(^24) – SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2019 everythingzoomer.com
laughed. “We thought dating was
bad in the ’90s. But we still sorta
had courtship. There was the art of
seduction ...”
BOOMER AT HER CORE,
Bushnell grew up in
Connecticut, the daugh-
ter of one of the inventors
of the hydrogen fuel cell
that was used in the
Apollo space mission. Later, she ap-
prenticed, so to speak, at Studio 54,
using the party playground of New
York City to hone an anthropolo-
gist’s eye that continues to be put to
ample use.
According to her editor, Elisabeth
Schmitz, also the editorial direc-
tor of independent publisher Grove
Atlantic, the tone of the new book
is “joyous, but there’s also a mel-
ancholy; aging involves sadness ...
death, divorce.”
Speaking with Publishers Weekly,
Schmitz further added that, after
sticking to novels for many years
(Lipstick Jungle, One Fifth Avenue,
etc.), this collection marks a return
for Bushnell – “that sly, sharp rep-
ortage, the acerbic essays in her par-
ticular hybrid style, blending jour-
nalism and fiction.”
Her observations, inevitably, run
the gamut.
On the preponderance of the
Madison World Blond A hair hue
donned by denizens of the Upper
East Side variety, it is a shade “not
too platinum or too gold ... bouncy,
of a length that can’t be described
as long or short. In other words,
Madison World Blond is a pleasantly
interchangeable hairstyle that looks
good on many women and often caus-
es them to look exactly alike to the
point where these women are often
mistaken for other Madison World
Blonds, even by their own husbands.”
On joining a bicycle friend pod
“Everyone inadvertently ends up
riding next to one another at close
enough to the same speed to make
conversation ... all you have to do is
say something like ‘nice day for a ride’
and kind of smile and nod and give a
small finger waggle ...”
On dating up – and a certain
75-year-old hot shot “The good thing
about men like Arnold is that you can
say pretty much anything you want
to them, and they won’t be insulted.
They’re so arrogant and sure of them-
selves it never crosses their mind that
a woman could be insulting them.”
When, in fact, I turned the subject
to #MeToo and the quakes of late be-
tween the sexes – it readily occurred
to me that the movement must have
been just reaching its fever as she
was in the midst of writing her latest
- she interjected, “That is something
I think about all the time – whether
there is a #MeToo or not.”
Going on to call it the proverb-
ial “tip of the iceberg,” Bushnell ex-
plained that while #MeToo gave per-
mission to women to speak up, we
need to continue to push discussions
about economic disparity and the
fact, for example, that “four women
are killed every day because of part-
ner violence.”
Ditto: all the “casual misogyny.”
Wait ... was I witnessing the
Germaine Greer-ing of Bushnell?
Actually, the woman through
whom a stealth feminist shiv-
er has always run – you just
had to read the subtext as
well as the text – then went
on to tell me that power-
ful men, particularly of
a certain age, “are so
astoundingly sexist”
that “they are not going
to change – and they
truly, truly don’t see a
reason to change. It’s just
brain cement. Those neur-
ons do not reach there.”
But yet – she followed up
by saying with a conspira-
torial hush – she has often
felt compelled to temper
her honest portrayal of sexism
in her books “because when I
present men in a more realistic
way, the editors tell me: no, no, no,
the men are too awful. They say that
women still want that fantasy.”
Taking a segue, I asked Bushnell
about another recurring current in
her book – that of being a childless
single woman of a certain age. “It’s
like being a weird Christmas orna-
ment by yourself,” she admitted, clari-
fying a point she makes in the book
that when you have children, your
life has “a pattern. Predictable, per-
haps, but also comforting. Because
when you have kids, you know what
you’re supposed to do with your life.
You know what’s supposed to happen
and when.” And though she has never
pined to be a mother and still has no
regrets, that pang of melancholy is
omnipresent. “There is no script”
when you are a childless woman in
our society. “What category do you
fall in? Does that category even exist
...?”
On a lighter note: how about the
fact that Bushnell was spotted out
and about recently in the same
dress that Sarah Jessica Parker
had donned a little while back, too?
The internet made a fair bit of hay
about it: the two Carrie Bradshaws
duking it out in the same floral
Stella McCartney number. She
let out a coltish sound when I
brought it up and, speaking
like a true fashionista,
told me, “It’s such a great
dress. I have worn that
dress five times. I like the
puffy sleeves. It is kind of
my book dress.”
Finally, what is this we
hear, oh Ms. Bushnell, of
Is There Still Sex in the
City? being optioned for
a TV series? It’s true, she
reiterated, telling me
she is working on the pi-
lot now. “We are,” she
said, “just at the begin-
ning of the pro-
cess now.”
Here we grow
again.Zoom In Etc
A
Carrie On
Sarah Jessica Parker
in NYC, 2019