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Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, the Flesh, and L.A.
Eve Babitz captured the voluptuous quality of L.A. in the1960s in a wildly original, totally unique voice. These stories are time capsule gems, as poignant and startling today as they were when published in the early 1970s. Eve Babitz is not well known today, but she should be. Her first hand experiences in the L.A. cultural scene, translated into haunting fiction, are an unforgettable glimpse at a lost world and a magical time.
178 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1977
About the author
Eve Babitz
14 books3,024 followersBabitz was born in Hollywood, California, the daughter of Mae, an artist, and Sol, a classical violinist on contract with 20th Century Fox.Her father was of Russian Jewish descent and her mother had Cajun (French) ancestry.Babitz's parents were friends with the composer Igor Stravinsky, who was her godfather.
In 1963, her first brush with notoriety came through Julian Wasser's iconic photograph of a nude, twenty-year-old Babitz playing chess with the artist Marcel Duchamp, on the occasion of his landmark retrospective at the Pasadena Art Museum. The show was curated by Walter Hopps, with whom Babitz was having an affair at the time. The photograph is described by the Smithsonian Archives of American Art as being “among the key documentary images of American modern art”.
Because of her ideas about sexuality, both in writing and life, much of the press over the years has emphasized her various romantic associations with famous men, including singer/poet Jim Morrison, artists (and brothers) Ed Ruscha and Paul Ruscha, and Hopps, amongst others. Babitz appears in Ed Ruscha’s artist book Five 1965 Girlfriends. Eve Babitz had affairs with comedian/writer Steve Martin, actor Harrison Ford, and writer Dan Wakefield, among others. She has been compared favorably with Edie Sedgwick, the protegee of Andy Warhol at The Factory in New York City.
Eve Babitz began her independent career as an artist, working in the music industry for Ahmet Ertegun at Atlantic Records, making album covers. In the late 1960s, she designed album covers for Linda Ronstadt, The Byrds, and Buffalo Springfield. Her most famous cover was a collage for the 1967 album Buffalo Springfield Again.
Her articles and short stories have appeared in Rolling Stone, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, and Esquire magazines. She is the author of several books including Eve's Hollywood; Slow Days, Fast Company; Sex and Rage; Two By Two; and L.A. Woman. Transitioning to her particular blend of fiction and memoir beginning with Eve's Hollywood, Babitz’s writing of this period is indelibly marked by the cultural scene of Los Angeles during that time, with numerous references and interactions to the artists, musicians, writers, actors, and sundry other iconic figures that made up the scene in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s.
In 1997, Babitz was severely injured when ash from a cigar she was smoking ignited her skirt, causing life-threatening third-degree burns over half her body. Because she had no health insurance, friends and family organized a fund-raising auction to pay her medical bills. Friends and former lovers donated cash and artworks to help pay for her long recovery. Babitz became somewhat more reclusive after this incident, but was still willing to be interviewed on occasion.
Babitz died of Huntington's disease at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles on December 17, 2021, at age 78.
In 1963, her first brush with notoriety came through Julian Wasser's iconic photograph of a nude, twenty-year-old Babitz playing chess with the artist Marcel Duchamp, on the occasion of his landmark retrospective at the Pasadena Art Museum. The show was curated by Walter Hopps, with whom Babitz was having an affair at the time. The photograph is described by the Smithsonian Archives of American Art as being “among the key documentary images of American modern art”.
Because of her ideas about sexuality, both in writing and life, much of the press over the years has emphasized her various romantic associations with famous men, including singer/poet Jim Morrison, artists (and brothers) Ed Ruscha and Paul Ruscha, and Hopps, amongst others. Babitz appears in Ed Ruscha’s artist book Five 1965 Girlfriends. Eve Babitz had affairs with comedian/writer Steve Martin, actor Harrison Ford, and writer Dan Wakefield, among others. She has been compared favorably with Edie Sedgwick, the protegee of Andy Warhol at The Factory in New York City.
Eve Babitz began her independent career as an artist, working in the music industry for Ahmet Ertegun at Atlantic Records, making album covers. In the late 1960s, she designed album covers for Linda Ronstadt, The Byrds, and Buffalo Springfield. Her most famous cover was a collage for the 1967 album Buffalo Springfield Again.
Her articles and short stories have appeared in Rolling Stone, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, and Esquire magazines. She is the author of several books including Eve's Hollywood; Slow Days, Fast Company; Sex and Rage; Two By Two; and L.A. Woman. Transitioning to her particular blend of fiction and memoir beginning with Eve's Hollywood, Babitz’s writing of this period is indelibly marked by the cultural scene of Los Angeles during that time, with numerous references and interactions to the artists, musicians, writers, actors, and sundry other iconic figures that made up the scene in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s.
In 1997, Babitz was severely injured when ash from a cigar she was smoking ignited her skirt, causing life-threatening third-degree burns over half her body. Because she had no health insurance, friends and family organized a fund-raising auction to pay her medical bills. Friends and former lovers donated cash and artworks to help pay for her long recovery. Babitz became somewhat more reclusive after this incident, but was still willing to be interviewed on occasion.
Babitz died of Huntington's disease at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles on December 17, 2021, at age 78.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 3,622 reviews
October 12, 2023
If Joan Didion was a hot slut
April 24, 2024
"Women want to be loved like roses. They spend hours perfecting their eyebrows and toes and inventing irresistible curls that fall by accident down the back of their necks from otherwise austere hairdos. They want their lover to remember the way they held a glass. They want to haunt."
have you ever read anything so perfect in your life?
that's just a goddamn random paragraph of this.
this book is so funny, so striking, gripped me from the first line, not even 200 pages but feels immersive, like everything, just excellent, eve babitz forever.
bottom line: a book so good it reduced me to babble.
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currently-reading updates
cool girl summer
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tbr review
treat people with kindness. you never know what they're going through. for example, every day i have to resist the urge to buy every book in this edition
have you ever read anything so perfect in your life?
that's just a goddamn random paragraph of this.
this book is so funny, so striking, gripped me from the first line, not even 200 pages but feels immersive, like everything, just excellent, eve babitz forever.
bottom line: a book so good it reduced me to babble.
---------------
currently-reading updates
cool girl summer
---------------
tbr review
treat people with kindness. you never know what they're going through. for example, every day i have to resist the urge to buy every book in this edition
February 18, 2024
reread this and had a great time
———
i’ve always been interested in reading some eve babitz, especially as she’s widely compared to (and often noted as the antithesis to) joan didion, and i’m so glad i picked this one up because i ended up loving it! ‘slow days, fast company’ is essentially a biographical essay collection all about babitz’s life in 1960s-70s los angeles. babitz is the perfect 70s la party girl, detailing her days spent running around la, bumping into the famous or the almost-famous.
although she very clearly loves la, her observations about the city and its culture are saturated with her quick-wit and dry humour, and i found myself wishing my copy wasn’t a library book so i could underline all the parts that made me laugh. her writing is so easygoing and gossipy that it just feels like one of your friends is catching you up on their latest escapades. her descriptions of la are so vivid and atmospheric that it makes you nostalgic for a time and place (in my case) you’ve never been.
if any book was going to convince me to sacrifice free healthcare and move to america, it’d be this one - along with just kids because i can’t decide between new york or la
———
i’ve always been interested in reading some eve babitz, especially as she’s widely compared to (and often noted as the antithesis to) joan didion, and i’m so glad i picked this one up because i ended up loving it! ‘slow days, fast company’ is essentially a biographical essay collection all about babitz’s life in 1960s-70s los angeles. babitz is the perfect 70s la party girl, detailing her days spent running around la, bumping into the famous or the almost-famous.
although she very clearly loves la, her observations about the city and its culture are saturated with her quick-wit and dry humour, and i found myself wishing my copy wasn’t a library book so i could underline all the parts that made me laugh. her writing is so easygoing and gossipy that it just feels like one of your friends is catching you up on their latest escapades. her descriptions of la are so vivid and atmospheric that it makes you nostalgic for a time and place (in my case) you’ve never been.
if any book was going to convince me to sacrifice free healthcare and move to america, it’d be this one - along with just kids because i can’t decide between new york or la
January 1, 2024
hot slut bohemian to crusty conservative pipeline
September 1, 2016
In the 1960s and 1970s, when I used to dread the approach of another lonely weekend, I wished I could meet a girl like Eve Babitz, intelligent, articulate, and drop-dead beautiful. And there she was, living just a few miles from me in Hollywood while I was in Santa Monica. Describing a friend of hers, "she lacked that element, raw and beckoning, that trailed like a vapor" behind her.
Like her first book, Eve's Hollywood, Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, The Flesh, and L.A. is a series of seemingly biographical essays with an admixture of fiction. Where the first book talked about Eve's teeny-bopper years in the 1960s, in her second she becomes the lovely, knowing score girl that everyone wants to meet ... and bed. She hung out with the likes of Jim Morrison, Steve Martin, artist Ed Ruscha, and gallery owner Walter Hopps.
What she writes about in Slow Days, Fast Company is about her friendships and relationships with people who are usually not identified with their last names; and even their first names could have been modified. In the end, it doesn't matter a bit. Eve knows success, and how it twists people so they becoming boring "celebrities" who rely on drugs and booze to get through the day. She writes;
Eve Babitz in her time and place -- Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s -- was as good as they come. She is in many ways the best that Los Angeles has to offer. If you read her books, I think you will understand why.
Like her first book, Eve's Hollywood, Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, The Flesh, and L.A. is a series of seemingly biographical essays with an admixture of fiction. Where the first book talked about Eve's teeny-bopper years in the 1960s, in her second she becomes the lovely, knowing score girl that everyone wants to meet ... and bed. She hung out with the likes of Jim Morrison, Steve Martin, artist Ed Ruscha, and gallery owner Walter Hopps.
What she writes about in Slow Days, Fast Company is about her friendships and relationships with people who are usually not identified with their last names; and even their first names could have been modified. In the end, it doesn't matter a bit. Eve knows success, and how it twists people so they becoming boring "celebrities" who rely on drugs and booze to get through the day. She writes;
But everyone knows that it would have been much better to have been popular in high school when your blood was clean, and pure lust and kisses lasted forever, Chocolate Cokes in high school are better than caviar on a yacht when you're forty-five. It's common knowledge.Eve Babitz knew herself far better than most people, and she had a wicked sense of humor, as in this exchange:
The very next night I was having dinner with this fashionable young rich man who looked at me as I smoothed some paté over some toast and said, "You better watch out with that stuff. It'll make you fat."Horrible indeed! No use being morose about it, however. Even if I never found an Eve Babitz, I can appreciate her discriminating mind even at this distant remove. This is a girl who did not believe in the viability of most relationships: "The real truth is that I've never known any man-woman thing to pan out (it may pan out to them, of course, but couples in middle age who don't speak to each other are not my idea of a good movie.)"
"Well, gee," I said to him, "there are so many perfect women, it's just horrible you have to spend time sitting here with me."
Eve Babitz in her time and place -- Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s -- was as good as they come. She is in many ways the best that Los Angeles has to offer. If you read her books, I think you will understand why.
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September 1, 2022sharp, glamorous, and a little sad. eve seemed so cool before she became a conservative…
September 10, 2021
i was so excited, to read my first babitz, i had a lot of expectations, and this for sure didn't disappoint me. i loved the way she described Shawn and Mary, and it kind of made me fall in love with both of them, the descriptions were truly beautiful and i can't imagine how they felt when they read that and then being able to say that someone captured you the way Eve did. i didnt know how much i liked "gossip" kind of stories till i read this, i stayed late at night just to see what she had to say about a city that i never thought as interesting (it's just the us in general ngl) and people that i didn't really care. I'll for sure continue reading more about her since i loved the way she described things, like she was just trying to explain something to one of her friends, but, more eloquent of course. (4.5 but a 5 just because)
sep 6 - sep 9
sep 6 - sep 9
October 9, 2016
For the last 15 years I’ve lived in Los Angeles. Now I want to get out. It’s a good time. We just sold our house and my wife completed her masters, plus she hates her job. There are the kids, but I didn’t ask them to be here. They just stuck around. Now they’re an anchor around our necks. Why can’t we just pull up stakes and move this circus elsewhere? I know, I know, better than most. My parents relocated from New York City to the suburbs when I was eight and I’ve only just come to terms with the move. I’m 53 years old. I guess such experiences build character.
Speaking of characters, Eve Babitz. She's the naked lady playing chess with Duchamp in that famous photograph, but that was only the beginning of her illustrious career. She’s a writer, and a very good one, who’s enjoyable company if a bit decadent. I found myself eagerly devouring her prose at the beginning and then getting a little sick to my stomach three-quarters in, but that’s my constitution, not her talent.
What Babitz has done is rekindled my love for Los Angeles. I never hated the place like the cliched New York transplant. There’s as much culture here as anywhere, and the physical beauty is perfectly balanced by the banality of its freeways and strip malls. But the sun is oppressive and has the effect of following you everywhere with its burningly indifferent eye. I never doubted Los Angeles' vibrancy, but it’s a megacity and as such overwhelming and just as provincial as New York City.
But there’s a poetry here, especially in its changing colors, a quality Babitz captures better than any other writer of Los Angeles I’ve read. As she moves about the city and into the desert to the ocean and parties in-between, her color commentary is funny and opinionated. I don’t always agree, but I wouldn’t turn down an invitation from her. The place she describes is crystal clear, but the time of SLOW DAYS, FAST COMPANY: THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND L.A. is lost to history, embedded in the amber of her prose. The 1970s are long done except in the imagination of those who never lived then. They should step away from their keyboards and talk a walk around Los Angeles now. There’s a lot to see.
Speaking of characters, Eve Babitz. She's the naked lady playing chess with Duchamp in that famous photograph, but that was only the beginning of her illustrious career. She’s a writer, and a very good one, who’s enjoyable company if a bit decadent. I found myself eagerly devouring her prose at the beginning and then getting a little sick to my stomach three-quarters in, but that’s my constitution, not her talent.
What Babitz has done is rekindled my love for Los Angeles. I never hated the place like the cliched New York transplant. There’s as much culture here as anywhere, and the physical beauty is perfectly balanced by the banality of its freeways and strip malls. But the sun is oppressive and has the effect of following you everywhere with its burningly indifferent eye. I never doubted Los Angeles' vibrancy, but it’s a megacity and as such overwhelming and just as provincial as New York City.
But there’s a poetry here, especially in its changing colors, a quality Babitz captures better than any other writer of Los Angeles I’ve read. As she moves about the city and into the desert to the ocean and parties in-between, her color commentary is funny and opinionated. I don’t always agree, but I wouldn’t turn down an invitation from her. The place she describes is crystal clear, but the time of SLOW DAYS, FAST COMPANY: THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND L.A. is lost to history, embedded in the amber of her prose. The 1970s are long done except in the imagination of those who never lived then. They should step away from their keyboards and talk a walk around Los Angeles now. There’s a lot to see.
June 21, 2021
This was REALLY hard for be to get through despite the short length. Although I do admire Babitz’s writing ability, I found myself extremely uninterested in the stories and it’s characters. I was expecting a raunchy tell-all of living in Los Angeles at this time but was ultimately bored.
September 2, 2022
Audiobook….read by Mia Barron
…..5 hours and 32 minutes
As much as I enjoyed “Eve’s Hollywood” by Eve Babitz, I liked this book/audio-even MORE!!!
The collection of these non-fiction essays, were just so wonderfully sensuous.
During the 1960s and 70’s it seems as though there wasn’t anyone she could not have seduced.
It was so beautifully written— she was a totally captivating writer…..and just so engagingly fun to spend time with.
I can’t think of any other author who was such a stand for the city of Los Angeles like she was. I can’t think of anyone -living today who is.
At times she was dead-pan and hilarious—but always she was so darn smart and filled with vitality…..
and unguarded in the best of ways.
Eve intelligently and openly said things that some people might feel shame just thinking about — let alone saying out loud.
She was unapologetically candid about sex, drugs, art, music, her relationships, her family, her body, her judgments, and her life in Los Angeles.
She ‘opened’ up space for other people to be more of who they were.
I’m not done with this author yet—I’d like to go through all of her books.
Eve died in December 2021 -at age 78 - from complications with Huntington’s disease.
…..5 hours and 32 minutes
As much as I enjoyed “Eve’s Hollywood” by Eve Babitz, I liked this book/audio-even MORE!!!
The collection of these non-fiction essays, were just so wonderfully sensuous.
During the 1960s and 70’s it seems as though there wasn’t anyone she could not have seduced.
It was so beautifully written— she was a totally captivating writer…..and just so engagingly fun to spend time with.
I can’t think of any other author who was such a stand for the city of Los Angeles like she was. I can’t think of anyone -living today who is.
At times she was dead-pan and hilarious—but always she was so darn smart and filled with vitality…..
and unguarded in the best of ways.
Eve intelligently and openly said things that some people might feel shame just thinking about — let alone saying out loud.
She was unapologetically candid about sex, drugs, art, music, her relationships, her family, her body, her judgments, and her life in Los Angeles.
She ‘opened’ up space for other people to be more of who they were.
I’m not done with this author yet—I’d like to go through all of her books.
Eve died in December 2021 -at age 78 - from complications with Huntington’s disease.
October 1, 2021
just…boring. slow slow slow. i couldn’t care less about this world; i thought i would be swept up by tales of partying and debauchery with big stars and hot people, not lackluster reports of weekend holidays to palm springs or a farm or whatever. she references countless different men and girlfriends that were indistinguishable from each other and seemed to exist mostly for the purpose of making her glamorous by association. she never convinced me that her life was indeed the epitome of hollywood fabulosity, so whenever she described things like it was it seemed more self serving than honest.
January 15, 2024
Slow Days, Fast Company is Eve Babitz’s biographical essay collection spanning the 1960s and 70s in Los Angeles, a world so very far from my own. Taking you through an era you hear about in reminise, Babitz encapsulates the aura of the era through recollections of her meetings with the famous, the almost famous, and the wannabe famous as she details her life amongst the stars. It is her quick wit and humour paired with the secrets shared that feel similar to a gossip session with friends. You are invited into her circle with no details spared, and such closeness enables you to understand just how she charmed men and women alike with her 'it' girl personality.
Babitz’s work has been of significant interest to me for a while now. She tends to be placed in conversation with Joan Didion, a woman I admire significantly, both to compare with and as the antithesis of so I was glad to finally pick this up. I am so glad I did as she did not disappoint in the slightest. LA, one day I will be in you.
Babitz’s work has been of significant interest to me for a while now. She tends to be placed in conversation with Joan Didion, a woman I admire significantly, both to compare with and as the antithesis of so I was glad to finally pick this up. I am so glad I did as she did not disappoint in the slightest. LA, one day I will be in you.
July 17, 2023
A collection of nine gossips, but make it literary.
With an undertone of humor, Babitz spills some tea about the people she meets for the first time and hangs out with regularly—including one of her fans, a famous female rockstar from the 60s, a woman she truly adores, and a guy she fell in love with. There are a few stories that I didn't find as interesting, but I really like the way she tells them. It's simple and it makes sense. The sarcasm, silliness, and unapologetic one-liners about men, life, sex, and drugs add to the charm of this book. This collection also transported me to different locations in Southern California, like a dreamy road trip. If I were to make a playlist for this book, most of the songs would be by Lana Del Rey, because of the vibes.
With an undertone of humor, Babitz spills some tea about the people she meets for the first time and hangs out with regularly—including one of her fans, a famous female rockstar from the 60s, a woman she truly adores, and a guy she fell in love with. There are a few stories that I didn't find as interesting, but I really like the way she tells them. It's simple and it makes sense. The sarcasm, silliness, and unapologetic one-liners about men, life, sex, and drugs add to the charm of this book. This collection also transported me to different locations in Southern California, like a dreamy road trip. If I were to make a playlist for this book, most of the songs would be by Lana Del Rey, because of the vibes.
September 21, 2021
babitz, the epitome of cool funny it girl
September 18, 2024
The weather never normally bothers me when reading a book, but reading these stories never have I felt the need for a warm orangey pink & purple sunset more than now - I can't stand this pissing wind and rain!
From Palm Springs and Bakersfield, to Laguna Beach and being holed up at the Chateau Marmont, Babitz writes of rock stars and movie execs, of love and relationships, of Quaaludes and cocaine, and she never takes herself too seriously and is totally unfazed when it comes to the rich and famous. Some similarities here with Joan Didion, but Babitz feels more tactile to read and is completely laid back and openly frank about her sex life and affairs. I like to think of her as a kind of less well known Angelino artist/writer version of Brigitte Bardot.
I really enjoyed Eve's company. She has such a sharp eye when it comes to Hollywood being entrapped in its own legend. There is just something about reading and watching films depicting 60s and 70s California that makes it all so entrancing. Basically, give me a Babitzian L.A. rather than a Kardashian one.
January 9, 2022
It's fascinating how I experienced California through Eve's words. She is the ultimate "hot girl doing hot girl things" and I wish I have a friend like her. I could listen to all her stories and gossip all day. Love how she adds glitter to the ordinary.
Eve Babitz, no one does it like you did. I love you and your mind.
Eve Babitz, no one does it like you did. I love you and your mind.
October 25, 2020
gossipy and indulgent, druggy and blissful, the kind of casual pleasure afforded by the unconsidered privileges of white beauty—still a pleasant world to live in, for a time, until you consider the powers that enable the pleasantness
September 13, 2016
It's easy to label Eve Babitz a "muse" of men who went on to become famous. Even the ubiquitously-mentioned photo of her with Famous Male Artist is held up as a symbol of her muse-ish-ness. But I am starting to suspect that calling women "muses" is a way to strip them of all of their teeth and agency: they become accessories rather than agents.
And boy oh boy is Eve Babitz an agent: all teeth and light and fire. She knows how to turn a phrase. She is another face of the same God of Letters as Shirley Jackson: knowing the perfect way to describe a hidden thing; knowing how to take a private life and make it deeply captivating; knowing how to express a certain sort of experience as a woman in the world that is revolutionary in its exposed intimacy.
TL;DR: I liked the book.
And boy oh boy is Eve Babitz an agent: all teeth and light and fire. She knows how to turn a phrase. She is another face of the same God of Letters as Shirley Jackson: knowing the perfect way to describe a hidden thing; knowing how to take a private life and make it deeply captivating; knowing how to express a certain sort of experience as a woman in the world that is revolutionary in its exposed intimacy.
TL;DR: I liked the book.
August 15, 2021
dnf @ 65%
the fact that i couldn't get myself to trudge through this extremely short book :// expected to love this but it just didn't work for me
the fact that i couldn't get myself to trudge through this extremely short book :// expected to love this but it just didn't work for me
August 12, 2023
Generally speaking, this was one of the most dull fictional descriptions that I have ever read. Nothing was happening, and my inability to visualize the events just served to make it duller.
October 2, 2020
Well crafted short stories about life in 1960s-70s LaLa Land and the famous, semi-famous and wanna-be famous.
So awesome that NYRB Classics has republished this collection as Eve Babitz was not just a Hollywood IT girl. These are sharp, witty and intelligent observations of her life and LA.
“Women want to be loved like roses. They spend hours perfecting their eyebrows and toes and inventing irresistible curls that fall by accident down the back of their necks from otherwise austere hair-dos. They want their lover to remember the way they held a glass. They want to haunt.”
So awesome that NYRB Classics has republished this collection as Eve Babitz was not just a Hollywood IT girl. These are sharp, witty and intelligent observations of her life and LA.
“Women want to be loved like roses. They spend hours perfecting their eyebrows and toes and inventing irresistible curls that fall by accident down the back of their necks from otherwise austere hair-dos. They want their lover to remember the way they held a glass. They want to haunt.”
March 22, 2023
3.5 pre-cali road trip read for sure
September 25, 2021
Thought I would love this but just couldn’t connect with it and it was pretty dull.
January 25, 2022
Entertaining but felt like the sort of book you say you enjoy if you're an artist with a severe fringe and apartment in Greenwich village who thinks 'it just sounds better on vinyl'.
June 25, 2019
I had never read Eve Babitz or even heard of her, but NYRB is always a sure way of getting to any author or work. I found this in an airport, and read it knowing I would find something good, but this is even better than I thought. I don't think I have many references of women authors writing about California this way, and with this combination of fiction and memoir sort of. This was a great surprise, she speaks of things that I love to hear about, love, sex, fame parties, but she's also just damn smart and very likeable. Is that california? maybe, but I love her.
August 23, 2022
havent read this since highschool, i feel like i appreciate (and relate) to babitz’s writing so much more now or maybe just in a different way than when i was a teenager. nonetheless she’s got such a way with words and im too stupid to explain how i feel when i read her work
December 9, 2024
But outside the afternoon was lethal: no sunglasses could cut the glare, and even your pores shrank back against the light.
A strange journey through Southern California during the time of the New Hollywood and the concurrent blizzard of cocaine which descended upon the region and especially on its creatives and those of the pretty set.
I didn’t care for the nonchalance of first thirty pages, but it grows, establishing a rhythm and suddenly we’ve become fluent, as the overtures to freeways and screenplays dissolve into interior disquisition on body and lust. There’s also a recognition, an authorial awareness that matters are in flux. This becomes most evident when she travels to Bakersfield and she considers the plight of Chavez, the Okies and the consequences of freeway travel.
Apparently the Bauble (citing Cousins) has always been merciless even if it is the pictures which have gotten small.
There is something timeless in this meandering vehicle for confession and social positioning. Many of the best lines appear decontextualized, as Joyce was known to return his walks with phrases scribbled on strips of paper, I suspect many a cocktail napkin was put to use in this literary construction. It is also a curious fact that about forty percent of the book was underlined in my particular copy. I did ponder those circumstances for the zeal displayed.
I enjoyed it and am glad I could complete the year’s challenge on this one rather than from the handful of stories I’ve read over the past few days.
A strange journey through Southern California during the time of the New Hollywood and the concurrent blizzard of cocaine which descended upon the region and especially on its creatives and those of the pretty set.
I didn’t care for the nonchalance of first thirty pages, but it grows, establishing a rhythm and suddenly we’ve become fluent, as the overtures to freeways and screenplays dissolve into interior disquisition on body and lust. There’s also a recognition, an authorial awareness that matters are in flux. This becomes most evident when she travels to Bakersfield and she considers the plight of Chavez, the Okies and the consequences of freeway travel.
Apparently the Bauble (citing Cousins) has always been merciless even if it is the pictures which have gotten small.
There is something timeless in this meandering vehicle for confession and social positioning. Many of the best lines appear decontextualized, as Joyce was known to return his walks with phrases scribbled on strips of paper, I suspect many a cocktail napkin was put to use in this literary construction. It is also a curious fact that about forty percent of the book was underlined in my particular copy. I did ponder those circumstances for the zeal displayed.
I enjoyed it and am glad I could complete the year’s challenge on this one rather than from the handful of stories I’ve read over the past few days.
February 19, 2023
ever since i first discovered eve babitz, i have been captivated by the themes she writes about. she’s known as “the” bohemian it girl on the internet, exploring la in the 60s and 70s while encountering the famous or the almost famous.
however, after completing slow days, fast company, i have been nothing but disappointed.
anyone who has ever started working out with youtube videos will totally understand how a ten minute long workout can feel like ten hours. this is exactly how this book felt like.
to say the least — eve’s writing style is chatty, gossipy and it reads like you’re catching up with your “cool” friend. some of her observations and lines are hilarious, however, i do think that she’s given way more credit for her wittiness than she actually deserves. most of her writing consists of nothing but surface-level descriptions of la and society and passionless prose.
additionally, the people she met and her relationships are too bland and paper-thin for anyone to care about them at all. i love reading about mundane life — people’s thoughts, sentiments and relationships have always intrigued me (sally rooney supremacy!!), but this book had barely any of that. the characters didn’t feel like actual individuals and living people due to their lack of characterization. it seems like they exist for the sole purpose of portraying the glamorous life of eve babitz.
although i’d go so far as to say that the moments she wrote about in those stories weren’t all that glamorous. trips to a farm and palm springs couldn’t interest me less if the friends and lovers she writes about are as boring as a trigonometry class at school and if there aren’t any insightful observations about the places she goes to.
all in all, i don’t get the roaring four and five star ratings. someone help me out there!
however, after completing slow days, fast company, i have been nothing but disappointed.
anyone who has ever started working out with youtube videos will totally understand how a ten minute long workout can feel like ten hours. this is exactly how this book felt like.
to say the least — eve’s writing style is chatty, gossipy and it reads like you’re catching up with your “cool” friend. some of her observations and lines are hilarious, however, i do think that she’s given way more credit for her wittiness than she actually deserves. most of her writing consists of nothing but surface-level descriptions of la and society and passionless prose.
additionally, the people she met and her relationships are too bland and paper-thin for anyone to care about them at all. i love reading about mundane life — people’s thoughts, sentiments and relationships have always intrigued me (sally rooney supremacy!!), but this book had barely any of that. the characters didn’t feel like actual individuals and living people due to their lack of characterization. it seems like they exist for the sole purpose of portraying the glamorous life of eve babitz.
although i’d go so far as to say that the moments she wrote about in those stories weren’t all that glamorous. trips to a farm and palm springs couldn’t interest me less if the friends and lovers she writes about are as boring as a trigonometry class at school and if there aren’t any insightful observations about the places she goes to.
all in all, i don’t get the roaring four and five star ratings. someone help me out there!
September 13, 2016
A classic Southern California book of fiction, or is it a memoir of sorts? Eve Babitz is a combination of Marcel Proust and F.Scott Fitzgerald. Her observations of life in Los Angeles and slightly beyond that city, is razor-focused, and her mini-portraits of various friends and lovers are masterfully written. I mentioned Proust, because she has a knack for documenting her times. Perhaps even journalistic skills in capturing in a few strokes or words, a complicated personality. F Scott, because she writes about class - or the people in her world - which are artists, musicians, and they tend to be successful, yet they wander from one local (Southern California) location to the next. I read Eve's Hollywood, and liked it very much - but I feel "Slow Days,..." is a much better book. For those, who collect Los Angeles literature, this is pretty much of a must-have and must-read.
April 21, 2020
this book was such a delight... babitz is the perfect breezy 70s LA hot girl, and her narration style is so light easygoing that you rly feel like you’re a sexy 20-something doing quaaludes and seducing men and having threesomes and then going home and sitting on your cute porch with some coffee the next morning. i also really loved reading about her love for LA, which i personally can’t imagine loving myself (esp contemporary LA), but i have plenty of nostalgia for the hot dry california summers of my childhood so it was lovely to read about. 10/10
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