“Welcome!”
Our perfectly coiffed hostess opens the gate to her
apartment. As she swings the metal barricade closed and locks it with a small
key, her dress spins about into a bell shape any 1960s housewife would envy.
We climb the carpeted stairs in slingbacks and loafers to a
2nd floor apartment. Sounds of the McGuire Sisters and Ella lazily
crooning in the background embellish our tangible imaginations. Because
tonight, you see, it’s 1960 – or maybe 1963?
The porch lights are on, smiling over our patch of New York,
and the conversation is fitting. Oh how I needed another bobby pin! Doesn’t
your hair look fabulous? What a lovely shade of lipstick you’re wearing. Such
darling pearls. Don’t the men look dapper?
Trudy shouted from the living room that “The Twist” was
about to play. Well, we simply had to join! Isn’t the culmination of every
memorable cocktail party on the dance floor, pivoting to and fro? Gin and
tonics were tossed aside like secretaries in an ad agency and we danced,
danced, danced…
In my mind’s eye, there are scenes of Donald Draper walking
smugly down Madison Avenue to the Sterling-Cooper building. But I also see E.B.
White typing away columns for magazines, and Bob Dylan just beginning to make
his mark. Can’t you envision Edie Sedgwick stumbling through the Village with
Andy and her posse in tow? Or maybe you imagine Robert Gottlieb and Korda
pouring over Catch-22. How glamorous
we can make a turbulent decade appear in hindsight, through the
eyes of fake Ray Bands from the corner store.
Even still, I love this time period and its juxtaposition of contrasting American ideals. Pretending if only for an evening, that we took part in 1960’s
New York City is all too enjoyable for the current inhabitants of this
ever-changing town. Movements, riots, literature, music – many of these
cultural contributions began within blocks of our homes.
But when the night was through, I slipped off my heels and
changed into Toms. I let out a few pins from my hair to curtail the squeezing
of my scalp. Then I walked into the night air with an encouraging thought that
many of my 1960s idols may have been without: I, hopefully, will be remembered
for more than my red dress, my silky pearls… my fake, plastic pearls.
So let us play. Let us flippantly play in the past for a
moment or more.
And then we move on.
Happy Mad Men my friends.
