Dining Late with Claude La Badarian

List of letters by Claude La Badarian 

1) "The Last Supper" (vol. 14, no. 25, June 21-27, 2001) by William Monahan

Claude complains to Henry, a magazine publisher and confidant, about the publishing of his debut-novel SECOND NOVEL, and tells him about his tense domestic life with his wife and four children in Saugerties, NY. His impoverishment leads him to blackmail Henry into financing a dining column titled DINING LATE WITH CLAUDE LA BADARIAN.

2) "A Column Debuts" (vol. 14, no. 26, June 27-July 3, 2001) by Claude La Badarian

Thanking Henry for the Aristocrat magazine contract that he has tendered, Claude tells him that his family has now moved from the trailer park to a house and that he has begun reconstituting Hyperconsciousness: A Memoir. Ruminating on a wasted career as a magazine professional, Claude justifies blackmailing Henry and describes their relationship as now one of patronage.

3) "Marital Crisis In Saugerties" (vol. 14, no. 27, July 4-10, 2001) by Claude La Badarian

Responding to charges in a letter from Mei-Mei's father, Mr. Elmore Chong, the proprietor of the Luau Dragon, Claude recounts the circumstances that led his wife to leave their home prior to the seizure of the property by bailiffs. Having absconded with a Camper, Claude explains that he is insolvent and has no intention of reconciling with his wife.

4) "Silence, Exile, and Claude La Badarian" (vol. 14, no. 28, July 11-17, 2001) by Claude La Badarian

Claude is lodging at a Northampton hotel in Massachusetts where Henry is remitting money to him under the table. He reports that he has abandoned Hyper-Consciousness: A Memoir and argues that, in American literature, first novels are essentially memoirs converted to fiction upon the author's realization that their text is replete with prevarications.

5) "Living Independently: A Case of Mistaken Identity" (vol. 14, no. 29, July 18-24, 2001) by Claude La Badarian

In a letter to Jesus Christ, Claude confesses to assuming the identity of a mentally challenged individual named Alfred S. Longwood who disappeared after requesting privatized public assistance. Claude is instructed by a social worker named Pamela about how to live on one's own. When a bizarre sexual relationship between he and Pamela becomes tiresome he successfully blackmails her, depositing the weekly money she now gives him into Mr. Longwood's bank account.

6) "Dear Tina Brown" (vol. 14, no. 30, July 25-31, 2001) by Claude La Badarian

In a letter to Tina Brown, a famous magazine editor, Claude inquires about the party he was invited to almost two years ago. He regales her with tales of his social life and sexual exploits, claiming he is in France, and then explains that upon returning to his hotel in Northampton (not France) he found a drug bust underway. He ended up spending the night in some bushes near the train tracks and got a job the next day in a used bookstore.

7) "Claude and the Little People" (vol. 14, no. 31, August 1-7, 2001) by Claude La Badarian

Fired from his bookstore job, Claude weathers the summer heat at Café Calvin - where novelist William Monahan also happens to be - and composes a letter to Henry about his grandfather and how following his death his grandmother's vacation property was usurped by disreputable members of his extended family. He also reports his acquisition of a passport in Alfred S. Longwood's name and expresses a new appreciation for the little people.

8) "Seazed by Hindoos" (vol. 14, no. 32, August 8-14, 2001) by Claude La Badarian

Claude tells Henry about how he once rented a cottage in Long Island from a novelist's wife and ended up helping her out financially with a handout. After returning to Manhattan, he quickly spent all of his remaining money, and then, destitute, came across the novelist's wife, accepting an offer of a loan of some money, a fraction of what he had freely given her the previous year. Seven years later, a confrontation at a restaurant about the circumstances under which he did default on her loan comes to a violent end, a point at which, he tells Henry, the new Claude La Badarian began.

9) "That Asshole, Monahan" (vol. 14, no. 33, August 15-21, 2001) by Claude La Badarian

Complaining to Henry about the publishing of William Monahan's first novel Light House: A Trifle, Claude tells him that he tried to ruin Monahan's novel in a publication. While stricken by several bouts of hyperconsciousness, Claude has a metafictional encounter with Monahan who tells him that he is going to use as a working title for his next novel the title of Claude's first novel, Second Novel, and is also planning to write a blackmailed dining column written by a delusional media scumbag as a small yet integral part of it.

10) "Home Again" (vol. 14, no. 34, August 22-28, 2001) by Claude La Badarian

Claude reminisces to Henry about the Gramercy Park hotel where he is currently staying, having arrived in Manhattan for a series of meetings. He remembers the Eighties and the time he got a girl pregnant while spending the summer on an island off the coast of Massachusetts. The girl had an abortion in New York City and then, returning to the island, she and Claude shortly went their separate ways.

11) "New Voices Under Ninety" (vol. 14, no. 35, August 29-September 4, 2001) by Claude La Badarian

Still at the Gramercy, Claude informs Henry that he has kept busy with lunches. While at one editorial lunch, Claude was surprised by an Aristocrat editor who shortly decided to send him a book to review. The book, With Love and Squalor, is a collection of essays responding to the work of J.D. Salinger, and Claude criticizes the coming-of-age novel about New York City and its archetype The Catcher in the Rye.

12) "Je Suis Un Genius, Baby" (vol. 14, no. 36, September 5-11, 2001) by Claude La Badarian

In a letter to Graydon Carter, a famous magazine editor, Claude reports that he is currently in Paris and remembers a story from another trip to France a few years ago when he met a woman in a Paris establishment called Café Arc de Triomphe, passing an erotic moment or two with her before moving on.

13) "The Grapes of Claude" (vol. 14, no. 37, September 12-18, 2001) by Claude La Badarian

In a letter to God, Claude explains how he met up for a drink with William Monahan on the second floor of a building in Easthampton, Massachusetts where Monahan has his office and was then handed a two-year lease of the third floor so that he could write prose in permanent sanctuary. But Claude soon after discovered that Monahan had also shut him in with a brick wall at the door.