I am going to get my hair Brazilian-ized again, that is, the Brazilian Blow Out, which is a treatment for head hair that makes even the most unruly dry bush soft, silky, frizz-free and...straight. Or pretty straight. Def not as straight as the Japanese Straightening Treatment made popular four or five years ago, but straight enough.
The Brazilian Blowout ( as it is known), is a kinder, supposedly more natural, relaxing treatment for the hair. Some say the magic ingredient is keratin. Some say it's something more sinister. A recent study conducted by a college university lab would indicate that the active ingredient that makes the hair so much straighter and silkier is none other than formaldehyde, i.e. embalming fluid, a claim my own salon denies. While some of my friends have stopped doing the Brazilian, my own take on the situation is that since I don't do botox, don't color my hair, don't have glued on artificial nails, and otherwise watch my chemical intake, what's a little formaldehyde between friends?
Speaking of Brazilians, let's discuss the other hair do. I'm talking pubic hair here, not that fur on your upper lip or chin that also needs regular depilation. Speaking of which, I was having my eyebrows professionally attended to last week at an amazing beauty bar called KD Studio in Katonah by none other than Dina Altieri, a famous make up artist. Dina's done tons of tv and 400 + brides! While I was lamenting the forest of fine hairs growing on my face, Dina was telling me that every woman eventually has to deal with it. "This happens to every woman," she said. It's good to know I'm not alone with this problem, although it doesn't make me feel less self conscious about it!
But I digress. I want to go on the record to say that I believe the Totally Naked Bald Pubic Look is fini. Done. Done For. I took a poll among many men, and the general consensus about the bald beaver is "It's fun once in awhile, but it's freaky." Yes, ladies. Freaky. In case you haven't noticed, grown women have pubic hair. Trim it, dye it if you must (gray pubes are not too sexy), but don't make a habit of shaving, waxing or electrolysis-ing it all off. Men your age don't love it; in fact it makes them nervous. Besides, the sexiest porn star of the moment, a young lady named Sascha Gray, has grown out all her pubic hair and her fan base loves it. So throw away your razor, fire your waxer, and make friends again with your pubes. Take it from me, hair rules.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Film Review: The Guitar (2008)
Last night the husband and I watched a film. We watched it from our brand new gorgeous brown leather couch we bought a few weeks back at Crate 'n Barrel. We don't go to the movies very often and we don't even have a new TV; it's not big or flat screen. All it's got is color. But we do have a top notch cable package and we've got a DVR, so recording films off the Sundance network is a principal form of entertainment.
The film we watched was called "The Guitar," directed by Amy Redford and starring Saffron Burrows. I feel some need to check and see if Amy if related to Robert, and Saffron to William, but so far, I haven't. The story is of a youngish woman who has been told by her doctor (played deadpan straight by Janeane Garofolo) she has a virulent form of cancer; that she has less than two months. In response to this dire diagnoses, topped off by the news she's been laid off at work, plus her sort of boyfriend tells her he needs "a break," the character, called Melody, goes feral. By this I mean, she returns to her native state, which is to be a child who goes for instant gratification. These gratifications include walking out of her crummy basement apartment (leaving, she doesn't even bother to close the door), take a short term lease on an incredible loft condo, order scads of marvelous furniture, amazing clothes, every delicious take out meal imaginable.
After an orgy of spending, because why worry about credit card debt if you're dying, Melody embarks on another kind of gratification, which is to say, sexual. The black delivery man, named Roscoe because his parents met in the upstate New York town at the Roscoe diner, brings her flowers one day instead of the usual blitz of packages, and she tumbles into bed with him; likewise the pizza delivery chick, a sexy, dopey-voiced Italian girl engaged to a guy who's "connected." At one point the delivery guy comes over when she's already with the chick and they all wind up pulling on costumes and gamboling about the loft for a few hours playing orgy. This is all portrayed in a tame way. The delivery man never removes his wife-beater and there's not even a glimpse of tit. Melody is so tall and skinny anyway her nudity barely registers.
That length of leg and torso and her long hair and wide cheekbones and jutting hips make her a fantastic clothes horse, though, and part of the pleasure of the film for me were her clothes, which inspired envy. I loved her choices which were a melange of what you might find in the Anthropologie catalogue and Gorsuch. Many of her clothes are boutique bohemian featuring lots of embroidery, tassels and wild spurts of color, everything cashmere and raw silk and velvet.
"The Guitar" is loaded with flashbacks, which of course rather fittingly, reveal the back story. As a child, Melody longed for a guitar, specifically an electric guitar, which her always squabbling, slightly grubby, seemingly ne'er do well parents consistently denied her. As a child, she actually stole a guitar and almost got away with it. Now that she's only got two months to live and plenty of credit, she buys herself a Stratocaster and huge amps and a woofer and a tweeter and long cords and a simple black strap and 100 picks and a DVD tutorial how to play the thing. Just when she has everything she needs and is even starting to get good on the guitar (and of course she has natural talent), her world falls apart. She finds out her tumor is gone, she's cancer free, the delivery man's wife is pregnant, the pizza girl is getting married and she has to get out of the loft condo. Broke, saddled with debt, jobless, after a few days all she's got left is the glam clothes on her back, and the guitar. She takes it to the park and is almost immediately discovered by a hip, cool rock band who invite her to join them and the next thing you know, she's performing on stage, transformed into a regular Patti Smith, only gorgeous. Model gorgeous.
"The Guitar" is a terrible movie. It's ridiculous, although perhaps no more ridiculous than a television show I quite like so far called "The Big C," starring Laura Linney. In that show, Linney plays a repressed, stick in the mud, ultra self contained housewife who finds out she has terminal cancer and has about a year to live. Aside from Laura Linney's character throwing her loving if boob-like and messy husband out of the house and digging a giant swimming pool in her front yard, what "The Guitar," and "The Big C" are about indulging in all one's fantasies about how one
wants to live, what they want to eat, and who they choose to hang out with when time is running short, what the film and the show have in common is a compelling central character who is good at hiding out. Good at keeping secrets, i.e. telling no one they have cancer. And that's worth talking about.
For decades the "C" word was a bogey man, a word one spoke about. If you or someone you knew had cancer, you whispered. If you were sick you were supposed to keep it a secret for as long as you could, in order not to lose your job, frighten away your friends, bum out casual acquaintances and neighbors. You were expected to bravely fight your disease, but in silence, only sharing personal information in the sanctity and safety of a cancer support group. Then about a decade and a half ago, talking about cancer became an open thing. Sharing itself became a kind of healing. Cancer came out of the closet and everybody began talking about it.
Which brings me back to "The Guitar" and "The Big C." On "The Big C" Laura Linney's character, Cathy, keeps her cancer from her family members but privately screams, "I'm living the dream!" She only goes to a support group at her sexy young male doctor's urging, where her impulse once there is to get up and leave. She is so not into sharing. One of the things that annoys Cathy so much is when the leader tells her "Cancer is a gift." She's not at a place yet where she agrees. That, of course, will be her character's evolution on the show and will propel the story along as Cathy susses out just what her gift is. Melody, in "The Guitar," already knows about the gift. That's why she gives herself everything she can, which is in turn what cures her so she can go on to live her childhood dream to be a rock star. Or at least with legs and cheekbones like hers, plus a killer Strat, at least look the part.
The film we watched was called "The Guitar," directed by Amy Redford and starring Saffron Burrows. I feel some need to check and see if Amy if related to Robert, and Saffron to William, but so far, I haven't. The story is of a youngish woman who has been told by her doctor (played deadpan straight by Janeane Garofolo) she has a virulent form of cancer; that she has less than two months. In response to this dire diagnoses, topped off by the news she's been laid off at work, plus her sort of boyfriend tells her he needs "a break," the character, called Melody, goes feral. By this I mean, she returns to her native state, which is to be a child who goes for instant gratification. These gratifications include walking out of her crummy basement apartment (leaving, she doesn't even bother to close the door), take a short term lease on an incredible loft condo, order scads of marvelous furniture, amazing clothes, every delicious take out meal imaginable.
After an orgy of spending, because why worry about credit card debt if you're dying, Melody embarks on another kind of gratification, which is to say, sexual. The black delivery man, named Roscoe because his parents met in the upstate New York town at the Roscoe diner, brings her flowers one day instead of the usual blitz of packages, and she tumbles into bed with him; likewise the pizza delivery chick, a sexy, dopey-voiced Italian girl engaged to a guy who's "connected." At one point the delivery guy comes over when she's already with the chick and they all wind up pulling on costumes and gamboling about the loft for a few hours playing orgy. This is all portrayed in a tame way. The delivery man never removes his wife-beater and there's not even a glimpse of tit. Melody is so tall and skinny anyway her nudity barely registers.
That length of leg and torso and her long hair and wide cheekbones and jutting hips make her a fantastic clothes horse, though, and part of the pleasure of the film for me were her clothes, which inspired envy. I loved her choices which were a melange of what you might find in the Anthropologie catalogue and Gorsuch. Many of her clothes are boutique bohemian featuring lots of embroidery, tassels and wild spurts of color, everything cashmere and raw silk and velvet.
"The Guitar" is loaded with flashbacks, which of course rather fittingly, reveal the back story. As a child, Melody longed for a guitar, specifically an electric guitar, which her always squabbling, slightly grubby, seemingly ne'er do well parents consistently denied her. As a child, she actually stole a guitar and almost got away with it. Now that she's only got two months to live and plenty of credit, she buys herself a Stratocaster and huge amps and a woofer and a tweeter and long cords and a simple black strap and 100 picks and a DVD tutorial how to play the thing. Just when she has everything she needs and is even starting to get good on the guitar (and of course she has natural talent), her world falls apart. She finds out her tumor is gone, she's cancer free, the delivery man's wife is pregnant, the pizza girl is getting married and she has to get out of the loft condo. Broke, saddled with debt, jobless, after a few days all she's got left is the glam clothes on her back, and the guitar. She takes it to the park and is almost immediately discovered by a hip, cool rock band who invite her to join them and the next thing you know, she's performing on stage, transformed into a regular Patti Smith, only gorgeous. Model gorgeous.
"The Guitar" is a terrible movie. It's ridiculous, although perhaps no more ridiculous than a television show I quite like so far called "The Big C," starring Laura Linney. In that show, Linney plays a repressed, stick in the mud, ultra self contained housewife who finds out she has terminal cancer and has about a year to live. Aside from Laura Linney's character throwing her loving if boob-like and messy husband out of the house and digging a giant swimming pool in her front yard, what "The Guitar," and "The Big C" are about indulging in all one's fantasies about how one
wants to live, what they want to eat, and who they choose to hang out with when time is running short, what the film and the show have in common is a compelling central character who is good at hiding out. Good at keeping secrets, i.e. telling no one they have cancer. And that's worth talking about.
For decades the "C" word was a bogey man, a word one spoke about. If you or someone you knew had cancer, you whispered. If you were sick you were supposed to keep it a secret for as long as you could, in order not to lose your job, frighten away your friends, bum out casual acquaintances and neighbors. You were expected to bravely fight your disease, but in silence, only sharing personal information in the sanctity and safety of a cancer support group. Then about a decade and a half ago, talking about cancer became an open thing. Sharing itself became a kind of healing. Cancer came out of the closet and everybody began talking about it.
Which brings me back to "The Guitar" and "The Big C." On "The Big C" Laura Linney's character, Cathy, keeps her cancer from her family members but privately screams, "I'm living the dream!" She only goes to a support group at her sexy young male doctor's urging, where her impulse once there is to get up and leave. She is so not into sharing. One of the things that annoys Cathy so much is when the leader tells her "Cancer is a gift." She's not at a place yet where she agrees. That, of course, will be her character's evolution on the show and will propel the story along as Cathy susses out just what her gift is. Melody, in "The Guitar," already knows about the gift. That's why she gives herself everything she can, which is in turn what cures her so she can go on to live her childhood dream to be a rock star. Or at least with legs and cheekbones like hers, plus a killer Strat, at least look the part.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Love & Pray for Horses, but Don't Eat Them
View from the porch
By EVE MARX
Love and pray for horses, but don’t eat them
If you love horses and want to do some good, attend the benefit or get involved in the auction for Equine Voices to be held on September 25 at Old Salem Farm in North Salem. Cindy Marcotte, a Bedford resident whose sister Karen Pomroy is Equine Voices president and founder (Cindy is vice prez) is in charge of the event, which raises money for an accredited rescue and sanctuary for horses in Arizona, where Cindy’s sister lives. The evening will feature dinner, dancing, a raffle, a silent auction and a mounted exhibition by the Honey Hollow Pony Club at Old Salem Farm. Lendon Gray is the Honoree; chairs for the event are Cindy Marcotte and Lee Vogelstein. Among its other laudable achievements, Equine Voices helps pregnant mares who are exploited for urine collection used in the manufacturing of Premarin. Premarin is a female hormone therapy, and the most widely prescribed drug for managing the symptoms of menopause, hot flashes, night sweats and vaginal dryness. In other words, half the women you know are taking it, and if you’re over 55, you might be taking it yourself. The problem with Premarin is it creates cast off foals, i.e. baby horses, because to get the pregnant mare urine, the mare has to be pregnant. What happens to those foals afterwards is not pretty. It’s so not pretty, I’m afraid to write about it, for fear of instantly upsetting you and turning you off, possibly making you throw down the newspaper in horror and disgust. Don’t want to do that. Instead, focus on how there’s still plenty of time to do good and help out a lot of pregnant mares and their babies, and help Equine Voices get the word out to the public about this cruel industry. You know, if you’re suffering from hot flashes, there are other things you can do than take Premarin. Talk to your holistic health care provider, or Chinese medicine doc about it. Charlene Heller in Bedford Hills is an expert on Premarin alternatives. About Equine Voices and the benefit, contact Cindy Marcotte at HYPERLINK "mailto:cpmar@optonline.net" cpmar@optonline.net
For weeks it was too hot to get out for a hard, fast ride, so Buttons and I have been amusing ourselves creeping and crawling around the woods. We’re just walking and it is amazing what we’ve seen. One morning a great flock of wild turkeys ran across the path, a fox in hot pursuit. Another day we saw red tailed hawks. It’s pretty noisy in the woods what with a cacophony of bugs buzzing and the birds calling to one another and singing their heads off. The bugs really do create a din, and some of those birds, especially the crows, are real loudmouths. There’s plenty of deer, and if you’re one of those people who hate deer and can only think of how they ruin your garden, or risk your life running out in front of your car, you won’t understand the thrill of cantering alongside them which happened to me and Buttons when a pair of doe kept pace with us for about a quarter of a mile through the woods. We were on the trail and they were not, but we couldn’t have been more than a couple of yards apart. Buttons and I maintained a relaxed and steady lope, and I like to think they were pacing themselves, too, to stay right beside us. They didn’t seem scared of us, nor we of them. It was glorious, a real communion with nature.
The film “Eat, Pray, Love,” which is about a divorced woman and her world travels, opened last weekend and I for one am not rushing out to see it. In all fairness, we barely go to the movies, and then only to Jacob Burns. The last two films I saw were “Please Give,” which was wonderful, and “I Am Love,” which was not. The main reason I won’t be seeing “Eat, Pray, Love,” anytime soon is because Mr. Sax is not a fan of Julia Roberts. “I hate everything about her,” he said. “When I look at her I think of her brother, Eric Roberts, who she looks exactly like. Eric played psychos in every movie he was in. Remember ‘Runaway Train’? Also there’s something unsavory about the relationship between Richard Gere and Julia in ‘Pretty Woman.’ Need I say more?” he said. To be fair, I’m also not rushing to see the movie because I didn’t read the book. In 2006 when it was published, all my friends were reading it, especially my friends who are divorced. When one woman who’s never been married but who’s been engaged four times got all starry eyed about it, I knew I’d never read it, not in a million years. But I will watch the movie, next spring, I figure, when it plays on HBO or Starz, which you know it will, eventually. Sooner or later, everything does.
By EVE MARX
Love and pray for horses, but don’t eat them
If you love horses and want to do some good, attend the benefit or get involved in the auction for Equine Voices to be held on September 25 at Old Salem Farm in North Salem. Cindy Marcotte, a Bedford resident whose sister Karen Pomroy is Equine Voices president and founder (Cindy is vice prez) is in charge of the event, which raises money for an accredited rescue and sanctuary for horses in Arizona, where Cindy’s sister lives. The evening will feature dinner, dancing, a raffle, a silent auction and a mounted exhibition by the Honey Hollow Pony Club at Old Salem Farm. Lendon Gray is the Honoree; chairs for the event are Cindy Marcotte and Lee Vogelstein. Among its other laudable achievements, Equine Voices helps pregnant mares who are exploited for urine collection used in the manufacturing of Premarin. Premarin is a female hormone therapy, and the most widely prescribed drug for managing the symptoms of menopause, hot flashes, night sweats and vaginal dryness. In other words, half the women you know are taking it, and if you’re over 55, you might be taking it yourself. The problem with Premarin is it creates cast off foals, i.e. baby horses, because to get the pregnant mare urine, the mare has to be pregnant. What happens to those foals afterwards is not pretty. It’s so not pretty, I’m afraid to write about it, for fear of instantly upsetting you and turning you off, possibly making you throw down the newspaper in horror and disgust. Don’t want to do that. Instead, focus on how there’s still plenty of time to do good and help out a lot of pregnant mares and their babies, and help Equine Voices get the word out to the public about this cruel industry. You know, if you’re suffering from hot flashes, there are other things you can do than take Premarin. Talk to your holistic health care provider, or Chinese medicine doc about it. Charlene Heller in Bedford Hills is an expert on Premarin alternatives. About Equine Voices and the benefit, contact Cindy Marcotte at HYPERLINK "mailto:cpmar@optonline.net" cpmar@optonline.net
For weeks it was too hot to get out for a hard, fast ride, so Buttons and I have been amusing ourselves creeping and crawling around the woods. We’re just walking and it is amazing what we’ve seen. One morning a great flock of wild turkeys ran across the path, a fox in hot pursuit. Another day we saw red tailed hawks. It’s pretty noisy in the woods what with a cacophony of bugs buzzing and the birds calling to one another and singing their heads off. The bugs really do create a din, and some of those birds, especially the crows, are real loudmouths. There’s plenty of deer, and if you’re one of those people who hate deer and can only think of how they ruin your garden, or risk your life running out in front of your car, you won’t understand the thrill of cantering alongside them which happened to me and Buttons when a pair of doe kept pace with us for about a quarter of a mile through the woods. We were on the trail and they were not, but we couldn’t have been more than a couple of yards apart. Buttons and I maintained a relaxed and steady lope, and I like to think they were pacing themselves, too, to stay right beside us. They didn’t seem scared of us, nor we of them. It was glorious, a real communion with nature.
The film “Eat, Pray, Love,” which is about a divorced woman and her world travels, opened last weekend and I for one am not rushing out to see it. In all fairness, we barely go to the movies, and then only to Jacob Burns. The last two films I saw were “Please Give,” which was wonderful, and “I Am Love,” which was not. The main reason I won’t be seeing “Eat, Pray, Love,” anytime soon is because Mr. Sax is not a fan of Julia Roberts. “I hate everything about her,” he said. “When I look at her I think of her brother, Eric Roberts, who she looks exactly like. Eric played psychos in every movie he was in. Remember ‘Runaway Train’? Also there’s something unsavory about the relationship between Richard Gere and Julia in ‘Pretty Woman.’ Need I say more?” he said. To be fair, I’m also not rushing to see the movie because I didn’t read the book. In 2006 when it was published, all my friends were reading it, especially my friends who are divorced. When one woman who’s never been married but who’s been engaged four times got all starry eyed about it, I knew I’d never read it, not in a million years. But I will watch the movie, next spring, I figure, when it plays on HBO or Starz, which you know it will, eventually. Sooner or later, everything does.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
I LEFT MY HEART IN FENNVILLE, MI
View from the porch
By EVE MARX
I LEFT MY HEART IN FENNVILLE, MI
A few weeks ago we had a party. I apologize if we didn’t invite you, but like that friend limit thing on facebook, we officially have too many friends. In any case, the point of this story is not who was at the party, but what they all ate, which was hot dogs, genuine Chicago style grilled dogs served on a poppyseed bun, with the special fixin’s, including Rolf’s deli style green relish, Plochman’s mustard, chopped onion, a green pickle and sliced tomatoes. Even the dog itself is different as it’s not really a hot dog at all, but Vienna sausage, which is always made of beef. The sausage and the buns and the mustard and the relish were delivered to our house the day before the party in a box from Chicago packed in dry ice. Mr. Sax, formerly The Grillmaster, grilled them himself. He grilled about 75 of them and the guests were overcome with gustatory ecstasy. One guest, I later learned, devoured four hot dogs himself.
A week or so after the party, Mr. Sax and I traveled to Western Michigan to visit his family at their retirement home in Saugatuck, known as the Cape Cod of the Midwest. If you haven’t been to Saugatuck, it’s a lot like going to any beachy, boaty, upscale locale in Maine where a third of the summer population pulls up on a yacht and hangs out for a month v more at the Singapore Harbor condos, while still others rent a house for $5500 a week on Donovan’s Bluff, or gather for a month-long family reunion in one of the great old $2.5 mil North Woods cottages in nearby historic Fennville, an old winery community. The winter population of Saugatuck is about 1,000 people according to the last census. If you’re still there in November and you need a loaf of bread, prepare to drive to Holland.
From Memorial Day through Labor Day, there’s plenty to eat in Saugatuck, as long as you don’t crave Indian, sushi or Chinese. Or Greek or for that matter, even Italian. People come from all over the region to tour the art galleries and the antique marts and the gift shops and to hit the Dunes State Park and eat at Hercules Bar and Grill, which serves brat and kraut, chili dogs, bacon slaw dogs, Kowalski dogs and the aforementioned Chicago dog, as well as booze infused smoothies and pitchers of Lablatt’s. If you love fudge, Kilwin’s has the best. If you love slinging back micro brew beers, the Saugatuck Brewing Company and their handmade soft pretzels crusty with salt is pretty swell. On a higher culinary plane, I was knocked out impressed by The Olive Mill in downtown Saugatuck, which sells the most fragrant and delectable extra virgin olive oils and balsamic vinegars I’ve sampled in my life. Have you ever had blood orange olive oil, or oil steeped in Persian limes, or balsamic vinegar infused with pear or fig? Tasting is believing, but you can click on to www.olivemillgeneva.com to at least visually check it out.
Speaking of fine dining, we were only visiting for two nights, so I was very pleased to be introduced to an amazing restaurant in Fennville called Salt of the Earth. Fennville’s Spartan downtown features a drug store, a bank, a consignment shop only open when the proprietor feels like it, a hardware store, and this awesome restaurant where we had a locavore dinner of roasted chicken, spoonbread-style corn bread, lake trout and asparagus. This was all served in a chic, “Moderne Rustic” setting (i.e. exposed brick walls, battered wood floor, cool lighting, and midnight blue walls) that did not speak to me at all of the rest of prairie style Michigan. I am sorry to say this, but the people in Western Michigan need better hair. The mullet has never gone out, and women of all ages seem wedded to a bubble of curls bombed with Aqua-Net. And although nearby Douglas, which is stylish and right over the bridge, has an active gay population (The Dunes is touted as the Midwest’s largest gay and lesbian resort), at Oval Beach we saw a family of Mennonites whose menfolk swim in their regular clothes and whose females never get haircuts.
They talk funny in Michigan, which is to say they talk fast but slur their words, and they clip all their hard consonants in what linguists call a glottal stop. Not to mention everyone has a distinctive nasal pitch. The people in Saugatuck are very friendly, which is good as it is a resort town, but if you’re planning on hanging around long, or even spending an afternoon at the Sand Bar Saloon or Phil’s, you get the feeling if you’re a Democrat or agnostic, you should probably keep your trap shut.
What did I like best about western Michigan? The opportunity to kick back. If you’re looking for a vacation where you can truly do nothing but lounge on a screened in porch with a book, hop a plane to Grand Rapids and then drive on to Saugatuck. While you’re there, hit the Uncommon Grounds coffee bar; that’s a great place to hang out.
By EVE MARX
I LEFT MY HEART IN FENNVILLE, MI
A few weeks ago we had a party. I apologize if we didn’t invite you, but like that friend limit thing on facebook, we officially have too many friends. In any case, the point of this story is not who was at the party, but what they all ate, which was hot dogs, genuine Chicago style grilled dogs served on a poppyseed bun, with the special fixin’s, including Rolf’s deli style green relish, Plochman’s mustard, chopped onion, a green pickle and sliced tomatoes. Even the dog itself is different as it’s not really a hot dog at all, but Vienna sausage, which is always made of beef. The sausage and the buns and the mustard and the relish were delivered to our house the day before the party in a box from Chicago packed in dry ice. Mr. Sax, formerly The Grillmaster, grilled them himself. He grilled about 75 of them and the guests were overcome with gustatory ecstasy. One guest, I later learned, devoured four hot dogs himself.
A week or so after the party, Mr. Sax and I traveled to Western Michigan to visit his family at their retirement home in Saugatuck, known as the Cape Cod of the Midwest. If you haven’t been to Saugatuck, it’s a lot like going to any beachy, boaty, upscale locale in Maine where a third of the summer population pulls up on a yacht and hangs out for a month v more at the Singapore Harbor condos, while still others rent a house for $5500 a week on Donovan’s Bluff, or gather for a month-long family reunion in one of the great old $2.5 mil North Woods cottages in nearby historic Fennville, an old winery community. The winter population of Saugatuck is about 1,000 people according to the last census. If you’re still there in November and you need a loaf of bread, prepare to drive to Holland.
From Memorial Day through Labor Day, there’s plenty to eat in Saugatuck, as long as you don’t crave Indian, sushi or Chinese. Or Greek or for that matter, even Italian. People come from all over the region to tour the art galleries and the antique marts and the gift shops and to hit the Dunes State Park and eat at Hercules Bar and Grill, which serves brat and kraut, chili dogs, bacon slaw dogs, Kowalski dogs and the aforementioned Chicago dog, as well as booze infused smoothies and pitchers of Lablatt’s. If you love fudge, Kilwin’s has the best. If you love slinging back micro brew beers, the Saugatuck Brewing Company and their handmade soft pretzels crusty with salt is pretty swell. On a higher culinary plane, I was knocked out impressed by The Olive Mill in downtown Saugatuck, which sells the most fragrant and delectable extra virgin olive oils and balsamic vinegars I’ve sampled in my life. Have you ever had blood orange olive oil, or oil steeped in Persian limes, or balsamic vinegar infused with pear or fig? Tasting is believing, but you can click on to www.olivemillgeneva.com to at least visually check it out.
Speaking of fine dining, we were only visiting for two nights, so I was very pleased to be introduced to an amazing restaurant in Fennville called Salt of the Earth. Fennville’s Spartan downtown features a drug store, a bank, a consignment shop only open when the proprietor feels like it, a hardware store, and this awesome restaurant where we had a locavore dinner of roasted chicken, spoonbread-style corn bread, lake trout and asparagus. This was all served in a chic, “Moderne Rustic” setting (i.e. exposed brick walls, battered wood floor, cool lighting, and midnight blue walls) that did not speak to me at all of the rest of prairie style Michigan. I am sorry to say this, but the people in Western Michigan need better hair. The mullet has never gone out, and women of all ages seem wedded to a bubble of curls bombed with Aqua-Net. And although nearby Douglas, which is stylish and right over the bridge, has an active gay population (The Dunes is touted as the Midwest’s largest gay and lesbian resort), at Oval Beach we saw a family of Mennonites whose menfolk swim in their regular clothes and whose females never get haircuts.
They talk funny in Michigan, which is to say they talk fast but slur their words, and they clip all their hard consonants in what linguists call a glottal stop. Not to mention everyone has a distinctive nasal pitch. The people in Saugatuck are very friendly, which is good as it is a resort town, but if you’re planning on hanging around long, or even spending an afternoon at the Sand Bar Saloon or Phil’s, you get the feeling if you’re a Democrat or agnostic, you should probably keep your trap shut.
What did I like best about western Michigan? The opportunity to kick back. If you’re looking for a vacation where you can truly do nothing but lounge on a screened in porch with a book, hop a plane to Grand Rapids and then drive on to Saugatuck. While you’re there, hit the Uncommon Grounds coffee bar; that’s a great place to hang out.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
miami vice
just fyi
lol
View from the porch
By EVE MARX
My foray into Miami vice
It was time to get outta Dodge, so Mr. Sax and I headed for the Million Dollar Sandbar, aka Miami Beach. Our impetus was a friend's birthday bash, but as there were there were nearly 69 extra hours to account for, we intended to get our money's worth.
Throwing down our bags down at the South Beach Marriott, we hit Ocean Drive for lunch. All the hostesses were half naked and imploring you to partake of the $9.99 prix fixed food and Happy Hour. We settled on Medi where I had buffalo wings and a mojito, served, I swear, in a bathtub.
Having been up since the crack of dawn, we snoozed by the pool, 3 pools, actually, one salt water. An annoying woman with a braying Long Island accent kept me from my book, “Riders,” by Jilly Cooper, a sexy, thinly-disguised novel about the British show jumping circuit. Quite late by Bedford standards (9 p.m.), we dined at Nemo's on grouper and crab.
The next morning we were up and at 'em at the hotel's buffet breakfast. The view of the ocean was stunning but you had to wait in line to warm your croissant. Afterwards we set off for the open air Lincoln Mall. There's excellent shopping in Miami if you're into Tommy Bahama, Zara, Bebe and Armani A/X. Afterwards it was back to the pool, where Mr. Sax glowered at the piggy persons who hogged the deck chairs.
That evening was the birthday party. Our friend, who split from Manhattan, is living in a gorgeous 17 story high rise overlooking the bay. Two bedrooms, two baths, parquet wood floors, and under $113,000. If you can handle the heat, the humidity, the scorpions and the alligators, Miami is a bargain.
The next morning we visited the Starbucks annexed to our hotel and partook of the gratis grande cappuchinos awarded to us as guests. I struck up a conversation with a local fellow about Lady Gaga and how she's put Madonna to rest. At 8:30 a.m. the place was a neighborhood scene, everyone accompanied by their cute dogs, a Chinese Crested, a Bull terrier and some other adorable creatures. At that hour, the only other tourists were a handsome German couple and their adult, chain smoking son.
To change things up, we lunched in Fort Lauderdale with a friend who was raised in in Mt. Kisco but now lives in Boca. She brought her new boyfriend, a contractor, who chose the Quarterdeck, which serves lots of booze and a classic iceberg/blue cheese/ bacon salad and super steamed clams. Lauderdale is a beautiful beach, which remained enticing despite the fact 3 people had drowned in the surf over the weekend. I felt badly about ducking out on another old friend, but with the clock ticking, I wanted to get more tanning time in.
Minor disaster struck at the beach as Mr. Sax's cell phone fell into the Atlantic, possibly because he had just been rattled by the orgy of naked flesh at a club called Nikki Beach he insisted we reconnoiter. According to its website, www.nikkibeach.com, this place has been called by the London Observer, “The Sexiest Place on Earth”. People from all over the world were throwing back champagne cockatils, stretched out on triple wide chaise lounges and teepees canopied in white linen to make them look like beds. The place reeked of decadence. Nikki Beach clubs are in Saint-Tropez, St. Barth, the French West Indies, Marbella, Cabo San Lucas, and Marrakech. If I were 30 years younger and 15 pounds thinner, I might have lingered. My refusal crushed Mr. Sax.
Dozens of lesbians were pouring out of the Savoy Hotel that evening which struck me as hysterical as I had noticed a sign outside the hotel declaring it the meeting place of Chabad. Miami is not called the American Riviera for nothing as a real international flavor is going down. My ears were ringing with the jabberings of young French, Spaniards, and Italians as well as Aussies and Brits.
We never made it to Joe's Stone Crab, open since 1913, or DeVito, Danny DeVito's restaurant. At DeVito you can order flights of steak, and porcini trio and Japanese Kobe beef and Australian Wagyu. We failed to make a reservation. If you go to Miami, please do.
There are dozens of gay clubs, Latin clubs, and then the elite spots like Mansion, Set, and Cameo. Having not heard of a single headliner (although I saw that Sean Diddy Combes will be at Mansion Memorial Day ) I hoped my husband wasn't too mad when I declined his invitation to stay out dancing 'til dawn. Instead we had French toast and white sangria at the News Café, and spent our final evening observing enormous SUV's with blacked out windows cruising at 5 mph up the strip and ogling the gangsta glitter on revelers whose party was just starting. The Sunday night scene reminded me of the Butthole Surfers song, “Shame of Life,” where the lyrics go, “There were girls in the front and there were girls back and there was girls pettin' squirrels and there was squirrels smokin' crack with an old Navy Seal and the DEA, and the loaded automatic just to blow me all away.” It was mind blowing. A modern Sodom & Gomorrah. Was it fun? Yes. Would I go back? Not on a weekend. What part of it would I love to see in Katonah, the backwoods where I live? Starbucks.
lol
View from the porch
By EVE MARX
My foray into Miami vice
It was time to get outta Dodge, so Mr. Sax and I headed for the Million Dollar Sandbar, aka Miami Beach. Our impetus was a friend's birthday bash, but as there were there were nearly 69 extra hours to account for, we intended to get our money's worth.
Throwing down our bags down at the South Beach Marriott, we hit Ocean Drive for lunch. All the hostesses were half naked and imploring you to partake of the $9.99 prix fixed food and Happy Hour. We settled on Medi where I had buffalo wings and a mojito, served, I swear, in a bathtub.
Having been up since the crack of dawn, we snoozed by the pool, 3 pools, actually, one salt water. An annoying woman with a braying Long Island accent kept me from my book, “Riders,” by Jilly Cooper, a sexy, thinly-disguised novel about the British show jumping circuit. Quite late by Bedford standards (9 p.m.), we dined at Nemo's on grouper and crab.
The next morning we were up and at 'em at the hotel's buffet breakfast. The view of the ocean was stunning but you had to wait in line to warm your croissant. Afterwards we set off for the open air Lincoln Mall. There's excellent shopping in Miami if you're into Tommy Bahama, Zara, Bebe and Armani A/X. Afterwards it was back to the pool, where Mr. Sax glowered at the piggy persons who hogged the deck chairs.
That evening was the birthday party. Our friend, who split from Manhattan, is living in a gorgeous 17 story high rise overlooking the bay. Two bedrooms, two baths, parquet wood floors, and under $113,000. If you can handle the heat, the humidity, the scorpions and the alligators, Miami is a bargain.
The next morning we visited the Starbucks annexed to our hotel and partook of the gratis grande cappuchinos awarded to us as guests. I struck up a conversation with a local fellow about Lady Gaga and how she's put Madonna to rest. At 8:30 a.m. the place was a neighborhood scene, everyone accompanied by their cute dogs, a Chinese Crested, a Bull terrier and some other adorable creatures. At that hour, the only other tourists were a handsome German couple and their adult, chain smoking son.
To change things up, we lunched in Fort Lauderdale with a friend who was raised in in Mt. Kisco but now lives in Boca. She brought her new boyfriend, a contractor, who chose the Quarterdeck, which serves lots of booze and a classic iceberg/blue cheese/ bacon salad and super steamed clams. Lauderdale is a beautiful beach, which remained enticing despite the fact 3 people had drowned in the surf over the weekend. I felt badly about ducking out on another old friend, but with the clock ticking, I wanted to get more tanning time in.
Minor disaster struck at the beach as Mr. Sax's cell phone fell into the Atlantic, possibly because he had just been rattled by the orgy of naked flesh at a club called Nikki Beach he insisted we reconnoiter. According to its website, www.nikkibeach.com, this place has been called by the London Observer, “The Sexiest Place on Earth”. People from all over the world were throwing back champagne cockatils, stretched out on triple wide chaise lounges and teepees canopied in white linen to make them look like beds. The place reeked of decadence. Nikki Beach clubs are in Saint-Tropez, St. Barth, the French West Indies, Marbella, Cabo San Lucas, and Marrakech. If I were 30 years younger and 15 pounds thinner, I might have lingered. My refusal crushed Mr. Sax.
Dozens of lesbians were pouring out of the Savoy Hotel that evening which struck me as hysterical as I had noticed a sign outside the hotel declaring it the meeting place of Chabad. Miami is not called the American Riviera for nothing as a real international flavor is going down. My ears were ringing with the jabberings of young French, Spaniards, and Italians as well as Aussies and Brits.
We never made it to Joe's Stone Crab, open since 1913, or DeVito, Danny DeVito's restaurant. At DeVito you can order flights of steak, and porcini trio and Japanese Kobe beef and Australian Wagyu. We failed to make a reservation. If you go to Miami, please do.
There are dozens of gay clubs, Latin clubs, and then the elite spots like Mansion, Set, and Cameo. Having not heard of a single headliner (although I saw that Sean Diddy Combes will be at Mansion Memorial Day ) I hoped my husband wasn't too mad when I declined his invitation to stay out dancing 'til dawn. Instead we had French toast and white sangria at the News Café, and spent our final evening observing enormous SUV's with blacked out windows cruising at 5 mph up the strip and ogling the gangsta glitter on revelers whose party was just starting. The Sunday night scene reminded me of the Butthole Surfers song, “Shame of Life,” where the lyrics go, “There were girls in the front and there were girls back and there was girls pettin' squirrels and there was squirrels smokin' crack with an old Navy Seal and the DEA, and the loaded automatic just to blow me all away.” It was mind blowing. A modern Sodom & Gomorrah. Was it fun? Yes. Would I go back? Not on a weekend. What part of it would I love to see in Katonah, the backwoods where I live? Starbucks.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
patti smith is still a babe
Patti Smith, singer, writer and visual artist, former girlfriend of Robert Mapplethorpe and now the author of "Just Kids," a memoir about hipster life in New York City, circa 1969, is best remembered, looks-wise, for the skinny, wild haired, beak-nosed "man," really she looked like in contrast to Mapplethorpe's more femmy look. Of the two, Patti clearly was the guy even though she thought, they thought, they were a heterosexual couple. She was upset when for money Robert started turning tricks (the two were impossibly poor, living on air and probably potato chips) and then devastated when he told her he was gay. Although she went on to marry Fred Sonic Smith (also now dead) and had two children by him, Robert was the first and maybe biggest love of her life.
Now photographs of Patti as she looks today are circulating everywhere since her luscious new book came out. Close to 60 years old now, she is still skinny, still beak-nosed, and her hair -- which she wears in an unkempt, seemingly uncombed witchy 'do -- is as dry and scorched looking as ever. She's still wearing the same clothes, stricken her face of make up, and has done nothing whatsoever in the way of surgical procedures or applications of Botox or Restylene to cover up the lines on her neck and face. And yet she looks glorious. It's not that Patti hasn't been touched by time. She has. Possibly it has made her more beautiful than ever. Her visage and her bearing resemble every great female warrior who came before her: fearsome, powerful and haunted --and I mean that in the best possible way -- by ghosts from the past.
For every woman who never gave up their jeans, your cowboy boots, their untamed mane, Patti remains an aesthetic icon. She is still a babe.
Now photographs of Patti as she looks today are circulating everywhere since her luscious new book came out. Close to 60 years old now, she is still skinny, still beak-nosed, and her hair -- which she wears in an unkempt, seemingly uncombed witchy 'do -- is as dry and scorched looking as ever. She's still wearing the same clothes, stricken her face of make up, and has done nothing whatsoever in the way of surgical procedures or applications of Botox or Restylene to cover up the lines on her neck and face. And yet she looks glorious. It's not that Patti hasn't been touched by time. She has. Possibly it has made her more beautiful than ever. Her visage and her bearing resemble every great female warrior who came before her: fearsome, powerful and haunted --and I mean that in the best possible way -- by ghosts from the past.
For every woman who never gave up their jeans, your cowboy boots, their untamed mane, Patti remains an aesthetic icon. She is still a babe.
Monday, February 8, 2010
j.d. salinger
Now that J.D. Salinger’s is dead and gone, I suspect lots of people will be reading his works, possibly for the first time. Legions will be exposed to his iconic novel of tortured youth, “The Catcher in the Rye,” where the word “lousy,” appears dozens of times. As I was going through my books the other day, a Sisyphean task, I came across a nearly pristine copy of “Catcher,” printed by Bantam Books in 1965. I also discovered a 1961 hardback edition of “Franny & Zooey” published by Little, Brown, and a 1960 paperback copy of “Nine Stories,” printed by Signet. Somewhere in the house I think we have a copy of “Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, “ but not “Seymour: An Introduction.”
The sight of “Nine Stories,” set my heart aflutter as I remembered the collection contains my very favorite piece of Salinger’s minimal output, a strange, sad, pitch perfect story called “Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut.” The reason I’ve always liked the story so much is because it sums up every bogey man that ever frightened me about living in Connecticut.
A word about “Catcher.” I confess much as I appreciate Salinger’s skill in writing it, the story never seriously spoke to me. I just could not relate. I wasn’t a boy, I never went to boarding school, and as an only child, the poignancy of Holden Caulfield’s love for his sister Phoebe, the lone person in his life he doesn’t deem a phony, was an alien concept. It is true, though, as a youth, I did feel tortured. But anomie was never my problem, so whatever Holden Caulfield was going through, it didn’t speak to me.
“Uncle Wiggly,” was my kind of story. Everything takes place on a freezing weekday afternoon around 1946 when the war had just ended. Eloise is a young married woman with a young child who lives in an unnamed town in Connecticut. She’s invited her former college roommate (they both dropped out) Mary Jane to come for lunch as Mary Jane, who lives and works in the city, has to drive to Larchmont anyway on an errand for her boss. Mary Jane gets lost on the Merrit and doesn’t arrive until three. Lunch ruined, Eloise immediately starts fixing drinks and in no time the women are loaded.
Buzzed, they launch into a dissection of every girl they knew at school and who married who. Eloise married Lew who works in the city. Mary Jane was briefly wed to an aviation cadet from Dill, Mississippi ,who spent two of the three months Mary Jane was married to him in jail for stabbing a military officer. Mary Jane is doubled over with laughter by almost everything Eloise says. Eloise illustrates her stories by leaping off the sofa to demonstrate bumps and grinds. She gets caught up in a story about a former boyfriend, a soldier named Walt. She describes a night when they were running to catch a bus and Eloise fell and twisted her ankle. “He said ‘Poor Uncle Wiggly,” Eloise relates. “He meant my ankle. Poor old Uncle Wiggly he called it. God, he was nice.”
“Doesn’t Lew have a sense of humor?” Mary Jane asks. “Oh God! Who knows?” Eloise replies. “I guess so. He laughs at cartoons and stuff.” Just then Eloise’s odd looking, myopic daughter Ramona enters the room. Ramona is a loner who has an invisible friend named Jimmy Jimmereeno. Among Ramona’s most notable traits is a propensity for nose picking.
It’s getting dark and icing up, but the women proceed to get smashed. Eloise’s husband calls for a ride home from the station but she tells him to hitch a ride. Mary Jane frets about the advancing hour, but Eloise tells her to phone her boss to say she can’t make it. “Tell him you’re dead,” she says, twice. Mary Jane winds up passing out on the sofa and lonely Ramona, having been fed a solitary dinner in the kitchen by an invisible maid, puts herself to bed.
Critics have opined that the war is the theme of “Nine Stories,” a war in which Salinger fought. Talking about Walt, killed in the war, triggers an indescribable sadness in Eloise, who believed marriage to a good man and motherhood and a Colonial in Connecticut would be the charms she would need to ward off chaos.
So much has been made about Salinger’s obsession with phonies. In a nutshell, he hated them. And yet the three female characters who appear in “Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut,” aren’t phonies at all. Scarily, they are very real, as real as you and me.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
my mother in law has died
My mother in law, Marjorie Marx, has died. She had pancreatic cancer which, despite dire predictions that once diagnosed, she had only months to live, instead lasted nearly three more years before the disease finally got her. Even so, it took her a long time to die, nearly three weeks, which was, for my husband, her son, an unbelievable experience.
My mother in law lived in California and she died at her boyfriend's home. Home death, said a friend who is a physician, is over rated. I get that. The nursing of the dying person at home is never very pretty. It's upsetting. It's smelly. It's not at all the way dying is in the movies. And yet, my husband said in one of his many call-in reports to me back east here at home, 'I'm not bored,' a comment i found very interesting. Trust me, he's easily bored. And yet as he watched over her, fetched her the very few and simple things that for a time she could eat or drink, helped to the bathroom when she could still get up to use it, and then helped her on to the bedside commode and later, twice before i could convince him it was time to get a home health aide in to do that duty, changed her diaper, he wasn't bored. He put her on the phone with me once when she could still handle that kind of communication and she told me she knew she just had one more thing she had to do but she couldn't remember what it was but she was trying.
At the end, it turned out that he had to fly back to New York when she was still living. Barely, but still there. I wondered if his leaving wouldn't trigger her release. It occurred to me that even only semi conscious that she didn't want him to see her dead. So back he flew and within 48 hours she was gone, forever.
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