harpist « ann rosenquist fee

Amy Kortuem slings hot copy.

Right, she’s also a concert harpist and she’s a rising literary starlet and blahblahblaaah. Everybody knows all that. It’s what she does in her day job writing catalog copy that’s the real juice, the real thing to envy. The thing you can’t do. For a whole lot of hours a week, Amy starts with nothing and turns it into this:

And this:

Amy Kortuem, I got your destiny right here.

Let’s start with some lucky color. I get what you’ve been going for, wearing tasteful black to work, because how else do you class up a cubicle? That’s what you think, yet the actual effect is just that you coordinate with that paper sorter. You can do better than that. If you dress right, you can turn the cubicle itself into a hot leather patio couch. I think that’s the big bold something fortune wants to hand you, and it’s going to require primary colors and a bare midriff and a cigarette.

I know you’re asthmatic. I know they probably don’t allow halfshirts in your workplace, whateverwhatever. Not your problems; your problem is figuring out how formidable champion greatness can overcome you and those plastic gray partition panels.

Get to work, Amy. I’m only coming to your March 16 pub concert at the Emy Frentz Arts Guild if you’re wearing primary colors, smoking a cigarette and dazzling with the unmatched fleeting greatness of hot scripty strength from deep within. Beret would be good too.

Next makeover: Libertarian gun-toting fire-brimstoney writer/editor Chris Fisher. This is Ann’s Office Outfit Makeovers and we are not messing around.

Kit White says “style is the by-product of saying what has to be said in the most appropriate way a maker can say it.” Ann’s Fashion Tarot says if you dress like your dreams, they have a much better chance of coming true.

So for instance, if you’re an art professor like Kit but your deep down dream is to be an aerobics instructor (which, to be clear, I’m not suggesting this is his deal, I don’t know), then today you need to lecture in track pants and a sports bra. If you’re an aerobics instructor but you want to teach art, today you should lead class in tweed leggings and a beret.

The Star says today is the day to spread your tiny fragile dreams out in front of you and take a very honest look. Give them some air. Give them some credit. Then get dressed in a way that shows you’re ready for them to be real.