Puppet theaters for children, puppet-making for adults
Fall, fall, fall!
I have to say I was relieved to see a wave of fall shopping emails this week. Nature is healing when Laura Reilly goes on Instagram and asks me what I have my eye on for fall. (You can take her survey here.) As a redhead from Montana, I don’t shop in summer much at all. Not my season! (Even if this tankini caught my eye, it’s too late for a new swimsuit for me personally.) I’m a boots, jeans, and sweater person. If you ask me what I think the best investment item is, I’ll say a coat. And I would be right! I have been wearing the same Row leather coat, lined with fur, for ten years now. I got it at a secondhand shop on the UES. Last year, I finally got a new fur coat from J. Mendel. It’s not an ostentatious one, in fact, it’s very New Jersey aunt: it’s reversible to be a raincoat/snowcoat. I just didn’t want to have to check the weather. (Hilariously, I tried to interview them for Substack and they said, “We don’t know what that is.” Okay!)
For Fall, I have my eye on bulky white turtlenecks from L.L.Bean. I layer white turtlenecks under everything in the winter. It’s the real ski look. I think dark wash jeans pair best with everything. Auralee jeans are never going to restock in my size, but if it fits you, I’d buy these. Also try Glenn’s Denim and LOROD. You can throw a barn jacket on top of all that. I like the sweater-coat blur space—structured enough to work on its own. Jewelry wise, moody is apt: grey pearls, bird beaks. This Drake’s mock neck “hiking” shirt in ranger green is quite good, for a man. A thin leather string belt to break up sweater dresses. (This sweater dress tailors itself, if that’s more your style.) Don’t tell my husband—who choked when he got into bed our first winter, some sort of class hysteria—but more flannel sheets from the Vermont Country Store. I’m not shopping for new boots, but I have planted my flag that I’d get the Miu Miu style if I was! I’ve been wearing these for a few years now, and they fit perfectly under jeans, tarnish beautifully, and are great to walk in. I alternate with a pair of motorcycle boots that a friend gave me… A lot of my fall clothes do not wear and tear and do not go out of style. I have no regrets on my black Row cord trousers, which are in a biweekly rotation. I got a long DKNY wool skirt from Sorbara’s that I cannot stop wearing. Sorry these aren’t actual recommendations. Go goth, I guess, is what I’m saying.
It’s the pub day for Ruth! Read the Dwight Garner review here, if you’re that sort of person. (“It claims a place on that high modern shelf next to the offbeat books of Ottessa Moshfegh, Sheila Heti, Elif Batuman and Nell Zink — those possessors of wrinkled comic sensibilities rooted in pain.”) If you feel enticed, grab a copy of the book, and come to the event at Rodeo, a new wine bar in Brooklyn, on September 5th. We have the private room in the back, and if it spills into the bar, that’s fine, too. You cannot come if you don’t read the book. I am serious!