Black Swans: Stories

by Eve Babitz

(The closest thing to hot tomatoes is a perfume called Calyx worn by my friend Caroline Thompson.)

Hollywood courts are a style of architecture peculiar to Southern California, little bungalows facing each other with a walkway down the middle—God’s most perfect housing, in other words, before condos were thrust upon us.

Perhaps Hollywood’s one hundredth anniversary should be a celebration of the art of publicity.

In the back of my mind, there’s always plan B too. It is the lining of the fabric of my life, this idea that if things get bad, I can retire from the loop. The trick, I suppose, is to keep the wolves from the door so if you want to hang out on the boardwalk and feed the pigeons, you won’t trip on your way down.

“It’s too L.A.,” he said. He was from Chicago and thought everything should be morose.

And black swans are horrible narcissists, worse than white swans, because they’re so much more beautiful—they’ve got blue in their feathers, like shards of glass.

“do you think I can go in?” He’s the only person I know who still considers swimming in the Pacific Ocean at Venice Beach fun. I haven’t been swimming in that water since my friend Bob-the-Surfer came down with the same leukemia a group of lifeguards from that area died of. The bay we have here that looks so beautiful is a deadly black swan after all.