The New Issue: Leo Lerman
Leo’s desk. Gray and Leo had, at some point, acquired a double-strung piano. With no need for such an instrument, they attempted to give it away. No one wanted it, so they gutted it and turned it into Leo’s desk. It hasn’t changed since his death in 1994.
July 8, 1973: Why autobiography? Mina says she can’t write her autobiography and wonder why. I saw I write this because I love to scribble. I am so curious about people, things. I know that the conclusions, either set own or inferred, will tell not one new thing – but the affirmation, my belief in people, in character (what we meant by a person having character), in beauty, in truth (Keatsian), in the glorious and in the terrible – as demonstrated in the extraordinary creatures I have been privilege to reflect, in my very deepest self – all of this is valuable, is a beacon in this world which needs constant confirmation of its miracle of existence. How or why we are all still here, I do not know, nor understand.
This book is terrific!
Thanks for that…and yes, read the book.
I loved the current pictures too!
STB
What’s pretty extraordinary about Lerman’s journals — aside from the thoughtful writing and personal honesty — is his first-person candid commentary about still-fascinating cultural figures such as his buddy Marlene Dietrich (who tells LL that she doesn’t like sex, but since men seem to expect it from a sex symbol, however old she’s getting, Dietrich just gives in to get it over with) and Maria Callas (who spills the beans about Ari Onassis’s preference for anal sex and how Jackie O refused to go that far). It’s like an insider’s guide to the realities behind 20th-century culture.