newyorkette

(“Papers please,” sticker from my illegal immigrant days in France. I “distributed” this one at Immigrations, where an odious one-armed man used to violently reach over his counter and wave my “carte de séjour” application papers in my face while yelling at me till I cried and went home to find more papers. At the student center, even though I had the equivalent of an A average, they used to demand “proof of attending classes.” At both places, young and old alike were often escorted out, crying or screaming obscenities. I stood for this kind of treatment for 11 years. But I digress.)

I just finished reading this article in the Times: U.S. Raid on an Immigrant Household Deepens Anger and Mistrust

Besides the normal feelings of empathy and indignance such a piece would evoke in a normal person, there was one particular bit that struck me as needing extra attention:

Ms. Murphy, who has three children, voiced larger misgivings about illegal immigrants with children in the local school. She called them “freeloaders.”

“I’m paying taxes, they’re not,” she said. “Yet their kids still get to go to school with the privileges of my kids. I resent it.”

As a former illegal immigrant myself (before you get excited, it was not in the USA —I was an illegal American immigrant in France for roughly 6 years overall, with 7 years of legal residence spead out on either side of that time segment), I’d like to point out that most illegal immigrants I’ve known both here and in France are very careful to pay their taxes. Paying taxes does not bring you unwelcome attention from the INS, since the two organizations are not connected, most likely because every country wants every penny it can get, whether it’s from their own citizens or non-citizens desperate enough to pay taxes in order to prove good faith.

Paying taxes provides necessary proof of one’s upright presence in the host country and is very handy when it come to applications for naturalization. The only thing it doesn’t provide is benefits. All those years when I was paying taxes and “charges socials” (social security, etc) while working illegally in France will never ever pay off. Not when I retire, not ever. So, it was my host country that was the freeloader. Not me, the illegal, tax-paying immigrant. And it is the same in every country. We all know what we’re getting into, and we work anyway. When and if we leave the country after spending all our money on food, clothing, rent and other things in that host country (we might send some money “home” or leave with some, but the cost of living and breathing is incurred and paid off in the host country), we also leave behind those benefits. That money stays in the system. Consider it a present.

Those that don’t pay taxes probably don’t make enough to even dream of it: life can be expensive when you have no bank account, no credit record, and you’re paying your rent in cash to landlords who would have you believe they’re doing you a favor (but these landlords aren’t declaring or paying taxes on your rent—the same goes for employers who pay you in cash: they aren’t paying social charges for you either). Those that pay cash to illegal immigrants would have them believe that they could get into trouble for declaring—but in fact, it’s the employers who could get into trouble, too. Where you have an illegal immigrant not paying taxes, you have a Ms. or Mr. Murphey not paying taxes of social charges either. This is also freeloading.

That was for all the Ms. Murphy’s out there. (Hmm, Murphy?—is that a native American name?)

Look familiar?

I was only 6 years old, but I’ll never forget Iron Eyes Cody’s very beautiful 1971 “Keep America Beautiful” public service announcement. If you’re too young to remember it yourself, click on the image for the video.

Get Iron Eyes Cody’s book, “Indian Talk” from the Akta Lakota Museum and Cultural Center, here.

As for Thanksgiving, I give thanks every day, thank you! (See?)

Emily of emdashes has been pushing me to submit something to Threadless.com, so I decided to use my high-heeled Manolos image for a t-shirt submission, and was pleasantly surprised to see they’re actually running it. If you’d like to vote on it, or throw rotten tomatoes at it, feel free! Here it is. I’ve submitted a “reworked” version, without signature, and with the text placed differently, but it’s not up yet.

The inspiration? On a recent eight-hour fitting for Calvin Klein, one of the technical designers couldn’t get enough of that phrase. Since it was one of those fittings where the model is supposed to keep her mouth shut for 8 hours, I spent that time wondering what I could do with it. Here you go! I figure, it’s not nice to call someone else a high-heeled lowlife, but there’s no harm in calling yourself one by wearing this T-shirt, is there?

(image: carolita johnson)

This cartoon was inspired by my being obliged to buy myself a pair of this season’s requisite “skinny pant.” No, not because I’m a fashion victim. (Well, not that kind, anyway!) I bought them as part of my modelling uniform. I have to prove I can do fittings for whatever the fashion industry will be feeding the masses for the next couple of seasons. I also can’t show up at my “go-see’s” looking like last year’s leftovers, unfortunately. (I spent many years happily looking like several years’ leftovers, having thrown away my flesh-colored thong and quit the fashion industry, for the third time… how I miss those days! But perhaps I don’t miss waiting on line with the homeless and displaced to take a tepid 12-minute shower for 7 francs at the municipal baths quite that much.)

I thought this cartoon was an apt observation about what fashion does to a woman. This season’s hottest new thing is always the opposite of last season’s hottest new thing. It’s the most annoying thing about fashion, really, besides the expense. I knew this cartoon didn’t stand a chance when I opened up this week’s New Yorker and saw Marisa Acocella Marchetto’s skinny-pant cartoon, which, I have to admit is better than mine!

What’s odd about her cartoon is that I have the exact same haircut and often wear the very outfit the shopgirl is wearing (but Marisa assures me she was not thinking of me when she drew her). And, I’m proud to say, I’m not that skinny, either. I eat my Wheaties.

And as much as I hate to admit it, the skinny pant is really very handy for tucking into my rainboots, a lot easier than folding my boot-cut jeans into socks, and a lot easier on the ankles (no bunching). So I bought another pair. What a fashion victim!

BTW: let this be an example to paranoid cartoonists everywhere—Marisa and I never see each other’s cartoon submissions. (I just cringe whenever I hear of someone whining that they submitted a cartoon and then saw a very similar cartoon appear soon afterwards. It’s not even coincidence: we’re all exposed to the same current events and trends, and surrounded by the same cultural tics and contradictions that make for humorous situations and gags. We’re bound to come up with similar cartoons!)

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.

(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…

(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

What is a cartoonist wearing today? Today, in newyorkette style, we’re featuring the author herself, but we are hoping to enlist other guest cartoonists now and then, just for a different kind of insider knowledge, and to save them the trouble of answering the typical cartoonist questions we’re all asked all the time.

Today’s weather permits me to wear one of my favorite outfits (I’m on my third day wearing it! Of course, I’ve washed the tee shirt every night!), and that’s what made me think all my fellow cartoonists might have a favorite little outfit that may or may not be particularly fashionable, but still be a favorite, whether it be a pair of pajamas or just a comfortable pair of paint-stained boxers. So here’s mine:

– last season’s Urban Outfitters’ striped “boy-cut” tee – old H&M brown tweed skirt (circa 2002) – old Cynthia Rowley blue leather pumps (bought at Century 21, circa 1998) – new Fjallraven Kanken red swedish canvas knapsack (bought at Salvor Kiosk to replace the fifteen year-old black one that died this summer) – old Santa Novella’s Aqua di Colonia, “Rosa” (a little goes a long way, for years).

What I like best, and other personal notes:
The bag is red because everything I need to remember to take with me is red. The reason is that I am extremely absent-minded. (Inside the bag, my purse is red, my keychain is red, my cartoon idea notebook is red, my modelling voucher case is red, my umbrella is red, and so on.)

If this was a guest writing, instead of me, I’d have used this bottom space to link to websites, online works, etc. for the reader to peruse at his/her leisure. But it’s just me today!

NB: this is in no way a post comparable to anything on Ms. Richards’ (aka. “Jeepers”) wonderful little blog called “what2wearthisvery2nd“, or “What to wear this very second,” the link to which is always in my “cartoonist’s blogroll in the sidebar, and which will give you all sorts of fanciful advice about what you should wear, cartoonist or not. (Newyorkette makes a point of not caring what anyone is wearing unless they care themselves, and rather prefers naked people to clothed people! Still, we must all remain curious and see what other people are wearing, as we are not alone in this world! So go see Jeeper’s site!)