International concluded that the treated us to a song in which they starvation. Some have even sent collec- tiny step towards realism. Of course human rights situation in Albania has lamented the death of "Comrade tive letters begging Alia to help them. people are utterly exhausted with the if anything grown worse. Enver" but then comforted themselves Meat, flour, cooking oil, coffee, and lack of food, the incredibly high prices. But with Hoxha dead many Albani- with the knowledge that he had "left other staples are severely rationed. In Many factories now work only two ans argue that things have to improve the party red'—on that phrase, fling- the capital, Tirane, milk is on sale for days a week, no electricity—when they under his successor, 59-year-old Ramiz ing their right arms up in a gesture only half an hour each day. The official don't work, the workers don't get Alia. In particular there is growing reminiscent of the Hitler Youth. Hox- wage is 600 Lek a month (about $90), money. Things are desperate for many hope that Alia will move to end the ha's picture adorns every available wall- but in villages many work for a quarter of them. But in the last few months, country's insane isolationism. But the space, his "immortal" thoughts clutter of that. Not that the secret police and since Hoxha died, people have been most pressing problems facing Alia are communal noticeboards, his people live party elite don't live well. Or as my allowed to go to Greece to visit internal and economic. He has put a in apartment blocks where huge source put it when I asked her whether relatives. Only old people and those stop to the bizarre military-bunker con- slogans announce "Lavdi Enver" and she was happy in today's Albania, "On- who leave their families behind—but struction program launched by Hoxha "Rrofte marxizm-leninizm'—'Glory to ly the ten politburo members who have it's something." in the 1960s. Everywhere you travel in Enver" and "Long live Marxism- a Mercedes and a whore are happy I asked if there had been any strikes, Albania military defenses sprout like Leninism." here." any signs of a Solidarity-type move- some belligerent fungus—gray concrete I asked her if Alia would change ment that could be felt on every street domes, dug into the earth, ready to be things. corner. occupied by troops. Most of them are De"espite the official view that the "I can only point to a few changes "Nothing like that," she said. "The derelict, the site of bonfires for children economy is doing well, a recent six- that outsiders wouldn't notice. Such peasants have been brainwashed for and useful stopping-off points for month drought has dealt a devastating things seem stupid to you, but to us forty years, they don't know any dif- drunks who can't make it home. The blow to a country still largely depend- they are the grains of hope. For exam- ferent. As for the intelligentsia, those military is scarcely less ubiquitous, as ent on agriculture, and where irrigation ple, you see all the slogans praising who disagree with the state are quick- scruffy and down-at-heel as the rest of and machinery remain primitive. Trans- Hoxha, yet nothing about Alia. ly eliminated. I can talk about my true the populace. No doubt I did not see portation is no less backward, as Nothing. Perhaps he isn't interested in feelings to only three people in Tirane" the front-line troops, who reputedly twenty-year old trucks struggle along building himself a cult. Let's hope so. What if Alia proves to be just receive everything they could wish for, dirt-track roads, and the railways bat- Then again, the only new slogan he has another Hoxha? including an 80 percent rise in defense tle against lack of basic raw materials. approved since Hoxha died is 'Better "I don't know," she said. "It can't spending since 1982. According to a well-placed source at Times Are Ahead For Albania.' That go on like this. Either Alia will be The personality cult that Hoxha Radio Tirane, the Albanian state radio, slogan, suggesting that things have not Hoxha II or a superman. There's no developed for himself remains in full many villagers in remote regions (where been perfect in the past, would have alternative anymore. Things have got swing; at a kindergarten children foreigners never set foot) are close to been unthinkable under Hoxha. It's a too bad to just go on as before." •

THE GREAT AMERICAN SALOON SERIES

HARRY'S OF CENTURY CITY by Douglas Bartholomew

If you get lonely, the Playboy Club is series while putting down a few ales, Royces and Ferraris. My arrival Satur- writing my entry for this year's contest, one flight of moving stairs up. If you don't come to Harry's Bar and day afternoon as I queued up behind which is Harry's Bar and American get borracco, you can cling to the high American Grill. Harry's, in fact, is the a Jaguar, a BMW, and a Mercedes- Grill's claim to fame amid a city littered front bar, your elbows propped at opposite of the neighborhood saloon. Benz in my decade-old Chevrolet with the stuff: the Eighth International roughly the level of Kareem Abdul- Most folks probably couldn't afford camper was uneventful until my turn Imitation Hemingway Competition. Jabbar's right armpit in mid sky-hook. the parking. came for valet service. As the ladies in Each January, Harry's places adver- If you get hungry, get thee to a table. At Harry's, parking is a big deal in their gowns and the gents in their black tisements in magazines, including the If you get conversational, the man the way that design was a big deal to ties waited for the sleek vehicles behind New Yorker, that state, "You must face behind the bar, a Scotchman who goes the Edsel. Except that Harry's is still me, one of the white-jacketed valets The White Bull That Is Paper With No by MacMillan, will engage obligingly around after thirteen years. Ostensibly, leaped up on my bumper exclaiming, Words On It." Each year the ads bring in a run of banter. If you get in- there are three ways one could get to "No taka trucka, no taka trucka!" more than 2,000 people out of the prep timidated by the freeways, a switch to Harry's, which is located in the lower, Taka my advice: Come to Harry's school woodwork or wherever Hem- a bottle of something less potent than or swamp, level of the ABC Entertain- when you're flush, when you're hot, ingway imitators work to show their the old Bushmill's—a beer, perhaps, or ment Center in a place known as Cen- when the steam billows from your skill at what Harry's is fond of calling a Levissimo's—will help allay your tury City, smack in the middle of Los wallet. Harry's is the kind of place you "good bad Hemingway." fears of the labyrinthine journey to Angeles. go after you've hit it big at Vegas, Concomitant with the fact that this home or hotel. Walking is one way to get there, driven all morning in a brand new ability is not a salable trade, the prize But if you get the urge to rub elbows though this is not recommended, since Maserati with a blonde you met the is a trip for two to Florence, and din- with a guy who has a snake tattoo on it is uncertain if anyone has ever walked night before. Then you cruise in for a ner at Harry's there (no relation). his arm or watch the fifth game of the (successfully) in L.A. Or you could fly. pop or two at Harry's. While the winning entries, judged so by (A personal helicopter would be most such literary lunas as Ray Bradbury Douglas Bartholomew is The American fitting.) Or you can get to Harry's by and Hemingway's son Jack, often Spectator's Chief Saloon Correspon- automobile. People don't drive to Wi hen the barman sees me scrib- evoke a chuckle, they more often dent. Harry's, they "arrive'—often in Rolls bling in my notebook, he asks if I'm border on the cute. College professors

THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 1986 37

LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED sift through the vast bulk of entries, a man and a woman is a plus. Finally, fable young hayseed as if hair might languid, fishlike movements as if want- filtering out the lesser efforts and set- says Bill Moyles, the manager of suddenly sprout from between his ing to be seen, i.e., noticed. Her dress, ting aside twenty-five for a closer Harry's, "The more ludicrous, the bet- pearly teeth. covered with iridescent blue, scaly reading. The team of Bradbury- ter." Two men clad in what look to be sequins, adds to the marine crea- Hemingway et al. is then sequestered Brooks Brothers suits take stools on my ture look. She has a tail, but it is in Harry's for a final judgment day, left. Each rests a pair of binoculars and not the finny type required of with the bar closed to the public. They Jack at the bar, my Edinburgh bar- folded Playbills on the bar. Deadpan mermaids. may taste some carpaccio with mustard man tells me he ended up here because and quick, Max says, "So your seats Truck Stopper appears more than and mayonnaise sauce (a delightful of Freddy Laker. "When Freddy came are far away." One of the Brooks moderately interested when I mention dish named for the painter, who used along, you just had to go to New Boys protests: "No, we were at the the Playboy Club upstairs. A lissome a color similar to that of the rare roast York," he says. "I just kept on going." races. We're on our way to the hostess agrees to punch my parking beef it consists of), sample some wine, The towheaded fellow on the theatre." tag. Jeeves, my helicopter pilot, is and pronounce the winner. Invariably, barstool on my right is here from Jef- Irish coffees up and down the im- nowhere in sight, nor is the blonde in several bottles of Chardonnay are con- ferson City, Missouri. A show-me boy. maculate bar that seats no more than the Maserati. Bunnies look more real sumed; on one occasion, a judge was He is bug-eyed, alert, garrulous. He is a dozen mostly high-backed people in the magazine than in the flesh. No carried out by his colleagues. in town with his father for the National with unobtrusive elbows. Bartender Trucka brings my rusty steed and I am What do the judges look for? First, Truck Stop Association's annual con- again sees my penmanship in action, off, heading north on a darkling trail the grammar must be flawless. Humor vention. Having overheard, others asks how my entry is coming. Woman of concrete, bound for dusty is second. Next, a relationship between along the bar stare deeply at this af- on the barstool beside me makes Bakersfield. •

THE TALKIES

LOST IN AFRICA by Alexandra Schonburg

of Africa, Sydney Pollack's affection for each other, but their mar- The film does not effectively convey Her affair with Denys gave her recogni- adaptation of Isak Dinesen's memoir riage was basically one of convenience: the passing of time, those seventeen tion, especially after his death in an of her years in Kenya from 1914 to 1931, she provided the money, he the title. years of Dinesen's struggle to keep her airplane crash. At his burial the English begins with Meryl Streep's haunting Dinesen was a social climber who coffee plantation going against nature's community regarded her as his widow. voice reading the first sentence of wanted the title so much that when she disasters and her creditors' demands. It must have been of enormous com- Dinesen's book: "I had a farm in caught syphilis she said: "If it didn't Ultimately, when she could not meet fort at a time of total desolation, for Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills." sound so beastly I might say that, the these demands she lost the farm. More- now she realized that she had lost The theme of the movie is loss. It is world being as it is, it was worthwhile over Dinesen's great loneliness, broken everything she had lived for over the the story of a woman who, in her own having syphilis in order to become a only by the brief—albeit passionate past seventeen years: her lover dead, words, wanted "to fascinate and be Baroness." Bror eventually left her and and fulfilling—comings and goings of her husband gone, and her beloved fascinated," who struggled for a pas- asked for a divorce. Denys, becomes a burden to the story. farm lost. sionate life against her fear of being She felt the same abandonment later The night Dinesen finds out about abandoned. The fear began when she with Denys Finch Hatton, whose fear Denys's death, she wants to take her was ten with her father's suicide and of being bored and love of freedom Leryl Streep is at her best here. She own life. She does not, but before the continued throughout her life in her dominated his life. An English aristo- plays the aristocrat perfectly, with ar- burial she paints her face like a mask, relationships with men. crat, old Etonian, soldier, white hunter, rogance, elegance, and charm. Dinesen putting kohl under her eyes and white Her husband, Baron Bror von Blix- and eccentric, Finch Hatton would fly came from a rich upper-middle-class powder on her cheeks. It is the mask en, convincingly played by Klaus Maria to London from Kenya for a night to Danish family, but loved being ad- behind which she will hide until her Brandauer, is continuously unfaithful. see one of Diaghilev's ballets. He loved dressed as Baroness and suffered great- death. She leaves Africa destitute. He goes off on endless safaris. He is Nijinsky, Beaudelaire, the Bloomsbury ly from her divorce. unreliable, irresponsible, improvident; group, modern art and music. Stravin- Her great love of nature and her but he is charming, and Dinesen is sky was a particular favorite. He desire for adventure must have in- A he idea of this movie had been in clearly taken by him. She often suffered scorned Beethoven as vulgar. For fluenced her move to Africa. She fell the minds of many people. Out of from depression, arising from Bror's background music Pollack strikes a in love with the country and its people Africa, the book, is a memoir, an an- continual philanderings with different compromise. He chooses Mozart, and immediately: "As for me, from my first thropologist's notebook, and also one European women, including the wife of in so doing gives the film a touch of weeks in Africa, I had felt a great af- of the finest stories of life in Africa. a close friend, and her discovery that refinement and lyricism. fection for the natives. It was a strong It has stood up as well if not better her husband had given her syphilis. Denys is played by Robert Redford, feeling that embraced all ages and both than any of Hemingway's short stories, Judith Thurman, in a recent biography who I imagine thought that if he could sexes—the discovery of the dark races though not as well known. Dinesen had of Dinesen, quotes her on jealousy: "It pass for a seventeen-year-old baseball was to me a magnificent enlargement charm, intelligence, and talent. But this is as if a claw had grabbed your heart, player in the The Natural (with, I might of all my world." The shots of Africa fascinating book and Dinesen's fascin- as if you had been shaken and tumbled add, a lot of back lighting), he could are superb: each of the scenes was first ating character were not enough to by a wild animal. How I remember it. now pass for an English aristocrat. It painted in water color by the produc- make a movie, not until Errol Trzelin- How I knew it." is a poor performance. Redford is tion designer, Steven Grimes, who also sky discovered the love story between Bror Blixen was a rather coarse, miscast; he looks like a cowboy dressed worked on Ryan's Daughter and On Dinesen and Denys in a book, Silence uneducated man, whose main goal in by Ralph Lauren. One wonders whom Golden Pond. Each of his water-color Will Speak. The rights to that book life was to have a good time. He and he thought he was playing and why. For scenes has been faithfully adapted by were bought in 1978 by Anna Cataldi Dinesen had a certain attraction and a worthy Denys one dreams of seeing Pollack, giving us a vivid sense of who, after years of struggle, finally a Nigel Havers (Chariots of Fire) or a Kenya's beauty. managed to get Kurt Luedtke interested Alexandra Schonburg is a free-lance Jeremy Irons or a young Laurence In Africa, Dinesen was a foreigner in writing the screenplay for one of the writer who lives in New York. Olivier. looked down upon by English society. great romances of the century. ID

38 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 1986

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