There were many West Coast It Girls of the 60s and 70s, but Eve Babitz may have been the West Coast It Girl, at least among people in the know. Born in 1943 to a Jewish studio violinist and a shiksa Texan rose, Igor Stravinsky was her godfather and Greta Garbo, Charlie Chaplin, and Bertrand Russell her family friends. In the 1960s, she became a “groupie-adventuress” who designed album covers for Linda Ronstadt and Buffalo Springfield, befriended everyone from Frank Zappa to Salvador Dali, and counted Steve Martin, Jim Morrison, Harrison Ford, Annie Lebowitz, and both Ruscha brothers (photographer Paul and painter Ed) among her many lovers. She also was the nude girl in that famous photograph of Marcel DuChamp playing chess. You know the one.
Also she was an extra in Godfather II because she was sleeping with the film’s casting director and, well–why not?
None of these biographical details are as compelling as Eve’s prose. In essay collections and autobiographical novels, she rhapsodized about booze, beauty, jacarandas, and, above all else, her native stomping grounds of Southern California. Whether the subject was the many sorts of SoCal winds or a perfect crate of Chavez-approved grapes, she wrote with such extravagance that you found yourself falling in love with Los Angeles even if you’d always considered it a cultural wasteland–an opinion that would have rendered you a cultural wasteland to Evie, were you dim enough to express it around her. Continue Reading →
The other day I realized that it’d been more than a year since I dyed my hair. Though I don’t hate how the natural color complements my complexion, I’m going to streak the grey with a Kim Novack blond the minute I land a new commentating gig. (Notice I say when, not if; a positive step.) The whole business makes me think of my mom, Mary who renamed herself Sari. For decades, no matter how cross we were with each other, whenever my roots got too dark, she’d look at me contemplatively and say, “Maybe we should brighten your hair up.” And we would. 
Anyone who has read Freud knows that past is present when it comes to the traumas of our ancestors, especially when we do not consciously heal our family lines. This is also true of nations, which is why so many international wars stem from centuries-old conflicts. It is also why every person living in the United States, regardless of their race, religion, or where their ancestors lived 150 years ago, is impacted by slavery – its unmerited entitlements for white people; its dehumanizing exploitation and abuse of black people. Nowhere is this legacy more evident than in the U.S. criminal justice system’s grave mistreatment of people of color – especially black males. Policing the Black Man, an essay collection edited by activist and academic Angela Davis, lays out how African American men have remained endangered by our law enforcement system since “Juneteenth” – June 19, 1865 – when the slaves in the former Confederacy of the southern United States were officially emancipated.