We table sitters value comfort, privacy, predictability.
Bar sitters happily sacrifice those things for the chance encounters, the unpredictability, the fun.
Can you guess which kind of person Cyndi Lauper is?
“Let’s sit at the bar!”
she shouts as she barrels through the crowd at a favorite French restaurant on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
People stop and stare, and a few cellphones capture the unmistakable tiny woman in black and pink.
“Do you think this wine will dry my voice up tomorrow?”
Lauper asks, knocking back her drink without waiting for an answer.
Her expression is somewhat impassive as she takes her time deciding between asparagus and artichokes.
At 63, Lauper has almostporeless skin.
Her arched, pencil-thin eyebrows call to mindMarlene Dietrich, one of her heroes.
I notice, too, that pink is a surprisingly flattering hair color.
“Yeah, it’s warm, isn’t it?”
she says, in her trademark Adelaide-in-Guys-and-Dollsaccent.
And here we have the philosophy that has guided Lauper throughout her years.
The producer is Sire Records' Seymour Stein, who discovered the Talking Heads and Madonna, among others.
Working with him, Lauper says, was “on my bucket list.”
Along the way she has won a Tony, an Emmy and a pair of Grammys.
She has sold more than 50 million albums and has dallied with acting, performance art and professional wrestling.
And let’s not forget that she has had fun.
Lauper was instantly compared with Madonna, whose first album was released the same year.
The Material Girl’s brand of female empowerment, though, depended on men for attention.
