My neck, my eye!
(Brighton Beach, August 2007)
There’s a reason for this repeat image above. I just read Norah Ephron’s “I feel bad about my neck,” and this is all I have to say: I will never feel bad about my neck. Not even if it one day hangs down to my knees. I want to be just like these ladies above. Notice, they are not only wearing bikinis—one is even wearing a tanga bottom! I think they’re beautiful, and I don’t think they feel bad about anything, except, possibly, their husbands’ necks.
In fact, if Norah were ever to hear about this comment of mine, I’ll be happy to make a gift to her of my Coney Island Venus, in honor of glorious, ageing womankind. It’s my favorite, but for a good cause, I’d part with her.
(That was my public service announcement to womankind. )
UPDATE: For some correspondence regarding this post (with name removed to protect the privacy of the correspondent) click here:
On Dec 25, 2007 12:47 AM, [person who wrote the below email] wrote:
Subject: bathing beauties…not sure I agree with you.
One must strike a balance between pride/self confidence and a sense of who one actually is. These proud, but obese and sagging women seem to think that they are twenty and flawless. It is as sad as the paunchy, balding 55 year old man driving the corvette with a bimbo on his arm.
Not knowing who you are and wherer you are in life is a sad thing.
In any event, Merry Christmas. I enjoy your blog.
Thanks, [person who wrote the above email]
Dear [person who wrote the above email],
I’m glad you enjoy my blog, even if you don’t share my point of view!
The way I see it, nobody has anything to be ashamed of, and I think
these ladies have every right to be as proud of themselves as they
are. Western puritanism seems to be constantly on the lookout for
people happy with themselves, eager to shoot them down. Look at your
words themselves—they are so castrating and mortifying! You talk
like a preacher, or like someone who would “put someone in their
place.” It’s as if one thinks that anybody who is happy with what
they’ve got is gypping everyone else! You’d cut these ladies down,
would you? I’d say that’s why they are showing you their wrinkled old
asses. And that’s why I’m showing you them showing their asses.
You can feel “sad” for them as much as you want—they don’t care and
are happy while you’re sad! Here’s the sad thing: look at you,
uselessly feeling sad for some perfectly happy women.
You think that fat balding man with the corvette and the bimbo on his
arm is the same as a few middle class Russian women enjoying
themselves at Brighton Beach? Where is the extravagance in these
women? When do you think they discarded an older man in favor of a
younger, more pretty man to drive around in their Corvettes with them?
carefree women? Did they spend thousands on plastic surgery? No.
Did they waste money that could feed a village in Africa on getting
their cellulite sucked out? No. How is it that you are equating
their ease of existence in their simply degenerating bodies with some
kind of moral fault? Pathetic? No, I don’t think so.
I could also have put the pictures of the Russian men, with their
proud paunches, wearing speedos, walking around quite breezily. I
like them too. They aren’t pathetic either. They’re not in mid-life
crises. Their Western European culture simply makes them unashamed of
their aging bodies. And I feel happy along with them.
“One must” are not words I invite into my life, in any case. Preachy
words are for the pulpit, and I don’t go anywhere within earshot of
pulpits if I can help it.
Me, I’m a size 6 fit model, in quite good shape (if I do say so
myself, and I am actually quite competent to say so, and therefore see
no reason not to), in case you think I’m defending the old and “obese”
on behalf of my possibly old and pathetic self. I am simply a person
who loves the human body in all it’s shapes and sizes, as long as it’s
cherished by the person residing within.
I’m sorry, but I don’t agree that it’s anyone’s job on earth to put a
happy person “in their place.” Surely not a photographer, if that’s
who you really are. [Editor: The person who wrote the email above signed the name of a photographer, but there’s no guarantee that’s who he really is.]
-newyorkette