Which reminds me, time for an Autumnal Equinox intention next month, this Fall will be defined by a shag haircut and lemonade. My staple is PJ’s lemonade, which comes in an orange box as a thick concentrate. I order mine mixed with club soda, the result is iced fizz sublimity, invigorating like the oxygen they pump into casinos.

Not one block into a mid-day walk, I feel lightheaded. The heat index is over one hundred thirteen degrees; the furnace crawls up my back like fire ants. “Just a few blocks,” I mutter to myself, placing one wobbly flip-flopped foot in front of the other, all the while the top of my skull melts. I see all manner of goblins, angels, insects, clouds, plants and potholes trapped inside the heat dome, power lines sagging, cats taking refuge under cars.

Extreme heat keeps hurricanes at bay. We should all thank the fire laced air for keeping us cooked yet spared a storm’s destruction.

Enduring Love:
Colorful Gleaming, Consciously-Sourced Stones

In sweltering temperatures, heaven sent is a jade roller fresh out from the freezer, pressed firm on the temples, gliding up and down a clenched jawline releasing tensions. Reconnecting to the body, returning to sensory experience is the quickest way to make something artful with our moment in history. Every algorithmic suggestion creates a new pathway toward the meta brain, so place your hand over heart, grab a stone and save your space in memory.

Just as the cooling fans in data centers stay on 24/7, so too our hearts pump nonstop, transporting nutrients to beleaguered limbs. Pick your poisons in moderation as Jennifer Michael Hecht suggests, and existential harmony is realized. It’s fine line between insight and gibberish, all we can do is try.

In the 1990’s the West Village was the place for pre-teen wannabes from Queens like me to go shopping. West Eighth Street featured a world-class stretch of retailers; stores packed with one-of-a-kind baubles and handmade apparel. You could spend a full day parading stores, sifting through colorful enamel brooches, vintage flight attendant uniforms, steel toe boots, penny loafers, punk studded vests and obscure UK band back patches - comparing touch, stitch and cost. A day spent adventuring downtown New York City’s hipster boutiques, new wage shops and scum punk stores, perusing crystals, sterling silver, Zippo lighters, glass pipes, prairie dresses and handmade dream catchers was an indelible experience.

In New Orleans, the Bywater and French Quarter host clusters of stores where one can buy curated thrift, crystals, sage, tarot decks and talismans.

Louisiana is a bastion of Black Catholicism, a syncretism fueled by the Code Noir laws of 1724 which mandated that enslaved people be baptized, if not fully catechized, as Catholic. This ensuing blend of spiritual frameworks welded together archetypes and rituals, opening a potent, multi-cultural invitation to God, gods and goddesses, a multi-region tradition grounded in sacred iconography and heightened sensory experience. Crystals are palm sized portals into ancestral voices; they are Godsend gifts that help center our humors and guide visualization.

Imagination ignites by the mere holding of a well sourced crystal, its cool density an invitation to reconnect with Earth’s extraordinary age and diversity of compounds. Crystals enable a tactile connection with millions of years of geological formation, a connection to the infinite source of all things.

An Addiction to Crystals;
Metaphysical Credit Cards

Last night at my favorite New Orleans retailer for stones, Earth Odyssey on Charters Streets, I was introduced to dalmatian Jasper. A checkered black and white stone, playful and distinct, I’ll be saving my pennies for that next purchase. In the interim I find myself with a fistful of Aventurine and Citrine - wealth attracting stones that feel like small bird’s eggs cupped in the palm of one’s hand. Their color variety is astounding, serves to pulls stronger into the orbit of stones, uniquely curated prayer stones.

Engaging with astrology too literally is deemed heretical within modern religions, yet during times of Christian religious fervor, under Henry VIII’s 16th century Tudor England, where people were burned alive for being Protestant and then Catholic, and then Protestant again - astrology was regularly used by the princes and aristocracy of Europe to provide guidance for coronations, weddings and military campaigns. Looking up to the stars, attempting to braid our existence into bigger narratives is an ancient human tradition and one that integrates beautifully with theological doctrine. Crystals help amplify devotion, channel saintly grace and higher callings.

Our next newsletter will feature the most credible and ethical sourcing online retailer in the United States, Hawaii-based MoonRise Crystals founder Julie Abouzelof. Julie will provide insights from her 20+ years of working hands on with crystals sourced from all corners of the world. I can’t wait to share Julie’s unique perspective on harnessing the power of these extraordinary mineral formations. Enjoy the last few weeks of Summer!

With love love love,
Nathalie(a)

With love, Nat

Since I moved to New Orleans in September 2021, tucked in button down shirts, shoulder pads, yoga pants, Levi’s 501’s, babydoll dresses and cropped tshirts have characterized the daily uniform. Nearly all traces of black have dissapeared from my closet, as have any garments that don’t fit or excite me. I am self satisfied, proud to say that for the first time in my life, every single item in my wardrobe fits me beautifully right now. Highly recommend throwing in the garbage anything that doesn’t ignite an energized feeling.

It helps to have pivoted toward the oversized tailored shirt in recent years. After forty years of fumbling about closets, digging through racks and racks of all sorts of punk, granny, thrifted hodgepodge exploration of labels and non-labels, I finally feel I’ve gotten to the core of my most distilled essence, the corporate clown.

I die for a collared button down shirt! If it’s floral, better. Maximalism will be in vogue for this summer, think frills and enormous accessories - think oversized earrings and statement necklaces, think layered chains and kaftans. We are over the stagnant pretention of “quiet luxury” and ready to do what we Americans do best, innovate.

To be American is to be perpetually adolescent, we are still in very nascent growing pains. And as with any emo teenager, self expression can be a pathway toward growth, self awareness and community. I urge you in the days ahead to not only examine your wardrobe, but aggresively prune anything, and I do mean anything, that no longer works, whether via fit or you’ve outgrown the look. Your grandmother’s wedding dress? Toss! Tight jeans from who-the-fuck-knows-when?! Toss!

RuPaul Charles is right to advocate for a rotational wardrobe, keeping the flow of energy moving. Personal style is something that ebbs, flows, flounders and triumphs as we leave our 20s and 30s behind, enter the power years, and then the statesman years, the sage elder plaything - ala geriatric ingenue Iris Apfel. Effortlessness is overrated {who respects no effort?!}, yet proper fit is the easiest way to ensure you move with ease in your body. Free movement is the seed of confidence.

Case in point, Ashley & Mary Kate Olsen:

My forty-second birthday awaits in October, I’ve never been more excited for the days ahead. Getting older is a thrill ride of contrarian beautification, and with the onslaught of AI slop churning on our screens, the human element grows outsized. Lightening bolt actress and comedienne Robby Hoffman, anticipates a creative Rennaisance amid this techno-wave of mediocre dribble.

Marching steadily through the 2020’s, transforming ever more into an analog purist, following Mr. Jack White’s insistence on simplicity and constraints in the realms of work and art making. Every time I sit at the local pub, I bring an enormous purse filled with notebooks, pens, scissors, glue sticks and stickers - drunkenly jotting down associative connections, reflections, testaments of the day, hopes for tomorrow and regrets of today. In sixty years, I would love nothing more than to be surrounded by notebooks filled to the margins in blue ink.

And just as New York City abandoned the middle class and became a place for moneyed atheists, I pivot toward the button down… U N T U C K E D. I’m a few years older than the Olsen twins, and yet undeniably - they lead the pack. Just look at the media-averse branding of The Row, reiterating what we all know to be true, in 2026 the true luxury is being offline. About ten years ago, I spent an evening talking AT Mary Kate Olsen in the Hamptons while chain smoking. She was gracious, slight and deliberate. I’ve been thinking about her sitting calmly across the table, while I rambled about God knows what.

Mary Kate’s ease invited mine; let’s offer that to each other.

Looking forward to the linen wearing days ahead. Keep it moving and in congregation x Nathali(e)a

Meditating on a rained out Memorial Day, looking out the bedroom window across the fog enveloped Crescent City Bridge. Fast moving clouds pass whilst rain drops thud onto the metal roof above. No barge ships passing today. When they do, I tease the dog, “Here come your toys from China!”

I wonder. What gifts will this Summer bring? I wonder. Is it time yet to play guitar, sing, tan and drink Aperol Spritz? Time to broaden horizons out of New Orleans and into the broader State of Louisiana? We in the Gulf are on the springboard of the experimental— ready to dive into a pool of immediate, local, sustainable, bio conscious, coastally restorative and colorful living. We’ll be at the forefront, telling the world: sit tight and care about what’s close to you. Through cypress trees and pelicans, use home’s blue skies as canvas for creative gains.

As A.I. eats away at human cognition, turning numbed out masses into banana brains, I urge all you lovers of this, the material world - to get whacky and play with clothing, animals, and syntax. Grab a beer after yoga class, because you are balanced and because it matters.

Summer can feel troubling, with its unstructured days and chaffed thighs. And my God such pressures to have fun in Summer, simply existing won’t do - one must revel, delight, live in sweat-stained shirts outdoors. Thankfully Louisiana’s hot steam summer is far too oppressive to do much but dip in water and day lounge on porches, balconies and doorsteps with front doors ajar to catch a lick of air-conditioned jet streams.

When Summer arrives, I suspect we’ll see lots of polka dots and oversized vintage bathing suit bottoms paired with itty bitty bikini tops. I suspect there will be sober curious fits paired with Prozac / Delta 9 hybrid hallucinogens. I suspect there will pup cups, an explosive poetry Renaissance, consistently shaved legs, astrological tattoos, deescalated world wars(?!) and closet decluttering.

Perhaps we can commit to a Southern Gothic Summer, complete with carnation pink, ivory and baby blue laced gloves.

I Come back to Ethel Cain

… as He does us, loved a bit more each day. I keep coming back for bites of the wedding cake, Ethel Cain’s dream beam EP, Golden Age (2019). Cain’s recent collaboration with the house of Dior for Coachella this year, dressed head to toe in pure black, in a draped Grecian gown and in black denim overalls! It is enough visual thrill to get me through Summer.

Like many millennials, I don’t have mentors in the traditional sense, but I do have muses! Lots of muses, that’s the key to life I think - stay close to the flames that illuminate the face of God for you. Soon I’ll need a deep dive on his eminence Pope Leo XIV. Any recommendations for a papal biography to read while tanning poolside?

Hard earned wisdom from overtaxed brains:

Imagine that! Senior AI exec can't outwork her illness

Is not the whole point of Artificial Intelligence to optimize efficiencies? You mean to tell me that the folks DESIGNING this technology and driving the billions of dollars of investment around it, aren’t able to manage a basic reality, such as medical care for a chronic condition while maintaining a viable professional life - the very reality many Americans are trying to solve for.

Then what, in God’s good name is the point? I’ve tried to wrangle this twisted digital metal and turn it into sculpture, the best it can do is help scaffold. I am pro technology, I adore invention, innovation and its potential to help address our most pressing crisis - such as climate change, ecological collapse, the uptick of deadly cancers in young people, misinformation, income inequality and supply chain disruption. But it must be said, if this technology cannot aid a brilliant professional manage her health while maximizing productivity, in all sincerity, what is the point?

I’m embarrassed to say I was deeply moved by Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” (2026), sadly the music score throughout the film is cheapening, save for the title track by Charli XCX “Chains of Love” - bravo, would have been brilliant for ending credits. Alas, a great score is what elevates a film from aesthetic pleasure to visceral emotive connection. “Wuthering Heights” would have been upleveled to the millionth degree with the likes of Danny Elfman at the helm. While, as with Luc Besson’s Dracula: A Love Tale (2025), depictions of over the top, fever pitched love, usually turn silly - the melodies keeps your heart engaged.

POSTSCRIPT:

It is a deep heartfelt comfort and pleasure to engage with you here via Substack! I’ve long been a fan of the Newsletter format, where language can be more fragmented, something between a text / email / and whatever-the-freak this is. Liberating, having you here makes me feel less alone. Sometimes I do miss the unquenchable neurotic mania of my hometown, though not home anymore, the electricity is still very much pumping through these jagged loving veins. Plugged in, and digitized, I can extend my tentacles, cross country, maintaining lockstep with the New York City cool girls.

The Earth shook when Henry VIII abandoned Rome, proclaiming himself the Head of Church of England to marry Protestant reformist, Anne Boylen. With a single decree, Tudor Catholics were torn from centuries-old traditions and thrust into sedition.

Our Infanta, Princess Catherine of Aragon helped legitimize Henry VIII’s reign, herself daughter of the mighty Castilian dynasty of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain. However, after bearing Henry many children, all but one lost in miscarriage or still birth, his faithful wife of near twenty years was banished from Court. Good as the people of England were, Catherine was much beloved by the populace and mourned when she died in exile.

I think of Catherine of Aragon often, her resolve, and statesmanship. So steadfast was her mind, that her political enemy, Thomas Cromwell, is oft quoted as saying of the Queen: "If not for her sex, she could have defied all the heroes of History."

Dog Walk Down Jackson Avenue

This morning, Choco and I I dressed for the day. Honoring Milanese, 1950’s styling with an A-line, ankle-length Spring blue dress with voluminous sleeves. I felt like an Italian Renaissance principessa, on my way to show face to the good people of Florence. In reality, I was headed to one my favorite neighborhood places, PJ’s Coffee - their baristas are the best in the world. While walking Choco, rowdy yet good-natured tourists from Colorado, staying in a shotgun double on Jackson Avenue offered to do a shot. Given it was barley eleven in the morning I graciously accepted the to-go Pineapple booze bottle, still unsure what exactly is in it, tucked it in my purse and wished them a merry stay.

I have been feeling so marry lately, infected with Spring’s maximalist energetic boon. Listening to Taylor Swift’s punchy masterpiece, “The Fate of Ophelia” on repeat, hop jump skipping into the workweek with a deep admiration for just how rock hot the song is. Highly suggest a high-volume headphone listen.

A Dream Realized at JazzFest:

Ever since reading Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown - a book so devastating it’ll make you religious, I’ve longed to witness a Lakota Sioux dance in person. This past Saturday at JazzFest, I wandered away from hospitality tent businesswoman duties, to meander the grounds before the locusts of crowds. I strolled into an Indigenous Peoples dance demonstration, complete with drums and elaborate beaded costume. I dare not post a picture, remembering the old Native superstition, that cameras, having your picture taken, stole souls. After a warrior’s combat retelling dance, came a tribe maiden’s woman’s spritely courtship dance, concluding with a dance off between man and child. Then came the miracle, an invitation for the crowd to join in, hand in hand like in elementary school gym class. We danced in two concentric circles, a long line of folks young and old, hands held, moving in unison. It was beautiful, and I was grateful.

God Bless America

With love, dancing & delighting
— Your friend from the armpits of New Orleans
Nathali(e)a

P.S. *Drying my jeans in the dryer just now, I’m reminded of the Northeastern winter days of setting my jeans on my plug-in heater in a vain attempt to warm my bum before heading onto the vast gray ambivalent and hard-won streets of NYC.

It felt special being watched over by young men wearing badges and driving ambulances.

Before I started attending school, my mother sat me close and talked to me about predators. In a matter-of-fact kind of way, she told me there were men in the world that preyed sexually on little girls, especially little girls with working single moms, in short, these demons preyed on happy little girls just like me. Mama explained that my vagina is my treasure box, and should anyone try to touch it, I should scream at the top of my lungs. Easy enough. And so, I stayed vigilant, ready to rebuff any attempts at treasure hunting! But the day never came, every caretaker I had was kind, warm and respectful. When a new sitter would come over, I would lay down the rules, “If you touch me, I’ll scream.” They’d laugh and ask if I needed help with anything. Usually, I’d demand we play games like UNO and miniature pool, I asked a ton of questions and was most certainly annoying.

My mother tells me I was a cool kid, and people liked to spend time with me, adults enjoyed my company. I do remember that feeling, of knowing that people liked having me around. I’m not an “old soul” or especially precocious, but God has blessed me with the gift of conversation - from the moment I could speak, I’ve been talkative and well-tembered. I recall watching Disney’s The Little Mermaid and scoffing at the scene where Ariel’s voice is removed in exchange for legs, what a dumbass.

I would never give up my voice; it’s the only thing that’s mine.

Well, the years came and went, and every so often I would in fact hear about some poor girl that had been molested by a “friend” of their mothers. But not me. Turns out, I got along really well with my Mannies, they were Clueless, and so was I.

Post-puberty, it became more challenging to connect with straight men in the same way. There was always discomfort, a lingering sexual tension, floating like pollen, invisible but heavy. Later, when I discovered pot, the playing field was level again - sex was the last thing on our minds when shoveling down junk food, cackling like hyenas in a baked-out car in the Queens College parking lot. Marijuana afforded me the ease of enjoying platonic discourse with men again. Now at forty-one, I find myself like that same kid directing her Mannies - curious, clueless, and undesirable to men, not because I’m unattractive, but because they know, the moment they drop their pants, I’ll laugh at their penis.

And then there’s love…

I’m not yet recalibrated after watching Luc Besson’s Dracula: A Love Tale (2025). Zoë Bleu and Caleb Landry’s earnest, emotive performance, invite us into a romantic and impossible world stark landscapes and holy wars, a world that is heart filled, imaginative, and tragic. The screenplay is meh, and the ending near maddening, but the film is redeemed by its Danny Elfman score and exquisite cinematography, made bliss by the fairy-like appeal of Dracula’s beloved - Elisabeta, played by Zoë Bleu. Her title character, a sensual, playful and doomed arctic princess, is perfectly cast in this nostalgic Gothic fairytale.

Sadly, Miss Blue, ethereal, poetic and nymph-like, has been candid about severe body image distress in the past, describing herself as “stumpy” and is vocal advocate for rape survivors, having been sexually assaulted as a child herself.

If this lithe, pixie-dust model and Hollywood actress does not feel like a Romanian Queen in her own skin, what chance do any of us have? When even the Princess of the fairy tale is made to feel ugly, what arms should we take in her name? I take up my pen, you?

With love,
Nathali(e)a

Unlike last year, when directionally, I couldn’t tell my ass from my elbow, this time - I felt far better oriented to move about campus, gingerly navigating a full schedule of keynote panels. My favorite lecture venue on campus, is also the smallest, the ‘ROTC’ building on Feret Street, short for ‘Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps Unit’. The space is decorated with tall handsome naval officers and WWII military paraphernalia. Coincidently, it’s in the ROTC that my favorite Bookfest sessions have been held, all regarding essayist and self-referential writing. The ROTC, a decorated military recruitment space, acts as unexpected backdrop to Liberal Arts discourse regarding memoir and comedy writing.

Friday the 13th was my high-octane, busy festival day. Saturday, the sole panel I attended, yielded more fruit than I could have anticipated:

• Title: Pros & Cons of Substack for Writers | Jami Attenberg + Maurice Carlos Ruffin | Moderated by: Kate Baldwin

  • Jami Attenberg | Substack

  • Sitting in Silence | Maurice Carlos Ruffin | Substack

I hadn’t yet read either writer’s newsletter but was thoroughly endeared by their pragmatism and advocacy for a democratized, demystified, consistent writing practice. Throughout a 45-minute-long discourse, Jami Attenberg and Maurice Carlos Ruffin, pulled back the curtain on their well-received Substack dispatches. For them, this medium exists within a wide-ranging spectrum of broader creative output. For these writers, Substack is casual, enjoyable, and most importantly - prompts more words on the page, not less.

Distilled takeaways from New Orleans Bookfest 2026: (1) “Internet writing” is a valid domain, and very much a potential conduit to legacy media, big house publishing deals and distribution. (2) Online writing should be fun. If it feels more laborious than energizing, time to pivot toward another medium. (3) New Orleans is home to an unpretentious literary community of spirited readers and experimental writers. Time to invest!

Is EVERY love story Beauty & the Beast?

I finally caught Luc Besson’s Dracula: A Love Tale (2025). Given its limited US release, I had to chase down a mid-week screening at a Regal theater in Kenner, Louisiana, at 9:25 pm on a Wednesday.

Dracula: A Love Tale is an anorexic goth teen’s dream world. It was a film worth seeing in the theater, the synergy of Danny Elfman’s emotive musical score and maximalist costume design by Corinne Bruand, made for a fantastical, time traveling and escapist wonderland - most striking are the scenes placed in the 15th century, where Vlad and his Romanian princess Elisabeta, interweave as dancing swans, inside a candlelit, cavernous castle. Aside from the first few minutes of the film - comprised of beautifully shot, fairytale love scenes, holy war, and a pregnant princess meeting an operatic death, the movie goes off the rails, gets silly and flat throughout the middle. Ultimately, it is Caleb Landry’s Johnny Depp-like charisma, Zoe Blue’s feline beauty, and the melancholic bookends of the film that stick.

It does nag on me how powerless the female lead Elisabeta, then Mina, is throughout the movie. She has zero agency aside from her role as love object, her place in the story is to fuck, fret, flee and sob. Elisabeta embodies the impossible dream, she is “pure” as snow yet also a sexual vixen. Perhaps Besson’s imagined world is intentionally reductive, stylistically affirming that alas a formidable woman, a romantic heroine worth crying for, is both willowy and doomed.

The film did feed into my long-held bias that the only perfect earthly love, is unrequited love.

Postscript: I have tumbled down, like Alice in Wonderland, into the YouTube shorts/internet cuts of this film with glee. Emo fans from across the world have mish mashed scenes of Vlad and his beloved, interwoven with tunes like Enya’s ‘Caribbean Blue’ and The Stranglers’ ‘Golden Brown’. It’s a film perfect for internet short form splicing. I appreciate that when asked what Princess Elisabeta would think of social media, actress Zoë Bleu quickly affirmed that Elisabeta would be a modern woman, likely a TikTok influencer and fashion horse. Satisfying to think of Dracula filming his beloved twirling in the snow on his iPhone 16. And while ultimately, I left the theater feeling like Princess Fiona of Shrek, it was nice to remember what it was like to be twelve again, daydreaming about romances so delusional, they bordered on madness.

With love,
Nathali(e)a

Below, a song for the ages

The miracle drugs of the early aughts years ago were new classes of SSRI’s, a godsend to teenage brains, like mine, on fire and glitching. It’s unknown exactly how SSRI’s work, only that they do.

Today, the magic beans glistening on the needle head of commerce are GLP-1s. A drug I’ve known about for years, gym gays have been using it as part of a body-building cocktail to curb appetite and cut weight for a long time.

There’s a fine line between curse and cure. Whether Prozac, Viagra or Ritalin, the market routinely produces new medications that promises to solve for problems we didn’t know we had. Modern medicine often pathologizes perfectly natural processes. Perhaps an eighty-year-old man doesn’t need a rock-hard erection, lest his poor wife be expected to endure it. Perhaps injecting oneself with a drug that leaves undigested food sitting in the intestinal tract for long periods of time is more vomit inducing than it’s worth.

The recent prevalence of semi-glutide injections has flared up long dormant eating disorders, endless preoccupation with size, weight, preoccupations with body-self as soul-self, and body dysmorphia. Turns out the “love thyself as you are” narrative the culture was pumping out the past few years was all bullocks, a marketing scheme to get women to buy Dove soap and cotton underwear.

The only way I know how to push back on all of this is to let body wisdom lead, following cues of rest, exercise, hunger and satiety, eating nutrient foods as much as possible, keeping blood sugar low and my wardrobe filled clothes that fit well now. I surround myself with portraits of nudes, to remember beauty ideals are a culturally specific, unique to our place on the globe and in history. Other than that, to hell with it all. Only when the gaze is turned away from self-as-product and toward the world, all roads open wide. Ironically, it’s only when the body is appreciated as instrument from which to live, the place that holds a heartbeat, arms for embracing and a tongue to taste Moschino cherries - that the vast expanse of life becomes a red carpet. Lights, camera, action.

Back in the early aughts, just as anti-depressants were all the rage, the digital current felt like a stream you could dip your toe in for distraction, discourse, cult obsessions and music. Soon however, the stream turned into a river, and now that river is a full-fledged tsunami. Try to be a penguin, to waddle onto Instagram to explore fashion houses and you easily get capsized, flooded with ads and “sister content” personally curated by an omnipotent algorithm. I am, as we all our, finding our place on the internet, turns out our digital avatars are as tribal as we are. For years I was immersed in a vocal online community promoting women’s health at every size and body autonomy. Finding those voices online was a godsend, a tall glass of cold water after walking the dessert. Reading Susie Orbach, Germaine Greer and Julie Bindel, I've relearned that an integrated and embodied womanhood is something hard won, the pursuit of a lifetime.

In New Orleans, women in their 70s, 80s and beyond still roam parade routes like crazed Carnivale glitter clowns. Crescent City elders routinely march miles-long routes as part of Krewe, gab gingerly on lawn chairs, drink hard cocktails at 9:00am waiting for floats to roll through and hit the pub afterward to give weary soles a rest. By contrast, in New York City the cult of youth, the cult of recognition and young success was like an ivy strangling all the roses before they could bloom. NYC can stifle the baby seeds of creativity with the burden of collagen fueled capitalism, art and style commodified at every turn, made far too precious and unattainable.

Raise Your Sword

How wrong I was about Mardi Gras, embarrassed at my transplant narrative of Mardi Gras as debauched, frat-like hedonism. How arrogant to think that the pre-Lenten rituals of a City by the river would be revealed to me in one year, as if I had earned that reveal. The truth is, New Orleans is a basket of European, Cajun and African beads, tossed in and marinated over the course of centuries. To think, I, or anyone - could properly appreciate the full scale of Mardi Gras, what Carnivale invites, summons, and demands, in one season of parading is ludicrous. Lord I’ve been so humbled, in the past feeble minded. Now almost five years into living in New Orleans, I’m starting to understand the spectacle of Mardi Gras - how it serves children mostly, families and community members intent on contributing to a city beset by challenges, hard terrain and squelching summer heat.

We remain in New Orleans by a force that is illogical but palpable, we remain out of love, necessity, because there’s nowhere else we can be. So many families were displaced post-Katrina, it is the responsibility of us who choose to be here now to participate in this protest. So many folks that have no choice but to be here, legacy holders of the Antebellum South. This is their story, I’m here as fan and observer. That’s the best any of us can do. For what is the most valuable piece of historical record, the eyewitness account. The best we can do is look around, be present and assert to the God above - I was here, I saw it. My life, my pains and love, they hold a place in the scrolls of humanity. When the aliens come, I hope they come dancing.

Fat Tuesday & Chinese New Year Tomorrow! Festivities will begin early morning for Zulu parade. For all of you dear readers I will howl and scream, beg for beads and proclaim a new era of optimism. I hope you love your home as hard as I do.

With love,
Nathali(a)e

Mardi Gras Indians!

The value of goals is not in the future they describe, but the change in perception of reality they foster, in the present.

- David Allen
Getting Things Done (GTD)

Last night’s New Moon in Capricorn marked a shift from the grounded pragmatism of a Saturn-ruled season into the disruptive and course-correcting winds of Aquarius. An Earth sign, Capricorn is comfortably rooted in the material world, wedded to the lived day to day experiences of human beings, which are sometimes wonderful, other times woeful and mostly mundane. Capricorn season was a time of investment; its yogic expression best articulated in Chair Pose, feet solidly planted on the ground, bum toward the ground in a seated position, shoulders relaxed, arms and fingers raised upward toward the sky. In this pose we steady ourselves to the floor with bare feet, while reaching up, fingers outstretched overhead, reaching towards the halo of Saint Anthony of Padua.

I heard somewhere that the reason why women love shopping is because it taps into our hardwired “gatherer” instincts, the impulse to procure for the home and the brood, translates into online shopping bonanzas. I can’t decide if this is reductive or right on the money; both?

One of the wonderful things about being alive in the present day, is how much access there is to self-expression - through clothes, make up, nails, tattoos, tit painting, media and interior design - we are living in a technicolor world, a maximalist if not overly saturated world. With consumer goods now accessible to an ever-increasing amount of people around the world, which is ultimately a net positive, we are tasked with the challenge of waste at a daunting scale, the finite resources of our planet demanding sustainable production of goods and shifting consumer practices.

Legendary British fashion designer and punk rock iconoclast, Vivienne Westwood (1941-2022), encouraged the masses to buy less, to buy quality pieces you love and wear them until they fall apart. For the squirrel-like hoarders like me, those of us who like to store nuts inside our cheeks for a rainy day - the solution from the endless wheel of acquisition, is to have what a I call a turnstile wardrobe. That is, a wardrobe that only houses articles of clothing that fit TODAY, clothes that make you feel connected to the world around you, emboldened to live a righteous and riotous day. This means I’m constantly donating clothes, that either don’t fit or I don’t jive with anymore. Seasonally I update my wardrobe with fresh finds from Goodwill, Buffalo Exchange, and other secondhand stores. The turnstile wardrobe is a constantly rotating collection of garments, as much as I take in, I spit out.

Capricorn is a steady guide into the New Year, centered around integrity, tolerance, consistency and hard work; it is the ideal sign to start transmuting through January. This task-master sign is led by accomplishment, approval seeking and commitment to seeing things through to completion. The only way to finish most things is to be OK with “good enough” - a poem is never finished; a painting or song may never be either. At some point in the creation process, the maker decides when to abandon the project due to time constraints of mortality. Alas, all of Art is an orphanage, pieces brought to life then abandoned, Victor Frankenstein’s monster. It’s up to the readers, the observer, the audience to finish the job, to give art a reception, a context, and relevance to the shifting sands of today.

The next few weeks are cosmic preparation for Fat Tuesday, which falls early on the calendar this year on February 17th, 2026. This Mardi Gras holds especially strong resonance as it is Chinese New Year that day as well as a Solar Eclipse in Aquarius. Ahead of that extraordinary date, which will be open for all manner of wish making, ritual and prayer, we are invited to move towards innovation, experiment with AI tools before making judgement, and embrace technology in the context of online community building. While February 17th offers us a manifestation accelerant, alas lasting change comes from boring, consistent, slow and steady persistence. It can happen so slowly as to induce psychosis, the superpower is patience - something we as Americans struggle with but are working on.

Aquarius season presents an opportunity to start the year headstrong and purposeful, to pivot the camera lens from selfie mode into panorama. Our country is so hungry for thoughtful contributors, for good-willed conversation and constructive debate. The country needs the talent pool of its citizenry, to nurture entrepreneurism and strong social networks. This past August, The Economist published a piece questing whether New Orleans is a city worth investing in, noting “The city is a project that begets more projects. To preserve it will cost much more. How long can this carry on?” This is not a rhetorical question, New Orleans keeps bleeding residents, outpacing any other American city of its size - our “brain drain” is an urgent problem that will require a collaborative multi-decade effort.

With water levels and temperatures rising, we New Orleanian’s have some formidable challenges on our hands. As The Economist piece rightly observes, 20 years after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans remains a poor city in a poor state. That said, the deep wealth of historical, culinary, musical and cultural currency at our (sometimes flooded) doorsteps remains an invaluable asset to our country. The United States desperately needs its cultural anchors in this divisive, untethered moment in our young history. New Orleans represents gathering, a messy, loud, mixed, vulnerable and exuberant city of battle worn reluctant optimists. Here we mark the brief flash of light that is our time on Earth with costume, rich food and spells conjured by way of Congo Square and the Vatican.

The naysayers are right in that the city will eventually be reclaimed by the swamp. They anticipate this will happen in the coming century, while I say New Orleans will be swampland again only if its citizens decide it. The New Orleanians who are in love with their city are the recipients of an unbreakable and ancient blessing, one that has been conjured by slaves, freed men, Italian Americans, Irish Americans, Jews, Frenchmen, Spaniards, and Haitian priestesses - a blessing that makes the days brighter, vibrant, violent, pained, hopeful, intense and more immediate than any other city in the world.

With that, I summon y’all to VOTE WITH YOUR DOLLAR in the weeks ahead. If you can alchemize money making into a spiritual practice, do so.

Clothes are a status symbol, dress rich — the stars are watching.

With love x
Nathali(e)a

From the bowels of New Orleans, we’ve inspired discursive output from Hayden Silas Anhedönia. She recently posted an airy, rambly video in whispered coos about ASMR - something I know nothing about, probably because I’m forty-one and she’s twenty-seven. The gulf between Millennial and Gen-Z can be vast. Ethel Cain will be coming to New Orleans this May to play at the Orpheum Theater, but alas I won’t be there. Paying more than $100 to see anyone other than 50 Cent, is just not something I’m willing to do, however much I love her, the world she’s created and our invitation to it. My hard earned cash is saved for either a seasoned wolf, long in the teeth or brand new bands fresh out of the gate, ready to eat the world - bands like Die Spitz! For now, Hayden is reserved to my bedroom, a one-on-one exchange, screen to screen, daydreamer to believer.

Corporate Bloat

It boggles the mind just how much office culture can revolve around diet-talk. You’d think it would be all about the bottom line and not the waistline but alas - the restlessness of sitting most of the day, snacks at hand, breeds caged animals, feral, contained, and counting calories. The fixation on size, weight, intake and output is hard to be around. Working in corporate America is not easy. Between Kafkaesque office politics, duplicitous personalities, comical deadlines and infantilizing performance reviews, it often feels dystopian. But if you can find a way to lower the stakes, gamify the experience, and operate with a healthy dose of detachment, it’s manageable. All of the periphery things I can withstand, the neurotic food obsession (or lack thereof), I cannot.

Thankfully my current office is a reprieve from the sludge, where folks are as colorful as a bag of skittles. Vastly different to my first true corporate experience…

My first big girl job was in 2006, on the 20th floor of the Mutual of America building on Park Avenue. That job was both a dream and a nightmare come true. My first January working there, an office full of international titans of industry, blue bloods from South America and South African jetsetters, partook in in a weight loss challenge for the new year - you’d expect that from neurotic cheerleaders, not grown men. While I didn’t participate in that public weigh-in, or the challenge — later in the year I went on a diet to see just how small I could get, in the world I was in, tiny meant rich, and rich meant fulfilled.

After a few months of 1,200 calories a day and four-mile runs, four times a week, I managed to lose almost 40 pounds, on an already healthy frame. The praise I received was unanimous; never mind I was living like a monk, celibate, hungry and confined to my apartment most nights so that I wouldn’t dare go out and be tempted to eat, drink or accidently absorb empty calories by osmosis.

My takeaway from that experience, was that if I was going to excel in corporate America, I would have to consistently, day by day, rebuff, shake, repel, punch off and push back a lot of brainwashing, to see it all as theater, because that is what it is. And whenever I feel bogged down, annoyed or find myself crying in the bathroom - as all real executives do - I’m reminded of the woman propped up on pillows, barefoot with cigarette in mouth in the painting below. What would Suzanne Valadon say to me, to all of us, in the girl’s room?

Watermelon Bubblegum

Creole Creamery is an Uptown staple in New Orleans; they make some of the most mouthwatering ice cream known to mankind. Sunday night, gearing up for the first official workweek of 2026, I decided to treat myself to milky sugar bliss to forget myself, and the world. Waiting in line, shuffling my feet like a kid on Christmas, perusing the flavors of the day - cupid struck his golden arrow straight into my bum. Among the motley of colors, flavors and sorbets, just past the Banana Foster and King Cake batter, was my favorite of favorites, my raison d'être, watermelon bubblegum ice cream.

Every lick was a promise of a bright year ahead, of full moons and new lipstick. What’s coming is a moving target, but our aim is good.

More soon,
Nathalia(e)

In a similar vein, amid a minute-by-minute firehose of information, lest ye be willfully blind, we long for intimate voices. It is exactly in this time of content saturation, that a new pop star emerges… a harbinger of the mundane, trans-sexed, and hillbilly hotbed of archetypal contradiction, Ms. Ethel Cain.

Ethel Cain, alter ego of Hayden Anhedönia, is an amalgamation of every “white trash” trop we’ve encountered and she’s made it singular, purposeful and beautiful. Ethel Cain as a conceit and character, has run away with the internet, and with it, any cynicism for today has been swept away in the rip tide. My first encounter with Ethel was via Instagram, an APP I often thought to abandon, but alas I do discover good work there, Instagram is mere window shopping. There, I came across a clip from Ethel Cain’s Crush, an early 90’s style music video, shot in low res, depicting a waiflike girl in hair curlers walking around barefoot in a bikini top and ripped shorts in sunny, lifeless suburbs, a Marlboro Ultra-Light cigarette in hand while her friend, also in bare feet, peddles on the bike behind her.

I must have watched that video 100 times. We come alive through media.

Ethel Cain emerged from Tallahassee, Florida, sprung from weeds where born again Christians, and would be teen moms, vet their screens for the next zeitgeist to hitch onto. Ethel Cain is a trans-woman, sharing her take on Americana riding hot on the heels of musical influences as varied as Hank Williams and Chelsea Wolfe. She’s exploded onto the alternative scene like a shaken can of root beer, all packaged inside the assumed name of a twenty something Floridian who has conquered the cult-web through God talk and peppered hand, neck, leg, hairline and forearm tattoos.

Ethel has recently joined ranks with body art extremists, blacking out her right hand, leaving only the “GOD SENT” text peeking through an otherwise ink-saturated hand. She is an avatar of the 21st century, with a physical self that was made to modify.

Ethel Cain, a tall thin bird nursing her disillusionment through a fragrant ambient pop-goth melody. Ethel is an abstract contrivance, singing from a one-bedroom house with dusty carpets and wood paneling, from the digital saturation of Gen-Z and pushing back with VHS and duck hunting sportswear. Ethel is an artist that patches together threads of subculture in ways that feel expansive, romantic, and new.

It’s been a long time since an anti-pop pop star like Ethel Cain has taken stage. She reminds me of Kurt Cobain, if Kurt had been a present day trans-woman.

In 2022, the New York Times wrote a feature on the then 24-year-old Ethel Cain, describing her home as:

Isolated and unassuming from the outside, the place is filled with the paraphernalia of a creative life that is carefully constructed and expertly art-directed: stacks of VHS tapes (“Gummo,” “Carrie,” “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas”), old TVs to play them on, creepy dolls with drawn-on face tattoos, dusty books about religion and sexuality, yellowing vintage photographs, animal bones, human teeth and thrift store clothes scattered everywhere. Only the closet full of flowing Victorian nightgowns and Gunne Sax-style dresses in white and cream seems organized.

Ethel is artifice and all you’re allowed as a fan is a ticket into a hall of mirrors. But those mirrors are slanted just right, they are pointed at the sunlight and give us a view into possibilities for musical embodiment, for somatic awakening.

My mama is quick to remind me that access is power. Just as in 16th century Tudor England, a pocket of history I’m hopelessly obsessed with, access to the monarch was everything. Without access to the crown, you as gentry, were nobody. Without the King’s favor, one’s family sat stagnant in rank and ownings. I’ve been thinking a lot of about access, or rather the illusion of access. Our digital avatars provide the mirage of access, and maybe that’s enough. How can we best capitalize off social media platforms to lean in further into humanity, not away from it. How can we use Instagram, and whatever else comes next to leapfrog away from the tablet and onto a gathered table? We’re still learning how to integrate these tools into daily life without eroding our privacy… and sanity.

I’ve spent many jolly hours laughing aloud to red carpet fashion fails my friend Meghan sends me via Instagram. We do our best Joan Rivers’ ‘Fashion Police’, from halfway across the country, using social media as a way to corral the most heinous (and delightful) Oscar looks and beyond. Instagram, in particular, is an extraordinary platform for clothes, it’s a shopping mall, and as users, we are window shopping.

Perhaps “internet artists” like Ethel, ones that came of age where screens are as pervasive as plastic water bottles - teach us that emergent technology CAN be made to help create things that are beautiful, human, and timeless. This is all unfolding, and we’re very much engaged in the growing pains of high tech for simple minds. And while I’m a luddite when it comes to AI, I do see the internet as ultimately, expansive.

Ethel Cain fucks with us. This from an interview with the notoriously vapid Cosmopolitan magazine:

Ultimately, are you pro- or anti-internet?

I’m anti-internet. I think that the internet is a breeding ground for all of the worst parts of human nature. I think that the internet will be the death of society and human beings as a species. You can quote me on that when we’re all dead.

What’s one site you still frequently visit?

I love Pinterest. I’m on Pinterest right now. It’s like Tumblr, but I don’t have to talk to people. I have a lot of boards for weird shit. I just love to look at pictures.

What a load of bullocks, and yet also, exactly right. The point is, as we close 2025 and head into 2026, we are allowed to exist in the gray zones of shifting reality. Where the digital and material worlds continue to blend further and further into each other, what role do we have to play as ordinary human beings? I believe a part of the mandate is to use technology toward creative and spiritual ends. Pope Leo has an Instagram account, as does the Pope of trash John Waters. I suppose the trick of it all is to use these tools as sharpeners, query holes and picture books. The unending thrill of hundreds of hours of English history available to me via streaming on the BBC, is enough to convert me toward a pro-internet advocate, one steeped in humanism and devotion.

Onward and to the tower
With love,
Nathalie(a)

Still buzzing with communion high, a walk down Prytania Street revealed a brigade of protective outdoor cats, atop rocking chairs on wooden porches. They hold guard on their antebellum homes. In the weeks ahead, it is with that same ferocity we are expected to guard our conscience and act decisively when called upon. New Orleans Anne Rice wrote about the call to action often, although in her sphere - the call typically percolates over the course of millennia. Regrettably, most of us mere mortals are working with decades, not centuries. Our time alive is so fleeting, it’s enough to make you want to cut your own bangs.

It’s still not lost on me that back in New York City, Sunday Mass in Park Slope was often near empty, while here in New Orleans, the pews are full. Indeed, I am not a cradle Catholic, I returned to the faith after a windy road through Buddhism, Theosophy and a heavy flirtation with Kabbalah. But alas, Catholicism is home, she holds all the pageantry, mysticism and quiet suffering I need to justify my time on Earth. While I suppose not everyone feels a need to justify their existence, I certainty do. I’ve been on the receiving end of such an explosive and colorful experience so far, the past forty-one years have been a mad orchestra. To date, the days have been so rich with all manner of music, lovers, tears, books, pets, cigarettes, stars and bars…. I’d hope my remaining time alive is pushed forward with an ever-evolving sense of purpose.

The past four years have been provincial. With the exception of a vacation to Belize with my beloved Godfather, I haven’t felt inclined to leave the United States. Our country is undergoing a seismic shift, akin to 1968 when the seams were coming undone, just like then, our future feels uncertain, disjointed, and perilous. In light of the AI-boom proliferating enormous data centers across the country, modern patriotism needs to be redefined. To be “a proud American” in the days ahead will mean to be self-reflective, active in one’s community, and above else - humane. Our mandate is that of conversation, tolerance, work and charity. We are, and always have been, a loose confederation of communities, neighborhoods, municipalities, towns, cities and states. The survival of our country hinges on an increasingly interdependent population.

Our responsibility as stewards of Thomas Jefferson’s singular proposition, is to stay in discourse and barter with one another.

I come from a long line of teenage mothers; the buck stops with me - childless. And by virtue of having no children, I am in the position of having a choice where to funnel my energies. Western women are living in unprecedented times, we have financial independence, emotional support through friends and family, and the open stage to build the lives we want - every year, more and more of us are uncoupled. It’s the wild west, there’s no roadmap. As daunting as that is, it’s equally exhilarating. I feel in my bones, my genes, my bone marrow - a restless, boundless energy, a hunger to make things and wear infinite layers of lipstick.

Thankfully, this town is populated by all manner of seamstresses, crafters, cooks, painters, singers, dancers, up-cycling mavericks, drunk fortune tellers, sober fairies, by both the pious and perverted. The people of New Orleans are ready to help stich back the fabric of the nation, with sequins! Here, I am nudged every day a little closer to a clowncore aesthetic that relishes in bright colors, oversized button down shirts, thick makeup (in my case lipstick), rainbows, puddles, balloons and all manner of frenzied optimism. This is my long-marinated response to normcore. A decleration of silliness, intentionality and a nod to the monstrous neon-bright clothese of the early 1990’s that enveloped my young body like glue.

Cheers to your loving capture.
With Love,
Nathali(e)a

“Hair style is the final tip-off whether or not a woman really knows herself.” ―Hubert De Givenchy

The fashion world is losing their collective glittery skulls over Pamela Anderson chopping off her Barbie locks. Ms. Anderson debuted a short blunt bob with baby bangs at the MET Gala this past Fall, since then, the internet has been lauding this brazen women’s audacity to bid adieu to Rapunzel hair, as if with scissors, she’d cut off not her hair, but her ovaries. It’s comical that a universally lauded 90’s sex pot, is now sanctified in pop culture as the earth mother of Paris Fashion Week for daring to ditch her drag inspired tresses and face paint. We’re being brainwashed to high hell to stop buying blue eye shadow and instead hit the hippie oils section of Sephora, either way, social media is a mall and I call bullshit.

Not much has changed since 1976, when would be Soo Catwoman walked into her local barber and asked to have her head shaved, leaving two sections on the side intact, resembling perked cat ears. That one trip to the barber by a sassy Brit would help carve the confrontational nihilism of British punk. As with all things wild, out of bounds and energizing, the fashion world would soon open its ravenous, unsatiated mouth, sucking all grit and countercultural verve out of punk, regurgitating it back to an unimaginative public with a four-figure price tag.

Punk is a call to think for oneself and embrace rage, for rage can be a galvanizing fire with urgency. Since moving in New Orleans in 2021, I’ve been getting an education, an education about how seismic events like Hurricane Katrina and 9/11 change a city so profoundly, the ground shifts, houses of faith become light houses, people displace and new winds of opportunism and reinvention take root. It is our nature to laud the “good old days”, to stay fixated on the rearview mirror longing for the imagined zen of a bygone time. Karl Lagerfeld was quick to slap our wrists for that unimaginative impulse, the future is what is life giving - look ahead and keep the past in the archives, history is the foundation but cannot charge the flight path ahead. A port city’s history is an anchor, critical to preserve, but ultimately must lift to set sail.

In other words, sometimes you need to chop off all your hair.

To live in New Orleans, we are called to task, we are the pirates on deck, summoned to take course again and seek new adventures, seek trunks of hidden treasures, demand respect for the descendants of Caribbean, Cajun, French, Spanish, Italian, Irish, Jewish and African descendants that have built the city up, navigating disease, heat and pestilence to hold up a truly cosmopolitan city. A city where vampires thrive and so do I.

New York City and New Orleans are sister cities, the tides of change among them will continue long after our generation is dead and buried. Both places forced to confront catastrophe at unimaginable scale in the 21st Century, the Twin Towers collapsed while the flood waters trapped families on roofs, New York City and New Orleans hold arm in arm, carrying their wounded and their dead, they push ahead in new iterations, they are not easy places to live. Our role as citizens of these fireball towns is to contribute to the rebuild, this lasts not decades, but centuries. I left NYC because I couldn’t get past my own nostalgia, New Orleans, far smaller, afforded an opportunity to make a dent, some impact, the scale is more humanizing and within the confines of Orleans Parish I have found my bird’s nest from which to make things, be it sewing shoulder pads on every blouse in my closet, crochet winter scarves in hundred degree heat, trim my own bangs, and engage with Yoga as a vehicle of calamity management.

If you had told me at fifteen; plump pothead babydoll punk, that I would love nothing more than the heat, that a long weekend in Miami Beach is what I would seek after an oven-like Louisiana summer, I would have flicked my lit cigarette in your face. Alas, Ocean Drive surprises, Gianni Versace’s maximalism permeating Miami bound Eurotrash, my tanned breasts become exposed weapons of reluctant sex. In New Orleans, the word is the sword, but in Miami Beach, a picture says one million words. Come now for cocktail fueled prayers. Reminisce on the gory days of the Columbian drug cartel wreaking havoc in the city, steam your white linen blazer and embrace a bit of a burn.

Marital Homage to Godly Forces of Hormones

The last time I tried working on this piece, my laptop imploded. She couldn’t handle it and so she went black. Black like the color of my future wedding dress, I’m not engaged, though I long desperately to be — more on that later! The ever-stylish Sarah Jessica Parker got married in a black wedding dress, though later came to regret it. SJP was afforded the opportunity to dive into the bridal fever dream throughout the Sex and the City series and subsequent film, which chronicles the realistic shit show of Carrie’s switch from ‘single and fabulous’ to marriage crazed. The pivot was honest, hormonal pendulum swings keeps women humbled; we understand there are physiological forces, far greater than us, that chain us to a synodic cycle, a befuddling contention with nature’s push for progeny.

Convention Center Vindication

On Friday October 10th, the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center simultaneously hosted three events: a Tattoo Convention, Plastic Surgery Expo, and the annual Tulane Business Forum. Guess which one I attended? As much as I would have loved to attend the Tattoo event and get my neck lit up with something about goddesses, or mermaids, or dogs, the collapse of the Roman empire, 9/11, and all the rest; I in fact was seated front and center at the Tulane Business Forum with one half of my confidants, the Laura’s. Sitting front and center there is eye contact with the speakers and sense of good manners. I need a world in which my stage expands, not contrasts. I left the forum optimistic for the future of Louisiana, and for the future of my tattooed fingers, hands, back, stomach, arms, legs and heart.

That day I was reminded that currencies are vast, cultural capital is paid for with blood, sweat and tears and that the future waits fertile in the palm of our hands.

Keep it moving,
Nathali(e)a

#spendmoneycrylater #willychavarria

“I write from the realms of the ugly, for the ugly, the old, the bull dykes, the frigid, the unfucked, the unfuckable, the hysterics, the freaks, all those excluded from the great meat market of female flesh”

- Virginie Despentes, King Kong Theory

When I was fifteen, the world was ghastly but my social world tight. My peers and I were united in angst and dissatisfaction. Punks, skinheads, Black Power rude boys, goths, gays, and neo-Nazis all orbited in the same social circles. Some of us were more antisocial than others, all of us confrontational, melancholic, and spirited. We experimented together, trying on personas, ideologies and costumes. We were competitive, each one of us trying to be the most enigmatic and cosmopolitan mess.

Throughout high school, we were inundated with calamity. The first (of many) mass school shooting happened our Sophomore year, the Columbine shooters, aka “trench coat mafia”, were our contemporaries. Amid their shooting spree, they had spared the lives of students that had been kind to them, instructing them to run, making the catastrophe even more disorienting. I vividly remember the image of a teen, being pulled out of a broken window - shards of glass perforating his already bloodied body. The boy draped out the window like a blood soaked ragdoll. His name, we learned later, was Patrick Ireland. He had crawled past the dead bodies of his classmates toward a shattered window, where a SWAT team dragged him out.

For months that bloodied image haunted our nightmares. Two years later, while sitting in homeroom, a plane flew into the World Trade Center. I was stoned when it happened and had a very hard time wrapping my mind around what we were all seeing. Once the second plane hit, New York was in lock down. Students at our school lost their parents, they watched in silent shock as the towers collapsed. The rest of us were numb. We were sent home early from school, I locked myself in my room, under the covers, waiting for the Sun to fall out of the sky. At the time, there was palpable fear of what other ‘targets’ might get hit, the Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, and Brooklyn Bridge were just a few of the sites that were feared to be blown up.

Some months later, a group of students were mowed down at the bus stop in front of our high school, the bus had jumped the curb and struck the kids. In the weeks ahead, we’d see them navigating the halls in crutches, some with jaws wired, others with broken bones and shattered pelvises. Entering our college careers, we understood clearly that the world we were entering into was violent, unpredictable and indifferent. Thankfully the solace of nuns and portly Franciscan brothers assured us we were loved that we were children of God and our job was to help bring light into a ruptured world. Without the encouragement, prayers and support of our educators, we all would have come out of that experience a lot more distraught.

Despite the abyss of world events back then, to see video of someone being murdered you really had to hunt for it. You had to go to the back of the back of the back of the porn shop to find snuff DVD’s and execution footage. And even then, the images were grainy and the victims unknown.

Cut to twenty-five years later. While reading the ever-salacious New York Post online, I saw a headline noting that Charlie Kirk had been shot and killed. I clicked on the story and was aghast at what I was reading. This young man, that I had seen on my YouTube feed likely hundreds of times, had his neck blown off, in the middle of the day, in front of thousands of college students. Worst still, many across the country were applauding his demise, justifying the murder because of his politics. First and foremost, Charlie Kirk was a human being, a father, a husband, a son, a friend - he was inordinately ambitious person. He had the “it” factor, no question.

The video footage of Charlie Kirk shot dead is the most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen. I saw it at my local bar, was warned repeatedly about the graphic nature, and yet I felt it important to witness. I now regret that decision.

The public reaction to the shooting has been deeply alarming. Are we at the precipice? There is no unity, his death now exploited by both sides.

I’ve been reflecting a lot about my teen years, back then our contempt for each other was a sport. “Oh, you hate me? I hate you too! Now fuck off and light that blunt.” We did after all, live in Queens, New York - the most ethnically diverse county in the United States. We were used to coexisting among culture clash and incompatible world views. We didn’t all get along in merriment, but we put up with each other just fine. Growing up amid this hodge podge of ethnicities, religions and languages, we were confident and tolerant. We weren’t particularly sophisticated, in fact many of us were quite dumb, but we were pragmatic, there was solidarity in the simple reality that we were alive together, witnessing the unfolding freak show, side by side and mostly powerless.

At this moment, I too feel powerless.

I admired Charlie Kirk’s work ethic, tenacity, discipline and outreach. He had stage presence and extraordinary bravado. The kind of bravado that comes from being a handsome, young, six-foot five rhetorician with rich patrons and a beauty queen wife. Of course, there is something deeply grating about a person in that elevated position talking down to disenfranchised, often well meaning college students - that was a big part of his appeal, the audacity of what he was doing was astounding, galling at times, but admirable. Admirable in the way characters in John Waters films are - confronting an unsuspecting public, demanding a reaction at all costs! I am sad for his passing, and even more sad for the fallout. His “gotcha” debate tactics were perfectly edited for the TikTok-sphere, noxious and punchy. Kirk was performing his politics at the highest level, pushing the limits - which is what Americans are good at. We excel when we experiment and innovate, when we push buttons demanding discourse. At our best, we’re a populace of feral teenagers.

I have one regret in life, and that is selling my engagement ring. At the time of my divorce, I couldn’t stomach looking at it, never mind wearing it. That beautiful 2 carat solitaire ring was spectacular, and yet it represented my failed marriage, an ex-husband that I so madly loved and believed in. At the time, I was struggling financially as I had just uprooted myself to the Deep South and selling the ring seemed like the right thing to do. Given that I had started dating someone with the intentions of marriage, I felt it was important to release the past to make space for the next engagement ring. (Miss one cab, catch the next!)

In retrospect, I see that decision to sell my ring as foolish. I mourn no longer having that momento from my marriage, it is irreplaceable.

When Charlie Kirk doubled down on the importance of marriage, I agreed. For me personally, building a successful, long-lasting marriage is akin to winning an Olympic Gold Medal. Strangely, his death has amplified that feeling of loss. There is something to be said for folks that speak in clear, consistent, declarative language. Charlie said his piece, now we have the microphone. Use it or lose it.

Onward,
Nathali(e)a

Every passing day, week, month — I am radicalized by Andy Warhol (1923-1987). A Polish gay kid from industrial Pittsburg, Warhol was exposed to and summoned by Byzantine Catholic iconography, by stained-glass images of Christ and the Saints. At the end of his career, much weakened post shooting, he returned to a fantastical death meditation, showcasing one hundred artworks, in an ekphrasis exercise with Leonardo Davinci’s ‘The Last Supper’. The images are as varied and contradictory as Andy's moods. He was notoriously shy yet loved to be at the center of every party - a wallflower at the Discotheque!

What Andy loved to do, and was good at doing, was people watching - on the periphery. He snorted premium Columbian cocaine, smoked Grace Jones' Jamaican weed, danced at Studio 54 and watched Elizabeth Taylor reapply blue eyeshadow, cigarette in hand. He had a beautifully talented and devoted lover, longtime boyfriend Jed Johnson, a sought-after interior designer in New York City, who was killed in a plane crash at forty-seven.

Andy fawned over the glittery fame chasing disasters unfolding around him, this was a new dawn of celebrity, one he helped actualize. He was sometimes accused of exploiting drug-addeled socialites. There is some truth to that, but ultimately, Andy creates more than he destroys. For him, celebrity is a Midsummer Night's Dream. He gave us Candy Darling and Mick Jagger sanctified.

In 1968, Warhol was shot in the abdomen by a schizophrenic radical feminist. The story sounds like something John Waters would cook up while high on mushrooms in Baltimore, but alas it is real. The injury was severe, and Andy’s recovery long.

Andy, Candy and Me

What happens after a near death experience is often anticlimactic. At fifteen I overdosed, was intubated then transferred to an inpatient psychiatric facility. The experience shaped the way I navigate the world, in ways not entirely obvious to me. For one, I granted myself the freedom to always be flamboyant. Salvador Dali is the exemplar of turning lunacy into a kind of cultural currency, madness to riches - provided you have perseverance and good manners. In truth, I am anything but crazy, I was reared by go-getters, gays and progressive nuns.

At the time of my hospitalization, I had been navigating a slew of hometown tragedies, 9/11 being the most undoing. There was no grief counseling, no sense to any of it. We hobbled forward, a disfigured New York City, numbed by the scale of calamity. Dutybound and moribund, my life progressed - slow, steady and boring. I held good jobs in high finance for long stretches of time, made lifelong friends and built up a decent nest egg. From Andy, I learned making money in the Emerald City can be artful.

Andy Warhol was self-possessed to an otherworldly degree. He shows it can be done, and it must be done, every day you must tighten the screws, or they WILL turn loose. Andy saw the avalanche of digital content coming, the artistic microcosm he created at The Factory was the last contained escapade. Andy Warhol died in 1987, well before smart phones. Without his guiding hand, we adapt to the monolith. Andy left us clues on how to stay sane, they’re in his polaroids.

Today, every text sent, picture taken or Google Search typed, feeds into a near infinite imprint of human experience. Those imprints will continue to layer onto themselves, collaging, amplifying the knot until the Earth is consumed by the Sun, many hundreds of millions of years ahead. Together we share secrets, codes and norms. Through satellite waves and transmission wires, our resources are intertwined. Humanity is linked arm in arm, better or worse, up to the peak of prosperity or the trenches of guerilla warfare. Our existence on Earth is structured around ever deepening dependency, a decency that will only continue to increase. Warhol creates a space for the individual to self-memorialize. A lipstick in just the right shade, a photograph taken mid-laugh, bright flashes in the pan of our temporality together. Andy Warhol creates affirming beautiful gloss, a monument to frivolity.

While raised Catholic, Andy Warhol expands on Anglican self-invention. Queen Elizabeth I (1533 - 1603), having learned from her father Henry VIII, deployed astounding visual propaganda to legitimize her reign. The portraits she had commissioned of herself proclaim indisputably: the Virgin Queen has been mandated by God to rule England. Elizabeth was now a Madonna, a true prince in the realm of princes. Spain famously thought otherwise, denouncing her a heretic whore. Yet despite countless assassination attempts, she sat on the British throne for over forty years.

Andy Warhol is as well suited for today as is he is Tudor England, a testament to his immortality. Where will you find him?

Nathali(a)e

Now a Disneyfied facsimile of celebrated fashion designer Giovanni Maria Versace’s Miami Beach residence, the mansion was once the rarified site of a maximalist, sun drenched, lush and Mediterranean tiled oasis. These rooms held space for chain smoking supermodels and closeted dignitaries, old world seamstresses and sycophants with hearts of gold. Chilled champagne overflowing while cigarette smoke coated imported marble sculptures.

This home, once a contemporary Edwardian oasis named Casa Casuarina was also, where fifty-year-old Giovanni Versace was shot in the head at point blank range. He’d just returned home from a morning stroll, magazines tucked under his arm, when opening the front pedestrian gate of his home he was shot by serial killer Andrew Cunanan. The gunman took his own life a on a houseboat nearby a few days later.

Today, there is no signage on the storied steps at the site of Gianni’s murder. You won’t find a memorial plaque, remembrance statement or flowers. The general public freely walks over the same steps where he lost his life. Versace’s death was worldwide headline news, having dressed the global elite, including Madonna, Princess Dianna, Elizabeth Hurley and Carla Bruni, his death garnished the same level of press as the passing of a head of state. At the time of his death, Naomi Campbell was the face of his latest Versace campaign. He’d been looking forward to some hard earned rest.

Now over thirty years later, the cult of Versace, shepherded into the 21st century by his fiercely devoted sister Donatella, remains as culturally relevant as ever. Versace is firmly cemented in the culture as synonymous with excess, success and unbridled opulence. It is a flashy brand for outspoken women unembarrassed by their desires, ambitions or sexuality. Versace is living a shrine to Italian luxury, textiles, imperial regalia and intergenerational, labored craftsmanship. The Versace woman is unapologetically gauche and high brow.

A fairy gets her wings:

My most recent trip to Miami Beach, I’d made it a point to take a solo walk to the Versace Mansion as a rite of passage, to pay my respects to the namesake and meditate in the novelty of sun-soaked Art Deco ambiance. Upon arrival, I checked in with two hostesses in tight black miniskirts, inquiring if I could walk the property. They said I could get a drink at the bar and wander the (now) hotel at leisure from there. Two twenty-five-dollar cocktails later and I I am crying in public like a true New Yorker.

I kept thinking to myself, “What the sweet fuck have they done to this place?” With fat hot tears welling up and onto my drink, I took to pen and paper to jot observations. This home, once the site of exceptional personality and rarified luxury, now feels like a cheap gay theme park, complete with clashing animal print throw pillows meant to stand in as ‘Versace’. For twenty minutes I paced the halls, elbowing past tourists, imaginings the quiet morning coffee’s Gianni would have enjoyed in the central terrace, the very place I stood. I relished in transplanting myself into the glittered cocktail parties of the pre-smartphone nineties, when fame was rare and party goers discreet.

I walked out of the arched entryway and back onto Ocean Drive, crossing the street to get one last vista of the home and felt my heart break. A pang of heaviness as I slung back into the humid ocean-front air, how tactless and vulgar this whole enterprise has become.

Anyone can understand why the Versace family wants nothing to do with the place where their beloved was killed. Italians are oft superstitious and wary of curses. Be that as it may, I find it hard to contend with this singular and unique piece of contemporary art history degraded, cheapened into not much more than a selfie attraction.

I composed myself, walked down a few storefronts and plopped down a sports bar on Ocean Drive. Thankful to find a place nearing normalcy, I sat on a high top table outdoors, waited for showers to pass, and promptly wolfed down TWO orders of mozzarella sticks, washed down with an IPA.

Hello, Versace! Goodbye, body blues.

For fifteen years I’ve been riding a weight cycling roller coaster prompted by a calorically restrictive regiment so unsustainable it ignited decades-long metabolic chaos. What’s funny is that had I simply accepted the weight I was then; I would be at the weight I’m hoping to settle into now. That pre-diet weight was in fact my body’s natural set weight; but in my desire to be the smallest girl in the world, I’d starved, binged and over-exercised myself into neurosis. Since then, I’ve been on a windy road toward acceptance. I’ve read countless books on body dysmorphia, disordered eating and optimal nutrition. For years, managing the size of my body was an inexhaustible and consuming enterprise.

Imagine my surprise, when a the tender age of forty, the fog suddenly lifted. Perhaps it was the culmination of Florida’s radioactive UV rays, years of therapy, and challenging the insecurities force fed to me by media, family, and all else. The moment I walked out of the Versace mansion, something extraordinary shifted, it had been percolating throughout my vacation - the feeling that, maybe, just maybe - freedom from the bear trap of body preoccupation was possible. It is ironic, that in the belly of the beast, the beating pulse of what was once the epicenter of high fashion, synonymous with impossible standards of thinness, is where I found the joy of my flesh and the possibility of high saturation confidence.

If you're happy being yourself, that's how you will be seen..... Being comfortable in your skin is the ultimate reward.

— John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten)

Eat up! VERSACE on the runway ♥-

Mother’s Day 2025 was seminal, dripping onto the rest of May like maple syrup on a stack of buttermilk pancakes.

This Spring ushers in vast disruption on the world stage; the empires of East and West are reactive and unstable; steam blows hot and loud out of the kettle. Conflicts throughout the Middle East, Ukraine and elsewhere remind us we are perennially tribal primates’ intent on dominating each other. This Mother’s Day, we are homesick for the seeming predictability of years past. We remember our primordial haven - the womb. We crave oxytocin like the kind that bonds us to our caretakers, our lovers and ultimately to our own brood. In utero, our mothers bear the weight of worry, while we rest, floating softly inside a pink warm belly.

I am in awe of women who birth four, five, six children seemingly without much physical risk or effort. Such women, fertile and in service to the ancient domestic goddess Hestia, are showcased on TLC’s surprisingly compelling reality show, Sister Wives. The show, now in its 19th season, documents the family life and marital dynamics of the Brown family - a Fundamentalist Mormon family living plural marriage, i.e. polygamy.

This year’s Mother’s Day MVP was none other than Sister Wife Janelle Brown. Janelle is not the kind of woman one conjures up when envisioning a polygamist wife. Janelle is career oriented, financially savvy, gay friendly, body positive, opinionated, and intellectually hungry. Janelle reminds me of my mother and the emancipated girlfriends she held in our orbit.

I started watching TLC’s Sister Wives this April, wolfing down episodes with Choco by my side at a dizzying pace. The show was a recommended watch from the MAX streaming algorithm, which evidently knows me better than I know myself - resistance is futile, I pressed Play. As with all reality television, I was expecting to turn on the tube smugly, tuning in to judge a dysfunctional American circus, but very quickly experienced something I’d never felt toward a family broadcasting themselves on television… admiration.

Sister Wives chronicles the Brown family, Fundamentalist Mormons on a mission to de-stigmatize polygamy. Their patriarch, Kody Brown, comes across as a deeply committed, likeable family man. Kody puts in herculean effort to become emotionally intelligent and fosters open communication and open-mindedness within the family. The first few seasons, you come to empathize with Kody’s worldview and respect the effort he puts into his relationships with his wives and children. The series documents all matter of trivialities and tragedies that visit a family: births, illness, financial struggles, marriage troubles and triumphs, coming of age, sexuality, faith and death.

The current season of Sister Wives, airing on TLC, now follows a fractured family as the “original” three wives have since left the marriage.

As a viewer knowing the outcome, that the family is headed toward a Titanic-like unraveling, it’s compelling to watch earlier seasons eagle eyed for clues the arrangement would eventually fall apart. It must be noted that the Brown family’s nucleus is comprised of the first three wives: Meri, Janelle and Christine. They had been successfully navigating the communal living of polygamy with over a dozen happy healthy children for over twenty years.

It is not until a fourth wife enters the picture, a svelte and sweetly spoken brunette divorcee with three children from a previous marriage, that serious cracks appear. Robyn’s raven locks and slim waist contrasts with the rotund blonde harem of Kody’s ‘original’ long-standing sister wives. 0ne of these is not like the others….

The addition of a fourth wife proves disastrous for the Browns. As a quartet, they worked - a new instrumentalist did nothing but introduce discord and added burden to their domestic economy. Anyone with two eyes and ears could sense the introduction of Robyn would unsteady the Browns, potentially tearing a delicate cohesion. The Browns had been running like a chaotic yet efficient machine, producing supportive, responsible and kind children.

The third wife in particular, Christine, explicitly shared her jealousy and heartache at no longer being the “new wife”, that being a title she’d held for over twenty years. Your heart breaks for Christine, she tries to subjugate herself for the collective good, which she is able to for some time, but ultimately the emotional toll is too much to bear.

With each episode of Sister Wives, we get a glimpse of the many dimensions of friendship and spiritual devotion the “original” wives have to their family and husband Kody, they have an affectionate and collaborative relationship with each other, outside of their marriage to Kody, and address conflicts head on. The relationship between the wives is the most compelling part of the show. The three women have built a closed coven with a patriarch at the heart of it to give them stability, it all looks to be working. Then comes Robyn and all goes to shit. And yet, amid this rupture, Jannelle Brown flourishes.

Janelle, the pragmatic, money-oriented, second wife - captured my heart early in the story during a brutal and humiliating group session with a personal trainer at the local gym. As part of their initial fitness assessment, the wives are weighed in front of each other and on camera. The tone-deaf cruelty of this episode binds you emotionally to Janelle, who weighing in at over 270 pounds, is further humiliated by the trainer singling her out as the one that “most needs this.” Culturally, we have come a long way since The Biggest Loser-style of television, when public shaming morbidly obese people into dropping pounds passed as entertainment.

Janelle eventually starts to work with a trainer that treats her with the respect and dignity she deserves. He encourages Janelle’s progress and commitment to herself, he assures Janelle that she is enough, exactly as she is. Working with him, Janelle loses inches upon inches off of her waist, ultimately dropping one hundred points.

Janelle’s fitness journey as a mother of six, is truly miraculous. What “fit” looks like for her body is very different than what that looks like for others, making her transformation all the more beautiful. Janelle channels the ethos of Gloria Steinem, building strength in the muscles cultivates strength of spirit and mind. As Janelle blooms into a headstrong, powerful woman, so do her (original) Sister Wives.

It’s clear Janelle has been getting the support and styling advice from Sister-Wife loving power gays! Janelle’s hair, clothes and aura have all been elevated since the show started. She is now the undisputed heroin of the story, inviting the viewer to pick up Thor’s battleaxe at any moment. It’s never too late to course correct, never too late to get a pedicure and strike thunder.

Recently Janelle’s resolve has been put to the ultimate test. Last March, her son Garrison took his own life. Garrison struggled with depression and substance abuse, and despite his family’s unified support, Garrison succumbed to his demons. In Season 17 of the show, which I have yet to stream, Janelle joins her other two Sister Wives, Meri and Christine, in leaving the marriage to Kody. We come to learn that Kody’s dedication to his children had since faltered. He may have lost his path, severed from the role Gemini grants us: that of the prolific mediator.

♥
Nathali(e)a

The center of power for the Catholic Church no longer resides in a secularized Europe, it is shifting toward the developing world, the future of the Church lives in the Southern Hemisphere. The 21st century will see Latin America and Africa redefine themselves. No longer relegated to the sidelines and dismissed as colonial byproducts of imperialism, these continents (with strong economic ties to China), are primed to reenter the world stage with animus and influence. Pope Francis will forever be a bulwark against the minimization of South America and Africa as geographies of global influence.

An Extended Hand

Christian catechism invites us to imagine ourselves in the place of Christ’s early disciples. For Catholics, the resurrection is not an abstract concept, rather historical fact. We are invited to place ourselves side by side with Christ, to embrace him as a real, true and lived human being. We are called to feel the calamity of Jesus’s crucifixion, as well as the rapture of his resurrection. Christ was a friend to women, he took council and felt comforted in their company. Christ’s female disciples were steadfast; they walked behind him as he carried the cross and wept at his feet while life drained out of his mutilated body.

Amid prolonged bouts of depression, I have connected with a deep and sustaining friendship in Christ. I wasn’t raised religious, rather culturally Catholic, or “cosmetically Catholic” as mama would say. It has been through lived experience that I’ve felt the grace of God and invitation into Christ’s company. I’ve received these invitations through miracles.

One of the biggest miracles to come into my life was the Brewer family. Today our patriarch Benjamin was buried in Long Island, New York. Benjamin lived a robust and conversive life, learning new instruments up until his death at the tender age of ninety-six. Benjamin embodied a vast and fiery curiosity. He embraced me as his adoptive granddaughter, walking me to the bus stop early mornings, and spoke to me as person of consequence, despite being just eight years old. I knew more about the moral failings of historical figures by the time I was ten years old, than I did my multiplication tables. Benjamin insisted on the power of discourse and an honest assessment of human nature and history.

From Benjamin I learned that no one will take you seriously, unless you do.

As I reflect on the legacy of Pope Francis, Jesus Christ and my beloved Benjamin Brewer, I am reminded that through service come riches.

Nathali(e)(a)

What goes up must come down. Perhaps as our shoulders rise, our bank accounts dip - that looks to be the forecast for the months ahead. Amid a sobering financial outlook, New Orleans blooms into festival season, Tulane Book Fest, French Quarter Fest, JazzFest, and the rest are bringing swarms of giddy visitors excited to get drunk and eat well. Our tourist economy is particularly vulnerable to economic downturns, so far, the influx of visitors post Super Bowl LIX looks strong. I’ve placed the crown over my head as the Queen Mother of Garden District Pub on Magazine Street — spurring conversation with tourists while presiding dutifully over the jukebox. Swamp city ambiance is serious business.

Venus in Retrograde: The Astrology of Shoulder Pads (April 12th)

Lots of fanfare is given to Mercury Retrograde and its computer exploding mischief, but the more interesting and opportune retrograde is that of Venus. April 12th will be a Full Moon in Libra (aka the Pink Moon) and represents the culmination of shifting dynamics in the realm of personal finance and relationships. The next few days are hyper-charged, they offer a unique opportunity to reframe one’s relationship with financial security and savings, prioritizing investments over distractions. With that said, clothing and vacations can be investments, provided the clothes enhance your confidence and the vacations facilitate detachment.

I’ve gotten some of my best work done while “on vacation”, time spent in a novel environment can spawn fantasies about what’s possible and enable zoomed-out problem solving. While on a vacation in Portugal years ago, I realized how much I enjoy writing longhand, perhaps more so than anything else. Pen to paper has since become my preferred mode for first, middle, and final drafts. The manual labor is worth having something tangible to show for time spent, versus on a computer where Clicking “Save” is the closest you come to a climax.

As far as interpersonal relationships go, this month we are reminded that that often loving someone demands we cut them loose. Goodbyes are painful but create fertile soil for poetry and self-reliance. Allow whoever needs to float out of your life to recede into the horizon so that you can sail steady forward.

Black Dandyism: Self-Fashioned Aristocrats

I’ve yet to see more striking street style than in Louisiana. Clothing norms in the Black community around Church attire and ‘Sunday finest’ were the guiding force in André Leon Talley’s aesthetic formation, which in turn helped mold the fashion dictates across Vogue and Women’s Wear Daily. With Pharrell Williams at the creative helm of Louis Vuitton’s menswear and Tyler the Creator’s stamp on the culture with a preppy-wear Rennaissance, the future is clearly pointing toward yuppie redemption. This is good news is the yuppie cut is sharp and generous, a perfect anecdote for body image pains. The yuppie apex in the 1980’s celebrated an outsized silhouette, one in which you look like you’re wearing your parent’s clothes. It’s mature clothes for young people and the effect is exhilaratingly. An oversized yuppified wardrobe is a cheeky way to satirize elitism.

Entering my fourth year living in New Orleans, my perspective is shifting. As I becoming increasingly more immersed into the fabric of this town, the more driven I am toward success. A city so defined by celebration as this one, demands balance through personal achievement. Nerds earn their cocktails, and collared shirts are the new thongs.

With love,
Nathalia(e)
♥

Past years I’ve ridden the Mardi Gras train at full speed, jumping out of bed early Tuesday morning to rally around parades across the city, swigging beer at nine in the morning wearing neon spandex and polyester. Despite feeling more comfortable sitting out carnival season in a dark pub Uptown, I have been a parade trooper, earning stripes as a transplant, paying deference to local tradition despite a dislike for crowds… and noise… and hoards of out of town drunks.

I’ve peddled around the city in sweltering heat from parade to party in a bike two sizes too large, hobbling on shaky ankles, feet unable to touch the ground when braking for traffic. I’ve gotten heat stroke in the French Quarter, collapsing into my fleur-de-lis overalls on the steps of a used book store while paradegoers passed by twirling tool skirts and blowing bubbles overhead. I’ve caught Zulu coconuts wearing heart shaped glasses, I’ve worn heavy streaks of face glitter under my glasses, I’ve scrambled for plastic beads with sweat running down my back and have cheered marching bands until hoarse.

Aquarian Contrarian:

This year I rebuked Fat Tuesday and stayed home for morning parades. The dog and I came out of hibernation late in the afternoon, the winds were strong and the Irish Channel bare. Thankfully our go-to pub, just a few blocks away, was calm. Choco lead us to our usual bar spot, perched next to the cigarette vending machine. The bar was filled with regulars and parade hoppers dipping in and out for jello shots and Guinness on draft. Some of us were decked out in typical Mardi Gras fare: wigs, beads and whacky wear, others donned their usual flannels. The mix of normcore and acid-trip felt right. I allow everyone to think I’ve just come from a party, truth is I got into costume for my dog.

Ash Wednesday:

Today I am a plump Calico with a satin lavender bow tied neatly around my neck. I am kneading on floral pink sheets, wearing second hand athleisure, eco-urbanite living. This week I forwent social commitments, stretching my limbs, embracing Pisces fluidity and the freedom of living decidedly non-committal. This week the stars pivoted, the priority for the month ahead will be to serve, to focus on the foundational meditation of spiritual work, and abstain from intoxicants.

This is the time to connect with the mandates of Christ, Lao Tzu, the Buddha, David Lynch, Yusef Komunyakaa, Frank Stanford, and Emily Dickinson.

Pisces demands silence, and it is no surprise the great religions call for atonement this time of year. To hear the whispered grace of God and gods, one must spend time in quiet halls, laying in wait for slowly unfolding answers. Expanse is carved through pressure, time and devotion. Now is the time to clear space for faith and fill the days with quiet. Ramadan and Lent prescribe fasting to release attachments. While in motion, attachments fade.

March is a river month, a month of movement. If you don’t already have a practice of consistent exercise, now is the time to build sweat to cultivate an inward flow that manifests in physical expression. Enact movement to tire out monkey brain, encourage silence. Silence is where samurais are made and babies comforted. Silence is discreet.

New Orleans on the other hand, has been drowning in noise since January 1st, when sirens blared through downtown amidst a brazen terror attack on Bourbon Street. Then came the reluctant cheers of The Sugar Bowl, Super Bowl LIX, then Mardi Gras with St. Patrick’s Day around the corner. Now we hibernate like grizzly bears ahead of Easter Spring.

For some of us prayer is led by counting a rosary or mandala. For others, a specific count of recitations or calls to prayer mark the holy hour, others seek divination on a yoga mat. It doesn’t matter how we express our deference to the Creator, what is important is that the sentiment be carried through action. Through prayer, mindfulness, Mass, charity and vinyasa, this Advent season I hope to create new pathways in my brain, communing with saints. Through Latin mass and Coca Cola instead of beer - in the weeks ahead, I trust all will be healed ♥

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