The kind of cold where your
cheeks burn and your fingers start to numb even under the gloves.
Those of us who are warmly bundled up often quickly forget those
of us who are not bundled up adequately. The cold causes a personal
crisis of sorts and we become forgetful about the discomfort
of others, even those around us.
It was hard to find at taxi even on East End Avenue and the traffic
in midtown was so congested that taxis were doing their best
to avoid it. At lunchtime yesterday I got a taxi to take me to
midtown and then we crossed 57th Street going East to West. My
driver told me he didn’t really want to go there because
every street was so bad. He was right. At Park Avenue he turned
off the meter. Why? I asked. “Because I don’t want
to go any farther,” he said in his Indian accent.
“But you can't turn left or right on any of these streets,” I
countered.
“That’s right,” he said.
“So where you gonna go?”
“I’m gonna make a U-turn.”
“Are you telling me you’re not going to take me to Fifth
Avenue?”
“Yes.”
It annoyed me but it not that much. I was going to be late no
matter what because of the traffic, so what difference did it
make. I thought of how cold it would be walking the two and half
long city blocks and the two blocks south. That didn’t
really impress me. I’ve walked a lot of cold blocks many
times in my life. I was also thinking how this was a perfect
opportunity to throw a New York Fit in the cab. Injustice being
distributed by my cabdriver. But I thought better of it. It didn’t
matter. I have him the money. $7.30 plus a $1.70 tip. I got out
in the middle of the four-lane bumper-to-bumper thoroughfare,
bumper-to-bumper with nobody moving, and walked.
Click
to order
The sidewalks were jammed too. People
going every which way. A lot of tourists. A lot of Digitals. I
passed by
the new Abercrombie
and Fitch store on 56th and Fifth. Their doors, as it has been
since the opening day a couple of weeks ago, were wide open.
As if we were in the tropics. I haven’t been in yet. You
can see from the street that it’s dark inside. Or dark-ish.
And there are big wooden blinds covering the windows. At the
entry way is an enormous black and white photograph of a young
(probably 21-year-old) guy reclining. showing a lot of flesh
including below the navel where his pant’s fly is half-open.
Selling sex, they are. As if to say, if you come in here, you
might have sex.
It’s so bizarre, but not really. I imagine eventually we’ll
have entry ways with guys and girls completely naked with a focus
on their private parts, or, to be more exact, genitalia. And
inside, they’ll be selling clothes. Clothes to put on when
they’ve decided to cover up. And stop reclining.
The generation that A&F is selling their sex-come-hither
garments to are totally unaware of the fact that Abercrombie
and Fitch used to be a high end (not the kind of high end this
A&F sells) shop where people bought clothes and gear for
sport – like polo, or fox-hunting, or deep sea fishing.
Think Ralph Lauren sportwear. He certainly thought of the old
A&F when he was putting the concept together. It was located
on Madison Avenue right next door to Brooks Brothers and had
the same clientele. It was quite ritzy and not the kind of place
you’d see kids or tourists hanging around outside talking
on their cells or wondering where to go next. That A&F went
out of business a long time ago. When people started dressing
down.
Or rather, undressing up.
Bruce
Weber
I’ve
digressed. Early last evening I hopped
a cab on East End Avenue to go down to Bergdorf’s to see Bruce
Weber, the fashion photographer (who photographs those
goodlooking younger people reclining languidly looking like they’re
ready and willing — for sex) who has just published a
new book of his photographs. You know his work even if you don’t
think you do. Think Ralph Lauren ads. He pretty much created
the Ralph
Lauren image and the whole commercial idea of the revived WASP/preppy-look.
Mr. Weber is a short, barrel-chested, barrel-bellied looking
guy with a ruddy complexion and a very neatly trimmed gruff grey-beard,
and he wears a bandana covering his head at all times. Leading
one to believe that all the hair on his head is there on his
face. He’s a handsome man, in the Trapper Dan style, with
strong features, and although he looked very serious signing
his books, when his face lights up in a smile he’s very
likeable and charming looking.
Susan
Fensten
Engelbert
DeCastro
J.C.
Leyendecker illustrations
Once
upon a time when he was young – young
like the models he’s famous for photographing, he was
a handsome model himself. But that was then; a few dozen
pounds ago. He made his fortune (and it is a fortune) taking
photographs of these men. In the nineteen-teens and 20s in
the last century there was an illustrator named J.C.
Leyendecker, who drew idealized looking handsome
cleancut men neatly turned out in a shirt and tie. The Arrow
Collar ad was a famous Leyendecker creation. Ordinary men
looking like movie stars or a character out of Scott Fitzgerald.
Sex symbols to both male and female. Bruce Weber has expanded
the Leyendecker sensibility with his camera lens.
The place was mobbed, especially with men and women in their twenties kind of
scruffily but expensively dressed. Sort of what you think you might see in Abercrombie & Fitch
buying their clothes (although I daresay their clothes are not expensive enough
for a lot of this crowd). Mr. Weber could have created that new A&F image
and at the same time be paying homage to the old A&F image which he fully
understands. Tweeds, oxfordcloth and denim.
Everyone was milling around having drinks, little hors d’oeuvres and talking. It
was great people watching. NO matter how scruffy the look you know they probably
bought it at Bergdorf’s. Lives of poor people as told by rich Hollywood
stars. It’s fun to watch, to look at, even to ogle. There’s a lot
of nothing going on but really going on, so I guess that’s not nothing.
Afterwards I walked a few blocks with JH who was going over
to Barney’s to take a look at their holiday windows. The theme is royalty.
They have one tableau of papier-mache life-size dolls of Prince Charles,
Camilla and the two boys. He’s in a tub and the boys are sitting
on the john(s) and she’s overseeing the whole thing. There are British
tabloids strewn all over the floor with reference to their private (sex) lives.
It’s very clever and what it has to do with the holiday season is a little
on the obscure side but it doesn’t matter as it entertains.
From
there JH and I went our separate ways. I walked
a few more blocks in the freezing cold to the townhouse of Arthur
Altschul who dates Patricia Duff. They
were having a big holiday cocktail party.
Mr. Altschul is related to the prominent Lehman family here
in New York, one of the distinguished “Our Crowd” families. There
were a number of the relatives among the guests. It was interesting because dynasties
are always interesting.
The party was on two floors. On the first floor was a bar overlooking the back
patio of the house which features a waterfall. The bartender in black tie was
serving pink champagne. Excellent. Other waiters in white jackets were passing
the hors d’oeuvres. I saw several people I recognized including Richard
Meier the architect, Taylor Stein, Albert Haje, Sharon Sondes (whose
mother was a Lehman) and Geoffrey Thomas and Mort Zuckerman,
Richard Cohen, the political columnist and his partner Mona
Ackerman, Maureen White, Dana Hammond and Dr. Patrick Stubgen, Somers and Jonathan
Farkas, Debbie Bancroft, Elizabeth Peabody, Jay Snyder, Jay Cantor, Ann Barish,
Alexandra and Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Katrina vanden Heuvel and many
more who looked very familiar but whom I don’t know. Ms. Duff has long
been active in political circles and so there were, no doubt, a lot of politcal
personalities and/or commentators there.
It was one of
those cocktail parties where I thought I’d stop in and say
hello and turn around and leave. But it turned out to be one of those parties
where everyone was in a chatty and friendly mood, so there was all kinds of talking
to people I’d never met before. Jay Cantor is the man
who gave me and JH a tour of the Jay Gould house “Lyndhurst” last
summer up in Irvington on the Hudson (see archives). We ended up talking about
writers. He asked me if I’d ever read David Sedaris who
has a new book out. No, I hadn’t. So as he was leaving, Jay handed me paperback
of a Sedaris book called Holidays on Ice. Frankly I never thought I’d
even open it since humor writers are not my priority.
Then about nine o’clock I decided I needed to get home, so I left, with
my book. I couldn’t find a taxi so I decided to take a bus up Third Avenue.
Once in my seat, I opened Holidays On Ice. The first part is about the
author applying for a job as an elf at holiday time at Macy’s. It was hysterical.
I was laughing out loud all the way up Third Avenue. The kind of laughing where
you know other people are looking at you and either thinking you’re nuts
or wondering what you’re reading that’s so funny. A perfect holiday
cocktail party.
