Chelsea Matinee

For our first special date, I chose a dress that would be special. The texture was crisp but not solid as taffeta or poplin; it was capable of floating. It was fine cotton; unusual for an evening dress, but the color was graphite, with a slight flair, like lakes in soft pencil on cartridge paper. The top was fitted to my narrow frame, not too low, but with unfussy chemise shoulders. The waist was slightly dropped so that my long torso was straight like a pencil—from there, the skirt, cut on a bias, flowed and floated over stiff netting. On the shoulder I had pinned my mother’s gold brooch, a rose. On one of its petals shone a diamond dewdrop. 

Laina & the Vamp

Laina is a dancer. Vladimir is a vampire. Boy meets girl. Boy likes girl. Boy chases girl. Boy is not available for lunches and matinees. Girl gets suspicious. Illustrated: pen and ink drawings throughout.

"What is your passion?" the Vampire asked her. 

The Ecology of Photography

A sampling of photographic images 1975-2015, using the various instruments in vogue at the time, whether 35mm or iPhone, black & white or digitally manipulated. Ecology is both the art and the science of an element in its environment, or humans in their community. When you look at a photograph and you are moved, you become an integral part of the ecology of the photograph.

Just Desserts

Sylvia Stanger has always lived in the asphyxiating brick community around Canal Street in New York City in the fifties. She never stepped over the invisible line that separated the Jews from the Italians. She was a voluptuous woman in her thirties, married to Martin who worked at his uncle's shirtwaist factory, with two young daughters. 

Sands Point

These are the new go-go years, the eighties, and money is plentiful—custom-made designer clothes, champagne cocktails at Windows on the World, limousines lined up in front of the trendiest restaurants and private clubs along Park Avenue. The WTC is a beacon and venue for money traders. The US dollar is strong and cash, as always, is king. It is a decade of fast cars, fast markets, and fast talkers. And then the music stops. The yield curve is inverted, S&Ls are insolvent, OPEC is a dangerous cabal, Petrodollars and Eurodollars are flooding the financial markets, and countries are defaulting on loans. 

Rattle Snake Lodge

MY NAME IS AMANDA FRENCH. My family name French, I believe says it all. We, the French women, were born to wear elegant clothing and accessories, the finer brocades and silks, fluid and cool, raw dupioni and nubby shantung, the texture that is pure sex to the hand that appreciates. 

A boutique publisher of Arts & Letters & Ideas

Lipstick Mountains Press