Learning A New Word--"Shambolic"

While reading journalist Michael Wolff's Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House (Henry Holt, 2018), I came across this sentence in the chapter about Donald Trump's former Chief Strategist Steve Bannon: "By default, everybody had to look to the voluble, aphoristic, shambolic, witty, off-the-cuff figure who was both ever present on the premises and who had, in an unlikely attribute, read a book or two." (See page 60.) [Italics mine.]

The word that caught my attention was "shambolic." I'd never seen it before. Being someone who enjoys learning new words, I consulted two of my American dictionaries and I could not find this word. I then went online and learned that "shambolic" is British slang for chaotic, disorganized, or mismanaged.

Looking further, I consulted the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, 2nd edition, a book I found, I think, on a street corner almost two years ago. It defines the word as "chaotic, unorganized." Now I have a new word to add to my vocabulary.

A Street-Corner Escort Ad In Harlem

In Harlem, I've seen handbills attached to lampposts, mail boxes, storefront windows, and even on trees for a variety of reasons--to announce a death, to offer a reward for the return of a lost pet or wallet, steering people to employment opportunities or apartments for rent, etc. But I have never seen a handbill soliciting clients for an escort/massage service. This particular handbill was pasted to a lamppost at the corner of Lenox Avenue and 121st Street. The advertiser was a handsome young man named Jayson, age 19, of black/Puerto Rican heritage. At the bottom of the page was his phone number, in the 914 area code (presumably he was from Westchester County). His photo was at the top.

A few days after I saw Jayson's ad, someone--a homophobe, no doubt--came along and scratched out the phone number with a key or something sharp. This was in 2012. I recently checked that location. There is no trace of the handbill.

The closest  thing to this ad that I've seen was when I worked at the Mount Morris Baths in Harlem.
Some of the customers would write their name and phone number on the back of the door of the room they occupied.

Now that Harlem has become more gentrified and many more gays (and lesbians) are moving in (to the disapproval of the homophobic Atlah Church, down the street from where I saw the handbill), I expect to see more such advertising on lampposts, bus shelters, and on the side of buildings.

Scotty Bowers, Pimp To The Stars

I first learned of Scotty Bowers and his memoir, Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars (Grove Press, 2012) while browsing the Summer Movie Preview double issue of Entertainment Weekly (April 27/May 4, 2018) and found out that a documentary based on the book will be released in late July. The film is called Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood.

I immediately obtained a copy of this fascinating tell-all book and I hope to see the documentary version when it is screened in theatres this summer.

Bowers, now 94 years old, was in the Marine Corps during World War II and later became a matchmaker and trick to many famous names in Hollywood in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.

Truman Capote And The Secrets Of The Affluent

One book that should be optioned for a motion picture, if it hasn't already, is The Swans of Fifth Avenue by Melanie Benjamin (Delacorte Press, 2016). This page-turner, which gives the reader a fly-on-the-wall view of events, is a fictionalized account of Truman Capote's befriending and betrayal of five wealthy Upper East Side women-- he called them his swans-- including Barbara "Babe" Paley, the wife of William Paley, the founder of the CBS broadcast network, and the swan with whom Capote had the closest relationship.

Capote wrote  a short story called " La Cote Basque, 1965" that was published in 1975 in Esquire magazine. The story revealed the secrets of the aforementioned women. These secrets were told to him with the belief that he would keep them confidential. When he didn't, they felt hurt and betrayed and as a result they shut him out of their lives. Capote never recovered from this ostracism.

It's too bad the late Philip Seymour Hoffman isn't around to reprise his portrayal of Capote in a possible film adaptation of The Swans of Fifth Avenue.

Note: The New York Times ran a story by Joseph Berger with the headline, "Cote Basque, A Society Temple, Is Closing" (September 18, 2003) that described the restaurant as "the high-society temple of classic French cuisine [located in Manhattan] that became the setting of a catty and thinly veiled excerpt from an unfinished novel by Truman Capote...."

Saving New York From Rising Sea Water

Donald Trump, our 45th president, is more concerned about building a wall along the southern border than he is building a sea wall in New York harbor to keep rising sea water from flooding lower Manhattan and other low-lying areas of the city. The wrath of Hurricane Sandy in 2012 should have been a wake-up call.

Note: I posted the above comment on Facebook on April 7, 2018.

Tomorrow is Earth Day.

One Hundred Women Hidden From History

I recently started reading She Caused a Riot: 100 Unknown Women Who Built Cities, Sparked Revolution, & Massively Crushed It by Hannah Jewell, a Washington, D.C.-based writer (Sourcebooks,2018).*

The book is intriguing although the author's use of profanities, anachronistic comments, and levity got under my skin a bit. I'm old-fashioned when it comes to books of biography and history. I prefer a serious, scholarly approach. I suppose in order to grab and hold the attention of millennials (the intended audience, I suspect), you have to be as entertaining and irreverent as possible.

The thing that drew me to the book, other than the provocative and attention-getting title, was the subject matter. This was the opportunity to learn the names and the life stories of women heretofore unknown. (I should point out that a few of these women are not as unknown as the book's subtitle would have us believe, such as actress/inventor Hedy Lamarr and journalist Ida B. Wells-Barnett.)

The book spans continents, time periods, races, and ethnic groups. Unfortunately, the black female mathematicians featured in the hit movie Hidden Figures are missing from the table of contents. Despite that oversight She Caused a Riot is a useful introduction to the accomplishments and concerns of one hundred women hidden from history. They are potential role models for young women and maybe young men as well.


*The book was published in 2017, in the United Kingdom, with the title 100 Nasty Women of History. Obviously a reference to Donald Trump's characterization of Hillary Clinton at one of the 2016 presidential debates.

A Smoker's Island

As a non-smoker, I applaud the bill introduced by New York city councilman Peter Koo (D-Queens) to ban smoking while walking down the street. (See New York Daily News, March 20, 2018.)

I can recall numerous times being subjected to second-hand smoke by someone walking in front of me. I have often thought of carrying one of those hand-held paper fans you see women in churches using as a way to disperse the smoke.

Perhaps the City Council should designate one of the abandoned islands in the East River as a haven for smokers, providing them with free ferry service to and fro.

Environmentalists would probably protest vehemently such an idea, but it's worth considering--smokers with an island of their own.