New 'Essays in Idleness' & Other Reviews from The Hard Flex Cafe

Writing about vanity may be its ironic apex but writing about one’s own could be its truest ambition. For many years I have kept a private diary of interests in things handmade, which includes the usual suspects for an older white American male boomer of far less than unlimited means.  I’ve been into clothes as long as I can remember: my father dressed smart even when he was dirt poor.  I have loved wool and watches, bicycles, denim, and boots, leather of all kinds for as long as I can remember.     My first sartorial bequest were my father’s well-worn but still un-frayed Oxford cloth button downs purchased from Brooks in the early ‘60s.  These were somehow still going strong when purloined from his dresser in the middle 1970s.  I wore them through college until they literally fell apart.   My father never stepped out of the house without a proper hat and would not be caught dead in unkempt shoes.  I can confirm he wasn’t.  I saw to it.  He trimmed his moustache like David Niven and co

  I’m not ambivalent about hats.     I wear one   most   of the time, even in the house, even to bed.     We’ve got close to nine months of winter ‘round here and I like a warm head.     Thinning hair is likely contributing but I’ve been like this since I was a little kid.     A hat makes me feel whole.   My father never left the house with a hat and almost always a proper one.  I still have one of his Stetsons along with the original box, unfortunately far too small for my long oval, and I’d wager that this particular example was among his last purchases, circa 1960.   He wore it until he passed in ’99.  He preferred a short brim trilby, as I do.  He had a collection of fedoras too and in his day bore a stunning resemblance to the great David Niven.  Has anyone ever wore a hat better than Niven? We’re easterners, New York City boys from Jersey, and we don’t do cowboy but nowadays it’s hard, really hard to wear a hat that isn’t baseball or beanie.  Hats are almost as weird as bowties t

  “Time and Nemesis will do that which I would not, were it in my power remote or immediate. You will smile at this piece of prophecy – do so, but recollect it: it is justified by all human experience. No one was ever even the involuntary cause of great evils to others, without a requital: I have paid and am paying for mine – so will you.” ---George Gordon Lord Byron     I wasn’t in the market for another leather jacket.  But I’m now sure I don’t know what that means.  Put another way: I really wasn’t shopping but when it comes to The Good Stuff I’m on perpetual reconnaissance.     Little anymore makes my heart race.  Is that a bad thing?  Love’s truest consort is nascent heartache, for what better measure is there of such reverie than the potential for defenseless enchantment?  Tomorrow’s arrival can make today’s impulse look like yet another costly gaffe. What’s life without a tincture of reckless daring?  “Despair and genius are too oft connected.” I am at a loss to describe why I n