For the last three years women's spring fashions in Auld Manhattoe have been coordinated to a fever pitch, soaked with bouquets of color -- lime green, pale pink and hot pink, salmon, lemon yellow, peach, glorious violet, sea wave blue, masses of orange, with every accessory in matching colors, shoes, bags, jewelry, belts. Before that it was mandatory black and white for the hip New York scene. My secret theory was that 9/11 made women so scared they tried to look like flowers so no one would want to blow them up. Ok, stupid theory, but it's all I had!
This spring something has gone terribly awry. Oh there are still the fashionistas, no worry there. But lately I have seen the strangest combinations, beyond nerd chic, beyond, well anything I have seen before in the style capitol of America. Weird ill-fitting calf length slacks with black fishnet stockings and pumps, chicks with short hair put up in bizarre antenna-like pigtails, one deranged woman wearing a blue oxford shirt covered with a ruffled yellow sweater vest with capped shoulders, lots of browns and muddy plaids, I don't know what is going on!
And what does this have to do with the first new moon of spring? Nothing, not one thing. It was what came to mind, that's all.
New moon. Empty, I'm a gone kitty, secret angers and cryptic fears, layers putting Salome to shame, no Sheherezade stories to amuse the Sultan, bereft of wit, raw karma rushing.
Step out of Seventh Ave. Deli in cold sunny morning armed with brown bagged bagel and I see a gaggle of girls milling around in front of pizza joint that serves bacon and eggs in the a.m., they're all wearing muddy green athletic suits, long pants and windbreakers. I see writing on the back of a jacket, do a double-take, look again, it reads "Suburban-ette Twirlers"!
For a wild moment I envision the whole group breaking into mad Sufi whirling dervish rotations, Friday morning midtown scene indeed!
Then I realize, oh, today is St. Patrick's Day -- it's batons and pom-pons, big parade glory for these girlies, it's gonna be crowds seen during lunch hour wearing glittery green bowlers and shamrock topped antenna headbands, the big march just an avenue away.
I invest the full moon with magical properties! It glows so, I can see it out my tall window, Different from sliver cateye of waning and waxing. Big round orb shining high in the sky, It will make all my wishes come true, I will have adventures and spontaneous happenings, Jewels will fall right into my lap from out of nowhere, Love will hit me right between the eyes, I shall travel to Paris, Win the Lotto, Oh moon. Oh moon.
Fresh air of Midtown! Cool seastruck isle of Manhattoe breezes streaming as I emerge from subway on 50th Street and Fifth Avenue, makes me so dizzy I end up walking the wrong way at edge of Central Park to Sixth Avenue, dodging the trillion tourists snapping pictures in front of fancy scenes, curse and retrace my steps, walking down Fifth Avenue to 50th Street. The high-tone shops are all in full spring regalia, Pucci with psychadelic swirls of blue and violet and white, Ferragamo with ebony headless mannequins dressed in black and white, gleaming bronze Trump Towers resplendant with doormen, Cartier with overcoated security guard casually standing by the door, protecting jewels, big monolith of St. Patrick's Church dappled in early afternoon sunlight, a trio of teens pass by, one boy laughs and chases a pigeon up the steps of the cathedral, wings flapping wildly, headed to grace.
And woman says she needs her man, that's the blues. When she don't have the man, the blues come, say it twice, then sum it up, say it twice with a little lick line, building the blues. Jack wrote Mexico City Blues but he didn't use two line/one line negro wail, just put it in his pocket notebook, bars, riffs and rags, he did the blues in beat.
Yeah, it's all love and the mad life. Heard hearted blues I wail, call of heartbone beat muffled with chains and groans, broken step backward into vanity head bangs, fearful frights closing doors with creaks and screees, hard heart I'd break with a stick or wrecking ball if I could but oh, it's all love and the mad life.
