Styles from Hell

March 27, 2006

"I had a dream I was working at a place where everyone was having sex," Deborah said as she got dressed this morning. She was up early for her first day of work as a bookkeeper for a West Village bar.

"What do you mean?" I asked. "Customers having sex with each other in a bar or something?"

"Yeah."

"What about you? What were you doing? Having sex, too?"

"No. Just serving drinks."

"Well, that's the new thing, y'know?" I said, "I read it in the papers."

I reminded Deborah about an article we read a couple of months ago in The New York Times. At least I think it was The New York Times, I really can't remember, but anyway, the gist of the article was that sex clubs are the height of fashion in Paris right now. Like I said, this was a few months ago, and The New York Times has a tendency to be behind the times in matters of hip and trendy to begin with, so it's probably safe to assume that Paris has moved on to other things by now, but that only made it more fun to act like a yokel who read something about what the French were "doin' o'er in gay Paree."

"Atlanta gets her styles from New York," I said. "And New York gets her styles from Paris. And Paris gets her styles from Hell."

"What are you talking about?" Deborah laughed.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw a post online featuring several MP3s of the song Amazing Grace as interpreted by a variety of musicians. My favorite was from 1927 by a guy named Reverend J.M. Gates. The beginning of the song is hardly recognizable, with Reverend Gates whipping himself into an evangelical frenzy as he traces the origin of Atlanta fashion. I found it hilarious, and the line stuck with me.

"How's it go?" Deborah asked. "Say it again."

"Atlanta gets her styles from New York," I wailed, putting some fire into it. "And New York gets her styles from Paris," I halted between each line, allowing it to sink in. "And Paris? Paris gets her styles from Hell!"

Deborah laughed. "The guy's got a point. And while we're on the subject, do you think what I'm wearing is good enough? It's my first day, and this place is kind of fancy, but I'm just going to be doing books in the basement all day."

"You look great," I assured her.

"I want to cut my hair off."

Uh oh. When a girl starts talking about cutting her hair off, it can only mean one thing: Trouble.