Happy Birthday, Tom!

Tom and I celebrated our 60th birthdays with a Spiderman matinee, greatly improved by Grey Goose doubles at intermission, while Magda & Audrey shopped for a wedding dress. We met afterward for an early dinner at the Hourglass Tavern on Theatre Row.

Nostalgia Trip

Grace Jones greets visitors to "When Fashion Danced," the Stephen Burrows retrospective at the Museum of the City of New York.

Although I was only dimly aware of him, the exhibit caught my eye because his heyday coincided with the Studio 54 era.  While I was figuring out who I was at Columbia, Burrows was sketching this.

He was one of five American designers who fought in the Battle of Versailles, and the only black one.  Walter Cronkite included a segment about it on the CBS Evening News.

Color certainly didn't scare Burrows.

I especially like this birthday candle print.  It's definitely something my mother might have worn, even in El Paso.

All the mannequins in the show are black.  Pretty fierce, huh?

Apparently his dresses were quite comfortable, cut on the bias and unstructured.  He expected the women who wore them to go commando.  Easy to imagine Cher or Liza (who actually performed at the Battle of Versailles) doing that, but Barbra not so much.

The chick in the background of this photo is his muse Pat Cleveland.  I once rode a boat with her to a beach called Super Paradise in Mykonos.  Trust me, it wasn't anything like it is today.

Burrows' designs definitely reflected the hypersexuality of the times.  He called this his "cock and balls" dress

. . . and used the pattern more than once on clothing that could be worn by women or men who were brave enough.

I bought the catalog when I learned that we had something more than Studio 54 in common:  he and his models were often photographed in the Pines, where he had a house.  It's a wonder we're both still alive.

Cathedral Critters

Magda and I spent much of a Sunday afternoon looking at the unusual work of a South African artist: "Jane Alexander: Surveys (From the Cape of Good Hope)." Its setting in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine multiplied the strange factor considerably.

I hadn't visited the cathedral since my undergraduate days at Columbia, more than 40 years ago. You just don't realize how deep it is until you're inside. Definitely a great place to cool off during the summer.



These certainly aren't the kinds of congregants you'd expect to find in a house of worship.

Yes, they and many others are as naked as the day god brought them into this world, aside from the battered leather shoes they're wearing.

 

Even if the New York Times hadn't clued me in to Ms. Alexander's themes, I defnitely would have gotten the sense that these creatures aren't all created equal. This is some muzzle, huh?

This little guy seems sad as well as frightening, perhaps a future victim of today’s environmental thoughtlessness.

Nearly all the critters are supplicants, but some are more "human" than others. I don't think that's necessarily a good thing.

While most of the sculptures and tableaux are confined to the seven Chapels of the Tongues (one for each of the major immigrant groups who first entered New York City at Ellis Island around the turn of the century, just when the cathedral was being built), the exhibit also extends into a rarely accessible courtyard.  Here's Magda beneath a lone sentry.

The outdoor critters exude malevolence. The red gloves they're standing on reminded me of the masses of personal effects you find in Holocaust museums.

This virile guard had a mercilessness I definitely associate with an SS job qualification.

Two tableaux were particularly shocking. They seemed to depict a society capable of imprisoning the disabled . . .

and predicated on blind worship.

Thanks, Jane, for plenty to ponder while the ginormous organ played to a nearly empty house.

 





A Return to Paradise, Post-Sandy

You wouldn't have thought Sandy had had much impact at all as the Sayville ferry pulled into the Pines Harbor, with the Pavilion finally rising like a phoenix from the ashes of a fire nearly two years ago.  Of course that's exactly what the real estate agents want you to think.

My walk on the beach told a different story, especially near the co-ops. For the first time in 26 seasons--yes, that's how long I've shared houses in the Pines--I imagined the ocean swallowing Fire Island. Sandy washed away most of the primary dune, possibly leaving the beachfront homes vulnerable to high tides.

Several houses, including the African Village, lost pools.

Some properties were more damaged than others.
























Quick cosmetic repairs had been completed on a couple of homes but I doubt if anyone believes these wooden walls will afford much protection from a storm surge?

Not that this frolicking dog cared much.

Hopefully she is better behaved than Vita. This beautiful but skinny bitch howled the entire duration of the ferry ride.

She made Dan, our houseguest, even more uncomfortable than me even though I was sitting right next to her.

Huntin' Snowmen

The snowman huntin' was fine in Central Park today.