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I Used to Be Charming

The Rest of Eve Babitz

Author Eve Babitz
Introduction by Molly Lambert
Edited by Sara Kramer
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Paperback
$19.95 US
New York Review Books | NYRB Classics
On sale Oct 08, 2019 | 448 Pages | 9781681373799
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Previously uncollected nonfiction pieces by Hollywood's ultimate It Girl about everything from fashion to tango to Jim Morrison and Nicholas Cage.

With Eve’s Hollywood Eve Babitz lit up the scene in 1974. The books that followed, among them Slow Days, Fast Company and Sex and Rage, have seduced generations of readers with their unfailing wit and impossible glamour. What is less well known is that Babitz was a working journalist for the better part of three decades, writing for the likes of Rolling Stone, Vogue, and Esquire, as well as for off-the-beaten-path periodicals like Wet: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing and Francis Ford Coppola’s short-lived City. Whether profiling Hollywood darlings, getting to the bottom of health crazes like yoga and acupuncture, remembering friends and lovers from her days hobnobbing with rock stars at the Troubadour and art stars at the Ferus Gallery, or writing about her beloved, misunderstood hometown, Los Angeles, Babitz approaches every assignment with an energy and verve that is all her own.

I Used to Be Charming gathers nearly fifty pieces written between 1975 and 1997, including the full text of Babitz’s wry book-length investigation into the pioneering lifestyle brand Fiorucci. The title essay, published here for the first time, recounts the accident that came close to killing her in 1996; it reveals an uncharacteristically vulnerable yet never less than utterly charming Babitz.
Introduction
 
All This and The Godfather Too
My God, Eve, How Can You Live Here?
Needles in the Land of the Fruits and Nuts
My Life in a 36DD Bra, or, The All-American Obsession
No Onions
On Not Being a Tomboy
Losing Weight Made Me A New Person—A Novelist
Shopping
Sunday, Blue Pool, Sunday
Venice, California
Honky-Tonk Nights: The Good Old Days at L.A.’s Troubadour
A Californian Looks at New York
Anna’s Brando
The Girl from Gold’s Gym
The Tyranny of Fashion
Skin Deep
Tiffany’s Before Breakfast
Out of the Woods
Sunset Tango
The Path to Radiant Pain
Sober Virgins of the Eighties
Attitude Dancing
Ronstadt for President
Blame it on the VCRs
Rapture of the Shallows
The Sexual Politics of Fashion
Gotta Dance
The Soup Can as Big as the Ritz
Jim Morrison Is Dead and Living in Hollywood
I Was a Naked Pawn for Art
Life at Chateau Marmont: The Sequel
They Might Be Giants
Great Legs
Chairmen of the Board
Party at the Beach
Hippie Heaven
Billy Baldwin
The American Scene
A City Laid Out Like Lace
Hello Columbus
Nicolas Cage
Girl’s Town
The Manson Murders
Jackie’s Kids
Keeping Time in Ojai
Santa Fe: Angels We Have Heard on High
Love and Kisses
Scent of a Woman
I Used to Be Charming
Fiorucci: The Book
Eve Babitz is the author of several books of fiction, including Eve's Hollywood and Slow Days, Fast Company, both published by NYRB Classics. Her other nonfiction works include Fiorucci, the Book and Two by Two: Tango, Two-Step, and the L.A. Night. She has written for many publications, including Ms. And Esquire, and in the late 1960s designed album covers for the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and Linda Ronstadt.

Molly Lambert is a writer from and in Los Angeles. She has written for publications including The New York Times, The New Yorker, and GQ, and was a staff writer at the websites Grantland and MTV News. She hosts the podcast Molly’s Sleazy Friends and co-hosts Night Call.

Sara J. Kramer is the managing editor of NYRB Classics.
Eve Babitz View titles by Eve Babitz

About

Previously uncollected nonfiction pieces by Hollywood's ultimate It Girl about everything from fashion to tango to Jim Morrison and Nicholas Cage.

With Eve’s Hollywood Eve Babitz lit up the scene in 1974. The books that followed, among them Slow Days, Fast Company and Sex and Rage, have seduced generations of readers with their unfailing wit and impossible glamour. What is less well known is that Babitz was a working journalist for the better part of three decades, writing for the likes of Rolling Stone, Vogue, and Esquire, as well as for off-the-beaten-path periodicals like Wet: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing and Francis Ford Coppola’s short-lived City. Whether profiling Hollywood darlings, getting to the bottom of health crazes like yoga and acupuncture, remembering friends and lovers from her days hobnobbing with rock stars at the Troubadour and art stars at the Ferus Gallery, or writing about her beloved, misunderstood hometown, Los Angeles, Babitz approaches every assignment with an energy and verve that is all her own.

I Used to Be Charming gathers nearly fifty pieces written between 1975 and 1997, including the full text of Babitz’s wry book-length investigation into the pioneering lifestyle brand Fiorucci. The title essay, published here for the first time, recounts the accident that came close to killing her in 1996; it reveals an uncharacteristically vulnerable yet never less than utterly charming Babitz.

Table of Contents

Introduction
 
All This and The Godfather Too
My God, Eve, How Can You Live Here?
Needles in the Land of the Fruits and Nuts
My Life in a 36DD Bra, or, The All-American Obsession
No Onions
On Not Being a Tomboy
Losing Weight Made Me A New Person—A Novelist
Shopping
Sunday, Blue Pool, Sunday
Venice, California
Honky-Tonk Nights: The Good Old Days at L.A.’s Troubadour
A Californian Looks at New York
Anna’s Brando
The Girl from Gold’s Gym
The Tyranny of Fashion
Skin Deep
Tiffany’s Before Breakfast
Out of the Woods
Sunset Tango
The Path to Radiant Pain
Sober Virgins of the Eighties
Attitude Dancing
Ronstadt for President
Blame it on the VCRs
Rapture of the Shallows
The Sexual Politics of Fashion
Gotta Dance
The Soup Can as Big as the Ritz
Jim Morrison Is Dead and Living in Hollywood
I Was a Naked Pawn for Art
Life at Chateau Marmont: The Sequel
They Might Be Giants
Great Legs
Chairmen of the Board
Party at the Beach
Hippie Heaven
Billy Baldwin
The American Scene
A City Laid Out Like Lace
Hello Columbus
Nicolas Cage
Girl’s Town
The Manson Murders
Jackie’s Kids
Keeping Time in Ojai
Santa Fe: Angels We Have Heard on High
Love and Kisses
Scent of a Woman
I Used to Be Charming
Fiorucci: The Book

Author

Eve Babitz is the author of several books of fiction, including Eve's Hollywood and Slow Days, Fast Company, both published by NYRB Classics. Her other nonfiction works include Fiorucci, the Book and Two by Two: Tango, Two-Step, and the L.A. Night. She has written for many publications, including Ms. And Esquire, and in the late 1960s designed album covers for the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and Linda Ronstadt.

Molly Lambert is a writer from and in Los Angeles. She has written for publications including The New York Times, The New Yorker, and GQ, and was a staff writer at the websites Grantland and MTV News. She hosts the podcast Molly’s Sleazy Friends and co-hosts Night Call.

Sara J. Kramer is the managing editor of NYRB Classics.
Eve Babitz View titles by Eve Babitz

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