The Big Picture and the Closeup

I needed to unpack things. I needed to clean things up. And Gladys pitched in. It was strange that someone who could generate such chaos in any space she occupied could somehow help bring order to mine. But she did.

We can all agree that the conclusions of Beneatha’s Place, both dramatic and thematic, make the play as a whole a satisfying contrast with Clybourne Park, if not yet its equal. The jury is still out on this coupling, however. I predict much greater success for it if Kwei-Armah, a man who seems incredibly busy on two continents, can find the time to work the kinks out his half of the pair. Paradoxically, the less slavish his adherence to Norris’s template, the greater the likelihood his play will be invited along on Clybourne Park’s victory lap.

Originally Kingsley Amis told me he would have to leave at around one. However, as I was apparently making the right impression, he then invited me to come along with him to what I later learned was a fixture in his life at the time, a Tuesday lunch gathering with various conservatively-minded writers at Bertorelli’s, an Italian restaurant. I was very impressed.

This Casanova stuff was terribly exciting, but in the psychotherapeutic language we all use today, I needed to process it. And that’s when I had my California Girls moment.

Kate, I guess, continued to date that other guy, Jim, until the school year ended. That summer, she was somewhere else. I knew she was out of town, and yet somehow, I kept finding reasons to visit her home. Not knocking, not asking if anyone else was there. Just walking by. That fall, the fall of 1966, the Four Seasons came out with a song that expressed exactly how I felt, their cover of Cole Porter’s immortal I’ve Got You Under My Skin.