FPM: Festival Fashion

1. I have nothing here that foreshadows the upcoming NY Fashion Week, which for the first time is at Lincoln Center. I will, however, patronize Fashion's Night Out here and try and borrow my kid's camera again.

2. Yesterday, we were headed up for a tranquil afternoon at Central Park and ran into a parent from Kid #2's school who was accompanying the artist Gene Pool (as the Can Man( uptown to the Unicycle Festival at Grant's Tomb. (I had my photo taken with the Gene in my new dress, but I looked so terrible, I am not posting it here.

3. I need a dress covered with dangling aluminum cans.

4. The Can Man makes a considerable amount of noise when merely walking. You should hear him on a unicycle. It's an aluminum storm.

5. On 125th Street, women came out of church to get their photos taken with the Can Man. One of them said, "I love Jesus, but I'm staying with the Can Man."

6. Midweek, I discovered a new/old artist, Lee Bontecou. A woman, too, with a solo show. (The Guerilla Girls would be somewhat appeased.)

6. The weekend before, we were at the annual Charlie Parker Jazz Festival. Parker would have been 90 last Sunday. The 80-something vocal legend Jimmy Scott sang from a wheelchair. I danced with my children. I took photos of striking older women. I saw a woman wearing a black spangled snood before I discovered I had my camera.

7. The weather is changing. It was blazingly hot, and now it's breezy and chilly. I still don't know what to wear.

Fashion Post Monday: Midsummer City Dresses

This summer dress is the quintessential writermama summer dress, but I fear I've grown too old for a dress like this first dress. I'll admit it. Dresses are currently my favorite form of dressing--no matching, no coordinating involved. Some I've heard, say they are sick already of the summer dress, but here are some others I spotted during this past week.

We are in New Hampshire on some big lake for the next week, so I will try to capture some images from an unprecedented NH fashion post for the following Monday. The last photo in this list shows the cake the kids made for Harry Potter's birthday on the 31st. The next to last, photo is from the noodle house I ate at for dinner on my birthday. (Can't stop mentioning it, can I? Sigh.)

Fashion Post Monday: Big Tees and Miscellany

Always implicitly acknowledging the great Bill Cunningham, here's what I've been seeing on the street this past week--are you ready?--for the first time since the early to mid-'80s I've been seeing big tees, often paired with short shorts. (Note the also trendy brakeless bike.) Wondering if anyone else elsewhere has noticed this (either the bikes w/out brakes or the big tees). Anyway, I think the era of the tight, form fitting shirt is over, and I had not realized until this week that I was weary of it.

Tomorrow, I turn the age that Jackson Pollack was when he fatally crashed his car. Fun, huh? I'll give a birthday report tomorrow night.

Fashion Post Monday: Get on Your Bikes and Ride!

Has anyone but me noticed the proliferation of high heels on cyclists. I find this completely fascinating, as I'm always rather fascinated (at times to a fault) by impractical incongruities, or at least, mildly startling juxtapositions. And there's something rather fascinating about bicycling in heels and a filmy garden party dress: like one is cycling across the moors to a tea staged by Merchant and Ivory.

It's especially interesting to me because I moved out here from serious mountain bike land, where people are wont to attend garden party teas, the symphony, etc dressed more like Edward Abbey, in Birkenstocks and khaki shorts. I myself rode a mountain bike the entire time I lived in Salt Lake City, but since I never owned a car the eight years I lived there, I was unable to visit most mountain bike trails in mountain bike land, and the dressiest footwear I ever wore on my mountain bike was a pair of low top Doc Marten's. (I did always wear a decidedly sporty dress or skirt. The mountain bike was eventually stolen by someone who broke into my apartment.)

But enough about me. Has anyone ever used the services of Merle--the street bike repairman pictured below? A decade ago, I dropped my bike off to Merle once or twice and picked it up after work. A week ago, A. just had Merle replace the back wheel on our family bike, but Merle did it badly, actually making the bike a little dangerous to ride--you couldn't pedal backwards! So A. took the bike back to Merle one Sunday night and waited three hours on the curb, until 1:30 am, for Merle to finish it (after Merle had already had the bike all day). A. was sent to grab Merle coffee at one point. The guy at one of the local bike shops was disdainful of Merle, but I still like the fact that he's there on the street at all hours, trying to make a living with no license or permit.