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...est arrivée (hot tip: see above). And with that, baby needs a breather. I have four cultural events to look after in the next few days (do come, New Yawkahs! we can be besties in RL, too) and I am in desperate need of a MASS-ohj, as my darling pal Stephen might say. Cue "Polka Dots and Moonbeams"... I'll be back before you even have a chance to miss me. XO.
"I'm having a vacation, and it's so beautiful, and maybe I'll never get another film idea in my life.” -- Lars von Trier
While I'm deeply enamored of every single thing I'm working on, I've also long realized that if I'm going to do the best, most innovative and forward-thinking work for my clients that I can do, I need to recharge and refresh now and then. To that aim, I'm thinking about squeezing in a little spring break between events in the next month or two, but, once again, I'd love your intriguing suggestions. Europe is out because I feel like a peasant given the exchange rate, and there aren't too many places in the U.S. I haven't been to or would like to revisit save maybe New Mexico, Big Sur, and Marfa, TX. I like city breaks in general but the mellow vibe that suits me as I ponder likely contains the search terms: chillax, laid back, beach, out-of-Blackberry-range. But I'm open to anything, anywhere, as long as it piques my curiosity. Any ideas? Where have you always wanted to go? Where was the best trip (or when was the best travel moment) of your life so far? Please do tell; I'm all ears and eager imagination...
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Luxuriating in a lovely Sunday, straightening up my apartment, looking forward to my favorite yoga class (the playlist: The Smiths, The Cure, The Flaming Lips) later on... meanwhile, meanwhile, enjoying elsewhere:
"Nice Dress. Thanks, it's a Ver-SAYCE." -- FASHIONTRIBES
"Getting Into the School of Everything" -- DEEPLINKING
"When it Rains in Montevideo" -- LILIT IN STEREO
"Quick Dispatch from the Big Easy" -- KIM SAID
"Don't Bring Around a Cloud" -- DILETTANTSIA
"Dresses in Literature, Joan Didion edition" -- A DRESS A DAY
"My Unwritten Blog Posts" -- LOST IN PLACE
"When asked why she wants to learn Japanese, a character in Kristen Kosmas’s play Hello Failure replies, 'I want to chop away at the wilderness of my mind...'" -- OPINIONIST
"Political Fashion" -- MODE ET UTOPIE
"Carleen's Orange Mint Mojitos" -- TAYARI JONES
"Will Forte's Guys to Avoid" -- COSMOPOLITAN
"Lapis Lazuli (Jenny Davidson's favorite Faberge Egg)" -- LIGHT READING
These are perfect... perfectly insane! I want them in at least four colors. In the current issue of Paris Vogue, fringe is super on-point, and my late-winter transitional wardrobe has consisted of long hippie-ish print dresses with cardigans or leggings and tunics and a refusal to wear a coat. Maybe all I need is a pair of Fraggle Rock meets Bike Fever boots to put a "three waves of fringe" skip in my step right into springtime proper.
[Minnetonka Women's 3 Layer Fringe Calf Hi Suede Boot, $80.95 - $85.95 at MoccasinHouse.com]
Windowlicker - from the French for window shopping: faire du lèche-vitrine - appears on Tuesday and Thursdays at 10am EST-ish.
Just had a marvelous dinner at Frederick's Downtown with the delightful Beth Stellato of Just My Cup of Tea that started with a laugh-- she was surprised by how far she had to head West, me, North. It was lovely, and if the woman two tables away wasn't Ayaan Hirsi Alli, as improbable as that may sound, well, she could have fooled me. Ms. Stellato has a million brilliant ideas, as always, and is just about to head off to London for a few weeks for work. My advice? Skip Topshop and find a way to check out one of Adele's upcoming shows, or at least her buzzed-about debut, 19.
Tomorrow evening, "Upstairs at the Square" (one of my signature professional projects at the moment) welcomes literary icon Tom Wolfe, along with rising musical star Fernando Otero, in conversation with host Katherine Lanpher. In her words,
"To many of you, Tom Wolfe is the man in the white suit, the elegantly pugnacious man of letters who dueled with Norman Mailer over their places in literature, invoked Zola before he wrote his best-selling novels and will forever have a place in the journalistic firmament for his era-defining essay on New Journalism.
But the man who gave us 'Bonfire of the Vanities' and 'The Right Stuff' has a soft side, a semi-secret passion he doesn’t talk about very often – but he will this Thursday at the next Upstairs at the Square at the flagship Barnes and Noble at Union Square.
Tom Wolfe loves tango. So, to entice him on to our stage at Upstairs at the Square, we have paired him with the hot new Argentinean composer Fernando Otero, who is making his major label debut with an album described as tango meets jazz meets contemporary classical.(To give you an idea of his stature, Otero’s most recent commission was for the edgy Kronos Quartet.) This is the only appearance Mr. Wolfe is making in conjunction with the reissues of both 'Bonfire' and 'The Right Stuff.'
So come hear Tom Wolfe talk about his life, his long career and his unlikely passion for tango. And hear Fernando Otero’s newest works, inspired by the streets of Buenos Aires.
Think of it as New Journalism meets New Tango."
Barnes and Noble
Union Square
4th floor
Start time: 7 p.m. sharp
This Thursday, March 13
FREE
“Upstairs at the Square,” which will celebrate its two-year anniversary this June, has paired authors such as Anne Enright, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, David Lynch, Anna Gavalda, and Armistead Maupin with musicians including The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn, Duncan Sheik and members of the cast of Spring Awakening, Sondre Lerche, Au Revoir Simone, Camphor and more. A full archive of recordings of all previous events is available on Barnes & Noble.com (bn.com/upstairs), where “Upstairs at the Square” is enjoyed by listeners around the world in addition to its live audiences.
Things today work-wise were chaotic and stressful but also astonishingly productive in that way that only really brilliant things can come from enormous uncertainty and risk; black holes and dwarf stars and peak creativity and all that. I let it all slide off my shoulders as I took a stroll and flaneured about the neighborhood on a marvelous early spring day (that faded into a frigid night-- it's still very much March, but more lamb-like than ever). After work I met up with some colleagues in publishing for drinks and gossip and the nice tangential banter that one does not get very often in a casual setting as a freelancer, you know happy hour stuff, in a smoky bar that was a perfect throwback amidst the too-consciously gleaming overload of SoHo, and then made my way over to St. Mark's Place to meet up for dinner with a friend from Japan. I asked him where he would want to go afterwards if we were still there, and he was like, to Madeleine, the coffee bar-car and I absolutely agreed 'cos Naka Meguro's my fave 'hood, too. He told me about his Japanese lessons and the difference between counting small things and flat things and I told him about my precious little cup-birds. While out and about, I also picked up some excellent reading material today: Hyde Park Gate News at Bluestockings and Bachelors, plus Russia! and Black Clock magazines at St. Mark's Bookshop. And just now I enjoyed a leisurely end-of-evening phone chat with a friend who I also talked to right when I woke up this morning-- he was in a hotel room in another country and when room service brought him a toothbrush, I told him a story from the book I'm currently reading for pleasure, The Bad Girl by Mario Vargo Llosa, about the woman who the narrator spends a night with in Paris and she leaves her toothbrush and he realizes later she didn't forget it, she left it on purpose and never intended to see him again, and he carries it around like a talisman until he finds her again in London, years later and she's someone else-- today's been funny like that, I suppose, in that circular, loopy, it will all be fine because everything comes around again way, and now I'm off to bed to dream of trees and clouds and places where you can see the stars in the sky and maybe even the ocean, too, and quiet.
Some evening perusing to go nicely with a cup of tea (or your a.m. coffee):
"La Belle Americaine" -- Too Fat For Fashion
"The Look of Love #4" -- Quiet Bubble
"A Recipe for Enjoying Winter" -- The Pink of Perfection
"Gentry to Paris, Hiver 2008" -- Maitresse
"What are You Reading in Paris?" -- Critical Mass
"The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere" -- Fernham
"Words for the Disillusioned Graduate from the Brilliant McEwan" -- Petite Cinema
"The Specter of the Unanswered Letter" -- Maud Newton
"When You Buy a Car Make Sure It's Not a Limoncello" -- AnimaMundi
"Thakoon Shares His Inspiration for Spring 2008 and...Pixel Pink" -- Fashiontribes
"Isn't It Pretty to Think So?" -- Work in Progress
"Want an Innovative Culture? Status Differences Blow" -- Metacool
From: Wackwitz, Stephan
Date: Fri, Mar 7, 2008 at 3:16 PM
Subject: Clemens en August@Goethe-Institute New York
"Dear friends,
the fashion label Clemens en August has been featured in "Wallpaper", "Monocle", "The London Times" etc. and is considered one of the most innovative and hip enterprises in Germany. After extensive experience in organizing shows in Paris and Milan Clemens en August came up with a new concept to avoid the over-expensive luxury retail market and high PR costs.
Their strategy is to offer their product directly to customers who have an eye for fine details on patterns, fabric and quality of production. They decided to sell their women's and men's collection only in galleries and museums for three days respectively. With the support of museums like KW Berlin, Haus der Kunst Munich, MAK in Vienna and galleries like the Produzentengalerie Hamburg and Hauser&Wirth in Zurich this concept had a very positive start.
Clemens en August will be at the gallery of the Goethe-Institute New York from March 29th to April 1st 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Yours
Dr. Stephan Wackwitz
Director of program department
Goethe-Institut New York
1014 Fifth Avenue
New York
NY 10028"
Recently, my sister and I saw The Other Boleyn Girl, which is almost mercilessly tawdry, and is saved only by the almost merciless foxiness of Eric Bana as the petulant tyrant of record. The other best thing about the film is that it led us to go around for the rest of the day ending every phrase with "sis-TAH," said in the most sweetly conniving tone possible. It all reminds me of how much I enjoyed being called "princess" for a brief moment --that coincided with the get-on-a-plane-and-meet-me-for-dinner, you'll-recognize-me-by-my-tiara phase-- last summer. So what could be better then, than an "empress" teapot? Not much, sister.
["Empress" Teapot, $65 from Le Palais Gourmet]
Windowlicker - from the French for window shopping: faire du lèche-vitrine - appears on Tuesday and Thursdays at 10am EST-ish.
