New York Vignettes

July 2025

Miscellany

“Closed Blinds” by Frederick Carl Frieseke (1924). Source: WikiArt.

• Rat O’Meter: There’s a new boy on the block: he’s living inside the engine of a Mercedes X5, he’s the size of a platypus, and he nearly ran over my foot last Tuesday morning. I have named him Rupert Murdoch.

• I am weathering (lol) the heat wave by soaking face towels in water and tea tree oil and putting them in the fridge; this makes you feel like an earth mother at one with nature for about five minutes and then you have to stand in front of the air conditioner in your underwear and compose nasty responses to those Con Edison emails that tell you if you don’t run your dishwasher at night, this next brownout is on YOU.

• Overheard at Barry’s Bootcamp: “Yeah, one of my patients is on the board and can get me in. I just have to get her pregnant first.”

• I have it from a reliable source - a rich lady who lives in my building - that the Hamptons are over. She’s “sick of this bullshit” and will be spending summer in LA. Do with this what you will!

  Recent Excursions

• Cannabis Dispensary: Finding weed used to feel like something other people were born knowing how to do, but now there are all these BRANDS and they have to lure you in with nice packaging and promises just like anything else, just like a new Doritos flavor, and that puts me on much firmer footing - I know how to shop! The Google map of my neighborhood is a veritable rabbit warren of weed dispensaries, so I picked one that I thought looked classy and subtle. What you need to know is that everyone working there, including the guy checking IDs at the door and the guy giving out sample edibles at his little table, was wearing a starched white lab coat, like they were Doing Science. This helped me get over the nervous naiveté which marks me out as Not A Weed Person, and I boldly barreled up to the counter and announced to the be-robed cool kids that I am but a lightweight with insomnia. All the expertise implied by those lab coats was WASTED (zing!) on me: they were so ready to sell me a party and all I ever want is to go to bed.

• The Frick Collection: But before testing my new sedatives, I decided to go to the Frick to look at the paintings of Venice without Jeff Bezos in them. One of the nicest places in the city right now is the newly renovated Frick Collection. It’s crowded, but everyone who visits is just thrilled to be there. I heard a woman say “oh, it’s Thomas More!” with greater delight than anyone ever did when he was alive. There are lines outside in all weathers. A block away, there are lines for Ralph’s Coffee, because some people prefer to live lives of mediocrity, but we do not need to dwell on that. I put on my “Gallery Outfit,” which was inspired by Anastasia Krupnik’s “Poetry Outfit” in the first Anastasia book. The most important thing about a gallery outfit is what it isn’t: you have no room for discomfort when gazing at paintings, especially in New York City which is, by default, incredibly uncomfortable. Nothing tight or itchy, and above all, flat shoes. That said, there must be glamour to your gallery outfit. I like to wear a vintage Morgan le Fay satin slip dress with a merino wool J.Crew cardigan and black ballet flats from The Row, Celine sunglasses in case I need the art to be darker or to signal my disapproval, and this fabulous necklace from the Met Store that opens into a loupe (it’s very useful for looking at the more ornate Byzantine objects at the Met). But this has led me to thinking about particularity in outfits and I want to hear about yours: what is your most location-specific sartorial choice?

• Overheard at the Frick: “You know, my Uber rating is terrible because of Paris.”

• SponCon Update: Project Doritos entered a new phase this week (I took a selfie with a Doritos truck - call me, guys!)