She'd Be California

Landed in Southern California yesterday to sunny, clear and 82F degrees. The forecast looks perfect, and the surf this morning was clean and chest to head high. Nice to be home.











New York, my love, you're not lookin' so bad yourself.

No.

She & Him

Just heard that my profile on Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward, collectively known as the musical duo She & Him, is out in the current issue of Nylon.  I interviewed them about their new album, Volume 2, when I was in California a couple months ago. I tried to pull some dirt out, but all I got were pink-nosed bunny rabbits and buttercream-frosted vegan cupcakes. They got that laid-back native Californian thing down like City Bakery has with hot cocoa and cubic marshmallows. It was a surprisingly difficult story to write. Haven't picked up any copies yet, but here are some preview photos my editor had sent me.

All the pretty colors

"Start with skepticism" - H. Zinn

It was a miserable November day last fall -- an unnerving mess of rain, wind, and cold. I don't know whose bright idea it was to walk down to Soho and look for jeans -- probably mine, and yes, I am embarrassed to admit it. Coming upon a line outside Cooper-Union's Great Hall, RG and I spontaneously decided to wait in it so that we could join the audience for a special event that day,  "The People Speak Live." Matt Damon was headlining to promote a History Channel documentary with his old Cambridge neighbor, Howard Zinn. Despite the inclement weather, our deliberation was brief: Shopping or intellectual self-improvement..."Howard Zinn is, like, major," I think I said.

Looking withered at 87,  Zinn maintained a very charming vibrancy and sharpness of mind, commenting on audience questions such as the reality of Obama's presidency vs. his campaign hype with,  "What comes through clearly is that we cannot depend ... on [political leaders] to remedy the injustices. It's people's movements that push and prod the leaders of our government."

RIP, Howard. We couldn't help but fall in love with you, not just a little, but a lot. Now go and check out A People's History of the United States.

There is my mind

Here lies the brain of H.M., the most famous patient in memory research. He died last year at the age of 82, after over five decades of being intently studied by neuroscientists. When he was 9, he was hit by a bicyclist, and began suffering epileptic seizures -- up to 11 each week. In his mid-twenties, he underwent a lobotomy which essentially made the seizures go away, but also mistakenly took away his ability to remember anything new.  So if you asked him at 6 p.m. what he'd had for lunch that day, he couldn't say. Yet most of his memory up until the surgery remained intact. For example, while he was never able to remember new acquaintances again, he remembered his mother. And after she passed away, he experienced grief each time he learned of her death -- again and again. Though it's difficult to grasp how he perceived his life, he once said:

"It does get me upset, but I always say to myself, what is to be is to be. That's the way I always figure it now."

Thank you, H.M., for all that we have learned from you, and your 2,401 brain slices which the U.C. San Diego Brain Observatory will now be studying. And for those minds whose whereabouts we are still looking for, thank you Maxence Cyrin for taking on the search.

Rivers

When I was in California a couple months ago, I was assigned to interview Rivers Cuomo for Nylon magazine. I asked him all kinds of questions, like if he still asks groupies to jump naked on his hotel room bed after shows. Some of his responses made it into the article. It's out now in the November issue, the one with Serena Van der Woodsen on the cover.

P.S. No, he does not bounce naked on his bed with fans now - maybe just his family.