Thank You, Barney's New York!

Okay, I realize that this blog is supposed to be a dry-as-dust compendium of my reactions to the great literature of the past and the great works of modern scholarship.  But, occasionally, Plato and Mendelssohn and Toynbee and Thomas Mann have to step aside for a bit of life that actually exists outside of their pages, in the straitened realm that is the only universe which most Americans ever experience, a world of music and drinks and a certain camaraderie which may be more or less ersatz, depending upon the setting.

Barney's New York at Northpark in Dallas is considerably more stylish than my addiction to books and the gym permits me to experience on anything like a regular basis, so wandering into the party on the second floor tonight was very much like the scene in Alain-Fournier's Le Grand Meaulnes, where the title character stumbles into the engrossing and enigmatic Lost Demesne, where grace and beauty and bafflement go hand in hand.  (Don't you just love the French?)  The music was on my wavelength, especially when the danseuse of a DJ played Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart", which I will always remember because of its vaguely millenarian music video of the early 80's  (Remember that she taught at an English boy's school at which the Anti-Christ was a star pupil?)  The pink martinis were exceptionally handsome in performing their duty as Faulknerian "imagination lubricant".

Most alarmingly, the effortlessly attractive Jan Strimple, so comfortably at the centre of the Dallas fashionista universe, made a special effort to approach me and ensconce me in the warm  glow of her inimitable supermodel flame, the embers of which will remain with me through the weekend, at the very least.  No doubt she mistook me for someone far more important, as Jahweh no doubt mistook the Israelites in the wilderness of Sinai.  No matter.  The Decalogue persists!  And I glow in the Jane Austen warmth of her convo.

341 days, 47 novels, 48 books of non-fiction to go.