The London Lounge

http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=FR&v=utryFRLHNRQ

"I am worried about the tailors." Guy Talese, would been at home in the LL. This great interview brings into focus many of the themes we have developed over the years together.

His description of the passegiata is wonderful and another example of why dressing with individual style is a fundamental masculine virtue.

A warm salute to Mr Talese!

Michael Alden

Edited

"Would have"? He's still with us! Although judging from the film about him, which features an electric type writer, he's yet to step into the digital age.

His superb autobiography, and family history, Unto The Sons ought to be on the Lounge's reading list. It's a wonderful book and gratifyingly his love of clothes, and his family connections to the business of tailoring, is a recurring theme.

alden wrote:This great interview brings into focus many of the themes we have developed over the years together.
His description of the passegiata is wonderful and another example of why dressing with individual style is a fundamental masculine virtue.

Yes, as well as "dressing up for the story" - well said, make each day a story, make it memorable, don't just go about a blind routine from which you expect nothing. Make each day (with its hardships and joys, with its victories and defeats) a celebration of life - and dress for the event: the event is that you were born alive!
Different story, different dress; even when you are sad or depressed, that's a story: dress for it and live it out. Don't ignore your impressions - act on them and you will understand them better and know yourself.
Make your dress meaningful. Clothes mean nothing - not even the tailoring that goes into them has any meaning until the garment is worn. It is our choices, our accents, our combinations - our dress that gives them meaning. Michael, I think it was you who once wrote in a post (I don't remember whether it was a quote or your own thought) that dress is the silent poetry a man tells to the world every day. Clothes are the words of our poems. But imagine a world in which a word dies every day and no other is born to replace it. Imagine the growing gaps on the pages of our favourite books, our beloved poets of the past that have become incomprehensible as the words are missing, the songs we cannot sing anymore, the frustration of being unable to find a word to express a feeling. How can we make poetry without words? Without tailors to make clothes the way we like and imagine them, where is the poetry of dress? In twisting and mixing and shaking together the prefabricated phrases and sentences made for us by an industry? A folly of a few decades is in danger of ending a heritage of a few millenia. But who cares for the poetry of life anymore?

This is a gentleman who knows how to live life well.

I like the fact he's taken such good care of his wardrobe over the years.

Best Regards,

Cufflink79

Michael, I think it was you who once wrote in a post (I don't remember whether it was a quote or your own thought) that dress is the silent poetry a man tells to the world every day.

I wrote those words as a response to Dopey's disbelieving about my lack of interest in clothes.

"Clothes are products used to cover the body, the works of craftsmen are instruments of dress. Clothing oneself is required by law. Dressing is the inaudible poetry a man recites to the world."

Looking back over the years of the LL we have had some truly great characters writing here and I miss many of them dearly. Take a minute and read through some of the accumulated wit and wisdom this place has to offer. It amazes me.

I am sure one of our NY members knows Mr Talese and will have the good sense of inviting him here !!!

Cheers

Michael

A True Story About Gay Talese

There were a number of writers who lived in The Golden Square on the east side of Manhattan during the 1960s, not the least of them Gay Talese and Tom Wolf. Every time IBM issued a brand-new typewriter, letters were sent to each of us by a Big Blue representative to come have a look at the latest greatest machine and take it for a test drive in the IBM showroom nearby. Most of us placed an order immediately. If a typewriter went down, for whatever reason, a call to IBM for those of us who had service contracts, would result in a technician appearing at your doorstep in a navy blue suit, plain white shirt and solid blue tie. In his hand was an attache case fitted with specialized tools to fix the problem.

Not every writer in the neighborhood was a fan of IBM. Some preferred big cumbersome Olympia typewriters and others, such as Talese, stuck by his old Underwood manual. There was a little typewriter repair shop on Lexington Avenue that Talese frequented from time to time. One day
he drags in his old machine and places it on the counter. "Can you fix it?" he asks. The owner of the
shop looks at the museum piece, scratches his head in bewilderment, and starts to laugh uncontrollably. Talese had tied the wobbly printheads to the arms with dental floss. Dental floss, for crissakes! The owner offered to sell him a brand-new machine at a good price, but Talese was determined to have the old clunker repaired regardless of cost. It was his lucky charm. Lord! writers are a weird lot.

JMB