Sent off the letter about the novel contest. Spent the day at Brookside [Park]….Love it enjoy it write it in bursts.
OCTAVIA E. BUTLER
FEBRUARY 3
1861
The nights have been too cold for me to write without bringing on my rheumatism, and my days have been entirely occupied, much of the time with fatiguing travel or field work. Today is lovely again. I am writing this sitting under a tree, minus coat, vest, and hat, thermometer at 80° in shade, and sky as clear as August.
WILLIAM H. BREWER
1911
As regards collaboration, it’s not a case of my meeting the wrong kind of person. The point is, I’m the wrong kind of person. It’s nobody’s fault but mine—this inability to collaborate….
I am on such shaky legs just now, that with interest on mortgages overdue, taxes unpaid, and heavy month’s bills coming in from everywhere, I was compelled to flee here to Los Angeles so as to stall off payment for a while. I haven’t paid my ranch foreman’s salary for three months. I managed to raise the wages for the first of February for the laborers, and they’re the only ones that I’ve paid….
And there’s the everlasting hell of it.
JACK LONDON
FEBRUARY 4
1932
At William Gillette’s invitation we all saw Sherlock Holmes, his play written some forty years ago. It is a good, tense, well-played “yarn” of the detective sort so popular now in book form. Gillette concealed his age amazingly well. He read the lines as well as ever and was heartily cheered at the end of each exciting episode, but when he said, in Holmes’ character, “What does it matter? What does anything matter?” I felt he was expressing his own philosophy, and then, a little later, Holmes said, “In a short time nothing will matter.” I forecast Gillette’s own shortening span of life. This is undoubtedly his farewell to the stage and almost the final year of his life. He is a lonely man. He has no family. No close relatives. He will go back to his hermit life on the Connecticut River and await the sunset.
HAMLIN GARLAND
1976
We have a young Polish student here, Isabel Kierkowska, who is doing a remarkable job….She rose rapidly to the top of her class and is doing wonderfully. She is the kind of student this place is designed for, and for such a student we feel we really make a distinct and unique contribution. Their full scientific potential is developed and stretched to the limit.
To interrupt such a good start and to break so natural a connection between institution and student as we have found here, would mean a tragic loss of human potential.
It has come to my attention that she is having some difficulty in obtaining the necessary exit visa to continue her studies here in the United States….Is there anything you could do to clear up the difficulty with her papers?
RICHARD FEYNMAN, to a friend
FEBRUARY 5
1850
Feb. 5th: Descending through lofty hills, covered, like the plains from the ranch of Chino, with grass and flowers, one obtains his first view of the pueblo of Los Angeles, nearly three miles off; this view, of course, is not complete, but the stranger hastens his steps, and is soon repaid, in a measure, for at least a portion of his toils….
The morning of the 3d, Sunday, brought crowds of people to the church from the neighboring ranchos. I went to Mass; after which witnessed the burial of an Indian who had died the day before. The corpse was interred beneath the floor of the Church….
The whole scene, “American” by the side of “Mexican,” (to adopt the language of the day), Indian and white, trader and penitent, gayety, bustle and confusion on the one side and religious solemnity on the other, was singular to me. A beggar at the door, as we sallied out, at the conclusion of the service, struck my attention, although I did not understand the language in which he now chanted and again prayed, as many in passing placed their alms in his hand.
JUDGE BENJAMIN HAYES
1928
We have met some movie actors, attended some studio screenings, etc. And I have had a fair amount of swimming and tennis. (The beaches—Long Beach, Venice, Santa Monica—are really a delight, and I have spent whole days watching the gulls, sandpipers, pelicans in their manoeuvres.) But I am especially enjoying the wealth of reading and music around the house. [His employer Herbert] Wise is buying all the albums of symphonies, quintettes, concertos and what-not on the Victor list. So I’m living on intimate terms with Brahms and Beethoven—the two most exciting of all to me.
HART CRANE
1985
J. took me to this meeting of the inner art sanctum of Los Angeles tonight at Lyn Kienholz’s house on Outpost filled with incredible art….
What a funny crew—art people—really good people—but white and affluent—little diversity or scope.
AARON PALEY
FEBRUARY 6
1932
Last week I slipped off a rostrum at the Mayfair and cut my ankle slightly. It is still bothering me, and I had to give it some sort of treatment last night. At ten o’clock to-day an osteopath is calling and treating me for my cold.
I hope to knock off a few articles to-day and start to-morrow on serious work. I have not had any reaction on my scenario yet, but then the executives are recovering from the visit of the bankers, who, thank heaven, have gone back to New York….
At this point the osteopath came, Dr. Bell. Make a note of his telephone number: Gladstone 0875. He gave me a real tossing about—broke my neck twice, broke my feet four times, gave me belly treatment and back treatment, used a vibrator and alcohol and generally left me feeling a better man.
I like him very much, and I’ve arranged for him to see me twice a week, not because I am ill but because I feel ever so much better after his treatment, which was for a cold and bronc.
He is a youngish-looking man, but he told me he’s been thirty-three years in Hollywood and has only once seen a rattlesnake. Before he came I was feeling a little bit dopy, but I am quite gay and bright now.
EDGAR WALLACE, days before his death
1947
Arrived at Pasadena at 9 a.m. and were met by a car from MGM. We drove for a long time down autobahns and boulevards full of vacant lots and filling stations and nondescript buildings and palm trees with a warm hazy light. It was more like Egypt—the suburbs of Cairo or Alexandria—than anything in Europe. We arrived at the Bel Air Hotel—very Egyptian with a hint of Addis Ababa in the smell of the blue gums….
We unpacked, sent great quantities of clothes to the laundry, bathed and lunched. A well-planned little restaurant, good cooking. We drank a good local wine, Masson’s Pinot Noir. We were the only people in the room drinking. Two tables of women with absurd hats. Rested. At 6 sharp we were called on by the two producers Gordon and McGuinness, who were preceded with fine bunches of flowers—with their shy wives. We sat in our bedroom and drank. Conversation difficult. Bed early, after dining without appetite in the restaurant, and slept badly; woke in pain.
EVELYN WAUGH
FEBRUARY 7
1949
Billy and I worked on the home-movies scene until Gloria [Swanson] appeared from Edith Head’s, whereupon Billy was really superb, quieting her fears, telling her to stop worrying about the script and let us take the responsibility—kidding and bolstering her at the same time. I think she’ll be all right.
CHARLES BRACKETT
1977
I crossed over into the golden years with a great deal of claret and, I think, some degree of grace. Carl and Eve Foreman assembled two dozen assorted friends and when we had the cutting of the cake and the serving of the champagne, Norman Corwin was warm and eloquent, but I’ve heard him speak twice in the last year at memorial services, which gave me an uncomfortable feeling.
JOHN D. WEAVER, to John Cheever
FEBRUARY 8
1854
The
government really desires their good, and not to exterminate them, as malicious and reckless white men have informed them….
I have clothed them coarsely, but comfortably, and on Sunday (work having ceased on Saturday at noon) they seem as happy as it is possible to conceive. To that day I have encouraged them to look as one of pleasure, and for this purpose have instituted among them our own games, in which I have requested and encouraged my white employees to take part; so that on every Sunday we have sometimes two or three hundred playing at bandy and ball with those who during the week are their overseers and instructors in manual labor.
In fact, so happy are my people, that that which I never thought possible has come to pass, and my feelings for this poor race, which at first were merely those of compassion, are rapidly changing into a deep interest in their welfare, and in many instances to a personal attachment.
I have no military force here, and require none; my door has neither been locked nor barred night or day, and yet my feeling of security is as great as though I were surrounded by an armed guard….
I hope to raise these people to believe that God has not created them to live and die as the wolves and beasts of their mountains. Already some faint and indistinct notion that such may be the case appears to have struck their sight; but as yet it is vague and distant, like the first uncertain glimpse of a distant light-house. Constantly, they say to me, “We have been asleep a long time. We are just beginning to awake, but our eyes are not yet wide open.”
E. F. BEALE
1891
We have a cottage on the bluff and I can sit there and feel the enchanting soft freshness of this blue ocean and get that stilled feeling the sea always brings me. There is nothing crude or newly raw about this lovely spot for it was well planted nearly twenty years ago—equal fifty elsewhere—and the broad terrace on the bluff has its wide double avenues of old windswept cypress and eucalyptus trees, where a long mile of firm grass-grown walk can be had. And a hundred feet below the long rollers break on a firm sand beach on which one can drive for many many miles.
To you [John Greenleaf Whittier], SnowBound—at this season, it is hard to realize the June-like beauty of the roses and heliotrope and honeysuckle and fuschias that cover the cottages to the roof, while beds of violets are in full bloom. And yet morning and evening we have wood fires, for beauty and companionship more than necessity.
JESSIE BENTON FRÉMONT
1944
On Friday at Salka’s for tea…there was only this sportily dressed woman who was vaguely familiar. I had only noticed that Salka told her our names, but not vice versa, from which I inferred that she must be so famous that she expected us to know who she was anyway. It was only after having this thought that I recognized her as Garbo. She was pleasant and friendly, and stayed for a long time—whereas she normally leaves, out of an almost pathological shyness, any social gathering at which she encounters new faces. She is beautiful…very affected and probably not especially intellectual, to put it discreetly—comes across as someone who makes a great effort to live up, at least somewhat, to her own nimbus. Ali Baba waited in the car. He cropped up in the conversation, and Ms. Garbo, who loves Afghans, requested that he be brought in. Now, Salka has three dogs of her own, two highly nervous setters and an enormous German shepherd that had just bitten Ms. Garbo (it bites everyone). But the three monsters were locked away. So Ali was then allowed in. He smelled his colleagues, stormed about like mad—I had never seen him so beside himself—and suddenly, before we knew it, he had lifted his little leg by a bookshelf and made his mark upon a book by Osa Johnson—in the presence of the supposedly most beautiful woman in the world….
THEODOR ADORNO
FEBRUARY 9
1931
They keep writers in little coops out here, on the movie lots, and sometimes it is months before the writers can find out who hired them and why. I was supposed to be writing a picture for Will Rogers, but they changed the plot on me five times in nine days, so I went away, and they didn’t even know I had gone away for some time—that was with the Fox Film Corporation—but they were very nice financially: they didn’t want what I did, but they paid me $5000 for something I hadn’t done. There is a kind of an idea around there that I am still working for them, in some quarters, I believe. Then I went into Paramount one day to sell the movie rights of an old novel of mine, and it seems they got the idea I was working there, so they paid me some money too, and I went on a vacation after that; and now I don’t think I have a job, but I don’t know, because no one knows anything about anything at all in Hollywood.
But it seems to me that the proper system here is to find out where all the pay windows of all the different studios are, and go around them every now and then and ask if there’s a check, and act a little surprised if there isn’t; after while maybe there will be. I found in one studio that they were getting ready to shoot a story; fifteen writers had worked on it for ten months; but they found they did not have a script when they started to shoot. So they gave me two weeks pay to write it; I did it in five days, but I think they lost it somehow; anyway, they probably wouldn’t use just one script. They need five or six, they shoot a little from one, and a little from another, and so forth—and then they wonder why the picture is kind of disconnected. There are some writers out here who have never had a thing filmed in two years; others turn out a script every two weeks; the ones who never get anything filmed get the most money. George Kaufman’s play [Once in a Lifetime] is not a burlesque or an exaggeration, it is a sober bit of reporting.
P. G. WODEHOUSE
1942
Some friends here and I have drafted the enclosed telegram to the President, and would be much obliged if you would sign it….
TO FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
We beg to draw your attention to a large group of natives of Germany and Italy who by present regulations are, erroneously, characterized and treated as “Aliens of Enemy Nationality.”
We are referring to such persons who have fled their country and sought refuge in the United States because of totalitarian persecution….
We, therefore, respectfully apply to you, Mr. President, who for all of us represent the spirit of all that is loyal, honest, and decent in a world of falsehood and chaos, to utter or to sanction a word of authoritative discrimination, to the effect that a clear and practical line should be drawn between the potential enemies of American democracy on the one hand, and the victims and sworn foes of totalitarian evil on the other.
THOMAS MANN, to Albert Einstein
FEBRUARY 10
1850
After Mass, there was a public meeting, in reference to schools and on the subject of taxation. I looked in at them awhile, then went to the hills to contemplate the flowers, and enjoy the balmy air that still prevailed as during the last six days….
JUDGE BENJAMIN HAYES
1927
Why this type of women? Why do they all come at once? Here I am, isolated, hardly leaving my work rooms, but they come, they seek me out,—and yield, (or do I yield?)
EDWARD WESTON
FEBRUARY 11
1931
Do a group of stories about Los Angelesians in the manner of Joyce’s “Dubliners.”
CAREY MCWILLIAMS
1933
I am lying in the sun, drinking coffee. Of course I could use the typewriter. For the first time in one solid month it is idle. This is a good day….But I have no intention of trying to explain my book [To a God Unknown]. It has to do that for itself. I would be sure of its effect if it could be stipulated that the readers read to an obbligato of Bach….
We are very happy. I need a dog pretty badly. I dreamed of dogs last night. They sat in a circle and looked at me and I wanted all of them. Apparently we are heading for the rocks. The light company is going to turn off the power in a few days, but we don’t care much.
JOHN STEINBECK
1948
I hesitate to put down these lines of appreciation as I’m of the belief that there should be little or no traffic at all between the critic and the criticized. If friendly relations exist between the two, the critic, when the time comes around to criticize, invariably leans over backwards in an effort not to be influenced by his personal feelings, and as a result he is more severe than he would want to be otherwise. By the same token, if upon making the acquaintance, the criticized appears a thoroughgoing s.o.b. in the eyes of the critic, he (the critic) in an effort to be fair and unbiased, is generally inclined to give the criticized a break he doesn’t deserve. All of which is leading up to this proposal—will you have a drink with me next time I am in New York? In the meantime, thank you very much.
JOHN HUSTON, to James Agee
1952
FOUR YEARS LATER
The review [of his and Huston’s The African Queen] of course makes me feel very good—both in the simple pleasure of being praised, and, more gratifyingly, because he realizes so much more clearly than most people, what I was trying to do.
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