2023.09.29—Trip to Paris

I'm on my way tomorrow to meet up with Henry who is in Ibiza. On this trip I hope to see museum and gallery exhibits and people watch all over the City. This will be my 35th visit to Paris.

I'll try to update this site over the next 16 days...

Be fierce and thrive

—Ph/H
Hollywood

Douceur de vivre

 

2021.01.10

From my digital notebook:

Whenever I read through old notebooks and journals it’s like going back in time and I re-live a time many years ago: it reminds me how sweet life is. This week I went through my notebooks between 1989 and 1995 and found the notes for a novel I wrote that was to be called “In Radical Pursuit” about a young queer activist and the formation of his cell group of fellow travelers and their plan to attack some anti-gay groups in the Los Angeles. I remember being very passionate about this story; there’s a list of key words and many pages of dialogue overheard at coffee shops that I used in the narrative. The main character’s name is Omar, but sometimes I write Oscar and other times he has no name other than “you-know-who” and several times I name him Philip and Andrew. When I typed the notes into the manuscript of the novel I couldn’t decide his name and just typed “O” and “You-know-who”. I no longer have the manuscript of the book only the notebook survives and I have no idea what happened to the book. The notebook also records some events of the day and perhaps some imagined events (I can never tell now thirty-two years later what really happened or if it happened).

I usually title my notebooks: I named the 1994 notebook “This Kind of Bird Flies Backwards” after the Diane di Prima 1958 book. Flying through these five notebooks I read about happy dinners with friends and lots of work anxiety. I even read in one line only my first meeting with my companion of over 30 years hence, Henry. I’m astonished to read only that I met a guy on the bus while going to the Magic Castle. In later pages I read all about our dinners and walks and many happy moments. Thirty years later we can still do all these things but for the virus that keeps us from going anywhere.

Be fierce and thrive...

—Ph/HOPBELL

Waiting for the Day to be Done…

12.10

My habit is to sit down by my front door (I haven’t decided what to call it, being too small for a porch and not a stoop) and have a drink at the end of the day and before nightfall. My choice of drink varies but I really like a Jack Rose with apple jack or calvados but often I’ll have a Manhattan. I don’t do much thinking while sitting here in the falling dusk waiting for the night.

Be fierce and thrive...

—Ph/HOPBELL

Locked Down in LA

 

Locked Down

2020.12.09

This photograph is what I feel like here in Los Angeles on this warm December day. I go to the market with a mask over my nose and mouth and to the pharmacy too but nowhere else unless I accompany Henry to an appointment. Like everyone I know, I miss my friends here and abroad only communicating by phone or texts. Los Angeles was never much of a Café culture but I think once this is over, everyone will begin to meet up at outside tables to catch up after a long spell of quarantine.

Be fierce and thrive...

—Ph/HOPBELL