{"id":23290,"date":"2011-11-14T13:00:27","date_gmt":"2011-11-14T18:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=23290"},"modified":"2011-11-15T11:31:53","modified_gmt":"2011-11-15T16:31:53","slug":"a-week-in-culture-sadie-stein-writer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/11\/14\/a-week-in-culture-sadie-stein-writer\/","title":{"rendered":"A Week in Culture: Sadie Stein, Editor"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/a>DAY ONE<\/strong><\/p>\n

4:00 A.M. <\/strong>I can\u2019t sleep. Because I just moved from Brooklyn into Manhattan, my books aren\u2019t unpacked, and so my reading options are limited. The only books I have handy are on decorating\u2014although it\u2019s usually a pretty theoretical study in my case. The pattern of the boards on the floor of this new apartment reminds me of floors I saw in Krak\u00f3w when I visited there with my father, and I\u2019ve decided rather grandly to do a sort of prewar Eastern European motif. (Again, this is probably theoretical. ) Wonder vaguely where one would find a tiled stove in New York.<\/p>\n

I read a few chapters of the inimitable Dorothy Draper\u2019s Decorating Is Fun!<\/em><\/a>, which is filled with gems like \u201cIt is just as disastrous to have the wrong accessories in your room as it is to wear sport shoes with an evening dress,\u201d as well as the somewhat less helpful \u201cI don\u2019t believe anything can do as much for a room as a glowing fire in an attractive fireplace. Men and dogs love an open fire\u2014they show good sense. It is the heart of any room and should be kindled on the slightest provocation.\u201d (That said, I\u2019m guessing Alexa Chung or someone is wearing sports shoes with an evening dress as we speak, and probably causing a sensation. Imagine a world with rules and dicta. The mind boggles.)<\/p>\n

5:30 A.M.<\/strong> Finally manage to drift off for a few hours, until a handyman unexpectedly knocks at the door at 7:45 to wash the windows. It occurs to me that this is just the sort of dubious ruse a murderer or thief might use to gain entrance to someone\u2019s apartment; let him in anyway.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>9:00 A.M. <\/strong>I pass an angry-looking gentleman on the way to the subway.
\u201cHello,\u201d I say.
\u201cBloomingdales, Bloomingdales!\u201d he shouts.<\/p>\n

3:53 P.M.<\/strong> I get some sad family news. Internet is in and out here, but in a good moment, I find my favorite Barbara Pym quote: \u201cThe small things of life were often so much bigger than the great things … the trivial pleasure like cooking, one\u2019s home, little poems especially sad ones, solitary walks, funny things seen and overheard.\u201d<\/p>\n

4:45 P.M.<\/strong> My old boyfriend e-mails me about a recent fight he got into at a dinner party, over collective nouns. \u201cI was quite put out, let me tell you,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

6:00 P.M.<\/strong> Go to meet a colleague at a venerable midtown bar. Some visiting businessmen tell me I remind them of \u201csomething out of a Woody Allen movie.\u201d I respond with a Diane Keaton-esque, \u201cWell, I\u2019m from Philadelphia,\u201d but they have no idea what I\u2019m talking about and I feel a fool. Later, a woman tells me that if I blew out my hair and lost the glasses, I could maybe get a rich man. She has been at the bar, she tells me, since 3 P.M.<\/p>\n

DAY TWO<\/strong><\/p>\n

2:30 A.M.<\/strong> Awake again! I remember another Pym quote: \u201cI stretched out my hand toward the little bookshelf where I kept cookery and devotional books, the most comfortable bedside reading.\u201d I\u2019m short on devotional matter but have a volume of Jane Grigson<\/a> handy, which, with a glass of warm milk and honey, lulls me back to sleep.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>7:00 P.M.<\/strong> I go to the book party for The Marriage Plot<\/em><\/a> at the Boom Boom Room. The views are spectacular, the crowd is dazzling, the hamburgers delicious, and I am lousy company. I make it an early night.<\/p>\n

DAY THREE<\/strong><\/p>\n

2:00 A.M. <\/strong>This is getting ridiculous. I wonder vaguely if this new insomnia has to do with paint fumes, although why it would I don\u2019t know. A friend has recommended Amor Towles\u2019s Rules of Civility<\/em><\/a>, and I find it absorbing late-night reading: I\u2019m a sucker for Old New York stories.<\/p>\n

8:00 A.M. <\/strong>Unable to sleep, I walk to the Time Warner Center, where the Botero man\u2019s little penis has turned gold from all the touching and \u201cOrinoco Flow<\/a>\u201d is piped in over the loudspeaker. I get a doughnut, sit on a bench, and work the crossword.<\/p>\n

6:00 P.M.<\/strong> After work, I meet my dad for dinner at a German restaurant in Fort Greene. We talk about Van Gogh\u2019s possible murder<\/a> and Ken Auletta\u2019s New Yorker<\/em> piece on Jill Abramson<\/a>. But I have trouble concentrating because …<\/p>\n

7:30 P.M.<\/strong> I am part of a program at BAM devoted to food and identity. There are five speakers, with food to match: who knew that companies instituted in-building cafeterias to cut down on lunchtime boozing or that an egg-leavened pancake could be a vehicle for a poignant family history? I speak third, on learning to cook with my grandparents, and am accompanied by my grandmother\u2019s signature recipe, a cake flavored with sherry wine<\/a>. I can\u2019t stop looking at a stony-faced woman in the front row who doesn\u2019t crack a smile.<\/p>\n

DAY FOUR<\/strong><\/p>\n

2:30 A.M.<\/strong> Had I known I\u2019d never sleep again, I certainly wouldn\u2019t have shelled out for a grown-up mattress, even if I did sort of enjoy the scanning process at Sleepy\u2019s in which they magically calculate the right mattress for your body. Apparently my sleeping position, height and weight called for something really expensive.<\/p>\n

4:00 A.M.<\/strong> I finish Rules of Civility<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>2:00 P.M.<\/strong> A group of creative nonfiction students drops by The Paris Review<\/em>. I am younger than all of them and am conscious of lowering my voice in an absurd attempt to appear more mature. Meanwhile, one of them tweets the visit.<\/p>\n

6:00 P.M.<\/strong> Family dinner at my aunt and uncle\u2019s. Occupy Wall Street<\/a> is debated. Afterward, everyone comes to look at the new apartment, and I make them sit on the mattress. My six-year-old cousin pronounces it soft.<\/p>\n

DAY FIVE<\/strong><\/p>\n

8:00 A.M<\/strong>. I stand in line for a standing-room ticket to tonight\u2019s performance of Don Giovanni<\/em><\/a>. As I have no Internet and my stereo is still boxed up, this week has been curiously lacking in sound track.<\/p>\n

2:00 P.M. <\/strong>At the main branch of the New York Public Library<\/a> researching a lucrative and confusing piece for a glossy trade magazine. Am distracted from my work and the beauty of the main reading room by a woman clipping her nails across the table. I attempt to snub her by means of some severe glances but am ultimately forced to move.<\/p>\n

8:00 P.M.<\/strong> Walk down to Lincoln Center. While I am generally to be found in sky-high heels, I have a pair of orthopedic nun shoes I save for exactly these occasions. I look slightly eccentric, but know nobody in standing room will judge. And indeed, on my way up the stairs, I spy three capes, a man in a kilt, and a little boy in an embroidered frock coat, buckled shoes, and a powdered wig. \u201cHe just adores Mozart,\u201d I overhear his mother say, proudly. I am standing next to a man from Vienna who\u2019s at the Met for the second time in two days. The lead is still out with knee trouble, but Peter Mattei brings great brio to the role.<\/p>\n

11:00 P.M.<\/strong> The commendatore is slightly less menacing than one might have wished, but then, I\u2019ve never seen one as terrifying as that in the marionette production I saw in Prague when I was twenty. (He was a man and towered over the marionette Don Giovanni.)<\/p>\n

DAY SIX<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>10:00 A.M.<\/strong> I walk over to the Seventy-seventh Street Flea Market, where I buy a lamp and two records: Sketches of Spain<\/em><\/a> and Rachmaninoff (whom I noticed, on a plaque yesterday, died in the neighborhood). I take the time to walk past the building where I spent my earliest years and can\u2019t believe how much the neighborhood has changed: the only places still standing are the Pioneer Food (which smells just the same) and a chicken restaurant and Chinese place, both of which I remember my mom decrying twenty years ago.<\/p>\n

8:00 P.M.<\/strong> I\u2019ve spent the day unpacking, writing, cooking, and reading Penelope Fitzgerald\u2019s Human Voices<\/em><\/a>. A friend joins me for dinner and conversation. The talk turns to Mahler\u2019s Fifth. \u201cI hate you! I hate you, Gustav Mahler, and your Jewish music!\u201d I cry dramatically, quoting the 2001 Alma Schindler biopic, Bride of the Wind<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

She sits on the mattress\u2014which, did I mention, comes rather ludicrously to my waist\u2014and dutifully pronounces it comfortable.<\/p>\n

DAY SEVEN <\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>7:00 P.M.<\/strong> After work, I go to visit my friend Doris. Eighty-eight, she lives in a small hotel not far from my new apartment; I met her last year in a grocery store when I complimented her jaunty hat. Doris is a retired actress and keeps up with the theater scene\u2014her most recent enthusiasm is Sondheim\u2019s memoirs<\/a>. I acquaint her with the various tribulations in my family. \u201cThat calls for a good, old-fashioned New York oy!\u201d She sympathizes. \u201cOy vey, even!\u201d<\/p>\n

8:00 P.M.<\/strong> Ravenous\u2014all I had was a peanut-butter Nip at Doris\u2019s\u2014I fix myself a plate of leftover pot pie and eat in bed. I like to read about food while I eat; tonight it\u2019s Simon Hopkinson\u2019s Second Helpings of Roast Chicken<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

9:00 P.M. <\/strong>A friend drops by with a bottle of Scotch and some ice, since I don\u2019t yet have ice cube trays, to toast the new apartment. We sit on the floor. Later, I make him sit on my mattress.<\/p>\n

I am beginning to suspect I was ripped off. Hoping for commiseration, I relate an indiscreet comment I made to someone on the subject of nineteenth-century medicine. \u201cWere you drunk?\u201d he asks unhelpfully. I loan him Rules of Civility<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAY ONE 4:00 A.M. I can\u2019t sleep. Because I just moved from Brooklyn into Manhattan, my books aren\u2019t unpacked, and so my reading options are limited. The only books I have handy are on decorating\u2014although it\u2019s usually a pretty theoretical study in my case. The pattern of the boards on the floor of this new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[4874,4893,4488,1684,3528,4892,3001,4875,4884,4873,4891,4890,4876,4880,4881,4885,4886,2237,4882,4259,4883,4052,4896,4889,4888,4487,4894,4895,4887,3993,4878,4877,4879,2462],"class_list":["post-23290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-culture-diaries","tag-alexa-chung","tag-alma-schindler","tag-amor-towles","tag-bam","tag-barbara-pym","tag-bride-of-the-wind","tag-decorating-is-fun","tag-diane-keaton","tag-don-giovanni","tag-dorothy-draper","tag-gustav-mahler","tag-human-voices","tag-jane-grigson","tag-jill-abramson","tag-ken-auletta","tag-lincoln-center","tag-mozert","tag-new-york-public-library","tag-new-yorker","tag-occupy-wall-street","tag-orinoco-flow","tag-penelope-fitzgerald","tag-peter-mattei","tag-pioneer-food","tag-rachmaninoff","tag-rules-of-civility","tag-second-helpings-of-roast-chicken","tag-simon-hopkinson","tag-sketches-of-spain","tag-stephen-sondheim","tag-the-boom-boom-room","tag-the-marriage-plot","tag-time-warner-center","tag-woody-allen"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nA Week in Culture: Sadie Stein, Editor by Sadie Stein<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"November 14, 2011 \u2013 DAY ONE 4:00 A.M. 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