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| Our first dusting. 6:00 PM. Photo: JH. |
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| Monday, December 9, 2013. A grey, damp but cold weekend in New York, with a light snow arriving about five yesterday afternoon. Enough to cover the rooftops of cars. There were heavier snowfalls outside the city to the south and to the west. Maybe we’ll have a white Christmas. I’m not bah humbug by nature but Christmas doesn’t do it for me anymore. Not to mention I don’t “do it” for Christmas either. It took me a few decades to get over it, but I am. I do like seeing the cards I get because many of them are photographic records of families growing up/progressing. |
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| I definitely like the holiday for its therapeutic value: things quiet down on the social calendar. Observing the evolution has its joys, no matter what and it is a dream time for children, a lot of children, if not all children. The dream is big in my book. It is that from which all blessings flow for the most fortunate among us. I also like all the Christmas decorations commercial and private. The lights give everything at this grey time of the year a lift. And Christmas is for kids, especially real kids (versus the Yuppies and the Gen X “kids”). It is also the time for Giving. Again, for the children, and for the animals. Giving is good for what ails you. It is a good time to remember that, and for the next couple of weeks I’m going to remind you. |
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| For example, I got a letter last week from Joan Garvin who runs the Metropolitan Maltese Rescue organization here. I’ve copied it below so you can read it. You don’t need to favor or own a Maltese to understand the importance of helping. Anything you contribute – any amount – will make a big difference. A lot of people buy pets as gifts. These sweet creatures are gifts to all of us, but not necessarily the right gift for someone who doesn’t want a dog or a cat, or doesn’t know how to care for it. What often happens after a period of (mal)adjustment, is the animal gets abandoned, thrown away, turned over to a shelter. Not a few get very badly abused by the jerks who were once the owners. Jerks is a gentle word to describe their vicious (and even at times criminal) behavior. Lowlife is a more apt perception. |
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| However, there are a number of organizations who work 24/7 to help the animals and to (one hopes) find them good homes. I know Joan Garvin and her associates do this all the time for the little ones. Please help. Friday afternoon I went down to Michael’s for lunch. I tend not to visit Michael’s on Friday’s mainly because I’d rather stay home. However, this past Friday Michael arranged for me to meet Christopher Knight and his partner Fernando Sarthou who live in Los Angeles where Christopher is the Art Critic for the Los Angeles Times. The reason for our meeting was simple and even a little corny: we both grew up in Westfield, Massachusetts and lived within a mile or two. However, Christopher is nine years younger than I. I went away to college when I was 18 and never really lived permanently in Westfield thereafter, so there was never a possibility of our meeting at that point in our lives. Now, as it turned out, Christopher and Fernando are also friends of my apartment neighbor, personal friend, and Art Set columnist Charlie Scheips. They’ve known Charlie since his days in Los Angeles when he worked for David Hockney, who has his West Coast studio nearby Knight and Sarthou. Coinidentally I was living out there at the time, and although we all shared mutual friends and acquaintances, we never met. |
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| I wasn’t up for the idea of meeting only because it was Friday (the day off), but for strangers we had a lot to talk about and a lot of people in common as well as our native backgrounds and our shared affection for that great and beautiful and strange and wonderful place, Los Angeles. We left the restaurant at four. Saturday night I went down to Birdland on West 44th Street to hear my friend Barbara Carroll perform on the keys, along with Jay Leonhart accompanying her on bass. This was their last day of this particular booking. I think she Barbara returns to Birdland for a gig in February.
I got a cab right away. We took the FDR Drive from 79th Street to the 34th Street exit. That forty-five block trip is five or six minutes. The cabbie turned off the exit road at 38th Street, and headed west on 39th. Therein lies the rub. The ride across 39th Street from First to Eighth – nine blocks citywide – took one hour. The roads are clogged with parked cars, construction sites, and there is only single lane movement bumper to bumper, trucks, buses cars. I suggested to the cabbie that we cross Forty-second, but had vetoed the idea: the main thoroughfare is gridlock at that time of night. It was quarter to seven (Barbara’s performance started at six) when we reached Eighth Avenue. The fare, with five dollar tip, was forty bucks. Why didn’t I just ditch the cab after the first fifteen minutes, and get out and walk? I thought about it. But when you’re riding in a car in the city you somehow think any gridlock is a very short, temporary situation. Actually I should have known better because I experience it all the time during the weekday. I also had a dinner date at 7:30 on the Upper East Side. All of that – Barbara at Birdland at six, UES dinner at 7:30 seemed doable in the planning. After all, this is New York the town where you can get around. Oh, you think so? |
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| When I got out at 39th and Eighth, it was too late to see Barbara. So I walked the three blocks up to 42nd and the subway and took the “A” train up to 81st Street and Central Park West. No gridlock in that neck of the woods. The American Museum of Natural History has topiary dinosaurs lighted and beribboned for the holiday. Good that I had my Canon with me. Then I caught the 79th Street crosstown bus and was back in my apartment at ten after 7. So ended my Manhattan travel drama. There are those who would argue that I would have been better off taking the bus and the subway. Good idea. A cab was too convenient an idea. Later I had a very pleasant dinner with Joan and John Jakobson and Philip and Joan Kingsley who are in town from London for the week.
Many famous actors, actresses, public figures even royalty across the world visit him regularly for hair and scalp care and treatment. Losing hair, with both men and women, is a common occurrence, very common. In many cases Philip can stop the process through prevention and treatment. JH and his wife Danielle have both been clients. JH says the scalp massage is one of the greatest massages he’s ever had. Also this past Saturday afternoon down at Verdura they transformed their flagship gallery into a Winter Wonderful to host the launch party for Cathleen Smith Bresciani’s winter tale “Sassafrass Jones an the Search for a Forever Home.” A holiday book about the Little Dog with the Cat Eyed Glasses. Proceeds from the sale will benefit the Humane Society of New York. Sassafrass is a “plucky, perky Pekingese with a delicate eye condition who befriends a lonelky fashionable milliner mouse named Madeline. The two find each other and the courage to pursue their dreams. That word again: dreams. |
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| Besciani created this book with Richard L. Eldredge, featuring more than fifty full-color beautifully detailed images by photographer Tomas Espinoza, and sets created by Christopher J. McClellan. The book also includes an Audio Book CD narrated by Fred Schneider of the B52s. Verdura you already know about, founded in 1939 by Fulco, the Duke di Verdura, formerly a jewelry designer for Coco Chanel, Cole Porter and his wife Linda backed Fulco in his own business. Ward Landrigan acquired Verdura in 1985, and has kept it the treasure of glamour, chic, wit and sophistication that Fulco created. |
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Contact DPC here. |