Sagittarius 13° (December 5)

It’s funny but I came across a post about Bill(y) Mumy: It’s amazing. What I see as a teacher and student (not in that order) of acting is how  engages his core and diaphragm every time he “speaks” in other words connects, all so naturally, to that upper case Self inside. That is why, no matter what Bill has ever done as an actor, it is real to him. Acting is the opposite of acting in the sense of pretending, acting is acting, which is how humans express honestly, from their core, what they want, what their objectives are, and every word they speak is one and the same with their intention as the character. This is an innate understanding Bill possessed as a child. It cannot be taught to someone at a tender age. They either get it or they don’t. I can make comparisons to other child actors at the time Bill was working so prolifically. One of them is no a famous director. But there is no comparison between the true actor and the phoner inners. Acting is an art of the purest sort, because your source material is yourself. I never for a second did not believe Bill on screen. Even when, as a kid, he was hiding behind the same styroroam boulders that seemed to grace every planet on which the Robinsons landed. He shared this with Jonathan Harris: The ability to make even the most preposterous real. Jump cut to the Vegetable Planet. But I have to also say, while on the subject, that this praise is true for the entire cast of Lost In Space. Each and every actor on screen was a professional and they were equipped from the get-go (let us not forget that June Lockhard, too, was a child actor, and a very good one, gifted with the ability to be truthful, always, in the moment. She is especially wonderful in All This, And Heaven Too, with Bette and Boyer. I’m off on a tanget so I’ll reel it in. Bill Mumy’s acting ability had always been honest and stupendous. It is why we all still want to be his friend so many years later. He is an Aquarius, so it is right up his alley to have a gazillion friends, reserving his intimate connections for a very select few. Being that much older than me (and I’ve told him so) he was my hero for all my young life. When God Bless The Beast and the Children came along I was still in 2nd/3rd grade but I remember thinking—good for you, you’re not remaining the Tiger Beat kid. And then one day, as adults, I got to interview him and I promise you I was as gushing in that conversation as I am here now.

The following blocks of text are exceprts from my first year of  Blagues, nos. 1241-1245 I am reading through all of my Blagues, five per day, and posting some samples here. Now, in my sixth year of writing this Blague, by the time I get to my seventh, I will have journeyed through all the daily Blagues of my first five years. If that’s confusing I apologize. Year seven, I’ll only have to read through year six, once a day.

The party last night turned out to be pretty fun. The cast of the FB movie were there for the most part. Catherine Waterston actually seemed nice. Monica Lewinsky was there which was interesting. Kate McKinnon sat right behind me. Whoopi Goldberg was pretty much my date and though I had no qualms interacting with her I don’t think she was overly interested so didn’t push. In fact, it was one of those dinners where everyone else is talking in pairs and trios and someone (me) has nobody to talk to. It rarely happens to me so I kind of rode it out and used it as a way to feel meditative in the circumstances. It wasn’t personal. Whoopi had a special salad from the rest of us but still didn’t eat it. She said she only really eats chips and french fries which was funny. I mentioned to two people we knew in common and she lit up a bit which was nice. Sheila Nevins came over and was introduced to me and I sort of gushed at her. To which shw reached out and carressed and held my face. I made a joke that I’m going to tell everyone that Sheila Nevins touched me uninvited—she’s a major mover in the #metoo movement—to which she replied: I’m going to tell everyone you touched me first. Ha! She is so elegant and funny too. JD appeared in the midst of it all and knelt at the head of our table to chat and then he came around to chat with Whoopi. He asked her a question that I overheard which reminded me of something someone would ask another high school student; I can’t really repeat it here. But, as they were hovering directly over me I sort of chimed in and made them laugh. JD leaned on my shoulders and squeezed them which was cute. Whoopi did a French exit. There was a sort of auction style pledge drive at different levels—being the budgeteer that I am, I pledged an amount that probably seemed paltry to others, while it was quite a lot for me. We were whisked away before dessert and had a last little something together just the three of us in the hotel lounge. I’m always sad when our time with our friend is over, though, in recent years, we have seen quite a lot of each other; in the past, the oughts decade, for instance, I never really knew, with such a parting, if we would indeed see each other for years to come; now I know there is always a next time that I needn’t wait too long for. I truly love this dear friend and I’m so grateful we get to spend time together and laugh; and laugh we do.

This morning we awoke early, big surprise, and decided to have breakfast down stairs in the whatchamacallit room and it was really fun. The food took forever to arrive which was perfect because we just wanted to sit there and chill and people watch and do practically nothing. Everything on the breakfast menu was ridiculously expensive, anyway, so I decided to order the most ridiculous thing: Eggs Isabella. Let’s just say that there were both truffles and caviar involved. I’m usually so careful when staying as someone’s guest but I just thought what the hell—it’s not something I’m going to ever make for myself. It was really fun just to hang out and soak up these last hours. We packed and went for a walk, zig-zagging the sidestreets between 63rd and 79th, between 5th and Madison and ended up at the Frederic Malle shop. Then we decided to have a spot of lunch at Bar Italia, sharing a couple plates, before getting in the car and heading back to the Cape. Was truly exhausted but the trip was so worth it. The celebrity bits don’t impress me a bit. What I love most is the true-friend time. True friends are truly hard to find.

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We arrived home late last evening. I have a scratchy throat today and I think I know what that means. I had the morning to myself to catch up on some writing and I could feel myself getting sicker and sicker. We had cauliflower crust pizza for lunch and a green salad with chicken breast for dinner. I had some thoughts post the party in NYC the other night.

Perfect that I am no beaming in from a futre time zone, when I still have a major cough, to report that all plans for the coming week were laid to waste. First of all relationships with people aren’t working and it’s global so it has to be me. And yet I swear to all things Christlike that I am being an agent of good—even not being as good to myself as I could be. But I’m going deeper into self care.

Had a nice show of support from some late breaking sponsors today. I really need to come up with a way to fundraise moving forward. I’ll put it on the list for October 4. I sent out a giant mailer to a bunch of venues regarding Brian’s show on Thursday. Had nice note back from Nancy Bauer on that score. I reached out to Desiree Burch to see if she would come stateside for the Feburary date the Illustrious people left vacant—thanks for that guys. And I finally have a date in the books to talk to Mass MoCA I should articulate that. Paid up the hotel and expenses looking tight but I will do my very best to remedy that in coming days. I see Lance Horne is doing something at ART. I will write him but he won’t write me back. I suggested Ikechuku Ufomadu also as a Feb replacement. Locked Tomoko in for our holiday show. Haven’t heard back from Danton will resend and hopefully he’ll join to. We are all on sale now at Joe’s Pub and happy to work some marketing magic. I did hear back from Sage Francis as well but I’m not sure he’s not flaking out again already. Audience is looking light for Gravitational Fool on Thursday but we will work some last minute magic.

I reached out to Cole too, but I think he’s just too big to answer emails. I pitched myself to play Tru in Jay Allen Pressey’s show but again no word back on that. I will suggest it to another venue. I’d like to get my hands on a copy of that play. Trying to confirm going to Portland but my spidey sense says that I’ll be too sick to do so. Still trying to get blood out of the stones that are the 141 guys—now that they have left the community they seem not to care that much about the work we’re doing. I do need to bring in more income. Next week I’ll circle back to Tatiana Von F. Emma sent some contracts I have to scan.

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Last evening I really didn’t sleep at all, my cold keeping my up for most the night. We had to move two of our clients, one to tomorrow and one to next week. We had an exact repeat of our food intake today as yesterday—cauliflower crust pizza for lunch and a lovely salad with chicken breast for dinner. I watched a pretty cool documentary about settlers on the Galapagos Islands in the early 20th century and otherwise lay low, trying to sweat this cold out, in bed for most of the day. In the evening we watched the Jane Fonda doc but didn’t finish watching. Will do so tomorrow. Going through some writing:

I love Julia Child. Who doesn’t, I know, but she has always held a special fascination for me. When I was a waiter in 1986 at the Harvest in Harvard Square, she and her husband Paul would come in for lunch. You would here “Bonjour Roger” in that booming unmistakeable tenor as she greeted the tiny alcoholic nicotine sodden maitre d’ whose name she properly prounced in French, ro-jay. Paul, a curled shrimp of a man who had already suffered his series of small strokes, followed hist towering wife into the dining room where she would always order the same thing: a burger, rare, no bun. She is a Leo and I’ve often remarked on the similarity between her choice of lunch and the bloody meat one would throw into a lion cage.

Before the book and movies about her during the last decades, I always thought she would make a great subject for a work of art. I won’t go any further into that thought lest I actually end up pursuing this instinct myself. At the very least I think she and her husband would make great costumes for Stella and me, come Halloween. But, obviously, there’s more to it. Here was a couple who worked together (even though you didn’t know he was behind the scenes), who had no kids and were rather late bloomers. They were also obsessed with France and had an affinity for Cambridge, Massachusetts and Maine. All of this I can relate to.

She described herself “as the cat looking at the king” when she was a student of Le Cordon Bleu—what can be more Leo an expression than that. And what person from any other sign could turn what was for her a personal passion into an entire movement, changing the way Americans cooked, forever. What other sign could see a chef superstar embodied in the form of a fifties something woman. I’m happy I had the few opportunities I did to wait on Mrs. Child whose name couldn’t be more fitting for someone who lived life with a childlike exuberance and who gave so much to the world.

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I slept somewhat better. But still this cold is kicking my behind. I don’t feel much like writing today to be honest. So I will do another cut and paste:

As we often are, we were approached by an event planner to do readings for guest at a private party. But there was something mysterious about this whole affair as the planner didn’t seem to be someone who threw a lot of parties, and we came to learn she worked for just a few clients helping them with their private and corporate events which kept her busy. This event was to be at a private home in Rhode Island and we took it as an opportunity to see a new part of New England. Only was there did we realize the island was where much of Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom was filmed. So we drove around to visit location spots, most notably, the “cove” of the place that serves as the film’s title.

The party itself only had about forty people in attendance but it was pretty elaborate and the grounds on which it was held, a private home on the water with multiple acres and buildings, was something the likes of which I’ve never seen; and I’ve spent a lot of time around rich people. We were set up in a sort of tower structure from which we could look down on the partygoers whom one couldn’t help imagine lived very privileged lives. One never knows exactly on which side of the political equation people might be in this position but, we were in short order led to assume that these people here assembled were on the right side of politics and history. How did we know this? Because they were all incredibly nice and unassuming people. In a world where the biblical adage that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven often rings so true, this party of people was to prove twrong that saying.

We had no idea the name of the hosts all the while we were at the party. Only by doing a bit of Google detective work the next day were our assumtions corrobarated. The host of the party was indeed a well-known, celebrated, very wealthy man of the Warren Buffet school of philanthropy where he was determined to give a great deal of his wealth away and to put it in service of others. We’ve always said that when it comes to private clients the best people in the world seem to find us and to be genuintely interested in raising their consciousness, making it a joy to help them in that aim. What we realize is that the same holds true for those who come to hire us for events. In either case we have never solicited interest but allow word of mouth and, I’d like to say, some good karma, make the referrals for us.

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Drove to Lexington this morning for lunch and for a birthday ice cream with the birthday girl. We had a quick bite at the parents and then set off to Beverly to see the showcase of Gravitational Fool at Endicott. I need to articulate some thoughts regarding this show and what it needs but I guess i just need things to percolate in my brain a bit. I will otherwise re-muse myself:

Why do I do what it is I do in regard to the half of each year, I spend, putting together performing arts festivals and series. Well, the simple answer is that Ed Sullivan and I share more than a birthday. Like Ed, I was a journalist from the age of 22 to about 40. IN fact the main reason I thought to adopt the pseudonym of Quinn Cox was because I wanted to keep my journalistic world—editors and publishers and the subjects I wrote about—separate from what might or not be a success as an astrological duo which has affectionately come to be known as Starsky + Cox. But you see paradoxes began to spring up. Like my Libran brother Oscar Wilde said, and I paraphrase because I’m too lazy to look this shit up: Give a man a mask and he’ll reveal his truths to you. Okay I’m going to look it up and see how close I got. What he actually said was: “Give him a mask and he will tell you the truth.” Which is much simpler and better but I was close.

People do not know me and that’s been okay. I think I’m getting ready to reveal myself in teaspoonfuls. The fact is that back around 2005 I thought Stella and I needed to take to a stage, something we had only done together, rarely, in acting classes where, at HB Studios, we were labelled “the Lunts” which, I won’t lie, I loved. I had a sort of rock-bottom epiphany where I thought, hang on, our book Sextrology came out last year and it has been a success, so we should take to the stage and somehow combine comedy and astrology with some music thrown in. At a place called (under) Elmo in Chelsea, which one tried to convince oneself was a boutique version of Fez under Time Cafe which had recently closed down, we launched our first “Cosmic Cabaret” to a full house of wonderful people we knew personally and periferally. Lots of fashion people—Zaldy and Ruben and Isabel Toledo and John Bartlett—as opposed to performer folks. And, I have to say, after another decade or so “being” with performer folk, I much prefer the people in the fashion and design world, despite the fact I was so utterly convinced, in 2005, that I wanted to stop hanging around with fashion folks whom I did at the time find fatuous and enter the “real” world of performing artists who were down, dirty, honest and true.

Performing artists, who had been down, dirty, honesty and true for the whole time I dipped in and out of their circles, for the past 20 years since I made my way to NYC, but when, in 2006, I began to seek their company, they were on their last gasp of genuine experience. Now, first, let me say, there is no downtown. And I say this as both a journalist and a downtown denizen who more dabbles in performance. I have said this for a decade now: Round about 2007, “downtown artists” began emulating some hybrid breed of Upper East Side Socialite and opera, indie-movie and/or rock star. Quite a leap, I know; but one felt, downtown, that one should speak in a mid-Atlantic accent previously reserved for Rosiland Russell and garb oneself from head to toe in outfits that were spontaneously ready to pass, if pressured, at a Met or Whitney Event.

Suddenly the creme de la creme of the downtown scene used words like creme de la creme. Though they might still live in apartments where the bath tub was recently or still, in the kitchen, they thought they should no longer have to pay for meals or makeup or plastic surgery because they were iconic, and they were. Some still are although that particular brand of enchantment is wearing off and, dare I say, thin.

And I started to miss my friends that worked at magazines that no longer existed. I started to miss the art directors and fellow writers, like myself, who live such solitary lives that it takes a proper poking or, at the very least, a more gregarious partner to stap you into interaction. But what I missed most about living life as a more anonymous character was the ability to move on a dime, to travel, undetected, without needing to be any one place on any certain date….

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree point of the Sabian Symbol may at times be one degree higher than the one listed here. The Blague portrays the starting degree of for this day ( 0°,  for instance), as I typically post in the morning, while the Sabian number corresponds to the end point (1°) of that same 0°-1° period. There are 360  degrees spread over 365/6 days per year—so they nearly, but not exactly, correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go! Copyright 2020 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved. Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2020 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox.