I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: LOU REED-“A Gift” (1976).

This “soft rock” song features a slow guitar song with shuffle beat as Reed speaks his mind.

There’s not a lot to the lyric (most of which are repeated a few times), but they are either really funny or really obnoxious depending on your take:

I’m just a gift to the women of this world
…
Responsibility sits so hard on my shoulder
Like a good wine, I’m better as I grow older, and now –
I’m just a gift to the women of this world
It’s hard to settle for second best
After you’ve had me, you know that you’ve had the best
And now you know that– I’m just a gift to the women of this world.

This song comes from his 1975 album Coney Island Baby. Apparently, many of the album’s songs were inspired by and dedicated to Reed’s girlfriend and muse at the time, a trans woman named Rachel Humphreys.  Well done Lou!

[READ: September 10, 2019] “The Women of This World”

Dale and Nelson are married and are living in a house while its owners, a philosophy professor and his wife, are in Munich until next year.  They chose this place away from it all because Nelson is writing a book.

It’s Thanksgiving and they are hosting Nelson’s stepfather, Jerome, and Jerome’s new girlfriend Brenda.

They did not come on Thanksgiving day became Jerome’s ex-wife (Nelsons mother), Didi was coming on Thanksgiving and they’d rather not see each other.

Nelson loved Jerome and felt indebted to him for arriving when Nelson was five and saving him from the life that Didi has planned for him.  Nelson admired Jerome and they still got along very well.

The beginning of the story is full of so many interesting little details.  That Nelson is known as No-Firsthand-Knowledge-Nelson because he is full of esoteric information, but often gets a small piece of it wrong.  So people would call back after a party to thank Dale for the food and to correct what nelson got wrong.

Dale is seeing a doctor who diagnosed her with Ménière’s disease.  It turns out that Nelson guessed that a writer who had the same last name as he doctor was the doctor;s husband.

Nelson used a lot of the advance for this book to wire the house for speakers.  He had very esoteric tastes, especially when he was worried about a book.  The compromise was that when there were guests there would be no music.  While he was at the airport getting Jerome and Brenda, she was listening to Lou Reed.  The song, “A Gift” might just be Jerome’s theme song: “I’m just a gift to the women of this world.”

There’s also this then-timely observation which now seems irrelevant and quaint

She remembered that Julia Roberts had been barefoot when she married Lyle Lovett.  Julia Roberts and Lyle Lovett: not as strange as Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley.

Brenda came in first and greeted Dale warmly. She asked if Dale would go for a walk with her–she wanted some fresh air. Dale was happy to go.  She loved walking along the water.

Dale always brought some donuts hoes with her for their neighbor’s dog, Tyrone.  Tyrone belonged to Janet a divorced woman who resented the summer visitors.  But she liked Nelson and Dale and happily let Tyrone romp around when they walked past her house.

Dale was an excellent cook and everyone applauded the meal.  Nelson was happy to have everyone there but Jerome seemed annoyed.  Possibly with Brenda.  Possibly with Dale.  It was unclear.  Jerome says he was happy to help Nelson when he was five.  If he had been there when Brenda was born he would have spared Nelson getting the name of a sea captain.  He joked that if he had been around at Nelson’s birth people would have thought something funny was going on.

Brenda seems offended at this.  She says it implies that Jerome knew Brenda when she was pregnant (he didn’t).  Tensions are high.  They get even higher when Jerome asks her about her disease.

Dale doesn’t want to talk about it so she changes the subject.  She has been taking pictures of the woman down the road–photographing her hands whil  she makes astrological charts.

Jerome expressed disapproval at the astrological charts.  When Brenda says she had her chart done, Jerome huffed and said Didi believed in astrology.  Brenda was annoyed, “I’m not Didi.”

The meal grows tenser as Jerome asks to open a bottle of wine Dale had been saving.  He opens it slowly seeming to savor everyone’s discomfort.  Later he says the wine was not even exceptional.

But things get weirder when Dale and Brenda go for another walk.  They head down to Janet’s house but while they are walking a car comes speeding down the road and almost runs them over.  At first Brenda thinks it may be Jerome speeding off but Dale realizes it came from Janet’s house.

They run to her place and find her on the floor with blood haloed around her head.

This story felt like it was heading in one direction and it wound up going somewhere else, but neither part actually seemed to finish. I’d really have preferred that this was a novel, because I’d like to see how these stories play out.