Life Style & Travel

UNITED STATES—I did an astonishing amount of scanning and reading that morning in Atwater Village going through that Orson box. There Orson's screenplays from the last decade of his life had been carefully guarded by a woman who had a typing service when the Selectric was king. If "The Big Brass Ring" was arch and the adjective brilliant attached to...

UNITED STATES—We all know what autumn is for. Planting, of course. Yes, it is a recurring theme; but there are so many different things to plant. Dormant bulbs need to get into the ground before cool and rainy winter weather. Deciduous plants that should be planted while dormant prefer an early start if planted as soon as they defoliate...

UNITED STATES—Astonishing news: 33 years after calling it quits on Earth, Orson Welles is back, strong as ever, with his last motion picture being redeemed from legendary limbo by Netflix, the oft-described, seldom seen “The Other Side of the Wind.” This brings to mind a morning spent in Atwater Village opening a box of Orson’s final screenplays. Liz Derby was...

UNITED STATES—Autumn is for planting. Cliche? Yes, but true. Autumn is when most plants are beginning dormancy, and are therefore not so bothered by the discomforts associated with transplant. The weather is cooler and wetter, so that even if they are bothered, such discomforts are not as discomforting as they would be in summer. Once in the ground, plants...

UNITED STATES—"Well, I was going around the corner and he was sitting on the sidewalk, nursing a beer. And he said do you have any change?" "And then what happened?" "I told him I didn't have any. I said I didn't have any, but I could go get some at my apartment." "That was very nice of you. There are not many...

UNITED STATES—Gardening is not always fun. After diligently tending to warm season vegetables through spring and summer, it eventually becomes necessary to pull them up to relinquish space for cool season vegetables that grow through autumn and winter. It likely would be less unpleasant to wait for them to succumb to frost, but by that time, it would be...

UNITED STATES—"I don't envy your position… And what did you do?" "I told him firmly and in no uncertain terms to remove his hands from my eyes." "I'm sure you comported yourself every inch a lady," Mr. Disney said.  "Could you demonstrate exactly what Mickey did?  Please come around my desk. I put my hands over Mr. Disney's eyes, just as Mickey...

UNITED STATES—No more fertilizer! . . . almost. The main exception is turf that might need a bit of fertilizer if it must stay green through the coldest part of winter, but that is another topic for later. Otherwise, most plants start to go dormant through autumn, and should be as dormant as they get by the middle of...

UNITED STATES—During the filming of "Mary Poppins," Mickey Mouse molested me.  I must confess for many years, out of shame and admiration for Mr. Mouse's artistry, I suppressed the memory, revealed now only under hypnosis and at the request of Judith Regan. To this day, I am haunted by the ghastly image of that white four-fingered hand pawing my...

UNITED STATES—Autumn is slow in getting here. Yes, as of last Sunday, it is now autumn. The date is determined by the equinox, so is the same for everyone in the Northern Hemisphere, and is the same for the arrival of spring in the Southern Hemisphere. It just takes a bit longer for autumn weather to develop in the...