Should I shelve my gift here?
Or here?
By now you’ve now all enjoyed the hit video, Jeffrey Deitch Takes Hollywood. Now it’s, “CultureGrrl Takes Hollywood”!
I don’t think I’ll be moving into the mansion formerly owned by Gloria Swanson in nearby Englewood, NJ, any time soon (although I do reside in the former apartment of a celebrated singer, whose Grammys were displayed where my books are now arrayed).
But I got an early surprise birthday present yesterday (today’s actually my day) when a book personally addressed to me by a movie star I admire (not sent by his publicist or publisher) arrived by priority mail.
A fellow journalist had e-mailed me for my address, because a friend of hers wanted to send me a book. Since I already get too many unsolicited tomes, my first thought was to ask for more information. But I decided to play along and waited to learn the identity of the mystery author.
By now you’ve probably guessed who it was.
I was tickled to get a book with Steve Martin‘s handwritten address in the envelope’s upper righthand corner. But I was sorry that his new artworld novel, “An Object of Beauty” (Grand Central Publishing) was unaccompanied by a note.
Wait a minute! I quickly flipped to the title page:
To Culture Grrrl [sic]—
I enjoy your column.
Steve
Martin
Okay, maybe this autographed copy was a mere ploy for publicity. But if Steve thinks my blog is important enough to merit promotional attention, that’s still a kick for me! I didn’t get the full NY Times courtship—a stroll through Manhattan galleries—but a friendly note was good enough. (Through our intermediary, I asked for and received his permission to blog about this.)
I’ve flipped through the book, which is liberally peppered with references to dealer Larry Gagosian and includes a couple of references to New Yorker art critic Peter Schjeldahl, who at one point kills all conversation by solemnly pronouncing: “All cocksure movements of the last century have collapsed into a bewildering, trackless here and now.” (Why do I think that Peter never said that?)
It may be a bad sign that the story is told from the perspective of an art writer—surely an unreliable narrator!
I’ve skimmed through quite a bit, but I’ll need to read it. (My last obligatory slog through a topical artworld novel didn’t go so well.) In the blurb on the back of Martin’s book, author Joyce Carol Oates said that while reading his novel, she was “reminded of Edith Wharton‘s ‘The Age of Innocence.'”
From what I’ve seen so far, this might be a fun (or even juicy) read, but I doubt Edith (or her friend Henry, for that matter) has anything to worry about.
Anyway, for me tonight (if all goes according to plan), it’s surefire Shakespeare.