Lux Lotus

In Which I Basically Have a Perfect Night

After work I met my friend Sally and her friend Travis on the Upper West Side and we had dinner at Cafe Luxembourg; the last time I ate there I was 17 (from my reading The Mandarins at Jerry's period). Then Travis gave me his cd –– his band is DeVries –– and Sally gave me a ton of vintage clothes she picked out for me since I saw her last! After we dropped Travis off at band practice and saw some fireworks in the distance and discussed synchronicity and summer travels (hers included Gropius House and Saratoga Springs), Sally drove back up to her maison and I came home and turned on my chandeliers and put on Death to God and tried on dresses and spun around in front of the mirror; the things you dream of when you're 17. (The painting behind me is one of three by Swiss artist Anne-Francoise Potterat that I just had to have. I'm out of wall space, or I'd snap up Tierney Gearon's "Grassy Girl.")

Previously: Tips on Style From Vintage Collector, Sally Cohen.

Windowlicker

A little back-to-school shopping, perhaps...

[Italian Campaign Canopy Bed, Anthropologie]

[Giuseppe Zanotti leather boots, Net-a-porter]

[Ruby "Daphne" ring, Janish Jewels]

[Orlando by Virginia Woolf, at bookstores]

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

Letter From Mazama

Spent the weekend in the Methow Valley in Eastern Washington, three or four hours up from Seattle, no cell service, the North Cascades Highway might be the most beautiful drive I've ever taken, makes Big Sur seem absolutely quaint by comparison. At one point, this huge, shimmering green lake just appears between a couple of steep, narrow mountain passes. Lake Diablo! I loved it. Once you get to the Valley, things smooth out. I won't say too much about my friends there because they are private people. I stayed at Rolling Huts, very highly recommended. One evening I was sitting at dinner, wearing a long black Betsey Johnson dress and wrapped in a blonde fur, both vintage, paired with "Berlin Red" lipstick, when the nice man from London on my right turned to his colleague and said, She's Hut Six. Try it with an accent.

My Life in Pictures: New York, Nine 'til Noon

Two Ships

My sister is coming over for dinner tonight before I leave for a long weekend in Eastern Washington–– I'm going to a party in the Northern Cascades (pictured). Next weekend she'll be in Pendleton for the famous rodeo. Earlier today she didn't want to go to 21 tonight (she had a birthday while I was in the country), and I wondered, how is it again that we're related? Now I recall.

Postcards From Amagansett

 Finding passage down to private surf is a kind of fairy magic.

I walk down to the sea when I wake up; we all go down at sunset.

 
Went into town for provisions... two James Salter books I haven't yet read (Light Years, Last Night), and six bottles of Champagne. 

LuxLoves: Stephen Lance Videos

My dear friend Stephen Lance, who I last saw while I was wearing a tiara in the pool at the Chateau Marmont, and we two were just generally being wicked, has a new film clip, as they say, for the Australian pop star Washington, which starts with a Band of Outsiders homage... where it goes from there...

Previously: Dirty Dozen with Stephen Lance.

Windowlicker

My personal trainer and I have a running joke, she's like, don't your pants fit differently? And I'm like, how would I know?

[ABS Cowl-neck satin gown, $365 at Saks Fifth Avenue]

Windowlicker - from the French for window shopping: faire du lèche-vitrine - is more or less on summer hiatus, and will return in the fall.

The Graces

Heading back out to the Hamptons tomorrow (Late summer's touch was an intoxicating brand, remember?), but not before I make a frittata out of farm-fresh eggs, a little Swedish cheddar, ripe tomatoes and perhaps a leek or two. Easy does it. Lunch was duck salad and a glass of champagne with a friend at Bar Tabac. 31 years later, I understand: you have to love yourself first.

Windowlicker

Left work and headed home, stopped to see a friend whose birthday was yesterday. I gave him Light Years and Last Night, which I had tucked under my arm, puckered by the evening heat. Last year I gave him Barney Rosset's copy of The Devil in the Flesh. It wasn't too timely, though; I give gifts without an occasion (like the framed Muriel Spark photo I sent Maud). He once brought me a small box from Nice that is one of the few things I keep on my nightstand. Our easy talk turned to one night, before I left for two months, two summers ago, how he couldn't meet me to say goodbye, how sad we both were... and then I said, Baby, it worked out. We're here now. Tomorrow night we'll go out somewhere perfect, somewhere Salter-esque. French, he said. Or a hotel bar.

[Wyatt rose dress, less than $100 at Bluefly]

Windowlicker - from the French for window shopping: faire du lèche-vitrine - is more or less on summer hiatus, and will return in the fall.