The first warning of the grim hours we faced was the approach of a toney couple who stopped, as we did, to peruse the wonderfully artificial, sparkling white frou frou (saved by crisp tailoring) in the docile twin windows of Ralph Lauren, Women. Because, as everyone knows, there is no longer one home for any given designer but at least two, for gender, and often three: Tots. Marc Jacob Tots. Gucci Tots. Juicey Couture Tots. Well, maybe not. The woman, whose honey hair leapt upward into a Grace Kelly chignon, smiled wanly. However, her gent was more expressive, warmer, and well, a lot touchy-feelier. His hand went right to my student’s hair. The hair her mother had combed when she was four and five and six. That whacky Jamaal had pulled in the seventh grade. That she herself had turned into a burst of magnetic softness. It was only after she issued an icy smile, stumbling backwards in a sort of civilized form of naked terror that he said, “May I touch it?”

What could she say? He already had.

“Well, that was weird,” I offered as we evaded his wandering hands by lurching towards Olive Bette’s. “Oh yeah,” she answered, with the emphasis laying slightly on the second word. But she didn’t really seem offended. I thought, “Of course, she’s learning to be famous!” and took some solace from that inward monologue. So I smiled again at her, up into her hazel eyes, and realized she was bored with all the striped rain boots in the window, a carnival of nauseating pinks and greens, which should have been a “Tots” but was, sadly, nots. It was then that I fatefully suggested we go to Marc Jacobs.

Now, Mr. Jacobs not only has innumerable stores (men’s, women’s, tots, pets, slave/master’s, Singapore hotties’, mothers, father’s with strollers’s, hipster’s, lollapalooza veteran’s, recovering drunk’s) but also, he uses the display windows as bully pulpits. When Hillary’s campaign began, a riot of famous female faces appeared on t-shirts worn by male manikins who showed their love. When AIDs was losing its fashionista status, the good fight was re-ignited in a wall of support up and down Bleecker. More to the point, when our sista Lil’ Kim was arrested, she pouted disdain for The Man in several different appealing poses on t-shirts that were one hundred percent pima cotton. I myself have had only one Marc Jacobs t-shirt, bought on sale. It said: “Where’s the Outrage?” but I had to give it away to another former student since no one could read the rubric on my shallow poet’s breast. But I still had the seven dollar flip-flops—in fact, I was wearing them. My starry idol wanted a pair.

It became painfully clear, after only a few moments, that the dark face, the great wand of hair, the non-brand t-shirt that read: “I was raised on hip-hop and I’m STILL ALRIGHT” was not doing it for the security guard. When we moved, he moved. When my girl’s hand moved, his eyes moved. We laughed, he frowned. We looked away, he looked harder at her. And that’s the way it went until we just caved and slunk out. Minus the flip-flops. Which had quadrupled in price anyway.

“I want to go back to Ralph Lauren,” she said with a faintly militant look as we stood on the sidewalk studying the ever-lengthening line for sugary indistinguishably-flavored cup-cakes from Magnolia Bakery, purchased by the dozen by hairless guides catering to the needs of the flocks of girls and women waiting to be photographed on the doorstep of Carrie Bradshaw’s digs, with flecks of vanilla icing still on their lips, tottering on Manolo Blahnik stilettos paid for with endless overtime, fired by this, their dream of being bused into the Village to buy a “Rabbit” at the sex shop, to come to Bleecker Street, to be bused back to Port Authority dreamily remembering their Sex in the City tour. As they munched, we meandered back toward the ermine-doused leggings and salty white berets of Ralph Lauren, Women (Summer Season).

We entered. “Oh, hi!” said a slight transsexual salesperson, “Just yell if you need anything.” It seemed unlikely we would be yelling at such a sweet individual. We wandered through the heaps of rustic belts, burnished alligator bags, weathered mini-motorcycle jackets, fringed shrunken sweaters, ivory-topped canes with little birds traced in silver, cowboy hats, frangi-pangi, lassoes, old kettles, and things for which the argot would be “objets.” Our eyes laughed at the little fake mice eating the woodwork. We swooned trying on the huge cashmere coats woven by monks from some place other than Tibet. We tossed on this, we tossed back that. “Want that in blue?” queried a bright blond thing. “Oh yes,” I sighed. Whatever it was. I think it was in fact a jacket although I never quite got it buttoned because the fastenings were made of Yak-hair which is very hard to handle. “Want a coffee?” a third helper asked and we both said yes. After a few hours we left having bought nothing—which did nothing to dampen the smiles of our new best friends who in fact gave us each a memento, a dear little fake mouse.

“Creepy” commented my hip-hop legend. But that was about the mouse, which she tossed in the nearest garbage can. “But they were nice in there,” I ventured. “Oh very,” she agreed. “And now I want another slice of pizza.” This was easily done, and not too much later, we parted ways, she to a party, me to my moss-lined rooms in which I have long written my impossible poems and hibernated. As I fixed a cup of tea my dachshund Pushkin came toddling into the kitchen. “Who would have guessed,” I mused aloud, “that Marc Jacobs would be so lame, and Ralph Lauren so haimisch?” He sort of shrugged and waited for me to sit somewhere so that he could bundle into me, snatch the fake mouse from my pocket, and tear it apart mercilessly.

Cynthia Kraman’s new book of poetry The Touch is coming out soon from Bowery Books. To get on the mailing list email .

It was on that doomed flight, 3034 out of La Guardia to the indie hotspot Indianapolis, that we became instant friends (“Could you move so that my…uh”–pointing to chubby gofer with the band–“could, uh, sit with me?”) During the course of our intimate time together, I learned things about Mr. Barker. He travels with a bag of mini-treats (Hershey bars, Mounds, and I believe, a Mr. Goodbar); he drinks bottled water; he is strangely soft-spoken and polite. (“Oh, you want your assigned seat…uh, that’s cool”). He is also slightly claustrophobic.

In fact, when he checked out for a few hours with his iPod plugged in, I had the opportunity to study his sleeping form, and I could see why the girls are all in favor of this talented lad. Peering through the elongated armhole of his gaping jersey with the words “KillerKillerKiller” running across it, I spied a bolt of tattooed lightning traveling up his pale torso and yes, it would make anyone like him. Also, he explained later that the jersey, part of his fashion line, was printed without pause so that it might be “a little ambiguous so that it doesn’t, like, send a message.” Clearly a former English major (four-syllable words are our exclusive domain).

In fact, I came away (well, he actually left first–the band de-boarded after four hours to book a charter while the rest of us mopes waited until the flight was cancelled over three hours after that) with a very positive feeling for Mr. Barker, which makes me wonder why debbieschlussel.com used Travis as a “case study” to illustrate Neal Pollack’s new high-concept book Alternadad, which chastises young dads for wanting to be cool friends of their offspring. Mr. Travis, from what I read in the bloids, could never be accused of that.

Which brings me to my second, connected topic:

Manchildren in the Promised Land

I was Indianapolis-bound not to hear cutting edge ska-goth music, but to attend a conference on the French Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. My paper entailed a comparison between Levinas and ultra-hip Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben. Dr. Agamben made news recently when he was forced to give up an invitation to lecture in America because he refused to give his biometrics to the Bush government; he also recently referred to living in America as living in a concentration camp so I guess he really didn’t want to come anyway.

My paper was a dispassionate and scholarly examination of the sort of individual who might emerge from the ideas of both these philosophes, and what sort of community these individuals would construct. All this is far too difficult and specialized a matter to go into here, but I can easily communicate a portion of the argument through the discussion of a few popular movies. One might ask the question: what kind of male individual is most necessary to the coming community? A thoughtful and kind father, or a goofy druggy brother? Well, no contest, it’s the brother. Preferably, a Wilson brother. For instance, in The Family Stone there is a perfectly good kind thoughtful father, but it is the goofy druggy (and drinkie) brother, played by Luke, who finally beds Sarah Jessica Parker after getting her high, so that his good boring brother can marry Claire Danes–and isn’t that really what we all want? On the other hand, in You, Me and Dupree the uptight couple needs the goofy druggy input of Owen to set things right. I could go on but I think I’ve proved my point.

Which gets me back to that dear manchild, Mr. Barker…

Travels with Travis: Coda

After Travis left the plane I plundered his candy stash–it was a matter of survival (I had eaten two pounds of pretzels and needed a balance). As I hunted around his seat, my hand hit something hard and smooth. His iPod! I extricated it from the candy wrappers under which it was buried. Black. Mysterious. I turned it in my hand with excitement and desire. But when I looked up my other travel companion, some dude at the window seat with a Blackberry habit that was not under control, I saw him looking at me with interest. I suppose he thought I might keep it. Well, now I couldn’t. So I handed it to a flight attendant who flew down the staircase to the tarmac and released it to its rightful owner who mouthed a polite “thank you” as I knew he would. I believe he said “thank you so, uh, so much, man” which is just what I would have expected, knowing him as I do. And he gave her a pair of signed sticks. Those sticks should be mine, man.

Afterward
I realize that in the last issue of The New Yorker some woman did a piece about sitting next to some famous guy on an airplane. But she didn’t name names. Who’s the real reporter?