The Capital Times
Lust for Accessories
A New York Love Affair
Scene 3. Pursuit
She opens her leather agenda.
To the date, that date, November
Fifth. 730 Fifth Avenue. Tenp.m.
circled in felt-tip pen. Under that,
underlined, “espresso bar.” Differ
ent pen, different handwriting.
Now she has all the information.
Candace Bushnell for Bulgari.
Advertisement in the New York
Times
Our love was forbidden, but that
made it all the more fashionable.
The insatiable lust that pulled us
together kicking and screaming
until we couldn’t tell whose limbs
were whose was based on three
things. Caffeine. Bulgari acces
sories. And the fact that neither of
us could write. A complete sen
tence.
He was the most beautiful man I
had ever seen, but in my girlish
heart I knew it was wrong, so
wrong. He was married. A
Franciscan monk. HIV positive.
And only 12 years old.
I was working as a professor of
pure mathematics at Columbia and
moonlighting as a love slave at a
mid-town bar.
We were so different. Yet we
were the same too. Maybe it was
the information in our Vulgari
agendas. Maybe the leather.
Maybe the diamond-encrusted felt
tip pen that he wielded like a ra
pier. I had one too.
Maybe the fact that we both
swilled espresso until we lived
twenty feet outside our own bod
ies and could not utter a single co
herent. Phrase.
Maybe our lives were incred
ibly empty.
But for whatever reason, we
pencilled each other in. Or perhaps
our secretaries made the assigna
tion. It’s hard. To remember.
We came together that evening
in the espresso bar like Antony and
Cleopatra. Like a religious leader
communing with the Bureau of Al
cohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.
Like a tractor-trailer colliding with
a Yugo. Like a felt-tip pen caress
ing an agenda. Like a sex colum
nist encountering a book. On
grammar.
I remember most of all what he
was wearing. He was so haute.
Leather jeans. A ruby brooch that
perfectly matched his corneas. An
i.v. by Tommy Hilfiger. Jewel-en-
By Crispin Sartwell
Capital Times Advisor
crusted latex.
It was enough to make any pro
fessor of pure mathematics melt
into a puddle of womanly desire.
Our Orphan-Annie eyes met
over the demitasse. Uninhabited
eyes. Eyes like pools of impure
possibility. Pools that could only
be filled by continuous conspicu
ous consumption. Eyes that
wanted. That silently begged
“please, please.” That saw only
designer boutiques, platinum
cards, and each other.
We had no desire to talk or even
to touch. We wanted only to shop,
and we shopped with orgiastic fury.
That night we bought things that
it had never before occurred to any
one to want: fur toaster ovens; nose
implants; cosmetics distilled from
icebergs; smallpox; flawless appli
ances that did nothing at all; Elton
John’s tribute to Mobutu Sese
Seko; full-body tattoos of the self
portraits of Frida Kahlo; comput
erized wigs; huge Eskimo girls;
self-improvement books made of
human skin; former Soviet repub
lics. And still it was not enough.
We were living in a dream or
perhaps nightmare of lust for ac
cessories.
We took cabs. We looted. We
smoked rock caffeine. We dodged
the paparazzi. We wept together for
the homeless.
Our passion was torrential,
deranged,credit-worthy,
postmodern as the next Calvin
Klein campaign.
But it was over as quickly as it
began. Over the next few mo
ments, I noticed that we were drift
ing insensibly apart. Soon he was
wearing Gucci and I, I was work
ing on a proof of Fermat’s last theo
rem.
His wife found out about our for
bidden agenda. His home room
teacher found out. God found out.
The public health authorities found
out.
Then came the fateful moment
when one of my sentences featured
a verb, and I knew that it was never
to be.
I quit my jobs, traded my condo
for a simple yet daringly bare
Donna Karan burqa, and joined the
Taliban.
But every time I open my
agenda to the date, that date, I am
reminded of the importance of ef
fective accessorizing.
COMMENTARY
By Bryan Kapschull
Capita! Times Staff Writer
When I was in fifth grade I made
a bet with my best friend Wes. I
bet him $5O that the world would
not end on New Years Eve 1999.
Being a sucker, he took the bet
without realizing that if he won we
would both be dead. He therefore
would not receive his payment.
If you happen to run in to any
one in your travels who believes
the world is coming to an end, ask
them to put their money where
their mouth is. Trust me, you can’t
lose. I only wish I had ‘gambled’
more than $5O, but in fifth grade,
it seemed like a hell of a lot more
money.
The recent media frenzy con
cerning Y2K has a rather consid
erable number of people looking
to January 1 with apprehension.
Among these concerned citizens
of earth is my grandmother. She
hides in her basement every time
there is a thunderstorm warning in
the Western Hemisphere.
She possesses an omnipresent
fear that hurricane Jimbob, or
Susie, or Sammy is going to find
its way to Pennsylvania from
Florida, or Cuba, or China.
You can imagine my
grandmother’s terrifying vision of
11:59 p.m. December 31, 1999.
Picture her along with the masses
of other overly cautious families
gathered around their shiny new
Honda 75 horsepower gas pow
ered generators.
Millennium in Vegas
The protective family men
perched atop their Honda’s with a
hand on the pull cord like Quick
Draw McGraw, just waiting for
the lights to go put.
And when darkness falls on the
rest of the unprepared neighbor
hood, a collective “I told you so”
rings out from these basements of
fortitude. This just before the rest
of the neighborhood comes
knocking on your door, making
themselves at home among your
stockpile.
You knew those 2,000 cans of
creamed corn would come in
handy, along with the crate of de
hydrated H2O, your freeze dried
sacks of air, your palate of Spam.
If this sounds like an unpleasant
scenario, I’ve got a solution for
you.
I recently came to the conclu
sion that the only rational plan for
the approaching millennium is to
head to Las Vegas. The great neon
oasis in the Nevada desert, name
a better place to spend the eve of
destruction.
It’s always warm there, no wor-
rying about losing your electric
heat. Now, I do realize that every
hotel room in the city is most
likely booked for New Years by
now, but I have an alternate plan.
The casinos never close so it is
not entirely necessary that I sleep,
no need for a hotel room. I’ll bring
enough Vivarin to stay awake for
a week or two.
Recently I contacted Vivarin to
Wednesday, September 8,1999 5
inquire if they might endorse my
trip to Vegas. I explained to them
that I could be Vivarin man and
wear a yellow Vivarin suit, people
could gather round me and watch
me not sleep.
I could bring a sloth and feed it
Vivarin and it could then run
quickly down the strip on its hind
legs. Unfortunately it specifies on
the Vivarin package that the prod
uct is not intended to be used as a
substitute for sleep.
I have yet to receive a reply
from Vivarin concerning my
proposition.
Isn’t it a beautiful plan? The
glowing lights, the warm desert
air, the ringing of the slots, the
crack heads, the prostitutes...and
you?
I ask you to join me on my trip.
I know, what if it really is the end
and all those within the City of Sin
are condemned to eternal damna
tion?
If worse comes to worse, I’ll be
on the highway to hell with Wayne
Newton at my side.
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