I used to be charming : the rest of Eve Babitz / by Eve Babitz ; introduction by Molly Lambert

My life in a 36DD bra, or, the all-American obsession -- Losing weight made me a new person; a novelist -- Shopping -- Venice California: boom-town by the sea -- Honky-tonk nights -- Californian looks at New York -- Anna's Brando -- The girl from gold's gym -- The tyranny of fashion -- Tiffany's before breakfast -- Ingrid Bergman: my story -- Out of the woods -- The path to radiant pain -- Sober virgins of the 80's -- Attitude dancing -- Ronstadt for president -- Blame it on the VCRs -- The sexual politics of fashion -- Why you should -- 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 -- American scene -- A city laid out like lace hello Columbus -- Nicholas Cage -- The Manson murders -- Jackie's kids -- Love and kisses -- Scent of a woman -- In a trance again -- Fiorucci -- I used to be charming .

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.

English