Lifestyle
'Fourteen Days' is a time capsule of people's efforts to connect during the pandemic
Almost as soon as we’d all gotten “used” to the COVID-19 pandemic — which is to say, when we realized it wouldn’t be as short-lived an event as we’d wished — I was one of many who noticed, at least online, an ambient yet frantic need to be productive. People were baking, growing plants, starting new crafting projects and, of course, writing.
Shakespeare, I kept seeing people proclaim, wrote King Lear during the 1592 plague outbreak in London; the implication being “that if the Bard managed to write a masterpiece during a pandemic, you had best have something to show for yourself before this quarantine is over — and it had better be more impressive than baking sourdough bread!”
It is a professor nicknamed Prospero who utters these ironic remarks in Fourteen Days: A Collaborative Novel, shortly after gently correcting the popular meme about Willie S. that was spreading like (forgive me) the plague during March and April of 2020. In fact, Prospero tells his neighbors on the roof of 2 Rivington St. in New York City’s Lower East Side, Shakespeare wrote Lear in “the plague-free summer and autumn of 1605.”
Fourteen Days, which is an Authors Guild project and was edited by Margaret Atwood and former guild president Douglas Preston, is a novel written collaboratively by 36 American and Canadian authors — including Emma Donoghue, John Grisham, Celeste Ng, Erica Jong, Luis Alberto Urrea, Charlie Jane Anders, Nafissa Thompson-Spires, and Tommy Orange. Modeled after collections like Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron and Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, Fourteen Days has a frame narrative that works as a container for different characters to tell a variety of stories, some thematically linked, others less so.
The novel’s frame narrative in this case is a found manuscript containing the writings of an NYC tenement’s superintendent. She only recently began working in the building, and doesn’t really know anyone when the city’s lockdown begins in March 2020. The tenement’s rooftop is meant to be off-limits, and although the super tries at first to maintain this standard, she quickly gives up; after all, she feels no particular loyalty toward the faceless landlord who has clearly abandoned caring for the crumbling building and its tenants’ needs.
The super begins spending time on the roof herself, and more and more tenants gather there in the evenings to bang pots and cheer for the medical workers putting their lives on the line and attempting to care for the amassing sick. Once the noisemaking ends, the residents remain, drinking or smoking, reading their books or absorbed in their phones, enjoying some fresh air and space after their days cooped up inside their small apartments. And, naturally, they begin to talk to one another, eventually instituting a routine in which several people tell stories each evening: true or imagined, mundane or strange, but always interesting enough to pass the time.
A pleasing quirk of the book is that none of its authors are bylined; only their bios at the very end reveal who wrote each story. Fourteen Days thus achieves a unified voice of sorts despite its disparate authors, as every character narrates their story simply, casually, often allowing themselves digressions and asides.
Some of the characters’ tales have clear endings and takeaways. A man nicknamed Eurovision, for instance, tells a story about how to get two rabbits who hate each other to get along: contain them in a small box together, put it in a car, and drive around for a while. Once they arrive home and are let loose again, the bunnies will be bonded by the fear and trauma they experienced in the shaking car and tiny space. So too, Eurovision posits, might be the case for the tenants in the building — their collective trauma bonding them despite their immense differences of identity, personality, and life experience.
Other stories, though, are vignettes that paint scenes of love or conflict without yielding an obvious “message” or even coming to a real conclusion. A man given the moniker of Wurly, for instance, shares three striking memories of a woman named Bertha who wasn’t related to his family but who was deeply involved in it, welcomed and respected as an honorary matriarch; the story shows Wurly’s affection for her, and its purpose is simply to celebrate the woman’s existence.
There are, too, the odd and eerie stories, such as that of a young woman who shows up on the roof one night claiming to be a transformed spider living in the city as an expert exterminator of bed bugs, her snack of choice. She disappears right after telling her tale, leaving the rooftop gathering nonplussed and a little spooked.
Fourteen Days is an ambitious project, and its proceeds benefit the Authors Guild Foundation, two-thirds of whose members suffered an income decline during the pandemic — which was officially declared to be over by the U.S. government more than months ago, in May 2023, even though as of January 27, the CDC reported 6973 deaths from COVID-19 this year, and as many as 7% of Americans report experiencing symptoms of long COVID.
As a fundraiser, the idea is truly wonderful, and the execution is enjoyable, but the project’s seams show, and the twist ending doesn’t land with the kind of emotional oomph that it should. Still, it’s worth a read and serves as a somewhat romanticized time capsule of the efforts people made to connect with one another even during the bleak and frightening days in which New York City was the pandemic’s epicenter, with all its attendant horrors.
Ilana Masad is a fiction writer, book critic, and author of the novel All My Mother’s Lovers.
Lifestyle
Vintage-obsessed millennial parents are driving L.A.’s booming kids’ clothing resale market
Kids’ vintage clothing sales are experiencing a remarkable boom at in-person markets and online, where prices for clothes for little ones have shot up on websites including Depop and Poshmark. Millennial parents are looking to outfit their kids in the clothes and TV and film characters they loved (or coveted) when they were kids.
The result? There’s a new generation of kiddos hitting the playground looking incredibly cool. Take Amari Case, a SoCal toddler who spent a Sunday afternoon this spring ambling around a vintage market in a West Hollywood warehouse clad in baggy jeans and a ’90s-era tee emblazoned with the “Dragon Ball Z” character Son Goku.
When she wasn’t scribbling on a Lorax coloring sheet, she’d been cruising around the market with her dad, Aaron Munoz Case, snapping up new pieces destined to make her the flyest kid at the preschool playground.
Neil Wright, from left, Kristine Nite Scalzo and Brandon Rosenblatt, co-founders of Elemeno Kids Vintage Market.
Showing off Amari’s new vintage satin L.A. Raiders jacket and tiny teal Grant Hill Detroit Pistons jersey, Munoz Case, who was also impeccably dressed, noted that while Amari went through a phase at about 18 months where she wanted to dress herself, eventually she gave up and went back to letting her dripped-out dad dictate her wardrobe.
Munoz Case found Amari’s first vintage piece at the Rose Bowl Flea Market and got the bug, going back every month to pick up something to add to his little’s wardrobe.
Trendspotters and researchers say Munoz Case isn’t alone in his quest. The market for kids’ vintage clothing has heated up precipitously over the last few years, perhaps hitting a boiling point in January when an Eeyore romper from the ’90s sold for over $3,000 on EBay. (It was new with tags, but one without tags still went for almost a grand about a month later.)
The thirst for tiny throwbacks is so popular that first-ever, all-kids market Elemeno — named after the “L-M-N-O” bit of “The Alphabet Song” and where Amari was toddling and shopping — drew 17 vendors and over 2,000 attendees over a single weekend in March. (There are plans for another Elemeno Kids Vintage Market pop-up later this year in New York, as well as plans to bring the event back to L.A. sometime next year.)
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1. Cameron Scalzo, wearing a vintage McDonald’s T-shirt from the ‘90s, and mom Kristine Nite Scalzo. 2. Cameron Scalzo rocks an Avirex jacket from the ‘90s.
Eye Speak Vintage’s Kristine Nite Scalzo, who co-organized the event and is opening an all-kids vintage store in Pasadena this month, says she fell under the kids vintage spell in 2020 when she was pregnant with her son. She’d always been a vintage shopper for herself, so she knew she wanted to pass the passion down to the next generation. She started filling up her son’s closet, and soon enough, she found herself selling her other finds out of a bodega in her garage.
She has a by-appointment space in Pasadena now, where she draws everyone from Rihanna’s stylist to out-of-town moms who make a point to stop by on their way to Disneyland. “The community around kids vintage has really skyrocketed on Instagram over the past six years,” Scalzo says. “We want to know who we’re buying from. We want to know that we’re doing good with buying secondhand. And it’s a hobby for people that can turn into a possible business on the side. Because knowing there’s a big group that’s interested in vintage kids clothes, you can always pass an item [your kid outgrows] to someone else or resell it.”
Scalzo says some parents are out digging through bins at the Goodwill Outlet looking for the perfect piece, while others are content to pay up for, say, a ’90s Simpsons T-shirt or a mini-size Harley-Davidson jacket. Scouring the racks at the Elemeno market, most pieces cost $15 to $40, though there were special pieces pulled to the side in some booths with price tags that could make a parent’s eyes pop. (Think $275 for a set of well-worn Spider-Man overalls from the ’00s or $150 for a pair of Cross Colours denim shorts from the ’90s.)
In kids and adult vintage alike, mint condition is highly valued. No matter the era in which they were raised, kids tend to be messy. They get strawberry juice on their shirts or scuff up the knees on their Bugle Boy jeans. Vintage kids clothes that look pristine are more expensive, and while plain kids clothes do sell, items with characters on them or cool prints tend to draw more attention and dollars.
Brandon Rosenblatt, another of the Elemeno organizers, says he’s had his eye on a specific kids “Back to the Future” shirt for some time, but notes that it typically sells for about $1,000. He’s partial to McKids clothes for his daughter, from McDonald’s short-lived kids clothing brand, noting that he’s even snagged her a vintage official McDonald’s-themed aloha shirt from Hawaii, something he says he’s never seen anywhere else.
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1. Siblings Amora and Milo Castilo wear vintage cowboy hats, jackets and chaps. 2. Thalia Castilo and her kids Amora and Milo.
Other collectors, he says, might be a little less obscure, leaning into mainstream characters such as Strawberry Shortcake or from ’80s and ’90s properties including “The Land Before Time” and “Rugrats.”
“A lot of millennials are having kids — like everyone who’s in their 30s and 40s — and they all want to put their kids in the same IP they grew up in,” Rosenblatt says.
“It’s the thrill of the hunt that gets everyone so excited,” Scalzo says. “Once you find that perfect nostalgic piece, you’re like ‘Holy s—,’ and you just want to chase that feeling again and again.”
Mia De La Rosa, a reseller who was at the Elemeno market, says that like Scalzo, she started buying kids vintage clothes when she was pregnant with her daughter, Liv, who’s 6 now, very into everything on PBS Kids and has a closet full of thrifted vintage garb covered in characters such as D.W., the annoying little sister from the ’90s show “Arthur.”
Everything Liv wears is “completely her style,” De La Rosa says. “She dresses herself every day and she gets compliments on what she’s wearing at school all the time.”
Other vintage-wearing kids — and in particular younger ones — might simply be sporting what their parents like or might just like the look of the shirt even if they don’t know what it’s advertising. (An 8-year-old boy at the Elemeno market, for instance, chose to wear a pristine T-shirt highlighting the ’90s Jim Carrey movie “The Mask” because it featured his favorite color: green.)
Derrick Broaster, a vintage enthusiast turned full-time reseller, says that while he chooses to put himself in clothes from the ’60s and ’70s, he outfits his two sons in clothes from the 2000s. (“How Bow Wow used to dress when he was a kid,” he says.)
Although his younger son tends to rebel against Broaster’s vintage picks, opting for whatever Spider-Man shoes happen to be in his eyeline, his older son has leaned in, letting his dad advise him on what vintage pieces could work and what would be the most stylish.
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1. Julian, left, and Javier Gutierrez show off their vintage clothing. Javier says his mom always tells him to keep his vintage outfits clean. 2. Mom Priscilla Guzman, clockwise, Dad Javier Gutierrez and sons Julian and Javier Gutierrez enjoy the vibe of vintage clothing. Guzman says she’s been buying and selling kids’ vintage since her oldest son was born eight years ago.
Rosenblatt says a good portion of what vintage finds he sees in the market now has returned to the U.S. from places in Central America and South America or Asia where those pieces were likely sent decades ago after they were donated or given away.
“There’s a real underbelly of this vintage game with rag houses getting access to bulk product overseas and letting people sort through it,” he says. “There are companies now that rip through 20, 30 or 40,000 pieces of vintage clothing a week. It’s a really interesting ecosystem.”
For many kids vintage sellers, finding their stock is just as fun and interesting as getting it back into consumers’ hands. “Anywhere we can find clothes, we’re there,” says Matthew Carlos, owner of Long Gone Youth. He started selling vintage clothes 11 years ago, when he was 15, switched to kids vintage at 20 and has spent the last six years scouring flea markets, websites and swap meets.
“The kids market is definitely growing,” he says, “but I still feel like we haven’t even gotten close to where we can go. It’s just getting popular now, but the more events [like Elemeno] we can do, the more it’ll go mainstream.” Even now, some major brands like Gap and OshKosh B’gosh have recognized the interest in some of their styles from the ’80s and ’90s, moving to re-release the looks in limited runs.
Jackie and Frank Oropeza with daughter Rumi Mae shop at Elemeno Kids Vintage Market.
Kids resale is also leaning into streetwear culture. Rosenblatt, who worked in the streetwear industry, says that he’s noticed that a good portion of those interested in kids vintage — particularly, male shoppers — tend to be fans of streetwear brands like Supreme, Fear of God Essentials and Bape. At Elemeno, for instance, a good portion of the parents we saw pushing strollers were well-dressed dads seemingly on solo missions, something you don’t always see at kid-centric events.
“I just want my son to feel like I did as a kid,” said Justin Nguyen, while watching his toddler, Jayden, play with bubbles. “I want him to be happy, carefree and joyful, and I want to be able to spend time with him. My mom and dad were always working, even on the weekends. Now that I’m a dad, taking my son out on weekends to do stuff like this just seems like a blessing.”
Author Julia Elliott won for her short story collection Hellions.
Forrest Clonts/Tin House
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Forrest Clonts/Tin House
Writer Julia Elliott has won this year’s Carol Shields Prize for Fiction for her short story collection Hellions. The award honors work by women and nonbinary authors in the U.S. and Canada.
Elliott, who also authored the novel The New and Improved Romie Futch and the short story collection The Wilds, is known for blending elements of Southern gothic horror, surrealism and fairy tale. Hellions, published in 2025, includes stories set against backdrops like a plague-stricken medieval convent, a feminist art colony, and small Southern towns.
“This eerie, eclectic, genre-leaping collection takes no half-measures; every sentence of Hellions crackles or crawls,” wrote the prize jury in a statement. “Here, human folly moves against a backdrop of horror and magic … But for all its wildness, there is tremendous control.”
The prize, named after a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, awards $150,000 to one winner each year. Novels, short story collections, and graphic novels by women and nonbinary authors are eligible.
This year’s finalists included Quiara Alegría Hudes (The White Hot), Lee Lai (Cannon), Megha Majumdar (A Guardian and a Thief), and Sonya Walger (Lion). They will each receive $12,500.
The Carol Shields Prize went to writer Canisia Lubrin in 2025.
You can listen to actor Donna Lynne Champlin read Elliott’s story “Hellion” on the Death, Sex & Money podcast here.
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