Lux Lotus

Watching the (Fashion) Detectives

One of our best pals, she of glamorous gowns and girl gangs, has written in to you with a desperate plea for sartorial sleuthing assistance! And she even sent a sketch. I must admit, doves, that even I am stumped:

"I'm trying to find these socks....they're more  like stocking material. They come up to your  ankle, but they look like a Mary Jane shoe almost--a dramatic low cut front with a strap and a button that holds them  up. I can't even figure out how to google them--I've come close, but no cigar."

Whaddaya say... can we help her?

1000Stories | Goethe-Institut

Went uptown to the Goethe-Institut for a couple of meetings this afternoon, regarding ongoing publicity for 1000stories.com (which I'm the publicist for; if you want to know what 'typical Americans' think about the issues they define as critical, including poverty, health care, crime, the war in Iraq and a Berlin-based new media artist who wants to discuss all of the above and more with them, then check it out; it's truly a phenomenal experiment in social media) and after we discussed current business -- me: What's up with the mugshot? reply: you'd better call Florian) -- my colleagues in the program department were like, "There's this really funny photo of you at the launch party." And I was like, "Funny like one of my eyes is closed?" And they were like, "No, you just have to see it." So here it is (above), and it is indeed as described, in a good way. I guess I am sharing a joke or something with Stephan Wackwitz, which would make sense as he's a very funny guy! The next event at the Goethe-Institut that you New Yorkers should put on your calendar is an opening of an exhibition of new photography on November 6, as part of the Berlin in Lights Festival. Brilliant.

Windowlicker

Last night over dinner with even more friends from Omaha-- the afore-mentioned Timothy, Rodney and Chip plus Stuart, originally from London, Amy, with perfect accessories, and Jeremy, a screenwriter-- at some point hats were discussed for a moment so of course I thought about it later (maybe because Min Jin Lee has a brilliant essay in the November issue of Vogue on this very topic?). Trilby has always been both a favorite style and a favorite word, so that's what I'm wishing for today. This one's a bit exey, but hey, they invented the bowler (another one I'm quite fond of, but harder to pull off).

["Haydock" trilby, "Sporting felt suitable for a race meeting or the countryside," 140 pounds from Lock & Co.]

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

The Smart Set: October 22 - 28

In this week's edition of The Smart Set for MaudNewton.com: the stirrings of nine sweet nothings murmured under the din.... Tutte le cose infelici e meravigliose esistono grazie a te... ("Everything miserable and wonderful exists because of you.")...

The Weekend Report

Starting out on Saturday morning, I spent the weekend in Maryland, which was lovely. Highlights: hanging out with my mother, picking up a black patent vintage Gucci purse for eight dollars at a thrift store in Alexandria, Virginia, dinner at my favorite branch of local chain Lebanese Taverna in Rockville, reading Swann's Way on the train from Baltimore to Washington, D.C., stopping for slushies at a Royal Farms convenience store and doing scratch-offs in the parking lot, sharing elaborately detailed daydreams involving Big Sur, the emerging intrigue of places like Cologne, traveling trunks, and transatlantic crossing on the Queen Mary 2, and favorite poems (I am partial to the electricity of this one lately); plus visiting the American Visionary Art Museum on the way home (which made me long to visit Jean Dubuffet's Collection de l'Art Brut in Lausanne more than ever!). And oh yeah, just being in a car-- so exotic. Then last night, I dropped my stuff off at my apartment and immediately headed out to Brooklyn for Sunday Salon (subway reading: Giacomo Casanova's Of Mistresses, Tigresses and Other Conquests), where Anne Landsman, whose new novel The Rowing Lesson I'm publicizing, was reading (related: here's a marvelous recent guest piece she wrote on achieving a work-life balance). It was a smashing success by all accounts! After that, I met up with Timothy, Rodney and Chip, in town from Omaha and Indianapolis, to discuss all things Omaha Lit Fest, Nebraska Writers Conference, New York and more over drinks at The Hotel on Rivington. Yum.

Previously at Lux Lotus, on the topic of outsider/visionary art:
Outside, Looking In
Outside, Looking In (Continued)
Genius Material: The American Visionary Art Museum
Blue Crush: Exhibition + Ephemera (AVAM Pt. II)
The Limits of One's Love Don't Quite Cover the Map, Do They?
Go Upstate and Get Your Head Together...

The Subtle Meets the Sublime

Right in the middle of a famously bad day my buzzer rang and I thought to myself, "If this is another publisher wastefully messengering me a legal thriller I'm chucking it out the window." But no, alas, alack, there's magic in this world yet as it was a wholly unexpected and ridiculously joy-inducing little box of handmade chocolates from San Francisco on ice. Thank you, a thousand times, dear one! How you spoil me, and how it is most welcome. I echo all of the sentiments in your card doubly so for you, and shall relish retelling this story when you're famous!

Related elsewhere in spirit: Jenny asks, Whence the black tulips?

Windowlicker

While Windowlicker is truly intended to be only a fantasy shopping feature (and a subtle send-up of consumer culture; hey, I did get an A in Marxian Theory), I will admit that I cannot stop thinking about these. I was thinking about trying them on and we all know what a gateway drug that can be! I even thought about stopping by Saks on the way to my event tonight. Instead, I'm going to channel that material desire into positive action for a better world by writing a check to Girls Write Now this evening when I host our party at the Slipper Room (I recently became vice chair of the board of directors of Girls Write Now, and I can honestly say its the most meaningful thing I've ever done). If you're in New York, please join us for what promises to be a pretty smash evening. All my good-looking friends are coming! And if you can't make it, please consider making a donation online. You can still order that Chanel helicopter tomorrow, doves. XO.

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

UPDATE: Both TAYARI and JANICE have full reports on last "good time for a good cause" with gorgeous photos (included among them: my Japanese dress and gold heels, the latter designed by Rem Koolhaas' nephew and made out of a single strip of kevlar)!

Precious Moments

After I excused myself from a lovely post-event dinner with colleagues last night at Union Square Cafe because I was so tired I could barely stand (lingering jetlag after returning from Japan a week ago, followed immediately by weekend with family, and now five events to oversee in six days), I elucidated my daydream per usual (est. 2003) over brekkie at Schiller's -- which might as well be called "I'm too lazy to walk to Balthazar" -- with a friend, wherein I drop out for a year of soul-searching, go to rich hippie school and take like, a six-course cycle based on Godard's Contempt or whatever. His perfect rejoinder: Well, do you really want to write a history of neon?

{Image: Tracey Emin}

1000Stories On the Road

The Goethe-Institut New York's 1000 Stories project has sent Berlin-based experimental filmmaker Florian Thalhofer on a one-month road trip by motorcycle across America to interview "typical Americans" who've contacted him via 1000stories.com. At the site, he's posting all sorts of brilliant updates, including conversations on religion, politics, economics, the war, life in a small town, getting hassled and just shooting the breeze. I'm both the publicist for this project, and also a fascinated voyeur: my favorites so far would have to be the interview with the extraordinary sculptor Jean Woodham (Noted: One of the rules I had given myself for this project was: “No artists.” ...I am not getting rid of it entirely, I merely modify it: No artists who aren’t at least twice my age. Monica calls her step-grandmother. My first interview: An 87-year old lady. Euphoria!) and Florian's mug shot!

Windowlicker

A cheap, chic homage to surrealist celebrity iconography that leaves plenty in the budget for fur teacups and a plane ticket to London to view "Seduced: Art and Sex from Antiquity to the Present" at the Barbican...

[Smoochers Chair, $119 from dELiAs]

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