San Francisco Sentinel
Street Talk
August 16, 1990
Bad Thoughts, Kind Words
By Doris Fish
Lypsinka, Lypsinka, Lypsinka! It’s all I’ve heard for the last two weeks. I just returned from a week’s retreat in the Sequoias and my answering machine is full of the bitch. All lovely kind words for the fabulous creature: “You must see her,” “She really is clever,” “And she was so polite.” Only Lulu was bold enough to say, “Tired old Broadway shit.”
Miss X and Tippi loved her, “She was really glamourous, except for her brown wig.” Tippi cannot relate the color brown to anything beautiful or glamourous. X added, “I think she’s really smart and together and is about to become our competition as a greeting card model for another company.” I wish her luck — none of the other companies can be as good as West Graphics.
Of course, I’m sick about not meeting her myself. She looks just like our own fabulous Silvana Nova, but I hate to say it, a little younger and (had thought) maybe prettier? It’s terrible to compare two wonderful women, especially since Silvana has already reached near-perfection as an actress and human being and is one of the few friends of mine that my boyfriend can stand. I do look forward to the possibility that Sil and Lyp may star together in a remake of that Lana Turner Epic, Imitation of Life but fantasies aside, there is a rumor that local (and international) entrepreneur and filmmaker Marc Huestis may import Lyp for his much-awaited return to our local stage scene with The Trial of Norma Desmond starring Silvana Nova. If you miss the “Naked Brunch” days, this will give you something to dream about.
But wait, what was I doing on a retreat in the mountains? My father had just left after a not-so-bad-after-all three week visit which included a trip to Long Beach to see the Queen Mary, which was not nearly as hideous as the Universal Studio tour last year with my mother. Anyway, as soon as I heard he was coming I booked myself for the TM mountain retreat and was I glad I did.
The mountains were just how you would imagine them, lots of trees and dirt and bugs. And 110 degrees in the shade — I got sunstroke on my first day by the pool, though I was pretty sure it was a brain tumor, and I couldn’t even complain about it because we’d decided to have a Day of Silence. That was really a trial for me as I was just getting used to everyone and was on the point of regaling them with anecdotes of my glamourous life, but of course that was what I was there to escape — my life.
I didn’t really have to say anything, as it was a gay gathering anyway, organized by our local TM group, the Ayurveda Healing Center, and most of them knew enough about me not to want to hear any more. There were a couple of women besides myself, including Norma (a curious name – just an ‘L’ away from ‘normal’), who would lie all day on a couch listing to Vedic chants on a Walkman. I had a listen at one point to see what the attraction was. It was an almost discordant mumbo-jumbo singsong sound in Sanskrit which frankly gave me the heebie-jeebies. And then she wouldn’t eat her vegetables, she had peanut butter sandwiches with bananas at almost every meal until the last night when we were down to spaghetti and tomato sauce. She had two helpings, but by then I had decided that she was my favorite — a true eccentric with no concern for the world’s opinion.
The first night was a bit strange — no television, so Reverend Mother (everyone there could be called ‘askew’) organized a game of Battleship which was our way of keeping up with the Kuwait Crisis. In this version the US lost, and the Isles of Teena-Marie did very nicely, thank you. Teena was another of my favorites, with a nice figure, slightly buxom, but ever so cheery and relentlessly good-natured.
We did actually meditate, though for me it was more like napping, every morning around 10 a.m. (no 4 a.m. monk shit — this was the brunch of meditation), and again just before dinner, which was usually quite sumptuous and often followed by some deadly dessert with seven kinds of sugar and chocolate. I looked askance at such wickedness but was righteously informed that it was “in the Ayurveda Cookbook” and was “good” for Vata types (slim, restless type) but not recommended for Kapha types (not as slim and more likely to sit around). As is the way, the Kaphas seemed to get rather large portions while I just had a single spoonful.
Anyway, everyone turned out to be really nice and didn’t bother me and I got a bit of reading done — The Lives and Loves of a She-Devil and Perfect Health, a curious book which may change the way you think of your body and what happens to it. I haven’t finished it yet, as I’m trying to implement some of the suggestions, especially those in the chapter, “Aging Is A Mistake”. It’s by Deepak Chopra, M.D. and it’s chock full of neat quizzes and charts. It’s fun and challenging.
Now I’m back in the real world, where things go a little faster but I’m now a little slower. I’d better decide if I’m going to wake up and smell the coffee or take my time and smell the flowers. Roses for Doris, I hope.
The Ayurveda Center of San Francisco is located at 347 Dolores Street, Suite 221, phone — 255-1928.
