Hotel Retreat, Day 7

After a busy day at school, giving my seminar, meeting with students, and catching the beginning of Rick Moody's reading, I met Stuart Krimko for dinner in the hip downtown part of Culver City, which is so far from the part I'm staying at, Stuart asked more than once, "Is that really still Culver City?"  Stuart and I had a great time when we were a threesome with Ariana Reines in San Francisco last month, but we had no idea if Stuart and Dodie alone would work.  When the waiter announced it was Wine Wednesday, meaning bottles of wine were half off, we both excitedly took it as a sign, for when we went out to dinner in San Francisco, it was Half Off Wine Tuesday.  We sipped some nice French wine that Stuart picked out and launched into a three and a half hour conversation, about art and writing, and whether we thought the self resided in the brain or elsewhere, Stuart attempted to explain Kierkegaard to me, we talked about in-laws, Long Island, sex, Ariana of course, we talked about work and love and relationships, Jesus as a cult leader, how kinky devotion is underrated these days.  Since Akasha, where we dined, is a classy place, they played quality Christmas music, a jazz version of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," etc.

There were these really weird shaped lights hanging from the exposed beamed ceiling.   My picture doesn't do them justice.  But I like how the eyes of the people in the foreground are glowing white, matching the dots of white light in the background.  My mind starts tripping out on some Children of the Damned/zombie scenario, where the dots of light in the background are controlling the trendy eaters in the foreground.  When their eyes glow white they turn homicidal, or something like that. 

Here's a picture of the parking garage across the street.  The section of Level 3 where I was parked was named Gilda.  And it had paintings of black-silhouetted people in evening clothes.  There's one woman in this picture, the waist down of her black gown between "Gilda" and "Level 3," the top of her body bent and extending across the ceiling.  Southern California is such a friendly, pleasure-loving place.