So, I knit and crochet and do a mediocre needlepoint. One thing I have never done is cross stitch — regular or counted (I think there is a difference but I'm not exactly sure). When I was waiting in the airport one time, I was speaking with a woman who was doing cross stitch. It looked like so much fun, even though she was doing some religious-Precious Moment-themed bookmark. Then a week or so ago while I was knitting on a subway, a youngish man pulled a huge tapestry from his bag and started cross-stitching. He has clips and a tambour frame and everything. It looked like a Watteau painting. It was incredible to watch him.
I told Saint Jerome that I was thinking of teaching myself counted cross stitch. I looked online for patterns and kits. Gosh! One is worse than the next! How much Precious Moments/Disney/Christian/Faerie crap can one make? Or want to make. I would probably have to design my own.
Anyway, yesterday I find this in my email box, forwarded from The Guardian's website, courtesy of Saint Jerome:
If I hadn't read the description or the excited headline, I would never have guessed who it was. It's Edward Cullen, aka Robert Pattinson. Now, I am not into Twilight or any of this vampire trend, but I thought that this was pretty funny. It's only shades of gray! Where are the colors? Where is the rainbow? Where is the glitter? Oh well . . . it kind of looks like him if you cross your eyes, squint, close one eye and then close the other.
In a knitting fog! I've been knitting all sorts of projects and have completed exactly 0.
This all started when I decided that I needed to knit my four-year old nephew James a sweater. He is the only one of my six nipoti that I haven't knitted anything for. My other two nephews and three nieces all have had a "Made Especially for you by Aunt Sarah" special. James wore his sister Evelyn's hooded jacket (dark blue, purple and green yarn), but he needs a non-hand-me-downer. So, a sweater formulated itself in my brain. Not just any sweater. A chunky-ish, black turtleneck with a Batman logo on the front. I found the basic pattern sweater in a 1965 Vogue Knitting (Children's Special Issue), I found the Batman logo charted out for knitting, I found the yarn. I knit up the back in a few days and then put the sweater away and started something else (I didn't have a date I needed to get it done for so . . .I have since picked it back up and am about halfway through the front. The Batman logo is a bit of a challenge for me because I'm not a multi-color knitter. Give me lace or cables any day!).
Then I started on a 1940s cardigan jacket which I have wanted to knit for over 15 years — hip-length with a fitted waist, open-work decoration along the front and yoke, collar and pockets. I was almost finished with the back when I realized that the pattern as knitted—gauge adjusted for my knitting tension, modern yarns and my patience— was going to be too big. I've decided that I will have to use smaller needles and totally re-work the pattern to fit along my hips. Oh well. I put it away for a near-future date.
At the same time, I started on a 1922 sweater vest. I have no idea what the finished size is supposed to be as there is no size on the pattern but the gauge of 5 stitches per inch would yield a too small vest, especially flapper-sized boobs compared to 21st Century, middle age saggage (okay flappers were a year or so later so sue me). I knit one front half, I start knitting the second front half when I realized three things, I was probably going to run out of yarn (I was using leftover stuff), the yarn was all wrong for the pattern anyway and it was waaaaayyyyyyy unflattering as is. Into the box of broken dreams it went, never to be completed, though the yarn will be reused somehow.
When all of this was going on, I decided to make a 1940s "dickey". In the 1940s, dickies were just a turtleneck thingy that tucked into your crew neck. They were more like fake blouses, sometimes with fronts and backs, sometimes just fronts, usually made of fabric just like a blouse. This dickey is more like a vest. I knit the bottom band — 3 and a half inches of k1, p1 ribbing , which has got to be the most tortuous thing after three rows or so.
I didn't want to make it just plain, so I was looking for simple texture stitch pattern. I spent time looking through my stash of vintage needlework magazine (I have thousands from 1916 to about 1975) when I found the knitting booklet, Bushwick Beat's 'em All, from the late 1960s, early 1970s. It is a book of teen fashions and I couldn't remember why I bought it because I'll buy teen fashions from earlier decades but not so late and also, the patterns weren't very interesting except for this one:
But I digress. I flipped through and remembered why I bought it. I bought it for this young dude:
WHO IN THE WORLD PICKED OUT HIS PANTS?!! It's a TEENAGE fashion book for crying out loud! Did his mother dress him? Was he wearing normal trousers and then switched pants in the bathroom as soon as he got to school? Did he get grounded? Did he make extra money? Yikes! The rest is so fun and innocent (except for the Star Trek sweater).
Class 1: Best arrangement of poison oak.
Class 2: Best arrangement of poison oak and another plant.
Class 3: Best arrangement of poison oak and inanimate object.
Class 4: Most potent looking GREEN leaves.
Class 5: Most potent looking RED leaves.
Class 6: Biggest single Leaf.
Class 7: Best poison oak accessory or jewelry.
Class 8: Most original poison oak dish (recipe included).
Class 9: Biggest poison oak branch or trunk.
Class 10: Best Photo of poison oak.
Class 11: Best photo of poison oak rash (or in person?).
This event is like a traditional flower show, except, all entries must include poison oak!
Contacts for more information: John or Jeanne Hand
e-Mail: stcharlessaloon@yahoo.com
phone: 209-533-4656
Send an SASE to PO Box 1596, Columbia, CA 95310 for event details.
The Poison Oak Show is an annual festival in Columbia, California. Saint Jerome and I first became aware of the Poison Oak Show in 2007 when an article appeared in the New York Times.
The festival was celebrating its 25th year. Saint Jerome instantly called his twin sister in Sacramento which is about two hours away from the festival. Jill and her native Californian friends was completely unaware of the Poison Oak Show! 25 years and they never heard of it! Jill was intrigued and wanted to get to the next year's festival.
2008 came and she had to work so didn't make it to the festival. She did, however, call them up and got tee-shirts for Saint Jerome and me. I feel as if I'm at the Filmore West, my head filled with Airplanes, Dead and Messenger Services (Jefferson, Grateful and Quicksilver, of course). Here is the tee-shirt. Very, very groovy.
Saint Jerome and I especially like the merge roll, which was the height of innovation in print-making in 1969. It's seems so in keeping with the whole thing. It sends Saint Jerome back to graduate school and me back to Campbell Elementary School.
Though I had been warned many times about poison oak and poison ivy, I've never seen any in real life and wouldn't recognize it if it reached out and bit me on the ass. I guess this is a good thing because I have sensitive skin and would probably break out in a rash before I even got within a mile of it. I have a rash now from just looking at the photos of the Poison Oak Show. It seems like a blast, though. Maybe one year if Jill doesn't have to work.
My art teacher in high school introduced me to the wonderful tenor voice of Franco Corelli. For a girl with a penchant for baritones, Corelli was a perfect compromise — a dramatic tenor with a dark, very baritonal sound. His voice was pure, animalistic sex. Of course it didn't hurt that he looked like a god — over 6 feet tall and so good looking he could have been a movie star. He looked like Marcello Mastroianni, Rock Hudson and Gregory Peck all rolled into one. He also had famously beautiful legs, earning him the nickname "coscie d'oro", or golden thighs. He spent a good number of roles in tights.
He retired from the stage before I saw my first opera so I never got to see or hear him live. No matter, there are records, photos and, best of all, films and TV shows. He was on Italian TV a lot in the 1950 onwards.
When I started working at Rizzoli, I had heard that Corelli was in regularly to buy his newspaper. He lived down the street from the store near Carnegie Hall. If he came in, I never saw him. But one day, I just happened to be on the ground floor at the customer service desk when a handsome, older man walked past on his way to the newspaper department. As he passed me, he paused, smiled and nodded to me in greeting. FRANCO CORELLI!!!!!!!!!!! Finally, I saw my idol and he smiled at me! I was in heaven . . .
About a year or so later, I became customer service manager and was now located on the ground floor behind the customer service desk. I used to see Corelli almost daily with his little black poodle. He would always nod or say hello in greeting, except for the times he came in with his wife. Then he would look straight ahead while she looked right and left in suspicion. It was obvious that he knew that I knew who he was.
One day, I was at the front register and happened to ring him up. We greeted each other and as he was about to leave, he turned and said to me, "Tell me, do you sing?" I told him only in the shower until my neighbors tell me to stop. After that, we always chatted unless Loretta was with him. One of the nicest experiences was when I had just gotten back from vacation and was on a ladder putting books away when he came over, got my attention, asked me how I was doing, etc. It was a really nice chat.
He always seemed a bit sad to me, not unhappy but "sad" — I really can't describe it. Then someone would recognize him and he stand up straighter, puff out his chest and look like a god.
I would also see him on the street, usually walking his dog. He would always stop and say hello. That always gave me a huge thrill because he was such a opera legend and I was a big fan. I once saw him years later after I left Rizzoli. I was on 57th Street and he was walking the dog. He stopped and said "hello".
He died in 2003.
Corelli in the 1950s or 60s
An appearance from The Bell Telephone Hour 1962 "E lucevan le stelle" from Tosca. Nice view of his legs.
Weekends bring out the strange wardrobe in people. Saint Jerome and I were walking down Broadway and were passing Duane Reade when three youths exited the store. They were about 16-20 years old. Two were dressed in the usual messy young adult-wear but the third was striking. Not only did he leap onto a unicycle as soon as he got out of the store, he was wearing a tee-shirt, crocs and Sponge Bob pajama bottoms. Boy, I wish I had a camera with me.
We went to the Strand bookstore this weekend. We frequently go and end up with bags and bags of books and auction catalogues. Saint Jerome goes in and starts upstairs in the art department while I hit the $1 and 48-cent books outside. Well, my usual MO for outside it to grab and look later, which is exactly what I did. I grabbed a book about a true-crime that took place in Seattle in 1911, Rudolf Bing's memoir 5,000 Nights At The Opera (which I'm surprised I haven't read or owned already), a gem-cutting and jewelry-making book from 1938 which has very cool jewelry and metalwork examples and I grabbed a biography called E. Nesbit. I checked out the dance books looking for Guerrero and then went upstairs to hit the Fashion History section and find Saint Jerome. We leave relatively unscathed (though the Neue Galerie catalogue Brücke set us back some). We go to Little Poland to have lunch as we always do when we go to Strand and I pull out E. Nesbit. It is not a biography on Floradora girl, Stanford White lover Evelyn Nesbit but a bio of an author named Edith Nesbit. We walk along 12th Street on our way back to the 1,2,3 train and when we pass the outside carts at Strand, I carefully replace the book on one of the carts. It was only a $1 and I really didn't want to drag it home, only to drag it to the church thrift store. This will teach me to grab and go without looking at the content. And, no, you can't judge a book by its cover after all!
So, I get home tonight and I tell Saint Jerome, "I saw an Eli Wallach DVD at the 99-cent store today." "Why didn't you buy it?" I wanted to get home to you, plus I'm not exactly sure which movie it was, Samurai or something." So I look it up on IMDB and the only movie I can come up with is Il bianco, il giallo, il nero, the Canadian title of which is Samurai. All this time, Saint Jerome is talking about Laura Nero and the song, "Eli's Coming", telling me to Google it. I Google it and I find Three Dog Night's version on Youtube. I start playing it when the phone rings. The name on our Caller ID is [lastname], Eli! Who in hell in ELI [LASTNAME]?!! Some wavelength. We listen to the machine to find out who is calling. It's our doctor whose name is NOT Eli [lastname] calling about Saint Jerome's colonoscopy tomorrow. Our doctor took over a retired doctor's practice. A doctor named ELI!
Napping (or trying to). Saint Jerome picks up a library receipt, sticks it between my legs and says "You've been parked here too long. You got a ticket." all because I told him not to let me sleep too long.
I'm lying on the bed on my back. My legs are spread, slightly bent. My torso is slightly twisted, my arms up, spread and bent up at the elbows. I feel like Elizabeth Short circa January 1947. Saint Jerome walks through the bedroom, pauses and says, "That's quite a pose." I reply, "I feel like —" Saint Jerome interrupts "Wait! Don't tell me! Let me guess! You're in your Black Dahlia mode."
"How did you guess?!" He smiles. "I know how your brain works." I laugh so hard, my neighbors could probably hear me through the walls.
Awwwww. My little neighborhood Honda is looking a little better — a little roughed up still, but better. Parked next to the Les-is-More Mobile, the car of our upstairs neighbor (gray Toyota Celica/Tercel)
Late 1960s: Saint Jerome liked a girl named Jane when he was in High School, maybe junior year. He hung out with her and her girlfriends a lot. He liked her and he thinks that she knew that he liked her. He thinks that she also liked him. She ended up going to the prom with a kid from her German class — short with freckles who was about this tall (Saint Jerome points to his waist). Saint Jerome didn't go at all. Something happened, something awkward, opportunities missed and one day Jane came up to Saint Jerome and said, "You don't try too hard." and walked away. They never did go out.
My high school friend Christy studied and coached with Lazlo Halasz the famous opera conductor who started the New York City Opera. He was an old man when she studied with him but he still conducted for the Nassau Lyric Opera out on the Island where he lived.
One time, Nassau Lyric Opera put on a performance of Verdi's Aida and somehow Christy and I ended up as supers. We were priestesses. We had our sandals, white 1930s-style sheathes with colorful Egyptian-style collar and belt. We blackened our eyes in exotic lines, darkened our brows, reddened our lips andwere given props to carry. Since there were 11 of us and I was the tallest (we were a short bunch!) I made up the rear. There were only 10 gold painted snake props so I, being at the end, was given some elaborate figure which not only was wood, but heavy and bulky. I was not allowed to rest it against my shoulder. We didn't have a rehearsal, but were given directions on what to do, were cued and pushed out on stage.We did our procession and stood there for the rest of the scene. My arms were burning.
Later on, Christy and I were each given a huge palm leaf fan on a long pole. We were shoved out on stage and had to fan Amneris during a pivotal scene. We never did get in sync and we almost dropped our fans more than once. They weighed a ton.
Afterwards, since Christy was a friend of the Aida's son (who was also an opera singer) we went to the after-performance party at the soprano's house. It was a lot of fun. The house was a glorious, garish display of wealth and lack of taste, indoor-outdoor curtains and faux Louis furniture, crystal and 1980s conspicuous consumption. I had never seen anything like it. They also balked at paying us our $10.
Aida is one opera I can't sit through in performance. I tried once at the Met with Placido Domingo as Ramades even, but left after Act 1. I can listen to recordings and could sit through a semi staged or concert version but a fully-staged performance. I have no idea why. My dad, who loved Aida, got to see it every time it was on my mom's and my subscription.
The last time I was in California I was about 13 years old and I was visiting my grandparents in La Jolla. My grandfather always drove Cadillacs — the bigger the better. His cars were so big, Columbus could have circumnagivated the globe in one. He was also an extremely cautious driver. In other words, he was the world's slowest. He also didn't believe in turning on the air conditioning in the car so we had all the windows open. Even with all the windows down, my hair still didn't move.
I took this photo at the corner of 41st Street and Seventh Ave in 1994. The building was 30 years overdue, but ended up not being built. 5 Times Square was built on that plot and on the plot at 42nd and Seventh in 1999.
I was meeting Saint Jerome one day after work. I can't remember what year or where we were going but I was meeting him near the Plaza Hotel and Saint Jerome was coming from Rizzoli. I captured these on the sly :)
1992 and his first American album, Tutte storie, came out and I think it was also his first US tour. Rizzoli Bookstore, being the Italian-owned bookstore that it was and being one of the few places at the time to sell international pop CDs, of course scheduled a signing to coincide.
At the time I was customer service manager and was pretty much planted on the first floor. I was standing in front of the registers when Eros came in with his entourage. His arm brushed my boobs as he walked past me. There was a line of girls waiting for him that stretched from the middle of 57th Street all the way around Fifth Avenue. HUGE crowd. Lorenzo, one of the managers, was a young Milanese and he didn't like female atention when it wasn't aimed at him. He said in a fit of pique, "I don't know why they are making such a fuss over some stupid Roman." Jealous Lorenzo? Anyway, the signing was on the second floor and after Eros got settled in, the flood gates opened.
I eventually got the opportunity to go upstairs and cut the line to get my CD signed. I never got Tutte storie because I had the Italian verion, In ogni senso. I waited for a while then it was my turn. He signed it, "A cara Sara, Eros Ramazzotti." I was all aquiver.
After a few hours, the signing had to come to an end. There were still droves of girls waiting. They were eventually turned away, poor things. I was standing in the same spot on the first floor when he left. Again, he brushed my boobs with is arm. I knew then that both times were done intentionally. Made me feel good, lol. He had a thigh-high cast on his leg having broken it in a motorcycle accident. During the concert, he ran aroumd the stage even with the cast hindering his movement. It was a really fun concert even though he never even took his jacket off. He completely sweated through it too.
His visit was not without controversy, however. In an interview (I believe it was in the Italian-language American newspaper America Oggi), he stated that he wanted "real Italians" at his concerts, not "pizza fattori", or in other words, American-Italians who are mostly from the South. Rose, my friend Angela's sister, wrote a scathing letter renouncing him, sayng that it was such people who made him popular in the US, etc. She was then interviewed in Corriere della sera and other papers. I think he ended up apologizing but it didn't stop our enjoyment of his music, just disillusioned us a bit.
When I left Rizzoli in 1994, I stopped following his career and those of all of those pop musicians.
Working at Rizzoli I became very familiar with Italian pop music of that time. Rizzoli was one of the few places one could get international pop music and we would play a lot of Italian and French pop day in and day out. I grew to like a lot of it — Lucio Dalla and Eros Ramazzotti were two of my favorites, as was Zucchero. One of my favorite Zucchero albums was Zucchero Blues. He had a huge hit with the song, "Senza una donna." We played that album constantly but I enjoyed it. Anyway, Zucchero came out with an English-language album and he had quite a crossover hit with "Senza una donna," which he sang with British pop star Paul Young. Well, one day I was standing at the front register with Flor, one of the cashiers, and the song was playing in the store. I was humming and singing along then turned to Flor and said, "I've heard this song so many times, I understand all the words now." Flor looks at me and says, "He's singing in English."
Flor was a huge Eros fan and we went to see him together with another co-worker, Porfirio, at Radio City Music Hall. Flor screamed, fainted, danced, and hit Porfirio over and over again on the arm in her excitement and ecstasy throughout the entire concert. Poor Porf! His arm was entirely black and blue. I was glad that I was sitting on Porf's other side and not next to Flor. It was fun.
For some reason, people think that I only like opera, that I only know about opera and opera singers. I love it. I think it's my favorite musical form but I listen to a lot of different kinds of music and I always have. I really like almost all forms of vocal music. Anyway, it was the late 1980s or early 1990s and I was working at Rizzoli when these incidents occurred.
One day in 1991, I was at the front register when a very familiar-but-older-looking man made a purchase. I check the name on his Amex: Raymond Manzarek. Of COURSE! Ray Manzarek of the Doors! One of my first music cassette tapes was the Door's album. I loved them. We chat, he leaves. I almost faint!
"Oh my god! (we didn't have OMG back then) Do you know who just left?"
No, who.
"Ray Manzarek!!!"
(puzzled looks galore)
Who's that? An opera singer?
I look at my coworkers as if they were crazy, just like they are looking at me as if I was crazy.
"Ray Manzarek from THE DOORS! You know, the rock band with Jim Morrison? You know the new movie with Val Kilmer. Kyle Maclachlan is playing him in the movie!" The movie was all over the place at the time and I was the only one who knew who he was. Raymond Manzarek would come in occasionally.
Another time I was covering the magazine register when Dave Davies came in and bought a British tabloid. The Kinks were in town during a concert tour. I recognized him right away. I was all "Wow! Did you see Dave Davies?"
Who?
"Dave Davies of The Kinks!"
You mean Ray Davies.
"No, I mean Dave Davies the guitarist, Ray Davies's younger brother."
I got crazy looks for this one too. I LOVE The Kinks too!
(But then again, I had to point out Sid Fernandez after he left the store to Matthew, the avid Mets fanatic who didn't recognize him even as he was helping him.)
I love Frieda. Frieda is my mother's dachshund — a little 11 year old redhead smoothie. Saint Jerome and I were just visiting mom the other day. Usually, when we approach we hear, "barkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbark!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" (yes, she barks in exclamation points). We approach the apartment. Silence. I turn my keys in the locks. Silence. We enter the apartment. Silence. Are they not at home? I leave Saint Jerome in the foyer and go to mom's bedroom. There they are. Frieda starts barking and jumping all over the bed, overly excited to see me. I sit on the edge of the bed. Frieda doesn't know what to do first — lick me? flop on her back for a rub? run for a ball? She tries to do everything all at once. If I wasn't wearing my glasses, Frieda would have poked my eye out with her nose leaping at me. Mom is trying to show me where all her important papers are and Frieda is climbing all over the locked box that mom is trying to open. I need Saint Jerome because I will instantly forget where all the important papers are unless he remembers for me.I call him into the bedroom. Frieda hears in and instantly stops paying attention to me. Thump, thump, thump goes her tail against the bed and she practically falls off the bed in her eagerness to get at Saint J. Ditched by the bitch. "Barkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbark!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" says Frieda as Saint J concentrates on mom. "Pet her for crying out loud, Jerome!" so Saint Jerome puts his hand out. Frieda instantly starts purring (yes, she purrs in addition to barking in exclamation points). Saint Jerome pets her. She is absolutely blissful!
Business taken care of, we are all in the foyer about to go out for brunch. Frieda brings us her deflated, chewed up, defuzzed tennis ball to throw. We are slaves to the catch for the next 15 minutes or so. The ball is tossed and lands with a bounceless thud. Frieda faithfully and energetically brings it back, stopping once or twice to kill it. Thud goes the ball down the hall. Frieda comes back looking for it. She looks at mom. She looks at Jerome. She looks at me. She trots back to mom and sniffs at her hand. Mom says, "The ball is right where you were! How can you miss it?" Frieda looks under the couch where mom is sitting. She looks down the other hall. We're all pointing and yelling at Frieda where the ball is. She finally goes back to where she started from, discovers the ball and brings it back. Mom makes the excuse, Well she is 77 years old and can be allowed to be a little senile. Anyway, we take the opportunity while Frieda is in the other room to get our shoes on. She knows now that we are leaving. We go out to lunch.
While we're walking to Viand on Broadway, mom says, "Frieda walks in the shade when it's cold and the sun when it's boiling. She's a perverse dog."
My mother used to go to Loehmann's in Brooklyn with her mother and older sister. Mom said that even living in Brooklyn, Loehmann's was very inconvenient to get to. (Mom's family lived in Ditmas Park near Flatbush.)
Loehmann's sold a lot of mid-range designer clothes like Suzy Perette, Claire McCardell, and Bill Blass for Maurice Rentner. There were no dressing rooms, not even a communal one. Upstairs on the second floor, one grabbed clothes from the racks, stripped down to one's undies where one stood (always a bra, slip and girdle), and tried on the outfit right there on the sales floor. At the time, mom was younger than the target consumer but she went because she served a very valuable purpose: she guarded the personal clothes while Grandma and Aunt Margot tried things on. Mom said that if you didn't guard your own clothes, there was the risk of them being picked up by someone and purchased.
Men weren't allowed upstairs because of all the women wandering around in their undergarments. Old Mrs. Loehmann, who according to mom looked just like Whistler's Mother, used to sit on the landing between the first and second floors like a sentry. No male ever got past old Mrs. Loehmann.
My mom's family moved from Brooklyn to Manhattan in 1954. I don't think they made the trek to Loehmann's again.
My late father collected books on ballet and dance. He has a huge collection of rare and out of print books. It's a really fabulous private collection.
One of the books is a 1986 book of photography by the Dutch choreographer Hans Van Manen. Dad saw the book mentioned in a European dance magazine--only the title and publisher. Since it was not published, nor available in the US, it took quite an effort to get it. A family friend, an older Dutch woman named Hanni, was going to visit relatives so Dad asked her to purchase a copy of Portrait. She found a copy and brought it home and gave it to my dad. It was very good thing that the book came shrink-wrapped because little prim Hanni would have had a heart attack. Though the book was called Portrait, there was only a small section of portraits of such people as Marcia Haydee of the Stuttgart Ballet and obscure Dutch artists. Most of the photos were homoerotic photos of naked male dancers, with and without erections, alone, together, ejactulating, spitting, swallowing, masterbating, etc. (And a token nude female.) None of us were expecting this at all! The weirdest thing of all was the fact that one of the naked men was someone who went to ballet school with my sister and me. All of the photos are black and white and "artistic." Anyway . . .
A few years later I am working at Rizzoli Bookstore and we are having a signing for a book of fashion photography by designer Thierry Mugler. The author photo looks extremely familiar. Is it? It IS! It is one of the rare clothed portraits in Portrait! I decide to bring in the book to get Mugler to sign his photo for my dad.
We've set up the signing and Mugler has arrived. We take him to the offices to hang up his coat, etc., and I ask him to sign the Van Manen book. I try to show him the book. He is in a hurry, glances down and disdainfully says "I never sat for Mapplethorpe." and is about to brush me aside. Wait! It's not Mapplethorpe but Hans Van Manen. That gets his attention and he stops short! Hans Van Manen?! I nod and we go into the breakroom so he can look at the book. He explained that the photo was taken at three in the morning, he had just gotten off the plane and was tired. Then he left the next day and never saw the completed book. He asks if he can look at it. I tell him sure! He sits down and slowly flips through it. He is rather shocked that my father would have such a book. I explained about the dance book collection, Hanni, our suprise and everything. He takes out his pen and scrawls,
"To Jim!
The Mysterious Book!
Thierry Mugler '89"
The book signing was great. Dianne Brill, in her previous incarnation as party girl and fashion muse, spilled her glass of champagne over the balcony of the second floor onto the store manager's head. She leaned over to shout an apology, he looked up and was in love.
I used to work for a small non-profit publisher out of the City University of New York. At one point, our offices were on the City College campus at 138th Street and Convent Ave in one of the original CCNY 1910 buildings.
Our UPS man was a fine specimen of Latin masculinity. His name was Augusto and he was big and muscular, good-looking with dark hair and eyes, white teeth, black moustache and the deepest dimples. He was also very nice and had charm for days. The office was 100% female and we used to refer to Augusto as the UPS Hunk.
I was the person in charge of shipping so I had to deal with Augusto the most. We got along famously. He used to call me "Saracita" or "Mamacita" and I used to call him "Robusto" or "Papi chulo" though occasionally I'd call him "Papi CULO" when he was being a jerk. It was the typical meaningless, make-work-easier-and-more-enjoyable flirtation. We were comfortable with each other. (He was hot after one of my co-workers, Jenn Dorr, a goddess whom I used to refer to as "The Temple of Jenn Door") Anyway . . .
One night a few weeks after we moved up to the City College location and my relationship with Augusto was quite new, I had a very strange dream about him. All I remember of it was being either in mid-town Manhattan or Herald Square in the pouring rain and Augusto was there with his UPS truck, except that it was a HUGE truck, almost 18-wheeler. For some reason I had to make sure that all of these folding chairs were arranged in rows in the back of the truck and when I went into the container, Augusto was there STARK NAKED! I just looked at his face in my dream, realized he was naked and high-tailed it out of there. I didn't even check out the package! (If anyone wants to interpret this for me, please feel free to leave it in the comments.)
Well, the next day I told Augusto that I had had a dream about him and he was naked. He turned bright red. Then I told him that I didn't look and he said, "Why not?"
Jeff Fahey was in some of my ballet classes at Joffrey (then called American Ballet Center) in the late 1970s. I think he came in about 1978. I was about 12 or 13. Jeff was passing for about 20 though as it turned out, he was much older. (In fact, Mrs. D, the head of the school suggested to him that he shave off some years not knowing that he had, in fact, done that already.)
Anyway, he was gorgeous and unconsciously attracted everyone to him like a magnet with his Rudolf Nureyev sensuous good looks, piercing blue eyes (he accused 12 year old me once of spreading the rumor that he wore contact lenses, which I did not!), great body and fantastic rear end. An okay dancer but he moved well and was a very good partner in pas de deux class. When he was in men's class, the class was over-run with girls suddenly wanting to do tour en l'airs. Anyway . . .
I quit ballet due to injuries after a season of Nutcrackers with the Classic Ballet of New Jersey in 1980, where I was a flake and a flower. I wasn't too upset about the loss of my budding ballet career. I had discovered opera and found dance to be totally lacking emotional satisfaction. I didn't see Jeff again until 1982.
One day I came home from school to find Jeff sitting in our living room. Jeff was living around the corner from us on either 73rd or 74th Street and Dad ran into him on the street and dragged him home with him. He hung out for a bit chatting and catching up. He was in New York because he just got a gig on One Life To Live as Gary Corelli, who just happened to be the love interest of a character played by a friend of mine in high school. So a few nights later, Jeff and Marguerite, his fiancée at the time, and Cusi came over for dinner.
Jeff sat on my right and for some reason I was extremely nervous. This was a strange thing because in spite of his extreme good looks and sex appeal, I never had a crush on him (and I've had crushes on a zillion guys starting at a young age and weird ones at that). Anyway, for some reason I was nervous and when I went to pour water from the heavy pitcher, I missed the glass. Later when I went to refill, I poured more water on the tablecloth instead. After the third or fourth time I spilled water on the table, Jeff put his hand out, palm facing up, looked up at the ceiling and teasingly said, "Is it raining in here?" Everyone laughed and of course I was mortified, but it was funny. Dessert was Mom's usual fresh fruit salad and Haagen Daz cassis sorbet (I'm still mad that they discontinued that flavor). Jeff reached over and took a scoop of sorbet which landed, plop, in the middle of the table! I put my palm out and looked at the ceiling and said, "Is it raining in here?"
Dinner was great. Jeff brought me the big blow-up of him with Bronwyn Thomas that was outside the theater when he was in Brigadoon on Broadway. I wish I knew what happened to it. I think my parents threw it out.
After that dinner, I used to run into him all the time on the street, but only when I was looking my absolute worst. His character on OLTL never really took off so he didn't stay long in NY, only a few years on the soap. He moved to L.A. and made a bunch of movies. I saw him once in the early 1990s when he came into Rizzoli where I was working at the time.
I always thought he looked better in person and live on stage than in photo or on the screen. Maybe that's why he didn't become the HUGE star I thought he would. He's a cult star though and now is on Lost which I have never watch.
According to Saint Jerome, I spent most of my childhood sitting in the dark. To a certain extent this is true because New York was filled with dance companies, musical endeavors and experimental theater. If we weren't at the ballet we were at The Public Theater seeing some god-awful, mediocre, or amazing play. One play we saw was Thomas Babe's Kid Champion. It was 1975 (and I am pretty sure it was the premiere run of the play in NY) and I don't think I had turned 10 yet. From what I recall, the play was about the rise and fall of a rock star called Kid Champion. Kid Champion was played by Christopher Walken. This was before Annie Hall and The Deer Hunter sealed his reputation as a creepy weirdo. I had never seen such a beautiful creature. He had beautiful platinum blond hair, long almond eyes, chiseled cheekbones, and a gorgeous red, rosebud mouth. Delicate, androgynous, but masculine. Slender, super cool and super sexy. Even at 9-years old I felt it.
I don't remember much about the play itself. I remember being fascinated by one of the female groupies whose costume included flowers painted on her face and on her naked breasts and being fascinated by depictions of drug use and what seemed to be real pot on the stage. The one scene that I remember most vividly, however, was the rock concert scene. Kid comes out and instead of performing, he begins a long, ranting monologue about people not knowing who the real "him" inside, they are only interested in the outer rock star persona and god-knows what else like that. He begins to strip — to expose the real person beneath the glitter that is "Kid Champion." Well, Christopher Walken strips down to a teeny, tiny metallic silver bikini brief. I'm sitting there having a heart attack terrified that he will expose himself and secretly willing it at the same time. Anyway, Christopher Walken-as-Kid Champion hooks his thumbs into the waistband, starts to pull down the silver bikini briefs to bare his soul and nether regions when the character is SHOT! Well that put the kabosh on that! I don't remember much else about the play. I must have had stars flashing in my eyes for the rest of it or maybe the rest wasn't worth remembering.
I should find a copy of Kid Champion and read it to see how it jives with my memory. And just to show you how gorgeous:
and the best scene from an interesting movie, Christopher Walken as a pimp stripping down to boxers and not bikinis in Pennies From Heaven:
When I was a very small child, the British sci-fi show, Thunderbirds terrified me. I'm not sure which season it was, but the opening credits had them journeying to the center of the earth in what looked like a giant screw. I don't know why that terrified me so much, but it did. In addition to the opening credits the marionettes also terrified me with the way their eyes jerked back and forth and their eyelids closing and all, and their mouths opening and closing when they spoke (not to mention the human hands in some scenes). I don't know why I continued inflicting such terror on myself by watching it, but I think it was one of my older sister's favorite shows.
I remember a reoccurring nightmare I used to have starting at the age of 5 involving Thunderbirds. In the nightmare, we had a head — not a bust, just the head — of one of the pilots and it was brown clay but it moved and talked just like the show. It was on the bookcase in our den and it just scared the living daylights out of me. Well, midnight would strike and the head would vanish. The front doorbell would ring and I would answer it and there would be Bernadine Peterson, one of the trio of bully sisters (all of whose names ended with -ine) from down the street. She always appeared with streamers and wearing a party hat and she would sing "Happy Birthday." Then she would disappear and the Thunderbirds head would be back in the den freaking me out. I had this dream for decades, though it ceased to scare me after a few years.
Anyway, a few years later (or more like 10), there was another British sci-fi import which I absolutely loved: Space 1999! I loved Martin Landau and Barbara Baines and especially Catherine Schell as the alien Maia. I thought it was the coolest show.
Well, a year or so ago, Saint Jerome and I saw the full-length 1968 movie, Thunderbird 6. It was great with all the mod fashions and mid-century modern furniture and decor. That the was best, especially the chandelier made from liquor bottles in the "bar" room. Groovy cool. We also rented Season One of Space 1999 and it was positively AWFUL! It did have a slight kitch charm to it because it was so bad. The series (and the 1970s) didn't age well at all!
I didn't realize until recently that both shows were the brain children Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. Thinking back, I can definitely see their hand in both shows.
If you've never seen Thunderbird 6 definitely rent it. It's fun!
So, I was at the printer on a job. I love the sound and rhythm of the big 8-color presses (kachunk, kachunk, kachunk, kachunk) and the smell of the ink. The designer Shani and I are sitting in the "hospitality suite" which is really just a small enclosed room in the middle of shop with a desk, tables and chairs, a couch, a huge flat-screen TV and light tables to check sheets. Anyway . . .
While Shani and I wait to see a sheet, we chat with Lenny, our account rep., talking about current and outdated printing terms. Lenny's been in the business for almost 40 years.
There is a common printing term, "overall aqueous coating" or more commonly, "o/a AQ". Well, Lenny has a client, a young kid who uses the archaic term "Flood AQ". Lenny doesn't know from where or who this kid learned this term. Lenny said, "'Flood aqueous?' They haven't used this term since Noah's Ark!"
Shani and I saw a sheet, made comments. Saw another sheet and made more comments and then saw a third sheet and, because the third time's the charm, signed off and left, happy in the knowledge that the job will be beautiful when completed.
There is a superstition floating around out there that says you'll have good luck if "Bunny rabbit, bunny rabbit, bunny rabbit" is the first thing you say on the first day of a new month. Well, since the first thing I said when I woke up was, "IT'S 6:30!!!" I decided that this will be my first post of September. Maybe I'll have some luck fallout. And to illustrate:
I was never interested in opera growing up, even though I was an avid watcher of Joan Sutherland's kids show Whose Afraid of the Opera?. I was about 5 or 6 and it was just like Kukla, Fran and Ollie but with Joan Sutherland and her huge red hair. I loved that show even though the only episode I remember was La traviata (I remember having trouble understanding where Alfredo was during the off-stage singing during Sempre libera and my mother explaining that he was singing outside her window. The subject of prostitution never came up). Anyway . . .
Fast forward to 1977. I was 12 when my 16 year old sister Annie was hired by the Metropolitan Opera as an extra dancer in the orgy scene in Tannhauser. She was so young, she had to get our parents' permission to work. Of course we had to go see her perform at THE MET! She didn't want us to go because she was embarrassed about all of the simulated sex going on in the ballet (very 1970s clutch and grope). Well, the performance was an epiphany for me! First of all, I knew most of the music because our favorite pianist at Joffrey Ballet School (technically American Ballet Center) was studying voice and was a tenor. He used to play opera all the time without me realizing it. And the costumes and the singing! Ah! This was much more satisfying than ballet! Plus Grace Bumbry as Venus was stunning, James McCracken was old and cracking as our hero, but Teresa Kubiak was beautiful as Elisabeth (though I preferred Venus, of course).
What I wasn't quite prepared for was Bernd Weikl as Wolfram. OMG! He was gorgeous! Annie had a bit of a crush on him during the rehearsals and after that performance Mom, Annie and I each had a crush on Bernd Weikl (my poor father). He was big, dark, good-looking with incredible hair and to my novice ears, a beautiful voice. I loved Wolfram's big aria and thought Elisabeth a fool for preferring Tannhauser, and Wolfram a fool for preferring Elisabeth to Venus. I thought even at 12 that Wolfram should have said to hell with saintly love and gone off to Venusburg among the clutching and groping dancers. I even developed a small crush on our cantor who was a baritone and former opera singer with similar dark curling hair. Kind of pathetic, but hey, I was 12!
In subsequent years I saw him in Arabella (where he appeared in riding breeches. OMG! It was hard to look away), Salome and Die Fledermaus but then he didn't reappear until about 1989 or so.
Here he is in Salome. The film version with Theresa Stratas as Salome and Bernd Weikl as John The Baptist it is great fun. She is marvelous.
It seems as though my dreams really are influenced by my reading materials. Every time I tell Saint Jerome that I slept badly because of bad dreams, he says "Look at the stuff you read!" (Though when I tell him I had weird dreams he says that all dreams are weird.)Anyway, I've been in a true crime phase. I've read about four Ann Rule books in a row, then an Agatha Christie to cleanse my palette (My the Pricking of My Thumbs) and then Robert Kreppel's The Riverman: Ted Bundy and I Hunt for the Green River Killer. My dreams for the past few weeks have involved dump sites. Not so much serial killing but the burial grounds and I'm trying to figure things out. Yuck. What I want to know is, how come when I read a ton of cliterature, my nights aren't filled with erotic dreams? Shouldn't it work that way too? Anyway . . .
I'm now on the verge of reading My Blue Notebooks: The Intimate Journal of Paris's Most Beautiful and Notorious Courtesan by Liane de Pougy. Maybe I'll have dreams of fantastic dresses, amazing jewels and sex with old, fat rich men.
I was still living downtown in 1997 but getting ready for The Big Move, otherwise known as moving in with Saint Jerome (that was before he attained sainthood). It was July 4th and I ran by my place to grab some stuff. We decided to eat breakfast at Polonia, my favorite Polish diner in the neighborhood at the time (now we only eat at Little Poland when we're down there). Well, there were NO available tables so Saint Jerome insisted that we sit at the counter. I didn't want to sit at the counter. After a fuss, we sat at the counter. I was whiney because we weren't even under the air vent, but in front of the grill and I was hot and sticky. Anyway, a few minutes later a young guy sits down on the far side of Saint Jerome. He looks familiar. In fact, I knew who he was. I whisper to Saint Jerome "That's Martin Santangelo from Noche Flamenca." Saint Jerome whispers back, "Why don't you say something to him?" We go back and forth and Martin Santangelo knows something is going on with the strange couple sitting next to him. He looks at us so I say, "You're Martin Santangelo!" He confirms the fact and I tell him how much I love Noche Flamenca (he's the director and star) and that I've saw them in previous years but I couldn't afford to go because I had just seen Sara de Luis's troupe from Seattle in Homenaje at Columbia University. Martin Santangelo asked for our names and said he'd leave tickets for us!
When we got to the Pearl Theatre at 80 St Mark's Place, our names, indeed, were there on the comp list! It was a fantastic performance. Soledad Barrio (Martin Santangelo's wife) is an amazing dancer. Better yet, Sara de Luis was in the audience so I got to tell her how much I enjoyed her company the night before (indeed, they did a multi-couple Sevillanas with the women wearing bata de colas which was fabulous!).
Martin Santangelo was injured at the time and didn't perform but it was still wonderful. Saint Jerome always tells me, "Aren't you glad we sat at the counter?" I'm a counter culture convert!
a little bit of Noche Flamenco with Soledad Barrio and Martin Santangelo
I've never entered a radio contest. I've never known ANYONE who has entered a radio contest. Until last week.
My brother-in-law Michael (who is married to Saint Jerome's sister Jacqueline) was listening to WBEN (home of Sandy Beach from whom I first learned of "pizza arms" by way of Michael of course) when he heard this:
There were three #1 hits between 1958 and 1963 that were totally in a foreign language. Name two.
Michael, a font of information, dragged two from the back recesses of his brain and Jacqueline dialed the phone. Did they get a busy signal. NO! The phone rang and rang and rang. Did they eventually get through? YES!!!!! What were two of the three #1 hits between 1958 and 1968 that were sung entirely in a foreign language?
Volare (Nel blu dipinto di blu) and Sukiyaki
The third was Dominique (nique, nique) by the Singing Nun.
He won a $25 gift certificate to an Indian Restaurant! You'd think that having to come up with foreign language #1 hit songs from the dark recesses of memory one would win millions of dollars (or at least $1,000), but they were lucky to get through, much less win. They've never had Indian food before so we suggested Tandori chicken (which is the restaurant's specialty) which is enough to convert anyone.
We went to Tim Hortons for breakfast today and consumed our daily allotted amount of calories in one fell swoop. Anyway, we bought 10 Timbits, which are the Tim Hortons version of Munchkins, and took them home with us for later.
We get home and Saint Jerome opens the box, looks at the donut holes and says, "I wonder what they were thinking. They call them TimBITS and they're little balls."
I was innocently taking my nap one Sunday when Saint Jerome had an epiphany! The yarn I was knitting with matched the color of my hair. So he decided to adorn my sleeping form . . .
Ahhhh! Life goes on and it is good. The little neighborhood Honda that was damaged in the storm has been back, parked across the street as usual. Today the owner came by with a friend who worked a minor miracle, turning Riverside Drive into a body shop (catching the attention of the police and all!).
The guy took some kind of clamp and whack, whack, whack, ratchet, ratchet, ratchet lifted out the dent to the roof. With the foam sealer stuff and the plastic replacing the broken back window, my little hatchback is almost like new!
Parking on the street in New York can be fraught with dangers. Each decade seems to have its own trends.
In the 1970s, your window might have been smashed and the car broken into for a broken umbrella on the back seat, a few coins or a bag of trash on the floor.
In the '80s, your battery could be lifted or the lock mechanism on your door drilled through and your car almost driven away except that the thief can't drive stick.
The '90s — The whole car disappears and is dismantled at a chop shop destined for parts and cars unknown.
As we approach the end of the the first decade of the 21st Century, the dangers seem to have changed (though with the recession there seems to be more and more glittering puddles of tempered glass at the curb). The new danger seems to be:
EXTREME WEATHER
In the past few months, there have been several severe storms which have downed many trees which in turn have downed many cars parked along Riverside Drive.
This was about a month ago:
(Of course in typical NY fashion, the car remained parked there for about a month!)
This was just a week or so ago:
Now this one was particularly sad because I love this little neighborhood Honda Civic hatchback and was just saying to Saint Jerome earlier that day that it was looking a little more worn than usual. It wasn't badly injured because only a large branch broke off and landed on it and not an entire tree. Anyway, the owner came by, assessed the damage and drove off.
Well, sometimes my brain moves faster than my actions (or maybe I act before I think) usually with humorous results. My husband, aka St. Jerome, always says that he feels like Ricky Ricardo and so he says, "Cue the bongos."
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