Bicoastal Babe by Cynthia Langston

Center right about now, but she does have a point. I’m not getting paid to enjoy myself.
    “You need to get in there and talk to people. Find out what’s on their radar – new things they’ve bought or tried or heard about. What are
they
talking about with their friends? Not just the cool people, but the tourists too. That’s why they come here, to be closer to the ideal. If you can understand them, then you start to learn how trends catch fire and finally seep down to the mainstream.”
    Jen may well indeed resemble a pinprick in the eyeball, but she does sound like she knows what she’s talking about. And let’s face it – I don’t. I’m still fuming about her arrogant suggestion that I am the filler meat of this trend-tracking superduo. That’s not the impression I got from Liz Gordon, that’s for damn sure. But Jen seems to have tenure, and what’s worse, it appears that she actually has earned it. And once she’s gone to L.A., I am on my own. So with the greatest of begrudging effort, I begin to listen to her.
    As it turns out, the whole trend-tracking thing is pretty interesting. Noticing little kernels of social energy and movement toward a particular activity or style or outlook – then capturing them in a way that people pay big bucks for. A trend can take so many different forms: slang terms, cocktail ingredients, birthday-party themes, studded belt buckles, you name it. Being considered hip and cool is high on people’s social priority ladder, and staying on top of things can be a full-time hobby. As Jen continues to talk, I start to realize just how much money people (even me) spend each year just trying to keep up with trends. Accurate trend predictions can be an advertiser’s gold mine. I can see why Gordon-Taylor wants this newsletter to succeed.
    “You either have an eye for trends or you don’t,” Jen tells me. “I, of course, do. Let’s hope you do too.”
    Let’s hope.
    “The part that sucks is confirmation. Once you’ve spotted what you think is a trend – or an upcoming trend – you have to confirm it with numbers. Which means standing on the street corner and interviewing cool people about whatever it is. I usually write up a little questionnaire that includes as many as possible, so I’m not wasting time.”
    “What street corner? How many people?” I’m envisioning myself looking like the big fluffy chicken standing in front of El Pollo Loco, clucking and passing out chicken burrito coupons.
    “Any one of these corners. Wherever there’s action going on and you’re going to get the right kind of people. Trendsetters. You’ll start to recognize them when you see them.”
    “How many?”
    “Try for fifty. It’s not a great number, but if Gordon-Taylor wants a quantitative polling, they should hire us some lackeys.”
    Actually, it doesn’t seem so terrifically daunting of a task to pull this stuff together. All I have to do is hang out at some clubs and stores and nose around a bit. No problemo. I can do this! I may even be good at it.
    We spend the rest of the afternoon all about town. Jen whirls me through the Central Park cafes, Park Avenue boutiques, the fashion district in Midtown, and the crazy scene at NYU. We hit happy hour at the chic bars in the meatpacking district and end up back in the Village, people watching from a sidewalk table at Tortilla Flats.
    That night Jen tells me to do my own thing, and to please make myself scarce between the hours of ten and midnight. Apparently she wants to meet up with the guy who’s not her boyfriend for another round of deep, penetrating conversation. Fine with me. I splurge on a cab back up to Times Square, where I purchase a gyro from a sidewalk vendor, and one
Phantom
of
the Opera
ticket from TKTS discount ticket booth. I love the show, and Times Square is beautiful at night.
    As I stand watching the tapestry of light and color above and around me, I begin to feel myself falling in love. With New York—the energy