As a Starving Artist, I feel as if it is my duty to clue you in on how to live life in this city on the cheap but with gloriousity (gloriosity?... ...eff you, SpellCheck...).
Hence, Tip #1:
My sweet lovely gift card-gifting parents did the single best thing ever this past Christmas and gave me a gift card to Beacon's Closet.
What the shit is this Beacon's Closet-place?, you may ask.
Well.
Beacon's Closet is a place that they would never dare to call a "consignment shop" because the residents of the two neighborhoods that it rests in couldn't deal with such a filthy term. But, it is a place where loaded people bring their unwanted and frequently barely used garments (if not their unwanted and wonderfully ridiculous kitschy vintage garments) and drop them off for the little people like us to peruse through them and buy them for a ridiculously small price.
Examples:
*designer jeans (I could list a sundry of brands, but I won't)...
--if the original price were like $180-$210, you'll probably get it here for $30
*dresses (...again...)...
--if the price were in the same bracket as above, you'd probably get it for between $20-$25
*shirts (... ... ...)...
--generally anywhere between $8.95-$12.95
Beacon's Closet is the single reason that I don't shop retail for SO many things...simply because you don't have to. I've gotten a bridesmaid's dress at this place, and countless other normal everyday things...
(Although I also got a vintage tweed sportscoat with elbow patches that looked like it had been tailored for me....for $16. This was a very very good thing.)
But the point is that when you're an artist, you're expected to look cute a good portion of the time--and when you're a starving one, you need to find a way to afford to do it. This is a super amazing way.
And so, the Christmas present was a glorious day :)
I make this grand plan to use it as soon as I get back to the city--One of the two locations is directly down my street, what an entirely wonderfully convenient thing. And I go, and I take an hour and a half to peruse through everything (Side bar: Beacon's Closet = a thoroughly time-consuming journey, one must make sure they set ample time aside...) and bring my happy new finds up to the counter.
"Ummm, is this like an electronic card?"
Well, it's a gift card...
"But, like, its an electronic card?"
Yeah, I mean, I guess. yeah.
"Yeah, we don't do those here."
...(Ummm...)
Wait, what?
"Sorry."
But, I got this for Christmas. It's a Beacon's Closet-specific gift card.
"Right."
From my parents.
"Right. We dont those here. Just at our Williamsburg location."
...You don't run your own gift cards here?
"No. I'm sorry. Just in Williamsburg." Hmph.
...Williamsburg.
And so, two months later (after a day of monologue-coaching a friend, meeting with an agent, looking into workshops, and working for a spell) I somehow find a couple hours to spare to make the trek and finally take advantage of my happy happy gift card.
...
For those of you who are not familiar with kingdom of Williamsburg, allow me to paint you a grand picture:
Williamsburg is the Brooklyn neighborhood that is essentially closest to Manhattan and, therefore, the refuge for many a wealthy former Manhattanite who wanted more space for less money than what they were getting on the Upper East Side.
It is also the (arguable) homeland of "The Hipster": the child of money who chain-smokes and talks organic-everything and looks filthy constantly. It is the land of skinny jeans, plaid-on-plaid, goofy hats, coke bottle glasses, Mr. Peanut-mustaches, and Blondie-meets-Tokyo chic. Their intelligence is beyond yours, their taste in music is above yours, and they need you to know how worldly and important they are--and you're not. (I wish. I were. Exaggerating.)
And the thing is that I have nothing personal against The Hipster--I certainly don't. At all. But they are a bit of a conundrum to me...
But there I am, 3:30 on a mid-week afternoon, walking down Bedford Avenue, feeling marginally cute (I did, in fact, have to meet with an agent earlier that day, I couldn't look like a total shmuck) and there perched on every other stoop was a miniature cluster of Hipsters, drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, and leering at me. Is it that obvious that I'm not one of you, or is my ass is hanging out of this dress?
Sigh.
So, I click my heels three times, and suddenly, there I am standing in front of Beacon's Closet.
Glorious happy happy day.
And after two and a half hours of diving through the racks, I come up for air with six things in my hands--six perfectly normal perfectly cute and wonderful and happy looking things that I am THRILLED with (thrilled especially because I still have half of my card left...), but six things that have received leers from a few of the browsing Hipsters, leers that seem to say "Um. Where's your gold lame? And why get a mere frock when you could get a prom dress?"
It's fine.
So I check out. CashierGirl is giving me a pseudo leer and says through her teeth, "How are you?"...with the same essential inflection and feel that a West Coast-Valley Girl puts into her "Ew."
Great! Thanks.
...And she's still staring at me.
...Still. And I start to feel nervous.
"Has anyone ever told you that you look like the subject of a really old Dutch painting?"
...
No. Wow, no. That's good?
And I want to know where the hell that came from.
I want to know WHO in their right mind SAYS stuff like that and researches Dutch paintings in their spare time...were you an art history major at Harvard, or did you just look at "The Girl With the Pearl Earring" once and try to reference it whenever you can in a vague fashion just to sound cool?
WHO ARE YOU, HIPSTER?!
But, thanks.
I love your belt.
Leer.
Have a good night.
And out I go, with a bag full of happy and a slightly bewildered...Me, I guess.
On the train back to the city, I am sitting next to an older Hipster-couple--they're in their late 50s/early 60s easy: she in skinny jeans, oversized sunglasses, bright red lipstick and an obscene amount of leopard print...he just an older facial hairless-version of every dude that was perched along Bedford Ave, except that he has a wristwatch made out of Legos. And I start to judge them for a split second.
Then, I just want to know who they are.
I realize that they're two of the happiest people I've seen in a really long time, and they're visibly in love, and carefree, and could legitimately give a rat's ass about anyone or anything else around them. And it's lovely. And I'm kinda envious.
Who are YOU, Hipsters?!
How nice.
Maybe their mystique just gets less harsh and more pretty with age.
...Maybe.
But, I will say this:
I, too, Friend Hipster, live in Brooklyn.
I, too, have damn fine taste in music.
I, too, read things and love coffee.
And I, too, have a great love for that there Beacon's Closet.
You can keep the yellow Hammer-pant-influenced jumpsuit, I'll just keep my hundreds of dollars.
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