Amy Wilentz

The artist Susan Kleiner and I got into a discussion about Kabbalah the other day at the coffee house, The Muddy Cup, that is showing her work in Beacon, N.Y. She said that at one Kabbalah center, they make you run your finger over the spines of religious books on a shelf and then they say, O.K., now you know all you need to know, and they put a red string on your wrist and charge you $100. (Amy Wilentz relates a similar story in her new book, I Feel Earthquakes More Often Than They Happen). I tried to hold out for Kabbalah, but I don't have my red string yet. Kleiner does paintings and drawings inspired by bridge girders. Here's one from MacDonald Avenue in Brooklyn. On exhibit at 161 Main St. for the next few weeks.  read more »

On Friday I went to an old friend's book party. Amy Wilentz has just published a book about California, I Feel Earthquakes More Often Than They Happen. The party was at Victor and Annie Navasky's on the West Side.

Wilentz welcomed me as I came through the door. She was wearing a spectacular dress, something closefitting in dark brown with a low neckline and an irregular hem, over dark brown heels. It showed off her beautiful skin and hair. She murmured something about the book being her least favorite of her books, or the least serious, I wasn't sure, and then later she gave a toast in which she said that in Los Angeles, where she now lives, the parties are consumed by politics, but in New York the parties are all gossip. "So gossip!" she commanded us, and we did.  read more »

You get a lot of strange reactions when you say you like Los Angeles in New York.  read more »

You get a lot of strange reactions when you say you like Los Angeles in New York.  read more »