Rich Mintz  

So spring is here, more or less, and everyone is out on the street today in New York in as little clothing as they can get away with. Unfortunately it’s not quite as warm out there as it looks — as I type this, in early afternoon, it’s in the upper 40s — so everyone’s chillier than they expected to be.

I went out right after I woke up, to buy butter (don’t ask), in shorts, and I was really sorry I did — I barely made it to the end of the block.

Still, spring! Enjoy it while it lasts, because it’ll be disgustingly hot and humid before you know it.

You’ve got to hand it to Sean Lennon. When he was mocked by a New York magazine blog and its commenters, he took it for a few days, then fired back in no uncertain terms, under his own name, in the very same blog’s comments section:

In what way am I to dress exactly that would please you? Has it occurred to any of you insightful people that I was in fact hired specifically because, and in order to dress in a rock and roll fashion? It was my bloody job to dress crazy that day, and frankly I enjoyed it! It doesn’t mean I’m a bad person, it’s just more fun than wearing flannel.

And it certainly doesn’t make any of you better than me that you choose to read so negatively into my outer appearance. You are just bigots disguised as moralists.

I feel no need to apologize for dressing in a manner that you deem unacceptable for someone so despicable as myself. One need not apply for a license or be a professional couturier to have permission to dress as they please. One need not be the most successful, or the most loved, or the most suave or the most handsome, just to wear a pink bow-tie, a bowler, and an old coat. This is not Prussia, or Victorian England.

I am sorry that you are all so vacuous as to think you understand me simply because you dislike my clothes, that you think I have committed some criminal offense in having had a wealthy and successful father.

I will continue to make music and dress as I please, and none of you have any right to tell me I cannot or should not. You of course have a right to hate me for it, but then again, it’s you who have to live with yourselves for being such judgmental idiots.

I wish you all luck in pursuing what must clearly be elevated and enlightened lifestyles. I yawn in awe at your ‘moral supremacy.’

Sincerely,

Sean Ono Lennon

It doesn’t get much more honest, or true, than that. I literally never gave two sh*ts for Sean Lennon before in my entire life, but I have a newfound respect for the man for being able to put words together so sensibly. Sounds like a smart guy who doesn’t take himself too seriously, unlike a million other children-of-the-famous who can’t manage to get it together.

…or, obviously, not exactly like this person, but with the same desire to nail a precise stylistic look and the same determination to carry it off. And I don’t think she was on her way to, like, her waitress job at Medieval Times, she appeared to be just going to class like a normal person, only dressed like that. And she was perfect. My raggedy-ass surreptitious iPhone pic doesn’t do justice to her painstakingly conceived outfit and her numerous accessories, including a coordinating two-fingered ring on her left hand. (Not pictured: her coordinating bejeweled sandals.)

There are only a couple cities in America in which you can get away with a look like this and not seem absolutely ridiculous (or worse), and New York is the only one where you can do it at any time of the day, any time of year. She was too put-together to get away with it in San Francisco (although, to be fair, nobody in San Francisco would say so to her face), and in L.A. she’d just look ridiculous unless she was on her way to an audition. But in the New York subway, at 9:15 in the morning, she looked terrific!

23-year-old wearing your Greek Week T-shirt: Acceptable

33-year-old wearing your Greek Week T-shirt: Marginal

43-year-old wearing your Greek Week T-shirt: QUESTIONABLE VERGING ON PITIFUL. NOT ADVISED.

That is all.

No offense, Charm City, you know I love you, but if frat dudes in Baltimore are wearing it…

It’s over.

And with that we inaugurate a new feature of this blog, “I’m Just Saying,” in honor of Kerri Case.