October 2025 Snapshots

This fall was way too busy for me to write anything, anywhere. I spent three weeks in New York in October, a lot of back and forth, for screenings, meetings with friends, and then the Frankenstein New York premiere where Allison was my Plus One. Frankie was well taken care of while I was gone. Speaking of which …

Late November was the one-year anniversary of me taking him home. It feels like yesterday and at the same time it feels like he’s been here forever. As Christopher Smart wrote in the late 1750s about his cat Joffrey: “For every house is incomplete without her and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.” It’s so true. He is, by turns, cuddly and arrogantly independent. He doesn’t turn around when I kiss-kiss at him. He responds though when I pat beside me on the couch. THAT sound he perks up. It’s hilarious. He doesn’t sleep all night with me but he does come in for about a 15-minute cuddle session before he’s on his way to wreak havoc through the night. When I sit at my desk he suddenly decides that his cat bed – placed right beneath me on the floor – is the only place he wants to be. When I sit on my couch, whaddya know, he wants to sit right next to me or ON me. I see you, Frankie! You’re not fooling me!

I could write a 10-part series about the Frankenstein New York premiere, at the Netflix-owned historic Paris Theatre, opposite the Plaza Hotel. It was a dazzling adventure end to end and I felt like Alice in Wonderland a little bit, but also I totally belonged Through the Looking Glass because I was a part of this thing, however tangentially. But I have never been to an event quite like this or a premiere party this … insane. And cool. Allison was my plus one. There wasn’t really a question: our first real conversation, as brand new friends, was at a little wine bar in the West Village, and somehow Frankenstein came up, and Allison told me all about a paper she wrote in college, and all her thoughts on the book. It always stuck with me. There’s a reason she is the first person I thanked in the Acknowledgements section in the back. So it was so exciting, getting dressed up with her, and heading uptown. I also couldn’t wait for her to see the film. She knows the book so well. I wondered what she would think of the adaptation. We got there and there was a parade of gleaming massive SUVs lined up outside the Plaza.

Frankenstein was everywhere, little custom boxes of popcorn, murals, etc. The place was packed, and I would guess the majority of the people there were invited, based on the star-studdedness of it all. Farran, Allison and I were blatantly star-gazing from our excellent seats. Monica was there too so she came over to talk to us before the show. This is what I miss. The random run-ins with friends.

Guillermo came out and introduced the film. And they all were there. Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth, Tamara Deverell, Kate Hawley, Jordan Samuel, Netflix reps, Miles Dale. Guillermo was totally hilarious as well (“We went balls to the wall with this although I have never understood that phrase because I don’t want my balls nailed to the wall.” Allison and I had so much fun, it was so much fun to be there as she “met” all these people I’ve been talking about for a year and a half.

The premiere was sponsored by Tiffany, who designed/donated jewelry for the film. They also held the party after the premiere at their flagship store which was right around the corner. The entire building was lit up an icy blue, and Alexandre Desplat’s score filled the 5th Avenue air. The windows were filled with projected purple lightning flashes.

All of the window displays outside were Frankenstein-themed. Allison and I were in awe. We had our invites, in Tiffany-blue, and were let through the velvet rope. The lights in the display room floor were off, and lightning flashed diagonally through all the windows. The score was deafening. It was all so DRAMATIC. Allison was like, “We are literally at the coolest party happening in New York right now. This is THE event.” We rode up in the elevator with the woman who planned the party. We complimented her effusively and told her we hoped she got to enjoy herself too.

The party was on the top floor, normally closed off to the public. Probably sheikhs and tech oligarchs are ushered up there to shop for their wives or mistresses. Allison and I got off the elevator and entered a rocking cocktail party, where more people were famous than not. Music blasted. Waiters circulated with food and drinks, even going up and down the spiral staircase to the upper level, a treacherous prospect. Allison and I drank champagne and began exploring.

There were display cases holding the jewelry from the film, but also cool things like a first edition Frankenstein, opened to show the frontispiece illustration. Mia Goth’s wedding dress, with the red crucifix (scarab beetle embedded in the center) designed by the artisans at Tiffany, stood in the middle of the room. Allison and I kept looking at each other like “!!!!” It was so fun! We walked out onto the outdoor balcony, 8 floors up. We were talking about how this is a view no one ever gets (well, except for rich people). Right next door was the Louis Vuitton building and … well, this is what is going on on the upper floors.

I don’t even know what to say.

We found Farran and Monica in the crowd, and we hung out. I knew Kim and Guillermo, and the cast, were all there somewhere, probably on the upper level of this massive space, so Allison and I went up there to check it out. It was packed. So clearly we were in the starry VIP area. I kept forgetting that I was a VIP too. I wrote the freakin’ book. It was wall to wall people. You had to be firm if you were making your way somewhere. Just keep going and say “excuse me” every other second. Over in the corner were bright lights, and towering above the crowd was Jacob Elordi. There were photographers there (I saw all the images the following day, with Getty watermarks.)

Allison and I lost Farran in the crowd, and then Farran texted me: “come to the left corner. Kim and G are here.” We geared up and plunged into the crowd, holding hands so we didn’t get separated. Finally I saw Kim, and we had a rapturous reunion, such an exciting triumphant night for her and Guillermo. It was fun to introduce Kim and Allison, although let’s be honest, I had to just SHOUT at Kim: “THIS IS ALLISON, THE FRIEND I WAS TELLING YOU ABOUT WHO LOVES FRANKENSTEIN.” I did my best! Suddenly, a woman came over to Kim, huge smile on her face, and in a flash I realized who she was. I said, “Oh! You’re Mia Goth!” (sigh. Sheila.) I got myself together, and Kim introduced me. I hadn’t been able to interview Mia, but I told her I was there on the day they shot the scene where she played piano. She got excited to talk about the piano lessons she’s still taking. “I had no idea what I was doing that day!” I said, “You had a piano teacher with you! I loved seeing him coming out in between takes.” He’d come out from behind the camera and help her on chords and hand placement. She said, “I could not have done it without him. I decided I’m going to keep studying.”

Kim then grabbed my hand – and I held Allison’s hand – and we plunged into the crowd again to go find Guillermo, who was “holding court” in the corner. He threw his arms out to me – I love him! – and introduced me as “she wrote the best book about this movie” to a crowd of random people. Listen: writing that book was a bear, so I think I’m owed some pride and at least a moment of sharing stories like this. There was a little space around him, so we actually had room to stand over there and hang out. Allison ended up in a deep conversation with the woman who runs Oscar Isaac’s production company, and I talked with Farran and Monica. Allison, Farran and Monica forced me to go over and say hello to Jacob. I felt like a shy teenager, but they were all like, “You already met him, you are part of this team, you’re supposed to be here, GO OVER THERE.” So I went over and introduced myself, and he remembered me. In fact, he got all excited, and called someone over, saying “This is Sheila. She wrote the book!!” Like I was the most important person in that heady starry room. He then launched into all of these compliments on my book, and telling me his experience looking it through it when he received it. “It’s sooo beautiful. I was in tears. I’m not kidding, Sheila. I used to look through books like this when I was a kid, and it’s amazing that I’m now … in one. It was really emotional for me.” His sincerity is disarming, but let me underline this: this was his night, his premiere, it’s a personal triumph. He’s a star. But he started off asking me about MY process and telling me how beautiful he thought my work was, and what it felt like to look through it.This generosity is not a surprise. I already experienced it during our interview, so this is just clearly who he is – at least as a person circulating in his career, that is. We then talked about his performance. I was talking about his gestures – and asking him how he came up with some of them, like his hands. (Obsessed with his hands in the movie. They’re the hands of a newborn.) He got so excited to talk about this process stuff. “Oh! You know how that one came about?” and he’d launch into the story. Meanwhile, my friends were 10 feet away documenting every second of this interaction, taking pictures and videos, like the paparazzi. In the “gestures” section of our conversation, he and I are mirror images, which makes us look strange. I’m clearly saying, “So you had your hands like this – how did you come up with that?” I look insane, my arms sticking out, or my hands up out in front of me. If you had no idea what we were talking about, you’d wonder what the hell was going on with my Commedia dell-arte Pantomime. But then you look at him, and he’s doing the same gesture back. Sometimes our arms are blurry in the photos, because we are mid-gesture. It’s hilarious, picturing my friends snapping 500 pictures of a 15-minute conversation.

Those pictures are just for me.

It was lovely, though. We ended up by talking about Gena Rowlands. “She is the best to ever do it,” he declared, with a big gesture. I said, “There really cannot be any argument on that score.”

My life is like a dream sometimes.

Allison and I made our way home, just giggling with the exhilaration of the whole night, talking a mile a minute into the night.

I came back to New York a week later. I didn’t even unpack. I had a NYFCC business meeting. I stayed with Allison (of course). The meeting was down at the Metrograph and some of us went out for lunch afterwards, and then wandered into the Aeon Bookstore, a wonderful bookstore and gathering place. We all browsed. It was so nice to just hang out with these people, my colleagues I don’t see enough. I bought two books (Anna Kavan’s Ice and Joseph Roth’s Radzinsky March). There were lots of French language books, including Ulysses. I had to check out the last page.

Taking pictures of yourself in the back seat of a cab when the bright mid-morning sun hits your face is nothing to be ashamed of. I prefer hailing cabs to calling an Uber or Lyft. New York is different now. There aren’t as many cabs. You’re stranded. There’s something so satisfying about standing on the curb (or slightly off), arm out, and seeing a cab careen your way.

Allison and I took a long walk one windy fall day, looking at the Halloween decorations on all the townhouse steps. People go crazy! It’s clearly a neighborhood competition, people one-upping each other with more and more outrageous elaborate decorations. This one, though, a tableau spreading down the sidewalk in front of one apartment building, took the cake.

The DETAILS. We were agog.

I came back from New York at the end of October, and the next day I got a special delivery from Fed Ex.

Reading
Adriatic: A Concert of Civilizations at the End of the Modern Age, by Robert Kaplan. I haven’t always agreed with him but love him. There are chapters in this book devoted to places I have now been, places I want to return to. Korčula, Zagreb. And other places I want to visit. Trieste. Ravenna.
Ice, by Anna Kavan. A sci-fi classic which I have never read.
Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, by Robert Lifton. This one is actually a re-read. It’s the Ur-text of “brainwashing”, based on his extensive studies with POWs in Korea, as well as those who experienced the “pressures” of the Cultural Revolution in China. He came up with the eight requirements “necessary” for brainwashing. The book was published in 1960, and it’s still definitive. Huge contribution to any stories of mass psychology, thought reform, “brainwashing”, and groupthink. I picked it up again because … yeah. Figured I should BONE UP, considering what’s going on.
Continuing to make my way through the complete poems of Emily Dickinson. It’ll be 2027 before I finish. Her poems are short but they are DENSE.