missed connection no. 2 ❤️🔥
bangs: no. frankenstein: yes.
Welcome to missed connections, where I recommend a book to someone I was too distant from or distracted by or shy to actually… recommend a book to. Today! Someone who gave me advice that I ignored and regretted almost immediately.
To the woman who used to cut my hair on Spring St in Charleston and advised me against bangs in the winter of 2019,
I am so so so so sorry. I asked for bangs and you said, “Hmm,” very, very gently. I said, “Yes, I am in the midst of a break up but that doesn’t have anything to do with this,” and you nodded very, very gently. I said, “I hate spending more than three minutes on my hair and I do have large cowlicks on both the front and back of my head but I think we can make this work,” and you suggested something easier to manage like curtain bangs or literally anything but the short bangs I wanted in that moment very, very gently.
I said fine. You cut my hair and it looked amazing, so, naturally, I rode my bike home and chopped the curtain bangs into a Zooey Deschanel fringe with a pair of orange handled kitchen scissors and a wikipedia article.
You were correct; the bangs were a terrible idea and it took until August 2022 for my hair to fully recover. The worst part of this whole scenario is that I was too embarrassed to go back to you for a haircut and then I moved to Brooklyn and we’ll never sit in that beautiful salon on Spring Street and laugh about it together! So, to apologize, may I recommend a book?
When I first moved to Charleston I was buzzing with nervous energy and hadn’t made many friends yet. It was the first city where I lived on my own after college and one of the first things I did with one of my empty, gorgeous Saturday mornings in that new place was to walk to your salon to get my hair cut. I had just moved to Charleston from the very small town where I grew up, where there were almost zero people who were within even a decade of my age. It was a relief to be in a city around people who stayed out late and listened to good music and talked about art— people like you. You had beautiful tattoos and stories that sounded like something out of a book, no pun intended. You were a painter, you had once gone to Europe, fallen in love, ate a lot of gelato and stayed for a few months, you lived in the mountains for awhile, you were thinking about art school, you were thinking about buying a cottage and painting full time. We weren’t friends but you made me feel hopeful about that city and you gave me great hair and you had a sense of real creativity and warmth that made me want to go home and write something or pick up a paintbrush. So, I think you should read Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors.
Cleopatra and Frankenstein follows Cleo, a young artist who grew up in the UK and recently graduated from art school in Manhattan, and Frank, a fancy, older advertising executive. They meet in a very When Harry Met Sally-esque meet cute: it’s New Years Eve, they bump into each other leaving the same party, they simultaneously fall in love-ish at first sight and get into their first ever fight before going for pizza. This romantic comedy narrative lasts for about three pages before things get dark, three pages in which our two protagonists get married. It’s impulsive, partly out of love and partly out of Cleo’s need for a green card. And it’s a beautiful wedding in Frank’s luxurious apartment, the newlyweds surrounded by their chic, bohemian friends and the perfect amount of fucked up dysfunction c/o Cleo’s best friend who can’t shake his penchant for beautiful but toxic men and Frank’s sister who is in acting school and lusting after a life that feels just out of reach. All to say that Cleo and Frank’s life is a little complicated but is also sun drenched, with lovely mornings and a gorgeous apartment, days full of Frank writing copy and Cleo making art. And then the perspectives start shifting. We see their lives through their eyes, and then through the eyes of their friends and colleagues: Frank’s handsome best friend, Cleo and Frank’s chef friend whose success seems enviable to everyone but him, and most endearing of all, Eleanor, Frank’s newest copywriter at his ad agency. Things devolve in both surprising and unsurprising ways and this novel, which began with a couple in rom-com love expands and encompasses lives that criss-cross and create mystery and heartache and a completely different kind of love story.
I think you would like this book because it’s a portrait of artists: how they live, the challenges they face and the reality and impossibility of the choices artists must make. There’s some cliche bits, of course, like the young, beautiful, tortured artist trope, but the way this book is told through a carousel of characters is dazzling. The story is surprising both in gratifying and disappointing ways and I wonder if you can relate to this as someone who spends time with your hands on the heads of people you don’t know well, at least at first. You learn so much about these people in such a short amount of time and then they disappear. Sometimes they come back and it’s beautiful; sometimes they come back and fall short of what you expected; sometimes they don’t come back at all. I’m talking both about these characters and your clients. And like many of these brilliant, bright characters, you take risks and make things— both curtain bangs and beautiful paintings. Thank you. And I hope you like this book.
xxxx Stuart (sans bangs)
Love it! Makes me want to move somewhere new, get a bad haircut, and then fix my life!