FPM: Asphalt Shakespeare and The Lovely Fullness of Skirts

Seeing these lovely full skirts around that seem to foreshadow fall. Not that I want the summer to be over. I'm not going to mention the heat. I don't want the summer to be over, although I don't relate to what many people are wearing this season: like strapless knickered rompers. Do you know them?

Summers there is free Shakespeare all over the city. My favorite is The Drilling Company, whose productions in a municipal parking lot on the lower east side are called Shakespeare in the Parking Lot. This past week, I saw their Julius Ceasar in which Ceasar was reconfigured as a Bloombergian bureaucratic dictator, and many of the key roles, like Marc Antony's are played by women. Lots of photos below. (Doesn't this play have the best speeches ever?_

I am writing in a public/private space in an unusual neighborhood. I'll tell you where next week.

I need a camera.

I don't like what I'm wearing.

This week, I read Ann Beattie's novella Walks With Men, which is set in NYC in the very early '80s, back when AIDS was referred to as the "gay cancer." A young woman--a rebellious Harvard grad--makes it big with her writing but is emotionally inhibited and controlled by a variety of men, one, in particular twice her age, becomes her husband and svengali and then mysteriously disappears. Subtle and spare, unlike most of Beattie, who I think is a rather messy writer. I recommend.

FPM: Forward!

I tried to photograph ensembles this week that were maybe a little fashion forward, as fall is approaching as much as I hate to admit that, and i feel like I should take that back because I am summering in a very traditional, old schoolish fashion on the edge of a lake in New Hampshire, which is really not my natural inclination. My natural inclination is to loll in urban grime, and so from New Hampshire, I'm giving you fashion which you may not see anywhere else but in very urban settings, at least not with the ubiquity I saw it this week. (Please examine the fashionably punkish, old schoolish tears in that young man's sport coat.)

I wish I could have photographed the middle-aged (like me) woman standing across from the New Museum. She wore two coordinating slip dresses--the top one she had hand painted with fluorescent slashes, and she wore shoes in lurid yellow.

Also, there's another stray photo in here from ALA. Speakng of which, I changed my status on informational forms I fill out from the decidely dowdy "unemployed' to the more fashionable term: "job seeker."

FPM: I'm Old Now--What Should I Wear?

Wow, three of you commented before I finished. I big collection of stuff here, including my boring postcardy shots of downtown Chicago. I stood on the shore of Lake Michigan and took those. Why don't we have a beach in Manhattan!? I keep forgetting its an island, you know.

A bulk of photos here are from the Jonas Brothers' concert we took Iggy and Maggie to in Long Island. I hadn't been to a stadium concert since Motley Crue in 1987, and so the whole experience was weird and a little trying, although I was happy to see Iggy and Maggie so happy. Two things: I had no idea that the JBros had so many teenaged fans (thought they were younger), and there were no human males in attendance except for the occasional dad.

Other things I've seen recently: one shouldered tops and dresses, all black and all white, and of course, trends cherry picked from the '80s.

In other news, its' my birthday on Wednesday and I'll be as old as both Michelle Obama and it's true: Sarah Palin :-(. Eeek. All of the sudden, I don't know what to wear anymore (although, I do love most everything Mrs. O wears, but is it me?) ALSO, I'm stumped as to how to celebrate my birthday. Truthfully, I'd love to host a reading of poets and fiction writers, but am embarrassed to admit that after all these years in the city, i don't know any. This depresses me greatly.

Do you/Did you have a summer birthday? What did you do?

Fashion Post Monday: I Did Not Expect to Find Fashion on the Rooftop of the Met

Last Wednesday, I met my old friend, rjt (just in from LA), on the Met's rooftop. Mutual friend Emilie joined us (more about them both in a future post), and we ended up lingering there for an hour or so among the Jeff Koons' sculptures . . . and the fashions. I have never tarried on the Met's rooftop for longer than 10 minutes, but last Wednesday I found lots to photograph for today's post. Included here is one shot on the Met steps, one shot of rjt's shoe, and one shot after the roof on Madison Avenue on our way to the 6 train. I hope you enjoy these! I especially love the young woman in the tank top with the fluttery embellishments.

The kids and I are off to the Jersey shore at the generous invitation of Jen P. I may find enough out there to provide you with a Springsteenesque fashion post next Monday.