And I thought it was as good as any place to start.  Make a list, and I have, of all the important things that took place in 1904.  Such as Geza Mattachick publishing his memoir (in German) of his affair with Princess Louise of Belgium (daughter of King Leopold II of the Belgians, and wife of Phillip of Saxe-Coburg) in 1904.  Loads of other fun facts to share and tell, but that's just one that came to mind, and not to be all numerologoical about it, but you begin to put it all down, (and I have but not all in the same place) and I'm serious, a kind of strange karmic weirdness begins to emerge.  If nothing else, what a fantastic year it must have been, when you think about it.  Mahler, Chekhov, Peter Pan?  Strange.  It's always been a fascination, even to going for regression hypnosis last summer (which turned into something entirely different.  I drove out to Chatsworth for it.  Deeply unsettling, and as it turned out, 1904 played no part in the experience whatsoever, so there you are).

I once wrote a novel -- several in fact, back in the time I'm thinking about, years ago when I couldn't actually read anything I wrote, it was hard enough typing it, and it printed out on paper you had to separate on the perforations later, not entirely unlike the original manuscript of On The Road, but different, plus it was typed on my first computer, a Lanier, by the company that still makes dictaphones (I believe), the first home office model.  Given to me by someone who couldn't believe I was still typing on an old Royal (see illustration above).  It saved documents by the page. I imagine they thought people in those days were only ever going to type letters, certainly not a novel, and so it got saved in 500 separate documents.  And I called it 1904.  I thought the title was genius: obscure, mysterious.  My agent at the time said it was unacceptable because no one would have any idea what the book was about with a title like that, and this was at the time when I was still chain-smoking and being depressed because I lived in Chicago and it was winter, and thinking that not knowing what a book was about from the title was a good thing.  In fact, it was a thinly disguised version of the trip I made to Israel in the early 80s (I don't remember the early 80s very well but I did go to Israel and it left quite an impression, but that's another story in itself), and through a complete misunderstanding I can't even today quite explain -- through a total miscommunication I got invited to tea at the home of David Solomon Sassoon, the Hebrew scholar and son of the famous book collector.  And we had tea and had this conversation about Gematria and how Biblical scholars were analyzing old Bible texts because since Hebrew letters have numerical value, you could add up all the words and -- this was years and years before the Bible Code -- you could add the numerical value of the words together and through a fairly complicated process come up with a number which would have fantastic power and meaning -- I'm simplifying here, but that was the general gist of the conversation.  Fascinating.  His sister joined us for a while, and my companion was this Israeli woman I was traveling with and... anyway, I turned it into this book and oh yes, the magic number was ... 1904!  Brilliant, I thought.  Until the agent said it wasn't -- little did I know, callow youth, that I should have been so grateful to HAVE an agent who had an opinion of the title of anything I'd write.  My dream then was to do an Dewar's ad.  I spent a lot of time thinking about the quote they'd use, and what I'd wear in the black and white photograph they always had -- I worked with someone who did a Dewar's ad, they were all the rage back then -- to me at least.  That was my ambition.  Little did I know.  Plus, editing a book that is stored not only on floppy disks but in 500 documents... nightmare.

And so, Gentle Reader, any time you come across 1904, let me know.  I'll add it to the list.

Here ends my first posting on a Blog.  I'm not at all sure this Blog is a wise idea, and Blogging may be a trend we will all come to regret.  Or I will.  Sophia thought it was a brilliant idea, however.  I'm sitting here, looking out the french windows of my apartment in the building the real Citizen Kane built, in 1926, as an investment property of sorts.  Marion Davies had a suite downstairs near his... and my view from up here is straight out at the Griffith Observatory and the Hollywood Sign, and Sophia was here leaning out over the juliet balcony and saying, darling you should have a blog.  Or something like that.  Ah Rosebud.

Can I say the name of the building?  Better not.  But Gwen Stefani was here the other day, filming a music video.  There was a crane outside with a giant Kleeg light on it and a really decent craft service buffet in the lobby.  Nice.  Some of the crews that come in are non-union and very low rent.  Not Gwen. 

When the Park caught on fire, we watched from the roof, with simulcast on the news.  Fantastic at night.  Red billowy glow, and sudden flare-ups against the black sky.  You should have seen it.  Just like looking at Hell, from a distance.