Apparently, he had a lot of daddy issues

How could such a pretty actor come from such a scary looking papa? RIP, Assi Dayan, Israeli actor hunk of yesteryear (with Anjelica Huston). NYT seems to attribute death to drugs, “wild sex,” and loneliness.

George Michael’s White Light music video explains his unlikely survival

I have famously bad taste in music. And an abiding love for George Michael: the music, the lyrics, the stubble. This song addresses his recent brush with death.

John John salutes daddy forever and ever. RIP, Stan Stearns.

Photographer Stan Stearns is dead at 76. John John and daddy are perpetually at the moment of parting. Counting the photographer and Saint Jackie, that’s 4 dead people united in our era’s greatest homage to death.

American Wife

Despite (or because?) of my Japanese husband’s objections, I must share my deepest fascination with Curtis Sittenfeld’s new novel, “American Wife.” It describes the life of a slightly ficitonalized Laura Bush. The book was published the day after we left San Francisco for Tokyo, but miraculously I found a copy at the SFO airport bookstore.

I love almost all first ladies, first lady candidates, and even VP candidate husbands. However, I’ve never much liked Ms Bush because of her probably Rx-induced vacant presence. Ms Sittenfeld, a confessed fan, has written *the* novel about this first lady and her unique contributions to femininity and country.

In the first section, “Alice” not only kills her high school friend and would-be boyfriend in a car accident, a fact that is documented. She also loses her virginity with the dead boy’s brother, and receives an illegal abortion performed by her grandmother’s lesbian MD lover. My favorite line, which I had to translate for my husband: “Andrew died, I caused his death, and then, like a lover, I took him inside me.”  

I already anticipate the sadness I will feel when I reach the end of this massive tome of unexpected vulgarity and sympathy. No doubt it will provide many lessons for me to become a better American wife here in Tokyo.

Is anyone else reading this book now?