Photographer Sonia Moskowitz captured this moment at Studio 54 on January 1, 1979.
I’m guessing Andre Leon Talley and Diana Ross were living it up at a New Year’s Eve party. What I find striking about the image is the contrast between ALT and Miss Ross’s joie de vivre and the crossed arms and glares of onlookers. My, my.
Tell me about someone whose way of moving through the world has inspired you to live more freely. It could be a legendary icon like Andre Leon Talley, a family member or friend, or even a fictional character. Who has helped you live more freely by being free themselves?
The first two people who come to mind both did a lot of drugs—my best friend and my stepsister. My stepsister died three years ago violently due to her lifestyle in active addiction. My best friend struggles financially and with her health, as she always has. All of us are in our late 40s, or Sara would be too if she hadn’t been murdered.
But man they were fun. The drugs probably held me back from fully living in the moment, and the joy of that. But those women gave me a peek of what it might look like to do so. To know yourself and bring all of yourself, “good” and “bad” to every table. To see people unable to look at that, and shoot a wink or a smile. Or, just as often, a look of confusion and hurt.
But to never stop existing fully, luxuriating in life. The looks weren’t worth giving that up. They showed me that.
I’ve spent some time choosing my lessons from my 20s, and rejecting some bad behavior and relationships. I’ve been able to circle around to my friend, see what she gave as well as what she took. I’ve done that with Sara as well, but I wish she were here to see me. I hope she knows how her light warmed me.
My great aunt. We called her Auntie Mame, after the Rosalind Russell movie because she was that fabulous. She was friends with dancers from the Cotton Club and was never seen without her intense maquillage and wig until the very, very end. She died age 97.
So, this is subtle, I guess? I personally think it applies, but it is microscopic compared to your photo above.
Growing up, I was very shy, almost mute. My mom was the like my town’s society maven and very concerned with appearances, charm, etc. One way to be, and I couldn’t successfully do it. Not long term. I could do it for a few hours, max. Anyway, I was ashamed of that a lot.
But I chugged along and focused on school, which I was good at, and planning on getting out. Which I did! Yay me! But I was always, still, ashamed.
In college, I had a summer job as an aide for a summer school for gifted kids. The young-ish physics teacher was a nerdy woman with glasses and dorky clothes. She was great at her job and the kids liked her, but the thing I remember most is the square dancing. She was only in town for the summer and didn’t know anyone, so she found the local dancing club and set that as her social outlet.
And the thing is that she led with this! Just started talking about it- that this is what she does in a new place. There was no self-consciousness. This is what she does to relax, to have fun, in a place where she didn’t know anyone outside of work.
I don’t know. Here I was trying to be both smart and cool and never successfully doing cool and she just said, oh, that’s not important. Having fun is. Being yourself is, no matter if someone thinks it’s dorky.
I constantly aspire to her level of zero self-consciousness. It’s like the asymptote. I never feel there, but I try!
Oh my. It wasn't until I moved to Boston that I went to women's dances and saw gorgeous fat lesbians dancing in white tank tops, parachute pants, and no bra. It was such a gift. Oh, but before that, when I was about twenty, I spent six weeks at the Banff Centre for Fine Arts in Alberta. I was there to write, one of the two youngest in the program, but there were also dancers, musicians, actors, and visual artists there. It was my first time out of the US for anywhere near that long, the first time alone. I was writing up a storm, and there were dance parties every Friday. Watching all the wild dancing let me realize that I didn't have to wait to be asked to be dance, that I could just start dancing myself. So I did. Knowing that I can do that has been a gift my entire life. It is even now, when I am 61 and living in so much physical isolation in this pandemic. I can dance, though.
More than a few years ago, but not the distant past, I was at home feeling exceptionally sad around Christmas... I think it was the one right after Sandy, when I had to evacuate my waterfront apartment for a month without the means to do so and I was just SPENT, hollowed out, nothing left. I was going to be alone that year, I can't remember why now, and my friends were in Tulum and I couldn't afford to join them, so I posted on Facebook something about reading Rosamond Bernier's memoir about living in Mexico City in the '30s instead and her publicist wrote me and said, "I will take you to her house." I think she was 100 then, and we met there a few days later. I think, or at least in my mind recollect that at least part of it was painted black, maybe the entryway or the front hall. Anyway, it was dead chic and every detail was proof of life well-lived, and seeing how she designed her surroundings and life, being there, talking to her (Tilda Swinton plays a version of her in the new Wes Anderson film), it just filled me back up again in some essential way, touched my soul. And she WAS really on another level. At one point she asked me to go in the kitchen and get some champagne and I said, how will I know where it is, and she said, you'll know, and indeed, there was no missing the Veuve. An icon who deserved the term!
One of the friends I’ve made as an adult was *all kinds* of wild in her early years. As one who was a terrified ultra-good girl growing up, seeing her as a loving, successful, intelligent adult (who is still very much not average) gives me so much validation for how I live the second half of my life!
Will Wiesenfeld (@BATHSmusic) has done so much for me. His music and Twitter presence have given me a sort of permission I didn't know I needed to be myself.
The first two people who come to mind both did a lot of drugs—my best friend and my stepsister. My stepsister died three years ago violently due to her lifestyle in active addiction. My best friend struggles financially and with her health, as she always has. All of us are in our late 40s, or Sara would be too if she hadn’t been murdered.
But man they were fun. The drugs probably held me back from fully living in the moment, and the joy of that. But those women gave me a peek of what it might look like to do so. To know yourself and bring all of yourself, “good” and “bad” to every table. To see people unable to look at that, and shoot a wink or a smile. Or, just as often, a look of confusion and hurt.
But to never stop existing fully, luxuriating in life. The looks weren’t worth giving that up. They showed me that.
I’ve spent some time choosing my lessons from my 20s, and rejecting some bad behavior and relationships. I’ve been able to circle around to my friend, see what she gave as well as what she took. I’ve done that with Sara as well, but I wish she were here to see me. I hope she knows how her light warmed me.
My great aunt. We called her Auntie Mame, after the Rosalind Russell movie because she was that fabulous. She was friends with dancers from the Cotton Club and was never seen without her intense maquillage and wig until the very, very end. She died age 97.
So, this is subtle, I guess? I personally think it applies, but it is microscopic compared to your photo above.
Growing up, I was very shy, almost mute. My mom was the like my town’s society maven and very concerned with appearances, charm, etc. One way to be, and I couldn’t successfully do it. Not long term. I could do it for a few hours, max. Anyway, I was ashamed of that a lot.
But I chugged along and focused on school, which I was good at, and planning on getting out. Which I did! Yay me! But I was always, still, ashamed.
In college, I had a summer job as an aide for a summer school for gifted kids. The young-ish physics teacher was a nerdy woman with glasses and dorky clothes. She was great at her job and the kids liked her, but the thing I remember most is the square dancing. She was only in town for the summer and didn’t know anyone, so she found the local dancing club and set that as her social outlet.
And the thing is that she led with this! Just started talking about it- that this is what she does in a new place. There was no self-consciousness. This is what she does to relax, to have fun, in a place where she didn’t know anyone outside of work.
I don’t know. Here I was trying to be both smart and cool and never successfully doing cool and she just said, oh, that’s not important. Having fun is. Being yourself is, no matter if someone thinks it’s dorky.
I constantly aspire to her level of zero self-consciousness. It’s like the asymptote. I never feel there, but I try!
Oh my. It wasn't until I moved to Boston that I went to women's dances and saw gorgeous fat lesbians dancing in white tank tops, parachute pants, and no bra. It was such a gift. Oh, but before that, when I was about twenty, I spent six weeks at the Banff Centre for Fine Arts in Alberta. I was there to write, one of the two youngest in the program, but there were also dancers, musicians, actors, and visual artists there. It was my first time out of the US for anywhere near that long, the first time alone. I was writing up a storm, and there were dance parties every Friday. Watching all the wild dancing let me realize that I didn't have to wait to be asked to be dance, that I could just start dancing myself. So I did. Knowing that I can do that has been a gift my entire life. It is even now, when I am 61 and living in so much physical isolation in this pandemic. I can dance, though.
More than a few years ago, but not the distant past, I was at home feeling exceptionally sad around Christmas... I think it was the one right after Sandy, when I had to evacuate my waterfront apartment for a month without the means to do so and I was just SPENT, hollowed out, nothing left. I was going to be alone that year, I can't remember why now, and my friends were in Tulum and I couldn't afford to join them, so I posted on Facebook something about reading Rosamond Bernier's memoir about living in Mexico City in the '30s instead and her publicist wrote me and said, "I will take you to her house." I think she was 100 then, and we met there a few days later. I think, or at least in my mind recollect that at least part of it was painted black, maybe the entryway or the front hall. Anyway, it was dead chic and every detail was proof of life well-lived, and seeing how she designed her surroundings and life, being there, talking to her (Tilda Swinton plays a version of her in the new Wes Anderson film), it just filled me back up again in some essential way, touched my soul. And she WAS really on another level. At one point she asked me to go in the kitchen and get some champagne and I said, how will I know where it is, and she said, you'll know, and indeed, there was no missing the Veuve. An icon who deserved the term!
One of the friends I’ve made as an adult was *all kinds* of wild in her early years. As one who was a terrified ultra-good girl growing up, seeing her as a loving, successful, intelligent adult (who is still very much not average) gives me so much validation for how I live the second half of my life!
Will Wiesenfeld (@BATHSmusic) has done so much for me. His music and Twitter presence have given me a sort of permission I didn't know I needed to be myself.