I am startled upon waking first thing this morning. Expecting Autumn rain, instead, I am greeted by swirling white flakes blowing and wailing; disembodied spirits spinning in the cross currents. As the day progresses, the cold, dankness settles into its chill and unease that gives me an eerie feeling I can not shake. Weather like this is unnatural, prescient of bad things to come. Snow before the green leaves fall does not harken a return to the natural order of things: the green canopy turning scarlet fading to nut-brown, just in time for Thanksgiving. Detached leaves drifting and gathered in corners, against walls, cracking underfoot.  All seems lost today. Yeti, a most unwelcome guest– our bewildering bugaboo– opens the creaking crypt door to admit Mr. Cold Miser and his friends the goblins and ghouls of Nevermore.

Late this afternoon, bundled up and trudging down my block, I see shivering, hunched-over men deliberately shoveling the dirty slush off the cement walks; snow, the bleached color of rotting bones.  

The gloaming has faded: I am now settled back in my apartment.  It is very dark outside, a cozy a candle lit against the black, sightless window pane. My powered on laptop offers the comfort of normalcy. I have no plans tonight.  Feeling somewhat restless, in need of good company–and in a spooky mood, I send an invitation to my friends to join me later at The Ear Inn (also known to old-timers as The Green Door), the oldest working bar in New York City… and one that is notoriously haunted.  Built in 1817 by tobacco trader James Brown (not the soul singer), it is a Federal Era townhouse, rational, elegant and intimate. According to legend, “Ghosts have been seen and heard within, particularly, “Mickey” a sailor still waiting for his Clipper ship to come in.” What better way to end an odd, claustrophobic and unsettling day, in a haunted bar swilling strong spirits with a dash of bitters?  The Ear Inn is well-named for an establishment that provides safe harbor to the dead. Remember what I advised–the only skills you need to see the departed in this city are the ability to listen and see beyond the concrete. Three hours to go before I make my way out into the night, I wonder what awaits on the other side.  Hmm, let’s see what comes up online if I Google…”signs of the paranormal…”

 Porn Queens, a deluded angry actor and one vitriolic French fashion designer seems to have stolen the scene this past week with their mad, incomprehensible rants all captured on video for the world to view, replay, pontificate and dissect.

After lamenting the hobbling of the House of Dior and watching the self-immolation of a brilliant but troubled haute-couture fashion designer I yearn for respite far, far away; somewhere resort-y and tropical.  A fabled destination where fluffy towels are poolside, staff is helpful & kind—bearing frozen drinks— guests are engaging, wry and humorous. After a long dreary winter for many, let’s whisk to a sanctuary where the tender breeze is jasmine-scented and a sea grape lined shore kisses a sparkling azure sea. The Cool Customer

“When Eugenia Sheppard made the observation in her Herald Tribune column several weeks ago that she was bored with Pucci prints, the international repercussions must have been staggering. I for one can report that Jamaica’s elegant Round Hill Hotel and cottage colony, the guests who had been wearing them as a sort of school uniform were in a mild state of shock.  That simple statement had automatically made half their wardrobes obsolete and deprived them of a visual passport to each other (the assumption had been that any unknown woman who appeared with a poodle or Pucci couldn’t be all bad.)  But instead of throwing themselves off the side of the raft, they bravely rallied and did some strategic on-the-spot shopping—which can’t be considered a total hardship.  Right at Round Hill, which John and Liz Pringle run like a small self-sustaining principality, Polly Hornberg’s Calypso Shop has a collection of island-made shorts, slacks, beach and dinner dresses, a lot of them in riotous cotton prints, that can hold their own in any resort the world over.  The prices aren’t piccolini,as we say around the Uffizi, but then neither are Pucci’s.

In nearby Montego Bay, besides the smart specialty shops that cluster around the base of the leading beach-front hotels, Dorothy McNab’s waterfront emporium does a brisk over-the-counter trade and an even brisker custom order business.  Her collection of silks and saris represents an investment of time and taste in addition to hard cash, and her inner sanctum boutique is geared to turning out quite sumptuous gowns, expertly fitted in three-days time. One salmon-silk dinner dress with a bodice beaded in tiny, salmon-colored seashells can be made to measure at about $150.  (The beading is done in advance by the local talent.)  Dorothy McNab, (sister of New York decorator, Rose Cummings, possibly the first woman to wear truly blue hair into the bright light of day) is also backing patio pajamas (which look divine on Liz Pringle as, indeed anything would) for gala evenings, and party dirndl skirts, either knee or ankle length, made of bright silk and satin patchwork at about $100.  Dorothy McNab’s goodies are also available at her second shop in Ocho Rios, and a few, I hear, at Neiman-Marcus.  By way of incidentals, the mad straw hats can still be had at early morning market, but I suspect even the natives are beginning to find them tiresome.  And hand-culled seashells can be bought from little boys at little stands along the sea roads.  The souvenir sleeper of the year, however, turns out to be Benjamin’s Eau de Cologne, a deliciously spicy scent in an un-promotional  bottle, that sells at about 74 cents. I was introduced to it by Ralph Strain whose piano playing jollies up the Round Hill bar each night and whose record on Roulette label will be out any week. Jamaica’s Little Season, beginning at Easter, is now in full swing.”–Geri Trotta
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The tinkling of shell beaded bodices, swish of silk saris, spicy scents perfuming the air and the elegance of patio pajamas (lost in the fashion annals of time) remind us of the essential need to relax (in style of course), unplug and take a break now and again.  Even if you can’t travel to glamorous Round Hill Hotel and Villas in Montego Bay, you can click off the TV, shut out the din and cacophony, put some calypso on the turn-table and break out the blender, ice, fruit and rum. Go ahead, take that day. You deserve it!

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And now a bit about the play. Irma La Douce, based on a a book by Alexandre Breffort, made its 1956 world premiere in Paris, opening in London’s West End in 1958 and finally on Broadway in 1960 at The Plymouth Theatre.

Billed as a new musical comedy it was produced by David Merrick and had its Broadway premier on September 29, 1960, where it ran for 524 performances. The production, starring Elizabeth Seal, winning a Tony in the lead, was directed by Peter Brook. Repeating their roles from the London production were Keith Michell, Elizabeth Seal, and Clive Revill in the leads. Stuart Damon and Fred Gwynne also were featured and actor Eliot Gould was cast in the production as An Usher. The story was made into a non-musical film in 1963 (Irma la Douce), starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine.

Life Magazine called the musical “a French fairy tale for wicked grown-ups who want to believe in love.”

““Irma La Douce” is not only French; it is intensely Parisian French.  Set in an area tourists seek, but so seldom find, its musical idiom, its moral atmosphere, its plot and its argot are part of Paris not even all Parisians know; a part of Paris where the underworld is known as the “milieu” A tart is a “poule,” a pimp is a “mec” and money is “grisbi.”

 Irma La Douce, a successful prostitute, lives in Paris. A poor law student, Nestor le Fripé, falls in love with her and is jealous of her clients. In order to keep her for himself, he assumes the disguise of a rich older man, “Oscar”, and takes many jobs to keep his veneer. Finally no longer able to sustain his exhausting life, he “kills” Oscar, is convicted of murder, and is transported to the Devil’s Island penal colony. He escapes and returns to Paris, and proves that he is innocent. He and Irma reunite and love triumphs.

You may not know these surprising facts about unassuming and multi-talented actor Fred Gwynne, who gained fame both for his distinctive baritone voice and for the role of Herman Munster in the sixties sit-com The Munsters.  He attended the Groton School and Harvard University, where he was a cartoonist for the Harvard Lampoon, beginning his theatre career at the Brattle Repertory in Cambridge while in school.  Acting in films and plays after graduation, he joined New York ad agency J. Walter Thompson for five years, and wrote copy for Ford Motor Company while appearing in numerous television shows on the side.  He left the agency in 1952, the year he made his Broadway debut in “Mrs. McThing,” also appearing opposite the indefatigable Betty White in “Who Was That Lady I Saw You With?”  In addition to his acting career, Gwynne sang professionally, painted, wrote and illustrated numerous children’s books and lent his voice talents to commercials and radio shows. Apparently, in addition to lovable Herman Munster, Mr. Gwynne was a certified M-Ad man. Later in his career, he auditioned for TV show Punky Brewster. He withdrew his audition, however, when the auditioner referred to him as Herman Munster and not his professional name. His last film in 1992, “My Cousin Vinny,” was a huge box office hit. He passed away in 1993 and is buried in an unmarked grave.
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This week’s tropical cocktail is a true classic, The Daiquiri, which countless suburbanites enjoyed patio and pool-side in the backyard. 

Classic Frozen Daiquiri

The Daiquiri was conceived in 1915, when two engineers from Bethlehem Steel found themselves in the midst of a malaria epidemic in the village of Daiquiri, near Santiago, Cuba .  They began putting a little rum in their boiled drinking water as a disinfectant.  That brew lacked flavor, so they added a bit of lime, then a touch of sugar.  When possible, they added ice made from distilled water and soon found the concoction pleasurable as well as medicinal. A true elixer!

A regular Daiquiri is made by combining one and a half shots (3 oz.) of light rum, a shot of lime juice and a teaspoon of super-fine sugar in an ice-filled shaker.  Shake, and strain into a cocktail glass, garnish with a wedge of lime.  Frozen Daiquiris are made by combining the ingredients of a Daiquiri with a cup of crushed ice in a blender, with fresh fruit often added for even more flavor. Garnish with a lime wedge and enjoy. Until we meet again!

What is a cocktail?  It is style on a stem—American fashion designer, Valentina

Harry Belefonte-I Do Adore Her

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQ8jv_asOxA&feature=related

Round Hill Hotel and Villas, Montego Bay Jamaica

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppJ4VJ2QfFs

Zsa Zsa Gabor Forty Carats 1970 Playbill

Cougars, (the sexy mature female, and not the purring feline) you might think, are an invention of the new millennium. Not true dear reader.  In fact, sizzling, subversive romances between vital young men and women-of- a- certain-age (40 plus– for many “the age of reason”) have long been a source of literature, both farce and tragedy. Rarely, if ever, do these liaisons result in a happily-ever-after coupling on page, stage or screen.  Even Sex and the City’s voraciously determined Samantha ends her relationship with Smith, her thirty-something lover, to once again redefine herself and pursue her own path, at age 50.

This week while thumbing through my vintage playbill collection, I came across one from 1970 for Broadway play Forty Carats, which ran for 780 performances at the Morosco Theatre. Adapted from a French comedy and written by Jay Allen, it opened in 1968 with a cast starring Julie Harris. Two seasons later, stunning Hungarian actress Zsa Zsa Gabor followed Harris in her debut Broadway role playing lead Anna Sandy. She won the 1970 Tony for her performance. The comedy revolves around a 40-year old American divorcee who is assisted by a 22-year-old when her car breaks down during a vacation in Greece.  Their romantic encounter turns potentially serious, when he turns up on her New York City doorstep– to take her 17-year-old daughter on a date!  Sandy’s Mother, ex-husband and a lecherous real estate client adds to the ensemble making for a comedy that became a popular vehicle with the cougar-set.

The 1970s was an age of shifting American mores and a loosening of social restrictions. It was the “ME” generation (EST –now rebranded The Forum, self-enlightenment philosophy, sexual revolution and women’s lib took hold), that was framed by a counter-culture psychedelia that opened the door to pop art, punk and disco. While this sense of personal freedom and expression created transformation on all levels, it also harkened in darker elements of social unrest and a decay in common civility.  I find it interesting that this week’s guest fashion editor Bernice Peck observes the same in her column On a personal bias entitled “Bergdorf Goodman loves me.”

Reflecting the casual social order in mode and dress were her fashion picks of ribbed turtleneck sweaters in a dozen colors of cashmere-and courtelle, worn with a perfectly cut skinny midi skirt in fake snake (the big thing for the fall).  For the young man in your life: a great shaped midi raincoat, martingale back and inverted pleat right to the shoulderblades, black or navy gaberdine.  Pure wool Irish knits with clever cable details.  To top you off; The Miss Bergdorf Fur Boutique has a rich-hippie vest in blurry natural lamb fur, all trimmed with suede fringe (groovilicious!)…

 

Bernice Peck On a personal bias, Bergdorf Goodman loves me

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“Bergdorf Goodman Loves Me”                   

On a personal bias by Bernice Peck

“If you shop without encountering the put-down, congratulations.  But half the women I know are rapping about the rise of rudeness in the stores.  As for me, my spirit was broken long ago, snubbed by some of the cheesiest sales Ladies in town.

I have waited (evidently invisible) while two of them finished a leisurely chat about pot roast or the skin flick at the Bijou.  I have had my fashion sense evaluated by a real frump—“We got no call for that type of thing,” she intones.  At tomorrow’s sales meeting the buyer will tell her it’s the next dish on the fashion menu.  Another sweet snub is “Not in your size,” which is a twelve, delivered with aplomb by a lardy size 40.  Deflating, isn’t it?

All of which finds me going more and more to Bergdorf Goodman, I don’t need to be fawned on, but I do enjoy their graceful, natural courtesy—plus what certainly appears to be an honest interest in my needs.  In a store that probably has the most millionaires on its billing list, this is simply standard customer-attitude as laid down by Andrew Goodman, the boss.  Anyway, it makes me feel good, makes whatever I buy seem a proper bargain—and who’s averse to that?  Just what is a bargain anyway?  To me: getting more for the same money.  I find this true at Bergdorf’s where it constitutes more chic, fashion, elegance, class, exclusiveness in designs and much more personal service.  This goes all the way down the line.  All in all, especially when my stocks and spirits are down, the best place for me is Bergdorf’s where, whatever I spend, the boss won’t let anyone patronize me.”

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Many would say that lack of consideration still defines our culture.  And rudeness and violence continues to exacerbate unchecked. I do however; see the start of something different.  This week’s turn of events in Libya reinforce the fact that cult-of-personality leadership is finished in the 21c.  It won’t stand the test of social networking and 24/7 news media. The undercurrent rippling throughout our connected globe is saying, “enough is enough.” We can only hope that what results from this techno convergence and street-level reaction, is a democratic outcome for the people.  Civil discourse, dignified respect–or lack thereof– is foremost on people’s minds. My friend Susan DiStaulo and I were shopping at New York’s Bergdorf Goodman recently–well, mostly looking at their fine accessories rather than purchasing.  We agreed that this was the best department store in the city, the most beautifully merchandised and pleasant with great customer service.  I am sure that Ms. Peck would be gratified to know that her observations echo true some forty-years forward, but equally as dismayed to understand that this level of service is still valued as unusual and rare. I leave you with these little known facts about the glamorous and sophisticated Zsa Zsa Gabor, who at her debut in Forty Carats had already starred in more than thirty films and made three hundred television appearances.  She spoke six languages, was the chairman of her own cosmetics company and was educated in Vienna, Luzanne and Turkey.  An accomplished sportswoman she was the Junior Ping-Pong champion of Hungary, also adept at fencing, swimming and tennis, and at the time was one of the few women in the world to play polo.  She won the title of Miss Hungary at the age of 15.

To all the independent ladies, in the spirit of Anna Sandy and Zsa Zsa Gabor, drip on your grandmother’s largest jewels, grab your favorite faux fur and head out with your other single lady friends on a trip downtown or to a Greek island…you never know what new adventure awaits unless you take the initiative and leave the comforts of your cougar den! Until we meet again…

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The Salty Dog Cocktail

This week I share a Vodka cocktail creation of the 1970s “Me” generation celebrating both Zsa Zsa’s Eastern European roots and her 1970 Tony Award-winning performance in Forty Carats. Wishing Ms. Gabor a very happy recent 95th birthday. And to celebrate those qualities that remain untarnished with undeniable staying power…in her prime, she was beautiful, independent and accomplished—often forgotten in those dim memories of her too-frequent appearances on Merv Griffin and The Tonight Show. So go ahead, mix up a tangy, briny Salty Dog and Egészségedre! (Hungarian for Cheers!)

The Salty Dog: The Vodka-based Screwdriver of the fifties became the Greyhound of the seventies when grapefruit juice was substituted for orange juice. Rim the glass with either plain or lime rock salt for a twist to make the Greyhound a Salty Dog. Over ice in a tall glass rimmed with salt, combine grapefruit or pink grapefruit juice and a shot and a half of your favorite vodka.

“Vodka is the only drink.” Diana Vreeland

PS: Calling all fashion independents in Phoenix, Arizona! Please don’t miss just opened, “Fashion Independent: The Original Style of Ann Bonfoey Taylor” at Phoenix Art Museum. Mentioned in Vogue and The New York Times, this is the first major fashion exhibition in over ten years and is a must see. For more info: www.arizonacostumeinstitute or www.phxart.org

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8z1EzDouNs

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PET3dfETR4I

Harmay dress

Arnold Scaasi, The Butterfly Dress

Who in the world is Nellie Forbush?  She was the naive nurse in Rodgers & Hammerstein‘s smash hit South Pacific that premiered in 1949 and won a Pulitzer in 1950.  Ensign Nellie is hickish, wide-eyed and in love with a middle-aged French plantation owner whom she meets on active duty while in the South Pacific.  The original “Cockeyed Optimist” she is sure that things will work out and love will endure. So it seems somewhat ironic and prescient that while thumbing through my sizable collection of vintage Broadway Playbills today, she spilled across my desk.

I think  Nells is the perfect heroine for three weeks gone mad, where the cradle of civilization has had a meltdown, beloved TV anchors were brutalized and beaten and otherwise stable citizens from mid-western towns and cities showed up well-organized at their capitols and town halls, pitch forks in hand to skewer their representatives, accused of visciously cutting and slashing funding for everything from organ transplants to street sweepers.

I feel (and you may agree) that it is about time to hold up one perfectly shod kidskin gloved hand, step forward with our silk stockinged, stiletto-ed left legs and shout in a fierce lady-like tone, “Stop The Madness!”  It would seem that we all need “a little touch of REVOLT”!

My favorite fashion accessory these past three years has been my Ray Ban cat-eyed rose-colored glasses–perched oh so delicately on my freckled powdered nose. So I will share with you in this post an article entitled, “a little touch of REVOLT” from Playbill on October 6, 1958  by fashion writer Barbara Blake, with illustrations from Pauline Trigere, Arnold Scaasi and a long-gone label, Harmay–lost in the fashion annals of time…an era when the country reached a zenith of conservatism and prosperity.  M-Ad men ruled Madison Avenue. Cocktail and country club culture reigned supreme.  Levitt homes were the aspirational dwelling of choice. Big finned Caddy’s from Detroit were referred to as “Motoring Majesty.”  Marcella Borghese advertisements stated, “For the woman who selects her cosmetics like precious jewels…” A time before faded, baggy yoga pants, wife beater tees, baseball caps and microwavable dinners.  When the end of the day meant dinner together, Chet Baker on the turn table, Ed Sullivan on the black and white tube, twilight hours to announce the end of a work day,  brocade plumed slippers, floating negligees and hand mixed classic cocktails….perhaps a world that didn’t really exist in such retro-perfection, but one in which my mind’s eye, I aspire to now…don’t you?

Then, follow me, over to my well-appointed home bar and let me stir up your favorite mocktail or cocktail, for it’s the twilight hour…
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“Call us Nellie Forbush if we don’t see waistlines–yes, and hemlines, too–edging back to what was a happy norm in this country for seasons on end! The waistlines, often nipping big, full skirts, already are present (see in sketches here, where American fashion leaders are heading). And, regarding hems, we’re willing to stick our little necks out with the prophesy that doom is looming for the short-short skirt.

For the latter revolt in the bud, we’re inclined to give less credit to Paris, where the house of Dior is leading a drop-the-hem movement, than to the dismal discovery that, even in America, legs are simply not what they used to be in the days when Dancing Daughters charlestoned their heads off every night, and lucious stems–perhaps for that very reason–were a dime a dozen.  Already the smartest women we know (and we’re talking about “mother-wit” as much as fashion-sense) are letting down, just a little, hems that were raised to knee-height only a short while ago.  What a year it’s been for the little tailor around the corner!

All right, we’ve been accused, before this, of cockeyed optimism.  But remember the chemise? And how we said, “Don’t look, and it will go away’?

–Barbara Blake
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Perhaps we can all take Barbara’s and Nellie’s forward-looking perspective my dear friends and lend a little cockeyed optimism in the midst of caterwaulling and Cassandra shrieks of doom and gloom.  America, as this article illustrates, was always full of pluck and independence–not looking for cues from others…reinventing ourselves and our looks, raising and lowering the hems when we decided–this attitude and nature–it’s in our very cut and drape…

Ponder this over your cocktail of the evening (better if served in vintage glassware), which is the classic Rob Roy…appropriate for the zeitgeist of the moment, The Rob Roy is made with scotch and sweet red vermouth.  Named after red head Roy MacGregor, Scotland’s Robin Hood, the drink imparts a sublte smoky taste due to the scotch base.  Also known as a Scotch Manhattan for the substitution of scotch for bourbon. Combine two or three parts scotch with one part sweet vermouth, a dash of Angostura bitters and garnish with a cherry.  Substitute orange bitters for the Angostura for a Highland Fling (sounds like fun, ladies, no?!) and a dash of Drambuie, making a Bobbie Burns.  Slip on your negligee or smoking jacket and cheers…Chin up, good posture, lipstick on luscious lips and off teeth…deep breath and forge ahead. Until we meet again…

Pauline Trigere's Dragonfly silhouetteArnold Scaasi, The Butterfly DressHarmay dress

Cool Kitty

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCZsNyquSXE 



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Change is a constant.

 Surely you’ve heard that bland platitude dished as cold comfort when chaotic outside forces dictate circumstances seemingly beyond our control.

 8:00 AM, Tuesday, September 11^th greeted me with absolute certainty that all continued right in the world and my given place in it.  Azure skies and golden sunshine shown down on lower Manhattan as its citizenry poured out of subways, into Towers housing banks, trading floors and courtrooms.  An absolutely ordinary morning set to a metered workday march that was about to break into a sheer hellish run for cover.

 8:00 AM, Monday, September 18^th saw me and 1,300 of my closest Lehman Brothers colleagues jammed into the Metropolitan Ballroom of the Sheraton New York at 51^st and 7^th.  Dick Fuld, the Firm’s imposing Grand Poobah was addressing the jittery crowd of I-bankers and underlings to assure us that our $13 billion of liquidity insured our survival as a Firm.  Fuld espoused, “A building was just that—it was our intellectual capital and collective resolve that made us ‘One Firm’”. Thanks to our close relationship with Starwood Partners, The Sheraton Hotel would be our new home.

 So began my 15-month tenure working from room 963.  Everyday was greeted by unctuous and grateful hotel staff relieved to have full occupancy into the foreseeable future.  Our daily routine included hot coffee and assorted teas in the morning, soup-of-the-day room service at lunch and fragrant white towels at poolside for that after work swim and workout in the hotel gym.

 I communicated daily and nightly with my alarmed global clientele via my new baby blue cell-phone ratcheted up with 2000 minutes and a world calling plan. My “office” consisted of a hotel room without beds, a room safe, four six-foot folding tables, stackable cardboard files purchased from Staples and a Bose Wave radio set to WQXR—NYC’s classical music station. Our television sets were removed by Management as we nerve-wracked type A’s could not stop monitoring CNN throughout the day.  We had to make-do with one set placed by the elevator banks on each floor at which we periodically congregated like swallows.  I diligently worked out of my new hotel home until January 2003 when our new office at 399 Park Avenue was finally finished and ready for occupancy.  The hotel staff threw us a festive Hawaiian Luau goodbye party and was genuinely sorry to see the last of us go.

 9/11 taught me that people and relationships, not job titles and trophies make the sum total of your life.  Patience is not simply the ability to smile and feign interest through another mind-numbing and pointless meeting, but the emotional steadiness needed to calm the nerves of a fellow employee who is so despondent that they feel that they cannot ride the subway one more day to work within the confines of a stale hotel room.

 Science recognizes that every seven years, the human body replaces every cell with a new one.  In effect we regenerate our entire beings.  For me and others, the day of September 11^th was transformative on a cellular level. What changed most profoundly was my psychology.  My sense of security and entitlement to increasing material gain was obliterated.  I now realize there is no demilitarized zone, not in lower Manhattan, not in the formerly “friendly skies”.  Preparedness, access to information and resilience became prerequisites for our new world order. As a result of my experiences my ability to deal with stress and handle sudden and unperceivable change has been improved, and with it the recognition that change can bring unexpected opportunities, new life paths, self-awareness and growth.

Taiwanese brides often traveled to the Winter Garden for their wedding photos. As if being photographed inside the Mecca of capitalism guaranteed nuptial tidings of good fortune.  It was not an unusual lunchtime site, to stumble across several of these young women scattered about, serenely posed on the rose-colored Italian marble floor.  Their smiles frozen and eyes locked in anticipation of the perfect photograph. Looking for all the hungry capitalists and secretaries rushing by, like sugary cake toppers; huge skirts arranged and spread out like ceremonial fans.  Porcelain figurines enveloped in cloud- rests of lace and tulle.

For Penny Screech, September eleventh arrived like any other cloudless and brilliant early fall Manhattan morning.  Aggressively bright, sober and ready for the day’s work ahead.  Glancing out into the interior courtyard of her Upper West Side apartment building, Penny could see a shaft of light casting tattoo patterns against the opposing brick wall, and just knew that it was going to be a beautiful day.  Craning her neck skyward to find a sliver of blue sky, she confirmed her assumption.  It was going to be the kind of rare day that brings warm, crisp, crystal clear weather to the Northeast. A fine day to sluice across the East Bay on a schooner.  A bright morning to ride your bike through Central Park.  Thoughts of playing hooky danced across her brain. 

 She was running twenty minutes late giving credence to somewhat questionable logic.  “I am already so late,” she mused, “Would it be so tragic to miss one day’s jousting with the Type-A’s at the Firm?”  This situation was compounded by the unusually fussy behavior of Lao Tzu, her spoiled eleven-year old tan and white Shih Tzu.  As Penny hurriedly tried to make the bed, Lao gamely foiled her maneuvers to finish the job and get out the door– he would simply have none of it.  Blocking her every attempt to straighten the duvet and fluff the pillows, he played a game of dodge, prancing madly across the surface of the bed, playfully barking and throwing his head back and forth.  “What’s up Pup?” demanded Penny.  Making a lunge for the animated ball of fur, Penny plopped Lao onto the oriental carpet that graced the uneven oak floor of her tenement apartment. She then finished up her task at hand. 

Task completed, Penny padded her way through the bedroom, across the living room towards the fragrant coffee percolating on the corner stove.   She carried her steaming cup in hand as she made her way back to her small bedroom closet.  “What to wear, what to wear?” Penny muttered softly.  Getting dressed was one of the few simple joys that supported her belief that she was a stylish New Yorker, and not just an administrative cog in a large multi-national investment bank.  Dressing for success seemed to be a prerequisite demanded of all well-educated, meagerly compensated single women in this city.  How to dress like a Fashionista on a budget that must include the weekly frozen margarita with the gals; a steep mortgage and maintenance that slithered in at just under $3500 a month?  Not including utilities.  

 For the last four years, Penny worked at Fleming Brothers, an independent trading house founded in 1876 by two Scottish immigrant brothers.  Steadfastly building their family Firm and fortune, Fleming Brothers today was a Wall Street powerhouse able to run with the biggest of the boys.  With the original Fleming brothers long gone, the Firm, thrice sold, was a private investment bank run by a well-documented coven of thirteen white male bankers– all in their late forties to fifties.  They took turns trading important titles, golf tips, women and millions as they danced around the bubbling capitalist cauldron.  Transacting insider stocks quarterly, the incestuous Connecticut cabal was wealthy many-times over.   Specializing in High Yield and Fixed Income, Fleming Brothers made money in both good times and bad.  The Firm employed 13,000 people worldwide.  Annoyingly, those housed in the London office insisted on calling Fleming Brothers “Flemings”.  Penny suspected that this purposeful affectation was meant to dress down the Americans while flaunting the Queen’s English and a stronger currency rate, but of course she could be reading much into little. “Flemings” global New York headquarters was located in Tower 1 of the World Financial Center. It shared this office tower, the corporate gym and cafeteria with another large global financial institution who specialized in retail banking and travel. It was a happy arrangement that enabled its collective employees to enjoy gourmet lunches, skim lattes and clean towels at the gym on-demand. The World Financial Center–or WFC– built during the Gordon Gecko era of the go-go eighties; was a world unto itself, connected to the Trade Center lobby by a series of foot bridges.  The riverside complex consisted of four independent towers that spun out from its honey-comb glass atrium center– the Winter Garden.  This glass-enclosed oasis housed twelve acclimatized palm trees shipped from Arizona, several themed restaurants, Starbucks-keeper of the 3 pm life force, a Sunglass Hut with pricy pastel Gucci frames, and frequent lunchtime concerts to soothe transaction-frayed nerves. 

 …to be continued…