Paying for my breakfast at the counter I noticed another customer, reading the paper intently, with his finger (forgive me) driven up his own nostril. It was gone to the first knuckle, earnestly swiveling. He drew it out and inspected it. Roll & flick. Turned a page slowly, thoughtfully, and stuck the same finger back up his nose.
Over breakfast I’d been reading how creative writing students in Australia are beginning to outnumber students of literature. At the next-door table a woman with a piercing whine kept up such a torrent of words that her companion was reduced to what Dale Spender brilliantly called housekeeping — quite often performed by women, for men — “Uh-huh, oh. Really? Gosh, that sounds quite, um…” Self-absorption as a performance art. Picking up a small stack of paper napkins I went over to the forensic investigator and set them down on top of his paper. “Excuse me. Can I offer you a… tissue?” The look he gave me lacked shame, regret, or consciousness: it was of pure surprise.
Tag: vintage
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skulldiggery
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hipsterest, like Everest
Call off the search! I think I may have found the world’s heppest hipster. All those people complaining that they’re not one can relax: this guy blows you out of the water. He is tiny and slight – built like Prince – and perched on his front steps in a crowded cafe street, wearing skinny black jeans, elfin boots, and a cunningly off-the-shoulder stripey sailor’s jumper. He caught my eye because his elbow was pointed above his head at a most uncomfortable angle – like an alerted bunny’s ear – as he gave himself a beard trim, slowly, searchingly, luxuriously, into a bevelled mirror on his lap, using a large pair of silver antique dressmaker’s shears.
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gaga for vintage
Today I found a vintage store which glowed like a lit jewel box. Tried on this swishy 1960s poolside gown and just as I was leaving, with it wrapped under my arm, an intricately worked savagely pelted weskit of some ancient skin seemed to wiggle itself in the window at me. It was hairy. It was red that had faded to pink and indescribably beautiful. I took my coat off again and unwound my scarf. “You can tell people you bought it in the store in Copenhagen where Lady Gaga shops,” said the elegant girl. “Really?” I said, “Lady Gaga was in Copenhagen?” She said, “She made us close the store because there were too many fans. After that we kept seeing our outfits turn up on stages right across Europe.”
I told her the story of a cute guy who worked at the swanky local grocer’s in Melbourne, how I burst in there one day saying Guess what! Yoko Ono is following me on Twitter! And he said, unimpressed, “Lady Gaga’s following me.” I checked it out and it is true. He has ten followers and her blue-ticked official account is one. He is incredibly good-looking and perhaps he caught her eye. Because beauty is like royalty: one in the eye for the beholder, or beer-holder, depending on circumstance.
