Archive | City Matters

The Church of Liser the Tailor

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The longer these primaries drag on–the longer everyone soap-boxes and no one listens–the more I find myself hiding from social media and, gasp, reading paper books and writing in paper notebooks. These days, that qualifies as “going off the grid,” which I find hilarious given that only a decade ago going off the grid entailed living off the land, modern amenity-free, and growing a very big beard, regardless of your gender. This is also hilarious given that Brooklyn is now crowded with the facial-hair equivalents of Unabombers, Paul Bunyans, and Motel the Tailors. (A glimpse into various ancestry; what ho!) What’s most hilarious: Apparently I am channeling the spirit of Andy Rooney.

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

Screen Shot 2016-03-30 at 8.02.14 AMFirst 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 →

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy