So for this Trad-Ivy
Tuesday I’m back to unedited-uncurated-unfocused randomanalia. It’s just
flat-out easier to throw a pile of this at you than it is to distil anything
more thoughtful. It also seems that you people like the random stuff better
than my more thought-out, scrivened gyrations and (I’m delusional, I know. Hang
with me.) keyboard-esque hip thrusts. Shut up.
I now have an editor and
I’m pleased by it. On the other hand, we are amidst writer-editor conflict
right out of the gate. “Anonymous
asked you: Good writers deserve good editors- not just to pare
their prose, but to suggest topics. Until you get the editor you deserve, you
has me. May I humbly suggest that the Blogosphere is full of stories of O’Hara
and the Brethren? Why not a post on boxers? Whip out a half dozen pair and
photograph them. Maybe discuss the subtle virtues of buttons vs all over
elastic and the outrageous expense of Edwardian style tie backs. Touch briefly (ha)
on knitted models. Tell about white linen show thru…”
Ok editor, you make a good point. The O’Hara
anecdotes and his sartorial whateverishness have been done. And done. And done.
But I’m still gonna eventually write about it for a few reasons. First, I write
all of this stuff really, to please me as opposed to editors (Sorry…my new
editor) or paying clients/publishers. If someone paid me to do this, I’d be
mildly but not too much so, more compliant. Next…O’Hara and his Brooks Brethren
buttoned-down poseuressence have indeed been done. But not by me.
I want to write about how I was late to the O’Hara
short story party and what an impact a couple of them had on me. And how
Appointment with Samara didn’t do it for me but the son of a legendary Boston
Globe columnist who is associated with an O’Hara Brethren button down story did
think Samara was ok. And I have some never told information that I want to peck
out on the keyboard in my words and see how my retelling resonates. So thanks,
new editor. Don’t abandon me but give me some wiggle room on the O’Hara thing.
I bet you’re gonna find it tolerable. Whew. After that, I feel like I need a
cigarette and I don’t even smoke.
How the hell do you smoothly transition from that?
You don’t. You just move on. So now I’ll thank one of my readers for giving me
a heads-up about the pair of Edward Green Oundle monks that were half-price at
Leffot and coincidentally, just my size. Leffot has an incredible shodding
line-up and I’m pleased that a tasty goods purveyor like Leffot doesn’t choose or
seemingly have to play price point grab-ass with the public. All retailers it
seems; must start some 20% off hoochie coochie sh_t with their new season’s
goods within one week of announcing their arrival. For anyone with an IQ
hovering above 90, which is a stretch for South Carolinians, the fact that the
week-one discounts are built into the made in Outer Sweatshoplandia price point
is obvious.
Leffot
is a tasty joint and Will over at A Suitable Wardrobe says it better than
me...“Steven Taffel of Leffot, on Christopher Street in Manhattan, has
assembled what is probably the best collection of shoe brands offered for sale
in the Eastern United States, with hard to find delights like Corthay and
Aubercy complementing better known names such as Alden and Edward Green.”
 |
| Susan Tabak Photo |
So Leffot needn’t have massive unit price discount
promos very often. But Messrs’ Taffel et al a couple of times each year, clear
out a few things. I’d cruised the discounted remainders as soon as I got the
Leffot sale email but saw nothing in my size. A few weeks later my reader
ping-pinged me with a link to the Oundle. I don’t win raffles and I’m never
very lucky at chance games but karma and juju washed over me in this instance.
My Edward Green Westminister double monks that I demanded be special ordered
for me in what was ultimately the wrong size, went to a reader courtesy of a
hugely discounted and lesson-learned-by-shoe size/last shape know-it-all…me. So
the karmic shoe energies of the world prevailed the Oundle on me at a price
that has me back to the original investment I had in the Westministers. I need
another cigarette after rationalizing this one.
Sticking with shoes for another moment…these are
now about a zillion percent off at the Brethren. But I still won’t take ‘em
home. And don’t you either.
Even though we’ve passed the official “it’s after Labor Day, now put your linen,
madras and seersucker away” deadline, I’m gonna hang on to my darker tan
linen trousers for a few more weeks. My cousin Willie (you've seen him before in another post, wearing his Scottish Kit, on the right in the above Kodak) who still lives down in
that moral cesspool known as South Carolina, offers that below eighty-five degrees is
his break point for eschewing linen in S.C. Makes sense to me—down there.
Moral cesspool? Yep. I was searching online for an
update on the publication of Mel and Patricia Ziegler’s memoir about their
brilliant for the first six years, concept known as Banana Republic. So when I
googled keyword stuff I not only got the Ziegler update that I was looking for,
I also found the above. Eight bucks and five days later, courtesy of Alibris, I
was in to this page turner. I blew through it in about three sittings.
We always
avoided Myrtle Beach except for an evening drive down to the Pavilion from time
to time when I was a little kid. As the smarm moved north, my parents even
decamped the wood framed screen porched gentility of Ocean Drive and built a
house at Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina. I was bored mindless there.
Ok…off of my little Carolina rant and back to
clothing. I noticed something a while back when I came home with my nine
thousand dollars’ worth of dry cleaning. Even though I love my weekend GTH stuff,
my standard fare linen is hugely monochromatic. I think the khaki
indoctrination from years ago became an immutably imprinted imprimatur,
declaring the color tan to be the little black dress of men’s trouser palate
options.
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My baby began 7th grade last week.
Shitake. It seems like just yesterday that she was in preschool and the kitting
out process meant nothing more than a navy blue uniform.
And I think uniforms are great. Really. Just look
at these future Old Etonians. We’d probably get better behavior out of our boys
and girls if they had to wear top hats to class. And I’d demand that they wear
them properly. Not like the topper that the guitarist Slash from Guns N Roses
wore. That hairy mugwump gives the proper topper a bad name.
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I'm
pretty much out of the fray when it comes to taking LFG shopping for her
clothes. It was a no-brainer when she was in that three to seven year age
range. I could simply buy those smock thingys at the Gap Outlet and if I was
within one size of correct, all was good. I did though, accompany trail her by
fifty feet to Georgetown the other day and bought her a pair of must-have flip
flops. "Flip flops" her mother axed? "It's back to school
shopping time." Yep.
As well
as a pair of Mossimo lace-up Bluchers from Target. Yep.
Students—style—duende—deportment? I don’t see it
with my thirty-something year old clients so why should I look to see it
amongst the ranks of students? Here’s a young undergrad named Walter Cronkite.
I rest my case regarding the decline.
In clothes and evening news anchoring.
I tole you this was gonna be random. When I was
searching for pictures to help me tell the story about my daddy’s Mustang, I
ran across a cache of pictures depicting the racing life of the Ford Falcon. I’m not gonna poach too much from
what I found because there’s another unique post therein. But the photo above
cracked me up! Talk about incongruence. A Ford Falcon atop a Citroen transport
vehicle. Suffice it to say, they weren’t headed for Daytona or Darlington.
Citroen. Just saying it out loud with my country ass accent cracks me up.
Falcon. Imagining a French aristocrat saying it in high French cracks me up.
High German? Could be impressive. High? I must be.
Wanna talk interior design for a moment? Good.
Neither do I. But I will share that even though I’m not a hoarder, I remain
flummoxed by the amount of accumulata that I’ve managed to pack into a thousand
square feet in Old Town Alexandria. I’m trying to edit ruthlessly but its tough
going. Plus, I’m dragging my feet getting to Bethesda as my ten to fifteen
minute radius from LFG’s house hasn’t yet yielded a place with the right bones
for me to resettle my damn self.
And please, shoot me if I ever experiment with
Chinese red lacquer again.
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Or as Reggie Damn Darling refers to it..."Retail Red".
I lost count of the number of primer coats it took
to cover this mess.
I’m priming the darker colored rooms…my hunter
green bedroom, LFG’s purple Dr. Seuss bedroom and the hallway before I have the
painters come in and do the entire place rental property beige. Again.
LFG shared recently that even if I wasn’t moving,
it was time to take down all of her formative years artwork from the LFG
kitchen gallery.
I disagreed. She prevailed.
Pert near kilt me to take it all down. Daddy Land be closed.
Shut up. And
I mean it.
Ok. I’m thinking that one thousand four hundred and almost seventy words are enough for this Tuesday’s load. Onward. Editing. With scant efficacy. And wondering wherever my head of college hair went.
ADG II
