La Classe Loves R-Fed

If La Classe were a country, then its national sport would be tennis, and its official religion would be Roger Federer (minor deities include Tony Danza and cheese).  R-Fed is hot, talented and has a great sense of humor.  He also speaks four languages, which simply puts La Classe to shame (official languages: English/Ben's pidgin French).  

But the biggest reason we love Roger Federer is the love he has for his wife, Mirka Vavrinec. 

Oh, La Classe.  What an evil axis of power you would be.  

"We live not according to reason, but according to fashion."

Or so said the Roman philosopher Seneca in the mid-first century.  If true, then it's worth checking out the Richard Avedon exhibition at the International Center of Photography, which runs until September 6th.  Avedon revolutionized fashion photography, transforming it into an art form.  Often, his compositions are so orchestrated and original that they seem entirely spontaneous, making you forget that these were shot for a magazine (usually Vogue or Harper's Bazaar) and not fortuitous moments caught by a photographer roaming the streets of Paris.  The clothes are beautiful, the women wearing them are beautiful, and Avedon captures and enhances both beautifully.  The old black and white stuff is the best, but Avedon worked right up until his final moments in 2004 (he photographed Obama soon before he died), so there's some modern color stuff too - featuring Gisele no less.  The ICP also has a great café, assuming the highly incompetent Russian woman isn't manning the counter, because homegirl - or should I say, дом женщина? - WILL  charge you three times for one café latte and forget to make it every time you coax her gently towards the machine.

But seriously, it's a great show and worth going above 14th street, (or below 59th as the case may be... Sass).  And though Seneca would have no idea what was going on, I needed an engaging intro. 

Tennesse Williams is my hero

Okay, so he's best known for writing plays (he got a Pulitzer for A Streetcar Named Desire), but Tennessee Williams (né Thomas Lanier Williams) was an incredible poet.  You should really read as many of his poems as possible, but for now, a taste:   

THE SIEGE

I build a tottering pillar of my blood

to walk it upright on the tilting street. 

The stuff is liquid, it would flow downhill

so very quickly if the hill were steep.

How perilously do these fountains leap

whose reckless voyager along am I!

In mother darkness, Lord, I pray Thee keep

these springs a single touch of sun could dry.

It is the instant froth that globes the world,

an image gushing in a crimson stream.

But let the crystal break and there would be

the timeless quality but not the dream.

Sometimes I feel the island of myself

a silver mercury that slips and runs,

revolving frantic mirrors in itself

beneath the pressure of a million thumbs.

Then I must that night go in search of one

unknown before but recognized on sight

whose touch, expedient or miracle,

stays panic in me and arrests my flight.

Before day breaks I follow back the street,

companioned, to a rocking space above.

Now do my veins in crimson cabins keep

the wild and witless passengers of love.

All is not lost, they say, all is not lost,

but with the startling knowledge of the blind

their fingers flinch to feel such flimsy walls

against the siege of all that is not I!

I'm back, and I took a hit of that kool-aid

Today was a good day. I met up with a friend of mine and Sass in Sheep's Meadow* in Central Park (*Sheep's  Meadow is not to be confused with The Great Lawn, which isn't actually that much bigger than the Sheep Meadow, which is maybe where the confusion stemmed from, which is to say that I did indeed confuse the two, which resulted in Sass getting a little touchy with me on the phone when she realized that I had led her astray "20 blocks!" by having told her that I was hanging with Eric on the Great Lawn when really Eric and I were luxuriating on the smaller, much more pedestrian and much less Great, Sheep's Meadow, which is, IMHO, equally as Great and perhaps much less pedestrian as it doesn't have softball fields on it, with children eating sand in the softball fields.) 

So after Eric and I graciously decided we would walk to the bigger lawn (more like 10 blocks, incidentally), we found Sass on the boogie blanket next to a softball field and sat down for what was to be an epic hour of shooting the shit. We talked about crazy aunts and Anthony Bordain, watched some babies eat cigarette butts, saw some judo nerds doing showy judo jumps, and had our hearts broken as we witnessed some kid get his little toy plane caught in a tree. Forever. Despite what his Dad was telling him. 

But more than anything, we basked - In the city, in our unemployment and in our utter lack of responsibility.  

Well, Eric actually has a job. He was also the only one of us to get a sunburn.