Leopard Booties and Neon Purple

With the polar-like climate seemingly firmly entrenched in the northeast, it has been increasingly challenging to stay motivated to roll out of bed, let alone rummage through my narrow closet and unearth something interesting and attractive to wear. Mostly, I have been relying heavily on neutrals, which is never a mistake; the other day, though, I decided to combat the dour temperatures with a pair of rarely worn, nearly neon purple tights. Pairing them with my recent favorite booties, leopard calf-hair emblazoned with gold detailing, the bottom part of my look was bodacious and bold, so I kept my torso muted in heather gray and cream. Animal prints, leopard in particular, have the advantage of walking the line between neutral and pattern, playing to each depending on the tone of the rest of the look. I snagged this pair of booties earlier in the season, for a remarkable price, and have been wearing them in consistent rotation.

Matthew Barney, Belated Valentine's, and Bronchitis

To commemorate this past Valentine's Day celebrations with the filmmaker, I had bought tickets for the global premiere of the latest marathon art-film work by Matthew Barney, River of Fundament at the Brooklyn Academy of Music theater. Spending the stereotypically commercial and contrived evening enduring about six hours of visual commentary on the legacy, or lack thereof, of Norman Mailer and the tension between contemporary American culture and mythology, vis- à-vis the text Ancient Evenings and an elaborately staged wake, and resplendent with copious excrement and automobile scenes, seemed rather appropriate. Alas, my dutiful planning was foiled; the filmmaker stayed at home, ensnared by bronchitis. So, I experienced the work alone, viscerally eviscerated, sipping gin and tonic cocktails through a plastic theater-proof, adult sippy cup. While not a romantic evening, it was certainly stimulating.

So, after the filmmaker recovered from his plague and I returned from my brief jaunt in Providence, we decided to have a brick-oven pizza and red wine date at one of our favorite local haunts. Just before dinner, the filmmaker surprised me with a spread of small gifts: a trio of kitschy cowboy boot shot glasses and some earrings, including this rather unique and exquisite pair, some mementos from his trip up north to New Hampshire. I adore the sharp contrast of the milky gray stone, cold and opalescent and pristine, with the sculpted brass, printed with soft ferns, warm and raw. The blend of materials, the almost painted blue shading, remind me of something archaic, something noble and medieval. Bits of jeweled finery that could have framed the face of some young duchess, sent to a neighboring kingdom to lure a landed husband. They are quite unlike any other pair of earrings I own, which I will be the first to admit is quite the feat, given my costume addiction. The filmmaker can be a bit anxious picking out jewelry for me, deliberating over what he supposes I would choose for myself, and I can vehemently proclaim these were an exceptional find.  

Missing my Motor

A few weeks back, two of my friends and I journeyed north to Providence for the long holiday weekend, to visit our dear mutual friend Rebecca. A quaint and occasionally troubling hybrid between college town and depressed rust-belt city, I have enjoyed exploring the cultural nuances and, naturally, having the opportunity to spend time with one of my closest friends over the past few years, a time or two.   

As has been true and steadfast these past few months, the winter weather was brutal. Braving the cold winds in the city, I caught a bus amid the flotsam and jetsam of Port Authority, which tore up the highway, racing against the threat of snow and ice. Just as the storm really began to roar, gained sufficient momentum and snarled with whips of snow, I arrived, safely and on time, to a warm apartment, stocked with five bottles of red wine and a group of beautiful people. Unsurprisingly, those five bottles dissipated over the afternoon and evening hours, imbibed during a fiercely competitive round of Risk and a gorging of lamb with roasted winter vegetables.

Thankfully, both legs of my trip, up north and back home, were relatively easy-going, the bus not uncomfortably packed, the hours of slowly rocking back and forth easily spent with my nose buried in Ancient Evenings. Even with this quiet, devoted, precious time to reading this weighty novel, I am still wading through the meandering, mystic text, simultaneously relishing in and struggling with the reliance on mythology, the labyrinthine narration, turning corners, twisting through pyrimidine pathways into the past.

Since moving to the city, spending my time traveling actually reading, in fact, on public transportation, rather than concentrating on traffic, gripping various books rather than gripping my steering wheel, I have not often contemplated or mourned the loss of my car, a pale silver Honda Accord, a classic from a decade passed, abandoned to the idles of my parent's driveway. Fueled by my pragmatic parents and my own lack of fervent determination to be behind the wheel, I did not earn my license until seventeen. I have never been on a legitimate road trip. I have never succumbed to the sultry beckoning of the open road, wind in your hair attitude. Since that weekend escape, however, I have been feeling restless, feeling that longing, that unbridled freedom to just roam, easily. To just get in and go. To be able to flee the confines of this concrete jungle without buying a ticket, adhering to a schedule. To satisfy a sort of Americana hunger for horizons, a hunger cultivated and heavily marketed to, but a hunger that I admit openly, unabashedly. 

With parking posing such an issue in most cities, perhaps the solution to this lust would be a motorcycle. Something sleek, something dangerous, something somehow absurdly practical.

(image taken from The Pursuit Aesthetic)