newyorkette

Click on the image or playlist above for the iMix.

I’m moving, little by little, this week, to a new apartment. Of course packing brings up old memories, both of places I’ve been and many, many, many other moves across towns and borders!

For the entire list of NJS mixes, click here.

(image: carolita johnson) I only wore the above Manolos once! They hurt like the Dickens!

Okay, I have to admit, after fashion week I’ve had it up to here (imagine my finger posed horizontally across the top of my forehead) with fashion. So no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t bring myself to read “The Huntress“ by the very stylish Larissa MacFarquhar, about Diane Von Furstenburg, or Andrea Lee’s doubtlessly pithy “Bag Lady,” about the meteoric rise in importance this millennium of the handbag. (A quick peek did yield an intriguing turn of phrase: “bag porn,” which may yet reel me into a complete reading this weekend.) Neither article is online, so this week your must have accessory is the paper version of TNY’s “Style Issue.”

When I was in junior high school, I obstinately refused to wear anything but flannel shirts, carpenter jeans or overalls, and high school windbreakers with no logo at all on the back, all bought very thriftily at Modell’s, which at the time wasn’t so much a sports store as only one step above the Army Surplus or Salvation Army. So you can see why I can’t imagine spending any money to clothe any junior high school student, as described in the not-online-either “Cool enough for school,” by Patricia Marx, who, being from the business, can. (I, for one, believe offspring who don’t cook or clean should have nice cheap crap until they can buy their own fancy stuff when they get jobs.)

What I did read was “Freight,” and on my cell phone, no less! Too cheap to buy the magazine when it’s late arriving in my mailbox, I download articles onto my cell phone and read them on my subway ride midtown. “Freight” is just part of a two thousand-page, unedited manuscript by Henry Roth. It’s remarkably limpid during the first two thirds as the hitchhiking meanders into a freight train ride with a crotchety road rat and, later, joined by a stranger with a knife. Then we digress into the (as ever!) traumatizingly oppressive Jewish boyhood that led to this wayward wandering, which makes you want to look out the window yourself. Until that moment, the reading is gemlike in its lucidity. But it comes back just in time to end on an interesting quiver.

A fascinating read is Judith Thurman’s piece on Marie Antoinette and her various biographers (Caroline Weber, with “Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution,” and Sofia Coppola, with her new film, “Marie Antoinette,” which was booed at it’s opening). Marie was more complex than you know. She never said, “Let them eat cake,” the snotty little ditty uttered by a future personality whom time has forgotten, the words better suiting the collective conscience’s image of Marie Antoinette. She was a teenage queen, and her husband, the king, had an odd sexual technique that ensured for seven years that she would not conceive (nor take any pleasure in the sex!). Read about it in “Dressed for excess.”

I will definitely be doing a future Tables for One on this week’s Tables for Two, Ushiwakamaru. Here, Lauren Collins says that a fellow customer found it comparable to the Japanese experience, and so I’ll have to be the judge of that, having lived in Tokyo for two months at a time twice, and having had a Kabuki actor friend to show me around! Sounds delicious, so if you go there first, let me know!

PS - anyone interested in my only-worn-once size 9 and a half Manolos? See below.

These shoes were toxic!* (image: carolita johnson)

While packing my stuff in preparation for moving to my new apartment, I found these. Shame on me. I bought them for an occasion on which I felt I had to absolutely look chic. Mainly because I had been given about four thousand dollars worth of clothes to wear by a designer I worked for, and none of my shoes were worthy of the outfit! Needless to say, they’ve only been worn once! What I spent on them doesn’t bear pronouncing. Not before lunch — I’ll just lose my appetite. And even more to my chagrin, they were painful within minutes (of course they didn’t hurt at Barney’s, where I bought them!). I should be whipping myself with them as a penitence!

Lesson of the day: don’t do as I did. I should have worn my Converse All-Stars, or my jellies.

* note the pained grimace on the “newyorkette skull of approval” for toxic fashion logo.

Click on the image for the full picture!

The view above is from 4 Times Square over the building going up next door. So far we can still see Bryant Park. To see what Bryant Park looks like in the aftermath of Fashion Week: click here.

Posting may be sporadic in the week or two to come, as newyorkette is moving to a new apartment. If there’s nothing new going on here for a while, drop by Emdashes for your dose of New Yorker peripheralia!

This tree on the southeast end of the Great Lawn in Central Park, just across from Turtle Pond, is always the first to turn colors in autumn, and the first to bloom in the Spring.

Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Autumn, once again.
And what does the Autumn want?
The coolness from your brow.
I don’t want to give it to you.
I want to take it from you.

Knock, knock.
Who is it?
Autumn, once again.

Cancion, Federico Garcia Lorca, Madrid, 1933 (unofficial translation, by me)

I was walking west on 38th street, on my way to the Ramen King when I noticed Lazarra’s sign. It rang a bell. Could it be the obscure, garmento upstairs pizzeria Owen Phillips had once reviewed for The New Yorker’s Tables for Two? I wasn’t sure, so I went up the stairs and took a peek, and sure enough it was. I couldn’t resist the urge to review a Tables for Two subject for a Tables for One.

It was dark, nearly romantic inside, and empty except for a few odd people dining at a table by the window. I spotted a counter and asked if I could sit there and have a slice of pizza. The nearly flustered (but not quite) waitress offered me a table instead, but I insisted on the counter and she conceded to my wishes. I ordered a slice, to which she responded by showing me the way they make their pizzas at Lazzara’s: they only do “sicilian” style, square cut pizzas.

But they’re not your usual “sicilian” slices. They’re not two inches thick and doughy. Lazzara’s pizza prides itself for being “New York’s best thin crust pizza.” A slice is nearly flat, and arrives looking like a very pretty enameled glossy jewel-like square. The crust is very crunchy, and if you get a corner piece (with edges of crust) you have to be careful how you bite into it, or you’ll hurt yourself, but it’s worth taking the care, as it’s delicious. The pizza, which Owen had reported was the only thing they did well, was done well. In fact, if I hadn’t realized I only had three dollars in my wallet, I’d have had one more.

A square “sicilian” at Lazzara’s, about four by six inches, makes a good snack and will cost you $2.00. Plus tip!

Lazzara’s Pizza Café
221 West 38th Street (upstairs)
(between 7th & 8th aves.)
(212) 944-7792-3-4

(Click on the image for the clip!)

What do you look for in a comic book? Laughs? Suspense? Visual excitement? Emotion? Try Cancer Vixen (Knopf, hardcover $22*), a comic book by my friend and fellow New Yorker cartoonist, Marisa Acocella Marchetto, about her experience with breast cancer.

We all know someone who’s been touched by cancer. But not everyone deals with it in ways we find easy to face. The struggle for life isn’t always pretty. Cancer Vixen is pretty. Strip it of its glittering bright purple cover to see it’s just as vibrant and funny underneath. Inside, the color schemes all match my own favorite outfits: “It clashes, so I love it, ” she says in one frame, and that’s why I love it too. The style is Marisa’s recognizable own, with real people possessed of reassuringly human proportions and body shapes, a change from the elongated, thin fashionistas her New Yorker cartoons often portray (and poke light fun at). Her visual vocabulary engages you immediately. If the attractiveness of a book about cancer is a paradox, it’s a timely one. I can’t imagine what it would have been like without the happy ending, but Marisa doesn’t seem cut out for unhappy endings.

This is a comic book with a strong, seductive narrative, and images that keep you turning the pages. Marisa expresses honest, naked truths about fear, self-doubt, physical pain, and the disease itself in question in ways that are more than instructive: it’s enriching. It teeters on the edge of TMI only rarely, and does so rather charmingly (the truffle-scented farts in bed, not to mention the less than lovely “chemo farts”). You’ll also learn a thing or two about designer shoes and the world of the so-called “beautiful people.”

And I’m proud to say I make a two-frame guest appearance in it! Which is very touching, because it’s basically the scene where we first sealed our friendship, perhaps without even realizing it yet. It’s an honor, Marisa!

- Cancer Vixen: the clip
- Cancer Vixen: the book
- NYTimes interview of the Cancer Vixen herself
- also interviewed by Cynthia Kling for the Huffington Post
- see Marisa’s cartoons in The New Yorker
.
* a percentage of which will be proceeding to the Comprehensive Cancer Center affiliated with St. Vincent’s Hospital, Manhattan, and to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

(image: carolita johnson)

With a name like “Friend,” how could he not like Katie Couric? I don’t, but if you’re curious about how Katie took Channel 2, or how we took Katie, read Tad Friend’s “Her Début.” I personally think that Katie could use a serious make-under (a lot less eye make-up, and a more natural look would be more attractive than the glum face she’s recently been trying on in an effort to look more serious and less hair-flippy), and a voice coach to help her lower her voice by at least half an octave. Yes, I’m one of those people who don’t like “perky.”

For a more manly take on things more manly, read David Remnick’s “The Wanderer,” a rather blunt, naked view of Bill Clinton, flattering here, rather unflattering there. All in all, if I were Bill, I couldn’t complain. He’s a nearly Molièresque character, Bill is, and his flaws are not unattractive, if not fascinating. It’s not online right now, but there’s the Online Only Q & A interview of David Remnick by Blake Eskin, to either give you a taste of it, or complement your paper version reading.

If you liked “Closer,” and “Paris, Texas,” you’ll like that they seem to make cameo appearances in Miranda July’s “Something That Needs Nothing.” It’s also not online. Read it on the subway in it’s paper version, and be careful not to miss your stop when the narrator deflowers herself.

I’ve only begun reading Ian Buruma’s review of Günter Grass‘ memoir, “Peeling the Onion,” in War and Remembrance, but the opening paragraph, which includes a quote from Grass’ recent novel is promising:

“History, or, to be more precise, the history we Germans have repeatedly mucked up, is a clogged toilet,” the narrator in Günter Grass s most recent novel, “Crabwalk,” says. “ We flush and flush, but the shit keeps rising.” Now the author, a Nobel laureate widely regarded as “the conscience of Germany”—a man who has regularly sermonized against the forces of reaction and the corruptions of power—is up to his neck in it himself.

David Sedaris learns never to say “d’accord” when you don’t know what you’re agreeing to in France. (Actually, I’m not sure he learned a thing from this experience, and imagine he’ll wind up in trouble again and again. In France, it’s wiser to be difficult. Luckily for him, he hasn’t learned to use the even shorter version of “je suis d’accord avec vous,” which is simply, “d’ac!” ): In the waiting room.

Bryant Park, New York Spring 2007 collections

Goodbye Fashion Week! Soon I will have more work than ever doing fittings, helping patternmakers and technical designers turn those show samples (the ones that survive the next week of showroom sales) into producible, wearable clothing! Thank you! Thank you! Hasta la next time! Ta-ta!

UPDATE: Apparently Bryant Park won’t be hosting the shows this February!

“They can’t come back . . . this winter,” said Bryant Park Executive Director Dan Biederman, adding that the skating-rink deal was signed a month ago.

I say hoooooorray! Let them have their traffic-clogging, sidewalk-congesting shows at the much bigger and easier to access Javits Center. I think they’re just in love with the feeling that the world stops for them every season (and who wouldn’t be?), even though they can’t park or even get a cab anywhere near the shows because of the congealed traffic around them. But I think it’s time for at least some of the shows to leave the nest.

UPDATE on Sept. 16th: Gothamist agrees!

(Rejected cartoon: carolita johnson)

To honor the last day of fashion week, here’s another — rejected — fashion cartoon for you to throw rotten tomatoes at! Yes, it’s a bridal cartoon, but did you know that the bridal outfit has a special place in fashion shows? Nearly all fashion shows end with a bride or bride-equivalent. It’s a great honor to be the last one out, especially because it often means you get to kiss the designer while cameras flash and everyone applauds. So I suppose it’s the happiest day of a model’s life when Jean-Paul Gaultier chooses you for the finale.

Being the first one out is also an honor. You’re the first thing the audience sees, and your outfit often represents the inspiration or the show’s theme. You’re also quite soon forgotten, so most models prefer being last.

One day, however, I arrived backstage for what I knew was my very last Jean-Paul Gaultier runway show. I routinely checked out my rack and noticed that my first outfit had a polaroid snapshot (of how it should look once everything was in its proper place on my body) with the number “1″ Sharpie-d onto it. I was thrilled! What a nice way to go out, I thought. The outfit was an Inuit-style suede pullover parka. I was all rouged up to look like a genuine red-cheeked Inuit, and they were spreading artificial snow on the runway when suddenly Bjork came sashaying around to my rack, wordlessly inspected my outfits, then sashayed away again.

Moments later, Jean-Paul came rushing up to me looking rather sheepish. He explained that Bjork had not liked her one outfit of the show (she was to do the cameo). So J-P, being the gracious man that he is, proposed that she have a look around everyone else’s racks and choose another outfit. Something about my outfit had caught her eye. (Could it have been the number “1″????). I, being a gracious model, surrendered my opening outfit to Bjork. (How do you like that, Bjork? I cried a sentimental tear of frustration on my last day as a runway model because of you!) But I got over it, realizing I was finally leaving the fickle world of runway fashion, and should be relieved.

I did years more of showroom work with Jean-Paul, which was rewarding in many other ways. And this is all that’s left on the internet of that outfit on La Bjork.

(rejected cartoon: carolita johnson)

Some people believe your clothes say a lot about you. Others believe, further still, that your clothes are actually speaking for you. When I was a fashion student I found all those clothes speaking at me from all directions to be a rather oppressive presence. I’m glad I don’t hear those voices anymore, or at least not as loudly! When I pass Bryant Park during fashion week these days, I try not to listen at all because the clothes the fashionistas are wearing always say things like, “Ha ha, I’m dressed better than you,” while my clothes are saying, “Who asked you?” or “Why don’t you go eat a sandwich!”

This was a cartoon inspired by the dressed up dogs I saw in the East Village, when I used to be a resident there. I was always amused by the little biker outfits owners would put on their little chihuahuas. I wondered if they ever got in trouble for it…

(quick little sketches in the dark at Birdland by carolita johnson)

It was Emily’s (of Emdashes) birthday last night! So to celebrate, we had a luscious dinner at Pergola des Artistes on 46th and 8th Ave., and proceeded around the corner to Birdland to see Todd Londagin’s Big Band, for some superb trombone playing (by Todd). There was also the gorgeous Toby Williams, singing Billie Holiday’s “Gee Baby, Ain’t I Good to You,” which she did after hitching up her bra on her way up to the stage, making us all feel human.

What a band! A fabulous blond who looks like one of Charlie’s Angels on the baritone sax, three more saxes, three trombones (including J. Walter Hawkes and Todd), drums, bass, electric guitar, three trumpets, and a piano! Not to mention Todd’s singing and tap dancing. Gershwin, Mose Allison (”If You’re Goin’ to the City”).

I did a few drawings in the dark, which I’ve posted above. I dunno, Emily thought they were decent but I was almost too embarrassed to put them up. I guess we all like to see how someone draws in the dark without any help from white-out or lightboxes. So, why not?

(image: carolita johnson)

This is a very, very old rejected cartoon, which I’ve dug up in honor of Fashion Week. And speaking of how cheap it is to please men, here’s a little story of transcendent love for you.

When I began modelling in Paris, I had not been instructed in such basics as wearing a flesh-colored bra and thong to work. (I was one of the “non-modelly models” of the late eighties.) I still wore my old size 14 Carter’s underwear that my Mom used to buy me (those Carter’s last a long, long time! I think they had a motto that went something like, “If only their childhood outlasted their Carter’s”).

You know the kind: the elastic band way up by your belly button, covered in balloon or floral prints. I threw them out as they wore out, and replaced them with nicer panties (finally learned my lesson and bought a thong after being obliged to borrow one right off another model during a fashion show when I unexpectedly got stuck with a totally transparant dress). But I never really thought about their “M-appeal” till one day, at Jean-Paul Gaultier, my (hopefully gay) French dresser burst out one day with, “Look at zose culottes de bonne soeur! Your boyfriend must ‘ate zem!” And I simply replied, “My boyfriend never notices my underwear! He removes them immediately.” Which was true.

That’s the kind of man you want. Not the type to ask you to go to much trouble to please him with your wardrobe, which should be irrelevant because of his all-transcendent desire for you. But we have to spend money to impress our women friends, and just so, I suppose, since they’re the friends women must fall back on when their men run out on them (once they’ve noticed their girlfriends’ ugly underwear).

(quick sketch: carolita johnson)

It’s fashion week in New York, so we’re all doing our best to look good. Newyorkette does not presume to prescribe or proscribe any fashion, being possessed of a “live and let live” style (or lack thereof) philosophy. But every now and then I must let escape a “please don’t.” Yesterday in front of Fairway Supermarket on 74th street and Broadway I saw a woman wearing these sweatpants.

Please don’t wear clothing that brings attention to your rectum. It’s not polite.

More fashion-week related posts:
- Rejected cartoon du jour: When less is more, more or less.
- Postcard from New York: week ending on the first day of fashion week
- What a cartoonist is wearing today

This image is from a movie I first saw in Paris. See below for a clue.

I wasn’t here on the original September 11th. I was in Paris, teaching a coked-up French booker how to use her database software when a friend in Germany called to tell me to get to a TV. “Why? Are you on TV?” I asked. I spent the afternoon trying to reach my New York colleagues. Our developper, holed up in the office, wrote me an email to say he’d seen the first plane’s impact from inside the subway as it crossed Manhattan bridge and entered the tunnel, on his way to work. Mentioned he’d likely be taking the rest of the day off.

I went to the WTC about ten years ago on a visit home from Paris, determined to go to the top and have a look around the city. But when I got there, I looked up and shuddered at what I took to be two freakishly tall, thin black buildings. It was windy and cold on the plaza and I could swear I saw them swaying. Maybe it was me. Childhood memories of what happened when I got too ambitious with my Lego sets flashed to mind. I just said to myself, hell, no. Those buildings had gone up way too quickly for my liking, and my impression was that surely someone had forgotten to think of something important, and that they were likely to fall one day, maybe that very day, with me in one of them. I got right back into the subway and visited the Empire State Building, instead.

Little did I know.

This is the only image of the Twin Towers (which I never got to know and love as well as the Empire State Building) that I have a personal relationship with, and that’s because it’s from the beginning of my favorite movie. I shot it with my Spectra Polaroid while watching it on TV in my tiny “studette” in Paris. I painted the scene, and ironically enough, someone stole the painting while I was packing to move back to New York. Anyone welcoming a distraction from today’s unabashed media exploitation of the honest grievers can tell me if they recognize which movie it’s from.

Anyone?

Fashion clue: the main character’s wardrobe is provided by Emanuel Ungaro.

For a special treat, see John Mavroudis’ website, where he describes the process leading up to the 9/11 cover of The New Yorker, via Drawn.

It’s hard for me to believe I’m doing a Tables for One on MacDonald’s. I actually used to cry when my parents announced they were going to “treat” me and my brothers to lunch at MacDonalds. All I wanted was a nice big salad. Yes, I was a strange kid, and my mother assumed I was anorexic for having such discerning taste buds, but being picky did wonders for my cholesterol levels later in life.

Alas! MacD’oh (as they say in France) has finally figured out what people like me will break down for. The “Snack Wrap” is a savory, warm snack with nearly every ingredient of a good meal (according to the old food pyramid: protein, carbs, greens, dairy) for a dollar twenty-five ($1.40 with tax). It’s small, it’s warm, it has the appearance of something healthy, with it’s simple flour tortilla, salad, and light sprinkling of cheese. In fact, it would be healthy if the chicken finger inside it weren’t deep fried. (I’m hoping the success of it may inspire them to come out with a broiled chicken version.) Deep fried or not, it’s not as greasy as the rubbery, heartburn-inducing “MacNuggets,” which I used to opt for to avoid getting stuck with a hamburger on our family outings.

In fact, it’s very light-tasting and small, with only the slightest hint of a crunch from the chicken finger inside, and it’s easy to eat on the subway or office elevator (if you have the nerve to push all the buttons and maintain your innocence to anyone boarding after you). It’ll get you through the four o’clock hypoglycemic chasm. And it’s cheap (did I say it’s cheap?). But don’t overdo it, as I’m sure that even if it’s not the unhealthiest snack, it’s probably not the healthiest either.

If you know how to read such charts, you can find the nutritional value of the Snack Wrap here. (I can read, but the figures mean nothing to me! For example, 330 calories and 4.5 g of saturated fat, 30 cholesterol, etc: is that a lot?)

(image: carolita johnson)

For all you cartoonists and illustrators out there, Tom Richmond has the best answer I’ve seen yet to the question, “How much should I charge for an illustration?” Tom should know, he’s a MAD Magazine illustrator, and among other things his blog also offers a tutorial in two parts about inking that’s very helpful or interesting to those of us who wonder how the others do it.

Tom Richmond’s “Tom’s MAD Blog.“

Here’s the second installation in my NJS (Not Jonathan Schwartz) series of mixes, including oldies, semi-oldies, and what I call “future nostalgia”: Jet-M

If you speak any French, and even if you don’t, you probably know that “jet-m” is the homonym of the words “je t’aime,” which means, “I love you.” The theme is love, or as some put it, “luv,” or even “wuv.” All the different kinds. Inspired by last week’s song by Nat King Cole, “Love,” sung in Japanese by the ever-internationally inclined Cole.

I made up the name “Jet-M” as an idea for a great name for a French “Jet Blue” type of airline. I don’t have the wherewithal to start an airline, however, so I’ll just stick to NJS till I do. Can you imagine calling up the airline to reserve a ticket, and hear someone say, “Jet-M!” I’d be calling every five minutes! To say, “Really? Really, truly?”

Here’s the playlist: Read the rest of this entry »

(image: carolita johnson)

In TNY’s Fiction this week, Cate Kennedy’s “Black Ice,” contains jabbering trees, out of body experiences, a wild young thing that’s not so wild, but not too civilised either, and ends with a genuine rabbit trick.

Peter Schjeldahl covers MoMA’s lastest “contemporary-art installation,” called “Out of Time,” in “New and Old,“ which anyone visiting or living in New York may want to peruse in order to get that “mixed bag of works from the past four decades” into focus before attending in person. After years of spending all my time in museums (including a semi-homeless period spent using the Louvre as my office and getting grumpy with tourists who loitered too long in “my” space), I’ve developed a museum-going indolence that’s hard to overcome. Particularly when descriptions like this (see below) are so well-rendered that I feel fully sated:

(…) Pipilotti Rist’s “Ever Is Over All” (1997). In this intoxicating video installation, with a gentle rock score, panning shots of flowers accompany the sight of a young woman, in a blue summer dress and ruby pumps, traipsing down a city street, now and then merrily smashing car windows with a long-stemmed flower. A police officer slowly approaches. It is a policewoman, who, coming abreast, smiles benevolently and walks on. Anarchy has never been so honey-sweet.

Josh Hersh has his Talk of the Town debut this week, with “Pipe Cleaner,” about Anthony Meloni, pipe cleaner extraordinaire since taking on the restoration of the 9/11 dust-encrusted (and dust-eaten — the dust apparently has the chemical make-up of Drano according to some dust experts) pipes of lower Broadway’s Trinity Church pipe organ. The organ had to all effects been ditched in favor of a fancy shmancy digital organ (with electronic bells and whistles) in 2002, after much futile haggling with insurance companies. Welcome back (someday soon, we hope), pipe organ! And welcome to Hersh!

Jane Mayer’s “Junior” is something of a “You, me, and Dupree” of the war on terror, starring the FBI, a hapless horny terrorist named Fadl, and the taxpayers of America. My father no doubt would be outraged to know what his tax dollars are paying for, but Fadl sings for his dinner, and provides an incredulous chuckle.

And now, in honor of Cate’s rabbit trick, here’s my own mad wabbit.

Wondering what to wear tonight? Well, in the tents, they’re wondering what you’ll wear in Spring 2007! This is the view from 40th street looking uptown and down at the fashion tents in Bryant Park, where all the shows will take place starting today. I was doing a fitting on the 12th floor of a building right above the goings on, to help make fashionable clothes fit non-models!

Being a fit model is so much more down to earth, and so above it all! (For one thing, we’re allowed to eat! And we’re not allowed to lose weight! Yay!)