Vivienne Westwood, fall/winter 2010
…the Circassian was Sonya, with mustache and eyebrows drawn from burnt cork…Sonya’s outfit was the best of all. Her mustache and eyebrows were remarkably becoming. Everyone told her that she was very beautiful, and she was in an animatedly energetic mood unusual for her. Some inner voice told her that her fate was to be decided that night or never, and in a man’s clothes she seemed a completely different person.
. . .
It seemed to him that it was only today, for the first time, owing to that cork mustache, that he had known her fully. Indeed, that evening Sonya was merrier, livelier, and prettier than Nikolai had ever seen her before.
–War and Peace, Vol. II, part four, chapter XI
…until I (or monsieur webmaster) can figure out how to integrate all these various web presences in one nice package.
For the time being, you can find me at illuminations.tumblr.com.
You can also follow me on Twitter, twitter.com/renataespinosa.
And finally, don’t forget to check out my latest articles for Fashion Wire Daily.
Thanks for reading!
–Renata
Matey! This sailor sweater I’m wearing is accidentally and embarrassingly appropriate for Saltie, the tiny nautical-themed sandwich outpost in Williamsburg where salt is a major player (NYC’s salt war be damned). And my lunch date is wearing a navy pea coat and a wool beanie! Egads.
The lassi: Today it comes with quince and it is salty, sweet and sour (S.S.S.) Satisfying!
The sandwiches: I order “The Captain’s Daughter:” sardines, a pickled egg, parsley, salsa verde and dill and he orders “Scuttlebutt,” an even saltier technicolor combo of pickled beets, capers, squash, olives, feta, a hard-cooked egg and aioli.
Jarmuschian: A seat at the window a very square stool frames a scene of complicated telephone wires from which sneakers precariously hang. There are shadows of pigeons flying overhead. A man heaves flat packs of new pizza boxes into a cellar next door and the music playing reminds me of the Ethiopian jazz in “Broken Flowers.”
A four-shelf minimalist glass and painted steel case: Olive oil loaf, Eccles cakes, a pork and potato slice—it’s a little bit of England-in-Paris a la Rose Bakery, but in Brooklyn.
For the title alone…
Dirty Martini in V magazine (on stands Jan. 14), photographed by Karl Lagerfeld.
Continue reading ‘“coco a go-go”’
I killed many plants during the years 2000-09, R.I.P.
In 2010, I will give “gardening” another go, the indoor variety at any rate.
My new place is near the waterfront in an area with a history as a bustling shipyard.
What kind of potted plants do cruise ships sail with? What species of plant would be indigenous to a vessel always in transit? Would the plants have to be tropical if they primarily sail the seas in the tropics?
And: are New York apartments akin to desert climes in the winter?
The Kate Bush Dance Troupe (yes, I’m in it!) will be performing as the closing act of Chase Granoff’s piece in Nancy Garcia/Chase Granoff at the Kitchen, November 5, 6, and 7.
512 West 19th Street
Thursday–Saturday, November 5-7, 8pm
Tickets: $12
Curated by Matthew Lyons
To purchase tickets, go here.
About KBDT:
The Kate Bush Dance Troupe is an ongoing collaborative ensemble of non-dancers (Samara Davis, Erica Magrey, Cassie Thornton, Kate Scherer, Renata Espinosa and Jennifer Sullivan) who create dance performances inspired by the music and emotive movement stylings of Kate Bush.
You can see our videos here and here, and some pics here.
The show is also mentioned in The New York Times….but uh, please note, Kate Bush *will not* be there. Just the dance troupe tribute!
★ NANCY GARCIA/CHASE GRANOFF (Thursday) Way down in the press materials for this double bill at the Kitchen comes a brief statement: “Special guest appearance by Kate Bush.” That’s rather fascinating to those of us whose first onstage appearance was in a dance set to Ms. Bush’s “Wuthering Heights.” But Chase Granoff’s “Art of Making Dances” sounds alluring for other reasons too: the incongruous artistic trio of Doris Humphrey, Simone Forti and Jean-Luc Godard all figure into a montage of sound, text and movement. The other half of the program offers Nancy Garcia’s “I need more” (and who doesn’t?), which uses her own recent solo album in an exploration of music history as a source for movement material. Lighting for both is by Joe Levasseur; always a good sign. (Through Nov. 7.) At 8 p.m., the Kitchen, 512 West 19th Street, Chelsea , (212) 255-5793, thekitchen.org; $12. (Sulcas)
When you’re living in New York: How young is too young to be acting old (staying in, hosting dinner parties, eating a fiber-rich diet) and how old is too old to be acting young (leaving the house for a party at midnight, drinking beer at a venue that uses plastic cups instead of glasses, hustling work)?
And if one clocks in at either end of age-inappropriate activity spectrum, is it a sign of weakness or a victory of self-assurance? Or is it just sad?
When I don’t have a seat on the subway and I’m hanging onto the pole (eww, gross, insert swine flu joke here), it’s either stare at the floor, stare out the window across the way (which leads to staring at myself, which leads to quickly looking away lest those bags under my eyes so beautifully lit by the overhead fluorescents get me down) or stare at others. I don’t like staring at others too intensely, leftover from the mid-nineties when my parents packed me off to NYC for college and I attended a first-year orientation, that’s right it was “first-year” not “freshman” and the older, wiser seniors giving defensive New Yorker-ing lessons told us to never, ever look up from the sidewalk or we might risk getting raped or mugged. But I will slide my eyes up and down the car taking in “street style” or whatever the hell it is one does on the L train these days.
What was rare—no, extraordinary—about yesterday’s ride was that it was the first time I can recall not relying on my visual senses, because I found myself overwhelmed by the silence in the car. All the seats were full, but the train was not crowded. There were no teenagers or children on the train. Nearly everyone was engaged in their own, personal activities, from reading to ipod shuffling to staring into space, aside from one couple on the far end of the train who spoke in a low muffle. I sat there for the length of one stop, between Bedford and First Avenue, in a state of ecstasy once I noticed this. I might as well have been doing yoga, that’s how good I felt. Things like this do not happen in New York. Not on the train.
I related this story to some friends of mine later that day, excitedly. “It was pure zen!” I screamed.
My friends looked at me, concerned.
“Um, I think you need to get out of the city more often.”
comments