|   David Matthews  |

 

Portable Bohemia

January 1, 2020 / Vol. V, No. 1

Go to Portable Bohemia

Once again I had the good fortune to share the Christmas holidays with the family in Tulsa. Among this year's adventures were the annual Tulsa Runner Christmas party, an excursion to Oklahoma City to catch an Elizabeth Warren campaign appearance at her high school gym, and the snazzy new Aero BRT bus that I took downtown for some afternoon wandering, then back all the way to the south end of the line for an espresso and journal session at Nordaggio's.

 

Of course, the best part by far was hanging out with Trani, Candace, Rachel, Dan, and Maribel and renewing acquaintance with Tulsa Runner friends Julie, Greg, Pastor Bill, and Jennifer, to name a few. The blog has a hastily scribbled account of this year's Tulsa Christmas (link below in the usual place). Photos are on the Portable Bohemia Gallery page.

 

I must have comported myself with passable propriety in 2019 because Santa delivered exactly what I asked for: Parisian Lives by Deirdre Bair. The account of her experiences writing biographies of Samuel Beckett and Simone de Beauvoir  is an absorbing tale of writers, actors, editors, eccentrics, ne'er-do-wells, spongers, and mooches, almost without exception extravagantly fond of drink, especially when they could contrive for someone else to pick up the check.

 

The personal and professional travails of a young woman just out of grad school in the early 1970s with a husband just getting started with his career and two children are no less part of the story. Academics did not take Bair seriously because she was a mere biographer, not a scholar. The cadre of professional Beckett specialists dubbed by Bair the Becketteers subjected her to ridicule, belittled her efforts, and threw obstacles in her way wherever they could. How, they asked, could a young unknown possibly have gotten Beckett's okay to write his biography? She must have slept with him. And this is just on the Beckett side. She had comparable experiences with the Beauvoir book.

 

Academic intrigue, jealousy, backbiting, backstabbing, general pettiness, the all too predictable treatment of a woman in an environment dominated by arrogant males, it is not a pretty picture but it makes for a great read. Along the way her encounters and exchanges with Beckett and Beauvoir throw light on these two complex and remarkable individuals who were giants of  20th century letters.

 

I kicked off the year with a two-mile run. Yes, only two. I was sidelined in October by a minor but slow-healing injury that my doctor said could take twelve weeks for recovery. So far, so good with short, slow, cautious runs Saturday, Monday, and today. Running and writing are two of the few pure things in my life. I am not ready to give them up.

 

Happy New Year. Let's make it a good one. Keep the faith!

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Livin' on Tulsa Time Christmas 2019

December 29, 2019

 

Christmas with the family never grows old. Once again we gathered in Tulsa. If my memory serves me well, I have made it every year but one since Mom passed away in 1997…

 

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