003: Supplemental
Daytrippers, books of wonder, and boots (made for walking ofc)
Without further ado!
Read
For the past few nights, I’ve been bringing to bed two books: Temporary by Hilary Leichter, and Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery. I was conversing with my friend Diana, who was on her way to pick up a copy of Temporary from her local library, when I realized I had read it but couldn’t recall a thing. This is not a testament to its content, but rather that I had read it during the first chapter of the pandemic, and have very little memory of those first few months. I thought it best to bring it to bed over the long weekend, and each night I have absurdist dreams.
Walking back from Flatiron last Monday, I passed a children’s bookshop in Chelsea called Books of Wonder. After ten years of living in New York, I am amazed at how little I know of it and how much I still have to learn. Books of Wonder, it turns out, is the oldest and largest independent children’s bookshop in the city. After examining each aisle as if I were putting in a bid at Sotheby’s, I left with The Tale of Peter Rabbit and four of the Little Miss series for my niece (Giggles, Curious, Chatterbox, Sunshine, everything she is and more), not yet one years old. Incidentally, during a trip to London last year, my parents spent a day retracing my mother’s and her older sister’s childhood in the city and discovered that Beatrix Potter briefly took up residence on the same grounds as their former school)
For myself, I purchased Anne of Green Gables. If I had read Anne, it evades my memory (a common theme, it seems). When I saw it on the shelf titled “Classics”, it reminded me of Eman Basher, a writer and teacher I greatly admire, who shared with her readers her own connection to “Anne”, words that I work over and over in my mind. She writes, “…Anne’s boundless curiosity and vivid imagination breathed life into the lives of the people around her. While reading her adventures, I was enchanted by the idea of teaching through storytelling, and Anne’s eloquent words left an indelible mark on me…Whenever my students find themselves drifting into boredom, I whisk them away with the magic of storytelling. Should the teacher require a brief respite, it’s my tales that fill the void. And in those moments when I struggle to capture my students’ attention, I turn to the power of narrative. Believe me, there’s always a perfect moment for the birth of fresh tales.”
See
I’m embarrassed to admit that I wasn’t familiar with Parker Posey’s oeuvre until fairly recently. To me she was a mythical screengrab from Party Girl that a particular genre of women who spent their early twenties galavanting all over downtown New York and referenced The Misshapes and Cobrasnake as though they were Dalí flash-backed to or captioned, “Me.”
Last week I watched The Daytrippers, starring Posey (duh), Liev Schrieber, Stanley Tucci, and Anne Meara, a.k.a. Mary Brady a.k.a Steve Brady’s mother a.k.a. ex mother-in-law of one Miranda Hobbes! I love watching now-famous actors in the early stages of their careers – it’s like watching a baby who has just learned to walk wobble about with charming confidence. Most of the film takes place across New York City, one that isn’t too sanitized and aspirational as often comes across in film. It’s closest to the city as I know it, the way the city looks to me when my father drives us around on Christmas eve to see pockets of iy lit up, or when I emerge from my apartment every third day of the week for a determined walk.
A good portion of the film takes place in my neighborhood, and it’s comforting to see how twenty-eight years later, many things change but some remain the same. Vesuvio Playground on Spring and Thompson becomes a sort of landmark in The Daytrippers. Posey and her sister, played by Hope Davis, share a tender moment on one of the benches just outside the park’s perimeter; later everything comes to a head there. Dominique Ansel is just a wall with graffiti on it, Barney’s has on its Christmas regalia, red awnings and lush window displays.
I also watched Clockwatchers, with Posey and Toni Collette, which is a film about the hilarity, horrors and total absurdity of temping (or really just working in Corporate America in general). As a total coincidence, Hilary Leichter’s Temporary is also about, you guessed it, temping.
Thrift
It’s finally snowing today, probably the first and last for another seven-hundred or so odd days. One of the last times it really snowed was the day my husband and I got married. I wore a red and gold Banarasi silk sari and vintage purple, red and gold brocade Prada mules, and stepped in massive puddles of slush and mounds of grey snow.
It’s on days like these that I crave a steaming hot cup of the very best coffee under multiple layers of blankets in bed. I’ve yet to make this a reality, however a few days ago I got back in bed at 7 a.m. and drank every last drop from my cup of warm water, and felt like I had really accomplished something. I’ve been searching for a silver tray to play out this cold-day-early-morning coffee fantasy (I can’t just carry a cup, you know), but I do have the perfect pot (refills!).
Last year in the spring I was in Milan, and on my last day I stumbled across the famed Sunday antique markets in Brera. It was end of day and most stalls were closing up, but one of the few that was still open had a massive display of silver teapots, toast racks, pitchers and the like by Christopher Dresser, known as one of the first independent designers. I wasn’t familiar with Dresser’s work but nodded enthusiastically as the vendor spoke passionately about it.
I had, however, seen a select few shops sell his designs secondhand at exorbitant prices, and was reluctant to inquire about the price of two teapots I had my eyes on (I’m not good with heartbreak). My husband gave me the "hurry up I’m hungry/make up your mind” poke, and let me tell you, I got these two tea pots for an eye-watering steal. The high resale markup stateside makes me think if we’re paying for the flight, accommodation and good times and then some.
So, of course, after all of this, I had to think about a hypothetical outfit I would wear on a hypothetical cold day to procure my hypothetical silver tray.
Until next time!
Looove The Daytrippers so much ♥️