The 20s Are Roaring

The 1920s are following me.

A few weeks ago I attended the Jazz Age Lawn Party on Governor's Island which was like stepping into one utterly fun time machine. Flappers did the Charleston to sounds of Michael Arenella's Dreamland Orchestra as onlookers tapped their feet and danced on the sidelines. We found a picnic spot by the vintage cars, sipped San Germain cocktails and watched triumphantly as our friends participated in a massive game of tug o' war. It was utterly charming to see all the men in their classic get-ups and women in their flapper finery pulling that rope. And doubly charming to see how delightful simple pleasures are. There is no computer game that could possibly compare with the thrill of simple, focused competetion--with incredibly fashionable participants! What a scene!

I just finished reading The Paris Wife, a wonderful book about the life of Hadley Hemingway, Ernest's first wife. I was never a big fan of Hemingway--too male, too misogynist, too...Hemingway. I read A Farewell to Arms in college and I remember nothing more than hating the book. But now, after The Paris Wife, I'm lightly obsessed with Hemingway. He wants me to read him, seducing me in much the same way that he's coaxed his lovers to come to him despite his forcefulness, his narcissism, his his ego. I read this in A Moveable Feast just recently and it is what I think he is calling: "I've seen you, beauty, and you belong to me now, whoever you are waiting for and if I never see you again, I thought. You belong to me now, and all Paris belongs to me and I belong to this notebook and this pencil. Then I went back to writing and I entered far into the story and was lost in it."

And as if that wasn't enough, I saw the lovely Midnight in Paris

and was further enmeshed and enveloped by 1920s Paris. If you haven't seen it, go. So delightful, so wonderful, and perhaps, so apt. I, too, would like to be invited by partygoers in a vintage car to go back in time and meet with history's heroes to advise me how to become my best self. Heck, I'd be happy to simply to go back to a time when I was unshackled by braces and this crazy oppressive heatwave we're experiencing. (It's 11:30pm, and the temperature has dropped finally to 90 degrees...)

The 20s are trying to tell me something--in fact its roaring in my ear with all its modernity, possibility and freedom: "You belong to me now, and all of New York belongs to me. I belong to this computer, and this blog. Then I went back to writing and I entered far into the story and was lost in it."