This peculiar little sticker is stuck to a light pole that I pass on my walks home from work. It's a tiny thing and very hard to photograph, but it seems to show a girl in a pleated skirt walking up to a mermaid with a very long tail. Maybe it's a scene from a comic or cartoon that I'm not familiar with. I want to try to get a better picture, maybe when I'm carrying my big camera and not just my phone.
I have a boatload of things to do this weekend, most of them small tasks like laundry and mowing the lawn. But I'd also like to get out of the house, and I am determined to finish Barbra's autobiography. I think I have about 150 pages left. I'm up to her relationship with the Clintons and her political views, which unsurprisingly seem very much in line with my own. I've teased her about privilege in past posts, but she is very generous philanthropically and very sensible politically, and I love her for that.
And yet, yesterday I read another of her stories that amused me, about her relationship with the Warner Brothers studio and its chief executive, Steve Ross. Warners, she said, "once rescued me from the vacation in hell."
Jon and I, with our kids, along with friends and their kids, had rented houseboats on Lake Powell. And then everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong. Our friends' boat broke down, so suddenly we had eleven people on ours, with only one tiny bathroom. And then the rains came, and the water got rough. Winds were rocking the boat, and bats were swooping down at night. All I could think of was rabies, because Robert Redford had been bitten by a bat on Lake Powell just before we started filming "The Way We Were," and had to undergo weeks of painful injections in his stomach. Just the thought of those shots made me feel sick. And then Jon drove the boat into a sandbar. That was it. I called Warners and said, "Get me out of here!"And by golly, Warners sent a company plane and retrieved Barbra from her dismal vacation. It's kind of like very fancy travel insurance, I guess.
How intriguing about the Mermaid picture stuck to the pole! Across the road from where I live, there is a large building from the 1980s, originally the offices of our local electricity provier, but with different offices in there now. To one side, very easy not to spot, is mounted a small tile on the outside wall with a symbol that has had me wondering about it for years. I should take a picture and post it, maybe someone knows what it means.
ReplyDeleteYes! The internet is the perfect place to "crowd-source" the solution to life's little mysteries. :)
DeleteI have to ask: Did Warners only retrieve Barbra or did they rescue everyone off that boat?
ReplyDeleteUnclear. She says, "they once also rescued ME from the vacation in hell," but then later, when she's talking about the plane arriving, she says, "when WE saw it touch down, it was like the gods descending from heaven."
DeleteThat's an interesting anecdote of how the rich and famous deal with problems when on holidays.
ReplyDeleteIt must be nice to just call someone and get everything sorted!
DeleteThat mermaid sticker has me curious. My OCD tendencies kick in, though, when I see stickers and remnants of stickers on utility poles.
ReplyDeleteI am very curious about it. I'm going to take a better picture and reverse-image search it and see what I come up with.
DeleteOh how stressed Barbra must have been! How could she stand being on that crowded boat with just one little bathroom? It must have been hell on Earth for her. Thank heavens that Warner Bros appeared like The Lone Ranger to save the day. Hurrah for Barbra!
ReplyDeleteWell, to be fair, eleven people in one bathroom DOES sound a bit hellish. But yeah, the rest of us would just struggle through!
DeleteAh, privilege! Warner's never helped me out of a bad vacation.
ReplyDeleteI have always admired Barbra but reading her book I find her fascinating AND infuriating.
I can definitely see how she earned the "diva" reputation.
DeleteWouldn't it be nice to be able to just call and say "get me outta here!" Sounds like a big weekend in the offing. I hope you get it all done. When I closed the book I felt like I was saying goodbye to a friend -- a friend whose life was totally unlike mine, yet one you could talk with. She might not "get it" but then again, she'd come from not-much and might!
ReplyDeleteI think I will miss her, in a strange way, when I'm finished! But I'll also be glad to move on to something (or someone) else.
DeleteThat sticker looks like an old fairy tale illustration. I hope we find out more. Barbra sounds like someone I'd need to be rescued from on vacation!
ReplyDeleteI'm going to do some mermaid research! And yes, I bet her boat-mates were just as eager to get away from all that "togetherness."
Deleteso Barbra abandoned her husband and kids and friends leaving them to deal with everything. the only plans I have for the weekend is a haircut today.
ReplyDeleteMy thought too! I do hope all eleven were rescued (and my cynical mind wonders why the situation couldn’t be sorted out by the renting company, privileged or not).
DeleteIt's not clear whether her family members were evacuated with her or not. As I told River above, she says, "they once also rescued ME from the vacation in hell," but then later, when she's talking about the plane arriving, she says, "when WE saw it touch down, it was like the gods descending from heaven." I imagine someone had to stay behind to deal with the boat!
DeleteOh, Barbra! Her phone must be a who's who of ALL the rich and famous. And the gardeners who can fetch ice cream on the way to tend the roses. Somehow in the book she doesn't discuss the mall she has built in her basement. Or if she did, I somehow missed that part.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet, as you say, I think she has a very good heart.
I haven't read about the mall! In fact I hadn't even heard of it until I started the book and another commenter mentioned it. Who has their own mall? How does that even work?
DeleteI'm curious about the mermaid sticker. I hope you (or one of your readers) will figure out what it represents!
ReplyDeleteThe research is ongoing!
DeleteI'm curious about that sticker too! It looks like an illustration from an old children's book - the kind my grandmother had in my aunt's old room.
ReplyDeleteBut it has a kind of Japanese anime thing going on too.
DeleteWhat a great story! Lake Powell can be rough in the summer during monsoon season.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy your weekend!
I do love these little anecdotes sprinkled all through the book. She's a good storyteller! (As is to be expected from someone in the movie industry, I guess.)
DeleteSeeing your mermaid photo, I recall a little cement statue of exactly the same mermaid inside a few flower gardens. Maybe the mermaid is a, not commonly known, ocean goddess.
ReplyDeleteWeekends get busy with everything on the to-do list.
Barbra led a fascinating life and her talent was next to none. Being famous and wealthy, gave her many privileges. The boat rescue is hilarious.
I've seen a lot of mermaid statuettes, but I'm not sure I've seen one exactly like this. I think she has gills!
DeleteBarbra's trip would be a nightmare indeed. I try to look at experiences like that as a funny story for later. (or a blog post) It helps get through it. Not having a private plane at my disposal. :)
ReplyDeleteYeah, exactly. Most of us would hunker down and say, "We'll be laughing about this ten years from now!"
DeleteHow nice to have rescue from the vacation from hell. Did she abandon the rest of her family?
ReplyDeleteUnclear. See my comments to River and Ellen above. I'm sure at least some of them went with her, but she never spells it out.
DeleteI was thinking along the same lines as Allison. Talk about "entitled".
ReplyDeleteI really think her frame of reference is so different from the rest of us. I'm not sure she perceives stories like that the way we do.
Delete