Lux Lotus

Just What I Want To Do

Although I've spent extended periods of time in some intriguing places in the past decade -- New Orleans, New Mexico, Upstate NY, San Francisco, Washington DC, et al, and Manhattan for the first six months that I was on my own and then the past five years, much to my own continual surprise (ask any of my ex-boyfriends, handsome, brilliant and criminally charming as they all are, about my stance/track record on commitment and it's likely to be expressed in either a resigned sigh or a string of expletives) -- I've never renewed a lease until today!  I guess I'm sticking around for the moment. Although it's funny; someone who I utterly adore asked me if am available for lunch tomorrow, and I was like, momentarily in my head... "Wellll, I was going to get up and call the airport to see what a flight to Berlin or Brussels or Amsterdam or Dublin or Ljubljana or Copenhagen might run, but I suppose I can always do that later..." Or not.

IMAGE: Still from The Royal Tenenbaums, nicked from The Yellow Stereo's utterly genius post, "Films on the Mind | Wes Anderson Edition."

Love Leo

Photographer Leo Zacharias and I met at a party for an overrated magazine at the precise instant when drunk, half-dressed hipsters started throwing beer bottles in the air and we ducked for cover at the same time. Since then, I run into him in the most serendipitous manner every now and then and always look forward to the next time our paths cross. Tonight he says:

HEY HEY !
Im on a Photo competition for LVHRD
you can go there and VOTE VOTE VOTE!!

There are three assignments to vote for :

Assignment 1

Assignment 2

Assignment 3

Cheers!!!

:p

LEO

I'd have voted for him anyway but of course his shots are the clear winners (or should be-- help him out!)

Photo: Leo Zacharias for LVHRD.

The Five Senses

HEARING: The sublimest cover of "Age of Consent"
SEEING: If I can make my hair look just like this picture, you Friday?
TASTING: Tim-Tams @ Tuck Shop later this week
TOUCHING: Need sapphire cashmere cardi for fall
SMELLING: Seeking Rumeur by Lanvin-- 's nice?

Postcard From The Hamptons

Day 1 of 3; this place is bananas. Right this moment, I am sitting in booth 59a at ScopeHamptons, with gallery owner extraordinaire Jen Bekman and featured artist Amy Ross, who is an utter phenom--her madcap, striking watercolors splice the DNA of chronicles of the natural world only to recombine and reinvent it. There is some fantastic art at the fair, and some of it, well let's just say, reflects the most extraordinary taste. I'll perhaps have more later, but mostly I'm helping answer questions for potential buyers, drinking free beer, making sure the postcards stacks stay tidy, and having glaring typos corrected on the entrance signage. Also on the agenda, eating the chocolate intended for passersby and flipping through the free magazines that are everywhere, like Culture & Travel (FSG editor Lorin Stein has a really good article on French gardens in the current issue, actually, although I didn't notice the byline until the end), Whitewall, et al. Quote of the day, from Bomb:

"In another time I guess I would have been content with filming girls and cats. But you don't choose your time." -- Chris Marker

We'll be here until 8 or so, and then I hope to go for a dip in the pool where I'm staying and start reading a book I picked up yesterday on the role of "the archive" in contemporary art. But I am sure there are a million parties to go to, not that I would have any idea. 'Cos I'm a nerd. But who knows?

Update: Amy Ross has a blog! It's brilliant, natch. See Post Number One.

Update #2: AR's Nature Morph has a new address (and you can see my shiny silver clogs in action)! Amy is blogging up a storm, although I had to insist that last night's "Group shot by the pool, Still Life with Rose and Dunhills 'round midnight" be password-protected at all times.

Windowlicker (Special Summer Edition)

You have to let me know your thoughts on this one because I actually want it pretty badly (I think): Is this the exquisitely eccentric, "Baroness Elsa" objet I've been craving, or... not? PS The irony of my ambivalence is not lost on me! Please share your opinion in the comments.

[Peter Som, "Loves Me, Loves Me Not" Belt, on sale for $239 at eLuxury.com]

PPS Also, a soigne, environmentally sound tip I've been meaning to share: blackle.com. Plus: Jenny Holzer's Twitter Feed (love her!).

And: Brittany Murphy models The Baroness "look" in "The Pilgrimage Issue" of the New York Times Magazine "Fashion of the Times" issue, Fall 2002.

Windowlicker - from the French for window shopping: faire du lèche-vitrine - appears on Tuesday and Thursdays at 10am EST. Note: regular posting at LuxLotus.com resumes after Labor Day.

Luxnotes: Three Ring Evening

Tonight was quite fun and so unexpectedly so that I had to take a break from the break to tell you about it. First I had drinks with my colleague in literary PR, James Meader of Picador, at Les Enfants Terribles and we swapped books we're working on right now. He gave me Cion, The Echo Maker and The Shape of Things to Come. Classy picks, of course; however, he was chagrined that I outright refused one related to the The Paris Review and made him take it back. Well, of course I did (BTW, as I recall from the first time around, everyone's favorite venture capitalist wants you to know one of those links is NSFW). After my third glass of tropicalia or whatever it is that I'd drink out of a bucket down there at Ludlow & Canal, I hopped on the subway (dangerously chic, I know!) for a one stop trek to DUMBO, where another fellow colleague in literary PR, Sarah Reidy of Soho Press, had organized an amateur boxing match between Jonathan Ames and Craig Davidson, author of the debut novel The Fighter. It was really something and I enjoyed indulging my inner Roman (goes with the nose). The place was literally mobbed and I could type for the next hour just listing all the people I saw that I knew or whatever; it was marvelous. At one point I asked another publicist, Kathy Daneman of FSG, why there were so many attractive straight guys at the afterparty. Was it Brooklyn? Nah, she said, Bloodsport.

Snapshot of Fiona Apple at Gleason's Gym courtesy of SLUNCH, my favorite new anonymous, bitchy publishing gossip blog (<3)! And awesome etymology, all around: "I first heard this word about 1960 in the phrase, 'she is a slunch c___'" or "a term referring to a lunch-break used to have sex as opposed to eat lunch."  I like the sound of it already.

Art Crush: ScopeHamptons

This weekend I will be lending a hand to jen bekman at ScopeHamptons, so if you're out that way, come on by. I remember attending the first or second Scope Fair, in the Dylan Hotel, to check out the scene but that was like five years ago before I even had a blog. I do recall, however, that Pascal Spengemann was still an independent curator as his gallery Taxter & Spengemann hadn't opened and he had the best art in his hotel room (all the "booths" were in rooms; it was novel and intriguing but the elevator service was as slow as molasses).

I have never been to the Hamptons, despite having made the best-laid plans in the past, so I expect to experience seduction and revulsion in equal measure my first time. Plus, the beach maybe when I'm not working! But mostly, it will probably just be a lot of money and that is what it is. Speaking of the shiny shiny, I will be breaking in my NEW SILVER CLOGS that were a GIFT (thank you M!) and when I have some downtime, reading my EXCITING NEW BOOKS that were sent via a WISHLIST, fulfulling two wishes that I never expected to come true (thank you G!). I am indeed a lucky girl. Ok, back to the break. XO.

Heavens to Betsy

Lately I have been going to church, which is kind of a new thing for me but I like it so far. Everyone is down-to-earth and lovely and they had a tag sale the first week I attended and I picked up a pair of late '90s height-of-the-revival Gucci boots, an emerald green Burberry coat (!) and a black low-slung Bottega Veneta bag from the '70s. So of course I feel at home. They're currently collecting recipes for a cookbook and this is the extent of my culinary repertoire-- a bunch of really strong cocktails and perhaps most famously-- "I'd be happy to share my dynamite Peruvian chicken recipe with you: Call Pio Pio." I want to send something in but I've got nothing at the moment. Have a signature dish you're willing to share, oh stylish ones? Then please, by all means, send it on over. I'd love to get some Lux Lotus-esque representation in there! And I'd be ever so grateful.

Life in the Near Future...

Between clicking through the looped ambient frequencies of my new Buddha Machine (thank you again, bestower of "total genius from out of nowhere" magenta goodness!) and taking self-portraits in Second Life (see above)-- did you know you can fly? -- I am enjoying a pretty fascinating evening. So vast and seemingly unpopulated! And I love my outfit, obviously ("More bustle?" Yes, please). Although, with regard to naming my virtual self, I was a little irritated to only get to use half my favorite alias. Next stop: jen bekman, if it's still there... (am I too late?). TBD.

Very Nearly Speechless!

Michelle of New York Brain Terrain is now making handcrafted cards that are prints of her collages and selling them via Etsy, and so, of course, I bought one immediately, of the Princess and the Pea. And what did she tuck in the envelope? A "Dress Like a Cat Until You Get What You Want" card made especially for yours truly! I may actually be misty-eyed over this one. Then again, I'd expect nothing less from her than top-shelf style; she did come to my place once for dinner wearing a white suit.