More Manet for Moody Monday

Lilacs in a Vase, Edouard Manet, 1885 (oil on canvas)

And Remember

"And remember I am to have a new carriage hung as high as the Duttons', and blue spotted with silver;and I shall expect a new saddle horse, a suit of fine lace, and an infinite number of the most valuable jewels. Diamonds such as never were seen! and pearls, rubies, emeralds and beads out of number. You must set up your phaeton which must be cream coloured with a wreath of silver flowers round it, you must buy four of the finest bays in the kingdom and you must drive me in it every day. This is not all; You must entirely new furnish your house after my taste, you must hire two more footmen to attend me, two women to wait on me, must always let me do just as I please and make a very good husband."
- Jane Austen, The Three Sisters

Smile All The Time

"Anyone who has a continuous smile on his face conceals a toughness that is almost frightening." - Greta Garbo
(Photo of Ms Garbo shot by Harry Benson in 1976 in Antigua. She, too, can be played by Thomas Wee.)

Weekend Reading List

Borrowed: From hh's studio, that day we were doing a shoot, Duane Michals's book of portraits, Album. Not so much reading but looking, studying, remembering. Flipping throught the book, I was instantly transported back to the early 1990s in New York, when I went to see an exhibition of Michals's works. The same black and white pictures, the same artistic scribbles. Light, yet profound, in the end, romantic. From Aunty, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, which he didn't like. Aunty has very specific tastes. Also rather unexpected ones. Then for a bit of cheering up, I'm reading Bridget Jones's Diary, by Helen Fielding. It is ever so loosely based on a Jane Austen work, where the mother is an evil monster and the prince has a lush, expensive propeety. It's hilarious, and I find this comfortingly mindless, empty calories for the soul, not chicken soup, more like a tall glass of iced Ribena and Cadbury chocolate.
I need this at the moment.
Don't ask, don't tell.
(Photo: Who Am I, Duane Michals)

The Primer

She said, I love you.
He said, Nothing.

(As if there were just one
of each word and the one
who used it, used it up).

In the history of language
the first obscenity was silence.

- Christina Davis

Model As Muse

Jean Shrimpton in British Vogue, January 1964. By David Bailey.

The No 5 Trailer

http://www.chaneln5.com/prelaunch/en-us#/the-night-train
It's sick when perfume commercials have trailers.
I can't wait.

Three Hundred and Seventeen and Counting

That's the new Steven Meisel book title, a retrospective of all his Vogue Italia covers (he shot every last one of them for editor Franca Sozzani of for the last 20 years and nine months). That's got to be something of an achievement right? I still think his work with Linda is the most memorable of all. Anyway I heart Meisel, but I'm not sure if this is a book to keep. 

V's Summer Issue

Yes, it's a slow day for fashion mags.

Mid Week Self Pic

I'm obsessed with self pics, not only because I'm prurient, but because I think this is a totally new genre. It's totally 21st century:
1. The technology is widely available, as never before.
2. The net is now full of places where you can post these pictures and for the pictures to find an audience.
3. Heterosexual men are objectifying themselves - as sex objects, this is entirely new.
4. Unprecedented narcissicism.
5. Unprecedented worship of youth.

Making Faces

Paloma Picasso, 9 years old, making faces on garden leaves, in a photo by David Douglas Duncan. Duncan's book, Goodbye Picasso, is one of my all-time favourite inspirations. It has influenced my style alot.

We Spoke on the Phone

Today we spoke about:
White blood cell count, and if laughing increases it.
Was Empress Josephine an over-sexed creole?
Alvin, how pale and tattooed he is.
Sexual vs natural selection.
Who has more fat deposits. Did men notice or just the drags?
GG's voice. Does its low register mean he is well hung?
MSN: 'He nudged and the whole screen wobbles'.
Gerard is not virile and his voice sounds dumb.
Old furniture from the smelly shop, the smelly man and his China wife.
Fort road, Mr Rambo and the couple who lived in the tree house.
Hip to waist ratio.
Dr C and the medication he gives us. His assistant Judy, and how rude she is.
The cat that lept onto the compressor at 4am: "It meowed at me."
About whether the cat wanted to come into the room.
The Hyatt in Roponggi Hills: "Hate it."
BBC and why it's lovley to listen to the Queen's English.
W said that all tri-coloured cats are male. "Why would he lie about something like this?"
If aliens saw the cereal in the containers ranged in the kitchen what would they think?

Manet for Monday

                                                        The Lemon, Edouard Manet, 1880

Paris Vogue

June's Paris Vogue cover - they do like Daria over there! I totally heart this cover... it reminds me of that iconic Veruschka picture for some reason: The safari theme I suppose, and the styling from the other picture.

Weekend Reading List

Although I don't cook, I fantasize about this often, and in my mind's eye, I can whip up clever and delicious dinners for 16 at the drop of a hat. I know, when I eventually pick up this life skill(I like to think I have this in my genes as Mom is a genius cook), I will have a library of cooking literature at the ready. My latest, "culled" from Joe's desk (he's in Milan, poor thing) at the office is Nigella Lawson's How To Eat: The Pleasures And Principles Of Good Food. I love the voluptuous Ms Lawson, don't you? This book is quite unlike her though: Textbookish with hardly any lush pictures - and none of her! I also printed out scads from links sent to me by friends, a few lengthy pieces by Gail Sheehy from the archives of New York, thanks to Kay, and a Salon.com review of HBO's Grey Gardens, thanks to CCF, all are about Big and Little Edie, which is just the thing to read in my current personal downturn. I just want to lie in my darkened room read about decayed glamour and imaginery feasts.
I also bought the latest Fantastic Man - $22.90 - can you believe it? Ouch! and other mags so I really don't need to leave my room all weekend, if ever.

Youth

                                 Portrait of a Youth, Sandro Botticelli (1445 - 1510)

Smile All The Time

How to fight loneliness?
Smile all the time
Shine your teeth 'til meaningless
And sharpen them with lies
And whatever's going down
Will follow you around
That's how you fight loneliness
You laugh at every joke
Drag your blanket blindly
And fill your heart with smoke
And the first thing that you want
Will be the last thing you ever need
That's how you fight it
Just smile all the time just smile all the time just smile all the time

Just smile all the time

Beauty World

"...When I finally fall
Every sound is
Her call
And when I answer running
I find no one there
At all.
If I just could know
whether being alone
could be better than loving?
'Cos in the end you're own your own.
I suppose I'll see,
if it's meant to be.
Why did I fall in love?
Maybe it wasn't meant for me."
- Dick Lee

Cover Girl

Emma Watson is May's Interview cover girl.

Just Another Manet Monday

        Illustrated Letter to Albert Hecht, with plums and cherries, Edouard Manet, 1880