J a n c e e D u n n

Essay for Real Simple, October 2011 -- Five Writers Are Asked What They Would Save If Their House Caught On Fire

At the first whiff of smoke, I would rush to the kitchen and grab an innocuous-looking checked apron and a baggie holding a crumbling piece of candy that has been stashed in my freezer for seven years.
I should explain. I was a writer at Rolling Stone for fifteen years. I’ve interviewed hundreds of musicians, but in 2004 I received a dream assignment: a day with Loretta Lynn at her Tennessee home.
I grew up listening to Ms. Lynn and consider her one of our finest American songwriters. Still, I was jittery as I made my way up the driveway. I needn’t have worried. Cheerful and welcoming in a sparkly purple shirt and black pants, she gave me a big kiss and then hustled me directly into the kitchen. “You hungry?” she said with concern. She pointed out some bologna and mayonnaise in the fridge and a loaf of bread she recently baked. I wavered: Should I? Then I thought: a country legend is inviting you to root through her fridge. Get in there! As I happily demolished a sandwich, I saw her visibly relax, clearly relieved that I wasn’t some uptight vegetarian from New York.
Then she made a thrilling suggestion. “Hon, why don’t we make some peanut butter fudge?” As we charged around the kitchen, pulling out sugar and throwing butter and hefty blobs of Jif into a pot, she regaled me with tales of her friend Tammy Wynette. She was so absorbed in the telling, and I in the listening, that we both lost track of the candy, and the whole concoction boiled over. The fudge came out in crumbly nuggets, but the good-natured Lynn just shrugged and got two spoons. We sat barefoot on her couch and ate it like cereal.
Then, a week after I returned home, I received a package in the mail. Inside was a cheery red and white checked apron, an aromatic box of fudge, and a note on stationery marked with a large, cursive ‘LL.’ I hope you like this fudge much better! Ms. Lynn wrote. I wanted to send you some to show how it’s supposed to be! We really had fun. Love you, Loretta Lynn.
It can be a dicey prospect to meet your idols. It’s rare that they live up to your expectations, nor is it fair to expect them to do so. But Lynn the woman turned out to be as unforgettable as Lynn the singer. It’s impossible to imagine a contemporary artist sending this humble, homemade gift. I ate all the fudge but one small chunk, and I take out that apron and look at it every once in a while. I can’t bear to use it, although Loretta would probably laugh and tell me to just put the dang thing on, already.

Small Essay for Real Simple Family, September 2011

One Saturday, as my husband was attempting to read the newspaper, our toddler Sylvie tugged him out of his chair and pushed him towards our bedroom. She pointed to a pair of used socks he had tossed on the floor, and, regretfully but firmly, told him he had to put them in the hamper—now. My husband, momentarily blind to the absurdity of taking orders from a person in saggy diapers, hurriedly whisked them away.
It was immediately clear that Sylvie’s love of tidiness was no phase. She was truly aggrieved by the presence of those ratty socks, and she visibly relaxed when they were gone. When she started to walk, we fully expected her to do the usual toddler typhoon through our apartment, leaving a trail of toys and clothes. But how many kids want something put back? For that matter, how many two-year-olds name persnickety Bert as their favorite Sesame Street character? But she obviously felt best in an orderly environment, which gave her a sense of control, and of calm.
Sylvie is not compulsive. Instead, she’s careful, thoughtful, deliberate. Every morning, she swings through our place, conducting a visual sweep like a security guard. You can see her thoughts working: Mm-hm. Couch pillows in place. Good, good. New bananas in the fruit bowl: I’ll allow it. She’s a giggly, funny, spontaneous toddler—she just happens to be neat. And so her Playmobil figures are lined up with the precision of North Korean soldiers. Her Lego buildings have clean, modern lines. Bibs sit in a drawer, barely used.
I see only upsides to this behavior. Our apartment is spotless, for one thing. Our tiny tyrant has been able to accomplish what ten years of pleading with my messy husband could not: one look of reproach from Sylvie, and he hastens to put his junk mail in the recycling bin. And because of her, I’ve upgraded my frazzled-mother look just a little. When I leave the house, she inspects my outfit for splotches. If she —inevitably—finds one, she runs for a sponge. Then she carefully wipes away the offending stain. “Better,” she’ll say, giving my shirt a little pat. All is well—with me, and with her, too.

I'm the color of wallpaper paste

...and I wrote about it in the New York Times yesterday.

Complaint Box

I rant in the New York Times today.

I love the feature "Small Talk" in the Financial Times, a weekly q&a with various writers.
Last week, Joseph O'Connor was featured -- I loved his novel Star Of The Sea.

A sampling:

What is the last thing you read that made you laugh out loud?

The Mysterious Secret of the Valuable Treasure, a set of remarkable short stories by the American writer Jack Pendarvis.

What are you scared of?

Having no readers.

How would you earn your living if you had to give up writing?

By a strangely lyrical and highly compelling form of begging.

....and my favorite:

How do you cure writer’s block?

I take a look at the electricity bill.

Exactly.

Stars: They're Not In The Least Like 'Us!'

Barbra Streisand hits the 'gym'

Recipe Corner, Holiday Edition

Here are two beyond-easy recipes for appetizers, if you need to take something to a party. I customized them from Epicurious.

Spicy Pecans

This has maple syrup in it, and cayenne pepper. Think of it as the Master Cleanse, only with nuts. Makes three cups.

3 cups pecans
6 T maple syrup
3 T sugar
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper

----------------

Preheat oven to 325 and put a sheet of parchment on a baking sheet.

Put everything but the pecans in a bowl and stir. Add pecans last and spread in an even layer on the baking sheet. Bake nuts for 5 minutes, stir to coat, then bake for another 12 minutes, until golden and the coating bubbles.

Spread a sheet of aluminum foil on your counter. Working quickly so the nuts don't clump onto each other, transfer them with a fork to the foil so that each nut has a little space. Let them cool thoroughly. That's it!

Easy Artichoke Dip

People go crazy for this dip, especially after a few drinks.

6 T grated Romano cheese
2 T light mayonnaise
4 T light sour cream
1 T chopped chives
1 large clove garlic, minced
1/2 tsp. Onion powder (or retro-but-undeniably-tasty reconstituted onion flakes)
1/4 tsp. Pepper
1/4 tsp. Salt
1/4-ish tsp. Paprika

16 oz. Artichoke hearts (I use one 12. oz jar and one 4 oz. jar) chopped into 1/4 inch pieces

Preheat oven to 375°F.
Whisk 5 tablespoons grated Romano cheese, mayonnaise, sour cream, chives, onion, garlic, salt and pepper in a medium bowl to blend. Stir in chopped artichoke hearts and throw in a bowl. Bake dip until heated through, about 20 minutes.

Preheat broiler. Sprinkle dip with remaining 1 tablespoon grated Romano cheese and paprika. Broil until cheese melts, about 2 minutes. Serve warm.

I think there's an eyelash or something in my eye....yes, that's it..

I know Veteran's Day was yesterday but try to keep your composure when you see this video, courtesy of mental_floss, of dogs greeting their owners when they return from basic training or service overseas.

And I'm a cat person!

You Had Me At Woof

Is it any surprise that Julie Klam's new book, You Had Me At Woof, is a huge hit? No, it is not!

This is a great article about her in the New York Times.

Halloween's coming

Enjoy these innovative home made costumes

Drinking Diaries

...is a great blog (www.drinkingdiaries.com) for women to share their thoughts and stories about drinking - or, in my case, giving it up.

The fabulous Julie Klam is on there, too.

Enjoy!

Rosanne Cash and me at yesterday's Brooklyn Book Festival, chatting about her excellent memoir, Composed.
Beforehand I was able to talk to her and she was just as I'd imagined: funny, smart, well-read, down to earth. A great afternoon.

Brooklyn Book Festival 2010

I'll be there, talking to the peerless Rosanne Cash - I'm reading her fantastic memoir, Composed, right now. Normally these sorts of gigs make me jittery, but Ms. Cash is so thoughtful and smart (anyone hear her on Leonard Lopate?) that I'm not even nervous.

It's on September 12 at 1 PM. Here are the program notes:

COMPOSED: In Conversation with Rosanne Cash. Celebrated music journalist Jancee Dunn (Why Is My Mother Getting a Tattoo?) talks to the first daughter of country music about her new memoir, life with her famous father and coming into her own as an artist.
MAINSTAGE

..and a link to the festival.

2010 Thurber Prize finalist

You know the feeling when you receive good news, and forget for a while as you go about your business, and then you're at the grocery store or something and remember, and a little thrill runs through you?

Well, that's how I've been feeling since I learned that my book, Why Is My Mother Getting A Tattoo? is a finalist for the 2010 Thurber Prize for American Humor.

Truly, it is honor enough to be a finalist. I dare not go beyond that, even in my subconscious. Every time I scan through the list of past winners —Ian Frazier, Christopher Buckley, David Sedaris —I get worked up again.

Here are the details.

All year I have been stocking a library for my baby daughter, and one of the first books I got was Thurber's classic 13 Clocks, a delightful fairy tale about a Duke who thinks he has stopped time. Read it aloud to any child and he or she will not move, or blink, until the book is finished.

My essay on 'Project Runway' from the April 2010 book 'Reality Matters: 19 Writers Come Clean On The Shows We Can't Stop Watching'

It happened the way these things often do. I was drifting around my Brooklyn apartment on a Sunday afternoon, putting off a writing assignment. I had already given the place a Procrastination Cleaning so compulsively thorough that at one point I found myself consolidating two boxes of bandages into one more streamlined package. And so I turned on the television - a no-no among my writer cronies, who argue that daytime T.V. begins a dissolute spiral downward. Writers are a vulnerable population of clammy, sweatpants-clad hermits, and while other groups are quite capable of ‘just turning on The View for ten minutes,’ we are not. For me, a quick check-in with Barbara and the gang would lead to a 22-hour sloth-a-thon capped by a 5 a.m. showing of Turner & Hooch. Then I’d start drinking. Then I’d start doing drugs.
So it was with extreme trepidation that I reached for the remote, but I was desperate not to work. I flicked disinterestedly through dozens of channels before landing on Bravo, which was running a marathon of the 2004 first season of Project Runway. I sighed. I was never a fan of reality T.V., never able to join in the water cooler chat about the latest episode of American Idol. My granny-ish viewing preferences tilted towards cozy mystery series on PBS starring elderly but plucky detectives.
Five minutes into Project Runway, I put the remote down. An hour later, I had taken a pillow from my bed and tucked it under my back for a more comfortable viewing position on the couch. Three hours later, I was absently shoving a box of pizza rolls into my toaster oven with my eyes fastened to the screen as I rooted for contestant Jay McCarroll to win. Around midnight, I got my wish.
The premise of the show is simple: a cutthroat group of contestants competes to create a garment, usually with alarmingly limited time and materials, to be presented at a runway show at the end of the program. Every episode presents a different design challenge, ranging from nutty (an outfit made with items from the grocery store) to inspired (fashioning a new ensemble from the clothes on contestants’ backs.) Taping takes place in New York City – to bang the point home there are many, many loving shots of massing pigeons and yellow taxicabs – with much of the action taking place at Parsons The New School For Design, where designers take over a workroom.
The producers found their perfect host in German glamazon Heidi Klum (“as you know in fashion, one day you are in, the next, you are out”) whose deliciously chilly Teutonic parting shot to each exiting contestant is an Auf Wiedersehen followed by a double air kiss. Her fellow judges nicely round out the mix: designer Michael Kors (“hey guys”) formidable Elle editor-at-large Nina Garcia (“hi, everyone”) and a guest judge along the lines of Victoria Beckham. Kors’ sense of humor mitigates the sting of his criticism (“Hel-LO! Slutty, slutty, slutty!”) while Garcia, unfairly labeled as too tough, brings an intelligent, high-fashion perspective to the proceedings (“Don’t bore me.”)
Oh, how do I love thee, Project Runway? Let me count the ways. The heart of the show is witty, cultured Tim Gunn, former chair of fashion design at Parsons (and now Chief Creative Officer of Liz Claiborne.) One of the highlights is his visit to the workroom to inspect the designs-in-progress. He frowns in concentration, one hand on his chin. “Talk to me,” he’ll say after a long silence, and the contestant ramblingly explains his or her vision. If he’s pleased, he says Carry on. Less skilled contestants get a diplomatic I’m concerned.
Much has been made of Gunn’s extensive vocabulary and liberal use of words such as constructivist and egregious and amorphous. “Why is there so much consternation and Sturm und Drang?” he’ll ask a blank-faced designer. Gunn’s eloquence helps to tamp down that sheepish self-loathing that reality television can elicit –the same tawdry shame that waits at the grease-soaked bottom of a McDonald’s bag after a binge.
I’m desperate to be Tim Gunn’s friend, and fantasize about meeting him at the Neue Gallery uptown for Viennese coffees at Café Sabarsky before taking a stroll in Central Park, where we discuss art, literature, life. Alternatively, he summons me to an elegant little pre-opera supper at his apartment before we attend a performance of La Gioconda together at the Met, where we discreetly squeeze each other’s arm during onstage moments of high emotion.
While Gunn anchors the whole affair, there are so many other soothing constants that I look forward to each week. There is the pitiless tradition of tossing out an extraneous model during the first few minutes of the show (they also compete for a spread in Elle magazine) just to whet the audience’s bloodlust. Auf wiedersehen, Tatiana!
I love the endless, brazen product placement, as Gunn says straight-facedly, You-have-an-hour-to-send-models-to-the-Tresemme-hair-salon-and-the-L’Oreal-Paris-makeup-room-and-please-borrow-generously-from-the-Bluefly.com-accessory-wall. I adore the way the most minor setback is blown to Titanic proportions (Tim to Season Five contestant Keith: “Your model, Runa, had to drop out.” Cue dramatic music and a tight closeup of a white-faced Keith, blind with shock as he struggles to absorb this telegram delivered straight…from…Hell.
And who can resist the brash, flamboyant, high-octane contestants, with their killer competitiveness, their unvarnished ambition? If a designer is praised by the judges during the fashion-show segment, the camera will gleefully cut to another designer who is grimacing with disgust and naked hostility. I rejoice in the genuine anger and indignation the contestants display when they are eliminated, leaving with the requisite, defiant ‘you haven’t heard the last of me’ quote. They do everything but shake their fist at the camera. Frankly, I’m shocked that no one has tried to burn Parsons down. Never, ever will they admit to an inferior creation that actually deserved to be cut.
So many gaudy, glitzy, eccentric fabulons! Campy costume designer Chris March, passive-aggressive schemer Wendy Pepper, spacey artist Elisa Jimenez, who used her own saliva to measure her clothing; glamorous, poised Austin Scarlett (yes, his real name) with his cravats and perfectly arched eyebrows. Inevitably, there is a bemused straight guy thrown into the group who holds himself slightly apart from his more unabashedly gay competitors. (Kevin was the last season’s bemused straight guy, given to comments like “There’s too much drama because there’s too many queens around,” although soon enough, he, too, was dispensing snippy comments about his fellow contestants for the cameras.)
And, inevitably, there is a tough contestant who isn’t afraid to verbally tussle with the others, my very favorite being Season Three’s flame-haired paragon of cool confidence, Laura Bennett, the sole grownup on the show, 40ish and pregnant with her sixth child and not in the mood for any crap. Being timid myself, and reluctant to start even the mildest confrontation in New York City lest I get stabbed, I cackled every time she snapped at someone to shut up.
But the apex of Project Runway is the moment that the contestants get down to work. The cameras are forgotten (well, almost forgotten) as they become utterly absorbed in a frenzy of stitching and snipping and fitting. This is the part of the show that many viewers cite to justify their habit, because it lulls you into thinking that this is a more highbrow endeavor than your average reality show. No implants! No hot tubs! See? Everyone is creating something. It won a Peabody!
As a writer who works alone, I burn with envy as I witness the designers in action, because they have the best of both worlds: the camaraderie and feedback of a group and the glory of showing off their individual creations. I will never have both. At this point in my career, my ego won’t allow me to work in an office and surrender the spotlight. On the other hand, my ‘office mates’ are my two cats, and I have found myself more than once dementedly saying to them Well! Let’s see what the postman brought us or Hmm, what should I have for lunch today? I’ll bet you guys vote for tuna salad, right? On some days, I’m one step away from hosting a Cat Tea Party, so I’d happily move into the workroom and brave the backbiting.
Aside from watching the contestants at work, another key element of the show’s appeal is the kaleidoscope parade of outfits sported by most of the designers, particularly the ones who are in their early 20s. They dress the way I wish more New Yorkers did. Every person in New York looks like a demure fashion editor now, so I celebrate the contestants’ every pillbox hat, every Canary-yellow strip of eye shadow, each pair of stunningly impractical chartreuse shoes with a five-inch mirrored heel. New Yorkers, of all people, have become entirely too beige - and unfortunately, I include myself in that category.
When I first came to New York, aflame with the same energy the contestants have, I wore the most preposterous outfits in the world, and I’m glad I did. After I joined the staff of Rolling Stone in 1989, my first order of business was to run out and purchase three pairs of leather pants – black, brown, and white. White leather pants! Did I think I was a member of Earth, Wind & Fire? Naturally, I wore them with a sleeveless purple shirt trimmed in feathers. As a 22-year-old New Yorker, it’s your God-given right to look ridiculous as you clomp down the street in a white vintage slip and combat boots.
I fell on the city like a starving rat on a moldy ham sandwich, rushing to discover new bars every night, spending weekends combing through various neighborhoods, ducking into thrift stores and museums and cafes. The show deftly captures the giddy excitement of being a recent arriviste in the city, and I echo the disappointment of the many fans who are enraged that it will heretofore be set in Los Angeles. Is this necessary? The show will not be the same without that opening shot of the rising sun skimming over the Parsons building – which, by the way, is situated a few blocks from the Garment District, so that, crucially, designers spend a lot of time rushing around on the street. In Los Angeles, they will be removed from this thriving culture as they take to their cars. Most importantly, New York City will be awfully hard to replace as a setting, simply for the sheer number of people who drop down on it every year as I did, hoping to be somebody else, and fast.
Which leads me to my very favorite part of the series. As the finale nears and competitors are whittled to a handful, we are treated to a more rounded portrait of them. Earlier in the season, designers may rattle off a quick biography for the camera in between running to the Hersheys store in Times Square to fashion a dress out of candy, but beyond that, not much information is given on their backgrounds.
This is remedied in the last few episodes, when the remaining three or four contestants are handed eight thousand dollars and given a dozen weeks to complete a twelve-piece look to be shown at New York Fashion Week in Bryant Park. Each of them tapes an extended segment in which they talk about their beginnings. Then, after they commence work on their collections, Tim Gunn himself pays a visit to their homes to check their progress.
Gunn is, as always, gracious and kind, but somehow his visits are exceedingly awkward as he stands, cheery and dapper and slightly hesitant, at the doorstep. The moment when he is invited in is so sweetly poignant, because it is then that we see the designer’s roots peeking out
from beneath the wacky headgear. The place where most of these sophisticated hipsters grew up is often markedly different from their carefully cultivated, glamorous personas: there is the ordinary-looking family, uncomfortable in front of the camera and unsure of what to say; there is the drab sofa where Gunn sits briefly before heading off.
I had assumed that season Four’s Jillian Lewis, so urbane on the show, was an Upper East Side private-school girl, but instead she was Parsons grad who hailed from a modest house in the small town of Selden, Long Island. First Season winner Jay McCarroll, he of the pointed wit and flamboyant dress, grew up in the tiny mountain town of Lehman, Pennsylvania, the youngest of six kids. His dad was a bricklayer, and the family shopped at Sears. And whippet-thin, black-clad Season Four winner Christian Siriano may have looked like the bastard child of Ron Wood and French Vogue editor Carine Roitfeld, but in the end, he had the same comfortingly pedestrian relatives that most of us have.
In an instant it’s clear how thoroughly these designers have reinvented themselves, how they carefully honed a new persona until one day, they were the person they always wanted to be. I did it, too. When I took the New Jersey Transit bus into the City in 1989 to interview for a job at Rolling Stone, I had a Jersey girl perm, long red nails, heavy Color Me Beautiful makeup, and an Ann Taylor power suit I had borrowed from my mom. As I waited in the lobby, I realized with dismay that I looked utterly different from the stylish employees breezing into the office. After I – to my astonishment – landed the job, I took careful note of the city girls around me. I lost the perm. I bought good shoes. Slowly, slowly, I blotted out that scraggly Jersey girl and transformed her into someone else. If you looked at me now, you’d see a confident urbanite. Some days, I almost believe it myself.