Friday, June 29, 2007

Capote, Guerlain, and Dylan

Reading short fiction by Truman Capote, I came across this mention of L'Heure Bleue. Capote also mentions other perfumes by Guerlain in his books. Other authors who like to spritz a little Guerlain into their stories are Maeve Binchy and Ian Fleming. Fleming loved Guerlain products and the women in his James Bond books always smelled extra sexy.

I have been buying a few books lately, as well as hitting the libraries. I suddenly find enough time on my hands to read a book every day. I was sitting in the mall having coffee, and took this snap of an old woman. She was sitting very peacefully, emitting good vibes. But not for long-- her daughter, granddaughter and great granddaughter arrived. The great granddaughter was in a stroller, dozing off, but the daughter and granddaughter were wide awake, and totally unpleasant. They were loud, non-stop complainers who bullied the older woman to join them in a quest to squander her retirement funds.They came into my personal space and were so loud and dramatic they changed all of the stale mall air around us into "crazed hostile mall air." they hustled the poor agitated woman off and forced her to march to some stores to power shop.

I wandered over to one of the bookstores and picked up some books. This morning I was thinking maybe I should write down the titles of books that mention Bob Dylan. Non-fiction and social science books will often mention his impact on culture. Novels may have a setting where a Bob Dylan song is playing, or a particular lyric is mentioned. His name does pop up much more often than you would think, and yet it is never a surprise, since he is a legend throughout the world. This week I came across him three times in books (In Sharon Butala's memoir she recalls traveling across winter Canada to see Bob in concert, In a novel by Donna Masini the main character listens to Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks", and Bob gets a brief mention in a novel by Eva Heller.) Someone must be documenting this, but not me. I wonder how often Bob himself runs across a mention of himself in books he reads. Maybe he shrugs it off, for him it may be like reading a mention of some familiar product, just a bit more familiar than a bottle of your favorite perfume.