DESTINATION Colony Room, London
INSPIRATION Fashionista Dayna Zegarelli sends me to meet her Dandy.
“Do you want to meet a dandy?” Dayna excitedly touted.
Do I want to meet a dandy?
“Yes, I’m in! Wait….what’s a Dandy?”
Dayna Z is intimidating. Her sarcastic wit, obscene humor, and daunting laugh is only slightly softened by an air of fabulous fashionista. I have always wanted to be a little bit more like Dayna.
I figured a dandy was probably some sort of British mascot, pop culture comedian, or fashion guru, but in truth she never quite told me. She only laughed and said, “You will love my dandy!”
Put most simply, a dandy is a male clothes horse—but actually it’s a cultural movement that goes back to the 1790s. Here was Albert Camus’ later take:
“‘To live and die before a mirror’: that, according to Baudelaire, was the dandy’s slogan. It is indeed a coherent slogan... The dandy…is always compelled to astonish. Singularity is his vocation, excess his way to perfection. Perpetually incomplete, always on the fringe of things, he compels others to create him, while denying their values. He plays at life because he is unable to live it.”
Hmmm. Perhaps I should Wikipedia Dayna’s dandy, Sebastian Horsley:
“Sebastian Horsley (born August 8, 1962) is a London artist best known for having undergone a voluntary crucifixion. Horsley’s writings often revolve around his dysfunctional family, his drug addictions, sex, and his reliance on prostitutes.”
Yikes. Oddly entertaining. Sounds like half of LA….
I like a good character and after working in Hollywood, I’d learned not to pay too much attention to what I read in the press. I prefer to make my own judgments.
Then I got this email from Dayna’s dandy, Sebastian Horsley, as I tucked into bed on day four:
FROM Sebastian Horsley
TO Angie Banicki
subject RE: Hi!!!
Hello Darling,
Are you pretty? Me too.
Tomorrow night or Tuesday night?
Come to my room at 7.00 p.m. If you’re late, I’ll start without you. Sx
I sat up in bed, heartbeat picked up.
Not sure how to respond, I went with light and fun, despite the frightening images I’d seen on the web. Mostly I was curious—and excited. I responded in a way I thought would show that I was too dorky for this dandy’s delight.
“Of course I’m pretty, you big goof! Tomorrow works.” Just a big goof who nails himself to crosses, right? What in God’s name had I gotten myself into?
That next London morning started off the same as any other—sunny then rainy and with me downing a green tea and a skinny ginger muffin from the Starbucks across from my hotel. I was already starting to feel overwhelmed by London—too many people to meet and every day, more and more suggestions of where to go. The adventure was turning into a job and I was burning the midnight oil.
As I sifted through the blue highlights in my London journal, I de- bated where to go next. Without even thinking about it, I found myself googling Sebastian again and my heart rate popped back up. Horsley ran a monthly column in the Erotic Review from 1998 to 2004. In early 2006, Horsley— together with Marion McBride—began to run a weekly sex advice column in The Observer. Four months later, after graphic discussions of oral and anal sex had led to numerous complaints from outraged readers, the column was discontinued.
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30 Before 30
Non-Fiction30 Before 30. Thirty days in Europe. Thirty inspired moments of adventure to live it up before my 30th birthday. Just the idea of it gave me purpose. Here was a reminder that I could choose a new path, even if it was only for 30 days. A little backg...
