Who was Cassandra?
In the Iliad, she is described as the loveliest of the daughters
of Priam (King of Troy), and gifted with prophecy. The god Apollo
loved her, but she spurned him. As a punishment, he decreed
that no one would ever believe her. So when she told her fellow
Trojans that the Greeks were hiding inside the wooden horse...well,
you know what happened.
the cassandra pages
words, pictures, and a life
Saturday, February 28, 2004 NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY. The banner reads "Russia and the World".
Well, we ran into three problems with our book contract. The first was a completely unexpected bombshell: the sales manager insisted that the book needed to be completed not by the end of July, but by the end of MAY in order to make the annual religious bookseller's fair, and have a chance of being reviewed in Publisher's Weekly and in major newspapers. She's probably right - but why weren't we (and the editor) told that before we came up with an approved schedule? The second problem was money - we would be underwriting the cost of the book to a very significant degree even after the advance, and the accelerated schedule would make that cost even greater and more disproportionate. And the third, and to me, most serious problem was a clear indication that there would be editorial interference with the content and tone of the book. This is, after all, a book about integrity. I'd like to preserve mine as well.
So we didn't sign, and will make a final decision soon after talking to some other people. I'm disappointed but not devastated, and grateful that I'm 51 and fairly savvy, as opposed to being so eager that I would have leapt at any chance and found myself in a mess.
Thursday was a strange day. In the morning I took a long walk by myself up Fifth Avenue, all the way to Central Park. I passed the New York Public Library: there's a photo of me there, next to the lions, from my very first trip to New York when I was five. I walked past Rockefeller Center, and stopped to admire the window displays at Saks, and listened to the bells reverberate off the skyscrapers from St. Patrick's Cathedral at exactly 10:00 am. I gave some change to a homeless man sitting in front of a fancy store, and waited for the next light next to a woman in high heels, a sable coat, and carrying a big Vuitton handbag. That's New York: all the extremes, all at once. As I stepped onto the pink granite tiles that form the sidewalk in front of the Trump Tower, a young woman came toward me talking earnestly on her cell phone. "You can't believe it," she was saying to someone far away. "This place is just - awesome."
I thought about being that little girl in front of the library, dazzled by Manhattan; about how she turned into a bookworm; about all those New Yorker magazines my family had read for years; all that talk of the literary scene; the dreams of one day writing a book myself. There was no telling what would happen in our meetings later that day, but I knew that a board of New York editors had read and liked my writing enough to recommend pubishing it, and that there was a contract in my room, ready to sign if I wanted to. It was a beautiful day, the warm morning light shining on the buildings, cool air on my face as I walked, light on my feet: it was a great feeling, and the memory of it will stay with me. That night, after the meetings , I felt sad and disappointed and angry, but I still felt like I was part of this great city in a new way, a way I never had before. Or maybe I felt like I could finally take it or leave it; that I was less dependent on its steely, glassy, lofty judgment, and that I'd arrived at a different definition of success.
ASH WEDNESDAY FURS (Outside St. Patrick's Cathedral, Fifth Avenue)
We made a very good presentation but came home without making a deal; more news on that front tomorrow. But in blogging news: Cassandra and Language Hat got together for a drink close to the New York Public Library, and she would like to report that LH is just as erudite, charming, and amusing as you would expect from his blog, that he arrived wearing a hat, has good taste in beer, and that he had just bought a book from the Library sale (which she never got to, sad to say).
New York was exhilarating and exhausting, and we're glad to be home.
8:58 PM
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Tuesday, February 24, 2004
ONLY IN QUEBEC
Fortune cookies, Montreal-style (I've flipped the paper over in the second view).
I hope these, from last weekend, are accurate. We're heading to the Big Apple early tomorrow morning for two days of meetings and talks about the potential book and the contract details. We'll be giving a presentation on Thursday morning to the corporate, editorial, sales, and marketing people and having a business meeting later in the day.
It will be good to be in the city again. We haven't been in New York for a year; the last time was for the big demonstration against the Iraq war last February 15th, and that was a day trip - down on a very early bus and back late that night - a cruel way to encounter and be yanked out of our favorite city. Yes, I do love New York best, but it's too expensive now for us to even consider living there or going for more than short visits. Still, there's no other city like it, and I look forward to feeling that pulse again - camera in hand.
The light streaming in from the south is so dazzling it burns my eyes, and I have to get up and walk away from the window. I carry the teapot back into the kitchen, and crouch down, cat-like, to stretch my back, looking out in the other direction. Here on the north side the world is still cool, caressed by long blue shadows of trees. Elliptical snowshoe tracks lead to the bird feeder -- and delicate hopping tracks lead from the feeder to the cherry tree. The shadow of the feeder sways against the snow, and behind it, stiff wheat-colored stalks of hosta click dryly against each other. Out in front, by the street, water is dripping over the stone wall, and moss softens, greens. But here the tears of the weeping peaberry are frozen like a Russian heroine's, abandoned on the steppes, listening for wolves.
4:20 PM
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Sunday, February 22, 2004 All-night grocer, Montreal. We double-parked here while J. ran in to a place called Al-Taib - ("Good") on the other side of the street to get Middle Eastern fast-homecooked-food.
Last week at this time we were driving back from Montreal. This morning the preaching went well - I was relaxed, and people were open and responsive. It was World Mission Sunday, and I spoke on "Re-Thinking World Mission", saying basically that the time for Christian mission to convert people is over; mission now needs to mean learning to respect and get along with each other - especially Christians and Muslims - despite differences.) Later we had brunch with the priest and her partner, I ran some errands, took an unusual (for me) nap and then we worked. It was pretty warm today - over 30 degrees.
Shirin just called from Santa Monica where she's vacationing and having a few job interviews. All winter she's been pining for Shiraz and telling us, "There really are warmer places to live, you know." When we go north for a break in the middle of winter, she just shakes her head and says, "you're crazy."
"I'm not coming back," she announced today on the phone. "It's like June here. Flowers everywhere. The bougainvilla are blossoming, the impatiens are tall, almost gone by."
"I know," I said, a little sullenly.
"I told my husband he can come back and sell the house. I'm staying here."
"You don't love me," I said. (She likes this sort of banter; it's very Middle Eastern. I've learned how to do it as a means of self-preservation, like learning how to refuse food. Otherwise it gets done to you.)
"You can come visit. "
"Now I know you really don't love me, if you're talking like that."
"It's easy, you just get on a plane. You wouldn't believe how beautiful it is out here, flowers, warm..."
"I do know. My California blogger friends have been posting pictures and talking about blooming trees. It's awful."
"No, it's great!"
"You can't move. If you move I'll starve."
Silence. "Oh."
"I mean it. What will we eat if you go away?"
"OK." She's laughing now. "Then I guess I have to come back."
