GOD Would Be a Great City
On Hollywood as a verb.
Can I just say my dream is to get in a yellow cab and say “FOLLOW THEM!”
Since we talked I was featured on Why Is This Interesting? and after I wrote Ring Around The Rosie I heard a lot of the same sentiments expressed in this article titled Why is Fashion so Flat Right Now? and Lauren Sherman’s Line Sheet—
This week, the nonprofit Partnership for New York City—whose members are business leaders aiming to build a stronger relationship with local government—released a report created with McKinsey that offers recommendations to strengthen New York’s position as a global fashion capital. They interviewed about 40 industry executives, creative people, and journalists for the project, including me.
The big takeaway: “Government and fashion industry leaders must decide whether to make a strategic investment in the industry’s future or risk losing fashion’s defining contributions to New York’s economy, culture, and brand.” According to the report, between 2012 and 2022, the fashion industry’s contribution to New York’s “economic output” decreased nearly 14 percent. To which I say: Of course it did. Fewer garments are produced here than ever. New York Fashion Week isn’t as important as it used to be.
Here’s a photo of my thermostat at home right now:
Yep, that reads 92° internal temperature. It's 107° outside in Hollywood, and rising in the valley. I have spent a slew of hot nights in various apartments. Not the most grounding thing one can do, but I cherish my friends for allowing me to sleep in their beds. The inferno is the price I paid for not getting on a blue eye to JFK, which I should probably tell you, I didn’t end up going to New York Fashion Week like I said I was in my last letter. The thought of it made me feel like I needed to be immediately rushed to a hospital. The only thing I am sad about missing is the perfect weather in the city. Whisperings of fall, for example. I’m seeing people in KNIT SWEATERS!!!!!! Oh, how I long… I’ve been wearing shorts— an article of clothing that should be discontinued.
I’ve been paying close attention to the magic names on storefronts scattered all around this Tinsel Town. Dream Angel Massage, Perfect Nails, Smart Weed, King Donuts, Sofa U Love, Come In And You'll See God, L Ron Hubbard Way, Church of Scientology, come in and you will find God, Heaven, and also CAA The Talent Agency. Sell your soul to the devil who roams around. The only place you can escape the devil is VENICE. In Venice there’s only THE BEACH.
After my night at the Chateau on Friday night, I drove down Sunset Boulevard and for the first time in a while I hated Los Angeles. I didn’t like being at the afterparty. I'm afraid of getting in trouble for talking about the circles I peripherally run in. I could use alias’, but it would still be too obvious who I mean. Being around a scene is something that a certain subset of people have longed for and been fascinated with for centuries. Take me, for one. Dimes Square is now a tourist attraction, but before it had its own name on Google Maps, it existed in a non ironic way to the people that were a part of it. Clandestino is now an ironic spot for some, but 40 years from now you’ll still be hearing about it— mark my words. Scene writing has been around practically since Homer. Bret Easton Ellis, Eve Babitz at Barneys Beanery in the late 60’s, Cookie Mueller and Warhol, Joan and The Doors, The Left Bank, Hemingway and Fitzgerald, Cafe Society, Paris in the 20’s. These cities that twinkle twinkle little with big stars. Writers have created careers around it. A lot of people are removed and have no idea what a scene even is, and that’s most of the country by the way. But those people in middle America, they read about scenes too, and they’re not getting sick of it.
Ed Ruscha said Hollywood is a verb and I think I know what he means after my 10+ years of living on both popular coasts. People Hollywood even in New York. Sometimes I think people Hollywood in New York even more than in California. Ruscha laments on the Hollywood sign:
The idea of Hollywood has lots of meanings, one is this image of something fake being held up with sticks. That, to me, had more meaning with the term ‘Hollywood’ than anymore of it’s usual associations. It might as well fall down, that’s more Hollywood: to have it fall down or be removed.
What's with the cities whose names are mostly reffered to in letters, huh? NYC…LA…
My initials are GOD. Wouldn’t GOD be a great city?
I’ve written about my grappling with leaving New York and feeling like I'm missing out on something that I'll bever be able to grasp, but when I wonder if I’m missing out on things in LA, I feel more okay with the fact that I might be. Being on the periphery of a scene doesn’t mean I have to be a part of it. I was the least popular girl in school in my adolescence. I called the police on a party once because I wasn’t invited to it. A snitch, you might think. Well, yes. I was a very bitter and disgruntled 16 year old who’d longed to be popular, but despite my greatest efforts, it wasn't going to happen for me in Baltimore. So the longing for importance turned into me becoming obsessed with scenes, I knew everything about everyone in them and they had no idea who I was at all. I’ve written about them, too. Mostly personally. Here’s something I wrote last year—
I realized that he was in demand, at the forefront of a scene to which I was only caddy corner. I remember holding so much of myself back to fit whatever I thought the mold should be for someone of his stature. I would never double text, unless he did. I wouldn’t call first, unless I knew he was free. I wouldn’t initiate sex because I wanted him to feel like he could dominate me. I thought I loved him deeply, we had a similar upbringing, his parents were still together. We would have a beautiful wedding. I’d carry a bouquet of calla lilies.
I leave the party always with hesitancy. Afraid there’s going to be something I missed, and of course it will happen when I go. I want to do it over again to be the passive girl, the friend that just nods along, the I understand friend, I don’t remember that, though. What I remember is being loud, stepping out of a room first, raising my hand, speaking up when I shouldn't have, saying sorry and not knowing why, or not meaning it. I remember feeling ashamed, all the way to now, and holding that, carrying it with me long distances. I remember bright lights and a dark tunnel.
Okay what I really mean is I can be anything you want me to be. Tell me straight.