LET'S BE ECCENTRIC!

Jet Set Jackie

Jackie in Capri

Weekend Reading List

It snowed.
So I took of my boots, and put my Marc Jacobs cashmere socks ('Made in China' it says) back on, quite happy to spend the day in bed reading.
Maybe I'll spend the rest of the weekend in bed. Seoul isn't a pretty place and the snow doesn't make this city any prettier. To mark Christmas, I'm reading Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory, a slim, stylish work that had originally appeared in Mademoiselle in December, 1956. Don't you miss the days when magazines published fiction? I'd pack it in my suitcase for my trip to Seoul, just because it's so slim.
It's typical of Capote's earlier, 'innocent' works. It's almost autobiographical: Capote lived with relatives in the South as a child, and during this time his older female cousin, Sook Faulk, was his closest friend. The nostalgic story has prompted critics to dismiss the story as "saccharine" prose at its most purple, but I find that it has its undertow of darkness. There's a lot of loneliness and all sorts of craziness.
This book makes me want to read his equally slim and much more stylish Answered Prayers: The Unfinished Novel (1987). It's also much more adult and controversial. In Capote's own words, the three chapters that comprise this 'novel' are also autobiographical:
"For four years, roughly from 1968 through 1972, I spent most of my time reading and selecting, rewriting and indexing my own letters, other people's letters, my diaries and journals (which contain detailed accounts of hundreds of scenes and conversations) for the years 1943 through 1965. In 1972 I began work on Answered Prayers by writing the last chapter [presumably Father Flanagan's All-Night Nigger Queen Kosher Cafe] first (it's always good to know where one is going). Then I wrote the first chapter, Unspoiled Monsters. Then the fifth, A Severe Insult to the Brain. Then the seventh, La Cote Basque. I went on in this manner, writing different chapters out of sequence. I was able to do this only because the plot—or rather plots—was true, and all the characters were real... I hadn't invented anything..."
I can only hope that the missing chapters turn up one day, like those Picassos in a garage.

Weekend Reading List

New territory: I've not been travelling - at least not the way I used to - for two years already and feel rather left out when I hear friends making plans for trips. But never enough, I must say, to want to make a trip myself. Instead I read travel literature. I didn't know, did you, that Evelyn Waugh wrote many travel books? I picked up Waugh Abroad: Collected Travel Writing with an introduction by Nicholas Shakespeare. It's quite thick as it contains seven book-length travel pieces including Labels, which is a Mediterranean journal to A Tourist in Africa. In these pieces, you can glimpse some of Waugh's experiences that colour his novels, and this is fascinating for me. Studying Antonio's People, by Paul Caranicas, is like being transported to New York City in the 1980s (Antonio Lopez died in 1987, age 44). Not only is this book full of Mr Lopez's amazing drawings (accomplished, witty and sensual), they are placed side by side with photos of his models - many are Hispanic, a few are Japanese, including a pair of beautiful brothers, who are both. It's really a good book to own. I'm also reading The Paris Review Interviews, a collection of interviews with Dorothy Parker, Truman Capote, Ernest Hemingway, Jorge Luis Borges, T S Elliot, amongst august others. Writers are a different continent altogther, don't you think?I'm happy to discover an Agatha Christie I don't remember the plot of, althought I must have read it at some point. Sad Cypress, a Hercule Poirot story, couldn't have escaped me - I spent a couple of teenage years obsessively reading all Dame Christie's books. Now reading them late at night, I'm transported back to those days of Ribena and Cadbury chocolates. What innocent, simple joy I enjoyed!

Weekend Reading List: The Mean Reds

"The blues are because you're getting fat, and maybe it's been raining too long. You're just sad, that's all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you're afraid, and you don't know what you're afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling?" - Truman CapoteI've left off blogging properly for a bit, and it may be a while before I regain my former momentum, because I've run into my very own traffic jam of mean reds. It'll pass, not to worry. Meanwhile, why don't you celebrate Truman Capote's anniversary (he was born 30 September 1924) by reading (or re-reading as the case may be) his books? I've read them all, back and forth, more than a couple of times. I've read his biographies; A book of his letters; One gets to now him pretty well, as his output was as slim as his publicity was plentiful.
Much of the latter, self-created, was tragic.Pick a book, and just lie back with a couple of needle-work pillows and wait for the mean reds to blow away. I recently read that Henry James commented that Vanessa Bell’s designs for her sister Virginia Woolf's Hogarth Press book jackets (above) were “optical echoes of the books that a literary history should listen to,” and thought how true this was of certain books and certain covers (no, not those movie poster ones!). Sadly, book covers will come to pass with more people reading digital book-things from those tablet devices. Book covers will come to pass, along with real books. I have been seeing some people 'reading' novels on their iSocools, and I'm left thinking: They're showing their gadgets off. You can't read something like Mrs Dalloway on a digital reader and understand what it means. These people are pretending to read, aren't they? And with this depressing thought, I leave you to enjoy a serious bout of the mean reds. X

The Mean Reds

"The mean reds are horrible. You're afraid and you sweat like hell, but you don't know what you're afraid of. Except something bad is going to happen, only you don't know what it is." - Breakfast at Tiffany's, 1958, Truman Capote.This fall, Tiffany & Co will be launching a line of new bags, which will reference the novella and the 1961 movie Breakfast at Tiffany's. This is its first women's handbag collection in 20 years; They say this is part of a bid to "extend its brand beyond jewellery" (translation: greed rears its inelegant head). Tiffany & Co previously tried selling handbags and scarves in the 1980s, but discontinued the items in the early 1990s. The highlight of the new line is the Holly clutch, which come in both satin and leather.The collection — which includes day and evening handbags for women, men's briefcases and bags, and accessories — was created by the designers formerly known as Lambertson Truex (Richard Lambertson and John Truex), who joined Tiffany about a year ago after the brand acquired their bankrupt leather goods firm from Samsonite.
Irony: The American jeweller Tiffany & Co were initially opposed to Truman Capote's use of their brand name for his novella.
Trivia: The iconic Givenchy black couture dress that Audrey Hepburn wore in the movie sold for $807,000 recently.

Weekend Reading List

People are becoming ruder everyday, and one can only wish they would read books like Excuse Me, But I Was Next: How To Handle The Top 100 Manners Dilemma by Peggy Post. Don't even ask why I have this book, or have decided to read it now. My favourite Miu Miu sunglasses are broken, and my toe hurts, and rude texts ruined a weekend is all I need to tell you of my close encounters of the unapologetically rude kind.
Another must-read, if for an altogether different reason, is the Ingres monograph by Manuel Jover. I picked this up on a whim passing by the Borders bargain bin one day, and I must say it is an engrossing study of this artist with just enough biographical detail, while going directly to the criticism of the works. (I'm not one of those that like to read exhaustive research on any subject's childhood, the how-the-parents-met-what-the-grandparents-ate-for-supper kind of bio.) I'm interested in his work, period. If such of his biography has bearing on his work, then I'll greedily lap it up, but not the circumstantial kitchen sink please. This book is not lushly reproduced, but it's wonderfully edited, with a careful assessment of Ingres's strengths and weaknesses. Aren't bargain bins glorious?CC gave me Portraits and Observations: The Essays Of Truman Capote to add to my collection of Truman Capote books (In fact, I have it all: Not a big boast as Capote's output is famously slim). It's a nice new cover (2007) with a photo of Capote on the dust jacket I've never seen before but that's all that's new. I've read all that's in there at least a dozen times."Writers, at least those who take genuine risks, who are willing to bite the bullet and walk the plank, have a lot in common with another breed of lonely men - the guys who make a living shooting pool and dealing cards" - Truman Capote

Weekend Reading List

While I'm hiding from the Lunar New Year mayhem that's happening all around me in the darkened, air-conned sanity of my room, I'm dippin into the lucid and acerbic musings in The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon. Sei Shonagon is like the Jane Austen of Medieval Japan, a Heian court lady-in-waiting. I can totally feel her: When things get a little bit crazy and a trip to Hermes isn't on the cards, I read The Pillow Book and the world is suddenly creaseless. I'm also dipping into George Plimpton's calssic bio of Truman Capote, delicious with my mommy's pineapple tarts and a lemonade. I'm flipping December issue of Elle Decor that Jo passed to me at the office. Matthew Williamson may not be a fashion designer of distinction but his eye for decor charms and surprises.