Todd Levin

Things were going very well on Saturday night, until I fell down. I was wearing a tie, which played no part in my fall. A friend, a collector of vintage ties for men (among other things), brought approximately 15 ties to a party we were attending, and insisted I slip on a new one every hour or so. nothing, not even electroclash, has made me want to wear a tie for a very long time, but friendship supercedes all variety of policy. by the second tie, i was actually enjoying myself. by the third, i was eager for the fourth. and then i fell down. Dancing. Which makes me either the world’s worst dancer (as this happened to me once before, attempting a move called the marionette and ending up snapping my kneecap off to the side for a brief, ecstatic moment before completely collapsing) or the world’s sexiest area rug. In a fine case of just desserts, I’ve involuntarily entered into that very undesirable category: a young person with a limp.

There’s something about falling down that really sours an evening. Inject a minor mishap into any moment of joy and it becomes a major tragedy. Once, I watched a love-smacked couple outside a friend’s dormitory window. I was on the eighth floor, pretty far removed from their skipping and hand-holding and cooing. (tragedy + distance = comedy warning) I watched them for a long time, wondering how they could be so unabashedly in love, and let myself become washed over with sanctimonious contempt resting delicately on a thick, green bog envy. They really were SKIPPING as they bounced toward the school’s outdoor track loop. As they made their way down the hill, toward the track loop, locked hand in hand, velocity and inertia got the best of them and the girl broke free, tumbling ahead and ending up face-down on the asphalt. She went from full motion to dead stop in a split second, and her boyfriend stood over here. From where I was judging, it was impossible to hear anything, and that made the scene even more fascinating.

After approximately 20 seconds of her still body, splayed out, being inspected by her boyfriend, he eventually helped her to her feet. As they continued the rest of the way, their hands were no longer clasped. In fact, their whole body language had changed. There was room for three obese people between them, and the girl dragged a bit behind, limping toward her boyfriend’s back. It was like watching the entire cycle of a relationship play out in 30 seconds, as if it were some kind of nickelodeon film.

Now imagine what falling down can do to a dance circle. Party over.

Say what you will about people and their cats, but I’ve never seen a human being do anything like this with such positive (and positively precious) results.

Witold, I promise I will never complain about anything again.

Know what I have learned to love recently? Caps. Not the kind of caps I use to pin a sucker’s wig back, or the set of porcelain caps that have earned me the titles of “The Writer with the $75,000 Smile” (according to Teen People magazine) and “Phony Shitface” (according to my last several girlfriends). I mean the kind of caps worn by gentlemen and chimney sweeps.

Several years ago, during the cold months, I was known to wear a grey wool Kangol cap, screwed around exactly 185 degrees into the “Tarantino” position. This was an update on my cold season style in high school, which utilized a grandfatherly tweed cap rotated into the exact same position. I couldn’t imagine wearing my caps any other way. To screw it back around, bill facing forward, seemed a great compromise of fashion. One sweeping gesture would transition my style from Slick Rick to Andy Capp, and I was having none of it.

My Kangol cap has been in retirement for about three years now, replaced by a more youthful flexible knit Kangol cap. As my hair has grown up and out, it has become harder and harder to stuff the whole mess underneath my winter cap but I make do. Occasionally, if I’m feeling especially coquettish, I’ll leave one errant lock peeking out from beneath the bottom edge of the cap, and allow it to curl itself like ivy back up toward my head. Is it adorable? Do you need to ask? (“Cuter than a tightly sealed plastic bag of kittens.” – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone Magazine)

Getting back to the cap, I had to bring it out of retirement recently because my knit cap was overdue for a darning. Before clamping it down tight on my head, I made a very mature decision. I decided it was time to crank it back to the front, and switch dials from “25” to “31” years old. It was a little depressing at first, but I was actually really pleased once I got my hair jammed inside it. (and this was not easy; with thick wings of black hair sticking out of the sides and back i started to resemble one of the Sweathogs with a non-speaking role.)

To award myself three extra points for “dashing” I even cocked the cap at a jaunty angle. This was an unpexpectedly magical touch, actually. It was like when Tom Hanks found that volleyball in Castaway and for a long time it was just a regular, junky piece of sports equipment. Then, when he saw that his bloodied handprint made something resembling a face, that one little detail flipped the volleyball from playground equipment to BESTEST FRIEND EVER!! That’s what the hat was like. At first I was sort of loathe to wear it, and embarrassed about having to face it forward. Then, with the addition of a cock, everything was better. (“Condescends to audience with flagrantly gay double-entendres.” – POZ Magazine)

The only negative side effect of my new cap style is excessive whistling. You see, with a cap like this, worn at such a rakish angle, I’ve suddenly started imaging I’m an upbeat scoundrel from a Charles Dickens novel. I think this is probably a very common disorder. After the first day wearing my cap, I began blackening spots of my face with lumps of coal and addressing my neighbors in a thick, ridiculous Cockney accent. Today was even worse. Before leaving my flat, I tied a farthing to a retractable string to grift the chap who runs our neighborhood fruit stand. (interesting fact: the fruit stand guy takes farthings as payment, but still refuses my canadian quarters. i should wonk him a right good thump on his brasso beaner!) You blame the cap; I blame the cock. (“Just what America needs!” – Terrible Idea Monthly Magazine)