Vogue

I went to Vogue the other day. I had asked Abigail Walch, one of their feature editors with whom I am friendly, if I could come sit in the Condé Nast library to do research on my new novel, and she graciously said yes. So I put on my black high heeled boots, and a little black dress that I got at a little boutique in Silver Lake when I still lived in LA that I love because 1) the way it is cut, and 2) because its provenance is impossible to discern. And I he aded down to their great building on 42nd street. The library is on the 4th floor,
right by the cooking kitchen for Gourmet - yum! I got there about 11, and settled in at a table with books holding the archives of
Vogue from the '80's. If I ever doubted the power of advertising and/or the media, I don't any longer. I remembered every shot. Every one. I suddenly wondered if I had spent hours and days reading each issue when I was growing up. Not that it wasn't a happy pursuit, but still. Boy, did it bring lots back. And it opened up a whole aspect of the novel that I hadn't even thought about. I love when that happens, and have always believed that that is one of the most important parts of research is seeing a direction I need to go that I didn't realize I did. I even found a tiny little piece, literally 3 paragraphs about a law in Louisiana that completely pertains to my book. What are the odds of that?? It was a strange feeling to sit there perched above 42nd street in the city of my childhood dreams holding (albeit a different copy, but) an issue of Vogue that I had read as a teenager and to see the same images now that I saw then, and to have so many different reactions to them now. And friends from my life now that were in there back then when I had no idea who they were. Like an essay by Eve Babitz, a wonderful LA writer who I adore. It was an amazing meander down lots of different lanes.
Then, no surprise, I was famished. So I went to the famous and fabulous Condé Nast cafeteria. It reminded me a bit of the Warner Brothers' commissary, but East Coast style.
Here's my lunch:
I didn't get a picture of the two chocolate cookies I got, but they were really yummy, too. Then I went back to the library, and got on their computers for a bit to look at archives of the New Yorker from before Condé Nast bought it.
And I impressed myself that I was able to figure out the system, even though it was on a PC. - Elizabeth and Maggi and Dan, did you hear that??? ;) -
Then I had to run home as I was about to turn into a pumpkin - i.e. a mom. And to be honest, I was happy to get home, kick off my boots, and see my boys. We played tigers at the zoo. My bed was their cage, and I was the zoo keeper - I refuse to see this metaphorically! I fed them tasty treats, and kept the baby tiger from trying to get out of the cage. We all had great fun.
xo
And, no, Anna Wintour was never in sight.