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.”
If Ulysses were instead about a day spent walking the Internet instead of Dublin, would it look like this? Deep fried butter balls at a Texas State Fair, communion wafers sold in bulk, “Miss Homeless” beauty contest in the UK, Jezebel reacts to blackface in French Vogue, the Man Booker Prize, nine out of 20 National Book Award finalists are women, John Mayer takes the piss out of a New York magazine reporter, Keith Gessen/Awl flame wars.
Do you feel invigorated, she asked. No, I said, it was a very mundane run. It was just what had to be done. Like the eggs I scrambled and the bread I toasted. You have to enjoy the little things, she said. What are the little things for you? Sitting on a park bench, looking at the sky, reading a book. But, I argue the very act of “enjoying the little things” makes one self-conscious about it as a deliberate act to avoid thinking about the big things. “I am going to enjoy this moment,” you think, or “I am enjoying this moment.” Meaning there are other more difficult moments requiring you to emphasize this one so much more. Can I just divorce the enjoyment from the thought, and revel in it more? Only with a constant stream of diversion, it seems. And, that is exhausting, and crash-inducing, and, well, I give up.
Just a few cats and a steaming pot of tea short of total and complete spinsterdom. This is frightening in one’s weaker moments, but exhilarating in the strongest. It’s raining outside right now, do you know where you are right now? -I am writing a letter, a handwritten letter, but so far all I’ve discussed is toast.
“It was as if someone had dropped an old pair of pantyhose over Milan,” scoffs Cathy Horyn. “If you told me that Karl Lagerfeld had anything to do with the boudoir show at Fendi, I would have denied it to your face.”
I know everyone (by “everyone” I mean “fashion blogs”) has been obsessing over this line for a few days now, but deservedly so. It’s magnificent.
While we’re on the subject of the boudoir and pantyhose, can someone please put the kabosh on marveling/reporting/commenting on the dearth of pants on the runways, as if the runway were somehow a literal representation of what designers suggest you actually wear. This is Fashion Show 101! No one expects people to run around in their underwear, like it’s some kind of Brave New Look. Foundation garments are just a cash cow. Lingerie is the New Perfume. And the photos are a sexy news sell. That’s all. The end.
Whenever I hear an accordion playing, I think about what I’m wearing. Does it match the scene? Is the invisible cinematographer behind me thinking, “Yes, her fake Ray Ban sunglasses, red lipstick and sundress is perfect for this shot involving an accordionist playing the theme music to ‘I Dream of Jeannie’ with equal parts lilt and sadness.”
I’m not sure, however, what outfit is appropriate for the scene where the accordionist is sitting on a milk crate in Union Square wearing a Boba Fett mask and playing the theme music from “Star Wars.” A bathrobe covered in potato chip crumbs?
“Excuse me works,” he says, perched on Isaac Mizrahi’s “Astaire Case” set piece. A woman is wielding a camera with a long lens and she’s battling her way backstage. “Say, ‘excuse me.’”
She pauses.
“Oh, I thought you were security,” she says, and elbows him again.
“Don’t push me with your cheap camera, you stupid bitch.” His voice even and calm, he stabs her. “Yeah, I said it.”
Her voice becomes venom. “You don’t belong here with language like that.”
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