The Hungarian Countess Louise J. Esterhazy was a revered — and feared — chronicler of the highs — and generally lows — of fashion, society, culture and more. It seems the Esterhazy clan by nature is filled with strong opinions, because WWD Weekend has been contacted by the Countess’ long-lost nephew, the Baron Louis J. Esterhazy, who has written from Europe to express his abhorrence of numerous modern fashion and cultural developments. The Baron’s pen is as sharp as his late aunt’s and here is his latest column on logic — or the lack thereof.
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Over the years I am frequently knocked sideways and often amused at what one can only best describe as wildly “odd ball” logic. Yet many a time there’s a weird type of intellectual rigor about it, despite it being entirely wrong.
I recently was chatting with a Turkish friend who has lived in the U.S. for years. She described how she was accompanying her aged parents on a road trip down the Eastern Seaboard. At one point, with her parents both seated in the back of the car, as they approached a large high river-spanning bridge, her mother and father suddenly gave each other a conspiratorial glance and then, in the most theatrical manner, elaborately unfastened their seat belts. As they appeared rather smug, their daughter asked: “What’s up with you both.”
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Her mother answered, with a knowing look. “These Americans are so sensible and clever. We follow their advice.”
“What are you talking about?” her daughter asked.
“Back there, as we approached the bridge, there is a sign saying, ‘Buckle Up for safety.'”
“Ok, so why have you unfastened your seat belts?”
“No no, this is advice to put your buckle up,” her mother replied. “So when you drive over the side of the bridge into the river below, we can easily swim out of the car. So sensible!”
The German wife (aka the Generalquartiermeister) tricked me recently by deploying some twisted logic.
One morning as I opened the mail, I noted a “Get Better Soon” card, lovingly signed by no less a person than herself. “But I am not ill,” I protested. She gave me a mirthful smile and answered, “Yes, my love. But you can, of course, always be better, no?”
Opinion and history have many a different verdict on the personality and politics of President Richard Nixon, but I particularly relish the story of his upside-down logic around how to heat and cool the White House. He apparently so enjoyed the sight of a roaring log fire that in the height of Washington’s humid summer he insisted that the fires were lit — and the air-conditioning turned up to maximum.
I have some friends who some time back acquired one of those picture-postcard, honey-colored thatched cottages in the English countryside, about 40 or so miles from London. The little village’s name is Haseley and has a population of about 100.
Along with the house came the wizened old gardener, who had been lovingly tending the acre or so of Eden for decades. During a conversation with him, he admitted he had not been to London since 1956, when he had been transhipped across the capital to board a troop ship bound for Britain’s misadventure during the Suez Crisis. “Good lord! And you’ve never been back? Amazing,” My friends exclaimed.
“Why?” he asked.
“Well, you are less than an hour’s drive from a world capital and you haven’t been there for over 50 years.”
The gardener paused and asked, in his thick West Country accent, “Well, you tell me how many of them millions of Londoners have visited Haseley then, eh? What’s the difference?”
He was right, in an oddball sort of way.
Some traditional young men surprisingly still feel it correct to ask the father’s permission to marry the daughter. Of course, there is the off chance that it might not be granted. But I particularly like the father who paused, reflecting on the fact that the young man in question and his daughter had been cohabiting for a few years and asked, “Why are you bothering to ask for my daughter’s hand when I am fully aware that you have had every other part of her body already?” Of course, the logic is impeccable but one has to feel for the young fellow.
Some years ago when visiting London, I was sharing a taxi with a Park Avenue princess. As we pulled up next to a classic red London “double-decker,” she innocently commented upon a sign on the side of the bus announcing its route. “Victoria — Peckham,” it said — Victoria being a central rail terminus and Peckham a residential district in the southeast. “Look,” exclaimed the New Yorker, “how quaint. They’ve named that bus after the pop singer who married the soccer player.” And I ask, given the now Lady Beckham’s design prowess, indeed, why not?
Lastly, as the Christmas season comes into view, I have a nagging question on the subject of the Virgin Mary. All the most famous appearances of the Blessed Virgin across history have been to the relatively poor and children — sometimes both. At Fatima in Portugal three shepherd children were blessed. In Guadalupe, Mexico it was an Indigenous worker who was treated. In Medjugorje, Bosnia it was six young children who witnessed the miracles and in Laus, France, it was again a woman tending her sheep who saw the apparitions. Now, I am betting that most of these good folk already ticked the box marked “Faithful.”
So, I ask, at this time of year, why doesn’t the Virgin Mary make a brilliant and showstopping appearance to the compulsive Christmas shopper exiting a Bond Street jeweler overloaded with bags, the partying plutocrat boarding a private jet at Teterboro on the way to the Palm Beach mansion or the late-night gambler stumbling out of the Casino de Monte-Carlo? Perhaps she could convince them to put their money to much more philanthropic purposes?
Happy holidays all.