Cleveland: rock and roll and vintage love in 24 hours

Posted on September 25, 2013 by Patty

In designing this building it was my intention to echo the energy of rock and roll. I have consciously used an architectural vocabulary that is bold and new, and I hope the building will become a dramatic landmark for the city of Cleveland and for fans of rock and roll around the world.
– I.M. Pei, architect of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum

Rock and roll in Cleveland
When I found out I was going to Cleveland for a business trip, I asked myself, “What is in Cleveland?” I was too busy to do any research before I left, but once I landed, my cab drivers and the concierge at my downtown hotel were quick to point out The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum (1100 Rock and Roll Boulevard, Cleveland, OH, 44114, 216.781.7625), which wasn’t very far from where I was staying. I scratched my head. In Cleveland? How did that come to be?

Outside the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.

The museum is chockfull of detailed displays, by era, location, artist, and more.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Foundation was founded in April 1983 by Atlanta Records founder and chairman Ahmet Ertegun. Ertegun and his assembled team began inducting artists in 1986 but the hall of fame did not have a permanent venue. Various cities lobbied to be the new home, including Detroit, Memphis, Cincinnati, and New York City, all of which had famous record studios and obvious ties to rock and roll music. Cleveland’s claims were legitimate ones – WJW disc jockey Alan Freed coined the term “rock and roll” and heavily promoted the emerging genre and the first major rock and roll concert – Freed’s Moondog Coronation Ball – was held in Cleveland. Furthermore, its radio station WMMS helped bolster the early careers of several artists in the U.S. in the 1970s and 1980s, including Bruce Springsteen and David Bowie, who began his first U.S. tour in Cleveland. The city pledged $65 million in public funds to build it, 600,000 fans signed a petition to locate it in Cleveland, and in a 1986 USA Today poll, respondents overwhelmingly chose Cleveland. Who knew?

One of Stevie Nicks’ many signature outfits.

Entering the Rolling Stones exhibit!

So there you have it. The pyramid-shaped building is quite striking, designed by architect I.M. Pei, and sits on the shore of Lake Erie, facing the downtown skyline, in the city’s nicely redeveloped North Coast Harbor. Six levels house tons of memorabilia. Given my time constraint, I whizzed through, but you could literally spend a day there, reading all the signs and admiring the instruments, music sheets, costumes, and more. A couple of theaters show this year’s inductees to the Hall of Fame, as well as a permanent exhibit called the Mystery Train, which chronicles the history of rock and roll. If you’re a Rolling Stones fan, you can fully appreciate a very packed, as in artifacts and information, exhibit, “Rolling Stones: 50 Years of Satisfaction.” It’s a fun place and worth a visit, but plan for at least half a day if not longer. Expect to be overwhelmed and dizzy by the end of your time there.

The impressive inside of the museum.

The Cleveland Shop’s quaint storefront window.

Vintage love in Cleveland
The Cleveland Shop (6511 Detroit Avenue, Cleveland, 44102, 216.228.9725), a quality vintage, period costume rental, and consignment shop is the city’s oldest vintage shop. It opened its doors in 1979, but recently moved to its current location, in the west side of the city in Gordon Square. Voted Cleveland’s “best vintage,” the shop is well curated and nicely organized. The racks are divided by type of clothing and more importantly by decade. One half of the shop is vintage and the other half is the rental department where you can find your costume for Halloween or a themed party. They carry a big selection, for instance, of white vinyl go-go boots for those wanting to channel Nancy Sinatra from the 1960s and “walk all over” someone! Vintage to the Cleveland Shop is at least 25 years old, and they look for items from 1900 through 1970s, dipping occasionally into the 1980s. It’s definitely a great vintage shop to spend time in at a leisurely pace.

Racks and racks of vintage clothing.

Display case oozing with vintage costume jewelry.

All’s quiet on an off-night Monday at the Cleveland Indians’ baseball field.

Baseball, good food, buildings with character
If I had fully thought out my trip, I would have stayed an extra night and flown to Raleigh, N.C., my next business destination on Wednesday. Why? The Cleveland Indians were playing tonight and they are in the thick of the American League Wild Card race. They play in a beautiful downtown stadium, Progressive Field – insurance anyone? – that I zipped by about four times in my cab rides in the 27 hours I was in Cleveland. The ballpark, which holds more than 43,000, began construction in 1992. Now that would have been a fun game to watch, especially given that the Indians won, 5-4, and are tied for the two Wild Card slots. I also wish I had time to walk around the downtown area and take artsy photographs of the old buildings and historic statues.

An impressive fairly new stadium for baseball. Oakland, take note!

An impressive fairly new stadium for Cleveland baseball. Oakland, take note!

As for culinary experiences, I attended a business dinner at Table 45 Restaurant and Bar at the InterContinental Hotel (9801 Carnegie Avenue, Cleveland, 44106, 216.707.4045). For a hotel restaurant (the hotel is owned by the Cleveland Clinic and is on their campus), the food was very flavorful. Our party of nine shared appetizers – homemade tandoori naan with three dipping sauces, vegetable spring rolls, and an assortment of sushi. For my entrée, I ordered wild caught sockeye salmon and steamed coconut sticky rice wrapped in a banana leaf with Chinese broccoli and Thai glaze. The salmon was a touch dry, but otherwise a nice combination of flavors. I didn’t get a chance to finish my fresh blueberry crisp topped with sweet oatmeal crumb and lemon gelato because by that time everyone was leaving, which was just as well since I was quite satisfied with everything that had come before.

My room with a view from the downtown Marriott – a beautiful old church and old buildings with lots of character.

Twenty-seven hours later and I’ve already left Cleveland. Will I ever return? I actually hope so.

Just beyond the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is Lake Erie.

Nostalgia: You can play it again, Sam, after all

Posted on July 24, 2013 by Patty

Memory believes before knowing remembers.
– William Faulkner, Nobel Prize-winning American novelist and short story writer, from Light in August

A black-and-white retro outfit: two-tone vest from Personal Pizazz (Berkeley, CA), wide-legged patterned trousers, and gauzy sheer jacket.

For several months after my mother passed away in the early morning of January 3, 2012, I listened to popular songs from the 1970s on Pandora Radio into the night. I was fully cognizant of what I was doing; I was taking myself back to a time when I was in elementary school and high school, and my parents – though my dad was 55 years old when I was born – were younger, healthier, and full of life. I have a soft spot for many songs from the 70s, but whether I truly liked some of them when they first came out was moot; listening to all of them during that difficult time generated a physical sensation akin to a runner’s high. Priceless few brought me back to near-exact moments in time – running in between the rows of my father’s vegetable garden trying to catch elusive butterflies and helping my mother make lumpia, though my rolls resembled stuffed cigars close to falling apart while hers were tightly wrapped and uniform in size.

I went on the Internet and Googled Louis Prima and Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass, thankful for technology that enabled me to pull up at a moment’s notice a YouTube video of my mother’s favorite instrumentalists. On those February nights, I was transported to Sunday afternoons in the summer when my mom and friends and relatives played rummy or mahjong, while I suffered as the hostess, serving cold drinks and offering waxy Hostess donuts and pastries at the appointed time. My uncles and aunts would tip me, telling me what a good daughter I was. I couldn’t wait to finish serving and escape to the living room to read my Nancy Drew books, but looking back, the sounds of their laughter, the coins being tossed, the mahjong tiles clicking across the tablecloth were soothing in the cocoon that was my childhood world.

Black-and-white foundation accessorized with Sundance necklace, Tiffany mesh earrings and ring, and The Fickle Bag’s embellished purse.

It was of great interest to me, then, a year and a half later, when I read a New York Times article published on July 8th that was shared by my good friend’s daughter on Facebook. “What Is Nostalgia Good For? Quite a Bit, Research Shows” tackles the centuries-old perception that nostalgia is a disorder or a waste of time. Dr. Constantine Sedikides pioneered the study of nostalgia and produced such tools as the Southampton Nostalgia Scale. Sedikides noted that nostalgia makes us “a bit more human.” Researchers have found that “nostalgizing” helps people feel better and makes “life seem more meaningful and death less threatening.”

Just enough sparkle without being overwhelming.

Not surprisingly, researchers in the Netherlands found that listening to songs is one of the easiest ways to induce nostalgia and create a physical sensation of warmth. It’s universal that people are transported instantly to a season or often a moment in time when they hear a song from their past. It connects them to that memory. Recent studies also show that people who nostalgize more frequently develop a “healthier sense of self-continuity.” Through his Experimental Existential Social Psychology Lab out of North Dakota State University, Dr. Clay Routledge found that nostalgia “serves a crucial existential function.” The ability to bring forth “cherished experiences” helps to validate that “we are valued people who have meaningful lives.” Interestingly, his research revealed that people who nostalgize on a regular basis “are better at coping with concerns about death.” Of course, the reason I listened to those songs from the ’70s was to find a time and secure a happy memory of my mother that would supplant the last memory I had of her when she took her last breath – after my two sisters and I endured an hour-and-a-half vigil of watching what seemed like her last breath several times over.

Sheer jacket is an easy alternative to a shawl.

A sheer jacket is a unique alternative to a shawl for cool Bay Area summer evenings.

Dr. Erica Hepper, a psychologist at the University of Surrey in England, discovered that nostalgia helps people deal with transitions, which explains why younger people and older people tend to nostalgize at higher levels than people in middle age. It seems to me, however, that in middle age – or the sandwich age, as it’s been coined – we are dealing with just as many transitions – our children growing up and moving out while our parents are growing frailer and some are moving back in with us. It seems to be our current social landscape.

Revisiting the past and concluding that the present can never be as good as the past is a defeatist and destructive form of nostalgia. Revisiting the past to escape the present and future, and being mired in the past is also a waste of one’s time and energy. Rather, we should call forth cherished memories with those we love and have lost, and be grateful to have experienced those times. Somehow it brings us close to them during moments when we feel lost, ungrounded, and empty. The added gift is being able to draw on those memories instantly, by playing the song whenever we want and need it. We can feel the healing power of nostalgia again and again.

A platform sandal lengthens the leg – and eliminates having to hem pants for us shorter ladies!

Flamenco for building strong, confident girls and women – ole!

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Patty

To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful . . . . This is power, it is glory on earth and it is yours for the taking.
– Agnes De Mille, American dancer and choreographer

: My friend Tana (on the left in turquoise and black) performing her group’s flamenco dance (photo credit: Kim Schartz).

My daughter has been taking flamenco classes for the last five years – since she was in kindergarten – through our school’s after-school enrichment program, thanks to our good friend Tana Hakanson, who brought her flamenco teacher to the program. I have always admired this dance form because of its energy, rhythm, complexity, and – to paraphrase Tana’s reason for her love of flamenco – its ability to convey such strength and confidence, which is really important for girls to gain at a young age. She and her fellow classmates, and the rest of her instructor’s troupe, performed at the International House on Cal Day at UC Berkeley this past Saturday. Many other groups danced, but flamenco brought the house down. In fact, every time I’ve attended their performances as part of a multi-cultural dance program in other venues, flamenco gets the audiences clapping and smiling. It is, after all, a dance that invites and thrives on the audience’s participation. And you can’t help but admire the difficulty of the footwork and foot speed, and the guitar, which can also be frenetic, and the soulful, passionate singing – cante flamenco – which is, in fact, the heart and soul of genre.

Flamenco is both graceful and strong (photo credit: Kim Schartz).

David and I spent our honeymoon in Spain, a destination decided upon when one of our colleagues from our Madrid office – many years and jobs ago for me – offered his congratulations and his second home on the Costa del Sol for our honeymoon upon learning of our engagement. We met up with our gracious host and his wife in Madrid and got our fill of the wonderful museums, including, of course, the Prado. We drove to the Costa del Sol, enjoyed the sun in the afternoons. We relaxed in Granada, admiring the Palacio de Generalife and the Alhambra. In Barcelona, we marveled at Gaudi‘s architectural wonders, particularly the Sagrada Familia.

Plaza Espana in Parque Maria Luisa, Sevilla, Spain, September 1998.

And yet, my favorite city in Spain was and still is Sevilla. There is something other-worldly about its lush palm trees, river life, thick heat, and Moorish history and architecture. We stayed in a quaint hotel with the rooms overlooking the tiled courtyard. We got tickets to see a flamenco show and were treated to a marathon performance so intense, we could see the sweat flying off of the male dancer’s long hair. I remembered being so overwhelmed by their energy and their ability to move their feet so quickly and expertly while their faces were serene and yet passionate and in command.

On the fashion front, I love the full, swishy skirts, the bold and colorful flowers in the slicked-back and swept-up hairstyles, the long-fringed and equally colorful, floral shawls – worn with the corners pinned in front or wrapped around so that the designs are shown in front – the seductive fans, the dangling statement earrings, the castanets, and, of course, the simple but strong-silhouetted flamenco shoes. I love how the dresses and skirts can be so unique and yet together the outfits complement one another. You don’t have to be a flamenco dancer to try components of this style (just not all at once or else it comes off costumey)!

If I were going to Sevilla in the spring, I’d wear this comfortable outfit. Straw hat, colorful top, and bold sandals are required elements.

I greatly admire Tana’s commitment to flamenco, and I enjoy watching her dance and helping the girls with their form. The girls are very lucky to have such a unique dance class available to them at their age. And while I would love to take it up in the copious spare time I don’t have, I strongly recommend flamenco to women who want to be strong for themselves and for moms who wish to instill those traits in their daughters. Ole!

Bright fiesta colors are complemented by gold jewelry – earrings from Lava 9 in Berkeley and dragonfly necklace by Alkemie of Los Angeles. A golden smile, though, is always the strongest accessory.

Dallas Museum of Art: Art Matters

Posted on April 19, 2013 by Patty

Art is really about how someone else makes sense of the world and their place in it…the viewer connects with the artist in such a way that the two agree to share their humanity, their hopes, their fears.
– Robert Hoffman, art philanthropist

My Omni Hotel room with a view of downtown Dallas.

I flew into Dallas yesterday late afternoon for a morning executive roundtable event to cover and will be hopping on a plane to go back home in the afternoon – a very short business trip. It was fortuitous that I flew out on a Thursday because the Dallas Museum of Art (1717 North Harwood Street, 214.922.1200) is open until 9pm on this day of the week. It was a short walk from the Omni Hotel to the museum district, and a much-needed one after a bumpy descent and landing.

Cindy Sherman: Self-portrait of women
in society
DMA offers free general admission, which is really a gift. Admission to the two exhibits currently on display, Cindy Sherman (through June 9) and Chagall: Beyond Color (the only U.S. venue, through May 26), were $16, which is a bargain in the museum world. I will admit that I didn’t know who Cindy Sherman is, though she is “widely recognized as one of the most important contemporary artists of the last 40 years, and is arguably the most influential artist working exclusively with photography.” Throughout her career, Sherman has taken self-portraits that are a commentary on women in society. She is known for a series of black-and-white self-portraits called “Untitled Film Stills,” in which she portrays herself as various B-grade film characters – the vamp, the housewife, the actress, and so on. The exhibition included a series of recreations of her in famous paintings, as well as a series of beyond-life-size portrayals of the one-percent women in their wealthy splendor. It reminded me a little of Diane Arbus, who is famous for having taken photographs of “marginal” people in our society, because I came away from this exhibit feeling spooked and discomforted, which I’m sure Sherman would feel is a compliment to her art.

Dallas Museum of Art.

Marc Chagall: Way beyond color
I’m familiar with Marc Chagall, but seeing his paintings in person has given me a greater appreciation for his sense of color. Indeed, Picasso once said in the 1950s that when Matisse died, Chagall would be the only painter who understood what color really is. Chagall’s intense reds and blues have a life of their own. I sheepishly admit that I didn’t know Chagall did costume and set decorations for plays and ballets, both in his native Russia after the turn of the century and in New York City during WWII. I also didn’t know that he turned to pottery and collage later in his long career as another way to express himself. One quote of his was particularly moving to me: “Every artist has a homeland, a native town, and though other environments and spheres will exert their influence on him, he will remain forever marked by an essential trait: The scent of his homeland will always live in his work.” I was particularly drawn to his “Nude over Vitebsk.”

Quin Matthews and Sharon Benge share stories of their interviews at the DMA.

Art really does matter
I had the good luck to be in town on this particular Thursday. Locals Quin Matthews and Sharon Benge presented a 45-minute montage of interviews they had conducted with actors, writers, painters, sculptors, musicians, conductors, architects, dancers, and so on for their Art Matters radio show, a local show aired on WRR Classical 101, which debuted in October 1988. They are donating their more than 25,000 interviews and 100 hours of film spanning 25 years of covering the arts to DMA. One of DMA’s executives noted that it’s the single largest media gift, and DMA intends to make these available and searchable on the web so that these historic treasures are accessible to everyone. Stay tuned. (Attendees were given free CDs of interviews with various artists, which I look forward to hearing!)

Glass sculptures at the DMA.

I’ll share a few inspiring quotes that I got out of the snippets of interviews that were included in the montage. First of all, Quin Matthews is a filmmaker who devotes his life to telling stories. What I noticed right away in the interviews was that he is a good editor. He knew what to keep and what to leave on the cutting floor. It truly is an art to edit – what you leave out is just as important as what you show. How lucky for Matthews and Benge to have spent a quarter century learning about all of these artists and recording the artists’ own words for prosperity. And how lucky for their listeners through the years and now for everyone. Since college, I’ve harbored a secret desire to be a filmmaker, documentary and otherwise, as another medium for storytelling. For now, though, I’ll admire those who have really made filmmaking and storytelling an art.

Matthews and Benge didn’t just focus on local artists. They went to the ends of the world – The Czech Republic, Bolivia, China, Russia, and many other countries – to bring art to their listeners in North Texas. When I listened to the chamber choir, I was reminded of my time in choir in high school. I had forgotten how moved I could be, how my whole body responded and rejoiced when we sang Gregorian chants, Bach, even show tunes from the 1940s. I got the same shot of adrenalin and exuberance listening to classical music performed by the Dallas orchestra and other musical groups.

Happily, I was introduced to artists such as Rusty Scruby, who talked exuberantly about how math and the landscape that numbers make excited him. If you take a look at his art, you will understand how math and numbers are a part of his art. Vernon Fisher talked about how art is a way of understanding the world, how man makes maps, counts things, tries to make sense of the world, as a way to avoid death. Jean Lacey talked about how she wants people to look at art and respond. Dorothea Kelley, a musician who championed chamber music in Dallas, talked about how music can help your life by giving you joy, helping you out at times, and feeding you spiritually.

I came away from DMA nourished on a spiritual and creative level. Not a bad deal for a 36-hour business trip!

Spring break: Rejuvenating my muse

Posted on April 10, 2013 by Patty

There is no place for grief in the house which serves the Muse.
– Sappho, Greek lyric poet

A portrait of Kathy's daughter Fiona, surrounded by her mask (in frame) and vintage collection of vessels.

A portrait of Kathy’s daughter Fiona, surrounded by one of her handmade mask (in frame) and vintage collection of vessels on the desk.

On my last visit with my friend Kathy five years ago, we had talked about writing a renga together – an ancient Japanese form of poetry comprising a series of short verses linked into one long poem and composed in a collaborative fashion. When I returned to the Bay Area, she sent me detailed instructions on how to write a renga, along with a beautiful blank book. The idea was for me to start the first verse, consisting of three lines, and then send the book to her, and after she wrote her lines, she would send it back to me, and we’d start the process all over again.

The book sits on my shelf, blank. Even the band around it has never been removed. The rules of the renga seemed too complicated for me at the time, and then I was overwhelmed by my work and constant, snowballing deadlines and family obligations. When I reminded Kathy about the collaborative project, she didn’t remember. Despite the failed attempt to creatively collaborate and inspire one another, with the blame rightfully on me, this time we parted with another poetic project to dive into, though it was purely an act of spontaneity (more on this in a later blog entry). My stay with Kathy was meant partly to lift my flagging spirits and find my muse again. Little did I know that Kathy would be my muse this past weekend.

Kathy’s mural in the living room.

New music to listen to
I listen to the same limited playlist of artists – okay, mostly nostalgic bands from the 1970s and 1980s – on Pandora when I hop on my wind trainer-equipped bike in the early mornings. As the rain came down outside in Mount Vernon, we listened to what Kathy categorized as indie folk music. She introduced me to a handful of her and her son Patrick’s favorite artists via YouTube: John Butler Trio, The Decemberists, Mumford & Sons, and Zoe Keating. We were treated to John Butler’s Ocean on YouTube, and later on Skype Patrick, who had spent months learning the song, played it for us. It’s an amazing piece of music and quite the workout for the fingers.

Taking a peek inside Kathy’s homemade sketchbook.

New books to read
Kathy is a voracious reader, and through the years she has recommended books to me. She has a penchant for fantasy, and I remember some of her favorites in high school and college were The Hobbit and Richard Adams’ Watership Down. This time around, Kathy recommended poemcrazy by Susan Goldsmith Woodridge and Buffalo Yoga by Charles Wright. I was most interested, however, in Indiespensable, a membership program she belongs to through Powell’s Books. Every six weeks, she receives a newly published book, with a nod to independent publishers. The book is signed by the author, slipcovered, and accompanied by a unique surprise. One book had some connection to honey, and the book was packaged with a jar of honey. Another surprise was a box of chocolates. What a great program and a way for an indie bookstore to differentiate itself from the likes of Barnes & Noble and be just as mighty.

Steampunk-inspired wall art in Kathy’s living room.

Kathy’s latest sketchbook, which she bound by hand.

When we were at Village Books (1200 11th Street, Bellingham, 360.671.2626) a few days earlier, I relished leisurely walking through the store – something I haven’t done in years. I picked up the latest novel by Ruth Ozeki, Tale for the Time Being. It was signed and the clerk told me Ozeki had just given a reading at the store the weekend before! One of my recent favorite novels is her All Over Creation, which dealt with genetically modified organisms, among other themes. I made a vow to Kathy that I would dedicate time for reading, which means I have to schedule it, put it on my to-do list so it doesn’t get pushed aside by other pressing tasks.

Detail of the mural Kathy did for 1st Street Cabaret and Speakeasy, Mount Vernon, Washington.

The cover of Kathy’s hand-bound present to Peter.

Binding books by loving hands
Lastly, I was inspired by Kathy’s artwork, which is displayed all over her home – paper mache masks, murals, a wall hanging constructed of fiber and other mixed materials, an easel holding the early stages of a portrait of her 22-year-old daughter Fiona. She has painted murals for various community organizations and her most recent one is on display inside the 1st Street Cabaret & Speakeasy (612 S. 1st Street, Mount Vernon, 98273, 360.336.3012). Kathy took a class in book binding, and now binds her own sketchbooks. She recently finished her sixth book, which features a picture of her mother in a frame cast out of clay from another frame. She has covered other sketchbooks with thrift-shop finds – leather from old jackets and knits from sweaters, complete with the label tag on the cover. My favorite is a hollowed-out “book” she made for her husband Peter. Titled Peter’s Midnight Musings, the book features a working light, a notebook nestled in a box, and chains and gears, giving it a steampunk vibe.

The inside of the book Kathy made for her husband Peter.

I’m in awe of her talents and creative energy. My restful time in Mount Vernon seems long past, now that I’m in the middle of deadlines, soccer and baseball practices, an orthodontist appointment, tae kwondo lessons, tax season, and trying to squeeze in time for a blog. As Kathy and I hugged goodbye at the airport, my muse took a long drink from the well before diving back into my being. Refreshed, I meet those obligations head-on, muse on my shoulder.

Saying goodbye at the airport, while my muse leaps from Kathy back to me.

With sad eyes and flattened ears, Jeely, the family dog, says goodbye.

Meanwhile, back at the house in Mount Vernon, Jeely, the family dog, says goodbye with sad eyes and flattened ears.

A Valentine’s Day ode to The Way We Were

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Patty

Can it be that it was all so simple then?
Or has time rewritten every line?
If we had the chance to do it all again
Tell me, would we? Could we?
– Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman, lyricists, and Marvin Hamlisch, composer

Me at 11, 6th grade, Fall 1973, when the movie came out.

When I saw that our local movie theater, the Cerrito Theater (10070 San Pablo Avenue, El Cerrito, 510.273.9102) was going to show The Way We Were on Valentine’s Day, I knew where I was going to be eating dinner that night. But it took some time to convince David to go. He agreed to go, and it’s one of the most sentimental Valentine’s Day “gifts” he’s given to me. It’s hard to believe that the movie celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. I remember seeing it in the theater when I was 10, and subsequent times after that (although I will say that I forgot a lot of the details of the movie). While the movie is flawed (read the Wikipedia entry on it; it’s fascinating) and those flaws were more evident tonight, it brought me back to the 1970s, to a nostalgic period in my life.I had created this acronym to describe myself when I was growing up – RISS, which stands for romantic, idealistic, sentimental, and sensitive. So you can imagine how this movie played out to a girl with that kind of hard wiring. I had a big crush on Robert Redford back in the day. And while I never considered Barbra Streisand beautiful, I admire her tenacity, passion, comedic impulse, and her sensuality, especially in the way she twisted her lips and worked her long fingers around Hubbell’s neck and shoulders and those blond locks.

The type of outfit Katie would wear at the radio station.

I confess I had a little Katie Morosky in me in college. There is a scene in which Katie expects her story, which she crafted for three months, to be publicly praised in her creative writing class; instead, Hubbell’s story is read aloud. The next scene shows her dashing through the campus and stopping at a trashcan to tear up her story and throw it away. In one of my early creative writing classes at UC Davis, I modeled one of my stories after James Joyce’s Araby. The problem was that I stupidly mentioned it in class after a classmate asked me about technique. My professor, whom I admired greatly back then and still do to this day, said in his very formal tone of voice that it is fine to write like James Joyce but only if one is James Joyce. Everyone in the class laughed, and I was mortified. After class, I dashed across the quad to my dorm room, where I literally threw myself on my bed and cried. After my weeping, I sat up and told myself, well, you wish to be a writer, and if you want to write you have to put yourself out there. You have to accept the criticism, and learn and grow from it. It has never been easy, but it’s still true.

The perfect outfit to pass out leaflets in.

The second affinity I have with Katie is my sense of social justice and activism, which I confess was much grander and more passionate when I was younger, especially in high school, college, and in my twenties. I was very big on Greenpeace. In the same way Katie was handing out strike leaflets on the college campus, I was distributing Greenpeace cards that said “Club sandwiches, not seals” and “No veal this meal” in the dorm dining hall. The back bumper of my lemon of a Volkswagen Rabbit was covered up with various stickers about saving whales and other such sentiments.Lastly, the college scenes reminded me of my own crush on a fellow English Department student, whom I scared away with my intensity. I asked him out to lunch and relived the encounter when reading about it in my college journal this past holiday. I had to laugh at the remembrance. He ordered the Steinbeck Salad, which astonished and delighted me because Steinbeck was one of my favorite authors at the time. But the kicker? He told me he wanted to join the Peace Corps. Just like I wanted to do. I remember meeting my roommate after lunch for the scheduled debriefing. I was head-over-heels in love. Steinbeck, the Peace Corps. It was meant to be. Only in my head. And so I completely empathized with Katie’s college crush on Hubbell.

An outfit Katie would wear to a screening of a movie for which Hubbell wrote the screenplay.

One thing I appreciated in viewing the movie this time around was Streisand’s fashion sense through the decades. I thought I had more retro outfits, but not one that more closely matches the aesthetics of Katie Morosky. But I’ll give it a go, with an Enrado twist.

The kind of coat Katie would be wearing as she dashes across New York City streets. Tocca coat from Personal Pizazz (Berkeley, CA).

Watching the movie was a total indulgence for me. A walk down memory lane, making for a memorable Valentine’s Day evening. Next stop? The Mel-O-Dee Bar (240 El Cerrito Plaza, 510.526.2131) on karaoke night to sing Babs’ song!

Vintage brocade jacket reminiscent of the 1950.

1950s retro: structured jacket, wide-leg pants, and antique handbag.

The Dress at 50

Live the creative, meaningful, and full life

Category Archives: Music

Cleveland: rock and roll and vintage love in 24 hours

Like this:

Nostalgia: You can play it again, Sam, after all

Like this:

Flamenco for building strong, confident girls and women – ole!

Like this:

Dallas Museum of Art: Art Matters

Like this:

Spring break: Rejuvenating my muse

Like this:

A Valentine’s Day ode to The Way We Were

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: