more, 'cause I'm bored.

[rm]

January 1979; I'm six, and yes, those are, in fact, blue suede shoes.
This is my Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Bob's house in Atlantic City. I think she was actually my great Aunt. My great grand-mother was in a nursing home there then and my cousin Steve worked at a casino and we went to visit a lot. But they were tacky, and we talked about that. They cubed the turkey at Thanksgiving with an electric carving knife and this was a very bad thing, it was explained to me. But they gave me butterscotch krimpets, so I learnt not to say anything.


June 1983. I'm 10.
I played Ko-ko, the lord high executioner in the Mikado. That's me with the axe.
I had, up until that point never gotten a goof part in a school play. I had ben relegated to playing a horse on Hades's chariot when he stole Persephone, stuff like that. When they showed up the scripts for the Mikado I decided I _had_ to be Ko-ko, because I could be sarcastic! I had just learnt that word and thought it was very exciting. I got the part and the other kids were mean to me, because I never got parts, was never competition. Ha. The daughter of David Merick ("the meanest man in showbiz") was in our class, and so her family donated the professionally made costumes.


This is my mom at some point in the mid-late '80's. It exemplifies perfectly the worlds I, all of us, had to figure out how to live between. Formal and artsy, monied and not, but a New York that was certainly slipping away then and now, a world of boutiques and never buying food from a grocery store, but going the breadmaker and the butcher and the cheese shop and so forth. This was our life in the otherworld. And yes that coat is covered in decorative, yet functional buttons up the sleeves; my life is funny like that.

Comments

[lolliejean.livejournal.com]

Oh I love seeing these! That one on the top looks like you're in a hotel room in a casino somewhere. heh Were there Spanish influenced black wrought iron accents around?

I bought a house once that had that theme going on. A mirrored wall in the master bedroom with black scrollwork on it. I pried it off with a butterknife but loved that it had existed in all it's too horrible tacky glory. I couldn't make myself undo the bathroom though. Foil gold and red wallpaper. A giant red cast iron tub with gold fixtures. Bubble gum pink toilet, sink and bidet with gold fixtures all in an art deco setting. It was a replica of a Kohler 100th anniversary print ad brought to life in a one level brick ranch house in suburban Montgomery, AL. I loved it.

But I digress.

Your mom! She is fabulous and wearing that amazing hat with no sense of irony or shyness. Some of your ballsiness (is that a word?) must come from her.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my family does not do irony. Or shame really. at least when it comes to how we look and how we want the world to look. It's a good fun thing.

And yeah, ther were totally black wrought iron things all over that house. It was so awful.