Nico
Muhly,

So, I am just back from a few days in Los Angeles where I was promoting The Reader ““ all of this is very new to me, the idea of sub-promoting a specific element of a movie (the score), but it was, for the most part, good fun, and very “other” to my normal experience of padding around my apartment in slippers. On Sunday, I gave (?) a Question and Answer session for the Society of Composers and Lyricists, which was totally fascinating. Some of the questions were really specific, and others were kind of antagonistic; one boy, who seemed like he was probably my age, got up and said, “Congratulations on your achievement” and then as an aside, added, “not really.” Wow! That’s like from fifth grade when you’d say, “I like your new haircut. NOT!” He then followed it with a totally respectable question, so who knows if he was just trying to be funny.

A few things. I had a meeting at an office where everybody was encouraged to bring their dogs in. Mmm, there is nothing better than this; it makes me feel so productive, to have the snuffling of little noses around my feet. It feels very modern in a way, especially given the juxtaposition of a million computers at eye level and a bunch of sturdy dogs underfoot. If I thought for a minute that I could get away with it, I’d totally have a dog. I did see something sort of depressing, though, which was at a mall in Beverly Hills, a pet store selling very expensive puppies in small cages:

A little grim. I participated in Make Thine Owne Cobb Salad:

I had an amazing lunch at a sushi bar; the sushi chef was kind of a randy old coot who was very actively hitting on the lady sitting next to me; their conversation was something like this:

Sushi Dude: [presents Lady with a plate of sashimi] Here you go.
Lady: ooh, it’s beautiful!
Sushi Dude: No, you’re beautiful!
Lady: oh, no, the plate is beautiful!
Sushi Dude: it’s only beautiful because it’s for you!

Wasn’t that the same shit from Estar Wars?

Anakin: You are so…beautiful.
Padme: It’s only because I’m so in love.
Anakin: No. No, it’s because I’m so in love with you.
Padme: Then love has blinded you?
Anakin: Well…that’s not exactly what I meant.
Padme: But it’s probably true.

Moral of the story: the sushi was beautiful:

I went to Mozza, the Batali joint in LA, and had, appropriately, a mozzarella tasting:

The other thing I et which was really good but didn’t photograph well was a calf’s brain ravioli in a sage butter. Gorgeous texture.