Lux Lotus

Windowlicker

This weekend, I watched Smala Sussie (Slim Susie), Ulf Malmros' deliriously black comedy from Sweden, about an independent publisher in Stockholm who receives a phone call that his sister, who he left behind three years ago to take care of their alcoholic mother in their rural hometown, has disappeared. He goes back to find out what happened to her, and discovers how dangerously criminal things have become while also reminding himself why he left in the first place. To American eyes, it fits a little too comfortably into a genre of film that we have in abundance here without bringing much of an original edge to it, but it's quite appealing as a film and I highly recommend it.

The Swedish pop soundtrack is brilliant (you can sample it here), and I immediately began trying to track it down online. It's available from Swedish retailer Skivhugget but I'm waiting to see if my jones for it sticks before paying to have it shipped from Gothenburg, Sweden. While considering other cds to order as well, I came across the excellent Scandinavian pop chronicle It's a Trap. And also, the punk-soul stylings of Moneybrother, and Stockholm-based Norwegian chanteuse, Ane Brun.

For Scandinavian delight in New York, visit Good World Bar & Grill.

Windowlicker - from the French for window shopping: faire du lèche-vitrine - appears on Tuesday and Thursdays at 10am EST.

Art Crush: "Art for Kids' Sake"

Manuela Paz sends word that she has a piece in the 2006 LREI Art Auction:

Untitled, 2005 | C-Print Photograph | 16 x 70"

She notes:

"The Art Auction is an annual silent auction of contemporary fine art. Many prestigious artists have participated in the auction, including William Wegman, Annie Leibovitz, Sol Lewitt, and Keith Haring. The two day event culminates in a closing reception with white wine and frenzied bidding! The Art Auction is free and open to the public.

I-20 Gallery, 529 West 20th Street, 11th Floor

Gallery Hours:
February 1st & 2nd, 10 AM - 8:30 PM

Reception & Closing Bids: February 2nd, 6 PM - 8 PM"

Other notable standouts in the mix:

Richard Gere Jodhpur Fort, 2004 | Canon Print | 8 1/2 x 11"

Joe Gaffney Dennis Hopper, Paris, 1975 | Silver Gelatin Photograph | 17 x 24"

Marybeth Thielhelm Deep Cerulean Sea, 2004 | Solarplate Etching |
17 1/2 x 17 1/2"


Camille Tokerud Marfa Apron, 2006 | Ektacolor C-Print | 14 x 14"

And, as long as we're on the subject of contemporary photography, do check out Hey, Hot Shot! The next deadline is in a couple of weeks.

The Smart Set: 1.30 - 2.5

This week in The Smart Set, my round-up of haute happenings for sizzling hot lit-blog MaudNewton.com: The "What's Your Poison?" Edition.

[ Image: Mario Testino, Kate Moss in Cafe ]

What's The Frequency?

Between videos.antville.org, youtube, and a few other sources popping up at the opportune times, I believe I am fully addicted to watching video content online! Some faves:

• Short but sweet: Keren Ann at Global Fest.
• Remember Prada's Thunder Perfect Mind? It's here.
• And oh! so brilliant: Jan Pehechan-Ho.

As long as we're on the topic, two DVDs I'm keen to check out:

• Starter Set: New Dance & Music for the Camera, which boasts a blurb from Miranda July: "I shivered when (they) told me they were doing modern dance in punk clubs; suddenly everything else seemed so last year."
• And the entire Director's Label line, well, specifically: Michel Gondry, Jonathan Glazer. Except, um, where are the genius female directors, Palm Pictures? e.g. Sophie Muller, Floria Sigismondi?
  

GLASGOW BY WAY OF L.A.

I'm posting this item on Sunday afternoon for you lovelies because the best part of it is not safe for work! Long a fan of both former Screaming Trees frontman Mark Lanegan and ex-Belle and Sebastian Scottish songbird Isobel Campbell, I was delighted to discover news of their new collaborative album, Ballad of the Broken Seas, landing Stateside March 7 (the Ramblin' Man ep is available now from iTunes for $3.96).

Link to their deliciously sexy cover of Hank Williams' Ramblin Man' [audio]
Link to info on Isobel's U.S. solo tour, + also links to the NFSW, must-see Ramblin' Man video, exquisite in its sensual, gritty chic.

Isobel will be at Joe's Pub on 3.13 with "fellow Glasgow luminaries: Eugene Kelly - member of the legendary Vaselines, Eugenius and Captain America, on vocals and guitar, Jim McCulloch of indie faves The Groovy Little Numbers and the chart topping Soup Dragons on guitar and vocals, along with sometime Teenage Fanclub member Dave McGowan (on everything from bass and keyboards to lap steel) and Dave Gormley on drums."

Five Points

American Airlines is having a Europe Winter Fare Sale, with phenomenal deals on flights departing from cities nationwide. From New York:

• to Brussels, $333
• to London, $289
• to Paris, $319
• to Zurich, $365
• to Madrid, $346

Levels of Enchantment

I don't agree with everything the author of this post says -- I believe that short stories are brilliant in their own right, and consider myself privileged to have publicized two extraordinary collections thus far in my career, Bulletproof Girl, by Quinn Dalton, and Second Language, by Ronna Wineberg -- the thing I like best is the spectrum that Soundtrack to the Motion Picture envisions, comparing the depths of the reader's involvement with types of fiction to variegations of love:

An short story anthology is a cocktail party -- some guests are enchanting & dynamic, others are insufferable bores, there's usually one or two shining stars that everyone orbits, and someone who gets too embarrassingly drunk & has to be called a cab. But the party eventually ends, and much of what was said -- witty or political or whatever -- is slight, forgetful ephemera.

And a collection of short stories by one author is like a series of one-off blind dates (or speed-dates), a sporadic series of IM sessions. It's the honeymoon phase of a relationship -- everything said is fascinating, both parties pounce on every coincidence and confuse it with fate, everything is only the promise of more fun, and more of the same forever and ever. A short story needs not sustain a tone, or an idea, long enough to see past its own nose. Short stories emit white-heat immediacy & urgency that could, in retrospect, be a one-night stand, or a torrid but fleeting affair.

A novel is the promise of a more substantial relationship. It's the party after all the guests have left, and you are left to live there all the time, instead of visit like everyone else. It's moving in & co-habitating with someone. With the prospect that things may continue along this way for a while, and that you hope they might (marriage? children? house with a yard?). A novel (and novelist's body of work) is a long-term investment. It's a blue-chip stock, not a day trade.

My only question, though: what then, of poems, and poets, and their no-doubt short romances? Do they just flash by in the blink of an eye...

Dino Does...

You know any story on a blog geared to jetsetting fashionistas that includes the phrase ("Hooters" is... oh just Google it.) in the first paragraph is going to be superlative.

"For all emerging artists..."

"Folio. New DVD Magazine featuring international artists.

Artists network for collaboration and exchange of ideas. Art. music. photography. films. words. new media. performance. industrial & fashion design.

If you are an artist, get involved. Looking for artists & writers to feature in next issue. For submission guidelines and information go to FolioDVD.org or email submitfolio@gmail.com.

Spring 2006 deadline: 20th February 2006.
DVD Magazine is based in Tokyo, Japan."

Windowlicker

"The Sheperdess is based on an image of a young girl tending a flock of sheep on the islands of the Outer Hebrides, pink cheeked and strong limbed. The lonely Sheperdess wanders amongst the heath and tall grass of the islands. Her skirt is warm but she needs to gather it up to keep herself dry. It is an old friend protecting her from the world." [Sheperdess skirt, $180AUD at There is No Place Like Home (special offer: 15% discount & free shipping)].

The Sheperdess would look right at home in photographer Christa Parravani's "Whatever I Was In Life: Spoon River" series [via exquisite aesthete Gwenda Bond], don't you think?

Windowlicker - from the French for window shopping: faire du lèche-vitrine - appears on Tuesday and Thursdays at 10am EST.