J a n c e e D u n n

Another Huffington Post entry

This time I salute surly New York City deli girls. Oh, how I love them.

Reading Thursday night

Book readings are slightly terrifying. What if no one shows?

Why Is My Mother Getting a Tattoo?: And Other Questions I Wish I Never Had to Answer
Author Event

Thursday July 09, 2009 7:30 PM

BARNES AND NOBLE PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN

267 7th Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11215, 718-832-9066

Take the Brooklyn-Bound F train from Manhattan, and get off at 7th Avenue-Park Slope (which is five stops out of Manhattan.)

One of the greats

I'm on the Bob Edwards Show tomorrow on XM and Sirius!

The Bob Edwards Show airs Monday through Friday 8-9 AM (eastern time) on XM Channel 133 and Sirius Channel 196.

Bob hosted NPR's "Morning Edition" for nearly a quarter century, so for me, his voice is as familiar as that of a close friend. Peabody-winning Radio Hall of Famer Edwards is one of the best interviewers on the planet, so I was beyond excited.

I taped the interview recently and at one point, I burbled 'that's a good question!' Well, of course it is: he's frickin' Bob Edwards.

I send holiday cards to sanitation workers, and suggest you do the same

I got on my soapbox on behalf of New York's Strongest in the Huffington Post.

My Mom In The 'New York Post'

Yes, my mother, her tattoo, and I are all in the Post today.

She looks great, don't you think?

Happy Fourth

...and take it easy on the roads, will you? Did you know this is one of the deadliest weekends of the year to be in a car?
Believe me, I'm well aware: I'm married to the writer of the book "Traffic," so every time I strap on my seat belt, I'm treated to a grim recitation of the many ways I can die. Sigh.

All I ever write about is food

When I was pregnant, I craved malted milkshakes and salt caramels, specifically ones from NuNu chocolates, in my Brooklyn neighborhood.

I had the baby and still, I crave them. They are not cheap, but Christ, are they worth it. So are the salt roasted cashew caramels, and the peanut caramel crush.

What I'm reading

I just finished "The Little Stranger," by Sarah Waters. It's a classic haunted house story in the manner of Shirley Jackson or even Henry James. A lonely bachelor, Dr. Faraday, gets enmeshed in the lives of the residents of Hundreds Hall, a gigantic, crumbling pile of an old house in the English countryside.
It was so creepy, ao vividly cinematic, that I compulsively read the whole thing in two days. I didn't love the ending - that's all I will say - but the rest of the book was so addictive that all was forgiven.

Now I'm reading "Good Morning, Midnight" by Jean Rhys ("Wide Sargasso Sea.") Bleak but good.

A little-known book from the 60s that is really wonderful for both children and adults is "The Bat-Poet," by Randall Jarrell, with illustrations by the great Maurice Sendak. It's about a "little light brown bat, the color of coffee with cream in it," who, unlike his companions, can't sleep during the day, so he composes poems. It's slim - easily read in one sitting - but it is the most gentle, comforting, lovely book.

Michael Jackson article

...the most interesting one I have read was this excerpt from the autobiography of former CBS Records head Walter Yetnikoff, which was recently reprinted in the Times of London. Walter was quite the colorful figure when I used to work at Rolling Stone.

Remember this?

Gals who grew up in the 80s will remember Kissing Potion, that shiny, wet lip goo that I used to apply by the hour.

Well, it has just been brought back by the Vermont Country Store. In my new book I write about my obsession with the Vermont Country Store, which revives retro beauty brands such as Indian Earth. Too funny.

The book is out today

...and any author who says that he or she does not look at Amazon numbers is lying.

However, unless you wrote 'Twilight,' it's depressing to look at Amazon numbers. I prefer to lurk in bookstores by the table displaying my book to see if anyone picks it up. Actually, that's worse. More than once, my husband Tom has had to gently lead me away.

This sounds like I'm morose, but I'm not. I never thought I'd be able to write books for a living - my dream since I was a kid.

Recipe Corner

Readers, you remember Tracy, don't you? She's an excellent cook and I always pester her for her original recipes. Below is is a fabulous one and a note from Tracy herself:

For two out of my three daughters, the following recipe has become one of their main food groups. We have been making chocolate chip banana bread at least once a week for at least 14 years now. In fact, this was the first recipe that all my daughters helped me make when they were toddlers. I would sit them on the counter, or pull up a kitchen chair and help them carefully measure ingredients and watch their pride as we pulled the steaming bread from the oven. It has become a favorite, and the most rewarding thing about a good recipe is that now my girls' friends request it for breakfast when they sleepover, or know that I will drop off a loaf for special occasions or holidays. It makes people smile, and it's easy, too! There is never a time when a slice of this delicious bread does not soothe the soul. Enjoy!

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread (makes one loaf)

Banana bread with chopped dark chocolate chunks - back to basic with Joy of Cooking.

1 stick of margarine, melted in microwave
1 c. granulated sugar
2 large eggs
3 very ripe bananas
2 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325. Grease a metal loaf pan with spray or margarine.

Melt margarine in bowl in microwave, when melted, add sugar and mix well. Add eggs and mix. Add bananas and mash with a potato masher. Add flour, salt, and baking soda. When combined, add 1/2 c. chocolate chips and fold in to batter. Pour into greased pan and bake for 75 minutes.

I usually double this recipe and throw a loaf in the freezer....you won't be sorry!

By Julie

Readers of my book already know Julie -- she has a really wonderful piece in the new Summer issue of New York magazine.

Shore Leave
By Julie Klam

In the summer of 1989, I was living on the Upper West Side near where my friend Leslie worked as a bartender at Lucy’s, the legendary surf bar. Every night while she mixed Sex on the Beaches and Blue Moons, I’d sit at the end of the bar looking as unalluring as possible under the water-colored lights, reading a novel, eating a brownie and drinking a big glass of ice water with plastic mermaids hanging all around the rim. On the sweltering July night when three U.S. Navy sailors strolled in, I was feeling restless. They were talking very loudly about what to do in New York; they’d already seen all the key tourist attractions and only had one day left before they set sail. “Coney Island?” I suggested. They were really excited. They’d heard of it! One of them, named Tommy, pulled out his subway map and while I was crayoning the route, he looked at me and said, “Well, you have to come!” I chuckled. The guys appeared to have popped out of a Preston Sturges movie, and the sweetness was so surprising I said yes.

The next day, I put on a thirties-style dress, red lipstick, and scuffed Mary Janes. Only Tommy and his crappy camera were at the subway station; the other two guys had gotten Yankee tickets. We took the 1 to the D train, and I was completely self-conscious. People smiled at us like I was with my guy who was about to ship off to the Pacific Ocean Theater. Tommy pressed up against the windows when the train went above ground, snapping pictures of the distant Statue of Liberty. By the time we reached Coney Island, the hazy sun was lowering in the sky like a big orange egg yolk, and we walked down to the boardwalk talking closely. It’s a strange kind of thing where you go somewhere new with someone you don’t really know and when you get there you know him better than the strange place, so a sort of false intimacy hatches. I, Tommy’s tour guide, had never been to Coney Island before, but I acted like I knew what I was doing and where I was going. We ate a Nathan’s hot dog (which twenty years later is still repeating on me) and held hands. We stopped at a photo booth so he could get a picture of himself in front of a brightly painted backdrop of frolicking mermaids. The Korean photographer screamed at me to get in the shot with Tommy even though I kept insisting I was not his girlfriend. But then I worried the photographer thought I was a hooker, so I got in the picture. Tommy and I walked down to the water and he told me how strange it felt to look out at ships from the shore. “It must be weird to you that I’m more comfortable out there,” he said. On the train ride back we talked like old friends, he kissed me, but it was very held-back. Walking me home from the station, under faint city stars, he kept shaking his head and saying proudly, “Oh, sometimes I hate what a respectable guy I am!” He gave me a kiss good-bye and I sauntered up my stairs. When I got inside the vestibule I watched him walk up the street, stopping to take a picture of my deli.

Julie Klam is the author of a memoir, Please Excuse My Daughter.

Ray Bradbury in the NY Times

Did anyone read this in yesterday's Times? Ray Bradbury fights to keep his local library open.

Libraries have been hard hit by the recession - my local library has cut back on their hours. It's very distressing. Support your library! A library card is just about the best investment there is.
And Mr. Bradbury is, as always, reliably quotable - read below, when he says that he remembers being born.

VENTURA, Calif. — When you are pushing 90, have written scores of famous novels, short stories and screenplays, and have fulfilled the goal of taking a simulated ride to Mars, what’s left?
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Ethan Pines for The New York Times

Storytime led by Dwight Hochstein at the H. P. Wright Library in Ventura County, Calif., which Ray Bradbury is helping to rescue.

“Bo Derek is a really good friend of mine and I’d like to spend more time with her,” said Ray Bradbury, peering up from behind an old television tray in his den.

An unlikely answer, but Mr. Bradbury, the science fiction writer, is very specific in his eccentric list of interests, and his pursuit of them in his advancing age and state of relative immobility.

This is a lucky thing for the Ventura County Public Libraries — because among Mr. Bradbury’s passions, none burn quite as hot as his lifelong enthusiasm for halls of books. His most famous novel, “Fahrenheit 451,” which concerns book burning, was written on a pay typewriter in the basement of the University of California, Los Angeles, library; his novel “Something Wicked This Way Comes” contains a seminal library scene.

Mr. Bradbury frequently speaks at libraries across the state, and on Saturday he will make his way here for a benefit for the H. P. Wright Library, which like many others in the state’s public system is in danger of shutting its doors because of budget cuts.

“Libraries raised me,” Mr. Bradbury said. “I don’t believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don’t have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.”

Property tax dollars, which provide most of the financing for libraries in Ventura County, have fallen precipitously, putting the library system roughly $650,000 in the hole. Almost half of that amount is attributed to the H. P. Wright Library, which serves roughly two-thirds of this coastal city about 50 miles northwest of Los Angeles.

In January the branch was told that unless it came up with $280,000 it would close. The branch’s private fund-raising group, San Buenaventura Friends of the Library, has until March to reach its goal; so far it has raised $80,000.

Enter Mr. Bradbury. While at a meeting concerning the library, Berta Steele, vice president of the friends group, ran into Michael Kelly, a local artist who runs the Ray Bradbury Theater and Film Foundation, a group dedicated to arts and literacy advocacy. Mr. Kelly told Ms. Steele that he could get Mr. Bradbury up to Ventura to help the library’s cause.

On Saturday, the two organizations will host a $25-a-head discussion with Mr. Bradbury and present a screening of “The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit,” a film based on his short story of the same name.

The fund-raiser’s financial goal is not a long-term fix. That would come only if property taxes crawl back up or voters approve a proposed half-cent increase in the local sales tax in November, some of which would go to libraries.

Fiscal threats to libraries deeply unnerve Mr. Bradbury, who spends as much time as he can talking to children in libraries and encouraging them to read.

The Internet? Don’t get him started. “The Internet is a big distraction,” Mr. Bradbury barked from his perch in his house in Los Angeles, which is jammed with enormous stuffed animals, videos, DVDs, wooden toys, photographs and books, with things like the National Medal of Arts sort of tossed on a table.

“Yahoo called me eight weeks ago,” he said, voice rising. “They wanted to put a book of mine on Yahoo! You know what I told them? ‘To hell with you. To hell with you and to hell with the Internet.’

“It’s distracting,” he continued. “It’s meaningless; it’s not real. It’s in the air somewhere.”

A Yahoo spokeswoman said it was impossible to verify Mr. Bradbury’s account without more details.

Mr. Bradbury has long been known for his clear memory of some of life’s events, and that remains the case, he said. “I have total recall,” he said. “I remember being born. I remember being in the womb, I remember being inside. Coming out was great.”

He also recalled watching the film “Pumping Iron,” which features Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in his body-building days, and how his personal recommendation of the film for an Academy Award helped spark Mr. Schwarzenegger’s Hollywood career. He remembers lining his four daughters’ cribs with Golden Books when they were tiny. And he remembers meeting Ms. Derek on a train in France years ago.

“She said, ‘Mr. Bradbury.’ I said, ‘Yes.’ She said: ‘I love you! My name is Bo Derek.’ ”

Ms. Derek’s spokeswoman, Rona Menashe, said the story was true. She said her client would like to see some more of Mr. Bradbury, too.

Mr. Bradbury’s wife, Maggie, to whom he was married for over five decades, died in 2003. He turns 89 in August.

When he is not raising money for libraries, Mr. Bradbury still writes for a few hours every morning (“I can’t tell you,” is the answer to any questions on his latest book); reads George Bernard Shaw; receives visitors including reporters, filmmakers, friends and children of friends; and watches movies on his giant flat-screen television.

He can still be found regularly at the Los Angeles Public Library branch in Koreatown, which he visited often as a teenager.

“The children ask me, ‘How can I live forever, too?’ ” he said. “I tell them do what you love and love what you do. That’s the story on my life.”

Brian Lehrer Show

This Monday, June 22, I'll be on the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC.

I listen to the show every day - it's in the background as I write this - so I have to confess that I'm a little nervous.

Airs weekdays at 10AM on 93.9 FM and AM 820 and rebroadcast Tuesdays through Saturdays at 1AM on AM 820

It's your neighborhood, your city, your country, your world, and now your website. Brian Lehrer delves into the issues and links them to real life. Enlighten yourself as host Brian Lehrer puts you directly in touch with news makers and gives them a chance to exchange opinions and ideas with call-in listeners. A seasoned moderator, Lehrer directs a "sane alternative" in talk radio. Whether the topic is New York City's education or housing policy, the changing face of welfare, or the expanding Chinese economy, Brian Lehrer puts a human face -- and maybe even your neighbor's voice -- on the issues shaping your life. Join the Lehrer league and keep informed. The call-in number is 212-433-9692 (or 212 433 WNYC)