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04/14/01 Mmm...spring Saturday in Soho. You have to do it once, and then never do it again, because it almost always sucks at some point. The crush of crowds, the fabulousness of the fashionistas, and the steely silence of the sales staff of every single Soho store -- it's worth a day of your time, but not much more of that. I meandered around with Cinde and Dante for hours, shopping (MAG, who had a freaking 70% off sale) and gallery-hopping (both Deitch spaces, which were ok, but not tremendous, although I did enjoy sitting on Karim Rashid's white plastic Pleasurescape after being on my feet all day) and even getting our picture taken! I saw a cardboard sign offering portrait photos for $4 with our choice of backgrounds, outside the American Fine Arts Company gallery. "Oh, we're so doing this," I said, and directed our party inside. Artist Patterson Beckwith has a month long business/show going on there, taking pictures of people on a variety of backgrounds, from a snow scene (he has someone mount a ladder and throw faux snowflakes), to a painted background of the top of an ominous staircase that you might find in a Hitchcock film. We selected the disco scene, which amounted to us standing against a background of shimmery streamers. The final result? Through a camera trick, Beckwith created superstar sparkles in the picture. Cinde looks serious and stacked, Dante made a funny face, and I blew a huge bubble with my now always present (in my non-smoking incarnation) wad of bubble gum. I bought a frame for it on the way home. I love it. In other news, I'm going Europe this summer, stopping first in Prague, having accepted a six-month old offer from a loyal reader and fellow writer who lives there. (By the way, you too can host your favorite New York online writer in Europe. Just send me an email! I'll be there for most of June and July.) I had a vision as I was walking home from work on Friday (At long last! It's warm enough to walk home, and it's not raining.) that Prague was where I needed to be. I walked past my apartment, and all the way to Dori's jewelry stand, and told her. Dori's got quite the little set-up there, by the way. She's right on the corner, so she can see everyone walking by (and since Dori knows everyone, she should always have someone to talk to), and her co-worker is a Turkish hottie (which sounds like it should be some sort of candy in a children's book from the 40s or 50s.) I asked her what she was doing besides being a metaphor for dot-com failures because it felt good to say those words out loud, and because I will soon be one as well. *** Last night I had a dream I wrote The Great American Novel. Everyone kept raving about how the last paragraph was so amazing that, after they had read it, they had to go sit by themselves alone for an hour just to think about it. In my dream, I knew the words perfectly. And, in my dream, I had convinced myself that I had woken up and written it down. (Usually I force myself to wake up when I write creatively in my dreams, but this hasn't happened as much since I've worn the patch.) I woke up this morning and cursed myself, because I had tricked myself so thoroughly. I only remembered the first the three words: Oh ye roseberry That doesn't sound like much of anything at all. I'm such a freak. |