It was decadent at times, tragic at others, but all in all pretty magical. Lessons were never in short supply, I realize, as we head into this final year of the naughts. (An illuminating New Yorker Talk of the Town piece this past week underscored my decision to use the "correct" terminology, e.g. not "aughts", for the decade spanning 2001-2010.)
Anyway, looking forward to actually living those lessons. Happy New Year everyone!
"Bestest" verse by a female MC in '09 is Nicki Minaj on "Bed Rock". Granted, she didn't have much in the way of competition, but she did Barbies everywhere proud. [Laughs]
First time I came across the term "landsman" was years ago while reading the Joyce Maynard memoir of her relationship with reclusive J.D. Salinger.
The "Catcher in the Rye" author said he'd read then-18-year-old Maynard's 1972 manifesto about her generation and knew immediately they were landsmen.
Etymologically speaking, it comes from the word for a fellow Jew who hails from the same town or district, usually in Eastern Europe.
I like to think of blogger Amit, the boy genius (above) from Tenn., behind Lame Basics as one of my landsman - only he's so much cooler than me [laughs] and I've told him as much.
When he's not filling out grad school applications, he's documenting his wares aka "lame basics", excavating old Japanese films, or bigging up his girl, Jane, who fashion heads will know from Sea of Shoes.
As another year comes to a close, do you find yourself taking stock? Assessing the ledger of your goals to see how they measure up against your accomplishments? Well, how'd you do??
Maybe you vowed to adhere to clean eating (three squares + plenty of water, fruits, and vegetables), but instead found yourself either under-eating to the point of obsession, or over-eating to the point of numbness.
Or perhaps you were going to write that graphic novel-introduce yourself to the cute guy on the L train-save for a rainy day-take a chance on love-apply to grad school-pay off your Henri Bendel bill-recommit to your spiritual practice-spend more time with your family-watch less reality TV and more public broadcasting-be more fearless...all in the name of getting free.
If you're in the black, I salute you! But if you came up short, no need to wallow: May I recommend Miss Alicia Keys's The Element of Freedom, a disc that is as introspective as it is soulful, as you regroup?
Every day presents another chance to get it right.
It might not seem that way given the proliferation of social media, but friendship is a choice, not an obligation.
Women tend to bungle this. How often have you found yourself holding onto a friendship way past its "sell by" because you felt guilty about letting go or because of some tenuous ties?
I've also been on the receiving end of irrational devotion from mere acquaintances. Ever experienced this? Girls, in particular, who'll create an imaginary bond with you based on what they believe is common ground?
On inspection, you couldn't be more Granny Smith and Florida Citrus.
I used to be absolutely gripped by residual Catholic school guilt, feeling like I owed anyone who sought it - my friendship.
Which is not to say that we shouldn't make every effort to be good to people in general, but who we choose to "friend" in life becomes a reflection of who we are.
Saw A Single Man at the very retro City Cinemas Paris Theatre @ 58th Street. Director Tom Ford, the sartorial powerhouse who revived the flagging Gucci empire in the late '90s, proves that creative energy should never be stifled as he makes the transition from fashion to film.
The film is so stunningly shot; it lingers, but never indulgently so. And the men from costume to physique - are beautiful (Hello, Matthew Goode).
Colin Firth, in a defining role (forget all the bumbling Bridget Jones stuff), is extraordinary as the grieving 40-something English professor at a small California college in the early 1960s.
Admittedly, I've never actually seen a cinematic depiction of two men in love. But the film based on Christopher Isherwood's novel of the same name presents it as a story about just...love. (Above, a shot from the set, and movie poster)
Hands down, my favorite time of year. This weekend the powder was plentiful. Nothing like a blizzard to slow us down. Did you cue up DVDs and sip egg nog varietals? (My actress friend V decided the show must go on, so we all celebrated her B'Day on Saturday in the Slope; couldn't have been better)
E! channel viewers can keep up with the fame-loving Kardashians, but we'll ride with the Simmons sisters, Vanessa and Angela, rap royalty. (Above, a shot from the most recent Honeymag.com cover.)
Dined last week at Gottino, a narrow Italian wine bar/gastropub in the West Village.
The small plate menu felt very Top Chef (laughs). Although I was ravenous, I tried to channel the table manners of judge Padma Lakshmi.
My faves were a triangle of kunick cheese with cranberry beans, seasonal heirloom apples stuffed with pork sausage, and a jar of salt-cured cod with toasts.
Nothing like verse to kick off a busy week, right?
You wake up with morning breath - I wake up with poems on the lips. (Chuckles)
I discovered Sonia and a gaggle of black poets when I was 16, 17. Because we were never exposed to them in school, and my father's taste ran to Kiplng and Yeats, I'd grown up believing black folk had abandoned meter after Langston Hughes.
Here is what I woke up reciting in my head:
I dreamt I was tangoing with you, you held me so close we were like the singing coming off the drums. you made me squeeze muscles lean back on the sound of corpuscles sliding in blood. i heard my thighs singing.
I walk those avenues and their names sing to me! Although I came to life in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, I came of age in a Caribbean hamlet in Queens and on verdant Long Island.
Maybe I left something in BK (laughs)?
I suppose I still ain't found what I'm looking for, but I seek...
A recent jaunt to Fulton landed me at Restoration Plaza, where the newly opened Live To Change Something Through Art exhibit pulls into sharp focus the Brooklyn Arts movement. Highlighting the curatorial arm of Nakeisha Gumbs (under the aegis of Coup d'Etat Arts Collective), the exhibit bowed with a mid-afternoon bash of beautiful art and beautiful people. Intricate woodcuts, collage, oils...
Kings and Queens - and I don't mean the counties - loom large in this show: For instance, Brooklyn MCs Big Daddy Kane (the original Smooth Operator) and the late Big get their due in imaginative ways.
And Livingroom Johnston's anthropomorphic Elephants (kings of a different variety?) are downright sexy and made me laugh out loud.
He may not have R&B heartthrob looks but I looove Mario's voice. When he sings to me, I've been "Thinking About You" all night, I believe him. (Laughs)
This Baltimore native drew up the venetian blinds on his troubled upbringing in an MTV special not long ago, confronting his heroin-addicted mother on-camera.
When a man rolls you up a beautiful love song and laces it with his pain, his hardship, there are just no ceilings on what it can arouse in you. D'Angelo had mastered this quality. The Virginia native and 90s neo-soul pioneer dropped his sophomore album, Voodoo, in 2000, only to be felled by a heroin addiction of his own and general industry drama.
The Soulquarians did damage on this introspective, conceptual disc and too few fans grasped it ("The Root", "One Mo' 'Gin", "Greatdayndamornin").
Voodoo is a throwback album made the way an artist used to make an LP - by immersing one's self. At Electric Lady Studios D'Angelo called forth hougans and mambos. Maybe the spirits were too much.
I'm a shameless fan of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight saga. Sure, she writes like a 7th grader, but she gets to the essence of adolescent desire like nobody's business.
Fangs and pangs.
No self-help guru has to tell a 16-year-old girl to live in the moment: She lives emphatically in the present. With every glance, kiss, word, her temperature changes. And Meyer's books, and the films adapted from them, capture those mercurial feelings.
So I'd forced my friend J to see Twilight with me, and laughed so hard. But I got it. This is pure fantasy fulfilled. The blood-thirsty, Shakespeare-reciting, rock-star beautiful Edward Cullen denying the carnal urge to do what comes most naturally to him - all in the name of love.
The intense battle is writ large on his face; a clenched fist; eyes darting. In the end, he contents himself...to watch her sleep. (Awww, right, lol?)
So I was all dona sangre until I saw New Moon, which left me drooling over this shirtless pack of Native American wolves, with backstory to boot.
OMG! Eighties baby girls know the Scholastic series The Baby-sitter's Club was required reading. I think I was reading an item on Jezebel when I came across a mention of the titles. I ordered and read every single one of these books when they came out, as did my friends. We had like "serious" discussions about Kristy and the crew; wasn't even about the babysitting, but all the boy drama and neighborhood capers, lol. Oh, the age of innocence.
We're like "Kids" again every time my photog friend J.R. convenes Art Class on a random Sunday. Word to MGMT, the energy is straight back-to-school: crayons and Cray-Pas, paints and paper, and, during this latest edition, suds and salsa.
What began more than a year ago for and at the downtown apartment of another friend, J.A., soon blossomed into group sessions.
The regulars are complemented by a rotation of guest pupils: photographers, painters, clothing and graphic designers, graffiti artists, cultural taste-makers...
J.R. is a new recipient of the prestigious LMCC grant, so we took class on the road to her spacious studio, where J.A. proved she's in her Blue Period, sketching a masterpiece under our noses in her personal pad. Oh, you think I'm kidding?
We make masterpieces here, lol. Reveling in the the waxy scent of Crayolas, the smeared goodness of Cray-Pas, we come to group, make art, and take only what we need from it.
(Oh, Good Afternoon, Leroy Jenkins; photo courtesy of Jane Aiello)
Sometimes when I'm strolling in my neighborhood after-hours - the crowds receded, giving way to scents, sounds, shop windows - I feel like I've stumbled onto a Wong Kar-Wai set. In the Mood For Love, 1962 Hong Kong to be exact. Sublime. (Netflix it.)
Not only has this song been lodged in my head for two weeks and counting, it's the most uplifting lullaby I've heard in a minute. Maybe it's the la, la, la's...or maybe I just hear joy where I want to hear it;)
I know that stylist Mariel Haenn is the real wizard behind Rihanna's we're-not-in-Barbados-anymore transformation, but I'm feeling the looks all the same. (That said, I did take issue with the heavy-handed Sharon Stone/Basic Instinct sartorial reference she pulled for Rih on that ABC primetime interview a couple weeks ago.)
Anyone who's met me can attest to my taste for bold lip color, and my tendency to force aggression onto my girlish pieces.
So, for instance, a recent photo of Rih on her birthday in militarized Bess boots and a Ladies-Who-Lunch, body-hugging sweater dress was right up my alley. Say what you will about her style not being organic but she gives off something far more authentic than the average pop star.
Her December Glamour magazine cover and spread now ranks as one of my favorites. (And goodness knows I'm a Vogue girl.)
All of me is waiting for you to touch the center of me with the center of you.
That's Georgia O'Keeffe from one of hundreds of letters she wrote to her mentor and husband, the photographer Alfred Stieglitz. I don't know about you but I think there's something lost in the shorthand of email and text messaging. That's a love letter.
This is not, lol: Cnt wait 2 c u.
There are those artists you overlook because your earliest exposure to them was decidedly low-brow - like dentist's office waiting room low-brow. At least that's where I remember first seeing American artist Georgia O'Keeffe's (1887-1986) blooming flower paintings.
But the painter's oeuvre is so much more than climaxing flora or throbbing wombs. She was creating studies on nature. I got to see those as well as her watercolors and charcoal drawings dating back to the 1910s up-close this past week at the Whitney's exhibit of her work, "Georgia O'Keeffe: Abstraction".
Her technique - borrowed from Modernist photography - was radical - but her process was all emotion.
(Seen above, one of my faves, "Wave, Night", 1928, Oil on canvas) Whitney Museum of American Art, 75th and Madison Ave., 6 to 77th Street.
I love the idea of young auteurs like Spike Jonze and Wes Anderson taking on children's classics, and I'm a serious die-hard for all things Anderson. (Even his lesser works like The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (2004) or The Darjeeling Limited (2007)are visual marvels to dissect.)
So I was just tickled when walking last Thursday on the Upper East Side, I caught sight of some of the actual animated figures and sets from Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) propped up in the windows of Bergdorf Goodman (pictured above, sorry shabby camera phone!). This row of general stores, delis, law offices, and more, made the Barbie Dream House of my youth look like the work of pre-schoolers.
I stood chatting and gawking with another onlooker about how life-like the little creatures looked (real fur was used) - as well their habitats. Anderson has them wearing real corduroy suits, for instance, albeit tiny versions of Savile Row tailoring. It's a worth a walk on the East Side to peep!
For my friend V, who's an accomplished actress, it was no thing to spend parts of the last two weekends at the iconic Public Theater on Lafayette, but for me it was a wonder. She scored tickets for us to see a trilogy of works called the Brother/Sister Plays.
It's been a while since I saw so much staged work and in so little time. Add to that, she got us backstage access to meet and chat with the handsome and insanely talented playwright, 29-yo Tarell McCraney, and the cast of equally talented actors, as Oskar Eustis nibbled on pizza nearby before jumping on his bike homeward.
The plays, which borrow liberally from Yoruba legend, follow brothers Ogun and Oshoosi Size, and a satellite of orbiting characters from Elegba to Oshun. Set in the Louisiana bayou, the dialogue has a rich, contemporary flavor. McCraney can weave in laugh-out-loud references to G-Unit and Ralph Tresvant, even while exploring themes like black male sexuality.
So inspiring being in the company of bright, young, black, M.F.A.-having actors, V (fresh off Ruined) included. You must see these plays, I'd recommend seeing Part II if you can't do both. (Thru Dec. 13)
Every couple of months or so, I'll be racing up the stairs of my building only to stumble over my neighbor splayed out on the steps with her pink backpack at her feet. She's about 14, skin the color of cooling espresso, and although she is baby-faced, she stands 6' with an equally imposing weight.
On the days she forgets the keys to the apartment she shares with her mother, she lies in wait. Her mother shares her physical dimensions but with a masculine frame and the combat-booted gait to match. Unfortunatly, I'm witness to the tongue lashings she endures for minor offenses like forgetting her keys.
My young neighbor is precious and a teenage girl's psyche is fragile. Every word you aim at them is a weapon. How many times have you passed an exhausted, bitter mother berating her little ones?
So I try the little bit I can to sprinkle verbal honey her way, whatever I can do to cut the sting. When I first started seeing the trailers for "Precious" (Nov. 6), starring 24-yo newcomer and Harlemite Gabby Sidibe, I couldn't help but flash to my neighbor. One of a few films I'm genuinely eager to see.
A couple days ago, I caught an episode of PBS' American Masters (ugh, I love this long-running series), focussing on the legendary Marvin Gaye. On a random note, I didn't know Marvin's father - an abusive, troubled minister who shot and killed his son in 1984 - had a serious cross-dressing habit!
Anyway, the segment in which they revisited Marvin's post-divorce album, Here, My Dear, reminded me of Usher, who's dissolving his own marriage to the much-maligned Tameka Foster. During their union, Foster was Yoko Ono'd on nearly every blog; women just couldn't stomach her.
Gaye spun the strife, conflict, and projected alimony payments from his crumbling union with Anna Gordy into Here, My Dear. That LP included "Anna's Song," kinda like "Papers" for the late '70s. After Usher's lukewarm Here I Stand, maybe he'll find his post-nuptial fire like Marvin did.
Is it just me or does it seem counterintuitive to put a rapper on ice when he's bringing heat?
The inexplicably prolific author of '08's Top-selling album with a rebirth in the offing; the 27-yo Young Money Entertainment general with a raspy, Robitussin DM-laced growl who spits the dirtiest clean I know (ask Nivea or Lauren London if you don't believe me, lol).
I know that every man has to be accountable for his actions, but the particulars of Lil Wayne's attempted weapons possession case are questionable. My heart sank a little when I saw flicks of a resigned-looking Weezy heading into a Manhattan courthouse last month.
Another young black man entering the revolving door of the prison industrial complex. In February 2010 a judge'll hand down a yearlong sentence as part of a plea deal.
(Consider this: In 2003, a U.S. Justice Department report estimated that about 10.4% of the Black male population ages 25 to 29 was incarcerated.)
Regardless of how much rap has glorified the bid, there's nothing glamorous about a pen - unless you're using it to write bars. And no matter what issues we might have with his extracurriculars, Wayne belongs on a stage, not in a cage.
Ray of Light is one of those albums that I come back to again and again, like a musical Bhagavad Gita. It's Madonna and the genius William Orbit at their collaborative best - this is what Awakening sounds like.
The "Material Girl" becoming a Spiritual Girl.
Look at the LP cover: She never glowed like she did c.1998; that Ashtanga yoga practice was serious. When I'm getting too far from the center, this collection helps bring me back to mental equilibrium, organic fruit, white tea, Buddha beads, lotus position, and right mind.
I know a little something about wolves in sheep's clothing...maybe that's why am I so enchanted these days by the saga of Little Red Riding Hood.
In September, for Fashion's Night Out, Vogue editrix extraordinaire Grace Goddington recreated her recent 'Lil Red fashion spread for the PRADA Store windows, showing well-suited wolves out to tea with leggy, couture-clad mannequins.
But truth be told I get a kick outta the saucy undertones. In the adaptation that I dig, it's about a good girl in a hooded red toggle cape on the verge of going bad. Into the woods...and into...serious mischieflaughs.
I mean, she's carrying a bottle of Bordeaux and couple of baguettes in that basket. That definitely wasn't for Grandma. (Illustration, Odessa Sawyer, 2004)
I just read a fascinating Q&A in the November Elle with Diddy, who shares this recollection with columnist Andrew Goldman:
I was in pursuit of female attention from when I was probably four or five. It started with my mother's friends putting me to sleep on their laps.
You've met this guy, right? He might not have had a record label and a net worth of $380 million, lol, but I bet he was just as charming and swaggerific. What, you thought you captured his attention? [Laughs.] So did the next chick.
Guys like Diddy live with a gnawing hunger for affirmation from the opposite sex that has no point of satisfaction: They're never full (and seldom fullfilled), always chasing, looking for something off the menu.
Unless they undergo some seismic transformation, guys like this always comes up short 'cause they can't see the value of the one (The One?)- over the many.
Before Theresa Duncan dug into a glass bowl of Benadryl and Tylenol PM to take her own life, she'd been a writer/filmmaker/gaming designer for girls. Duncan also spent the better part of 12 years as one half of a glamorous art world couple with her boyfriend, the equally talented multimedia artist Jeremy Blake.
Among the ambitious projects they realized was Duncan's wry, genius, loosely autobiographical The History of Glamour (2000), a 40-minute animated flick that showed in that year's Whitney Biennial. Blake served as co-illustrator and art director. I'm just absorbed and tickled by this vid:
A confession. When I worked at a daily paper and was producing clips at a fast clip, I often found myself torn between wanting to share a piece I was proud of and a desire to refrain from huffing and puffing too much, a desire to leggo my ego.
Similarly with this blog: I vacillate between using the most public of forums to promote it and then hanging my head over the shameless plugging [laughs]. Ideally, you'd feel comfortable to come to it as you please - be it once a week or once a year.
Well last Monday, I had one of the most BEautiful nights I've had in a long time, seeing Maxwell and Common in concert on the same night. I was reminded of Common's liner notes for the '05 album Be.
If you build, defend, make, heal, bridge, or connect things, people, or moments for a living and ever feel conflicted about recruiting soldiers to your movement, luring captains to your street team - just gotta acknowledge the source. Regardless of where/how/to whom you bow your head.
There were three things I wanted when I was starting school for the first time:
1. A LISP 2. A BROKEN ARM 3. A HEAD OF STRAIGHT HAIR
The Long Island Catholic school I went to from pre-K-8th was initially predominantly white, and for the first couple years, I was the token black girl (named becky) in my grade. Whenever you're outnumbered, whatever the majority is doing/being can seem appealing, sanctioned.
So no matter how many Cosby-worthy affirmations about how beautiful and gifted I heard I was at home, when I stepped onto that asphalt playground, felt like I came up short.
Since the Tiffanys and Danielles had lisps - forget that this was a speech impediment, I used to fake one for good measure. Broken arms and legs requiring casts that begged to be signed and doodled on? OMG, I wanted a cast! (But I never broke any bones and my theory is that my Caribbean family didn't ski.)
And they had hair I noticed most when the last bell rang: In one sweep, they'd slip zippered jackets over uniforms and fling a grip of hair out from pressed collars. Like the shampoo commercials. I mean, Dark & Lovely was good, but I wanted to be Pert Plus, Head and Shoulders above my classmates.
Years later, I'd chop it all off, go back to the natural essence, before finally realizing it doesn't define me.
So I get why Chris Rock thought Good Hair was a compelling topic for a documentary. Opening this Friday, and nationwide Oct. 23, Rock is pulling the curtain back on black girls' relationship with their hair. From what I've seen so far, I think it's flawed by sweeping generalizations, but dude is a comedian not a professor of African-American studies.
It's no secret that when it comes to footwear, men almost to a head prefer heels on a woman. I think in the male fantasy, we'd step off the stoop always looking like Cassie and Lauren in a Sean John ad.
And most of us willingly indulge this preference: We do feel sexier when we're strapped (to heels!), after all, and we (for the most part) appreciate the extra love we get in the streets for making the effort.
But in New York, a pedestrian city that sits on killer sidewalks, running around in killer heels can be taxing, even injurious. Some of us resort to the Superman-in-the-booth quick change from flats to heels. Though there's something inelegant about ramming your bare feet into a pair of peep-toes on a subway platform as you balance latte, oversize clutch, and mag.
So give the arches a break! To be shod in sole-ful shoes can be appealing...right? [Laughs] I nominate Christian Louboutin's dazzling Fred Flat Lace-Ups as a counterpoint to your most flirty frocks. (Above, variations on the dance shoe by Louboutin and Repetto.)
Are you standing in someone's else's light? Reflecting...Drawn like a gypsy moth to their fire when you could be generating your own?
The Mighty Mos Def once remarked that you should not only "shine your light on the world," but "shine your light for the world to see." At the Corridor Gallery this past Sunday for the "Brooklyn Influence" exhibit featuring the portraiture of lensman Jamel Shabazz, I was struck by how each of his subjects seemed to emit a certain light.
Now maybe that's just Shabazz's extraordinary documentary touch at work, but it's probably a combination of both. Somewhere in the gallery literature, I read that the borough claims the highest concentration of artists, activists, and entrepreneurs. It sure feels that way.
The light was blinding.
The show, running through Nov. 7, is curated by Raquel Wilson in conjunction with the community arts organization Dope Swan to commemorate the anniversary of “A Great Day in Brooklyn” and “Another Great Day in Brooklyn.” (Rapper/Actor/Activist Mos Def, above, by Jamel Shabazz)
There's something highly comical and just refreshing about putting your mess where people can see it.
That's exactly what artist Natalie Osborne did in a room adjacent to the Corridor Gallery's main foyer, as part of the newly opened exhibit "Strictly Regulated". The group show highlights the work of six emerging female artists and runs concurrent with the exhibit "Brooklyn Influence".
Osborne's video series and installation "I'm a Mess: Finding My Pace" (wall detail, above) confronts the notion of the black superwoman: a towering pile of shirts, shoes, and frocks is thrown into a corner of the gallery. Kinda looked like my bedroom on a Monday morning, lol.
You have to see the entire piece for yourself, but from now on when the kryptonite's got me down if you ask me how I'm doin', I'm just gonna say, I'm a mess, and finding my pace. So much more liberating, don't you think? [Laughs]
In ancient folklore, they say that the witching hour represents the moment when black magic is at its most powerful. Cast a spell, cast off an albatross...
If that's true, then the soreceresses of Nina Sky, Natalie and Nicole Albino, have been boiling up a serious bitches' brew.
To fly-by-night fans, the Queens, N.Y.-born duo haven't made noise since 2004's super-hit "Move Ya Body," but the ladies spent the last five years or so making a label change (Universal to Polo Grounds/J Records), writing music, DJ-ing, re-mixing for artists like The-Dream and J.Holiday, and touring like mad.
Homegrown but Puerto Rican by blood, they have that quintessential New York City-native something that a million June Ambroses couldn't recreate if you ain't have it already (They shout out Pio Pio, for goodness sake, lol! Okaay, A.).
That je ne sais quoi extends from the external - a certain way we put our look together - to the internal - a melting pot mentality that sees culture in every quarter.
In October, their oft-delayed sophomore album, Starting Today, is slated to drop and anyone who's heard early singles like the sugary electro-pop "Beautiful People" or the R&B-flavored "On Some Bullshit", can attest to the growth. Even the vocals are fuller, more lush. (This is the music Diddy wishes Cassie could make.)
On the significance of the album title they've said, "We believe if you dwell on the past, you can never move forward. Our songs now are about putting past experiences to rest and approaching life with a positive outlook.”
Nowhere is this forward outlook more apparent than their collabo with Major Lazer (feat. Ricky Blaze) on the flavor-full "Keep it Goin' Louder", off Diplo and Switch's dancehall-drenched Gunz Don't Kill People, Lazers Do. Pitchfork calls it one of the best pop songs of the year.
It's Autumn in New York and that always gets me thinking about fall dressing. Some weeks ago, I was stopped at a traffic light in the West 50s and noticed a girl probably in her early teens, dirty-blonde hair cut into a messy pageboy, pale skin, freckles, and clad in a tissue-thin grey shirtdress. Like she'd been plucked out of a Norman Rockwell tableau.
Then as if to dot the "i" on the post-war American girl look, I looked down and realized she had on grey cap-toe canvas sneakers, a single shoelace trailing behind her. Like the perfect black ballet flat, vintage dime-store canvas sneakers have been my obsession for a couple years now. (Guys in Chucks give me butterflies...but that's another story) I just think nothing says Autumn like warm layers, a boyfriend jean, and battered Keds. That's a detail up top of Rockwell's 1964 The Problem We All Live With, and a 1993 Bloomie's ad for the classic shoe.
While it's impossible for me to conjure the early 1960s without also confronting the spectre of fire hoses, barking dogs, and black bodies swinging in Birmingham, AMC's "Mad Men," now in its third season and unfolding in 1963, transports, leaving the historical ugliness largely off-set.
These days the scripted television landscape is rife with sociopaths, blood-suckers, and men in their prolonged adolescence, but with "Mad Men" there are ad-ults (you have to put the emphasis in its proper place, laughs). The writing is impeccable of course, and the exceptionally polished fashion (pencil skirts, jumpers, shifts, red lipstick, men's suiting and cardigans...) makes me yearn for something bygone.
It's been an added bonus to watch as the writers revisit iconic American brands and businesses in the guise of Sterling Cooper accounts: John Deere, Madison Square Garden, even the little-known "Patio," which was featured on one of my favorite epis so far this season. Patio, in real-life, marked Pepsi's foray into diet cola in 1963, an appeal to women watching their waistlines. Execs changed the name from Patio to Diet Pepsi after winning thumbs for the low-cal beverage. And I only know this because the Queens Museum mounted an exhibit on it - but Pepsi Co. was also the first to train and hire an all-black Sales team during the Jim Crow era to market and sell to African-American customers. The advertising they created is fascinating to examine. Those gentleman became the first of a generation of black corporate Ad Men in the 1940s and early 1950s.
Recently swept into Deity. It was night, and it was hot. Feeling flushed, I slipped into the ladies' lounge to dab the dew from my lip. At the door, I found the reverential spirit in which the place had been named, no christened, extended to the loos, which were appropriately marked "gods" and "goddesses."
And although it was Sunday, the only laying on of hands happening at this Downtown Brooklyn boite was between the women and the men. Did I mention that it was hot? Well... It was many things...
Presiding over this mass of undulating brown bodies gathered on two floors was DJ Hard Hittin Harry. Part DJ - part beat minister, the Brick City, N.J., native (by way of Port-au-Prince, Haiti) had even those of us who'd bypassed the rum punch feeling punch-drunk off his unimpeachable set list.
Helpless to shake the sounds from my step, I went in search of DJ HHH. "Before any party you can usually catch me in front of my computer downloading music and organizing my playlists for the night," said the DJ (below, c.Stella Magloire), who wears his considerable soul, reggae, hip hop, and rock stripes without pretentiousness. I asked him to create a playlist for BGNB comprised of the 10 songs he'd play if he could only go with a dime. The veteran selecta, who counts turntable icons Kool DJ Red Alert, Mr. Magic & Marley Marl, and Frankie Crocker among his influences, did not disappoint:
DJ HARD HITTIN HARRY UNITY SOUND PLAYLIST
Win Some - Courtney John Time To Win - Half Pint King Pharo - Everton Blender Why Can't We - Jah Cure Many Things - Seun Kuti (pictured, top) & Fela's Egypt 80 Amour De Nombakele - Pamelo Mounk'a Premier Gaou - Magic System K'em Pa Sote - Boukman Eksperyans Love You No More - Shabba Ranks, featuring Mavado Mama's Love - Mavado
For more, tune into the DJ's weekly online TV mixshow, The Global Jam Session, Tuesdays, 2-5 p.m., www.axiomonline.tv. (Peace to Coup D'Etat Brooklyn.)
One year, for my catholic school's annual Talent Show, I decided I'd perform a lip-synced rendition of Whitney Houston's "How Will I Know?" So I come home the day of the show (after weeks of rehearsal) with a copy of the single and told my Grams she had to do my hair JUST LIKE WHITNEY. [Laughs]
My septugenarian West Indian grandmother was all, "little young ladies don't go out with their hair out!" We argued, argued, and then compromised on a single braid. She tied a long swath of lace ribbon around my big head and sent me on my way with my pastel leggings, boots, and chunky sweater. (Placed first by the way! Haha.) But my Whitney thing was always more than poster-hanging fandom; I adored this woman. During her surprisingly candid interview today with Oprah Winfrey, I remembered why. Whitney, looking luminous in a chocolate-bronze shift, remarked, "I didn't know about the largeness of what they call icon."
The Newark, N.J., native who grew up waiting in the wings of fame (mom Cissy a well-known gospel singer, and cousin Dionne Warwick a chart-topping recording artist), admitted nothing prepares you for success on that scale - All At Once.
If you wrote her off that season Bravo aired "Being Bobby Brown," where she prowled Atlanta in a tired fur coat, drowning in drugs and dysfunction with Mr. "My Prerogative," O's two-part season premiere is worth watching.
The name was such an anomaly that rapper Common named his backing band a black girl named becky. Growing up, "I've never met a black girl named Rebecca," is something I heard often. But then I'm not your average girl. This is me.
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