Lux Lotus

The August Agenda

When I windowlicked a nap, I realized I needed a break. To that aim, I'll be taking the month of August off from blogging regularly. I'll be in the city on and off -- Wednesday, August 16: be there at the square! --and in the country, too. Mostly, you know, chillaxing, but also getting caught up on current projects as well as preparing for fall. In my travel tote:

• Tête-à-Tête: Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, the August pick of the (fashion + style) Bloggers' Book Club
• Maeve Brennan: Homesick at The New Yorker, which I'm reviewing for emdashes.com
• The new issue of Absinthe: New European Writing
• And a couple of manuscripts I'm reading for potential '07 projects (I'm only doing 10 next year, and I've committed to 1) -- exciting!

My August picks for The Smart Set are now posted at MaudNewton.com.

And, if you're looking for summer reading, here's the list of truly extraordinary books I've been privileged to help get the word out about so far this year (in reverse chronological order):

• Putting the Pieces Together: The Graffiti Model for Indie Filmmaking by the Quality of Life team
• The Venus Fix by M.J. Rose -- P.S. there's still time to join the Summer Buzz Campaign and raise money for your pick of three very cool nonprofit organizations!
• Triangle by Katharine Weber
• Instant Love by Jami Attenberg
• The Untelling by Tayari Jones (newly in paperback; winner of the Lillian C. Smith Award for New Voices!)
• Pulse: The Coming Age of Systems and Machines Inspired by Living Things by Robert Frenay
• The Power of Purpose: Living Well by Doing Good by Peter S. Temes
• The Essential Francisco Sosa, or Picadou's Mexico City by C.M. Mayo (audio)
• Mary After All by Bill Gordon

A bientot, doves! XX, LC.

Image: Unknown Photographer. Coronado Beach, California. c. 1930. Gelatin silver print.

Windowlicker

Essential beach/cubicle/astral field reading: Arthur!  [six issues, $30]

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

Lux.Links

• "reggae aesthetics" [metaxucafe]
• "stoopin part 2" [just my cup of tea]
• "objectification thursday" [wit of the staircase]
• two reasons to read the skunkeye consumer guide: an appreciation of gene pitney and a review of alice neel's women
• an ode to the "urban werewolf" look [fashionologie]

Image: Swedish Girls, 1968.

West Coasties: Consider this an LL APB

The You Wear It Well traveling fashion film festival is about the most sizzling thing I've heard of this year. Los Angeles and San Francisco, it's coming to you first -- next week! Speaking on behalf of every single person in New York, we are jealous jealous jealous and so impatient. Anybody wanna send in a report?

Round & Round

The past few days have been too busy for words! Recent doings and observations:

• Spent last weekend on Maryland's Eastern Shore with one of my oldest friends, who was celebrating a birthday. I snapped the photo above when we were driving through a cornfield to get to a party; always a good sign. My favorite towns, in order: Oxford, Tilghman Island, St. Michael's, Easton. Great coffee, thrifting, scenery.
• Had lunch on Friday with the brilliant and stylish Shin-Pei Tsay just before I left the city for more enchanting environs.
• On Monday, my lovely lunch date in DC was the also brilliant and stylish Tayari Jones, who is probably coming to a place near you in the next few months to read from The Untelling. After lunch, we went over to Kramerbooks and I stocked up on future travel reading with Liars and Saints, The Electric Michelangelo, and The Master and Margarita.
• Last Thursday evening, I went to Eyebeam in Chelsea to check out one of its events. The space is sublime, the people there are very intellectual and captivating, the bookstore expertly curated, and executive director Amanda McDonald Crowley is charming, chic and truly visionary. Definitely stop by when you're in the neighborhood.
• On Monday in DC (I was already there) and Tuesday in New York (I happen to live down the street from the bookstore) I attended readings by Katharine Weber from her new novel, Triangle, which I've been thrilled to work on this summer. The crowds keep growing and for good reason!
• On Tuesday I met up with the brilliant and stylish Min Jin Lee for pie at Bubby's. Mine was chocolate and peanut butter. Yum!
  
• Last night the brilliant and stylish Beth Stellato of Just My Cup of Tea and I met up at Opening Ceremony to peruse the Topshop offerings (the annoying MTV crew filming a segment meant in the shop I'll have to go back another day to really check out the goods) and then went to La Esquina for a delicious dinner and a creative convo about the next style bloggers' party. Details tk.
• As for this evening, I'm looking forward to dinner with artistic genius Portia Wells.
• The Smithsonian's American Art Museum, newly open again after a long renovation and now paired with the National Portrait Gallery as "The Reynolds Center," can best be described as a sweetly reverent flea market. Maybe more on that later.
• On heavy rotation: The Brand New Heavies, Sondre Lerche, Joanna Newsom.

The Smart Set: July 24 - 30

In this week's edition of The Smart Set for MaudNewton.com: "named one of the top"... "most effective"... "woman who wrote science fiction under a man’s name for ten years"... "leading practitioners in the in-between prose-poetry/flash-fiction form"... "in order to grapple with such intricate topics as ethics, identity and human physicality"... "with their beautifully dark musical adaptation" ...and more.

Image: Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #7 (1978).

Lux.Links

• Controversy Over Mysteries of Pittsburgh (one of my all-time faves) [cinematical]
• All Aboard the Decadent Art Fag Express [iconoduel]
• Lux Lotus fave James Wolanin's Summer Reading [philosopy of one]
• Girl Talk: The May Queen's Nicki Richesin Interviews Jennifer Baumgardner [the happy booker]
• What I Listen To, Mostly [animamundi]
• Capers of the Past [style bubble]

Windowlicker

Okay, not that I would ever actually be in midtown unless it was essential but, after Upstairs at the Square last night, with Gary Shteyngart + Sondre Lerche + host Katherine Lanpher, and 400 people, all enjoying a  positively electric evening (audio tk at bn.com/writers) -- and hauling myself out of bed this morning for yoga even though I felt like laying around and well, sleeping, and then a full day of calls and work and projects (although lunch at Columbine was a lovely respite)... let's just say that the MetroNaps concept is highly intriguing. At least compared to disco naps.

[1-pass, $14 via metronaps.com (how it works)]

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

Tonight's The Night

That's right, New YorkAHS: Upstairs at the Square is at 7, and FREE. I nicked the photo from Gridskipper because it's so delish, even if it does obscure Gary Shteyngart's family's bear with a foxy Sondre Lerche. Oh and doves [sotto voce] B&N has divine A/C... Come on over + chillax!

Windowlicker

Isn't this just the sort of thing that cries out for a stack of green apples?

Noted, "The original concept is an answer to the designer's quest to arrange a group of uniform spokes into the simplest geometric form."

[Satellite Bowl, Natural, Carlo Contin, 1999, on sale for $29.95 at momastore.org]

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