Archive | City Matters
Gauchos Make the Heart Grow Gladder
Yesterday I read something that described this run of weather we’ve been having in New York as “sprintertime.” It’s an inelegant phrase but accurate just the same: Cold rains, colder winds, and then bright, emotionally distant sunshine. If it suits me fine just now it’s because I’m in the midst of a run of work that’s equally inhospitable. Add in taxes and death–so predictable!–and I’ve become a dreary Dora.
What’s kept me going besides my permakitten joyously galloping around the apartment (she adores these big breezes) is what’s kept me going for an embarrassing swath of my life: the promise of fashion. As a person who works and lives alone and has been trying in recent years to date fewer fuckwits, I do not have as many opportunities for gorgeous dresses as I once did. Most days I wear a caftan until I have to duck out for supplies or a screening. But I study clothes the way my friends with gardens study seed catalogues. Wearable art, candy for the body, uniforms for other, more glamorous lives: As an admirer of beauty not to mention spies, I’ve been fascinated by fashion my whole life. Continue Reading →
Saint Franny at the Spring
First thing today I walk outside and stumble over my aging Italian neighbor feeding all the pigeons on our stoop. Grumpy to her husband (he’s a no-account Lothario, I’m not blaming her), kind to the birds: She’s a latter-day Saint Franny. My kitty watching from the window above is the Zooey in this equation, I guess; she loves those bewinged visitors and studies them with the ardent anxiety of a spurned suitor. Continue Reading →