The cool, marble foyer leads me to a fabled place. Inside the hushed walls, moving past gleaming surfaces, I'm finally coerced to the elevator bank and a new state of mind.
The hallowed halls of Hemingway.
The offices of Scribner Publishing.
I am a Southerner in the City, an aging debutante, a small town girl cursed with big city aspirations. My grandfather says that I’m at the cusp of feminine failure—I’m as old as a bottle of prime Tennessee whiskey (aged 25 years) and still single. I need to “get on home” and find a nice Southern boy—a doctor, maybe an insurance salesman. At this, I dig in my heels and set out to date every inappropriate man in Manhattan…
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Friday, May 26, 2006
Faded Bricks, Bright Signs
(I was in Florida for a photo shoot—please excuse my blogging negligence! Now, back to Hemingway and the more substantive things in life…)
I have this thing—an infatuation, really— for the forgotten, faded brick walls of important Fifth Avenue buildings. The front facades are polished, washed, homogeneous in their simple, American beauty. The brick side walls, however, are worn and much more telling—an Italian woman at the end of the night after her silks and mascara have been retired for the day.
This fascination led me to the original Charles Scribner’s Sons Building on Fifth Avenue and 48th Street one lethargic August afternoon, a week or so after I moved to the city. My father had always spoken of Maxwell Perkins (the famed editor of Hemingway and Fitzgerald) and Scribner’s and the discipline required to become a “real writer.” But, I didn't know the location of the building that housed these fabled men, their words, sentences and advice. But, somehow, I found it. There I stood, the bumbling Southern transplant--far from a writer--on the curb of a Midtown street, staring up, enthralled by the stencilling and the history behind that sign, high in the sky.
(back tomorrow morning...)
I have this thing—an infatuation, really— for the forgotten, faded brick walls of important Fifth Avenue buildings. The front facades are polished, washed, homogeneous in their simple, American beauty. The brick side walls, however, are worn and much more telling—an Italian woman at the end of the night after her silks and mascara have been retired for the day.
This fascination led me to the original Charles Scribner’s Sons Building on Fifth Avenue and 48th Street one lethargic August afternoon, a week or so after I moved to the city. My father had always spoken of Maxwell Perkins (the famed editor of Hemingway and Fitzgerald) and Scribner’s and the discipline required to become a “real writer.” But, I didn't know the location of the building that housed these fabled men, their words, sentences and advice. But, somehow, I found it. There I stood, the bumbling Southern transplant--far from a writer--on the curb of a Midtown street, staring up, enthralled by the stencilling and the history behind that sign, high in the sky.
(back tomorrow morning...)
Belle's Return
Even the champagne weekends have to come to an end ...Your Belle will be back tomorrow...Until then, check out our latest Southern soiree in SoHo!
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Wings
Mamma’s last meal in New York City was take-out buffalo chicken wings (from “Down the Hatch,” nonetheless) and red wine. The play at the “Cherry Lane Theatre” that proceeded our bar food bacchanal was nice and light and filled with just enough sexual innuendo to entertain us for 3 hours. However, it had not been stimulating enough to keep us awake through another prix-fixe menu. Dinner at home would be nice change of pace, I thought. Really, though, “dinner” and “home” are very loose descriptors for where my poor mother was forced to rest her head, what processed chicken parts I made her eat.
The aluminum container arrived, steam seeping out of the side and top creases. I ceremoniously doled out our dinner, and with a certain flourish, poured each of us a glass of Rioja to accompany our “entrees.” Such a good sport, Mamma. She perched atop the leather ottoman while I sat on the only kitchen chair, the seat’s rattan digging into my thighs, leaving its mark on my white, city flesh. We hunched over our dinner plates—perilously balanced on tops of knees, piled high with wings, little thighs, plastic containers of blue cheese dressing—looking up now and again to talk about town gossip and my then-precarious job situation. Our faces were unapologetically marred with vinegar-hard hot sauce and creamy dip.
What did my mother really think about my trials and failures in New York? What advice did she withhold out of good breeding and spirit? How silly and insignificant did my life and city loves look to her then?
I consider the advice and the encouragement that I will give my daughter when she decides to make the bold flight North, away from me and her father, the culture she instinctively trusts. I know that she will move because she’ll have my strong, stubborn spirit and her father’s charming (and bumbling) naivete. Anywhere my daughter goes, in her eyes, will be home.
I’m going to tell her that the free drinks aren’t worth it. In fact, you know what? I’m going to give her a Cocktail Stipend. Just as Granddaddy and Grandmother sent me money for taxis, I’m sending her a check for martinis and nice glasses of wine. “They’ll get to be asses as the night wears on. That’s when you say goodbye and use the money that Mamma sent you.” I just can’t BELIEVE the ridiculousness I put up with for a damned $10 dirty martini. The hubris, the posing, the invasive questions—my daughter will NOT have to endure that.
I will advise her to go buy a “toy” on Christopher Street. Forget the potential one-night stands and inflated promises of dinner dates. Leave them at the door and, well, how shall I phrase this? Go back to yourself. A stranger in a bar is much more likely to disappoint than a “AA” battery or two.
Take yourself out to dinner. Observe the people around you—the ones that you aspire to become, the others that you pity. Jot down notes on your cocktail napkin. Keep a folder of these and refer to it every so often when you feel that the city is changing you.
Skip the club opening/loft party, catch a foreign film. What is an investment banker in a loft on Chambers Street going to tell you about yourself that you don’t already know? “Has anyone told you that your eyes are as blue as the water that laps the shores of Round Hill, Jamaica?” Bertolluci, Mastroianni and Truffaut—THEY can illuminate a thing or two.
Call home. Don’t forget where you’re from. That’s how you got to the Big Apple in the first place.
I’ll give my daughter her wings--just like Mamma gave me mine--and hope that she’ll fly. If not, well, I suppose we can dunk ‘em in a bowl of blue cheese dressing and call it a day.
The aluminum container arrived, steam seeping out of the side and top creases. I ceremoniously doled out our dinner, and with a certain flourish, poured each of us a glass of Rioja to accompany our “entrees.” Such a good sport, Mamma. She perched atop the leather ottoman while I sat on the only kitchen chair, the seat’s rattan digging into my thighs, leaving its mark on my white, city flesh. We hunched over our dinner plates—perilously balanced on tops of knees, piled high with wings, little thighs, plastic containers of blue cheese dressing—looking up now and again to talk about town gossip and my then-precarious job situation. Our faces were unapologetically marred with vinegar-hard hot sauce and creamy dip.
What did my mother really think about my trials and failures in New York? What advice did she withhold out of good breeding and spirit? How silly and insignificant did my life and city loves look to her then?
I consider the advice and the encouragement that I will give my daughter when she decides to make the bold flight North, away from me and her father, the culture she instinctively trusts. I know that she will move because she’ll have my strong, stubborn spirit and her father’s charming (and bumbling) naivete. Anywhere my daughter goes, in her eyes, will be home.
I’m going to tell her that the free drinks aren’t worth it. In fact, you know what? I’m going to give her a Cocktail Stipend. Just as Granddaddy and Grandmother sent me money for taxis, I’m sending her a check for martinis and nice glasses of wine. “They’ll get to be asses as the night wears on. That’s when you say goodbye and use the money that Mamma sent you.” I just can’t BELIEVE the ridiculousness I put up with for a damned $10 dirty martini. The hubris, the posing, the invasive questions—my daughter will NOT have to endure that.
I will advise her to go buy a “toy” on Christopher Street. Forget the potential one-night stands and inflated promises of dinner dates. Leave them at the door and, well, how shall I phrase this? Go back to yourself. A stranger in a bar is much more likely to disappoint than a “AA” battery or two.
Take yourself out to dinner. Observe the people around you—the ones that you aspire to become, the others that you pity. Jot down notes on your cocktail napkin. Keep a folder of these and refer to it every so often when you feel that the city is changing you.
Skip the club opening/loft party, catch a foreign film. What is an investment banker in a loft on Chambers Street going to tell you about yourself that you don’t already know? “Has anyone told you that your eyes are as blue as the water that laps the shores of Round Hill, Jamaica?” Bertolluci, Mastroianni and Truffaut—THEY can illuminate a thing or two.
Call home. Don’t forget where you’re from. That’s how you got to the Big Apple in the first place.
I’ll give my daughter her wings--just like Mamma gave me mine--and hope that she’ll fly. If not, well, I suppose we can dunk ‘em in a bowl of blue cheese dressing and call it a day.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Cookin'
I'm cookin' up something good... Delicious and intimate.
Sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should not be indulged in lightly.
--M.F.K. Fisher
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
My Royal
(My American Royalty continued...)
Land of the free, home of the brave—there is no aristocracy, you say. Oh, really? Tell that to the maitre d’, the bouncer, the seasoned bartender at “Bemelman’s.” A new world lays itself at your feet when you date a Groton and Princeton grad that just happens to be directly related to the ex Commander-in-Chief.
Merc Bar. A finger of Jack and Coke left in his tumbler and I stroll in the door. Turn left, turn right. This is a set-up, you see—a blind date scenario that would make our Baby-Boomer parents proud. He’s searching the crowd; I see him searching. Even though I know next to nothing about the boy—except that he is President ______’s great, great grandson and President ______’s second cousin once removed—he’s easy to spot. Like a good British aristocrat, my date has a slightly inbred visage (flat face, broad nasal bridge, bug eyes) and a grating guffaw. The chortle is a nervous tick of sorts that is emitted at random and inappropriate moments—like after saying, “Nice to meet you.” He’s short—vertically challenged enough for his line of vision to be breast high. Lucky man.
Fact: I’m bigger and blonder and just plain more than any of these northern things he’s used to dating (or screwing after the Met’s Costume Ball). Indeed, the boy has two mighty POTUS’s in his family and at that moment I still fee like a Brigitte Nielsen running the show. Lord, was this New York society? I imagine all the Upper East Side girls clamoring for his prestigious last name, praying at Café St. Bart’s over lunch that he would be their ticket to a permanent listing on the Social Register. “No more Jimmy Choo’s! No more Christian Louboutin’s!” they solemnly vow. “For him, I swear to don ballet flats from here to eternity!” The lithe ladies also tuck away all sexual desire as they resign themselves to focus on his back pocket (wallet) instead of his front fly (errrmm, never went there).
Me? All I want is a dirty martini and an even dirtier conversation about the gilded faces that fill the pages of "Vogue" and the "Times." He orders another drink and I set in, ready to refine my journalism skills...
Land of the free, home of the brave—there is no aristocracy, you say. Oh, really? Tell that to the maitre d’, the bouncer, the seasoned bartender at “Bemelman’s.” A new world lays itself at your feet when you date a Groton and Princeton grad that just happens to be directly related to the ex Commander-in-Chief.
Merc Bar. A finger of Jack and Coke left in his tumbler and I stroll in the door. Turn left, turn right. This is a set-up, you see—a blind date scenario that would make our Baby-Boomer parents proud. He’s searching the crowd; I see him searching. Even though I know next to nothing about the boy—except that he is President ______’s great, great grandson and President ______’s second cousin once removed—he’s easy to spot. Like a good British aristocrat, my date has a slightly inbred visage (flat face, broad nasal bridge, bug eyes) and a grating guffaw. The chortle is a nervous tick of sorts that is emitted at random and inappropriate moments—like after saying, “Nice to meet you.” He’s short—vertically challenged enough for his line of vision to be breast high. Lucky man.
Fact: I’m bigger and blonder and just plain more than any of these northern things he’s used to dating (or screwing after the Met’s Costume Ball). Indeed, the boy has two mighty POTUS’s in his family and at that moment I still fee like a Brigitte Nielsen running the show. Lord, was this New York society? I imagine all the Upper East Side girls clamoring for his prestigious last name, praying at Café St. Bart’s over lunch that he would be their ticket to a permanent listing on the Social Register. “No more Jimmy Choo’s! No more Christian Louboutin’s!” they solemnly vow. “For him, I swear to don ballet flats from here to eternity!” The lithe ladies also tuck away all sexual desire as they resign themselves to focus on his back pocket (wallet) instead of his front fly (errrmm, never went there).
Me? All I want is a dirty martini and an even dirtier conversation about the gilded faces that fill the pages of "Vogue" and the "Times." He orders another drink and I set in, ready to refine my journalism skills...
Tuesday, May 9, 2006
American Royalty
“You’re hedgin’ on the vulgar up there,” Mamma told me some time ago. I can’t pinpoint how many months or years ago she said this because, as Didion might reflect, much feels to be the same in New York after you can name the bridges, tunnels and rivers. Yes, things are better when you’re just a touch ignorant…
My big city life was negotiating good and bad taste, or so I’ll claim for Mamma’s sake. My precarious employment and dating situation had her worried that my magnolia had not only lost its bloom, but that its petals were browning, decomposing under the Yankee sun.
What’s a newly minted New Yorker to do? Date American Royalty, of course.
Land of the free, home of the brave—there is no aristocracy, you say. Oh, really? Tell that to the maitre d’, the bouncer, the seasoned bartender at “Bemelman’s.” A new world lays itself at your feet when you date a Groton and Princeton grad that just happens to be directly related to the ex Commander-in-Chief...
My big city life was negotiating good and bad taste, or so I’ll claim for Mamma’s sake. My precarious employment and dating situation had her worried that my magnolia had not only lost its bloom, but that its petals were browning, decomposing under the Yankee sun.
What’s a newly minted New Yorker to do? Date American Royalty, of course.
Land of the free, home of the brave—there is no aristocracy, you say. Oh, really? Tell that to the maitre d’, the bouncer, the seasoned bartender at “Bemelman’s.” A new world lays itself at your feet when you date a Groton and Princeton grad that just happens to be directly related to the ex Commander-in-Chief...
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