Moon River, wider than a mile, I’m crossing you in style someday,
Dream maker, you heartbreaker,
Wherever you’re going I’m going your way,
Two drifters, off to see the world, there’s such a lot of world, to see…
Mancini/Mercer
This one goes out to you, Tiff – Tiffany Grant Tulley my recently departed half-sister –who, though I didn’t find out about it till a week ago, left us on November 9th.
Yup, that’ s her. Looking a good bit like her mother, which is understandable.
Because while Tiffany and I shared a father (we think, but with me more certain of my patriarchal lineage than her), that’s where our bio connection began and ended.
She is pictured here on the Mendicino coastline – near where she lived. I know this, because she was not one to travel much. And she didn’t need to, because, as anyone who’s been there will tell you, Mendo is a beautiful place.
And I have another half-sister, Sabrina (of even more questionable paternity): she’s Tiffany’s full sister (we think) — two years her junior. And (as I am sure you will agree), it’s only fair that I share her image as well:
I have not encountered Sabrina in more than a decade, and perhaps (though perhaps not) it’s because she may be a Sister from Another Mister.
Of the two, it is Sabrina that appears more likely to share DNA with me – if for no other reason than that unmistakable schnozz which resembles the probosces passed down from Grant generation to Grant generation, since the days when the Cossacks, overlooking these flaws, for several centuries ravaged our women.
But there is biological evidence to the contrary, and, though this is a story upon which I am disinclined to elaborate, the transfer of said intelligence was sufficiently upsetting for me to sever ties with Sab for eternity.
On the other hand, I stayed in touch with Tiff – albeit sporadically. So, I was not terribly surprised, if a little vexed, that I only learned the sad news indirectly, a fortnight after her passing.
This much is certain: Tiff was brilliant. I’d like to state that it runs in the Grant family, but, near as I can determine, the modifier can only be applied fairly to me and her. Among other things, she had a stone-cold photographic memory, a condition that I routinely tested by allowing her one minute to peruse pages from obscure books, which she would then recite verbatim.
But she never stood a chance. Affairs just never broke in her favor, and some of this was her own doing. For example, she quit Berkely a month before graduating Suma Cum Laude — after having financed her own tuition by doing the books for a clothing store on Telegraph Avenue, run by a dude that was fall-down drunk every morning by ten.
Meantime, while the girls were of uncertain paternal lineage, it can be confirmed that she and her sister were indeed the biological daughters of my dad’s second wife (whereabouts unknown), and a woman to whom I owe an eternal debt of gratitude — for turning me onto Audrey Hepburn.
I was in my 30s before I realized that she named both of her daughters accordingly – Tiffany based upon a line from main protagonist (the divinely named Holly Golightly), played by Miss Hepburn, in the film adaptation of Truman Capote’s “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” (which, in outlier fashion, was a better movie than the novel upon which it is based).
“Sabrina”, of course, is the title character – played superbly by Miss Hepburn — in the Billy Wilder classic that also starred Humphrey Bogart and William Holden.
I also took a page from my step mama’s book, by naming my own son, whose 34th birthday would have been this Wednesday, after the disturbed hero from “A Clockwork Orange”. As far as I am aware, the actor who played him – Malcom McDowell – is still with us. As is, presumably, my sister Sabrina. I’m not sure about my step mama, but the others are dead – including my son, my other sister, Truman Capote, Billy Wilder, Humphrey Bogart, William Holden and Miss Hepburn.
And it terms of the last of these, I think I fell in love with her during the scene in “B @ T’s” wherein, sitting on a windowsill of a Manhattan flat with a nylon-stringed guitar perched on her lovely lap, she authentically played, and sang, in a breathy voice, our thematic song.
Which is now one of my favorites. But this wasn’t always the case. This timeless classic, penned by no less than Henry Mancini (with lyrics by Johnny Mercer) was ruined for me during my childhood for being adopted as the theme song of Andy Williams, sung as smarmily as can be expected at the end of each episode of his weekly variety show.
But as for me, I will forget that outrage and think of the song only in conjunction with Audrey. And Tiffany.
There’s a moon river out there. It’s wider than a mile. We’ll cross it in style. Some day.
But not today.
It’s been that kind of year.
From a market perspective, we entered it in encouraging fashion. Political conditions favored the fortunes of the capitalist class. Artificial intelligence was poised to power our boats across any stream – no matter how wide. The regulatory vise was poised to come off.
The Prez and his family, themselves minting billions in crypto, were certain to use their political power to unleash the full force of digitized currency on the masses they presumed to control. They was also gonna squeeze the nuts of the Fed Chair and his cronies, forcing them to take short term interest rates down, while the Treasury Secretary took care of affairs at the longer end of the curve.
That’s adds up to a set of pretty fair winds for risk assets, and, indeed, our boats came out of dry dock in ’25 with sails unfurled into a gentle breeze. But we hit a stormy patch in early April, when 45/47 not only decided to unilaterally co-opt the world’s international trade protocols, but to do so in whimsical, inconsistent fashion. If it’s Tuesday, we are tariffing the shit out of everyone, if Thursday, not so much.
And so on and so on and shoobie doobie doo.
Ironically, the composer of that phrase, the incomparable Sly Stone, died in June. But by then the markets had recovered. Equity indices were on their way up; rates were coming down. BTC was trading comfortably in the six digits. The Fed began cutting in September, and it looked like we might at last reach the other side of that Moon River well before year end.
Somehow, however, we simply can’t seem to hold ourselves together. Like Tiff blowing off her last semester finals, we are acting, at present, against our own interests. Earnings have been about as pleasing as any mere mortal could wish them to be. And, just this past week, and after some hand wringing about whether AI was ahead of itself, that great corporate ship captain NVDA reported blowout earnings and guidance.
This delighted investors for all of about 15 hours, after which it and the rest of the equity complex sold off. Hard.
Contemporaneously, the deferred September Jobs Report showed strong gains — despite the impacts of the then-pending government shutdown (now ended) and the permanent dispatch of tens of thousands of public sector bureaucrats. Atlanta Fed Q3 GDP estimates now exceed 4%.
Thus, we enter this holiday week with the blessings of strong jobs and earnings data, surging GDP, significant downward pressure on interest rates, and, in summary much for which to be thankful and little about which to complain.
Yet not only are we in a pissy mood, but we are self-sabotaging in a way which perhaps only my sister(s) (either one) can fully appreciate. Indices are down. Vol is rising. BTC, recently up >50% from its April/Liberation Day lows, is now negative for the year.
I am tempted to refute this buzzkill and remind everyone of the penultimate lines of our song: “we’re after the same… …rainbow’s end, waiting ‘round the bend…”. Which of course is a hopeful message.
And there is hope. Particularly over this holiday week.
But then I think of Tiff. With so much going for her, and nothing ever going or going her way. And now she’s gone.
But we remain, and that same rainbow’s end is out there. In fact, it’s just around the bend.
It’s time to set our course and go.
TIMSHEL