keep on dancing

Just a short post after assembling the Saturday outfit for late November that will involve a walk in rural New Hampshire with a friend. 

The reason why these photos are so blurry is because they are screen shots from a slow-mo video I made of myself dancing. These slow-mo videos have become an occasional creative outlet to help me cope with the loneliness of dancing alone during the pandemic. 

I love to dance and I also like to watch other people dance. One of my favorite films is the Pina Bausch documentary that I saw with 3-D glasses in a Parisian movie theater. The whole experience was memorable, because the movie theater was in the Lucernaire on the long and winding rue Notre-Dame des Champs in the 6th. 

Now we can watch movies only by streaming them, which is great, but not at all the same as being in a movie theater and watching them on a big screen. 

I remember seeing "Stranger than Paradise" on the big screen back when it came out in 1984, and I remember laughing when the characters finally saw Lake Erie because it was so bleak. Watching it again last night on the small screen was a completely different experience, and that Lake Erie scene was anti-climactic. 

Meanwhile, back in the present tense reality of another day during another week during another month of pandemic, quarantine, isolation, and general ennui, I go "shopping" in my closet and find the dress I bought in Brooklyn on a very different fall Saturday, in the times when we could walk around and explore the farmers' market, the stoop sales and the flea markets. Two English women in Clinton Hill were selling perfectly good clothes from my favorite French brands outside their brownstone, and I picked up the dress for $10. 

The cardigan comes from a charity shop in Primrose Hill, London. Another memory of another time when traveling was no big deal. How I appreciate now that freedom and that privilege! 

 

Back to the 80s via "The Crown"

Think what you may about the series, now that season 4 is out.  The media has not much to cover as we are in month 10 of the pandemic, so they are analyzing the series: history is being distorted. Yes. But the clothes are right on. To the point where, in the mean time, my newly retired friends who are home sequestered are digging up old photos. I came across some of my own. 

I had posted in an earlier blog that I was more Laura Ashley than punk back in the late '70s and early 80s. 

That might be a reflection of my undeniable bourgeois background. But Laura Ashley was more petit bourgeois and Diana in her youth, way back when she was a kindergarten teacher, was also more down to earth. 

I latched on to the Laura Ashley look as did many other young women back then. I liked cotton prints, as opposed to the synthetic crap that was flooding the department stores. I remember going to Lord and Taylor and Ohrbachs, stores that no longer exist, department stores being now a thing of the past, looking for bargains in the sale racks. The results were usually catastrophic, but I didn't care. 

Here is a thankfully small sample of the "look" that I awkwardly adopted back in my early twenties. 

    The Norwegian sweater look. I hung on to that sweater for decades. It came from a ski shop on the Upper East side. The bandana closely tied around the neck must have been an in accessory back then. 

My mother sewed me this dress from a Laura Ashley pattern. I latched on to the combination V-neck sweater/floral patterned dress or skirt. Call it preppy, call it what you like. As for the ankle socks, that was my choice, people teased me for it. Now it's a catwalk standard. 

The Peter Pan collar on a silk blouse, paired with a blue floral skirt. It doesn't get more Lady Di than that!

                       I think that might be a Laura Ashley dress. Never mind the poodle hair. 

                     There's that V neck/cotton skirt combo again. I LOVED that skirt. 

And for the final photo: My boyfriend at the time bought me this outfit from the original Putumayo store on Lexington Avenue. I loved that store! I wonder if Diana ever wore Putumayo? 

Lame duck season/the Christmas card project

 

YEAHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhh!

 We are breathing a bit easier now. To celebrate I took a walk with one friend, and drove another friend to Revolution where I picked up this lovely velvet blouse. It has shades of purple and blue and shimmers a little bit. I am dancing in my office. I am dancing in my kitchen. I am dancing in my study. We are dancing and jubilant all over the country. What a relief that voting actually works!