newyorkette

(image: carolita johnson)

The best line in the magazine this week,

He screams (BB pellet) with joy.

is in Jack Handey’s “My Nature Documentary.”

Although,

Alexander reports that Auberon always defended corporal punishment in schools, or at least in Catholic schools, where, he argued, it relieved the monks of the strains of celibacy. A beating, he said, was “a small sacrifice for a boy and a great treat for a monk.”

is not bad either. (“Waugh stories,” by Joan Acocella)

But my pick of the issue is the cover, “Bright Idea,” by Staake.

(click on the image for more information about this cartoon)

Well, I knew this was coming! I’ve already been planning a week-long romp in a wedding dress, in which I will go to work, ride the bus, hang out in bars (professing that I don’t want to get married, but might as well be prepared for the unforeseen), and even play softball in a wedding dress. My mother, bless her hopeful heart, has expressed the desire to see me “in a wedding dress before I die.” (The only way she’ll see me in a wedding dress is if I just wear one for no specific reason.) All I need is someone to film and direct this mini-documentary.

Salon explores the new rage of trashing your wedding dress, a bit the way rock stars trash their guitars onstage: The Wedding Trashers

(If you’re not subscribed to Salon.com, all you have to do to read the article is click “next,” then look at the ad that pops up, then go on to “enter salon.” For some reason it was really complicated for me, in my uncaffeinated state, so I thought I’d be helpful and nudge you along.)

And yes, some of you have seen this cartoon before, when it first came out: as promised…

(“female humor” cartoon by carolita johnson)

The Author has been exhorting me to recommence activities on newyorkette, so here we go. Today’s reject du jour is what would be called “women’s humor,” mainly because you really have to be a women (or a creepy guy) to understand it. Which must be why it was rejected!

Many of us dames know very well that perplexing moment when a male of the species decides to give us his gratuitous appraisal and benediction. It begins with, “Hey, beautiful! Nice (insert body part/s here)!” which appraisal is bizarrely capped with a “God Bless You!” upon your refusal to acknowledge it.

It makes you wonder what the perceived-as-ugly girls have to hear. (“Hey, you’re ugly! God damn you!” ??) Every time I hear this “God bless you,” I wonder who the outspoken little man thinks he is! Blessing me? Is he the pope or something? Is it translatable to “So, not interested? That’s okay! Vaya con Dios!” I guess it’s better than the alternative, which goes something like, “Hey, say thank you! Hey, you bitch! Say thank you, bitch!”

And I like men, that’s what’s kind of ironic!

Anyway, for you men who want nothing to do with the discourse above, here’s a couple of nice, naked ladies! (Actually the same lady, below!) I went to a figure drawing meet-up, and got to do some figure drawing from a live naked model for the first time in… 20 years? More! Not since foundation year at Parson’s! It was a pleasure. More to come. (Both are 6B or 8B pencil on 11×17 sketchpad).

(This was a 20 minute pose. I didn’t really get to spend much time on her face, because I got caught up in working her lone sandal—which I’m pretty happy with.)

(And this was a 15 minute pose.)

(Self-portrait, detail, by Carolita Johnson.)

So, last spring, someone, and she knows who she is, proposed to sell me as a portrait artist. I was all for it, but the only problem was I hadn’t ever done any portraits in the “serious” way. Meaning, in oils, rather than magic marker. So I thought I better get on the ball, and here’s my first oil portrait of a real person: me.

It’s not done yet, but I’d say it’s nearly done. I kind of like the unfinished quality of it, even if I’m not sure I could get away with that on someone else’s portrait. In any case, this is a first. It’s the first try, first day, and first time I ever got my mouth right. Other former art students will probably remember having to do their self-portraits for school applications—I’ll never forget mine for Parson’s, and all the subsequent attempts: all too long in the nose, with weird lips. Say what you will, but this is progress!

It’s not the way most people see me, mind you: no makeup, hair not coiffed, in my paintsuit. But that’s the real me, how I look when I won’t be seeing anyone.

(image: carolita johnson)

Okay, we all know why Emdashes managed to read it all in about five minutes—because she’s fast, that’s why!—but I’ll tell you why I finished reading so quickly: the “summer movies” segments interspersed between stories and articles bugged the bejeezus out of me. I started reading the first one, and then thought, “This is gonna turn out to be an ad for American Express at the end, or something.” They all seemed like advertorials. Or advermemories? And each one seemed more so than the previous one, so I skipped them all. It could just be a mood I’m in, since I’m readying up to present my Apeface series at the Rejection Show again—when you’re full of your own memories, it’s hard to have patience for anyone else’s. So, read those summer movies is you will, and do let me know what I missed.

Also, bravo to the photo editor (Elisabeth Biondi) for managing to wrangle two pages of photographs to go with the fiction pieces instead of the usual one.

For me, the most pertinent and subjectively interesting piece of fiction was Junot Díaz’s “Wildwood.” (Sorry, not online!) Minus the poverty and the heavy housework, and okay, and minus the punk haircut (I was very under the radar as a teenager), I totally identified with the mother-daughter ordeal. It was almost a relief to see that others have a similar experience to mine, pyschologically speaking. (Now I know why I’ll never let my mom catch up to me!)

Next favorite was the story set in the Paris garrets, David Hoon Kim’s “Sweetheart Sorrow,” depressing as it was, it also depicted a convergence of lives that typically happens in Paris between the elderly, domestics, and foreign students that don’t even look or feel their nationality. Again, I could totally relate: but my elderly benefactor was a 98-year old whose main activity was to sleep while I did all my laundry in her bathtub and/or washed my hair in her bathroom sink while I was supposed to be watching over her during her keeper’s afternoons off. Madame Guggenheim rented me a garret for about a hundred dollars a month, the only condition being that I’d take care of her on Saturday afternoons, and never complain about the lack of heat, hot water, bathroom, phone, toilet, nor about the crazy old lady next door to me (known locally only as “la Serbe,” who everyone was terrified of, and who would stand outside my door and bellow that I was an “American whore!”) Anyway, that’s my story, read Kim’s, it’s much more poignant and melancholy.

And how about Adrian Tomine’s beautiful cover, and Christoph Niemann’s worth-at-least-500-words illo?

BTW - I learned the identity of “La Serbe” in my last few months of living there (and in Mme Guggenheim’s last few months of living): Nada Popovic. Hi, Nada! Ever get the smell of basil from my homemade pesto attempt out of your hair?