter what. History, deformed babies, incest, sibling rivalry – that combo’s irresistible. The execution of this movie will have to be impressively bad to mess up this great a story. But I’m sure Hollywood will manage.

You know where I’ll be February 29th.

Model Behavior Recommends: European Travel Edition

1. Summer READING. Manhattan’s not really a city that’s conducive to curling up with a book. I find I’m either frantically running around, productively working, or unproductively dancing intoxicated. In my spare moments at home, after I’ve swept, sanitized my sink, and done laundry, I have little will-power to read. I prefer to pass out in front of my overpriced Time Warner cable and indulge in watching some really bad TV. The best part about aspiring to write for television is that hours of relaxation in front of shows like Ugly Betty and Greek can be justified as ‘researching the industry.’ Now that I’ve extracted myself from
a) Manhattan
b) My social life
c) Work and
d) Domestic chores of any kind
for more than a long weekend, I finally have the opportunity to relish in fictional literature that I don’t have to write term papers about. Since I thought reading for pleasure again might come as a shock to my system, I decide to start with some trashy chick lit to slowly acclimate my brain to the idea of un required reading. Lauren Weisberger’s attempting to sustain a writing career after getting lucky with The Devil Wears Prada, so I chose to read her second stab at literary greatness, Everyone Worth Knowing. I hoped to connect with the book since it’s primarily about New York nightlife. I also hoped to observe and perhaps learn a thing or two from Lauren’s apparently successful chick lit writing style. Well, Lauren thinks that Bungalow 8 is still a hot spot, that Cipriani’s Downtown is only a restaurant, and that Rush and Malloy would stalk and publish photographs of a nobody PR assistant. Some of her observations were dead on, but similar to Devil Wears Prada, the book only hit one note (Devil Wears Prada being: My boss is crazy. My boss is crazy. Everyone Worth Knowing being: People who party for a living are crazy. People who party for a living are crazy.) Neither of these points are especially revolutionary.

After breezing through the book on my first plane ride I moved on to John Fowles’ The Magus. Dauntingly thick, wonderfully written, and a must-read in my opinion. I’ve never read a novel with so many plot twists. My jaw was continually agape. Men: You’ll like The Magus as well. The narrator’s a dude.

Having finished that I indulged in my current historical fiction obsession, the princess books by Philippa Gregory. There’s no drama like that of Henry the VIII, the Tudors, war, trade, and marrying for power and position. There’s always the threat of getting tortured, beheaded or thrown in the tower. Besides learning English history, you learn fascinating facts like the gents in 1550 had condoms made of sheepskin and thought that vegetables were unhealthy. The books also serve as an excellent stepping-stone for fantasizing continually about how awesome it would be to be Queen of the world (an activity I like to indulge in often). If you want to check out Philippa Gregory start with her bestseller The Other Boleyn Girl. Sadly, it’s being made into a glossy movie with Natalie Portman and Scarlet Johansson. I really hope the script’s good enough to carry the movie since these star’s acting ability is squat.

2. Hotel Reservations Online: Since I’m essentially a gypsy floating around Southern Europe with my travel plans in continual fluctuation, I’ve found the concept of reserving hotels on the Internet especially helpful. Since Cingular delightfully charges me two dollars a minute for using my phone outside the USA and rejects my Italian SIM (even though the phone is technically unlocked, Cingular you are crooks) calling places to see if they have available rooms is out of the question. I’ve become obsessed with Hotel Reservations.com, and not just because the site name’s super easy to remember. First off they have cool discounts. I booked a stay at the absurdly expensive Exedra in Rome for 30% off. It was still expensive, but the Exedra gets away with high prices since it’s the only hotel in central Rome with an outdoor swimming pool, an infinity pool that is, overlooking majestic Piazza della Republica.

The site also has super sophisticated search options, like searching for hotels near certain landmarks (Termini train station in Rome for example) and it organizes the results in any manner you choose, telling you literally how many kilometers the hotel is from the landmark (since we all know hotels LIE – they’re actually NOT a five minutes from Piazza di Spagna unless you take the subway and then sprint.) The best feature however, is that they don’t charge your credit card in advance like many discount, online, hotel reservation services do. So you can cancel and book something else with ease. It’s the inability to cancel or modify reservations that’s kept me away from online hotel booking in the past. This is Europe for Christ’s sake. No plans hold firm. Here you can secure a good price in advance, and not be penalized when your romantic getaway is thwarted, you break up, change vacation destinations or realize you never wanted to go to Riccione is the first place. You can also search hotels by ‘user ratings’ and discover quirky pre-approved hotels and off the beaten path Bed and Breakfasts. Or you can search using my personal favorite criteria, ‘cheapest double room’ near the best shopping street in town. See link below:

3. For my Expat in Italy friends: LA GIOSTRA restaurant in Florence. Nobody knows about it, it’s centuries old, unpretentious, and the best food in town. Pear and prosciutto ravioli in a light cream sauce in a quiet, romantic environment, eating among locals with an appropriate price. Need I say more?

4. OTRANTO.

Want to take an Italian vacation without being run over by herds of Japanese tourists and American backpackers with iPods? Head to the deep south and check out this amazing fortified walled town. It’s ten times lovelier than the south of France with that same charming feel and the beaches are actually NICE. There’s 5 star hotel hidden inside the town, extraordinary sandy shores nearby, and a fascinating history. The Roman city-state / port was used by the Greeks and eventually conquered by the Turks. Otranto’s lighthouse is the Eastern most point in Italy, and on a clear day you can see the snow capped mountains of Albania on the other side of the Adriatic.