Glenn O'Brien's New Book

On the train ride home from Glenn O'Brien's book release party at Bergdorf Goodman, I was reading my signed, newly-acquired copy of Glenn's new tome, How To Be A Man.

While scurrying back to the hedgerows like a good country mouse, I had time to study the book. I was flattered by the design details that Glenn and the designers at Rizzoli had picked up from my own book cover and reworked into a new mold.

I am always perplexed why people get upset when others cherry-pick from their work. I'm an incorrigible thief, myself--all the best people are. The point of making things is to become part of the cultural hum, after all.



So where was I? Oh yes: the train. I was reading along at a brisk pace, when I felt something. It was my head: it wouldn't stop nodding. Not from boredom, but in agreement.

The similarities between Glenn's book and my own end at the cover: unlike my hothouse flower of a book, Glenn's is a timely and essential guide for modern men interested in style. It's contemporary, practical, and full of insightful, titillating opinions. The man gets around, and it shows.

Naturally, I first read Glenn's chapter on dandyism, which I am happy to say is excellent (I am being horribly self-serving, since I am quoted in this chapter). Like the rest of the book, this chapter makes its points without anachronistic shtick (I suppose I should feel some guilt for my own part in unleashing this particular plague) or a creepy over-investment in the subject. Glenn lays out the twentyfirst-century iteration of the dandy's creed in a useful way for those of us who don't live on Fraggle Rock or Old Timey Island. I hope that it becomes a key text on the subject.

I'm glad that someone as qualified as Glenn has written this thorough, modern investigation of men's style, because it certainly wasn't going to come from me: I lack the patience to write so sensibly, and these days I've been paying more attention to mosses and centipedes. I not only lack the patience, but the firepower: my budget cannot keep up with the moneyed, glittering bucks of Fifth Avenue, where I am sartorially outdone approximately every thirty seconds (I timed it while waiting outside Bergdorf's for my agent).

That said, the principles in this book are sound, even if you lack the cash (there are ways around impecuniousness, trust me). The main tenets of good style always apply, regardless of your means. In fact, sometimes good style means to avoid the exquisite and the expensive. I'm pretty sure that Glenn, a veteran of New York's wild and woolly 70s-80s downtown art and music scene, would agree wholeheartedly.