I just read [okay, full disclosure, listened to on audiobook] A Moveable Feast. This book is worth a read for boatloads of reasons, not the least of which is that in comparison to every single person he comes into contact with, Ernest Hemingway comes off as the totally sane and temperate one. Oh, also I think that band (defunct? Dunno) Better Than Ezra got their name from a line about Ezra Pound playing the trombone/trumpet.
The one part that has stuck with me is the absolutely bonkers trip Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald from Paris to Lyon to pick up “Scott’s” convertible, which he and koo-koo-for-cocoa-puffs Zelda left there because it was raining. Oh, I’m sorry, I called it a convertible. Incorrect. You see, it’s actually just a car with no roof because Scott and Z decided they didn’t like it and took it off (sounds like a sober and considered decision to me!).
Anyway, they get to Lyon and Scott decides he’s gravely ill and takes to a hotel bed. Hemingway becomes his de facto nursemaid for, like, an hour, and then Scott magically gets better after harrassing “Hem” to produce a thermometer and they go drink, like, everything on earth. No — actually, that night they were uncharacteristically moderate, by which I mean at least two hard drinks followed by the eight probable bottles of wine they had with dinner.
It was weirdly hilarious yet depressing. And maybe even true! And meanwhile in the States (it was the 20’s) a lot of my fave baseballers were at it. So I’m hunched over drawing Carl Mays and Ray Chapman and Babe Ruth while these guys write and drink their ways through Paris. It was like a long “Meanwhile, abroad…” playing in my head.
Here’s F. Scott in his hour (literally) of need:
Hooray for Mollywood! 