I don’t attend “live” Zoom events. I see my photo in the margin of the screen and gasp. I call on the goddess of cold cream. Goddess, where’s my cold cream? No, get that stuff in the tube. The expensive stuff. I won’t look better, but I will feel gorgeous.
Fetch a couple of barrettes while you’re there.
So here I am, cold-creamed, barretted. Hmm, I wonder. Don’t I get a do-over? I should never have given up jogging. I should lift weights. I should do a juice fast. They do juice fasts on Netflix. But if it’s a fast, can you have juice?
Okay, so I break my rule. I’m at a Zoom meeting. When Bernie calls, Bernie calls. I feel ultra-healthy, ultra-political. If you’re ultra-healthy, you’re what-the-hell about the photo. But you’re not going to a rally in D.C. looking like that!
Once I spoke in an English accent on Zoom. Another time I quoted The Doors out of context. What is in context for Jim Morrison? Make note: go to Paris to see his grave. Make note: learn French before going to Paris to see his grave. Make note: listen to Jim Morrison’s songs translated into French before learning French and going to Paris to visit his grave.
Make note: Is there a Zoom meeting about Jim Morrison’s grave?
In this issue, I consider the pros and cons of Zoom, show you my latest collectible books, and “review” a charming collection of John Verney’s humor writing and cartoons.
Va-va Voom! It’s a Zoom World!
“Then the faces of all the other women in our book group popped up, each in a separate little frame, like the celebrities on Hollywood Squares. Some of the women’s mouths were moving soundlessly. Only Evelyn’s frame was empty until she whizzed by, calling [the dog].” – “The Great Escape,” from Hilma Wolitzer’s Today a Woman Went Mad at the Supermarket
My husband recommended Zoom. “You should try a Zoom book event. It’s a necessary skill in the 21st century.”
Is it? They said that about cell phones, but I prefer the landline.
“But why don’t you try Zoom? I mean really.”
I have many answers.
• Djuna Barnes didn’t have Zoom. • I’m not crazy about the telehealth thing. • I’m cutting back on screen time. • I have to go pick up a latte.
He seems to enjoy it, whoever he is!
Finally I gave in.
I arrived out-of-breath, unfashionably late, because I needed to download the Zoom app first – actually, it downloaded itself – several times! Suddenly I was whisked into the “room” with tiny pictures of people in the margins of the screen. I would have turned off my picture, but I’d been told it was considered rude, and anyway I didn’t know how.
There was a large, eclectic crowd. You know how it is: in any big group, some people “raise their hands” again and again. It’s like a game show: who can push the button the fastest? Now that I was there, I figured I might as well chat, but I could not find the raise-your-hands icon. The other silent ones were probably also hunting for the button. It was a lot of lonely women in their kitchens, if you know what I mean. I do not exclude myself from that category: I was in the living room.
I sent a thank you note to the leaders. Is that the protocol?
Technology seemed fun at first, but now we are technology.
By the way, I was enchanted by Hilma Wolitzer’s short story, “The Great Escape.” (See the epigraph.) Set during the Covid lockdown in New York, this story centers on a group of nonagenarians trying to conduct their book group on Zoom. You can read my review of this 2021 short story collection here.
My Latest “Collectible” Books
I have four words for you, two of them initials: C. K. Scott Moncrieff.
I am obsessed with his 1920s translation of Proust.
Years ago I bought a cheap Modern Library set of Moncrieff’s Remembrance of Things Past. I paid $5 for it. But it disappeared long ago, and I am determined to replace my set. However, it’s cheaper to collect the books separately. So there is much looking in carts outside of bookstores, and crawling on floors covered with books in overstuffed bookstores.
So far I’ve found Cities of the Plain, the fourth book in the series, in the 1954 edition. The book jacket is lovely: no bent corners, no rips. And I’m fascinated by the list of titles inside the book jacket. Actually I have some of these old Modern Library editions: Webb’s Precious Bane, H. G. Wells’s Tono-Bungay, etc.
My other find is a tiny Everyman’s Library edition of George Eliot’s Adam Bede. It is adorable, even smaller than my old Modern Library book. Having read five new books lately, only one of them excellent, I must return to the classics. I have six different pairs of glasses, so I should be able to read the tiny print with no problem.
Verney Abroad
I love John Verney’s illustrations. I was and am hooked on his smart, witty children’s novels, Friday’s Tunnel and February’s Road, about the Callendar family. Mr. Callendar is a journalist who investigates slimeball politicians, etc., and his oldest son and daughter, Friday and February, investigate on their own. The police interview February at one point. Paul Dry publishes these two masterpieces by Verney and his memoir, Going to the Wars.
I picked up this strange little book, Verney Abroad, in a book bin outside a shop. It is amusing travel writing, complete with illustrations and cartoons. It has only 95 pages, and I wish there were more. It is VERY slight.
Have a jolly spring, or mud season, as we call it! And be sure to let me know about your Zoom experiences.
“Everybody Zooms. They’ll only see your top,” a friend explained.
Nonetheless, I felt a certain anxiety.
And so I had a checklist. POSSIBLE ZOOM GARB. Glamorous black sweater and black jeans. Were any of my sweaters glamorous?
Perhaps I would look like a poet, perhaps like a nun. I aimed for the poetic, but definitely was in the nun zone. Dark glasses might have helped, but I settled for nerdy goggle-like specs THAT MAKE ME LOOK SMART.
As for jewelry, I had few choices:
a silver necklace with a broken clasp,
a heavy polymer clay cat brooch that always falls off,
a candy-colored bead necklace Mom made in a Crafts class and begged me never to wear.
Well, I have my wedding ring.
Then I took some appalling selfies to see how I would look on Zoom. Good God! Why was my hair sticking out on one side? I riffled through a drawer for scissors and cut off the offending lock.
Then there was the makeup problem. I never wear it. I have one very old lipstick, which seems to have expired. Does lipstick expire? Anyway, it seemed a very odd color. I can’t believe it used to be that color. I do have two tubes of Chapstick, though. That would have to do.
It was far too late to have plastic surgery. Wow, time is unkind. And the wrinkle cream never reduced a single wrinkle. (N.B. There must be better wrinkle cream.)
At the Zoom meeting, some people were dressed up, while others were very casual. I breathed a sigh of relief. I wasn’t the only dowdy one there. Not that I thought anybody was dowdy, mind. But it was a relief to see that no one was a movie star. If they were, they were ex-movie stars!
So Zoom on, gals. I’ve figured out my wardrobe. We’re just a lot of women sitting in our kitchens.
